Communication problems are acknowledged as hazardous eventualities affecting operations negatively. However, a few systematic attempts have been made to understand the pattern of communication issues and their contribution to safety events. In this paper, we present the AVAC-COM communication model and taxonomy based on the cybernetics approach and a literature review. The model elements and taxonomy variables regard the actors, signals, coders, interference, direction and timing, predictability, decoders, and channels. To test the applicability and potential value of the AVAC-COM framework, we analysed 103 safety investigation reports from aviation published between 1997 and 2016 by the respective authorities of Canada, the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The overall results of the 256 cases of communication flaws detected in the reports suggested that these regarded more frequently Human-Media and Human-Human interactions, verbal and local communications as well as unfamiliarity of the receivers with the messages transmitted. Further statistical tests revealed associations of the region, time period, event severity and operations type with various variables of the AVAC-COM taxonomy. Although the findings are only indicative, they showed the potential of the AVAC-COM model and taxonomy to be used to identify strong and weak communication elements and relationships in documented data such as investigation and hazard reports.
Traditional information systems for crisis response and management are centralized systems with a rigid hierarchical structure. Here we propose a decentralized system, which allows citizens to play a significant role as information source and/or as helpers during the initial stages of a crisis. In our approach different roles are assigned to citizens. To be able to designate the different roles automatically our system needs to generate appropriate questions. On the basis of information theory and a restricted role ontology we formalized the process of question generation. Three consecutive experiments were conducted with human users to evaluate to what extent the questioning process resulted in appropriate role determination. The result showed that the mental model of human users does not always comply with the formal model underpinning the questions generation process.
Leren is een actief proces waarin kennis wordt geconstrueerd. Dit proces is voor iedere leerling anders en vraagt individuele ondersteuning. Onderwijsmaterialen en werkvormen zouden zich gedurende het leerproces steeds moeten aanpassen aan de specifieke behoefte van elke leerling. Ontwikkelingen in het veld van de Kunstmatige Intelligentie & Onderwijs zijn ondertussen zodanig vergevorderd dat interactieve software deze kennisconstructie van leerlingen inderdaad individueel en adequaat kan ondersteunen. Lector Didactiek van de Bètavakken dr. Bert Bredeweg bespreekt in zijn rede de kracht van interactieve kennisrepresentaties als medium voor kennisconstructie. Als voorbeeld zal hij ingaan op conceptueel modelleren als didactische vorm voor het creëren van kennis over het gedrag van dynamische systemen. Hij zal ook illustreren hoe slimme softwarecomponenten individuele leerlingen naar behoefte kunnen ondersteunen bij dit leerproces.
MUSE supports the CIVITAS Community to increase its impact on urban mobility policy making and advance it to a higher level of knowledge, exchange, and sustainability.As the current Coordination and Support Action for the CIVITAS Initiative, MUSE primarily engages in support activities to boost the impact of CIVITAS Community activities on sustainable urban mobility policy. Its main objectives are to:- Act as a destination for knowledge developed by the CIVITAS Community over the past twenty years.- Expand and strengthen relationships between cities and stakeholders at all levels.- Support the enrichment of the wider urban mobility community by providing learning opportunities.Through these goals, the CIVITAS Initiative strives to support the mobility and transport goals of the European Commission, and in turn those in the European Green Deal.Breda University of Applied Sciences is the task leader of Task 7.3: Exploitation of the Mobility Educational Network and Task 7.4: Mobility Powered by Youth Facilitation.
Energy transition is key to achieving a sustainable future. In this transition, an often neglected pillar is raising awareness and educating youth on the benefits, complexities, and urgency of renewable energy supply and energy efficiency. The Master Energy for Society, and particularly the course “Society in Transition”, aims at providing a first overview on the urgency and complexities of the energy transition. However, educating on the energy transition brings challenges: it is a complex topic to understand for students, especially when they have diverse backgrounds. In the last years we have seen a growing interest in the use of gamification approaches in higher institutions. While most practices have been related to digital gaming approaches, there is a new trend: escape rooms. The intended output and proposed innovation is therefore the development and application of an escape room on energy transition to increase knowledge and raise motivation among our students by addressing both hard and soft skills in an innovative and original way. This project is interdisciplinary, multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary due to the complexity of the topic; it consists of three different stages, including evaluation, and requires the involvement of students and colleagues from the master program. We are confident that this proposed innovation can lead to an improvement, based on relevant literature and previous experiences in other institutions, and has the potential to be successfully implemented in other higher education institutions in The Netherlands.
Designing cities that are socially sustainable has been a significant challenge until today. Lately, European Commission’s research agenda of Industy 5.0 has prioritised a sustainable, human-centric and resilient development over merely pursuing efficiency and productivity in societal transitions. The focus has been on searching for sustainable solutions to societal challenges, engaging part of the design industry. In architecture and urban design, whose common goal is to create a condition for human life, much effort was put into elevating the engineering process of physical space, making it more efficient. However, the natural process of social evolution has not been given priority in urban and architectural research on sustainable design. STEPS stems from the common interest of the project partners in accessible, diverse, and progressive public spaces, which is vital to socially sustainable urban development. The primary challenge lies in how to synthesise the standardised sustainable design techniques with unique social values of public space, propelling a transition from technical sustainability to social sustainability. Although a large number of social-oriented studies in urban design have been published in the academic domain, principles and guidelines that can be applied to practice are large missing. How can we generate operative principles guiding public space analysis and design to explore and achieve the social condition of sustainability, developing transferable ways of utilising research knowledge in design? STEPS will develop a design catalogue with operative principles guiding public space analysis and design. This will help designers apply cross-domain knowledge of social sustainability in practice.
