Cultural measurement on whose terms? Critical friends as an experiment in participant-led evaluation

Critical Friends is an enquiry into the commissioning, planning and delivery of participatory art carried out by the people that such projects claim to empower. Participants become interviewers, researchers and evaluators, acting as ‘productive parasites’ to a process of socially-engaged art. Aims of social cohesion and active citizenship underpinned a series of publicly-funded art commissions in North Greenwich, London (2008-2011). The group of Critical Friends were residents of North Greenwich who came together to investigate what, why and how these socially engaged art projects were happening in their area. Did the projects reflect the ambitious aims to ‘stimulate debate to generate action and change’ and ‘develop connections and relations between people’? Facilitated by myself and Rebecca Maguire over three years, Critical Friends developed their own questions and methods for finding out. While participation and engagement is usually measured for such projects in terms of numbers of people who attend workshops, Critical Friends was a space for enacting a different kind of cultural measurement. The group focused on trying to find out the qualitative experiences of other participants and interrogated the underlying motives, targets and politics behind the commissions. They did this by acting as participant observers in the projects themselves and by interviewing artists, commissioners, board members, their neighbours and friends (http://criticalfriends.sophiehope.org.uk/)

Two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations in central Pb-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

The first measurement of two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations in central Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV at the Large Hadron Collider is presented. We observe a growing trend with energy now not only for the longitudinal and the outward but also for the sideward pion source radius. The pion homogeneity volume and the decoupling time are significantly larger than those measured at RHIC.Comment: 17 pages, 5 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 12, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/388

Suppression of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in central Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

Inclusive transverse momentum spectra of primary charged particles in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}$ = 2.76 TeV have been measured by the ALICE Collaboration at the LHC. The data are presented for central and peripheral collisions, corresponding to 0-5% and 70-80% of the hadronic Pb-Pb cross section. The measured charged particle spectra in $|\eta|<0.8$ and $0.3 < p_T < 20$ GeV/$c$ are compared to the expectation in pp collisions at the same $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$, scaled by the number of underlying nucleon-nucleon collisions. The comparison is expressed in terms of the nuclear modification factor $R_{\rm AA}$. The result indicates only weak medium effects ($R_{\rm AA} \approx$ 0.7) in peripheral collisions. In central collisions, $R_{\rm AA}$ reaches a minimum of about 0.14 at $p_{\rm T}=6$-7GeV/$c$ and increases significantly at larger $p_{\rm T}$. The measured suppression of high-$p_{\rm T}$ particles is stronger than that observed at lower collision energies, indicating that a very dense medium is formed in central Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages, 5 captioned figures, 3 tables, authors from page 10, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/98

Effects of hedgerows on sediment erosion in Three Gorges Dam Area, China

&nbsp;The Three Gorges Dam Area refers to the river section from Chongqing to Yichang on the Yangtze River, which has a drainage area of 75,098 kin 2, and involves 19 cities and counties. Contour hedgerows have been used in this area to control soil erosion and to improve hillslope stability in the catchment of this river section. Five experimental hedgerow plots were established in 1994 in order to study the effects of hedgerows on erosion control. During the period of 1994-1997, runoff and soil loss data were collected on these test plots, including the chemical and physical properties of soil and related topographical data. The results indicate that: (1) after 4 years of cultivation and crop planting, soil fertility increased dramatically in the hedgerow plots. Soil organic matter, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus contents in the hedgerow plots were 5-9 times higher than that in the control plot. In each of the hedgerow plots, soil structure became more stable, the quantity of granules larger than 0.02 mm increased and those finer than 0.02 min decreased; (2) All hedgerow plots showed a major effect on reducing soil loss and surface runoff; (3) Overland flow velocity along the upper portion of the hedgerow plots was greatly reduced due to hedgerow resistance, which explains the significant decrease in soil losses in hedgerow plots, despite the fact that the hedgerow plots and the control plots had the same total runoff

sardinia_tasmax_HadGEM2-ES_rcp4p5_2005-2099_daily.nc4

ISIMIP-2a climate data cutout provided for Sardinia in the framework of SIM4NEXU

sardinia_pr_NorESM1-M_rcp6p0_2006-2099_monthly.dat

ISIMIP-2a climate data cutout provided for Sardinia in the framework of SIM4NEXU

sardinia_tasmax_NorESM1-M_rcp8p5_2006-2099_monthly.dat

ISIMIP-2a climate data cutout provided for Sardinia in the framework of SIM4NEXU

sardinia_tasmax_GFDL-ESM2M_rcp8p5_2006-2099_monthly.dat

ISIMIP-2a climate data cutout provided for Sardinia in the framework of SIM4NEXU

sardinia_wind_MIROC-ESM-CHEM_historical_1961-2005_daily.nc4

ISIMIP-2a climate data cutout provided for Sardinia in the framework of SIM4NEXU

sardinia_wind_NorESM1-M_rcp4p5_2006-2099_daily.nc4

ISIMIP-2a climate data cutout provided for Sardinia in the framework of SIM4NEXU