Blending arts and sciences: gimmick or necessity?

The shortage of degree qualified engineers in the UK is well documented. On the other hand the surplus of art and design graduates is growing. Whilst acknowledging the shortage in engineering graduates, there is also the need to recognise the breadth and increased skill level that engineering graduates require. Is it therefore possible to convert some of the excess graduates in art and design to careers in design and development engineering? The success of many engineering businesses depends not only on technical excellence but also on understanding of the market needs and the speed of response to this demand. To make this task even harder, businesses are also expected to compete in markets that are open to global competition and are also faced with much more sophisticated consumers. Businesses that are engaged in the manufacture of goods now require a new breed of engineer. These are not only technically competent individuals, but also possess what is known as “soft” or “creative” skills traditionally found in graduates of art and design disciplines. This paper details an innovative curriculum model offered at postgraduate level to address the 21 st century needs of engineering businesses. The paper also details rigorous recruitment tools developed and used for selecting students exclusively from the art and design discipline

Sharing the vision:representing the matters of concern for design-led fledgling companies in Scotland

Design is being performed on an ever-increasing spectrum of complex practices arising in response to emerging markets and technologies, co-design, digital interaction, service design and cultures of innovation. This emerging notion of design has led to an expansive array of collaborative and facilitation skills to demonstrate and share how such methods can shape innovation. The meaning of these design things in practice can't be taken for granted as matters of fact, which raises a key challenge for design to represent its role through the contradictory nature of matters of concern. This paper explores an innovative, object-oriented approach within the field of design research, visually combining an actor-network theory framework with situational analysis, to report on the role of design for fledgling companies in Scotland, established and funded through the knowledge exchange hub Design in Action (DiA). Key findings and visual maps are presented from reflective discussions with actors from a selection of the businesses within DiA's portfolio. The suggestion is that any notions of strategic value, of engendering meaningful change, of sharing the vision of design, through design things, should be grounded in the reflexive interpretations of matters of concern that emerge

Listening walks: a method of multiplicity

A listening walk is a mode of walking in which listening to the sounds of spaces is the focus. In this chapter, we look at the potential of listening walks to act as a research method and pedagogic tool. We emphasise its flexibility and adaptability for different purposes and research topics. To make this argument, we consider a listening walk led by one of the authors in Edinburgh, Scotland. We demonstrate that, while listening walks have been posited as a means of producing research data about perceived soundscape quality, they also provide us with an endlessly repeatable and adaptable method that can address a much broader range of research questions, and can be embedded within a variety of teaching settings

Density Matrix Renormalization Group in the Heisenberg Picture

In some cases the state of a quantum system with a large number of subsystems can be approximated efficiently by the density matrix renormalization group, which makes use of redundancies in the description of the state. Here we show that the achievable efficiency can be much better when performing density matrix renormalization group calculations in the Heisenberg picture, as only the observable of interest but not the entire state is considered. In some non-trivial cases, this approach can even be exact for finite bond dimensions.Comment: version to appear in PRL, acronyms in title and abstract expanded, new improved numerical example

Assessing the impact of sporting mega-events on the social and physical capital of communities in host cities: the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games experience

Over the past decade there has been increasing research on how sporting mega-events such as the Olympic and Commonwealth Games are developing strategies, norms and rules to govern how they impact the host nation, city and communities, and in particular their impacts on economic, social, physical, human and cultural capital. This paper addresses a gap within these interconnected fields by examining how the strategies, norms and rules used to govern a mega-event may impact the social and physical capitals of communities in the host city during and following a mega-event. These associations are revealed through a novel methodology that combines the Institutional Grammar Tool developed by Crawford and Ostrom and the Community Capitals Framework devised by Flora and Flora, to analyse policy documentation, complemented by 11 in-depth interviews on the refurbishment of the Broadbeach Lawn Bowls Club as a venue for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in the City of Gold Coast, Australia

Greece, the eurozone and the future of the EU

Abstract: The Greeks have been publicly humiliated and their national sovereignty has been thrown to the wind, all for a financial plan which has no possible chance of success

Reasons to be cheerful?

Abstract: For over 20 years, world governments have repeatedly dodged the issues raised at Rio. GHG emissions are 50% higher and increasing. Climate change is real and now. The majority of those who will be flooded from their homes are alive now

Democracy

Abstract: It is a depressing but undeniably plausible conjecture to link decline in the most fundamental aspect of progressive advance in the twentieth century, mass electoral democracy, with the resurgence of the most regressive, neo-liberal markets

Hegemony and all that stuff

Abstract: What is clear is that what we are going through is not simply an economic crisis, though certainly the financial crisis precipitated by the neoliberal hegemony and its debt-fuelled underpinning is key, but also a crisis of democracy whose outcome remains very much in the balance