Material Artifacts Research Articles

How do researchers study emotion in and around law?

Research on law and emotion has flourished in the last quarter of a century, underpinned by a range of theoretical and philosophical approaches. The field, while deeply interdisciplinary, originally developed around several disciplinary silos through the research of legal practitioners, jurisprudence theorists, social scientists and humanities scholars. Despite the field’s growth, methodological approaches have largely remained disparate. Researchers, all working from within their own disciplinary training, rarely make explicit the definition of ‘emotion’ and ‘law’ with which they are working, nor how the methods they choose to deploy sit in relation to those definitions. This article takes stock of methodologies, methods and data that seek to account for emotion in legal contexts. It aims to identify how law and emotion researchers are doing what they are doing, and to what ends, and seeks to distinguish ‘emotions’ in law and emotions research. It considers various theories of emotion underpinning law and emotion scholarship, canvassing how and to what extent scholars, when researching law and legal actors, are articulating the object of study, ‘emotions’; and takes into account different ways that researchers identify, theorise and deploy the concept of law. The article discusses empirical mixed methods, analysis of material artefacts, creative arts practices, and the place of researcher emotion. An explicit discussion of the different theoretical and philosophical approaches to emotion and to law that underscore current research, will help facilitate a productive cross-pollination of methods, including recognising the utility of different methods for particular research questions.

Public Libraries as an Informational Space for Indivi-duals with Blindness and Visual Impairment. Material and Immaterial Artifacts of Access

Public Libraries as an Informational Space for Indivi-duals with Blindness and Visual Impairment. Material and Immaterial Artifacts of Access

A Surface Determination Technique for Dimensional and Geometrical Analysis in Industrial X-ray Computed Tomography

Industrial X-ray computed tomography (XCT) is a nondestructive technique that can measure workpieces with non-accessible internal features or multimaterial components and assess the dimensional properties of assemblies in assembled states. Surface determination is one of its most crucial steps, which consists of determining boundary surfaces between a solid material and the surrounding air or between different solid materials. It allows for extracting surface points and assessing different features of the object from the data acquired through XCT scans. This task is particularly complex because of challenges associated with material properties, artefacts and noise. The main objective of this work is to assess not just the dimensional but also the geometric characteristics of industrial parts, which requires a more accurate definition of surface points. Therefore, we propose a new surface determination technique (SDT) in XCT to achieve subvoxel accuracy in determining surface points. We demonstrated the effectiveness and stability of our method by comparing it with other SDTs documented in the literature or with results from commercial software. The validation involved measuring various attributes, such as diameter, cylindricity and flatness, of a multi-stepped aluminium part calibrated by a coordinate measuring machine.

PETcoil: first results from a second-generation RF-penetrable TOF-PET brain insert for simultaneous PET/MRI

Simultaneous positron emission tomography (PET)/magnetic resonance imaging provides concurrent information about anatomic, functional, and molecular changes in disease. We are developing a second generation MR-compatible RF-penetrable TOF-PET insert. The insert has a smaller scintillation crystal size and ring diameter compared to clinical whole-body PET scanners, resulting in higher spatial resolution and sensitivity. This paper reports the initial system performance of this full-ring PET insert. The global photopeak energy resolution and global coincidence time resolution, 11.74 ± 0.03 % FWHM and 238.1 ± 0.5 ps FWHM, respectively, are preserved as we scaled up the system to a full ring comprising 12, 288 LYSO-SiPM channels (crystal size: 3.2 × 3.2 × 20 mm3). Throughout a ten-hour experiment, the system performance remained stable, exhibiting a less than 1% change in all measured parameters. In a resolution phantom study, the system successfully resolved all 2.8 mm diameter rods, achieving an average VPR of 0.28 ± 0.08 without TOF and 0.24 ± 0.07 with TOF applied. Moreover, the implementation of TOF in the Hoffman phantom study also enhanced image quality. Initial MR compatibility studies of the full PET ring were performed with it unpowered as a milestone to focus on looking for material and geometry-related artifacts. During all MR studies, the MR body coil functioned as both the transmit and receive coil, and no observable artifacts were detected. As expected, using the body coil also as the RF receiver, MR image signal-to-noise ratio exhibited degradation (∼30%), so we are developing a high quality receive-only coil that resides inside the PET ring.

The Heralds of the Gospel: Catholic anti-modernity as new right utopia in Brazil

ABSTRACT The ‘Heralds of the Gospel’ are a Brazilian ultra-Catholic group with a long history of far-right lobbying and activism. Recognized in 2001 by the Vatican as ‘International Private Association of Christ’s Faithfull’, they are also ‘of Pontifical right’ and since 2005 allowed to ordinate their own priests. As ”soldiers of Christ” they are inspired by the Templars and pursue a utopian mission to subvert, transform and ultimately overturn the modern, secular state through their apostolate. The Heralds have also created an international education network and media imperium, underpinned by a robust business model, and are starting to reach out to the US and Europe. The article argues that this kind of exotic, Catholic far-right utopianism matters if we are to understand the diversity of the global new right today, in particular because the Brazilian tradition, which the Heralds refer to, anticipated some of the by now recurrent elements of this strand of the right such as metapolitics and antimodernism. The article explores the century long (neo)integrist tradition that the Heralds grow out of and through their own publications, PR and leaked evidence, show how this tradition is brought to life in the 21st century as communitarian practices and material artifacts.

The Japanese Survey of Materia Medica in Korea and the Transformation of the Japanese Study of Nature in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract In the eighteenth century, Japanese honzōgaku developed to engage more actively with an empirical mode of study that put more emphasis on sensory and visual information, complementing the classical texts from China and Korea and correcting the names contained in these texts. The further introduction by honzō scholars of observation and accurate illustration, as well as of the use of material artefacts such as specimens, developed alongside the continued importance of the philological study of the classics, rather than replacing it. Using as primary materials the “Records of Medicinal Ingredients” found among the Documents of the Tsushima Clan, this essay examines a Japanese project to survey flora and fauna in Korea during the Edo period in order to shed light on the growing emphasis on visual accuracy in the study of nature. It also highlights how the circulation of texts inspired changes in how people conceived of natural objects and constructed materia medica knowledge in the context of Tokugawa Japan.

Earth deity shrines of the Greater Taipei area: A first edition curated dataset

Community tutelary shrines in Taiwan have been identified as excellent resources for grassroots-level heritage. As community ritual assemblages, they are able to encode data about a settlement’s social, political and economic history in their material composition, aesthetic choices, artefacts, displays and orientations. This data paper previews a first edition dataset related to 752 such shrines found throughout the greater Taipei area in northern Taiwan. It explores the basis for such a dataset, how it can be used and what has been produced. This dataset is available on the depositar research data repository, operated out of the Institute of Information Sciences at Academia Sinica in Taipei and is publicly available for download.

Enacting Christian identities in Catholic colleges and universities: An organizational studies perspective on core practices, challenges, and discernments

It is not enough for Catholic universities to simply profess having a Christian identity. This identity needs to be enacted throughout the organization via students, faculty, staff, and administrators. Because identity has different foundations, such as groups, roles, material artifacts, and stories, there are a variety of ways a Christian identity can be lived out in a Catholic university. However, despite these many avenues for enacting identity, such enactment comes with several challenges. At the heart of most of these challenges is the fact that Catholic universities have other identities beyond a Christian one. This paper addresses not only how identity can be enacted, but highlights the challenges to such identity enactment and the trade-offs they present for discernment.

Ghanaian values in motion: A content analysis of slogans on commercial vehicles in Accra

ABSTRACT Slogans on commercial vehicles are a common sight in Ghana. These material artefacts can provide insight into beliefs and values about the sociocultural, spiritual, and political experiences of life in the contemporary Ghanaian context. In this study, we collected and analysed a total of 438 commercial vehicles’ slogans from 5 main transportation terminals in the Accra metropolitan area. Our thematic analysis of these slogans shows a major emphasis on religious and spiritual values to the extent that most of the recorded slogans serve as positive affirmations of religious values and sources of spiritual encouragement. The dominance of religious references in such slogans highlights the importance of religiosity as a cultural value in everyday life in Ghana.

(Paper) weaving and poetry: Re-membering through Baradian theory

This work engages with Karen Barad’s philosophy and theory of agential realism through research practices of critical autoethnography and arts-based methods. The work explores how knowledge, memory, language, and experience remain alive within practitioners and inform who we become and how we inherit the stories involved in being educators and therapists. This paper presents two entangled research processes involving engagement with material artefacts related to the author’s professional identity development and practice as an arts therapist in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Through Barad’s theory of diffraction, engagement with and reassembling research artefacts supports a consideration of what can happen when we map and remember stories from different times and spaces in our lives. Elucidating and exploring the contours of memories and experiences can be helpful practices to engage in as narrative is the most potent mechanism for memory and teaching, and as therapists and educators, we are living through and practicing from the tangle of these narratives.

Pleasing the Wrathful Deities: Ethical Approaches to the Care of Tibetan Skull Drums

ABSTRACT In 2023, a number of sacred Tibetan ritual musical instruments fashioned from human tissue were donated to Northumbria University, England. After lengthy consultation with stakeholders, the university took the decision to accept the donation in order to store and care for these objects in a culturally respectful manner. This process involved working closely with the Tibetan diaspora in exile to manage, research and provide access in a culturally sensitive way until such time as they might be returned to their communities of origin. Framing the university’s decision were current and ongoing debates within the heritage sector regarding the ethics of storing, researching and displaying human remains, especially where they belong to cultures from beyond the Global West. However, the cultural and ritual status of these objects, not to mention their geographical origin, is such that they do not fall easily into the same defined status as other historical human remains in western heritage collections. We present here ongoing work to build transparent and sensitive collections and research policies specifically around two Tibetan ritual thöd-rnga skull drums, traditionally used in the Chöd (gCod) ritual practised in Tibetan Tantric (Vajrayana) Buddhism. We situate our work within the complex discourse on caring for contested objects in the UK in the midst of the restitution and decolonisation agendas, before considering the objects themselves as material artefacts, and the ethics of caring for and researching these objects within the context of a university collection.

Prototypes all the way Down

This paper examines enactments of prototyping in a recent experimental effort to introduce ‘Technology Comprehension’ (TC) as a mandatory school subject in the Danish Public School. The overall concern of the programme was to educate young people to become not only users, but makers and analysts of the digital technological society. We adopt a social-theoretical view of prototyping that suggests it has moved well beyond design, and has become part of a broader cultural repertoire. We explore the capacity of prototyping as a site of social knowledge-production, illuminating prototypes as instruments of experimentation, epistemic negotiation, and civic participation. We analyse two prototypes: 1) an artefact that was the outcome of a pupil’s work in a TC lesson; 2) an experimental lesson plan called ‘App Design’ put to use by a teacher in a series of 5th grade TC lessons. Attending to how prototyping is performed in the pupils’, teachers’, and subject matter experts’ making, demoing, testing, and iterating on ‘first type’ tangible and material artefacts–prototypes. Prototyping in the trial programme can be understood as the rehearsal of chaotic conditions, in the teacher-pupil relation, and in the pupil-world relation. Prototyping can absorb the seeming impossibility of bridging ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ knowledges, and make new social and material agencies arise. The trial of TC seems in this light as much as an experiment in rendering social relations and knowledge-making, open-ended and experimental as it is an experiment in cultivating that exact attitude towards technology, but also towards societal affairs and knowledge-production.

Situated minds and distributed systems in translation

AbstractThis article sheds light on two different perspectives on the boundaries of the cognitive system and the consequences of their adoption for Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies (CTIS). Both are represented by different approaches within the cognitive scientific cluster of approaches referred to as situated or 4EA (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended, and affective) cognition. The first, the person-centred perspective, takes individuals as a starting point and describes their interactions with their social and material surroundings. The second, the distributed, extended perspective, takes the joint activity of different situated actors and material artefacts as its starting point and depicts this socio-cognitive unit as the object of analysis. With this article, we do not seek to advocate the use of one over the other. Rather, we attempt to offer a coherent interpretation of how the cognitive process of translation can be studied and interpreted as a situated activity either from the perspective of individual actors or from a larger, distributed, and extended angle that considers people and the relevant social and material environment as a system. Specifically, we discuss what is to be gained if translation is studied from a distributed cognitive perspective. To this end, we illustrate key aspects of the discussion using empirical examples from current field research in which both an individual and a distributed perspective are applied to analyse interaction in a translation workplace.

Driving in Cars with Noise

Driving in Cars with Noise

Кримські татари в історичній та культурній спадщині України XV–XVII ст.

The article aims to study the history of the Crimean Tatars of the XV–XVII centuries within historical cultural heritage materials. The territorial is limited to the Volyn region, namely the cities of Ostroh and Dubno. The study methodology is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. Besides these principles, we use the principle of systematicity to study the documents. The factor analysis was effective in examining the social and political processes that took place in the late medieval and early modern periods. We also use the typological method considering material culture objects. Analytical and synthesizing methods were used to generalize the information obtained. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that it studies the historical, cultural, and material heritage of one of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine - the Crimean Tatars in the late Middle Ages and early modern times. During the Ukrainian independence historians and archaeologists prepared some publications on the subject, but the generalized monographic study is absent. In addition, a significant part of material artifacts are kept in the collections of various museums and are not available in exhibition halls. Conclusions. The study of the Crimean Tatars’ material heritage on the territory of mainland Ukraine is important. Despite the rather complicated relations during the XV–XVII centuries, there are many examples of cooperation against common enemies, such as the Moscow state or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Communities of immigrants from Crimea lived in many Ukrainian cities, towns, and villages, and together with the locals, they contributed to the common welfare and prosperity. All this has left a significant mark on the history, culture, and historical memory of different peoples. The presented artifacts of the Crimean Tatars from the collections of the museums of Ostroh and Dubno will contribute to the study and popularization of the cultural heritage of one of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine. We are firmly convinced that other Ukrainian museums (especially in their collections) hold many items related to the Crimean Tatars. Therefore, our research will continue.

Valuation entrepreneurship through product‐design and blame‐avoidance strategies: How Tesla managed to change the public perception of sustainable innovations

AbstractDeveloping innovative, eco‐friendlier products that gain traction in the mass market remains a persistent challenge for many firms. To bring consumers to choose “greener” alternatives over conventional products, firms need to overcome prevailing product evaluations that favor traditional solutions. Research on valuation entrepreneurship examines the strategies that actors apply to induce changes in established evaluations. Adding to the emerging literature on valuation entrepreneurship, our study analyzes how the car maker Tesla, Inc. used product design—material artifacts' properties of form and function—to advance the public perception of battery electric vehicles (BEVs). When Tesla entered the market, several firms had tried to promote BEVs as a way of making private mobility more environmentally friendly, but with limited success. In contrast, Tesla produced well‐received BEVs that generated enormous consumer interest and led to a more favorable assessment of BEVs as a whole. Drawing on 54 interviews and nearly 2000 pages of archival data, our abductive study identifies three product design strategies that increased the appeal of Tesla's initial models: (1) incorporating discontinuous technological solutions; (2) optimizing the products on traditional evaluation criteria (e.g., driving performance, comfort, space, status); and (3) creating an ecosystem of complementary products. Since some design choices came at the expense of a minimal environmental footprint, they risked attracting blame for compromising on the environmental performance of potentially eco‐friendly cars and for committing “greenwashing.” To minimize this risk, Tesla complemented its design strategies by employing three strategies of reputational politics to avoid such blame. After Tesla's initial, lavish models had improved the public perception of electric cars, Tesla and other car makers were able to sell less excessive and more sustainable BEVs in much greater quantities than ever before. Our findings contribute to three literature streams and generate valuable insights for management practice.

Robotic misinformation in dementia care: emotions as sense-making resources in residents' encounters with robot animals.

Robot animals, designed to mimic living beings, pose ethical challenges in the context of caring for vulnerable patients, specifically concerning deception. This paper explores how emotions become a resource for dealing with the misinformative nature of robot animals in dementia care homes. Based on observations of encounters between residents, care workers, and robot animals, the study shows how persons with dementia approach the ambiguous robots as either living beings, material artifacts, or something in-between. Grounded in interactionist theory, the research demonstrates that emotions serve as tools in the sense-making process, occurring through interactions with the material object and in collaboration with care workers. The appreciation of social robots does not solely hinge on them being perceived as real or fake animals; persons with dementia may find amusement in "fake" animals and express fear of "real" ones. This observation leads us to argue that there is a gap between guidelines addressing misinformation and robots and the specific context in which the technology is in use. In situations where small talk and play are essential activities, care workers often prioritize responsiveness to residents rather than making sure that the robot's nature is transparent. In these situations, residents' emotional expressions serve not only as crucial resources for their own sense-making but also as valuable indicators for care workers to comprehend how to navigate care situations.

Governance by artifacts: Theory and evidence on materiality of administrative burdens

AbstractAdministrative burden research has contributed to improved understanding of citizens' experiences while accessing state services. However, the significance of the material infrastructure within which citizen–administrator interactions take place remains largely absent from this line of research. To help address this research gap, this article uses ethnographic data to discuss the influence of material and virtual artifacts in bureaucratic offices on the administrative burden faced by citizens accessing social services. This significance of artifacts is further unpacked along their material, symbolic, and aesthetic dimensions. Our findings suggest that the instrumentality of certain artifacts (or lack thereof) can disproportionately decrease accessibility and usability of bureaucratic spaces for certain social groups thereby augmenting their administrative burden. Moreover, artifacts symbolizing power, prestige, and administrative easing are reserved for spaces occupied by the social elite while the underprivileged groups are relegated to bureaucratic spaces characterized by a general neglect of aesthetics and symbolism of decay.

Unraveling the Threads of Microhistory: Exploring Key Features and Notable Examples

This study aims to comprehensively characterize microhistory as a modern historiographical genre. It examines the key attributes, features, and epistemology of microhistory in relation to conventional historical approaches. By tracing the emergence of microhistory and analyzing sample texts, this research identifies the distinctive elements of microhistorical research. These include a granular focus on marginalized individuals, skepticism toward grand narratives, and a sensory emphasis on material artifacts over abstract facts. The study elucidates how microhistory’s postmodern relativism and localized subjectivity contrast with traditional historiography. While acknowledging microhistory’s unique focus on overlooked experiences, the analysis cautions against overly presentist and emotive reinterpretations of the past. This study maps the philosophical underpinnings and practices of the microhistory movement, clarifying its significance within modern historiography and its potential impact on historical research methodology.

Entrepreneuring as provocation and its critical capacity: problematizing and establishing meanings of entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT Entrepreneurship is an elusive phenomenon and its meaning has been vigorously debated. This study seeks to contribute to critical perspectives on entrepreneurship by investigating how entrepreneuring participates and intervenes in the dominant discourse, and thus, in the practices that constitute meaning. To explore this crucial question, I use the framework of entrepreneuring as a mode of critical engagement. This perspective is supplemented by the performative notion of provocation, which helps in conceptualizing entrepreneuring and its artefacts as critical participants of the discourse. Next, I build a case around a video game as an artefact produced by an entrepreneurial venture. The findings reveal three practices that emerge from entrepreneuring: caricaturing, metaphorizing, and devaluing. I develop a model that illustrates how entrepreneuring provokes (i.e. problematizes and establishes) different versions of entrepreneurship. This study contributes to entrepreneuring and its critical capacity by theorizing entrepreneuring as provocation. Provocation highlights the various practices of critical engagement, draws attention to the involved material artefacts, and informs our understanding of the implicated ethics.