May

 

"A massive shift away from fossil fuels is a prospect that Big Oil can no longer rule out." The Week That Shook Big Oil by Camila Domonoske. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC)

May

"What is it you are searching for? What is it?" by Xinoby, On the Quiet: Searching For.  Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

Climate-neutral transitions

"[T]his toolkit focuses on technical options to (re‑)use the infrastructure and sites of coal‑fired power plants (...) to convert power stations to alternative energy facilities such as energy storage, renewable energy hubs, gas and biomass plants, and provides examples and ideas for non‑energy‑related options. (...) For gas and biomass, special attention needs to be given to limiting factors related to carbon neutrality goals and long‑term applicability. Generally speaking, as every region is different (...) the arguments for or against a certain option for after‑use of coal‑fired power plants and their related infrastructure must be carefully considered and fit into an overall transition strategy for the region." [added italics] European Commission (2021). Toolkit Technology options in coal regions in transition: Transforming industries in coal regions for a climate‑neutral economy. 

Note: Toolkit "‘Environmental Rehabilitation and Repurposing’ looks into questions of governance, institutions and tools to support regional decision‑makers in the process of repurposing coal related infrastructure".

Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC) 

September

"Stillness presents a break or pause in the flow of habitual events, whilst illuminating temporal gaps and fissures within which alternative, even unexpected possibilities - for life - might emerge. (...) Here, stillness offers the simultaneous possibility of termination and also of a new beginning." Emma Cocker (2011). Performing stillness: community in waiting. in Stillness in a Mobile World, edited by David Bissell and Gillian Fuller. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

May

 

 «The new Earth 2.0 that will emerge after COVID‑19 will be a “new normal”, but many fundamental challenges will still exist. Chief among them is the imperative to collectively work towards an effective and inclusive energy transition. (…) The era of compounded disruptions is a litmus test for the energy transition, asserting the importance of the twin objectives of robustness and resilience.» WEF (2020). Fostering Effective Energy Transition. Italics added. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

Lightning speed

"(...) when workers in dirty sectors are offered good jobs in clean sectors (...), and are enlisted as active participants in a green transition, then progress can happen at lightning speed." Naomi Klein, 2015. This Changes Everything. Penguin books. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC)

Beyond borders

European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), ECIS 2013, June 5-8, Utrecht University, Utrecht Science Park 'de Uithof': 

"The transition to a more inter-dependent and connected world is ongoing, and offers up a range of new complex research challenges. A further challenge is that the way research is conducted is changing and requires greater collaboration between researchers, as well as between researchers and industry, to integrate capabilities to face today’s challenges.

(...)

 “Beyond Borders”. It suggests having an open mind towards new ways of doing research and establishing novel partnerships for conducting research. It also refers to the multi-disciplinary nature of the field of Information Systems where we often work outside IS and collaborate with researchers in diverse disciplines."

infrastructure of experience

"By 'the experience of infrastructure', we point to the ways in which infrastructure, rather than being hidden from view, becomes visible through our increasing dependence upon it for the practice of everyday life. By 'the infrastructure of experience', we want to draw attention to the ways in which, in turn, the embedding of a range of infrastructures into everyday space shapes our experience of that space and provides a framework through which our encounters with space take on meaning. (...) The first, and most fundamental, conclusion is that space is organized not just physically but culturally; cultural understandings provide a frame for encountering space as meaningful and coherent, and for relating it to human activities. (...) The second conclusion is that architecture is all about boundaries and transitions, and their intersection with human and social practice. (...) The third conclusion is that new technologies inherently cause people to reencounter spaces. This is not a question of mediation, but rather one of simultaneous layering. (...) Finally, there is already a complex interaction between space, infrastructure, culture, and experience. The spaces into which new technologies are deployed are not stable, not uniform, and not given." P. Dourish & G. Bell (2007). The infrastructure of experience and the experience of infrastructure: meaning and structure in everyday encounters with space. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, vol. 34(3), pp.414-430.

Europe Digital Agenda - The New Renaissance

"Comité des Sages" calls for a "New Renaissance" by bringing Europe's cultural heritage online:

"The report urges EU Member States to step up their efforts to put online the collections held in all their libraries, archives and museums. It stresses the benefits of making Europe's culture and knowledge more easily accessible. It also points to the potential economic benefits of digitisation (...) The report's recommendations will feed into the Commission's broader strategy, under the Digital Agenda for Europe, to help cultural institutions make the transition towards the digital age."

"Today europeana.eu already offers access to more than 15 million digitised books, maps, photographs, film clips, paintings and musical extracts, but this is only a fraction of works held by Europe's cultural institutions (see IP/10/1524). Most digitised materials are older works in the public domain, to avoid potential litigation for works covered by copyright."

Elisabeth Niggemann, Jacques De Decker & Maurice Lévy (2011). The New Renaissance. Brussels: Report of the 'Comité des Sages’, Europe.[PDF]

Resoluções que extinguem

Vai fazer 4 anos que por Resolução do Conselho de Ministros n.º 124/2006 [Diário da República, Série I, de 2006-10-03] se anunciava a reviravolta do sistema dos laboratórios do Estado. Entre outras, lia-se no ponto 5, do anexo:

"É extinto o Instituto Nacional de Engenharia, Tecnologia e Inovação (INETI), sendo os seus recursos científicos e tecnológicos, humanos e materiais reorganizados e integrados noutros laboratórios, centros tecnológicos, instituições de ensino superior e consórcios a criar. Em particular, as infra-estruturas do INETI transformam-se em parque de ciência e tecnologia com a participação e gestão de universidades, laboratórios associados e laboratórios do Estado e alargam-se a parcerias com empresas, no quadro de projectos definidos, organizando-se ainda como espaço de acolhimento de programas europeus de I&D."

• Para onde foram os «seus recursos científicos»?
• E os «recursos tecnológicos»?
• E os «recursos humanos»?
• Onde está o «parque de ciência e tecnologia com a participação e gestão de universidades, laboratórios associados e laboratórios do Estado»?

Claro está que estas questões não interessam a ninguém. O que interessa não é cuidar das infra-estruturas e da estabilidade necessárias para que se faça ciência, mas sim ficar bem na fotografia e inscrever nas palavras as intenções de actos que nunca irão ver a luz do dia, tornando irreversíveis os danos causados.

Pelo meio, no decurso de 4 longos anos, foram-se perdendo unidades, recursos científicos e tecnológicos. As cerca de 1000 pessoas na altura? Umas foram resistindo, outras cedendo, depois sucumbindo, caindo ou tombando... reconvertendo horizontes científicos em reformas antecipadas, em trabalho administrativo, em fragmentos profissionais, em alternativas à ciência.  Foram-se esvaziando as competências, as capacidades e as equipas que outrora alimentavam e captavam recursos. Os que resistem são menos de 500. Sem novas admissões ou valorização dos que ficam.

O que se ganhou com estas perdas para se sentir que valeu (vale?) a pena: para o país, para a IeD, para o Laboratório, para as unidades, para as equipas e para os reflexos que se fizeram (fazem) sentir na vida de tantos colegas? Quatro anos de transição e a tal «reorganização» ainda por acabar...

[link para o post de 3 de Outubro de 2006, no B2OB: Não basta estar extinto!]

PS [2010, 11 de Outubro]: Recebi (através de um amigo atento) a indicação da publicação em Diário da República da "Lista de Reafectação do Pessoal do INETI ao LNEG". Afinal passámos de cerca de 1000  para 404 efectivos. Ou seja, em 3 anos uma redução de 60% no quadro de pessoal!

transdisciplinarity is about transgressing boundaries

Helga Nowotny (2009), The Potencial of Transdisciplinarity:

"Here I want to assert that knowledge, as well as expertise, is inherently transgressive. Nobody has anywhere succeeded for very long in containing knowledge. Knowledge seeps through institutions and structures like water through the pores of a membrane. Knowledge seeps in both directions, from science to society as well as from society to science. It seeps through institutions and from academia to and from the outside world. Transdisciplinarity is therefore about transgressing boundaries. Institutions still exist and have a function. Disciplines still exist and new ones arise continuously from interdisciplinary work."

"Does this sound familiar?"

A piece by Nick Wingfield, on the Wall Street Journal (found via Lilia in my Friendfeed :):

"At the office, you've got a sluggish computer running aging software, and the email system routinely badgers you to delete messages after you blow through the storage limits set by your IT department. Searching your company's internal Web site feels like being teleported back to the pre-Google era of irrelevant search results. At home, though, you zip into the 21st century." [added the bold]

It's also an evidence based on the data I'm collecting. But not in the Information Systems literature, where the research work «assumes» that workers use (only) the organizational  systems to get work done. «Assumes» in here refers to the fact that personal artefacts are not part of the conceptual models of Information Systems (IS) nor are the other spaces that workers use to get work done. Maybe this can be seen as deliberate absence of something (John Law, 2004).

losses in «information transitions»: time, errors, sync

Example of information loss in «information transitions». Actual high mobility of healthcare workers to collect data on tuberculosis patients. IS applied research solution: capturing information (almost) directly to PDA. Still have to be entered by workers, but after collected through the PDA stays in digital form and is apt for transfer to other IS.

"Under the old patient tracking system, a team of four healthcare workers would visit more than 100 health care centers and labs twice a week to record patient test results on paper sheets. A couple of times a week, they returned to their main office to transcribe those results onto two sets of forms per patient -- one for the doctors and one for the health care administrators.

From start to finish, that process took an average of more than three weeks per patient. There was also greater potential for error because information was copied by hand so many times.

With the new system, health care workers enter all of the lab data into their handheld devices, using medical software designed for this purpose. When the workers return to their office, they sync up the PDAs with their computers. " [taken from Harvard-MIT Health Science and Technology News & Events, Researchers use handheld devices to monitor TB patients in Peru]

Tracking Transition

"(...) the transition to employment is only one of a number of possible transitions which the individual may experience upon leaving university and as noted above these are not necessarily mutually exclusive events, but often exhibit a degree of interaction between the various transitions. (...) a number of transitions may simultaneously be in operation: that of status (undergraduate to graduate); in terms of accommodation, living arrangements and even location of domicile; and, in terms of activity (undergraduate to post-graduate or from part-time to full-time work or from student to employee). In the case of some of the respondents as noted by comments above, the transitions were not always unproblematic. Moreover, for some of the respondents, the transition especially in relation to independent living was conditioned by a lack of financial resources and this could impact on relationships with partners and parents." Houston, Muir (2008). Tracking Transition: Issues in Asynchronous E-Mail Interviewing. FQS, vol 9(2).

ecotone

Uma boa metáfora para explicar espaços de transição. Neste caso, a palavra «ecotone» serviria para explicar espaços de transição próximos. Notei que as palavras «edge» e «boundary» também são utilizadas como sinónimos em algumas das definições.

Define: ecotone

"A narrow and fairly sharply defined transition zone between two or more different communities. Such edge communities are typically species-rich. (Allaby 1998)" www.oup.com.au/orc/demo_glossary.aspx

Mobile Work survey

The Mobile Working Experience: Perspectives from Europe (2005) from IBM Business Consulting Services [a podcast from February 2006, is also available here]:

"The subject of mobile working has been studied by a number of academics and trade associations over the last few years. As the prevalence of individuals spending the majority of their work time in their homes or other non-office locations continues to rise, companies are becoming increasingly interested in the issues and effective practices associated with making these arrangements successful. While a significant amount of research has been done regarding the numbers of individuals who work remotely, the productivity savings associated with reductions in commuting time, office space, etc., only a small body of research has addressed the challenges facing individuals who work in mobile locations. These include issues around social isolation, technical support, performance management, career development, team effectiveness, employee retention, and work-life balance. This study, done in cooperation with the Economist Information Unit, surveyed over 350 mobile workers from 29 countries across Europe to better understand their perspectives and experiences."