Framework for a spatial Decision Support Tool for policy and decision making

The main challenge of developing of a spatial DST (Decision Support Tool) to support the decision making on future livestock production will not be a technical one, but instead a challenge of meeting the con-text requirements of the tool, such as the characteristics of the country-specific spatial plan-ning and decision-making process, the wishes of the potential users of the tool and its output as well as the country-specific policies and regulations. The spatial DST which is being pro-posed in this report therefore does not include complex and state-of-the-art GIS techniques, but instead tries to be as clear and simple as possible, in order to give the potential users a full understanding during the analysis process and with using the output of the tool. A spatial DST can easily become a ‘black box’ if the users do not fully understand the limita-tions of the tool and its output. Despite the fact that output maps of GIS systems may look very detailed and suggest a high degree of accuracy, they are often not. This will entirely de-pend on the availability of reliable and detailed input data. Most likely, many of the produced output maps should be used in an indicative way only. Therefore, the output of the spatial DST needs to be accompanied by supporting information on the reliability of the output and the shortcomings due to unreliable or missing input data, as well as the consequences for use of the output. Therefore, a comprehensive meta-data assessment system is proposed as an in-tegrated part of the spatial DST. The distribution of the output will also require tools to pro-duce more sketch-like presentations, e.g. using fuzzy borders and aggregated maps, which are another important feature of the spatial DST

Underground constructions in soft ground - general report of the TC204

This paper presents the general report of the TC204 session “Underground Constructions on Soft Ground” of the 19th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. A total of 32 papers were assigned for this session, they were divided in five general topics and reviewed briefly in this report. Apart from the regular topics of the TC204, this session also presents papers on rock tunneling. This report is intended to provide a general overview of the papers of the TC204 session. However, for a better understanding of the presented contents, the readers are encouraged to look for the papers themselves in the proceeding

Gender-Inclusive Requirements Engineering

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)Gender inclusion is fundamental to a prosperous society, but inequality and exclusion persist in various sectors of it. One of them is the ICT field, which is still struggling to represent the diversity of those it serves. The lack of diversity and power imbalance in software development affects the produced systems, that, instead of advancing gender inclusion, create new barriers in achieving it. Although considered neutral, software does not equally serve everyone who depends on it, favoring characteristics that are statistically more observed in those that are represented during development. As software development teams are predominantly male, it is not surprising that existing systems favor characteristics that are statistically more observed in men over characteristics observed in other genders. As technologies rapidly evolve and revolutionize the way we live, addressing this problem becomes urgent to ensure that these systems benefit everyone, regardless of their gender. As a first step towards this goal, we performed a systematic mapping study on gender issues in software engineering whose results indicated that gender impacts development and systems, but there are limited approaches for addressing it in Requirements Engineering. This study served as the foundation for proposing a conceptual model for gender-inclusive requirements. Its main objective is to facilitate discussion and analysis of gender and related concepts in the elicitation process to include them in the specification of requirements. In this paper, we extend this work by illustrating the concepts with an example, by presenting a process for using the knowledge of the model and a prototype tool that implements it, and by discussing an evaluation with 31 participants of the conceptual model's usefulness, difficulty of understanding, strengths and weaknesses, use and recommendation, and finally, its components. The results were positive as both novices and experts in conceptual modeling considered the model useful, provided comprehensive feedback on its strengths but also suggestions for improvement, and most answered positively to the questions about whether they would use and recommend it.publishersversionpublishe

Smart environmental monitoring and assessment technologies (SEMAT)- a new paradigm for low-cost, remote aquatic environmental monitoring

Expense and the logistical difficulties with deploying scientific monitoring equipment are the biggest limitations to undertaking large scale monitoring of aquatic environments. The Smart Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Technologies (SEMAT) project is aimed at addressing this problem by creating an open standard for low-cost, near real-time, remote aquatic environmental monitoring systems. This paper presents the latest refinement of the SEMAT system in-line with the evolution of existing technologies, inexpensive sensors and environmental monitoring expectations. We provide a systems analysis and design of the SEMAT remote monitoring units and the back-end data management system. The system's value is augmented through a unique e-waste recycling and repurposing model which engages/educates the community in the production of the SEMAT units using social enterprise. SEMAT serves as an open standard for the community to innovate around to further the state of play with low-cost environmental monitoring. The latest SEMAT units have been trialled in a peri-urban lake setting and the results demonstrate the system's capabilities to provide ongoing data in near real-time to validate an environmental model of the study site

City of Concord 2005 annual report.

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire

Processpatching: defining new methods in aRt&D

In the context of a rapidly changing domain of contemporary electronic art practice- where the speed of technological innovation and the topicality of art 'process as research' methods are both under constant revision- the process of collaboration between art, computer science and engineering is an important addition to existing 'R&D'. Scholarly as well as practical exploration of artistic methods, viewed in relation to the field of new technology, can be seen to enable and foster innovation in both the conceptualisation and practice of the electronic arts. At the same time, citing new media art in the context of technological innovation brings a mix of scientific and engineering issues to the fore and thereby demands an extended functionality that may lead to R&D, as technology attempts to take account of aesthetic and social considerations in its re-development. This new field of new media or electronic art R&D is different from research and development aimed at practical applications of new technologies as we see them in everyday life. A next step for Research and Development in Art (aRt&D) is a formalisation of the associated work methods, as an essential ingredient for interdisciplinary collaboration. This study investigates how electronic art patches together processes and methods from the arts, engineering and computer science environments. It provides a framework describing the electronic art methods to improve collaboration by informing others about one's artistic research and development approach. This investigation is positioned in the electronic art laboratory where new alliances with other disciplines are established. It provides information about the practical and theoretical aspects of the research and development processes of artists. The investigation addresses fundamental questions about the 'research and development methods' (discussed and defined at length in these pages), of artists who are involved in interdisciplinary collaborations amongst and between the fields of Art, Computer Science, and Engineering. The breadth of the fields studied necessarily forced a tight focus on specific issues in the literature, addressed herein through a series of focused case studies which demonstrate the points of synergy and divergence between the fields of artistic research and development, in a wider art&D' context. The artistic methods proposed in this research include references from a broad set of fields (e. g. Technology, Media Arts, Theatre and Performance, Systems Theories, the Humanities, and Design Practice) relevant to and intrinsically intertwined with this project and its placement in an interdisciplinary knowledge domain. The aRt&D Matrix provides a complete overview of the observed research and development methods in electronic arts, including references to related disciplines and methods from other fields. The new Matrix developed and offered in this thesis also provides an instrument for analysing the interdisciplinary collaboration process that exclusively reflects the information we need for the overview of the team constellation. The tool is used to inform the collaborators about the backgrounds of the other participants and thus about the expected methods and approaches. It provides a map of the bodies of knowledge and expertise represented in any given cross-disciplinary team, and thus aims to lay the groundwork for a future aRt&D framework of use to future scholars and practitioners alike

Archetypes of Community Wildfire Exposure from National Forests of the Western US

Risk management typologies and their resulting archetypes can structure the many social and biophysical drivers of community wildfire risk into a set number of strategies to build community resilience. Existing typologies omit key factors that determine the scale and mechanism by which exposure from large wildfires occur. These factors are particularly important for land managing agencies like the US Forest Service, which must weigh community wildfire exposure against other management priorities. We analyze community wildfire exposure from national forests by associating conditions that affect exposure in the areas where wildfires ignite to conditions where exposure likely occurs. Linking source and exposure areas defines the scale at which crossboundary exposure from large wildfires occurs and the scale at which mitigation actions need to be planned. We find that the vast majority of wildfire exposure from national forests is concentrated among a fraction of communities that are geographically clustered in discrete pockets. Among these communities, exposure varies primarily based on development patterns and vegetation gradients and secondarily based on social and ecological management constraints. We describe five community exposure archetypes along with their associated risk mitigation strategies. Only some archetypes have conditions that support hazardous fuels programs. Others have conditions where managing community exposure through vegetation management is unlikely to suffice. These archetypes reflect the diversity of development patterns, vegetation types, associated fuels, and management constraints that exist in the western US and provide a framework to guide public investments that improve management of wildfire risk within threatened communities and on the public lands that transmit fires to them

Complex Visual Querying without SQL: Mashup in-memory data and persistent data

This dissertation has the intent of increasing the level of expressiveness of a visual interface that allows users to query data without resorting to textual query languages. Although it was in the 1970s that Relational Database Management Systems appeared, the standard way to interact with them remains to be through SQL, a textual query language. One of the main problems with these kinds of languages is that they require technical skills and knowledge of query language, syntax and domain schema. Consequently, database man- agement was considered only accessible to experienced users for a long time. In recent years, with the explosion of the Web, the volume of data available to everyone grew exponentially. This way, it became necessary to make data retrieval accessible not only to expert users but also to users without database knowledge. Visual Query Systems emerged in the late 1970s to hide the complexity of query languages behind a visual interface and improving the effec- tiveness of human-computer communication. Since then, many different approaches have been proposed and studied. The OutSystems platform provides a graphical query interface called Aggregates that allows its users to formulate queries through the manipulation of visual components. However, this tool does not yet support the same level of expressiveness as SQL. This dissertation aims at increasing the level of expressiveness of the Aggregates by propos- ing different solutions for the implementation of the IN and NOT IN clauses without compro- mising the global experience for any kind of user. In order to achieve this, an iterative devel- opment process was used, including the design, implementation and evaluation of prototypes. In this dissertation, we present a functional solution, integrated into the OutSystems platform. The results show that we were able to turn the filtering of persistent data by in-memory data very accessible to OutSystems Developers and also to regular Developers with no or very little experience using the OutSystems platform.Esta dissertação tem como objetivo aumentar o nível de expressividade de uma interface visual que permite aos seus utilizadores consultar dados sem recorrer a linguagens de consulta tex- tuais. Apesar de ter sido na década de 1970 que surgiram os Sistemas de Gestão de Bases de Dados Relacionais, a forma mais usual de interagir com esses sistemas continua a ser através de SQL, uma linguagem textual de consulta de dados. Um dos principais problemas da utilização deste tipo de linguagens é que requerem habili- tações técnicas e conhecimento sobre linguagens de consulta, sintaxes específicas e esquemas de domínio. Consequentemente, a gestão de bases de dados foi, durante muito tempo, consi- derada apenas acessível a utilizadores experientes. Recentemente, com a explosão da Web, a quantidade de dados disponíveis para toda a gente cresceu exponencialmente. Deste modo, tornou-se necessário tornar o acesso a esses dados possível tanto para utilizadores experientes como para utilizadores sem conhecimentos de bases de dados. Os Sistemas Gráficos de Con- sulta de Dados emergiram no final da década de 1970 com o objetivo de ocultar a complexidade das linguagens de consulta por detrás de uma interface visual e melhorar a eficácia da intera- ção pessoa-máquina. Desde então, muitas abordagens diferentes foram propostas e estudadas. A plataforma da OutSystems fornece uma interface gráfica de consulta chamada Aggregates que permite aos seus utilizadores formular consultas através da manipulação de componentes visuais. No entanto, esta ferramenta ainda não suporta o nível de expressividade do SQL. Esta dissertação visa, assim, aumentar o nível de expressividade dos Aggregates, propondo diferentes soluções para a implementação das cláusulas IN e NOT IN sem comprometer a experiência global para qualquer tipo de utilizador. Para tal, foi utilizado um processo de desen- volvimento iterativo, incluindo a concepção, implementação e avaliação de protótipos. Nesta dissertação apresentamos uma solução funcional, integrada na plataforma OutSystems. Os re- sultados mostram que fomos capazes de tornar a filtragem de dados persistentes por dados em memória muito acessível tanto para programadores OutSystems como para programadores regulares com nenhuma ou muito pouca experiência de uso com a plataforma OutSystems

Sensing the Virtual: Atmosphere and Somaesthetics in Virtual Reality

This article examines somaesthetics in virtual reality via the spatial lens of atmosphere, adapting theories of atmosphere to virtual environments and advocating for VR as a distinctive terrain for somaesthetics. Building on Gernot Böhme’s analyses of atmosphere, this exploration unpacks ways that artists have engaged the body and space in VR, from creative interface design to multisensory storytelling, and projects that blend physical and virtual environments. Having mapped the confluence of somaesthetics, atmosphere, and immersive virtual space, the paper concludes considering the practical need for cultivating atmospheric competence in VR