Model-Based Systems Engineering Approach to Design a Human Settlement to Better Serve Displaced People

The challenge of transitioning from temporary humanitarian settlements to more sustainable human settlements is due to a significant increase in the number of forcibly displaced people over recent decades, difficulties in providing social services that meet the required standards, and the prolongation of emergencies. Despite this challenging context, short-term considerations continue to guide their planning and management rather than more integrated, longer-term perspectives, thus preventing viable, sustainable development. Over the years, the design of humanitarian settlements has not been adapted to local contexts and perspectives, nor to the dynamics of urbanization and population growth and data. In addition, the current approach to temporary settlement harms the environment and can strain limited resources. Inefficient land use and ad hoc development models have compounded difficulties and generated new challenges. As a result, living conditions in settlements have deteriorated over the last few decades and continue to pose new challenges. The stakes are such that major shortcomings have emerged along the way, leading to disruption, budget overruns in a context marked by a steady decline in funding. However, some attempts have been made to shift towards more sustainable approaches, but these have mainly focused on vague, sector-oriented themes, failing to consider systematic and integration views. This study is a contribution in addressing these shortcomings by designing a model-driving solution, emphasizing an integrated system conceptualized as a system of systems. This paper proposes a new methodology for designing an integrated and sustainable human settlement model, based on Model-Based Systems Engineering and a Systems Modeling Language to provide valuable insights toward sustainable solutions for displaced populations aligning with the United Nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

Community-Based Hepatitis B Campaign in Asian Americans

Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) disproportionately affects minority groups in the US, particularly Asian Americans, with numerous factors contributing to this disparity. Of the 2.4 million people living with chronic HBV in the US, 60% are Asian American. Many are unaware of their status and lack access to proper clinical care, with less than ten percent receiving necessary antiviral treatment. Barriers to screening and care include lack of disease awareness, language and cultural barriers, and financial constraints. Additionally, healthcare providers and systems in the US often overlook the importance of CHB, leading to inadequate care. In response, the Center for Viral Hepatitis (CVH) has implemented a community-based outreach program over the past sixteen years, employing a multifaceted approach involving all sectors of society and various organizations to combat health disparities in CHB. This grassroots campaign has proven highly effective, leveraging CVH’s leadership in spearheading numerous collaborative activities with community members, healthcare professionals, and policymakers. We have summarized the key points of CVH's efforts and their significance in combating CHB-related health disparities. The CHB Screening and Awareness Campaign, tailored to the Asian American community, serves as a successful model for increasing CHB screening, linkage-to-care, and addressing socio-cultural barriers and health literacy. Insights from these outreach programs have guided the development of culturally relevant resources and education initiatives. These findings suggest that such community-driven approaches are essential for addressing health disparities. The strategies and outcomes of CVH’s efforts can inform future health initiatives for other minority communities in the US and globally.

A Research of the Course “Taishan Cultural Communication with the World” under Blended Learning Model and Outcome-Based Education Concept

The course “Taishan Cultural Communication with the World” has been online and offline teaching and learning for two terms based on the theoretical ideas: Blended Learning and Outcome-Based Education. This paper uses the data from one semester to state how to carry out the program and the good results. At the same time disadvantages are also the points that should be taken into consideration. From the teaching and learning practice, students have benefited from the online videos, complementary materials and discussions;they need to be guided as well, especially the guidance offline to make up. Furthermore, the balance of time online and offline is a great challenge.

Cultural Diversity of Traditional Settlement Landscape Gene

As a crucial channel for understanding traditional settlements culture,traditional settlement landscape gene is of vital importance to figure out status quo of traditional Chinese culture,to protect cultural heritage of settlements,and to help residents establish cultural confidence.This paper adopts diversity index,schema analysis,and qualitative analysis methods to identify cultural diversity and construct diversity map of cultural landscape genes.It shows that cultural diversity of landscape genes refers to the various forms of cultural factors in architecture,environment,culture,and layout,including type diversity,combination diversity,and functional diversity.

A Corpus-based Contrastive Study of Cultural Difference——A Case Study of Passive Voice Used in English and Chinese

Passive voice is a common linguistic phenomenon both in Chinese and in English, while it is used differently in each language system. This paper takes the grammar features of passive voice in both Chinese and English as an example, collecting corpus data of passive voice in the two languages, to comparatively analyze the cultural difference reflected from the usage of languages. Getting to know this kind of cultural difference would help us to better understand linguistic phenomena in second language acquisition, and to master them better.

Analysis on the Space and Architecture of the Bai Settlement in Erhai Area Under the Influence of Han Culture

The influence of the Han culture on the Bai culture in Dali is the greatest and the most profound during the course of the historical development of China for thousands of years. The blending of the Han culture and the Bai culture is a distinctive feature the Bai culture, which is obviously seen in the location and layout as well as the composition and structure of the settlement and architecture of the Bai nationality in the Erhai area of Dali. Additionally, the Bai nationality in Erhai area conformed to nature and adopted nature to create the unique culture and settlement landscape based on the absorption of the cultural thoughts such as the golden mean, respect for seniority and the harmony between man and nature, as well as the advanced skills of the Han nationality. This paper further emphasized the characteristics and laws of Bai culture through the analysis of the Han culture elements in the space and architecture of the Bai settlement in the Erhai area of Dali. It is hoped that this study can provide references for the protection and development of the Bai settlement.

An Integrated Strategy for the Cultural Adaptation of Evidence-Based Interventions

Background: The importance of adapting evidence-based health interventions to enhance their congruence with the beliefs of ethno-cultural communities is well recognized. Although a systematic cultural adaptation process is available, it lacks specific instructions on how to adapt interventions so that they are aligned with cultural beliefs. In this paper, we present an integrated strategy that operationalizes the adaptation process by describing specific practical instructions on how to align interventions with cultural beliefs. Methods: The strategy integrates concept and intervention mapping, and uses mixed methods for gathering data from community representatives. The data pertain to a community’s cultural beliefs and values related to a health problem, acceptability of evidence-based interventions targeting the problem, and aspects of the interventions that should be modified to enhance their fit with cultural beliefs. A step-by-step protocol is described to guide application of the integrated strategy for cultural adaptation. Conclusions: The strength of the integrated strategy relies on the use of concept and intervention mapping approaches for specifying a step-by-step protocol to actively engage community representatives in the cultural adaptation of interventions. Future research should evaluate the utility of this strategy.

Cultural Sensitivity of a Community-Based Falls Prevention Program Targeting Older Arab American

Falls are a frequent and costly cause of injuries and functional decline in the elderly. Tai Chi is a cost-effective strategy for preventing falls in older adults. Many senior centers have introduced Tai Chi programs to increase mobility and decrease the risk of falls. However, the practice has yet to be widely disseminated to ethnic minorities who are not culturally connected to Tai Chi. This paper describes implementation barriers and recruitment and retention challenges of Arab American participants in a Tai Chi intervention-based health promotion program, including issues related to community organization and staffing, recruitment and retention, need for building relationships, need for translation and interpreters, and cultural barriers & misconceptions. Understanding and paying adequate attention to these challenges may help facilitate in planning other health promotion interventions targeting Arab American population.

A Systems Approach to Assessing Sustainability Capacity in Kalobeyei Refugee Settlement in Turkana County, Kenya

Refugee settlements face several challenges in transitioning from a temporary planning approach to more sustainable settlements. This is mainly due to an increase in the number of forcibly displaced people over the last few decades, and the difficulties of sustainably providing social services that meet the required standards. The development of refugee settlements assumed that forcibly displaced people would return to their places or countries of origin. Unfortunately, displacement situations are prolonged indefinitely, forcing these people to spend most of their lives in conditions that are often deplorable and substandard, and therefore unsustainable. In most cases, the establishment of refugee settlements is triggered by an emergency caused by an influx of forcibly displaced people, who need to be accommodated urgently and provided with some form of international assistance and protection. This leaves little or no time for proper planning for long-term development as required. In addition, the current approach to temporary settlement harms the environment and can strain limited resources with ad hoc development models that have exacerbated difficulties. As a result, living conditions in refugee settlements have deteriorated over the last few decades and continue to pose challenges as to how best to design, plan, and sustain settlements over time. To contribute to addressing these challenges, this study proposes a new methodology supported by Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and a Systems Modeling Language (SysML) to develop a typical sustainable human settlement system model, which has functionally and operationally executed using a Systems Engineering (SE) approach. To assess the sustainability capacity of the proposed system, this work applies a matrix of crossed impact multiplication through a case study by conducting a system capacity interdependence analysis (SCIA) using the MICMAC methodology (Cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification) to assess the interdependency that exist between the sub-systems categories to deliver services at the system level. The sustainability analysis results based on capacity variables influence and dependency models shows that development activities in the settlement are unstable and, therefore, unsustainable since there is no apparent difference between the influential and dependent data used for the assessment. These results illustrate that an integrated system could improve human settlements’ sustainability and that capacity building in service delivery is beneficial and necessary.

Research on School-based Curriculum Development Based on Manchu Cultural Inheritance in China

China is the country with pluralistic cultural background of 56 ethnic groups,Manchu is China’s second largest minority,the population is over 10 million.The history of Manchu can be traced back earliest to 7000 years ago,even so,there are not more than 100 Manchu people can speak the Manchu language,the inheritance and development of Manchu culture are in jeopardy.The article focused on how to educate Manchu culture to pupils in Manchu primary school,especially in Manchu schoolbased curriculum,exploring the present situation and effective ways of the development of Manchu school-based curriculum.

A 3-D morphological approach on spatial form and cultural identity of ethnic mountain settlements:Case from Guizhou,China

Ethnic mountain settlements are living heritage of varied vernacular cultures.The preservation of both the built form and the intangible socio-cultural associations with them are global concern in process of urbanization,and in the notion of sustainable development.However,there is a lack of multi-dimensional and cross-cultural quantitative research in settlement morphology,making it difficult to guide practice effectively.Therefore,this study focuses on exploring an automatic or semi-automatic quantification and classification method for the morphological identity of ethnic mountain settlements.We introduce and combine 3-D morphological indicators with existing 2-D indicators to build and test three different sets of indication systems for semi-automatic classification for the settlements’ethnic attribute basing on spatial morphology.Taking the Miao,Dong,and Tunpu(Han)ethnic settlements in Guizhou province,southwest China as research samples,we applied factor analysis and hierarchical clustering methods to compare the classification accuracy under the three systems using data from topographic map,field investigation map,satellite imageries,and ethnography or local chronicle.The results showed that,the 3-D indication system has succeeded in semi-automatic quantification and classification of settlement morphology and ethnic identity by greatly increasing the classification accuracy to 96.30%,which is a huge improvement compared with the basic 2-D indication system(42.59%)and the advanced 2-D indication system(61.11%).The settlement samples are further divided into two sub-types with significant morphological differences in each major ethnic category under the 3-D indication system.We then discussed the potential improvement and future large-scale application of this method with the help of machine learning and other smart techniques.We hope to provide a comprehensive quantitative perspective and a more scientific reference for the future preservation and sustainable development of the massive and diverse vernacular heritages across the world.

Study on the Protection of Settlements and Tangible Cultural Heritage along the Fukouxing from the Perspective of Cultural Route

The eight Taihang Xing routes are natural passages among Taihang Mountains.As one of the passage,Fukouxing is an important channel for communication between Changzhi City,Shanxi Province and Handan City,Hebei Province,which deeply influences the development of the history of the two places.As a typical linear cultural heritage,Fukouxing has the basic elements of cultural route,and there are rich tangible cultural heritage along the passage.From the perspective of cultural route,the study identifies and investigates the heritage resources of settlements and tangible heritage along the Fukouxing route,and then puts forward effective heritage protection strategies in accordance with the heritage characteristics of Fukouxing,based on the analysis of heritage value.

The Advancement of Low-Carbon Ecological Civili zation in the View of Cultural Ecological System——A Case Study of Ningxia Ningdong Energy-Chemical Base

The status quo of Ningxia Ningdong Energy-Chemical Base was introduced first, and the ecological civilization and low-carbon economy of Ningxia Ningdong Energy-Chemical Base were analyzed. Problems in the exploitation of resources in Ningxia Ningdong Energy-Chemical Base, and major factors which restrain the development, were discussed. Countermeasures were put forward at last.

New Knowledge-based Genetic Algorithm for Excavator Boom Structural Optimization

Due to the insufficiency of utilizing knowledge to guide the complex optimal searching, existing genetic algorithms fail to effectively solve excavator boom structural optimization problem. To improve the optimization efficiency and quality, a new knowledge-based real-coded genetic algorithm is proposed. A dual evolution mechanism combining knowledge evolution with genetic algorithm is established to extract, handle and utilize the shallow and deep implicit constraint knowledge to guide the optimal searching of genetic algorithm circularly. Based on this dual evolution mechanism, knowledge evolution and population evolution can be connected by knowledge influence operators to improve the conflgurability of knowledge and genetic operators. Then, the new knowledge-based selection operator, crossover operator and mutation operator are proposed to integrate the optimal process knowledge and domain culture to guide the excavator boom structural optimization. Eight kinds of testing algorithms, which include different genetic operators, arc taken as examples to solve the structural optimization of a medium-sized excavator boom. By comparing the results of optimization, it is shown that the algorithm including all the new knowledge-based genetic operators can more remarkably improve the evolutionary rate and searching ability than other testing algorithms, which demonstrates the effectiveness of knowledge for guiding optimal searching. The proposed knowledge-based genetic algorithm by combining multi-level knowledge evolution with numerical optimization provides a new effective method for solving the complex engineering optimization problem.

Historical and Cultural Landscape of Rural Settlement in Fangshan District ofBeijing

The rural settlement landscape in Fangshan District has multiple values,but there is a lack ofsystematic research.Geographical environment and historical evolution in Fangshan District are analyzed,and it is thought that the combination of the two forms characteristic cultural landscape in the village.According to literature and research,villages in Fangshan District are classifi ed and summarized accordingto the time of forming,the motivation of development and the form,and they are analyzed from multidimension.Meanwhile,the problems of development and protection are concerned.Based on the aboveresearch,this paper makes a more appropriate analysis on the cultural landscape value of villages inFangshan District.Finally,the protection strategy of the whole region and key areas is proposed.

东秦岭传统村落的景观基因与意象表达——基于11个村落的调研

基于对东秦岭地区11个传统村落的实地考察,研究了该地区传统村落的形成与演化、景观基因及其意象表达,讨论了传统村落所蕴含的古人对人地关系的认识,以及传统村落对乡村振兴与乡村现代化的意义。得到:东秦岭传统村落有世居型和移居型两类,以移居型为主,移居型传统村落按成因不同可分为避乱型、军转型、明志型、生产型4种。东秦岭传统村落的演化受外族群迁入、匪寇侵扰、生产生活方式转变等因素影响,至今仍在发展演化中。东秦岭传统村落的景观基因包括自然景观基因和人文景观基因,其在宏观上依赖自然,在微观上改造自然,呈现因山就势、依水而建、四面围合、家族维系的特征。对应于中国传统村落的基本意象,其中的山水意象和生态意象本质上是古人自然观、生态观的反映,宗族意象和趋吉意象本质上是古人对生存与发展问题思考的反映,而东秦岭传统村落的基本意象为“崇文向善一围落,掩映青山绿水间”。

Human Rights Connotations and Contemporary Values of Traditional Chinese People-Based Thinking

The time-honored traditional Chinese minben(people-based) thinking has rich implications for human rights. The concepts of min and minben are much in line with their contemporary counterparts of "human" and "people orientation". Upholding the belief of "people as the foundation of states", minben advocates the fundamental political status of the people, and requires leaders to implement "people-oriented" policies. Its encapsulation of the theoretical foundation and basic requirements for the protection of human rights enabled it to promote the protection of people’s livelihoods and civil rights in ancient China. Its sublimation in contemporary China has had, and will continue to have, a far-reaching impact on the development of human rights in China.

Tourism Mode of Tea Culture Museum in Guizhou:A Case Study of Meitan Modern Tea Culture Museum Settlement

Since the 14 th Five-Year Plan,tea culture has become very popular.However,due to the lack of brand awareness and overall planning,and the mechanical application of the model outside the province and other tourism products,Guizhou Tea Culture Tourism presents a"strong tea,light culture,weak tourism".In view of this,in order to realize the positioning goal of"building a national demonstration zone for the integration of tea culture and tourism"in the 14 th Five-Year Plan of Guizhou tea industry,and explore the development mode of integration of tea culture and tourism with Guizhou characteristics,this study takes museum tourism as the breakthrough point,Meitan Tea Museum settlement as the research object,and collects Meitan Tea Museum tourism resources.This paper uses SWOT analysis to evaluate the Meitan Tea Culture Museum Tourism model,and provides some recommendations for the development of tea culture museum tourism in Guizhou Province.

A Practical Classroom Teaching Method on An Introduction of Cultures and Societies of English-speaking Countries

An Introduction of Cultures and Societies of English-speaking Countries is a required university course for English majors to provide background knowledge in China.The traditional teaching mode,focusing on presenting cultural background knowledge by purely input information,has some limitations,especially for the class more than 60 students.If we combine the Task-based Teaching method with the Cooperative Learning method to teach this course,we can at fully attract students to actively join the classroom teaching,transferring it from inputting knowledge to fostering the students' competence on self-studying and practices.

黄河流域(山东段)村镇聚落文化景观基因识别指标体系构建

黄河流域(山东段)村镇聚落孕育了丰富独特的文化景观,建立识别指标体系对其文化景观基因进行挖掘整理,对在黄河流域生态保护和高质量发展战略背景下赓续传统文化具有重要意义。结合景观基因理论的研究成果和对国家有关政策法规文件的剖析,在历史景观视角下对黄河流域(山东段)的村镇聚落开展深入的文化景观田野调查、典籍研究等,提出具有针对性的文化景观基因识别指标体系构建逻辑,通过“识别对象—识别因子—识别指标”解析出13项识别因子、40项识别指标,为黄河流域村镇聚落文化景观识别全覆盖提供新的思路与方法。