Original Context Research Articles

PSEUDO-SACRIFICIAL ALLUSIONS IN HOSIDIUS GETA'S MEDEA

AbstractThis article explores the allusive strategy of the late second-century cento-tragedy Medea attributed to Hosidius Geta, which recounts Medea's revenge against Jason using verses from the works of Virgil. It argues that the text's author recognized a consistent strand of characterization in earlier treatments of the Medea myth, whereby the heroine's filicide is presented as a corrupted sacrifice. Geta selectively uses verses from thematically significant episodes in the Aeneid—the lying tale of Sinon and the death of Laocoön; the murder of Priam; the suicide of Dido—at key points to foreground the theme of pseudo-sacrificial violence. Geta's use of Virgil evinces a keen appreciation both of the symbolism of the broader mythic tradition in which his text is situated and of the original narrative contexts of the verses he recycles. The article's findings contribute to a growing recognition of the creative potential afforded by the cento technique.

Validation of a culturally adapted Swedish-language version of the Death Literacy Index.

The death literacy index (DLI) was developed in Australia to measure death literacy, a set of experience-based knowledge needed to understand and act on end-of-life (EOL) care options but has not yet been validated outside its original context. The aim of this study was to develop a culturally adapted Swedish-language version of the DLI, the DLI-S, and assess sources of evidence for its validity in a Swedish context. The study involved a multi-step process of translation and cultural adaptation and two validation phases: examining first content and response process validity through expert review (n = 10) and cognitive interviews (n = 10); and second, internal structure validity of DLI-S data collected from an online cross-sectional survey (n = 503). The psychometric evaluation involved analysis of descriptive statistics on item and scale-level, internal consistency and test-retest reliability, and confirmatory factor analysis. During translation and adaptation, changes were made to adjust items to the Swedish context. Additional adjustments were made following findings from the expert review and cognitive interviews. The content validity index exceeded recommended thresholds (S-CVIAve = 0.926). The psychometric evaluation provided support for DLI-S' validity. The hypothesized six-factor model showed good fit (χ2 = 1107.631 p<0.001, CFI = 0.993, TLI = 0.993, RMSEA = 0.064, SRMR = 0.054). High internal consistency reliability was demonstrated for the overall scale (Cronbach's α = 0.94) and each sub-scale (α 0.81-0.92). Test-retest reliability was acceptable, ICC ranging between 0.66-0.85. Through a comprehensive assessment of several sources of evidence, we show that the DLI-S demonstrates satisfactory validity and acceptability to measure death literacy in the Swedish context. There are, however, indications that the sub-scales measuring community capacity perform worse in comparison to other sca and may function differently in Sweden than in the original context. The DLI-S has potential to contribute to research on community-based EOL interventions.

An analysis of idiomatic expressions used in “The Call of the Wild” movie

Analysis of Idiomatic Expressions in the Movie "The Call of the Wild." The purpose of this research is to identify the different idiomatic that were used in the movie “The Call of the Wild” and to decipher their true meanings. Researchers employed the theory of McCarty and O'Dell and an idiom dictionary to address the set research topics. This study employs qualitative descriptive research techniques. Data analysis was done by reducing and displaying information to conclude. The study's conclusions are as follows: the six kinds of McCarty and O'Dell idiomatic idioms were discovered in the movie The Call of the Wild. The six categories of terms are similes idiom (7%), binomials idiom (5%), proverbs idiom (16%), euphemisms idiom (22%), cliches idiom (17%), and fixed statement idiom (33%). The most common form of idiomatic expression is a Fixed Statement idiom, the dominating idiom. On the other hand, binomial idioms are the style of idiomatic expression that The Call of the Wild uses the least. The implied meaning of idiomatic can be deduced from the context of the statement in the movie. Idioms cannot be understood in just one word or phrase, so they must be understood in one sentence or paragraph to understand the meaning of the original context.

Unveiling Neocolonialism in Sino-African Relations

This article examines the artistic and political implications of Femi Osofisan’s All for Catherine, an adaptation of Cao Yu’s play Thunderstorm. Although the dialogue remains largely faithful to the original, the characters, settings, and historical contexts are artfully shifted to the Nigerian cultural context. The original play by Cao Yu primarily offers a profound critique of capitalist society, a sentiment Osofisan carries forward in his adaptation. By analysing the play’s postcolonial narrative and its portrayal of China’s image, this article provides a literary and textual analysis of African perspectives on Sino-African relations. While China may intend to play a supportive role in Africa, extending its influence and contributing to economic growth, Osofisan’s adaptation suggests a more nuanced perspective. It raises concerns about the potential for neocolonialism, where China’s investments might sometimes prioritise its own interests over the genuine development of African nations.

Unconscious Manipulation of Conceptual Representations with Decoded Neurofeedback Impacts Search Behavior.

The necessity of conscious awareness in human learning has been a long-standing topic in psychology and neuroscience. Previous research on non-conscious associative learning is limited by the low signal-to-noise ratio of the subliminal stimulus, and the evidence remains controversial, including failures to replicate. Using functional MRI decoded neurofeedback, we guided participants from both sexes to generate neural patterns akin to those observed when visually perceiving real-world entities (e.g., dogs). Importantly, participants remained unaware of the actual content represented by these patterns. We utilized an associative DecNef approach to imbue perceptual meaning (e.g., dogs) into Japanese hiragana characters that held no inherent meaning for our participants, bypassing a conscious link between the characters and the dogs concept. Despite their lack of awareness regarding the neurofeedback objective, participants successfully learned to activate the target perceptual representations in the bilateral fusiform. The behavioral significance of our training was evaluated in a visual search task. DecNef and control participants searched for dogs or scissors targets that were pre-cued by the hiragana used during DecNef training or by a control hiragana. The DecNef hiragana did not prime search for its associated target but, strikingly, participants were impaired at searching for the targeted perceptual category. Hence, conscious awareness may function to support higher-order associative learning. Meanwhile, lower-level forms of re-learning, modification, or plasticity in existing neural representations can occur unconsciously, with behavioral consequences outside the original training context. The work also provides an account of DecNef effects in terms of neural representational drift.

Context effects on the perception of saturation of fruit colors in still-life paintings.

Still-life painters, especially of the so-called Golden Age (17th century) in the Netherlands, are famous for their masterful techniques of rendering reality. Their amazing abilities to depict different material properties of fruits and flowers are stunning. But how important are these careful arrangements of different objects for the perception of an individual item? Is the perceived color saturation of a single fruit influenced by its surrounding context? We selected fruits in still-life paintings as stimuli to investigate whether and how perceived saturations of fruits were affected by their original contexts. In our study, we focused especially on effects of five context properties: complementary colors, chromatic and luminance contrast, object overlap, and surround variance. Six fruit varieties depicted in high-quality digital reproductions of 48 classic and eight varieties in 64 more recent, modern still-life paintings were selected. In a single trial, eight images of fruits of the same variety appeared on a neutral gray background; half were single fruit cutouts, and the other half were the same fruits embedded in their circular contexts. Fifteen participants ranked all eight images according to perceived color saturations of the fruits. Saturation ratings showed a high agreement of 77%. Surrounding contexts led to an increase in perceived saturation of central fruits. This effect was mainly driven by object overlap, the presence of the central fruit type also in the context, and surround variance. Chroma contrast between fruits and contexts decreased saturation significantly. No significant context effects were found for complementary colors or luminance contrast. Our results show that in paintings, many of the cues that are usually experimentally isolated occur in interesting combinations and lead to an increase in perceived saturation that makes fruit objects more appealing and convincing.

A From Literary Roots to Media Studies: The Artistic Use of Defamiliarization Technique in Tom &amp;Jerry (animated series)

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera’s creation Tom &amp; Jerry is widely regarded as one of the greatest animated series of the 20th century. This iconic series is evidence of the lasting appeal of animation and its ability to captivate viewers for decades.With its innovative approach to visual storytelling, timeless humour, endearing characters, and most notably its artistic use of defamiliarization technique, Tom &amp; Jerry has left an indelible mark on the animation industry, providing amusement to viewers of all ages around the world and firmly soldifying its status as a true masterpiece. Based on the visual analysis method, this paper adapts Shklovsky’s technique of ‘defamiliarization’ from the field of literature to the domain of media studies, explaining its different facets and exploring its practical implications. By transcending the boundaries of its original literay context, this paper aims to throw light on the many ways in which defamiliarization manifests itself in Tom &amp; Jerry animated series and how it has a big impact on getting viewers to change their habitual reactions to artwork and instead percieve it in a fresh, vivid, and intense way.

Exploring Digital Means to Engage Visitors with Roman Culture: Virtual Reality vs. Tangible Interaction

To effectively communicate the archaeological remains of the distant past is a challenge: Little may be left to see, and the culture may be very different to comprehend. This article compares two technological approaches to communicating Roman archaeology in museums: virtual reality and tangible interaction. Although very different in rationale, design, and implementation, the two explorative studies have the same aim of engaging visitors with important exhibits. The challenge is to effectively communicate the exhibit's original and cultural context. In “Views of the Past,” virtual reality was used to support an environmental narrative experience where fragments of history are found scattered in the 3D reconstructed forum of Augustus in Rome. In “My Roman Pantheon,” a tangible interactive installation, visitors act as Romans living along Hadrian's Wall making offerings to the deities of the Roman pantheon to secure their protection. In both explorative studies the combination of the features (virtual reality + narratives, tangible + acting) make visitors feel “cultural presence,” where the perception of a place is combined with the awareness of the culture and an understanding of the past. Although they work on very different sensorial reaction (sight for virtual reality, touch for tangible interaction), both are promising mechanisms to design effective visitors’ experiences for challenging cultural heritage settings.

The Translatability of Sports Metaphors in Political News

The present study investigates the difficulties and problems in deciphering the figurative meaning of English sports metaphors that appear in political news and, more specifically, in US presidential campaigns and their Arabic equivalents when they are under the detailed scrutiny of translation. In order to highlight the problem under discussion, the study explores the translation of some sports metaphors in their original context of use. Several English sports metaphors from different sports fields are collected randomly from British and US online newspapers with their possible equivalents in Arabic that are used in comparable texts that report the same topic. This comparative study focuses on the different strategies that are followed in rendering English sports metaphors in Arabic online newspapers. The researcher employed an empirical, descriptive and analytical approach where sports metaphors are described and classified. Their translations on online Arabic newspapers are also discussed and examined. The analysis will be based on the conceptual metaphor framework proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1984). Thus, it will be important to assess the conceptualized experiences across different cultures, particularly between English and Arabic, in this study. The findings reveal that English sports metaphors pose a metaphorical and cultural threat to the Arab translator, who might be tempted to translate them literally in case s/he fails to understand their hidden meaning. Producing accurate translation equivalents for these items cannot be achieved without knowing their metaphorical senses and the ability to provide natural and acceptable equivalents in the target language. The aim is to create a similar impact on the target language audience.

An evaluation of Substance Painter and Mari as visualisation methods using the Piraeus Lion and its runic inscriptions as a case study

This paper explores the effectiveness in the use of texture painting software packages, which are more commonly used in the film and game industries, as a method for detecting and recording carvings on non-planar surfaces. This new approach is demonstrated through a case study of the Piraeus Lion, a sculpture in Venice which has documented engravings that are subtle and have proven difficult to fully recorded and interpret using traditional approaches. Through the creation of a new digital documentation of the Piraeus Lion using Structure from Motion, the model was processed using existing methods and other experimental visualisation techniques. The outputs from these were then compared to the those from two software, Substance Painter and Mari. These software packages helped to visualise the carvings and showed that the method has potential for a wide range of uses, both within epigraphy and other fields of study relating to carvings on stone including rock art and runology. The presented method is intended to be used alongside existing digital and analogue methods as a tool for annotating, evaluating, and discovering new carvings in their original context. In particular, Substance Painter offers a repeatable, easy to use, and intuitive solution to creating easily distributable visualisations and annotated models.

The image as a site of transgression: the case of Beirut counter-visuality since October 2019

ABSTRACT On 17 October 2019 in Beirut, a Lebanese state bodyguard confronted by demonstrators opened fire when a female protestor hit him with a side kick. Another protestor recorded this moment on his mobile phone. A single frame of the video footage was remediated shortly after as a still image and gained rapid traction across social media platforms, as did the original video. The circulation of the content online inspired a group of artists to remediate the digital image themselves into a series of artistic works, adding in the process additional layers of meaning and interpretation to its original context. Taking the digital image of the side kick as a case study, this qualitative research examines how five young Lebanese artists use ‘cyberartivism’ to participate in the rising wave of political and social transformation. Based on empirical material that consists of a series of interviews with five Lebanese artists, this study aims to understand the role of digital images in their transition from forms of evidence to remediated sites of transgression in the context of the October 2019 Revolution in Lebanon. Its purpose is to explore the way camera witnessing, connective witnessing, and the creative modification of an image and its circulation on social media can foster a sense of solidarity and dissent by empowering and strengthening protestors’ voices, thus generating new forms of leadership and agency.

Hindi Text Summarization Using Sequence to Sequence Neural Network

Text summarizing reduces a large block of text data to a precise, short, and intelligible text that conveys the whole meaning of the actual text in a few words while maintaining the original context. Due to a lack of relevant summaries, it is hard to understand the main idea of the document. Text summarization using the abstractive technique is well-studied in English, although it is still in its infancy in Indian regional languages. In this study, we investigate the effectiveness of using a sequence-to-sequence (Seq2Seq) neural network based on attention and its optimization for text summarization for the Hindi language (HiATS), explicitly comparing the Adam and RMSprop optimizers. Our method allows the model to take the Hindi language dataset and, as output, provides a concise summary that accurately reflects the gist of the original text. The performance of the models will be evaluated using Rouge-1 and Rouge-2 metrics.

High-Anxious People Generalize Costly Pain-Related Avoidance Behavior More to Novel Safe Contexts Compared to Low-Anxious People

Pain-related avoidance is adaptive when there is a bodily threat, but when it generalizes to safe movements/situations, it may become disabling. Both subclinical anxiety—a vulnerability marker for chronic pain—and chronic pain are associated with excessive fear generalization to safe stimuli/situations. Previous research focused mainly on passive fear correlates (psychophysiological arousal and self-reports) leaving avoidance behavior poorly understood. Therefore, we tested whether high-anxious individuals generalize their pain-related avoidance behavior more to novel, safe contexts than low-anxious people. In a robotic-arm-reaching task, both groups (low vs high trait anxiety) performed 1 of 3 movements to reach a target. In the threat context (black background), a painful stimulus could be partly/completely prevented by performing more effortful trajectories (longer and more force needed); in the safe context (white background), no pain occurred. Generalization of avoidance was tested in 2 novel contexts (light/dark gray backgrounds). We assessed pain expectancy, pain-related fear, startle eyeblink responses for all trajectories, and avoidance behavior (ie, maximal deviation from shortest trajectory). Results indicated that differential fear and expectancy selectively generalized to the novel context resembling the original threat context in both groups. Interestingly and in contrast with the verbal reports, high-anxious participants avoided more in the novel context resembling the original safe context, but not in the 1 resembling the threat context. No generalization emerged in the startle data. Because excessive pain-related avoidance specifically may cause withdrawal from daily life activities, these findings suggest that high-anxious individuals may be vulnerable to developing chronic pain disability. PerspectiveThis paper shows that high-anxious people do not overgeneralize pain-related fear and pain expectancy learned in a threat context more to novel, safe contexts than low-anxious individuals, but that they do avoid more in those contexts. These findings suggest that high-anxious individuals may be vulnerable to developing chronic pain disability.

Prägnanz in visual perception.

How do we perceptually and cognitively organize incoming stimulation? A century ago, Gestalt psychologists posited the law of Prägnanz: psychological organization will always be as 'good' as possible given the prevailing conditions. To make the Prägnanz law a useful statement, it needs to be specified further (a) what a 'good' psychological organization entails, (b) how the Prägnanz tendency can be realized, and (c) which conditions need to be taken into account. Although the Gestalt school did provide answers to these questions, modern-day mentions of Prägnanz or good Gestalt often lack these clarifications. The concept of Prägnanz has been (mis)understood in many different ways, and by looking back on the rich history of the concept, we will attempt to present a more fine-grained view and promote a renewed understanding of the central role of Prägnanz in visual perception and beyond. We review Gestalt psychology's answers to the questions listed above, and also discuss the four main uses of the Prägnanz concept in more detail: (a) a Prägnanz tendency in each organizational process, (b) Prägnanz as a property of a Gestalt, (c) Prägnanz steps as internal reference points, and (d) Prägnanz in relation to aesthetic appreciation. As a key takeaway, Prägnanz is a multifaceted Gestalt psychological concept indicating the "goodness" of an experienced organization. Both the removal of unnecessary details and the emphasis on characteristic features of the overall organization compared to a reference organization can contribute to the emergence of a 'better' Gestalt. The stimulus constellation is not the only factor in determining the goodness of an organization, also the stimulus' interaction with an individual in a specific spatial and temporal context plays a role. Taking the ideas on Prägnanz as a generative framework and keeping the original Gestalt psychological context in mind, future research on perceptual organization can improve our understanding of the principles underlying psychological organization by further specifying how different organizational principles interact in concrete situations. Public significance statement: This paper reviews what a 'good' psychological organization entails, and how the incoming stimulation is clarified in human perception to achieve the best possible psychological organization. The review debunks common misconceptions on the meaning of "goodness" and synthesizes the most important perspectives and developments on "goodness" from its conception until now.

Bodies to Reveal and Conceal: Baroque Dynamics of Obscenity (Heresy) and Modesty (Saintliness) in Feminine Bodies in the Peruvian Viceroyalty

Obscenity and modesty: at first glance, we recognise these terms a priori, as clear in their morality and limits. However, both concepts are ambiguous, porous, and paradoxical. Obscenity and modesty are complementary categories, and their definitions are circumstantial; that is, they depend on an interpretive framework as much as historical and textual context for substantiation. Using this brief reflection as a point of departure, the purpose of this work is to study the dynamics of the modest/obscene – framed by conceptualisations of saintliness and heresy – in the context of the Spanish colonies in America and using textualities associated with feminine spiritual devotion in the Peruvian Viceroyalty of the seventeenth century. To this end, two particularly resonant cases will be analysed: those of Saint Rose of Lima (1586–1617) and Ángela Carranza (1643–1694). This work’s hypothesis is that spiritual behaviours considered modest or obscene reveal themselves as paradoxical in the given context and that, despite initiatives by colonial powers to sustain the differences between the categories, many acts of feminine spiritual devotion become dislocated from their original modest context and intersect with elements of the obscene.

Teaching microbial analysis techniques for the characterisation of baker's yeast through the inquiry-based laboratory

Laboratory course activities often focus on "cookbook style," so their activities have not yet integrated with scientific thinking as an essential aspect. In this research, the laboratory experience of microbial analysis techniques was redesigned using alternative inquiry to involve students in isolating and characterising yeast to make the bread rise. This research aimed to determine the effect of implementing inquiry-based laboratory experiences on improving students' technical skills and the structure and characteristics of laboratory courses. The method used a single case study to obtain a complete picture regarding implementing laboratory course redesign. Laboratory experience activities consisted of pre-laboratory (reinforcement of theory) and investigation (preparation of methods, laboratory investigation activities, data analysis and presentation, and writing written reports). Overall, our results suggest that inquiry-based laboratory experiences can improve students' microbial analysis technique skills in strong collaboration. In addition, students considered several benefits from this learning, such as developing designs and conducting laboratory investigations close to the original context. With these results, educators can use the redesign of this laboratory course without applying full "course-based undergraduate research experiences" to students.

Transition between habits and goal-directed actions in the renewal effect.

Three experiments with rats explored whether previously extinguished goal-directed and habitual responding recover with the same status using an ABA renewal preparation. In Experiments 1a and 1b, a lever-press response was minimally (four sessions) or extensively (16 sessions) trained in one context (Context A) and extinguished in another context (Context B). Then, outcome devaluation took place in either Context A or Context B in which a food pellet reinforcing the response was paired with lithium chloride (LiCl) for devalued groups and with saline for a control group. Finally, renewal of the extinguished response was tested in both Contexts A and B. We confirmed that both minimally and extensively trained responses renewed as goal-directed action regardless of the context in which devaluation took place. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2 even after more extended acquisition training (32 sessions). However, another group that received outcome devaluation before but not after extinction training showed habitual performance during extinction training as well as in a subsequent renewal test. Experiment 3 replicated these results and confirmed that renewal of goal direction for rats that received extinction training immediately prior to outcome devaluation was not an artifact of consecutive LiCl exposures over a short period of time in Experiments 1 and 2, using a more reliable devaluation protocol. Overall, the present results extend previous findings suggesting that actions and habits renew with the same status by returning to the original context after extinction. The most critical finding is the differential effects of pre- and postextinction devaluation on the expression of habitual behavior; extinction prior to devaluation may convert a habitual performance into a goal-directed action. This novel finding is discussed in relation to recent studies that identified several factors contributing to a transition from habitual to goal-directed control of instrumental behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Roper iPoll

Roper iPoll is the archive of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University. Many polling organizations contribute data, which are searchable at both the question and study levels. Results at the question level are presented within the original context of the entire study. There is a recent effort to improve access to US state polling data in the database.

‘Are we having fun yet?’: The Starz television network and Party Down as indie TV

This article examines the sitcom Party Down (2009-10) one of the first shows commissioned by the US premium cable service Starz as it sought to compete with HBO and Showtime, but cancelled after two seasons due to low ratings. Reports in 2021 of plans for its return characterised it as a ‘cult TV’ show revived due to fan demand. Yet by analysing its original production contexts and its aesthetic attributes the article argues that it is best understood as a proto-typical instance of ‘indie TV,’ aligned with Starz' strategic positioning in relation to its indie-oriented subscriber base at that time.

Conjunctural geographies of the economy in Isabella Weber’s How China Escaped Shock Therapy

This contribution frames Isabella Weber’s How China Escaped Shock Therapy as an opportunity for geographers to theoretically and methodologically engage with a growing literature on the intellectual histories of economics. I draw out three key themes in the book that provide entry points for geographical theorizing. First, Weber understands economic knowledge to be shaped not solely by its original context but by the historical-geographical trajectories and mobilities of its producers and consumers; second, she traces the institutional processes through which economic ideas re-emerge across time and space, offering key intellectual resources for dealing with context-specific governance dilemmas and economic problems; and third, her granular accounts of elite-intellectual contestation offer a way to reveal complexity and contradiction on the inside of dominant economic-geographical imaginaries. The book is a conjunctural historical geography of China’s economy, which is both empirically specific and theoretically-general.