Water Access and Security for Mongolian Peri-Urban Communities in the Face of Climate Change and Development

The paper attempts to assess how water access and security in Mongolian ger districts is impacted by the competing forces of climate change and development. The development of Mongolia is, understandably, a priority of the government and much of the populace, as are the impacts of climate change, which are well documented and acknowledged. Furthermore, these processes both have potentially adverse impacts on the overall well being of communities. In the context of water access and security, the need to strike this balance becomes even more acute. These factors can all be seen playing out in the city of Sainshand, in Dornogovi aimag, in the South Gobi. Finding this balance defines the overarching theme of the paper, and the following questions will be asked in an attempt to begin to understand how best to integrate these interests for more successful water management overall in the context of Sainshand and its ger districts – What are people’s current water-related needs and concerns and are those being adequately addressed? Has there been any change seen in water access and water resource allocation in recent years? What are the existing plans for adaptation in the face of climate change and development and how are those plans being implemented? While water access is generally acceptable for ger district dwellers, issues still remain, and despite the very recent passage of a water security plan for Dornogovi aimag, there is still much that can and should be done to ensure sustainable water access and security. These issues are created by, namely, gaps in data created by lack of research and a high division of responsibility in regards to water resource management, both at the aimag level, and a lack of community participation in key decision-making

Improving building function: an analysis of design management processes and operational planning in the development of hospital food service systems.

The complexity of future societies will be reflected not only in the buildings that are created but also in the processes that evolve such buildings. Within the construction industry, and specifically in relation to large, complex multi-user buildings, operational planning and design processes will assume greater importance than ever before. Given that increasing complexity is likely to lead to increasing specialism and differentiation amongst the main contributing parties in a construction procurement project, it is also likely that there will be more disruption of the communication and organisation processes central to project procurement. These effects will be transmitted through the procurement process and manifest themselves in various ways in the final product. The most important of these will be the damaging effect which they will have on building function, where function determines the buildings' ability to serve as a facilitator of intended user group activities. Research has been undertaken to rationalise building design, operational planning and building function in the construction procurement process. Maintaining unity between the different parties responsible for building design and operational planning decisions is hypothesised as the key factor in evolving successful project procurement outcomes in terms of building function. Research into hospital food service building procurement processes has demonstrated that when building design and operational planning processes are not developed in concordance with one another, then deficiencies in the functioning of the food service system resulted. Seventeen design/operation mis-match outcome deficiencies were identified across three hospital construction projects. On further analysis of these project outcome deficiencies, it was apparent that the majority were due to problems that had arisen because design team members and user specialists had been unable to relate different aspects of system functioning adequately. In particular, there appeared to be an inability to incorporate effectively the catering technological and associated service aspects into the design solution, i.e. the elements that were not purely architectural. Some of these functional relationship problems were relatively simple and did not require significant design or user expertise. The most problematic deficiencies emerged when different components of the food service system (central production unit, distribution system and ward service) were not effectively integrated. Proposals are made for a planning framework which will maintain greater congruence between building design, operational planning and building function during the procurement process by allowing project contributors to assess the impact of different building design and operational planning decisions on the human/building interface. The planning framework focuses decision making around a set of critical relationships identified between the components of the building solution, so that any potential divergence caused by environmental pressures can be offset by corrective action using the critical relationships as the parameters upon which successful function must be based. This approach is a pre-requisite for the future construction procurement process in order to improve building function, particularly for complex, multi-user buildings

Management control of supplier relationships in manufacturing: a case study in the automotive industry.

This paper studies management control design of supplier relationships in manufacturing, a supply chain phase currently under-explored. Compared to supplier relations during procurement and R&D, which research found to be governed by a combination of formal and informal controls, supplier relations in manufacturing are more formal, so that they could be governed by more formal and less informal controls. To refine the management control system and influencing contingencies, we propose a theoretical framework specifically adapted for the manufacturing stage. This framework is investigated by an in depth case study of the supplier management control of a Volvo Cars production facility. We identify three types of suppliers visualizing the associations in the framework and illustrating the framework’s explicative power in (automotive) manufacturing. Furthermore, the case contradicts that supplier relations in the manufacturing phase are governed by little informal control, because the automaker highly values the role of trust building and social pressure. Most notably, a structured supplier team functions as a clan and establishes informal control among participating suppliers, which strengthens the automaker’s control on dyadic supplier relations.management control; supplier relationships; manufacturing; contingency theory; case research;

Wear and impact analysis of granular materials using Discrete Element Method simulations

Wear models for abrasion, ductile erosion, brittle erosion and combined erosion are implemented into a Discrete Element Method program utilising the linear spring dashpot model. A linear damage model is developed, implemented and then applied to an industrial case study through which it is found to predict wear accurately and provide a good insight into the improvement based on material change using the abrasion models. Four methods of creating energy based modelling were created for specific use inside DEM and contrasted with known wear models to assess what mechanisms they may potentially replicate. Through use with DEM, this allows use with a Single Element Failure criteria which can rapidly assess a variety of material changes inside a system to take steps to de-risk potential industrial trials. Design changes were made to assess the effects on both wear/energy models and provide predictions for causes and possible side effects. The effect of particle kinetics were assessed with respect to angle of impact, mass flow rate and coefficient of restitution to determine how this impacts wear modelling in DEM

Design for sustainable behaviour: a quick fix for slower consumption?

The continuous replacement of durable consumer goods and disposal of functioning or repairable products into UK landfills or, increasingly, to developing countries, has resulted in global environmental and social consequences. Small appliances, which are easily disposed of in household waste, typically end up in UK landfills, are shipped to developing countries or otherwise ‘lost’. Very few are recycled or repaired, yet many are still functioning when disposed of. Consumers’ willingness, opportunity and ability to carry out repairs have historically been hampered by a range of complex factors. Design for Sustainable Behaviour (DfSB) aims to reduce the environmental and social impacts of products by moderating users’ interaction with them. This paper explores how DfSB strategies can be used to encourage a behavioural shift towards repair of small electrical household appliances by overcoming identified barriers. The paper pulls together literature on repair practice, highlighting gaps in current knowledge and outlines the findings of an extensive UK household survey focused on both product breakage rates and consumer mending behaviour. Three mending typologies and associated personas resulting from the analysis are combined with three DfSB strategies to develop conceptual design interventions to encourage repair. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential efficacy of the design outcomes from a consumer perspective and the potential ramifications for design practice, whilst considering the wider influences on repair practices beyond design and how these may be addressed

Predicting build outcomes in continuous integration using textual analysis of source code commits

Machine learning has been increasingly used to solve various software engineering tasks. One example of its usage is to predict the outcome of builds in continuous integration, where a classifier is built to predict whether new code commits will successfully compile. The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of fifteen software metrics in building a classifier for build outcome prediction. Particularly, we implemented an experiment wherein we compared the effectiveness of a line-level metric and fourteen other traditional software metrics on 49,040 build records that belong to 117 Java projects. We achieved an average precision of 91% and recall of 80% when using the line-level metric for training, compared to 90% precision and 76% recall for the next best traditional software metric. In contrast, using file-level metrics was found to yield a higher predictive quality (average MCC for the best software metric= 68%) than the line-level metric (average MCC= 16%) for the failed builds. We conclude that file-level metrics are better predictors of build outcomes for the failed builds, whereas the line-level metric is a slightly better predictor of passed builds

University-industry communication for economic growth and innovation

University and industry (U-I) are the main sources of knowledge and innovation which are increasingly becoming the main pillar of competitiveness at micro and macro level. Despite potential synergies and benefits for the involved agentes, economies and society, communication between university and industry in the scope of innovation remains limited for decades. While a number of tools exists to stimulate U-I communication for innovation and the recognition for the need to ensure crossfertilising academic and industrial resources is increasing, currently implemented strategies rarely translate into long-term U-I engagement into co-innovation. Literature recognises i/organisational barriers, ii/ lack of adjustments of the strategies to stakeholders needs and local socio-economic conditions, and iii/ lack of tolls and strategic measures modernisation among the main reasons for poor results of the support strategies (Al-Agtash & Al-Fahoum, 2008, Vries et al., 2019). Therefore, better understanding how to address those challenges is needed. As a reaction to the current state, our study is centred on the main research question – How to build effective strategies for U-I communication for innovation? To contribute to the solution, we are looking at specific tools and measures with potential to enable effective U-I communication for innovation across the barriers and the tools applicability. We approach the issue by means of systematic literature review, multiple regression and structural equation modelling. Within initial systematic review we map the existing knowledge to define which tools could be applied to bridge the main identified U-I communication barriers, such as differences in pourpose, standards and procedures or culture or language gaps. That process allowed us to from one side define which tools can be used to bridge each of the identified gaps and from the other side reviled a broad number of gaps in the current body of knowledge that do not allow decision makers design effective knowledge based strategies. In our empirical studies we address a limited number of the identified gaps, specifically: i/ lack of clear empirical evidence regarding different impact of policy measures within different economic contexts; ii/ lack of modern studies on information and communication technology (ICT) influence on U-I communication, iii/highly limited amount of quantitative and comparative studies in the scope of U-I communication, iv/ lack of studies regarding international scope of U-I communication for innovation. In the first place, in chapter 3 we analyse how applicability of macro-level tools may differ in countries at different development levels and whether the impact of U-I communication on economic development differs. Furtherly, in chapters 4 and 5 we analyse applicability of computer mediated communication (CMC) in the scope of cross-organisational communication with engagement of university and industry. We specifically look at the potential of a groupware system to build social capital (that was previously shown to have the ability to bridge U-I communication barriers) and how specific functions can support usefulness of such a tool to enable effective U-I communication for innovation. Our main findings show empirically that the level of U-I communication is insufficient to significantly stimulate economic development. Countries at all development levels struggle to reach a critical mass of effective U-I communication for innovation and need to adjust their strategies to support U-I communication. Supporting increase in quality of research institutions and private R&D invetments is relevant at all development levels, while staff training related with absorptive capacity is relevant at lower development levels. However, our results suggest that, creating effective strategy for fostering U-I communication requires its adjustment to economic environment as the governmental mechanism can result in both, positive and negative influence on U-I communication. Meanwhile, on cross-organisational level, such a communication and its sustainability may be supported by providing effective means for computer mediated communication at the interface between organisations. To generate such a result, information and communication technology needs to provide social usefulness and mechanisms for building social capital. Functionalities enhancing participatory character and transparency of cross-organisational communication and providing interactivity within computer mediated communication shown enabling character for overcoming cross-organisational barriers.Em 1987, num estudo da comunicação dentro do sistema sueco de inovação Höglund e Persson (1987), baseando-se no estudo da literatura dos últimos 15 anos, mostraram que a comunicação entre a indústria e a universidade (U-I) no âmbito da inovação é extremamente limitada. O nosso estudo dos 32 anos seguintes sobre área sugere claramente que, apesar do crescente do reconhecimento dos potenciais benefícios da comunicação U-I na inovação e das tentativas dos agentes governamentais e sociais para incentivar o envolvimento mútuo das universidades e da indústria na investigação e inovação, o progresso alcançado não foi significativo. Höglund e Persson (1987), embora reconhecessem a falta de conhecimento sobre a génese do problema, especularam que as possíveis razões para tal estado se encontrariam na relevância limitada da investigação básica com aplicações práticas e na generalizada falta de contacto entre diferentes agentes do sistema de I&D. Desde então, a literatura estudou a questão em detalhe, mostrando que, por um lado, o problema está nas barreiras organizacionais da comunicação U-I (Gera, 2012; Vries et al., 2018) e, por outro, na falta de ferramentas e sistemas adequados para que a comunicação U-I para a inovação ocorra de forma natural e não mediada (Bayne et al., 2016; Suomi et al., 2019). A literatura destaca especialmente que a comunicação U-I é fortemente obstruída por diferenças de objectivos, culturais e linguísticas, lacunas de incentivos ou diferenças de procedimentos e padrões de qualidade (Plewa et al., 2013a; D’Hooghe 2017; Vries et al., 2019). Enquanto isso, postula-se que uma comunicação eficaz na inovação traz benefícios significativos não apenas para os agentes envolvidos, mas também para a economia e para a sociedade (Martins, 2016; Suomi et al., 2019). A importância da comunicação entre universidade e indústria está a aumentar especialmente devido à mudança do mercado global em direção à concorrência baseada no conhecimento e à crescente importância de tecnologias inteligentes e inovação que, devido à sua complexidade, exigem o envolvimento de uma ampla gama de conhecimentos multidisciplinares. Neste ambiente económico, a falta de envolvimento de diferentes agentes com experiência em inovação e em múltiplas disciplinas exclui as economias de competir eficazmente nos principais sectores, gera custos através de oportunidades perdidas e duplicação de esforços, pode levar a uma maior marginalização das regiões menos desenvolvidas (MacLead et al., 1997 ; Sheen & MacBryde, 1995; Hotaling et al., 2012; Kopczynska & Ferreira, 2018). Enquanto isso, a falta de comunicação U-I eficiente no âmbito da inovação tem sido relatada não apenas em regiões menos desenvolvidas na área da inovação (Hassen, 2018), mas também entre os líderes em inovação (Suomi et al., 2019; Kim & Jang, 2019). Apesar da popularização recente de conceitos como universidade empreendedora e modelo de hélice tripla ou quádrupla, apesar dos investimentos governamentais significativos em estratégias que incentivam a comunicação U-I ou aumentam o reconhecimento da terceira missão da universidade, o problema da comunicação U-I insuficiente continua a ser um problema global. Embora atualmente o conhecimento sobre as barreiras da comunicação U-I seja extenso, falta entender como usar efetivamente ferramentas e estratégias para as superar (Kim & Jang, 2019). A literatura mostra especialmente que, enquanto países de todo o mundo investem em medidas para apoiar a comunicação e a colaboração U-I (Cooke, 2002; Peng et al., 2017), os seus esforços geralmente levam a resultados altamente limitados e insustentáveis (Lissoni, 2010; Suomi et al., 2019; Kim & Jang, 2019). Isto sugere que a compreensão atual das complexidades relacionadas com as estratégias para promover a comunicação U-I para inovação é limitada e a sua melhoria poderia contribuir para melhores estratégias de suporte e melhor capitalização dos recursos de conhecimento. A literatura enfatiza especialmente que as questões estão relacionadas com i/ a tendência de transferir ingenuamente práticas bem-sucedidas entre países, com diferentes contextos económico e culturais, sem a devida compreensão e / ou adaptação (Macleod et al., 1997; Salem & Amjed, 2008; Sandberg et al. al., 2015; Kim & Jang, 2019), ii / falta de modernização das medidas aplicadas aos desafios e oportunidades atuais (Paslowski et al., 2015; Kim & Jang, 2019), iii / foco na transferência unidirecional de conhecimento, em vez de na comunicação baseada em ciclos de feedback e dialogo para inovação (Kodama, 2002; Peng et al., 2017; Hayden et al., 2018). Nesse âmbito, o nosso estudo tem como objetivo contribuir para a discussão e a resolução de problemas, analisando, em primeiro lugar, a literatura académica para integrar o corpo de conhecimentos existente a uma abordagem mais holística, procurando entender 1 / como as ferramentas e mecanismos específicos podem contribuir para superar as barreiras existentes entre a comunicação U-I e quais são as aplicações, os fatores de transferência e as condições; e 2 / identificar lacunas e deficiências no corpo de conhecimento que devem ser abordadas para permitir que quem deve tomar decisões e partes interessadas envolvidas gerem estratégias eficazes para maximizar a comunicação U-I para inovação. Além disso, a literatura geralmente sugere que a resolução requer estratégias modernas e a vários níveis, permitindo que a comunicação U-I ao nível macro - o nível relacionado ao sistema de políticas e inovação (Lee & Yoo, 2007; Ranga et al., 2008; D'Hooghe 2017; Hassen, 2018), e micro – o nível organizacional e de ferramentas relacionadas (Ranga et al ., 2008; Korzhenevskaya, 2014; Howarth & Monasterolo, 2016; Martins, 2016). Assim, seguimos com estudos empíricos de estratégias de nível macro e ferramentas facilitadoras de nível micro que permitem a comunicação U-I. Especificamente, abordamos a questão da necessidade postulada pela literatura de ajustes de estratégias aplicadas às condições socioeconómicas de regiões e nações (Vick & Nagano, 2018; Kim & Jang, 2019), analisando se as diferenças no impacto da comunicação U-I no desenvolvimento económico difere entre países a diferentes níveis de desenvolvimento, e se o potencial de intervenções específicas para estimular a comunicação U-I difere entre países dependendo com o seu desenvolvimento. Por outro lado, abordamos a necessidade de modernização das abordagens atuais, não apenas analisando mais estratégias, mas estratégias direcionadas, também analisando empiricamente o potencial e as condições do uso de soluções de grupos de trabalho (groupware) na comunicação entre organizações para não servir apenas como canal eficaz de comunicação, mas como ferramenta de facilitação para superar as barreiras organizacionais existentes. Reconhecendo a necessidade da inovação aberta para o modelo bidirecional e não linear de interação da U-I (Butcher & Jeffrey, 2005; Lauder & Atkinson-Grosjean 2011), a tese geral visa contribuir para estratégias de envolvimento dialógico da U-I no âmbito da inovação. A literatura atual concentra-se no problema da questão da comunicação da UI para inovação na fase de envolvimento até o primeiro projeto ser concluído (Plewa et al., 2013a). Enquanto isso, a inovação é um processo complexo que resulta de interações não lineares, processos de aprendizagem e colisões entre diferentes ideias, agentes, visões ou sistemas (Leydesdorff & Etzkowitz, 1998; Fields, 2006; Tidd & Bessant, 2014). Precisa, por um lado, de integrar os produtores de conhecimento e inovação e os proprietários de produtos - indústria e/ou universidade; com agentes responsáveis pelo ambiente e suporte à inovação - agentes de políticas, intermediários e cadeia de suplementos. Por outro lado, precisa de um fluxo constante e não linear de comunicação e interações para alimentar o mecanismo de inovação, considerando que a inovação geralmente acontece como resultado de interações inesperadas (Tidd & Bessant, 2014). Conforme apresentado por Levallois et al. (2019) o caso da criação de um novo campo de pesquisa de programas de neuromarketing, os benefícios postulados das interações U-I aumentam não apenas na comunicação U-I estruturada. Também a comunicação pura do progresso ou feedback básico pode estimular o desenvolvimento nas áreas de pesquisa e inovação. Por outro lado, a comunicação estruturada não pode ocorrer sem sistemas eficazes para estabelecer contactos iniciais e fornecer informações claras sobre os recursos potencialmente disponíveis entre parceiros (Ranga et al., 2008; Venditti et al., 2013). A comunicação tem forte inter-relação com a inovação, influenciando-a em todas as etapas. Desde colisões, convergência e divergência de ideias (Pendergast & Hayne, 1999; Shinn, 2005) até a fase de envolvimento contínuo, resultando em comunicação U-I sustentável para a inovação (Plewa et al., 2013a; Plewa et al., 2013b). Tal demonstra ser de importância crítica para qualquer forma ou estágio de interações inter-organizacionais. O que está a mudar é apenas a forma, formalidade e tópicos trocados (Plewa et al., 2013b). [...

A new machine learning approach to support asset management in water distribution networks

One of the main causes of the widespread problem of freshwater scarcity lies in unfruitful maintenance of distribution infrastructure, leading to failures with consequent waste of precious resources. It is estimated that more than 25% of the annual loss of water is due to poor conditions of the distribution networks and, in a scenario of continuously increasing demand for water, effects of such inefficiency might be even more dramatic, beyond the merely economic aspect. However, with the rise of data analysis, the awareness of the power of predictive technologies and machine learning techniques, the opportunity to make use of these tools to support decision making has become more than a hope. With this study, the author attempts to address the problem of usage of historical data of pipes and their failures in the Spanish city of Manresa to deduce conclusions on how to conduct maintenance interventions. After conducting an explorative study on how pipes intrinsic factors may have reflections on breakages, machine learning algorithms (Logistic Regression and Random Forest have been chosen in this thesis) are used to predict pipe failures over time. Lately, results from predictions will be used to take out conclusions from two different assessment models. The first method, given the structure of cost of a general distribution company, tries to establish the optimal ratio between sensitivity and sensibility of a predictive model to return the best economic benefit from the predictive maintenance. The second approach wants to assess how the uptime of the service level can be improved whether relying on prediction to replace pipes, given a certain agreed investment budget. In an old industry such as water distribution, difficulties come up not only during the development of predictive models but also during the reconstruction of the data on which training and testing models, since they can suffer from inconsistencies. Indeed, data gathering has not unique and standardized methodologies and time and people take-over have changed procedures during the data collection, making the whole work harde

Gender and Energy: Opportunities for All

The global drive to provide universal access to sustainable and modern energy by 2030 is creating numerous opportunities for energy users and suppliers. However, men and women do not benefit equally from these opportunities. Women’s contribution to energy planning, supply, and policymaking is limited, as the energy sector is heavily dominated by men. Therefore, universal energy access cannot be achieved without women being able to use the modern energy services they need. Despite these stark gender differences in the energy sector, there has been a lack of evidence to inform more equitable policymaking. This issue of the IDS Bulletin aims to fill some of these evidence gaps through five original papers, produced as part of ENERGIA’s Gender and Energy Research Programme. Carrying out research in 12 countries in Africa and Asia, the programme delivered nine studies on gender and energy under the following thematic areas: electrification, productive use of energy, energy sector policy dynamics, energy subsidy reform, the role of the private sector in scaling up energy access, gender mainstreaming approaches, and global trends in gender and energy. The IDS Bulletin issue starts with an article that identifies global trends that could help catalyse the closing of energy access gaps around the world and shows how these trends relate to gender inequality. Three further articles go on to discuss gender and entrepreneurship, reinforcing the argument that women’s engagement in the energy sector can improve access and distribution of energy for those most underserved. The final article highlights wider findings and policy implications from the nine research projects of ENERGIA’s Gender and Energy Research Programme