… I ever loved thee,lady mine,and yet my love increases: Rhodian Portrait Ceramics and Cultural Dialogue in the Mediterranean

The medieval city of Rhodes kept a secure position as artistic and commercial crossroads, where pottery was the most intensely traded commodity. Here, I focus on a group of fifteenth-century ceramics decorated with profile busts of men and women excavated there, near the Orthodox Church of St. Spyridon. Used in a culturally complex urban centre, these vessels borrowed elements of design, and the concept of portrait-ceramics and love pots from Italy, where spouses and lovers exchanged such objects as ritual gifts. I explore the patronage, production, and function of these ceramics within the specifics of Rhodes, to see how they were suited to serve this cosmopolitan society governed by the Hospitaller Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, while displaying comparable feelings of power and (romantic) character common in Italian portraiture.     

Michaud,Montrond, Mazloum and the First History of the Crusades in Arabic

This short notice provides a novel and preliminary analysis of the source for the first Arabic history of the crusades, and contributes to the understanding of the penetration of the crusades as a distinct phenomenon into the Islamic world. The Arabic history, Min Ta?rīkh al-?urūb al-muqaddasa fī l-mashriq al-mad?ūwa ?arb al-?alīb was published in Jerusalem in 1865 under the authorship of the (late) Melkite patriarch, Maximos III Mazloum (d. 1855). The book was a modified translation of the French Les Guerres saintes d’Outre-Mer, ou tableau des croisades, retracé d’après les chroniques contemporaines, published in 1840 by Maxime de Montrond, who was heavily inspired by Michaud's Histoire des croisades. Though created in a Christian Francophile milieu, it seems clear that the Arabic translation was intended not only for a Christian audience, but also for a Muslim readership, as evidenced by examples, provided here, of the modifications of the French original.     

Information Management in Smart Cities: Turning end users’ views into multi-item scale development,validation, and policy-making recommendations

Smart-cities research has established itself as one of the most dynamic fields in research today, accommodating scholars from diverse disciplines, including engineering and computer science as well as social sciences. Even if only tacitly, the resultant debate increasingly oscillates around how the effective use of information and communication technology (ICT) might render cities and urban space better places. This article responds to this imperative by suggesting how to capture users’ views and perceptions of smart city services and applications and in this way enrich the decision- and policy-making processes. It is argued that by developing appropriate scales these otherwise subjective views and perceptions may be objectivized and hence made of great use to managers and policymakers. Accordingly, in this research, a process of scale development is conducted in four phases of both inductive and deductive methods. Following initial rounds of focus groups and assessment by experts, an international survey was conducted with 295 participants from Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Arab Peninsula, and other regions. The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS 24 and AMOS 20 tools. The study proposes a 20-item scale in five distinct dimensions: Technology anxiety; Work–life interface; Engagement orientation; Support orientation; and Quality of life. The significant theoretical and managerial implications are discussed to demonstrate how to manage information for the benefit of all stakeholders involved in the making of a smart city.     

Testing Leader–Member Exchange Theory as a Lens to Understand Students’ Classroom Justice Perceptions and Antisocial Communication

The purpose of this study was to test whether leader–member exchange theory (LMX) offers an explanatory lens for the program of classroom justice research. To that end, relationships among justice, LMX, and antisocial communication were explored. Findings indicated that perceptions of justice and LMX were positively related. Likewise, perceptions of interactional and procedural justice negatively predicted indirect interpersonal aggression, hostility, and revenge. Similarly, LMX perceptions were negatively related to students’ hostility and revenge and mediated the relationships between students’ perceptions of distributive justice and these outcomes. LMX also moderated the relationships between students’ perceptions of classroom justice and indirect interpersonal aggression and deception. Implications, limitations, and future research are discussed.     

聋生与听力正常学生在非对称性视觉搜索中的比较研究

为了比较聋生和听力正常学生在非对称性视觉搜索中的差异,本实验选取了20名聋生和20名听力正常学生作为被试,以中文汉字作为实验材料,采用传统的视觉搜索实验范式进行了研究。结果显示,在对中文汉字的视觉搜索中同样能够明显地发现非对称性现象;聋生和听力正常学生一样,也在视觉搜索中表现出非对称性,但随着视觉搜索任务难度的增大,聋生比听力正常学生表现出更高的搜索效率。     

Mapping Access and Opportunity for Students with Disabilities: Urban K–8 Schools as Pockets of Privilege

Abstract

Using a DisCrit intersectional lens and statistical and spatial methods, we trace how the creation of K-8 schools functioned to create pockets of privilege in one urban U.S. school district. K-8 schools were both whiter and wealthier than district averages, serving as “enclave” schools. Although far fewer students with disabilities were served in K-8 schools compared to traditional elementary and middle schools, those attending K-8 schools were more likely to be educated in inclusive settings.     

Educational decentralization: a review of popular discourse on Chinese–English bilingual education

Educational decentralization is a worldwide phenomenon, which takes different forms and leads to different outcomes in different socio-economic contexts. Taking Chinese–English bilingual education in Mainland China as an exemplar, this study examines how the decentralization of education has worked in China in the past two decades, and what consequences decentralization has brought about in the country. The analysis reveals that decentralization has created a favourable overall socio-economic and political context for bilingual education to develop, from a local endeavour into a nation-wide undertaking. The analysis also reveals that decentralization has allowed the diversified operation of bilingual programmes at the regional level. However, there has been a visible inconsistency and incoherence between the theoretical underpinnings of the programmes and the practice in schools and classrooms. Such an inconsistency and incoherence may have resulted from a newly reconfigured relation between the central government and local governments, as well as a lack of human or intellectual resources at the regional level, leading to some unintended educational and socio-political outcomes.     

Anatomy of a Dead Heat: Visual Evidence at the 2012 US Olympic Trials

The adoption and use of visual technologies as decision aids in professional sport is increasing at a rapid rate, yet the study of such practice is virtually non-existent. Beyond the specific play or call in question, images used as decision aids in sport have immediate and far-reaching material and cultural impacts including athlete sponsorship packages, the professional reputation and expertise of athletes and officials, and lucrative contracts for imaging and technology companies. This paper borrows Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison's work on objectivity to examine one such case: the dead heat between Jeneba Tarmoh and Allyson Felix at the 2012 US Olympic Trials. The Tarmoh/Felix dead heat involved a complex assemblage of human and machine vision, and contains within it many of the issues involved in the use of sports decision aids. The paper argues that analyses of images used as decision aids in sport have much to offer academic and non-academic audiences interested in sport and visual culture.     

Time of day and short-duration high-intensity exercise influences on coagulation and fibrinolysis

Exercise has been demonstrated to have considerable effects upon haemostasis, with activation dependent upon the duration and intensity of the exercise bout. In addition, markers of coagulation and fibrinolysis have been shown to possess circadian rhythms, peaking within the morning (0600–1200?h). Therefore, the time of day in which exercise is performed may influence the activation of the coagulation and fibrinolytic systems. This study aimed to examine coagulation and fibrinolytic responses to short-duration high-intensity exercise when completed at different times of the day. Fifteen male cyclists (VO_2max: 60.3?±?8.1?ml?kg^?1?min^?1) completed a 4-km cycling time trial (TT) on five separate occasions at 0830, 1130, 1430, 1730 and 2030. Venous blood samples were obtained pre- and immediately post-exercise, and analysed for tissue factor (TF), tissue factor pathway inhibitor (TFPI), thrombin–anti-thrombin complexes (TAT) and D-Dimer. Exercise significantly increased plasma concentrations of TF (p?p?p?p?p?=?.004) and TFPI (p?=?.031), with 0830 greater than 1730 (p .001), while 1730 was less than 2030?h (p?=?.008), respectively. There was no significant effect of time of day for TAT (p?=?.364) and D-Dimer (p?=?.228). Power output, TT time and heart rate were not significantly different between TTs (p?>?.05); however, percentage VO_2max was greater at 1730 when compared to 2030 (p?=?.04). Due to a time-of-day effect present within TF, peaking at 0830, caution should be applied when prescribing short-duration high-intensity exercise bout within the morning in populations predisposed to hypercoagulability.     

Teacher identity development through action research: a Chinese experience

This study explores how two language teachers constructed and reconstructed their professional identities through their action research (AR) facilitated by university researchers in China. Informed by the theory of ‘community of practice’, the findings of the study show that AR exerted a transformative impact on the teachers’ identity development. Four distinctive routes of identity change were noted, namely their transformation from ‘fisherman’ to ‘fishing coach’, from ‘craftsman’ to ‘teacher researcher’, from ‘lonely fighter’ to ‘collaborator’, and from ‘housekeeper’ to ‘change agent’. Such change can be attributed to their engagement and practice in different communities of practice. However, the participants’ identity development also encountered some contextual obstacles, including the rigid school curriculum, lack of research knowledge, as well as the power dynamics between them and the researchers. Several implications can be drawn for teachers, teacher educators, and school leaders to help teachers construct a solid and robust professional identity in seeking their continuing professional development through AR.