Italian futurism visualized diverse types of motion, which had been rooted in pervasive kinetic and vehicular forces generated during a period of dramatic modernization in the early 20th century. ...Yet, as David Mather's sweeping intellectual and art historical scholarship demonstrates, it was the camera- not the engine-that proved to be the primary invention against which many futurist ideas and practices were measured. Overturning several misconceptions about Italian futurism's interest in the disruptive and destructive effects of technology, Futurist Conditions provides a refreshing update to the historical narrative by arguing that the formal and conceptual approaches by futurist visual artists reoriented the possibly dehumanizing effects of mechanized imagery toward more humanizing, spiritual aims. Through its sustained analysis of the artworks and writings of Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, and the Bragaglia brothers, dating to the first decade after the movement's founding in 1909, Mather's account of their obsession with kinetic motion pivots around a 1913 debate on the place and relative import of photography among traditional artistic mediums-a debate culminating in the expulsion of the Bragaglias, but one that also prompted a range of productive responses by other futurist artists to world-changing social, political, and economic conditions.
It has been argued that dyslexia may develop in strongly left eye dominant children through learning to write using ipsilateral, right hemisphere motor pathways. New light on this theory has been ...cast by recent findings of atypical enhanced corpus callosum white matter in children with dyslexia, reflecting right to left hemisphere communication that is resistant to intensive remedial reading intervention. Enhanced corpus callosum white matter is consistent with uninhibited right to left hemisphere ipsilateral mirror-motor innervation, manifested as frequent mirror-letter writing errors in children with dyslexia. Delaying writing instruction until 7–8 years of age may prevent these errors and as well as the development of dyslexia. During the 7–8-year age period, visual-proprioceptive integration enables a child to mentally map whole word visual images onto kinesthetic/proprioceptive letter engrams (memory representations). Hypothetically, this process is facilitated by anterior commissure activity involving interhemispheric transfer of ipsilateral mirror-to-non mirror-motor movement. This postulate, involving delayed writing instruction pending further maturation, also receives indirect support from the remarkable proficiency leap among second graders reading Hebrew as Hebrew involves a leftward orthography in which ipsilateral right to left hemisphere innervation is uninhibited. Additionally, and more directly, normal reading comprehension for learning English among children with agenesis of the corpus callosum suggests that letter-sound decoding is not the sole route to proficient reading comprehension. In this paper, I make recommendations for obtaining empirical evidence of premature writing as a cause of dyslexia.
This paper uses small-scale farm survey data from five countries of eastern and southern Africa to highlight four under-appreciated issues: (i) how land distribution patterns constrain the potential ...of crop technology and input intensification to enable many small farms to escape from poverty; (ii) why most smallholders are unable to produce more than a marginal surplus or participate meaningfully in commodity markets; (iii) why most farmers are directly hurt by higher grain prices; and (iv) why the marketed agricultural surplus is exceedingly concentrated among a small group of relatively large smallholders. Policy and public investment options are reviewed in the light of these findings. There is no one future for small farms in Africa: much depends on government policy and investment decisions.
A major determinant of input subsidy programs’ effects on the achievement of national policy goals is the extent to which they raise total fertilizer use. This study synthesizes recent literature on ...how the new generation of targeted input subsidy programs has affected national fertilizer use after accounting for crowding effects, and derives benefit–cost (BC) estimates of the fertilizer subsidy programs for Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia after accounting for crowding out and diversion. We highlight two major findings. First, accounting for the illicit diversion of program fertilizer can profoundly influence estimates of how fertilizer subsidy programs affect total fertilizer use and program impacts. Given recent evidence that 33% or more of total program fertilizer may be diverted before being received by intended beneficiary farmers, the failure to account for program diversion is shown to overestimate the contribution of the subsidy programs to national fertilizer use by 67.3% in the case of Malawi, by 61.6% for Zambia, and by 138.0% for Kenya. The second major finding is that the incremental value of maize output produced from these subsidy programs is considerably less than their costs in most years, except under unusually high maize price assumptions. Conventional BC analyses that do not account for crowding out and diversion may seriously overestimate the benefits of input subsidy programs. Greater attention to program design and implementation details to reduce problems of crowding out and diversion can substantially raise the returns to such programs.
The COVID-19 pandemic produced a rapid and pervasive shift to provision of telepsychology services throughout health service psychology. Simultaneously, an equally rapid and pervasive shift to ...telesupervision of trainees has occurred, at all levels of graduate professional training. These shifts have clearly outpaced a much more gradual increase in training in telesupervision as part of the supervision competency. The authors provide an overview of the somewhat limited research on telesupervision, and propose rapid adoption of training in telesupervision for both trainees and supervisors. Several areas of research into telesupervision are proposed, including comparative efficacy and acceptance of telesupervision, the potential impact of information technology expertise on supervisory relationships, and potential differential impact of diversity factors in telesupervision as compared to in-person supervision.
Public Significance Statement
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in increased use of telesupervision in health service psychology training, despite limited research and training specific to telesupervision. Continued research and incorporation of education and practice of telesupervision to develop trainees' supervision competency could help alleviate the gap between practice and training in telesupervision beyond the pandemic.
The impact of input subsidy programs depends on the extent to which they increase fertilizer use. We used panel data of smallholder farm households from Kenya to analyse the targeting criteria of two ...fertilizer subsidy programs in Kenya and how these targeting criteria affected farmers’ commercial demand for fertilizer and total fertilizer use. We found that every kilogram of subsidized fertilizer allocated to farmers reduced the quantity of commercial fertilizer purchased by 0.40 kg, a crowding-out effect that is double those found recently in Malawi and Zambia. The large magnitude of crowding out is driven by the fact that neither subsidy program focused on reaching households that had not previously been purchasing commercial fertilizer. There is little evidence that these programs systematically focused on relatively poor households either. The programs crowded out commercial fertilizer use most severely in medium/high potential zones (relative to low), and among households in the upper half of landholding/asset distributions (relative to the lower half). Different targeting criteria could substantially increase the contribution of these subsidy programs to total fertilizer use and hence to national food production and food security.
The dominant public discourse regarding the recruitment and retention of teachers is one that is often framed in terms such as 'crisis'. Data from the Department for Education, the National Audit ...Office and bodies such as the Education and Training Foundation highlight challenges in filling vacancies across each part of the education sector. This is particularly acute in subject areas relating to Science, Engineering and Technology (SET). This paper analyses discourses relating to teacher training amongst tri-service personnel in the English context. Sources from publications such as FE Week and CTP (Career Transition Partnership) are addressed. In doing so, the paper compares educational and military sources in order to examine how the representation of a civilian teaching career varies between the two. This is about adding to the wider societal narrative regarding the ways in which military to civilian transition can be aided by the reframing of skills and experience acquired during military service.
The purpose of this study was to compare rectus abdominis and erector spinae muscle activity during isometric (prone bridge PB and superman SM) and dynamic strengthening exercises (back squat, front ...squat FS, and military press). Participants (n = 10, age 21.8 ± 2.6 years; body mass 82.65 ± 10.80 kg, 174.5± 7.2 cm), performed each exercise in a randomized order, using a repeated-measures design. Electromyographical (EMG) activity (sampling at 2,000 Hz) of the rectus abdominis (RA) and the erector spinae (ES) muscles was recorded throughout the duration of the exercises. Intraclass correlations demonstrated the highest levels of reliability for muscle activity during the isometric exercises; however, all exercises demonstrated high level of reliability (r = 0.764-0.998, p ≤ 0.01). The PB demonstrated significantly greater (p < 0.01) RA activity compared to all other exercises. The ES activity was significantly (p < 0.01) greater during the FS (1.010 ± 0.308 root mean square value RMS (V)) and SM (0.951 ± 0.217 RMSV) and compared to all other exercises, although there was no significant difference (p > 0.05) between the FS and the SM exercise. The PB may be the most suitable exercise for strengthening the RA, compared to dynamic exercises at a low to moderate load, because of a higher level of muscle activity. The FS may be a useful alternative to isometric exercises when strengthening the ES, because it results in slightly higher muscle activity levels when using only a light to moderate load. Because of the dynamic nature of the FS, this may also be more beneficial in transferring to activities of daily living and sporting environments.
•We use econometric analysis to investigate smallholder maize sales behavior in Africa.•We analyze the roles of market access, technology and resource endowments in maize sales.•Improvements in ...market access alone are likely insufficient to stimulate increases in sales.•Public goods that improve farm-level productivity and land access are also essential.
Research on household food grain sales behavior in developing countries has tended to focus on the roles of market access and prices to explain why many rural households do not sell staple crops, though recent literature suggests that low household asset endowments may also be key constraints. We use econometric analysis of panel data from smallholders in Kenya, Mozambique, and Zambia to inform the design of public investments that will enable smallholders to increase their maize sales. Results show that investments that raise farm-level productivity and land access are an essential complement to investments that improve market access.
Previous research has demonstrated that young children produce mirror-image letter-reversals when printing their names in a leftward direction from the midline or right margin of their writing paper. ...This ability is postulated to be an epiphenomenon of a symmetric, proximal (arm) stage of motor development that ontogenetically precedes lateralization of fine-motor distal (finger) control-a stage in which each arm can be controlled by either side of the brain. From this view, canonical writing in right hemi-space is contralaterally mediated by the left hemisphere and mirror-writing in left hemi-space is ipsilaterally mediated by the right hemisphere. However, evidence of right hemisphere canonical letter processing in dyslexia suggests that this is not always the case. Concordantly, an early study corrected reversals by having children print these errors canonically in left hemi-space and then rightward across the midline into right hemi-space. To further understand this behaviour, the present study investigated mirror-writing in three schools (Public, Montessori, and Waldorf) each differing in how writing is introduced. It was hypothesised that there would be no school-differences in mirror-writing if printing had been learned before school-entry and that some children would produce reversals in right hemi-space that were canonically written in left-hemi-space (inverse reversals)-the opposite of the normal pattern. The results showed that 39% of the children demonstrated these inverse reversals. It is discussed how this unexpectedly high incidence may be foundational in the development of the phonologically proficient and deficient subtypes of dyslexia, spelling-dysgraphia, and the left-hand inverted writing posture.
Les recherches antérieures ont démontré que les jeunes enfants produisent des inversions de lettres en miroir lorsqu'ils écrivent leur nom de droite à gauche à partir du centre ou de la marge gauche de leur feuille. Il est postulé que cette capacité serait un épiphénomène d'un stade de développement moteur symétrique proximal (bras) qui précède ontologiquement la latéralisation du contrôle moteur fin distal (doigt)- un stade où les deux bras peuvent être contrôlés par l'un ou l'autre côté du cerveau. Selon cette approche, l'écriture canonique dans l'hémi-espace droit est contrôlée controlatéralement par l'hémisphère gauche et l'écriture en miroir dans l'hémi-espace gauche est contrôlée ipsilatéralement par l'hémisphère droit. Cependant, les données sur le traitement canonique des lettres dans l'hémisphère droit chez les dyslexiques suggèrent que ce n'est pas toujours le cas. De même, dans une étude antérieure, ces inversions ont pu être corrigées en demandant aux enfants de copier ces erreurs canoniquement dans l'hémi-espace gauche et ensuite de gauche à droite à partir de la ligne centrale vers l'hémi-espace droit. Afin de mieux comprendre ce comportement, la présente étude visait à examiner l'écriture en miroir dans trois écoles (Publique, Montessori et Waldorf) se distinguant quant à la façon dont l'écriture y est introduite. L'hypothèse prédisait qu'il n'y aurait pas de différence entre les écoles quant à l'écriture en miroir si l'écriture avait été apprise avant de commencer l'école et que certains enfants produiraient des inversions dans l'hémi-espace droit, écrites canoniquement dans l'hémi-espace gauche (inversions inversées)- le contraire du modèle normal. Les résultats ont montré que 39% des enfants ont produit ces inversions inversées. La discussion traite de la possibilité que cette incidence étonnamment élevée soit fondamentale dans le développement des sous-types de dyslexie avec ou sans déficit phonologique, de la dysgraphie dysorthographique et de la posture inversée du scripteur gaucher.
