Built environment education, research and practice: integrating diverse interests to make an impact

The role of the academic in the built environment seems generally to be not well understood or articulated. While this problem is not unique to our field, there are plenty of examples in a wide range of academic disciplines where the academic role has been fully articulated. But built environment academics have tended not to look beyond their own literature and their own vocational context in trying to give meaning to their academic work. The purpose of this keynote presentation is to explore the context of academic work generally and the connections between education, research and practice in the built environment, specifically. By drawing on ideas from the sociology of the professions, the role of universities, and the fundamentals of social science research, a case is made that helps to explain the kind of problems that routinely obstruct academic progress in our field. This discussion reveals that while there are likely to be great weaknesses in much of what is published and taught in the built environment, it is not too great a stretch to provide a more robust understanding and a good basis for developing our field in a way that would enable us collectively to make a major contribution to theory-building, theory-testing and to make a good stab at tackling some of the problems facing society at large. There is no reason to disregard the fundamental academic disciplines that underpin our knowledge of the built environment. If we contextualise our work in these more fundamental disciplines, there is every reason to think that we can have a much greater impact that we have experienced to date.

Robots with a gentle touch: advances in assistive robotics and prosthetics

As healthcare costs rise and an aging population makes an increased demand on services, so new techniques must be introduced to promote an individuals independence and provide these services. Robots can now be designed so they can alter their dynamic properties changing from stiff to flaccid, or from giving no resistance to movement, to damping any large and sudden movements. This has some strong implications in health care in particular for rehabilitation where a robot must work in conjunction with an individual, and might guiding or assist a persons arm movements, or might be commanded to perform some set of autonomous actions. This paper presents the state-of-the-art of rehabilitation robots with examples from prosthetics, aids for daily living and physiotherapy. In all these situations there is the potential for the interaction to be non-passive with a resulting potential for the human/machine/environment combination to become unstable. To understand this instability we must develop better models of the human motor system and fit these models with realistic parameters. This paper concludes with a discussion of this problem and overviews some human models that can be used to facilitate the design of the human/machine interfaces.

Built environment education and research in West Africa

Built environment programmes in West African universities; and research contributions from West Africa in six leading international journals and proceedings of the WABER conference are explored. At least 20 universities in the region offer degree programmes in Architecture (86% out of 23 universities); Building (57%); Civil Engineering (67%); Estate Management (52%); Quantity Surveying (52%); Surveying and Geoinformatics (55%); Urban and Regional Planning (67%). The lecturer-student ratio on programmes is around 1:25 compared to the 1:10 benchmark for excellence. Academics who teach on the programmes are clearly research active with some having published papers in leading international journals. There is, however, plenty of scope for improvement particularly at the highest international level. Out of more than 5000 papers published in six leading international peer-reviewed journals since each of them was established, only 23 of the papers have come from West Africa. The 23 papers are published by 28 academics based in 13 universities. Although some academics may publish their work in the plethora of journals that have proliferated in recent years, new generation researchers are encouraged to publish in more established journals. The analyses of 187 publications in the WABER conference proceedings revealed 18 research-active universities. Factors like quality of teaching, research and lecturer-student ratio, etc count in the ranking of universities. The findings lay bare some of the areas that should be addressed to improve the landscape of higher education in West Africa.

The distributed work of local action: interaction amongst virtually collocated research teams

Existing research on synchronous remote working in CSCW has highlighted the troubles that can arise because actions at one site are (partially) unavailable to remote colleagues. Such ‘local action’ is routinely characterised as a nuisance, a distraction, subordinate and the like. This paper explores interconnections between ‘local action’ and ‘distributed work’ in the case of a research team virtually collocated through ‘MiMeG’. MiMeG is an e-Social Science tool that facilitates ‘distributed data sessions’ in which social scientists are able to remotely collaborate on the real-time analysis of video data. The data are visible and controllable in a shared workspace and participants are additionally connected via audio conferencing. The findings reveal that whilst the (partial) unavailability of local action is at times problematic, it is also used as a resource for coordinating work. The paper considers how local action is interactionally managed in distributed data sessions and concludes by outlining implications of the analysis for the design and study of technologies to support group-to-group collaboration.

Co-fuelling of peat with meat and bone meal in a pilot scale bubbling bed reactor

Co-combustion performance trials of Meat and Bone Meal (MBM) and peat were conducted using a bubbling fluidized bed (BFB) reactor. In the combustion performance trials the effects of the co-combustion of MBM and peat on flue gas emissions, bed fluidization, ash agglomeration tendency in the bed and the composition and quality of the ash were studied. MBM was mixed with peat at 6 levels between 15% and 100%. Emissions were predominantly below regulatory limits. CO concentrations in the flue gas only exceeded the 100 mg/m3 limit upon combustion of pure MBM. SO2 emissions were found to be over the limit of 50 mg/m3, while in all trials NOx emissions were below the limit of 300 mg/m3. The HCl content of the flue gases was found to vary near the limit of 30 mg/m3. VOCs however were within their limits. The problem of bed agglomeration was avoided when the bed temperature was about 850 °C and only 20% MBM was co-combusted. This study indicates that a pilot scale BFB reactor can, under optimum conditions, be operated within emission limits when MBM is used as a co-fuel with peat. This can provide a basis for further scale-up development work in industrial scale BFB applications

Winning and losing in the creative industries: an analysis of creative graduates' career opportunities across creative disciplines

Following earlier work looking at overall career difficulties and low economic rewards faced by graduates in creative disciplines, the paper takes a closer look into the different career patterns and economic performance of “Bohemian” graduates across different creative disciplines. While it is widely acknowledged in the literature that careers in the creative field tend to be unstructured, often relying on part-time work and low wages, our knowledge of how these characteristics differ across the creative industries and occupational sectors is very limited. The paper explores the different trajectory and career patterns experienced by graduates in different creative disciplinary fields and their ability to enter creative occupations. Data from the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) are presented, articulating a complex picture of the reality of finding a creative occupation for creative graduates. While students of some disciplines struggle to find full-time work in the creative economy, for others full-time occupation is the norm. Geography plays a crucial role also in offering graduates opportunities in creative occupations and higher salaries. The findings are contextualised in the New Labour cultural policy framework and conclusions are drawn on whether the creative industries policy construct has hidden a very problematic reality of winners and losers in the creative economy.

Narrativising the facts: acting in screen and stage docudrama

This article presents findings and seeks to establish the theoretical markers that indicate the growing importance of fact-based drama in screen and theatre performance to the wider Anglophone culture. During the final decade of the twentieth century and the opening one of the twenty-first, television docudrama and documentary theatre have grown in visibility and importance in the UK, providing key responses to social, cultural and political change over the millennial period. Actors were the prime focus for the enquiry principally because so little research has been done into the special demands that fact-based performance makes on them. The main emphasis in actor training (in the UK at any rate) is, as it always has been, on preparation for fictional drama. Preparation in acting schools is also heavily geared towards stage performance. Our thesis was that performers called upon to play the roles of real people, in whatever medium, have added responsibilities both towards history and towards real individuals and their families. Actors must engage with ethical questions whether they like it or not, and we found them keenly aware of this. In the course of the research, we conducted 30 interviews with a selection of actors ranging from the experienced to the recently-trained. We also interviewed a few industry professionals and actor trainers. Once the interviews started it was clear that actors themselves made little or no distinction between how they set about their work for television and film. The essential disciplines for work in front of the camera, they told us, are the same whether the camera is electronic or photographic. Some adjustments become necessary, of course in the multi-camera TV studio. But much serious drama for the screen is made on film anyway. We found it was also the case that young actors now tend to get their first paid employment before a camera rather than on a stage. The screen-before-stage tendency, along with the fundamental re-shaping that has gone on in the British theatre since at least the early 1980s, had implications for actor training. We have also found that theatre work still tends to be most valued by actors. For all the actors we interviewed, theatre was what they liked doing best because it was there they could practice and develop their skills, there they could work most collectively towards performance, and there they could more directly experience audience feedback in the real time of the stage play. The current world of television has been especially constrained in regard to rehearsal time in comparison to theatre (and, to a lesser extent, film). This has also affected actors’ valuation of their work. Theatre is, and is not, the most important medium in which they find work. Theatre is most important spiritually and intellectually, because in theatre is collaborative, intensive, and involving; theatre is not as important in financial and career terms, because it is not as lucrative and not as visible to a large public as acting for the screen. Many actors took the view that, for all the industrial differences that do affect them and inevitably interest the academic, acting for the visible media of theatre, film and television involved fundamentally the same process with slightly different emphases.

In vitro fermentation of alternansucrase raffinose-derived oligosaccharides by human gut bacteria

In this work, in vitro fermentation of alternansucrase raffinose-derived oligosaccharides, previously fractionated according to their degree of polymerization (DP; from DP4 to DP10), was carried out using small-scale pH-controlled batch cultures at 37 °C under anaerobic conditions with human feces. Bifidogenic activity of oligosaccharides with DP4�6 similar to that of lactulose was observed; however, in general, a significant growth of lactic acid bacteria Bacteroides, Atopobium cluster, and Clostridium histolyticum group was not shown during incubation. Acetic acid was the main short chain fatty acid (SCFA) produced during the fermentation process; the highest levels of this acid were shown by alternansucrase raffinose acceptor pentasaccharides at 10 h (63.11 mM) and heptasaccharides at 24 h (54.71 mM). No significant differences between the gas volume produced by the mixture of raffinose-based oligosaccharides (DP5�DP10) and inulin after 24 h of incubation were detected, whereas lower gas volume was generated by DP4 oligosaccharides. These findings indicate that novel raffinose-derived oligosaccharides (DP4�DP10) could be a new source of prebiotic carbohydrates.

Disabled characters in plays

In attempting to answer the question ‘How is disability represented in plays?’ two approaches are considered, one semiotic and literary and the other concerned with notions of stereotyping drawn from disability studies. The five plays on which the discussion is based are school examination set texts, raising questions about classroom discourse and interpretation. Pilot study data drawn from students’ work in examinations are offered to suggest possible answers to those questions.

Hydrological cycle in the Danube basin in present-day and XXII century simulations by IPCCAR4 global climate models

We present an intercomparison and verification analysis of 20 GCMs (Global Circulation Models) included in the 4th IPCC assessment report regarding their representation of the hydrological cycle on the Danube river basin for 1961–2000 and for the 2161–2200 SRESA1B scenario runs. The basin-scale properties of the hydrological cycle are computed by spatially integrating the precipitation, evaporation, and runoff fields using the Voronoi-Thiessen tessellation formalism. The span of the model- simulated mean annual water balances is of the same order of magnitude of the observed Danube discharge of the Delta; the true value is within the range simulated by the models. Some land components seem to have deficiencies since there are cases of violation of water conservation when annual means are considered. The overall performance and the degree of agreement of the GCMs are comparable to those of the RCMs (Regional Climate Models) analyzed in a previous work, in spite of the much higher resolution and common nesting of the RCMs. The reanalyses are shown to feature several inconsistencies and cannot be used as a verification benchmark for the hydrological cycle in the Danubian region. In the scenario runs, for basically all models the water balance decreases, whereas its interannual variability increases. Changes in the strength of the hydrological cycle are not consistent among models: it is confirmed that capturing the impact of climate change on the hydrological cycle is not an easy task over land areas. Moreover, in several cases we find that qualitatively different behaviors emerge among the models: the ensemble mean does not represent any sort of average model, and often it falls between the models’ clusters.

Secondary structure prediction with support vector machines

Motivation: A new method that uses support vector machines (SVMs) to predict protein secondary structure is described and evaluated. The study is designed to develop a reliable prediction method using an alternative technique and to investigate the applicability of SVMs to this type of bioinformatics problem. Methods: Binary SVMs are trained to discriminate between two structural classes. The binary classifiers are combined in several ways to predict multi-class secondary structure. Results: The average three-state prediction accuracy per protein (Q3) is estimated by cross-validation to be 77.07 ± 0.26% with a segment overlap (Sov) score of 73.32 ± 0.39%. The SVM performs similarly to the 'state-of-the-art' PSIPRED prediction method on a non-homologous test set of 121 proteins despite being trained on substantially fewer examples. A simple consensus of the SVM, PSIPRED and PROFsec achieves significantly higher prediction accuracy than the individual methods. Availability: The SVM classifier is available from the authors. Work is in progress to make the method available on-line and to integrate the SVM predictions into the PSIPRED server.

Precise calculations of the existence of multiple AMOC equilibria in coupled climate models Part I: equilibrium states

This study examines criteria for the existence of two stable states of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) using a combination of theory and simulations from a numerical coupled atmosphere–ocean climate model. By formulating a simple collection of state parameters and their relationships, the authors reconstruct the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) OFF state behavior under a varying external salt-flux forcing. This part (Part I) of the paper examines the steady-state solution, which gives insight into the mechanisms that sustain the NADW OFF state in this coupled model; Part II deals with the transient behavior predicted by the evolution equation. The nonlinear behavior of the Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) reverse cell is critical to the OFF state. Higher Atlantic salinity leads both to a reduced AAIW reverse cell and to a greater vertical salinity gradient in the South Atlantic. The former tends to reduce Atlantic salt export to the Southern Ocean, while the latter tends to increases it. These competing effects produce a nonlinear response of Atlantic salinity and salt export to salt forcing, and the existence of maxima in these quantities. Thus the authors obtain a natural and accurate analytical saddle-node condition for the maximal surface salt flux for which a NADW OFF state exists. By contrast, the bistability indicator proposed by De Vries and Weber does not generally work in this model. It is applicable only when the effect of the AAIW reverse cell on the Atlantic salt budget is weak.

New evidence from Southern Jordan: rethinking the role of architecture in changing societies at the beginning of the Neolithic process

The development of architecture and the settlement is central to discussions concerning the Neolithic transformation asthe very visible evidence for the changes in society that run parallel to the domestication of plants and animals. Architecture hasbeen used as an important aspect of models of how the transformation occurred, and as evidence for the sharp difference betweenhunter-gatherer and farming societies. We suggest that the emerging evidence for considerable architectural complexity from theearly Neolithic indicates that some of our interpretations depend too much on a very basic understanding of structures which arenormally seen as being primarily for residential purposes and containing households, which become the organising principle for thenew communities which are often seen as fully sedentary and described as villages. Recent work in southern Jordan suggests that inthis region at least there is little evidence for a standard house, and that structures are constructed for a range of diverse primary purposes other than simple domestic shelters.