65,291 research outputs found
Discursive design thinking: the role of explicit knowledge in creative architectural design reasoning
The main hypothesis investigated in this paper is based upon the suggestion that the discursive reasoning in architecture supported by an explicit knowledge of spatial configurations can enhance both design productivity and the intelligibility of design solutions. The study consists of an examination of an architectâs performance while solving intuitively a well-defined problem followed by an analysis of the spatial structure of their design solutions. One group of architects will attempt to solve the design problem logically, rationalizing their design decisions by implementing their explicit knowledge of spatial configurations. The other group will use an implicit form of such knowledge arising from their architectural education to reason about their design acts. An integrated model of protocol analysis combining linkography and macroscopic coding is used to analyze the design processes. The resulting design outcomes will be evaluated quantitatively in terms of their spatial configurations. The analysis appears to show that an explicit knowledge of the rules of spatial configurations, as possessed by the first group of architects can partially enhance their function-driven judgment producing permeable and well-structured spaces. These findings are particularly significant as they imply that an explicit rather than an implicit knowledge of the fundamental rules that make a layout possible can lead to a considerable improvement in both the design process and product. This suggests that by externalizing th
What should a robot learn from an infant? Mechanisms of action interpretation and observational learning in infancy
The paper provides a summary of our
recent research on preverbal infants (using
violation-of-expectation and observational
learning paradigms) demonstrating that one-year-olds interpret and draw systematic
inferences about otherâs goal-directed actions,
and can rely on such inferences when imitating
otherâs actions or emulating their goals. To
account for these findings it is proposed that one-year-olds apply a non-mentalistic action
interpretational system, the âteleological stanceâ
that represents actions by relating relevant
aspects of reality (action, goal-state, and
situational constraints) through the principle of
rational action, which assumes that actions
function to realize goal-states by the most
efficient means available in the actorâs situation.
The relevance of these research findings and the
proposed theoretical model for how to realize the
goal of epigenetic robotics of building a âsocially
relevantâ humanoid robot is discussed
A Visibility and Spatial Constraint-Based Approach for Geopositioning
Over the past decade, automated systems dedicated to geopositioning have been the object of considerable development. Despite the success of these systems for many applications, they cannot be directly applied to qualitative descriptions of space. The research presented in this paper introduces a visibility and constraintbased approach whose objective is to locate an observer from the verbal description of his/her surroundings. The geopositioning process is formally supported by a constraint-satisfaction algorithm. Preliminary experiments are applied to the description of environmental scenes
A Visibility and Spatial Constraint-Based Approach for Geopositioning
Over the past decade, automated systems dedicated to geopositioning have been the object of considerable development. Despite the success of these systems for many applications, they cannot be directly applied to qualitative descriptions of space. The research presented in this paper introduces a visibility and constraintbased approach whose objective is to locate an observer from the verbal description of his/her surroundings. The geopositioning process is formally supported by a constraint-satisfaction algorithm. Preliminary experiments are applied to the description of environmental scenes
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Benefits and challenges of applying Semantic Web Services in the e-Government domain
Joining up services in e-Government usually implies governmental agencies acting in concert without a central control regime. This requires the sharing of scattered and heterogeneous data. Semantic Web Service (SWS) technology can help to integrate, mediate and reason between these datasets. However, since few real-world applications have been developed, it is still unclear which are the actual benefits and issues of adopting such a technology in the e-Government domain. In this paper, we contribute to raising awareness of the potential benefits in the e-Government community by analyzing motivations, requirements, and expected results, before proposing a reusable SWS-based framework. We demonstrate the application of this framework by a compelling use case: a GIS-based emergency planning system. We illustrate the obtained benefits and the key challenges which remain to be addressed
Process Based Management and the Central Role of Dialogical Collective Activity in Organizational Learning. The Case of Work Safety in the Building Industry
The notion of âprocessâ, which describes the cooperation of heterogeneous practices and competences for a given output, has gained a major position in managerial practices for the last twenty years. This paper presents three ideas about organizational dynamics and processes and tests their applicability in the case of work safety improvement in a building company. The first idea is that the success of the process notion shows the central role of âconjointâ (as opposed to âcommonâ) collective activity in organizational learning. Conjoint collective activity is dialogical (âacts speakâ) and mediated by the utilization of semiotic systems (languages and technical and managerial tools). The second idea is that organizational learning is neither based on the actorsâ individual subjectivity nor on the technological and objective artefacts engaged in the processes, but rather on the reflexive understanding and ongoing redesign of processes by the process actors themselves, in the frame of a reflexive inquiry, a âcollective activity about collective activityâ which is triggered and kept in motion by axiological judgments (process evaluation). The third idea is that the possibilities to configure processes in a given organization are multiple. The reflexive inquiry enacts a specific social, spatial and time configuration of the process, its âchronotopeâ in Bakhtinâs vocabulary, which plays a major role in the way actors can make sense of their collective activity and transform it. A longitudinal case study about work safety on the building yards shows that it is difficult to âcontrol outâ risk at work once designs have been established, in the frame of the âproject executionâ process, but it is easier to âdesign outâ risk, when the actors of the process collectively design and redesign their collective activity, from the very first phases of a building project to the end. Therefore a major way to improve safety consists in extending the chronotope of the collective activity under consideration, overcoming the traditional separation between âdesign / planningâ and âexecutionâ. The conclusion summarizes the main theoretical, epistemological and practical issues involved in this research about conjoint collective activity.Business Process; Chronotope; Collective Activity; Collective Sense Making; Dialogism; Inquiry; Process-based Management; Safety Management
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