Visitors' Role in an Exhibition Debate: Science in American Life

In the year after the exhibition Science in American Life opened at the National Museum of American History objections were raised by the exhibition's chief sponsor, the American Chemical Society, and by the American Physical Society. These critics argued that the exhibition gave the public a negative view of science. The Institutional Studies Office was asked to conduct a study to determine whether or not the exhibition was affecting visitors' views of science, and, if so, in what direction. Using an entrance/exit survey design, the study determined conclusively that the visiting public entered the exhibition with a very positive view of science and technology and that their views were reinforced and confirmed by the experience of Science in American Life, rather than changed in either a positive or negative direction.     

Development and initial validation of an instrument to assess the motivational qualities of music in exercise and sport: The Brunel Music Rating Inventory

Equivocal results of the psychophysical effects of music have been explained in part by the insensitivity of researchers to important personal and situational variables when selecting music. The aim of the present study was to operationalize a conceptual framework for the prediction of psychophysical responses to music into a music rating inventory to assess the motivational qualities of music in exercise and sport environments. An initial item pool was developed and administered to 334 aerobics instructors. Exploratory factor analysis produced a 13-item, four-factor structure (association, musicality, cultural impact and rhythm response), which accounted for 59.2% of the variance. This model demonstrated acceptable fit indices when tested using confirmatory factor analysis on 314 exercise-to-music participants, and was better than an alternative two-factor model. When cross-validated using multisample confirmatory factor analysis, the model also showed an acceptable fit overall, although some invariance in the rhythm response factor was evident that can be attributed to the exclusive use of synchronous music by aerobics instructors. The Brunel Music Rating Inventory appears to be a valid and reliable tool for both researchers and practitioners to assess the motivational qualities of music in exercise and sport environments.     

From intelligence to evidence-based healthcare: a purchasing odyssey

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Semiotics and Transitionalist Pragmatism

Colin Koopman identifies a longstanding tension between experiential givenism and linguisticism in forms of pragmatism, and offers semiotics as a candidate for resolving this. In this paper, I offer a pansemiotic account that construes the universe as events, and experience as implication in events. This process account resonates strongly with most of Koopman's aspirations for transitionalist pragmatism, but with one notable exception: it is strongly post‐humanist. The argument is in three stages. The first sketches out a semiotic process metaphysics that construes the sign as ubiquitous and evolutionary (qua Peirce) and as deferred (qua Derrida) and also as non‐quantifiable (thus addressing another problem besetting modern philosophy: mathematisation, cf. scientisation), while denying raw quality (contra Peirce) and the primacy of language in any form (contra Derrida). The second stage fleshes out this anti‐Cartesian world picture in terms of its inherent transitionalism, implicit meliorism and inevitable post‐humanism. The nature and role of the human on this account is considered briefly. The final stage considers the semiotics of the encounter on this account, and concludes with some thoughts about the teaching‐and‐learning encounter, taken as emblematic of the human role in taking things forward through explicitly social interaction. Such encounters can only be evaluated contextually, with respect to contestable considerations of significance and of progress.