State of Civil Society 2013: Creating an Enabling Environment

Welcome to the second edition of the State of Civil Society report produced by CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. This report is not ours alone. The 2013 State of Civil Society report draws from nearly 50 contributions made by people active in civil society all over the world -- from our members, friends, partners, supporters and others in the CIVICUS alliance. They contributed 31 new pieces of analysis and thinking on the state of civil society. Our analysis also benefits from 16 responses to a questionnaire from national civil society platforms that are members of either our Affinity Group of National Associations (AGNA), or the International Forum of National NGO Platforms (IFP). Together, their contributions, published at http://socs.civicus.org, form the full report. Our summary report is a synthesis of this impressive array of perspectives. We believe that together their contributions offer a body of critical, cutting edge thinking about the changing state of contemporary civil society. We thank them for their efforts and continuing support. It is also important to acknowledge in this report the work of coalitions such as the Open Forum for CSO Development Effectiveness and BetterAid, and the subsequent CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness, in bringing together many CSOs working in the development sphere in recent years to advance the debate on civil society's contributions to development effectiveness, including on the issue of the enabling conditions for civil society that are a necessary part of increasing CSO effectiveness. This report is also intended as a contribution to those wider efforts, in which we at CIVICUS are happy to be active partners

Optical paddle-wheel

As an optically trapped micro-object spins in a fluid, there is a consequent flow in the fluid.. Since a free-floating optically-driven microrotor can be moved to a desired position, it can allow the controlled application of a directed flow in a particular location. Here we demonstrate the control and rotation of such a device, an optical paddle-wheel, using a multiple-beam trap. In contrast to the usual situation where rotation is around the beam axis, here we demonstrate rotation normal to this axis

O ARTEFATO IRREDUTÍVEL

The ideal of transparency in interface design is questioned on basis of postphenomenological studies in the field of philosophy of technology. It is argued that technologies establish several types of user relations, without ever becoming completely transparent to human experience. A study of the iPhone gives the analysis empirical suport.O ideal da transparência no design de interfaces é questionado com base em estudos pós-fenomenológicos no campo da filosofia da tecnologia. Argumenta-se que tecnologias estabelecem diversos tipos de relação com usuários sem nunca se tornarem completamente transparente à experiência humana. Um estudo do iPhone dá suporte empírico à análise

Interface, Mobile-Text and Modalities of Mobile Phones

Mobile phone has evolved from a voice-only medium into multimedia. Unfortunately, studies on mobile phones thus far have been unable to keep pace with developments in technology and service marketing. As a result, there are some biased tendencies in present day social and academic discourses on mobile phones. First, the marketing discourses are placing a strong emphasis on the technical developments of the mobile media. Second, there is a strong tendency in academic discourse to regard mobile phones as simply 'phones', namely a mono-medium. Thus, existing marketing and academic discourses have been incapable of providing a thorough understanding on the substance of the mobile phone. Only by understanding the media characteristics of the mobile phones can we understand its substance. In this context, I will attempt to approach this medium in three venues: interface, mobile-text, and modalities