Bare nothingness: Situated subjects in embodied artists' systems

This chapter examines the current state of digital artworks, arguing that they have not yet made a groundbreaking impact on the cultural landscape of the 21st century and suggesting that a reason for this lack of notoriety is the obsolete model of agency deployed by many digital artists. As an alternative to what is framed as out-of-date forms of interactivity, the chapter highlights evolving research into interactive systems, artists' tools, applications, and techniques that will provide readers with an insightful and up-to-date examination of emerging multimedia technology trends. In particular, the chapter looks at situated computing and embodied systems, in which context-aware models of human subjects can be combined with sensor technology to expand the agencies at play in interactive works. The chapter connects these technologies to Big Data, Crowdsourcing and other techniques from artificial intelligence that expand our understanding of interaction and participation

Report of the Stanford Linked Data Workshop

The Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) with the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) conducted at week-long workshop on the prospects for a large scale, multi-national, multi-institutional prototype of a Linked Data environment for discovery of and navigation among the rapidly, chaotically expanding array of academic information resources. As preparation for the workshop, CLIR sponsored a survey by Jerry Persons, Chief Information Architect emeritus of SULAIR that was published originally for workshop participants as background to the workshop and is now publicly available. The original intention of the workshop was to devise a plan for such a prototype. However, such was the diversity of knowledge, experience, and views of the potential of Linked Data approaches that the workshop participants turned to two more fundamental goals: building common understanding and enthusiasm on the one hand and identifying opportunities and challenges to be confronted in the preparation of the intended prototype and its operation on the other. In pursuit of those objectives, the workshop participants produced:1. a value statement addressing the question of why a Linked Data approach is worth prototyping;2. a manifesto for Linked Libraries (and Museums and Archives and …);3. an outline of the phases in a life cycle of Linked Data approaches;4. a prioritized list of known issues in generating, harvesting & using Linked Data;5. a workflow with notes for converting library bibliographic records and other academic metadata to URIs;6. examples of potential “killer apps” using Linked Data: and7. a list of next steps and potential projects.This report includes a summary of the workshop agenda, a chart showing the use of Linked Data in cultural heritage venues, and short biographies and statements from each of the participants

Using attribution theory to understand resilience for looked after children.

Children and young people in Public Care are one of the most at risk groups for educational failure and poor life outcomes (NCH, 2005). There is now a wealth of literature detailing predictive risk factors across a range of populations and outlining factors which contribute to resilient, adaptive outcomes in the face of risk factors (e.g. Rutter, 1990 Fonagy et al., 1994). In addition, an understanding of the processes and mechanisms involved is necessary in order to identify which, if any, of the many attributes and/or circumstances that correlate with resilience may be critical targets for effective prevention and intervention. Attributions, the causes given to events, are considered to be powerful determinants of our future actions (see Fosterling, 2001). Drawing on attribution theory and conceptualisations of optimism and self-efficacy, this research uses the Leeds Attributional Coding System (LACS) to compare high and low resilience looked after youngsters' perceptions of positive and negative events in educational, social and home contexts. Resilience was associated with how positive events were construed. High resilience (HR) youngsters made more positive attributions and tended to perceive the causes of positive outcomes optimistically, i.e. causes were relatively unchanging and wide reaching. Low resilience (LR) youngsters saw these causes as unstable and specific. HR adolescents tended to make self-efficacious controllable attributions for internal causes. LR young people were more negative about peer and carer/parent relationships, and views of school, suggesting that perceptions of more everyday contexts are more influential in resilience than major life events, such as changing school or placement, and that relationships are a key factor in positive adaptation. Furthermore, looked after adolescents tend to see themselves more frequently than non-looked after adolescents as the target of others actions. However, HR looked after youngsters are more likely to view others' actions positively