The wicked and complex in education: developing a transdisciplinary perspective for policy formulation, implementation and professional practice

The concept of 'wicked issues', originally developed in the field of urban planning, has been taken up by design educators, architects and public health academics where the means for handling 'wicked issues' has been developed through 'reflective practice'. In the education of teachers, whilst reflective practice has been a significant feature of professional education, the problems to which this has been applied are principally 'tame' ones. In this paper, the authors argue that there has been a lack of crossover between two parallel literatures. The literature on 'wicked issues' does not fully recognise the difficulties with reflective practice and that in education which extols reflective practice, is not aware of the 'wicked' nature of the problems which confront teachers and schools. The paper argues for a fresh understanding of the underlying nature of problems in education so that more appropriate approaches can be devised for their resolution. This is particularly important at a time when the government in England is planning to make teaching a masters level profession, briefly defined by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) benchmark statement as 'Decision-making in complex and unpredictable situations'. The paper begins by locating the argument and analysis of 'wicked problems' within the nature of social complexity and chaos. The second part of the paper explores implications for those involved in policy formation, implementation and service provision. Given the range of stakeholders in education, the paper argues for a trans-disciplinary approach recognising the multiple perspectives and methodologies leading to the acquisition of reticulist skills and knowledge necessary to boundary cross. © 2009 Taylor & Francis

Sustainability ranking of desalination plants using Mamdani Fuzzy Logic Inference Systems

As water desalination continues to expand globally, desalination plants are continually under pressure to meet the requirements of sustainable development. However, the majority of desalination sustainability research has focused on new desalination projects, with limited research on sustainability performance of existing desalination plants. This is particularly important while considering countries with limited resources for freshwater such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as it is heavily reliant on existing desalination infrastructure. In this regard, the current research deals with the sustainability analysis of desalination processes using a generic sustainability ranking framework based on Mamdani Fuzzy Logic Inference Systems. The fuzzy-based models were validated using data from two typical desalination plants in the UAE. The promising results obtained from the fuzzy ranking framework suggest this more in-depth sustainability analysis should be beneficial due to its flexibility and adaptability in meeting the requirements of desalination sustainability

From individual Fuzzy Cognitive Maps to Agent Based Models: modelling multi-factorial and multi-stakeholder decision-making for water scarcity

Policy making for complex Social-Ecological Systems (SESs) is a multi-factorial and multi-stakeholder decision making process. Therefore, proper policy simulation in a SES should consider both the complex behavior of the system and the multi-stakeholders’ interventions into the system, which requires integrated methodological approaches. In this study, we simulate impacts of policy options on a farming community facing water scarcity in Rafsanjan, Iran, using an integrated modeling methodology combining an Agent Based Model (ABM) with Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM). First, the behavioral rules of farmers and the causal relations among environmental variables are captured with FCMs that are developed with both qualitative and quantitative data, i.e. farmers’ knowledge and empirical data from studies. Then, an ABM is developed to model decisions and actions of farmers and simulate their impacts on overall groundwater use and emigration of farmers in this case study. Finally, the impacts of different policy options are simulated and compared with a baseline scenario. The results suggest that a policy of facilitating farmers’ participation in management and control of their groundwater use leads to the highest reduction of groundwater use and would help to secure farmers’ activities in Rafsanjan. Our approach covers four main aspects that are crucial for policy simulation in SESs: 1) causal relationships, 2) feedback mechanisms, 3) social-spatial heterogeneity and 4) temporal dynamics. This approach is particularly useful for ex-ante policy options analysis

Remembering the future: An overview of co-evolution in musical improvisation

Musical improvisation is driven mainly by the unconscious mind, engaging the dialogic imagination to reference the entire cultural heritage of an improvisor in a single flash. This paper introduces a case study of evolutionary computation techniques, in particular genetic co-evolution, as applied to the frequency domain using MPEG7 techniques, in order to create an artificial agent that mediates between an improvisor and her unconscious mind, to probe and unblock improvisatory action in live music performance or practice

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 309)

This bibliography lists 136 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in February, 1988

The 1990 progress report and future plans

This document describes the progress and plans of the Artificial Intelligence Research Branch (RIA) at ARC in 1990. Activities span a range from basic scientific research to engineering development and to fielded NASA applications, particularly those applications that are enabled by basic research carried out at RIA. Work is conducted in-house and through collaborative partners in academia and industry. Our major focus is on a limited number of research themes with a dual commitment to technical excellence and proven applicability to NASA short, medium, and long-term problems. RIA acts as the Agency's lead organization for research aspects of artificial intelligence, working closely with a second research laboratory at JPL and AI applications groups at all NASA centers

Integration of e-business strategy for multi-lifecycle production systems

Internet use has grown exponentially on the last few years becoming a global communication and business resource. Internet-based business, or e-Business will truly affect every sector of the economy in ways that today we can only imagine. The manufacturing sector will be at the forefront of this change. This doctoral dissertation provides a scientific framework and a set of novel decision support tools for evaluating, modeling, and optimizing the overall performance of e-Business integrated multi-lifecycle production systems. The characteristics of this framework include environmental lifecycle study, environmental performance metrics, hyper-network model of integrated e-supply chain networks, fuzzy multi-objective optimization method, discrete-event simulation approach, and scalable enterprise environmental management system design. The dissertation research reveals that integration of e-Business strategy into production systems can alter current industry practices along a pathway towards sustainability, enhancing resource productivity, improving cost efficiencies and reducing lifecycle environmental impacts. The following research challenges and scholarly accomplishments have been addressed in this dissertation: Identification and analysis of environmental impacts of e-Business. A pioneering environmental lifecycle study on the impact of e-Business is conducted, and fuzzy decision theory is further applied to evaluate e-Business scenarios in order to overcome data uncertainty and information gaps; Understanding, evaluation, and development of environmental performance metrics. Major environmental performance metrics are compared and evaluated. A universal target-based performance metric, developed jointly with a team of industry and university researchers, is evaluated, implemented, and utilized in the methodology framework; Generic framework of integrated e-supply chain network. The framework is based on the most recent research on large complex supply chain network model, but extended to integrate demanufacturers, recyclers, and resellers as supply chain partners. Moreover, The e-Business information network is modeled as a overlaid hypernetwork layer for the supply chain; Fuzzy multi-objective optimization theory and discrete-event simulation methods. The solution methods deal with overall system parameter trade-offs, partner selections, and sustainable decision-making; Architecture design for scalable enterprise environmental management system. This novel system is designed and deployed using knowledge-based ontology theory, and XML techniques within an agent-based structure. The implementation model and system prototype are also provided. The new methodology and framework have the potential of being widely used in system analysis, design and implementation of e-Business enabled engineering systems