A liberdade é a coisa mais cara da vida (freedom is the most expensive thing in life)

A short story that came to life through the observation of an artwork by Sara&André, this text is a personal viewpoint on being a mother, an academic and an independent curator, during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

A Mind Genomics Cartography of Shopping Behavior for Food Products During the Covid -19 Pandemic

The study presents a new approach to understand the mind of the persons in order to drive desired action in crisis situation, specifically the COVID-19 pandemic. Understand the mind of the shopper in a pandemic situation, with massive uncertainty, should provide direction for governments and the retail trade to adopt practices and communications which will reassure their customers. This study investigates the nature of what people will do to reassure themselves in the pandemic, and has been executed during the period of the pandemic, making the study relevant to the actual events taking place. The focus of the study is on the likelihood of buying ordinary food, given certain descriptions. The study revealed three mind-sets, clusters of individuals who respond to the pandemic in one of three ways. These are: Mind-Set 1: Focus on sanitation - supply; Mind-Set 2: Focus on budget for lifestyle; Mind-Set 3: Focus on shopping, personal needs, consumption. These mind-sets are distributed through the population, and are not limited to specific age or gender. The paper closes with the PVI, personal viewpoint identifier, to assign a new person to one of the three mind-sets.

A Subjective Approach of the Performance of Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16

Starting from a stylistic analysis based on musical language elements, this study offers a personal standpoint with respect to the interpretation and performance of Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16. The author accounts for all the technical and interpretive observations starting from a structural analysis of the opus. The reflections on various melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, dynamic or agogic characteristics come to reinforce the rationale for the subjective choices of how to perform this piece. The article is not by far an exhaustive study on the topic; it merely offers a personal viewpoint and understanding of this Concerto based on several musical excerpts that have been deemed particularly relevant by the author, who is a pianist as well as a piano teacher. Given that the literature on the stylistic and performative analysis of major piano repertoire is sadly scarce, the author wishes to provide pianists and researchers alike with a paper that may serve them in their artistic or academic enquiries. As this Concerto is very well-known and enthusiastically approached by most pianists due to its beautiful, impressive themes and brilliant virtuosic passages, the author has considered it opportune to present her own point of view as a performing pianist for other pianists who may be strictly interested in various versions to resolve technical-performative issues or, perhaps, who may wish to merely contemplate this opus from a different angle.

StARboard & TrACTOr: Actuated Tangibles in an Educational TAR Application

We explore the potential of direct haptic interaction in a novel approach to Tangible Augmented Reality in an educational context. Employing our prototyping platform ACTO, we developed a tabletop Augmented Reality application StARboard for sailing students. In this personal viewpoint environment virtual objects, e.g., sailing ships, are physically represented by actuated micro robots. These align with virtual objects, allowing direct physical interaction with the scene. When a user tries to pick up a virtual ship, its physical robot counterpart is grabbed instead. We also developed a tracking solution TrACTOr, employing a depth sensor to allow tracking independent of the table surface. In this paper we present concept and development of StARboard and TrACTOr. We report results of our user study with 18 participants using our prototype. They show that direct haptic interaction in tabletop AR scores en-par with traditional mouse interaction on a desktop setup in usability (mean SUS = 86.7 vs. 82.9) and performance (mean RTLX = 15.0 vs. 14.8), while outperforming the mouse in factors related to learning like presence (mean 6.0 vs 3.1) and absorption (mean 5.4 vs. 4.2). It was also rated the most fun (13× vs. 0×) and most suitable for learning (9× vs. 4×).

Managing a library service through a crisis

PurposeThe study aims to explore public libraries' ability to respond to worst-case scenarios and whether planning and scenario planning is a useful exercise to prepare library staff and library organisations for quick and agile responses to crises in the future.Design/methodology/approachPersonal viewpoint of crisis management of a library service through the experience of the library service the author manages.FindingsThis paper describes Yarra Plenty Regional Library’s (YPRL’s) response to the pandemic and lockdowns in Metro Melbourne. It offers some opinions on library services readiness to respond to crises and describes the foundations of YPRL's successful response.Originality/valueYPRL is a regional corporation governed by a board of directors and serves three councils. This is one of 10 such corporations in Victoria. The organisation's response and the development as a corporation through this crisis is something that other organisations can learn from.

Creativity, Critical and Integral Thinking

To think, means creating patterns out of its surroundings, forming concepts about the observed process. Once the patterns are formed it becomes possible to recognize them. This system is a very efficient way of handling information because patterns are easily formed, combined, and ingrained in the brain. However, it is extremely difficult to restructure them. The thinker is concerned with the observed object of his thinking and not with the thinking or observation. There are several ways to think: wishful thinking, Critical thinking, Lateral thinking, Intuitive thinking, Mindful Thinking, and Integral Transpersonal Thinking. In this article, I will explain the meaning of these distinct ways of thinking as I have learned to understand them. After that I will offer my personal viewpoint on the concepts that I have learned and the impact they have on my life. KEYWORDS Wishful thinking, critical thinking, lateral thinking, observation, questions.

Dying in lockdown

Purpose This study aims to share a personal viewpoint on the hardship imposed by lockdown measure. Design/methodology/approach A personal experience of losing a loved one during the Covid-19 lockdown in England. Findings The costs of lockdown go far beyond the economic ones. Originality/value A unique, personal perspective.

Containing COVID-19 by Matching Messages on Social Distancing to Emergent Mindsets—The Case of North America

Public compliance with social distancing is key to containing COVID-19, yet there is a lack of knowledge on which communication ‘messages’ drive compliance. Respondents (224 Canadians and Americans) rated combinations of messages about compliance, systematically varied by an experimental design. Independent variables were perceived risk; the agent communicating the policy; specific social distancing practices; and methods to enforce compliance. Response patterns to each message suggest three mindset segments in each country reflecting how a person thinks. Two mindsets, the same in Canada and the US, were ‘tell me exactly what to do,’ and ‘pandemic onlookers.’ The third was ‘bow to authority’ in Canada, and ‘tell me how’ in the US. Each mindset showed different messages strongly driving compliance. To effectively use messaging about compliance, policy makers may assign any person or group in the population to the appropriate mindset segment by using a Personal Viewpoint Identifier that we developed.