Adapting the social-ecological system framework for urban stormwater management: the case of green infrastructure adoption

Stormwater management has long been a critical societal and environmental challenge for communities. An increasing number of municipalities are turning to novel approaches such as green infrastructure to develop more sustainable stormwater management systems. However, there is a need to better understand the technological decision-making processes that lead to specific outcomes within urban stormwater governance systems. We used the social-ecological system (SES) framework to build a classification system for identifying significant variables that influence urban stormwater governance decisions related to green infrastructure adoption. To adapt the framework, we relied on findings from observations at national stormwater meetings in combination with a systematic literature review on influential factors related to green infrastructure adoption. We discuss our revisions to the framework that helped us understand the decision by municipal governments to adopt green infrastructure. Remaining research needs and challenges are discussed regarding the development of an urban stormwater SES framework as a classification tool for knowledge accumulation and synthesis.

Evaluating conservation and fisheries management strategies by linking spatial prioritization software and ecosystem and fisheries modelling tools

Well-designed marine protected area (MPA) networks can deliver a range of ecological, economic and social benefits, and so a great deal of research has focused on developing spatial conservation prioritization tools to help identify important areas. However, whilst these software tools are designed to identify MPA networks that both represent biodiversity and minimize impacts on stakeholders, they do not consider complex ecological processes. Thus, it is difficult to determine the impacts that proposed MPAs could have on marine ecosystem health, fisheries and fisheries sustainability. Using the eastern English Channel as a case study, this paper explores an approach to address these issues by identifying a series of MPA networks using the Marxan and Marxan with Zones conservation planning software and linking them with a spatially explicit ecosystem model developed in Ecopath with Ecosim. We then use these to investigate potential trade-offs associated with adopting different MPA management strategies. Limited-take MPAs, which restrict the use of some fishing gears, could have positive benefits for conservation and fisheries in the eastern English Channel, even though they generally receive far less attention in research on MPA network design. Our findings, however, also clearly indicate that no-take MPAs should form an integral component of proposed MPA networks in the eastern English Channel, as they not only result in substantial increases in ecosystem biomass, fisheries catches and the biomass of commercially valuable target species, but are fundamental to maintaining the sustainability of the fisheries. Synthesis and applications. Using the existing software tools Marxan with Zones and Ecopath with Ecosim in combination provides a powerful policy-screening approach. This could help inform marine spatial planning by identifying potential conflicts and by designing new regulations that better balance conservation objectives and stakeholder interests. In addition, it highlights that appropriate combinations of no-take and limited-take marine protected areas might be the most effective when making trade-offs between long-term ecological benefits and short-term political acceptability.

Operating infrastructure for an FPGA and ARM system

Advances in FPGA technology and higher processing capabilities requirements have pushed to the emerge of All Programmable Systems-on-Chip, which incorporate a hard designed processing system and a programmable logic that enable the development of specialized computer systems for a wide range of practical applications, including data and signal processing, high performance computing, embedded systems, among many others. To give place to an infrastructure that is capable of using the benefits of such a reconfigurable system, the main goal of the thesis is to implement an infrastructure composed of hardware, software and network resources, that incorporates the necessary services for the operation, management and interface of peripherals, that coompose the basic building blocks for the execution of applications. The project will be developed using a chip from the Zynq-7000 All Programmable Systems-on-Chip family.

The joint European Research Infrastructure Network for Coastal Observatories: Achievements and Strategy for the Future

This document is summarizing a major part of the work performed by the FP7-JERICO consortium, including 27 partner institutions, during 4 years (2011-2015). Its objective is to propose a strategy for the European coastal observation and monitoring. To do so we give an overview of the main achievements of the FP7-JERICO project. From this overview, gaps are analysed to draw some recommendations for the future. Overview, gaps and recommendation are addressed at both Hardware and Software levels of the JERICO Research Infrastructure. The main part of the document is built upon this analysis to outcome a general strategy for the future, giving priorities to be targeted and some possible funding mechanisms, but also upon discussions held in dedicated JERICO strategy workshops. This document was initiated in 2014 by the coordination team but considering the fact that an overview of the entire project and its achievement were needed to feed this strategy deliverable it couldn’t ended before the end of FP7-JERICO, April 2015. The preparation of the JERICO-NEXT proposal in summer 2014 to answer an H2020 call for proposals pushed the consortium ahead, fed deep thoughts about this strategy but the intention was to not propose a strategy only bounded by the JERICO-NEXT answer. Authors are conscious that writing JERICO-NEXT is even drawing a bias in the thoughts and they tried to be opened. Nevertheless, comments are always welcome to go farther ahead. Structure of the document The Chapter 3 introduces the need of sustained coastal observatories, from different point of view including a short description of the FP7-JERICO project. In Chapter 4, an analysis of the JERICO coastal observatory Hardware (platforms and sensors) in terms of Status at the end of JERICO, identified gaps and recommendations for further development is provided region by region. The main challenges that remain to be overcome is also summarized. Chapter 5 is dedicated the JERICO infrastructure Software (calibration, operation, quality assessment, data management) and the progress made through JERICO on harmonization of procedures and definition of best practices. Chapter 6 provides elements of a strategy towards sustainable and integrated coastal observations for Europe, drawing a roadmap for cost-effective scientific-based consolidation of the present infrastructure while maximizing the potential arising from JERICO in terms of innovation, wealth-creation, and business development. After reading the chapter 3, for who doesn’t know JERICO, any chapter can be read independently. More details are available in the JERICO final reports and its intermediate reports; all are available on the JERICO web site (www.jerico-FP7.eu) as well as any deliverable. Each chapter will list referring JERICO documents. A small bibliographic list is available at the end of this deliverable.

Explora: Infrastructure for Scaling Up Software Visualisation to Corpora

Visualisation provides good support for software analysis. It copes with the intangible nature of software by providing concrete representations of it. By reducing the complexity of software, visualisations are especially useful when dealing with large amounts of code. One domain that usually deals with large amounts of source code data is empirical analysis. Although there are many tools for analysis and visualisation, they do not cope well software corpora. In this paper we present Explora, an infrastructure that is specifically targeted at visualising corpora. We report on early results when conducting a sample analysis on Smalltalk and Java corpora.

HEAT MANAGEMENT IN THE PUMPING INFRASTRUCTURE AREA OF AN ESTERHAZY MINE

Heat management in mines is a growing issue as mines expand physically in size and depth and as the infrastructure grows that is required to maintain them. Heat management is a concern as it relates to the health and safety of the workers as set by the regulations of governing bodies as well as the heat sensitive equipment that may be found throughout the mine workings. In order to reduce the exposure of working in hot environments there are engineering and management systems that can monitor and control the environmental conditions within the mine. The successful implementation of these methods can manage the downtime caused by heat stress environments, which can increase overall production. This thesis introduces an approach to monitoring and data based heat management. A case study is presented with an in depth approach to data collection. Data was collected for a period of up to and over one year. Continuous monitoring was conducted by equipment that was developed both commercially and within the mine site. The monitoring instrumentation was used to assess the environmental conditions found within the study area. Analysis of the data allowed for an engineering assessment of viable options in order to control and manage the environment heat stress. An option is developed and presented which allows for the greatest impact on the heat stress conditions within the case study area and is economically viable for the mine site.

Knowledge management for ERP success

The business value of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and in general large software implementations has been extensively debated in both popular press and academic literature for over three decades. Despite the positive motives for adoption, various organizations have reported negative impacts from these large investments. This ‘disconnect’ between large IS investments and firms’ organizational performance may be attributable to the economic transition from an era of competitive advantage based on information to one that is based on Knowledge. This paper discusses the initial findings of a two-phased study that focuses on empirically assessing the impact of knowledge management on the success of Enterprise Resource Planning systems. The research study uses information gathered from twenty-seven public sector organizations in Queensland, Australia. Validation of the a priori model constructs through factor analysis identified two dimensions of knowledge management. Further analysis assessed the comparative differences in perceptions of knowledge management in ERP, across four employment cohorts.

Business Process Redesign in Information Technology Incident Management: A teaching case

This paper consists of a detailed case narrative on how a leading Australian Finance organisation has utilised contemporary Business Process Management (BPM) concepts for improving the IT incident management processes within the whole organisation. The target audience includes practitioners who are interested in BPM case studies and Academics who may be seeking case studies for innovative teaching practices.

SKMA - A Key Management Architecture for SCADA Systems

Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are widely used in the management of critical infrastructure such as electricity and water distrubution systems. Currently there is little understanding of how to best protect SCADA systems from malicious attacks. We review the constraints and requirements for SCADA security and propose a suitable architecture (SKMA) for secure SCADA communications. The architecture includes a proposed key management protocol (SKMP). We compare the architecture with a previous proposal from Sandia Labs.

Towards integrated assessments for urban development

The role of sustainability in urban design is becoming increasingly important as Australia’s cities continue to grow, putting pressure on existing infrastructure such as water, energy and transport. To optimise an urban design many different aspects such as water, energy, transport, costs need to be taken into account integrally. Integrated software applications assessing urban designs on a large variety of aspects are hardly available. With the upcoming next generation of the Internet often referred to as the Semantic Web, data can become more machine-interpretable by developing ontologies that can support the development of integrated software systems. Software systems can use these ontologies to perform an intelligent task such as assessing an urban design on a particular aspect. When ontologies of different applications are aligned, they can share information resulting in interoperability. Inference such as compliancy checks and classifications can support aligning the ontologies. A proof of concept implementation has been made to demonstrate and validate the usefulness of machine interpretable ontologies for urban designs.

Urban management revolution : intelligent management systems for ubiquitous cities

A successful urban management support system requires an integrated approach. This integration includes bringing together economic, socio-cultural and urban development with a well orchestrated transparent and open decision making mechanism. The paper emphasises the importance of integrated urban management to better tackle the climate change, and to achieve sustainable urban development and sound urban growth management. This paper introduces recent approaches on urban management systems, such as intelligent urban management systems, that are suitable for ubiquitous cities. The paper discusses the essential role of online collaborative decision making in urban and infrastructure planning, development and management, and advocates transparent, fully democratic and participatory mechanisms for an effective urban management system that is particularly suitable for ubiquitous cities. This paper also sheds light on some of the unclear processes of urban management of ubiquitous cities and online collaborative decision making, and reveals the key benefits of integrated and participatory mechanisms in successfully constructing sustainable ubiquitous cities.