Towards Integrated Public Service Delivery Based On An Ontological Framework

Present-day governments are experiencing a shift towards supplying demand-driven and personalized electronic services. This often requires that government organizations collaborate with each other and their services and processes need to be integrated to act in a coherent manner. In this paper, we take the diversity of government agencies as a starting point and focus on the development of a shared ontology to enable interoperability among heterogeneous business process and services of public agencies. This framework contributes to understanding the key concepts and relations that form the basis for coordinating the activities necessary for integrated public service delivery. The ontology is aimed at capturing the main elements to enable communication among and integration of the activities of decentralized and autonomous agencies. The ontology has been interactively developed by studying organizational processes, by conducting interviews and literature study. The proposed ontology can provide a foundation for an architecture blueprint that can enable demand-driven integrated service delivery in practice without having to pose detailed requirements on organizations. As autonomy is fostered, this research can potentially enable the integration of private organizations

Design for walkable neighbourhoods in Singapore using Form-based Codes

Walkability is often regarded as a key resilience and liveability indicator for urban neighbourhoods and the city (Robertson and Hachem-Vermette 2017). Singapore often tops the rankings as the most liveable city in Asia, especially due to its easy access to public amenities (The Strait Times 2018). However, active mobility, including walking and cycling, only account for a minority of all ridership in the city (CLC and ULI 2017). This raises two key questions: 1) what factors hinder walkability in Singapore and 2) how can the built environment be improved to promote active mobility. This study argues that the lack of detailed urban design guidelines impedes the creation of pedestrian-friendly environments, especially for public housing neighbourhoods that form the main urban landscape of Singapore. It then explores the possibility of using Form-based Codes (FBC) to improve walkability for the public housing neighbourhoods. Such codes have been repeatedly proved in the Western cities as an effective design guideline to regulate the built environment and create walkable neighbourhoods (Hansen 2014). However, they have never been applied in the Asian context. Methodologically, this research first diagnosed main problems pertaining to poor walkability of public housing neighbourhoods based on a comprehensive review of existing studies and site survey. The problems then provide a lens to assess the literature and the best practices of FBC, identifying the strengths and limitations of applying such codes to Singapore’s public housing neighbourhoods. On this basis, a framework and key principles for developing new FBC were derived, and new design guidelines were tested using two case studies. This study for the first time explored applying FBC to high-density tropical cities in Asia. The research findings indicate that the FBC principles and methods for improving neighbourhood walkability are potentially useful for enhancing liveability and resilience of other similar urban environments

Design for walkable neighbourhoods in Singapore using Form-based Codes

Walkability is often regarded as a key resilience and liveability indicator for urban neighbourhoods and the city (Robertson and Hachem-Vermette 2017). Singapore often tops the rankings as the most liveable city in Asia, especially due to its easy access to public amenities (The Strait Times 2018). However, active mobility, including walking and cycling, only account for a minority of all ridership in the city (CLC and ULI 2017). This raises two key questions: 1) what factors hinder walkability in Singapore and 2) how can the built environment be improved to promote active mobility. This study argues that the lack of detailed urban design guidelines impedes the creation of pedestrian-friendly environments, especially for public housing neighbourhoods that form the main urban landscape of Singapore. It then explores the possibility of using Form-based Codes (FBC) to improve walkability for the public housing neighbourhoods. Such codes have been repeatedly proved in the Western cities as an effective design guideline to regulate the built environment and create walkable neighbourhoods (Hansen 2014). However, they have never been applied in the Asian context. Methodologically, this research first diagnosed main problems pertaining to poor walkability of public housing neighbourhoods based on a comprehensive review of existing studies and site survey. The problems then provide a lens to assess the literature and the best practices of FBC, identifying the strengths and limitations of applying such codes to Singapore’s public housing neighbourhoods. On this basis, a framework and key principles for developing new FBC were derived, and new design guidelines were tested using two case studies. This study for the first time explored applying FBC to high-density tropical cities in Asia. The research findings indicate that the FBC principles and methods for improving neighbourhood walkability are potentially useful for enhancing liveability and resilience of other similar urban environments

Modified Sagnac interferometer for contact-free length measurement of a direct absorption cell

International audienceAccurate path length measurements in absorption cells are recurrent requirements in quantitative molecular absorption spectroscopy. A new twin path laser interferometer for length measurements in a simple direct path absorption geometry is presented, along with a full uncertainty budget. The path in an absorption cell is determined by measuring the optical path length change due to the diminution of the refractive index when the cell originally filled with nitrogen gas is evacuated. The performance of the instrument based on a stabilized HeNe laser is verified by comparison with the results of direct mechanical length measurements of a roughly 45 mm long, specially designed absorption cell

Analysis of Cytotoxic Granules and Constitutively Produced Extracellular Vesicles from Large Granular Lymphocytic Leukemia Cell Lines

Background Large granular lymphocyte leukemias (LGLLs) are rare lymphoproliferative malignancies caused by clonal expansion of granular lymphocytes. T-cell LGLL and natural killer (NK) cell LGLL are defined based on their cellular origin. Their clinical manifestation and pathophysiology vary depending on the subtype and include, e.g., neutropenia, anemia, recurrent infections, and autoimmunity. A limited number of available patient-derived cell lines are considered valuable tools to study the biology of these malignancies. They differ in the expression of lineage-specific surface markers, but generally contain cytotoxic effector molecules in characteristic granules. Methods We investigated the presence and release of lysosome-associated effector proteins in patient-derived LGLL cell lines by flow and imaging cytometry, by Western blotting and by bottom-up proteomics profiling. Results The tested cell lines did not express FasL (CD178), but did express CD26/DPP4+. Intracellularly, we detected major differences in the abundance and subcellular distribution of granzymes, perforin, and granulysin. Similar differences were seen in enriched lysosome-related effector vesicles (LREVs). The proteomics profiling of enriched EVs from an NK-LGLL line (NKL) and a T-LGLL line (MOTN-1), confirmed individual profiles of effector molecules. Conclusion Our analyses underscore the individual distribution of effector proteins but also open new routes to define the role of intra- and extracellular granules in the disease manifestation or pathology of LGLLs

A non-Abelian Chern-Simons term for non-BPS D-branes

We propose a Chern-Simons term for N coinciding non-BPS D-branes. Demanding full U(N) invariance and compatibility with T-duality, it is shown that it is necessary to introduce new interaction terms, through which the non-BPS D-branes couple to all p-form RR fields.Comment: 8 pages, contribution to the proceedings of the IVth annual TMR conference inParis (7-13 sept 2000); JHEP-styl

Wave attenuation in mangrove forests; field data obtained in Trang, Thailand

Mangroves thrive in sheltered intertidal areas in the tropics and sub-tropics. Due to this position at the interface between land and sea, mangroves play an important role in the attenuation of waves. Dissipation of wave energy in mangrove forests is an interesting feature from the viewpoint of coastal protection. Nevertheless, field data are sparse and modeling attempts reveal the need for additional data. This paper presents the results of an extensive field campaign, lasting 6 months, in mangroves along the Andaman coast of Trang Province in southern Thailand. Wave attenuation has been studied along two contrasting transects with different elevation and vegetation characteristics and different orientations towards the Andaman Sea. Along the Kantang transect, which is mostly exposed to swell waves, vegetation densities increased from 4.5 to 9.3 volume-‰ along the transect and on average 63% of the incident wave energy was attenuated over a distance of 246 m. Along the Palian transect, mostly exposed to sea waves instead, vegetation increased from 4.3 to 19 volume-‰ and 72% of the incident wave energy was attenuated over this 98 m transect. It was found that standardized wave attenuation correlates well with incident wave energy, when attenuation is analyzed per vegetation zone. Energy reduction rates of these zones, defined by the gradient of the correlations between the standardized wave attenuation and incident wave energy, are found to increase significantly with vegetation density. Consistently, wave reduction rates, expressing the gradient of the correlation between wave height reduction and incident wave heights, are found to be 0.001-0.014 for the study sites and also show a significant and increasing trend with vegetation densities