This paper has a double purpose: firstly, to assess the importance of seiðr magic rituals and of its practitioners within the social and mythological framework of Old norse-icelandic Literature. Secondly, by means of the analysis of certain scenes in The Saga of Gísli Súrsson, i aim to demonstrate that the inclusion of magic-religious motifs in the Sagas of icelanders has a triple objective: to provide a model to help understand apparently inexplicable phenomena, to intensify the tragic tone of the (...) plot and finally to depict those involved in the performance of seiðr in a very negative light. (shrink)

This paper has a double purpose: firstly, to assess the importance of seiðr magic rituals and of its practitioners within the social and mythological framework of Old norse-icelandic Literature. Secondly, by means of the analysis of certain scenes in The Saga of Gísli Súrsson, i aim to demonstrate that the inclusion of magic-religious motifs in the Sagas of icelanders has a triple objective: to provide a model to help understand apparently inexplicable phenomena, to intensify the tragic tone of the (...) plot and finally to depict those involved in the performance of seiðr in a very negative light. (shrink)

The current work tests different theoretical models of belongingness and acceptance as fundamental needs for human motivation. In the current study, 372 participants were presented with 52 different items measuring five different theoretical models of belongingness and three different theoretical models of acceptance. In a first step, Confirmatory Factor Analysis failed to provide support for these eight theoretical models. In a second step, we therefore applied Exploratory Factor Analysis yielding three factors, which we interpreted as communicating: Belongingness, Emotion-Acceptance, and Social (...) Self-Representation. In a third step, these three factors were corroborated by a CFA. We discuss how these two factors of “belongingness,” “emotion-acceptance” respond to the literature on the need to belong and be accepted, and we reflect on how ‘social self-representation’ seems to be an alternative motivation for how we present ourselves to our social relations to fulfill our needs. (shrink)

Recent work on the application of neural networks to language modeling has shown that models based on certain neural architectures can capture syntactic information from utterances and sentences even when not given an explicitly syntactic objective. We examine whether a fully data-driven model of language development that uses a recurrent neural network encoder for utterances can track how child language utterances change over the course of language development in a way that is comparable to what is achieved using established language (...) assessment metrics that use language-specific information carefully designed by experts. Given only transcripts of child language utterances from the CHILDES Database and no pre-specified information about language, our model captures not just the structural characteristics of child language utterances, but how these structures reflect language development over time. We establish an evaluation methodology with which we can examine how well our model tracks language development compared to three known approaches: Mean Length of Utterance, the Developmental Sentence Score, and the Index of Productive Syntax. We discuss the applicability of our model to data-driven assessment of child language development, including how a fully data-driven approach supports the possibility of increased research in multilingual and cross-lingual issues. (shrink)

Athletes’ identity development upon retirement from elite sport was examined through a model of self-reformation that integrates and builds on the theoretical underpinnings of identity development and liminality, while advancing seven propositions and supporting conceptual conjectures using findings from research on athletes’ transition out of sport. As some elite athletes lose a salient athletic identity upon retiring from sport, they experience an identity crisis and enter the transition rites feeling in between their former athletic identity and future identity post-sport life, (...) during which a temporary identity moratorium status is needed for identity growth. Given the developmental challenges encountered in moratorium and psychosocial processes necessary to establish a new, fulfilling identity for life after elite sport, we identified key conditions, triggers, and processes that advance how a journey of identity growth paradox experienced during liminality serves as a catalyst toward identity achievement. Elite athletes must be encouraged to persevere in this challenging identity search and delay commitments for as long as it is necessary to achieve identity growth despite experiencing uncomfortable feelings of confusion, void, and ambiguity during the liminal phase. Reforming into an achieved identity for life after elite sport would corroborate the successful navigation of transition, as elite athletes evolved into a synthesized sense of self by cementing, through a negotiated adaptation pathway, constructed identity commitments that will provide new beginnings and meaningful directions to their life after elite sport. (shrink)

Self-relevance has been demonstrated to impair instrumental learning. Compared to unfamiliar symbols associated with a friend, analogous stimuli linked with the self are learned more slowly. What is not yet understood, however, is whether this effect extends beyond arbitrary stimuli to material with intrinsically meaningful properties. Take, for example, stimulus valence an established moderator of self-bias. Does the desirability of to-be-learned material influence self-learning? Here, in conjunction with computational modelling (i.e. Reinforcement Learning Drift Diffusion Model analysis), a probabilistic selection task (...) was used to establish if and how stimulus valence (i.e. desirable/undesirable posters) impacts the acquisition of knowledge relating to object-ownership (i.e. owned-by-self vs. owned-by-friend). Several interesting results were observed. First, undesirable posters were learned more rapidly for self compared to friend, an effect that was reversed for desirable posters. Second, learning rates were accompanied by associated differences in reward sensitivity toward desirable and undesirable choice selections as a function of ownership. Third, decisional caution was greater for self-relevant (vs. friend relevant) responses. Collectively, these findings inform understanding of self-function and how valence and stimulus relevance mutually influence probabilistic learning. (shrink)

A 10 kHz pulsed X-ray generator utilising a hot-cathode triode in conjunction with a new type of grid control device for controlling X-ray duration is described. The energy-storage condenser was charged up to 70 kV by a power supply, and the electric charges in the condenser were discharged to the X-ray tube repetitively by the grid control device. The maximum values of the grid voltage, the tube voltage, and the tube current were −1.5 kV, 70 kV, and 0.4 A, respectively. (...) The duration of the flash X-ray pulse was primarily determined by the time constant of the grid control device and the cut-off voltage of thermoelectrons. The X-ray duration was controlled within a region of less than 1 ms; the X-ray intensity with a pulse width of 0.27 ms, a charged voltage of 70 kV, and a peak tube current of 0.4 A was 0.92 μC kg −1 at 0.5 m per pulse. The maximum repetition rate was about 10 kHz, and the size of the focal spot was about 3.5×3.5 mm. (shrink)

To examine the impact of the relationship between agency and structure on sustained participation in youth sport, semi-structured interviews were conducted with male college soccer players. The participants' accounts of their youth careers were analyzed through the lens of Structuration Theory framed in a constructivist paradigm. ST supports the significance of the recursive relationship between agent and structure in-context in the co-construction of experiences, and provides a framework for analyzing effects of compounding experiences gained across time and space as they (...) influence sport continuation. Clarity of expectations imposed in-context and the athlete's perceived impact on the structure evidenced, through deductive thematic analysis, as the most salient determinants of the perceived valence of the youth sport environment. The agent's perceived holding of authoritative resources across time and contexts was a critical dimension of the participants' continuation in youth sport, substantiating ST as a theoretical lens, situated in a constructivist paradigm, that might add depth to understanding patterns in participation and attrition. (shrink)

Meaning depends on context. This applies in obvious cases like deictics or sarcasm as well as more subtle situations like framing or persuasion. One key aspect of this is the identity of the participants in an interaction. Our interpretation of an utterance shifts based on a variety of factors, including personal history, background knowledge, and our relationship to the source. While obviously an incomplete model of individual differences, demographic factors provide a useful starting point and allow us to capture some (...) of this variance. However, the relevance of specific demographic factors varies between situations—where age might be the key factor in one context, ideology might dominate in another. To address this challenge, we introduce a method for combining demographics and context into situated demographic embeddings—mapping representations into a continuous geometric space appropriate for the given domain, showing the resulting representations to be functional and interpretable. We further demonstrate how to make use of related external data so as to apply this approach in low‐resource situations. Finally, we show how these representations can be incorporated into improve modeling of real‐world natural language understanding tasks, improving model performance and helping with issues of data sparsity. (shrink)

In chapter 32 of Gísla saga, two bounty hunters come to the wife of the outlawed Gisli and offer her sixty ounces of silver to reveal the whereabouts of her husband. At first Auðr resists, but then, eyeing the coins and muttering that “cash is a widow's best comfort,” she asks to have the money counted out. The men do so. Auðr pronounces the silver adequate and asks whether she may do with it what she wants. By all (...) means, Eyjólfr replies. (shrink)

The concepts of saga and rhetorical vision constitute an element of the method of rhetorical criticism of fantasy theme analysis, introduced by Ernest Bormann. A saga is a continuously told and re-told story of the accomplishments of an individual, a group, or an institution, explaining its place in the world, the purpose of its existence, and its modus operandi. The paper is an attempt at presenting the saga built around Bogoria, i.e. the local free monthly from Grodzisk (...) Mazowiecki, Poland, which has been published since 1992 by the local Cultural Centre. The material for analysis comes from various jubilee and anniversary editions, which contain mainly articles and manifestos where the editors try to explain their perception of what a local newspaper should be and what role it should play in a local community. The paper discusses the transformation of the Bogoria’s saga from the righteous-social model to the social one. (shrink)

The Latin language is uncharacteristically rich when it comes to describing witches. A witch may be called acantatrixorpraecantrix, asacerdosorvates. She may bedocta,divina,saga, andmaga, avenefica,malefica,lamia,lupula,strix, orstriga. She may be simplyquaedam anus. The available terms are copious and diverse, and the presence of such an abundant differential vocabulary might suggest that Latin made clear linguistic distinctions between various witch types. It would seem a reasonable expectation thatpraecantrices, a word evocative of those who sing of events before they happen, would be concerned (...) with divinatory practices, whileveneficae, given the term's close relationship to the word for poison, would deal in potions or philtres, leaving thelamiae orstriges to function as quasi-demonic bogeys posing threats to the lives of small children. However, this expectation of semantic and morphological concordance remains unfulfilled following any concerted attempt to correlate a witch's title with her function. Because of this disjuncture, this paper proposes to demonstrate not only the inaccuracy of the Latin vocabulary in articulating the functional differences between various witches, but also to assert the essential uniformity of witch characters in so far as each witch is, in essence, a blank canvas onto which a myriad of fears and anxieties may be mapped. (shrink)

L'Isagoge est une introduction aux Categories. Porphyre y definit les cinq predicables (genre, espece, difference, propre et accident) et formule ce qui, grace a Boece, deviendra le principal probleme logique et metaphysique du Moyen Age occidental - le probleme des universaux -, ouvrant la querelle qui, jusqu'a la fin du XVe siecle, verra s'affronter realistes et nominalistes. La traduction francaise ici proposee est accompagnee du texte grec original et de la traduction latine de Boece.

Immobilized Metal‐ion Affinity Chromatography, IMAC, has been gaining in popularity as the purification technique of choice for proteins and peptides. IMAC of proteins on transition metals (Co, Ni, Cu, Zn) can be rationalized in terms of the coordination of histidine residues. Brief accounts of the principles of IMAC, its anticipated development and plausible applications are presented. Metal Ion Transfer, MIT, may offer an efficient means to deplete a metal ion from a metalloprotein or, conversely, to charge its apo form with (...) a metal. (shrink)

In January 1990, the Parti Réformateur Libéral inaugurated a brand new management, called "bicephalism ": instead of the traditional presidentialsystem, one "ticket" with a president and a vice-president was commissioned to ensure the leadership of the party.The bicephalism was only the result of a tricky internal compromise, stemming from the discontent following the return of the party in the opposition and strengthened after the defeat at the European polls.The "two-headed" system wanted to restore the credibility and to reinforce the cohesion (...) of the PRL. In fact, this genuine political "curiosity" mainly revealed the structural and ideological deficiency which made its coming possible. lts ultimate defeat - at the 24 November1991 polls - caused itsfalling down.The bicephalism was bound to an identity problem of the french Belgian liberalism but also some features of the experience refer to a more general crisis of the values carried by the old traditional political movements. (shrink)

This paper explores the hypothesis that proper names serve as anchors identifying the individuals in the possible or real world. This hypothesis is tested on Old Icelandic narratives. A prominent feature of Old Icelandic sagas is that the narrative matter is not quite new. A Saga is reliable iff it refers to the events relevant for its audience and accepted as true by the whole community. I argue that proper names must be regarded as references to the background knowledge (...) of the medieval audience. I follow two contemporary Sagas based on the fresh events and show that proper names in a Saga mind were arranged in form of a database, each type of a personal designation having its charachteristic text-building profile. The form of the name and its frequency in the Saga are linked with the rank of the character. The high number of people mentioned in the Sagas is explained by the fact that the Sagas aimed at describing the real world, where the names of the individuals and the events they were involved cross-identified each other. Every character had its rigid identifiers. The total amount of propria is always higher than the number of active figures. I classify the Saga characters into five ranks and discuss their information-structural profiles. (shrink)

Using the biblical saga of Joseph as an example, I maintain that turnabouts, trade-offs, and transience are endemic to the human condition.

This Festschrift bears impressive testimony to the fascination which Icelandic and Norwegian sagas and Faroese ballads still exercise on researchers. Fifteen original papers examine central literary and historical aspects of Nordic sagas and ballads. The papers are published in German, English or Danish.

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

Approaching the Ovidian story of Pygmalion, scholars mainly focus on the moment in which the artist carves his ideal woman out of ivory. But the reasons that led him to sculpt the statue tend to remain in the background. Ovid informs us that, before giving toeburthe shape of auirgo, the ‘Paphian hero’ (Met. 10.290), shocked by the lascivious conduct of the Propoetides, had declared war on the whole of womankind (Met. 10.238–46):sunt tamen obscenae Venerem Propoetides ausaeesse negare deam; pro quo (...) sua numinis iracorpora cum forma primae uulgasse feruntur;utque pudor cessit, sanguisque induruit oris,in rigidum paruo silicem discrimine uersae.quas quia Pygmalion aeuum per crimen agentesuiderat, offensus uitiis, quae plurima mentifemineae natura dedit, sine coniuge caelebsuiuebat thalamique diu consorte carebat. (shrink)