A hierarchical evolutionary algorithmic design (HEAD) system for generating and evolving building design models

This thesis develops a detailed conceptual design method and a system software architecture defined with a parametric and generative evolutionary design system to support an integrated interdisciplinary building design approach. The research recognises the need to shift design efforts toward the earliest phases of the design process to support crucial design decisions that have a substantial cost implication on the overall project budget. The overall motivation of the research is to improve the quality of designs produced at the author's employer, the General Directorate of Major Works (GDMW) of the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces. GDMW produces many buildings that have standard requirements, across a wide range of environmental and social circumstances. A rapid means of customising designs for local circumstances would have significant benefits. The research considers the use of evolutionary genetic algorithms in the design process and the ability to generate and assess a wider range of potential design solutions than a human could manage. This wider ranging assessment, during the early stages of the design process, means that the generated solutions will be more appropriate for the defined design problem. The research work proposes a design method and system that promotes a collaborative relationship between human creativity and the computer capability. The tectonic design approach is adopted as a process oriented design that values the process of design as much as the product. The aim is to connect the evolutionary systems to performance assessment applications, which are used as prioritised fitness functions. This will produce design solutions that respond to their environmental and function requirements. This integrated, interdisciplinary approach to design will produce solutions through a design process that considers and balances the requirements of all aspects of the design. Since this thesis covers a wide area of research material, 'methodological pluralism' approach was used, incorporating both prescriptive and descriptive research methods. Multiple models of research were combined and the overall research was undertaken following three main stages, conceptualisation, developmental and evaluation. The first two stages lay the foundations for the specification of the proposed system where key aspects of the system that have not previously been proven in the literature, were implemented to test the feasibility of the system. As a result of combining the existing knowledge in the area with the newlyverified key aspects of the proposed system, this research can form the base for a future software development project. The evaluation stage, which includes building the prototype system to test and evaluate the system performance based on the criteria defined in the earlier stage, is not within the scope this thesis. The research results in a conceptual design method and a proposed system software architecture. The proposed system is called the 'Hierarchical Evolutionary Algorithmic Design (HEAD) System'. The HEAD system has shown to be feasible through the initial illustrative paper-based simulation. The HEAD system consists of the two main components - 'Design Schema' and the 'Synthesis Algorithms'. The HEAD system reflects the major research contribution in the way it is conceptualised, while secondary contributions are achieved within the system components. The design schema provides constraints on the generation of designs, thus enabling the designer to create a wide range of potential designs that can then be analysed for desirable characteristics. The design schema supports the digital representation of the human creativity of designers into a dynamic design framework that can be encoded and then executed through the use of evolutionary genetic algorithms. The design schema incorporates 2D and 3D geometry and graph theory for space layout planning and building formation using the Lowest Common Design Denominator (LCDD) of a parameterised 2D module and a 3D structural module. This provides a bridge between the standard adjacency requirements and the evolutionary system. The use of graphs as an input to the evolutionary algorithm supports the introduction of constraints in a way that is not supported by standard evolutionary techniques. The process of design synthesis is guided as a higher level description of the building that supports geometrical constraints. The Synthesis Algorithms component analyses designs at four levels, 'Room', 'Layout', 'Building' and 'Optimisation'. At each level multiple fitness functions are embedded into the genetic algorithm to target the specific requirements of the relevant decomposed part of the design problem. Decomposing the design problem to allow for the design requirements of each level to be dealt with separately and then reassembling them in a bottom up approach reduces the generation of non-viable solutions through constraining the options available at the next higher level. The iterative approach, in exploring the range of design solutions through modification of the design schema as the understanding of the design problem improves, assists in identifying conflicts in the design requirements. Additionally, the hierarchical set-up allows the embedding of multiple fitness functions into the genetic algorithm, each relevant to a specific level. This supports an integrated multi-level, multi-disciplinary approach. The HEAD system promotes a collaborative relationship between human creativity and the computer capability. The design schema component, as the input to the procedural algorithms, enables the encoding of certain aspects of the designer's subjective creativity. By focusing on finding solutions for the relevant sub-problems at the appropriate levels of detail, the hierarchical nature of the system assist in the design decision-making process.

Risk and Responsibility in Women's Prisons

I have been invited to discuss Risk and Responsibility in Women’s Prisons, a task which, is slightly intimidating for one such as I, who, having never worked in a prison, have never experienced the risks and responsibilities working in a prison entails. However, this discussion is based on what prisons’ staff have told me, as they have ruminated on the complexities of their jobs in women’s prisons and many of the examples which I will be using are taken from cross-national research which I did in 2000 and 2001 and which set out to analyse the fortunes of some innovatory programmes in relation to women’s prisons in England, Scotland, North America, Australia and Israel (Carlen 2002). The discussion draws in particular on the imaginative way in which the Scottish women’s prison, Cornton Vale, responded to the spate of suicides which it had in the late 1990s and which resulted in far reaching organizational change.

The influence of smoking status on malnutrition risk and 1-year mortality in outpatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Introduction:  Smoking status in outpatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been associated with a low body mass index (BMI) and reduced mid-arm muscle circumference (Cochrane & Afolabi, 2004). Individuals with COPD identified as malnourished have also been found to be twice as likely to die within 1 year compared to non-malnourished patients (Collins et al., 2010). Although malnutrition is both preventable and treatable, it is not clear what influence current smoking status, another modifiable risk factor, has on malnutrition risk. The current study aimed to establish the influence of smoking status on malnutrition risk and 1-year mortality in outpatients with COPD. Methods:  A prospective nutritional screening survey was carried out between July 2008 and May 2009 at a large teaching hospital (Southampton General Hospital) and a smaller community hospital within Hampshire (Lymington New Forest Hospital). In total, 424 outpatients with a diagnosis of COPD were routinely screened using the ‘Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool’, ‘MUST’ (Elia, 2003); 222 males, 202 females; mean (SD) age 73 (9.9) years; mean (SD) BMI 25.9 (6.4) kg m−2. Smoking status on the date of screening was obtained for 401 of the outpatients. Severity of COPD was assessed using the GOLD criteria, and social deprivation determined using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (Nobel et al., 2008). Results:  The overall prevalence of malnutrition (medium + high risk) was 22%, with 32% of current smokers at risk (who accounted for 19% of the total COPD population). In comparison, 19% of nonsmokers and ex-smokers were likely to be malnourished [odds ratio, 1.965; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.133–3.394; P = 0.015]. Smoking status remained an independent risk factor for malnutrition even after adjustment for age, social deprivation and disease-severity (odds ratio, 2.048; 95% CI, 1.085–3.866; P = 0.027) using binary logistic regression. After adjusting for age, disease severity, social deprivation, smoking status, malnutrition remained a significant predictor of 1-year mortality [odds ratio (medium + high risk versus low risk), 2.161; 95% CI, 1.021–4.573; P = 0.044], whereas smoking status did not (odds ratio for smokers versus ex-smokers + nonsmokers was 1.968; 95% CI, 0.788–4.913; P = 0.147). Discussion:  This study highlights the potential importance of combined nutritional support and smoking cessation in order to treat malnutrition. The close association between smoking status and malnutrition risk in COPD suggests that smoking is an important consideration in the nutritional management of malnourished COPD outpatients. Conclusions:  Smoking status in COPD outpatients is a significant independent risk factor for malnutrition and a weaker (nonsignificant) predictor of 1-year mortality. Malnutrition significantly predicted 1 year mortality. References:  Cochrane, W.J. & Afolabi, O.A. (2004) Investigation into the nutritional status, dietary intake and smoking habits of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. J. Hum. Nutr. Diet.17, 3–11. Collins, P.F., Stratton, R.J., Kurukulaaratchym R., Warwick, H. Cawood, A.L. & Elia, M. (2010) ‘MUST’ predicts 1-year survival in outpatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Clin. Nutr.5, 17. Elia, M. (Ed) (2003) The ‘MUST’ Report. BAPEN. http://www.bapen.org.uk (accessed on March 30 2011). Nobel, M., McLennan, D., Wilkinson, K., Whitworth, A. & Barnes, H. (2008) The English Indices of Deprivation 2007. http://www.communities.gov.uk (accessed on March 30 2011).

Frames of Anime: Culture and Image-Building

With the rising popularity of anime amongst animation students, audiences and scholars around the world, it has become increasingly important to critically analyse anime as being more than a ‘limited’ form of animation, and thematically as encompassing more than super robots and pocket monsters. Frames of Anime: Culture and Image-Building charts the development of Japanese animation from its indigenous roots within a native culture, through Japan’s experience of modernity and the impact of the Second World War. This text is the result of a rigorous study that recognises the heterogeneous and polymorphous background of anime. As such, Tze-Yue has adopted an ‘interdisciplinary and transnational’ (p. 7) approach to her enquiry, drawing upon face-to-face interviews, on-site visits and biographical writings of animators. Tze-Yue delineates anime from other forms of animation by linking its visual style to pre-modern Japanese art forms and demonstrating the connection it shares with an indigenous folk system of beliefs. Via the identification of traditional Japanese art forms and their visual connectedness to Japanese animation, Tze-Yue shows that the Japanese were already heavily engaged in what was destined to become anime once technology had enabled its production. Tze-Yue’s efforts to connect traditional Japanese art forms, and their artistic elements, to contemporary anime reveals that the Japanese already had a rich culture of visual storytelling that pre-dates modern animation. She identifies the Japanese form of the magic lantern at the turn of the 19th century, utsushi-e, as the pre-modern ancestor of Japanese animation, describing it as ‘Edo anime’ (p. 43). Along with utsushi-e, the Edo period also saw the woodblock print, ukiyo-e, being produced for the rising middle class (p. 32). Highlighting the ‘resurfacing’ of ‘realist’ approaches to Japanese art in ukiyo-e, Tze-Yue demonstrates the visual connection of ukiyo-e and anime in the …

Association between prostinogen (KLK15) genetic variants and prostate cancer risk and aggressiveness in Australia and a meta-analysis of GWAS data

Background: Kallikrein 15 (KLK15)/Prostinogen is a plausible candidate for prostate cancer susceptibility. Elevated KLK15 expression has been reported in prostate cancer and it has been described as an unfavorable prognostic marker for the disease. Objectives: We performed a comprehensive analysis of association of variants in the KLK15 gene with prostate cancer risk and aggressiveness by genotyping tagSNPs, as well as putative functional SNPs identified by extensive bioinformatics analysis. Methods and Data Sources: Twelve out of 22 SNPs, selected on the basis of linkage disequilibrium pattern, were analyzed in an Australian sample of 1,011 histologically verified prostate cancer cases and 1,405 ethnically matched controls. Replication was sought from two existing genome wide association studies (GWAS): the Cancer Genetic Markers of Susceptibility (CGEMS) project and a UK GWAS study. Results: Two KLK15 SNPs, rs2659053 and rs3745522, showed evidence of association (p, 0.05) but were not present on the GWAS platforms. KLK15 SNP rs2659056 was found to be associated with prostate cancer aggressiveness and showed evidence of association in a replication cohort of 5,051 patients from the UK, Australia, and the CGEMS dataset of US samples. A highly significant association with Gleason score was observed when the data was combined from these three studies with an Odds Ratio (OR) of 0.85 (95% CI = 0.77-0.93; p = 2.7610 24). The rs2659056 SNP is predicted to alter binding of the RORalpha transcription factor, which has a role in the control of cell growth and differentiation and has been suggested to control the metastatic behavior of prostate cancer cells. Conclusions: Our findings suggest a role for KLK15 genetic variation in the etiology of prostate cancer among men of European ancestry, although further studies in very large sample sets are necessary to confirm effect sizes.

DRD2 C957T and TaqIA genotyping reveals gender effects and unique low-risk and high-risk genotypes in alcohol dependence

AIMS: As recent conflicting reports describe a genetic association between both the C- and the T-alleles of the dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) C957T polymorphism (rs6277) in alcohol-dependent subjects, our aim was to examine this polymorphism and TaqIA (rs1800497) in Australian alcohol-dependent subjects. METHODS: The C957T polymorphism was genotyped in 228 patients with alcohol dependence (72 females and 156 males) and 228 healthy controls. RESULTS: The C-allele and C/C genotype of C957T was associated with alcohol dependence, whereas the TaqIA polymorphism was not. When analysed separately for C957T, males showed an even stronger association with the C-allele and females showed no association. The C957T and TaqIA haplotyping revealed a strong association with alcohol dependence and a double-genotype analysis (combining C957T and TaqIA genotypes) revealed that the relative risk of different genotypes varied by up to 27-fold with the TT/A1A2 having an 8.5-fold lower risk of alcohol dependence than other genotypes. CONCLUSION: Decreased DRD2 binding associated with the C-allele of the DRD2 C957T polymorphism is likely to be important in the underlying pathophysiology of at least some forms of alcohol dependence, and this effect appears to be limited to males only.

Promoting student well-being and resilience at law school

University can be a psychologically distressing place for students, particularly those studying law. Legal academics have been concerned about this for some time. In the United States, in particular, it has been found that symptoms of psychological distress rise signifi cantly for students in their fi rst year of law (compared to levels in the general population at that time), and persist throughout the degree to post-graduation. Recognised symptoms include depression, obsessive compulsive behaviour, feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, anxiety, hostility, paranoia, and social alienation. Many students experience law school as an isolating, adversarial and competitive environment, which impacts negatively on their values and motivation...

Going public : do risk and choice explain differences in caesarean birth rates between public and private places of birth in Australia?

Background: Women who birth in private facilities in Australia are more likely to have a caesarean birth than women who birth in public facilities and these differences remain after accounting for sector differences in the demographic and health risk profiles of women. However, the extent to which women’s preferences and/or freedom to choose their mode of birth further account for differences in the likelihood of caesarean birth between the sectors remains untested. Method: Women who birthed in Queensland, Australia during a two-week period in 2009 were mailed a self-report survey approximately three months after birth. Seven hundred and fifty-seven women provided cross-sectional retrospective data on where they birthed (public or private facility), mode of birth (vaginal or caesarean) and risk factors, along with their preferences and freedom to choose their mode of birth. A hierarchical logistic regression was conducted to determine the extent to which maternal risk and freedom to choose one’s mode of birth explain sector differences in the likelihood of having a caesarean birth. Findings: While there was no sector difference in women’s preference for mode of birth, women who birthed in private facilities had higher odds of feeling able to choose either a vaginal or caesarean birth, and feeling able to choose only a caesarean birth. Women had higher odds of having caesarean birth if they birthed in private facilities, even after accounting for significant risk factors such as age, body mass index, previous caesarean and use of assisted reproductive technology. However, there was no association between place of birth and odds of having a caesarean birth after also accounting for freedom to choose one’s mode of birth. Conclusions: These findings call into question suggestions that the higher caesarean birth rate in the private sector in Australia is attributable to increased levels of obstetric risk among women birthing in the private sector or maternal preferences alone. Instead, the determinants of sector differences in the likelihood of caesarean births are complex and are linked to differences in the perceived choices for mode of birth between women birthing in the private and public systems.

Narrative : family trauma or challenge and resilience in the Galapagos Archipelago

The chapter is a "here and now" narration in the first person as witnessed and experienced by the author during field work in the Galapagos Islands in 1976-79. The story begins on the most remote volcanic island of Fernandina where the breeding biology of Flightless cormorants was being studied. A small selection of the many potentially life threatening situations and challenges is described including stories related to the birth of their son.

An interactive and adaptive building layer : strategies for allowing people to become advanced building-users

This paper reports outcomes of a pilot study to develop a conceptual framework to allow people to retrofit a building-layer to gain better control of their own built- environments. The study was initiated by the realisation that discussions surrounding the improvement of building performances tend to be about top-down technological solutions rather than to help and encourage bottom-up involvement of building-users. While users are the ultimate beneficiaries and their feedback is always appreciated, their direct involvements in managing buildings would often be regarded as obstruction or distraction. This is largely because casual interventions by uninformed building-users tend to disrupt the system. Some earlier researches showed however that direct and active participation of users could improve the building performance if appropriate training and/or systems were introduced. We also speculate this in long run would also make the built environment more sustainable. With this in mind, we looked for opportunities to retrofit our own office with an interactive layer to study how we could introduce ad-hoc systems for building-users. The aim of this paper is to describe our vision and initial attempts followed by discussion.

Qualitative study of adversity activated development and resilience in adolescents and young adults with congenital heart disease and their parents

What is it like to have a medical condition that few people have ever heard about? How does it feel to have to question whether daily physical activities are dangerous for you, whilst you watch your friends enjoy those activities without a care? Can you imagine that you need to have a complicated heart surgery, with risks such as paralysis or death? Or even imagine facing the painful recovery period and scars after such a surgery? Then imagine that you are a child or teenager dealing with this medical condition when all your friends are simply occupied with school and normal life. Now consider that surgery has been undertaken to extend your lifespan, but the operation is so new that the long-term outcomes are just not known? All you really know is that you might have ‘surgical repairs’ to your heart and symptoms may be relieved or managed by medications or cardiac devices, but you are never going to be cured. What if you had already experienced painful, frightening, lonely and tedious hospitalisations and you were forced to put your life on hold to re-enter that situation, time and time again. This may be your life, as a Congenital Heart Disease or CHD patient. How do such patients cope and in many cases even thrive? This chapter will review current international literature regarding the medical and personal impact of CHD. Our qualitative study of the perspectives of young CHD patients and their parents contributes to the Australian story of CHD, as well as highlighting the potential for CHD related adversity to promote personal development.