Journal articles on the topic 'Gnomon (The word)'

As the author of the earliest secular account of the universe's formation, Anaximander of Miletus can lay a strong claim to the title of first Greek cosmologist. Tradition also credited him with invention of the first time-telling instruments: ‘He was the first to constructgnomonsfor the identification of solstices, time spans,horaiand the equinox’ (οὗτος πρῶτος γνώμονας κατεσκεύασε πρὸς διάγνωσιν τροπῶν τε ἡλίου καὶ χρόνων καὶ ὡρῶν καὶ ἰσημερίας, Euseb.Praep. evang. 10.14.11). This paper reconstructs the location, design and function of a γνώμων which he erected at Sparta, and moots some intriguing parallels with the Augustan Horologium on the Campus Martius. Before we turn to the evidence, however, two points of terminology need to be clarified. The Greek term γνώμων can denote either a sundial—a pointer attached to a surface with marks for tracking its shadow—or the pointer itself, in English also called the gnomon; Eusebius’ reference to the identification of times suggests that what Anaximander created was in fact a sundial. Now, depending on its design, a sundial can tell either the hour of the day, the season of the year, or both; from Eusebius’ text it is not clear which function Anaximander's dial possessed, since the noun ὧραι can mean either ‘hours’ or ‘seasons’. But only one usage of the word would be appropriate for the sixth century: no authors refer to hours of the day prior to Herodotus (2.109) and there is no evidence for Greek sundials displaying hours prior toc.350b.c.; by contrast, the use of ὥρα to mean ‘season of the year’ is as old as Homer and Hesiod, and the solstices and equinoxes mentioned by Eusebius demarcate the transitions between the seasons. Anaximander's device was a sundial, then, one which tracked seasons rather than hours. According to Diogenes Laertius, the cosmologist set up one such device at Sparta (2.1).

Professor James Evans is a physicist working an University of Pudget Sound in the USA. His reseatch is focused on ancient astronomy and application of that knowledge. He also successfully attempted to build gnomon, astrolabe or analemna – instruments used in antuiquity and medieval times to make observations of celestial bodies. In his work, The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy, professor Evans introduces the reader to the evolution of astronomical knowledge, from the simplest observations made by farmers or sailors to complex astronomical models and calculations of asronomers such as Ptolemy. The author focuses mostly on ancient Babylonians and Greeks as he believes that their input on that field was most significant and the apex of ancient astonomy was Almagest by Ptolemy (one may criticise author’s thesis that Copernicus’ work was mostly a repetition of dicoveries made by the Greek astronomer with addition of the heliocentric theory of the universe). Next, professor Evans speaks of celestial pheres, stars and planets, also explaining the particular theories related to them. What is interesting is the author’s approach to ancient testimonies. He does not only ask what we learn from ancient scriptures, tablets and other findings, but also how do we learn it. Language and phrasing in this book are clear enough to unsderstand for those without background in physics or ancient languages. Priceless addition to this work are numerous illustrations placed on page margins although it happens sometimes that figure to which the current text refers to is located several pages away. This requires te reader to pay close atention to figure numbers. The word ‘practice’ mentioned in this book’s title points to one of the most importants assets of professor Evans’ work. Apart from sharing the knowledge with the reader the author shows him how to use that knowledge to verify the author’s hypotheses and how to make the observations the way they were mentioned in the ancient texts. The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy shows the reader how to make observations of daily and annual movement of the Sun, how to determine latitude of a particular place or how to measure the approximate distance of Sun or the Moon form the Earth. Each of the subchapters is ended by list of excersises that allow to test the freshly gained knowledge. On top of that the author has also provided schematics which allow the reader to build his own astrolabe – an instrument commonly used by Arabic and European astronomers. Some might feel surprised that footnotes have been moved to the end of the entire book which makes it a little difficult to track loci of the texts quoted by the autor. Apparently it is a compromise made for sake of clarity of the lecture and general estethic feeling of the book. Without any doubt The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy is a position worthy of being recommended not only to enthusiasts of physics and astronomy but also of ancient science and culture.

The essay describes Angus Fletcher’s ambitious, often uncanny ways of mapping the nature of literary form and literary knowing. The essay describes how Fletcher himself describes our crucial metaphors of order and disorder, our “cosmic” (sometimes cosmetic) images, how he explores their conditions of possibility. The focus is on three words, three figures of thought in Fletcher’s work: daemon, central to his picture of allegorical agency, its compulsive, almost supernatural character; gnome, or the gnomic, a name for what’s most secret, most difficult, and yet most fundamental in literary expression; and horizon, a mark of how human thought, in collaboration with nature or the given world, shapes an image of space, direction, and limit, an imaginary line that also helps to frame ideas of transcendence. Taken together, these three words offer coordinates by which one can start to map the unfolding labyrinth of Fletcher’s conceptual world.

Abstract The Old English poem Maxims I has generally been regarded as a wisdom/catalogue poem listing miscellaneous gnomes without any major structural or thematic unity. It has also been suggested that it actually consists of three separate works, as it is divided into three in the manuscript. Against these views, this article will argue that the poet has a design and purpose in mind, and intends to produce a unified work. In listing gnomes, the poet focusses on good matches of beings or concepts, since well-matched pairs represent one of the fundamental principles in the order of the world in Biblical tradition as well as in the ‘scientific’ tradition of the time that ultimately went back to the ancient Greek theory of quaternity. Near the beginning of the work, the poet actually refers to the principle by the gnome tu beoð gemæccan ‘two are companions’ (l. 23b), with several clear-cut examples of well-matched pairs of beings or concepts. Various pairings of this type are dealt with throughout the work, and in order to remind the readers of this key concept, the poet inserts multiple series of short and simple gnomes listing good matches in all three parts. By this cumulative process, the poet presents truths, norms, and patterns in the Anglo-Saxon world and locates them in a wider context of the world order established by God the Creator. The thematic unity, as well as lexical, dialectal, and metrical affinities demonstrated in all three parts suggest that Maxims I is intended as a unified work. In fact, the three parts seem to have circulated together for a long time even before they were copied into the Exeter Book in the latter half of the tenth century.

This article analyzes the creative concept of the fantastic work of A.K. Goldebaev "Bez letoischisleniia" ["Without chronology"], which was described in the "diary" of the writer. Comparing the plot frames of some of Goldebaev's published novels and stories, such as "V chem prichina?" ("Ssora")["What is the reason?" (Quarrel)] (1903), "Podonki" [Scum] (1904), "Podloe sostoianie" [Mean Condition] (1906), "Letniy otdykh" ("V stepi") [Summer Vacation (In the prairie)] (1907), "Galchonok" ["Young jackdaw"] (1910), "Mama ushla" [Mom is gone] (1910 ), "Gnomy" [Gnomes] (1911), the author of the article comes to the conclusion that, according to the idea, the novel or story "Bez letoischisleniia" ["Without chronology"] should have contained a solution to all the problems raised by the writer at different creative stages. Thus, the writer models an ideal, utopian, in his opinion, world, cleansed of the sins and problems of contemporary society, including poverty, illness, prostitution, adultery and, as a result, unhappy children. The main research methods in the article are comparative and structural. The novelty of the scientific work is, firstly, in the attention to the plot of the work, described in the writer's "diary" not presented to the general reader, and secondly, in comparison of the creative sketch with the already published works, that reveales it deep meaning. It is worth noting that it is quite possible that the plot of the final version, stored in the form of a manuscript in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, is fundamentally different from the sketch. Thus, the author of the article emphasized the value and seriousness of the problems of the literary sketch, which, at first glance, seems to be a naive fantasy of the writer.

AbstractNine of the seventy-nine alliterative quatrains of Sagang Sechen’s great gnomic poem are revisited, their possible literary sources suggested, their interpretation revised. Seven of them go back, entirely or partially, to Sa-skya Paṇḍita’s Subhāṣitaratnanidhi, one to the Janapoṣanabindhu, one of Nāgārjuna’s nītiśāstras, and one uses a comparison known from the Secret History. Parallels are quoted from Sonom Gara’s and the Oirat Zaya Paṇḍita’s prose translations of the Subhāṣitaratnanidhi. Also discussed are the rare word küčigei and the possible identity of Sonom Gara and Suonanqilo.

A study of the so-called zero-forms of the present tense 3rd person singular and plural (without inflectional -tь) in the birch bark manuscripts has once again attracted the attention of researchers to this grammatical phenomenon. Andrey Zaliznyak established the zero-forms usage positions and their range and functions, and he arrived at the conclusion that they are Novgorod dialectisms. Analysis of the Old Slavonic and written sources of the Russian Southwest found similarities with the Novgorod birch bark manuscripts, so the zero-forms should be considered Proto-Slavic dialectisms, inherited by different Old Russian dialects and tracing back to the injunctive and the conjunctive, its later substitute. At the same time, data correlation showed the narrowness of the birch bark manuscripts’ discursive range. A. Zaliznyak discovered several jе ‘is’ word forms in a supposedly enclitic function. He noted, however, that there was a lack of material for drawing final conclusions. The present paper provides evidence of the jе word form usage in the function of Wackernagel enclitics in different sources, especially in the 11th century Sinaiskii Paterik (Pratum spiritual), where, as it turns out, this type of enclitic was closely related with an interrogative sentence type, not always functioning as a link-verb and meaning a non-factive action of supposition. The jе word form is also used widely in a non-enclitic position, where it has a non-actual, primarily gnomic, present tense meaning.

AbstractWhat is an object? What conditions declare it to be “real”? When can a concept, that has been proposed in a physical theory to describe our observations, be declared “physical” or, in other words, to be an element of reality? These questions pertain to the old debate between idealism and realism. In the last decades, the discussion was principally fuelled by the development of Quantum Mechanics, and particularly by the study of the process of measurement and the development of the concept of complementarity by Niels Bohr and the School of Copenhagen. In a few pages taken from The View from the Center of the Universe, Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams propose to limit the use of the concept of existence not only toward the microscopic world but also toward the very large structures of the Universe. This moves us to reopen the Pandora's Box, in a way in which the consideration of Time may play a fundamental role, as Whitehead, for example, insisted on. However, the interrogation seems to drift necessarily towards a reflection onto the concept of emergence and its relation with time. The present article is the end product of a three month's long Forum opened in February 2008 by the initiator among members of the International Society for the Study of Time, onto the “Gnomon” zone of the web site of the Association. Contributions from Nancy Abrams, Mark Aultman, Troy Camplin, Julius T. Fraser, Paul Harris, Marcel Le Bel, Jean Lette, Carlos Montemayor, Giovanni Vicario and Amrit Srecko Sorli were particularly beneficial to the discussion.

The field of performance studies has invigorated premodern scholarship by directing critical attention to live, ephemeral events that unsettle the textual archive. This special issue of JMEMS builds on this work by stepping away from the usual emphasis on theater and its texts to examine “performance” conceived more broadly. With case studies that range from a pig-clubbing “game” in medieval festivals to the gnomic utterances of secretive eighteenth-century philosophical rituals, these essays ask how we study a medium that has, by its nature, disappeared. How, in other words, do we engage textual remnants to locate traces of embodied action? A forum midway through the issue offers speculative and provocative answers to this question, and an afterword takes a wider view of the enterprise to think through its implications for periodization and historical analysis.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT','serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;" lang="EN-US">The three odes written in greater asclepiad verse by Horace have a moralizing tone. This meter, </span><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT','serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;" lang="EN-US">with its marked diaereses after the sixth and tenth syllabes, favors exhortative and gnomic</span><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT','serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;" lang="EN-US">expressions. In ode I 11, Horace explores asclepiad’s metrical characteristics selecting to each part </span><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT','serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;" lang="EN-US">of the verses words and expressions suitable to the rhythmic impression of the tripartite structure.</span><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT','serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;" lang="EN-US">Horace choses his words, rhythms, and images consciously and with great care.</span></p>

Pseudancistrus reus is a new species from the Río Caroní (Río Orinoco drainage) of Venezuela known from two individuals. It differs from all other Pseudancistrus by having a color pattern consisting of alternating dark and light bars. In addition, it differs from all except P. genisetiger and P. papariae by having an incomplete mid-dorsal plate row and from P. genisetiger and P. papariae by having 18 contiguous mid-dorsal plates vs. 14 plates, a plateless break and then two more plates at the end of the caudal peduncle. The type locality of P. reus was submerged by the construction of the Caruachi dam, and is also the only known locality of the gymnotiform Sternarchorhynchus gnomus, making it imperative that the conservation status of these and other potential Caroní endemics be assessed. Pseudancistrus reus is the first species of Pseudancistrus sensu stricto from the Orinoco. Although the relationship of the species to other Pseudancistrus is unknown, P. reus may have gained access to the Orinoco either via stream capture between the Caroní and the Rio Uraricoera (Rio Branco – Rio Negro drainage) or via stream capture between the Caroní and either the Cuyuní or Mazaruni Rivers (Essequibo River drainage).key word: Siluriformes, Loricariidae, taxonomySe describe como especie nueva Pseudancistrus reus del río Caroní (cuenca del río Orinoco) en Venezuela, basada en dos ejemplares. Difiere de todas los demás Pseudancistrus en tener un patrón de pigmentación que consiste de barras claras alternando con oscuras. Además, difiere de todas los demás, menos P. genisetiger y P. papariae en tener la fila medio-dorsal de placas incompleta, y de P. genisetiger y P. papariae difiere en tener 18 placas medio-dorsales contiguas vs. 14 placas seguidas por una zona sin placas y luego dos placas más en el pedúnculo caudal). La localidad típica de P. reus fue sumergida por las aguas del embalse Caruachi. Ese sitio es también la localidad típica de Sternarchorhynchus gnomus, haciéndolo imprescindible evaluar el estado de conservación de estas dos especies más las otras endémicas del bajo Caroní. Pseudancistrus reus es la primera especies de Pseudancistrus sensu stricto de la cuenca del río Orinoco. Aunque desconocemos las relaciones con otras Pseudancistrus, P. reus puede haber ganado acceso al Caroní vía la captura de caños en las cabeceras del río Uraricoera-Branco-Negro o del río Cuyuní o Mazaruni, afluentes del río Essequibo.

Background: Recent evidence has indicated that long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) is involved in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes, but nothing is known about lncRNA expression changes of lymphatic endothelial cells in response to type 2 diabetes. Methods: The GSE38396 dataset was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database and the probe sets of Human Gnome U133 Plus2.0 microarray were annotated for lncRNA. Differentially expressed lncRNAs between diabetic and non-diabetic lymphatic endothelial cells were calculated. Results: Compared with lymphatic endothelial cells in non-diabetic patients, 31 lncRNAs were down-regulated and 79 lncRNAs were up-regualted in lymphatic endothelial cells of type 2 diabetic patients. Several known lncRNAs were found, such as H19, GAS5, UCA1, CRNDE, GAS5, and LINC00312. Co-expression network of differentially expressed lncRNAs and mRNAs were constructed. Based on genomic regions of these lncRNAs, we found that binding sites of MAF and TCF3 were enriched and these lncRNAs may be related to insulin reporter signaling pathway and response to insulin stimulus. Conclusions: In a word, we found a set of lncRNAs were differentially expressed in lymphatic endothelial cells in response to type 2 diabetes and these lncRNAs may be involved in the pathogenesis of diabetes-related complications.

Abstract At least 5% of children present unexpected difficulties in expressing and understanding spoken language. This condition is highly heritable and often co-occurs with other neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia and ADHD. Through an exome sequencing analysis, we identified a rare missense variant (chr16:84405221, GRCh38.p12) in the ATP2C2 gene. ATP2C2 was implicated in language disorders by linkage and association studies, and exactly the same variant was reported previously in a different exome sequencing study for language impairment (LI). We followed up this finding by genotyping the mutation in cohorts selected for LI and comorbid disorders. We found that the variant had a higher frequency in LI cases (1.8%, N = 360) compared with cohorts selected for dyslexia (0.8%, N = 520) and ADHD (0.7%, N = 150), which presented frequencies comparable to reference databases (0.9%, N = 24 046 gnomAD controls). Additionally, we observed that carriers of the rare variant identified from a general population cohort (N = 42, ALSPAC cohort) presented, as a group, lower scores on a range of reading and language-related measures compared to controls (N = 1825; minimum P = 0.002 for non-word reading). ATP2C2 encodes for an ATPase (SPCA2) that transports calcium and manganese ions into the Golgi lumen. Our functional characterization suggested that the rare variant influences the ATPase activity of SPCA2. Thus, our results further support the role of ATP2C2 locus in language-related phenotypes and pinpoint the possible effects of a specific rare variant at molecular level.

A study was designed to isolate potentially pathogenic, endophytic fungi of red alder (Alnus rubra). Apparently healthy leaves and 2- to 3-year-old twigs were collected at three and eight sites, respectively, surface sterilized, cut into small pieces, and incubated on 2% malt extract agar. Ninety percent of the leaves and more than 80% of the twigs were colonized by endophytic fungi; 40 different fungi were isolated and identified. Fungi previously recorded as plant pathogens dominated the endophyte community of leaves (Gnomonia setacea, Gnomoniella tubaeformis, and Septoria alni) but were only minor components of the fungal population of twigs (Melanconis alni and a Nectria species). Abundance of each fungus species and the species composition depended on the plant organ sampled and collection site. In twigs, three main types of endophyte associations occurred among sites: the first was dominated by the unidentified "Black Mycelium 2," the second by Phomopsis sp. 2, and the third by Ophiovalsa suffusa, Pezicula livida, and Phloeosporella sp. The endophyte community of leaves was dominated by G. setacea except at one site where G. tubaeformis was the predominant fungus. Key words: endophytic fungi, fungal community, Alnus rubra, mycoherbicide.

Mycelial fungi associated with leaves, flowers, and fruits of strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duchesne) were monitored in a field plot from August 1986 to July 1987. The principal fungi found on leaves of various developmental stages were Alternaria alternata, Botrytis cinerea, Cladosporium spp., Colletotrichum dematium, Coniella fragariae, Epicoccum purpurascens, Gliocladium roseum, Gloeosporium sp., Gnomonia comari, Penicillium spp., Trichothecium roseum, and Verticillium spp. A majority of the fungi were observed more frequently on leaves that were washed and then plated on agar media than on leaves that were plated without washing. Trichothecium roseum, however, was found mainly on the unwashed leaves. Principal fungi on calyces, petals, and fruits were A. alternata, B. cinerea, Gloeosporium sp., Pencillium spp., T. roseum, and Verticillium spp. Other fungi variously found on the flowers and fruits included Rhizopus stolonifer, Paecilomyces spp., C. dematium, and Fusarium spp. Many of the fungi found frequently on the strawberry plants were present at most or all stages of development and decline of the various plant organs. The mycofloral observations are discussed in relation to the biocontrol of strawberry diseases. Key words: strawberry, mycoflora, Botrytis cinerea, population dynamics.

Eastern black walnut (Juglans nigra L.), is a native tree species valued both for its timber and nuts. Individual trees require excellent soils with adequate moisture for maximum wood and nut productivity. The vast majority of black walnut nutmeat production is centered in the western part of the species’ native range and is predominantly derived from wild, unimproved sources. Historically, the size of this crop has ranged from 4.5 to 15.9 million kilograms (fresh weight, without hull) with less than 1% obtained from improved cultivars. Alternate bearing is common in this species, primarily as a result of susceptibility to walnut anthracnose Gnomonia leptostyla (Fr.) Ces. & De Not. Significant reductions in nut productivity caused by walnut curculio (Conotrachelus retentus Say) are common for unimproved, wild trees. Based on a collection of 65 nut cultivars established by the University of Missouri, black walnut exhibits significant genetic variation for a range of commercially important nut traits, including precocity, percent kernel, nut bearing habit, anthracnose tolerance, season length, and yield efficiency. Exploiting this variation through traditional plant breeding techniques will result in new, improved varieties in the future. Defining improved cultural practices that will significantly impact yield and nut quality remains an area of active investigation. Such knowledge will need to be combined with improved cultivars that are well adapted to local growing conditions to ensure the commercial success of this species over the long run.

This article analyzes the reflection on the myth of Faust in the work of Eduardas Mieželaitis (1919–1997). The author’s initial hypothesis that the interpretation of this myth can be used as another argument for revealing the poet’s dramatic feelings and self-reflection of inauthentic Soviet existence is tested. Together with other signs of existential self-abuse (such as the metaphors of “the ringed bird” and “the masked word”), this could help answer the question of whether the description of the 1920s generation (Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas, Bronius Krivickas, etc.) as “tragic” would fit Mieželaitis. Intertextuality is the best way to describe the nature of the analysis and socio-criticism would describe the interpretation of the results.E. Mieželaitis was (and still is) one of the most intertextual Lithuanian authors. The use of the “alien word” in his texts was a conceptual position of the poet’s creative consciousness. For him the world’s culture has become a central topic, and his texts have been occupied by the masters of arts and sciences of antiquity, Renaissance, or New Age, as well as modern European authors, Oriental classics, Bible quotations, paraphrases, allusions and other forms of culture. For the poet, Goethe’s Faust is one of such foundational texts, even if the Soviet era did not favor the “myths of the great contemplation” (Vytautas Kubilius). The forever relevant myth of Faust raises a fundamental question of person’s life choice – what one is prepared to sacrifice for one’s purpose, and what the results of that “sacrifice” are. But in the Soviet times Mieželaitis did not focus on this myth as a “symbol of the duality of human’s nature” – his human is rather one-dimensional and monolithic, full of positive energy directed towards technological progress and an absolute belief in the cognitive powers of man. This is the exact aspect that Faust embodies in Mieželaitis’ works, as if it was his “new man”, the product of the Enlightenment era. Mieželaitis did not care about the moment of negotiations between Faust and Mephistopheles – for him there could easily be no Mephistopheles. However, in late works (Postskriptumai, 1986; Gnomos, 1987; Laida, 1992), where the poet reflects on his life and creative path, there are many signs of disillusionment with the myth of human omnipotence as the results of his labor have turned against him – he wanted to create a heaven, but got a hell in the form of Hiroshima. It is at this point that Mephistopheles dominates the duet with Faust, but in general they have both become a “common place” and their function is limited by the text’s aesthetic figurativeness.My conclusion is that eventually the rich allusions to Faust in Mieželaitis’ works did not translate into reflections on the essence or meaning of being – he was not concerned with the problematics of human’s choices, duality, or contradictions. Thus, my initial expectation that the interpretation of the Faust myth may be another argument for revealing the poet’s dramatic feelings and self-reflection of inauthentic existence in the Soviet times was essentially not confirmed. And that could have been another argument for adding him to the social group of the 1920s.On the other hand, looking from the distant present, it is my opinion that Mieželaitis is still a part of the tragic generation, as the whole generation – whether they retreated to the West, or remained in Soviet Lithuania, collaborated or resisted – became hostages of the Second World War and the Soviet occupation.

This study was undertaken to analyze the Meranaw pananaroon and discover, through the signs incorporated in them, what they express and reveal of the Meranaw people’s worldview, culture, and character. Sample pananaroons were classified and described according to context in the culture, that is, situations for which they are designed or meant to be used, based on appropriateness or fittingness and relevance. They were next subjected to semiotic and intertextual analysis, with cultural semiotics as the approach, focusing on how the signs are utilized for meaning-making, and what these reveal of the Meranaws as individuals and as a socio-cultural group. Focal concerns in the study were the Meranaw worldview, culture, and character. The study established that the pananaroon, the Meranaw word for the English proverb, adage, aphorism, and other gnomic sayings or utterances and homespun generalizations about life, are employed not only for rhetoric but purposes such as emphasis on a central message, conveyance of indirection and subtlety to avoid offense, allusion, self-deprecation or show of humility/self-effacement, irony, scorn (kapangilat), overstatement (hyperbole) and understatement. From the analyses of select pananaroon, through the lenses of the natural and cultural signs that conveyed them, the foundational ideals and overarching worldview that Meranaws value regardless of context and situation were also drawn: patience and prudence, avoidance of acting or deciding on impulse; belief in calculated boldness and arduous journeys; finding procrastination or vacillation as a fault; allowance and forgiveness for falling short of one’s expectations; humility; awareness of one’s station, revealing an ingrained and internalized class system; sensitivity, and; an overarching wish for clearness, harmony, order and peace (rinaw) in all things. The depths that the results this study reached not only strengthens semiotic analysis as a viable approach to proverb and linguistic/folklore studies, but also opens up new avenues or paths for fresh inquiry on Meranaw pananaroon, oral tradition, and folklore, and culture in general.

In spite of an array of effective antibiotics, tuberculosis is still very common in developing countries where overcrowding, malnutrition and poor hygienic conditions prevail. Over the past 30 years associated HIV infection has worsened the situation by increasing the infection rate and mortality of tuberculosis. Of those diseases caused by a single organism only HIV causes more deaths internationally than tuberculosis. The tubercle bacillus probably first infected man in Neolithic times, and then via infected cattle, but the causative Mycobacteriacea have been in existence for 300 million years. Droplet infection is the most common way of acquiring tuberculosis, although ingestion (e.g. of infected cows’ milk) may occur. Tuberculosis probably originated in Africa. The earliest path gnomonic evidence of human tuberculosis in man was found in osteo-archaeological findings of bone tuberculosis (Pott’s disease of the spine) in the skeleton of anEgyptian priest from the 21st Dynasty (approximately 1 000 BC). Suggestive but not conclusiveevidence of tuberculotic lesions had been found in even earlier skeletons from Egypt and Europe. Medical hieroglyphics from ancient Egypt are silent on the disease, which could be tuberculosis,as do early Indian and Chinese writings. The Old Testament refers to the disease schachapeth, translated as phthisis in the Greek Septuagint. Although the Bible is not specific about this condition, tuberculosis is still called schachapeth in modern Hebrew. In pre-Hippocratic Greece Homer did not mention phthisis, a word meaning non-specific wasting of the body. However. Alexander of Tralles (6th century BC) seemed to narrow the concept down to a specific disease, and in the Hippocratic Corpus (5th-4th centuries BC) phthisis can be recognised as tuberculosis. It was predominantly a respiratory disease commonly seen and considered to be caused by an imbalance of bodily humours. It was commonest in autumn, winter and spring, tended to affect groups of people living close together, and young people in particular. Pregnancy exacerbated phthisis which was characterised by a chronic cough (worse at night), prominent sputum, often blood streaked and presumably arising from necrotic lung tissue. The face was typically flushed with sunken cheeks, sharp nose and very bright eyes. There was atrophy of all muscles with prominent (“winged”) shoulder blades, fever and perspiration often associated with shivering. Symptoms were described which would fit in with complicating lung abscess and empyema. Hippocrates also mentions disease entities which would fit in with extra-pulmonary tuberculosis, like Pott’s disease of the spine and cervical lymphadenopathy (scrofula), although he did not associate this with phthisis. Minimal specific therapy was prescribed. Subsequent writers in the Hellenistic and Roman eras added little to the classic Hippocratic clinical picture of phthisis, but Celsus (1st century AD) and Galen (2nd century) first suggested that it was a contagious condition. From Themison (1st century BC) onwards, therapeutic regimes became more drastic with the addition of inter alia strict dietary regimes, purges, enemas and venesection. Celsus suggested long sea voyages with ample relaxation and a change of climate. Aretaeus (1st century AD) stressed the importance of not exacerbating the suffering of people with chronic disease by imposing aggressive therapy. Except for the introduction of more drastic therapy the concept of phthisis (tuberculosis) had thus not progressed materially in the course of the millennium between Hippocrates and the end of the Roman era – and it would indeed remain virtually static for the next 1 000 years up to the Renaissance. There is, however, some evidence that the incidence of tuberculosis decreased during the major migration of nations which characterised the late Roman Empire.

Objectif : L’emprise de l’Homme sur la végétation s’est traduite au cours de ces dernières décennies par une augmentation des superficies emblavées. Cette étude vise à analyser la dynamique spatio-temporelle de la végétation de la réserve de la Comoé-Léraba et ses terroirs sur une période de 20 ans. Méthodologie et résultats : Deux types d’images Landsat TM, ETM+ pour les périodes de 1990 et 2000 et ASTER 2009 ; prises toutes au mois de novembre ont été nécessaires pour cette étude diachronique. Le logiciel GEOMATICA 9.2 de PCI a été utilisé pour le traitement des images. Ainsi, l’analyse diachronique de la végétation à l’intérieur de l’aire protégée sur les 20 ans témoigne d’une reconstitution du couvert végétale, avec une perte importante des savanes arbustives, des zones de culture et des zones nues (15,93 %). Cependant, hors de l’aire protégée, la synthèse montre une augmentation importante des zones de cultures (14,27%) au détriment des forêts claires, des savanes boisées et arbustives avec une réduction de leurs superficies (15,37%). Conclusion et applications des résultats : L’analyse de la dynamique de la végétation dans la réserve ComoéLéraba et dans ses terroirs, révèle que la pression anthropique menace sa végétation. En effet, cette étude a permis de mettre en évidence que dans les terroirs sous influence humaine, les superficies des formations végétales se réduisent lamentablement au profit des zones de cultures. A l’opposé, les hameaux de cultures abandonnés se sont véritablement reconstitués en savanes arbustives à l’intérieur de l’aire protégée. Même si de nouvelles taches de zones de culture ont commencé à apparaître dans la zone dite tampon, soit par empiètement sur les limites officielles, nous pouvons affirmer que la gestion participative a eu un effet positif dans la dynamique d’évolution des formations végétales dans la réserve de la Comoé-Léraba. Juste qu’à présent cette carte d’occupation des terres éditée de 2009 constitue la plus récente de la réserve. Mot clés : télédétection, aire protégée, conservation, cartographie, végétation. Gnoumou et Adouabou, J. Appl. Biosci. 2021 Étude de la dynamique spatio-temporelle de la réserve de la ComoéLéraba et de ses terroirs environnants (Burkina Faso, Afrique de l’Ouest) 16214 ABSTRACT Spatial and temporal dynamics of the vegetation of Comoé-Léraba reserve and its surrounding lands (Burkina Faso, West Africa) Objectives: Over the last few decades, Human pressure on vegetation has resulted in an increase number of dispersed deforested area. This study aims to analyse the spatio-temporal dynamics of the vegetation in the Comoé-Léraba Reserve and its surrounding areas over a period of 20 years. Methodology and Results: Two types of Landsat TM images, for the periods 1990 and 2000 and ASTER 2009; all taken in November were required for this study. PCI's GEOMATICA 9.2 software was used for image processing. Thus, the diachronic analysis of vegetation within the protected area over 20 years shows a reconstitution of the vegetation cover, with a significant loss of shrubby savannahs, cultivated areas and bare areas (15.93%). However, outside the protected area for the same period, the synthesis shows a significant increase in cultivated areas (14.27%) to the detriment of open forests, wooded and shrubby savannahs with a reduction in their surface area (15.37%). Conclusions and application of findings: The analysis of the dynamics of land use in the Comoé-Léraba Reserve and its surrounding area indicates that anthropic pressure threatens its vegetation. In fact, this study has shown that in areas under human influence, the surface area of plant communities is being reduced dramatically in favour of cultivated areas. On the other hand, the hamlets of abandoned crops have truly reconstituted themselves into shrubby savannahs within the protected area. Even if new patches of cultivated areas have begun to appear in the so-called buffer zone, either through encroachment on the official boundaries, we can affirm that participatory management has had a positive effect in the dynamics of the evolution of plant formations in the Comoé-Léraba Reserve. Up to now, this land use map published in 2009 is the most recent land use map for the reserve. Key words: remote sensing protected area, conservation, mapping, vegetation

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. 在西遊叙述中，神魔鬥法前時常出現的，就是孫行者頻繁召唤土地，方能問明妖精、妖魔的出處，其頻率極高而關注者卻少，原因就是土地神僅被視爲陪襯性小神。世德堂本（以下簡稱世本）叙述其出場的方式及用意，作者其實交互使用兩種聲音：顯聲音即表現滑稽性的遊戲筆調，目的即在掩飾其真正的潛聲音，主要即借此諷喻、影射當世。這種文學旨趣在兩種聲音間交織，若隱若現，亟待解讀。世本寫定者雖曾吸收先行材料，但本身自有其創意所在，即化用當時道、佛二教的文化資源。這一點學界雖有關注者，此處即針對“召唤土地”情節，詳細解讀其使用的手法，認爲其背後皆有宗教、尤其道教知識的支持。運用從淺到深的叙述層次，其顯聲音即召唤土地的方式，軟硬兼用，從唤出到拘得，形成表面的叙述趣味；而關鍵的召唤叙述，也是簡繁俱有的捻訣、唸真言，從唵字到唵㘕淨法界，按照當時的宗教文化的理解，即採用明代流行於文人間的準提信仰，致使作者挪用密教準提咒，並未襲用道教的召土地神咒。最值得注意的是召唤過程，叙寫行者對待土地、山神的使唤態度，而相對地，土地、山神則表現惶恐的滑稽表情。這種顯話語背後隱藏作者的潛話語，即運用“縱放之嫌”的叙述筆法，首即化用道教的鬼律、黑律知識，規範城隍———土地：境内凡有精邪而未能通告者，即有縱放之嫌而會被杖或流放；故作者叙寫土地既知妖精、妖魔存在卻任令其活動，即襲用“縱放之嫌”，而叙寫行者欲用金箍棒威脅“欲打”而未打，此爲化用了道教的鬼律叙述；其次則是諷喻性的影射層次，明代中葉以前實行里甲制，小説家曾活用其兩件事：官方推動禮制性的里社壇制，但里甲居民仍然崇拜土地神，以致里社壇荒廢不用；其次里長、甲首負責里甲内的催税、徭役，但税役過重後導致居民脱逃，小説乃有逃門户、大户負擔元宵燈油等，此種叙述爲顯話語；而描述妖精、妖魔據洞稱王、差使土地，尤其後者俱從天界私下凡間，此種潛話語即諷喻明代王府與地方豪族。西遊叙述交錯活用顯、潛兩種聲音，即可知表面愈荒唐、嬉戲的語言，愈是掩飾當時習知的社會怪現狀，故時人自然領會其諷喻旨趣，今人則需從“縱放之嫌”切入，方能進行深刻的文學詮釋，確定世本能巧用多層次的語言藝術，從而爲其“奇書”作文學史的定位。 In the narratives of Journey to the West, there is a customary scene of Monkey summoning the gnome before each battle between deities and goblins, whereby he may find out the identity of the goblins. This scene occurs very frequently but has drawn little attention, simply because the gnomes are regarded as low-ranking deities who serve only as a foil of the main characters. In the common editions, in narrating the method and intent of the gnome’s debut, the author alternately uses two voices. The first one is the manifested voice, a playful writing style that represents the comedy content. The real intent of using this voice is to hide the second voice, namely the suppressed voice. The main purpose is to satirize and insinuate the current situation of the time. The aesthetic appeal lies in the indirect expression in these two interwoven voices, which the reader finds tantalizing to decipher. Although the editor of the common edition must have relied on an earlier version, he must also have been creative when producing his own version, in which he made use of the prevalent resources of Daoism and Buddhism. This has indeed drawn attention in relevant scholarship. In the present study, however, I would like to focus on the plot of “summoning the gnome” and analyze its literary devices. I argue that there must be some religious background, especially Daoist knowledge, behind it as support. The narrative level follows a low-to-high development discourse, in which the manifested voice summons the gnome in both forceful and soft manners, and forms a kind of joyful process in the summoning and capture. The summoning per se is a process that contains complete and simple religious content, such as making religious gestures, and chanting spells and words of the Perfected One, from the word om to om ram of the Pure Realm of Reality. According to the then-prevalent religious practice, it is observed that the summoning ritual is based on the belief in Cundhi Buddha that was popular in the Ming dynasty. As a result, the author borrowed the Cundhi spells from esoteric Buddhism, instead of following the Daoist spells for summoning the gnome. The most noteworthy point is the summoning process. The narrative of the Practitioner (Sun Wukong) shows his attitude towards summoning the gnomes and mountain spirits, as well as its counterparts, the funny facial experience of the gnomes and mountain spirits’ fear of the Practitioner. Behind this manifested discourse is hidden a suppressed discourse of the author. This is the use of a narrative of “suspicious indulgence.” In the beginning, he uses the knowledge of “ghosts’ laws” and “dark laws” in the Daoist tradition to regulate the guards of walls and moats — the gnomes. In accordance with these laws, if there are spirts and devils in the area but the gnome fails to report, he is thus suspected of indulging and will be hit with a rod and/or exiled. Likewise, when writing about the gnome who was aware of the existence of goblins and devils but still let them act at will, the author inherited the notion of “suspicious indulgence.” When describing the Practitioner who was about to hit with his Gold Circle Rod but had not done so, the author borrowed a narrative mode derived from the Daoist laws of the ghosts. The second level is an insinuative one. Before the middle of the Ming, Lijia (lit. ,“lane and alley”; li = 110 households; jia = 10 households) was an administrative system, which became inspiration for novelists for their creative writing in two respects, namely: 1) a ritual system called “Lane Altar” promoted by the government, but the lijia residents still worshiped gnomes and therefore the “Lane Altar” was abandoned; 2) the li mayors and jia magistrates were in charge of taxation and levies, but as this became a burden the residents fled; this gave rise to the themes of “evading households” and “wealthy households paying lamp oil for the fifteenth of the first month,” which became the main fiction discourses. As for the narratives about demons who declared kingship in a grotto and gave orders to gnomes, they (especially the latter) were all previously in Heaven but later fled to the mortal world. These suppressed discourses are all satires for Ming princedoms and regional powerful clans. The narrative in Journey to the West alternately speaks in these two voices, from which we are informed: the more absurd and playful on the surface the more it covers up the strange phenomena of society that were widely known. Therefore, the intended gist was easily understood by people of that time, but in our time we must rely on “suspicious indulgence” to conduct an in-depth literary interpretation. We must recognize the various artful means in the common versions of the novel and thereby render the novel a status of “book of wonder.”

Players of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW) are accustomed to a transformative culture that appropriates off-line events and personas into virtual-world representations inside of the game. Following this culture, players have transformed an off-line event—the Race for the Cure, to benefit breast cancer charities—into an online event called the Running of the Gnomes with parameters and participation properties appropriate for the virtual world. This transformative event is a disruptive form of civil disobedience including elements of hacktivism. Though the event conforms to the game's culture and rules, the mass collective action of the Running of the Gnomes disrupts the player experience by flooding the game's chat boxes with messages about an off-line concern (breast cancer) and also disrupts the game itself by crashing the server through the sheer volume of player participation. This disruption is embraced as an integral part of the event and is one of the primary causes for the event's success as a fundraising activity.

In the paper the work of Vasyl Symonenko (lyric poetry, lyro epic, short stories) is integrally analysed. Attention to collections "Bank of expectations" and "For itself" is paid. The romantic features of lyric poetry, preparation of lyric hero to adult life, feeling of responsibility are marked. The verses of these collections help an author to attain an emotional equilibrium, perform the original psychotherapy duty. First printed collection "Silense and thunder" educed the updating of poetic maintenance at maintenance of classic forms. The poles of "silense" (intimate lyric poetry) and "thunder" (civil lyric poetry) are analysed, didacticism and gnomic are marked. The posthumous collection "Earthly gravitation" strikes the "overpopulation" of the verse line, the concentration of idea, the transparency of ideas, the faith in the future. The features of address verses, facilities of fight against the negative public phenomena are studied. During the study of lyric poetry of V. Symonenko non-verbalized motives of aspiring to the changes, aspiration and spiritual way are educed. Romanticism of lyric poetry is consonant with short stories of V. Symonenko, collected in a book "Wine from roses". The plot organization and ideological level of short stories "He interfered with her to sleep", "Wine from roses", "Black horseshoe" are analysed. An accent on the open finales of works is done. The fairy-tales of the sixty contain a political implication, but they could be addressed to the junior reader. For more complete understanding of the artistic world of author it is necessary to know his literary-critical work, foremost the article "Beauty without beauties ", sanctified to the poetry of L. Kostenko. V. Symonenko appears in the hypostasis of professional reader that analyses collection "Trip of heart". V. Symonenko noticed beauty, wisdom, thin heartfelt sensitiveness and good taste, could be said about a critic. The conclusion, that a poet kept straight in life, and in work, as well as majority of sixties is drawn.

In this article, the function of aphorisms in folk song, which also contains lyrical and dramatic elements, is analysed and defined through cultural (mostly folklore) literature, and linguistic methods. The main purpose of this paper is to show the role of the gnomic words generated by folk creators in an epic poem’s plot, their main functions in the development of conflict and the aesthetic expression of the work. Therefore, the meaning of symbols has been interpreted in close connection with the actions, archetypes and metaphors inserted in the structure of the song. Using as an example the song “Kyz Zhybek”, which is a prominent creation in Kazakh folklore, and reviewing research papers on the subject, the present article follows the contrastive analysis in researching the echoes of archetypal traditions in a Muslim cultural frame. Ethnos in culture remains in an attempt to recover the identity of a group using what seems specific in folklore, history, and linguistics and to track them in an original ideology articulated on national and universal bases. This paper may help researchers when studying folklore heritage, with understanding the scope of using the aphorisms and the main function actualised by them in folk literature. In addition, the role of aphorisms in a folk song is systematised, and their historical and identity significance is underlined.

Abstract Disclosure: R. Bauer: None. L. Gorsic: None. R.S. Legro: None. M.G. Hayes: None. M. Urbanek: None. Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common form of anovulatory infertility among reproductive age women. In addition to experiencing reproductive symptoms, women with PCOS are at elevated risk of developing obesity, insulin resistance (IR), and type 2 diabetes. Familial partial lipodystrophy type 2 (FPLD2) is a disorder of lipid storage and insulin resistance caused by dominant missense alleles in the gene encoding the intermediate filaments lamin A/C (LMNA). Women with this Mendelian disorder of IR also experience symptoms of PCOS such as amenorrhea and hyperandrogenism. We, therefore, hypothesize that genetic variation in LMNA also contributes to PCOS, which is a common form of IR. In other words, we hypothesize that PCOS falls into the phenotypic spectrum of disorders caused by variation in LMNA.Objective: We aim to identify and evaluate variation in LMNA that underlies PCOS pathogenesis. Methods: To test our hypothesis, we sequenced the LMNA gene in 602 women with PCOS and 125 reproductively healthy women. We comprehensively screened LMNA for genetic variation that is likely to alter the lamin A/C proteins, including missense, nonsense, splicing or frameshift variants. We identified 7 missense variants in 8 cases and no variants in reproductively healthy controls (χ2= 3.1, p=0.081, OR &gt; 1.78, with study controls; χ2= 46.8, p&lt;1x10-8, OR= 8.5 with gnomAD non-Finnish European cohort population controls). To determine which of these variants are pathogenic, we systematically evaluated them according to criteria outlined by the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG). These guidelines evaluate pathogenicity of variants through multiple lines of evidence, including population data, computational predictions, and functional studies. Results: We identified 5 pathogenic variants in LMNA and 2 that are likely pathogenic. When assessed individually, 6 of the 7 variants are significantly enriched in our cohort when compared to gnomAD non-Finnish European population controls (OR &gt; 5.0). All of the LMNA variants are likely damaging as predicted by 3 computational methods: CADD score ≥ 15, FATHMM prediction of “Damaging”, and MutationTaster classification as “disease causing.” Additionally, many of the variants have previously been identified in individuals with lipodystrophy. Conclusion: Together with previous identification of LMNA variants in women with PCOS by our lab (Urbanek et al. 2009 JCEM) and others (Crespo et al. 2022 JES), this work further establishes LMNA variation as a pathogenic mechanism for PCOS. Presentation Date: Friday, June 16, 2023

Rivard, Émilie. Really and Truly. Illus. Anne-Claire Delisle. Trans. Sarah Quinn. Toronto: Owlkids Books Inc., 2011. Print. Prolific Quebec author Émilie Rivard departs from her usual novel format in the picture book, Really and Truly. Really and Truly describes the loving relationship between Charlie and his grandfather, a master storyteller. Grandpa’s stories are fabulous and Charlie becomes immersed in the tales of pirates, gnomes and witches. Grandpa has an imaginative explanation for everything and Charlie is mesmerized. Every story ends with the line, “Really and truly, Charlie.” Time passes, Charlie gets older and Grandpa changes as a disease “eats up his memory and his words”. Visit after visit Grandpa becomes less responsive, leaving Charlie and his family heartbroken. During one visit, Charlie remembers a story his Grandpa used to tell and decides to tell it back to Grandpa. For the first time in a long time, he catches his Grandpa’s attention. At each visit, Charlie tells another story eventually eliciting a small smile from Grandpa. This is an endearing story about family relationships and the difficulties of dealing with dementia. Clever illustrations complement the straightforward text. Grandpa’s and Charlie’s stories are illustrated in black and white on top of the coloured illustrations of reality. This would be a good read aloud for primary-junior students, providing a vehicle for discussions about family stories, grandparents, and Alzheimer’s disease. Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Brenda Roberts Brenda Roberts is the teacher-librarian at Edenbrook Hill Public School in Brampton, Ontario and is working on her M.Ed. in teacher-librarianship from the University of Alberta. When not devouring books, she enjoys travel, quilting, music and gardening.

tudy the contens of the children´s television proving that values such as individualism, egoism, violence predominate in this type of television programs. However, in words of Mariet tv shouldn´t be educative, but tv has to be enjoyable. At the moment our children´s television hasn´t got the minimus necessary stands of quality for Australian Broadcasting Authority so that the children´s television can be enjoyable. This research propuses children´s should be educative but it can´t forget the true aim tv: the entertainment. La mayoría de los debates acontecidos hasta el momento radican sobre el papel formativo de la televisión, de los cuales ésta no sale muy bien parada: criticada por la cantidad de programas dirigidos al target infantil, sobre todo dibujos animados, cargados con un alto contenido de violencia. Pero hasta el momento poco o nada se ha cuestionado la verdadera vocación con la que nació la televisión: su vocación lúdica o de entretenimiento; por alguna razón, el target infantil mira la televisión en su tiempo de ocio, como un medio de diversión y entretenimiento, aunque todos sabemos que para bien o para mal, la televisión es mucho más. El planteamiento sobre el que versa esta comunicación radica en una premisa realizada por François Mariet, donde comenta la idea de que al igual que no se va a la escuela para divertirse, tampoco se mira la tele para instruirse, pero uno cosa no excluye a la otra, puesto que todo niño puede divertirse en la escuela e instruirse mirando la tele; de hecho esta debe ser la finalidad con la que se construya el medio televisión como un medio formador y de entretenimiento. Se considera interesante no sólo abordar el valor formativo de la televisión, asignatura que todavía no ha conseguido aprobar, puesto que valores como el egoísmo, beneficio inmediato, poca necesidad de esfuerzo, primacía del bien individual frente al colectivo, abuso de violencia… se suceden a lo largo de la parrilla televisiva; sino también cuestionar el nivel de entretenimiento que esos programas suscitan en el público más joven. Tarea ardua donde las haya, ya que, en contra de los que temen la omnipotencia de la televisión, los productores saben muy bien que es imposible mantener en antena un programa para niños que éstos no deseen ver, y no es nada fácil agradar a un niño: público caracterizado por su alto nivel de exigencia e infidelidad ante la pantalla. Es necesario conciliar educación y entretenimiento en la parrilla de programación infantil; porque no podemos permanecer ciegos a los efectos, indudablemente educadores que la televisión tiene; lo primero se cuestiona e investiga pero: ¿qué hay del segundo concepto: el entretenimiento? No se debe olvidar que un programa infantil puede ser dramático o no, diseñado para educar o no, pero el objetivo principal es que tiene que ser percibido como divertido por el público infantil. Actualmente se asiste a una parrilla infantil donde con series como YU GI OH!, MEDABOTS o PINGU, ni siquiera se dan los parámetros mínimos de entretenimiento necesarios para que el público al que va dirigido pueda «disfrutar» de su tiempo de ocio. Los estándares australianos para televisión infantil (CTS) ratifican que un programa infantil entretenido de calidad debe contar una buena historia, ser impredecible, tener un ritmo apropiado al estilo de la historia contada y poseer un estilo visual moderno. Pues bien, ya sea por la débil linealidad causa-efecto argumentativa, bien por la simplicidad de los contenidos expuestos, o bien por la escasa calidad audiovisual que los constituye, el entretenimiento suscitado por estos programas y otros muchos no mencionados es mínimo. Desde la Universidad de Alicante, se está inmerso en un Proyecto de Investigación, donde se analizan la calidad de los contenidos programáticos y publicitarios dirigidos al target infantil, y dentro de los parámetros de calidad se encuentra el entretenimiento suscitado, el cual, sin adelantar resultados no se encuentra en muy buen momento. La televisión de calidad debe enseñar, complementando que nunca sustituyendo la labor realizada por la escuela, pero esa enseñanza debe estar impregnada en un contexto lúdico y de entretenimiento tal y como sucedió en su día con BARRIO SÉSAMO y está ocurriendo, aunque en menor medida con «Los Lunnies, Twenies, El nuevo mundo de los gnomos» sucede, por lo tanto es posible, sólo es necesario el esfuerzo de todos.

Discussing the interaction between representation and narrative structures, Anthony Mandal argues that the Gothic has always been “an intrinsically intertextual genre” (Mandal 350). From its inception, the intertextuality of the Gothic has taken many and varied incarnations, from simple references and allusions between texts—dates, locations, characters, and “creatures”—to intricate and evocative uses of style and plot organisation. And even though it would be unwise to reduce the Gothic “text” to a simple master narrative, one cannot deny that, in the midst of re-elaborations and re-interpretations, interconnections and interpolations also appear, a collective gathering of ideas and writing practices that construct what is known as “the Gothic intertext” (Mishra 235). As far as storytelling, characterisation, and symbolism are concerned, the Gothic finds strength in its ability to develop as well as negate expectation, re-moulding the culturally known and the aesthetically acceptable in order to present its audience with a multi-faceted and multi-layered narrative. Although the Gothic has traditionally found fertile ground in literary works—a connection that is now a legacy as much as an origin—other contemporary media, such as animation, have offered the Gothic a privileged chance for growth and adaptation. An evocative example of the mergence between the Gothic mode and the animated medium is Alex Hirsch’s Gravity Falls. This visual text provides an example of the reach of the Gothic within popular culture, where intersecting hideous creatures and interconnected narrative structures, although simple and “for children” on the surface, reveal the presence of a dense and intertextual Gothic network. Those interlacings are, of course, never disconnected from the wider cultural framework, and clearly occupy an important part in unravelling the insidious aspects of human nature, from the difficulties of finding “oneself” to the loneliness of the everyday. Gravity Falls is an animated television series created by Alex Hirsch. It premiered on the Disney Channel in the United States on 15 June 2012. Now scheduled for its second season of running, Gravity Falls follows the adventures of 12-year-old twin siblings Dipper and Mabel Pines while on their summer vacation in the small town of Gravity Falls, Oregon. The choice of “twins” as main characters reveals, even at such an embryonic level, a connection to Gothicised structures, as the mode itself, as Vijay Mishra suggests, finds an affinity with doublings and “specular identifications” that “confuse the norm” (63). The presence of twins makes the double nature of character, traditionally a metaphorical and implicit idea in the Gothic, a very obvious and explicit one. Dipper and Mabel are staying with their eccentric and money-grabbing Great Uncle Stan—often referred to as “Grunkle Stan”—who runs the local curiosity shop known as the Mystery Shack. It becomes very obvious from the very beginning that an air of mystery truly surrounds the Shack, which quickly lives up to its name, and the eponymous town. In an aptly Gothic manner, things are definitely not what they seem and the twins are caught in odd plots, eerily occurrences, and haunted/haunting experiences on a daily basis. The instigator for the twins’ interest in the odd manifestations is the finding of a mysterious journal, a manual the relays detailed descriptions of the creatures that inhabit the forest in the town of Gravity Falls. The author of the journal remains unknown, and is commonly known only as “3”, an unexplained number that marks the cover of the book itself. Although the connection between the Gothic and animation may be obscure, it is in fact possible to identify many common and intersecting elements—aesthetically, narratively, and conceptually—that highlight the two as being intrinsically connected. The successful relation that the Gothic holds with animation is based in the mode’s fundamental predilection for not only subversion, excess and the exploration of the realm of the “imagination”, but also humour and self-reflexivity. These aspects are shared with animation which, as a medium, is ideally placed for exploring and presenting the imaginative and the bizarre, while pushing the boundaries of the known and the proper. Julia Round suggests that the Gothic “has long been identified as containing a dual sense of play and fear” (7). The playfulness and destabilisation that are proper to the mode find a fertile territory in animation in view of not only its many genres, but also its style and usually sensational subject matter. This discourse becomes particularly relevant if one takes into consideration matters of audienceship, or, at least, receivership. Although not historically intended for younger viewers, the animation has evolved into a profoundly children-orientated medium. From cinema to television, animated features and series are the domain of children of various ages. Big production houses such as Disney and Warner Bros have capitalised on the potential of the medium, and established its place in broadcasting slots for young viewers. Not unlike comics—which is, in a way, its ancestral medium—animation is such a malleable and contextual form that it requires a far-reaching and inclusive approach, one that is often interdisciplinary in scope; within this, where the multi-faceted nature of the Gothic opens up the way for seeing animated narratives as the highly socio-historical mediums they are. And not unlike comics, animation shares a common ground with the Gothic in requiring a vast scope of analysis, one that is intrinsically based on the conceptual connections between “texts”. Round has also aptly argued that, like comics, animated series lend themselves to malleable and mouldable re-elaboration: “from the cultural to the aesthetic, the structural to the thematic”, graphic media always reflect the impact of “intertextual and historical references” (8). Animation’s ability to convey, connect, and revolutionise ideas is, therefore, well-matched to the aesthetic and conceptual idiosyncrasies of Gothic tropes. Dipper and Mabel’s vacation in the town of Gravity Falls is characterised by the appearance of numerous super- and preter-natural creatures. The list of “monsters” encountered by the twins is long and growing, from gnomes, goblins, mermaids and zombies, to ghosts, clones, and a wide and colourful variety of demons. And although, at first glance, this list would appear to be a simple and simplistic grouping of bizarre and creatively assembled creatures, it is made quickly apparent that these “monsters” are all inspired, often very directly, by “existing”—or, at least, well-known—Gothic creatures, and their respective contexts of development. Indeed, the links to the Gothic in contemporary popular culture are unavoidable. The creatures in Gravity Falls are presented with subtle references to Gothic literature and cinema, from John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984), to Stephen King’s The Shining (1977) and Needful Things (1991). Borrowing from these texts, the creatures in the series all have strange names that rely on play-on-words and re-inventions, and the rubric twists that they undertake are part of a system of both homage and conceptual interdependency. One can find, for instance, “Manotaurs”—creatures that are half-bull and half-man, and that value “manliness” in their society above all else—and the “Gremlobin” – a gigantic monster somewhere in between, we are told, a “gremlin” and a “goblin”, whose eyes can show “your worst nightmares”. But the range extends to other bizarre “creatures” that are clearly very spooky, such as the “Summewrween Trickster”—a large, shadowy, purple/orange monster with a “jack-o’-melon” mask – the living “mailbox”—a sentient and omniscient object—and the truly haunting Bill Cipher—a mind demon that can be summoned through an incantation and enter a person’s subconscious. The connection to the Gothic in popular culture is instrumental for the construction of the Gothic intertext in Gravity Falls. In episode One, “Tourist Trapped” (1.01), Mabel is kidnapped by a tribe of gnomes, who are set on making her their queen. The gnomes are incongruous creatures: on the one hand, they are vengeful and spiteful, recalling the horror monsters found in movies such as the questionable Blood Gnome (2004). On the other, however, they wear red pointy hats and white beards, and their friendly smiles recall the harmless appearance of actual garden gnomes. When the gnomes grow upset, they throw up rainbows; this strange fact destroys their potential as a Gothic horror icon, and makes them accessible and amusing. This subversion of iconography takes place with a number of other “creatures” in Gravity Falls, with the Summerween Trickster—subverting the “terror” of Hallowe’en—being another fitting example. When the gnomes are attempting to woe Mabel, they do not appear to her in their real form: they camouflage themselves into a teenage boy— one who is moody, brooding, and mysterious—and become Mabel’s boyfriend; the “boy’s” interest in her, however, is so intense, that Dipper suspects him to be a member of “The Undead”, a category of monster that is closely described in 3’s journal: due to their “pale skin” and “bad attitudes”, they are often mistaken for “teenagers”. Clues to Dipper’s doubts include the teenage boy’s hand “falling off” while he is hugging Mabel, a clear sign—it would seem—that the boy is obviously a decaying, zombie corpse. The intertextual connection to several horror visual narratives where limbs “fall off” the undead and the monstrous is clear here, with apt film examples being Dawn of the Dead (1978), The Fly (1986), horror comedy Army of Darkness (1992), and, more recently, television’s The Walking Dead (2010-). The references to well-known horror films are scattered throughout the series, and comprise the majority of the lampooned cultural context in which the creatures appear. In spite of Dipper’s suspicions, the situation is revealed to have a rather different outcome. When the boyfriend tells Mabel he has a big secret to reveal, her mind wanders into another direction, choosing a different type of undead, as she expectantly thinks: “Please be a vampire…please be a vampire”. It is not difficult to spot the conceptual connection here to narratives such as Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga (2005-2008), both in its literary and cinematic variations, where brooding and mysterious teenage boys find ideal incarnations as the undead creature. The romanticised nature of teenage fictional narratives such as the Twilight saga is also mirrored in Mabel’s distinctive love-centred interest in the potential vampire, revealing an intertextual and highly contextual association to seeing the creature as part of an amorous relationship, as opposed to a blood-thirsty murderer. Mabel’s dreams of vampric love are unfortunately shattered when the boyfriend is revealed to be several gnomes carefully assembled to operate a human-like body, rather than one immortal lover. Irrespective of its desire to parody the Gothic, however, Gravity Falls still maintains unavoidable links to the notion of terror. Clear evidence of this is to be found in the fact that all “creatures” in the series present a level of anthropomorphism about them, and this is interpreted by the characters—and the viewers—as one of their scariest aspects. Leigh Blackmore suggests that a special brand of terror can be found in “anthropomorphic beings” that are in fact not human (Blackmore 95). Most of the creatures in the series are humanoid in shape, and can speak like humans. From gnomes to mermaids, mailboxes and demons, the creatures act as humans, but they are in fact something “other”, something that only recalls the human itself. This idea of being “almost human”, but “not quite”, is disturbing in itself, and connects the presentation of the creatures to the Gothic via the notion of the uncanny: “a crisis of the natural, touching upon everything that one might have thought was ‘part of nature’ […] human nature, the nature of reality and the world” (Royle 1). The uncanny nature of the creatures in Gravity Falls is maintained through their profound inhumanity, and their simultaneous links to human ways of acting, speaking, and even thinking. Indeed, most of the creatures are presented as petty, bitter, and childish, and often seen as greedy and sulking. In a way, the creatures lampoon some of the most intrinsic qualities of the human species, what separates us from animals. The supernatural creatures operate here as a critique of the humans themselves, exposing, as the Gothic often does, the most disturbing parts of humanity. The creatures are presented initially as scary, recalling—albeit very briefly—notions of terror and horror, but that façade is quickly destroyed as their “real nature” is exposed. They are de-terrorised by not only making them common, but also ridiculing their habits and de-constructing their thinly-veiled Gothic personas. The creatures in Gravity Falls are a subversion of the subversion, a re-thinking of the Gothic through parody that allows their conceptual, and culturally relevant, function to be rapidly exposed. The impact of the Gothic intertext in Gravity Falls is not only visible in its representational forms—its monsters and “creatures”—but also extends to its structural organisation. Jerrold Hogle has argued that, although they maintain a heterogeneous construction of texts and contexts, there are certain qualities applicable to “Gothic texts”: an antiquated space (often decaying); a concealed secret from the historical past; a physical or psychological haunting; and an oscillation between “reality” and the “supernatural” (3). Although Hogle’s pinpointing of what he calls the “Gothic matrix” (3) is mainly focused on the literary world, a broader and more wide-reaching understanding of the Gothic text allows these qualities to be clearly identifiable in other narrative mediums, such as an animated series. Indeed, Gravity Falls presents the main elements of the “Gothic matrix”: the Mystery Shack is an old and isolated place, physically crumbling and in constant state of disrepair; it is made clear that the Shack harbours many secrets—filled as it is with hidden passageways and underground vaults—connected to the shady past of Grunkle Stan and its unresolved connections to mysticism and magic; there are plenty of hauntings to be found in the series: from physical ones—in the form of demons and ghosts—to psychological ones, condensed in Dipper and Mabel’s difficulties with their approaching puberties and “growing up”; finally, the line between reality and supernatural is constantly challenged by the appearance of multiple creatures that are clearly not of this world, and even though several characters doubt their existence within the story, their very presence challenges the stability of the boundaries between real and unreal. On the surface, the series is presented as a standard linear narrative, where the linear journey of each 20-minute episode culminates with the resolution of the main “haunting”, and the usual destruction or appeasing of the “creature”. And while the series’ use of cliff-hangers is, in true television style, a common presence, they also expose and recall the unresolved nature of the narrative. Indeed, the story’s structure in Gravity Falls is reliant on narrative undertellings and off-shoots that often lie underneath the logical “line” of the plot. Sub-plots reign supreme, and multiple motives for the characters’ actions are introduced but not expanded upon, leaving the series impregnated with an aura of uncertainty and chaos. The focus of the storytelling is also denied; one moment, it appears to be Dipper’s desire to discover the “secrets” of the forest; the other, it is Grunkle Stan’s long-time battle with his arch-nemesis Gideon over the ownership of the Shack. This plot confusion in Gravity Falls continues to expose its narrative debt to the Gothic intertext, since “structural multiplicity”, as Round suggests, is “a defining feature of the Gothic” (19). The series’ narrative structure is based on numerous multiplicities, an open denial of linear journeys that is dependant, paradoxically, on the illusion of resolution. The most evocative example of Gravity Falls’ denial of clear-cut structures is arguably to be found in the narrative underlayers added by 3’s monster manual. It is obvious from the beginning that 3’s stay in the town of Gravity Falls was riddled with strange experiences, and that his sojourn intersected, at one point or the other, with the lives and secrets of Grunkle Stan and his enemies. It is also made clear that 3’s journal is not a solitary presence in the narrative, but is in fact only one in a triad of mystical books—these books, it is suggested, have great power once put together, but the resolution to this mystery is yet to be revealed. As Grunkle Stan and Gideon fight (secretly) over the possession of the three books, it is openly suggested that several uncovered stories haunt the main narrative in the series and, unknown Dipper and Mabel, are responsible for many of the strange occurrences during their stay at the Shack. Jean-Jacques Lecercle has long argued that one of the defining characteristics of the Gothic, and its intertextual structure, is the presence of “embedded narratives” (72). In Gravity Falls, the use of 3’s manual as not only an initiator of the plot, but also as a continuous performative link to the “haunted” past, uncovers the series’ re-elaboration of the traditional structure of Gothic narratives. As a paratextual presence in the story—one that is, however, often responsible for the development of the main narrative—3’s manual draws attention to the importance of constructing layered stories in order to create the structures of terror, and subsequent horror, that are essential to the Gothic itself. Although it often provides Dipper with information for solving the mysteries of the Shack, and subduing the supernatural creatures that overtake it, 3’s manual is, in reality, a very disruptive presence in the story. It creates confusion as it begins storytelling without concluding it, and opens the way to narrative pathways that are never fully explored. This is of course in keeping with the traditional narrative structures of the Gothic mode, where ancient books and stories— belonging to “antiquity”—are used as a catalyst for the present narrative to take place, but are also strangely displaced from it. This notion recalls Victor Sage’s suggestion that, in Gothic narratives, ancient books and stories paradoxically “disrupt” the main narrative, starting a separate dialogue with a storytelling structure that is inevitably unexplored and left unanswered (86). Canonical examples such as Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) inevitably come to mind here, but also more recent cinematic examples such as the Evil Dead franchise (1978-), where ancient books and old storytellers uncover hoary secrets that instigate, as well as obscure, the main narrative. In Gravity Falls, the interaction with 3’s manual is inherently performative, and continuously intertextual, but it is also deeply confusing, adding to the feeling of strangeness and mystery that is the conceptual basis for the series itself. The intertextual connections that drive the narrative in Gravity Falls construct lampooned versions of both the traditional concepts of Gothic horror and Gothic terror. Hogle has suggested that Gothic terror is apparent in the construction of suspense, achieved through an exploration of psychological hauntings, human nature and its un/limitations, and that which is kept out sight, the expected “hidden secrets” (3). Gothic horror, on the other hand, is characterised by the consequences of these occurrences; the physical manifestation of the “haunting”, so to speak, is achieved through the presentation of something repulsive and horrific, the monstrous in its various incarnations (Hogle 3). In Gravity Falls, the connection to the traditional Gothic intertext is made clear through both elicitations of “terror”, and subsequent manifestations of “horror”. Indeed, the “hidden secrets” of the Shack, and to some extent, the fears and insecurities of the characters, are mediated through the appearance of horrific machinery and creatures. The Shack always conceals something hidden, a magical element of sort that is kept secret by intricate passageways. The shadowy nature of the building – evoking the psychological hauntings of Gothic terror – inevitably causes the appearance of something physically disturbing, finding its apogee in a Gothic horror experience. A clear example of this can be found in the episode “Double Dipper” (1.07). Desperate to impress his co-worker and secret love-interest Wendy, and “haunted” by his lack of self-worth, Dipper roams the rooms of the Shack and discovers a very old and enchanted photocopier machine; the machine copies “people”, making clones of the original. The “clones” themselves are a manifestation of horror, a presence that breaks the boundaries of propriety, and worries its viewers in view of its very existence. The cloning copy machine is strongly intertextual as it not only provides conceptual links to numerous cinematic and literary examples where a “haunted machine” threats to destroy humanity— in examples such as Stephen King’s Christine (1983) —but also evokes the threat of “doubles”, another powerfully Gothic conduit (Royle). As it is often the case in Gravity Falls, Dipper loses control of the situation, and the dozens of clones he unwittingly created take over his life and threaten to annihilate him. Dipper must destroy the “horror” —the clones—and confront the “terror”—his haunting insecurities and personal secrets—in order to restore the original balance. This intertextual dynamic validates Hogle’s contention that, in Gothic narratives, both the physical and the psychological “hauntings” rise from view “within the antiquated space” and “manifest unresolved conflicts that can no longer be successfully buried from view” (Hogle 2). The “hidden secrets” of Gravity Falls, and their manifestations through both Gothic horror and terror, are clearly connected to explorations of human nature and deeply existentialist crises that are put forward through humour and parody. These range from Grunkle Stan’ inability to commit to a relationship—and his feeling that life is slipping away in his old age—to the twins’ constant insecurities about pre-teen amorous encounters. Not to mention the knowledge that, in reality, Dipper and Mabel were “abandoned” by their mother in the care of Stan, as she had other plans for the summer. As Round has argued, the Gothic’s most significant development seems to have been the “transvaluation of moral issues”, as notions of “monsters have become less clear cut” (18). The series’ successful engagement with the wider “monstrous” intertext, and its connection to moral issues and “hidden” preoccupations, uncovers the ability of the Gothic, as Catherine Spooner puts it, to act as “commodity”, no longer a marginalised cultural presence, but a fully purchasable item in consumer-capitalist systems (Spooner 2007). The evocations of both horror and terror in Gravity Falls are, naturally, unavoidably diluted, a homage as much as a direct encounter. The use of the monstrous and the haunted in the series is domesticated, made accessible so that it can be presented to a younger and more commercial audience. The profound interlacings with the Gothic intertext remain, however, unchanged, as the series reconciles its subversive, uncanny elements with the inevitably conventional, Disney-fied context in which it is placed. References Blackmore, Leigh. “Marvels and Horrors: Terry Dowling’s Clowns at Midnight”. 21st Century Gothic: Great Gothic Novels Since 2000, ed. Danel Olson. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011. 87-97. Gravity Falls. Disney Television. Disney Channel, Los Angeles. 2012-2014. Hogle, Jerrold. “Introduction: The Gothic in Western Culture”. The Cambridge Companion of Gothic Fiction, ed. Jerrold Hogle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 1-20. Lecercle, Jean-Jacques. “The Kitten’s Nose: Dracula and Witchcraft”. The Gothic, ed. Fred Botting. D.S Brewer: Cambridge, 2001. 71-86. Mandal, Anthony. “Intertext”. The Encyclopaedia of the Gothic, ed. David Punter, Bill Hughes and Andrew Smith. Basingstoke: Wiley, 2013. 350-355. Mishra, Vijay. The Gothic Sublime. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. Round, Julia. Gothic in Comics and Graphic Novels. Jefferson: McFarland, 2014. Royle, Nicholas. The Uncanny. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. Sage, Victor. “Irish Gothic: C.R. Maturin and J.S. LeFanu. A Companion to the Gothic, ed. David Punter. Oxford; Blackwell, 2001. 81-93. Spooner, Catherine. Contemporary Gothic. London: Reaktion, 2007.

Intellectual property. It's a strange term, indicating from its structure that the questionable notion of property has been appended to something that, in a tangible sense, doesn't even exist. Difficult to grasp, like water, or air, yet at the same time so desirable to own... In Anglo-American law, property is defined, as the eighteenth-century jurist Sir William Blackstone put it, as "that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe" (Terry & Guigni 207). For most physical things, the 'right' of exclusion seems simple enough to understand, and to control. Yet even there, when the boundaries blur, especially over space and time, the results of such 'rights' become less and less manageable, as indicated by the classic 'tragedy of the commons' (Hardin). And once we move outside of the physical realm, and into the world of ideas, or of feelings or the spirit, the notion of an exclusive 'right' of ownership steadily makes less and less sense. It's an issue that's come to the fore with the rise of the Open Source movement, creating software that can be freely shared and used by anyone. There are many arguments about exactly is meant by 'free', though there's often an emphasis on freedom of ideas rather than price: "think of 'free' as in 'free speech', not as in 'free beer'" is how one group describes it (Free Software Foundation). Unlike proprietary software such as Microsoft Windows, the source-code from which the programs are compiled is available is available for anyone to view, amend, extend. As yet, few programmers are paid to do so; certainly no-one is excluded from doing so. The results from this apparently anarchic and altruistic model would be startling for anyone coming from a conventional economics background: for example, Sourceforge, the main Open Source repository, currently hosts almost 60,000 projects, with almost ten times that number of active contributors (Sourceforge). Some of these projects are huge: for example, the Linux kernel is well over a million lines of code, whilst the Gnome user-interface is already almost twice that size. Open Source programs such as the 'LAMP' quadrivirate of the GNU/Linux operating-system, Apache web-server, MySQL database and PHP, Perl or Python scripting languages provide most of the software infrastructure for the Internet (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, Python). And the Internet returns the favour, by providing a space in which collaboration can happen quickly and for the most part transparently, without much regard for status or location. Yet central though the Internet may be to this new wave of shared 'public good', the core innovations of Open Source are more social than technological. Of these, probably the most important are a specific kind of collaboration, and an unusual twist on copyright law. Eric Raymond's classic essay 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar' is one of the best descriptions of the social processes behind Open Source (Raymond). "Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch", says Raymond: see a need, tackle it, share the initial results, ask for help. Larry Wall, the initiator of Perl, "wanted to create something that was so useful that it would be taken up by many people" (Moody 133), and consciously promoted it in much the same way as a missionary (Moody 131). Open access to communications and a culture of shared learning provides the space to "release early, release often" and invite collaboration. Some projects, such as Apache and PHP, are run as a kind of distributed collective, but many are somewhat hierarchical, with a well-known lead-figure at the centre: Linus Torvalds for Linux, Larry Wall for Perl, Guido van Rossum for Python, Miguel de Icaza for Gnome. Yet the style rarely seems hierarchical in practice: the lead-figure's role is that of coordinator and final arbiter of quality, far removed from the militaristic 'command and control' so common in business environments. What makes it work is that anyone can join in, identify a bug, submit a patch, volunteer to design some desirable function or feature, and gain personal satisfaction and social respect for doing so. Programmers’ motivations vary enormously, of course: some share their work as a kind of libertarian statement, whilst others are more driven by a sense of obligation to others in the software-development community, or in the wider world. Yet for many, perhaps most, it's the personal satisfaction that's most important: as Linus Torvalds comments, "most of the good programmers do [Open Source] programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program" (Torvalds & Ghosh). In that sense it more closely resembles a kind of art-form rather than a conventional business proposition. Realistically, many of the smaller Open Source projects are little more than student exercises, with limited real-world usefulness. But for larger, more relevant projects this borderless, inclusive collaboration usually results in code of very high quality and reliability – "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" is another of Raymond's aphorisms – in stark contrast to the notorious security holes and general fragility of proprietary products from Redmond and elsewhere. And it leverages different people's skills to create an extraordinary degree of 'win/win', as Linus Torvalds points out: "imagine ten people putting in one hour each every day on the project. They put in one hour of work, but because they share the end results they get nine hours of 'other peoples work' for free. It sounds unfair: get nine hours of work for doing one hour. But it obviously is not" (Torvalds & Ghosh). It's this kind of return-on-investment that's making many businesses more than willing to embrace the 'insanity' of paying programmers to give away their time on Open Source projects (Pavlicek). The hard part, for many businesses, is that it demands a very different approach to business relationships. "Forget business as usual", writes Russell Pavlicek; "forget about demanding your own way; forget fluffy, empty management speeches; forget about fudging facts; forget about marketing that alienates the community; forget about pushing hype rather than real value; forget about taking more than you give" (Pavlicek 131-7). When everything is open, and everyone is in effect a volunteer, none of those time-dishonoured tactics works well. But the real catch is the legal framework under which Open Source is developed and distributed. Conventionally, placing work in the public domain – the intellectual-property equivalent of the commons – means that anyone can apply even the minutest of changes and then declare it exclusively as their own. Walt Disney famously did exactly this with many classics, such as the Grimms' fairy-tales or Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. The Free Software Foundation's 'GNU Public License' – used for most Open Source software – avoids this by copyrighting the work, permitting freedom to view, amend and extend the code for any purpose, but requiring that any new version permit the same freedoms (GNU/FSF). This inclusive approach – nicknamed 'copyleft' in contrast to conventional copyright – turns the usual exclusive model of intellectual property on its head. Its viral, self-propagating nature uses the law to challenge the law of property: everything it touches is – in principle – freed from exclusive private ownership. Larry Lessig and the Creative Commons legal team have extended this somewhat further, with machine-readable licenses that permit a finer granularity of choice in defining what uses of a work – a musical performance, a book or a Weblog, for example – are open or withheld (Creative Commons). But the central theme is that copyleft, together with the open nature of the Internet, "moves everything that touches it toward the public domain" (Norlin). Which is not a happy thought for those whose business models depend on exclusion and control of access to intellectual property – such as Hollywood, the media and the biotechnology industry – nor, for that matter, for those who'd prefer to keep their secrets secret (AWOLBush). Part of the problem, for such people, is a mistaken notion of what the Internet really is. It's not a pipe or a medium, like cable TV; it's more like a space or a place, a 'world of ends' (Searls & Weinberger). Not so much infrastructure, to be bought and sold, but necessarily shared, it's more 'innerstructure', a kind of artificial force of nature: "like the Earth's fertile surface, it derives much of its fertility from the life it supports" (Searls). Its key characteristics, argues Doc Searls, are that "No-one owns it; Everyone can use it; Anyone can improve it". And these characteristics of the Internet ultimately arise not from the hardware – routers, cables, servers and the like – or even the software, but ultimately from an agreement – the Internet Protocol – and an idea – that network connections can and should be self-routing, beyond direct control. Yet perhaps the most important idea that arises from this is that one of the most basic foundation-stones of Western society – the model of property as an exclusive 'right', a "sole and despotic dominion" – simply doesn't work. This is especially true for supposed 'intellectual property', such as copyrights, trade-marks, patents, genome sequences, scientific theories: after all, from where do those ideas and patterns ultimately arise? Who owns that? In legal terms, there's no definable root for a trail of provenance, no means to identify all involved intermediaries, and hence no ultimate anchor for any kind of property claim. Many other types of intellectual property, such as domain-names, phrases, words, radio-frequencies, colours, sounds - the word 'Yes', the phrase 'The Real Thing', Ferrari red, the sound of a Harley-Davidson – can only be described as arbitrary expropriations from the public domain. In many senses, then, the whole legal edifice of intellectual property is little more than "all smoke and mirrors", held together by lawyers' bluff – hardly a stable foundation for the much-vaunted 'information economy'! Whilst it's not quite true that "nobody owns it", in practice the only viable ownership for any kind of intellectual property would seem to be that of a declaration of responsibility, of stewardship – such as a project-leader's responsibility for an Open Source project – rather than an arbitrary and ultimately indefensible assertion of exclusive 'right'. So a simple question about intellectual property – is it copyright or copyleft? should source-code be proprietary or 'free'? – goes deeper and deeper into the 'innerstructure' of society itself. Miguel Icaza describes this well: "as the years pass and you're working in this framework, you start to reevaluate in many areas your relationships with your friends and your family. The same ideas about free software and sharing and caring about other people start to permeate other aspects of your life" (Moody 323). Perhaps it's time to look more carefully to look more carefully not just at intellectual property, but at the 'rights' and responsibilities associated with all kinds of property, to reach a more equitable and sustainable means to manage the tangible and intangible resources of this world we share. Works Cited Blackstone, Sir William. "Commentaries on the Laws of England." Book 2, 1765, 2, quoted in Andrew Terry and Des Guigni, Business, Society and the Law. Marrickville, Australia: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1994. Hardin, Garrett. "The Tragedy of the Commons." Science 162 (1968): 1243-8. 10 Mar. 2003 <http://www.constitution.org/cmt/tragcomm.htm>. “The Free Software Definition.” Free Software Foundation. 10 Mar. 2003 <http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.php>. Sourceforge. 9 Mar. 2003 <http://sourceforge.net/>. Linux. 9 Mar. 2003 <http://www.linux.org/>. GNOME. 9 Mar. 2003 <http://www.gnome.org/>. Apache. The Apache Software Foundation. 9 Mar. 2003 <http://www.apache.org/>. 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Links http://creativecommons.org/ http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig http://sourceforge.net/ http://tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ http://worldofends.com/ http://www.apache.org/ http://www.awolbush.com/ http://www.constitution.org/cmt/tragcomm.htm http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_3/torvalds/index.html http://www.fsf.org/licenses/licenses.html\lTOCWhatIsCopyleft http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html http://www.gnome.org/ http://www.linux.org/ http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6033 http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6074 http://www.mysql.com/ http://www.openresources.com/documents/cathedral-bazaar http://www.perl.org/ http://www.php.net/ http://www.python.org/ http://www.unchartedshores.com/blogger/archive/2003_02_23_archive3.html\l90388497 Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Graves, Tom. "Something Happened on the Way to the ©" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0304/03-somethinghappened.php>. APA Style Graves, T. (2003, Apr 23). Something Happened on the Way to the ©. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0304/03-somethinghappened.php>