bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Television and the Gospel of Entertainment in Ghana
Authors: de Witte Marleen
Published: November 2012

Abstract

Charismatic-Pentecostal ‘media ministries’ have become very successful in Africa’s new media fields. They shape new forms of public religiosity that spill over into various forms of popular culture and resonate with broad audiences. This article explores the emergence of new Pentecostal publics at the intersection of media, religion, and entertainment in Ghana, raising critical questions concerning the relations between these domains. It analyses two different religious television broadcasts: a television ministry by a well-known celebrity pastor and a gospel reality show featuring a preaching competition for youth. It also considers the debates and concerns such programmes evoke locally. The analysis shows that Pentecostalism’s employment of popular media and entertainment styles is an effective source of persuasive power, but also poses challenges with regard to binding people as committed Christians. The blurring of boundaries between religion and entertainment business causes insecurities about the authenticity of religious authority and religious subjectivity.
Rowan Williams’ Ecumenical Theology: a Response to Dame Mary Tanner
Authors: Rafferty SJ Oliver P.
Published: November 2012

Rowan Williams is among the best and most perceptive contemporary theologians in the English speaking world. Given his position as Archbishop of Canterbury, he is of necessity caught-up in the quest for Christian unity. His ecumenical theology can be discerned, however, not only in his directly ecumenical writings and speeches as Archbishop but also in his general theological approach. He emphasises Eucharist and baptism and whilst these may seem commonplace in ecumenical dialogue, nevertheless his analysis of the implications of baptism for believers offers something genuinely new in ecumenical thinking about the status of the baptised. Despite the difficulties in the present state of relations between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church, Dr Williams’ theology does offer a hermeneutical tool that, if followed consistently by both churches, might enable the question of reunion to be placed in a different context, although of itself it cannot resolve the new problems that have been placed as obstacles on the road to corporate reunion.
Discovering the Presence of Christ in the World: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Contribution to the Discussion on the Authority of the Bible in the Church
Authors: KLAUSNITZER WOLFGANG
Published: November 2012

 ABSTRACT
How should we commemorate Bonhoeffer in this anniversary year of his execution? While Bonhoeffer's legacy has been contested, especially in German theology, and his theological influence has declined, we continue to be fascinated by him as a person. Bonhoeffer's life and death is a paradigm of the right relationship between faith and practice, i.e. of discipleship. This can be linked to developments in biblical hermeneutics that stress the original context of the text and the need for a response by the reader to bring out its relevance. Bonhoeffer's ecumenical significance is evidenced by his affinity to Karl Rahner ― both affirmed the prior unacknowledged presence of Christ in the secular world - and to the Ignatian Exercises.
LA CRITICA DI VINCENZO GALILEI AL MISTICISMO NUMERICO DI GIOSEFFO ZARLINO
Authors: SARGOLINI FEDERICA
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title The long and bitter dispute between Gioseffo Zarlino, the foremost musical theorist of the sixteenth century, and Vincenzo Galilei, practical musician and Galileo's father, raises important issues as it concerns the methodological approach towards musical phenomena. In particular, the present work shows that the true overthrowing of Zarlino's a priori approach (besides the relationship between music and words and other aspects of content) can be found in a new conception of numbers, namely the passage from numerical and theoretical mysticism (dating back to the Pythagorean approach) to an empirical methodology. The description of this new way to treat numbers (as instruments) is shown through an analysis of two of Vincenzo Galilei's manuscript essays: the Discorso particolare intorno alle forme del Diapason and the Discorso particolare intorno all'Unisono. The originality of these works lies in their presentation of factual experiments.
LA DISGRCE DE GALILE DANS LES APES URBANAE: SUR LA FABRIQUE DU TEXTE DE LEONE ALLACCI
Authors: CERBU THOMAS , LERNER MICHEL-PIERRE
Published: November 2012

title RIASSUNTO /title Il manoscritto delle APES Urbanae di Allacci mostra come il riserbo del suo articolo su Galileo possa essere direttamente attribuito alla decisione presa da Urbano VIII nel giugno 1633 di mettere al bando il Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo e di imporre l'abiura a Galileo. L'articolo ebbe due prime versioni. La prima citava un generoso encomio tributato a Galileo da Maffeo Barberini, ancora cardinale, mentre la seconda presentava una citazione completa del Dialogo, elementi che vennero entrambi successivamente rimossi. Nonostante questa censura, l'articolo contiene informazioni che Allacci pu aver ottenuto solo da fonti vicine a Galileo.
GENESIS GEOLOGY: A VERY ENGLISH COMPROMISE
Authors: KNIGHT DAVID
Published: November 2012

title RIASSUNTO /title William Buckland vinse una medaglia della Royal Society nel 1822 per una serie di ricerche che sembravano dimostrare la realt del Diluvio universale. Nel 1830 il suo allievo Chares Lyell inizi la pubblicazione del suo Principles of Geology, nel quale la Bibbia e la scala temporale in essa proposta venivano ad assumere un ruolo irrilevante. Nel Bridgewater Treatise del 1837 Buckland dimostr di aver cambiato idea, pur senza venire meno al suo progetto ideale. Egli reinterpret la genesi attraverso un compromesso che resistette per due secoli, fino alla pubblicazione de The Origin of Species del 1859. La victor's history scritta da T. H. Huxley ed i suoi alleati ha in seguito reso difficile comprendere la posizione di Buckland, un ecclesiastico che insegnava la scienza in una universit clericale e che aveva contemporaneamente fiducia sia nella Bibbia che nelle prove geologiche. Uno studio del contesto nel quale egli oper riveste perci un sicuro interesse dal punto di vista storico.
VITO VOLTERRA ORGANIZZATORE SCIENTIFICO E LA NASCITA DELLA BIOLOGIA MATEMATICA IN ITALIA
Authors: ANDREOZZI LUCIANO
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title In the last few decades quite a few articles have been published concerning Volterra's contributions to biomathematics. These articles are usually focused on the works of Volterra published after 1926, while they overlook Volterra's intense activity as scientific organizer in the field of oceanographic studies in the years that span from 1910 - the year of his celebrated dissertation about the applications of mathematics to social and biological sciences - to 1925, when he met his prospective son-in-law Umberto D'Ancona. In this article I shall try to fill this gap by telling the history of Volterra's scientific collaboration with Italian biologists (such as Giovan Battista Grassi, Luigi de Marchi and Gustavo Brunelli) in the decades before his meeting with Umberto D'Ancona. This story is worth telling because it helps to explain the stronger emphasis Volterra placed in his first biomathematical papers on the importance of the applications of mathematics to biology for practical matters (such as the prevention of epidemics and the enhancement of the fishing industry) rather than on more theoretical issues, which he tackled only in the last years of his life.
CORRISPONDENZA DI GIOVANNI BATTISTA AMICI CON GIOVANNI PLANA1
Authors: MESCHIARI ALBERTO
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title The correspondence between Giovanni Battista Amici and the Astronomer Royal of Turin Giovanni Plana belonging to the Estense Library in Modena (Fondo Amici and Autografoteca Campori), consists of 36 letters altogether. Undoubtedly it represents a document of a great interest for the history of science, especially where it discusses the application of probabilities to astronomical observations, and the new wave-theory of light of Young and Fresnel.
DOCUMENTS RELATIFS L'HISTOIRE DE L'ASTRONOMIE CHINOISE ET AUX RAPPORTS SCIENTIFIQUES ENTRE L'EUROPE ET LA CHINE (XVIIE-XIXE SICLES) CONSERVS LA BIBLIOTHQUE DE L'OBSERVATOIRE DE PARIS
Authors: IANNACCONE ISAIA
Published: November 2012

title RIASSUNTO /title Nella biblioteca dell'Osservatorio Astronomico di Parigi sono conservati numerosi documenti d'epoca, relativi ai rapporti scientifici Europa-Cina tra i secoli XVII-XIX. Tra essi, corrispondenze, carte, opere, note e osservazioni astronomiche di scienziati gesuiti missionari in Cina, quali A. Gaubil (1689-1759), F. Verbiest (1623-1688), I. Kgler (1680-1746), ecc., traduzioni di testi cinesi, tra cui spicca una copia sei-settecentesca del Bu Tian Ge (Poesie sui movimenti del cielo, circa 590 d.C.) tradotta e commentata da A. Gaubil. L'interesse dei documenti investe non soltanto il campo astronomico, ma anche quelli geografico, antropologico, linguistico, di costume, ecc., ed essi sono indispensabili per lo studio comparato dell'evoluzione scientifica in Europa e in Cina, e per la conoscenza storica in generale. L'articolo si prefigge di recuperare, analizzare, mettere in valore e presentare in modo sistematico questo patrimonio di documenti.
NEL DEDALO DEL CIELO. GASSENDI E LE MACCHIE SOLARI IN UN INEDITO DEL 1633
Authors: GUERRINI LUIGI
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title The present article presents an unpublished essay-letter dated 29 september 1633 from Pierre Gassendi to Nicolas Fabri de Peiresc. Gassendi send to Aix-en-Provence a detailed comment on Charles Malapert's Sydera Borbonica, reporting both on the Galileo-Scheiner polemic and on his ideas concerning the sunspots. The present article reconstructs the development of Gassendi's astronomical thoughts on sunspots, using the argument offered by this unpublished letter.
THE LEGACY OF DAVID WHEATLAND
Authors: ANDREWES WILLIAM J. H.
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title David P. Wheatland, the principal founder of Harvard University's Collection of Historical Instruments, began his own personal collection in 1949 with the hope that it would one day enrich Harvard's collection as a resource for teaching and research. This paper concerns the origin and growth of Wheatland's collection between 1949 and 1981, focusing on the main individuals from whom he acquired his instruments.
ALAIN BRIEUX, DEALER AND SCHOLAR IN PARIS: HIS ARCHIVE ON SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS
Authors: MRZER BRUYNS WILLEM F. J.
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title Alain Brieux (1922-1985) ran an antiquarian book shop in the rue Jacob, in Paris. He dealt in books on the history of science and medicine, and in historical scientific instruments. He was a self-educated scholar who published on the subject of his trade, and became an expert on Islamic astrolabes. In 1972 Brieux was involved in the discovery of the identity of an Englishman who made forgeries of historic instruments. The purpose of this article is to draw the attention of scholars and institutions to the archives of the Brieux businnes. These were accumulated over a period of twenty-five years, and still belong to the business which is now run by his widow.
THE DEREK PRICE ARCHIVE AT THE ADLER PLANETARIUM
Authors: STEPHENSON BRUCE
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title The scholarly legacy of Derek Price resides in two archives one at La Villette near Paris and one at the Adler Planetarium Astronomy Museum in Chicago. The Adler archive is primarily photographic, comprising several thousand prints and hundreds of slides, lantern slides, and large-format transparencies. The largest subject categories are Astrolabes and Sundials. In addition to this photography, the archive includes sketches and photographs of the Antikythera mechanism and a written appraisal of the Adler collection circa 1960.
SOME NEW BIOGRAPHICAL DATA ABOUT MICHIEL COIGNET
Authors: MESKENS AD
Published: November 2012

title RIASSUNTO /title La corrispondenza del gesuita John Hay con Christopher Clavius rivela alcuni dettagli interessanti della vita e dell'opera di Michiel Coignet, costruttore di strumenti di Antwerpen
THERMOMETERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: J. B. MICHELI DU CREST'S WORKS AND THE COOPERATION WITH G.F. BRANDER
Authors: TALAS SOFIA
Published: November 2012

title RIASSUNTO /title Jacques Barthlmy Micheli du Crest propose nel 1741 un termometro che acquist all'epoca molta fama. Questo articolo esamina il contributo di Micheli alla standardizzazione dei termometri, sottolineando anche l'influenza che esercitarono le idee di Micheli su Jean Antoine Nollet e sullo sviluppo dei cosiddetti termometri di Raumur. Georg Friederich Brander, costruttore di strumenti scientifici ad Augsburg, si occup di costruire e vendere i termometri di Micheli. I rapporti fra Brander e Micheli sono illustrati attraverso la loro corrispondenza, inedita fino ad ora. Viene inoltre esaminato uno dei pochi termometri di Micheli costruiti da Brander tuttora esistenti.
19TH CENTURY SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENT ADVERTISING
Authors: BRENNI PAOLO
Published: November 2012

title RIASSUNTO /title Le prime forme di pubblicit relative al commercio degli strumenti scientifici risalgono alla seconda met del XVI secolo. Piccoli annunci, semplici cataloghi e carte da visita illustrate sono comuni nel '700, ma la pubblicit degli strumenti scientifici diventa assai pi sofisticata e aggressiva a partire dal XIX secolo. Si moltiplicano i cataloghi illustrati e ponderosi, gli annunci su riviste e trattati scientifici, mentre le esposizioni universali che costellano la seconda met dell'Ottocento e gli show room dei costruttori, rappresentano nuovi mezzi per propagandare gli strumenti e stimolarne il commercio. In questo articolo viene illustrata l'evoluzione delle varie forme di pubblicit utilizzate dai costruttori nel corso del XIX secolo ed analizzata l'influenza che esse hanno avuto sull'andamento del mercato degli strumenti scientifici e sullo sviluppo dell'industria di precisione.
THE CONSTITUTION OF WHITE LIGHT, A SOURCE FOR THE NEW QUESTIONS OF QUANTUM MECHANICS
Authors: LOMBARDI ANNA MARIA
Published: November 2012

title RIASSUNTO /title Queste pagine hanno lo scopo di ricostruire un dibattito che ebbe vasta popolarit a cavallo tra il diciannovesimo ed il ventesimo secolo, incentrato sulla struttura della radiazione non monocromatica. La discussione gioc un ruolo importante nel mettere a fuoco alcune tematiche, in seguito destinate a diventare tipiche della imminente meccanica quantistica. In particolare, in questo contesto che si avvia l'indagine sul significato fisico dei modi normali, ovvero delle singole componenti di uno sviluppo di Fourier.
LA COLLEZIONE DELLE TESI DI MEDICINA SOSTENUTE A PARIGI DAL 1798 AL 1860
Authors: CASATI STEFANO
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title The Library of the Institute and Museum of the History of Science of Florence has recently enriched its special Collections with the acquisition of a set of medical theses, theses presented and defended in Paris between 1789 and 1860. This extraordinary collection, some 10,000 items, documents the development of the medical sciences in nineteenth century France and Europe.
ORCHESTRATING OBSERVATORY, LABORATORY, AND FIELD: JULES JANSSEN, THE SPECTROSCOPE, AND TRAVEL
Authors: AUBIN DAVID
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title In the last third of the nineteenth century, astrospectroscopy played a prominent part in orchestrating transitions undergone by three sites of knowledge production: the observatory, the laboratory, and the field expedition. Early astrophysicists carved out for themselves a specific social space by adopting experimental techniques and practices stemming out of the laboratory, and adapting them to the observatory and the field traditions, and more generally by easing the back-and-forth transfer of practices from one site to another. Taking advantage of the circulation culture constitutive of the observatory sciences, the 'new astronomy' provides a useful standpoint from which historians can examine anew the 'institutional revolution' in the laboratory sciences in chemistry, physics, and physiology. To exemplify this process, the French reception of Bunsen and Kirchhoff's work and Jules Janssen's trip to Italy in 1862-1863 are here discussed.
BUILDING A JAPANESE RESEARCH TRADITION IN PHYSICS: HANTARO NAGAOKA AND THE SPECTROSCOPE1
Authors: FREIBURGER DANA A.
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title Hantaro Nagaoka (1865-1950) became one the foremost Japanese professors of physics and was notable for a Saturnian model of the atom he first proposed in 1903. However, he later abandoned this model and turned to spectroscopy in order to understand the structure of the atom. Most histories of physics speak well of Nagaoka for his theoretical work on an atomic model, but have largely overlooked Nagaoka's several decades of experimental spectroscopic work. This paper examines Nagaoka's research involving the spectroscope and how it helped to establish a Japanese research tradition in physics.
DON MINIATO PITTI AND THE SECOND LIFE OF A SCIENTIST'S TOOLS IN CINQUECENTO FLORENCE
Authors: ROSEN MARK
Published: November 2012

title RIASSUNTO /title Assai stimato nel tardo Cinquecento, lo scienziato e cosmografo fiorentino Don Miniato Pitti ha lasciato un solo strumento inequivocabilmente attribuibile a lui. Un documento scoperto di recente rivela che subito dopo la sua morte, avvenuta nel 1566, Egnazio Danti, giovane cosmografo del Duca, comper alcuni apparati e strumenti di Pitti, nonch diversi oggetti artistici. Tali acquisti da parte di Danti, segno evidente dell'alta considerazione in cui teneva il suo predecessore, attestano anche la circolazione degli strumenti all'interno della comunit scientifica.
ISTITUZIONI E FONTI
Authors: BINO CARLA
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title This article discusses the working method of Bernardo Buontalenti, the court engineer of the Medici family under Cosimo I and his son Francesco I. Buontalenti is a crucial figure for the history of theatre, because he was able to consolidate and rivitalise a tradition, in so far as he used the pre-existing technical knowledge and, at the same time, reinterpreted it in an original way; moreover he "invented" a new profession. By analysing the Memoriale of Girolamo Seriacopi, Proweditore di Castello, which records the works made in Uffizi theatre for the wedding of Ferdinando I de' Medici and Cristina di Lorena (1589), I trace the dynamics of Buontalenti's building site in order to infer some knowledge about the stage machines from the work practice. This method of analysis enables me to make two hypotheses: on the one hand, Buontalenti's machinery was built according to the rules of Florentine tradition (which was in part different from the one from Pesaro which is the basis of Sabbatini's treaty and is usually considered the primary tool for understanding Buontalenti); on the other hand, the use of craft knowledge begins a specialization process that will develop along the seventeenth century.
CRITERI DI EDIZIONE
Authors: MANDRINO AGNESE
Published: November 2012

title RIASSUNTO /title Viene pubblicata la corrispondenza tra il famoso astronomo italiano Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835-1910) e Percival Lowell (1855-1916), fondatore dell'omonimo importante osservatorio di Flagstaff in Arizona. Entrambi compirono dettagliati studi sul pianeta Marte, per cui la corrispondenza tratta in particolar modo questo argomento. Si tratta di 35 lettere inedite (34 in francese, una in inglese) scritte dal 1896 alla morte di Schiaparelli (1910). Nell'archivio dell'Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera sono custoditi gli originali di Lowell ed alcune minute di Schiaparelli; l'Osservatorio di Flagstaff ha gentilmente messo a nostra disposizione alcune lettere originali di Schiaparelli.
title SUMMARY /title

In this article we publish the correspondence between the famous italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835-1910) and Percival Lowell (1855-1916), founder of the Flagstaff Observatory in Arizona. Both studied in detail the planet Mars, therefore the correspondence focuses on this topic. In this work we present 35 unpublished letters (34 in French, one in English) written from 1896 until Schiaparelli's death (1910). The original letters from Lowell and some drafts by Schiaparelli are conserved in the archives of the Brera Astronomical Observatory; Flagstaff Observatory has kindly provided us with some of the original letters by Schiaparelli.
NATURE DESCRIBED: FABIO COLONNA AND NATURAL HISTORY ILLUSTRATION
Authors: TOGNONI FEDERICO
Published: November 2012

title ABSTRACT /title The article analyses Fabio Colonna's interest in natural history illustration. The re-examination of several pieces of unjustly neglected documentary evidence has allowed us to focus on the essential role of naturalistic illustration in the work of this Neapolitan naturalist. Of great importance was the opportunity to study a herbal that was recently discovered at Blickling Hall, near Norwich in England. This herbal was created using the technique of nature-printing, and reflects Colonna's interest in naturalistic illustration as an essential means of presenting natural data.
CATALOGO DELLE CARTE DI GIORGIO BAGLIVI CONSERVATE NELLA WALLER SAMLING PRESSO UNIVERSITETSBIBLIOTEKET «CAROLINA REDIVIVA» DI UPPSALA
Authors: TOSCANO ANNA
Published: November 2012

 SUMMARY
A Catalogue of Giorgio Baglivi Papers, kept in the Waller Samling at the Universitetsbibliotek of Uppsala, is published here for the first time.Together with a complete list of the letters, a short sketch of their contents is given in the Appendix.The Baglivi Correspondence kept in Sweden gives new information about the scientific Italian culture in the second half of the seventeenth century. Moreover, it provides with some further evidence of the diffusion of the Italian science in the scientific European context at that age.
LA RECEZIONE DELLA TEORIA HALLERIANA DELL'IRRITABILIT NELL'ACCADEMIA DELLE SCIENZE DI BOLOGNA
Authors: CAVAZZA MARTA
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title In Italy, the physiological theories of Albrecht von Haller, based on the thesis of the independence of the property of irritability, characteristic of muscles, from sensitivity, characteristic of nerves, and on a refutation of the traditional iatro-mechanical explanation of muscular motion, found numerous supporters and just as many opponents. This gave rise to a heated polemic, which involved numerous physicians, physicists and philosophers. The principal site for this polemic, most acute between 1756 and 1760, was Bologna, a city where the influence of Malpighian iatromechanics was still very strongly felt, but also where Haller's two most ardent supporters, Marc'Antonio Caldani and Felice Fontana, were active. The present study proposes to analyse the reactions of scientific circles in Bologna to this debate, especially for the case of the local Academy of Sciences, and to place them in the context of the continuing dialectic between innovation and tradition that characterised the city.
A HISTORIOGRAPHIC MODEL OF THE DYNAMICS OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES AND THE FORMATION OF CONCEPTS: THE CASE OF THE ATOMIC NUCLEUS
Authors: BRUZZANITI GIUSEPPE
Published: November 2012

title RIASSUNTO /title Viene proposto un particolare modello storiografico per spiegare certi aspetti della formazione dei concetti scientifici e della dinamica delle teorie. La principale caratteristica del modello consiste nella possibilit di organizzare il materiale documentario in diversi reti: una locale e una globale. E alla dinamica di tali reti e alla loro interazione che viene ricondotta la formazione dei concetti scientifici e il mutamento del loro significato. Il modello costruito viene applicato al caso del concetto di nucleo atomico.
OPERE E LIBRI DI UN ASTRONOMO CARTOGRAFO DEL XVIII SECOLO: TRA ERUDIZIONE E STATO
Authors: CAVAGNA ANNA GIULIA
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title Giovanni Giacomo Marinoni (Udine 1676 - Vienna 1755), of humble origins, lived in Italy and Austria as an official of the Empire. In the early Eighteenth century he embarked upon a brillant carreer as a mathematics teacher, a topographer and a military engineer. He set up and run a military school in Vienna, partly financed by the Crown. The curriculum of the school included many new technical skills. As a cartographer and surveying instructor he was in the region of Lombardy where he defended the interests of the Austrians. He built the first Viennese astronomical observatory, again only partly financed by the Crown. He was ennobled and created Imperial counsellor. As an habitue of the Republic of Letters he corresponded with many scholars and became a member of the London, Berlin and Saint Peterburg Academies. He published his own works and owned a rich library.
APORIE DI UNA NUOVA CONCEZIONE DELL'ETERE NEL MANOSCRITTO EINSTEINIANO DEL 1920
Authors: MASTROBISI GIORGIO JULES
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title The 1920 manuscript by Einstein entitled: Vorlesungen ber Relativittstheorie points out paradigmatically all the preparations of the Special Theory of Relativity, the importance and the role of this theory in the General Theory of Relativity, the passage from a "Special Theory of Relativity" to a "general" one, and the doubts and certainties of its inventor, all that from a point of view of one of the most important issues of the history modem science: the problem of Ether definition. Just the Ether Theory, filtered through H. A. Lorentz's Theory, becomes in Einstein an "Inertial case" of the Classical Principle of Relativity and then, losing all its mechanical qualities, becomes Gravitational Theory in H. Weyl's phenomenological point of view.
BIAGIO BURLINI, UN OTTICO DEL '700 VENEZIANO
Authors: LUALDI ALBERTO
Published: November 2012

title SUMMARY /title The sphere of activity of Biagio Burlini, an optician and instrumentmaker working in Venice around the middle of the eighteenth century, is here pointed out. A research in the Archivio Patriarcale of Venice allowed to find the year of his birth (1709) and his death (13.1.1771). A survey of signed microscopes and telescopes now in various public and private collections contributes to a better knowledge of optical instrument-makers in that century.
Chariots on Fire: Military Dominance in the Old Testament
Authors: Sensenig Peter M.
Published: November 2012

Abstract

The Hebrew Bible from Exodus to Zechariah communicates Yahweh’s deep displeasure with military self-reliance, of which the symbol is the chariot. The primary criterion of justified war in the Old Testament is trust in Yahweh’s miracle rather than in the strength of chariots and horses, for which Joshua 11 serves as a paradigm. The exodus, conquest of Canaan, failed monarchic experiment, Psalms, and prophets all emphasize God’s opposition to military technology. Not simply a matter of pride or idolatry, weapons of domination are incompatible with the radical social experiment God intends Israel to be.
The Debate Between Salomon Munk and Heinrich Ritter on Medieval Jewish and Arabic History of Philosophy
Authors: Adorisio Chiara
Published: November 2012

Abstract

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the German historian of philosophy Heinrich Ritter and the Jewish scholar and Orientalist Salomon Munk had a debate on the history of Jewish Philosophy. This debate is an example of how Salomon Munk’s work functioned to point up the reciprocal influences between Jewish, Arab and Christian Thought in the Middle Ages.

Munk, who was a scholar within the Wissenschaft des Judentums, a Jewish movement that promoted the scientific study of Judaism, criticized Ritter’s History of Philosophy. In fact, Munk noticed that in his work, Ritter mentioned only a few references to Jewish thinkers like Maimonides. Ritter’s response was that Christian historians of philosophy knew too little about this subject in order to give a qualified judgment. Nevertheless, later on, in the second edition of his History of Philosophy, Ritter added many important details on Al-Gazali, Ibn-Badja and Ibn-Roschd after the reading of Munk’s articles. Ritter also shaped an entirely new paragraph on the history of Jewish philosophy in the Middle Ages using above all Munk’s seminal studies on Avicebron’s Fons Vitae.
The Development of Ecological Corridors: Member States’ Obligation under the Habitats and Birds Directives?
Authors: Squintani L.
Published: November 2012

While several Dutch academics consider the development of ecological corridors in the Netherlands a duty under the Birds and/or the Habitats Directive, other academics and the Dutch government consider them as being measures going further than required by Union law, alias gold plating. In 2010, the Dutch government blocked the development of these corridors. On the basis of the analysis of the Habitats Directive’s preliminary documents and the case law of the CJEU, this Article concludes that, generally, the development of ecological corridors is not an obligation. However, if not developing them seriously compromises the achievement of the goals pursued by the Union legislator, there is a duty to develop them. Furthermore, although in most of the cases their development is not an obligation, it can be argued that, in the light of the principle of sincere cooperation, the Member States have to perform a case-by-case assessment of whether the competence to develop ecological corridors should be exercised.
Neural mechanisms of intermodal attention in human EEG/MEG
Authors: Keitel Christian , Schröger Erich , Müller Matthias M.
Published: November 2012

Attention has been conceptualized as a filter mechanism that suffices the fundamental capacity limitation of sensory processing by selecting the input of most behavioral relevance. Recent research has demonstrated that information can be selected by attention based on the sensory modality it is presented in. However, it is not yet known whether this ‘intermodal’ selection relies on common attentional resources. Alternatively, each sensory modality might draw on an independent pool of resources. The present work investigates the neural mechanisms of sustained intermodal attention by pitting the notions of common vs. modality-specific attentional resources against each other. To this end, concurrently presented, frequency-tagged auditory and visual stimuli elicited continuous electrophysiological brain responses in respective early sensory cortices. Three experiments probed (1) whether attention to a particular sensory modality results in a modality-specific modulation of processing, (2) whether this modulation of processing is a facilitation of the attended, an inhibition of the unattended sensory modality or a combination of both factors, and (3) whether stimuli of different sensory modalities enter a competition for processing, thus necessitating intermodal attention to rely on common attentional resources. Attentional modulation of stimulus processing was found to be modality-specific. This modulation likely involved two separate mechanisms: a facilitation of stimuli presented to attended sensory modalities that led to an inhibition of stimuli presented to unattended modalities. As a complementary result, stimuli were found to enter a competition for processing within but not between modalities. In conclusion, the present findings provide evidence for early sensory processing to rely on modality-specific rather than common attentional resources.
Hearing voices then seeing lips: Fragmentation and renormalisation of subjective timing in the McGurk illusion
Authors: Freeman Elliot D. , Ipser Alberta
Published: November 2012

Due to physical and neural delays, the sight and sound of a person speaking causes a cachophony of asynchronous events in the brain. How can we still perceive them as simultaneous? Our converging evidence suggests that actually, we do not. Patient PH, with midbrain and auditory brainstem lesions, experiences voices leading lipmovements by approximately 200 ms. In temporal order judgements (TOJ) he experiences simultaneity only when voices physically lag lips. In contrast, he requires the opposite visual lag (again of about 200 ms) to experience the classic McGurk illusion (e.g., hearing ‘da’ when listening to /ba/ and watching lips say [ga]), consistent with pathological auditory slowing. These delays seem to be specific to speech stimuli. Is PH just an anomaly? Surprisingly, neuro-typical individual differences between temporal tuning of McGurk integration and TOJ are actually negatively correlated. Thus some people require a small auditory lead for optimal McG but an auditory lag for subjective simultaneity (like PH but not as extreme), while others show the opposite pattern. Evidently, any individual can concurrently experience the same external events as happening at different times. These dissociative patterns confirm that distinct mechanisms for audiovisual synchronization versus integration are each subject to different neural delays. To explain the apparent repulsion of their respective timings, we propose that multimodal synchronization is achieved by discounting the average neural event time within each modality. Lesions or individual differences which slow the propagation of neural signals will then attract the average, so that relatively undelayed neural signals will be experienced as occurring relatively early.
Multisensory integration in body perception is unaffected by concurrent interoceptive and exteroceptive tasks
Authors: Cannella Stefania , Folegatti Alessia , Zampini Massimiliano , Pavani Francesco
Published: November 2012

A recent study (Tsakiris et al., 2011) suggested that lower interoceptive sensitivity, as assessed by heat-rate estimation, predicts malleability of body representations, as measured by proprioceptive drift and ownership in a rubber hand illusion (RHI) task. The authors suggested that one explanation of their finding is linked to the notion of limited attentional resources: individuals with high interoceptive sensitivity are more aware of internal states and, in turns, they have less attentional resources available for multisensory processing. If this is the case, the competition between interoceptive and multisensory processing should be strongest when they are concurrent. Here we tested this prediction using a visuo-proprioceptive conflict produced through prismatic goggles, without affecting body ownership (unlike the RHI). In three experiments, participants looked at their own hand while wearing neutral or prismatic goggles (visual field shifted 20° leftwards). Meanwhile, they performed a concurrent counting tasks on interoceptive (Exp. 1–2: heart-beats; Exp. 3: breaths) or exteroceptive signals (pure-tones). A no-task condition was also included. We measured proprioceptive drift in each condition an indicator of illusion strength. All experiments documented a significant drift of perceived hand position after prism exposure. This bodily illusion, however, was never affected by the concurrent task, regardless of whether it involved interoceptive or exteroceptive signals. These result reveal that multisensory integration underlying body perception is unaffected by concurrent tasks capturing attentional resources, strongly suggesting a low-level and automatic phenomenon. Furthermore, they indicate that the origin of increased body malleability in individuals with low interoceptive awareness is not competition for attentional resources.
Developmental processes in audiovisual object recognition and object location
Authors: Barrett Maeve M. , Newell Fiona N.
Published: November 2012

This study investigated whether performance in recognising and locating target objects benefited from the simultaneous presentation of a crossmodal cue. Furthermore, we examined whether these ‘what’ and ‘where’ tasks were affected by developmental processes by testing across different age groups. Using the same set of stimuli, participants conducted either an object recognition task, or object location task. For the recognition task, participants were required to respond to two of four target objects (animals) and withhold response to the remaining two objects. For the location task, participants responded when an object occupied either of two target locations and withheld response if the object occupied a different location. Target stimuli were presented either by vision alone, audition alone, or bimodally. In both tasks cross-modal cues were either congruent or incongruent. The results revealed that response time performance in both the object recognition task and in the object location task benefited from the presence of a congruent cross-modal cue, relative to incongruent or unisensory conditions. In the younger adult group, the effect was strongest for response times although the same pattern was found for accuracy in the object location task but not for the recognition task. Following recent studies on multisensory integration in children (e.g., Brandwein, 2010; Gori, 2008), we then tested performance in children (i.e., 8–14 year olds) using the same task. Although overall performance was affected by age, our findings suggest interesting parallels in the benefit of congruent, cross-modal cues between children and adults, for both object recognition and location tasks.
The effect of brief auditory non-vocal emotional cues on visual spatial attention
Authors: Harrison Neil R. , Davies Simon
Published: November 2012

It is well established that emotional stimuli can modulate selective spatial attention within the same modality. Recent research has shown that the emotional content of a stimulus in one modality can modify spatial attention in a separate modality (Brosch et al., 2008). So far, this effect has been shown only for emotional stimuli consisting of prosody cues, and it remains unclear how non-vocal emotional auditory cues affect visual spatial attention. The current experiment used a modified spatial cueing design to assess the effects of brief (1000 ms) non-vocal emotional (positive, negative, or neutral) auditory stimuli on visual spatial attention. Participants were required to indicate whether a visual (non-emotional) target appeared either in the left or the right visual field, after hearing a spatially non-predictive peripheral auditory cue. The auditory cue could be on the same side as the visual target (‘valid’ trial) or on the opposite side (‘invalid’ trial). Overall participants were faster to respond to visual targets that appeared on the same side as the auditory cue. Importantly, the magnitude of the cue validity effect (RT to invalid minus RT to valid cue) differed according to the emotional content of the auditory stimulus, but only for visual targets appearing in the right hemifield. Here, for non-vocal auditory signals, the cue validity effect was reduced for negative cues compared to neutral and positive stimuli, showing an opposite pattern to experiments that have reported an enhanced cue validity effect for emotional prosody stimuli (e.g., Brosch et al., 2008).
Effects of looming and static sounds on somatosensory processing: A MEG study
Authors: Leonardelli Elisa , Occelli Valeria , Demarchi Gianpaolo , Grassi Massimo , Braun Christoph , Zampini Massimiliano
Published: November 2012

The present study aims to assess the mechanisms involved in the processing of potentially threatening stimuli presented within the peri-head space of humans. Magnetic fields evoked by air-puffs presented at the peri-oral area of fifteen participants were recorded by using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Crucially, each air puff was preceded by a sound, which could be either perceived as looming, stationary and close to the body (i.e., within the peri-head space) or stationary and far from the body (i.e., extrapersonal space). The comparison of the time courses of the global field power (GFP) indicated a significant difference in the time window ranging from 70 to 170 ms between the conditions. When the air puff was preceded by a stationary sound located far from the head stronger somatosensory activity was evoked as compared to the conditions where the sounds were located close to the head. No difference could be shown for the looming and the stationary prime stimulus close to the head. Source localization was performed assuming a pair of symmetric dipoles in a spherical head model that was fitted to the MRI images of the individual participants. Results showed sources in primary and secondary somatosensory cortex. Source activities in secondary somatosensory cortex differed between the three conditions, with larger effects evoked by the looming sounds and smaller effects evoked by the far stationary sounds, and the close stationary sounds evoking intermediate effects. Overall, these findings suggest the existence of a system involved in the detection of approaching objects and protecting the body from collisions in humans.
Short and sweet, or long and complex? Perceiving temporal synchrony in audiovisual events
Authors: Eg Ragnhild , Behne Dawn
Published: November 2012

Perceived synchrony varies depending on the audiovisual event. Typically, asynchrony is tolerated at greater lead- and lag-times for speech and music than for action events. The tolerance for asynchrony in speech has been attributed to the unity assumption, which proposes a bonding of auditory and visual speech cues through associations in several dimensions. However, the variations in synchrony perception for different audiovisual events may simply be related to their complexity; where speech and music fluctuate naturally, actions involve isolated events and anticipated moments of impact. The current study measured perception of synchrony for long (13 s) and short (1 s) variants of three types of stimuli: (1) action, represented by a game of chess, (2) music, played by a drummer and (3) speech, presented by an anchorwoman in a newscast. The long variants allowed events to play out with their natural dynamics, whereas short variants offered controlled and predictable single actions or events, selected from the longer segments. Results show that among the long stimuli, lead asynchrony was detected sooner for speech than for chess. This contrasts both with previous research and our own predictions, although it may be related to characteristics of the selected chess scene. Interestingly, tolerance to asynchrony was generally greater for short, than for long, stimuli, especially for speech. These findings suggest that the dynamics of complex events cannot account for previously observed differences in synchrony perception between speech and action events.
Evaluating multi-sensory congruency through atmospherics for Carte Noire Instinct®
Authors: Gater James A.
Published: November 2012

It is widely recognised that there is correlation between sensory congruency and overall product liking, especially in the context of food and drink products. A range of factors can contribute to a sense of congruency with a product, including the atmospherics within which it is consumed. In preparation for the launch of Carte Noire Instinct (CNI), MMR and Kraft Foods UK conducted a two-stage research process to optimise the CNI drinking experience by influencing room atmospherics. A research process was developed to understand which stimuli within each of four sensory modalities (vision, odour, touch and sound) had the highest degree of congruence with the sensory qualities of CNI. Through a series of informal tasting sessions, the key sensory qualities of CNI were identified, and it was against these that the stimuli were evaluated. Using a qualitative technique involving sensory articulate consumers, the stimuli were pre-screened and the four most suitable from each modality taken forward for quantitative evaluation. Consumers scaled each of the stimuli based on their perceived congruence with the sensory qualities of CNI. Emotional and functional associations were recorded for the CNI product and for each stimulus, to assist in our understanding of the links between CNI and the stimuli. This presentation describes the methodology and findings, and explores the future opportunities for product optimisation through the use of sensory congruency and atmospherics.
Auditory signal dominates visual in the perception of emotional social interactions
Authors: Piwek Lukasz , Petrini Karin , Pollick Frank E.
Published: November 2012

Multimodal perception of emotions has been typically examined using displays of a solitary character (e.g., the face–voice and/or body–sound of one actor). We extend investigation to more complex, dyadic point-light displays combined with speech. A motion and voice capture system was used to record twenty actors interacting in couples with happy, angry and neutral emotional expressions. The obtained stimuli were validated in a pilot study and used in the present study to investigate multimodal perception of emotional social interactions. Participants were required to categorize happy and angry expressions displayed visually, auditorily, or using emotionally congruent and incongruent bimodal displays. In a series of cross-validation experiments we found that sound dominated the visual signal in the perception of emotional social interaction. Although participants’ judgments were faster in the bimodal condition, the accuracy of judgments was similar for both bimodal and auditory-only conditions. When participants watched emotionally mismatched bimodal displays, they predominantly oriented their judgments towards the auditory rather than the visual signal. This auditory dominance persisted even when the reliability of auditory signal was decreased with noise, although visual information had some effect on judgments of emotions when it was combined with a noisy auditory signal. Our results suggest that when judging emotions from observed social interaction, we rely primarily on vocal cues from the conversation, rather then visual cues from their body movement.
Response type and sex differences in a tactile temporal order judgment task with tools
Authors: Novick Abigail , Fiddes Nicola , Huber Eleanor , Smith Tucker , Medina Jared
Published: November 2012

We presented participants with a temporal order judgment (TOJ) task with vibratory stimuli presented to the ends of held tools. We manipulated whether the hands and tools were uncrossed or crossed, predicting that participants would respond more accurately if the responding body part and tool tip were in the same hemispace (see Yamamoto and Kitazawa, 2001). Participants were split into two groups (24 subjects in each group). One group responded manually with the stimulated tools, the other group responded with foot pedals. Contrasting previous findings, we found no significant effect of manipulating tool position when the hands were uncrossed, regardless of response type. Effects of response type were also observed, as participants were significantly more accurate when responding with the stimulated tools compared to responding with foot pedals. Interactions were also found between response type and sex. Compared to males, females made a substantially greater number of confusion errors when responding with feet, but not when responding with tools. Additionally, compared to males, females made substantially more confusion errors with the arms crossed, reflecting previously reported results in tactile TOJ on the hands (Cadieux et al., 2010). These results suggest potential differences in spatial mapping and tactile processing in males and females.