Western Canadian dairy farmers' perspectives on the provision of outdoor access for dairy cows and on the perceptions of other stakeholders

The provision of pasture and outdoor access for dairy cattle differs around the globe. For example, in Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia, dairy farms are largely pasture based, whereas dairy farms in the United States and Canada are largely confinement based. There is a high level of public support for pasture and outdoor access for dairy cows, and the available evidence shows that dairy cattle are highly motivated to access pasture, especially at night. The decision as to whether to provide outdoor access is typically made by farmers, but little is known about dairy farmers' perspectives on this topic. We investigated perspectives of Western Canadian dairy farmers on outdoor access, as well as how they believe different stakeholders (i.e., the dairy industry, the dairy cows, and the general public) regard outdoor access for dairy cows. Data were collected via (1) 11 focus group discussions with a total of 50 Western Canadian dairy farmers, and (2) semi-structured individual interviews with an additional 6 dairy farmers of Hutterite colonies. Data were analyzed using template analysis. Although most participants in this study did not provide outdoor access on their farms, or only provided outdoor access to certain cow groups, participants generally mentioned that they enjoyed seeing cows on pasture or outdoors. However, participants shared that the Canadian supply management system (including processors) required a consistent flow of production, which was thought to be easier and more economically realized with indoor housing of lactating cows. Participants believed that pasture or outdoor access for dairy cows was desired by the public. Some participants believed that dairy cows prefer to spend time outside under favorable weather conditions, but others felt that cows preferred to stay indoors in modern, ventilated freestall barns. The results of this study describe the perspectives of dairy farmers regarding the views of dairy industry stakeholders as they relate to outdoor access, helping to inform conversations around the provision of outdoor access for dairy cattle.     

基于多视图立体视觉的沙堆三维尺寸测量研究

利用从运动中恢复结构方法(SFM),提出了一种基于多视图立体视觉的沙堆三维重建及三维尺寸测量方法。首先根据SFM方法的求解不稳定特点,结合光束平差法对SFM求解过程进行分析及优化;其次针对SFM重建结果为稀疏点云的问题,利用基于面片的稠密重建算法重新生成稠密的三维点云,再利用泊松算法对密集点云进行三维曲面重建;最后获得模型的三维尺寸信息。对某建筑工地的沙堆进行了三维尺寸的测量实验,实验结果验证了该方法的有效及可行性,提高了重建能力及精度,同时考虑了目标实际测量误差与重建误差,能够满足实际智能测量的应用需求。     

从中西色彩观差异看中西方设计色彩的异与同

目的对中西方设计色彩差异进行理论分析。方法以中西色彩表达的文化差异为基础,通过对中西方色彩观的文化渊源进行比较分析,提炼出对中西传统色彩观的文化特点概括。结论通过对色彩在中西方建筑、服饰、装饰等设计中的运用案例进行分析,把握传统色彩观在历史空间中的演进与中西融合趋势,以求对21世纪全球语境下的现代设计色彩发展,提供基于中西传统色彩观特点比较分析基础上的把握。     

基于街景地图数据的北京市东城区 街道绿色空间正义评估研究

绿色空间正义是城市空间正义的典型代表，意为在人群中公平分配维护绿色空间的责任和享有绿色空间的权益。根据其定义，以北京市东城区为例，从责任和权益2个角度着眼，一方面基于百度街景地图数据提炼街道空间绿视率的空间分布特点，表征街道绿色空间的客观可感知水平；另一方面将街道绿视率和实时人口热力叠加，探讨街道绿色空间的实际被感知程度，从而完成对北京市东城区街道绿色空间维护和享有情况的评估。发现邻近使用者维护街道绿色空间的责任对绿化客观可感知水平的重要性，以及合理的道路断面设计对同时提升街道空间活力和绿视率即绿化实际被感知程度的有效性。由此总结出2点街道绿色空间规划设计建议，即明晰权责边界并保证公共权益优先级，以及加强落地性设计导则中对绿色空间正义问题的关注，并对未来研究提出展望。     

Social licence: power imbalances and levels of consciousness – two case studies

ABSTRACT

Social licence to operate (SLO) is a term that is finding increasing acceptance in a number of industries. Like all new terms, its precise meaning and implications are still being investigated. Using data from previous studies, this paper offers an analysis of the SLO of two case studies with each study being viewed separately through the grid of a distinct theoretical framework. Case study 1 looks at the development of differential social licence negotiated in the Hamlet of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, as a result of an impact and benefit agreement negotiated between Tahera Diamond Corp. and the Kitikmeot Inuit Organisation in 2004. The study demonstrates that general acceptance of resource development can be uneven and reflect an unequal distribution of decision-making power. In case study 2, stakeholders of a failed mineral development project were queried across time about the specifics of the proposed mine development and were queried about resource development across different levels of consciousness. Perhaps, SLO is variable across different levels of consciousness. The paper concludes with observations about the variable nature of SLO acceptance across populations and across levels of consciousness within individuals. Perhaps, the concept of SLO is, in fact, complex, difficult to define and measure and, at this point, of limited utility as a measure of resource development acceptance.     

Designing for an imagined user: Provision for thermal comfort in energy-efficient extra-care housing

Regarded as one solution to the problem of how to enable older people to retain their independence, extra-care housing, where each resident has their own self-contained dwelling and access to communal facilities and to care, has received extensive funding in recent years. Implicit in the concept of specialist housing is the notion of ‘special’ occupants, imagined older people. Adopting a socio-technical approach, this paper considers how ideas about ageing inform those aspects of extra-care-housing-design that relate to thermal comfort. The paper draws on semi-structured interviews with 13 people involved in the design, development and management of UK-based extra-care housing. Participants characterised imagined occupants as vulnerable to cold, at risk from fuel poverty and liable to be burned by hot surfaces or fall from high windows. These user representations were reportedly inscribed into the design of extra-care housing schemes through the inclusion of building features such as communal heating, under-floor heating, restricted window opening and heated corridors. The utilisation of stereotypical user representations of older people raises questions, given that older people's thermal comfort needs can be highly diverse. The paper explores the implications for energy demand.     

Waveguide-based near-eye display with dual-channel exit pupil expander

We propose a waveguide-based near-eye display featuring a dual-channel exit pupil expander, which is composed of an in-coupler, relay gratings, and an out-coupler. Unlike the conventional waveguide-based near-eye displays, whose field of views are usually non-split or partially split, our dual-channel exit pupil expander is able to evenly split the field of view into two halves. The greatest benefit of doing so is that the upper limit of field of view could be significantly increased. The design rules for all components, including the microdisplay, collimating lens, waveguide and gratings, have been studied. The refractive index and dimension of waveguide are identified as two factors that limit the field of view. In what follows, its key specifications are recapitulated. Field of view is 70° (diagonal), eye relief is 15 mm, exit pupil is 20 × 9 mm², modulation transfer function is above 0.591 at 30 cycle/degree, contrast ratio is 13, and distortion is 1.38%.     

Intergenerational family support for ‘Generation Rent’: the family home for socially disengaged young people

This paper critically discusses the concept of intergenerational family support in housing for young people. Recognizing increased difficulties faced by the younger generation in the housing market, this paper highlights that support from older family members is increasingly important. Nonetheless, it is critiqued that the role of the family home has been largely ignored in the current ‘generation rent’ discourse. By drawing on recent youth studies debates, this paper argues living in the family home could be an important form of support in housing, especially for marginalized youth. This paper presents insights from qualitative studies in Hong Kong and Scotland and analyses interview accounts of socially disengaged young people. It reflects how remaining at the family home could be interpreted as intergenerational support, and further elicits complexities in expectations, negotiations and emotions involved. This analysis offers new evidence and a more nuanced perspective of intergenerational family support in housing research.     

ED-SWE: Event detection based on scoring and word embedding in online social networks for the internet of people

Online social media networks are gaining attention worldwide, with an increasing number of people relying on them to connect, communicate and share their daily pertinent event-related information. Event detection is now increasingly leveraging online social networks for highlighting events happening around the world via the Internet of People. In this paper, a novel Event Detection model based on Scoring and Word Embedding (ED-SWE) is proposed for discovering key events from a large volume of data streams of tweets and for generating an event summary using keywords and top-k tweets. The proposed ED-SWE model can distill high-quality tweets, reduce the negative impact of the advent of spam, and identify latent events in the data streams automatically. Moreover, a word embedding algorithm is used to learn a real-valued vector representation for a predefined fixed-sized vocabulary from a corpus of Twitter data. In order to further improve the performance of the Expectation-Maximization (EM) iteration algorithm, a novel initialization method based on the authority values of the tweets is also proposed in this paper to detect live events efficiently and precisely. Finally, a novel automatic identification method based on the cosine measure is used to automatically evaluate whether a given topic can form a live event. Experiments conducted on a real-world dataset demonstrate that the ED-SWE model exhibits better efficiency and accuracy than several state-of-art event detection models.     

山地城市老年人户外活动空间的设计策略

本文根据对重庆和攀枝花两个山地城市的500个老人的日常活动及户外活动的时间和范围所作的随机抽样调查统计,对老年人户外活动空间设计进行了研究,并提出了相应的设计策略,希望能为山地城市老年人户外活动空间的设计提供依据。