Central Reference Point Research Articles

Black hole Cosmos and the Micro Cosmos

Point of ‘big bang’ can be considered as the center or characteristic reference point of cosmic expansion in all directions. If so, the existence of ‘preferred direction’ in the universe may not be wrong. Based on the Mach’s principle, it can be suggested that, within the ‘Hubble volume’ overall distribution of ‘Hubble mass’ will explain the observed physical phenomena. With the discovered applications it is very clear to say that, without a joint and unified study of cosmology and atomic & particle physics, one should not deny the concepts of black hole cosmology. The most interesting thing is that, at any given cosmic time, if the universe is a primordial growing black hole, then certainly its ‘Schwarzschild radius’ can be considered as its characteristic minimum size at that time. Clearly speaking, “forever rotating at light speed, high temperature and high angular velocity small sized primordial cosmic black hole gradually transforms into a low temperature and low angular velocity large sized massive primordial cosmic black hole”. Independent of the redshift observations and considering the proposed relations, with a great confidence now one can start seeing/observing the universe as a primordial expanding and light speed rotating black hole. Based on the proposed relations and concepts of black hole cosmology, definitions of cosmic homogeneity and cosmic isotropy must be readdressed. It is also clear that, now the black hole universe is expanding in a decelerating mode at a very small rate in such a way that with current technology one cannot measure its deceleration rate. Finally it can be suggested that cosmic acceleration and dark energy can be considered as pure mathematical concepts and there exists no physical base behind their affirmation. For the most serious cosmologists this may be bitter news, but it is a fact. Authors hope that, by 2015 definitely this subject will come into main stream physics. With reference to Black hole cosmology, it can be suggested that, characteristic nuclear charge radius and the characteristic angular momentum of the revolving electron increase with cosmic time. In addition, characteristic nuclear charge radius is more fundamental than the reduced Planck’s constant. The key point to be noted is that the Planck’s constant can be considered as a cosmological constant.

Confucian Heritage Cultural Background (CHCB) as a Descriptor for Chinese Learners: The Legitimacy

This paper critically reviews the commonly referenced idea of the Confucian Heritage Cultural Background (CHCB) Chinese learners from a cultural and historical perspective. It challenges the legitimacy of using this idea as a central reference point to explain Chinese learners’ learning. Instead it examines the influence and the cultural and historical significance of the examination heritage framework. It argues that despite the continuous changes and external pressures that China is subjected to in today’s globalization and rapid changing education scene, assessment still plays a vital role.

Only Context: Canonising Humphrey Jennings/Conceptualising British Documentary Film History

This article assesses the predominant ways in which critics and historians have traditionally understood the career of Humphrey Jennings, long considered the British documentary movement's leading film-maker. The terms in which we have previously understood Jennings’ career form part and parcel of how we have hitherto narrated British documentary film history, as a ‘rise and fall’ story that ends around the time of his death. The assumptions underlying this story are now up for debate. This article is therefore an exercise in positive historical revisionism. It is not an attempt to diminish Jennings’ reputation. The canonisation of film-makers and other cultural figures is a historical process as much as it is a recognition of inherent aesthetic value. This article makes visible some of the historical and institutional contexts framing the emergence of three different versions of ‘Jennings’. These can broadly be summarised as: the quality film-maker; the poet; the modernist. Underpinning the latter two versions, ever since the publication of Lindsay Anderson's classic article ‘Only Connect’ in 1954, are three assumptions: a relatively conventional Romantic conception of Jennings as an individual artist, the people's war as a central point of reference, and the ‘rise and fall’ story of British documentary history. This article concludes that dislodging these assumptions can fruitfully lead to valid new perspectives on both Jennings and the longer history of British documentary.

TU‐G‐103‐07: Quantifying the Dose Distribution of OBI CBCT Using Monte Carlo Simulations with a Measurement‐Based Source Model

Purpose: To test the feasibility of using a measurement‐based source model in Monte Carlo simulations to calculate in‐phantom 3D dose distributions, with the application to kV‐CBCT dose quantification on a Varian OBI platform. Methods: A 3‐part nested CTDI phantom was used in this investigation. It contains 7 tracks in the x‐y plane that can be probed. The central reference point of the phantom was aligned at machine isocenter, and using standard head and pelvis CBCT protocols, point dose measurements were made at various 3D locations with a 0.6cc thimble ionization chamber by moving the phantom along the z‐direction and changing the ionization chamber position among the tracks under repetitive scans. We have generated a measurement‐based source model for the OBI system and incorporated it with the Monte Carlo software MCNPX to model each CBCT protocol under examination. The in‐phantom CBCT dose (mGy per particle) was simulated at all 3D measurement locations and converted to absolute dose (mGy) by normalizing with the ratio between measured and Monte Carlo simulated dose at the reference center. The calculated results were compared with the physical measurement and their discrepancies were assessed quantitatively. Results: Agreement was observed between Monte Carlo simulation results and in‐phantom measurements for both the OBI CBCT head and pelvis protocols. For the head protocol, the average agreement was 3.40% with a maximum and minimum disagreement of 5.72% and 1.61%, respectively. For the pelvis protocol, the average agreement was 3.18% with a maximum and minimum disagreement of 4.29% and 1.87%, respectively. Conclusion: We have demonstrated the accuracy of a measurement‐based OBI source model to reproduce an array of measured point doses in phantom when using the CBCT mode of operation. These results serve as the basis for using this source model to investigate OBI dosimetry with anthropomorphic phantoms and patient specific models. (a) Dr. McNitt‐Gray: Institutional research agreement, Siemens AG;Recipient research support Siemens AG; Consultant, Flaherty Sensabaugh Bonasso PLLC; Consultant, Fulbright and Jaworski, LLC; (b) Dr. Dan Ruan: Recipient research support AACR; Recipient research support TRDRP; (c) K McMillan: Research partially supported by a grant from Siemens AG; Research partially supported by a grant from AACR; Research partially supported by a grant from TRDRP

"I will walk away on my own, phantom-footed": Judith Ortiz Cofer's Invocation of the Constant Move

Cultural production in the diaspora foregrounds themes of movement, border crossing, and the struggle over what and where home should be. To venture onto the road (or onto the airplane) and to grapple with the concept of home are key experiences for Puerto Rican Americans. For Jorge Duany, Puerto Rican realities are constructed to a large degree by the experience of el vaiven, or the back-and-forth movement “of people [that] creates a porous border zone” (“Nation on the Move” 19). Traveling over the western Atlantic in a pattern of pendular migrations is a striking example of the “spreading of seed,” as the Greek roots of the word diaspora suggest (Otero 276). Among the artistic responses to this experience is a nostalgic and ultimately conservative placing of a past home in a present space. Texts by some writers of the early Nuyorican movement, such as Piri Thomas or the poets published in Miguel Algarin and Miguel Pinero’s Nuyorican Poetry: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Words and Feelings (1975), relocate the island home to New York City as a means of self-defense and self-affirmation. Other authors, rejecting the idea of a newfound physical home, contend that the notion of a home for the exiled is only possible in literature. In recent texts, a new interpretation of the idea of home in diaspora has emerged: instead of, on the one hand, a transferred, idealized, or suspended home between the present and the past, or on the other hand, a home bound to a written text, authors propose the model of home as movement. The notion of dwelling, they suggest, does not necessarily have to be associated with the concepts of stasis and origin; instead, it may also be constituted through travel. A case in point is the writing of Puerto Rican American author Judith Ortiz Cofer. This essay charts the presentation and signification of movement in several of her works; it focuses on Ortiz Cofer’s elaboration of the act of walking in order to argue that it is through such physical and individual exercise that her characters create mobile spaces of residence. Although the notion of home is present in diverse ways in Ortiz Cofer’s texts, the description of a home in motion has become a key motif in her more recent work, especially in her poetry. Such an account of dwelling in travel is different from what has become one of the central critical concepts in this field, Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari’s notion of nomadology. According to the two philosophers, nomadology entails a radical deterritorialization (Qu’est-ce 186). The nomadic subject travels through spaces of no horizon, without “any . . . generic axis or deep structure” (“Rhizome” 101). Language, in their view, does not connect spaces; it is a decentering force itself. In contrast, the notion of home is not abandoned in Ortiz Cofer’s writing but remains a central point of reference—although in a decidedly new fashion, echoing

Race, nation and education

This paper reviews the recent history of English education in connection with British state attempts to ‘manage diversity’. It offers a new analysis on points of coherence and tension between the role of education and state policies in relation to race and ethnicity. Drawing on the Prevent strategy as an example, the paper highlights the role that education has played in the construction of ethnic minorities as ‘problems’ to be managed or contained. It is argued that assimilation into a (superior) British culture has remained a constant theme (Grosvenor 1997), but has been more pronounced in periods of economic uncertainty and geopolitical dislocations (Gilroy 2004). The targets of containment policies have also changed, from African Caribbeans, predominantly, in the 1970s and 1980s to Muslims, in general, since then, but race (albeit recoded through ethnicity, community and/or faith) has been a central reference point in state discourses on minorities.

Educational Media, Textbooks, and Postcolonial Relocations of Memory Politics in Europe

Cultures of remembrance or memory cultures have constituted an interdisciplinary field of research since the 1990s. While this field has achieved a high level of internal differentiation, it generally views its remit as one that encompasses “all imaginable forms of conscious remembrance of historical events, personalities, and processes.” In contrast to this comprehensive and therefore rather vague definition of “culture of remembrance” or “memory culture”, we use the term “politics of memory” here and in what follows in a more specific sense, in order to emphasize “the moment at which the past is made functional use of in the service of present-day purposes, to the end of shaping an identity founded in history.” Viewing the issue in terms of discourse analysis, we may progress directly from this definition to identify and investigate politics of memory as a discourse of strategic resignifications of the past as formulated in history and implemented in light of contemporary identity politics. While the nation-state remains a central point of reference for the politics of memory, the field is by no means limited to official forms of the engagement of states with their past. In other words, it does not relate exclusively to the official character of a state’s policy on history. Instead, it also encompasses the strategic politics of memory and identity pursued by other stakeholders in a society, a politics that frequently, but not always, engages explicitly with state-generated and state-sanctioned memory politics. Thus, the politics of memory is currently unfolding as a discourse of ongoing, highly charged debate surrounding collective self-descriptions in modern, “culturally” multilayered, and heterogeneous societies, where self-descriptions draw on historical developments and events that are subject to conflict.

Stressful events in autobiographical memory processing: Brazilian version of the centrality of event scale

A stressful or traumatic event may become a central reference point in the organization of long-term memory, influencing the meaning of other experiences. The Centrality of Event Scale (CES) is an instrument in which participants recall the most traumatic event of their life and endorse 20 items. The CES was translated, adapted and validated for the Brazilian context in a sample of 195 undergraduates (75.8% women). The version obtained good internal consistency and significant correlation with a screening measure of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms. New hypotheses on the cognitive processing of traumatic events are explored in the light of a factor analysis of the CES. Opportunities for CES use include monitoring cognitive patterns and therapeutic effectiveness in situations related to trauma.

BARRY, BEETHOVEN AND ‘BEETHOVEN’: IMMORTALITY AND INFLUENCE

AbstractBeethoven's famous letter to ‘The Immortal Beloved’ still remains a central reference point for our image of his life and music. Gerald Barry's 2007 composition for bass voice and ensemble – simply entitled Beethoven – sets this text in its entirety, continuing an engagement with Beethoven's own words and presenting a striking juxtaposition of language and music. This article explores the ways in which Barry at times underpins and in other places undercuts the apparent meaning of the words, and how he presents a reading of the letter that is clearly alive to its inherent self-contradictions. Characteristically, Barry brings together a number of highly expressive and strongly contrasted musical characters in this work; an examination of aspects of his compositional language illustrates how material is propagated and form articulated, and explores the way in which these techniques interact in the creation of an expressive and emotionally charged whole.

The Filming of Modern Life: European Avant-Garde Film of the 1920s

Malcolm Turvey, the author of The Filming of Modern Life, is a good candidate for the task of providing a fresh and original perspective on the European film avant garde of the 1920s, a canonized and relatively well-known period in film history. A professor at Sarah Lawrence College, Turvey has previously published Doubting Vision: Film and the Revelationist Tradition,1 an unorthodox study of the theories of Jean Epstein, Dziga Vertov, Béla Balázs and Siegfried Kracauer. Using the term ‘revelation(ist)’ as a central point of reference, the book surveys and gathers a number of theoretical approaches that reach beyond and question central concepts such as modernism or realism. This revelationist tradition can be traced from the 1920s all the way to Stanley Cavell and Gilles Deleuze. Moreover, Turvey acts as one of the editors of October, a journal that has consistently focused on the legacy and lasting vivacity of the avant garde.

Polymer scaling laws of unfolded and intrinsically disordered proteins quantified with single-molecule spectroscopy

The dimensions of unfolded and intrinsically disordered proteins are highly dependent on their amino acid composition and solution conditions, especially salt and denaturant concentration. However, the quantitative implications of this behavior have remained unclear, largely because the effective theta-state, the central reference point for the underlying polymer collapse transition, has eluded experimental determination. Here, we used single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy and two-focus correlation spectroscopy to determine the theta points for six different proteins. While the scaling exponents of all proteins converge to 0.62±0.03 at high denaturant concentrations, as expected for a polymer in good solvent, the scaling regime in water strongly depends on sequence composition. The resulting average scaling exponent of 0.46±0.05 for the four foldable protein sequences in our study suggests that the aqueous cellular milieu is close to effective theta conditions for unfolded proteins. In contrast, two intrinsically disordered proteins do not reach the Θ-point under any of our solvent conditions, which may reflect the optimization of their expanded state for the interactions with cellular partners. Sequence analyses based on our results imply that foldable sequences with more compact unfolded states are a more recent result of protein evolution.

Aspirations as reference points: an experimental investigation of risk behavior over time

This paper examines the importance of aspirations as reference points in a multi-period decision-making context. After stating their personal aspiration level, 172 individuals made six sequential decisions among risky prospects as part of a choice experiment. The results show that individuals make different risky-choices in a multi-period compared to a single-period setting. In particular, individuals’ aspiration level is their main reference point during the early stages of decision-making, while their starting status (wealth level at the start of the experiment) becomes the central reference point during the later stages of their multi-period decision-making.

Skin markings methods and guidelines: A reality in image guidance radiotherapy era

Preparation of site of radiation delivery is an important process in radiation treatment planning and plays a crucial role during a course of radiotherapy to achieve reproducibility of set-up and accuracy of treatment delivery. The preparation of treatment area is done by markings of field center, field edge or other reference point of planned field. Both non-invasive (marker pen, henna) and invasive methods (tattoo) are available for marking with limitations of each. Tattoo with a needle pricked at angle of 30° to 1-2 mm depth to create tattoo 2-3 mm diameter in size is an ideal procedure. Visibility, permanent nature, social-religious belief, and mobility of skin are one of the main concerns about tattoo. Tattoo removal can be done performed if desirable by patients by various modern ways, which will be esthetically available. Dermabrasion, cryotherapy, surgery, QSRL (Q-switched ruby laser) are common methods of tattoo removal. Esthetic dissatisfaction, allergy, dermatoses, keloids, infection, fanning/fading of tattoo are associated problems. In IMRT and IGRT treatment, delivery dependence on tattoo in reduced and use of surrogate markers including particularly for bony set-up and implanted markers (e.g. gold seeds) for tumor localization and treatment verification is increasing. However, these are complex procedures and require an expertise. Ease of set-up and less time required for tattooing are one of the main advantages of tattoo as compared to external or internal marker set-up. Tattoo still remains a crucial method of positioning, especially in developing countries and in palliative treatment settings.

The Effect of Shame and Shame Memories on Paranoid Ideation and Social Anxiety

Social wariness and anxiety can take different forms. Paranoid anxiety focuses on the malevolence of others, whereas social anxiety focuses on the inadequacies in the self in competing for social position and social acceptance. This study investigates whether shame and shame memories are differently associated with paranoid and social anxieties. Shame, traumatic impact of shame memory, centrality of shame memory, paranoia and social anxiety were assessed using self-report questionnaires in 328 participants recruited from the general population. Results from path analyses show that external shame is specifically associated with paranoid anxiety. In contrast, internal shame is specifically associated with social anxiety. In addition, shame memories, which function like traumatic memories, or that are a central reference point to the individual's self-identity and life story, are significantly associated with paranoid anxiety, even when current external and internal shame are considered at the same time. Thus, traumatic impact of shame memory and centrality of shame memory predict paranoia (but not social anxiety) even when considering for current feelings of shame. Our study supports the evolutionary model suggesting there are two different types of 'conspecific' anxiety, with different evolutionary histories, functions and psychological processes. Paranoia, but less so social anxiety, is associated with traumatic impact and the centrality of shame memories. Researchers and clinicians should distinguish between types of shame memory, particularly those where the self might have felt vulnerable and subordinate and perceived others as threatening and hostile, holding malevolent intentions towards the self.

"Squarci di notti romane": Pasolini's Early Authorial Confessions

PIER Paolo Pasolini's first piece of Roman prose, the novella di notti romane, deserves more critical attention than it has received thus far. Written in 1950 following the author's relocation from the Friulian town of Casarsa to Rome, and first appearing in the 1965 Garzanti collection All dagli occhi azzurri, Squarci presents one of Pasolini's earliest articulations of the ragazzo di vita, a figure that became known with the 1955 publication of his first novel, Ragazzi di vita, and more so in 1961 with his first film, Accattone. A young man of the Roman subproletariat who makes a living through illicit means, such as petty thievery, pimping, and male prostitution, the ragazzo embodies Pasolini's concept of an innocent, amoral class that remains unspoiled by bourgeois values. Aloof to the ideology of Italy's postwar economic miracle and new consumer culture, the ragazzo is central to the ideological critique that informs Pasolini's Roman prose of the 1950s. What makes Squarci unique, however, with respect to Pasolini's other Roman works, is its self-reflexivity. The protagonist of the novella, a poet in search of nocturnal encounters with Rome's ragazzi, represents Pasolini himself. The novella's most distinct feature is that Pasolini gives his protagonist numerous names--Delatore, Autore, Pygmalion, Villon, Cacarella, Je, Lautreamont, Proust, and more--all of which point, as we will see, to the act of writing. With these alter egos, Pasolini advertizes his own role as the aesthetic interpreter of his adored underclass, more than as its objective observer, emphasizing the literary craft at the basis of the diegesis and especially those ragazzi qualities that allow him to remold the youths into erotic objects. This ensemble of names, which represents diverse aspects of Pasolini's authorial figure, constitutes a self-portrait, Pasolini's definition of his identity as an author--one wishing to display his presence and ability to blur the boundaries between politics and Eros, objectivity and subjectivity, truth and discourse. This complex self-portrait, which Pasolini drew so early in his career, will inform, explicitly or implicitly, the rest of his work. One recalls the 1971 film Decameron, where Pasolini plays the artist who represents in frescoes those Boccaccio tales that we subsequently watch unfold on the screen. Indeed, one may think of Squarci as a manifesto of Pasolini's poetics. By highlighting the ways in which Pasolini parades his authorial control in Squarci, I hope to inspire further critical discussion of this rarely studied work, which deserves to become, I believe, a central point of reference in Pasolini studies. By and large, Pasolini's 1950s prose may be characterized as a form of realism, a variant of the 1940s Neorealist movement in literature, with a special focus on Rome's sub-proletariat. Many elements certainly afford Squarci a realist dimension. The protagonist encounters the ragazzi along the Tiber in the vicinity of Ponte Garibaldi, the bridge that connects the city's historical center to Piazza Belli in Trastevere, not far from Piazza Costaguti in the Jewish ghetto, where Pasolini resided during the first phase of his life in Rome (Pierangeli 119; Siciliano 152-57). In his first piece of Roman prose, Pasolini is eager to recount the enthralling experiences of his newly discovered metropolis, the same ones that he had recounted to his cousin Nico Naldini (Pierangeli 120). The events are told with obsessive historical and geographical specificity. The narrator often states the year, season, and month in which an event unfolds, while he names the exact locations--streets, bridges, piazzas, and monuments--where the characters linger. The ragazzi speak a version of Roman dialect characteristic of their social milieu. Fabio Pierangeli notes that the nearby statue of Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli, Rome's major nineteenth-century dialect poet, which looks over the piazza named after him, has both symbolic and realist functions. …

Accuracy and Coordination of Spatial Frames of Reference during the Exploration of Virtual Maps: Interest for Orientation and Mobility of Blind People?

Even if their spatial reasoning capabilities remain quite similar to those of sighted people, blind people encounter difficulties in getting distant information from their surroundings. Thus, whole body displacements, tactile map consultations, or auditory solutions are needed to establish physical contacts with their environment. Therefore, the accuracy of nonvisual spatial representations heavily relies upon the efficiency of exploration strategies and the ability to coordinate egocentric and allocentric spatial frames of reference. This study aims to better understand the mechanisms of this coordination without vision by analyzing cartographic exploration strategies and assessing their influence on mental spatial representations. Six blind sailors were immersed within a virtual haptic and auditory maritime environment. They were required to learn the layout of the map. Their movements were recorded and we identified some exploration strategies. Then they had to estimate the directions of six particular seamarks in aligned and misaligned situations. Better accuracy and coordination were obtained when participants used the “central point of reference” strategy. Our discussion relative to the articulation between geometric enduring representations and salient transient perceptions provides implications on map reading techniques and on mobility and orientation programs for blind people.

InternatIonalIzatIon or natIonalIzatIon by CommunICatIon? the InternatIonal CommunICatIon relatIons of the German suffraGe movement

The women’s movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were closely connected by a network of manifold communication relations. To analyze the development of social movements and their transnational communication in a systematic way this article presents an analytical framework and then applies it to the German suffrage movement. Considering different stages of domestic social movements (initial phase, organizational phase, phase of establishment) and different types of media (personal letters among the inner circle, newsletters and feminist magazines for all activists and press releases for the general public), the input of international suffrage associations, in particular, is analyzed. It can be shown that, during the initial phase a transfer of ideas and image of suffragists predominated: the German suffrage activists were strongly affected by the international suffrage discourse and it was the international suffrage movement that ultimately caused the organizational structures of the German suffrage movement to be established. It was during the phase of establishment that nationally specific claims were developed. The latter will be discussed via the examination of the controversial debate on the British suffragettes and their tactics within the publications of the German suffrage movement and the German general public, and it will be shown how national patterns of selection and interpretation became the central point of reference within the German suffrage movement.

Colonialismo y santidad en las Islas Marianas: la sangre de los mártires (1668-1676)

In this article I analyze the conquest and colonization of the Marianas islands (1668-1676) as an example of the construction of the Catholic frontier in the Spanish possessions in the Pacific. One of the main objectives consists of analyzing martyrdom as one of the strategies used by the Jesuit missionaries to convert the Marianas islands to the Catholic faith. The first Jesuit martyrs −Diego Luis de San Vitores, Luis de Medina, and Sebastian de Monroy, SJ, among others− were elevated to the category of «distinguished heroes» of the Catholic Reformation who died as victims of the unbeatable barbarians in defence of Christian faith. Martyrdom, as longing and culmination of the missionary experience, turned those peripheral spaces into central points of reference wherein would end up rooting Christian dogma.

Thinking in Pictures: Wrongdoers and Their Re-formulation

This article considers the phenomenon of the heroic wrongdoer in the form of the bandit in Spanish literature and culture, and the implications of the re-formulation of this type in novels of the twentieth century that re-visit the ‘heroic’ period of Spain's political past in the form of the revolution of 1868. It takes Baroja's 1905 novel, La feria de los discretos and the first two novels of Valle-Inclán's trilogy, El ruedo ibérico, La corte de los milagros (1927), and Viva mi dueño (1928) to examine how they take set-pieces of the culture of wrongdoing in Spain in order to weave them into disaffected narratives of modernity. Zugasti's history of banditry was used as a central point of reference by these authors, and examined critically for its assumptions and bias. All three authors reveal the cultural complexities of the representation of the heroic wrongdoer, and allow us to track an evolution from affection to disaffection.

Il PIL: oltre il PIL. E oltre il PIL che c’è?(GDP beyond GDP: what Is there beyond the GDP?)

The article criticises the recent Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Report arguing that the suggestion of developing a series of indicators that would complement the traditional GDP will in fact end up in confirming the centrality of the GDP, which would remain the central theoretical reference point as well as the main policy target. What is needed is a new conceptual framework of which the GDP is only a part, that has the potential to lead to a new synthetical index, replacing the GDP altogether. The article sketches the main characteristics of such a new index. JEL: E01, C43, I30