Sensory objects at the British Museum

The Sensory Objects project creates multisensory interactive artworks that respond to museum collections and generate alternative ideas for museum interpretation.

Energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis of a pre-Columbian funerary gold mask from the Museum of Sican, Peru

A funerary gold mask from the Museum of Sican, Ferranafe, Peru was analyzed in 30 different areas using a portable equipment using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence. It was deduced from the measurements that the main sheet of the mask and the majority of the pendants have a similar composition and are made of tumbaga, which means a poor gold alloy enriched at the surface by depletion gilding, and have a similar `equivalent` gilding thickness of about 5 mu m. The nose, also on tumbaga, has different composition and a thickness of about 8 mu m. The clamps are on gilded or on silvered copper. The red pigment dispersed on the surface of the mask is cinnabar. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Museum Personalized : The impact of floor staff on an exhibition - A holistic approach

The current paper presents a study conducted at The National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm to investigate the exhibition “Antarctica – that’s cool” from its first concept to the first workshop that is held in the exhibition. The focus is on the influence of floor staff on an exhibition and workshops as learning facilities in museums. Findings, based on visitor observation and the exhibition building process, go into the characteristics of low-budget productions and discuss the importance of staff on the exhibition floor for museums as life-long learning facilities. The holistic approach of the study provides deep insights into the complex interplay of visitors, staff and exhibitions. The results can be used for future exhibition building processes and educational programs in museums and should strengthen the museum’s position as life-long learning facility in nowadays society.

An Evaluation of”Middle Ages Dead or Live?”The first interactive exhibition at the National Museum of History

This is a study conducted at, and for, the National Museum of History in Stockholm. The aim of the study was to confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis that visitors in a traditional museum environment might not take part in interactivity in an interactive exhibition. And if they do the visitors might skip the texts and objects on display. To answer this and other questions a multiple method was used. Both non participant observations and exit interviews were conducted. After a description of the interactive exhibits, theory of knowledge and learning is presented before the gathered data is presented. All together 443 visitors were observed. In the observations the visitors were timed on how much time they spent in the room, the time spent on the interactivity, texts and objects. In the 40 interviews information about visitors’ participation in the interactivity was gathered. What interactivity the visitor found easiest, hardest, funniest and most boring.The result did not confirm the hypothesis. All kinds of visitors, children and adults, participated in the interactivities. The visitors took part in the texts and objects and the interactive exhibits.

Profiling visitors to Dalarna Museum : What are the motivational factors that influence visitors' frequency of visits

Prior studies on museum visitors are extensively centred on national museums, the studies on regional museums are scarce. To fill in the academic gap, a research is proposed concerning the visitors of Dalarna Museum, a regional museum in Sweden. With an aim to profile visitors’ demographic characteristics and investigate the motivational factors that influence visitors’ frequency of visits, a face-to-face questionnaire survey was implemented at Dalarna Museum. To get visitors’ demographic characteristics, a few closed and open questions are devised to profile visitors’ gender, age, occupation, income, education, number of children and residence place. To investigate the motivational factors that influence visitors’ frequency of visits, a seven-point Likert questionnaire is employed with 17 motivational factors included. During a 12-day data collection, 372 visitors were invited to participate in the questionnaire survey, whereof 357 had filled in the questionnaire, generating a response rate that is as high as 96 percent. After data cleansing, there are 355 completed and valid responses in total. According to the results, some of visitors’ demographic characteristics are similar including gender, age, occupation, income, and number of children. However, the characteristics regarding visitors’ residence places and educational attainments are different comparing the frequent visitors to occasional visitors. Through running a multiple regression analysis, 13 out of the 17 motivational factors are detected having significant influences on visitors’ frequency of visits to Dalarna Museum, of which the most influential one is visitors’ day-outs with their friends and relatives.

Dichlorvos exposure impedes extraction and amplification of DNA from insects in museum collections

Background: The insecticides dichlorvos, paradichlorobenzene and naphthalene have been commonly used to eradicate pest insects from natural history collections. However, it is not known how these chemicals affect the DNA of the specimens in the collections. We thus tested the effect of dichlorvos, paradichlorobenzene and naphthalene on DNA of insects (Musca domestica) by extracting and amplifying DNA from specimens exposed to insecticides in two different concentrations over increasing time intervals. Results: The results clearly show that dichlorvos impedes both extraction and amplification of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA after relatively short time, whereas paradichlorobenzene and naphthalene do not. Conclusion: Collections treated with paradichlorobenzene and naphthalene, are better preserved concerning DNA, than those treated with dichlorvos. Non toxic pest control methods should, however, be preferred due to physical damage of specimens and putative health risks by chemicals.

Distance teacher education – some experiences from Dalarna University, SwedenPaper presented at the 33rd Annual ATEE Conference Brussels, Belgium, 23rd – 27th August 2008

Distance teaching is now-a-days used in different shapes. However, it is something different from traditional campus organised education as it systematically uses Information Communication Technology (ICT) as a key element. When the distance teacher education started in Sweden many teacher educators doubted the wisdom of this. They expressed that the educational process to become a teacher would be deteriorated. For instance, they feared for high drop out rates and difficulties to examine in a proper way. The Swedish National Agency for Higher Education has recently edited a report that showed that this form of teacher education was well adapted to the labour market, but the possibilities for the teacher students to shape their education were relatively limited. However, we still know quite little about the effects of this way to educate teacher students. This paper explores the possibility of using distance teacher education.In a case study 20 students, who were the first to finish a complete a distance teacher education at Högskolan Dalarna, were asked in a questionnaire how they had apprehended their education. We also interviewed four of these students, as well as five teacher educators.One of our findings were that the distance teacher education reached new target groups, who not had been able to participate in university studies if it not had been offered in this form. Especially, this was valid for the middle-aged women, living a long distance away from a university, with social responsibilities for children or old parents. Other findings were that these students in general were target oriented and ambitious, wrote more than the campus students and developed that kind of skill better. Marratech, an ICT system for small groups, e-mail and chat were used for the communication. Marratech was considered to permit free and spontaneous communication, both of the teacher educators and the students. Initially the teacher educators were sceptical to distance teacher education, but afterwards they were surprised of how well it had worked. They declared that they had better and nearer contact with their students and more control over the students´ performance, but some parts of the teacher education were better suitable for campus education, for example, power of creating characters. Distance teacher education was considered time consuming and demanded much activity from the teacher educators as the students wanted rapid responses. This study indicates that distance teacher education works well for mature individuals with high motivation. However, it demands more time from the teacher educators, but it gives in general good results. Still, there are pedagogical challenges to overcome. Maybe we should reflect on a mix of distance teacher education and campus based teacher education, instead of separated ways of accomplishing teacher education?

Catalog of Paintings Exhibited in the Colby College Art Museum May 8 -22- 1974

This catalog describes paintings by the author, completed as his Senior Scholar Project in art and exhibited in the Colby College Art Museum. Images of the paintings are not available.

Real-Time Control Of Floods Along The Demer River, Belgium, By Means Of MPC In Combination With GA And A Fast Conceptual River Model

Climate model projections show that climate change will further increase the risk of flooding in many regions of the world. There is a need for climate adaptation, but building new infrastructure or additional retention basins has its limits, especially in densely populated areas where open spaces are limited. Another solution is the more efficient use of the existing infrastructure. This research investigates a method for real-time flood control by means of existing gated weirs and retention basins. The method was tested for the specific study area of the Demer basin in Belgium but is generally applicable. Today, retention basins along the Demer River are controlled by means of adjustable gated weirs based on fixed logic rules. However, because of the high complexity of the system, only suboptimal results are achieved by these rules. By making use of precipitation forecasts and combined hydrological-hydraulic river models, the state of the river network can be predicted. To fasten the calculation speed, a conceptual river model was used. The conceptual model was combined with a Model Predictive Control (MPC) algorithm and a Genetic Algorithm (GA). The MPC algorithm predicts the state of the river network depending on the positions of the adjustable weirs in the basin. The GA generates these positions in a semi-random way. Cost functions, based on water levels, were introduced to evaluate the efficiency of each generation, based on flood damage minimization. In the final phase of this research the influence of the most important MPC and GA parameters was investigated by means of a sensitivity study. The results show that the MPC-GA algorithm manages to reduce the total flood volume during the historical event of September 1998 by 46% in comparison with the current regulation. Based on the MPC-GA results, some recommendations could be formulated to improve the logic rules.

2014 World Cup live blog: political protestor invades field at US vs Belgium

Retirado do Vice News.

Application of information and communication technologies for health systems in Belgium, Denmark, Spain, the United Kingdom and Sweden

Incluye Bibliografía

Revision of Nathan Banks type specimens of Bdellidae Dugès (Acari: Trombidiformes) of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge

In this article, seven Bdellidae Dugès (Acari: Trombidiformes) of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, originally described by Nathan Banks are studied: Cyta americana (Banks, 1902), Bdella tenella Banks, 1896, Bdella utilis Banks, 1914, Bdella californica Banks, 1904, Bdella cardinalis Banks, 1894, Bdella peregrina Banks, 1894 and Bdella brevitarsis Banks. Bdella tenella and Bdella californica are transferred to the genera Spinibdella and Bdellodes, respectively. Bdella brevitarsis, previously a nomen nudum, is herein described for the first time under the genus Hexabdella. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid: zoobank.org:pub:A18C8C10-8C8A-4873-AF0B-D1A9164CD7E8 © 2013 Copyright 2013 Taylor & Francis.

“PROVINCIALISM, PICKING SIDES AND BIAS: EFFECTS OF GEOGRAPHY ON MEDIA COVERAGE OF CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, 2005-10.”

The development of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton has prompted diverse coverage from print and online media. This investigation looked at trends in news stories and commentary from 2005-10 to show how the location of a medium affected coverage. Through the author’s own observations and interviews with journalists and other interested parties, several trends emerged. Media outlets outside Arkansas portrayed the museum as trying to plunder the cultural heritage of local communities and relied partly on the museum’s association with Wal-Mart and stereotypes of Arkansas to frame coverage. Arkansas media, faced with limited cooperation from the museum’s public relations apparatus, typically played a cheerleader role, at times overemphasizing the importance of the collection in the art world and showcasing few critical voices in stories about acquisitions and other areas of the museum’s development.

The types of Lygistorrhinidae and Mycetophilidae (Diptera: Bibionomorpha) in the KwaZulu-Natal Museum, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

An annotated list of the type specimens of Lygistorrhinidae and Mycetophilidae (Diptera: Bibionomorpha) at the KwaZulu-Natal Museum, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa is provided. Information on 54 type specimens, three lygistorrhinids and 51 mycetophilids, with details of labels and actual preservation of the specimens is furnished. Locality data are georeferenced and habitus images of type specimens are provided.