Does universal access mean equitable access? What an information infrastructure study of a rural Romanian community can tell us

Researchers interviewed villagers to investigate the current state of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development in the village. Ethnographic methods were used to collect data and to assess villagers’ information needs. The information landscape in Viscri is presented and analyzed in local and national contexts. The national policies shaping Romania’s emerging Information Society are discussed and literature on the impact of ICT development at the community level is also reviewed

Does universal access mean equitable access? What an information infrastructure study of a rural Romanian community can tell us

Researchers interviewed villagers to investigate the current state of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development in the village. Ethnographic methods were used to collect data and to assess villagers’ information needs. The information landscape in Viscri is presented and analyzed in local and national contexts. The national policies shaping Romania’s emerging Information Society are discussed and literature on the impact of ICT development at the community level is also reviewed

An Ethnographic Study of Romanian Vernacular Museums as Spaces of Knowledge-Making and their Institutional Legitimation

This poster presents the findings of an ethnographic study investigating vernacular museums as interactive spaces of embodied knowledge-making for museum makers and visitors at personal levels; and their legitimation through cultural programs and policies at institutional levels. The research approach incorporated autoethnography, collecting data from in-person visits to four vernacular museums. Visits were audio-recorded and photographs captured the researcher’s notable moments of self-reflexivity. Visitor impressions from interviews and guestbook comments were also analyzed, as were documents produced by and related to the national-level cultural program that worked to legitimate the 24 vernacular museums that are a part of this study. Findings suggest that makers present their museums as conceptual journeys that foreground how each maker’s idiosyncratic knowledge world entwines with the objects arranged in museum spaces. Museum makers’ distinctive perspectives on the past were often a response to perceived problems in the present. Visitors recognized vernacular museums as both contiguouswith- yet-distinct-from institutional museum experiences because of the person-to-person connections they made with museum makers. Vernacular museums are a distinctive type of knowledge institution because of how they foreground personal interpretations of the past that contrast with those found in institutional museums. Museum experts cultivated vernacular museums by adapting and improvising around common museum practices. Vernacular museums are hybrid institutions that insert personal, local and individual perspectives on the past as a complement to and commentary on official institutional representations of heritage in ways that exemplify the participatory and visitor-focused tenets of new museology

A complete checklist with new records and geographical distribution of the rove beetles (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae) of Brazil

This paper presents the first comprehensive list of 2,688 species of Staphylinidae (Coleoptera) recorded from Brazil. The list is based on the taxonomic and ecological literature, and new records from some insect collections, and includes locality references for each species. In addition, Brazilian localities and the country-level distribution outside of Brazil are provided for each species. Brazilian localities are organized by state, and include the bibliographic reference and page number where each locality was reported. All localities are geo-referenced, organized by state, and listed in an Appendix.Este trabalho apresenta a primeira lista completa das 2.688 espécies de Staphylinidae (Coleoptera) registradas para o Brasil. A lista inclui todas as localidades citadas para cada espécie e baseia-se na literatura taxonômica e ecológica disponíveis. Cada localidade inclui a referência bibliográfica e o número da página onde foram citadas. Também são apresentados registros inéditos obtidos de algumas coleções de insetos. Além das localidades brasileiras são citados todos os países com ocorrência conhecida para cada espécie. As localidades brasileiras, listadas no Apêndice, estão organizadas por estado e georreferenciadas

Mapping knowledge orders in local museums: an example from Horodnic de Jos, Romania

Local museums in Romania are privately-owned, amateur presentations of identity and heritage that aim to preserve the past within the living spaces of their owners. This study identifies and maps several knowledge orders that emerged in one local museum visited in May 2014. Visual analysis and the gendered narratives of museum proprietors are used to reconstruct pathways through the museum in order to reveal orders of knowledge. The poster focuses on space-time arrangements, identifying the symbolic classifications of old/new and inside/outside. The study and interpretation rely on the literature of cultural motion (Greg Urban), and social classifications (Eviatar Zerubavel and Jens-Erik Mai). In Horodnic de Jos, the local museum emerges as an arena for knowledge production, where aggregation, bricolage and classificatory activities renegotiate the connections between past, present and future. This study exposes the local museum as a site of living memory that mediates local/national memory

Public-Private-Partnerships

The continuing trend of increasing frequency and severity of losses from natural and man-made-catastrophes during the last decades has drawn attention to catastrophe risk management. Considering the loss potential of catastrophic events, the private insurance markets' capacity does not seem to be suffi-cient. Problems concerning the supply of adequate catastrophe insurance coverage – resulting mainly from insurability constraints – are aggravated by difficulties of lacking insurance demand. This paper addresses aspects of efficient solutions to increase the supply of and demand for insurance coverage against catastrophic threats. In this context, the government`s role as a risk bearer becomes an increasingly important issue. In particular, we will demonstrate that "pure private" and "pure public" strategies are dominated by "mixed" strategies involving a cooperation of the private and the public sec-tor. Based on an adequate design of a Public-Private Partnership, advantages of the private insurance market can be combined with the state’s capacity reserves and power to set a general (legal) framework for improving a society’s risk sharing and risk management. Strategies with public involvement are more or less severe interventions in the market system which re-quires them to be well-motivated and makes them applicable under certain conditions only. Supplying public capacity for losses from catastrophe events may be favoured from an economic point of view to expand the limits of insurability, but only by using risk-adequate pricing strategies and not for permanent subsidisation of certain business sectors. The state’s role consists not only in supplying coverage capac-ity, but also in setting an adequate general framework (building regulations, land use planning, etc.) to assure necessary claim prevention. On the other hand, in order to increase the demand for catastrophe insurance, establishing mandatory insurance for fundamental risks can be considered as a useful tool for internalizing externalities caused by lacking insurance demand. Besides the introduction of a compulsory insurance system, general conditions must be set by the state in order to assure the acceptance of manda-tory insurance (tax-privileged provisions, public capacity support for "uninsurable" individual risks, etc.).Katastrophenrisiken; Versicherungspflicht; Public-Private-Partnership

A new cryptic species of \u3ci\u3eAleochara\u3c/i\u3e Gravenhorst associated with \u3ci\u3eMarmota monax\u3c/i\u3e (Linnaeus) burrows and caves in North America (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Aleocharinae)

A new cryptic species, Aleochara (Xenochara) castaneimarmotae Klimaszewski, Webster, and Brunke, new species (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Aleocharinae), associated with Marmota monax (Linnaeus) burrows and caves in eastern North America, is described and illustrated. A key to Canadian species of subgenus Xenochara Mulsant and Rey and revised distributions of the taxonomically difficult fumata species group are provided. Aleochara quadrata Sharp is recorded from Washington and Oregon for the first time