Knowledge-Intensive Fusion for Situational Awareness: Band Sultan Dam Failure Scenario

This report provides a detailed specification of a humanitarian relief scenario involving significant civil-military cooperation. The scenario aims to highlight some challenges and opportunities for semantic integration and knowledge processing in support of humanitarian relief efforts undertaken against a backdrop of military conflict. The scenario depicts an earthquake and associated flood event occurring in Afghanistan at the time of the US-led coalition effort to displace the former Taliban regime. The flood event occurs as a secondary phenomenon to the earthquake and precipitates a full-scale humanitarian relief effort co-opting the resources of both humanitarian and military agencies. This scenario will serve to showcase the capabilities of the AKTiveSA TDS with respect to enhanced situation awareness and improved information fusion. Such capabilities depend on the ability to exploit multiple sources of information and sophisticated query capabilities in order to expedite the dissemination of relevant information to executive agencies in a timely and appropriate fashion. The scenario narrative draws attention to some of the information requirements demanded by military and humanitarian decision makers in the context of complex emergency situations. It also serves to illustrate the critical knowledge processing capabilities of agents with respect to the assessment of disaster situations and relief effort planning. Finally, the scenario provides an indication of the requirements for visualization and interaction that should be afforded to end-user agents in order to optimise their exploitation of system capabilities. This report also provides background information about the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of humanitarian agencies with respect to disaster relief and reviews guidelines on the nature of civil-military coordination in the context of disaster relief efforts in conflict situations

Online Causation Monitoring of Signal Temporal Logic

Online monitoring is an effective validation approach for hybrid systems, that, at runtime, checks whether the (partial) signals of a system satisfy a specification in, e.g., Signal Temporal Logic (STL). The classic STL monitoring is performed by computing a robustness interval that specifies, at each instant, how far the monitored signals are from violating and satisfying the specification. However, since a robustness interval monotonically shrinks during monitoring, classic online monitors may fail in reporting new violations or in precisely describing the system evolution at the current instant. In this paper, we tackle these issues by considering the causation of violation or satisfaction, instead of directly using the robustness. We first introduce a Boolean causation monitor that decides whether each instant is relevant to the violation or satisfaction of the specification. We then extend this monitor to a quantitative causation monitor that tells how far an instant is from being relevant to the violation or satisfaction. We further show that classic monitors can be derived from our proposed ones. Experimental results show that the two proposed monitors are able to provide more detailed information about system evolution, without requiring a significantly higher monitoring cost.Comment: 31 pages, 7 figures, the full version of the paper accepted by CAV 202

Keeping Faith in Humanitarianism

Compassion that drives the humanitarian service of Christian, faith-based agencies transcends process and policy through informed practices leading to positive and compassionate engagement bringing transformational change among people in calamity and unjust systems. This dissertation explores the transformative role that faithbased agencies need to play in contemporary humanitarianism in order to span the gap between procedure and mercy in action. Further, it is an examination of theological, historical and practical applications of compassion at work demonstrating God’s unconditional love to all of humanity. Faith-based humanitarian agencies struggle to serve marginalized communities and people groups, but are pulled in different directions by stakeholders. Donors who are highly motivated toward proclamation, expect a strong Gospel message. Local communities desire significant inputs to bring visible and tangible change. Institutional donors expect clear goals and outputs that belie evidence-based results. Local governments may welcome faith-based agencies but forbid religious proclamation especially where Christianity is a minority religion. Faith-based agencies are held to the same standards which govern all humanitarian agencies, creating new and complex challenges to serving the poor as ambassadors of God’s good will and love. Part One deals with the unique historical and contemporary context within which faith-based humanitarian agencies operate. The reality and complexity of structure and policy, and the demand to meet greater humanitarian needs creates an environment of scrutiny and competition to fund, staff, resource and implement larger and more complex interventions. These developments are examined and reviewed in the light of contemporary agencies that have developed along parallel paths yet compete for resources. Part Two reviews theological underpinnings of faith-based humanitarianism. Beginning with a biblical reflection on the design and concept of neighborliness and concludes with three case studies along the themes of Justice, Policy and Mission providing a framework for understanding practical applications of mercy in action. Content Reader: Kurt Fredrickson, Ph

User Assemblages in Design: An Ethnographic Study

This thesis presents an ethnographic study of the role of users in user-centered design. It is written from the perspective of science and technology studies, in particular developments in actor-network theory, and draws on the notion of the assemblage from the work of Deleuze and Guattari. The data for this thesis derives from a six-month field study of the routine discourse and practices of user-centered designers working for a multinational microprocessor manufacturer. The central argument of this thesis is that users are assembled along with the new technologies whose design they resource, as well as with new configurations of socio-cultural life that they bring into view. Informing this argument are two interrelated insights. First, user-centered and participatory design processes involve interminglings of human and non-human actors. Second, users are occasioned in such processes as sociotechnical assemblages. Accordingly, this thesis: (1) reviews how the user is variously applied as a practico-theoretical concern within human-computer interaction (HCI) and as an object of analysis within the sociology and history of technology; (2) outlines a methodology for studying users variously enacted within design practice; (3) examines how a non-user is constructed and re-constructed during the development of a diabetes related technology; (4) examines how designers accomplish user-involvement by way of a gendered persona; (5) examines how the making of a technology for people suffering from obesity included multiple users that served to format the designers’ immediate practical concerns, as well as the management of future expectations; (6) examines how users serve as a means for conducting ethnography-in-design. The thesis concludes with a theoretically informed reflection on user assemblages as devices that: do representation; resource designers’ socio-material management of futures; perform modalities of scale associated with technological and product development; and mediate different forms of accountability

Fighting Against Black Money by Offering Amnesty for Economic Development in Bangladesh: A Stigma Can Never Be a Beauty Spot

Black money is a global concern. However, black money has disproportionately affected Bangladesh. To combat the proliferation of black money in the country, successive governments of Bangladesh have offered amnesties to black money holders (BMHs) in contravention of the national Constitution, legislation, and international conventions. Nonetheless, responses to such incentives have been notably poor, mainly because the wrongdoers do not fear the superficial threat of law enforcement. This article examines the BMHs’ responses to amnesties so far and explains the substantial harm caused by such discriminatory favors, including increases in corruption, the price of real estate, money laundering, deposits by Bangladeshis in Swiss banks, defaulted bank loans, and capital flights. To address these problems, this article makes several recommendations, including discontinuing amnesties, placing checks and controls on corruption, strengthening watchdog and law enforcement agencies, incentivizing whistle-blowers and the establishment of the Ombudsman’s office, and establishing a new statutory body for the assessment of the performance of financial regulators. In addition, this article argues that effective measurements need to be undertaken to increase global cooperation, enhance public awareness, and stimulate social movement. These recommendations aim to improve the regulatory regime in Bangladesh in preventing black money, and they may also be suitable for other countries facing similar issues

The Interaction of western budgeting and Solomon Islands culture: A case of the budgeting process of the Church of Melanesia

Accounting is said to be a product of its environment, with culture being one of the powerful factors shaping the accounting system within each context. An accounting system is therefore a reflection of the society in which it is being practised. In addition, given the differences in the social, political, economic, and cultural characteristics that exist amongst different countries of the world, an accounting system that is effective in one country may not necessarily be so in another. This study explores the application of a western style budgeting process in a non-western society. It uses the Anglican Church of Melanesia (CoM), a non-profit organisation in a developing country, Solomon Islands, as the case study. Its primary objective is to theorise on the process concepts explaining the influence of culture on the budgeting process, with specific reference to the impact of Solomon Islands culture on the western system adopted by the CoM. The research adopts the interpretivist approach and employs stakeholder theory and grounded theory frameworks as the theoretical insights for data collection, analysis and theory formation. The significant results of the study include confirmation of suggestions by some previous research that culture does shape the accounting and budgeting systems practised in different environments. The nature of such influence depends on the degree of compatibility between the interacting cultures. This study discovers that the CoM’s budgeting process reflects attributes of both the western and Solomon Islands cultures. The adopted western budgeting system interacts and is being filtered and moulded by the local social-cultural and organisational environment. The impact of the various cultural attributes is explained in terms of whether these are more or less shared by the western and local societies. The more shared or common features when applied harmoniously within the appropriate budgeting functions tend to reinforce one another to produce anticipated outcomes. For instance, both cultures stress the importance of achievements as a basis for assigning powers. Hence within the organisation, it is expected that power and responsibilities be delegated based on qualifications and expertise. Anything to the contrary is considered an unanticipated result. The less shared attributes are unique to the local society and hence generally dissimilar from the norms and values of western societies. When these less shared or even conflicting values and norms are integrated within the same budgeting roles, unexpected or even dysfunctional consequences may ensue. For instance, the emphasis on monetary and economic values in a predominantly semi-subsistence society results in many church followers being excluded from its budget process. It also creates a dependency and materialistic mentality in a society where sharing and modesty are important norms. The study recognises that significant potential exists for appropriate integration of both western and local cultural attributes within the local budgeting process. This requires thorough understanding of both the more shared and less shared features of the interacting cultures and their impact on the budget process. Organisations need to identify the appropriate context, time and situations for the application of these cultural attributes within the budget process