Consciousness and Cognition in Classical Sāṃkhya metaphysics

This article explores the psychological dimension of classical Sāṃkhya philosophy, on the basis of its canonical treatise, Sāṃkhyakārikā of Īśvarakṛṣṇa (4th Century AD). The strong dualism defended by this ancient metaphysics establishes a division between what we will designate as the phenomenon of consciousness (puruṣa) and the cognitive phenomena (prakṛti). According to our approach, Sāṃkhya seems to offer a mechanical model of mind by means of an introspective self-research. In fact, we will argue that in this system of thought, mind is regarded as an artificial extension of consciousness. Considering the Sāṃkhya classical treatise as the report of a meditative experience, our main purpose is to examine some key points of this dualism. To this end, we also take account of certain Western theories of mind, as well as certain aspects included in another Indian philosophy greatly influenced by the Sāṃkhya system, namely, the classical Yoga of Patañjali

Interpassivity and the joy of delegated play in idle games

This paper examines the youngest video games genre, the so called idle (incremental) game, also referred to as the passive, self-playing or clicker game, which seems to challenge the current understanding of digital games as systems, based on a human-machine interaction where it is the human who actively engages with the system through meaningful choices. Idle games, on the other hand, tend to play themselves, making the player’s participation optional or, in some cases, entirely redundant. Interactivity and agency – qualities extensively theorised with reference to digital games – are questioned in the context of idling. In this paper the author will investigate the self-contradictory genre through the lens of interpassivity, a concept developed by Robert Pfaller and Slavoj Žižek to describe the aesthetics of delegated enjoyment. This contribution aims at introducing interpassivity to a wider Game Studies community, and offers an alternative perspective to reflect upon digital games in general and self-playing games in particular

Towards Query Logs for Privacy Studies: On Deriving Search Queries from Questions

Translating verbose information needs into crisp search queries is a phenomenon that is ubiquitous but hardly understood. Insights into this process could be valuable in several applications, including synthesizing large privacy-friendly query logs from public Web sources which are readily available to the academic research community. In this work, we take a step towards understanding query formulation by tapping into the rich potential of community question answering (CQA) forums. Specifically, we sample natural language (NL) questions spanning diverse themes from the Stack Exchange platform, and conduct a large-scale conversion experiment where crowdworkers submit search queries they would use when looking for equivalent information. We provide a careful analysis of this data, accounting for possible sources of bias during conversion, along with insights into user-specific linguistic patterns and search behaviors. We release a dataset of 7,000 question-query pairs from this study to facilitate further research on query understanding.Comment: ECIR 2020 Short Pape

A culturally-focused life cycle sustainability assessment: Analysis of forestry value chain options with Māori land owners : A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Doctor of Philosophy in Life Cycle Management At Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

The purpose of this research was to 1) explore the potential for the more distinctive representation of Māori culture in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), and 2) understand the relationship between culturally-focused LCSA and the Māori decisionmaking process. These two interrelated aspects were investigated through participatory engagement with three members of the Ngāti Porou iwi (tribe), and through collaborative development of three forestry LCSA scenarios (radiata pine, rimu, and mānuka). Aligning with principles of kaupapa Māori research, a participatory LCSA methodology approach was created which encapsulated five phases: 1) understand Ngāti Porou aspirations and concerns, 2) co-develop options for forestry scenarios, 3) co-develop and select LCSA indicators (including a cultural indicator), 4) LCSA indicator data collection and modelling, and 5) communication of results. The methodology utilised a mixed methods approach as Stage 1, 2, 3, and 5 are predominantly qualitative while Stage 4 is predominantly quantitative. Culture was represented in the participatory LCSA in two ways. Firstly, a bespoke cultural indicator (Cultural Indicator Matrix) was co-developed to distinctly include culture within LCSA. The Cultural Indicator Matrix was based on and adapted an existing cultural decision-making framework (i.e. the Mauri Model) in order to ensure its capability to represent both Ngāti Porou aspirations and the forestry value chains explored in this research. The Cultural Indicator Matrix was completed by each participant and subjectively measured the impact they perceived each forestry process or product had upon a range of Ngāti Porou aspirations. Secondly, a participatory research approach was utilised that itself made the LCSA process more culturally-focused. The participatory approach relied on active engagement with the research participants throughout the LCSA study, primarily with the utilisation of semi-structured interviews. Such collaborative participatory engagement with the research participants allowed for their cultural input, preferences, and knowledge at each stage of the LCSA process. This research has yielded several original and meaningful results: 1. The Cultural Indicator Matrix is a new culturally-focused mechanism which can be used to support the Māori decision-making process. The participants viewed the Cultural Indicator Matrix as an effective method for gathering community impressions of how potential forestry life cycle processes could impact upon their cultural aspirations. 2. The participants felt the participatory LCSA aspect was crucially important; the open and consistent communication between themselves and the LCSA practitioner provided them with more control, access to information, understanding of the LCSA process, and enhanced their acceptance of the final results. They considered that the results of the culturally-focused LCSA gave them “validation” and “direction”, and justified their interests in pursuing forestry options for their land. 3. The participatory LCSA process led to the identification of a need to formally include a Cultural Compliance process with the LCSA. The Cultural Compliance process is comprised of six cultural components occurring throughout the forestry life cycle. Recognition of these components helps to ensure that appropriate and necessary cultural considerations are taken into account during relevant forestry life cycle processes. It is unlikely that this insight would have been reached if not for the participatory engagement focus of this LCSA research. 4. The development and analysis of three forestry scenarios using a range of sustainability indicators generated distinctive datasets on the life cycles of radiata pine, rimu, and mānuka. As the rimu and mānuka scenarios are particularly underrepresented in forestry-life cycle literature, this research has provided a contribution to knowledge regarding these two forestry options. For the first time, indigenous culture has been represented alongside economic, social, and environmental impacts in LCSA. This comprehensive presentation of results facilitates the decision-making process by providing the decision maker(s) with information about the “big picture”, thus supporting educated and informed decisions. Furthermore, a culturally-focused LCSA approach helps to ensure that culture is not lost during the decision-making process, but rather is an active component. Finally, of critical importance, both the culturally-focused LCSA process and associated results will further enable the recognition cultural groups, including their values and aspirations. The explicit acknowledgement of culture in LCSA will engender more awareness and protection for culture, lessen the isolation and marginalisation of culture, and empower cultural groups to develop and pursue brave choices

Are you listening ... are we learning? Radio production as a means of teaching & learning [case study]

This case study focuses upon one aspect of undergraduate teaching and learning within a ‘Research & Development’ unit of BA (Hons.) Media Production degree. Eight final-year students undertook the mentoring, teaching and development of a schools radio project. The paper seeks to develop two key themes: firstly, an evaluation of the usefulness of undergraduate learning via the development and man- agement of an external project suitable for broadcast; secondly, an examination and analysis of the application and adaptation of prior learning during the mentoring process. The latter theme draws partic- ularly from the strategies and metacognitive processes employed by the students

Analysing qualitative data from virtual worlds: using images and text mining

There is an increasing interest within both organisational and social contexts in virtual worlds and virtual reality platforms. Virtual worlds are highly graphical systems in which avatars interact with each other, and almost every event and conversation is logged and recorded. This presents new challenges for qualitative researchers in information systems. This paper addresses the challenges of analyzing the huge amounts of qualitative data that can be obtained from virtual worlds (both images and text). It addresses how images might be used in qualitative studies of virtual worlds, and proposes a new way to analyze textual data using a qualitative software tool called Leximancer. This paper illustrates these methods using a study of a social movement in a virtual world

An analysis of persistent non-player characters in the first-person gaming genre 1998-2007: a case for the fusion of mechanics and diegetics

This paper describes the results of an analysis of persistent non-player characters (PNPCs) in the first-person gaming genre 1998-2007. Assessing the role, function, gameplay significance and representational characteristics of these critical important gameplay objects from over 34 major releases provides an important set of baseline data within which to situate further research. This kind of extensive, genre-wide analysis is under-represented in game studies, yet it represents a hugely important process in forming clear and robust illustrations of the medium to support understanding. Thus, I offer a fragment of this illustration, demonstrating that many of the cultural and diegetic qualities of PNPCs are a product of a self-assembling set of archetypes formed from gameplay requirements

Positioning adolescents in literacy teaching and learning

Secondary literacy instruction often happens to adolescents rather than with them. To disrupt this trend, we collaborated with 12th-grade “literacy mentors” to reimagine literacy teaching and learning with 10th-grade mentees in a public high school classroom. We used positioning theory as an analytic tool to (a) understand how mentors positioned themselves and how we positioned them and (b) examine the literacy practices that enabled and constrained the mentor position. We found that our positioning of mentors as collaborators was taken up in different and sometimes unexpected ways as a result of the multiple positions available to them and institutional-level factors that shaped what literacy practices were and were not negotiable. We argue that future collaborations with youth must account for the rights and duties of all members of a classroom community, including how those rights and duties intersect, merge, or come into conflict within and across practices.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a Faculty Research Award from the School of Education at Boston University. (Faculty Research Award from the School of Education at Boston University)Accepted manuscrip