The goals of the Mongol invaders according to European sources of the middle of the XIII century. Part 1

The middle of the XIII century - the apogee of power of the unified Mongol Empire. In 1241-1242, the first, bloodiest and most destructive Mongol invasion into Europe took place. Certainly, it was vital for the Europeans to find an answer to the question: what did the invaders want, what goals did they pursue? In this article, the author shows that, due to the abundance of contradictory information and the acute lack of an objective understanding of the new enemy at first, European political and ecclesiastical figures attributed many goals to the Mongols (at least eighteen!), of which only three were fully confirmed - an attack on Russia, Poland, and Hungary, and the rest were either not realized for some reason, or arose in minds of the Europeans themselves. All these goals, identified in various official and unofficial European sources, mainly dating from the middle of the XIII century, are discussed here taking into account information from synchronous Eastern sources. Despite well-known ideas of a world-building monarchy, perhaps actually hatched by the Mongol khans, events in Europe suggest that their main goal there was to punish the Hungarian king Bela IV, who refused to hand over the Polovtsians hiding in Hungary to the Mongols.

The goals of the Mongol invaders according to European sources of the middle of the XIII century. Part 2

The middle of the XIII century - the apogee of power of the unified Mongol Empire. In 1241-1242, the first, bloodiest and most destructive Mongol invasion into Europe took place. Certainly, it was vital for the Europeans to find an answer to the question: what did the invaders want, what goals did they pursue? In this article, the author shows that, due to the abundance of contradictory information and the acute lack of an objective understanding of the new enemy at first, European political and ecclesiastical figures attributed many goals to the Mongols (at least eighteen!), of which only three were fully confirmed - an attack on Russia, Poland, and Hungary, and the rest were either not realized for some reason, or arose in minds of the Europeans themselves. All these goals, identified in various official and unofficial European sources, mainly dating from the middle of the XIII century, are discussed here taking into account information from synchronous Eastern sources. Despite well-known ideas of a world-building monarchy, perhaps actually hatched by the Mongol khans, events in Europe suggest that their main goal there was to punish the Hungarian king Bela IV, who refused to hand over the Polovtsians hiding in Hungary to the Mongols.

Individual differences in thinking style and dealing with contradiction: The mediating role of mixed emotions

The present research examined how individuals’ thinking style (holistic vs. analytic) is associated with the way they deal with contradictory information and whether experiencing mixed emotions can mediate this relationship. Participants first completed the thinking style measure and then were exposed to two contradictory pieces of information (Studies 1 and 2). In study 2, we also measured the experience of mixed emotions to test the mediating role of this variable. Across two studies, we found that individuals with a holistic thinking style were more able to reconcile contradictory information compared to individuals with an analytic thinking style. Study 2 showed that the relationship between thinking style and dealing with contradiction was mediated by the experience of mixed emotions. This research extends previous findings on confrontation of contradiction and mixed emotions by using an individual-differences rather than a cultural-differences approach, and establishes mixed emotions as a plausible mediating variable.

Telling Tales

This chapter queries criticism which claims that the priest’s diary in Robert Bresson’s Journal d’un curé de campagne (1951) allows straightforward navigation through the film. Critics have often argued that this diary describes clearly the anxious young priest’s inner life. Such a reading has depended on the idea that the diary is univocal. This has necessarily disavowed the film’s articulated structure, in which the diary exists as speech (in voiceovers), written text (in images of the priest writing), and performance (in dramatized scenes). These elements are, in fact, contrapuntal, striking up productive differences and presenting conflicting, even contradictory, information. The calm of the voiceover is at odds with the frantic erasures of the writing and the confused focalizations of the dramatic scenes. The fractured diary is not the univocal presentation of the protagonist, and the inarticulate character cannot provide a stable centre for the eccentric film’s proliferating network of meanings.

Decision-Making Under Uncertainty: African Migrants in the Spotlight

This thematic issue examines questions of decision-making under limited (and contradictory) information, focusing on migration decisions. Migrants are far from a homogenous population, but they commonly use narratives as heuristics. We observe much agency among migrants to pursue migration plans, with migration decisions best understood as chains of multiple decisions rather than simple push-pull or two-step models.

DDLV: A System for rational preferential reasoning for datalog

Datalog is a powerful language that can be used to represent explicit knowledge and compute inferences in knowledge bases. Datalog cannot, however, represent or reason about contradictory rules. This is a limitation as contradictions are often present in domains that contain exceptions. In this paper, we extend Datalog to represent contradictory and defeasible information. We define an approach to efficiently reason about contradictory information in Datalog and show that it satisfies the KLM requirements for a rational consequence relation. We introduce DDLV, a defeasible Datalog reasoning system that implements this approach. Finally, we evaluate the performance of DDLV.

Caught in the Crossfire: How Contradictory Information and Norms on Social Media Influence Young Women’s Intentions to Receive HPV Vaccination in the United States and China

This study uses online survey data from the United States and China to examine how contradictory information and social norms regarding HPV vaccines obtained through social media are related to young women’s attitudes and intentions surrounding HPV vaccination. The results show that exposure to contradictory information on social media had a greater negative association with intentions to receive HPV vaccination among the United States participants than among the Chinese participants, while social norms supporting HPV vaccines had a stronger positive association with intentions to receive HPV vaccination among the Chinese participants than among the United States participants. These findings extend the literature on social media communication regarding HPV vaccination and contribute to our knowledge of cultural contexts that influence intentions to receive HPV vaccination.

3D Spatial Continuity and 2D Screen Geography

Chapter 8 explains and illustrates the importance of screen geography for keeping time and space clear, and shows how to achieve it by designing shots that can be juxtaposed without breaking continuity. When a new scene begins, viewers expect to understand the space of the new setting just as they would understand it if they’d stepped into it. If the sequences of images give contradictory information about where things are situated in space, and how the action is unfolding, viewers become momentarily confused and distracted from the story. The important two-dimensional elements of screen geography and how they relate to three-dimensional space are examined. Planning the positioning of characters on the screen, creating eyelines, and achieving continuity of screen motion are explained. Camera positioning relative to the axis of action is explored as the key to achieving continuity when shots are sequenced during editing.

A Global Perspective on the Management of Bacterial Infections in Pregnancy: A Systematic Review of International Guidelines

Introduction: Maternal sepsis is a leading cause of maternal and neonatal mortality. Despite the availability of management protocols, there is disparity in case fatality rates for pregnancy-related sepsis compared to other maternity-related complications. The main aim of this systematic review was to assess concordance between international evidence-based guidelines for the prevention and management of childbirth-related bacterial infections. Material and methods: The PRISMA statement was followed during the conduct and reporting of this review. PubMed and G-I-N were searched electronically from 2009 to November 2019 for clinical guidelines covering the topic of childbirth-related infections and specific searches for relevant guidelines on the websites of the top 5 international professional bodies most commonly identified by our searches. We did not apply any language restrictions. Guidelines were included if they provided any information about the prevention or management of childbirth-related bacterial infections irrespective of whether the guideline stated a recommendation or not. Two independent reviewers undertook study selection, decisions about inclusion of selected guidelines and data extraction. Extracted information was synthesized under the following topics: Asymptomatic bacteriuria; group B streptococcal infection (GBS); preterm premature rupture of membranes (P-PROM); Intrauterine infection; Interventions and procedures; maternal sepsis; miscellaneous. Concordance was defined as absence of contradictory information between the different guidelines with regards to a specific topic, subtopic or recommendation. Quality of included guidelines was assessed against the AGREE II guideline reporting domains.Results: A total of 43 guidelines were selected of which 11 were excluded leaving 32 guidelines that fulfilled our inclusion criteria. None of the guidelines fulfilled all the quality assessment domains and 11 (34%) of the guidelines satisfied 1 - 2 of domains only. Two guidelines covered the topic of asymptomatic bacteriuria, nine for GBS, five for P-PROM and three covered each of intra-amniotic infections maternal sepsis, obstetric procedures and interventions topics. The remaining guidelines covered miscellaneous topics.Conclusions: There was concordance between guidelines with regards to several aspects in the prophylaxis and treatment of bacteriological infections in pregnancy. Nevertheless, there were several areas of discordance, some of which reached the extent of contradictory information as in the case of antenatal screening for GBS.