Big Data as a Technology-to-think-with for Scientific Literacy

This research aimed to identify indications of scientific literacy resulting from a didactic and investigative interaction with Google Trends Big Data software by first-year students from a high-school in Novo Hamburgo, Southern Brazil. Both teaching strategies and research interpretations lie on four theoretical backgrounds. Firstly, Bunge's epistemology, which provides a thorough characterization of Science that was central to our study. Secondly, the conceptual framework of scientific literacy of Fives et al. that makes our teaching focus precise and concise, as well as supports one of our methodological tool: the SLA (scientific literacy assessment). Thirdly, the "crowdledge" construct from dos Santos, which gives meaning to our study when as it makes the development of scientific literacy itself versatile for paying attention on sociotechnological and epistemological contemporary phenomena. Finally, the learning principles from Papert's Constructionism inspired our educational activities. Our educational actions consisted of students, divided into two classes, investigating phenomena chose by them. A triangulation process to integrate quantitative and qualitative methods on the assessments results was done. The experimental design consisted in post-tests only and the experimental variable was the way of access to the world. The experimental group interacted with the world using analyses of temporal and regional plots of interest of terms or topics searched on Google. The control class did 'placebo' interactions with the world through on-site observations of bryophytes, fungus or whatever in the schoolyard. As general results of our research, a constructionist environment based on Big Data analysis showed itself as a richer strategy to develop scientific literacy, compared to a free schoolyard exploration.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures, 8 table

Analytical study of tunneling times in flat histogram Monte Carlo

We present a model for the dynamics in energy space of multicanonical simulation methods that lends itself to a rather complete analytic characterization. The dynamics is completely determined by the density of states. In the \pm J 2D spin glass the transitions between the ground state level and the first excited one control the long time dynamics. We are able to calculate the distribution of tunneling times and relate it to the equilibration time of a starting probability distribution. In this model, and possibly in any model in which entering and exiting regions with low density of states are the slowest processes in the simulations, tunneling time can be much larger (by a factor of O(N)) than the equilibration time of the probability distribution. We find that these features also hold for the energy projection of single spin flip dynamics.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, published in Europhysics Letters (2005

The voyager as a scholar: Amerigo Vespucci in early modern graphical representations

info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Surekha Davies, Renaissance ethnography and the invention of the human: new worlds, maps and monsters

info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Cumplicidades com o território expectante: projetar o Vale de Massarelos

Dissertação de mestrado em Arquitectura (área de especialização em Cidade e Território)A presente tese reflecte e constrói um modo de actuar sobre os espaços inativos em contexto urbano, propondo sistemas de espaço público que corrijam problemas e explorem oportunidades. Desenvolve-se a temática com o Vale de Massarelos como objecto de estudo, fundando uma interpretação e crítica de onde resultam estratégias de projecto. Estas, baseadas em condições específicas deste território heterogéneo, abordam a sua “ideia de vale” e significados implícitos. A cumplicidade, abordagem construída para intervir nos fragmentos inativos e expectantes do território, reclama a instalação de usos através do entendimento da sua temporalidade – procurando perceber qual o seu “tipo de espera” –, de continuidade com lógicas urbanas existentes e de uma apropriação e domínio ponderados e críticos destes espaços. Assim, aspira-se a confrontar a paralisação do território e questionar a dicotomia entre atividade e inatividade, procurando soluções exequíveis que reintegram e reaproveitam espaços não resolvidos.The present master thesis reflects and builds an approach on inactive spaces in urban context, proposing urban space systems that correct problems and explore opportunities. The theme is developed with the Vale de Massarelos as a study object, founding an interpretation and critic from which project strategies derive. Based on specific conditions of this heterogenic territory, this strategies approach its “valley idea” and implicit meanings. The complicity, the built approach to intervene in the inactive and expecting fragments of the territory, reclaims the installation of uses through the understanding of its temporality - figuring out what is its “type of expectancy” -, continuity with existent urban logics and a considerate and critic appropriation and domain of these spaces. Therefore, the goal is to confront the paralysation of the territory and question the dichotomy between activity and inactivity, searching practicable solutions that reintegrate and reuse unresolved spaces

São Paulo’s informal entrepreneurs have innovated to adapt to COVID-19, but their underlying vulnerability is nothing to celebrate

São Paulo’s many informal workers, like those in the rest of Brazil, have reacted to COVID-19 with impressive speed and agility. As demand for products like masks, gloves, and sanitiser has soared, small-scale production has been ramped up and new solutions have been found for logistics and marketing. But ultimately the mother of this invention is dire necessity, and the confused and contradictory response of the Brazilian state has done little to mitigate the precarious conditions that informal workers face day-to-day, write Kauê Lopes dos Santos (University of Sao Paulo & LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre), Jonatas Santos (University of Sao Paulo), and Larissa Santos (University of British Columbia)

Aristóteles e a Lógica da Contingência: uma interpretação tradicional do argumento da batalha naval

Since Antiquity, the meaning and purpose of Aristotle’s sea-battle argument have been highly controversial. On the so-called traditional interpretation of De Interpretatione 9, the argument is intended to prove that not every statement is always true or false on the assumption deemed evident that facts may occur contingently in our sublunar world. In this paper I argue that this interpretation is for many reasons much more plausible than any of its competitors, so that its correctness is worthy at least of moral certainty. In particular, I contend that it can coexist in perfect logical harmony with a moderately charitable reading of Aristotle’s texts that at first glance it seems to confute. As a matter of fact, I contend that it is faithful to Aristotle’s view of logical laws as consequent upon the metaphysical structure of reality