6,882 research outputs found
Visual Programming Paradigm for Organizations in Multi-Agent Systems
Over the past few years, due to a fast digitalization process, business activities witnessed the adoption of new technologies, such as Multi-Agent Systems, to increase the autonomy of their activities. However, the complexity of these technologies often hinders the capability of domain experts, who do not possess coding skills, to exploit them directly.
To take advantage of these individuals' expertise in their field, the idea of a user-friendly and accessible Integrated Development Environment arose. Indeed, efforts have already been made to develop a block-based visual programming language for software agents.
Although the latter project represents a huge step forward, it does not provide a solution for addressing complex, real-world use cases where interactions and coordination among single entities are crucial. To address this problem, Multi-Agent Oriented Programming introduces organization as a first-class abstraction for designing and implementing Multi-Agent Systems.
Therefore, this thesis aims to provide a solution allowing users to impose an organization on top of the agents easily. Since ease of use and intuitiveness remain the key points for this project, users will be able to define organizations through visual language and an intuitive development environment
Resilience and food security in a food systems context
This open access book compiles a series of chapters written by internationally recognized experts known for their in-depth but critical views on questions of resilience and food security. The book assesses rigorously and critically the contribution of the concept of resilience in advancing our understanding and ability to design and implement development interventions in relation to food security and humanitarian crises. For this, the book departs from the narrow beaten tracks of agriculture and trade, which have influenced the mainstream debate on food security for nearly 60 years, and adopts instead a wider, more holistic perspective, framed around food systems. The foundation for this new approach is the recognition that in the current post-globalization era, the food and nutritional security of the world’s population no longer depends just on the performance of agriculture and policies on trade, but rather on the capacity of the entire (food) system to produce, process, transport and distribute safe, affordable and nutritious food for all, in ways that remain environmentally sustainable. In that context, adopting a food system perspective provides a more appropriate frame as it incites to broaden the conventional thinking and to acknowledge the systemic nature of the different processes and actors involved. This book is written for a large audience, from academics to policymakers, students to practitioners
Facilitating prosociality through technology: Design to promote digital volunteerism
Volunteerism covers many activities involving no financial rewards for volunteers but which contribute
to the common good. There is existing work in designing technology for volunteerism in HumanComputer Interaction (HCI) and related disciplines that focuses on motivation to improve
performance, but it does not account for volunteer wellbeing. Here, I investigate digital volunteerism
in three case studies with a focus on volunteer motivation, engagement, and wellbeing. My research
involved volunteers and others in the volunteering context to generate recommendations for a
volunteer-centric design for digital volunteerism. The thesis has three aims:
1. To investigate motivational aspects critical for enhancing digital volunteers’ experiences
2. To identify digital platform attributes linked to volunteer wellbeing
3. To create guidelines for effectively supporting volunteer engagement in digital volunteering
platforms
In the first case study I investigate the design of a chat widget for volunteers working in an
organisation with a view to develop a design that improves their workflow and wellbeing. The second
case study investigates the needs, motivations, and wellbeing of volunteers who help medical
students improve their medical communication skills. An initial mixed-methods study was followed by
an experiment comparing two design strategies to improve volunteer relatedness; an important
indicator of wellbeing. The third case study looks into volunteer needs, experiences, motivations, and
wellbeing with a focus on volunteer identity and meaning-making on a science-based research
platform. I then analyse my findings from these case studies using the lens of care ethics to derive
critical insights for design.
The key contributions of this thesis are design strategies and critical insights, and a volunteer-centric
design framework to enhance the motivation, wellbeing and engagement of digital volunteers
University of South Dakota 2023 AASHE STARS Assessment Report
https://red.library.usd.edu/sustainability-projects/1008/thumbnail.jp
Creating an Information System with a Social Purpose - The Case of Re-Food
Project Work presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Statistics and Information Management, specialization in Information Analysis and ManagementNowadays, with the evolution of technology, the strategies of information management are
constantly improving to create faster and more efficient methods of analyzing and displaying data. At
the same time, the users, considering the amount of information they access every day, search for
simpler, faster and cleaner ways to interact with information.
These strategies with simpler designs are important, now more than ever, to help social
organizations, such as Re-Food, improve their work and show to communities that they impact directly
and indirectly the importance of eco-sustainability and solidarity projects.
This project proposes to build an information system capable of structuring data from Re-Food
resources, create faster and more efficient solutions to improve the centers’ management and show
to the rest of the community the impact this organization, and the ones alike have on society
A Decision Support System for Economic Viability and Environmental Impact Assessment of Vertical Farms
Vertical farming (VF) is the practice of growing crops or animals using the vertical dimension via multi-tier racks or vertically inclined surfaces. In this thesis, I focus on the emerging industry of plant-specific VF. Vertical plant farming (VPF) is a promising and relatively novel practice that can be conducted in buildings with environmental control and artificial lighting. However, the nascent sector has experienced challenges in economic viability, standardisation, and environmental sustainability. Practitioners and academics call for a comprehensive financial analysis of VPF, but efforts are stifled by a lack of valid and available data.
A review of economic estimation and horticultural software identifies a need for a decision support system (DSS) that facilitates risk-empowered business planning for vertical farmers. This thesis proposes an open-source DSS framework to evaluate business sustainability through financial risk and environmental impact assessments. Data from the literature, alongside lessons learned from industry practitioners, would be centralised in the proposed DSS using imprecise data techniques. These techniques have been applied in engineering but are seldom used in financial forecasting. This could benefit complex sectors which only have scarce data to predict business viability.
To begin the execution of the DSS framework, VPF practitioners were interviewed using a mixed-methods approach. Learnings from over 19 shuttered and operational VPF projects provide insights into the barriers inhibiting scalability and identifying risks to form a risk taxonomy. Labour was the most commonly reported top challenge. Therefore, research was conducted to explore lean principles to improve productivity.
A probabilistic model representing a spectrum of variables and their associated uncertainty was built according to the DSS framework to evaluate the financial risk for VF projects. This enabled flexible computation without precise production or financial data to improve economic estimation accuracy. The model assessed two VPF cases (one in the UK and another in Japan), demonstrating the first risk and uncertainty quantification of VPF business models in the literature. The results highlighted measures to improve economic viability and the viability of the UK and Japan case.
The environmental impact assessment model was developed, allowing VPF operators to evaluate their carbon footprint compared to traditional agriculture using life-cycle assessment. I explore strategies for net-zero carbon production through sensitivity analysis. Renewable energies, especially solar, geothermal, and tidal power, show promise for reducing the carbon emissions of indoor VPF. Results show that renewably-powered VPF can reduce carbon emissions compared to field-based agriculture when considering the land-use change.
The drivers for DSS adoption have been researched, showing a pathway of compliance and design thinking to overcome the ‘problem of implementation’ and enable commercialisation. Further work is suggested to standardise VF equipment, collect benchmarking data, and characterise risks. This work will reduce risk and uncertainty and accelerate the sector’s emergence
Program and Proceedings: The Nebraska Academy of Sciences 1880-2023. 142th Anniversary Year. One Hundred-Thirty-Third Annual Meeting April 21, 2023. Hybrid Meeting: Nebraska Wesleyan University & Online, Lincoln, Nebraska
AERONAUTICS & SPACE SCIENCE Chairperson(s): Dr. Scott Tarry & Michaela Lucas
HUMANS PAST AND PRESENT Chairperson(s): Phil R. Geib & Allegra Ward
APPLIED SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY SECTION Chairperson(s): Mary Ettel
BIOLOGY Chairpersons: Lauren Gillespie, Steve Heinisch, and Paul Davis
BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES Chairperson(s): Annemarie Shibata, Kimberly Carlson, Joseph Dolence, Alexis Hobbs, James Fletcher, Paul Denton
CHEM Section Chairperson(s): Nathanael Fackler
EARTH SCIENCES Chairpersons: Irina Filina, Jon Schueth, Ross Dixon, Michael Leite
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE Chairperson: Mark Hammer
PHYSICS Chairperson(s): Dr. Adam Davis
SCIENCE EDUCATION Chairperson: Christine Gustafson
2023 Maiben Lecturer: Jason Bartz
2023 FRIEND OF SCIENCE AWARD TO: Ray Ward and Jim Lewi
2023-2024 Lynn University Academic Catalog
The 2023-2024 Academic Catalog initially published as a web-only document.
The Department of Marketing and Communication created a PDF version, which is available for download here.https://spiral.lynn.edu/accatalogs/1052/thumbnail.jp
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