Expert Opinion and Gastronomy: The Recipe for Success

Experts' opinions play an important role in the gastronomic market for the following reasons: information is imperfect and very costly to acquire and quality is, in large part, subjective and consumers need experts to define it. The number of guidebooks currently issued, their success (Michelin: 650,000 sold; GaultMillau: 200,000 sold) and the strong level of correlation generally obtained between prices and ratings or rankings (0.63 on average) for this class of activity illustrate this influence. Without experts, supply and demand would find it difficult to meet.Therefore, identifying the determinants of these evaluations of quality and then estimating their respective impact become relevant. According to the experts, the art of cooking is the only determinant that they take into account when selecting and then evaluating the chefs. For the chefs, the setting also appears to be a determinant and not the least important one.What is the best strategy to become a ``first rate'' chef? Would Alain Ducasse, one of the most famous French chefs, get the same rating in a roadside café as in a luxury restaurant? To answer these questions, a quality equation is estimated using an original database concerning 185 leading French chefs who have been selected in one of the most famous French guidebooks: GaultMillau (2000 edition). The results show that there are two strategies to become a ``first rate'' chef but that the art of cooking prevails over setting. This is in line with the observation that some gourmet restaurants tend to over-invest in luxurious surroundings.     

Radiography of paintings: Limitations of transmission radiography and exploration of emission radiography using phosphor imaging plates

Radiography in transmission mode is a well-established technique to visualize the internal structure of paintings. However, for many paintings the pictorial layer cannot be clearly visualized with conventional radiography because of interference from paint on the reverse, the material composition or the regular structure of supports or subsurface layers. Traditional lead white grounds in particular cause specific imaging problems not encountered with more modern white pigments such as zinc and titanium whites. A solution to this problem is radiography in emission mode. This study demonstrates and articulates those factors that can interfere with visualization of a painting's pictorial layer using transmission radiography as well as those that contribute to the effectiveness of emission radiography in visualizing such information. While emission radiography has been applied to the examination of paintings for over half a century, it is a cumbersome technique that is further complicated by the need to work under dim safelight illumination when X-radiographic film is used. Therefore, the use of computed radiography using storage phosphor imaging plates for emission radiography was also investigated.     

Back in the bazaar: taking Pierre Bourdieu to a trading room

Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of aesthetic judgment, this text offers an inductive account of financial reasoning inside a trading room. Driven to maximise bank profits, trading room operators do not find ‘one best way’. Rather they choose among several possible winning strategies: mathematical arbitrage, economic analysis, chartist analysis. These strategies differ sharply from one another in their conception of the market, method, proximity to scholarly knowledge, and legitimacy. We show that the choice of one method depends on a system of tastes and distastes that are both historical – depending on individuals’ social and educational background – and relational – depending on the individual's relative position within the trading room viewed as a field.     

Chinese communication characteristics: A Yin Yang perspective

Research on Chinese communication has so far focused on the understanding of the impact of traditional Confucian cultural values on Chinese communication characteristics. While this Confucian-oriented Chinese communication style remains meaningful and in many situations powerful in Chinese society and in communication between Chinese and western professionals, the paradox inherent in Chinese culture and communication has rarely been researched. Moreover, China's three decades of rapid economic progress and unprecedented interactions with the rest of the world have contributed to an emergent Chinese communication style, which differs from the traditional one. Based on the philosophical principle of Yin Yang, this paper provides a framework to capture the paradox and change of Chinese communication characteristics in today's changing Chinese society. Implications for how to communicate effectively with the Chinese from practitioners’ point of view are also discussed.     

Game location and aggression in rugby league

The present study examined the relationship between aggression and game location in rugby league. We videotaped a random sample of 21 professional rugby league games played in the 2000 Super League season. Trained observers recorded the frequency of aggressive behaviours. Consistent with previous research, which used territoriality theories as a basis for prediction, we hypothesized that the home team would behave more aggressively than the away team. The results showed no significant difference in the frequency of aggressive behaviours exhibited by the home and away teams. However, the away teams engaged in substantially more aggressive behaviours in games they lost compared with games they won. No significant differences in the pattern of aggressive behaviours for home and away teams emerged as a function of game time (i.e. first or second half) or game situation (i.e. when teams were winning, losing or drawing). The findings suggest that while home and away teams do not display different levels of aggression, the cost of behaving aggressively (in terms of game outcome) may be greater for the away team.     

Combined effects of sleep deprivation and strenuous exercise on cognitive performances during The North Face® Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc® (UTMB®)

This study investigated the effects of combined sleep deprivation and strenuous exercise on cognitive and neurobehavioral performance among long-distance runners completing one of the most difficult ultramarathons in the world. Seventeen runners participated. Each had a wrist-worn actigraph throughout the race to record their sleep time. In addition, each individual’s performance in 10-min response-time tests before and after the race was recorded and a questionnaire enabled participants to report any difficulties they experienced during the competition. During race completion times of 27 to 44 h, combined acute lack of sleep (12 ± 17 min of rest during the race) and strenuous exercise (168.0 km) had marked adverse effects on cognitive performances ranging from mere lengthening of response time to serious symptoms such as visual hallucinations. This study suggests that regardless of rest duration and time in race, cognitive performances of ultramarathoners are adversely affected.     

Perception of spin and the interception of curved football trajectories

Using plain white and chequered footballs, we evaluated observers’ sensitivity to rotation direction and the effects of ball texture on interceptive behaviour. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the maximal distance at which observers (n = 8) could perceive the direction of ball rotation decreased when rotation frequency increased from 5 to 11 Hz. Detection threshold distances were nevertheless always larger for the chequered (decreasing from 47 to 28 m) than for the white (decreasing from 15 to 11 m) ball. In Experiment 2, participants (n = 7) moved laterally along a goal line to intercept the two balls launched with or without ±4.3 Hz sidespin from a 30-m distance. The chequered ball gave rise to shorter movement initiation times when trajectories curved outward (±6 m arrival positions) or did not curve (±2 m arrival positions). Inward curving trajectories, arriving at the same ±2 m distances from the participants as the non-curving trajectories, evoked initial movements in the wrong direction for both ball types, but the amplitude and duration of these reversal movements were attenuated for the chequered ball. We conclude that the early detection of rotation permitted by the chequered ball allowed modulation of interception behaviour without changing its qualitative characteristics.