Making the functional beautiful

via Prospero by R.B. | LONDON on 15/09/11

INDUSTRIAL art is thriving. The shortlist has just been announced for a new pylon design in Britain, a government-sponsored competition run by the Royal Institute of British Architects. The finalists have all come up with possible replacements to the 1927 construction of Sir Reginald Blomfeld, which continues to march across the landscape barely changed (except a little taller). The winner is announced on October 5th and National Grid, the company that runs the electricity network, will consider whether to use that design in the future.

There are some interesting structures in the mix: one is a painted, lattice cylinder; another has slivers of steel pointing up to the sun. Others seem to perform the function—there is a Y-shaped offering, for example—albeit with a less-striking form.

My personal favourite in design terms, though, is a pylon that didn't make this list but won the 2010 Boston Society of Architects Unbuilt Architecture award. Called "The Land of Giants", it features huge lattice men who look as though they're carrying the wires across the landscape (pictured). It was designed by Choi+Shine Architects, and the images on the firm's site are simply stunning. A feasibility study was under way in Iceland to see if the figures could be used, but when things got a little tricky in the Icelandic economy in 2010, the project was put on hold. It's unlikely to thaw any time soon.

These designs all try to do something laudable: make the functional beautiful. The problem for pylons is that they're not really meant to draw the eye. They should be chameleons that blend in to the landscape rather than dominate it.

In other spheres that constraint is not so marked. In March 2011, for example, in a triumph of clever thinking, a new design of energy-efficient light bulb, called the plumen, won a British design award. The original Edison bulb was pear-shaped, built around an internal filament. Until now, in a prime example of path dependency, most energy-efficient bulbs have roughly assumed that shape.

What the Plumen's creators did was to acknowledge that the new technology was more flexible: the bulb they sculpted has intertwining swirls of light which seem to flow like a current. I suspect others will follow this thinking and energy-efficient bulbs may become a little more interesting over the next few years, even if they still take a while to brighten a room.

Reclaiming industrial structures for aesthetic purposes has been a trend in real estate for some time. On September 8th the Tate Modern, a London art museum that was itself once a power station, announced plans to open three new gallery spaces inside former oil tanks. The chambers, measuring 30m high and 7m wide, will show art for the first time in the summer of 2012, in time for the Olympics.

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Who is Heading for Higher Education? ...

Young people's perceptions of and decisions about higher education

Peter Bates, Emma Pollard, Tom Usher and Joy Oakley (Institute for Employment Studies)
BIS Research Report Number 3, September 2009 PDF

This research explores the attitudes and intentions among young people in England towards higher education. The main focus of the report is the results of the longitudinal study of young people in England wave four, consisting of face-to-face interviews during spring and summer 2007 with around 11,000 young people predominantly aged 17.

Source: info4local 15 September

Hazel’s comment
At 169 pages it will tax all but the most interested in the topic and whilst there is an executive summary it doesn’t seem to cover the detail of the Research Briefs produced by the BIS's predecessor departments.

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Automated stress detection using keystroke and linguistic features: An exploratory study
an article by Lisa M Vizer, Lina Zhou and Andrew Sears (Department of Information Systems, UMBC, Baltimore) in International Journal of Human-computer Studies Volume 67 Issue 10 (October 2009)

Abstract

Monitoring of cognitive and physical function is central to the care of people with or at risk of various health conditions, but existing solutions rely on intrusive methods that are inadequate for continuous tracking. Less intrusive techniques that facilitate more accurate and frequent monitoring of the status of cognitive or physical function become increasingly desirable as the population ages and lifespan increases. Since the number of seniors using computers continues to grow dramatically, a method that exploits normal daily computer interactions is attractive. This research explores the possibility of detecting cognitive and physical stress by monitoring keyboard interactions with the eventual goal of detecting acute or gradual changes in cognitive and physical function. Researchers have already attributed a certain amount of variability and “drift” in an individual’s typing pattern to situational factors as well as stress, but this phenomenon has not been explored adequately. In an attempt to detect changes in typing associated with stress, this research analyses keystroke and linguistic features of spontaneously generated text. Results show that it is possible to classify cognitive and physical stress conditions relative to non-stress conditions based on keystroke and linguistic features with accuracy rates comparable to those currently obtained using affective computing methods. The proposed approach is attractive because it requires no additional hardware, is unobtrusive, is adaptable to individual users, and is of very low cost. This research demonstrates the potential of exploiting continuous monitoring of keyboard interactions to support the early detection of changes in cognitive and physical function.

Hazel’s comment:
I’ve heard of keystroke monitoring for checking access rights – apparently we all have a different way of typing that can be recognised by the machine at the other end of the wire – but this sounds an extremely useful tool for social agencies to check up on people without being constantly calling round to find out if they’re OK. And hey, this system might tell my GP when the osteoarthritis in my hand is really bad (even I notice the difference in my typing).

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The knowledge pyramid: a critique of the DIKW hierarchy

an article by Martin Frické (The University of Arizona, Tucson) published in Journal of Information Science Volume 35 Number 2 (2009)

Abstract

The paper evaluates the data—information—knowledge—wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy. This hierarchy, also known as the “knowledge hierarchy”, is part of the canon of information science and management. Arguments are offered that the hierarchy is unsound and methodologically undesirable. The paper identifies a central logical error that DIKW makes. The paper also identifies the dated and unsatisfactory philosophical positions of operationalism and inductivism as the philosophical backdrop to the hierarchy. The paper concludes with a sketch of some positive theories, of value to information science, on the nature of the components of the hierarchy:

• that data is anything recordable in a semantically and pragmatically sound way,
• that information is what is known in other literature as “weak knowledge”,
• that knowledge also is “weak knowledge” and
• that wisdom is the possession and use, if required, of wide practical knowledge, by an agent who appreciates the fallible nature of that knowledge.

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RETAIN Conference

Careers Europe Newsflash:

RETAIN Conference takes place in Gothenburg, Sweden from 22 to 23 October 2009

In most European countries drop out from education and training is a major issue. Young people lacking proper qualifications and exams have difficulties finding stable jobs and the risk of unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, is much higher among this group.

The RETAIN project is a 2 year project, funded with support from the European Commission, to identify innovative approaches to retention. The the project is developing a manual/hand-book for teachers, trainers, mentors and guidance counsellors and training sessions built on the manual/hand-book.

A conference to present the results will be held in Gothenburg, Sweden this October. There is no delegate fee for the conference (although delegates will be responsible for their own travel and accommodation costs).

For more information and to register see: www.retainproject.net/English/Partners/Events/Events.htm

Retain is a project supported by the European Commission's Life Long Learning Programme

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LGA Analysis and Research Employment Digest

This monthly publication keeps you informed on the labour market, pay issues and trends and the economy in general.

The August edition of the Local Government Association Employment Digest reviews:High performing working: a synthesis of key literature (UKCES) Employment trends 2009 : Working patterns in the recession (CBI / Harvey Nash) Quarterly review of the ICT labour market (e skills)
Employment Digest August 2009 (PDF, 12 pages, 787KB)

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The height of madness...

is how LGA Daily News (3 Sept) titles this story.

I'd simply say: “I don’t believe it” and I don’t want to but the LGA does not publish without checking.

Rochdale Council has scrapped a scheme which has seen council workers paid for an extra two days work a year for waiting to catch the lift. Stephen Harper, Rochdale Council’s head of human resources is quoted: “Flexible working and faster, more reliable lifts mean it’s no longer as relevant, so as part of our recent pay and grading review we’ve proposed that this allowance be withdrawn.”
Express p17, Telegraph p7, Guardian p12, Times p20, Sun p17, Mirror p19

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