Related Stories Research Articles

Disability and working-life citizenship

ABSTRACT This article explores disabled people’s stories of their working life experiences from a narrative point of view. We claim that the idea of full-time paid employment is the basis of full citizenship (working-life citizenship) and is a dominant narrative that affects disability policy. This study is theoretically informed by the model of narrative circulation (MNC), according to which people construct their stories in relation to culturally available and hegemonic narratives. We analysed work-related plot structures in disabled persons’ life stories, which were included in the life-story data corpus ‘Life of Disabled Persons in Finland 2013–2014’. By looking at these life stories in relation to the culturally available narratives, this study identifies four story types for disabled people’s working-life citizenship: 1) working-life citizenship as a hero story, 2) the tragedy of working-life citizenship, 3) the comedy of working-life citizenship and 4) working-life citizenship as tragic irony. The findings suggest that while paid employment is considered a major source of inclusion, the stories of persons with disabilities are not always heroic stories in which hero status is achieved. Such stories often remain untold and unheard. However, they need to be told and heard for the conditions of inclusion to be understood.

Structural Resistance of a Reinforced Concrete Building under Earthquake and Wind Loads in Isparta and Burdur Region

It has been clearly seen from building experiences and studies that lateral load effects such as earthquake load and wind load make building irregularities more obvious. Hence, it is of great importance to evaluate the regularity of the structural systems in accordance with the conditions determined by the building regulations. In this paper, irregularity effects were investigated according to Turkish Building Earthquake Regulation (TBEC) 2018. A reference building which have vertical setback irregularity were analzed under earthquake and wind loads. Etabs software were used for structural analyses. Response spectrum method were used for the seismic analysis and TS498 for Wind load analysis. Effective relative storey drift, A1 –Torsional irregularity and B2 –Soft Storey Irregularity are comparatively investigated and Irregularity values were determined.

Negotiating a Project Request: Narrative and Intersubjective Understanding at Work

This article engages with an extended ethnographic vignette that centers on negotiations between a Moroccan educational association and a UN agency over a possible future project collaboration. After a phase of meandering in the conversation, a “polished” story told by the NGO team leader marks a turning point in negotiations and manages to convince agency representatives. The article discusses the use of such polished stories in relation to other, less polished and arguably more authentic narrative practices, that is, stories that gradually emerge when collaborators make sense of the past or coconstruct visions of the future. It adopts the concept of the community of practice with its focus on social learning and the constant negotiation of meaning among participants in combination with recent approaches in the interdisciplinary study of narrative practices that argue for the productive coexistence of different narrative activities in the same event. In the case at hand, different narrative practices in concert served the sharing of knowledge and ultimately persuasion, while increasing intersubjective understanding between participants in the meeting.

Becoming Menard? Geopolitical Readings and the Authorial Subject in César Aira

ABSTRACT This article discusses César Aira’s critical engagement with Jorge Luis Borges’s masterful short story ‘Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote’. While there are few overt references to Borges’s story within Aira’s essayistic output, it will be shown that those that do exist are highly significant. Indeed, it will be argued that Aira’s literary process — developed at length and in detail across his critical work — is heavily indebted to ‘Pierre Menard’. Opening first with a reflection on Borges’s Evaristo Carriego, the article explores the ways in which Aira discusses Borges’s story in relation to the Duchampian ready-made, uncovers its importance within his analysis of exotic literature, and argues that Aira inverts Menard’s labour by shifting his focus from the act of reading to the act of writing in his re-creation of the story. In this way, it will be proposed that Aira advocates an a-personal process which nonetheless affirms a central place for the individual author, while simultaneously producing works of geopolitical significance. Ultimately, it will be shown that the story provides the inspiration for Aira’s conceptualization of the literary work as a temporal event, and the promotion of a formless marginality which undermines colonial taxonomies.

MEDIA COVERAGE OF XENOPHOBIC VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA: A CASE STUDY OF THE SUNDAY TIMES E-EDITION AND TIMESLIVE

Ponte Academic JournalApr 2022, Volume 78, Issue 4 MEDIA COVERAGE OF XENOPHOBIC VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA: A CASE STUDY OF THE SUNDAY TIMES E-EDITION AND TIMESLIVEAuthor(s): Yolokazi Nokwe ,Nisha Ramlutchman, Shaun RuggunanJ. Ponte - Apr 2022 - Volume 78 - Issue 4 doi: 10.21506/j.ponte.2022.4.5 Abstract:News media play an important role in not only informing the public, but also in shaping public opinion. Whether unconsciously, or consciously, the media frame and set the agenda of news by the selection of news items. In doing so, public opinion is thus shaped and framed. It is therefore imperative and critical that news is presented in a fair, unbiased and responsible manner. This paper analysed online media coverage of the April 2015 xenophobic attacks in South Africa. Specifically, the focus was on the Sunday Times E-edition and its counterpart TimesLive. Online news articles result in the rapid dissemination of news stories and therefore have the potential to influence and precipitate discourse on a range of issues. The April 2015 xenophobic attacks resulted in extensive media coverage across South Africa and prompted both national, pan-African and global discourse. The research employed a qualitative research methodological approach through a thematic analysis of selected online newspaper articles focusing on the xenophobic attacks. The findings revealed that although the media under analysis reported on the event in a fair manner, priority was given to news items focusing on violent xenophobic attacks rather than other related news stories (like, for example, protest marches against the xenophobic attacks). Download full text:Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution Username Password

Rekonstrukcja historii Tristana i Izoldy w „Maladie” Andrzeja Sapkowskiego w kontekście postmodernistycznych tendencji literatury fantasy

The second half of the twentieth century was the time of the most dynamic development of fantasy, which places this genre in the space of postmodern poetic. One of the first Polish authors utilizing this type fictional setting was Andrzej Sapkowski. His short story, Maladie, should be treated as a manifesto of the form and function of this kind of fantastic literature. This paper aims to follow the structure of the story in relation to the intertextuality category, including the retelling strategy, but also distinguishes features of postmodern texts: being a scriptible and above that world-building, literary character of the text and metatextuality. By following the relation between Sapkowski’s short story and Joseph Bédier’s novel, it is possible to illustrate the standpoint of the Polish author regarding the essence of fantasy and bring closer narrative tools used in his prose.

Earthquake Analysis of a High-Rise Building Retrofitted with Support Braced Systems

The use of support braced systems represents one of the best solutions for retrofitting or upgrading the tall reinforced concrete buildings in areas with a high earthquake hazard. In this study, the behavior of a reinforced concrete tall structure under seismic loads is examined based on the Turkish Building Earthquake Code 2019 (TBEC-2019). Support braced systems were added to the 25-story structure on 0.4H and 0.8H levels (H is height of structure). For two different models, firstly, the Mode-Superposition Method for linear computational methods used within the scope of strength-based design is performed. In order to determinate more accurately the behavior of tall buildings, as in the earthquake regulations of other developed countries, the TBEC-2019 advises a nonlinear deformation-based design approach. In addition, the nonlinear time history analyses of these buildings were performed. As a result of these analyzes, it was determined whether the two models examined were within the targeted performance effects or not. In the model having support braced system, stiffness and shear forces in shear walls were increased. Thus, displacements, relative story drift, plastic rotations and bending moments of shear walls were decreased.

Discussion on the Reform of Economics and Management Mathematics Curriculum in Higher Vocational Colleges

As a public basic course in higher vocational colleges, mathematics must closely follow the national policy. In order to achieve the goal of overall improvement of the quality of talent training and employment, it is urgent to carry out curriculum reform. This article takes “Economics and Management Mathematics” edited by Lei Tianli as an example to clarify the reasons, ideas, advantages and prospects of the curriculum reform. The content of this course is the first and second chapters of the first chapter, which are economic functions and limits, derivatives and their economic applications. The curriculum reform plan is guided by the mathematical context, and projects or tasks are used as the chapter division basis. Each chapter aims to solve a task, has a knowledge sub-module, and extracts some mathematics culture and related stories to explore the ideological and political elements in mathematics , Enriching the connotation and interest of the courses, as a result, students' learning interest can be mobilized, and their understanding of mathematics culture is gradually deepened.

Walking on eggshells: A life defined by obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.

WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), which is experienced by 2.1-7.9% of the population, is characterized by an excessive need for orderliness, neatness and perfectionism. WHAT DOES THE PAPER ADD TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: Existing studies on OCPD commonly focus on the physiological aspects, treatment and/or comparison of features with other disorders. Studies that explore the personal experiences related to OCPD are lacking and so the human element of this condition is missing. This paper contributes to this gap by presenting a glimpse into life with OCPD. The narrative is provided by the daughter of a person who lived with OCPD and presents the ordeals, victories and aspects of everyday life as framed by the condition. Whilst personality disorders such as OCPD are subjected to a high level of stigma, this relative's story shows that love and compassion can be found even in the darkest corridors that OCPD can take one to. As the story shows, behind every disorder there is a human being and the disorder is not the totality of that being. In this view, the paper sheds light on the human element related to the condition. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE?: The paper highlights the need for continuous, hands-on community support to those experiencing OCPD and their significant others. In order to enhance continuity of care, support is ideally centralized and provided by one keyworker who builds a strong therapeutic relationship with the person and their loved ones.

Breaking All the Rules

Breaking All the Rules

**Authorial Editing, Retrospective Reading and Short Story Publishing: New Approaches to Christos Tsiolkas**

This essay examines Christos Tsiolkas’s short stories. Tsiolkas’s stories are less widely known compared to his novels and often unsettle the view of his writing popularised by his best-selling fourth novel, The Slap (2008). The stories collected in Merciless Gods (2014) suggest new ways of thinking about Tsiolkas’s often criticised writing style and his reliance on first-person male narrators. The stories in Merciless Gods also tend to have a more varied and interesting provenance than the single author collection of the successful novelist. This essay therefore considers the original publication contexts of Tsiolkas’s stories and their post-publication editing history. Finally, this essay contextualises Tsiolkas’s stories in relation to some of the structural dynamics of Australian short story publishing over the past three decades, including authorial publishing subsidies, multi-author theme anthologies, and the expansion of university creative writing programs. This suggests that Tsiolkas’s path to Merciless Gods is not unusual for a writer who came of age in the 1990s and achieved success as a novelist in the following decade, even though these dynamics are not necessarily the same for Australian short story writers today.

Entre o documento e a ficção: a construção do medo ficcional em fragmentos visuais

The purpose of this text is to reflect on the languages ​​of cinema used to build fear in videos shared on digital media. The historical context of 2020 marked the history of health in the world, just as the technical context made it possible to produce and share news about it. In the same way that cinema hides audiovisual marks seeking the experiences of reality in its fictions, some videos produced in this period by social actors and shared on digital media present these logics in their documentary records.These videos are presented as fragments of the story within the current context, shared and re-shared as if they were real records, but which become visual fragments of a reality constructed when denied and called fake news. An example of this is the video shared at the beginning of the pandemic in Brazil, as a record of the death of a person at the Hospital da Santa Casa de Curitiba. This video shows the record of two people dressed in special disease protection suits carrying a stretcher with a black bag on top. In this case, there is a scene related to films about epidemiological diseases, where some logic of the cinema is perceived, which searches the social imaginary for fear related to fiction stories in relation to the world historical context. In this sense, it investigates the construction of fictional narratives presented in false news and how cinema contributes to the construction of fear.

Performance comparisons of triple friction pendulum bearings with different sliding surface properties

In this study the time history analyses are carried out three dimensionally for a simple five-story concrete structure seismically isolated incorporating triple friction pendulum bearings with different sliding surface properties with the help of the ABAQUS finite element program. The altering friction surface properties are friction coefficient and radius of curvature. The performances of the various isolators are compared with each other as well as with those of a fixed based structure. For this purpose, maximum relative story displacements, story accelerations and column base shear forces are investigated as seismic reactions. According to the analysis results it can be stated that the seismic reactions of isolated structures are significantly reduced when compared to those of the fixed supported structure. Additionally, when triple friction pendulum bearing isolators with different friction coefficients and friction surface radii are compared, it can be observed that increasing the friction coefficient increases the reactions of the structure while increasing the friction surface radii decreases the reactions

A Stereotypical Approach towards Muslim and Islam in Australian Press: Framing Analysis of Daily Telegraph and Daily Courier Mail

Framing of the Muslims and Islam has been a debatable/is a contentious area of interest for researchers. This study is designed to analyze the approach of the Australian press towards the Muslims and Islam when it covers the terrorist incidents in Australia and in other part of the world, especially in the western countries. The news related to terrorist incidents and activities published during a six-month timeframe, that is, from October 2016 to March 2017, in two popular newspapers namely The Daily Telegraph (leaning towards the Liberal Party) and The Courier Mail (right-centered newspaper in its nature) was thoroughly analyzed. The major objective was to know how these newspapers frame the Muslims and Islam in their news contents when the issue of terrorism is under discussion. Despite the different political leanings of the selected newspapers, their approach towards the Muslims and Islam was found to be similar as both the dailies framed the terrorism related stories in a way to associate the Muslims and Islam with terrorism.

The Potential of Vā Part 3: Location and Identity

The article presented is part of a series of articles that composed an exegesis, submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The series is a narrative of discovery through practice-led research. Each article reveals its purpose and significance that leads into the next series, which then eventuate to that final design proposal.
 The exegesis is presented in this format, to break down the components that assisted in practice-led research. Each article can be read and unpacked on its own as a learning tool. The purpose of this edited series is for the exegesis to be more accessible and adaptable creatively to those being introduced to practice-led research.
 The Potential of Vā Part 3: Location and Identity, presents the findings from the research participants in relation to the research question, including the recurring themes from the participants’ stories. As part of an exegesis-based thesis, this section presents selected photographic documentation of living spaces from the interviews. It then discusses the findings from the participant stories in relation to the literature and the research questions.

Finland's Success in Combating Covid-19: Mastery, Miracle or Mirage?

This paper addresses Finland’s relative success story in combating COVID-19. While Finland did not adopt a clear strategy of suppression, its numbers of cases and deaths have been remarkably low in European comparison. There are explanations for why the country’s ‘hybrid’ strategy has worked in curbing the epidemic without far-reaching restrictions upon human rights or a major blow to the economy. Geographical location, low population density and cultural factors of avoiding close proximity with others have mattered, but also societal choices. Finland has a modern comprehensive catalogue of constitutional rights, reflecting the principle of interdependence between all human rights and including a general positive obligations clause. During COVID-19 it sought to give equal attention to civil and political rights, economic, social and cultural rights, equality rights and the rule of law. This interdependence-based approach is a main explanation of why Finland’s response has, by and large, been human-rights-compatible. Finland provides examples of best practice in designing a framework for emergency powers and preserving the role of Parliament. Nevertheless, during COVID-19 the Emergency Powers Act, as well as the Communicable Diseases Act, have proved not fit for purpose and would require thorough revision to prepare for future pandemics.

New York continuing its move forward in school MH education

New York state paved the way for mental health education in schools, becoming the first state to require mental health education as part of the school curriculum for students from kindergarten to grade 12. Mental Health America (MHA) last month released a new report on the need for public policy to respond to the growing mental health crisis affecting youth at the state and national levels (see related story beginning on page 3).

Critical Representation of Neoliberal Capitalism and Uneven Development in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s This Mournable Body

This article focuses on Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel This Mournable Body (2018), which completes her trilogy on Tambudzai Sigauke’s life story in relation to the neoliberal political order in contemporary Zimbabwe. The country has been recently referred to as cultivating ultra-neoliberal policies, and, in such a framework, state repression becomes replaced by state negligence towards citizens’ economic survival. In This Mournable Body, neoliberalism and the uneven accumulation of wealth are portrayed through the tourism industry. The novel shows deepening forms of injustice and economic discrepancies in neoliberal Zimbabwe, where impoverished groups of people, living in the cities as well as outside them, are compelled to commodify their lives for the needs of the tourism industry in order to get by. In the novel, Tambudzai emerges as an egoistic character, as she epitomises a new type of neoliberal citizen–subject who is ready to maximise her own benefits at the expense of others and whose ambitions remain only in her own career. I analyse her character with regard to the so-called sell-out mentality; however, Dangarembga depicts Tambudzai’s unpatriotic behaviour as a defence mechanism, which finally gives way to full mourning at the end of the novel. Dangarembga’s critical characterisation of the neoliberal forms of capitalism is juxtaposed with her representation of an alternative unhu/ubuntu business model at the end of the novel. However, even if Dangarembga proposes unhu/ubuntu business as a Zimbabwean form of balanced capitalist enterprise, I argue that neoliberal markets are taking advantage of these African forms of capitalism as well. The romanticised ending of the novel slightly undermines its otherwise astute illustration of uneven development in neoliberal Zimbabwe, which contributes to rural and urban poverty, communal rupture and drastic forms of citizen competition.

Severe Allergies, Price Increases, and Supply Shortages

Controlling pharmaceutical prescription costs has been an interest in the United States for decades. In 2016, EpiPen experienced a 600% price increase. This exploratory framing study focuses on news coverage of EpiPen’s price increase and related pharmaceutical price increase stories through analyzing three U.S. television news programs’ coverage. Within 30 news segments that discussed EpiPen or medication price increases, analysis revealed four frames: economic, attribution of responsibility, morality and human interest, and conflict and powerlessness. This study provides a larger understanding of how the crisis of medication price increases is understood and implications for practitioners and individuals aiming to make medications more accessible.

How chronic pain changes a person’s life story in relation to participation in occupational roles: A narrative exploration

Background Chronic pain (CP) affects a large part of the population worldwide, decreasing physical and mental health and causing a shift in occupational roles. This has created a need for a better understanding to address this problem. Objectives To explore possible changes in occupational roles and the participation levels within among people diagnosed with CP over time. Material and methods The study used a qualitative, narrative methodology. Five people with CP were included in the study. They participated in a single-life story interview coupled with timeline drawings. Data analysis was conducted using a narrative analysis. Results The results revealed that occupational roles and the participation therein changed over time. Employee was considered the most important role, whereby the participants tried to maintain this role by sacrificing other roles within their lives. Moreover, CMP forced a change in their occupational identity. Conclusion CP can disrupt a person’s life and demand a change in occupational roles and the participation levels within. This process was accompanied by possible changes in their occupational identity.