Cultura, informação e educação de profissionais de informação nos países em desenvolvimento

Visão amplamente aceita é a de que a cultura vem influenciando a produção e uso da informação. O papel da cultura é comumente apresentado de maneira superficial e não efetiva. O presente artigo sustenta que isso continuará a ser assim, a menos que se dê aos fatores humanos seu verdadeiro lugar central nos sistemas de informação. A Biblioteconomia e a Ciência da Informação são frutos da cultura de países industrializados. Os conteúdos curriculares de Biblioteconomia e de Ciência da Informação apresentam óbvia necessidade de africanização. Mas a cultura afeta ainda mais significantemente o processo de aprendizado. A educação profissional everia encontrar meios de melhor preparar os profissionais de informação que estão aptos a provocar, ao invés de só clamar por mudanças

Latin American Community Telecenters: "It's a long way to TICperary"

Community Telecenters, that is centers for community development using ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) , have become the focus of attention in international development circles over the past ten years, especially in Latin America. A virtual community called Somos@Telecentros is progressively taking shape in the region (http://www.tele-centros.org) with a specific interest in supporting and enabling these Community Telecenters. As part of the build up effort an inventory of telecenters was conducted, followed by a review of the situation. The latter involved self description, recording of stories on the web and through Email, and Email and face to face interviews. The results were synthesized into an analytical panorama of the telecenters movement in the region, the challenges faced, the solutions encountered and the lessons learned. This paper will summarize these findings and highlight a number of key issues, in particular, the trade-off between top-down connectivity and computer literacy programs; and horizontal and community-led and controlled comprehensive development efforts

New Phase-coherent Measurements of Pulsar Braking Indices

Pulsar braking indices offer insight into the physics that underlies pulsar spin-down. Only five braking indices have been measured via phase-coherent timing; all measured values are less than 3, the value expected from magnetic dipole radiation. Here we present new measurements for three of the five pulsar braking indices, obtained with phase-coherent timing for PSRs J1846-0258 (n=2.65+/-0.01), B1509-58 (n=2.839+/-0.001) and B0540-69 (n=2.140+/-0.009). We discuss the implications of these results and possible physical explanations for them.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures. To be published in the proceedings of the conference "Isolated Neutron Stars: from the Interior to the Surface" (April 24-28, 2006, London, UK), eds. D. Page, R. Turolla, & S. Zan

The Flat Transmission Spectrum of the Super-Earth GJ1214b from Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope

Capitalizing on the observational advantage offered by its tiny M dwarf host, we present HST/WFC3 grism measurements of the transmission spectrum of the super-Earth exoplanet GJ1214b. These are the first published WFC3 observations of a transiting exoplanet atmosphere. After correcting for a ramp-like instrumental systematic, we achieve nearly photon-limited precision in these observations, finding the transmission spectrum of GJ1214b to be flat between 1.1 and 1.7 microns. Inconsistent with a cloud-free solar composition atmosphere at 8.2 sigma, the measured achromatic transit depth most likely implies a large mean molecular weight for GJ1214b's outer envelope. A dense atmosphere rules out bulk compositions for GJ1214b that explain its large radius by the presence of a very low density gas layer surrounding the planet. High-altitude clouds can alternatively explain the flat transmission spectrum, but they would need to be optically thick up to 10 mbar or consist of particles with a range of sizes approaching 1 micron in diameter.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Analyse écorégionale marine de Nouvelle-Calédonie : atelier d'identification des aires de conservation prioritaires

Dans le cadre de l'initiative pour les récifs coralliens du Pacifique sud (CRISP), le WWF-France a souhaité développer un projet pour la protection des récifs et des lagons néo-calédoniens. L'atelier, qui s'est déroulé les 10 et 11 août à Nouméa, avait pour objectif de rassembler les scientifiques et les experts du lagon néocalédonien pour identifier, sur la base de leur connaissance experte, les zones les plus remarquables du lagon (richesse, endémisme, originalité des faunes et flores, espèces emblématiques, zones d'intérêt fonctionnel) sur lesquelles doivent porter en priorité les efforts de conservation. Il a permis d'identifier 20 aires prioritaires pour la conservation, parmi lesquelles 6 ont un intérêt mondial, 4 ont un intérêt sur le plan régional, les autres ayant un intérêt local

Information literacy in national information and communications technology (ict) policies: the missed dimension, information culture

La mayoría de las políticas nacionales e internacionales de desarrollo están dando ya mucho juego para la aplicación de las TICs y la transición hacia la sociedad de la información. Dentro de cada país, igual que entre los diferentes países, se ven las desigualdades en el acceso y uso (lo que generalmente se conoce como “brecha digital”) como una amenaza importante. Además de asegurar el “acceso universal”, la alfabetización informacional constituye un componente importante de estos esfuerzos. Una serie de ejemplos, sacados principalmente de América Latina, ilustran las tendencias a la hora de plantearse los problemas de la alfabetización in-formacional. El acento en el uso de computadoras y, más genéricamente, las pers-pectivas más bien estrechas de estos programas les hacen parecerse mucho más a un ejercicio de dotación de nuevas herramientas para la fuerza de trabajo que a una potenciación de los ciudadanos. Se afirma que el potencial de la Edad de la Información no puede llegar a realizarse sin ampliar el alcance de la alfabetización informacional y en el uso de computadoras mucho más allá de sus aspectos funcionales usuales. Lo que está en juego es la formación de una cultura de la información, algo que por sí mismo implica la adaptación de otras culturas preexistentes. En otras palabras, una revolución cultural asumida por los actores antes que una involución cultural forzada por los medios de comunicación globales. Como conclusión se delinean unos pocos requisitos para ese nuevo planteamiento.Abstract: Most national and international development policies have now made ample room for the application of ICT and transition toward the information society. Within each country as well as among them, inequalities in access and use (usually referred to as “digital divide”) are seen as a major threat. In addition to securing “universal access," information literacy is a major component of these efforts. A number of examples mostly drawn from Latin America illustrate the patterns in ad-dressing information literacy issues. The emphasis upon use of computers and more generally the quite narrow perspective of these programs makes them look far more an exercise for “retooling” the workforce than empowering citizens. It is advocated that the potential of the Information Age cannot be realised without expanding the scope of information and computer literacy far beyond their usual, functional as-pects. What is at stake is the formation of an information culture, which itself in-volves the adaptation of pre-existing cultures. In other words a cultural revolution assumed by the actors rather than a cultural involution pushed by the global media. In conclusion a few requirements for such a new course are outlined