bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Black hole spin in X-ray binaries: giving uncertainties an f
Authors: Salvesen Greg , Miller Jonah M
Published: October 2020

The two established techniques for measuring black hole spin in X-ray binaries often yield conflicting results, which must be resolved before either method may be deemed robust. In practice, black hole spin measurements based on fitting the accretion disc continuum effectively do not marginalize over the colour-correction factor fcol. This factor parametrizes spectral hardening of the disc continuum by the disc atmosphere, whose true properties are poorly constrained. We incorporate reasonable systematic uncertainties in fcol into the eight (non-maximal) black hole spin measurements vetted by the disc continuum fitting community. In most cases, an fcol uncertainty of ±0.2–0.3 dominates the black hole spin error budget. We go on to demonstrate that plausible departures in fcol values from those adopted by the disc continuum fitting practitioners can bring the discrepant black hole spins into agreement with those from iron line modelling. Systematic uncertainties in fcol, such as the effects of strong magnetization, should be better understood before dismissing their potentially dominant impact on the black hole spin error budget.
Convective H–He interactions in massive population III stellar evolution models
Authors: Clarkson O , Herwig F
Published: October 2020

In Pop III stellar models, convection-induced mixing between H- and He-rich burning layers can induce a burst of nuclear energy and thereby substantially alter the subsequent evolution and nucleosynthesis in the first massive stars. We investigate H–He shell and core interactions in 26 stellar evolution simulations with masses 15–140, M⊙, using five sets of mixing assumptions. In 22 cases H–He interactions induce local nuclear energy release in the range $\sim 10^{9}\!-\!10^{13.5}\, \mathrm{L}_{\odot }$. The luminosities on the upper end of this range amount to a substantial fraction of the layer’s internal energy over a convective advection time-scale, indicating a dynamic stellar response that would violate 1D stellar evolution modelling assumptions. We distinguish four types of H–He interactions depending on the evolutionary phase and convective stability of the He-rich material. H-burning conditions during H–He interactions give 12C/13C ratios between ≈ 1.5 to ∼1000 and [C/N] ratios from ≈ −2.3 to ≈ 3 with a correlation that agrees well with observations of CEMP (carbon-enhanced metal-poor) no stars. We also explore Ca production from hot CNO breakout and find the simulations presented here likely cannot explain the observed Ca abundance in the most Ca-poor CEMP-no star. We describe the evolution leading to H–He interactions, which occur during or shortly after core-contraction phases. Three simulations without an H–He interaction are computed to Fe-core infall and a $140\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$ simulation becomes pair unstable. We also discuss present modelling limitations and the need for 3D hydrodynamic models to fully understand these stellar evolutionary phases.
EPIC 216747137: a new HW Vir eclipsing binary with a massive sdOB primary and a low-mass M-dwarf companion
Authors: Silvotti R , Schaffenroth V , Heber U , Østensen R H , Telting J H , Vos J , Kilkenny D , Mancini L , Ciceri S , Irrgang A , Drechsel H
Published: October 2020

EPIC 216747137 is a new HW Virginis system discovered by the Kepler spacecraft during its K2 ‘second life’. Like the other HW Vir systems, EPIC 216747137 is a post-common-envelope eclipsing binary consisting of a hot subluminous star and a cool low-mass companion. The short orbital period of 3.87 h produces a strong reflection effect from the secondary (∼9 per cent in the R band). Together with AA Dor and V1828 Aql, EPIC 216747137 belongs to a small subgroup of HW Vir systems with a hot evolved sdOB primary. We find the following atmospheric parameters for the hot component: Teff = 40400 ± 1000 K, log g = 5.56 ± 0.06, and log(N(He)/N(H)) = −2.59 ± 0.05. The sdOB rotational velocity v sin  i = 51 ± 10 km s−1 implies that the stellar rotation is slower than the orbital revolution and the system is not synchronized. When we combine photometric and spectroscopic results with the Gaia parallax, the best solution for the system corresponds to a primary with a mass of about 0.62 M⊙ close to, and likely beyond, the central helium exhaustion, while the cool M-dwarf companion has a mass of about 0.11 M⊙.
Renal transplant outcomes in amyloidosis
Authors: Law Steven , Cohen Oliver , Lachmann Helen J , Rezk Tamer , Gilbertson Janet A , Rowczenio Dorota , Wechalekar Ashutosh D , Hawkins Philip N , Motallebzadeh Reza , Gillmore Julian D
Published: October 2020

Background

Outcomes after renal transplantation have traditionally been poor in systemic amyloid A (AA) amyloidosis and systemic light chain (AL) amyloidosis, with high mortality and frequent recurrent disease. We sought to compare outcomes with matched transplant recipients with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) and diabetic nephropathy (DN), and identify factors predictive of outcomes.

Methods

We performed a retrospective cohort study of 51 systemic AL and 48 systemic AA amyloidosis patients undergoing renal transplantation. Matched groups were generated by propensity score matching. Patient and death-censored allograft survival were compared via Kaplan–Meier survival analyses, and assessment of clinicopathological features predicting outcomes via Cox proportional hazard analyses.

Results

One-, 5- and 10-year death-censored unadjusted graft survival was, respectively, 94, 91 and 78% for AA amyloidosis, and 98, 93 and 93% for AL amyloidosis; median patient survival was 13.1 and 7.9 years, respectively. Patient survival in AL and AA amyloidosis was comparable to DN, but poorer than ADPKD [hazard ratio (HR) = 3.12 and 3.09, respectively; P < 0.001]. Death-censored allograft survival was comparable between all groups. In AL amyloidosis, mortality was predicted by interventricular septum at end diastole (IVSd) thickness >12 mm (HR = 26.58; P = 0.03), while survival was predicted by haematologic response (very good partial or complete response; HR = 0.07; P = 0.018). In AA amyloidosis, recurrent amyloid was associated with elevated serum amyloid A concentration but not with outcomes.

Conclusions

Renal transplantation outcomes for selected patients with AA and AL amyloidosis are comparable to those with DN. In AL amyloidosis, IVSd thickness and achievement of deep haematologic response pre-transplant profoundly impact patient survival.
An open-label, single-arm, phase II trial of buparlisib in patients with melanoma brain metastases not eligible for surgery or radiosurgery—the BUMPER study
Authors: Amaral Teresa , Niessner Heike , Sinnberg Tobias , Thomas Ioannis , Meiwes Andreas , Garbe Claus , Garzarolli Marlene , Rauschenberg Ricarda , Eigentler Thomas , Meier Friedegund
Published: October 2020

Background

Patients with melanoma brain metastasis (MBM) still carry a dismal prognosis. Preclinical data originated in xenograft models showed that buparlisib therapy was highly effective in therapy-naïve MBM.

Patients and Methods

In this open-label, phase II trial, we investigate the safety and efficacy of monotherapy with buparlisib, a PI3K inhibitor, in patients with asymptomatic MBM who were not candidates for local therapy. These patients had also progressed under immunotherapy if BRAF wild-type or under targeted therapy with BRAF/MEK inhibitors if carrying a BRAFV600E/K mutation. The primary endpoint was the intracranial disease control rate assessed by the investigators. The secondary endpoints were overall response rate, duration of response (DOR) of intracranial disease, overall response, progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), safety, and tolerability of buparlisib.

Results

A total of 20 patients were screened and 17 patients were treated with buparlisib. Twelve patients had progressed under more than 2 systemic therapy lines and 17 had received at least 1 previous local therapy. There were no intracranial responses. Three patients achieved intracranial stable disease; the median DOR was 117 days. The median PFS was 42 days (95% confidence interval [CI]: 23–61 days) and the median OS was 5.0 months (95% CI: 2.24–7.76 months). No new safety signs were observed.

Conclusions

Buparlisib was well tolerated but no intracranial responses were observed. These results might be explained in part by the inclusion of only heavily pretreated patients. However, preclinical data strongly support the rationale to explore PI3K inhibitor-based combinations in patients with MBM displaying hyperactivation of the PI3K–AKT pathway.
Precipitous Fall in Common Respiratory Viral Infections During COVID-19
Authors: Parry Michael F , Shah Asha K , Sestovic Merima , Salter Selma
Published: October 2020

In the midst of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, we were surprised to find that all other respiratory viral infections fell precipitously. The difference in respiratory viral infections during the 16-week period of our peak COVID-19 activity in 2020 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention weeks 14–29) was significantly lower than during the same period in the previous 4 years (a total of 4 infections vs an average of 138 infections; P < .0001). We attribute this to widespread use of public health interventions including wearing face masks, social distancing, hand hygiene, and stay-at-home orders. As these interventions are usually ignored by the community during most influenza seasons, we anticipate that their continued use during the upcoming winter season could substantially blunt the case load of influenza and other respiratory viral infections.
Chapter 2
Authors: Glancy Mark
Published: October 2020

Beginning with Elsie Leach’s commitment to the Bristol Lunatic Asylum, this chapter explores his mother’s medical records and the nature of her illness. It considers the idea that his father may have had his mother committed as a means of freeing himself from marriage. It also considers the impact that her disappearance had on Archie, who was told that she was dead but suspected that she had deserted him. Drawing on his own diary, from 1918, the chapter recounts his daily life at age 14, revealing that he was a frequent truant and that, while working as a backstage “runner” at Bristol’s Empire and Hippodrome theaters, he became fascinated with show business and especially music hall.
Chapter 14
Authors: Glancy Mark
Published: October 2020

Following Elsie Leach’s release from the asylum in 1936, Cary Grant began to rebuild his relationship with his mother. In her many letters to him, she addressed him as Archie, and she urged him to visit her and hinted that she would like to visit him in Hollywood. He was reluctant to bring her to California, where he lived a life among the rich and famous, with friends including the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst and the eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes. On screen, his reputation was enhanced when he reunited with George Cukor and Katharine Hepburn in the sophisticated comedy Holiday (1938). He also branched out, playing a very unsophisticated, Cockney soldier in the British Empire adventure film Gunga Din (1939). Although his performance is delightfully zany, and Gunga Din was an enormous success on first release, it has not aged well. The film’s racist attitudes and imperialist ideology have rendered it unpalatable for modern audiences.
Chapter 19
Authors: Glancy Mark
Published: October 2020

By 1943, Cary Grant was eager to escape from the contract he had signed six years earlier with Columbia Pictures. It was a non-exclusive contract, but studio boss Harry Cohn exercised an options clause that prolonged Grant’s obligations to the studio. Cohn was incensed when Grant delayed returning to Columbia in favour of working at Warner Brothers, where he was cast in the patriotic war drama Destination Tokyo (1943). Grant’s performance as an upstanding yet gentle submarine captain was one of the most earnest and restrained of his career. He returned to Columbia to make Once Upon a Time (1943), one of the slightest films of his career. When Jack Warner offered to buy out the remainder of his Columbia contract, Grant jumped at the offer. Meanwhile, he was making None but the Lonely Heart (1944), a gritty melodrama about working class life in the backstreets of London, written and directed by the left-wing dramatist Clifford Odets. Grant’s personal connection to the films tough working class environment was signalled by placing a picture of his own father on the wall of the tiny house his character shares with his dying mother. The film was not a hit but it earned Grant his second Academy Award nomination. Ironically, at the time he was reliving his humble origins on screen, he was married to the extraordinarily wealthy Barbara Hutton. Her insistence on living lavishly and entertaining frequently made him realise what a poor match they were. She, in turn, complained that he cared about nothing other than his career. They divorced in 1945.
Chapter 28
Authors: Glancy Mark
Published: October 2020

In the early 1960s, when Cary Grant was at the height of his popularity, he began to worry that he was too old to play the romantic leading man. He would not agree to make Charade (1963) until director Stanley Donen and screenwriter Peter Stone agreed to change the script so that his young co-star, Audrey Hepburn, is seen to chase after him (rather than the other way around). In the wake of the Kennedy assassination, critics found this Hitchcockian comedy-thriller to be too violent, but it was another box-office hit and remains a fan favorite today. He did not consider himself too old to chase young women in his private life, and his relationship with actress Dyan Cannon grew more serious. When journalist Joe Hyams sued him for libel, in response to Grant’s denying that he had been interviewed by Hyams, they reached an out of court settlement. Grant agreed to collaborate with the journalist on the article that eventually emerged as “Archie Leach by Cary Grant,” a lengthy, truthful account of his family background and youth. In another hit comedy, Father Goose (1964), he broke free of his debonair image to play a drunken recluse who must look after schoolgirls stranded in the South Pacific at the beginning of the Second World War. His final film, Walk, Don’t Run (1966), was a gentle comedy set during the Tokyo Olympics, with a lively score by composer Quincy Jones, who became a close personal friend. By the time Walk, Don’t Run was released, he had married Dyan Cannon, and they had a daughter together, Jennifer Grant. This convinced Grant that it was finally time to retire.
Chapter 29
Authors: Glancy Mark
Published: October 2020

Cary Grant retired from the screen at the age of 62, and he never regretted it. Having made 72 feature films, he was ready to stop, and he was keen to be a full-time father to his daughter Jennifer. In her memoir, Good Stuff (2011), Jennifer Grant recalled the happy times that they had together. Now divorced from Dyan Cannon, Cary Grant agreed to join the board of the perfume company Fabergé primarily because he would have access to a private jet, which would allow him to drop off or pick up Jennifer wherever Cannon was filming. In 1970, he finally received an Academy Award, although it was a Lifetime Achievement Award rather than one honouring a single performance. He remarried in 1981, and had a happy home life with his fifth wife, Barbara Harris Grant. Beginning in 1982, he established a one-man show, A Conversation with Cary Grant, that featured him telling stories and answering questions about his career. It was just before one of these performances, in Davenport, Iowa, that he had a stroke and died on November 29, 1986.
Adaptable Ancestors
Authors: Bjorklund David F.
Published: October 2020

The high level of plasticity shown by children today was also a feature of our forechildren. Experiences early in life can modify the morphology or behavior of an animal and result in new pressures that can be the focus of natural selection. Behavior, in fact, takes the lead in evolution, because it is more susceptible to change than morphology or genes. Most of the changes early in development, at least for mammals, were accomplished in the presence of mothers. To a significant extent, mothers are the environment for young mammals, making mothers the environment for evolutionary change. Significant behavioral changes in evolution are most likely to occur in large-brained animals, who are better able to deal with novel environments through innovation and social transmission of information than smaller-brained animals.
Epilogue
Authors: Bjorklund David F.
Published: October 2020

The final chapter summarizes the major themes of this book, loosely following the content of Chapters 1 through 7. The first section highlights the principles and assumptions of evolutionary developmental psychology, emphasizing that adaptations occurred at all life stages, not just in adults. The second section emphasizes the role of plasticity in both development and evolution, noting that plasticity is greatest early in life. This is followed by a section focusing on the role of timing in evolution, especially genetic-based differences in developmental timing, or heterochrony, with neoteny being especially important for human evolution. The fourth section examines the claim that humans are a neotenous species, as seen in aspects of its physical, behavioral, and cognitive development/evolution. The fifth section examines human hypersociality as being due to modification of great ape ontogeny into unique human social-cognitive abilities, followed by a look at evolutionary mismatches particular to specific stages of life.
The Covenant of Works
Authors: Fesko J. V.
Published: October 2020

The book surveys the origins of the doctrine of the covenant of works. The doctrine originates in the patristic era and fully flowers in the sixteenth century among Reformed theologians. The doctrine develops from a web of biblical texts and becomes codified in confessions of the seventeenth century. But in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, support for the doctrine began to wane until Reformed theologians in the twentieth century outright rejected it. There were, however, theologians who continued to promote the doctrine because they continued to use the same interpretive methods as earlier proponents of the doctrine. Critics no longer employed the Reformation principle of good and necessary consequence, rejected Reformed scholasticism, and embraced biblicism. By way of contrast, proponents of the doctrine continued to use good and necessary consequences, saw Reformed scholasticism as resource, and rejected bibliclism.
The Westminster Standards
Authors: Fesko J. V.
Published: October 2020

Many contemporary critics of the Westminster Standards believe that it is a doctrinal straightjacket that narrows the bounds of permissible beliefs within the church. The confession does define the boundaries of orthodoxy but it was written in such a manner as to accommodate several different versions of the covenant of works. The Westminster divines did not agree on whether Adam’s reward was temporal or eternal life. They also disagreed on the proper exegetical foundation for the doctrine. There was also disagreement on the precise way to relate the Adamic and Mosaic covenants. The confession thus codifies the broad parameters of the doctrine to allow for a diversified orthodoxy.
The Formula Consensus Helvetica
Authors: Fesko J. V.
Published: October 2020

This chapter explores the confessional codification of the covenant of works in the Formula Consensus Helvetica, written by Johannes Heidegger and Francis Turretin. In the prior generation Reformed theologians were willing to allow differences of opinion on the finer points of the doctrine of the covenant of works, such as the nature of Adam’s reward (temporal or eternal) and the relationship between the Adamic and Mosaic covenants. But with the perceived threat of doctrinal novelty coming from the Academy of Saumur, Swiss theologians sought to narrow the gates of orthodoxy by precluding the Salmurian views. Adam’s obedience would secure eternal, not temporal, life, and the Cameronian idea of a third distinct covenant in addition to the covenants of works and grace was disallowed. Despite narrowing the gate, the Formula Consensus Helvetica was not widely adopted.
Conclusion
Authors: Fesko J. V.
Published: October 2020

The conclusion summarizes the study. The doctrine stands in continuity with patristic versions and does not arise de novo in the sixteenth century. Roman Catholics were also some of the first sixteenth-century theologians to teach an Adamic covenant. The doctrine is a construct based on a good and necessary consequence. This means that the doctrine has a broad scriptural foundation. There are also different variants of the doctrine and even confessional formulations allow for a diversity of opinion. These points stand in contrast to the claims of critics who rarely engage a close reading of primary sources. Moreover, with the development of biblicism, critics have approached the question with a different hermeneutic methodology than early modern Reformed theologians. Lastly, one of the most important themes in the covenant of works is love, something that most critics of the doctrine fail to factor.
Questions
Authors: Shew Melissa M.
Published: October 2020

This chapter explains the ways that philosophical questions arise from and shape people’s lives in existential ways. The first section outlines the difference between transactional/information questions and questions that require knowledge; the second section explains epistemic curiosity and distinguishes between knowledge and thinking; the third section explains the existentially transformative nature of questions in people’s lives. The chapter overall argues that philosophical questions are ecstatic, taking people from where they tend to find themselves and out of a static sense of a Subject to return to themselves as always in process. The heart of philosophy thus lies in the ecstatic movement of authentic questioning.
Morality
Authors: Ware Owen
Published: October 2020

This chapter offers a close analysis of Fichte’s first foundational argument in the System of Ethics, his deduction of the moral law in §§1–3. The discussion begins with Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason: the idea that our consciousness of the moral law warrants the belief that we are free. While many commentators assume that Fichte rejects this doctrine, there is evidence to show that he sides with Kant in making our consciousness of the moral law a necessary condition for cognizing our freedom. What is novel about Fichte’s argument in §§1–3 of the System of Ethics is that it treats freedom and morality not as two separate thoughts but as different aspects of one and the same thing, which he calls the principle of I-hood (Ichheit) as such.
Perfection
Authors: Ware Owen
Published: October 2020

After considering recent efforts to read Fichte as a deontologist or as a consequentialist, this final chapter gives evidence for understanding the final shape of Fichte’s moral philosophy as a form of social perfectionism. The chapter then returns to what looks like a final puzzle threatening the integrity of Fichte’s position in the System of Ethics: the puzzle of whether cases of moral disagreement are resolvable on the basis of a personal principle (one’s own conscience) or on the basis of an interpersonal principle (rational dialogue). The solution this chapter proposes is that, for Fichte, the verdicts of one’s own conscience are never meant to overrule the process of rational dialogue that makes a living community between persons possible.
When Are Women Well Represented?
Authors: Celis Karen
Published: October 2020

Chapter 2 offers a re-reading of classic and newer research on women’s political representation. It is designed not to provide the reader with a comprehensive, global account of what has been said and found by multiple generations of scholars. Rather, by using more select work, the authors show through a critical reading that the dominant “dimensional approach” to political representation limits both conceptual understanding and empirical evaluation of the quality of women’s political representation. This tendency toward individual dimensions of representation—oftentimes discrete analysis of descriptive, substantive, symbolic, and affective representation—not only presumes that women’s good representation is somehow a simple question of adding up and taking away scores for each dimension, but it also makes it particularly hard to conceive, theoretically and empirically, when women are well represented, given women’s ideological and intersectional differences. Hence, the authors’ claim to redress intersectionally women’s poverty of representation demands that we conceive of representation as a mélange.
Introduction
Authors: McKean Benjamin L.
Published: October 2020

The need for an orientation to the global economy is introduced by considering how an apparel consumer in the developed world should respond to the deaths of apparel workers in the Tazreen factory fire and Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh. These paradigmatic global injustices are not well understood by standard egalitarian approaches to global justice. Those approaches focus on the comparative wealth of the developed world, but in doing so, they overlook the ways that the global economy is also experienced as unfair by workers there. The chapter argues instead for recognizing that many people in both Bangladesh and the United States have an interest in changing the institutions that govern the global economy. The chapter explains what a conception of orientation can do and why a range of theoretical traditions can endorse the book’s account in light of neoliberalism’s ascendance. The book’s remaining chapters are also summarized.
Why Sovereignty Is Not the Solution
Authors: McKean Benjamin L.
Published: October 2020

Many critics of neoliberalism argue that resistance requires reasserting unconstrained state sovereignty, but this response effectively reinforces the neoliberal distinction between politics and the market rather than attending to the authority, coercion, and contestation that pervade the global economy. Such appeals to unconstrained sovereignty are found across the political spectrum; left egalitarian arguments for Brexit are illustrative. The chapter highlights contemporary philosophers like Thomas Nagel, who argue that distributive justice is only possible thanks to state coercion and that distributive justice is necessary to legitimate state coercion. Ultimately, by appealing to unconstrained state sovereignty as necessary for politics, this approach—and others which similarly draw on Weber—homogenizes state power and consequently overlooks the different ways people experience its force, such as racial disparities in the use of force by police. Such a theory is ill-suited for understanding what equal political status actually requires, even domestically.
Introduction
Authors: Hollis-Brusky Amanda , Wilson Joshua C.
Published: October 2020

Using Regent Law School’s founding dean, Herb Titus, as an example, the book’s introduction lays out the aspirations and challenges facing the creation of “Christian Worldview” law schools and training programs. These institutions seek to promote and reinforce a vision of law rooted in Christianity and biblical principles, which challenges and sometimes rejects the premises of “secular legalism” that have been embraced in America and the Western world since the nineteenth century. These law schools add to the ranks of institutions meant to enable the Christian Right to pursue short- and long-term policy goals in a broader set of political venues. After briefly introducing the book’s primary case studies—Regent Law School, Liberty Law School, Ave Maria School of Law, and Alliance Defending Freedom’s Blackstone Legal Fellowship—the book’s central questions and the arc of the response are summarized. In doing so, the authors also introduce the book’s primary theoretical contributions.
Social and Cultural Capital (or “Credibility Capital”)
Authors: Hollis-Brusky Amanda , Wilson Joshua C.
Published: October 2020

This chapter analyzes the actual and potential production of two dimensions of “credibility capital”—social capital and cultural capital. To gauge social capital, the chapter looks at the extent to which newly created Christian conservative law schools are networked both with Christian Right movement institutions and with other more mainstream elite conservative institutions and networks like the Federalist Society. To measure cultural capital, the chapter looks at print media appearances for the faculty of each of these institutions. How often and in which media outlets are these faculty engaging with broader publics through Op-eds or by being quoted and cited as experts? Comparisons are drawn along both these dimensions with institutions representative of the rejected supplemental (Blackstone) and infiltration (Notre Dame and Baylor) options.
The Apex of the Support Structure Pyramid
Authors: Hollis-Brusky Amanda , Wilson Joshua C.
Published: October 2020

This chapter investigates the abilities of Christian Worldview law schools and legal training programs to access courts. To capture a more complete picture of this dynamic, it charts the general cartography of Christian Worldview faculty participation in state and federal litigation as both litigators and as amici curiae. This map of Christian Worldview faculty participation in litigation helps identify potential “conduits” through which ideas or intellectual capital can be transmitted or diffused to judicial decision-makers. Additionally, because intellectual capital need not travel through a Christian Worldview conduit to be useful to judicial decision-makers, this analysis also examines court briefs and judicial opinions for citations to Christian Worldview faculty. The chapter finds that with the exception of five exceptionally active and well-connected faculty, the Christian Worldview faculties are not well-represented when it comes to direct litigation.
The High Tide
Authors: Brown Phillip
Published: October 2020

This chapter examines the enduring appeal of orthodox human capital theory. It looks at the reasons why, in the life cycles of theories, it reached its high tide before the global financial crisis in 2007 but continues to enjoy widespread policy appeal. The chapter illustrates two closely related themes brought together in the 1980s which gave some credence to Becker’s claim that the world had entered an “age of human capital.” The first describes the political ascendency of neoliberalism, which shares common ground with Becker’s economic approach. The second shows that what made neoliberalism a viable, if inherently flawed approach to public policy was the idea of a fundamental transformation in economic organization, wherein human capital is viewed as the most important driver of economic development. This chapter also considers how these themes were taken up and developed into an international framework of human capital development, perpetuating the view that education and the skills upgrading of the workforce remain the key to individual prosperity, improved productivity, and economic growth.
The Failed Promise of Development
Authors: Brown Phillip
Published: October 2020

This chapter examines the promise of human capital investment on economic growth and its consequences for developing countries. Education investment as a way of increasing the stock of human capital remains a key part of the World Bank’s approach to policy reform for so-called developing countries. The chapter argues that such accounts fail to understand the changing relationship between education, employment, and economic growth. Notwithstanding the rapid economic advances made by some emerging economies, most notably China and India, the experience of development has left many people within these countries stranded in the rubble of modernization, while others, including those with a tertiary education, struggle to find meaningful and sustainable employment. Despite continuous national investment in education and economic liberalization, many developing countries are falling further behind. The chapter describes some of the tensions and contradictions of development in emerging economies and how they are fueled by the failed promise of orthodox theory.
Starting Principles
Authors: Brown Phillip
Published: October 2020

This chapter presents an alternative theory of human capital. It rejects orthodox accounts based on labor scarcity and the idea that people are in a skills competition. With this in mind, the chapter outlines a different approach built on the starting premise that twenty-first-century economies are characterized by job scarcity. It first considers job scarcity and some of its implications for the development of an alternative theory of human capital. The chapter then looks at why translating human behavior into capital is different from other forms of capital assets and why the foundations of individual economic welfare under market capitalism are inherently insecure. Next, an alternative understanding of the self is presented, after which the chapter recognizes the fundamental inequalities in opportunities to develop individual capabilities. Finally, the chapter highlights the socioeconomic foundations of human capital, rejecting the overarching model of neoliberal economics from which orthodox theory derives.
Strategies for Measuring Virtue
Authors: Wright Jennifer Cole , Warren Michael T. , Snow Nancy E.
Published: October 2020

Chapter 2 provides a review and evaluation of work that has been and is currently being done on virtue measurement. It is divided into five parts. The first provides a brief primer on quantitative measurement. The second discusses strategies for measuring discrete, single virtues, namely, gratitude, courage, honesty, compassion, and humility. The third section takes up strategies for measuring clusters of virtues, and the fourth, the few efforts that have been made to measure virtues comprehensively. The fifth section concludes by evaluating the conceptual and methodological strengths and weakness of these approaches. The chapter highlights the need for the more thorough and theoretically framed approach offered throughout the rest of the book.
The Power of Bearing Wit(h)ness
Authors: Tufo Alisa Del , Fine Michelle , Cahill Loren , Okafor Chinyere , Cook Donelda
Published: October 2020

This chapter describes a grassroots effort to engage youth and elders in an intergenerational oral history project that uses personal testimony to share stories of resilience and suffering from everyday racism in the United States. Using a truth and reconciliation model, these stories are used as vehicles for persona healing and community activism. Given the present moment of #SAYTHEIRNAME in solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives, our documentation of this powerful racial justice, truth-telling testimonies project joins a growing archive of wounds and resistance that define Black life in the United States, since 1619.
Elite Art Worlds
Authors: Herrera Eduardo
Published: October 2020

Between 1962 and 1971, the Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales (CLAEM) of the Di Tella Institute in Buenos Aires became the central hub of Latin American avant-garde music. With the support of the Rockefeller Foundation and the wealthy Di Tella family, CLAEM offered two-year fellowships to some of the most recognized young composers of the region to undertake graduate studies in a unique privileged setting under the direction of Alberto Ginastera and with permanent and visiting faculty that included Gerardo Gandini, Francisco Kröpfl, Mario Davidovsky, Iannis Xenakis, Luigi Nono, Aaron Copland, Luigi Dallapiccola, Bruno Maderna, Riccardo Malipiero, Olivier Messiaen, Roger Sessions, and Earle Brown. This book combines oral histories, ethnographic research, and archival sources to reveal CLAEM as a meeting point of US and Argentine philanthropy, local experiences in transnational currents of artistic experimentation and innovation, and regional discourses of musical Latin Americanism. The story of CLAEM shows how musical avant-gardes were articulated, embodied, resignified, and institutionalized in Latin America; how composers during the 1960s engaged with discourses of Latin Americanism as professional strategy, identification marker, and musical style; and sheds light into the role of art in the legitimation and construction of elite status and identity. By looking at CLAEM as both an artistic and a philanthropic project, the book illuminates the relationships among foreign policy, corporate interests, and funding for the arts concerning Latin America and the United States in the mid-twentieth century.
Machines Learning Values
Authors: Petersen Steve
Published: October 2020

This chapter suggests that while we would very much like any nascent superintelligence to share our core values, our values might be too complex to program or hardwire explicitly. It argues that our best hope may thus be to design any potential superintelligence to learn values like ours. This “value learning” approach to AI safety faces three philosophical problems. First, it is unclear how any intelligent system could learn its final values, since to judge one supposedly “final” value against another seems to require a further background standard for judging. Second, it is unclear how to determine the content of a system’s values based on its physical or computational structure. Third, there is the distinctly ethical question of which values we should best aim for the system to learn. This chapter outlines a potential answer to these interrelated problems, centering on a miktotelic proposal for blending a complex, learnable final value out of many simpler ones.
Can I Believe?
Authors: Stackhouse John G.
Published: October 2020

Maybe Christianity is actually true. Maybe it is what believers say it is. But at least two problems make the thoughtful person hesitate. First, there are so many other options. How could one possibly make one’s way through them to anything like a rational and confident conclusion? Second, why do so many people choose to be Christian in the face of so many reasons not to be Christian? Yes, many people grow up in Christian homes and in societies, but many more do not. Yet Christianity has become the most popular religion in the world. Why? This book begins by taking on the initial challenge as it outlines a process: how to think about religion in a responsible way, rather than settling for such soft vagaries as “faith” and “feeling.” It then clears away a number of misunderstandings from the basic story of the Christian religion, misunderstandings that combine to domesticate this startling narrative and thus to repel reasonable people who might otherwise be intrigued. The second half of the book looks at Christian commitment positively and negatively. Why do two billion people find this religion to be persuasive, thus making it the most popular “explanation of everything” in human history? At the same time, how does Christianity respond to the fact that so many people find it utterly implausible, especially because of its narrow insistence on “just one way to God,” and because of the problem of evil that seems to undercut everything it asserts? Grounded in scholarship but never ponderous, Can I Believe? takes on the hard questions as it welcomes the intelligent inquirer to give Christianity at least one good look.
How to Decide
Authors: Stackhouse John G.
Published: October 2020

This chapter sets out a basic epistemology of religious choice. It presents a set of guidelines for how to think about making a decision about religion in a responsible way. It surveys how faith depends upon knowledge, since no one believes anything on no grounds whatsoever. But it also shows how knowledge depends upon faith: upon trusting a wide range of sources (senses, memories, other people, and more) and the ability to understand and infer reasonable conclusions from all that input. The chapter concludes with commonsense recommendations for dealing with the unavoidable uncertainty that attends all big choices in life.
What Is Christianity?
Authors: Stackhouse John G.
Published: October 2020

This chapter begins by offering a fourfold scheme for analyzing the essentials of any religion by which the rest of the book’s argument will proceed. What’s real? What’s best? What’s wrong? And what can be done? It then clears away many half-remembered, half-understood, and half-correct conceptualizations that most educated people have about Christianity in our time. Proceeding to the basic teachings of Christianity, it zeroes in on the key plotline of the Bible, setting out a Christian Story that is at once familiar and yet very strange, a Story that seems to defy common sense even as it makes sense on its own terms.
Introduction
Authors: Reilly Thomas H.
Published: October 2020

While Protestants made up only a small percentage of China’s overall population, they were heavily represented in the urban elite, mostly due to the contribution of Protestant schools and colleges, and the influence of organizations such as the YMCA and the YWCA. This elite was attracted to the Protestant message of national salvation, an extension of the message of social Christianity; they believed that the religion would help make China strong, prosperous and modern.
Resisting Japan, Fighting Imperialism
Authors: Reilly Thomas H.
Published: October 2020

In China’s war with Japan, the Chinese people heroically struggled against Japan, especially in the early years of the war, 1937–1941. The Japanese waged a ruthless attack on soldiers and civilians alike. The Protestant elite sounded the call to resistance. One of the most brutal incidents of the war was the Rape of Nanjing, and the Protestant women’s college, Ginling College, served as the center of a safety zone that protected civilians from the onslaught. Another victim of Japan’s aggression was Liu Zhanen, president of the University of Shanghai, a mission-affiliated school, who was assassinated because of his high-profile defiance of Japan. The YMCA through secretaries such as Liu Liangmo and Jiang Wenhan supported the Nationalist war effort through the association’s services to wounded soldiers and to refugee students. Both men also reached out to their Communist compatriots, allies in the fight against Japanese imperialism.
Shared Mental Models of the Late Soviet Period
Authors: Sharafutdinova Gulnaz
Published: October 2020

This chapter advances a conceptualization of collective identity as a set of shared cognitive structures (or mental models) about the collective self. Below I argue that the Soviet Union was successful in instilling a Soviet collective identity and that the two main mental models that constituted this identity were a sense of Soviet exceptionalism and a sense of the Soviet state being surrounded by the enemy. These shared mental models represented important pillars supporting individual-level dignity and self-esteem for many Soviet citizens as well as a source of their perceptions of in-group and out-group members. Empirical findings from Yuri Levada’s “simple Soviet person” project and a variety of secondary data are used to support the central claims of this chapter.
Why Islamist Opposition Groups Change Their Tactical Outlooks
Authors: Matesan Ioana Emy
Published: October 2020

This chapter develops a theory of principled and pragmatic adjustment to explain tactical shifts in Islamist organizations. It argues that Islamist groups shift between nonviolent and violent tactics depending on the perceived need for activism, the cost of violent resistance or nonviolent resistance, and the internal and external pressures they face. Groups legitimize violence when their grievances are escalating and violent norms of resistance are prevalent. External pressures from the state or internal pressures arising from competition for authority trigger the shift from violent rhetoric to violent behavior. Once groups engage in violence, their decisions on tactical shifts are no longer about relative grievances, but about organizational imperatives and the cost of violence. Organizational weakness and public opposition to violence raise the cost of aggressive tactics and drive groups to put armed campaigns on hold, or to focus on rebuilding capacity. However, for a group to permanently move away from violence, the organization must be faced with an existential crisis and with public condemnation.
“Conversion” in Late-Medieval Christianity
Authors: Tipson Baird
Published: October 2020

This chapter discusses the great indulgence campaigns of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In the centuries before the Protestant Reformation, being solicited for indulgences had become commonplace for Christian men and women. The practice of granting indulgences—perceived abuses of which generated Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses—was tied closely to the sacrament of penance, so a close look at indulgences can uncover the assumptions behind a religiosity that provided access to God through a sacramental system and an ordained priesthood.
Money/Code/Space
Authors: Parkin Jack
Published: October 2020

Chapter 2 provides a theoretical discussion of money, code, and space to foreground the emergence of Bitcoin as a radical response to existing economic structures. Using the history of central banking and software production, Bitcoin is compared to traditional modes of centralised governance to outline some of the political context of algorithmic decentralisation. In doing so, the binary of centralised and decentralised is rendered reductive and thus impotent for describing digital networks because of the inescapable complexity inherent within them. Instead, the concept of obligatory passage points is adapted into a framework for understanding (de)centralisation in algorithmic networks. This provides an understanding of money/code/space that encapsulates the cultural and economic messiness of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology that can be used for bringing places of power to the forefront of related academic scholarship.
Follow the Digital Thing
Authors: Parkin Jack
Published: October 2020

Acknowledging how Bitcoin is geographically contingent and diverse, the follow the thing research design outlined allows for tracing the connections between different aspects of its protocol that are practised by a multitude of people in various places. This is done by documenting traditional follow the thing work and explaining how knowledge can be gathered from such a technique before adapting this research process for the task at hand. The breakdown then shifts into sketching a specific yet malleable research method that harnesses the flexibility necessary for researching the complex political economies of Bitcoin and other blockchains. This multi-sited and multi-angled approach creates a partial but far-reaching account of algorithmic decetralisation.
The Wisdom and Power of the Cross
Authors: Viladesau Richard
Published: October 2020

This volume is the fifth in a series dealing with the passion and death of Christ—symbolized by “the cross”—in Christian theology and the arts. It examines the way the Passion of Christ has been thought about by theologians and portrayed by artists and musicians in the modern and contemporary world. It examines the traditional approaches to soteriology in contrast to revisionist theologies that take up the challenge of understanding the meaning of the cross in the light of critical historical studies and modern science. These provide new understandings of traditional concepts like “original sin,” “redemption,” and “substitution.” A new Christian spirituality of “the cross” is suggested by the insights of feminist and liberation theologies, which provide an existential interpretation and a need to combat human suffering rather than accepting it as a “cross” willed by God. Contemporary art and music reveal both the lasting power of traditional images of the Passion and new possibilities of expression.