Journal articles on the topic 'Pre-Reader status'

English Academic Discourse has always presented itself as a neutral vehicle of objective fact. Through the use of clearly defi ned terms and straightforward syntax, and the studied avoidance of forms of overt manipulation of the reader, it claims to offer a transparent window onto some pre-existing external reality. Today, however, most linguists agree that objectivity is a linguistic construct, achieved by the systematic use of grammatical forms such as nominalizations and the passive voice which mask human agency. Similarly, it is now generally understood that even the most positivistic science texts contain a certain amount of rhetorical manoeuvring designed to convince the reader of the truth value and utility of the claims made. This paper draws upon a range of linguistic, historical and philosophical sources to question this discourse’s status as the hegemonic vehicle of knowledge in the modern world.

This paper examined that classical literature is a valuable text that can building up Verstand just because it is old. The reasons for this are the following three. First, I wondered if the value of classical literature was coming to an end. Second, some pre-modern literature that does not have a status as classics may have excessive meaning. Third, it is difficult to prepare lectures at universities because the number of works with classical status is small among pre-modern literature. As a response to this, the following discussions were conducted in this paper. Chapter 1 established a justification for discussing the value of classical literature by diagnosing the reality of the decline in the status of classics. Chapter 2 focused on the problem of the value of classical literature. The actual appreciation results of Song Soon(宋純)’s Sijo work “Managing a Decade”(십년을 경영하여〜) were analyzed. The analysis results are as follows. The difference in the literary environment is involved in the temporal distance between the reader and the work. This results in differences in language texture. This difference has a characteristic that acts to make the reader understand the familiar concept formed in the good deed. Chapter 3 examines the meaning of the analysis results in Chapter 2 in Kant’s concept of Verstand. As a result of the review, it was found that the reader’s Verstand was built up in the process of appreciating classical works. The building up of Versatnd was caused by the reader’s efforts to understand the language of ‘Then, There, His/Her’ in order to reduce the distance from the language of work, ‘Now, Here, My’. The degree of Building up depends on the degree of effort. The following topics were demonstrated by the discussion of this paper. Classical literature is valuable as a text that can build up Verstand just because it is old. The reason is that classical literature works were produced in a different literary environment of ‘Then, There, His/Her’, which is far from the era of ‘Now, Here, My’ of the reader. The difference in language texture itself, which is caused by old age, is the foundation for building up Verstand so that the world can be viewed in various ways. As a result, the following three problems were solved. The first is the problem that researchers give excessive meaning to some pre-modern literature. The second is the difficulty of selecting works for instructors to lecture in the educational field. The third is anxiety about selecting. The perception of this value of classical literature will serve as an opportunity for the center of classical literature to shift somewhat to old literature.

В статье речь идет о прагматике дискурсивных жанров предисловие и введение к русскому и французскому философским словарям. Доказывается, что презентационной составляющей введения и предисловия является продвижение словаря как жанра научной коммуникации. Сравнительный анализ паратекстовых образований в русском и французском языке показывает, что коммуникативная стратегия информирования характерна для обоих изданий, вместе с тем для презентации достижений в области отечественной и зарубежной философии используются различные способы авторской самопрезентации. The pre-textual part of any published work is especially important for the readers and includes pragmatic purpose of the content explication and prior notification to the reader about the edition. Such genres contribute to the consideration of the publications providing any preface or introduction as a knowledge product in the publishing industry. The objectives of the article include identifying the linguo-pragmatic features of discourse genres such as preface and introduction to the Russian and French lexicographic practice based on the text-typological approach. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that philosophical discourse reveals not only linguistic, but also communicative features in the scientific communication. Furthermore, the features can exercise a certain degree of influence over a reader in conjunction with the language, that can be considered as a keeper of scientific experience and social foundations. A comparative analysis has illustrated that using paratextual units to inform the reader about the particular book characteristics is a common feature of Russian and French philosophical discourse. Moreover, the prospective orientation of the texts is anchored in the semantics of the terms of Preface and Introduction. The article argues that the pragmatic purpose of the preface is to familiarize the reader with the content of the published work. As for the introduction, the main 198 Сравнительное языкознание purpose of this pre-textual unit is to improve perceptions of the information drawing on the author’s concept and theoretical analysis. The result of the research demonstrates the description of the main communication strategies and tactics, indicating the linguistic and pragmatic features of the discourse genres such as preface and introduction. It was revealed that these pre-textual units are based on a stylistic effect of dialogicity, which includes the use of rhetorical questions and exclamation sentences. Terminological language is actively used as a reflection of the scientific picture of «philosophy». Furthermore, it is proved that the promotion of the dictionary as a scientific genre is a part of the presentation of the texts, evidence of which can be seen in the use of ameliorative assessment of the publications. Various ways of the author’s self-presentation are submitted as a presentation of achievements in the field of philosophy. The tactics of explanation, comparison and the special characteristics of the edition innovation are presented in the Russian dictionary. Whereas the authors’ competence and authority is emphasized in the French dictionary, which also indicates their scientific status and presents detailed information about their workplace. French philosophers actively use the tactics of the use of authoritative source or opinion as the basis of philosophical reflection.

Management of cervical precancer is archetypal for other cancer prevention programmes but has to consider diagnostic and logistic challenges. Numerous optical tools are emerging for non-destructive near real-time early diagnosis of precancerous lesions of the cervix. Non-destructive, real-time imaging modalities have reached pre-commercial status, but high resolution mapping tools are not yet introduced in clinical settings. The NCBI PubMed web page was searched using the keywords ‘CIN diagnosis’ and the combinations of ‘cervix {confocal, optical coherence tomography, ftir, infrared, Raman, vibrational, spectroscopy}’. Suitable titles were identified and their relevant references followed. Challenges in precancer management are discussed. The following tools capable of non-destructive high resolution mapping in a clinical environment were selected: confocal microscopy, optical coherence tomography, IR spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. Findings on the clinical performance of these techniques are put into context in order to assist the reader in judging the likely performance of these methods as diagnostic tools. Rationale for carrying out research under the prospect of the HPV vaccine is given.

Objective: To assess the value of non-contrast MRI features for characterisation of uterine leiomyosarcoma (LMS) and differentiation from atypical benign leiomyomas Methods: This study included 57 atypical leiomyomas and 16 LMS which were referred pre-operatively for management review to the specialist gynaeoncology multidisciplinary team meeting. Non-contrast MRIs were retrospectively reviewed by five independent readers (three senior, two junior) and a 5-level Likert score (1-low/5-high) was assigned to each mass for likelihood of LMS. Evaluation of qualitative and quantitative MRI features was done using uni- and multivariable regression analysis. Inter-reader reliability for the assessment of MRI features was calculated by using Cohen’s κ values. Results: In the univariate analysis, interruption of the endometrial interface and irregular tumour shape had the highest odds ratios (ORs) (64.00, p < 0.001 and 12.00, p = 0.002, respectively) for prediction of LMS. Likert score of the mass was significant in prediction (OR, 3.14; p < 0.001) with excellent reliability between readers (ICC 0.86; 95% CI, 0.76–0.92). The post-menopausal status, interruption of endometrial interface and thickened endometrial stripe were the most predictive independent variables in multivariable estimation of the risk of leiomyosarcoma with an accuracy of 0.88 (95%CI, 0.78–0.94). Conclusion: At any level of expertise as a radiologist reader, the loss of the normal endometrial stripe (either thickened or not seen) in a post-menopausal patient with a myometrial mass was highly likely to be LMS. Advances in knowledge: This study demonstrates the potential utility of non-contrast MRI features in characterisation of LMS over atypical leiomyomas, and therefore influence on optimal management of these cases.

e11527 Background: 118 Her2 positive invasive carcinomas were retested centrally at the Mayo Clinic for Her2 status confirmation prior to inclusion in Mayo Clinic Cancer Research Consortium study RC0639 phase II study of cardiac safety and tolerability of adjuvant chemotherapy plus trastuzumab with lapatinib for resected Her2+ breast cancer (MCCRC RC0639). Methods: Central confirmatory methods were immunohistochemical (IHC) Dako HercepTest on a Dako Autostainer using the manufacturer's recommendations and HercepTest kit epitrope retrieval kit and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) using Vysis PathVysion probe kit. Test results are interpreted using ASCO/CAP guidelines (IHC >30%, Her2:CEP 17 ratio >2.2). Results: There is local and central test 3+ IHC concordance in 48 of 53 tumors (agreement 90.6%) and FISH amplification in 29 of 33 tumors (agreement 87.9%), improved or similar results using identical methods to results in NCCTG N9831 adjuvant trial (n=1063, 81.6% IHC; n=813, 88.1% FISH). Of 92 centrally tested 3+ IHC positive tumors, 88 (95.7%) were FISH amplified. 5 centrally tested patients interpreted as Her2 positive by pre-ASCO/CAP guidelines (IHC >10%; HER2:CEP17 ratio >2) are Her2 ineligible using ASCO/CAP guidelines. IHC not confirmed centrally was reviewed by a second pathologist in 16 of 118 specimens. IHC concordance between two central pathologists was 10/16 (62.5%) in negative or equivocal (≤30% IHC staining) specimens; 7/10 (70%) with two reader agreement were FISH amplified and 4/6 (66%) with disagreement were FISH amplified. Conclusions: Concordance in IHC and FISH results between local and central labs is similar or improved since N9831. New ASCO/CAP Her2 testing guidelines change eligibility based on Her2 status in 4.2 % of patients. Equivocal IHC results falling between pre- and post- ASCO/CAP IHC positive thresholds (>10% and <30% IHC strong staining) are only partially resolved by repeat IHC review and/or FISH testing. No significant financial relationships to disclose.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate if CT-detected extramural venous invasion (ctEMVI) was associated with the presence of lymph node metastasis (LNM) and survival outcomes in patients with gastric cancer. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 105 patients with pathologically proved gastric cancer who underwent pre-operative CT examinations and received radical gastrectomy with extended lymphadenectomy. Differences in CT characteristics between the LNM-positive and -negative groups were assessed by two observers. Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the risk factors of lymph node metastasis in gastric cancer. Progression-free survival analysis was performed by Kaplan–Meier method. Results: Two observers reached good inter-reader agreements in ctEMVI and ctN status with κ values of 0.711 and 0.751, respectively. The frequency of ctEMVI-positive status was 58.1% (61/105) in patients with gastric cancer. The LNM-positive group showed higher possibility of ctEMVI-positive status (81.7% vs 26.7%, p＜0.001), larger tumor volume (mean volume, 40.77 vs 22.09 mL, p＜0.001), poor tumor margin (45.0% vs 26.7% , p = 0.054) and high enhancement on arterial phase (43.3% vs 26.7%, p = 0.023) and venous phase (60.0% vs 44.4%, p = 0.048), than LNM-negative group. In multivariate analysis, ctEMVI status and tumor volume were identified as independent risk factors for lymph node metastasis with odds ratio (OR) of 9.804 (95% CI, 3.076－31.246; p＜0.001) and 1.030 (95% CI, 1.001－1.060; p = 0.044). CT-detected EMVI presented better diagnostic efficiency for lymph node metastasis than CT-defined N status, with sensitivity (81.7% vs 70.0%), specificity (73.3% vs 71.1%), accuracy (78.1% vs 70.5), PPV (80.3% vs 76.4%), and NPV (75.0% vs 64.0%), respectively. Kaplan–Meier curves showed that patients with positive ctEMVI findings has lower PFS rate than patients with negative ctEMVI findings (Log-rank test, p = 0.007). Conclusion: CT-detected EMVI was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis and progression free survival in patients with gastric cancer. Compared to CT-defined N status, ctEMVI provided superior diagnostic performance to predict pathologic Nstatus. Advances in knowledge: Our study proved that CT-detected EMVI is a promising imaging marker to predict lymph node metastasis and poor prognosis, which may contribute to the precise evaluation of gastric cancer before surgery.

Background:Randomized controlled trials have targeted reducing the size of BML and degree of synovitis for the treatment of OA. We have developed the OMERACT Knee Inflammation MRI Scoring System (KIMRISS) and have recently refined it to maximize reliability and sensitivity to change. Innovations include electronic overlays for assessment of BML in 500 subregions, a web-based interface with direct online scoring, and real-time iterative calibration (RETIC) prior to reading exercises. Synovitis-effusion (S-E) is also scored on all consecutive sagittal slices on a web-based interface.Objectives:We aimed to test the feasibility, reliability, and responsiveness of KIMRISS versus an established method, MOAKS, in two multi-reader exercises.Methods:KIMRISS incorporates web-based graphic overlays for each of femur, tibia, and patella (range 0-500). S-E is recorded as the largest diameter perpendicular to the longest axis of this feature (range 0-100). All scores are pro-rated for a standardized number of MRI slices. In a pre-reading exercise for KIMRISS, readers scored sufficient cases in RETIC to attain scoring proficiency, pre-specified as an ICC of ≥0.80 and ≥0.70 for status and change scores of BML and S-E compared to developer reads. A new web-based scoring platform with overlays designating different subregions for scoring BML was developed for MOAKS. We compared reliability for status and change scores of BML and S-E in 2 international multi-reader exercises of baseline and one-year MRI scans from the Osteoarthritis Initiative: A. 4 expert readers and an OMERACT fellow scored 38 cases selected for MOAKS BML score ≥1. B. 7 expert readers and an OMERACT fellow scored 60 cases selected for MOAKS BML ≥3 and Kellgren-Lawrence (K-L) grade <3. Reliability was assessed by intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) and Smallest Detectable Change (SDC), responsiveness by the standardized response mean (SRM), and feasibility using the System Usability Scale (SUS scoring range 0-100).Results:For exercises A/B, subjects were 55.3%/ 26.7% male, mean(±SD) age 61.7(±9.1)/61.9(8.8) years, and radiographic K-L grade ≤2 in 39.4%/100%. Change was small in both exercises (<5% of scoring range for KIMRISS and MOAKS BML and S-E) with comparable responsiveness (Table 1). Despite this, ICC for change was consistently good to very good for both BML and S-E and consistently better for KIMRISS (Table 1). Mean SUS scores were 88.2 for KIMRISS and 54.3 for MOAKS.Table 1.KIMRISS and MOAKS scores in Two International Multi-reader ExercisesMethodMRI featureScores mean (SD)SDC(% of max)P valueSRMBaselineOne-year Follow upChangeEXERCISE AMOAKSBML3.6 (2.9)3.4 (2.3)-0.2 (1.9)1.0 (2.2%)0.72-0.11Synovitis-effusion1.3 (0.8)1.5 (0.8)0.2 (0.4)0.4 (13.3%)0.0170.5KIMRISSBML15.7 (13.3)21.2 (22.5)5.5 (15.3)5.6 (1.1%)0.0220.36Synovitis-effusion21.8 (12.0)24.3 (11.9)2.5 (7.4)2.8 (2.8%)0.0430.34EXERCISE BMOAKSBML4.2 (2.6)3.7 (2.4)-0.5 (2.1)1.1 (2.4%)0.083-0.24Synovitis-effusion1.2 (0.7)1.3 (0.8)0.0 (0.5)0.4 (13.3%)0.590.0KIMRISSBML18.0 (17.5)15.9 (14.3)-2.1 (12.3)5.9 (1.2%)0.19-0.17Synovitis-effusion21.8 (9.3)22.9 (10.8)1.1 (7.1)2.2 (2.2%)0.250.15Intra-class Correlation Coefficients (95%CI)MethodMRI featureExercise AExercise BKIMRISS statusKIMRISS changeBML0.86 (0.78-0.92)0.88 (0.81-0.93)0.80 (0.70-0.87)0.72 (0.64-0.80)MOAKS statusMOAKS changeBML0.71 (0.46-0.85)0.76 (0.64-0.85)0.67 (0.56-0.77)0.69 (0.60-0.78)KIMRISS statusKIMRISS changeSynovitis-effusion0.88 (0.81-0.93)0.87 (0.79-0.92)0.75 (0.52-0.86)0.87 (0.82-0.91)MOAKS statusMOAKS changeSynovitis-effusion0.66 (0.4-0.79)0.52 (0.36-0.67)0.65 (0.52-0.75)0.48 (0.37-0.60)Conclusion:The KIMRISS method for scoring BML and Synovitis-Effusion scores highly for feasibility and demonstrates consistently high reliability when compared to MOAKS. Further validation for responsiveness is necessary in cases with greater change in MRI features than in the OAI dataset.Disclosure of Interests:None declared.

Objective.To assess reliability and feasibility of using a Web-based interface and interactive online calibration tool for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scoring of bone marrow lesions (BML) in osteoarthritis (OA), applied to the Hip MR Inflammation Scoring System (HIMRISS).Methods.Seven readers new to HIMRISS (3 radiologists, 4 rheumatologists) scored coronal short-tau inversion recovery MRI from a hip OA observational study obtained pre- and 8-week poststeroid injection (n = 40 × 2 scans × 2 hips = 160 hips). By crossover design, Group B (4 readers) scored 20 patients (40 hips) using conventional spreadsheet-based methods and then another 20 using a Web-based interface and an online real-time iterative calibration (RETIC) training module. Group A (3 readers) reversed the order, scoring the first 20 subjects by the new method and the final 20 conventionally. Outcomes included ICC and reader survey.Results.Interobserver reliability for BML status was high by both spreadsheet and Web-based methods (0.84–0.90), regardless of the order in which scoring was performed. Reliability of change scores was moderate and improved with training. Improvement was greater in readers who began with the spreadsheet method and then used the Web-based method than in those who began with the Web-based method, especially at the acetabulum. Readers found Web-based/RETIC scoring more user-friendly and nearly 50% faster than traditional spreadsheet methods.Conclusion.HIMRISS offers reliable BML scoring in OA, whether by conventional spreadsheet-based scoring or by a Web-based interface with interactive feedback. The new method allowed faster readings, provided a consistent training environment that helped inexperienced readers achieve reliability equivalent to that of conventional methods, and was preferred by the readers.

D. A. F. DE SADE: “DIVINE MARQUIS” OR DEMOLISHER OF THE IDEAS OF ENLIGHTMENT The paper provides a brief outline of the major elements that made up the foundations for the political thought of Marquis D. A. F. de Sade. The author of the paper believes that these elements have not been sufficiently presented in the Polish historiography of political doctrines. The Marquis, being deeply anchored in the Enlightenment ideas and stylistics, was simultaneously the thinker who questioned a remarkable number of elements of these ideas. What he challenged were in particular: the previous descriptions of nature, natural state, location and status of the human being, social contract and the concept of State and law. By questioning these concepts he indirectly challenged also the major articles of the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen. His political concepts are detectable in most of his literary production and therefore the author of the paper treats what is detectable as a certain whole which perhaps is not fully consistent of morality and law, both those of ancien régime as well as those promoted by too idealistic concepts of the pre-revolutionary era. An interesting example of the originality of his way of political thinking was his attempt to present to the reader the two extremely different socio-constitutional models – that of classical Utopia and that of Anti-utopia – as included in one literary production. The essay is concluded with a brief attempt at the summarizing and assessing of the discussed concepts as viewed against our present-day reception of de Sade’s production and his location in the history of political thought.

562 Background: Arzoxifene (ARZ) is currently being studied for treatment of breast cancer patients in a Phase II trial because of tamoxifen-like efficacy but lack of uterine agonist effect. We conducted a Phase II chemoprevention trial in women at high risk for development of breast cancer on the basis of personal or family history. Methods: Potential subjects had multiple biomarkers assessed, including random periareolar fine needle aspiration (RPFNA) with breast epithelial cells processed for cytomorphology and immunocytochemistry. Women who exhibited cytologic hyperplasia ± atypia were eligible for enrollment. Subjects were stratified on the basis of atypia, estrogen receptor expression, menopause status, germline BrCa1/2 mutation status, and accrual site. Subjects were randomized (double-blind) between placebo and ARZ (LY353381.HCI, 20 mg daily) for 6 mo, with an option to continue on study for another 6 mo while receiving open-label ARZ. Assessments conducted at baseline, 6 mo, and 12 mo included mammographic breast density. Mammograms were digitized to image files which were cropped to remove labels and dates, and then identified by a study subject ID number and a random coding for baseline, 6 or 12 mo. This allowed the reader (GU) to view the three files for a subject, but to remain blinded as to the sequence of the films or the study agent. The files were assessed for mammographic density using the Madena computer-assisted system. Results: Of 199 subjects enrolled on the study, 52% were pre-menopausal; with 101 women randomized to placebo and 98 to ARZ. At baseline, mean values were comparable for placebo and ARZ groups for breast area (∼244 cm2), total dense area (∼100 cm2), and the percent of the breast at increased density (41.3% vs 46.2%). After 6 mo, there were minimal changes in total breast area (P=0.13); but statistically significant decreases (P<0.001) for the comparison of placebo vs ARZ (2-sided T-test) for change in both dense area (+3.8 vs −12.9 cm2) and percent breast density (+0.8% vs −4.6%). Conclusions: The 3rd generation SERM arzoxifene administered for 6 mo produces statistically significant decreases in mammographic breast density relative to placebo in women at high risk for development of breast cancer. No significant financial relationships to disclose.

Abstract Background MicroRNAs are non-coding small RNAs that modulate protein expression and are implicated in the pathogenesis of much kind of cancers. miR-137 was reported to act as a tumor suppressor in different cancers. In the present study, we describe the epigenetic regulation of miR-137 and its contribution in Multiple Myeloma (MM). Methods and Results Real-time RT-PCR was used to screen the expression levels of miR-137 in MM cell lines and CD138+ cell sorted from MM patients, which confirmed the downregulation of miR-137 in MM cell lines and patients, and the expression of cell lines increasing treated with epigenetic drugs 5-aza-dC. The methylation status of miR-137 CpG island was determined by bisulfite pyrosequencing and methylation specific polymerase chain reaction (MSP). Methylation of the miR-137 CpG island was frequently observed in MM cell lines and patients but not in healthy donor and MGUS. Cck-8 assay showed transfection of miR-137 precursor in MM cells significantly inhibited cell proliferation and increased cell drug sensitivity. Importantly, Ectopic expression of miR-137 in MM cells inhibited phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK/ERK). To further identify miR-137 targets, we used bioinformatics analysis and confirmed using a luciferase reporter assay. To validate AURKA as miR-137 target, we cloned the 3' UTR sequence of human AURKA into the luciferase-expressing vector psiCHECK. 293Tcells were transiently transfected with this construct in the presence of pre-miR-137 or a scrambled oligonucleotide acting as a negative control. As reported in luciferase plate reader, miR-137 significantly reduced luciferase activity compared with the scrambled control miRNA. This indicated that miR-137 binds to the 3'UTR of AURKA and impairs its mRNA translation. Furthermore, NCI-H929 cells were transfected with AURKA shRNA vector psiHIV-mH1-AURK and westernblot showed phosphorylation of ERK was also significantly decreased. Conclusion miR-137 was epigenetic Silenced and targeted AURKA expression to contribute to the proliferation through MAPK/ERK pathway in MM. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Статья посвящена процессу воспитания и обучения воспитанниц Белёвского епархиального женского училища. Открытие епархиальных женских училищ на территории Российской империи стало важной вехой в развитии как духовного, так и светского образования. Несмотря на то, что эти учебные заведения были сословными, трудно переоценить значение появления женских училищ в жизни дореволюционного духовенства, доступное детям церковнои священнослужителей обучение в которых значительно поднимало уровень просвещения семей духовенства и несколько приближало его к интеллигенции. Эти учебные организации открывались преимущественно при женских монастырях, находящихся в ведении Святейшего Синода или под управлением местного епархиального архиерея: основой для училищ в большинстве случаев послужили монастырские приюты. Содержание этих учебных заведений осуществлялось за счёт средств, выделяемых епархией, а также индивидуальных пожертвований. Статус училища определялся возможностью устроить учебно-воспитательный процесс согласно Уставу епархиальных женских училищ, что, в свою очередь, во многом зависело от решения вопроса финансирования. Читатель узнает о внутреннем распорядке дня учащихся, о воспитании девочек в строго религиозно-нравственном направлении, о расписании ежедневных занятий, о изучаемых в училище предметах, о задаваемом на дом материале для самостоятельного изучения и об организация досуговой деятельности во внеучебное время воспитанниц. The article is devoted to the process of education and training of pupils of the Belevsky diocesan women's school. The opening of diocesan women's colleges in the Russian Empire was an important milestone in the development of both spiritual and secular education. Despite the fact that these educational institutions were estates, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the emergence of women's schools in the life of pre-revolutionary clergy, whose education available to the children of clergy and clergy significantly raised the level of education of the clergy families and brought them somewhat closer to the intelligentsia. These educational establishments were set up mainly in the women's monasteries administered by the Holy Synod or under the direction of the local diocesan bishop: the foundation of these schools was in most cases provided by the monastic asylums. The maintenance of these schools was funded by the diocese, as well as by individual donations. The status of the school was determined by the possibility of organising the teaching and educational process in accordance with the Statutes of the diocese. The status of the school was determined by its ability to organise the educational process in accordance with the Statutes of the diocesan women's colleges, which, in turn, depended to a great extent on the solution of the problem of financing. The reader learns about the internal daily routine of students, the strictly religious and moral upbringing of girls, the daily schedule of classes, the subjects taught in the school, the homework given to them for self-study, and leisure activities organized for students outside of school hours.

In the last 15 years, our understanding of the contribution of epigenetic mechanisms to ALL leukemogenesis has increased exponentially. Epigenetic alterations are particularly interesting from a therapeutic standpoint, as they are potentially reversible and amenable to pharmacologic modulation. Indeed, inhibitors of DNA methylation, histone deactylation and histone methylation all have entered clinical trials, and early results for several of these agents are encouraging. Incorporating epigenetic modulation into ALL therapy may therefore hold great promise in improving tolerability and outcomes. Specifically, this session will address: - Patterns of aberrant DNA methylation and clinical trials combining "demethylating" agents with standard chemotherapy for relapsed ALL.DNA methylation patterns have been shown to correlate with outcome. Basic studies failed to conclusively link the regulation of specific genes or pathways to aberrant DNA methylation, and upfront methylation patterns poorly predict response to demethylating agents. Nevertheless, several clinical trials combining demethylating agents and chemotherapy in relapsed ALL are ongoing, with encouraging early results. These included responses of patients treated with decitabine and HyperCVAD who had previously failed to respond HyperCVAD alone. - Patterns of aberrant histone acetylation, the biology of histone acetyl transferases (HATs) and histone deacetylases (HDACS) in ALL, and clinical trials modulating histone acetylation. Histone acetylation patterns and a high frequency of deletions of the HAT CBP at relapse suggest that aberrant histone acetylation contributes to relapse and resistance. HDAC inhibitors show efficacy on ALL cells in preclinical studies, and clinical trials are ongoing. - The role of the histone acetylation "reader" protein Brd4 in ALL. In addition to "writers" (HAT) and "erasers" (HDACs), readers of histone acetylation may play a role in leukemia. Inhibition of Brd4 showed activity in several lymphoblastic leukemia models, and two Brd4 inhibitors are currently in clinical trials for relapsed/refractory hematologic malignancies including ALL. - Patterns of aberrant histone methylation, biology and therapeutic possibilities. Aberrant histone methylation is also emerging as a contributor to leukemogenesis, and may offer opportunities for therapeutic intervention. Loss of function mutations of the H3K27 histone methyltransferase EZH2 or other members of its complex (SUZ12, EED) are often found in early T-cell precursor ALL (ETP), and loss of EED or EZH2 contributes to aberrant T-cell development and leukemic transformation in mouse models. Gain of function of the H3K36 histone methyltransferase NSD2 have recently been described in pre-B ALL, raising the obvious question whether these leukemias depend on H3K36 hypermethylation, and NSD2 inhibition would have a therapeutic effect. Finally, aberrant recruitment of the histone methyltransferase DOT1L is observed in MLL-rearranged ALL, and an inhibitor of DOT1L is in clinical trials for MLL-rearranged malignancies, including ALL. Basic and translational studies support a critical role for epigenetic mechanisms in ALL leukemogenesis, drug resistance and relapse. Early results from clinical trials demonstrate that pharmacologic modulation of epigenetic modifiers can produce clinically meaningful responses. The next few years will likely see an increased number of compounds that modulate epigenetics enter clinical trials. Current assignment of patients to studies/compounds is crude, based on tumor type and status (i.e. "relapsed hematologic malignancy") or cytogenetics (i.e. MLL-rearrangement), rather than epigenetic profiling or an understanding of the biology that drives an individual patient's leukemia. As our diagnostic and therapeutic tools improve, epigenetic modulation may become an important component of ALL therapy. Disclosures Off Label Use: This presentation will include discussion of the use of decitabine, azacitidine, vorinostat, rhomidepsin and EPZ-5676 for ALL..

With this publication, the German-reading public has acquired a rather sizeable, three-volume addition to their library that helps them to learn more about the Baltic and its history. The work is written on a high academic level, with extensive reference material. The reader is acquainted with the territories of the three present-day Baltic states from pre-history to the present day, when their statehood has been restored. Among the authors are respectable German historians as well as their colleagues from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland. Among other things, the three volumes could serve as an impetus to Latvian historians, signalling that it is high time to write and publish our own academic history based on the latest research findings.

MAGIC, SCIENCE, AND RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE by Mark A. Waddell. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2021. x + 220 pages, including an annotated bibliography and index. Paperback; $25.99. ISBN: 9781108441650. *For decades, it has been commonplace among historians of science to recognize the essential interconnections between Christianity and the early origins of the natural sciences, even if some non-historians continue to struggle to relinquish the more titillating revival of a conflict between them. The reality is that the social and intellectual history of theology and natural philosophy have vast overlapping boundaries. The history of the modern natural sciences is no less continuous with the ideas and practices of magic, alchemy, and astrology. While Enlightenment sensibilities chafe at the notion, historical research, much in the same vein as studies in "Science and Religion," is incontestable. Mark A. Waddell's brief introduction to the subject quickly brings the reader into this consensus without sacrificing the nuance needed to avoid oversimplification. *The strongest chapters are in the first half of the book, where Waddell introduces the Renaissance interest in Hermetic philosophy (chap. 1), then newly discovered among ancient texts (though not so ancient as they were first thought to be). The author proves to be a practiced communicator, able to simplify and condense a range of philosophical principles. He also succeeds in connecting philosophies with the perennial social problems and questions of ordinary human experience. In this way, he is consistent with a long line of scholars writing on the subject, from Keith Thomas's, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971) forward. The subject of witchcraft and demonology (chap. 2) is treated as the manifestation of social anxieties within European culture more generally. *The broadest principle of magic is covered in chapter 3, "Magic, Medicine, and the Microcosm," in which Waddell explains the overarching analogy between the greater universe out there and our mundane existence down here. This forms the basis for both astrology-based medicine (noting concordances between either herbs or organs with their astrological counterparts and using them to heal) or judicial astrology, which sought to understand the past and map the future by virtue of astrological motions. And Waddell presents this as a normal part of early-modern thinking among churchmen and commoners alike. *The second half of the book covers topics which may be more easily recognized as parts of modern natural science: Galileo, Copernicus, Boyle, and Newton. Chapter 4, "A New Cosmos," uses a most creative and pedagogically sensitive introduction to the radical proposal of a world system in which the earth is not motionless and at the center of the universe. Waddell uses the demotion of Pluto from planetary status in 2006 and the subsequent public backlash, and asks the reader to imagine, a fortiori, how the public might react to an even greater disruption of received astronomical dogma, however empirically informed. Waddell returns again in chapter 5, "Looking for God in the Cosmic Machine," to ancient philosophy, showing how Epicurean atomism presented an old philosophical problem anew in the philosophies of René Descartes and Pierre Gassendi, focusing on the question of the nature of the soul. Here the continuity of ancient and new philosophies is maintained, illustrating the ongoing development and connected history between modern natural science, magic, and religion. *That continuity might have been better represented with more emphasis on the philosophy of Aristotle and scholasticism. While Aristotle's philosophy is discussed in several places throughout the book, such as in the discussion above on the soul, a dedicated chapter would have been appropriate given the dominance of Aristotle in Western intellectual culture from the end of the thirteenth century through the end of the seventeenth. This weakness of the book was evident in chapter 6 in the section on Francis Bacon and the inductive method. Waddell says, "Bacon founded his ideas about experience and experiment on what is known as inductive reasoning, or induction … In choosing to focus on singular observations, Bacon was of course doing exactly what Aristotle taught his students not to do" (p. 166). *Aristotle never gave such instruction. In fact, Aristotle describes induction in his Posterior Analytics, Book I, in the first sentence: "All teaching and learning of an intellectual kind proceed from pre-existent knowledge … Similarly with arguments, both deductive and inductive: they effect their teaching through what we already know, the former assuming items which we are presumed to grasp, the latter proving something universal by way of the fact that the particular cases are plain" (Barnes translation, 1975). *Waddell misses that Bacon's emphasis on induction was not novel except in emphasis. The new science was an extension of old principles newly revived. *This introduction closes with a coda, extending briefly into the Enlightenment. This section is handled a little too quickly, but well enough to present some of the subtleties necessary to link it to its past. Not only does he present how Enlightenment intellectuals were embarrassed by Newton's alchemical adventures, but how the mechanical forces of modern science themselves still betray underlying occult qualities that formerly traveled under other names. *The author often used the word "problematic" (over twenty times) throughout the book: for example, in the sentence, "It is important to note that, however problematic the idea of a mechanical universe might have been, it did not disappear." The author uses the word so often, it is unclear if he merely means something less specific, like "challenging," as in "difficult to absorb" in one's concepts of the natural world, or more narrowly as something that violates social and political norms. Since Waddell in other places in the book seeks to contextualize these events of four hundred years ago within a modern idiom, it is at least plausible that he wishes us to connect the intensity of the social dramas of today with those past events. If so, an explicit recognition of that would have been helpful to the reader. *This book is suitable for an undergraduate course in the history of science, especially if flanked by primary source readings under the guidance of the instructor. A person with no background in the subject would also find this an accessible entry point into the subject, from which they could move on to more detailed studies, such as those noted in the bibliography. *Reviewed by Jason M. Rampelt, History of Science and Medicine Archivist, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260.

Reader Response Approach is one of these modern approaches which emphasizes on the creative role of the reader, so the current study sheds light on a fresh look at the reader response theory to enhance students’ performance through meaningful interactions with literature. It is an approach of teaching that gives the students opportunity to learn English , and helps them to learn and practice in class and solve their problem personally. Personal -Response approach is one of the literary criticism approachs in which the readers can involve their personal opinions, feelings, and background knowledge to create meanings of the text. Moreover, PRA helps the students’ reading comprehension by giving response o f what they read. The present study aims at: Investigating the impact of using personal response approach on developing the leveling of students' performance in EFL recognition and production and finding out the effectiveness of the personal response approach in improving efl students’ performance in learning English language. The hypothesis of the current study states that there is no statistically significant difference in the mean performance scores of the experimental groups’ recognition and production levels in the posttest. To achieve the aim and confirm its hypothesis the experimental design which is Non- Randomized Experimental Group Pretest- Posttest Design is used. The sample of the current study consists of (60) students who have been chosen from fifth scientific stage at Ibn -Al-Muaatum secondary school for boys in Tikrit. (30) students have been chosen to be the experimental group, and (30) students have been chosen to be control group. Both groups have been equalized in such variables of educational level of parents, testees age, English grades achievement in fourth stage, and the pre-test of both groups. To analyze the obtained data, different statistical means have been used T-test, weighted mean and percentile mean to measure the students’ performance.

Abstract Abstract 215 Chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGvHD) is a major complication of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). National Institute of Health (NIH) consensus criteria classification of GvHD has prognostic significance, with classic and overlap cGvHD showing better survival. Patients with classic and overlap cGvHD have clinical features mimicking autoimmune diseases. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of B-cell activating factor (BAFF) have been associated with development of connective tissue disorders and autoimmune diseases. BAFF is a cytokine of the tumor necrosis factor family which plays an important role in both normal and post HCT B-cell homeostasis. Elevated BAFF to B-cell ratio after HCT can predict for the development of cGvHD. We hypothesized that recipient and/or donor BAFF SNPs would be associated with the phenotype of GvHD following HCT. Adult patients undergoing HCT (cord transplant excluded) at a single center (1999-2008), with a minimum survival of 120 days, and with the availability of pre-transplant recipient and donor germline DNA samples were included (n=164). GvHD was phenotyped per NIH criteria. Twenty tagSNPs of the BAFF gene were identified using previously published criteria. Genotyping was performed with the GoldenGate assay of the VeraCode technology using the BeadXpress reader system. P-values were generated using logistic regression and adjusted for false discovery rate (FDR). GvHD after day 100 occurred in 124 (76%) patients [delayed/recurrent acute GvHD (aGVHD) (n=23), overlap GvHD (n=29) and classic cGvHD (n=72)]. Patients with classic and overlap cGvHD had improved overall survival (OS) compared to patients with aGvHD and no GvHD (P=0.007). Due to shared clinical phenotype and similar survival characteristics, overlap and classic cGvHD were combined into a single outcome variable to test for association with BAFF SNPs. In univariate analyses, there were no differences in patient characteristics between classic/overlap vs. acute/no GvHD. Variables included in analysis were: age, gender, race, disease diagnoses, disease risk, stem cell source, regimen intensity, donor type, HLA match, GvHD prophylaxis, use of irradiation, CMV serostatus, aGVHD grade prior to day 100, bilirubin level and platelet count at day 100 post allo-SCT. In single SNP analyses 9 (donor-2, recipient-7) of the 20 tag SNPs had significant P values of <0.05 when comparing classic/overlap cGvHD vs. aGvHD/no GvHD. Remainder of the analyses were on recipient SNPs only. Adjusting for FDR, 4 recipient SNPs remained significant and included in multivariate analyses using classic chronic/overlap cGvHD as reference category. All 4 BAFF SNPs, rs16972217 [odds ratio (OR) 2.72, 95% CI 1.38 –5.39, P=0.004], rs7993590 [OR 2.35 95% CI 1.22–4.55,P=0.011], rs12428930 [OR 2.53, 95% CI 1.27–5.04, P=0.008] and rs2893321 [OR 2.48, 95% CI 1.25–4.92,P=0.009] were independent predictors of late/recurrent aGvHD or no aGVHD (Figure), adjusted for “conventional” predictors of cGvHD [donor status (related vs. unrelated), stem cell source (bone marrow vs. peripheral blood stem cells), and aGvHD prior to day 100 (grade 0–1 vs. 2–4)]. Our study is the first to show that genetic variation of BAFF can predict the phenotype of GvHD after HCT. None of the known clinical predictors of limited/extensive cGVHD were associated with classic or overlap cGvHD. Correlations of serum BAFF levels with BAFF SNPs are being studied. The ability of BAFF SNPs to predict efficacy of rituximab in prevention and treatment of cGVHD needs to be investigated to allow for an individualized approach in the management of GvHD.Figure:Factors Associated with GvHD Phenotype after HCTOdds ratio ≥1 is associated with odds of developing late/recurrent aGvHD or no aGvHD after day 100 from HCT.Figure:. Factors Associated with GvHD Phenotype after HCT. / Odds ratio ≥1 is associated with odds of developing late/recurrent aGvHD or no aGvHD after day 100 from HCT. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Abstract Germinal centers (GCs) drive adaptive humoral immunity by selecting for B cells with high affinity antibodies and producing memory B cells and plasma cells. We previously defined three GC B cell subpopulations that are undergoing either selection, proliferation, or somatic hypermutation with distinct transcriptional and chromatin accessibility profiles. We hypothesized that the epigenetic reader BRWD1, which regulates chromatin accessibility during B cell lymphopoiesis, also regulates the chromatin accessibility and differentiation of GC B cells. To study the role of BRWD1 in GC B cells, we generated Aicda cre× Brwd1 fl/flmice and performed ATAC-seq to measure chromatin accessibility. Loss of Brwd1 caused an epigenetic collapse whereby differential chromatin accessibility between GC B cell subpopulations was lost. This was accompanied by SPIB and PU.1 binding motifs becoming more accessible among GC B cell subpopulations. Functionally, loss of Brwd1 promoted proliferation, and GC structures were larger and more frequent. However, the rate of somatic hypermutation was unaltered. Interestingly, Brwd1-deficient GCs had massive apoptotic debris by histology, which was consistent with strong inflammatory and apoptosis transcriptional signatures measured by RNA-seq. Finally, Brwd1 deletion caused a decrease in pre-memory B cell differentiation, and resultant plasma cells had decreased immunoglobulin mutations. We conclude that BRWD1 regulates chromatin accessibility to compartmentalize the molecular functions of each GC B cell subpopulation and to prevent apoptosis-induced inflammation. This research was funded by grants R01 AI143778 and F30 AI174324 from the NIH/NIAID.

In this historical video interview from 1976 Chantal Akerman discusses her early films and the development of her particular vision with B. Ruby Rich. This transcript also includes an introduction written for this Film Quarterly special issue by Rich, which provides added context for the reader in order to understand and appreciate this voice from the archive. Akerman was just becoming known at the time this interview was recorded: even cinephiles did not yet know her name. Her earlier work had not been shown or written about in the United States, and had barely been given any attention at all. This interview, therefore, represents what is very much a getting-to-know-you conversation, for there was little available to read about her in 1976, nothing about the earlier work, and pre-internet, no access to any of it. The video interview is available from Video Data Bank, who generously granted FQ permission to publish the transcript.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet reading public could get extensive and diverse information from printed sources (books and magazines) about the young independent states of East Africa — Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar (later Tanzania). The authors of the texts were a wide variety of people — from amateurs who saw Africa with their own eyes on the most unusual occasions to young scholars specializing on Africa, from occasional journalists to those who began to specialize on this part of the world and even went to live and work there. And the information itself was of a diverse nature — from fleeting observations to systematic presentations of the path to independence, the chronicle of the establishment of diplomatic relations with the USSR, even pages of history, including pre-colonial times. It is especially valuable that the Soviet reader could see photos taken on the ground and get acquainted with the voices of the Africans themselves. The importance of all this for the beginning of the formation of mass images of our compatriots about East African countries and their inhabitants can hardly be overestimated.

Purpose. To provide the reader with a detailed description of the biochemical and physiological effects of choline, which make it an indispensable component of our daily food. Then to thoroughly review all the relevant clinical data on the use of choline preparations for the treatment of asthenic and astheno-depressive conditions and cognitive impairments. Then, to present the reader with a clinical case from our own practice, illustrating the effectiveness of the use of choline alfoscerate as part of the combination therapy of a mild form of post-COVID astheno-depressive syndrome in a 19-year-old man who have refused to take antidepressants, as well as any other psychotropic drugs, but instead wanted some form of pharmacotherapy based exclusively on «natural components». Methodology. We have searched PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science databases for keywords such as «choline biochemistry», «choline and phospholipids», «choline and betaine», «arsenolipids», «nitrolipids», «choline and cognition», «choline and asthenia». Then we filtered the data we had found by their relevance. Then we summarized and presented the relevant data in the theoretical part of this article. Then we described in detail the clinical case of the effective use of choline alfoscerate in the complex therapy of post-COVID asthenic-depressive state which we have encountered in our own practice. Results. The results we have obtained during compilation of this review, in our opinion, may allow us to draw preliminary conclusions about the possible prospects for the use of choline preparations (and, in particular, choline alfoscerate preparations) in monotherapy or as part of combination therapy of asthenic and / or astheno-depressive states (especially if those states are accompanied by impaired memory, concentration, increased mental fatigue), including those states that were caused by a recent history of COVID-19 (that is, asthenic or astheno-depressive states developed as part of the post-covid syndrome). To be able to make any further, more firm conclusions regarding the efficacy and safety of the use of choline-containing preparations in this context, it will be necessary to organize and conduct large, multicenter, methodologically sound, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trials (RCTs), with clinically meaningful and relevant outcomes in the treatment of asthenia clearly defined as trial endpoints in advance (before starting the trial itself). Practical implications. We believe that the results we have presented in this review justify the need to further study the efficacy and safety of the use of choline preparations, both as monotherapy and as a part of combination therapy of asthenic and astheno-depressive conditions, preferably in the format of large, multicenter, well organized, methodologically sound, double-blind, placebo-controlled RCTs with clearly pre-defined clinically meaningful and relevant endpoints.

Folk, dannelse og styreform: En anmeldelse af Ove Korsgaard “Kampen om folket” (2004).[People, Education and Government: A Review of Ove Korsgaard ‘The Battle over the People’ (2004) ]By Vagn WåhlinOve Korsgaard, Kampen om folket. Et dannelsesperspektiv på dansk historie gennem 500 år [The Battle over the People: A Perspective of Education through 500 years of Danish History] (Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 2004), 672 p.From the day of its publication, Ove Korsgaard’s brilliant dissertation has had much influence on the Danish understanding of Denmark’s 500-year process of establishing the concepts of individual, society, people, and democracy. The author distinguishes between demos, the general population of the state, and ethnos, that part of the population which has inherited and accepted rights and obligations as far as and beyond a constitution and written laws. These latter are folket, the people.This primary division leads to a similar distinction between state and nation as well as a parallel distinction in government between representative government and democratic, self-organization of the citizens. A special focus of the book is the interaction and mutual dependency of the specified categories in an historical perspective of change from a late feudal society to a modem democratic welfare state. Essential institutions in this long societal process have been (a) the Lutheran Church; (b) from 1814, the municipal local schools for all, including girls; (c), for centuries, the patriarchal household; and (d) the rising centralized power of king and state. These four institutions formed the ideological and practical base of society until, through the slow effect of the Enlightenment, the individual and the people as such, within a national and democratic framework, took over in the period 1870-1900 and became the ideological basis of society with special and defined rights and duties attaching to every adult male and, from 1920, female. After the pre-1814 ethnic and cultural Danish-Norwegian-German conglomerate state finally broke down with the loss (1814) of Norway to Sweden and (1864) the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein to Pmssia, Denmark became the most ethnically and linguistically homogeneous state of Europe. Not until then could the ethnic concept of ‘the p e o p l folket, finally take over the indisputable role as the rock of the Danish society - a role which was further strengthened by the German occupation of Denmark 1940-45.Before 1870, 75% of all cultivated land was worked by the owners of medium-sized family farms, and some 75% of the population made their living in the agrarian sector of society. Agriculture produced the necessary surplus to pay for Denmark’s imports. From 1870, when the farmers began to organize effectively, they gained a higher economic, cultural and political status in Danish class-structured society which they were able to maintain for a hundred years. Up to 1870-90 Copenhagen was the only urban-industrial centre of any great significance, and from the 1890s the organized industrial capital and its workforce rose in influence; but not until the 1960s and 70s did these succeed in outdoing the fundamental influence of the agrarian sector on a national scale. Regrettably, this economic perception of the lower middle-class appearance of Danish society has been under evaluated in Korsgaard’s book, and the reader may thus miss a vital factor in the development of the democratic understanding of the Danish ethnos.The labour unions and the labour movement in politics never became revolutionary to any great extent and from 1916-29 renounced any such tendency and won a national position as a trustworthy partner in a coalition with other political and social forces. They graduated from expressing purely class interests to representing the whole population of Denmark. This led to the formation of a general welfare state for all after the Second World War. All political parties and national movements took part in building a welfare provision from cradle to grave, covering 80-90% of the population, which led to an embracing of both ethnos and demos.From the post-industrial and post-modern society of 1970 until today no leading classes in coalition with other groups have been able to formulate a common ideology and political guidelines for the future. So the Danes collectively are insecure about the future, and divided as to whether they want globalisation, Muslim newcomers, the EUconstitution etc.All in all, this book is a fascinating and well-written contribution to the current debate: Where do we come from? Who are we? And where are we heading?

The article represents the new facts, phenomena and trends on the early stages of Chinese journalism formation, taken from several sources, mainly (and for the first time in Ukrainian journalism studies) from the textbook on journalism theory of journalism by the Professor Li Liangrong from Fudan University (the People’s Republic of China). This is not the first attempt in Ukrainian journalism studies to learn how the Chinese pre-journalism was developed. However this is the first translation from the Chinese fragments of the text-book “Introduction to Journalism” as one of the most popular textbooks in China that was developed on the basis of scientific traditions of the famous Missouri School of Journalism in the United States. The translation from Chinese language is provided with the comments giving an opportunity to see theoretical basis of the historical aspect of formation of the media of one of the world’s superpowers, as well as the views of researchers of this country on the history of their own media, how they interpret the historical component of the contemporary Chinese journalism research. For translation, we have chosen the textbook by Professor Li Liangrong, one of the most authoritative representatives of the“old” elite of the Chinese journalism theory. The article cites the most important positions of the history of Chinese pre-journalism. For this purpose, the views of the Chinese author are the subjects to critical commenting. The historical researches from origin of the Chinese lettering to the beginning of the Qin Empire, the last imperial dynasty of China was described and commented. The article provides the Ukrainian reader with the opportunity to see for the first time in detail what views the prominent Chinese theorist has on how the history of journalism in this country arised and what are the conclusions of historical experience during this period according to Chinese colleagues. The article will also help Ukrainian media historians to understand better their own achievements and the lessons of our pre-history journalism development.

Poetry is a genre that states more in a few words because much of it is cultural content that is assumed to be comprehended by the reader(s). This very characteristic of poetry of being rooted in cultural ethos makes its translation complex and even "untranslatable." Imr-ul-Qais’s Muallaqa is an Arabic classic which has been a symbol of the shared Arab identity, values, and magnanimity. In addition to its unsurpassed poetic brilliance, it is an epitome of the culture of the pre-Islamic Arab world. There are many translations of this masterpiece into English, though each is unique in terms of interpretations, liberties, and constraints. This study examines three prominent translations of Imr-ul-Qais's Muallaqa by Arberry, Johnson, and Mumayiz with reference to Venuti's (1995) dichotomy of domestication and foreignization. The aim is to identify translators’ strategies in tackling the translational challenges, as well as the implications thereof, in order to bridge the linguistic and cultural divide as well as if and what is the nature of the loss of meaning in the process. Results showed that Arberry aims for a poetic rendition in blank verse, focusing on semantic and syntactic fidelity rather than rhyme and meter. Johnson employed transposition and modulation, resulting in a more prosaic translation that lacks the Arabic ethos. Both translators leaned towards domestication, prioritizing English comprehension over retaining the original sentiment. Mumayiz, a native speaker of Arabic, provides a more rhythmic translation, with greater effort to provide English readers with insights into the original text, hence leant more on foreignization than domesticaion.

The article is a review of the recently published book “The Turkic Peoples in World History” by Yoo-Yup Lee (Routledge, 2024, “Themes in World History” Series) which can be seen as an introduction to the history of the Turkic peoples and is addressed to both students and the general reader, as well as professionals, since the author’s approach to the topic is non-trivial, and the book contains many insights and interesting facts. Noting that Turkic peoples played an important role in the history of Eurasia as the creators of many empires (including the Mongol) and states, the author focuses on the history of separate Turkic peoples with a distinct identity and traces the transformation of these groups into the Turkic peoples of modern times. He emphasizes that in the pre-modern era, the Turkic peoples were not aware of their ethnolinguistic unity and did not call themselves Turks, having separate identities, and the process of expansion of the Turkic peoples (that is, their history) was accompanied by the Turkization of numerous non-Turkic-speaking groups and by processes of mixing and integration. Describing Turkic peoples based on their origins and identity, the author identifies four categories corresponding to the chapters of the book. These are the early Turkic peoples (Tiele, Türks and Uyghurs); peoples who appeared in the Eurasian steppe belt because of Turkic migrations (Qirghiz, Bulghars, Khazars, Qarakhanid Türks and Qipchaqs); the Oghuz Turkic peoples; the Turkic-Mongolian peoples (Chaghatay/Moghuls, Uzbeks, Qazaqs and Crimean Tatars). Specifically, the author calls the Qazaqs the direct descendants of the Jochid ulus, which was the result of amalgamation of Mongolian groups with non-Mongolian ones, and primarily with Turkic ones, in the Qipchaq steppe. The early Qazaqs and Shibanid Uzbeks had the same Chingizid-Mongol identity, but at the turn of the 16th century their paths diverged when the Qazaqs included the Moghul and Mangit nomads in their composition, and the Shibanid Uzbeks began to merge with the settled Iranian population of Central Asia. Genetically, modern Qazaqs (Kazakhs) are close to the Mongols. In general, the book shows the heterogeneous nature of the formation of most Turkic peoples of modernity and the Middle Ages

The subject of the study is the Christian discourse of the English TV series «Robin of Sherwood» (1984–1986). As a methodological basis for the scientific work, a philosophical-hermeneutic approach is used, presented, in particular, in the works of W. Dilthey, H.-G. Gadamer and M.M. Bakhtin. The most important structure of understanding is the principle of the «hermeneutic circle», which assumes that the text as a whole is understood through each of its parts, and the part through the whole. In addition, understanding arises in the process of «dialogical cognition», a dialogue between the author, as well as the text as a subject, and the reader (viewer). The content of the series «Robin of Sherwood» is analyzed in the specific historical conditions of the 1980s. This is a period of growing social and cultural protest caused in Europe and the United States by the policy of neoconservatism and the reduction of social guarantees. Many phenomena previously classified as counterculture are becoming fashionable and becoming mainstream, including the legacy of paganism, pre-Christian mysticism and mythology. The article shows that the creators of the series intended to present Robin Hood not only as a leader of social or national resistance, but also as a defender of the ancient pagan religion against the new, Christian. An analysis is given of episodes from the first two seasons of the film, which trace criticism of the Christian church as an institution, as well as specific monks and clergy. In the third season, the critical pathos towards the church practically disappears. However, the author comes to the conclusion that it is the first two seasons that demonstrate the development of the moral consciousness of the characters from pagan to Christian, and Christian discourse is present in the film text, perhaps contrary to the original intention of its creators. There is also a reception of the Christian discourse of the series in the Russian and, more broadly, Russian-language literary Internet space, which is reflected in discussions on relevant literary and historical forums, as well as in works of fan literature

For the majority of emigrants, the objective problem of social adaptation, adaptation to a largely unusual new environment was objectively raised at first. The latter is often the result of the destruction of established stereotypes of behav- ior, the departure from the pre-existing outlook, the critical reappraisal of their own abilities, the loss of former illusions and the emergence of disappointments, as far from always the hope for a better share was fulfilled in full. The above-stated more applies to immigrants from the poor strata of the population of Poland, deprived of land allotments and guaranteed sufficient income at industrial enterprises. Their flow was directed mainly to the ocean: to Canada, the United States of America, partly to the countries of Latin America. But some part of their persistent efforts succeeded in engaging in agricultural labor on the land, or taking part in industrial or transport construction. Sometimes it was enough to make money, so that there was an opportunity to send children and grandchildren to study, to give them proper education so that in the future the content of their lives became intellectual work in various public and private institutions. Some of them, as experience shows, reveals the nature of the talent of a writer or poet, and in the literary skies of the host country there are the names of the masters of the word whose ancestors originated from Poland. The collection “After-September political emigration on the map of not only Polish culture” edited by Violetta Weiss- Milevska and Eva Rogalevskaya is available now for the purpose of reading the editions on Polish emigrant literature (in particular, by Maria Danilevich-Zelinskaya “Essays on emigre literature”, a studio on the anthropology of Polish emigra- tion of the twentieth century, “Excluded – emigration, the homeland”, actually V. Weiss-Milevskaya), in our opinion, are informative, observational and can serve successfully only for the first acquaintance with the names of the press of the foreign Polish writing, with the names of their individual works, the countries of their stay. Moreover, the main attention in the above-mentioned books is given to the illumination of the historical period after the Second World War. Unfortunately, we do not know the development of a critical direction, which would contain an analysis of the plots and artistic peculiarities of individual works of specific representatives of the Polish literary abroad. Moreover, the Ukrainian reader is, to the best of our knowledge, unfamiliar with the works that came out at different times from under their pen.

The author traces and analyzes the career and activity of Academician Nodari Aleksandrovich Simoniyа (1932–2019), a prominent orientalist and expert in international relations who headed the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2000–2006. The article reveals the formation of the general worldview and academic views of N. Simoniа, assesses his contribution to the study of the East after the collapse of the colonial system and the formation of young independent states. The author acquaints the reader with the views of the Academician on the European, Asian and Russian revolutions, with his approach to understanding the processes of contemporary world development, explains his civil position, both under the Soviet regime and in post-Soviet Russia. N. Simonia combined a detailed knowledge of realities in the Eastern regions he studied – primarily Southeast Asia – with a deep theoretical approach to the study of complex processes in the East after the end of World War II. Over time, the interests of the Academician went beyond the East, to which he devoted several decades of research. At the turn of the 1990s&#8209;2000s, his attention was attracted by the problems of global world development, as well as the development of post-Soviet Russia. All the works of N. Simonia – he published 18 books and dozens of articles in Russian and foreign academic journals – were written by him, as he himself admitted, on the basis of the Marxist methodology. But Simonia’s Marxism had nothing in common with vulgar ideas in Bolsheviks’ teachings of Marx and their “theory of Marxism-Leninism”. At the same time, the Academician criticized not only Stalin and Lenin, but also Marx himself, who succeeded only in deep analysis of contemporary pre-monopoly capitalism. N. Simonia criticized the Soviet model of socialism as well, believing that there has never been any real socialism in the USSR. He was equally critical of the “liberal” turn of the Russian intellectual elite after 1991, blaming its radical faction, which influenced President Boris Yeltsin, for instilling in Russia a model of the “worst”, as he wrote, “the most parasitic version of bureaucratic capitalism”. For Simonia, the latter was associated with Indonesia under Sukarno. But even there, not to mention Japan and South Korea, the business elite has never been antipatriotic, as it happened in modern Russia. In his opinion, the Russian model of capitalism turned out to be unlike either the Western or the Eastern model, and the modernization, which Russia urgently needs, is inseparable from genuine democratization, but should not represent an imitation of democracy, as is the case.

Many scholars have attempted to tackle the question of why democracy has seemingly failed to take root in the Islamic milieu, in general, and the pre dominantlyArab Middle East, in particular, while the rest of the world has witnessed the fall of"pax-authoritaria" especially in the wake of the demercratic revolution triggered by the failure of communism. Some view this resistance to the Third Wave, as being rooted in the Islamic cultural dynamics of the region, whereas others will ascribe it to the level of political development (or the lack thereof). An anthology of essays, Challenges to Democracy in the Middle East furnishes the reader with five historical casestudies that seek to explain the arrested socio politico-economic development of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, and the resulting undemercratic political culture that domjnates the overall political landscape of the Middle East. The first composition in this omnibus is "The Crisis of Democracy in Twentieth Century Syria and Lebanon," authored by Bill Harris, senior lecturer of political studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Haris compares and contrasts the political development of Syria and Lebanon during the French mandate period and under the various regimes since then. He examines how the two competing forms of national­ism, i.e., Lebanonism and Arabism, along with sectarianism, are the main factors that have contributed to the consolidation of one-party rule in Syria, and the I 6-year internecine conflict in Lebanon. After a brief overview of the early history of both countries, the author spends a great deal oftime dis­cussing the relatively more recent political developments: Syria from 1970 onwards, and Lebanon from I 975 to the I 990s. Harris expresses deep pes­simism regarding the future of democratic politics in both countries, which in his opinion is largely due to the deep sectarian cleavages in both states. The next treatise is "Re-inventing Nationalism in B􀀥thi Iraq 1968- 1994: SupraTerritorial Identities and What Lies Below," by Amatzia Baram, professor of Middle East History at the University of Haifa. Baram surveys the Ba·th's second stint in power (1968-present) in lraq. Baram's opinion is that a shift has occurred in B􀀥thist ideology from an integrative Pan-Arab program to an Iraqi-centered Arab nationalism. She attributes this to Saddam's romance with the past, on the one hand, which is the reason for the incorporation of themes from both the ancient Mesopotamian civiliza­tion and the medieval Abbasid caliphal era, and, on the other hand, to Islam and tribalism, that inform the pragmatic concerns of the Ba'thist ideological configuration ...

In my last editorial I was contemplating living the new and unexpected experience of life with Covid 19. Six months ago, was a time for contemplation. We were all entering into an event of major historical significance. The world has experienced epidemics before, and we had only to turn to the works of writers such as Camus to realise how recurrent human behaviour is. We tend so often to be caught by surprise despite the lessons that are so readily available to us through reference to history. The Spanish ‘flu epidemic of 1919 was the obvious benchmark to which we could turn. Following hot on the heels of the Great War of 1914-1918 it was responsible for more casualties than occurred in the war to end all wars (50 million). It infected 500 million people worldwide. After just over ten months we are a long, long way from those sorts of figures. As of 12th November, 51,975,458 case of infection have been reported. Deaths attributed to the virus number 1,281,309 worldwide. Of course, what makes Covid 19 so significant is not simply that it should have happened, but that it is the first pandemic in this era of globalisation which we have entered only comparatively recently. Some might remember the SARS epidemic which affected mainly people in Asia. As indicated by its name, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2), it was very similar initially in its effects. Yet, after first emerging in 2002, it was eradicated less than two years later. It seems that this was achieved largely by what has been called simple public health measures. This involved “testing people with symptoms (fever and respiratory problems), isolating and quarantining suspected cases, and restricting travel.” These same measures of course have been implemented in most countries following the virus’ spread to Italy early in 2020. However, the fact that different nations have responded differently and also experienced very different outcomes should be of considerable interest as we consider the whole concept of a global threat and global responses. The ten worst affected countries currently are in order: Contry; Confirmed Cases; Deaths United States; 10,460,302; 244,421 India; 8,684,039; 128,165 Brazil; 5,749,007; 163,406 France; 1,865,538; 42,535 Russia; 1,836,960; 31,593 Spain; 1,417,709; 40,105 Argentina; 1,273,343; 34,531 United Kingdom; 1,256,725; 50,365 Colombia; 1,165,326; 33,312 Italy; 1,028,424; 42,953 They are dominated by the advanced economies of the northern hemisphere. The countries who have previously experienced the SARS epidemic in Asia have fared comparatively lightly. Bearing in mind that statistics of this nature may not be strictly comparable given variation in the criteria used and the methods of sourcing and collecting this information, it is still interesting to hypothesise why outcomes can differ so much. Explanations might include reference to the environments in which people live – physical space, climate and availability of sophisticated health care systems to name a few – or they might dwell on the culture of those involved, their willingness to follow instructions imposed upon them, the importance of competing objectives that might make prioritising health and physical wellness less of a priority. Whatever the case, satisfactory explanations are more likely to involve some interactions involving measures of both the individuals and the environments within which they live. Any attempt to explain or understand human behaviour needs to consider a variety of factors and knowing how to take account of them is an important part of the skill base that scholars of international and comparative studies bring with them. Such skills and knowledge are more important in a globalised world than they have ever been. Yet such skills may be becoming harder to achieve, precisely because of some of the effects of processes associated with globalisation. I would recommend to you a recent documentary produced by Netflix and widely available on YouTube. “The Social Dilemma” is an examination of the use of social media and in particular focuses on the relationship between the growing addiction amongst young people to the use of smartphones and, specifically their social media programmes, and the rising levels of concern about deteriorating mental health and wellbeing among the world’s youth. It draws a relationship between the psychological disorder of narcissism and the failure of phone obsessed young people to experience real human to human interaction, with a related increase in aggressive bullying and dysfunctional behaviour. Thus, the results of experiencing interactions and personal validation through the proxy world of social media, rather than face to face, is a dehumanisation of the individual and leads to a distorted experience of the world in simple dichotomies of a single view, right or wrong. So, whatever the continuing effects of the pandemic, as these continue to unfold, it will be important that we continue to build our understanding of other people in their own worlds. We need to avoid the trap of believing that our own world is the only world and the right world. However smart artificial intelligence becomes, a screen is only two dimensional and it is the extra dimensions that enable us to grow as humans and cope with the complexity and challenges of our own unique worlds. One of the less helpful trends of our globalised digitised world, has been the pursuit and glorification of the cult of celebrity. One of the difficulties of that celebrity status is it is frequently awarded on the basis of undeserving and irrelevant characteristics such as, acting ability, physical beauty or sporting reputation. Yet many seem to feel that this status entitles them to pontificate or attempt to influence others in areas that have nothing to do with their expertise. Ricky Gervais, in his chairing of the 2020 golden globes award, brought a refreshing dose of reality in advising the celebrities who were to receive awards: You are in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg. So, if you win, come up accept your little award. Thank your agent and your God and **** off. OK? It is in that spirit of willingness to learn from the work of a range of colleagues working in a range of places and professional situations around the world, I commend to you the contributions to be found in the following pages. To start the ball rolling, we have a report from Hairui Liu, Wei Shen and Peter Hastie on the application of a curriculum model which was developed in the US and has since gained some popularity in a number of settings around the world. The origins of sport education came from a realisation that, in too many situations, physical education had failed to excite the same degree of enthusiasm among school pupils as could often be observed when they involved themselves in sport. The model thus extends the skill/technique focus which is found in many traditional physical education settings, to include more of the dimensions of sport – formal competition, affiliation, festivity experienced over a season. They concluded that, within this Chinese university context, the students achieved a higher level of performance and more enthusiastic engagement when the model was adopted as a basis for their learning. Our second article moves from an education setting to a contemporary sport science framework, the world of professional sport and one of the higher levels of competition in the world – the English Championship. Rhys Carr, Rich Mullen and Morgan Williams monitored the running intensity of players throughout a season. In particular they questioned the demands for high intensity running when playing in a 4-4-2 formation and implementing a high press strategy, such as adopted by Liverpool in their highly successful 2019 English Premiership season. They concluded that, for players in the centre forward and wide midfield positions, the demands created were impossible to maintain for an entire match. They were then able to draw out some practical and tactical implications for managers and their support staff, relating to substitution strategy and the physical match preparation of players in these positions and with these strategic responsibilities. Our third article involves an exploration of the perpetual discomfort many of us feel as educators when we compare the practice of sport against the ideals we hold for it. As professionals in the field, many of us are driven by our belief in what sport can offer. Yet the modern commodification of sport, coupled with the excessive need to win as a motive that exceeds all others, consistently produces behaviours and outcomes which we seek to disassociate from our professional practices. The article by Irantzu Ibanez, Ana Zuazagoitia, Ibon Echeazarra, Luis Maria Zulaika and Iker Ros is set in the context of the Basque region of Spain and explores the values held by students in their pre-service training with regard to the practice of extracurricular sport. The students show an awareness of the mismatch between their ideals of extracurricular sport as an educational experience and the influence on current practices that comes from the way in which sport is conducted in the society at large. The authors conclude with a plea for greater alignment between the practice of sport in schools and teh educational values that should guide it. Our final contribution is from South Africa where Lesego Phetlhe, Heather Morris- Eyton and Alliance Kubayi report on the concerns of football (soccer) coaches in Guateng province. It is clear that these coaches, in common with others around the world, suffer a degree of stress in their chosen occupation. The sources of this stress are to be found in the nature of the complex tasks they are expected to manage, as well as in the always challenging job of managing the players for whom they are responsible. To this can be added the difficult environmental conditions they are faced with, as well as the inevitable concern with having to produce results for the players and their team. Their research has produced some useful guidelines for administrators that can facilitate the jobs of the coaches and lead to benefits in enhanced performances and results. Finally, in our book review, Luiz Uehara evaluates Jorge Knijnik’s thoughtful analysis of the impact of the 2014 world cup on Brazil. From both author and reviewer, it is possible to feel the pride and passion in their nation of birth and its special contribution to the world’s most popular game. It is my privilege to recommend the work of these international scholars to you. I leave you the reader with the hope that in introducing our next volume, I will be able to celebrate with you more positive news about the progress of the pandemic and its implications for international and comparative sport and physical education. John Saunders Brisbane, November 2020

The paper deals with the effects of prescriptivism on the Lithuanian language. The research includes one domain of language use – radio and television, and one aspect of language – lexicon, in the period between 1960 and 2010. The investigation is corpus-based and focuses on the use of words that are classified as “incorrect” by the Lithuanian norm-setters. The study is important both as a discussion of the impact of prescriptivism on language change in general, as well as of the indirect influence of media on language, since media can affect the symbolic evaluation of specific language forms.The paper consists of five chapters. The first chapter “Review of the research” discusses the theoretical assumptions and concepts needed for further analysis: it gives an overview of studies on the effects of prescriptivism conducted in Lithuania and elsewhere, presents the concepts of second-level indexicality and style, and outlines the key characteristics of media change in Lithuania that are relevant to the study. Studies on the success of prescriptivism do not give a definite answer as to whether prescriptivism works. Institutionalisation and a high degree of stigmatisation of the corrected language forms can be listed among the factors that increase its success; prescriptivism is likely to be less successful when the “forbidden” language forms are too convenient to be given up, or when prescriptivist rules are too complicated for lay language users and the rules contradict each other. In the case of media, the effect of prescriptivism is said to be weakened by media commercialisation.When applied to the analysis of non-standard words, first-order indexicality refers to situations when the non-standard forms are used as value-free instances of ordinary speech, in already established meanings; in these cases, the speakers are not aware that they are using “incorrect” forms. Second-order indexicality refers to cases when non-standard words are used for additional function, e.g., to express a speaker’s particular identity or to construct a certain (informal, friendly) speech style. The concept of style, referring to the social differences between individual speakers, is used to analyse the use of words in concrete situations. The paper gives an overview of three sociolinguistic concepts of style that are relevant in this study: style as a degree of formality (e.g., when the speaker accommodates to the formal context of the media and uses less non-standard words); as audience and referee design (e.g., use of non-standard words in programmes for young audiences); and as a speaker design (e.g., play with language by the programme host in order to construct a fun persona).In the study of non-standard lexis, it is important to account for certain features of Lithuanian media development, such as the Soviet period, which was characterised by the use of newspeak, and the commercialisation of the media in the contemporary period. Accordingly, the paper analyses the uses of incorrect words as a part of newspeak and their use for the entertainment-related purposes such as language plays in present times. The paper also addresses the transitory period of radio and TV development, which has features from both the previous and the later periods, as well as some unique characteristics of language use.The second chapter “Radio and TV speech in the prescriptive discourse” presents an analysis of the metalinguistic discourse on media speech produced by Lithuanian prescriptivists from the pre-war period up to now. The analysis shows how this discourse preserved the same dominant idea about media’s role in language standardisation. On the one hand, during this whole time, radio and television were approached as responsible for teaching listeners and viewers the “correct language”; on the other hand, simultaneously, the language of radio and television was perceived as failing to conform to the prescriptive norms set by the norm-setters. The huge societal shifts that happened during this time did not make a major influence on this discourse. It remained very stable during different periods of time. The social, cultural and political changes in society and the media were taken into account only by adjusting the argumentation – by presenting patriotic, moral, ideological or legal motives that were meant to justify the language prescriptions.The third chapter “Research methods and data” presents the Corpus of Radio and TV speech, the concept of non-standard words, and the sources of prescriptivist corrections used in the analysis. The corpus of radio and TV speech includes data from 1960 to 2011 and is constructed in a balanced way to represent the periods of Lithuanian radio and TV development (Soviet, transitory, contemporary), as well as programme genres (talk programmes, information programmes, journals/features/documentaries). The speakers are coded into six types: news reader/voice-over, talk show host, expert, celebrity, hero and vox populi. For the analysis, the non-standard words that are classified as “incorrect” in the normative tradition of the Lithuanian language were coded. These include old (mainly, Slavic) and new (mainly, English) loans, the so-called hybrid words (that have a borrowed part), semantic loans, translations, as well as some lexicalised uses of words and some lexicalised syntactic constructions. Two types of words are analysed – individual lexical words and functional words. The latter include various fillers and discourse markers, as well as pronoun constructions with tai (e.g. kažkas tai ‘some(body)’). Non-standard words were identified from older and present style guides, including the database of language corrections created by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language.The fourth chapter “Change in the number of non-standard words: a quantitative analysis” investigates development of the use of non-standard words on radio and TV, as well as the frequency of usage of the non-standard lexical forms. According to the corpus data, the average frequency of non-standard words by one speaker is 17 per thousand words, which makes up about 2–3 “incorrect” words per minute. Non-standard discourse markers and fillers (9.8/1000 words) are used most frequently, whereas individual lexical words (5.6/1000 words) are much less frequent, and pronoun constructions with tai (1.6/1000 words) are rarer still. Closer analysis revealed that the only statistically significant change between the analysed periods (Soviet, transitory and contemporary) was a decrease of the frequency of non-standard lexical words in the contemporary period compared to the previous ones. The frequency of discourse markers/fillers and pronoun constructions with tai did not change. Regarding the speaker types, the uses of non-standard words decreased in those groups that are within easier reach of prescriptivism – news readers/voice-overs and talk show hosts. Also, to a lesser extent, in the group of experts. Those groups of speakers that are less likely to be subjected to language correction practices (ordinary people) did not seem to change their behaviour: the number of non-standard words in their speech did not decrease, on the contrary, a slight increase has been noticed. These findings confirm the effects of institutionalised prescriptivism. Regarding genres, non-standard words are least frequent in information programmes, which are mostly based on the reading of written texts. Lists of the most frequent non-standard words during the three periods overlap to a great extent, which means that despite prescriptivist practices, the most frequent non-standard words do not disappear from the air.The fifth chapter “Change in the functions of non-standard words: a qualitative analysis” investigates specific communicative situations of the usage of non-standard words and takes into account the media-related and societal contexts, as well as the stylistic and social functions of the corrected lexis. A common trait of the use of non-standard words during all periods, interpreted as the first level of indexicality, is the use of common, everyday vocabulary, most likely without being aware of the “incorrect” status of the chosen forms. Also, non-standard words are used as a part of professional language, in this case the speaker might be aware that he or she is using an ‘incorrect’ word, but chooses to use it nevertheless for convenience or because of its indexical value for professional identity. During all the periods, non-standard words are also used as indices of informal and authentic communication between close acquaintances; this function is performed by all types of the studied non-standard words, particularly old borrowings and frequent fillers.The study identified a few style- and social meaning-related uses of non-standard lexis that explain the choice of the corrected forms instead of the required equivalents. In the Soviet period, some non-standard words were used as a part of Soviet newspeak; old borrowings were used in references to the ideological enemies of Soviet rule, mainly the ones from pre-war Lithuania. In certain cases, these words were employed due to their stylistic value in an intimate and authentic discourse. The late Soviet period saw the first use of non-standard words as markers of informal communication. The use of non-standard words in the transitory period shows some of the functions from the Soviet period, e.g., they are used as an element of newspeak, albeit without the Soviet ideological value, or as expressions of informality. A particular feature of this period is the use of non-standard words as an index of live and authentic speech, which was not allowed during Soviet times, as a means of authentic communication, and the criticism and violation of Soviet taboos. The contemporary period is marked by a huge variety of functions of non-standard words. It brings in a number of new style-related functions of non-standard words: construction of youth-oriented identity and youth-oriented referee design, reference to past times (e.g., by using non-standard words reflecting the Soviet reality), or quoting. Perhaps the most distinctive features of this period are the use of non-standard words in the speech of professional journalists, as well as their use for the purposes of humour and entertainment (for the construction of certain personas), e.g., in language plays and stylisations. These uses can be explained by commercial media requirements, increasing trends of the informalisation of public speech and conversationalisation.The study concluded that the effect of prescriptivism on the use of non-standard words in radio and TV in Lithuania is limited. Firstly, the frequency of non-standard words decreased mainly in those groups of speakers that are subject to the formal, institutionalised power of language gatekeepers (media professionals). Secondly, the data shows a decrease only of those non-standard words that are easier to control by the speakers themselves – lexical words. The frequency of various function words that are more difficult to be aware of when speaking did not decrease. Thirdly, the largest decrease in non-standard lexical forms occurred in those speech situations where a prepared written text is used; this means that prescriptivist requirements have a greater effect when the speakers and the language are controlled, and less effect in spontaneous communication situations. The above-mentioned difference between professional and non-professional speakers demonstrates that speakers are able to control the lexical forms they choose.Analysis of the most frequently used non-standard words during different periods also demonstrates the limits of prescriptivism. The lists of the most frequently used non-standard words during different periods overlap to a great extent, which means that despite prescriptivist efforts, they were not eliminated from being used on air.Finally, the limited success of prescriptivism is demonstrated by the discussed social values of non-standard words, when they are used for various social and stylistic functions not possessed by a ‘correct’ equivalent. The qualitative analysis revealed the particular strength of old borrowings, which are used to create a sincere, friendly speech style, as well as a ludic speaker identity. On the one hand, it can be interpreted as a sign of the ineffectiveness of prescriptivism – if the words are needed, it is likely that they will be further used despite their ‘illegal’ status. On the other hand, when the speakers purposefully (e.g., on account of a particular association, stylistic value) choose a particular language form and are at the same time aware about its “incorrectness”, it is an effect of prescriptivism, only with the opposite outcome.The study is based on the analysis of spoken language on radio and TV, therefore it cannot be used to draw conclusions about the Lithuanian language in general. It is likely that the effect of prescriptivism on written language (because of its more formal style and particularly because of language editing practices) would be stronger. Nevertheless, broadcast media speech constitutes a considerable and important part of language use, thus we can conclude that the impact of prescriptivism on the Lithuanian language does not have far-reaching effects.

An extremely interesting read can be had by any reader who buys Professor Donald Stoker’s most recent book Why America Loses Wars – Limited War and US Strategy from the Korean War to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), which analyzes the wars and conflicts fought by the United States of America since the Korean War. After the provocative title of the book, the reader begins to read with some suspicion, as it does not fit into the image of the United States as the world's leading power, one which can persuade almost all the countries of the world to deal with it either in political or economic or military cooperation. This is why it is shocking to face how differently the leaders of American and Western countries think about war; in many cases they do not even know exactly what it means, and what the consequences of its outbreak and the fighting can be. In several conflicts it can be seen that in the world’s leading power, the political decision-makers thought in a completely different way in a given situation, often leading to conflicting decisions. This is not primarily due to political affiliation, but to the fact that the various actors involved in conflicts – politicians and soldiers – do not have a common vision of the goals and the results to be achieved or the strategies to be used. In many cases, it has led to unnecessary losses and wars that have gone on far longer than they needed to – see Iraq and Afghanistan. Policymakers are often unaware of the old wisdom of Carl von Clausewitz – often quoted by Stoker – formulated in his book On War, “War as Politics by other Means”. This assumes that politicians start a conflict with clear objectives, knowing exactly what results they want to achieve. In addition, they are aware that the success of a war, however short-term or limited, may be influenced by factors such as the geographical environment, economic background, logistical capabilities, social support, historical and cultural background, and so on. However, some of these factors may change during the conflict, so the objectives and strategies need to be reviewed from time to time and, if necessary, redesigned according to the realities of the time. Jordan Ellenberg took a similar view of these old truths in his book, How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking; he said “Countries don’t win wars just being braver than the other side, or freer, or slightly preferred by God. The winners are usually the guys who get 5% fewer of their planes shot down, or use 5% less fuel, or get 5% more nutrition into their infantry at 95% of the cost. That’s not the stuff war movies are made of, but it’s the stuff wars are made of. And there’s math every step of the way” . Even so, these things are constantly forgotten by most political decision-makers who lead their countries into endless wars, the consequences of which are suffered by the soldiers fighting the battles and the civilian population in the areas affected. Therefore, Stoker can rightly hold these decision-makers accountable for their lack of the proper application of strategic thinking. This is particularly important in view of the fact that the period of “limited war” which has characterized the last two decades is coming to an end, and the US may face increasingly equal opponents like China or Russia. The conflict against them is expected to be conventional, for which the American political and military leadership, accustomed to anti-insurgency operations and rapid success, is unlikely to be properly prepared. From this point of view, the book could even act as an alarm bell, so that leaders can begin preparations for the later period, although the author did not suggest how what he had articulated could be put into practice. One of the major strengths of the book is that it clarifies commonly used political and military concepts such as unilateralism, multilateralism, types of political objective, strategy, tactics, objectives, operations, pre-emptive and preventive war, gray zone war, limited war, little war, nested war, victory and peace. The other serious strength of the book is that it almost fanatically emphasizes the need for more active, effective dialogue and cooperation between the political and military sides, as a result of which interpretation problems between different groups and actors can be significantly reduced and cooperation can be improved. It was particularly interesting to me that the author presented several political and military events – not only from American but also from international environments – and the decision-making processes leading to them and their background, which many historians and military historians are not fully aware of. In addition to describing historical events, the author lists a large number of military and political strategists, such as Sun Tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, or Bernard Brodie (better known in the United States), and others, and he also outlines their thoughts – even if he disagrees with some of them – which in some way still have an impact on warfare to this day. However, in addition to the many positives, I missed the fact that although the author presented almost every American conflict in recent decades, he only talked about the US “getting into endless wars”, and not how on several occasions the war – as in Grenada, Panama, or the Balkans – also achieved its goal. Here, perhaps, it would have been worthwhile to take a closer look at what these successes were due to and to draw conclusions from them. However, this does not detract from the value of the book. I especially liked that Stoker stayed true to his university teaching past and built his book in a way that even those who are less familiar with the subject could profit from. This is aided by clear explanations and extensive discussions of the various concepts. This helps readers from different backgrounds get a unified picture of how political decision-making takes place, what a war is, how to fight it and, most importantly, how to finish it, what the different actors think about it, and the differences in the way of thinking of politicians and soldiers involved in war. On the other hand, it could also be extremely useful to political and strategic decision-makers, who often make decisions that have a very serious impact with minimal knowledge and a lack of adequate background information. As a veteran of 31 years as a professional soldier, one who began his career as a sergeant in the troops and finished as a colonel on the General Staff, I fully agree with the author's book, which should be read not only by American but all other countries' political and military leaders, as a kind of basic strategic course material to know how to make informed decisions on military issues, how to communicate successfully and intelligibly between political decision-making and the military communities implementing them, and what the consequences of the decisions they make may be.

Phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of target proteins are crucial mechanisms for regulating cellular functions. These processes are mediated by protein kinases and phosphatases, respectively. Changes in the kinase-phosphatase balance, known as K-P balance, are well documented during the progression of amyloidosis. The overactivation of kinases or the failed activity of phosphatases is the root cause of hyperphosphorylation of the structural tau protein leading to the formation of fibrillar tangles. The data suggests bidirectional regulation of phosphorylation/dephosphorylation processes during amyloidosis-related states is consistent across different animal models and many protocols. Therefore, it is crucial to identify the “time windows” during which the K-P balance can be altered. Field excitatory postsynaptic potentials (fEPSPs) were recorded from the stratum radiatum located in area CA1. Baseline synaptic responses were generated by paired-pulse stimulation of the Schaffer collaterals at a frequency of 0.033 Hz using a bipolar electrode. Four 100 Hz trains were delivered 5 minutes apart to induce long-term potentiation (LTP). Serine and threonine phosphatase activity was assessed using a non-radioactive molybdate dye-based assay kit (Promega, USA) based on the manufacturer’s instructions. The procedure relies on the creation of a colored complex of phosphates with a dye containing molybdenum, followed by the measurement of optical densities of supernatants that were incubated against a control at 640 nm. The activity of protein kinase C (PKC) will be measured directly via an enzyme immunoassay (ELISA) on a plate reader, using a commercial Abcam kit (Abcam, USA). The technique relies on the binding of engineered antibodies to activated PKC, and optical densities of incubated supernatants are measured against a control at 450 nm. In this study, we identified two important time periods during the application of amyloid Aβ25-35 aggregates that affect plasticity in the CA3-CA1 synapses. Specifically, the PKC isoforms are activated during early neurochemical events (0–20 min of incubation of slices in the presence of Aβ25–35 aggregates). If the hippocampal CA3-CA1 synapses are tetanized during this period, we did not observe any inhibition of synaptic plasticity either in the early or late phase development of LTP. Biochemical analysis indicates that hippocampal slices pretreated with Aβ25–35 aggregates for 20–30 minutes exhibit increased PKC activity, whereas no such effect is observed after one hour of incubation. Simultaneously, the hour-long incubation of hippocampal slices in the presence of Aβ25–35 aggregates resulted in the disappearance of long-term potentiation and the return of responses to the pre-tetanic level of synaptic transmission during the late-LTP phase (3 hours after tetanus induction). Inhibitory analysis revealed that an abrupt rise in the activity of stress-induced phosphatase 1α (PP1α) interrupts kinase-mediated signals after LTP induction, leading to the suppression of fEPSPs in the CA3-CA1 synapses. These findings suggest that exposing hippocampal slices to Aβ25–35 aggregates for 20–30 minutes may alter the K-P balance and enhance kinase activity through PKC isoform induction. The majority of PKC isoforms exhibit a tendency to desensitize following activation. Probably, the depletion of the pool of PKCs, which occurs within the first 20–30 minutes after incubation of hippocampal slices with Aβ25–35 aggregates, along with a notable elevation in the activity of stress-induced phosphatase PP1α, is accountable for the second time window for switching the kinase-phosphatase balance, stabilized after an hour of incubation of hippocampal slices in the presence of Aβ25–35 aggregates. Incubating hippocampal slices with Aβ25–35 aggregates (for 0–30 minutes) leads to a shift in the kinase-phosphatase balance towards the activity of kinases due to the activation of PKC isoforms. After this stage, there is a significant rise in phosphatase activity, resulting from the induction of PP1α. This induces a shift in the balance between kinase and phosphatase towards dephosphorylation processes.

THE LOGIC OF THE BODY: Retrieving Theological Psychology by Matthew A. LaPine. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020. 363 pages. Paperback; $26.99. ISBN: 9781683594253. *In this book, the author seeks a theological and biblical response to contemporary neuropsychology, stemming from a need for more effective pastoral care and faith-based counseling.1 LaPine seeks to address a perceived gap between a theological understanding of human agency, and current neuroscience and psychology that leaves pastors and faith-based counselors under-equipped to meet the real mental health and counseling needs they encounter. Although the ultimate purpose is to provide much-needed support for applied pastoral or counseling care, the book is written as a theological reflection to inform a practitioner's theology of practice. *Anchored in the Reformed tradition, LaPine provides an overview of pre-Reformation and Reformed 'theological history in relation to the historical evolution of the field of psychology. Given the scope of these fields, the task of a thorough theology of psychology would take volumes. As a classical Reformed theologian, LaPine uses almost four hundred pages to narrow down the conversation to the theological basis for emotions and neurobiology, specifically through the relationship between the body and mind or spirit. The relationship of will, emotion, biology, spirit, and soul forms the core pieces of this book, around which the chapters revolve. *In his introduction, LaPine presents his "straw man" conflict: the rich spiritual position of faith, against "the modern, reductionist tendency to explain our emotional life exclusively in terms of brain function" (p. xix). At the same time as he points to a distance between (secular) psychology and theology, LaPine also highlights two opposing streams of theology: one that makes the spirit or the spiritual superior to the body or biology, and one that does not. LaPine shows that neuro'psychology values the body and integrates it with the biological facts of emotion and volition (will), whereas mainstream Reformed theology does not, valuing the spiritual in primacy. LaPine notes that this dualism leaves Reformed counselors and pastors without a theology for a more holistic account of human psychology. He states that the Reformed mainstream shows a "lack of psychological nuance" (p. 4), leading to "emotional volunteerism," or the position that people have moral culpability for emotions. In other words, an experience like anxiety becomes a moral sin, to be addressed by prescriptive spiritual re-orientation. The risk here is either a moralistic approach to mental health and human pain, or else abandonment of theology in an attempt to align counseling to contemporary psychological science in practice. Both these options undercut holistic care by undervaluing or ignoring either the body or spirit respectively. *LaPine argues, rightly in my view, that "sufferers simply cannot repent and believe their way out of anxiety" (p. 36); this begs a need for a more robust and nuanced theology, particularly given the current scientific evidence for the neurobiology of emotion. LaPine describes what he calls a "tiered psychology," for which he finds a better grounding in Thomistic theology. The first three chapters of the book are dedicated to a history of theological attempts to account for psychology, in dialogue with the medical scientific understandings of those times. Chapter four explores the theology of Calvin, covering roots in theology for the current Reformed mainstream demotion of the body, as well as nuances of interpretation that LaPine sees as evidence of threads of Reformed theology that instead carried on the earlier holism. In chapter five, he continues the history of Reformed theology in respect of the debate of the seat of the soul, the place of the will, and the 'question of the influence of the body's impulses on moral or cognitive control. *The overall picture in this historical review is of an emerging dualism and hierarchy in which reason is morally obligated to control the inherently sinful impulses of the "flesh." Chapters six to nine alternate between explorations of natural law, science, and biblical reference to show that a more biblical and authentic (to Calvinism) theology comes closer to Thomas Aquinas's views, as well as to contemporary neuroscience (accepting psycho-emotional struggle as a human phenomenon without inherent moral culpability). *LaPine's Reformed-style writing (dense discussion with heavy footnotes, discussion spiraling around the same theme in different ways for several hundred pages) is admirable for its integrity. He has done his homework on both theological history and many aspects of psychology and neuroscience. As well, he is addressing very important issues in the context of a history of inadequacy in faith-based responses to mental health and counseling across Christian denominations. LaPine's work fills a critical gap at a timely moment in history, when the church needs a better response to human needs, and practitioners need tools for a more robust theology of practice. *At the same time, the author's deep dives into highly technical theological language and footnoted minutiae make a commitment to reading the whole book difficult for anyone who is unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the dense writing style of Reformed theology. There are also inconsistencies in the central arguments. For example, LaPine's opening section pits faith approaches against biological materialism as the current mainstream view, but draws on nonmaterialist views and resources in other areas without acknowledging that materialism is only one among the current views, many of which are more inclusive of spirituality. Materialist determinism is more confined to the medical model, which governs only a fraction of the practice of counseling psychology, most of which has embraced either existential, psychodynamic, or humanistic approaches. *LaPine does an interesting job of trying to pry Reformed theology from a particular tradition of Reformed thought, showing this particular tradition to be just one among many options consistent with core Reformed commitments. The book, however, can't quite get unstuck from its initial strategy of attaching its arguments to highly specific and selective theological and psychological parameters. A therapist or pastor wishing to better anchor their counseling approach in their theology might do well to select from the range of neuropsychotherapeutic theories and approaches in the dialogue between their theology and psychology, rather than start with defining the task as a conversation with materialist determinism. *The theological treatment sometimes loses "the forest for the trees." The discussion of interpretive nuances in Jesus's embodied experience of anguish in Matthew 26 (chap. 7) is a nugget. LaPine's arguments ground the issues well in scripture and in the heart of the Christian faith (the life and death of Jesus), as well as in its roots of Jewish understanding. Nonetheless, the reader loses track of the key salient points in the main theology chapters that lay out the "chess pieces" of the debate--Aquinas (chap. 2), Calvin (chap. 4), Reformed tradition (chaps. 7-8)--after slogging through the tangents and lengthy footnotes. Shortening the book by 200 pages would have been a worthwhile editorial exercise and would also have made the book comprehensible to more readers. *LaPine's neuropsychology discussion sometimes gives an impression of romping loosely through a broad field that never shakes the overgeneralized straw-man role set at the beginning, despite some interesting and pertinent references (such as Panksepp's emotional systems). It is difficult to see the precise connection between the theology and contemporary psychology, despite the enduring relevance of the central debate about moral choice, spirituality, and emotional health. Nevertheless, professionals with psychology training will find interesting points and connections. LaPine's book is a worthwhile exercise in wrestling with one's beliefs about the interactions between body, mind, and soul, and with the place of human agency in mental health and moral life. For this, the book provokes a discussion that is much needed. The book is a worthwhile resource for any faith-based Christian (any denomination) student of counseling or chaplaincy, or for clergy or divinity students who want to take their responsibility for counseling and pastoral care seriously. The cost of the book is very reasonable, and well worth it for the segments a reader may find most useful. As well, the questions addressed (relationship of spirit/soul and body, moral choice vs. mental health) are central to the task of counseling. The church is long overdue for supporting practitioners toward a theology of practice in counseling psychology that integrates current science. *Generally, I give the book a thumb's up. I recommend it for therapists, though those who haven't read theology in a while, will find it hard slogging. I also recommend it for counseling and psychology training in faith-based institutions because LaPine addresses many of the core issues and difficult questions of agency and moral responsibility. The structure of the book could provide a nice framework for a course on topics such as the history of "theology of psychology," development of a theology of practice, or theories of change in pastoral counseling. Readers, however, do need to supplement the contemporary psychology references with further reading for a first-hand understanding of the nuances of the field, rather than relying on LaPine's brief and oversimplified summaries. *Note *1This book is available through the ASA Virtual Bookstore at: https://convention.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/easy_find?Ntt=THE+LOGIC+OF+THE+BODY%3A+Retrieving+Theological+Psychology&N=0&Ntk=keywords&action=Search&Ne=0&event=ESRCG&nav_search=1&cms=1&ps_exit=RETURN%7Clegacy&ps_domain=convention. *Reviewed by Heather Sansom, Registered Psychotherapist in private practice, and Professor, Cambrian College, Sudbury, ON P3A 3V8.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY: On Retrieving a Lost Disciplinary Imaginary by Alister McGrath. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2023. 256 pages. Hardcover; $39.95. ISBN: 9780192865731. *In this book, Alister McGrath provides an intellectual history and critique of what is now referred to as natural science, as well as a proposed re-conception of science going forward. The modern conception of science has its roots in something much older, referred to in the premodern world as "natural philosophy," and this older conception--McGrath argues--is one which was both richer and much more integrated with the rest of knowledge than is natural philosophy's contemporary stepchild, "science." The book has two parts. In Part 1, McGrath successfully labors to give an accessible introduction to the historical conception and development of natural philosophy and its trajectory/transformation towards contemporary "science," followed in Part 2 by a proposed direction out of the predicament which he and others see modern/postmodern science to be in. *In Part 1, over the course of five chapters, McGrath first lays out this history. In chapter one, he starts with natural philosophy as an intellectual enterprise finding its origins in the pre-Christian Greeks via Aristotle. In chapter 2, McGrath outlines how natural philosophy then underwent significant development and enrichment through what McGrath calls the "consolidation" of natural philosophy up through the high Middle Ages. On this scheme, a study of the natural world was guided first and foremost by a reverence for God, and an impulse to find the operations of the natural world as understood and explained by principles which were consistent with what God has revealed through both scripture and the church. Natural philosophy was therefore seen as but one chapter of a much larger story, in which understanding this story could be had only if one's heart were grounded in religious piety and one's intellect governed by proper theology (as handed down by church hierarchs). *Chapters 3 through 5 outline the ways through which natural philosophy underwent fundamental metamorphosis for the worse. In stages brought about by the sociological effects of the Copernican revolution, the Protestant Reformation, the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, and finally the Darwinian revolution, natural philosophy became disenchanted and dis-integrated from the cohesive place it once held as part of a totalizing theological-cosmological worldview of the premoderns; it devolved into a dis-integrated, compartmentalized, and fragmented version of itself, as evidenced by the ever increasing creation of new "subdisciplines" of modern science, which are all largely closed off from one another and which do not enjoy any kind of real synthesis as the premodern intellectual enterprises once did. This modern endeavor, furthermore, seems to be more concerned about extending human's domination over nature (technē) than it is about truly understanding (episteme) the world that God created. Thus, devoid of a "disciplinary imaginary" which serves as an organizing principle, the study of natural philosophy has become a shell of what it once was. This shell is the "science" that we speak of and study today. *In Part 2, McGrath spends the last five chapters of the book offering scientists and philosophers of science a proposed way forward, a way which might recover at least some of the integration and richness that natural philosophy once enjoyed. He does this by employing a heuristic that comes from Karl Popper's conception of what Popper called the "three worlds," which Popper saw as distinct but related "realms" that encompass the scope of what can be known. On this scheme, the first world is that of objectivity or mind-independent objects, the world of "physical objects or physical states." The second world is that of person or mind-dependent entities--the world of subjectivity, such as emotion, affect, and aesthetic value. The third world is one that acts as a sort of bridge between the first two, one which contains "human intellectual constructions and artefacts" such as scientific theories, moral values, and social constructions. McGrath points out that Popper's own development of this idea is not "entirely satisfactory" (p. 129), and McGrath proceeds to build his own conception using this framework of the "three worlds" as a heuristic tool, borrowing from Popper little else other than the basic idea itself. *McGrath begins his proposed "disciplinary imaginary" with an outline that builds from this third world, the world of theoria. This is the world of mental models and theories which serve to represent and organize bodies of data and evidence. For example, McGrath cites Dmitri Mendeleev's Periodic Table of the Elements. With this kind of organization in view, a certain "beauty" and "coherency" emerges, a kind of simple elegance that can inspire both (subjective) awe and enable further scientific (objective) investigation. It is in fact through these mentally constructed theories that we "see" and make sense of the external world, and these "imaginaries" should aim to engage both the intellect and the affect. *In chapter 8, McGrath visits the "first world" of objectivity, with the primary concern to show that, since humans are part of the very cosmos that objective science seeks to explain, there are inherent limits to the reach of a detached, person-neutral, objectivity. McGrath seeks to safeguard against a totalizing scientific reductionism by pointing out that a new natural philosophy will recognize that there are several aspects or layers of meaning to any given object of inquiry, and one needs to consider them all to get behind what's really there. He posits neo-Confucianism as one potential example of this kind of engagement with the external world. *Chapter 9 is about the importance of subjective experience, where McGrath seeks to show how aesthetic value and affective engagement are more than arbitrary states of mind. Instead, they often reflect true and proper responses to a world that really is pregnant with "beauty and wonder." McGrath then wraps up the book by surveying what he has done and emphasizing the need for a retrieval of natural philosophy, a retrieval that can be enabled through a newfound imaginary or imaginaries. *I will offer two points of praise and two points of criticism. First, McGrath's keen ability to clearly explicate a very complex subject is on full display in this book. McGrath covers an impressive amount of historical ground in the first half of the book in a surprisingly small space (about a hundred pages), complete with explanatory and exploratory footnotes which enable the reader to delve deeper into subtopics. In this way, and like McGrath's many other monographs, the volume is worthwhile if for no other reason than that it acts as a sort of brief yet rich handbook to the subject at hand. Secondly, McGrath's effort is worth considerable praise because he not only seeks to give an intellectual history and critique of the modern epistemic predicament concerning science, but he also delivers up a thought-provoking proposal on what can be done to begin to address the problem. His re-conception of Popper's "three worlds" model is, I think, worthy of serious consideration. The broader point, however, is that McGrath is unafraid to wield both a critical acumen and a hopeful positivity regarding this issue, and such constructive attitude from a mind like his is welcome. *On the other hand, in Part 1, McGrath ends his historical survey and critique of natural science with the nineteenth-century secular Darwinists. It is, in fact quite arguably, the horrors and figures of the twentieth century which serve to hammer home the point concerning the consequences of abandoning the disciplinary imaginary for an elevation of (fragmented) scientific knowledge and scientific goals above most everything else. Thus, the first five chapters could have served as a setup for a polemical slam-dunk, but without this survey of the twentieth-century consequences, Part 1 left me with the feeling that McGrath proceeded a bit too prematurely. *Secondly, in Part 2, the way in which McGrath approaches the problem of modern science and his laying out a potential solution gives the impression that he views the issue, fundamentally, as an intellectual one. Is it perhaps more likely, as C. S. Lewis believed, that the problems which plague the modern scientific establishment (including the epistemological problems that stem from fragmentation) are fundamentally moral, not intellectual (see The Abolition of Man)? On this idea, civilization requires first and foremost a turn back toward God, in repentance. Only then can our institutions--knowledge producing and otherwise--begin to function properly. Moreover, given that our current state of scientific and technological advancement has far outstripped our moral scruples, one is left wondering what a scientific establishment could be capable of with the wrong (morally speaking), yet effective, disciplinary imaginary in place. The lesson from the biblical story of the Tower of Babel comes to mind, where an unprecedented attempt at evil was made possible only because corrupt humanity enjoyed a cohesive and integrated knowledge base, and the subsequent fragmentation of knowledge through the dispersion of languages acted not only as a divine judgment, but also as a paternal guardrail. *In all, nevertheless, McGrath's contribution to the topic is a timely and welcome addition, one which is sophisticated while remaining accessible, critical while remaining constructive. It is well worth picking up. *Reviewed by Alexander Fogassy, DPhil Candidate, Oriel College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK OX1 4EW.

Disciplinary behavior increases children's responsibility and self-control skills by encouraging mental, emotional and social growth. This behavior is also related to school readiness and future academic achievement. This study aims to look at read aloud with the media of large books in improving disciplinary behavior during early childhood. Participants were 20 children aged 5-6 years. By using qualitative methods as a classroom action research, data collection was carried out by observation, field notes, and documentation. The results of pre-cycle data showed that the discipline behavior of children increased to 42.6%. In the first cycle of intervention learning with ledger media, the percentage of children's discipline behavior increased to 67.05%, and in the second cycle, it increased again to 80.05%. Field notes found an increase in disciplinary behavior because children liked the media which was not like books in general. However, another key to successful behavior of the big book media story. Another important finding is the teacher's ability to tell stories to students or read books in a style that fascinates children. The hope of this intervention is that children can express ideas, insights, and be able to apply disciplinary behavior in their environment. Keywords: Early Discipline Behavior, Read aloud, Big Book Media References Aksoy, P. (2020). The challenging behaviors faced by the preschool teachers in their classrooms, and the strategies and discipline approaches used against these behaviors: The sample of United States. Participatory Educational Research, 7(3), 79–104. https://doi.org/10.17275/per.20.36.7.3 Anderson, K. L., Weimer, M., & Fuhs, M. W. (2020). Teacher fidelity to Conscious Discipline and children’s executive function skills. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 51, 14–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2019.08.003 Andriana, E., Syachruroji, A., Alamsyah, T. P., & Sumirat, F. 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Dr. Akira Mizuta Lippit, author of Electric Animal: Toward a Rhetoric of Wildlife, explores, in the context of the development of cinema, how the concept of “the animal” has become central to modern understandings of human subjectivity. Lippit considers the disappearance of real animals and their concurrent appearance in various conceptual and material uses, particularly noting the ways in which the conjoined notions of humanity and animality figure into and through cinema. The animal, he argues, haunts the foundation of western logical systems. Yet, despite the fact that humans and animals suffer under the discursive weight of the signifier, Lippit is careful to note the increasing instability of the human-animal boundary and what might be done to realize more just relationships among both humans and other animals. On February 12, 2008, Lauren Corman spoke with Lippit as part of the “Animal Voices” radio program, a weekly show dedicated to animal advocacy and cultural critique. They discussed how Lippit developed his thesis and the ramifications of his theoretical work. Electric Animal: Toward a Rhetoric of Wildlife was published in 2000 by the University of Minnesota Press. “Animal Voices” can be heard weekly on CIUT 89.5 FM in Toronto, or online at animalvoices.ca.Full TextLauren Corman: How have questions regarding animals and animality figured into your film scholarship? When did you bring these themes into your work, and why? Akira Mizuta Lippit: That is its own story in a way. The book that you refer to, Electric Animal, was written initially as my doctoral dissertation, and at the time, I was thinking in particular about the moment at which cinema appeared in the late 19th century. There are all kinds of phantasmatic and imaginary birthdays of cinema, but generally people agree that 1895, or thereabouts, was when cinema appeared as a set of technological, aesthetic, and cultural features, and as an economic mode of exchange. People sold and bought tickets and attended screenings. And I was thinking about what it must have felt like at that moment to experience this uncanny medium. There are various reports of early film performances and screenings, some of them apocryphal and inventive and embellished and so forth, but I think the fascination, the kind of wonder that cinema evoked among many early viewers had to do with this uncanny reproduction of life, of living movement, and the strange tension that it created between this new technology (and we are in the middle of the industrial revolution and seeing the advent of all sorts of technologies and devices and apparatuses), and its proximity to, in a simple way, life: the movements of bodies. And I began to think that the principle of animation, here was critical. To make something move, and in thinking about the term animation and all of its roots, to make something breathe, to make something live. What struck me, in this Frankensteinian moment was the sense that something had come to life, and the key seemed to be about how people understood, conceived of, and practiced this notion of animating life through a technology. I started to hear a resonance between animals and animation. I started to think about the way in which animals also played a role, not only in early cinema and in animation and the practice of the genre but leading up to it in the famous photographs of Edward Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey, the moving images of animals that were produced serially, as well as the “chronophotographs” that rendered animal motion. And it occurred to me that there was a reason to pause and think about what role animals were playing at that moment in history. As I began to read, and as I began to collect materials and to think through this question of the status and function of the animal, what animality meant, it took on its own set of values, and essentially Electric Animal ended up being a kind of preamble, or an introduction to a book that I haven’t yet written, because I only reach at the end of the book, and in a very perfunctory manner, the advent of cinema. So in a sense, this book, and this question, about what an animal meant for generations before, at that moment and in successive generations, became its own subject, one I still think is critically linked to the question of cinema, and the arrival of cinema, and the force of cinema throughout the 20th century. LC: Let’s return to that piece that you mentioned about life, and that cinema could show or play this Frankensteinian role; of course, a parallel stream is around death, and some of the work that I have read about early cinema shows that people were quite afraid, initially, of what it meant. Could you comment on that theme of death and the animal in cinema? AML: This emerged as a major issue during the course of my study. The discourse on death and the uncanny, the idea that something appears to be there, in the form of a ghost or a phantom, already existed in discussions of photography throughout the 19th century. The sense that photography forges a material connection to the object, that the photograph establishes a material connection to the photographed object, and as such when you look at a photograph you are not simply looking at a rendering, like an artist’s interpretation in a painting or sculpture, but you are actually looking at, experiencing a kind of carnal, physical contact with the persons themselves, or with an object, reappears frequently in the discourses on photography. This creates a real excitement, and also fear. I think that effect, the photographic effect of somehow being in the presence of the thing itself, is enhanced by the addition of movement, because with movement you have the feeling that this being is not just there, looking at you perhaps, but also moving in its element, in its time, whether (and this is very important to the discussions of photography) that person is still alive or not. I think that gap is produced at the moment of any photograph and perhaps in any film: the person who appears before you, who appears to be alive, who at that moment is alive, may or may not still be alive. So it produces, among those who have thought in this way, a sense of uncanniness, something is there and isn’t there at once. Where I think that this is particularly important in this discussion of “the animal,” and as I began to discover in doing the reading (I should add that I am not a philosopher, I don’t teach philosophy, but I am a reader of philosophy; I read it sporadically, I read here and there wherever my interests are) is that with very few but important exceptions, there is a line of western philosophy that says animals are incapable of dying. On the most intuitive level this seems nonsensical. Of course animals die. We know that animals die. We kill animals; we kill them andwe see them die. No question that animals die. But the philosophical axiom here—which begins with Epicurus, but is repeated over and over, by Descartes perhaps most forcefully, and in the 20th century by Martin Heidegger—is that death is not simply a perishing, the end of life, but it is a experience that one has within life, a relationship with one’s own end. The claim that is made over and over again, which has been disputed by many people – and it is certainly not my claim – but the claim that one finds repeatedly in philosophy is that animals don’t die – they don’t have death in the way human beings have, and carry with them, death. Animals know fear, they know things like instinctual preservation, they seek to survive, but they don’t have death as an experience. Heidegger will say in the most callous way, they simply perish. It struck me that this problem was not a problem of animals, but rather a problem for human beings. If human beings don’t concede the capacity of animals to die, then what does it mean that animals are disappearing at this very moment, in the various developments of industry, in human population, in urbanization, environmental destruction, that animals are increasingly disappearing from the material and everyday world? And where do they go, if we don’t, as human beings, concede or allow them death? (Of course this is only in a very specific, and one might argue, very small, discursive space in western philosophy. Many people have pointed out that this is not the case in religious discourses, in a variety of cultural practices, and in various ethnic and cultural communities. This is a certain kind of western ideology that has been produced through a long history of western philosophy.) So the question of death, the particular form of suspended death that photography and cinema introduced appeared in response to perhaps a crisis in western critical and philosophical discourse that denied to the animal, to animals, the same kind of death that human beings experience. You have this convergence of two death-related, life-anddeath related, problems at a time when I think that these issues were particularly important. LC: So from there, the question that comes to mind is what purpose does it serve and the word that is coming to mind is identity, and the idea of human identity and subjectivity. There must be some reason that western thought keeps going back to this denial of animal death. You tie it in, as others have, to language. AML: Two key features of human subjectivity, in the tradition of western philosophy, have been language and death, and the relationship between language and death. This goes back to Plato, to Socrates, and before. The point at which I was writing Electric Animal, at the end of the 20th century, gave me the ability to look back at developments in critical theory, philosophy, and the history of ideas throughout the 20th century, and it became clear with the significant interventions of the late 1960s that from at least one century earlier, the question of human subjectivity, its stability, its absoluteness, had already been in question. This question is slowly working its way toward a radical re-evaluation of the status of, the value of, and ultimately the confidence that human beings place in their own subjectivity, and there are many, many influences: around questions of gender and sexuality, questions of race and identity, and in crimes like genocide, for example, during World War II, but before and after as well. All of these developments contribute to this reevaluation, but one could argue that at this moment, in the late 19th century already, there was a certain sense that what had been insisted upon as absolutely unique, as an absolute form in itself – the human subject – required a whole series of constant exclusions and negations for it to survive. One such exclusion is to claim as properly human, language; what makes the human being human, is the capacity for language, and through this capacity, the capacity for death. As many philosophers argue, only human beings can name death as such, because language gives us the capacity to names those things, not just objects around us, but to name those things that do not appear before us, and these would be the traditional philosophical objects: love, death, fear, life, forgiveness, friendship, and so on. And it will be assumed that animals have communication, they communicate various things within their own groups and between groups, they signal of course, but that animals don’t have language as such, which means they can’t name those things that are not before them or around them. And it is very clear that there is an effort among human beings to maintain the survival of this precious concept of human subjectivity, as absolutely distinct and absolutely unique. So you find in those long discourses on human subjectivity, this return to questions of language and death. I would suggest that at this time, with the appearance of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution, and with other disruptive thinkers like Sigmund Freud and the advent of psychoanalysis, there is a great sense of uncertainty regarding these edifices of human subjectivity, language and death. In Electric Animal this moment is particularly rich with such shifts and instabilities, and the sense that language is not exclusive to human beings, as many people thought, but also that language is not as self-assured in human beings as people thought. Here psychoanalysis plays an important role in indicating, at least speculatively, that we are not as in control of the language that we use to the extent that we would like to believe. LC: What are the consequences of this process in western thought, where the subject is conceived through an exclusion or a negation of the animal? What are the implications for humans, and also what are the implications for animals? I know that is a huge question. AML: It is a huge question; It is a very important question. One could argue that the consequences of a certain practice, let’s say, of the politics of the subject have been disastrous, certainly for animals, but also for human beings. If you take one of the places where the form of the human subject is created, it would be Descartes’ Discourse on Method, his attempt to figure out what, when everything that can be doubted and has been doubted, is left to form the core. And this is his famous quote: “Je pense donc je suis”, I think therefore I am, I am thinking therefore I am. If you read the Discourse on Method, this is a process of exclusion: I exclude everything that I am not to arrive at the central core of what I am. The process he follows leads him to believe that it is his consciousness, it is his presence, his selfpresence with his own consciousness that establishes for him, beyond any doubt, his existence. This is somewhat heretical, it is a break from theological discourses of the soul; it represents a form of self-creation through one’s consciousness. But consciousness is a very complicated thing, a very deceptive thing, because what I believe, what I feel, is not always exactly the way things are. Looking at a series of important shifts that have taken place during what we might call generally the modern period, which extends further back than the recent past, one finds a number of assaults on the primacy of consciousness. Freud names one as the Copernican revolution, which suggested that the earth was not the centre of the universe and that human beings were not at the centre of the universe; the Darwinian revolution, which suggested that humans beings were not created apart from other forms, all other forms of organic life, and that human beings shared with other animate beings, organic beings a common history, a pre-history. And Freud (he names himself as the third of these revolutionaries), is the one who suggested that consciousness itself is not a given at any moment, or available at any moment, to us as human beings. What constitutes our sense of self, our consciousness, is drawn from experiences that we no longer have access to—interactions with others, the desires of others, the kinds of influences and wishes that were passed into us through others, our parents, other influential figures early in our life— and that what we believe to be our conscious state, our wishes, desires, dreams and so forth, are not always known to us, and in fact can’t be known because they might be devastating and horrifying, in some cases. They will tell us things about ourselves that we couldn’t properly accept or continue to live with. I think that what is happening, certainly by the time that we enter the 20th century, around this discourse of the subject is that it is no longer holding, it is no longer serving its original purpose; it is generating more anxiety than comfort. Key historical events, World War I, for example, are producing enormous blows to the idea of western progress, humanism, and Enlightenment values, to the cultural achievements of the West— Hegel, for example, a 19th century philosopher, is very explicit about this—to those values that helped to shape the world, and ultimately were supposed to have created a better world for human beings: the Enlightenment, the pursuit of knowledge, science, medicine, religion and so forth. And yet, by the mid-twentieth century many of these beliefs were exposed as illusions, especially after the advent of death camps, camps created for the sole purpose of producing, as Heidegger himself says, producing corpses, a factory for corpses. It’s not a place where people happen to die. This is an entire apparatus designed in order to expeditiously, efficiently, and economically, create corpses out of living human beings. Similarly, with the first use of the atomic bomb, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, on human beings. This was a machine, a science, a technology, a weapon devised for maximizing, efficiently and economically, the destruction of human beings. I think what this created for many thinkers, philosophers, writers, artists, activists, citizens around the world was a sense that in fact what had helped to create this situation and these catastrophic results was not a matter of totalitarian regimes and bad politics, but something more fundamental: a certain belief that I have the right to destroy or take life from others. And how is that achieved? By first denying that those others are like me. So the discourse on Jews practiced throughout Nazi Germany is in fact even more extreme than that of the discourse on animals; in fact, as many people have pointed out, that many Nazis were famous for their love of animal, some were practicing vegetarians; they outlawed animal experimentation. In a sense animals were more like Aryan Germans, than Jews were. You have a series here of rhetorics that allow you to cast the enemy, the Other, at a distance from your own subjectivity, and in order to achieve this you have to deny them any form of subjectivity. Not just that they are just culturally different, or that they engage in different practices: They are radically and absolutely unlike me. And I believe that as many people began to think about this condition (Adorno has a very famous passage in which he talks about this), it became clear that one of the sources of this, is in fact the very ideology of the subject, which insists on an absolute autonomy, singularity, and distinct mode of existence from that which is not the subject, not any subject, the Other. Adorno, in a passage he wrote in a book titled Minima Moralia, which is a collection of aphorisms and observations he wrote during and after World War II, offers an observation I quote in Electric Animal. He titles it “People are looking at you”, and he says there is a moment in a typical scene of hunting where a wounded animal looks into the eyes of the hunter, or the killer as it dies. It produces at that moment, an effect that is undeniable: This thing, that is alive, that I have wounded and which is now dying, is looking at me. How can I deny that it is alive, that it is there, that it exists in the world, with its own consciousness, its own life, its own dreams, and desires? Adorno says the way you shake this off is you say to yourself, “It’s only an animal.” He will then link that gesture to the history of racism, and what he calls the pogrom, or genocide, against other human beings. You transfer this logic. So the ability to say to an animal, toward an animal that you have killed, whose death you’ve brought about, “It’s only an animal”, becomes the same logic you apply to other human beings when you harm or kill them. It’s a very profound observation because it suggests that in fact there is no line that separates the killing of animals from the killing of human beings. And in fact already at the moment when we kill an animal, we recognize something immediately that we have to erase from our consciousness with this phrase, “It’s only an animal.” LC: It seems to me then, too, that it’s this kind of perpetual haunting, because in that erasure, in that statement, “It’s only an animal,” there’s the animal itself that you had to assert yourself against and its living beingness. Do you think in that moment that he’s talking about—because it seems like kind of a struggle, or a narrative that you have to tell yourself—do you think that is also a moment potentially of agency, or resistance, in terms of an assertion of an animal subjectivity, or umwelt, or however you want to describe it? AML: Absolutely, and I think that Adorno’s phrase and that passage in which he is writing about this scene, an arbitrary, perhaps imaginary but typical scene of the hunt written shortly after the end of World War II, as well as all of Adorno’s pessimistic observations about the state of human culture, are written in a state of deep anguish. As he says in this very brief aphorism, we never believe this, even of the animal. When we tell ourselves, “It’s only an animal”, we in fact never believe it. Why? Because we are there and we see in the presence of an Other, a life that is there. For him it is important that the gaze, as he says, of the wounded animal, falls on the person who has perpetrated the crime. You seek to exclude it, to erase it, to dismiss it by saying that it is only an animal, but it allows you to transfer that very logic into the destruction of other human beings. Your phrase “haunting” is really important because I think that it suggests that a phantom animal becomes the crucial site not only for an animal rights, but for human ethics as well. The ability to kill another, is something in fact we—we, human beings—never properly achieve; we never truly believe this, “It’s only an animal” at that moment, Adorno says. We tell ourselves this, we insist upon it, try to protect ourselves through this mantric repetition of a phrase, “It’s only an animal,” “It’s only an animal,” yet we never believe it. And as such, we are haunted by it. I think the crisis in human subjectivity, in discourses on the human subject that arrive in the late 1950s, has everything to do with this kind of haunted presence. Human subjectivity is now a haunted subjectivity, haunted by animals, by everyone that has been excluded, by women, by people of different races, different ethnicities, different sexual preferences. And in fact the convergence of civil rights, critical theory, animal rights, feminism, the gay and lesbian movements, all of these things really shape—to use Foucault’s term—the episteme in which the primary political focus for many philosophers and theorists erupts in a critique of the subject. LC: Without getting you to offer something prescriptive [both laugh] about where to go from here, I do, I guess, want to ask about where to go from here. Because our audience is sort of the average person, turning on their car radio, or the animal rights activist, what does this mean then for… It just seems like a huge juggernaut, this huge weight, of Western history for people who want to shift, or people talk about blurring the boundaries between humans and animals (and this, of course, is very anxiety-provoking considering the legacy of Western thought), where is the turn now? Or where do you think there are potentials for (I think your phrase is) “remembering animals”? Is that the best can we can do? AML: Again, it’s an important question in so many ways. There are so many things I would like to speak to in response to that question. I would say that I don’t know if I am, by nature, an optimist or a pessimist. I do think, however, that a lot of things have been turning away from this condition, let’s say, or a certain kind of assumption, about the longevity of the human subject. I think that human subjectivity practiced honestly and ethically will continue to re-evaluate the terms of its own existence in relationship to Others, defined in the modern sense. And I do think that a certain ability to exist with an Other—an Other that may not share the same language that I speak, but certainly exists in a world that is as valuable, authentic, legitimate, as my own—will be the goal. I’ll introduce a phrase by Jacques Derrida. Somebody asked him, what does justice mean? What would justice be? He says justice is speaking to the Other in the language of the Other. I find this to be a very beautiful and very optimistic expression. It is not my task to exclude from my world those that I don’t understand; but it is my responsibility, or it is the practice or task of justice, to learn the Other’s language, which is to give the Other that capacity for language, to assume that there is in the Other, language. Language is, according to that earlier part of our conversation, language is that which is traditionally denied to the Other. “I don’t know what you mean when you speak”;, “women speak emotionally”; “ animals don’t have any language”; “the language that less developed cultures speak is not as articulate or precise as the language that I speak”, and so on and so forth. I think this pursuit of justice, defined as Derrida does, is very important. The other thing I will add is that the development of a field that some have called, perhaps temporarily, provisionally “Animal Studies”, is absolutely critical. I think there was a time when Animal Studies would have meant zoology, or in a very focused and direct manner, the pursuit of animal rights. What has been really been exciting for me to observe in this field of animal studies— and it’s not merely a community of scholars and academics; they are artists and performers, who engage in expressive and creative actions, activists who are committed politically, activists who are engaged in their daily lives and daily practices, and also a wide range of scholars in a variety of fields (feminists, literary scholars, historians, historians of ideas, philosophers, and so forth)—there is a certain understanding that “the question of the animal”, as it’s been called, or “of animals” or “of animality”, is not something that is restricted in the end just to the well-being of animals: it affects everybody in fact in ways that are obvious and perhaps less obvious. I think this kind of realization and this kind of community, let’s say, ex-community of people, who are in the field but also outside of their fields but in contact with one another is another way in which, much of what has been established can being critiqued, rethought, unthought, reformulated, toward a viable existence for all forms of life on this earth, and elsewhere. LC: It seems to me that it’s a difficult but important place to be, working in Animal Studies, in these divergent fields. My own experience was coming from Women’s Studies. It’s interesting how you point to these different groups, marginalized groups, and I think that one of the saddest things for me has been also that there’s this incredible moment of optimism, and potential to be thinking about “the animal” in different ways, (and thus us in different ways) but also in those moments of marginalization there has been a scrambling, a push towards a reinforcement of that human subject to say, “Ah, we are just like that, though. We are not like animals.” I think that this is very classic, in terms of an older feminism: liberation is about inclusion into a human culture that is necessarily exclusionary of animals. I think that’s still happening, that while there’s a kind of opening up of what this question means, “the question of the animal”, there’s also a concern, my concern anyway, that a simultaneous reinforcement as marginalized groups fight, using language, using the discourse of rights, etc., to become a part of what they were always excluded from. AML: That’s right. That’s a very difficult situation that traditionally marginalized groups have had to address. When you have been denied very basic civil rights, for example, one of the immediate and legitimate goals of any movement is to make sure that one secures those rights for one’s constituencies, for one’s members, and at the same time to make sure that the pursuit or achievement of that right does not reproduce the exclusion of others that one was fighting against initially. That’s why I think the role of animal rights is so important, because the animal is perhaps the place where life as such has been most excluded in the history of human cultures. And as such it is the place, perhaps, where this rethinking has to begin. There will be all sorts of differences, and all sorts of different objectives and agendas, but when this discussion is practiced rigorously and in good faith, I think ultimately it will be productive. Remember that most of those whom we now think of as the great thinkers were often marginalized in their time; many endured this marginalization, ridicule, hostility. It’s part of the task, and I think one of the comforts we can draw in these situations is that the process is ongoing and one makes a contribution where one can, one engages where one can, and it continues forward hopefully toward some better formulation of life for all beings. LC: Thank you very much. I hope you can join us again on the program sometime. It was really a great honour, and a great pleasure, to speak with you today. AML: It was a great pleasure for me today. And I really appreciate the work you’re doing. The questions were just fantastic. I enjoyed every moment of it. LC: Thank you so much. Today we’ve been speaking with Dr. Akira Mizuta Lippit.

Background In staging early rectal cancers (ERC), submucosal tumor depth is one of the most important features determining the possibility of local excision (LE). The micro-enema (Bisacodyl) induces submucosal edema and may hypothetically improve the visualization of tumor depth. Purpose To test the diagnostic performance of MRI to identify ERC suitable for LE when adding a pre-procedural micro-enema and concurrent use of a modified classification system. Material and Methods In this prospective study, we consecutively included 73 patients with newly diagnosed rectal tumors. Two experienced radiologists independently interpreted the MRI examinations, and diagnostic performance was calculated for local tumors eligible for LE (Tis-T1sm2, n = 43) and non-local tumors too advanced for LE (T1sm3-T3b, n = 30). Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) were registered for each reader. Inter- and intra-reader agreements were assessed by kappa statistics. Lymph node status was derived from the clinical MRI reports. Results Reader1/reader2 achieved sensitivities of 93%/86%, specificities of 90%/83%, PPV of 93%/88%, and NPV of 90%/81%, respectively, for identifying tumors eligible for LE. Rates of overstaging of local tumors were 7% and 14% for the two readers, and kappa values for the inter- and intra-reader agreement were 0.69 and 0.80, respectively. For tumors ≤T2, all metastatic lymph nodes were smaller than 3 mm on histopathology. Conclusion MRI after a rectal micro-enema and concurrent use of a modified staging system achieved good diagnostic performance to identify tumors suitable for LE. The rate of overstaging of local tumors was comparable to results reported in previous endorectal ultrasound (ERUS) studies.

Abstract Purpose To investigate whether radiomics features extracted from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of patients with biopsy-proven atypical ductal hyperplasia (ADH) coupled with machine learning can differentiate high-risk lesions that will upgrade to malignancy at surgery from those that will not, and to determine if qualitatively and semi-quantitatively assessed imaging features, clinical factors, and image-guided biopsy technical factors are associated with upgrade rate. Methods This retrospective study included 127 patients with 139 breast lesions yielding ADH at biopsy who were assessed with multiparametric MRI prior to biopsy. Two radiologists assessed all lesions independently and with a third reader in consensus according to the BI-RADS lexicon. Univariate analysis and multivariate modeling were performed to identify significant radiomic features to be included in a machine learning model to discriminate between lesions that upgraded to malignancy on surgery from those that did not. Results Of 139 lesions, 28 were upgraded to malignancy at surgery, while 111 were not upgraded. Diagnostic accuracy was 53.6%, specificity 79.2%, and sensitivity 15.3% for the model developed from pre-contrast features, and 60.7%, 86%, and 22.8% for the model developed from delta radiomics datasets. No significant associations were found between any radiologist-assessed lesion parameters and upgrade status. There was a significant correlation between the number of specimens sampled during biopsy and upgrade status (p = 0.003). Conclusion Radiomics analysis coupled with machine learning did not predict upgrade status of ADH. The only significant result from this analysis is between the number of specimens sampled during biopsy procedure and upgrade status at surgery.

Bishr Ibn Abī Khāzim Al-Asadī is an Arab pre-Islamic poet who is considered one of the good and famous eloquent Arabic poets of the first pre-Islamic era. He is different from Bishr ibn Marwān Al-Umawī (also known as Bishr ibn Abī Khāzim, the Arab poet) and each has a distinctive poetic style characterized by exquisite and eloquence. Bishr ibn Abī Khāzim Al-Asadī was born in Yemen and is believed to have been from one of the great tribes who controlled some areas of Arabia at that time. He was a famous poet of his time, known for his poetry dealing with topics as diverse as love, beauty, nature, society, war, and heroism. One of the famous poems attributed to him is the poem "Namlah Ibn ʿAjlān", in which he describes the beauty and virtues of a woman named an ant. His poetry is characterized by a refined and humorous style that attracts and interests the reader. Bishr Ibn Abī Khāzim moved between cities and tribes, and he used to meet poets and compete with them in poetry and was distinguished by his ability to present the idea in a smooth and attractive style, and then his poems were considered one of the important Arab literary works in the pre-Islamic era. So, we will discuss in this study the life of Bishr Ibn Abi Khazim and his poetic eloquence. This study will illuminate the poetic status of Bishr to the readers.

This paper attempts to explore the aspects of reviewing personal history and analyzing personal identity presented in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Offred’s story, which is presented to the reader as a written narrative reconstructed from tapes two centuries after her death and the end of the dictatorship of Gilead, are discussed at a scientific conference held on June 25, 2195. As a Handmaid in a service of Commander Waterford and a prisoner in his household, Offred‘s identity, her past and even her first name are taken away from her. Her role is limited to a child bearer only. Throughout the novel, Offred rethinks her former life, her tendency to live by ignoring, to take everything for granted and to trust fate. She remembers the days in the pre-Gilead society, where freedom to do something is replaced with freedom from doing in Gilead. She reviews her relationship with her mother and her attitude towards her mother’s values and feminism. She recollects her relationship with her husband, her role as a mother and her way of life in the pre-Gilead society. Offred compares her previous and her present status in a situation in which her personal freedom is almost non-existent. In her newly-discovered self- awareness, she finds ways to redefine herself as a woman, as a lover and even as a victim.

ObjectivesOsteoarthritis (OA) structural status is imperfectly classified using radiographic assessment. Statistical shape modelling (SSM), a form of machine-learning, provides precise quantification of a characteristic 3D OA bone shape. We aimed to determine the benefits of this novel measure of OA status for assessing risks of clinically important outcomes.MethodsThe study used 4796 individuals from the Osteoarthritis Initiative cohort. SSM-derived femur bone shape (B-score) was measured from all 9433 baseline knee MRIs. We examined the relationship between B-score, radiographic Kellgren-Lawrence grade (KLG) and current and future pain and function as well as total knee replacement (TKR) up to 8 years.ResultsB-score repeatability supported 40 discrete grades. KLG and B-score were both associated with risk of current and future pain, functional limitation and TKR; logistic regression curves were similar. However, each KLG included a wide range of B-scores. For example, for KLG3, risk of pain was 34.4 (95% CI 31.7 to 37.0)%, but B-scores within KLG3 knees ranged from 0 to 6; for B-score 0, risk was 17.0 (16.1 to 17.9)% while for B-score 6, it was 52.1 (48.8 to 55.4)%. For TKR, KLG3 risk was 15.3 (13.3 to 17.3)%; while B-score 0 had negligible risk, B-score 6 risk was 35.6 (31.8 to 39.6)%. Age, sex and body mass index had negligible effects on association between B-score and symptoms.ConclusionsB-score provides reader-independent quantification using a single time-point, providing unambiguous OA status with defined clinical risks across the whole range of disease including pre-radiographic OA. B-score heralds a step-change in OA stratification for interventions and improved personalised assessment, analogous to the T-score in osteoporosis.

Introduction: Computer Vision Syndrome, also referred to as digital eye strain, describes a group of eye and vision-related problems that result from prolonged computer, tablet, e-reader and cell phone use. At greatest risk for developing CVS are those persons who spend two or more continuous hours at a computer or using a digital screen device every day. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge regarding Computer Vision Syndrome among Office employees. Design: A quantitative approach using pre experimental one group pre-test post-test design. Participants: 100 Office employees were selected using non probability convenient sampling technique in selected companies of Mehsana district. Interventions: Structured teaching programme was given to the Office employees. Tool: Self Structured Questionnaire was used to assess the level of Knowledge on Computer Vision Syndrome among Office employees. Results: In this study overall the highest percentage in the demographic data including the Age group 40% (31-40 years), Gender 78% (Male), General education status 44% (Graduation in computer science), Total number of years of working on computer 33% (>8.1 years), Working department of company 28 % (Other), Type of computer work 27% (Graphic), Total number of hours working on computer per day 46% (9-12 hours), Total number of hours continuously working on computer per day 66% (≥6 hours), Use anti-reflective coating eyeglasses 100% (No), Use spectacles 65% (No) and Knowledge regarding computer vision syndrome 62% (No). The post¬test Knowledge mean score (16.7) higher than the mean pre-test knowledge score (10.29). The calculated “t” value (18.79) was greater than the table value (2.00) at 0.05 level of significance. The structured teaching programme was effective in increasing the knowledge of Office employees regarding Computer Vision Syndrome. Conclusion: The findings of the study revealed that structured teaching programme helps in improving knowledge regarding Computer Vision Syndrome among Office employees.

Background: End stage renal disease (ESRD) patients on hemodialysis (HD) are prone to heart failure (HF) because of volume excess leading to poor functioning, atrial remodeling, pulmonary hypertension (PHTN) and high mortality. Right atrial pressure (RAP) estimate helps in achieving euvolemic status or optimal dry weight. There is limited data on the best measure of RAP in this population. We compared relative prognostic values of clinically assessed jugular venous pressure (RAP-JVP), RAP estimate recommended by ASE (RAP-ASE) and a visual estimate by an expert reader from combination of inferior vena caval (IVC) and hepatic vein size, hepatic congestion and hepatic vein flow (RAP-EXP). Methods: 442 patients who underwent pre-renal transplant evaluation at our cardiology clinic were prospectively followed. Assessment of RAP by CE as elevated JVP, echo evaluation of RAP-ASE and RAP-EXP were performed on same pre or post dialysis day within a hour of each other. Quantitative evaluation of minimum (IVC min), maximum (IVC max) IVC diameters along with collapse (IV max-IVC min/IVC max) was computed following ASE guidelines independently. Logistic regression and Cox proportional hazard ratio were performed for outcomes assessment. Results: Baseline patient characteristics: age 57± 11 years, men 64%, DM in 68 %, CAD 30%, EF 61± 11%. Elevated RAP-JVP was noticed in 15% and RAP-EXP was high in 30% of the patients. Quantitatively, IVC max was 1.39± 0.55 cm, IVC min 0.87± 0.62 cm and mean IVC collapse 44± 29%. 14% patients had IV max of ≥ 2cm. IVC size, collapse or RAP-ASE group were not predictive of survival. However RAP-JVP (HR 2.15, 95 % CI 1.09-4.12, P = 0.03) and RAP-EXP (HR 2.25, 95 % CI of 1.21- 4.20, P = 0.01) were significant predictors of higher mortality on univariable analysis and after adjusting for age, gender, smoking, HTN, DM, LVEF and duration of dialysis. RAP-JVP and RAP-EXP better correlated with each other and HF by, left atrial pressure and PHTN than RAP-ASE. Conclusions: 1) Clinically estimated JVP and an expert assessment of RAP are equally predictive of survival in patients on HD. 2) Echo assessment of RAP by ASE guidelines is twice as sensitive as CE and its use may help achieve euvolemic status in ESRD patients.

Background: MR WITNESS was a safety trial giving tPA to acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients with unwitnessed onset with MRI findings of early stroke. A DWI-positive, FLAIR negative pattern has been shown to identify strokes <4.5 hr duration, but visual inspection alone may be unreliable and insensitive. Signal intensity ratios (SIR) of manual outlines (lesion/contralateral side) increase sensitivity but can lead to variability in patient selection. We investigated the influence of interrater variability on clinical and safety outcomes. Methods: Core readers blinded to enrollment status and clinical presentation reviewed MRI of screened patients. The MR WITNESS algorithm enrolled subjects with no visible FLAIR or a pre-specified SIR <1.15. Good outcome was defined as 90 Day modified Rankin Scale (mRS) < 2. SIR consistency was measured with intraclass coefficient (ICC) and reader agreement assessed with Fleiss’ Kappa. Statistical analysis included 2-sided Fisher’s Exact test or Wilcoxon Exact test as appropriate. Results: 201 subjects were screened. 153 baseline MRIs with DWI lesions were reviewed. ICC was 71% (P<.001) and kappa was 67% (P<.0001). Among the 80 subjects enrolled using SIR <1.15 by site reading, 15 (18.8%) subjects would have been excluded based on Core readings. These 15 subjects were younger with worse NIHSS and 90-day mRS (Table). Subset analyses of subjects with pre-stroke mRS<2 showed no statistical difference (P=0.19) between subjects deemed eligible and not eligible by core readers. No difference in hemorrhagic transformation (HT) or good outcome rates was found. Using SIR <1.25 would have only excluded 3 subjects by Core readings, all of whom had HT, and poor 90 day outcomes. Discussion: Although SIR reads between Core and sites showed good agreement, there was still variability in the absolute values. This demonstrates the potential limitation of subjective lesion volume delineation. Automated approaches should be investigated.

BackgroundBackground parenchymal enhancement (BPE) is an established breast cancer risk factor. However, the relationship between BPE levels and breast cancer risk stratification remains unclear.PurposeTo evaluate the clinical relationship between BPE levels and breast cancer risk with covariate adjustments for age, ethnicity, and hormonal status.Study TypeRetrospective.Population954 screening breast MRI datasets representing 721 women divided into four cohorts: women with pathogenic germline breast cancer (BRCA) mutations (Group 1, N = 211), women with non‐BRCA germline mutations (Group 2, N = 60), women without high‐risk germline mutations but with a lifetime breast cancer risk of ≥20% using the Tyrer‐Cuzick model (Group 3, N = 362), and women with <20% lifetime risk (Group 4, N = 88).Field Strength/Sequence3 T/axial non‐fat‐saturated T1, short tau inversion recovery, fat‐saturated pre‐contrast, and post‐contrast T1‐weighted images.AssessmentData on age, body mass index, ethnicity, menopausal status, genetic predisposition, and hormonal therapy use were collected. BPE levels were evaluated by two breast fellowship‐trained radiologists independently in accordance with BI‐RADS, with a third breast fellowship‐trained radiologist resolving any discordance.Statistical TestsPropensity score matching (PSM) was utilized to adjust covariates, including age, ethnicity, menopausal status, hormonal treatments, and prior bilateral oophorectomy. The Mann–Whitney U test, chi‐squared test, and univariate and multiple logistic regression analysis were performed, with an odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95% confidence interval. Weighted Kappa statistic was used to assess inter‐reader variation. A P value <0.05 indicated a significant result.ResultsIn the assessment of BPE, there was substantial agreement between the two interpreting radiologists (κ = 0.74). Patient demographics were not significantly different between patient groups after PSM. The BPE of Group 1 was significantly lower than that of Group 4 and Group 3 among premenopausal women. In estimating the BPE level, the OR of gene mutations was 0.35.Data ConclusionAdjusting for potential confounders, the BPE level of premenopausal women with BRCA mutations was significantly lower than that of non‐high‐risk women.Level of Evidence3Technical EfficacyStage 3

Purpose This study aims to discuss what prompted this organization to embark on the journey of transformational change, challenges faced strategies adopted to overcome challenges, leadership role and outcomes. Design/methodology/approach The descriptive approach is used to comprehend the transformational change process in this gigantic public sector undertaking (PSU). To have an idea of the effectiveness of the change process, the pre- and post-change performance of the company was taken into account through collection and analysis of physical and financial parameters. However, focus of this paper is concentrated on the transformation process and its chronological sequence only. Human resource productivity trend and organization development interventions adopted over the years were also observed along with conducting a sentiment analysis of the employees who lived through this entire change process in the organization. Findings The case study describes how this Indian PSU went through the process of transformational change management and leaves the reader to assess the degree and extent of success of the approach and strategy of the company in this regard. There may be many what-if situations and contingencies in this case for readers to explore for suggestions and solutions and finding new possibilities. Originality/value Change management is not a new exercise for the Indian corporate sector. What makes this case unique is the pro-active action initiated by a traditional high-performing and well-protected PSU to anticipate the future challenges and initiate action to overcome these. Change agents must “rewire” the plane while it is flying if the organization hopes to survive and perhaps prosper in the future. This case study is a first-hand account of the change process happening in a gigantic Indian PSU with Maharatna status.

The present investigation aims at promoting storytelling as a critical research discipline within the broader higher education system in South Africa. During the apartheid era and in democratic South Africa, storytelling was (and is) not part of the agenda for consideration in the broader higher education system. This status quo was due to multifarious factors including a myopic view of traditional scientific research. In the pre-colonial African communities, stories were told in the evening in the rural home around the fire to capture the attention of and educate the younger family members. Members of the community and adults within a family (e.g., mother, father, uncle, aunt, etc.) usually told stories which drew themes from lived realities. In their entirety, stories were posited towards teaching important lessons about life in general. Some stories were simple fiction-oriented, while others were non-fiction and premised on empirical life actualities. A story would predicate the characters as actual people in a real-life situation. In our modern digital era, some stories are stage-played or dramatised on television. Today, storytelling also involves public speaking by individuals known as “motivational speakers.” Among African societies, most stories featured themes involving a human being with wildlife species such as lion, leopard, baboon and wild rabbit, and many others. To make the discussion on storytelling more vivid and meaningful, an autoethnographic reflection on the story of the man and the leopard was used as an example in this article. In view of the reader-response concept, an articulation of the main ideas unfolding in the story follows the example presented in this paper. The study is based on a narrative analysis as an approach. A narrative analysis comprises literary genre as a theoretical framework.

Sarah Phelps’s screenplay The Witness for the Prosecution (2016) does more than simply rekindle interest in Agatha Christie’s original short story; rather, it points to its salvation. My understanding of adaptation follows Armelle Blin-Rolland’s model, which refuses to privilege either the source or the adapted text, considering both instead to form part of a textual multiplicity. The relationship between the two resembles, for Blin-Rolland, a vortex. Thus, the meanderings of Phelps’s adapted text cause us to take stock and to read the original itself as loiterature (Chambers) and thus as a text that eschews self-coincidence, that offers more to the idle reader than an efficient delivery of truth. Christie’s text, in other words, if I may myself adapt a term from Walter Benjamin, has an inherent adaptability. Rather than simply conjuring its own adaptation in a virtual future, “The Witness for the Prosecution” contains, in an immediate pre-diegetic past, the original source of itself as adaptation. This source text is not an alternative solution, but runs parallel to the actual reading—appealing, almost subliminally, for readers to produce it; it also runs idly, however, and, unlike its hasty corollary, is content to wait to catch a distracted eye.Before shifting the focus more squarely from the 2016 adaptation to the original text (and its status as auto-adaptation), I should like to draw attention to the format of Phelps’s screenplay. As a mini-series, and thus an adaptation for television rather than a feature film, Phelps’s text presents something of a readerly paradox in and of itself. The series was originally aired by the BBC on two consecutive nights over the 2016 Christmas period (26 and 27 December). Thus, viewers were forced to pause for thought, but not over a week, which has traditionally been the cadence for episodes of television mini-series; instead, the 24-hour pause represented something of an extended intermission. For this reason, it is not clear whether the effect of the pause was to heighten anticipation, and thus to madden readers, or to enable them to take time out to review the case and to ask questions that the reader of the short story may not have time to ask. For, of course, the story is a short one, on the shorter side even by the standards of Christie’s shorter fiction. The mini-series does not present an abridged version, therefore, which is often the case for feature film adaptations; rather, it lengthens the story considerably. The whole experience is drawn out, not condensed. And yet, it is not clear whether this change of pace significantly alters the viewer/reader’s experience.I shall argue here that what it in fact does is to draw out elements of the source text that otherwise pass by unseen. Thus, whether or not the experience that one has of the television mini-series is loiterly per se, it certainly causes the reader who is aware of the short story to reread the latter and, I argue here, to see it as itself an adaptation, and further as an adaptation of itself. Lastly, it is perhaps worth reflecting that, after this initial airing of the mini-series on BBC television, The Witness for the Prosecution became available on DVD and for online streaming. In these formats, the hiatus of the episode break can readily be skipped. The binge-viewer has the ability to view in haste. In addition to erasing, to some degree at least, the difference between a feature film and a television series, such viewing practices recall the perceived generic differences between literature, with its descriptive passages and detours, and crime fiction, with its tendency to be highly plot-, and especially end-, driven. In either case therefore, to apprehend crime fiction in a loiterly fashion is a learned activity, a process that may seem somewhat counterintuitive, but one that Christie’s texts reflexively promote even as they ensnare the reader in the cleverness of their plots.The short story is famous for its twist in the tale: the person who appears the most likely murderer and who is tried for the crime turns out, in fact, to be guilty, much to the surprise of his solicitor, Mr Mayherne. Phelps’s adaptation, for its part, ends with the solicitor, John Mayhew (an alternative surname already used in Christie’s own adaptation for the stage in 1953), walking into the sea off the French coast, determined, or so it would appear, to take his own life, having been informed by his client’s partner that she has known all along that Leonard Vole was guilty. In addition to a new ending, the mini-series also receives a substantial new beginning: Leonard and Romaine receive a back-story; so too, over the course of the mini-series, does Mayhew himself. His determination to save Leonard is set against the death of his own son, who left to fight in the First World War despite being too young for service. Mayhew’s wife, we learn, has never forgiven him for the loss of her son. Saving the innocent Leonard is Mayhew’s way of redeeming himself. When he discovers that he has been duped and that he has saved a guilty man, the only atonement he can see is his own death.While Mayhew’s probity is made ambiguous by Phelps, Leonard and Romaine’s common back-story serves to some degree to explain, if not to justify, their callous behaviour. Phelps’s dramatic first scene shows a soldier drifting almost literally blindly across no-man’s land between the trenches of a First World War battlefield, taking cover from exploding shells and finding refuge in a crater where he finds his future partner Romaine. What is staged here is a looking back to the past, but not in the kind of nostalgic longing for times gone by associated with Christie; instead, Phelps points back to the trauma of war, in the light of which the present is to be survived and negotiated. In her introduction to the edition of the short story republished following the success of the mini-series, Phelps discusses her expectations when being commissioned to adapt Christie’s works, with which she claimed to be familiar without having previously read them. She labels Christie the “epitome of a particular nostalgia-laden Englishness” and mentions, for example, having to step out of the way of people queuing to see The Mousetrap in London’s West End (Christie v). In the light of such comments, it is tempting to see Phelps’s mini-series as a means of circumnavigating popular conceptions of Christie and combating this nostalgia for things past (not only better times, perhaps, but also better detective fiction).A vortical reading of The Witness for the Prosecution as multiplicity, however, in no way works against the original short story; in fact, rather than stepping around it, Phelps’s extended diegetic frame causes us to reflect on the way in which the story itself looks back, making room for, and even conjuring, an unseen pre-diegetic space. Thus, the battleground scene serves a reflexive end, not simply excusing Leonard and Romaine’s subsequent behaviour, but also graphically staging the textual no man’s land of adaptation—the space between the entrenched positions of two authorial powers. The bomb craters suggest both the violence done to the source text and the possibility for a new start and an end to the dominion of previous masters. Not only Leonard and Romaine, but Sarah Phelps, the reader, and even John Mayhew—who steps out of the shadows of Mr Mayherne—all escape the certainties of an era, an empire, and embrace a new future. My argument here is not simply that Christie benefits from the new beginning of another’s adaptation, but that she herself adapted what precedes Mr Mayherne’s first interview with Leonard Vole in her original text.In the story’s final revelation, Romaine opposes Mr Mayherne’s purchase on the truth to her own: he, she states, “thought [Leonard] was innocent”, whereas she “knew – he was guilty!” (29). This is the truth that Phelps’s adaptation appears to mitigate with its staging of extenuating circumstances and casting of Mr Mayherne as the ultimate victim of the story. I do not wish to argue here that Leonard Vole is innocent; rather, what I shall argue is that Romaine and generations of readers have misunderstood the dynamics of the narrative, for the fundamental binary at play is not “thinking versus knowing” but “knowing versus believing”. In this case, therefore, I almost, but not quite, agree with Phelps’s statement that “it’s not the truth that matters […] but performance” (Christie viii). While the text is very much a performance, it is one that serves to “screen” a truth in the Freudian sense, as well as in the cinematic one: the truth that is showcased in the last line of the story also hides another truth, which is, paradoxically, the same one. By revealing the truth in the form of Romaine’s victory, the text hides the fact that Mr Mayherne has known the truth from the very start, and indeed, before that. The story is a performance therefore, but a fetishistic one that points to the truth precisely in order to keep it just out of view. In this way, what Mr Mayhew knows to be true is neither stated explicitly nor entirely repressed; instead, it is disavowed, and what the short story performs is a screen memory.Read vortically, Christie’s and Phelps’s texts both displace the element that separates knowledge from belief, which, as Ellen Lee McCallum notes (xii), is desire. In Phelps’s adaptation, John Mayhew desires to save Leonard Vole in order to redeem his son’s death; in Christie’s text, Mr Mayherne desires to save Leonard in order to save the text. This is salvation as theorised by Shoshana Felman, who famously considered that Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw could only be saved from the critical binary of ghost story versus psychoanalytical tale by having its ambiguity preserved. If Phelps’s adaptation becomes something of a ghost story (it is, at least, a tale of people haunted by the past), Christie’s original text uses a psychoanalytic move to disavow its own psychoanalytical mechanics. Whereas detective fiction is typically end-oriented, with its focus on the ultimate revelation of truth, the psychoanalytic text locates truth in a pre-text. Thus, to save “The Witness for the Prosecution”, the reader must adopt a beginning-oriented lens and establish the original shape of its pre-diegetic revelation. This means loitering (and enacting that paradoxical mix of idle resistance advanced by Chambers) at that very point where the logics of detective fiction are seemingly designed to fast-track the reader’s pursuit of the ultimate solution. For, while reading to discover the ending is still promoted by the crime narrative here, a counter-logics of hesitation and retrospection always accompanies the reader’s progress forwards. If chances to meander down side-alleys are limited, given the brevity of the story, it is this double movement, this walking with a backwards gaze, with half an eye on the present and half on the past, that forces even that reader most pre-disposed to task-focused digestion of the text to slow down and to wander. What is so striking in “The Witness for the Prosecution” is arguably how Christie makes space for wandering in such a restricted narrative, in a creative format that is, of course, all about punch and economy.This space is created as early as the story’s opening sentence. “Mr Mayherne”, it begins, “adjusted his pince-nez and cleared his throat with a little dry-as-dust cough that was wholly typical of him” (1). Whether or not we can be sure that Mr Mayherne’s cough was typical of him before the story begins is uncertain. His habit of adjusting his pince-nez, on the other hand, which is here associated with the cough, is certainly recently acquired. This we learn at the end of the story: “He found himself polishing his pince-nez vigorously, and checked himself. His wife had told him only the night before that he was getting a habit of it” (27). It is my contention that this habit is a response to a traumatic revelation of truth, which requires Mr Mayherne henceforth to adjust his perspective.Habits, as Mr Mayherne’s wife points out, are born of repetition. The story, too, begins with a repeated act. Indeed, the solicitor’s next action is to look at his client, whom the reader is seeing for the first time at this initial point of the text, but whom Mr Mayherne has already seen: “Then he looked again at the man opposite him” (1, my emphasis). At the outset therefore, this habit of adjusting his pince-nez is proleptic, insofar as it will enable him to realise (albeit apparently, but only apparently, too late) that Romaine and the old woman who gives him the letters that condemn her are one and the same, but also analeptic, as it looks back to a previous contemplation of a disguise. The habit that he detects in Romaine is one of clenching and unclenching her right hand. That he sees this without initially being fully conscious of it and then later understands the gesture’s significance is due to his own fetishistic response to the truth of Leonard’s guilt. When he first sees his client, he recognises his guilt, either in his eyes, which then causes him to avert his gaze and look down to his hands, or in his murderer’s hands, which causes him to displace his gaze and to look instead at his own hands, which he occupies by adjusting his pince-nez. Either way, his failure to look at Romaine’s hands and see them immediately for what they are is itself a displacement of his dual state—of knowing his client to be guilty and believing in his innocence “in spite of the multitude of facts arrayed against [him]” (13).Repetition blunts the reader’s awareness of its fundamental role in the story. The weight of evidence against Leonard Vole is repeated again and again. This is one of the key devices, even a cliché, of detective fiction: the most obviously guilty character must be innocent. At its most basic level, this is how “The Witness for the Prosecution” surprises its readers. My suggestion, however, is that this knowledge serves merely to screen the book’s original, or other, meaning, which is that Mr Mayherne knows the truth. It is not truth, but the knowledge of the truth, that the reader is tasked to discover. To this extent, Phelps is right: “it is not the truth that matters, but performance”. And in this case, it is the performance of the truth of Leonard’s guilt in the actualised story that hides the knowledge of the truth that is its pre-text and whose form is not taken by the story while nonetheless being analeptically staged and virtually formed, or (auto-)adapted, as pre-text. In reflexive terms, the highlighting of repeated gestures, and especially Mr Mayherne’s cleaning of his lenses, can usefully be considered signals for the reader to pause for thought. And yet, as reflexive signals, they are both provocative and provocatively hesitant, for however clearly they are displayed, they fail to check the pace and end-orientation of the short story because the reader’s own habit—the compulsion to read in haste, to read for the solution—is not so easily broken.Leonard’s first words in the story are simply, “I know”, which is, in the framework of the present reading, a pure reflection of what the man sitting opposite him is trying to disavow. What Leonard knows is that his situation is grave and that he must be frank. He knows this because, as he says to Mr Mayherne, “You keep telling me so” (1). But it is this response that in fact causes the story to become a tale of repetition. First, there is Mr Mayherne’s conviction: “we shall succeed—we shall succeed” (2). Romaine then repeats her desire when she first meets Mr Mayherne, twice stating the words, “I want to know the worst” (14). Leonard is nonetheless responding to a prior repetition, which, is predicated on the story’s initial “looking again”. In other words, the story itself is a screen memory, a fetish-made-diegesis. The result, in an apparent paradox, is that the desire to hasten the ending, to bring on the final verdict, however terrible, is at the same time a signal for the reader to look back. Again, to look back to that initial second look is to inscribe circles on circles, and to enforce wandering even at this reflexively-staged moment of end-orientation.Certainly, Romaine’s comment, “I want to know”, performs fetishism’s combination of knowledge and desire. And yet, unlike Mr Mayherne’s desire (to save Leonard), which is opposed to his knowledge (that Leonard is guilty), Romaine’s desire appears aligned with knowledge: she does not say that she knows the worst, but that she wants to know it. She has another secret desire, of course, as she reveals to Mr Mayherne in what is a paradoxical display of secrecy. When he asks why she hates her husband so much, she retorts: “Yes, you would like to know. But I shall not tell you. I will keep my secret” (17). Further, she mocks him for honestly believing Leonard to be innocent.Both characters are honest, then: Romaine wants to know that Leonard is guilty (and certainly does not believe him to be innocent) and openly has a secret that she will not divulge; Mr Mayherne, for his part, knows the case against his client is ironclad but also honestly believes him to be innocent. Their stated aims may well be opposed—she wants Leonard to hang; he wants him to go free. Their “true” aims are nonetheless aligned: she knows Leonard is guilty and will sacrifice her own credibility in court to save her husband; he believes Leonard is innocent and will sacrifice her in court to save his client. Both tell the truth in public when performing their official duties (he as solicitor, she as wife). The only difference between them lies in the nature of their other performance: she lies to him by performing the role of an old woman who knows secrets about her past; he knows Leonard to be guilty but partially represses this by taking up his narrative only after he has erected a fetish to protect himself from this traumatic truth (and the reader from the secret past of the text). This disavowal means that he can honestly believe in his client’s innocence while still knowing him to be guilty. Again then, Phelps’s statement—that it is not the truth that matters, but performance—is itself both true and not true. Romaine performs in the story in order for the truth that she knows to be said and then discredited; Mr Mayherne, on the other hand, performs the story in order for his knowledge of the truth to be disavowed, which it to say, repressed within the form that is given to the reader to see, but also available, and able to take form (for the reader prepared to digress) in what lies just beyond the limits of what is said.The conversation in which Romaine repeats her desire to know also ends in a repetition, this time with one of the solicitor’s signature moves: “Mr Mayherne gave his dry little cough and rose” (17). This cough repeats the one that opened the story. In that first instance, it distracted the reader, allowing the adverb “again” to rush through, seen and unseen. In this way, the first cough, accompanied by Mr Mayherne’s cleaning of his lenses, causes the reader to focus their own gaze on him rather than on what he had been looking at. This is a cough designed to open the narrative on Mr Mayherne’s terms. In this second example, it closes down dialogue. This second cough is motivated by precisely the same traumatic revelation of the truth, except that in this repetition it is displaced onto Romaine. With the words, “I shall not tell you. I will keep my secret”, she says to him in the text what Mr Mayherne said to himself in the pre-text. This is a repetition therefore in a story of repetition and of a story of repetition. Repeating what was said before with different words and, at the same time, repeating with the same words what was not said before, the text here presents itself to the reader in the form of an auto-adaptation, a second look at an original text whose form is otherwise virtual.In this way, words unsaid are repressed partially: they are not said in the diegesis (which stands as a screen memory, simultaneously standing in place of the text and tracing in the present the contours of its form as absence) but are said, instead, by proxy, through displacement, in the reflexively staged performance of another text. The disavowal at play here is such that readers find themselves in two spaces at once, on two lines of flight, with the one being opposed to the other. Steps forwards and backwards are taken in equal measure. We are therefore witnesses to “The Witness for the Prosecution”, looking on as the story follows onwards, but this very act of witnessing counteracts this prosecution, adding the idleness of the gaze to the purposefulness of pursuit (of truth). The result is not so much somewhere between a stalled, or false, start, and a race to the end, as both at the same time. In this way, Christie’s story, despite appearances to the contrary, is the very embodiment of wandering.At the origins of both Christie’s story and Phelps’s adaptation is a common truth. It serves as a pre-text for both texts, for both performances. In both cases, this pre-text privileges performance over truth. Each text also has a pre-text, which precedes and predicates the performance. We may consider that Phelps’s adaptation captures the essence (of truth) of Christie’s original. In this way, it values that truth and holds it necessary to its own performance, without being derivative in relation to it. Again, the same holds for Christie’s text, whose pre-text protects its truth beneath its performance: while the performance partially represses this pre-textual truth (with its gaudy staging of its own truth, which we may perhaps this time consider derivative), it also preserves it. For without the performance (of truth), the knowledge at its origin cannot exist. To read “The Witness for the Prosecution” as an adaptation of itself requires a fetishistic eye, and the fetishist is nothing if not a digressive observer. If you’re quick, you can catch the performance; but if you’re content to wander, the audacity of what Christie does not reveal is well worth the wait.ReferencesBlin-Rolland, Armelle. “Adaplastics: Forming the Zazie dans le métro Network.” Modern and Contemporary France (2019): forthcoming.Chambers, Ross. Loiterature. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.Christie, Agatha. The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories. London: Harper, 2016.Felman, Shoshana. “Turning the Screw of Interpretation.” Yale French Studies. 55–56 (1977): 94–207.McCallum, Ellen Lee. Object Lessons: How to Do Things with Fetishism. New York: SUNY Press, 1992.The Witness for the Prosecution. Dir. Julian Jarrold. BBC One, 2016.