BackgroundNarrative reviews are the commonest type of articles in the medical literature. However, unlike systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials (RCT) articles, for which formal instruments exist to evaluate quality, there is currently no instrument available to assess the quality of narrative reviews. In response to this gap, we developed SANRA, the Scale for the Assessment of Narrative Review Articles.MethodsA team of three experienced journal editors modified or deleted items in an earlier SANRA version based on face validity, item-total correlations, (...) and reliability scores from previous tests. We deleted an item which addressed a manuscript’s writing and accessibility due to poor inter-rater reliability. The six items which form the revised scale are rated from 0 (low standard) to 2 (high standard) and cover the following topics: explanation of (1) the importance and (2) the aims of the review, (3) literature search and (4) referencing and presentation of (5) evidence level and (6) relevant endpoint data. For all items, we developed anchor definitions and examples to guide users in filling out the form. The revised scale was tested by the same editors (blinded to each other’s ratings) in a group of 30 consecutive non-systematic review manuscripts submitted to a general medical journal.ResultsRaters confirmed that completing the scale is feasible in everyday editorial work. The mean sum score across all 30 manuscripts was 6.0 out of 12 possible points (SD 2.6, range 1–12). Corrected item-total correlations ranged from 0.33 (item 3) to 0.58 (item 6), and Cronbach’s alpha was 0.68 (internal consistency). The intra-class correlation coefficient (average measure) was 0.77 [95% CI 0.57, 0.88] (inter-rater reliability). Raters often disagreed on items 1 and 4.ConclusionsSANRA’s feasibility, inter-rater reliability, homogeneity of items, and internal consistency are sufficient for a scale of six items. Further field testing, particularly of validity, is desirable. We recommend rater training based on the “explanations and instructions” document provided with SANRA. In editorial decision-making, SANRA may complement journal-specific evaluation of manuscripts—pertaining to, e.g., audience, originality or difficulty—and may contribute to improving the standard of non-systematic reviews. (shrink)

We present here for the first time an italian translation of Rang’s Vom Weg messianischer Deutung : the introductory essay on the work on Shakespeare’s sonnets. This work remained unfinished and was only partially published posthumously by Rang’s son, Bernhard, in 1954, with the title Shakespeare der Christ. Eine Deutung der Sonette. The translation is accompanied by a comment essay on Rang’s text. This comment essay firstly aims to contextualize both the work on Shakespeare and the very complex and still (...) little researched figure of Florens Christian Rang; secondly, it addresses the most important conceptual issues that the essay presents. With a strongly programmatic nature and, at the same time, with an expressionistic style, which is as obscure as it is visionary, Vom Weg messianischer Deutung presents the method of messianic interpretation in contrast with the classical-romantic one of the pneumatic interpretation. What is at stake is a perspective that challenges the autonomy of art in order to place the Kunstwerk in the series of all the works of divine creation to transform it in faith work. It is the point of view of the Last Judgment that leads the way. The messianic critique of art reveals to be only a particular case of messianic world critique, literally a critique of the world, which redirects itself to the world. It is the movement of conversion which breaks with the false dualism of Romanticism, according to which the spirit is divided in two: on the one hand, there are the experience, the world, the science, on the other hand, there is the art as pure mirroring of forms. Through the messianic interpretation, the spirit returns to be body, flesh. It follows the permanent movement of creation, namely the continuous conversion from God to the world and from the world to God. In this sense, according to Rang, Shakespeare’s sonnets exemplify the faith work: their poetic word names the messianic unity of body and spirit. They are crystals within which all creatural life, the great stages of the divine creation, are concentrated. (shrink)

The article intends to argue that the roots of religious freedom in the West can be found many centuries before the time of the Reformation, namely in the writings of Christian apologists who wrote in defense of the right to practice the Christian faith in the Roman Empire, in the political context of the time, which was otherwise tolerant of the religious pluralism present in its space. Moreover, we talk about Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, known as Tertullian (160-225): "the (...) first theologian of the West" and "the first political theologian." In last, we will argue that religious freedom is a natural right according to the philosophical and political developments over the centuries. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a boom in the study of the Yi Jing (the Book of Changes) and ancient Chinese forms of physical exercise in European countries such as Germany, Belgium and France, with research themes focusing on psychotherapeutic and medical clinical experimental studies, such as a study conducted at the Institute of Psychology at the University of Tübingen in Germany that emphasised that moderate general physiological activation, exercise-dependent regulation of the heart rhythm ANS can induce a typical (...) state of calm to regulate Qi. There are few theoretical studies on the metaphysical aspects of the existence of such healthful and beneficial underlying psychophysiological mechanisms of mind-body exercise Florens（2021）, so this paper chooses to use the practice of Qi as a case study, where Qi practice refers to the classical and systematic use in Chinese martial arts’ internal styles and systems such as Taijiquan (Taichi), Qigong and shaolinquan(Shaolin Boxing). A primarily documentary research approach is adopted, this paper using classical theories from the Yi Jing to analyse a metaphysical analysis of the physical exercises associated with Qi. The conclusions of the study show that: Firstly, Chinese traditional methods and practical experience can be drawn upon. Secondly, the classical theory of the Yi Jing, which uses Qi as the core of practice, enriches the ontology of human life perception in the field of philosophy. Thirdly, the ultimate pursuit of life through the practice of Qi is a concrete manifestation of the metaphysical holistic view of life in traditional Chinese physical exercises. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente artículo se propone examinar la clausura del concepto benjaminiano de aura como noción válida para pensar la experiencia estética contemporánea. En este sentido, un primer objetivo consiste en rehabilitar tal concepto, cotejando su definición en el famoso ensayo sobre la reproductibilidad técnica con las diversas formulaciones que el mismo Benjamin elabora al respecto en otros ensayos, en los que la gravitación del aura se desplaza desde una cualidad objetiva, anidada en la obra misma, hacia una facultad perceptual (...) y memoriosa que organiza su experiencia histórica. A partir de lo anterior, un segundo objetivo consiste en pesquisar las huellas de un presunto modelo de historiografía del arte que Benjamin esboza en una carta dirigida a Florens Christian Rang y que afina en su ensayo sobre Eduard Fuchs. Establecidos los lineamientos de este modelo, el artículo concluye que el concepto de aura no remite tanto a una datación de origen de la obra de arte, circunscribiendo exclusivamente sus condiciones de producción, sino a las coordenadas variables en las que cada época recupera para sí una obra de arte determinada. Esta recuperación, imantada por el mecanismo de las correspondances, donde la singularidad de una obra de arte hace sistema con una situación histórica determinada, permite comprender finalmente el aura como un modo de experiencia de las imágenes del arte.: The following work attempts to examine Walter Benjamin’s concept of aura as a valid notion for thinking about contemporary aesthetic experience. In this regard, our first goal is to rehabilitate this concept, comparing its definition in the famous essay on technical reproducibility with other formulations developed by Benjamin in essays such as a “A short history of photography”, “The storyteller”, and “On some motifs in Baudelaire”, in which aura is not understood as an objective quality pertaining to the work of art itself, but as the perceptive and mnemonic faculty organizing its historical experience. Our second goal is to locate the traces of a model for the historiography art, which Benjamin outlines in a letter written to Florens Christian Rang and which he refines in his essay on Eduard Fuchs. Within this context, the article concludes that the concept of aura does not refer to a work of art’s time of origin, but to the variable coordinates that allow each epoch to make its own experience of that work of art. Through the mechanism of correspondences, by which a work of art’s singularity matches with a specific historical situation, we are able understand aura as a mode of experience of the images of art. (shrink)

The pluralis inapposite, sinceωμος applied to a band of revellers is a collective noun and, however many times the band accompanied Dionysus, it is still the sameωμος and not a plurality ofωμοι. Dobree's and Bothe's κμοις must face the same objection, unless it is understood as ‘songs’, in which case it becomes a feeble anticipation of οιδις in 40. Florens Christianus' κμοί is negligible. Porson suggested κμωι but left it unclear whether he interpreted Bακχίωι as adjective or noun. Bάκχιος (...) is used adjectivally not more than once or twice in over thirty Euripidean examples, and the satyrs cannot be said to have accompanied a Bacchicωμος, for theωμος was constituted of the satyrs themselves. And yet Bακχίωι interpreted as a noun would produce an intolerably unstylish collocation of independent datives. Unimpeachable sense and style, and a strong candidate for corruption, would be furnished byωμος. (shrink)