Transcontextual mechanisms in contemporary art music

Transcontextuality occurs in (contemporary art) music when musical material in one style is inserted into a work in a different style. The inserted material is termed a transcontextua/ artefact and has (at least) two contexts: a previous context, to which it traditionally belongs, and a present or new context, in which it is now heard. The term 'transcontextuality' encapsulates the idea of transference from one context to another. It also emphasises the importance of context. The phenomenon is context-dependent. In transferring musical material from a previous context to a new work (the composer's own) a composer intentionally refers to the codes associated with the artefact and its source. The code which may be transmitted by an artefact can usually be described as belonging to one or more of several artefact-types, referring to: a style; a work; a composer's opus; or a genre. An artefact in contemporary Western music may also be 'transcultural', in that it refers to a non-Westem culture. A listener is expected to play the role of a decoder, potentially recognising transcontextual material, deciphering a code and consequently interpreting the meaning of an artefact in its (new) context. Code-transmission is partially dependent on the degree of decoder competence, and mismatches are possible between an encoder's envisaged code and a decoder's deciphered version

Individual-level factors predicting consumer financial behavior at a time of high pressure

Understanding the individual-level factors relating to consumer financial behaviors during periods of distinct pressure to spend may provide new insights as to the particular barriers people face in maintaining better control over their finances. Using Christmas as a focal example of a financially and psychologically pressured time, we collected survey data (N= 294) in the post-Christmas 2013 period, and investigated the extent to which levels of reported spending and borrowing in relation to Christmas could be predicted by sociodemographics, money management behaviors, and psychological factors such as coping style, locus of control, materialism, and spendthrift tendencies. A separate analysis examined the kinds of factors relating more specifically to money management behaviors. Spending was predicted by factors including external locus of control and spendthrift tendency. Emotional coping and denial coping predicted borrowing behavior, as did external locus of control. Money management behaviors predicted who borrowed, but were not related to amount borrowed. Spendthrift tendencies and materialistic values were predictive of less active money management. Our findings suggest that interventions to improve financial decision making might prove more effective if increased emphasis is placed on psychological issues such as developing coping skills and buffering agency

First generation immigrant judgements of offence seriousness: evidence from the crime survey for England and Wales

This exploratory paper delves into differences and similarities in the rated seriousness of offences suffered by victims of different national origin. The issue is important because a mismatch between police and victim assessments of seriousness is likely to fuel discord. It was found that first generation immigrants did not differ in their rating of the seriousness of offences against the person from either the indigenous population or according to region of birth. However those of Asian origin rated vehicle and property crime they had suffered as more serious than did other groups about crimes they suffered. The anticipated higher seriousness rating of offences reported to the police r was observed for all groups. People of Asian origin reported to the police a smaller proportion of offences they rated trivial than did people in other groups. Analysis of seriousness judgements in victimization surveys represents a much-underused resource for understanding the nexus between public perceptions and criminal justice responses

Consumer price indexes: an analysis of heterogeneity across sub-populations

La rilevanza dell'Indece dei Prezzi al Consumo quale misura dell'inflazione è stata a lungo dibattuta in particolare esminando le differenti cause di distorsione dovute all'utilizzo di un paniere fisso di beni e servizi. Di conseguenza la letteratura ha proposto indici dei prezzi sperimentali per particolari sottogruppi di popolazioni. tali indici hanno rilevanza ai fini della politica economica e sociale, poiché è probabile che differenti gruppi di popolazione abbiano comportamenti nei consumi differenti dalla media, ad esempio i consumatori poveri (Garner, Johnson & Kokoski, 1996) e quelli anziani (Stewart, 2008). Lo scopo di questo lavoro è quello di esaminare le possibilità offerte da metodi di costruzione alternativi degli Indici dei Prezzi al Consumo ai fini di cogliere la variabilità dei tassi di inflazione relativi a differenti categorie di consumatori.The soundeness of Consumer Price Indexes (CPI) as a measure of inflation has long been debeate, focusing on the different sources of bias inherent to use of a constant basket of goods and services. Thus experimental consumer price indexes have been proposed for targeted sub-populations specifically relevant for social and economic policy, that are likely to have consumption patterns different from yhe average, i.e poor (Garner, Johnson & Kokoski, 1996) and elderly (Stewart, 2008)houseolds. Aim of this work is to investigate the possibilities offered by alternative methods of construction of consumer price indices in order to capture the variability of inflation rates facing different houseolds' types

Soft systems methodology: a context within a 50-year retrospective of OR/MS

Soft systems methodology (SSM) has been used in the practice of operations research and management science OR/MS) since the early 1970s. In the 1990s, it emerged as a viable academic discipline. Unfortunately, its proponents consider SSM and traditional systems thinking to be mutually exclusive. Despite the differences claimed by SSM proponents between the two, they have been complementary. An extensive sampling of the OR/MS literature over its entire lifetime demonstrates the richness with which the non-SSM literature has been addressing the very same issues as does SSM