Public Letters Research Articles

Briefpublizistik der Frühen Neuzeit

Abstract This introductory article examines early modern letter-writing in its ambiguous state between private and public communication by providing a few historical and systematic perspectives. From a historical point of view, it can be shown how several humanists tried to outline some characteristics of the public letter with regard to the traditional distinction between public speech and private conversation. The new opportunities marked by the printing press also raised new potentials for writing and publishing letters in terms of a libertas epistolaris. From a systematic point of view, public letter-writing relates to other genres, media and practices. This article therefore aims to distinguish several categories, i. e. rhetoricity and literariness, authenticity and fictionality, exclusiveness and popularity, materiality and mediality. Lastly, the special focus on the public dimensions of letter-writing might help to reconsider general assumptions about its subjectivity and spontaneity since the middle of the eighteenth century.

Board Certification in Cosmetic Surgery: An Analysis of Punitive Actions.

American Board of Plastic Surgery (ABPS) diplomates complete training in aesthetic surgery through an Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education-accredited program. American Board of Cosmetic Surgery (ABCS) diplomates complete residency training in a "related" specialty, some historically nonsurgical, followed by an American Association of Cosmetic Surgery fellowship. Unlike the ABPS, the ABCS is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties as an equivalent certifying board. This study evaluated differences in the rates of punitive action against diplomates of the ABPS and the ABCS. Diplomates were accessed from their respective society's websites. Punitive action data were obtained by search of publicly available state medical board databases. A comparative analysis was performed between ABPS and ABCS. One thousand two hundred eight physicians were identified for comparative analysis. Two hundred sixty-six (22 percent) were members of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, and 549 (49 percent) were members of The Aesthetic Society. ABCS diplomates had significantly higher rates of disciplinary administrative action by their respective state medical boards [ n = 31 (9.0 percent)] when compared with ABPS members [The Aesthetic Society, n = 26 (4.4 percent); ABPS, n = 8 (3.1 percent); p = 0.003], with a higher proportion of repeat offenders. In addition, ABCS diplomates had more public letters of reprimand [ABCS, n = 12 (3.5 percent); The Aesthetic Society, n = 6 (1.2 percent); and ABPS, n = 2 (0.8 percent); p = 0.015]. ABCS diplomates have significantly higher rates of punitive actions than ABPS diplomates. Although the reasons for this discrepancy warrant further investigation, punitive data should be transparently and publicly available to aid patients in informed decision-making.

Johannes Paul II. und der slowakische Katholizismus auf dem Weg zur politischen Wende 1989

John Paul II’s Ostpolitik and its influence on the erosion of the communist system rank among the most addressed topics in historical research on the pontificate. In international discourse, however, the focus is often placed on the Pope’s relations with the great powers or with Poland, while the then “stateless” Slovakia -although similar to Poland in its religious characteristics and of considerable importance within the Pope’s European concept of Christian renewal- is practically absent from scholarly discussion. Drawing from a wide variety of sources, the article aims to integrate the Slovak case into international reflection. It examines the complex relations between the Pope, Slovakia’s Catholicism - at home and in exile, within state-recognised and clandestine church structures- and Czechoslovakia’s communist regime, placing them in their international context. On the one hand, the study reconstructs the diplomatic activities of John Paul II, who continued the Ostpolitik of Paul VI, giving it a more radical character, often on the brink of an open conflict. On the other hand, it looks back at the vast mobilisation of Catholics and the moral and practical support given to the Church behind the Iron Curtain. The Marian and Cyrillo-Methodian spirituality of the Pope, the emphasis put on the rights of the nation and human rights -including the right to religious freedom- the valorisation of great historical figures and shrines rooted in Christianity, the lively communication across the barbed wire, the Pope’s policy of appointments and invitations, his public letters, speeches and gestures, as well as his frequent pronouncements encouraging Catholics to free themselves from fear and indifference, met with a broad response in Slovakia and contributed to the religious, national and social awakening of the country.

Protesting Venetians

Protest, in a multitude of forms, is increasingly present in the lived experience of Venetians and visitors to the city of Venice. The demands vary: limit tourism, no more cruise ships in the lagoon, protect the city, invest in infrastructure, promote new jobs, make the city liveable again. Such protests are highly performative, done as actions to be seen and noted: marches, graffiti, public letters, processions. Appropriately for a city synonymous with carnival, the repertoires of protest in Venice frequently include irreverent and fun elements of carnival culture, particularly dressing-up, eye-catching displays and participatory interactions. Restituted in 1980, today's Venice Carnival channels aspects of the bygone carnival of past centuries, with a particular emphasis on a visual aesthetics of opulence, beauty, mystery and decadence. A dominant narrative of the carnival as a staid and graceful affair has evolved, but this is challenged by grotesque realism, scabrousness and deliberate vulgarity during the event. The modern day Compagnie de Calza, I Antichi, established a Committee for the Abolition of the Venice Carnival in its current commercialized guise in 2021, and they simultaneously set up a Committee for the Rebirth of the Carnival of Theatre: a positive, forward-looking suggestion of how carnival could exist sustainably and in an enriching way for Venetians and tourists. This proposal alludes to the key role that theatre played in the re-establishment of carnival in the city. Reinvigorating theatre during carnival would give theatre and performance makers the impetus to address key issues, to speak to the community and to protest. A carnival of theatre could renew and embolden the carnival's ability to subvert in the twenty-first century.

Do Sell‐Side Analysts Play a Role in Hedge Fund Activism? Evidence from Textual Analysis*

ABSTRACTWe investigate variation in information production by sell‐side analysts and its potential role in hedge fund activist intervention, an important external corporate governance mechanism that creates shareholder value. Using textual analysis to derive an activism dictionary from intervention objectives and tactics, we find substantially more activism content in pre‐intervention analyst reports of target firms than propensity score matched control firms. Activism content is associated with more detailed reports containing more quantitative information. Target firm intervention‐date stock returns are significantly higher when activist intention (13D) filings are supported by reports with more general and objective‐specific activism content. Of activists' public letters to stakeholders, 31.9% directly mention sell‐side analysis, amplifying the association between target returns and analyst report information. The relationship between analyst information and activism returns is robust to using brokerage closures as an exogenous shock and is consistent with analyst incentives. Activist funds with no prior disclosed position in target firms and more experienced funds capture higher returns from sell‐side information. Overall, our results suggest sell‐side analysts play a significant informational role in supporting hedge fund activism.

Editorial

Last year, Applied AI Letters announced the formation of its Associate Editorial Board. The purpose of this body was to provide a platform for rising stars in the field of applied AI, to enable them to have a voice in the world of publishing, and so to ensure that Applied AI Letters was a venue which maintained its close connection to the community from which it was born. As part of their role on the Associate Editorial Board, these talented practitioners were asked to go out into the community and find research works, which they felt were particularly exciting and bring them to Applied AI Letters for wider publication and dissemination. Today, I am proud to write this Editorial announcing the first fruit of this effort. In this issue, we can highlight two of these carefully selected pieces of research, chosen by two of our Associate Editorial Board members, Dr Helge Spieker and Dr Philippe Schwaller. Helge is a postdoctoral researcher at Simula Research Laboratory in Norway, whose research interests are in the applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning, especially in the domains of validation and verification of software-based autonomous systems, industrial robotics, and sports. He also maintains an interest in the integration of machine learning and symbolic AI methods, such as constraint programming, to enable robust hybrid intelligent systems that are reliable and robust. Helge has commissioned an article entitled ‘Deep learning to predict power output from respiratory inductive plethysmography data’.1 As we move into an age where our own personal health data are becoming increasingly important to personalise our lifestyles, including exercise regimes, there is a new scrutiny being placed on the equipment, which is required to generate these data. A reliance on expensive equipment could drive inequalities between those who are financially able to partake in this monitoring and those who cannot. This work takes the case of measuring power output, a common metric used to define exercise intensity. Traditional technologies require expensive equipment, which must also be embedded into the technology, which limit usage. In this paper, an AI model based upon respiratory inductive plethysmography (a non-invasive method for monitoring breathing) and heart rate was built and tested against standard sensor-based power output measurements. The model was able to function with low error and provides evidence of the potential for AI methods to democratise data gathering in this field. Philippe Schwaller is an assistant professor at EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne), having previously worked at IBM Research – Europe, in Zurich. He completed a PhD in Chemistry and Molecular Sciences at the University of Bern, an MPhil in Physics at the University of Cambridge, and an MSc in Materials Science & Engineering at EPFL. His main research focus is on accelerating the discovery and synthesis of novel materials and molecules using AI techniques. Philippe has commissioned an article entitled ‘Generative model-enhanced human motion prediction’.2 Generative models are sometimes referred to as computational creativity agents, as they are adept at identifying and plausibly filling in the white space in data. Whilst we are commonly used to seeing these models in technologies such as deep fakes, as part of a generative adversarial network, this paper uses this family of techniques to augment a human motion data set. These data sets are often prone to building models, which have weaknesses to rare events, and for them to be useful in the ‘real world’, it is necessary to build some robustness to these out of distribution events. In this paper, this robustness is achieved by using generative models to enhance the data set with data which more closely represents the true generating distribution. This work shows that this approach can dramatically improve model robustness without a significant performance penalty. I hope that you enjoy these articles, we will continue this series in the next issue with some more articles championed by our associate editors.

Clinical Features of SARS-COV-2 Infection After Full Vaccination in Health Care Workers of a COVID Hospital.

Readers are invited to submit letters for publication in this department. Submit letters online at http://joem.edmgr.com. Choose “Submit New Manuscript.” A signed copyright assignment and financial disclosure form must be submitted with the letter. Form available at www.joem.org under Author and Reviewer information. To the Editor: SARS-COV-2 infection has affected more than 170 million people, including many health workers of whom many have died while caring for patients. Since the introduction of vaccines, prioritizing vaccination of health care workers has been advocated, and in italy, almost all health professionals completed the vaccination cycle with both doses between January and February 2021. The BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) was one of the first messenger-RNA (mRNA) vaccine to be available, and pivotal studies had been shown to reduce the risk of infection by 95%, and the risk of serious disease by 100%.1 Currently there are still few data on vaccine effectiveness among health care workers in real-world settings and on the clinical features of SARS-CoV-2 infection among vaccinated subjects.2–4 Furthermore, many doubts remain regarding the possibility that people fully vaccinated with mRNA vaccine are less likely to transmit SARS-CoV-2 to others even when asymptomatic.5 In this letter, we describe the clinical and radiological characteristics of seven fully vaccinated (BNT162b2 [Pfizer- BioNTech]) healthcare workers of our COVID-19 Respiratory Unit, infected by SARS-COV-2. In May 2021, one nurse presented with fever and tested positive at the swab for COVID-19, in the following days, all staff were screened and others six health care workers (nurses and assistants) of the same ward, tested positive for COVID-19 (three female). The positive diagnostic swab (RT-PCR) was performed between 83 and 105 days after the second dose of BNT162b2 vaccine, except for one worker, who was infected approximately 1 week after the second dose. In all subjects, RT-PCR on swab, showed a positivity for the three genes (RdRp, E, and N) with a cT between 19.72 and 29.77. Positivity was confirmed at a second molecular analysis at a Biosafety lvl-3 laboratory, where a culture analysis was performed on Vero E6 cells, as well as genetic variants strain identification. At the culture examination all the samples showed the presence of live and viable virus with cytopathic effect on the cell substrate and all identified as VOC 202012/01 lineage B.1.1.7 (alpha). At diagnosis, and throughout the course of the disease, none of the patients reported signs and symptoms of acute respiratory failure so all subjects were classified as mild COVID- 19 according to the criteria CDC (center for disease control) and they did not required hospitalization until negative test. Patients were young (23 to 46 years). They reported in about 50% of cases a duration of symptoms greater than 1 week, two subjects reported symptoms for 2 to 3 days and the others less than 7 days. The most frequent symptoms were nasal congestion (6 out of 7), altered taste/smell and osteoarticular pain (5 out of 7) and fever in three cases. Only one experienced nausea and vomiting and conjunctivitis. We followed up these workers on our post-Covid-19 outpatient for approximately 1 month after diagnosis, when they became negative. They underwent medical examination, blood chemistry, lung function tests (spirometry, DLCO and 6-minutes-walk- ing-test) and chest CT scan. At the visit, all of them were asymptomatic: the inflammatory biomarkers (white blood cells, CRP, IL-6) were negative, respiratory function tests were normal and no signs of lung involvement were detected at CT scans. The IgG antibody titres (RBD-S1 and S2) were 742 to 2400 AU/mL (nv<12), about three times higher than in non-vaccinated subjects at 1 month after hospitalization in the same period (usually <500 AU/mL). In conclusion, it is interesting to note how the outbreak developed among nurses and operators who worked together in the same ward and period. This could suggest that infected subjects may have contracted the virus from a single hospitalized patient in that period but it does not allow us to exclude a possible transmission among workers in the work setting. This hypothesis is reinforced by the finding on the culture analysis of live and viable virus, therefore capable of transmitting infection among people. Our data confirms that SaRs-COV-2 infection is possible in fully vaccinated individuals, who typically have few or no symptoms. However, our experience can suggest that these subjects infected after vaccination did not show pneumonia, and they did not show signs of lung involvement as demonstrated by the CT performed.

Two public letters from the 19th century: Letters of Giuseppe Mazzini and Mustafa Fazıl Pasha to the palace

Kavalalı Mehmet Ali Paşa’nın torunu Mısırlı Prens ve Osmanlı devlet adamı Mustafa Fazıl Paşa, Osmanlı hükümetine yönelik eleştirileri sebebiyle ülkeyi terk etmeye zorlanır. 4 Nisan 1866’da Paris’e hareket eden Paşa, Mısır’daki veraset sisteminin de değişmesiyle birlikte Babıali’ye karşı ciddi bir muhalefet başlatır. Bu muhalefetin ilk ve en önemli adımı, Osmanlı Devleti’nin içinde bulunduğu kötü duruma dikkat çekmek amacıyla Paris’ten Sultan Abdülâziz’e hitaben yazdığı mektuptur. Yeni Osmanlılar Cemiyeti’nin ekonomik anlamdaki himayeciliğini üstlenmeden kısa süre önce yazdığı ve ülkesi için laiklik ve özgürlük istediği bu mektup, İtalya’nın cumhuriyet yönetimi altında birleşmesini amaçlayan Carbonari örgütünün önderi Giuseppe Mazzini’nin, 1831’de Piemonte Kralı Carlo Alberto’ya yazdığı açık mektubu hatırlatır. İki mektup arasındaki ilintiye ilk kez Reform in the Ottoman Empire (1963) adlı kitabında dikkat çeken Amerikalı tarihçi Roderic H. Davison’dur. Kaya Bilgegil ise, “Bu iki mektubun bir mukayesesi yapılmalıdır.” diyerek, literatürdeki söz konusu boşluğa dikkat çeker. Ancak merhum Bilgegil’in 1970’te yaptığı bu çağrı, aradan geçen yarım yüzyıla rağmen karşılık bulmamış; her iki mektup mukayese edilmediği gibi Mazzini’nin mektubuna da ulaşılamamıştır. Dolayısıyla, Giuseppe Mazzini’nin Carlo Alberto’ya yazdığı ve dilimize hâlâ çevrilmemiş olan İtalyanca mektubuyla, Mustafa Fazıl Paşa’nın Sultan Abdülâziz’e yazdığı mektubu mukayeseli olarak değerlendirdiğimiz bu çalışmanın ardındaki esas gerekçe, Kaya Bilgegil’in önerisidir.

Ironia jako dekonstrukcja umierania w Listach Witolda Wirpszy

This paper focuses on Witold Wirpsza’s Letters from the volume Second Resistance. Poems 1960–1964 (1965) and shows how irony becomes a deconstruction of dying, and at the same time of itself and of literary communication in general. The persiflage-oriented ars moriendi turns out to be a diagnosis directed against the discourses of thanatology, operating in institutions of power, medicine or religion (public letters) and family (private letters). Wirpsza designed it as a play of signs and communication noise in which meanings embedded in surface and deeper semantic levels intersect and contradict each other. This is accomplished by writing about death through epistolary, postal, philatelic tropes, concerning message, mediation and transmission. What are particularly important are the metaliterary parts, parabases intensifying the irony, which contain the vision of a postage stamp robbery as reality transformed into signs. The interpretation of the Letters reveals that the deconstructive irony makes epistolary poetry a literary event – the letter, writing that is to be stolen, killed, read by the reader in her or his own way.

Editorial

Editorial

Response to: Invasive Treatments for Low Back Disorders and the ACOEM Practice Guidelines.

Response to: Invasive Treatments for Low Back Disorders and the ACOEM Practice Guidelines.

Using Structural Topic Modeling to Explore the Role of Framing in Shaping the Debate on Liquefied Natural Gas Terminals in Oregon

The drastic increase in domestic production of natural gas due to the fracking boom prompted efforts to develop a robust infrastructure in the U.S. to export natural gas. Given environmental concerns over increased fossil fuel development, significant opposition mobilized to “keep it [fossil fuels] in the ground” by acting to prevent not only natural gas production but also its transportation via pipelines and shipping via export terminals. Our analysis focuses on the latter component, specifically examining the long history of proposed liquefied natural gas infrastructure in two coastal communities in Oregon. Members of the public engaged in the formal siting processes and mobilized both opposition and support. We examine their use of collective action frames in both comments at public hearings and letters to the editor in local newspapers ( N = 4618) over the 16 years that these proposals were under consideration, quantifying the dynamic nature of framing using computational text analysis. We find that both groups vary their use of framing over time and by venue, reacting to exogenous events (e.g., September 11th, Fukushima) and tailor their messages to the context (e.g., an in-person hearing or a letter to the editor). Opponents concentrated on potential threats, initially emphasizing local impacts like tanker and pipeline safety but eventually focusing on climate concerns. Supporters, meanwhile, stressed the economic benefits of the projects but alternated their specific framing based on venue—focusing on employment when talking to regulatory agencies and community economic benefits in letters. While this juxtaposition of economic benefits and environmental threats was a key part of public discourse, opponents also expanded their framing to questions of local sovereignty and governance, allowing a broader coalition to develop and ultimately succeeding in defeating the proposals.

Akaki Tsereteli’s unknown letter about repressions of year 1906

Part of Akaki Tsereteli’s creative legacy is still spread in different foundations or private collections. Difficulty about finding these writings is that some documents in various binders do not have description. Currently foundations are intensively being studied in order to create digital catalogues and whenever this process is finished, many interesting documents will be displayed. “Burning down Imereti during movement” is one of Akaki’s public letters which remained unknown until today. It will be published after 115 years in corresponding value of the writer's new academic publication of his works. Manuscript is being held at Kutaisi’s historic museum.“Burning down Imereti during movement” is about revolutionary movements and its echoes in Georgia, which took place in the years 1905-1907. On the one hand it is a bold protest against King’s cruel policy; Also, the article contains Akaki Tsereteli’s especially significant observations and thoughts about ongoing political processes.In the first paragraph of the article there is a very interesting observation of the author. According to his words, the Russian empire from the very beginning intended absolute occupation and annexation of Georgia. According to that, the friendly condition which led King Irakli of Kartli-Kakheti to let Russians in our country without war and blood, was definitely going to break. Akaki thought that everything that was done by Russian governance in our country, was provocative and its goal was to drag Georgian people into armed conflict.Events occurred in 1905 led to logical conclusions. Georgian nobles decided to officially demand national autonomy. On their emergency gathering they created an appropriate document and presented it to the emperor. Surely, the empire would not let Georgia restore their autonomy. They needed a reason to finally destroy us and the reason found out to be that revolutionary movement which was widespread not only in Russia, but also its subordinate countries including Georgia.According to Akaki Tsereteli, a significant part of society was against Georgia’s partaking in revolt from the beginning. They had reasonable suspicion that if the revolutionary movement would be defeated, this would totally change the perspective of Georgian-Russian relationship. Unfortunately, following events proved the correctness of this assumption - Georgians were pled guilty for separatism and it led to very brutal repressions. The events that occurred in Georgia were outrageous for Akaki. That is why he makes fun of Russia in his article and boldly declares that the decision of the government - campaigning against unarmed and helpless people, is worthless and unseemly.

Letter to the Editor Regarding Bernacki et al May 2021.

Readers are invited to submit letters for publication in this department. Submit letters online at http://joem.edmgr.com. Choose “Submit New Manuscript.” A signed copyright assignment and financial disclosure form must be submitted with the letter. Form available at www.joem.org under Author and Reviewer information. Dear Dr. Brandt-Rauf: In the May issue of JOEM, Bernacki et al1 reported on 21,336 workers’ compensation filings, including 1898 claims for COVID-19, from the records of a single, private insurance company covering 11 states in the Midwest. Authors conclude that 1) healthcare workers are at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 than other sectors; 2) the “risk” of filing a claim for COVID-19 is lower than that of filing a claim for musculoskeletal injuries; 3) OSHA's risk stratification in healthcare is accurate; 4) submitting claims for COVID-19 among healthcare workers is indicative of risk. There are several limitations to the study's assumptions and methodology that challenge these conclusions. The sample comes from only one insurance company and the analysis uses only accepted claims. The absence of a count of those eligible to file workers’ compensation—by number of employees per industry—prohibits rate calculation and generalizability. The public sector, which includes around 15% of workers, is self-insured. The healthcare sector is often self-insured, as well, and larger healthcare organizations may not be included in this data set. Also, the insurance company may intentionally exclude certain employers or sectors from coverage because they are high risk. The absence of individual employers and sectors would certainly affect findings. Studies that use claims from state work comp agencies still identify health care as the most common industry for workers’ compensation claims but provide a different picture of the industries with the highest number of claims for COVID-19.2,3 The statistical methods are confusing. Table 2 is described as showing rate ratios, but there are no denominators, so it is not possible to calculate a rate or a ratio or even prevalence. We are wondering if investigators could have matched insurance policies to NAICS codes and come up with a payroll denominator. The case definition of COVID-19 is not clear. Did all claimants have positive COVID tests? Early in the pandemic, a covid test was not available to most people outside of healthcare. This may have influenced the results. States assumed to enact legislation or executive order of rebuttable presumption of eligibility for that state's workers’ compensation benefits were included as a variable (yes/no) in the regression models. On careful examination, these states vary in their presumptions: Illinois includes all essential workers, Michigan and Minnesota include only healthcare workers and first responders; Wisconsin and Missouri include only first responders and Wisconsin's law only covers claims from 3/12-6/10/2020. In other states (eg, Nebraska) the status is pending. This “apples and oranges” variable has questionable meaning. On the flip side, there are likely to be other critical issues/variables that cannot be captured in the database used (eg, provision of general health insurance and paid sick leave; hourly or temporary employment). Submitting workers’ compensation claims for COVID-19 is not necessarily indicative of risk of developing COVID-19. The authors state: “ What may be more important to employees and employers outside the healthcare industry, is our finding that risk of exposure and submitting a job related COVID-19 WC claim is lower than the mostly physical hazards of the industry itself of submitting a non-COVID-19 occupational injury or illness WC claim.” The paper presents no data on the “risk of exposure,” only on accepted claims. Many health systems provided time off for quarantine or isolation. Given that there were no treatments for COVID-19 that did not require hospitalization, there would be no need for hospital workers to file a claim for healthcare coverage. Furthermore, studies across states show that up to 50% of individuals with work-related injuries never file a workers’ compensation claim.4 The percent filing a claim for a work-related illness is even lower.5 Demonstrating the relationship between work and COVID-19 is important to convince the public health infectious disease community of the critical importance of considering “work” and “workplaces” in infectious disease surveillance and research investigations. It is critical that a canon of scientific literature be developed that enhances our understanding of the relationship between work and health.

Letter to the Editor: Landsbergis et al (2019) Titled "Work Exposures and Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Railroad Maintenance-of-Way Workers".

Letter to the Editor: Landsbergis et al (2019) Titled "Work Exposures and Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Railroad Maintenance-of-Way Workers".

Recent reforms in the curriculum guidelines for mathematics in Portugal

The article in question deals with the construction process of the Mathematical Curriculum Programs and Goals for Basic Education, concluded in 2013, and the Essential Apprenticeships concluded in 2018, in Portugal, prescribed curricular documents, whose constructions showed political components and which are being the subject of many conflicts and tensions in the context of the country. For the study, the policy cycle approach, formulated by Stephen J. Ball and collaborators, has been frequently used by curricular policy researchers, among other fields, configuring a relevant methodological bias for understanding the approval processes of documents from the contexts of production and influence, as well as the paradigms that guided these constructions and the ideological constraints that result from the international reform agenda. To achieve this objective, positions were analyzed through public letters and reports from entities at specific times during the processes of recent reforms of the documents prescribed for mathematical learning in Portugal. The study raised reflections on the vertical models, redemptions of curriculum documents that are no longer in force, the contents as instruments of management and performance, as well as the silencing of voices of educational entities during the reform processes.

Царство Небесное и царства мирские: полемика В.С. Соловьева и Антония (Храповицкого)

The article considers the controversy between philosopher V.S. Solovyov and Antony (Khrapovitsky) on the relationship between the Kingdom of Heaven and temporal kingdoms, i.e. about the relationship between the church and the state. The study touches upon certain biographical moments – the circumstances of the acquaintance and the first meeting of Solovyov and Antony, as well as the history of their personal communication. The article analyzes in detail Antony’s criticism of the book “Russia and the Universal Church”, written in French, which was banned in Russia, examines the dispute between the philosopher and the future church hierarch about the nature of the church, about the essence of Christian love, true Christianity, the essence of papist teaching and the truth and untruth of Catholicism. The research methodology involves a comprehensive historical and philosophical analysis of sources. In order to analyze the basic concepts discussed in polemics (“church”, “state”, “love”, etc.), to trace the ideas of thinkers, it is necessary to see the integrity of their worldview and views, and for this to carry out a certain synthesis based on the corpus of works, as well as public letters and personal correspondence of the authors. At the same time, philosophical and categorical analysis is required to clarify the discussed ideas and concepts. In addition, the research involved the methods of historical and philosophical reconstruction, comparative analysis, systematization of conclusions and results, as well as historical and biographical analysis. As a result of the study, the author examines personal relationships between Solovyov and Antony, which remained respectful and friendly, despite the worldview and ideological differences, as well as the controversy of the philosopher and the hieromonk about the Kingdom of God and the temporal kingdoms, about common good and personal salvation. Solovyov’s theocratic project, which presupposes the transformation of the Christian state into a universal church, was unacceptable to Anthony, who believed that church and state should be separated in order to avoid the redemption of the church. If Solovyov is convinced that individual salvation is impossible without concern for the common good, that salvation is carried out in the collective organism of mankind, Antony comes to the conclusion that for a Christian concern for his own soul is primary, and the common good by itself grows around the righteous.

Review: The Guggenheim: Frank Lloyd Wright's Iconoclastic Masterpiece

Review: <i>The Guggenheim: Frank Lloyd Wright's Iconoclastic Masterpiece</i>

SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Risk to Household and Family Contacts by Vaccinated Healthcare Workers.

SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Risk to Household and Family Contacts by Vaccinated Healthcare Workers.

Public letters and the culture of politics in Kenya, c.1960-75

ABSTRACT Despite only a minority of Kenya’s African population being literate at the time of independence, letter-writing constituted a significant form of engagement between grassroots political participants and national leaders during decolonisation. This paper sets out to ask why individuals and collaborative groups of writers sent large quantities of letters to their leaders, what they wrote about, and their expectations of the effect of their correspondence. It argues that these letters constituted a public sphere in decolonising Kenya. Through their letters, Kenyans debated development policy, critiqued the actions of the new governing elite, and set out their hopes and fears for independent rule. Furthermore, letter-writing also provided the opportunity for large groups of authors, often including those without sufficient literacy to write in their own name, to reach consensus among themselves on otherwise contentious issues. Just as importantly, the responses – at first constructive and later suspicious - of state officials to these letters illustrates the continuities and changes in the nature of governance during decolonisation. Letter-writing became less effective and more anachronistic as the post-colonial period progressed as the post-colonial state became reliant upon other rituals of political participation.