The length of the already completed period of military service played an unofficial but exceptionally important role in the everyday practice of a military service (MS) soldier conscripted into the army for two years (730 days). The period that was getting always shorter and that remained to their return to civilian life (the “number”) significantly or even fundamentally strengthened the real position of a MS soldier within military community in barracks premises, and especially in a partial segment thereof (at the level “platoon, company”), a part of which the MS soldier was. The number was important for creating his ongoing social statute, mainly it determined the classification of a soldier in a clearly defined category (rookie, senior on fatigue duty, old sweat, super old sweat etc.), on which his position within the community of MS soldiers was dependent. The number was a symbol of the above-mentioned
variable process, and a lot of essential attributes, which left significant marks on the everyday life in barracks and outside them, related to it. The importance of this number was big enough to be called the “cult of number”.
Although slurs are conventionally defined as derogatory words, it has been widely noted that not all of their occurrences are derogatory. This may lead us to think that there are “innocent” occurrences of slurs, i.e., occurrences of slurs that are not harmful in any sense. The aim of this paper is to challenge this assumption. Our thesis is that slurs are always potentially harmful, even if some of their occurrences are nonderogatory. Our argument is the following. Derogatory occurrences of slurs are not characterized by their sharing any specific linguistic form; instead, they are those that take place in what we call uncontrolled contexts, that is, contexts in which we do not have enough knowledge of our audience to predict what the uptake of the utterance will be. Slurs uttered in controlled contexts, by contrast, may lack derogatory character. However, although the kind of context at which the utterance of a slur takes place can make it nonderogatory, it cannot completely deprive it of its harmful potential. Utterances of slurs in controlled contexts still contribute to normalizing their utterances in uncontrolled contexts, which makes nonderogatory occurrences of slurs potentially harmful too.
Metabolic flux investigations of cells and tissue samples are a rapidly advancing tool in diverse research areas. Reliable methods of data normalization are crucial for an adequate interpretation of results and to avoid a misinterpretation of experiments and incorrect conclusions. The most common methods for metabolic flux data normalization are to cell number, DNA and protein. Data normalization may be affected by a variety of factors, such as density, healthy state, adherence efficiency, or proportional seeding of cells. The mussel-derived adhesive Cell-Tak is often used to immobilize poorly adherent cells. Here we demonstrate that this coating strongly affects the fluorescent detection of DNA leading to an incorrect and highly variable normalization of metabolic flux data. Protein assays are much less affected and cell counting can virtually completely remove the effect of the coating. Cell-Tak coating also affects cell shape in a cell line-specific manner and may change cellular metabolism. Based on these observations we recommend cell counting as a gold standard normalization method for Seahorse metabolic flux measurements with protein content as a reasonable alternative.
Obnovení pořádku v Československé akademii věd patřilo mezi prvořadé úkoly československé normalizace. Některé instituce byly ''očištěny'' dříve, jiné později, každopádně propuštění Ivana Svitáka z Filosofického ústavu v létě 1969 představovalo precedens, podle něhož bylo o nedlouho později postupováno vůči vědcům ocitnuvším se v kapitalistické cizině. Hlavně se ale jednalo o symbolický akt likvidace nepohodlného exponenta ''pravice a kontrarevoluce''. Svitákova institucionální exkomunikace vypovídá mnohé o samotných normalizačních mechanismech i tehdejších aktérech. Publikovaná korespondence odhaluje myšlenkový svět hlavního aktéra, jeho odpor vůči technokracii, byrokracii i zdeformovanému socialismu, přibližuje jeho pracovní plány a do jisté míry i představy o fungování společnosti demokratického socialismu. Úřední strohost Richtových listů oproti tomu nese jisté stopy cynismu expertně orientovaného vědce, který nepřipouští výraznější projevy odstředivých tendencí a vyžaduje ''klid na práci''. Edice je chápána jako příspěvek k intelektuálním dějinám, stejně jako k dějinám vědní politiky a rané normalizace., The restoration of order in the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences was among the chief tasks of the so-called ''normalization'' process in Czechoslovakia after the end of the Prague Spring. Some institutions were ''cleansed'' sooner, some later, but the expulsion of Ivan Sviták from the Philosophy Institute in the summer of 1969 set a precedent that would later be used in dealing with other scholars who went to capitalist countries after the military invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Above all, Sviták’s expulsion was a symbolic act that represented the elimination of ''rightwing and counterrevolutionary'' elements. Sviták’s institutional excommunication sheds light both on the mechanisms of normalization, on Sviták as an individual, and on then-director of the Philosophy Institute Radovan Richta. The correspondence presented here reveals Sviták’s intellectual world: his distaste for technocracy, bureaucracy and deformed socialism; his work projects; and to some extent his vision of democratic socialist society. In contrast to Sviták, Richta’s administrative curtness shows the cynicism of expert-minded scientists, who were prepared to fight any disruptive tendencies and who required normalized ''peace for work.'' The publication of these documents is understood as a contribution to intellectual history as well as to the history of science policy and to the history of the early period of Czechoslovak normalization. (Translated by Jan Mervart), and Překlad resumé: Jan Mervart
Miroslav Kusý (1931–2019) was a Marxist-orientated Slovak philosopher who, after the crackdown on the Czechoslovak reform process in August 1968, applied a critical reading of the official interpretation of Marxism. An example of this is the short essay “To Be a Marxist in Czechoslovakia,” from 1984. Like other of his critical statements written in the 1970s and 1980s, it was published only in samizdat. In this text, published here for the first time in English, Kusý summarizes, explains, and criticizes the official interpretation of Marxism and counterposes his own understanding of it. In doing so, Kusý fits into the tradition that revolves around finding a correct interpretation of Marx. Dirk Mathias Dalberg, after a biographical outline and a short overview on the political thinking of Miroslav Kusý in the 1970s and 1980s, introduces the text and names Kusý’s main arguments. Dalberg places Kusý’s thinking into the broader context of contemporary dissident thinking in Czechoslovakia and offers further readings which show Kusý’s understanding of Marxism in concrete examples. and Dirk Mathias Dalberg, ed.
Jedním z hlavních analytických konceptů kulturalistického přístupu, který studuje užití populární kultury jako specifické jednání, je pojem „kulturní občanství“. Tento text se proto v následujících částech bude zabývat shrnutím významů tohoto pojmu (včetně jeho okolí) a pokusí se jej – ačkoli se s ním dosud pracovalo jen při studiu protiváhy hegemonie ve formálně demokratických společnostech – transplantovat do oblasti užití televizní popkultury v autoritářském socialistickém systému. Jak autoritářský socialismus operoval se samotným pojmem „občanství“? Mělo vůbec užívání pojmu „občanství“ v Československu v období normalizace nějaké opodstatnění? Lze snad najít dokonce nějaké „skuliny“, kudy docházelo k průsaku jednání do sociální struktury tak, že můžeme hovořit o kulturním občanství? Je legitimní očekávat, že pojem „kulturní občanství“ se stane senzitizujícím konceptem a zbystří naši schopnost vidět torza autonomního jednání v rámci struktury autoritářského socialistického systému? To jsou témata, s nimiž se bude tato teoretická stať postupně vyrovnávat., This theoretical essay explores the concepts of cultural and popcultural citizenships in connection with the period of state socialism in 70s and 80s in Czechoslovakia. The main intention is to test the potential of the concept of popcultural citizenship, which is inspired by John Hartley's “do-it-yourself citizenship”. Another aim is to examine textual properties of so called “normalization” television serials with regard to the extent to which it allowed for semiosis to be controlled by the viewers. The article summarizes theoretical debate of the main concepts as a starting point for further audience research., and Irena Reifová.
With respect to the history of sciences under communism, we understand the gray zone to mean academic practices originating from the negotiated autonomy of academia and the need to respect scientific values such as objectivity and a critical approach to reality. Our research explores the links between academic communities that were not directly involved in dissident activities but actively supported dissent initiatives (very often for a limited period of time) and were linked to transnational scientific networks or social movements. Specifically, we analyze the involvement of socially engaged scientists employed by the official research institutions in dissident activities related to the environmental sciences.
This program enables the user to visualize f0 contours, to plot vowels in the F1/F2 space for multiple points in the vowel interval, e.g. at 20%, 50% and 80%, and to visualize vowel durations.
(The tool is implemented in R. We used the following packages: phonR, gplots, plotrix, lattice, readxl, WriteXLS, DT,
psych and pracma. We thank the developers of these packages.)
This study deals with the grey zone phenomenon in the context of literary life under late Communist rule during the 1970s and 1980s in Czechoslovakia. The aim of this text is to attempt to trace, using the method of historical reconstruction, how the concept of the grey zone was understood in Czech and Slovak society before 1989, especially in texts and discussions on dissent and exile that reflected the reality of normalization. These texts show that awarenesss of the grey zone played an essential role in the thinking of dissident and émigré authors, as it challenged bipolar schemes and blackand- white images of social reality in the Czechoslovakia of the time. However, this conception of the grey zone often contradicts today’s journalistic and specialist approaches, which tend to classify the grey zone as a silent or passive majority. This study shows that the definition of what we now call the grey zone was much broader.