Perspective study: governance for C2C

This perspective study will serve as frame of reference for follow-up activities and exchanges both within and outside the Cradle to Cradle Network (C2CN) and it aims to reflect the current challenges and opportunities associated with implementing a Cradle to Cradle approach. In total, four perspective studies have been written, in the areas on industry, area spatial development, governance and on the build theme

A Guiding Agent: smart dynamic technology for solving distributed problems.

Mobile technology is everywhere nowadays in the developed world. This technology is mature enough to support intelligent applications and smart devices. Over the last few years we have developed a number of applications for PDAs and Mobile phones. This abstract outlines an information system that incorporate a recommender agent that helps the users of a shopping centre to identify offers, to find people or to define a plan which in the shopping centre for a day. The multiagent architecture incorporates a smart deliberative agent that take decisions with the help of casebased planners. The system that uses past experiences to recommend future actions has been tested successfully

Designing an Information-Experience Using Creativity Science Theory and Tools

An “information-experience” encapsulated by a technological/digital audio-visual tool presents data and potentially meaningful information to prompt actionable knowledge concerning: “unspoken creative process elements;” their profound impacts on both how well our “physiology of creativity” functions; but also on how well foundational creative thinking and behavioral prerequisites (energy, motivation, imagination, and ownership) are leveraged. The product: 1) introduces the user to one component of the CPS (Creative Problem Solving) Facilitation Process - Exploring the Challenge; 2) features a content specific component which prompts exploration of the many correlations between societal, organizational / community, human physiological / behavioral data, and the direct relationships of these to creative/productive capacities and capabilities; while also 3) establishing an overview and resources to delve further into experiences or information concerning the domain of Creativity Science, Innovation, Change Leadership, or wellness/health-driving productivity factors, behaviors, and tools

Local Agenda 21 and ecological urban restructuring: An European model project in Leipzig

AGENDA 21 as one of the final resolutions of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro stresses in chapter 28 the important role of cities, towns and communities in globally sustainable development. One of the most important European model projects in this respect was carried out in Leipzig from 1993 to 1997. The Leipzig Ostraum Project was supported through the LIFE support program of the European Union with the largest subsidy awarded till that time (4,3 mill. DM, with a total project budget of about 20 mill. DM). The central goal of this project is the use, testing and further development of present knowledge with regard to sustainable urban restructuring in combination with innovative strategies of economic and employment policies. The scope of traditional urban ecology is extended to comprise adjacent rural areas and to revitalize regional material flows. In the meantime, affiliated projects have won support by the THERMIE program of the European Union and the EXWOST-program of the German Federal Ministry of Construction. This paper reports on the most important results of the Leipzig Project to date. In particular, the authors show that the concept of ecological urban restructuring and the Local Agenda 21 are in harmony with one another and can play a decisive role in stimulating consensus on future urban development. All urban actors can be winners in this process. Difficulties arose, however, through dishonest use of financial support by the project agency. -- Die AGENDA 21, Abschlußdokument der UN-Konferenz über Umwelt und Entwicklung im Juni 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, betont in ihrem Kapitel 28 die Rolle der Kommunen, Städte und Gemeinden bei einer global zukunftsfähigen Entwickung (sustainable development). Eines der wichtigsten europäischen Modellprojekte zu diesem Thema wurde in den Jahren 1993 bis 1997 in Leipzig durchgeführt. Zentrale Zielstellung des mit der bisher höchsten Fördersumme aus dem LIFEProgramm der Europäischen Kommission (4,3 Mio DM bei einem Projektvolumen von knapp 20 Mio DM) geförderten Leipziger Ostraum-Projektes ist die Anwendung und Weiterentwicklung des Erkenntnisstandes zum Thema des zukunftsfähigen Städtebaus in Kombination mit innovativen Strategien einer ökologischen Wirtschafts- und Beschäftigungspolitik. Die traditionelle Stadtökologie wird erweitert durch die Einbeziehung der Umlandgemeinden und die Revitalisierung regionaler Stoffkreisläufe. Inzwischen sind ergänzende Tochterprojekte mit Förderung aus dem THERMIE-Programm der Europäischen Kommission und dem EXWOST-Programm des Bundesbauministeriums eingeworben werden. In dem Paper wird über die wichtigsten bisherigen Ergebnisse des Projektes berichtet. Insbesondere wird gezeigt, daß die Konzepte des Ökologischen Stadtumbaus und der Lokalen Agenda 21 miteinander harmonieren und eine konsensstiftende Funktion in der zukünftigen Stadtentwicklung übernehmen können. Alle städtischen Akteure können Winner in diesem Prozeß sein. Durch unredlichen Umgang des Projektträgers mit den Fördergeldern war das Leipziger Projekt in jüngster Zeit allerdings in Schwierigkeiten geraten.

Web Data Extraction, Applications and Techniques: A Survey

Web Data Extraction is an important problem that has been studied by means of different scientific tools and in a broad range of applications. Many approaches to extracting data from the Web have been designed to solve specific problems and operate in ad-hoc domains. Other approaches, instead, heavily reuse techniques and algorithms developed in the field of Information Extraction. This survey aims at providing a structured and comprehensive overview of the literature in the field of Web Data Extraction. We provided a simple classification framework in which existing Web Data Extraction applications are grouped into two main classes, namely applications at the Enterprise level and at the Social Web level. At the Enterprise level, Web Data Extraction techniques emerge as a key tool to perform data analysis in Business and Competitive Intelligence systems as well as for business process re-engineering. At the Social Web level, Web Data Extraction techniques allow to gather a large amount of structured data continuously generated and disseminated by Web 2.0, Social Media and Online Social Network users and this offers unprecedented opportunities to analyze human behavior at a very large scale. We discuss also the potential of cross-fertilization, i.e., on the possibility of re-using Web Data Extraction techniques originally designed to work in a given domain, in other domains.Comment: Knowledge-based System

Planning with water and traffic networks: Carrying structures of the urban landscape

The two networks strategy is a guiding model for planning and design that takes the networks of water and traffic as carrying structures. Its origin is in the early 1990s when it resulted from research by design projects aiming at the generation of tools for making urban development and the urban landscape more ecological. Reviewing practical experiences is one reason to look again at the strategy. A second reason is to explore the possible contribution to current debates such as those about complexity, landscape urbanism and landscape as infrastructure. The origin of the two networks strategy goes back to Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature and Michael Hough’s City Form and Natural Process. Inspired by them, the approach does not, in the first place, take nature and ecology to create limiting but carrying conditions. This asks for carrying structures. In the urban landscape there are at least three crucial fields of synergy between activities that ask for carrying structures: the territorial or spatial field or the area perspective, the activities related to flows that pass through these areas or the flow perspective, and the human activities involved in the plan and in the planning process or the actor perspective. The two networks create conditions for two multi-functional environments of synergy. The fast lane is the competitive profit-oriented zone where efficient production comes first. The traffic network is the carrier. The slow lane is the co-operation based non-profit oriented zone where water safety and quality, landscape and heritage, biodiversity, recreation and local food production are brought together. Here, the water network based on the drainage pattern is the carrier

Sustainability in design: now! Challenges and opportunities for design research, education and practice in the XXI century

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