Terms Of Concepts Research Articles

Space Versus Time: Flattening History. An Architectural History Perspective

From its very beginning, architectural historiography tended to ‘flatten’ historicity in favor of a ‘spatialized’ discourse. This process was triggered by gradually emphasizing space over time, as becomes clear in examining this longue durée, from the ‘barbarian’ architectures of Quatremère de Quincy and Seroux d’Agincourt to the ‘non-historical styles’ of Banister Fletcher, and from turning peripheries into productive territories of architectural resistance in the theories on critical regionalism to shaping a global history of architecture. The focus on space changed the dynamics of the narrative from a vertical construction to an increasingly horizontal perception of architectural production through the ages. During its evolution, the historiographic discourse grew complexified through a twofold understanding of space, both in terms of doctrinal conceptualization (space being presented as the very essence of architecture) and in terms of a geographical expansion. Several threads wove the historiographical narratives in the succeeding works of architectural history; unraveling these begins with an analysis of the foundations of architectural historicity, questioning the role and place of conceptual models, such as the ‘primitive hut’, and schemes like the ‘tree of architecture’, moving to a gradual dismantling of its temporality through the shaping of a modernist historiography and, eventually, through the emergence of marginal historiographic territories. An indirect goal of looking at this flattening of history from an architectural history perspective is tackling the meaning of writing history today.

Quality and asset management: conceptual compatibility towards sustainable infrastructures management

Asset management has been gaining momentum in both academic and industry, but is it so distinct from other existing management philosophies? This research effort discusses the relation between asset and quality management, particularly for organizations managing (public) infrastructures, to highlight the similarities and differences between both and their role towards sustainable infrastructure development. The compatibility matrix developed demonstrates that, in conceptual terms, asset and quality management are highly similar in the scope of these organizations. As such, organizations implementing formal and certified asset management systems should assess the existing processes to avoid overlaps and make the best use of the experience accumulated. It also proposed the balance between performance and risk as the metric to measure the quality (or value, adopting the asset management concept) of management decisions. The growing recognition that infrastructures exist in highly complex uncertain contexts requires changing management decisions from choosing the options with the highest expected outcome to the options with the best balance between expected outcome and potential variability of the outcome. Finally, considering sustainability as the ultimate goal, the relation between quality and asset management is linked to the need for integrated infrastructure management by analysing sustainable mobility versus sustainable transport infrastructures.

Modeling innovation in the cryptocurrency ecosystem

Blockchains are among the most relevant emerging technologies of recent times and, according to many, they will have a central role in shaping the future of our society. Since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2009, the first notorious blockchain system bound to a cryptocurrency, the blockchain ecosystem has experienced a huge growth, driven by innovations both in conceptual and algorithmic terms, and in the creation of a large number of new cryptocoins. New blockchains and their associated cryptocoins, emerge mostly as the result of forking already existing projects. Here, we show that the appearance of new cryptocoins can be well described by a sub-linear power-law (Heaps’ law) of the total crypto-market capitalization. At the same time, we propose a model that well reproduces the evolution of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Our model suggests that each cryptocurrency triggers, on average, the creation of ca. 1.58 novel cryptocoins, a result confirmed by the analysis of the Bitcoin historical forking tree. Moreover, we deduce that the largest cryptocurrency, nowadays Bitcoin, will comprise around the 50% of the whole crypto-market and that this fraction is going to stabilize in the near future, provided that the present fundamental macro-economic conditions do not change radically.

The Drama of History: Ibsen, Hegel, Nietzsche

The Drama of History: Ibsen, Hegel, Nietzsche

Raced to Death in 1920s Hawai‘i: Injustice and Revenge in the Fukunaga Case

Raced to Death in 1920s Hawai‘i: Injustice and Revenge in the Fukunaga Case

A MEDICINA PERICIAL DOUTRINÁRIA EM UM ESTUDO EPISTEMOLÓGICO BIOPSICOSSOCIAL DOS CONCEITOS DE EPIGÊNESE E DE EPIGENÉTICA

Introduction: This article aims to address the topic of doctrinal expert medicine in a biopsychosocial epistemological study of the concepts of epigenesis and epigenetics from a perspective that contemplates the biological, psychic and social approaches, both from the aspects of physiological normality and from the perspective of psychic and physical pathology. Method: Historical conceptual research of a qualitative, critical and prospective nature of the terms “epigenesis” and “epigenetics”. This study raised historical and current texts that deal with these concepts and proposed a philosophical and biopsychosocial approach to their meaning, presenting an original doctrine for applying them to expert and forensic medicine. Discussion: It is known that the term epigenesis was coined by Aristotle to explain the evolution of living beings after their basic training, for example syngamy. The term epigenetics was created by Waddington to explain the causal study of development, that is, to identify and understand what causes the development of living beings. The terms epigenesis and epigenetics evolved in conceptual terms. The meaning of the word epigenesis was given greater scope, applied to different scenarios. The different meanings of the term epigenetics evolved to the point where it defines an area of biology that uses its best-known methods: DNA methylation, histone modification and the expression of non-coding RNA, that is to say the entire process of heritable changes and reversible gene alterations that do not impact DNA. Conclusion: The study carried out and included in this article showed that both concepts are contextualized in a broad environment based on the biopsychosocial aspects of scientific knowledge.

BİR “GARÎB” KAVRAM: KIRAATÜ’N-NEBİ

The Qur'an is important for Muslims not only in terms of its meaning but also in terms of its wording. The first person who listened and read the Quran was Hz. Muhammad (pbuh). His reading of the Qur'an was meticulously followed by the Companions and transferred to the next generations in many details. The narrations about the Prophet's reading of the Qur'an have taken place under different headings in the sources. These narrations have been mentioned many times with the combination of "qiraatu'n-nabi".
 The hadiths that talk about our Prophet's reading of the Qur'an are different from each other in terms of soundness and content. While there are those who tried to collect these narrations in separate books, there were also those who collected them under titles such as "Kitâbu'l-kırâât", "Kitâbu'l-hurûf" and "Kırââtü'n-nebî". The narrations sometimes include the Prophet's reading of the Qur'an in terms of quality, and sometimes the pronunciation differences arising from it. These narrations, which are considered as the Prophet's reading in different recitations, were recorded in the books at the time the hadiths were compiled.
 In many of the hadith sources, especially the famous six hadith books (Kütüb-i Sitte) which are considered the most reliable hadith sources of the Tedwin period, there are narrations about the Prophet's reading of the Qur'an. These readings are sometimes conveyed with expressions such as “Our Prophet read/had it read like this” and sometimes with sentences such as “Kıraatü'n-nebi is like this”. The narrations in which the compound "Kıraatü'n-nabi" is used touch on different aspects of our Prophet's readings. Those who put the composition in the title are also quoting the hadiths that reach them without distinguishing the quality of reading or disagreement on it. No mention of the definition or scope of the composition of qiraatu'n-nabi was found among the sources in the Tedvin period. The narrations in hand became the source of different branches of Islamic sciences in the following periods. The Qur'anic Sciences, Qiraat, Tafsir, Commentary and Fiqh sources sometimes used the phrase "qiraatu'n-nabi" in the text and sometimes in the separate title. The use of titles such as "'İlmü kırâeti'n-nebî" in the works of Ulumu'l-Qur'an can be seen as an important stage in terms of the conceptualization process, even though the content only includes narrations. Despite this, no explanation has been made about the nature of the phrase in the mentioned genres, and no attempt has been made in terms of conceptualization.
 Commentators carried the readings transmitted from the Prophet into their works. While some of them touched on some reading disputes, they was also saying the reading they dealt with was transmitted from the Prophet, so they go to the way of corroborating their own reading preferences by means of the qiraatu'n-nabi narration. Others, after stating the readings of the imams of qiraat or the generation of the Companions and Tabiun who are famous for their qira'at, said they indicate the existence of a pronounciation from the Prophet. One of the most prominent names of this style is Al-Zamakhshari. He used the expression qiraatu'n-nebi mostly when he wants to indicate the contradictory reading styles attributed to the Prophet. Even Al-Zemakhshari's readings that he attributes to the Prophet are generally the readings that were made by Othman and won the consensus of the Companions do not comply with the writing of the mushafs (resmü'l-mushaf). It is thought that this style of his has had a significant impact on the "qiraatu'n-nabi" conceptions of today's scholars. Faqihs and commentators often use the term qiraatu'n-nabi in their works, with quotations from the original sources of narration. There is no attempt to identify a frame in their works.
 Although qiraatu'n-nabi has been used in different fields and contexts until the last century, there has been no investigation on what it is. The aforementioned composition has begun to enter the dictionaries of concepts in this century and evaluations have been made about its nature. In the modern period, reactive attitudes about the qiraatü'n-nabi conceptions come to the fore. Discussions are carried out over what the concept is not rather than what it is. It is said that some people misunderstand the concept, and it is emphasized that if there is a reading of the Prophet, it must be the current authentic reading. In this period, when the word qiraatu'nebi is generally used, it is understood that the reading styles that are contrary to the readings transmitted as authentic but accepted as mutawatir in hadith sources.
 As a result, the qiraatu'n-nabi which has been used since the time of the Companions should be reconsidered in all its aspects and a definition of it should be made by taking into account the content of the hadiths about the Prophet's reading of the Qur'an.

The Kalaripayattu Salutation: Movement Makes Meaning

Vanakkam is the ritual salutation performed at different stages during the learning and practice of kalaripayattu, the martial arts system of Kerala. All vanakkams are united by their devotional character despite using expressly martial movements such as kicks and blocks. At the same time, there are differences in style, structure, and the interpretation of symbolism and significance even among Hindu kalaris, with even further greater variation in the vanakkams used in Muslim and Christian kalaris. Moreover, each weapon of the kalaripayattu form has its particular and specific vanakkam. This article uses the conceptual terms in the Natya Shastra, natya dharmi (what is suitable for the stage) and loka dharmi (what is suitable for daily life), introducing a very early binary of categories as separate, not interchangeable, classifications of movement. It looks to Maxine Sheets-Johnstone’s ‘From Movement to Dance’ as she examines ‘how meaning emerges in dance’ to decode the process of representation as it applies to the kalaripayattu vanakkam. It then goes on to analyse vanakkams through their shared choreographic structure in order to show how context affects the way movement vocabularies are read. How does a kick transcend its ordinary signification and take on ritual meaning, and how is this meaning influenced by Islam, Hinduism and Christianity?

The phenomenon objection to conceptual engineering

Conceptual engineering is sometimes presented as an alternative to conceptual analysis. But one important objection to conceptual analysis threatens to carry across: that philosophy investigates phenomena—knowledge, truth, freedom, etc.—rather than concepts of those phenomena. This poses a prima facie problem insofar as conceptual engineering targets concepts or terms rather than phenomena. Call it the ‘phenomenon objection’. I begin by examining recent discussions of the phenomenon objection by Cappelen and Scharp, rejecting their responses. I then clarify and strengthen the objection, discussing the challenge that the ‘strong phenomenon objection’ poses to conceptual engineers. Finally, I develop a new response to the strong phenomenon objection. In doing so, I motivate, articulate and defend an account of philosophy and its problems on which conceptual engineering is the appropriate method for tackling many philosophical problems—as well as, perhaps surprisingly, some problems in the sciences.

КОРПУСНЕ МОДЕЛЮВАННЯ ПРОТОТИПНОЇ СТРУКТУРИ КОНЦЕПТУ SUCCESS

The research is devoted to the topical issues of modern linguistics, namely lexicology and lexico-semantic fields. The article considers the construction, comparison and identity of the lexico-semantic field and the concept as a conceptual term of linguoculturology. Within the framework of the research we define the concept as a complex culturally determined multi-substrate mental construction. The research is also relevant to the corpus linguistics as a linguistic method. One of the topical issues nowadays is the study of the American language picture of the world, especially national perceptions of success, achievement of set goals and realization of dreams, verbalized in the concept of SUCCESS. In the study of the concept on the basis of lexicographic sources it is possible to reconstruct its conceptual substrate, which is the minimum of the concept meaningful scope. The structure of the concept created on the basis of these data may be misleading and not accurate in relation to the structure of the American concept of SUCCESS. The concept is an associative phenomenon and reflects the specificity of the ethno-cultural perception of a particular fragment of the world. Lexemes are recorded in defining and translation dictionaries, while their associative units are almost invariably not. The perceptual structure is a superstructure in the form of a certain «halo», which is difficult to convey in words, but can be established with the help of corpus research. In the research, the created structure of the lexical-semantic field SUCCESS is compared with the modeled prototype structure of the American concept of SUCCESS. To compare quantitative and qualitative values of both structures we use corpus linguistics method. To achieve the goal of the research we used a specially created Corpus of American Commencement Speeches – CACS (2000-2021), which contains 100 commencement speeches from 2000–2021. AntConc 3.5.9 Corpus Manager was used to work with the CACS.

Antigen and Immunogen: An Investigation into the Heterogeneity of Immunology Terminology in Learning Resources.

The need to focus on immunology education has never been greater. The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has revealed that a significant proportion of our society is vaccine hesitant. Some of this hesitancy may stem from a general lack of understanding of how the immune system and immunological interventions work. In addition, social media platforms undercut public health efforts by quickly propagating a multitude of misconceptions and erroneous information surrounding the science behind these interventions. The responsibility to be advocates for science is well recognized by immunology researchers, educators, and public health professionals, as evidenced by the rich body of resources developed to communicate science to the lay audience. Scientific jargon, however, can be a barrier to effective communication and can negatively impact learning and comprehension. The field of immunology is especially laden with discipline-specific terminology, which can hamper educators' efforts to convey key concepts to learners. Furthermore, a lack of consistency in accepted definitions can complicate students' conceptual understanding. Learning resources, including textbooks, published in print or available online, and exclusively digital resources, continue to serve as the primary sources of information for both educators and students. In this article, we describe a vast heterogeneity in learning resource glossary descriptions of two key conceptual terms: antigen and immunogen We provide a perspective on pedagogical strategies to address these critical terms. Using current knowledge, we recommend an approach to standardize the definitions of the terms antigen and immunogen within the immunology educator community.

Mollusk loves: Becoming with native and introduced land snails in the Hawaiian Islands

Hawaiian island land snails once represented one of the most diverse archipelagic evolutionary radiations. Historically, indigenous Hawaiians (Kānaka maoli) and Westerners also heard some snails (kāhuli) sing. Today, most of these species are extinct or endangered. One major cause has been the intentional mid-20th century introduction of a land snail, Euglandina rosea, for the biological control of another mollusk, Lissachatina fulica. In this article, I join efforts of noticing and engaging landscapes of the situated Anthropocene with the goal of demonstrating the potential for mollusks to be dynamic alliance-forming companions. In articulating methods of becoming with snails, I pass kāhuli through Western and Kānaka maoli knowledge-making projects. First considering the evolutionary biological work of John Gulick and his counterparts to genealogize contemporary snail-love, I then elaborate on what care and hope might mean with Pacific Island land snails living through ongoing environmental dispossession and alteration. I then reconsider Euglandina on parallel conceptual terms, engaging natural historical and laboratory accounts to think with the introduced mollusk beyond its categorization as ‘alien invader’. Loving Euglandina as well as kāhuli may help realize livable futures for indigenous and introduced Hawaiian island mollusks alike, in a world hopefully full of snail-song.

Accounts of NGO performance as calculative spaces: Wild Animals, wildlife restoration and strategic agency

Whereas corporations typically share a common primary objective of generating profits for their owners, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) principally pursue a panoply of various social and/or ecological objectives. Accordingly, an NGO’s performance in pursuit of its objectives can rarely be accounted for in straightforwardly comparable quantitative terms. How then can an NGO instead construct qualitative accounts of its performance that show how it makes a difference in pursuit of its objectives? This paper examines qualitative accounts of performance against an objective to restore wildlife, which are included in the annual reports of a large conservation NGO. These accounts are conceptualised as being calculative spaces, configured by framing work being done within these accounts. Analysis of this framing work finds that these accounts identify a performance object (i.e. specific wild animal populations), establish relations that seemingly affect this performance object (i.e. threats to wild animal populations and actions to conserve these populations), and attribute the NGO with agency to make a difference to this performance object (i.e. as a strategic actor directing and co-ordinating wildlife restoration). Thus, this paper demonstrates that seeing quantitative and qualitative accounts of organisational performance in the same conceptual terms creates conditions of possibility for developing a fuller understanding of an organisation’s calculations of its own capacity to act upon society.

Zongjiao as a Chinese Conceptual Term for Religion? Genealogical Notes On its Development Since The Late Qing Period

This article addresses the question of zongjiao as a modern translation for the Western term “religion.” Neither criticizing nor defending its application, it instead takes for granted the Western concept’s adoption and argues that the general acceptance of the newly coined binome and its semantics can be best understood through a genealogical approach that includes global, especially Western, as much as local Chinese roots and discourses. The article builds on recent scholarship and adds new insights from a discursive perspective with a special focus on the important transformational period of the first half of the twentieth century. In particular, it argues for the continuing hybrid character of the historically shaped semantics of zongjiao and its lasting semantic ambiguities, which allow one to understand zongjiao as a signifier that interconnects uses in local, traditional, as well as modern academic and international discourses.

Insurance: Trends of Use in the Republic of North Macedonia

Insurance supports a healthy and prosperous society, enabling businesses and individuals to protect themselves, property, and their finances against risk. As such, insurance today is not just important for the individual consumer, business client or businesses; it also has consequences for the entire economy, restoring businesses to health after natural disasters, acts of war, riots, strikes, fl uctuations or financial crises, and state measures to dictate the import or export of goods. The aim of this paper is to examine the part played by insurance in the economy of the Republic of North Macedonia. This paper introduces and summarises an argument and outlines the nature of the exploration to follow. For this introductory purpose, referencing in the paper is kept deliberately light; aiming to find discussion points of relevant sources in the course of the argument as it unfolds. We argue that insurance operates not at the periphery, but also at the core of development, in both practical and conceptual terms. Research of the space that insurance occupies and the role that insurance has in general welfare is performed by using the legal platform that insurance has in place, including the Law on Obligations, the Law on Insurance Supervision, and the Law on Compulsory Traffic Insurance. Through the method of analysis, synthesis, and statistics, the author processes the official data of the Ministry of Finance presented by the National Bank, in order to provide a clear overview of the trends in the use of insurance in the Republic of North Macedonia. The results from the study show that in the time period analysed, the insurance sector is classifi ed as the third most important segment in the financial system, and that life insurance prevails over other types of insurance.

Nation as conceptualised in Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

AbstractThe departing point of this study is to understand the implications of ‘nation‐building’ as a Western initiative in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2004–2021) particularly in terms of the local conceptualisation of nation or millat. Based on this larger question, the goal of this study is to reveal the idea of nation as presented in the discourse of education constructed by the state of Afghanistan. To this end, the study employs three major primary resources: official state documents, school textbooks and expert interviews conducted at the Ministry of Education in Afghanistan. Pursuing a qualitative research methodology, the study uncovers four major elements that make up the idea of the ‘nation of Afghanistan’ or the millat‐e Afghanistan: (1) Islam, (2) watan (homeland), (3) qawm and (4) Afghaniyat (Afghanness). Reflecting a very specific understanding of nation that is peculiar to the context of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, this study concludes that the Western‐imposed form of nation has a local content which struggles hard to keep the idea of nation together.

Centre–periphery contestation and the spatialization of Covid-19 discourse in Norway

ABSTRACT This paper examines how and why the Norwegian government’s early handling of the Covid-19 pandemic became constructed as a centre–periphery issue in public discourse. By analysing opinion pieces and editorials published in a North Norwegian regional newspaper during the first months of the outbreak, it identifies how a ‘northern peripherality’ discourse emerged and highlighted geographical, infrastructural and political peripheralization processes in response to a dispute over the legality and efficacy of local quarantine restrictions. The paper argues that through interdiscursive anchoring in long-standing political cleavages and associated grievances around centralizing reforms, and through co-optation of government narratives, the ‘northern peripherality’ discourse established a position of vulnerability from which to more legitimately problematize responses to the pandemic as a regional concern. The case empirically highlights the spatiality of social conflicts and protest movements, for example discussed in the emerging literature on geographies of Covid-19. Theoretically, the paper engages with the question of how events such as the pandemic become ‘meaningfully regional’ through processes of (regional) spatialization. It suggests, in conceptual terms, that approaching regions and the regional through horizontal and vertical relations moves past one-dimensional readings of regionalist contestation, emphasizes power-laden relations within and across regions, and avoids replicating a territorial/relational binary.

Travelling Far and Wide? Applying the Multiple Streams Framework to Policy-Making in Autocracies

The Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) builds on the concepts of timing and ambiguity and their effects on the policy process. Since its introduction to agenda-setting in the U.S. presidential system, scholars have transferred the MSF’s core ideas to multiple issue areas, policy stages, and political systems. However, what has been lacking so far is a thorough discussion of the MSF’s travelling capacity to nondemocratic forms of government. Building on a brief summary of the MSF’s main ideas, this article discusses the challenges that policy-making in autocracies poses for MSF applications and ways to adapt it to the peculiarities that are typical for these regimes. The article focuses on the agenda-setting stage in which formal institutions are less important and introduces falsifiable hypotheses explaining agenda change. Due to tremendous differences regarding the organization of the decision-making process in autocratic regimes, the article only sketches out how the MSF could be adapted to explain policy change in this institutional setting. The article concludes with a discussion of whether the MSF is stretched too far by applying it to nondemocratic systems. It turns out that in theoretical and conceptual terms, the MSF travels surprisingly well to these systems.

#AlmaToo: The Art of Being Believed

Abstract Despite the key role played by Alma Schindler Mahler-Werfel (1879–1964) in the preservation of her husband Gustav’s compositions and biography, she has often been viewed as having deliberately distorted his legacy. As sometimes happens to the widows of accomplished men, Alma’s capacity for sound judgment and right to control her image have been challenged by her husband’s devotees. This article considers Alma’s situation in terms of the #MeToo movement’s demand for the reevaluation of sexual politics between powerful men and younger women. Fundamental to this reconsideration is the imperative to listen to what individuals say about their experiences. Alma was nearly twenty years Gustav’s junior and pregnant when their marriage was hastily arranged. I explore key elements in their relationship, such as the devastating letter in which Gustav forbade her to compose, in terms of new conceptualizations of gaslighting, grooming, consent, character assessment, and believability articulated by the #MeToo movement. This theoretical foundation grounds extensive critique of both the conventions of fin-de-siècle Vienna and the chauvinism of late twentieth-century scholars. I conclude by briefly proposing an alternative perspective on Alma’s musical contributions based on her writings, compositions, and editorial, organizational, and curatorial activities. The revision of assumptions about one of Europe’s most famous musical couples has gained urgency since #MeToo began to articulate a new perspective on gender relations and artistic aspirations founded on social justice.

Developing the Dead: Spirit Photography, Mormonism, and Noise

Developing the Dead: Spirit Photography, Mormonism, and Noise