Agency Fluctuations and Identity Transformations in Chinese English-Majors on Their Learning Trajectories

This paper explores agency fluctuations and identity transformations in Chinese English-majors and how they are related to the process of English learning. By tracing a group of students for four years in a Chinese university and conducting qualitative analyses to their oral narrations of learning experiences at different periods, the study has found that most participants started and ended their university life at relatively high levels of agency, with inevitable ups and downs in between. Agency fluctuations in the learners are the result of their identity positioning and repositioning within a complex and ever-changing context. Concordant or conflicting identities may co-exist within an individual learner and keep changing across different situations. Learner identities will cause increase or reduction in their investment in English learning, while their learning experience will in turn reinforce or undermine their identities. The study sheds light on the intricate relationships between agency, identity and language learning and therefore has important implications for English learning and teaching in China.

Dutch trade and patronage networks as facilitators of transcontinental mobility in early modern Russia and the VOC Cape

The Swellengrebels were the most important family at the Cape under Dutch East India Company (VOC) rule to become members of the Netherlands governing elite. Hendrik Swellengrebel was the colony's only locally-born governor, while his father and other members of the family at the Cape were born in Russia. Their migration between Europe, Africa and Asia reflected the development and functioning of the Dutch trade and patrimonial networks. Even on the periphery, at the Cape and among Dutch expatriates in Russia, those networks provided opportunities for overseas employment and upward social mobility. The case of the Swellengrebels shows that not only goods but also people could make their way from Russia to the Cape and the VOC Asia. Patronage enabled both spatial and upward social mobility. Keeping mutually beneficial relations with influential patrons such as Nicolaes Witsen, members of the Swellengrebel family navigated their way within the Dutch trade networks and achieved prosperity and a high status in such culturally diverse societies as Russia and the Cape. The social advancement, identity transformations and transcontinental migrations of the Swellengrebel family demonstrate the materiality of transcontinental patrimonial networks in the early modern period.

Orbital Hypernormal Forms

In this paper, we analyze the problem of determining orbital hypernormal forms—that is, the simplest analytical expression that can be obtained for a given autonomous system around an isolated equilibrium point through time-reparametrizations and transformations in the state variables. We show that the computation of orbital hypernormal forms can be carried out degree by degree using quasi-homogeneous expansions of the vector field of the system by means of reduced time-reparametrizations and near-identity transformations, achieving an important reduction in the computational effort. Moreover, although the orbital hypernormal form procedure is essentially nonlinear in nature, our results show that orbital hypernormal forms are characterized by means of linear operators. Some applications are considered: the case of planar vector fields, with emphasis on a case of the Takens–Bogdanov singularity.

“We Become a Madman to Be Calmed”—Patients’ Voices: Crossing the Threshold of Psychiatric Emergency Departments

Crossing the threshold of a psychiatric emergency room is a real ordeal. It is a passage that upsets, worries and sometimes paralyzes. However, it can also become an opportunity if psychological suffering is welcomed, accepted and understood. The welcome is the starting point for care. Our objective is to understand the meaning given to the phenomenon of “being welcomed” by patients experiencing psychiatric emergencies. The research is based on Grounded Theory Methodology (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) to explore and understand the complexity of the phenomenon. The results reveal that being welcomed can be considered as a rite of passage taking place in four successive phases, which are themselves organized into four interactive dimensions. The welcome as a rite of passage constitutes a powerful psychic support which arranges the transitional space in which the individual finds themself, and accompanies the identity transformations, the anguish, and the various sufferings which are not lacking in these moments of crisis.

An identity transformation leads to an inner construction

This article presents a research conducted with six French physicians who have been trained in complementary and alternative medicines. The perceived effects of this body-mind training, i.e. Awakening the Sensible Being, are being addressed in the thesis. These Awakening the Sensible Being practices help develop a quality of presence to self and to others, which are desirable qualities for health care professionals. An investigation conducted using two types of interviews: comprehensive interview and explicitation interview. The two paths of analysis will be introduced, as well as the achieved results which are linked to the personal sphere of the participants. The participants reported having experienced some identity transformations which lead them to place more emphasis on their inner references rather than external ones. They also reported feeling more centered and healthier.

Piecemeal regulation of convergent neuronal lineages by bHLH transcription factors in Caenorhabditis elegans

ABSTRACT Cells of the same type can be generated by distinct cellular lineages that originate in different parts of the developing embryo (‘lineage convergence’). Several Caenorhabditis elegans neuron classes composed of left/right or radially symmetric class members display such lineage convergence. We show here that the C. elegans Atonal homolog lin-32 is differentially expressed in neuronal lineages that give rise to left/right or radially symmetric class members. Loss of lin-32 results in the selective loss of the expression of pan-neuronal markers and terminal selector-type transcription factors that confer neuron class-specific features. Another basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) gene, the Achaete-Scute homolog hlh-14, is expressed in a mirror image pattern relative to lin-32 and is required to induce neuronal identity and terminal selector expression on the contralateral side of the animal. These findings demonstrate that distinct lineage histories converge via different bHLH factors at the level of induction of terminal selector identity determinants, which thus serve as integrators of distinct lineage histories. We also describe neuron-to-neuron identity transformations in lin-32 mutants, which we propose to also be the result of misregulation of terminal selector gene expression.

Socio-Cultural Self-Identification: Lost, Created and Asserted Identity

Mutual influence of external and internal factors that determine the process of sociocultural identification is now becoming increasingly interrelated and unpredictable. The documentation of the observed trends in the media text, which is the subject of this study, allows for the research study and philosophical understanding of the ongoing changes. In particular, a comprehensive analysis of the publications in the authoritative British magazine The Economist in recent years made it possible to identify the main contexts in which the linguistic projection of the concept of identity constitutes itself, as well as to establish the most noticeable directions of its changes. The analysis of the dynamics of these changes, in turn, opened up the opportunity to highlight the main directions of the search and conditions for the adoption of new identities, that complement or replace existing ones. As a result of the research, it has been proved: from the standpoint of the authors of The Economist, first, politics always directly or indirectly affects all dimensions of personal and collective identity; secondly, any political action today is perceived by them in the context of identity politics. If for the subject identity determines meaning and provides security, then for the external actors it is an opportunity to gain political weight through “support” and “pressure”. According to the stance of The Economist, identity change often occurs arbitrarily rather than involuntarily and represents the promotion (akin to advertising) of group identity. Several conclusions of the study concern how natural language is able to convey the subtleties of identity dynamics, and how this is related to the development of the concept of identity culture. The results of the study are applicable for a detailed analysis of the discourse of identity by specialists from different scientific fields, as well as for the development of communicative competence in general. Keywords: philosophy of culture, sociocultural identity, identity transformations, media representation, conceptualization, identity politics

Piecemeal regulation of convergent neuronal lineages by bHLH transcription factors in C. elegans

Classic cell lineage studies in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as well as recent lineage tracing in vertebrates have shown that cells of the same type can be generated by distinct cellular lineages that originate in different parts of the developing embryo ('lineage convergence'). Several C. elegans neuron classes composed of left/right or radially symmetric class members display such lineage convergence, in that individual neurons of the same class derive from distinct, non-bilaterally symmetric lineages. We show here that the C. elegans Atonal homolog lin-32/Ato, a bHLH transcription factor, is differentially expressed in neuronal lineages that give rise to left/right or radially symmetric class members. Loss of lin-32/Ato results in the selective loss of the expression of panneuronal markers and terminal selector-type transcription factors that confer neuron class-specific features. We discovered that another bHLH transcription factor, the Achaete Scute-homolog hlh-14 is expressed in mirror image pattern to lin-32/Ato in a subset of the left/right symmetric neuron pairs and is required to induce neuronal identity and terminal selector expression on the contralateral side of the animal. These findings demonstrate that distinct lineage histories converge via distinct bHLH factors on the level of induction of terminal selector identity determinants, which thus serve as integrators of distinct lineage histories. We also describe neuron-to-neuron identity transformations in lin-32/Ato mutants, which we propose to also be the result of misregulation of terminal selector gene expression.

Identity and Secession: The Case of the Secession of Slovenia and Croatia from Yugoslavia

The secessions of Slovenia and Croatia – two interrelated and interdependent processes – put an end to the existence of the socialist federal Yugoslavia. The article examines the mutual influence of the identity transformations of the Slovenes and Croats in the second half of the 1980s – early 1990s and the disintegration of the SFRY. Historical and cultural background, the influence of socio-political conditions and the purposeful efforts of key actors to transform identities are analyzed. It is shown that the main vector of changes in the identity of Slovenes and Croats in the second half of the 1980s – early 1990s favored secessions, but they were not predetermined. The influence of external factors was very strong, including, firstly, changes in the political landscape of Serbia and their echoes in the structures of power at the federal level, and, secondly, the approaching collapse of the political regime in the USSR and other countries of Eastern Europe, and also the end of the Cold War. The actions of political leaders were of particular importance for the transformations in the sphere of identity. Thanks to their efforts, the secessionist strategies strongly affected the identities of Slovenes and Croats. But in Croatia, with the coming to power of F. Tudjman and the Croatian Democratic Union, practically the entire system of government bodies began to function in the regime of a “nationalizing state” (R. Brubaker).