Designing a notation for the senses

Understanding the role of the non-visual senses is difficult, as there is at present no recording medium for the olfactory, gustatory, tactile or even aural environment which is useful to the practice of urban design. In any case, recording has a different aim from drawing and notation

Don’t Look Back: The Paradoxical Role of Recording in the Fashion Design Process

Although there is little systematic research in academia or industry examining design processes in Fashion, anecdotal evidence, based on self- reports and observations, suggests that designers very rarely record the process of designing. Conversely, benefits and requirements of recording the design process within other domains, such as Engineering and Architecture, are well supported in the literature. This paper attempts to explore the dichotomy of recording and non-recording practice across these fields through a review of the literature, semi-structured interviews and a report on one case study in particular, drawing out further detail. Commonalities and differences are identified and new directions for research proposed

High dynamic range imaging for archaeological recording

This paper notes the adoption of digital photography as a primary recording means within archaeology, and reviews some issues and problems that this presents. Particular attention is given to the problems of recording high-contrast scenes in archaeology and High Dynamic Range imaging using multiple exposures is suggested as a means of providing an archive of high-contrast scenes that can later be tone-mapped to provide a variety of visualisations. Exposure fusion is also considered, although it is noted that this has some disadvantages. Three case studies are then presented (1) a very high contrast photograph taken from within a rock-cut tomb at Cala Morell, Menorca (2) an archaeological test pitting exercise requiring rapid acquisition of photographic records in challenging circumstances and (3) legacy material consisting of three differently exposed colour positive (slide) photographs of the same scene. In each case, HDR methods are shown to significantly aid the generation of a high quality illustrative record photograph, and it is concluded that HDR imaging could serve an effective role in archaeological photographic recording, although there remain problems of archiving and distributing HDR radiance map data

Patterns of contribution to citizen science biodiversity projects increase understanding of volunteers’ recording behaviour

The often opportunistic nature of biological recording via citizen science leads to taxonomic, spatial and temporal biases which add uncertainty to biodiversity estimates. However, such biases may also give valuable insight into volunteers’ recording behaviour. Using Greater London as a case-study we examined the composition of three citizen science datasets – from Greenspace Information for Greater London CIC, iSpot and iRecord - with respect to recorder contribution and spatial and taxonomic biases, i.e. when, where and what volunteers record. We found most volunteers contributed few records and were active for just one day. Each dataset had its own taxonomic and spatial signature suggesting that volunteers’ personal recording preferences may attract them towards particular schemes. There were also patterns across datasets: species’ abundance and ease of identification were positively associated with number of records, as was plant height. We found clear hotspots of recording activity, the 10 most popular sites containing open water. We note that biases are accrued as part of the recording process (e.g. species’ detectability) as well as from volunteer preferences. An increased understanding of volunteer behaviour gained from analysing the composition of records could thus enhance the fit between volunteers’ interests and the needs of scientific projects

Efficiently reducing transition curvature in heat-assisted magnetic recording with state-of-the-art write heads

The curvature of bit transitions on granular media is a serious problem for the read-back process. We address this fundamental issue and propose a possibility to efficiently reduce transition curvatures with state-of-the-art heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) heads. We compare footprints of conventional with those of the proposed head design on different media, consisting of exchange coupled and single phase grains. Additionally, we investigate the impact of various recording parameters, like the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the applied heat pulse and the coercivity gradient near the write temperature of the recording grains. The footprints are calculated with a coarse grained model, based on the Landau-Lifshitz-Bloch (LLB) equation. The presented simulations show a transition curvature reduction of up to 40 %, in the case of a medium with exchange coupled grains and a heat pulse with a FWHM of 40 nm. We further give the reason for the straightening of the bit transitions, by means of basic considerations with regard to the effective recording time window (ERTW) of the write process. Besides the transition curvature reduction the proposed head design yields an improvement of the transition jitter in both down-track and off-track direction

A 64-channel inductively-powered neural recording sensor array

This paper reports a 64-channel inductively powered neural recording sensor array. Neural signals are acquired, filtered, digitized and compressed in the channels. Additionally, each channel implements a local auto-calibration mechanism which configures the transfer characteristics of the recording site. The system has two operation modes; in one case the information captured by the channels is sent as uncompressed raw data; in the other, feature vectors extracted from the detected neural spikes are transmitted. Data streams coming from the channels are serialized by an embedded digital processor and transferred to the outside by means of the same inductive link used for powering the system. Simulation results show that the power consumption of the complete system is 377μW.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2009-0844

The Aftermath of Aftermath: The Impact of Digital Music Distribution on the Recording Industry

[Excerpt] “This article will address the impact the shift from hard-copy recordings to digital music distribution has had on the recording industry. Specifically, it will apply F.B.T. Productions v. Aftermath Records, which correctly held that a label’s relationship with third-party-digital-music-providers is that of licensor-licensee, to the modern music industry. Based on this holding, record labels need to reconsider their relationships with artists, and create new business models that rely on licensing music, rather than the traditional sale-based distribution model. The decision in Aftermath will lead to increased royalties for artists in the Digital Age. This article will analyze the impact of that decision for the modern music industry by advocating for increased artist royalties in this digital music era. By examining other relevant case law, the fundamental purpose of royalty distributions, and the evolution of the recording industry, this article will emphasize the need for the recording industry to adapt to the changing musical landscape and suggest possible business models.

Recording and explaining : exploring the German ditransitive alternation

In this discussion note, we offer some thoughts on the relation between explanation and the extensive recording of data from a ‘moderate’ functional point of view. The paper takes the form of a case study in which we consider the variation in form and function of sentences with the ditransitive verb geben in present-day standard German. This is the subject matter of an ongoing corpus-based research project in the General Linguistics section of the Linguistics Department at Ghent University