¿Qué información sobre salud esconde Internet? Un análisis cualitativo de su contenido

L'acostament entre el professional de la salut i el qui necessita els seus serveis és un tema d'interès per a la psicologia de la salut des que va començar com a disciplina. En el context de la societat de la informació i el coneixement apareix un nou escenari d'intervenció d'aquests dos col·lectius que és necessari conèixer. Per això s'han començat diferents propostes, però la que presenta el grup d'investigació de Psicologia de la Salut i Xarxa (PSINET) de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya s'encamina a potenciar la creació d'espais virtuals de trobada entre ambdós col·lectius (professionals de la salut i usuaris de serveis de salut). L'establiment de plataformes digitals de serveis sanitaris per als ciutadans del segle XXI passa primer per conèixer la realitat dels diferents col·lectius implicats en la relació salut i xarxa. L'objectiu que es planteja en aquest estudi se centra en el primer col·lectiu i en el descobriment del que hi ha sobre salut a Internet. Per a això, seguint una metodologia de recerca exhaustiva per Internet, s'han recollit webs sobre salut en català i castellà, i s'ha fet una anàlisi de dades textuals de la informació que contenien els webs en català. Aquesta anàlisi ha permès conèixer i descriure el prototip de web sobre salut que hi ha a la xarxa en el moment de fer l'estudi.

A diagram of public spaces within urban landscape as a strategy for sustainable urban planning in Chinese cities

Destruction of historical urban fabric in many Chinese cities and towns, without the possibility of its recovery as an urban asset, leads us to consider alternative strategies and criteria for formulating new urban projects, using creative urban planning instruments and strategies to provide a sense of place and identity to the urban landscape. The challenge is to set up an urban structure that constitutes a spatial reference system, a structure consisting of a set of urban landmarks that construct a system of related public spaces, endowed with collective significance and identity. Such a network could include a wide variety of urban typologies and natural elements. An important result of this strategy would be the recovery of the social and cultural values attached to the natural landscape in Chinese civilization. Hangzhou city will be analyzed as a case study

Simulations of action of DNA topoisomerases to investigate boundaries and shapes of spaces of knots.

The configuration space available to randomly cyclized polymers is divided into subspaces accessible to individual knot types. A phantom chain utilized in numerical simulations of polymers can explore all subspaces, whereas a real closed chain forming a figure-of-eight knot, for example, is confined to a subspace corresponding to this knot type only. One can conceptually compare the assembly of configuration spaces of various knot types to a complex foam where individual cells delimit the configuration space available to a given knot type. Neighboring cells in the foam harbor knots that can be converted into each other by just one intersegmental passage. Such a segment-segment passage occurring at the level of knotted configurations corresponds to a passage through the interface between neighboring cells in the foamy knot space. Using a DNA topoisomerase-inspired simulation approach we characterize here the effective interface area between neighboring knot spaces as well as the surface-to-volume ratio of individual knot spaces. These results provide a reference system required for better understanding mechanisms of action of various DNA topoisomerases.

Open access and connectedness: stimulating unexpected innovation through the use of institutional open archives

The author reviews past work with Ibict and the global progress made by the Open Access Movement. He postulates a theory of open access being an example of a complex adaptive system created by Internet-based scholarly publishing. Open access could be the cause of a cascade of increasing complexity and opportunities that will reshape this system. He has chosen the pervasive and global "Connectedness" created by the internet and the content spaces it provides for open access collections as a "simple disruptive agent". He discusses how connectedness influences infinite variety, creativity, work, change, knowledge, and the information economy. Case studies from the University of New Mexico Libraries are used where appropriate.

Database Rights in Safe European Home: The Path to More Rigorous Protection of Information

1. Introduction "The one that has compiled ... a database, the collection, securing the validity or presentation of which has required an essential investment, has the sole right to control the content over the whole work or over either a qualitatively or quantitatively substantial part of the work both by means of reproduction and by making them available to the public", Finnish Copyright Act, section 49.1 These are the laconic words that implemented the much-awaited and hotly debated European Community Directive on the legal protection of databases,2 the EDD, into Finnish Copyright legislation in 1998. Now in the year 2005, after more than half a decade of the domestic implementation it is yet uncertain as to the proper meaning and construction of the convoluted qualitative criteria the current legislation employs as a prerequisite for the database protection both in Finland and within the European Union. Further, this opaque Pan-European instrument has the potential of bringing about a number of far-reaching economic and cultural ramifications, which have remained largely uncharted or unobserved. Thus the task of understanding this particular and currently peculiarly European new intellectual property regime is twofold: first, to understand the mechanics and functioning of the EDD and second, to realise the potential and risks inherent in the new legislation in economic, cultural and societal dimensions. 2. Subject-matter of the study: basic issues The first part of the task mentioned above is straightforward: questions such as what is meant by the key concepts triggering the functioning of the EDD such as presentation of independent information, what constitutes an essential investment in acquiring data and when the reproduction of a given database reaches either qualitatively or quantitatively the threshold of substantiality before the right-holder of a database can avail himself of the remedies provided by the statutory framework remain unclear and call for a careful analysis. As for second task, it is already obvious that the practical importance of the legal protection providedby the database right is in the rapid increase. The accelerating transformationof information into digital form is an existing fact, not merely a reflection of a shape of things to come in the future. To take a simple example, the digitisation of a map, traditionally in paper format and protected by copyright, can provide the consumer a markedly easier and faster access to the wanted material and the price can be, depending on the current state of the marketplace, cheaper than that of the traditional form or even free by means of public lending libraries providing access to the information online. This also renders it possible for authors and publishers to make available and sell their products to markedly larger, international markets while the production and distribution costs can be kept at minimum due to the new electronic production, marketing and distributionmechanisms to mention a few. The troublesome side is for authors and publishers the vastly enhanced potential for illegal copying by electronic means, producing numerous virtually identical copies at speed. The fear of illegal copying canlead to stark technical protection that in turn can dampen down the demand for information goods and services and furthermore, efficiently hamper the right of access to the materials available lawfully in electronic form and thus weaken the possibility of access to information, education and the cultural heritage of anation or nations, a condition precedent for a functioning democracy. 3. Particular issues in Digital Economy and Information Networks All what is said above applies a fortiori to the databases. As a result of the ubiquity of the Internet and the pending breakthrough of Mobile Internet, peer-to-peer Networks, Localand Wide Local Area Networks, a rapidly increasing amount of information not protected by traditional copyright, such as various lists, catalogues and tables,3previously protected partially by the old section 49 of the Finnish Copyright act are available free or for consideration in the Internet, and by the same token importantly, numerous databases are collected in order to enable the marketing, tendering and selling products and services in above mentioned networks. Databases and the information embedded therein constitutes a pivotal element in virtually any commercial operation including product and service development, scientific research and education. A poignant but not instantaneously an obvious example of this is a database consisting of physical coordinates of a certain selected group of customers for marketing purposes through cellular phones, laptops and several handheld or vehicle-based devices connected online. These practical needs call for answer to a plethora of questions already outlined above: Has thecollection and securing the validity of this information required an essential input? What qualifies as a quantitatively or qualitatively significant investment? According to the Directive, the database comprises works, information and other independent materials, which are arranged in systematic or methodical way andare individually accessible by electronic or other means. Under what circumstances then, are the materials regarded as arranged in systematic or methodical way? Only when the protected elements of a database are established, the question concerning the scope of protection becomes acute. In digital context, the traditional notions of reproduction and making available to the public of digital materials seem to fit ill or lead into interpretations that are at variance with analogous domain as regards the lawful and illegal uses of information. This may well interfere with or rework the way in which the commercial and other operators have to establish themselves and function in the existing value networks of information products and services. 4. International sphere After the expiry of the implementation period for the European Community Directive on legal protection of databases, the goals of the Directive must have been consolidated into the domestic legislations of the current twenty-five Member States within the European Union. On one hand, these fundamental questions readily imply that the problemsrelated to correct construction of the Directive underlying the domestic legislation transpire the national boundaries. On the other hand, the disputes arisingon account of the implementation and interpretation of the Directive on the European level attract significance domestically. Consequently, the guidelines on correct interpretation of the Directive importing the practical, business-oriented solutions may well have application on European level. This underlines the exigency for a thorough analysis on the implications of the meaning and potential scope of Database protection in Finland and the European Union. This position hasto be contrasted with the larger, international sphere, which in early 2005 does differ markedly from European Union stance, directly having a negative effect on international trade particularly in digital content. A particular case in point is the USA, a database producer primus inter pares, not at least yet having aSui Generis database regime or its kin, while both the political and academic discourse on the matter abounds. 5. The objectives of the study The above mentioned background with its several open issues calls for the detailed study of thefollowing questions: -What is a database-at-law and when is a database protected by intellectual property rights, particularly by the European database regime?What is the international situation? -How is a database protected and what is its relation with other intellectual property regimes, particularly in the Digital context? -The opportunities and threats provided by current protection to creators, users and the society as a whole, including the commercial and cultural implications? -The difficult question on relation of the Database protection and protection of factual information as such. 6. Dsiposition The Study, in purporting to analyse and cast light on the questions above, is divided into three mainparts. The first part has the purpose of introducing the political and rationalbackground and subsequent legislative evolution path of the European database protection, reflected against the international backdrop on the issue. An introduction to databases, originally a vehicle of modern computing and information andcommunication technology, is also incorporated. The second part sets out the chosen and existing two-tier model of the database protection, reviewing both itscopyright and Sui Generis right facets in detail together with the emergent application of the machinery in real-life societal and particularly commercial context. Furthermore, a general outline of copyright, relevant in context of copyright databases is provided. For purposes of further comparison, a chapter on the precursor of Sui Generi, database right, the Nordic catalogue rule also ensues. The third and final part analyses the positive and negative impact of the database protection system and attempts to scrutinize the implications further in the future with some caveats and tentative recommendations, in particular as regards the convoluted issue concerning the IPR protection of information per se, a new tenet in the domain of copyright and related rights.

Analysis, improvement, and development of new firmware for the smart citizen kit ambient board

The objective of this project was to develop firmware for both the Arduino-compatible boards of the Smart Citizen initiative, and for the RTX4100 low-power WiFi.

Technological and business challenges of smart grids

Growing recognition of the electricity grid modernization to enable new electricity generation and consumption schemes has found articulation in the vision of the Smart Grid platform. The essence of this vision is an autonomous network with two-way electricity power flows and extensive real-time information between the generation nodes, various electricity-dependent appliances and all points in-between. Three major components of the Smart Grids are distributed intelligence, communication technologies, and automated control systems. The aim of this thesis is to recognize the challenges that Smart Grids are facing, while extinguishing the main driving factors for their introduction. The scope of the thesis also covers possible place of electricity Aggregator Company in the current and future electricity markets. Basic functions of an aggregator and possible revenue sources along with demand response feasibility calculations are reviewed within this thesis.

Telerobotics: Methodology for the Development of a Through-the-Internet Robotic Teleoperated System

This work presents a methodology for the development of Teleoperated Robotic Systems through the Internet. Initially, it is presented a bibliographical review of the Telerobotic systems that uses Internet as way of control. The methodology is implemented and tested through the development of two systems. The first is a manipulator with two degrees of freedom commanded remotely through the Internet denominated RobWebCam (http://www.graco.unb.br/robwebcam). The second is a system which teleoperates an ABB (Asea Brown Boveri) Industrial Robot of six degrees of freedom denominated RobWebLink (http://webrobot.graco.unb.br). RobWebCam is composed of a manipulator with two degrees of freedom, a video camera, Internet, computers and communication driver between the manipulator and the Unix system; and RobWebLink composed of the same components plus the Industrial Robot. With the use of this technology, it is possible to move far distant positioning objects minimizing transport costs, materials and people; acting in real time in the process that is wanted to be controller. This work demonstrates that the teleoperating via Internet of robotic systems and other equipments is viable, in spite of using rate transmission data with low bandwidth. Possible applications include remote surveillance, control and remote diagnosis and maintenance of machines and equipments.

Smart girls : a deconstructive discourse analysis of smartness

This project is a deconstructive discourse analysis of smart girlhood. From a feminist post structural framework, with a focus on discourse and performative identity, I scrutinize three dominant discourses of smartness that are prevalent and academic and popular press. These constructions frame smart girls as being either Losers, Have-It-All Girls, or Imposters. By conducting semi-structured group interviews with six self-identified smart girls, I explore the question of how smart girls perform their smart girl identities in their current sociocultural context. After analyzing the data from the group interviews, I outline five themes that seem to be prevalent in the stories told by the smart girls in this thesis. Finally, I discuss how the performative identities of the smart girls in my thesis appear to be much more complex, multiple and rhizomatic than the discourses under review allow.

'Operation motorway': landscapes of construction on England's M1 motorway

Recent years have seen an increasing number of academics attempt to write more process-oriented and 'nonrepresentational' accounts of landscape. Drawing upon this literature, I discuss a number of the movements, materialities, and practices entailed in constructing England's M1 motorway in the late 1950s. The performances, movements and durability of a diverse range of things-including earth-moving machines, public relations brochures, maps, helicopters, senior engineers, aggregate and labourers-are shown to be important to the construction and ordering of the motorway and spaces of the construction company in different times and spaces, with people's experiences or understandings of construction, both now and in the past, emerging through memories, talk and embodied encounters with architectures, texts and artefacts which are assembled, circulated and/or archived. Aerial perspectives assumed a prominent role in depictions of construction, while journalists and engineers frequently drew upon a military vocabulary and alluded to the military nature of the project when discussing the motorway. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Star/poverty space: the making of the ‘development celebrity’

What is it that gives celebrities the voice and authority to do and say the things they do in the realm of development politics? Asked another way, how is celebrity practised and, simultaneously, how does this praxis make celebrity, personas, politics and, indeed, celebrities themselves? In this article, we explore this ‘celebrity praxis’ through the lens of the creation of the contemporary ‘development celebrity’ in those stars working for development writ large in the so-called Third World. Drawing on work in science studies, material cultures and the growing geo-socio-anthropologies of things, the key to understanding the material practices embedded in and creating development celebrity networks is the multiple and complex circulations of the everyday and bespectacled artefacts of celebrity. Conceptualised as the ‘celebrity–consumption–compassion complex’, the performances of development celebrities are as much about everyday events, materials, technologies, emotions and consumer acts as they are about the mediated and liquidised constructions of the stars who now ‘market’ development.Moreover, this complex is constructed by and constructs what we are calling ‘star/poverty space’ that works to facilitate the ‘expertise’ and ‘authenticity’ and, thus, elevated voice and authority, of development celebrities through poverty tours, photoshoots, textual and visual diaries, websites and tweets. In short, the creation of star/poverty space is performed through a kind of ‘materiality of authenticity’ that is at the centre of the networks of development celebrity. The article concludes with several brief observations about the politics, possibilities and problematics of development celebrities and the star/poverty spaces that they create.

CASCADE: An Agent Based Framework For Modeling The Dynamics Of Smart Electricity Systems

The Complex Adaptive Systems, Cognitive Agents and Distributed Energy (CASCADE) project is developing a framework based on Agent Based Modelling (ABM). The CASCADE Framework can be used both to gain policy and industry relevant insights into the smart grid concept itself and as a platform to design and test distributed ICT solutions for smart grid based business entities. ABM is used to capture the behaviors of diff erent social, economic and technical actors, which may be defi ned at various levels of abstraction. It is applied to understanding their interactions and can be adapted to include learning processes and emergent patterns. CASCADE models ‘prosumer’ agents (i.e., producers and/or consumers of energy) and ‘aggregator’ agents (e.g., traders of energy in both wholesale and retail markets) at various scales, from large generators and Energy Service Companies down to individual people and devices. The CASCADE Framework is formed of three main subdivisions that link models of electricity supply and demand, the electricity market and power fl ow. It can also model the variability of renewable energy generation caused by the weather, which is an important issue for grid balancing and the profi tability of energy suppliers. The development of CASCADE has already yielded some interesting early fi ndings, demonstrating that it is possible for a mediating agent (aggregator) to achieve stable demandfl attening across groups of domestic households fi tted with smart energy control and communication devices, where direct wholesale price signals had previously been found to produce characteristic complex system instability. In another example, it has demonstrated how large changes in supply mix can be caused even by small changes in demand profi le. Ongoing and planned refi nements to the Framework will support investigation of demand response at various scales, the integration of the power sector with transport and heat sectors, novel technology adoption and diffusion work, evolution of new smart grid business models, and complex power grid engineering and market interactions.

Writers' rooms: theories of contemporary authorship in portraits of creative spaces

This article analyzes two series of photographs and essays on writers’ rooms published in England and Canada in 2007 and 2008. The Guardian’s Writers Rooms series, with photographs by Eamon McCabe, ran in 2007. In the summer of 2008, The Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival began to post its own version of The Guardian column on its website by displaying, each week leading up to the Festival in September, a different writer’s “writing space” and an accompanying paragraph. I argue that these images of writers’ rooms, which suggest a cultural fascination with authors’ private compositional practices and materials, reveal a great deal about theoretical constructions of authorship implicit in contemporary literary culture. Far from possessing the museum quality of dead authors’ spaces, rooms that are still being used, incorporating new forms of writing technology, and having drafts of manuscripts scattered around them, can offer insight into such well-worn and ineffable areas of speculation as inspiration, singular authorial genius, and literary productivity.

Dynamical properties of S-gap shifts and other shift spaces

We study the dynamical properties of certain shift spaces. To help study these properties we introduce two new classes of shifts, namely boundedly supermultiplicative (BSM) shifts and balanced shifts. It turns out that any almost specified shift is both BSM and balanced, and any balanced shift is BSM. However, as we will demonstrate, there are examples of shifts which are BSM but not balanced. We also study the measure theoretic properties of balanced shifts. We show that a shift space admits a Gibbs state if and only if it is balanced. Restricting ourselves to S-gap shifts, we relate certain dynamical properties of an S-gap shift to combinatorial properties from expansions in non-integer bases. This identification allows us to use the machinery from expansions in non-integer bases to give straightforward constructions of S -gap shifts with certain desirable properties. We show that for any q∈(0,1) there is an S-gap shift which has the specification property and entropy q . We also use this identification to address the question, for a given q∈(0,1), how many S-gap shifts exist with entropy q? For certain exceptional values of q there is a unique S-gap shift with this entropy.