Venise des deux côtés du miroir : Imaginaire et identité entre l’amour et la mort

"Venice, deeply imaginary and symbolic, is in various cultural documents, like books, paintings, cinema, music, photography and other arts. In this research, we use the literary and the poetic narrative as privileged sources for understanding the imaginary and the identity of this city, closely connected with love and with death too. This investigation uses as a method Gaston Bachelard’s phenomenology defined in The Poetics of Space and the symbolical imaginary described in relation to the material imagination in Water and Dreams. Venice is a city on water and its identity is closely associated with love, as one mirror side, and with death or even hell, as the other mirror side."

Effects of fixed- and variable-time schedules of mirror presentations on the swimming behaviour of Betta splendens

The effects of response-independent mirror presentation schedules on the swimming behaviour of Betta splendens were studied in two experiments. In experiment 1, four fish received alternating baseline (no mirror) and fixed-time (FT) 2-min or variable-time (VT) 2-min mirror presentation conditions. Two fish consistently showed increased rates of mirror-side lap-swimming (MSLS; a back-and-forth swimming pattern) and decreased distance from the mirror during the inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) of FT and VT sessions, and during baseline sessions that followed FT and VT phases. Data from one fish indicated that a VT schedule might increase both proximity to the mirror and MSLS rates that have decreased on FT. Therefore, in experiment 2 three fish from experiment 1 received alternating FT and VT conditions. Proximity to the mirror and MSLS rates increased during VT phases relative to FT phases in two fish, though effects were small and did not occur across all alternations. Additional findings were that MSLS during ISIs tended to increase within FT phases, that MSLS generally occurred either at a steady rate within ISIs or showed a scalloped effect, that mirror presentations produced approach to the mirror side that persisted during ISIs and subsequent baseline phases, and that mirror-side distance during the mirror presentations was less than during the ISIs. Although the findings were not consistent across all fish, they were replicated a number of times within at least two of the fish. The findings are discussed in terms of adventitious operant conditioning, respondent conditioning, and the behaviour systems approach. The results of this study increase the generality of response-independent schedule effects on locomotive behaviour.

Mentorship in Pediatric Arab Board Postgraduate Residency Training Program: Qatar Experience

BackgroundMentorship can be defined as developmental assistance offered to a junior employee or trainee by someone more senior and experienced in the field or work place. Mentorship in our pediatric residency training program has existed for years. However, no study has been done to evaluate perspectives, attitudes, and practice of mentorship in this accredited residency program.ObjectivesTo assess faculty and residents views and satisfaction about the mentorship process overall. Accordingly, to try to discern some recommendations in order to improve the practice and fill in the gaps.MethodologyThe study was conducted using mailed, two mirror-side sets of questionnaires to both residents and faculty staff members involved in the mentoring program in pediatric residency training. Results were then recorded and analyzed manually.ResultsThere is a large discrepancy in the views of residents and faculty staff in regard to their perception and practice of mentorship.ConclusionsTeaching and direct meeting sessions are obviously needed to train both faculty and residents about the appropriate mentorship culture and implementation.

EXTENDING MIRROR CONJECTURE TO CALABI–YAU WITH BUNDLES

We define the notion of mirror of a Calabi–Yau manifold with a stable bundle in the context of type II strings in terms of supersymmetric cycles on the mirror. This allows us to relate the variation of Hodge structure for cohomologies arising from the bundle to the counting of holomorphic maps of Riemann surfaces with boundary on the mirror side. Moreover it opens up the possibility of studying bundles on Calabi–Yau manifolds in terms of supersymmetric cycles on the mirror.