1,722,599 research outputs found
Languages of Diplomatic Gift-Giving at the Ottoman Court
No full textTo comprehend fully the role of gift-exchange in Ottoman diplomacy, a mix of approaches is necessary. Conceptualising diplomatic gift-giving as involving a series of ‘languages’, which could function independently but frequently interacted, permits a more sophisticated, multi-layered analysis. This chapter first analyses the protocols surrounding gift-giving at the Porte, providing insights into the structures within which specific items were given. It then turns to the performances involved in the moments of exchange, both by diplomatic actors and by the gift-objects themselves. Finally, the chapter discusses the ways in which the material qualities of specific gifts could communicate additional messages about the relationship between the donor and the recipient. Diplomats and Ottomans alike required great facility with the languages of gifts, because, more often than not such languages did not exist as distinct idioms, but frequently overlapped or interacted in important ways with one another to render gifts and their wordless messages meaningful to the recipient
Introduction
No full textThe development of the diplomatic community in Constantinople deserves serious consideration by scholars of European diplomacy, not least because, as Daniel Goffman has suggested, European resident diplomatic practices developed in dialogue with the Ottomans. In parallel with these developments, historians have approached the study of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century—during a period of imperial expansion and consolidation—frequently with a view toward understanding both the development of imperial culture, broadly construed, and the place of the Ottomans and their empire in the wider world. The Ottoman court’s place as a significant global hub invites us to understand how it functioned as a centre of diplomacy and how diplomatic cultures developed as ambassadors from across Africa, Asia, and Europe interacted with the Ottomans and, sometimes, each other. By the middle decades of the sixteenth century, a confident Ottoman architectural aesthetic increasingly dominated the cityscape
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Trends in cochlear implant complications: implications for improving long term outcomes
No full textObjectives: to review worldwide data on cochlear implant adverse events, test for significant trends over a 10-year period and discuss possible reasons behind such trends. To evaluate the suitability of the Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database for analysis of trends in cochlear implant adverse events.Study design: retrospective analysis of cochlear implant adverse events reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as recorded on the MAUDE database. Data for each adverse event reported in the years 2000 (n = 237), 2005 (n = 1089), and 2010 (n = 2543) were evaluated and assigned to one of 14 categories according to report content. Incidence data were compared across the 3 sampling points to determine trends.Hypothesis: improvements in cochlear implant manufacturing processes and surgical techniques would result in a decrease in the proportion of CI adverse events because of primary device failure or surgical factors, relative to those with complex, multi-factorial or idiopathic origins, over the 10 year sampling period.Results and conclusions: statistical analyses showed a significant increase over time in the proportion of CI adverse events that had multiple or unknown causes, particularly cases of gradual idiopathic loss of performance, as compared with those with a clearly defined underlying device-related or medical cause.Conclusions: findings suggest that there is an urgent need to undertake further research to investigate causes for idiopathic and gradual CI adverse events to continue the overall improvement in CI outcome
Letter. Stress and exacerbations in multiple sclerosis: whether stress triggers relapses remains a conundrum
No full textEditor — The front page of the BMJ of 20 September 2003 carries the title: "Relapse in multiple sclerosis: stressful life events increase exacerbations." Buljevac et al present evidence that psychological stress is associated with a doubling in risk of relapse. Two issues arise.Firstly, this study has limitations, some of which are clearly acknowledged by the authors. The most critical limitation of the study is recall bias. Patients having a relapse are more likely to seek an explanation and hence report stressful events during preceding weeks. In other diseases such as myocardial infarction, patients commonly attribute their illnesses to psychological factors.Secondly, association does not equate to causality. An alternative hypothesis is that "psychological stress" and neurological relapse are different temporally disseminated manifestations of the same underlying disease process. Magnetisation transfer changes precede the traditional radiological signs accompanying clinically overt neurological relapse by up to three months. Subclinical reversible cognitive changes accompany relapses.Thus an appreciable number of negative life events could have occurred, or be perceived to have occurred, as a result of subtle changes in cognition or behaviour preceding an overt clinical relapse. Several groups have reported the presence of an association between relapse and mild to moderate stressful life events (which might occur secondary to changes in daily life management). This association disappears with major negative life events (which are beyond control). Since disease burden was not controlled for, we do not know whether stressful life events predicted relapse independently of what may have also elicited such events.The study's impact on the understanding of relapse pathogenesis needs to be assessed with caution
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