3,000,609 research outputs found
Ray
This capstone documents the design process of developing a lighting solution to the complex system that is public pedestrian spaces
Governing in the Anthropocene: What Future Systems Thinking in Practice?
The revealing and concealing features of the metaphor âearth as Anthropoceneâ are explored in an inquiry that asks: In the Anthropocene what possible futures emerge for systems thinking in practice? Framing choice, so important yet so poorly realised, is the starting point of the inquiry. Three extant conceptual pathway-dependencies are unpacked: governance or governing; practice or practising and âsystemâ. New data on the organisational complexity within the field of cybersystemics is presented; new âimaginariesâ including systemic co-inquiry and institutional recovery are proposed as novel institutions and practices to facilitate systemic transformations within an Anthropocene setting. The arguments of the paper are illustrated through a research case study based on attempts to transform water and/or river situations towards systemic water governance. It is concluded that future systems research can be understood as the search for effective âimaginariesâ that offer fresh possibilities within an Anthropocene framing
Comment: The coming tornado?
An extended review of John S. Daniel's MegaâUniversities and the Knowledge Media: Technology Strategies for Higher Education (London: Kogan Page, 1996; 212 pages, ISBN: 0â7494â2119â3)
Recommended from our members
âTill the muddle in my mind have cleared awaâ: can we help shape policy using systems modelling?
This paper considers how some well-documented deficiencies of mental models make it difficult to create effective policies, and suggests that systems modelling can begin to address this issue. To illustrate the argument three short cases are presented. These relate to specific domains but demonstrate how systems modelling can illuminate different general phenomena: effects on labour costs (unintended consequences and feedback); fishery management (accumulation and non-linearity) and child protection (worldviews and sense-making). Six levers for increasing the use of systems modelling in the policy arena are then discussed. The paper closes by emphasising the opportunities for systems modellers in the Anthropocene Era
Degenerate Feedback Loops in Recommender Systems
Machine learning is used extensively in recommender systems deployed in
products. The decisions made by these systems can influence user beliefs and
preferences which in turn affect the feedback the learning system receives -
thus creating a feedback loop. This phenomenon can give rise to the so-called
"echo chambers" or "filter bubbles" that have user and societal implications.
In this paper, we provide a novel theoretical analysis that examines both the
role of user dynamics and the behavior of recommender systems, disentangling
the echo chamber from the filter bubble effect. In addition, we offer practical
solutions to slow down system degeneracy. Our study contributes toward
understanding and developing solutions to commonly cited issues in the complex
temporal scenario, an area that is still largely unexplored
Jiwar: from a right of neighbourliness to a right of neighbourhood for refugees
In this paper I make the case that a closer examination of the tradition of jiwÄr or neighbourliness can help unsettle the binary of citizen and migrant that forecloses the possibility of accessing rights for the latter. Here, insights from human geography and social anthropology pertaining to understandings and practices of conviviality are mobilised to ask what contemporary readings of jiwÄr can tell us given that the nation-state dominates modalities and practices of locality production. Mobilising interview and ethnographic research material produced in partnership with Palestinian, Syrian, Sudanese, and Iraqi forced migrants over the past 8 years across multiple sites, this paper draws attention to the significance of creating and maintaining neighbourly relations and spaces as an ethical position contrasted against exclusionary nation-state and sectarian discourses and practices. Here, I draw on the Turkish state response to on-going Syrian displacement and the Syrian stateâs response to the earlier displacement of Iraqis (2005-11) to illustrate how the sedentarist logic of the nation-state impedes practices of conviviality that emerge from the lived realities of encounter between those already resident and those who newly arrive
Towards Systemic Evaluation
Problems of conventional evaluation models can be understood as an impoverished âconversationâ between realities (of non-linearity, indeterminate attributes, and ever-changing context), and models of evaluating such realities. Meanwhile, ideas of systems thinking and complexity scienceâgrouped here under the acronym STCSâstruggle to gain currency in the big âEâ world of institutionalized evaluation. Four evaluation practitioners familiar with evaluation tools associated with STCS offer perspectives on issues regarding mainstream uptake of STCS in the big âEâ world. The perspectives collectively suggest three features of practicing systemic evaluation: (i) developing value in conversing between bounded values (evaluations) and unbounded reality (evaluand), with humility; (ii) developing response-ability with evaluand stakeholders based on reflexivity, with empathy; and (iii) developing adaptive rather than mere contingent use(fulness) of STCS âtoolsâ as part of evaluation praxis, with inevitable fallibility and an orientation towards bricolage (adaptive use). The features hint towards systemic evaluation as core to a reconfigured notion of developmental evaluation
- âŠ