High-performance blockchain system for fast certification of manufacturing data

Integration of blockchain systems into industrial applications show promise in increasing security, trust, and transparency along the value-chain during product and process tracking. However, current solutions suffer performance deficiencies, or often disregard legacy devices still in operation. We propose a blockchain system built upon an IoT architecture that is secure, modular, easily scalable, and deployable for fast certification of manufacturing data, compatible with current industrial landscapes. First, the proposed architecture is presented along with elements required to manage network functions. Second, easing integration with existing manufacturing solutions, custom APIs are created and subsequently explained. This grants the platform plug-and-play capabilities, requiring minimal hardware and software configuration for deployment. Lastly, a prototype is designed to validate the solution, concluding the viability of the proposed architecture as a fast and secure certification method of manufacturing data.

Transformation of former socialist industrial landscapes in Budapest

Budapest, the capital of Hungary, used to host numerous and diverse types of industrial activities. Their imprints on the urban fabric became especially significant during the socialist period due to the top-down decision of transferring the profile of the country from agricultural to industrial. They were realized in factories, management buildings, at huge areas supporting transport of goods on water or by trains. Moreover, districts were dedicated to the industrial workers and incorporated education, health and leisure services as well. Since the political change in 1989, most of these factories and organizations shrank then completely stopped to operate, but their premises have experienced a more varied after-life. The text introduces examples for almost entire physical elimination, complete functional change and even continuous musealizations of former industrial sites in Budapest. The investigation is based on the analysis of diverse written documents (such as policies, scientific evaluations and media coverage) as well as on-site research. Through the case study analyses from Budapest, Hungary that focus on the period between 1989 and 2016, the paper identifies general approaches of urbanization in the post-socialist time regarding to former industrial sites and the major challenges that threaten the valuation of these tangible and intangible reminiscences of the past.

Tactics for Forsaken Territories: Infrastructural Catalysis Within Disturbed Residual Spaces

<p><b>The perceived dichotomy between the industrial and the ecological or amenity has led to a loss or misperception of identity and value of industrial landscapes. Conventional industrial precinct greening moves or the design of parks within these spaces fail to establish any sense of identity or contribute to the growth and development of these environments. Looking beyond the notion of a park as a respite from the urban condition, the challenge lies in developing parks that capitalise on what is perceived as negative and exploit it as amenity.</b></p> <p>In search of a strategy, the discourse on the relationship between landscape and infrastructure and the ensuing paradigm shift in the way we understand infrastructure, is examined. What has conventionally existed as a mono-programmatic object for the sake of managing a technical problem is being redefined into a multi-layered spatial field, performing over time as well as space. However care must be taken in how we go about redefining the notion of infrastructure; when we keep broadening its definition it begins to lose significance. If infrastructure is to be reinterpreted from a rigid object to a field that is able to engage with open and unpredictable systems, rather than defining what an infrastructural thing may be, it becomes more important to define how something might perform or develop ‘infrastructurally’. Much of the discourse surrounding landscape infrastructure focuses on the efficiency that is to be gained by the layering of multiple flexible systems or employing it as a means to remediate a site. While many contemporary landscape infrastructure projects seek to reintroduce the ecological histories that have been suppressed by urban development, their attempts to do so often erase much of what is too readily dismissed as negative, and with it meaningful social histories and qualities that may be exploited as opportunity.</p> <p>In focussing on the disturbed and residual spaces and the opportunities these territories offer, this thesis seeks to explore the potential of designing infrastructurally to not only reintegrate these forgotten spaces in the urban fabric of their industrial context but to coordinate their development and/or their deterioration in such a way that they become fundamental to the area’s identity and growth.</p> <p>Drawing on Stan Allen’s propositions for infrastructure and reinterpreting them through the lens of landscape as a catalytic infrastructure, an architectural strategy is proposed that capitalises upon the qualities found within the abandoned landscapes of the Seaview/Gracefield industrial precinct in Wellington, New Zealand, and recognises them as an opportunity to develop the concept of park in this context into something that reflects the important social histories of these sites while also presenting a proving ground for future operations. These spaces aim to question the way in which we assess infrastructural efficiency, their performance valued not just in quantitative output but also in qualitative terms.</p>

Tactics for Forsaken Territories: Infrastructural Catalysis Within Disturbed Residual Spaces

<p><b>The perceived dichotomy between the industrial and the ecological or amenity has led to a loss or misperception of identity and value of industrial landscapes. Conventional industrial precinct greening moves or the design of parks within these spaces fail to establish any sense of identity or contribute to the growth and development of these environments. Looking beyond the notion of a park as a respite from the urban condition, the challenge lies in developing parks that capitalise on what is perceived as negative and exploit it as amenity.</b></p> <p>In search of a strategy, the discourse on the relationship between landscape and infrastructure and the ensuing paradigm shift in the way we understand infrastructure, is examined. What has conventionally existed as a mono-programmatic object for the sake of managing a technical problem is being redefined into a multi-layered spatial field, performing over time as well as space. However care must be taken in how we go about redefining the notion of infrastructure; when we keep broadening its definition it begins to lose significance. If infrastructure is to be reinterpreted from a rigid object to a field that is able to engage with open and unpredictable systems, rather than defining what an infrastructural thing may be, it becomes more important to define how something might perform or develop ‘infrastructurally’. Much of the discourse surrounding landscape infrastructure focuses on the efficiency that is to be gained by the layering of multiple flexible systems or employing it as a means to remediate a site. While many contemporary landscape infrastructure projects seek to reintroduce the ecological histories that have been suppressed by urban development, their attempts to do so often erase much of what is too readily dismissed as negative, and with it meaningful social histories and qualities that may be exploited as opportunity.</p> <p>In focussing on the disturbed and residual spaces and the opportunities these territories offer, this thesis seeks to explore the potential of designing infrastructurally to not only reintegrate these forgotten spaces in the urban fabric of their industrial context but to coordinate their development and/or their deterioration in such a way that they become fundamental to the area’s identity and growth.</p> <p>Drawing on Stan Allen’s propositions for infrastructure and reinterpreting them through the lens of landscape as a catalytic infrastructure, an architectural strategy is proposed that capitalises upon the qualities found within the abandoned landscapes of the Seaview/Gracefield industrial precinct in Wellington, New Zealand, and recognises them as an opportunity to develop the concept of park in this context into something that reflects the important social histories of these sites while also presenting a proving ground for future operations. These spaces aim to question the way in which we assess infrastructural efficiency, their performance valued not just in quantitative output but also in qualitative terms.</p>

'The Technological Sublime': Combining Art and Archaeology in Documenting Change at the Former RAF Coltishall (Norfolk, UK)

Since at least the 1990s, archaeologists and artists have been documenting military installations following the withdrawal of service personnel. They have usually embarked on these recording opportunities separately, experiencing these sites as derelict, lifeless places, with stripped buildings devoid of much of their meaning after their occupants have left. Archaeologists have typically created maps and made photographs. Artists have also taken photographs, but in addition made films and created soundworks. Wherever the medium and the motivation, the assumption is usually made that only those closely familiar with the rhythms and rituals of service life can begin to understand the emptiness of what remains. And being secretive military installations, creating a record during their occupation is never an option. Uniquely, in the months leading to the closure of RAF Coltishall (Norfolk) in 2006, the RAF granted the authors unprecedented access to record the base's drawdown and closure. The project brought artists and archaeologists together to see what could be achieved in unison, while still maintaining some degree of research independence. In undertaking this survey, three related themes emerged: the role of art as heritage practice, new thinking on what constitutes landscape, and the notion of a 'technological sublime'. Following an earlier publication, we now reflect again on those themes. In doing so, we offer this collaboration between art and archaeology (traditionally considered two distinct ways of seeing and recording) as an innovative methodology for documentation, not least after the closure and abandonment of such military and industrial landscapes, where occupational communities had once lived. In this article, the words represent our ideas; the images and films are an example of the result.

Resources and dynamics of halophytes in agricultural and industrial landscapes of the western part of Kujawy, Central Poland

This article is dedicated to the memoryof tireless researcher of saline vegetation in KujawyProfessor Jadwiga Wilkoń-Michalska (1921–2005) This paper presents the status and comparison of the halophytic flora on two research plots in the Upper Noteć catchment, distinguished by the intensity of human activity and the type of landscape: 1 – Lake Gopło (G) and 2 – the area located by the Noteć Canal (N) in the western part of the Kujawy region. Fishery on the twelfth largest lake in Poland and agriculture are the main forms of economy in the former plot. A significant part of this plot is a Natura 2000 site, legally protected in compliance with the EU directives. The development of halophytes, mainly facultative ones, in the G plot is conditioned by natural factors, i.e. the inflow of saline groundwater. In the N plot, the agricultural landscape was transformed into the industrial and urbanised landscape following the years of development of two soda factories and the municipal and housing infrastructure of the nearby town of Inowrocław. Strong human impact led to the fact that already several decades ago this plot was classified as one of the most ecologically endangered areas in Poland. The abundance of halophytes in the N plot, including many obligatory ones, is related to the geomorphology of the area and the associated pattern of salt deposit leaching, as well as brine exploitation and soda industry. The species composition and population resources of individual halophyte species at 65 sites on the G plot and 90 sites on the N plot were compared using numerical classification methods. The distribution of the sites and their species richness are presented on the maps of the study area. The results of our analysis were compared with the results of observations made by other authors in the same area at different times. Based on the comparative analysis, we have arrived at conclusions regarding the protection of halophytes and the anticipated effects of technological changes in agriculture, salt and soda industry, as well as spatial management. We believe that the data provided in the tables and the resulting maps will constitute reference points for assessing the effectiveness of undertaken conservation recommendations and the correctness of scenarios formulated by different authors for the development of natural systems in the study area.

Contorting transformations: Uneven impacts of the U.S.–Mexico automotive industrial complex

Contrary to the triumphalist rhetoric that describes the automotive industry as a lever for both regional development in North America and industrial upgrading in Mexico, this article argues that the formation of the Mexico–U.S. automotive complex has instead been consolidated on the basis of longstanding processes of uneven regional development. To make this argument, the paper examines how global economic restructuring, trade policies, domestic economic development processes, transnational firm decision making and the maintenance of the geopolitical border have reproduced extreme wage differences between the United States and Mexico, resulting in the creation of a regional automotive sector that is both highly integrated and highly unequal. In this scenario, both nations are home to profoundly different industrial landscapes: the U.S. hosts the highest value-added links of the production chain, monopolizing processes of innovation and scientific and technological knowledge production, while in contrast, Mexico manufactures the most labour intense and lowest value-added links of the automotive production chain. From this perspective, the Mexican economy can be essentially understood as an export manufacturing platform which derives its ‘competitiveness’ from the aggressive industry maintenance of low wages.