Dr. Kerry Nice, University of Melbourne

Conference Presentations / Guest lectures

2022

Jason Thompson, Sachith Seneviratne, Kerry Nice, Rajith Vidanaarachchi, 'Remembering and Interpreting Parkville Through Artificial Eyes', Australian Centre for Architectural History, Urban and Cultural Heritage (ACAHUCH) Inaugural Symposium : Park Life 2022, 04 November 2022.

Could we conjure up an accurate vision of a time or a place if we had never been there? Could we then envisage such a place through another’s eyes? What if we could delve into entire world’s collective understanding of a place or perspective and extract an example of that representation? Would such a vision be robust, believable, or an any way meaningful? What effect might extracting such a scene have on our own understanding of empathy, creativity, imagination, possibility, or design practice?
To date, a limiting feature of artificial intelligence (AI) in applications ranging from those used in financial markets to health, object detection, and design has been their reliance on vast historical datasets from which they build perceptions and projections of the world before to relaying this information back to humans. This reliance has so far left scant room for apparent understanding, interpretation, or imagination of the sort truly recognised as ‘intelligence’ by humans. Suchlimitations, however, are perhaps drawing to a close with the advent of text-to-image generators(1). Text-to-image generators are opening the door for AI applications to reach human levels of conceptual creativity resembling considered integration, interpretation, and genuine imagination - with the capacity to even build memories of their own.
Contemporary text-to image generators are now enabling designers to combine and re-imagine features, objects, locations, times, scenes, and styles that can generate unique visions spanning anywhere from reality to impressionism to bizarre fiction. In doing so, they can lead us on an exploration of an alternate and at times fascinating potential world of how others might have seen or interpreted a place like Parkville.

In this presentation we demonstrate a re-imagining of Parkville and surrounds through capturing the collective hive-mind of the world-wide web using modern text-to image generators. We demonstrate an interpretation of Parkville under conditions where the features we desire and the lens we peer through are selected, combined, and balanced. We ask for consideration of what the model really understands, what the images convey, and leave open a discussion of the aesthetics, ethics, and meaning of artificially generated design to the audience. We show how artificial design resemblingimagination, will be a feature of our future and perhaps eventually, even our history.

Kerry A Nice, The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on air pollution: A global assessment using machine learning techniques, 2022 IAUC, International Association for Urban Climate Virtual Poster Conference, 30 Aug-1 Sep 2022, Special session: COVID impacts on urban climates. Conference poster, Abstract

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries implemented public health ordinances that resulted in restricted mobility and a resultant change in air quality. This has provided an opportunity to quantify the extent to which carbon-based transport and industrial activity affect air quality. In this study, confounding factors were disentangled for a direct comparison of pandemic-related reductions in absolute pollutions levels, globally. The non-linear relationships between atmospheric processes and daily ground-level NO2, PM10, PM2.5 and O3 measurements were captured in city- and pollutant-specific XGBoost models for over 700 cities, adjusting for weather, seasonality and trends. City-level modelling allowed adaptation to the distinct topography, urban morphology, climate and atmospheric conditions for each city, individually, as the weather variables that were most predictive varied across cities. Pollution forecasts for 2020 in absence of a pandemic were generated based on weather and formed an ensemble for country-level pollution reductions. Findings were robust to modelling assumptions and consistent with various published case studies. NO2 reduced most in China, Europe and India, following severe government restrictions as part of the initial lockdowns. Reductions were highly correlated with changes in mobility levels, especially trips to transit stations, workplaces, retail and recreation venues. Further, NO2 did not fully revert to pre-pandemic levels in 2020. Ambient PM2.5 pollution, which has severe adverse health consequences, reduced most in China and India. Increased O3 levels during initial lockdowns have been documented widely. However, our analyses found a subsequent reduction in O3 for many countries below what was expected based on meteorological conditions during summer months (e.g., China, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Poland, Turkey). The effects in periods with high O3 levels are especially important for the development of effective mitigation strategies to improve health outcomes.

Mathew J Lipson, Charmaine Franklin, Asiful Islam, Negin Nazarian, Melissa Hart, Kerry Nice, Brooke Conroy, Improved high resolution city-descriptive input data for urban meteorological modelling. 2022 IAUC, International Association for Urban Climate Virtual Poster Conference, 30 Aug-1 Sep 2022, Urban climate methods session: UCI and modeling. Abstract

2021

Mathew Lipson, Sue Grimmond, Martin Best, Chenghao Wang, Alberto Martilli, Martin De Kauwe, Souhail Boussetta, Keith Oleson, Yuya Takane, Martin Best, Meiring Beyers, Maggie Hendry, Sang-Hyun Lee, Ning Zhang, Gert-Jan Steeneveld, Aristofanis Tsiringakis, Jong-Jin Baik, Krzysztof Fortuniak, Ting Sun, Kerry Nice, Valéry Masson, Matthias Demuzere, Marcus Thatcher, Naika Meili, David Meyer, Zhihua Wang, Andres Simon, Gab Abramowitz, Joe McNorton, Michael Roth, Doo-Il Lee, Seung-Bu Park, Aude Lemonsu, Hendrik Wouters, Simone Fatichi, Beom-Soon Han, Cécile De Munck, Tiago Machado, Robert Schoetter, Gabriel Manoli, Valérie Masson, Hirofumi Sugawara, Stevan Earl, Eric Velasco, Matthias Roth, Leena Järvi, Rachel Spronken-smith, Andy Coutts, Helen Ward, Simone Kotthaus, Włodzimierz Pawlak, Nektarios Chrysoulakis, Kim Novick, Yurong Shi, Ahmed Balogun, Andreas Christen, David Reed, Fred Meier, Ian Strachan, Jenny Salmond, Jinkyu Hong, Joe McFadden, Junxia Dou, Rachel Spronken-Smith, Zutao Yang, Andy Pitman. Urban-PLUMBER model evaluation project: initial results, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-15230, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-15230, 2021. Presentation

2020

Kerry Nice and Ashley Broadbent. Targeted urban heat mitigation strategies using urban morphology databases and micro-climate modelling to examine the urban heat profile. In: EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, DOI: 10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-12795, Presentation

2019

Kerry A. Nice, Gideon D.P.A. Aschwanden, Jasper S. Wijnands, Jason Thompson, Haifeng Zhao, Mark Stevenson. The Nature of Human Settlement: Building an understanding of high performance city design (a.k.a. Block Typologies). In: UrbanSys2019 satellite session of 2019 Conference on Complex Systems, Singapore, 2 October 2019. Presentation

Nice, K.A. Urban climatology introduction for Melbourne Cool Line Studio, Monash University, 19 August 2019. Guest lecture

Jason Thompson, Kerry Nice 'Linking empirically derived city typologies and heath', In: "Re-visioning transport and health", University of Cambridge workshop and hackathon, 2-4 July 2019, Homerton College, Hills Road, Cambridge.

Stevenson, M; Thompson, J; Wijnands, J; Nice, K; Aschwanden, G; Zhao, H, (2019) 'Road Traffic Injury in Urban Areas: Understanding the Complex City’, in ICoRSI International Symposium on Safety of Vulnerable Road Users, 25-26 March 2019, Changsha, China, pp. 25–26. Available at: https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/233181.

Nice, K.A. Climate science context around urban cooling. In: 4th Water Sensitive Cities Conference 2019, 26 - 28 March 2019, Brisbane, Australia. Invited presentation

2018

Meili, N., Fatichi, S., Manoli, G., Burlando, P., Roth, M., Velasco, E., Nice, K. A., Tapper, N. J., Daly, E. and Coutts, A. M. (2018) ‘A new Urban Ecohydrological Model to quantify the effect of vegetation on microclimate and water fluxes in cities’, In: AGU Fall Meeting 2018, Washington D.C., USA, 10-14 December 2018. American Geophysical Union (AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts), p. GC33C–06. Presentation

J. S. Wijnands, J. Thompson, K. Nice, G. Aschwanden, and M. Stevenson (2018). “Action recognition to prevent fatigue-related road trauma using artificial intelligence”. In: Symposium on New Research Applications for Tackling Complex Road Safety Issues, 2018 Australasian Road Safety Conference. Oct. 3, 2018. Sydney. Invited talk.

J. S. Wijnands, K. Nice, J. Thompson, H. Zhao, and M. Stevenson (2018). “Using GANs to optimise health outcomes of cities by transforming urban design”. In: 4th International Conference on Machine Vision and Machine Learning. Aug. 21–23, 2018. Madrid.

Nice, K.A., Wang, J, Wijnands, J. S., Thompson, J., Aschwanden, G.D.P.A, Stevenson, M. Mining Google Street View for Urban Climate Micro-Climate Human Thermal Comfort Modelling Parameters. In: ICUC10, 10th International Conference on Urban Climate/ 14th Symposium on the Urban Environment, 6-10 August 2018, New York, NY. Presentation

Nice, K.A., Thompson, J., Wijnands, J. S., Aschwanden, G.D.P.A, Stevenson, M. The ‘Paris-end’ of town? Urban typology through machine learning. In: AAG 2018, Symposium on New Horizons in Human Dynamics Research, New Orleans, 12 April 2018. Presentation

Nice, K.A. Urban Greening for improved human thermal comfort. In: 202020 Vision, The Green Light Tour, 27 March 2018, Adelaide, Australia. Invited presentation

2017

J. S. Wijnands, J. Thompson, K. Nice, G. Aschwanden, and M. Stevenson (2017). "Using deep learning to detect driver drowsiness from video footage". In: International Conference on Engineering, Technology, and Applied Science. Nov. 7–9, 2017. Kitakyushu.

Nice, K.A., Urban Greening for improved human thermal comfort. In: Guest lecture - Master of urban planning STUDIO, University of Melbourne, 2 October 2017, Melbourne, Australia.

Nice, K.A., Microclimate Models and Application in the Urban Environment. In: Guest lecture - ATS3887/APG4887 - Designing Urban Futures: Urban Climate, Water and Adaptation. Monash University. September 2017 - Melbourne, Australia.

Nice, K.A., Designing liveable cities through heat mitigation: tools to translate knowledge into design. In: 3rd Water Sensitive Cities Conference, 18-20 July 2017, Perth. Invited presentation

Nice, K.A., Urban Greening for improved human thermal comfort. In: CRC for Water Sensitive Cities Ideas for Subiaco Water Resource Area, 24 May 2017, Perth. Invited presentation

2016

Nice, K.A., Coutts, A., Tapper, N., and Beringer, J. A micro-climate examination of the temperature moderating potential of increased vegetation and water in urban canyons using VTUF-3D. In: 29th VUEESC Conference, 3-4 November 2016, Melbourne. Presentation

Nice, K.A., Coutts, A., Tapper, N., Krayenhoff, S., Duursma, R., and Beringer, J. A micro-climate examination of the temperature moderating potential of increased vegetation and water in urban canyons using VTUF-3D. In: Joint CRC Low Carbon Living & CRC for Water Sensitive Cities Workshop on Urban Micro-Climates and Adaptive Urban Design, 21-22 March 2016, Melbourne. Presentation

Nice, K.A., Coutts, A., Tapper, N., Krayenhoff, S., Duursma, R., and Beringer, J. A micro-climate examination of the temperature moderating potential of increased vegetation and water in urban canyons using VTUF-3D. In: 2nd International Conference on Urban Tree Diversity, 22-24 February 2016, Melbourne. Presentation

Nice, K.A., Coutts, A., Tapper, N., Krayenhoff, S., Duursma, R., and Beringer, J. A micro-climate examination of the temperature moderating potential of increased vegetation and water in urban canyons using VTUF-3D. In: AMOS/ARCCSS National Conference 2016. 8-11 February 2016, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. Presentation

2015

Nice, K.A., (Improved) micro-climate modelling assessment of the influence of water sensitive urban design on human thermal comfort: Pre-submission presentation. Monash University. 17 September 2015 - Melbourne, Australia. Presentation

Nice, K.A., Coutts, A., Tapper, N., Beringer, J. and Krayenhoff, S. VTUF-3D: An urban micro-climate model to assess temperature moderation from increased vegetation and water in urban canyons. In: 2nd Water Sensitive Cities Conference 2015. 8-9 September 2015 - Brisbane, Australia. Poster 1 Poster 2 Presentation

Nice, K.A., Coutts, A., Tapper, N., Krayenhoff, S. and Beringer, J. VTUF-3D: An urban micro-climate model to assess temperature moderation from increased vegetation and water in urban canyons. In: ICUC9 - 9th International Conference on Urban Climate 2015. 20-24 July 2015 - Toulouse, France. Presentation

2014

Nice, K.A., Tapper, N., Beringer, J.,Coutts, A. and Krayenhoff, S. An urban micro-climate model for assessing impacts of Water Sensitive Urban Design. In: Water Sensitive Cities Conference 2014. 21-23 October, 2014 - Melbourne, Australia. Poster

Nice, K.A., Tapper, N., Beringer, J.,Coutts, A. and Krayenhoff, S. An urban micro-climate model for assessing impacts of Water Sensitive Urban Design. In: 11th Symposium on the Urban Environment, 94th AMS Annual Meeting, 2-6 February 2014, Atlanta, GA. Poster

2013

Nice, K.A., Coutts, A, Beringer, J, Tapper, N and Krahenhoff, S. Introducing the TUF-3D/MAESPA urban micro-climate model. In: 8th International Water Sensitive Urban Design Conference 2013. 25–29 November 2013 - Gold Coast, Australia. Presentation

2012

Nice, K.A., Coutts, A, Broadbent, A, Beringer, J, Tapper, N and Krahenhoff, S. Evaluation of WSUD modeling strategies. In: 8th International Conference on Urban Climate – ICUC 8 and 10th Symposium on the Urban Environment. 6th - 10th August 2012 - Dublin, Ireland. Presentation

Nice, K.A. and Isaac, P. The micro-climate of a mixed urban parkland environment [online]. In: WSUD 2012: Water sensitve urban design; Building the water sensitve community; 7th International Conference on Water Sensitive Urban Design, 21 - 23 February 2012, Melbourne Cricket Ground. Barton, A.C.T.: Engineers Australia, 2012: 719-739. ISBN: 9780858258952. Presentation