Gazing at the family: archives, performance and Portuguese photography (1940-1975)

This practice-based PhD thesis investigates photographic family archives and makes critical interpretations of them using performance photography. The two family’s albums contain hundreds of photographs that belonged to my grandparents and represent a period in Portugal’s past (1940-1975) scarred by one of the longest dictatorships in history. The research carries out an ‘iconographic’ analysis of the photographs in the family albums and focuses specifically on images of (my) two grandmothers. As representatives of two women’s lives during this historical period, both women lived under the same dictatorial regime, but one on mainland Portugal and the other in the Portuguese overseas and colonial territories (India, 1951-61 and Mozambique 1962-75). With the end of the regime, these images have been passed down in the form of the identity of women in Portugal to this day, including my own. The key questions of the research thus deal with self-representation, performance and the use of family photographic archives as a method of investigating the processes of identity formation. The thesis draws on cultural theory, including the sociology of family photography, archive fever, cultural memory, postmemory, and representations of femininity and feminism, alongside practices of performance. Relevant authors include Marianne Hirsch, Annette Kuhn, Jacques Derrida, Okwui Enwezor, Anne Whitehead, Hal Foster, Stuart Hall, Joan Riviere and Amelia Jones. The research questions examine four key questions: (i) how can family archives be read as ‘documents’ in relation to social and historical regimes; (ii) how can family photographs be read along official imagery of the regime; (iii) how have other artists developed strategies for questions of inherited family images; and (iv) how can performance photography be used as a practice method for the critical interpretation of archives? These questions and approaches are contextualised by a study of photographic archives, self-portraiture and performance practices including strategies developed by Portuguese artists. A separate iconographic index of the family albums photographs was created to help identify certain specific repeated embodied elements, such as pose and gesture, which were subsequently re-performed for the camera. The different family albums reveal specific social and cultural differences: the specificity of their diverse settings results in distinct family images. The information contained within the archive images is re-written within the performance images. The practice aspect of the thesis has developed a precise performative method for interpreting and enacting the archives. The thesis contributes contribution to knowledge not only by relating specifically to the questions of family, photography and Portuguese history, but has also by developing a method that other photographers and artist can apply to their own performance and family archive work

Portuguese Adaptation of Students Engagement in Schools International Scale (SESIS)

The importance of student’s engagement has been recently pointed out in research. However, there has been a lack of engagement assessment instrument, pertaining psychometric qualities. Objective: This paper presents the Portuguese adaptation of the “Student’s Engagement in School International Scale” (SESIS), drawn up from a12 countries international study (Lam et al., 2012; Lam et al., in press). Method: Psychometric properties of this scale were examined with data from 685 students from different grades (6th, 7th, 9th and 10th), from both sexes, and different regions of the country. Results: Factorial analysis of the results, with varimax rotation, lead to three different factors which explain 50.88% of the variance. The scale integrates the original 33 items, and cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions. For the external validity study, the relationship between student’s engagement in school results and other school variables — academic performance, self-concept — was considered, and significant relations were observed, as expected. Conclusion: The data presented highlights the qualities of SESIS, as well as its usefulness for research purposes. Suggestion: It is suggested the investigation of the extension of SESIS’s three-dimensionality, in future studiesKeywords: Innovation, technology, research projects, etc. [Arial 10-point, justified alignment]

O que as personaxes len: Alusións literarias na pequena pantalla

Literature is present in TV fiction through adaptations, but literary works are also featured directly onscreen, sometimes serving as a homage showrunners pay to their literary sources, sometimes to set the mood of a particular episode or a season arc, sometimes for a didactic purpose. This article intends to examine in depth the symbiotic relation between both media, using the analysis of some examples to do so, and thus prove that intermediality not only contributes to elevate the TV series but it also provides the literary works the series refers to with new life.A literatura está presente na ficción televisiva a través das adaptacións, pero as obras literarias tamén se amosan de forma directa na pantalla, ben como homenaxe ás fontes das que beben os creadores, para establecer a atmósfera dun episodio ou dun arco argumental, ou cun fin didáctico. Mediante a análise dalgúns exemplos, este artigo tentará profundar na relación simbiótica entre ambos medios e demostrar que esta intermedialidade non só é enriquecedora para a serie televisiva, senón que tamén dota de nova vida as obras literarias que esta amosa

Oil spill hazard bulletin

Dissemination Method: Web Product weblink: https://glamor.sincem.unibo.it The MSFD, the new Directive on Safety of offshore oil and gas operations (2013) and the European Maritime Safety Agency require robust tools for oil spill hazard mapping, from accidental to operational. In this activity WP7 and Marine Core Service products were coupled to Medslik-II oil spill model in order to produce, on request, an Oil Spill Hazard Bulletin based upon the hazard mapping data generated earlier in the project. This report contains background information and some examples of oil spill hazard bulletins for target Atlantic areas. The web-GIS Portal GLAMOR developed for Task 8.4 “Oil spill hazard mapping and disaster risk reduction best practices” is used to create the information content in the requested bulletins. Please note: bulletins are only produced on a request basis

Analysis of a Non-Iterative Algorithm for the Amplitude and Phase Difference Estimation of Two Acquired Sinewaves

In this paper, a non-iterative algorithm for amplitude and phase difference estimation of two acquired sinewaves is presented and analyzed. The method is based on the least-squares fitting of ellipses where the common signal frequency is eliminated from the algorithm

Exploration of Large Digital Sky Surveys

We review some of the scientific opportunities and technical challenges posed by the exploration of the large digital sky surveys, in the context of a Virtual Observatory (VO). The VO paradigm will profoundly change the way observational astronomy is done. Clustering analysis techniques can be used to discover samples of rare, unusual, or even previously unknown types of astronomical objects and phenomena. Exploration of the previously poorly probed portions of the observable parameter space are especially promising. We illustrate some of the possible types of studies with examples drawn from DPOSS; much more complex and interesting applications are forthcoming. Development of the new tools needed for an efficient exploration of these vast data sets requires a synergy between astronomy and information sciences, with great potential returns for both fields.Comment: To appear in: Mining the Sky, eds. A. Banday et al., ESO Astrophysics Symposia, Berlin: Springer Verlag, in press (2001). Latex file, 18 pages, 6 encapsulated postscript figures, style files include

Tourism-related placeness feature extraction from social media data using machine learning models

The study of placeness has been focus for researchers trying to understand the impact of locations on their surroundings and tourism, the loss of it by globalization and modernization and its effect on tourism, or the characterization of the activities that take place in them. Identifying places that have a high level of placeness can become very valuable when studying social trends and mobility in relation to the space in which the study takes place. Moreover, places can be enriched with dimensions such as the demographics of the individuals visiting such places and the activities the carry in them thanks to social media and modern machine learning and data mining methods. Such information can prove to be useful in fields such as urban planning or tourism as a base for analysis and decision-making or the discovery of new social hotspots or sites rich in cultural heritage. This manuscript will focus on the methodology to obtain such information, for which data from Instagram is used to feed a set of classification models that will mine demographics from the users based on graphic and textual data from their profiles, gain insight on what they were doing in each of their posts and try to classify that information into any of the categories discovered in this article. The goal of this methodology is to obtain, from social media data, characteristics of visitors to locations as a discovery tool for the tourism industry.Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. PID2020-116040RB-I0