Working together to protect crowded places:a consultation document

Aims to help local partners understand their role and the contributions they can make to reducing the vulnerability of crowded places at risk to terrorist attack by incorporating counter terrorist protective security advice into their existing work to improve community safety. Provides advice about how risk will be assessed and local performance managed and explains the roles of key partners in delivering reductions in the vulnerabilities of crowded places to terrorist attack.

One's own country and familiar places in the mind's eye:different topological representations for navigational and non-navigational contents

Visual mental imagery is a process that draws on different cognitive abilities and is affected by the contents of mental images. Several studies have demonstrated that different brain areas subtend the mental imagery of navigational and non-navigational contents. Here, we set out to determine whether there are distinct representations for navigational and geographical images. Specifically, we used a Spatial Compatibility Task (SCT) to assess the mental representation of a familiar navigational space (the campus), a familiar geographical space (the map of Italy) and familiar objects (the clock). Twenty-one participants judged whether the vertical or the horizontal arrangement of items was correct. We found that distinct representational strategies were preferred to solve different categories on the SCT, namely, the horizontal perspective for the campus and the vertical perspective for the clock and the map of Italy. Furthermore, we found significant effects due to individual differences in the vividness of mental images and in preferences for verbal versus visual strategies, which selectively affect the contents of mental images. Our results suggest that imagining a familiar navigational space is somewhat different from imagining a familiar geographical space. © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

A sphere of resonance for networked learning in the ‘non-places’ of our universities

The logic of ‘time’ in modern capitalist society appears to be a fixed concept. Time dictates human activity with a regularity, which as long ago as 1944, George Woodcock referred to as The Tyranny of the Clock. Seventy years on, Hartmut Rosa suggests humans no longer maintain speed to achieve something new, but simply to preserve the status quo, in a ‘social acceleration’ that is lethal to democracy. Political engagement takes time we no longer have, as we rush between our virtual spaces and ‘non-places’ of higher education. I suggest it’s time to confront the conspirators that, in partnership with the clock, accelerate our social engagements with technology in the context of learning. Through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) I reveal an alarming situation if we don’t. With reference to Bauman’s Liquid Modernity, I observe a ‘lightness’ in policy texts where humans have been ‘liquified’ Separating people from their own labour with technology in policy maintains the flow of speed a neoliberal economy demands. I suggest a new ‘solidity’ of human presence is required as we write about networked learning. ‘Writing ourselves back in’ requires a commitment to ‘be there’ in policy and provide arguments that decelerate the tyranny of time. I am though ever-mindful that social acceleration is also of our own making, and there is every possibility that we actually enjoy it.

Mobile Applications for Cultural and Historical Places

A review of free applications of smartphones working under the operation system of Android is made in the paper. The applications present users information about historical and cultural places of interest at travelling. There are three main groups of applications subject of discussion in the paper – world, national and regional. Their abilities, positive and negative characteristics are compares and described. A conclusion can be made that there is a necessity of new application that presents tourists detailed information about the Old capital of Bulgaria.

La "BICtitis" o la alergia social (¿o sólo política?) a la protección de los bienes culturales de carácter territorial : reflexiones y propuestas a partir del caso de la Vega de Granada.

La comunicación que presentamos se basa en el importante movimiento ciudadano desarrollado en defensa de la Vega de Granada para reflexionar sobre un aspecto que nos parece cada vez más preocupante: la falta de un consenso social, cuando no rechazo, sobre la protección de los bienes culturales de carácter territorial, especialmente los paisajes culturales, mediante la legislación de Patrimonio Cultural. Este rechazo, que hemos denominado BICtitis, está teniendo un impacto significativo en los principios de protección del Patrimonio Cultural: el predominio de los instrumentos de planificación urbana y territorial sobre las declaraciones de Patrimonio, la naturalización de los bienes culturales territoriales o la excesiva importancia otorgada a la opinión de la población afectada. Una vez identificados todos estos efectos nocivos, realizamos una serie de propuestas para defender la validez de la utilización de la legislación del Patrimonio Cultural en la preservación de los bienes de carácter territorial.

Modelos historiográficos latinos en la Historia de la Guerra de Granada de Diego Hurtado de Mendoza

Se analizan los modelos que basándose en los historiadores latinos (fundamentalmente Salustio y Tácito) utiliza Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1503-1575) al escribir su monografía acerca de la Rebelión de las Alpujarras (1568-1571).

Viking Age gold and silver from Irish crannogs and other watery places

It has been observed that Viking Age gold finds in Scandinavia and Britain are frequently associated with watery environments and may represent ritual or votive depositions. There is also evidence, literary and archaeological, for the ritual deposition of some silver hoards in the Viking world. This paper considers the evidence of those Viking Age gold and silver hoards and single finds from Ireland that derive from watery locations, including crannogs and their environs. It is noted that all recorded gold hoards, with one exception, have an apparent association with water or watery places and thus conform to the patterns noted elsewhere. Most of the crannog finds, which are invariably of silver, are from the midland region, and it is noted that a high proportion of them contain ingots and hack-silver and are thus most probably economic rather than ritual in function. It is suggested that these types of hoards evidence a close economic relationship between the Hiberno-Scandinavians of Dublin and the Southern Uí Néill rulers of this area. Some of the remaining silver hoards—from bogs, rivers, lakes, small islands and shorelines—which vary in terms of their contents, with both complete ornaments and hack-silver being represented, may have been ritually deposited, but this is difficult to establish with any degree of certainty. A general discussion of ritual hoarding is presented, and it is concluded that this practice may have been more commonplace than has generally been accepted to date and that some, at least, of the ‘watery’ finds from Ireland were indeed deposited in a ritual context.

Dark Places Catalogue (First ed.)

Exhibition Catalogue of Dark Places. As one of four co-curators, I worked with John Hansard to produce the publication. The catalogue contains additional information on artists, the positioning of the work with a commissioned essay by Sally O'Reilly. In addition to a descriptive entry on the Dark Places database,as Director of Office of Experiments we also designed Research Tools for independent researchers wishing to undertake work in the field. This included an ID card, with observational notes that correspond to the taxonomy of the database and a researched guide to legal issues for documenting and photographing secret sites.