Measuring Dislocation Density in Aluminum with Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy

Dislocations in a material will, when present in enough numbers, change the speed of propagation of elastic waves. Consequently, two material samples, differing only in dislocation density, will have different elastic constants, a quantity that can be measured using Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy. Measurements of this effect on aluminum samples are reported. They compare well with the predictions of the theory.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Prime beef cuts : culinary images for thinking 'men'

The paper contributes to scholarship theorising the sociality of the brand in terms of subject positions it makes possible through drawing upon the generative context of circulating discourses, in this case of masculinity, cuisine and celebrity. Specifically, it discusses masculinity as a socially constructed gender practice (Bristor and Fischer, 1993), examining materialisations of such practice in the form of visualisations of social relations as resources for 'thinking gender' or 'doing gender'. The transformative potential of the visualisations is illuminated by exploring the narrative content choreographed within a series of photographic images positioning the market appeal of a celebrity chef through the medium of a contemporary lifestyle cookery book. We consider how images of men 'doing masculinity'are not only channelled into reproducing existing gender hierarchy and compulsory heterosexuality in the service of commercial ends, but also into disrupting such enduring stereotyping through subtle reframing. We acknowledge that masculinity is already inscribed within conventionalised representations of culinary culture. In this case we consider how traces of masculinity are exploited and reinscribed through contemporary images that generate resources for rethinking masculine roles and identities, especially when viewed through the lens of stereotypically feminised pursuits such as shopping, food preparation, cooking, and the communal intimacy of food sharing. We identify unsettling tensions within the compositions, arguing that they relate to discursive spaces between the gendered positions written into the images and the popular imagination they feed off. Set against landscapes of culinary culture, we argue that the images invoke a brand of naively roughish "laddishness" or "blokishness", rendering it in domesticated form not only as benign and containable, but fashionable, pliable and, importantly, desirable. We conclude that although the images draw on stereotypical premeditated notions of a feral, boisterous and untamed heterosexual masculinity, they also set in motion gender-blending narratives

“How to Facilitate Immersion in a Consumption Experience: Appropriation Operations and Service Elements"

An entire research current has taken on the mantle of analysing the growing quest on the part of the contemporary consumers for immersion into varied experiences. It remains that there has been little empirical analysis of this process of immersion and the experience it produces. This paper introduces and develops the subjective operations that consumers undertake in their efforts to be immerged in the consumption experience. It uses empirical research based on introspective reports filed by consumers who attended a series of classical music concerts. The results suggest that rather than being an immediate process, the immersion in a consumption experience is more of a progressive one. To facilitate this progressive process greater attention must be paid to the management of those service elements that will have an impact on the so-called operations of appropriatio

“Expériences de consommation et marketing expérientiel”

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Consuming Experience

This book is directly linked to the contemporary trend of experiential consumption and marketing. It highlights the idea that an experience is not something that can be readily managed by firms and it is not limited to the market: an individual's daily life is made up of consuming experiences that can occur with or without a market relation

Cap 3 Consumer immersion in an experiential context

The chapter analyses the immersion and the appropriation processes in the consumption experience

"How Services Elements Wrap the Consumers Experience. The Case of Music Consumption at the Auditorium of Milan"

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“The Impact of Services Elements on the Artistic Experience - The Case of Classical Music Concerts”

Experiential marketing is about producing positive effects on the consumer immersion in the experience. In this sense, experiential marketing of the arts could be dedicated to ease the consumer immersion in the artistic experience even – and especially – in the case of non connoisseurs facing a ‘difficult’ piece of art. This paper concentrates on the understanding of the artistic experience phenomenon. In order to achieve this goal, the concept of appropriation is introduced and developed through the cycle of appropriation. An empirical research based on introspective reports of consumers attending classical music concerts is used. Results highlight that rather than a single immersion, the artistic experience seems to be more a question of repeated paddling which sometimes leads progressively to full immersion and sometimes does not. The results suggest recommendations to manage services elements that impact on the enactment of consumers’ artistic experience throughout the sequence of appropriation operations

MARKETING MEDITERRANEE ET POSTMODERNITE

Tra i movimenti che da qualche anno si interrogano sul pensiero di marketing dominante, alcuni approfondiscono una prospettiva di tipo euro-mediterraneo. Il libro si interroga sui principi e la prossimità tra questa e il pensiero postmoderno del marketing, al fine di contrubuire alla comprensione dei fenomeni di consumo contemporane

Experiencing Consumption: Appropriating and Marketing Experiences

This chapter analyses the different marketing approaches used by companies to manage consumption experiences. Ever since the seminal article by Holbrook and Hirschman on the subject (1982), consumer research has considered experience to be central to today’s consumers, looking for meanings to associate to their lives (Holbrook, 2000). Here, the consumption experience is understood as the set of phenomena whereby a consumer comes into contact with a product, service, brand, event or place, and generally occurs in the company of others who may or may not also be consumers. The cultural approach has led to an in-depth understanding of the consumption experience (Arnould and Price, 1993; Firat and Dholakia, 1998) that is in contrast to the better-known models in the areas of experiential marketing (Schmitt, 1999) and the experience economy (Pine and Gilmore, 1999). The aim of this chapter is to illuminate the contributions of different approaches to experience management in order to support managers in their everyday activities. The chapter begins with an overview of the prevailing experiential marketing models that seek to generate extraordinary and unforgettable consumer experiences through the creation of thematised, secured, and enclavised environments that emphasise sensorial stimulation (Pine and Gilmore, 1999; Schmitt, 1999; Hetzel, 2002). Creating experiential contexts generally means generating a set of stimuli (product, environment, activity) that allow access to the experience: not only points of sales (cfr. chapter 26) but also, for example, brand plants, events and websites. Adopting a cultural approach, the chapter then raises questions about the limitations of focusing on models of emotional induction which tend to overestimate the influence of sensorial factors on consumer experiences. These approaches represent just one of the ways of examining the topic of consumer experiences because these experiences occur throughout people’s daily lives and cannot simply considered as exceptional events. Moreover, they occur in a variety of contexts that are not exclusive to the market, and are produced not just by companies, but also by the consumers themselves. Finally, access to experience is not instantaneous, but instead requires a process of progressive appropriation. The chapter identifies ways in which companies can develop marketing approaches capable of supporting the appropriation of experiences by the consumer. Specifically, the chapter offers tools and methods by which marketers can support the consumer in the appropriation process: 1) support systems, including guides and referents; 2) collective actions involving communities and rituals; and 3) self-determination, including training and autonomy, eliciting autonomous participation