地铁施工工人不安全行为知识可视化研究

为改善地铁施工行为的安全培训效果,利用现场照片,研究工人不安全行为知识可视化机制。通过整理安全标准等显性安全知识,对施工工人的不安全行为进行分类,并利用工作危害性分析(JHA)和语句相似度计算相结合的方法,显化现场照片中包含的施工工人隐性不安全行为知识。设计施工工人不安全行为可视化系统,采集和存储显化的行为风险照片。将此系统应用于以起重吊装类不安全行为"起重吊装过程中,施工工人进入危险区域"的显化研究。算例结果表明:通过相似度计算对比,包含JHA确定的影响因素的照片描述,能有效匹配所反映的施工工人不安全行为。     

A new approach of integrating industry prior knowledge for HAZOP interaction

Accidents often occur in the petrochemical industry, which have a negative impact on society and the environment. Learning Process Safety Knowledge (PSK) from accident cases is essential to prevent accidents and improve safety level. Hazard and Operability Analysis (HAZOP) is a popular hazard risk analysis method. Its report contains large-scale PSK, which can provide safety analysis and decision support for the industry. Subject to the characteristics of PSK, existing researches mine them in the form of sequence labeling. However, there are two intractable problems that cause the PSK mined by the model to be inaccurate. (1) PSK in HAZOP is domain specific, which is rare or even absent in general-domain texts. (2) The entity boundaries are ambiguous. Most domain-specific entities for HAZOP lack boundary characters. Inaccurate security knowledge is not acceptable from the perspective of process safety engineering. To solve the problems, we present a PSK mining architecture with External Lexicon Prior knowledge called EDPMA, EDPMA is prior knowledge-based multi-task HAZOP knowledge mining model. Specifically, EDPMA consists of prior knowledge constructor and sequence labeling model. The prior knowledge constructor expresses prior knowledge in the form of word embedding by three steps. For the sequence annotation model, we improve its embedding and decoding layers. The former incorporated the word vectors generated by the prior knowledge constructor, and the latter added the task of entity boundary prediction. We conduct multiple evaluation experiments on HAZOP datasets. The experimental results show that the accuracy, recall and F1-score of the EDPMA model are 92.92%, 91.85% and 92.38% respectively, which is better than the existing research. Our study represents a meaningful attempt to introduce prior knowledge in HAZOP knowledge mining and makes an important contribution to intelligence the field of process safety.     

The relationship between demographic/educational parameters and perceptions,knowledge and earthquake mitigation in Israel

Perceptions, knowledge and mitigation are factors that might play a role in preventing injury and loss of life during a major earthquake.² Little is known about the relationships between different demographic and educational parameters and these factors. A national representative sample of 495 adults was investigated in order to determine the relationship between demographic and educational parameters in terms of the perceived threat, perceived coping, knowledge and mitigation of earthquakes in Israel. Compared to females, males perceived the threat of earthquakes to be lower (t=3.183, p=0.002), manifested higher levels of perceived coping (t=2.55, p=0.011), and had higher levels of earthquake related knowledge (t=2.047, p=0.041). We conclude that there are gender differences in perceptions and knowledge regarding earthquakes.     

Kibale Forest Wild Coffee: Challenges to Market‐Based Conservation in Africa

Abstract: Declining rural security and pressures to reduce public‐sector expenditures in the late 1990s spurred efforts to develop alternative funding models for Uganda's Kibale National Park (KNP). The Wild Coffee Project, established in 1999 with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and the Ford Foundation, sought to develop a market for wild coffee that had been harvested traditionally from areas within today's KNP. The Kibale Forest Foundation, a U.S.‐based nonprofit organization, was created to legalize harvests, obtain third‐party wild and organic certification, and coordinate management between KNP, the coffee industry, and local communities. Although the project was successful in legalizing, harvesting, and processing the world's first certified wild and organic coffee, efforts to gain entry into the international marketplace failed. Chief among the lessons learned from this project is that for many wild‐grown products, the value of “the story”—in both human and conservation terms—is likely to far exceed actual product values. This value differential should be captured through high‐value niche markets to avoid low commodity pricing and subsequent pressures to improve financial returns through over harvesting. In addition, local producers should hold significant assets in whatever brands are developed, creating a shared‐equity approach that serves social responsibility goals, fosters project sustainability, and ensures a steady stream of positive stories for use in marketing to build brand value. Shared equity—in this case ownership interest in the intellectual property embodied in the brand—provides a second incentive beyond transactional profits that can only be realized if resource conservation is maintained.     

煤炉使用知识与一氧化碳浓度的相关性研究

为了解居民煤炉使用知识掌握情况,提高居民煤炉使用安全水平,预防及减少居民意外伤害的发生,对北京市平房区100户居民进行入户调查,对比不同性别、年龄、受教育程度的居民煤炉使用知识的掌握情况,并运用线性回归模型分析居民安全知识水平与居室内一氧化碳浓度之间的相关性。结果表明,居民的煤炉使用知识水平普遍不高,年龄和受教育程度对知识掌握情况影响显著,居民在降低室内一氧化碳浓度方面的知识水平对居室内一氧化碳浓度具有显著影响。必须进一步加强煤炉安全知识的宣传,确定重点对象及重点内容,提高北京市居民的煤炉使用知识水平。     

People's Biodiversity Registers: Lessons Learnt

People's Biodiversity Registers (PBR) document folk knowledge of status, uses, history, ongoing changes and forces driving changes in biodiversity resources, gainers and losers in these processes and people's perceptions of how these resources should be managed. A number of PBRs have been prepared in different parts of India beginning 1995 through initiatives of NGOs and educational institutions working with local communities and village councils. These attempts have been motivated by a desire to promote decentralised systems of management of natural resources and to create the basis for equitable sharing of benefits of commercial utilisation of folk knowledge of uses of biodiversity. The documents bring together important locality specific information on biodiversity resources and ecological processes affecting them. They lead to recognition of conservation oriented local practices such as protection of sacred groves. They help mobilise local communities to prudently manage local biodiversity resources in ways that would promote social justice. It is however important to recognise that not all folk knowledge may be valid, nor all folk practices wise, and to create systems of careful assessment of the material. There are many encouraging signs globally, as well as within India, such as the coming in force of the Convention on Biological Diversity, forces promoting decentralised democratic systems of governance and institutions of co-management of natural resources which suggest that programmes like PBR will have an important role to play in promoting conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits of biodiversity resources in the coming decades.     

Hybrid regimes of knowledge? Challenges for constructing scientific evidence in the context of the GMO-debate

Background, aim, and scope

Over the last two decades, there has been a remarkable shift of attention to the scientific and political fundamentals of the precautionary principle. The application of this principle has become a main strategy of coping with the different forms and problems related to non-knowledge. Thus, societies are increasingly confronted with the challenging and hitherto unresolved problem of political and technological decision-making under conditions of diverging framings of non-knowledge. At present, there seems to be no generally accepted scientific or institutional approach. This is why the fundamental question of how different scientific actors define and construct evidence is not answered yet. Hence, this paper is based on the consideration that the conflicts in risk policy concerning genetically modified organisms (GMO) depend on the unresolved conflicts about the diverging scientific strategies and structures of evidence-making between the epistemic cultures involved. Thus, this study investigates two questions: (1) do the epistemic strategies of evidence-making differ systematically with the scientific actors involved in the GMO-debate? (2) What consequences emerge considering institutionalized procedures of decision-making?

Main features

This article is based on a secondary analysis of findings and perspectives reported in the literature and on the methods of qualitative social empirical research, i.e., interviews with experts. A total number of 34 interviews were conducted to explore the different strategies of handling non-knowledge and constructing evidence. Actors from science, administration, business and NGOs were interviewed. In this way, typical epistemic cultures can be described. An epistemic culture is the constellation of methodological strategies, theoretical assumptions and practical-experimental settings which define in every speciality the ways how we know what we know.

Results

There are two main results. Firstly, it was worked out that the epistemic cultures involved in the GMO-debate use rather distinct strategies to define non-knowledge and to classify evidence. There are three types of constructing evidence, which correspond to different types of epistemic cultures. Secondly, the findings imply that the intensity of the conflicts in risk policy fields like the GMO-debate is due to a lack of knowledge politics. Usually, knowledge politics is restricted to the design of institutional procedures to compile knowledge provided by experts. The institutional setting of risk analysis and risk management is based on the premise of strict separation between knowledge and power. However, inadmissible mixing-up of knowledge and power is observable.

Discussion

It seems that non-knowledge leads to an epistemic no man’s land, and, hence, hybrid regimes of knowledge emerge. These regimes are hybrid with respect to the unclear and not explicitly reflected strategies of evidence-making. By lacking of knowledge politics, this situation opens up ‘windows of opportunity’ for actors with special interests in risk policy fields like the GMO-debate. Therefore, there is a difference between the visible institutionalized structures of risk policies and the rather invisible hybrid regimes of knowledge. Structure and scope of expertise have to be reflected and new instruments of knowledge politics have to be designed.

Conclusions

Different epistemic cultures can be qualified by describing their particular strategies of evidence-making. To solve the conflicts between these strategies, a meta-expertise is needed. Besides the institutionalized settings of knowledge politics, the underlying hybrid regimes of knowledge have to be identified.

Recommendations and perspectives

The concept of epistemic cultures and their strategies of evidence-making should be investigated more explicitly with respect to other risk policy fields The analysis of hybrid regimes of knowledge should be deepened by looking at the complex interactions between institutional, discursive and practical rules affecting risk assessment.

     

The SoftGIS approach to local knowledge

The aim of the SoftGIS approach is to support urban planning processes and decision-making. SoftGIS aims to present a more comprehensive understanding of local knowledge. This is realized by the mapping of local knowledge and its integration into urban planning practices. SoftGIS is a multidisciplinary approach where different Internet- and GIS-based methods are developed to gather and process local knowledge. In this article we present the theoretical background to the SoftGIS approach as well as two case studies.     

Assessing local knowledge use in agroforestry management with cognitive maps

Small-holder farmers often develop adaptable agroforestry management techniques to improve and diversify crop production. In the cocoa growing region of Ghana, local knowledge on such farm management holds a noteworthy role in the overall farm development. The documentation and analysis of such knowledge use in cocoa agroforests may afford an applicable framework to determine mechanisms driving farmer preference and indicators in farm management. This study employed 12 in-depth farmer interviews regarding variables in farm management as a unit of analysis and utilized cognitive mapping as a qualitative method of analysis. Our objectives were (1) to illustrate and describe agroforestry management variables and associated farm practices, (2) to determine the scope of decision making of individual farmers, and (3) to investigate the suitability of cognitive mapping as a tool for assessing local knowledge use. Results from the cognitive maps revealed an average of 16 ± 3 variables and 19 ± 3 links between management variables in the farmer cognitive maps. Farmer use of advantageous ecological processes was highly central to farm management (48% of all variables), particularly manipulation of organic matter, shade and food crop establishment, and maintenance of a tree stratum as the most common, highly linked variables. Over 85% of variables included bidirectional arrows, interpreted as farm management practices dominated by controllable factors, insofar as farmers indicated an ability to alter most farm characteristics. Local knowledge use on cocoa production revealed detailed indicators for site evaluation, thus affecting farm preparation and management. Our findings suggest that amid multisourced information under conditions of uncertainty, strategies for adaptable agroforestry management should integrate existing and localized management frameworks and that cognitive mapping provides a tool-based approach to advance such a management support system.     

A differentiated approach for sustainable consumption and production policies

The importance of sustainable consumption and production in the international agenda has been growing, both because of unsustainable patterns of consumption and production in industrialized countries and because it appears to be a means for meeting the essential needs of developing countries. Adapting Fernand Braudel's model of the three layers of the economy (everyday life, market economy and global capitalism) to the current situation, this paper advocates for differentiated policies, which cannot be limited to those based on the dominant model of a rational legal system dealing with rational consumers. The cultural and collective dimensions of consumption, the social role of conspicuous consumption, the consumption of ecological services outside formal markets, the diversity of approaches to knowledge and rationality, all plead for an overarching approach and diversified policy tools. The paper underlines the need for global regulation processes which involve all stakeholders by focusing on two examples: the international task force on sustainable tourism, and the ISO 26000 standard on social responsibility.