Dubious Early Medieval Jewels from Matzhausen (Bavaria): New Material and Technological Investigations

ABSTRACT

A controversial set of elite jewels assumed to be of early medieval period, recovered in 1937–1938 from a burial site in Matzhausen (northeastern Bavaria) was investigated to determine their technological coherency as well as their authenticity. The discovery of these jewels was exploited by German nationalists to argue that the material culture observed in Bohemia and Moravia in the ninth century had Germanic roots. The circumstances of their discovery, however, remain unclear. Research in archives demonstrated the involvement of the SS Ahnenerbe organisation in the recovery of the jewels. Are these jewels authentic or are they forgeries manufactured or modified by a modern craftsman to serve German expansionist nationalism? Three jewels recovered in the grave – a gombik (hollow spherical pendant), an earring with chainlet, and a zoomorphic figurine – were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-radiography, and stereomicroscopy. The investigation revealed a very heterogeneous set of objects with respect to technology and state of preservation. It also uncovered repairs and past invasive interventions involving modern metal and solder. Comparison with similar types of jewels from Bohemia and Moravia points to important differences in construction and technology, which confirms the uniqueness of this set of objects and casts suspicion on their authenticity.     

What publishers can take away from the latest early career researcher research

Key points

• Early career researchers (ECRs) consider journals the central form of communication – but are concerned about pressure to publish.
• ECRs want to share but currently accept the closed publishing system because of the need to build a traditional reputation.
• ECRs know – and appear to care – little about publishers but trust them as publishing and reviewing facilitators.
• Editors are criticized for not managing peer review with better selection of reviewers.
• Megajournals are not seen as the future journal form and criticized for lack of selectivity.
• ECRs want open access/science in principle but are circumspect about their contribution to it.
• ResearchGate is a key force for change as ECRs consider it a mainstay communication and reputation platform.

     

Outside the library: Early career researchers and use of alternative information sources in pandemic times

Presents findings from a study into the attitudes and practices of pandemic-era early career researchers (ECRs) in regard to obtaining access to the formally published scholarly literature, which focused on alternative providers, notably ResearchGate and Sci-Hub. The study is a part of the Harbingers project that has been exploring the work lives and scholarly communication practices of ECRs in pre-pandemic times and during the pandemic, and utilizes data from two rounds of interviews with around 170 ECRs from the sciences and social sciences in eight countries. Findings show that alternative providers, as represented by ResearchGate and Sci-Hub, have become established and appear to be gaining ground. However, there are considerable country- and discipline-associated differences. ECRs' country-specific level of usage of the alternative providers is partly traceable to the adequacy of library provisions, although there are other factors at play in shaping ECRs' attitudes and practices, most notably convenience and time saving, as well as the fact that these platforms have become embedded in the scholarly dashboard. There is a dearth of evidence of the impact of the pandemic on ECRs' ways of obtaining scholarly papers.     

Socratic teaching is not teaching,but direct transmission is: Notes from 13 to 15-year olds' conceptions of teaching

We studied what 13–15-year-olds believe teaching's components are. Thirty-six children viewed two films: direct transmission (DT) and Socratic teaching (ST) and a third film of a non-teaching conversation (C). We investigated the participants' understanding of teaching's components and the role of intentionality in teaching. All children judged that DT was teaching and that ST and the C were not. After revealing the teacher's intention to teach or its lack, nobody changed their judgments. Two explanations for these are the extent of exposure to teaching and that very young children in early childhood already hold a DT view of teaching.     

Trust and Authority in Scholarly Communications in the Light of the Digital Transition: setting the scene for a major study

The paper provides the results of the first phase of the research project Trust and Authority in Scholarly Communications in the Light of the Digital Transition. It provides for an examination of the behaviours and attitudes of academic researchers as producers and consumers of scholarly information resources in the digital era in respect to how they determine authority and trustworthiness in the sources they use, cite, and publish in. The first phase of the study utilized focus groups to formulate research questions for the project as a whole. It provided the direction for the literature review, interviews, and questionnaires studies that would follow. Fourteen focus groups were held in the UK and US in order to obtain this information. A total of 66 science and social science researchers participated. The main findings were: (a) researchers play down difficulties of establishing trustworthiness, not because there are none, but because they have well‐developed methods of establishing trust; (b) citation‐derived metrics are becoming more important in regard to where researchers publish; (c) social media are ancillary to research, but are used for promotion of research and idea generation; (d) researchers are suspicious and confused about open access, but less so if produced by a traditional publisher; (e) there was a uniformity of perceptions/behaviour of researchers irrespective of differences in subject, country, and age; (f) although some early career researchers behave the same as their more senior colleagues this is because of a fear of the system: they actually think differently.     

Attachment,self-esteem and test anxiety in adolescence and early adulthood

The purpose of this study was to assess how attachment dimensions (anxiety and avoidance), self-esteem, and three subscales of test anxiety – cognitive obstruction, social derogation and tenseness are related in two age groups: adolescents and college students. Participants (N?=?327) completed relevant questionnaires. Results showed that college students revealed higher test anxiety than did high school students on the cognitive obstruction and tenseness scales, whereas high school students revealed higher social derogation than college students. Anxious attachment was related to all three sub-scales of test anxiety and avoidant attachment was related to cognitive obstruction among college students and to tenseness among high school students. Most of the correlations between anxious attachment and test anxiety were mediated by self-esteem among high school students. The mediation ability of self-esteem was weaker among college students.     

Role Taking Ability,Nonverbal Sensitivity,Language and Social Adjustment of Deaf Adolecents

The relationships between social‐cognitive processes, language, and social‐behavioural skills were evaluated by analyzing the data of 68 deaf students, aged 14 to 2o years, who attended special education classes with vocational orientation. The social‐cognitive processes included Role Taking Ability (RTA) and Non‐Verbal Sensitivity (NVS). Language was evaluated by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and by a test of Emotional Vocabulary (EV). Social‐behavioural skills were assessed by Goldstein, Sparfkin, Greshaw and Klein's (1980) Social Skills Checklist. The social‐behavioural skills were used as indicators of social adjustment. The results revealed low performance in all the social‐cognitive abilities. Language played a major role in social adjustment. However, the availability of specific emotional vocabulary was not a better predictor of social adjustment than general language ability. Although RTA was associated with social adjustment, this association was related to language ability, and RTA did not add a unique contribution to the explanation of social adjustment. NVS emerged as an important, special and independent social‐cognitive ability. The results were discussed in relation to the function of language in social cognition.