bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Kant’s Rejection of Just War: International Order between Democratic Constitutionalism and Revolutionary Violence
Authors: Eberl Oliver
Published: April 2021

Following up on Tischer’s, Becker Lorca’s and Teschke’s observations on early modern war discourse, Oliver Eberl in this chapter elaborates Immanuel Kant’s critique of the justification of the use of force in early modernity which revolutionized the thinking on international order. Kant condemned the justification of the use of force as just war since this would perpetuate the state of nature which the states still found themselves in. Kant does not link directly theory and practice but rather formulates his theory on the background of revolutionary change, which in his view opens up the possibility of a completely new approach to international order. However, in unfolding his theory, Kant had to take into consideration its possible practical consequences in the context of an unstable international constellation of power. Furthermore, he had to accommodate the practice of the French republic to identify its opponents as ‘unjust enemies’, thereby contradicting the envisaged role of the revolution as the nucleus of the new era of peace envisioned by Kant.
Protection Emergencies: Justifying Measures Short of War in the British Empire
Authors: Benton Lauren
Published: April 2021

While the other chapters in Part III focus on Europe and its ‘semi-periphery’, Lauren Benton turns to the justification of imperial violence within the periphery: in response to urgent calls to protect imperial subjects across the nineteenth-century world, European imperial agents were authorized to use force at their discretion and instructed to avoid the outbreak of new, full-scale wars. Imperial agents drew from well-established practices of protection and possession in framing justifications for small-scale, sporadic violence. Their efforts gave expression to a perpetual right of empires to use violence to promote order in pluri-political regions of overlapping and uncertain sovereignties. This chapter illustrates these patterns by examining interpolity conflicts in one Pacific region and the strategies of British navy captains. The case suggests that understanding nineteenth-century legalities of imperial violence can be useful to the analysis of justifications of episodic use of force in later periods, including periodic attacks by international hegemons in the global ‘war on terror’.
Juridification, Politicization, and Circumvention of Law: (De-)Legitimizing Chemical Warfare before and after Ypres, 1899–1925
Authors: Vec Miloš
Published: April 2021

One of the most terrifying weapons introduced to the First World War by the progress of natural sciences and technology was poison gas. While the chapters by Isabel V. Hull, Aimee Genell and Mustafa Aksakal deal with the German and Ottoman justifications of the respective entries into the war, Miloš Vec turns to the justificatory discourse of chemical warfare. After the first German gas attack in 1915 at Ypres a political and legal debate started. The justificatory discourse of chemical warfare took up elements from international treaties and doctrine, discussing the centuries-old use of poisonous weapons which was now being dealt with in the Hague Conventions. Political interests, military necessity, and ethical standards clashed when interpreting the provisions of Article 23 of the ‘Convention with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land’ from 1899, prohibiting ‘(t)o employ poison or poisoned arms’. This chapter discusses the international legal debate around chemical weapons as it relates to politics before, during, and after the First World War. The historical justification of a particular type of weapon and warfare illustrates the conceptualization of international law and politics at that time.
On being in a position to know
Authors: Rosenkranz Sven
Published: April 2021

The notion of being in a position to know contrasts with that of knowledge, and yet, both notions are intimately related. Just as one can only know what is true, one can only be in a position to know what is true. To the extent that knowledge requires safe belief, being in a position to know implies being in a position to safely believe. For any p, if one knows p, one is in a position to know p, whereas the converse does not hold. Doing the best that one is in a position to do to decide a given question may be less than doing everything that one is in a position to do to decide that question, because one cannot do every such thing at once. If one is in a position to know p, one has the opportunity to come to know p upon doing the best that one is in a position to do to decide whether p holds. It is explained what this opportunity involves and what is involved in seizing it.
We Owe You Nothing
Authors: Mallard Grégoire
Published: April 2021

This chapter analyses how the context of decolonization gave rise to a new discourse in international public law on the legitimacy and legality of sovereign debts contracted during the colonial times. It focuses on the international doctrine of state succession created by ‘third-world’ legal scholars within the context of the United Nations (UN), at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), and the International Law Commission (ILC). This chapter focuses in particular on the twenty-year-long effort started in the 1960s by the ILC to codify the doctrine on the law of State Succession in respect to State Property, Archives and Debts, which led to the adoption of the so-named Convention by a majority of newly independent states in 1983. In doing so, it highlights the tools that international public law gave to the global movement in favour of the cancellation of sovereign debts contracted during colonial times. The chapter is based on archival research as well as extensive interviews with the concerned lawyers, in particular, with foremost foreign policy architect and prominent international law scholar Mohamed Bedjaoui (1929–) who opposed the continuity in sovereign debt obligations that former empires wanted to impose on newly independent states.
The Global South Debt Revolution That Wasn’t
Authors: Deforge Quentin , Lemoine Benjamin
Published: April 2021

In this article, we analyse how international crises and conflicts over sovereign debt have transformed the agenda of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Geneva-based organization founded in 1964 and whose history is closely linked to the G77 group of developing countries. We show how UNCTAD’s projects for structural reform of the international financial architecture were contested and ultimately rejected in the 1970s. Such defeats were a blow to the transformative goals that UNCTAD had initially set to achieve. In the 1980s, UNCTAD gradually became a technical agency and its mandate restricted to providing expert assistance and support to developing countries during their negotiations with the Paris Club. Meanwhile, the mandate to produce expertise at the macro level (the so-called ‘upstream’ area), was effectively transferred to the IMF and World Bank. With the development of the Debt Management Financial Analysis System (DMFAS), UNCTAD went from promoting systemic change in international financial architecture to sponsoring the micro-management of domestic policies as remedy to over-indebtedness. But we also show that UNCTAD did not always restrict itself to doing such ‘downstream’ work, i.e., improving debt issuing capacities and technologies of developing countries. While UNCTAD’s recent project on fair principles of lending and borrowing principles conforms to what’s expected from the group of advanced countries, another project involving the creation of an international mechanism of sovereign debt restructuring functioned as a disturbance to this fragile downstream–upstream division of labour between international organizations.
Japanese Law
Authors: Oda Hiroshi
Published: April 2021

This book analyses the current state of Japanese law after a series of reforms since 1990. In that year, the US–Japan Structural Impediments Initiatives Talk necessitating fundamental changes to the conventional system in Japan was completed. At the same time, the ‘bubble economy’ came to an end and Japan embarked on a long path to economic recovery. As a result, the Japanese legal system has undergone significant changes. Depending on the area of law, not all the reforms were successful, but it is beyond doubt that major changes took place across the board. The core of the book is commercial and business-related laws such as corporate law, securities law, contract law, and competition law. There was a fundamental change in corporate law over past three decades, not the least because of the new Company Law of 2004. The entire system of corporate governance now is very different from the previous insider-dominated system. Major changes took place in securities law after the Japanese ‘Big Bang’. Competition law in Japan, which had once been regarded as ‘dormant’, is now in full operation. The book also considers contract law, which, as part of the Civil Code, has undergone a major change in 2020. In order to understand commercial and business law, accurate understanding of the dispute settlement mechanism and the procedure is needed and this is duly covered. The book addresses these issues by studying the case law as well as legislative history and business practice.
Labour Law
Authors: Oda Hiroshi
Published: April 2021

Basic labour laws were introduced into Japan after the Second World War from the US. A new law—Labour Contract Law—was enacted in 2007. This law more or less codifies the existing case law. A new alternative dispute resolution (ADR) system for employment disputes was introduced.
Criminal Law and Procedure
Authors: Oda Hiroshi
Published: April 2021

The primary statute of criminal law in Japan is the Criminal Code of 1907. There are various separate laws which provide for specific crimes, generally denoted as ‘special criminal laws’. Some offences were added by way of such special laws in the recent years including the law against terrorist acts of 2019. The The Criminal Code is divided into the General Part and the Special Part. The former lays down the general principles and basic concepts of criminal law such as intention, negligence, attempt, accomplice, etc. The latter lists specific offences. Constitution guarantees the rights of defendants and suspects. Criminal procedure has become much more transparent, and better protection is given to suspects.
The Undivided Self
Authors: Charles David
Published: April 2021

Aristotle initiated the systematic investigation of perception, the emotions, memory, desire, and action, developing his own account of these phenomena and their interconnection. My aim is to gain a philosophical understanding of his views and to examine how far they withstand critical scrutiny. Aristotle’s approach calls into question the way in which our, post-Cartesian, mind–body problem is set up. He was guided throughout by a conception of both the psychological and the material that was rejected by those who originally formulated and subsequently sought to address our problem. His views challenge basic aspects of today’s conventional thinking about psycho-physical phenomena and their place in a material world. They offer the resources to dissolve, rather than solve, the mind–body problem we have inherited.
Perception, Desire, and Action
Authors: Charles David
Published: April 2021

Aristotle, it is argued, applied the style of account he developed for perception of sounds, colours, and tastes to the perception of objects, their size and movement, and to imagination and practical thought. His discussion of these topics is best understood, in line with the Impure Form Interpretation, as presenting them as, in the way explained, inextricably psycho-physical. It constitutes his attempt to develop an integrated picture of how perception leads to desire and to bodily action in unified, essentially and inextricably embodied human subjects. This discussion provides the basis for an understanding of his account of the distinctively human soul and its characteristic activities.
Childhood and student years
Authors: Kox A. J. , Schatz H. F.
Published: April 2021

Chapter 1 briefly describes Lorentz’s background, family history, and childhood in Arnhem, providing a short description of this provincial town’s history. It goes on to describe Lorentz’s primary and secondary school years and his first steps on the path to becoming a famous scientist. Attention is given to the teachers and authors that inspired him, his student years at Leiden University, his achievement of a doctoral degree in record time, his work as a secondary school teacher, and his private activities in experimental physics. Context is given by a short historical sketch of the position of the University and the city of Leiden.
The final years
Authors: Kox A. J. , Schatz H. F.
Published: April 2021

Chapter 12 deals with Lorentz’s final years as a renowned physicist who traveled extensively. It describes the festivities around the golden anniversary of his doctorate and his seventieth birthday and how he received a multitude of national and international honors and tributes and was a sought-after speaker and respected participant in international scientific cooperation. It highlights how Lorentz, already in his seventies, undertook two lengthy and strenuous speaking tours across the United States, twice spending time to teach at Caltech in Pasadena, and how he continued to actively participate in physics to the very end of his life, when he died at the age of seventy-five after a short illness caused by an Erysipelas infection. It ends with a description of Lorentz’s funeral, attended by international luminaries as well as the general population.
Measuring Non-Financial Forms of Capital
Authors: Cordaro Francesco , Desdoigts Alain , Geibler Justus von , Senik Claudia
Published: April 2021

Chapter 10 turns to the measurement of performance in delivering corporate and ecosystem purposes. The metrics are designed to capture the pain points in the ecosystem that need to be addressed and the success of the intervention in addressing them. This requires measures of non-financial as well as financial performance. The chapter provides an overview of measurements of non-financial forms of capital: natural, human, and social. In examining natural capital, it contrasts input measures that record the amount of natural resources that are used in the production process and output measures that examine the impact of the inputs on products, emissions, waste, etc. It notes that measuring inputs is in general more straightforward than outputs and it therefore argues that natural capital metrics should be constructed around inputs rather than outputs.
The Impact of Mutual Profit on Business Behaviour
Authors: Eccles Robert , Stroehle Judith
Published: April 2021

Chapter 15 describes how Mars and Oxford University are monitoring the impact that adoption of mutual P&L management accounting is having on the management of different parts of the Mars business. Incorporating expenditures as investments in human, social, and natural capital is expected to encourage management to engage in activities that have effects on, amongst other things, sourcing supplies, packaging, and storage. It encourages the leadership to promote activities that at present are discouraged by concerns about the firm’s bottom line but in future will be recognized for what they are, namely investments in assets that contribute to the delivery of the corporate purpose. The chapter acknowledges that this process will be constrained not only by the adoption of appropriate accounting systems but also by the degree to which the firm’s financial, investment, ownership, and engagement arrangements are conducive to the adoption of innovative practices and investments.
The Impact of Mutuality on Ownership
Authors: Michie Jonathan
Published: April 2021

Chapter 17 describes how the concept of mutuality extends well beyond that of mutually owned businesses. Mars itself is entirely owned by the Mars family. Many of the companies described in the book are stock corporations with external shareholders. One of the ways in which family firms can retain a focus on the common purpose of the business after the family has withdrawn or sold out to other shareholders is through ‘industrial foundations’ that confer a substantial fraction of the ownership of firms on foundations. These are particularly commonplace in Denmark and Germany, and some of the most successful companies in the world, such as the shipping company Maersk and the media firm Bertelsmann have these ownership forms. The principle of the Economics of Mutuality is about aligning the interests of diverse parties to a common purpose. This can be adopted in companies with any type of ownership but where it takes the form of, for example, mutuals or foundations, then it creates a commitment to the common purpose that may not be observed to the same degree elsewhere.
The Public Sector Equality Duty and the Socio-economic Duty
Authors: Prince Laura
Published: April 2021

This chapter addresses the public sector equality duty, which is contained in Part 11 of the Equality Act 2010. Section 149 of the Act consolidates the specific duties in respect of race, gender, and disability, which were previously contained in separate pieces of primary legislation. It extends those duties to cover all of the protected characteristics except marriage and civil partnership (which is protected to a more limited extent). Meanwhile, section 1 of the Act, which is not currently in force, provides for a public sector duty relating to socio-economic inequalities. This requires specified public authorities, in the context of strategic decision-making, to have due regard to the desirability of exercising their functions in a manner designed to reduce inequalities which result from socio-economic disadvantage.
A Taxonomy of Training Data
Authors: Sobel Benjamin
Published: April 2021

Many machine learning applications depend on unauthorized uses of copyrighted training data. Scholars and lawmakers often articulate this problem as a deficiency in copyright’s exceptions and limitations. In fact, today’s predicament results not from inadequate exceptions to copyright, but rather from two systemic features of the regime—the absence of formalities and the low threshold of copyrightable originality—combined with technology that turns routine activities into acts of authorship. This chapter taxonomizes AI applications by their training data. Four categories emerge: (1) public-domain data, (2) licensed data, (3) market-encroaching uses of copyrighted data, and (4) non-market-encroaching uses of copyrighted data. Copyright can only regulate market-encroaching uses, but these uses comprise only a narrow subset of AI, and copyright’s remedies are ill-suited to address them. The chapter concludes with a discussion of solutions to the problems it identifies. It observes that the exception for Text and Data Mining in the European Union’s Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market represents a positive development because the exception addresses structural causes of AI’s copyright problems. The TDM provision styles itself as an exception, but it may be better understood as a formality: rights holders must affirmatively reserve the right to exclude materials from training datasets. Thus, the TDM exception addresses a cause of AI’s copyright dilemma. The next step for an equitable AI framework will be to transition towards rules that not only clarify that non-market-encroaching uses do not infringe copyright, but also facilitate remunerated uses of copyrighted works for market-encroaching purposes.
Metafiction and the Postwar Novel
Authors: Dean Andrew
Published: April 2021

This book examines the origins, poetics, and capacities of self-reflexive fiction across the globe after World War II. Focusing on three authors’ careers—J. M. Coetzee, Janet Frame, and Philip Roth—it seeks to circumvent the large-scale theoretical paradigms (such as ‘postmodernism’) that have long been deployed to describe this writing. The book does so by developing new terms for discussing the intimacies of metafictional writing, derived from the writing of Miguel de Cervantes and J. L. Borges. The ‘self of writing’ refers to the figure of the author that a writer may imagine exists independently from discourse. The ‘public author as signature’ represents the public understandings of an author that emerge from biography and the author’s corpus itself. The book shows how these figures of authorship are handled by authors, as they draw on the materials offered by their own corpora and communities of readers. Sometimes, this book shows, authors invent distinctively literary ways of adjudicating enduring political debates: the responsibility of a novelist to the political aspirations of a community, the ability of the novel to pursue justice on behalf of others, and the public good that literature serves. Yet this is not a story of unmitigated success: the book also demonstrates how metafiction can be used as a way to close down interpretive schemes and to avoid contributing to public value. Through a close focus on literary environments, the book ultimately gives a finer-grained account of the history of postwar metafiction, and offers new ways of theorizing the relationship between fiction, life-writing, and literary institutions.
Faces in the Water
Authors: Dean Andrew
Published: April 2021

This chapter examines how New Zealand author Janet Frame responded to both the demands of a national literature and biographical enquiry into her life. Frame in her early work courts the idea that madness provides special insight, an understanding that was read biographically by the masculine cultural nationalist coterie surrounding her at this time. However, in her later work she seeks to replace this public image with her own vision of authorship. Between two pairs of novels from the 1960s and 1970s, as well as her 1980s autobiographies, this chapter shows a dimension of metafiction that is less discussed, in which the form is used by an author to attempt to control her reception and to prescribe certain approaches. In particular, Frame would become preoccupied with an understanding of public attention as a form of contamination, and would in turn seek a purity of literary vision. The chapter closes by showing how representations of Frame’s life by biographers and film-makers, even after her death, have continued to participate in battles over the public reception of the author within New Zealand literary culture.
What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Authors: Lindheim Sara H.
Published: April 2021

Octavian/Augustus, following in the footsteps of both Pompey and Caesar, relentlessly pursues territorial expansion abroad, while at home he presents the Roman people with the image of himself as unstoppable expansionist. In one otherwise unprepossessing poem Propertius makes a strikingly romantic assertion: Cynthia prima fuit, Cynthia finis erit (1.12.20). The word choice—finis—gives pause, especially when this particular elegy (1.12) and the ones with which Propertius surrounds it (1.8a, 1.8b, and 1.11) emphasize geographical space. To be more precise, they focus on Cynthia’s propensity to move through geographical space, away from the Propertian amator. Anxieties emerge from Propertius’ elegies when he imagines the individual faced with an infinite and ever-changing world. The Propertian amator struggles to establish and cling to the possibility of known and definable boundaries. He seeks to render Cynthia his finis and to anchor his self-definition to her.
Painted Worlds and Porous Walls
Authors: Lindheim Sara H.
Published: April 2021

Propertius’ fourth and final book of elegies also dramatizes the anxieties that emerge when one draws a map. The false promise of order and control, of being able to determine what is “in” and differentiate it from what is “out,” what is “Roman” as opposed to what is “non-Roman” returns in the guise of an Augustan-era map that the young wife, Arethusa, consults in elegy 4.3 and of the walls around early Rome in Tarpeia’s story of transgression from elegy 4.4. Propertius intertwines cartographic fines with the fortified boundaries of the new city, until he retrospectively reconstructs the problem of porous limits as an originary one for Rome, one that does not solely spring up with the imperial expansion of the Augustan age but always already existed at the very beginnings of the city.
Time and Antiquity in American Empire
Authors: Storey Mark
Published: April 2021

This is a book about two empires—ancient Rome and the United States—and what happens to historical time when we think about them together. Ranging from the present day to the late eighteenth century, it tracks how the political and cultural imagination turned Roman antiquity into an object of mutual recognition—an analogy—for the imperial US state, sometimes for the sake of its justification and perpetuation, and sometimes as a tool of critique and resistance. To tackle this, it is divided into three parts: an introduction that lays out the conceptual and methodological stakes, a second part of two chapters on American empire’s political foundations—the republic and the slave—and a third on the popular genres that have stepped into America and Rome’s sometimes strange orbit: Christian fiction, travel narratives, and science fiction. But through this conjunction of literary history, classical reception studies, and the philosophy of history, this book is also a way into a more fundamental inquiry: about how we imagine both our politics and ourselves within and across historical time. Time and Antiquity in American Empire ultimately builds a new relationship between text and context, and between history and culture; one located in the oscillating, dialectical dynamics of the analogy, and in a grasp of temporality better understood through metaphors of interconnection—constellations and networks. Offering a fresh reckoning with the historicist protocols of literary study, it suggests that recognizing the forms of time that emerge when we analogize with the past is also a way of thinking about how we have read—and how we might yet, in a continuing spirit of critique, read.
Dominion without End
Authors: Storey Mark
Published: April 2021

The first of three chapters on specific popular genres, it considers the intimacies of religion and empire through a cluster of key texts that engage with retellings of the ancient Christian story. The chapter begins with Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, taking the compound of Romanized spectacle and Christianized moral economy as the basis of American imperial politics. Closer consideration of three texts, separated by 130 years—by Lew Wallace, Gore Vidal, and William Ware—generates not just local case studies of how assertions of ahistorical Christian moralism have been aligned with politically contingent American sovereignty, but forms an initial claim about how “Christian fiction” more generally theorizes a specific historical temporality both inimical to conventional ideas of progress and yet wedded to American civilizational superiority.
Introduction
Authors: Gribben Crawford
Published: April 2021

The Introduction describes the revitalization of one of the most controversial religious and political movements in recent American history. During a period of significant demographic and cultural change, a large number of religious and political conservatives have migrated into the Pacific Northwest. Many of these migrants are influenced by the claims of Christian Reconstruction, or “theonomy.” From their base in northern Idaho, these latter-day theonomists are developing the work of R. J. Rushdoony, Gary North, and others of the first generation of the writers of Christian Reconstruction, reiterating their optimistic view of the future, an eschatological position known as postmillennialism, as well as their expectation that the expansion of Christian influence around the world will be marked by changes in government and by a widespread return to the demands of Old Testament law.
Social Connectedness and Local Contagion
Authors: Leister C Matthew , Zenou Yves , Zhou Junjie
Published: April 2021

We study a coordination game among agents in a network. The agents choose whether to take action (e.g. adopting a new technology) in an uncertain environment that yields increasing value in the actions of neighbours. We develop an algorithm that fully partitions the network into communities (coordination sets) within which agents have the same propensity to adopt. Our main finding is that a novel measure of network connectedness, which we term “social connectedness,” determines the propensity to adopt for each agent. Social connectedness captures both the number of links each agent has within her community (interconnectedness) as well as the number of links she has with members of other communities who have a higher propensity to adopt (embeddedness). There is a single coordination set if and only if the network is balanced—that is, the average degree of each subnetwork is no larger than the average degree of the network. Finally, we demonstrate that contagion is localized within coordination sets, such that a shock to an agent uniformly affects this agent and all members of her coordination set but has no impact on the other agents in the network.
Inference of dominant modes for linear stochastic processes
Authors: MacKay R. S.
Published: April 2021

For dynamical systems that can be modelled as asymptotically stable linear systems forced by Gaussian noise, this paper develops methods to infer (estimate) their dominant modes from observations in real time. The modes can be real or complex. For a real mode (monotone decay), the goal is to infer its damping rate and mode shape. For a complex mode (oscillatory decay), the goal is to infer its frequency, damping rate and (complex) mode shape. Their amplitudes and correlations are encoded in a mode covariance matrix that is also to be inferred. The work is motivated and illustrated by the problem of detection of oscillations in power flow in AC electrical networks. Suggestions of some other applications are given.
Characterization of the RNA-interference pathway as a tool for reverse genetic analysis in the nascent phototrophic endosymbiosis,
Paramecium bursaria
Authors: Jenkins Benjamin H. , Maguire Finlay , Leonard Guy , Eaton Joshua D. , West Steven , Housden Benjamin E. , Milner David S. , Richards Thomas A.
Published: April 2021

Endosymbiosis was fundamental for the evolution of eukaryotic complexity. Endosymbiotic interactions can be dissected through forward- and reverse-genetic experiments, such as RNA-interference (RNAi). However, distinguishing small (s)RNA pathways in a eukaryote–eukaryote endosymbiotic interaction is challenging. Here, we investigate the repertoire of RNAi pathway protein-encoding genes in the model nascent endosymbiotic system,
Paramecium bursaria–Chlorella
spp. Using comparative genomics and transcriptomics supported by phylogenetics, we identify essential proteome components of the small interfering (si)RNA, scan (scn)RNA and internal eliminated sequence (ies)RNA pathways. Our analyses reveal that copies of these components have been retained throughout successive whole genome duplication (WGD) events in the
Paramecium
clade. We validate feeding-induced siRNA-based RNAi in
P. bursaria
via knock-down of the splicing factor,
u2af1
, which we show to be crucial to host growth. Finally, using simultaneous knock-down ‘paradox’ controls to rescue the effect of
u2af1
knock-down, we demonstrate that feeding-induced RNAi in
P. bursaria
is dependent upon a core pathway of host-encoded
Dcr1
,
Piwi
and
Pds1
components. Our experiments confirm the presence of a functional, host-derived RNAi pathway in
P. bursaria
that generates 23-nt siRNA, validating the use of the
P. bursaria
–
Chlorella
spp. system to investigate the genetic basis of a nascent endosymbiosis.
Coincident rapid expansion of two SARS-CoV-2 lineages with enhanced infectivity in Nigeria
Authors: Ozer Egon A. , Simons Lacy M. , Adewumi Olubusuyi M. , Fowotade Adeola A. , Omoruyi Ewean C. , Adeniji Johnson A. , Dean Taylor J. , Zayas Janet , Bhimalli Pavan P. , Ash Michelle K. , Godzik Adam , Schneider Jeffrey R. , Mamede João I. , Taiwo Babafemi O. , Hultquist Judd F. , Lorenzo-Redondo Ramon
Published: April 2021

The emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants with enhanced transmissibility or decreased susceptibility to immune responses is a major threat to global efforts to end the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Disparities in viral genomic surveillance capabilities and efforts have resulted in gaps in our understanding of the viral population dynamics across the globe. Nigeria, despite having the largest population of any nation in Africa, has had relatively little SARS-CoV-2 sequence data made publicly available. Here we report the whole-genome sequences of 74 SARS-CoV-2 isolates collected from individuals in Oyo State, Nigeria in January 2021. Most isolates belonged to either the B.1.1.7 Alpha “variant of concern” or the B.1.525 Eta lineage, which is currently considered a “variant of interest” containing multiple spike protein mutations previously associated with enhanced transmissibility and possible immune escape. Nigeria has the highest reported frequency of the B.1.525 lineage globally with phylogenetic characteristics consistent with a recent monophyletic origin and rapid expansion. Spike protein from the B.1.525 lineage displayed both increased infectivity and decreased neutralization by convalescent sera compared to Spike proteins from other clades. These results, along with indications that the virus is outpacing the B.1.1.7 lineage in Nigeria, suggest that the B.1.525 lineage represents another “variant of concern” and further underline the importance of genomic surveillance in undersampled regions across the globe.
Disruptions in effective connectivity within and between default mode network and anterior forebrain mesocircuit in prolonged disorders of consciousness
Authors: Coulborn Sean , Taylor Chris , Naci Lorina , Owen Adrian M. , Fernández-Espejo Davinia
Published: April 2021

Recent research indicates prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDOC) result from structural and functional impairments to key cortical and subcortical networks including the default mode network (DMN) and the anterior forebrain mesocircuit (AFM). However, the specific mechanisms which underpin such impairments remain unknown. It is known that disruptions in the striatal-pallidal pathway can result in the over inhibition of the thalamus and lack of excitation to the cortex that characterises PDOC. Here, we used spectral dynamic causal modelling and parametric empirical Bayes on rs-fMRI data to assess whether DMN changes in PDOC are caused by disruptions in the AFM.

PDOC patients displayed overall reduced coupling within the AFM, and specifically, decreased self-inhibition of the striatum paired with reduced coupling from striatum to thalamus. This led to loss of inhibition from AFM to DMN, mostly driven by posterior areas including the precuneus and inferior parietal cortex. In turn, the DMN showed disruptions in self-inhibition of the precuneus and medial prefrontal cortex.

Our results provide support for the anterior mesocircuit model at the subcortical level but highlight an inhibitory role for the AFM over the DMN, which is disrupted in PDOC.
HIV infection is linked with reduced error-related default mode network suppression and poorer medication management abilities
Authors: Flannery Jessica S. , Riedel Michael C. , Salo Taylor , Poudel Ranjita , Laird Angela R. , Gonzalez Raul , Sutherland Matthew T.
Published: April 2021

Objective

Brain activity linked with error processing has rarely been examined among persons living with HIV (PLWH) despite importance for monitoring and modifying behaviors that could lead to adverse health outcomes (e.g., medication non-adherence, drug use, risky sexual practices). Given that cannabis (CB) use is prevalent among PLWH and impacts error processing, we assessed the influence of HIV serostatus and chronic CB use on error-related brain activity while also considering associated implications for everyday functioning and clinically-relevant disease management behaviors.

Methods

A sample of 109 participants, stratified into four groups by HIV and CB (HIV+/CB+, n=32; HIV+/CB-, n=27; HIV-/CB+, n=28; HIV-/CB-, n=22), underwent fMRI scanning while completing a modified Go/NoGo paradigm called the Error Awareness Task (EAT). Participants also completed a battery of well-validated instruments including a subjective report of everyday cognitive failures and an objective measure of medication management abilities.

Results

Across all participants, we observed expected error-related anterior insula (aI) activation which correlated with better task performance (i.e., less errors) and, among HIV-participants, fewer self-reported cognitive failures. Regarding awareness, greater insula activation as well as greater posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) deactivation were notably linked with aware (vs. unaware) errors. Regarding group effects, unlike HIV-participants, PLWH displayed a lack of error-related deactivation in two default mode network (DMN) regions (i.e., PCC, medial prefrontal cortex [mPFC]). No CB main or interaction effects were detected. Across all participants, reduced error-related PCC deactivation correlated with reduced medication management abilities and PCC deactivation mediated the effect of HIV on such abilities. More lifetime CB use was linked with reduced error-related mPFC deactivation among HIV-participants and poorer medication management across CB users.

Conclusions

These results demonstrate that insufficient error-related DMN suppression linked with HIV infection, as well as chronic CB use among HIV-participants, has real-world consequences for medication management behaviors. We speculate that insufficient DMN suppression may reflect an inability to disengage task irrelevant mental operations, ultimately hindering error monitoring and behavior modification.
Hospital Length of Stay: A cross-Specialty Analysis and Beta-Geometric Model
Authors: Dehouche Nassim , Viravan Sorawit , Santawat Ubolrat , Torsuwan Nungruethai , Taijan Sakuna , Intharakosum Atthakorn , Sirivatanauksorn Yongyut
Published: April 2021

Abstract

The typical hospital Length of Stay (LOS) distribution is known to be right-skewed, to considerably vary across Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG), and to contain markedly high values, in significant proportions. These very long stays are often considered outliers, and thin-tailed statistical distributions are assumed. Moreover, modeling is typically performed by Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) and is consequently based on small empirical samples, thus justifying the previous assumption. However, resource consumption and planning occur at the level of medical specialty departments covering multiple DRG, and when considered at this decision-making scale, extreme LOS values represent a significant component of the distribution of LOS (the right tail) that determines many of its statistical properties.

Through a study of 46, 364 electronic health records over four medical specialty departments (Pediatrics, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Surgery, and Rehabilitation Medicine) in the largest hospital in Thailand (Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok), we show that the distribution of LOS exhibits a tail behavior that is consistent with a subexponential distribution. We analyze some empirical properties of such a distribution that are of relevance to cost and resource planning, notably the concentration of resource consumption among a minority of admissions/patients, an increasing residual LOS, where the longer a patient has been admitted, the longer they would, counter-intuitively, be expected to remain admitted, and a slow convergence of the Law of Large Numbers, making empirical estimates of moments (e.g. mean, variance) unreliable. Consequently, we propose a novel Beta-Geometric model that shows a good fit with observed data and reproduces these empirical properties of LOS. Finally, we use our findings to make practical recommendations regarding the pricing and management of LOS.
A Single Drop of Fingerstick Blood for Quantitative Antibody Response Evaluation After SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination
Authors: Du Jinwei , Zhang Dayu , May Hannah , Loginova Yulia , Chu Eric , Madej Roberta , Lu Chuanyi M. , Pathakamuri Joseph A. , Kuebler Daniel , Neves Jocelyn V. , Zhang Aiguo , Sha Michael Y.
Published: April 2021

Among several COVID vaccines that have been approved, the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are mRNA vaccines that are safe and highly effective at preventing COVID-19 illness. Studies have demonstrated that neutralizing antibody responses elicited by these vaccines correlate strongly with antibodies measured by immunoassays such as ELISA. To monitor the antibody level duration of vaccine-induced immune responses in vaccinated population, cost-effective and easily implementable antibody testing methodologies are urgently needed. In this study, we evaluated the feasibility of using a single drop of fingerstick blood collected with flocked swabs for a high-throughput and quantitative anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike (S1) IgG antibody immunoassay. A total of 50 voluntary subjects participated and donated fingerstick blood samples before and after receiving the Moderna mRNA vaccine. Among all individuals tested, no anti-SARS-CoV-2 S1 IgG antibody was detected before vaccination and on day 7 after receiving the first vaccine dose. On day 14 after the first dose, a significant amount of anti-SARS-CoV-2 S1 IgG antibody was detected in all participants’ samples. By the end the third week from the first dose, the median anti-SARS-CoV-2 S1 IgG concentration increased to 44.9 ug/mL. No anti-SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid (N) protein IgG antibody was detected in any of the participants during the study period, indicating that the anti-SARS-CoV-2 S1 IgG assay is specific for the mRNA vaccine induced antibodies.Comaprison of venous blood plasma and fingerstick blood for anti-SARS-CoV-2 S1 IgG shown a higher correlation. Furthermore, the fingerstick blood dried swab samples are stable for at least 4 days. In summary, we demonstrated that a single drop of fingerstick blood collected with flocked swab can be used for quantitative detection and monitoring of anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike IgG responses after receiving COVID-19 vaccination. This testing platform does not require venous blood draw and can be easily implemented for large scale antibody testing in vaccinated populations.
Assessing risk perceptions that contribute to tetanus toxoid maternal vaccine hesitancy in Kilifi County, Kenya
Authors: Kiyuka Patience Kerubo , Moindi Rodgers Onsomu , Murunga Nickson , Muinga Naomi , Mutua Meshack Nzesei , Wanjala Stanley , Sandra Sheba , Mumba Noni , Odhiambo Evans Otieno , Mutengu Lillian , Shauri Halimu Suleiman
Published: April 2021

Vaccination is one of the most effective public health interventions today. However, there is a growing number of people who perceive vaccines as unsafe and unnecessary. Waning vaccine confidence threatens global immunization programmes, contributing to decreased immunization rates and outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. We used a mixed-method approach surveying men and women of reproductive age and Focus Group Discussions with expectant mothers to understand maternal vaccine hesitancy within a rural setting of Kilifi County, Kenya. Of the 104 people surveyed, 70% of the participants were aware of the vaccine that expectant women receive and 26% stating that they know people in their community who have refused or were hesitant to take maternal vaccination. Reasons given for refusals include religion and rumors that have spread in the community that the tetanus toxoid vaccine was a family planning method. Stockout of the vaccine was identified as one of the healthcare factors affecting vaccine uptake. The majority of the respondents (84%) reported that they mainly trust a healthcare worker for vaccination information. Approximately 53% and 23% reported that they strongly agree or agreed, respectively, that vaccines for expectant women should be made compulsory. The availability of safe and effective maternal vaccines will only be beneficial if mothers choose to use them. Dissemination of accurate information and continuous engagement with the community members can build trust and confidence in vaccines.
Use of heated tobacco products may be associated with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and low birth weight in Japan: An analysis of the JACSIS study
Authors: Zaitsu Masayoshi , Hosokawa Yoshihiko , Okawa Sumiyo , Hori Ai , Kobashi Gen , Tabuchi Takahiro
Published: April 2021

Background

Little is known about heated tobacco product (HTP) use in pregnant women and associated maternal and neonatal risks for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) and low birth weight (LBW). Thus, this study aimed to assess the status of HTP use among pregnant women in Japan and explore the risk of HDP and LBW associated with HTP use.

Methods

Using data from the Japan “COVID-19 and Society” Internet Survey (JACSIS) study, a web-based nationwide survey, we investigated 558 post-delivery and 365 currently pregnant women in October 2020. We assessed the prevalence of ever HTP smokers (defined as ever experiencing HTP use) in post-delivery and currently pregnant women. Among post-delivery women, we collected the information regarding HDP and LBW based on their Maternal and Child Health Handbooks (maternal and newborn records). In the multivariable regression analysis, we estimated the adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of ever HTP smokers for HDP and LBW compared with those of never HTP smokers using logistic regression. A stratified analysis with respect to combustible cigarette smoking (never/ever) was also performed.

Results

The prevalence of ever HTP use were 11.7% and 12.6% in post-delivery and currently pregnant women, respectively. Among post-delivery women, ever HTP smokers had higher HDP incidence (13.8% vs. 6.5%, P=0.03), with an OR of 2.78 (95% CI 0.84–9.15) and higher LBW incidence (18.5% versus 8.9%, P=0.02), with an elevated OR of 2.08 (95% CI 0.80–5.39). A similar tendency was observed among never and ever combustible cigarette smokers.

Conclusion

In Japan, the incidence of HTP use has exceeded 10% among pregnant women, and HTP smoking may be associated with increased maternal and neonatal risks. School-based tobacco prevention and cessation programs should be conducted regardless of product types to prevent life-threatening perinatal complications and deaths.

What this paper adds

Little is known about heated tobacco product (HTP) use and associated perinatal risks among pregnant women.

In Japan, the prevalence of ever HTP use exceeded 10% among pregnant women.

HTP use approximately doubled perinatal risk of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and low birth weight.

When stratified by cigarette smoking status, a similar tendency was observed among never and ever cigarette smokers.