Art-mapping smart-cities: accessing art collections outside the museum

PublishedArticlePaper presented at the international conference, Museums and the Web Florence (MWF2014) held in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy 19 to 21 February 2014In this paper I will discuss the outreach potential of those mobile museum applications that relate art collections to places on a digital map and in the real world, at first focusing my attention on a specific crowd-sourcing application and on a case study that illustrates its usage, then making more general observations on the related constructivist learning experience and recommendations on how to effectively adapt it to the city of Florence’s historical context. I will start describing the affordances of the Art Maps web-based application, a research project funded by Horizon and led by researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Nottingham in collaboration with the departments of Learning, Digital and Research at Tate, London. Such application allows users to access the Tate collection through a digital map from a desktop or mobile device, and invites them to comment on an artwork and either confirm its proposed location, or suggest a new one according to their prior knowledge and experience of a place or an artwork, in a crowdsourcing exercise that aims at mapping a total of 70,000 works around the world. I will then present the Migrants Resource Centre’s case study, recounting activities run at and around Tate Britain in November 2013 by the Art Maps Research Team and aimed at a group of women recently migrated to London from non-European countries. Through the Art Maps application, participants were encouraged to use artworks from the Tate collection as landmarks, to get familiar with their area of residence and foster their orientation skills both on a digital map and in the real world, but also to tap into their knowledge and experience of the borough to interpret selected Tate artworks and precisely mark them on the map. Using a co-constructivist framework, I will then discuss the participants’ learning experience, focusing in particular on the possible changes in confidence in accessing the collection they experienced, and on the nature of the digital crowd-sourcing collaboration they embarked upon in order to exactly place Tate artworks on the map. My argument is that applications such as Art Maps constitute an effective way to flatten the perceived barrier of the museum as an elite’s stronghold, bringing collections to the more neutral territory of the places where communities dwell in. Along these lines, I will propose the idea of running similar activities in Florence and illustrate some of the many ways Art Maps can effectively intertwine the city’s cultural heritage with artworks from the Tate collection. Attendees will be invited to access the application and contribute to it with their knowledge of the city, or use it to explore its historically rich areas. In conclusion, through this paper I intend to demonstrate how the relationship between art and place, experienced through flexible digital technologies greatly enhances the quality of engagement that community groups may experience, and encourages them to visit the museum in real life

The phenomenology of depression

The phenomenological method, characterized by the suspension of judgment (epoché), has helped analyzing the subjective experience of patients affected by mental disorders. Psychiatry, dealing with the human being itself in its complexity and unicity, is placed between the biological positivistic attempt, for which the symptoms of mental illness are a mere consequence of brain dysfunctions and the phenomenological-existential approach, inclined to consider the symptoms as meaningful phenomena of the person’s subjective experience. Eugène Minkowski, Ludwig Binswanger, Arthur Tatossian, Kimura Bin, Henri Maldiney and Hubertus Tellenbach are fundamental authors in the phenomenological psychopathology of depression; they described the alterations of the lived time, space, body and others experienced by the depressed. Starting from the main theoretical contributions of the authors, we will focus on the psychopathology and discuss the key themes of clinical depression: guilt, poverty and hypochondriasis. Finally we will focus on the typus melancholicus construct

Stem cell transplantation for aplastic anemia and myelodysplastic syndrome

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The impact of early-life stress in the development and course of bipolar disorder: Mechanisms and implications

Traumatic events experienced throughout the different stages of childhood and adolescence are frequent circumstances with a detrimental impact on the physical and psychological health of the individual. A growing body of evidence shows the trauma-related effects on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the sympathetic nervous system, the serotonin system, the immune system, on brain development, structure, and connectivity. Interestingly, a relation was found between early life stress and Bipolar Disorder: the patients who were exposed to childhood trauma showed a worsened course of the disorder with poor clinical and psychopathological factors. According to the kindling hypothesis, early environmental stressors interact with the genetic susceptibility through epigenetic mechanisms, making the subject more vulnerable to milder stressors, and lowering the threshold for the occurrence of subsequent mood episodes. Understanding these processes is crucial to the discovery of new targets of treatment to reduce or, possibly, revert the effect of early life stress on bipolar disorder

Dynamics of two coupled vortices in a spin valve nanopillar excited by spin transfer torque

We investigate the dynamics of two coupled vortices driven by spin transfer. We are able to independently control with current and perpendicular field, and to detect, the respective chiralities and polarities of the two vortices. For current densities above $J=5.7*10^7 A/cm^2$, a highly coherent signal (linewidth down to 46 kHz) can be observed, with a strong dependence on the relative polarities of the vortices. It demonstrates the interest of using coupled dynamics in order to increase the coherence of the microwave signal. Emissions exhibit a linear frequency evolution with perpendicular field, with coherence conserved even at zero magnetic field

Multiphase, multifunctional micro- and nano-structured electrocatalytic materials for green chemistry: applications to energy conversion and environmental protection

The development of new electrocatalytic materials for the exploitation of renewable energy sources and the treatment of wastes is a key issue in the optics of the sustainable development of human activities. In this context, the electrochemical research focuses on efficient energy conversion systems and environmental protection devices. Recently, the use of Unitised Reversible Fuel Cell (URFC) as energy conversion device, which combine water electrolysis and fuel cell systems in the same apparatus, has been proposed. URFCs have a high specific energy and allow the production and storage of H2 which can be used on demand. The core of this technology is the electrode material that has to catalyse both the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Disperse phase electrode materials, based on nano-structured SnO2-IrO2 mixed oxides synthesized by sol-gel technique, have been revealed to be good electrocatalysts for oxygen reactions and they have been describe in term of synthesis procedure and physico-chemical and electrochemical characterization. The synthesized materials were initially characterized by physico-chemical techniques (XRPD, SEM, XPS and BET) and by voltamperometric investigations using different supports (C-ME, RDE and Ti-plate). The reactivity of powders toward OER and ORR was investigated recording U vs I using in-house designed electrolytic cells and a RDE system. The characterization of the materials led to the selection of the most effective synthetic route (the Impregnation method) to produce powders with very interesting characteristics. More specifically, the powder with the lowest IrO2 content exhibits the highest accessibility of active sites and the highest active area. This corresponds, in oxygen\u2013saturated solution, to higher cathodic currents correlated to the oxygen reduction reaction. In the second part of this Thesis micro- and nano-structured electrocatalytic metals were also investigated for the electroreductive degradation of Volatile Organic Halogenated (VOH), which represent a class of highly toxic molecules. The research has focused on the electrocatalytic properties of silver-based materials. Different types of silver electrodes, obtained from powders or by electrodeposition, were synthesized and electrochemical characterized using CHCl3 as a model substrate. A first study was carried out by means of cyclic voltammetry in CH3CN on electrodeposited Ag (electrolytic baths: KAg(CN)2 and AgNO3), and commercially available silver micro-sized powder. Considering the peak multiplicity and position it is possible to affirm that between the electrolytic baths, the AgNO3 provides the more active surface. In particular the peak multiplicity suggests the presence of extremely active sites and the reduction of trichloromethane proceeds to complete hydrodehalogenation. The silver micro-sized powder was also characterized in aqueous solution and was compared with Ag nanoparticles, synthesised by the chemical-reduction method and supported on active carbon at low Ag content (10wt%). The use of powders allows the setting up of tridimensional electrodes, a feature especially interesting when treating large volume of dilute solutions. Silver nano-particles allow also to reduce the silver loading without appreciable lowering of the electrocatalytic activity of the composite electrode. In conclusion the IrO2-SnO2 powders, synthetized by sol-gel technique with low content of IrO2 exhibit promising futures for OER/ORR and silver nano-particles allow to reduce the silver loading without appreciable lowering of the electrocatalytic activity

Biomassa e teores de nutrientes da serrapilheira e caracterização do solo em sistema agroflorestal de castanheira-do-brasil e cupuaçuzeiro em Porto Velho, Rondônia.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a produção de serrapilheira e nutrientes presentes na mesma e no solo em um sistema agroflorestal de castanheira-do-brasil e cupuaçuzeiro, em Porto Velho, Rondônia

Otimização das técnicas de PCR e RFLP para o gene tbpA de Haemophilus parasuis.

Projeto/Plano de Ação: 03.07.05.017

Effects of in-hospital diuretic therapy on electrolytes concentration, renal function and survival in 85 dogs with acute congestive heart failure

Critically hill patients with acute congestive heart failure (CHF) may often show haemoconcentration, dysnatremia, dyskalemia and increased azotemia, due to aggressive diuretic therapy. Haemocon-centration is associated with lower risk of mortality, while dysnatremia and dyskalemia are associated with higher mortality in human medicine. The aim of this study was to retrospectively evaluate the impact of in-hospital diuretic therapy for CHF on selected laboratory parameters and long-term mortality. Dogs with clinical and radiological evidence of CHF confirmed by echocardiography were included. Blood samples collected through out the hospitalization at presentation (T0) and discharge (T1) were: venous blood gas analysis (VBGA), serum creatinine (sCr), blood ureanitrogen (BUN), microhematocrit (Htc) and total proteins (TP). Length of hospital stay, ACVIM class and other clinical indices were recorded. Haemoconcentration was defined as a simultaneous increase in Htc and total protein. A total of 85 dogs (45 male and 40 female; mean age 11.07 \ue003 2.54 years; mean weight 8.86 \ue003 6.92 kg) were included. Thirty-six dogshad previous episodes of CHF. Mean length of in-hospital stay was 31.15 \ue003 17.35 hours. Treatment protocol included a single furosemide endovenous bolus at 2 mg/kg followed by multiple 1 mg/kg bolus/hour until respiratory rate reach 40 respiratory rate. Each dog received 8.6 \ue003 2.8 mg/kg and 11.1 \ue003 2.9 mg/kg furosemide in 24 and 48 hours respectively. Ten dogs received higher furosemide doses or torasemide bolus. Haemoconcentration was reached in the 33% of dogs. Considering the VBGA and biochemistry results, the number of dogs showing extra-range values (T0-T1) were respectively: hyponatremia (10-23), hypernatremia (13-17), hypokalemia (18-30), hyperkalemia (10-10), hypocloremia (46-61), increased BUN (26-34), increased sCr (3-8). Fourty-one dogs experienced cardiac death, 12 during hospitalization, the remaining dogs between 3 and 721 days after admission. Stepwise backward regression demonstrated haemoconcentration (HR 0.33) and disnatremia (HR 2.85) influence over outcome. Statisti-cally significant correlation (Pearson) was seen between furosemide dose and kalemia (r = 120.32, P = 0.014) and between BUN and sCr (r = 0.27, P = 0.021). No correlation was seen between furosemide dose and the variables sCr, BUN, Htc and between sCr and Htc. In conclusion, haemoconcentration and disnatremia affected the out-come in dogs with CHF. Haemoconcentration was associated withlower risk of mortality and had to be considered a target in CHF therapy. In-hospital diuretic therapy increased electrolyte disorder due to loop diuretics inhibition of the renal Na, K, Cl cotransporter in the Henle's loop and disnatremia was a risk factor for adverse outcome. Diuretics doses and haemoconcentration didn't play a direct role in inducing renal disfunction