Visualizing practices in project-based design : tracing connections through cascades of visual representations

Project-based design involves a variety of visual representations, which are evolved to make decisions and accomplish project objectives. Yet, such mediated and distributed ways of working are difficult to capture through ethnographies that examine situated design. A novel approach is developed that follows cascades of visual representations; and this is illustrated through two empirical studies. In the first case, Heathrow Terminal 5, analysis starts from paper- and model-work used to develop design, tracing connections forward to an assembly manual that forms a ‘consolidated cascade ’ of visual representations . In th e second, the Turning Torso, Malmö, analysis starts from a planning document, trac ing connections backward to the paper - and model - work done to produce this consolidated cascade . Th is work makes a twofold contribution : First, it offer s a methodological app roach that supplements ethnographies of situated design. This allows the researcher to be nimble, tracing connections across complex engineering projects; reconstructing practices through their visual representations; and observing their effects. Second, it articulate s how , in these empirical cases, interaction with a cascade of visual representations enabled participants in project - based design to develop and share understanding. T he complexity of projects , and their distributed and mediated nature makes this approach timely and important in address ing new research questions and practical challenges

Stop! planner time: metareasoning for probabilistic planning using learned performance profiles

The metareasoning framework aims to enable autonomous agents to factor in planning costs when making decisions. In this work, we develop the first non-myopic metareasoning algorithm for planning with Markov decision processes. Our method learns the behaviour of anytime probabilistic planning algorithms from performance data. Specifically, we propose a novel model for metareasoning, based on contextual performance profiles that predict the value of the planner’s current solution given the time spent planning, the state of the planning algorithm’s internal parameters, and the difficulty of the planning problem being solved. This model removes the need to assume that the current solution quality is always known, broadening the class of metareasoning problems that can be addressed. We then employ deep reinforcement learning to learn a policy that decides, at each timestep, whether to continue planning or start executing the current plan, and how to set hyperparameters of the planner to enhance its performance. We demonstrate our algorithm’s ability to perform effective metareasoning in two domains

Will private property rights ‘trump’ public rights to use coastal land, under climate change conditions?

Many coastal land titles in New South Wales are already at risk from shoreline recession and more will become affected, as local impacts of global climate change, specifically higher sea levels and more extreme weather events, produce more erosion and inundation of coastal lands. This thesis explores the claimed private property ‘right’ to defend against the sea to protect private land from coastal erosion, and the risks this poses to the public rights to use the foreshore and coastal waters for bathing, surfing or navigation, in the foreseeable future, as coastal lands experience ‘coastal squeeze’, due to rising sea levels and fixed seawalls. This term from biological and tourism contexts, is applied to these public rights and likely impacts on future social, economic and ecological uses of coastal lands as they are squeezed, are discussed and illustrated using original diagrams. The problem is thus defined: claimed private property rights conflict with existing public rights, competing for priority use of the foreshore. As a step towards ascertaining whose rights would prevail in future conflicts, the thesis examines these competing rights and investigates which rights are dominant in current law. Guidance is sought from the courts and NSW legislature as arbiters of similar prior conflicts. Senior appeal court decisions and statutory provisions in five fields of law applicable to coastal lands in this jurisdiction are reviewed, and their relative status under current law is established. However it is posited that a future government could adopt a policy to reverse the status quo, but to do so would need to obtain the legislature’s support for enabling legislation. Hence to estimate possible future events a diverse range of potential responses by a future government to emerging conflicts over competing rights, are identified. A suite of philosophical views which may influence future government policy on whose rights should prevail, are canvassed. Criteria, on ethical land management and successful public policy, drawn from relevant literature, are used to assess the merits of these potential responses. Using these assessments and three political criteria, the responses most likely to be pursued are identified. With a credible forecast of the likely policy environment of the future, the question, ‘will private property rights trump public rights to use coastal lands under climate change conditions?’ is answered in the negative

Enforcing Environmental Regulation: Implications of Remote Sensing Technology

We review economic models of environmental protection and regulatory enforcement to highlight several attributes that are particularly likely to benefit from new enforcement technologies such as remote sensing using satellites in space. These attributes include the quantity and quality of information supplied by the new technologies; the accessibility of the information to regulators, regulatees, and third parties; the cost of the information; and whether the process of information collection can be concealed from the observer. Satellite remote sensing is likely to influence all of these attributes and in general, improve the efficacy of enforcement.

The Future of the Louisiana Waterways Transport System: A System Analysis and Plan to Move Commerce by Water

LTRC Project Number: 20-1SSSIO Number: DOTLT1000330Moving commerce by water represents 25 percent of all goods movements within the state of Louisiana and is a critical component of the multimodal transportation system in the state [1]. To be best positioned for future development and investment, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development's (DOTD) Office of Multimodal Commerce (OMC) requested a comprehensive, statewide waterways transportation system plan. The plan would be capable of dovetailing into, and be a complement for, the Louisiana Statewide Transportation Plan. In doing so, it will provide the OMC the ability to identify potential chokepoints in the multimodal commerce network and ultimately assist in the development of strategies and capital investment programs to relieve these chokepoints through running \u201cwhat-if\u201d scenarios of the impacts of potential modal shifts on localized congestion

What are the factors affecting information quality in supply chains?

This study answered what factors affect information quality in supply chains. It identified the factors leading to information quality, the association between these factors and the organisational context, which moderates the relationship between these factors and information quality. Many of these moderating factors were found to result from cultural differences

Redeveloping Regional Economies for Present and Future Generations: Prosperity for People Within Ecological Limits

Many scientists and scholars believe the world is headed toward multiple ecological and social crises during the lifetime of much of the world\u27s population. If they are correct, a shift in how economies work will be necessary. We will no longer be able to rely on the ever expanding use of natural resources with the attendant pollution from their extraction, processing, transport, disposal, and social costs including civil disruptions and wars associated with greater scarcity. A number of proposals have been made that offer either comprehensive or partial solutions to the regional and global dimensions of these impending crises. One intriguing voluntary and business-oriented solution proposes a framework for trustees for future generations to access sufficient capital for the redevelopment of local economies. They would use the funds, principally raised by long-term bonds, to solicit competitive proposals from business and other partnerships to contract to deliver carefully measured outcomes needed by both current and future generations. This paper critically analyzes this solution and reviews other proposed or existing solutions. It concludes that this new approach should be evaluated and demonstrated along with others to test the viability of tools that could be used to achieve both necessary short and essential long-term outcomes. New tools include long-term finance for life cycle measured outcomes, an institutional framework for contracts with businesses and others to deliver the outcomes, including early replacement of the most problematic infrastructure and systems, and ultimately market mechanisms to enhance revenue from aggregation and sale of standardized outcomes to the global finance community

Fungible Space: Competition and Volatility in the Global Logistics Network

This article examines an emerging form of interspatial competition premised on attracting cargo traffic and value‐added logistics activities. Against the backdrop of economic globalization and the revolution in logistics, place‐based actors are increasingly vying to insert their localities into transnational supply chains. I explore the causes, conditions and consequences of this burgeoning growth strategy through a study of the dynamics surrounding the expansion of the Panama Canal, opened to shipping traffic in June 2016, and the consequent battle among North American ports to attract a new generation of oversized container vessels. The spatial practices of mobile actors in the logistics industry, I argue, represent the leading edge of capitalism's tendency to render places interchangeable—a condition I call fungible space. The abstract logic of spatial substitution, however, can never fully escape the concrete qualities of particular places, which form the very conditions of interchangeability itself. This dialectic of spatial fungibility and geographic specificity has intensified rivalries for volatile commodity flows and made logistics‐oriented development a particularly risky growth strategy for cities. What is at stake in these speculative ventures is the welfare of vulnerable communities and workers, who disproportionately bear the costs and risks of supply‐chain volatility

Scaling up pro-poor land recordation:Findings and consequences of three peri-urban cases from sub-Saharan Africa

Scaling up promotion of land rights and improved access to land for the poor, women and other vulnerable groups has been at the core of the global land community’s agenda. The pro-poor land recordation tool (PPLRT) offers an alternative approach to both conventional and emergent responsible land tools, which can be implemented on its own and in combination with other tools. It has recently been tested for various types of rural contexts. This article further develops the PPLRT based on literature review on peri-urban challenges and three documented peri-urban cases in sub-Saharan African cities. It recommends refinement of three design elements, especially related to peri-urban characteristics of rapid changes in landholdership, land fragmentation and asymmetry of actors in conflict resolution. Further research needs to include other continents, contexts with land appropriation, and attend to topics of local weighting of evidence, impacts of pro-poor land recordation, and contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda

Business process resource networks: a multi-theoretical study of continuous organisational transformation

Drawing on multiple theoretical lenses, this research studies continuous transformation, or ‘morphing’, of a business process resource network (BPRN). The aim is to further our understanding of continuous organisational change at the lowest levels of analysis within an organisation: that is, at the resource level, and that resource’s relationships to other resources as they exist within a BPRN. Data was gathered from a single, in depth case study. Analysis was achieved by means of mapping BPRN evolution using ‘temporal bracketing’, ‘visual’ and ‘narrative’ approaches (Langley, 1999). The analysis revealed two mechanisms that appear to govern microstate morphing: bond strength and stakeholder expectation. In addition, four factors emerged as important: environmental turbulence, timing and timeliness of changes, concurrency of changes, and enduring business logic. An emergent model of microstate morphing which acknowledges the importance of socio-materiality in actor network morphogenesis (ANM) is presented. This study shows how effective relationships and configuration of resources within the BPRN can be achieved to facilitate timely, purposeful morphing. Five propositions are offered from the emergent ANM model. Specifically, these relate to the conditional operating parameters and the identified generative mechanisms for continuous organisational transformation within the BPRN. Implications for practice are significant. A heuristic discussion guide containing a series of questions framed around the ANM model to highlight the challenges of microstate morphing for practitioners is proposed. Two routes for future research are suggested: replication studies, and quantifying BPRN change in relation to an organisation’s environment using a ii survey instrument and inferential statistical analysis based on the ANM model features and propositions