252 research outputs found

    Coleridge and the rhetoric of power: the conflict between Coleridge’s poetic theory and practice

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    The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the poetry of S.T. Coleridge in relation to his idealist theories of the poetic imagination. According to his various writings on the function of the imagination, the act of poesis ought to reflect the internal principles of creation as manifested in nature. The primary imagination, as Coleridge defines it in Biographia Literaria, speaks the language of God; the secondary imagination (the medium for poetic creativity) strives to imitate this universal power within the language of men. Poetry is thus understood as the vehicle which activates the "whole soul", moving man towards a sympathetic appreciation of the world he inhabits. However, as I intend to demonstrate, Coleridge's poetic language proves consistently inadequate in providing a constubstantiality between the mind and nature. The arbitrary nature of words often undermine the poet's intentions, ironically providing an outlet for repressed desires and fears. This is reflected strongly in the nature of poetic diction which often achieves an artistic fluidity at the expense of theoretical conviction. By contrast, when Coleridge's poetry remains faithful to his views, the language is often forced and stilted. Modem critical theory, in its emphasis on the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign, can be useful in locating such a subversion of intended meaning within the romantic text. In my introduction, I shall discuss the generic term "romanticism " in relation to post-modernist literary theory m a manner which suggests that romantic discourse is already profoundly aware of inherit contradictions within its own creative process. Having established a correlation between romanticism and its twentieth century literary criticism, I shall investigate Coleridge's poetry in the terms of his own theory, which always suggests the duplicity of the literary imagination in its articulation of artistic distinctions (Imagination/Fancy; Imitation/Copy)

    Global evolution of female authorships in anesthesiology articles: an affiliation-based, longitudinal, scientometric analysis

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    Abstract Background Although a gender gap in anesthesiology articles has been reported in certain subsets of anesthesiology literature, a comprehensive analysis is still lacking. Our objective was to conduct a scientometric analysis of the evolution of gender equity among anesthesiology authors worldwide, including all available affiliations. We hypothesized that gender inequity has diminished over time, with relevant differences among countries. Methods The MEDLINE/PubMed 2024 Baseline Repository was queried for all articles whose authors were affiliated with a department of anesthesiology. Author positions were sequenced into first, co-authors, and senior authors. Gender was inferred using online classification tools (genderize.io and gender-api.com). Geolocation was identified through text mining of the first author’s affiliation. The primary endpoint was the evolution of female authors from 1987 to 2023, calculated descriptively and by average annual growth rates. Secondary endpoints included the proportion of female authors in first or senior author position, the influence of senior authors’ gender on first authors’ gender, geographical differences, and future projections of parity (defined as 50% female authors). Results Among 374,301 anesthesiology articles and 7,574 journals, the proportion of female authors increased from 13.6% (1987) to 34.3% (2023) with an average annual growth of 0.57% (95%-confidence interval 0.38% − 0.77%). First authors were female in 30.0% and senior authors in 20.7%, with increases from 11.7% (1987) to 36.9% (2023), and from 11.0% (1987) to 25.9% (2023), respectively. Female authors were overall more likely to be first authors when the senior author was also female. In 2023, only Thailand and Portugal had a percentage of female authors over 50%. Tunisia achieved the highest average annual growth rate of female authors at 2.28% (95%-CI 1.51% − 3.06%). Based on the assumption that current trends continue unchanged, overall gender parity is estimated to be achieved by 2050, for first authors by 2043 and for senior authors by 2072. Conclusions Despite an increase in recent decades, women are still underrepresented as authors in academic anesthesiology, particularly in leading authorship positions. While relevant differences between countries exist, strategies addressing this gender gap at a country-specific level are needed to promote female authorship in academic anesthesiology

    The life and works of James Miller, 1704-1744, with particular reference to the satiric content of his poetry and plays.

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    PhDJames Miller was born the son of a Dorset rector in 1704. He was himself ordained, but acquired no benefice until just before his early death, probably because of a scathing portrayal of the Bishop of London in one of his verse satires. At Oxford he wrote a vivacious comedy of humours, set in the University. Its production in 1730 began his dramatic career, at a time when the number of London theatres had just doubled, and new dramatic forms were being invented. In 1731 his poem Harlequin-Horace, a witty inversion of the Ars Poetica, attacked pantomime and opera, but also painted a lively portrait of the entire theatrical world, in the tradition of the Dunciad. After collaborating in a translation of Moliere's works Miller wrote two plays based on this author. Of all his dramatic works these were the most successful with his contemporaries, and were followed by a modernisation of Much Ado, and a ballad-opera adapted from an afterpiece by Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, and rendered highly topical. Miller made similar use of a recent French comedy showing a Red Indian's reactions to civilisation, a satiric "fable" by Walsh and Voltaire's Mahomet. A large quantity of original material was incorporated into most of these, and this is generally satirical in nature. The Indian is made to voice almost egalitarian sentiments. An afterpiece, "The Camp Visitants", satirised military inaction in the war, and was apparently banned. The manuscripts of the six plays produced after the Licensing Act bear the examiner's deletions, and illustrate the nature of the censorship at this time. Miller's greatest strength is probably his flexible, vigorously colloquial dialogue. His political satire is mostly contained in the poetry, which attacks Walpole's administration with increasing vehemence through the seventeen-thirties, until its fall. In 1740 two poems that used Pope in symbolic contrast to Walpole caused a sensation. In both poetry and plays Miller is also a social satirist, who lays unusually strong emphasis on false taste and the deterioration of culture

    What can cognitive science tell us about scientific revolutions?

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    Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is notable for the readiness with which it drew on the results of cognitive psychology. These naturalistic elements were not well received and Kuhn did not subsequently develop them in his published work. Nonetheless, in a philosophical climate more receptive to naturalism, we are able to give a more positive evaluation of Kuhn’s proposals. Recently, philosophers such as Nersessian, Nickles, Andersen, Barker, and Chen have used the results of work on case-based reasoning, analogical thinking, dynamic frames, and the like to illuminate and develop various aspects of Kuhn’s thought in Structure. In particular this work aims to give depth to the Kuhnian concepts of a paradigm and incommensurability. I review this work and identify two broad strands of research. One emphasizes work on concepts; the other focusses on cognitive habits. Contrasting these, I argue that the conceptual strand fails to be a complete account of scientific revolutions. We need a broad approach that draws on a variety of resources in psychology and cognitive science. La estructura de las revoluciones científicas de Kuhn es destacable por la facilidad con que aprovecha los resultados de la psicología cognitiva. Estos elementos naturalistas no tuvieron una buena acogida y Kuhn no los desarrolló posteriormente en su trabajo publicado. No obstante, desde un ambiente filosófico más receptivo hacia el naturalismo podemos ofrecer una evaluación más positiva de las propuestas de Kuhn. Recientemente, algunos filósofos como Nersessian, Nickles, Andersen, Barker y Chen han utilizado los resultados del trabajo sobre el razonamiento basado en casos, el pensamiento analógico, los marcos dinámicos, etc., para iluminar y desarrollar varios aspectos del pensamiento de Kuhn en La estructura. En particular, este trabajo intenta dar profundidad a los conceptos kuhnianos de paradigma e inconmensurabilidad. En este artículo examino dicho trabajo e identifico dos principales corrientes de investigación. Una de ellas subraya el trabajo sobre conceptos y la otra se centra en los hábitos cognitivos. Después de contrastar ambas, sostengo que la corriente conceptual no logra ser una explicación completa de las revoluciones científicas. Necesitamos una perspectiva amplia que aproveche una variedad de recursos de la psicología y la ciencia cognitiva

    Wokół badań nad „Commentariolum Petitionis”

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    Doubts concerning the authorship of the work contemporarily entitled Commentariolum Petitionis were raised even in the late nineteenth century. Both those researchers who regarded Quintus (Cicero’s brother) as the author and those who questioned his authorship found their supporters. In this context, Michael Alexander stands out, arguing in his publications that the intention behind the pamphlet was to provide a distanced or even warped image of late-Republican electioneering. The debate continues, and the importance of the present-day interpretation must be emphasised. Even if perhaps satisfactory for those who attribute the authorship to Marcus Cicero, recent computerassisted stylometric studies in fact fail to provide a conclusive answer as to who the author of the Commentariolum Petitionis actually was. Stylometric evidence may even be quoted to prove that it might have been written by someone skilful enough to imitate the eminent orator’s style.Doubts concerning the authorship of the work contemporarily entitled Commentariolum Petitionis were raised even in the late nineteenth century. Both those researchers who regarded Quintus (Cicero’s brother) as the author and those who questioned his authorship found their supporters. In this context, Michael Alexander stands out, arguing in his publications that the intention behind the pamphlet was to provide a distanced or even warped image of late-Republican electioneering. The debate continues, and the importance of the present-day interpretation must be emphasised. Even if perhaps satisfactory for those who attribute the authorship to Marcus Cicero, recent computerassisted stylometric studies in fact fail to provide a conclusive answer as to who the author of the Commentariolum Petitionis actually was. Stylometric evidence may even be quoted to prove that it might have been written by someone skilful enough to imitate the eminent orator’s style

    Supporting large-scale escape rooms with a modular system

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    Raccoon Serious Games hosts so called escape events. These events are similar to an escape room in which teams work together to solve puzzles, only on larger scale. Different kinds of challenges, arise when hosting these events, such as monitoring the progress of the teams and managing collection of physical puzzles. For an escape event, different kinds of staff help the teams to have the best experience possible. The teams need to be able to submit their answers to puzzles, while the staff should provide them with the right materials and monitor their progress. To facilitate these needs, Raccoon Serious Games created the Massive Online Reactive Serious Escape (M.O.R.S.E) system. However, the old system lacked in the parts of modularity and flexibility, while having the event hardcoded. To solve this problem, we created a new system to improve the lesser points of the old system while also improving the usability and maintainability. Over the course of ten weeks, we researched and created the Massive Online Reactive Serious Escape 2.0 (M.O.R.S.E 2.0) system. The first part of the project consisted of researching the previous system to find the requirements for a new system. After that, a new system was designed and implemented from the ground up. M.O.R.S.E 2.0 contains all the functionality of the old system, while also improving the structure of the administrator panel. Furthermore, the final product comes with several editors, allowing for designing the puzzles, schedule and logic in the form of rulesets for an escape event and allowing multiple events to be created managed. Furthermore the configuration editor allows the employees of Raccoon Serious Games to adjust different types of settings and cosmetics. The product was successfully tested during an escape event and will be used by Raccoon Serious Games for future events.Computer Science and Engineerin

    The sense of a beginning : Bakhtinian dialogic criticism on 'the gospel' in Mark.

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    Contemporary literary approaches have caused paradigm shifts in Biblical Studies in the last two decades as it appears in a great deal of Markan studies using narrative, reader-response, deconstructive, feminist, and new historicist approaches. However, literary studies on the Gospel of Mark have not taken into account theoretical questions underlying those approaches. As a result biblical critics are driven by new trends without ever having a chance to examine the critical baggage of the approaches. Consequently, there is a gap of communication between the old and the new one. Therefore this thesis is an attempt to meet the need of enhancing the quality of critical endeavour in biblical studies. In the light of most recent competing critical theories of literature, the first contribution of this thesis is the methodological finding that Bakhtinian dialogic criticism contains the most profound philosophical and practical foundations for solving some crucial theoretical problems in contemporary literary theories. It is a critique to a Saussurian linguistic system of language which becomes the very foundation of modern and postmodern literary criticism. Bakhtinian literary theory shifts the foundation of literary criticism on linguistic signs into the creative activity of the socio-cultural production of human communication. The shift into socio-cultural reality of language communication makes the notion of 'genre' very important to unlock the problem of text and context in literary studies. Since the Gospel of Mark has fascinated most literary critics in Biblical Studies, the problem of 'genre' of this gospel is chosen as the focus of this study. Secondly, as no agreement is reached as to what 'genre' the Gospel of Mark belongs, this thesis makes its contribution to the discussion by locating the problem of 'genre' of Mark in the context of genre theories and argues that the Bakhtinian suggestion to find genre in the socio-cultural sphere by analysing artistic intercourse between narrative agents in Mark has freed the competing analysis from the unresolved problem between the kerygmatic (content oriented) approach and the analogical (form oriented) approach. To achieve finding 'genre' in the socio-cultural sphere, this thesis focuses on Bakhtinian analysis of the process of artistic intercourse between narrative agents. The narrative communicative interrelationships between narrative agents is constructed in this thesis as a 'stereophonic' Bakhtinian model of dialogic communication. This model is an original contribution of this thesis for revising the traditional two dimensional model of narrative communication. Based on this dialogical model of communication, a special role is given to the Bakhtinian 'author-creator' in the realization process of genre through the interaction of polyphonic voices. Through the interaction of voices of the author-artist and the hero we are led to discover a relatively stable type of portraying and controlling reality in Mark, known as the genre of Roman 'satire'. The closest literary affinity is Satyrica by Petronius. This narrative strategy of 'satire' in Mark has its root in the prophetic discourse of the Old Testament which is saturating the speech of the narrator, John the Immerser, the centurion, the people, and even Jesus. Finally, the whole search for Markan 'genre' culminates in the analysis of the realization of genre through the analysis of Bakhtinian chronotope. The reality of the genre of Mark is its social reality that is in its role as dpxrj/ 'beginning'. As the Gospel of Mark proclaims itself as 'a beginning', it defines its claim of socio-cultural 'authority' in early Christianity. It is this 'sense of beginning' which enables the narrating and the narrated world of Mark to interact dialogically

    Self-consciousness and the image of self in the poetry of Stephen Spender, 1928 to 1934

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    The purpose of this thesis is twofold. First, to demonstrate the value and significance of Spender's early poetry in terms of its vision and technique. Through a series of close readings the thesis traces the ways in which Spender's early poetry not only shows itself to be self-conscious but also manipulates images of self. Presenting images of self, Spender achieves a balance between engagement with and distance from the self, and the reader shares in the process of poetic self-awareness. Secondly, to demonstrate the broader value of the poetry. Spender's poetry presents a distinctive exploration of the possibilities of self in relation to the external world. The resolution of Spender’s questioning and selection of both personal and public values, rooted in his contemporary situation and private circumstances, in his poetry takes the form less of historical document than of human record. The period on which I focus, 1928 to 1934, represents Spender’s first, and arguably most significant, poetic phase. The thesis is specifically concerned with four texts: Nine Experiments. Spender's contributions to Oxford Poetry (1929 and 1930), Twenty Poems and Poems (1933 and 1934). Nine Experiments marks the beginning of a particular approach and lyric style which finds its culmination in Poems (1933 and 1934). The earliest poetry is interesting largely insofar as it looks forward to later themes and techniques. In Nine Experiments and Oxford Poetry (1929 and 1930) we see Spender's often successful struggle to achieve effective forms in which to explore issues of self and value. Twenty Poems and Poems (1933 and 1934) concentrate on themes of love and friendship and the pressure on the poet of the contemporary political scene. The poetry does not reconcile the demands of the external, public world with his inner desires and aspirations, but presents a series of fascinatingly unresolved tensions. The thesis explores the way these poems strive for certainty. This striving stems from the tension between Spender's desire to politicize poetry and his tendency to the lyrical, personal statement

    On the cost of delayed currency fixing announcements

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    In Foreign Exchange Markets vanilla and barrier options are traded frequently. The market standard is a cutoff time of 10:00 a.m. in New York for the strike of vanillas and a knock-out event based on a continuously observed barrier in the inter bank market. However, many clients, particularly from Italy, prefer the cutoff and knock-out event to be based on the fixing published by the European Central Bank on the Reuters Page ECB37. These barrier options are called discretely monitored barrier options. While these options can be priced in several models by various techniques, the ECB source of the fixing causes two problems. First of all, it is not tradable, and secondly it is published with a delay of about 10 - 20 minutes. We examine here the effect of these problems on the hedge of those options and consequently suggest a cost based on the additional uncertainty encountered. --exotic options,currency fixings
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