This book is a journey through coexisting, emerging or speculated about, types of digital value transfer infrastructures. Using digital value transfer infrastructures as a central case study, this thesis is concerned with unpacking the negotiation processes that shape the governance, design and political purposes of digital infrastructures that are closely linked to the public interest and state sovereignty. In particular, the papers that are assembled in this manuscript identify and inspect three main socio-technical developments occurring in the domain of value transfer technologies: a) the privatization and platformization of digital payment infrastructures; b) the spread of blockchain-based digital value transfer infrastructures; c) the construction of digital value transfer infrastructures as public utilities, from the part of public institutions or organizations. Concerned with the relationship between law, discourse and technological development, the thesis explores four transversal issues that strike differences and peculiarities of these three scenarios: i) privacy; ii) the synergy and mutual influence of legal change and technological development in the construction of digital infrastructures; iii) the role of socio-technical imaginaries in policy-making concerned with digital infrastructures; iv) the geography and scale of digital infrastructures. The analyses lead to the argument that, in the co-development of legal systems and digital infrastructures that are core to public life, conflicts are productive. Negotiations, ruptures and exceptions are constitutive of the unending process of mutual reinforcement, and mutual containment, in which a plurality of agencies – expressed through legal institutions, symbolic systems, as well as information and media structures – are entangled.
MULTIFILE
Western cities are rapidly densifying, and new building typologies are beinginvented to mitigate high-rise and balance residential, commercial andrecreational functions. This vertical urbanization requires rethinking thetraditional design of public space to promote citizens’ well-being. While the scarce studies on high-rise environments indicate several risks, including social fragmentation and privatization of public functions (Henderson-Wilson 2008; Love et al., 2014), mental stress and undermining attention restoration (Mazumder et al., 2020; Lindal & Hartig 2013), evidence on the potential salutary and mitigating effects of architectural design qualities is limited (Suurenbroek & Spanjar 2023).The Building for Well-being research project combines biometric and socialdata-collection techniques to address this gap. It builds on studies investigatinghow built environments allow user engagement (Mallgrave 2013; Simpson2018) and afford important activities (Gibson 1966). This case study focuseson the experiences of predominant users of the NDSM Wharf in Amsterdamas it is transformed from a post-industrial site into a high-density, mixeduseneighborhood. Using eye-tracking, field and laboratory-based surveys, itexplores how residents, passers-by and visitors visually experience, appreciateand perceive the restorative value of the wharf’s recently developed urbanspaces.Thirty-six university students were randomly recruited as test subjects for thelaboratory test and assigned to one of the three user groups. The residentand passer-by groups were primed for familiarity. Each group was assigneda distinct walking mode and participants were told to imagine they werestrolling (residents), rushing (passers-by) or exploring (visitors). The exposuretime to visual stimuli of participants was five seconds per image. Afterwards,they reported on the perceived restorative quality of ten urban spaces,focusing on: (1) sense of being away, (2) level of complexity-compatibilityand (3) fascination, based on an adapted Restorative Components Scale (RCS,Yin et al. 2022; Laumann et al. 2001). Self-reported appreciation per scenewas measured on a 10-point Likert scale and subjects indicated elements inthe ten urban spaces they liked or disliked (see Figure 1). A semi-structuredon-site survey was also carried out to investigate user experiences furtherand for triangulation. Thirty-one users, consisting of residents, passers-byand visitors to the NDSM Wharf, rated their appreciation of the site and itsperceived restorative and design qualities (following Ewing & Clemente, 2013)on a 10-point Likert scale.The meta-data analysis of RCS statistics, appreciation values, eye-trackingmetrics and heatmaps reveals distinct visual patterns among user groups. Thispoints to the influence of environmental tasks and roles (see Figure 2). Strollingand exploring resulted in a comprehensive visual exploration of scenes with ahigher mean total fixation count and shorter mean total fixation duration thangoal-oriented walking. It suggests that walking mode determines the level ofopenness to the environment and that architectural attributes can also steervisual exploration. Scenes with the highest appreciation scores correlatedwith the RCS outcomes. They displayed coherence and opportunities forsocial engagement, contrasting with scenes with inconsistent industrial andcontemporary features. These findings provide spatial designers with insightsinto the subliminal experiences of predominant user groups to promote wellbeing in urban transformation.
DOCUMENT
Full text via link One of the most important drivers of change in the health care sector is the desire of elderly people to age in place. The growing use of internet applications and communication technology together with innovations in buildings have created new commercial opportunities to cater the demands of elderly to grow old in their home environment. Many of these opportunities are facilitated by institutional changes like deregulation and privatization, and benefit from globalization, for example trough stronger incentives for innovation and domestic implementation of ideas that arise in foreign markets
LINK
