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Rocking of single-layer armour units measured by embedded sensors
Get PDFSingle layer randomly placed armour units are used in many rubble mound breakwaters around the world. For these armour layers first extraction of units starts at high loads and can then progress quickly. Before the first extraction of a unit, typically no quantitative description of damage can be given. But additional to extraction, breakage of armour units due to rocking could be a major damage mechanism. This paper treat novel embedded Rocking Sensors. The technique is used to obtain the first measurements of rocking-impact velocities of single-layer units. They are also the first tests where the instrumented units can naturally move with the compacting layer during storm build-up. Physical model tests were performed on an armour layer with XBloc units. With 8 to 10 instrumented units per test run, in total 640 single measurements of the rocking motion of a unit during a 1200 wave test run were obtained, for three water levels and five wave heights. From the Rocking Sensors the number of impacts and rotational impact velocities were obtained. From an image analysis the along-slope settlement of the units during the tests was quantified. The rotational motion expressed by was found to be most convenient to express the motion. It can be seen that the units in the armour layer rock much more often than visually observed. Settlement seems to be a continuous progress, with most units rocking intermittently. Highest impact velocities are seen to occur around the water line, and in the uprush phase of the waves. A maximum impact velocity for all tests of 0.34 m/s (model scale) was measured. A preliminary design expression for rocking impact velocities of single layer units (Xblocs) is given. The paper shows that novel measurement techniques like the Rocking Sensors and vision techniques can and should be used to quantify damage mechanisms to rubble mound single-layer armour, additional to counting the extracted number of intact units
The Bureaucratic disconnect in collaborative institutions: A Case of Rural Water Supply in Punjab, Pakistan
Get PDFThe collaborative model for rural water supply (RWS), introduced at the behest of international funders in the 1990s, experienced only partial success owing to the low accept- ability of public managers and the slow process of community development (CD). This article goes into the empirical findings of a study that is based on in-depth interviews with 20 staff and line public managers of the four RWS in different regions as well as on content analysis of policy documents and funding organizations’ reports. The results indicate that appropriate CD, reforms in internal organization arrangements, and understanding of context-specific social, economic, and political diversity remain necessary in collaborative compliance with institutions for RWS sustainability. The study aims at making a contribution to the theory of collaborative governance and the practice of collaborative implementation in developing countries
impunity: Enforcing Physical Unit Consistency at Definition Time in Python
Get PDFWe introduce impunity, a Python library that enables static analysis of code annotations to ensure the consistency of physical units. It provides a framework for developers to annotate their Python code with physical units and automatically verifies if the units are compatible and adhere to predefined coherence rules. impunity comes as a decorator to apply on functions: it analyses the source code to check for consistency of physical dimensions, and applies minimal code rewriting if conversions are necessary. Overall, this approach takes the best of type-checking based methods and dynamic methods and provides a robust approach with no overhead at runtime
Reviews and Responses for impunity: Enforcing Physical Unit Consistency at Definition Time in Python
Get PDFSee detail reviews and responses in the PDF file.
DOI for the original paper: https://doi.org/10.59490/joas.2023.707
Play it Again: A Genealogy for Machine Learning
Get PDFContemporary discourses accompanying the deployment of machine learning tend to fit within a meta-narrative of automation. Whether heralded as inevitable or criticized as reductive, this process of automation tends to be considered as concurrent to technology’s extension in general. By drawing on the social and technical history of machine learning, I would like to suggest that play offers at least one other way of framing machine learning’s development, one that could help foster other expectations and evaluations of machine learning performances. The genealogy of machine learning I will provide draws on certain historical tropes to problematize contemporary debates. I will distinguish two normative paradigms: automation and play. Each one expresses differing, albeit not incompatible values, expectations and objectives when evaluating machine behaviors and their interactions with human ones. Whereas automation pushes us to consider machines as ideally working by themselves, play requires a social and affective engagement whose outcome is always partially unpredictable. It helps account for the relative open-endedness, intractability and recursiveness of machine learning systems embedded in social practices. More specifically, I underline why play provides a sweet spot for thinking about performances such as those we are increasingly seeing in machine learning systems, that combine both rule-following behaviors and forms of improvisation upon those rules. Play includes automaticity as a level of behavior among others. The more general claim I am making is that play gives us a window onto a different history of machine learning and for imagining other forms of social interaction with and through technology. 
Theorizing and criticizing human-technology relations: Interdisciplinary perspectives, emerging technologies, and open science
Get PDFAt the crossroads of Architecture and Landscape: Preservation Strategies of Historic Military Systems: a Comparison between Italy and the Netherlands
Get PDFIn the context of rapid urban transformations, this thesis explores the possible preservation strategies for historic military systems that used to be embedded in extra-urban settings, but that now are absorbed in the development dynamics of complex metropolitan areas. The research stems from the main peculiarity of these heritage systems: namely, the coexistence of cultural and natural values, and their being at the crossroads of the architecture and landscape domains. Although the need to address nature-culture interlinkages has become a topical issue in the field of heritage preservation, military landscapes have been almost completely left out of this debate. Moreover, the lack of inter-scale strategies in current preservation practices for historic military systems further complicates the way nature-culture interlinkages are addressed. The development of a conceptual framework on this topic has required considering the diversity of existing approaches to landscape, architectural heritage and their interconnection. Italy and the Netherlands were selected as relevant contexts in Western Europe for comparison on this topic. Linking archival research, interviews and field observations, Italian and Dutch contemporary experiences with the revitalization and reuse of historic military systems (NL: New Dutch Waterline; IT: Entrenched Field of Mestre) were compared. Both national and international initiatives promoted in the frame of the World Heritage Convention were analysed. To understand the historical roots of the recent approaches, the evolution of landscape protection in the two contexts has been investigated, highlighting the different influences played by the national discourse on architectural heritage and spatial planning. This historical background, together with the cross-reading of the case studies, has led to the definition of a transnational conceptual framework on the possible preservation strategies for historic military systems with an inter-scale approach. Taking into account the peculiarities of each context, it provides a tool for facilitating the decision-making process, bringing historic military systems into the international discussion on nature-culture interlinkages. Ultimately, it can serve as a reference for other historic landscape systems sharing similar characteristics and preservation issues
HOPCA: Hospital Layout Design Optimization using Computational Architecture
No full textHospitals are known as functionally complex buildings in various ways, namely due to their non-trivial spatial connectivity requirements. A spatial configuration has an impact on human behavior, human movement patterns and should match with the operational logic of the buildings. In hospitals, there are several typical problems that can be attributed to the configuration of the building, namely the inefficient circulation of medical staff, difficult way-finding for visitors, lengthy and complex procedures for patients, long walking times, privacy, hygiene issues and so on.
This Ph.D. research aims to develop a computational design methodology for configurational layout optimization of hospital buildings concerning physical matters & human factors, which are directly attributable to the layout/configuration of the hospital. In the optimization models, the considered performance indicators are related with patients (e.g. ease of way-finding), staff (e.g. average walking-time), and operations (e.g. fitness for workflows). Two case studies are studied here as (1) reconfiguration of existing hospitals; and (2) designing the new hospitals by focussing on “layout planning” and “corridor design”. The developed models are programmed in the form of design tool-kits for supporting conceptual design phases.
Effectively, this project presents an interdisciplinary methodological framework that can tackle hospital layout design problems by integrating Computational Design workflows, Graph Theory techniques, Operations Research, and Computational Intelligence into the field of Architectural Space Planning. 
ShoreScape: A landscape approach to the natural adaptation of urbanized sandy shores
Get PDFUrbanized sandy shores around the world suffer from coastal erosion due to a lack of sediment input and sea level rise. These dynamics place new demands on coastal spatial planning. To compensate for coastal erosion in a more natural and systemic way, sand nourishments are deployed as a ‘Building with Nature’ technique, restoring the sediment balance and promoting dune formation as coastal defence. In this research, Building with Nature is reframed as a landscape approach, regenerating the coastal landscape by tuning the interactions between the geomorphological, ecological, and urban system, to adapt to sea level rise. To this end, design principles have been developed that integrate nourishment dynamics, natural succession, and adaptive urban design to build towards safe and multi-functional coastal landscapes— Shore-Scapes. They focus on spatial coastal configurations utilizing wind-driven sedimentation processes to build up the coastal buffer, supporting dune formation, multifunctionality, and landscape differentiation. To direct sediment dynamics for coastal reinforcement and landscaping, three subsequent tools for dynamic design have been derived: morphogenesis, dynamic profiling, and aeolian design principles. With these principles, validated by fieldwork, GIS, and computational modelling, spatial arrangements can be composed enhancing the aeolian build-up of the coastal landscape over time. These principles were applied and contextualized in four case studies along the Dutch coast. They illustrate how dunes along urbanized shores can grow naturally after nourishment and allow coastal safety, recreation, and nature to complement each other
Entrepreneurial citizenship in urban regeneration
Get PDFMore and more citizens are entering the public domain and taking over tasks that traditionally belong to the government. For example, citizens increasingly run a community centre themselves, maintain the greenery in their neighbourhood and manage the local playground. To some extent, governments also encourage this behaviour and are disposing of social real estate. Against this background, this study examines the rise of citizens\u27 initiatives in the Netherlands and how this takes shape in the context of urban regeneration. The study pays attention to a specific type of citizens’ initiative, namely community enterprises. It applies qualitative research methods, such as semi-structured interviews with representatives of community enterprises and discourse analysis of policy documents. It examines the expectations governments have of active citizens and how this relates to the motivations and capacities of active citizens themselves. The study broadens our understanding of active citizens who utilizes their entrepreneurial skills and mindset to drive positive change, contribute to the well-being of their community, and address pressing societal challenges