THE DILEMMA OF REPLACING TRADITIONAL CALLIGRAPHIC SKILLS WITH TECHNOLOGY IN THE TEACHING OF WRITING

A dilemma concerning the replacement of calligraphy with technology to teach how to write was posed to 312 pre-service Spanish infant and elementary school teachers (PSTs). A series of arguments of a different nature taken from educational professionals were provided to provide the decision-making stage with a solid ground. 60% of PSTs defended their decision on the basis of opinion rather than scientific sources. Pearson’s chi-squared test did not show any significant differences when comparing qualification and age with the decision adopted or the nature of the argument. Differences were found in women exhibiting lesser preference for change. As conclusion, we found that there is no consensus amongst PSTs with regards to change. This reinforces the need for the educational community to make an effort to try to improve decision-making and the argumentation skills in PSTs.

Measuring Sea Level Rise Along the Coast

Scientists created a global map of vertical land motion to show how the solid ground is moving relative to the planet’s rising seas.

Žeme ‘land, ground, earth’ in Lithuanian literature

In Lithuanian literature, žeme ‘land, earth, ground’ is understood as a planet, as one of the four elements, as an element in opposition to water, or as solid ground. It differs from the sky and stands in opposition to it because the sky is good, while žeme is full of things that are unfriendly to people. Žeme is the world with life going on; buildings stand on its surface, people sit, stand or lie on it, etc. It is the most valuable property that can be sold, given, leased, or left as inheritance. People are interested not only in what is going on its surface but also in the layer that is cultivated (soil). People want this layer to grow flowers, trees and grass for them. They find various things in this layer and think that land can hide a lot from them. Žeme is the mother that provides life and shelter after death. It takes care of people, feeds them and talks to them. It also serves as a reference frame on the basis of which people evaluate large and small things or things hanging above it. Žeme can refer to a specific state or a nation that lives in own land, as well as to a person’s native home and lives of their ancestors. Žeme is alive as much as humans are: it has a face, parts of the body and internal organs, it experiences human emotions and has divine powers. Žeme can be of various colours: from the traditional colour of fertile soil, i.e., black, to subtle shades, such as yellowish brown or blue. It is also characterised through most unusual words, such as “sinful”, “juicy”, “slim”, “like caviar” and others. The smell of žeme is also exceptional: it is wet and sour. It smells of oats, barley, summer home – the smell fills people’s hearts with joy, evokes memories and longing.

The Catholic Revival in English Literature

The article deals with research of the Catholic revival as a remarkable literary movement that amalgamated a number of authors who discussed problems of the Roman Catholicism in the works of various forms – from serious theological apologies to the popular genres like G.K. Chesterton's detective stories. Such Catholic novelists like Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene appeal to the wide readership and interpret the problem of faith in its complex ambivalence, actuality, psychological depth. Whilst Evelyn Waugh is in search for a solid ground in the Old Faith as an alternative to the modern anarchy and chaos, Graham Greene emphasizes on the faith's conflicting ambiguities and contradictions.

Douglas Murray's The Madness of Crowds

Douglas Murray, the author of The Strange Death of Europe (2017), and The Madness of Crowds (2019; 'expanded and updated edition' in 2020), is one of the leading journalists and authors in Great Britain in the fight of the centre-conservative intellectuals against the 'woke' ideologues. His latest book deals with four of the most controversial issues of today's 'identity ideology': Gay, Women, Race and Trans, showing that such unstable concepts cannot be the solid ground for any serious conversation, or for the social edifice. On the contrary, they are treated in such a way that the danger of totalitarian states is no longer unconceivable; what is more, with the cancel culture of today, it is more likely than not that it will cause a serious backlash in the future, which may reverse some of the advancements of the fight for rights of all kinds.

Ghost lineages deceive introgression tests and call for a new null hypothesis

The data that is known and sampled in any evolutionary study is always a small part of what exists, known or not, or what has existed in the past and is extinct. Therefore it is likely that all detected past horizontal gene fluxes, hybridization, introgressions, admixtures or transfers, involve "ghosts", that is, extinct or unsampled lineages. The presence of these ghosts is acknowledged by all scientists, but almost all wish that and make as if their blurring influence would be low, like a background noise that, with a reasonable approximation, can be ignored. We assess this undervalued hypothesis by qualifying and quantifying the effect of ghost lineages on introgression detection by the popular D-statistics method. We use a genomic dataset of bears to illustrate and circumscribe the possibility of misinterpretation and show on simulated data that under certain conditions, far from unrealistic, most results interpreted from D-statistics, concerning the existence of introgression and the identity of donors and recipients of horizontal gene flows, are erroneous. In particular, the use of a distant outgroup, usually given as a solid ground for these tests, leads in fact to an increase in the error probability, and to false interpretations in a vast majority of the cases. We argue for a switch of the null hypothesis: the results of detection methods for gene fluxes should be interpreted with the full and visible participation of the unknown ghosts.

The Emperor’s New Clothes: Time Bar Clauses in Construction Contracts Between Legal Tradition and Good Faith

There is no clear provision in how the Jordanian Civil Code deals with the principles of good faith and freedom of contract. Interpretations can go either way, although there is a notable tendency that gravitates towards good faith. One significant aspect of the principle of good faith is that it provides a solid ground of contractual and legal interpretation of controversial construction issues such as time bar clauses. This research highlights how time bar clauses in construction contracts may affect the rights and responsibilities of Employers and Contractors under the Jordanian law. Often application of the principle of good faith produces a result similar to that under time bar clauses in FIDIC rules. As far as the author is aware, this issue has not been researched comprehensively before from technical and legal standpoints. This article represents a first attempt to examine the issues arising in this difficult and important subject.