Diachronic Approach Research Articles

ON THE MUTILATION AND BLINDING OF BYZANTINE EMPERORS FROM THE REIGN OF HERACLIUS I UNTIL THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Whoever reads about Byzantine history probably realises sooner or later that besides killing a pretender or emperor it was quite common to blind him – or to cut off his nose. This latter practice is called rhinotomy. It is the aim of this paper to examine the frequency of and the reasons for these forms of punishment in Byzantiumfrom the beginning of the 7 th century until 1453. The article takes a diachronic approach to the questions regarding Byzantine emperors and pretenders who were blinded or mutilated. The multiple brief case studies provided in the first part thus make up the core of the paper. But the statistical analyses in the second half are nevertheless crucial for the conclusions drawn at the end.

Demand, Values, and Prices in Marx: Contrasting Simultaneous and Temporal Approaches

This essay examines two single-system approaches to the integration of demand, and develops a diachronic approach that integrates two meanings of Marx's “socially necessary labor time.” A one-commodity model of simple reproduction, illustrating how a change in aggregate demand from one period to the next affects the determination of value and exchange value, is used to contrast the simultaneous single-system interpretation of the relationship between values and prices with the temporal single-system interpretation. The simultaneous approach is correct to claim that value and exchange value are determined in reference to production and exchange in the current period; the temporal approach is correct to argue that it is necessary to refer to value magnitudes from the previous period and to theorize value's temporal transference between periods. Using a diachronic approach suggested by Marx, the relationship between value and exchange value can be consistently modeled over time according to variations in the level of demand.

Deep Brain Stimulation, Authenticity and Value.

Deep brain stimulation has been of considerable interest to bioethicists, in large part because of the effects that the intervention can occasionally have on central features of the recipient's personality. These effects raise questions regarding the philosophical concept of authenticity. In this article, we expand on our earlier work on the concept of authenticity in the context of deep brain stimulation by developing a diachronic, value-based account of authenticity. Our account draws on both existentialist and essentialist approaches to authenticity, and Laura Waddell Ekstrom's coherentist approach to personal autonomy. In developing our account, we respond to Sven Nyholm and Elizabeth O'Neill's synchronic approach to authenticity, and explain how the diachronic approach we defend can have practical utility, contrary to Alexandre Erler and Tony Hope's criticism of autonomy-based approaches to authenticity. Having drawn a distinction between the authenticity of an individual's traits and the authenticity of that person's values, we consider how our conception of authenticity applies to the context of anorexia nervosa in comparison to other prominent accounts of authenticity. We conclude with some reflections on the prudential value of authenticity, and by highlighting how the language of authenticity can be invoked to justify covert forms of paternalism that run contrary to the value of individuality that seems to be at the heart of authenticity.

VIRTUAL MUSEUMS FOR LANDSCAPE VALORIZATION AND COMMUNICATION

Abstract. Research in the domain of landscape virtual reconstructions has been mainly focused on digitization and recording inside GIS systems, or real time visualization, paying a minor attention to the development of a methodological approach for the landscape narration, combing different registers, conceptual, emotional incitements and, thus, able to arouse in the public a feeling of emotional “sensing” and self- identification. The landscape reflects also the human activities in the territory and the communities’ cultural patterns, their sense of “belonging”. In a virtual museum of landscapes, the multidisciplinary approach, the multiplication of perspectives and voices, storytelling, acquire primary importance. A Virtual Museum of landscapes should integrate both holistic and delimited visions. The holistic vision requires a diachronic approach, including both present and past phases of life. On the other side, delimited, or “monographic”, representations are useful to go deeper into specific and exemplar stories, regarding specific groups of people. Beside, the emergence of new social media enhancing cultural interactions among people induce the creation of specific social platforms for Cultural Heritage for the active participation of a large number of stakeholders. Co-creation scenarios and tools can be particularly promising. Aton is an example of front-end VR social platform in the web end, for the efficient streaming of medium/large landscape, their exploration and characterization. The Tiber Valley Virtual Museum is an example of sensorial cultural landscape. Starting from the acquisition of topographical data through integrated technologies, several multi-sensory scenarios have been created, inside which visitors can feel embodied and involved.

The power of politics: How political leaders in Serbia discursively manage identity continuity and political change to shape the future of the nation

AbstractThe construction of national identities through political discourse is a growing field of interest to social psychologists, particularly as many countries face changing demographics, borders and social realities as part of globalization, immigration and continued political integration and conflict. Through an analysis of 17 key speeches by Serbian politicians over the past 25 years, the present paper explores the question of how politicians, as entrepreneurs of identity, discursively manage the relationship between identity continuity and political change over time, in attempts to construct the future of a nation. We particularly explore this issue in the context of Serbia's present political aspirations toward joining the European Union. The findings indicate that (i) political change becomes negotiated within the framework of established and legitimized identity discourses that have developed over time, and (ii) while history is frequently drawn on to support political agendas, it is successful to the extent that this history offers a sense of cultural continuity rather than a coherent narrative of historical events and time periods. We conclude by arguing for the benefits that a diachronic approach to political discourse can offer social psychologists interested in the discursive construction of national identity.

Location History in the Humanities

This article addresses the question of the place of History within the broader scholarly domain of the Humanities. It was prompted by the need to continue seeking for more clarity on what History as a domain of scholarly inquiry has in common with the rest of the humanistic disciplines and how that relationship may have changed over the many centuries of the existence the Humanities. The broader context for the discussion in the article is the continued effort by scholars such as Rens Bod, to articulate the general principles and laws that govern scholarship in the humanities. Due to the vastness of the subject matter, the article is essentially sketchy and often schematic. It handles the Humanities in its generality rather than giving an exposition of how History relates to each of the known Humanities disciplines individually, as the latter task is addressed at least partly by other contributions that are being published along with this article. The article takes a diachronic approach, starting with a brief section on the concept of the Humanities in time, and spending more space in discussing the changing relationship between History on one hand and the rest of the humanistic disciplines on the other. The last section provides a summary of the discussion, highlighting the fact that History has been part of the Humanities since antiquity but its linkage with the rest of the humanistic disciplines has seen considerable changes over time.

Bookkeeping methods and accounting controls: Developments within the Abbey of Montecassino from the 15th to the 17th century

The purpose of this paper is to discover the connection between the introduction of the double entry bookkeeping method and accounting controls within the Abbey of Montecassino. In particular, the analysis aims to explore the accounting history at the time of the entrance into the Santa Giustina Congregation from the 15 th to 17 th century. Adopting a diachronic approach, the paper is developed with the aim to understanding if there is a link between entrance into the Santa Giustina congregation and introduction of the double bookkeeping method in 1504. It proves that accounting behaviours are strongly connected with the need for controls between accountants and external users of accounting books, confirming the hypothesis of the new accounting history theory that considers bookkeeping as social construction. The methodology is based on a comparison between two different methods of recording in the Abbey of Montecassino: the first refers to the period from 1450 to 1504 ( Commendatory era) while the second considers the period after entrance into the Santa Giustina Congregation in 1504.

Soil organic carbon changes after deforestation and agrosystem establishment in Amazonia: An assessment by diachronic approach

Abstract Deforestation and agrosystem establishment can alter soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, leading to greenhouse gases emissions and fertility losses, however SOC response has great variability. In the humid tropics like the Amazonia biome, carbon inputs from agrosystems are rarely quantified and described, despite their major contribution to the SOC dynamics after deforestation. We assessed SOC dynamics with repeated measurements in the layer 0–30 cm until five years after deforestation in a diachronic site in French Guiana, cleared with a fire-free method associated to large woody debris inputs. Three agrosystems were studied: one year maize/soybean rotation with disk tillage (DT) and without tillage (NT), and a mowed grassland (G). Aboveground carbon inputs from agrosystems were measured. In addition to SOC stocks assessment, we measured roots carbon stocks, and performed δ 13 C measurements in grassland soil. We found a transient SOC stock increase until 1.5 years after deforestation because of large woody debris inputs from deforestation method, but these C inputs were rapidly mineralized and poorly contributed to SOC stocks 5 years after deforestation. SOC stocks in grassland did not differ from forest despite large hay exports. Thanks to large root-derived carbon inputs, C4-SOC stock in grassland was 10.4 t ha −1 5 years after deforestation (18.7% of the SOC stock). In annual crops, 5 years after deforestation, SOC stocks decreased on average by 18.6% compared to forest. SOC stocks did not differ according to soil tillage since aboveground carbon inputs were similar in DT and NT systems. Lower SOC stocks in annual crops compared to grassland is explained by lower carbon restitutions and by higher mineralization rate of organic matter.

Dialectical Communicationn Studies in Written Instructions of a Discipline in Documents on Dialectics, Logic, and Rhetoric, Philosophy, and the Modern Humanities in Greek, Latin, and Modern Vernacular European Languages from Antiquity to the 21st Century.

Dialectics a scholarly tradition of communication, which can be traced to the earliest beginnings of European culture in Greece and still continues in the contemporary tradition of academic studies. In this work studies of the written instructions of this discipline in documents of dialectics, logic, and rhetoric, in philosophy, and the modern humanities will be presented and discussed in commenting annotations in Greek, Latin, and modern vernacular European languages from antiquity to the 21st century in a diachronic approach showing the elements and methods of this type of scholarly communication.

Rhetoric In Situ

Rhetoric <i>In Situ</i>

石黒圭・橋本行洋(編), 『話し言葉と書き言葉の接点』, ひつじ書房, 2014

石黒圭・橋本行洋(編), 『話し言葉と書き言葉の接点』, ひつじ書房, 2014

The Sanskrit (Pseudo)Periphrastic Future

AbstractThe paradigmatic status of the Sanskrit periphrastic future is widely taken for granted. I argue that all the criteria for distinguishing the periphrastic future as a paradigmatic tense formation from a syntactic collocation of agent noun plus copula are problematic, except in one small set of Sanskrit texts. The evidence requires a nuanced diachronic approach: in early Vedic Prose we may reasonably speak of a paradigmatic ‘periphrastic future’ (though it may not be periphrastic), but outside this period the formation is merely a special use of the agent noun.

Fine-scale species distribution changes in a mixed oak stand over two successive generations.

Large-scale tree distribution changes have received considerable attention but underlying demo-genetic mechanisms are less well documented. We used a diachronic approach to track species shifts in a mixed oak stand (Quercus petraea-Quercusrobur) at a fine spatiotemporal scale. Species assignment was made using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) fingerprints employing clustering and parentage analysis. Mating patterns and reproductive success were assessed by parentage analysis. Plot-based inventories of soil parameters and sapling densities provided ecological and demographic information, respectively. Sapling density and reproductive success was higher in Q.petraea than in Q.robur, and were correlated with a spatial expansion of Q.petraea (50% to 67% of the area). Admixed trees resulting from hybridization and backcrossing between the two species were more frequent under the Q.robur canopy. We suspect that species' differential responses to ongoing environmental changes and interspecific competition are the predominant factors accounting for the recruitment success of Q.petraea, while human interference, differential reproduction and hybridization (and backcrossings) are probably of more limited importance. We anticipate in mixed Q.petraea-Q.robur stands, under current ongoing environmental change, that these processes will be enhanced, at least in the western part of the distribution of the two species.

A citation-based cross-disciplinary study on literature ageing: part II—diachronous aspects

In the first part of our study (Zhang and Glanzel in Scientometrics, 2017) we provided a view of the literature ageing based on a synchronous approach. Taking up the ideas by Egghe (Scientometrics 27(2):195---214, 1993) and Glanzel et al. (Scientometrics 109(3):2165---2179, 2016) we extend our study in the second part by applying a diachronous approach on the basis of citing literature. For this purpose we used the Prospective Price Index which was recently introduced by Glanzel et al. (Scientometrics 109(3):2165---2179, 2016). Finally, we compare the two aspects of literature ageing. In particular, we analyze the correlation between the share of recent references and the share of fast response, and found a generally positive correlation between both aspects at different levels of aggregation (subfields, major fields and the individual paper level). However, the consistence varies among different aggregations. For examples, on the level of subject fields, Chemistry, Biology, Neuroscience & Behavior are found with evidently better ranks by Prospective Price Index than Price Index, indicating their faster ageing process in the mirror of citations than references, while Engineering and Social sciences are found with the opposite ageing features. At the journal level, we observed a striking divergence between the reference and citation ageing patterns in some cases. Thus several journals proved `hard' from the perspective of information sources (cited papers) but, at the same time, rather `soft' in the light of information targets (citing papers).

A Diachronic Approach to Web-Based Genres: The Case of the Personal Weblog

This study pursues two related aims: (1) It develops a diachronic approach to web-based genres and explores its potentials and limitations. (2) As a case in point, it uses the genre personal weblog, providing a diachronic description of both recurrent and changing features of the genre. It applies a mixed-methods approach that draws on historical sources and the DIABLOC, a diachronic blog corpus, which spans 15 years from 1997 to 2012 and includes also examples of the very first weblogs. Analyses are selectively extended beyond the surface of blog-pages to their HTML source code. On the basis of corpus material, patterns of genre change such as migration, pattern embedding and genre split are described and embedded into a differentiated model of the development of the personal weblog genre.

Temporal trends in violence during the Mississippian period in the Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee

ABSTRACTThis study utilizes a biocultural approach to investigate skeletal evidence for violence among Mississippian communities in the Middle Cumberland Region (MCR) of Tennessee. Bioarchaeological evidence for violence is placed within the local environmental and cultural context in order to better understand temporal trends in regional conflict. Bioarchaeological analyses were conducted on the crania of 599 adult individuals from 13 sites in the MCR. Approximately 7.2 percent of the sample (43/599) showed evidence of violent cranial injuries in the form of scalping, sharp force trauma, and blunt force trauma. While overall trauma frequencies appear to increase during the later Mississippian period, this may reflect a shift in the nature of violence, rather than simply an intensification of intergroup conflict. More fine-grained temporal comparisons are made for samples from the late Mississippian Averbuch site. The variability in the frequencies and types of violence observed within the MCR demonstrates the issues inherent in the reliance on broad generalizations about human behavior in the past and highlights the importance of utilizing both a regional and diachronic approach.

POLYTECHNIC EDUCATION TODAY AND THE DUAL SYSTEM

This paper deals with the issue of polytechnic education as a highly topical issue at the current stage of the socio-economic transformation of society. In the diachronic approach, paying attention to the concept of education with regard to the current and future development of society, i.e. the information society, and knowledge society, this article focuses on the transformation of the concept of polytechnic education as a result of the industrialisation and digitalisation of society, the demands on the professionalization and intellectualization of the manufacturing processes. With regard to the problem of social development in cyberspace, this study further considers polytechnic and polymetic education in the context of the application of digital technologies and with respect to the application of the dual system of education. This article also deals with the issues of supporting the development of a positive relationship to technology, taking into account the terms of readiness of the young generation for productive activities with the support of the creative relationship to reality.

The history of the Kharkiv city landscape formation: experience and methodological features of the study

Purpose of the article is to study the history of mapping the formation of the landscape of the city of Kharkiv from the beginning of active urban development to the present day (the end of the XVIII - the beginning of the XXI century), which was carried out in view of the prospects of involving the results in the process of territorial planning of the city's modern development. Methods. The research was based on the application of the principles of diachronic and comparative-historical methodological approaches and the use of cartographic, geoinformation, historical-geographical method and the method of historical sections. Results. The methodological features of carrying out of historical and geographical research are best taken into account by means of the use of GIS. The article presents the results of cartographic modeling of the development of the city's territory, the difficulties in conducting this operation and the probable errors caused by the methodology of the operation. outlined the possibility of using such studies to solve the problems of urban planning practice. The approach outlined in this article allowed researchers from different scientific fields - historians of the city, archaeologists, demographers, economists, etc. - to interpret phenomenology of cities according to different thematic keys. Conclusions. The methodology used in this study allows the effective use of GIS methods for solving applied constructive and geographic tasks, namely, the study of the evolution of urban landscapes on the basis of the analysis and synthesis of cartographic works for the entire period of city formation.

The Essence of Religion in the Concepts of N.Ya. Danilevsky, O. Spengler and A. Toynbee: Methodological Foundations

The article deals with topical issues related to religious and cultural processes in the modern world. There is a comparative study of the concepts of local civilizations by N.Y. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, A.J. Toynbee. Their views on the essence of religion, its place, role and functions in different civilizational communities are examined. The author singles out the general and special in the views of these thinkers on religion; gives an assessment of the relevance of their theoretical and methodological ideas in modern times. The work reveals the origins, ideological and theoretical foundations and specificity of the civilizational approach to cultural and historical processes in the context of the classical and non-classical paradigms of scientific and humanitarian cognition. There is given a systematic description of early versions of the concepts of local civilizations, from the point of view of their theoretical, methodological and general cultural grounds. The work combines the diachronic approach (analysis of specific ideas and concepts in the context of their chronological sequence and theoretical-methodological continuity) with the synchronic approach (correlation and comparison of concept components as equivalent in logical and theoretical planes).

Stalinist Purges during and after World War II as Retribution

Stalinist Purges during and after World War II as Retribution Vladimir Solonari Vanessa Voisin, L’URSS contre ses traîtres: L’épuration soviétique 1941–1955( The USSR against Its Traitors: Soviet Retribution, 1941–55). 514 pp. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2015. ISBN-10: 2859448977. €35.00. The subtitle of Vanessa Voisin’s book— l’épuration soviétique—more conventionally would be translated as “the Soviet purge.” However, in French scholarship, the term épurationis used both in reference to Lenin- and Stalin-era purges and to the “purification” of European societies in the aftermath of World War II and Nazi occupation. It is also close in meaning to the word “retribution” that has been used in English-language publications in reference to the post–World War II quest for justice and punishment of collaborators and war criminals, which occurred in liberated territories all over Europe, sometimes in the form of spontaneous popular violence, sometimes presided over by the revamped judiciary. 1The polysemantic nature of the French épurationreflects the complex problematic that is the focus of this peculiarly framed and methodologically innovative book. The central question Voisin grapples with is whether and how Stalinist persecution of Soviet wartime collaborators was part of the Europe-wide process of épurationand to what extent it constitutes the continuation of the 1930s Stalinist purges. 2In the Soviet Union, prosecution and punishment of [End Page 216]collaborators started as soon as the first districts were liberated from the Nazi occupation in late 1941, and thus it began earlier than in other countries on the continent. Still, the near-synchronicity of Soviet and European épurationsinvites systematic comparison. At the same time, in the Soviet Union retribution was entrusted to the same punitive institutions—the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) and the procuracy—that served as pliable instruments of Stalinist terror in the 1930s. Therefore, it is no less important to trace continuity and changes in Soviet repressive practices. The combination of such synchronic and diachronic approaches constitutes an important characteristic of the book. Fostering comparison between Soviet practices and Europe-wide épuration, Voisin leaves out those features that constituted a uniquely Soviet experience and had no similarities with the policies of other anti-Nazi allies. Thus she does not investigate deportations of “enemy nations” during and in the immediate aftermath of World War II or the brutal Stalinist “pacification” of the western periphery of the enlarged USSR. Even the Soviet treatment of military collaborators—such as vlasovtsy, participants in the General Vlasov’s army—is explicitly bracketed-out. Also, the handling of prisoners of war, although investigated, is not the focus of her attention. Voisin analyzes collaboration using the example of exclusively Russian regions. In all likelihood, the number of voluntary and ideology-driven collaborators in the western borderlands was much higher than in Russia per se, even if the extent of collaboration in all its manifestations may have been comparable. 3But determined to analyze Soviet épurationin a pan-European context, Voisin deliberately avoids interference of “ethnic” factors in the story she tells. Such narrowing down of the book’s focus allows Voisin to concentrate on exactly those aspects of retribution in the Soviet Union that are the least researched (30). What, however, wascollaboration and/or treason? Voisin refuses to treat this question from a legalistic perspective. She maintains that German policy [End Page 217]was so brutal that most of the time Soviet citizens in the occupied territories faced a “nonchoice” between collaboration and death (72). Although around 1.2 million people served as policemen or were enlisted in various auxiliary units of the Wehrmacht and “many hundreds of thousands” were employed in various branches of the economy and administration in the occupied zone, “only a few tens of thousands” took the side of the Nazis voluntarily. The majority of the population initially adopted a wait-and see attitude (61,71). While the scope of collaboration in the occupied Soviet Union dwarfed that in most other Nazi-occupied countries, the main motivation of the collaborators was not ideological commitment or personal gain but simple fear as well as desire to survive under extremely harsh...