Responsible Autonomy

As intelligent systems are increasingly making decisions that directly affect society, perhaps the most important upcoming research direction in AI is to rethink the ethical implications of their actions. Means are needed to integrate moral, societal and legal values with technological developments in AI, both during the design process as well as part of the deliberation algorithms employed by these systems. In this paper, we describe leading ethics theories and propose alternative ways to ensure ethical behavior by artificial systems. Given that ethics are dependent on the socio-cultural context and are often only implicit in deliberation processes, methodologies are needed to elicit the values held by designers and stakeholders, and to make these explicit leading to better understanding and trust on artificial autonomous systems.Comment: IJCAI2017 (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Strategic Environmental Assessment of Port Plans in Italy: Experiences, Approaches, Tools

Evaluation is increasingly important in decision-making processes for the sustainable planning and design of port plans. It acts as a support for plan preparation, for making values, interests and needs explicit, and for exploring the components of the decision-making process itself. Evaluation can be likened to an "implicit tool" that can integrate approaches, methodologies and models, adapting to the many needs revealed during the decision-making process. New sustainability challenges call for new approaches to creating frameworks for the analysis and evaluation of plans and projects that allow the integration of multidimensional goals and values. Utilizing some selected case studies of port plans in six Italian cities, this paper explores how environmental assessment can become a tool for dialog and interaction among different fields of expertise to support dynamic learning processes, knowledge management and the creation of shared choices, using suitable approaches and tools. In this view, Integrated Spatial Assessment (ISA) can be useful in supporting decision-making processes on different scales and institutional levels to stimulate dialog between technical and political evaluations, referring to complex values that are part of conflicting and changing realities in which it has become imperative to operate according to sustainability principles

Discursive and Non-Discursive Design Processes

This research study investigates the hypothesis that Space Syntax plays a role in enhancing architectural design as a knowledge-based process by bringing the nondiscursive design process onto a discursive level, and by making explicit the logic of processing, evaluating, and reasoning about design. In order to establish an evidencebased argument for this hypothesis the study will scrutinize the performances and outcomes of architects solving a well-defined problem. The paper constructs the study on a literature background exploring the different theories which were concerned with the analysis and evaluation of design processes and outcomes. The analysis of design processes was investigated on micro and macro scales and the evaluation of solutions was considered in terms of spatial configurations and the social organization embodied in space. The research then goes on to apply some of these analytical studies to a set of design tasks made by architects who have a background in Space Syntax theory, and architects with other architectural backgrounds. The question then turns to the influence of Space Syntax theory on the strategies and cognitive actions of the design processes and the observational study will attempt to prove whether the knowledge of Space Syntax can have a positive effect on architects during their design process, taking into consideration that Space Syntax, as a morphic language, can render the non-discursive discursive of architecture. In the following step the design solutions are evaluated in terms of qualities regarding social organization, and in terms of quantities measuring the values of their spatial configurations. The analysis of the design processes and outcomes will show differences between the two groups of architects, in addition to some individual differences between the architects. Thus this research proves that the knowledge of space syntax may partially enhance the productivity of design process by making it more explicit

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND URBAN PLANNING Tools, methods and experiences for an integrated and sustainable territorial government

Urban planning and design for post-carbon sustainable city requires a major connection between the new scientific paradigms of environmental disciplines and useful/communicative indicators to steer local policies. Nowadays the spatially explicit assessment of Ecosystem Services (ES) and their flows can effectively support the decision making process for sustainable development. Thus the methodology of considering environmental sustainability during planning phases should be hold in plan’s construction and integrated during the decision making process at urban scale, also using Coplanning method. The paper experienced the recent research innovations made by DIST for LIFE program SAM4CP, where preliminary output of ES mapping were used as proxy for the identification of high value areas to be planned. Inside it is presented a methodology of integration betweenmapsofbiophysical/ economical ES values using InVEST software as a tool for geographic, economic and ecological accounting. The mapping activity, related to Land Cover/ Land Use information for a context based case of was used to supportthe preliminary approach to co- planning activityfor multilevel governance, especially .among consensus building approach and the Co-planning Conference. Innovations are discussed both by processual andtechnical sides: (i) the urban planning activity founded upon the Co-planning method and supported by such analysis, allowed policy makers to go into the substance for reconsider their strategies for sustainable territorial government and (ii)the scientific contribution of the research on mapping ES demonstrates that approach is today fully incorporated on local tools for land management

Materialising architecture for social care: brick walls and compromises in design for later life.

This article reports on an ethnography of architectural projects for later life social care in the UK. Informed by recent debates in material studies and ‘materialities of care’ we offer an analysis of a care home project that is sensitive to architectural materials that are not normally associated with care and wellbeing. Although the care home design project we focus on in this article was never built, we found that design discussions relating to both a curved brick wall and bricks more generally were significant to its architectural ‘making’. The curved wall and the bricks were used by the architects to encode quality and values of care into their design. This was explicit in the design narrative that was core to a successful tender submitted by a consortium comprising architects, developers, contractors, and a care provider to a local authority who commissioned the care home. However, as the project developed, initial consensus for the design features fractured. Using a materialised analysis, we document the tussles generated by the curved wall and the bricks and argue that mundane building materials can be important to, and yet marginalised within, the relations inherent within an ‘architectural care assemblage.’ During the design process we saw how decisions about materials are contentious and they act as a catalyst of negotiations that compromise ‘materialities of care.

Ecosystem services and urban planning. Tools, methods and experiences for an integrated and sustainable territorial government

Urban planning and design for post-carbon sustainable city require a major connection between the new scientific paradigms of environmental disciplines and useful/communicative indicators to steer local policies. Nowadays the spatially explicit assessment of Ecosystem Services (ES) and their flows can effectively support the decision-making process for sustainable development. Thus the methodology of considering environmental sustainability during planning phases should be held in plan's construction and integrated during the decision making process at urban scale, also using the Co-planning method. The paper experienced the recent research innovations made by DIST for LIFE program SAM4CP, where preliminary outputs of ES mapping were used as a proxy for the identification of high-value areas to be planned. Inside it is presented a methodology of integration between maps of biophysical/economical ES values using InVEST software as a tool for geographic, economic and ecological accounting. The mapping activity, related to Land Cover/ Land Use information for a context based case of was used to support the preliminary approach to co-planning activity for multilevel governance, especially .among consensus building approach and the Co-planning Conference. Innovations are discussed both by processual and technical sides: (i) the urban planning activity founded upon the Co-planning method and supported by such analysis, allowed policy makers to go into the substance for reconsidering their strategies for sustainable territorial government and (ii) the scientific contribution of the research on mapping ES demonstrates that approach is today fully incorporated on local tools for land management

The vocational ID : connecting life design counselling and personality systems interaction theory

We introduce the Vocational ID that integrates linguistic and visual representations of a career counselling client’s self. Based upon findings from the Life Design paradigm and the Personality Systems Interaction theory, the Vocational ID facilitates working on clients' vocational identity. In this article, we present the theoretical framework, its practical applications, and a case study

Knowledge-Intensive Processes: Characteristics, Requirements and Analysis of Contemporary Approaches

Engineering of knowledge-intensive processes (KiPs) is far from being mastered, since they are genuinely knowledge- and data-centric, and require substantial flexibility, at both design- and run-time. In this work, starting from a scientific literature analysis in the area of KiPs and from three real-world domains and application scenarios, we provide a precise characterization of KiPs. Furthermore, we devise some general requirements related to KiPs management and execution. Such requirements contribute to the definition of an evaluation framework to assess current system support for KiPs. To this end, we present a critical analysis on a number of existing process-oriented approaches by discussing their efficacy against the requirements