2,960 research outputs found

    Mobile heritage practices. Implications for scholarly research, user experience design, and evaluation methods using mobile apps.

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    Mobile heritage apps have become one of the most popular means for audience engagement and curation of museum collections and heritage contexts. This raises practical and ethical questions for both researchers and practitioners, such as: what kind of audience engagement can be built using mobile apps? what are the current approaches? how can audience engagement with these experience be evaluated? how can those experiences be made more resilient, and in turn sustainable? In this thesis I explore experience design scholarships together with personal professional insights to analyse digital heritage practices with a view to accelerating thinking about and critique of mobile apps in particular. As a result, the chapters that follow here look at the evolution of digital heritage practices, examining the cultural, societal, and technological contexts in which mobile heritage apps are developed by the creative media industry, the academic institutions, and how these forces are shaping the user experience design methods. Drawing from studies in digital (critical) heritage, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and design thinking, this thesis provides a critical analysis of the development and use of mobile practices for the heritage. Furthermore, through an empirical and embedded approach to research, the thesis also presents auto-ethnographic case studies in order to show evidence that mobile experiences conceptualised by more organic design approaches, can result in more resilient and sustainable heritage practices. By doing so, this thesis encourages a renewed understanding of the pivotal role of these practices in the broader sociocultural, political and environmental changes.AHRC REAC

    Perceptions, Actors, Innovations

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    With Agenda 2030, the UN adopted wide-ranging Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that integrate development and environmental agendas. This book has a unique focus on the political tensions between environmental and socio-economic objectives and advocates for a cooperative shift towards environmentally sound sustainability

    Non-Market Food Practices Do Things Markets Cannot: Why Vermonters Produce and Distribute Food That\u27s Not For Sale

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    Researchers tend to portray food self-provisioning in high-income societies as a coping mechanism for the poor or a hobby for the well-off. They describe food charity as a regrettable band-aid. Vegetable gardens and neighborly sharing are considered remnants of precapitalist tradition. These are non-market food practices: producing food that is not for sale and distributing food in ways other than selling it. Recent scholarship challenges those standard understandings by showing (i) that non-market food practices remain prevalent in high-income countries, (ii) that people in diverse social groups engage in these practices, and (iii) that they articulate diverse reasons for doing so. In this dissertation, I investigate the persistent pervasiveness of non-market food practices in Vermont. To go beyond explanations that rely on individual motivation, I examine the roles these practices play in society. First, I investigate the prevalence of non-market food practices. Several surveys with large, representative samples reveal that more than half of Vermont households grow, hunt, fish, or gather some of their own food. Respondents estimate that they acquire 14% of the food they consume through non-market means, on average. For reference, commercial local food makes up about the same portion of total consumption. Then, drawing on the words of 94 non-market food practitioners I interviewed, I demonstrate that these practices serve functions that markets cannot. Interviewees attested that non-market distribution is special because it feeds the hungry, strengthens relationships, builds resilience, puts edible-but-unsellable food to use, and aligns with a desired future in which food is not for sale. Hunters, fishers, foragers, scavengers, and homesteaders said that these activities contribute to their long-run food security as a skills-based safety net. Self-provisioning allows them to eat from the landscape despite disruptions to their ability to access market food such as job loss, supply chain problems, or a global pandemic. Additional evidence from vegetable growers suggests that non-market settings liberate production from financial discipline, making space for work that is meaningful, playful, educational, and therapeutic. Non-market food practices mend holes in the social fabric torn by the commodification of everyday life. Finally, I synthesize scholarly critiques of markets as institutions for organizing the production and distribution of food. Markets send food toward money rather than hunger. Producing for market compels farmers to prioritize financial viability over other values such as stewardship. Historically, people rarely if ever sell each other food until external authorities coerce them to do so through taxation, indebtedness, cutting off access to the means of subsistence, or extinguishing non-market institutions. Today, more humans than ever suffer from chronic undernourishment even as the scale of commercial agriculture pushes environmental pressures past critical thresholds of planetary sustainability. This research substantiates that alternatives to markets exist and have the potential to address their shortcomings

    Multidisciplinary perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and the law

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    This open access book presents an interdisciplinary, multi-authored, edited collection of chapters on Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) and the Law. AI technology has come to play a central role in the modern data economy. Through a combination of increased computing power, the growing availability of data and the advancement of algorithms, AI has now become an umbrella term for some of the most transformational technological breakthroughs of this age. The importance of AI stems from both the opportunities that it offers and the challenges that it entails. While AI applications hold the promise of economic growth and efficiency gains, they also create significant risks and uncertainty. The potential and perils of AI have thus come to dominate modern discussions of technology and ethics – and although AI was initially allowed to largely develop without guidelines or rules, few would deny that the law is set to play a fundamental role in shaping the future of AI. As the debate over AI is far from over, the need for rigorous analysis has never been greater. This book thus brings together contributors from different fields and backgrounds to explore how the law might provide answers to some of the most pressing questions raised by AI. An outcome of the Católica Research Centre for the Future of Law and its interdisciplinary working group on Law and Artificial Intelligence, it includes contributions by leading scholars in the fields of technology, ethics and the law.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies

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    Climate change is perhaps the greatest threat to humanity today and plays out as a cruel engine of myriad forms of injustice, violence and destruction. The effects of climate change from human-made emissions of greenhouse gases are devastating and accelerating; yet are uncertain and uneven both in terms of geography and socio-economic impacts. Emerging from the dynamics of capitalism since the industrial revolution — as well as industrialisation under state-led socialism — the consequences of climate change are especially profound for the countryside and its inhabitants. The book interrogates the narratives and strategies that frame climate change and examines the institutionalised responses in agrarian settings, highlighting what exclusions and inclusions result. It explores how different people — in relation to class and other co-constituted axes of social difference such as gender, race, ethnicity, age and occupation — are affected by climate change, as well as the climate adaptation and mitigation responses being implemented in rural areas. The book in turn explores how climate change – and the responses to it - affect processes of social differentiation, trajectories of accumulation and in turn agrarian politics. Finally, the book examines what strategies are required to confront climate change, and the underlying political-economic dynamics that cause it, reflecting on what this means for agrarian struggles across the world. The 26 chapters in this volume explore how the relationship between capitalism and climate change plays out in the rural world and, in particular, the way agrarian struggles connect with the huge challenge of climate change. Through a huge variety of case studies alongside more conceptual chapters, the book makes the often-missing connection between climate change and critical agrarian studies. The book argues that making the connection between climate and agrarian justice is crucial

    Evaluating the sustainability and resiliency of local food systems

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    With an ever-rising global population and looming environmental challenges such as climate change and soil degradation, it is imperative to increase the sustainability of food production. The drastic rise in food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic has further shown a pressing need to increase the resiliency of food systems. One strategy to reduce the dependence on complex, vulnerable global supply chains is to strengthen local food systems, such as by producing more food in cities. This thesis uses an interdisciplinary, food systems approach to explore aspects of sustainability and resiliency within local food systems. Lifecycle assessment (LCA) was used to evaluate how farm scale, distance to consumer, and management practices influence environmental impacts for different local agriculture models in two case study locations: Georgia, USA and England, UK. Farms were grouped based on urbanisation level and management practices, including: urban organic, peri-urban organic, rural organic, and rural conventional. A total of 25 farms and 40 crop lifecycles were evaluated, focusing on two crops (kale and tomatoes) and including impacts from seedling production through final distribution to the point of sale. Results were extremely sensitive to the allocation of composting burdens (decomposition emissions), with impact variation between organic farms driven mainly by levels of compost use. When composting burdens were attributed to compost inputs, the rural conventional category in the U.S. and the rural organic category in the UK had the lowest average impacts per kg sellable crop produced, including the lowest global warming potential (GWP). However, when subtracting avoided burdens from the municipal waste stream from compost inputs, trends reversed entirely, with urban or peri-urban farm categories having the lowest impacts (often negative) for GWP and marine eutrophication. Overall, farm management practices were the most important factor driving environmental impacts from local food supply chains. A soil health assessment was then performed on a subset of the UK farms to provide insight to ecosystem services that are not captured within LCA frameworks. Better soil health was observed in organically-farmed and uncultivated soils compared to conventionally farmed soils, suggesting higher ecosystem service provisioning as related to improved soil structure, flood mitigation, erosion control, and carbon storage. However, relatively high heavy metal concentrations were seen on urban and peri-urban farms, as well as those located in areas with previous mining activity. This implies that there are important services and disservices on farms that are not captured by LCAs. Zooming out from a focus on food production, a qualitative methodology was used to explore experiences of food insecurity and related health and social challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fourteen individuals receiving emergency food parcels from a community food project in Sheffield, UK were interviewed. Results showed that maintaining food security in times of crisis requires a diverse set of individual, household, social, and place-based resources, which were largely diminished or strained during the pandemic. Drawing upon social capital and community support was essential to cope with a multiplicity of hardship, highlighting a need to develop community food infrastructure that supports ideals of mutual aid and builds connections throughout the food supply chain. Overall, this thesis shows that a range of context-specific solutions are required to build sustainable and resilient food systems. This can be supported by increasing local control of food systems and designing strategies to meet specific community needs, whilst still acknowledging a shared global responsibility to protect ecosystem, human, and planetary health

    Microcredentials to support PBL

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    SCENARIO DEVELOPMENT FOR URBAN WATER MANAGEMENT PLANNING FOR UNCERTAINTY

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    The urban water sector is confronted with a multitude of challenges. Rapid population growth, changing political landscapes, aging water infrastructures, and the worsening climate crisis are creating a range of uncertainties in the sector around managing water. Scenarios have been used extensively in the environmental domain to plan for and capture uncertainties to develop plausible futures, including the field of urban water management. Scenarios are key in enabling plans and creating roadmaps to attain desired futures. Despite the advantages and opportunities that scenarios offer for planning, they also have limitations; generally, and within the urban water space. Firstly, the growing uncertainty surrounding urban water management systems necessitates a focused review specifically aimed at the use of scenarios in urban water management. This thesis presents a systematic review to empirically investigate the crucial dimensions of urban water scenarios. Through this review, key knowledge gaps are highlighted, and recommendations are proposed to address these gaps. Secondly, scenarios often depict distressing, almost dystopian futures. Though negative future visions help understand the consequences of present trends and aid in anticipating imminent threats, the limited exploration of positive future visions can make it challenging to find the direction to transform. Optimistic scenarios delve into what people want for the future and capture how their aspirations shape them. Imagining positive visions encourage innovative thinking, creates agency, and creates pathways to desired futures. There is therefore a recognition to move towards more positive, desirable futures. This thesis uses a narrative, participatory scenario process, the SEEDS method, to develop positive visions of urban water futures. The Greater Sydney region in New South Wales, Australia is used as a case study to evaluate the applicability of this approach for urban water management. The urban water sector in the Greater Sydney region faces a multitude of challenges including impacts from climate change, managing diverse water supply sources, and meeting future water demand. These challenges create an increasingly uncertain future for the water sector, where the scale and nature of water services needed in the Greater Sydney region can be unclear. Hence, the Greater Sydney region is selected as the case study region to apply the SEEDS method and develop scenarios for urban water management to plan for future uncertainties. Thirdly, only a few scenario studies include surprises, the unexpected events, which make scenarios useful for planning. Challenges around capturing surprises in scenarios include a lack of structured approaches as well as a lack of evaluation of those methods that have been developed. This thesis discusses the effectiveness and suitability of various surprise methods for scenario development. These methods have been applied in the context of the SEEDS method for urban water management. Finally, there is a lack of evaluation of the tools used to cope with surprises as well as a lack of evaluation efforts of urban water management scenario studies. The assessment of the SEEDS approach for urban water management as well as the different surprise methods for scenario development requires evaluation criteria. This thesis develops and presents an evaluation criteria list based on existing literature that captures key criteria required for adequate assessment of the surprise methods and the scenario process. This thesis contributes to the fields of scenario development and urban water management, and the use of surprises within scenarios. Critical gaps in existing urban water management scenario practices are highlighted and key recommendations are proposed to fill the gaps. Through the pilot study and full-scale implementation of a positive-visioning, narrative-based scenario approach - the SEEDS method, the thesis demonstrates that the SEEDS method is applicable for urban water planning and shows potential for use at different stages of water planning. The positive visions generated through the SEEDS method highlight fundamental aspirations for the urban water sector, possible challenges, and conflicts, and discuss pathways to achieve positive future visions. By using in-situ experimentation and engaging participants with expertise in the relevant field, this thesis provides a realistic evaluation of the scenario process and surprise methods. This thesis thus fills the critical gap about the lack of evaluation in urban water management scenario processes by assessing the scenario method using selected evaluation criteria. Further, the thesis contributes towards the development of quality surprise methods through application and evaluation, thus addressing the gap about the lack of evaluation of the methods used to explore surprise events. Finally, the lack of surprises in scenarios is addressed by presenting different methods that can be used to explore surprise events. Guidance is provided to researchers working with scenario development to understand the different surprise methods available and for choosing the appropriate method(s) to plan for uncertain futures

    The big five personalities traits and job performance of employees in the FMCG sector in Selangor

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    In order for a business to successfully survive and compete with other competitors in today's fragile economic environment, proactive and committed personnel must perform greater standards of job performance. One of the key components that provide both objectives and strategies to fulfill the corporate mission is the performance of employees on the job. Hence, the purpose of this research was to examine how the Big Five Personality traits of employees on the job performance in the FMCG sector in Selangor. The study sampled 276 people from the FMCG sector in Selangor using convenience sampling method and the study's subjects were the employees. The tool for gathering data was a questionnaire. According to the study, Agreeableness, Openness to experience and Conscientiousness positively and significantly impacted job performance. Extraversion and Neuroticism/Emotional Stability, on the other hand, had a weak and insignificant relationship with job performance. According to the study's findings, people that exhibit high levels of Agreeableness, Openness to experience, and Conscientiousness are more likely to succeed in their job performances. The findings were then discussed, and recommendations were made. Finally, the researcher presented the conclusions in order to conclude the entire study
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