bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Postexposure Effects of Vaccines on Infectious Diseases
Authors: Gallagher Tara , Lipsitch Marc
Published: October 2019

We searched the PubMed database for clinical trials and observational human studies about postexposure vaccination effects, targeting infections with approved vaccines and vaccines licensed outside the United States against dengue, hepatitis E, malaria, and tick-borne encephalitis. Studies of animal models, serologic testing, and pipeline vaccines were excluded. Eligible studies were evaluated by definition of exposure; attempts to distinguish pre- and postexposure effects were rated on a scale of 1 to 4. We screened 4,518 articles and ultimately identified for this review 14 clinical trials and 31 observational studies spanning 7 of the 28 vaccine-preventable diseases. For secondary attack rate, the following medians were found for postexposure vaccination effectiveness: hepatitis A, 85% (interquartile range (IQR), 28; n = 5 sources); hepatitis B, 85% (IQR, 22; n = 5 sources); measles, 83% (IQR, 21; n = 8 sources); varicella, 67% (IQR: 48; n = 9 sources); smallpox, 45% (IQR, 39; n = 4 sources); and mumps, 38% (IQR, 7; n = 2 sources). For case fatality proportions resulting from rabies and smallpox, the median vaccine postexposure efficacies were 100% (IQR, 0; n = 6 sources) and 63% (IQR, 50; n = 8 sources), respectively. Many available vaccines can modify or preclude disease if administered after exposure. This postexposure effectiveness could be important to consider during vaccine trials and while developing new vaccines.
Gender in cardiovascular medicine: chest pain and coronary artery disease
Authors: Mehta Puja K , Bess Courtney , Elias-Smale Suzette , Vaccarino Viola , Quyyumi Arshed , Pepine Carl J , Bairey Merz C Noel
Published: October 2019

Ischaemic heart disease (IHD) remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among women and men yet women are more often underdiagnosed, have a delay in diagnosis, and/or receive suboptimal treatment. An implicit gender-bias with regard to lack of recognition of sex-related differences in presentation of IHD may, in part, explain these differences in women compared with men. Indeed, existing knowledge demonstrates that angina does not commonly relate to obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD). Emerging knowledge supports an inclusive approach to chest pain symptoms in women, as well as a more thoughtful consideration of percutaneous coronary intervention for angina in stable obstructive CAD, to avoid chasing our tails. Emerging knowledge regarding the cardiac autonomic nervous system and visceral pain pathways in patients with and without obstructive CAD offers explanatory mechanisms for angina. Interdisciplinary investigation approaches that involve cardiologists, biobehavioural specialists, and anaesthesia/pain specialists to improve angina treatment should be pursued.
Warrior Wellness: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial of the Effects of Exercise on Physical Function and Clinical Health Risk Factors in Older Military Veterans With PTSD
Authors: Hall Katherine S , Morey Miriam C , Beckham Jean C , Bosworth Hayden B , Sloane Richard , Pieper Carl F , Pebole Michelle M
Published: October 2019

Background

Military veterans living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) face significant physical and functional health disparities, which are often aggravated over time and in the context aging. Evidence has shown that physical activity can positively impact age-related health conditions, yet exercise trials in older adults with mental disorders are rare. Our study was a tailored and targeted pilot exercise intervention for older veterans with PTSD.

Methods

Fifty-four older veterans with PTSD (mean age = 67.4 years, 90.7% male, 85.2% non-white) were randomized to supervised exercise (n = 38) or wait-list usual care (n = 18) for 12 weeks. Physical activity (MET-min/wk) and aerobic endurance (assessed with the 6-minute walk test) were primary outcomes. Secondary outcomes were physical performance (strength, mobility, balance), cardiometabolic risk factors (eg, waist circumference), and health-related quality of life.

Results

At 12 weeks, a large effect of the intervention on physical activity levels (Cohen’s d = 1.37) was observed compared to wait-list usual care. Aerobic endurance improved by 69 m in the exercise group compared to 10 m in wait-list group, reflecting a moderate between-group effect (Cohen’s d = 0.50). Between-group differences on 12-week changes in physical performance, cardiometabolic risk factors, and health-related quality of life ranged from small to large effects (Cohen’s d = 0.28–1.48), favoring the exercise arm.

Conclusion

Participation in supervised exercise improved aerobic endurance, physical performance, and health-related clinical factors in older veterans with PTSD; a medically complex population with multiple morbidity. Group exercise is a low-cost, low-stigma intervention, and implementation efforts among older veterans with PTSD warrants further consideration.
A history of collaboration in US invention: changing patterns of co-invention, complexity and geography
Authors: van der Wouden Frank
Published: October 2019

Research suggests that increasing collaboration in knowledge production is explained by rising complexity of knowledge. Yet, there is little long-run, systematic, empirical evidence on the relationship between complexity and collaboration. A new database is introduced that identifies all (co-)inventors on more than 3 million US patents between 1836 and 1975. Empirical analysis reveals (i) collaboration on US patents began to increase in the 1940s; (ii) there is a robust positive relationship between complexity and collaboration; and (iii) increasing complexity is associated with local rather than nonlocal collaboration.
Policing Canada’s Refugee System: A Critical Analysis of the Canada Border Services Agency
Authors: Atak Idil , Hudson Graham , Nakache Delphine
Published: October 2019

The officers of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) play pivotal roles at various stages in Canada’s refugee system, making decisions that are life-changing for asylum seekers. This article examines the evolving institutional setting and processes that define the CBSA’s enforcement policy and its consequences for asylum seekers in Canada. Drawing on the findings of field-research, conducted between October 2015 and May 2018 in three Canadian provinces (Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec), it argues that the Agency operates in a specific social universe heavily shaped by the post-9/11 geopolitical context of the criminalization of migration. This situation has been exacerbated by the major overhaul of Canada’s refugee system, undertaken by the previous Conservative government in 2012. The article further contends that the way the CBSA has been involved in refugee status determination turns Canada’s refugee system into an adversarial and unfair process for some groups of asylum seekers. To that end, it highlights the CBSA’s policies in three areas: eligibility determination, front-end security screening of refugee claimants, and ministerial interventions at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.
PAMP-INDUCED SECRETED PEPTIDE 3 (PIP3) modulates immunity in Arabidopsis thaliana
Authors: Najafi Javad , Brembu Tore , Vie Ane Kjersti , Viste Rannveig , Winge Per , Somssich Imre E , Bones Atle M
Published: October 2019

Small post-translationally modified peptides are important signalling components of plant defence responses against phytopathogens, acting both as positive and negative modulators. PAMP-INDUCED SECRETED PEPTIDE (PIP) 1 and 2 has been shown to amplify plant immunity. Here we investigate the role of the related peptide PIP3 in the regulation of immune response in Arabidopsis. Treatment with synthetic PIP peptides led to similar transcriptome reprogramming, indicating an effect on innate immunity-related processes and phytohormones, including jasmonic acid (JA) biosynthesis and signalling. PIP3 overexpressing (OX) plants showed enhanced growth inhibition in response to flg22 exposure. In addition, flg22-induced production of reactive oxygen species and callose deposition were significantly reduced in PIP3-OX plants. Interestingly, PIP3-OX plants showed increased susceptibility both toward Botrytis cinerea and the biotrophic pathogen Pseudomonas syringae. Expression of both JA and salicylic acid biosynthesis and signalling genes was more induced during B. cinerea infection in PIP3-OX plants compared with wild-type plants. Promoter and ChIP-seq analyses indicated that the transcription factors WRKY18, WRKY33 and WRKY40 cooperatively act as repressors for PIP3. The results point to a fine-tuning role for PIP3 in modulation of immunity through the regulation of SA and JA biosynthesis and signalling pathways in Arabidopsis.
Photoperiod-sensitivity genes (Ppd-1): Quantifying their effect on the photoperiod response model in wheat
Authors: Pérez-Gianmarco Thomas I , Severini Alan D , González Fernanda G
Published: October 2019

Coupling anthesis date to the best environment is critical for wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) adaptation and yield potential. Development to anthesis is controlled by temperature and photoperiod. Response to photoperiod is chiefly modulated by Ppd-1 genes, but their effect on the quantitative response of i) time to anthesis, and ii) pre-anthesis phases to photoperiod remains largely unknown. A photoperiod-sensitive spring cultivar, Paragon, and near-isogenic lines of it carrying different combinations of Ppd-1a insensitivity alleles were tested under a wide range of photoperiods, including switches in photoperiod at the onset of stem elongation. Using multimodel inference we found that Ppd-1a alleles reduced photoperiod sensitivity from a) emergence to anthesis and b) emergence to onset of stem elongation, both in a less than additive manner, while threshold photoperiod and intrinsic earliness were unaffected. Sensitivity to current photoperiod from onset of stem elongation to flag leaf and from then to anthesis was milder than for previous phases and was not related to variability in Ppd-1. But ‘memory’ effects of previously experienced photoperiod on the duration from onset of stem elongation to flag leaf, was. The characterisation and quantification provided here of Ppd-1 allelic combinations’ effects on development should help increase genotype-to-phenotype models’ accuracy for predicting wheat phenology.
The soft X-ray excess: NLS1s versus BLS1s
Authors: Gliozzi Mario , Williams James K
Published: October 2019

The soft X-ray excess – the excess of X-rays below 2 keV with respect to the extrapolation of the hard X-ray spectral continuum model – is a very common feature among type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs); yet the nature of the soft X-ray excess is still poorly understood and hotly debated. To shed some light on this issue, we have measured in a model-independent way the soft excess strength in a flux-limited sample of broad- and narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (BLS1s and NLS1s) that are matched in X-ray luminosity but different in terms of the black hole mass and the accretion rate values, with NLS1s being characterized by smaller MBH and larger $\dot{m}$ values. Our analysis, in agreement with previous studies carried out with different AGN samples, indicates that: (1) a soft excess is ubiquitously detected in both BLS1s and NLS1s; (2) the strength of the soft excess is significantly larger in the NLS1 sample, compared to the BLS1 sample; and (3) combining the two samples, the strength of the soft excess appears to positively correlate with the photon index as well as with the accretion rate, whereas there is no correlation with the black hole mass. Importantly, our work also reveals the lack of an anticorrelation between the soft excess strength and the luminosity of the primary X-ray component, predicted by the absorption and reflection scenarios. Our findings suggest that the soft excess is consistent with being produced by a warm Comptonization component. Larger, more complete samples of NLS1s and BLS1s are needed to confirm these conclusions.
Phenomenology, Ontology, Nihilism: Løgstrup, Levinas, and the Limits of Philosophical Anthropology
Authors: Crowell Steven
Published: October 2019

Despite recent interest in his work, little has been written about Løgstrup’s relation to phenomenology—what he thinks phenomenology is, how it informs his approach to ethics, and what he believes it can accomplish. Here I hope to stimulate further discussion of these matters. In this, consideration of Levinas’s understanding of phenomenology will be useful. While sharing many of Løgstrup’s concerns, Levinas insists on a distinction between phenomenological ontology and “metaphysics,” one that Løgstrup tends to blur in support of his argument that “absolute nihilism is an impossibility.” After showing why this distinction matters, I will argue that Løgstrup’s goal is better achieved if we embrace Heidegger’s transcendental version of phenomenology rather than follow Løgstrup or Levinas, despite much that remains phenomenologically valuable in both.
Losses of human disease-associated genes in placental mammals
Authors: Sharma Virag , Hiller Michael
Published: October 2019

We systematically investigate whether losses of human disease-associated genes occurred in other mammals during evolution. We first show that genes lost in any of 62 non-human mammals generally have a lower degree of pleiotropy, and are highly depleted in essential and disease-associated genes. Despite this under-representation, we discovered multiple genes implicated in human disease that are truly lost in non-human mammals. In most cases, traits resembling human disease symptoms are present but not deleterious in gene-loss species, exemplified by losses of genes causing human eye or teeth disorders in poor-vision or enamel-less mammals. We also found widespread losses of PCSK9 and CETP genes, where loss-of-function mutations in humans protect from atherosclerosis. Unexpectedly, we discovered losses of disease genes (TYMP, TBX22, ABCG5, ABCG8, MEFV, CTSE) where deleterious phenotypes do not manifest in the respective species. A remarkable example is the uric acid-degrading enzyme UOX, which we found to be inactivated in elephants and manatees. While UOX loss in hominoids led to high serum uric acid levels and a predisposition for gout, elephants and manatees exhibit low uric acid levels, suggesting alternative ways of metabolizing uric acid. Together, our results highlight numerous mammals that are ‘natural knockouts’ of human disease genes.
Introduction
Authors: Pittard John
Published: October 2019

This introduction begins by providing an initial sketch of the argument for disagreement-motivated religious skepticism that will be assessed in this book. According to this argument, facts about religious disagreement give you good reason to think that any beliefs you may have on controversial religious questions are the product of processes that do not reliably lead to true belief. And if you have good reason to think that some belief of yours is the product of such unreliable processes, then it is not reasonable for you to confidently persist in that belief. After sketching this skeptical position, a preview is given of the argument that unfolds over the following chapters. The introduction then concludes with reading plans for readers with different interests.
Disagreement-Motivated Religious Skepticism and the Commitment to Impartiality
Authors: Pittard John
Published: October 2019

This chapter begins by clarifying the focus of the book, which is what may be called the “higher-order argument for disagreement-motivated religious skepticism.” A key premise of this argument is that a suitably informed religious believer lacks justification for thinking that his or her process of religious belief formation is significantly more reliable than the collective reliability of the processes that otherwise epistemically qualified people use to form religious beliefs. Arguments for this premise that appeal to the rational symmetry of competing processes of religious belief formation are shown to be inadequate. It is argued that a viable argument for the key premise must posit three constraints on the factors that may justifiably ground epistemic self-trust in the face of religious disagreement: an “internal reason constraint,” an “agent impartiality constraint,” and a “reasons impartiality constraint.”
From Impartiality to Instrumentalism
Authors: Pittard John
Published: October 2019

This chapter defends an approach to disagreement that rejects the strong epistemic impartiality requirement endorsed by “strong conciliationists.” The central tenet of the “weak conciliationism” that is defended here is a requirement called “instrumentalism.” Instrumentalism supplies a basis for demanding conciliatory requirements in disagreements that are rationally superficial but does not support similarly demanding requirements in fundamental disagreements that are the result of divergent epistemic starting points. It is argued that the radical impartiality requirement of strong conciliationism, which does issue demanding conciliatory prescriptions in fundamental disputes, is unmotivated in light of the explanatory power of instrumentalism. The penultimate section addresses two objections to weak conciliationism. The first objection, adapted from Schoenfield, claims that following weak conciliationism has a lower expected “accuracy” than following strong conciliationism. The second objection holds that the instrumentalist framework, when pushed far enough, supports a strong epistemic impartiality requirement.
Partisan Justification and Religious Belief
Authors: Pittard John
Published: October 2019

Weak conciliationism affirms that many of one’s epistemic starting points enjoy “partisan justification,” justified confidence that exceeds the degree of confidence that is supportable on impartial grounds. But weak conciliationism does not itself supply an account that says when such partisan justification is and is not available. This chapter begins by identifying the options for an account of partisan justification. It then argues for an exclusively rationalist account according to which partisan justification is grounded in rational insight and is not available in disagreements with acknowledged internal rational parity. This argument presents a challenge for “reformed epistemologists,” like Alston and Plantinga, who deemphasize the role of rational insight in religious belief and who defend religious belief by emphasizing similarities between religious belief formation and the formation of perceptual beliefs. It is argued that the religious epistemologies of Alston and Plantinga cannot successfully meet the higher-order challenge posed by religious disagreement.
Unpalatable Conclusions and Deliberative Vertigo
Authors: Pittard John
Published: October 2019

Some claim that maintaining robust commitment to one’s favored religious outlook is likely to be compatible with following strong conciliationism even if strong conciliationism rules out having controversial religious beliefs. This is because there are nondoxastic forms of religious commitment that do not require confident belief in the religious outlook to which one is committed. This chapter challenges such optimism about the compatibility of religious skepticism and religious commitment. It is argued, first, that those who adopt impartial credences and follow a cost-benefit approach to religious decision-making are likely to find that their approach to decision-making requires adopting a highly unpalatable form of religious commitment. A second argument concludes that no religious commitment is rational if strong conciliationism is correct. According to this argument, the normative uncertainty required by epistemic impartiality brings about a “deliberative vertigo” that prevents rationally motivated engagement any religious or irreligious way of life.
Conclusion
Authors: Pittard John
Published: October 2019

This brief conclusion notes that perhaps unlike strong conciliationism, the rationalist weak conciliationism that is defended in the book does not by itself provide a way of criticizing all undesirable forms of religious extremism. And a widespread attempt to follow rationalist weak conciliationism would arguably do less to improve humankind’s overall accuracy on religious matters than a widespread attempt to follow strong conciliationism. It is maintained that these considerations are not reasons to think that rationalist weak conciliationism is incorrect. Moreover, strong conciliationism may prove corrosive to both epistemic and practical rationality in the religious domain.
Shaping Cities and the Social Relationships Within Them
Authors: Polèse Mario
Published: October 2019

Some cities are more compact, and others are more sprawled; some are more segregated by class or race, and others are more socially cohesive. The outcomes are always in part shaped by national policies. This chapter first explores the drivers of urban form and of social and economic relations in cities, beginning with public policies toward transit, car use, and the consumption of land. Then it turns to the role of downtowns in shaping cities. The greatest challenge remains the promotion of social cohesion and social peace in large, diverse urban regions, notably in ethnically and racially divided societies. Instituting appropriate models of metropolitan governance, ensuring the equitable provision of people services (such as education and health), and curbing exclusionary practices (NIMBYs) are core issues, which societies have approached differently. The success of Vienna, ranked the world’s most livable city, has its roots in a unique model of metropolitan governance and housing provision but one that is difficult to transpose to other national settings.
Shaping the Local Economic Environment
Authors: Polèse Mario
Published: October 2019

This chapter explores the attributes that help make local environments conducive to productive economic behavior. Several attributes are explored, beginning with integrity in local government and a short history of corruption and urban mismanagement in America, New Orleans serving as an instructive example. New Orleans’s sad story takes us back to Louisiana’s early history, the issue of race never far from the surface. The chapter also describes how the roots of Silicon Valley’s success go back to the California Gold Rush, helping to shape a unique institutional environment that promoted innovation. As the chapter explains, the unlikely success of Minneapolis-St. Paul, both peripheral and cold, can be traced back to Minnesota’s first settlers. Many of these early settlers were Scandinavian who traditionally placed a high value on education and work. Primary and secondary education matter as much, and often more, than PhDs. A competent and numerically literate workforce is at the core of many small and midsized urban success stories.
Paris
Authors: Polèse Mario
Published: October 2019

Paris is one of the world’s truly great cities. Yet, this great metropolis punches below its weight. Although it is continental Europe’s largest city, it is not the continent’s financial or corporate center; nor is it a leader in today’s digital economy. This chapter examines the reasons behind Paris’s apparent weakness as a global economic player. Five reasons are explored: (1) the decline of the French language and French culture on the world stage; (2) France’s highly centralized tradition of governance and rigid labor market; (3) the political fragmentation of metropolitan Paris, still in search of an appropriate model of regional governance; (4) Paris’s social divides, manifested most cruelly in the impoverished cités of its suburbs; (5) the French state’s policies toward central Paris, which have tended to favor cultural monuments over economic and research functions.
Pradyumna and His Foundation Narrative in the Critical Text Harivaṃśa
Authors: Austin Christopher R.
Published: October 2019

Chapter 3 turns to the Harivaṃśa’s foundational episode of Pradyumna’s birth. As soon as Pradyumna is born, the demon Śambara abducts him and gives him to his wife Māyāvatī to raise as her own son. Māyāvatī approaches Pradyumna sexually once he is fully grown, explaining that she is not his mother; Pradyumna slays Śambara, accepts Māyāvatī as a love partner, and returns to his real family, where Kṛṣṇa identifies him as the rebirth of Kāmadeva, the God of Love. The episode is examined through a number of lenses, particularly a set of gendered premises on the nature of women and certain social-sexual dynamics of South Asian families. In sum, it is argued that the Harivaṃśa birth narrative constructs Pradyumna as a vaṃśa-vīra, or “lineage-hero,” a champion whose sexual virility and beauty, military power and resilience against the forces of infant mortality make him a champion of his father’s ancestral line.
Pradyumna-Kāmadeva in the Major Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas
Authors: Austin Christopher R.
Published: October 2019

Chapter 4 documents Pradyumna’s changing identity and significance in the context of the evolving Vaiṣṇava tradition, chiefly through an analysis of the abduction narrative as it is retold in the Viṣṇu, Bhāgavata, and Brahmavaivarta Purāṇas. Without radically changing the original Harivaṃśa scene, the sources reveal that three characteristics of Pradyumna have begun to emerge through a process of mutual fertilization: he is Kāmadeva, the handsome God of Love incarnate; he is a master of māyā or illusion; and he is a double of his father Kṛṣṇa. Important shifts in the meaning and role of bhakti (devotion) in Kṛṣṇa worship between the fifth and tenth centuries ce are identified as key factors underlying these developments. Particularly, Pradyumna’s identity as both the God of Love reborn and the double of Kṛṣṇa becomes hugely significant for the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, which is deeply invested in a theology of Kṛṣṇa as a magnetic object of desire.
Late Developments of the Harivaṃśa and the Prabhāvatī Episode
Authors: Austin Christopher R.
Published: October 2019

This chapter examines the Harivaṃśa’s appendices or late additions made roughly over the fifth- to twelfth-century ce period, particularly the elaboration of the Pradyumna-Śambara battle and the introduction of an altogether new and lengthy episode, the Prabhāvatī romance or slaying of Vajranābha, colored by the erotic-aesthetic vocabulary of śṛṅgāra. Here, the driving theme of Pradyumna’s mythic persona is reasserted, namely the audacious appropriation of a feminine figure ostensibly protected by an enemy male, whose violent defeat comes parceled with the emasculating discovery of his failure to protect her from the handsome boy’s virile magnetism. The chapter argues that the Prabhāvatī episode applies as never before the logic of the avatāra system, making of Pradyumna a charming actor upon a stage who, like his father Kṛṣṇa, assumes a temporary guise in a theatrical mode in order to destroy a demonic power threatening the gods and the cosmic order.
Free Speech and the University
Authors: Baer Ulrich
Published: October 2019

This first chapter identifies two problems with free speech in the college context. First, free speech creates a conflict when it interferes with the equality guarantees legally mandated for higher education. Second, free speech controversies undermine the university’s role as an arbiter of truth in society. When viewed in relation to equality and truth, the issues surrounding free speech take on larger significance. They signal a crisis for democracy not by prohibiting hate speech but by eroding the university’s purpose of making decisions over what merits debate and what is considered settled and widely accepted truth.
What “Snowflakes” Get Right About Free Speech
Authors: Baer Ulrich
Published: October 2019

How do we balance the university’s fundamental commitments to freedom of expression and to equality? With the help of philosophy, political science, legal scholarship, and common sense, it is possible to draw a bright line around ideas that do not merit further debate. These ideas suggest that some people are inherently inferior human beings. It is not necessary to include arguments about such pseudo-science in universities to maintain freedom of academic research. The student protesters who object to such speakers correctly point out that the standing and participation of minority students, faculty, and staff in the university are not just desirable and beneficial for the advancement of knowledge, but also legally mandated. The chapter concludes that the advocacy of white supremacy and its response in protest movements constitute the fundamental question facing our democracy today.
A Slippery Slope, or Who Is to Draw the Line?
Authors: Baer Ulrich
Published: October 2019

Is there reason to fear that any regulation of speech, which our laws have always recognized, will lead to the suppression of voices we currently like? Is the cost of having free speech the toleration of hate speech? This chapter relies on leading legal scholars to show that the slippery slope is not an argument, and that invoking it serves to shut down productive debate rather than identify a genuine risk. It is not only possible but necessary to draw a line regarding hate speech, and it is possible to define such speech.
History: From Jazz Ambassadors to Hip Hop Diplomats
Authors: Katz Mark
Published: October 2019

This chapter chronicles the history of official US cultural diplomacy, starting in the 1930s up until the birth of hip hop diplomacy in 2001 and the establishment of Next Level, the first State Department–funded hip hop diplomacy program, in 2013. National security threats have long been the animating force behind US cultural diplomacy. First, the threat was fascism. Later, it was communism, and then terrorism. The first hip hop “diplomat” was rapper Toni Blackman. Next Level originated in the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). Mark Katz was the founding director of Next Level.
Songs Instead of Missiles: Agency and Subversive Complicity
Authors: Katz Mark
Published: October 2019

This chapter discusses how US hip hop artists justify their participation in State Department–sponsored programs given hip hop’s traditional oppositional, anti-government stance. Many factors motivate artists to participate. Artists cite this work as an opportunity to travel; teach; encounter different cultures; represent their country, culture, gender, race, ethnicity, etc.; and build global hip hop community. This chapter considers whether these artists can be considered complicit with the actions of the government, whether they can act subversively, and whether they can do both at the same time, embodying what can be called subversive complicity.
Conclusion
Authors: Katz Mark
Published: October 2019

The conclusion considers the value of the partnership between hip hop and diplomacy. Hip hop diplomacy has value in convening groups unlikely to collaborate otherwise; it can be a source of validation for hip hop artists and their communities; and it can generate a favorable view of the United States and good will towards its citizens. Such positive outcomes, however, are not automatic and require that programs be conducted with respect, humility, self-awareness and a willingness to collaborate with local partners. Although the State Department faced severe funding cuts in the first years of the Trump administration, hip hop diplomacy has remained well-funded, although its future is uncertain. Specific anecdotes and case studies come from Next Level programs in Bangladesh, El Salvador, and Morocco.
The Neuroscience of Addiction
Authors: Butler Jay C.
Published: October 2019

Effective public health approaches to addressing the opioid crisis require an understanding of addiction as a health condition primarily involving the brain, rather than an individual’s series of ongoing “bad choices” or inherent criminal tendencies that ultimately lead to poor health outcomes. Addiction has been defined as “the most severe, chronic stage of substance-use disorder, in which there is a substantial loss of self-control, as indicated by compulsive drug taking despite the desire to stop taking the drug.” Whether addiction is viewed primarily as a “disease” or the outcome of experiential and environmental influences, chronic changes that occur in the brain of the person with addiction form the scientific basis of an effective public health response. Understanding the behavioral changes driven by addiction is vital since they have a profound impact on public safety, the criminal justice system, and public health. This chapter provides an overview of the changes that occur in the brain during development of addiction and how understanding these changes can improve public health practice and policy. It complements more complete clinical and basic science reviews of the neuroscience of addiction that have been recently published.
Collaborating to Address Substance Use Disorder in Correctional Settings
Authors: Martin Rosemarie A. , Alexander-Scott Nicole , Wendelken Joseph , Clarke Jennifer G.
Published: October 2019

For years, advocates in Rhode Island, including many individuals on staff at the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, envisioned a criminal justice system that did not perpetuate the crises of substance use disorder and overdose and instead helped address them thought treatment and recovery supports. In 2016, the state’s corrections department introduced the first statewide correctional system medication-assisted treatment program in the country to initiate a comprehensive program to screen for opioid use disorder. The program is demonstrating successful results. Continued public health and corrections collaboration lay the groundwork for additional innovations in program implementation, including the Rhode Island Department of Health’s focus on health equity and the social determinants of health. This chapter shares the Rhode Island experience as a potential model for other state programs.
Systems Thinking and the Opioid Epidemic in Georgia
Authors: Manteuffel Brigitte , Alderman Leigh , Branscomb Jane , Minyard Karen
Published: October 2019

Systems thinking in public health is an analytic approach that takes a broad perspective to a health issue or challenge and considers the interrelated pieces and dependencies at play within the larger context of that issue. Systems thinking describes the interconnected factors that combine to contribute to many of the complex public health challenges practitioners face in their day-to-day work. Key to systems thinking is the idea that to truly solve a public health problem, one must understand and change the way the system works to create and sustain that problem. Changing just one part of a system can have incomplete (or even adverse) effects on overall outcomes. A systems thinking approach to the opioid epidemic involves understanding that a combination of factors that address various components and structures of the system is warranted to curb opioid misuse and addiction trends at the local, state, and national levels.
Public Health and the Criminal Justice System
Authors: Tennis Gary , Martz Kenneth J. , Charlier Jac A.
Published: October 2019

Approximately two-thirds of America’s incarcerated population suffers with untreated or undertreated substance use disorders, and many of those individuals commit several crimes related to drug use and addiction on a daily basis prior to being incarcerated. To end the opioid epidemic in the United States we not only need to bolster our health care and public health response to substance use disorders, we need to engage the criminal justice system as a specific touchpoint for public health intervention in communities and states across the country. The principal argument in the chapter is that while individuals with opioid and/or other substance use disorders should get treatment before ever being involved in crime—if they are justice-involved, it is imperative that the criminal justice system serve as a belated but necessary public health and health care intervention supportive of treatment, recovery, and prevention of addiction.
Prescribing Guidelines and Opioid Stewardship
Authors: Bicket Mark , Alexander Caleb
Published: October 2019

Given the central role that the overuse of prescription opioids has played in the opioid epidemic, prescribing guidelines and opioid stewardship are critical strategies to reduce opioid-related addiction, injury, and death. This chapter highlights why prescribing guidelines are important and can improve the safe and effective use of opioids in clinical practice. Prescribing guidelines represent one important approach to fostering opioid stewardship, although there are many others, including public health surveillance, sound organizational policies, and patient and family engagement. Guidelines provide an efficient means of disseminating best practices to prescribers, patients, and others in a position to influence clinical care, such as policymakers and payers. Rigorously developed guidelines offer a valuable synthesis of the field, and thus serve as an important resource for individuals and organizations looking for an authoritative examination of the evidence base supporting the use of opioids in clinical and community practice.
Developing a Culture of Opioid Stewardship
Authors: Michalowski Allison , Boateng Sarah , Fraser Michael R. , Levine Rachel L.
Published: October 2019

The goal of opioid stewardship is to provide public health practitioners and health care professionals with the education and tools they need to appropriately prescribe opioid medications to patients for whom an opioid is indicated and to reduce the overall supply of unused opioid medications that might be diverted and used by individuals other than the intended patient. In this chapter, the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s experience with developing a comprehensive opioid stewardship approach illustrates that creating a statewide culture of opioid stewardship is a process requiring active involvement of health care professionals, provider and patient groups, law enforcement agencies, academic institutions and large health systems, state policymakers and politicians, and the general public. By analyzing Pennsylvania’s experience of building a culture of opioid stewardship, other states can learn how to foster opioid stewardship to ensure its effective spread across the nation.
Social Contracts: The Formation of Political Sovereignty
Authors: Brett Mark G.
Published: October 2019

The creation of political sovereignty in ancient Israel arose through alliances of kinship networks under a king, and this was facilitated by tribal elders and by a single charismatic leader, Samuel. The chapter shows how the elders of Israel prevailed in their argument for a king “like all the nations” by entering into social contracts between kinship groups, rather than by invoking a preexisting divine law that provides for the possibility of monarchy. The subsequent history of kingship eventually gave rise to a utopian law that provides for a strangely modern-looking constitutional monarch (Deut 17:14–20), but there is no evidence in the books of Samuel that the legal framework of Deuteronomy helped to shape the origins of political sovereignty in ancient Israel and Judah.
Colonial Inversions: Roger Williams and Wiremu Tāmihana
Authors: Brett Mark G.
Published: October 2019

This chapter turns to some remarkable examples in the colonial history of the Bible’s reception. In the seventeenth century, Roger Williams opposed Puritan national allegories by adopting the Persian imperial imaginary in order to secure Indian rights on Rhode Island. Wiremu Tāmihana advanced a similar anticolonial purpose in nineteenth-century Aotearoa New Zealand by embracing the law of kingship from Deuteronomy. Whether in ancient or modern times, the sheer complexity of intergroup conflict in colonial contexts is not always reducible to binary contrasts between elites and subalterns, or imperialists and nativists. The more subtle postcolonial readings will attend to the details of mimetic circulation, both in the compositional layers of the Bible and in its reception. The discussion includes historical reflections on the settler colonial context within which this book was written, Australia.
Conclusions, Hypotheses, and Reflections
Authors: Klawans Jonathan
Published: October 2019

The main conclusions of the work are briefly recapitulated. The Christian heresiological condemnation of novelty has Jewish roots. The Jewish aversion to innovation can be seen in the various ways ancient Jews disguised new things as if they were older. The early Christian embrace of innovation constitutes an important departure from broader ancient Jewish trends. Building on these conclusions, some additional hypotheses are offered concerning the possible interrelationships between heresiological condemnations of innovation and polemical, supersessionistic assertions of innovation. Perhaps the Christian embrace of the new and condemnation of the old were themselves born as polemic responses to Jewish condemnations of novelty. Finally, some additional reflections are offered for consideration, concerning the eventual “partings of the ways” between Judaism and Christianity and some intriguing interrelationships between heresiology and scholarship.
Introduction
Authors: Hamidaddin Abdullah
Published: October 2019

The introduction highlights the main issues that have arisen when exploring religion in Saudi Arabia, and the different approach this volume takes. It also explores the development of debates on religion in Saudi Arabia, demonstrating that the recent critiques of religion have some precedent, and showing how the internet and the rise of social media accelerated the development of those debates in both form and content. Then it discusses a personal encounter with heresy and nonbelief in Saudi Arabia which prompted interest in this matter and the writing of this book. It briefly points to the volume’s methodological justifications for using social media as a key source of social understanding. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this introduction discusses the key ethical considerations this volume has had to undertake as it analyzes public and private statements in matters of a highly sensitive nature.
Religious Disengagements
Authors: Hamidaddin Abdullah
Published: October 2019

This chapter explores in detail some of the stories of Saudis who underwent changes in their belief system, specifically changes away from the basic fundamental precepts of Islam. This chapter complements that discussion on public criticism of religion on Twitter by understanding the stories behind the ideas. It probes into the personal lives of individuals of various religious, educational, and socioeconomic backgrounds seeking a deeper understanding of the reasons behind their religious transformations. The chapter highlights the key issues pertaining to those stories, most notably the biases and misinterpretations that are inextricable and unavoidable, and also the validity of using life stories to understand a wider social phenomenon. Finally, the chapter discusses the impact of modernity on those religious transformations, suggesting that modern sensibilities have a more fundamental impact on disengaging from religion than do philosophical or scientific ideas.
Introduction
Authors: Boatright Robert G. , Sperling Valerie
Published: October 2019

The book begins by laying out a story about the impact of the presidential race on the congressional races in 2016. At the center of this story lie two unanticipated developments that characterized the 2016 election. The first of these was the unusual centrality of sexism and gender stereotypes to the presidential race in 2016. In a society that appears, by some measures, to have taken strides toward greater gender equality, what happened in Congressional campaigns when “retrograde” views on gender unexpectedly emerged in the competition for the presidency? The second unexpected occurrence was the nomination of Donald Trump as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, and the subsequent assumption that he would lose the presidential contest to Hillary Clinton. What impact did this development have on Congressional campaigns? Congressional candidates in the 2016 election found themselves in a fairly novel situation generated by the presidential race: gender issues became central to the presidential campaign, and, in turn, to the entire election process.
Does Gender Matter in Elections?
Authors: Boatright Robert G. , Sperling Valerie
Published: October 2019

This chapter provides the theoretical context for the study by exploring whether and how gender usually matters in campaigns and elections, and the ways in which the 2016 election was different in this regard. The chapter presents the literature on voter preferences for male and female candidates, the impact of gender stereotypes on voting, and the way campaigns and advertisers make use of these stereotypes when trying to promote their candidates or undermine their opponents. The chapter devotes particular attention to recent claims that women are not disadvantaged in contemporary American elections, and it explores ways in which this finding might be applied to the 2016 presidential election, the first to feature a female general election nominee.
The Duty to Vote
Authors: Maskivker Julia
Published: October 2019

This book breaks new ground by arguing that we have a moral duty to vote that is based on a Samaritan obligation to aid fellow citizens improve their lot in society. The argument adds a fresh perspective to the voting ethics literature, which is dominated by views that reject the morality and rationality of voting. Maskivker shows that voting is not irrational if we view it as a valuable contribution to a collectively rational activity. This reasoning means that the duty to vote is a duty of common pursuit to help society achieve good governance. Furthermore, voting is not morally optional just because other ways of helping society exist since its connection with the establishment of government is unique, which makes voting morally obligatory under the right circumstances. The book touches on the problem of voter incompetence and offers a balanced view of why citizen ignorance is not unalterable: we know that much of it is due to structural factors in the political architecture of our societies, which can be reformed. Although voting without information may lead to bad governance, Maskivker’s basic insight is that voting judiciously can be an effective path to justice, and it is not a burdensome task to ask from citizens. The book elaborates on the notion of a careful vote as well as the idea that we can value voting and elections not only for what they symbolize (i.e., equality of political voice) but also for what they can bring about (i.e., good governance).
What Does It Take to Vote with Care?
Authors: Maskivker Julia
Published: October 2019

This chapter offers an account of what it means to vote with care. It argues that there are two requisites for rendering a vote judicious: an epistemic one and a moral one. The former entails that citizens should evince a minimal degree of rationality and that they should possess enough information before casting their ballot. The latter entails that citizens should follow a test of fair-mindedness when deciding how to vote. This means that they should ponder on how their individual views will affect others, and whether other citizens may have legitimate justice reasons to reject those views. The chapter addresses political science and voter behavior research that suggests that minimal epistemic competence is not impossible for the average citizen despite the fact that voter ignorance is an actual problem.