An evaluation of DIADEM assisted online form completion

The DIADEM project aims to develop a web-based application in the form of an Expert System (ES) to assist cognitively impaired older-adult users in the task of interacting with and completing online transactions. Having recently developed the first experimental version of the application, this study reports on the preliminary findings of user trials carried out in three European countries top evaluate this early version of the application. Of the 94 users that took part in the trials, 77 were identified as users that were likely to present with some degree of mild cognitive impairment, and thus were included in the analysis stage. The key findings of the study indicate that users of DIADEM assisted form filling seemed report comparatively high-levels of satisfaction, particularly when considered against what is considered a typical level of satisfaction for this user group. Furthermore, as a result of a statistical analysis, the application appears to provide significantly increased levels of assistance for users presenting with higher levels of cognitive impairments, and therefore achieves its goal of catering for this particular target user group

Transformational government and assistive web base technologies

Transformational government has been on the European agenda for several years. However, progress towards realising the full potential of ICT to transform public services for older adults with age related cognitive impairments has been very limited. Highlighting such limitations this paper demonstrates how assistive web base technologies can be developed to improve the public services for older adults with age related cognitive impairments. However the paper argues that these transformations can be obstructed if there is no strong leadership and political commitment from people at many levels in public sectors and governments

'Stalking the stalker': a Chwezi initiation into spirit possession and experiential structure

Among Sukuma (Tanzania) the Chwezi spirit society operates in the shadow of, and in tension with, the lineage cults domesticating the dead. As this ethnography describes, Chwezi candidates are initiated into spirit possession by 'stalking the stalker', that is, by seeking synchrony with intrusion. Recognition of the healing and of the power/resistance in spirit performances once resuscitated anthropology from its crisis of representation, but now arrests advance. Both functions obscure possession itself, which, unlike rituals, has a subversive, 'quaternary' structure that reveals the gap between experience and communication, and thus decentres both self and society. Spirit possession exposes the plurality of experiential structures. This may better account for its role world-wide in dialectics of social resistance and of cathartic healing

That Undisclosed World: Eric Shipton’s Mountains of Tartary (1950).

Mountains of Tartary (1950) recounts Eric Shipton’s mountaineering and travels in Xinjiang during his two postings as British Consul-General in Kashgar in the 1940s. An accomplished Himalayan mountaineer of the 1930s, Shipton was a successful author of mountaineering travel books. During the 1930s his work with the Survey of India saw him increasingly drawn into the workings of the imperial security state in the geopolitically sensitive border regions of the Karakoram. Shipton’s proven ability to travel in arduous mountain terrain and gather geographical intelligence led to his posting to Kashgar. Details of his diplomatic work are almost entirely absent from Mountains of Tartary and only became known in outline in 1969, with the publication of his autobiography. With unparalleled knowledge of the geo-political situation in Xinjiang in the 1940s, Shipton was prevented from publishing anything that revealed the details of his role in Great Game politics in 1950, not least by the fact that he still held a consular position in Kunming, Yunnan. Thus at the heart of Mountains of Tartary is an occlusion. This paper will examine the rhetorical strategies Shipton employed in writing a book in which so much had to remain undisclosed. He was aware that the roles he played, as mountaineer, explorer and traveller had multiple meanings on the borders of British India, that to situate his narrative within an Orientalist and Great Game tradition risked unwanted disclosure. The essential unreliability of the narrative emerges as a consequence of writing under such constraints. Intentionally aporetic, the text is riven by chronological and biographical voids, unintentionally reveals the strain of inhabiting multiple personas and keeping track of the competing demands of different audiences. Shipton’s failure of self-censorship erupts in transgressive revelations, concealed messages to certain sections of his readership able to read between the lines, revealing Mountains of Tartary to be a steganographic text, one that needs not just decoding but looking beyond, to what is undisclosed and unsaid

La estela antropomorfa de Monte dos Zebros (Idanha-a-Nova). Su contextualización en el grupo de estelas diademadas de la Península Ibérica

This paper describes an anthropomorphic stele found in 1996 at Monte dos Zebros (Idanha-a-Nova, Beira Interior Sul, Portugal). It is a small monolith, incomplete in the lower part and much eroded, particularly on the posterior surface, as a result of exposure to the elements. The monument may be related to a burial mound, probably not of the megalithic type and dating to the Bronze Age, like others in the region. The stele described here has its closest parallel in the stele of Crato, as regards both the shape of the base and the iconography represented. Thus, like that one, it is probably one of the earliest examples in a long continuous series of female steles (indicated by the presence of diadems and “necklaces” and, in a few cases, the female genital organs) produced between the Early Bronze Age and the Late Bronze Age.Se describe una estela antropomorfa encontrada en 1996 en Monte dos Zebros (Idanha-a-Nova, Beira Interior Sul, Portugal), consistente en un pequeño monolito, incompleto en su parte inferior y muy erosionado en la posterior por la acción de los elementos. El monolito pudo estar relacionado con un túmulo funerario, probablemente no de tipo megalítico sino de la Edad del Bronce como otros de la misma región. Su paralelo más próximo es la estela de Crato, tanto por la forma como por la iconografía representada. Por ello, igual que ésta, se trata probablemente de uno de los primeros ejemplos de una larga y continua serie de estelas femeninas (indicadas por la presencia de diademas, collares y, en unos pocos casos, órganos genitales femeninos) que se erigieron entre la Edad del Bronce Antiguo y el Bronce Final

Building the Egyptian Canon in Early 20th-century Germany: The Case Study of Georg Steindorff’s Excavations

This thesis is a historiographic study of Germany Egyptology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with particular focus on how the different stakeholders involved in that academic environment – scholars, curators, donors and financiers, the German museum-going public, as well as Egyptian people who worked on archaeological excavations – influenced the development of the scholarly canon of ancient Egyptian art. The “canon” is an art historical concept from designating certain objects, styles, and forms as representative of a culture, time period, or artistic movement. Consequently, the canon establishes an artistic hierarchy according to European aesthetic standards that excludes types falling outside of its criteria. The major case study of this thesis involves the career of German Egyptologist Georg Steindorff, who worked as a museum curator at the Ägyptisches Museum in Leipzig as well as a field archaeologist in Egypt from the years 1903-1931. Three ancient Egyptian objects in the collection of the Ägyptisches Museum in Leipzig will be analyzed in depth: a miniature wooden boat model, a diadem, and a block statue. All of these objects were excavated or curated by Steindorff at different pivotal moments of his career; thus, they reflect the shifting priorities of this prominent Egyptologist as he responded to broader trends and pressures in assessing the types of objects considered most important in the canon of ancient Egyptian art. This thesis builds on existing scholarship by providing a new and enriching perspective to Steindorff’s life and legacy. Each object case study reveals Steindorff’s major contributions to his field and the importance of challenging Eurocentric readings of objects while also accurately documenting and addressing the perspectives present within modern Europe during Steindorff’s era. The primary argument of this thesis is that scholars like Steindorff were conducting excavations and making key curatorial and display decisions in response to a growing scholarly understanding of what constituted the core importance of ancient Egyptian artifacts. Amidst German Egyptologists shaping the canon of Egyptian art, Steindorff indecisively judged rare ancient objects that both aligned with and defied canonical standards. His uncertainty reflected his internal conflicts as a developing excavator and the underlying problems of the canon when applied to ancient Egyptian art. The decisions that Steindorff eventually made regarding the found objects reflected the complexities of the canon and ultimately helped dictate how ancient Egypt was portrayed to the modern museum-going public in Germany. Museums with Egyptian collections that are founded on such decisions must now reflect on what messages and agendas they project onto museum goers and require new solutions to address the longstanding issue of the canon. Germany similarly wanted to not only gain further knowledge of Persia through excavations but also remain politically competitive with the other major Western powers

La estela antropomorfa de Monte dos Zebros (Idanha-a-Nova): su contextualización en el grupo de estelas-diadema de la Península Ibérica

This paper describes an anthropomorphic stele found in 1996 at Monte dos Zebros (Idanha-a-Nova, Beira Interior Sul, Portugal). It is a small monolith, incomplete in the lower part and much eroded, particularly on the posterior surface, as a result of exposure to the elements. The monument may be related to a burial mound, probably not of the megalithic type and dating to the Bronze Age, like others in the region. The stele described here has its closest parallel in the stele of Crato, as regards both the shape of the base and the iconography represented. Thus, like that one, it is probably one of the earliest examples in a long continuous series of female steles (indicated by the presence of diadems and “necklaces” and, in a few cases, the female genital organs) produced between the Early Bronze Age and the Late Bronze Age.Se describe una estela antropomorfa encontrada en 1996 en Monte dos Zebros (Idanha-a-Nova, Beira Interior Sul, Portugal), consistente en un pequeño monolito, incompleto en su parte inferior y muy erosionado en la posterior por la acción de los elementos. El monolito pudo estar relacionado con un túmulo funerario, probablemente no de tipo megalítico sino de la Edad del Bronce como otros de la misma región. Su paralelo más próximo es la estela de Crato, tanto por la forma como por la iconografía representada. Por ello, igual que ésta, se trata probablemente de uno de los primeros ejemplos de una larga y continua serie de estelas femeninas (indicadas por la presencia de diademas, collares y, en unos pocos casos, órganos genitales femeninos) que se erigieron entre la Edad del Bronce Antiguo y el Bronce Final

Anagram by Computer

In a recent issue of Word Ways, Harry Stern closed an otherwise wonderful article by impugning the value of computers in finding anagrams. Since I have no talent for finding them by hand, and rely almost entirely on a program, I felt I should rise on behalf of the anagram-impaired--and to defend the honor of the anagram software