STRANGE YET STYLISH HEADGEAR VR consumption and the construction of gender

This article examines how gender is inscribed and reproduced in the consumption of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies. The focus is on how virtual reality systems become embedded in 'everyday life' through leisure and consumption, and how the spectacles and disciplines associated with consumption sites produce gendered virtual subjects. Studies of new communications technologies have tended to polarize between 'cyberpunk'/'cyberfeminist' visions of bodily transcendence in 'cyberspaces', and the critique of such visions from social theorists who focus on the reproduction of social and cultural inequalities through technical systems. These approaches tend to neglect the specific sites in which the social relations of VR are played out. A 'multi-sited' ethnographic study of immersive virtual reality systems is the basis for discussion of how virtual reality technologies produce gender in specific sites. Virtual systems are positioned and used differently in various locales such as arcades and art galleries, bars and theme parks and cafes. The article discusses the practices of consumption which (re)produce and maintain conventional bodily and subjective boundaries. What relationships are becoming institutionalized? Are new conventions of gender created in these consumption relationships? The construction of spectacle and space, and the specific bodily disciplines required for participation in virtual realities in locations of consumption is particularly important in the formation of gender dynamics. Multiple subject positions are offered through competing technical, economic and cultural practices in diverse sites. These positions can establish new conventions of virtual identities and experiences, but also remain shot through with familiar operational categories of gendered identities and bodily practices. This article argues that immersive virtual reality technologies cannot be understood without some consideration of the locales in which they are embedded, and the social identities they make possible or constrain. A local, reflexive and feminist orientation assists in understanding the gendered dynamics associated with 'becoming virtual'.     

TRANSFORMING DISCOURSE INTO PRACTICE: COMPUTERHYSTORIES AND DIGITAL CULTURES AROUND 1984

This paper discusses some theoretical approaches to the question of how culture, technologies and the social interact. These considerations result from the author' research in the genesis of digital cultures in the 1980s. The paper begins by outlining the author' research project, and then continues with a discussion of some of the most influential approaches in the cultural studies of technology.This article then presents a small sample of the author' analysis, which combines narratological and discourse analytical methods with practice-oriented cultural theories, such as those of Pierre Bourdieu, Régis Debray and Bruno Latour.     

Housing Policy and the Elderly

Subsidized senior high-rise apartments have tended to neglect the needs of an increasingly aged and frail resident population. Research demonstrates that this population has greater unmet needs than elderly who reside in traditional community housing. This paper makes the case for enriched senior high-rise apartments as a viable alternative for elders who need assistance in order to maintain an independent lifestyle.     

WEB PAGES, AUTHORS AND AUDIENCES: The meaning of a mouse click

One popular framework for analysing web pages has been to think of them as identity performances on the part of the author. This framework opens up possibilities for analysis of the ways in which identity performances are composed. The personal web pages to which this perspective is most immediately applicable, are, however, now only a small proportion of the overall amount of information available on the World Wide Web. It would be possible, by extension, to analyse institutional web pages as performances of the institutional identity. It is the contention of this paper that to do so is to miss out on some important aspects of web page design: namely that the production of a web page involves understandings not only of the audience for the page but also of the capacities of the technology. In addition, web page production has to become a socially meaningful act for the individual web page developer and the institution concerned. It is, therefore, argued that the analysis of web pages can usefully learn from media studies and the sociology of technology in this respect. An interview-based study of the developers of web pages for the service departments of a UK university is described. The ideas of audience which the authors use are far from homogeneous: they include an institutional offline audience for the page, a pre-existing imagined audience, developers themselves as audience, and the technology of the browser as a stand-in audience. The audience and the capacities of the technology are developed in context through the practices of designers.     

现代科技革命兴起的历史背景分析

现代科技革命的兴起是特定历史时期的科学理论、生产和实践技术及社会环境共同决定的。     

基于分布式结构的铁路工程建设信息管理系统

为适应铁路工程建设中信息管理的要求 ,在现代铁路建设中引入BPR、MRP等先进管理思想 ,以WindowsDNA技术设计开发出一种基于网络的信息管理系统 ,系统采用了全局数据库管理系统结构 ,降低了系统的构建及维护成本。最后 ,给出了系统的物料管理子系统的逻辑结构示意图 ,并列出构建该系统的主要程序段。     

“以道驭术”的道家技术伦理思想述论

在传统技术伦理思想中，道家独具一格，以老、庄为代表的道家技术伦理思想在理论上具有自然主义和技术批判主义的特点：由“道法自然”立论，其技术价值观以否定为基本特征，道家因此成为中国历史上反对技术异化的“先觉者”。同时，道家主张“道进乎枝”，提倡“以道驭枝”，这对于我们今天处理好技术与道德的关系具有重要意义。     

地区间农业生产效率差异研究

本文运用非参数Maimquist生产率指数评价了1990—2005年中国各省农业经济效率逐期变化动态情况，并利用该指数可分解为技术进步、技术效率改进特性，详细考察中国各区域发展不平衡的具体原因，旨在为促进农业经济健康发展提供科学借鉴。     

关于武汉科技大学历史沿革的研究

本文以大量史料为基础,全面概述了武汉科技大学105年的校史沿革,重点查证学校前身是张之洞创办的湖北工艺学堂,是湖北地区最早的专业学堂之一。