El proyecto Science of the city. Territorio de encuentro entre arte, ciencia y ciudad

El objetivo de este artículo es presentar la experiencia colaborativa entre el proyecto Science of the city y el grupo de investigación"Metamétodo. Metodologías compartidas y procesos artísticos en la sociedad del conocimiento" de la Facultad de Bellas Artes de la UB y La Mandarina de Newton, empresa emergente en el ámbito de la divulgación científica, interesada en nuevas estrategias y formas de pensar la ciencia que reviertan en la transmisión del conocimiento. Las cuestiones ¿Qué es ciencia? y ¿Qué es ciudad? o ¿Dónde encontramos la ciencia en la ciudad? fueron el punto de partida del proyecto Science of the city, ideado por La Mandarina de Newton. Los organizadores lanzaron una convocatoria a través de la red, en formato de concurso internacional de vídeos que debían tratar estas cuestiones. El propósito era acercar la ciencia a las experiencias cotidianas de los habitantes de la ciudad y a su vez, obtener una respuesta en formato de vídeo que nos sirviera como punto de partida para los artistas integrantes de nuestro grupo de investigación para elaborar nuestras propias obras. Los vídeos ganadores y las obras resultantes de esta experiencia conformaron la exposición Science of the City, proyecto financiado por el FECYT. La exposición pudo verse en el espacio Arts Santa Mònica de Barcelona en mayo del pasado 2012. Los procesos de trabajo y las reflexiones quedaron recopilados en una publicación multilingüe.

Reparar y sustituir cosas en la compraventa : evolución y últimas tendencias

International texts recognise the buyer's right to the repair or replacement if the goods do not conform with the contract, and at the same time, establish exceptions to their application and certain rules of protection for the seller (Art. 46 CISG, Art. 7.2.3 UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, Art.9:102 PECL and Arts. 4:202 y 4:204 (1) PEL S). This approach is a result of a compromise between civil law systems and the common law and it has been widely extended to the regulation of consumer sales over the last decade (Art. 3.3 of the Directive 1999/44/CE, Art. III.-3:302 DCFR, Art. 26 of the proposal for a Directive on Consumer Rights). These norms regulate the different ways of requiring the fulfilment of a contractual obligation from a new paradigm which has little to do with a need to protect the weak consumer which governed the origins of consumer policy in the European Community. Now the idea of the consumer who shall behave economically efficiently prevails in Art. 3.3 of the Directive 1999/44/CE, a norm which is clearly influenced by the international texts and whose transposing into the national legislation of Member States has created important problems for traditional dogmas. In this sense there are still some unclear issues, such as the possibility of replacing in sales of goods of specific nature or second-hand goods, some aspects on the exercise of repair and replacement, and, even, their use as primary remedies rather than a reduction in price or a rescission of the contract. With regard to this, in England the possibility of offering the consumer free choice between these measures if the goods do not conform with the contract has been raised. This is far from the principle of pacta sunt servanda and is clearly contrary to the economic approach of the proposal for a Directive on Consumer Rights. Up to now Spain has limited itself to implementing Art. 3.3 Directive 1999/44/CE into its legal system in almost literal terms and the case law on the issue has completely turned out to be insufficient. By contrast with Germany, the Spanish legislator has not extended the application of the rules of repair and replacement of Directive 1999/44/CE to nonconsumer sales, even though two draft bill proposals along these lines presented by the General Commission for Codifying (“Comisión General de Codificación”), the last one being in January, 2009

Conflict prevention and decentralized governance: some remarks about the state of the art in theory and practice

Is there a link between decentralized governance and conflict prevention? This article tries to answer the question by presenting the state of the art of the intersection of both concepts. Provided that social conflict is inevitable and given the appearance of new threats and types of violence, as well as new demands for security based on people (human security), our societies should focus on promoting peaceful changes. Through an extensive analysis of the existing literature and the study of several cases, this paper suggests that decentralized governance can contribute to these efforts by transforming conflicts, bringing about power-sharing and inclusion incentives of minority groups. Albeit the complexity of assessing its impact on conflict prevention, it can be contended that decentralized governance might have very positive effects on the reduction of causes that bring about conflicts due to its ability to foster the creation of war/violence preventors. More specifically, this paper argues that decentralization can have a positive impact on the so-called triggers and accelerators (short- and medium-term causes).

A two-stage approach for tonic identification in indian art music

In this paper we propose a new approach for tonic identification in Indian art music and present a proposal for acomplete iterative system for the same. Our method splits the task of tonic pitch identification into two stages. In the first stage, which is applicable to both vocal and instrumental music, we perform a multi-pitch analysis of the audio signal to identify the tonic pitch-class. Multi-pitch analysisallows us to take advantage of the drone sound, which constantlyreinforces the tonic. In the second stage we estimate the octave in which the tonic of the singer lies and is thusneeded only for the vocal performances. We analyse the predominant melody sung by the lead performer in order to establish the tonic octave. Both stages are individually evaluated on a sizable music collection and are shown toobtain a good accuracy. We also discuss the types of errors made by the method.Further, we present a proposal for a system that aims to incrementally utilize all the available data, both audio and metadata in order to identify the tonic pitch. It produces a tonic estimate and a confidence value, and is iterative in nature. At each iteration, more data is fed into the systemuntil the confidence value for the identified tonic is above a defined threshold. Rather than obtain high overall accuracy for our complete database, ultimately our goal is to develop a system which obtains very high accuracy on a subset of the database with maximum confidence.

The cave (La caverna -1952-1969) by Josep Palau i Fabre: theatre versus philosophical allegory in order both to perform and stop the tragic and dark end of the bright art of thinking

What is the use of representing in performance the image of the cave from book VII of Plato’s Republic? Josep Palau i Fabre considers that in Plato’s dialogues the speakers are mere instruments at the service of his dialectical purpose. The aim of this article is to show how, by turning the myth into a tragedy and relying on Heraclitus’s conflict or war of opposites, the playwright succeeds in favouring a sort of thought which is not one-sided or univocal. On the contrary, in Palau i Fabre’s La Caverna, the tragic hero, the released prisoner transformed by the light of Reality and finally killed by his “cavemates” –after having been imprisoned again and having tried to rescue them from their ignorance or shadows– still leaves them his powerful experience of the agonistikós thought, which might bear fruit in their life to come.

How Millennials are changing the way of learning: the state of the art of ICT integration in education

Millennials generation is changing the way of learning, prompting educational institutions to attempt to better adapt to young needs by incorporating technologies into education. Based on this premise, we have reviewed the prominent reports of the integration of ICT into education with the aim of evidencing how education is changing, and will change, to meet the needs ofMillennials with ICT support. We conclude that most of the investments have simply resulted in an increase of computers and access to the Internet, with teachers reproducing traditional approaches to education and e-learning being seen as complementary to face-to-face education. While it would seem that the use of ICT is not revolutionizing learning, it is facilitating the personalization, collaboration and ubiquity of learning.

The importance of myth in contemporary art: myth, poetry and women

This project is intended to prove the prevalent importance of myth in contemporary art and, more specifically, to highlight how myth and poetry have shaped and reflected ideas of womanhood over time. A selection of significant literary periods, authors and works from the Renaissance to our days have been chosen in order to provide a wide scope of the evolution that the portrayal of women has undergone. Special attention has been paid to the way in which a group of selected poets have contributed to the construction and deconstruction of traditional Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman myths strongly attached to patterns of male dominance.

Inclusion and empowerment in public art and urban design

To involve citizens in developing the processes of city making is an objective that occupies part of the agenda of political parties in the context of the necessary renewal in representative democracy. This paper aims to provide some answers to the following questions: Is it possible to overcome the participatory processes based exclusively on the consultation? Is it possible to"train" residents to take an active role in decision-making? How can we manage, proactively, the relationship between public actors, technicians and politicians, in a participatory process? We analyse the process development for creating the Wall of Remembrance in the Barcelona neighbourhood of Baró de Viver, a work of public art, created and produced by its neighbours, in the context of a long participatory process focused on changing the image of the neighbourhood and the improvement of public space. This result and this process have been possible in a given context of cooperation among neighbours, local government and the research team (CR-Polis, Art, City, Society at the University of Barcelona). The development of a creative process of citizen participation between 2004 and 2011 made possible the direct management of decision making by the residents on the field of the design of public space in the neighbourhood. However, the material results of the process does not overshadow the great achievement of the project: the inclusion of a neighbourhood in taking informed decisions because of their empowerment in public space design and management of their remembrances.

Understanding Flood Regime Changes in Europe: a state-of-the-art assessment

There is growing concern that flooding is becoming more frequent and severe in Europe. A better understanding of flood regime changes and their drivers is therefore needed. The paper reviews the current knowledge on flood regime changes in European rivers that has traditionally been obtained through two alternative research approaches. The first approach is the data-based detection of changes in observed flood events. Current methods are reviewed together with their challenges and opportunities. For example, observation biases, the merging of different data sources and accounting for nonlinear drivers and responses. The second approach consists of modelled scenarios of future floods. Challenges and opportunities associated with flood change scenarios are discussed such as fully accounting for uncertainties in the modelling cascade and feedbacks. To make progress in flood change research, we suggest that a synthesis of these two approaches is needed. This can be achieved by focusing on long duration records and flood-rich and flood-poor periods rather than on short duration flood trends only, by formally attributing causes of observed flood changes, by validating scenarios against observed flood regime dynamics, and by developing low-dimensional models of flood changes and feedbacks. The paper finishes with a call for a joint European flood change research network.