Facing depletion. Artworks for an epistemological shift in the collapse era

This article first reports a victory of technosolutionism over the other alternatives, the degrowth for instance, to the ongoing collapse (species extinction, ecosystems depletion...). The victory is considered double: extraction can continue to increase (quantity and scope) and the devices made by technoscience are accepted as a solution to the problems caused by intensive exploitation (which they also increase). Exploitation is extended, following Achille Mbembé's proposal, to humans, non-human animals, and the earth (in a geological sense), retaining the terms fracturing, extraction, depletion. Four works are analyzed as epistemological shifts to technosolutionism. David Claerbout's “The Pure Necessity” (2016) is an animated cartoon of animals with a streamlined behavior depicted with the graphic style of Disney. The complex interlocking of eras, styles, behaviors (human and non-human) is envisaged as resistance to fracking and exploitation. “Animal Cinema” (2017) by Emilio Vavarella is a short film made from rushes produced by non-human animals. It is emphasized that the frugal production method opposes the spectacular logics of big-budget animal reporting. It adopts the animal point of view while respecting their means of production. It is also seductive by a fluid and hypnotizing editing more easily accessible to humans. Emilio Vavarella's Amazon's “Cabinet of Curiosity” (2019) is an installation with a strict protocol: the artist asks what he should order to make an artistic production. He then buys each suggestion until his budget is exhausted. By its absence, the commercial behavior of the so-called intelligent device is underlined. The artist also resists fracturing and exploitation by reducing himself to a demand. Finally, She Was Called Petra (2020) by myself is a multi-media installation. In this one, language is re-interrogated and a zone of contact is set up to cohabit with a hybrid presence.Este artículo da cuenta en primer lugar de una victoria del tecnosolucionismo frente a otras alternativas al colapso en curso (extinción de especies, agotamiento de ecosistemas...). La victoria se considera doble: la extracción puede seguir aumentando (en cantidad y alcance) y los dispositivos fabricados por la tecnociencia se aceptan como solución a los problemas causados por la explotación intensiva (que también requieren). La explotación se extiende, siguiendo la propuesta de Achille Mbembé, a los seres humanos, los animales no humanos y la tierra (en sentido geológico), conservando los términos fracturación, extracción, agotamiento. Se analizan cuatro obras como giros epistemológicos hacia el tecnosolucionismo. “The Pure Necessity” (2016), de David Claerbout, es una caricatura de animales con un estilo gráfico similar al de Disney. El complejo entrelazamiento de épocas, estilos, comportamientos (humanos y no humanos) se vislumbra como resistencia al frackingy la explotación. “Animal Cinema” (2017) de Emilio Vavarella es un cortometraje realizado a partir de juncos producidos por animales no humanos. Se hace hincapié en que el frugal método de producción se opone a la lógica espectacular de los reportajes sobre animales de gran presupuesto. Adopta el punto de vista de los animales respetando sus medios de producción. También resulta atractivo por su montaje fluido e hipnótico, más accesible a los humanos. “Amazon's Cabinet of Curiosity” (2019), de Emilio Vavarella, es una instalación con un estricto protocolo: el artista pregunta qué debería encargar para realizar una producción artística. Luego compra cada sugerencia hasta agotar su presupuesto. La fuerte retracción subraya el comportamiento comercial del llamado dispositivo inteligente. El artista también se resiste al fracking y a la explotación reduciéndose a una demanda. Por último, “She Was Called Petra” (2020), de mi autoría, es una instalación multimedia. En ella se reinterroga el lenguaje y se crea una zona de contacto/intercambio para cohabitar y pensar en una presencia híbrida

Best practices for regeneration of forage and pasture legume and range genetic resources

Best practices for regeneration of forage and pasture legume and range genetic resources

Chemical Composition of the Essential Oil ofSatureja myrtifolia(Boiss. & Hohen.) from Lebanon

Satureja myrtifolia (Boiss. & Hohen.) Greuter & Burdeta medicinal plant belonging to the Lamiaceae family was collected from south of Lebanon and hydro-distilled by Clevenger method. Essential oil composition from aerial parts was analyzed by GC-MS technique. The odor of essential oil is characteristic, and clear yellow liquid oil was obtained after hydro-distillation. The yield of the essential oil was 1.25±0.02 % of dry matter (w/w). Thirty nine volatile components were identified in the Satureja myrtifolia oil, which shows a high amount of hydrocarbons class (57.82±0.1 %). Other classes were also identified such assesquiterpene hydrocarbons (12.96±0.1 %), oxygenated sesquiterpenes (10.65±0.2 %), phenolic compounds (10.32±0.1 %), acids (5.53±0.1 %), and monoterpenes hydrocarbons (2.21±0.1 %).In addition, a comparison with the unique study performed on Satureja myrtifolia was also carried out

Models, solution methods and threshold behaviour for the teaching space allocation problem

Universities have to manage their teaching space, and plan future needs. Their efforts are frequently hampered by, capital and maintenance costs, on one hand, pedagogical and teaching services on the other. The efficiency of space usage, can be measured by the utilisation: the percentage of available seat-hours actually used. The observed utilisation, in many institutions, is unacceptably low, and this provides our main underlying motivation: To address and assess some of the major factors that affect teaching space usage in the hope of improving it in practise. Also, when performing space management, managers operate within a limited number and capacity of lecture theatres, tutorial rooms, etc. Hence, some teaching activities require splitting into different groups. For example, lectures being too large to fit in any one room and seminars/tutorials being taught in small groups for good teaching practise. This thesis forms the cornerstone of ongoing research to illuminate issues stemming from poorly utilised space and studies the nature of constraints that underlies those low levels of utilisation. We give quantitative evidence that constraints related to timetabling are major players in pushing down utilisation levels and also, devise "Dynamic Splitting" algorithms to illustrate the effects of splitting on utilisation levels. We showed the existence of threshold between phases where splitting and allocation is "always possible" to ones where "it's never possible", hence, introducing a practical application of Phase Transition to space planning and management. We have also worked on the long-term planning aspect of teaching space and proposed methods to improve the future expected utilisation

University space planning and space-type profiles

Universities planning the provision of space for their teaching requirements need to do so in a fashion that reduces capital and maintenance costs whilst still providing a high-quality level of service. Space plans should aim to provide sufficient capacity without incurring excessive costs due to over-capacity. A simple measure used to estimate over-provision is utilisation. Essentially, the utilisation is the fraction of seats that are used in practice, or the ratio of demand to supply. However, studies usually find that utilisation is low, often only 20–40%, and this is suggestive of significant over-capacity. Our previous work has provided methods to improve such space planning. They identify a critical level of utilisation as the highest level that can be achieved whilst still reliably satisfying the demand for places to allocate teaching events. In this paper, we extend this body of work to incorporate the notions of event-types and space-types. Teaching events have multiple ‘event-types’, such as lecture, tutorial, workshop, etc., and there are generally corresponding space-types. Matching the type of an event to a room of a corresponding space-type is generally desirable. However, realistically, allocation happens in a mixed space-type environment where teaching events of a given type are allocated to rooms of another space-type; e.g., tutorials will borrow lecture theatres or workshop rooms. We propose a model and methodology to quantify the effects of space-type mixing and establish methods to search for better space-type profiles; where the term “space-type profile” refers to the relative numbers of each type of space. We give evidence that these methods have the potential to improve utilisation levels. Hence, the contribution of this paper is twofold. Firstly, we present informative studies of the effects of space-type mixing on utilisation, and critical utilisations. Secondly, we present straightforward though novel methods to determine better space-type profiles, and give an example in which the resulting profiles are indeed significantly improved. <br/