Enumerating indeterminacy

In much of the indeterminate music composed in the 1950s and 60s, the roles of the composer and performer are blurred, the performer having been given control over musical elements previously dictated solely by the composer. Often, decisions must be made by the performer that impact a work’s form and content, the composer’s quiet voice heard only in the directives influencing these decisions. In many cases, these directives lack specificity, allowing for an infinite number of performance possibilities; in some cases, however, composer directives severely restrict that number, permitting it to be discretely counted. To these latter cases we turn our attention, mathematically modeling the composer’s directives to enumerate all possible realizations of certain indeterminate scores. Taking Morton Feldman’s Durations 2 and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Klavierstück XI as primary examples, we calculate the total number of possible realizations, generalizing each case in order to enumerate the realizations of other works with similar characteristics

Editor‘s introduction

Collected in this issue are a diverse array of articles from some of American sociology‘s most prominent theorists and some whose careers are just beginning. Each article stands alone and is well worth reading independent of the others. But in considering the issue as a whole, I see several themes that are central to "modern" (and perhaps democratic) social thought, among them: the fluctuating, morphing idea of knowledge in modern democratic society, globalization and power, our perennial and necessary conversation with the specter of Marx, and finally, the possible relationships between social theory and social justice. To follow is a modest effort to contextualize these themes in the several articles comprising this special issue

A Formalization of Postmodern Theory

Postmodern theory is examined from the perspective of explanatory scientific theory. Although this kind of effort would be rejected by postmodernists as imposing a failed epistemology, this article nonetheless translates the arguments of prominent postmodern theorists into a series of propositions. By developing these propositions, it is possible to see how they might generate testable hypotheses that can guide the empirical assessment of the substantive arguments of sociological postmodernists. The propositions are organized under four basic headings: (1) the increasing importance of culture; (2) the destabilization and dereification of culture; (3) the increasing importance of the individual; and (4) the viability of the subject. While there is inevitably a certain amount of selectivity involved in this exercise, our hope is that the core arguments of postmodern theory are arrayed in a manner that can facilitate their empirical assessment by researchers

Economic Behavior in Institutional Environments: The Corporate Merger Wave of the 1980s

Over the last 100 years, the United States has experienced four waves of corporate merger activity. The first occurred at the turn of the century, then again in the 1920s, the 1960s, and the 1980s. Most research on merger waves has focused on individual mergers within a wave. Our research focuses on the wave itself. We develop a theoretical model that centers on the actors who promote the mergers and on those changes in the political and economic environments that provide the resources these actors need to act. Specifically, we argue that a permissive state combined with increased access to capital market funds encourages fringe players to initiate the innovations that enable them to execute mergers. Merger waves occur when these actors become increasingly successful and their innovations are imitated throughout the business community. We provide empirical support for the model using data from the 1980's merger wave

Gender Displaying Television Commercials: A Comparative Study of Television Commercials in the 1950s and the 1980s

Recent researchers have argued both that there has been change in the way gender is portrayed in television commercials and that gender images have remained stereotypical. Comparing television commercials from the 1950s/early 1960s to commercials from the 1980s, this study explores the issue of how much, if any, change has occurred in gender images. Additionally, the study focuses on the gender display of main characters and the circumstances under which it varies. Results indicate that there has been change in the images of women but not men. The activity that women are pictured in significantly changed from the 1950s to the 1980s, and a change in activity has the strongest effect on the display of gender

Parameters influencing interobserver agreement and observer accuracy in a vigilance analogue to naturalistic observation

Interobserver agreement (reliability) is the usual method used to estimate observer accuracy in naturalistic and contrived observations. Despite the warnings by early researchers and the growing interest in methodological problems involved in the observation process, there has been no research explicating the relationship between interobserver agreement and observer accuracy. In addition, there has been little research into the environmental and organismic variables which influence interobserver agreement and observer accuracy. In an attempt to address these problems, a situation that is analogous to naturalistic observation, namely a vigilance paradigm, was utilized. Experimental assistants performed two arbitrary behaviors (lifting and/or moving the index finger of each hand) at a preprogrammed rate; the behaviors were automatically recorded by electromechanical equipment. In one-hour sessions, the subjects, who were 36 female college undergraduates, recorded the assistant's behaviors by pressing buttons; the subjects' responses were also electromechanically recorded. The experimental design was a two by two by three factorial design with repeated measures across a 60 minute experimental session

The Postmodern Self: A Theoretical Consideration

The postmodern self consists solely of fragmented, situational images that result in an emotional flatness or depthlessness. Goffman’s work has been presented as a precursor of postmodernism and recent literature has used Goffman to argue for the postmodern, non-essential, transient self. This essay presents a critique of the postmodern assumption that symbols have become divorced from everyday interaction and argues that Goffman did not disallow an essential self; throughout his writings he recognized its place outside the interaction order. It is further argued that the phenomena of the postmodern self can be understood in terms of generalized, abstracted principles. Self is presented as a function of an individual's interaction - ritual density and linguistic code. Based on Mead's notion of the self as a cognitive, internalized conversation of gestures, the self is conceptualized as varying along two dimensions: the interaction ritual continuum taken from Durkheim, Goffman, and Collins, and the linguistic code continuum taken from Bernstein, Douglas, and Bourdieu. The argument is summarized in a series of propositional statements

The influence of rate of behavior and predictability of rate conditions on observer accuracy, rate of observing responses, and allocation of observing time

The rate and predictability of a subject's behavior are related to observer accuracy. Since those factors often change during the course of applied research, the accuracy of observational data may inadvertently be influenced. The present study explored the relationship between rate and predictability of the subject's behavior and observers' accuracy and two other measures of observing behavior. Two assistants each presented a behavior at a rate of 3 or 1.1 behaviors/minute. Each assistant presented one behavior at one target, observed by two other assistants. The pairs of assistants alternated between these two roles. Each pair observed for four phases, each having six 20-minute sessions. The four phases differed in the rates of behavior at each target and in the predictability of the rates from session to session. The occurrence of the behaviors, the observers' indications of these occurrences, and the observers' electrooculograrns were simultaneously recorded. These recordings permitted assessment of observer accuracy of the rate of observing responses, and of the observing time allocated to each target

The effects of monocular paralysis and binocular eyelid suture on the electrophysiology of lateral geniculate nucleus of the cat

Single unit recording of cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of adult cats following monocular paralysis of two weeks duration has been reported to diminish the relative proportion of X-cells in this nucleus. This functional loss of LGN X-cells was detected in the LGN laminae innervated by the paralyzed eye. Limitations in the method of classifying LGN cells as X or Y in the earlier work, however, precluded acquisition of data concerning the proportion of X- and Y-cells in the laraina innervated by the normal eye. The present study used response latency to optic chiasm shock of LGN cells (OX latency) to divide cells as X or Y. Y-cells have short and X-cells long OX latencies. This measure allows analysis of the effects of monocular paralysis in the layers innervated by the paralyzed and mobile eye, respectively

A Review of Buncombe Bob; The Life and Times of Robert Rice Reynolds

Book Review - recommende