Documentary Educational Resources

2019 ◽  
pp. 423-440
Author(s):  
Scott MacDonald

Any important contribution to the history of cinema requires more than accomplished filmmakers. Indeed, filmmaking accomplishment itself is nearly always dependent on the availability of exhibition venues and distribution organizations. Documentary Educational Resources (DER) is a crucial distributor for a wide range of ethnographic films from across the world. Founded by John Marshall and Timothy Asch in 1971 in order to make their own films available, DER now makes available to colleges and universities, schools, and festivals, eight hundred films by hundreds of nonfiction filmmakers from across the globe who are committed to cinema as a form of cultural education and immersion. This interview with the three women who have served as DER’s executive directors over recent decades traces the evolution of a model independent distributor.

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 204993611983716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glynn W. Webb ◽  
Harry R. Dalton

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is the most common cause of viral hepatitis in the world. It is estimated that millions of people are infected every year, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. However, these estimates do not include industrialized regions and are based on studies which employ assays now known to have inferior sensitivity. As such, this is likely to represent a massive underestimate of the true global burden of disease. In the developing world, HEV causes large outbreaks and presents a significant public-health problem. Until recently HEV was thought to be uncommon in industrialized countries, and of little relevance to clinicians in these settings. We now know that this is incorrect, and that HEV is actually very common in developed regions. HEV has proved difficult to study in vitro, with reliable models only recently becoming available. Our understanding of the lifecycle of HEV is therefore incomplete. Routes of transmission vary by genotype and location: endemic regions experience large waterborne epidemics, while sporadic cases in industrialized regions are zoonotic infections likely spread via the food chain. Both acute and chronic infection has been observed, and a wide range of extrahepatic manifestations have been reported. This includes neurological, haematological and renal conditions. As the complete clinical phenotype of HEV infection is yet to be characterized, a large proportion of cases go unrecognized or misdiagnosed. In many cases HEV infection does not feature in the differential diagnosis due to a lack of knowledge and awareness of the disease amongst clinicians. In combination, these factors have contributed to an underestimation of the threat posed by HEV. Improvements are required in terms of recognition and diagnosis of HEV infection if we are to understand the natural history of the disease, improve management and reduce the burden of disease around the world.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henk-Jan Dekker

In an effort to fight climate change, many cities try to boost their cycling levels. They often look towards the Dutch for guidance. However, historians have only begun to uncover how and why the Netherlands became the premier cycling country of the world. Why were Dutch cyclists so successful in their fight for a place on the road? Cycling Pathways: The Politics and Governance of Dutch Cycling Infrastructure, 1920-2020 explores the long political struggle that culminated in today’s high cycling levels. Delving into the archives, it uncovers the important role of social movements and shows in detail how these interacted with national, provincial, and urban engineers and policymakers to govern the distribution of road space and construction of cycling infrastructure. It discusses a wide range of topics, ranging from activists to engineering committees, from urban commuters to recreational cyclists and from the early 1900s to today in order to uncover the long and all-but-forgotten history of Dutch cycling governance.


Iraq ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter V. Bartl

The orthostats from the North-West Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC) at Nimrud are among the most outstanding works of art from the Ancient Near East. Today they are to be found in museums all over the world and are looked at every day by thousands of visitors. Numerous books and articles have been written about their style, their meaning and their reconstruction. Thus one would think that nothing could have escaped the eye of observers. Nevertheless, some details have been largely overlooked by researchers. Among these is the incised decoration on the edges of the garments of some of the figures depicted, showing a wide range of simple geometric and floral designs as well as complex mythical and narrative scenes. It thus forms a valuable part of the repertoire of Neo-Assyrian artistic motifs and can help us understand the essence and meaning of Neo-Assyrian political art. The evidence of these incised decorations is not only of importance for the history of art but is also fundamental to the understanding of the significance of the clothes and of the figures wearing them, forming an integral and essential part of the mythical symbolic character of the figures.


This book brings together international relations scholars, political theorists, and historians to reflect on the intellectual history of American foreign policy since the late nineteenth century. It offers a nuanced and multifaceted collection of essays covering a wide range of concerns, concepts, presidential doctrines, and rationalities of government thought to have marked America’s engagement with the world during this period: nation-building, exceptionalism, isolationism, modernisation, race, utopia, technology, war, values, the ‘clash of civilisations’ and many more.


Author(s):  
Э.Г. Задорожнюк ◽  
И.Е. Задорожнюк

Рассматриваются некоторые идеи Б.Ф. Поршнева, изложенные в его статье 50-летней давности «Контрсуггестия и история», характеризуется их место в истории идей от-носительно динамики социальных изменений, анализируемой, в частности, в трудах отечественных ученых прошлого. Обосновывается настоятельность введения в глоссарий современных социальных наук концепта «суггестия» и понятия «контрсуггестия», показана их релевантность на широком историческом материале и полях взаимодействия социальных субъектов. Отмечено, что суггестия и противостоящая ей контрсуггестия пронизывают массовые настроения и влияют на все общественные отношения, особенно в кризисные моменты. Обращается внимание на феномен инфодемии, усугубляющей, по заключению Всемирной организации здравоохранения, проявления пандемии коронавируса, а также на его корреляцию с суггестией. The article considers a number of ideas by B.F. Porshnev set forth 50 years ago in his article "Counter-suggestion and History", as well as its role in the history of ideas, especially in connection to the dynamics of social changes analyzed, in particular, in the works by Russian historians. The urgency of introducing the concept of "Suggestion" and the notion of "Сounter- Suggestion" into the glossary of modern social sciences is justified, as well as their relevance is shown in a wide range of historical material and fields of interaction of social subjects. It is noted that Suggestion and opposing Сounter-Suggestion permeate mass moods and affect all social relations, especially in crisis moments. Attention is drawn to the phenomenon of infodemia, which, according to the World Health Organization, exacerbates the manifestations of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as its correlation with suggestion.


Author(s):  
Andrés Troncoso ◽  
Felipe Armstrong ◽  
Mara Basile

Central and South America is a vast region, where a wide range of different societies established, transformed, disappeared, and endured. This kaleidoscope of peoples offers a particularly rich and diverse body of rock art in terms of its historical, technical, visual, and spatial features. The first sections of this chapter briefly introduces the reader to this diversity, as well as to the history of rock art research, presenting and discussing the different theoretical and methodological frameworks used. The authors discuss the role that rock art played—and still plays—for different groups, which they have grouped in terms of their common socioeconomic strategies. The authors argue that rock art research from this region can contribute to the wider understanding of rock art in the world, offering its materialistic and archaeological approaches ranging from the study of social complexity, the domestication of animals, mobility, and memory.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Callaway ◽  
Jessica Hamrick ◽  
Tom Griffiths

In the history of cognitive science, there have been two competing philosophies regarding how people reason about the world. In one, people rely on rich, generative models to make predictions about a wide range of scenarios; while in the other, people have a large “bag of tricks”, idiosyncratic heuristics that tend to work well in practice. In this paper, we suggest that rather than being in opposition to one another, these two ideas complement each other. We argue that people’s capacity for mental simulation may support their ability to learn new cue- based heuristics, and demonstrate this phenomenon in two experiments. However, our results also indicate that participants are far less likely to learn a heuristic when there is no logical or explicitly conveyed relationship between the cue and the relevant outcome. Furthermore, simulation—while a potentially useful tool—is no substitute for real world experience.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 2242-2260
Author(s):  
Jason Puskar

By recovering the history of simple finger counting techniques and their relevance to a wide range of enumerative and calculative technologies, this article argues that human fingers have long shaped the digital, and more importantly, that the digital has long shaped the fingers. The interfaces of calculating machines from the Roman abacus to the touchscreen calculators mathematize the body in very specific and consistent ways, such that the fingers have come to connote human reason just as fluids such as tears have come to connote human feeling. This embodied digitality naturalizes and humanizes the digital in ways that we have too often taken for granted. Digital calculating machines are not just utilitarian instruments under human control, but engines of hominization that, across much of the world today, define what it means to be human.


2020 ◽  
Vol 170 ◽  
pp. 06003
Author(s):  
Priyanka Omar ◽  
MVN. Siva Kumar ◽  
Subbarao Yarramsetty

Population is growing rapidly and so are vehicles on roads. This leads to enormous need of tunnels and subways for easy locomotion and mobilization. From conventional tunnels, for sewage and water facilities to modern electrified tunnels, for mass transit and underwater highways, method of construction of a tunnel to its safety inspection and maintenance has taken a wide leap. Tunnel construction requires wide range of resources like human, technology, machinery, materials, energy, and finance. To handle all these resources simultaneously becomes complex and requires good management. Even with good management, accidents and hazards might occur. A critical review of various safety parameters while constructing a tunnel and its management is presented in this paper. This review paper discusses the history of safety of tunnels till present safety measures and techniques adopted around the world for different tunnels; various critical factors which affect the safety in tunnels; the extent of damage occurring due to these factors; numerous preventive measures which are adopted around the world to prevent loss of property and lives in tunnels; and advanced technology and software, which are being used in modern era to enhance safety in tunnel construction. The study from manual horse drawn-tramway to autonomous robotic system has been done. This paper also considers various tunnels around the world and gives a summary of factors for safety focused on for making these tunnels, with its adopted remedy.


Author(s):  
Arlene W. Saxonhouse

This article describes the changes in the conception of political theory. It provides a brief history of the study of political theory and considers the notable works of Robert Dahl, Leo Strauss, and George Sabine. It argues against the claim that political theorists today is too abstracted from the world in which we live and argues in defence of a reading of texts as a practice of political theory that continues as a vibrant method employed by a wide range of practitioners in the field and as one that should continue from this point on.


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