A Systems-Based Approach to the Identification of User/Infrastructure Interdependencies as a Precursor to Identifying Opportunities to Improve Infrastructure Project Value/Cost Ratios

The bulk of the investment needed for infrastructure renewal in the United Kingdom will have to come from private sector investors, who will require attractive value/cost ratios. Government recognises infrastructure interdependencies can help deliver these, but returns remain uncertain. New business models are required to overcome this problem, which take account of enterprise-centred infrastructure interdependencies (interdependencies between social and economic enterprises and the infrastructures they use). The complex and closely coupled nature of enterprise and infrastructure systems can stand in the way of identifying these interdependencies; however, model-based systems engineering techniques offer a framework for dealing with this complexity. This paper describes research that the iBUILD project is doing to develop a methodology for modelling the interdependencies between infrastructure and the enterprises that use it, as a precursor to identifying opportunities to improve infrastructure project value/cost ratios. The methodology involves: identifying the suite of policy, strategy and operational documents relating to the enterprise-of-interest; eliciting system data from the documents and integrating it to create an enterprise system model; and, generating N2 diagrams from the model to identify the interdependencies

Re: Management of women with low-grade cytology: How reassuring is a normal colposcopy examination?

The debate over best management of low-grade smear results is still open. The Italian Society of Colposcopy and Cervico-Vaginal Pathology, in the Guidelines on the Management of Women with Abnormal Cervical Cytology stated that women with low-grade cytological abnormalities should be immediately referred for colposcopic examination in an outpatient clinic.This option was criticised because it may lead to overtreatment, complications and later adverse effects in young women, without clear psychological benefit. One suggestion that we could make is to restrict the use of a see-and-treat approach since the two-step approach, requiring a colposcopically obtained direct biopsy, as recently recommended by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada, is, in our opinion, preferable and favours a better training for colposcopist

Strategic Infrastructure performance indicators

How strategic performance indicators, aligned with those elements of infrastructure performance most valued by the society the infrastructure serves, can be most effectively developed and used to evaluate infrastructure performance is of interest to any country that aspires to understand and improve the performance of its nation’s infrastructure. This White Paper shares an overview of three interim research outputs from collaborative ICIF and iBuild research on the use and design of strategic performance indicators for infrastructure. Refined versions of these outputs will be published shortly in a report to Infrastructure UK and two academic papers

Well-Being: From Concept to Practice?

‘Well-being’ has become a high-profile and contested issue, for both policy and practice, since its introduction as an integral part of the Care Act (2014). A dynamic and fluid concept, the researchers were interested in how qualified social workers conceptualise concept of well-being. This small-scale qualitative study, arising from a partnership between a university and a local authority within England, explored how social workers, in one adult social work service, conceptualized ‘well-being’ in relation to service users who both did have the mental capacity, and also those who lacked capacity, to make informed decisions in relation to their care and support needs. The researchers adopted an interpretivist, qualitative approach to the research and used thematic analysis of the rich data arising from individual and group discussions. Interesting differences emerged that, we propose, related to the practitioners’ dominant ‘cognitive style’ or over-arching approach to considering how individuals, with and without capacity, defined their own well-being, becoming more risk-averse when considering the well-being (as defined within the Care Act 2014) of an individual who lacked capacity. Whilst local authorities have a duty under the Care Act to promote an individual’s well-being, firmly locating the well-being principle at the heart of adult social work assessments, it is important to remember that this is a concept that is mainly self-defined. However, the ways in which practitioners conceptualise well-being influence both how they approach an assessment, and indeed how they seek to build relationships with the person being assessed. Bringing the different cognitive styles to practitioners’ attention, we believe, provides an opportunity to challenge their own and their colleagues’ biases, whether systemic or individual, and free them to embrace the fluidity of experience and well-being, for all individuals seeking to access services

What Makes a City Liveable? Implications for Next-Generation Infrastructure Services

Abstract: Infrastructure forms the framework within which modern societies operate both at the physical and social level. It includes (amongst others) digital, green and social infrastructures, emergency services and food networks, water, energy, waste and transport. Infrastructure, by its very nature, locks in behaviours. The Liveable Cities research consortium aims to identify and test radical engineering interventions that will lead to future low carbon, resource secure cities in which societal wellbeing is prioritised, and these will necessarily influence the shape of infrastructure provision. This paper presents a discussion of what comprises a liveable city and how it might be achieved. It presents the City Design Framework, a technique for the analysis of city strategies that establishes a hierarchy of needs relevant to successfully achieving a liveable city. The framework supports changing perceptions of infrastructure since the necessary future changes have the potential to radically alter people’s lifestyle and wellbeing. Citation: Leach, J.M., Lee, S.E., Braithwaite, P.A., Bouch, C.J., Grayson, N. & Rogers, C.D.F. (2014). What Makes a City Liveable? Implications for Next-Generation Infrastructure Services. In: Campbell P. and Perez P. (Eds), Proceedings of the International Symposium of Next Generation Infrastructure, 1-4 October 2013, SMART Infrastructure Facility, University of Wollongong, Australia

Defining user perception of distributed multimedia quality

This article presents the results of a study that explored the human side of the multimedia experience. We propose a model that assesses quality variation from three distinct levels: the network, the media and the content levels; and from two views: the technical and the user perspective. By facilitating parameter variation at each of the quality levels and from each of the perspectives, we were able to examine their impact on user quality perception. Results show that a significant reduction in frame rate does not proportionally reduce the user's understanding of the presentation independent of technical parameters, that multimedia content type significantly impacts user information assimilation, user level of enjoyment, and user perception of quality, and that the device display type impacts user information assimilation and user perception of quality. Finally, to ensure the transfer of information, low-level abstraction (network-level) parameters, such as delay and jitter, should be adapted; to maintain the user's level of enjoyment, high-level abstraction quality parameters (content-level), such as the appropriate use of display screens, should be adapted

Cues and knowledge structures used by mental-health professionals when making risk assessments

Background: Research into mental-health risks has tended to focus on epidemiological approaches and to consider pieces of evidence in isolation. Less is known about the particular factors and their patterns of occurrence that influence clinicians’ risk judgements in practice. Aims: To identify the cues used by clinicians to make risk judgements and to explore how these combine within clinicians’ psychological representations of suicide, self-harm, self-neglect, and harm to others. Method: Content analysis was applied to semi-structured interviews conducted with 46 practitioners from various mental-health disciplines, using mind maps to represent the hierarchical relationships of data and concepts. Results: Strong consensus between experts meant their knowledge could be integrated into a single hierarchical structure for each risk. This revealed contrasting emphases between data and concepts underpinning risks, including: reflection and forethought for suicide; motivation for self-harm; situation and context for harm to others; and current presentation for self-neglect. Conclusions: Analysis of experts’ risk-assessment knowledge identified influential cues and their relationships to risks. It can inform development of valid risk-screening decision support systems that combine actuarial evidence with clinical expertise