Teaching Participatory Design using Live Projects: Critical Reflections and Lessons Learnt

There are few examples of academic work that describe Participatory Design (PD) and Co-design instruction. This paper presents experiences from four years of teaching a university course on Co-design and PD to an average of 57 students per year. A main part of our pedagogical approach is the implementation of Donald Schön’s concept of a reflective practicum, via a mandatory ‘live’ project that runs for the whole semester. We discuss the potential and challenges of teaching PD and Co-design to large classes using live projects, including how to give students first-hand experience of the whole PD process, how to coach students in collecting and using field data, and what expectations of a Co-design process and its participants are realistic. The paper also examines how PD-related challenges affect teaching PD as an academic subject

Autumntide of the Middle Ages: a study of forms of life and thought of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in France and the Low Countries

This new English translation of Huizinga’s 'Autumntide of the Middle Ages' ('Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen') celebrates the centenary of a book that still ranks as one of the most perceptive and influential analyses of the late medieval period. Its wide-ranging discussion of fourteenth and fifteenth century France and the Low Countries makes it a classic study of life, culture, and thought in medieval society. The new and now unabridged translation of the original text captures the impact of Huizinga’s deep scholarship and powerful language. The translation is based on the Dutch edition of 1941 – the last edition Huizinga worked on. It features English renderings of the Middle French poems and other contemporary sources, and its colour illustrations include over three hundred paintings and prints, illuminated manuscripts, and miniatures pertinent to Huizinga’s discourse. A complete bibliography of Huizinga’s sources will facilitate further research, while an epilogue addresses the meaning and enduring importance of this classic work.Translator: Diane Web

The expression of creativity in learning how to read and write : a case study

O presente artigo tem por objetivo destacar as formas em que a criatividade se expressa na aprendizagem da leitura e da escrita da criança. Assume-se como referencial teórico a concepção de aprendizagem criativa desenvolvida por Mitjáns Martínez. Segundo essa concepção, os processos criativos emergem nos contextos de ação do sujeito, mediante recursos subjetivos constituídos historicamente e que se organizam no momento da ação concreta. A expressão desse tipo de aprendizagem tem se configurado pela personalização da informação, confrontação com o dado e pela geração, produção de ideias novas que vão além do que está posto. Adota-se como eixo norteador a pesquisa qualitativa, apoiada nos princípios da epistemologia qualitativa desenvolvida por González Rey, com opção pelo estudo de caso utilizando instrumentos abertos e semiabertos, tais como: dinâmicas conversacionais, observações, entrevistas como processo e diário de ideias. A investigação foi desenvolvida em uma escola da rede pública, com alunos dos primeiros e segundos anos do ensino fundamental, na qual acompanhamos os aprendizes por dois anos consecutivos. Como conclusão, considera-se que a expressão da criatividade na aprendizagem da leitura e da escrita foi significativamente apresentada pelas características destacadas por Mitjáns Martínez, bem como pela relação lúdica da criança com sua aprendizagem.This paper has the purpose of highlighting the ways through which creativity is expressed in the child´s learning of how to read and write. The theoretical assumption taken is the concept of creative learning developed by Mitjáns Martínez. According to such conception, the creative processes emerge in the context of the individual´s action, through subjective resources that are historically constructed and are organized in the moment of concrete action. The expression of this type of learning has been configured by the personalization of information, confrontation with the data, and by the generation and production of new ideas that go beyond what is taken for granted. The guiding axis adopted is qualitative research, supported by the principles of thequalitative epistemology developed by González Rey, with the option of conducting a case study utilizing open and semi-open tools, such as: conversational dynamics, observations, interviews as a process and a diary of ideas. The investigation took place in a public school, among 1st and 2nd graders, in which we monitored the learners for two years in a row. As a conclusion, we consider that the expression of creativity in learning how to read and write was significantly presented by the characteristics emphasized by the author mentioned above, as well as by the playful relationship of the child with his/her learning

Genome-Wide Association Study and Gene Expression Analysis Identifies CD84 as a Predictor of Response to Etanercept Therapy in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha (anti-TNF) biologic therapy is a widely used treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It is unknown why some RA patients fail to respond adequately to anti-TNF therapy, which limits the development of clinical biomarkers to predict response or new drugs to target refractory cases. To understand the biological basis of response to anti-TNF therapy, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analysis of more than 2 million common variants in 2,706 RA patients from 13 different collections. Patients were treated with one of three anti-TNF medications: etanercept (n = 733), infliximab (n = 894), or adalimumab (n = 1,071). We identified a SNP (rs6427528) at the 1q23 locus that was associated with change in disease activity score (ΔDAS) in the etanercept subset of patients (P = 8×10-8), but not in the infliximab or adalimumab subsets (P>0.05). The SNP is predicted to disrupt transcription factor binding site motifs in the 3′ UTR of an immune-related gene, CD84, and the allele associated with better response to etanercept was associated with higher CD84 gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (P = 1×10-11 in 228 non-RA patients and P = 0.004 in 132 RA patients). Consistent with the genetic findings, higher CD84 gene expression correlated with lower cross-sectional DAS (P = 0.02, n = 210) and showed a non-significant trend for better ΔDAS in a subset of RA patients with gene expression data (n = 31, etanercept-treated). A small, multi-ethnic replication showed a non-significant trend towards an association among etanercept-treated RA patients of Portuguese ancestry (n = 139, P = 0.4), but no association among patients of Japanese ancestry (n = 151, P = 0.8). Our study demonstrates that an allele associated with response to etanercept therapy is also associated with CD84 gene expression, and further that CD84 expression correlates with disease activity. These findings support a model in which CD84 genotypes and/or expression may serve as a useful biomarker for response to etanercept treatment in RA patients of European ancestry. © 2013 Cui et al

The Silent Conversation:Designing for Introspection and Social Play in Art Museums

This paper presents an attempt to design for a combination of social play and introspection using a ludic approach within an art museum setting. The field trial is described of a mobile web app called ‘Never let me go’, a two-player system enabling visitors to an art museum to create impromptu experiences in-situ for a companion. The study reveals that players used the app for communicating with each other during the visit, often without speaking. This led to deeply personal and introspective moments, as well as, lots of teasing and playing. The implications of allowing for social, personal and playful experiences in an art museum are discussed, as well as, the advantages and challenges of designing for improvisation

Linear narratives in cyclical form: the hunt for reason in the Cantigas de Santa Maria

Central to the world of thirteenth‐century Galician‐Portuguese song are the Cantigas de Santa Maria (CSM), on whose narrative cantigas de miragre this article focuses. These songs comprise alternations between a refrain and strophes that finish by reiterating the refrain's metre, rhymes and melody. Combining the strictly linear narrative of the miracle cantiga with this cyclical framework poses manifold complications. Self‐contained narrative logic is divided by interstrophic refrains, and chains of thought are divided by destabilising chains of interstrophic enjambment. This setup in the cantigas de miragre is rendered all the more curious given that few comparable instances of cyclical structure and linear narrative occur elsewhere in late‐medieval vernacular repertoire. In essence, concatenating the linear with the circular does not – and perhaps should not – work in narrative song. In this article, I examine how the cantigas de miragre navigate this dichotomy. Parsing the musical, poetic and narrative structures of CSM 232, I demonstrate how the sonically tenacious refrain, recapped within the latter part of each strophe as the strophe‐b, works to highlight the narrative thrust of a miracle story. The memorially marked recurrence of refrain metre, rhymes and melody in the strophe‐b functions as a device to separate the narratively central from the extraneous. It thereby exposes a miracle song's essential message to its audience. Through the analysis of CSM 232, this article highlights the fundamental role of sonic memory in late‐medieval vernacular song