Art, Life and Science in Belgium

Mode of access: Internet.

Dental record; a monthly journal of dental science art and literature.

Mode of access: Internet.

State of the art and future challenges for information literacy research

This short paper focuses on strategic issues and important research questions.

The politics and poetics of coexistence : experiments at the intersection of art and environmental engineering

This research project explores how interdisciplinary art practices can provide ways for questioning and envisaging alternative modes of coexistence between humans and the non-humans who together, make up the environment. As a practiceled project, it combines a body of creative work (50%) and this exegesis (50%). My interdisciplinary artistic practice appropriates methods and processes from science and engineering and merges them into artistic contexts for critical and poetic ends. By blending pseudo-scientific experimentation with creative strategies like visual fiction, humour, absurd public performance and scripted audience participation, my work engages with a range of debates around ecology. This exegesis details the interplay between critical theory relating to these debates, the work of other creative practitioners and my own evolving artistic practice. Through utilising methods and processes drawn from my prior career in water engineering, I present an interdisciplinary synthesis that seeks to promote improved understandings of the causes and consequences of our ecological actions and inactions.

Soil Magnetism Research: State of the Art and Future Directions

Magnetic properties of soils have been highlighted as a primary detrimental environmental effect on the performance of geophysical systems for detection of unexploded ordnance (UXO) and mine targets. A recent workshop at Cranfield University, U.K., aimed to identify knowledge gaps related to soil magnetism. Eight invited speakers from multidisciplinary areas provided briefings on state‐of‐the‐art research linked to soil magnetism and geophysical sensing. Contributions from other participants provided additional insights from a range of disciplines through case studies and applications. The workshop included break‐out sessions to identify current gaps in knowledge and to determine priority areas for investment in research to further developments in UXO and mine detection in magnetic soil environments. Key recommendations for future research investments have been grouped in categories including soils, theory and modeling, instrumentation, and communication.

Art and the anxious city: Public art, public interest and the public good

While public art is often considered a key hallmark of a creative city, artworks in the public realm also have the capacity to act as lightening rods for social anxiety at times of perceived crisis. This paper considers recent debates about government-sponsored public art projects in Queensland in light of three international case studies: Rodin’s Thinker in Paris, Tilted Arc in New York and Vault in Melbourne. It considers whether consensus positions on public art are possible or desirable in light of issues of spatial control, and proposes that well-negotiated anxieties about public art may be an indicator of creative vibrancy and dynamism that will assist in the future understanding of Queensland’s experiment with government-mandated public art.

The use of Th in HTR: State of the art and implementation in Th/Pu fuel cycles

Nowadays nuclear is the only greenhouse-free source that can appreciably respond to the increasing worldwide energy demand. The use of Thorium in the nuclear energy production may offer some advantages to accomplish this task. Extensive R&D on the thorium fuel cycle has been conducted in many countries around the world. Starting from the current nuclear waste policy, the EU-PUMA project focuses on the potential benefits of using the HTR core as a Pu/MA transmuter. In this paper the following aspects have been analysed: (1) the state-of-the-art of the studies on the use of Th in different reactors, (2) the use of Th in HTRs, with a particular emphasis on Th-Pu fuel cycles, (3) an original assessment of Th-Pu fuel cycles in HTR. Some aspects related to Thorium exploitation were outlined, particularly its suitability for working in pebble-bed HTR in a Th-Pu fuel cycle. The influence of the Th/Pu weight fraction at BOC in a typical HTR pebble was analysed as far as the reactivity trend versus burn-up, the energy produced per Pu mass, and the Pu isotopic composition at EOC are concerned. Although deeper investigations need to be performed in order to draw final conclusions, it is possible to state that some optimized Th percentage in the initial Pu/Th fuel could be suggested on the basis of the aim we are trying to reach. Copyright © 2009 Guido Mazzini et al.

RED COATS AND WILD BIRDS: MILITARY CULTURE AND ORNITHOLOGY ACROSS THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH EMPIRE

“Red coats and wild birds: military culture and ornithology across the nineteenth-century British Empire” investigates the intersections between British military culture and the practices and ideas of ornithology, with a particular focus on the British Mediterranean. Considering that British officers often occupied several imperial sites over the course of their military careers, to what extent did their movements shape their ornithological knowledge and identities at “home” and abroad? How did British military naturalists perceive different local cultures (with different attitudes to hunting, birds, field science, etc.) and different local natures (different sets of birds and environments)? How can trans-imperial careers be written using not only textual sources (for example, biographies and personal correspondence) but also traces of material culture? In answering these questions, I centre my work on the Mediterranean region as a “colonial sea” in the production of hybrid identities and cultural practices, and the mingling of people, ideas, commodities, and migratory birds. I focus on the life geographies of four military officers: Thomas Wright Blakiston, Andrew Leith Adams, L. Howard Lloyd Irby, and Philip Savile Grey Reid. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Mediterranean region emerged as a crucial site for the security of the British “empire route” to India and South Asia, especially with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Military stations served as trans-imperial sites, connecting Britain to India through the flow of military manpower, commodities, information, and bodily experiences across the empire. By using a “critical historical geopolitics of empire” to examine the material remnants of the “avian imperial archive,” I demonstrate how the practices and performances of British military field ornithology helped to: materialize the British Mediterranean as a moral “semi-tropical” place for the physical and cultural acclimatization of British officers en route to and from India; reinforce imperial presence in the region; and make “visible in new ways” the connectivity of North Africa to Europe through the geographical distribution of birds. I also highlight the ways in which the production of ornithological knowledge by army officers was entwined with forms of temperate martial masculinity.

The use of cues for attention in ancient Greek art: aspects that influence concentration in the work of art and its elements

The goal of this study is to identify cues for the cognitive process of attention in ancient Greek art, aiming to find confirmation of its possible use by ancient Greek audiences and artists. Evidence of cues that trigger attention’s psychological dispositions was searched through content analysis of image reproductions of ancient Greek sculpture and fine vase painting from the archaic to the Hellenistic period - ca. 7th -1st cent. BC. Through this analysis, it was possible to observe the presence of cues that trigger orientation to the work of art (i.e. amplification, contrast, emotional salience, simplification, symmetry), of a cue that triggers a disseminate attention to the parts of the work (i.e. distribution of elements) and of cues that activate selective attention to specific elements in the work of art (i.e. contrast of elements, salient color, central positioning of elements, composition regarding the flow of elements and significant objects). Results support the universality of those dispositions, probably connected with basic competencies that are hard-wired in the nervous system and in the cognitive processes.

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries - Session 3. RISD Faculty

Faculty from Rhode Island School of Design representing Interior Architecture, Industrial Design, and Textiles detail their thoughtful interactions with materials.