PHYSIOLOGICAL AND ECHO-MORPHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE THYROID GLAND IN THE PRE- AND POST-COVID-19 PERIOD

The properties of the response of the hormonally productive function, the echo-morphology of the thyroid gland and the tropic action of the adenohypophysis to the impact of SARS Sov-2 during postCOVID-19 period were revealed and described, depending on the age and gender of the patients.

Discourse of University: Knowledge in the Era of Contemporary Forms of Capitalism Development

The article represents research in the field of the contemporary forms of economic development based on the knowledge which acts as a new productive force. It is shown that the new stage of economic development is connected to the transformation from the material forms to non-material forms of functioning and has its roots in the cultural revolution of 1970s. The reorganization of the university and the educational organization in European countries in general played the key role as preconditions of the cultural revolution. Marxist methodology was chosen as an instrument for the analysis of knowledge-based economy taking into account the need to develop Marx conception of general intellect (scientific knowledge) and revise the class theory and the theory of surplus value.The key finding is that the contemporary knowledge-based economy implements both financial and productive tendencies in conjunction. It is shown that the predominance of one or another tendency depends on university’s discourse functioning which serves as a mediator between a subject of knowledge and the capitalism discourse. The first tendency reflects undesirable processes of social life: general intellect when it isn’t tied to the production, begins to develop according to the formula «G.I - G.I’», reproducing financial logic of capital increment. In such case, we deal with the process of knowledge submission to capital. The second tendency is connected with the dominance of productive function and defined in terms of cognitive capitalism, where knowledge-based intellectual labor gets its autonomy from capital. Cognitive capitalism represents such form of economic organization where knowledge, as a productive force, makes possible the intellectual productions which involve cognitarians - cognitive workers and producers which are able to create the innovative products. The maintenance and development of the cognitive capitalism become possible in connection with the correct organization of education at university which, in addition to the classic form of knowledge (hard skills), represents a contemporary digital space for the transfer of additional knowledge (soft skills) and serves as a platform for the organization of the effective forms of intellectual productions.

Figures of Thought in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Riad Sattouf’s The Arab of the Future

This article takes Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas on art’s inventive function as a point of departure to analyse two graphic narratives that undermine ideas about truthfulness: Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Riad Sattouf’s The Arab of the Future. It is argued that these allegedly autobiographical memoirs undermine genre conventions to create an implied readership who co-witnesses Satrapi’s and Sattouf’s experiences of oppression, racism, and war during their respective childhoods. It is shown how Satrapi and Sattouf undermine the autobiographical pact through graphic narrative’s ‘figures of thought’, a term introduced to capture the formal, thematic, and narrative possibilities of comics and graphic literature to make readers come into contact with unforeseen visions—and to possibly think anew. Specific attention is paid to the narrative voice, which in Satrapi’s and Sattouf’s works often goes beyond the personal perspective to account for collective experiences, as well as to the use of colour and line work that add critical layers to the stories told. In line with Deleuze and Guattari’s arguments, the poetic, which is the productive function of art, is shown to go beyond questions of truthfulness and falseness, allowing for new ways of thinking and for the creation of new worlds.

Some ‘R’ points: Repression, repulsion, revelation and redemption in South Korean horror films

This article examines some of the formal properties, stylistic motifs and thematic preoccupations of classic and contemporary South Korean horror films. As a genre that has enormous box-office appeal and crossover potential for western audiences, horror might seem to be little more than a commercial platform for young filmmakers to exploit popular tastes and cash in on derivative stories offering scant insight into the social conditions faced by modern-day Koreans. However, even the most cliché-ridden, shock-filled slasher films and ghost tales reveal the often-contradictory cultural attitudes of a populace that, over the past three generations, has weathered literally divisive transformations at the national and ideological levels. As such, the genre deserves scrutiny as a repository of previously pent-up, suddenly unleashed libidinal energies, consumerist desires and historical traumas, as well as a barometer of public opinion about such issues as class warfare, gender inequality and sexual identity. Specifically, I explore some of the most salient features of Korean horror cinema, including filmmakers’ tendency to adopt narrative analepsis – typically rendered as flashbacks – in the course of plotting out scenarios that, though far-fetched, are rooted in unsettled (and unsettling) real-world problems. Historical return, I argue, truly is a horrifying prospect, especially for anyone old enough to remember, or to have experienced firsthand, the brutality of a military dictatorship or an ongoing abuse of presidential power resulting in severe rights violations (e.g. the Park Chung-hee [1961–79]) and Chun Doo-hwan [1980–88] administrations). But historical return simply must be dramatized as part of the regurgitative ‘purging’ for which the genre has been singled out by theorists who recognize horror’s socially productive function.

Target for Intervention in At-Risk Children

Aim: Determine whether effects of poverty on academic achievement are mediated by effects of poverty on executive cognitive functions. Methods: Web-based classroom-administered tests assessed executive function in 5717 children grades k-8 in 40 schools, and poverty level and academic achievement for each school were drawn from US Department of Education data. Boot-strapping procedures were used to evaluate mediation by executive function of the association between poverty and academic proficiency. Results: Executive function and academic achievement were both related to school poverty (pearson r −0.50 to −0.65, p = 0.0009 to <0.0001). Estimated indirect effects of poverty on reading (−0.26, 95% CI: −0.47, −0.07) and math (−0.23, 95% CI: −0.44, −0.06) through effects on executive function were significant. Controlling for executive function, effects of poverty on reading (−0.58 to −0.31) and math (−0.59 to −0.35) were diminished, indicating partial mediation of effects of poverty on reading and math via effects on executive function. Conclusion: Interventions that enhance executive function in children in impoverished and/or violent environments could mitigate damaging effects of these environments on neurocognitive and associated life and health outcomes. Without intervention, many young adults in troubled areas of the world will be ill-prepared for productive function in society.

The distant “gaze” on academic mentoring

This study draws on Foucault’s concept of governmentality to explore mentoring policy discourse in Vietnamese higher education. It uses Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis to examine the State’s and university’s documents. The findings indicate that the State aspires to maintain its “gaze” by privileging the institution’s policy document as a means of regulating the academics and polarizes the mentors and mentees along the power continuum. A range of linguistic strategies is used to establish the institution’s power and the State’s control has been discursively consolidated. The mentoring policy seems to have a range of flaws but the participants’ voices are not included in the discourse and they are not given opportunities to construct an alternative discourse around their positionality. This suggests that the mentoring policy seeks to frame and regulate the academics but not necessarily to optimise their capacities. The policy is therefore unlikely to create active subjects and mentoring as governmentality in this case may not deliver its productive function.

Assessing Hydrus-2D Model to Investigate the Effects of Different On-Farm Irrigation Strategies on Potato Crop under Subsurface Drip Irrigation

The objective of this paper was to assess the performance of Hydrus-2D model to simulate the effects of different on-farm irrigation strategies applied on potato crop. The ability of the model to simulate the stress coefficient (Ks), obtained as the ratio between actual and maximum transpiration, and to define the productive function of potato crop under the semi-arid conditions of central Tunisia were also evaluated. Experiments were carried out on potato crop under full (FI) and deficit irrigation (DI) and two different water qualities supplied by means of a subsurface drip irrigation system. Results evidenced that the model, despite some discrepancies locally observed, can fairly accurately predict soil water contents and electrical conductivity around buried emitters. Furthermore, under water and salt stress conditions, “measured” Ks, based on crop water stress index (CWSI) obtained on thermal images, resulted in a good correlation with the corresponding estimated by the model (R2 = 0.8). The database collected during the three growth seasons also allowed the definition of the crop productive function represented by a linear relationship between the relative yield loss and Ks. This function represents a useful guidelines for the sustainable use of irrigation water in countries characterized by a semi-arid climate and a limited availability of water for irrigation.