bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Optimal Performance of the TLCD in Structural Pitching Vibration Control
Authors: Xue S. D. , Ko J. M. , Xu Y. L.
Published: April 2009

A detailed optimal parametric study is performed for a tuned liquid column damper (TLCD) in suppressing the pitching vibration of structures. Due to the difficulty of finding analytical solutions for the damped structure, a numerical optimization approach is proposed and applied to the system to find the optimum TLCD parameters. The variations of the optimum control parameter with system parameters are determined and discussed. Using various numerical searching data, a set of practical design formulas for the optimum tuning ratio and optimum head loss coefficient of the TLCD are then derived through regression analysis. The comparison between practical design formula and numerical optimization shows a very close agreement between the two results. The practical design formulas provide a convenient tool for designers. In order to account for the possible effects of structural uncertainties, a parametric sensitivity study on the de-tuning of optimum damper parameters is also carried out. It is found that the detuning effect is more severe for low damped structure with lower ratios of mass moment of inertia, especially for the detuning of tuning ratio.
Control of Sound Radiation of an Active Constrained Layer Damping Plate/Cavity System Using the Structural Intensity Approach
Authors: Azzouz Mohamed S. , Ro J.
Published: April 2009

Considerable attention has been devoted to actively and passively controlling the sound radiation from vibrating plates into closed cavities. With the advent of smart materials, extensive effort has been exerted to control the vibration and sound radiation from flexible plates using smart sensors/actuators. The Active Constrained Layer Damping (ACLD) treatment has been used successfully for controlling the vibration of various flexible structures. The treatment provides an effective means for augmenting the simplicity and reliability of passive damping with the low weight and high efficiency of active controls to attain high damping characteristics over broad frequency bands. This study investigates a numerically simulated example consisting of an ACLD treated plate/acoustic cavity system excited by a point harmonic force. In this study, an ACLD treated plate/acoustic cavity coupled finite element model is utilized to calculate the structural intensity and sound pressure radiated by the vibrating plates. In the passive control, the optimum placement of ACLD patches is determined by the structural intensity of ACLD treated plates and compared to the results obtained by using the strain energy approach. The influence on the structural intensity of the plate due to the damping treatment is investigated.
Fault Detection and Optimal Sensor Location in Vehicle Suspensions
Authors: Metallidis P. , Verros G. , Natsiavas S. , Papadimitriou C.
Published: April 2009

A statistical system identification methodology is applied for performing parametric identification and fault detection studies in nonlinear vehicle systems. The vehicle nonlinearities arise due to the function of the suspension dampers, which assume a different damping coefficient in tension than in compression. The suspension springs may also possess piecewise linear characteristics. These lead to models with parameter discontinuities. Emphasis is put on investigating issues of unidentifiability arising in the system identification of nonlinear systems and the importance of sensor configuration and excitation characteristics in the reliable estimation of the model parameters. A methodology is proposed for designing the optimal sensor configuration (number and location of sensors) so that the corresponding measured data are most informative about the condition of the vehicle. The effects of excitation characteristics on the quality of the measured data are systematically explored. The effectiveness of the system identification and the optimal sensor configuration design methodologies is confirmed using simulated test data from a classical two-degree-of-freedom quartercar model as well as from more involved and complete vehicle models, including four-wheel vehicles with flexible body.
Vibration Damping by Friction Forces: Theory and Applications
Authors: Popp Karl , Panning Lars , Sextro Walter
Published: April 2009

In this paper, we deal with the vibrational behavior of mechanical structures interconnected by contacts with friction. The focus is set on the utilization of friction forces that are generated in the contact interfaces with the objective to increase damping and to reduce vibration amplitudes in order to prevent structures from failures owing to high resonance stresses. We present a comparison and classification of different contact models that are most commonly used, including the derivation of a three-dimensional contact model under consideration of rough surfaces. We give different solution methods for problems with non-linear friction elements. The effectiveness of friction damping devices is pointed out by a single-degree-of-freedom friction oscillator, beam-like structures with frictional interfaces and different underplatform dampers in turbo-machinery applications. It can be shown that in many practical applications friction damping devices provide a remarkable decrease of vibration amplitudes.
General-order Perturbation with a Skew-symmetric Approach for Structural Health Monitoring of a Modular Beam
Authors: Wong Chun Nam , Barhorst Alan A.
Published: April 2009

A unique health monitoring method is formulated via a skew-symmetric approach in which the damage location and extent are estimated from the perturbation of a specific set of eigenparameters. The perturbed orthonormal equation is generated from the perturbation of the eigenvectors and eigenvalues to obtain the kth skew-symmetric coefficients. Meanwhile the perturbed eigenvalue equation is generated from the perturbation of the eigenparameters and linear expansion of the stiffness matrix to obtain other skew-symmetric coefficients. Throughout this process, specific permutation numbers and generalized Kronecker delta functions are manipulated. Then these skew-symmetric coefficients are simplified to obtain the symmetric coefficients. A finite element model of a modular beam is used as a test structure to investigate the applicability of the developed method. A fixed—fixed boundary condition is imposed on the two ends to approximate the actual operating situation. Different order perturbation algorithms are established based on the perturbation equations. Stiffness parameters are computed from these equations, inversely, using an optimization method. The algorithm is iterative in nature and terminates under certain criteria. Various small to large percentage systematic damaged cases are simulated under different perturbation orders. The results are compared and evaluated using health monitoring curves and estimation error manifolds, and their efficiencies and convergences are discussed.
Graduate Medical Education Costs in Nonacademic Health Center Teaching Hospitals: Evidence from Maryland
Authors: Duffy Sarah Q. , Ruseski Jane E. , Cavanaugh Sean
Published: April 2009

As managed care has grown, much concern has been expressed about the potential plight of the nation’s 125 academic health centers (AHCs). Less concern has focused on non-AHC teaching hospitals, although most studies of graduate medical education (GME) costs include these hospitals in their estimates. While most studies have found that costs increase positively with various measures of “teaching intensity,” some have concluded that hospitals with smaller programs have costs that are the same or less than comparable nonteaching hospitals. However, few studies have tested whether AHCs’ cost structures are sufficiently similar to those of other hospitals to reliably include them in the same estimation. This article tests that assumption for Maryland hospitals, finds it violated, and presents results for non-AHC teaching hospitals. The results reveal that, at least in Maryland, even small teaching programs add to hospital costs.
Working the Scam: Policing Urban Street Youth in a New World Context
Authors: Staller Karen M.
Published: April 2009

This study examines the environment and worldview of Sgt. T, a veteran officer in charge of a specialized police unit. Sgt. T, along with his staff of officers and social workers, monitors a major transportation hub in a large urban setting for runaway and homeless youth as well as other minors unaccompanied by adults. The author uses skullduggery, first introduced by Sgt. T to mean “nothing is as it appears,” as an interpretative lens and explores both its dangers and its usefulness. This includes the role skullduggery plays in field access and how it is used in managing interpersonal transactions, maintaining authority, and as an organizing worldview. New priorities and new skullduggeries suggest the inevitable extinction of this youth unit, yet broader lessons are at stake. Empirical material, collected in the field, was primarily conversational and narrative.
Do You See What I See? Examining a Collaborative Ethnography
Authors: May Reuben A. Buford , Pattillo-McCoy Mary
Published: April 2009

Although there are increasing examples of collaborative ethnography, there are few explicit reflections on its process. The authors systematically juxtapose their jointly collected but separately recorded observations in a neighborhood recreation center in Chicago to examine points of similarity and difference. They find that collaborative ethnography can be useful for providing a richer description, highlighting perceptual inconsistencies, and recognizing the influence of ethnographers’ personal and intellectual backgrounds on the collection and recording of data. The authors’ reflexive analysis also illustrates that the choice of collaborators is key for influencing the depth or breadth of the data collected. Finally, they show that there is neither one truth, nor one reality, nor one stable social world to observe.
Stranger in the Village: James Baldwin, Popular Culture, and the Ties That Bind
Authors: Dimitriadis Greg , McCarthy Cameron
Published: April 2009

In this article, the authors look at the theoretical and methodological implications of the autobiographical writings of James Baldwin for doing qualitative research in the related areas of youth identity formation and the production and circulation of meanings in popular culture. They argue that Baldwin’s use of autobiography provides one very useful way to register important contradictions and tensions in the circulation of contemporary fashion styles. Specifically, the Hilfiger and Timberland lines of clothing deploy signs and symbols that are up for grabs, discursive resources that can be coded and recoded in multiple and complex ways by young people defining a sense of racial identity for themselves in the face of massive social, cultural, and material uncertainty. Yet, these resources circulate in a historical landscape that radically circumscribes their mobility. The contradictions have not been adequately addressed in contemporary approaches to popular culture, especially in the field of cultural studies. The authors call for more autobiographical work on popular culture, the kind exemplified by Baldwin’s collection on film, The Devil Finds Work. This article is offered as one—albeit partial—effort in this direction.
Discovering My Mother as the Other in the Saturday Evening Post
Authors: Creef Elena Tajima
Published: April 2009

This article begins by mapping an oral history project on World War II Japanese war brides in which the objective boundaries between the insider and outsider relationships of the interviewer and her subjects not only collapse but give way to a more self-reflexive and collaborative project between the interviewer and her own war bride mother. The final result is one which raises questions about the limits of objectivity in conducting feminist research that is situated close to one’s own home as well as the relationship of women’s silences to speech.
Narrative’s Virtues
Authors: Bochner Arthur P.
Published: April 2009

Reacting to the charge that personal narratives, especially illness narratives, constitute a “blind alley” that misconstrues the essential nature of narrative by substituting a therapeutic for a sociological view of the person, this article speaks back to critics who regard narratives of suffering as privileged, romantic, and/or hyperauthentic. The author argues that this critique of personal narrative rests on an idealized and discredited theory of inquiry, a monolithic conception of ethnographic inquiry, a distinctly masculine characterization of sociology, and a veiled resistance to the moral, political, existential, and therapeutic goals of this work. Layering his responses to the critique with brief personal stories regarding the suppressed emotionality that motivates academics to oppose innovations, the author examines his own motives as well as those of the critics, concluding that multiplicity is easier to pronounce than to live and urging a commitment to a social science that can accommodate diverse desires.
The Educational Researcher as Artist Working Within
Authors: Slattery Patrick
Published: April 2009

This article discusses the complexity of arts-based educational research and arts-based autoethnography and presents a concrete example of an installation tableau that investigates the regulation of the human body and human sexuality in a junior high classroom of a Roman Catholic school in the 1960s. In this article, the modern abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock serves as an example of an artist using the unconscious to direct his work. Pollock’s interest in surrealism and Michel Foucault’s discussion of the work of the Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte figure prominently in the theoretical foundation for this article. Pollock provides a parallel to the process of the arts-based educational autoethnographer as researcher working within.
Who Sleeps With Whom, or How (Not) to Want the West in Japan
Authors: Kelsky Karen
Published: April 2009

Since the 1980s, there has been an underground exodus of women from Japan to the West, where they seek education, employment, and romance or marriage with Western men. The author considers women’s narratives of attraction and repulsion that explain the unions of Japanese women and White men, which depend on a wholesale rejection of Japanese men. As a White, Western, female anthropologist married to a Japanese man, the author then explores the fraught politics of studying this population of Japanese women and the impossibility of rapport in an ethnographic environment in which the author’s personal circumstances contravene some of her informants’ foundational narratives of identity and desire.
Quilting: A Feminist Metaphor for Scientific Inquiry
Authors: Flannery Maura C.
Published: April 2009

The author explores the implications of describing scientific inquiry as quilting. She argues that most metaphors describing science are distinctly masculine in tone, such as science as exploring, hunting, or penetrating the unknown. The author contends that these metaphors have had a powerful effect on how science is done and that a feminist view of science brings with it the need for new metaphors with less aggressive and alienating connotations. The author describes the connotations of one such metaphor, that of scientific inquiry as quilting, and presents what she sees as the consequences of such a metaphorical shift. Drawing on her experiences as a participant-observer of both scientific research and quilting, the author demonstrates the extensive similarities that exist between both the processes and products of each endeavor.
True Grit and the New Frontier: Cultivating New Ground for Psychological Research
Authors: Hoskins Marie L.
Published: April 2009

This article describes the experience of a qualitative researcher grappling with the tensions between traditional positivist research and “new paradigm research.” Personal experiences, critiques, and theory are woven together to create a holistic and contextualized account of working in new paradigm research modalities within the field of psychology. The author proposes that what is needed is an expanded discourse of what constitutes discipline within the context of interpretive research. Once discourse can be expanded and understood, new ground (or frontiers) can continue to be cultivated. Psychological research has much to gain from understanding what is required to engage in disciplined interpretive research. The parallels between interpretive research and clinical practice are highlighted.
(Re)presenting the Collective Girl: A Poetic Approach to a Methodological Dilemma
Authors: Gannon Susanne
Published: April 2009

This article identifies the salient characteristics of collective memory work and collective biography research. Methodological dilemmas that can arise in the course of the research are identified and an argument is made in favor of imagination and creativity as essential elements of any effective response. Particular reference is made to a collective biography project completed by the author where she (re)presented the collective texts in the form of poetry.
Three Short Stories
Authors: Dunbar Christopher
Published: April 2009

The following three short stories are part of a collection of stories written about the experiences of five African American male students enrolled in a Midwest alternative school. This alternative school was established to house students who have been described as incorrigible, disruptive, social misfits, and academically incompetent. The collective stories included in this text are about students who have lived difficult lives. This text reveals the “experiences of a sociologically constructed category of people in the context of larger social-cultural and historical forces.”1 It is about students who have been forgotten; written off; and placed in foster care, detention centers, alternative schools, and, for some, juvenile prison. This approach provides insight into the lives of an increasing number of African American male students placed in alternative school environments.
Shopping for Family
Authors:   Communication Studies 298, California State University, Sacramento
Published: April 2009

This article presents an autoethnography of shopping. A team of nine researchers spent more than 100 hours during a 5-month period conducting participant observations in a variety of shopping contexts and conducting more than 25 formal and informal interviews with customers and sales representatives. This article focuses on the interrelationships between shopping and family, as the authors reflect on how shopping and consumption practices have helped define their own identities, their families’ identities, and their identifications with their families. The article blends various forms of writing to reveal the unique voice and identity of each researcher and the unique senses of family culture and consumer culture evoked by this field study of shopping.
Sp’ange: 1 A Research Story
Authors: Finley Susan , Finley Macklin
Published: April 2009

The authors use a storied representation to highlight the aesthetic and feeling qualities of their research about homeless youth. The authors also include a description of their mother/son research collaboration and the impact of that relationship on the research process. Names of youth are pseudonyms or street names, and all dialogues and reflections with participants were taken from audiotaped conversations. The following several themes are developed in this research story: the formation by homeless youth of family-like structures, the use of cocaine and heroin, early use of alcohol and primacy of alcohol as the drug of choice, and attitudes toward government, economic structures, and work. The problem of youth homelessness reflects the shortcomings of national youth policy and the failures of practices that concern youth. It is the authors’ purpose to provide an opportunity for homeless youth to tell their stories and to contribute their own voices to conversations among educators and policy makers who make decisions that influence the life histories of youth, homeless or otherwise.
The Zoom Model: A Dynamic Framework for the Analysis of Life Histories
Authors: Pamphilon Barbara
Published: April 2009

It is neither appropriate nor ethical to work with life histories in a way that writes the storytellers out of their own lives or that presents their words as an unexpurgated truth. The zoom framework encourages the examination of life histories from different perspectives, recognizing that no one perspective alone can reveal their full complexity. The macro-zoom focuses on the sociohistorical dimension, exploring collective meanings as they relate to individual experience. The meso-zoom reveals the personal level of values, interpretations and positioning. The micro-zoom focuses on the subtleties of the telling, examining emotions and voice, whereas the interactional-zoom recognizes life histories as a product of the relationship between narrator and researcher. By zooming in on each of the multiple perspectives, differing, complementary, and even contradictory data emerges. Most important, this model allows the researcher to acknowledge and productively hold in tension both the individual and collective meanings within life histories.
“Gender Symmetry” in Domestic Violence
Authors: Kimmel Michael S.
Published: April 2009

Despite numerous studies that report the preponderance of domestic violence is perpetrated by men against women, other empirical studies suggest that rates of domestic violence by women and men are equivalent. This article explores these claims of gender symmetry in intimate partners'use of violence by reviewing the empirical foundations of the research and critiquing existing sources of data on domestic violence. The author suggests methods to reconcile the disparate data and encourages researchers and practitioners to acknowledge women's use of violence while understanding why it tends to be very different from violence by men toward their female partners.
Gender Equality and Gendered Homicides
Authors: Whaley Rachel Bridges , Messner Steven F.
Published: April 2009

An important insight from the feminist literature is that a particular form of inequality—gender inequality—is likely to be associated with a distinctive type of violence—gendered violence. Previous research has demonstrated that rates of a quintessential gendered crime, rape, are related to the relative status of men and women. The article extends this earlier work by examining the effects of gender equality on the “gendering” of lethal violence. The authors examine the applicability of two feminist hypotheses, the ameliorative hypothesis and the backlash hypothesis, for lethal violence. Regression analyses for a sample of cities indicate that gender equality is positively related to rates of male killings of females and male killings of other males in southern cities. Conversely, gender equality is negatively associated with male killings of other males in cities located in other regions. These cross-sectional analyses thus offer some support for the backlash hypothesis on gender stratification and violence but also point to the complexity of the structural relationships.
An Evaluation Framework for Health Promotion: Theory, Quality and Effectiveness
Authors: Wimbush Erica , Watson Jonathan
Published: April 2009

There is increasing demand for evaluation work funded by public agencies to become more focused on demonstrating effectiveness. Focusing evaluation on outcomes and effectiveness meets the information needs of strategic planners and policy makers, but other stakeholders involved in managing, delivering or using public services and programmes may use other assessment criteria, such as improving the quality of programmes or programme design. The necessity and value of these other criteria are in danger of being obscured. Acknowledging the legitimacy of the range of stakeholder perspectives, this article presents a framework for evaluation that has been developed over a number of years within the context of evaluating health promotion programmes as part of the work of a national health promotion agency. It argues for an approach to evaluation which recognizes the contributions of theory and quality as well as effectiveness in programme development. The Health Education Board for Scotland (HEBS) framework for evaluation – and the analysis that informed it – demonstrates that there are many stages and forms of evaluation which contribute to the development of effective interventions. While outcome evaluations and effectiveness reviews tend to be the prized evaluation products for those concerned with policy and strategic planning, these forms of evaluation are just ‘the tip of the iceberg’ of what is required to build a sound evidence base, bringing together the full range of evaluation needs from the perspectives of all the different stakeholder groups.
The Evaluation of Complex Health Policy
Authors: Mays Nicholas , Wyke Sally , Evans David
Published: April 2009

The last five years have witnessed the increasing use of evaluated pilot programmes as a way of developing health services policy in the UK. Total purchasing was the first major quasi-market development in the National Health Service to be independently evaluated from the outset. The initiative allowed local, volunteer pilots considerable freedom to implement extensions to existing arrangements for general practitioner budget holding for specialist services in the National Health Service. The experience indicates that future evaluations of similarly complex innovations should give attention to developing explanatory frameworks (i.e. theories), which include consideration of the impact of the context in which interventions are introduced on their potential outcomes. Such an approach should help in ensuring the generalizability of evaluations through theory building and thus increase their relevance for policy development. In addition, evaluations must be designed to be capable of accommodating the needs of changing policy imperatives if they are to have long-term usefulness.
Animal Magic
Authors: Bolin Hans
Published: April 2009

This article discusses the mythological significance of the three most frequently occurring rock art motifs in the middle of northern Sweden, that is of elks, boats and humans. It is here suggested that the most frequently depicted motifs can be related directly to potency in societies practising shamanism during the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The close relationship between rock carvings/paintings and water is emphasized as important when understanding the mythological message expressed in the rock art. It is furthermore assumed that some of the images of elks, boats and humans may portray the experience of the ritual conductor in his/her attempt to communicate with the spiritual world.
Nature, Culture, Clitter
Authors: Tilley Christopher , Hamilton Sue , Harrison Stephan , Anderson Ed
Published: April 2009

This article addresses the problem of how to distinguish between natural and humanly modified features of the cultural landscape with reference to clitter (boulder and stone) masses in the south-west of England using the example of Leskernick hill, Bodmin Moor with its well-preserved Bronze Age settlement. We first set out a series of criteria for distinguishing between natural and humanly placed stones on the basis of a series of formal geomorphological criteria. We then discuss the stones from an archaeological perspective setting out a series of archaeological criteria by means of which we can recognize the presence of humanly modified stones. From this basis we discuss four examples in detail. Finally we attempt to interpret the significance of the cultural modification of stone masses, previously regarded by both archaeologists and geomorphologists as being entirely natural in origin, by challenging the very culture/nature distinction for ascribing meaning on which the previous considerations are made. Whilst acknowledging that the distinction between a stone that has been moved by human agency, and one that has not, is important for interpretation this does not make it more or less culturally significant.
How Hello Kitty Commodifies the Cute, Cool and Camp
Authors: Mcveigh Brian J.
Published: April 2009

Asked about Hello Kitty, respondents judged those interested in this ‘character good’ within a framework of freedom/self-autonomy versus coercion/compulsion. The former is associated with what may be termed ‘consumutopia’ (a counter-presence to mundane reality fueled by late capitalism, pop culture industry, consumerism), while the latter is connected to ‘control’, a critical view of self/collective relations that also comments on Japanese ethno-identity. Hello Kitty also demonstrates the need to focus not just on different tastes within a society, but also on ambiguous and diverse attitudes within the same individual. Such diversity allows Sanrio, Hello Kitty’s maker, to link within one individual different modes of self-presentation, chronologically corresponding to girlhood (‘cute’), female adolescence (‘cool’), and womanhood (‘camp’). Thus, as people mature, appeals to nostalgia encourage a reconnection with the past by buying products united by one leitmotif; same commodity, same individual, different ages/tastes/styles/desires.
What’s in a Price?
Authors: Geismar Haidy
Published: April 2009

Typically, the auction house salesroom has been conceived of as an exemplary market: a place in which ultimate price is fixed by persons at a particular moment. This perspective relies on a static a-historical view of an isolated marketplace. This study views the auction sale of tribal art as one part of a wider economic set, within which objects and persons interact to momentarily assign price (or not). It thereby expands the common anthropological use of the notion of a ‘tournament’ of value (Appadurai, 1986). A brief background to the history of the auction and of the tribal art market precedes an examination of the auction as a ‘distributed object’ (Gell, 1998): a series of events from catalogue and viewing, to the performance of sale. Within each of these situations, price is shown to be fixed by ambiguous and malleable processes of valuation over space and time.
The ‘Casser Maison’ Ritual
Authors: Marcoux Jean-Sébastien
Published: April 2009

This paper addresses the relationship between mobility, ageing and death in an urban housing market from a material culture perspective. It examines a divestment ritual performed by elderly people in Montreal (Canada) on the occasion of a move from a home on their own to a care environment. This move which is often a move into a smaller place and a smaller set of things is also accompanied by the compulsion for the people to divest themselves of some of their belongings, a process that is called ‘ casser maison’, literally ‘breaking the house’. This ethnographic paper reveals that ‘ casser maison’ is not only a matter of getting separated from some, if not most, of one’s possessions, however. It is also a matter of placing those possessions among the kin or other potential recipients. In this respect, ‘ casser maison’ pertains to a ritualized form of construction of the self through the emptying of the place. It proceeds from the wish to ancestralize oneself; the capacity to place one’s possessions is taken to guarantee the survival of the subject and of his or her memory. As such, this paper demonstrates that, through the use of personal belongings, the divestment of the self becomes a form of investment.
Book Review: French Anthropology and Material Culture
Authors: Faure-Rouesnel Laurence
Published: April 2009

In this article, the author reviews three recent books that have been published on material culture in France. The main orientations of these books have to be understood by reference to French traditional anthropology and the interest in technology and traditional know how as well as to the analysis of Gift. They also illustrate new orientations such as the interest in the analysis of innovation process. The author finally compares the French context of material culture studies to the English context, explaining that the first one has traditionally focused on the study of production and circulation rather than consumption, even though French intellectuals such as Bourdieu and Baudrillard might be seen as having laid down the basis for material culture studies on consumption.
Unprovenanced Material Culture and Freud’s Collection of Antiquities
Authors: Ucko Peter
Published: April 2009

Over his long life Sigmund Freud collected at least 2500 antiquities, most of which are now on view to the public in the London Freud Museum. What has not previously been properly considered is to what degree Freud was archaeologically informed, and why he became involved in the ‘excavation’ of Duna-Pentele in modern Hungary. Much has been written (not least by psychoanalysts) on the possible symbolic significance both of his collecting and of what he collected. It is at least arguable that his purchasing of antiquities was more to do with his mood at any particular time, and what was available on the market. Over time, items in Freud’s collection have been ascribed different significances by Freud himself, and by others. The changing nature of assessments of the significance of material culture should be kept in mind when confronted by some of today’s politically correct stances.
‘Goods, Chattels and Sundry Items’
Authors: Chattopadhyay Swati
Published: April 2009

One of the most common assumptions regarding the culture of British colonialism in India is that the Victorian ideal of separate spheres for men and women found an exaggerated expression in the separation of the colonial bungalow and camp/court. As marginal figures who often disturbed the masculine image and occupation of running an empire, the appropriate role of British women was limited to gracing the household, creating a semblance of ‘home’. This reading of British domestic life in India also assumes that the domestic ideology used in Britain to shape a distinction between public and private spheres was not only applicable in the colonial context, but was even more distinctly articulated. Through an examination of written documents describing Anglo-Indian life in Calcutta, housekeeping guides written by British women, house plans, and probate inventories of British residents of Calcutta, I argue that the model of domestic space was formulated on a fundamentally different premise, on an overlap of public and private spheres. And the possibilities of this overlap were utilized by British women to redefine the meaning of Anglo-Indian domestic material culture in late 19th-century India. A spatial inquiry into colonial domestic practices reveals the difficulties and disruptions that such redefinition entailed.
Spirits and Souls of Business
Authors: Lindquist Galina
Published: April 2009

This article considers an instance of magical services in Moscow, where the practitioner adapted western neo-shamanic methods to cater to the problems of the newly rich. The techniques that are ostensibly used for improving business are analyzed as attempts to alter the problematic morality of money making. The semiotic mechanisms of kitsch and magic are compared, and it is suggested that similar mechanisms are involved in the processes of identity construction of the new elites. These semiotic processes are seen as symptomatic of deep changes at the very foundations of cultural cosmologies, resulting from the new openness to the globalized world.
The Lives of the Tibetonepalese Carpet
Authors: O’Neill Tom
Published: April 2009

The popularity of the Tibeto-Nepalese carpet in the European hand-knotted carpet market created a modern industry in peri-urban Kathmandu, Nepal, that established the Tibetan refugee population there as well as a new class of Nepalese entrepreneur. This paper employs Igor Kopytoff’s (1986) perspective on the social life of things and Keith Hart’s (1982) definition of commoditization to argue that the short career of the Tibeto-Nepalese carpet as an export commodity has been one of increasing homogenization that has transformed the materials, weaving techniques, and meanings of the carpet. Easy access to the lucrative ‘middle’ markets of Europe has meant that Tibeto-Nepalese carpets are now standardized to compete with other categories of floor coverings, and that the unique hand-knotted quality desired by connoisseurs and collectors is slowly being eliminated.
Cultural studies in Japan
Authors: Takeshi Satô , Tatsurô Hanada
Published: April 2009

The field of ‘cultural studies’ has had a major impact in Japan, where many of the seminal English-language texts have been translated and discussed. Even before the Second World War and immediately after, however, Japan had its own intellectual background which set the foundations for this development. This essay looks at that background - through the writings of Tosaka Jun, Nakai Masakazu, Tsurumi Shunsuke and Katô Shûichi. It then examines how British cultural studies made its way to Japan and how it was received there, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. Finally, it points to the research areas in which Japanese cultural studies has found fertile soil and why.
The end of the world news
Authors: Hobart Mark
Published: April 2009

Presciently, a year before the riots in Indonesia which brought the downfall of Soeharto, people in Bali had been arguing that a new political and social order could only emerge after apocalyptic violence, although they might well be the victims. Anthropologists and cultural studies specialists still mostly fail to appreciate the sophistication and skill in reflective thinking of ordinary people who remain at best passive subjects rather than critical, if necessarily episodic, intellectuals in their own right. A study of conversations among a group of Balinese villagers revealed a subtle sense of how mass media in general, and television in particular, were crucial to maintaining the existing political order. A central theme of the villagers’ analysis is how they had been silenced, to the point that no one would, or could, hear what they said. They were, in effect, disarticulated. Two years later I asked the same group of people whether subsequent events had confirmed or challenged their original views. On various grounds, their earlier argument seemed, if anything, more cogent. For example, the theme of the disarticulation of the majority of Indonesian people had begun to be taken up as an issue on national television. Despite widespread political violence in Indonesia, the villagers were clear that apocalypse had only just started.
Radio broadcasting in South Africa
Authors: Mtimde Lumko
Published: April 2009

This article provides an overview of the transition from minority government to the new non-racial, non-sexist and democratic government, and the transition from apartheid control of the media to a period of dramatic change. On 30 March 1994 an act of parliament brought the Independent Broadcasting Authority into existence, and its work over the past six years has been extensive. This article covers its legal constitution; its aims and objectives; its remit and responsibilities; questions concerning divisions of bimedia and new technology; the IBA Council and its standing committees; and the relationships between licensing, monitoring and advertising. The broad divisions and categories of new radio are in the public, private and community sectors, and matters related to new industrial development, media empowerment and overall regulation are addressed.
Radio’s new horizons
Authors: Buckley Steve
Published: April 2009

Democracy and communication are inextricably linked, so much so that the existence or otherwise of certain forms of communications can be a measure of the limits to which democracy itself has developed or is held back. This article takes a brief world tour to examine the development of radio as a popular communications tool. It then compares different forms of media construction against a typology of democracy and it sets out the challenges which popular communications media face to survive in the context of globalization and digitalization. Radio worldwide remains the most pervasive of the electronic communications media, but a reflexive and communicative democracy needs to underpin this with supportive policy measures grounded in human rights and linked to further development of the freedom of information and expression.
Remote audiences beyond 2000
Authors: Jayaprakash Yesudhasan Thomas
Published: April 2009

This article explores how Todas, people of a remote indigenous community living in the Nilgiri hills, South India, use radio in the context of a rapidly changing media environment. The fieldwork conducted in the Toda settlements shows that the Todas consider radio to be an important medium for information, entertainment and development. Responses from indigenous audiences also reveal how gender and age influence their pattern of radio listening. Men seem to be more inclined towards agricultural programmes relevant to local conditions; women listen to Christian programmes and ignore entertainment programmes; and children consider radio to be a companion and an intimate medium of entertainment and information. The article describes how a low power regional radio station located near indigenous communities serves its audience distinctively, in a country where radio broadcasting functions like a commercial operation.
The ethics of television
Authors: Hawkins Gay
Published: April 2009

This paper explores the ethical turn in new and old television formats. From docusoaps to tabloid talk to lifestyle shows, examinations of ways to live are now a major source of content and conflict. Television is now deeply implicated in shaping our ethical sensibilities. This development makes trouble for the logic of tabloid moralism and its obsession with policing the boundaries between right and wrong, for when moralism gives way to ethics the role of television in governing populations becomes much more complex and multifarious. Using the ethical theories of Foucault and Deleuze, the political implications of television’s version of ethics are examined.
Global versus local
Authors: Roome Dorothy M.
Published: April 2009

Since the general election of 1994 the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), previously a state broadcaster, has attempted to reconstitute itself. By launching new programming and scheduling the SABC has tried to take into account the requirements for public service broadcasting and the perceptions of what this entails for a new democracy. To contextualize the debates about public service broadcasting in South Africa a brief historic overview of broadcasting is provided. The language requirements for a multicultural society and their effects on programming are explained. Evolution of a local situation comedy genre through two local productions, Suburban Bliss and Going Up, is traced in the SABC’s attempt to achieve a balance of programmes for all members of South African society. The multicultural audience’s varied responses to these productions are discussed to demonstrate how audience reception analysis can serve as an indicator of the rearrangement of cultural power.
The view of our town from the hill
Authors: Dicks Bella
Published: April 2009

Many new heritage centres put on display the history of ‘a people’ and construct narratives which are organized around the trope of ‘community’. These narratives are based on prior acts of imagining that represent the social subjects of history as bound together in a social, spatial and temporal identity. This article discusses these representational strategies through a detailed examination of heritage texts in a selected case-study. It is suggested that, although heritage does trade on conventional images of olde-worlde communities, it also puts into play other more politicized discourses of collective action. However, it is argued that all representations of community involve adopting a perspective ‘from the hill’, which tends to encode community as an enclosed and homogeneous world. The alternative view of local social life, encapsulated in the ‘network’ metaphor, is incompatible with the economic and political logic of local heritage attractions.
Quantitative Assessment of Damage in a Structural Beam Based on Wave Propagation by Impact Excitation
Authors: Su Zhongqing , Ye Lin , Bu Xiongzhu , Wang Xiaoming , Mai Yiu-Wing
Published: April 2009

A damage identification system involving a surface-attached piezoelectric transducer was developed in this study in correlation with an elastic wave propagation model. A signal processing and identification algorithm in the time-frequency domain based on the wavelet transform technique was proposed to suppress the diverse broadband interferences and effectively extract useful diagnostic information from the acquired raw impact responses, facilitating a prompt yet accurate structural health assessment. The developed system was then validated by applying it to a defective metal beam bearing a transverse crack with an increasing depth that simulates the crack growth. It is shown that the monitoring for the variable damage severity in the one-dimensional structure can be fulfilled quantitatively and exactly using this technique.
On ethics and feminism
Authors: Bell Vikki
Published: April 2009

In this article I argue that, if one is persuaded by the arguments of Emmanuel Levinas, the pursuit of something called ‘ethical feminism’ is rendered difficult, for, according to Levinas, there is a hiatus between ethics and politics in so far as politics does not flow from ethics. Indeed, politics obliges one to engage in the non-ethical, so that the ethical cannot be understood as a basis for feminist politics. I contend that one can argue that it is in the way that the dangers of the non-ethical are handled that politics begins. If this is so, one can refigure the question of ethics within feminism. Ethics becomes a check on freedom and politics rather than its originary source. However, I argue, along with Michel Foucault and William Connolly, that ethical responses, while coming from the other, have also to be subjected to genealogical critique, so that their conditions of possibility are not naturalized.
From polyglottism to branding
Authors: Forde Eamonn
Published: April 2009

The popular music press in the UK has undergone a number of important changes since the mid-1990s. These changes are due to a variety of factors including the emergence and proliferation of high-production glossy niched monthly titles, the fragmentation and over-saturation of the market for consumer music titles, the bureaucratic restructuring of music magazines, the occupational re-evaluation of the music journalism profession and an increasingly PR-led industry climate. What all this has meant is that the space devoted to, and the access required for, ‘immersion reporting’ – the New Journalism touchstone which informed the music press through the 1970s and 1980s – has been greatly reduced, resulting in a refocusing of resources and the once autonomous ‘personality writer’ being superseded by a single branded magazine identity. The article draws on interviews with music journalists, editors, editors-in-chief and press officers as well as participant observation in music magazines, all conducted as part of the author's PhD research at the University of Westminster.