Musical preferences and technologies: Contemporary material and symbolic distinctions criticised

Today how individuals interact with various cultural items is not perfectly consistent with theoretical frameworks of influential scholars on cultural consumption, such as Bourdieu (1984), Gans (1999), and Peterson and Simkus (1992). One such variation is in the ever increasing variety of technological modes to acquire and listen to music (Pinch and Bijsterveld, 2004). However, as a consequence of digital divides (van Dijk, 2006), technological items may not be distributed equally among social groups. At present, the value of status-making through a preference for different genres of music extends itself to different forms of consumption and ways of experiencing music. We are yet to fully understand the power these practices have on generating status. This article is therefore motivated by the need to integrate within quantitative frameworks of taste and cultural consumption, an analysis of individuals’ technological engagement. These two dimensions, integrated as components of musical practices, enhance our understanding of cultural boundaries across different social groups.The objective is to bridge a gap detected in the literature, addressing the following questions: Are technological modes to listen to music related to musical tastes

Introspection without Judgment

The focus of this paper is introspection of phenomenal states, i.e. the distinctively first-personal method through which one can form beliefs about the phenomenology of one’s current conscious mental states. I argue that two different kinds of phenomenal state introspection should be distinguished: one which involves recognizing and classifying the introspected phenomenal state as an instance of a certain experience type, and another which does not involve such classification. Whereas the former is potentially judgment-like, the latter is not. I call them, respectively, reflective introspection and primitive introspection. The purpose of this paper is to argue that primitive introspection is a psychologically real phenomenon. I first introduce the distinction and provide some preliminary motivation to accept it (§1). After some set-up considerations (§2), I present my central argument for the existence of a non-classificatory kind of introspective state (§3), what I call the ‘argument from phenomenal-concept acquisition’. Finally, I briefly present some reasons why my distinction may be important for various philosophical debates (§4)

Applying Bourdieu to socio-technical systems: The importance of affordances for social translucence in building 'capital' and status to eBay's success

This paper introduces the work of Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and his concepts of ‘the field’ and ‘capital’ in relation to eBay. This paper considers eBay to be a socio-technical system with its own set of social norms, rules and competition over ‘capital’. eBay is used as a case study of the importance of using a Bourdieuean approach to create successful socio-technical systems.Using a two-year qualitative study of eBay users as empirical illustration, this paper argues that a large part of eBay’s success is in the social and cultural affordances for social translucence and navigation of eBay’s website - in supporting the Bourdieuean competition over capital and status. This exploration has implications for wider socio-technical systems design which this paper will discuss - in particular, the importance of creating socially translucent and navigable systems, informed by Bourdieu’s theoretical insights, which support competition for ‘capital’ and status

A model of nutrition information search with an application to food labels

Due to the dramatic rise of several diet-related chronic diseases, nutrition information search behaviours have received significant interest from both the scientific and non-scientific literature. No other known paper in economics, however, has examined from a theoretical perspective the acquisition of nutrition information as a health enhancing activity. We modify the standard health capital model (Grossman, 1972) to allow the time spent on nutrition information search to be considered within the context of a time allocation decision. We then collected extensive primary data based on the theoretical model and used these to test the model.nutrition information, food labels, health production

Mobile objects: the space of shells in eighteenth-century France

The frequent distinction made between scientific and purely amateur collections misrepresents the specificity of the field of eighteenth-century natural history. This paper argues that the extent and the boundaries of a scientific field can be determined only within the framework of concrete historical constellations of institutions, protagonists, practices and objects. By tracing the circulation of shells in eighteenth-century France, Paris in particular, between about 1735 and 1780, it becomes evident which individuals or groups actually came into contact with these shells ; in what practices of collecting, describing and classification they were involved; and in what spaces they were displayed. Thus the contours of a constellation emerge which differ considerably from those drawn hitherto

The Image as a Communication Tool for Virtual Museums. Narration and the Enjoyment of Cultural Heritage

The challenge of contemporary museums is to make content accessible to a wider audience; in this way information related to the good becomes more communicative and usable in order to enhance its uniqueness. Accessibility goes through an innovative communication of content: the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that are increasingly part of people’s daily lives. Communication in most cases occurs visually, so ICTs are increasingly focusing on a rethinking of this expressive form; images become a better support for high-quality data transfer

The Quest for Ethical Truth: Wang Yangming on the Unity of Knowing and Acting

Drawing an analogy between Wang Yangming’s endeavor to know ethical truth and Descartes’ quest for epistemic certainty, this paper proposes a reading of Wang\u27s doctrine of the unity of knowing and acting to the effect that the doctrine does not express an ethical teaching about how the knowledge that is already acquired is to be related to acting, but an epistemological claim as to how we know ethical truths. A detailed analysis of Wang’s relevant texts is offered to support the claim

Parameter analysis of copper-nickel-tungsten prepared via powder metallurgy process for electrical discharge machining of polycrystalline diamond

Polycrystalline Diamond (PCD) tools have an outstanding wear resistance. The electric conductivity of PCD caused by the conductive binding material (Cobalt) makes it possible to machine PCD tools with EDM. Electrode used in EDM of PCD must have better porosity, electrical and thermal conductivity. Therefore, this research presents the works in production of Cu-Ni-W electrode by powder metallurgy route. Production of powder metallurgy parts involve mixing of the powder with additives or lubricants, compacting the mixture and heating the green compacts in an Argon gas furnace so the particle bond to each other. Two levels of full factorial with six centre points and two replication technique was used to study the influence of main and interaction effects of the powder metallurgy parameter. There were four factors involved in this experiment. Factor A which is Type of Cu-Ni; Type A and Type B was defined as categorical factor. Factor B in which Composition of W; 5 Wt.%, 15 Wt. % and 25 Wt.%, was defined as numerical factor. Factor C which is the Compaction load; 7, 8 and 9 tonne and Factor D which is Sintering temperature; 635 ℃, 685 ℃ and 735 ℃ were also defined as numerical factor. Optical Microscope, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) was used to analysed the microstructure and surface morphology of Cu-Ni-W electrode. The best parameter combination to produced better porosity, electrical and thermal conductivity for both Type A and Type B was 5 Wt.% of W, compaction load at 9 tonne and sintering temperature at 735℃. The best response for Type A is 12.65% of porosity, 14.40 IACS% of electrical conductivity and 413.26 W/m.℃ of thermal conductivity. While that, the best response for Type B were 9.36% of porosity, 16.66 IACS% of electrical conductivity and 345.21W/m.℃ of thermal conductivity. From the calculation of Maxwell’s Equation, Type A and Type B had the highest electrical conductivity of 58.48 IACS% and 77.35 IACS% respectively at W content of 5Wt.%. Type A and Type B also had the highest thermal conductivity of 369.86 W/m.℃ and 310.24 W/m.℃ respectively at W content of 5 Wt.%. Besides that, thermal conductivity also increased with the temperature increased until 450℃

Students and mobile devices: choosing which dream

There is a crisis looming and a paradox emerging. Many educators advocate, promote and encourage the dreams of agency, control, ownership and choice amongst students whilst educational institutions take the responsibility for provision, equity, access, participation and standards. The institutions traditionally procure, provide and control the technology for learning but now students are acquiring their own personal technologies for learning and institutions are challenged to keep pace. These allow students to produce, store, transmit and consume information, images and ideas; this potentially realises the educators’ dream but is for institutions potentially a nightmare, one of loss of control and loss of the quality, consistency, uniformity and stability that delivered the dreams of equity, access and participation. This paper traces the conflicting dreams and responsibilities