The versification of the Romansh poet Andri Peer: the heptasyllable and hendecasyllable in his early free forms

This paper examines the versification style of the Romansh poet Andri Peer, who can be considered as the first “modern” poet of the Romansh literature. It focuses on Andri Peer’s most frequently used verse lines in his early free forms: the heptasyllabic and hendecasyllabic verse. A rhythmical analysis of the single verse instances revealed that the internal organisation of the line is not very elaborate. In the case of the heptasyllables found in his early free forms, only four patterns make up over 80% of all heptasyllabic verses. Regarding Peer’s hendecasyllables, it is shown that his arrangement of the prominent syllables is rather regular, especially in comparison to the hendecasyllables of his precursor Peider Lansel. This trend in Peer’s versification to use fixed dispositions of syllables is interpreted as a compensation for the loss of other structural features such as the stanza or the rhyme

Untersuchungen zur Bestimmung der Poissonschen Konstanten an Fichtenholz

Zusammenfassung: An Fichtenholz wurden mittels inkrementaler Wegaufnehmer die E-Moduln in den drei Hauptschnittrichtungen (längs, radial, tangential) und die sechs Poissonschen Konstanten nach Klimatisierung im Normalklima bestimmt. Das Verhältnis der E-Moduln ET:ER:EL wurde mit 1:2,43:25,4 ermittelt. Es wurden folgende Poissonsche Konstanten bestimmt: μRL= 0,022, μTL=0,015, μLR=0,376, μLT= 0,420, μTR=0,335, μRT=0,64

The Semiotics of Security: Infectious Disease Research and the Biopolitics of Informational Bodies in the United States

Uncorrected proof. Supplemental material: http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/541In this article, I investigate the biopolitical economy of security as it is operating today in the United States in the context of infectious disease research. Drawing on my work with influenza researchers, I specifically show how experts have been concerned not only with the circulation of biological matter but also with the exchange of scientific information. I argue that it is a specific logic—the logic of iterability—that is at the heart of the growing concern with “sensitive information” published in scientific journals. How has the concern with sensitive information affected infectious disease research in the United States in the past few years? How has the logic of iterability reconfigured microbiological notions of the normal and the pathological? And what might an anthropological analysis of the biopolitical economy of security be able to tell us about the ways in which “life” is made a new political concern today?Funding for this research was provided by the Swiss National Science Foundation

A framework for assessing the salience of landmarks for wayfinding tasks

Background: Landmarks play an important role for the understanding of and reasoning about physical large-scale space. Landmarks also play an important role in every day's spatial tasks, such as wayfinding and navigation. The property of being a landmark has so far been attributed to distinct objects, which are either well known or otherwise unique, such as the Eiffel Tower or a lighthouse on the shore. We propose a framework for the assessment of the landmarkedness of potential landmarks for wayfinding tasks, which is based on the relationship between observer, physical environment, and potential landmark. We argue that landmarkedness is not an inherent property of some object, but rather the result of this tri-lateral configuration. The basic idea is to use this configuration to define the individual components that contribute to the total salience of the object and integrate them in a coherent framework. Main contribution: The framework considers two types of salience: (1) the perceptual salience, which describes the potential of a feature to capture a wayfinder's attention (attentional capture), and (2) the cognitive salience, which explains how strong attention is guided by the wayfinder (attentional orienting). The assessment of the perceptual salience is based on the salience of the incoming stimuli, the perceived concepts, and the spatial layout of a scene, while the cognitive salience considers the subjective importance of the object with respect to the individual's context and knowledge. The most general requirement of a landmark is that it must be salient in some sense. This requires that it contrast with the environment, either in terms of its attributes (i.e., color, texture, etc.), the status of the perceived concept (i.e., church or commercial building), or due to its spatial location with respect to the other objects in the scene (i.e., in the middle of town). Such contrast, however, is only perceivable if the potential landmark is visible from the observer's current point of view. Therefore, for assessing an object's landmarkedness, we consider attributes, objects, and relations to other visible objects only. In addition to the salience perceived from physical contrast, the cognitive abilities of the observer play an important role in selecting appropriate objects for reference. This subjective selection implies that the context, together with our knowledge, thoughts and preconceptions shape what we perceive and finally select as reference for making decisions, which directly influences the assessment of the relative importance or salience of potential landmarks. The assessment of the salience of potential landmarks, hence, needs to consider cognitive aspects, along with the perceptual stimuli. Implications: The accurate assessment of the relative importance of geographic objects is a crucial aspect of many wayfinding-related tools and applications, such as route generation and description algorithms, navigation systems, or location-based services. The integration of appropriate landmarks in such applications decreases the cognitive load put on the wayfinder, and hence increases efficiency and reliability of the application

Ausbilden in der Praxis : eine Handvoll Empfehlungen

Text ist in Form eines Leporellos/einer Broschüre erschienen.Einleitung: 240 Physiotherapiestudierende der Züricher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften erleben 1- bis 3-mal wöchentlich ein typisches Lernsetting im Praktikum: Die Patientensituation unter Supervision. Eine wichtige Ausbildungssituation an der Studierende, Praxisausbildende und Patienten beteiligt sind. Dieses Lernsetting ist für Studierende ein lernförderliches Angebot, um Theorien und erlernte Skills mit praktischem Handeln zu verbinden und Erfahrungen gemeinsam zu reflektieren. In einem Projekt des BSc Physiotherapie wurde mit fokussiertem Blick auf dieses typische Lernsetting die Frage untersucht, welche Bedingungen diese Situation positiv beeinflussen und das Gelingen unterstützen. Methode: Mittels einer Literaturrecherche wurden Studien, Fachartikel und Buchbeiträge zur Thematik Ausbildung im Praktikum gesucht und auf die Fragestellung hin analysiert. Die Datenbanken Medline, Cinahl, Nebis, Deutscher Bildungsserver und Eric wurden nach Literatur durchsucht. Die Texte wurden nach Gelingensbedingungen, welche das beschriebene Lernsetting im Praktikum positiv beeinflussen, durchforscht. Zusätzlich wurden 4 Experteninterviews durchgeführt. Die Befragten beurteilten die einzelnen Faktoren anhand langjähriger Erfahrung Ergebnisse: Die Untersuchung ergab, dass folgende Gelingensbedingungen massgebend zum Gelingen des Lernsettings beitragen: 1. Werte, Haltungen und Kultur 2. Zeit und Raum 3. Rollenklarheit 4. Vorbesprechung 5. Echter Dialog 6. Reflexion Diskussion/ Schlussfolgerung: So heterogen sich die Ausbildungssituationen und Institutionen auch präsentieren, zeigt es sich, dass mit wenigen, aber entscheidenden Komponenten gewinnbringend auf die Ausbildungssituation eingewirkt werden kann. Die Resultate der Untersuchung sollen in ansprechenden Formaten implementiert werden. Beispiele für die Anwendung: • Basis für die Schulung von Praxisausbildenden • Anregung zu teaminternen Diskussionen über das Ausbilden • Grundlage von Reflexionsprozessen bei Ausbildende

On the assessment of landmark salience for human navigation

In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework for assessing the salience of landmarks for navigation. Landmark salience is derived as a result of the observer's point of view, both physical and cognitive, the surrounding environment, and the objects contained therein. This is in contrast to the currently held view that salience is an inherent property of some spatial feature. Salience, in our approach, is expressed as a three-valued Saliency Vector. The components that determine this vector are Perceptual Salience, which defines the exogenous (or passive) potential of an object or region for acquisition of visual attention, Cognitive Salience, which is an endogenous (or active) mode of orienting attention, triggered by informative cues providing advance information about the target location, and Contextual Salience, which is tightly coupled to modality and task to be performed. This separation between voluntary and involuntary direction of visual attention in dependence of the context allows defining a framework that accounts for the interaction between observer, environment, and landmark. We identify the low-level factors that contribute to each type of salience and suggest a probabilistic approach for their integration. Finally, we discuss the implications, consider restrictions, and explore the scope of the framewor