Newsletter #249

AGENDA

Carlos Guilherme Mota lectures on the highlights of his work

The work of historian Carlos Guilherme Mota, co-founder and first director of the IEA, is marked by the interdisciplinary and comparative critique of culture and cultural ideologies in Brazil. This and other aspects of his intellectual production will be discussed by Mota at the conference 'Forms of Thinking, Ideologies and Mentalities', to be held on June 12, at 3.00 pm, in the IEA Events Room, with live webcast. Marisa Midori Deaecto, a professor at USP's School of Communications and Arts (ECA) who is on her sabbatical leave at the IEA, is the organizer of the event and will also be the moderator.

Full story available in Portuguese only. For further information, please send us an e-mail.

The construction of the memory of the civil-military dictatorship and the work of the CNV

Inaugurating the activities of the cycle 'Brasil 64/85', a meeting on June 13, from 2.00 to 4.00 pm, will address the construction of the memoirs of the civil-military dictatorship, from 1964 to 1985, based on the work developed by the National Commission of Truth (CNV). According to the organizers, the denial of the true history of repression goes hand in hand with the establishment of policies of memory, reparation and verification of violations of human rights. The meeting is coordinated by IEA's Human Rights, Democracy, Policy and Memory Research Group, and will be broadcast live over the web.

Full story available in Portuguese only. For further information, please send us an e-mail.

Workshop seeks ways to expand academia-industry interaction

Some of the knowledge produced by USP in basic and applied research activities is not always properly shared with society in general and in particular with industry. The workshop 'Science & Industry - Building New Paths in Challenging Times' will seek to reduce this gap on June 19, from 8.30 am to 5.30 pm, at the IEA. The meeting has been organized by USP's Dean for Research (PRP), IEA and the Center for Policy and Technological Management (PGT), with the support of the Academy of Sciences of the State of São Paulo (ACIESP). The meeting will be broadcast live on the Institute's website.

Full story available in Portuguese only. For further information, please send us an e-mail.

Civil entities mobilize against possible setbacks in the environmental law

The proposed change to the National Environmental Policy Law (PNMA, Law 6.938 / 1981) and the creation of a new general law on environmental licensing, both underway in the National Congress and in the Federal Executive Power, will be the subject of discussion at the meeting 'Which Environmental Licensing Reform?', on June 20, from 2.00 to 4.00 pm, in the former Room of the University Council, with live webcast. Representatives of government entities, academia and civil society are participating, under the coordination of Professor Luis Enrique Sánchez, from USP's Polytechnic School.

Full story available in Portuguese only. For further information, please send us an e-mail.

REPORT

Meeting examines interdisciplinarity and innovation in universities of excellence

Practical and conceptual aspects of interdisciplinarity and their importance for innovation were discussed at the 'Academic Meeting Interdisciplinarity and Innovation, and Universities of Excellence' on May 15, which brought together presidents and provosts from several Brazilian educational institutions. To USP's vice-president Vahan Agopyan, some of the challenges to interdisciplinarity are legislation, structural rigidity, management model and the prevailing view of development agencies. The president of the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), Emmanuel Tourinho, defended a lesser influence of the professional councils in the definition of the curricula and the opening of more opportunities of support to the interdisciplinary courses by the agencies of fomentation.

Full story available in Portuguese only. For further information, please send us an e-mail.

The machine, the man and the production of knowledge

"We need to stop thinking that the machine will learn everything and dominate the world. The machine has been programmed to learn, but who programs it is still a person." The opinion is from IBM's chief scientist, Fabio Gandour, who gave the conference 'New Ways to Produce Knowledge: Are They Really There?' on May 19 at the IEA. According to him, the proposal of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the 1980s was to build a hardware and software architecture that mimicked the human brain. "But that did not work. Today's automatic cognition does not try to simulate the human brain." What machines do, he explained, is to capture data and transform it into structured information, giving an orderly and useful character to it.

Full story available in Portuguese only. For further information, please send us an e-mail.

INSTITUTO DE ESTUDOS AVANÇADOS DA USP / INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES OF USP

Diretor / Director: Paulo Saldiva — Vice-Diretor / Deputy Director: Guilherme Ary Plonski — Conselho Deliberativo / Board: Paulo Saldiva, Guilherme Ary Plonski, Regina Pekelmann Markus, Beatriz Barbuy, Sérgio Adorno, Renato Luiz Sobral Anelli, and Fernando de Queiroz Cunha.
www.iea.usp.br — iea@usp.br — (+ 55 11) 3091-3922

BOLETIM IEA / IEA NEWSLETTER — Divisão de Comunicação / Communication Division — Chefe / Chief: Fernanda Cunha Rezende — Redatores / Editors: Mauro Bellesa and Sylvia Miguel — Versão em inglês / English version: Richard Meckien — ieacomunica@usp.br — (+ 55 11) 3091-3922 — Para receber, envie mensagem para / To subscribe send a message to boletim-iea@usp.br — Para cancelar o envio, escreva "Retirar" no "Assunto" da resposta / To unsubscribe write "Remove" in the "Subject" of your answer.