Knowledge-Based Urban Development : Planning and Applications in the Information Era

In the globalizing world, knowledge and information (and the social and technological settings for their production and communication) are now seen as keys to economic prosperity. The economy of a knowledge city creates value-added products using research, technology, and brainpower. The social benefit of knowledge-based urban development (KBUD); however, extends beyond aggregate economic growth.

Towards ubiquitous city : concept, planning, and experiences in the Republic of Korea

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) had occupied their position on knowledge management and are now evolving towards the era of self-intelligence (Klosterman, 2001). In the 21st century ICTs for urban development and planning are imperative to improve the quality of life and place. This includes the management of traffic, waste, electricity, sewerage and water quality, monitoring fire and crime, conserving renewable resources, and coordinating urban policies and programs for urban planners, civil engineers, and government officers and administrators. The handling of tasks in the field of urban management often requires complex, interdisciplinary knowledge as well as profound technical information. Most of the information has been compiled during the last few years in the form of manuals, reports, databases, and programs. However frequently, the existence of these information and services are either not known or they are not readily available to the people who need them. To provide urban administrators and the public with comprehensive information and services, various ICTs are being developed. In early 1990s Mark Weiser (1993) proposed Ubiquitous Computing project at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre in the US. He provides a vision of a built environment which digital networks link individual residents not only to other people but also to goods and services whenever and wherever they need (Mitchell, 1999). Since then the Republic of Korea (ROK) has been continuously developed national strategies for knowledge based urban development (KBUD) through the agenda of Cyber Korea, E-Korea and U-Korea. Among abovementioned agendas particularly the U-Korea agenda aims the convergence of ICTs and urban space for a prosperous urban and economic development. U-Korea strategies create a series of U-cities based on ubiquitous computing and ICTs by a means of providing ubiquitous city (U-city) infrastructure and services in urban space. The goals of U-city development is not only boosting the national economy but also creating value in knowledge based communities. It provides opportunity for both the central and local governments collaborate to U-city project, optimize information utilization, and minimize regional disparities. This chapter introduces the Korean-led U-city concept, planning, design schemes and management policies and discusses the implications of U-city concept in planning for KBUD.

Ubiquitous infrastructure : urban infrastructure planning and management experience of Korea

Urban infrastructure development in Korea has recently shifted from an old paradigm of conventional infrastructure planning to a new paradigm of intelligent infrastructure provision. This new paradigm, so called ubiquitous infrastructure, is based on a combination of urban infrastructure, information and communication technologies and digital networks. Ubiquitous infrastructure basically refers to an urban infrastructure where any citizen could access any infrastructure and services via any electronic device regardless of time and location. This paper introduces this new paradigm of intellectual infrastructure planning and its design schemes. The paper also examines the ubiquitous infrastructure development in Korea and discusses the positive effects of ubiquitous infrastructure on sustainable urban development.

Diversity of accuracy profiles for absolute pitch recognition

Most advanced musicians are able to identify and label a heard pitch if given an opportunity to compare it to a known reference note. This is called ‘relative pitch’ (RP). A much rarer skill is the ability to identify and label a heard pitch without the need for a reference. This is colloquially referred to as ‘perfect pitch’, but appears in the academic literature as ‘absolute pitch’ (AP). AP is considered by many as a remarkable skill. As people do not seem able to develop it intentionally, it is generally regarded as innate. It is often seen as a unitary skill and that a set of identifiable criteria can distinguish those who possess the skill from those who do not. However, few studies have interrogated these notions. The present study developed and applied an interactive computer program to map pitch-labelling responses to various tonal stimuli without a known reference tone available to participants. This approach enabled the identification of the elements of sound that impacted on AP. Pitch-labelling responses of 14 participants with AP were recorded for their accuracy. Each participant’s response to the stimuli was unique. Their accuracy of labelling varied across dimensions such as timbre, range and tonality. The diversity of performance between individuals appeared to reflect their personal musical experience histories.

The Later Years

Chapter summary • The adolescent and work — Advantages of part-time work — Disadvantages of part-time work — Theory/literature re vocational issues — Influences on vocational choice — How do we prepare young people for thinking about work? • The Education and Training Reforms for the Future (ETRF) in Australia: Learning or earning — What these changes mean for young people — VET (Vocational Education and Training) • Summary • Key points • Further thinking • References Who we are, our self-concept and self-esteem, for many people is tied closely to what we do. Our profession, our employment and our ambitions define us in many ways. In our society we have not yet separated completely the notion of personal worth from social contribution and status. At Australian BBQs, a pretty staple question to ask is ‘So, what do you do?’ when meeting someone new. We are pretty tolerant with a range of responses to that question, but the bottom line is the notion that there ought to be a coherent answer. Adolescents know this, and as they try to define their identity/identities and launch into adulthood they are confronted with the great unknown, the world of work...

"Her lively Looks a sprightly Mind disclose, Quick as her Eyes, and as unfix'd as those." - looking, fashion media, and risk culture

This chapter investigates the phenomenon of fashion from the perspective of ‘the look.’ This is achieved by the wearer (as opposed to the designer) and also forms the basis of fashion media, where it represents the ‘decisive moment’ of photography. The chapter argues that the evolving ‘look’ of fashion can be analysed to identify tensions between novelty and emulation, the unique and the universal, in contemporary consumer culture and status-based social-network markets. It explores the work of fashion photographer Corinne Day and artist Olga Tobreluts to identify the theme of ‘risk culture.’

Abstimmen oder Schwimmen? Plebiszitarer Sport und synchronisierte Wahlen. [Sink or swim: Plebiscitary sport and synchronised voting.][In German]

This chapter starts from the observation that new sporting attributes are growing up unnoticed in popular entertainment and ‘reality’ TV. They celebrate not individual heroics but spectator-oriented teamwork which must look effortless and stylish. Instead of objective measurements – ‘faster, higher, stronger’ – winners are picked by voting and consumer choice. Sport and media are converging and integrating. As they do so, what counts as sport, why it is valued, and what it symbolises for contemporary culture, are all changing. I take these changes to be emblematic of something emergent in the culture at large as the modernist paradigm shifts towards a new consumerist paradigm. This is symbolised in new sports, of which the paradigm example is synchronised swimming. The chapter traces these changes via the career and legacy of the Australian swimming and fashion pioneer Annette Kellerman.

Physical aspects

As teachers, we must know about the physical developmental processes our students are experiencing. These are reflected in behaviour, emotions and relationships. And for adolescents, who are trying hard to figure out how the world operates, the physical changes they experience have a potent impact on their world view. While the sequencing of much of our physical development is pretty well according to a grand template and rolls out in much the same way from one person to the next, not everything occurs in a set way (Richter, 2006). Some aspects of our physical development cause other things to occur and are tied together. For example, hormonal changes during puberty are tied to the development of secondary sexual characteristics. However, there is individual variation at multiple levels, and we will discuss these. To complicate things, adolescents’ feelings and ideas about themselves and the ways in which they interact with the world as they grow and change are coloured by our societies’ multifaceted sets of ideals, standards and expectations for physical development. Many other things also impact on our conceptions of self and these will be discussed when we turn our attention to the development of identity through adolescence. In this chapter we will present some basic information about the types of physical changes to expect during adolescence, and consider some challenges that confront adolescents during this time of development.

Re-invent yourself: from London intensive care nursing and the Nigerian oil fields to an an academic library in Brisbane; a career change worth making.

A complete change of career forces a seismic shift in every aspect of your life. From day one, you have to face the loss of long held beliefs, behaviours, the known world of self, and security. We came from professions that themselves are poles apart, and many of the challenges we faced entering the profession were the same: juggling full-time work, part time study, and family commitmemts, taking a pay cut, and loss of social life. But over a short period of time we both transitioned to our new profession successfully. so what make our successful transition possible?

Listening to nature : acoustic monitoring of the environment

The requirement to monitor the rapid pace of environmental change due to global warming and to human development is producing large volumes of data but placing much stress on the capacity of ecologists to store, analyse and visualise that data. To date, much of the data has been provided by low level sensors monitoring soil moisture, dissolved nutrients, light intensity, gas composition and the like. However, a significant part of an ecologist’s work is to obtain information about species diversity, distributions and relationships. This task typically requires the physical presence of an ecologist in the field, listening and watching for species of interest. It is an extremely difficult task to automate because of the higher order difficulties in bandwidth, data management and intelligent analysis if one wishes to emulate the highly trained eyes and ears of an ecologist. This paper is concerned with just one part of the bigger challenge of environmental monitoring – the acquisition and analysis of acoustic recordings of the environment. Our intention is to provide helpful tools to ecologists – tools that apply information technologies and computational technologies to all aspects of the acoustic environment. The on-line system which we are building in conjunction with ecologists offers an integrated approach to recording, data management and analysis. The ecologists we work with have different requirements and therefore we have adopted the toolbox approach, that is, we offer a number of different web services that can be concatenated according to need. In particular, one group of ecologists is concerned with identifying the presence or absence of species and their distributions in time and space. Another group, motivated by legislative requirements for measuring habitat condition, are interested in summary indices of environmental health. In both case, the key issues are scalability and automation.

The big brother : monitoring urban growth and change for sustainable infrastructure provision

Monitoring urban growth and land-use change is an important issue for sustainable infrastructure planning. Rapid urban development, sprawl and increasing population pressure, particularly in developing nations, are resulting in deterioration of infrastructure facilities, loss of productive agricultural lands and open spaces, pollution, health hazards and micro-climatic changes. In addressing these issues effectively, it is crucial to collect up-to-date and accurate data and monitor the changing environment at regular intervals. This chapter discusses the role of geospatial technologies for mapping and monitoring the changing environment and urban structure, where such technologies are highly useful for sustainable infrastructure planning and provision.