Ebook Historic Buildings and Contemporary Additions

The intention of this project is to take a closer look at the use of contemporary styles  for new additions to historic buildings. The use of a new and different style for additions on historic buildings, also known as contrasting styles, is one of the most typical approaches in the field, yet observing the variation in the results obtained when architects use contrasting additions in historic buildings, causes one to question this approach. What is it that makes projects like this succeed or fail? This research, will explore the key elements that allow historic buildings and contemporary additions to work cohesively, respecting and promoting each other’s architectural significance. Using the results, I will consider the feasibility of establishing design guidelines to promote the use of specific design elements for the expansion of historic buildings.

New architectural styles can actually reinforce the significance and architectural value of historic buildings. By labeling architecture as an old or new style, we are recognizing a timeframe for the use of unique and symbolic details that have value and meaning for a specific group. These symbolic details are the language that helps to illustrate or convey the evolution of our society. The styles expressed on historic buildings represent the language of the past and the new styles will represent our present in the future. For this reason, it is important to create an environment where both can coexist and correlate with each other, building additions to historic buildings using contemporary architecture styles with an honest representation of current social situations, while protecting the historic structure which represents the social situations of our past.

Additions to historic buildings have always been a big issue in the preservation field. There have been many discussions about the proper way to approach a historic building when it is in need of expansion to create more usable space for a new or expanding use. These discussions have addressed subjects from the use of materials and building techniques that should be employed, to the architectural style in which the new addition is going to be designed. The issue of style is perhaps the biggest question asked at the moment of intervening with a historic structure. Although, these questions are revisited when intervening in a historic building with a new addition, one aspect has always been emphasized by experts in the field; the importance of making clear what is part of the original fabric and what is not in order to avoid misrepresentation. One of the simplest and most honest ways to comply with this recommendation is by using a contemporary style for new additions on historic buildings.

While using contemporary styles seems to be a good response to the issue of misrepresentation, it is important to take a closer look and analyze the way contemporary additions are designed because this relationship does not always work. There are many examples that can help to demonstrate how historic buildings and contemporary additions can work together, but there are also examples where that’s not necessarily the case. In many cases, contemporary additions have impacted the physical integrity of the historic building causing great consternation among professionals and the public. However, when we take a look at those examples where historic buildings have been successfully integrated with contemporary additions, it is clear that there are specific elements and parameters that make the relationship between historic and contemporary architecture work harmoniously.

One of the problems that could be causing confrontation when combining contemporary styles and historic buildings could be the lack of clear guidelines or recommendations for adding to a historic building using a contrasting style. Not even the best known and most established regulations for the treatment of historic buildings get into much detail on how to approach a historic building using new styles for new additions; the result is that the designer has relative freedom of intervention without guidance on detailed elements that should be given special consideration. This is not a problem when the designer has knowledge of the proper treatment for historic buildings, but what happens to those buildings treated by designers not familiar with the suitable way to intervene with a historic building? None of these regulations give suggestions on what should be the key elements to address, more than general indications of mass, scale and materials, in order to design something not just representative of its time but also cohesive with the historic fabric.

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Ebook House-KEEPER, A Vendor-Independent Architecture For Easy Management Of Smart Homes

Currently, two main technologies compete to be the standard in home network middleware. The obvious reason is that the market is extremely significant, speaking of systems which will have the ubiquity of televisions, the upgradability of PCs (Personal Computers) and the broad possibilities of software applications. Cahners In-Stat Group [CISG00] expects more than a $2 billion Internet residential gateway market segment by 2003.

Hence, Microsoft [MS] promotes UPnP [UPNP], a technology closely related to its set of products, and Sun Microsystems [SUN] continues to develop its Jini [JINI] technology, a Java-based [JAVA] solution for intelligent network infrastructure. In the following chapters, we will describe how these technologies provide all functionalities for federating those new Web-enabled, network-enabled daily appliances, called smart devices.

These technologies can discover devices that are plugged into the network and speak the same protocol. They also can search for devices of interest. A problem arises. How can a device from one vendor be discovered by middleware belonging to another vendor if the protocols are incompatible? Both of them will also provide different APIs (Application Program Interfaces) for publishing and receiving events at a programmer level, as well as different ways for defining and describing the devices and what they can do. Although APIs are convenient for programmers, end-users would prefer more user-friendly interfaces for using their daily appliances. Furthermore, the end-user would prefer to find all interesting devices by making a single query rather than making one query for the UPnP appliances and another for the Jini ones.

This dissertation presents a high-level service for home networking: the first end user service for simply managing a smart home, locally or remotely over the Web, based on an open architecture, independent of the underlying home network technology. The following chapters will review the current solutions, many services have been created for programmers to build applications for end-users more efficiently. Surprisingly, few services have been built for end-users. No such high-level service has been created to allow end-users to control and to monitor a smart home from the Internet yet. The prototype born from this dissertation is called HOUSE-KEEPER, pronounced “house-e-keeper” to imply an electronic house eeper, as in the e of e-commerce. HOUSE-KEEPER uses the services offered by the current home-network middleware technologies to programmers to offer a real user-friendly service to end-users. The HOUSE KEEPER service is real. The prototype can interact with real X10 [X10] devices wrapped in Jini or Chai [CHAI] pieces of software to switch on a real lamp remotely from the Internet or the coffee machine from a WAP phone [WAP]. The fact that it is controllable from the Internet transparently for different types of home networks is new. For example, as will be described, there are different on-going projects to find a way of using Jini devices from the Internet. One of them is the SOAPUDDI project [SOAPUDDI] of the Jini.org community [JC]. The HOUSE-KEEPER service addresses this issue. In fact, the HOUSE-KEEPER service provides a global and complete view of what is available in the home network. Its design is independent of home network middleware. As a matter of proof, the design has been prototyped with two different home network technologies, Chai and Jini. The HOUSE-KEEPER service also offers aneasy-to-use declarative system of management of this home network rather than the programmatic one actually implemented. This way, it is possible to implement additional access control, even if the native device does not provide such access control.

The focus of this dissertation is on the home, not on corporate buildings or on public buildings. This is important because the requirements are different between corporate or public buildings and homes. By home, we understand a residence in which few people are living, such as a family with the husband, the wife and their children. Concerning the security requirement for example, the assumptions made do not fit very well in a corporate environment. This is the reason the service based on the overall architecture is called HOUSe-KEEPER. The service helps to manage different appliances in the house by storing the devices automatically and helping users to find them. The idea is that a future version of HOUSE-KEEPER could do the traditional job of the human house-keeper, who tidied the house and notified the landlord of the house when something happened and only when it was really needed. A simple example of this behaviour has been added in the prototype, but more intelligent behaviour could be implemented using the help of artificial intelligence technologies.

Contents:

1.INTRODUCTION

1.1. Aims and objectives
1.2. “Road map”

2.DOMAIN

2.1. Home Networking
2.1.1.Definitions
2.1.2.An overview
2.1.3.Technology survey

2.2. Research case studies
2.3. Requirements

3.REVIEW

3.1. Home network “middleware”
3.1.1.Chai
3.1.2.UPnP
3.1.3.Jini

3.2. The missing link
3.2.1.Candidates
3.2.1.1.OSGi
3.2.1.2.The Chai Place Manager 

3.2.2.Is it possible to fulfil the requirements with the actual technologies?

4.HOUSE-KEEPER : THE NEW STEP
4.1. The big picture
4.1.2.Multi-tier architecture
4.2. Further detail
4.2.1.The choice of the server
4.2.2.A service independent of the home networking technology
4.2.3.An easy and vendor-independent declarative process for device context
4.2.4.The answer to the multi-user security requirement
4.2.5.The need-to-know issue
4.2.6.More about the Jini proxy for Jini devices
4.3. Critique of the architecture
4.3.1.Place metaphor.
4.3.2.What has to be shipped?
4.3.3.Limitations of the command line paradigm
4.3.4.Is HOUSE-KEEPER a distributed system?
4.3.5.Adaptation to the client capability
4.4. The prototype and its results
4.4.1.Test-bed
4.4.2.“Use-cases”
4.4.3.What did two implementations bring to light?

5.CONCLUSION
6.REFERENCES 7.WORLD WIDE WEB RESOURCES

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Ebook Deference to Committees in the Antebellum House

One of the most commonly-observed characteristics of the modern House of Representatives is that the floor of the House exhibits a high degree of deference to standing committees’ bill proposals. Indeed, though there is substantial disagreement about the reasons and implications of this deference, theoretical and empirical scholars of various stripes agree that bills reported from committees enjoy high levels of success during floor consideration. In stark contrast, however, various historical and political science studies of committees in the earliest decades of congressional history paint a picture of committees as subservient agents of the House as a whole, with little independent influence upon House decision making.

Perhaps surprisingly, given this sharp difference in the perceived role of committees in the legislative process, and given also the centrality of committees in studies of Congress, little work systematically addresses questions about either the timing or causes of the emergence of deference to committee decisions. Some scholars suggest that deference emerged along with the standing committee system itself in the period from roughly 1815-1825, while others suggest that deference still was not the norm as late as the end of the 19 th century.

In this paper I study the question of deference to committees by exploring whether such deference occurred in the decades immediately following the creation of the standing committee system. My goal for this paper is to paint a picture of committee influence and deference that: first, provides insight on whether committees were important veto players in the antebellum law making process; second, helps to flesh out our understanding of the evolution of the legislative process, and of committees’ place therein; third, illuminates the nature of winning and losing coalitions on committees; and fourth, provides evidence that is at least suggestive regarding the (non-) generality of theories of congressional organization developed in the context of the modern House.

More specifically, I examine the frequency with which committees were “rolled”—that is, the House passed a bill that was opposed on final passage by a majority of the members of the committee that had originally reported the bill—on bills within their jurisdictions. Taking each such committee roll as evidence of non-deference to the committee of jurisdiction, I find that the frequency of committee rolls was generally quite low, and was in line with the levels of deference observed in modern congresses (albeit using different measures). I also explore the incidence of rolls among majority and minority party contingents on each committee. I find that majority party committee contingents were rolled more often than were overall committee contingents, though the difference is not dramatic. I find additionally that minority party contingents were rolled decidedly more often than either overall committees or majority party contingents.

I proceed as follows. In the next section, I review the theoretical underpinnings of committee deference in the modern House, as well as claims made regarding the extent of deference in the antebellum House. In the third section, I spell out the methods by which I examine these claims, and in the fourth section I present the results regarding deference. to committees. In the fifth section, I use the same methods to evaluate the extent to which majority and minority party members of committees were rolled on final passage.

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Ebook Service Oriented Architectural Design

Service orientation is becoming a standard paradigm in the development of software  applications. The paradigm is centred around the notion of service, i.e. a computational entity whose functional and non-functional aspects can be described in a standard document to be advertised  in some service registries and made available for discovery. Contrary to traditional applications, service oriented ones are not just statically assembled. Instead, they have the potentialities for allowing dynamic assembly via publication, discovery, selection and binding.

SEnSOria (Software Engineering for Service-Oriented Overlay Computers) is a research project that aims to develop a novel and comprehensive approach for engineering service oriented computations. Key issues of SEnSOria concern the early stage and development of service specification, like design and reconfiguration of service-based architectures. In this setting, the configuration of a system consists of the present components and interconnections (i.e. the architecture), together with their current state. Architectural styles can be applied to reuse existing design patterns and thus facilitate software development.

In addition, they offer a further benefit when architectural information is carried over the execution of the system, since one can control whether changes in the system imply changes in the architecture. During run-time, changes in the configuration like dynamic binding require reconfigurations of the architecture. Static reconfiguration of an architecture may also be necessary, e.g. when deploying an existing architecture on a platform it was not originally designed for. Often, the architectural style must be preserved or consistently changed.

In this paper, we propose Architectural Design Rewriting (ADR) as a novel formal approach to tackle some of the aforementioned issues of service oriented software development. A formal metamodel for static and dynamic aspects of SEnSOria Reference Modelling Language (SRML) is given in order to demonstrate the expressiveness and flexibility of ADR. SRML has been inspired by various formalisms: orchestration languages such as ORC, transactional process calculi such as Sagas, Web service conversation models and, most notably, IBM’s Service Component Architecture (SCA) which has become part of the Open Service Oriented Application initiative involving many major industrial partners (IBM, Sun and Oracle, among others). SCA and SRML are complementary approaches. Indeed, SRML is aimed at the definition of mathematical semantics for modules while SCA focuses on implementation.

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Ebook Sentiment in Traditional Thai Architecture

Traditional Thai Architecture was initially created from Thai behavior on the basis of beliefs. Each feature, for instance, had different decorated styles; nevertheless, they had the same main function such as Spaces created by separated time zoning, split step floors, being made of natural material and prefabricated building elements. This article aims to analyze the spiritual aspect of Traditional Thai Architecture by the Systems Method. The results imply that knowledge of Thai ancestry was forged from the former environment; furthermore, the appearance appealed to all six common human contact points of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. Consequently, the buildings and the surroundings were plentiful in their display of visible-objects, sounds, aromas, tastes, touch and mind-objects. The entire system of appearance generated the Sentiment of Traditional Thai Architecture. This should be a clue to the fact that the transition between human needs and Thai culture is Traditional Thai Architecture. The results show that eye contact, ear contact, and body contact influence perception to enhance the value of Traditional Thai Architecture. Therefore, today’s Thai Architecture should be adapted to these criteria, which should be considered by designer, for conserving Traditional Thai Architecture.

The origin of the Thai race is still ambiguous. Some assume they migrated from Southwestern China, others believe they lived in the border areas between China, Laos, Burma, and Thailand for at least 2,000 years, and still others suggest that they became established in what is today Thailand and then transferred northwards.

A verifiable history of the culture and architecture of Thailand can be traced from the Dvaravati, Srivichai, and Khmer periods from about 500 BC, which influenced Thai Civilization. Thailand was known as “Siam” between the thirteenth and the eighteenth centuries. The capital cities were Sukhothai, Ayutthaya, and today’s Rattanakosin. Traditional Thai Architecture displays the various attractive forms, which have developed into the unique architecture of Southeast Asia.

Because of the agricultural lifestyle, traditional Thai Architecture was based on the ancestor’s knowledge of how to achieve a comfortable life in a hot-humid climate with a rich natural environment. Therefore, living with nature was appropriate in the former traditional Thai Architecture.

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Ebook A Study of Landscape Architecture Design Methods

How do different methods employed by landscape architects impact the design outcome? This paper identifies and defines design methods in landscape architecture that may be classified as part of four internal and external connections and structures categories. Methods are further examined through two design exercises. In the first design exercise, the identified methods are individually applied to the same simple design which is used as a control. The only variable changed is the method used to design. The resulting designs are shown and analyzed. In the second design exercise, three different methods are applied to a complex design. Similar to the first design exercise, all variables are held constant except for the design methods. The resulting design outcomes are shown and analyzed. One conclusion from this work recommends landscape architecture designers use at least one method in each of four categories: 1) Modeling Systems, 2) Interrelationship and Dependencies, 3) Incorporation and Adadaption, and 4) Structure Problems in order to explore complex design issues more thoroughly.

This thesis centers on the key question: What effect do different design methods employed by landscape architects have on the design outcome?

One component of the design process in landscape architecture is methodology, which should be a conscious choice of methods to achieve a desired result. However, many times the choice of methodology is not given much thought. The designer chooses a methodology that she or he is comfortable with or has used in the past with no little or no thought on how this choice meshes with the objective of the design. (Lynch, 270)

Methods influence three elements in design. First, they establish the structure of and connections in a design. Second, they have a direct determination on the design result. Finally, they serve as reference points and road maps from the abstract world of design to the concrete world in which the design is placed.

In order to examine the role methods play in landscape architecture design eighteen methods are identified, discussed, and categorized. Each method is applied to a simple design problem and the results are shown and discussed. From the information generated by application of each method to a simple design, three diverse methods are applied to a complex landscape design problem. The body of this paper consists of the analysis and implications of this analysis.

Four points summarize the key reasons for studying methods of landscape architecture design. First, the mental processes of landscape architecture design merit continual study given the expanding field. As a result, the process of design and how methods fit into this process is not understood, causing confusion and frustration for students not able to understand where in the design process they might have gone off course. (Jones, xxvi) Second, the increase in computerization and information technologies can lead to a flawed confidence that any problem can be solved if one has enough information or data points. Under this assumption, if one can gather all available information, the answer will be readily apparent and will be the only way to solve the problem. (Polk, 46) This is not true. The nonlinear and inherently human nature of landscape architecture demands an incorporation of a heuristic approach to landscape architecture. (Rowe, 18) Third, knowing the eighteen methods and their effects on the design outcome allows a landscape architect to choose a method that is most compatible with the designer’s end vision or design strategy. So the methods influence on the design should match the design intent. (Jones, 75) Fourth, understanding the methods in the design process allows a landscape architect to evaluate the end result of his or her design and to quickly construct changes in the design by applying different methods.

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Ebook Chaos and Geometric Order in Architecture and Design

It is relatively easy to distinguish between geometric order and chaos in architectural compositions, but the definition of these concepts is difficult. The following definitions can be assumed: The geometric order is represented by ideal mathematical forms (in 2D: e.g. line, circle, quarter, or 3D: e.g. plane, sphere, cube) and ideal relationships (e.g. perpendicularly, parallelism, symmetry, rhythm/regularity). Chaos is the opposite of geometric order; it is represented by forms and relationships that are complex and difficult to describe with the language of classic mathematics.

From the point of view of spatial perception, other definitions can be assumed. In Fig. 1 two graphic compositions are presented, which consists of about 1600 points each. The average density of points is constant in the whole area of both compositions. In the first composition the circular area of regular points is visible on the background of random points. The other composition is inverse: the circular area of random points is visible on the background of regular points. Based on this example, we can indirectly define chaos as an interference of geometric order and geometric order – as an interference of chaos.

A new aspect in defining chaos and geometric order is the mathematical theory of chaos that has developed since the 60’s. According to this theory the order is a special coincidence of a wider chaotic arrangement and chaos is a deterministic and not scholastic phenomenon [1]. Very complex phenomenon (e.g. atmospheric phenomenon, turbulence, the number of natural population, exchange fluctuations) can be generated through simple formulas. An example of such a formula is one mathematical sequence:

x0,x1,x2,...xn, where xn+1 = k x2 n ? 1.

For k = 1,35 and x0 = 0,4 the generated sequence has a periodical recurrence. But for k = 2,0 the generated sequence is chaotic [7]. Based on the presented considerations, especially in the context of mathematical chaos theory, we can conclude that the geometric order and chaos are strongly connected together. Is this connection also visible in architecture and does it have an application in design? 

 

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Ebook Structure in Architecture

This curriculum unit is designed to give students an integrated interpretation of structures, structural elements, and their functions. This unit will help students make critical connections between standard science objectives taught in the classroom and the applications of those objectives in the real world of building structures.

Students will engage in activities that will foster understanding of how principals of both math and science are incorporated in the design and construction of buildings. The unit is designed to give students an opportunity to explore basic principals and concepts associated with architecture through hands-on activities.

The experimental design method will be an important component of this unit and will be used whenever possible to investigate principles that govern how structures stand alone, respond to environmental factors, and function as efficient dwellings. Students will have the opportunity to identify different structural elements and make comparisons between architecture in their city in terms of style, structure, and the building materials used to create them.

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Ebook Mixed Speculative Multithreaded Execution Models

The current trend toward chip multiprocessor architectures has placed great pressure on programmers and compilers  to generate thread-parallel programs. Improved execution performance can no longer be obtained via traditional single-thread instruction level parallelism (ILP), but, instead, via multithreaded execution. One notable technique that facilitates the extraction of parallel threads from sequential applications is thread-level speculation (TLS). This technique allows programmers/compilers to generate threads without checking for inter-thread data and control dependences, which are then transparently enforced by the hardware. Most prior work on TLS has concentrated on thread selection and mechanisms to efficiently support the main TLS operations, such as squashes, data versioning, and commits.

This thesis seeks to enhance TLS functionality by combining it with other speculative multithreaded execution models. The main idea is that TLS already requires extensive hardware support, which when slightly augmented can accommodate other speculative multithreaded techniques. Recognizing that for different applications, or even program phases, the application bottlenecks may be different, it is reasonable to assume that the more versatile a system is, the more efficiently it will be able to execute the given program.

As mentioned above, generating thread-parallel programs is hard and TLS has been suggested as an execution model that can speculatively exploit thread-level parallelism (TLP) even when thread independence cannot be guaranteed by the programmer/compiler. Alternatively, the helper threads (HT) execution model has been proposed where subordinate threads are executed in parallel with a main thread in order to improve the execution efficiency (i.e., ILP) of the latter. Yet another execution model, runahead execution (RA), has also been proposed where subordinate versions of the main thread are dynamically created especially to copewith long-latency operations, again with the aim of improving the execution efficiency of the mainthread (ILP).

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