昆剧《西园记》的新演绎

46年前,今天大名鼎鼎的昆曲“巾生魁首”汪世瑜正是以《西园记》的“张继华”一角,赢得盛名,汪老师自己也曾感慨,“就靠一部（（西园记”,造就了一个汪世瑜”,可见得“张继华”角色的分量。46年后,汪世瑜亲自导演的时尚版《西园记》,让浙江昆剧团的三代演员好好地“PK”了一番：“50后”的陶铁斧已进入演员的鼎盛时期,“60后”的李公律风华正茂,“80后”的女小生毛文霞则青春逼人,俊秀可人,三位“张继华”一时间幻影流动,精彩绝伦。我对昆曲有点上瘾,恨不得三场大戏一场也不拉下。但我只得到陶铁斧的《西园记》的戏票。     

Cost-Benefit Analysis Using Economic Surpluses: A Case Study of a Televised Event

Economic impact studies based on short-run spending injections and multipliers lack conceptual ties to measures of economic surplus, fail to capture intangible benefits and generally fail to measure costs. In this case study of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) held in Israel in 1999, national benefits from the government-financed televising of the ESC are measured as producer surplus (approximated by private sector incremental profits), consumer surplus (measured as the incremental willingness to pay for an event staged at home) and government surplus (linked to national implicit benefits in the form of promotional advertising cost savings). The opportunity costs of diverting resources to this particular televised event are expressly included as an offset to these gross surplus benefits. Despite the conservative approach, the results show moderate social justification for public support of this high profile televised spectacle and suggest that a cost-benefit approach to cultural events can have wider applications.     

Life Securitisation,the Event Object of Insurance and the Strategisation of Time

Understanding the matter of insurability as a problem of governing uncertainty has led to thinking ‘the event’ as the object of insurance. How the event is understood and conceptualized determines to a great extent the ways in which its related uncertainty will be rendered. This, in turn, will determine how such uncertainty will be managed. Although this idea has been widely explored with important nuances by various scholars, what has not been discussed in great detail is the problematic idea of temporality and the role time plays in helping constitute the event object of insurance. Such a problem is of great relevance for pushing forward the debate on the limits of insurability. The empirical cases used in this article, Swiss Re's Vita and Kortis, launched and developed during the last decade, relate to hedging the exposure of life and health insurance portfolios to events that would generate excess mortality and excess vitality. The schemes, as explored here, are not simply actuarial, although actuarial practice still figures prominently in their crafting. They involve the strategic articulation of varied forms of knowledge that enshrine particular understandings of time and produce the truth-base of insurable events.     

Valuing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Over recent years the Canadian government has struggled to determine how muchmoney should be spent on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), itspublic service broadcaster. At the same time, regulators and CBC managementhave struggled with what types of programming services it should provide.Traditionally, the citizen's role in public broadcasting decision making hasbeen limited to an occasional submission at a hearing or a response to apublic opinion survey. However, willingness-to-pay stated preference choiceexperiments could be an effective, low cost means of obtaining more detailedcitizen's input. Here, we report findings from a national survey of Canadianhouseholds in which contingent valuation and choice experiment data are usedto estimate use and non-use values of the various programming servicesprovided by the CBC. The results are used to address policy and programmingissues facing the organization.     

What They Said (She Said) I Said: Attribution and Expertise in Digital Circulation

Theorists of discourse have long recognised the complexities of attributing reported speech in textual circulation. Yet rarely does one follow words from an original speech event through their many re-entextualisations, and it has proved particularly difficult to capture such circulations between oral events, print, and online media. This article captures such movements by following the mediatised – and politicised – afterlife of a speech event that would normally be classified, in academia, as ‘a talk’. It begins with a talk on Russia, given by the author-anthropologist of this paper, that was (mis)reported in Russian by a Voice of America (VOA) journalist, then traces the resulting text's subsequent movement from the VOA website into the Russian fieldsite that the oral talk described. It explores how the tone and substance of debates over politics and representation were enabled, constrained, and otherwise shaped by the particular textual circulations made possible in digital media. As the text traversed online newspapers, comments forums, blogs, social media networks, and private-turned-public personal emails, it produced a body of commentary that was both directly and indirectly a struggle over representation. While substantive debates unfolded over ethnic and national politics, much of the online commentary concerned the expertise of the commenters weighing in and the expertise and identity of the anthropologist who had been cited. This essay argues that Russian commenters and posters were productively using the intertextual gaps offered by digital circulation, while minimising those gaps' increasing breadth and depth by attributing ‘original’ authorship to a discrete, stable person.     

Motivation,satisfaction and loyalty in the case of a film festival: differences between local and non-local participants

The last few years have seen a remarkable increase in the number of cultural events and festivals. The increasing competitiveness among them and the need to safeguard their future viability make it necessary to identify factors that not only attract and satisfy new participants, but also retain previous attendees. Accordingly, this article examines the relations between motivation, satisfaction and loyalty in the case of a cinema event the Valdivia International Film Festival (Chile), distinguishing, in turn, between local attendees and visitors. To achieve this goal, a structural equation modelling is performed based on the data obtained through a survey conducted among festival attendees. The results show there are different motivations for attending a festival (leisure, professional motives and cinema) and that some directly affect satisfaction and loyalty. Similarly, satisfaction is presented as an unquestionable antecedent of loyalty, the latter being measured by means of different concepts. Finally, the research highlights some significant differences between residents and tourists and seems to point to the existence of a kind of cultural tourism focused on an interest in the cinema, which contributes to the festival’s continuity and sustainability. All of this allows us to extract some implications for the managers of this type of event and for those responsible for the destination’s cultural and tourist policy.     

Federal support of basic research: Some economic issues

Summary There is no necessary connection between leadership in basic science and leadership in the applications of science, because scientific progress is a cooperative endeavour and not a competitive game; indeed, there may be a conflict between basic research and applied science. The notion of a position of leadership; in science raises questions of what leadership consists in and what its value is to the nation. The two main arguments for government support of science are cultural-social, and economic. The cultural-social argument stresses scientific activity as a form of social consumption of wealth and raises the question of whether other uses of the resources employed would contribute more to the greatness of the society. The economic argument stresses basic scientific research as a form of investment for the future, and raises the questions of what the rate of return on such investment is and whether and to what extent government support is called for. Relevant economic research results bearing on this problem are scarce. Economic theory suggests that competition in the market will supply less than the optimal amount of basic research; but our society substantially supplements the market through private contributions to and government support of science, and the question is whether this supplementation is deficient or excessive. Here difficult problems arise, on which more economic research is needed; one of these concerns the relative merits of government and private support of science. The rule-of-thumb procedures generally recommended for determining the volume and allocation of government support to basic scientific research generally ignore these problems, and amount to endorsing the present level of government support or recommending that it be increased. Allocation of federal support of science should take account of the possibility of stimulating the economic development of poor regions of the country by locating scientific research facilities in them.     

Export Controls and the Tensions Between Academic Freedom and National Security

In the U.S.A., advocates of academic freedom—the ability to pursue research unencumbered by government controls—have long found sparring partners in government officials who regulate technology trade. From concern over classified research in the 1950s, to the expansion of export controls to cover trade in information in the 1970s, to current debates over emerging technologies and global innovation, the academic community and the government have each sought opportunities to demarcate the sphere of their respective authority and autonomy and assert themselves in that sphere. In this paper, we explore these opportunities, showing how the Social Contract for Science set the terms for the debate, and how the controversy turned to the proper interpretation of this compact. In particular, we analyze how the 1985 presidential directive excluding fundamental research from export controls created a boundary object that successfully demarcated science and the state, but only for a Cold War world that would soon come to an end. Significant changes have occurred since then in the governance structures of science and in the technical and political environment within which both universities and the state sit. Even though there have been significant and persistent calls for reassessing the Cold War demarcation, a new institutionalization of how to balance the concerns of national security and academic freedom is still only in its nascent stages. We explore the value of moving from a boundary object to a boundary organization, as represented in a proposed new governance body, the Science and Security Commission.     

Earthquakes and ancient leaning towers: Geodetic monitoring of the bell tower of San Benedetto Church in Ferrara (Italy)

In May–June 2012, several seismic events took place in the Po River Plane in northern Italy, with a maximum magnitude of M_W 5.86 (M_L 5.9)] and the epicentre located about 32 km from the centre of Ferrara. Many historical buildings were seriously damaged and others showed marked deformations or differential settlements. Therefore, it was necessary to place many of them under monitoring, using fast and safe measurement techniques to quickly obtain accurate information on ongoing structural deformation. This paper presents the case study of the bell tower of San Benedetto Church in Ferrara (17th century), which was already under monitoring at the time of the earthquake because of its remarkable leaning angle. Immediately after the seismic events, monitoring of the bell tower was repeated. Digital levelling indicated a marked differential settlement of the foundations with regard to the trend of secular movement, while terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) revealed a significant increase of the inclination of the tower's axis, confirming the results from levelling and showing good integration of both monitoring techniques.     

献给祖国的厚礼——聚焦浙江重大题材美术创作工程

浙江7000年的历史奏出“万古悠韵”,浙江的山水风物铺陈出“千山竞秀”,1840年至今的浙江现实讲述出“百年浙潮”……8月9日,一场视觉盛宴在新开馆的浙江美术馆上演,“历史的凝眸·浙江历史文化重大题材美术作品大展”在此开幕并举行颁奖晚会。113件美术精品与一场声、光、乐、电、舞结合的演出相映生辉,为历时3年半的浙江重大题材美术创作工程展开了宏伟的叙说。     

Automatic registration of large range datasets with spin-images

Terrestrial laser scanning technique has represented one of the more advances occurred in the last years in the field of data acquisition. Time-of-Flight (TOF) systems provide a fast and reliable tool to measure millions of 3D points allowing a very effective and dense measurement of the surface geometry. Nowadays, the generation of high quality 3D models is a practice applied to different kind of objects: small or medium size artworks, parts of human body, cars, buildings, civil infrastructures (like dams, bridges, plants, etc.) and whole archaeological sites as well. In most cases, in order to capture the whole object geometry a number of single scans need to be acquired from different positions and then stitched together (i.e. registered each other) to generate the full 3D model. The automatization of the registration of multiple scans acquired from a terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) still represents a very attractive research field. The chance to automatically align several point clouds would reduce processing costs in terms of time and human resources. In addition it would allow even non-specialist users to produce 3D models with good quality. This paper contributes to this research area by presenting a method for the automatic registration of very dense point clouds acquired by TLS systems. The proposed solution is an extension to large datasets of an automatic range data registration procedure we developed a few years ago for the modelling of point clouds acquired with close-range laser scanners. Such procedure, based on the spin-images (SIs) algorithm, has been then improved with the introduction of a multi-resolution method that generates a pyramid of spin-images in order to speed up the matching between adjacent scans. The results we present show that this method can be successfully applied for the automatic registration of high density laser scans of complex and large structures of Cultural Heritage.     

Neoliberalism and Natural Disaster

A substantial recent literature has examined insurance as a mechanism for economizing uncertain but potentially catastrophic events. Less attention has been paid to how insurantial techniques for economizing catastrophe have been deployed as political technologies. Focusing on discussions of US flood policy in the 1960s, the present article examines how insurance was used to forge new articulations and accommodations between political government and processes of rationalization. On the one hand, insurance provided a technical solution to problems that had long confronted US policy-makers: How to reduce losses from floods? How to fully compensate individuals who suffered losses? On the other hand, insurance was a device for reshaping the aims and objects of government, and for reframing questions that are more frequently situated at the level of political philosophy: What are the respective responsibilities of individual citizens and government in providing security? What tradeoffs must be made between the provision of security and economic rationality? What values are relevant in orienting public policy? In examining these issues, the article raises questions about standard narratives about the changing relations among risk, responsibility, and security in recent decades, particularly as they relate to neoliberalism.     

The Economics of Monomedia and Cross-Media Expansion: A Study of the Case Favouring Deregulation of TV and Newspaper Ownership in the U.K.

Since the early 1990s, regulators across the globehave faced increasing pressure from media firms toliberalise domestic media and cross-media ownershiprestrictions. Based on empirical research carried outin the U.K., this paper examines the ``economic' case putforward in favour of deregulation. Findings suggestthat, although factors other than size will affectperformance, there is generally a strong and positivecorrelation between the market share and the operatingprofitability of firms involved in either televisionor radio broadcasting or newspaperpublishing. But, with regard to cross-media ownershipof television and newspapers, there is nocompelling evidence that diagonal integration bringsabout inherent synergies, economies of scope or othereconomic benefits. Thus, whereas a variety ofeconomic efficiency gains may be available to justifya relaxation of restrictions over monomedia expansion,few such benefits can be found in support ofderegulating cross-ownership of television andnewspapers.     

Normal Accidents of Expertise

Charles Perrow used the term “normal accidents” to characterize a type of catastrophic failure that resulted when complex, tightly coupled production systems encountered a certain kind of anomalous event. These were events in which systems failures interacted with one another in a way that could not be anticipated, and could not be easily understood and corrected. Systems of the production of expert knowledge are increasingly becoming tightly coupled. Unlike classical science, which operated with a long time horizon, many current forms of expert knowledge are directed at immediate solutions to complex problems. These are prone to breakdowns like the kind discussed by Perrow. The example of the Homestake mine experiment shows that even in modern physics complex systems can produce knowledge failures that last for decades. The concept of knowledge risk is introduced, and used to characterize the risk of failure in such systems of knowledge production.     

Willingness to pay: individual or household?

This paper considers how respondents model the open-ended willingness to pay question, what is your maximum willingness to pay? In the specific context of valuing Irish public service broadcasting, respondents were asked a follow-up question in order to explore whether the initial response was an individual or household bid. The results suggest the presence of significant ambiguity in how responses to standard willingness to pay questions should be interpreted and aggregated.     

China’s “Gene War of the Century” and Its Aftermath: The Contest Goes On

Following the successful cloning of genes for mostly rare genetic diseases in the early 1990s, there was a nearly universal enthusiasm that similar approaches could be employed to hunt down genes predisposing people to complex diseases. Around 1996, several well-funded international gene-hunting teams, enticed by the low cost of collecting biological samples and China’s enormous population, and ushered in by some well-connected Chinese intermediaries, came to China to hunt down disease susceptibility genes. This alarmed and, in some cases, enraged many poorly funded Chinese scientists, who perceived them as formidable competitors. Some depicted foreign gene-hunters as greedy pilferers of the vast Chinese genetic gold mine, comparing it to the plundering of national treasures from China by invaders in the past, and called upon the government and their fellow countrymen to rise up and protect China’s genetic gold mine. Media uproar ensued, proclaiming the imminent “gene war of the century.” This article chronicles the key events surrounding this “war” and its aftermath, exposes some inherent complexities in identifying susceptibility genes for complex diseases, highlights some issues obscured or completely overlooked in the passionate and patriotic rhetoric, and debunks some misconceptions embedded in this conflict. In addition, it argues that during the entire course of this “war,” the public’s interest went conspicuously unmentioned. Finally, it articulates several lessons that can be learned from this conflict, and outlines challenges facing human genetics researchers.     

Arts policy research for the next 25 years: a trajectory after <Emphasis Type="Italic">Patrons Despite Themselves</Emphasis>

This article was presented at the symposium dedicated to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Patrons Despite Themselves: Taxpayers and Arts Policy (Feld et al., 1983), held by the Association for Cultural Economics International, Boston, June 2008. It considers “big questions” in arts policy that promise intellectual and social payoff if approached in the spirit that animated the effort behind Patrons Despite Themselves, with special attention to issues that economists might illuminate, namely: (1) Waste of resources; (2) A workable business model for digital media; (3) Increasing the value created through amateur participation; (4) Withdrawal of elites, especially economic elites, from their historic participation in arts governance and support; and (5) Fragmentation of collective patrimony. The associated questions are the same in each case: Why is this happening? Is there a market failure or equity justification for government action? What policies would help?     

Commemorative places,political spaces: Virginia Indians,the Jamestown Quadricentennial,and the quest for sovereignty

ABSTRACT

This essay examines the cross-cultural communication strategies deployed by a coalition of indigenous tribes in Virginia to leverage the Quadricentennial commemoration of the founding at Jamestown in support of their sovereignty campaign. The tensions between Jamestown’s mythos as the “birthplace of democracy” and the natives’ historical and contemporary lived experiences, combined with the national and international attention focused on the events, constructed the 400th anniversary “celebrations” as a compelling location for social action. The coalition employed intercultural communicative practices—particularly cross-cultural dialogue and negotiation—as means of mobilizing these tensions to renegotiate their relationship with the federal government, illustrating the intersection of intercultural communication, memory, and identity.     

Private or Public?

This paper concerns the consequences of subsidizing art production. Once a government offers grants and subsidies, artists can decide between public and private funding. A joint model of this choice-situation and the related earnings is derived. The model is tested for the case of visual artists in the Netherlands. The analyses show that subsidizing artists enhances a winner-takes-all tendency for the market at large. Financial success on both the private and the public market appears to be not particularly related to human capital, but to personal characteristics, government recognition and (unobserved) talents.