bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Geoeconomics of Traditional and Digital Government Money
Authors: Marple Tim
Published: February 2024

Government money is an instrument of state power. While extensive research has examined the strategic benefits states can extract from geoeconomic applications of their traditional fiat currencies, this work has largely examined the geoeconomics of fiat money from a perspective of unchanging monetary technology. As such, there currently exists no scholarship on the topic of geoeconomics in digital government money, despite the implications of this technological transition for strategic interaction among countries in traditional geoeconomic frameworks. This chapter organizes existing scholarship on the issue of geoeconomics in traditional government money and subsequently presents novel statistical results from new, large datasets of central bank digital currency (CBDC) projects to demonstrate the already salient issues around CBDCs in geoeconomics. The chapter concludes with policy implications for decision makers, not least including strong advocacy for proactive and informed design in central bank digital currencies, and also proposes lines of future research on strategic interaction in digital government money.
Foreign Policy Analysis and Securitization
Authors: Sjöstedt Roxanna
Published: February 2024

To what extent can securitization theory help us to engage with the puzzles and problems of foreign policy analysis (FPA)? And how can FPA scholarship contribute to the development of the assumptions of securitization? This chapter will probe these questions and attempt to demonstrate that these seemingly disparate research traditions indeed both complement and inform one another. Securitization theory has habitually been viewed as a theory of international relations (IR) rather than FPA. However, hot topics such as climate change, immigration, and epidemics increasingly become the core of both research fields. Just as the problem-driven and agency focus of FPA research goes hand in hand with the central tenets of securitization, securitization theory contributes to the development of FPA by problematizing the decision-making of different foreign policy problems, by using a different set of assumptions.
Public Diplomacy and Foreign Policy
Authors: Tago Atsushi
Published: February 2024

Public diplomacy, a term which entered the International Relations (IR) lexicon in the 1960s in the US, has been a major tool of foreign policy statecraft over the last half century. This chapter briefly traces the history of the study of public diplomacy in the field of Foreign Policy Analysis. First, the chapter elaborates how the phenomenon and study of public diplomacy can be connected to IR theories. After that, it will explain how we can categorize the statecraft of public diplomacy and how they can be studied, especially with newly emerging methodological tools such as quantitative text analysis and online survey experiments. The chapter argues several research agendas ahead of us, who do Foreign Policy Analysis in IR.
Socialization, Recognition, and Foreign Policy
Authors: Maitino Martin Egon , de Sá Guimarães Feliciano
Published: February 2024

This chapter reviews the current scholarly debate on the concepts of socialization and recognition in international relations (IR), focusing on how they can be analysed jointly and in dialogue with Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA)’s main subfields. We argue that socialization/recognition research could gain by applying FPA concepts and instruments in three different ways. First, using FPA focuses on the decision unit level and how specific state agents (diplomats, leaders, etc.) enact foreign policies to accelerate or block socialization/recognition schemes. Second, adopting FPA’s focus on social actors as active agents of foreign policy could help socialization and recognition studies sharpen their understanding of how these actors are decisive in socialization and recognition processes. Third, using FPA’s methodological plurality has the potential to move socialization and recognition research away from the excessively theoretical and small-n analyses that dominate both fields today to more comparative and large-n approach
Foreign Policy of Emerging Powers
Authors: Destradi Sandra , Wehner Leslie E.
Published: February 2024

This chapter aims at delineating a new research agenda on rising powers rooted in Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) that can create a solid nexus between International Relations (IR) and FPA scholarship. We argue that focusing on individual leaders, on the specificities of political parties and their ideologies, on subnational units (paradiplomacy), and on domestic interest groups has the potential to generate new insights into the drivers of emerging powers’ foreign policy decisions and preferences. We also introduce four suggestive themes for a future research agenda on BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). They are status seeking, autonomy, domestic contestation, and international attributions of responsibility. An FPA approach can provide possible explanations for phenomena like the gap between economic growth and foreign policy activism, the lack of open confrontation between states, the multifaceted strategies advanced by emerging powers, and the inconsistencies and ambiguities that BRICS show as international actors.
Foreign Policy of Small States
Authors: Panke Diana , Thorhallsson Baldur
Published: February 2024

This chapter identifies five approaches in small state studies which can be used to enable foreign policy analysis (FPA) approaches to explicitly capture small states as international actors, that is the capacity-related approach; the shelter-seeking approach; the neutrality approach; the hedging approach; and finally, the status-seeking approach. Also, FPA’s recognition of one of the common claims of small state studies regarding the nature of statehood, that all states are not functionally undifferentiated units would strengthen its distinctive field within international relations (IR). Furthermore, a more explicit focus of FPA on new security challenges of states acknowledging that small states are worse equipped to deal with them than larger states would further reinforce the FPA stand in IR. The FPA literature can also more explicitly benefit scholars of small state studies. First, FPA recognition of the significance of domestic characteristics of states strengthens the core theoretical base of small state studies; that is, small states’ foreign policy cannot be understood without taking into account domestic features of each and every state in question. Second, the identified five approaches in small state studies would benefit from the existing FPA studies on the same or related topics.
Foreign Policy and Development
Authors: Campbell Susanna P. , Carcelli Shannon P.
Published: February 2024

Foreign aid is foreign policy, but it was not always treated as such by international relations (IR) scholars. A literature that once took a purely state-centric approach to research is increasingly finding that an actor-centric approach provides new insights on decisions by aid donors, recipients, and implementers. Approaches from the foreign policy analysis (FPA) literature are relevant to the study of foreign aid and development, and the potential for the two literatures to speak to one other is high. In this chapter, we point to areas of foreign aid and development research that have benefitted from the ideas of FPA. Aid scholars find richer interpretation and understanding of phenomena associated with aid and development when they are able to consider the actions of leaders, bureaucrats, and other individual decision-makers. We suggest further areas of overlap that could support for important advancements in both FPA and IR.
Foreign Policy and Human Rights
Authors: Heffington Colton , Murdie Amanda
Published: February 2024

In this review, we explain how human rights research can inform the study of foreign policy analysis (FPA), namely by surveying where certain foreign policy actions (sanctions, military intervention, foreign aid) can help or harm human rights outcomes and showing how action by external non-state actors may motivate domestic respect for human rights. Evidence shows this is especially likely when international civil society effectively frames an issue. A review of published work further reveals that respect for human rights lowers the risk of war and terrorism. We also consider how FPA research can influence the study of human rights, focusing on the effects of state identity on domestic and foreign policy and the feedback loop between domestic and international norms. Research further indicates that non-state actors, especially non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the public, and the media, play a role in defining appropriate foreign policies related to human rights.
Foreign Policy and Immigration
Authors: Oltman Anna R.
Published: February 2024

Immigration is an enormously consequential issue area in international politics, both materially and normatively, but it has often been overlooked by traditional approaches to the study of international relations. This chapter positions immigration policy as foreign policy, arguing that decisions about how many and which immigrants a country admits, border control, and efforts to contain and deter migrants abroad, are all best understood as elements of a state’s relationship with the international system. Yet immigration policy outcomes are driven by the actions of a multiplicity of substate actors with diverse interests, from judges and bureaucrats to ethnic lobbies, making immigration policy difficult to understand from a traditional state-centric approach. The chapter highlights how state-level immigration policy is driven by the preferences and structures of these domestic immigration institutions. Furthermore, immigration itself is at odds with a conception of the international system as one of distinct and bounded states, as its defining feature is the permeability of national borders—not just to people, but to their cultures, ideas, assets, and preferences. A foreign policy analysis (FPA) approach to immigration takes seriously both the influence of migrants themselves on the immigration policies of host and origin states, and the impact of immigration policy on migrants’ human rights.
Foreign Policy Analysis and Critical International Relations
Authors: Beasley Ryan , Donnelly Faye , Hom Andrew R.
Published: February 2024

Belied by limited cross-field publications, Critical International Relations (CIR) scholars and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) scholars actually have much in common. They share common cause in challenging state-centric and purely rational approaches while embracing subjectivity and multi-disciplinarity, yet they have diverged in their specific approaches. We review three areas central to FPA, agents and agency, perceptions and images, and decisions, mistakes, and surprises, showing how CIR and FPA might make contributions to, as well as challenge, each other. We suggest FPA scholars consider the agency of non-humans as well as time, the importance of iconic foreign policy images, and reflect on both misrecognition and spontaneity as aspects of foreign policy mistakes and surprises. Similarly, we encourage CIR scholars to foreground the study of elites, consider foreign policy as a specific arena for visuals and spaces, and to reflect on the emergent properties and visceral experiences of foreign policy crises. We conclude by highlighting FPA’s and CIR’s shared motivations towards enhancing pluralism and practical deliberations as crucial ways of avoiding disastrous foreign policies.
The Kirk Satires and Kirk Politics
Authors: Young Ronnie
Published: February 2024

This chapter revisits Burns’s early ‘kirk satires’ in the context of religious life in the poet’s own day and in relation to later critical readings of the poet’s views on religion. It shows how Burns was immersed in religious life via his Scots Presbyterian upbringing, how as an emerging poet he became directly involved in local kirk politics, and how the social importance of religion in eighteenth-century Scotland is reflected in his verse. Rather than simply reading Burns as a general satirist of institutionalized religion, as might be encouraged by a modern secular reading, the chapter outlines some of the particular circumstances behind the production of his satires, showing how such details aid understanding of Burns’s religious works. Leading on from recent research into the publication of ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’, for example, this chapter introduces readers to the complex history of Burns’s celebrated poem to show him responding directly to kirk politics in rural Ayrshire. The chapter also explores the various factions and theological positions within the Church of Scotland at the time through poems such as ‘The Holy Tulzie’, ‘Address to the Unco Guid’, ‘The Holy Fair’, ‘The Ordination’, and ‘The Kirk’s Alarm’. It reflects on church politics in relation to wider political views expressed by the poet in his later work. Finally, the chapter examines the shifting critical reputation of Burns vis-à-vis religion, from contemporary views of the poet as a ‘profane’ rhymer through to the posthumous reshaping of Burns as ‘secular saint’.
Sights of Memory
Authors: Davis Leith
Published: February 2024

This chapter examines book illustrations connected to the works of Robert Burns published in the Romantic era. It considers how the initial publication of Burns’s oeuvre and the subsequent shaping of the poet’s reputation after his death mapped onto changes in the technical processes of book illustration as the industry shifted from copperplate to woodcut and steel-plate engraving. It argues that the increasing proliferation of illustrations in books in the early nineteenth century contributed to the production of Burns not just as a site but also as a sight of cultural memory, as visual representations of the poet, his works, and the countryside in which he lived became synonymous with the production of Scotland as tourist destination.
Dear Guest and Ghost
Authors: McGinn Clark
Published: February 2024

This article looks at the growth in participation in the Burns Supper, an annual dinner in commemoration of the Scots poet Robert Burns. It began in his birthplace in 1801 with nine participants and now involves nearly ten million people across the globe. The chapter looks at the spontaneous expansion of the tradition in Scotland and, from an early date, internationally, and it tracks the development of the three core elements present from the beginning: eating haggis, toasting the Bard, and performing Burns’s works. It analyses the flexibility of the concept, which has permitted more diversity—in nationality and gender, in formality, and even in the use of alcohol—than had been previously recognized. This combination of flexibility and tradition now makes the Burns Supper the largest annual, polycentric, global literary festival today, and it would still be recognized by its 1801 founders would still recognize it in its present form.
Robert Burns and Frederick Douglass
Authors: Keith Thomas
Published: February 2024

This chapter examines the influence and impact of Robert Burns’s poetry and songs on leaders of the American abolitionist movement in the nineteenth century, with the primary focus being on America’s most famous abolitionist, former slave Frederick Douglass, whose strong affinity for Burns and his writings was manifested in his outlook, speeches, and letters. Like most Americans in the nineteenth century, Douglass considered Burns to be an egalitarian representative of democratic values, and he identified with Burns’s challenges to the hypocrisy of the kirk and to the aristocracy. They mirrored Douglass’s own deep objections to white America’s response to slavery: the hypocrisy of people who considered themselves Christians but still justified their ownership of other humans. Douglass visited Scotland in 1846, and while there he toured Burns Country, meeting Burns’s sister and nieces, all of which he recounted in a letter to Quaker abolitionist Abigail Mott that was reprinted at least ten times in newspapers around the country that year. In the letter Douglass identifies with Burns’s struggles against the kirk and his social station, and by doing so connects the cause of abolition and the plight of slaves to the struggles of working-class people.
Burns in the Digital Age
Authors: Lamont Craig
Published: February 2024

This chapter is an examination of the presence of Robert Burns across various digital media, from ‘official’ government smartphone apps to ‘unofficial’ memes. It is shown that Burns’s iconicity is inscribed and adapted globally with the help of established and emerging technologies. The uniqueness of Burns Suppers has proven to be a viable platform for connectedness on social media in particular. This chapter also examines the ways in which digital technologies have served to archive Burns’s works. Known chiefly as a poet and songwriter, Burns would today see his most famous works appearing in an array of online resources. Given the instability of certain digital ventures, however, this new textual frontier has not always been handled with great care. In the end, this chapter will consider a broad spectrum of online versions of Burns and how they have impacted our understanding of his life and legacy.
Robert Burns and the Devil
Authors: Burnett John
Published: February 2024

This chapter re-examines Burns’s poem ‘Halloween’, suggesting that rather than folklore with footnotes, it is a satire on the belief that it was possible to foretell who an individual would marry by invoking the help of the Devil. This superstition was held particularly by orthodox Calvinists, who are Burns’s targets, as against the moderates, of whom Burns was one, who were against superstition. The second half of the chapter works through the poem, following the failure of one ritual after another and ending with the disappearance of the Devil and superstition, leaving the characters in an industrializing Scotland with no guides to the future.
Churches, the State, and Politics, 1800–1922
Authors: Brown Stewart J.
Published: February 2024

The long nineteenth century fundamentally transformed the relations of the Irish churches and the political state. In 1801, the Act of Union and uniting of the Irish and English established churches raised the prospect of making Ireland a semi-confessional Protestant state. However, the O’Connellite Catholic popular movement of the 1820s, which won Catholic Emancipation, effectively ended that prospect. The middle decades of the century saw efforts to separate church and state in Ireland, and make all denominations equal under the law in a pluralistic society. But the post-famine ‘Devotional Revolution’, the more assertive influence of the Catholic Church, and controversies over higher education contributed to growing tensions between the Catholic Church and the state. In the 1880s, the Catholic clergy aligned with Parnell’s Home Rule movement, forming a new, essentially Catholic political order that fundamentally alienated Irish Protestants, and laid the foundations for a semi-confessional Catholic Irish state, and the partition of Ireland, in 1922.
Christian Realism and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland
Authors: Power Maria
Published: February 2024

This chapter examines faith-based peacebuilding through the prism of Christian realism. Using the three-fold definition of Christian Realism as (1) an engagement with biblically informed initiatives, (2) individuals and churches committed to justice, and (3) the creation of a community defined by love rather than justice, it explores examples that are emblematic of this approach. First, it examines the negotiations with republican paramilitaries undertaken by Protestant clergymen in the 1970s before exploring the quiet work of Quakers both at elite and community levels. It then analyses the engagement of women in peacebuilding, highlighting how their place in society meant that they could more easily work across community divisions. Finally, the chapter discusses the efforts of institutional churches to facilitate reconciliation post Good Friday Agreement. It concludes that justice is at the centre of all this work but that Christian realism helps them to accept the glacial nature of its progress.
Religion and Broadcasting in the Two Irelands
Authors: Savage Robert J.
Published: February 2024

The broadcast media proved a remarkably transformative force in twentieth-century Ireland. Beginning in the 1920s ‘wireless broadcasting’ quickly became a means of mass communication providing listeners access to an unprecedented volume of news, information, and entertainment. Television later emerged as a relentless cultural and political force, undermining many conservative institutions that helped define twentieth-century Irish society. In the Irish Republic and in Northern Ireland, early broadcasters were confronted by Catholic and Protestant leaders who were concerned about the power and influence of the broadcast media. This concern was caused by anxieties about the media’s ability to introduce a dangerous wave of secularism, atheism, communism, vulgarity, and crime. This chapter explores the relationship between the broadcast media and religious authorities across the island of Ireland. It will also consider how religious issues were negotiated, debated, and presented as broadcasting technology evolved to become an everyday part of Irish life.
Protestant Religion in Northern Ireland to 1980
Authors: Holmes Andrew R.
Published: February 2024

The religious beliefs and practices of Protestants in Northern Ireland have not been well served by scholars. ‘Protestant’ is reduced to a synonym for political unionism, and much attention has been devoted to sectarianism and the fundamentalism of Rev Ian Paisley. Yet religion cannot simply be reduced to political identity and conflict; it is also clear that the overwhelming majority of Protestants, and evangelicals specifically, did not join Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church and remained members of mainstream Protestant denominations. Furthermore, Protestant religion in this period is unhelpfully described in binary terms—‘evangelicals’ versus ‘ecumenists’—a morality tale of reactionary conservatives stifling liberals who articulated an ecumenical or ‘dissenting’ vision. By placing the experience of Northern Ireland Protestants in broader perspectives, this chapter offers an interpretation that prioritizes religious developments, highlights the diversity of evangelicalism, and complicates the ‘evangelicals’ and ‘ecumenists’ binary.
The Abuse Crises in the Irish Christian Churches
Authors: Gallen James
Published: February 2024

This chapter describes the range of Christian institutions and forms of abuse including clerical sexual abuse, reformatory and industrial schools, Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, and forced adoptions. It evaluates the role of the Irish churches, with a focus on the Catholic Church in Ireland, the Irish state, and the Northern Ireland Assembly in three practices of dealing with the past: investigations, redress/compensation, and apologies. The histories of dominance, social control, and abuse in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ireland and the nature of the churches’ response to these crises are linked by their desire to maintain theological and moral authority. This desire greatly undermines the churches’ willingness and ability to respond to the abusive elements of their past in a manner that prioritizes the needs and rights of victim-survivors of abuse.
Animal Culture in Biodiversity Conservation
Authors: Greggor Alison L.
Published: February 2024

Social learning forms the basis for behaviour across diverse species, which can lead to stable behaviours being maintained within social groups or populations. These forms of non-human culture can be disrupted by population decline and human activity and can accelerate human-wildlife conflict behaviours. There is a growing recognition that cultural processes and cultural behaviours are therefore relevant and necessary for biodiversity conservation. When applied to conservation management and policy, culture can be used to define units of biodiversity worth preserving, serve as a mechanism explaining the decline of species or spread of deleterious behaviour, and used as a tool for manipulating behaviour for conservation gain. While these types of protections and interventions are still rarely employed, there are increasing opportunities for application. This chapter explores the value of understanding cultural behaviours and their transmission mechanisms for informing species’ conservation, helping highlight specific areas where the gap between non-human cultural research and management action can be narrowed to improve conservation outcomes.
Italy and Italies
Authors: Harris William V.
Published: February 2024

Italia was originally just the name of the toe of the peninsula, part of modern Calabria and eventually of Basilicata. This chapter asks how and when the name and the identity, “Italy” and “Italians,” spread northward, first to the peninsula as far as (approximately) the rivers Arno and Esino, then as far as the Alps. Having considered whether the peninsula as such ever had other names in pre-Roman times, the author argues that it was the Romans who imposed the name Italia; hence there is some paradox in the fact that many of the last Italian rebels against Rome fought for the independence of Italia/Viteliu.
The Greeks
Authors: Marconi Clemente
Published: February 2024

Greek settlers migrated from mainland Greece, the Aegean islands, and Asia Minor to southern Italy and Sicily. This chapter focuses on the new communities created by the Greeks from the time of their founding (the eighth to the early sixth century BCE) to their gradual control by Rome (the third to the second century), highlighting a number of significant features of political, social, and cultural development within the larger context of pre-Roman Italy. Archaeological research at indigenous sites suggests that Greek culture was not passively assimilated but that certain features, usually involving a significant degree of choice and self-determination, were selectively adopted and often adapted.
The Phoenicians in Italy
Authors: Garbati Giuseppe
Published: February 2024

Driven mainly by the search for minerals and the establishment of new markets, the Phoenicians reached the western Mediterranean at the beginning of the first millennium BCE. Part of a far-reaching phenomenon that saw the arrival in the west of different groups from the Levant, Cyprus, and the Aegean, they gave birth, in about two centuries, to a number of settlements that covered the vast area between Malta, North Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, and the Iberian peninsula. In all the regions where they had a stable presence, the Phoenicians participated in numerous forms of settlement, the character of which cannot be reduced to a single pattern derived from a pre-organized and consistent plan. This chapter traces the development of the Phoenician presence in central Italy and on the two main Italian islands.
The Long Sixth Century, 630–474 BCE
Authors: Smith Christopher
Published: February 2024

On the Italian peninsula in the sixth century BCE, settlements became concentrated, the population increased, larger settlements began to develop, and trade accelerated—the most significant characteristic of this period is its relative stability, which allows the many changes visible in the eighth and seventh centuries to become embedded in new power structures and new forms of material culture. References to the intersection between Greek history and the history of Italy appear, and some social and political forms begin to look similar to those in the Greek world. This chapter considers literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources, and concludes with some reflections on the extent to which Italy operated as a unified area in this period, and what happened on the peninsula as the fifth century began.
The Latinization of Pre-Roman Italy
Authors: van Heems Gilles
Published: February 2024

In the first millennium BCE, the Italian peninsula was home to a great variety of languages, some closely related and others very different. All these languages—except Greek, which had become established in southern Italy—were eventually replaced by the Latin that was spoken in Rome at the end of that millennium or the beginning of the Christian era. This chapter examines the stages, causes, and forms of the Latinization of Italy and the methods that allow for its study, focusing on particularly instructive case studies such as the self-Romanization of the elites, bilingualism, Gallia Cisalpina, Latin dialects, Faliscan, and the Sabellian languages.
The Lure of the East
Authors: Tuck Anthony
Published: February 2024

As identity within proto-urban communities became increasingly tied to family lineage in the Bronze Age, members of the elite on the Italian peninsula had emphasized the importance of procreation as the mechanism by which political identity was passed on. Beginning in the late eighth century BCE, Etruscan aristocrats had established contacts with merchants who brought certain types of luxury goods from the eastern Mediterranean, and these items began to appear in elite tombs—the objects simply provided a new means of expressing the same message about identity. This chapter examines the use of eastern images and their narratives to justify political authority.
Laws and Legal Systems
Authors: Tassi Scandone Elena
Published: February 2024

This chapter outlines what is known about the institutions and laws of the ancient Italic peoples. Using both autochthonous documents (relatively recent and not always easy to read) and the indirect testimony of Latin and Greek authors (which is somewhat unreliable), it attempts to outline the basic characteristics of the Italic legal systems, taking into account their respective limitations. The founding structures of the juridical community (the populus, the gentes, and the principes/magistratus) and the scope of the operation of both private and public norms are discussed. The legal relations between the various communities of pre-Roman Italy are described in detail, with an emphasis on international law.
Italy
Authors: Maiuro Marco
Published: February 2024

Even today, the geographic and demographic structure of Italy is indebted to the pre-Roman period. In 900 BCE, for example, the peninsula was a world of small villages inhabited by a few hundred people living in huts made of clay and straw; by the end of the millennium, it included several hundred cities, each endowed with monumental architecture and thousands of city dwellers. More generally, the Italian peninsula, which initially occupied a geopolitically peripheral position in the Mediterranean region, became the center of the political decision-making process in the first century BCE. Even by mid-millennium, there were already very large cities, including the coastal Etruscan cities, some Venetic cities, Rome, and all the major Greek colonies, aided by artisans from abroad and intensified overseas commerce. Despite this development, at the beginning of the second century, the reality of the Italic peoples was radically different from that of the Romans. But within a few generations, as a by-product of dramatic events (the Social War, the civil wars) and as an important pebble in a larger mosaic, the empire, the Italian unification would be completed. In fact, pre-Roman territorial and cultural divisions came to the fore and re-emerged once the tiny cultural construction of Italian unity under Augustus was swept away. Two fundamental features seem to characterize Italian identity: a significant degree of military aggression and an astonishingly high degree of human mobility. Both are explored in depth in this introduction, along with historical questions of identity, unity, and periodization.
Coins and Civic Identities
Authors: Polosa Annalisa
Published: February 2024

The Greek cities of Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula struck coins in precious metal from the second half of the sixth century BCE. Thus, this chapter begins by examining the role of coinage as an expression of civic identity in Magna Graecia, and then explores the indigenous populations’ approach to money, tracing its development up to the creation of the Roman monetary system. The Roman use of numismatic iconography to convey a message of identity is discussed, as is Rome’s role in the adoption by the indigenous peoples of Italy of coin types that referred to their traditions.
Instability and Change, 474–270 BCE
Authors: Miano Daniele
Published: February 2024

The years between 474 and 270 represent a period of transition in the history of pre-Roman Italy. Political division continues for most of this period, while new forms of organization develop. The dramatic movements of peoples cause significant cultural and demographic changes. At the same time, Rome forges the juridical and military instruments essential to its hegemony. In the final decades of the period, the cities and peoples of Italy gradually lose their independence to Rome, and they find new ways to exercise political agency. This chapter discusses some of the most significant issues concerning the history of this crucial period.
Stability analysis of the rock zone between the tunnel face and the fault fracture zone
Authors: Du Jianming , Dong Baosheng , Zhang Xuan
Published: February 2024

Water and mud inrush is one of the main safety accidents that occur during tunnel construction in water-rich karst regions. Often, faulting occurs in front of the tunnel face, creating a conduit for water and inrush disasters can easily occur. Accurately predicting the safety distance between the tunnel face and the fault fracture zone allows for effectively avoiding water and mud inrush disasters during construction. First, an analytical model of the safety distance of water and mud inrush prevention is proposed, in which the rock zone between the tunnel face and the fault fracture zone is considered a thick rectangular plate with simple support on four sides. Subsequently, the proposed model is successfully verified through comparison with two existing models and engineering cases. Finally, the influence of main model parameters on the safety distance is further determined. This study shows that: (i) The safety distance increases with the increase in the cross-sectional height and width, and the burial depth of the tunnel; (ii) The safety distance increases with the increase in the effective gravity of the rock inside the fault fracture zone and the height of the groundwater table, and decreases in the dip angle of the fault; (iii) The safety distance increases with the increase in fault width, and the fault length has little influence on the safety distance.
Towards human-like automated vehicles: review and perspectives on behavioural decision making and intelligent motion planning
Authors: Xie Jiming , Qin Yaqin , Zhang Yan , Chen Tianshun , Wang Bijun , Zhang Qiyue , Xia Yulan
Published: February 2024

Rapid advancements in automated vehicles (AVs) technology have transformed the measurability, controllability and unpredictability of transportation systems. Evaluating driving risk and effectively managing driving behaviours is critical. AVs should be enabled to identify, analyse, evaluate and devise effective countermeasures for driving risk by autonomously learning from human driving experiences. This learning will enhance the interactive decision-making capabilities and achieve driving behaviours that reflect human-like logic. The primary challenge lies in integrating human-like logic and driving risk constraints based on behavioural decision-making outcomes. This integration is crucial to align the AVs' cognitive levels—movement, comprehension, memory and inference—more closely with human driving necessities, habits and styles. Such alignment holds the potential to improve the prediction and planning of future actions and facilitate the development of motion planning schemes geared towards minimizing driving risk. We performed a comprehensive review of AVs' behavioural decision-making and intelligent motion-planning research from 2000 to 2023 from four key perspectives—driving risk, human-like logic, behavioural decision making and motion planning. Based on the Web of Science and China National Knowledge Internet database, the results of our review indicate that significant progress has been made in AV behavioural decision making and intelligent motion planning over time. When AVs and human-driven vehicles coexist, greater incorporation of human-like logic is required. Guided by these findings, we delineate future development directions and propose a research paradigm for human-like logic and a research framework for human-like logic-driven behavioural decision making and intelligent motion planning of AVs.
Broadband coplanar-waveguide-based impedance-transformed Josephson parametric amplifier
Authors: Qing Bingcheng , Nguyen Long B. , Liu Xinyu , Ren Hengjiang , Livingston William P. , Goss Noah , Hajr Ahmed , Chistolini Trevor , Pedramrazi Zahra , Santiago David I. , Luo Jie , Siddiqi Irfan
Published: February 2024

Quantum-limited Josephson parametric amplifiers play a pivotal role in advancing the field of circuit quantum electrodynamics by enabling the fast and high-fidelity measurement of weak microwave signals. Therefore, it is necessary to develop robust parametric amplifiers with low noise, broad bandwidth, and reduced design complexity for microwave detection. However, current broadband parametric amplifiers either have degraded noise performance or rely on complex designs. Here, we present a device based on the broadband impedance-transformed Josephson parametric amplifier that integrates a hornlike coplanar waveguide transmission line, which significantly decreases the design and fabrication complexity while keeping comparable performance. The device shows an instantaneous bandwidth of 700 (200) MHz for 15 (20) dB gain with an average input saturation power of −110 dBm and near quantum-limited added noise. The operating frequency can be tuned over 1.4 GHz using an external flux bias. We further demonstrate the negligible backaction from our device on a transmon qubit. The amplification performance and simplicity of our device promise its wide adaptation in quantum metrology, quantum communication, and quantum information processing.

Published by the American Physical Society
2024
Mechanical plasticity of cell membranes enhances epithelial wound closure
Authors: Ton Andrew T. , MacKeith Arthur K. , Shattuck Mark D. , O'Hern Corey S.
Published: February 2024

During epithelial wound healing, cell morphology near the healed wound and the healing rate vary strongly among different developmental stages even for a single species like . We develop deformable particle (DP) model simulations to understand how variations in cell mechanics give rise to distinct wound closure phenotypes in the embryonic ectoderm and larval wing disc epithelium. We find that plastic deformation of the cell membrane can generate large changes in cell shape consistent with wound closure in the embryonic ectoderm. Our results show that the embryonic ectoderm is best described by cell membranes with an elasto-plastic response, whereas the larval wing disc is best described by cell membranes with an exclusively elastic response. By varying the mechanical response of cell membranes in DP simulations, we recapitulate the wound closure behavior of both the embryonic ectoderm and the larval wing disc.

Published by the American Physical Society
2024
The effect of lean, agile, resilient and sustainable (LARS) HRM on the environmental performance: the mediating role of green innovation
Authors: Ouragini Imen , Ben Achour Imen , Lakhal Lassaad
Published: February 2024

Purpose

The current study’s goal is to investigate how lean, agile, resilient and sustainable human resource management (LARS HRM) affects green innovation and environmental performance, both directly and indirectly.

Design/methodology/approach

Partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data based on a sample of 273 Tunisian businesses in the industrial and service sectors that were certified ISO 9001.

Findings

With the exception of AHRM–GPdtI, the results show that the mainstream advanced theory on direct effects was verified. With regard to indirect effects, everything of the literature that was presented was accepted, with the exception of the relationship between AHRM–GPdtI–EP, AHRM–GPssI–EP and RHRM–GPdtI–EP.

Originality/value

This research is distinctive in that it aims to incorporate every LARGS paradigm within the HRM field. By taking green innovation into consideration, it closes the current gaps on the direct and indirect effects of LARS HRM on environmental performance. Our study is unique in that it incorporates large, industry-operating, certified ISO 9001 firms with those in the service sector, with the goal of achieving greater generalization of results.
Food marketing to young adults: platforms and persuasive power in Canada
Authors: Elliott Charlene , Truman Emily , LeBel Jordan
Published: February 2024

Purpose

Food marketing has long been recognized to influence food preferences, consumption and health, yet little is known about the nature and extent of food marketing to young adults – especially with respect to their real-world encounters with food marketing and the appeals they find persuasive. This study aims to engage young adults to explore the persuasive power of food marketing and its platforms of exposure.

Design/methodology/approach

Participatory research with 45 young adults, who used a specially designed mobile app to capture the food marketing they encountered for seven days, including information on brand, product, platform and “power” (i.e. the specific techniques that made the advertisement persuasive).

Findings

A total of 618 ads were captured for analysis. Results revealed the dominance of digital platforms (especially Instagram, comprising 43% of ads), fast food and beverage brands (48% of ads) and the top persuasive techniques of visual style, special offer and theme.

Originality/value

This study uniquely draws from framing theory to advance the notions of selection and salience to understand food marketing power. It is the first study of its kind to provide a comprehensive look at the platforms and persuasive techniques of food marketing to adults as selected, captured and tagged by participants. It provides timely insights into young adults and food marketing to adults, including where it is encountered, the (generally unhealthy) brands and products promoted and how it is made meaningful.
Quantifying the effect of competition on the functional assembly of bryophyte and lichen communities: A process‐based model analysis
Authors: Ma Yunyao , Bader Maaike Y. , Petersen Imke , Porada Philipp
Published: February 2024

Environmental filtering and competition are two fundamental processes that shape plant community assembly in terms of functional composition, that is, the distribution of trait values. Understanding the role of these two processes in the assembly of non‐vascular vegetation, such as bryophytes and lichens, is important since these communities provide essential ecosystem services in many regions around the world, and these depend on functional composition. Responses of non‐vascular communities to environmental selection pressures have been explored in a range of experimental and modelling studies. However, it is still largely unknown to what extent competition affects the distribution of functional traits of non‐vascular communities. Moreover, it remains poorly explored which traits that are associated with competition are key for shaping community functional assembly.

Here, we integrated a field transplantation experiment with a process‐based model to disentangle the effects of environmental filtering and competition on the assembly of non‐vascular communities. Following the validation of environmental selection in the model using field observations, we performed a simulation experiment to understand the impacts of competition on trait distributions in non‐vascular communities growing in two temperate locations that differ in microclimatic conditions (a shaded and an open location).

Our results suggest that the functional composition is likely a result of weak competition or may not depend on competitive exclusion at all while environmental filtering plays an essential role. Plant height seems to be a key trait for competition. However, no single‐trait competition scheme could consistently explain the observed functional composition of the studied non‐vascular communities.

Synthesis. The presented model provides a new trait‐based approach for simulating the functional assembly of non‐vascular communities. Environmental filtering appears to be more essential than competition for predicting trait distributions of non‐vascular communities under temperate climatic conditions and we recommend caution in associating competition to a single trait while analysing community functional assembly.
Cellular iron depletion enhances behavioral rhythm by limiting brain Per1 expression in mice
Authors: Wu Qiong , Ren Qiuyang , Wang Xin , Bai Huiyuan , Tian Dandan , Gao Guofen , Wang Fudi , Yu Peng , Chang Yan‐Zhong
Published: February 2024

Aims

Disturbances in the circadian rhythm are positively correlated with the processes of aging and related neurodegenerative diseases, which are also associated with brain iron accumulation. However, the role of brain iron in regulating the biological rhythm is poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the impact of brain iron levels on the spontaneous locomotor activity of mice with altered brain iron levels and further explored the potential mechanisms governing these effects in vitro.

Results

Our results revealed that conditional knockout of ferroportin 1 (Fpn1) in cerebral microvascular endothelial cells led to brain iron deficiency, subsequently resulting in enhanced locomotor activity and increased expression of clock genes, including the circadian locomotor output cycles kaput protein (Clock) and brain and muscle ARNT‐like 1 (Bmal1). Concomitantly, the levels of period circadian regulator 1 (PER1), which functions as a transcriptional repressor in regulating biological rhythm, were decreased. Conversely, the elevated brain iron levels in APP/PS1 mice inhibited autonomous rhythmic activity. Additionally, our findings demonstrate a significant decrease in serum melatonin levels in Fpn1cdh5 ‐CKO mice compared with the Fpn1flox/flox group. In contrast, APP/PS1 mice with brain iron deposition exhibited higher serum melatonin levels than the WT group. Furthermore, in the human glioma cell line, U251, we observed reduced PER1 expression upon iron limitation by deferoxamine (DFO; iron chelator) or endogenous overexpression of FPN1. When U251 cells were made iron‐replete by supplementation with ferric ammonium citrate (FAC) or increased iron import through transferrin receptor 1 (TfR1) overexpression, PER1 protein levels were increased. Additionally, we obtained similar results to U251 cells in mouse cerebellar astrocytes (MA‐c), where we collected cells at different time points to investigate the rhythmic expression of core clock genes and the impact of DFO or FAC treatment on PER1 protein levels.

Conclusion

These findings collectively suggest that altered iron levels influence the circadian rhythm by regulating PER1 expression and thereby modulating the molecular circadian clock. In conclusion, our study identifies the regulation of brain iron levels as a potential new target for treating age‐related disruptions in the circadian rhythm.
Creating a North American prairie: The inspiration
Authors: Ikin Ed
Published: February 2024

The inspiration and early planning for the new North American prairie planting at Wakehurst Place is explained, and how it fits into the landscape and is associated with the Millenium Seed Bank.