In this paper, we describe an innovative project where Web technologies are exploited to foster science learning in an integrated but mobile smart learning environment. Contextawareness is considered a crucial skill in science learning, therefore we imagined a solution to train students for context awareness by illustrating context gaps based on on-site observations and measurements. A componen...

Poor access to clean and reliable energy technologies is a major challenge to most developing countries. The decision to introduce new technologies is often faced by low adoption rates or even public opposition. In addition, the data required for effective decision making is often inadequate or even lacking, thus constraining the planning process. In this study, a methodology for participatory ...

Participatory budgeting is one of the exciting developments in deliberative grassroots democracy. We concentrate on approval elections and propose proportional representation axioms in participatory budgeting, by generalizing relevant axioms for approval-based multi-winner elections. We observe a rich landscape with respect to the computational complexity of identifying proportional budgets and...

In this article, I chart a trajectory from deconstruction to embodiment in the intellectual history of Buddhist traditions in Tibet. I focus on embodiment as a participatory approach to radically deconstructed and unthematized meaning, in contrast to an interpretation of truth as purely an analytic category or an approach to meaning that deals with values, such as emptiness, as simply truth cla...

The digital environment has opened up new opportunities for fans to engage with the production process of their favoured texts. The successful Kickstarter campaigns for Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell’s Veronica Mars film and Zach Braff’s film Wish I Was Here, and the failed Kickstarter campaign for Melissa Joan Hart’s film Darci’s Walk of Shame, each illustrate how the entertainers drew (or did no...

BACKGROUND Few large and rigorous evaluations of participatory interventions systematically describe their context and implementation, or attempt to explain the mechanisms behind their impact. This study reports process evaluation data from the Ekjut cluster-randomised controlled trial of a participatory learning and action cycle with women's groups to improve maternal and newborn health outcom...

Water governance debates have increasingly recognized the importance of adaptive governance for shortand long-term sustainability, especially with respect to increasing climate unpredictability and growing urbanization. A parallel focus on enhancing community participation pervades international development recommendations and policy literature. Indeed, there are often implicit and explicit con...

BACKGROUND To investigate how a relatively socio-economically deprived community's needs have changed over time, assess which recommendations from an earlier assessment were implemented and sustained, and consider whether serial Rapid Participatory Appraisal is an effective health research tool that can promote community development and has utility in assessing longitudinal change. METHODS Ra...

Stakeholder participation in environmental management is increasing. Staff of environmental agencies, however, often lack training in communication and in conducting participatory processes. Their interpretation of “participation” is of interest because interpretation affects how participation is practiced. We explored how participation was interpreted within the Soil Conservation Service of Ic...

One the most cited papers in astronomy is Ken Freeman's 1970 paper on exponential disks in galaxies. In this contribution I review what has been done in this area since then and what we can infer about systematic properties of disks in galaxies from surface photometry, HI synthesis observations and measurements of stellar kinematics. Most disks have radial truncations at 3.6 ± 0.6 radial scalel...