Developing a dynamic digital twin at a building level: Using Cambridge campus as case study

A Digital Twin (DT) refers to a digital replica of physical assets, processes and systems. DTs integrate artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics to create dynamic digital models that are able to learn and update the status of the physical counterpart from multiple sources. A DT, if equipped with appropriate algorithms will represent and predict future condition and performance of their physical counterparts. Current developments related to DTs are still at an early stage with respect to buildings and other infrastructure assets. Most of these developments focus on the architectural and engineering/construction point of view. Less attention has been paid to the operation & maintenance (O&M) phase, where the value potential is immense. A systematic and clear architecture verified with practical use cases for constructing a DT is the foremost step for effective operation and maintenance of assets. This paper presents a system architecture for developing dynamic DTs in building levels for integrating heterogeneous data sources, support intelligent data query, and provide smarter decision-making processes. This will further bridge the gaps between human relationships with buildings/regions via a more intelligent, visual and sustainable channels. This architecture is brought to life through the development of a dynamic DT demonstrator of the West Cambridge site of the University of Cambridge. Specifically, this demonstrator integrates an as-is multi-layered IFC Building Information Model (BIM), building management system data, space management data, real-time Internet of Things (IoT)-based sensor data, asset registry data, and an asset tagging platform. The demonstrator also includes two applications: (1) improving asset maintenance and asset tracking using Augmented Reality (AR); and (2) equipment failure prediction. The long-term goals of this demonstrator are also discussed in this paper

Representation as politics: asserting a feminist ethic in ethnographic research

As ethnographers we are familiar with methodological debates problematizing ethnography’s inherited and inherent connections to ideas of authenticity commonly mobilised to legitimate modes of representation. In this paper, we engage with the post-structural philosophies of Jacques Rancière and Judith Butler, to argue that methodological tools of representation are always ‘political’ and as such shape the limitations of what can be known. In order to trace the overlapping methodological foundations which inform our ethnographic representations, we introduce three paradigmatic constructions of ethnography. By paying attention to the ways in which our ethnographic representations mark the perceptibility of educational practices and purposes, we assert a feminist ethic through the representation of the ‘livable life’ as a productive methodological provocation

An epitaph to Section 28? Telling tales out of school about changes and challenges to discourses of sexuality

This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education,© 2007 Copyright Taylor & Francis; International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, is available online at http://www.informaworld.comThis article seeks to develop an understanding of the professional and personal lives of LGBT teachers in relation to the discriminatory statute Section 28, which prohibited 'promotion' of 'the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship' by local education authorities in the UK (except Northern Ireland). Interviews with a small sample of serving teachers are analysed using a feminist poststructuralist methodology to discover whether the removal of this legislation marks a shift in theorization, policy or practice. Findings are arranged to focus on the workings of official policy, on informal or unofficial classroom and staffroom practices, and on relations with a local community. Analysis and discussion reveal a complex matrix of constituents (space, relationships and other variables) only some of which respond to the (perhaps) superficial stimulus of legislative change. Such change goes only a small way to challenge a deeply embedded discourse of inequality, which may respond only to a more profound epistemological transformation

Building Semantic-Rich Patterns for Extracting Features from Events of an On-line Newspaper

Georgia Southern University faculty member Ray R. Hashemi authored Building Semantic-Rich Patterns for Extracting Features from Events of an On-line Newspaper in Proceedings of The 2003 International Conference on WWW/Internet

Destabilizing anti-gay environments through gay-straight alliances: Possibilities and limitations through shifting discourses.

Drawing upon research with Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) advisors, high-school principals, and two district-level administrators, we examine the potential and limits of the safe-space discourse that encompasses the aims of GSAs. We argue that this discourse conceals heteronormative school environments, which supplies the groundwork for hostility perpetrated against LGBT students. We then delineate three strategies- organizational, pedagogical, and systemic-toward altering the safe-space discourse to a forward-looking, social-justice discourse that fosters the eradication of heteronormative school processes