bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Between two worlds: Personal reflections from Slovenia and Spain on the Covid-19 pandemic
Authors: Letnar Černič Jernej
Published: November 2022

The global Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the private, family, and professional lives of individuals worldwide. This article discusses its impact on constitutional values in Slovenia and Spain, drawing primarily on my personal experiences. In the past two years, individuals in both countries have suffered greatly due to the pandemic. Millions lost their lives, whereas many continue to suffer the long-term effects of Covid-19. Since the start of the pandemic, the constitutional values of coexistence, mutual respect, human dignity, freedom, and solidarity have been under stress in both societies. The Slovenian and Spanish authorities have employed various measures and restrictions to curtail the spread of the pandemic, some more successful than others. The statistical data illustrates that the pandemic has more affected Slovenian society than Spanish, based on Covid-19 deaths per million inhabitants. This article posits a hypothesis, based on personal experience and observation of both constitutional systems, that the understanding and implementation of constitutional values during the pandemic depended on each country’s traditions, culture, and customs. The article explores the reasons for such discrepancies between the two European countries. It submits that traditions, culture, and historical legacies have shaped the countries’ approaches to protecting constitutional values during the global Covid-19 pandemic.
Evaluating a novel approach to stimulate open science collaborations: a case series of “study-a-thon” events within the OHDSI and European IMI communities
Authors: Hughes N , Rijnbeek P R , van Bochove K , Duarte-Salles T , Steinbeisser C , Vizcaya D , Prieto-Alhambra D , Ryan P
Published: November 2022

Objective

We introduce and review the concept of a study-a-thon as a catalyst for open science in medicine, utilizing harmonized real world, observation health data, tools, skills, and methods to conduct network studies, generating insights for those wishing to use study-a-thons for future research.

Materials and Methods

A series of historical study-a-thons since 2017 to present were reviewed for thematic insights as to the opportunity to accelerate the research method to conduct studies across therapeutic areas. Review of publications and experience of the authors generated insights to illustrate the conduct of study-a-thons, key learning, and direction for those wishing to conduct future such study-a-thons.

Results

A review of six study-a-thons have provided insights into their scientific impact, and 13 areas of insights for those wishing to conduct future study-a-thons. Defining aspects of the study-a-thon method for rapid, collaborative research through network studies reinforce the need to clear scientific rationale, tools, skills, and methods being collaboratively to conduct a focused study. Well-characterized preparatory, execution and postevent phases, coalescing skills, experience, data, clinical input (ensuring representative clinical context to the research query), and well-defined, logical steps in conducting research via the study-a-thon method are critical.

Conclusions

A study-a-thon is a focused multiday research event generating reliable evidence on a specific medical topic across different countries and health systems. In a study-a-thon, a multidisciplinary team collaborate to create an accelerated contribution to scientific evidence and clinical practice. It critically accelerates the research process, without inhibiting the quality of the research output and evidence generation, through a reproducible process.
Citizens’ attitude towards subnational borders: evidence from the merger of French regions
Authors: Wilner Lionel
Published: November 2022

Using the 2016 merger of French regions as a natural experiment, this paper adopts a difference-in-differences identification strategy to recover its causal impact on individual subjective well-being. No depressing effect is found in the short term; life satisfaction has even increased in regions that were absorbed from both economic and political viewpoints. The empirical evidence at stake suggests that local economic performance has enhanced in these regions, which includes a faster decline of the unemployment rate. In the context of a unitary state, economic gains have therefore outweighed cultural attachment to administrative regions.
Temporal change in community temporal stability in response to mowing and nutrient enrichment: evidence from a 15-year grassland experiment
Authors: Li Heng , Zhang Jiajia , Ru Jingyi , Song Jian , Chi Zhensheng , Zheng Yujin , Jiang Lin , Wan Shiqiang
Published: November 2022

Land use and nutrient enrichment can substantially affect biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. However, whether and how the responses of community temporal stability to land use and nutrient enrichment change with time remain poorly understood. As part of a 15-year (2005–2019) field experiment, this study was conducted to explore the effects of mowing, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) additions on community temporal stability in a temperate steppe on the Mongolian Plateau. Over the 15 years, N and P additions decreased community temporal stability by reducing the population stability, especially the shrub and semi-shrub stability. However, mowing increased community temporal stability in the early stage (2005–2009) only. Nitrogen addition suppressed community temporal stability in the early and late (2015–2019) stages, whereas enhanced it in the intermediate stage (2010–2014). Phosphorus addition decreased community temporal stability marginally in the early stage and significantly in the late stage. The fluctuations of N-induced changes in community temporal stability are mainly explained by its diverse effects on species asynchrony and population stability over time. Our findings highlight the important role of plant functional groups and species asynchrony in regulating community temporal stability, suggesting that more long-term studies are needed to accurately forecast ecosystem response patterns in the context of global change.
Sedative–hypnotic effects of Boropinol-B on mice via activation of GABAA receptors
Authors: Mu Keman , Zhang Jian , Feng Xinqian , Zhang Di , Li Kangning , Li Rui , Yang Peng , Mao Shengjun
Published: November 2022

Objectives

Boropinol-B is a phenylpropanoid compound originally isolated from Boronia pinnata Sm. (Rutaceae). This study aimed to evaluate the sedative–hypnotic effects of Boropinol-B and explore the underlying mechanisms.

Methods

Pentobarbital sodium-induced sleep mouse model and caffeine-induced insomnia mouse model were used to investigate the sedative effects of Boropinol-B. Pharmacokinetics profiles of Boropinol-B in rats were evaluated by high-performance liquid chromatography. The effects of Boropinol-B on the γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic system were investigated using ELISA assay and patch-clamp technique. Immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence were carried out to assess the effects of Boropinol-B on sleep-related brain nucleus.

Key findings

Boropinol-B showed significant sedative effects, including reduced sleep latency, increased sleep duration in pentobarbital sodium-treated mice and decreased locomotor activity in insomnia mice. Pharmacokinetics studies demonstrated that Boropinol-B had a rapid onset of action, a short half-life and no accumulation. It increased the GABA level in mice’s brain, and promoted chloride ions influx mediated by the γ-aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) receptors in neurons. Also, it increased the c-Fos positive ratio of GABAergic neurons in ventrolateral preoptic nucleus and decreased c-Fos expression in tuberomammillary nucleus.

Conclusion

Boropinol-B showed significant sedative–hypnotic effects in mice by activating the GABAA receptors and stimulating the sleep-related brain nucleus.
Data-driven photometric redshift estimation from type Ia supernovae light curves
Authors: de Oliveira Felipe M F , dos Santos Marcelo Vargas , Reis Ribamar R R
Published: November 2022

Redshift measurement has always been a constant need in modern astronomy and cosmology. And as new surveys have been providing an immense amount of data on astronomical objects, the need to process such data automatically proves to be increasingly necessary. In this article, we use simulated data from the Dark Energy Survey, and from a pipeline originally created to classify supernovae, we developed a linear regression algorithm optimized through novel automated machine learning (AutoML) frameworks achieving an error score better than ordinary data pre-processing methods when compared with other modern algorithms (such as xgboost). Numerically, the photometric prediction RMSE of type Ia supernovae events was reduced from 0.16 to 0.09 and the RMSE of all supernovae types decreased from 0.20 to 0.14. Our pipeline consists of four steps: through spectroscopic data points we interpolate the light curve using Gaussian process fitting algorithm, then using a wavelet transform we extract the most important features of such curves; in sequence we reduce the dimensionality of such features through principal component analysis, and in the end we applied super learning techniques (stacked ensemble methods) through an AutoML framework dedicated to optimize the parameters of several different machine learning models, better resolving the problem. As a final check, we obtained probability distribution functions (PDFs) using Gaussian kernel density estimations through the predictions of more than 50 models trained and optimized by AutoML. Those PDFs were calculated to replicate the original curves that used SALT2 model, a model used for the simulation of the raw data itself.
Axisymmetric smoothed particle magnetohydrodynamics
Authors: García-Senz D , Wissing R , Cabezón R M , Vurgun E , Linares M
Published: November 2022

Many astrophysical and terrestrial scenarios involving magnetic fields can be approached in axial geometry. Although the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) technique has been successfully extended to magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), a well-verified, axisymmetric MHD scheme based on such technique does not exist yet. In this work, we fill that gap in the scientific literature and propose and check a novel axisymmetric MHD hydrodynamic code, that can be applied to physical problems which display the adequate geometry. We show that the hydrodynamic code built following these axisymmetric hypothesis is able to produce similar results than standard 3D-SPMHD codes with equivalent resolution but with much lesser computational load.
GRRMHD simulations of MAD accretion discs declining from super-Eddington to sub-Eddington accretion rates
Authors: Curd Brandon , Narayan Ramesh
Published: November 2022

We present two general relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamics (GRRMHD) simulations of magnetically arrested discs (MADs) around non-spinning (a* = 0) and spinning (a* = 0.9) supermassive black holes (BHs). In each simulation, the mass accretion rate is decreased with time such that we sample Eddington-scaled rates over the range $3 \gtrsim \dot{M}/\dot{M}_{\rm {Edd}}\gtrsim 0.3$. For the non-spinning BH model, the total and radiative efficiencies increase as the accretion rate decreases, varying over the range $\eta _{\rm {tot}}\sim 9\!-\!16{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ and $\eta _{\rm {rad}}\sim 6{-}12{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, respectively. This model shows very little jet activity. In contrast, the spinning BH model has a strong relativistic jet powered by spin energy extracted from the BH. The jet power declines with accretion rate such that $\eta _{\rm {jet}}\sim 18{-}39{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ while the total and radiative efficiencies are $\eta _{\rm {tot}}\sim 64{-}100{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ and $\eta _{\rm {rad}}\sim 45{-}79{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, respectively. We confirm that mildly sub-Eddington discs can extract substantial power from a spinning BH, provided they are in the MAD state. The jet profile out to $100\, GM/c^2$ is roughly parabolic with a power-law index of k ≈ 0.43−0.53 during the sub-Eddington evolution. Both models show significant variability in the outgoing radiation which is likely associated with episodes of magnetic flux eruptions. The a* = 0.9 model shows semiregular variations with a period of $\sim 2000\, GM/c^3$ over the final $\sim 10\, 000\, GM/c^3$ of the simulation, which suggests that magnetic flux eruptions may be an important source of quasi-periodic variability. For the simulated accretion rates, the a* = 0 model is spinning up while the a* = 0.9 model is spinning down. Spinup–spindown equilibrium of the BH will likely be achieved at 0.5 < a*, eq < 0.6, assuming continuous accretion in the MAD state.
Photometric identification of compact galaxies, stars, and quasars using multiple neural networks
Authors: Chaini Siddharth , Bagul Atharva , Deshpande Anish , Gondkar Rishi , Sharma Kaushal , Vivek M , Kembhavi Ajit
Published: November 2022

We present MargNet, a deep learning-based classifier for identifying stars, quasars, and compact galaxies using photometric parameters and images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16 catalogue. MargNet consists of a combination of convolutional neural network and artificial neural network architectures. Using a carefully curated data set consisting of 240 000 compact objects and an additional 150 000 faint objects, the machine learns classification directly from the data, minimizing the need for human intervention. MargNet is the first classifier focusing exclusively on compact galaxies and performs better than other methods to classify compact galaxies from stars and quasars, even at fainter magnitudes. This model and feature engineering in such deep learning architectures will provide greater success in identifying objects in the ongoing and upcoming surveys, such as Dark Energy Survey and images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
Dynamics of hot galactic winds launched from spherically-stratified starburst cores
Authors: Nguyen Dustin D , Thompson Todd A , Schneider Evan E , Lopez Sebastian , Lopez Laura A
Published: November 2022

The analytic galactic wind model derived by Chevalier and Clegg in 1985 (CC85) assumes uniform energy and mass-injection within the starburst galaxy nucleus. However, the structure of nuclear star clusters, bulges, and star-forming knots are non-uniform. We generalize to cases with spherically-symmetric energy/mass injection that scale as r−Δ within the starburst volume R, providing solutions for Δ = 0, 1/2, 1, 3/2, and 2. In marked contrast with the CC85 model (Δ = 0), which predicts zero velocity at the centre, for a singular isothermal sphere profile (Δ = 2), we find that the flow maintains a constant Mach number of $\mathcal {M}=\sqrt{3/5} \simeq 0.77$ throughout the volume. The fast interior flow can be written as $v_{r \lt R} = (\dot{E}_T/3\dot{M}_T)^{1/2} \simeq 0.41 \, v_\infty$, where v∞ is the asymptotic velocity, and $\dot{E}_T$ and $\dot{M}_T$ are the total energy and mass injection rates. For $v_\infty \simeq 2000 \, \mathrm{km \, s^{-1}}$, $v_{r\lt R} \simeq 820 \, \mathrm{km\, s^{-1}}$ throughout the wind-driving region. The temperature and density profiles of the non-uniform models may be important for interpreting spatially-resolved maps of starburst nuclei. We compute velocity resolved spectra to contrast the Δ = 0 (CC85) and Δ = 2 models. Next generation X-ray space telescopes such as XRISM may assess these kinematic predictions.
Functional characterization of diverse type I-F CRISPR-associated transposons
Authors: Roberts Avery , Nethery Matthew A , Barrangou Rodolphe
Published: November 2022

CRISPR-Cas systems generally provide adaptive immunity in prokaryotes through RNA-guided degradation of foreign genetic elements like bacteriophages and plasmids. Recently, however, transposon-encoded and nuclease-deficient CRISPR-Cas systems were characterized and shown to be co-opted by Tn7-like transposons for CRISPR RNA-guided DNA transposition. As a genome engineering tool, these CRISPR-Cas systems and their associated transposon proteins can be deployed for programmable, site-specific integration of sizable cargo DNA, circumventing the need for DNA cleavage and homology-directed repair involving endogenous repair machinery. Here, we selected a diverse set of type I-F3 CRISPR-associated transposon systems derived from Gammaproteobacteria, predicted all components essential for transposition activity, and deployed them for functionality testing within Escherichia coli. Our results demonstrate that these systems possess a significant range of integration efficiencies with regards to temperature, transposon size, and flexible PAM requirements. Additionally, our findings support the categorization of these systems into functional compatibility groups for efficient and orthogonal RNA-guided DNA integration. This work expands the CRISPR-based toolbox with new CRISPR RNA-guided DNA integrases that can be applied to complex and extensive genome engineering efforts.
Proactive Referral to Behavioral Smoking Cessation Programs by Healthcare Staff: A Systematic Review
Authors: van Westen-Lagerweij Naomi A , Hipple Walters Bethany J , Potyka Franziska , Croes Esther A , Willemsen Marc C
Published: November 2022

Introduction

Behavioral smoking cessation programs are an effective tool for quitting smoking, yet remain underused by smokers. Proactive referral may be a promising strategy for healthcare staff to connect smokers to such programs.

Aims and Methods

The aim of this study was to gain insight into the effectiveness and implementability of proactive referral of smokers to behavioral smoking cessation programs by healthcare staff. A systematic review was conducted using five databases. Effectiveness of proactive referral was defined as the proportion of referred smokers who enrolled in a behavioral smoking cessation program. To determine the implementability of proactive referral, measures of feasibility, acceptability, adoption, and referral rates were included as variables of interest. Out of 6686 screened records, 34 articles were eligible for review. A narrative synthesis approach was used.

Results

The majority of the included studies investigated proactive referral within an e-referral system, combined with one or more intervention components that enhance implementation. Overall, proactive referral resulted in higher enrollment rates, especially among low-income smokers, and was found to be feasible, adoptable, and acceptable to healthcare staff. E-referral systems performed better in terms of implementability compared to fax referral systems. About half of the studies were of good quality. Many studies lacked information which resulted in lower-quality scores.

Conclusions

The literature provides evidence that the proactive referral of smokers to behavioral smoking cessation programs by healthcare staff is effective and implementable across different settings. Based on the results, e-referral systems may be preferable to fax referral systems in terms of implementability.

Implications

This systematic review demonstrated that proactive referral has the potential to increase the reach of smoking cessation programs and reduce inequalities in access to such programs. In the selection and implementation of behavioral smoking cessation programs with a proactive referral component, stakeholders (eg, policymakers, healthcare funders, and healthcare professionals) may benefit from taking different aspects of proactive referral systems into account, such as the type of proactive referral system used and additional strategies which can enhance the implementability of the system.
Intersectional Disparities in Youth Tobacco Use by Sexual and/or Gender Minority Status and Race and/or Ethnicity
Authors: Donaldson Candice D , Stupplebeen David A , Wilkinson Monica L , Zhang Xueying , Williams Rebecca J
Published: November 2022

Introduction

The current study applied an intersectional lens to examine societal factors, individual psychological outcomes, and youth combustible tobacco and vape use at the intersection of sexual and/or gender minority (SGM) status and race and/or ethnicity.

Aims and Methods

Data were drawn from 133 969 youth respondents surveyed in the 2019–2020 California Student Tobacco Survey, a representative school-based survey of 8th and 10th-grade public school students throughout California. The impact of multiple marginalized group membership using four mutually exclusive intersectional positions (non-SGM white, SGM white, racial minority only, and both SGM and racial minority), in addition to specific differences across ten SGM by race and/or ethnicity groups (e.g. non-SGM black or African American, SGM black or African American, etc.) were assessed.

Results

Compared to heterosexual and cisgender white youth, SGM and racial minority adolescents were shown to experience poorer school tobacco education quality and cessation support, lower school and family connectedness, and higher anxiety and depression symptoms. SGM and racial minority youth had a higher prevalence of ever-combustible tobacco use but were less likely to be current vape users compared to non-SGM white respondents. In examining specific group differences, results revealed that SGM teens had the highest risk of ever combustible tobacco use. This disparity was amplified for those belonging to multiple marginalized groups, with black or AA SGM teens evidenced to be at the highest risk of current combustible tobacco.

Conclusions

Information from this study has useful implications for SGM measurement in surveillance systems and highlights the usefulness of adopting an intersectional approach to inform equity-driven public health policy and intervention.

Implications

This representative study of California youth supports that identifying as a sexual and/or gender minority (SGM) is an important risk factor for combustible tobacco use. Particularly, observed SGM disparities were magnified for the youth belonging to marginalized groups, as black or African American SGM teens were shown to be at the highest risk of current combustible tobacco use. Findings support that Intersectionality Theory represents a useful framework for examining tobacco-related disparities and underscores the importance of assessing how the intersection of multiple social categories impacts youth tobacco use.
Moral Foundations
Authors: Postema Gerald J.
Published: November 2022

The rule of law demands that law reigns. By what right? It calls on all members of the political community to participate in a practice of mutual accountability that underwrites and makes law’s rule possible. What justifies this kind of active allegiance? This chapter answers these questions. It argues that the rule of law is a middle-level political principle that stands between the fundamental values of political morality that ground it and the institutions or practices that realize it. It is a distinct value existing in a constellation of important values. It is not reducible to neither does it incorporate other familiar values like justice or democracy. Its moral standing and normative force depend on the deeper values that it serves. This chapter explores the moral foundations of the ideal. It argues that the rule of law serves the complex moral value of membership. This value puts individual dignity, equality (peerhood), and freedom from subordination to the will of others in close internal, mutually qualifying connections. Membership stands resolutely opposed to subordination of some in the community to others, and hence is opposed to subjection of some to the arbitrary power of others. Moreover, because the ideal of membership seeks coherence over time for communities and for their members, it calls on law to provide the needed protection against such subordination. Law, when it meets the demands of the rule of law, plays a key role in securing and nurturing communities aspiring to realize the value of membership.
Dilemmas of Discretion
Authors: Postema Gerald J.
Published: November 2022

It is often said that the rule of law opposes official discretion and, thus, that it opposes equity and mercy because both encourage officials, especially judges, to exercise discretion to mitigate the harshness of law. This chapter argues that discretion plays an important role within law’s rule. Equitable judgment in the private law context and mercy in the criminal law context are compatible with the rule of law and necessary complements to law. Equity seeks to correct law in order to achieve particularized justice; it is internal to the ambition of law and works together with it to achieve that ambition. It is possible to design a public framework for the exercise of equity discretion that yokes law and equity institutionally and internally. Mercy tempers justice; it is a matter of compassionate grace rather than respect for rights. Mercy does not displace justice, nor justice mercy; rather, mercy is an integral part of a morally justified institution of punishment. It enables a distinct form of egalitarian recognition, recognition of common vulnerability. Justice and mercy are complementary values that temper each other at the points where each, on their own, would lose their normative force. Mercy is necessary also in the broader political community. Without mercy, and the compassion that moves it, a rigorous practice of accountability can poison the solidarity characteristic of the mode of association fostered and protected by law’s rule.
The Ghosts of Bhopal
Authors: Mukherjee Suroopa
Published: November 2022

On December 3, 1984, Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, India, was witness to an industrial disaster of such magnitude that its impact has been compared to Hiroshima. Forty tons of methyl isocyanate leaked from inside the premises of Union Carbide India Limited, the Indian subsidiary of the multinational company Union Carbide Corporation, killing or maiming anyone that came in its path. Decades later, the impact of the gas leak continues, a toxic legacy inherited by the residents of Bhopal. What is least known about the Bhopal tragedy, however, is that India’s oldest people’s movement for environmental justice had its inception on the morning after the disaster and that this movement continues to this very day. Oral history was widely used by these activists to enable the affected community to present their own history in their own words and to use these stories to create social change.
Floating Reed Islands
Authors: Shetler Jan Bender
Published: November 2022

From the Mara Region of Tanzania, this chapter uses oral histories to reveal a long, generational history of the resilience of women amid the legacies of ecological disaster. This area, on the southeastern shore of Lake Victoria just south of the Kenyan border, is made up of some fifteen (or sixty depending on how you count) different small ethnic groups that never coalesced into larger pan-ethnic entities, including groups from three major language families. These interviews began with research in 1995 in the region’s interior. These stories of migration, hunger, and disaster reveal the ways that women experienced ecological collapse in these societies and reveal a distinct way of “knowing” and of passing on knowledge about communal environmental history.
Fighting through the Fallout
Authors: Hutner Heidi
Published: November 2022

“Fighting through the Fallout” focuses on the female, maternal, and domestic experience of the March 2011 Great Japanese Earthquake and Fukushima Daiichi triple-nuclear-power-plant meltdown in Japan. Women’s voices are traditionally silenced in Japanese culture, so these female oral narratives disclose important “othered” accounts of the disaster. Sachiko Sato, a mother of six and an organic farmer, provides the central point of emphasis here. Through her narrative, we gain a deeper understanding of the complex domestic, social, economic, health, and gendered impacts of the disaster. Additional Japanese mothers’ narratives are included as well; they echo and expand upon Sachiko Sato’s and the Sato family’s experiences.
Weather Eye on the Horizon
Authors: Hillner Julia
Published: November 2022

This chapter describes Helena’s life during the time of her relationship with Constantius. It investigates the legal nature of this relationship, as well as its physical and cultural environment at Naissus in Upper Moesia and, possibly, Salona in Dalmatia. It follows Constantius’ career up to the time of his departure from Helena’s life following his marriage to the daughter of the tetrarch Maximian, and examines the roles assigned to women within the early years of the tetrarchy.
Sister Act
Authors: Hillner Julia
Published: November 2022

This chapter and the next investigate the representation and activities of imperial women in the early fourth century, which would profoundly shape Helena’s later life at the court of her son. The present chapter focuses on the Western branch of the tetrarchy, and the women around emperor Maximian: his wife Eutropia and his daughters Theodora and Fausta. It explores how first Maximian and then Constantine inserted these women into their dynastic plans, with special attention to the material evidence for such strategies in the city of Rome both before and after Constantine’s victory over Maxentius in 312 and his conversion to Christianity. The chapter also discusses the evidence for Helena’s Christian conversion.
From Here to Eternity
Authors: Hillner Julia
Published: November 2022

This chapter follows Helena on her famous journey through the Eastern provinces that culminated in her visit to the biblical sites in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and other places in Palestine. It compares the two extant contemporary commemorations of her presence in the East, by Eusebius of Caesarea and Athanasius of Alexandria, who left us contrasting impressions, especially with respect to Helena’s relationship to “orthodox” or “Nicene” Christianity. The chapter discusses the political nature of her trip, the potential route she took, her modes of transport, her engagement with local populations, and her church patronage in Palestine.
New Model Empress
Authors: Hillner Julia
Published: November 2022

This chapter takes its departure from Ambrose of Milan’s funeral oration and its praise of Helena as discoverer of the True Cross to trace her emergence as a model Christian empress during the fifth and sixth centuries. It shows that Helena’s new role was a result of a combination of factors: the rise of the Theodosian dynasty, the increasing mythologization of Constantine as founder of the Nicene Christian empire, and intensifying Holy Land pilgrimage. The chapter also shows that, although following Helena’s example was sometimes empowering for later imperial women, within the empire her memory and name were mostly used to remind empresses of their duty to complement the emperor. Helena’s potential as a more independent role model for female Christian lifestyles was only realized in the post-Roman West.
Bias
Authors: Kelly Thomas
Published: November 2022

This book is a philosophical exploration of bias and our practices of attributing it. It develops and defends the norm-theoretic account of bias, according to which objectionable biases involve systematic departures from objective norms or standards of correctness. It explores the perspectival character of bias attributions, or the ways in which our views about which people and sources of information are biased about a topic are influenced and constrained, both rationally and psychologically, by our views about the topic itself. The book defends a robust pluralism about bias, according to which a radical diversity of things are genuinely biased, with none of these more fundamental than all of the rest. Biases of people are understood as multiply realizable dispositions to depart from objective norms. It offers a novel account of the bias blind spot, or our tendency to fail to see bias in ourselves in a way that we see it in others. It explores the connections between bias and central topics in the theory of knowledge, including truth, knowledge, rationality, reliability, introspection, skepticism, and disagreement. A number of racial conclusions are defended: that both rationality and morality sometimes require us to be biased; that in many cases of disagreement, we are rationally required to view those who disagree with us as biased, even if we know nothing about how they arrived at their views or why they hold them; and that even God could not have made us reliable detectors of our own biases through introspection.
The Bias Blind Spot and the Biases of Introspection
Authors: Kelly Thomas
Published: November 2022

This chapter explores the bias blind spot, the well-documented and widespread tendency for people to believe that they are more objective and less biased than their peers. It argues that the norm-theoretic account of bias offers a compelling explanation of the bias blind spot, one that improves on the kinds of explanations that are popular among social psychologists. Appeals to “naïve realism” are criticized. In addition, the norm theoretic account also offers a compelling explanation of why introspection is both an unreliable and a biased way of detecting one’s own biases. Finally, it is argued that both the bias blind spot and the characteristic biases of introspection are not contingent facts that depend on the fine details of our psychology but rather hold of necessity: even God could not have made us reliable detectors of our own biases by way of introspection.
Norms of Objectivity
Authors: Kelly Thomas
Published: November 2022

Typical cases of bias involve the systematic violation of norms that are not specifically concerned with bias. However, some norms—norms of objectivity—are specifically concerned with bias, in one way or another. This chapter distinguishes and explores three different kinds of norms of objectivity: norms of preemption (including norms of blinding and norms of recusal); norms of remediation, and constitutive norms of objectivity. It then develops and defends an account of the Socratic norm of following the argument wherever it leads. It argues that believing reasonably and avoiding motivated irrationality and dogmatism are necessary but insufficient for fulfilling this intellectual ideal, and that it is best understood as a kind of modalized reasonableness.
Symmetry and Bias Attributions
Authors: Kelly Thomas
Published: November 2022

This chapter identifies and addresses two challenges to the norm-theoretic account of bias. According to the first challenge, this way of thinking about bias is fatally flawed because it is not extensionally adequate: some systematic departures from genuine norms are not biases, and some biases do not involve systematic departures from genuine norms. According to the second challenge, the norm-theoretic account lacks the resources to make sense of the many non-evaluative uses of “bias” and its cognates. The chapter offers a unified response to the two challenges. In the course of doing so, it explores the pervasive role of symmetry considerations in our thinking about bias, as well as the relationship between a theory of bias and a theory of our bias attributing practices.
Bias and Knowledge
Authors: Kelly Thomas
Published: November 2022

This chapter explores the connections between bias and knowledge. It defends the possibility of biased knowing: biased believers can sometimes know, even when they believe in accordance with their biases, and even if those biases guarantee that they would believe as they do even if the truth were otherwise. It also explores the idea that, far from excluding knowledge, biases are actually essential to knowing, and deeply implicated in paradigmatic instances of knowledge acquisition and exemplary human reasoning, an idea that is suggested by leading models of perception and induction, as well as the work of figures such as Thomas Kuhn, Noam Chomsky, and Nelson Goodman. It shows how this idea can be consistently reconciled with the commonsense idea that beliefs that are the manifestation of bias are not knowledge. Finally, it offers a positive proposal about how and when bias excludes knowledge.
Introduction to EU Diplomacy and Diplomatic Law
Authors: Duquet Sanderijn
Published: November 2022

This chapter provides a short examination of the state of the art of EU diplomacy and its functions and puts forward a glimpse into the historical, legal, and international context that defines it. It looks into the foundations of diplomacy, the reasons why states practice it, and its present-day value to international relations as a means of conducting foreign policy. It then shifts focus to the European Union, a newer and atypical diplomatic actor. The chapter gives a historical account of EU diplomacy and an overview of (the extent of) the EU’s diplomatic network. Finally, legal questions surrounding EU diplomacy are outlined.
Theoretical and Historical Perspectives
Authors: Duquet Sanderijn
Published: November 2022

This chapter studies the legitimacy of the EU’s quest for diplomatic and consular recognition on the international plane. To build the necessary background, it looks at theories of public international law (PIL) with regard to the right of legation, sovereignty, and functionalism. As a body of law created by nations to govern the conduct of and relations between one another, PIL holds in high regard rights in facilitating peaceful interactions and co-existence between sovereign states. Whether this means that a right of legation (ie the right to conduct formal diplomatic and consular relations) arises in light of this underlying rationale is debated, as is the question whether this means actors other than states can exercise it. This allows space for a deeper delve into questions related to the structure and conditions of access to diplomatic and consular relations by the European Union (EU).
The Badgers of Wytham Woods
Authors: Macdonald David , Newman Chris
Published: November 2022

The Wytham badger study was begun in earnest by Hans Kruuk in 1972, with David Macdonald his graduate student, and in turn Chris Newman, David’s graduate student. Fifty years later they have documented the genealogy, births, deaths, and ‘marriages’ of over 1900 individuals. The book is a journey from the particular to the general, developing themes from a model species that grows from the authors’ approach to The Badgers of Wytham Woods: A Model for Behaviour, Ecology, and Evolution. This accessible monograph engages 50 years of primary research woven around the badgers of Wytham Woods (Oxford, UK), covering topics as diverse as life history strategy, climate change biology, genetics, communication, senescence, immunology, endocrinology, and epidemiology. The book begins with aspects of individual behaviour, starting with the birth, early development, and then recruitment of youngsters into their social groups. In the quest to understand badger society and its adaptive significance, following chapters describe social networks, the social dynamics of badgers within those networks, and their communication, to ultimately evaluate the pros and, importantly, cons of group living. The account then turns to the paradoxical relationships between adjoining social groups, and then offers an ecological framework within which to interpret this sociology, explaining how group living can evolve facultatively and benefit a species equally adapted to living much less gregariously under other ecological circumstances. Next the story turns to population levels of analysis, exploring demography, the impacts of density, life history trade-offs (including pace of life theory), and extrinsic factors such as the weather. This population-level sequence of chapters leads to an account of diseases, immunology, and, specifically, the role of badgers as a reservoir for bovine tuberculosis, before moving to yet a different level—molecular. This continues to genetic selection and genealogy, and thence senescence, adding a bookend to the opening account of birth. The concluding chapter sets The Badgers of Wytham Woods in the framework of variation at two levels, intra-specific and inter-specific, which culminates in an exploration of a theme woven throughout the book: how badger society is an emergent outcome of ecology and the environmental conditions they experience, framed by the phylogeny of the Mustelidae and, more broadly, by mammalian evolution.
It’s Tough at the Bottom
Authors: Macdonald David W. , Newman Chris
Published: November 2022

Selection pressures vary with age, and no matter how successful adults might be, it is vital that their offspring can also survive in order for the population to flourish. How does a cub, emerging from the sett and into our database, chart its path to maturity? It transpires that about a half of Wytham’s badger cubs may succumb, but to what? This leads us to the story of intestinal parasites, entangled with food supply and weather conditions. We go on to ask whether cubhood infection has consequences in adulthood. The answer affects body-length development and, remarkably, asymmetry in their palatal maculation. This chapter leaves the surviving cubs poised to join badger society, that very same society on whose adaptive significance the book is focused.
Apprenticeships for Badger Society
Authors: Macdonald David W. , Newman Chris
Published: November 2022

What apprenticeship prepares badger cubs for membership of the society into which they were born? The answer leads us to heterochrony—individuals differing in the timing of key developmental stages. Why, as they mature, do some badgers disperse whilst others do not? Should they stay, or should they go? What affects a badger’s decision to remain in its natal group, or disperse? We explore what distinguishes a disperser from a homebody and whether there is a sex bias in the answer. We also explore whether dispersal is motivated by push from the origin group, or pull towards the new group, and whether it is easier to join some groups than others, according to from where a badger hails.
Setts, Society, and Super-groups
Authors: Macdonald David W. , Newman Chris
Published: November 2022

As the cohort of young for the year integrate into adult society we ask what has changed about the social composition and inter-group geometries over the 50 years of our study—how have the number and mosaic of social groups evolved as population density increased? Do Wytham’s badgers defend these contiguous ranges, or do they observe the commandment to love thy neighbour? If so, then what determines whether some neighbours are favoured more than others? We ask whether limitations on dispersal in a saturated habitat constrain the ability of burgeoning groups to fission, and if this inability to cleave at such high density leads to meta-structures linking groups spatially and socially. This leads us through the ethology of encounters—members of different groups may either fight, mate, or engage amicably. In the early 1970s Hans Kruuk’s interpretation was that the relations between neighbouring badger groups were aggressive, exclusive, and territorial, but it seems that things have since changed (later we will explore why). This leads us to the discovery of super-groups, a story partly shaped by the geology of spatial organization, and the product of the high population density that this geology and geomorphology creates. This draws our attention back to the setts (in which cubs were born in Chapter 1) and questions about who digs them and what occurs during visits between them, both within and between group ranges.
The Sum of the Parts
Authors: Macdonald David W. , Newman Chris
Published: November 2022

What is the composition of badger groups, and what various relationships exist amongst their members? Are groups in Wytham egalitarian or despotic? How do the answers affect whether all badgers get an equal chance to breed, and whether (and in what form) there is a social hierarchy? The answers lead us to explore whether a skewed share of reproductive success reflects social supremacy or merely some anarchic throw of the dice. We move through sexual maturity to analyse what distinguishes reproductive stars from the reproductive flops and consider whether conventional rank exists amongst Wytham’s badgers; if it exists, does it pay any clear dividend?
Social Odours
Authors: Macdonald David W. , Newman Chris
Published: November 2022

How do badgers get along with one another? How do they converse, and negotiate? The answer lies in scent, and particularly in the olfactory quality of the secretion from their unique subcaudal gland, with which they mark each other and their environment. But who marks whom? Do individuals assort into net donors and net receivers of marking? In the context of the Dear Enemy phenomenon, we document through field experiments how they react to the scent of familiar group member versus neighbour or stranger. We ask whether the subcaudal scent message—its colour, volume, and chemistry—is an honest signifier of the depositor’s qualities, and investigate whether there is any trade-off where energy invested into this fatty secretion comes at a calorific cost. We demonstrate that the smell of this scent is determined by the action of bacteria fermenting it, and that this leads to group-specific odour profiles.
The Economics of Survival
Authors: Macdonald David W. , Newman Chris
Published: November 2022

How many badgers? How can we tell? How do we count them? These are all questions as the book transitions from considering individuals to populations. Using the minimum number alive (MNA) estimate technique, we show how Wytham’s badger population has changed over time. From an actuarial perspective and stage-class models we analyse how losses and gains amass on the population ledger; how mortality varies with age and sex. As population numbers changed, what intrinsic qualities of the individuals composing it changed, and were the badgers able to exploit fully the carrying capacity of their environment in Wytham? Then we discover that the carrying capacity changed over the study period, prompting us to ask what drove that change.
Weather
Authors: Macdonald David W. , Newman Chris
Published: November 2022

What factor drove the life history decisions described in Chapter 11? Did the environment change? Were earthworms, and perhaps other foods, more available as the years passed? We use sophisticated demographic analyses to show that the answer lies with the weather. With broad relevance to wildlife generally, we spot that it is not simply trends, or extremes in weather that impact badgers, but rather the extent and frequency of variation from typical seasonal means that stress their evolved regimes. Milder winters are linked to larger cub cohorts, a relationship that pushes us to explore the underlying mechanisms and, ultimately, to ask how will badgers in Wytham and elsewhere adapt to climate change?
Weather
Authors: Macdonald David W. , Newman Chris
Published: November 2022

Moving from the effects of weather on the population, we tease apart the demographic findings in this chapter by turning to the adaptability of individual badgers. How do the population trends we describe in the face of the weather emerge from the impacts on individuals, and how do individuals respond to those impacts? Badgers lay down fat through the autumn equinox, and how they do so is affected by weather. Remembering the influence of weather on the pursuit of earthworms, how did badger activity differ in years with contrasting weather? In counterpoint, what are the implications of exposure for thin badgers forced to forage during harsh conditions? The answers lead us to consider how badgers could cope with projected future climate change.