Comment: Monitoring Networked Applications With Incremental Quantile Estimation

Comment: Monitoring Networked Applications With Incremental Quantile Estimation [arXiv:0708.0302]Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000619 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Designing identity of a new material: a new product design approach

The present research is a design practice-based research based on the industrial development of a new concrete. The research focuses on the development of the specific identity of a new material. The research is aimed at demonstrating that product design can be used as a new strategy to create the material identity and thus to differentiate from existing materials. In order to design material specific identity in new products, we need to understand the perception process of shaped materials. Therefore we conducted exploratory study of materials recognition in products. We identified two types of products: the “messenger” products are specific shapes characteristic from the material; the “wrong messenger” products are imitations of other well known materials. The results of questionnaire about material recognition show that it’s more or less easy to identify material according to each product (whether it’s familiar or new shapes; whether it’s imitation or specific shapes and whether it’s well known or new material). We conclude on two types of shapes: on the one hand some familiar and typical shapes make easier and more certain the material recognition; on the other hand some new shapes make people more uncertain of what it is made of but more amazed. Designing amazing new shapes can be used as a new differentiation strategy to create the specific sensory identity of each new material. It means that the product can be a really useful support to fully communicate about a new material, beyond the traditional material samples. Keywords: New Material; Sensory Identity; Product Design</p

Tracking the outcomes of independent living programs

The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the outcomes of the Independent Living Program (ILP) of former foster youths who have aged out of foster care and group care in San Bernardino County of California using an exploratory and quantitative survey design

Model Transformations with Tom

International audienceModel Driven Engineering (MDE) advocates the use of Model Transformations (MT) in order to automate repetitive development tasks. Many different model transformation languages have been proposed with a significant tool development cost as common language elements like expressions, statements, ... must be built from scratch for each new language development tools. The Tom language is a shallow extension of Java tailored to describe and implement transformations of tree based data-structures. A key feature of Tom allows to map any Java data-structure to tree based data abstractions that can then be accessed by powerful non-linear, associative, commutative pattern matching. In this paper, we present how this approach can be used in order to develop model transformations, in particular relying on Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) based metamodeling facilities. This allows to provide a transformation language at a low cost both for the development of its tools and the training of its users

Fetishism and the social value of objects.

The idea of the fetish has a particular presence in the writings of both Marx and Freud. It implies for these two theorists of the social, a particular form of relation between human beings and objects. In the work of both the idea of the fetish involves attributing properties to objects that they do not 'really' have and that should correctly be recognised as human. While Marx's account of fetishism addresses the exchange-value of commodities at the level of the economic relations of production, it fails to deal in any detail with the use-value or consumption of commodities. In contrast Freud's concept of the fetish as a desired substitute for a suitable sex object explores how objects are desired and consumed. Drawing on both Marx and Freud, Baudrillard breaks with their analyses of fetishism as demonstrating a human relation with unreal objects. He explores the creation of value in objects through the social exchange of sign values, showing how objects are fetishised in ostentation. This paper argues that while Baudrillard breaks with the realism characteristic of Marx's and Freud's analyses of fetishism, he does not go far enough in describing the social and discursive practices in which objects are used and sometimes transformed into fetishes. It is proposed that the fetishisation of objects involves an overdetermination of their social value through a discursive negotiation of the capacities of objects that stimulates fantasy and desire for them