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This article explores the challenges we faced when translating and editing the autograph letters of Anna Maria Van Schurman that span four decades from 1631 to 1669. Van Schurman was regarded as the most learned woman in Europe throughout the seventeenth and well into the eighteenth century. Most of the letters, primarily in Latin, are addressed to André Rivet (1572–1651) and Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), towering figures in the Dutch Republic and the Republic of Letters. Our greatest challenge in translating and editing the letters was rhetorical: to discern and identify the gender dynamics at work when Van Schurman self-consciously entered the lettered world of male power and authority. Presenting the distinctive epistolary relations Van Schurman shared with Rivet and Huygens necessitated the identification of particularities in content, tone and material culture. Similarly, exploring these relations meant highlighting subtle and complex material markers in Van Schurman's letters, such as handwriting, visual presentation, and closing subscriptions and signatures, as well as postscripts, deferential spacing and quantity of paper used. We present Van Schurman's manuscript exchanges with Rivet and Huygens as a window into how a learned woman negotiated the challenges of epistolary networking in the Republic of Letters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the practice of transferring rejected manuscripts to other journals within the same publisher's catalog. While this can save authors time and effort in reformatting, it raises concerns about the quality and ethics of the peer review process. The author suggests that manuscripts with major methodological flaws should not be transferred to other journals, regardless of prestige. Recommendations are made for conditions to observe when offering a transfer service. [Extracted from the article]

In I The Correspondence of Elizabeth Butler, Duchess of Ormonde i , Naomi McAreavey allows her reader to delve into the life of a previously understudied female noble who held considerable influence across both English and Irish society. McAreavey provides the first book-length study of the Duchess of Ormonde and her extant letter collection, which comprises over three hundred letters spanning six decades - starting in the 1630s and extending up until her death in 1684. [Extracted from the article]

Pedagogies: An International Journal is seeking short empirical research reports and pedagogic reflections that highlight innovative pedagogies or theoretical frameworks with implications for educational practice. These "class notes" can present ongoing research or new pedagogic innovations, and should contribute new understandings of teaching and learning theories. Manuscripts should be between 2,000 to 3,000 words and adhere to academic conventions. Submissions can be made through the journal's submission site, and any questions can be directed to pedagogies@nie.edu.sg. The editors for the Class Notes section are Rebecca Heaton, Yann Shiou Ong, and Natasha Anne Rappa. [Extracted from the article]

This article traces the history of the only surviving autograph manuscript of Ode to a Nightingale, composed two hundred years ago in May 2019, and preserved since 1933 in the Fitzwilliam Museum. It tests Charles Armitage Brown's famous eyewitness account of the moment of composition against the physical reality of the manuscript, and examines its materiality in some detail. It also traces the history of the manuscript's fortunes through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and examines the role of collectors, curators and conservators in ensuring its survival and its continued presence in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experimental study was conducted with a young woman who had suddenly developed mirror writing in the right hand, which she used for writing. She was not cured for eight years. The patient was ambidextrous and had no medical complaints except for migraine with perceptual and sensory abnormalities, and an enlarged cavity of the septum pellucidum. A previous study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), conducted when she imagined letters and wrote letters in the air with either hand, indicated that both her cerebral hemispheres were active. In the present study three experiments were conducted using a tachistoscope to explore the stage in the cognitive process when directional errors emerged. In the experiments, after independently being presented with Attneave's meaningless figures or letters to each hemisphere, participants were requested to do the following: (a) verbally respond whether the orientation of two consecutively shown figures were the same or different and the letters were standard or reversed; (b) distinguish the orientations with right and left hand movements other than by writing (by pushing a button); and (c) reproduce the stimuli (drawing) immediately after the presentation. Results showed a higher rate of incorrect directions only when drawings were reproduced by the right hand. Results also indicated that the woman's inaccurate judgment in direction emerged only when in writing and not at the perceptual level, or when responding with hand movements other than writing. Her migraine was cured after five years following the experiment. The mirror writing was cured 2–3 months later. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article focuses on Gandhi's things as a point of intersection – a contact zone of divine and market logics, sensory reality, and subaltern and elite routes of access. Gandhi memorials, his autograph, his ashes, an auction, and the special Gandhi edition Montblanc luxury pen evoke the magic that embraces ordinary things, rendering them extraordinary and desirable. Drawing upon episodes from historical and contemporary contexts, this article prolongs the moment of wonder at why Gandhi continues to cast a spell on a culture industry that transcends national, subaltern, and elite boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid-1990s a Uruguayan scholar, Juan Fló, discovered a photocopy of fifty-two manuscripts among Ángel Rama's private papers which were later verified to be the early handwritten drafts of poems by the famous Peruvian poet, César Vallejo (1892-1938), from his collection Poemas humanos as well as España, aparta de mí este cáliz. Vallejo's widow, Georgette, had been negotiating the terms of an edition of these valuable manuscripts with Ángel Rama in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a process which was interrupted by the latter's untimely death. The fifty-two autographs reveal a great deal about Vallejo's compositional techniques, but the mystery of the whereabouts of the original autographs remains. This essay focuses on this mystery, and proposes and evaluates the three most likely hypotheses about what happened to Vallejo's autógrafos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Felix Mendelssohn composed his Nachspiel for organ on the verso of the final page of the manuscript of his cantata Wir glauben all' an einen Gott. In 1853 his brother Paul had the autograph removed from its binding and copied by a Berlin copyist, presumably intending to send the copy to Bradford, England, to be premiered at the ceremonies celebrating the opening of St. George's Hall. Presumably, it was also Paul Mendelssohn's intent to reinsert the autograph back into its original binding. Inadvertently, both the autograph and the copy were sent, and the organizers assumed the autograph had been “presented to the Festival Committee” by Paul Mendelssohn. The principal mystery surrounding these two works involves their relationship to each other, if, indeed, there was one. Did Mendelssohn intend the Nachspiel as a Postlude to his cantata? After all, it is in the same key as the cantata: D. If not, then what could have been its purpose—a Postlude to what? Apparently, the Nachspiel was actually incorporated into the performance of the cantata in Bradford in 1853, but whether as a prelude or a postlude is unclear. How the Nachspiel was positioned relative to the cantata is less important than the fact that it was regarded and treated as an integral component of the cantata, which may have been the intention of the composer. The autograph score was never returned to Berlin, but remained in Bradford, where it was mentioned as late as 1859. Presumably, it is still somewhere in the Bradford area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Good and poor fifth-grade writers differed, after controlling for multiple comparisons, in 42 brain regions on group maps and then individual brain analyses for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) contrast between tapping adjacent fingers sequentially and same finger repeatedly. Of these, 11 regions were correlated with both handwriting and spelling (transcription). Gender differences on the fMRI contrast, with girls more activated, occurred only in left superior parietal, which was correlated with handwriting and spelling. Significance of serial organization of fingers for handwriting and spelling is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of cursive handwriting programs in improving letter legibility and form in third-grade students without identified handwriting problems. Four months into the school year, cursive handwriting was assessed for a sample of convenience of 50 third-grade students. Subsequently, students received instruction for 10-15 minutes daily for 6 weeks using either Handwriting without Tears, Loops and Other Groups programs, or, as a control condition, continued instruction in the Zaner-Bloser program. Student handwriting for all programs improved from pretest to posttest. Posttest comparisons indicated no significant differences between programs. The results suggest that the method of handwriting instruction has a limited short-term impact on cursive letter legibility and form for children without handwriting problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on autograph letters in early modern world. It notes that during this period, autograph letters became the primary means through which messages were conveyed. Being the fullest biological form since Victorian era, it states that such letters serves to as the most direct access to the intimate life of early modern people. It notes that these letters are compelling for historians and biographers because their texts are emotionally charged and they contain location footnotes. It also tackles the rise of printed reproduction of manuscripts materials, especially autograph signatures in the eighteenth-century England. Facsimiles of the autograph signatures of William Shakespeare are also discussed.

The letter, now in my collection, shows something of the personal side of Babbage and his natural courtesy on such an occasion, and is as follows: (M. Alexis Bouvard.) As Babbage was leaving Paris he wrote to M. Bouvard a letter of appreciation and thanks, acknowledging the gift of a portrait of Laplace which had long been in Bouvard's study. À Paris I My dear Sir: i I cannot leave Paris without thanking you for the very delightful day I spent with you in the society of Madame de Laplace. [Extracted from the article]

Although a number of scholars have written extensively about Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette, none has been able to say more about the many revisions Berlioz made between the premiere in 1839 and its publication in 1847 other than that the autograph manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale shows signs of cuts of unknown length. Study of the manuscript reveals small red-ink measure numbers appearing every 25 bars and at the end of each section where changes in tempo or key occur. Careful scrutiny of these measure numbers shows that they were entered by copyists preparing performance parts - some after Berlioz's revisions, but most before them. Furthermore, the drying of the glue Berlioz used to cover cuts with collettes has made it possible to see under the collettes. Thus it has been possible to discern exactly how many measures were cut by Berlioz and how many new measures were inserted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the early nineteenth century a popular obsession with autograph collecting swept through the United States. Among such "autographomaniacs", handwritten signatures belonging to the signers of the Declaration of Independence - and collections bringing together the signatures of all 56 - soon emerged as the most rarified. The intersection of autograph collecting and the Declaration of Independence provides fertile terrain for exploring the performative and preservative functions of the signature. This paper examines the special nature of the signature as a privileged site of authenticity and, in the special context of the Declaration, as a site of ritual reenactment and collective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the reactive robot system (RRS) which has been introduced as a novel way of approaching human–robot interactions by exploiting the capabilities of haptic interfaces to transfer skills (from the robot to unskilled persons). The RRS was implemented based on two levels of interaction. The first level, which implements the first two stages of the learning process, represents the conventional control way of interchanging a set of forces in response to a static read of the contact position of some pre-defined dynamic rules (passive interaction). The second level, which implements the last stage of the learning process, represents an enhanced way of interaction between haptic interfaces and humans. This level adds to robotic system a degree of intelligence which enables the robot to dynamically adapt its behavior depending on user wishes (active interaction). In particular, in this paper, the implementation of the second level of the RRS is described in detail. A set of experiments was performed, applied to Japanese handwriting, to verify if second level of the RRS can interact with humans during the autonomous stage of the learning process. The results demonstrated that our system can still provide assistance to users on the autonomous stage while mostly respecting their intentions without significantly affecting their performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, an unpublished, undated letter by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (in London) to Samuel Purkis (at Brentford), composed between February 26 and March 1, 1800, was found in a collection of autograph letters once belonging to the Baptist minister Joseph Angus (1816–1902), principal of Regent’s Park College, London, from 1849 to 1893. In the letter, Coleridge requests a loan of £10 from Purkis to be sent to Coleridge’s mother-in-law in Bristol in order to defray expenses that would soon arise from Sara Coleridge’s visit in March to the West Country. In the letter, Coleridge refers to Richard B. Sheridan as “a Rogue,” boasts of having spent considerable time with Elizabeth Inchbald, Charlotte Smith, Mrs Barbauld, and Mary Robinson (Coleridge’s “list of Illustrissimae!”), and once again declares his intention of giving up newspaper work and returning to the West Country to live for a time with Tom Poole. This essay discusses Coleridge’s past history with Purkis, Coleridge’s current situation with the Morning Post, Sara’s pregnancy, Coleridge’s presence during Sheridan’s speech in the Commons on February 10, 1800, as well as Coleridge’s “intimate” relationship with a select group of prominent female writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors conducted 3 experiments to examine whether introducing high levels of contextual interference is useful in handwriting skill acquisition. For all experiment, elementary school students (Ns = 44. 50), and 78, respectively) were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 practice schedules-blocked or random practice-in the acquisition phase. In the blocked condition, each of 3 letters (h, a. and y) or (in Experiment 1) symbols was handwritten 24 limes consecutively. In the random condition, each let-ter (or symbol) was practiced 24 Limes, but in an intermixed, unsystematic sequence. Overall, the results showed that the random practice schedule leads to enhanced retention and transfer performance of handwriting skill acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. In 2 experiments, participants judged 2 samples of adult handwriting for gender of writer; their accuracy was significantly better than chance and improved with practice. In a 3rd experiment, participants who were not cued for gender of writer judged coded male and female scripts to be significantly different with respect to features such as carefulness, neatness, regularity, and apparent speed of execution. The participants cued for gender of writer on the basis of their judgments on stylistic features such as slope and roundness, which appeared to be subsumed within the "higher order" dimensions of carefulness versus confidence. The results suggest that the participants cued for gender of writer may have been influenced by gender stereotypes, leading to errors in some of their judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kindergarten and third grade subjects were given copying practice employing different perceptual prompts in learning to reproduce model letterlike forms. Conditions included visual demonstration of stroke sequence; visual and verbal demonstration of stroke sequence; visual and verbal demonstrations, and subjects’ verbalization of stroke sequence; copying practice with no prompts; and control. A model form reproduction test was administered to all groups. Analysis of statistical tests revealed that groups trained with perceptual prompts produced significantly more accurate reproductions, with subjects’ verbalization of stroke sequence being the superior treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a report that provides information and summarizes data on journal operations for manuscripts submitted in 2011 and describes trends in the statistical content of manuscripts submitted to the journal in recent years. All submissions are evaluated to determine which are appropriate to the journal's mission, make substantive statistical contributions and have clear relevance to application. The editor reads all manuscripts that are submitted to the journal.

This essay focuses on a letter written by author Henry James, Sr. to collector Theodore Frelinghuysen Dwight. James is the father of novelist Henry and philosopher-psychologist William. He has written various books including "Moralism and Christianity," "Christianity, the Logic of Creation and "Substance and Shadow." While Dwight is a former librarian of the Boston Public Library. The letter was written in response to the request of Dwight for James' autograph. The text of James' letter is presented.

A definition of the term "autography" is presented. It is concerned with self in and through words and other signs, in relation to its others and otherness. This kind of writing is found anywhere in sustained exercises of self-assertion, reflection, exploration or as self-insertions in other kinds of text.

Discusses the attempts to lower the date of the earliest example of A.E. Housman's handwriting from 1873. Birthday greeting of Housman auctioned at Sotheby's; Specimen of his writing; Family of the writer.

The article presents information on the 8th International Symposium on Soil and Plant Analysis held in Cape Town, South Africa, January 13-17, 2003. The Symposium was well attended and many excellent papers were presented. All presenters did not submit manuscripts for publication consideration. All manuscripts that were submitted were subjected to peer review and 67 were accepted for publication. During the publication of manuscripts, peer reviewers play a vital role in the publication process. The authors play the key role in the publication process.

This paper presents a multiagent-based approach to the identification and recognition of touching in free handwritten Hindi numerals. We do not restrict our domain to touching pairs; rather, we consider numerals with arbitrary number of digits. Two agents are presented in this paper. The first agent works directly on the scanned image of the original handwritten number. It locates possible touching based on the thickness of handwriting. The other agent works on the thinned image. It segments the image into four categories of segments and tries to locate possible touching based on the rules that govern the connection of segments to form digits. After each of the two agents applies its own rules and investigates candidate possible touching cases, and to increase touching recognition rate, the two agents negotiate and try to agree on the actual touching cases. The experiments conducted so far are promising and successful. The obtained results are very encouraging with a success factor of 92.7%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the development of software to identify handwriting in University of Buffalo in New York. Objectivity in identifying handwriting; Validation of individuality in handwriting; Process involved in the development of the software.