The Art of Nursing in a Postmodern Context

Notions of the "postmodern" pervade various fields of study, but have rarely been applied to the practice and theory of nursing. This paper uses some conceptions of the "postmodern" to remedy this. Though there are many contested usages of the term, here "postmodern" will be used broadly in a periodical sense to trace changes in society and culture from the "modernism" of the 18th and 19th centuries to current concerns about "postmodernism". How these changes have been reflected in nursing practice and nursing theory will be explored. The changing use of the term "modern" to describe up-to-date practice will be addressed in the course of this. It is suggested that contextualizing nursing as a social/cultural activity in this way offers perspectives which will help us untangle the conflicting agendas and issues which form the fabric of the social world in which current nursing takes place, enabling us to act more effectively in promoting our own professional agendas.

Colour Sensation and Empathy: Arthur Schopenhauer's Negative Philosophy and Colour Theory as the Basis of an Elemental Colour Architecture

Arthur Schopenhauer proposed a theory of colour as a consequence of his first hand knowledge of J.W. Goethe’s experiments with color phenomena. This colour theory can be used to explore an interesting proposition Schopenhauer made about architecture. For Schopenhauer, architecture is about feelings, not about functions or forms, its purpose as an art is to reveal the principles of primitive forces, specifically gravity and rigidity. For Schopenhauer, architecture expresses these forces in the poised equilibrium of massive structures built out of stone. Schopenhauer was inclined to believed that architecture had already achieved its most perfect expression in Greek temple architecture. However; he did offer one possibility for architectural research: this was the suggestion that architecture was also concerned with the expression of light. It seems never to have occurred to Schopenhauer to use his colour theory to speculate about light in architecture. This paper explores some of the implications of Schopenhauer’s theory of colour for his aesthetics of architecture?

Convergence in word structure: revisiting agglutinative noun inflection in Cappadocian Greek

Cappadocian Greek is reported to display agglutinative inflection in its nominal system, namely, mono-exponential formatives for the marking of case and number, and NOM.SG-looking forms as the morphemic units to which inflection applies. Previous scholarship has interpreted these developments as indicating a shift in morphological type from fusion to agglutination, brought about by contact with Turkish. This study takes issue with these conclusions. By casting a wider net over the inflectional system of the language, it shows that, of the two types of agglutinative formations identified, only one evidences a radical departure from the inherited structural properties of Cappadocian noun inflection. The other, on the contrary, represents a typologically more conservative innovation. The study presents evidence that a combination of system-internal and -external motivations triggered the development of both types, it describes the mechanisms through which the innovation was implemented, and discusses the factors that favoured change.

The Asia Minor Greek adpositional cycle: a tale of multiple causation

This paper examines the interplay of language-internal continuity and external influence in the cyclical development of the Asia Minor Greek adpositional system. The Modern Greek dialects of Asia Minor inherited an adpositional system of the Late Medieval Greek type whereby secondary adpositions regularly combined with primary adpositions to encode spatial region. Secondary adpositions could originally precede simple adpositions ([PREPOSITION + PREPOSITION + NPACC]) or follow the adpositional complement ([PREPOSITION + NPACC + POSTPOSITION]). Asia Minor Greek replicated the structure of Ottoman Turkish postpositional phrases to resolve this variability, fixing the position of secondary adpositions after the complement and thus developing circumpositions of the type [PREPOSITION + NPACC + POSTPOSITION]. Later, some varieties dropped the primary preposition SE from circumpositional phrases, leaving (secondary) postpositions as the only overt relator ([NPACC + POSTPOSITION]) in some environments. In addition, a number of Turkish postpositions were borrowed wholesale, thus enriching the Greek adpositional inventory.

From syntagmatic to paradigmatic spatial zeroes: the loss of the preposition se in inner Asia Minor Greek

We trace the diachronic development of the preposition se in inner Asia Minor Greek from its use to mark a range of spatial functions to its ultimate loss and replacement by zero. We propose that, before spreading to all syntactic and semantic contexts, zero marking was contextually-dependent on the presence/absence of a prenominal genitive modifying the head noun of Ground-encoding NPs and on the presence/absence of Region-encoding postpositions. We attribute these developments to an informational load relief strategy aimed at producing more economical utterances as well as to language contact with Turkish, which favoured structural convergence on the adpositional level between the two languages.

The state and the development of an information society: Greek policy and experience

The paper looks into the dynamics of information society policy and its implementation in the Greek context. It argues that information society development is a contested process, influenced by pre-existing state, economy and society relations. Based on this, it looks into the different aspects of the idiosyncratic path which the evolution of the Greek information society has followed, particularly after 2000. Using Bob Jessop's strategic-relational approach (SRA) to the state as an analytical framework and drawing on a number of in-depth interviews with relevant political actors, it provides insights into policy implementation by examining: the public management of information technology projects, how such projects were received in bureaucratic structures and practices, as well as the relationship between the state and the information and communication technology (ICT) sector in public procurement processes. The emphasis is on the period 2000–2008, during which a major operational programme on the information society in Greece was put into effect. The paper also touches upon the post-2008 experience, suggesting that information society developments might include dynamics operating independently and even in contradiction to the state agenda.

Marking definiteness multiply: evidence from two varieties of Greek

Θέμα της μελέτης μας είναι οι πολυοριστικές δομές σε δύο νεοελληνικές ποικιλίες, την πρότυπη ελληνική (ΠΕ) και την καππαδοκική διάλεκτο (ΚΕ). Παρά την επιφανειακή ομοιότητα, οι δομές αυτές διαφέρουν ως προς τις συντακτικές και σημασιολογικές τους ιδιότητες. Για την ΠΕ υιοθετούμε την ανάλυση των Lekakou & Szendrői (2007, 2009, 2012, 2013), σύμφωνα με την οποία οι πολυοριστικές δομές είναι ένα είδος ονοματικής επεξήγησης, με την ιδιαιτερότητα ότι περιέχουν δομή ονοματικής απαλοιφής (noun ellipsis). Στην ΚΕ, η υποχρεωτική φύση του φαινομένου μας οδηγεί στην πρόταση ότι πρόκειται για ένα είδος μορφοσυντακτικής συμφωνίας. Συγκεκριμένα, τα άρθρα που συνοδεύουν το επίθετο είναι δείκτες ονοματικής συμφωνίας ως προς την οριστικότητα και προκύπτουν μετα-συντακτικά, στο θεωρητικό πλαίσιο της Κατανεμημένης Μορφολογίας. Υποστηρίζουμε ότι μια ενιαία ανάλυση της οριστικότητας στις δύο ποικιλίες είναι εφικτή, εφόσον δεχτούμε ότι σημασιολογική οριστικικότητα δεν εκφράζει κανένα από τα εκπεφρασμένα άρθρα, αλλά ένας φωνολογικά κενός τελεστής.