Interaction as enquiry: learning with layered dynamic media

The interactivity afforded to the learner by the computer based media is often fairly restricted. This may be by design choice but is often brought about by resource constraints. The new layered media forms give educational media developers an opportunity to provide richer forms of interactivity, and some of the issues related to changes in the way that interactive materials might be created are discussed. The distinction is made between the interface viewed simply as an information source and the interface regarded as an environment to be manipulated and explored

Review: The musical representation: meaning, ontology, and emotion

Review of the book: Charles O. Nussbaum: The Musical Representation: Meaning, Ontology, and Emotion

Review: Audio anecdotes: tools, tips and techniques for digital audio

Audio Anecdotes is the first in a series of three books covering creating, recording, processing, and analyzing sound and music, also touching on the opportunities presented by digital media and computing. This first book divides into eight chapters and twenty-five essays addressing measurement, perception, recording, synthesis, signal processing, computer techniques, computer tools, and human experience. Co-editor Ken Greenebaum notes that after being frustrated and disappointed with the lack of resources available to understand digital (and previously analog) media, his intention was “to create the book I wished for then and that I still want today” (p. xi). The editors note that “articles take a variety of forms: introductions, essays, in-depth technical explorations, presentations of tools and techniques, and post-mortem analysis” (p. xiv). With the variety of authors that have contributed, particularly those coming from beyond the academy and those drawing on personal experience, readers are encouraged to learn about the contributors’ backgrounds before reading each section

Change within the Mobile Communications Market - an initial assessment of the structural and organisational repercussions of 3G

Over the last year or so the mobile telecommunications industry has undergone a complete sea change; the initial euphoria surrounding the German and UK licensing process, where widely optimistic claims about the array of possible services and uptake were made, has been replaced by widespread anxiety and pessimism. This anxiety and pessimism is driven by the large debts that companies have incurred to enter the market, doubts as to the validity of claims that 3G will usher in a whole new era of service development and the increasing belief that subscribers will not migrate in the required numbers to the new technology. The organisational and market repercussions of 3G are addressed in the following main section that is divided into three parts. In the first part infrastructure sharing between 3G license winners is dealt with, whilst in the second mergers and acquisition activity is examined. The third part focuses on the organisational form of 3G license winners and network scale. Conclusions are then drawn in the final main section

Applications of system dynamics modelling to computer music

Based on a composer's psycho-acoustic imagination or response to music, system dynamics modelling and simulation tools can be used as a scoring device to map the structural dynamic shape of interest of computer music compositions. The tools can also be used as a generator of compositional ideas reflecting thematic juxtaposition and emotional flux in musical narratives. These techniques allow the modelling of everyday narratives to provide a structural/metaphorical means of music composition based on archetypes that are shared with wider audiences. The methods are outlined using two examples

Software agents in music and sound art research/creative work: Current state and a possible direction

Composers, musicians and computer scientists have begun to use software-based agents to create music and sound art in both linear and non-linear (non-predetermined form and/or content) idioms, with some robust approaches now drawing on various disciplines. This paper surveys recent work: agent technology is first introduced, a theoretical framework for its use in creating music/sound art works put forward, and an overview of common approaches then given. Identifying areas of neglect in recent research, a possible direction for further work is then briefly explored. Finally, a vision for a new hybrid model that integrates non-linear, generative, conversational and affective perspectives on interactivity is proposed

Review: Robert Reigle and Paul Whitehead (Editors): Spectral World Musics: Proceedings of the Istanbul Spectral Music Conference

This article reviews the book “Spectral World Musics: Proceedings of the Istanbul Spectral Music Conference”, edited by Robert Reigle and Paul Whitehead

HIEMPA: Hybrid Instruments from Electroacoustic Manipulation and Models of Pütorino and Aquascape

The HIEMPA project combined a team of people with technical, artistic, environmental and cultural expertise towards an artistic outcome aiming to extend the New Zealand sonic art tradition. The work involved collecting audio samples from the aquascape of the Ruakuri Caves and Nature Reserve in Waitomo, South Waikato, New Zealand; and samples of a variety of pütorino – a New Zealand Mäori wind instrument. Following a machine learning analysis of this audio material and an analysis of the performance material, hybrid digital instruments were built and mapped to suitable hardware triggers. The new instruments are playable in realtime, along with the electroacoustic manipulation of pütorino performances. The project takes into account the environmental and cultural significance of the source material, with the results to be released as a set of compositions. This paper discusses the background research and process of the project

Rationality, irrationality and economic cognition

This paper contrasts the modern use of the assumption that rationality as reflected in simple models of utility and profit maximization guides individual economic behaviour to literature both between 1890 and 1930 which sharply challenged the use of such an assumption and later literature in economic psychology from Herbert Simon onwards which sees economic (and other) cognitive processes in different ways. Some of the earlier literature proposed objective and operational notions of rationality based on the availability of information, ability to reason (cognitive skills), and even morality. Learning played a major role in individuals achieving what was referred to as complete rationality. I draw on these ideas, and suggest that developing models in which economic agents have degrees (or levels) of economic cognition which are endogenously determined could both change the perceptions economists have on policy matters and incorporate findings from recent economic psychology literature. This would remove the issue of whether economic agents are dichotomously rational or irrational, and instead introduce continuous metrics of cognition into economic thinking. Such an approach also poses the two policy issues of whether raising levels of economic cognition should be an objective of policy and whether policy interventions motivated by departures from full economic cognition should be analyzed

[Review of] Helen Hornbeck Tanner, editor; Miklos Pinther, cartographer. Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History

Surprising as it may be, this is the first atlas of Great Lakes Indian history. Originally, Helen Hornbeck Tanner was involved in a research assignment which caused her to collect information on Great Lakes Indians at the time of the Revolution. After finding that maps of the Great Lakes Region were erroneous or deceptive, and that Ohio maps were marked with little known area or insufficient information, she carefully developed this atlas. A bibliographic essay at the end of the atlas describes the enormous research that went into mapping these ethnic groups\u27 histories. A noteworthy variety of sources were analyzed: obvious ones such as old maps, surveyors\u27 notes, missionary observations, journals and Indian agency documents, and ones which come less readily to mind such as captivity notes, literary works, paintings and photographs