Grosso Modo Research Articles

Hijab(istas)—as Fashion Phenomenon. A Review

Abstract In the present article, I am shortly reviewing some aspects which can be regarded as important in considering the hijab a fashion phenomenon. The social media provides us with various images in which the hijab is presented as a form of fashionable accessory, it is adapted to various modern outfits. The literature on such fashionable takes of the hijab assesses that they can be interpreted as statement messages about women’s empowerment. On the other hand, such adaptations also speak about the emergence of various subcultures about Muslim youth, which in accordance with the global sameness of youth are using social media in order to send messages and connect with each other. After a brief presentation on the role of bottom-up diffusion of fashion innovations, I am reviewing, grosso modo, two representations of the hijab: the hijab as a religious symbol and the hijab as a (fashion) manifesto about women’s empowerment.

Fiometa's Wrathful Suicide in Juan de Flores's Grimalte y Gradisa

Fiometa's Wrathful Suicide in Juan de Flores's Grimalte y Gradisa Luis F. López González Fiometa's suicide in Juan de Flores's fifteenth-century romance, Grimalte y Gradisa, underscores the dire consequences of allowing unbridled passions to override reason.1 Fiometa's character, as the etymological meaning of her name suggests, embodies the flames of unrestrained passions that separate her from any form of rational behavior and discourse. Fiometa's impulsive fits of rage trigger an ontological alienation that propels her to lose control of her actions, her reactions, and her perception of that which takes place around her. When Fiometa feels that things do not go her way, her natural response, conditioned by her skewed worldview as observed from her oblique prism of an entitled elite, is to revile those who oppose her willful desire and to attempt to blackmail them by threatening self-harm. Although she often uses anger as a defense mechanism to protect herself from the external world, Fiometa responds to (perceived) adverse events by fending off the disappointment through the conduit of rage. When Pánfilo, her former lover, does not respond to her request to visit her, Fiometa reacts with extreme anger rather than sadness or resignation. Her response is both impulsive and unbecoming. As Pamela Waley points out, Fiometa "is beside herself with fury" ("Introduction" xxxiv). Just a few days later, Pánfilo comes to see her, resolving to abandon her. If his lack of compliance with her request to visit her made her furious, his final rejection drives her to a wrathful suicide. The cause of Fiometa's death has been a source of debate among scholars of Juan de Flores, as the author himself never explicitly labels her death a suicide or merely a case of amor hereos. The scholarship falls into one of three categories. The first group grosso modo denies Fiometa's suicide, arguing that her death is a natural effect of the intensity of her lovesick passion for the ungrateful Pánfilo (Barbara Matulka 264, marina S. Brownlee 211, Dorothy S. Severin Religious 41, Robert Folger 177). The second group neither confirms nor denies her suicide, adducing the aura of mystery and ambiguity in which Flores enshrouds her death [End Page 31] (Regula Rohland de Langbehn "Los conversos" 140, Lillian von der Walde moheno 82, Julio Rodríguez Puértolas 121-139, Isabel de sena 341, Valentín Núñez Rivera 115-139). The third group ascertains that Fiometa's death constitutes an active suicide, and they adduce Fiometa's avowal to end her life, the violent imagery, Grimalte's explicit assertion that she killed herself, and her final punishment in Hell in the dénouement of the novel (Waley "Introduction" xxxvii, Patricia Grieve 82, 85, Vera Castro Lingl, Louise Haywood "Gradissa" 85-99, Rina Walthaus 9, Tobias Branderberger 369). My hermeneutic conclusions espouse me with the third group. The scope of this study is not merely to show that Fiometa committed suicide, since Castro Lingl has forcefully argued this thesis. Rather, this paper seeks to demonstrate that Fiometa is led to her death by what María Rosa Lida de Malkiel (169) and Cándido ayllón call: "Ira suicida" (160-4). The interplay between suicide and wrath became a leitmotif in the spanish Middle Ages after the diffusion of the allegorical epic poem Psychomachia, written by the Ibero-Roman poet Prudentius in the fourth century. Prudentius personifies seneca's concept of "ira" into an allegorical character filled with irrational passion, always willing to self-destruct so long as the object of the wrath is also destroyed ("dum alteri noceat sui neglegens").2 In Seneca's tragedy Medea, the eponymous heroine embodies this furious passion willing to destroy herself, provided that she also destroys everything around her.3 Fiometa, true to her name, incarnates flammable passion, irrationality, and irascibility against her true-opposite, Patientia (reason, equanimity and theological virtues). In an agonistic battle between Ira and Patientia, which foreshadows the pseudo-Senecan Stoic treatises (De remediis fortvitorvm), as well as Íñigo López de mendoza, Marqués de Santillana's Bías contra Fortuna and Diego de San Pedro's Desprecio de...

Roman peasant habitats and settlement in central Spain (1st c. B.C.–4th c. A.D.)

The area under study comprises the Autonomous Community of Madrid, a highly urbanized modern region which coincides grosso modo with the N part of what used to be Carpetania. During the Early and Later Empire, it fell within the province of Hispania Citerior Tarraconensis, embracing the N part of the conventus Carthaginensis and the SW part of the conventus Caesaraugustanus. From the early days of municipalisation of the Hispanic provinces rural sites in this region belonged to the ager of three Latin municipia: Complutum, Titulcia, and Mantua Carpetanorum (fig. 1). While it is difficult to identify the precise limits of their agri, it seems probable that Complutum, as the most important urban centre in the region, would have had the largest territorium.

Andrzej Paczkowski, Revolution and Counterrevolution in Poland, 1980–1989, trans. by Christine Manetti. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2015. 387 pp. $99.00.

Andrzej Paczkowski, <i>Revolution and Counterrevolution in Poland, 1980–1989</i>, trans. by Christine Manetti. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2015. 387 pp. $99.00.

Art. 25 - Individual Criminal Responsibility

The provision, in particular paragraphs 1 and 2, confirms the universal acceptance of the principle of individual criminal responsibility as recognized by the International Military Tribunal and reaffirmed by the ICTY in the Tadic jurisdictional decision with regard to individual criminal responsibility for violations of common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The drafting history has been described elsewhere. Subparagraphs (a)-(c) of paragraph 3 establish the basic concepts of individual criminal attribution. Subparagraph (a) refers to three forms of perpetration: on one'sown, as a co-perpetrator or through another person (perpetration by means). Subparagraph (b) contains different forms of participation: on the one hand, ordering an (attempted) crime, on the other soliciting or inducing its (attempted) commission. Subparagraph (c) establishes criminal responsibility for aiding and abetting as the subsidiary form of participation. Thus, in contrast to the ILC Draft Codes of Crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind4 and the Statutes of the ad hoc Tribunals, paragraph 3 distinguishes between perpetration (subparagraph (a)) and other forms of participation (subparagraphs (b) and (c)), with the latter establishing different degrees of responsibility. This approach confirms the general tendency in comparative criminal law to reject a pure unitarian concept of perpetration (Einheitstatermodell) and to distinguish, at least on the sentencing level, between different forms of participation. Subparagraphs (d), (e) and (f) provide for expansions of attribution: contributing to the commission or attempted commission of a crime by a group, incitement to genocide, attempt. Thus, in sum, article 25 para. 3 contains, on the one hand, basic rules of individual criminal responsibility and, on the other, rules expanding attribution (which may or may not still be characterized as specific forms of participation). A grosso modo, an individual is criminally responsible if he or she perpetrates, takes part in or attempts a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court (articles 5-8). It must not be overlooked, however, that criminal attribution in international criminal law has to be distinguished from attribution in national criminal law: while in the latter case normally a concrete criminal result caused by a person's individual act is punished, international criminal law creates liability for acts committed in a collective context and systematic manner; consequently the individual's own contribution to the harmful result is not always readily apparent.

Area functions on affine planes

Oriented area functions are functions defined on the set of ordered triangles of an affine plane which are antisymmetric under odd permutations of the vertices and which behave additively when triangles are cut into two. We compare several elementary properties which such an area function may have (roughly speaking shear invariance, equality of area of the two triangles obtained by cutting a parallelogram along a diagonal, and equality of area of the two triangles obtained by cutting a triangle along a median). It turns out purely by arguments of elementary affine geometry (if cleverly arranged) that these properties are grosso modo equivalent, although one has to be careful about “pathological” situations. Furthermore, all oriented area functions satisfying these properties are explicitly determined. Finally they are compared with so-called geometric valuations.

Interrogating the Non-Justiciability of Constitutional Directive Principles and Public Policy Failure in Nigeria

The fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy, contained in Chapter II of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, are guidelines to the federal and state governments of Nigeria to promote social order. As framed, the objectives appear to encompass social inclusiveness with a view to reducing socio-economic and political inequality in status and opportunities among individuals and corporate entities. Grosso modo, the directives should ordinarily be kept in mind while framing laws and public policies in nigeria. Among others, the Chapter provides for political, economic, social, educational, foreign policy and environmental objectives of state policy, which roughly correlate with the third generation rights now recognized by the United Nations Organisation’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Potentially, the provisions could also appropriate the key attributes to good governance as recognised by the United Nations and the World Bank Governance Indicators, if properly administered. However, despite the principles laid down therein considered fundamental in the governance of the country and which could have induced a duty from the state to apply these principles in making laws and policies for just and equitable administration of the country, these provisions are not enforceable by any court in Nigeria vide a counter-provision in section 6, sub-section (6), paragraph (c) of the 1999 Constitution, which makes the objectives non-justiceable. This paper thus analysed the logical repercussions of the non-justiciability of this important chapter vis-a-vis the Nigerian pervasive atmosphere of public policy failure. The paper utilised sequential logic of social narratives to interrogate the legal imports of this aspects of the Constitution, most especially for the attainment of the objectives contained Chapter II against the backdrop of Section 6(6)(c). The paper concluded, among others, that there is urgent need to subject the objectives to binding governmental obligations to avoid the general lackluster attitude towards public policies in Nigeria.

E20 Diffusion Tensor Imaging In Huntington's Disease: Impact Of The Control For Corrupted Data In Comparisons At The Group Level

Background Corrupted gradient directions (GD) in diffusion weighted images may seriously affect reliability of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-based comparisons at the group level. In the present study a quality control (QC) algorithm 1 was employed to eliminate corrupted GD from DTI data. Effects of this procedure on comparisons between Huntington disease (HD) subjects and controls were assessed at the group level. Methods Sixty-one HD patients in early stages and forty matched healthy controls were studied in a longitudinal design (baseline and two follow-ups at three time points over 15 months), in a multicenter setting with standardised acquisition protocols on four different MR scanners at four European study sites 2 . QC was used to identify corrupted GD in DTI data sets. Differences in fractional anisotropy (FA) maps at the group level with and without elimination of corrupted GD were analysed. Results The elimination of corrupted GD had an impact on individual FA maps as well as on cross-sectional group comparisons between HD subjects and controls. Following application of the QC algorithm, a lower number of small clusters of FA changes were observed, compared with the analysis without QC-based elimination. However, the grosso modo pattern of regional reductions and increases in FA values was unchanged. Conclusion An impact on the result patterns of the comparison of FA maps between HD subjects and controls was observed depending on whether QC-based elimination of corrupted GD was performed. QC-based elimination of corrupted GD in DTI scans reduces the risk of type I and type II errors in cross-sectional group comparison of FA maps contributing to an increase in reliability and stability of group comparisons. Acknowledgment This work was supported by the European Union under the Seventh Framework programme – PADDINGTON Project, Grant Agreement No. 261358, and the European Huntington’s Disease Network (EHDN), project 070 – PADDINGTON. References Muller HP, et al . PLoS Curr 2011, RRN1232 Muller HP, et al . Neuroimage Clinical 2013,2:161–167

Has Internet changed anything in advertising?

In this paper we shall consider grosso modo actual opinions regarding advertising and advertising ethics. The emergence of the Internet aroused hope that advertising ethics is not the ultimate oxymoron (Beltramini, 2003). In spite of a negative connotation that postmodernism and globalization added to advertising theory and practice, the appearance of the Internet has really changed business philosophy regarding advertising and emphasized its ethical dimension. Results of our research confirm this thesis.

Indexical Sinn: Fregeanism versus Millianism

This paper discusses two notational variance views with respect to indexical singular reference and content: the view that certain forms of Millianism are at bottom notational variants of a Fregean theory of reference, the Fregean Notational Variance Claim; and the view that certain forms of Fregeanism are at bottom notational variants of a direct reference theory, the Millian Notational Variance Claim. While the former claim rests on the supposition that a direct reference theory could be easily turned into a particular version of a neo-Fregean one by showing that it is bound to acknowledge certain senselike entities, the latter claim is based upon the supposition that a neo-Fregean theory could be easily turned into a particular version of a Millian one by showing that De Re senses are theoretically superfluous and hence eliminable. The question how many accounts of singular reference and content are we confronted with here — Two different (and mutually antagonistic) theories? Or just two versions of what is in essence the same theory? — is surely of importance to anyone interested in the topic. And this question should be answered by means of a careful assessment of the soundness of each of the above claims. Before trying to adjudicate between the two accounts, one would naturally want to know whether or not there are indeed two substantially disparate accounts. Grosso modo, if the Fregean Claim were sound then we would have a single general conception of singular reference to deal with, viz. Fregeanism; likewise, if the Millian Claim were sound we would be facing a single general conception of singular reference, viz. Millianism. My view is that both the Fregean Notational Variance Claim and its Millian counterpart are wrong, though naturally on different grounds. I have argued elsewhere that the Fregean Notational Variance Claim - considered in its application to the semantics of propositional-attitude reports involving proper names — is unsound. I intend tosupplement in this paper such a result by trying to show that the Millian Claim - taken in its application to the semantics of indexical expressions — should also be rated as incorrect. I focus on a certain set of arguments for the Millian Claim, arguments which I take as adequately representing the general outlook of the Millian theorist with respect to neo-Fregeanism about indexicals and which involve issues about the cognitive significance of sentences containing indexical terms.

Inside the “Homo Oeconomicus Brain”: Towards a Reform of the Economics Curriculum?

Economics students and economists have – grosso modo – a bad societal reputation. This is, roughly speaking, the provocative result of the majority of empirical studies on economic education. On average, economists and economics students behave in a more self-interested way than others; they are more prone to deviate from the moral good; they tend to free ride more often and invest less in public goods games; they are more corrupt and less honest in lost letter experiments, less cooperative in solidarity games, and accept less and keep more in ultimatum bargaining games. In short: they seem to behave more in accordance with the predictions of the rational or self-interest model of standard economics, the Homo oeconomicus model. What might be the reasons that the degree of anti-social and uncooperative behavior is on average significantly more pronounced among economics students compared to other student groups? Can these empirical findings be explained by the self-selection effect and/or the indoctrination effect? What are the implications of these empirical results for economic ethics and economic education? Which roles do the economics curriculum and economic textbooks play? Do they have any effect on everyday behavior? Is the way economics is taught at (business) schools, colleges and universities co-responsible for the considerable behavioral differences? And what can be done in order to reverse these trends and to foster other-regarding preferences and pro-social behavior? The paper analyzes these and other questions with the help of experimental economics, behavioral economics and neuroeconomics. It also draws on recent findings of brain physiology research in general and neuroplasticity in particular.

La constitución de las prácticas de profesionalización de formación de docentes en México

Based on Popkewitz’s “social epistemology and administration” approach, this study presents the ways through which it has formed a certain conception and proposed various practices related to teacher professionalization in Mexico. Within the realm of teacher training there are, grosso modo, two main aspects: on the one hand, there are elements that indicate theoretical, academic and social gaps, whilst on the other hand, there are proposals, affirmations, apologies and activities that provide an image of self-sufficiency in skills, capabilities and knowledge. This “double aspect,” of which the teaching profession is conformed, is the product of the institutional spaces, of the official discourse and of expert analysis, all of which is evidenced through Popkewitz’s “social epistemology.”

The disposition of intermediated securities and the innocent acquirer rule: theory and reality--the Chilean case

In this article, I will critically review the importance of the innocent acquirer rule of intermediated securities in the context of the interaction between the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law’s Convention on Substantive Rules for Intermediated Securities (Geneva Securities Convention) and Chilean domestic law.1 For this purpose, the article is divided in two parts. The first is a general overview of the connection among acquisitions, unauthorized dispositions, and innocent acquirer protection in the Convention. The second part is devoted to analysing the situation under Chilean law. Grosso modo, the Geneva Securities Convention articulates the acquisition and disposition of intermediated securities under three main rules. First, the Convention provides that a credit of securities in the account holder’s account is sufficient to render the acquisition effective against third parties.2 Second, the Geneva Securities Convention leaves to the non-Convention law the determination of whether and in what circumstances a debit, credit, or designation entry is invalid or liable to be reversed.3 Third, the Convention protects an innocent acquirer even if the credit or designation entry was invalid or ineffective under the non-Convention law.4

Aesthetics of “Ex-centricity” and Considerations of “Poverty”

Kaiama L. Glover's Haiti Unbound fills a gap in understanding writing that took place in Haiti during Duvalierism, helping to open onto new(er) global narratives. In so doing, Glover contributes to the questioning of how and why poverty is fetishized. This review explores the Spiralist aesthetic's illustration of why Haiti fascinates a “Western” sensibility. Grosso modo, the review outlines the existing narratives of “Haiti” as revolving around the polarities of, on the one hand, its extreme “poverty” and, on the other, its reputation for tremendous artistic production: Is there a way to approach discourses about Haiti that explores how and why such extreme narratives continue to be produced?

Investments in Fire Management: Does Saving Lives Cost Lives?

The total cost of structural fires and bushfires in Australia was estimated at around A$18 billion in 2010, or about 1.5 per cent of GDP. This cost includes some A$16 billion devoted to managing the risk. At the same time, Australia's fire fatality rate of 0.6 per 100 000 of population, already low by international standards, has proved resistant to increasing expenditure on fire management and protection. Following a concern that this expenditure might encompass an overinvestment compared with the real risk, this paper examines the regulatory cost of this investment. Since on average poorer people have worse health outcomes, and governments or companies have no alternative but to pass on increased costs or taxes, it is possible to estimate the lives forgone, on account of an increased mortality rate, of any overinvestment. Adapting a model of Keeney (1997) for Australian conditions, we determine the Australian willingness to spend (WTS) for preventing a loss of a life in the fire space to be between A$20 and A$50 million, depending upon how these costs or taxes are imposed upon the population. If we accept, by way of example, the results of an expert elicitation (Ashe and McAneney 2011) to imply an overinvestment in fire prevention and management of the order of A$4.5 billion per annum (2010 dollars), this excess would imply between 90 and 225 extra fatalities annually. These numbers are of the same order as the annual average number of fire fatalities actually experienced. The analysis shows the importance of carefully evaluating the unintended costs of any new safety regulations and particularly in insuring that the costs are at least grosso modo in line with the purported benefits.

Winthrop Wetherbee, The Ancient Flame: Dante and the PoetsThe Ancient Flame: Dante and the Poets. Winthrop Wetherbee. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008. Pp. xi+304.

<i>Winthrop Wetherbee</i>, The Ancient Flame: Dante and the Poets<i>The Ancient Flame: Dante and the Poets</i>. Winthrop Wetherbee. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008. Pp. xi+304.

Why (post)colonialism and (de)coloniality are not enough: a post-imperialist perspective

Subject position is a most important element in the politics of knowledge. Postcolonialism and the Latin American approach ‘decolonialidad del poder’ have made great contributions to the construction of critical theories which are sensitive to many of the quandaries of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. But, although they cannot be reduced to locations and settings, like other formulations, postcolonialism and decoloniality express certain sociological and historical circumstances, grosso modo, the diasporas associated with the end of the British Empire and an Andean problématique, respectively. While I value the strength of both theoretical contributions, I want to advance the idea that, in the early twenty-first century, there is a need to go beyond colonialism as a heuristical device as well as to search for new utopian horizons. I am not arguing that we need to forget history and that ideological struggles are unimportant. What I want to stress is that, currently, utopian struggles have a strategic role in face of the dearth of utopias that might galvanize the progressive imagination after the end of really existing socialism. Since I believe in the existence of global and national geopolitics of knowledge, I need to announce from the outset that I am not necessarily speaking from Brazil, nor is my position representative of a Brazilian perspective (something that may be induced by the subtitle of this article). I am speaking from the perspective of someone who has developed his professional academic career in Brasilia, the ‘new’, federal capital of Brazil, the golden jubilee of which is celebrated this year. I will argue that the prominence of the power of structuration of the postcolonial period in Brazil ended in 1960 with the opening of the modernist federal city. In this regard, critiques that are solely or almost solely based on the power of structuration of the colonial period are not enough to understand the current ideologies and projects of the Brazilian elite. In order to do that, we need to think in post-imperialist terms.

Operações sociais da mente

Thomas Reid introduziu a noção de operação social da mente na teoria da mente e da linguagem. Sseu amigo James Gregory desenvolveu essa noção no contexto da Gramática Uuniversal clássica, particularmente na teoria geral dos modos verbais. A gramática filosófica clássica, antes de Reid e Gregory, pressupõe inter alia que a mente é “autocontida” (self-contained); em outras palavras, que os conteúdos e as operações mentais independem do ambiente natural e social. Algumas dessas operações têm uma estrutura em modus/dictum que corresponde, grosso modo, à distinção atual entre modo psicológico e conteúdo mental conceitual, análoga à distinção entre força ilocucionária e conteúdo proposicional e que se reflete parcialmente no sistema de modos verbais nas línguas naturais. A famosa Gramática de Port-Royal já indicava uma limitação importante desse modelo de mente autocontida: “Oon ne se commande pas proprement à soi-même”, escrevem Arnauld &amp; Lancelot (“Não se ordena propriamente a si mesmo”). Defenderei que Reid percebeu que o individualismo não permite capturar os aspectos sociais da linguagem e, por isso, viu a necessidade de apresentar uma concepção de mente diferente, anti-individualista. A noção de operação social da mente é a peça fundamental da reforma empreendida por Reid em filosofia da mente. Ademais, ele e Gregory defenderam que as linguagens se formaram particularmente para expressar esses aspectos sociais da linguagem e da mente.

Interdisciplinary approaches to calcium dynamics and secretory processes in cells.

Interdisciplinary approaches to calcium dynamics and secretory processes in cells.

Interdisciplinary approaches to calcium dynamics and secretory processes in cells

Interdisciplinary approaches to calcium dynamics and secretory processes in cells