A knowledge-based system to represent spatial reasoning for fire modelling

This paper describes the architecture of the knowledge based system (KBS) component of Smartfire, a fire field modelling tool for use by members of the fire safety engineering community who are not expert in modelling techniques. The KBS captures the qualitative reasoning of an experienced modeller in the assessment of room geometries, so as to set up the important initial parameters of the problem. Fire modelling expertise is an example of geometric and spatial reasoning, which raises representational problems. The approach taken in this project is a qualitative representation of geometric room information based on Forbus’ concept of a metric diagram. This takes the form of a coarse grid, partitioning the domain in each of the three spatial dimensions. Inference over the representation is performed using a case-based reasoning (CBR) component. The CBR component stores example partitions with key set-up parameters; this paper concentrates on the key parameter of grid cell distribution.

Representing the dividing instant

The so-called dividing instant (DI) problem is an ancient historical puzzle encountered when attempting to represent what happens at the boundary instant which divides two successive states. The specification of such a problem requires a thorough exploration of the primitives of the temporal ontology and the corresponding time structure, as well as the conditions that the resulting temporal models must satisfy. The problem is closely related to the question of how to characterize the relationship between time periods with positive duration and time instants with no duration. It involves the characterization of the ‘closed’ and ‘open’ nature of time intervals, i.e. whether time intervals include their ending points or not. In the domain of artificial intelligence, the DI problem may be treated as an issue of how to represent different assumptions (or hypotheses) about the DI in a consistent way. In this paper, we shall examine various temporal models including those based solely on points, those based solely on intervals and those based on both points and intervals, and point out the corresponding DI problem with regard to each of these temporal models. We shall propose a classification of assumptions about the DI and provide a solution to the corresponding problem.

Education and climate change – some systemic connections

Unlike most papers on education and ecology, this one is not concerned with the content of education but its organisation as a system and hence its purpose or finality. The central contention of the paper, which takes English education and training (or ‘learning’) as a case in point, is that in a new market-state formation the pursuit of short-term goals is tied to the global free-market economy over which any attempt at democratic control has been relinquished. At a time when humanity worldwide faces increasing change in the ecology that sustains it, this is considered to be ‘ecocidally insane’ and the opposite of any sort of learning from experience to alter behaviour in the future. The re-regulated new global market is seen in conclusion as a crisis response to the end of the previous Keynesian welfare nation-state formation. As such, it is argued to be unsustainable in any sense.

Fact, fiction and nostalgia: an assessment of heritage interpretation at living museums

This paper aims to explore and discuss the role of nostalgia (a concept that is inherently grounded within a psychological framework) in heritage interpretation from both provider and consumer perspectives. Whilst many cultural practitioners recognise the relationship between sentimentality and authenticity, particularly within a folk-heritage context, few have sought to examine the effect this has on the visitor experience. This paper questions visitors’ ability to objectively assess objects and experiences at heritage sites, and the role of practitioners in presenting often blurred views of social history that may sometimes negate historical fact. Drawing on case study research at two UK living museums, Blists Hill Victorian Town in Shropshire, England, and the Big Pit: National Coal Museum in Wales, notions of reminiscence, authenticity, myth and intangibility are considered within the framework of the interpretive experience. Findings suggest that the visitor experience is inherently subjective, highly individual and that the concept of intangibility is integral to an understanding of the nostalgia-authenticity debate.