Work, consumption and subjectivity in postwar France: Moulinex and the meanings of domestic appliances, 1950s-1970s

This article responds to some of the limitations of the historiography of consumption in contemporary Europe, notably its tendency to divorce consumer culture from production and to subscribe, in some cases at least, to a rather schematic model of ‘consumer society’. Focusing on the Moulinex domestic appliance company which developed in Normandy from the late 1950s, it explores the interpenetration of cultures of production at several levels. It considers the role of Moulinex in making domestic appliances available to the mass market, the place of productivism in the Moulinex brand and the place of appliance consumption in company culture, before reflecting on the workers’ perspective on this culture and the meanings they ascribed to the appliances they acquired through the company

Citing musicality: Performance knowledge in the Gardzienice archive

This article draws on previously published multimedia documents to explore the notion of musicality in the work of Włodzimierz Staniewski and the Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices. In addition to offering a close analysis of several documented moments – including performances, work demonstrations, expeditions and gatherings – it tests the ability of multimedia documentation to capture performance knowledge, arguing that the work of Gardzienice is a paradigmatic example of ‘practice as research’. Taking the archive as a crucial dimension of the dissemination of knowledge, the article uses multimedia citation to examine the specific contributions of Gardzienice in the context of musicality as a relation between the theatrical and the musical. The article demonstrates that the stability of the archive allows for a detailed explication of performance knowledge in a way that is not possible from live performance alone

Ariadne: Analysis for Machine Learning Program

Machine learning has transformed domains like vision and translation, and is now increasingly used in science, where the correctness of such code is vital. Python is popular for machine learning, in part because of its wealth of machine learning libraries, and is felt to make development faster; however, this dynamic language has less support for error detection at code creation time than tools like Eclipse. This is especially problematic for machine learning: given its statistical nature, code with subtle errors may run and produce results that look plausible but are meaningless. This can vitiate scientific results. We report on Ariadne: applying a static framework, WALA, to machine learning code that uses TensorFlow. We have created static analysis for Python, a type system for tracking tensors---Tensorflow's core data structures---and a data flow analysis to track their usage. We report on how it was built and present some early results

Human trafficking and the UK Modern Slavery Bill

This article provides a commentary on growing awareness of human trafficking to and within the United Kingdom and government responses to it

Analysis of flow and aerodynamic noise behaviour of a simplified high-speed train bogie inside the bogie cavity

Aerodynamic noise becomes significant for high-speed trains but its prediction in an industrial context is difficult. The flow and aerodynamic noise behaviour of a simplified high-speed train bogie at scale 1:10 are studied here through numerical simulations. The bogie is situated in the bogie cavity and cases without and with a fairing are considered, allowing the shielding effect of the bogie fairing on sound generation and radiation to be investigated. A two-stage hybrid method combining computational fluid dynamics and acoustic analogy is applied. The near-field unsteady flow is obtained by solving the unsteady three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations numerically using delayed detached-eddy simulation and the data are utilized to predict far-field noise signals based on the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings acoustic analogy. Results show that when the bogie is located inside the bogie cavity, the shear layer developed from the cavity leading edge interacts strongly with the flow separated from the bogie upstream components and the cavity wall. Therefore, a highly turbulent flow is generated within the bogie cavity due to flow impingement and recirculation within the cavity. It is found that, for noise calculated from the bogie surface sources of both cases, the directivity exhibits a lateral dipole pattern with dominant radiation in the axial direction. Compared with the no fairing case, the noise level is about 1 dB higher in the bogie symmetry plane along the axle mid-span for the fairing case where a stronger flow interaction is produced around the bogie central region. Moreover, the noise radiated to the trackside is predicted based on a permeable integration surface close to the bogie and parallel to the carbody side wall. The results show that the bogie fairing is effective in reducing the noise levels in most of the frequency range due to its shielding effect and a noise reduction around 3 dB is achieved for the current model case by mounting a fairing in the bogie area

Algunos aspectos cinéticos de las reacciones de sólidos con cloro

The present paper describes detailed kinetics investigations on some selected chlorine-solid reactions through thermogravimetric measurements. The solids studied in this article include chemical pure oxides and sulfides as well as their natural bearing materials. The chlorinating agents employed are gaseous mixtures of Cl2+N2 (chlorination), Cl2+O2 (oxychlorination), and Cl2+CO (carbochlorination). Results are presented as effects of various parameters on the reaction rate of these solids with these chlorinating agents. It was observed that the reactivity of these solids towards different chlorinating agents varied widely. Sulfides could be chlorinated at room temperature, while carbochlorination of chromium (III) oxide was possible only above 500 °C. The variation of the chlorination rate of these complex materials with respect to gas velocity, composition and temperature enabled us to focus some light on the plausible reaction mechanisms and stoichiometries. The obtained results were used for selective removal of iron from chromite concentrates, extraction of valuable metals from sulfide materials, purification of MgO samples, etc.Este trabajo describe detalladas investigaciones cinéticas en algunas reacciones seleccionadas de cloro-sólido a través de medidas termogravimétricas. Los sólidos estudiados en este artículo incluyen óxidos químicos puros y sulfuros, así como sus materiales naturales de soporte. Los agentes de cloración empleados son mezclas de gases de Cl2+N2 (cloración), Cl2+O2 (oxicloración) y Cl2+CO (carbocloración). Los resultados se presentan como efecto de varios parámetros en el porcentaje de reacción de estos sólidos con los agentes de cloración. Se ha observado que la reactividad de estos sólidos a través de diferentes agentes de cloración varía ampliamente. Los sulfuros se pudieron clorar a temperatura ambiente mientras que la carbocloración del óxido de cromo (III) sólo fue posible por encima de los 500 °C. La variación del porcentaje de cloración de estos materiales complejos con respecto a la velocidad del gas, composición y temperatura permitió arrojar alguna luz en los posibles mecanismos de reacción y estequiometrías. Los resultados obtenidos se han usado para la eliminación selectiva del hierro de concentrados de cromo, extracción de metales valiosos de materiales sulfhídricos, purificación de muestras de MgO, etc.Peer reviewe

Under Color of Law: Siliadin v. France and the Dynamics of Enslavement in Historical Perspective

When is it appropriate to apply the term ‘slavery’—a concept that appears to rest on a property right—to patterns of exploitation in contemporary society, when no state extends formal recognition to the possibility of the ownership of property in a human being? Historians, who generally position themselves as enemies of anachronism, may be particularly resistant to the use of an ancient term to describe a twenty-first century reality. And jurists have often been understandably reluctant to employ a word whose historical meaning was so closely tied to a specific property relationship that has long since been abolished in Europe and the Americas