Higher Education in the XXI century: challenging everything and also the library role

We are already living in a new time. Our time makes both the digital and society move from an era where institutions and people have stable and fixed roles (at least most of the people, most of the time). Considering the context of a networked society and on the verge of the so called digital transformation, both universities and their library services need to provide best answers to incoming challenges. The talk will follow a discussion of the ways in what such transformation can evolve and what are some of the main challenges to face.

I film therefore I am: process and participation, networks and knowledge – examples from Scottish community media projects.

This chapter examines community media projects in Scotland as social processes that nurture knowledge through participation in production. A visual and media anthropology framework (Ginsburg, 2005) with an emphasis on the social context of media production informs the analysis of community media. Drawing on community media projects in the Govan area of Glasgow and the Isle of Bute, the techniques of production foreground “the relational aspects of filmmaking” (Grimshaw and Ravetz, 2005: 7) and act as a catalyst for knowledge and networks of relations embedded in time and place. Community media is defined here as a creative social process, characterised by an approach to production that is multi-authored, collaborative and informed by the lives of participants, and which recognises the relevance of networks of relations to that practice (Caines, 2007: 2). As a networked process, community media production is recognised as existing in collaboration between a director or producer, such as myself, and organisations, institutions and participants, who are connected through a range of identities, practices and place. These relations born of the production process reflect a complex area of practice and participation that brings together “parallel and overlapping public spheres” (Meadows et al., 2002: 3). This relates to broader concerns with networks (Carpentier, Servaes and Lie, 2003; Rodríguez, 2001), both revealed during the process of production and enhanced by it, and how they can be described with reference to the knowledge practice of community media.

InfoScout: An interactive, entity centric, person search tool.

Individuals living in highly networked societies publish a large amount of personal, and potentially sensitive, information online. Web investigators can exploit such information for a variety of purposes, such as in background vetting and fraud detection. However, such investigations require a large number of expensive man hours and human effort. This paper describes InfoScout, a search tool which is intended to reduce the time it takes to identify and gather subject centric information on the Web. InfoScout collects relevance feedback information from the investigator in order to rerank search results, allowing the intended information to be discovered more quickly. Users may still direct their search as they see fit, issuing ad-hoc queries and filtering existing results by keywords. Design choices are informed by prior work and industry collaboration.

Teaching boys in neoliberal and postfeminist times: Feminization and the question of re-masculinization in the education system and policy field

This paper focuses on teaching boys, male teachers and the question of gendered pedagogies in neoliberal and postfeminist times of the proliferation of new forms of capitalism, multi-mediated technologies and the influence of globalization. It illustrates how a politics of re-masculinization and its reconstitution needs to be understood as set against changing economic and social conditions in which gender equity comes to be re-focused on boys as the ‚new disadvantaged‘. This re-framing of gender equity, it is argued, has been fuelled by both a media-inspired backlash discourse about ‚failing boys‘ and a neo-positivist emphasis on numbers derived primarily from standardized testing regimes at both global and national levels. A media-focused analysis of the proliferation of discourses about ‚failing boys‘ vis-a-vis the problem of encroaching feminization in the school system is provided to illuminate how certain truths about the influence of male teachers come to define how the terms of ensuring gender equity are delimited and reduced to a question of gendered pedagogies as grounded in sexed bodies. Historical accounts of the feminization of teaching in the North American context are also provided as a basis for building a more informed understanding of the present, particularly as it relates to the contextualization of policy articulation and enactment regarding the problem of teaching boys. In light of such historically informed and critical media analysis, it is argued that what is needed is a more informed, evidenced based policy articulation of the problem of teaching boys and a more gender sensitive reflection on the politics of masculinities in postfeminist times. (DIPF/Orig.)

On the application of contextual IoT service discovery in Information Centric Networks

The continuous flow of technological developments in communications and electronic industries has led to the growing expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT). By leveraging the capabilities of smart networked devices and integrating them into existing industrial, leisure and communication applications, the IoT is expected to positively impact both economy and society, reducing the gap between the physical and digital worlds. Therefore, several efforts have been dedicated to the development of networking solutions addressing the diversity of challenges associated with such a vision. In this context, the integration of Information Centric Networking (ICN) concepts into the core of IoT is a research area gaining momentum and involving both research and industry actors. The massive amount of heterogeneous devices, as well as the data they produce, is a significant challenge for a wide-scale adoption of the IoT. In this paper we propose a service discovery mechanism, based on Named Data Networking (NDN), that leverages the use of a semantic matching mechanism for achieving a flexible discovery process. The development of appropriate service discovery mechanisms enriched with semantic capabilities for understanding and processing context information is a key feature for turning raw data into useful knowledge and ensuring the interoperability among different devices and applications. We assessed the performance of our solution through the implementation and deployment of a proof-of-concept prototype. Obtained results illustrate the potential of integrating semantic and ICN mechanisms to enable a flexible service discovery in IoT scenarios.

Tapes, Transgression and Mundanity: the participatory engenderment of death metal and grindcore

Since its origins in the early 1980s, the popular rise of extreme metal throughout the globe has been phenomenal. The emergence of extreme metal's most sonically transgressive subgenres of death metal and grindcore between the mid 1980s and the early 1990s, however, was not an easy one. Indeed, during this period, the only way for globally dispersed extreme metal fans and unsigned extreme metal bands to stay musically connected was via the underground practice of tape-trading. The aim of this study is to illuminate the impact of tape-trading upon the global spread of extreme metal. The study will situate the historical context of extreme metal tape-trading by exploring how it emerged, and why it was necessary in the first place. Utilising the concept of 'extreme metal scene', the study will focus on the central scenic discourse of transgression and explore how this was negotiated into the mundane scenic practice of tape-trading. In relation to this, and utilising the concept of participatory culture, the study will further explore how the music arose and spread throughout the globe via the socially networked practice of both musician and non-musician tape-traders in relation to the tape cassette technology itself. Ethnographic interviews were undertaken with both types of traders in order to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon in question. The research concludes that the tape-traders were able to challenge the status quo of record company gatekeepers, by facilitating the engenderment and global distribution (including the later commercial distribution) of death metal and grindcore. Such powerfully affective music via its continual global spread, offers as it did for the original tape-traders, a pleasurable and empowering communal/personal space for disempowered people throughout the globe. Further research into extreme metal tape-trading would require deeper exploration into other extreme metal subgenres, especially black metal, tape-traders situated outside of North America and Europe, women tape-traders as well as exploration of the phenomenon after the early 1990s.

Contradictory male/masculine/men's "I"s: the unwriting of men, and the concept of sex

May I start with two observations? First, men’s relations to feminism are problematic—there is always a gap, a gap between men and feminism; second, the gendering of men and masculinities is now recognised. There are several challenges here. The gender challenge concerns how to move from the presumed “genderlessness” of men towards the gender-consciousness of being a man/men. Another challenge concerns the “public/private,” the disruption of dominant narratives of “I” of men and the masculine “I.” There is also a temporal challenge, of moving away from simple linearity of the “I.” Together, these challenges can be seen as moving away from taken-for-granted “gender power-coherence” towards gender power-consciousness. To address these kinds of question means interrogating the uneven non-equivalences of what it means to be male, a man, masculine. This is not easily reduced to sex or gender. Rather gender/sex, or simply gex, helps to speak of such blurrings.

Friendship dynamics and popularity hierarchies among inclusive men

Previous research has demonstrated that aggression and marginalization are key components of maintaining popularity within male peer groups. However, more recent ethnographic studies have documented a significant shift in young men’s attitudes and behaviours, with more inclusive masculinities flourishing. My previous research has examined friendship dynamics and popularity hierarchies among boys, showing that contemporary popularity is stratified by a boy’s charisma, authenticity, emotional support, and social fluidity. In this article, I draw upon ethnographic research to provide an intersectional analysis of how adolescent masculinities are influenced by class, age and sexuality

Negotiating a masculine bloc: Jonathan Franzen's The corrections

Contemporary research on masculinities has focused on demonstrating how these are multiple, hierarchical, collective as well as individual, complex and contingent. In this article, I read Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections in the light of such recent theorizations. I propose to focus on the negotiation of what Demetriou has termed a masculine bloc, which is a space in which hegemonic and non-hegemonic masculinities coexist and, therefore, a strict duality between both categories is transcended. Next, I suggest focusing on the construction of masculinities as subject positions that are interwoven with different geographical levels. It is my contention that St. Jude, the fictional city for the Lamberts’ home in the Midwest, conforms the symbolic arena in which hegemonic masculinity is staged.

Dynamically managing sensed context data

This thesis reports on an investigation of the feasibility and usefulness of incorporating dynamic management facilities for managing sensed context data in a distributed contextaware mobile application. The investigation focuses on reducing the work required to integrate new sensed context streams in an existing context aware architecture. Current architectures require integration work for new streams and new contexts that are encountered. This means of operation is acceptable for current fixed architectures. However, as systems become more mobile the number of discoverable streams increases. Without the ability to discover and use these new streams the functionality of any given device will be limited to the streams that it knows how to decode. The integration of new streams requires that the sensed context data be understood by the current application. If the new source provides data of a type that an application currently requires then the new source should be connected to the application without any prior knowledge of the new source. If the type is similar and can be converted then this stream too should be appropriated by the application. Such applications are based on portable devices (phones, PDAs) for semi-autonomous services that use data from sensors connected to the devices, plus data exchanged with other such devices and remote servers. Such applications must handle input from a variety of sensors, refining the data locally and managing its communication from the device in volatile and unpredictable network conditions. The choice to focus on locally connected sensory input allows for the introduction of privacy and access controls. This local control can determine how the information is communicated to others. This investigation focuses on the evaluation of three approaches to sensor data management. The first system is characterised by its static management based on the pre-pended metadata. This was the reference system. Developed for a mobile system, the data was processed based on the attached metadata. The code that performed the processing was static. The second system was developed to move away from the static processing and introduce a greater freedom of handling for the data stream, this resulted in a heavy weight approach. The approach focused on pushing the processing of the data into a number of networked nodes rather than the monolithic design of the previous system. By creating a separate communication channel for the metadata it is possible to be more flexible with the amount and type of data transmitted. The final system pulled the benefits of the other systems together. By providing a small management class that would load a separate handler based on the incoming data, Dynamism was maximised whilst maintaining ease of code understanding. The three systems were then compared to highlight their ability to dynamically manage new sensed context. The evaluation took two approaches, the first is a quantitative analysis of the code to understand the complexity of the relative three systems. This was done by evaluating what changes to the system were involved for the new context. The second approach takes a qualitative view of the work required by the software engineer to reconfigure the systems to provide support for a new data stream. The evaluation highlights the various scenarios in which the three systems are most suited. There is always a trade-o↵ in the development of a system. The three approaches highlight this fact. The creation of a statically bound system can be quick to develop but may need to be completely re-written if the requirements move too far. Alternatively a highly dynamic system may be able to cope with new requirements but the developer time to create such a system may be greater than the creation of several simpler systems.

Hombres y masculinidad ¿un cambio de modelo?

En las últimas décadas hemos asistido a un importante impulso en las investigaciones centradas en el análisis de las masculinidades. Este hecho no es casual y se debe fundamentalmente a dos razones. Una de carácter político, relacionada con el cuestionamiento de una sociedad representada exclusivamente en términos masculinos. Una segunda razón de carácter científico, ¿si la feminidad debía ser explicada por qué no la masculinidad? Ambas razones han incidido en la desnaturalización de una supuesta masculinidad de carácter universal y en la profusión de investigaciones tendentes a desvelar: las formas sociales de construir a los hombres, los mecanismos de reproducción del poder inscritos en los cuerpos, los desiguales modelos sociales en torno a lo masculino, las relaciones de dominación que se producen entre hombres y mujeres, y entre los propios hombres. Este cuestionamiento teórico de “lo masculino” ha estado muy vinculado al papel de los movimientos sociales y especialmente del feminismo y los movimientos de liberación sexual, que han jugado un papel central en la redefinición del papel de hombres y mujeres, y por tanto en la búsqueda de nuevas alternativas a los modelos tradicionales, también entre los propios hombres. En las páginas siguientes nos aproximaremos precisamente a la noción de masculinidad y masculinidades, incidiendo en su carácter relacional y cambiante, así como en sus distintas significaciones.

Tapes, Transgression and Mundanity: the participatory engenderment of death metal and grindcore

Since its origins in the early 1980s, the popular rise of extreme metal throughout the globe has been phenomenal. The emergence of extreme metal's most sonically transgressive subgenres of death metal and grindcore between the mid 1980s and the early 1990s, however, was not an easy one. Indeed, during this period, the only way for globally dispersed extreme metal fans and unsigned extreme metal bands to stay musically connected was via the underground practice of tape-trading. The aim of this study is to illuminate the impact of tape-trading upon the global spread of extreme metal. The study will situate the historical context of extreme metal tape-trading by exploring how it emerged, and why it was necessary in the first place. Utilising the concept of 'extreme metal scene', the study will focus on the central scenic discourse of transgression and explore how this was negotiated into the mundane scenic practice of tape-trading. In relation to this, and utilising the concept of participatory culture, the study will further explore how the music arose and spread throughout the globe via the socially networked practice of both musician and non-musician tape-traders in relation to the tape cassette technology itself. Ethnographic interviews were undertaken with both types of traders in order to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon in question. The research concludes that the tape-traders were able to challenge the status quo of record company gatekeepers, by facilitating the engenderment and global distribution (including the later commercial distribution) of death metal and grindcore. Such powerfully affective music via its continual global spread, offers as it did for the original tape-traders, a pleasurable and empowering communal/personal space for disempowered people throughout the globe. Further research into extreme metal tape-trading would require deeper exploration into other extreme metal subgenres, especially black metal, tape-traders situated outside of North America and Europe, women tape-traders as well as exploration of the phenomenon after the early 1990s.

Towards a Framework for Analyzing and Evaluating Servitization Potential: Case Study of ENVIE Loire

Part 4: Transition Towards Product-Service Systems

Transition to Product Service Systems: methodology based on scenarios identification, modelling and evaluation

Part 4: Transition Towards Product-Service Systems

Applying Platform Design to Improve Product-Service Systems Collaborative Development

Part 3: Product-Service Systems