The UOC showcases its research during Researchers' Night

The UOC is set to participate in Catalonia's European Researchers' Night for the second year running, in a day-long programme of events organized for the general public aimed at raising awareness of the research being conducted and highlighting its importance and impact on society. On Friday 27 September, more than 300 European cities will be simultaneously hosting a series of informative activities (free, walk-in events) to promote science and knowledge transfer, and the UOC is getting involved with the following activities organized in and around Barcelona.

Deconstructing the Spanish Citizenship Test

In Spain, foreign nationals from countries where Spanish is not the official language are required to take a language test when applying for Spanish nationality. Is this exam the most appropriate testing measure? Kamran Khan, a researcher with the Language, Culture and Identity in the Global Age (IdentiCat) group has conducted an analysis of this test and will question its application and repercussions in a talk which will take place at the Historic Building of the University of Barcelona on 27 September at 5pm.

The relationship between Spain and China

The importance of relations with China in this current era of globalization is irrefutable. This is not a new reality, however. What has Spain's relationship with this Asian power been like in the past? Researchers Carles Prado and David Martínez-Robles from the ALTER group -Crisis, Otherness and representation- will be reviewing just that in their lecture at the Vil·la Urània centre (Vía Augusta, 102), which begins at 7pm. This UOC research group is responsible for the development of the China-Spain Archive, which analyses the interactions between the two countries over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The house of the future

What can 5G technology bring to homes of the future? The concept known as building monitoring offers a whole host of conveniences for domestic environments, as well as energy efficiency and home security improvements, among other aspects. These smart homes are equipped with sensors that measure environmental and occupational status. This technology, applied as part of a project developed by researchers from the UOC and the Telecommunications Technological Center of Catalonia (CTTC), will be presented at CosmoCaixa (Carrer D'Isaac Newton, 26), at 7pm, with participation from Ferran Adelantado, Behnam Ojaghi and Santiago Sánchez, from the Wireless Networks Research Lab (WiNE), and CTTC researchers: Christos Verikoukis, Michail Dalgitsis, Anestis Dalgkitsis, Ioannis Sarrigiannis, Massimiliano Maule, Prodromos Mekikis, Mohammadreza Mosahebfard and Farhad Rezazadeh. The activity will be conducted in English.

Personal data control

We live in a datafied society; a phenomenon we need to understand in order to gain power over the use of our personal data. What exactly is datafication? What happens to our digital data? Are there positive implications in its use? These are some of the questions that researcher Juliana Raffaghelli from the Edul@b, Education and ICT research group, will be addressing in an interactive workshop being held at the National Research Council (CSIC) Researchers' Residence building in Barcelona at 8pm (Carrer de L'Hospital, 64). Participants will, both in small groups and a plenary session, discuss their experiences of interacting with their mobiles in order to gain an understanding of the technological and ethical reality associated with their digital data.

School workshop on coping with natural disasters

The Àngel Baixeras school in Barcelona (Carrer de Salvador Aulet, 1) will host a workshop for its students on the CUIDAR project –on the morning of 26 September–, which has involved the participation of more than 500 young Europeans, who have collaborated in a process to create a child-focused disaster management framework. Researcher Míriam Arenas, from the Care and Preparedness in the Network Society (CareNet), will present the results of this project aimed at empowering the children with regard to coping with natural and social disasters, before, during and after emergency situations, and invite them to come up with their own suggestions for making improvements to disaster management systems.

Organization

The European Researchers' Night in Catalonia is organized by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGLOBAL), the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the University of Barcelona (UB), the University of Girona (UdG), the University of Lleida (UdL) and the Rovira i Virgili University (URV), with the support of the Catalan Association for Scientific Communication (ACCC) and the UOC. The initiative is promoted by the European Commission as part of the Marie Curie Actions, falling within its Horizon 2020 framework programme. It aims to support the career development of research personnel.

Academic papers with the participants

Carles Prado Fonts and David Martínez-Robles

• Unió civil i diversitat sexual al Japó contemporani
• Tintín. Un friki en Chinitiad
• Su Dongpo, contemporaneïtat mil·lenària
• La iniciativa China "One Belt, One Road": amenazas y oportunidades para las empresas españolas
• La conquista de la Gran Muralla. Cómo ofrecer por los western food retailers una inolvidable experiencia de compra al consumidor chino
• L’impacte del sistema hukou en el mercat de treball a la Xina
• El shadow banking en el desenvolupament econòmic i social de la Xina
• El Mar de China y la historia del intento de su control: Del imperialismo y poder marítimo japonés a la búsqueda de la hegemonía y poder marítimo chino
• El fenomen del Furusato i la seva relació amb el Nihonjinron
• El dilema sobre la pertenencia de las Islas Diaoyu/Senkaku
• CLCWeb : comparative literature and culture: a WWWeb journal. S. Tötösy de Zepetnek
• Bases de la cultura y el pensamiento de China y Japón
• Bases de la cultura i el pensament de la Xina i el Japó

Ferran Adelantado, Behnam Ojaghi and Santiago Sánchez

• Communications Society of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers magazine
• Sistemas trunking sobre LTE para ciudades seguras. Estado del arte
• LiFi: El futuro de las comunicaciones VLC
• Energy and spectrum efficient user association in millimeter wave backhaul small cell networks
• Disseny i implementació d’una xarxa LTE

Juliana Raffaghell

• Learning ecologies through a lens: Ontological, methodological and applicative issues. A systematic review of the literature
• Is there a social life in open data? The case of open data practices in educational technology research
• Integrating MOOCs in physics preliminary undergraduate education: Beyond large size lectures. Educational Media International