Public Participation and Ecological Valuation: Inclusive=Radical

This paper discusses the gender and class implications of “public participation” processes, which are increasingly used in Europe, North America, and elsewhere as a basic component of environmental and public policy decision-making. While they are grounded in strong political and ecological rationales, public participation processes can potentially exacerbate gender, ethnic, class, and other inequities. The paper focuses on the complexities of conceptualizing and designing public participation processes which are gender- and diversity-sensitive and take into account the different kinds of relationships with the environment held by different members of society. The more inclusive and diversity-sensitive these processes are, the more radical their implications

Knowledge-based systems and geological survey

This personal and pragmatic review of the philosophy underpinning methods of geological surveying suggests that important influences of information technology have yet to make their impact. Early approaches took existing systems as metaphors, retaining the separation of maps, map explanations and information archives, organised around map sheets of fixed boundaries, scale and content. But system design should look ahead: a computer-based knowledge system for the same purpose can be built around hierarchies of spatial objects and their relationships, with maps as one means of visualisation, and information types linked as hypermedia and integrated in mark-up languages. The system framework and ontology, derived from the general geoscience model, could support consistent representation of the underlying concepts and maintain reference information on object classes and their behaviour. Models of processes and historical configurations could clarify the reasoning at any level of object detail and introduce new concepts such as complex systems. The up-to-date interpretation might centre on spatial models, constructed with explicit geological reasoning and evaluation of uncertainties. Assuming (at a future time) full computer support, the field survey results could be collected in real time as a multimedia stream, hyperlinked to and interacting with the other parts of the system as appropriate. Throughout, the knowledge is seen as human knowledge, with interactive computer support for recording and storing the information and processing it by such means as interpolating, correlating, browsing, selecting, retrieving, manipulating, calculating, analysing, generalising, filtering, visualising and delivering the results. Responsibilities may have to be reconsidered for various aspects of the system, such as: field surveying; spatial models and interpretation; geological processes, past configurations and reasoning; standard setting, system framework and ontology maintenance; training; storage, preservation, and dissemination of digital records

Maintaining Hierarchies: The Perpetuation of Class and Labor Divisions in Mierle Laderman Ukeles\u27 Transfer: Maintenance of the Art Object

Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ 1973 performance, Transfer: Maintenance of the Art Object posed a comparison between her own gendered household labor and the labor of a maintenance worker in a museum. The performance also addressed the hierarchies of maintenance work versus artistic work as well as invisible work versus public work, and is often interpreted as serving to equalize these boundaries. While hierarchies are questioned within this piece, this paper argues that the performance primarily serves to acknowledge and maintain the inevitability of these existing hierarchies within the art institution, rather than eliminate them

Supporting personalization in a web-based course through the definition of role-based access policies

Role-based access policies model the users domain by means of complex structures where roles, which represent jobs or responsibilities assumed by users, are specialized into more concrete subroles which inherit properties and authorizations from their parents. Such an approach can be applied within the context of educational applications, where different roles are easily identified each of which has different views of the same information items and different capabilities to modify them. Moreover, even though this approach, has only been oriented towards modeling security requirements, it can be extended to support personalized access to the information. In this paper, we describe how to combine the basic principles of RBAC policies and adaptation with a view of providing personalized access to the different types of users of a web-based course. Moreover, we also present Courba, a platform to generate personalized web-based courses using XML to support the definition of access policies.Role-based access policies model the users domain by means of complex structures where roles, which represent jobs or responsibilities assumed by users, are specialized into more concrete subroles which inherit properties and authorizations from their parents. Such an approach can be applied within the context of educational applications, where different roles are easily identified each of which has different views of the same information items and different capabilities to modify them. Moreover, even though this approach, has only been oriented towards modeling security requirements, it can be extended to support personalized access to the information. In this paper, we describe how to combine the basic principles of RBAC policies and adaptation with a view of providing personalized access to the different types of users of a web-based course. Moreover, we also present Courba, a platform to generate personalized web-based courses using XML to support the definition of access policies

Tracking the Evolution of the Companionate Marriage Ideal in Early Modern Comedies

This thesis examines the socially constructed ideal of companionate marriage in Elizabethan and Jacobean England through four dramas by Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton. It probes the question of how these theatrical productions of early modern England fit within or defy the emerging social trends regarding companionate marriage. It uses socioeconomic statuses, religious affiliations, and emerging notions of race as lenses through which to analyze the romantic couples depicted in these plays. The results of this study indicate that, while exact authorial intentions remain unknown, these plays served as proponents of the companionate marriage while dually challenging the persisting restrictive social norms that prevented prospective unions between religiously, socioeconomically, and/or racially divergent individuals

Supporting personalization in a web-based course through the definition of role-based access policies

Role-based access policies model the users domain by means of complex structures where roles, which represent jobs or responsibilities assumed by users, are specialized into more concrete subroles which inherit properties and authorizations from their parents. Such an approach can be applied within the context of educational applications, where different roles are easily identified each of which has different views of the same information items and different capabilities to modify them. Moreover, even though this approach, has only been oriented towards modeling security requirements, it can be extended to support personalized access to the information. In this paper, we describe how to combine the basic principles of RBAC policies and adaptation with a view of providing personalized access to the different types of users of a web-based course. Moreover, we also present Courba, a platform to generate personalized web-based courses using XML to support the definition of access policies.Role-based access policies model the users domain by means of complex structures where roles, which represent jobs or responsibilities assumed by users, are specialized into more concrete subroles which inherit properties and authorizations from their parents. Such an approach can be applied within the context of educational applications, where different roles are easily identified each of which has different views of the same information items and different capabilities to modify them. Moreover, even though this approach, has only been oriented towards modeling security requirements, it can be extended to support personalized access to the information. In this paper, we describe how to combine the basic principles of RBAC policies and adaptation with a view of providing personalized access to the different types of users of a web-based course. Moreover, we also present Courba, a platform to generate personalized web-based courses using XML to support the definition of access policies

An Object-Oriented Approach to Knowledge Representation in a Biomedical Domain

An object-oriented approach has been applied to the different stages involved in developing a knowledge base about insulin metabolism. At an early stage the separation of terminological and assertional knowledge was made. The terminological component was developed by medical experts and represented in CORE. An object-oriented knowledge acquisition process was applied to the assertional knowledge. A frame description is proposed which includes features like states and events, inheritance and collaboration. States and events are formalized with qualitative calculus. The terminological knowledge was very useful in the development of the assertional component. It assisteed in understanding the problem domain, and in the implementation stage, it assisted in building good inheritance hierarchies

An Exploration of the Roles Values Play in Design Decision-Making

The paper presents the findings of a study into design decision-making and specifically the use of values during design decision-making. It briefly describes the development of a taxonomy of values used in design decision-making developed from a series of pilot interviews, protocol analysis and focus groups. This was necessary because although the values agenda is not new, previous studies were found to have gaps, or did not reflect the current state of play. From this more in-depth case studies were carried out to explore the influence of values in design decision-making. Eight designers were asked to design a lectern out of sustainable materials. They were given one day to complete the project. For one hour during the day they were asked to ‘talk aloud’ while being videoed, also known as concurrent verbalisation and protocol analysis. They also took part in a 40 minute retrospective interview about their design work, at the end of the day. One designer was asked to complete a ten day design project in order to verify the results against a longitudinal project. They also took part in a 40 minute retrospective interview at the end of the project. The paper presents some of the rich data collected during the study. And illustrates the ability to research the role of values in design decision-making. The data generated shows values driving many of the decisions designers make including the way in which they cognitively organise their design activity and through which they can reduce avenues of enquiry. Keywords: Design Decision-Making, Knowledge, Skills, Values, Empirical Evidence, Research Methods</p