When family and research clash: The role of autobiographical emotion in the production of stories of the Italian civil war, 1943–1945

This paper engages the emotional side of Second World War storytelling practices and research. Specifically, it explores how a politics of trust and togetherness animates communities of remembrance concerning the anti-Fascist Resistance experience in northern Italy. I reflect on my encounter with memories of wartime violence through the lens of autobiographical emotion. In a region torn asunder by conflicting stories of loss and violence during the anti-Nazi resistance and civil war, I possess a dual identity of researcher and Partisan's grandchild. This carries a powerful emotional bond of ethical obligations that cannot be ignored in the research process. Drawing on affect theory, I contextualize my oral history fieldwork experience in relation to that emotional bond.     

Athletes trained using stable compared to unstable surfaces exhibit distinct postural control profiles when assessed by traditional and nonlinear measures

Athletes are assumed to exhibit better balance than non-athletes; however, few studies have examined the role of different types of sports on balance measures. Two athlete groups that experience divergent sport-specific balance training are stable- (i.e. basketball) and unstable-surface athletes (i.e. surfers). The purpose of this study was to quantify the effect of stable- compared to unstable-surface sports on postural stability.MethodsEight non-athletes (NON), eight stable-surface athletes (SSA) and eight unstable-surface athletes (USA) performed five 20-s quiet standing trials while ground reaction forces were recorded. Approximate entropy (ApEn), total excursion and root mean square distances (RMS) of the center of pressure position were calculated. Univariate ANOVAs with post hoc tests were conducted for each variable.ResultsApEn values were lower in SSA compared to NON in the ML direction (p = 0.012) and USA had lower ApEn values compared to SSA in the AP direction (p = 0.036). The USA had smaller AP RMS compared to SSA (p = 0.002) while the USA had greater ML RMS (p = 0.008) and resultant RMS values compared to SSA (p = 0.025).DiscussionThese data suggest that USA and SSA may exhibit direction-specific differences in balance strategy due to feedback paradigm.     

Comparative analysis of the risk-handling procedures for gene technology applications in medical and plant science

In this paper we analyse how the risks associated with research on transgenic plants are regulated in Sweden. The paper outlines the way in which pilot projects in the plant sciences are overseen in Sweden, and discusses the international and national background to the current regulatory system. The historical, and hitherto unexplored, reasons for the evolution of current administrative and legislative procedures in plant science are of particular interest. Specifically, we discuss similarities and differences in the regulation of medicine and plant science, and we examine the tendency towards dichotomizing risk — focusing on social/ethical risks in medicine and biological risks in plant science. The context of this article is the Synpraxia research project, an inter-disciplinary program combining expertise in sciences and the humanities.     

In Forty Years,What has Changed … or Not?

Abstract : Drawing on the background of her own experiences over the past forty years, the author reflects on the marginalization, tokenism, and mainstreaming of women in ministry and feminist theology that has occurred during this time. She calls for greater sensitivity to the realities women globally still face today, and for more interactive, trans‐contextual, and transformational engagement with these realities.     

Lutheran Theological Libraries in Asia:

No abstract available for this article.     

Loss Aversion and Foreign Policy Resolve

This article draws upon recent findings from the field of neuroscience to explore how loss aversion affects foreign policy resolve. We theorize that U.S. policy makers are more resolute in pursuing preventive policies that seek to avoid losses than they are in pursuing promotive policies that seek to acquire new gains. To test our theory, we conduct the first large‐n analysis of foreign policy hypotheses derived from the neuroscience of loss aversion using data from 100 cases of U.S.‐initiated Section 301 trade disputes. The results provide strong support for the loss‐aversion‐based theory, revealing that American policy makers are willing to fight harder and hold out longer in trade disputes with preventive objectives than they are in cases with promotive ones. Our study demonstrates that hypotheses derived from neuroscientific findings can be tested using large‐n techniques in study of foreign policy, revealing a new avenue of inquiry within the field.     

Psychology,health and health care

This article traces the development of the World Health Organization's emphasis on psychological and behavioural factors in health and notes its encouragement of recognition of these factors by member states. The article further outlines the reasons for this increasing recognition and stresses the important role of psychological and behavioural factors in the maintenance of health and prevention of illness.     

Contributors

The ‘imagined community’ (famously defined by Benedict Anderson) could not be created out of nothing. It built upon previously existing identities. And though nineteenth-century nationalism is often seen as essentially secular, the most powerful of these identities were frequently religious. Indeed the clergy often played a major role in promoting a national consciousness. While a ‘national church’ readily saw itself as the embodiment of the nation’s past history, present identity and future aspirations, religious minorities usually had a more ambivalent relationship with a nationalism that was always in some degree exclusive. And even in the case of a ‘national church’, the interests of politicians and ecclesiastics were not always the same. Moreover some nineteenth-century nationalisms were defined in ways to which religion was largely irrelevant, or were in explicit opposition to the Catholic Church. Nonetheless, in ways that varied in kind and degree from country to country, nationalism and Christianity came to be intertwined in nineteenth-century Europe. National identities were to an important degree defined by reference to specific Christian traditions, their history, their forms of worship, and their heroic figures. At the same time nationalism often came to be seen as an integral part of Christianity. Readiness to die for the motherland was presented as a Christian duty and, in particular, Christian preachers of this era were strongly influenced by the concept of a God-given national mission, which justified nationalist claims and might sometimes justify war.     

The new multidimensional and user-driven higher education ranking concept of the European Union

Higher education rankings constitute a important but controversial topic due to the methodologies applied in existing rankings and to the use being done of these interpreting their results for purposes which they were not designed for. At present there is no international ranking can responds to the needs of all users and that is methodologically sound by considering the various missions of higher education institutions, mainly due to a narrow focus on research giving less importance to other missions in which higher education institutions can excel beyond research such as teaching quality, knowledge transfer, international orientation, regional engagement etc. The European Commission is currently involved in the implementation of a new higher education ranking methodology, characterised by taking into account a diversity of missions and the diversity of existing higher education institutions. The final aim is to create a tool allowing users to choose the performance indicators of their interest and providing them with a personalised ranking according to their interests. This paper describes the motivation for designing such a tool, the principles of the methodology proposed, as well as the steps foreseen to have it ready for end users by 2014.     

Invariance on a reading comprehension test in European Portuguese: A differential item functioning analysis between students from rural and urban areas

The aim of this study was to determine whether the items from a reading comprehension test in European Portuguese function differently across students from rural and urban areas, which biases the test validity and the equity in assessment. The sample was composed of 653 students from second, third and fourth grades. The presence of differential item functioning (DIF) was analysed using logistic regression and the Mantel–Haenszel procedure. Although 17 items were flagged with DIF, only five items showed non-negligible DIF in all effect-size measures. The evidence of invariance across students with rural or urban backgrounds for most of the items supports the validity of the test though the five identified items should be further investigated.