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Phytoplankton and zooplanktonic communities form the base of the Antarctic food web. This study examines the evolution of the mesozooplanktonic system in Terra Nova Bay during the austral summer (December–February), focusing on the impact of sea ice dynamics and the resulting phytoplankton blooms. Terra Nova Bay (Ross Sea) offers a valuable context given its high productivity and ecological variability. Using a diachronic approach, we analyzed data spanning twelve years to understand how the system's structure and functionality change over time. A novel key metric, Days since Sea Ice Melting, was employed to track shifts in phytoplankton community development and trophic dynamics. The results indicate that the system enters the summer season increasing primary productivity and creating the support for the development of a more complex and organized system during the season. The phytoplankton bloom recorded during mid-season, coped by an increase in biomass, is followed by the establishment of a well-organized grazing system. A secondary phytoplankton bloom is observed towards the end of the summer, but it does not significantly affect mesozooplankton communities. Overall, this study highlights the dynamic nature of Terra Nova Bay's mesozooplanktonic community and evaluates the influence of climate change on Antarctic marine ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Retos: Nuevas Perspectivas de Educación Física, Deporte y Recreación is the property of Federacion Espanola de Asociaciones de Docentes de Educacion Fisica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Previous academic research has argued that videogames are represented as violent in the media, and that these representations provide a justification to study videogames as a social object. However, little systematic research has been done to confirm whether such representations occur frequently, or whether this is a non-representative assumption based on a small number of news stories. Through using methods associated with Modern-Diachronic Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (md-cads), we explore two corpora of newspaper articles from the British press containing references to videogames: one contains data from 2000 and the other from 2020. We find that whilst newspapers do represent videogames as promoting violence, these representations occur much more frequently in 2000 than in 2020, and that in 2020 this idea is more regularly challenged. Furthermore, in 2020 there is a greater focus on the benefit of videogames for the economy compared to 2000. The research highlights the need to critically revaluate assumptions about how the media represents not only videogames, but also comparable topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines research on the ethos and image of the businessman in Portugal and Poland, using comparative and diachronic analysis, resorting to secondary sources and critical literature analysis. The purpose of the research determined the descriptive character of the work. After defining the concept of ethos, its functions, and models, the article briefly describes the milestones in the contemporary history of both countries, characterizes the national/organizational cultures and presents the image and ethos of the businessman in each country. In conclusion, attention was drawn to the common and differentiating elements of the ethos and image of the businessman in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phytoplankton and zooplanktonic communities form the base of the Antarctic food web. This study examines the evolution of the mesozooplanktonic system in Terra Nova Bay during the austral summer (December–February), focusing on the impact of sea ice dynamics and the resulting phytoplankton blooms. Terra Nova Bay (Ross Sea) offers a valuable context given its high productivity and ecological variability. Using a diachronic approach, we analyzed data spanning twelve years to understand how the system’s structure and functionality change over time. A novel key metric, Days since Sea Ice Melting, was employed to track shifts in phytoplankton community development and trophic dynamics. The results indicate that the system enters the summer season increasing primary productivity and creating the support for the development of a more complex and organized system during the season. The phytoplankton bloom recorded during mid-season, coped by an increase in biomass, is followed by the establishment of a well-organized grazing system. A secondary phytoplankton bloom is observed towards the end of the summer, but it does not significantly affect mesozooplankton communities. Overall, this study highlights the dynamic nature of Terra Nova Bay’s mesozooplanktonic community and evaluates the influence of climate change on Antarctic marine ecosystems.

Green urbanism, namely in the form of consolidated urban green spaces (UGSs), has gained traction along with the reformist impetus of urban design, based on the ideal of efficient, functional, sustainable cities that promote a better quality of life for their citizens and on the notion of making urban expansion compatible with natural resources. Using a diachronic analysis (1995-2020) of the orthophoto maps of 38 UGSs included in the last version of the main municipality's legislation, framed within the Plano Director Municipal (PDM), whose first version was approved in 1994, we assessed the situation and evolution of the UGSs in the centre of Lisbon, Portugal. We conclude that with fewer or more incidences, depending on the periods analysed, the structure of UGSs in the centre of Lisbon has undergone significant changes, whether in terms of the implementation and requalification of existing UGSs or in terms of the increment and quality of UGSs (space created), thus respecting to a lesser or greater degree the strategic lines defined in various plans, as is the case of the PDM itself, but also of other important documents, such as the Carta Estratégica 2010-2024, Estratégia de Reabilitação Urbana 2011-2024 and Estratégia Regional de Lisboa 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coastal wetlands are among the most vulnerable and threatened environments of the Mediterranean area. Targeted actions for their conservation require in-depth knowledge of current and past natural vegetation. In this paper, we surveyed the vegetation composition and the spatio-temporal changes of a coastal wetland area in southeastern Sicily ("Saline di Priolo" SAC). Based on 128 phytosociological surveys and several plant collections, a total of 304 taxa, 28 plant communities, and 16 habitats have been identified. Furthermore, three new plant associations were described, including two in wetland and one in rocky coast environments. For the classification of plant communities and habitats, a hierarchical clustering was performed by using Euclidean coefficient and beta-flexible algorithm. The life form spectrum of the current flora highlights the dominance of therophytes and hemicryptophytes. The Mediterranean species are largely prevailing with 123 taxa. The cartographic analysis performed with ArcGis 10.3 shows a radical reduction in the wetland habitats in the last 70 years, and a strong alteration of the ecological succession of the psammophilous-hygrophilous vegetation. Moreover, landscape configuration of the coastal vegetation and habitat types was well highlighted by a set of specific landscape metrics. In particular, our outcomes identify three habitats (2110, 2210, and 5220* EU code) with bad conservation status, among which we identified one of priority conservation (Zyziphus arborescent matorral) that requires urgent restoration measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of ESTOA: Revista de la Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de la Universidad de Cuenca is the property of ESTOA Revista de la Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de la Universidad de Cuenca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of FORUM is the property of John Benjamins Publishing Co. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Monitoring the intensity of photosynthetic activity in the Chettaba forest is necessary to better understand the distribution and spatio-temporal dynamics of Aleppo pine, including NDVI values at different altitudes, ranging from 774 to 1123 m. This makes it possible to interpret remote sensing data and use GIS to detect changes in the state of vegetation cover. The method adopted is based on 36 Landsat images (TM and OLI/TIRS satellites), forming three scenes 2011, 2014 and 2021; the latter being essentially visual analyzes of images, after eliminating those containing heavy cloud cover. In this study, we analyzed the diachronic evolution of vegetation cover using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data that took place over a 10-year period (2011 to 2021). Our results reveal variations in NDVI values in the plots studied; the highest average values are obtained in 2011 (0.42) and the lowest are obtained in 2021 (0.28). NDVI maps make it possible to distinguish between different land cover classes. Thus obtained, the temporal profiles of the NDVI allow us to conclude that the Chettaba forest experienced average degradation during the period 2011-2014, and continued degradation during the period 2014-2021. In fact, the low values of this index indicate a poor health status of this forest, and the analysis of the NDVI temporal profile shows that the Chettaba forest has clearly deteriorated in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of a quantitative analysis of a corpus comprising Polish prime ministers’ speeches given between 1919 and 2019. Its aim is to trace potential changes Polish political discourse has undergone over the last 100 years, which might also reflect wider extra-linguistic changes. To this end, it employs tools associated with corpus linguistics, specifically keywords analysis. The study identifies three main linguistically distinct periods in the recent history of Polish political discourse, but it also points to trends characterized by stability rather than change, reflecting the requirements of the genre. The use of quantitative methods puts into perspective some of the findings of previous qualitative studies by providing a broader and more nuanced diachronic view of Polish political discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An exploratory study of the evolution of urban green spaces in Lisbon using diachronic analysis of orthophoto maps Green urbanism, namely in the form of consolidated urban green spaces (UGSs), has gained traction along with the reformist impetus of urban design, based on the ideal of efficient, functional, sustainable cities that promote a better quality of life for their citizens and on the notion of making urban expansion compatible with natural resources. Using a diachronic analysis (1995–2020) of the orthophoto maps of 38 UGSs included in the last version of the main municipality’s legislation, framed within the Plano Director Municipal (PDM), whose first version was approved in 1994, we assessed the situation and evolution of the UGSs in the centre of Lisbon, Portugal. We conclude that with fewer or more incidences, depending on the periods analysed, the structure of UGSs in the centre of Lisbon has undergone significant changes, whether in terms of the implementation and requalification of existing UGSs or in terms of the increment and quality of UGSs (space created), thus respecting to a lesser or greater degree the strategic lines defined in various plans, as is the case of the PDM itself, but also of other important documents, such as the Carta Estratégica 2010–2024, Estratégia de Reabilitação Urbana 2011–2024 and Estratégia Regional de Lisboa 2030.

This research was carried out in the Ain Sefra region of Algeria’s southwest. Satellite data monitored steppe rangelands’ spatiotemporal evolution and land cover dynamics. A diachronic analysis based on supervised classification using the modified soil-adjusted vegetation index (MSAVI2) was applied. Two Landsat satellite images (ETM+ 2000 and OLI 2022) taken at 22-year intervals were used to map and assess changes in vegetation cover. The findings point to a regressive evolution of vegetation cover. The main causes of severe rangeland degradation are overgrazing, prolonged drought, and wind erosion. However, implementing a strategy to rehabilitate and conserve pastoral resources has positively impacted species’ biological recovery and flora richness. Geomatics has significantly contributed to this study as a tool for assessing and monitoring natural resources. MSAVI2 is a dependable and effective index for assessing the state of vegetation in arid to semi-arid regions.

Abstract Background We previously demonstrated that in a Japanese national university’s medical faculty, overall paper publication frequency increased between 1979 –1980 and 2017–2018, while original paper publication did not increase. Further, publication language changed from predominantly Japanese to English. However, whether these trends are specific to medicine or representative of other faculties remains unclear. Methods We diachronically analyzed annual university library-produced publication reports for four pharmaceutical and three medical units between 1979 –1980 and 2019–2020, elucidating how publication frequency, type, and language medium changed. Results All publication types increased for the pharmaceutical faculty, from 2.87 per faculty member per year to 10.77. Publication of original papers more than doubled, from 1.06 per faculty member per year to 2.37. This increase was exclusively in English publication, with no publication of Japanese original papers in 2019–2020. This contrasts with medicine, which, while it demonstrated similar increases in all publication types combined, from 4.92 papers per faculty member per year to 12.78, did not demonstrate as striking an increase in total original paper publication (English and Japanese), from 1.21 papers per faculty member per year to 1.30. However, these two faculties observed similar trends in that English largely replaced Japanese original paper publication. That both faculties’ Japanese original paper publication decreased suggests English language original paper publication comes at the expense of publishing in Japanese. Concerning both faculties together, the increase in publishing frequency for all publication types more than tripled from 4.01 to 12.38. This was largely driven by changes in conference paper publication for the pharmaceutical sciences faculty, where English publication increased 2,775% (0.06 to 1.7 papers per faculty member per year) and Japanese language publication 258% (1.33 to 4.77). While conference paper publication did increase for the medical sciences, its change in total publication frequency was largely driven by ‘other’ types of publication, which increased from 0.51 publications per faculty member per year in 1979–1980 to 5.41 in 2019–2020, largely driven by Japanese language publication. Conclusion In 2019–2020, pharmaceutical sciences faculty members largely published original papers in English, so postgraduate education should consider the future likelihood of graduates needing to publish in English.

The growing availability of digital trace data has generated unprecedented opportunities for analyzing, explaining, and predicting the dynamics of process change. While research on process organization studies theorizes about process and change, and research on process mining rigorously measures and models business processes, there has so far been limited research that measures and theorizes about process dynamics. This gap represents an opportunity for new information systems research. This research note lays the foundation for such an endeavor by demonstrating the use of process mining for diachronic analysis of process dynamics. We detail the definitions, assumptions, and mechanics of an approach that is based on representing processes as weighted, directed graphs. Using this representation, we offer a precise definition of process dynamics that focuses attention on describing and measuring changes in process structure over time. We analyze process structure over two years at four dermatology clinics. Our analysis reveals process changes that were invisible to the medical staff in the clinics. This approach offers empirical insights that are relevant to many theoretical perspectives on process dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We previously demonstrated that in a Japanese national university's medical faculty, overall paper publication frequency increased between 1979–1980 and 2017–2018, while original paper publication did not increase. Further, publication language changed from predominantly Japanese to English. However, whether these trends are specific to medicine or representative of other faculties remains unclear. Methods: We diachronically analyzed annual university library-produced publication reports for four pharmaceutical and three medical units between 1979–1980 and 2019–2020, elucidating how publication frequency, type, and language medium changed. Results: All publication types increased for the pharmaceutical faculty, from 2.87 per faculty member per year to 10.77. Publication of original papers more than doubled, from 1.06 per faculty member per year to 2.37. This increase was exclusively in English publication, with no publication of Japanese original papers in 2019–2020. This contrasts with medicine, which, while it demonstrated similar increases in all publication types combined, from 4.92 papers per faculty member per year to 12.78, did not demonstrate as striking an increase in total original paper publication (English and Japanese), from 1.21 papers per faculty member per year to 1.30. However, these two faculties observed similar trends in that English largely replaced Japanese original paper publication. That both faculties' Japanese original paper publication decreased suggests English language original paper publication comes at the expense of publishing in Japanese. Concerning both faculties together, the increase in publishing frequency for all publication types more than tripled from 4.01 to 12.38. This was largely driven by changes in conference paper publication for the pharmaceutical sciences faculty, where English publication increased 2,775% (0.06 to 1.7 papers per faculty member per year) and Japanese language publication 258% (1.33 to 4.77). While conference paper publication did increase for the medical sciences, its change in total publication frequency was largely driven by 'other' types of publication, which increased from 0.51 publications per faculty member per year in 1979–1980 to 5.41 in 2019–2020, largely driven by Japanese language publication. Conclusion: In 2019–2020, pharmaceutical sciences faculty members largely published original papers in English, so postgraduate education should consider the future likelihood of graduates needing to publish in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Initially developed to approach art and cultural services as consumption acts, the experiential paradigm has been deeply developed in business-oriented fields, especially through the concept of customer value. But paradoxically, this application has been less systematic in the arts. This paper presents a review of how experiential value has been studied in the context of arts and culture. It first depicts, with quotations from the last 40 years, a challenge for researching customer experiences, as it is critical for marketing research and management but difficult to apprehend conceptually and empirically. Second, a literature review is made in two stages: quantitative with a bibliometric study on the Web of Science database and qualitative with a diachronic analysis of existing empirical studies of the main conceptual frameworks of customer experience. Finally, several considerations are presented as conclusions, and new research avenues are signaled to continue the inquiry on the experiential value of arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the representation of cultures and communities in the world across five editions of New Headway elementary level textbook (NHE). It conducts a diachronic content analysis to explore how the representation of cultures and communities has evolved in NHE across five editions since its first edition's publication in 1993. Adapting Kachru's model of concentric circles for data analysis, we utilized Yuen's adaptation of ACTFL's (1996) standards for language teaching via the categories of persons, perspectives, products, and practices. Our findings mainly indicate that the Inner Circle has maintained its dominance in NHE's content over five editions. We found that there was an imbalance favoring European cultures against non-European cultures in the Expanding Circle. On the other hand, Expanding Circle / Non-European and Outer Circle are underrepresented with around 10% of the textbook content. These findings show that NHE's cultural focus is on the Western, European, and Anglo-American world of English-speaking communities. Such an imbalance in representation of world cultures leads us to conclude that NHE's writers do not sufficiently raise English learners' global cultural consciousness since there has been little engagement with multicultural view of English language varieties. We invite teachers, learners, and material developers to critically approach, analyse, revise, and/or adapt textbook content as discursive constructions which shape the imagination of cultures and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In den letzten Jahren verfolgen die deutschen Medien die chinesische „Seidenstraßeninitiative“ mit steigender Aufmerksamkeit. Dieser Artikel führt eine diachrone Analyse der relevanten Berichte über das Thema „Seidenstraßeninitiative“ von fünf deutschen Nachrichtenmedien im Zeitraum von 2013 bis 2020 durch. Ziel dieser systematischen Untersuchung der deutschen Presseberichterstattung ist, die Veränderung der Medienframes zur „Seidenstraßeninitiative“ in deutschen Berichterstattungen zu analysieren. Das Ergebnis der Studie zeigt, dass die Medienframes der „Seidenstraßeninitiative“ in den deutschen Medien im Laufe der Zeit eine Dynamik in ihrer Stabilität und der Negativierung aufweisen.

Badlands are peculiar geomorphological formations shaping landscapes of high ecological and cultural value. In the last decades, land reclamation for agricultural purposes and the cessation of traditional land use, such as sheep grazing, led to their decline in extent in many areas. To quantify the changes in badland-related plant communities, we resurveyed badland vegetation in a site of the Crete Senesi (Siena, central Italy) after 16 years (2006–2022), using 48 quasi-permanent vegetation plots and by means of uni- and multivariate analysis of variance. We found an increase in the total vegetation cover of plant communities growing in former bare soil and sparsely vegetated areas, in line with an overall decrease in the extent of bare soil surfaces in the study area, which we highlighted through the analysis of multitemporal satellite images. Pioneer vegetation characterized by the endemic plant Artemisia caerulescens subsp. cretacea changed into ruderal annual grasslands, while former bare soils were colonized by such pioneer vegetation. In contrast, perennial grasslands remained stable. Grasslands with shrubs became more similar to perennial grasslands in species composition. Species richness increased in former bare soils, and using the total vegetation cover as a proxy for successional stages, we found that Shannon diversity and evenness peaked at about 90% of total cover. In all the stages of colonization, short distance dispersal species prevailed, both therophytes (Avena sterilis, Parapholis strigosa) and perennials (Artemisia caerulescens subsp. cretacea, Bromopsis erecta). Long distance dispersal species (Galatella linosyris) started colonizing at about 60% of total vegetation cover, and at high vegetation cover all the functional groups coexisted. Our results confirm that the badland landscapes of southern Tuscany and specialist plant diversity adapted to badlands are vanishing after a diminishing of active land management, suggesting the current ineffectiveness of the Natura 2000 network in their conservation.

An onomasiological competition between lexical units, in which they compete to name a certain object (phenomenon, process, event, etc.), rarely attracts the attention of linguists, mainly due to an interdisciplinary nature of such research and the lack of a developed methodology for that. In this article, the author presents a case study of the onomasiological competition between constructions of otkryvat' butylku ('to open a bottle') and otkuporivat' butylku ('to uncork a bottle') during the 19th and 20th centuries and reveals sociocultural factors influencing the course and result of this competition. Based on this analysis, a few sociocultural scenarios that should be taken into consideration in research of various types of onomasiological competition are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses a diachronic corpus-based analysis to explore the topics presented in LGBTQ-related research articles published between 2001 and 2020, and to examine diachronic changes in these topics over time. The data are from 400 LGBTQ-related research articles which are divided into four time periods (2001-2005, 2006-2010, 2011-2015, 2016-2020) with 100 articles per period. We analyzed the data by looking at keywords, comparing keywords across time, and investigating the concordance lines. The findings from the keywords analysis revealed thirteen LGBTQ-related topics: sexuality, gender, relationship, hate, research, theory, culture, socio-politics, standard, science, place, sport, and nationality. The findings from the comparison across the four time periods show the diachronic changes in topics by looking at keywords identified as always key, previously key, and recently key. The concordance lines show in-depth investigation of the topics to discuss about LGBTQ. The in-depth investigation of the concordance lines indicates that LGBTQ people have difficulty in coming out due to traditional values. This analysis of LGBTQ-related research articles provides new insights into the way LGBTQ people are discussed which can be useful for further studies regarding application of a methodological framework to investigate LGBTQ-related topics in other types of data sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Framed by MCDA, our study examines diachronic changes in gender representation in five New Headway Elementary (NHE) editions. Our findings demonstrate that NHE's gender representation is established on heteronormative binaries indicating bias against women in recreational, domestic, professional, and educational spaces despite few important attempts by the coursebook writers to address gender bias. Gender representation in recreational spaces is built on stereotypical discourses. At home, women mostly have nurturing roles while men are depicted as relaxing or playing with their children. At work, men's professional representation focuses solely on their professional career, whereas women are represented with reference to their domestic and caregiving roles. At school, men are presented as teaching and learning various subjects and sports, while women are mostly associated with teaching and learning languages and art only. In closing, we offer teachers three activities to develop learners' critical awareness against gender discrimination while using NHE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, the authors aim to detect the marginal appreciation of construction and neighbourhood characteristics of property prices at three different time points: before the COVID-19 pandemic, two years after the first COVID-19 alert but before the War in Ukraine, and one year after the outbreak of the War. The marginal appreciations of the building's features are analysed for a pilot case study in Northern Italy using a Random Forest feature importance analysis and a Multivariate Regression. Several techniques are integrated into this study, such as computer programming in Python language, multi-parametric value assessment techniques, feature selection procedures, and spatial analysis. The results may represent an interesting ongoing monitoring of how these anomalous events affect the buyer's willingness to pay for specific characteristics of the buildings, with particular attention to the location features of the neighbourhood and accessibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores novel ways in which Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Studies (DHA - the discourse-historical approach), and Feminist Linguistics can be fruitfully combined and thus contribute to a new awareness and knowledge concerning language and gender in discourse. For the paper a large heritage corpus of texts on mountaineering (Alpenwort - Corpus of the Austrian Alpine Club Journal) is explored, which constitutes a type of discourse that has yet rarely been studied in the abovementioned fields. The corpus was used to analyse gendered nomination with the following questions in mind: What frequently occurring patterns and typical ways of producing gendered nomination can be observed? How are the binary categories 'female' and 'male' linguistically produced and reinforced in these texts? These questions are answered using standard corpus linguistic methods: for example, gendered key items are determined via historical keyness-analysis; the concept of c-collocates and the method UFA (Usage Fluctuation Analysis) are used to trace how the meaning of such key items develops over time. These procedures reveal salient patterns of gender referencing that are then interpreted with the background of the DHA framework and can thus contribute to the investigation of gender bias in sports/leisure discourse.

The study aims at the comparative analysis of the trends in wealth concentration and formation of the ‘patrimonial middle class’ (the term by Piketty) in the countries of the contemporary European-American civilization (EAC). T. Piketty suggests that wealth concentration is increasing again (as in the 18th - 19th centuries), and the formation of the ‘patrimonial middle class’ is the most significant structural change in the long-term wealth distribution. The authors chose five parts of the EAC from West to East: USA, Western Europe, Latvia, Ukraine, and Russia. To measure and compare wealth inequality, the authors used statistical deciles: the top 10 % (including the top 1 %), the middle 40 % and the bottom 50 % of the population. 1995 and 2021 were chosen as time points for the diachronic analysis of the data from the World Inequality Database. The study results show that in different parts of the contemporary EAC, wealth concentration and the formation of the ‘patrimonial middle class’ differ in pace and sometimes in direction: from rapid concentration to deconcentration. Wealth concentration in the hands of the top 1 % of Americans has increased over the past 26 years from 28 % to 35 %, of Russians - from 21 % to 48 %. According to Piketty, such a situation (especially as in Russia) is a harbinger of social revolution. In terms of the wealth concentration level, Latvia and Ukraine represent an intermediate case between Western Europe and the USA/Russia. At the same time, the USA, Western Europe and Russia differ greatly in the cultural-value perspective. The authors question the united EAC in the 21st century and define it as split into an ‘initial core’ (European civilization) and two constantly conflicting ‘peripheries’ (American and Russian civilizations).

This article aims to analyze changes in wealth inequality in the modern Euro-American civilization (EAC). The research object includes the USA, Western Europe, Latvia, Ukraine, and Russia. A tool for measuring and comparing wealth inequality is through statistical deciles: the top 10% (including the top 1%), the middle 40%, and the bottom 50% of the population. The time points used for diachronic analysis are: 1995 and 2021. The data source is the World Inequality Database. The results of this study show that in different parts of the modern EAC, there are different trends of changes in wealth inequality: from rapid concentrating to deconcentrating. The USA and Russia are vivid examples of similar (rapidly increasing) wealth inequality, with a very strong wealth concentration, although the average per adult national wealth in the USA is 4-5 times higher than in Russia. Latvia and Ukraine represent an intermediate option between Western Europe and the USA / Russia, which differ from each other in the cultural dimensions of Hofstede. The authors see the multipolarity of the modern EAC, split into the original, European, civilization and two peripheral ones - American and Russian, which are similar in terms of wealth inequality in society, but different in cultural values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is aimed to analyze changes in wealth inequality in the modern European-American civilization (EAC). The research object includes five parts of the EAC from West to East: USA, Western Europe, Latvia, Ukraine, Russia. Statistical deciles is a tool for measuring and comparing wealth inequality: the top 10% (including the top 1%), the middle 40% and the bottom 50% of the population. 1995 and 2021 are time points for diachronic analysis. The source of empirical information is the data of the World Inequality Database. The study results showed that in different parts of the modern EAC, wealth inequality has different level and trends of changes: from rapid concentrating to deconcentrating. The USA and Russia are vivid examples of rapidly increasing wealth inequality and very strong wealth concentration, although average per adult national wealth in the USA is 4-5 times higher than in Russia. The USA, Western Europe, and Russia differ from each other in the cultural dimensions of Hofstede. The novelty of this study is the use by the authors of economic analysis for a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the modern EAC, based not only on system-forming religious and cultural differences, but also on economic ones.

The coastal wetlands are among the most vulnerable and threatened environments of the Mediterranean area. Targeted actions for their conservation require in-depth knowledge of current and past natural vegetation. In this paper, we surveyed the vegetation composition and the spatio-temporal changes of a coastal wetland area in southeastern Sicily (“Saline di Priolo” SAC). Based on 128 phytosociological surveys and several plant collections, a total of 304 taxa, 28 plant communities, and 16 habitats have been identified. Furthermore, three new plant associations were described, including two in wetland and one in rocky coast environments. For the classification of plant communities and habitats, a hierarchical clustering was performed by using Euclidean coefficient and beta-flexible algorithm. The life form spectrum of the current flora highlights the dominance of therophytes and hemicryptophytes. The Mediterranean species are largely prevailing with 123 taxa. The cartographic analysis performed with ArcGis 10.3 shows a radical reduction in the wetland habitats in the last 70 years, and a strong alteration of the ecological succession of the psammophilous-hygrophilous vegetation. Moreover, landscape configuration of the coastal vegetation and habitat types was well highlighted by a set of specific landscape metrics. In particular, our outcomes identify three habitats (2110, 2210, and 5220* EU code) with bad conservation status, among which we identified one of priority conservation (Zyziphus arborescent matorral) that requires urgent restoration measures.

The study of river channel dynamics at different time intervals is an element of interest in river geomorphology because it provides qualitative and quantitative information related to the river style and patterns of evolution. Old maps represent archives of extremely valuable information related to the natural and human environment, which provide the necessary data for such studies. This paper uses data from old maps to analyze the evolution of the Jiu River between 1857 and 2021. A new method for measuring meander parameters has been developed and may be applied to any type of river channel. The calculation and analysis of the parameters (sinuosity coefficient, length, amplitude, type, and shape) for each riverbed section led to the identification of distinct evolutionary patterns which were discussed in relation to control factors. We concluded that the Jiu river channel gradually straightened during the last 164 years due to upstream anthropogenic interventions such as dams and hydrotechnical works which reduced the natural riverbed dynamics reflected in low sinuosity and meandering levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Soletras is the property of Editora da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (EdUERJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper focuses on diachronic framing analysis of Russias images in British media discourse. The importance of the research is determined by a need to work out adequate linguistic foundations to counteract information war, generated by some foreign media and aimed at distorting Russias history and eroding its spiritual values. Few scholars have drawn on any systematic research into analysis of Russias images in foreign media discourses of different historical spans. The major objective is to compare Russias images and their emotional charge in the British media in chronologically divided periods of war and peace under the influence of changing historical and ideological factors. The authors account for the mechanisms by which Russias images are framed and transformed in the contexts of the largest war of the XX century and the information war of the XXI century. The material comprises 500 samples per period. The data covering two historical spans are investigated through a framing approach. The criteria for diachronic analysis are dominant diagnostic and prognostic frames, constituting the macroframe WAR. The significant difference in Russias images in war- and peacetime consists in their emotive load: Russias contemporary negative images are contrasted to positive images activated in the retrospective period. The findings support the idea that British media discourse focusing on Russia is subject-centered: Russias image is determined by the geopolitical situation, Great Britains political priorities and objectives, and the bilateral relationship between the countries. The results can be used to further develop the linguistic basics of war theory.

The article deals with the possibilities of using new digital linguistic resources for studies into history of expressive vocabulary. In the first part, the author discusses the most important of them, focusing on text corpora and digital libraries, such as Polona and Google Books, showing their advantages and disadvantages. In the second part of the article, theoretical consideration are exemplified by the diachronic analysis of the evolution of several expressive lexems (zajebisty [EN: dope], zajebiście [EN: for the win], szantrapa [EN: shrew, hellcat], ćpać [EN: pop], obciach [EN: shame]). It turns out that digital collections, especially libraries, contain a large number of unknown old texts, which may play a key role in dating rare lexical units as well as their semantic and pragmatic changes.

This corpus-assisted discourse study investigates diachronic change in a specialised corpus of seventeen American presidential debates from 2000 to 2020. The texts were tagged using the ucrel Semantic Annotation System (usas) (Rayson, 2008) to facilitate the investigation of emergent and decreasing semantic trends over the period; the strength of trends was empirically evaluated through application of Kendall's Tau correlation coefficient. The analysis revealed that domains reflecting truth evaluations and matters of credibility increased alongside a more people-orientated discourse, as evidenced by increases in personal pronouns. Furthermore, instances invoking warfare and defence decreased, paralleled by a decrease in the representations of toughness. These results may reflect a shift in US political discourse generally, and American presidential discourse specifically, while also reflecting evolving contemporary social and political interests over the twenty-year span of the corpus. This study concludes with interpretations of these discursive shifts in the context of the current era of so-called 'fake news', intense partisanship, and social and political divisiveness. Findings indicate that the current US political climate cannot simply be attributed to an anomalous Trump administration but, rather, the discursive features contributing to and reflecting the current political environment have been present and increasing since at least the year 2000 election cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study has conducted a diachronic analysis of law and order metaphors in a self-compiled corpus of China's Government Work Reports (CGWR) over a span of 22 years (2000–2021). By mapping target domains with source domains, we categorized four major types of legal metaphors, including building, physical object, journey, and living being, among which physical object was overwhelmingly predominant. Our analysis suggests metaphorical expressions that highlight physicality more than specificity will constantly remain in use because the stability and universality of such metaphors are conducive to the dissemination and reinforcement of legal thoughts. Additionally, there is a direct correlation between legal metaphors and the government's economic, political, and social concerns, as evidenced by increasing attention paid to various security issues and new challenges in China. Given that the rule of law with Chinese characteristics becomes more institutionally recognized and systematically theorized, legal metaphors are implemented in a top-down manner to justify the exercise of power in CGWRs, making Chinese people identified with the governing philosophy and further contributing to the ideological construction of discourse. This study is thus conducive to a general but insightful understanding of how political stances are embodied and reinforced persuasively in discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The methodology of intertextual analysis of biblical texts consists of comparing two texts to identify points of thematic and lexical continuity between them. As the methodology requires close attention to lexical details, most intertextual analyses of OT passages use the MT version of both texts as the basis of comparison. This reliance on the MT raises a number of methodological concerns that can lead to misleading conclusions. Using the case of Genesis 19 and Judges 19 as an example, it will be argued that most of the claimed intertextual allusions in the latter text were introduced by a late redactor as literary embellishments to what was already a well-developed narrative. Although this conclusion is speculative, it nonetheless suggests that intertextual analysis that is limited to a comparison of two texts in their final MT versions understates the complexity and subtlety of the gradual compositional development process of biblical texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the utility of metaphor as an investigative tool in "long-distance" corpora and discourse studies. I show that metaphor is both important for understanding discourses and useful for diachronic analysis because it allows us to abstract out above the purely lexical level, enabling comparison across contexts where the same concept could be lexicalised differently. The case-study is concerned with the oft-discussed metaphor of migrants are water in the UK-based Times newspaper from 1800–2018 and the conventionalisation and evaluative patterns are presented. The findings confirm that the water metaphor has an extensive discourse history regarding how migration is represented in the UK press, but also that evaluations may differ significantly. The paper shows how metaphor can provide a way to find discourse evaluations and framings across different time periods. The use of second-order collocates illustrates how corpus tools can help re-contextualise data to ensure interpretation heeds contemporary framings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of future subjunctive (FS) has suffered a steady decline in written Spanish from the fourteenth century. It is not clear whether it disappeared similarly in each clause, and whether its use was determined by regional distinctions to be considered as a dialectal feature. Granda (1986) suggested that the Hispanic Caribbean countries in the Americas were more conservative in the use of FS in contrast to other regions in a southerly direction. Ramírez-Luengo (2008), however, argued that FS decline occurred uniformly in the Americas, with the eighteenth century being the critical time for the substitution. In a sample of 45 legal documents (60,852 words) from the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, issued in northwest and southwest Colombia, the proportions of FS and other alternating forms were equally likely in both regions. FS tabulations were less likely to occur in the nineteenth century within relative clauses, while they were equally likely to occur in conditional protases. This suggests that FS in written Spanish does not show dialectal differences and that its decline might have occurred earlier in relative clauses than conditional protases, probably due to a stylistic motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article aims to conduct a diachronic study of homosexual nominations within the framework of conceptual semantics. The author identifies the foci of conceptual structure underlying the nomination of lexical items and analyses their distribution from the 14th century to the present day. Specific patterns of semantic development of homosexual nominations are outlined. The findings show that at a certain historical period a limited amount of nominative foci is available for coining lexical items under study. The distribution of homosexual nominations and the productivity of foci are prone to change under the influence of sociocultural factors. It is shown that former lexical expressions of dislike and contempt are replaced with milder and more ambiguous items.

This paper explores novel ways in which Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Studies (DHA - the discourse-historical approach), and Feminist Linguistics can be fruitfully combined and thus contribute to a new awareness and knowledge concerning language and gender in discourse. For the paper a large heritage corpus of texts on mountaineering (Alpenwort - Corpus of the Austrian Alpine Club Journal) is explored, which constitutes a type of discourse that has yet rarely been studied in the abovementioned fields. The corpus was used to analyse gendered nomination with the following questions in mind: What frequently occurring patterns and typical ways of producing gendered nomination can be observed? How are the binary categories 'female' and 'male' linguistically produced and reinforced in these texts? These questions are answered using standard corpus linguistic methods: for example, gendered key items are determined via historical keyness-analysis; the concept of c-collocates and the method UFA (Usage Fluctuation Analysis) are used to trace how the meaning of such key items develops over time. These procedures reveal salient patterns of gender referencing that are then interpreted with the background of the DHA framework and can thus contribute to the investigation of gender bias in sports/leisure discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the path of Motif K111.1, Alleged gold-dropping animal sold, through a series of tales in which the trickster Aldar Köse works his way to wealth through ruses that exploit the norms and institutions of mobile pastoral production. Comparison of the motif across eras reveals the ways in which a trickster figure who embodied a disorderly anarchy of appetite was improbably reborn as an apostle of order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at tracing the origin of the preposition, adverb, and conjunction after, starting with the first examples registered before 850; distinguishing the primary and transposed categories; and reconstructing the process of functional transposition in general. The analysis is undertaken on the basis of the examples, which have been manually selected from the HCET and the CLMET and have undergone the following PoS tagging, and the statistical data retrieved from the COHA and the BNC. It is proved that after emerges as the preposition and transposes into the adverb and conjunction. The preposition, which predominates throughout Old English, loses its position in favor of the adverb in the second half of the Middle English period. Later, it stabilizes the correlation, which remains more or less consistent up to now. The adverb reaches its peak in Early Modern English, then it starts rapid declension, and now its quantity is close to null. The conjunction, being neglected up to the middle of the Early Modern English period, starts its increase and is at the peak in Present-Day English. It testifies that functional transposition, which is undeservingly disregarded in linguistics, is still remaining in progress for fundamental and newly-coined lexical units.

Pesticides are widely used in agriculture to manage pests, weeds and diseases with consequences on ecosystem and human health. Reducing pesticide reliance appears as a necessary step for transitioning to sustainable farming systems. Many non-chemical techniques to control pests, weeds and diseases are individually well documented, but quantitative assessment of how much the reliance on pesticides could be decreased through a holistic approach of cropping system re-design combining several individual techniques was lacking. A diachronic approach was conducted on 913 French commercial farms from the DEPHY network, spanning a diversity of contexts and management strategies. Regression Trees and Random Forest models were run to identify combinations of changes in management strategies associated with the evolution of pesticides reliance over time, in a range of production contexts. The consequences of these changes on pesticide-related risks to human health and the environment were also investigated. Farm reliance on pesticides and pesticide-related risks to human health and the environment were reduced in 65.7% and 60.3% of the farms, respectively. The greatest reductions in pesticide reliance were observed in farms with the highest initial levels of reliance on pesticides. Crop diversification and reduced nitrogen fertilization were often associated with reduced pesticide reliance. This study highlights the value of real farm networks for identifying and promoting combinations of techniques that help reduce pesticide dependency and move towards more sustainable farming systems. [Display omitted] • Factors explaining the evolution of 913 farms' reliance on pesticides were studied. • Reliance on pesticide use and risk to human and ecosystem health were reduced. • Crop diversification and fertilization decrease were linked with decreases in reliance on pesticides. • Crop-livestock integration was linked with reductions in reliance on pesticides. • Changes in treatment decisions explained high variance of reliance on pesticide evolutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing part of studies on English for academic purpose explores how English is used in non-Anglophone contexts. This article focuses on the insufficiently studied context of Russia, where English has been used as a language of scientific publications only since the last decade. The paper explores hedging devices in Russian authors' research article abstracts from a diachronic perspective. The main focus is on quantitative and qualitative variations in the use of these linguistic means. Exploring categories of hedges and suggesting reasons for diachronic changes in their use are other research questions. It is assumed their distribution could change over time. The improved English proficiency of Russian academic writers, the weakening intrusion of the national criteria of good writing and greater awareness of the Anglophone academic writing norms due to the need to publish internationally have influenced metadiscourse patterns in Russian-authored academic prose. The study is based on a corpus of 120 research article abstracts from the field of linguistics published in two Russian journals in 2010-2021. The theoretical framework followed here is Hyland's (2018) taxonomy of hedges, which offers a pragmatically-grounded method for analyzing hedging in academic discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avalanche risk changes through time due to climate, landscape and socio-environmental transformations. These drivers exhibit space-time variations as function of local peculiarities that may alter local avalanche risk trajectories. Here, we use an integrative methodology to track the co-evolution of the socio-economic, land cover and climatic drivers of avalanche risk and its components in three upper basins of the French Alps: the Upper Maurienne valley, the Guil valley and the municipality of Valloire. The analysis, based on data from 1860 to 2017, focuses on avalanche-prone terrain defined as the maximal extension of avalanches potentially occurring on all paths of the French avalanche cadaster. Avalanche occurrence numbers have likely increased over the last decades, more strongly at higher elevation. By contrast, a quasi-complete afforestation of avalanche-prone areas took place in the Guil valley, whereas, in the Upper Maurienne and Valloire, afforestation remains incomplete. This suggests a significant increase of protection from avalanches for people downslope due to the presence of forests in the Guil valley only. In parallel, recent expansion of urban areas in avalanche-prone terrain is prominent in the Upper Maurienne, and more modest and controlled in the Guil valley and in Valloire. Hence, overall, avalanche risk for buildings and their inhabitants have locally slightly decreased over the study period in the Guil valley, remained rather stationary in Valloire and has rather strongly increased in the Upper Maurienne. This demonstrates the crucial role of local dynamics in avalanche risk evolution. Our results help in understanding the complex patterns resulting in mountain risks changing faster than ever and very differently from one location to another, which may, in turn, contribute to the development of improved disaster risk reduction strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]