bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Tibetan Longevity Meditation
Authors: Samuel Geoffrey
Published: May 2017

The central aim of Tantric practice in Tibetan Buddhism is enlightenment, but the same techniques are also used to attain good health and a long life. The image of the Tantric deity and the surrounding mandala enables the imaginative recreation of a universe in which body-mind and wider environment are connected. Along with mantra recitation, secret breathing techniques, sometimes sexualized visualizations, and various movements and postures, this is understood to help the person reabsorb various kinds of life-essence that have been lost to the environment. Technique and culture are intertwined, since the practices are based on a ‘shamanic’ world-view in which life-essence may be lost to external forces, and the body-mind complex restored to good health and functioning through their recovery.
Kànhuà Meditation in Chinese Zen
Authors: Schlütter Morten
Published: May 2017

This paper discusses the kànhuà technique developed by the Chinese Línjì (Jpn.: Rinzai) master Dàhuì Zōnggǎo (1089-1163) that became a widespread form of meditation in East Asian Zen. Kànhuà meditation focuses on the keyword or “punch line” (Ch.: huàtóu, Jpn.: watō, Kor.: hwadu) of puzzling Chán “encounter dialogues” (or kōan stories) associated with past Chán (Zen) masters. Dàhuì insisted on a sudden breakthrough enlightenment and considered kànhuà meditation an alternative to a dead-end, no-enlightenment, seated meditation that he associated with the rival Cáodòng (Jpn.: Sōtō) tradition of Chán. The paper further explores four innovations in kànhuà meditation during the centuries after Dàhuì: the use of kànhuà meditation to calm the mind; a greater emphasis on doubt; the integration of Pure Land practice into the kànhuà technique; and the notion that the huàtóu could be called out aloud. However, in spite of such changes kànhuà Chán stayed close to Dàhuì’s vision.
The Science of Meditation
Authors: Holen Are
Published: May 2017

The first big wave of scientific research on meditation came in the 1970s and mainly focused on the physiology of relaxation. The second wave, which is still ongoing, has a stronger focus on modes of attention and their neural correlates. In both waves of meditation research, Anglo-American scientists have dominated the arena, but the kinds of meditation investigated have almost exclusively been of Asian origin. This essay argues that the shifting focus of scientific studies is not only determined by the available scientific methodology, but also by the form of meditation under investigation, as well as the influence from society and popular culture.
Bodies and Benefits
Authors: Fowler Sherry D.
Published: May 2017

Painted and printed sets of Thirty-three Kannon transported from China in the fifteenth century inspired the shift to Thirty-three Kannon worship. This new theme in Japan is exemplified by the celebrated set from 1412 attributed to Minchō. Another area of transition between the Six and Thirty-three Kannon cults is in the fact that the main temple icons of the major Thirty-three Kannon pilgrimage routes all feature one of the Six Kannon rather than any of the thirty-three images described in the Lotus sūtra or those imported from China. Within the context of pilgrimage, one surprising area of transition between the cults is found in the imagery cast into large bronze bells used at Buddhist temples. Finally, beginning in the seventeenth century, boundaries of the distribution of multiple Kannon imagery were pushed even further as publications of the printed iconographic manual Butsuzō zui, which clearly organized illustrations of groups of Seven and Thirty-three Kannon, rapidly proliferated throughout Japan and then abroad, giving Kannon worldwide exposure.
The Akha, “Rife with Feasts”
Authors: Hayden Brian
Published: May 2017

The Akha constitute the relatively poor end of the hill tribe spectrum, but they have a wide range of feasts that employ the available surplus production. This chapter shows how Akha feasts support the economic, ritual, and sociopolitical organization of communities. The role of taboos as aggrandizer strategies is explored and the internal dynamics of the ritual-political structure of villages is examined. Examples of the range of Akha feasts are described and explanations provided in terms of how they dovetail with various levels of sociopolitical groups, including household, clan, administrative, and village levels, but especially lineages. The important issue of why some households do not participate in feasts is raised. Material patterning of feasts is again discussed.
The Remarkable Torajan Feasting Complex
Authors: Hayden Brian
Published: May 2017

The villages in Tana Toraja, Sulawesi, host some of the most lavish feasts in Southeast Asia, especially for funerals or memorials. In addition megaliths were raised for the wealthiest deceased family members. There is also considerable variability in economics, sociopolitical organization, and feasting within the Torajan area. This chapter discusses and tries to explain some of this variability, from low level transegalitarian villages in poor mountainous areas to the proto- or real chiefdom levels of the valley bottoms where paddy rice produces major surpluses. The corporate kindred with its ancestral house as the center of ritual and feasting activities is a distinctive feature of Torajan societies. Slavery was very developed, and secondary burials were strongly associated with elites in order to provide enough time to amass as much wealth as possible for proper funeral feasts. Why funeral feasts feature so prominently in Southeast Asia tribal societies is discussed. Other feasts were hosted by households, reciprocal work groups, lineages, corporate kindreds, villages, districts, and village alliances.
The Sumban Megalithic Feasting Complex
Authors: Hayden Brian
Published: May 2017

The most active and still vibrant megalithic tradition in Southeast Asia is probably found in Sumba. Given the importance of megaliths and their interpretation in prehistoric archaeology, and given the intimate association of megaliths and feasting in the Torajan area, we focused considerable attention on the feasting traditions of Sumba, especially as they related to megaliths. The megaliths are also associated spatially and behaviorally with ancestral corporate lineage houses. The logic of megalithic construction is discussed together with benefits sought by hosts for sponsoring feasts. The range of major feasting types is described.
Introduction
Authors: Stone Jacqueline I.
Published: May 2017

Buddhism in early medieval Japan encompassed multiple discourses, logics, and explanatory frameworks for addressing death. Understanding Buddhism not as a fixed, internally unified system but as a shifting repertoire or “toolkit” of resources makes sense of such tensions and inconsistencies without privileging one element as normative and the others as second-tier accommodations. It also challenges the stance of Buddhist modernism that would dismiss concern with death and the afterlife as a falling away from the Buddha’s putative original focus on the “here and now” and his no-self doctrine. Belief in the power of the last thought to affect one’s postmortem destination is attested in early Indian Buddhist sources. With the rise of the Mahāyāna, especially in China, it was assimilated to aspirations for birth in a pure land (ōjō), such as Amida Buddha’s realm. Daoxuan, Daoshi, and Shandao wrote instructions for deathbed practice that would prove influential in Japan.
The Beginnings of Deathbed Practice in Japan
Authors: Stone Jacqueline I.
Published: May 2017

Deathbed practices emerged during Japan’s Heian period (794-1185) in connection with growing aspirations for birth after death in a pure land, whether of Amida or of some other buddha or bodhisattva. The ideal of mindful death was stimulated by three seminal events: Yoshishige no Yasutane’s completion of the first Japanese collection of ōjōden, or accounts of men and women said to have been born in Amida Buddha’s realm; the monk Genshin’s authoring of Japan’s first set of instructions for deathbed practice in his Ōjō yōshū; and the formation of the Twenty-Five Samādhi Society, an association of monks committed to assisting one another’s practice at the time of death. Hopes for Amida’s welcoming descent (raigō) and notions of exemplary death leading to birth in the Pure Land, along with corollary fears about falling into the hells, spread through doctrinal developments, religious associations, literature, liturgical performance, songs, and artistic representations.
A Realm Apart
Authors: Stone Jacqueline I.
Published: May 2017

Aspirations for the Pure Land were often framed in terms of an ascetic ethos of world denial. While not always mirrored in actual practice, normative discourse of “shunning this defiled world and aspiring to the Pure Land” provides a convenient thread to tease out complex thematic strands in how people envisioned the relation of the Pure Land to this present world in terms of cosmology, social relations, and conventional morality. Was the Pure Land close at hand, accessible through nondual insight or by visiting sacred sites such as Tennōji or Mt. Kōya? Or was it far away? Once born there, would one retain one’s personal identity, gender, and human ties? Could evildoers attain birth there (akunin ōjō)? While factors such as age, social location, and individual inclination gave rise to varying interpretations, in the end, the Pure Land was seen as irreducibly “other” and not subject to this-worldly conventions.
Interpreting the Signs
Authors: Stone Jacqueline I.
Published: May 2017

Auspicious signs attesting to particular individuals’ ōjō gave assurance to the bereaved that their dead had indeed achieved the Pure Land. They legitimated the practices of specific religious communities and were also linked to the forming of favorable karmic connections (kechien)—to teachings, persons, places, or objects—deemed able to assist one’s own efforts to achieve ōjō. Signs showed which practitioners, living or dead, were worthy of reverence as objects of kechien. Corporeal signs, such as remarkable preservation of the corpse, helped people to negotiate otherwise incommensurable understandings of death as both defiling and as the moment of encounter with the Buddha. Identifying auspicious signs, often through revelatory dreams, also allowed those concerned to cope with deaths that would otherwise have seemed senseless or tragic by recasting them as instances of ōjō. Since signs could be recognized only by the living, ōjō as a social fact was determined by survivors.
What Is a Chinese Prose Poem?
Authors: Admussen Nick
Published: May 2017

Chapter one traces a reading process that ends in a metaphoric and hermeneutic definition of prose poetry. Reading Heidegger through Celan, and engaging with western theories of genre, it moves from the much-discussed insufficiency of categorical definitions of the genre to the need to describe prose poetry as the product of particular compositional processes, then determines that we can describe those processes as the condensation of prose writing, the recitation of previous prose art, and the refusal to be identical to previous prose art. These processes are simultaneous, and complexly interrelated; they take place, as Chinese scholars point out, inside poems, and indirectly determine their exteriors. The chapter includes translations of compositions from the 1976 Tiananmen demonstrations, and recent prose poetry by Xi Chuan and others.
What Is the Tradition of Chinese Prose Poetry?
Authors: Admussen Nick
Published: May 2017

This chapter examines, rejects, and revises the traditional history of the genre of prose poetry. Through a reading of Agamben, it demonstrates that during the May Fourth period, writers called a wide variety of work by the name prose poetry, including lineated free verse, lyric essays, and even fiction. By contrast, the writers of the 1950s wrote generically coherent work, and in the 1980s those same writers produced the focused, meaningful genre definitions that we use today. Because contemporary prose poetry has its roots in the obedient socialist poetry of the 1950s, it is not an inherently subversive form; its acts of refusal often serve to humanize or personalize the dictates of state socialism. The end of the chapter finds that the greatest stylistic influence on early prose poetry were Bing Xin’s translations of Rabindranath Tagore, and the way she made his transcendental music into vernacular prose.
Orthodox Prose Poetry
Authors: Admussen Nick
Published: May 2017

This chapter opens by studying the two most seminal prose poets of the 1950s, Ke Lan and Guo Feng. It shows that by faithfully ventriloquizing state socialism, they effectively subjectivize it, putting the words of the collective into the mouth of the individual. It demonstrates the way in which the political pressures of the 1950s provoked acts of definition and organization on the part of prose poets. The second half of chapter three reads the prose poetry community itself as a key text of orthodox art. It finds that an intentional modeling of prose poetry communities on the structures of the Communist Party has produced a set of dynamics that are hierarchical, inter-organizational, and self-reproductive. These dynamics influence the composition of prose poems through the interventions of educators, editors, and study group administrators, leading to the conclusion that many people participate in the writing of each orthodox prose poem.
Semi-Orthodox Prose Poetry
Authors: Admussen Nick
Published: May 2017

Chapter four is a close reading of Liu Zaifu, a poet, scholar and essayist who wrote prose poetry throughout the 1980s. In the early 1980s, Liu Zaifu continued prose poetry's tradition of finding a place for the subjective and the aesthetic in the world of socialist prose. The first part of the chapter engages with his aesthetic and social philosophy, and uses that engagement to translate and read his best-known work, “Reading the Sea.” The second half of the chapter traces the impact of Liu's 1989 exile on his work. Liu’s post-exile works, published in Hong Kong, reveal the connection between prose poetry and the Chinese mainland context: once he leaves, Liu stops writing prose poetry in favor of literary essays. His work and his career therefore provide a crucial commentary on the line between orthodox and unorthodox prose poetry, and between prose poetry and other prose.
Afterword
Authors: Admussen Nick
Published: May 2017

The afterword argues that it is the way that prose poetry makes prose visible that gives it such power and promise in contemporary China, as well as abroad. Recitation summons the voices of others into the present, and into the present speaker: when prose poetry recites prose assumed to contain and deliver truths, those claims are brought into a kind of laboratory in which they can be tested and transformed. This is especially crucial in contemporary China, where the power of the tradition of socialism floats in an uneasy vacuum. The afterword looks at writing by Xi Chuan and Mao Zedong in order to ask what it actually means to “make it new” in China, and how prose poetry authors confront and answer questions about how we speak the truth.
Landowner Groups and the Codification of Custom in Papua New Guinea
Authors: Stead Victoria C.
Published: May 2017

Although it diverges markedly from the vision of the Melanesian Way elaborated in the 1975 constitution, large-scale resource extraction has in recent decades been championed as the key mechanism for development in Papua New Guinea. In this context, forms of “middle-way” land reform are advocated as means of rendering customary land tenure commensurable with the requirements of modern, capitalist practices of production and economic activity. Principal amongst these are Incorporated Land Groups (ILGs) and lease-lease-back arrangements. Ethnographic exploration of communities affected by the tuna industry in Madang Province shows how these land reforms transform structures and cartographies of power, privileging the agents of the state and global capital at the same time that they transform relations of power within communities. At the same time, however, forms of codification and the assertion of landowner identities allow communities to make claims against outside agents involved in resource extractive activity on their lands.
Making Land Work?
Authors: Stead Victoria C.
Published: May 2017

In Papua New Guinea, a country rich in mineral and other natural resources, “development” has become largely inseparable from the extension of capitalist relations of production and exchange across land. This is a cultural process as well as an economic one, and it both materially undermines and ideologically devalues customary forms of subsistence production, as well as forms of informal sector economic activity. Ethnographic exploration of communities around the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone and the RD Tuna Cannery in Madang Province also reveal the functioning of “development” as a cultural, ideational and symbolically laden phenomenon. Specifically, the consumption of tinpis (Tok Pisin: tinned fish), functions ambivalently as a signifier both of status and of dispossession. If dominant development practices devalue customary land and customary forms of production, however, it also creates new opportunities for asserting new visions of development and of the good life.
Land Titling and State Building in Postconflict Timor-Leste
Authors: Stead Victoria C.
Published: May 2017

In Timor-Leste, forms and patterns of connection to land have been transformed by the impacts of Portuguese colonialism, Indonesian occupation, and civil conflict, all of which have generated widespread displacement. Multiple bases for land claims now exist, and this has been the catalyst for a land claims collection and land titling process in the post-independence era. Between 2008 and 2012 a project called Ita Nia Rai (Tetum: Our Land), funded by US aid agency USAID, collected land claims in urban and peri-urban areas as a precursor to issuing land titles. Land titling and cadastral mapping processes privilege an understanding of land as property. In Timor-Leste, the Ita Nia Rai process also assumes and reinforces an equivalence between urban and modern, and rural and customary. Four case-studies of informants involved in the land reform process, however, reveal urban and peri-urban spaces as sites of dynamic interplay between customary and modern practices.
Contesting Land, City, State, and Nation
Authors: Stead Victoria C.
Published: May 2017

This article considers contestations over land, state and nation in Aitarak Laran, an urban settlement in post-independence Timor-Leste. Since 2010 the settlement has been resisting eviction by the East Timorese state, which wishes to use the land it occupies to build a National Library and Cultural Centre. The contestation at Aitarak Laran reveals counter-posed imaginings of land as homeland, territory and property. In the settlement, the promises of independence—unity, equivalence, and inclusion within the sovereign nation-state—are at odds with residents’ experiences of what independence has in fact brought. Land, in its multiple imaginings, becomes a crucible upon which this painful disjuncture plays out. Reading Aitarak Laran as an instance of “right to the city” struggle, these tensions emerge as well not only in practice but also in theory, reflected particularly in the limitations and ambiguities of rights discourse.
Introduction
Authors: Kimura Aya Hirata , Suryanata Krisnawati
Published: May 2017

This chapter introduces the concept of food democracy through which we can analyze a few initiatives that emerge from discussions on food systems in Hawaii. It also presents a short history of Hawaii’s agro-food systems to contextualize the diverse initiatives discussed in the book. We then provide short synopsis of the subsequent chapters and highlight how they open a space for discussion in multiple venues, such as in the legislative arena and in the market place, while being attentive to the broader challenge posed by neoliberal economic policies.
Labor of Meaning, Labor of Need
Authors: Mostafanezhad Mary , Suryanata Krisnawati , Azizi Saleh , Milne Nicole
Published: May 2017

This chapter critically examines the promise of organic farm volunteering programs such as WWOOF in meeting organic farmers’ need for affordable labor in Hawaii. While organic farm volunteering offers a short term coping strategy for some organic farmers, the cultural logic and rationale that propels these programs perpetuates the underlying labor problems that plague small organic farms. This chapter demonstrates the limitations of organic farm volunteering when utilized as a form of civic participation to drive economic and socio-environmental change.
And Baby Makes One
Authors: Seaman Amanda C.
Published: May 2017

In two narratives, created twenty-five years apart, pregnancy serves less as a process by which a new life is created, than as a process for re-making an old one, with characters drawn to pregnancy as a way to change their identity or to escape from a dead end in their lives. In the end, when their reproductive ambitions are thwarted, they are left alone trying to reinvent themselves. Tsushima Yuko’s 1978 Child of Fortune features Kōko, a single mom, who believes herself to be pregnant—a fantasy. In Hasegawa Junko’s 2002 “Unfertilized Egg,” Moriko with few career prospects and a failed affair embarks on an ill-fated quest to get pregnant, believing that motherhood will jump-start her stalled life. These similarities indicate that motherhood still equals female adulthood. Thus pregnancy is seen as a means of transformation, a proxy for intimate relationships rather than something produced by, or producing, them.
Modelo de factores críticos del éxito para el despliegue de programas de filosofía organizacional
Authors: Hernández Gómez Jesús Andrés , Dávila Soltero Félipe , Noriega Morales Salvador Anacleto , Maynez Guaderrama Aurora Irma , Torres Arguelles Soledad Vianey
Published: May 2017

Este artículo presenta los resultados de una investigación para identificar los Factores Críticos de Éxito (FCE) relacionados con el despliegue de la Filosofía Organizacional (FO). La primera sección expone la revisión de la literatura realizada para la construcción y validación de un cuestionario para investigar las variables relacionadas con dicho despliegue. En la siguiente se describe la metodología y la aplicación de un Análisis Factorial exploratorio para construir un modelo teórico. La validez de constructo se evaluó con un Análisis Factorial Confirmatorio. El ajuste del modelo se probó con un Sistema de Ecuaciones Estructurales. En los resultados se expone el modelo construido y los factores de mayor impacto relacionados con la implantación de programas de Filosofía Organizacional. Los FCE identificados son la cultura orientada a la productividad, empoderamiento de los empleados, el capital estructural, las tecnologías de información y los recursos y capacidades.
Simulation of NOM events in pilot plant evaluation of DAF/Ozone/BAC for drinking water treatment
Authors: Yan Y. , Carter M. , Mercer A.
Published: May 2017

Pilot plant testing is invaluable for ascertaining the robustness of water treatment processes against raw water quality events such as turbidity and colour spikes, whether it be for stress testing of an existing process or designing of a new process. Unfortunately, the natural occurrence of such events (particularly colour) can be difficult to predict and commercial humic materials generally fail to closely match the indigenous natural organic matter (NOM) present in the raw water. Therefore, it is highly desirable to be able to simulate NOM event conditions. This paper describes a simple brewing method that we developed and used in our recent pilot plant evaluation of a proposed DAF/Ozone/BAC process for drinking water treatment. Using this method we successfully prepared, by using fallen leaves etc. collected from the local catchment area, large quantities of a concentrated NOM stock solution with its specific ultraviolet absorbance (SUVA), when diluted, very close to the median SUVA of historical NOM events. The brewed solution showed broadly similar NOM characteristics to those of the raw water encountered during the pilot investigation period in terms of molecular weight distribution and fractionation. The coagulation behaviour was also examined for the spiked and non-spiked raw water.
Os sentidos de theologia physica para os antiqui: Tomás de Aquino leitor de Agostinho [The senses of theologia physica for the antiqui: Thomas Aquinas reads Augustine]
Authors: Santos Evaniel Brás dos
Published: May 2017

Explicito neste artigo que a expressão “theologia physica” atribuída aos antigos (antiqui) possui dois sentidos na ST, IIa-IIae, q. 94, a. 1, resp., de Tomás de Aquino. O primeiro, atribuído a Varrão, denota um estudo restrito, uma physiologia ou mecânica na qual deus é entendido como a força imanente no mundo, locomovendo-o. O segundo, por sua vez, pertence aos platônicos (platonici) e denota um estudo geral, pois aborda, além de entidades imateriais, um criador. Ambas as teologias físicas, conforme Tomás, institui filosoficamente a idolatria ao entenderem que a divindade é causa de locomoção. Embora se valha de Agostinho em sua leitura da expressão “theologia physica”, Tomás introduz discussões que estão além do texto agostiniano. [In the article I clarify that the expression “theologia physica” attributed to the Ancients (antiqui) has two senses in the ST, IIa-IIae, q. 94, a.1, resp., of Thomas Aquinas. The first, attributed to Varro, denotes a restrict study, a physiologia or mechanics in which god is understood as the immanent force in the world, moving it. The second, in turn, belongs to the Platonics (platonici) and denotes a general study, for it approaches, besides immaterial entities, a creator. Both physical theologies, according to Aquinas, set up philosophically the idolatry since they understand that the divinity is cause for locomotion. Although Aquinas makes use of Augustine in his reading of the expression “theologia physica”, he introduces discussions that go beyond the Augustinian text.]
Heidegger e o projeto de superação da subjetividade [Heidegger and the project of overcoming of subjectivity]
Authors: Ferreira Acylene Maria Cabral
Published: May 2017

Nosso objetivo é mostrar como o projeto heideggeriano de superação da metafísica ocidental enquanto um retorno à questão do ser enquanto ser, simultaneamente, implica em um projeto de superação da subjetividade. Utilizaremos a proposta de classificação elaborada pelos estudiosos do pensamento heideggeriano, para pontuarmos o tema da superação da subjetividade.  Em seguida, indicaremos porque a temporalidade do Dasein (Ser e tempo) e a Temporalität do ser (Os problemas fundamentais de fenomenologia) constituem momentos distintos da superação da metafísica e da subjetividade, visto que ser não é mais concebido como substância, mas como temporalidade; e o homem não é mais entendido como sujeito, mas como Dasein. Assim, concluímos que o ser do homem não é mais determinado como subjetividade, mas como temporalidade.[Our aim is to show how the Heiddegerian Project of overcoming of Western Metaphysics through a return to the question of being as being, implies, at the same time, a project of overcoming of subjectivity. Based on the classification elaborated by Heideggerian scholars, we will start by locating the question of subjectivity in Heidegger’s work. Next, we will discuss why the temporality of Dasein (Being and Time) and the Temporalität of being (The Basic Problems of Phenomenology) are different moments of overcoming both Metaphysics and subjectivity, in the sense that being is no longer understood as substance, but as temporality; and mankind is no longer understood as subject but as Dasein. This reflexion enables us to conclude that for Heidegger it is not subjectivity but temporality that constitutes the being of mankind.]
Potential Biomolecules and Current Treatment Technologies for Diabetic Foot Ulcer: An Overview
Authors: Khashim Zenith , Samuel Shila , Duraisamy Nallusamy , Krishnan Kathiravan
Published: May 2017

Background:

Diabetic foot ulceration remains a major challenge and is one of the most expensive and leading causes of major and minor amputations among patients with diabetic foot ulcer. Hence the purpose of this review is to emphasize on potential molecular markers involved in diabetic foot ulcer physiology, the efficacy of different types of dressing materials, adjunct therapy and newer therapeutic approach like nanoparticles for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcer.

Methods:

We conducted a systematic literature review search by using Pubmed and other web searches. The quality evidence of diabetic foot ulcer biomolecules and treatments was collected, summarized and compared with other studies.

Results:

The present investigation suggested that impaired wound healing in diabetic patients is an influence of several factors. All the advanced therapies and foot ulcer dressing materials are not suitable for all types of diabetic foot ulcers, however more prospective follow ups and in vivo and in vitro studies are needed to draw certain conclusion. Several critical wound biomolecules have been identified and are in need to be investigated in diabetic foot ulcers. The application of biocompatible nanoparticles holds a promising approach for designing dressing materials for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcer.

Conclusion:

Understanding the cellular and molecular events and identifying the appropriate treatment strategies for different foot ulcer grades will reduce recurrence of foot ulcer and lower limb amputation.
Designing Sound Representations for Responsive Environments
Authors: Yamauchi Takuya
Published: May 2017

In this paper, we demonstrate a responsive sound installation consisting of computer-linked thermometers and cameras installed in both interior and exterior locations that detect the states of these spaces based on image and temperature data. The system simultaneously produces and modifies sound pictograms in different spaces in order to convey information on motion or temperature changes. We also propose a sound design method that represents sounds made by physical objects using the above-described installation and sound design method.
Musical Robots For Children With ASD Using A Client-Server Architecture
Authors: Zhang Ruimin , Barnes Jaclyn , Ryan Joseph , Jeon Myounghoon , Park Chung Hyuk , Howard Ayanna M.
Published: May 2017

People with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are known to have difficulty recognizing and expressing emotions, which affects their social integration. Leveraging the recent advances in interactive robot and music therapy approaches, and integrating both, we have designed musical robots that can facilitate social and emotional interactions of children with ASD. Robots communicate with children with ASD while detecting their emotional states and physical activities and then, make real-time sonification based on the interaction data. Given that we envision the use of multiple robots with children, we have adopted a client-server architecture. Each robot and sensing device plays a role as a terminal, while the sonification server processes all the data and generates harmonized sonification. After describing our goals for the use of sonification, we detail the system architecture and on-going research scenarios. We believe that the present paper offers a new perspective on the sonification application for assistive technologies.
Listen To Your Drive: Sonification Architecture and Strategies for Driver State and Performance
Authors: Landry Steven , Tascarella David , Jeon Myounghoon , FakhrHosseini S. Maryam
Published: May 2017

Driving is mainly a visual task, leaving other sensory channels open for additional information communication. As the level of automation increases in vehicles, monitoring the state and performance of the driver and vehicle shifts from the secondary to primary task. Auditory channels provide the flexibility to display a wide variety of information to the driver without increasing the workload of driving task. It is important to identify types of auditory displays and sonification strategies that provide integral information necessary for the driving task, and not overload the driver with unnecessary or intrusive data. To this end, we have developed an in-vehicle interactive sonification system using the medium-fidelity simulator and neurophysiological devices. The system is intended to integrate driving performance data and driver affective state data in real-time. The present paper introduces the architecture of our invehicle interactive sonification system and potential sonification strategies for providing feedback to the driver in an intuitive and non-intrusive manner.
Implementation and Evaluation of 10.2 channel Microphone for UHDTV Audio
Authors: Jang Daeyoung , Yoo Jae-hyoun , Lee Tae Jin
Published: May 2017

As broadcasting environments change rapidly to digital, user requirements for next-generation services that surpass the current HDTV service quality become more demanding. The next-generation of broadcasting services will change from HD to UHD and from 5.1 channel audio to more than 10 audio channels, including a height channel for a high quality realistic broadcasting service. In accordance with the estimated trends of future broadcasting services, we propose a 10.2 channel audio format for a Korean UHDTV broadcasting service. It can create almost similar spatial sound images as 22.2 channel audio with half the number of speakers. In this paper, we propose a 10.2 channel audio acquisition system for the creation of UHDTV content, and measurements and preliminary evaluation are carried out to determine whether the performance is acceptable for broadcasting.
Tempo-Fit Heart Rate App: Using Heart Rate Sonification As Exercise Performance Feedback
Authors: Landry Steven , Sun Yuangjing , Slade Darnishia , Jeon Myounghoon
Published: May 2017

Physical inactivity is a worldwide issue causing a variety of health problems. Exploring novel ways to encourage people to engage in physical activity is a topic at the forefront of research for countless stakeholders. Based upon a review of the literature, a pilot study, and exit interviews, we propose an app prototype that utilizes music tempo manipulation to guide users into a target heart rate zone during an exercise session. A study was conducted with 26 participants in a fifteenminute cycling session using different sonification mappings and combinations of audiovisual feedback based on the user’s current heart rate. Results suggest manipulating the playback speed of music in real time based on heart rate zone departures can be an effective motivational tool for increasing or decreasing activity levels of the listener. Participants vastly preferred prescriptive sonifications mappings over descriptive mappings, due to people’s natural inclination to follow the tempo of music.
The Triple Tone Sonification Method to Enhance the Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Dementia
Authors: Gionfrida Letizia , Roginska Agnieszka , Keary James , Mohanraj Hariharan , Friedman Kent P.
Published: May 2017

For the current diagnosis of Alzheimer’s dementia (AD), physicians and neuroscientists primarily call upon visual and statistical analysismethodsoflarge,multi-dimensionalpositronemissiontomography (PET) brain scan data sets. As these data sets are complex in nature, the assessment of disease severity proves challenging, and is susceptible to cognitive and perceptual errors causing intra and inter-reader variability among doctors. The Triple-Tone Soniﬁcation method, ﬁrst presented and evaluated by Roginska et al., invites an audible element to the diagnosis process, offering doctors another tool to gain certainly and clariﬁcation of disease stages. Audible beating patterns resulting from three interacting frequencies extracted from PET brain scan data, the Triple-Tone method underwent a second round of subjective listening test and evaluation, this time on radiologists from NYU Langone Medical Center. Results show the method is effective at evaluation PET scanbraindata.
Tuning Into The Task: Sonic Environmental Cues And Mental Task Switching
Authors: Gifford Toby
Published: May 2017

This position paper suggests a novel approach to enhancing productivity for professionals whose core business is deep thinking, by manipulation of the sonic environment. Approaching the issue from the perspective of sound-design, it proposes the composition and algorithmic generation of background soundscapes that promote a psychological state of flow [1], and can become mentally associated with particular tasks through exposure, so as to facilitate task switching by switching soundscapes. These background soundscapes are intended to mask distracting clatter, oppressive quiet, and other suboptimal sonic environments frequently encountered in office workplaces. Consequently, I call them active-silences— soundscapes designed to be not heard, although they may be relatively loud. The most commonly used active-silence is white noise, though there are surprisingly diverse other approaches to crafting active-silence. This variety suggests the possibility of training associations that pair distinct active-silences with distinct mental tasks.
Examining the Association between Hemodialysis Access Type and Mortality: The Role of Access Complications
Authors: Ravani Pietro , Quinn Robert , Oliver Matthew , Robinson Bruce , Pisoni Ronald , Pannu Neesh , MacRae Jennifer , Manns Braden , Hemmelgarn Brenda , James Matthew , Tonelli Marcello , Gillespie Brenda
Published: May 2017

Background and objectives

People receiving hemodialysis to treat kidney failure need a vascular access (a fistula, a graft, or a central venous catheter) to connect to the blood purification machine. Higher rates of access complications are considered the mechanism responsible for the excess mortality observed among catheter or graft users versus fistula users. We tested this hypothesis using mediation analysis.

Design, setting, participants, & measurements

We studied incident patients who started hemodialysis therapy from North America, Europe, and Australasia (the Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study; 1996–2011). We evaluated the association between access type and time to noninfectious (e.g., thrombosis) and infectious complications of the access (mediator model) and the relationship between access type and time-dependent access complications with 6-month mortality from the creation of the first permanent access (outcome model). In mediation analysis, we formally tested whether access complications explain the association between access type and mortality.

Results

Of the 6119 adults that we studied (mean age =64 [SD=15] years old; 58% men; 47% patients with diabetes), 50% had a permanent catheter for vascular access, 37% had a fistula, and 13% had a graft. During the 6-month study follow-up, 2084 participants (34%) developed a noninfectious complication of the access, 542 (8.9%) developed an infectious complication, and 526 (8.6%) died. Access type predicted the occurrence of access complications; both access type and complications predicted mortality. The associations between access type and mortality were nearly identical in models excluding and including access complications (hazard ratio, 2.00; 95% confidence interval, 1.55 to 2.58 versus hazard ratio, 2.01; 95% confidence interval, 1.56 to 2.59 for catheter versus fistula, respectively). In mediation analysis, higher mortality with catheters or grafts versus fistulas was not the result of increased rates of access complications.

Conclusions

Hemodialysis access complications do not seem to explain the association between access type and mortality. Clinical trials are needed to clarify whether these associations are causal or reflect confounding by underlying disease severity.
An Assessment of English Language Influence on Anglophone Countries’ Cultures
Authors: Yekeen Bello
Published: May 2017

The focus of this paper is to assess the influence of English language on Anglophone countries’ cultures. The advent of missionaries’ activities in the Anglophone countries through the medium of English language vis-à-vis its power and influence were highlighted to signify that the power and influence exerted by this language (English) over shadowed the African traditional beliefs such as in religion, education, marriage system, among others. A 10 item researcher-designed questionnaire based on 4Likert scale type of Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree and Strongly Disagree was dispensed on 180 respondents from three geo-political zones of Nigeria. However, only 176 respondents made their questionnaire available that was computed for this study. The instrument was revalidated thus producing a reliability index of 0.61. The finding revealed that highest percentage of the respondents strongly agreed that the Englishman’s language has greatly influenced African cultures, especially that of Nigeria both positively and negatively. As a result of this, it was concluded that of all the heritages left behind in the British colonies by the British colonial overlords, probably, none is more important than the English language, and that is why it is indeed very likely that for some time to come, English will remain a vital access to global advances which is very essential for gaining access to science and technology, and that it is possible that the Anglophone countries could grind to a halt should the use of English language be outlawed for say five minutes. Based on the findings and the conclusion, it is therefore recommended that Africans, especially Nigeria cannot be an island to itself, and if it must have any global outlook it must embrace foreign influence and culture so that Africans as a whole and indeed Nigerians would fit into any global condition regardless of their cultural background.
Stages for Introduction of Drawing Actions in Pre-School Age
Authors: Solovieva Yulia , Quintanar Luis
Published: May 2017

The process of learning and achievements at school depends on the types of activities selected at pre-school level. Unfortunately, it is often to find out that introduction of writing and reading is among the most common activities in pre-school institutions all over the world. According to historical and cultural conception of development, artistic and creative activities are useful and helpful at pre-school age. The goal of the article is to show the efficiency of original program for initial introduction of drawing actions at pre-school age. The original program for gradual formation of drawing by stages was applied in private college in Puebla (Mexico). The program included three stages and worked as joint activities in groups of pre-scholars of three grades. After program application children showed qualitative positive achievements in graphic representations of objects, spatial orientation, number of drawings and of essential features of represented real and imaginary objects and situations. We conclude that drawing is extremely useful activity for preparation for school and introducing space orientation on perceptive level. Our program may be used in pre-school institutions in order to guarantee required level psychological development at pre-school age.
Family Socioeconomic Status and Ethnicity, Acculturation and Enculturation, and Parent Beliefs about Child Behavior, Learning Methods, and Parenting Roles
Authors: Dunst Carl J. , Hamby Deborah W. , Raab Melinda , Bruder Mary Beth
Published: May 2017

Relationships between family socioeconomic status and ethnicity, acculturation and enculturation, and parent beliefs about desired child behavior, child learning methods, and parenting roles in children’s learning desired behavior were examined in a study of 207 parents of preschoolers from seven ethnic and cultural groups. Different subgroups of participants were identified from patterns of acculturation and enculturation. Family ethnicity, family SES, and acculturation were differentially related to the parent beliefs whereas enculturation and combinations of acculturation and enculturation were unrelated to beliefs. Findings are discussed in terms of the high degree of specificity in the relationships between the predictor variables and parent beliefs about child behavior, learning methods, and parenting roles. The results are consistent with an individual-oriented concept of culture. Cautions are therefore raised in terms of overgeneralizations about attributing traditional beliefs broadly to families from the same ethnic or cultural group.
THE ROLE OF NEEDLE IN FORMULATION OF pH SENSITIVE SWELLABLE MICROBEADS PREPARED WITH HYDROPHILIC POLYMERS FOR ATORVASTATIN AND THEIR CHARACTERIZATION STUDIES
Authors: Reddy K.v. Ramana , Nagabhushanam M. V.
Published: May 2017

Objective: The aim of the study was to develop and characterize mucoadhesive microbeads for oral sustained release of atorvastatin by using hydrophilic polymers and application of different process variables in designing of pH sensitive swellable microbeads.Methods: Microbeads were prepared by ionic gelation method. The compatibility studies of atorvastatin with polymers were investigated by differential scanning calorimeter and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy studies. In this work process variable like optimization of curing agents and their quantity, effect of rpm, and their influence in drug entrapment were studied. Prepared beads were characterized for particle size, swelling index, erosion studies and drug release studies.Results: Mixture of alginate and carbopol 934 P at 3.3 % w/v shows sustained release and good mucoadhesive capacity. Furthermore, drug loading and swelling increased with the use of a combination of polymers. On basis of in vitro release studies and swelling studies, it was observed that sodium alginate coated with carbopol 934 P showed sustained release of 84.5 % at end of 10 h in 6.8 phosphate buffer. The optimised batch followed peppas and higuchi release mechanism and releasing the drug by non-fickian transport.Conclusion: The alginate beads with a combination of carbopol 934P showed a sustain release pattern. The release rate and swelling of atorvastatin beads could be adjusted by adding other hydrophilic polymers or by optimising curing agents, curing time and their volume. The zero order of drug release was confirmed for all the batches. The in vitro data was better fit to Higuchi’s diffusion model and diffusion rate limited.