An Action Research Study for Elaborating and Implementing an Electronic Waste Collection Program in Brazil

The objective of this study was to conduct Action Research (AR) to create and implement a WEEE management program that was in line with the BNPSW regulations. The city chosen for this study was São João del Rei (SJDR) located in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Using AR it was possible to structure a WEEE management program that involved stakeholders from the city administration, the Federal University of São João del Rei, and representatives from the private sector. The program ultimately collected 1710 kg of WEEE that received an environmentally appropriate destination. Although no major difficulties were observed with respect to the AR process itself, some challenges were encountered. Lack of infrastructure and hesitance on behalf of the public with respect to implementing WEEE Reverse Logistics were complicating factors. The action research as methodology proved to be highly efficient in dealing with e-waste reverse logistics. It resulted in faster decision making, in turn generating better results. Good decisions were repeated and errors were corrected. The Action Research project highlighted the need for raising public awareness about WEEE disposal. It also showed that the public was ultimately interested in participating and contributing to the proposed WEEE management program. The awareness of the population has led to a significant increase in the amount of collected waste. The model resulting from this research serve as a reference for decision makers in implementing similar programs around the world and to contribute to the existing body of knowledge on the subject.

     

Limited Memory BFGS Method for Least Squares Semidefinite Programming with Banded Structure

This work is intended to solve the least squares semidefinite program with a banded structure. A limited memory BFGS method is presented to solve this structured program of high dimension. In the algorithm, the inverse power iteration and orthogonal iteration are employed to calculate partial eigenvectors instead of full decomposition of n × n matrices. One key feature of the algorithm is that it is proved to be globally convergent under inexact gradient information. Preliminary numerical results indicate that the proposed algorithm is comparable with the inexact smoothing Newton method on some large instances of the structured problem.

     

Enabling Political Legitimacy and Conceptual Integration for Climate Change Adaptation Research within an Agricultural Bureaucracy: a Systemic Inquiry

The value of using systems approaches, for situations framed as ‘super wicked’, is examined from the perspective of research managers and stakeholders in a state-based climate change adaptation (CCA) program (CliChAP). Polycentric drivers influencing the development of CCA research pre-2010 in Victoria, Australia are reflected on, using Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) to generate a boundary critique of CCA research as a human activity system. We experienced the complexity of purpose with research practices pulling in different directions, reflected on the appropriateness of agricultural bureaucracies’ historical new public management (NPM) practices, and focused on realigning management theory with emerging demands for adaptation research skills and capability. Our analysis conceptualised CliChAP as a subsystem, generating novelty in a wider system, concerned with socio-ecological co-evolution. Constraining/enabling conditions at the time dealing with political legitimacy and conceptual integration were observed as potential catalysts for innovation in research management towards better handling of uncertainty as a social process using systemic thinking in practice (StiP).

     

Electronic support for knowledge creation in a research institute

This paper focuses on the question how to build an electronic support environment for knowledge creation in a research institute （JAIST）. In order to assess the importance of diverse conditions of scientific creativity, we performed a survey in JAIST, and extracted useful knowledge from the database of survey results. Following the analysis of the theory of academic processes of knowledge creation and the survey findings in JAIST, a computer-based integrated system is proposed. In the aspect of the system design, we postulate that an electronic support environment for academic creativity can be achieved through a seamless integration with Internet, Application Server, Middle Ware, Database and Data Warehouse. The paper addresses issues of knowledge representation in the Electronic Support System for academic research, testing and evaluation issues and conclusions.     

软件需求获取过程中知识补偿研究

软件需求开发以用户和软件工程师的知识共享为基础,知识补偿是促进用户共享领域知识的有效方法,本文通过构建用户和软件开发方的需求开发成本收益模型,研究软件工程师和用户的努力投入决策,并通过对二者决策博弈的推导演算,得到一种基于双方价值认定的知识补偿策略,研究结果表明,基于价值认定的知识补偿策略可提高需求开发的效率,促使需求开发活动得到最佳的结果.     

A Systemic Framework to Develop Sustainable Engineering Solutions in Rural Communities in Colombia

In several rural areas in Colombia there is a serious lack of water quality supply. Thereby the problematic situation is understood as complex one that involves stakeholders with pluralistic interests, multiple variables and requires the development of sustainable and suitable solutions. In order to address this issue, this paper proposes an integration of engineering design framework (CDIO) with a systemic approach. Particularly the approach emphasizes on systemic elements such as autonomy, systems within systems, cooperation between stakeholders and cause effect relations; it also proposes a previous observing phase for engineering design framework. Thus the proposed systemic framework aims to generate projects that improve living conditions in rural communities and promote the production of knowledge between the stakeholders to ensure sustainability in the long term. To illustrate the proposal, this work contains a case study that discusses a project carried out by a research team—Ingenieros Sin Fronteras Colombia—in a rural district near to Colombia’s capital. The experience, which involved and benefited 16 families in the community, provided strong evidence to support the proposed framework. The paper concludes with a discussion about the replication of this proposal in other contexts.     

‘Who’s in the Network?’ When Stakeholders Influence Data Analysis

Environmental applications of social network analysis (SNA) are just beginning to emerge, and so far have focussed on understanding the characteristics of social networks that increase the likelihood of collective action and successful natural resource management. We move beyond this discussion to demonstrate how knowledge gained from analysing the social networks of stakeholders can be harnessed for selecting stakeholders, and further, how these analyses can be influenced by the expressed wishes and concerns of stakeholders. Although we began our SNA using concepts derived from the resource-management literature, stakeholder involvement in the interpretation of the results led to the use of SNA techniques that had not previously been applied in the context of resource management. We thus re-analysed our data and modified our selection of research participants. Re-analysis led to the selection of research participants who (1) had unique positions in the network, thus occupying non-redundant communication roles in the network, (2) came from different stakeholder categories and (3) were relatively well-connected to others and tended to broker across different segments of the network. By combining insights from researchers and stakeholders in this way, it was possible to use SNA in an innovative and sensitive way to better meet the needs of the stakeholders and the research project.

Using Action Research to Implement Selective Waste Collection Program in a Brazilian City

The objective of this paper is to study and report upon the elaboration of a selective waste collection program in a Brazilian city through action research; the overarching goal is that all knowledge generated may serve as a basis of information and reference to aid in decision making for similar programs globally. The municipality chosen was São Lourenço in the state of Minas Gerais. The implementation of the selective waste collection program happened over the course of multiple improvement and learning cycles, and enabled many environmental, economic and social benefits for all of the project’s stakeholders. Eighty-nine tons of potentially recycled material were sent to recycling processes rather than being disposed of in a landfill. No great difficulties were observed for the use of action research as a method, but some challenges were encountered and overcome during the whole process, due to the lack of structure and confidence on part of the population, in relation to the selective collection program. The choice for action research as the methodology and the use of improvement and learning cycles proved to increase the project’s overall efficiency, making it possible to make decisions more quickly, generating better results, and enabling replications of good decisions and correction of errors from one cycle to the next.     

Expert discovery and knowledge mining in complex multi-agent systems

Complex problem solving requires diverse expertise and multiple techniques. In order to solve such problems, complex multi-agent systems that include both of human experts and autonomous agents are required in many application domains. Most complex multi-agent systems work in open domains and include various heterogeneous agents. Due to the heterogeneity of agents and dynamic features of working environments, expertise and capabilities of agents might not be well estimated and presented in these systems. Therefore, how to discover useful knowledge from human and autonomous experts, make more accurate estimation for experts＇ capabilities and find out suitable expert（s） to solve incoming problems （＂Expert Mining＂） are important research issues in the area of multi-agent system. In this paper, we introduce an ontology-based approach for knowledge and expert mining in hybrid multi-agent systems. In this research, ontologies are hired to describe knowledge of the system. Knowledge and expert mining processes are executed as the system handles incoming problems. In this approach, we embed more self-learning and self-adjusting abilities in multi-agent systems, so as to help in discovering knowledge of heterogeneous experts of multi-agent systems.     

载人航天空间应用利益相关者系统动力学模型

在界定了利益相关者的基础上,分别从载人航天空间应用研发阶段和应用阶段出发构建利益相关者因果关系图,并联立建立总体因果关系图,继而构建利益相关者的系统动力学模型。基于该模型运用计算机建模工具Vensim软件进行系统仿真,并就空间应用效益进行敏感度分析,探讨了输出结果。同时,依据利益相关者在载人航天空间应用系统中的影响程度进行了科学排序。在系统中,对载人航天空间应用效益影响由大到小排序依次是用户、载人航天主管部门、政府主管部门、技术人员、竞争对手、合作者、上游供应商、行业组织、大众传媒力度和社会大众。     

Establish a creative environment for roadmapping in academy—From the perspective of <Emphasis Type="Italic">i</Emphasis>-system methodology

Roadmapping, originated from industry as a strategic planning tool, is attracting increasing applications in academy. Based on the recognition that roadmapping is a knowledge creation process, this paper analyzes what kind of support is needed or helpful for establishing a creative environment for roadmapping in academy and reviews various types of such support from the perspective of i-system methodology. As case studies of such support, this paper further introduces roadmapping pratices in Janpan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.     

知识地图及其在高科技复杂产品项目组织结构中的应用

知识地图是一种有效的知识管理工具,通过知识地图的搜索功能,可以帮助使用者在很短时间内找到所需知识.讨论知识地图的概念、功能,指出划分企业的知识域对于合理地界定企业知识存在的层面,以及各个层面的相互联系,具有重要意义,探讨知识地图绘制的步骤及其在高科技复杂产品项目组织结构中的应用.知识地图的构建,为知识的创造、共享和应用提供了环境.     

考虑乘客主观评判的地铁与公交的票价及换乘优惠率优化

针对协同服务于同一客运走廊的地铁和公交的票价及换乘优惠率统一优化问题,提出在优化过程中引入乘客在一定出行距离上对选择某种交通方式所承担延误风险的主观评判,从而更加全面地分析出行路径上的客观条件和乘客的心理因素对乘客出行路径选择的影响.为此,本文构建一个双层规划优化模型,它的上层以社会福利最大化为目标,下层为基于弹性需求的随机用户均衡模型.这里采用遗传算法求解双层规划模型,其中下层模型应用相继平均法求解.最后通过一组算例对模型构建的合理性进行验证并应用于分析问题;结果表明:一是乘客延误风险的主观评判对其出行行为的影响具有不可忽视的作用;二是实施换乘优惠可降低乘客的换乘出行成本和提高公共交通系统的社会福利.     

Revealing Community Perceptions for Ecological Restoration Using a Soft System Methodology

Human perceptions under unstructured forms contain valuable information for ecological restoration (ER). To aid in ER, this paper introduces a working process to analyze the unstructured information for the case study of black bear restoration (BBR) in East Texas where understanding of the perceptions of stakeholders at a community level is needed. We identified the current situation, revealed stakeholders and their interactions, and developed actions for change for BBR. Our techniques included recording discussions in meetings, Soft Systems Methodology, and stakeholder analysis. Results indicated the current situation of BBR with human-bear and human-human conflicts. We figured out that information exchange was interrupted in the public, a potential cause for conflicts. Through a systemization, results showed various roles of key stakeholders and constraints for BBR. We found that local state agencies and local residents (particularly landowners) are the key decision-makers for BBR success. Their collaboration can result in a small portion of success (1/9) that can be increased by more cooperation. The SSM framework introduced in this study can be used for modeling community perceptions in ecological restoration.

     

Systemic Evaluation Methodology: The Emergence of Social Learning From Environmental ICT Prototypes

This paper investigates why and how systems approaches can help in evaluating the design of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as social learning platforms. It focuses on the prototypes created by the research project Virtualis, whose objective is to promote social learning on environmental concepts and practices amongst a variety of stakeholders. The paper presents the principles of systems thinking and practice that did help in formulating such evaluation processes. It illustrates how both a peer systemic evaluation process (within the research team) and a participatory evaluation process (involving potential future users of the ICTs) were carried out.     

AGENT-BASED SIMULATION FOR KANSEI ENGINEERING： TESTING A FUZZY LINEAR QUANTIFICATION METHOD IN AN ARTIFICIAL WORLD

This paper argues that agent-based simulation can be used as a way for testing Kansei Engineering methods which deal with the human reaction from sensory to mental state, that is, sensitivity, sense, sensibility, feeling, esthetics, emotion affection and intuition. A new fuzzy linear quantification method is tested in an artificial world by agent-based modeling and simulations, and the performance of the fuzzy linear method is compared with that of a genetic algorithm. The simulations can expand people＇s imagination and enhance people＇s intuition that the new fuzzy linear quantification method is effective.     

Your Vision or My Model? Lessons from Participatory Land Use Scenario Development on a European Scale

Participatory processes in scenario development have received increasing attention throughout the last years. Combining qualitative stakeholder and quantitative expert information (i.e. modelling) offers unique opportunities to mix good data, scientific rigour, imagination and expertise from different perspectives. However, this task is all but easy as it requires a careful balancing of approaches and an acceptance of different levels of knowledge and trust in different methods across disciplinary boundaries. In spite of a growing body of literature we are still in the early stages of learning how to deal effectively with participatory scenario development. In the PRELUDE project of the European Environment Agency a relatively far-reaching participatory approach to scenario development was applied: a group of stakeholders from across Europe was given full responsibility to develop long-term alternative land use scenarios in cooperation with experts and modellers. The scenarios have been used in a formal outreach process with key clients and stakeholders at the European and Member State level afterwards. The aim of this paper is to document the methods used, analyse their strengths and weaknesses and draw some general conclusions regarding participatory processes in scenario development. This paper argues that in future scenario development more attention needs to be paid to strengthen the integration of qualitative and quantitative analysis. A set of compelling and coherent storylines can effectively trigger strategic conversations among policy-makers and key stakeholders about potential future developments and related response strategies. A weak integration with quantitative results can undermine this outcome, which is one of the ultimate objectives of any scenario exercise.

Knowledge-scientific evaluation of community service systems

This paper proposes a knowledge-scientific approach to evaluation of community service systems from the viewpoints of knowledge creation, consciousness reform, and value co-creation. A concrete example of the community service system treated here is an education program for old men to find their reason for living after the retirement. After introducing this program and the traditional evaluation methods for such a program, the paper emphasizes the necessity of developing new evaluation methods for such a community service system based on knowledge science. The paper proposes a new evaluation framework and reports an actual evaluation result using the interview data from participants in that program.     

Professional Development through Action Research: Case Examples in South African Higher Education

This paper identifies the quality characteristics of a professional development (PD) program on action research (AR) and presents the results of a second-order evaluation of such a program. Three case examples in South African higher education demonstrate how AR methodology has been applied to design, conduct and evaluate the PD program and to identify new ways of learning and improving professional practice in higher education. From data analysis, we distinguish six factors significant in contributing to the quality of the PD program in all three universities: facilitator expertise, adaptive planning, responsive evaluation, critical events, application, and self-efficacy. On the basis of the evaluation results, we present five models: (1) the AR workshop cycles; (2) characteristics of a quality PD program; (3) a PD program on and through AR; (4) three levels of reflection on AR; and (5) meta-action research.

Computer Support for Concept Engineering Design：Enabling Interaction with Design Knowledge

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