Methodology of the Blockchain Monitoring Framework

A blockchain is a technology that allows the storage and transmission of information without a control body. Technically, it is a distributed database in which the information sent by users is verified and grouped into blocks, thus forming a chain. Thanks to the secure encryption of the data and the fact that new transactions are linked to the previous ones, it is almost impossible to modify the old records without modifying the following ones. On the other hand, the control of the blockchain by more than half of the nodes in the network (by consensus) makes it impossible to falsify the data in the blockchain. However, this public/private, anonymous, and unforgeable ledger that is the blockchain contains a set of information (metrics, logs, etc.) that can provide clues for an efficient monitoring and allow the reinforcement of the security of the blockchain that could be discussed in the future with the advent of quantum machines

Adult Reflections on a High School Choral Music Program: Perceptions of Meaning and Lifelong Influence

The purpose of this study was to investigate the lifelong meaning and influence of participation in a high school choral music program. This study described and analyzed the reflections of adults who participated in one high school choral program selected by the researcher as meeting high standards of practice in choral music. The eight participants, who were involved in the choral program for at least three years and pursued careers in fields other than music, were selected via criterion sampling and interviewed regarding their experiences in chorus and how those experiences may have influenced their lives. Semi-structured interviews were the primary method of investigation in this case study. The first interview began with a broad-scope, grand-tour question. Prior to the second interview, former-student participants reviewed transcriptions of the first interview. The second interview consisted of specific questioning around the possible lifelong influence of their choral experience. During the second interview, each former-student participant was asked to complete an evaluation survey of effective teaching strategies/dimensions based on their memories of their choral director. The data collection process took place over a period of approximately five months. The school’s choral director was observed to verify teaching strategies consistent with criteria established by the researcher and to provide contextual data for triangulation of former-student participant data. Interview data, field notes, and archival information were coded for analysis by relevant themes and narratives were crafted. Findings suggested that the lifelong influence of this high school choral program was related to multiple social aspects, including a sense of pride and achievement, as well as to the learned ability to critique and evaluate. Participants valued the high expectations of the choral director and the exposure to many genres of music. Data revealed that some self-perceived outcomes of the program, such as critical thinking and self-confidence, were influential in the development of lifelong learning skills. Findings implied that traditional performing ensembles in secondary schools may not provide the greatest opportunity for engaging school musical experiences that encourage lifelong involvement in music. Additionally, the findings revealed that extra-musical benefits of the program outweighed the musical influence in adulthood

Architecture and social space

Informació a la coberta: Dossiers de recerca & newsletterDescripció del recurs: 14 de març de 2017Textos en castellà i anglèsEn este volumen 30 de la revista Arquitectonics hay una serie de artículos relacionados con el análisis de los lugares y espacios públicos de diferentes países, un tema de investigación muy importante en los últimos años, tal vez relacionado con la fuerte crisis financiera en todo el mundo vinculada a la vivienda. El principal y primer trabajo de éste volumen está dirigido por el profesor Rainer Zimmermann de Munich, matemático y filósofo, que inaugura un nuevo y fuerte punto de vista sobre las meta-teorías de las actividades del diseño arquitectónico y urbano. Relacionando cognición, interacción social y diseño arquitectónico, este trabajo es un estudio teórico muy importante que puede impactar en casi todas las tesis sobre arquitectura y planeamiento urbano. Los tres libros monumentales sobre los fundamentos de los sistemas de este autor, en proceso, marcarán un antes y un después en las teorías y prácticas arquitectónicas.There is a set of articles related to the analysis of architectural and urban places from different countries, a very important research subject in the last years, perhaps related to the strong financial crisis around the world linked to housing. The main and first work, of this volume 30 of ARQUITECTONICS, is the one directed by professor Rainer Zimmermann from Munich, mathematician and philosopher, who inaugurate a strong and new way of meta-theories of architectural and urban design activities. Linking, cognition, social interaction and architectural design, this work is a very important theoretical study that can impact almost all PHD dissertations on architecture and planning. The three monumental books on The Foundations of the Systems by this same author, on process, will mark a before and after in architectural theories and practices. We will follow very closely his findings in next volumes of ARQUITECTONICS.Primera edició

Voice Station: A Portfolio of Four Works Exploring Radio Art and Its Mediated Voices

This study pertains to the creative explorations of the human voice and the radio medium through a portfolio of four projects titled Voice Station. The research and creative processes of the portfolio draw on the practices of radio art, a genre that encompasses a wide range of artistic experimentations with the conventions and complexities of the medium. Voice Station centres the human voice as the only compositional material to investigate how recorded and mediated voices can be used artistically in diverse radio environments by employing distinct platforms and technologies: Voice Station I (2019-21) is a fixed-medium composition that offers a sonic vocabulary for the portfolio and, thus, establishes its conceptual and technological foundations; Voice Station II (2021-22) is a web-based, participatory live stream comprising vocal materials contributed and curated by the participants; Voice Station III (2022) is a radio installation that invites visitors to an interactive listening experience via the radio dial in a gallery environment; finally, selected episodes of my ongoing radio program at CJSW FM, Vocal Cords, provide an examination of the relationships between radio and voice from a broader perspective of campus and community broadcasting. The vocal catalogue, audio processing methods, and formal strategies emerging from each project are recycled and evaluated throughout the portfolio. This iterative practice uncovers sonic and metaphorical similarities between the two core concepts of this study, radio and voice, and presents a structural model shared by each project

Reassembling the monad: the intellectual genealogy of an actant rhizome ontology

The monad, of which we will speak here, is nothing else than a simple substance, which goes to make up compounds; by simple, we mean without parts. (Leibniz, Monadology) From its origins in antiquity the monad is a concept that has time and again beguiled and attracted philosophers. This thesis will argue that it is a concept that lives on in the work of Bruno Latour and that it continues to have a contemporary relevance, offering a way out of sterile debates rooted in Cartesian dualism – subject/object, interior/exterior, essence/accident, whole/part, mind/body – and an alternative to those traditions which privilege one side of the dualism over the other – positivism on one hand, postmodernism on the other. The present study charts the development of the monad through the modern period, beginning with the work of Gottfried Leibniz and, thereafter, its recurrence in the work of Gabriel Tarde, Alfred North Whitehead, and, finally, Bruno Latour. However, rather than simply sketching a chronological history of the monad this study takes as its starting point Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, or to use Latour’s preferred formulation, Actant Rhizome Ontology. Arguing that Latour’s work is best understood as being another instance of a monadological metaphysics that – contra Graham Harman – owes more to Whitehead than Heidegger, to Tarde than Nietzsche, to Leibniz than Spinoza; the thesis traces the genetic intellectual relations between Latour and his three co-monadologists. Latour himself frequently identifies Leibniz, Tarde and Whitehead as intellectual antecedents in his own work; in the spirit of Latour’s own Actor-Network Theory, this thesis takes a closer look at these claimed chains of association. The first chapter surveys Leibniz’s monadology and argues that, far from being an idealist, Leibniz was committed to a monism that recognized the materiality of simple substance through his corporeal ‘de Volder’ monad. This does not necessarily lead, as argued forcibly Pauline Phemister, to pan-psychism, as Leibniz anticipates William James’ ‘depsychologized’ category of experience with his three level system of bare, soul and spirit monads, where only the spirit monads possess anything resembling a mind; however, it takes Whitehead’s transformation of the monad into the actual entity to complete the break between experience and mind. The second chapter provides a close reading of Gabriel Tarde’s Monadology & Sociology, a work only made available in English in 2012. Latour has played a significant role in the rediscovery of Tarde, claiming his criminologist compatriot as an intellectual forefather; yet throughout the 20th century Tarde’s work quietly influenced continental philosophy through Giles Deleuze who, despite only ever mentioning Tarde parenthetically, borrows Tarde’s very own formulation for the title of Difference et Repetition. The chapter presents Tarde’s work as being an explosion of the Leibnizian monad where the universe is no longer reflected but literally embodied in each individual entity while at the same time diffused through the universe of monads by virtue of relations of possession. Taken together with his theory of repetition and imitation, his privileging of difference over identity, and his philosophy of having – his ‘echontology’ – Tarde’s monadology provides the foundations for a truly relational ontology; foundations which Latour will retrospectively claim for Actor Network Theory. The third chapter considers Whitehead’s metaphysical scheme as presented in Process and Reality. Whitehead resolves the ‘audacious fudge’ committed by Leibniz – the doctrine of pre-established harmony – through a complex and sophisticated realist metaphysical system, one held together by ‘creativity’. Whitehead’s categoreal scheme, his peculiar vocabulary, his reiterative method whereby ideas are presented over and over again in different contexts mirror the very metaphysical scheme he describes. This – along with his insistence on the atomic nature of time and the instantaneous emergence and realization of each ‘actual entity’ – lays the basis for Latour’s democratic ontology which, as well as famously according equality between human and non-human actors affords concepts the same ontological status as the thinker in whose mind they have been formed. The final chapter returns to the work of Latour himself to find the monad reassembled as the ‘actor-network’. Latour’s ontological scheme is discussed in detail with reference to his three antecedents, and his ontology is presented as a reiteration/renewal of the monad; an ontology that itself demands to be renewed each and every time it is deployed. Finally, the thesis argues that Latour pays insufficient heed to Whitehead’s understanding of abstraction with the result that, despite developing the idea himself, Latour fails to fully embrace the ontological reality of the abstract. This in turn leads to his preference for litany over critique and results in a philosophy with a great deal of descriptive power but little or no transformational power. The ‘compositionist’ politics that emerge from Latour’s Actant Rhizome Ontology are ambiguous and utopian, and the thesis concludes by suggesting that more work is required to further Latour’s democratization of the monad, to include its radicalization, in pursuit of a monadology that provides an ontological basis for: …the genuine resolution of the conflict between man [sic] and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. (Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

Hans Christian Andersen and the cultural reception of Richard Wagner in Denmark, 1857–1875

Denmark, in roughly the first seven decades of the nineteenth century, was a country of immense geographic, cultural, political, and moral change. The landscape of these powerful shifts informed, among other things, the representation and interpretation of art in Denmark, whether it was produced domestically or imported from abroad. Amidst rapidly shifting notions of national identity in a country that was becoming more insulated from foreign influences, the Danish poet Hans Christian Andersen sought to maintain what he believed was integral for Denmark’s future: preserving his country’s cultural solidarity with Germany, which he also viewed as the path to a better future for the arts in Denmark. Andersen travelled widely across Europe, and in his journeys, he frequently associated with prominent musicians and formed long-standing relationships with them. Although Andersen was to gain exposure to the music of German composer Richard Wagner relatively early in both men’s careers, it took the poet several more years to cultivate a deep admiration for the composer, which ultimately led to Andersen believing that Wagner was the artist of the future whom Andersen had hoped would bring about the improved social standing of the arts that he himself had always tried to nurture. The crowning achievement of Andersen’s devotion to Wagner is expressed in his final novella, Lykke Peer, which is a literary testimony of his support for Wagner and forward-oriented thinking on music, culture, and a universal tolerance of new and progressive ideals that would result in an enhanced cosmopolitanism in Danish society. At the same time, though, the values that Andersen supported faced strong opposition in the form of a growing cultural nationalism that was propagated by the theologian and politician N.F.S. Grundtvig. This movement was in turn fueled by the damaging consequences of Danish-German relations as a result of the two Schleswigian Wars, yet Andersen never faltered in his conviction about an inclusive association between Denmark and Germany. Within this rich fusion of socio-cultural developments, this study examines Wagner’s cultural reception in Denmark from the years 1857–75, primarily through the lens of Andersen, and with overlapping perspectives that deal with art and culture, history, politics, philosophy, nation building, and national identity. My specific aim is to investigate how the cultural reception of Wagner was influenced by Andersen’s promotion of the composer in Lykke Peer. The ultimate goal is to investigate Wagner’s role in the complex setting of his contemporary Danish society in order to see how Andersen positioned Wagner’s music and theories to influence Danish reception and render his countrymen more receptive to Wagner and also to German art in general. The main research questions are: How were Wagner’s ideas and music received in Denmark between 1857 and 1875, how were Wagner and Wagnerism connected to the question of Danish nationalism and identity, and how was Andersen involved in these phenomena? Primary research materials of this study, beyond Lykke Peer, include Andersen’s diaries, autobiographies, and theoretical texts; Wagner and Grundtvig’s theoretical texts; and public, critical reviews of Wagner, written by Danish journalists and commentators. The study’s primary methodologies are reception theory and narrative analysis

Pretty in punk: female bodies and identity performance in the pit

Along with style, habitus, and visual self-representation, dancing in the mosh pit at punk shows is a way of performing one’s punk identity. While the visual aspect or “punk look” can be aimed at both members of the punk community and society at large, bodily performance in the mosh pit at punk shows is a more intimate way of presenting oneself as punk within the scene. In this presentation I will argue that the mosh pit is a contested and highly gendered space, in which women and girls are not always welcome. Thus, my primary aim is to point out the ways in which punk communities tend to slip into reproducing sexist modes of behavior, and give insight into the ways in which these tendencies can be negotiated and minimized. Furthermore, I will give an ethnographic account of a number of different situations in which gender was an issue in the mosh pit, and map out different strategies used by women and girls in order to fight this specific form of gendered social exclusion. The presentation is based on participant observation conduced at punk concerts primarily in Serbia, but in other European countries as well

The social construction of `musician' identity in music education students in Canadian Universities

This research concerns itself with the development of a theory in the grounded tradition to account for the social construction of an identity as musician by music education students in Canadian universities. The principal data gathering techniques were semi- and unstructured interviews and participant observation, first at the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Music, University of Western Ontario with further periods of interviewing at the University of Alberta and the University of British Columbia. The pilot study was conducted at Memorial University of Newfoundland where the author was, at the time of writing, an Associate Professor and Co-ordinator of Music Education in the Faculty of Education. Data collection and analysis were completed simultaneously and the interviewing became more focused on emerging categories and their properties, particularly concerning the construction of identity. The core categories discussed concern the apparent sense of isolation and the development of a symbolic community in the music school, as suggested by Cohen (1985). Further core analytic categories include the music education students' perceptions of Others as outsiders to their own insider symbolic community, and the students' perception of social action, including the notion of deviancy, which contributes to their construction of this symbolic closed community. An examination of models of social action is undertaken. The notion of making points as suggested by Goffman (1967) provides a beginning model for the identification and accumulation of status points which students appear to use in the process of identity construction and validation. Further discussion examines the nature of the music education sub-group as a stigmatized group. The nature of the category musician is examined and substantial comparison and contrasting with the position presented by Kingsbury (1984) is undertaken. The analytical categories of talent and music as in-group constructs are examined. Finally the processes of Self-Other negotiation on are explored and a theory is developed to account for the construction and maintenance of musician identity. The emerging theory borrows extensively from those analyses of the roots of social interaction recognised in the labelling tradition which are concerned with the construction of identity in negotiation with Others, and most specifically draws upon the notion of societal reaction. The research is guided by those theories and methodologies generated by symbolic interactionism developed by writers such as Blumer, Meltzer and Denzin and follows the traditions of sociological research in educational settings by such writers as Baksh, Martin and Stebbins in Canada, and Hargreaves, Woods, Ball, Hammersley and Lacey in the U.K

Sacrificial form: the libretti in English 1940-2000

This thesis focuses on the genre of libretto, the sung words for music theatre. The “little book” which accompanies every operatic performance is not just an extended program note to the spectacle, but in fact a substantial literary form in its own right. However, despite the immense influence of Wagner, the output from librettists in an operatic collaboration, has been serious ignored; indeed in opera the aesthetic function of language is frequently diminished and foreshortened, because it is often re-directed by and within the music. The result is that librettists are often seen as offering words to be “decomposed” by composers in the process of operatic collaboration. Opera, in the English language, finally achieved its rightful status, alongside its European counterparts, during the second half of the twentieth century. The thesis is intended to encompass something of the vast diversity of this genre and discusses a number of individual works as constituting legitimate literary artefacts in their own right. There will be five chapters featured in the thesis and each chapter is devoting to a specific theme