The Realist and the Visionary

When we ask how the concept of sovereignty might become something other than what it has been, we must realise the structural context of the question. If we take liberal legalism as that context, we discover that the concept of sovereignty has a twin in the concept of property. To be sure, when we move beyond the deep grammars of the structure, important conceptual differences quickly emerge. Nevertheless, this chapter argues that if we are to take seriously our concerns with social change and transformation, and ask what concepts like sovereignty and property might become, we must first understand the deeper structural frames from which these concepts take their meaning. Reckoning with the possibilities of sovereign change and transformation is less like altering a small dialect, and more like transforming the syntactical range of an entire language.

Development of Cost Estimation Models Based on ANN Ensembles and the SVM Method

Cost estimation, as one of the key processes in construction projects, provides the basis for a number of project-related decisions. This paper presents some results of studies on the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning in cost estimation. The research developed three original models based either on ensembles of neural networks or on support vector machines for the cost prediction of the floor structural frames of buildings. According to the criteria of general metrics (RMSE, MAPE), the three models demonstrate similar predictive performance. MAPE values computed for the training and testing of the three developed models range between 5% and 6%. The accuracy of cost predictions given by the three developed models is acceptable for the cost estimates of the floor structural frames of buildings in the early design stage of the construction project. Analysis of error distribution revealed a degree of superiority for the model based on support vector machines.

Using structural frames to integrate structural geology into implicit 3D modelling

<p>Implicit geological modelling allows for observations of surface location and orientation to be interpolated into continuous 3D surfaces. These surfaces are usually built by finding a function that minimises the misfit between the surface and observations (gradient or value of the implicit function) combined with a regularisation constraint that controls how the surface develops between observations. When modelling complex terranes such as fold series, fault networks or intrusions it is usually necessary to use interpretive constraints for creating the expected geometries. These interpretations are problematic, as the constraints are usually not observations but realisations of the geologists’ subjective interpretation, and are therefore difficult to change and interrogate to better understand the geometry. Recent developments for implicit modelling of folds and faults have built new local coordinate systems using the structural geology of the object being modelled and are termed structural frames. For example, for folds, the structural frame is aligned to the axial surface of the fold and fold axis. For faults, the structural frame is aligned to the fault surface and slip direction. Using structural frames, conceptual models of the fold and fault geometries can be combined with the observations of the surfaces. This means that rather than using the geologists' subjective interpretation to constrain the model geometries, the conceptual model can guide the interpolation where observations are missing. Geological uncertainties in the resulting geometries can be assessed by framing the modelling as an inverse problem and varying the conceptual model parameters to fit the geological observations. In this contribution, we review the use of structural frames for constraining 3D geometry of structurally complex terranes and provide an example of a faulted fold series.</p>

Design of Flexible Structural System for Building Customization

The main aim of this research work is to design a structural system for building customization, through simple industrialized components. The system is able to adapt to different orthogonal geometries and presents the necessary flexibility to allow modifications over the structure of the building throughout its life. The so-named “flexible structural system” (FSS) is characterized by using only small industrialized components, handled by one person, which exhibit an easy and simple assembly. The new system proposes the use of just two different pieces named basic units (BUi) with only two possible thicknesses for any of them. The system is composed of only 5 different pieces. The generating process of the structural system is based on different combinations of the basic units (BUi) to obtain resistant members (RMn). These resistant members allow to build structural frames (F), and finally, the addition of structural frames allows to generate diaphanous volumes (DV) and obtain the desired structure for the building. The limit of structural length is set at 4.8 meters. Finally, an example is shown where a structure for a diaphanous volume is obtained, using the referred industrialized elements. This shows that the system is systematic and easy to understand by users. We want the users themselves to design and build their own home as well as make the necessary modifications throughout the useful life of the building. This is the final objective.

Tone slips in Cantonese: Evidence for early phonological encoding

This article examines speech errors in Cantonese with the aim of fleshing out a larger speech production architecture for encoding phonological tone. A corpus was created by extracting 2,462 speech errors, including 668 tone errors, from audio recordings of natural conversations. The structure of these errors was then investigated in order to distinguish two contemporary approaches to tone in speech production. In the tonal frames account, tone is encoded like metrical stress, represented in abstract structural frames for a word. Because tone cannot be mis-selected in tonal frames, tone errors are expected to be rare and non-contextual, as observed with stress. An alternative is that tone is actively selected in phonological encoding like phonological segments. This approach predicts that tone errors will be relatively common and exhibit the contextual patterns observed with segments, like perseveration and anticipation. In our corpus, tone errors are the second most common type of error, and the majority of errors exhibit contextual patterns that parallel segmental errors. Building on prior research, a two-stage model of phonological tone encoding is proposed, following the patterns seen in tone errors: Tone is phonologically selected concurrently with segments, but then sequentially assigned after segments to a syllable.