Improving educational functions in botanic gardens by employing landscape narratives

Landscape narrative, combining landscape and narrative, has been employed to create storytelling layouts and interpretive information in some famous botanic gardens. In order to assess the educational effectiveness of using "landscape narrative" in landscape design, the Heng-Chun Tropical Botanical Garden in Taiwan was chosen as research target for an empirical study. Based on cognitive theory and the affective responses of environmental psychology, computer simulations and video recordings were used to create five themed display areas with landscape narrative elements. Two groups of pupils watched simulated films. The pupils were then given an evaluation test and questionnaire, to determine the effectiveness of the landscape narrative. When the content was well associated and matched with the narrative landscape, the comprehension and retention of content was increased significantly. The results also indicated that visual preference of narrative landscape scenes was increased. This empirical study can be regarded as a successful model of integrating landscape narrative and interpretation practice that can be applied to the design of new theme displays in botanic gardens to improve both the effectiveness of interpretation plans and the visual preference of visitors. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An introductory perspective to horticulture: plants for people and places

Horticulture is “the first of all the arts and sciences”. This definition indicates both the breadth and depth of the discipline and its early inception as mankind changed from being hunter-gatherers to cultivators. Intensive crop production which is a form of horticulture preceded more extensive agricultural practices. From that time onwards the intricate involvement of horticulture in man’s life has become very apparent by its multitude of applications and the interests of those involved. These extend from the provision of foodstuffs and nutritional benefits through pharmaceuticals to aspects of rest and relaxation onto encouraging physical and mental well-being. Horticulture is therefore, a discipline with many components and as such that it can mean different things in the varying context of its use. This chapter introduces the meanings of horticulture as expressed by the authors who have contributed to this Trilogy of Books. They have analysed in considerable depth “Horticulture” as expressed in its facets of production, environment and society. Horticulture has impact and expression in each of these fields of human activity. This chapter also sets Horticulture into the wider context of the world of plants and their intensive cultivation both in their use by mankind and in the natural world. The aim is to demonstrate the depth and breadth of human activity associated with this discipline for it stretches from crop production, through landscape design and maintenance and into aspects of society and its expression in the arts and humanities. Horticulture touches almost every aspect of human activity. Increasingly Horticulture has significant importance in contributing towards the mitigation of the major problems which now face life on Earth such as:- climate change, food security, the loss of natural biodiversity, pollution, resource erosion and over-population. Indeed despite or perhaps because of its antiquity and therefore its strong connection between science, technology and practice horticulture can offer solutions that might allude other disciplines.

A design of evaluation method for SaaS in cloud computing

Purpose: This paper aims to design an evaluation method that enables an organization to assess its current IT landscape and provide readiness assessment prior to Software as a Service (SaaS) adoption. Design/methodology/approach: The research employs a mixed of quantitative and qualitative approaches for conducting an IT application assessment. Quantitative data such as end user’s feedback on the IT applications contribute to the technical impact on efficiency and productivity. Qualitative data such as business domain, business services and IT application cost drivers are used to determine the business value of the IT applications in an organization. Findings: The assessment of IT applications leads to decisions on suitability of each IT application that can be migrated to cloud environment. Research limitations/implications: The evaluation of how a particular IT application impacts on a business service is done based on the logical interpretation. Data mining method is suggested in order to derive the patterns of the IT application capabilities. Practical implications: This method has been applied in a local council in UK. This helps the council to decide the future status of the IT applications for cost saving purpose.

Design meetings and the coordination of expertise

The coordination of work and expertise in construction projects is often treated in terms of models or formal rules. However, much is to be gained, if we are to understand it, by examining actual coordination practices. The objective in this article is to address practices of coordination of expertise in the context of design team meetings. The focus is specifically on conversational practices between the structural engineer and the landscape architect part of the design team in a healthcare infrastructure project. The central argument is that the coordination of expertise relied on and was organised by mundane and everyday methods, and not by formal and abstract ones. This argument is drawn from ethnomethodology, a form of sociological analysis that focuses on the situated methods by which activities are produced, but shares concerns found in the literature on actual project management practices. The ethnomethodological stance, however, offers a different perspective on the significance of the empirical reality of projects and a possibility to incorporate within this literature a concern with the ordinary methodical organisation of project activities.

The role of rules-based compliance systems in the new EU regulatory landscape: perspectives of institutional change

Purpose The research objective of this study is to understand how institutional changes to the EU regulatory landscape may affect corresponding institutionalized operational practices within financial organizations. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts an Investment Management System as its case and investigates different implementations of this system within eight financial organizations, predominantly focused on investment banking and asset management activities within capital markets. At the systems vendor site, senior systems consultants and client relationship managers were interviewed. Within the financial organizations, compliance, risk and systems experts were interviewed. Findings The study empirically tests modes of institutional change. Displacement and Layering were found to be the most prevalent modes. However, the study highlights how the outcomes of Displacement and Drift may be similar in effect as both modes may cause compliance gaps. The research highlights how changes in regulations may create gaps in systems and processes which, in the short term, need to be plugged by manual processes. Practical implications Vendors abilities to manage institutional change caused by Drift, Displacement, Layering and Conversion and their ability to efficiently and quickly translate institutional variables into structured systems has the power to ease the pain and cost of compliance as well as reducing the risk of breeches by reducing the need for interim manual systems. Originality/value The study makes a contribution by applying recent theoretical concepts of institutional change to the topic of regulatory change uses this analysis to provide insight into the effects of this new environment

The EU societal awareness of landscape indicator: a review of its meaning, utility and performance across different scales

There is increasing recognition that agricultural landscapes meet multiple societal needs and demands beyond provision of economic and environmental goods and services. Accordingly, there have been significant calls for the inclusion of societal, amenity and cultural values in agri-environmental landscape indicators to assist policy makers in monitoring the wider impacts of land-based policies. However, capturing the amenity and cultural values that rural agrarian areas provide, by use of such indicators, presents significant challenges. The EU social awareness of landscape indicator represents a new class of generalized social indicator using a top-down methodology to capture the social dimensions of landscape without reference to the specific structural and cultural characteristics of individual landscapes. This paper reviews this indicator in the context of existing agri-environmental indicators and their differing design concepts. Using a stakeholder consultation approach in five case study regions, the potential and limitations of the indicator are evaluated, with a particular focus on its perceived meaning, utility and performance in the context of different user groups and at different geographical scales. This analysis supplements previous EU-wide assessments, through regional scale assessment of the limitations and potentialities of the indicator and the need for further data collection. The evaluation finds that the perceived meaning of the indicator does not vary with scale, but in common with all mapped indicators, the usefulness of the indicator, to different user groups, does change with scale of presentation. This indicator is viewed as most useful when presented at the scale of governance at which end users operate. The relevance of the different sub-components of the indicator are also found to vary across regions.