COPE: Interactive Exploration of Co-occurrence Patterns in Spatial Time Series.

Spatial time series is a common type of data dealt with in many domains, such as economic statistics and environmental science. There have been many studies focusing on finding and analyzing various kinds of events in time series; the term 'event' refers to significant changes or occurrences of particular patterns formed by consecutive attribute values. We focus on a further step in event analysis: finding and exploring events that frequently co-occurred with a target class of similar events having occurred repeatedly over a period of time. This type of analysis can provide important clues for understanding the formation and spreading mechanisms of events and interdependencies among spatial locations. We propose a visual exploration framework COPE (Co-Occurrence Pattern Exploration), which allows users to extract events of interest from data and detect various co-occurrence patterns among them. Case studies and expert reviews were conducted to verify the effectiveness and scalability of COPE using two real-world datasets

Deep Time-Series Clustering: A Review

We present a comprehensive, detailed review of time-series data analysis, with emphasis on deep time-series clustering (DTSC), and a case study in the context of movement behavior clustering utilizing the deep clustering method. Specifically, we modified the DCAE architectures to suit time-series data at the time of our prior deep clustering work. Lately, several works have been carried out on deep clustering of time-series data. We also review these works and identify state-of-the-art, as well as present an outlook on this important field of DTSC from five important perspectives

Clustering and Classification for Time Series Data in Visual Analytics: A Survey

Visual analytics for time series data has received a considerable amount of attention. Different approaches have been developed to understand the characteristics of the data and obtain meaningful statistics in order to explore the underlying processes, identify and estimate trends, make decisions and predict the future. The machine learning and visualization areas share a focus on extracting information from data. In this paper, we consider not only automatic methods but also interactive exploration. The ability to embed efficient machine learning techniques (clustering and classification) in interactive visualization systems is highly desirable in order to gain the most from both humans and computers. We present a literature review of some of the most important publications in the field and classify over 60 published papers from six different perspectives. This review intends to clarify the major concepts with which clustering or classification algorithms are used in visual analytics for time series data and provide a valuable guide for both new researchers and experts in the emerging field of integrating machine learning techniques into visual analytics

Finding Better Words: Markets, Property, Rights, and Resources

To use or conserve environmental and natural resources effectively is complex. Many economists believe that institutional solutions built around markets and property rights can help improve results. This approach addresses what Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto termed the “missing lessons of U.S. history”— institutions whose designers may not have understood the outcomes that would occur, but the results were generally beneficial. However, technical economic analysis generally fails to persuade many at the policy level. Adding a focus on the practicality of solving issues by voluntary action will enrich the policy discussions. To do so requires economists to provide concrete examples of how to resolve environmental issues. In this Article, we contrast the narratives given to support markets and property rights and state-centered solutions. The analysis suggests how to frame issues to increase opportunities for market and property rights solutions to be more broadly considered. In short, economists must stop talking past the dedicated environmentalists who have learned to communicate effectively with the public but often lack cost-effective alternatives to address environmental problems that economists can provide. Better narratives allow economists to join the public conversation successfully

Finding Better Words: Markets, Property, Rights, and Resources

To use or conserve environmental and natural resources effectively is complex. Many economists believe that institutional solutions built around markets and property rights can help improve results. This approach addresses what Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto termed the “missing lessons of U.S. history”— institutions whose designers may not have understood the outcomes that would occur, but the results were generally beneficial. However, technical economic analysis generally fails to persuade many at the policy level. Adding a focus on the practicality of solving issues by voluntary action will enrich the policy discussions. To do so requires economists to provide concrete examples of how to resolve environmental issues. In this Article, we contrast the narratives given to support markets and property rights and state-centered solutions. The analysis suggests how to frame issues to increase opportunities for market and property rights solutions to be more broadly considered. In short, economists must stop talking past the dedicated environmentalists who have learned to communicate effectively with the public but often lack cost-effective alternatives to address environmental problems that economists can provide. Better narratives allow economists to join the public conversation successfully

Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Computing

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a subject garnering increasing attention in both academia and the industry today. The understanding is that AI-enhanced methods and techniques create a variety of opportunities related to improving basic and advanced business functions, including production processes, logistics, financial management and others. As this collection demonstrates, AI-enhanced tools and methods tend to offer more precise results in the fields of engineering, financial accounting, tourism, air-pollution management and many more. The objective of this collection is to bring these topics together to offer the reader a useful primer on how AI-enhanced tools and applications can be of use in today’s world. In the context of the frequently fearful, skeptical and emotion-laden debates on AI and its value added, this volume promotes a positive perspective on AI and its impact on society. AI is a part of a broader ecosystem of sophisticated tools, techniques and technologies, and therefore, it is not immune to developments in that ecosystem. It is thus imperative that inter- and multidisciplinary research on AI and its ecosystem is encouraged. This collection contributes to that

Particle scavenging by water drops in an ultrasonic standing wave field

Currently the backbone of the world\u27s energy supply is composed of fossil fuels. However, the combustion of fossil fuels results in the production of enormous quantities of particulate pollutants. The smog resulting from these particulate pollutants causes significant health problem for city dwellers. Wet scrubbers, which use a water spray to scavenge airborne particles, is one of the most widely used devices to control particulate pollutants. Typical wet scrubbers can scavenge particles with diameters bigger than 10 um, but it is inefficient in scavenging particles with diameters on the order of 1 um. Unfortunately these fine particles are more dangerous than the coarse particles since fine particles can penetrate deep into human lungs. This dissertation is an investigation into the use of ultrasonics to enhance the ability of wet scrubbers to scavenge fine particles. The first part of the investigation involves testing a combination of water spray and ultrasonics on the scavenging of fine particles in a small scale scrubber. A stream of air laden with particles was flowed into the scrubber with a water spray. Experiments were conducted with and without the presence of an ultrasonic standing wave field inside the scrubber over a range of parameters: water flow rate, air flow rate, particle size and spray drop size. Compared to the water spray alone, significant increases in the scavenging of particles were observed when the water spray was combined with the standing wave field in these experiments. The second part of the investigation involves a determination of the mechanism that causes the increase in particle scavenging of a water spray in the presence of an ultrasonic standing wave field. A review of existing theories showed that the acoustic radiation force generated by an ultrasonic standing wave field can influence the motion of the aerosols in the standing wave field. These theories predict that the spray drops used in these experiments would migrate toward the pressure nodes of the standing wave field. However, for the micron-scaled particles investigated here, some theories predict that the particles would migrate toward the pressure nodes, while other theories predict that they would migrate toward the pressure anti-nodes. Experiments were conducted where particles having a range of diameters were flowed into the region of a standing wave field and their locations in the standing wave field were recorded. Results obtained from these experiments show that the particles with diameters larger than 0.3±0.1 um would migrate toward the pressure nodes while the particles with diameters smaller than 0.3±0.1 um would migrate toward the pressure anti-nodes. A theory of the acoustic radiation force that agrees with these results was selected to build a model. This model was used to simulate the trajectories of the spray drops and the particles in the scrubber. Results obtained from the simulations show that the increased scavenging is caused by an increase in particles combining with spray drops in the pressure nodes of the standing wave field

Impact of urban form on concentration of air pollutants within street canyons at pedestrian level

Recent estimates published by WHO reported that in 2018 air pollution caused eight million premature deaths worldwide. The same report highlighted that outdoor air pollution was responsible for 4.2 million deaths. This implies that further efforts and mitigations are needed to reduce individuals’ exposure to harmful air pollutants. In this respect, governments around the world developed and published a number of air quality plans and frameworks. However, they either ignored or paid less attention to microclimate and urban form attributes and their impact on air pollution concentrations or dispersion in urban spaces, particularly within urban street canyons. Considering the above, this study postulates that there is a correlation between urban form and air quality. Therefore, the core focus of this thesis is to investigate this relationship in greater depth and to propose a set of recommendations that can create a desirable microclimate within various urban street canyons capable of mitigating air pollution concentrations and thereby reducing its negative impact on human health. This thesis employs a variety of methods, including fieldwork, computational modelling, and correlation analysis, to measure the influence of various street canyon configurations on the concentration of air pollution. The findings of this study confirmed several correlations between air pollution concentrations and urban form within street canyons. This study generated new knowledge on air pollution and microclimate behaviour within various street canyons. It provided recommendations for 30 distinct urban street canyon configurations in order to increase dispersion and protect pedestrians from harmful levels of air pollution. It also offered much needed knowledge and recommendations for urban designers and planners to consider to make informed design decisions to encourage greater dispersion of air pollution within various urban street canyons, particularly in areas with high pedestrian traffic to reduce and limit public exposure to harmful air pollution

A Guideline for Environmental Games (GEG) and a randomized controlled evaluation of a game to increase environmental knowledge related to human population growth

People often have very little knowledge about the impact of unsustainable human population growth on the environment and social well-being especially in developing countries. Therefore, an efficient method should be explored in order to educate, and if possible, to convince the members of the public to realize the environmental and social problems caused by the unsustainable population growth. Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) has been highlighted by some studies as an innovative tool for learning enhancement. While only a handful of studies have scientifically evaluated the impact of DGBL on knowledge outcomes, the approach is an attractive tool to increase knowledge and motivate engagement with environmental issues surrounding population growth because of its potential to improve learners’ motivation and engagement thereby compared to traditional learning approaches. Therefore, the three primary research questions for this study are: 1) "Can a single-player digital game be an appropriate and attractive learning application for the players to gain insight about the relationship between the growing human population and the environmental issues?" 2) "How can we design environmental games for the players to gain insights about the relationship between the growing human population and the environmental issues via playing a game?" and 3) "What are the obstacles preventing the players from adapting environmental knowledge obtained from the learning mediums into the real-life?" To inform the development of an efficacious DGBL game to impact learning outcomes, critical reviews of environmental issues related to population growth as well as critical reviews of commercial and serious environmental games in terms of their educational and motivational values were undertaken in this study. The results of these critical reviews informed the development of a Guideline for Environmental Games (or GEG). The GEG was developed by combining the engaging game technology with environmental learning and persuasion theories. The GEG was then used to inform the development of a prototype game called THE GROWTH; a single-player, quiz-based, city-management game targeting young adolescents and adults. Multiple evaluation methods of the game were used to answer the three key research questions mentioned earlier. These methods included: 1) The Randomized Controlled Trial approach (RCT) where the participants were systematically divided into the experimental and the control group respectively and their knowledge scores (quantitative data) compared and analyzed, 2) The participants’ abilities to recall and describe the environmental and well-being issues were collected and analyzed qualitatively using The Content Analysis method (CA) and, 3) The participants’ overall feedback on the learning mediums was collected and analyzed to evaluate the motivational values of THE GROWTH itself. To this end, THE GROWTH was evaluated with 82 Thai-nationality participants (70 males and 12 females). The results showed that participants assigned to play THE GROWTH demonstrated greater environmental and social-well-being knowledge related to population growth (F(1,40) = 43.86, p = .006) compared to the control group participants assigned to a non-interactive reading activity (consistent with material presented in THE GROWTH). Furthermore, participants who played THE GROWTH recalled on average more content presented in the game when compared to participants who were presented with similar content in the reading material (t (59) = 3.35, p = .001). In terms of level of engagement, the study suggested that participants assigned to the game were more engaging with their learning medium on average when compared to participants assigned to the non-interactive reading activity. This is evidenced by the longer time participants spent on the task, the activity observed from participants’ recorded gameplay, and their positive responses in the survey. The semi-structured interviews used in this study highlighted the participants’ attitudes towards the environmental, social, and technological issues. Although the participants’ perceived behavioural intention towards the environmental commitments were not statistically differed between the two study group, their responses still provide some evidences that leaps may occur from the learning mediums to the real-world context. Furthermore, these responses can be valuable evidences for the policy makers and for the future development of environmental serious games. Overall, the results suggested that digital environmental games such as THE GROWTH might be an effective and motivational tool in promote the learning about sustainable population size, the environment, and the social well-being. The game’s ability to convince the participants to change towards sustainable lifestyles, however, might be subjected to the future research and other real-world circumstances such as the governmental and public supports. In summary, the research in this thesis makes the following contributions to knowledge: • The Guideline for Environmental Games (GEG) contributes to knowledge about making theoretically-based environmental games. It has particular significance because the guideline was validated by demonstrating learning improvements in a systematic randomized controlled trial. • The use of Multi-Strategy Study Design where multiple systematic evaluation methods were used in conjunction to provide conclusive findings about the efficacy of DGBL to impact outcomes. • THE GROWTH itself is a contribution to applied research as an example of an effective DGBL learning tool

Postwachstumsstadt - Konturen einer solidarischen Stadtpolitik

Städte ohne Wachstum - eine bislang kaum vorstellbare Vision. Doch Klimawandel, Ressourcenverschwendung, wachsende soziale Ungleichheiten und viele andere Zukunftsgefahren stellen das bisherige Allheilmittel Wachstum grundsätzlich infrage. Wie wollen wir heute und morgen zusammenleben? Wie gestalten wir ein gutes Leben für alle in der Stadt? Während in einzelnen Nischen diese Fragen bereits ansatzweise beantwortet werden, fehlt es noch immer an umfassenden Entwürfen und Transformationsansätzen, die eine fundamental andere, solidarische Stadt konturieren. Diesen Versuch wagt das Projekt Postwachstumsstadt. In diesem Buch werden konzeptionelle und pragmatische Aspekte aus verschiedenen Bereichen der Stadtpolitik zusammengebracht, die neue Pfade aufzeigen und verknüpfen. Die Beiträge diskutieren städtische Wachstumskrisen, transformative Planung und Konflikte um Gestaltungsmacht. Nicht zuletzt wird dabei auch die Frage nach der Rolle von Stadtutopien neu gestellt. Dadurch soll eine längst fällige Debatte darüber angestoßen werden, wie sich notwendige städtische Wenden durch eine sozialökologische Neuorientierung vor Ort verwirklichen lassen