Heinrich Zimmer (Celticist)

Heinrich Friedrich Zimmer (11 December 1851 – 29 July 1910) was a German Celticist and Indologist.
Born to a farming family in Kastellaun in the Rhineland-Palatinate in western Germany, he studied ancient languages at Kaiser Wilhelm University in Strassburg, going on to study Indology and Sanskrit under Rudolf von Roth at the University of Tübingen. In 1878 he became a lecturer at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, where the young Ferdinand de Saussure studied with him; in 1881 he became Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Linguistics at the University of Greifswald. In 1901 he became the founding Professor of Celtic at Friedrich Wilhelm University, the first position of its kind in Germany; his most celebrated student there was Rudolf Thurneysen. (He was followed in the post after his death by Kuno Meyer.) In 1902 he became a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and in 1906 a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In 1910, suffering from an incurable illness, he committed suicide by drowning himself.


Paul B. Thompson (philosopher)

Paul B. Thompson is a philosopher currently teaching at Michigan State University, where he holds the W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural Food and Community Ethics. Thompson was born in 1951 in Springfield, Missouri. He earned his B.A. at Emory University before going on to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He formerly taught at Texas A&M University and Purdue University before joining MSU, where he now teaches and does research on ethical and philosophical questions dealing with agriculture and food and especially the development of agricultural techno-science.
He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for "Public Philosophy Journal".
Contributions to philosophy.
Thompson has served on national and international committees on agricultural biotechnology such as the International Advisory Panel for the PEGASUS Project on Animal Biotechnology, the Advisory Committee on Biotechnology for the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources (part of the National Research Council based in Washington D.C.), The Scientific Advisory Committee for the Mansholt Graduate School at Wageningen University and Research Institute, and was the Chair of the Council on Agricultural Science and Technology's Working Group on Ethics and Animal Agricultural Biotechnology from 2006 to 2010. Thompson also contributed to the National Research Council report entitled "The Environmental Effects of Transgenic Plants." He is a past President of the Society for Philosophy and Technology and the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society.


Pstoedit

pstoedit is a free computer program that converts PostScript and PDF files to other vector formats. It supports many output formats, including WMF/EMF, PDF, DXF, CGM, and HTML, and by means of free/shareware plugins SVG, MIF and RTF. The author and maintainer is Wolfgang Glunz.
pstoedit uses ghostscript to perform the first part of the conversion process. Ghostscript converts the PostScript (or PDF) file to a more basic PostScript format, translating complex functions to basic functions, such as line draw commands. The second part of the conversion process consists of translating these basic functions into basic functions of the output format.
pstoedit is multi platform. For MS Windows, a setup program is available for both 32bit and 64bit, which does the complete job (including for instance making the connection with ghostscript and MS Office). Three interfaces can be installed: the command line interface, an interface by means of gsview and an import filter for MS Office. However, to make actual use of this MS Office interface a $50 registration is required (this registration also adds functionality to the other two interfaces).
Licensed under the GNU General Public License, pstoedit is free software.


Perl module

A Perl module is a discrete component of software for the Perl programming language. Technically, it is a particular set of conventions for using Perl's package mechanism that has become universally adopted.
A module defines its source code to be in a "package" (much like a Java package), the Perl mechanism for defining namespaces, e.g. "CGI" or "Net::FTP" or "XML::Parser"; the file structure mirrors the namespace structure (e.g. the source code for "Net::FTP" is in "Net/FTP.pm"). Furthermore, a module is the Perl equivalent of the class when object-oriented programming is employed.
A collection of modules, with accompanying documentation, build scripts, and usually a test suite, composes a distribution. The Perl community has a sizable library of distributions available for search and download via CPAN.
Perl is a language allowing many different styles of programming. A developer is as likely to find a module written in a procedural style (for example, Test::Simple) as object-oriented (e.g. XML::Parser), both are considered equally valid according to what the module needs to do. Modules might also be used to mixin methods (DBIx::Class) or be a pragma (strict.pm) which has an effect immediately upon being loaded. Modules can even be used to alter the syntax of the language. The effect of Perl modules are usually limited to the current scope in which it was loaded.
It is common for Perl modules to have embedded documentation in Perl's Plain Old Documentation format. POD imposes little structure on the author. It is flexible enough to be used to write articles, web pages and even entire books such as Programming Perl. Contrast with javadoc which is specialized to documenting Java classes. By convention, module documentation typically follows the structure of a Unix man page.
The language of Perl is defined by the single implementation (referred to as "perl") and is added to (and in rare occasions taken away from) each new release. For this reason it is important for a module author to be aware what features they're making use of and what the minimum required version of perl is. The code on this page requires perl 5.6.0 which is considered rather old by now.
Examples.
What follows are examples of "Hello, World" implemented in different styles of modules. It must be understood that a module is not necessary in Perl; functions and code can be defined and used anywhere. This is just for example purposes. Contrast with Java where a class is always necessary. A real "Hello, World" function would be written like so:
print hello();
or simply printed in one line:
print "Hello, world!\n";
Procedural example.
Here is "Hello, World" implemented as a procedural module with a customizable target for the greeting, just to make things interesting. Also included is a short script to illustrate the module's use.
"hello_world.pl".
use Hello::World;
print hello(); # prints "Hello, world!\n"
print hello("Milky Way"); # prints "Hello, Milky Way!\n"
"Hello/World.pm".
package Hello::World;
use strict;
use warnings;
our $VERSION = '1.00';
use base 'Exporter';
our @EXPORT = qw(hello);
=head1 NAME
Hello::World - An encapsulation of a common output message
=head1 SYNOPSIS
 use Hello::World;
 print hello();
 print hello("Milky Way");
=head1 DESCRIPTION
This is a procedural module which gives you the famous "Hello, world!"
message, and it’s even customizable!
=head2 Functions
The following functions are exported by default
=head3 hello
 print hello();
 print hello($target);
Returns the famous greeting. If a C<$target> is given it will be used,
otherwise "world" is the target of your greeting.
=cut
sub hello {
 my $target = shift;
 $target = 'world' unless defined $target;
 return "Hello, $target!\n";
=head1 AUTHOR
Joe Hacker <joe@joehacker.org>
=cut
1;
Since Hello/World.pm is not in your @INC path, you must specify . on the command line to run the above example:
perl -I. hello_world.pl
Object-oriented example.
Here's an example of the same thing done in an object-oriented
style. The advantage of an OO module is that each object can be configured
independently from other objects.
"hello_world.pl".
use Hello::World;
my $hello = Hello::World->new;
$hello->print; # prints "Hello, world!\n"
$hello->target("Milky Way");
$hello->print; # prints "Hello, Milky Way!\n"
my $greeting = Hello::World->new(target => "Pittsburgh");
$greeting->print; # prints "Hello, Pittsburgh!\n"
$hello->print; # still prints "Hello, Milky Way!\n"
"Hello/World.pm".
package Hello::World;
use strict;
use warnings;
our $VERSION = "1.00";
=head1 NAME
Hello::World - An encapsulation of a common output message
=head1 SYNOPSIS
 use Hello::World;
 my $hello = Hello::World->new();
 $hello->print;
=head1 DESCRIPTION
This is an object-oriented library which can print the famous "H.W."
message.
=head2 Methods
=head3 new
 my $hello = Hello::World->new();
 my $hello = Hello::World->new( target => $target );
Instantiates an object which holds a greeting message. If a C<$target> is
given it is passed to C« $hello->target ».
=cut
sub new {
 my($class, %args) = @_;
 my $self = bless({}, $class);
 my $target = exists $args{target} ? $args{target} : "world";
 $self->{target} = $target;
 return $self;

=head3 target
 my $target = $hello->target;
 $hello->target($target);
Gets and sets the current target of our message.
=cut
sub target {
 my $self = shift;
 if ( @_ ) {
 my $target = shift;
 $self->{target} = $target;
 return $self->{target};

=head3 to_string
 my $greeting = $hello->to_string;
Returns the $greeting as a string
=cut
sub to_string {
 my $self = shift;
 return "Hello, $self->{target}!";

=head3 print
 $hello->print;
Outputs the greeting to STDOUT
=cut
sub print {
 my $self = shift;
 print $self->to_string(), "\n";

=head1 AUTHOR
Joe Hacker <joe@joehacker.org>
=cut
1;
Perl packages and namespaces.
A running Perl program has a built-in namespace called "codice_1", which is the default name. For example, a subroutine called codice_2 can be called as codice_3 or codice_4. With a variable the appropriate sigil is placed in front of the namespace; so a scalar variable called codice_5 can also be referred to as codice_6, or even codice_7. Other namespaces can be created at any time.
package Namespace1;
$var1 = 1; # created in namespace Namespace1, which is also created if not pre-existing
our $var2 = 2; # also created in that namespace; our required if use strict is applied
my $var3 = 3; # lexically-scoped my-declared - NOT in any namespace, not even main
$Namespace2::var1 = 10; # created in namespace Namespace2, also created if not pre-existing
our $Namespace2::var2 = 20; # also created in that namespace
my $Namespace2::var3 = 30;#compilation error:my-declared variables CAN'T belong to a package
Package declarations apply package scope till the next package declaration or the end of the block in which the declaration is made.
our $mainVar = 'a';
package Sp1;
our $sp1aVar = 'aa';
print "$main::mainVar\t$sp1aVar\n"; # note mainVar needs qualifying
package Sp2;
our $sp2aVar = 'aaa';
print "$main::mainVar\t$Sp1::sp1aVar\t$sp2aVar\n";# note mainVar and sp1aVar need qualifying
package main;
print "$mainVar\t$Sp1::sp1aVar\t$Sp2::sp2aVar\n"; # note sp1aVar and sp2aVar need qualifying
$mainVar = 'b';
 # NOTE previously created packages and package variables still accessible
 package Sp1;
 our $sp1bVar = 'bb';
 print "$main::mainVar\t$sp1aVar\t$sp1bVar\n"; # note mainVar needs qualifying
 package Sp2;
 our $sp2bVar = 'bbb';
 print "$main::mainVar\t$Sp1::sp1aVar$Sp1::sp1bVar\t$sp2aVar$sp2bVar\n";
 } # note mainVar and sp1...Var need qualifying
 print "$main::mainVar\t$sp1bVar$sp1aVar\t$Sp2::sp2bVar$Sp2::sp2aVar\n";
} # note package Sp1 applies by default
print "$mainVar\t$Sp1::sp1aVar$Sp2::sp2bVar\n";
Packages and modules.
Conventionally, namespaces are associated with modules; in practice, there is usually one namespace per module and vice versa, but that's not mandated by the language. For example, the 'standard' module CGI.pm has the following declaration at its top:
package CGI;
This module, and its functionality, would commonly be invoked as follows:
use CGI (':standard'); # imports many functions, including b()
print b('Hello, world'); # outputs Hello, world
A 'missing' subroutine "could" be added from the using program's namespace.
sub CGI::bi { # define target namespace (CGI) and sub name (bi)
 return b(i($_[0]));
and invoked as below:
print CGI::bi('Hello, world'); # outputs Hello, world
However, though technically feasible, that would be dubious programming practice. You might just as well define the sub in the calling namespace, and call it from that namespace.


Frederick S. Frank

Frederick S. Frank (December 23, 1935 - February 28, 2008) was a literary scholar and bibliographer, credited as one of the founders of Gothic studies for his extensive bibliographic research.
Biography.
Frederick Frank was born in Cobbleskill, New York on December 23, 1935. He and his wife Nancy had three children.
Frank received a B.A. from Union College in 1957, an M.A. from Columbia University in 1959, and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1968. After graduation, he taught briefly at Boston University, before joining the faculty of Allegheny College, where he taught for 24 years before retiring in 1994. After retirement, he began the online bibliographic project "The Sickly Taper", which is now hosted by the University of Windsor.
Frank died on February 28, 2008. In 2010, a special issue of the journal "Papers on Language & Literature" published papers on the Gothic in memory of Frank.


Hotel du Lac

Hotel du Lac is a 1984 Booker Prize-winning novel by English writer Anita Brookner. It centres on Edith Hope, a romance novelist who is staying in a hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva. There she meets other English visitors, including Mrs Pusey, Mrs Pusey's daughter Jennifer, and an attractive middle-aged man, Mr Neville.
Plot.
Edith reaches Hotel du Lac in a state of bewildered confusion at the turn of events in her life. After a secret and often lonely affair with a married man and an aborted marriage, she is banished by her friends. They advise her to go on "probation" so as to "grow up", "be a woman", and atone for her mistakes.
Edith comes to the hotel swearing not to change. However, the hotel's silent charms and her observations of the guests there all tug at Edith with questions about her identity, forcing her to examine who she is and what she has been. At the hotel, she observes people from different walks of life — wealthy Mrs Pusey and her daughter Jennifer, their love for each other, and the splendid oblivious lives they live; Mme de Bonneuil, who lives at the hotel in solitary expulsion from her chateau, now inhabited by her son and his wife; and Monica, who came to the hotel acceding to her husband's demands to fix her "eating disorder" and become fertile enough to bear him an heir.
Edith falls for the ambiguous smile of Mr Neville, a wealthy owner of a technology company, who asks for her hand in marriage. Neville is looking for a "safe" wife who will maintain his mansion as a home and social venue, instead of running off with another man like his ex-wife. He offers to install her there and turn a blind eye to any lovers she might take. Edith considers a life of recognition that being married to Neville would confer upon her, but ultimately rejects the possibility of a relationship with him when she realises he is an incorrigible womaniser. This also finally leads her to realise what her life is expected to be. Once again, she breaks chains and decides to take things into her own hands and leaves Hotel du Lac.
Throughout the novel, Edith writes letters addressed to her lover, David, describing her companions. When about to accept Neville's proposal, she writes a final letter of farewell, noting that is the last she will write, and the first she will actually send. But after seeing Neville emerge from the Puseys' room in his dressing gown, she tears it up and sends a telegram to David consisting of one word: "Returning".
Reception.
In a 1984 book review by "Kirkus Reviews" called the book a "sad little comedy", summarizing it as "less subtle, more artificial than Brookner's three previous, similar character-portraits: the themes are laid on thick... Still, for readers who relish a blend of extra-dry humor, tartly wistful introspection, and literary self-consciousness, this small entertainment—winner of England's Booker Prize—will be a delicate, provocative pleasure." Anne Tyler, writing for "The New York Times" called it "Brookner's most absorbing novel" and praised the book for its tone: "oddly detached, very small-scale, faintly humorous".
Awards.
The novel won the Booker Prize in 1984.
Television film.
An adaptation by Christopher Hampton for a television film of the same name was produced by the BBC and A&E Television Networks and first screened in 1986. It starred Anna Massey and Denholm Elliott.


Georg Stenger

Georg Stenger is a German philosopher and professor and chair of the department of philosophy at the University of Vienna.
He is known for his works on structural ontology, intercultural philosophy, Heidegger's philosophy and also his contributions to Heidegger Gesamtausgabe.
Stenger is the president of Society of Intercultural Philosophy.


Henry L. Roediger III

Henry L. "Roddy" Roediger III (born July 24, 1947) is an American psychology researcher in the area of human learning and memory. He rose to prominence for his work on the psychological aspects of false memories.
Biography.
Born in Roanoke, Virginia and raised in Danville, Virginia, Roediger received his undergraduate education from Washington and Lee University, graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in 1969. He went on to study at Yale University, receiving his PhD in 1973 with his dissertation "Inhibition in recall from cueing with recall targets". After receiving his doctorate he joined the faculty at Purdue University, where he stayed for fifteen years (except for two appointments as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Toronto: 1976–1978, and 1981–1982). In 1988 he was appointed as the Lynette S. Autrey Professor of Psychology at Rice University, and in 1996 he moved to Washington University in St Louis where he was the Chair of Psychology until 2004. Since 1998 he has been the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at Washington University.
Throughout his career, Roediger has become known for his focus on memory accessibility and retrieval – the ways in which we access and recall memories that we have stored. From this standpoint he has developed theories, explored phenomena, and pioneered research techniques. He has supervised over 25 students in postgraduate research, and 9 postdoctoral fellows. His former students include Suparna Rajaram, Kathleen McDermott, Jeffrey Karpicke, and Elizabeth Marsh. Also, he has published over 175 articles and has an h-index of over 40. Alongside his academic work, Roediger oversaw the launch of the journal "Psychological Science in the Public Interest", he has been editor of the journals "Psychonomic Bulletin and Review" and the "Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition", and also has been involved in the administration of a number of scientific societies, most notably as the 2003–2004 president of the Association for Psychological Science.
Elections, honours, and awards.
Roediger has been elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society (now the Association for Psychological Science), and the Canadian Psychological Association. He has also received a number of honours and awards.
The consequences of retrieval.
Roediger was one of the first scholars to see the value of studying how humans retrieve memories. As Roediger started his career the cognitive revolution was in full swing. Human memory researchers had been predominantly focusing on memory storage, and were only beginning to look at memory encoding. However, inspired by his graduate advisor at Yale, Robert G. Crowder, Roediger began to see the importance of a retrieval-based approach to memory research. Since his doctoral dissertation, much of Roediger's research through the 1970s focused on retrieval based inhibition – the idea that retrieving an item reduces the subsequent accessibility of other stored items. This phenomenon is more commonly experienced when we try to remember a list of items and find that we keep thinking of the ones we have already recalled, rather than the ones we still need to remember. Roediger was able to show, under certain conditions, that recall cues can inhibit recall, which seemed inconsistent with previously widely accepted research findings showing that cues aid recall. Close to a decade of research helped to define the situations in which cues can aid recall and the situations in which cues can inhibit recall. In 1978 Roediger concluded that this dissociation occurs because, although some cues can facilitate recall, other cues provide irrelevant information, which hinders recall.
Most importantly, Roediger showed that the accessibility of one memory biases the process of searching for another memory.
Transfer appropriate processing.
The 1980s saw an increase in research on implicit memory – memories that we have without being aware of them. The norm among researchers in this area was to test implicit memory using some task that required the subject to unintentionally remember previously learned information, such as completing a word fragment (E_E_ _ A _ T to ELEPHANT) or an anagram (PNLEHETA to ELEPHANT), as compared with testing for memories that we are aware of (explicit memory) using direct instructions to remember. These researchers found that the intentionally learned information was better remembered in an intentional remembering test, and unintentionally learned information was better remembered in an unintentional remembering test.
Roediger, however, approached this phenomenon from a more retrieval-based standpoint. Rather than looking at intentionality of learning, he looked to the conditions in which the information was to be recalled. He saw that unintentional learning seemed to be driven by bottom-up processes (using small details from the stimulus to build meaning) and that intentional learning seemed to be driven by top-down processes (using pre-existing concepts to make sense of a stimulus). He predicted that information learned in a bottom-up manner (e.g. reading a word) would be better recalled in a bottom-up test (e.g. completing a word fragment), and information learned in a top-down manner (e.g. generating a mental image) would be better remembered in a top-down test (e.g. recalling a list of words).
Roediger hypothesised that the more that the processes used in retrieval matched those used in encoding, the better memory performance would be, and called this framework 'transfer-appropriate processing'. In a number of experiments Roediger and his colleagues showed that, rather than the intentionality when remembering, it was in fact the overlap between the conditions in which learning and remembering occurred that aided memory.
Neurophysiological studies have provided further evidence suggesting that transfer appropriate processes play a crucial role in memory. Studies using electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging have shown that the overlap in brain activity between encoding and retrieval facilitates memory performance.
The theory of transfer appropriate processing has since been adapted by numerous scientists to further study a number of different problems.
Scientists have used transfer appropriate processing to better understand how humans that speak more than two languages might organise their different lexica, which has important implications for those trying to learn a new language as well as for potentially better understanding language disorders. Transfer appropriate processing also had a notable impact on the field of marketing, by providing a more comprehensive understanding of consumer memory. A focus on retrieval as the goal of advertising, and a better understanding of how interference can impact marketing communications, left a lasting impression on advertising practice.
Transfer appropriate processing theory has also been shown to be particularly valuable in exploring the organisation of memory, the workings of prospective memory – remembering to carry out previously planned actions, and in exploring how people learn to read fluently.
False memories.
Roediger is perhaps most widely known for his research in the area of false memory, looking at why and how people develop memories of events that never happened to them.
Throughout the 1990s, he and his colleagues took the methodology from a relatively unknown study by James Deese from 1959 and worked to develop it into one of the most widely used tools in human memory research; the DRM Paradigm. In a typical DRM experiment, a subject listens to a list of related words, for example; Thread, Pin, Eye, Sewing, Sharp, Point, Prick, Thimble, Haystack, Torn, Hurt, Injection, Syringe, Cloth, Knitting, and is then tested on their memory for this list. Typically, subjects will recall or recognise an associated, but unpresented lure word (Needle). Roediger and Kathleen McDermott asked people whether they actually remembered hearing this unpresented word, or if they merely felt like they had heard it. Participants often reported remembering hearing the word, illustrating memory for an event that never occurred.
Naturally, Roediger's approach to explaining this phenomenon was through retrieval processes. He thought that perhaps recalling list items would increase the availability of the lure word to a level where it became so available that it was mistaken for a presented word. However, retrieval processes alone were not enough to explain the findings – in a number of studies Roediger and his colleagues showed that a warning about developing a false memory had no effect if it was presented before retrieval, but could reduce false memories if presented before the encoding phase, suggesting an important role being played by the encoding process. Further work led Roediger and his research team to acknowledge both encoding and retrieval processes in explaining this phenomenon.
Although a wealth of research was conducted on the DRM paradigm, Roediger's interest in false memory went further still. His research into other false memory procedures helped further research on imagination inflation – the idea that imagining an event can make someone later believe that it really happened. Also, research into the social environment around creating memories helped to shed light on how other people's memories can become part of our own, a process Roediger and colleagues called 'Social Contagion'.
Cognitive psychology and education.
Roediger's most recent interests have involved applying knowledge from cognitive psychology research to the realm of education. Although many teachers feel that using standardized tests stifles creativity and takes away from time that could be better utilised in teaching, Roediger's studies indicate that the demands that testing places on recall significantly enhance learning compared to untested situations. His work suggests that a ratio of 3–4 "tests" (uses of the learned information without recourse to reference material) to each study session (learning of new information) may be most effective.
Roediger's early research on testing effects and hypermnesia on final-exam results showed that subjects who receive two tests on newly learned material out-perform subjects tested only once, even if no feedback is given on any of the tests. This effect persists even if the group that is only tested once is given a second opportunity to study the material. Roediger explains this effect in terms of enhanced retrievability, claiming that testing provides practice at retrieving memories, making the memory itself stronger.
Roediger and his colleagues have also studied the form of test which is most effective. They report that short answer questions produce stronger testing-enhancements of learning compared to multiple-choice testing. Further research is being conducted to discover the optimal timing between tests and the best media for conducting tests.


Dalia Judovitz

Dalia Judovitz (born 1951, Transylvania, Romania) is National Endowment for the Humanities Professor in the Department of French and Italian at Emory University. She is known for her work in the fields of 17th-century French literature and philosophy and modern/postmodern aesthetics.
Education.
She earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Romance Studies at Johns Hopkins University in 1979. French philosophers on the faculty Louis Marin, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Rodolphe Gasché and René Girard shaped the theoretical outlook of her cross-disciplinary approach.
Career.
She held several terms as chair of the Department of French and Italian at Emory University, helping to build its international research reputation. Previously, she taught at University of California at Berkeley and University of Pennsylvania and held visiting appointments at Columbia University and Duke University.
Work.
Her first major work identifies Cartesian subjectivity as a foundational moment of modernity whose problematic legacy is difficult to overcome. Along with Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida, she analyzes the philosophical import of Cartesian discourse through inquiries into its linguistic, literary and rhetorical presentation. She demonstrates how Cartesian subjectivity, reflecting a new understanding of truth as certitude, implies a new, disembodied way of being in and picturing the world.
The question of what the body is and how it is culturally constructed, conceived and cultivated is the focus of her 2001 book. "The Culture of the Body" outlines the body's redefinition from a live, experiential entity to a mechanical and virtual object heralding the advent of modernity. Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Michel Foucault inform this study of embodiment and materialization.
Her books on Marcel Duchamp and Dada and Surrealist aesthetics explore how the interplay of word and image (à la Walter Benjamin) shapes modernist avant-garde strategies by enlarging the horizons of subjective and sensorial experience. She "unpacks" Duchamp's works through an analysis of his use of mechanical and linguistic reproduction to redefine the work, the artist and artistic production. This approach leads to a new understanding of "an art made out of the paradoxes inherent in the making of art." A 2010 book considers how appropriation, influence and play redefine notions of artistic creativity as a collaborative act. This book discusses Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Salvador Dali and Enrico Baj, as well as post-modern legacies in works by Gordon Matta-Clark and Richard Wilson.
Her most recent book questions the nature of vision and visibility through an examination of the depiction of sight and spiritual insight in the paintings of Georges de La Tour, a 17th-century French baroque artist.


John Barrell

John Charles Barrell FBA FEA (born February 1943) is a British scholar of eighteenth and early nineteenth century studies.
Early life.
John Barrell was born in February 1943. He took his first degree at Trinity College Cambridge, and his PhD at the University of Essex.
Career.
Barrell was a lecturer in the Department of Literature at Essex for four years from 1968. In 1972 he took up a lectureship in the Faculty of English at Cambridge and a fellowship at King's College Cambridge. He was appointed to a chair in English at the University of Sussex in 1985 and was Professor of English at the University of York from 1993 to 2012, where he was one of the founders of the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies. In January 2013 he became Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London, and, since January 2016, has been Professor Emeritus there. He has held a British Academy readership and a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.
Research.
Barrell's main research is within the field of literature, history and art in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Britain. This focuses particularly on language, landscape, law, empire, theories of society and progress, and the theory of painting.
Honours.
Described by Colin McCabe as "the finest literary critic of our generation", Barrell has been awarded honorary degrees by the University of Chicago (2008) and by the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London (2010). He is an honorary fellow of King's College Cambridge. He is a fellow of the British Academy and the English Association.
Family.
In 1992, Barrell married Harriet Guest in London.


List of gothic fiction works

Gothic fiction (sometimes referred to as Gothic horror or Gothic romanticism) is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romanticism.


Joaquim Sapinho

Joaquim Sapinho (born 1965 at Sabugal, Portugal) is a Portuguese film director. Founder of production company Rosa Filmes, he is considered to be part of "The School of Reis" film family.
Career.
Joaquim Sapinho was a student at the Portuguese National Film School (Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema), where he was a student of António Reis, Paulo Rocha and Alberto Seixas Santos, and where he is nowadays a professor of directing for cinema.
He started as a documentarist for television, before directing his first feature. In 1995, with his first picture, "Haircut", he gave us a rare glimpse of the Portuguese youth of the 90's, being nominated for the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival.
Working also as a producer and screenwriter, Sapinho is the founder and owner of the independent production company Rosa Filmes, which brought to light other directors as João Pedro Rodrigues and Manuela Viegas.
In 1999, the film "Gloria", written by him and the director Manuela Viegas, was in competition at the Berlinale.
In 2003, Sapinho released "The Policewoman", his second feature, a story of a mother and her son based on the idea that in the modern times some women might no longer remember what it means to be a mother. It was at the official selection of the Berlin International Film Festival.
In 2005, Sapinho released "Bosnia Diaries". Shot in 1996 and 1998, taking almost ten years to complete, it is a cinematic diary documentary about his experiences in Bosnia during and after the Yugoslav Wars. It had ir's world premiere at the Pusan International Film Festival.
In 2011, after working for ten years – most of them simultaneously in "Bosnia Diaries" and in it – Sapinho completes his fourth feature, "This Side of Resurrection", which had its world premiere at the official selection of the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.


Samvara

Samvara ("saṃvara") is one of the "tattva" or the fundamental reality of the world as per the Jain philosophy. It means stoppage—the stoppage of the influx of the material karmas into the soul consciousness. The karmic process in Jainism is based on seven truths or fundamental principles ("tattva") of Jainism which explain the human predicament. Out of the seven, the four influxs ("āsrava"), bondage ("bandha"), stoppage ("saṃvara") and release ("nirjarā")—pertain to the karmic process.
Philosophical overview.
"Saṃvara" is the first step in the destruction of accumulated harmful karmas. The world or the "samsara" is often described as an ocean and the soul as a boat trying to cross it and reach the shores of liberation. The boat is leaking i.e. karmic particles are getting attached to the soul. Hence the first step is to stop the leak and prevent new water from entering the boat. This is "saṃvara". Jains assert that emancipation is not possible as long as the soul remains unreleased from the bondage of these karmas. Release is made possible by "saṃvara"; that is, the stopping of inflow of new karmas, and "nirjarā"; the shedding of existing harmful karma through conscious efforts.
Means of "saṃvara".
"Samvara" or stoppage of karmic influx is achieved through practice of:


Edgar Brau

Edgar Brau is an Argentine writer, stage director and artist.
Biography.
Edgar Brau was born in Argentina. He engaged in different occupations: he was an actor, a stage director, a painter of icons, a photographer, until he completely devoted himself to writing literature. His two last performances, as actor and stage director, were "A Season in Hell", by Arthur Rimbaud, and "Malditos" (“Damned Poets”), a dramatization he wrote based on poems by Gérard de Nerval, Charles Baudelaire, and Rimbaud.
His first book, "The Poem and Other Stories", published in 1992, was included by the UNESCO in its Project for International Financing of Translations. Enrique Anderson Imbert, an eminent critic from Harvard University, referred to the author as “a poet of prose, with impressive imagination”, and predicted he would get a first place in Argentine literature. Rodolfo Modern, writer and secretary general of the Argentine Academy of Letters, wrote that Brau expresses himself in a language of “amazing richness and accuracy”.
In 1995, he published his first novel, "The Player". Between that year and 2000, two books of poems, three short story books and a novel were released. To this period belong "Argentine Suite" (a collection of four short stories based on the last Argentine military dictatorship, the National Reorganization Process) and "Captain Lemuel Gulliver's Last Travel", a satire of present-day society, in which the character created by Jonathan Swift is shown on a fantastic travel (his “fifth” voyage) to the Río de la Plata, more precisely to a country that Gulliver calls Incognitahriah.
By mid 2000, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded professor Donald A. Yates, first American translator and editor of Jorge Luis Borges, a grant to translate all the work in prose written by Brau up to that year. Since then, Edgar Brau has been invited by different American universities and literary organizations to give seminars on his work and classes as Visiting Professor. Together with his translator, he also offered several bilingual readings on the West Coast.
In the Fall of 2002, during one of those stays, he wrote "Casablanca", a novella in which a wealthy Argentine “estanciero” (ranch owner) builds a replica of Rick's café in the Argentine pampas, around the fifties, with the idea of recreating the famous film in real life. In this story, the unnamed protagonist, caught in a storm on a lonely road, takes a hitherto unnoticed turn and soon draws up at a group of Moorish-looking buildings. A battered tin sign out front says “Casablanca.” After parking, the driver seeks shelter in a shadowy room, glimpsing chairs and tables piled helter-skelter in the corners, just as a piano begins to play "As Time Goes By". The piano player is an old black man, identical to Sam. By the wall opposite the piano, a man in dark glasses (his face seems familiar at first glance), a white jacket and black bow tie dozes, his chin resting on his chest. Somehow, the narrator has wandered into Rick's Café Americain from the film "Casablanca". Before he leaves, the piano player will tell him the story of this place and of the people who lived and worked there, representing the movie characters.
Brau's first collection of works in English, entitled "Casablanca and Other Stories", was published in the US by the end of 2006. The Washington Post published a lengthy review by Michael Dirda (“For the first time in English the Argentine labyrinths of Edgar Brau”) in which he states that Brau's works are further explorations of Borges´geography of the imagination. Writer and professor John T. Irwin, from Johns Hopkins University (author of "The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story"), wrote that Brau's stories must be regarded in the same level as those by Edgar Allan Poe and Borges: “These brilliant and haunting stories, superbly translated —Irwin writes— will introduce American readers to a contemporary Argentine fiction writer of startling power and subtlety, a writer whose stories it is no overstatement to mention in the same breath with those of Poe and Borges”.
In January 2007, Words Without Borders, from Chicago, published "Woodstock", a long poem by Brau based on the famous rock festival.
Between 2009 and 2013 he wrote and published the following works: "The Golem Project" ("El Proyecto Golem" - Metzengerstein, October 2011), a story that takes place at an unspecified future date and narrates how the Israelis manage to bring Hitler back to life with his memory intact; "The Child" ("El hijo" – Metzengerstein, May 2012), a play about the theft of babies from political prisoners during the last Argentine military dictatorship; "Faust" ("Fausto" - Metzengerstein, December 2012), a play in which the character is now a bright Argentine biologist at Princeton, who, while considering the possibility of destroying the formula he has just discovered (which will enable man to live for a thousand years) is interrupted by the devil Mephistopheles, who has the mission of preventing that destruction; and "Like Psalms" ("Como salmos" - Metzengerstein, February 2013), twenty-six poems in which arguments with God and arguments about the existence of God build, through contradiction, a metaphysics in which the answer always seems to bring about a new question.
He also completed two suites of photographs and poems: "A Wanderer´s Photo Album (Coghlan)" and "Woman in Syllables".
In January 2014 he published "De lo que dura a lo que pasa" (Metzengerstein), a series of eight interviews to the author made by Martina Rolandi Ricci, and in February of the same year, "Gulliver´s Craft" ("El oficio de Gulliver "- Metzengerstein), a novel written in 2012, which modifies and enlarges —from 60 to 350 pages— his earlier story based on Swift's character.
Edgar Brau lives in Buenos Aires.
External links.
Multimedia


Shrimal Jain

Shrimal (Srimal) Jain is an ancient Jain and Hindu community originally from Rajasthan, Shrimal or Bhinmal town in southern Rajasthan. They were traditionally wealthy merchants and money lenders and were prominent at the court of Rajput kings as treasurers and ministers, holding the titles of Dewan or Durbari. This caste is claimed to descend from the Goddess Lakshmi and their descendants are well known for business acumen and are in possession of Havelis and mansions given to them as gifts from kings for their service as royal treasurers, ministers, courtiers and advisors. The Shrimal (Srimal) Jain are thought to be the highest gotra in the Oswal merchant and minister caste that is found primarily in the north of India.
It is believed that the Srimal formed their own caste separate from the Oswal, evidenced by the fact that the majority of Srimals are Jain, which is also the case with the Oswal caste who descend from the Raja of Osnagar, a Rajput prince who converted to Jainism upon witnessing Sri Ratan Suri, a Jain ascetic, bring his son back to life. A few Srimals are Hindu and follow the vaishnav path while worshipping their kuladevi, Goddess Laxmi. They mainly reside in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.
Parasnath Temple.
The Court Jewelers to the Viceroy and Governor General of British India built Calcutta Jain Temple, Parasnath Temple, in 1867. It is built in Belgian glass. It is also known as Mookim's temple garden.


Retrospective memory

Retrospective memory is the memory of people, words, and events encountered or experienced in the past. It includes all other types of memory including episodic, semantic and procedural. It can be either implicit or explicit. In contrast, prospective memory involves remembering something or remembering to do something after a delay, such as buying groceries on the way home from work. However, it is very closely linked to retrospective memory, since certain aspects of retrospective memory are required for prospective memory.
Relationship with prospective memory.
Early research on prospective memory and retrospective memory has demonstrated that retrospective memory has a role in prospective memory. It was necessary to create more accurate terms in order to explain the relationship fully. Prospective memory describes more accurately an experimental paradigm, therefore, the term prospective remembering was subsequently used. A review by Burgess and Shallice described studies where patients had impaired prospective memory, but intact retrospective memory, and also studies where the impaired retrospective memory caused an impact on prospective memory. A double dissociation for the two has not been found, therefore concluding they are not independent entities. The role of retrospective memory in prospective memory is suggested to be minimal, and takes the form of the information required to make plans. According to Einstein & McDaniel (1990) the retrospective memory component of the prospective remembering task refers to the ability to retain the basic information about action and context. An example used in the reviews explains this in the following scenario:
The basic information of the retrieval context includes time, location and objects, which in combination form the required retrieval context. Each individual representation required is a form of retrospective memory. Despite all the research this issue is still debatable within the scientific community.
Episodic memory.
Retrospective episodic memory is recollection of past episodes. Significant research in this field looks at the phenomenon of mental time travel.
Mental time travel.
Mental time travel (MTT) is defined as the ability to mentally project oneself backwards in time to re-live past personal experiences, or forward in time to pre-live possible events in the future. It is a concept created by Canadian psychologist Endel Tulving. It does not simply refer to knowing an event happened, but requires conscious awareness that the individual is indeed reliving the episode. Due to this, it is certain that mental time travel requires central executive functioning, and most often a conscious ability. However new research has found many cases in which mental time travel occurs involuntarily without consciousness. Specifically research shows this occurs for autobiographical events, and as a result these cases are more specific and detail oriented. An example of this would be the phenomenon of scent: How a particular scent can send an individual back to a specific event in their lifetime. There is also evidence that involuntary and voluntary mental time travel differ on activation levels in areas of the brain suggesting that they have different retrieval mechanisms. Current research has moved away from the retrospective portion and towards the prospective aspect of mental time travel. There is also extensive research on whether mental time travel is unique to humans as there has been some evidence that it may be possible to occur in animals
Episodic.
Retrospective episodic memory is the memory of moments from the past. It is frequently used in studies of Alzheimer patients and testing their dementia. A study by Livner et al. (2009) compared the effect of the disease on both prospective and retrospective memory. In this case the episodic memory being tested was the ability to remember the testing instructions. To test retrospective memory participants were presented with a list of nouns that had been divided into four categories. The results of retrospective memory were divided into three sections: number of categories, number of items remembered and forgetting ratio, in order to look at the three separate process in creating memory (encoding, retrieval, storage). Using their results and knowledge of episodic memory the researchers were able to find a pattern of functional impairments in the brain.
Autobiographical.
Retrospective autobiographical memory is recalling specific events from your own past. Testing of this type of memory has been used when researching the effect of emotion and context on memory. Abenavoli and Henkel (2009) conducted a study looking at childhood events, context and metamemory. They wanted to see if the participants memory of remembering childhood events was accurate. The results showed that when context was recreated metamemory improved as did vividness of the actual event. Besides these topics, it is also used in studying mental time travel and age-related factors.
Semantic memory.
Retrospective semantic memory refers to the collection of knowledge, meaning and concepts that have been acquired over time. It plays a significant role in the study of priming. Jones (2010) researched a pure mediated priming effect and wanted to discover which model accounted for it. Pure priming refers to the connection between two concepts that have a weak or no association with each other. Each of three potential models (spreading activation, compound-cue and semantic matching) were tested with the results concluding that retrospective semantic matching model creates the pure priming effect. This study shows pure priming has more applications than previously thought.
Retrograde amnesia.
Retrograde amnesia is defined as the loss of memory of events and experiences occurring prior to an illness, accident, injury, or traumatic experience such as rape or assault. The amnesia may cover events over a longer or only a brief period. Typically, it declines with time, with earlier memories returning first.
There are many possible causes of amnesia. The most common include Alzheimer's disease, traumatic brain injury, brain infection (such as encephalitis or meningitis), dementia, seizures, and stroke. Less common causes include a brain tumor or psychiatric disorders (schizophrenia, depression, criminal behavior, or psychogenic amnesia). Psychogenic amnesia usually happens in close association with a stressful event that involves serious threat to life or health.
There are two types of retrograde amnesia, one dealing with episodic memory, and one dealing with semantic memory.
Semantic retrograde amnesia involves loss of generic, lifelong knowledge, as in the various forms of aphasia or agnosia, and also loss of learned motor skills, as in the various types of apraxia. Its primary focus is on retrograde amnesia for specific, usually time-limited, knowledge. In the case of semantic retrograde amnesia, memory for public events and memory for people have formed the primary corpus of research.
Neuroanatomy.
Medial prefrontal cortex.
A study was conducted by Kesner (1989) on retrospective memory involving rats. Lesions made to the medial prefrontal cortex of rats led to impairment of retrospective memory, as well as strong impairment to prospective memory on a radial arm task.
Medial temporal lobe.
Different brain regions in the medial temporal lobe play a unique role in memory. The medial temporal lobe seems to function as a memory system for consciously available events and facts, and is important for the acquisition of new episodic and semantic memory. There is also evidence that the medial temporal lobe automatically encodes memories.
The role of the medial temporal lobe for retrospective memory was assessed by Okuda et al. (2003) using Positron Emission Tomography (PET). The PET found that thinking about past events increased blood flow to the medial temporal lobes, emphasizing that this brain area contributes to the activation of retrospective memory. Also, the medial temporal lobe displayed activation levels associated with prospective memories. This finding gives support for the belief that thinking about the future to an extent relies upon thinking about the past, showing a close relationship between retrospective memory and prospective memory.
Hippocampus.
The hippocampus plays an important role for remembering specific personal experiences in humans, as well as memory for sequence of events.
A series of lesion studies assessed the role of the hippocampus on retrospective memory. In the first delayed response task, nonhuman primates were shown two food wells. For the primates to get a reward, they had to remember which food well was baited. However, the primate had to retain the information about the two prospects until an apparatus was lowered and raised after a delay interval. The results showed that lesions to the hippocampus impaired performance on this task. In a variation of the study, the primates were required to approach the food well that was empty after a delay. It was found that damage to the thalamus also caused impaired performance on both tasks, but at longer delay intervals. These studies confirmed that damage to the hippocampus and thalamus impaired the recall for episodic memory of previously experienced events.
In a lesion study involving rats, Ferbinteanu and Shapiro (2003) found the importance of the hippocampus for correctly remembering past events. In the study, rats with fornix lesions displayed poor choice accuracy in a spatial task requiring memory for temporal context, which was seen as evidence for impaired retrospective memory.
In an earlier study, Kametani and Kesner (1989) found that rats with lesions in the hippocampus made a large number of errors on a radial arm maze, indicating impaired retrospective memory for points of interpolation within the maze.
Thalamus.
It is known that the thalamus plays a crucial role in memory.
While investigating stroke-patients with damage to the thalamus, Cipolotti et al. (2008) found that the stroke victims had poor recognition and recall memory on verbal and non-verbal tests. The poor recall identified that the retrospective memory of the patients was being effected by the damage on the thalamus due to stroke.
Lesions to the thalamus have been found to impair the recognition memory of monkeys. In a study conducted by Aggleton and Mishkin, they found that monkeys with lesions to the anterior thalamus and the posterior thalamus had an impaired ability for recognition and associative memory on matching tests. The researchers also suggested that combined damage to both regions of the thalamus can lead to amnesia.
Amygdala.
The amygdala plays a special role in that it is crucial to the emotional aspect of retrospective memory. It is responsible for the encoding of emotionally laden events, and there is evidence that memories for emotional events are more vivid than other memories.
The amygdala has been associated with memories for past emotional events. A number of studies have provided evidence that the amygdala acts as an intermediate for emotionally influenced memory. These studies have investigated lesions of the amygdala in animals and humans.
Imaging studies have shown that amygdala activation is associated with emotional memory, and that past emotional memories are often better remembered than neutral memories. It has also been seen that the amygdala enhances memory in relation to the intensity of emotion in past experience, as well as enhancing declarative memory for emotional experiences.
Hamann et al. (1999) also found that emotional events (both pleasant and aversive) are better remembered than neutral events. They went on to find that the amygdala plays a crucial role for enhancing the strength of long-term and episodic memory. Using PET, the amygdala was shown to be responsible for enhanced episodic memory in the recognition of emotional stimuli.
Measures of assessment.
PRMQ.
The Prospective/Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ) was developed by Smith et al. in order to study Alzheimer patients. It is a 16-item questionnaire on which participants indicate the frequency in which they make certain memory errors. They use a 5-point scale (Very Often, Quite Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Never). Categories tested include prospective short term and long term, as well as retrospective short term and long-term memory. It is different from previous questionnaires because it has the ability to compare prospective and retrospective memory across several conditions. Since its creation, it has been used in numerous studies to look at the effects of Alzheimer's disease on prospective memory and retrospective memory.
Issues in testing.
Often involve testing both prospective and retrospective memory; sometimes difficult to isolate one. Additionally, Mantyla (2003) compared the results of the PRMQ to word recall tests of RM and found that they did not match. In this study retrospective memory performance did not match retrospective memory scores on PRMQ.
Factors affecting retrospective memory.
Age.
Age is a significant factor that effects memory. There is tremendous evidence that infants can learn and remember. However, infantile amnesia is an important, yet difficult area to study. Events from infancy simply cannot be remembered. Many studies have tried and failed to determine the cause of this. Consequently, many theories have been developed to explain this phenomenon. These theories range from the Freudian psychodynamic theory that remembering events from infancy would be damaging to the "ego", to theories that explain the underdeveloped hippocampus of an infant, and also theories that conclude that infants have not yet developed autonoetic consciousness of having experienced remembered events. This theory relies on Tulving's view of episodic memory.
Three studies were conducted to examine the differences in specificity at retrieval between younger adults (age range: 19–25 years, mean = 21.5 years), and older adults (age range: 64–82 years, mean = 74.1 years). It was found that older adults had lower retrieval for high specificity tests, but not for low specificity. And it was also found that the effects of divided attention on retrieval of younger adults mimicked the effects of aging. Therefore, retrieval efficiency depends on effortful, resource-demanding retrieval processes that is diminished in older adults.
As we age, the ventricles in the brain get larger as our brains get smaller. Functional changes do not normally depend on total brain size, but rather which part of the brain is getting smaller. The frontal lobes usually shrink more quickly, and the temporal and occipital lobes are slower. 20–30% of neurons in the hippocampus (which plays a critical role in memory) are lost by the age of 80. It has also been found that dopamine levels decrease by 5–10% per decade. This neurotransmitter plays a critical role in neural cognition (decrease associated with Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease).
Sex.
Some differences in memory performance have been observed between men and women. A series of experiments revealed that women did better at verbal episodic memory tasks (ex. remembering words, objects, pictures and everyday events), tasks with both verbal and visuospatial processing (ex. remembering the location of car keys), and tasks requiring little to no verbal processing (ex. recognition of familiar odours). Men, on the other hand, were better at purely visuospatial processing (ex. remembering symbolic or non-linguistic information).
All of these differences may vary due to environmental factors such as education.
Trauma.
Emotional.
It has been found that even though memory usually declines with age, elderly people tend to remember more positive memories than negative or even neutral ones. As we grow older, we focus more on positive things and start to develop the skill of emotion regulation which is "monitoring, evaluating, altering and gating one's emotional reactions and memories about emotional experiences". This is also referred to as motivated forgetting.
An unusual form of motivated forgetting is called psychogenic amnesia in which a very severe emotional stressor causes one to lose a large amount of personal memories without an observable biological cause. Another reaction to a very severe stressor is called post traumatic stress disorder. People who have been subject to a traumatic event that has included death of others or a possibility of death or severe injury to oneself cannot forget these memories. This sometimes leads to flashbacks and nightmares that cause people to re-live these traumatic events for long periods afterwards.
Miron-Shatz et al. looked at life as we actually live it and the differences that emerge when recalling it. The goal was to discover if there are qualitative differences for remembering pleasant versus unpleasant events. It was discovered that gaps occur for both pleasant and unpleasant events; however they were more pronounced for unpleasant events, meaning pleasant events were recalled as neutral events, but unpleasant events were recalled at extremely unpleasant. These findings support the notion that unpleasant events have a stronger impact on our recall.
Physical.
Traumatic brain injury happens when the head suffers from a sharp blow, or suddenly accelerates or decelerates. In these cases, the brain gets churned around, and can be damaged by the bony bumps and knobs inside the skull, or by the twisting and tearing of fibres in the brain. If the traumatic brain injury is severe enough, it can lead to an initial coma, which is then followed by a time of post-traumatic amnesia. Post traumatic amnesia typically resolves itself gradually, however it will leave a mild, but permanent deficit in the patient's memory.
Lesions to certain areas of the brain may lead to cognitive and memory deficits – see Neuroanatomy section above.
Drugs.
A study by de Win et al. used advanced magnetic resonance and SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) imaging techniques on the same sample study to determine if any functional differences appear in the brains of MDMA users. It is almost impossible to find purely MDMA users (without the use of cannabis, cocaine or other amphetamines), but with statistical analysis, it was found that MDMA has specific serotonergic damaging effects on the thalamus. This damage was speculated to be axonal damage to serotonergic cells while cell bodies remained intact. This damage is at least partly responsible for the commonly found reduced verbal memory in users.
Conflicting results have been found by many studies that have looked at brain anatomy in frequent marijuana users. The goal is to determine whether or not marijuana has any effects on cognitive abilities (including memory). A study done by Jager et al. concluded that there are in fact anatomical differences between the brains of frequent marijuana users and non-using control samples. Frequent users showed a lower magnitude of activity (but no structural changes) in parahippocampal regions. However, when subject to associative memory tasks, users performed within normal ranges. This shows that a decrease in activation in these regions is associated with frequent marijuana use, but does not affect memory task performance. This is still a controversial issue, and more research is required to draw conclusive results.
Disease.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD).
Alzheimer's disease accounts for 60 to 70 percent of cases of dementias. The brains of Alzheimer's patients have an abundance of plaques and tangles which begin in areas involved in memory, spreading to other areas, and eventually affecting most of the brain. Vascular dementia is often considered the second-most common form of dementia and is the reduction of blood flow to parts of the brain most often caused by many very small strokes that have an accumulative effect on cognitive abilities including memory.
Korsakoff's syndrome.
Korsakoff's is caused by a severe thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency due to chronic alcoholism or malnourishment. Thiamine is necessary for the body to process carbohydrates. This thiamine deficiency can lead to symptoms such as: confusion, loss of balance, drowsiness, and some specific problems with vision. When the deficiency is considered severe, the memory loss may be accompanied by agitation and dementia. The standard treatment is intravenous thiamine, administered as soon as possible after symptoms become apparent. Unfortunately, the treatment does not correct the condition and recovery is known to be gradual and sometimes incomplete. Temporally graded retrograde amnesia extending back several decades (early memories in life) are a common feature of patients with the alcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome, which primarily affects the diencephalon, usually with concomitant frontal lobe atrophy.


Carnegie United Kingdom Trust

The Carnegie United Kingdom Trust is an independent, endowed charitable trust based in Scotland that operates throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Originally established with an endowment from Andrew Carnegie in his birthplace of Dunfermline, it is incorporated by a royal charter and shares purpose-built premises with the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, and the Carnegie Hero Fund Trust.
History.
The Carnegie United Kingdom Trust was founded in 1913 with a $10 million endowment from Andrew Carnegie. In creating the trust, Carnegie defined its purpose as:
The trust's endowment provided it with a yearly budget of £100,000, a very significant amount of money at the time, causing one commentator to observe that ‘how they spent this money was a matter of national importance’. While the trust had to spend some of its money on libraries and church organs already promised to several groups by the Carnegie Corporation of New York or Carnegie himself, the trust was largely free to choose which charitable causes it would give to.
In the 1910s and 1920s, the trust focused on fulfilling Carnegie's commitment to building libraries, as Carnegie himself had already done across the United States. The trust also funded the construction of several universities, including Carnegie College in Leeds, Newbattle Abbey College in Newbattle, and College Harlec in Harlech. Other contributions to the education field during this time period included funding the Workers Educational Association, supporting the first pre-school playgroups, and training social workers and librarians. In the 1930s it shifted its focus to social welfare, including the Land Settlement programme, which aimed to help unemployed men to make a living from the land. It also advocated for the creation of National Parks, subsequently introduced by the Attlee ministry after World War II. The Trust also supported the arts during this time, including the restoration of the Book of Kells in Ireland, the publication of ten volumes of Tudor church music, and the publication of contemporary British musical compositions as the Carnegie Collection of British Music. After World War II, the Trust expanded its social welfare programs and released reports about health and nutrition in the United Kingdom.
In 1996, the Trust launched The Carnegie Young People Initiative (CYPI), a youth programme designed to encourage young people to participate more positively in society. To support the goals of the CYPI, the Trust funded research, conferences, demonstration projects, training, networking, publications, and online initiatives. The Trust also advocated for issues affecting young people, such as giving 16-year-olds the right to vote. Trust staff members also acted as advisors to government departments, local authorities, the NHS, schools, and the voluntary sector. By the end of the program in 2007, CYPI provided £1.78 million of direct funding to 130 projects across the British Isles. Later that year, the Trust helped to secure £4m to create Participation Works, the national centre for youth empowerment in the United Kingdom. The Trust also co-funded the Carnegie Medal for Children's literature and organised a centenary festival for the first Carnegie library in 2007. In 2008, the Trust created the UK's first university based research centres for philanthropy and charitable giving in partnership with the UK and Scottish Governments and the Economic and Social Research Council. Soon after, the Trust's Royal Charter was changed to enable it to collaborate with foundations across the European Union. It became an active member of the European Foundations Centre and jointly funded youth empowerment and rural community development work as part of the Network of European Foundations. It also began to collaborate more closely with the Carnegie foundations in the United States and Europe.
Current activities.
The remit of the Trust has been the same since it began in 1913, although the approach has changed over time. There was an increasing concern that the Trust's model of short-term funding, prevalent across the foundation world, had not been an effective way of addressing changing issues and needs. In 2004, Trustees decided to end the Trust's grant funding and to operate at a more strategic level in order to influence public policies and practice in more sustainable ways. One of the main reasons for this was the Trust's concern that the model of short-term, generally modest grant giving provided little evidence of sustainable change or impact upon deeper structural concerns in society. In relative terms the value of the endowment has also reduced significantly while the role of the state has increased, prompting a rethink of the role of the Trust.
The Strategic Plan for 2016-2020 reconfirms that decision, outlining the role of the organisation as an operating Trust that makes proactive decisions about its projects and activities. The Trust no longer takes unsolicited grant applications, but seeks to build partnerships with other organisations for specific pieces of work.
The Carnegie UK Trust continues to work to improve the wellbeing of people throughout the UK and Ireland by changing minds through influencing policy, and by changing lives through innovative practice and partnership work. The 2016-2020 Strategy highlights that the Trust's work will pay particular regard to people who are disadvantaged. The Trust's work from 2016-2020 is focused on the strategic objective of Enabling Wellbeing and the three thematic areas, Digital Futures, Flourishing Towns and Fulfilling Work.
Publications.
About the Trust's work:

Strategic Plan 2016-2020

Current Work Leaflet

Annual Review 2018

Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2018
Key 2020 Reports:

Talk of the Town: Supporting place based storytelling

Community Asset Ownership in Towns: A cross-UK learning event

Carnegie Library Lab: Reflections on a Programme for Public Libraries 2014 – 2020

Carnegie Library Lab: Final Project Snapshot from Cohort 3

The Future of the Minimum Wage: the Workers’ perspective

Race Inequality in the Workforce

Natural Capital Account for Derry City and Strabane District

Race Inequality in the Workforce

Natural Capital Account for Derry City and Strabane District

Scaling up the UK personal lending CDFI sector: From £20m to £200m in lending by 2027

Engage. Respond. Innovate. The Value of Hackathons in Public Libraries

Can Good Work Solve the Productivity Puzzle?
Key 2019 Reports:

Ensuring Good Future Jobs

Turnaround Towns UK

Participating People

Support for Community Planning Partnerships’ Statements of Progress: Examples of visual communication of data

The Enabling State: Where are we now? Review of policy developments 2013-2018

The Practice of Kindness: Learning from KIN and North Ayrshire

Study visit to Wales

Engaging Libraries: Learning from Phase 1

Conversations with young people about kindness

Journeys of Understanding: Domestic twinning as an approach to improving town capacity and wellbeing

Switched On

The many shades of co-produced evidence

Exploring the practicalities of a basic income pilot
Key 2018 Reports:

Leading the Way – a guide to privacy for public library staff

Payday Denied: Exploring the lived experience of declined payday loan applicants

Use of credit and financial resilience. Analysis of the Scottish Household Survey

Repay Right

Quantifying kindness, public engagement and place

Making Procurement Work for All

Digital Inclusion in Health and Care in Wales

Kindness, emotions and human relationships: The blind spot in public policy

Living Digitally – An evaluation of the CleverCogs digital care and support system

Fulfilling Work in Ireland: Discussion Paper

Growing Livelihoods People Working Together to Build a Future for Smaller-Scale Food Growers

New Powers, New Deals: Remaking British Towns after Brexit

Measuring Good Work: The final report of the Measuring Job Quality Working Group

Insights For A Better Way

Data for Public Benefit

What Sort of Scotland Do You Want To Live In?
Key 2017 Reports:

Searching for Space: What place for towns in public policy?

What Do Citizens Want?

Digitally Savvy Citizens

The Place of Kindness

Fairness Commissions: From Shetland to Southampton

Shining a Light

Hackathons: A Practical Guide

The Scottish Approach to Evidence
Key 2016 Reports:

Work and Wellbeing: Discussion Paper

Turnaround Towns

Time for Towns

Build your own TestTown Manual

Digital Participation and Social Justice in Scotland

Sharpening Our Focus

The Enabling State in Practice: Evidence from Innovators

Carnegie Library Lab: Final Project Snapshot from Cohort 1

Interaction

Gateway to Affordable Credit

Breaking the Link

Towards A Wellbeing Framework: One Year On
Key 2015 Reports:

Fairness Matters – report of the Fairer Fife Commission

Click and Connect – hyperlocal news case studies

The Enabling State Challenge – meet the winners

Ambition and Opportunity – a national strategy for public libraries in Scotland

Meeting the need for affordable credit

The Carnegie Position on Enterprise

Digital Participation in Dumfries and Kirkcaldy

Finding and Protecting the Carnegie Playing Fields
Key 2014 Reports:

Places that love people

Making Digital Real

The Welsh Dragon: The success of enterprise education in Wales

Measuring What Matters in Northern Ireland
Key 2013 Reports:

Evidence Exchange

Make Your Local News Work

The Rise of the Enabling State

Economic literacy training for UK-based journalists

Economic literacy training for civil society organisations

Shifting the Dial in Scotland

Weathering the Storm

Going the Last Mile

Across the Divide


The Sun Also Rises (2007 film)

The Sun Also Rises () is a 2007 film directed, produced and co-written by Chinese director Jiang Wen starring Joan Chen, Anthony Wong, Jaycee Chan, and Jiang Wen himself. This movie is the polyptych of interconnected stories in different time-zones, shifting between a Yunnan village, a campus, and the Gobi Desert. This movie was screened in competition at the Venice International Film Festival and nominated for Golden Lion but lost to Ang Lee's historical thriller "Lust, Caution". This film also premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, and was nominated for Achievement in Cinematography at the 2007 Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
Plot.
The movie details four interconnected stories.
In the first story, madness and mischief as a single mother (Zhou Yun) drives her devoted son (Jaycee Chan) to distraction with her daredevil antics in pursuit of tranquility. The agile mom climbs tall trees and stands perilously astride a small earthen raft on the river. She treasures a beautiful pair of slippers that she is forever losing, and the son fears that, one day, the footwear will remain while his mother disappears.
In the second story, on a college campus, two old friends find their friendship tested by rivalry over a woman. Doctor Lin (Joan Chen) is the mistress of Old Tang (Jiang Wen), but she finds herself drawn to a teacher named Liang (Anthony Wong). When Liang is accused of groping women at a campus gathering, Lin offers her rear end behind a curtain to determine whose was the guilty hand.
Old Tang, who is a hunter, has a young wife (Kong Wei) who begins a relationship with the madwoman's son. One day, Tang overhears their noises of passion and his wife whispering that her husband says her belly is like velvet. He determines to shoot the young man but is given pause when the boy asks him, "What is velvet?"
The final episode involves all the characters in a dreamlike sequence that brings their lives full circle.
Reviews.
The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, despite its lukewarm commercial reception. Writers at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival mentioned "a new aesthetic of magical realism, Jiang deftly defies the gravity of linear storytelling to produce sheer visual poetry. This gallery of lavishly composed frames may seem to follow an irrational logic but, in the end, the imagery is as rare and precious as velvet was scarce in the isolated China the film so vividly depicts." Ray Bennett of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote "Fluid motion and glorious colors provide a visual treat in Jiang Wen's sumptuous romantic fantasy... besides being wonderful to look at, "The Sun Also Rises" is great fun, with sure-handed performances." Moreover, the film was rumored to be China's official entries to the 2008 Oscars bidding with "Lust, Caution" and "The Warlords".
Critic and filmmaker Bilge Ebiri, however, described it as perhaps "one of the strangest pictures I've ever seen" and found it increasingly "more frenetic and absurd", despite acknowledging a "stylish delirium" near the end. Writing in "Muse" Magazine, Perry Lam also gave a negative review, criticizing "Jiang's timidity and the small-mindedness of his new movie."


Jiyuan Yu

Jiyuan Yu (July 5, 1964 – November 3, 2016) was a Chinese moral philosopher noted for his work on virtue ethics. Yu was a long-time and highly admired Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, in Buffalo, New York, starting in 1997. Prior to his professorship, Yu completed a three-year post as a research fellow at the University of Oxford, England (1994-1997). He received his education in China at both Shandong University and Renmin University, in Italy at Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, and in Canada at the University of Guelph. His primary areas of research and teaching included Ancient Greek Philosophy (esp. Plato, Aristotle), and Ancient Chinese Philosophy (esp. Classical Confucianism).
He served on the Editorial Boards of "History of Philosophy Quarterly" (2002-2005), "World Philosophy" (2000-present), "Frontiers in Philosophy" (2006–present), the Chinese translation of the "Complete Works of Aristotle" (1988-1998), and the book series on "Chinese and Comparative Philosophy" (New York: Global Publications). He received the University's Exceptional Scholar (Young Investigator) Award, as well as the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2002. He was appointed a 2003–2004 Fellow at the National Humanities Center and a SUNY Buffalo Humanities Institute Faculty Fellow in the spring of 2008.
Yu served as Director of the Confucius Institute at SUNY Buffalo. He was a Wu Yuzhang Chair Professor (2007-2009) at Renmin University of China, and a Changjiang Chair Professor at Shandong University. Yu also served as President (2012-2013) and Executive Director (2012-2016) of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy (ISCP).
On November 3, 2016, Yu died from cancer in Buffalo, New York at age 52.


Zettabyte


Geoff Holder

Geoff Holder is a British author. He has written twenty non-fiction books on the paranormal, as well as on unusual and unexplained events and objects. His works include "The Jacobites and the Supernatural" and "101 Things to Do with a Stone Circle", "Scottish Bodysnatchers" and nine titles in "The Guide to the Mysterious..." series, covering subjects throughout Britain.
His work encompasses folklore, archaeology, local history, parapsychology, ghosts, Forteana, neo-antiquarianism, witchcraft, gargoyles and graveyards.
He also actively participates to paranormal investigations as a member of The Ghost Club.
Early life and education.
Geoff Holder was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1958, and grew up within the city, before later relocating to Perthshire. Holder cites an interest in dinosaurs, dragons and all things mythological as an inspiration for his future career.
He spent three years studying with the Open University, achieving qualifications in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Popular Culture. This was furthered by a degree in Film and Media studies at the University of Stirling as a mature student, followed by a postgraduate diploma at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee.
Whilst attending Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, he recreated the story of the Garden of Eden on stop-motion film, using figurines from various sci-fi series to play the roles. The cast included He-Man as Jehovah, a Dalek as Samael, and dinosaurs in various supporting roles.
Career.
Throughout his working life, he held jobs including public footpath surveyor, coal shoveller, arts festival assistant, factory worker, fruit picker, civil servant and turkey slaughterhouse worker.
Holder worked as a scriptwriter and producer for production company Speakeasy Productions, in Stanley, Perthshire, writing and producing works including "Scotland: The Mysterious Country", a documentary series for STV, and "The Mary Millington Story", which aired on Channel 4.
His early work included contributions to the Perthshire Advertiser, submitting the weekly column "Mysterious Perthshire". His other early journalistic work included pieces on travel and motorbike culture.
Literary works.
"The Guide to Mysterious Perthshire" was published in December 2006 by Tempus Publishing (now The History Press).
Since then he has written more than twenty books, including "Paranormal Dundee", "The Guide to Mysterious Skye & Lochalsh", "The Guide to Mysterious Glasgow" and "The Guide to the Mysterious Lake District".


The Carrie Diaries (TV series)

The Carrie Diaries is an American teen comedy-drama television series that aired for two seasons on The CW from January 14, 2013, to January 31, 2014. It is a prequel to the HBO television series "Sex and the City" and based on the 2010 book of the same name by Candace Bushnell. The first season focuses on Carrie Bradshaw (AnnaSophia Robb) during her junior year of high school in 1984 as she explores life in New York City while interning at a law firm office, and also secretly working at a magazine company, while the second season focuses more on her expanding life in the city as well as the lives of her friends and boyfriend.
The pilot was picked up by The CW to a series order of 13 episodes in May 2012. Four months into the first season, the network renewed "The Carrie Diaries" for a second season, which premiered in October 2013. In May 2014, The CW canceled the series after two seasons.
Production.
Development.
In September 2011, it was officially announced that The CW was moving forward with a television series as a prequel to the original series, based on "The Carrie Diaries". The project is produced by "Gossip Girl" producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. Former "Sex and the City" writer Amy B. Harris penned the adaptation.
On January 18, 2012, The CW ordered a pilot of "The Carrie Diaries". The project will continue to be helmed by executive producers Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage, Len Goldstein and Candace Bushnell. On May 11, 2012, the pilot was picked up to series. On May 9, 2013, The CW renewed "The Carrie Diaries" for a second season. It received an order for 13 episodes.
Casting.
On February 15, 2012, the series' first role was cast. Stefania Owen has landed the part of Carrie Bradshaw's 14-year-old sister Dorrit. She's described as rebelling in the most obvious of ways: dyeing her hair, getting arrested, acting out. Dorrit is desperate for attention and willing to get it any way she can. On February 27, 2012, it was announced that AnnaSophia Robb had won the role of the young Carrie Bradshaw. On February 28, Katie Findlay and Ellen Wong joined her. Wong will play Carrie's best friend in high school, Jill Chen. Also known as 'The Mouse', Jill is said to be intelligent and loyal. Findlay will star in the project as Carrie's oldest friend Maggie Landers, the police chief's daughter. Whereas Carrie is beginning to explore Manhattan, Maggie has no desire to leave her town. On March 2, 2012, Deadline reported that Austin Butler has been cast as the male lead. Butler will play Sebastian Kydd, a brooding heartthrob and ultimate insider who always plays the outsider. His presence at Carrie's school will shake things up in a big way. On March 4, 2012, Deadline announced that Freema Agyeman has been cast in the pilot as Larissa, a hip, cutting-edge editor and party girl who works at "Interview" magazine and is Carrie's mentor. On the same day, Brendan Dooling, who originally auditioned for the role of Sebastian, joined the cast as Walt, Carrie's gay friend. On March 9, 2012, Deadline reported that Matt Letscher had been cast as Carrie's father. On March 14, 2012, it was announced that Chloe Bridges had been cast as Carrie's nemesis Donna LaDonna.
On July 20, 2013, E! News reported that actress Lindsey Gort was cast as Samantha Jones for the second season. English model Poppy Delevingne also auditioned for the role.
After the show's cancellation, showrunner Amy B. Harris revealed that had the show been renewed for a third season, Miranda Hobbes would have been introduced as Mouse's roommate at Harvard.
Reception.
Critical response.
"The Carrie Diaries" has received mixed reviews. Metacritic gave the first season a score of 57% based on 23 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews," based on 23 critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave season 1 an approval rating of 66% based on 38 reviews, with an average score of 6.2/10. The site's consensus reads: "AnnaSophia Robb is charming as the lead in "The Carrie Diaries", even if this "Sex and the City" spinoff sometimes suffers from overwrought narration and so-so writing.
Gail Pennington of the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" said "The CW's attempt to capture the magic of "Sex and the City" in a prequel, set in 1984, could have gone very wrong. But "The Carrie Diaries" is surprisingly right." Marisa LaScala of PopMatters says "The rest of the show goes on to prize sweetness over superficiality." Alan Sepinwall of Hitfix describes "The new series succeeds on its own nostalgic terms."
The second season opened with generally more favorable reviews. "Rotten Tomatoes" gave it a score of 100%, based on 7 reviews, and praised the introduction of Lindsey Gort as iconic "Sex and the City" character Samantha Jones.
Broadcasts.
In the United States, on its first season, "The Carrie Diaries" aired on The CW on Mondays at 8:00 pm as a lead-in for "90210" and then streamed on The CW's website. The show moved to Fridays for its second season and it premiered on October 25, having been paired with "America's Next Top Model". In Canada, the series airs on Citytv, and premiered January 14, 2013. In Latin America, the series premiered on Boomerang on May 20, 2013.
In Asia-Pacific, "The Carrie Diaries" started airing in Australia on January 15, 2013, on FOX8. In Malaysia, the series premiered on March 5, 2013 on 8TV, in New Zealand, the show aired on TV2 and in the Philippines, the series premiered on ETC on January 21, 2013. In Bulgaria the series aired for the first time from July 1 to August 5, 2015 on bTV Lady.


Kepler (lunar crater)

Kepler is a lunar impact crater that lies between the Oceanus Procellarum to the west and Mare Insularum in the east. To the southeast is the crater Encke. Kepler is named for the 17th century German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler.
Description.
Kepler is most notable for the prominent ray system that covers the surrounding mare. The rays extend for well over 300 kilometers, overlapping the rays from other craters. Kepler has a small rampart of ejecta surrounding the exterior of its high rim. The outer wall is not quite circular, and possesses a slightly polygonal form. The interior walls of Kepler are slumped and slightly terraced, descending to an uneven floor and a minor central rise.
One of the rays from Tycho, when extended across the Oceanus Procellarum, intersects this crater. This was a factor in the choice of the crater's name when Giovanni Riccioli was creating his system of lunar nomenclature, as Kepler used the observations of Tycho Brahe while devising his three laws of planetary motion. On Riccioli's maps, this crater was named "Keplerus", and the surrounding skirt of higher albedo terrain was named "Insulara Ventorum".
Due to its prominent rays, Kepler is mapped as part of the Copernican System.
Satellite craters.
By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint that is closest to Kepler.


The Bourgeois

The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature is a 2013 book by literary scholar Franco Moretti. In the book, Moretti examines the concept of the bourgeois as it has developed in European literature.
Reception.
Valerie Sanders, writing about "The Bourgeois" in "Times Higher Education", described the book as follows: "Moretti’s purpose, in this short, epigrammatic study of a class that sits awkwardly in the power structure it supposedly influences, is to examine the bourgeois 'refracted through the prism of literature.' His contention, by the end, is that after industrialisation the class bifurcates into two ideal types, 'the good Bürger' and the 'creative destroyer,' irreconcilable in their values."
John Plotz, reviewing "The Bourgeois" in "Victorian Studies", found some weaknesses in Moretti's approach: "This functionalist credo lies at the core of The "Bourgeois": Moretti presumes that we can say what a text is by saying what it did to the society on which it was initially unleashed. It is a reading strategy that reveals much but that can also overlook some synchronic interpretive frameworks, and understate the diachronic afterlives of texts that are not totally defined by that site of original production."
However, despite those misgivings, Plotz saw Moretti's book as having immense value, stating that Moretti's "insights become crucial ways of locating important resemblances between novels that share similar strategies despite their surface discrepancies. Taken all in all, there’s no scholar around I’m more eager to read, nobody by whom I’m more provoked and inspired."
Michael Adam Carroll in "Romance Quarterly" concluded that Moretti's book was an excellent one: "Moretti writes an excellent survey that begins to tie together two centuries of literature and its social influences... Moretti applies a critical eye to literature, supported by a keen understanding of social critique, answering scholars’ recent call to fill the gap left between humanistic and structuralist approaches."
Stephen E. Roulac, reviewing "The Bourgeois" in the "New York Journal of Books", applauded the book: "Franco Moretti offers a rewarding, thought provoking, mind expanding excursion through evolving social order of recent times. A highly personalized partisan essay, with no encyclopedic ambitions, "The Bourgeois" is an informed, engaging, entertaining, exploration of how capitalism created and then destroyed the 'middle state' of society."