Encyclopedic Text Research Articles

How Did Early Modern Scholars Study Early Maps?

The two standard Anglophone historiographies of the history of cartography (Skelton 1972, Harley 1987) situated the field’s origins in the early modern era, or even in the later Middle Ages. Yet “history” and “cartography” are both products of the profound changes in the intellectual foundations and institutions of European knowledge practices in the decades to either side of 1800. By contrast, this essay explores how early modern scholars variously engaged with maps from the past in terms of contemporary knowledge practices. [Part 1] It first outlines the early modern meanings of “history” and “geography” and then reviews how early modern scholars engaged with early maps in three distinct ways. Classical scholars used the Peutinger map and Ptolemy’s Geography to identify locations of ancient places in order to improve their comprehension of Classical texts. [Part 2] Some geographers wrote histories of voyages and travels that related past routes to contemporary maps, and others wrote historical narratives of the compilation of encyclopedic texts and maps of regional and world knowledge. [Part 3] Antiquaries opportunistically described and at times reproduced a variety of maps, charts, and plans that came to their attention, but without active searches for early maps. Overall, I demonstrate that before 1775 there was neither a systematic approach taken to the study of maps from the past nor any hint of the core methodology that would be adopted by the first historiographical mode of map history as it developed after 1830.

John Trevisa’s Information Age: Knowledge and the Pursuit of Literature, c. 1400

John Trevisa’s Information Age: Knowledge and the Pursuit of Literature, c. 1400

До історії правобережних міст в енциклопедичних виданнях 18–21 ст. (на прикладі княжої Олики)

This is a study of the historical destiny of many former towns of right-bank (along the Dnipro) Ukraine on the example of the ancient Volyn princely town Olyka. The study is based on the analysis of encyclopedic texts over four centuries. It is shown that after the partition of Poland and the arrival of the Russian Empire in this territory, most of them lost such town-forming elements as fortresses and castles, palaces, religious buildings, etc. This tendency intensified especially after the establishment of Soviet power in these lands. Therefore, many of them gradually turned into small towns and then villages. A certain exception is Western Ukraine, where there was no active destruction of monuments in the interwar period. Therefore, here, in contrast to Central Ukraine, there is still a “Western Ukrainian Golden Meridian of Monuments” from Chernivtsi to Olyka and Lutsk. As in the former Ukrainian SSR no special attention was paid to its historical past, until recently the history of former towns could be read mainly in Polish and Russian-language editions of previous centuries. Their ancient history is most often associated with the names of the owners, as – on the example of the Volyn region in the middle of the 17 century – out of the total number of towns 125 were private 111. Regardless of the personalities of these owners, the population of cities carried through the centuries the Ukrainian language, rituals, culture in general. In particular, the primary sources of modern history allow us to trace the manifestations of the high cultural level of the urban population of Olyka in connection with the traditions of Magdeburg law and the educational factor.

고구려인가 기자조선인가: 몽골제국에서 고려 역사상의 경합

Just as the intellectuals of the Chinese Song(宋) dynasty did, Mongol Imperial officials in the early days of contacting Goryeo believed that Goryeo was the same dynasty with Goguryeo(高句麗) from the Korean peninsula’s ancient past. This misconception also let them to suspect that Goryeo could become a threat at any point, with an image of Goryeo being a ‘country with a strong military force’ embedded in their minds.BR Feeling uneasy and not to mention pressure from such misled preconception, the Goryeo government and intellectuals continuously denied the existence of any sort of relationship between Goryeo and the late Goguryeo. They also tried to promote the ancient sage Gija(箕子) as the Goryeo dynasty’s symbolic originator of its civilization, in an attempt to replace Goryeo’s overall image as a ‘belligerent, aggressive race since the old Goguryeo days’ with the image of “Gija” which in fact signified the Korean peninsula’s long, amicable relationship with China while also symbolizing the peninsula’s advanced civil culture.BR The Goryeo officials’ efforts, including the authoring and spreading of several history books, and exchanging conversations with the Mongol intellectuals, eventually generated a desired effect and resulted in the Mongol Empire’s new official historical perception (mainly prevailing in the Daidu/大都 region), which no longer considered Goryeo as an entity whose origin was rooted in the Goguryeo legacy. Whenever they were to describe the history of Goryeo, they would not only mention Goguryeo but always Gija as well, as can be seen in the “Goryeo” chapter(高麗傳) inside the Songshi(Official Song History, 宋史) -compiled by the intellectuals in the Huáběi(華北) region in 1345-, which serves as a definite example of this sort of change in historical perception.BR But the literary figures in the Jiangnan(江南) region, who had no affiliation with the Mongol Imperial government and did not have the opportunity to actually meet their Goryeo counterparts, still believed that Goryeo was ‘of the late Goguryeo.’ Such belief can be seen from Wénxiàn Tōngkǎo(文獻通考), one of the most renowned encyclopedic texts of the time. And quite ironically, after the Ming(明) dynasty, a newborn one based on factions from the Jiangnan region, was able to drive the Mongol Empire out of China (which had its own basis in the Huáběi region), the “Goryeo” chapter(高麗傳) in Yuanshi(Official Yuan History, 元史) compiled by the Jiangnan region scholars in 1370 displayed the official historical perception reverted back to how it had earlier been, which was to identify Goryeo with the legacy of Goguryeo.

Introducing a Special Issue in Biofeedback Magazine

The spring 2022 issue of Biofeedback magazine featured a special issue on evidence-based practice. This summer issue continues the emphasis of that spring issue, featuring book chapters from the upcoming fourth edition of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB) book, Evidence-Based Practice in Biofeedback and Neurofeedback (Khazan, Shaffer, Moss, Lyle, & Rosenthal, in press).Each of these articles applied the AAPB/International Society for Neuroregulation & Research efficacy standards to an application area for biofeedback and neurofeedback. Complete details of the efficacy standards are available in LaVaque et al. (2002). The efficacy ratings are as follows, based on the credibility of current published research on specific disorders:Lower ratings for an application area may result from poor outcomes in research studies but can also arise from a lack of research studies in emerging areas of biofeedback and neurofeedback treatment.This special issue opens with an article by Zachary M. Mehan, Fredric Shaffer, and Christopher I. Zerr, summarizing the abundant research on both biofeedback and neurofeedback interventions for depression. Based on the evidence for therapeutic benefit, supported by a growing number of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on both biofeedback and neurofeedback, the chapter rates both treatment of depression using biofeedback and neurofeedback as Level 5 (efficacious and specific) for depression.Next, this special issue includes an article by Lauren Christine Frey on neurofeedback treatment for epilepsy. Dr. Frey reviewed one available RCT and several quasi-experimental studies and case studies for several different forms of neurofeedback treatment. She rated sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) neurofeedback and slow cortical potential neurofeedback as Level 4 (efficacious) for seizure reduction. She rated SMR-based neurofeedback as Level 3 (probably efficacious) for nonseizure manifestations of epilepsy. She rated two more recently emergent forms of neurofeedback, LORETA Z-score neurofeedback and connectivity-based training protocols, as Level 1 (not empirically supported) for both seizure and nonseizure manifestations of epilepsy.This issue also includes a book review by Patrick Steffen of the fourth edition of a classic book on stress management. Paul M. Lehrer and Robert L. Woolfolk (2021) have produced an outstanding update for the encyclopedic text, Principles and Practice of Stress Management. Lehrer and Woolfolk are major leaders in the field of stress management. Their text Principles and Practice of Stress Management has long provided the most comprehensive and research-informed resource for understanding stress and stress management. The fourth edition updates the scientific research and introduces new topics.

Understanding demonstrative reference in text: a new taxonomy based on a new corpus

AbstractEndophoric demonstratives such asthisandthatare among the most frequently used words in written texts. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how exactly they should be subdivided and classified in terms of their different types of use. Here, we develop a new taxonomy of endophoric demonstratives based on a large-scale corpus including three written genres: news items, encyclopedic texts, and book reviews. The taxonomy enables analysts to reliably code endophoric demonstratives based on objectively applicable criteria, while at the same time making them aware of many subtle borderline cases. We consider the taxonomy as a theoretical foundation for future theoretical and empirical work into endophoric demonstratives, and as an analytical tool allowing researchers to unify and compare the results of studies on endophoric demonstratives coming from different genres and languages.

How Adventure Time fans understand the 'true' producer: A close analysis of two encyclopedic fan texts

Adventure Time fan encyclopedists cataloged the show's final eighty-three episodes on Wikipedia and the Adventure Time Wiki in different ways: the former favored a division handed down by Cartoon Network, whereas the latter favored a division in line with what the show's production crew had intended. Conflicts like this occur when editors disagree about who is the official producer of a text, a perception that is usually grounded in the epistemology of the fan archive. In considering this divide, the essay aims to build upon Ludi Price's 2017 model of fan information behavior by showing that the category of producer is more complex than many might initially assume.

Review: A Revolution in Movement: Dancers, Painters, and the Image of Modern Mexico, by K. Mitchell Snow

Review: A Revolution in Movement: Dancers, Painters, and the Image of Modern Mexico, by K. Mitchell Snow

Uwagi etymologiczne w dawnych tekstach użytkowych (na przykładzie Kroniki, to jest historyi świata Marcina Bielskiego, Informacyi matematycznej Wojciecha Bystrzonowskiego i Nowych Aten Benedykta Chmielowskiego)

The subject of the analysis in the article are the etymological explanations presented in the old non-literary texts (i.e. the texts that function primarily outside literature, serving various practical purposes), i.e. in the sixteenth-century Kronika, to jest historyja świata (Chronicle, that is the history of the entire world) by Marcin Bielski and in two eighteenth-century encyclopaedic texts: Informacyja matematyczna (Mathematical information) by Wojciech Bystrzonowski and Nowe Ateny (New Athens) by Benedykt Chmielowski. The review of the etymological comments allows us to take notice of their considerable substantive and formal diversity. These comments apply to both native and foreign vocabulary. On the one hand, they provide information on the origin of proper names (toponyms and anthroponyms), and on the other hand, a whole range of these etymological comments concern common names. A depth of etymological comments presented in non-literary texts is significantly diversified and independent of the nature of the vocabulary to which these comments apply – they can be merely tips on sources of borrowings of foreign words, but they can also constitute a deeper analysis of the meaning and structure of individual words, both native and foreign. These comments are usually implementations of folk etymology. The role of etymological considerations in former non-literary texts is significant. First of all, these texts have a ludic function, typical of popularised texts – they are supposed to surprise, intrigue and entertain readers. Secondly, they serve a cognitive function typical of non-literary texts – they are supposed to expand the readers’ knowledge about the world and language. Thirdly, they have a persuasive function, which is a distinctive feature of both popularised and non-literary texts – they are supposed to provoke the readers’ thoughts on the relationship between non-linguistic reality and the linguistic way of its interpretation, they also stimulate linguistic interests, which was particularly important in the past when the reflection on the native language was poor.

O Šokcima u mađarskim enciklopedijskim izdanjima

About the inclusions of the „Šokac” ethnic group in Hungarian encyclopaedic texts. This work does not intend to answer who the „Šokac” ethnic group are, but rather to introduce the ways in which Hungarian encyclopaedic texts represent the „Šokac” people and outline what is emphasised in certain entries or texts that refer to them. The work scrutinises some of the most significant encyclopaedic volumes issued in the period between the years of the late-nineteenth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century. Such volumes are most often intended for the widest possible audience of readers, and therefore mirror the ideological background of their authors, editors, publishers and possibly the reigning authority of their time. In other words, these volumes serve as the reflection of the era they were created in. At the same time, they compile various aspects of scientific and scholarly research and its results, pertaining to the specific historical era of when they were issued.

The Six Ages of the World and Biblical Genealogy in Anglo-Saxon Encyclopaedic Notes

In the early medieval period, history was commonly organised into six epochs lasting roughly one thousand years each, according to certain calculations of the world’s age. The idea of the six ages emerged from and was consolidated by allegorical interpretations of the Hexameron in which the material endurance of the world was thought to mirror the initial length of its Creation. This historical schematisation enjoyed widespread currency in Anglo-Saxon England, even after Bede had proved that the world was not, in fact, approaching 6,000 years. This article analyses how the topos of the six ages is used and adapted within a hitherto understudied group of related encyclopaedic notes in three Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. How these texts relate to and differ from the wider corpus of encyclopaedic texts on this subject is also charted. The following study investigates the ways in which encyclopaedic texts on the six ages were adapted, expanded and transmitted, and the religious and political motivations driving such changes. This article offers the first in-depth analysis of this particular group of texts, foregrounding the sophistication of micro-texts that explain the six ages. Overall, this study emphasises the pedagogical, theological and historiographical applications of this concept in early medieval English thought.

Dual Effects of Partner’s Competence: Resource Interdependence in Cooperative Learning at Elementary School

A partner’s competence should logically favor cooperative learning. However, research in cooperative learning has shown that a partner’s competence may or may not activate a threatening social comparison and yields dual effects: It is beneficial when students work on complementary information while it is detrimental when students work on identical information. Two studies conducted at elementary school (study 1 with 24 fourth graders working on encyclopedic texts, and study 2 with 28 fifth graders working on argumentative texts) replicated that interaction: Information distribution (complementary vs. identical information) moderated the relationship between partner’s competence and pupils’ learning outcomes. The relation between partner’s competence and students’ performances was positive when working on complementary information, but negative when working on identical information. A third study confirmed that working on identical information led to a competitive social comparison whereas complementary information reinforced the pupils’ cooperation perception. Contributions to cooperative learning research are discussed in terms of the competitive comparisons that may arise during cooperative learning at elementary school.

Historiografia, digitalizácia a komplexný pamäťový portál PamMap.sk

The digital turn in the development of historiography, brought about by the emergence of the Internet about 20 to 30 years ago, has gradually produced several discursive changes, such as replacing grand master narratives with little “patchwork texts” and analogue/print texts with digital texts; increasing the importance of the visual component; promoting open access publishing and introducing new ways of analysing and visualizing historical data. Compared to the two basic publication types produced by historiography before the digital turn (monograph and journal article), a third type – historical portals – is now gaining ground. Memory portals are one type of such portals. They offer their users (who are not called “readers” anymore) digitized historical sources (digitized materials), accompanied by expert descriptions, registry tags (metadata) and encyclopaedic texts. The paper illustrates this trend by discussing the PamMap.sk portal and the new ways to access and process sources it offers to historians and the public at large. The portal combines (1) a database of digitised sources accompanied by metadata; (2) an encyclopaedia; and (3) a cartographic approach to the sources. Compared to print publications, memory portals offer new sources (such as audio and video, which are essential for oral history). In contrast to the “tyranny” exercised by the author of a book, the portal gives the user the freedom to choose not only the topics but also the ways of reading. However, the paper also shows the pitfalls of such portals and their disadvantages compared to “traditional publications” (such as lack of user orientation, wikipediazation and insufficient expertise, and overburdening with too much irrelevant detail).

White Death


 
 
 The article presents an analysis of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s (d. 1240) treatment of fasting and hunger as it appears in chapters 106 and 107 of al-­Futūḥāt al-­makkiyya (Meccan revelations). In the process of examining this very short section of the encyclopedic text, the essay both draws out the deeper theological significance of hunger and fasting and highlights the virtues and trappings of the spiritual exercise in the mystic’s thought. An attempt is also made to situate some of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s ideas within the broader context of the earlier Sufi tradition to which he was heir.
 
 

ЛОКАЛЬНЫЙ ЭНЦИКЛОПЕДИЧЕСКИЙ ДИСКУРС Г. ЧЕЛЯБИНСКА: ИСТОРИЯ И СОВРЕМЕННОСТЬ

The paper focuses on the problem of the local encyclopedic discourse and text. The integral approach proves to be an adequate tool to solve the research problem. Integral definitions of the local text, local encyclopedic discourse and text present them as integral distributed objects: fragments of knowledge of some specific locus given in a brief and compressed form, fragments of national and local cultures, fragments of local social space and fragments of national language, the units of which are interdependent and interrelated and are actualized in the process of communication. Discourse is treated as a process, while the text - as a product and result of communication. An overview of research into past and present of Chelyabinsk local encyclopedic text is given. Perspectives of further research are outlined.

The Birthday Present: Censorinus’De die natali

AbstractThis paper contextualises and interprets a text seldom addressed in Anglophone scholarship:De die natali(‘On the birthday’), written by Censorinus to celebrate his patron Caerellius’ birthday in 238c.e. By exploring both gestation (natalis) and time measurement (dies), the work seeks to elucidate and isolate Caerellius’ birthday in time; it is the ultimate guide to hisdies natalis. Despite a seemingly narrow focus,De die nataliis best understood as part of a broad ‘spectrum’ of encyclopaedic texts, exemplifying the ‘totalising’ impetus of knowledge ordering in the Roman Empire, while simultaneously exposing the limits of such efforts. An interlocking set of tensions underlie the text, which resonate with other encyclopaedic projects — tensions between unity and plurality, centre and periphery, and the relationship between nature and culture.De die nataliis both a product of, and commentary on, the conditions of human knowledge and the Empire's cultural diversity in the early third century.

The Effects of Prequestions versus Postquestions on Memory Retention in Children

Prior research revealed that answering questions after study benefits learning in children, but it is unclear whether answering questions before study (i.e., prequestions) produces similar effects. Here, we report two experiments investigating this issue in 4th and 5th grade children. In both experiments, target-words from an encyclopedic text were either prequestioned, postquestioned, or reread. To assess memory retention, cued recall and multiple choice tests were administered after a 7-day interval, when children also rated their confidence on their responses. Both prequestions and postquestions resulted in overall greater memory retention than rereading, although postquestions resulted in greater cued recall performance than prequestions, a finding that was mirrored by the confidence data (i.e., postquestion > prequestion > reread). Thus, although both prequestions and postquestions were more beneficial for memory retention than rereading, postquestions seem to have promoted more recollection-based retrieval than prequestions, a finding we discuss from a dual-process model perspective.

Attribute identification for Chinese inter-personal relation knowledge graph based on encyclopedic text

An accurate and rich inter-personal relation knowledge graph (KG) not only provides a clear introduction of persons and the interconnections among them but also provide knowledge support for the intelligent service system. At present, most KGs are based on the encyclopedia tabular data. In this article, we mainly describe how to make full use of encyclopedic text to build a high-quality inter-personal relation KG. For solving the problem of missing attributes and errors in tabular data, we propose a method of combining pattern matching and deep learning models to extract attribute information from text data for attribute identification. The experimental results show that our method can effectively improve the coverage and accuracy of KGs.

The Concept “Mass Media” in the Lithuanian Language: Problems and Searches for the Equivalent

The article deals with the terms of communication science used in the Lithuanian language that specify the means whereby mass communication is carried out. Several different concepts are used in theoretical discourse in Lithuania: the means of mass communication, the media, the mass media (žiniasklaida), media, audiovisual media, and the like. The terms “the mass media” (žiniasklaida) and “the media” (medijos) used in the Lithuanian language are both translated into English as “media”, although these are different words and do not always mean identical things. The Lithuanian compound word (term) žiniasklaida is made of two independent words, žinios (news) and sklaida/skleidimas (dissemination). The Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language defines the word žiniasklaida as measures of periodical information – the press, radio, and television. In fact, when we speak about the radio, television, and printed newspapers in general terms, we often use this particular word of Lithuanian origin – žiniasklaida. Conceptual terms defining the means of communication discussed in the article have peculiar aspects and notional etymological nuances. These rather different terms entered the common usage at the end of the twentieth century and have been used ever since, that is, they are still used in the theoretical literature of communication sciences and in the public discourse of Lithuania of the early twenty-first century. The internationally and globally established scientific concepts “the mass media” and “the media” used to be translated into the Lithuanian language differently and therefore they were treated ambiguously, at times not accurately enough, and deviated from the postulates of the general communication theory. Lithuanian researchers who use the terms discussed in the present article were noticed to have had the universal concept of the mass communication theory, “the mass media”, in mind. The author also addresses the differentiated usage of different terms mentioned in the article in the Lithuanian language and different notional fields that they create. This is discussed when these terms are used synonymically and when they do not refer to identical things. In recent years, attempts to dissociate from the term žiniasklaida became noticeable in the works of Lithuanian researchers (Laima Nevickaitė, Žygintas Pečiulis). The semantic field of this term does not encompass all the existing means of communication as, for example, the terms “media” (medijos) or “the means of mass communication” can do, and this points to the conclusion that the Lithuanian neologism žiniasklaida should be avoided in research texts when we have the concept “the mass media” in mind. It is particularly pertinent in those cases when we refer to the overall communication process encompassing all possible means of communication and all possible effects on the perception of the audience, as well as the audience’s responses to the world we live in. The question of whether the term žiniasklaida could be used to define the conformity of the term “the mainstream media” should be discussed in future studies into the terminology of communication and information science. The author of the article proposes recommendations for correcting both the headline of the article Žiniasklaida in the Lithuanian version of the free online encyclopaedia Wikipedia and its content, whose current references to other languages are as follows: English – mass media, Russian – Sredstva massovoi informatsii (Средства массовой информации), German – Massenmedien, and so on. This would remove the discrepancy between the headlines and the content of encyclopaedic texts. Finally, due to the pluralistic and liberal usage of the terms “the mass media” and “the media”, which is becoming more and more firmly established, this analysis of these terms is relevant and useful in further developing a purposeful discourse of communication and information science and its popularisation.

Философская энциклопедия 1960‒1970 гг. Беседа И.О. Щедриной с В.А. Лекторским

Conversation of editor of the journal Voprosy Filosofii I.O. Shchedrina with Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, Main Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy RAS, V.A. Lektorsky on the history of the creation of the Philosophical Encyclopedia (1960‒1970), on the formation of a profes­sional philosophical community in Russia, on the features of encyclopedic texts on philosophy, and a new project of the electronic Philosophical Encyclopedia.