What’s going on in my city? Recommender systems and electronic participatory budgeting

In this paper, we present electronic participatory budgeting (ePB) as a novel application domain for recommender systems. On public data from the ePB platforms of three major US cities – Cambridge, Miami and New York City–, we evaluate various methods that exploit heterogeneous sources and models of user preferences to provide personalized recommendations of citizen proposals. We show that depending on characteristics of the cities and their participatory processes, particular methods are more effective than others for each city. This result, together with open issues identified in the paper, call for further research in the area

Perceiving those who are gone: cultural research on post-bereavement perception or hallucination of the deceased

Experiencing the continued presence of the deceased is common among the bereaved, whether as a sensory perception or as a felt presence. This phenomenon has been researched from psychological and psychiatric perspectives during the last five decades. Such experiences have been also documented in the ethnographic literature but, despite the extensive cross-cultural research in the area, anthropological data has generally not been considered in the psychological literature about this phenomenon. This paper provides an overview aimed at bridging these two areas of knowledge, and approaches the post-bereavement perception or hallucination of the deceased in cultural context. Ongoing debates are addressed from the vantage point of ethnographic and clinical case study research focusing on the cultural repertoires (in constant flux as cultures change) from which these experiences are labelled as desirable and normal, on the one hand, or as dangerous and pathological, on the other

La psicoterapia centrada en la persona en la actualidad: Teoría, práctica e investigación

Enmarcada en la orientación humanista-existencial, y con más de ochenta años de historia, la psicoterapia centrada en la persona continúa siendo uno de los principales sistemas de intervención psicológica. Las ideas de su principal creador, Carl R. Rogers, han sido claves en el desarrollo de la investigación y el ejercicio de la psicoterapia tal y como la conocemos en la actualidad, tanto dentro como fuera de las fronteras de la orientación. Tras una introducción a la teoría psicopatológica y psicoterapéutica que subyace al sistema, este artículo se centra tanto en los nuevos desarrollos dentro de la teoría rogeriana como en la investigación llevada a cabo hasta el momento sobre ella. Revisando algunos de los debates centrales en el ámbito, desde la perspectiva del siglo XXI, el artículo concluye con una reflexión sobre la situación actual del sistema

Ira y emociones positivas en protestas políticas

This study analyses the role played by emotions in protest. In the current explanatory models, anger is the sole emotion associated with these actions. But is anger the only emotion capable of mobilising citizens to defend a cause? We believe not. Hence, we postulate that anger, along with other emotions of positive valence, must act jointly to facilitate protest. To test this hypothesis, a questionnaire was applied to 316 university students in a setting of cut-backs in education. The results highlight several interesting aspects. Firstly, anger correlated significantly and positively with the positive emotions. Secondly, the mediation analysis performed showed: a) the relevance of positive emotions for explaining the intention to participate; and b) the influence of anger on the intention to participate is fundamentally through positive emotions. We will also discuss the role of emotions and the need to extend the motives involved in political actionsEn este estudio se analiza el papel de las emociones en la protesta política. En los modelos actuales, la ira es la única emoción que se asocia a esas acciones. Sin embargo, los autores creen que no es la única emoción que moviliza a la ciudadanía, por ello afirman que junto a ella deben existir otras de valencia positiva. En este estudio participaron 316 estudiantes universitarios a los que se les preguntó por su intención de movilizarse en contra de los recortes en educación. Los resultados muestran que la ira correlaciona de manera significativa con las emociones positivas. Además el análisis de mediación muestra la relevancia de las emociones positivas para explicar las intenciones de protesta y que la influencia de la ira sobre la intención de participar se realiza fundamentalmente a través de las emociones positivas. Se discute el papel de las emociones y la necesidad de ampliar los motivos de participaciónWith financial support from the Galician Department of Culture, Education, and Universities, and the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union (GPC2013-017)S

The Occupy and Indignados movement and the importance of political context: differences between occasionals and regulars in Spain and the UK

In this work we look into the individuals’ reasons that led Occupy protesters to participate in this movement. We interviewed Occupy participants in the UK and Spain. We wanted to find out if the reasons that lead them to participate are the same in both countries. The context of the country where the demonstration was held was taken into account, as well as the differences there may be in the reasons for participation if we consider whether they are occasional or regular participants in collective protest actions. Using a two-by-two design defined by country of demonstration and the history of mobilisation (occasional vs. regular), our results show important differences in both factors. The study contributes to the literature, highlighting the importance of analysing the context where the demonstration takes place and which motives must be underlined in order to attract participants to protests

Dimensiones de identidad social en jóvenes sordos

En este articulo, desde una metodologia basada fundamentalmente en el escalamiento multidimensional, se analizan los procesos de identidad social en los jóvenes sordos severos y profundos prelocutivos. Para ello, se adopta la Teoria de la Categorización-Identidad-Comparación social (CIC) propuesta por Tajfel y Turner. Esto es así, porque se estima que la pertenencia a un grupo diferenciado como el de los sordos configurará de manera relevante su Identidad Social. Igualmente se trata de comprobar si, al objeto de obtener una identidad social positiva, también se producen sesgos endogrupales dentro de una población asociada a una minusvalíaThe article analyzes processes of social identity in young deaf peopleffom a multidimensional perspective, using Tajfel and Turner's Social Categorization-Identity-Comparison Theory. Our hypothesis is that the fact of belonging to a differentiated social group, such as the deafpopulation, has a marked effect on social identity. In addition, the authors examine whether intragroup bias emerges insid a disabledpopulation as a result of attempts to obtain a positive social identityS

When experiences of presence go awry: A survey on psychotherapy practice with the ambivalent‐to‐distressing ‘hallucination’ of the deceased

Objectives: Experiences of presence, involving the sensory perception or felt presence of the deceased, are common amongst the bereaved (30–60%). Despite them being predominantly comforting and reassuring, a minority (approximately 25%) report ambivalent or distressing experiences. The study’s aim was to explore how psychotherapy is practised with this subset. Method: A mixed‐method approach, involving both quantitative analysis and thematic analysis, was used to analyse data from an online survey, conducted in English and Spanish, amongst mental health therapists (i.e., psychologists, psychotherapists, and counsellors). Seventy responded to the survey and four of them were further interviewed. Results: The participants primarily framed interventions for ambivalent‐to‐distressing experiences of presence as grief therapy, with the severity of the presentation as the main factor influencing their clinical decision‐making, but several perspectives co‐existed regarding how to intervene. These discourses were categorized into two themes: ‘A normalising and exploratory psychotherapy’ and ‘A grief stages psychotherapy’. The main sources of patient’s distress, as understood by the sample, were located in the bereaved–departed relationship, in pre‐existing mental health issues, and in a societal taboo or stigma. Conclusion: After comparing and contrasting the participants’ working hypotheses with existing knowledge on experiences of presence, and contemporary theories in the research area, guidelines are presented on how to intervene with people disturbed by their experiences of presence. Practitioner points: Perceiving the deceased person, or feeling their presence, is common and normal amongst bereaved people. When these experiences are distressing or ambivalent, therapists’ share that psychological suffering may originate from the departed–bereaved relationship, pre‐existing mental health issues, or the effect of societal taboo or stigma. Psychotherapy is frequently aimed at normalizing, accepting, supporting, and exploring patient’s experienc

Characterization and semantic modeling of services in multiservice networks

The use of the Internet as a global communication infrastructure to support a wide range of multiconstrained applications and services poses new challenges to ISPs regarding network services management and auditing. In this context, the semantic characterization and modeling of services provided to users assumes an essential role in fostering service management automation. Moreover, the semantic and formal description of services allows enhancing the negotiation and interoperability between clients and service providers. This paper reports the first steps toward the definition of an ontology for multiservice networks that eases and systemizes decision support of QoS deployment in ISP infrastructures, according to service levels established in SLAs. Other management tasks such as dynamic service negotiation and configuration, service monitoring and auditing may also benefit from the present ontology proposal

Las prácticas de enseñanza declaradas de los "mejores profesores" de la Universidad de Vigo

El objetivo del presente trabajo consiste en identificar, hacer visibles, describir y explicar las prácticas de enseñanza que declaran realizar los “mejores profesores” de la Universidad de Vigo. Para ello, planteamos un diseño cualitativo a través de la técnica de la entrevista. Antes de hacer mención de las principales conclusiones hemos de hacer constar que nos interesaba buscar referencias de “buenas prácticas”, no hacer una evaluación de las prácticas docentes, buenas o malas, del profesorado de la Universidad de Vigo. La principal conclusión es que incluso entre los “mejores profesores” predominan unas prácticas docentes que podrían encuadrarse, mayoritariamente, en el enfoque “tradicional de la enseñanza”, centrada en el profesor/ contenido. No debería sorprender el hecho, ni tampoco llevarnos a relativizar el interés de la visibilización de las “buenas prácticas docentes” aunque estas sean poco innovadoras.