bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Evaluating Sonographers’ Awareness of Artifacts in Renal Ultrasound
Scans
Authors: Alshamrani Abdullah F. , Alrehily Faisal A. , Alhazmi Fahad H. , Alharbi Ammar M. , Almohammadi Samer O.
Published: February 2023

Background:

A routine ultrasound scan is used to assess a variety of renal pathological
cases. Sonographers face a variety of challenges that may affect their interpretation. Understanding
normal organ shapes, human anatomy, physical concepts, and artifacts is required for accurate diagnosis.
Sonographers must understand how artifacts appear in ultrasound images in order to reduce errors
and improve diagnosis. The purpose of this study is to assess sonographers' awareness and knowledge
of artifacts in renal ultrasound scans.

Methods:

Participants in this cross-sectional study were asked to complete a survey containing different
types of common artifacts in renal system ultrasound scans. An online questionnaire survey was
used to collect the data. The questionnaire targeted radiologists, radiologic technologists, and intern
students in Madinah hospitals in the ultrasound department.

Results:

The total number of participants was 99, with 9.1% being radiologists, 31.3% being radiology
technologists, 6.1% being senior specialists, and 53.5% being intern students. There was a significant
difference in the participants’ knowledge of ultrasound artifacts in the renal system with the total selection
of the right artifact in senior specialists at 73% and intern students 45%. There was a direct relationship
between age and years of experience in distinguishing artifacts in the renal system scan. A
category of participants with the highest age and experience got 92% of the correct selection of artifacts.

Conclusion:

The study concluded that intern students and radiology technologists have limited
knowledge of ultrasound scan artifacts, whereas senior specialists and radiologists have a high level of
awareness of the artifacts.
The Effect of Inhalation Aromatherapy on Patients with Cardiovascular
Disease Seeking Pain Relief: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Authors: Mohammadi-Dashtaki Razieh , Heidari-Soureshjani Saeid , Sherwin Catherine Mary Turner
Published: February 2023

Background:

Untreated cardiovascular disease (CVD) can commonly cause disability and
morbidity and increase the mortality risk.

Objective:

This systematic review and meta-analysis study aimed to investigate the pain-relieving effects
of aromatherapy with medicinal plants on patients with cardiovascular diseases.

Methods:

This meta-analysis followed PRISMA guidelines. Several keywords were explored using an
extensive search of databases, including PubMed, Web of Science (ISI), EMBASE, and Scopus, on
May 15, 2022. In addition, an excel form was designed for recording the data of the RCT studies.
Standardized mean difference (SMD) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to estimate
the overall effect size. The Cochran Q test and the statistic I2 were used to evaluate the heterogeneity
of studies. Lastly, Egger's and Begg's tests were used to assess potential publication bias.

Results:

We included studies examining the effect of inhalation aromatherapy on pain in patients with
CVD after 5 minutes (five papers) and 15-30 minutes (six papers) of intervention. The results showed
a significant decrease in pain in the intervention group compared to the control group after 5 minutes
(SMD = -2.25, 95% CI = -3.21 to -1.29, P < 0.001) and after 15-30 minutes (SMD = -3.22, 95% CI = -
4.41 to -2.03, P < 0.001) of intervention in CVD patients. No publication bias was observed related to
the association between inhalation aromatherapy and pain relief.

Conclusion:

In CVD patients, inhalation aromatherapy could significantly reduce pain severity and
can be used as a complementary medicine for pain reduction.
Medical Image Classification Using DL-based Feature Extraction in IoMT
Authors: Thimmapuram Madhuri , Salvadi Shoba Rani , Pallati Narsimhulu , Aluvalu Rajanikanth
Published: February 2023

Aim::

Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the addition of Deep Learning
(DL) have made it possible to analyse both real-time and historical data from the Internet of Things
(IoT). Recently, IoT technology has been implemented in healthcare schemes as IoMT to aid in
medical diagnoses. Medical image classification is useful for predicting and identifying serious diseases
at an early stage, which is crucial in the diagnostic process.

Background::

When it comes to managing, treating, and preventing illness, medical photographs are
an essential element of a patient’s health record. However, it is a difficult issue in computer-based
diagnostics to classify images using efficient characteristics.

Objective::

The study aimed to develop a deep learning-based classification model for feature extraction.

Methods::

Levy flight optimization is employed to pick the weight for the classification model optimally.
At the end of the day, the optimal weight led to a better classification result and a higher degree
of precision when analyzing medical photos for disease.

Result::

We tested the proposed results in MATLAB and compared them with conventional methods
of classification. The suggested model’s best results include 97.71% accuracy on a brain dataset
and 97.2% accuracy on an Alzheimer’s disease dataset.

Conclusion::

The proposed algorithm’s high rate of convergence proves that it can successfully balance
the exploration and exploitation phases by avoiding capturing in local optimization and classifying
thresholds rapidly. In light of the need for improved accuracy, precision, and computational
speed in clinical picture classification, a novel approach based on soft sets has been presented.
Preliminary study of the mechanical characteristics implementation of friction stir welded AA2024 joints by adding pure copper
Authors: Bocchi S.
Published: February 2023

Abstract. In the present paper, the mechanical properties of a AA2024 welded by Friction Stir Welding (FSW) were examined, both homogeneously and using a commercial pure copper sheet positioned between the edges to be welded in two configurations, T and C. The temperature trends reached during the FSW process were extrapolated through the development of a simulative model, to select the best combination of parameters to use in the experimental phase of the campaign. After that, the FSWed homogeneous and heterogeneous joints were executed and analysed. From the mechanical point of view, Rockwell B hardness tests and tensile tests were performed. It was possible to evidence a good relationship between the hardness distribution and the presence of the copper, especially at the nugget. On the contrary, the tensile tests executed orthogonally to the welding direction, showed a reduction of the tensile strength and of the real elongation percentage in the aluminium-copper heterogeneous FSWed joints.
Evaluating material failure of AHSS using acoustic emission analysis
Authors: Stockburger E.
Published: February 2023

Abstract. Driven by high energy prices and strict legal requirements on CO2 emissions, high-strength sheet steel materials are increasingly gaining importance in the automotive industry regarding electric vehicles and their battery range. Simulation-based design of forming processes can contribute to exploiting their high potential for lightweight design. However, previous studies show that numerical simulation with conventional forming limit curves does not always provide adequate prediction quality. Failure models that take the stress state into account represent an alternative prediction method for the shear-dominated failure, that frequently occur in high-strength steels during forming. The failure behaviour of the sheet materials can be determined by different specimen geometries for a wide range of stress states and by using an optical measurement system to record the local strain on the surface of the specimen at the location of failure. However, for many high-strength steels, critical damage or failure initiation already occurs inside the specimen. Therefore, a method is needed that allows detection of failure initiation at an early stage before the crack becomes visible on the surface of the specimen. One possible method is the use of acoustic emission analysis. By coupling it with an imaging technique, the critical strains leading to failure initiation inside the specimen can be determined. In the presented paper, butterfly tests are performed for a wide range of stress states and measured with an optical as well as an acoustical measurement system. The tests are analysed regarding the failure initiation using a mechanical, optical as well as acoustical evaluation method and compared with each other.
El suelo como receptor de vertimientos. Análisis y recomendaciones
Authors: García-Rodríguez Jeimmy Alejandra , Cárdenas-Gaitán Miguel Ángel , Forero-Leguizamón Jair Fernando , Delgado-Londoño Diana María
Published: February 2023

El Decreto 50 del 2018 del Ministerio de Ambiente indica la posibilidad de realizar vertimientos al suelo para aguas residuales no domésticas tratadas, para lo que se exige la realización de análisis físicos, químicos y biológicos al recurso para verificarlo, sin embargo, se solicita el mismo tipo de ensayos independientemente del tipo de suelo y agua en donde se realice el vertimiento. Esto puede llegar a ocasionar problemas futuros en el suelo, así como en las aguas subterráneas. Debido a lo anterior, en alianza estratégica, la Corporación Autónoma Regional (CAR), junto con la Universidad de La Salle y el Ejército Nacional analizaron las posibilidades de impacto y las conse-cuencias de dichas acciones realizando recomendaciones técnicas en este tipo de eventos.
Trips en bananito
Authors:   Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, Bogotá (Colombia),   Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria, (Colombia)
Published: February 2023

Las buenas prácticas agrícolas son la principal herramienta para preservar la calidad de los cultivos. En este clip se dan recomendaciones para el cultivo de bananito.
Transporte y almacenamiento de mango
Authors:   Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, Bogotá (Colombia),   Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria, (Colombia)
Published: February 2023

La postcosecha, es el conjunto de actividades que ocurren desde el momento en que se cosecha la fruta, hasta que es usada por el consumidor. En este clip se presenta en procedimiento de transporte y almacenamiento de mango.
Sistema de riego en acelga
Authors:   Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria, (Colombia)
Published: February 2023

El agua es fundamental en un cultivo. En el caso de la acelga, se deben en cuenta las épocas de lluvia y sequía para generar un buen plan de riego, en este clip, se encuentran las recomendaciones.
Control con trampas Mc Phaill
Authors:   Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, Bogotá (Colombia),   Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria, (Colombia)
Published: February 2023

El presente video muestra como con las trampas tipo Mc Phaill se controla la mosca en la fruta.
Siembra pimentón en condiciones protegidas
Authors:   Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, Bogotá (Colombia),   Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria, (Colombia)
Published: February 2023

La siembra de pimentón bajo zonas protegidas, permite un mayor rendimiento sobre la producción, en este clip se muestran varias recomendaciones.
Descoline
Authors:   Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, Bogotá (Colombia),   Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria, (Colombia)
Published: February 2023

En este clip se presenta el paso a paso la buena práctica agrícola conocida como descoline para darle vida al cultivo de plátano.
Control de nematodos en guayaba
Authors:   Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, Bogotá (Colombia),   Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria, (Colombia)
Published: February 2023

En la producción de la guayaba, uno de los problemas más limitantes son los nematodos y parásitos en los cultivos, en este clip se muestran las recomendaciones para evitar esta plaga.
Control de plagas
Authors:   Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, Bogotá (Colombia),   Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria, (Colombia)
Published: February 2023

El presente video presenta cuidados y controles sobre plagas en la producción del aguacate hass.
Control de roya en la guayaba
Authors:   Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, Bogotá (Colombia),   Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria, (Colombia)
Published: February 2023

Una de las enfermedades que más afecta la guayaba es la roya, en este clip se muestran las recomendaciones para prevenir esta afectación.
Pandemic Fatigue and Preferences for COVID-19 Public Health and Social Measures in China: Nationwide Discrete Choice Experiment (Preprint)
Authors: Yang Meng , He Zonglin , Zhang Yin , Liu Taoran , Ming Wai-kit
Published: February 2023

BACKGROUND

Information on the public’s preferences for current public health and social measures (PHSMs) and people’s mental health under PHSMs is insufficient.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to quantify the public’s preferences for varied PHSMs and measure the level of pandemic fatigue in the COVID-19 normalization stage in China.

METHODS

A nationwide cross-sectional study with a discrete choice experiment and psychometric scales was conducted to assess public preferences for and attitudes toward PHSMs, using the quota sampling method. The COVID-19 Pandemic Fatigue Scale (CPFS) was used to screen fatigue levels among respondents. The multinomial logit model, latent class model, and Mann-Whitney test were used for statistical analysis. We also conducted subgroup analysis based on sex, age, monthly income, mental health status, and pandemic fatigue status.

RESULTS

A total of 689 respondents across China completed the survey. The discrete choice experiment revealed that respondents attached the greatest importance to the risk of COVID-19 infection within 3 months (45.53%), followed by loss of income within 3 months (30.69%). Vulnerable populations (low-income populations and elderly people) were more sensitive to the risk of infection, while younger respondents were more sensitive to income loss and preferred nonsuspension of social places and transportation. Migrants and those with pandemic fatigue had less acceptance of the mandatory booster vaccination and suspension of transportation. Additionally, a higher pandemic fatigue level was observed in female respondents, younger respondents, migrants, and relatively lower-income respondents (CPFS correlation with age: r=–0.274, P<.001; correlation with monthly income: r=–0.25, P<.001). Mandatory booster COVID-19 vaccination was also not preferred by respondents with a higher level of pandemic fatigue, while universal COVID-19 booster vaccination was preferred by respondents with a lower level of pandemic fatigue.

CONCLUSIONS

Pandemic fatigue is widely prevalent in respondents across China, and respondents desired the resumption of normal social life while being confronted with the fear of COVID-19 infection in the normalization stage of COVID-19 in China. During future pandemics, the mental burden and adherence of residents should be considered for the proper implementation of PHSMs.
A machine learning model for the prediction of peripherally inserted central catheter-related venous thrombosis among high-risk adult patients (Preprint)
Authors: Cao Songmei , Wang Shuhua , Fan Yimeng , Cheng Bo , Zhu Liqun , Li Li , Liang Yiqing , Li Aiping , Zhu Hong
Published: February 2023

BACKGROUND

The impact of PICC-related thrombosis is worth paying attention to, and it is important to predict the risk factors for thrombosis in patients with PICC catheterization，assessment tools are critical for predicting and preventing thrombosis in patients with PICCs.Predictive models would be helpful to estimate the risk of PICC-related thrombosis.

OBJECTIVE

To develop and validate a machine learning model for predicting the risk of peripherally inserted central catheter-related venous thrombosis.

METHODS

Overall, 626 patients undergoing peripherally inserted central catheter placement from January 2016 to October 2020 were enrolled. The variables included patient demographic characteristics, clinical condition, laboratory examinations, treatment, and catheter-related factors. Support vector machine and genetic algorithm were used to develop and optimize the model, respectively. SHapley Additive exPlanations was used to interpret the model.

RESULTS

The model obtained an average area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.95. The SHapley Additive exPlanations summary plot was used to illustrate the effects of the top 20 features from support vector machine. This study provides a visual way to illustrate the impact of input features on the result prediction.

CONCLUSIONS

The machine learning model developed based on genetic algorithm shows good predictive ability in patients with a high risk of thrombosis-related peripherally inserted central catheter.
THE EFFECT OF BROMELAIN MICROCAPSUL FORMULATION ON LEUKOCYTE AND TNF-α LEVEL IN MALE WHITE MICE INDUCED BY H5N1 VACCINE
Authors: UMAR SALMAN , H. S. SARAH FADHILA , ALDI YUFRI , BADRIYYA ELSA
Published: February 2023

Objective: Bromelain is a sulfhydryl proteolytic enzyme extracted from the pineapple plant (Ananas comosus. L), which has various activities, including as an immunomodulator. Microencapsulation of bromelain is a process by which a layer surrounds bromelain to produce microcapsules to increase its activity. This research intends to see the effect of bromelain microcapsule formulation on total leukocytes count, leukocyte percentage, and the levels of TNF-α in male white mice exposed to the H5N1 Vaccine.

Methods: Experimental animals were divided into three groups, specifically a negative control group given Na CMC 0.5%, the comparison group given 200 mg/kgBW bromelain enzyme, and the test group given 200 mg/kgBW bromelain microcapsules for seven days orally. On the eighth day, the total amount and the percentage of leukocytes and the levels of TNF-α were counted. The data were analyzed by two-way ANOVA and Duncan’s multiple range test (p<0.05).

Results: The study showed that the administration of 200 mg/kgBW bromelain microcapsule group significantly reduced total leukocyte count and increased the segmented neutrophil compared to the bromelain group (p<0.05). However, there was no significant correlation between the two groups in reducing monocyte, lymphocyte, eosinophil, and TNF-α levels (p>0.05).

Conclusion: It can be concluded that providing bromelain microcapsules can reduce the total amount of leukocytes and increase the segmented neutrophil in male white mice exposed to the H5N1 Vaccine.
MICRONIZED EUTECTIC MIXTURE OF FENOFIBRIC ACID-SACCHARIN FORMATION FOR SOLUBILITY AND DISSOLUTION ENHANCEMENT
Authors: HASANAH USWATUL , WAHYUNI LIZA , ZAINI ERIZAL
Published: February 2023

Objective: This study aims to increase the solubility and dissolution rate of fenofibric acid by forming a micronized eutectic mixture of fenofibric acid-saccharin with spray drying technique.

Methods: Suspension of the eutectic mixture was prepared in ethanol: distilled water (3:1) followed by a spray drying method to obtain the microparticles. Microparticles characterization was performed by particle size analysis (PSA), powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), FT-IR spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Solubility test was carried out in CO2-free distilled water, meanwhile the dissolution rate study was conducted in phosphate buffer solution at pH 6.8.

Results: The results showed the mean of the samples’ particle size was 72.29±7.33 µm. Compared to the intact fenofibric acid, the micronized eutectic mixture sample has a decreased melting point, fusion enthalpy, and crystallinity without any wavenumber shifted in the FT-IR spectra. The solubility of micronized eutectic mixture was 2.2 times higher than intact fenofibric acid, while the amount of micronized eutectic mixture dissolved at 60 min was 11.7 times higher.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that the spray-dried micronized eutectic mixture of fenofibric acid-saccharin was having the ability to enhance the dissolution of fenofibric acid.
ENHANCEMENT OF CURCUMIN SOLUBILITY AND DISSOLUTION BY ADSORPTION IN MESOPOROUS SBA-15
Authors: FITRIANI LILI , AZIZAH HUSNUN , HASANAH USWATUL , ZAINI ERIZAL
Published: February 2023

Objective: Curcumin belongs to BCS class IV, which has low solubility, around 7.8 µg/ml and its results of low bioavailability. The study aimed to enhance solubility and dissolution rate of curcumin by adsorption in mesoporous silica SBA-15.

Methods: The synthesis of SBA-15 was done by using tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) as silica precursors and Pluronic P123 (EO20PO70EO20) as template of pore-forming. Impregnation of curcumin in SBA-15 was conducted by evaporation in ethanol solution with 2:1 of curcumin: SBA-15 proportion. Curcumin-SBA-15 were characterized by Nitrogen Adsorption-Desorption Isotherm, Powder X-Ray Diffraction (PXRD), Fourier Transformed Infrared (FT-IR), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The solubility test was performed by using an orbital shaker for 24 h in CO2-free distilled water. The dissolution rate was conducted in CO2-free distilled water using USP Type-II dissolution test apparatus.

Results: Efficiency entrapment of curcumin-SBA-15 was 59.433%. The successful adsorption of curcumin in SBA-15 was confirmed by reducing its surface area (48.165 m2/g) and pore volume (0.073x10-1 cm3/g). The results of PXRD analysis showed that decreased in the intensity of the diffraction peak. In addition, the FTIR spectrum of curcumin-SBA-15 was similar to its intact component. The solubility and dissolution rate test of curcumin-SBA-15 enhanced 2.201 times and 3.214 times at 60 min compared to intact curcumin.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that the adsorption of curcumin in SBA-15 increased both the solubility and dissolution rate of curcumin.
The everyday construction of value: A Canadian investment fund, Chilean water infrastructure, and financial subordination
Authors: Pryke Michael , Allen John
Published: February 2023

Infrastructure in several economies in the Global South has rapidly undergone financialization, aided and abetted by governments opening-up their infrastructure assets to global institutional investors in search of stable, predictable revenue streams. This account of financialization could be the end of the story were it not for the fact that Christophers (2015) and others have shown that institutional investors are not simply in the game of ‘finding’ value or ‘harvesting it’ from obliging states, rather they actively construct it. What often catches the eye, however, are the more overt forms of financial engineering (Ashton et al., 2012), whereas what tends to go unnoticed are the ways in which infrastructure assets are routinely ‘worked’ to generate value over time. Here, we draw attention to a slower-paced financialization of infrastructure assets where, following Chiapello (2015, 2020), investors are engaged in a continual process of evaluation and revaluation of their assets to add value over and above prevailing benchmarks. Taking the example of Canada's Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) and its extensive investments in Chilean water infrastructure, this article considers how a global investment fund draws on financial practices developed in the advanced economies to add value to long term infrastructure assets in the Global South. Such practices, we argue, enact a routine form of financial subordination which does not match the familiar image of wholly subservient and dominated dependent economies. Rather, the power asymmetries involved equate less to a zero-sum game and more to a game where the benefits are unequally shared between asset managers in the Global North and states in the Global South, where effectively the latter cooperate in their own submission in ways that are not always acknowledged as such.
Diaspora, Postmemory and the Transcultural Turn in Contemporary Jewish Writing: Barbara Honigmann’s Autofictional Writings
Authors: Ortner Jessica
Published: February 2023

According to Marianne Hirsch, descendants of exiled Holocaust survivors unwillingly inherit their parents continued dislocation: as the homeland of their ancestors has “ceased to exist” they are destined forever to remain exiled from the “space of identity” (Family 243). The German Jewish writer Barbara Honigmann is one of those descendants of exiled Holocaust survivors even though she was born in Germany to where her parents had returned after the war. However, in contrast to Hirsch, she embraces life in diaspora and self-imposed exile as the true source for constructing a genuine identity in which she is true to her Judaism. In illuminating the discrepancy between Hirsch’s analytical reading of exilic postmemory and Barbara Honigmann’s way of creating it in literature, this article shows that different conceptualizations of diaspora give rise to different postmemorial aesthetics: whereas Hirsch’s photographic aesthetics represents the melancholic insight that a return to the place of origin is impossible, nostalgic aesthetics gives in to this very desire for a “final return” (Hall). However, both the nostalgic and the photographic aesthetics are based on a territorial understanding of home and on the idea that identity is bound to a specific space. In contrast, Honigmann’s aesthetics of postmemory, which I call transcultural, perceives diasporic identity as the result of a constant blending and mixing of cultures. Thus, identity is not connected to a distinct place, but rather to a “common genealogical origin” (Boyarin, Boyarin). However, as this origin has been forgotten, the author must laboriously reconstruct it in her autofictional writings.
"Dreaming While Awake": The Evolution of the Concept of Hallucination in the Nineteenth Century
Authors: McCorristine Shane
Published: February 2023

This paper will show that the rationalist theory of "spectral illusions" which discounted the objective reality of ghost-seeing, was challenged during the rise of the spiritualist faith, which drew a huge amount of attention from the scientific and artistic community to the psychogenesis of hallucinations and the rich research possibilities to be found in studying the fallacies of perception. Coming in the wake of the establishment of spiritualism, it will be seen that the Society for Psychical Research proposed that a certain number of hallucinations were "veridical" in that they corresponded to a real and verifiable event in the world - such as the death of a loved one - and could be apprehended telepathically. Thus, hallucinations represent a key concept in nineteenth-century debates surrounding notions of psychological truth, spiritual revelation, and the vagaries of the human imagination.
Pull My Daisy. A Bebop Revolution
Authors: Villa Sara
Published: February 2023

On the 12th May 1959 Pull My Daisy, a film written and narrated by Jack Kerouac and directed by Alfred Leslie and Robert Frank, was first projected at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Even though the film was enthusiastically acclaimed by critics like Jonas Mekas as one of the most accomplished productions of the New Cinema Group, as a "free improvisation" (Mekas, "New York Letter" 19) and as a fresh, lively sketch of Beat life, nonetheless some scholars criticized the production. What the adverse reviewers did not realize, however, is that the kind of truthfulness intended by both the directors of Pull My Daisy and by Kerouac himself was utterly different from the one which distinguishes the journalistic approach, the naked camera lenses that record the events of an ordinary moment just as they happen. This essay will explore the improvised techniques and 'bebop poetics' in Pull My Daisy What the adverse reviewers did not realize, however, is that the kind of truthfulness intended by both the directors of Pull My Daisy as a free improvisation stemming from a steady basis of pre-arranged themes, plots and filmic structures.
Editing in Leone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) and Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969)
Authors: Hennessey Brown Keith
Published: February 2023

In the first part of this paper I establish the centrality of editing to cinema as an art form, with specific reference to Rudolph Arnheim, Andre Bazin, Jean-Luc Godard, and Gilles Deleuze. I then examine the approaches to montage editing taken by Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) and The Wild Bunch (1969). While both filmmakers use highly visible editing techniques there are also significant differences, particularly regarding the build-up to an action sequence and the sequence itself, their preferred shots and combinations of shots, and their use of music.
Editing for Public Consumption: the Use of Documentary Film in the Promotion of New Zealand’s Mental Hospitals
Authors: McLaughlan Rebecca
Published: February 2023

Architectural design and text-based press releases were the Public  Relations tools traditionally employed by New Zealand’s Mental Hospitals Department. The arrival of television to New Zealand in 1960 offered a new medium: the documentary film. This paper will evaluate the evolution of the Department’s propaganda campaign following the availability of documentary film.
The Lindisfarne Gospels: A Living Manuscript
Authors: Walker Margaret
Published: February 2023

This article questions how current and previous owners have marked the Lindisfarne Gospels, created 1,300 years ago. Their edits, which would be frowned upon today, are useful for historians to understand how the Gospels have been valued by previous owners and thus why they are so treasured today.
Terrorism and Its Metaphors
Authors: Fabiano Mark
Published: February 2023

I want to map out the metaphors of terrorism to critique how they are used in United States political rhetoric. These metaphors and their usage parallel United States history, cold war ideologies, and globalization. Central to this investigation is an analysis of how the hegemonic order appropriates the media and uses such metaphors to manufacture consent for supporting a vaguely defined “war on terror” indefinitely. Metaphors have been called “the dreamwork of language,” by Donald Davidson who writes also that “the interpretation of dreams requires collaboration between a dreamer and a waker” (29). But terrorism is not a dream. It is not a metaphor. My point is that by identifying the geography of terrorism as it is currently presented in our media, by interpreting these media “dreams” about terrorism, readers might awaken to a more sobering view of terrorism.
Re-reading Adorno: The 'after-Auschwitz' Aporia
Authors: Martin Elaine
Published: February 2023

It is difficult to think of another area of literary discourse in which a critic has brought such a profound influence to bear, as Theodor W. Adorno has, in the area of literature concerning the Shoah. It is also difficult to think of another area of literary discourse in which a critic’s pronouncements have been misinterpreted so often and to such a degree as have Adorno’s reflections concerning the status of art after the Shoah. Reference here is of course being made to Adorno’s (supposed) ‘dictum’ concerning the barbarity of poetry after Auschwitz. The principle aims of this paper are to restore his reflections to their argumentative context and to restore the dialectical tension conferred on them in the original text. I will examine what I have termed the “after-Auschwitz” aporia, so evident in Adorno’s reflections on post-Shoah art and yet overlooked all too frequently in the research literature. Defined as an irresolvable impasse as a result of equally plausible yet inconsistent premises the term “aporia” succinctly captures the essence of Adorno’s deliberations on post-Shoah art: the imperative to represent the egregious crimes and the impossibility of doing so. I will demonstrate that Adorno’s pronouncements were never meant as silence-inducing taboos, but rather as concrete theoretical reflections upon the moral status of art in the aftermath of the Shoah and as warnings of the moral peril involved in the artistic rendering of mass extermination.
Sensationalism and Supersensibility: Eighteenth-Century Literary Terror Divided
Authors: Stokes Christopher
Published: February 2023

Schiller and Lewis present a polarity dividing Coleridge’s judgement of literary terror: Schiller, the unparalled artist of sublime terror, and Lewis, the most objectionable of gothic writers. Although Coleridge’s responses are in many ways linked to his own unique concerns, they also reflect the divided status of terror in the wider culture of the time. And if we want to understand this divided status, it is useful to turn to a characteristically Coleridgean question: is sensation transcended? This question has two distinct but related components: firstly, is the literary work addressed to higher faculties rather than the senses, and secondly, does the literary work itself depict a world with a supersensible realm?
Happiness Filled the Space of Sadness: the Weight, Tragedy and Paradox of Milan Kundera's Freedom
Authors: Wattles Jeremy
Published: February 2023

Milan Kundera's choice to open his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) with two short chapters discussing Friedrich Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence is, if nothing else, unconventional. It foregrounds his engagement with Nietzsche and suggests that the novel itself is something of a thought experiment, a working out of how such an abstract but compelling idea can have meaning in the world. The myth of eternal return poses, as Kundera's narrator implies, an ultimate question of existence: will we choose that our lives, and therefore our actions, have weight or lightness? Or, as Nietzsche says in The Gay Science (1882), "If this thought gained power over you, as you are it would transform and possibly crush you; the question in each and every thing, ‘Do you want this again and innumerable times again' would lie on your actions as the heaviest weight!" (194). In other words, will this thought enslave an individual or will it empower them? Is there a paradoxical, controlling freedom an individual may obtain by embracing the vicissitudes of life, in willing that a chance event and its consequences might recur again and again?
“But who is to say what is fake and what is real?” – Spectral and Textual Haunting in Peter Ackroyd’s Chatterton
Authors: Albers Stefanie
Published: February 2023

This essay looks at how the phenomenon of haunting is discussed in Peter Ackroyd’s novel Chatterton (1989). It analyses in which forms the idea of haunting appears and which function it fulfils in the text. Of particular interest here is the multi-layered narrative which presents haunting in several different modes, both on the story and the meta-level, not only giving it the shape of regular ‘visitations’, but also pointing it out through intertextuality and metafictional comments. This essay also shows that the element of haunting in Chatterton works as a tool to disrupt the novel’s different storylines. This disruption underlines the relation between imagination and reality by highlighting and foregrounding the novel’s fictitiousness and at the same time “points to the constructedness of any representation of the ‘real world’” (Delgado 349), may it be fiction or the visual arts.
Dickens’s Haunted Christmas: The Ethics of the Spectral Text
Authors: Fruhauff Brad
Published: February 2023

The question of haunting itself has its own interest, but one might also wonder why Dicken's Christmas Carol - a Christmas story - should be at all haunted. While some connection between Christmas, winter and the supernatural can be traced back through Shakespeare and no doubt beyond, Dickens seems especially interested in the manifestation of ghosts and phantoms at Christmas-time. Indeed, by publishing his own and many others’ seasonal ghost stories in his magazines, Household Words and All the Year Round, he can be attributed with making the ghost story a sort of Victorian Christmas tradition (Cox xiii). Moreover, in his Christmas tales, Dickens saw no contradiction in combining the Gothic effects of ghost stories with sentimental scenes to present his religio-social message of charity, compassion and communal affection.
‘At Home in Dust’: Francesca Woodman’s House Series, Revisited
Authors: Thurston Meaghan
Published: February 2023

A reassessment of Francesca Woodman’s work is due, particularly with respect to how her photographs contribute to theorizing “the space of the subject” (Kirby 11). Woodman’s House Series, which she completed in Rhode Island between 1975 and 1978, then a young student photographer of the Rhode Island School of Design, provides fertile ground to assess the importance of ‘space’ to Woodman’s work and its critical reception. Carol Armstrong’s essay “Francesca Woodman: A Ghost in the House of the Woman Artist” argues that Woodman’s “use of space—that of the house most often—of very old houses (inhabited by very young bodies)” is indicative of an identity resting on the threshold of gender (348). The “spatial aspect” of Woodman’s work, Armstrong argues, reveals the female as a “figure of irruptive difference” occupying a “ludic space”, where play is an act of self-definition (350).Woodman’s affinity with places marked by dirt, dust and decay, however, is discordant with the easy categorization of her as one on the verge of a preoccupation with ‘feminine space.’ “Space and where we are in it” writes Kathleen Kirby in Defining the Space of the Subject: Investigating the Boundaries of Feminism, “determines a large portion of our status as subjects” (Kirby 12). It is my suggestion that the issues of identity in theHouse Series demand a fresh look, which considers their spatial context. Looking closely at photographs House #3 and House #4, I will explore the themes of identity and place, woman and artist, with the conviction that these contrasting themes are united. Edward Casey argues in Getting Back into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place World that “body and place belong together” (45) and I begin this analysis of Woodman’s House Series with the assertion that place, or where we are, “has everything to do with what and who we are” (Casey xiii).
Rape and Revenge in Graphic Detail: Neil Gaiman's "Calliope," in The Sandman Comic Series
Authors: Gieni Justine
Published: February 2023

Neil Gaiman's ability to weave fantasy, fairytales, folktales, mythology, canonical literature, and Gothic horror into his creative medium has played a significant role in elevating graphic literature as a subject for scholarly discourses. The Sandman series is often recognized as Gaiman's most influential contribution to graphic literature. As an epic series, spanning seventy-five issues from 1989 to 1996, The Sandman tales center on the figure of Dream/Oneiros/Morpheus, the personification of the unconscious, ruler of dreams and nightmares, and all that is kept hidden from waking consciousness (Sanders 18). In this regard, Gaiman's protagonist embodies the psychological fascination within the Gothic tradition, with the monstrosities that dwell deep within the human psyche. As part of Gaiman's extended fantasy discourse of The Sandmanseries, the story "Calliope" stands out as one of Gaiman's most overtly feminist polemics. In this tale of rape and revenge, Gaiman provides a powerful critique of male-driven economies of power and privilege through his depiction of sexual violence. Specifically, Gaiman challenges the conventional view of male mastery by illustrating the dualities of masculine creativity and failure, strength and weakness, virility and impotence, phallus and lack, as the conflicts that characterize the men of his story. In this way, Gaiman illustrates the impotence of the male perpetrators, Richard Madoc and Erasmus Fry, who violently exploit the muse Calliope by raping her and stealing her creativity to fulfill their selfish ambitions of fame and fortune.
Preface: "On Revenge"
Authors: Jones Anna Maria
Published: February 2023

When Robert Mannion, the scheming villain of Wilkie Collins's sensation novel Basil, reveals his revenge plot to the eponymous narrator, it might appear at first that he has thrown off the mantle of middle-class respectability to expose his "true" monstrous self: rapacious, violent, motivated equally by perverse appetites and the desire for vengeance. Yet, I would suggest that the relationship between Mannion's persona as socially-productive, disciplined, and efficient self-made man and his role as a stealthily, indefatigably vengeful plotter is much more synergistic than antagonistic. Mannion stakes a claim to revenge based on his very rights as a man. The fear that Basil explores is that the "good citizen" of modern liberal society might also be the mauvais sujet of revenge, not because the semblance of the former masks the latter, but, more disturbingly, because Mannion's "right to injure" is fundamental to the very social order that he ostensibly threatens. In other words, it is no coincidence that a villain like Mannion emerges at the same historical moment as some of the most enthusiastic articulations of liberal ideals of self-determining, autonomous subjectivity. Mannion not only embodies the very qualities that, according to Samuel Smiles's runaway bestseller Self-Help, "make the man"- "great perseverance, application, and energy" (30)-but these qualities are explicitly the products of his "desire for revenge." So, what might that intersection of revenge fantasies with the liberal dream of self-determination and economic success that Smiles's book pedaled in 1850s England have to tell us about revenge as a cultural phenomenon and a fictional device? What is happening at the interstices between revenge and rights, in other words?
The Sacred, the Sacrilegious, and the Elegiac in Dennis O’Driscoll’s Poetry: “Missing God” and Other Poems
Authors: Heininger Joseph C.
Published: February 2023

Contemporary Irish poet Dennis O’Driscoll’s poetry has often been linked with Philip Larkin’s work in its general outlines and themes. As George Szirtes points out, O’Driscoll’s literary territory “is a place that at first sight appears to be bordering on Larkin country. . . Like Larkin he generally addresses himself to ordinary lives, to their ambit of hopes and disappointments.” O’Driscoll’s poetry seeks, as Szirtes has it, “not . . . to tell people how they should feel but to try to understand, to share and to give shape to [peoples’] feeling” (Szirtes, “Business of Being”). Notably, much of O’Driscoll’s poetry makes explicit rational and emotional connections between human beings in a world marked by personal disconnection, loss of belief in God and God’s presence, and the repetition of impersonal, bureaucratic experiences. Through its plain yet eloquent discursive style, O’Driscoll’s poetry addresses themes of love and separation, life and death, and the sacred and the sacrilegious in a colloquial manner and with an understated tone that together invite his readers to examine central moral, spiritual, and intellectual concerns.
Imitation, Repetition, Tradition: Some Reflections on the Poetry of Ian Hamilton Finlay
Authors: Matsumoto Lila
Published: February 2023

This paper examines a selection of Finlay’s concrete poetry which uses imitation and repetition as both method and raw material. I suggest that the poems’ evident pastiche of particular works and iteration of word units create a context whereby a pattern of human behaviour unfolds in whimsical and startling ways.
Wilderness, the West and the Myth of the Frontier in Sean Penn’s Into the Wild
Authors: Beattie Laura I. H.
Published: February 2023

This article investigates the representation of wilderness in Sean Penn’s Into the Wild, specifically with regards to the myth of the American frontier. By using the myth of the frontier as a structure through which to read the film, we discover that the film proves William Cronon’s thesis that the idea of wilderness as an anti-human place is merely a human construct.
Spatialising Ritual: Acts of Remembrance in Contemporary Memorial Design
Authors: Rodrigo Russell
Published: February 2023

This paper examines the processes of ritual performance and ritualisation in contemporary memorial design, and argues that through their design, creation, and use, memorials have the capacity to invoke ritual action that is akin to those associated with sacred space. Spatialising ritual is thereby achieved by consciously allowing for the possibility of ritual action, where memory, rather than an end product, is reframed as remembrance, a process.
The Sacred Oath of a Secret Ritual: Performing Authority and Submission in the Mafia Initiation Ceremony
Authors: Merlino Rossella
Published: February 2023

This paper draws on socio-anthropological theories of ritual and performance to analyse the initiation ceremony of the Sicilian mafia in relation to questions of power, authority and submission. In particular, it looks at the oath of loyalty sworn during the ceremony as a highly symbolic ritual practice which contributes to maintaining and strengthening the social structure of the group and itscollective identity.
Enthronement Rituals of the Princes of Rus’ (twelfth-thirteenth centuries)
Authors: Vukovich Alexandra
Published: February 2023

This article examines the translation, transformation, and innovation of ceremonies of inauguration from the principality of Kiev to the principality of Vladimir-Suzdal’ and the city of Novgorod in the early Russian period (twelfth-thirteenth centuries). The ritual embellishment of inauguration ceremonies suggests a renewed contact between early Rus’ and Byzantium.
Mineralising Software: Moving Through Material Processes
Authors: Rachev Rumen
Published: February 2023

Introducing the notion of ‘mineralisation’ as a conceptual tool taken from Manuel DeLanda and applied in the context of software, this article investigates the mineral origins of software and how to engage in mapping the vibrancy of software through new material practices.
Constructing the Good Life: Posthuman Musical Identities
Authors: Roberts Bethany
Published: February 2023

This essay proposes posthumanism as an alternative cultural framework for the formation of “the good life”, focusing on issues of identity and virtuality created through irony and hybridity in modern musical cultures. Music by Avalanches and Ibibio Sound Machine will be examined, considering how posthumanist interpretations affect their reception and anticipate the future of music as a method of individual and communal expression.
The End of the Good Life: Literary Representations of Suburbia and the American Nightmare
Authors: Wilson Joanna
Published: February 2023

Conventional literary and filmic representations of the American suburbs depict a space that is either middle-class idyll or claustrophobic vacuum. By engaging with suburban gothic literature, this article interrogates such portrayals and deconstructs the utopian conception of suburbia. I argue that, rather than representing the "good life", the suburbs in these texts are sites of deeply-rooted cultural anxieties.