Changing digital media environments and youth audiovisual productions: A comparison of two collaborative research experiences with south Madrid adolescents

SAGE: David Poveda, Marta Morgade, Changing Digital Media Environments and Youth Audiovisual Productions: A Comparison of Two Collaborative Research Experiences with South Madrid Adolescents, Young 26.4 (2018): 34-55 Copyright © 2018SAGE. Reprinted by permission of SAGE PublicationsThis article compares two studies conducted in Madrid in a seven–eight years span in which secondary school students (14–15 years of age) were asked to collaboratively create digital audiovisual narratives. In the first project, adolescents seemed to consider their audiovisual materials as transparent and with self-evident meanings. In the second project, adolescents problematized meaning and reflexively examined the design of audiovisual media. We explore two distinct but complementary factors that might help interpret the differences: (a) rapid historical changes in the digital narratives adolescents are exposed to and engage with and (b) methodological differences in the way adolescents were supported and guided during the creation of their audiovisual narratives. Through this analysis, we draw on an ethnographically grounded notion of ‘mediatization’ that helps unpack both rapid transformations in adolescent’s digital mediascape and how digital practices are socially co-constructed in collaborative projects with youth

Sensitivity to Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Coalescences Achieved during LIGO's Fifth and Virgo's First Science Run

We summarize the sensitivity achieved by the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors for compact binary coalescence (CBC) searches during LIGO's fifth science run and Virgo's first science run. We present noise spectral density curves for each of the four detectors that operated during these science runs which are representative of the typical performance achieved by the detectors for CBC searches. These spectra are intended for release to the public as a summary of detector performance for CBC searches during these science runs.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Directional limits on persistent gravitational waves using LIGO S5 science data

The gravitational-wave (GW) sky may include nearby pointlike sources as well as astrophysical and cosmological stochastic backgrounds. Since the relative strength and angular distribution of the many possible sources of GWs are not well constrained, searches for GW signals must be performed in a model-independent way. To that end we perform two directional searches for persistent GWs using data from the LIGO S5 science run: one optimized for pointlike sources and one for arbitrary extended sources. The latter result is the first of its kind. Finding no evidence to support the detection of GWs, we present 90% confidence level (CL) upper-limit maps of GW strain power with typical values between 2-20x10^-50 strain^2 Hz^-1 and 5-35x10^-49 strain^2 Hz^-1 sr^-1 for pointlike and extended sources respectively. The limits on pointlike sources constitute a factor of 30 improvement over the previous best limits. We also set 90% CL limits on the narrow-band root-mean-square GW strain from interesting targets including Sco X-1, SN1987A and the Galactic Center as low as ~7x10^-25 in the most sensitive frequency range near 160 Hz. These limits are the most constraining to date and constitute a factor of 5 improvement over the previous best limits.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Calibration of the LIGO gravitational wave detectors in the fifth science run

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a network of three detectors built to detect local perturbations in the space–time metric from astrophysical sources. These detectors, two in Hanford, WA and one in Livingston, LA, are power-recycled Fabry-Perot Michelson interferometers. In their fifth science run (S5), between November 2005 and October 2007, these detectors accumulated one year of triple coincident data while operating at their designed sensitivity. In this paper, we describe the calibration of the instruments in the S5 data set, including measurement techniques and uncertainty estimation.United States. National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationCarnegie TrustLeverhulme TrustDavid & Lucile Packard FoundationResearch CorporationAlfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Search for gravitational waves associated with the August 2006 timing glitch of the Vela pulsar

The physical mechanisms responsible for pulsar timing glitches are thought to excite quasinormal mode oscillations in their parent neutron star that couple to gravitational-wave emission. In August 2006, a timing glitch was observed in the radio emission of PSR B0833-45, the Vela pulsar. At the time of the glitch, the two colocated Hanford gravitational-wave detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave observatory (LIGO) were operational and taking data as part of the fifth LIGO science run (S5). We present the first direct search for the gravitational-wave emission associated with oscillations of the fundamental quadrupole mode excited by a pulsar timing glitch. No gravitational-wave detection candidate was found. We place Bayesian 90% confidence upper limits of 6.3×10-21 to 1.4×10-20 on the peak intrinsic strain amplitude of gravitational-wave ring-down signals, depending on which spherical harmonic mode is excited. The corresponding range of energy upper limits is 5.0×1044 to 1.3×1045 erg

Sensitivity to Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Coalescences Achieved during LIGO's Fifth and Virgo's First Science Run

We summarize the sensitivity achieved by the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors for compact binary coalescence (CBC) searches during LIGO's fifth science run and Virgo's first science run. We present noise spectral density curves for each of the four detectors that operated during these science runs which are representative of the typical performance achieved by the detectors for CBC searches. These spectra are intended for release to the public as a summary of detector performance for CBC searches during these science runs

Perennial Prototypes: Designing Science Exhibits with John Dewey

This chapter evokes the writings of John Dewey to investigate his pragmatist design philosophy through a study on exhibit development at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco. The chapter begins by describing the main features of Dewey’s thinking, concentrating specifically on two notions: experience and experiment. It then transposes these into the area of exhibit development to explore their potential for contemporary design practice and their largely unexamined implications for design theory

Pedagogical assemblages: rearranging children's traffic education

This article engages with the everyday geographies of mobile pedagogy by exploring Children's Traffic City, a model traffic area for 5- to 10-year-olds that is operated by the Youth Department of Helsinki, Finland. Drawing from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, the article elaborates the notion of pedagogical assemblage to unsettle a series of problematic assumptions about children's mobility in present Euro-American settings, among them the idea that children are inherently unable to understand traffic environments and that these are exclusively dangerous spaces. Rather than conforming to prior pedagogical ideals, the instructors and pupils of Children's Traffic City are playing with alternative styles of learning and teaching mobilities by collaboratively reassembling essential components of traffic, including the multiple rhythms of moving bodies and the shifting materialities of infrastructures. Apart from offering insight into new ways of fostering children's participation in traffic environments, the article argues that such doings point to the role that mobile pedagogy can have in the making and unmaking of mundane habits and practices of movement and transport

Mobility Experiments : Learning Urban Travel with Children in Helsinki

Working between and beyond the interdisciplinary areas of childhood studies and children’s geographies, this thesis explores how children learn practices of everyday mobility in metropolitan Helsinki (population 1.4 million). Children’s urban movement has become a contested issue in Euro-American settings due to a range of developments, among them the growth in car traffic, the increase in travel distances to school and the widening influence of risk thinking on cultural understandings of childhood. Such tendencies have conspired to intensify the regulation of children’s engagements with urban environments, thereby circumscribing their agencies and sociabilities. Elaborating a more affirmative account of children’s mobility, this thesis gives prominence to the varied competencies, experiences and knowledges of movement that are already in place in the daily lives of families. Through a close exploration of the actual practices whereby children foster their mobilities, the thesis indicates that some of the current concerns around children’s urban movement are misplaced and that societies need to reconsider how children are involved in the shaping of present and future mobilities. The thesis draws on empirical research in two specific sites where children in Helsinki learn mobility: a model traffic area for 5-10-year-olds and the school journeys of 7-12-year-olds, the first of these providing an entry-point into formal pedagogical practices, the second into informal learning through mundane urban travel. The study has deployed various qualitative and participatory methods—including mobile ethnography, digital picture-making and visual interviews—to create an open-ended and flexible arena for children, parents and educators to experiment with diverse ways of becoming mobile and to convey their experiences of such becomings. Further extending this approach, the thesis allies itself with Donald Woods Winnicott, Daniel Stern, Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour and other thinkers to trace out a series of mobility experiments, transformative relational arrangements, which suggest a three-fold argument about mobile learning. First, the thesis develops a detailed account of children’s mobility that eschews generalised assumptions about their agency, stressing instead its dynamic and relational emergence as part of daily practices of movement. Children’s mobility in Helsinki is often constituted in collective experiments that draw together a variety of people and materials, from parents and siblings to zebra crossings and bicycles—all carefully composed to engage children in an equally safe and playful elaboration of their agency in relation to other urban bodies. Describing these heterogeneous set-ups and their intricate workings, the thesis brings out the creativity and diversity of children’s everyday movements. Second, the thesis proposes an affirmative view of children’s mundane mobilities by demonstrating that the experimental forms of learning cultivated by the families and educators in Helsinki contribute to children’s sense of belonging in urban and traffic environments. Such experimental learning speaks of more caring and collaborative styles of movement that this thesis further clarifies in an attempt to develop alternative ways of understanding children’s mobility that bypass some of the control-oriented and risk-averse attitudes surrounding the geographies of childhood in present Euro-American societies. This also enables a closer examination of how mobility experiments could help academics, educators, planners and other professionals to support and stimulate children’s mobility in a manner that enriches their civic agency and participation. Third, the thesis elaborates a methodological argument about the importance for childhood research to move beyond the effort to describe the world as it appears towards a more active and collective experimentation with the ways in which the world could become otherwise, as dealing with ever-complex empirical challenges asks for more dynamic and open-ended modes of working. The thesis indicates that understanding issues such as children’s mobility requires continuous experimentation with concepts, devices and methods so that both researchers and participants have an opportunity to detect and amplify unexplored possibilities in their practices. The areas of childhood studies and children’s geographies, through their interdisciplinary inclinations and sensitivities to human potential and transformation, are particularly well placed to contribute to such an exploration of more responsive forms of engagement.Väitös kuuluu yhteiskuntatieteellisen lapsuuden tutkimuksen alaan ja tarkastelee, miten eri-ikäiset lapset omaksuvat arkiliikkumiseen tarvittavia taitoja pääkaupunkiseudulla. Länsimaisessa nykykeskustelussa lasten liikkumisesta on tullut ongelma, johon ovat erityisesti vaikuttaneet viime aikoina voimistuneet käsitykset lapsuuden riskialttiudesta. Tämä on puolestaan lisännyt aikuisten ja asiantuntijoiden lapsiin kohdistamaa valvontaa, mikä on usein rajoittanut lasten liikkumismahdollisuuksia. Tutkimus osoittaa, että yhteiskunnan lapsista kantamaa huolta olisi hyvä tasapainottaa pyrkimyksellä ymmärtää lasten päivittäisiä liikkumiskokemuksia ja heidän osallisuutta arjen ympäristöissä. Väitös lähestyy aihetta käsittelemällä kahta tutkimuskohdetta. Näistä ensimmäinen, 5-10-vuotiaille tarkoitettu pienoisliikennepuisto, mahdollistaa lasten liikkumiseen liittyvien kasvatuskäytäntöjen tarkastelun. Jälkimmäinen, 7-12-vuotiaiden koulumatkat, taas tarjoaa näkökulman lasten liikkumiseen kaupunkiympäristössä. Tutkimuksessa on käytetty erilaisia osallistavia menetelmiä, kuten yhdessä liikkumista ja digitaalista kuvausta. Väitös keskittyy liikkumiskoetteluihin (engl. mobility experiment), joissa lapset, vanhemmat ja kouluttajat tekevät tilaa lapsille liikenteessä ja kaupungissa. Tällaiset käytännöt perustuvat kekseliäisiin, aikuisten ja lasten yhdessä luomiin ”koeasetelmiin”, kuten huolellisesti suunniteltuihin reitteihin ja ystävysten jakamiin matkoihin, joiden avulla lapset voivat koetella suhteitaan arkiympäristöön sekä turvallisesti että leikillisesti. Liikkumiskoettelut osoittavat, että lapset ovat lukuisin sitein kiinni päivittäisessä kaupungissa ja muovaavat sitä omalla toiminnallaan. Yhteisöjen haasteena onkin lasten liikkumisen rajoittamisen sijaan tukea heitä tällaisten siteiden vaalimisessa, koska ne myös usein edistävät koko kaupungin hyvinvointia. Samalla liikkumiskoettelut tuovat esiin uusia keinoja tutkia lasten kokemuksia. Ympäristöt ovat alituisessa liikkeessä ja niiden ymmärtäminen vaatii joustavaa ajatusten, käsitteiden ja menetelmien kehittelyä käytäntöjen rinnalla. Näin yhteiskuntatieteestä tulee eräänlaista liikkumiskoettelua, jonka tavoitteena on kehitellä tutkittavien kanssa vaihtoehtoisia tapoja vastata arjen moninaisiin haasteisiin