On the motivations for Merleau-Ponty’s ontological research

This paper attempts to clarify Merleau-Ponty’s later work by tracing a hitherto overlooked set of concerns that were of key consequence for the formulation of his ontological research. I argue that his ontology can be understood as a response to a set of problems originating in reflections on the intersubjective use of language in dialogue, undertaken in the early 1950s. His study of dialogue disclosed a structure of meaning-formation and pointed towards a theory of truth (both recurring ontological topics) that post-Phenomenology premises could not account for. A study of dialogue shows that speakers’ positions are interchangeable, that speaking subjects are active and passive in varying degrees, and that the intentional roles of subjects and objects are liable to shift or ‘transgress’ themselves. These observations anticipate the concepts of ‘reversibility’ and ‘narcissism’, his later view of activity and passivity, and his later view of intentionality, and sharpened the need to adopt an intersubjective focus in ontological research

Ein Beitrag zur effizienten und frühzeitigen Prognose des Einflusses von Subsystemen des Antriebs und des Fahrwerks auf das Außengeräusch von Fahrzeugen

Durch die Urbanisierung und die stetig steigende Anzahl der Fahrzeuge auf den Straßen weltweit wird der Verkehrslärm zu einem immer größeren Problem für die moderne Gesellschaft. Er ist dabei nicht nur eine Belästigung, sondern in dauerhafter Form eine Belastung der Einwohner. So kann Verkehrslärm zu einer physischen Beeinträchtigung führen und stellt damit ein Gesundheitsrisiko dar (Kloepfer et al., 2006). Aus diesem Grund sind Gesetzgeber bestrebt den Verkehrslärm durch Vorgaben von immer strenger werdenden Grenzwerten zu reduzieren (Verordnung (EU) Nr. 540/2014, 2014). Diese Grenzwerte stellen die Fahrzeugentwickler vor immer neue Herausforderungen. Daher nimmt der Bedarf an neuen Methoden, welche eine effiziente Erfassung und Optimierung der akustischen Eigenschaften der Subsysteme des Fahrzeugs sowie deren Einfluss auf das Gesamtsystem ermöglichen, stetig zu. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden daher Methoden für eine effiziente akustische Quantifizierung von Subsystemen unabhängig von den Umgebungsbedingungen, sowie eine Übertragbarkeit auf Gesamtsystemebene entwickelt. Hierfür wird in einem ersten Schritt eine Methode unter Anwendung von generischen Schallquellen mit einfach zu definierendem Anregungssignal entwickelt und anhand genormter Verfahren verifiziert. In einem nächsten Schritt wird diese auf Komponenten- sowie Gesamtfahrzeugprüfständen angewendet und weiterentwickelt. Dabei gilt es vor allem die hohe Komplexität der möglichen Betriebszustände auf die relevanten Anwendungsfälle zu reduzieren. Darauf folgend wird die Vorhersage des Außengeräuschs von Fahrzeugen auf Basis der entwickelten Methode untersucht. Grundlage hierfür stellt die experimentelle Transferpfadanalyse dar. Weiterhin werden Möglichkeiten für eine Simulation des außenakustischen Übertragungsverhaltens von Fahrzeugen erforscht, welche im Idealfall einen Verzicht auf physische Gesamtfahrzeug-Prototypen im Fahrzeugentwicklungsprozess ermöglichen sollen. Abschließend werden die Methoden im Kontext der PGE – Produktgenerationsentwicklung dargestellt

Solution of an industrially relevant coupled magneto–mechanical problem set on an axisymmetric domain

Eddy currents are generated when low frequency magnetic fields interact with conducting components and this, in turn, generates Lorentz forces, which can cause these metallic components to deform and vibrate. An important application of this magneto–mechanical coupling is in coil design for magnetic resonance imaging scanners, where such vibrations can have unwanted effects such as ghosting of images, reduction of the life span of devices and discomfort for the patient. This work is aimed at developing an accurate computational tool for better understanding these deformations by considering a benchmark problem proposed by Siemens plc (Kruip, personal communication, 2013) on an idealised axisymmetric geometry. We present a new fixed point algorithm and develop new weak variational statements, which use a stress tensor approach for force calculation and permit discretisation using H1 conforming hp-version finite elements. Numerical results are included, which show the importance of high order finite elements for predicting the eddy currents and the associated coupling in the resonance region

THE ATTENTION SITUATION: A RHETORICAL THEORY OF ATTENTION FOR MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

What are the available means of attention in a given situation? This dissertation offers a hermeneutic for everyday life that capacitates people to answer this question. The field of communication has long recognized how new technologies challenge our assumptions about how attention operates and how they urge us to reformulate the language we use to think about attention. Rather than provide one attention vocabulary suited to one media environment, this project takes a generative approach that aims to continually refresh our notions about attention at the rate of technological change. To this end, I propose a way of talking about attention as a situational process that must be described pluralistically through a rotation of vocabularies. I offer the “attention situation” as a guiding framework for how interdisciplinary discourses can coherently converge upon any given situation. Then, I illustrate the attention situation framework through a distinctly rhetorical approach to theorizing attention. Paralleling the idea that rhetoric is an architectonic art, attention too is the architecting of material, symbolic, and intentional processes. I illustrate this through many examples from paradigmatic thinkers in media and rhetorical theory. The works of Marshall McLuhan and Kenneth Burke help exemplify how the attention situation can be used to highlight the communication-sourced aspects of attention. From these attention concepts, I formulate “dramatic ecology” as a paradigm of ways that attention is formed within larger socio-technological dialectics, which provides a finer language to assess communicative situations than that of science’s mechanistic behaviorisms. The attention situation, dramatic ecology, and the material-symbolic-intentional dimensions of attention together demonstrate how attention’s cross-disciplinary discourses can be adapted into situational praxis. This rhetorical approach to attention offers a generative toolkit for continually re-theorizing attention through the changes ahead in technology, society, and culture

The Death of French Socialism: Abd al Malik’s 'Occupy Wall Street' Poetical Rap

TAbd al Malik is an important public figure in contemporary France whose multifaceted art as a rapper, poet, novelist and filmmaker keeps urging the French nation to be more cohesive in the face of current challenges such as integration and terrorism. This article takes stock of the unequal distribution of wealth between different socio-geographical groups as a fundamental cause of postcolonial discontent and examines the polymorphic treatment of money as a topic in Abd al Malik’s poetry, rap lyrics, as well as in connection with other genres such as autobiography and film. In a particular sociopolitical climate marked by an association between crime and immigration in Front National rhetoric, I analyse how Abd al Malik strives to de-essentialise the immigrant through a complete exposure of his own personal life, recounting in full detail his religious journey from superficial Christianity to radical Islam to Sufism—and his concomitantly evolving relationships with money. Additionally, this article aims at scrutinising the interesting paradox that, on the one hand, Abd al Malik’s writings draw upon anti-capitalist thinkers and movements such as Alain Badiou and les indignés/OccupyWall Street, while on the other hand, he advocates in favour of adapting into the French context a form of philanthropy usually akin to a North American, capitalist model of society. I show how at the heart of this paradox lies the centrality of religion added to a firm belief in reconceptualised French values, which has led Abd al Malik to actively promote a form of spiritualité laïque [secular spirituality] à la française

Merleau-Ponty and the Measuring Body

In recent years a growing number of scholars in science studies and related fields are developing new ontologies to displace entrenched dualisms. These efforts often go together with a renewed interest in the roles played by symbolisms and tools in knowledge and being. This article brings Maurice Merleau-Ponty into these conversations, positioning him as a precursor of today’s innovative recastings of technoscience. While Merleau-Ponty is often invoked in relation to his early work on the body and embodiment, this article focuses on his later work, where the investigation of perception is integrated with an ontological exploration. The resulting approach revolves around the highly original idea of the body as a standard of measurement. We further develop this idea by coining the term ‘the measuring body’, which to a greater extent than did Merleau-Ponty accentuates the relative autonomy of symbolisms and tools and their capacity to decentre the perceiving body

ARE SPATIAL MODELS NEEDED WITH ADEQUATELY BLOCKED FIELD TRIALS?

The use of nearest neighbors and spatial models (SPAT) to analyze field trial data has become commonplace in recent years. These two types of analyses improve precision compared to ANOVA when trials are poorly blocked, but results are less clear in well-blocked trials. We examined data from wheat trials containing 60 cultivars, conducted at five locations, where each location was set up as an alpha lattice design. We compared the relative efficiency of detecting cultivar differences for spatial models and nearest neighbors analyses (NNA) to ANOVA, fit of the models, and correlations of ranked cultivars. Though the SPAT and NNA generally outperformed the ANOVA, the selection of desirable cultivars remained relatively unchanged when using a well-blocked design analyzed with an ANOVA