Defining and delineating the central areas of towns for statistical monitoring using continuous surface representations

The increasing availability of very high spatial resolution data using the unit postcode as its geo-reference is making possible new kinds of urban analysis andmodelling. However, at this resolution the granularity of the data used to representurban functions makes it difficult to apply traditional analytical and modellingmethods. An alternative suggested here is to use kernel density estimation totransform these data from point or area 'objects' into continuous surfaces of spatialdensities. The use of this transformation is illustrated by a study in which we attemptto develop a robust, generally applicable methodology for identifying the centralareas of UK towns for the purpose of statistical reporting and comparison.Continuous density transformations from unit post code data relating to a series ofindicators of town centredness created using ArcView are normalised and thensummed to give a composite ?Index of Town Centredness?. Selection of key contourson these index surfaces enables town centres to be delineated. The work results froma study on behalf of DETR

Post-Series Design: a tool for catalysing the diffusion of personalisable design.

Today a range of increasingly mainstream Digital Fabrication tools help designers not only in prototyping, but also in the production of final parts for consumer products. These hardware tools, while still have significant limitations, they already offer new levels of morphological freedom and logistical flexibility, which allows the efficient production of personalisable products – supposing advanced software tools of Parametric Design. However, since DF, PD and personalisation are still marginal, one may suspect that the Design profession has a shortage of adequate capabilities. Therefore, this contribution proposes a conceptual tool focused on valorising the previous hardware and software tools to achieve meaningfully personalisable products. The proposed canvas tool is structured specifically to facilitate opportunity identification and conceptual design, based on a set of key advantages (variabilities) derived from numerous case studies of existing personalisable products realised with DF. The new approach and tool have been experimented with a class of product design students, but it also aims to facilitate product development at enterprises, coherently with the emerging Industry 4.0 paradigm

Optimal reaction coordinates and kinetic rates from the projected dynamics of transition paths

Finding optimal reaction coordinates and predicting accurate kinetic rates for activated processes are two of the foremost challenges of molecular simulations. We introduce an algorithm that tackles the two problems at once: starting from a limited number of reactive molecular dynamics trajectories (transition paths), we automatically generate with a Monte Carlo approach a sequence of different reaction coordinates that progressively reduce the kinetic rate of their projected effective dynamics. Based on a variational principle, the minimal rate accurately approximates the exact one, and it corresponds to the optimal reaction coordinate. After benchmarking the method on an analytic double-well system, we apply it to complex atomistic systems: the interaction of carbon nanoparticles of different sizes in water.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figure

Multi-Dimensional Development – An Application of Fuzzy Set Theory to the Indian States

Even though India has recently become one of the fastest growing economies of the world and one among the most important G-20 economies, in terms of many development indicators, India has not fared well. Ours is a country of wide diversity in regional, social, economic, political, and cultural dimensions. Different States with different policy mixes have witnessed very different outcomes over the years. Some States have focused only on growth and some States have won laurels in achieving the objectives of both growth and development simultaneously. Analysis of this diversity and disparity across the States in their performance would help us identify useful policies of development. However, many concepts/predicates, such as poverty (or poor) and its opposite, development (or developed), used in economics are both vague/fuzzy and multi-dimensional and their analysis requires careful consideration of a graded membership. This study therefore employs the framework of fuzzy set theory in identifying and analysing the positions of different states in the development ladder, that is, their graded memberships in each development dimension and in aggregation. The development dimensions that we consider are health, knowledge and standard of living. Note that these dimensions are latent factors, that is, unobservable; hence we have to use some indicators to proxy these development dimensions. The indicators of health dimension are: (i) Life expectancy at birth, (ii) Infant mortality rate, (iii) Birth rate, and (iv) Death rate. As an indicator of knowledge we take literacy rate, and that of standard of living, per capita net state domestic product at constant prices prices. The selected states are: Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. The data have been sourced from the Planning Commission of Indi

The Universe of Meanings

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Decision Making Under Uncertainty. Paper Presented on IIASA's 20th Anniversary

IIASA celebrated its twentieth anniversary on May 12-13 with its fourth general conference, IIASA '92: An International Conference on the Challenges to Systems Analysis in the Nineties and Beyond. The conference focused on the relations between environment and development and on studies that integrate the methods and findings of several disciplines. The role of systems analysis, a method especially suited to taking account of the linkages between phenomena and of the hierarchical organization of the natural and social world, was also assessed, taking account of the implications this has for IIASA's research approach and activities. This paper is one of six IIASA Collaborative Papers published as part of the report on the conference, an earlier instalment of which was Science and Sustainability, published in 1992. When policy advisors come to appreciate that real uncertainty will affect the application of their recommendations they usually respond in one of two ways: (1) They may say that there are many possibilities, and then prepare a scenario for each; knowing the options advances the policy maker a little but his real decision making is not advanced, and on that he is left without advice. (2) They say that the uncertainties are so great that action had better be delayed until more is known; this recommendation for inaction is often very attractive to a policymaker, especially if getting more knowledge will mean waiting to enact some unpopular measure until a successor takes over the office. Since there are no situations in which data is complete and exact, what can be done? That question is specially relevant to environmental decisions. At least policy can avoid what is called the prisoners' dilemma, where two people making rational decisions independently, i.e., each not knowing what the other will decide, can put themselves into a worse condition than if they make certain decisions that from the individual viewpoint are irrational, and much worse than if they participate in a collective decision. French indicative planning, now less favored than it was, aims to spread knowledge to each enterprise in an industry of what the competitors are intending, in the hope that that that will mean better decisions all around. A special case is what economists call externality, where a piece of common property is exploited by independent individuals, solitary choosers. One of the questions is whether the prisoner's dilemma and externalities can be handled by dissemination of information alone, or whether some form of compulsion is required, for example compulsion in the form of required pollution permits. These would give those who choose to buy them a marketable permission to exploit, and it can be shown that the outcome is economically superior to any instruction from above. Professor Krasovskii provides some models, simple in form but sophisticated in substance, that show the nature of the problem of uncertainty in decision making, and how at least in theory it can he dealt with