Economic effects of regulating the seismic strengthening of older buildings

The marked increase in the awareness of earthquake risk following the Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand offered a unique opportunity to investigate the economic effect of disaster-mitigation regulations on the commercial building stock. A difference-in-differences (DD) framework was used to determine whether earthquake risk has been capitalized into the property prices of buildings constructed prior to 1976, as a response to the national policy requiring assessment and strengthening (or demolition) of the existing earthquake-prone building stock. A negative externality is found in the policy announcement on affected (pre-1970s) office and retail buildings which caused office buildings to suffer a 12.5% stigma discount. However, retail properties were less impacted suffering a 2.3% stigma loss. The value of the commercial building stock has been affected by the policy. These findings provide policy-makers with timely evidence as to the economic effects of New Zealand’s earthquake-prone buildings policy. Facing losses in property value and financial responsibility for retrofitting their assets, building owners will be looking for a workable set of regulatory and non-regulatory incentives to encourage disaster risk management and protect the built environment.     

一种标准模型下无证书签名方案的安全性分析与改进

无证书签名具有基于身份密码体制和传统公钥密码体制的优点，可解决复杂的公钥证书管理和密钥托管问题.Wu和Jing提出了一种强不可伪造的无证书签名方案，其安全性不依赖于理想的随机预言机.针对该方案的安全性，提出了两类伪造攻击.分析结果表明，该方案无法实现强不可伪造性，并在"malicious-but-passive"的密钥生成中心攻击下也是不安全的.为了提升该方案的安全性，设计了一个改进的无证书签名方案.在标准模型中证明了改进的方案对于适应性选择消息攻击是强不可伪造的，还能抵抗恶意的密钥生成中心攻击.此外，改进的方案具有较低的计算开销和较短的私钥长度，可应用于区块链、车联网、无线体域网等领域.     

Photomontage in the Present Perfect Continuous

In its first instance as art practice among the historical avant-garde, photomontage was considered indispensable for its claim to intervene in perceptual processes, stimulating a critical mode of apprehension that would redirect the viewer away from conventions of aesthetic experience and towards a lived reception of art with pronounced relevance to the sociopolitical landscape. The effect was understood as structural, that is, activated not so much by direct political content, but by the stark and shocking effects of juxtaposition. By this measure, one challenge to contemporary photomontage is clear: in a postindustrial and postdigital visual landscape dominated by the structural fragmentation of the attention economy, the ‘simultaneity of the radically disparate’ (as Peter Bürger put it) might no longer present as heterodoxy but rather threaten to sink into invisibility. Yet with the migration off-screen of the effects of electronic media, a new urgency around moving photomontage structures into physical, public space is rising in contemporary practices. Shannon Ebner’s multi-part project A Hudson Yard (2014–15) is emblematic of the new ways in which artists are manipulating photomontage as a form of fully sensory experience that gives the medium room to play critically in both virtual and material space. By constructing subtle interruptions of naturalised commercial space, A Hudson Yard activates a détournement of instrumentalised language, using structures of juxtaposition to divert the discursive surfaces of public space away from consumption and towards what could be called a public poesis.     

What’s the middle ground? Institutionalized vs. emerging water-related stakeholder engagement processes

Abstract

In this day and age, it is widely argued that stakeholder engagement in water-related decision-making processes yields many benefits, including legitimacy, acceptance and trust. Key legal frameworks, such as the European Water Framework Directive and the Aarhus Convention, have spurred the emergence of formal forms of stakeholder engagement. On the other hand, many engagement processes are spontaneous and self-organized. This article investigates the strategies used in formal (government-led) and informal (bottom-up) engagement processes in search of a middle ground. To this end, case studies in the Netherlands, the United States, Uganda and Ethiopia are analyzed using the OECD’s stakeholder engagement checklist. We conclude with reflection on the ways forward to make formal and informal stakeholder engagement complementary.     

养老机构公共空间需求及影响因素研究——基于Kano模型分析

运用细分后的Kano模型甄别养老机构中老年人对公共空间需求的优先度排序及其影响因素的主次排序。首先通过规范、文献研究与访谈研究获取南京市养老机构中老年群体公共空间需求要素，并将得到的需求项进行层次归属划分。接着测算SI与DI系数量化各项需求对空间满意度的影响，得出公共空间需求优先度排序。最后利用多元线性回归对需求项的影响因素进行分析，探讨“自我”和“家庭”维度下影响因素的主次排序。得出养老机构公共空间的设计应首先满足老年人医疗保健空间层面的需求且空间需求受老年人“自我”维度下失能等级的影响程度最深。通过对需求重要度的排序，可以得出设计的优先满足策略，提升空间的利用效率及老年群体的满意度，为养老机构公共空间的投入侧重点提供理论依据。     

Developing social impact assessment guidelines in a pre-existing policy context

Few jurisdictions have translated internationally agreed social impact assessment (SIA) principles into statutory provisions. Governments and regulatory bodies tend to provide developers with high-level frameworks, or require that social impacts be ‘considered’, without specifying how this is to be done. In Australia, this lack of clarity leaves all parties uncertain about requirements for SIA. The New South Wales (NSW) Government’s 2017 release of the SIA guideline for State-significant mining, petroleum and extractive industry development represents an attempt to clarify requirements and provide guidance. In this paper, we describe the process of bringing this guideline to fruition from the perspective of being directly involved in its development, and highlight the challenges involved in integrating leading-practice principles into the state’s pre-existing policy framework. While the guideline represents a significant advance in policy-based SIA guidance, some aspects leave room for improvement. The real test of the guideline’s impact will lie in its influence on SIA practice in NSW, and ultimately in social outcomes for communities affected by resources projects.     

The digital public humanities: giving new arguments and new ways to argue

ABSTRACT

In response to the latest “crisis” in the humanities, advocates have marched, rallied, fundraised, and—especially—argued. This essay contends that communication scholars can support the growing “case for the humanities” by analyzing argumentative strategies, and more specifically, by offering ethical argumentative strategies that avoid replicating structures of domination. In particular, we look to Mari Lee Mifsud's theorization of rhetoric as gift, which follows Henry W. Johnstone in conceptualizing argument as something other than winning over an adversary. We place Mifsud's theorization of the gift in conversation with the methods of the digital public humanities (DPH), which acknowledge and offer abundant resources for meaning-making. Through the methods of DPH, we offer a response to the humanities “crisis” that activates the humanities’ already broad constituencies by giving resources for humanistic inquiry rather than seeking to capture adversaries. Our case study is Photogrammar, a DPH project for organizing, searching, and visualizing the New Deal and World War II era photographs funded by the U.S. federal government. The project forefronts visual, nonlinear, and interactive argumentation in order to engage publics in generative humanistic inquiry. By enlisting participants and sharing expertise, Photogrammar shows how humanities advocates can deepen attachments to the humanities and build broad constituencies of collaborators and allies.     

公众素质、外部环境对公众再生水接受态度的影响

公众对再生水的接受态度是再生水推广的关键。构建公众素质、主观规范、信息公开、政策环境、再生水接受态度与再生水接受意愿的关系假设模型,并以356份来自西安市居民问卷作为调研对象,运用结构方程模型进行实证分析。结果表明,接受态度正向影响接受意愿,其中主观规范是影响再生水接受态度的主要因素,信息公开与公众素质是次要因素,政策环境对再生水接受态度的影响不显著。     

Pittsburgh's translocal social movement: A case of the new public water

This paper contributes to the water privatization and governance literatures by examining the case of Pittsburgh where renewed efforts of water privatization have emerged after a failed private management arrangement between the local water authority and Veolia ended abruptly in 2015. We argue that, as the water authority aims to rebuild trust in the community, resident mobilization has played a key role in hindering further privatizing arrangements and has exerted influence in defining what constitutes the “new public” water in Pittsburgh, by advocating for increased transparency and accountability in governance, infrastructure improvements and protections for low-income residents.     

Participatory system dynamics modelling for housing,energy and wellbeing interactions

The built environment is a key target of decarbonization policies. However, such policies often have a narrow objective and narrow focus, resulting in ‘policy-resistance’ and unintended consequences. The literature attributes these unintended consequences to a narrow financial focus, adverse incentives, and inadequate handling of knowledge, skills, communication and feedback gaps, but it provides little advice on how these complex interactions can be captured. This paper illustrates the development and application of an integrated approach to address these complex interactions with regard to housing performance, energy, communal spaces and wellbeing. In particular, it explores the dynamics created by these relationships with simulation modelling in participatory settings, and with a diverse group of stakeholders. The simulation results suggest that monitoring is key to improve the performance of the housing stock besides energy efficiency; and investments in communal spaces positively affect the adoption of energy-efficiency measures and the wellbeing of residents. The evaluation results for participatory workshops show this approach was found useful by the stakeholders for supporting more integrated decision-making about housing. In future research, this approach can be implemented for policy problems in specific contexts.