Historical Questions Research Articles

Validity and Reliability of the Turkish Version of General Practitioner Assessment of Cognition

ABSTRACT The General Practitioner Assessment of Cognition (GPCOG) was explicitly developed as a brief cognitive screening tool for general practitioners. It consists of a patient section testing cognition and an informant section asking historical questions. This study aimed to test the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of GPCOG-Tr on older Turkish adults. The study included two hundred thirty (n = 230) community-dwelling individuals aged at least 55. The GPCOG was translated, back-translated, and revised to determine the final GPCOG-Tr. The sample was divided into the patient group (with memory complaints) and the control group (without memory complaints). The GPCOG-Tr was compared against standard criteria for diagnosis of dementia (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders − 5th edition), the Clinical Dementia Rating scale, the Mini-mental State Examination, The Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive (ADAS-Cog) subscale, and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). The reliability test was done on 30 participants after two weeks. The two-stage method of administering the GPCOG-Tr had a sensitivity of 85%, a specificity of 92%, a misclassification rate of 11.3%, and a positive predictive value of 92%. The test-retest correlation coefficients ranged from 0.86 to 0.98. The GPCOG-Tr total was at least equivalent to the MMSE and ADAS-Cog in detecting dementia. The GPCOG-Tr displayed solid psychometric properties, offering the general practitioners an efficient cognitive instrument for older Turkish people.

The Motives of Lithuanian Inhabitants to Enrol in Kaunas Self-defence Battalions in Summer and Autumn 1941

This article examines the biographical data of Lithuanian inhabitants who served during the Nazi occupation (1941-1944) in Kaunas National Labour Protection battalion (TDA), and in the Auxiliary Police Service (PPT) 1st and 2nd battalions, formed in August 1941 on TDA’s basis. The number of people they killed distinguishes these battalions from other Lithuanian self-defence units. Throughout the history of Lithuania no other military structure killed as many innocent people as they did. Among other reasons, these battalions were chosen because more data on them survived. The goal of the article is to answer the question on what motivated Lithuanian inhabitants to join these battalions. This historical cognitive question is also relevant because it was not researched in the works of other historians on the Nazi period in Lithuania. The clues about the motives for joining these battalions can only be evaluated as hypotheses, the validity of which should be either confirmed or denied. The facts on the battalions’ participation in exterminating Jews and other groups of people leads one to the impression that Lithuanians joined these as well as other Nazi battalions with the incentive to murder. After completing the research on the biographical data it was ascertained that the opinion about joining for the motive of murder was not correct. This is confirmed by the circumstance that when joining the self-defence battalions, people were not aware that they would have to take part in the extermination operations of Jews and other groups. The troops were divided into four groups according to their motives for enrolling in military structures: 1) Patriots; 2) Unemployed and other jobseekers; 3) victims; 4) the insecure. Such classification is not strict, i.e. some persons can be attributed to several groups. By analysing the biographical facts of the troops who served in these battalions it was established that their motive for joining them was their patriotic inclinations, desire to have a job and receive payment, ambition to avenge the wrongs of the Soviet regime, willingness to avoid punishment for joining the Soviet regime, deportation to labour camps in Germany and to escape the fate of prisoners of war. In determining these inner motives, not only historical knowledge, but also knowledge of other science disciplines was used. The analysis of biographical data suggests that the inhabitants of the land who joined the self-defence units were motivated not by one, but rather several motives. They saw Kaunas TDA, 1st and 2nd PPT battalions as a means to satisfy their own inner motives. These motives led them to enrol in these military units in summer and autumn of 1941.

“Extremely Stupid Guidelines”: On The Development of Historical Questions Around Guru Tegh Bahadur’s Martyrdom

ABSTRACT In 1675, Mughal authorities beheaded Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru and, today, the martyrdom has become a highly contested historical question within scholarly circles. This article investigates the emergence of the event as a historical question and how the emphasis of historical fact-finding refashioned scholarly approaches to the Sikh tradition in the colonial and postcolonial periods. I end by exploring how the famous Sikh intellectual and politician, Sirdar Kapur Singh (1909-1986), drew upon the Sikh tradition to challenge the very premises of such historiographical framing in his landmark essay, “Who Killed Guru Tegh Bahadur?” and the limits to his challenge. I ask: What do we make of Kapur Singh’s frustration and disgust at the history writing that came to dominate the Sikh tradition? I show how Kapur Singh does not transcend the epistemological constraints of history through a better or more accurate rendition of the past. Instead, he disrupts the historiographical operation in his frustration with history writing and what he calls its “extremely stupid guidelines.”

“The question of dimension at every level”: An Interview with Ali Smith on Companion Piece, Contemporaneity, and Crisis

An interview with Ali Smith about her latest novel Companion Piece (2022), its relationship to her Seasonal Quartet (2016 –2020), and responding to contemporary society through fiction. In particular, Smith discusses how Companion Piece came out of Seasonal and writing fiction in relation to its own time and questions of both contemporaneity and history. This conversation also spans both recent and recurrent concerns throughout Smith’s writing, including: language and narrative, art in contemporary society, technology and capitalism, environmental crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. This interview was held in-person on 24th June 2022 in Trinity College, University of Cambridge. The conversation transcript has been lightly edited and condensed for length.

Barriers to Family History Collection and Family Medical Screening Recommendation in the Sudden Death in the Young Case Registry.

Sudden death in the young (SDY) poses a public health problem affecting thousands of individuals annually in the United States. The SDY Case Registry utilizes existing infrastructure of death investigation programs, including medical examiner/coroner (ME/C) systems, to enhance understanding of SDY causes and risk factors to inform prevention strategies. This includes identifying and promoting screening recommendations for at-risk family members. To explore barriers to family history collection and familial screening recommendation procedures across Registry sites, nine individuals from seven SDY sites were interviewed. Interviews focused on logistics, methods to address barriers, and recommendations for improvements. Despite variability in practices, data analysis revealed three common themes related to barriers of these processes: (1) timing and grief, (2) lack of family history in medical records, and (3) families lost to follow-up. This study offers insights into these processes within the Registry and sheds light on broader practices within the death investigation domain. Data analysis led to recommendations for the improvement of these practices including the prioritization of three key family history questions during the initial death investigation by a designated individual in each office/system.

The legality of roads in Chile, 1842–1969: A historical overview

Currently, no academic work examines the history of the legality of roads in Chile during its independent existence as a sovereign country. Addressing this gap in the literature, this paper focuses specially on the period from 1842 to 1969, when different actors articulated a set of guiding ideas about the duties of the state and the legal powers of the administrative authority in terms of planning, construction and management of road infrastructure that would allow connectivity between population centers and across regions, according to the ideas and resources available at their historical time. This historical overview of Chilean “road law” is done in the light of insights and questions of contemporary intellectual history and institutional history. In this regard, it is argued that the evolution of road infrastructure norms and institutions during the period under study can be divided into three historical regimes, based on their fundamental legislative milestones, guiding ideas, institutional settings, and strategies of state action: from 1842 to 1887, a period of a decentralized “minimal road state” with precarious roads characterized by both material and juridical uncertainty; from 1887 to 1920, the emergence of a “proto-developmentalist road state” intent on strengthening its grip on the nationwide road infrastructure; and from 1920 to 1969, a period of a “techno-developmentalist road state” that created a nationwide paved road network for the new technology of mobile vehicles.

Testing summary tables in the life history questions of the UK Generations and Gender Survey

Testing summary tables in the life history questions of the UK Generations and Gender Survey

Activism of Re-Membering: An Undoing of Museum History and Anthropocentric Ratiocination Through Priya Sarukkai Chabria’s Clone (2018)

The present article examines Priya Sarukkai Chabria’s Clone (2018) as a diffractive reworking of time, a performance of spacetime (re)configuring and speculated im/possibilities. It contests the humanist convictions of relations, time, space, matter and meaning by bringing to the fore an articulation of feminist new materialist time-being and its relational embeddedness, which consolidate the possibility of tracing the practices of historical erasure, cultural amnesia and political avoidance. Probing through the questions of history, memory and materiality, the study posits re-membering as a counterpolitics to museum history and an­­thropocentric ratiocination while it narrativizes re-turning and travel-hopping as the embodied material labor of undoing the hegemonic propensity. The article extends its inquiry beyond the novel’s narrative construct that heightens the idiosyncrasies of a throwaway society, offering insights into state-led biopolitics, neo-cannibalism and consumerist expropriation of the biotechnological beings into disposable trash. By engaging with Chabria’s Clone (2018), this treatise contributes to a relational understanding of multifarious ontological, ethical and existential implications inherent in the post-anthropocentric symbiosis of naturecultures, human-nonhuman and matter-meaning, albeit highlighting the activism of re-membering as equitably about new agentic configurations, new entangled subjectivities, new im/possibilities and ecosystemic inclusive mattering.

“To Brew a Prefabricated Medley of the Wreckage of All Groups”: The Russian Association of Proletarian Writers in the Federation of Associations of Soviet Writers

The Federation of Soviet Writers’ Associations (FOSP) is examined for the first time from the perspective of the sociology of the literary process. The traditional historical and literary question of who created the FOSP and why is replaced here by a more significant problem from the point of view of the literary process: why did the FOSP emerge in the conditions of competition on the market of literary production, who needed the FOSP most in the conditions of the market economy, and, finally, whether there was any prospect of the FOSP continuing to function after 1932. It is shown that the FOSP and its institutions, first and foremost the Federation publishing house, were the legitimate product of the NEP era and served the strategic goals of the Proletarian Union of Soviet Writers. Since the “genetic code” of the FOSP, like that of the Proletarian Association, belonged to the NEP era, the Federation had no chance of taking root in the economic and political conditions of the 1930s.

Gerd Bornheim leitor da Estética de Hegel

This article analyzes Gerd Bornheim's reading of Hegel’s aesthetics in order to show in what sense it plays a fundamental role in the Brazilian philosopher's thinking on the question of History. In addition, it is a question of looking at the panorama of philosophical debates in the city of Rio de Janeiro in the early 1990s to show how the fact that Bornheim was reading and discussing Hegel and Marx went against the dominant trend of the time, which was strongly marked by resistance to both thinkers due to the collapse of the Soviet system in 1989. Although in Dialética Bornheim aligned himself with Heidegger to critique the notion of totality in Hegel's philosophy of history, he did not adhere to the Heideggerian proposal of a “return to origin”, popular in philosophy departments in Rio de Janeiro at the time. Arguing that the theme of sensibility was itself an obstacle to Hegel’s idealism, Bornheim sought to construct a meaning for history based on the assumption of the theme of difference in the 20th century philosophy.

The industrial dimension of Australia’s claims for reparations from Japan after World War II

The literature documenting Australia’s claims for reparations from Japan after World War II has focussed on high policy and diplomacy, mainly at the Far Eastern Commission (FEC), and on compensation for former prisoners of war and civilian internees. However, nothing has been published on the considerable industrial dimension, an inherently technological subject. This article examines that aspect and provides answers to some important historical questions. Which Commonwealth Government departments were interested in identifying and claiming Japanese plant and equipment as reparations? What types of plant and equipment did the Commonwealth Government and Australian industries require? What impressions did Japanese technology make on an Australian Reparations Mission sent to Japan to claim machinery on behalf of the Australian Government? And what did Australia derive from a reparations-related FEC scheme that allowed FEC and non-FEC countries access to Japanese intellectual property, ultimately the only success in an otherwise failed endeavour to acquire reparations from Japanese industry?

The Ukrainian question in Russian history

The Ukrainian question in Russian history

Kenya: Socio-Demographic Determinants of Intractable Communal Land Use Conflicts in the Squatter Enclaves of Mount Elgon Region

In the post-Cold War world order, the African Continent has been a stage for some of the most violent intra-state conflicts arising from natural resources and land distribution. These contes tations have often been inter-communal and take the violent extremism route. The consequences of these devastating contestations have been apocalyptic in most of these conflicts. In Kenya’s Mount Elgon Region, the emergence of extremism Sabaot Land Defence Forces and counter-extremist groups is rooted in a long historical struggle for equitable distribution of land rights. Despite efforts by state and non-state actors, sustainable peace remains a distant mirage. Socio-economic deter minants have emerged as fundamental determinants in these extremist contestations, yet, extant literature has been silent on this subject matter. This paper sought to interrogate socio-demographic determinants as pathways for homegrown extremism in the Mount Elgon Region. Study findings revealed strong support for the interplay between ownership of land, source of income, level of education, and sustenance of homegrown extremism over land-use conflicts in the study area. The paper recommends the need for the Ministry of Lands to expedite the management of the historical land question to contain the socio-demographic determinants as pathways for homegrown ex tremism in the study area. The findings under score the importance of land tenure security in pursuit of peaceful, just, and inclusive societies as advocated for in the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030. Keywords: Demographic, extremism, home grown, land-use, Mt. Elgon.

Antipsychotic Drugs: A Concise Review of History, Classification, Indications, Mechanism, Efficacy, Side Effects, Dosing, and Clinical Application.

The introduction of the first antipsychotic drug, chlorpromazine, was a milestone for psychiatry. The authors review the history, classification, indications, mechanism, efficacy, side effects, dosing, drug initiation, switching, and other practical issues and questions related to antipsychotics. Classifications such as first-generation/typical versus second-generation/atypical antipsychotics are neither valid nor useful; these agents should be described according to the Neuroscience-based Nomenclature (NbN). Antipsychotic drugs are not specific for treating schizophrenia. They reduce psychosis regardless of the underlying diagnosis, and they go beyond nonspecific sedation. All currently available antipsychotic drugs are dopamine blockers or dopamine partial agonists. In schizophrenia, effect sizes for relapse prevention are larger than for acute treatment. A major unresolved problem is the implausible increase in placebo response in antipsychotic drug trials over the decades. Differences in side effects, which can be objectively measured, such as weight gain, are less equivocal than differences in rating-scale-measured (subjective) efficacy. The criteria for choosing among antipsychotics are mainly pragmatic and include factors such as available formulations, metabolism, half-life, efficacy, and side effects in previous illness episodes. Plasma levels help to detect nonadherence, and once-daily dosing at night (which is possible with many antipsychotics) and long-acting injectable formulations are useful when adherence is a problem. Dose-response curves for both acute treatment and relapse prevention follow a hyperbolic pattern, with maximally efficacious average dosages for schizophrenia of around 5 mg/day risperidone equivalents. Computer apps facilitating the choice between drugs are available. Future drug development should include pharmacogenetics and focus on drugs for specific aspects of psychosis.

Islamization of Knowledge as a “Muslim Question”

Islamization of knowledge (islāmiyyat or aslamat al-ma‘rifah) has emerged as one of the most significant Muslim global intellectual enterprises over the past half-century. Its efforts to integrate Islamic epistemology with Western knowledge systems have, however, subjected it to extensive criticism, a subset of which dismisses it as an ideological programme aimed at reviving religion, defying secularism, and subverting Western universal values. This article focuses on this subset of criticism and analyses its discourse by framing it within the broader context of the “Muslim Question.” Reminiscent of the historical Jewish Question, the “Muslim Question” continues to serve as a lens through which Islam and Muslims are systematically constructed as a problem. To retrace and investigate the inherent structure shared by the “Muslim Question” and this criticism, this study undertakes a discursive analysis of the decades-long critique of Bassam Tibi. It puts the criticism within the broader narrative of crisis; however, distinguishing it from the European rhetoric of the “crisis of Islam,” and questions it at the intersection of reasonable critique and Islamophobia. This article concludes that a critique of the Islamization of knowledge and its recent facet, knowledge integration (al-takāmul al-ma‘rifī), should acknowledge the plurality and diversity within Muslim intellectual traditions and resist homogenizing them under reductive categories. Such a merited study will have the potential to promote a more nuanced and balanced engagement with the intricate realities of contemporary Muslim thought and practice.

Evaluation of knowledge of risk factors and warning signs of stroke among paramedical students

Stroke is a medical emergency caused by a blockage or rupture in the blood vessels that supply blood to the brain. This prevents brain tissue from receiving oxygen, leading to the death of brain cells within minutes and causing neurological damage, disability, or death. Aim: The aim of the present study was to assess baseline knowledge regarding stroke risk factors, symptoms, treatment, and information resources. The “golden hour” is a time span of 60 minutes or less after stroke symptoms begin. There are two types of stroke, namely ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke. Ischemic stroke is further divided into thrombotic and embolic stroke. Hemorrhagic stroke is further divided into intracerebral hemorrhage and subarachnoid hemorrhage. Methods: The research method used in the study is a quantitative research approach. Purposive sampling techniques were used and 1050 participants were assessed The questionnaire consists of demographic details such as department, level of education, family history, and knowledge questions based on risk factors and management. Results: This study comprises 1040 patients who fulfill the inclusion criteria. The survey assessed the knowledge of risk factors and warning signs of stroke among future healthcare professionals (pharmacy, nursing, and AHS). The current findings reported that 51.8% of the paramedical students had knowledge about stroke, while the majority of them reported poor knowledge overall. The findings identified that 57.4% of the student population were knowledgeable about risk factors, 69.9% were knowledgeable about warning signs, and 51.8% were knowledgeable about management. These results were similar to many previous studies conducted around the world. Conclusion: Better knowledge about stroke, recognizing the risk factors, and being able to provide immediate management are essential for paramedical students. This is crucial for reducing stroke incidence and improving survival rates of patients by providing better medical help through early detection, rapid intervention, and better long-term health outcomes not only in a medical setup but also in their respective environments.

Childhood Maltreatment, Revictimization, and Partner Violence Victimization Through Midlife: A Prospective Longitudinal Investigation.

Existing research suggests that prior victimizations during a person's lifetime, particularly childhood traumas and maltreatment, are risk factors for abuse and revictimization in adulthood, although longitudinal evidence is sparse. Using data from a 30-year ongoing longitudinal study of the long-term consequences of childhood maltreatment, this paper describes the extent to which childhood maltreatment predicts subsequent victimization and partner violence victimization at two time points in adulthood. Data were obtained from a prospective cohort design study in which children with court-substantiated cases of maltreatment (ages 0-11 years) and demographically matched controls were followed into adulthood and interviewed over several waves. Childhood maltreatment was assessed through juvenile and adult court records from 1967 to 1971 in a midwestern county area in the United States. Victimization experiences were assessed from 2000 to 2002 (Mage = 39.5 years) and 2009 to 2010 (Mage = 47.5) and included two types based on information from the lifetime trauma and victimization history instrument and questions about past year partner violence victimization. Individuals with histories of childhood maltreatment were more likely to report physical and sexual assaults and kidnapping and stalking victimization than controls through age 39.5. In contrast, the two groups did not differ at the later assessment at age 47.5, except maltreated individuals reported greater risk for sexual assault/abuse than controls. For intimate partner violence victimization at age 39.5, maltreated and control groups differed only in terms of victimization involving injury. Later in adulthood, more individuals with histories of childhood maltreatment reported partner physical violence victimization compared to controls. Although these longitudinal findings showed a general decline in victimization experiences over the two time points, these results demonstrate that childhood maltreatment increases risk for subsequent revictimization in middle adulthood, specifically for sexual assault/abuse and intimate partner physical violence victimization. These findings have implications for prevention and intervention efforts targeting maltreated children.

What Is Animal Prehistory?

This paper engages animal archaeologies with key debates in animal history. Animal archaeology is currently and primarily framed as a multi-species venture, and a brief review of its disciplinary genealogies illustrates dominant foci on questions of ecology and (posthuman) ontology. I argue that this situation, paradoxically, has led archaeologists to largely neglect the challenges of the historical animal. To overcome this constriction, animal archaeology needs to conceive of itself also as a critical and conceptual project—coevally celebrating and problematizing the notion of “the animal.” Importantly, this project pivots to questions of historicity, with regard to both its animal subjects of study and animal scholarship itself. I position “animal prehistory” as a strategic lens to bring to the fore and interrogate these unattended animal specificities and articulate them with long-standing concerns in animal history. I suggest this can proffer a new, exciting field of inquiry and exchange for both historians and archaeologists.

In Search of Women’s Identity

Abstract The aim of this article is an attempt women’s identity. uthors search for answers for this question in history, gender stereotypes and feminism. It should be remembered that the process of socialization plays a significant role in the process of identity construction. It is associated with the specific social environments in which human socialization takes place. The concept of identity raises the issue of social position as well as past and present position in the social system. Both collective and individual identities are fluid, change over time and are created throughout life.

Acceptability of sexual history questions in a gender-neutral risk assessment for blood donation.

Currently in Australia, men are deferred from donating blood if they have had sex with another man within the past 3 months. However, a proposed gender-neutral assessment (GNA) process will ask all donors questions about sex with new or multiple recent partners, with deferral based on responses to a question about anal sex. Understanding the acceptability of such questions among existing and potential blood donors is paramount for successful implementation of GNA. We used data from a nationally representative survey to estimate the levels of comfort with the proposed GNA questions among the Australian population and subgroups, defined by self-reported ethnicity and religion. Respondents were aged over 18 and living in Australia. Results were weighted to represent the population. Most of the 5178 respondents described themselves as comfortable with answering questions about new partners (73.1%) or anal sex (64.0%) to donate blood. However, 2.2% and 4.5% indicated that questions about new sex partners and anal sex, respectively, would stop them from donating, and 4.4% and 7.7% respectively, said they were "completely uncomfortable." By religion, the least comfortable were Muslim or Eastern Orthodox respondents, and by country of birth, the least comfortable were those born in the Middle East, followed by those born in Southern Europe and Asia. GNA appears to be broadly acceptable in the Australian context, but our findings suggest that key GNA questions are less acceptable in some population subgroups, indicating a need for targeted campaigns that consider cultural sensitivities.