A FLEXIBLE METHODOLOGY FOR OUTDOOR/INDOOR BUILDING RECONSTRUCTION FROM OCCLUDED POINT CLOUDS

Terrestrial Laser Scanning data are increasingly used in building survey not only in cultural heritage domain but also for as-built modelling of large and medium size civil structures. However, raw point clouds derived from laser scanning generally not directly ready for the generation of such models. A time-consuming manual modelling phase has to be taken into account. In addition the large presence of occlusion and clutter may turn out in low-quality building models when state-of-the-art automatic modelling procedures are applied. This paper presents an automated procedure to convert raw point clouds into semantically-enriched building models. The developed method mainly focuses on a geometrical complexity typical of modern buildings with clear prevalence of planar features A characteristic of this methodology is the possibility to work with outdoor and indoor building environments. In order to operate under severe occlusions and clutter a couple of completion algorithms were designed to generate a plausible and reliable model. Finally, some examples of the developed modelling procedure are presented and discussed

Transition UGent: a bottom-up initiative towards a more sustainable university

The vibrant think-tank ‘Transition UGent’ engaged over 250 academics, students and people from the university management in suggesting objectives and actions for the Sustainability Policy of Ghent University (Belgium). Founded in 2012, this bottom-up initiative succeeded to place sustainability high on the policy agenda of our university. Through discussions within 9 working groups and using the transition management method, Transition UGent developed system analyses, sustainability visions and transition paths on 9 fields of Ghent University: mobility, energy, food, waste, nature and green, water, art, education and research. At the moment, many visions and ideas find their way into concrete actions and policies. In our presentation we focused on the broad participative process, on the most remarkable structural results (e.g. a formal and ambitious Sustainability Vision and a student-led Sustainability Office) and on recent actions and experiments (e.g. a sustainability assessment on food supply in student restaurants, artistic COP21 activities, ambitious mobility plans, food leftovers projects, an education network on sustainability controversies, a transdisciplinary platform on Sustainable Cities). We concluded with some recommendations and reflections on this transition approach, on the important role of ‘policy entrepreneurs’ and student involvement, on lock-ins and bottlenecks, and on convincing skeptical leaders

The Anti-Politics of Development: donor agencies and the political economy of governance

Abstract This article discusses the attempt undertaken by several development aid agencies since the turn of the century to integrate political economy assessments into their decision making on development assistance. The article discusses three such attempts: the Drivers of Change adopted by the UK’s Department for International Development, the Strategic Governance and Corruption Analysis (SGACA) developed by the Dutch Directorate General for International Cooperation and the new thinking on political economy analysis, policy reform and political risk advanced by the World Bank. On the basis of a political-economic interpretation of development agencies, two main factors are found to hinder the successful application of political economy assessment. In the first place, the agencies’ professional outlook leads them to see development in primarily technical terms. In the second place, the nature of incentives for development professionals leads them to resist the implementation o

EG-ICE 2021 Workshop on Intelligent Computing in Engineering

The 28th EG-ICE International Workshop 2021 brings together international experts working at the interface between advanced computing and modern engineering challenges. Many engineering tasks require open-world resolutions to support multi-actor collaboration, coping with approximate models, providing effective engineer-computer interaction, search in multi-dimensional solution spaces, accommodating uncertainty, including specialist domain knowledge, performing sensor-data interpretation and dealing with incomplete knowledge. While results from computer science provide much initial support for resolution, adaptation is unavoidable and most importantly, feedback from addressing engineering challenges drives fundamental computer-science research. Competence and knowledge transfer goes both ways