131,378 research outputs found
Mind in Africa, Body in Europe: The Struggle for Maintaining and Transforming Cultural Identity - A Note from the Experience of Eritrean Immigrants in Stockholm
No full textThis paper describes how individuals and groups who had crossed ‘physical, national boundaries’, and who live in a different social context make sense of their lives make sense of their lives by re-constructing their identities - of the sense of who they are, and who they want to be, which is an ongoing process. This is done by narrating the experiences of African men and women who live in Sweden and who struggle to both maintain their cultural identity and at the same time change aspects in their culture due to the context in which they find themselves. Maintaining cultural identity and transforming aspects of that identity therefore constitute the main thrust of the paper. Some of the ways through which immigrants claim to maintain their identity are practices and routines that they repeatedly and consistently perform as if these were uniform both in the host country and in the country of origin. But it is exactly within this premise that ‘maintaining’ an identity is defined in this paper. However, the routines, or practices may have different meanings or significance to different actors, different audience, and especially for the main beneficiaries, in a particular context. In this paper, I will narrate how ‘maintaining’ cultural identity is understood and practiced by Blin (Eritrean) immigrants in Stockholm, Sweden, when they solemnly perform a cultural rite called blessing (gewra) in weddings. The paper is based on a participant observation of weddings from 1992 to 2001 in Stockholm, Sweden, when the Blin speaking people perform the blessing rite, enjoy doing it, show to the audience how they maintain ‘who they are’, and perhaps symbolically confirm their unity with the Blin community. The main actors are the elderly and the bridegroom, both sine qua non if the rite is to get its legitimacy. Thus, the blessing rite is an example of being Eritrean in Sweden for its performers. The concept of identity and identity construction has become an important concept to deal with such demands for ‘maintaining’ and 'transforming' identities. Even though maintaining identity is encouraged in the Swedish social policy, transformation of that identity comes through demands that are widely accepted as modern values, such as egalitarianism, gender equality and individualism – leading to issues of diversity at different levels. If one strictly defines the meaning of the blessing rite, one can find that the meaning sometimes may not be consonant with the so-called modern values but that the people then provide symbolic significance to the rite.Blessing rite, Blin community, Culture maintenance, Identity construction, Immigrant
Motion de M. Blin demandant l'apurement de l'arriéré de l’administration des bâtiments du roi, lors de la séance du 20 avril 1791
No full textBlin Pierre François, André Antoine Balthazar d', Regnault de Lunéville Charles. Motion de M. Blin demandant l'apurement de l'arriéré de l’administration des bâtiments du roi, lors de la séance du 20 avril 1791. In: Archives Parlementaires de 1787 à 1860 - Première série (1787-1799) Tome XXV - Du 13 avril 1791 au 11 mai 1791. Paris : Librairie Administrative P. Dupont, 1886. p. 213
Blin Orthography: A History and an Assessment
No full textThis paper examines two orthographic scripts used for Blin (or Bilin), a Central Cushitic language of Eritrea spoken by around 90,000 people. The first script to represent the language was the Ethiopic abugida, a system akin to a syllabary where each character stands for a consonant accompanied by a particular vowel, usually /a/, and other vowels (or no vowel) are indicated by consistent additions to the consonant symbols (Daniels 2001). First used by the Italian missionary Sapeto (1857), it was employed, with slight modifications for sounds unique to Blin, by Reinisch (1882), by Italian scholars, and by native speakers, culminating in the monolingual dictionary of Kiflemariam and Paulos (1992), and its recent integration into Unicode 4.1. However, educational policy of the Eritrean government began mother-tongue primary education in Blin in 1997 using a new Roman-based orthography, which was chosen as a compromise between Christian and Muslim-associated scripts, and as an aid to learn English, the language of secondary and higher education in Eritrea. The strengths and weaknesses of each system are examined. The paper concludes with a discussion of whether Blin will undergo synchronic or diachronic digraphia (Dale 1980) as the two systems coexist
La cartographie, théorie et exercices : ouvrages de E. Blin et J.-P. Bord - M. Béguin et D. Pumain
No full textPalsky Gilles. La cartographie, théorie et exercices : ouvrages de E. Blin et J.-P. Bord - M. Béguin et D. Pumain. In: Annales de Géographie, t. 106, n°595, 1997. p. 324
Wuwei and ExpressionismAlfred D?blin?s Interpretation of Wu Wei (Non Action) in His Novel ?the Three Leaps of Wang-lun?
No full text[[abstract]]In the first half of the 20th century Chinese Taoist thought enjoyed a unparalleled
popularity among German intellectuals. In this context Alfred D?blin?s novel ?The
three leaps of Wang-lun? plays a special role. D?blin was not satisfied with simplz
adapting Chinese thought and using it as a mouth piece for his own ideas, but used the
Chinese setting of the Qing dynasty to experiment with a new style of writing within
the German tradition.His creative use of Chinese thought can thus be read in two
directions. On the one hand D?blin, by making Taoist thought a focus of his narrative,
gave the Taoist idea of non action (wu wei) a new interpretation; on the other hand by
writing a ?Chinese Novel?6 in German he is able to introduce certain techniques into
writing that became features of expressionist writing in German. This paper will look
at how these two different features of the novel relate to each other to create a new
powerful expression of D?blin?s own understandingof the human condition
Finding Nested Common Intervals Efficiently
No full textBlin G, Faye D, Stoye J. Finding Nested Common Intervals Efficiently. Journal of Computational Biology. 2010;17(9):1183-1194
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Motion de M. Bouche pour publier rapidement les décrets sanctionnés, lors de la séance du 16 aout 1790
No full textBouche Charles-François, Blin Pierre François, Aubergeon de Murinais Guy-Joseph d', Martineau Louis Simon. Motion de M. Bouche pour publier rapidement les décrets sanctionnés, lors de la séance du 16 aout 1790. In: Archives Parlementaires de 1787 à 1860 - Première série (1787-1799) Tome XVIII - Du 12 aout au 15 septembre 1790. Paris : Librairie Administrative P. Dupont, 1884. p. 94
"Closing the R&D Gap, Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending"
No full textBoth spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.
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