An Architecture for Integrated Intelligence in Urban Management using Cloud Computing

With the emergence of new methodologies and technologies it has now become possible to manage large amounts of environmental sensing data and apply new integrated computing models to acquire information intelligence. This paper advocates the application of cloud capacity to support the information, communication and decision making needs of a wide variety of stakeholders in the complex business of the management of urban and regional development. The complexity lies in the interactions and impacts embodied in the concept of the urban-ecosystem at various governance levels. This highlights the need for more effective integrated environmental management systems. This paper offers a user-orientated approach based on requirements for an effective management of the urban-ecosystem and the potential contributions that can be supported by the cloud computing community. Furthermore, the commonality of the influence of the drivers of change at the urban level offers the opportunity for the cloud computing community to develop generic solutions that can serve the needs of hundreds of cities from Europe and indeed globally.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Evidencing embodied participatory design

This paper presents an exploratory, collaborative project and the visualisation method developed to communicate the fragmented but embodied experiences of the three participating designers. It introduces the Electric Corset and Other Future Histories project, and reflects on the artefacts that enabled diverse practices to be shared between the designers, and the emergence of a layered, expressive visual narrative as both a work in its own right, and as a tool for communication. It finishes with a discussion of the issues in communicating experience in a participatory design research project with mental health service users, and how learning from the Electric Corset visualisation has helped us evidence individual experience where the usual AV capture techniques are not appropriate

Implementation and analysis of several keyframe-based browsing interfaces to digital video

In this paper we present a variety of browsing interfaces for digital video information. The six interfaces are implemented on top of Físchlár, an operational recording, indexing, browsing and playback system for broadcast TV programmes. In developing the six browsing interfaces, we have been informed by the various dimensions which can be used to distinguish one interface from another. For this we include layeredness (the number of “layers” of abstraction which can be used in browsing a programme), the provision or omission of temporal information (varying from full timestamp information to nothing at all on time) and visualisation of spatial vs. temporal aspects of the video. After introducing and defining these dimensions we then locate some common browsing interfaces from the literature in this 3-dimensional “space” and then we locate our own six interfaces in this same space. We then present an outline of the interfaces and include some user feedback

Virtual bloXing - assembly rapid prototyping for near net shapes

Virtual reality (VR) provides another dimension to many engineering applications. Its immersive and interactive nature allows an intuitive approach to study both cognitive activities and performance evaluation. Market competitiveness means having products meet form, fit and function quickly. Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing (RP&M) technologies are increasingly being applied to produce functional prototypes and the direct manufacturing of small components. Despite its flexibility, these systems have common drawbacks such as slow build rates, a limited number of build axes (typically one) and the need for post processing. This paper presents a Virtual Assembly Rapid Prototyping (VARP) project which involves evaluating cognitive activities in assembly tasks based on the adoption of immersive virtual reality along with a novel nonlayered rapid prototyping for near net shape (NNS) manufacturing of components. It is envisaged that this integrated project will facilitate a better understanding of design for manufacture and assembly by utilising equivalent scale digital and physical prototyping in one rapid prototyping system. The state of the art of the VARP project is also presented in this paper

Virtual assembly rapid prototyping of near net shapes

Virtual reality (VR) provides another dimension to many engineering applications. Its immersive and interactive nature allows an intuitive approach to study both cognitive activities and performance evaluation. Market competitiveness means having products meet form, fit and function quickly. Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing (RP&M) technologies are increasingly being applied to produce functional prototypes and the direct manufacturing of small components. Despite its flexibility, these systems have common drawbacks such as slow build rates, a limited number of build axes (typically one) and the need for post processing. This paper presents a Virtual Assembly Rapid Prototyping (VARP) project which involves evaluating cognitive activities in assembly tasks based on the adoption of immersive virtual reality along with a novel non-layered rapid prototyping for near net shape (NNS) manufacturing of components. It is envisaged that this integrated project will facilitate a better understanding of design for manufacture and assembly by utilising equivalent scale digital and physical prototyping in one rapid prototyping system. The state of the art of the VARP project is also presented in this paper

Social positioning: Designing the Seams between Social, Physical and Digital Space

Mobile settings are not only physically and digitally mediated; they are also inhabited by people - a social space. We argue that careful design exposing the connections, gaps, overlays and mismatches within and between physical, digital and social space allow for a better understanding and thereby mastering of the resulting combined space. Two concepts are explored in MobiTip, a social mobile service for exchanging opinions among peers: intramedia seams concerning network coverage and position technology, and intermedia seams between digitally transmitted tips and the physical, social context surrounding the user. We introduce social positioning as an alternative and complement to the current strive for seamless connectedness and exact positioning in physical space

An Application of Multimedia Services on Transportation: The Use of the World Wide Web (WWW)

INTRODUCTION In recent years, there is an ever-increasing demand and interest in the use of multimedia technology and applications in industry, government and academia. Multimedia is often seen by researchers as the next step forward in interfacing science, technology and community. Yet, the terminology of multimedia bears several meanings. It may refer to Compact Disc (CD), moving pictures or video-conferencing. The multimedia technology referred in this paper is the World Wide Web (WWW) hypertext publishing information system which was developed by and started at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. Since the introduction of WWW, its use has increased dramatically within a couple of years in a widely diverse community including government departments, university and research establishments, and commercial organisations. It has significant influence to our communities and our daily lives. Yet, in most cases, applications of WWW services are largely restricted to electronic library referencelcatalogue search facilities, electronic mail systems, electronic conference and discussion systems, electronic news and publishing agents, and remote access to computing resources on the Internet. The primary objective of this paper is to exploit the potential of this multimedia technology as a simple, easy-to-use and effective means of telematics application in transportation research. It is hoped that initiatives are highlighted via this study and hence encourage participations and collaborations from different sectors of industries. In this paper, a brief history of WWW is given in section (2). An overview of the technical aspects in providing a WWW service is presented in section (3) in terms of computer hardware requirements, software installation, network connections, application maintenance and administration, and system security. Compared to most commercially available multimedia software in the market, WWW services are cheap to run, userfriendly and readily available to the public on the Internet. In order to exploit the potential of WWW on transportation research, a study was carried out and results of the findings are reported in section (4). To further substantiate the level of usefulness, two particular WWW applications were chosen amongst other web services and they are reported in section (5) for illustrative purposes. The selected applications are the 'Transportation Resources on the Internet' developed in mid-1994 in the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) at the University of Leeds in England, and the 'Southern California Real-Time Traffic Report' developed by Maxwell Laboratories, Inc. in collaboration with the California State Department of Transportation in the US. Finally, a set of issues are raised in section (6), highlighting the directions of future development of WWW as an easy-touse, cheap and effective multimedia telematics application on transportation

A Process-Oriented Architecture for Complex System Modelling

A fine-grained massively-parallel process-oriented model of platelets (potentially artificial) within a blood vessel is presented. This is a CSP inspired design, expressed and implemented using the occam-pi language. It is part of the TUNA pilot study on nanite assemblers at the universities of York, Surrey and Kent. The aim for this model is to engineer emergent behaviour from the platelets, such that they respond to a wound in the blood vessel wall in a way similar to that found in the human body -- i.e. the formation of clots to stem blood flow from the wound and facilitate healing. An architecture for a three dimensional model (relying strongly on the dynamic and mobile capabilities of occam-pi) is given, along with mechanisms for visualisation and interaction. The biological accuracy of the current model is very approximate. However, its process-oriented nature enables simple refinement (through the addition of processes modelling different stimulants/inhibitors of the clotting reaction, different platelet types and other participating organelles) to greater and greater realism. Even with the current system, simple experiments are possible and have scientific interest (e.g. the effect of platelet density on the success of the clotting mechanism in stemming blood flow: too high or too low and the process fails). General principles for the design of large and complex system models are drawn. The described case study runs to millions of processes engaged in ever-changing communication topologies. It is free from deadlock, livelock, race hazards and starvation em by design, employing a small set of synchronisation patterns for which we have proven safety theorems

A framework to maximise the communicative power of knowledge visualisations

Knowledge visualisation, in the field of information systems, is both a process and a product, informed by the closely aligned fields of information visualisation and knowledg management. Knowledge visualisation has untapped potential within the purview of knowledge communication. Even so, knowledge visualisations are infrequently deployed due to a lack of evidence-based guidance. To improve this situation, we carried out a systematic literature review to derive a number of “lenses” that can be used to reveal the essential perspectives to feed into the visualisation production process.We propose a conceptual framework which incorporates these lenses to guide producers of knowledge visualisations. This framework uses the different lenses to reveal critical perspectives that need to be considered during the design process. We conclude by demonstrating how this framework could be used to produce an effective knowledge visualisation