Scenario Plans Research Articles

Analysis and systematization of technical means and technologies of augmented reality in cartography

Relevance. In modern cartography, the introduction of advanced digital technologies is taking place continuously, increasing the quality and demand for cartographic products. One of such innovative directions is augmented reality technology, with which you can expand the content of the map using electronic mobile devices. The spread of augmented reality is facilitated by the widespread penetration of high-speed mobile Internet not only into large cities, but also in rural areas, as well as the reduction in the cost of electronic devices and services. Depending on the direction of application of augmented reality in cartography, the approach to the choice of software and hardware is changing. Aim. Analysis and systematization of the technical means and technologies of augmented reality in cartography. Objects. Augmented reality technologies in cartography, augmented reality technical means and their components. Methods. Content analysis of information on technologies, hardware and software for augmented reality in cartography. Results. The authors have analyzed hardware and software tools of augmented reality in cartography. They proposed the options for working with augmented reality in the form of scenario plans for three types of augmented reality in cartography: marker, markerless and spatial technologies. The minimum technical requirements of developers for the use of existing cartographic and navigation applications were highlighted. The paper considers a number of digital environments for implementation of augmented reality elements in cartography. The advantages of each of them were noted. The authors compiled a block diagram of a typical hardware-software complex of an augmented reality system in cartography and geoinformatics. They systematized types of sensors that solve geoinformation and cartographic tasks using augmented reality technologies.

Multi-scenario Analysis and the Construction of the Revitalization Model of Green Development in Tourism Traditional Villages

Implementing the concept of green development would help the tourism traditional villages to solve problems such as the deterioration of the ecological environment, the changing of traditional culture, the loss of original landscape, and others. Taking the six tourism traditional villages in Beijing as a case study, this study explored the best green scenario by considering the perceptions of stakeholders and constructed the green revitalization mode of tourism traditional villages by the scenario analysis method and other methods. The results show three key aspects of tourism traditional village development scenarios. (1) From the perspective of future development scenarios, the specific characteristics and objective functions of the basic development scenario are different in the economic revitalization scenario and the green revitalization scenario, the economic revitalization scenario and the green revitalization scenario are different. (2) From the perspective of the stakeholders' perceptions of different scenario plans, the future development of the case villages will change to varying degrees under the different scenario plans. However, no matter where the traditional villages are in the tourism life cycle, the green development scenario is the best choice. (3) Finally, this article constructed a five-in-one model of the green revitalization of tourism traditional villages with green economy as the key, traditional culture as the core, ecological civilization as the basis, village communities as the agent, and external policies as the guarantee. The research results aim to enrich the theory of green development and rural tourism, and provide theoretical reference and scientific guidance for the green revitalization of tourism traditional villages.

Technical Resilience in Intrapreneurs for Product Innovations : An Exploratory Study

Technical resilience in intrapreneurs was accepting realities and taking responsible actions through leading change. This research paper actualized an exploratory analysis of technical resilience leadership of intrapreneurs working in hi-tech product innovation companies. It deliberated on technical resilience leadership patterns of technical engineers and their socio-conscious progressive behavior in a technically competitive world. The paper conducted a descriptive, compared means, and exploratory analysis of the technical resilience leadership of 240 intrapreneurs and their product innovations with a statistical tool (SPSS). It examined intrapreneurs’ visionary thinking, opportunity-seeking, capability-building, and environment-conscious behavior for creating novel product innovations. It evaluated the different scenario plans and featured the innovative work behaviors of intrapreneurs through novel product innovations. Scenarios significantly built high-risk-taking capabilities to address future uncertainties/complexities and improve social well-being. The exploratory analysis explored the core determinants of technical resilience leadership and their effect on assessing the usefulness of scenario plans for novel productions. The paper expressed the importance of scenario planning for change-making and building something new for societal value. The article meaningfully called the attention of audience readers, practitioners, scenario definers, policy formulators, academicians, and technopreneurs (intrapreneurs) on sense-making and differential approaches to scenario planning and idea building for fruitful, innovative production outcomes via technical resilience leadership. The paper proposed the various aspects of technical resilience leadership in intrapreneurs that concurrently led them to high scenario planning efforts for innovative project ideas with a keenness for resilient, differential action behavior.

Beyond Plans

Problem, research strategy, and findings Previous studies of the impact of scenario usage in regional planning have shown limited results: Municipalities may not follow recommendations of the regional plan, and regional agencies themselves may ignore unpopular contingent futures. Though helpful, studies on scenarios and their direct impact on local plans may overlook important but less noticeable ways in which scenario planning can shape local and regional planning practice. To address this gap, we investigated scenario planning processes in three U.S. metropolitan areas with varying types of regional planning agencies and different scenario planning histories. Our work involved a review of three regional plans, 52 local plans, and nine confirmatory interviews. We found that the normative and exploratory scenarios common in regional planning rarely influence local comprehensive plans, especially in suburban municipalities. However, we also found that the regional scenario plans influenced planning practices and norms across the regions in ways that did not appear in plan documents. Our findings suggest that regional scenario planning can help practitioners identify new challenges, creatively engaging the future and shaping regional agencies, but such outcomes require institutional coordination, potentially executed by the regional agency performing technical assistance. Takeaway for practice Planners should consider how the groups that guide scenario plans can be de facto political bodies, advocating for better planning practices. To make the regional scenario plan effective at the local level, regional agencies should institutionalize local partnership building.

Staring at the Sun during Wildfire Season: Knowledge, Uncertainty, and Front-Line Resistance in Disaster Preparation.

As climate change increases the frequency and severity of disasters, and population and social changes raise the public’s vulnerability to disaster events, societies face additional risk of multiple disaster events or other hazards occurring simultaneously. Such hazards involve significant uncertainty, which must be translated into concrete plans able to be implemented by disaster workers. Little research has explored how disaster managers incorporate different forms of knowledge and uncertainty into preparations for simultaneous hazards or disaster events, or how front-line disaster workers respond to and implement these plans. In this paper I draw on ethnographic research working as a wildland firefighter, interviews with firefighters and fire managers, and state and agency planning documents to examine preparations for two events occurring in Central Oregon in August 2017: (1) the height of wildfire season and (2) hundreds of thousands of anticipated visitors for a total solar eclipse. I find that different qualities of risk, hazard, and uncertainty across these two events were central to the development and implementation of disaster plans. Agency leaders devised worst-case scenario plans for the eclipse based on uncertain predictions regarding hazards from the eclipse and the occurrence of severe wildfires, aiming to eliminate the potential for unknown hazards. These plans were generally met with skepticism by front-line disaster workers. Despite the uncertainties that dominated eclipse-planning rhetoric, firefighters largely identified risks from the eclipse that were risks they dealt with in their daily work as firefighters. I conclude by discussing implications of these findings for conceptual understandings of disaster planning as well as contemporary concerns about skepticism and conspiracy theories directed at government planning and response to disaster events.

Вторая редакция «Псковитянки» в контексте оперного творчества Н. А. Римского-Корсакова

The article is devoted to the second version of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Pskov Maiden” (1876–1877). This version was written by the composer during the time of his independent studies and beginning of work at the Conservatory and has become the most significant composition of this period. Nonetheless, it became virtually unnoticed in music history – there was no production at the Mariinsky Theater, despite the composer’s wishes, neither the piano-vocal score, nor the full score was published, and as the result this version was preserved only in the form of segmental manuscripts. We have undertaken a textological research of the preserved fragments, for the first time having provided a scholarly generalization of their entire core, and having made a list of all the available materials (according to the sources from the Manuscript Section of the Russian National Library), and the attempt has been made to compare and juxtapose them with the plan of the opera contained in one of the manuscripts, and to present Rimsky-Korsakov’s initial conception most completely. A comparative analysis of all three editions of the opera is made, particularly, their scenario plans – detailed research is made of the differences of dramaturgy and composition of all the opera’s versions; conclusions are made about the integrality and artistic value of the second version. In addition to this, the article examines the reception of the second version, as well as the attitudes towards the entire work, as well as to separate episodes from it, in particular, of the composer himself, his associates from the “Mighty Handful,” the composer’s wife Nadezhda Nikolayevna and the greatest researcher of his works Vassily Yastrebtsev, and subsequently – of the researchers engaged in studying this version of the opera. In conclusion, the hypothesis is brought out, according to which the negative attitude towards the second version of the “Pskov Maid” has gained a foothold in musicology and in publication practice for the most part as the result of the composer’s own opinion about his own composition, without any detailed critical analysis of the musical text. In our opinion, such a position may be reevaluated, after the score is assembled from the existing fragments, which will make it possible to evaluate its position in Rimsky-Korsakov’s musical legacy in a more precise or objective manner. Keywords: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, opera “The Pskov Maid,” second version, textology.

The need for accounting-integrated data streams for scenario-based planning in primary production: responding to COVID-19 and other crises

PurposeThis study aims to explore the need for improved data sources and models for COVID-19 and climate-related risk scenario analysis in primary production. The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting global markets for agricultural produce, making short-term forecasting highly uncertain. Meanwhile climate-related risk continues for agricultural businesses. Farmers and their accountants need to plan and make estimates about the potential effect of COVID-19 and ongoing climate risks to their natural and financial capital and so they need accounting-integrated biophysical and socio-economic data streams.Design/methodology/approachThis research note reviews the current state of scenario-based planning for COVID-19 and other risks for Australian businesses generally, in addition to planning for farming businesses more specifically. Discussion of the authors’ current research in integrating accounting and farming data for water-related risk caused by climate and other challenges is presented as an analogous case.FindingsReview and analogous case comparison demonstrate the need for farm data to be integrated more efficiently and effectively with accounting data for accurate scenario planning for COVID-19 and other risks, including those posed by climate.Practical implicationsWhile not strangers to the need for scenario analysis, given exposure to ever-increasing natural resource and climate variability, this research note highlights how primary producers and their accountants require increased accounting-integrated farm data and systems to make judgements, assumptions and estimates about the potential effect of COVID-19 and ongoing climate risks to their business.Social implicationsThe sustainability of the agricultural sector is of great relevance to all of us and so the development of tools and resources that can assist food producers in times of ongoing climate pressures and new crises, such as COVID-19, is important. Better understanding of such risks can help farm businesses develop effective strategies which minimise the potential loss of agricultural value resulting in improved flows of greater capital value for society.Originality/valueThrough application to the analogous case of water-related risk and decision-making, the research note demonstrates that linking of biophysical and accounting data streams will be essential for evidence-backed numbers included in scenario plans with enough legitimacy to be interrogated inside and outside of the business. The “best estimate of the directors” is no longer enough in challenging socio-economic and biophysical times ahead for primary producers.

Analysis of Flyover Construction Effect to Increase Traffic Services and Reduce Exhaust Emissions at an Intersection

Patal - Pusri Intersection is one of the intersections in Palembang with heavy traffic flow and frequent traffic jams. The existence of Underpass construction, apparently could not be a complete solution to unravel traffic congestion. The purpose of this research is to analyze five alternative scenario plans to disentangled the vehicle density, congestion, and reduce pollution from exhaust emissions caused by vehicle density. This research was conducted using VISSIM Microsimulation Program assistance to simulate existing alternative scenarios and to analyze the effect of these alternative scenarios on reducing vehicle exhaust emissions using the EnViVer Program assistance. The results showed that the fifth alternative scenario as the flyover construction, geometric changes at the intersection’s leg crossing, and traffic lights rearrangement became the most effective alternative and was able to parse vehicle density and traffic congestion, and was able to reduce exhaust emissions by 32.36%. This was shown by the reduction in queue length by 44% and the delay times by 57.05%, and the reduction in exhaust emissions in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) by 35.5%, nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 43%, and particulate matter (PM10) ) by 18.6% at the intersection significantly.

Long-term electricity sector expansion planning: A unique opportunity for a least cost energy transition in South Africa

With climate change being near unequivocally linked to anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions there is an ongoing move to decarbonise economies globally with the electricity sector identified as a primary focus for most countries’ strategies. This research presents a Business-as-Usual scenario and electricity sector capacity expansion plans to determine a least-cost as well as decarbonised electricity mix for South Africa. A significant finding is that South Africa has the unique opportunity to transition from an existing carbon and water intensive coal-based electricity system to a low carbon and water intense electricity system at least-cost. The approach applies a generation capacity expansion optimisation using mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) to co-optimise energy and ancillary services. The research finds that it is least cost for any new generation capacity investment to be solar photovoltaics (PV), wind and flexible supply-side or demand-side capacity with a >75% renewable energy (RE) share by 2050, replacing existing capacity as it is decommissioned and meeting new demand. By 2050, the Least-cost scenario is conservatively $ 5.1-bln/year cheaper than Business-as-Usual (≈12%) and $ 7.8-bln/year cheaper (≈20%) when applying expected cost assumptions. A Decarbonise scenario using conservative cost assumptions has a >90% RE share by 2050. It is $ 4.8-bln/year more expensive when compared to Least-Cost where a ≈60% decarbonised electricity system is possible by 2050. Business-as-Usual as well as Decarbonise scenarios have similar costs when applying conservative cost assumptions while the Decarbonise scenario becomes $ 4.8-bln/year cheaper than Business-as-Usual (≈11%) when applying expected cost assumptions. This is while being 95% decarbonised while Business-as-Usual is 20% decarbonised by 2050.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and land use: Lessons from West Coast states

Planners and policymakers in the United States increasing-ly recognize climate change as a critical challenge. Because the trans-portation sector accounts for one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) linked to climate change, some states—including California, Oregon, and Washington—have passed legislation to reduce GHGs from transportation. Much of the work to date has focused on model-ing impacts and evaluating performance of different strategies. Instead, this paper focuses on policy adoption and implementation. This re-search relies on document analysis and stakeholder interviews to ex-amine state efforts to reduce GHGs by examining goals, plans, actions, and results. While these states have all established statutory goals to reduce GHGs, planning, implementation, and monitoring vary across states. California and Oregon rely on state- and metropolitan-level planning, while Washington relies on a state approach. California has enacted funding programs to implement strategies to achieve reduc-tions and worked to reduce regulatory barriers to compact develop-ment. All states monitor levels of GHGs, but the impact of plans is often unexamined. Though West Coast states have taken initial steps to enact goals and require scenario plans, states must provide funding or regulatory relief while improving monitoring in order to achieve ambitious goals to reduce GHGs from transportation.

Beyond Persuasion: Margaret Atwood's Speculative Politics

With the exception of The Penelopiad (2005) and Stone Mattress (2014), Margaret Atwood's major work of the last thirteen years has consisted entirely of fiction. Why? One way to understand her commitment to the genre is to see that she is redefining and expanding its possibilities. Beginning with a 2008 New Scientist interview and extending into her 2011 essay collection In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination, she has consistently campaigned for greater attention to fiction's realism. In her contrarian account of the genre, fiction is firmly grounded in present realities and extrapolates into the near-future using only the logic of plausibility. In Other Worlds, a text in which Atwood reflects on genre, distinguishes between and science fictions by aligning fiction with realism and science fiction with romance and fantasy. This distinction has understandably elicited ire from those in the science fiction community who maintain that science fiction is itself empirically rigorous and plausible. Putting aside arguments over genre boundaries, Atwood's commitment to fiction (over science fiction) reveals how she conceives of her work over the last twelve years. What she defends as most crucial about fiction is its closeness to real speculation--that is, the economic and political speculation that we understand as nonfictional, speculation that produces legitimate and actionable information about possible futures for the stock market and national security agencies, among many other institutions. In this essay, I argue that Atwood's fiction, specifically Oryx and Crake (2003) and the last chapter of Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth (2008), can be seen to echo political and economic narratives that were being produced around the same time. In particular, I compare Oryx and Crake and Payback to scenario plans published by the influential environmental agency the Global Scenario Group (GSG), the CIA and National Intelligence Council (NIC), and Shell Oil, in order to show the remarkable similarities in form and content between these narratives. These scenario plans, along with other political and economic speculations, are categorized as scientific reports. While each scenario report includes a disclaimer in its preface that states that scenarios should not be construed as in the strictest sense (much like corporations, whose forward-looking statement disclaimers serve to limit liability in press releases), these forecasters nevertheless expect their scenarios to be treated as if they contained what political theorist Louise Amoore calls speculative knowledge--a of possibilities (9). This expectation is implicitly signaled when forecasters cite and celebrate institutions' and organizations' use of their narratives to shape policy and other important decisions, a routine occurrence. (1) Since I argue that for these narrative forecasters their predictions are conjecture in name only, I will use the term knowledge when describing what scenario plans offer readers and decision-makers. Pragmatically, scenario plans are treated as if they offer about a future that has simply not yet come to pass. Oryx and Crake and Payback should be read as appropriations of modern forecasting narratives that also strive to produce legitimate--that is, authoritative and even scientific--knowledge about the future. In addition, Atwood's use of the tropes of political and economic forecasting serves as a way to occupy this particular narrative mode. Political and corporate agents who use scenario plans imagine that these narratives work to actually produce, and not just describe, the future. Adopting this narrative mode for her own political purposes, Atwood embraces the idea that narratives are performative but imagines that she can use them to produce a different kind of future. …

Study of Robustness of Passive Scattering Proton Therapy Plans for Targets in Lung and Comparison With IMRT Plans

Proton therapy plans are often thought to be highly sensitive to range and setup uncertainties. This study investigated robustness of passive scattering proton therapy (PSPT) plans used for treating targets of lung cancer patients and compared the worse-case scenario plans with the nominal proton plans as well as with the corresponding IMRT plans.

Swine flu: provision of ventilation in a worst-case scenario

As a busy intensive care unit in a district general hospital in the UK, we are intrigued by the worst-case scenario plans for swine flu in our region and the ubiquitous algorithms that form part of this planning. A Department of Health document suggests for the purposes of planning that, during a first major UK pandemic wave, the peak clinical attack rate per week would be 8% [1]. Of these patients, the hospitalization rate would be 2% - and 25% of these would require intensive care if the capacity exists. Our hospital serves a population of 220,000. In our region, these estimates suggest that 352 patients will require hospital admission each week during the peak. Using these calculations, we could expect 88 patients per week to require intensive care unit support. In this hospital, there is the capacity to provide mechanical ventilation to 25 patients (utilizing all ventilators and anaesthetic machines). Clearly, as this is primarily a disease affecting the respiratory system, demand for mechanical ventilation could vastly outstrip supply. This lack of equipment will mean either severe rationing of treatment or obtaining more ventilators from an external source. At a time of heightened national demand, the latter is unlikely to be achieved. In the polio epidemic of the 1950s, patients were manually ventilated by medical students and anyone else on hand as the small number of cuirass ventilators was rapidly overwhelmed by clinical cases [2]. When we receive our 26th mechanically ventilated patient, rather than being unable to provide positive pressure ventilation, we propose - in a worst-case scenario - a return to basics. Our solution to this problem is to order 200 disposable bag-valve masks with adjustable positive end-expiratory pressure valves. This solution is conveniently a cost-neutral approach to the single organ support as we already use disposable bag-valve masks throughout the trust. Clinical staff are fully trained in their use, and support staff and relatives could be utilized. Any excess stock could be used as part of normal resource turnover. A similar issue might occur with the requirement for renal replacement therapy in large numbers of patients. In this scenario, perhaps a similar solution would be a return to continuous arteriovenous haemodiafiltration - which requires only a simple disposable item rather than the complex and limited resource of haemofiltration machines.

COMPARATIVE METHODOLOGIES FOR ESTIMATING ON-WATER RESPONSE COSTS FOR MARINE OIL SPILLS

ABSTRACT This study reviews three alternative oil spill response cost estimation methodologies as applied to hypothetical spill scenarios in the Gulf of Mexico and San Francisco Bay, California: (1) a model derived from historical data on various spill factors that drive overall cleanup costs; (2) a method using U.S. Area Contingency Plan (ACP) spill scenario plans to estimate costs for mechanical containment and recovery costs to be extrapolated to other hypothetical spill scenarios; and (3) a method that estimates the labor and equipment required for mechanical containment and recovery operations and the resulting costs. A method for estimating dispersant costs is also discussed. The easy-to-use model derived from historical data is shown to be a good cost estimation tool.

Architectural aspects for the evolution of mobile communications toward UMTS

The transition from second- to third-generation mobile systems and the evolution paths of the relevant radio/network configurations are driven by technical and market considerations. In fact, these are affecting the standardization and research process ongoing at the regional level (ETSI, ACTS Program, US Joint Technical Committee, Japanese ARIB) as well as the global level (ITU). The related discussion is becoming more and more meaningful for operators and manufacturers who are perceiving, on the one hand, the new perspectives associated with service, features, and bandwidth management evolution, and on the other hand, the great impact that such an evolution could have on the existing market scenario and system development plans. In addition, due to the widespread usage of GSM worldwide, this system should also be considered within the evolution scenarios toward third generation. This paper analyzes the situation emerging from the standards context, identifies some key characteristics associated with current proposals, and tries to define a possible third-generation systems architecture based on the most encouraging propositions, e.g., the separation of radio-dependent and independent functions and the integration with B-ISDN. The paper rationale and the identified solutions reflect the research activities within the ACTS project RAINBOW (radio access independent broad band on wireless), addressing architectural solutions for UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system), the European developing standard for third-generation systems.

An Application of Advanced Technology for Crossing Traffic Control and Management

An unique traffic control system has been developed to manage the combined crossing of a 4-lane bridge and two 2-lane tunnels. The system basically consists of a series of variable message signs and dot matrix signals mounted on gantries and road-side posts at strategic locations along a 5km stretch of road carriageway. Scenario plans have been developed to provide suitable guidance to the traffic in events of incidents so that the traffic can get across the crossings safely with minimal disruption. In particular, the specifically developed high wind management scenarios can provide maximum operational flexibility by catering for various level of control in response to worsening weather condition.