On the road from consultation cynicism to energising e-consultation

A major concern in recent political discourse is that government has become both isolated from and unresponsive to its citizens. Democracy, by definition, demands a two-way flow of communication between government and civil society and it is now commonly argued that ICTs have the potential to facilitate such improved flows of communication--hence, e-democracy and e-consultation. The preliminary research findings presented here are part of a larger ongoing research project on e-consultation on the island of Ireland (see http://e-consultation.org). The paper initially draws on focus group discussions on the theme of (e)consultation conducted amongst activist citizens. High levels of frustration, scepticism and cynicism were expressed on the form, nature and process of extant consultation processes. The main focus addressed in this paper, however, is on how these citizens envisage ICT being used in future e-consultations. In general, most focus group participants were open to the use of ICT in future e-consultation processes but the consensus was that community groups did not currently have access to an appropriate level or range of infrastructure, technologies or skills. As a follow up to the focus group findings the research group ran a number of demonstrations on e-consultation technologies with invited activist citizens. Technologies introduced included chat room, video-conferencing, WikiPedia, WebIQ, Zing and others. The main preliminary findings and feedback from one such demonstration, and our own observations, are then presented which suggest that the potential does exist for using e-consultation technologies in local democracy and in local government to drive positive change in the government-citizen relationship. We present no na�¯ve solutions here; we merely point to some possibilities and we acknowledge that ICT alone is very unlikely to be a panacea for the declining levels of citizen participation in most democratic societies.

The Architecture of Seduction: An Analysis on Digital Architectures within Consumer Society

Currently new digital tools used in architecture are often at the service of a conception of architecture as a consumer society’s cultural good. Within this neoliberal cultural frame, architects’ social function is no longer seen as the production of urban facts with sense of duty, but as a part within the symbolic logic that rules the social production of cultural values as it was defined by Veblen and developed by Baudrillard. As a result, the potential given by the new digital tools used in representation has shifted from an instrument used to verify a built project to two different main models: At the one hand the development of pure virtual architectures that are exclusively configured within their symbolic value as artistic “images” easily reproducible. On the other hand the development of all those projects which -even maintaining their attention to architecture as a built fact- base their symbolic value on the author’s image and on virtual aesthetics and logics that prevail over architecture’s materiality. Architects’ sense of duty has definitely reached a turning point.

El diagnóstico de la crisis de la cultura en España: del recorte público a la crisis sistémica

Desde su invención en los años cincuenta, la política cultural ha sido objeto de análisis y reflexión por parte de las ciencias sociales. No obstante, en España presenta una serie de características diferenciadoras frente a las democracias occidentales europeas como consecuencia del periodo franquista. Con la recuperación de la democracia España adquiere el paradigma dominante de una política cultural democrática basada en la libertad, el pluralismo y el derecho a la cultura. Sin embargo, tras décadas de gobiernos democráticos el diagnóstico de la política cultural en España presenta rasgos de crisis sistémica, además de los efectos de la crisis global financiera de inicios del siglo XXI. En este contexto, los autores diagnostican, aplicando la metodología Delphi y recurriendo a fuentes secundarias, un conjunto de discursos sociales y narrativas que parecen funcionar como recursos cognitivos solucionistas en la esfera artística y cultural y que no están exentos de contradicciones y aporías, fruto de su contraste empírico.

Redescubrir la dinámica escultórica desde el trabajo en grupo

La iniciativa que se describe en este artículo, surge de una propuesta de investigación plástica, que se inició espontáneamente en el seno de una asignatura de escultura en la Facultad de Bellas Artes del CES Felipe II-UCM, y que tuvo como principal objetivo explorar nuevos modos de enseñanza artística desde la dinámica creativa en sí misma, con el fin de motivar el aprendizaje desde la participación directa en propuestas creativas que se apoyen en métodos de intervención crítica y que exploren las ventajas de las dinámicas interdisciplinares para complementar las eficacias de los ejercicios individuales, y así poder generar un aprendizaje desde dinámicas de trabajo en grupo. Para ello, hemos puesto en marcha procesos de trabajo cooperativo valorando sobre todo la experiencia directa, ofreciendo a los estudiantes contribuir en la actividad, tomar decisiones, lo que les permite aportar ideas, puntos de vista y opiniones sobre la combinación de nuevas tecnologías y técnicas tradicionales de la escultura, usados en proyectos artísticos actuales.

Arching or Compressive Membrane Action in Reinforced Concrete Slabs

Arching or compressive membrane action (CMA) in reinforced concrete slabs occurs as a result of the great difference between the tensile and compressive strength of concrete. Cracking of the concrete causes a migration of the neutral axis which is accompanied by in-plane expansion of the slab at its boundaries. If this natural tendency to expand is restrained, the development of arching action enhances the strength of the slab. The term arching action is normally used to describe the arching phenomenon in one-way spanning slabs and compressive membrane action is normally used to describe the arching phenomenon in two-
way spanning slabs. This encyclopedic article presents the background to the discovery of the phenomenon of arching action and presents a factual history of the approaches to the treatment of arching action in the United Kingdom and North American bridge deck design codes. The article summarises the theoretical methodology used in the United Kingdom Design Manual for Roads and Bridges, BD81/02, which was based on the work by Kirkpatrick, Rankin & Long at Queen's University Belfast.

Entity Linking for Web Search Queries

We consider the problem of linking web search queries to entities from a knowledge base such as Wikipedia. Such linking enables converting a user’s web search session to a footprint in the knowledge base that could be used to enrich the user profile. Traditional methods for entity linking have been directed towards finding entity mentions in text documents such as news reports, each of which are possibly linked to multiple entities enabling the usage of measures like entity set coherence. Since web search queries are very small text fragments, such criteria that rely on existence of a multitude of mentions do not work too well on them. We propose a three-phase method for linking web search queries to wikipedia entities. The first phase does IR-style scoring of entities against the search query to narrow down to a subset of entities that are expanded using hyperlink information in the second phase to a larger set. Lastly, we use a graph traversal approach to identify the top entities to link the query to. Through an empirical evaluation on real-world web search queries, we illustrate that our methods significantly enhance the linking accuracy over state-of-the-art methods.

Temple Grandin fonds, 1974-2006 (non-inclusive)

Temple Grandin was born in Boston, Massachusetts on August 29,1947 to Richard Grandin and Eustacia Cutler. She was diagnosed with autism at age 2. She suffered from delayed speech development and did not begin to speak until the age of 4. Temple’s mother defied the doctors and kept her out of institutions. Temple was given speech therapy as well as an intensive education. Her high school science teacher and her aunt on a ranch in Arizona inspired Temple to continue her studies and pursue a career as a scientist and livestock equipment designer.She graduated from Hampshire Country School (a boarding school for gifted children) in Ridge, New Hampshire in 1966, and earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Franklin Pierce College in 1970. In 1975, she received a master’s degree in animal science from Arizona State University and then a doctoral degree in animal science from the University of Illinois in 1989. She is currently a professor at Colorado State University. Dr. Grandin is one of the world’s leaders in the design of livestock handling facilities. She has done extensive work in design of handling facilities for animals and has developed animal welfare guidelines for the meat industries. Dr. Grandin is a past member of the board of directors of the Autism Society of America. She lectures to parents and teachers throughout the U.S. on her experiences with autism. She makes the case that the world needs people on the autism spectrum: visual thinkers, pattern thinkers and verbal thinkers. Some of Temple Grandin’s books include: Animals Make Us Human, Animals in Translation, The Way I See It, The Autistic Brain, and Different…Not Less. In 2010, a movie entitled “Temple Grandin” starring Clare Danes was released. The movie was based on Grandin’s own writings. Temple Grandin is an expert on animal behavior, a bestselling author, and an autism activist. In 2010, she was listed in the “Heroes” category in the “Time” list of the world’s 100 most influential people. She has received numerous awards including an honorary doctorate from McGill, the University of Illinois and Duke University. Temple Granin is a philosophical leader of both the animal welfare and autism advocacy movements. sources: http://www.templegrandin.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin

Letter to Mr. Walsh, Registrar Office, 1836

The man to whom the letter is addressed is Francis Leigh Walsh who was a land surveyor and registrar. Mr. Walsh was born on March 12, 1789 in Harford County, Maryland to Thomas Welsh, a United Empire Loyalist. In 1793, his family moved to Norfolk County and in 1810, Francis succeeded his father as registrar for Norfolk County. During the War of 1812 he served in the local militia and became a captain in 1824. He was the representative for Norfolk in the legislative assembly of Upper Canada from 1820 to 1828 and 1834 to 1836. He became justice of the peace in the London district in 1821 and 1838 in the Talbot district. He died in Simcoe on Oct. 14th, 1884. His son, Aquila Walsh served in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada and in the Canadian House of Commons. Benjamin Hardison was born in Berwick in the Thirteen Colonies (British colonies on the Atlantic Coast of North America) on April 2, 1757 to Thomas Hardison and Mary Chadbourne. He was a farmer, miller and political figure. He was the representative for 4th Lincoln and Norfolk in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada from 1797-1800. On January 21, 1800 he married Jane Warren. He served with the American forces during the American Revolution at which time he was taken prisoner and sent to Canada. Later, he settled in Fort Erie where he was a captain in the militia and a justice of the peace for the Niagara district. He operated mills and a distillery in Fort Erie and died there on July 26, 1823. Source: http://en.vionto.com/show/me/Francis+Leigh+Walsh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Hardison

L’extraction de phrases en relation de traduction dans Wikipédia

Afin d'enrichir les données de corpus bilingues parallèles, il peut être judicieux de travailler avec des corpus dits comparables. En effet dans ce type de corpus, même si les documents dans la langue cible ne sont pas l'exacte traduction de ceux dans la langue source, on peut y retrouver des mots ou des phrases en relation de traduction. L'encyclopédie libre Wikipédia constitue un corpus comparable multilingue de plusieurs millions de documents. Notre travail consiste à trouver une méthode générale et endogène permettant d'extraire un maximum de phrases parallèles. Nous travaillons avec le couple de langues français-anglais mais notre méthode, qui n'utilise aucune ressource bilingue extérieure, peut s'appliquer à tout autre couple de langues. Elle se décompose en deux étapes. La première consiste à détecter les paires d’articles qui ont le plus de chance de contenir des traductions. Nous utilisons pour cela un réseau de neurones entraîné sur un petit ensemble de données constitué d'articles alignés au niveau des phrases. La deuxième étape effectue la sélection des paires de phrases grâce à un autre réseau de neurones dont les sorties sont alors réinterprétées par un algorithme d'optimisation combinatoire et une heuristique d'extension. L'ajout des quelques 560~000 paires de phrases extraites de Wikipédia au corpus d'entraînement d'un système de traduction automatique statistique de référence permet d'améliorer la qualité des traductions produites. Nous mettons les données alignées et le corpus extrait à la disposition de la communauté scientifique.

A portal for the Canadian Virtual Health Library / Bibliothèque virtuelle canadienne de la santé (CVHL/BVCS): Accomplishments and possibilities, scope and structure - a review of best practices

Introduction: Coordination through CVHL/BVCS gives Canadian health libraries access to information technology they could not offer individually, thereby enhancing the library services offered to Canadian health professionals. An example is the portal being developed. Portal best practices are of increasing interest (usability.gov; Wikipedia portals; JISC subject portal project; Stanford clinical portals) but conclusive research is not yet available. This paper will identify best practices for a portal bringing together knowledge for Canadian health professionals supported through a network of libraries. Description: The portal for Canadian health professionals will include capabilities such as: • Authentication • Question referral • Specialist “branch libraries” • Integration of commercial resources, web resources and health systems data • Cross-resource search engine • Infrastructure to enable links from EHR and decision support systems • Knowledge translation tools, such as highlighting of best evidence Best practices will be determined by studying the capabilities of existing portals, including consortia/networks and individual institutions, and through a literature review. Outcomes: Best practices in portals will be reviewed. The collaboratively developed Virtual Library, currently the heart of cvhl.ca, is a unique database collecting high quality, free web documents and sites relevant to Canadian health care. The evident strengths of the Virtual Library will be discussed in light of best practices. Discussion: Identification of best practices will support cost-benefit analysis of options and provide direction for CVHL/BVCS. Open discussion with stakeholders (libraries and professionals) informed by this review will lead to adoption of the best technical solutions supporting Canadian health libraries and their users.

Trabajo en equipo, aprendizaje colaborativo... : fantasmas en el cielo de las prácticas docentes.

Monográfico con el título: 'Colaboración en el aula, aprendizaje en grupo'. Resumen basado en el de la publicación

Fonaments d'una plataforma digital universitària lliure com a reforç en l'aprenentatge de les matemàtiques

El canvi cap a un paradigma d’ensenyament centrat en l’alumne ha incrementat el debat dels processos d’ensenyament i d’aprenentatge. En aquest marc de treball, el debat originat en torn de si un alumne universitari disposa dels suficients recursos per repassar autònomament principis matemàtics bàsics no ofereix una resposta gens clara. I aquesta resposta és important, especialment en les titulacions on les matemàtiques s’utilitzen principalment com a eina de modelatge, tal i com succeeix en les titulacions impartides en la Facultat de Ciències Econòmiques i Empresarials(FCEE) de la Universitat de Girona(UdG). L’equip docent en Matemàtiques per a l’Economia de la UdG està duent a terme la construcció d’un recurs que intenta fomentar el treball continu de les lleis matemàtiques. Aquesta eina didàctica tecnològica, anomenada plataforma virtual universitària lliure, neix de l’aplicació a les plataformes universitàries de les idees aportades pels corrents de ideologia lliure, com són la famosa enciclopèdia digital Wikipedia o el projecte gnui. La plataforma virtual universitària lliure és un recurs tecnològic format per la combinació de dos recursos independents habituals en tota plataforma universitària, com són un servidor d’arxius ftp i una eina d’avaluació, amb una estructura de funcionament modelada per les següents condicions: 1) Tota llei matemàtica de qualsevol assignatura de les titulacions impartides en la FCEE de la UdG pot ser treballada en el recurs. 2) Només les lleis matemàtiques podran ser treballades en el recurs. 3) El recurs ha de facilitar als alumnes el llistat de lleis que ha de dominar en una assignatura qualsevol. 4) El recurs ha de facilitar als alumnes material de treball per a una llei d’un llistat. 5) Només les lleis que surtin en un llistat poden contenir materials de treball. 6) Tots els alumnes de la FCEE de la UdG poden entrar al recurs. 7) Tots els professors de la FCEE de la UdG poden crear o modificar qualsevol arxiu o prova d’avaluació. 8) Només els professors de la FCEE de la UdG poden crear o modificar arxius o proves d’avaluació. 9) El recurs d’avaluació ha de proporcionar a un alumne informació immediata sobre el coneixement actual de les lleis d’un llistat. 10) Els enunciats dels exercicis de lleis dels materials de treball sempre han d’anar acompanyats amb la solució corresponent. 11) Tot enunciat d’un exercici de llei ha de tenir associat un exemple completament resolt

Del total e marketing al marketing integral : ¿fuente de ventaja competitiva?

Según Philip Kotler, considerado el padre del mercadeo, (en su libro Principles Of Marketing) la mercadotecnia es «el proceso social y administrativo por el cual los grupos e individuos satisfacen sus necesidades al crear e intercambiar bienes y servicios». La presente investigación tomará como punto de referencia para conceptualizar el marco teórico, la historia y evolución del mercadeo y sus actuales tendencias y rumbos; así como la incidencia que tiene en la planificación del área de mercadeo para las empresas que siguen este tipo de corrientes contemporáneas. Durante el desarrollo de la presente investigación se analizaran las nuevas tendencias de mercadeo basándose en la evolución y su referencia histórica. Ahora, se verá cómo el e-marketing compone una nueva estrategia para el desarrollo de ventaja competitiva entendiéndose ésta como un conjunto de atributos de una empresa que la distinguen de sus competidores. Este nuevo marketing que se quiere presentar, Total e-marketing, se compone del posicionamiento de la organización en la realidad virtual. Se utilizarán como factores claves de éxito en el posicionamiento de la organización en buscadores de internet como redes, wikipedia, google, facebook, etc.

Bicentenario de la muerte de Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos.

Con motivo del bicentenario de la muerte del ilustre asturiano, se presentan un conjunto de enlaces Web que permiten acceder a recursos destinados para todas aquellas personas interesadas en recordar, investigar y trabajar desde las aulas en la vida y obra de Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos. Encontraremos detalles sobre la biografía y la obra de Jovellanos en los enlaces de: wikipedia, Biografica.info y Ayuntamiento de Gijón, y sobre sus aportaciones a la Pedagogía en: Foro de la Educación y en la Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes; por otra parte, se muestran ejemplos de talleres didácticos y actividades que organizan los museos de Gijón, trabajos realizados desde las aulas, el Premio Internacional Jovellanos Resistencia y Libertad, que reconoce anualmente los valores cívicos de aquellas personas de cualquier parte del mundo que se hayan distinguido por su lucha en defensa de la libertad y los derechos humanos, y, por último, un grupo de enlaces de interés sobre la figura de Jovellanos, que van desde la prensa digital hasta instituciones como la Fundación Foro Jovellanos o el Museo Casa Natal de Jovellanos.