Stories are everywhere. When they don’t exist we make up the narrative — we join the dots. We make cognitive leaps and fill in the bits of a story that are implied or missing. The same goes for websites. We make quick judgements based on a glimpse. Then we delve deeper. The narrative unfolds, or we create one as we browse.

Mark Bernstein penned Beyond Usability and Design: The Narrative Web for A List Apart in 2001. He wrote, ‘the reader’s journey through our site is a narrative experience’. I agreed wholeheartedly: Websites are narrative spaces where stories can be enacted, or emerge.

Henry Jenkins, Director of Comparative Media Studies, and Professor of Literature at MIT, wrote Game Design as Narrative Architecture. He suggested we think of game designers, ‘less as storytellers than as narrative architects’. I agree, and I think web designers are narrative architects, too. (Along with all the multitude of other roles we assume.) Much of what Henry Jenkins wrote applies to modern web design. In particular, he describes two kinds of narratives in game design that are relevant to us:

Enacted narratives are those where:

[…] the story itself may be structured around the character’s movement through space and the features of the environment may retard or accelerate that plot trajectory.

Sites like Amazon, New Adventures, or your portfolio are enacted narrative spaces: Shops or service brochures that want the audience to move through the site towards a specific set of actions like buying something or initiating contact.

Emergent narratives are those where:

[…] spaces are designed to be rich with narrative potential, enabling the story-constructing activity of players.

Sites like Flickr, Twitter, or Dribbble are emergent narrative spaces: Web applications that encourage their audience use the tools at their disposal to tell their own story. The audience defines how they want to use the narrative space, often with surprising results.

We often build both kinds of narrative spaces. Right now, my friends and I at Analog are working on Mapalong, a new maps-based app that’s just launched into private beta. At its heart Mapalong is about telling our stories. It’s one big map with a set of tools to view the world, add places, share them, and see the places others share. The aim is to help people tell their stories. We want to use three ideas to help you do that: Space (recording places, and annotating them), data (importing stuff we create elsewhere), and time (plotting our journeys, and recording all the places, people, and memories along the way). We know that people will find novel uses for the tools in Mapalong. In fact, we want them to because it will help us refine and build better tools. We work in an agile way because that’s the only way to design an emerging narrative space. Without realising it we’ve become architects of a narrative space, and you probably are, too.

Many projects like shops or brochure sites have fixed costs and objectives. They want to guide the audience to a specific set of actions. The site needs to be an enacted narrative space. Ideally, designers would observe behaviour and iterate. Failing that, a healthy dose of empathy can serve. Every site seeks to teach, educate, or inform. So, a bit of knowledge about people’s learning styles can be useful. I once did a course in one to one and small group training with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. It introduced me to Peter Honey and Alan Mumford’s model which describes four different learning styles that are useful for us to know. I paraphrase:

1. Activists like learning as they go; getting stuck in and working it out. They enjoy the here and now, and are happy to be dominated by immediate experiences. They are open-minded, not sceptical, and this tends to make them enthusiastic about anything new.
2. Reflectors like being guided with time to take it all in and perhaps return later. They like to stand back to ponder experiences and observe them from many different perspectives. They collect data, both first hand and from others, and prefer to think about it thoroughly before coming to a conclusion.
3. Theorists to understand and make logical sense of things before they leap in. They think problems through in a vertical, step-by-step logical way. They assimilate disparate facts into coherent theories.
4. Pragmatists like practical applications of ideas, experiments, and results. They like trying out ideas, theories and techniques to see if they work in practice. They positively search out new ideas and take the first opportunity to experiment with applications.

Usually people share two or more of these qualities. The weight of each can vary depending on the context. So how might learning styles manifest themselves in web browsing behaviour?

• Activists like to explore, learn as they go, and wander the site working it out. They need good in-context navigation to keep exploring. For example, signposts to related information are optimal for activists. They can just keep going, and going, and exploring until sated.
• Reflectors are patient and thoughtful. They like to ponder, read, reflect, then decide. Guided tours to orientate them in emergent sites can be a great help. Saving shopping baskets for later, and remembering sessions in enacted sites can also help them.
• Theorists want logic. Documentation. An understanding of what the site is, and what they might get from it. Clear, detailed information helps a theorist, whatever the space they’re in.
• Pragmatists get stuck in like activists, but evaluate quickly, and test their assumptions. They are quick, and can be helped by uncluttered concise information, and contextual, logical tools.

An understanding of interactive narrative types and a bit of knowledge about learning styles can be useful concepts for us to bear in mind. I also think they warrant inclusion as part of an articulate designer’s language of web design. If Henry Jenkins is right about games designers, I think he could also be right about web designers: we are narrative architects, designing spaces where stories are told.

—∞—

Creating an impactful architecture website requires more than just beautiful images; it needs a theme that complements your projects, communicates your brand, and offers flexibility. Here are our top picks for architecture WordPress themes to help you build a standout online presence. 1. Inspiro Premium Pricing: $79/year Inspiro Premium is […]

Ryan, J J; Zagorevski, A; Cleven, N R; Parsons, A J; Joyce, N L. Northern Cordillera geology: a synthesis of research from the Geo-mapping for Energy and Minerals program, British Columbia and Yukon; by Ryan, J J (ed.); Zagorevski, A (ed.); Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 610, 2021 p. 67-93, https://doi.org/10.4095/326062

Pehrsson, S J. Canada's northern Shield: new perspectives from the Geoscience for Energy and Minerals Program; Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 612, 2024 p. 283-287, https://doi.org/10.4095/332500
<a href="https://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/images/geoscan/gid_332500.jpg"><img src="https://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/images/geoscan/gid_332500.jpg" title="Canada's northern Shield: new perspectives from the Geoscience for Energy and Minerals Program; Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 612, 2024 p. 283-287, https://doi.org/10.4095/332500" height="150" border="1" /></a>

Berman, R G; Taylor, B E; Davis, W J; Sanborn-Barrie, M; Whalen, J B. Canada's northern Shield: new perspectives from the Geoscience for Energy and Minerals Program; Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 612, 2024 p. 115-158, https://doi.org/10.4095/332497
<a href="https://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/images/geoscan/gid_332497.jpg"><img src="https://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/images/geoscan/gid_332497.jpg" title="Canada's northern Shield: new perspectives from the Geoscience for Energy and Minerals Program; Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 612, 2024 p. 115-158, https://doi.org/10.4095/332497" height="150" border="1" /></a>

Ce jour, nous avons donc le droit à quelques potentielles nouvelles informations sur les futurs APU d'AMD, codename MEDUSA. Des APU que l'on pourrait retrouver dans les PS6 de SONY ainsi que dans la prochaine Xbox de Microsoft. Et MEDUSA devrait donc s'offrir les services d'une architecture ZEN 6, accompagné d'un iGPU en RDNA5, donc avec un puce NAVI 5x. Cet APU proposerait aussi un lien interconnect 2.5D afin de maximiser les échanges entre les différents composants présents sur le substrat. […]

Modern Architecture Design NJ | 23 Orchard Rd, Skillman,NJ 08558

Laurie Baker’s spaces are meant for the common man. Even fifty-plus years later, his buildings continue to inspire architects, much like museums. Five award-winning architects from different generations talk about their favourite Baker building. International Museum Day is on May 18

The city’s buildings addressed a dual predicament: how to stay cool during the unforgiving heat, while coping with heavy seasonal rains

Today we get a fascinating tour of a new temple built in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Frederica is with Architect Andrew Gould as they walk through Holy Ascension Orthodox Church.

Fr. John explores traditional Christian temple or church architecture and locates the principle of heavenly orientation at work.

Fr. John continues his discussion of traditional Christian architecture.

Listen to this week's podcast (September 9, 2011) Patterns For Large-Scale JavaScript Application Architecture Patterns For Large-Scale JavaScript Application Architecture is a lengthy article by Addy Osmani detailing some basic principles of writing a large-scale JavaScript application. It's inspired by a classic Nicholas Zakas talk outlining some of the same principles ...

A well-documented architecture can greatly improve comprehension and maintainability. However, shorter release cycles and quick delivery patterns results in negligence of architecture. In such situations, the architecture can be recovered from its current implementation based on considering dependency relations. In literature, structural and semantic dependencies are commonly used software features, and directory information along with co-change/change history information are among rarely utilised software features. But, they are found to help improve architecture recovery. Therefore, we consider investigating various features that may further improve the accuracy of existing architecture recovery techniques and evaluate their feasibility by considering them in different pairs. We compared five state-of-the-art methods under different feature subsets. We identified that two of them commonly outperform others but surprisingly with low accuracy in some evaluations. Further, we propose a new subset of features that reflects more accurate user perceptions and hence, results in improving the accuracy of architecture recovery techniques.

To assess a country's economic outlook and achieve higher economic growth, econometric models and prediction techniques are significant tools. Policymakers are always concerned with the correct future estimates of economic variables to take the right economic decisions, design better policies and effectively implement them. Therefore, there is a need to improve the predictive accuracy of the existing models and to use more sophisticated and superior algorithms for accurate forecasting. Deep learning models like recurrent neural networks are considered superior for forecasting as they provide better predictive results as compared to many of the econometric models. Against this backdrop, this paper presents the feasibility of using different deep-learning neural network architectures for trade forecasting. It predicts export trade using different recurrent neural architectures such as 'vanilla recurrent neural network (VRNN)', 'bi-directional long short-term memory network (Bi-LSTM)', 'bi-directional gated recurrent unit (Bi-GRU)' and a hybrid 'bi-directional LSTM and GRU neural network'. The performances of these models are evaluated and compared using different performance metrics such as Mean Square Error (MSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE) Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), Root Mean Squared Logarithmic Error (RMSLE) and coefficient of determination <em>R</em>-squared (<em>R</em>²). The results validated the effective export prediction for India.

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this study is to identify Critical Success Factors (CSF) of Business Intelligence (BI) and provide a framework to classify CSF into layers or perspectives using an enterprise architecture approach, then rank CSF within each perspective and evaluate the importance of each perspective at different BI maturity levels as well. Background: Although the implementation of the BI project has a significant impact on creating analytical and competitive capabilities, the lack of evaluation of CSF holistically is still a challenge. Moreover, the BI maturity level of the organization has not been considered in the BI implementation project. Identifying BI critical success factors and their importance can help the project team to move to a higher maturity level in the organization. Methodology: First, a list of distinct CSF is identified through a literature review. Second, a framework is provided for categorizing these CSF using enterprise architecture. Interviewing is the research method used to evaluate the importance of CSF and framework layers with two questionnaires among experts. The first questionnaire was done by Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a quantitative method of decision-making to calculate the weight of the CSF according to the importance of CSF in each of the framework layers. The second one was conducted to evaluate framework layers at different BI maturity levels using a Likert scale. Contribution: This paper contributes to the implementation of BI projects by identifying a comprehensive list of CSF in the form of a holistic multi-layered framework and ranking the importance of CSF and layers at BI maturity levels. Findings: The most important CSF in BI implementation projects include senior management support, process identification, data quality, analytics quality, hardware quality, security standards, scope management, documentation, project team skills, and customer needs transformation, which received the highest scores in framework layers. In addition, it was observed that as the organization moves to higher levels of maturity, the average importance of strategic business and security perspectives or layers increases. But the average importance of data, applications, infrastructure, and network, the project management layers in the proposed framework is the same regardless of the level of business intelligence maturity. Recommendations for Practitioners: The results of this paper can be used by academicians and practitioners to improve BI project implementation through understanding a comprehensive list of CSF and their importance. This awareness causes us to focus on the most important CSF and have better planning to reach higher levels of maturity according to the maturity level of the organization. Future Research: For future research, the interaction of critical success factors of business intelligence and framework layers can be examined with different methods.

Aim/Purpose: This study identifies the scale types and measurement units used in the measurement of enterprise architecture (EA) and analyzes the admissibility of the mathematical operations used. Background: The majority of measurement solutions proposed in the EA literature are based on researchers’ opinions and many with limited empirical validation and weak metrological properties. This means that the results generated by these solutions may not be reliable, trustworthy, or comparable, and may even lead to wrong investment decisions. While the literature proposes a number of EA measurement solutions, the designs of the mathematical operations used to measure EA have not yet been independently analyzed. It is imperative that the EA community works towards developing robust, reliable, and widely accepted measurement solutions. Only then can senior management make informed decisions about the allocation of resources for EA initiatives and ensure that their investment yields optimal results. Methodology: In previous research, we identified, through a systematic literature review, the EA measurement solutions proposed in the literature and classified them by EA entity types. In a subsequent study, we evaluated their metrology coverage from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. The metrology coverage was designed using a combination of the evaluation theory, best practices from the software measurement literature including the measurement context model, and representational theory of measurement to evaluate whether EA measurement solutions satisfy the metrology criteria. The research study reported here presents a more in-depth analysis of the mathematical operations within the proposed EA measurement solutions, and for each EA entity type, each mathematical operation used to measure EA was examined in terms of the scale types and measurement units of the inputs, their transformations through mathematical operations, the impact in terms of scale types, and measurement units of the proposed outputs. Contribution: This study adds to the body of knowledge on EA measurement by offering a metrology-based approach to analyze and design better EA measurement solutions that satisfy the validity of scale type transformations in mathematical operations and the use of explicit measurement units to allow measurement consistency for their usage in decision-making models. Findings: The findings from this study reveal that some important metrology and quantification issues have been overlooked in the design of EA measurement solutions proposed in the literature: a number of proposed EA mathematical operations produce numbers with unknown units and scale types, often the result of an aggregation of undetermined assumptions rather than explicit quantitative knowledge. The significance of such aggregation is uncertain, leading to numbers that have suffered information loss and lack clear meaning. It is also unclear if it is appropriate to add or multiply these numbers together. Such EA numbers are deemed to have low metrological quality and could potentially lead to incorrect decisions with serious and costly consequences. Recommendations for Practitioners: The results of the study provide valuable insights for professionals in the field of EA. Identifying the metrology limitations and weaknesses of existing EA measurement solutions may indicate, for instance, that practitioners should wait before using them until their design has been strengthened. In addition, practitioners can make informed choices and select solutions with a more robust metrology design. This, in turn, will benefit enterprise architects, software engineers, and other EA professionals in decision making, by enabling them to take into consideration factors more adequately such as cost, quality, risk, and value when assessing EA features. The study’s findings thus contribute to the development of more reliable and effective EA measurement solutions. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers can use with greater confidence the EA measurement solutions with admissible mathematical operations and measurement units to develop new decision-making models. Other researchers can carry on research to address the weaknesses identified in this study and propose improved ones. Impact on Society: Developers, architects, and managers may be making inappropriate decisions based on seriously flawed EA measurement solutions proposed in the literature and providing undue confidence and a waste of resources when based on bad measurement design. Better quantitative tools will ultimately lead to better decision making in the EA domain, as in domains with a long history of rigor in the design of the measurement tools. Such advancements will benefit enterprise architects, software engineers, and other practitioners, by providing them with more meaningful measurements for informed decision making. Future Research: While the analysis described in this study has been explicitly applied to evaluating EA measurement solutions, researchers and practitioners in other domains can also examine measurement solutions proposed in their respective domains and design new ones.

The purpose of this investigation is to define the architecture of computer informing systems. The methodology is based on an interdisciplinary, big-picture view of the cognition units which provide the foundation for informing systems. Among the findings are the following: informing systems should be designed for rigor and relevance with respect to the cognitive units (information), integrating its purpose and goal to achieve its expected utility; informing systems should also be designed for reasoning richness, informing modes, informing quality, and predicting informing biases and filters. Practical implications: A well-designed informing system should provide as an output a message and resonant change by reflecting information that triggers the client’s behavior. Social implication: The quest for the development of informing systems is not supported by Academia in practice; it is only supported by a close circle of early leaders of such systemic applications who sought to enhance the existing information systems which very often process data but do not inform as they should. Originality: This investigation, by providing an interdisciplinary and graphic modeling of informing channels and systems, indicates the vitality of these systems and their potential to create better decision-making in order to solve problems and sustain organizations and civilization.

For five decades, developers of multifamily residential properties in the New York Metro area regularly turn to RKTB Architects for expertise and innovation in design and architecture, as well as for consultation on strategy when navigating the city’s labyrinthine zoning regulations and housing policies.

Learn about some common configurations of cloud video and questions to ask to determine the best one for your customers’ operations.

The second edition of the APE Grupo Architecture Awards kicked off on September 18 with the aim of recognizing and highlighting the work of architects and interior decorators who have used APE Grupo ceramics in their projects. November 12 is the deadline to submit projects. 

Research Internships 2021 – Architecture

Arm is the industry's leading supplier of microprocessor technology providing efficient, low-power chip intelligence making electronic innovations come to life.  Through our partners, our designs power everything from coffee machines to the fastest supercomputer in the world. Do you want to work on technology that enriches the lives of over 70% of the world’s population?   Our internship programme is now open for applications! We want to hear from curious and enthusiastic candidates interested in working with us on the future generations of compute.

About Arm and Arm Research

Arm plays a key role in our increasingly connected world. Every year, more than 20 billion products featuring Arm technology are shipped.  Our engineers design and develop CPUs, graphics processors, complex system technologies, supporting software development tools, and physical libraries.

At Arm Research, we develop new technology that can grow into new business opportunities. We keep Arm up to speed with recent technological developments by pursuing blue-sky research programmes, collaborating with academia, and integrating emerging technologies into the wider Arm ecosystem.  Our research activities cover a wide range of fields from mobile and personal computing to server, cloud, and HPC computing. Our work and our researchers span a diverse range from circuits to theoretical computer science. We all share a passion for learning and creating.

About the architecture group and our work

As a research group focussed on architecture, we work at the boundary of software and hardware; we analyse novel applications and use-cases to invent ways of improving their performance, security, efficiency, or ease of use. This can be through instruction set enhancements, memory system optimisation, or even ground-breaking alterations to the underlying micro-architecture of fundamental compute elements while also considering power efficiency, area, compiler targetability, and related objectives.

Are you passionate about dreaming up innovations that have the potential to change the future of compute? We are offering internships across the computer architecture stack, such as:

• Analysis and categorisation of new / novel applications through to the design of efficient instruction set and micro-architecture for handling these applications.
• Implications of upcoming byte-addressable, non-volatile memories, and other data storage technologies.
• Security, encryption, and integrity protection in the core, system, or memory hierarchy.
• Micro-architecture innovations enabling new generations of cores, caches, predictive structures, accelerators, and more.
• Compute-near-data abstractions, and data-movement-optimised memory hierarchies.
• Improving our formal verification methods, to be more efficient and more effective at finding bugs earlier in the design cycle.

Concurrency architecture verification engineer

Are you interested in concurrency, CPU design, and verification? Then we have just the opportunity for you.

Arm uses innovative tools [1] for modelling and reasoning about concurrency in our products. 

Those tools serve different purposes, such as: clarifying our architecture specification [2], communicating with our partners, and enabling verification of our CPU hardware designs.

This last point is at the intersection of architectural specification and CPU hardware design, which is where your role would be.

We seek to encourage interaction between those activities within Arm and beyond: by working hand in hand with architects and CPU verification teams to understand their requirements, you will improve our methodology and tools. You will also be in charge of inventing and prototyping new ways to verify pre-silicon designs.

This is an outstanding opportunity if you are interested in:

• developing open-source tools [3] which benefit the Arm ecosystem and wider communities such as language standard committees, compiler and kernel developers;
• furthering the understanding of an area that has been the subject of intense research in the last decade;
• demonstrating the impact of formal models on industrial products.

Our tools are written in Ocaml and C; knowing those languages would be ideal, as well as a working knowledge of Linux, git and RTL.

See also:

[1] https://developer.arm.com/architectures/cpu-architecture/a-profile/memory-model-tool

[2] https://developer.arm.com/docs/ddi0487/latest/arm-architecture-reference-manual-armv8-for-armv8-a-architecture-profile

[3] http://diy.inria.fr

[4] https://github.com/herd/herdtools7/

The synthesis and structural characterization of four novel supra­molecular hy­dro­gen-bonded arrangements based on self-assembly from mol­ecular `[Cu(2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole)]' modules and malonate anions are pre­sent­ed, namely, tetra­kis­(2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole)di-μ-chlorido-dimal­on­atotricopper(II) penta­hydrate, [Cu3(C3H2O4)2Cl2(C6H6N4)4]·5H2O or [Cu(H2biim)2(μ-Cl)Cu0.5(mal)]2·5H2O, aqua­(2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole)­mal­on­atocopper(II) dihydrate, [Cu(C3H2O4)(C6H6N4)(H2O)]·2H2O or [Cu(H2biim)(mal)(H2O)]·2H2O, bis­[aqua­bis­(2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole)­cop­per(II)] di­mal­on­atodi­perchloratocopper(II) 2.2-hydrate, [Cu(C6H6N4)2(H2O)]2[Cu(C3H2O4)(ClO4)2]·2.2H2O or [Cu(H2biim)2(H2O)]2[Cu(mal)2(ClO4)2]·2.2H2O, and bis­(2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole)­copper(II) bis­[bis­(2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole)(2-carb­oxy­acetato)mal­on­atocopper(II)] tridecahydrate, [Cu(C6H6N4)2][Cu(C3H2O4)(C3H3O4)(C6H6N4)2]·13H2O or [Cu(H2biim)2][Cu(H2biim)2(Hmal)(mal)]2·13H2O. These as­sem­blies are characterized by self-com­plementary donor–acceptor mol­ecular inter­actions, demonstrating a recurrent and distinctive pattern of hy­dro­gen-bonding preferences among the carboxyl­ate, carb­oxy­lic acid and N—H groups of the coordinated 2,2'-bi­imid­az­ole and malonate ligands. Additionally, co­or­din­ation of the carboxyl­ate group with the metallic centre helps sustain re­mark­able supra­molecular assemblies, such as layers, helices, double helix columns or 3D channeled architectures, including mixed-metal com­plexes, into a single structure.

The structures of three multicomponent crystals formed with imidazole-based drugs, namely metronidazole, ketoconazole and miconazole, in conjunction with tri­thio­cyanuric acid are characterized. Each of the obtained adducts represents a different category of crystalline molecular forms: a cocrystal, a salt and a cocrystal of salt. The structural analysis revealed that in all cases, the N—H⋯N hydrogen bond is responsible for the formation of acid–base pairs, regardless of whether proton transfer occurs or not, and these molecular pairs are combined to form unique supramolecular motifs by centrosymmetric N—H⋯S interactions between acid molecules. The complex intermolecular forces acting in characteristic patterns are discussed from the geometric and energetic perspectives, involving Hirshfeld surface analysis, pairwise energy estimation, and natural bond orbital calculations.

Nitin Saksena is a seasoned expert in enterprise architecture as a senior director at Albertsons Companies

Applied their Light field 3D signage technology to create a more realistic exhibition viewing

Viswanath "Vish" Annampedu, PhD, is lauded for his contributions to systems architecture at NVIDIA Corporation

Nicholas P. Saliaris is honored for his contributions to LeanTaas and MyNerdLife

Maurice Elmalem is an innovative entrepreneur and real estate developer

Laura R. Musacchio, PhD, is a dedicated educator and fellow at the University of Minnesota

Manish Ritwik celebrated for over 24 years of industry experience

Leslie Armstrong, AIA, is the author of Girl Intrepid: A New York Story of Privilege and Perseverance

Elizabeth A. Sargent, FASLA, celebrated for over 30 years in historical landscape architecture and design