scholarly journals The significance of techné in understanding the art and practice of electroacoustic composition

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER MANNING

The birth of electroacoustic music is associated with an era of creativity which is now firmly embedded in the past. As the years advance so the opportunities for evaluating the pioneering years of the medium become increasingly remote. Few can now claim first-hand experience of working with the technologies that shaped and influenced the evolution of the early repertory, and many commentators are content to see them consigned to the museum. Others are less sure, having become aware of a number of features that appear to have no parallels in the modern all-digital domain. This article is predicated on the proposition that the functional characteristics of the equipment available during the formative years materially influenced the ways in which composers developed their compositional aesthetic. By studying the characteristics of the resulting interactions, important clues emerge as to the true nature of this engagement. Central to this study is the nature of the techné involved in these processes of creativity, and the significance of this is evaluated in the context of establishing a case for further research in this area. Particular attention is paid to the role of the tape recorder in this context, in particular its influence on the development of spatialisation techniques.

1987 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 541-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Wilson Lewis ◽  
Xue Litai

China entered the nuclear and space age as a result of a crusade that began almost as soon as the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had completed the conquest of the mainland. In this article we will comment on some aspects of the entire nuclear programme over the past 30 years as it has affected the strategic role of the PLA.1


2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Truax

The author reflects on the past decades with reference to predictions of several paradigm shifts offered in the 1990s, including a broad range of issues covering acoustics, psychoacoustics, the role of the composer, compositional models, environmental sound perception, soundscape composition, and the integration of music and context. Contemporary developments that were not predicted, such as the proliferation of compressed audio, the rapid development of sound studies, the elimination of electroacoustic music from state-funded broadcasting, and the proliferation of mobile listening and online sound databases, are also discussed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daron Acemoglu ◽  
James A. Robinson

Thomas Piketty's (2013) book, Capital in the 21st Century, follows in the tradition of the great classical economists, like Marx and Ricardo, in formulating general laws of capitalism to diagnose and predict the dynamics of inequality. We argue that general economic laws are unhelpful as a guide to understanding the past or predicting the future because they ignore the central role of political and economic institutions, as well as the endogenous evolution of technology, in shaping the distribution of resources in society. We use regression evidence to show that the main economic force emphasized in Piketty's book, the gap between the interest rate and the growth rate, does not appear to explain historical patterns of inequality (especially, the share of income accruing to the upper tail of the distribution). We then use the histories of inequality of South Africa and Sweden to illustrate that inequality dynamics cannot be understood without embedding economic factors in the context of economic and political institutions, and also that the focus on the share of top incomes can give a misleading characterization of the true nature of inequality.


Author(s):  
Benjamin F. Trump ◽  
Irene K. Berezesky ◽  
Raymond T. Jones

The role of electron microscopy and associated techniques is assured in diagnostic pathology. At the present time, most of the progress has been made on tissues examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and correlated with light microscopy (LM) and by cytochemistry using both plastic and paraffin-embedded materials. As mentioned elsewhere in this symposium, this has revolutionized many fields of pathology including diagnostic, anatomic and clinical pathology. It began with the kidney; however, it has now been extended to most other organ systems and to tumor diagnosis in general. The results of the past few years tend to indicate the future directions and needs of this expanding field. Now, in addition to routine EM, pathologists have access to the many newly developed methods and instruments mentioned below which should aid considerably not only in diagnostic pathology but in investigative pathology as well.


2019 ◽  
pp. 121-143
Author(s):  
Riccardo Resciniti ◽  
Federica De Vanna

The rise of e-commerce has brought considerable changes to the relationship between firms and consumers, especially within international business. Hence, understanding the use of such means for entering foreign markets has become critical for companies. However, the research on this issue is new and so it is important to evaluate what has been studied in the past. In this study, we conduct a systematic review of e-commerce and internationalisation studies to explicate how firms use e-commerce to enter new markets and to export. The studies are classified by theories and methods used in the literature. Moreover, we draw upon the internationalisation decision process (antecedents-modalities-consequences) to propose an integrative framework for understanding the role of e-commerce in internationalisation


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-121
Author(s):  
Kato Gogo Kingston

Financial crime in Nigeria – including money laundering – is ravaging Nigeria's economic growth. In the past few years, the Nigerian government has made efforts to tackle money laundering by enacting laws and setting up several agencies to enforce the laws. However, there are substantial loopholes in the regulatory and enforcement regimes. This article seeks to unravel the involvement of the churches as key drivers in money laundering crimes in Nigeria. It concludes that the permissive secrecy which enables churches to conceal the names of their financiers and donors breeds criminality on an unimaginable scale.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-318
Author(s):  
Roman Girma Teshome

The effectiveness of human rights adjudicative procedures partly, if not most importantly, hinges upon the adequacy of the remedies they grant and the implementation of those remedies. This assertion also holds water with regard to the international and regional monitoring bodies established to receive individual complaints related to economic, social and cultural rights (hereinafter ‘ESC rights’ or ‘socio-economic rights’). Remedies can serve two major functions: they are meant, first, to rectify the pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage sustained by the particular victim, and second, to resolve systematic problems existing in the state machinery in order to ensure the non-repetition of the act. Hence, the role of remedies is not confined to correcting the past but also shaping the future by providing reforming measures a state has to undertake. The adequacy of remedies awarded by international and regional human rights bodies is also assessed based on these two benchmarks. The present article examines these issues in relation to individual complaint procedures that deal with the violation of ESC rights, with particular reference to the case laws of the three jurisdictions selected for this work, i.e. the United Nations, Inter-American and African Human Rights Systems.


Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-303
Author(s):  
Michael Connors Jackman

This article investigates the ways in which the work of The Body Politic (TBP), the first major lesbian and gay newspaper in Canada, comes to be commemorated in queer publics and how it figures in the memories of those who were involved in producing the paper. In revisiting a critical point in the history of TBP from 1985 when controversy erupted over race and racism within the editorial collective, this discussion considers the role of memory in the reproduction of whiteness and in the rupture of standard narratives about the past. As the controversy continues to haunt contemporary queer activism in Canada, the productive work of memory must be considered an essential aspect of how, when and for what reasons the work of TBP comes to be commemorated. By revisiting the events of 1985 and by sifting through interviews with individuals who contributed to the work of TBP, this article complicates the narrative of TBP as a bluntly racist endeavour whilst questioning the white privilege and racially-charged demands that undergird its commemoration. The work of producing and preserving queer history is a vital means of challenging the intentional and strategic erasure of queer existence, but those who engage in such efforts must remain attentive to the unequal terrain of social relations within which remembering forms its objects.


2020 ◽  
pp. 49-57
Author(s):  
S. V. Orlova ◽  
E. A. Nikitina ◽  
L. I. Karushina ◽  
Yu. A. Pigaryova ◽  
O. E. Pronina

Vitamin A (retinol) is one of the key elements for regulating the immune response and controls the division and differentiation of epithelial cells of the mucous membranes of the bronchopulmonary system, gastrointestinal tract, urinary tract, eyes, etc. Its significance in the context of the COVID‑19 pandemic is difficult to overestimate. However, a number of studies conducted in the past have associated the additional intake of vitamin A with an increased risk of developing cancer, as a result of which vitamin A was practically excluded from therapeutic practice in developed countries. Our review highlights the role of vitamin A in maintaining human health and the latest data on its effect on the development mechanisms of somatic pathology.


Author(s):  
Mark Sanders

When this book's author began studying Zulu, he was often questioned why he was learning it. This book places the author's endeavors within a wider context to uncover how, in the past 150 years of South African history, Zulu became a battleground for issues of property, possession, and deprivation. The book combines elements of analysis and memoir to explore a complex cultural history. Perceiving that colonial learners of Zulu saw themselves as repairing harm done to Africans by Europeans, the book reveals deeper motives at work in the development of Zulu-language learning—from the emergence of the pidgin Fanagalo among missionaries and traders in the nineteenth century to widespread efforts, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, to teach a correct form of Zulu. The book looks at the white appropriation of Zulu language, music, and dance in South African culture, and at the association of Zulu with a martial masculinity. In exploring how Zulu has come to represent what is most properly and powerfully African, the book examines differences in English- and Zulu-language press coverage of an important trial, as well as the role of linguistic purism in xenophobic violence in South Africa. Through one person's efforts to learn the Zulu language, the book explores how a language's history and politics influence all individuals in a multilingual society.


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