Who Gets to Fly?

In this chapter, we posit that academics need to reduce their flying in line with the ‘Carbon Law’ if we are to attain the agreed-upon targets of the Paris agreement. This entails reducing emissions in general as well as reducing emissions from flying by at least 50 per cent every decade from 2020 and on. We present data from KTH Royal Institute of Technology regarding our flying and use two specific departments as examples. We unpack this data, using material visualisations (i.e. post-it notes and poker chips) to raise questions that are not immediately apparent when looking at top-down statistics about flying. Our material visualisations instead present data about flying patterns and habits in a format that viscerally displays the differences (‘inequalities’) that exist between and within departments. Such visualisations emphasise that reducing the frequency and the length of air trips will inevitably lead to discussions and negotiations about who gets to fly (or not), as well as discussions about exactly what constitutes ‘unnecessary’ flights. The chapter ends with a reflection about the limitations of our language and how the task of reducing carbon emission from flying necessitates a reinvention of how we think and talk about flying.

Graphical details: the secret life of Christopher Wren's drawing of the weather clock

Historians have unanimously credited Christopher Wren with having constructed a weather clock (a self-registering instrument) in the early 1660s. This conclusion was based on the account of the French diplomat Balthasar de Monconys, which included a sketch uncannily similar to an undated drawing by Wren of the weather clock. By critically re-examining the available sources, I argue that one can infer that Wren never actually constructed a weather clock. What Monconys saw and sketched was, in fact, a drawing produced by Wren for a meeting of the Royal Society that took place on 8 January 1662. I further show that there is strong evidence to assume that Wren's drawing for the Royal Society is the undated drawing preserved at the Royal Institute of British Architects. The new context in which I place Wren's drawing provides an incentive to look at it with fresh eyes. Though the drawing does not represent a device actually constructed by Wren, it still bears (unexpected) connections to the material world that surrounded him. The analysis of the drawing developed in this article will be relevant for historians interested in the role that images can play as historical evidence.

New Designs of Railway Station Footbridges

<p>In 2018, Network Rail set out on a program of improving its offer of approved designs for the railway environment. The objective was to develop designs for railway stations that are accessible, user friendly and not too imposing. By the end of 2019, Network Rail oversaw the initiation and approval of two new footbridge designs, the Beacon and the Ribbon. A third design, the Frame, was completed in 2020.</p><p>The Frame design was a winner of Network Rail’s Station Footbridge competition [1] launched in collaboration with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 2018. Of the 120 designs submitted, http://www.ribacompetitions.com/networkrailfootbridge/long-listed.html the competition was won by Danish designers.</p><p>This is an account of developing the three distinctive designs from a common design brief.</p>

Reseña libro: The Saint-Denis altarpiece in Liège and the question of partial paint practices in the 16th century

The Saint-Denis altarpiece in Liège and the question of partial paint practices in the 16th century Flesh, Gold and Wood Edited by Emmanuelle Mercier, Ria De Boodt and Pierre-Yves Kairis Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage Brussels. Diciembre 2020. ISBN 978-2-930054-40-7 Dimensiones: 200 x 200 mm (a color) Páginas: 483 Idioma: inglés y francés

Mercier, E., De Boodt R., y Kairis P-Y. (ed.) Flesh, Gold and Wood. The Saint-Denis altarpiece in Liège and the question of partial paint practices in the 16th Century. Proceedings of the Conference Held at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Bru

Reseña del libro Flesh, Gold and Wood. The Saint-Denis altarpiece in Liège and the question of partial paint practices in the 16th Century, editado en 2020 por el Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage de Bruselas. Los contenidos son fruto de la restauración del retablo de la Iglesia de San Denis en Lieja (Bélgica).

Characters recognition using keys points and convolutional neural network

<p>In this paper, the convolutional neural network (CNN) is used in order to design an efficient optical character recognition (OCR) system for the Tifinagh characters. indeed, this approach has proved a greater efficiency by giving an accuracy of 99%, this approach based in keys points detection using Harris corner method, the detected points are automatically added to the original image to create a new database compared to the basic method that use directly the database after a preprocessing step consisting on normalization and thinning the characters. Using this method, we can benefit from the power of the convolutional neural network as classifier in image that has already the feature. The test was performed on the Moroccan Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture (IRCAM) database composed of 33000 characters of different size and style what present the difficulty, the keys points are the same in the printed and handwritten characters so this method can be apply in both type with some modifications.</p>

Lo spirito di Arcetri

On 7 November 1921, the new Institute of Physics of the Royal Institute of Higher, Practical and Advanced Studies of Florence was inaugurated in Arcetri. Three years later, with the establishment of the University of Florence, the Degree Course in Physics would start: as such an adventure in research and scientific training began, which would take us to the present day. To mark the centenary of the inauguration of the Institute of Physics in Arcetri, the book takes the opportunity to retrace a part of those years. The period chosen ranged from the arrival of Garbasso in 1913 to the end of the 1960s. The book contains a first part, documenting the history of the Institute of Physics during the above mentioned years. This is followed by a second part, outlining the biographies of some of the protagonists of that history. In the final part, there is an index of the holders of the courses of Physics and Astronomy in Florence from 1876 to 1969. This landscape is the result of research work conducted in the University’s Historical Archives of the University.

Harnessing the Potential of Technology to Support Self-Directed Language Learning in Online Learning Settings––Online Symposium Review

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden) and the Research Institute for Learner Autonomy Education at Kanda University of International Studies (Chiba, Japan) held a joint online symposium on October 15, 2020. It was an open event for those interested in the design and use of technology and self-directed, autonomous language learning in online settings. Examining 15 of the event’s internationally focused presentations, this article aims to provide an overview of the symposium by summarizing the main themes in research and practice relating to technology and self-directed learning. The article will conclude with a commentary on the takeaways and issues for further reflection.