Psychological consumption of culinary artistry in the Peak District

This paper is based upon the culture of culinary artistry, consumption and design. The ranges of sources are specific to The Peak District using Chatsworth House as a case study. It will attempt to conceptualise the heritage, sustainability and perception of culinary arts as a medium of culture. Elements of cultural heritage tourism will be incorporated into this paper and conceptualised to culinary arts. “Culture is a fascinating concept. Our favourite analogy is to compare it to a beautiful jewel – hold it to the light, and reveal its multiple dimensions. Culture is not just a tool for coping, but a means for creating awareness and for learning”. Harris and Moran (2001) Data collected through in-depth interviews, a questionnaire survey and observation will be presented and analysed which seeks to address the practical aspects to the theoretical models. The qualitative analysis of data suggests that there are parameters that have an important yet underlying resonance in the consumption of the product; cognition, perception and psychology. The fundamental feature of common sense psychology is the underlying belief system that underlies peoples overt behaviour are causes and that it is these causal patterns and NOT the way in which an activity is performed that represents the ‘real’ meaning of what people do. Initial research highlighted attribution theory as the underlying elements or associated discourses and is supported by Lewis (2006) who highlights Hofstedes definition of culture as the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one member from the other. A more simplified definition highlighted by Baron and Byrne (2000) defines culture as an organized system of shared meanings, perception and beliefs held by persons belonging to any group. This ‘cultural sensitivity’ is enhanced by utilising its resources to understand the perception and behaviours influenced by the cultural values (organized system or collective programming) of the host and guest (Wood and Botherton 2008)

A Modular Toolkit for Distributed Interactions

We discuss the design, architecture, and implementation of a toolkit which supports some theories for distributed interactions. The main design principles of our architecture are flexibility and modularity. Our main goal is to provide an easily extensible workbench to encompass current algorithms and incorporate future developments of the theories. With the help of some examples, we illustrate the main features of our toolkit.Comment: In Proceedings PLACES 2010, arXiv:1110.385

COWS: A Timed Service-Oriented Calculus

COWS (Calculus for Orchestration of Web Services) is a foundational language for Service Oriented Computing that combines in an original way a number of ingredients borrowed from well-known process calculi, e.g. asynchronous communication, polyadic synchronization, pattern matching, protection, delimited receiving and killing activities, while resulting different from any of them. In this paper, we extend COWS with timed orchestration constructs, this way we obtain a language capable of completely formalizing the semantics of WS-BPEL, the ‘de facto’ standard language for orchestration of web services. We present the semantics of the extended language and illustrate its peculiarities and expressiveness by means of several examples

Developing lifelong learners: A novel online problem‐based ultrasonography subject

Online learning environments have a major role in providing lifelong learning opportunities. Lifelong learning is critical for successful participation in today's competitive work environment. This paper describes an online problem‐based learning approach to the creation of a student‐centred learning environment for the study of the biological sciences subject in the Graduate Diploma of Applied Science (Medical Ultrasonography) course at the University of Sydney. The environment is interactive and collaborative, with all communication taking place online. Students work in groups to study clinically relevant problems. A Web‐database system provides learner control in the process of knowledge acquisition, access to reference materials on the Internet and communication with the tutor and with peers through synchronous chat and asynchronous threaded discussion forums. Other online features include a protocol for problem‐solving, self‐assessment and feedback opportunities, detailed help, streaming audio and video and pre‐course, ongoing and post‐course questionnaires. This technology may be adapted to a range of disciplines and can also be utilized in on‐campus teaching

Next steps in implementing Kaput's research programme

We explore some key constructs and research themes initiated by Jim Kaput, and attempt to illuminate them further with reference to our own research. These 'design principles' focus on the evolution of digital representations since the early nineties, and we attempt to take forward our collective understanding of the cognitive and cultural affordances they offer. There are two main organising ideas for the paper. The first centres around Kaput's notion of outsourcing of processing power, and explores the implications of this for mathematical learning. We argue that a key component for design is to create visible, transparent views of outsourcing, a transparency without which there may be as many pitfalls as opportunities for mathematical learning. The second organising idea is that of communication, a key notion for Kaput, and the importance of designing for communication in ways that recognise the mutual influence of tools for communication and for mathematical expression