bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Uncovering Validity Criteria for Stories Managers Hear and Tell
Authors: Hummel Ralph P.
Published: March 2007

}Policymakers and managers rely to a large extent on stories told to them for information that shapes problem formulation and decision. But what can give them confidence in such stories? In this article, one of several articles by the author in which the value of stories is examined, the social origins of validity standards for storytelling. Based on sociological theory regarding the construction of social reality, the author argues that four questions typically are asked when the validity of a story is to be tested.
Determinants of Public Cash Assistance Use among Refugees in California
Authors: Morris Teresa
Published: March 2007

A random sample of case records of refugees applying for public cash assistance in 1984 was selected. Three years later, in 1987, the public cash assistance status of members of this sample was then noted. Overall determinants of being off public cash assistance by 1987 were: being less than 30, single, a secondary migrant to California, on AFDC, referred to the employment services training program, and having previous U.S. work experience and one or more dependents. However, this pattern differed for female and male refugees. Being single and having lived in the United States for some time were much more important determinants for males than females for getting off of public cash assistance. In addition, lack of training and work experience and needing ESL training prevented women rather than men from getting off of public cash assistance.
Who Serves the People? Educational Backgrounds of South Korean and Japanese Bureaucrats
Authors: Kim Pan S.
Published: March 2007

Numerous studies reveal that the higher civil service in many countries has been occupied by well-educated males, but the educational backgrounds of each nation's civil servants are different and vary with regard to the cultural and social norms of each country. Education is a major determinant for employment and promotion. The definition of well-educated is determined by each nation's political, social, and economic environment. This study investigates the educational backgrounds of government employees in South Korea and compares them to those of government employees in Japan. Primary attention is given to changes in public employment practices based on variables of educational back-ground (i.e., education level, institutional path, and field of study). Findings indicate that there are many similarities between the South Korean and Japanese government work forces, and the "best product" policy in public employment practices is common in both countries. In this setting, the public bureaucracy is a major instrument for policy making and implementation.
Public Management, TQM, and Quality Improvement: Toward a Contingency Strategy
Authors: Durant Robert F. , Wilson Laura A.
Published: March 2007

The spectrum of opinions on TQM applications in government agencies presently stretches from exaggerated claims regarding its universal applicability and potency to more "agnostic" reservations related to its unspecified or undeveloped theoretical linkages to outright dismissals spawned by its alleged naivete in the face of organizational realpolitik. Marshalling evidence culled from TQM, organizational-behavior, bureaucratic-politics, and public-policy literatures, the purposes of this heuristic essay are threefold: to identify those factors most likely to foster successful applications of TQM in government agencies; to suggest what proponents must yet clarify, refine, or amend in their thinking before TQM can be consistently and confidently applied within this context; and to offer a propositional inventory suitable for advancing a contingency theory of TQM applications in government organizations. Framing the analysis is Frederickson's (1971) typology of basic organizational processes.
Reconciling Science and Politics in Forest Service Decision Making: New Tools for Public Administrators
Authors: Manring Nancy J.
Published: March 2007

In recent years, a wide variety of federal agencies have utilized alternative dispute resolution (ADR) approaches to resolve controversial issues. Although public officials represent central actors in most ADRs, there has been little systematic examination of their experiences and perceptions of ADR. This work begins to fill this gap by examining a key issue of concern for public officials: the impact of negotiations on professionally based decision making. Anecdotal evidence suggsts that public officials often are concerned that professionally based decision making will be compromised in ADR to reach a political consensus with competing stakeholders. Focusing on the U.S. Forest Service, this paper examines the effects of ADR on the agency's traditional scientific decision-making processes. Informants found that negotiating appeals accentuated the need for sound scientific information and broadened the knowledge base upon which forest management decisions are made. This view of negotiation involved recognizing the differences between science, conventional management practices, and values. The Forest Service's experience shows how ADR offers a new tool for meeting the challenge of reconciling science and politics.
Information Searching in Governmental Bureaucracies: An Integrated Model
Authors: Oh Cheol H.
Published: March 2007

Individual information searching has become increasingly a critical aspect of bureaucratic behavior. In this study I attempt to empirically investigate the causality among the factors involved in the bureaucratic information searching process. I test an integrated model of information searching that contains four sets of primary variables: decision makers' environment (i.e., nature of policy issues), organization, individual characteristics, and characteristics of information. Based on the conceptual model, a path model is built and tested against data about knowledge utilization and policy change in two areas of mental health policy—i.e., service provision and financing. The model provides a good fit for the data and demonstrates that decision makers' selection of information sources (e.g., internal or external sources) is directly and indirectly affected by a variety of factors and their linkages, not dominated by one set of factors (e.g., trustworthiness of sources or research methods) defined by a single perspective (e.g., organizational interest or rational actions of decision makers). The most important paths in the model are those between factors associated with information (i.e., types of information and the amount of information obtained) and information searching. These factors also play a role of intermediating mechanisms for linking other variables (e.g., content of information or demographics) to information searching. More importantly, the general pattern of the findings indicates that policy areas make a difference in bureaucratic information searching.
Municipal Enterprise Activities as Revenue Generators: A Different View
Authors: Stumm Theodore J. (Ted)
Published: March 2007

Enterprise funds provide one means by which cities provide municipal goods and services to their residents while generating revenues to augment cities' other revenue-generating activities or substitute for other forms of revenue. Because municipal enterprises are accounted for in separate proprietary funds, determining the extent to which the revenues they generate are actually usable by non-enterprise functions is somewhat more difficult than we have generally presumed. I use data from a recent national survey of cities to demonstrate how common measures of municipal enterprise revenue generation may be misleading and propose a measure that will provide more reliable data for both researchers and municipal decision makers.
Organizational Transformations in Transition Economies: Hypotheses
Authors: Carman James M. , Dominguez Luis V.
Published: March 2007

This article employs new growth theories and resource advantage/dynamic capabilities research to explain how the process of economic liberalization in transition economies (TEs) redefines the bases of competition and engenders strategic and organizational change. The changes are described in terms of existing types of organizations and new firms emerging after economic liberalization. The manuscript draws a number of propositions concerning the drivers of competitive dynamics and of marketing innovation. The propositions center on overarching regularities in the dynamic interface between market-oriented institutional reforms and changes in marketing behavior across a broad spectrum of regions and income levels and thus transcend the traditional focus on development of low-income countries per se. The manuscript first explains, from a new growth theories perspective, how institutional reforms affect the TE environment. This is followed by resource advantage/dynamic capabilities explanation of firm-level responses and the relationship between those responses and subsequent institutional changes.
The Role of Marketing in Early Theories of Economic Development
Authors: Dixon D.F.
Published: March 2007

The central role of marketing in national economic development is emphasized in analytical work which appeared in Western Europe at the end of the Middle Ages. Marketing activity is seen as providing market opportunities, which in turn stimulate factor employment in all sectors of the economy. The import of this literature arises from its focus upon the welfare of the state as a whole, and the derivation of an understanding of marketing in the context of this macro perspective.
Public Regulation of Marketing Activity: Part I: Institutional Typologies of Market Failure
Authors: Harris Robert G. , Carman James M.
Published: March 2007

This is the first of a three-part article which provides a comprehensive typology useful in any analysis of how public policies are used to control the operations of market exchanges and marketing systems. The first part, presented here, provides a typology of market failures. The second and third parts, to appear in subsequent issues, provide typologies of regulatory responses and of regulatory failures.
A Macromarketing Perspective on Social Marketing: The Case of Family Planning in India
Authors: Dholakia Ruby Roy
Published: March 2007

Macromarketing's concern with intended and unintended effects of social marketing is examined in this article by focusing on the marketing of family planning in India. It is argued that the traditional emphases on marketing transactions can also be adopted in social marketing; however, the processes by which transactions are maximized can be highly disruptive and socially dysfunctional. By adopting a macro-marketing perspective, social marketing programs can be designed which are compatible with individual as well as collective welfare and which are equitable in their impact on society.
Macromarketing: A Social Systems Perspective
Authors: Dixon Donald F.
Published: March 2007

The marketing system is a differentiated subsystem of the society, performing functions necessary if society is to adapt to its material environment. In the performance of these functions, the marketing system has an impact on other social systems, the cultural system, and the material environment. This dual relationship is derived from a modified social systems paradigm.
A Comparative Analysis of the Domestic Retailing Systems of Canada and Sweden
Authors: Kaynak Erdener
Published: March 2007

This article relates the structural developments of retail systems in Sweden and Canada to the comparative distribution and retailing literature. The two countries have similar types of market and marketing system development. The emergence of strong consumer markets has brought about corresponding structural changes in the distribution systems of both countries. Similarities and differences in the retailing systems of the two countries are examined systematically in relation to demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural factors of the environment. The differences in the retail systems indicate that each country's retail industry is at a different stage of development. Canada has higher total retail turnover (retail turnover as percentage of personal expenditures) and a higher total number of retail stores, but Sweden has higher per capita sales and per store retail turnover, and a larger population per store. These comparisons pinpoint the nature and structure of the prevailing Swedish and Canadian consumer markets and the emerging retail distribution systems of the future. The study also offers certain important policy implications to both marketing practitioners and marketing scholars with regards to the workings of retail systems in multiple environments.
Desire-Induced, Innate, Insatiable?
Authors: Rassuli Kathleen M. , Hollander Stanley C.
Published: March 2007

An explosion of interest in consumption has occurred among American and European historians. While social historians have paid the most attention to consumption a broad array including economic, communications and intellectual historians have taken up this issue. These authors have varying views of the nature of changes in consumption and of the dimensions and causes of these changes. This article attempts to summarize the historians' views.
Comparative Marketing Measures of Societal Quality of Life: Substantive Dimensions in 186 Countries
Authors: Peterson Mark , Malhotra Naresh K.
Published: March 2007

Annual ratings of seven comparative marketing measures of societal quality of life (QOL) in 186 countries were analyzed to understand the nature of QOL related to commerce. Confirmatory factor analyses and other multivariate analyses showed evidence for three substantive dimensions of QOL: benefits, costs, and sustainability.
Higher Than the Bottom Line: Reflections on Some Recent Macromarketing Literature
Authors: Holbrook Morris B.
Published: March 2007

This essay reviews some recent (macro)marketing literature on the subject of where we are and where we are going in our discipline as we approach the year 2000. It addresses some perplexing questions concerning the fate of contemporary consumers at the hands of the businesses that claim to serve them and raises some worrisome issues regarding the potential death of marketing. Somewhere between the extremes of McDonaldization and mass customization, the review locates a small but fertile postmodern terrain in need of cultivation. Herein, it seeks answers among those who train their eyes not so much on the prize as on the stars—in other words, among those who look higher than the bottom line.
The CS Language Concept: A New Approach to Robot Motion Design
Authors: Ish-Shalom Jehuda
Published: March 2007

Current robot control techniques are primarily concerned with position control and, recently, with force control, where a motion planner is used primarily to compute set point changes. The actual control system is fixed and internal and cannot be modified easily through software. Current robot languages are also limited in their ability to specify changes to the control structure. For compliant motion, such as as sembly, more flexibility is needed in the control system, that is, an ability to tailor the controller to the task. This paper develops a high-level control system (CS) language that allows one to specify compliant control tasks as vector equa tions and inequalities that relate sensed and controlled vari ables such as f · v = 0 and f X v = 0 . We show how such requirements can be reformulated as an objective function of an optimization process subject to constraints arising from the dynamic equations involved. Specifically for the two examples above, we show how such requirements can be re formulated as quadratic objective functions and solved using standard linear optimization theory for linear dynamic sys tems. Six examples are presented to illustrate the various ideas.
On the Convergence of the Multidimensional Albus Perceptron
Authors: Ellison D.
Published: March 2007

The Associative memory system developed for robotic control by J. S. Albus is described. This is an analog extension, based on the physiologic knowledge of the cer ebellum, of the classical perceptron and possessing desir able generalization and classification properties. Only small amounts of storage are required, and adjustment of weights in learning is extremely efficient. Convergence of the one-dimensional Albus perceptron is already estab lished.
A Dexterity Measure for the Kinematic Control of a Multifinger, Multifreedom Robot Hand
Authors: McAree P.R. , Samuel A.E. , Hunt K.H. , Gibson C.G.
Published: March 2007

This work examines the properties of the manifold gener ated as the configuration space of the linkage used for each finger of the Salisbury hand. We begin with an exhaustive catalog of design types for the finger based on an analysis of its branch loci. We then study the condi tions under which the forward kinematic map becomes singular. These singularities define a submanifold that partitions the linkage's configuration space into a number of open sheets, each of which maps diffeomorphically onto a corresponding open region in the finger's reach able work space. Next we consider the determinant func tion of the finger's Jacobian matrix. The stationary points of this function reveal those configurations where the Jacobian determinant is a maximum. The Jacobian deter minant can be thought of as an oriented volume in the tangent space to the finger's work space, and the orienta tion of this volume reveals the most favorable direction(s) for effecting tip motion or, reciprocally, for applying tip forces. From this we establish a simple criterion that can be used to find the optimal grasp configuration(s) for a given finite displacement of the workpiece.
Autonomous Robot Calibration for Hand-Eye Coordination
Authors: Bennett David J. , Geiger Davi , Hollerbach John M.
Published: March 2007

Autonomous robot calibration is defined as the process of determining a robot's model by using only its internal sen sors. It is shown that autonomous calibration of a manip ulator and stereo camera system is possible. The pro posed autonomous calibration algorithm may obtain the manipulator kinematic parameters, external kinematic camera parameters, and internal camera parameters. To do this, only joint angle readings and camera image plane data are used. A condition for the identifiability of the manipulator/camera parameters is derived. The method is a generalization of a recently developed scheme for self- calibrating a manipulator by forming it into a mobile closed-loop kinematic chain.
Trajectory Verification in the Workspace for Parallel Manipulators
Authors: Merlet Jean-Pierre
Published: March 2007

We present a fast algorithm for solving the problem of the ver ification of a trajectory for a 6-DOF parallel manipulator with respect to its workspace: i.e., given two different postures for the end effector, is the straight line joining these two postures in the parameters space fully inside the workspace? This al gorithm is based on the analysis of the algebraic inequalities describing the constraints on the workspace and provides a technique for computing those parts of the trajectory that lie outside the workspace. This method is exact if the orientation of the end effector is kept constant along the trajectory and approximate if the orientation is allowed to vary.
Motion Planning in Dynamic Environments Using Velocity Obstacles
Authors: Fiorini Paolo , Shiller Zvi
Published: March 2007

This paper presents a method for robot motion planning in dynamic environments. It consists of selecting avoidance maneuvers to avoid static and moving obstacles in the velocity space, based on the cur rent positions and velocities of the robot and obstacles. It is a first- order method, since it does not integrate velocities to yield positions as functions of time.

The avoidance maneuvers are generated by selecting robot ve locities outside of the velocity obstacles, which represent the set of robot velocities that would result in a collision with a given obstacle that moves at a given velocity, at some future time. To ensure that the avoidance maneuver is dynamically feasible, the set of avoidance velocities is intersected with the set of admissible velocities, defined by the robot's acceleration constraints. Computing new avoidance maneuvers at regular time intervals accounts for general obstacle trajectories.

The trajectory from start to goal is computed by searching a tree of feasible avoidance maneuvers, computed at discrete time intervals. An exhaustive search of the tree yields near-optimal trajectories that either minimize distance or motion time. A heuristic search of the tree is applicable to on-line planning. The method is demonstrated for point and disk robots among static and moving obstacles, and for an automated vehicle in an intelligent vehicle highway system scenario.
An Evaluation Study of Computer-Based Compositions by Children With and Without Prior Experience of Formal Instrumental Music Tuition
Authors: Seddon Frederick A. , O'Neill Susan A.
Published: March 2007

The aim of this study was to evaluate computer-based compositions by children with and without prior experience of formal instrumental music tuition (FIMT). Three different evaluations were employed involving music specialist and nonspecialist teachers, the children themselves, and expert ratings of melodic and rhythmic repetition and development. Participants were 32 children (aged 10 years) who had a minimum of two years of FIMT (n = 16) or no prior experience of FIMT (n = 16). Both groups were invited to compose a "piece" that "sounded good to them" using a specially designed computer-based composition programme. Results indicated that specialists and non-specialists did not differentiate between children with or without FIMT in their ratings of overall achievement. However, a factor analysis of the teachers' ratings of 15 specific characteristics revealed one factor for the non-specialists and three factors for the specialists. Specialist teachers' ratings of factor two, which was interpreted as "technical complexity", indicated higher ratings for children with FIMT than those without FIMT. Children with FIMT gave higher self-evaluations for "how good their composition sounded" than children without FIMT. Ratings of musical parameters revealed a greater use of melodic and rhythmic development by children with FIMT. Implications for music education and proposals for future empirical work are discussed.
The Relationship Between Personality and the Teaching Effectiveness of Music Student Teachers
Authors: Teachout David J.
Published: March 2007

The purposes of this study were to determine if significant differences existed among the occupational personality types (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional) of music student teachers and to determine if the personality types or any of the major constructs of Holland's vocational theory (Consistency, Differentiation, Identity and Congruence) significantly contributed to music student teachers' teaching effectiveness. Subjects (n = 84) were music student teachers from institutions in Ohio, U.S.A. Significant within-group differences were found to exist among the personality types of music student teachers. Subjects' three highest mean scores were on the Artistic, Social and Investigative personality scores respectively. None of the personality types and none of Holland's constructs was found to significantly contribute to the overall variance of teaching effectiveness.
How Can the Lyrics of a Song in a Tone Language Be Understood?
Authors: Wong Patrick C. M. , Diehl Randy L.
Published: March 2007

In a tone language, pitch variations are used to contrast word meaning. For example, the Cantonese syllable /si/ means "teacher" when spoken in a high pitch and "yes" when spoken in a low pitch. How is fundamental frequency (Fo) used to signal lexical tones that occur in songs? In an examination of Cantonese songs, it was found that songwriters abandon the ratio scale of Fo differences that is applied to lexical tones in carefully read speech and instead use an ordinal scale. For example, a high tone that is normally 12% higher than a mid-tone in speech can be realised as any higher Fo (but never a lower Fo) in songs. A perceptual experiment showed that native Cantonese-speaking listeners similarly apply an ordinal Fo scale to arrive at the lexical meaning of the lyric. This ratio-to-ordinal mapping in Cantonese songs ensures the musicality of the melody while preserving adequate identifiability of lexical tones in the lyric.
Development and Validation of the Home Musical Environment Scale for Use at the Early Elementary Level
Authors: Brand Manny
Published: March 2007

This study was designed to develop and validate the Home Musical Environment Scale (HOMES), a 15-item parent sell- reporting measure to assess the home musical environment. The initial contents (content validity) of the HOMES represented a variety of aspects of parental musical attitudes and efforts in pro- viding a nurturing musical environment as identified in the litera- ture and present in available measures. After a panel of experts revised the instrument, it was tested with 157 second-grade children and their parents. The analysis revealed an alpha relia- bility of *86 and the factor analysis uncovered four factors (scales) with eigen values over 1-0, which accounted for 63 per cent of the variance. Concurrent validity was established by comparing the scores on the HOMES with the music teacher's perception of the subjects' home musical environment. Results showed that three of the four scales were significantly related to the teacher's per- ception. These results suggest that the HOMES may be used by parents to improve their home musical environments, by music teachers wishing to encourage parents of their students, and finally by researchers hoping to learn more about the musical develop- ment of children.
Experimental Aesthetics of Popular Music Recordings: Pleasingness, Familiarity and Chart Performance
Authors: Russell P. A.
Published: March 2007

To examine the usefulness of applying experimental aesthetics techniques to popular music, two experiments studied interrelationships between pleasingness and familiarity ratings and recordings' past chart performance. There was a moderate positive linear correlation between pleasingness and familiarity. Records which had the greatest chart success were the most familiar but they were not necessarily the most pleasing. Comparison of different methods of obtaining pleasingness and familiarity ratings suggested that, for this kind of material, ratings made from memory, cued by artist and title, accord closely with ratings made immediately after hearing a recording.
Pupil-Centred Learning in Piano Lessons: An Evaluated Action-Research Programme Focusing on the Psychology of the Individual
Authors: Mackworth-Young Lucinda
Published: March 2007

Despite evidence that piano teachers recognise the importance of psycho- logical and emotional factors in the piano lesson, there is very little research or discussion about these factors in the profession. The conventional style of piano lesson is highly teacher-directed, the pupil being seen as a subordinate, dependent learner. This study drew on developments within the psychology of education on pupil-directed learning, on negotiated learning and on the emotional aspects of education and found that the lesson style of four pupils of secondary school age was easily adaptable to allow for the heightened awareness of psychological and emotional factors. This resulted in increased enjoyment, interest, positive attitudes, motivation and progress for three pupils, and in a better teacher-pupil relationship for all four pupils.

"All attempts to educate must fain be full of mistakes, and when one realises it is the growing child who suffers more than his teacher, it fills one with apprehension. But... if we face this fact with all humility and an ever- readiness to adjust, the child, sensing this empirical approach guides us himself, and the errors are less fatal, the co-operation of spirit more certain, and the joy of teaching a wonderful thing."

(Menuhin, 1969)
The Effects of Music and Cognition on Mood
Authors: Stratton Valerie N. , Zalanowski Annette H.
Published: March 2007

The influence of music and cognitive appraisal on mood was examined by instructing 72 subjects to tell a story about a painting with or without background music. The three types of instructions were to tell a happy or sad story or whatever came to mind (neutral), and the music categories were pleasant, depressing and none. With neutral story instructions, the music determined mood change, but the happy and sad story instructions super- ceded any effect of the music. The sad story instructions were most effective, leading to increased depression and decreased positive affect in all three music conditions. The results indicate that mood responses to music are indeterminate and depend on cognitive processes.
Computer Content Analysis of Melodic Structure: Classical Composers and Their Compositions
Authors: Simonton Dean Keith
Published: March 2007

The computerised content analysis of musical structure can reveal a great deal about the psychology of musical aesthetics and creativity. This is shown in a series of studies on 15,618 themes by 479 classical composers. Computer assessments of a composition's originality are associated with: (a) temporal changes across time, whether in the successive movements of a large composition, different stages of a composer's career, or alterations of the prevalent stylistic zeitgeist in Western music; (b) dramatic events and situations in the composer's life; and (c) the aesthetic importance, listener accessibility, and ultimate popularity of the compositions produced. Notwithstanding the apparent simplicity of the measure, the computer can still infer many important factors that affect the creation and evaluation of musical compositions.
Music Recognition: An Illustrative Application of a Connectionist Model
Authors: Stevens Catherine , Latimer Cyril
Published: March 2007

A connectionist model of an atonal discrimination task is reported which illustrates the fundamental principles of artificial neural networks and embodies the assumptions of pattern recognition theory. Musical sequences are defined as patterns consisting of local and global features and it is proposed that recognition of music is achieved by way of processes which extract and differentially weight such features. Musical training serves to refine the feature extraction and weighting processes. As hypothesised, musically trained and untrained listeners were able to discriminate between atonal sequences on the basis of rhythmic and intervallic features although there was no effect of musical training on accuracy and response time measures. Neural network and human data were compared and testable predictions generated by the mechanistic model are provided. The potential contribution of connectionist models to developmental and environmental aspects of music perception and cognition is discussed.
Neil O'Connor: Advances in Musical Processing, Talent and Intelligence
Authors: Pring Linda
Published: March 2007

Dr Neil O'Connor, was a distinguished scientist and former Director of the Medical Research Council's Developmental Psychology Unit. He died after being knocked down by a bicycle on 1st October 1997. He was 80 years old and I had known him for 18 of them, and this brief article is just to remind us of the unique contribution that he made to our understanding of the relationship between musical talent and intelligence.
Effect of Video Presentation on Asian Music Perceptual Dimensions
Authors: Fung C. Victor
Published: March 2007

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of video presentation on perceptual dimensions in perceiving Asian musics and on preferences for Asian musics. Asian musics comprised 15 musical excerpts selected from a video anthology. Forty-nine undergraduate non-music majors were randomly assigned to receive video-audio stimuli or audio-only stimuli. The author analysed the data using Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) techniques. A three-dimensional solution was found for each group (video group and audio group). The first dimension of both groups shared 83 83% of variance (stimulus characteristics and preference). Dimension 3 of the video group and Dimension 2 of the audio group shared 6139% of variance (danceability and preference). However, Dimension 2 of the video group (active visible movement and setting) and Dimension 3 of the audio group (undetermined) were unique in that they did not share significant variance with any dimension of the other group. In addition, geographic region did not help interpret any of the perceptual dimensions in either group. Implications of this study are that teachers who use video stimuli should be aware of visual qualities as well as musical characteristics. Teachers may use both video and audio materials in classes to enrich students' musical experience. Teachers should be cautious when organising an Asian music curriculum according to geographic region.
Translation, Difference and Ontological Fluidity
Authors: Moreira Tiago
Published: March 2007

Cerebral angiography is nowadays a standard test in neurosurgical treatment. The coupling between such a diagnostic technique and neurosurgical practices is the outcome of a complex story. This paper explores that complexity. It does so by exploring the continuities and discontinuities between the multiple definitions and uses of angiography in the first 20 years of its history. It also investigates the relations between process and narrative in S&TS research, and suggests that it is possible to turn dis/continuity into an empirical question, viewing it as internal to the processes of socio-technical innovation as it becomes available in the practical engagements of the actors involved in those processes.
Doctoring Uncertainty:
Authors: Delamont Sara , Atkinson Pauln
Published: March 2007

This paper explores a dominant feature of the professional socialization of doctoral students in laboratory and field sciences: the harsh reality of struggling to get laboratory experiments and other forms of practical research to `work'. As undergraduates, young scientists have experienced success in their practical work because they are exposed to stage-managed experiments, demonstrations or similarly controlled environments. They encounter a world of stable and predictable phenomena under controlled conditions. In contrast, each generation or cohort of graduates has to learn that everyday research in the field or in the laboratory does not necessarily produce stable, usable results until they have mastered tacit craft skills. In turn, they then learn to remove all mention of those tacit, indeterminate aspects from public accounts of their research.
Controversy over a Local Nuclear Waste Repository
Authors: Mazur Allan , Conant Beverlie
Published: March 2007

A proposal to site a nuclear waste repository near Syracuse, New York became the focus of a shortlived controversy. We interviewed a sample of local residents near the height of the publicity and then nearly four months later, after the publicity had died away. Men were three times more likely than women to be aware of the controversy. However, exposure to the controversy had a greater effect on women than on men, moving female attitudes against the repository. Attitudes formed during the peak of publicity persisted over time, particularly among men. We speculate on the causes of these various sex differences, suggesting that they are based on our cultural expectation that men should know politics and technology, and women need not.
Research Areas and Stratification Processes in Science
Authors: Hargens Lowell L. , Mullins Nicholas C. , Hecht Pamela K.
Published: March 2007

We present data for two research areas, delimited by co-citation analysis, to assess several hypotheses about the articulation of research area structure and stratification processes among scientists. Two main issues are examined. First, we contrast the social status of the members of the two areas with the general status levels shown by members of disciplines which encompass the two areas. This contrast is relevant to hypotheses about the social characteristics of central intellectual figures in research areas. Second, we examine the effect of a scientist's participation in the development of a research area on subsequent scientific performance in order to determine the extent to which such participation should be included in analyses of scientific productivity and status.
Plausibility and the Evaluation of Knowledge: A Case-Study of Experimental Quantum Mechanics
Authors: Harvey Bill
Published: March 2007

This paper describes a recent series of experimental tests of Quantum Mechanics, and examines the way in which various knowledge-claims were evaluated. In each case, it is argued that an agreed evaluation was only possible because of the shared culture of the physicists involved. The concept of plausibility is introduced as a way of characterizing the role of the social and cultural context in the evaluation of knowledge. This concept may be useful In clarifying the relationship between relativism and empiricism.
The Triumph of the Pre-Embryo: Interpretations of the Human Embryo in Parliamentary Debate over Embryo Research
Authors: Mulkay Michael
Published: March 2007

In 1984, both British Houses of Parliament overwhelmingly condemned the proposal in the Warnock Report that research be allowed on human embryos, under licence, during the first two weeks of their existence. In 1990, legislation permitting such research and based directly on the Warnock proposal was approved with substantial majorities in the two Houses. This study describes some of the cultural developments underlying the swing within Parliament from almost total rejection of embryo research to eventual acceptance. Material taken from the parliamentary record and from the Warnock Report is used to illustrate how two competing images of the human embryo provided a central focus for the adversarial process whereby legislation on embryo research came to be enacted.
The Expulsion of the Neanderthals from Human Ancestry: Marcellin Boule and the Social Context of Scientific Research
Authors: Hammond Michael
Published: March 2007

Marcellin Boule's Neanderthal research, and his conclusion that the slouching cave brute could not be ancestral to modern man, were pillars of human paleontological theory for the first half of this century. Moving from the initial selection of the Neanderthal problem to the international acceptance of his ideas, Boule's research is analyzed in terms of various social and theoretical commitments linked to his position in the French and international paleontological communities. In particular, the paper tries to delineate the factors that made the stooping Neanderthal caricature so appealing and plausible to Boule and his contemporaries, thereby setting the stage for the infamous Piltdown forgery.
TFTR: The Anatomy of a Programme Decision
Authors: Bromberg Joan Lisa
Published: March 2007

The historian can reap a rich harvest by singling out for study the developments leading up to the choice of particular, major experiments within an R&D programme. A case in point is the TFTR (Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor), the largest experiment presently being mounted by the US programme to invent a magnetic fusion reactor. The history of the TFTR decision throws light on one mechanism by which the political environment can affect experimental design; their struggle for increased funding made the Washington programme managers fight for an experiment that would be more difficult (because radioactive), but more newsworthy (because it would actually produce energy). The episode further reveals the intimate ties that connect `purely' scientific issues with the battle among research groups for resources, and over programme direction.
The Disciplinary Stake: The Case of Chronobiology
Authors: Cambrosio Alberto , Keating Peter
Published: March 2007

The differentiation of knowledge is a problem that in the sociology of science has mainly been treated in terms of units of innovation known as `scientific specialties' or `research networks'. These units have thus achieved the status of sociologically constructed concepts. Disciplines, on the contrary, have been relatively ignored and their conceptualization has, for the most part, remained at the level of common sense. In this paper, an attempt is made, with the aid of the quite particular case of chronobiology, to confront the problem of disciplines, starting within the theoretical framework of Bourdieu's `scientific field'. In this light, the conquest of the disciplinary form appears as a kind of struggle in the `field'. The derivative institutional frontiers can then be understood as the consequence of the reification of what one may call the `disciplinary stake', which corresponds to an attempt to exercise a professional mode of control in a particular domain of knowledge. The `disciplinary stake' is further distinguished from other stakes or goals which arise within the environment of the already constituted discipline.
Anything Goes
Authors: Russell Denise
Published: March 2007

`Anything goes': what positions are captured by this slogan within epistemology? Are any of these positions defensible? This paper attempts to answer these two questions, in particular as they bear on the work of Paul Feyerabend. The paper concludes with some tentative suggestions about the links between Feyerabend's epistemology and current sociology of knowledge.
The Social Construction of Validity in Estimates of US Crude Oil Reserves
Authors: Bowden Gary
Published: March 2007

The resource estimates of M. King Hubbert, and the method he used to generate these estimates, are described. When Hubbert made his first estimate it reflected the consensus of opinion within the industry. The conclusions he drew about the future of the US oil industry, however, contradicted the conventional wisdom within both industry and government. His estimates were criticized and rejected, and a number of markedly higher estimates soon appeared. In 1974, the political economy of the oil industry changed, government and industry estimates fell, and consensus of opinion returned. Since Hubbert's methods and estimates remained constant throughout the period 1956-82, changes in scientific practice cannot explain the historical shifts in the treatment of his estimates as `valid', `invalid', and eventually `valid' again. Through an examination of the scientific controversies involving Hubbert's estimation technique and its results, it is argued that the `validity' of resource estimates is socially constructed through an attributional process tied to the political economy of the oil industry.
Federal Funding and Knowledge Growth in Ionospheric Physics, 1945-81
Authors: Gillmor C. Stewart
Published: March 2007

This paper describes the evolution over six decades of ionospheric physics — a complex, well-funded field — and concentrates upon research at US universities in the years following World War II. An historical overview is followed by presentation of data gathered from literature samples and interviews, including funding acknowledgement data. Responses from twenty successful ionosphere research leaders as to their views on (and their strategies for obtaining) funding, the role of funding programme managers, and the nature of various funding agencies, are then summarized. There is and has been a plurality of both research centres and funding sources in ionospheric physics, and there is constant interaction both in ideas and in funding between basic research and civilian and military desires. Finally, to discuss entrepreneurs and resources in scientific research, four cases are briefly introduced concerning building research teams and facilities, defining new directions in science, and introducing large-scale social organization of research. It is argued that the situation in ionospheric physics is probably similar to wide areas of the physical and engineering sciences in the US.
Scientific Imagery and Popularized Imagery: Differences and Similarities in the Photographic Portraits of Scientists
Authors: Jacobi Daniel , Schiele Bernard
Published: March 2007

Previous works on popularization of science in magazines were strongly influenced by traditional methods used with scientific discourse, and pictures were only analyzed in terms of efficiency. This paper will focus on the role of imagery portraying science and scientists in Science et Vie and La Recherche, two French magazines. La Recherche uses more complex photographs, requiring more scientific knowledge from the reader, while Science et Vie uses more high-tech pictures. Both styles of picture originate from genuine scientific endeavours and have didactic aims. Science is then integrated into a system of familiar representations shown through stereotyped pictures (test tubes, etc.) revealing the process of science: the labs and their techniques rather than the results. However, La Recherche focuses more on portraying scientists as a group, especially recipients of honorary distinctions. The frequent use of `chalk and blackboard' is one way of dogmatizing scientific knowledge while pictures of scientists in their private lives is a way of popularizing and humanizing science. The scientist remains an archetype of knowledge — yet still as mortal as the layman. But science stays isolated from its economic or political context. In contrast to popular magazines, primary scientific journals never portray scientists, science being enunciated without reference to the enunciator, striving for absolute intellectualization.
Researching the Precambrian Biosphere: Constructing Knowledge and Shaping the Organization of Scientific Work
Authors: Yearley Steven
Published: March 2007

Sociologists have employed various metaphors to depict science in a way which distances it from epistemological privilege. Among these metaphors, portraying science as `work' stands out both because, for many people, science is work, and because there is a well developed sociological literature on the topic. However, using this image, it is easy to assume that the characteristics of scientific work are set by the natural world. This paper uses a study of the construction of knowledge about early life (Precambrian paleobiology) to show how much choice there is in the organization of scientific work. It is argued that, at least in this case, the organization of scientific work and the cognitive `products' of science are equally negotiated. Moreover, the cognitive products are seen to be shaped by decisions about work organization. Studying science as work therefore complements the sociology of scientific knowledge.
Ramchandra's Treatise through `The Haze of the Golden Sunset': An Aborted Pedagogy
Authors: Raina Dhruv , Habib S. Irfan
Published: March 2007

In 1850, Yesudas Ramchandra published a work entitled A Treatise on the Problems of Maxima and Minima. The inspiration behind the work lay in the nineteenth-century understanding that the Indian tradition of mathematics was essentially algebraic. As part of the task of `revitalization' undertaken by the avant-garde of the Indian intelligentsia, Ramchandra sought to introduce the Indian people to the latest developments in calculus, in their `native' idiom. In the paper, we discuss the conditions under which the work emerged, as well as the cultural grounding of this mathematical pedagogy. Even though the work evinced the interest of leading mathematicians such as Augustus De Morgan, who campaigned for its publication in England and circulation in Europe, the book did not find a niche for itself in Indian school/college curricula. On this count, we raise some conjectures and questions. We argue that, in the post-1857 period, the theories of knowledge that held that it was possible to graft modern scientific learning on to a Sanskritic base could not overcome the Macaulayan education programme. The spirit of Ramchandra's Treatise was quite at odds with the imperial education policy, though it would have been in tune with the early Orientalist educational programme.