Rhythmic behavior of social insects from single to multibody

Revealing the evolution of well-organized social behavior requires understanding a mechanism by which collective behavior is produced. A well-organized group may be produced by two possible mechanisms, namely, a central control and a distributed control. In the second case, local interactions between interchangeable components function at the bottom of the collective behavior. We focused on a simple behavior of an individual ant and analyzed the interactions between a pair of ants. In an experimental set-up, we placed the workers in a hemisphere without a nest, food, and a queen, and recorded their trajectories. The temporal pattern of velocity of each ant was obtained. From this bottom-up approach, we found the characteristic behavior of a single worker and a pair of workers as follows: (1) Activity of each individual has a rhythmic component. (2) Interactions between a pair of individuals result in two types of coupling, namely the anti-phase and the in-phase coupling. The direct physical contacts between the pair of workers might cause a phase shift of the rhythmic components in individual ants. We also build up a simple model based on the coupled oscillators toward the understanding of the whole colony behavior.

Globalization and technology-mediated distance education: developing countries’ perspective

The contemporary global economy places great value on highly educated workers but devalues workers in repetitive or low skill jobs. In order to thrive in this new economy, countries must ensure sufficient higher education opportunities for their population. However, a lack of resources is a major barrier faced by many developing countries in expanding their higher education systems. Technology-mediated distance education has the potential to be an invaluable tool in offering educational opportunities to people, if the other necessary conditions for participation are met. Although technology-mediated education was first considered to be a medium to bridge the learning divide across space, today it is feared that it could well become an inequality intensifier. Drawing on examples from developing countries, this paper considers factors regarding implementing technology-mediated distance education, including failure to address contextual issues and possible consequences. Challenges and policy implications are also discussed.

Conceptualizing design

Companies are becoming increasingly dependent on the productivity of their knowledge workers in comparison to manual workers (Ramírez and Nembhard 2004, p.602). Practitioners, researchers or commentators do not consistently conceptualize design (Love 2000, p.295; Pugh 1990, p.65). There is a need to not only rethink design processes and practices but also to re-consider design conceptualization that underpins processes and practices. The aim is to develop a clear understanding of design as conceptualized in the literatures from construction design, design management, design productivity, design practices and the process of design. The objective is to review how researchers have conceptualized design.

A Guide to Office Clerical Time Standards

A Guide to Office Clerical Time Standards is an instructional performance piece based on a corporate manual from 1960. The pamphlet is focused on the time necessary for the accomplishment of minute labour procedures in the office, from the depressing and releasing of typewriter keys to the opening and closing of filing cabinet drawers. In the performance, seven costumed performers represent the different levels of management and employment while performing the actions described in the guide, accompanied by a live musical score. There has been much discussion of the changes to work in the west following the decline of post-Fordist service sector jobs. These increasingly emphasise the specificity of employees’ knowledge and cognitive skill. However, this greater flexibility and creativity at work has been accompanied by an opposite trajectory. The proletarisation of white collar work has given rise to more bureaucracy, target assessment and control for workers in previously looser creative professions, from academia to the arts. The midcentury office is the meeting point of these cultures, where the assembly line efficiency management of the factory meets the quantifying control of the knowledge economy. A Guide to Office Clerical Time Standards explores the survival of one regime into its successor following the lines of combined and uneven development that have turned the emancipatory promise of immaterial labour into the perma-temp hell of the cognitariat. The movement is accompanied by a score of guitar, bass and drums, the componenets of the rock ‘n’ roll music that rose from the car factories of the motor city and the cotton fields of the southern states to represent the same junction of expression and control.