A New Edition of the De cerimoniis: No Longer a ‘geteiltes Dossier’?

This review article presents a brief survey of the new critical edition, translation and commentary of the important tenth-century Byzantine imperial treatise known as the De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae (on the ceremonial of the Byzantine court), a title ascribed to the text only in the 16th century. The edition offers an up-to-date and highly accurate edition of the tenth century manuscripts through which the text has been transmitted and the detailed and rigorous commentary includes a complete historical and structural analysis of the two books into which the text is divided. In the course of their analysis, the editors arrive at a number of important new conclusions about the origins, intentions and structure of the text, the working methods of the emperor who commissioned it, and the aims and intentions of Basil the parakoimomenos, the person who commissioned the Leipzig manuscript, the chief surviving witness for the text. The 5 volumes of the publication represent a superb achievement by the team of French scholars under the original direction of Gilbert Dagron (†).

Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature

The Serial Scientific Edition Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature (HORL) is a collection of monographs and articles devoted to the Russian literature of the 11th – 17th centuries. The Serial Scientific Edition is based on the research of representatives of the Moscow school of hermeneutics, which is actively developing in science today, which sets itself the task of interpreting and comprehending Old Russian and Old Slavonic texts, developing a methodology of scientific evidence, a syncretic study of the history of literary and artistic works of small and large medieval literary forms. The research methodology, presented in the Serial Scientific Edition Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature, is based primarily on the explanation of phenomena, their connection with social thought, the psychology of literary creativity, history, and in this sense, the Serial Scientific Edition continues the scientific traditions of studying Old Russian literature laid by N.K. Gudziy, V.D. Kuzmina. At the same time, unlike the above-mentioned school, textology is the starting point of hermeneutical research in the field of medieval Russian literature. A large corpus of works in Serial Scientific Edition is devoted to the problems of poetics, style, aesthetics of Old Russian literature. Continuing and developing the scientific directions of studying old Russian texts of the 11th – 17th centuries, the sources of which are the works of F.I. Buslaev, A.S. Orlov, D.S. Likhachev, the Moscow school of hermeneutics nevertheless represents an original direction in the study of medieval texts, since the triad is based on the research presented in the Serial Scientific Edition: textology – poetics – hermeneutics (i.e. interpretation and explanation based on a multitude of facts). Such an integrated approach, supported by a comparative analysis involving the comparison of old Russian texts with medieval Slavic and Western European texts, allows hermeneutics to detect such phenomena that are not revealed with other research methods. Due to this scientific approach to the study of the medieval texts and monographs, the articles presented in Serial Scientific Edition Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature open up new dimensions in understanding of old Russian texts of the 11th – 17th centuries, both well-known and newly introduced into scientific circulation.

Problems of “Imageology in Service” in the Context of Social and Psychological Science

The article is devoted to the actual problem of modern social psychology, as well as the psychology of image, imageology, servicology, service activity, etc. – the essence and content, the main functions, the current state, trends and prospects for the development of a new author’s scientific direction and the training course “Image Science in the service”. The purpose of the study: to study all the main phenomena of “Imageology in the service”, as tasks: to present the main categories, theoretical and practical directions of the development of a new scientific direction. The following research methods were used: a theoretical review of scientific publications, content analysis, a survey in the form of a questionnaire, generalization. Such concepts as “image”, “service”, “service activity”, “consumer”, “image of an employee in the service sector”, etc. are studied. A practical study was conducted to identify stereotypical ideas related to service workers on the example of hairdressers and stylists. It is concluded that “Imageology in service” is an original direction of social psychology and a number of related sciences, considering image as a socio-psychological phenomenon related to the field of activity of specialists in the provision of various types of services (in the field of everyday life, education, culture, sports, transport, etc.).

Russian vocal school: traditions and perspectives

Russian vocal school as a significant part of the Russian and unique phenomenon of world musical culture, developed and developed as an original direction of vocal professional performance and vocal pedagogy. The evolution of vocal performance and vocal pedagogy, the formation and development of the Russian vocal school and its traditions have shown that vocal pedagogy develops together with vocal performance, analyzing and generalizing experience, creates and tests its methods, develops singing attitudes and develops pedagogical technologies that contribute to the education of singing culture. Russian singing traditions and vocal education, their scientific research and reproduction, identification of prospects for the development of the modern Russian vocal school, identification of ways to continue existing traditions, development and scientific justification of new vocal and pedagogical technologies are relevant today. The perspective of the development of the Russian vocal school is seen in the reproduction of traditions, scientific justification of its pedagogical foundations, in the formation of performers who have a high level of motivation for singing activities and physiological potential for mastering various phonation techniques, able to learn new things in the art of singing.

Influencing Factors on Strength of Waste Rock Tailing Cemented Backfill

Tailing cement filling is an important development direction in mine filling, as it is a green and environmentally friendly method for efficiently treating solid waste in mines. Adding a certain amount of waste rock can effectively improve the backfill strength and better meet the filling strength requirements. To address the use of waste rock tailings in cemented filling materials, a uniaxial compression test was carried out on backfills with different cement/sand ratios and waste rock contents, and the influence of the cement/sand ratio and waste rock content on the strength of the backfill was studied. This study found that when the waste rock content is certain, the strength of the backfill increases with the increase in the cement/sand ratio, and the increase in strength slows with the increase in the cement/sand ratio until the strength of the backfill reaches a limit and no longer increases. When the cement/sand ratio is constant, the strength of the backfill first increases and then decreases as the waste rock content increases. When the cement content is constant, the addition of a certain amount of waste rock reduces the specific surface area of the solid materials in the backfill, increases the amount of cement per unit area, and improves the strength of the backfill. When the waste rock content is too high, due to the large particle size of the waste rock, the tailings cannot completely wrap around the waste rock, resulting in a weakening of the cement in the backfill, which reduces the strength of the backfill. This study found that the waste rock content and the cement/sand ratio in the backfill have a significant impact on backfill damage. The damage is mainly caused by insufficient cement strength. The presence of waste rock will change the original direction of crack propagation, resulting in more crack bifurcation, and the form of the destruction surface on the backfill is complicated and diverse.

Decolonization is a process, not a goal: Encounters in the library of the Kunsthalle Basel

Chance encounters, some several years apart, form the basis of this article between 2 librarians and an artist, all 3 considering the process of decolonizing libraries within the wider context of colonial legacies in the societies in which they were born and in which they now live. The librarians Regina Vogel and Erica Foden-Lenahan have been friends and colleagues for many years, and their personal conversations over the years have often involved discussions of equality and injustice. The overlap in their professional interests led to this article proposal. A serendipitous meeting between Vogel and decolonial artist and curator Nistiman Erdede at an event2 organized by Abendschule Import in co-operation with the famous Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich and later when he visited the Kunsthalle Basel where Vogel is the librarian, changed the original direction of the article, but presented an opportunity for a 3-way discussion of decolonization in the context of a Swiss and a German art library and a refugee artist's experience. The Covid-19 border and workplace lockdowns necessitated that some of these encounters happened virtually.

Anatomical Variations in Recurrent Laryngeal Nerves in Thyroid Surgery

Objective: To study terminal bifurcation of recurrent laryngeal nerves (RLNs) with original direction to larynx entry and to decrease the risk of vocal cord paralysis in thyroid patients. Methods: The RLNs of 294 patients (482 sides) were dissected according to the branches into the larynx, and the original direction of each RLN trunk in thyroid surgery was recorded. Results: (1) About 30.9% of the RLNs gave off multiple branches into the larynx. (2) Two and 3 branches of RLNs into the larynx were found in 25.5% and 5.4% of the cases, respectively. (3) In 0.4% or 2 cases, the RLN trunk combined with the inferior branch of the vagus nerve. (4) Nonrecurrent laryngeal nerve appeared in 2 cases. (5) On the left side, 68.0%, 25.6%, and 6.4% of cases were found with 1, 2, and 3 bifurcations of RLN to larynx entry, respectively. On the right side, 69.8%, 25.8%, and 4.4% cases were identified with 1, 2, and 3 bifurcations of RLN to larynx entry, respectively. (6) The combining dissection approach was proved as successful and safe for protecting the RLN with no permanent RLN paresis. Conclusions: Because of the anatomical variation in RLNs with extralaryngeal bifurcation, it is necessary to increase the awareness of surgeons about these variations so as to protect bifurcated nerves in thyroid surgery.

Quantitatively Assessing and Attributing Land Use and Land Cover Changes on China’s Loess Plateau

The global land surface cover is undergoing extensive changes in the context of global change, especially in the Loess Plateau, where ecological restoration policies have been vigorously implemented since 2000. Evaluating the impact of these policies on land cover is of great significance for regional sustainable development. Nonetheless, there are few quantitative assessment studies of the impact of ecological restoration policies on land use and land cover change (LULCC). In this study, a relative contribution conceptual model (RCCM) was used to explore the contribution of the policies to LULCC under the influence of natural background change, which was based on the Markov chain and the future land use simulation (FLUS) model. The results show that LULCC is influenced by ecological restoration policies and the natural environment, of which the policies contribute about 72.37% and natural change contribute about 27.63%. Ecological restoration policies have a profound impact on LULCC, changing the original direction of LULCC greatly. Additionally, these policies regulate the pattern of LULCC by controlling the amount of cropland as a rebalanced leverage. These findings provide useful information for facilitating sustainable ecological development in the Loess Plateau and theoretically supporting environmental decision-making.

Miasta i mieszczanie w życiu politycznym przedrozbiorowej Polski

The publication is devoted to the problems of towns and townspeople’s activity in the political life of Poland before the Partitions. The research problem taken up in the article determined the possibly universal understanding of the term “town” and resignation from penetrating into terminological disputes related to the multifaceted nature of “urban issues” resulting in polemical multithreading in the doctrine. A broad temporal range was supposed to show the dynamics of undertaken actions, the progress and regress of the discussed process and the diversity of forms of active participation of towns and townspeople in the political life of the state. The author also tried to consider whether the explored issue could have an impact on the original direction of the systemic evolution of the former Polish statehood.

Nanoresolution real-time 3D orbital tracking for studying mitochondrial trafficking in vertebrate axons in vivo

We present the development and in vivo application of a feedback-based tracking microscope to follow individual mitochondria in sensory neurons of zebrafish larvae with nanometer precision and millisecond temporal resolution. By combining various technical improvements, we tracked individual mitochondria with unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution over distances of >100 µm. Using these nanoscopic trajectory data, we discriminated five motional states: a fast and a slow directional motion state in both the anterograde and retrograde directions and a stationary state. The transition pattern revealed that, after a pause, mitochondria predominantly persist in the original direction of travel, while transient changes of direction often exhibited longer pauses. Moreover, mitochondria in the vicinity of a second, stationary mitochondria displayed an increased probability to pause. The capability of following and optically manipulating a single organelle with high spatiotemporal resolution in a living organism offers a new approach to elucidating their function in its complete physiological context.