Agent Street: An Environment for Exploring Agent-Based Models in Second Life

Urban models can be seen on a continuum between iconic and symbolic. Generally speaking, iconic models are physical versions of the real world at some scaled down representation, while symbolic models represent the system in terms of the way they function replacing the physical or material system by some logical and/or mathematical formulae. Traditionally iconic and symbolic models were distinct classes of model but due to the rise of digital computing the distinction between the two is becoming blurred, with symbolic models being embedded into iconic models. However, such models tend to be single user. This paper demonstrates how 3D symbolic models in the form of agent-based simulations can be embedded into iconic models using the multi-user virtual world of Second Life. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates Second Life\'s potential for social science simulation. To demonstrate this, we first introduce Second Life and provide two exemplar models; Conway\'s Game of Life, and Schelling\'s Segregation Model which highlight how symbolic models can be viewed in an iconic environment. We then present a simple pedestrian evacuation model which merges the iconic and symbolic together and extends the model to directly incorporate avatars and agents in the same environment illustrating how \'real\' participants can influence simulation outcomes. Such examples demonstrate the potential for creating highly visual, immersive, interactive agent-based models for social scientists in multi-user real time virtual worlds. The paper concludes with some final comments on problems with representing models in current virtual worlds and future avenues of research.Agent-Based Modelling, Pedestrian Evacuation, Segregation, Virtual Worlds, Second Life

mLearning Journeys: Redesigning Teaching for mLearning

Abstract: The excitement surrounding the potential of web2.0 tools within education has continued to grow. While almost everyone has now heard of PODCasting and YouTube, there are many more examples of social networking and content sharing tools that can be harnessed for education. Recently Twitter (microblogging) has been popularised by the media, with a reported explosive growth rate (uptake by new users) of 1500% during early 2009. While this illustrates that there is undoubtedly phenomenal interest in web2.0, there are still few concrete examples illustrating how to integrate these tools using an explicitly social constructivist pedagogical model within contemporary tertiary education environments. This paper describes the purposeful integration of web2.0 and mobile web2.0 tools within a first year Bachelor of Product Design programme, based upon an under-pinning social constructivist pedagogy. Examples of the use of several web2.0 tools that support the development of collaborative student-centred learning environments are given. Initial feedback from lecturers and students are also reported

Silver Dreams Fund Learning and Evaluation Contract: Final report June 2014

This is a summary of the Final Report which presents the findings of the evaluation of the Big Lottery Fund's Silver Dreams Fund conducted by Ecorys.The Silver Dreams Fund was a £10 million programme which sought to address the gaps in provision by challenging organisations to come up with an innovative idea for a project that would "pioneer ways to help vulnerable older people deal more effectively with life-changing events".Our approach involved both formative and summative elements and was based upon a robust and evidence-based outcome evaluation framework. In addition, we have also undertaken an evaluation of the new programme management processes employed by the Big Lottery Fund which has been reported separately.In summary, the evaluation involved:- development of an evaluation framework and common indicators to measure outcomes;- provision of a package of self-evaluation support to projects;- programme level work to provide independent primary qualitative research and to validate findings from self-evaluations;- a range of learning activities; and- analysis and reporting

Trojans of ambiguity vs resilient regeneration: visual meaning in cities

© 2020 by the author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.This paper presents a theoretical framework that helps identify visual sustainability in urban projects and evaluates its relevance for the use, design and making of public space. It is aimed at showing how the process of urban regeneration is far more nuanced and sophisticated than much of today’s building industry allows for. The first part of the article provides an outline of this framework, by drawing from the notion of ambiguity and discussing regeneration around a concept of trojans of ambiguity: by which we simply mean that modern-day regeneration projects are often a confusion of meaning. The framework is then applied to two case studies: Heygate, and Sidewalk Labs Toronto. The Heygate regeneration produced a negative emotionally charged process and social displacement. By contrast Sidewalk Labs Toronto exemplifies a technologically clean start for regeneration, on a site with little social vitality or history. The starting points for each ultimately point to two very different outcomes. Visual sustainability represents ‘the technology before the technology’ and future research must recognise how human needs, not technology, provide the meaning into ‘how’ we may create a successful, smart, and sustainable urban environment.Peer reviewe

Nuclear latency and the future strategic environment

This paper examines the issue of nuclear latency (the potential for countries to obtain nuclear weapons capability) by focusing on the cases of the Republic of Korea and Japan, then looks at what Australia should do. Overview Since the 1946 ‘Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy’ and the closely associated Baruch Plan formulated by the United States, ‘nuclear latency’ —put simply, the potential for countries to obtain nuclear weapons capability—has been a factor threatening to undermine strategic equilibrium on the world stage. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and resulting nonproliferation regime may have allayed mid-20th century concerns about the rate of spread of nuclear weapons, but the notion of nuclear latency has by no means become obsolete. Latent nuclear technology alone doesn’t result in nuclear proliferation—proliferation-related motivations, choices and decisions are required as well. Therefore, one useful way to analyse a country’s proliferation decision-making is through the lens of ‘technical capability + intent’. This paper examines nuclear latency focusing on the cases of the Republic of Korea and Japan. It then looks at what Australia should do and puts forward four key recommendations

An adaptable system to support provenance management for the public policy-making process in smart cities

© 2018 by the authors. Government policies aim to address public issues and problems and therefore play a pivotal role in people’s lives. The creation of public policies, however, is complex given the perspective of large and diverse stakeholders’ involvement, considerable human participation, lengthy processes, complex task specification and the non-deterministic nature of the process. The inherent complexities of the policy process impart challenges for designing a computing system that assists in supporting and automating the business process pertaining to policy setup, which also raises concerns for setting up a tracking service in the policy-making environment. A tracking service informs how decisions have been taken during policy creation and can provide useful and intrinsic information regarding the policy process. At present, there exists no computing system that assists in tracking the complete process that has been employed for policy creation. To design such a system, it is important to consider the policy environment challenges; for this a novel network and goal based approach has been framed and is covered in detail in this paper. Furthermore, smart governance objectives that include stakeholders’ participation and citizens’ involvement have been considered. Thus, the proposed approach has been devised by considering smart governance principles and the knowledge environment of policy making where tasks are largely dependent on policy makers’ decisions and on individual policy objectives. Our approach reckons the human dimension for deciding and defining autonomous process activities at run time. Furthermore, with the network-based approach, so-called provenance data tracking is employed which enables the capture of policy process

Community (oriented) policing in Europe: concepts, theory and practice

This second toolbox in the series published by the EUCPN Secretariat focuses on the main theme of the Cyprus Presidency, which is community policing. The theme is explored and elaborated in four different ways, through: a theoretical paper; a survey among the European Member States on the organisation of community policing in their country, followed by an in-depth discussion during two round table sessions; a workshop/ seminar with various experts and a particular focus on radicalisation, or which role community policing can play in the prevention of radicalisation, which is an important European issue and priority; and finally, a bundling of this year’s European Crime Prevention Award’s (ECPA) entries as a list of examples of good practices across Europe

Suddenly last summer: how the tourist tsunami hit Lisbon

En el presente artículo fijamos nuestra atención en la capital de Portugal, Lisboa, y su reciente proceso de turistificación, que ha forzado a una revisión colectiva de la identidad de la ciudad y sus narrativas patrimoniales, para encajar los crecientes contrastes entre marginalidad y centralidad, circulación y calma, abandono y atención pública, indigencia y afluencia, spleen y euforia. Después de introducir nuestro foco teórico en el problema de los “comunales urbanos” y de presentar nuestra metodología cualitativa, pasamos a describir el proceso histórico que ha conducido a la transformación de Lisboa: desde el mega-evento de la Expo’98 cuando Lisboa era todavía un destino turístico periférico, hasta la presente economía urbana, especializada en el turismo y los servicios. Vamos a centrarnos especialmente en los proyectos y políticas implantadas “desde arriba” durante aquellos años y en la crisis financiera de 2008, usada para liberalizar varios aspectos de la economía.In this paper, we focus our attention in Portugal’s capital city, Lisbon, and in the recent process of its touristification, which is forcing a collective revision of the city’s identity and its patrimonial narratives, to make sense of the growing contrasts between marginality and centrality, circulation and calm, abandonment and limelight, indigence and affluence, spleen and euphoria. After introducing our theoretical focus on the problem of “urban commons” and the qualitative methodology used in the article, we describe the historical process that led to the transformation of Lisbon: from the Expo’98 megaevent when Lisbon was a peripheral tourism destiny, to the present urban economy that is specialized in tourism and services. We will focus especially in the top-down projects and policies developed during those years and the use of 2008 financial crisis to liberalize many aspects of economy