Quality control, validation and user feedback of the European Flood Alert System (EFAS)

The quality control, validation and verification of the European Flood Alert System (EFAS) are described. EFAS is designed as a flood early warning system at pan-European scale, to complement national systems and provide flood warnings more than 2 days before a flood. On average 20–30 alerts per year are sent out to the EFAS partner network which consists of 24 National hydrological authorities responsible for transnational river basins. Quality control of the system includes the evaluation of the hits, misses and false alarms, showing that EFAS has more than 50% of the time hits. Furthermore, the skills of both the meteorological as well as the hydrological forecasts are evaluated, and are included here for a 10-year period. Next, end-user needs and feedback are systematically analysed. Suggested improvements, such as real-time river discharge updating, are currently implemented.

A word of caution on calculating market-based minimum capital risk requirements

This paper demonstrates that the use of GARCH-type models for the calculation of minimum capital risk requirements (MCRRs) may lead to the production of inaccurate and therefore inefficient capital requirements. We show that this inaccuracy stems from the fact that GARCH models typically overstate the degree of persistence in return volatility. A simple modification to the model is found to improve the accuracy of MCRR estimates in both back- and out-of-sample tests. Given that internal risk management models are currently in widespread usage in some parts of the world (most notably the USA), and will soon be permitted for EC banks and investment firms, we believe that our paper should serve as a valuable caution to risk management practitioners who are using, or intend to use this popular class of models.

PERSiST: a flexible rainfall-runoff modelling toolkit for use with the INCA family of models

Runoff generation processes and pathways vary widely between catchments. Credible simulations of solute and pollutant transport in surface waters are dependent on models which facilitate appropriate, catchment-specific representations of perceptual models of the runoff generation process. Here, we present a flexible, semi-distributed landscape-scale rainfall-runoff modelling toolkit suitable for simulating a broad range of user-specified perceptual models of runoff generation and stream flow occurring in different climatic regions and landscape types. PERSiST (the Precipitation, Evapotranspiration and Runoff Simulator for Solute Transport) is designed for simulating present-day hydrology; projecting possible future effects of climate or land use change on runoff and catchment water storage; and generating hydrologic inputs for the Integrated Catchments (INCA) family of models. PERSiST has limited data requirements and is calibrated using observed time series of precipitation, air temperature and runoff at one or more points in a river network. Here, we apply PERSiST to the river Thames in the UK and describe a Monte Carlo tool for model calibration, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis

What Tenants Want: UK occupiers’ requirements when renting commercial property and strategic implications for landlords

Businesses need property in order to generate turnover and profits. If real estate owners are to be able to provide properties and related services that are desirable, it is crucial that they understand tenants’ requirements and preferences. Changes in the way businesses operate might well lead to an overall reduction in space requirements in all sectors. Faced with reductions in demand, landlords will find themselves in an increasingly competitive marketplace for tenants. Of the array of strategies available to landlords, what strategies should they employ for maximum effect? This paper examines what United Kingdom tenants want from commercial property (retail, industrial and office). The first part provides an analysis of data from several hundred interviews with occupiers of commercial properties owned by some of the largest UK real estate investment companies. Results are presented for each of the asset classes separately. The second part compares the findings with previous research and discusses the strategic implications for landlords.

User's manual

'Typeform dialogues', as originally planned for publication, was an interactive CD-based screen interface presenting a comparative survey of typeform history and description. The CD was to be held inside a printed book that included two essays and a User’s Manual. Although 'Typeform dialogues' (CD+book) was not completed as planned, a PDF file was published containing the User’s Manual, together with background information about the interface and the project it was part of. The User's Manual presents all interface sections and features (using screen grabs) and explains their editorial rationale, design, and function.

Change management in practice: an ethnographic study of changes to contract requirements on a hospital project

Changes to client requirements are inevitable during construction. Industry discourse is concerned with minimizing and controlling changes. However, accounts of practices involved in making changes are rare. In response to calls for more research into working practices, an ethnographic study of a live hospital project was undertaken to explore how changes are made. A vignette of a meeting exploring the investigation of changes illustrates the issues. This represents an example from the ethnographic fieldwork, which produced many observations. There was a strong emphasis on using change management procedures contained within the contract to investigate changes, even when it was known that the change was not required. For the practitioners, this was a way of demonstrating best practice, transparent and accountable decision-making regarding changes. Hence, concerns for following procedures sometimes overshadowed considerations about whether or not a change was required to improve the functionality of the building. However, the procedures acted as boundary objects between the communities of practice involved on the project by coordinating the work of managing changes. Insights suggest how contract procedures facilitate and impede the making of changes, which can inform policy guidance and contract drafting.

An ontological approach to personalized medical knowledge recommendation

Knowledge recommendation has become a promising method in supporting the clinicians decisions and improving the quality of medical services in the constantly changing clinical environment. However, current medical knowledge management systems cannot understand users requirements accurately and realize personalized recommendation. Therefore this paper proposes an ontological approach based on semiotic principles to personalized medical knowledge recommendations. In particular, healthcare domain knowledge is conceptualized and an ontology-based user profile is built. Furthermore, the personalized recommendation mechanism is illustrated.

An ontological approach to personalized medical knowledge matching

Knowledge management has become a promising method in supporting the clinicians′ decisions and improving the quality of medical services in the constantly changing clinical environment. However, current medical knowledge management systems cannot understand users′ requirements accurately and realize personalized matching. Therefore this paper proposes an ontological approach based on semiotic principles to personalized medical knowledge matching. In particular, healthcare domain knowledge is conceptualized and an ontology-based user profile is built. Furthmore, the personalized matching mechanism and algorithm are illustrated.

Developing a mobile visualization environment for construction applications

There is a renewed interest in immersive visualization to navigate digital data-sets associated with large building and infrastructure projects. Following work with a fully immersive visualization facility at the University, this paper details the development of a complementary mobile visualization environment. It articulates progress on the requirements for this facility; the overall design of hardware and software; and the laboratory testing and planning for user pilots in construction applications. Like our fixed facility, this new light-weight mobile solution enables a group of users to navigate a 3D model at a 1:1 scale and to work collaboratively with structured asset information. However it offers greater flexibility as two users can assemble and start using it at a new location within an hour. The solution has been developed and tested in a laboratory and will be piloted in engineering design review and stakeholder engagement applications on a major construction project.

Sea surface temperature datasets for climate applications from Phase 1 of the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative (SST CCI)

Sea surface temperature (SST) datasets have been generated from satellite observations for the period 1991–2010, intended for use in climate science applications. Attributes of the datasets specifically relevant to climate applications are: first, independence from in situ observations; second, effort to ensure homogeneity and stability through the time-series; third, context-specific uncertainty estimates attached to each SST value; and, fourth, provision of estimates of both skin SST (the fundamental measure- ment, relevant to air-sea fluxes) and SST at standard depth and local time (partly model mediated, enabling comparison with his- torical in situ datasets). These attributes in part reflect requirements solicited from climate data users prior to and during the project. Datasets consisting of SSTs on satellite swaths are derived from the Along-Track Scanning Radiometers (ATSRs) and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRRs). These are then used as sole SST inputs to a daily, spatially complete, analysis SST product, with a latitude-longitude resolution of 0.05°C and good discrimination of ocean surface thermal features. A product user guide is available, linking to reports describing the datasets’ algorithmic basis, validation results, format, uncer- tainty information and experimental use in trial climate applications. Future versions of the datasets will span at least 1982–2015, better addressing the need in many climate applications for stable records of global SST that are at least 30 years in length.

Urban integrated meteorological observations: practice and experience in Shanghai, China

Observations of atmospheric conditions and processes in citiesare fundamental to understanding the interactions between the urban surface and weather/climate, improving the performance of urban weather, air quality and climate models, and providing key information for city end-users (e.g. decision-makers, stakeholders, public). In this paper, Shanghai's urban integrated meteorological observation network (SUIMON) and some examples of intended applications are introduced. Its characteristics include being: multi- purpose (e.g. forecast, research, service), multi-function (high impact weather, city climate, special end-users), multi-scale (e.g. macro/meso-, urban-, neighborhood, street canyon), multi-variable (e.g. thermal, dynamic, chemical, bio-meteorological, ecological), and multi- platform (e.g. radar, wind profiler, ground-based, satellite based, in-situ observation/ sampling). Underlying SUIMON is a data management system to facilitate exchange of data and information. The overall aim of the network is to improve coordination strategies and instruments; to identify data gaps based on science and user driven requirements; and to intelligently combine observations from a variety of platforms by using a data assimilation system that is tuned to produce the best estimate of the current state of the urban atmosphere.

An approach to develop flexible systems with organizational-interoperability requirements

Flexibility of information systems (IS) have been studied to improve the adaption in support of the business agility as the set of capabilities to compete more effectively and adapt to rapid changes in market conditions (Glossary of business agility terms, 2003). However, most of work on IS flexibility has been limited to systems architecture, ignoring the analysis of interoperability as a part of flexibility from the requirements. This paper reports a PhD project, which proposes an approach to develop IS with flexibility features, considering some challenges of flexibility in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) such as the lack of interoperability and the agility of their business. The motivation of this research are the high prices of IS in developing countries and the usefulness of organizational semiotics to support the analysis of requirements for IS. (Liu, 2005).

Cognitive and environmental factors influencing the process of spatial knowledge acquisition within virtual reality environments

As the fidelity of virtual environments (VE) continues to increase, the possibility of using them as training platforms is becoming increasingly realistic for a variety of application domains, including military and emergency personnel training. In the past, there was much debate on whether the acquisition and subsequent transfer of spatial knowledge from VEs to the real world is possible, or whether the differences in medium during training would essentially be an obstacle to truly learning geometric space. In this paper, the authors present various cognitive and environmental factors that not only contribute to this process, but also interact with each other to a certain degree, leading to a variable exposure time requirement in order for the process of spatial knowledge acquisition (SKA) to occur. The cognitive factors that the authors discuss include a variety of individual user differences such as: knowledge and experience; cognitive gender differences; aptitude and spatial orientation skill; and finally, cognitive styles. Environmental factors discussed include: Size, Spatial layout complexity and landmark distribution. It may seem obvious that since every individual's brain is unique - not only through experience, but also through genetic predisposition that a one size fits all approach to training would be illogical. Furthermore, considering that various cognitive differences may further emerge when a certain stimulus is present (e.g. complex environmental space), it would make even more sense to understand how these factors can impact spatial memory, and to try to adapt the training session by providing visual/auditory cues as well as by changing the exposure time requirements for each individual. The impact of this research domain is important to VE training in general, however within service and military domains, guaranteeing appropriate spatial training is critical in order to ensure that disorientation does not occur in a life or death scenario.