bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Structural basis of G-quadruplex DNA recognition by the yeast telomeric protein Rap1
Authors: Traczyk Anna , Liew Chong Wai , Gill David James , Rhodes Daniela
Published: March 2020

G-quadruplexes are four-stranded nucleic acid structures involved in multiple cellular pathways including DNA replication and telomere maintenance. Such structures are formed by G-rich DNA sequences typified by telomeric DNA repeats. Whilst there is evidence for proteins that bind and regulate G-quadruplex formation, the molecular basis for this remains poorly understood. The budding yeast telomeric protein Rap1, originally identified as a transcriptional regulator functioning by recognizing double-stranded DNA binding sites, was one of the first proteins to be discovered to also bind and promote G-quadruplex formation in vitro. Here, we present the 2.4 Å resolution crystal structure of the Rap1 DNA-binding domain in complex with a G-quadruplex. Our structure not only provides a detailed insight into the structural basis for G-quadruplex recognition by a protein, but also gives a mechanistic understanding of how the same DNA-binding domain adapts to specifically recognize different DNA structures. The key observation is the DNA-recognition helix functions in a bimodal manner: In double-stranded DNA recognition one helix face makes electrostatic interactions with the major groove of DNA, whereas in G-quadruplex recognition a different helix face is used to make primarily hydrophobic interactions with the planar face of a G-tetrad.
Prescription patterns of dialysate potassium and potassium binders and survival on haemodialysis—the French Renal Epidemiology and Information Network registry
Authors: Mercadal Lucile , Lambert Oriane , Couchoud Cécile , Metzger Marie , Edet Stéphane , Merle Sylvie , Jacquelinet Christian , Stengel Bénédicte
Published: March 2020

Background

Management of potassium disorders in patients on haemodialysis (HD) is complex. We studied prescription patterns of dialysate potassium and potassium binders, and their associations with patient survival.

Methods

This national registry-based study included 25 629 incident adult patients alive after 3 months of HD from 2010 through 2013 and followed-up through 31 December 2014. We used Cox proportional hazard models to estimate multiadjusted mortality hazard ratios (HRs) associated with time-dependent exposure to facility-level dialysate potassium concentrations and patient-level potassium binder exposure.

Results

Almost all dialysis units used, and generally most often, dialysate potassium concentrations of 2 mmol/L. During this period, use of concentrations <2 mmol/L tended to decrease and those ≥3 mmol/L to increase. In 2014, 9% of units used a single dialysate formula, 41% used two and 50% three or more. The most frequent combinations were 2 and 3 mmol/L (40%), and <2, 2 and 3 mmol/L (37%). Compared with patients on HD in units using only one dialysate formula, those in units using two or three had adjusted mortality HRs of 0.91 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.82–1.01] and 0.84 (0.75–0.93), respectively. Potassium binders were prescribed for 37% of all patients at baseline. Adjusted mortality HRs associated with doses <4, 4–8 and ≥8 g/day versus none were 1.22 (95% CI 1.04–1.51), 0.6 (0.54–0.66) and 0.25 (0.24–0.33), respectively.

Conclusions

Diversity in facility-level use of dialysate potassium concentrations and potassium binder use at an appropriate dose appear to be associated with better survival in HD patients.
Quantitative Analysis of the Far-Lateral, Supra-Articular Transcondylar Transtubercular Approach Using Cadaveric Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Authors: Kodera Toshiaki , Akazawa Ayumi , Yamada Shinsuke , Arai Hiroshi , Yamauchi Takahiro , Higashino Yoshifumi , Arishima Hidetaka , Iino Satoshi , Noriki Sakon , Kikuta Ken-ichiro
Published: March 2020

BACKGROUND

Removing the jugular tubercle (JT) is regarded as an important step in the far-lateral approach; however, few cadaveric studies have objectively evaluated it.

OBJECTIVE

To quantitatively analyze the effect of JT removal in the far-lateral approach, using cadaveric computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging.

METHODS

The far-lateral, supra-articular transcondylar transtubercular approach was employed on 23 sides of 13 formalin-fixed cadaveric heads. CT bone images were obtained before and after JT removal, and MR images were obtained before dissection and were merged with the CT bone images. The angles of attack used to approach the ventral region of the medulla, the distances between the medulla and the bony structure, and the volume of the paramedullary space were measured at the level of the JT on axial CT-MR fusion images. The values obtained after JT removal were compared with those obtained before JT removal.

RESULTS

All evaluated values were significantly increased after JT removal, including the angle of attack at the level of the JT (29.8 ± 7.4° vs 58.2 ± 15.5°, P < .001), the distance between the olive and the JT (6.4 ± 2.0 mm vs 9.5 ± 5.0 mm, P = .01), and the volume of the space around the medulla (0.28 ± 0.04 cm3 vs 0.47 ± 0.09 cm3, P < .001).

CONCLUSION

The paramedullary surgical working space widened by JT removal was quantitatively demonstrated in the cadaveric CT and MR imaging study. The measurement methods in this study can be applied to clinical cases and other skull base cadaveric studies.
Conclusion
Authors: Whitehead Andrew L. , Perry Samuel L.
Published: March 2020

The conclusion provides an overview of the four responses to the Christian nation narrative and the key patterns outlined throughout the book. It rearticulates the main arguments that Christian nationalism is vital to understanding our current social and political context, that it is not synonymous with or a byproduct of other ideologies, and that it operates differently from religion writ large. Christian nationalism shapes Americans’ sense of identity and moral certitude, providing a vision of how the world should look and how believers should enact that vision. The chapter closes by pointing out the implications Christian nationalism has for civil society in the United States, as well as for Christianity. In the end, all Americans are subject to the influence of Christian nationalism whether they reject it or fully embrace it.
Postmodern Socialization
Authors: Adraoui Mohamed-Ali
Published: March 2020

Fundamentally, the socialization in Daʾwa Salafiyya is less about an attempt to cut oneself off from the world than about a religious and puritan way of acting as though one were living in the “time of the tribes.” United by spiritual and moral affinities that let them consider themselves separate, Salafists embody the superiority of the affinity paradigm in a society with which they negotiate a contractual relationship. There is no recognition of the religious engagement that legitimizes the modern era and its social, political, or cultural avatars, such as the nation, secularism, citizenship, democracy, individualism, and liberalism, or, especially, the polytheism of values. It is no surprise that the practicant feels ill at ease with them. He finds in his fundamentalist configuration all he needs for leading his life, being focused on his coreligionists and not on the state or the nation.
Racial Displacement in Action?
Authors: Doering Jan
Published: March 2020

With the help of Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy, Chicago’s community policing program, safety activists in Rogers Park and Uptown employed a set of powerful strategies for fighting crime—“problem building” and “problem business” interventions, increasing and directing police services by strategically calling 911, attending court hearings as “court advocates,” and reclaiming public space through “positive loitering,” a type of public neighborhood watch. All of these practices were ostensibly race-neutral, but critics could and sometimes did challenge them as tools of racial marginalization. In addition to describing grassroots public safety work, the chapter analyzes how antigentrification activists contested these practices. Furthermore, it shows how safety activists tried to inoculate their efforts against racial contestation by recruiting minority residents, deploying racially benign narratives, and carefully managing situations of conflict.
Resisting Gentrification and Criminalization
Authors: Doering Jan
Published: March 2020

This chapter examines the intensive efforts of Uptown’s social justice activists to resist gentrification and criminalization after an alderman whom they perceived to be progentrification took office there in 2011. Galvanized by the displacement of young, black basketball players from a local park, black and left-leaning residents formed a new organization that aimed not only to resist gentrification and racial marginalization but also to reduce violence in order to unite the local youth around the cause of social justice. Effectively deploying racial challenges, the organization succeeded in reversing the displacement of the basketball players but eventually faltered due to the activists’ exhaustion and lack of resources. Furthermore, the related community conflicts made it more difficult for CeaseFire, a violence prevention organization, to operate and remain in Uptown, because it was drawn into the battle over gentrification.
“White Vigilantes?”
Authors: Doering Jan
Published: March 2020

Positive loitering is a type of neighborhood watch practice that safety activists in Rogers Park and Uptown commonly used in order to try and suppress street crime and gang activity. In conducting positive loitering, the mostly white safety activists entered a context in which their racial category was marked, because the practice encouraged charges of racism and vigilantism. This chapter describes how two positive loitering groups positioned themselves in this contested territory. It shows how the groups embraced or avoided racially contested tactics, engaged or alienated black and Latino residents, and discussed racial challenges. Ironically, a positive loitering group in Uptown created an environment of interracial collaboration in their polarized neighborhood, while the group in Rogers Park incited racial conflict despite that neighborhood’s calmer political field.
The Intrinsic Value of Scientific Knowledge and Understanding
Authors: Schwartz James S.J.
Published: March 2020

This chapter provides a detailed and epistemologically informed defense of the intrinsic value of scientific knowledge and understanding. It responds to Lars Bergström’s criticisms of the value of scientific knowledge. It then devises a naturalistic approach to intrinsic value that is used to argue that true belief (and, in turn, knowledge) is intrinsically valuable because true beliefs are valued for their own sake, and such acts of valuation help to explain the overall scientific worldview. It next considers and rejects Duncan Pritchard’s attempt to show that understanding is more epistemically valuable than true belief, arguing that Pritchard’s view of understanding as a cognitive achievement fails to include anything of epistemic value other than the epistemic value of the true beliefs which are compresent with understanding. Finally, it uses virtue-theoretic approaches to epistemic value to generate prima facie obligations to acquire scientific knowledge and understanding.
Google vs. The Copyright Tradition
Authors: Gray Joanne Elizabeth
Published: March 2020

This chapter provides an examination of Google’s US copyright case law, covering disputes over Google’s use, without permission, of copyrighted content in Google Search, Google Images, Google Books, YouTube, and its phone operating system Android. When resolving Google’s copyright disputes, US courts have considered the public benefits of Google’s services and have exhibited a willingness to limit private property rights in favor of the public interest in accessing information and content. These decisions have legitimized Google’s activities, and they have gifted Google private gains that fuel its information empire.
The Origins of Latino-Targeted Cross-Racial Mobilization: TheCaseofTexas
Authors: Collingwood Loren
Published: March 2020

Chapter 3 examines the origins of cross-racial mobilization in Texas between white/Anglo candidates and Latino voters. The chapter employs extensive archival evidence and quantitative data to provide the first rigorous statistical and empirical test of the book’s overall cross-racial mobilization model. First, the chapter lays out a detailed classification methodology that sorts candidates into different levels of cross-racial mobilization based on data located in archives, newspapers, books, and the public record. Second, the chapter shows that cross-racial mobilization disproportionately occurs after the passage of key civil rights reforms, as the Latino population grows, and as white hostility drops. The chapter also reveals how cross-racial mobilization—measured via Spanish-language ad-buys—increased Dwight Eisenhower’s vote share in high-density Hispanic counties in the 1956 presidential campaign. Finally, the chapter includes several short case studies of Lyndon Johnson’s, John Tower’s, and Bill Clements’ cross-racial mobilization.
Contentious Minds in Action
Authors: Passy Florence , Monsch Gian-Andrea
Published: March 2020

Do activists rely on synchronized minds to perform joint action? What notions of democratic cultures do they hold? And what role does the mind play in participation and the sustainment of commitment? Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the central argument of the book, namely, that the mind matters to the performance of joint action, and explains why it is crucial that we dedicate more attention to this topic. The chapter further sketches the main theoretical proposal and presents the three central cognitive dimensions: activists’ relation to common good, politics, and political citizenship. The chapter’s second half explicates the comparative research design which relates the moral voicing to the Christian aid and the radical workers’ rights community. Finally, we combine survey and interview data with an innovative mixed-methods design to study the minds of activists and answer the central research questions.
Common Good and Intentionality
Authors: Passy Florence , Monsch Gian-Andrea
Published: March 2020

Chapter 4 develops the topic of mind synchronization further and delves into understandings of common good. Based on activists’ narratives, we first scrutinize their understandings of common good by offering a fined-grained analysis of the way they conceptualize this pillar of activism. The statistics of Chapter 3 provide a representative picture of the activist’s mind but one that is rather cursory as they reflect raw measurements. In this chapter, we investigate the intricate ways in which common good is understood inductively. In a second step, we examine how activists’ broad understanding of common good enables them to develop mental constructs that orient their action specifically. We highlight the cognitive paths that set activists’ intentionality and orient their action on a number of aspects: toward certain groups of people, on particular social problems, and within a specific field of action.
Disrupted Landscapes
Authors: Farmer Sarah
Published: March 2020

This chapter examines a photographic essay created by the renowned photojournalist and filmmaker Raymond Depardon about the farm on which he grew up. In 1963, the government expropriated part of the Depardon family’s farm in order to build a superhighway. Twenty years later Depardon photographed what remained as part of a landmark public photographic enterprise commissioned in 1983 by the DATAR, the government agency that oversaw the large-scale postwar regional development projects. This chapter explores Depardon’s photography within the larger project of the Mission photographique de la DATAR. It illuminates the role of photographs in shaping perceptions of the postwar upending of rural life and landscapes.
A Nautch Girl to Teach Us Delsarte
Authors: Foxen Anya P.
Published: March 2020

Chapter 5 grapples with the dynamics of Orientalism, specifically as enacted by white women with regard to India and its two central personas: the yogi and the dancing girl. It first addresses how the ambiguous gendering of yogis as Oriental men allowed white women to inhabit this persona as a specific way of legitimating their spiritual authority. As a complement to this masculine model, St. Denis’s popularity represents the rise of the “nautch girl” as the symbol of a specifically feminine Orientalism. The appropriated image of the nautch girl reflects broader trends not only within the dance world but within popular culture, as Oriental imagery increasingly becomes co-opted by white women at the turn of the century to express their lingering fantasies and their newfound freedoms. Women’s physical culture quickly begins to mirror this trend as “Oriental dance” exercises are increasingly diffused through the preexisting practice of light calisthenics.
Introduction
Authors: Waldow Anik
Published: March 2020

This chapter illustrates how the three parts of the book relate to one another and jointly reinforce the claim that the early modern concept of experience is best understood as representing an embodied form of experience that raises questions about the possibility of self-determined agency. It elaborates on the background of the early modern debate and discusses some objections to the claim that experience is a concept that refers to our embodied existence in the world, while outlining how the suggested approach breaks with some of the common interpretative paradigms. This discussion is followed by a detailed overview of the individual chapters of the book.
“You shall have freedom from care . . . during my reign.”
Authors: Kraemer Ross Shepard
Published: March 2020

From the reign of Constantine through the death of the emperor Julian in 363 CE, relatively little imperial attention was focused on Jews (or Samaritans). No early laws targeted Jews merely for practicing their ancestral religion. Instead, Constantine and subsequent emperors sought the conversion or even eradication both of practitioners of traditional Roman religions and of Christians who held opposing theological views. The chapter summarizes how late Roman laws were produced and transmitted, then reviews and analyzes the legislation pertaining to Jews issued in the name of Constantine and his various successors, through Julian. Some regulated Jewish ownership of Christian slaves; others prohibited Jews from abusing co-religionists who became Christians. CTh. 16.8.1, often thought to prohibit conversion to Judaism, probably extends those prohibitions to non-Jews. Julian authorized the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple (along with other traditionalist temples). Christian authors claim divine intervention aborted the project.
“Their synagogues shall remain in their accustomed peace”
Authors: Kraemer Ross Shepard
Published: March 2020

The courts of Theodosios’s two young sons, Honorius in the West and Arkadios in the East, were dominated by various powerful advisors—Stilicho, Rufinus, and others. Legislation against dissident Christians and those who clung to traditional worships accelerated. Jewish religion remained licit for those born Jews. Laws pertaining to Jews mostly affirmed Jewish rights to be free from violence, while hinting at threats to those rights. Various laws pertaining to the Jewish patriarch in Palestine, his subordinates, and his authority may reflect alliances between the patriarchs and persons at court. One or more patriarchs may have tried to extend their influence further into the diaspora, with mixed results. Laws reiterated that eligible Jewish men, like non-Jews, must fulfill the onerous obligations of decurions. A law targeting “Hheaven-fearers” is probably wrongly understood as evidence for non-Jews who adopted only some aspects of Jewish practice (sometimes called “God-fearers”). Evidence for Jewish converts remains modest.
“Here rests Faustina, aged fourteen years, five months. . . . Two apostoli and two rebbites sang lamentations”
Authors: Kraemer Ross Shepard
Published: March 2020

In response to pressures detailed here, some Jews converted, disrupting familial relations. Many did not. Others immigrated to less inhospitable regions. Some accounts of their active resistance may have merit: mocking Christians at Ravenna; fighting with Arian Ostrogoths against Justinian at Naples (Prokopios). They entertained hopes of divine intervention, following a Moses-type messianic pretender on Crete, and assembling for the restoration of Jerusalem (Life of Barsauma). They adapted. Whatever the impact of the cessation of the Jewish patriarchate, Jewish leaders in Ravenna were advocating for local Jewish rights only weeks after Gamaliel’s demotion. Intriguingly, inscriptions for Jewish women synagogue officers increase in the fifth century. More inscriptions utilize Hebrew. Men called “rabbi” now appear in a few diaspora epitaphs. Emergent rabbinic programs may have offered ways to tighten social boundaries, countering the consequences of imperial restrictions and Christian pressures to convert. The evidence, however, remains merely suggestive.
Epilogue
Authors: Kraemer Ross Shepard
Published: March 2020

THE CHRISTIANIZING OF the ancient Mediterranean came at a tremendous cost to many persons. It entailed the suppression and eradication of all traditional Mediterranean religious practice except that of Jews, Samaritans, and of course, Christians themselves. Temples and other cult sites were closed. Entering them for religious purposes was criminalized, and the penalties (threatened) for such acts were dire: banishment, deprivation of the right to bequeath property to one’s heirs, confiscation of property to state coffers, and even death. That such strategies may not have been entirely effective is immaterial; traditional Mediterranean religions were sufficiently decimated by the alliance of Christian bishops and Roman emperors that they would never recover. Theodosios I may have been optimistically premature in his perception that there were no more “pagani” in the late fourth century, but this would ultimately prove true enough. According to the Pew Research Center, in the twenty-first century, there are over 2 billion Christians, if of varying persuasions; there are no functioning temples to the ancient Mediterranean gods....
Adaptive Enemies
Authors: Kilcullen David
Published: March 2020

This chapter draws on key concepts from evolutionary theory, anthropology, and social science to explore how adaptive enemies evolve and adapt under conditions of conflict. It identifies four key mechanisms of evolution in irregular warfare—social learning, natural selection, artificial selection (including both unconscious artificial selection and predator effects), and institutional adaptation—and gives examples of each. It also examines forms of conscious military innovation by states, and draws a distinction between peacetime (concept led) and wartime (reactive) modes of innovation. The chapter argues that domination of the operational environment by Western armed forces since the end of the Cold War has created evolutionary pressure to which all adversaries—state and non-state—have responded, and that this response is shaping new approaches to war.
The Digital Revolution and Modeling Time and Change in Historic Buildings and Cities
Authors: Bruzelius Caroline
Published: March 2020

Digital technologies can transform the ways in which we can represent time and change in historical monuments as well as in cities. This chapter describes a collaborative, international, and multi-faceted initiative, Visualizing Venice, that was begun in 2010 as a joint venture between three universities: the department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University, the department of architectural history at IUAV, Venice, and the department of architecture and engineering at the University of Padua. From the outset, our initiative has had three equally important components: representing growth and change in buildings and cities through three-dimensional modeling, mapping, and visualization, creating public-facing websites, installations and exhibitions, and training of students at all levels and recent post-docs with the capacities of new media for the exploration of fundamental questions that concern urban spaces and their monuments. As a consortium of individuals, institutions and disciplines that range from architectural design to new media and to urban and architectural history, Visualizing Venice explores the transformative potential of digital technologies for research on and analyses of cities, utilizing the rich archival documentation of the city of Venice as a point of departure for specific case studies. In particular, this chapter focuses on the capacities of digital technologies to model and represent process and time in the creation of historic spaces and the role of Visualizing Venice as a pioneer in collaborative work in these areas.
Çatalhöyük as an Open Site?
Authors: Aktüre Zeynep
Published: March 2020

In this chapter, a framework for assessing the openness of virtual archaeological reconstructions to a multiplicity of readings is presented by focusing on the case of Çatalhöyük, in Turkey. Since its discovery in the 1950s, there has been a diversity of opinion on Çatalhöyük’s settlement rank along the path from settled village to urban agglomeration. This diversity of opinion has been expressed both verbally and visually, the latter including numerous computer-based visualizations for a variety of purposes and target audiences. Among the internationally approved principles for computer-based visualizations of cultural heritage is the need for intellectual and scientific transparency. Umberto Eco’s theory of the “open work,” as applied in literary and visual works including motion pictures, offers a theoretical framework for discussing the transparency of Çatalhöyük visualizations, as does Siegfried Kracauer’s idea of “cinematic materiality.” Three of the virtual works on Çatalhöyük are briefly presented in this chapter, as a basis for discussing the applicability of Eco’s and Kracauer’s ideas in this type of production as a measure for “open multivocality,” leading to an assessment of whether visualizations reveal any or all alternative interpretations of the site.
Early Founders and the Founder Effect
Authors: Stanford James N.
Published: March 2020

This chapter discusses key social, geographic, and chronological patterns of early English development in New England, including the early European settlement patterns and how they have led to long-term sociolinguistic patterns in the region (the Founder Effect). These early settlement patterns affected which regions within New England came to have different dialect features, creating regional contrasts that endured for generations after the original settlers. The chapter also discusses the role of Indigenous people in the region that came to be known as New England, including their effect on New England place names and the continuing modern role of Indigenous people in the region.
Focus on Subgroups within the Hub
Authors: Stanford James N.
Published: March 2020

This is the second of two chapters (Chapters 6 and 7) that analyze the Dartmouth-based fieldwork data in eastern Massachusetts. This chapter “zooms in” to focus on particular subgroups within the Hub data set. First, the chapter provides statistical and graphical comparisons of traditional New England dialect features by contrasting two nearby groups: White speakers in the traditional working-class South Boston neighborhood, and Black/African American speakers in nearby Dorchester, Hyde Park, and other neighborhoods. The chapter concludes with a fieldwork project in Cape Cod. In each case, the chapter provides detailed plots of dialect features and statistical analyses with respect to age, gender, social class, ethnicity, and other factors
Focus on Subgroups of Northern New England
Authors: Stanford James N.
Published: March 2020

This is the second of two chapters (Chapters 8 and 9) that present the Dartmouth-based fieldwork results from northern New England. The present chapter “zooms in” for a close-up view on subregions within northern New England. First, it considers the central New Hampshire data set in comparison to Maine, showing similarities between the two regions on the basis of statistical and graphical results. The chapter then presents results from a field study of a single farming family in western New Hampshire, showing generational changes in dialect features within this family at a greater level of ethnographic detail. This chapter also presents results from the Dartmouth-based Vermont/New Hampshire border study, as well as a review of other recent work in northern New England.
Ritual
Authors: Brereton Joel P. , Jamison Stephanie W.
Published: March 2020

The majority of Ṛgvedic hymns were composed as the verbal portion of the elaborate ritual performances. This chapter treats the shared features of all Vedic rituals, particularly the three fires that define the ritual space, and the details of various rituals, particularly the most prominent one, the Soma Sacrifice, which provided the occasion for most by far of the Ṛgvedic hymns, including the entire IXth Maṇḍala, which consists of hymns to “Self-purifying Soma.” The chapter also considers what evidence we have for the details of Ṛgvedic ritual and discusses the likely changes between Ṛgvedic ritual and the later śrauta system of the middle Vedic texts, as well as the Indo-Iranian ritual system from which Ṛgvedic ritual developed.
R̥gvedic Poetry and Poetics
Authors: Brereton Joel P. , Jamison Stephanie W.
Published: March 2020

This chapter treats in detail the impetus for Ṛgvedic hymn composition—not only as the verbal portion of ritual, but as an exercise in harnessing the power of the word to model and penetrate the structure and functioning of the cosmos. It also discusses the poet, including the various terms used to identify him, and his high status in the social organization, where he stood in a reciprocal relationship with a patron, generally a king. It then describes particular techniques employed by the poet, the structural principles underlying certain hymns, and types of hymns. It then turns to language, meter, and other formal characteristics of Ṛgvedic poetry.
Engineering America
Authors: Haw Richard
Published: March 2020

John Roebling was one of the nineteenth century’s most brilliant engineers, ingenious inventors, successful manufacturers, and fascinating personalities. Raised in a German backwater amid the war-torn chaos of the Napoleonic Wars, he immigrated to the United States in 1831, where he became wealthy and acclaimed, eventually receiving a carte-blanche contract to build one of the nineteenth century’s most stupendous and daring works of engineering: a gigantic suspension bridge to span the East River between New York and Brooklyn. In between, he thought, wrote, and worked tirelessly. He dug canals and surveyed railroads; he planned communities and founded new industries. Horace Greeley called him “a model immigrant”; generations later, F. Scott Fitzgerald worked on a script for the movie version of his life. Like his finest creations, Roebling was held together by a delicate balance of countervailing forces. On the surface, his life was exemplary and his accomplishments legion. As an immigrant and employer, he was respected throughout the world. As an engineer, his works profoundly altered the physical landscape of America. He was a voracious reader, a fervent abolitionist, and an engaged social commentator. His understanding of the natural world, however, bordered on the occult, and his opinions about medicine are best described as medieval. For a man of science and great self-certainty, he was also remarkably quick to seize on a whole host of fads and foolish trends. Yet Roebling spun these strands together. Throughout his life, he believed in the moral application of science and technology, that bridges—along with other great works of connection, the Atlantic cable, the Transcontinental Railroad—could help bring people together, erase divisions, and heal wounds. Like Walt Whitman, Roebling was deeply committed to the creation of a more perfect union, forged from the raw materials of the continent. John Roebling was a complex, deeply divided, yet undoubtedly influential figure, and his biography illuminates not only his works but also the world of nineteenth-century America. Roebling’s engineering feats are well known, but the man himself is not; for alongside the drama of large-scale construction lies an equally rich drama of intellectual and social development and crisis, one that mirrored and reflected the great forces, trials, and failures of the American nineteenth century.
Establishing Saxonburg (1832–37)
Authors: Haw Richard
Published: March 2020

Over the following seven years, John planned the village of Saxonburg. Harried by his fear of debt and his abject failure as a farmer, John eventually decided against a communal settlement and for a massive sell-off. He sorted and surveyed and had much of the land parceled up and ready for sale soon after. Life in Saxonburg was difficult. Still, almost everyone made a go of it, except John. Despite all his assertions to the contrary, Saxonburg was a poor farming area, and John had no real knowledge or experience of agriculture, and he tried all sorts of bizarre schemes to avoid it—raising canaries, building a dye house—most of which he knew even less about. Displaying the strange, somewhat laughable side of his personality, John was quick to seize on a variety of fads and foolish ideas.
Unfinished Business (1863–69)
Authors: Haw Richard
Published: March 2020

returned to Cincinnati in 1863 to find his two solitary bridge towers ready to receive the complex system of suspension cables, supporting beams, cable stays, and trusses he had designed. The work of completing the bridge took a further year and half, during which his wife Johanna passed away, a fact that led John to dabble for almost a year in séances. Fortunately, John’s triumph over the Ohio came just as New York was clamoring for someone to bridge the East River. It didn’t take long for the board of trustees to offer John a contract. Over the next two years, John worked feverishly at his drawing board. Unfortunately, the task would prove harder than even the most ardent sceptic had imagined, and John himself would not live to see it done. On June 28, 1869, John’s right foot was crushed by a ferry as he surveyed the Brooklyn waterfront, and he contracted lockjaw. He died in agony several weeks later.
Prokofiev and the Development of Soviet Composition in the 1920s and 1930s
Authors: Zuk Patrick
Published: March 2020

Chapter 2 examines the influence and reception history of Prokofiev’s music in his homeland from the 1920s until his death in 1953—a subject of absorbing interest for the light it sheds on the factors shaping Soviet musical creativity during the Stalinist period. His output became central to discussions of the ways in which Soviet composition could and should develop. However, Soviet responses to Prokofiev’s work were complex; it was regarded by some as evincing traits that were to be repudiated, and by others as displaying approaches worthy of emulation. The source materials consulted for this chapter include the contemporary musicological and periodical literature, as well as letters, diaries, and reminiscences of Prokofiev’s colleagues. The chapter also draws on unpublished archival documents from the late Soviet period, among them the reminiscences of Evgeny Golubev, Olga Lamm, and Iulian Krein.
How I Feel
Authors: Cassidy Parker Elizabeth
Published: March 2020

Chapter 4 focuses on adolescent feelings, including two large concepts: (1)musical perseverance and vulnerability, and (2) musical agency. Adolescents share their feelings about making music—how they use music to strengthen the self, persevere through difficulty, experience joy, and connect with others. Building blocks to musical agency are identified as perseverance and vulnerability. The chapter then looks closely at musical agency, specifically self-regulation, self-transformation, and connecting to self and world. The end of the chapter introduces holistic teaching with an aim to foster balance, inclusion, and connection. Educators are encouraged to work with adolescents on growing a sense of purpose.
Growing Social Identity
Authors: Cassidy Parker Elizabeth
Published: March 2020

Chapter 7 investigates how adolescents reflect the groups in which they participate and how individuals use group characteristics to create and refine self-identity. In this chapter adolescents tell of their musical ingroup and outgroup experiences. Their experiences are then interpreted using a “group in the individual” or social identity perspective, The chapter also focuses on how adolescents use social categorization, social comparison, social mobility, social change, and social creativity to build themselves. At the end of the chapter, there is a discussion of the structural challenges that emerged with adolescent participants in their discussions of social identity. The reader is encouraged to complete a self-reflection and community values exercise.
Middle Eastern Entanglements
Authors: Markey Daniel S.
Published: March 2020

This chapter discusses the intersection of Chinese, Iranian, Saudi (and to a lesser extent, American and Russian) interests in the Middle East. It introduces a brief history of China’s links with the Middle East and explains how Beijing’s regional role has, until recently, tended to be relatively limited. But China’s ties to the region have grown significantly, especially in terms of energy trade and investment. The chapter explores how Iranians perceive economic and strategic value in China as a means to sustain the ruling regime, resist pressure from the United States, and compete with Saudi Arabia. It explores Saudi-China ties as well, finding that the monarchy sees China as essential to its strategy for economic development. The chapter concludes that both Tehran and Riyadh will continue to court Beijing and that the Middle East is primed for greater Chinese involvement, less reform, and more geopolitical competition.
Cities on the Front Lines
Authors: Fitzgerald Joan
Published: March 2020

This chapter first sets out the book’s purpose, which is to take readers on a tour of greenovating cities in North America and Europe, exploring their strategies and successes, along with the opportunities and obstacles they have encountered along the way. In general, European cities have lower per capita greenhouse gas emissions than US cities due to their higher density, more diverse transit options, historically high gasoline prices, and long-standing climate policy at the European Union, national, and municipal levels. A broad literature has emerged on urban climate change and sustainability planning, much of it focusing on what constitutes successful practice. In contrast, this book focuses on the how elected officials, planners, and other stakeholders design and implement effective policy and programs. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Jefferson's Muslim Fugitives
Authors: Einboden Jeffrey
Published: March 2020

On October 3, 1807, Thomas Jefferson was contacted by an unknown traveler from the American frontier, who urgently requested a private “interview” with the President, promising to disclose “a matter of momentous importance”. By the next day, Jefferson held in his hands two astonishing manuscripts whose history has been lost for over two centuries. Authored by Muslims fleeing captivity in rural Kentucky, these documents delivered to the President in 1807 were penned by literate African slaves, and written entirely in Arabic.
Jefferson’s Muslim Fugitives reveals the untold story of two escaped West Africans in the American heartland whose Arabic writings reached a sitting U.S. President, prompting him to intervene on their behalf. Recounting a quest for emancipation that crosses borders of race, region and religion, Jeffrey Einboden unearths Arabic manuscripts that circulated among Jefferson and his prominent peers, including a document from 1780s Georgia identified as the earliest surviving example of Muslim slave authorship in the newly-formed United States. Revealing Jefferson’s lifelong entanglements with Islam and captivity, Jefferson’s Muslim Fugitives tracks the ascent of Arabic slave writings to the highest halls of U.S. power, while questioning why such vital legacies from the American past have been entirely forgotten.
“Beyond Oure Expressing”
Authors: Einboden Jeffrey
Published: March 2020

This chapter details events in autumn 1785 in Paris following Thomas Jefferson’s receipt of a letter from an American abroad. The letter contained the following lines: “We the Subjects of the United States of America Having the Misfortune of Being Captured off The Coast of Portugal the 24th. and 30th. of July By the Algerines, and Brought into this port Where we have Become Slaves, and Sent To the workhouses, Oure Sufferings is Beyond Oure Expressing or your Conception.” The letter was sent from Richard O’Brien, a prisoner in Algiers. Captain of a mercantile ship out of Philadelphia, O’Brien and his crew had been captured by Algerian pirates in the summer of 1785 and brought back to “the Barbary Coast.” O’Brien wrote to Jefferson begging for emancipation from African “workhouses.”
“I take Refuge with the Lord of Daybreak”
Authors: Einboden Jeffrey
Published: March 2020

This chapter details the events surrounding Ezra Stiles’ receipt of a letter on March 18, 1788 from Abiel Holmes, a young minister whom Stiles had sent south seven months before. From Georgia, Holmes describes in his letter a celestial figure he met in the flesh—a “great literary curiosity,” whose presence is likened to “a visit” from an ancient Greek Muse, compared to “Clio or Urania,” sister goddesses of history and astronomy. This figure turned out to be an African man—and a slave. Recently “brought” to “this country,” Holmes’ starry Muse is chained solidly to the Georgia soil. Begun with divine labels—“Clio or Urania”—only the last word of Holmes’ introduction reveals a human identity for this supernatural stranger. Supplying not merely a slave handle, Holmes instead offers this figure’s authentic name, which is neither Greek nor pagan, but instead Arabic and Islamic.
“Combinations of Letters”
Authors: Einboden Jeffrey
Published: March 2020

This chapter details events following Thomas Jefferson’s return to America from Paris on August 27, 1790. Although Jefferson had bid farewell to liberties awakening in Europe, slavery in Muslim Africa continued to “haunt” him. Jefferson eventually became friends with Comte de Volney, a socialite, linguist, French aristocrat, and Orientalist. In 1790, Volney offered his assistance to free Americans from Muslim captivity. Jefferson did not know, however, that his debts to Volney would require repayment. In the coming decade, Jefferson would be called on to aid Volney, not only hosting this Frenchman after his own incarceration, but helping him disseminate his Middle Eastern studies. Aiding Volney was not without risk, however. Jefferson would himself have to adopt his own subterfuge, seeking to keep his name unknown.
“Wr s Unavdble”
Authors: Einboden Jeffrey
Published: March 2020

This chapter details events that occurred in the early days of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency. These include his decision to order the destruction of the original manuscript of his translation of Comte de Volney’s Middle Eastern “meditations.” The war with North Africa also broke out when Jefferson assumed the presidency, which gave new impetus for him to encode his correspondence. As in Paris many years before, Jefferson’s engagements with the Muslim world helped turn his mind towards the “art of secret writing.” However, when he exchanged ciphered letters with Adams back in 1785, Jefferson was a lone European minister. Now, as U.S. President, Jefferson had the brightest minds of an entire nation within reach, including one residing not far away in Philadelphia: Robert Patterson.
“A Word of any Language”
Authors: Einboden Jeffrey
Published: March 2020

This chapter details events following President Jefferson’s decision to grant a mysterious traveler’s request for an “interview” in October 1807. It was not wholly out of character for Jefferson to agree to meet a man entirely unknown to him; a President of populist ideals, Jefferson was remarkably accessible to the American people. However, principles were surely not the only reason to meet Ira P. Nash. Jefferson’s motivations were likely much more mixed. Self-preservation, not merely public regard, may have seemed at stake. By the beginning of October, Aaron Burr’s treason trial in Richmond had concluded with an acquittal—a judgement that left Jefferson feeling far from settled. The urgency of Nash’s note, and his origins in the “Teritory of Louisanna,” undoubtedly dovetailed with anxieties that plagued the President at the opening of October 1807.
“His Mountain is made a sort of Mecca”
Authors: Einboden Jeffrey
Published: March 2020

This chapter details events that occurred in 1808. As 1808 opened, news arrived in Washington that the Muslim fugitives had escaped; and as 1808 unfolded, these fugitives seemed to escape Jefferson’s notice as well. In the final months of 1807, Jefferson had failed to find a translator for their Arabic writings; in the first days of 1808, the Arabic authors themselves seemed impossible to find. Their words were too difficult to decipher. Their whereabouts were now uncertain. Perhaps it was just time to let this all go? But Jefferson did not let it go—at least not entirely. The trail of the Muslim authors grew cold during the busy winter of 1808. Yet, the trails of Arabic ink that had arrived to Jefferson in the autumn of 1807 remained entirely tangible, if inexplicable. Through all the upheavals of his later life, these Muslim writings were kept safe, surviving along with countless papers accrued during Jefferson’s presidency.
“Their Eulogy will be Uttered in other Languages”
Authors: Einboden Jeffrey
Published: March 2020

This chapter details events that occurred in 1826. For John Quincy Adams, the summer of 1826 was not a time of presence, but absence. On the very same day, at opposite ends of the country, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4, 1826. Monticello’s “sublime” peak became sacred ground, attracting earnest pilgrims to Jefferson’s “sort of Mecca.” 1826 also saw the beginning of a different pilgrimage, which would soon end with the death of an actual “Mahometan”—a Muslim with sufficient reason to wish no longer to “live in this miserable, undone country.” Striving to return home to “utter” his thoughts once more in “other languages,” this African’s death would again inspire America’s orator into elegiac speech.
“A Barely Discernible Horizon”
Authors: Einboden Jeffrey
Published: March 2020

This chapter details events that occurred in 1999, when Albert Gore Jr., standing on the steps of the Smith County courthouse in Carthage, Tennessee, began his run for president. The Carthage courthouse chosen by Gore for his announcement was not just a place of justice but also a former jail—the last known prison for two Muslim fugitives. Launching his bid to become President, Gore was standing in the same spot where a pair of Arabic authors had failed to win their own freedoms, despite the Qur’anic appeals dispatched to the sitting President in 1807. On the courthouse steps once climbed by these two captives, Gore welcomed an American millennium that was soon to be haunted by scandals of Muslim incarceration. Gazing into the unsearchable future, Gore stood where two forgotten “Mahometans” had been jailed in 1807, even as he greeted a century that would open with outrage over Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.