Information and communication technologies for development : examples from India and Uganda. 'Tecnologías de la información y la comunicación para el desarrollo : ejemplos en India y Uganda'.

Monográfico con el título: 'La Alfabetización Tecnológica y el desarrollo regional'. Resumen basado en el de la publicación

Conversations about self-identity in Alzheimer disease : Argumentative and Alternative Communication memory books as an aid

Resumen basado en el de la publicaci??n

The effects of information and communication technologies on the banking sector and the payments system

This dissertation studies the effects of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on the banking sector and the payments system. It provides insight into how technology-induced changes occur, by exploring both the nature and scope of main technology innovations and evidencing their economic implications for banks and payment systems. Some parts in the dissertation are descriptive. They summarise the main technological developments in the field of finance and link them to economic policies. These parts are complemented with sections of the study that focus on assessing the extent of technology application to banking and payment activities. Finally, it includes also some work which borrows from the economic literature on banking. The need for an interdisciplinary approach arises from the complexity of the topic and the rapid path of change to which it is subject. The first chapter provides an overview of the influence of developments in ICT on the evolution of financial services and international capital flows. We include main indicators and discuss innovation in the financial sector, exchange rates and international capital flows. The chapter concludes with impact analysis and policy options regarding the international financial architecture, some monetary policy issues and the role of international institutions. The second chapter is a technology assessment study that focuses on the relationship between technology and money. The application of technology to payments systems is transforming the way we use money and, in some instances, is blurring the definition of what constitutes money. This chapter surveys the developments in electronic forms of payment and their relationship to the banking system. It also analyses the challenges posed by electronic money for regulators and policy makers, and in particular the opportunities created by two simultaneous processes: the Economic and Monetary Union and the increasing use of electronic payment instruments. The third chapter deals with the implications of developments in ICT on relationship banking. The financial intermediation literature explains relationship banking as a type of financial intermediation characterised by proprietary information and multiple interactions with customers. This form of banking is important for the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises. We discuss the effects of ICT on the banking sector as a whole and then apply these developments to the case of relationship banking. The fourth chapter is an empirical study of the effects of technology on the banking business, using a sample of data from the Spanish banking industry. The design of the study is based on some of the events described in the previous chapters, and also draws from the economic literature on banking. The study shows that developments in information management have differential effects on wholesale and retail banking activities. Finally, the last chapter is a technology assessment study on electronic payments systems in Spain and the European Union. It contains an analysis of existing payment systems and ongoing or planned initiatives in Spain. It forms part of a broader project comprising a series of country-specific analyses covering ten European countries. The main issues raised across the countries serve as the starting point to discuss implications of the development of electronic money for regulation and policies, and in particular, for monetary-policy making.

Eye tracking data representation and visualization : on information and communication studies at CETAC.MEDIA

Eye tracking has become a preponderant technique in the evaluation of user interaction and behaviour with study objects in defined contexts. Common eye tracking related data representation techniques offer valuable input regarding user interaction and eye gaze behaviour, namely through fixations and saccades measurement. However, these and other techniques may be insufficient for the representation of acquired data in specific studies, namely because of the complexity of the study object being analysed. This paper intends to contribute with a summary of data representation and information visualization techniques used in data analysis within different contexts (advertising, websites, television news and video games). Additionally, several methodological approaches are presented in this paper, which resulted from several studies developed and under development at CETAC.MEDIA - Communication Sciences and Technologies Research Centre. In the studies described, traditional data representation techniques were insufficient. As a result, new approaches were necessary and therefore, new forms of representing data, based on common techniques were developed with the objective of improving communication and information strategies. In each of these studies, a brief summary of the contribution to their respective area will be presented, as well as the data representation techniques used and some of the acquired results.

Museu : centro de educação comunitária ou contribuição ao ensino formal?

É com imensa satisfação que participo do I Simpósio sobre Museologia, na UFMG. Com a realização deste evento, pude constatar o entusiasmo e a garra dos profissionais que tiveram a iniciativa de instalar, nesta Universidade, O Museu de Ciências Morfológicas, que tem como objetivo, democratizar o ensino, abrir as fronteiras da Universidade, incentivar a realização de ações de ensino, pesquisa e extensão, de forma integrada, em diferentes níveis de ensino. Parabenizo, pois, a iniciativa, principalmente, por ter sido gestada por profissionais da área das ciências médicas, que muitas vezes nos fazem sentir como “pobres mortais”, diante da sapiência daqueles que dominam o nosso corpo e o analisam como um “ objeto à parte,” sem a devida contextualização, sobretudo, dos aspectos culturais. Com certeza, o Museu de Ciências Morfológicas da UFMG irá colaborar, efetivamente, com a necessária “humanização” da área médica, e para a indispensável integração entre a Universidade e a Comunidade.

Processo museológico: critérios de exclusão

Nos últimos anos, as reflexões em torno da construção do conhecimento, na área da museologia têm aumentado consideravelmente, permitindo-nos lançar vários olhares sobre as nossas ações, e, consequentemente, nos capacitando a estabelecer um debate mais amplo, em torno do nosso campo de atuação, diminuindo a nossa exclusão no meio acadêmico – museólogos reprodutores do conhecimento produzido em outras áreas. No presente trabalho, abordaremos algumas questões relacionadas ao processo museológico, tomando como referencial vários estudos sobre o tema, que, devido ao tempo destinado à presente mesa-redonda, não poderiam ser reapresentados para discussão, mesmo porque, em publicação de nossa autoria, intitulada “Processo Museológico e Educação: construindo um museu didático-Comunitário”, destinamos um capítulo a essa abordagem. Optamos por fazer uma reflexão sobre a exclusão, olhando para o interior da instituição museu e para a aplicação dos processos museológicos; ou seja, realizando uma autocrítica, na qual me incluo, efetuando uma análise, que será aqui debatida, considerando, também, que os museus e as práticas museológicas estão em relação com as demais práticas sociais globais, portanto, são o resultado das relações humanas, em cada momento histórico.

A formação do museólogo e o seu campo de atuação

Foi com prazer que recebi o convite para participar do XV Congresso Nacional de Museus, promovido pela Associação Brasileira de Museologia, para apresentar as minhas reflexões sobre um tema que considero da maior relevância, qual seja “A Formação do Museólogo e o seu Campo de Atuação”, inserindo-o no tema geral proposto para este evento, “Museu & Museologia para o Século XXI – perspectivas para Países Periféricos”. Agradeço, pois, aos colegas organizadores do evento, pela possibilidade de troca, de avaliação da formação dos profissionais, para a qual estamos contribuindo, ao tempo em que, estamos, também, tendo a oportunidade de avaliar a nossa atuação.

Museologial action's main fields

Museology has emerged and has been organised as a field of knowledge, precisely to frame the technical, theoretical and methodological aspects, regarding the constitution, implementation and evaluation of the processes that societies establish for the selection, treatment and extroversion of the memory indicators, transforming them into patrimonial references and projecting them into the constitutive fields of cultural heritage. It is therefore, one of the areas of knowledge that deals with the framing of heritage and their professionals are agents of memory education. The constitution of the parameters that define and delimit the museological action field has been outlined in the course of the centuries, if we consider the technical efforts related to the identification and organisation of collections, in addition to the curatorial treatment of specimens from nature, of objects, of the intangible heritage registers. The same length of elaboration is true if we evaluate the communication initiatives and of education of the senses.

Preservar e desenvolver em museologia, contributo para o estudo do objecto e do processo museológico

Este trabalho procurou uma resposta para a aparente contradição entre os actos de preservar e de desenvolver no trabalho museológico. E desejava, com essa resposta, obter uma compreensão mais profunda sobre a Museologia. Utilizando a metodologia de investigação “Grounded Theory” (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Ellen, 1992; Mark, 1996; Marshall & Rossman, 1999) adoptou a definição de museu dos Estatutos do ICOM (2001) como ponto de partida conceptual para o desenrolar da pesquisa. A - Com o esforço necessário à obtenção da resposta inicial o trabalho pôde alcançar os seguintes resultados: i) Discerniu as fases e a racionalidade do processo museológico, através do qual os objectos adquirem a “identidade patrimonial”. ii) Formulou o conceito de “objecto museológico” numa acepção distinta do de Património ou de “objecto patrimonial”, permitindo confirmar que a contradição formulada na hipótese inicial só poderia desaparecer, ou ser conciliada, num paradigma de trabalho museológico concebido como um acto de comunicação. iii) Propôs, em consequência, um diferente Programa para a orientação do trabalho museológico, demonstrando que garantiria ao património uma maior perenidade e transmissibilidade, sendo ainda capaz de incluir o património referente à materialidade, à iconicidade, à oralidade e à gestualidade dos objectos. iv) Propôs um Léxico de Conceitos capaz de justificar essas novas propostas. v) Sugeriu um índice de desenvolvimento museal (IDM = Σ ƒξ [IP.ID.IC] / CT.CR) para ser possível avaliar e quantificar o trabalho museológico. B – Para o objectivo de uma compreensão mais profunda da Museologia o trabalho alcançaria os seguintes resultados: vi) Verificou a necessidade de se dominarem competências de Gestão, para o trabalho museológico não se restringir apenas a um tipo de colecções ou de património. vii) Sugeriu, para ser possível continuar a investigar a Museologia como um novo ramo ou disciplina do saber, a necessidade estratégica de a ligar ao estudo mais vasto da Memória, apontando dois caminhos: Por um lado, considerar a herança filogenética dos “modos de guardar informações” entre os diferentes organismos e sistemas (Lecointre & Le Guyader, 2001). Por outro lado, considerar os constrangimentos ocorridos durante a ontogenia e a maturação individual que obrigam a ter em consideração, no processamento da memória e do património (codificação, armazenamento, evocação e recuperação, esquecimento), a biologia molecular da cognição (Squire & Kandel, 2002).

Transformative museology

“…we have to take into account the fact that museology and museums are two completely different things.” Martin R. Shärer[1] In the 20th century, growing populations produced a growing body of heritage. The transmission of this heritage to succeeding generations coalesced into three major modern institutions: universities, library/archives and museums. Traditional systems of social and cultural memory had become overloaded and therefore evolved conceptually. This evolution took place within the primary context of a naturally occurring museology through the process I call museogenesis. The term museogenesis refers to the origin and development of museological thought in a specific cultural context. By museological thought, I refer to ideas and theories surrounding the parameters of “the natural and cultural heritage, the activities concerned with the preservation and communication of this heritage, the institutional frame-work, and society as a whole” (Mensch 1992). This broadly inclusive definition relates museology to another broadly defined concept: cultural context. By cultural context, I refer to the “webs of significance and systems of meaning which is the collective property of a group” (Geertz 1973). [1] ICOFOM Study Series – ISS 34, 2003, ISS 34_03.pdf, p.7

Communication strategies used by children at a school for the deaf

This paper discusses a study to determine the communication strategies used by hearing impaired children and their effectiveness.

Clarification strategies in oral communication for the hearing impaired student

This paper reviews clarification strategies to help repair communication breakdowns in the hearing impaired.

Development of a student workbook in conjunction with the Communication Skills Training for Professionals and Paraprofessionals Program

This paper discusses Communication Skills Training for Professionals and Paraprofessionals (ComPro), a program that trains professionals and paraprofessionals to communicate more effectively with their hearing-impaired clientele. This study assesses the usefulness of the ComPro in-service program and student workbook.

Communication strategies used by teachers at a school for the deaf

This paper describes alternate approaches to communication with hearing-impaired children which are used by classroom teachers at a school for the deaf.

Training hearing adults in the use of communication strategies to prevent communication breakdowns with hearing impaired individuals: A pilot study

This paper discusses a pilot study and the use of repair strategies to aid in communication with the hearing impaired.