643 research outputs found

    Social and Institutional Innovation in Self-Organising Cities

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    Today’s scenario is characterized by a global connectivity space where uninterrupted streams of information, people, and goods flow, through multi-scale socio-economic processes. All of this requires rethinking well-accepted mental frames as individual capabilities, businesses actions, social and spatial agglomerations evolve in a new and unceasingly changing landscape. This book contributes to the debate on how cities are redefined in relation to the global connective space and the so-called knowledge-based economy. The authors explore the variable set of functional changes, which are intrinsically linked to the multiplicity of multi-scale processes. The book contains the proceedings of the conference “New sciences and actions for complex cities (Florence, Italy 14-15 December 2017)”

    Safety by design in Danish construction

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    The Rhetoric of Prostitution in Victorian England

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    This dissertation interrogates the network of social ideas and agents that rhetorically constructed the female prostitute through configurations of space and identity while participating in rhetorics of professionalization. While considering genre as cultural artifact (product) and social action (process), selected texts from diverse genres are analyzed, making transparent their claims about prostitution as articulated through representations of identity and space. Quite often, these claims were postulated through invocations of "contagion," which, as a cultural screen, operated to direct an audience's attention and interpretation. In addition, during the Victorian period, disciplines employed points of reference, like the prostitute, that within the dominant cultural codes facilitated their professionalization and carved their niches in the cultural milieu. Each chapter of this work analyzes a different genre (newspaper articles, medical treatises, and fictional works, respectively) to demonstrate how contagion anxieties influenced what the prostitute represented and how she was used rhetorically. This study is one of process and product, as spaces and identities are defined by expectations, functions, and locations. The spatial rhetorics of a genre define the dynamics between text, location, and conceptions of identity. This interdisciplinary study examines how the deployment of these ideas performs a social mapping and uses the prostitute as a navigational marker to guide readers' internalization of textual worlds and subsequent formation of knowledge

    Mapping Dynamic Relations in Sound and Space Perception

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    The research investigates the dynamic relations between sound, space and the audience perception as related to an artist’s intention. What is the relation between sound and space in the sonic arts, and to what kind of merger does it lead? What relationship exists between the intention of the composer and the perception of the audience regarding architectural and environmental spaces? Is there a common thread of perception of architectural and environmental spaces among participants? Is embodiment a key for the perception of the dynamic relations of sound and space? The framework for the investigation is based on a map of three defined spaces (Real, Virtual, and Hyperbiological) included in a portfolio of six works (three electroacoustic compositions, two sound installations, and one performance), which lead to the analysis of the perception of space, namely, the perception of architectural and environmental spaces as required by the portfolio. The original knowledge resides in the exploration of a potential common representation (space and sound perception being, of course, a personal representation) of internal perceptual spaces and mental imageries generated by the works. The act of listening plays a major role in the development of the portfolio presented and includes Pauline Oliveros’ concept of deep listening (Oliveros 2005). Sound and space are intimately related in the portfolio. One particular element emerging from this relationship is the plastic quality of sound, meaning that sound is considered and observed as a material that is shaped by space. From this perspective the research investigates the ‘sculptural’ and morphological quality of the relationship between sound and space. The results include the specific language and signature of the artworks that delineate the intersection of music and fine arts. The portfolio pays a large tribute to several iconic artists present in the outposts of sound blurred by space. Composers and artists are therefore presented in the theoretical section in order to highlight how their pioneering works have influenced and informed the present research portfolio. The analysis of the perception of the artworks relates to a methodology based on an empirical survey inspired by phenomenology

    Boston inside out: a brothel, a boardinghouse, and the construction of the 19th-century North End's urban landscape through embodied practice

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    This dissertation examines how the urban landscape of mid-19th-century Boston's North End was constructed and understood—physically, socially, and culturally—by the city's different social groups. Over the course of the 19th century, Boston's North End gained a reputation as a "slum" characterized by its deteriorating buildings, overcrowded housing, and immoral immigrant population—a stereotype that did not reflect the reality of the neighborhood's working-class residents. The dissertation identifies specific experiences, practices, and perceptions that created different understandings of the same physical space. This study makes a significant contribution to the understanding of urban landscapes by incorporating tangible artifacts excavated from domestic contexts in analyzing intangible social processes by employing a practice theory-based framework that interweaves archaeological and historical data to address social structures on multiple spatial scales: Boston as a macro-scale landscape; the medium-scale North End neighborhood; and micro-scale individual actions. The archaeological data analyzed for viii the study originated from two ca. 1850–1880 privy deposits associated with working-class North End households: a brothel/tenement at 27–29 Endicott Street and a boardinghouse at 19–21 North Square. To interpret these data within their historical and cultural context, city directory and census records are cross-referenced with Boston Valuation List tax records to compile a database of residential and commercial activity between 1850 and 1880 on the blocks surrounding these sites. The research shows how the conceptualization of the North End as a "slum" was constructed by middle-class and elite observers to assign personal responsibility to the poor for the structural poverty endemic to a capitalist economy and also to facilitate the development of their own class identities. Archaeological analysis reveals that North End residents constructed their neighborhood landscape by enacting household practices in public spaces, creating a sense of familiarity and control. They re-appropriated objects usually associated with middle-class culture by using them in unintended ways, creating new symbols and values that helped form a distinct working-class culture. By dressing and behaving in public in ways that subverted dominant social norms, working-class Bostonians used their bodies to create an urban landscape in which they and their culture could thrive

    Social disadvantage and the role of physical education and sport-for-all in young people at Cyprus and Greece: discourse of social class, gender and race

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    Global austerity and prolonged recession have made social disadvantage prominent in young people’s lives, thus the call for the prevention and tackling of the phenomenon appears urgent (Dagkas, 2018). In particular, evidence suggests that Physical Education (PE) as well as Sport-for-All programmes (SfA) can have a life-changing impact on young people who experience social disadvantage (EU EDUHEALTH, 2017-2019; Dagkas and Hunter, 2015). Although investment in these two ‘sections’ of sport has been extensive, not all countries have access to them and at times, the desirable ‘life-changing’ impact does not emerge (WHO, 2013). This research study seeks to explore the views of young people living in Nicosia/Cyprus and Athens/Greece on PE and SfA programmes with the aim of addressing relevant issues linked to social disadvantage and particularly to social class, gender and ethnicity. It examines how such programmes change, shape, influence and impact upon young people’s social disadvantage. This cross-cultural, qualitative study follows a case-study research design complemented by ethnographic elements. Intersectionality is the research paradigm of the study and the theoretical framework that informs this study is rooted in the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler and Critical Race Theory. The qualitative data was collected from research work in two ‘disadvantaged’, secondary schools in Athens and Nicosia, by employing focus-group interviews with students, PE lesson observations, analysis of policy documents and the diary of the researcher. Thematic Analysis was the primary tool for data analysis. Findings indicate that: (a) young people interpret social disadvantage in multi-faceted ways; (b) the role of PE and SfA is positive, yet under certain circumstances; (c) effective PE and SfA programmes are suggested to be ‘for-all’, free-of-charge, complemented with modern and trendy activities delivered by appropriately-trained PE teachers
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