1,720,962 research outputs found
Design Futures to support Sustainable Food practices
No full textPlanet Earth’s temperature is rising every year and scientists agree that, if this trend persists, humanity will witness an irreversible damage (Schmitz, 2015). To tackle climate change and safeguard human and planet’s health, a radical green transformation becomes urgent. The food sector represents one of the largest contributors to carbon footprint production and Earth’s degradation. Approximately 20-30% of global human induced GHG emissions is due to food production, processing, and distribution (Fresán and Sabaté, 2019). In this scenario, cutting-edge technologies can be employed to foster innovations within the food sector enabling a green transformation and minimizing negative effects. To creatively envision the possible brighter futures of food, there is an emergent need for new design processes (Meyer & Norman, 2019). This is the aim of the Digital Creativity for developing Digital Maturity future skills (DC4DM) European project which disseminates an innovative educational model based on the Design Futures approach to equip new generations of professionals with a future-proof skill set to shape preferable future scenarios. After framing the connection between the food sector and climate change, the paper will introduce the Design Futures process providing a real-life experience of its application in multidisciplinary team of students
Educating the Future Digital Maturity Enablers. Learning from the Experience of the DC4DM LLabs
Full text linkThe ever-changing digitally enabled world we live in requires preparing young creatives and entrepreneurs with more suitable abilities and set of skills to face the challenges of ongoing digital transformations. The Erasmus + funded project DC4DM aims to implement a human-centered educational model to train Digital Maturity Enablers. This new type of professionals would be able to drive small and medium organizations towards their digital maturity: owning specific creative digital skills, they would be able to extract value from what the technological landscape offers and respond to the human needs through the principles of ethics and sustainability. This paper aims to describe the DC4DM educational model and reflect on the experience of three testing sessions, called DM Learning Labs, 10-days design-led workshops involving a great diversity of university students, diverse for country of origin and study background, start-ups, and several local mentors and stakeholders to co-design compelling future tech-scenarios. The paper will present the results from a preliminary study which aims to understand how attending a DM Learning Lab has impacted on the participants. Particularly, to understand which Digital Creative Ability had developed thanks to the LLab experience and which learnings were consequently applied in new creative and co-design contexts. The paper tries to highlight how much the DC4DM methodology has the potential to change the way to educate future professionals through cross-disciplinary and collaborative learning opportunities
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Symbiotic system thinking : harnessing indigenous knowledge to improve design approaches for complex socio-ecological challenges
No full textLAUREA MAGISTRALELe sfide socio-ecologiche che affrontiamo sono sempre più complesse e crescono di giorno in giorno. Senza un cambiamento di paradigma nella nostra comprensione e coinvolgimento in questi problemi, gli effetti negativi seri di queste sfide e l'incapacità dei progettisti di gestirle rimarranno. Pertanto, comprendere le complesse interconnessioni all'interno del nostro mondo è più cruciale che mai. Si sottolinea che il successo contro queste sfide può essere raggiunto solo attraverso sforzi collaborativi. Alla luce di questi ostacoli, sorge la domanda: "Qual è il metodo più efficace per affrontare i complessi dilemmi socio-ecologici?" Gli approcci moderni si sono sviluppati intorno a tecnologie eccessivamente complicate che spesso lottano contro la natura piuttosto che collaborare con essa. Al contrario, i popoli indigeni hanno imparato a vivere in simbiosi con la natura, creando soluzioni intuitive e senza tempo da cui possiamo ancora beneficiare oggi. Abbracciando la complessità, l'interconnessione e la sostenibilità nei loro sistemi di vita, l'innovazione indigena può essere a bassa tecnologia, ma sofisticata e progettata per collaborare con ecosistemi complessi, migliorando interazioni mutualmente benefiche tra varie specie (simbiosi tra specie). Considerando quanto sopra, lo studio, basato sull'ipotesi della conoscenza indigena e del suo modo simbiotico di pensare nei sistemi, ha il potenziale per rivoluzionare gli approcci progettuali moderni, in particolare durante le fasi di know-how mirate a affrontare complesse sfide socio-ecologiche. L'intero lavoro di tesi presentato qui mira a esplorare questo potenziale e potenzialmente convalidare questa ipotesi. Per raggiungere questo obiettivo, il progetto di tesi comprende tre settori principali: una fase teorica e due fasi empiriche. La fase teorica introduce la razionalità dell'indagine, le teorie e le pratiche centrali e rilevanti per il dibattito sulla conoscenza indigena e il pensiero sistemico nel design. Discute come comprendere le pratiche della conoscenza indigena e come incorporarle nelle pratiche scientifiche utilizzando modelli teoricamente fondati. Inoltre, riconosce alcune delle limitazioni dell'adattamento della conoscenza indigena agli approcci progettuali per ottenere una comprensione dei complessi problemi socio-ecologici. La prima parte della fase empirica coinvolge il viaggio osservativo attraverso villaggi indigeni, condotto attraverso la lente di modelli teorici per sfruttare la conoscenza indigena. Il viaggio è iniziato in tre villaggi indigeni geograficamente distinti nelle montagne centrali dello Sri Lanka, dove l'autore ha risieduto con le comunità per tre settimane. La conoscenza è stata esplorata attraverso interazioni con persone, luoghi, pratiche e narrazioni che spaziano su prodotti, servizi e sistemi. Successivamente, è stata mappata in base ai cinque livelli interrelati del complesso di conoscenza-pratica credenza per comprendere il potenziale quadro. Informa un approccio che ha tre fasi di framework, iniziando con la considerazione di visioni del mondo alternative, inculcando competenze di conoscenza di interconnessione, complessità, olisticità e sostenibilità e competenze di abilità. Quindi decodifica e prevede nella fase di know-how. La seconda fase empirica inizia esplorando il pragmatismo della conoscenza informata attraverso la sua applicazione a sfide socio-ecologiche nello stesso contesto, come affrontare il conflitto tra uomini ed elefanti in Sri Lanka. Sono state condotte sessioni di workshop con studenti di design per testare il potenziale dell'approccio progettuale, confrontandolo con e senza il framework. Lo studio identifica l'impatto positivo dell'incorporazione della conoscenza indigena negli approcci progettuali, in particolare in contesti in cui esiste dibattito su questa conoscenza. Piuttosto che alimentare il conflitto tra i due sistemi di conoscenza, ipotizza ulteriormente che possano completarsi a vicenda. La tesi si conclude valutando il "Pensiero Sistemico Simbiotico" come un approccio concettuale che incoraggia forti relazioni tra loro e con la terra - un'idea radicataThe socio-ecological challenges we face are increasingly complex and growing day by day. Without a paradigm shift in our comprehension and involvement in these problems, the serious negative effects of these challenges and designers' incapacity to handle them will remain. Therefore, understanding the complex interconnections within our world is more crucial than ever. It underscores that success against these challenges can only be achieved through collaborative efforts.
In view of these obstacles, it begs the question: "What constitutes the most effective method for navigating complex socio-ecological dilemmas?" Modern approaches have developed around overly complicated technologies that often fight against nature rather than work with it. Conversely, indigenous people have learned to live in symbiosis with nature, creating intuitive, timeless solutions from which we can still benefit today. Embracing complexity, interconnectedness, and sustainability in their living systems, indigenous innovation may be low-tech, yet sophisticated and designed to collaborate with complex ecosystems, enhancing mutually beneficial interactions between multiple species (species symbiosis).
Considering the above, the study, based on the hypothesis of indigenous knowledge and its symbiotic way of thinking in systems, has the potential to revolutionise modern-day design approaches, particularly during the know-how phases aimed at tackling complex socio-ecological challenges. The entire thesis work presented here aims to explore this potential and potentially validate this assumption.
To achieve this, the thesis project comprises three main sectors: one theoretical phase and two empirical phases. The theoretical phase introduces the rationale for the investigation, theories, and practices central and relevant to the debate on indigenous knowledge and systems thinking in design. It discusses how to understand indigenous knowledge practices and how to incorporate them into scientific practices using theoretically grounded models.
Additionally, it recognizes some of the limitations of adapting indigenous knowledge to design approaches to gain an understanding of complex socio-ecological problems.
The first part of the empirical phase involves the observational journey through indigenous villages, conducted through the lens of theoretical models to harness indigenous knowledge. The journey commenced in three geographically indigenous villages in the central mountains of Sri Lanka, where the author resided with the communities for three weeks. Knowledge was explored through interactions with people, places, practices, and narratives spanning products, services, and systems. Subsequently, it was mapped out according to the five interrelated levels of the knowledge-practice belief complex to understand the potential framework. It informs an approach which has three stages framework, beginning with the consideration of alternative worldviews, inculcating knowledge competencies of interconnectedness, complexity, holism, and sustainability, and skill competencies. Then decoding and predicting in the know-how phase. The second empirical phase starts by exploring the pragmatism of the informed knowledge through its application to socio-ecological challenges in the same context, such as addressing the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka. Workshop sessions were conducted with design students to test the potential of the design approach, comparing it with and without the framework.
The study identifies the positive impact of incorporating indigenous knowledge into design approaches, particularly in contexts where debate over this knowledge exists. Rather than fostering conflict between the two knowledge systems, it further posits that they can complement each other. The thesis concludes by assessing 'Symbiotic Systems Thinking' as a conceptual approach that encourages strong relationships with each other and the land – an idea grounded in Indigenous knowledge. Embracing different worldviews represents a significant shift from the usual design approach, urging further developments and validation to expand this knowledge into different contexts by applying and adapting it accordingly
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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