78 research outputs found
A Parametric Approach to Performative-based Design, Case Study: Earth Tube Ventilation
As integrated design becomes more prevalent, new workflows develop in the architectural industry. Rather than the traditional sequential pattern, the knowledge is now being applied in parallel. That is, unlike the old baton passing, the players including the architect, the engineer, the consultant, the contractor, etc. play their role simultaneously. To achieve this, an architectural ecosystem needs a compatible digital information exchange approach; an approach that involves the engineer in the strategic design of systems, increases the chances of more creative, more integrated and higher-performing systems.
There are some problems in the current parametric studies such as lack of inclusivity of all building physics facets, lack of validation, and lack of proper visualization in some cases. This dissertation intends to fill in these gaps by proposing a methodology to create a performance model integrated into a popular design tool, Rhinoceros 3D, of a rather rare ventilation system, the Earth Tube Ventilation. The idea is to keep all the simulation pieces in the same place that the 3D modeling happens. The model is further validated using the data from the experiments done on the Aldo Leopold Foundation building located close to Baraboo in Wisconsin. This process can be extended to other aspects of Performative Based Design
Towards a machine enabled semantic framework for the distributed engineering design
The overall aim of this thesis is to identify and propose a suitable architectural framework for supporting cooperation processes and therefore enabling semantics within the distributed engineering design environment. The proposed architecture is intended to\ud
characterize a software-based management of design related data, information and knowledge flows in the distributed engineering design organization. The aim is to provide a computational context for implementing ICT tools that would: (i) Minimise the effect of user and resource dispersion (particularly temporal and geographical dispersion), the misunderstandings that might be generated by the\ud
(otherwise beneficial) functional and semantic distribution, the time spent for searching and retrieval of information, the effort of information translation between different tools and the administrational and organisational efforts not directly related to the design process (e.g. revision control) (ii) Maximise the quality of information (i.e. relevant information at relevant and appropriate times), knowledge sharing and reuse among distributed design\ud
actors, the flexibility of the user interfaces and the designer’s time spent in the actual designing process.\ud
In order to achieve the overall aim, the research work supporting this thesis was carried out along the following objectives:\ud
1. To investigate and characterize the engineering design process performed in a distributed environment and its problematic aspects;\ud
2. To research and study alternative theories for thinking and modelling the distributed engineering design process;\ud
3. To investigate current research in information and knowledge management for identifying supporting technologies for a possible solution to the identified\ud
problematic aspects (from point 1);\ud
4. To analyze the requirement needs for a solution according to the findings from previous objectives, i.e. the driving problems (from point 1), the research and\ud
therefore the thinking approach (from point 2), and available supporting technologies (from point 3);\ud
5. To synthesize the architectural framework along the identified supporting technologies (from point 3);\ud
6. To instantiate a software system along the underlying computational context as described by the architectural framework (from point 5)
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Addressing Semantic Interoperability and Text Annotations. Concerns in Electronic Health Records using Word Embedding, Ontology and Analogy
Electronic Health Record (EHR) creates a huge number of databases which are
being updated dynamically. Major goal of interoperability in healthcare is to
facilitate the seamless exchange of healthcare related data and an environment
to supports interoperability and secure transfer of data. The health care
organisations face difficulties in exchanging patient’s health care information
and laboratory reports etc. due to a lack of semantic interoperability. Hence,
there is a need of semantic web technologies for addressing healthcare
interoperability problems by enabling various healthcare standards from various
healthcare entities (doctors, clinics, hospitals etc.) to exchange data and its
semantics which can be understood by both machines and humans. Thus, a
framework with a similarity analyser has been proposed in the thesis that dealt
with semantic interoperability. While dealing with semantic interoperability,
another consideration was the use of word embedding and ontology for
knowledge discovery. In medical domain, the main challenge for medical
information extraction system is to find the required information by considering
explicit and implicit clinical context with high degree of precision and accuracy.
For semantic similarity of medical text at different levels (conceptual, sentence
and document level), different methods and techniques have been widely
presented, but I made sure that the semantic content of a text that is presented
includes the correct meaning of words and sentences. A comparative analysis
of approaches included ontology followed by word embedding or vice-versa
have been applied to explore the methodology to define which approach gives
better results for gaining higher semantic similarity. Selecting the Kidney Cancer
dataset as a use case, I concluded that both approaches work better in different circumstances. However, the approach in which ontology is followed by word
embedding to enrich data first has shown better results. Apart from enriching
the EHR, extracting relevant information is also challenging. To solve this
challenge, the concept of analogy has been applied to explain similarities
between two different contents as analogies play a significant role in
understanding new concepts. The concept of analogy helps healthcare
professionals to communicate with patients effectively and help them
understand their disease and treatment. So, I utilised analogies in this thesis to
support the extraction of relevant information from the medical text. Since
accessing EHR has been challenging, tweets text is used as an alternative for
EHR as social media has appeared as a relevant data source in recent years.
An algorithm has been proposed to analyse medical tweets based on analogous
words. The results have been used to validate the proposed methods. Two
experts from medical domain have given their views on the proposed methods
in comparison with the similar method named as SemDeep. The quantitative
and qualitative results have shown that the proposed analogy-based method
bring diversity and are helpful in analysing the specific disease or in text
classification
Bench-Ranking: ettekirjutav analüüsimeetod suurte teadmiste graafide päringutele
Relatsiooniliste suurandmete (BD) töötlemisraamistike kasutamine suurte teadmiste graafide töötlemiseks kätkeb endas võimalust päringu jõudlust optimeerimida. Kaasaegsed BD-süsteemid on samas keerulised andmesüsteemid, mille konfiguratsioonid omavad olulist mõju jõudlusele. Erinevate raamistike ja konfiguratsioonide võrdlusuuringud pakuvad kogukonnale parimaid tavasid parema jõudluse saavutamiseks. Enamik neist võrdlusuuringutest saab liigitada siiski vaid kirjeldavaks ja diagnostiliseks analüütikaks. Lisaks puudub ühtne standard nende uuringute võrdlemiseks kvantitatiivselt järjestatud kujul. Veelgi enam, suurte graafide töötlemiseks vajalike konveierite kavandamine eeldab täiendavaid disainiotsuseid mis tulenevad mitteloomulikust (relatsioonilisest) graafi töötlemise paradigmast. Taolisi disainiotsuseid ei saa automaatselt langetada, nt relatsiooniskeemi, partitsioonitehnika ja salvestusvormingute valikut. Käesolevas töös käsitleme kuidas me antud uurimuslünga täidame. Esmalt näitame disainiotsuste kompromisside mõju BD-süsteemide jõudluse korratavusele suurte teadmiste graafide päringute tegemisel. Lisaks näitame BD-raamistike jõudluse kirjeldavate ja diagnostiliste analüüside piiranguid suurte graafide päringute tegemisel. Seejärel uurime, kuidas lubada ettekirjutavat analüütikat järjestamisfunktsioonide ja mitmemõõtmeliste optimeerimistehnikate (nn "Bench-Ranking") kaudu. See lähenemine peidab kirjeldava tulemusanalüüsi keerukuse, suunates praktiku otse teostatavate teadlike otsusteni.Leveraging relational Big Data (BD) processing frameworks to process large knowledge graphs yields a great interest in optimizing query performance. Modern BD systems are yet complicated data systems, where the configurations notably affect the performance. Benchmarking different frameworks and configurations provides the community with best practices for better performance. However, most of these benchmarking efforts are classified as descriptive and diagnostic analytics. Moreover, there is no standard for comparing these benchmarks based on quantitative ranking techniques. Moreover, designing mature pipelines for processing big graphs entails considering additional design decisions that emerge with the non-native (relational) graph processing paradigm. Those design decisions cannot be decided automatically, e.g., the choice of the relational schema, partitioning technique, and storage formats. Thus, in this thesis, we discuss how our work fills this timely research gap. Particularly, we first show the impact of those design decisions’ trade-offs on the BD systems’ performance replicability when querying large knowledge graphs. Moreover, we showed the limitations of the descriptive and diagnostic analyses of BD frameworks’ performance for querying large graphs. Thus, we investigate how to enable prescriptive analytics via ranking functions and Multi-Dimensional optimization techniques (called ”Bench-Ranking”). This approach abstracts out from the complexity of descriptive performance analysis, guiding the practitioner directly to actionable informed decisions.https://www.ester.ee/record=b553332
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN ROMANIA
The purpose of this paper is to identify the main opportunities and limitations of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The survey was defined with the aim to involve the highest possible number of relevant CSR topics and give the issue a more wholesome perspective. It provides a basis for further comprehension and deeper analyses of specific CSR areas. The conditions determining the success of CSR in Romania have been defined in the paper on the basis of the previously cumulative knowledge as well as the results of various researches. This paper provides knowledge which may be useful in the programs promoting CSR.Corporate social responsibility, Supportive policies, Romania
RFID Technology in Intelligent Tracking Systems in Construction Waste Logistics Using Optimisation Techniques
Construction waste disposal is an urgent issue
for protecting our environment. This paper proposes a
waste management system and illustrates the work
process using plasterboard waste as an example, which
creates a hazardous gas when land filled with household
waste, and for which the recycling rate is less than 10%
in the UK. The proposed system integrates RFID
technology, Rule-Based Reasoning, Ant Colony
optimization and knowledge technology for auditing
and tracking plasterboard waste, guiding the operation
staff, arranging vehicles, schedule planning, and also
provides evidence to verify its disposal. It h relies on
RFID equipment for collecting logistical data and uses
digital imaging equipment to give further evidence; the
reasoning core in the third layer is responsible for
generating schedules and route plans and guidance, and
the last layer delivers the result to inform users. The
paper firstly introduces the current plasterboard
disposal situation and addresses the logistical problem
that is now the main barrier to a higher recycling rate,
followed by discussion of the proposed system in terms
of both system level structure and process structure.
And finally, an example scenario will be given to
illustrate the system’s utilization
Interactive Technologies for the Public Sphere Toward a Theory of Critical Creative Technology
Digital media cultural practices continue to address the social, cultural and aesthetic
contexts of the global information economy, perhaps better called ecology, by inventing
new methods and genres that encourage interactive engagement, collaboration, exploration
and learning. The theoretical framework for creative critical technology evolved from the
confluence of the arts, human computer interaction, and critical theories of technology.
Molding this nascent theoretical framework from these seemingly disparate disciplines was
a reflexive process where the influence of each component on each other spiraled into the
theory and practice as illustrated through the Constructed Narratives project. Research
that evolves from an arts perspective encourages experimental processes of making as a
method for defining research principles. The traditional reductionist approach to research
requires that all confounding variables are eliminated or silenced using methods of
statistics. However, that noise in the data, those confounding variables provide the rich
context, media, and processes by which creative practices thrive. As research in the arts
gains recognition for its contributions of new knowledge, the traditional reductive practice
in search of general principles will be respectfully joined by methodologies for defining
living principles that celebrate and build from the confounding variables, the data noise.
The movement to develop research methodologies from the noisy edges of human
interaction have been explored in the research and practices of ludic design and ambiguity
(Gaver, 2003); affective gap (Sengers et al., 2005b; 2006); embodied interaction (Dourish,
2001); the felt life (McCarthy & Wright, 2004); and reflective HCI (Dourish, et al., 2004).
The theory of critical creative technology examines the relationships between critical
theories of technology, society and aesthetics, information technologies and contemporary
practices in interaction design and creative digital media. The theory of critical creative
technology is aligned with theories and practices in social navigation (Dourish, 1999) and
community-based interactive systems (Stathis, 1999) in the development of smart
appliances and network systems that support people in engaging in social activities,
promoting communication and enhancing the potential for learning in a community-based
environment. The theory of critical creative technology amends these community-based
and collaborative design theories by emphasizing methods to facilitate face-to-face
dialogical interaction when the exchange of ideas, observations, dreams, concerns, and
celebrations may be silenced by societal norms about how to engage others in public
spaces.
The Constructed Narratives project is an experiment in the design of a critical creative
technology that emphasizes the collaborative construction of new knowledge about one's
lived world through computer-supported collaborative play (CSCP). To construct is to
creatively invent one's world by engaging in creative decision-making, problem solving
and acts of negotiation. The metaphor of construction is used to demonstrate how a simple
artefact - a building block - can provide an interactive platform to support discourse
between collaborating participants. The technical goal for this project was the development
of a software and hardware platform for the design of critical creative technology
applications that can process a dynamic flow of logistical and profile data from multiple
users to be used in applications that facilitate dialogue between people in a real-time
playful interactive experience
Special oils for halal and safe cosmetics
Three types of non conventional oils were extracted, analyzed and tested for toxicity. Date palm kernel oil (DPKO), mango kernel oil (MKO) and Ramputan seed oil (RSO). Oil content for tow cultivars of dates Deglect Noor and Moshkan was 9.67% and 7.30%, respectively. The three varieties of mango were found to contain about 10% oil in average. The red yellow types of Ramputan were found to have 11 and 14% oil, respectively. The phenolic compounds in DPKO, MKO and RSO were 0.98, 0.88 and 0.78 mg/ml Gallic acid equivalent, respectively. Oils were analyzed for their fatty acid composition and they are rich in oleic acid C18:1 and showed the presence of (dodecanoic acid) lauric acid C12:0, which reported to appear some antimicrobial activities. All extracted oils, DPKO, MKO and RSO showed no toxic effect using prime shrimp bioassay. Since these oils are stable, melt at skin temperature, have good lubricity and are great source of essential fatty acids; they could be used as highly moisturizing, cleansing and nourishing oils because of high oleic acid content. They are ideal for use in such halal cosmetics such as Science, Engineering and Technology 75 skin care and massage, hair-care, soap and shampoo products
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