Macrostructural Level Research Articles

Dress Matters

Dress serves as a discursive daily practice of gender, and this article explains the dress practices of Bosnian Muslim refugee women living in Vermont. These dress practices tend toward elaborate, carefully cultivated styles for hair, makeup, and dress. Based on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and secondary historical sources, the authors seek to explain the meanings and practice of these dress practices. They argue that gendered dress practices reflect agentic processes that are situated within the flow of time and are rooted in relational processes that occur at the macrostructural level of history and nation and at the micro world of social interaction and lived experience.

ASIS Award of Merit: On the Shoulders of Giants

ASIS Award of Merit: On the Shoulders of Giants

Internal Formation and the Global Context of Transnational Social Space

The transnational perspective in migration studies emerged from interactions of multiple and diverse currents of migration studies on new migration phenomena in North America. This perspective shed a light on the “transnational social space, ” which is built upon multi-directional human and information flow facilitated by social organization crossing the international border. Pre-existing social scientific framework based upon the nation-state system could not grasp this new reality.This study is an endeavor to examine issues generated from this perspective with special attention given to three aspects. First, the research efforts to explore this new social reality have been inclined to focus on its positive aspects of horizontal network and communal relation while disregarding possibilities of retrogression, internal division, and unequal power relations. Second, at the macro-structural level, transnational migrants do not necessarily move bypassing the state border easily, but rather produce cooperative or even complicit relations with nation-states and by doing so create a more complex formation of transnational social spaces. Third, from a historical perspective, the ascendance of transnational social space is more than a new version of lasting communal relations beyond the border in earlier history, such as diasporan Jews or overseas Chinese. On-going global restructuring of economy from the above has created conditions to develop and to consolidate transnational social space both by destabilizing national economies and politics and by opening up new opportunities for overseas population.For a more balanced and nuanced research on social processes of migration from the transnational perspective, it is necessary to incorporate into the analysis its complex internal structure as well as to contextualize it in the macro-historical dynamics in the current market-oriented global restructuring process.

‘Zeit Der Nichtübereinstimmung’: Censorship Discourses about and in Jurek Becker's Schlaflose Tage

Schlaflose Tage marks a turning point for Jurek Becker: it is the only one of his novels which was never published in the GDR, and after its failure to gain authorisation in 1977, Becker left the GDR. The publishing negotiations concentrated on contentious elements of the fictional text, as well as on Becker's demands and his public demeanour. As was often the case, political concerns rather than aesthetic preferences proved to be decisive – the ban came as a reaction to Becker's critical interviews in West German print media. Nevertheless, it is important to study the arguments advanced about the manuscript, because they offer an insight into the ways in which those who worked in the GDR's ‘Literaturbetrieb’ received and responded to a text which they regarded as violating political sensitivities. An analysis of the logic of these censorial discourses shows that they focus on plot elements of the novel, on direct statements by its central characters, and on ideological issues related thereto, while ignoring Becker's more subtle representations of censorship which underpin the macrostructural levels of plot and dialogue: metaphors, symbols, parables, and intertextual references.

Noninvasive ventilation or paradigm paralysis?

<h3>ABSTRACT</h3> Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative disease. MS prevalence varies geographically, both between and within countries and is notably high in Scotland. Disease trajectory varies significantly between individuals and the causes for this are largely unclear. Biomarkers predictive of disease course are urgently needed to allow improved stratification for current disease modifying therapies and future targeted treatments aimed at neuroprotection and remyelination, and as endpoints for clinical trials. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can detect disease activity and underlying neurological damage non-invasively <i>in vivo</i> at the micro and macro structural level. FutureMS is a prospective Scottish longitudinal multi-centre cohort study which focuses on deeply phenotyping and genotyping patients with recently diagnosed relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) to identify predictors of disease activity and severity. Neuroimaging is a central component of the study and provides two main primary endpoints for disease activity and neurodegeneration. The aim of the current paper is to provide an overview of MRI data acquisition, management and processing in FutureMS. MRI is acquired at baseline (N=431) and 1-year follow-up, in Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh (3T Siemens) and in Aberdeen (3T Philips), and managed and processed in Edinburgh. The core structural MRI protocol comprises T1-weighted, T2-weighted, 2D/3D FLAIR and proton density images. The original study primary imaging outcome measures are new/enlarging white matter lesions (WML) assessed by neuroradiological visual read and reduction in brain volume over one year. Secondary imaging outcomes comprise WML volume as an additional quantitative structural MRI outcome measure, rim lesions on susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI), and microstructural MRI measures, including diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) metrics, relaxometry, magnetisation transfer (MT) ratio, MT saturation and derived g-ratio measures. FutureMS aims to reduce uncertainty around disease course and allow for targeted treatment in RRMS by exploring the role of conventional and advanced MRI measures as biomarkers of disease severity and progression in a large population of RRMS patients in Scotland.

Changes in the Structure of Grammatical Systems: The Evolution of French

Typologies of linguistic change distinguish two sets of causes: external and internal. This paper focuses on the latter. Certain changes taking place in a given language over a given period produce very similar outcomes. This is the case with four important changes which occurred in different parts of French grammar between the 13th and 15th centuries: demonstratives, indefinites, the replacement of moult by très and beaucoup, and the distinction between prepositions and adverbs. This paper argues that these similarities can be explained with reference to a grammatical change at the level of macro-structure: an extension of the morphological distinction between first-level units (“heads”) and second-level units (“adjuncts”).

Palindromes and Palimpsests: Strategies of Deliberate Self-contradiction in Postmodern British Fiction

This paper sets out to argue that contemporary British fiction, by using palinodes, palindromes and palimpsests both on the micro- and macro-structural levels, favours a logic of association of contraries which ipso facto deconstructs any monologic reflexion and conception of the world. To combine and superimpose contrary ideas means to eschew the monolithic. It also expresses the composite, heterogeneous, and yes eclectic, nature of postmodernism and its fundamental incredulity towards any singular ideology and aesthetic tradition. Ultimately, if contemporary fiction flaunts its contradictory syncretism, it is to claim the right to simultaneously and oxymoronically defend opposed tendencies, beliefs and influences.

Narrative and Procedural Discourse Production by Severely Aphasic Patients

Five chronically aphasic subjects were trained on a computerized iconographic communication system (C-VIC). Their performance in producing single sentences, scripts, and narratives was assessed using both spoken English and C-VIC. The requisite vocabulary necessary and the narrative complexity of the target productions were controlled. Subject performance using C-VIC indicates that the ability to construct discourse at the macrostructural level is largely intact. Despite significant improvements in spoken production after C-VIC training, especially at the single sentence level, the subjects’ spoken discourse remains severely impaired by their failures at the microlinguistic level. These results point to the limits of currently available approaches to the remediation of aphasia and suggest avenues for future research.

Microstructure of sleep in depressed patients according to the cyclic alternating pattern

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate the microstructure of the EEG sleep of depressed subjects by cyclic alternating pattern (CAP) analysis. Methods: 78 patients affected by major depression and 18 control subjects matched for age and sex underwent a full night polysomnographic study. Results: A significant increase in CAP rate (60 versus 35%) was found in the patients group compared to controls while no significant difference was found with the traditional analysis. Conclusion: In depressed subjects CAP analysis is able to show a microstructural sleep impairment, which is not evident at the macrostructural level, providing an objective measure of sleep disturbance in those patients.

Predicting anisotropic shringkage of softwood Part 1: Theories

The phenomenon of wood shrinkage by losing moisture can be analysed at four levels: molecular, ultrastructural, microstructural and macrostructural levels. To predict the shrinkage of wood cells, the model of Barber and Meylan is modified in the current work to reflect combined effects of shrinkage of the cell wall, changes of the lumen shape and effects of rays and bordered pits. Where a piece of wood contains a multi-layer of earlywood and latewood or multi-layer of normal and defect wood with variable properties, a model is proposed to relate the total, measurable shrinkage to the shrinkage of each layer. The model can be applied to a specimen with asymmetric properties through the thickness. In such a board, bow (or crook), cup and twist are often observed. The modified and proposed models involve several mechanical properties of the cell wall which are difficult to measure. These properties vary with wood types, such as earlywood, late wood, compression wood, or wood with spiral grain. However, an alternative method may be used to obtain these properties from experimentally measured shrinkage data, and this method will be presented in a subsequent paper.

On the correlation character between the structure perfection and electroluminescent properties of terbium doped silicon monoxide films

The present work is devoted to the investigation of structural changes accompanying the appearance of green and blue electroluminescence in thermally deposited SiO x : Tb ( x∼1) films as a result of high-temperature processing. The non-destructive optical methods, specifically, measuring transmission spectra in ultraviolet, visible, near and far IR area, and multiangle ellipsometry have been used for such a research. Analysis of the obtained experimental results allows to conclude that the annealing-stimulated structural transformations in a matrix of terbium doped silicon monoxide films occur at both microstructural and macrostructural levels and have an essential and complex influence on the film radiative performances.

In Vivo Detection and Functional Correlates of White Matter Microstructural Disruption in Chronic Alcoholism

Postmortem studies report degradation of brain white matter microstructure in chronic alcoholism, but until recently, in vivo neuroimaging could provide measurement only at a macrostructural level. The development of magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) for clinical use offers a method for depicting and quantifying the diffusion properties of white matter expressed as intravoxel and intervoxel coherence of tracts and fibers. This study used DTI to examine the intravoxel coherence measured as fractional anisotropy (FA) and intervoxel coherence (C) of white matter tracts of the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum and of the centrum semiovale in 15 detoxified alcoholic men and 31 nonalcoholic control subjects. Exploratory correlational analyses examined the relationships between regional DTI measures and tests of attention and working memory in the alcoholic patients. The alcoholic group had lower regional FA than the control group. C was lower in the alcoholics than controls in the splenium only. Working memory correlated positively with splenium FA, whereas attention correlated positively with genu C. These results provide in vivo evidence for disruption of white matter microstructure in alcoholism and suggest that interruption of white matter fiber coherence contributes to disturbance in attention and working memory in chronic alcoholism.

Micromechanical Aspects of Reversible Hydrogen Embrittlement

We present experimental data confirming the known regularities of reversible hydrogen embrittlement of structural steels. We analyze some aspects of this complicated phenomenon at the atomic, dislocation, microstructural, and macrostructural levels and show that the defective structure of a metal plays a decisive role in all stages of reversible hydrogen embrittlement.

The macrostructure of the interview: Are traumatic brain injury interactions structured differently to control interactions?

Previous descriptions of discourse deficits following traumatic brain injury (TBI) at a macrostructural level have used analyses such as cohesion and story structure. This paper proposes a macrolinguistic analysis called generic structure potential analysis (GSP) (Ventola 1979) which describes the overall structuring of the unfolding process of two types of interviews. Seven TBI subjects are compared with matched control subjects across two conditions: a community education information-giving encounter to two 16 year old school students and an information requesting interaction with the researcher. The possible GSP elements of these types of encounters include greeting, identification, approaches which enable interactants to establish interpersonal links, centring which directly relate to the purpose of the interviews, leave-taking and goodbye. The GSP of student interactions was similar for TBI and control subjects but differences were noted in the researcher condition. The value of placing TBI subjects in information giving roles and the importance of the communication partner's contributions to the interaction is highlighted. GSP analysis allows the clinician researcher to analyse the interview context by taking the contextual configuration into account. It may provide a valuable clinical tool in the assessment and treatment of discourse deficits which commonly follow TBI.

The lemmatization of nouns in African languages with special reference to Sepedi and Cilubà

The aim of this article is to analyze traditional approaches to the lemmatization of nouns on the macrostructural level in African languages against the background of the user- perspective, the physical limitations on volume, the consideration of currently available dictionaries and the utilization of a corpus. Five basic lemmatization strategies are given due attention, namely lemmatizing nouns under stems, according to morpho-lexical fields, under both singular and plural forms, solely under singular forms, or finally on first or third letters. It is shown that any modern strategy that aims at avoiding the shortcomings and pitfalls of these five basic types whilst at the same time exploiting their virtues, will have to give full weight to target users' desires. A means to incorporate those desires is illustrated through a small dictionary project to which the concept of ‘simultaneous feedback’ is applied. In conclusion four rules of thumb and ten general guidelines are presented.

Towards dialectic listening: Quotation and montage in the work of Luigi Nono

The processes of quotation (concerning the sound material, the compositional techniques, the text components and the relationship of ‘intersemiotics’ between text and music) as well as their association with the poetic of montage on macro and micro structural levels play a central role in Nono's music. Aiming at breaking “banal consequentiality” and “giving testimony of his own times”, Nono opposed simultaneously the serial thinking of ‘his own times”, Nono opposed simultaneously serial thinking as a kind of linear thinking and the homogeneous, autopoietic, self-referential conception of the ‘work of art’. He brought the interpellation of a political and social Other into the avant-garde scene, not only through themes or texts explicitly remitting to the life-world but also through the allegorical sense contained in the musical structures. Under the influence of Gramsci and Benjamin's Philosophy of History, which seems to be latent always in his attitude towards the past, Nono appeals to dialectic listening. By radicalising more and more his way of thinking in fragments without leaving a restless search of the new in art and life, he emerges as a representative of postmodern philosophical thought within the paradigm of modern art.

Durability of concrete: The crossroad between chemistry and mechanics

The evaluation of the durability of concrete in severe environments is a real challenge for civil engineers. In order to simulate the behaviour and evolution of the cement paste with time, designers need sophisticated models coupling chemistry, physics, and mechanics. Chemistry and physics give the evolution of the material submitted to different attacks such as the alkali-aggregate reaction. Mechanics gives the behaviour of the material in terms of stress and strain. It is a complex problem because it exists on different scales in the material, i.e., the microstructural level for the diffusion of chemical species, the macrostructural level for cracks and damage. On the other hand, the heterogeneity of the material provides another problem and implies the use of probabilities. Based on some examples, different models and results are given to show the interest of such an approach.

Nazism, Nationalism, and the Sociology of Emotions: Escape from Freedom Revisited

The recent worldwide resurgence of militant nationalism, fundamentalist intolerance, and right-wing authoritarianism has again put the issues of violence and xenophobia at the center of social science research and theory. German psychoanalyst and sociologist Erich Fromm's work provides a useful theoretical microfoundation for contemporary work on nationalism, the politics of identity, and the roots of war and violence. Fromm's analysis of Nazism in «Escape from Freedom» (1941), in particular, outlines a compelling theory of irrationality, and his later writings on nationalism provide an existential psychoanalysis that can be useful for contemporary social theory and sociology of emotions. «Escape from Freedom» synthesizes Marxist, Freudian, Weberian, and existentialist insights to offer an original theoretical explanation of Nazism that combines both macrostructural and micropsychological levels of analysis. After forty-five years of research into the social origins of fascism and with recent theorizing in the sociology of nationalism and emotions, «Escape from Freedom», its analysis of Nazism, and Fromm's larger theoretical perspective are worth reconsidering

The connectivity of the brain: multi-level quantitative analysis

We develop a mathematical formalism or calculating connectivity volumes generated by specific topologies with various physical packing strategies. We consider four topologies (full, random, nearest-neighbor, and modular connectivity) and three physical models: (i) interior packing, where neurons and connection fibers are intermixed, (ii) sheeted packing where neurons are located on a sheet with fibers running underneath, and (iii) exterior packing where the neurons are located at the surfaces of a cube or sphere with fibers taking up the internal volume. By extensive cross-referencing of available human neuroanatomical data we produce a consistent set of parameters for the whole brain, the cerebral cortex, and the cerebellar cortex. By comparing these inferred values with those predicted by the expressions, we draw the following general conclusions for the human brain, cortex, and cerebellum: (i) Interior packing is less efficient than exterior packing (in a sphere). (ii) Fully and randomly connected topologies are extremely inefficient. More specifically we find evidence that different topologies and physical packing strategies might be used at different scales. (iii) For the human brain at a macro-structural level, modular topologies on an exterior sphere approach the data most closely. (iv) On a mesostructural level, laminarization and columnarization are evidence of the superior efficiency of organizing the wiring as sheets. (v) Within sheets, microstructures emerge in which interior models are shown to be the most efficient. With regard to interspecies similarities and differences we conjecture (vi) that the remarkable constancy of number of neurons per underlying square millimeter of cortex may be the result of evolution minimizing interneuron distance in grey matter, and (vii) that the topologies that best fit the human brain data should not be assumed to apply to other mammals, such as the mouse for which we show that a random topology may be feasible for the cortex.

Imperative vs. interactive strategy of systemic change in central and Eastern Europe

Abstract The negotiated strategy as an alternative to the liberal approach is based on the interactive method of social change. Implementing this strategy is no easy task. It calls for both a fundamental theoretical reassessment of the problem of systemic transformation as well as changes in habitual patterns of behaviour. Under post‐socialist conditions, negotiations take on a double significance: on the one hand, they can create an institutional framework, establish the rules of the market game, and allow particular economic projects to be put into practice (the meso‐ and microstructural level). On the other hand, the resulting arrangements can be used as a basis for defining and implementing a precise strategy to shape the economic system, thus ‘building up’ the state (the macrostructural level). The implementation of the liberal approach based on the imperative method of social change has created an ‘interaction crisis’ in post‐socialist societies. One of the major symptoms of this crisis is the contr...