Casual Reading Research Articles

STUDI KASUS PEMANFAATAN POJOK LITERASI PRAKTIK DEAR DI SMPN 5 KEPANJEN (KETERAMPILAN MEMBACA KRITIS SISWA)

This study aims to examine school efforts in instilling a culture of literacy and practice of DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) at SMPN 5 Kepanjen with critical reading skills, the benefits obtained from the literacy corner in class, the obstacles in practicing DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) and the utilization of the corner literacy that has not had an impact on students in SMP Negeri 5 Kepanjen classes and solutions to related obstacles in optimizing the use of class literacy corners at SMP Negeri 5 Kepanjen. This qualitative research uses a phenomenological type. The research informants involved all school members, namely students, teachers and the principal of SMPN 5 Kepanjen. The results of the study show that the school is trying to instill a culture of DEAR (Drop Everything And Read), which must be done every day by students at SMP Negeri 5 Kepanjen. By habituating students to visit literacy corners, creating literacy activity programs, applying critical reading skill and trying to bring in publishers to offer a wide selection of reading books to students to be used in literacy corners as literacy materials. The reading corner functions to create a new classroom atmosphere, can also be used as a place for casual reading, fosters student creativity and can be used as a place to channel hobbies. In addition, students enjoy reading under the guidance of the teacher, because they can learn and share ideas and experiences while learning. The obstacle to optimizing the function of the literacy corner is the low introduction of a reading culture, the solution to optimizing the function of the literacy corner is that the teacher participates in providing books to be read by students, adapts to the needs of students in class and tries to complete a collection of various readings, so that when students read they do not seem boring. When they are in the literacy corner, carrying out DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) activities can create critical thinking so that they finally like reading activities.

Critiquing the Presence of Outsiders, Women of Questionable Pasts in Jesus’ Genealogy: Lessons for Contemporary Christianity

The book of Mathew has an unusual beginning and a casual reading shows a monotonous account of people “begoting” another and this itself, is somewhat boring and repetitive. Asides this repetitiveness, a striking feature of this account is the mention of four women and a fifth, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary. Extant literature on the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew have largely focused on it from the perspective of his role as the messiah, his ancestry and lineage, and in comparison with the Lukan genealogy, with scant attention paid to the presence of women, especially from a critical point of view. This study, therefore critiqued the unusual mention of women in a chronicle of men given the patriarchal setting of the history. The aim of this research was to answer the following research questions: who are these women and why were they mentioned in an historical account that was predominantly masculine? What purpose did they serve in the Mathean genealogy? These questions were answered critically with the view of drawing lessons for contemporary Christians, especially as they concern women. The study used philosophical methods of contextualism and the verification principle. The study revealed that the inclusion of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary in the genealogy of Christ was not accidental but purposeful, especially in a history that looked down on women. More so, many lessons could be drawn from the lives of these women by contemporary women, Christians generally and the society at large and the major one is that no one should be written off.

Manohar Malgonkar as a Feminist

This research paper illustrates the concept of female characters in the novels of Manohar Malgonkar. Branded as an entertainer and story teller, the deeper qualities of his fiction have been neglected or unperceived by many. The various articles by commentators do not seem to bring out the merits of the author as a significant Indo-English novelist. The few researchers who have taken up his novels seem to have failed to highlight his exceptional command over the English language. A casual reading of his novels may make the reader fall in line with the biased comments made by earlier critics. It is also intended to bring out a balanced view of the greatness of the author. Succumbing to this temptation also, this attempt to study the concept of women versus tradition in Malgonkar’s novels is made here. In this study I have taken up his five full-fledged and mature novels to explain Malgonkar as a feminist - Distant Drum, Combat of Shadows, The Princess, A Bend in the Ganges, and The Devil’s Wind. Key words: Traditions, Inferiority complex, Anglo-Indian, Orthodox, Reminiscence, Relationship, and Domination, Feminism etc.

Union Warriors at Sunset: The Lives of Twenty Commanders After the War

Reviewer Daniel E. Cone writes that Allie Stuart Povall departs from traditional biographies of Civil War generals by orienting Union Warriors at Sunset around their postwar lives. Union Warriors at Sunset, Cone concludes, is "an easy, casual read" that "serves well for those seeking to know more about the postbellum lives of Civil War generals, without having to flip to the back parts of an assortment of two, three, or four-hundred page biographical tomes."

Understanding Trend Inflation Through The Lens of The Goods and Services Sectors

Monetary policy is largely concerned with managing the part of inflation that is persistent (or permanent), a quantity often referred to as trend inflation. For example, a casual reading of any monetary policy report from the Federal Reserve Board will make it clear that, in addition to total (or headline) inflation, the Federal Reserve also focuses on underlying (or core) measures of inflation that exclude more volatile components such as food and energy prices. This strategy is based on the belief that fluctuations in components such as food and energy prices are ultimately temporary and, consequently, should be excluded from monetary policy considerations about the long-run path of inflation. Trend inflation is thus closely related to the concept of core inflation, since both measures provide a reading on inflation without the transient “noise” that is expected to fade in the short run. A more recent development is that goods and services—the two main sectors used to measure inflation—have been experiencing considerably different dynamics over the past three decades. Our goal in this paper is to understand how such contrasting behaviors at the sectoral level affect the aggregate level of trend inflation dynamics. To do so, we develop an empirical framework that accounts for historical changes in the volatility and comovement of trend inflation in the goods and services sectors for the US. Our main finding is that, while both sectors used to contribute to the overall variation in aggregate trend inflation, since the 1990s variations in trend inflation have been almost entirely dominated by the services sector. Two changes in sector-specific inflation dynamics drive our key result: (i) a large fall in the variance of trend inflation in the goods sector; and (ii) the disappearance of comovement between the two sectors. We document similar findings when extending our analysis to Australia and Canada, suggesting our results are not US-specific.

Reading, Attention, and Poetic Suggestion: ‘Éventail (de Madame Mallarmé)’

Abstract Much like the shift from print to digital media today, the expansion of cheaper, more portable literature in nineteenth-century France led many readers to regard texts as destined for rapid consumption rather than careful contemplation. Responding to this development, Stéphane Mallarmé fashioned his poetry to resist casual reading and solicit halting, iterative processing instead. Scholars usually see this laboured engagement as resulting from his fragmented syntax, arcane vocabulary, and the number of phonetic, metrical, and lexical patterns competing for readers’ attention. However, as the following analysis of ‘Éventail (de Madame Mallarmé)’ demonstrates, the difficulty of reading Mallarmé’s work is also a function of the visible properties of the text — not only the typography and white spaces discussed in studies of Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard, but punctuation, line breaks, and even the patterning of letters. Adopting terminology from cognitive science to identify Mallarmé’s innovative tactics, this article explains how the visual texture of his poetry interacts with its other features (aural, syntactic, semantic, and so on) to interrupt the continuity of reading and enhance the poetics of suggestion for which he is celebrated.

The Ocean Reader: History, Culture, Politics ed. by Eric Paul Roorda

Reviewed by: The Ocean Reader: History, Culture, Politics ed. by Eric Paul Roorda Stanley D. Brunn The Ocean Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Eric Paul Roorda, ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020. Pp. xix+523, color and black & white illustrations, footnotes. $119.95, hardcover, ISBN 978-1-4780-0600-1. $24.95, paperback, ISBN 978-1-4780-0696-1. About three-fourths of the planet is composed of water, an aquae incognitae for scholars. Eric Paul Roorda's twelve-chapter reader goes a long way to educate us about familiar and unfamiliar topics. It includes short statements (two to four pages each) about 103 topics, supplemented by 69 black/white and 11 color figures and 131 suggested readings, all certain to appeal to readers, whether novices or seasoned specialists. The collection includes selections on diverse topics including ancient [End Page 127] sea activities, slave ships, shipwrecks, pirates, coelacanth (living fossil fish), missionaries to Micronesia, Basque whaling, Islamic sea power and hajj, coral reef disappearance, ocean poetry, Chinese explorations, South Pacific whaling, Cape Horn violent weather, war in the Pacific, Marianas Trench, and Somali pirates. Many of the authors' names are familiar: Herodotus, Leonardo da Vinci, Zheng He, Ibn Battuta, Christopher Columbus, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, William Beebe, Sylvia Earle, and Anne Anna Brassey. Reading this book is likely to raise two questions in the minds of many readers: why we know so little about ocean topics, and how we can learn more. The answer to the first is rather simple, namely, we know little because we did/do not think in-depth learning about oceans was/is important. More important were/are the places/environments where we live and interact, not some watery universe where few humans live. Today we probably even know more about some other planetary surfaces than some of the earth's ocean space. This negligent perspective is indeed sad with a result being that there has been, and probably still remains, a lack of caring and understanding about oceans and their impact on human history and what they mean to understanding the earth's presents and futures. While aquae incognitae exist and persist in the sciences and humanities, "something" is happening in these places and spaces twenty-four seven that affects land/continental environments and human livelihood. And when some major unexpected event happens, terrestrial scientists seek to play a "catch-up game" to figure out what to do. Giving a higher priority to outer-space explorations and frontiers is evident in the ocean knowledge base and the role of oceans in global warming, effective disaster preparedness, biodiversity loss, increased ocean pollution and acidification, and economic losses (fish, mining, etc.). Ocean-knowledge communities beg for more understanding not only about circumnavigation efforts past and present, the submerged cargoes from shipwrecks in Cape Horn waters, ocean cable constructions, and maritime conflicts, but also DNA tests of former slave-carrying ships off West and Southern Africa and the Caribbean and shipwrecks in the Indian Ocean, the Straits of Malacca, South China Sea, Insular Pacific, and North Atlantic. Roorda's book presents a multitude of ocean topics that can be inserted into lectures, laboratory exercises, team projects, and research agendas. Even a casual reading should challenge the inspiring instructor [End Page 128] teaching environmental history, ancient cultures, historical cartography, environmental GIS mapping, conflict and security, and disaster preparedness. There is much to learn about these three-dimensional worlds and migrating aquatic communities through geo-mapping and photographing ocean terrains and life. Our knowledge base about oceans' surfaces and depths will expand with more discoveries and explorations, research grants, museum displays, scholarly journals, and courses and multidisciplinary degree programs with marine foci. Each discovery piques one's curiosity and appetite. Adventurous and creative members of the local, regional, and global geography communities need to seize on this "expanding research frontier" to come up with some new projections, mapping images using GIS, and satellite imagery to study historical, contemporary, and future ocean topics. Maps will help in understanding some of the early trans-ocean migrations, the resource bases, ocean tourism (surface and subsurface), and ocean environments meriting international protection. We also need atlases showing more than dead zones, shipping...

An experimental study of the effect of close reading versus casual reading of social drama on the stimulation of the cognitive capacity of empathy

AbstractThe current study investigates whether the mode of reading practice has an effect on the degree of readers’ empathic response to social drama, using Enda Walsh’sChatroom(2015), tackling contemporary adolescents’ problems, as an experimental example. The experiment conducted in this paper hypothesizes that in contrast with casual reading, the conscious techniques of close reading are more effective in promoting participants’ empathic engagement with the dramatic text and improving their capacity of problem discovery and solution. Accordingly, the close reading of social drama can reinforce social integration and work as an antidote to the ostracism of one social group from their community. Moreover, the L2 students’ stimulated empathic response is translated into a written output which is richer in quantity and quality.

Thinking Forgetting Through: Maurice Blanchot, for Example

Much of Blanchot’s thought seeks to undo the safe, secure interiority of early Heidegger. It takes the form of a radical nihilism open to the outside, where a swatch of irredeemable negativity exposes language and being to a corrosive contaminant while effacing all transcendental signifieds. The result is the impenitent-the forgetting that antedates all memory. Yet the trace of the immemorial persists and persistently indicates the beyond being, which is the sacred. A light-hearted unconcern-a kind of reduction of ontic appropriativity-then constitutes a way to (of) the outside, a non-place absolutely lacking in an inside. Metaphorically, the insouciance of casual reading (rather than one that digs for the profundity) offers access to an inaccessible text, a text made inaccessible by the reach for meaning. The sacrifice Blanchot has in mind, in going beyond that of the object of thought, requires a total rehabilitation of thinking. Thought as forgetting becomes the dissembled auto-affection of the outside. Such thinking bears the mark of a primordial affirmation, the sacral Yes.

Technological Determinism(s) and the Study of War

The concept of technological determinism has been a mainstay of discussions in history of technology and especially in science and technology studies (sts) for about half a century, yet military history as a field has generally sidestepped the idea as a category of analysis. Military historians, however, would do well to consider some of the insights from these other fields, for they can fall prey to (tacitly) deterministic analyses. Although the emphasis on tactical and strategic factors, as well as leadership and soldiers’ experience, sometimes insulates technological explanations from appearing to be causal, a casual reading of both military history and contemporary military policy seems to show that warfighters and political leaders often see technology as transformative. This is all the more evident in the discussion of military revolutions and especially revolutions in military affairs (RMAs), where technology is a least a leg of the stool, and at “best” a transformative agent.

Jaime Hernandez, Angels and Magpies (2017) and Is This How You See Me (2019)

Reviewed by: Angels and Magpies by Jaime Hernandez, and: Is This How You See Me? by Jaime Hernandez William Orchard (bio) Jaime Hernandez, Angels and Magpies. Fantagraphics, 2017. Pp. 260. Jaime Hernandez, Is This How You See Me? Fantagraphics, 2019. Pp. 96. Jaime Hernandez's Is This How You See Me? is the latest installment in his long-running Locas series, collecting comics that have been serialized over the past five years. The page announcing the first chapter features Hernandez's signature character, Maggie Chascarrillo, taking a selfie in front of a mirror. Above her, the chapter's title captions the image: "Do I look at the camera or do I look at me?" This page and the title of the book highlight the importance of how we focus our attention when we produce and reflect on images of ourselves. Insofar as a photograph is an object that instantaneously becomes a relic, the page also invites us to think deliberately about how we connect our present selves to our deeper histories. Indeed, written more than thirty years after the first introduction of this character, Is This How You See Me? joins other recent works by Hernandez such as God and Science (2012), his much-celebrated Love Bunglers (2014), and "La Maggie La Loca" (2006–7) to form a profound reflection on the adjustments we make in our relationships to our pasts as we enter middle age. Fortunately, these other works, which were previously published as hardcover graphic novels, have been collected in Angels and Magpies, a smaller, inexpensive paperback edition that is convenient for classroom use or casual reading. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Angels and Magpies (cover). Jaime Hernandez © 2017. Courtesy: Fantagraphics. [End Page 214] The opening story of Angels and Magpies, "La Maggie La Loca," was originally serialized in the New York Times. Here, the story is published at the top of pages with another narrative, "The Gold Diggers of 1969," occupying the bottom third of each page. The latter comic is drawn in a simple style, which is fitting for a story about Maggie's childhood. "The Gold Diggers of 1969" culminates with the birth of Calvin, Maggie's brother who figures prominently in Love Bunglers, but the story also provides a large picture of her early life in which Maggie slowly builds a diverse network of mother figures, including her birth mother Quina, Isabel "Izzy" Ortiz, and her wrestler aunt Vicki. Vicki's one-time wrestling partner and later rival Rena Titañon is the central figure of "La Maggie La Loca," which chronicles Maggie's visit to the former wrestler and revolutionary's isolated island. As we later learn after Maggie nearly drowns, the visit happens as Maggie turns forty and provides an opportunity for her to measure feelings of failure against the apparent success of Rena. Although this reunion could have produced a crisis, Maggie realizes that Rena's life is "not much different than an apartment manager's life," and comes to value her connectedness over Rena's isolation. If the reunion trip provides an occasion for assessing the past, the page architecture that combines a story from Maggie's present with one from her childhood asks us to also think about which aspects of the past become necessary for understanding ourselves in the present. In Love Bunglers, Ray Dominguez, Maggie's on-again-off-again love interest, remarks: "The signs of time passing not only showed on her face and body but on her spirit as well. Not in a bad way, more in an accepting way." But, as Maggie later makes clear, her adjustment to age is still in process. Her near death experience leaves her plagued with nightmares and "looking for clarity." As Maggie searches for clarity with those with whom she has bungled love, the narrative reveals how familial love was bungled in the past when her younger brother Calvin submitted to sexual abuse in order to protect Maggie from a predatory adolescent. This familial trauma crashes into the present when Calvin reenters Maggie's life, and, in a misguided attempt to protect her, bludgeons Ray. The aftermath of this event leads to some of...

Abstract P2073: Blood Pressure Measurement: Should Technique Define Targets?

Background: Advancements in technology over the last decades have brought a mini-revolution into the centuries old technique of blood pressure (BP) assessment. Automated oscillometric BP devices allow not only to eliminate human error in BP readings, but more importantly they standardize the length of resting period and allow for unattended resting and BP measurement. BP thresholds for definition of hypertension as well as BP treatment targets are however largely derived from studies using mercury sphygmomanometers or non-automated oscillometric BP devices. Comparative studies addressing the effect of standardized length of unattended resting and presence versus absence of medical personnel during BP measurement per se are however lacking. Methods and Population: In this prospective randomized, crossover trial we compared office casual BP readings to BP readings after 5 minutes unattended resting and unattended BP measurement. Additionally, we compared 5 minutes unattended resting and unattended BP measurement with medical personnel presence during BP measurement. BP readings were obtained from the same arm on 2 different visits using an automated oscillometric BP device (Omron HEM 907XL), one pre- and second one post 24-hour ABPM. All patients followed at our regional, tertiary care hospital-based Hypertension Centre were eligible for this trial. Results: 90 adult patients were consented and 79 (men 54% and women 46%) completed all the measurements. Mean casual BP was 137. 1 ± 16.7, mean resting unattended BP was 130.1 ± 13.7, indicating difference of 7.0 + 10.0 mm Hg (p < 0.0001). Mean resting attended BP was 129.3 ± 13.2 (not statistically different from completely unattended resting BP, difference - 2.7 [95% CI 1.4 -6.8] p = 0.18). Summary: Our study conclusively confirms that resting decreases blood pressure as assess from the difference between casual BP and BP obtained after 5 minutes of rest. More importantly, our study indicates that presence of medical personnel during BP measurements after initial 5 minutes unattended rest does not have a significant impact on overall resting BP readings. Conclusion: These data no superiority of fully automated devices versus semi-automated devices for BP measurements

Does Counter-Attitudinal Information Cause Backlash? Results from Three Large Survey Experiments

AbstractSeveral theoretical perspectives suggest that when individuals are exposed to counter-attitudinal evidence or arguments, their pre-existing opinions and beliefs are reinforced, resulting in a phenomenon sometimes known as ‘backlash’. This article formalizes the concept of backlash and specifies how it can be measured. It then presents the results from three survey experiments – two on Mechanical Turk and one on a nationally representative sample – that find no evidence of backlash, even under theoretically favorable conditions. While a casual reading of the literature on information processing suggests that backlash is rampant, these results indicate that it is much rarer than commonly supposed.

LIS Students at a Japanese University Use Smartphones for Social Communication more often than for Educational Purposes

A Review of:
 Lau, K. P., Chiu, D. K. W., Ho, K. K. W., Lo, P., & See-To, E. W. K. (2017). Educational usage of mobile devices: Differences between postgraduate and undergraduate students. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 43(3), 201-208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2017.03.004
 Abstract
 Objective – To discover how undergraduate (UG) and graduate (G; “postgraduate” [PG] in the original article) students of library and information science (LIS) use mobile devices and to understand preferences and perceived barriers to educational use.
 Design – Survey questionnaire.
 Setting – University in Japan.
 Subjects – Ninety undergraduate students (30 male, 60 female) and 30 graduate students (13 male, 17 female). Nineteen additional recruits were excluded from the study due to incomplete surveys. Almost all subjects (>98%) were born between 1982 and 2002.
 Methods – Subjects were recruited without incentives from one LIS department. An online survey was conducted with the purpose of gathering information on how often devices were used for various activities, perceived barriers to mobile learning (m-learning), and demographic data. The survey was modeled on a 2015 study of LIS students in Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan (Ko, Chiu, Lo, & Ho, 2015). The Mann-Whitley U test was used to investigate possible significant differences between UG and G responses.
 Main Results – 94.2% of participants had smartphones with Internet access; both UG and G subjects reported weekly to daily use for social communications (email, short message service [SMS], chat, and social media) and for querying search engines. Both UG and G subjects reported using finance and banking services less than once a month. Other activities (shopping, finding locations, entertainment, sports, tools and productivity software, casual reading, academic reading, accessing reference materials, accessing libraries) for both groups fell within the range of less than once per month to weekly use. Unlike G subjects, UG subjects reported significant (p < 0.05) engagement with social media and marginal (p < 0.10) engagement with accessing libraries, and productivity tools.
 In terms of educational use, neither UG nor G subjects reported daily m-learning behaviors, instead reporting monthly to weekly browsing of online information and social networking sites, with far less (i.e., less than once a month) engagement with professional articles, e-books, learning management platforms, and several other activities (listening to podcasts, viewing videos, “other”). UG subjects reported significant marginal (p < 0.10) engagement with “other” materials, unlike G subjects. Library catalogs and databases were less likely to be used when compared to reference sources, with UG and G subjects reporting monthly or less use for these. When asked if they would use mobile library services, respondents answered “maybe interested if available”, with UG subject reporting significant marginal (p < 0.10) engagement vs. G subjects for several of these services. Regarding productivity activities, both UG and G subjects reported monthly or less use of note taking, word processing, and scheduling tools. For communication and sharing activities, subjects reported monthly or less activity for communicating with classmates, using email for study-related issues, posting to discussions on learning management platforms, posting or commenting about their studies on social networking sites, sending photos or videos to social media, moving document files, and scanning Quick Response (QR) codes. UG subjects were marginally (p < 0.10) more engaged in communicating with classmates than G subjects.
 Barriers to m-learning were not considered “high” barriers, with “low” to “medium” barriers for both UG and G subjects being small screen size, non-mobile format, difficulty typing, challenges with authentication, no Wi-Fi, difficulty reading, lack of specialized apps, and slow loading times.
 Conclusion – This study provides a snapshot of how participants used mobile devices at the time the survey was conducted. Both UG and G subjects used their devices for social communication more than for educational purposes.

A Study of the Effect of Doughnut Chart Parameters on Proportion Estimation Accuracy

AbstractPie and doughnut charts nicely convey the part–whole relationship and they have become the most recognizable chart types for representing proportions in business and data statistics. Many experiments have been carried out to study human perception of the pie chart, while the corresponding aspects of the doughnut chart have seldom been tested, even though the doughnut chart and the pie chart share several similarities. In this paper, we report on a series of experiments in which we explored the effect of a few fundamental design parameters of doughnut charts, and additional visual cues, on the accuracy of such charts for proportion estimates. Since mobile devices are becoming the primary devices for casual reading, we performed all our experiments on such device. Moreover, the screen size of mobile devices is limited and it is therefore important to know how such size constraint affects the proportion accuracy. For this reason, in our first experiment we tested the chart size and we found that it has no significant effect on proportion accuracy. In our second experiment, we focused on the effect of the doughnut chart inner radius and we found that the proportion accuracy is insensitive to the inner radius, except the case of the thinnest doughnut chart. In the third experiment, we studied the effect of visual cues and found that marking the centre of the doughnut chart or adding tick marks at 25% intervals improves the proportion accuracy. Based on the results of the three experiments, we discuss the design of doughnut charts and offer suggestions for improving the accuracy of proportion estimates.

Géneros de Gente in Early Colonial Mexico: Defining Racial Difference by Robert C. Schwaller

Reviewed by: Géneros de Gente in Early Colonial Mexico: Defining Racial Difference by Robert C. Schwaller Matt O'Hara (bio) Géneros de Gente in Early Colonial Mexico: Defining Racial Difference robert c. schwaller University of Oklahoma Press, 2016 304 pp. The historical problem of social difference—the labeling of people as part of putative groups, the laws and legislation meant to control the interaction of colonial subjects, the experiences of those inhabiting different categories—has been one of the most productive topics for historical writing on the early societies of Spanish America. With some notable exceptions, much of our knowledge about these topics comes from work on the late colonial period, and especially from studies of New Spain's urban centers in the second half of the eighteenth century. We know much less about the sixteenth century, whether for cities or rural areas, which is surprising given that this period was obviously a crucible of colonial ethno-genesis. Robert Schwaller's new book, Géneros de gente in Early Colonial [End Page 617] Mexico: Defining Racial Difference, helps to fill this historiographical gap, and in the process offers a major contribution to the literature on social difference and the evolution of its legal foundations, linguistic qualities, and lived realities in the earliest America. Focusing on the core of the viceroyalty of New Spain—its northern mining centers, central highlands, and near southern regions—Schwaller organizes the book in two parts. Part 1 reconstructs the Iberian cultural and ideological frameworks of New Spain's social categorization, the travel of those concepts to the Americas, and early colonial legislation and rulings on the subject (such as marriage policy, the status of the enslaved, and restrictions on place of residence). He proposes we use the term géneros de gente or "types of people" to describe these phenomena. This small change in nomenclature is a significant intervention in the ongoing debates on the subject. In the past, most scholars have used different period terms, such as casta ("caste") and calidad ("quality/social status"), or employed the modern analytic categories of race and ethnicity. Schwaller, in contrast, argues that genéros de gente better captures how sixteenth-century historical actors understood their society: one that was pluralistic and filled with discernibly different peoples. He also prefers género for its capaciousness. It is a roomier term for glossing the many categories and labels that were used at the time, which could include elements of what we would now call race or ethnicity, but also notions of status, social networks, casual readings of appearance, religious qualities, or geographic origins. Put simply, social difference could mean something very different in the sixteenth century than it did in the more heavily studied eighteenth century, let alone our present, and the géneros de gente label is meant to help readers keep our eyes on the sixteenth-century present. Part 2 presents us with a wealth of archival material, examining the experiences of géneros de gente, especially individuals ascribed with the intermediate labels of mestizo and mulato. Schwaller reads a diverse body of sources with great skill (see, for example, his expert use of Inquisition trials and petitions for the right to bear arms). Through careful dissection of these materials, Schwaller finds intriguing examples of "tacit españoles" throughout chapter 3: that is, individuals of mixed parentage (usually Spanish and indigenous), whose archival traces suggest that they were (tacitly) recognized as Spanish. In the same chapter, he also finds numerous [End Page 618] cases of "tacit indios." Together, these sources demonstrate that social and cultural factors, especially connections to the Spanish or indigenous elite, could strongly influence lived identities, in addition to the obvious elements of lineage and descent. The sixteenth-century category of mestizo was truly liminal, in other words, reserved for those understood to be culturally and socially between two worlds or who did not demonstrate sufficient characteristics associated with indio or español. The label mulato, in contrast, which is examined at length in its own chapter, tended to be applied to anyone understood to be of partial African descent, an early example of a racial logic that would persist in many...

Abstract P541: Ambulatory Blood Pressure and Endothelial Dysfunction an Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Patients

Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is a common treatment for malignancies, metabolic, and genetic disorders. Albuminuria post-HCT, which may represent systemic endothelial injury or inflammation from graft vs host disease, increases the risk of kidney disease and non-relapse mortality at 1 year post-HCT. HCT patients are also known to have abnormal blood pressure (BP) and increased rates of cardiovascular complications. We sought to determine the relationships between albuminuria, endothelial dysfunction and ambulatory BP in HCT patients. Patients ≥ 12 years of age who had their first allogeneic HCT between 2012-2015 and survived through day 80 were eligible. Peripheral endothelial function was assessed using the EndoPAT2000 device at day 80 post HCT along with a 24 hour ambulatory blood pressure monitor (ABPM) study. Clinical and lab data were collected and a urine sample for an albumin to creatinine ratio (ACR). Both logistic and linear regression analyses were used to identify associations between EndoPAT score and clinical variables including eGFR, 24 hour ABPM study, albuminuria, and serum lipids. Sixty patients completed the study. The median age was 48 years (range, 14-69). The median EndoPAT score (RHI normal ≥ 1.69) was 2.05 (range, 1.02- 4.45) and 28% (17/60) of the patients had abnormal endothelial function. Forty-two patients (72%) had hypertension based on the 24-hr ABPM results and 63% of the patients (38/60) had abnormal nocturnal dipping. Hypertension on ABPM (p = 0.04), abnormal nocturnal dipping (p=0.04), and elevated serum triglyceride levels (p=0.03) were associated with a lower EndoPAT score. Albuminuria was not associated with EndoPAT score or hypertension based on ABPM. Abnormal nocturnal dipping was associated with lower eGFR (p=0.03). There was a lack of agreement between office BP and use of medications and results on a 24 hour ABPM study (p < 0.001). We did not find a correlation with lower EndoPAT scores and albuminuria; we did find associations between abnormal nocturnal dip, elevated triglyceride levels and hypertension diagnosed by 24 hour ABPM. Casual office BP readings do not accurately reflect the HCT patient’s true BP suggesting that 24 hour ABPM studies are needed to diagnose and treat hypertension appropriately.

Hesiod's Theogony: From Near Eastern Creation Myths to Paradise Lost by Stephen Scully

Reviewed by: Hesiod's Theogony: From Near Eastern Creation Myths to Paradise Lost by Stephen Scully Deborah Lyons Stephen Scully. Hesiod's Theogony: From Near Eastern Creation Myths to Paradise Lost. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. xiv + 268 pp. Cloth, $85.00. The heart of Stephen Scully's book is a masterful inquiry into the place of the Theogony in literary history, in the course of which he makes important observations about the evolution of ancient Greek ideas of the cosmos, divinity, sexuality and gender, justice, and the polis. He prefaces his historical investigations with a careful reading of the poem on its own terms, before looking backward toward its sources and then forward toward the influence it exerted on later texts. Literary analysis and literary history are carefully interwoven, as Scully's initial reading of the poem provides a road map for the historical sections of the book. The introduction briefly addresses contemporary cosmogonic thinking, before going on to explore theogonic themes in the work of Sigmund Freud. Here, Scully highlights his interest in the conflict between anarchic sexuality and social order, which will later reappear in his detailed treatment of Hesiod's poem and in the historical sections. Chapter 1 compares first Homer to Hesiod and then the Theogony to Genesis. Chapter 2 offers a reading of the Theogony that highlights both its formal and thematic aspects. These features will turn out to have central importance for his situation of the Theogony in the earlier and later traditions. His focus on the political reverberates throughout his discussion of ancient Mesopotamian and Indo-European traditions and the later influence of the poem, while observations about Hesiod's poetics come back into play especially in his reading of Milton. In Chapter 3, the author discusses the candidates for ancient sources—Mesopotamian, Phoenician, and Egyptian—for the myths of the Theogony. This part of the book draws heavily on the work of previous scholars (West, López-Ruiz, etc.) but is nonetheless useful for the clarity of its exposition of a complex topic in a relatively short space. Chapters 4 through 6 detail the influence of the Theogony on later writers, first Greeks and Romans, followed by early Christians, and then (with increasingly sparse material) through later periods, before arriving at his end-point, Milton's Paradise Lost. The last section on Milton finally offers enough material to allow for an extended—and rewarding—parallel reading of the two poems. Scully's insights about the poem, while based on previous scholarship, are well developed and relevant to his larger theme. Drawing on the work of Thalmann (1984), he shows how Hesiod's choice of words frequently activates the meanings inherent in the names and personified abstractions that people this heavily [End Page 181] populated text. For example, lines 64–71 introduce the Muses, describing them in words that prefigure their names: thaliēs eratēn … melpontai … kleiousin … opi kalei, etc. When their actual names appear in the following lines (75–79), we have already heard them in the descriptions of their activities. Zeroing in on the ways that the poet sometimes anticipates and at other times follows the introduction of a mythic personage with related nouns and verbs that activate the meaning of the figure in question, he shows that the text is far more fully inhabited by these divine beings than a casual reading—or a reading in translation—can possibly reveal. Indeed, Scully has interesting things to say about the dilemmas posed for text editors (and even more for translators) in deciding which abstractions should be capitalized as personifications, and which are simply common nouns. Scully's other, and ultimately more consequential, major interpretive move is to make the strong case for a political (in the root sense of the word) reading of the poem. According to this line of thought, the telos of the poem's violent generational battles of succession is the creation of a proto-polis on Olympus, a reserve of calm amidst the violence of the surrounding universe, which will serve as a model for mortals. The Zeus of Hesiod is not an orderer of the universe, but a provider...

Print Vs E-publications: Usage Preference by Health Professionals of Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana (Punjab)

Library is a repository of reading material for use. During the last two and half decades, there has been a tremendous growth in information and communication technology (ICT) which has swayed not only publishing industry but also on the readers as well. With the development in ICT, books and journals are published in print and electronic formats. However, both of the formats have advantages and disadvantages over each other. Old generation still prefer to read print books and journals, whereas new generation prefer online text. Advent of new reading devices like Kindle, Nook, I Pad, and smart phones have made e-reading easy. Various surveys across the world have been done to know the preference of the users towards print and e-text and it has been concluded that for comprehensive reading, print books and journals are used whereas for casual reading or research projects, online books and journals are required. Keeping in view the users preference, it is assumed that print and e-version of books and journals will go simultaneously. http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/djlit.36.2.9363

Casual Reading Habits and Interpersonal Reactivity: A Correlational Study

Empathy, as a factor has been widely researched about in counselling and clinical situations. Most recently, it is being explored in terms of positive psychology. Several studies have linked empathy to general well-being and life satisfaction of people. It has also shown a reduction in social conflicts and increased peace-keeping intentions. Therefore it is important to understand factors that can lead to an increase in empathy in individuals. This is a study that attempted to understand if there is a relationship between casual reading and interpersonal reactivity-which measures dimensions of cognitive and emotional empathy. Reading has been linked to several benefits for people among which are also emotional and cognitive maturity. This study tried to understand if these benefits extend to include empathy as well. The respondents were all post-graduate students chosen through convenient sampling method. For this purpose, the researcher developed a Casual Reading Checklist which was aimed at understanding the frequency and range of the casual reading habits of people. A total reading habit score was derived out of the same. Along with this, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davies, 1980) was administered to respondents. This scale helps understand empathy over four distinct dimensions- Perspective-taking, Fantasy, Empathic Concern and Personal Distress. A correlation analysis was undertaken to check if there was a relationship between the dimensions of empathy and casual reading habits. Results indicated a significant correlation between casual reading habits and the combined score from the dimensions of Cognitive Empathy. This was an attempt to understand if there is a possibility of using the habit of reading in the form of psychotherapy for general well-being and life satisfaction-at the individual as well as the societal level.