This article examines illustrations of the zodiac signs on birth amulets from German- Jewish printing houses from the 18th century. These woodcuts are part of a long tradition of astrological ...references in Jewish art and literature. However, the amulet texts themselves do not contain any astrological topics. What, then, is the relationship of the woodcuts to the text and to the function of the amulets? By contextualizing the images with other contemporary traditions of illustration, this article provides three interpretation models which can explain the choice of the zodiac signs on the amulets.
Indians are culturally conditioned to be price sensitive, but do the Indian millennials hold similar price perception for fashion. This paper provides new insights into the price perception of Indian ...millennials for fashion and is the first to examine the influence of fashion involvement and personality traits viz., self-confidence and public self-consciousness with fashion innovativeness as a mediator and zodiac signs as a moderator on price perception with specific focus on price-quality schema of Indian millennials. A conclusive, descriptive and single cross-sectional research design was used to collect data from Indian millennials using a self-completion questionnaire. The model fit and hypothesized relationships between the variables were assessed using AMOS, a covariance-based structural equation modeling technique. The results indicate a statistically significant relationship between personality traits and price perception of Indian millennials for fashion. The mediating effect of fashion innovativeness was not found. The moderating effect of zodiac signs was observed. This study contributes to the understanding of the price perception of Indian millennials and brings to light a new dimension of the moderating role of zodiac signs. The results provide valuable inputs to the marketers in designing their marketing strategies.
Parental investments in children's cognitive and noncognitive outcomes are deeply important to policymakers. However, because parental investments are arguably endogenous, estimating their importance ...empirically poses a challenge. To address this challenge, this paper exploits a rich and novel dataset, the China Family Panel Studies, and proposes a culture‐specific instrumental variable based on the Chinese zodiac. By comparing the outcomes of children born just before and just after the cutoff for a “lucky” (or ‘unlucky’) zodiac sign, we find that parents' investments have significant effects on offspring's development of both cognitive and noncognitive skills.
Some ornaments of the applied arts produced in the Seljuq period include images of the zodiac signs and the seven planets, including the Moon and Sun. In the field of metalwork, relatively many ...examples are seen, but in ceramics and particularly mīnāʾī ware, their occurrence is rare. Therefore, the fragmentary polychrome mīnāʾī bowl with zodiac designs in the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan is of great value in the study of these iconographies. In this paper, the designs of the zodiac signs of Sagittarius and Gemini in polychrome colors are focused on and reconsidered. These images are examined through the texts describing the figures of these zodiac signs and by comparing them with works of art with the same designs dating from the eighth century to the early thirteenth century. The paper clarifies the transformation of the iconography from one of an expression of the ecliptic dragon in astrology to that of the symbol of royalty in the tradition of Persian art.
Among the numerous studies investigating semantic factors associated with functioning in psychotic patients, most have been conducted on western populations. By contrast, the current cross-sectional ...study involved native Cantonese-speaking Chinese participants. Using the category fluency task, we compared performance between patients and healthy participants and examined clinical and sociodemographic correlates. First-episode psychosis patients (
= 356) and gender- and age-matched healthy participants (
= 35) were asked to generate as many 'animals' as they could in a minute. As expected, patients generated fewer correct responses (an average of 15.5 vs. 22.9 words), generated fewer clusters (an average of 3.7 vs. 5.4 thematically grouped nouns), switched less between clusters (on average 8.0 vs. 11.9 switches) and, interestingly, produced a larger percentage of Chinese zodiac animals than healthy participants (an average of 37.7 vs. 24.2). However, these significant group differences in the clusters and switches disappeared when the overall word production was controlled for. Within patients, education was the strongest predictor of category fluency performance (namely the number of correct responses, clusters, and switches). The findings suggest that an overall slowness in patients may account for the group differences in category fluency performance rather than any specific abnormality
.
This article is a re-examination of the first complete printed edition of Ptolemy's Cosmographia (Bologna, de Lapis, 1477), hitherto considered flawed and defective. An investigation of the status ...and priorities of the team of court astrologers responsible for this edition, and an examination of the alterations they made to Ptolemy's maps, suggests that their aim was a redaction intentionally different from existing versions of the Geography. It is suggested that the editors sought to adjust the arrangement of provinces from that recommended in Ptolemy's Geography (book VIII) to the astrological arrangement detailed in his Tetrabiblos (book II) and that they modified the content of the key regional maps accordingly. In this light, the Bologna 1477 edition underlines the importance of assessing the reception of Ptolemy's geographical work against a cultural background in which astrology prevailed as an integrated system of knowledge, practices and beliefs.
To determine the influence of the lunar phases and the position of the moon in the zodiac on the frequency of complications and the survival of bladder cancer patients after radical cystectomy. It ...has been postulated that radical cystectomy performed during the waxing moon, or particularly at full moon, or at the zodiac sign Libra is associated with a poorer outcome.
We tested this hypothesis by evaluating the progression-free survival, the complication rate and the re-operation rate for 452 consecutive patients after radical cystectomy. In this retrospective review, the dates of surgery were allocated to the lunar phases and the zodiac signs. Based on these classifications, the patients were placed in groups which combined the lunar phase laws and differentiated between evidently unfavorable (full moon or waxing moon and/or the zodiac sign Libra; assigned to group 1) and favorable periods for surgery (new moon or waning moon and other signs of the zodiac apart from Libra; assigned to group 2). The mean follow-up was 49 months (range 0-158 months).
A total of 244 patients (54%) were operated during an unfavorable period (group 1) and 208 (46%) patients during the auspicious period (group 2). The mean age, gender and kind of urinary derivation did not differ significantly in the two groups. Pathological tumor stages were evenly distributed according to the lunar phase groups (P = 0.713). We found no significant differences in the perioperative mortality rates, early re-operation rates, early complications, and late complications across the two groups. No significant differences in progression-free survival were observed when timing of cystectomy during the lunar cycle was considered (P = 0.231).
Our analysis demonstrated no predictable influence of the lunar phase on survival or complications. Although this was not a prospective randomized trial, the statistical magnitude of the results do not support any recommendations for scheduling patients for radical cystectomy at any particular day of the lunar phase.
PDF
