6 research outputs found
Ashni Pabley Interview
No full textAshni Pabley (Class of 2019) was interviewed by Laurence Lundy and Camille Davis in the Oral History Studio of Fondren Library at Southern Methodist University on February 25, 2020. Ms. Pabley was born and raised in Arlington, Texas and is the daughter of Indian immigrants. During her interview, she discusses her childhood and experiences as the only Indian student in her small, predominantly-white school, and the factors that led her to apply to and attend SMU. While at SMU, she struggled to find her place on campus and experienced mental health challenges, which resulted in her losing financial support from her parents. She discusses her experiences navigating the financial aid process and the understanding and support she received from her professors. Ms. Pabley entered SMU as a pre-med major, but ultimately majored in public relations and English. Although she enjoyed her classes and her educational experience at SMU, she also faced discrimination throughout her time on campus. After graduating, Ms. Pabley published an article about her experiences as a minority student at SMU, which received significant backlash. However, the article also prompted other minority students and alumni to reach out and share their stories with her. Ms. Pabley went on to work in public relations, and at the time of the interview was considering pursuing a graduate degree
Participation for a people–centered Delft: Enabling the municipality of Delft to design people–centered cities with the local communities using participatory approaches
No full textThis graduation project is a collaboration between the Inclusive City Hub (part of Delft Design Labs) and the Gemeente Delft. This project focuses on the topic of participation for creating people–centered cities. The initial problem definition of the project was to understand how the municipality of Delft can design with the people of the city by moving towards a participatory approach such that they can address the needs of people at optimal moments during the process. Based on the analysis and findings from research the problem addressed by this project was redefined. The redefined problem was how can we reduce the threshold of the municipality to embrace and adopt participation as a part of their daily way of working. From this question the two problem areas to be addressed were defined as; one, a lack in ability of the municipality to act on participatory frameworks and two, a lack of willingness of the municipality to make participation a part of their culture. The resulting solution and final outcome proposed was to design a sensitizing participation journal or booklet for use by the people working in the municipality. The main goal of this journal is to equip folks at the municipality to act on the participatory framework of Delfts Doen by means of the tools provided in it. The journal also hopes to inspire and sensitize the municipality about participation, paving the way to increase the willingness and bring about a culture change in the municipality regarding participation. To conclude, the challenges with participatory design lie in the adoption of a new mindset within large organizations such as municipalities, since this mindset strongly challenges the existing power structure and hierarchy within an organization. It is expected that the findings of this thesis can contribute to this knowledge by building on how these challenges can be overcome by focusing on the needs that must be fulfilled for people working in organizations such as municipalities.Strategic Product Desig
Dutch electricity spot price forecasting: Two study cases using structured expert judgement
No full textElectricity is a quite unique commodity. Due to the economically non-storable nature of the commodity that electricity is, the constant balance between consumption and production, weather effects, such as temperature, wind speed, solar intensity etc, and the intensity of everyday and business activities, e.g. holi- days, weekends, on- and off-peak hours etc., the price dynamics of this commodity are quite unique as they are not observed in any other market. This extreme price volatility has forced market participants to hedge volumes as well as price risks. Naturally, electricity price forecast models are of great interest to portfolio managers.Current data-driven models are combined with expertise of traders due to the considerable uncertainty of these models. We aim to subject trader expertise to a transparent methodology using structured expert judgement. During this study, we conduct two elicitations whose variables of interest concern average day- ahead spot prices for 2025, 2030 and 2035. We distinguish between baseload and peakload price. The first elicitation uses assessments regarding current Dutch day-ahead electricity spot prices to forecast forecast the variables of interest. We forecast the average day-ahead electricity spot price for 2025, 2030 and 2035. The second elicitation uses assessments regarding data on past, current and future developments in the Dutch electricity markets to forecast forecast the variables of interest. The second elicitation results in a decision maker with a higher price forecast than the decision maker of the first elicitation. Uncertainty regarding the forecast is higher for 2025 and 2030 during the second study. Uncertainty is equally high regarding the peakload price forecast for 2035 in both studies, however the range shifts.Applied Mathematic
Dependence Measures in Citation Analysis: The application of parametric copulas to capture the dependence structure between the publications of a reseacher and the citations of those publications.
No full textIn this thesis we try to capture the dependence structure of the publications of a scholar and the citations of those publications via copulas. To do so, we will use a sample of Quebec re- searchers for who their publication amount as well as their citation amounts are known. We are provided with multiple variables concerning citation. We study the dependence structure be- tween these variables, with the aim of fitting copulas to this structure, by calculating correlation scores and visualising the structure. Copulas are functions that ”join together” one-dimensional distribution functions with a dependence structure, in order to represent joint distributions. The correlation scores are calculated across various ranges of the variables to provide us with a deeper understanding of the dependence structure between the variables.Using Sklar’s theorem and some helpful functions in various packages in the software program R, parametric copulas fit the dependence structures of the various pairs of variables. Based on a Goodness-of-fit test, certain parametric copula models are rejected at a 5% significance level. Unsurprisingly, there are also dependence structures that can be well captured with a parametric copula.Parametric copula families are not only used for fitting the data, but also for prediction. Since a good fitting model does not necessarily imply a good predictive model, we have also performed a validation analysis. The parametric copula models that are not rejected by the test at a 5% significance level are validated via k-fold cross validation. Part of the data have been used to fit the model and the remaining has been validated using a k-fold cross validation. It turns out that the best fitting copula model does not always perform well in term of prediction. That is, these copulas do not always perform best during the cross-validation
Sprinting Out of Stuckness: Overcoming Moments of Stuckness to Support the Creativity Flow in Agile Team Settings
No full textMultidisciplinary agile teams working in fast paced, delivery-oriented sprint cycles of two weeks can experience moments of stuckness. Typically, these moments can be characterised by the inability to continue, which can be quite detrimental in agile settings, where time is pressured. This paper aims to explore these moments of stuckness, to understand when and why they occur and to understand the different strategies Scrum teams use to overcome them, both on a personal as well as team level. A combination of interviews and observations were conducted with six Scrum team members and two experts to understand their process and experiences while working in an agile set up. We have identified five strategies, which strongly rely on agile values of collaboration, communication, and creativity. These are: looking for expert guidance, open communication, creating spike stories, visual communication and incubation. The findings from this study provide both practice and academia with a deeper understanding into how can creativity be supported in agile settings.Methodologie en Organisatie van Desig
MacaqueNet: Advancing comparative behavioural research through large-scale collaboration
Get PDFThere is a vast and ever-accumulating amount of behavioural data on individually recognised animals, an incredible resource to shed light on the ecological and evolutionary drivers of variation in animal behaviour. Yet, the full potential of such data lies in comparative research across taxa with distinct life histories and ecologies. In this multi-author paper, we introduce MacaqueNet, a global collaboration of over 100 researchers (https://macaquenet.github.io/) aimed at unlocking the wealth of cross-species data for research on macaque social behaviour
