189 research outputs found
Adolescent Cognitive and Non-cognitive Correlates of Adult Health
No full textWhile it is widely acknowledged that the family and childhood environments affect adult well being, why they matter is still an area of significant debate. Previous research concerned with this issue has focused on the influence of family income, family structure, and cognitive ability. Much of this research has focused on economic and social outcomes. Notably, the influence of childhood environments on adult health has not received as much attention as other outcomes, and when health has been the focus, interest has been mainly on childhood health. Here, I present a descriptive analysis of the associations between cognitive and non-cognitive traits measured at the end of childhood (age 14) and mental and physical health at age 41. Results suggest that, on average, adolescent cognitive ability and self esteem have a significant association with health at age 41. Other non-cognitive factors such as locus of control and adolescent substance use do not have significant associations with adult health. Net of adolescent influences, completed education has a significant association with adult health.
The Iconography of Birgitta of Sweden : Author, Prophet, and Saint
No full textAs the reputed author of Liber celestis revelacionum, an eight-volume literary corpus with a highly political content, Birgitta Birgersdotter stands out among the many laywomen who were venerated as saints in the later Middle Ages. In the canonization process, initiated immediately after her death in Rome in 1373, Birgitta’s assumed role as a divinely appointed prophet formed her primary claim to sainthood, and the textual work served as the principal evidence. The oldest extant images of Birgitta all derive from the first years of the canonization process when panel paintings and illuminations decorating the manuscripts containing the Liber celestiswere produced in Naples. Highly original iconographical formulas were developed for the two media respectively, most likely under the direct supervision of Birgitta’s confessors who had assisted her in the production and dissemination of her revelations. This paper will explore the form and purpose of the iconography developed for the promotion of Birgitta’s sanctity. Special attention will be given to the visual strategies by which the images seeks to negotiate her role as an outspoken public figure, an author, and an active political agent in a time when women were prohibited from instructing men in public, in both speech and text. The paper will also examine how the meaning of the original iconography of Birgitta developed as it spread from one medium to another, and in various social, religious, and linguistic contexts in Europe after the visionary had been elevated to sainthood only 18 years after her death.</p
Stridskvinnan Birgitta
No full text“Stridskvinnan Birgitta” focuses on aspects of Birgitta’s writings less palatable to moderntastes, such as images of violent punishment in hell and purgatory. It brings in the exampleof the American Catholic author Flannery O’Connor to illustrate how, from Birgitta’sperspective, violent images could represent an occasion of grace for the recipient of herrevelations. It also discusses Birgitta’s support for the king’s “crusade” to the Baltic countriesfor the purposes of Christianizing them and touches on her view of proper conductin warfare
Den kultur- och litteraturhistoriska gestalten i den lettiska novellen “Svētā Briģita” (“Heliga Birgitta”) av Jānis Ezeriņš
No full textCultural-historical and literary gestalt in the Latvian short story “Saint Birgitta” (“Heliga Birgitta”) by Jānis EzeriņšThe Latvian author Jānis Ezeriņš’s (1891–1924) literary heritage includes, among other texts, the collection of short stories Fantastiska novele un citas (Fantastic short story and others, 1923). The collection contains the short story “Svētā Briģita” (“Saint Birgitta”), in which the author has used the image of a saint, which is very well known in the history of culture, literature and religion. The image can be related both to Celtic mythology and the historical Swedish personality, who had been the founder of Vadstena monastery and a literary author herself (approx. 1303–1373). The aim of the article is to explore the function of the image in the prose text by the Latvian author Ezeriņš and its connections with the cultural and historical personality of St. Birgitta. It is not typical of Ezeriņš’s writings to make such an explicit and direct association with this kind of legendary phenomena, therefore the inclusion of the text in the collection may suggest a connection between St. Birgitta’s individual destiny and enduring human values. This writer’s choice can also be seen as his own claim to international recognition
Ambivalent Images of Authorship
No full textThe paper deals with the question of Birgitta’s and Catherine’s status as authors and examines the visual representations of the two women, notably in the context of the books containing their texts. In the images of the two women found in the illuminated manuscripts, which began circulating just after their deaths in 1373 and 1380 respectively, and in the early printed copies dating to around 1500, Birgitta is generally represented with a pen in her hand, whereas Catherine is never depicted in the act of writing. This visual material emerges as a paradox when compared to the way the two women are presented in the texts. In the Revelations, Birgitta claims to be a medium and not an author, and she generally refers to herself in third person, or simply as “a person.” Catherine, by contrast, is constantly present in the first person in her letters which frequently open with “I, Catherine, write to you.” By focusing on the tension between the images of the two women and the way they are presented in their respective texts, this chapter will explore the role of the visual in shaping the notions of Birgitta and Catherine as female authors in a time when female authority was still highly controversial. The conflicting representations of their authorial role will also be connected to contemporary debates about their sanctity, where questions concerning human and divine authorship as well as ecclesiastical mediation and approval of the texts of these lay visionaries were of paramount importance. </p
Substitutive bodies and constructed actors: a practice-based investigation of animation as performance
No full textThe fundamental conceptualisation of what animation actually is has been changing in the face of material change to production and distribution methods since the introduction of digital technology. This re-conceptualisation has been contributed to by increasing artistic and academic interest in the field, such as the emergence of Animation Studies, a relatively new branch of academic enquiry that is establishing itself as a discipline.
This research (documentation of live events and thesis) examines animation in the context of performance, rather than in terms of technology or material process. Its scope is neither to cover all possible types of animation nor to put forward a new ‘catch-all’ definition of animation, but rather to examine the site of performance in character animation and to propose animation as a form of performance. In elaborating this argument, each chapter is structured around the framing device of animation as a message that is encoded and produced, delivered and played back, then received and decoded.
The PhD includes a portfolio of projects undertaken as part of the research process on which the text critically reflects. Due to their site-specific approach, these live events are documented through video and still images. The work represents an intertwining, interdisciplinary, post-animation praxis where theory and practice inform one another and test relationships between animation and performance to problematise a binary opposition between that which is live as opposed to that which is animated. It is contextualised by a review of historical practice and interviews with key contemporary practitioners whose work combines animation with an intermedial mixture of interaction design, fine art, dance and theatre
The Transmission of Birgittine and Catherinian Works within the Mystical Tradition: Exchanges, Cross-Readings, Connections
No full textThis chapter aims to trace the role of Catherine of Siena and Birgitta of Sweden within the Observant reform. After having described the particular modes of the transmission of their mystical works, i.e. respectively the Dialogo and the Revelations, the author focuses on some significant manuscripts from the Italian peninsula and on a few key-figures, both men and women—Alfonso Pecha of Jaén, Cristoforo di Gano Guidini, Tommaso da Siena, Chiara Gambacorta, the Birgittine nuns of Paradiso in Florence and Syon in England and others— in order to demonstrate that there were a fluid context of exchanges between Birgittine and Catherinian circles
Geographical distribution of cystic fibrosis carriers as population genetic determinant of COVID-19 spread and fatality in 37 countries
No full textCOVID-19 has shown a relevant heterogeneity in spread and fatality among countries together with a significant variability in its clinical presentation, indicating that host genetic factors may influence COVID-19 pathogenicity. Indeed, subjects carrying single pathogenic variants of the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR) gene – i.e. CF carriers – are more susceptible to respiratory tract infections and are more likely to undergo severe COVID-19 with higher risk of 14-day mortality. Given that CF carrier prevalence varies among ethnicities and nations, an ecological study in 37 countries was conducted, in order to determine to what extent the diverse CF carrier geographical distribution may have affected COVID-19 spread and fatality during the first pandemic wave. The CF prevalence in countries, as indicator of the geographical distribution of CF carriers, significantly correlated in a direct manner with both COVID-19 prevalence and its Case Fatality Rate (CFR). In a regression study weighted for the number of tests performed, COVID-19 prevalence positively correlated with CF prevalence, while CFR correlated with population percentage older than 65-year, cancer and CF prevalence. Multivariate regression model also confirmed COVID-19 CFR to be associated with CF prevalence, after adjusting for elderly, cancer prevalence, and weighting for the number of tests performed. This study suggests a putative contribution of population genetics of CFTR in understanding the spatial distribution of COVID-19 spread and fatality
Malignant melanoma risk by nativity, place of residence at diagnosis, and age at migration
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