The reflection of negative social phenomena in contemporary opera practice

Human Affairs ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Mojžišová

AbstractThere are two approaches that dominate contemporary opera performances. The first may be characterised as producing a subtle, aesthetic and stylistic means of expression. The second runs up visual, interpretation and content means to their maximum expressivity and the audience is exposed to violence, sex and experience disgust. This paper analyses specific productions by renowned European theatre and opera directors, in order to shed light on the way in which opera directors cope with the threat of terrorism, sexual violence, and the impact of the mass media upon the moral belief system of modern man. Within the context of the bold productions of European theatre-makers Slovak opera theatre seems conservative, gravitating towards the aesthetic aspect of opera.

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Randa Hassan Mohamed ◽  
Gehan Ahmed Ebrahim

The elements and means affecting the formulation and structure of the architectural buildings have been greatly developed by man throughout different ages according to the development of technology, so the dimensions and specifications of configuring dynamic buildings can be designed and controlled in order to leave the required effects on the environment and the user to serve certain purpose or function. But it seems that the process of formulating any architectural vocabulary acting on the dynamic aspect goes beyond the boundaries of the perceived dimensions and the included unperceived one; as the first dimensions may be considered namely the aesthetic aspect in architectural work, while the included unperceived dimensions may display efficiency in work which is greatly influenced by the personality and the formative attitudes of the architect, the site style and the surrounded environment, as well as the economic efficiency of the building. However, the liability issue seems to be the absence of the criterion of forming efficient dynamic configurations in architecture. Accordingly this research aims to reach this criterion as identifying the architectural attitudes; as a decisive in shaping the building as its facades, envelopes, sections or plans. Additionally, it attempts to explain the reciprocal relation between the architectural vocabulary (perceived aspects of configuration) and the unperceived one which is distinguishing the valuable architectural works. The research will attempt to analyze the elements included and the aesthetic and formative considerations while configuring the dynamic building to determine the important role played by such formation in reaching the psychological and physiological effect on the user in turn to maximize its utilization of such architectural work.


Author(s):  
Dianne Toe ◽  
Louise Paatsch ◽  
Amy Szarkowski

Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children who use spoken language face unique challenges when communicating with others who have typical hearing, particularly their peers. In such contexts, the social use of language has been recognized as an area of vulnerability among individuals in this population and has become a focus for research and intervention. The development of pragmatic skills intersects with many aspects of child development, including emotional intelligence and executive function, as well as social and emotional development. While all these areas are important, they are beyond the scope of this chapter, which highlights the impact of pragmatics on the specific area of cognition. Cognitive pragmatics is broadly defined as the study of the mental processes involved in the understanding of meaning in the context of a cooperative interaction. This chapter explores how DHH children and young people construe meaning in the context of conversations and expository interactions with their peers. The chapter aims to examine the role played by the cognitive processes of making inferences and comprehending implicature, within the overall display of pragmatic skills. Further, the authors use this lens in the analysis of interactions between DHH children and their peers in order to shed light on the development of pragmatic skills in children who are DHH.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003329412110021
Author(s):  
Sizhe Liu ◽  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Xianyou He ◽  
Xiaoxiang Tang ◽  
Shuxian Lai ◽  
...  

There is evidence that greater aesthetic experience can be linked to artworks when their corresponding meanings can be successfully inferred and understood. Modern cultural-expo architecture can be considered a form of artistic creation and design, and the corresponding design philosophy may be derived from representational objects or abstract social meanings. The present study investigates whether cultural-expo architecture with an easy-to-understand architectural appearance design is perceived as more beautiful and how architectural photographs and different types of descriptions of architectural appearance designs interact and produce higher aesthetic evaluations. The results showed an obvious aesthetic preference for cultural-expo architecture with an easy-to-understand architectural appearance design (Experiment 1). Moreover, we found that the aesthetic rating score of architectural photographs accompanied by an abstract description was significantly higher than that of those accompanied by a representational description only under the difficult-to-understand design condition (Experiment 2). The results indicated that people preferred cultural-expo architecture with an easy-to-understand architectural appearance design due to a greater understanding of the design, providing further evidence that abstract descriptions can provide supplementary information and explanation to enhance the sense of beauty of abstract cultural-expo architecture.


2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Zimmer

Purpose – The US Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 introduced optional prescription drug coverage, beginning in 2006, widely known as Medicare Part D. This paper uses up-to-date nationally representative survey data to investigate the impact of Part D not only on drug spending and consumption, but also on the composition of drug consumption. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Specifically, the paper investigates whether Part D impacted the number of therapeutic classes for which drugs were prescribed, and also whether Part D lead to increased usage of drugs for specific medical conditions that typically receive drug-intensive therapies. Findings – In addition to confirming findings from previous studies, this paper shows that Part D increased the number of therapeutic classes to which seniors receive drugs by approximately four classes. Part D also lead to increased usage of drugs used to treat upper respiratory disease, hypertension, and diabetes. Originality/value – While mostly concurring with previous studies on the spending impacts of Part D, this paper is the first to shed light on other impacts of Part D, specifically with respect to its impact on therapeutic classes for which drugs are prescribed.


2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Baker ◽  
Jennifer Robertson-Wilson ◽  
Whitney Sedgwick

The current study examined whether the distribution of published research papers in the field of sport psychology followed the Lotka-Price Law of scientific productivity. All authors who had published articles in five sport psychology journals from 1970 to 2000 were considered. The impact of those authors was determined by the total number of published papers in all journals. Results provided limited support for the Lotka-Price Law; however, it appeared that the field of sport psychology was less elitist than other fields. Although these findings suggest that productivity in this field is similar to that in other fields of science, more research is needed to shed light on the role of the eminent scientist and the average researcher in the advancement of knowledge in sport psychology.


2013 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Luis Pérez Triviño

Abstract The cyborgization of sport has occupied a noticeable role in the fields of sport and medicine in recent years due to the fact that this issue calls into question the very foundations of contemporary sport. As a result, it gives rise to doubt about whether cyborg athletes should be able to take part in different athletic competitions, and if they are allowed, under what circumstances. After examining the impact of enhancing implants and prosthesis in sport, I have considered which objections can be raised to this particular sort of enhancement. In this regard, I think that several aspects have to be taken into account: 1. The possibility of producing severe harm to the athletes; 2. The effect it has on equality among athletes when the improvement grants an obvious advantage; 3. The dehumanization of sport, and 4. The aesthetic problem My position has been to temper the “moral panic” that some may feel given the progressive (and future) use of enhancing implants and prosthesis as used by (cyborg)athletes.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Pérez-González

While the growing ubiquitousness of translation and interpreting has established these activities more firmly in the public consciousness, the extent of the translators’ and interpreters’ contribution to the continued functioning of cosmopolitan and participatory postmodern societies remains largely misunderstood. This paper argues that the theorisation of translation and interpretation as social phenomena and of translators/interpreters as agents contributing to the stability or subversion of social structures through their capacity to re-define the context in which they mediate constitutes a recent development in the evolution of the discipline. The consequentiality of the mediators’ agency, one of the most significant insights to come out of this new body of research, is particularly evident in situations of social, political and cultural confrontation. It is contended that this conceptualisation of agency opens up the possibility of translation being used not only to resolve conflict and tension, but also to promote them. Through a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, the contributing authors to this special issue explore a number of sites of linguistic and cultural mediation across a range of institutional settings and textual/interactional genres, with particular emphasis on the contribution of translation and interpreting to the genealogy of conflict. The papers presented here address a number of overlapping themes, including the dialectics of governmental policy-making and translation, the interface between translation, politics and the media, the impact of the narrative affiliation of translators and interpreters as agents of mediation, the frictional dynamics of interpreter-mediated institutional encounters and the dynamics of identity negotiation.


2002 ◽  
Vol 46 (12) ◽  
pp. 3790-3796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bianca Perdigão Olivieri ◽  
Vinícius Cotta-de-Almeida ◽  
Tania Araújo-Jorge

ABSTRACT Many studies have shed light on the mechanisms underlying both immunoprotection and immune dysregulation arising after Trypanosoma cruzi infection. However, little is known about the impact of benznidazole (N-benzyl-2-nitroimidazole acetamide), the drug available for clinical treatment of the infection, on the immune system in the infected host. In the present study we investigated the effect of benznidazole therapy on the lymphoid compartment during the course of experimental T. cruzi infection. Although amelioration of a variety of clinical and parasitological signs was observed in treated mice, amelioration of splenocyte expansion was not detected. Interestingly, this sustained splenomegaly observed in benznidazole-treated mice showed a preferential expansion of CD8+ T lymphocytes. Moreover, although benznidazole treatment blocked the expansion of recently activated CD4+ and CD8+ T cells seen in infected hosts, benznidazole treatment led to a selective expansion of effector and memory CD8+ T lymphocytes in association with a lower rate of apoptosis. In addition, the surviving treated animals were protected from reinfection. Together, these data suggest that, in addition to its well-known direct role in blocking parasite replication in vivo, benznidazole appears to directly affect immune regulation in T. cruzi-infected hosts.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Ryerson ◽  
Jeffrey Stone

The COVID-19 global pandemic brought with it massive disruptions across many aspects of daily living including losses of employment and financial opportunities, reduced access to essential resources, lack of engagement in social activities, increases in social isolation, and mass transitions to remote school and work environments. Pre-pandemic research on events with paralleled community-wide effects has demonstrated a resulting increase in alcohol use and misuse as a result of these massive disruptions. However, early research on the impact of the current global pandemic on alcohol use has painted a complex picture. The current study utilized social media content (i.e., Twitter) as a way to investigate the initial impact of the pandemic on our relationship with alcohol. Analyses were also conducted to determine if the pandemic resulted in a shift away from typical weekly patterns related to alcohol use (i.e., increased on weekends vs. weekdays). A 2 (pandemic: pre-pandemic vs. post-pandemic) x 2 (day of week: weekday vs. weekend) ANCOVA was calculated to predict the prevalence of alcohol related tweets while controlling for the total number of tweets. The prevalence of alcohol related tweets significantly increased following the declaration of the global pandemic, however, the pattern of alcohol related tweets across the days of the week did not differ as a result of the pandemic. These results may be a reflection of major shifts in the psychological and social phenomena associated with alcohol as a result of the devastating impacts of the global pandemic.


2021 ◽  
pp. 027347532110351
Author(s):  
Adam C. Merkle ◽  
Linda K. Ferrell ◽  
O. C. Ferrell ◽  
Joe F. Hair

Marketing curricula are experiencing a digital disruption as e-books and other electronic educational resources replace print textbooks. This study investigates student perceptions about the effectiveness of print textbooks and e-books. Specifically, we focus on the perceived effectiveness of e-books and the impact on student engagement. A field-based quasi-experiment was conducted with a sample of 259 students in the Fall semester, and a follow-up sample of 395 students in the Spring semester. The results show a diverse impact of e-books on student engagement. Some aspects of engagement are positively affected while other aspects of student engagement exhibit a neutral or negative leaning impact. The findings also reflect significant variation in e-book effectiveness depending on the course. Finally, we find that e-books moderate the relationship between textbook effectiveness and academic performance engagement. Highly effective e-books result in higher levels of academic performance engagement. Collectively these findings shed light on the current situation and provide a foundation for additional research to further our understanding about e-book effectiveness and its relationship to student engagement.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document