366 research outputs found
The coating of a NiTi alloy has a greater impact on the mechanical properties than the acidity of Saliva
No full textThe aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of the acidity of saliva on changes to the surface roughness, friction and microhardness of NiTi alloys with various coatings. Three types of commercially available NiTi archwires: uncoated, rhodium coated and nitrified (dimension 0.508×0.508 mm, 10 cm long) were immersed in 10 mL of artificial saliva with the pH ranging from 4.8 to 6.6 for a period of 28 d. Surface roughness, friction and microhardness were analyzed and compared to the unexposed as-received wires. These mechanical properties were influenced by the wire coating with a moderate-to-high effect size (p£0.005; h=0.132-0.309). The uncoated wire had a lower maximum roughness depth after exposure to pH 6.6 and 5.5 than the unexposed wire (p=0.026; h=0.346). The friction was significantly increased only in the rhodium-coated NiTi at pH 4.8 compared to the lower acidities and the unexposed wire (p=0.005; h=0.437). No correlation was found between pH, surface roughness, friction and microhardness, respectively. The coating of a NiTi alloy has a greater impact on the mechanical proper- ties than the acidity does. A rhodium coating makes the alloy harder, induces a rougher surface and more friction. Nitrification does not alter the alloy as much. The relation between acidity and mechanical properties is not linear. A high acidity of 4.8 induces a high friction, but only in rhodium-coated NiTi. A lower acidity does not change the friction significantly
Reviewed Work: The Housemaid by Amma Darko
No full textA relative newcomer to the Ghanaian fiction-writing scene, Amma Darko is the author of a 1991 novel published in German and then issued in 1995 in its original English as Beyond the Horizon (see WLT 72:2, p.468)
Not Without Flowers
No full textA new novel from a scion of the new generation of writers in Africa. She tells the story of women in Africa: here it is misery, pain, agony , dilemmas, frustrations. She floats the reader on a world of inverted reality, which yet becomes the norm. With creative imagination, confronting the social realities, she seeks out the world of peace and tranquillity. But not without verisimilitude. The extremes of moral turpitude beget horrid outcomes, leaving suspense rather than resolution. Amma Darko is one of the most significant contemporary Ghanaian literary writers. She is the author of three previous novels: Faceless (Sub-Saharan, 2003), The Housemaid (Heinemann, 1999) and Beyond the Horizon (Heinemann, 1995)
The Meaning and Purpose of Self-Sacrifice: The Latent Discourse of „Donnie Darko”
No full textTekst jest próbą religijnego odczytania filmu Donnie Darko (reż. Richard Kelly, 2001) – debiutanckiej produkcji coraz częściej zaliczanej do kanonu tzw. dzieł kultowych. Autor przedstawia narracyjne zawiłości filmu, stara się zrekonstruować jego podskórny dyskurs i tropi sygnały pozwalające interpretować tytułowego bohatera jako figurę Chrystusa. W przyjętym ujęciu Donnie Darko jawi się jako postać o rysach chrystologicznych, która decyduje się na podróż w czasie, by odwrócić bieg wypadków nieuchronnie zmierzających do zapowiedzianego mu rychłego końca świata. Jednocześnie Nadgrodkiewicz zwraca uwagę, że rekonstruowany dyskurs utajony nie stoi w opozycji do filmowego dyskursu powierzchniowego, ale razem z nim tworzy koherentną, acz przewrotną konstrukcję, w której warstwa przekazów oficjalnych odnosi się do mrocznej strony wydarzeń i tragicznych losów bohatera, zaś warstwa podskórna pozwala na konstatacje dotyczące sensu i celowości ofiary, jaką nastoletni Donnie ponosi dla dobra swoich bliskich.The text is an attempt at religious interpretation of the film Donnie Darko (dir. Richard Kelly, 2001) - a production debut, that is now increasingly included in the canon of so called cult movies. The author describes the intricacies of the narrative of the film, and tries to reconstruct its subcutaneous discourse and tracks the signals needed to interpret the title character as a figure of Christ. In this approach Donnie Darko appears to be a character with Christ like characteristics, that travels in time in order to change the order of events, that will otherwise lead to the foretold end of the world. At the same time Nadgrodkiewicz notes that the reconstructed latent discourse does not stand in opposition to the film’s main discourse. Rather together they form a coherent, albeit a perverse structure in which layers of official communications refers to the dark side of the events and the tragic fate of the hero, and the subcutaneous layer allows the assertions about the meaning and purpose of sacrifice that teenage Donnie bears for the sake of his loved ones
The limits of EU conditionality in the context of Serbia’s political cooperation with Croatia
No full textThis paper aims to examine the scope and results of the political cooperation between Belgrade
and Zagreb in the context of the European Union’s enlargement policy. The author argues that
the conditionality instrument in this regard has shown its limitations over the past decade. Apart
from being a consequence of external developments (such as the crisis mode of the European
Union), this is a result of the profound political changes between the two observed actors. On
the one hand, the asymmetry between Croatia and Serbia has increased as a consequence of
Zagreb’s EU accession and subsequent progress towards the inner circles of integration. On the
other hand, conservative and occasionally anti-European ideologies, sentiments, and actions in
Serbia have distanced it from what used to be its main strategic goal. This reveals the preference
of political elites for short-term political maneuvers, which produce immediate or quicker results,
over the longer-term planning required for Serbia’s EU accession. The authors consider that the
democratic underperformance in Serbia correlates with the lack of intention to accede to the
European Union (and, by default, cooperate more closely with member states like Croatia). The
authors use the comparative method and Europeanization approach to illustrate how the EU’s
actorness did not accomplish a convincing and comprehensive reconciliation between the two
largest former Yugoslav countries, as a result of aforementioned aspects
On the Poetics of Science Fiction Genre
No full textThe first Polish translation of one of the best-known articles on the poetics of science fiction, considered nowadays a must-read reference in the field. In this classical piece, Darko Suvin famously argues in favour of introducing the concept of cognitive estrangement modelled after Viktor Shklovsky’s ostranenie (often questionably rendered as defamiliarisation) as well as Bertolt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt (as defined in his Kleines Organon für das Theater). Arguing, in due course, for acknowledging the cognitive and epistemological potential of thus defined estrangement, Suvin proceeds to introduce and analyse two distinct models for studying science fiction from both historical and formalist perspective—the extrapolative model and analogic model—which altogether help at outlining features of the most prototypal science fiction. This translation is also supplemented with an addendum from 2014 wherein the author revisits his thoughts from Marxist perspective and ponders on their relevance in reference to a more politically inclined debate in science fiction studies
O poetyce gatunku science fiction
No full textThe first Polish translation of one of the best-known articles on the poetics of science fiction, considered nowadays a must-read reference in the field. In this classical piece, Darko Suvin famously argues in favour of introducing the concept of cognitive estrangement modelled after Viktor Shklovsky’s ostranenie (often questionably rendered as defamiliarisation) as well as Bertolt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt (as defined in his Kleines Organon für das Theater). Arguing, in due course, for acknowledging the cognitive and epistemological potential of thus defined estrangement, Suvin proceeds to introduce and analyse two distinct models for studying science fiction from both historical and formalist perspective—the extrapolative model and analogic model—which altogether help at outlining features of the most prototypal science fiction. This translation is also supplemented with an addendum from 2014 wherein the author revisits his thoughts from Marxist perspective and ponders on their relevance in reference to a more politically inclined debate in science fiction studies
Viennese Hallways in Darko Markov Bleak Vision
No full textThis paper analyzes the novel Twilight in the Viennese Hallway 2 (Old Boska) (2013) by Darko Markov, a migrant-writer from Vienna. The novel describes the way of life and culturological characteristics of Serbian immigrants in Austria through two generations - the gastarbeiter as the older immigrant stratum of migrant workers in the 1970s and 1980s, and the younger, well-educated people who immigrated in the 1990s, fleeing the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the dire economic situation in Serbia due to inflation and international sanctions. Through the seemingly simple storyline about the marital and romantic problems of the protagonist - a young intellectual from Belgrade who arrived in Vienna in the 1990s, the author constructs a dense narrative network of the main character's various experiences, describing the difficulties of adjusting and coping in a foreign country. The protagonist simultaneously comes up against two worlds with different value systems - on the one hand, that of the gastarbeiter, his compatriots, whose way of life, attitudes and behaviors he often finds strange and unacceptable, sometimes even irrational, and on the other hand, the prejudices, intolerance and lack of understanding exhibited by Austrians not only towards him but also towards other immigrants. His path crossing that of various other characters, the protagonist himself undergoes changes in his search for meaning and for his place in a foreign land. In his description of characters and their actions Darko Markov uses the literary technique of realism, relying to a great extent, by his own admission, on real-life persons and events. His mimetic narrative technique can thus be characterized as faction - a blend of fiction and facts, enriched with numerous ethnographic descriptions of the traits, behavior, appearance, speech and value system of the gastarbeiter and other migrants in the Austrian capital. In that sense Markov's novel belongs to the genre of ethnographic prose as it abounds in anthropologically and ethnologically relevant themes and motifs. In a wider sense, the novel belongs to migrant literature defined in terms of the theme, characters and content relating to the life of migrants, and, secondly, the author who is himself an immigrant. The paper first provides a literary-ethographic analysis through the structural elements of its composition - the plot, the characters (attributes, actions and motivation), the narrative time frame and the space that Serbian immigrants in Vienna inhabit and move around in. It then proceeds to analyze through anthropological interpretation some of the novel' motifs and themes, specifically, the problems of ethnic prejudice, integration into the host society, the marginal position of immigrants through two types of marginalization - exterior marginalization in the form of their socio-economic status, and interior marginalization through exoticization and stigmatization, and also the question of language as an important ethnic and cultural marker
On the Poetics of Science Fiction Genre
No full textThe first Polish translation of one of the best-known articles on the poetics of science fiction, considered nowadays a must-read reference in the field. In this classical piece, Darko Suvin famously argues in favour of introducing the concept of cognitive estrangement modelled after Viktor Shklovsky’s ostranenie (often questionably rendered as defamiliarisation) as well as Bertolt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt (as defined in his Kleines Organon für das Theater). Arguing, in due course, for acknowledging the cognitive and epistemological potential of thus defined estrangement, Suvin proceeds to introduce and analyse two distinct models for studying science fiction from both historical and formalist perspective—the extrapolative model and analogic model—which altogether help at outlining features of the most prototypal science fiction. This translation is also supplemented with an addendum from 2014 wherein the author revisits his thoughts from Marxist perspective and ponders on their relevance in reference to a more politically inclined debate in science fiction studies
Conceiving literary sexualities
No full textFinally, Darko Ilin will examine the sexuality discourse within the texts of literary history and artistic biography in his paper “Conceiving literary sexualities: the imagination of Ivan Cankar\u27s sexuality in the works of Lojze Kraigher”. This paper examines the discourse of masculinity and sexuality in relation to Ivan Cankar in the artistic biography/biographical study of Cankar written by Lojze Kraigher. Based on Kraigher\u27s biographical account of the author\u27s life and work, the study analyses how the discourse of sexuality helped shape the understanding of Ivan Cankar as a canonical figure in the Slovenian literary system. Through close readings of key passages and their analysis, it examines how Cankar\u27s biography imagines masculinity and sexuality and how these imaginaries reflect broader cultural and historical contexts. By constructing the contrast between the writer\u27s irresistible artistic power and weak sexual capacity, Lojze Kraigher establishes the premise of Cankar\u27s sublimation of sexual desire in art. The essay demonstrates that Cankar\u27s sexuality was often the focus of critical and biographical discourse. By examining these issues in the context of literary-artistic biography, this paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the complexity of sexuality discourse and its impact on literary history
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