Disclaimers

Disclaimers are practical expressions of either renunciation or repudiation of interest of self or other, whether they be drawn up as formal clauses or as improvisations (acceptable substitutes). We use them to regulate social interaction by making certain limitations known to parties. Diversity of situations reflects in diversity of expression and means of enforcing such limitations; therein lies disclaimers’ long and luxuriant history in virtually all cultures. Beyond their origin in the permanent need to amend things of practical relevance, their current popularity relates to the impetus of technological progress in communication and to the emerging forms of authorship and literacy.

Public Trolling Detection on Twitter Using Machine Learning

Social media websites are among the internet's most far-reaching digital sites. Billions of social network users exist Users' frequent interactions with social networking sites, like Twitter, have a widespread and sometimes unfortunate effect on day-to-day life. Social networking sites make it easy for large amounts of unwanted and unrelated information to spread around the world. Twitter is a popular micro blogging service where users connect with others with similar interests. Because of the current popularity of Twitter, it is vulnerable to public shaming. Recently, Twitter has emerged as a rich source of human-generated information, with the added benefit of connecting you with customers and enabling two-way communication. It is generally accepted that when someone posts a comment in an occurrence, it is likely to humiliate the victim. The fact that shaming users' follower counts increase faster than that of the people who don't use shame is interesting. Using machine learning algorithms, users will be able to identify disrespectful words, as well as the overall negativity of those words, which is displayed in a percentage.

Teaching Intellectual Virtues, Changing Attitudes

This chapter discusses the prospects of interventions designed to weaken epistemic vices and promote virtues. The first section discusses the prospects of two strategies for the cultivation of intellectual virtues. These are: explicit education and the habituation of virtue. It concludes that both strategies encounter obstacles that make their success unlikely. The second section is dedicated to attempts to foster virtue by stimulating emulation when in the presence of role models or exemplars. It argues that despite its current popularity, and evidence of some success when educating cohorts of children, this strategy is unlikely on its own to be very effective for those who are most in need of virtue education. The third section describes self-affirmation techniques consisting in the affirmation of values and offers indirect empirical evidence that indicates that the self-affirmation strategy might be successful when trying to reduce the expression of vicious behaviour, and over time, might even lead to the development of more virtuous conduct.

Hypnotherapy for weight loss smartphone applications; a narrative review (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Despite the current popularity and potential usage of mobile applications in promoting dietary behavior, hypnotherapy for weight loss applications are scarcely available and the credibility of information is of concern. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this review are to 1) provide up-to-date existing hypnotherapy apps focusing on weight reduction and 2) evaluate the features and information provided in the mobile apps. METHODS Google Play and Apple’s iTunes stores were searched for available applications related to the hypnotherapy targeting weight loss from 20 August 2020 to 20 September 2020. Only free, English apps were included. Apps in which the hypnotherapy was not utilized for weight loss or which contain no elements of hypnotherapy were not included. RESULTS Of 291 identified apps, 22 met the requirements for inclusion and were further reviewed. Fourteen of the apps (63.6%) focused on reducing calorie intake and limiting intake of fattening and sugary foods through hypnotic suggestions. Most apps delivered hypnotherapy via audio track (77.3%) and 68% enabled the session to be customized. More than 40% of apps developers claimed to have used a licensed hypnotherapist and 25% of apps contained disclaimers in the descriptions. Additionally, 31.8% of the classified apps earned high ratings from users (between 4 and 5 stars). CONCLUSIONS Overall findings suggest that weight-loss hypnotherapy applications may be useful as an approach to assist conventional weight management strategies. However, several issues regarding the contents and credibility should be highlighted in order to improve the quality and substantiate the effectiveness of weight-loss hypnotherapy apps in future. CLINICALTRIAL MENTOR-MENTEE RESEARCH GRANT (UNISZA/2018/011/R0046-R001)

»Lass dich nicht von Morpheus verführen …«

Artikelbeginn:[English title and abstract below] In der Antike und den überlieferten antiken Mythen spielen Visionen bzw. Prophezeiungen und Träume – wie sich beispielsweise am Status des Orakels von Delphi als Omphalos (Giebel 2001, S. 7 f.) oder am vom römischen Philosophen Lukrez beschriebenen Beruf des Traumdeuters (Naf 2004, S. 90 f.) erkennen lasst – eine wichtige Rolle und nehmen ebenfalls politischen Einfluss (Trampedach 2015). Es ist daher nicht verwunderlich, dass auch gegenwärtige Mythenadaptionen, allen voran Rick Riordans Percy Jackson-Reihe bzw. mittlerweile korrekter: Reihen, in denen Percy Jackson mitunter als Crossover-Figur auftritt, auf Orakel, Prophezeiungen, Visionen und Träume vermehrt zurückgreifen. »Don’t Let Morpheus Seduce You ...«Dreams, Oracles and Visions in Contemporary Retellings of Myths Oracles and dreams, which had a prominent position in antiquity, appear in the wake of the success of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series as frequent motifs in retellings of myths in contemporary young adult fantasy. This article examines three examples: Josephine Angelini’s Starcrossed trilogy (2011 – 2013), the first volume of Richard Normandon’s eponymous series La conspiration des dieux (2009) and Daniela Ohms’s two-volume Insel der Nyx (2013 – 2014). In these novels, the motifs serve to mirror typical topics of adolescence. Through their prophecies, the oracles circumscribe possible alter-native futures, and the protagonists react by either not complying or trying to prevent fulfilment. To regain self-determination, most of the young protagonists, and at least at one point in the narration, rebel against the predictions. Dreams (including daydreams), on the other hand, allow them to explore different concepts of identities. Oracles and dreams therefore become symbols for the changes that occur during adolescence. In this way, the ancient myths are reduced to a backdrop, making these novels similar to other novels in the genre, which might account (to a certain degree at least) for the current popularity of retellings of ancient myths in young adult novels.

“Boundlessly Different”

Brass music has become increasingly popular in recent years in Europe’s German-speaking regions, especially among young people, who attend brass festivals, such as Woodstock der Blasmusik, in great numbers. This article examines this phenomenon within the context of its historical weight. Particularly in Austria, brass music is intertwined strongly with local cultural activity and heritage, alpine folklore, and national identity, with the Habsburg Monarchy and the Nazi era as well as with the rise of Volkstümliche Music and Austrian popular music. The study pinpoints the initial spark of the current popularity to the early 1990s, when young brass musicians set new tones musically and culturally. It illustrates how bands such as Mnozil Brass and Innsbrucker Böhmische, and later Viera Blech and LaBrassBanda, renegotiated established conceptions, ideas, and attitudes, and how they have, or have not, overcome habitualized ways of performing and enjoying brass music. On a broader level, the article uncovers how narratives related to regionality, Heimat, community, institutionalization, virtuosity, internationality, openness, corporality, and hedonistic pleasure all come together, at times in contradictory ways, in the media and musicians’ ethical-aesthetic discussion about contemporary brass music. Ultimately, a close music-analytical reading of selected songs shows how the music fosters and reflects these interrelations.

Pirates of the Caribbean in Frank Yerby’s the Golden Hawk

This essay argues that Frank Yerby’s 1948 costume drama, The Golden Hawk, offers a prime example of a transnational/circumCaribbean novel. Concurrently, however, it is also a carefully researched historical novel, one that builds on the formulas of both the romance and the adventure tale, while mining the then-current popularity of the pirate novel and film. Issues of race, gender, and nation figure prominently in this critique, as well as histories of Haiti, Columbia, and Caribbean piracy.

7. Camus’s legacies

What is it about Camus’s works that inspires so many to quote, discuss, and use them as inspiration for books, films, and songs? ‘Camus’s legacies’ suggests that one possible answer for Camus’s current popularity is that the abstract quality of his thought makes it transferrable. He speaks to an abstract awareness of nature and mortality, but does not tell his readers what to do with this awareness. Nor do his writings subscribe to any particular belief system. Of course, this abstract quality opens the door for attempts to ‘claim’ Camus, but it also leads to plenty of misunderstandings and many different interpretations, across the political spectrum and through the cultural realm.

Agritouch- An efficient smartphone based approach for rooftop gardening

With the increasing growth of population in mega cities like Dhaka, most of the Agricultural land has given away for housing, factories, highways and other urban needs. As a result, lack of crop production as well as various environmental crisis has already been showing up with a great threat to humankind. Rooftop gardening can be an effective method to reduce this problem and the nutritional needs of the inhabitants. But for the unavailability of the necessary resources, supports and lack of awareness among the people, most of the spaces available at the rooftop are being unutilized. We have proposed an online and smartphone-based approach to overcome the above limitations. Though the current popularity of smartphones causes rising of different mobile application technologies and selecting the appropriate one could be challenging. Here we have introduced some latest technology stack that fit best to develop our application with a comparative study of the suitable geo-location-based services. AgriTouch, a smartphone app, will act as a bridge between the gardeners and the service providers to maintain the balance of nature.