The Achieved Dreams of a Neighborhood

This article explains the social transformation process initiated at the end of the 1970s within the neighborhood of La Verneda-Sant Martı´ in Barcelona. This process started with the foundation of an adult education center that was organized as a Learning Community (the first one in the world). From the beginning, it was administered for and by the community. It became a space of debate where the demands and dreams of the neighbors converged about transforming their neighborhood along with the recommendations of the international scientific community. Twenty years later, the dreams came true: There have been substantial improvements throughout the urban space, infrastructures, housing, urban thoroughfares, and public highways. The INCLUD-ED European project, using the communicative methodology of research, has thoroughly studied the transformation carried out in the La Verneda-Sant Martı´ Adult School and its neighborhood. INCLUD-ED has identified successful practices within diverse social areas that are transferable to other contexts and contribute to overcoming inequalities and improving the most underprivileged neighborhoods.

Àgora. La experiencia de la Escuela de personas adultas. La verneda-Sant Martí: del aprendizaje de las tecnologías al contexto de aprendizaje tecnológico

La Comunidad de Aprendizaje Escuela de personas adultas La Verneda-Sant Martí, lleva más de 10 años trabajando las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación desde una perspectiva transversal y global. A través del trabajo que venimos realizando día a día, hemos visto como las TIC han pasado de ser una necesidad formativa a convertirse en un contexto de aprendizaje cotidiano entre las personas que participan de nuestro proyecto. Desde que en 1999 decidimos transformar nuestras actividades para integrarnos plenamente en la sociedad de la información hemos cambiado metodologías, prioridades y formas de trabajar. Mostrar cuáles han sido esas transformaciones y qué resultados son los que se han alcanzado es el principal reto del artículo.

Gestión centralizada de dispositivos electrónicos low-cost para su uso en entornos domésticos

Este proyecto pretende implementar una solución de domótica reutilizando equipos de bajo coste disponibles en una vivienda que son gestionados de forma independiente y carecen de protocolos de comunicaciones estandarizados para su interconexión con otros entornos.

Elders and the ITCs use to communicate with children and grandchildren

Past research in using ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) in interpersonal communication showed that age plays an important role. There is a general assumption that the elderly are left behind regarding the adoption and the use of ICTs. Furthermore, elders tend to use ICTs mainly for instrumental purposes and the use is rather non-sophisticated. When elders are using ICTs to maintain their social network, similar patterns could be found: They start using internet, or intensify its use, when their children move abroad while they might decrease using the tool if the motivation ends. In this research we explore elders' incentives to go online and use internet services to communicate; the type of agencies they use to communicate with children and grandchildren abroad; and the situations that make them stop using the ICTs or even reject internet mediated communications. We base our discussion on the empirical evidence the two authors gathered in different cities and countries: Barcelona, Romania, Toronto, Los Angeles, Montevideo and Lima, through semi-structured interviews and observation, with people aged 60 years old and over. The results show that the ability for using ICT tools in an autonomous way is a better explanation than age. In this, we distinguish between assisted users and autonomous users. We found that oldest seniors and those seniors who are less socially active are more likely to be assisted users than those who are socially or professionally active. For them communication with their children and grandchildren abroad follows no agency or it is mediated by significant others from their local social network, who are able to use ICTs and select specific information to share, in the second step, with the elder. For some younger participants the use of ICTs is rather situational and imposed by their children or grandchildren, who installed the tool in the first place and assisted them in using it. Finally, other elders describe a proficient and independent use of ICTs so they use the devices and services the way they want to.We discuss the implications of the patterns in using ICTs, for elders' social life and their relationships with children and grandchildren. First, we emphasis the fact that those elders rejecting the ICTs or being unskilled in using them to communicate might be left out from their family circle, particularly when children are abroad -they would experience more isolation. Second, we underline the fact that when children and grandchildren are the ones that control the ICTs used by their parents and grandparents, they are controlling also the information flow and this will redefine the power relations between elders and their younger relatives.

Simulation of a Virtual Campus at the Open University of Catalonia

Peer-reviewed

Extension and evaluation of JXTA protocols for supporting reliable P2P distributed computing

Peer-reviewed

Efficient Peer Selection in P2P JXTA-Based Platforms

Peer-reviewed

Collaborative group membership and access control for JXTA

Peer-reviewed

Carrier Ethernet "label" scalability

A collection of slides from the authorpsilas seminar presentation is given

Improving Label Space Usage for Ethernet Label Switched Paths

Ethernet is becoming the dominant aggregation technology for carrier transport networks; however, as it is a LAN technology, native bridged ethernet does not fulfill all the carrier requirements. One of the schemes proposed by the research community to make ethernet fulfill carrier requirements is ethernet VLAN-label switching (ELS). ELS allows the creation of label switched data paths using a 12-bit label encoded in the VLAN TAG control information field. Previous label switching technologies such as MPLS use more bits for encoding the label. Hence, they do not suffer from label sparsity issues as ELS might. This paper studies the sparsity issues resulting from the reduced ELS VLAN-label space and proposes the use of the label merging technique to improve label space usage. Experimental results show that label merging considerably improves label space usage

Creando valor a través de las TIC: nuevos intermediarios

Este trabajo analiza cómo se puede crear valor a través del uso de las TIC. Para ello se utiliza el Modelo de creación de valor en e-business desarrollado por Amit y Zott (2001) y se aplica a una tipología de nuevos intermediarios que opera en el sector de los contenidos digitales: gregadores de noticias. Para lograr este objetivo, se ha realizado un estudio exploratorio y un estudio de casos a través de entrevistas personales con informadores estratégicos y un análisis del contenido de las páginas web de 56 empresas relacionadas con el sector y cuestionarios, principalmenteSe han analizado empresas de EEUU, Canadá, España, Francia, Alemania, Reino Unido y Suiza

Amenzas a través de la telefonía móvil e internet: perfil psicológico y consecuencias emocionales

En los últimos años se ha producido un incremento del uso de la telefonía móvil e Internet con fines intimidatorios o simplemente para amenazar a los iguales en los centros escolares de nuestro país. Con la voluntad de aportar datos que puedan ayudar a su prevención, se ha realizado un estudio de encuesta en el que se ha obtenido información relativa a las amenazas recibidas a través de los nuevos medios de comunicación, es decir, Internet y la telefonía móvil. Los resultados indican que un 23.3% de los estudiantes de los centros públicos de Enseñanza Secundaria Obligatoria de la ciudad de Girona (Cataluña), durante el curso escolar, han recibido vía Internet o telefonía móvil algún mensaje que, por su contenido, ha supuesto una amenaza para su bienestar. Se analizan las consecuenciasemocionales y las estrategias de afrontamiento utilizadas por parte de estos adolescentes