Space Media Festival

Space Media Festival is an initiative by Modern Body Festival and DEZACT architectural platform. The festival took place in 2016 in Taiwan, Taipei and consisted of multiple small- to large-scale activities focusing on avant-garde experimentations traversing fields of art, architecture and urbanism. The festival took the form of a 9-day workshop-festival, where 4 invited artist-architect teams led participants in creating new works, a full day symposium, and a 2-week open-air, public exhibition. The festival involved public, educational, professional and inter-disciplinary participants and audience, and engaged with Toad Hill, a contested site in Taipei, as part of its agenda of in-situ making and direct intervention. Synopsis – redefining ‘I / WE / THEY’ The special theme in this pilot trans-context, trans-cultural and trans-disciplinary collaborative programme of 2016 is ‘I / WE / THEY’. This theme is at the core of both the Space Media Festival taking place in Taipei in 18-28 August 2016 and the Modern Body Festival in The Hague in November-December 2016. At the same time, the collaborative and explorative process led by teams of artist-architect will also span across both contexts. The concept of ‘I / WE / THEY’ is thus being subjected to diverse forms of engagement between the body, the space and the medium, as well as being embedded in specific cultural, social, technical and spatiotemporal conditions. We are exploring the effects of architecture, technology and digital communication, as they are fundamentally transforming the way we exist as a society, culture, species. Our focus is on the social body – identity, space, and community: how we interface with I/WE/THEY. Where do the limits of the self extend and where do the social bodies of group and community begin? How do we understand and position ourselves as individuals, while still feeling a sense of belonging and connection to an expanding global community? How do we exist, identify, and interact? Furthermore, we want to explore the role of architecture and technology as central social interfaces between the I and the world, the I and the group, the I and the self. How do they impact our behavior, confront our habits, alter our experience

AVOCADO: A Virtual Observatory Census to Address Dwarfs Origins

Dwarf galaxies are by far the most abundant of all galaxy types, yet their properties are still poorly understood -especially due to the observational challenge that their intrinsic faintness represents. AVOCADO aims at establishing firm conclusions on their formation and evolution by constructing a homogeneous, multiwavelength dataset for a statistically significant sample of several thousand nearby dwarfs (-18 < Mi < -14). Using public data and Virtual Observatory tools, we have built GALEX+SDSS+2MASS spectral energy distributions that are fitted by a library of single stellar population models. Star formation rates, stellar masses, ages and metallicities are further complemented with structural parameters that can be used to classify them morphologically. This unique dataset, coupled with a detailed characterization of each dwar's environment, allows for a fully comprehensive investigation of their origins and to track the (potential) evolutionary paths between the different dwarf types.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. To appear in the proceedings of IAU Symposium 277, "Tracing the Ancestry of Galaxies on the Land of our Ancestors", Carignan, Freeman, and Combes, ed

The EMPIRE Survey: Systematic Variations in the Dense Gas Fraction and Star Formation Efficiency from Full-Disk Mapping of M51

We present the first results from the EMPIRE survey, an IRAM large program that is mapping tracers of high density molecular gas across the disks of nine nearby star-forming galaxies. Here, we present new maps of the 3-mm transitions of HCN, HCO+, and HNC across the whole disk of our pilot target, M51. As expected, dense gas correlates with tracers of recent star formation, filling the "luminosity gap" between Galactic cores and whole galaxies. In detail, we show that both the fraction of gas that is dense, f_dense traced by HCN/CO, and the rate at which dense gas forms stars, SFE_dense traced by IR/HCN, depend on environment in the galaxy. The sense of the dependence is that high surface density, high molecular gas fraction regions of the galaxy show high dense gas fractions and low dense gas star formation efficiencies. This agrees with recent results for individual pointings by Usero et al. 2015 but using unbiased whole-galaxy maps. It also agrees qualitatively with the behavior observed contrasting our own Solar Neighborhood with the central regions of the Milky Way. The sense of the trends can be explained if the dense gas fraction tracks interstellar pressure but star formation occurs only in regions of high density contrast.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, ApJL accepte

Instituto Internacional de Investigaci ́on e Innovaci ́on del Envejecimiento

El Instituto Internacional de Investigaci on e Innovaci on del Envejecimiento es un proyecto transfronterizo y multidisciplinar centrado en la mejora de la calidad de vida de los ancianos mediante el uso de la tecnolog a. En este proyecto colaboran la Universidad de Evora, el Instituto Polit ecnico de Porto Alegre, el Instituto Polit ecnico de Beja, la Administraci on Regional de Salud de Alentejo y la Universidad de Extremadura. Los objetivos del proyecto se centran en comprender los aspectos biom edicos, funcionales y psicol ogicos del envejecimiento; generar nuevos modelos y procesos de cuidado a ancianos y desarrollar soluciones tecnol ogicas que contribuyan a la salud y calidad de vida de los ancianos y a la sostenibilidad de los servicios

Microporosity in aluminium foams

We studied microporosity in the metallic matrix of aluminium foams produced by the powder metallurgical route both with and without application of a blowing agent. Microporosity was studied in situ in liquid metal foams as well as ex situ in the solidified microstructures. In situ studies were carried out using synchrotron X rays. Quantitative analyses of the amount and distribution of microporosity inside cell walls, Plateau borders and nodes were performed on 2D micrographs and on 3D reconstructed volumes generated by X ray tomography. We studied the influence of alloying elements, blowing agent and holding time on the amount and type of micropores. The mechanisms of microporosity formation and the evolution of microporosity via diffusion of hydrogen and by coalescence are discussed. It was observed that alloy composition and holding time have a strong influence on microporosity. Different possible strategies to control microporosity are suggeste