Gaze patterns of expert and amateur sight-readers with particular focus on the cognitive underpinnings of reading key and time signatures

Over the last decade, eye-tracking technology has provided researchers with specific tools to study the process of reading (language and music) empirically. Most of these studies have focused on the “Eye-Hand Span” phenomenon (the ability to read ahead of the point of playing). However, little research investigates the cognitive implications of specific aspects of musical notation when performed in real time. This research aimed to observe the fixations patterns of sight-readers in order to investigate the cognitive underpinnings of key and time signatures in music scores. This research project is a quantitative study using a quasi-experimental research design. Tobii eye-tracking equipment and software were used to record the eye movements of 11 expert and 7 amateur keyboard sight-readers. Two key aspects of music notation, key and time signatures, were selected as the main focus of the study. To investigate these aspects, eighteen research participants were provided with seventeen sight-reading examples for one hand (low complexity) and two hands (high complexity) composed specifically by the researcher. Several examples contained one or more unexpected aspects (accidentals or changes of time signature) to test their effect on fixation count and duration. Two variables (fixation count and fixation duration) were utilised to analyze fixation patterns on the selected aspects of the scores. Three main results emerged from the data analysis: 1) Expert sight-readers performed with much greater accuracy than experts in both tests; 2) Expert sight-readers exhibited a higher fixation count on entire scores in complex examples; 3) Both expert and amateur sight-readers fixate more and for longer on certain notational aspects such as key and time signatures than other notational aspects such as deviations or individual notes. This selection of focused attention suggests that both expert and amateur sight-readers cognitively process music scores in a hierarchical order. In conclusion, key and time signatures appear to require more and longer fixations by both groups of readers than other aspects of the score. This supports previous research which suggests that sound musical knowledge may play a positive role in performers’ sight-reading skills, thereby contributing to more successful sight-reading performances.

The (Con)Text of a Footnote: Heidegger and the Factical and Pre-Ontological Aspects of Care

Right after the presentation of Hyginus’s fable in §42 of Being and Time comes a note in which Heidegger affirms that the orientation about care as the being of Dasein (§41) arose in the context of the interpretation of Augustinian anthropology and the foundations obtained by the analysis of Aristotelian ontology. Why such a mention and why is it placed precisely after proving the pre-ontological origin of care as the being of Dasein? Assuming such problem, this paper does not aim only at offering a reading key that justifies such note, but at presenting the importance of the factical and pre-ontological aspects presented, respectively, in Book X of The Confessions of Augustine and in the fable of Hyginus for Heidegger's elaboration of care as an ontological category. For this purpose, three lecture courses will be assumed, especially: Augustine and Neo-Platonism (1921), which will make it possible to perceive the always factical aspect of care, thus evidencing the historical enactment perspective of the hermeneutics of facticity; Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle (1921/1922), which will make it possible to understand the idea of “ontological category” as a first formulation of what, in Being and Time, will be the existentials; and History of the concept of time: prolegomena (1925), which will allow us to realize that care is about being and not having, therefore, that it is not a possession of Dasein, but a condition of its existence. Finally, after justifying the importance of different aspects for care as an ontological category, it will be understood why the ontological interpretation differs from both others.

Triste fim de Clarice Lispector ou A paixão segundo Lima Barreto: a linguagem precária de Macabéa e Clara dos Anjos / The sad end of Clarice Lispector or The passion according to Lima Barreto: the precarious language of Macabéa and Clara dos Anjos

Resumo: O presente artigo tem como objetivo criar uma leitura comparativa entre os romances Clara dos Anjos, de Lima Barreto, e A hora da estrela, de Clarice Lispector. Para tanto, a tentativa de elaborar uma linguagem própria será o tema convergente entre as narrativas, a partir das experiências ficcionais de suas protagonistas. Como aparato teórico, a investigação parte de uma pesquisa bibliográfica que percorre a tradição pós-colonial, aqui indicada pelos escritos do filósofo Achille Mbembe, da teórica Gayatri Spivak e do psiquiatra Frantz Fanon. A abordagem requisita também a noção de enquadramento proposta pela filósofa norte-americana Judith Butler, cujas premissas permitem uma melhor discussão em torno do aspecto não-hegemônico dos corpos, chave de leitura fundamental para as personagens estudadas neste trabalho. Sendo assim, tendo como base o método comparativo de análise, o artigo demonstra em que medida a precariedade da linguagem pode ser utilizada como ferramenta na leitura desses dois romances. Com isso, propõe um caminho interpretativo para as duas obras sob uma perspectiva contemporânea, arraigada nos marcadores sociais da diferença e na formação de sociedades coloniais. Palavras-chave: Lima Barreto; Clarice Lispector; literatura brasileira, literatura comparada, teoria pós-colonial.Abstract: This article aims to create a comparative reading between the novels Clara dos Anjos, by Lima Barreto, and A hora da estrela, by Clarice Lispector. Therefore, the attempt to develop an own language will be the converging theme between the narratives, based on the fictional experiences of the protagonists. As a theoretical approach, the investigation starts from a bibliographic research that runs through the post-colonial tradition, here indicated by the writings of the philosopher Achille Mbembe, the theorist Gayatri Spivak and the psychiatrist Frantz Fanon. This approach also requires the notion of framing proposed by the American philosopher Judith Butler, whose ideas allow a better discussion around the non-hegemonic aspect of bodies, an essential reading key for the characters studied in this work.Thus, based on the comparative method of analysis, the article demonstrates the extent to which the precariousness of language can be used as a tool in reading these two novels. It proposes an interpretative possibility for the two works from a contemporary perspective, based on the social markers of difference and the formation of colonial societies.Keywords: Lima Barreto; Clarice Lispector; Brazilian literature; comparative literature, postcolonial theory.

Operationalism: An Interpretation of the Philosophy of Ancient Greek Geometry

I present a systematic interpretation of the foundational purpose of constructions in ancient Greek geometry. I argue that Greek geometers were committed to an operationalist foundational program, according to which all of mathematics—including its entire ontology and epistemology—is based entirely on concrete physical constructions. On this reading, key foundational aspects of Greek geometry are analogous to core tenets of 20th-century operationalist/positivist/constructivist/intuitionist philosophy of science and mathematics. Operationalism provides coherent answers to a range of traditional philosophical problems regarding classical mathematics, such as the epistemic warrant and generality of diagrammatic reasoning, superposition, and the relation between constructivism and proof by contradiction. Alleged logical flaws in Euclid (implicit diagrammatic reasoning, superposition) can be interpreted as sound operationalist reasoning. Operationalism also provides a compelling philosophical motivation for the otherwise inexplicable Greek obsession with cube duplication, angle trisection, and circle quadrature. Operationalism makes coherent sense of numerous specific choices made in this tradition, and suggests new interpretations of several solutions to these problems. In particular, I argue that: Archytas’s cube duplication was originally a single-motion machine; Diocles’s cissoid was originally traced by a linkage device; Greek conic section theory was thoroughly constructive, based on the conic compass; in a few cases, string-based constructions of conic sections were used instead; pointwise constructions of curves were rejected in foundational contexts by Greek mathematicians, with good reason. Operationalism enables us to view the classical geometrical tradition as a more unified and philosophically aware enterprise than has hitherto been recognised.

Dilemmas of research as an institutional practice and biographical experience

This article examines some dilemmas posed by the analysis of the academic field of research in the university system. In order to do so, we recur to the experience recorded in a biographical-narrative text done by a teacher-researcher. In this biographical record, the traces, marks and voices of devices that refer to performative forces that shape contemporary ideas of the university and that seek to perform the subjectivities and identities of academics are noticed. The dilemmas, although they are posed in a subjective register, are analyzed as effects of meaning generated by the instituting action of Academic Capitalism, the Global Reform of Higher Education and the Culture of Auditing as concurrent processes that operate in the regulation of the field. academic-scientific since the establishment of neoliberal policies in the Argentine university system since the nineties and that still persist. In this reading key, the unique dilemmas of the researcher bring out a dispute of meaning of greater scope generated by the transition towards a university model based on the logic and governance instruments of Academic Capitalism.

André Scrima, Reader of Heidegger: From the Desert of Being to the Desert of the Monastery

Little is known about the meeting which took place between Martin Heidegger and André Scrima. Aside from unfolding within the master-disciple framework, it is a witness above all of a fruitful dialogue between western philosophy and eastern theology about a common concern: the desert as the unfolding of our being in the world. It is this concern, the guiding light in fact for this article, which will develop here in several stages: First, by unravelling the hostile meanings of the word “desert.” Second, by using it as a reading key to explore the foundations of contemporary civilization and especially by analysing it as a concept for a new topography of Being. The final stage will tackle the foundational link which unites the desert and monastic life. It is this connection which will finally allow us to understand how the love of God, which pushes the monk into the desert, can be so decisive for a new understanding of Being.

A Conceptual Framework for Complex Systems at the Crossroads of Food, Environment, Health, and Innovation

Climate-smart solutions and practices have the potential to contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of achieving zero hunger; ensuring healthy lives and promoting the wellbeing of humans, animals, and plants; reducing ocean overharvesting and overfishing; tackling climate change; driving economic growth; and promoting innovation. Achieving these goals will require searching for, defining, and adopting the most effective and suitable scientific approach for studying synergies between often-opposing socioeconomic and environmental priorities. Developing a critical conceptual framework as a reading key for the SDGs’ interactions (theory building) and exploring the possibilities of upscaling successful climate-smart practices, with the case study offered by the SECURE project (theory testing) are the two methods adopted to answer the research hypothesis on the validity and scope of conceptual frameworks for complex systems. The paper concludes with a call for further testing of tools, approaches, and methods to enable dynamic systems thinking to inform upscaling efforts, while recognizing the transdisciplinary nature and complexity of the study of low-trophic marine resources as a constituent of food production, and environmental and health protection systems.

Health Indicators Construction for Damage Level Assessment in Bearing Diagnostics: A Proposal of an Energetic Approach Based on Envelope Analysis

Predictive maintenance strategies are established in the industrial context on account of their benefits in terms of costs abatement and machine failures reduction. Among the available techniques, vibration-based condition monitoring (VBCM) has notably been applied in many bearing fault detection problems. The health indicators construction is a central issue for VBCM, since these features provide the necessary information to assess the current machine condition. However, the relation between vibration data and its sources intimately related to bearing damage is not effortlessly definable from a diagnostic perspective. This study discloses a diagnostic investigation performed both on the vibration signal and on the contact pressure signal that is supposed to be one of main forcing terms in the dynamic equilibrium of the damaged bearing. Envelope analysis and spectral kurtosis (SK) are applied to extract and compare diagnostic features from both signals, referring to the Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) case-study. Namely, health indicators are constructed by means of physical considerations based on the effect of faults on the signal power contents. These indicators show to be promising not only for damage detection but, also, for damage severity assessment. Moreover, they provide an invaluable reading key of the link occurring between the contact pressure path and the vibration response.

The Ethical and Responsibility Components in Environmental Challenges: Elements of Connection between Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Impact Assessment

The contribution constitutes a first exploratory outcome of an ongoing research by the Author on the issues of ethics and responsibility in investment processes, starting from the assumptions of the CSR approach. It makes a critical reinterpretation of it in the light of the ongoing debates and provides a specific reading key. In this sense, the contributions of other approaches and disciplines, in particular those of social investing and social impact axis, have highlighted some issues that constitute operational steps certainly at the center of future research developments and in particular linked to current environmental challenges: 1) the creation of value, 2) the stakeholders and corporate social citizenship, 3) the shared accountability, starting from the Social Report and Participatory Budget models. Specific paragraphs are dedicated to these research issues, which are intended to highlight both the impact assessment models and the technical steps yet to be explored. As a conclusion of the reasoning and to signal potential future developments, some application areas are cited (e.g. those of urban and peri-urban regeneration processes), in which the investment assessment and impact assessment models have experimented with innovation factors, linked to the aspects of the ethics and social responsibility among stakeholders.