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Reviews and Responses for Decentralised Traffic Management for Constrained Urban Airspace: Dynamically Generating and Acting Upon Aggregate Flow Data
Get PDFSee detailed reviews and responses in the PDF file.
DOI for the original paper: https://doi.org/10.59490/joas.2024.771
Plantation Technologies: More-Than-Human Histories of Operationalisation in the Palm Oil Production Territories of Johor State, Malaysia
Get PDFIn this article we investigate plantation agriculture as a technology aimed at extracting natural resources, utilising unpaid labour, and installing regulatory authority. Using the oil palm plantation territories of Johor State in Malaysia – a core zone of palm oil production, manufacturing and export – as a case study, we ask how more-than-human assemblages enabled the expansion and refinement of oil palm plantations in Malaysia and contributed to the material transformation of the territory. We also explore how plantations can be mobilised as an analytical device to study the urbanisation of territory through agro-industrial production. To explore those questions, we present three episodes of more-than-human involvement in assembling oil palm plantation territories in Johor. Through the conceptual frame of the operationalisation of territory, we bring into dialogue literature on the Plantationocene with critical urban studies and the history of urbanisation
In the Garden of Anthropos: Conservation after Artificial Intelligence
Get PDFThe term ‘planetary garden’ was coined by Gilles Clement to refer to the privileged site of the planetary mixing of species that is managed by humans. In the face of the ongoing environmental collapse, we envision the garden as a new locus for symbiotic attachment and original exchange between human and non-human ecologies. Drawing on the garden metaphor, we discuss the conceptual and ecological impacts of human stewardship of the environment. Recognising ecosystems as changing fields of social and technical interactions, we evaluate how conservation strategies shift in tandem with these changes. We explore the influence of emerging technologies on human understanding of natural ecosystems and on societal approaches to conservation. Envisioning the future, we are mapping out the need for human-centric technologies to foster new forms of agency between humans and their environments. While any technological promise does not come without ethical and technical challenges, we advocate for ecological intelligence (EI), a spatialised human-AI collaboration scheme, as a critical condition for reimagining and upscaling conservation practices in the Anthropocene
Bicycle commuting beyond short distances: built environment, socio-demographic factors and type of bicycle influencing the choice to cycle to three university campuses.
Get PDFPromoting cycling as commuting mode has gained interest due to the increasing consensus among policymakers, supported by scientific evidence on the benefits of cycling. While the convenience of cycling as main commuting mode tends to decrease as commuting distances increase, emerging travel modes such as e-bikes and speedpedelecs, and the promotion and development of cycle highways could overcome distance as barrier to commute by bicycle. This paper uses the commuting data (n= 6,425) of a mid-size university in Belgium to identify the commuter characteristics and built environment determinants that are associated with a higher prevalence of battery-assisted and long-distance regular cycling through a multinomial logistic regression analysis. The case offers a wide range of workplaces and residential locations in terms of density as well as other built environment factors. The paper discusses the potential of long-distance bicycle commuting to shift individuals from motorized commuting towards more active modes. The results suggest that e-bikes and speedpedelecs offer broader geographical reach and appeal to a more diverse demographic. The development of a comprehensive network of cycle highways, emphasizing safety and separation, holds promise for promoting these types of bicycles. Additionally, mixed-use dense (peri-)urban neighbourhoods can stimulate cycling commuting also beyond short distances
Minimum effort adaptation of automatic speech recognition system in air traffic management
Get PDFAdvancements in Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology is exemplified by ubiquitous voice assistants such as Siri and Alexa. Researchers have been exploring the application of ASR for Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems. Initial prototypes utilized ASR to pre-fill aircraft radar labels and achieved a technological readiness level before industrialization (TRL6). However, accurately recognizing infrequently used but highly informative domain-specific vocabulary is still an issue. This includes waypoint names specific to each airspace region and unique airline designators, e.g., “dexon” or “pobeda”. Traditionally, open-source ASR toolkits or large pre-trained models require substantial domain-specific transcribed speech data to adapt to specialized vocabularies. However, typically, a “universal” ASR engine capable of reliably recognizing a core dictionary of several hundreds of frequently used words suffices for ATM applications. The challenge lies in dynamically integrating the additional region-specific words used less frequently. These uncommon words are crucial for maintaining clear communication within the ATM environment. This paper proposes a novel approach that facilitates the dynamic integration of these new and specific word entities into the existing universal ASR system. This paves the way for “plug-and-play” customization with minimal expert intervention and eliminates the need for extensive fine-tuning of the universal ASR model. The proposed approach demonstrably improves the accuracy of these region-specific words by a factor of ≈7 (from 10% F1-score to 70%) for all rare words and ≈5 (from 13% F1-score to 64%) for waypoints
Garbage in/Garbage out: The hermeneutics of visualisation reading in humanitarian mapping and interventions
Get PDFGeographic information has become increasingly relied upon in supporting decision-making in public administration as well as humanitarian intervention. One domain where such information has been important is waste management, notably improving the mapping of areas with the highest waste accumulation, finding suitable locations for landfills as well as planning transport routes for collection services. The utility of geographic information here reflects the capacity of visual information to mediate between human actors (e.g. municipal authorities) and the world in which they wish to make changes . In this paper, we shall be presenting insights from five focus groups that were conducted to assess the impact of the visualisation of waste accumulation in the ‘slums’ and informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, along with factors that affected the readability and understanding of the visualisations presented in the focus groups. In this paper, we will be considering: i) the impact of design elements (e.g. level of detail and symbology) on raising problem awareness of the participants regarding the waste accumulation; and ii) the ethical and political concerns that arise from the way communities living in the DUAs are perceived from the visualisations
Library of Stone: Cemeteries, Storytelling, and the Preservation of Urban Infrastructures of Death and Mourning
Get PDFThis article examines cemeteries as repositories for vernacular literary culture, in the form of epitaphs, and as the inspiration for literature that brings necrogeography into tension with programmes of growth. It starts in the early nineteenth century, when Romantic period notions of individuality, intertwined with the novel, gave birth to modern cemeteries. These spaces have, in the interceding centuries, grown old and been threatened by expanding cities, infrastructure, and changing modes of memorialisation. As sprawling cities encroach on cemeteries, ‘perpetual rest’ has been challenged and headstones have been removed or consolidated, to make way for parks and amenities that benefit the living. Literary depictions of cemeteries in the twentieth century have both reinforced, and troubled the notion, that cemeteries are ‘archives in stone’ that must be protected at all costs
Constructing the New Capital City: Chinese Architects and the Urban Plan of Nanjing during the Republican Era (1927-1949)
Get PDFBased on ongoing postgraduate (MPhil) research, the conference presentation discusses features of modernization, identity, and nationhood within the narrative of Nanjing’s urban planning during China\u27s Republican Era（1927-1949）. It accomplishes this through attention to native architect-planners, e.g. Lu Yanchi （呂彥直）, Doon Dayu （董大酉）, and Robert Fan （范文照）. They were assistants of Henry Murphy, the chief consultant of the Capital Plan. The presentation will utilize primary Chinese sources such as newspapers, manuscripts, archives, documents, and old photographs, and so intends to analyze the works of the young Chinese architect-planners together with the political intentions and intellectual influences upon how the built fabric was shaped and meant.
As the capital city of Republican China, Nanjing was to become the symbol of ‘the modern country’. Its form and density were to be affected by considerations about the nature of the citizenry, the contemporary political atmosphere, Chinese traditional and modern culture, and financial funding. Collectively, these elements affected the development of Nanjing during the Republican Era and contributed in different way to its plan\u27s successes and failures
Landscape Evolution of Historic Campuses from the Perspective of Historic Layering: A Case Study of Three University Campuses in Nanjing, China
Get PDFAs China\u27s social development enters a new stage of connotative progression, campus heritage is attracting attention as an essential part of the cultural landscape in historic cities. Historic campuses are the spatial carriers of campus heritage, a superimposed collage of campus landscapes from multiple historical periods with outstanding value. Campus space presents the development history of campus planning and construction concepts, showing the unique cultural connotation. Related research has expanded from studying "points" of historic buildings to the holistic study of "surfaces" such as spatial patterns and landscape environments.With the support of "Historic Layering" and "Anchoring-Layering" in the theory of historic urban landscape (HUL), this article takes the three cases of Southeast University (Sipailou Campus), Nanjing University (Gulou Campus), and Nanjing Normal University (Suiyuan Campus) to interpret landscape evolution of historic campuses in Nanjing. Combining the technical support of campus planning and construction drawings from different decades with historical photos, documents, and on-site surveys, the dynamic process characteristics and layering rules of campus landscape are investigated under the constant collision and compromise between planning ideals and social reality.The study found that the historic campuses show the evolutionary characteristics of the hybridization and collage of multiple landscapes and the spatial and temporal correlation between architecture and environmental elements in landscape shaping from the early architectural dominance to the late architectural and environmental co-action. Moreover, different campuses have unique landscape characters, especially the pre-1949 campuses dominated by Western classicism or the Chinese-Western fusion, which has become an essential cultural gene of the campus.This can serve as a reference for cultural interpretation of the historic campus landscape\u27s dynamic evolution and characterizing the contemporary campus space
Planning history research and urban heritage conservation: Interrelations, barriers and future directions
Get PDFIt is argued that the planning history field has existed since the 1970s1, and research in planning history mainly encompasses thoughts, regulations, and ideas of urban planning. Research in planning history not only enriches an understanding of the influence that urban planning exerts on places that we live in, but also provides a basis and direction for future planning practices. From a planning perspective, urban heritage conservation can be seen as the process of maintaining and transmission of cultural heritage assets in a way that causes significant messages to remain intact and accessible to future generations.
Therefore, close linkages between respective theoretical explorations are discerned. It is mainly because urban heritage conservation can be achieved through planning practice, and academic research in planning history lays some theoretical basis for heritage planning work. However, planning history research is rarely conducted nowadays, and mostly by higher-education academics; and the significance of planning history research is not widely recognised by heritage planning and conservation practitioners. This paper aims to explore the interrelations between planning history research and urban heritage conservation practice, and suggest the approaches to better integrating them