bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The societal responses to COVID-19: Evidence from the G7 countries
Authors: Lima de Miranda Katharina , Snower Dennis J.
Published: June 2022

This paper provides a picture of how societies in the G7 countries have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our point of departure is to examine the effects of the pandemic in terms of four fundamental normative sources for well-being: Solidarity (S; willingness for social cooperation), Agency (A; empowerment to shape one’s prospects through one’s own efforts), GDP (G), and Environmental Performance (E)—SAGE for short. The normative foundations of SAGE are communitarianism, classical liberalism, materialistic utilitarianism, and ecoethics. We find that although G and E responded predictably and uniformly to the pandemic (such as G declining and carbon emissions improving), the societal responses were strikingly different. Societies that are cohesive and empowered (high S and A) may be expected to cope with the pandemic better than those that are fragmented and disempowered (low S and A). Furthermore, the pandemic has had diverse effects on S and A; while some societies became cohering and empowering (rising S and A), others became fragmenting and disempowering (falling S and A), and yet others became fragmenting and empowering. We also show that most G7 countries experienced greater tribalization (measured as the difference between inward S and outward S) during the pandemic. These trends are a matter of concern since they suggest that the willingness and perceived ability to address collective challenges collectively have waned. The analysis also suggests that governments’ social policies may have an important role to play alongside economic and health policies in coping with the pandemic.
Source–Goal asymmetry in Standard Chinese
Authors: Song Jin-Ke
Published: June 2022

Source and Goal, which represent two phases of Path of motion (the starting and the ending points respectively), have been largely studied as a case of linguistic asymmetry. Previous studies have demonstrated that speakers tend to express Goals more overtly than Sources when describing a motion event. This chapter aims to investigate the Source-Goal asymmetry in Standard Chinese by exploring the expression of spontaneous and caused motion events in data collected with the help of visual stimuli tools. My findings reveal a Source-Goal asymmetry in motion encoding in both types of events. Furthermore, different aspects of asymmetry that have manifested in Standard Chinese confirm the previous asymmetrical complexity found within individual languages and across languages.
The description of transitive directed motion in Lakhota (Siouan)
Authors: Osswald Rainer , Van Valin Jr. Robert D.
Published: June 2022

Siouan languages such as Lakhota provide an interesting case for the study of transitive directed motion descriptions because of their rich inventory of deictic motion verbs and instrumental (causative) affixes. The goal of this article is to show in detail how the different meaning components involved in such descriptions are distributed over the lexicon, the morphology, and the syntax of Lakhota. In particular, Lakhota supports a multi-verb construction for expressing transitive directed motion that consists of a transitivized deictic motion verb used as the main verb, which encodes caused motion or accompanied motion, and a dependent verb that describes the way in which the actor sets or keeps the undergoer in motion and the manner in which the undergoer moves.
Constraints constrained
Authors: Schaefer Ronald P. , Egbokhare Francis O.
Published: June 2022

We investigate the framing typology for motion events initiated by Talmy (1985, 2000) relative to predications in Emai from West Benue Congo. We concentrate on Path, which appears either in a satellite or a verb. Two main framing patterns emerge. With a Cause co-event verb, Path lexicalizes in a verb when articulating punctual or durative contact but in a satellite when expressing basic dislocation and extended dislocation. Extended dislocation requires a Cause co-event verb in series with a verb of extended motion and a Path satellite. We interpret extended dislocation not as representing an additional framing type but as a reflex of Emai lexical and morphosyntactic resources. Consequently, we hold to a semantic typology whose primary design principle is Path assignment to a verb or a non-verb, with equipollent framing receiving a secondary status.
Testing the free particle model: the statistical aspect
Authors: Ivchenko Vladimir
Published: June 2022

In this paper, we analyze the free particle model from the statistical point of view. For this purpose, we consider several examples involving the necessity to take into account the intermolecular interaction or external force fields. It can help students better grasp such an important concept as the free particle and be able to distinguish between its dynamic and statistical contexts.
Sub Coulomb barrier d+
208Pb scattering in the time-dependent basis function approach
Authors: Yin Peng , Du Weijie , Zuo Wei , Zhao Xingbo , Vary James P
Published: June 2022

We employ the non-perturbative time-dependent basis function (tBF) approach to study the scattering of the deuteron on 208Pb below the Coulomb barrier. We obtain the bound and discretized scattering states of the projectile, which form the basis representation of the tBF approach, by diagonalizing a realistic Hamiltonian in a large harmonic oscillator basis. We find that the higher-order inelastic scattering effects are noticeable for sub barrier scatterings with the tBF method. We have successfully reproduced experimental sub Coulomb barrier elastic cross section ratios with the tBF approach by considering only the electric dipole (E1) component of the Coulomb interaction between the projectile and the target during scatterings. We find that the correction of the polarization potential to the Rutherford trajectory is dominant in reproducing the data at very low bombarding energies, whereas the role of internal transitions of the deuteron projectile induced by the E1 interaction during the scattering becomes increasingly significant at higher bombarding energies.
Fault diagnosis of industrial robot gearbox using joint interclass and intraclass mappings
Authors: Yang Shuai , Kong Lijie , Hou Ming , Bai Yun , Li Chuan
Published: June 2022

Due to complex structure and harsh operating conditions, it remains challenging to accurately diagnose industrial robot gearbox fault patterns. For this reason, a joint interclass and intraclass mappings (JIIM) strategy is presented in this paper to enhance the performance of industrial robot gearbox fault diagnosis. To this end, an echo state network (ESN) is first adopted to map the training data into their class centers for minimizing the interclass distance. Meanwhile, the maximization of interclass distance in the data space is achieved by equalizing the distance between class centers. For the mapped data, another ESN is proposed to classify the fault patterns. The proposed JIIM method is evaluated by fault-diagnosis experiments for industrial robot gearboxes. Improvements owing to minimizing the intraclass distance and equalizing the interclass distance are discussed in detail. Results show that the presented JIIM can efficiently improve the performance of industrial robot gearbox fault diagnosis.
A novel federated deep learning framework for diagnosis of partial discharge in gas-insulated switchgear
Authors: Wang Yanxin , Yan Jing , Jing Qianzhen , Wang Jianhua , Geng Yingsan
Published: June 2022

In recent years, many different deep learning methods have been developed to ensure the safe and stable operation of gas-insulated switchgear (GIS). However, the use of these methods to achieve excellent results depends on obtaining as much training data as possible, which is difficult to accomplish because of conflicts of interest among different clients and privacy concerns. To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel federated deep learning (FDL) for the diagnosis of partial discharge (PD) in GIS. A federated learning (FL) based on an improved federated averaging algorithm is proposed, which allows different clients to collaboratively participate in model training and preserves data privacy. In addition, a novel subtractive attention Siamese network is introduced for feature extraction and classification, which achieves the high-precision classification of unbalanced data. Experimental results showed that the diagnostic accuracy of the proposed FDL reached 95.61%, which was significantly higher than that achieved by other methods. The proposed FDL can also achieve excellent performance in the case of unbalanced samples and small samples. As a distributed learning, FL does not require clients to share data, and clients can collaboratively develop an effective global diagnostic model, which provides a novel solution for GIS PD diagnosis.
Photocatalytic activity of green synthesized cadmium sulfide quantum dots on the removal of RhB dye and its cytotoxicity and antibacterial studies
Authors: Dadmehr Mehdi , Korouzhdehi Behnaz , Tavassoli Abolfazl , Malekkiani Mitra
Published: June 2022

Presence of inorganic pollutants in water reservoirs is the treating factor for human health and environment. Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) has been regarded as one of the most efficient nanoparticles for their enhanced photocatalytic activity. Medicinal plants are the safe sources to provide green template for biosynthesis of inorganic nanoparticles such as quantum dots. In order to determine the photocatalytic and biological application of cadmium sulfide quantum dots (CdS QDs), a biosynthesis approach was employed using saffron (Crocus sativus L.) stigma extract as the green reaction substrate. The biosynthesis process was evaluated at different pH condition to obtain the most efficient CdS QDs. Characterization of prepared CdS QDs were determined through UV–vis and fluorescence spectroscopy, FTIR and TEM analysis. The obtained results showed well dsispersed and uniform QDs during green synthesis at the optimum condition. The absorption and electrical properties of green synthesized CdS QDs showed the lowest energy bandgap of 2.4 at pH 11. Photocatalytic activity of CdS QDs on Rhodamine B degradation showed 92% degradation after 80 min under UV light irradiation. The antibacterial and cell cytotoxicity of green synthesized CdS QDs were assayed by disk diffusion and MTT assays respectively. Obtained results showed significant antibacterial effect of CdS QDs against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria including B. subtilis (90%) and E. coli (96%) respectively. Moreover, cytotoxicity of prepared CdS Qds through MTT assay indicated 79% apoptosis induction on MCF-7 breast cancer cells.
Visualisation of matrix product: using light to clarify an abstract mathematical concept
Authors: Pinochet Jorge , Bussenius Cortada Walter
Published: June 2022

Teaching the noncommutativity of the product of matrices to high school or college level students is a difficult task when approached from a purely formal perspective. The aim of this paper is to present a simple experimental activity for teaching the noncommutativity of the matrix product, based on the Jones calculus, a mathematical formalism for describing polarised light by means of matrices and vectors. This activity can also be useful to introduce students to the use of matrices in physics, and to illustrate how abstract mathematics can become a powerful tool to help us explain and describe the real world.
Development of an operation trajectory design algorithm for control of multiple 0D parameters using deep reinforcement learning in KSTAR
Authors: Seo J. , Na Y.-S. , Kim B. , Lee C.Y. , Park M.S. , Park S.J. , Lee Y.H.
Published: June 2022

This work develops an artificially intelligent (AI) tokamak operation design algorithm that provides an adequate operation trajectory to control multiple plasma parameters simultaneously into different targets. An AI is trained with the reinforcement learning technique in the data-driven tokamak simulator, searching for the best action policy to get a higher reward. By setting the reward function to increase as the achieved β
p, q
95, and l
i are close to the given target values, the AI tries to properly determine the plasma current and boundary shape to reach the given targets. After training the AI with various targets and conditions in the simulation environment, we demonstrated that we could successfully achieve the target plasma states with the AI-designed operation trajectory in a real KSTAR experiment. The developed algorithm would replace the human task of searching for an operation setting for given objectives, provide clues for developing advanced operation scenarios, and serve as a basis for the autonomous operation of a fusion reactor.
Optimisation studies of the TAIGA-Muon scintillation detector array
Authors: Astapov I. , Bezyazeekov P. , Blank M. , Bonvech E. , Borodin A. , Brueckner M. , Budnev N. , Bulan A. , Chernov D. , Chiavassa A. , Dyachok A. , Gafarov A. , Garmash A. , Grebenyuk V. , Gress E. , Gress O. , Gress T. , Grinyuk A. , Grishin O. , Horns D. , Igoshin A. , Ivanova A.D. , Ivanova A.L. , Kalmykov N. , Kindin V. , Kiryuhin S. , Kokoulin R. , Kompaniets K. , Korosteleva E. , Kozhin V. , Kravchenko E. , Kryukov A. , Kuzmichev L. , Lagutin A. , Lavrova M. , Lemeshev Y. , Lubsandorzhiev B. , Lubsandorzhiev N. , Lukanov A. , Lukyantsev D. , Malakhov S. , Mirgazov R. , Mirzoyan R. , Monkhoev R. , Osipova E. , Pakhorukov A. , Pan A. , Pankov L. , Panov L. , Petrukhin A. , Poddubnyi I. , Podgrudkov D. , Poleschuk V. , Ponomareva V. , Popesku M. , Popova E. , Porelli A. , Postnikov E. , Prosin V. , Ptuskin V. , Pushnin A. , Raikin R. , Rubtsov G. , Ryabov E. , Sagan Y. , Samoliga V. , Satyshev I. , Silaev A. , Silaev(junior) A. , Sidorenkov A. , Sinegovsky S. , Skurikhin A. , Sokolov A. , Sulakov V. , Sveshnikova L. , Tabolenko V. , Tanaev A. , Tarashchansky B. , Ternovoy M. , Tkachev L. , Tluczykont M. , Togoo R. , Ushakov N. , Vaidyanathan A. , Volchugov P. , Volkov N. , Voronin D. , Wischnewski R. , Zagorodnikov A. , Zhaglova A. , Zhurov D. , Yashin I.
Published: June 2022

The TAIGA astroparticle observatory is progressing with the
deployment of new detector stations. The Tunka-Grande —
scintillation counter array of the observatory expands with the new
TAIGA-Muon stations. Several simulation studies were conducted for
optimisation of the new station positioning and
performance. Extensive air showers induced by gamma quanta or a
proton in the range from 100 TeV to 1 PeV at a zenith angle of 0° 
were used for these studies. Based on the developed simulation, the
capabilities of identification of high energy extensive air showers
were studied. The soil thickness, the detector and station
positions, the lowest measurable energy range of the cosmic rays,
and different methods of air shower identification were
investigated.
Study on the performance of a resistive Micromegas in a controlled O2 environment
Authors: Bhattacharya Deb Sankar , Swirski Thorben , Böhm Burkhard , Ströhmer Raimund , Trefzger Thomas
Published: June 2022

Being the state of the art, the Micro-Pattern Gaseous Detectors (MPGD) are widely accepted in almost every particle collider experiment. Micromegas is a type of MPGD which is famous for its simple single-stage amplification, high and stable gain, low ion feedback, and excellent spatial and temporal resolutions.
The chance of O2 contamination in a gaseous detector is not negligible as the abundance of O2 in air is nearly 21%. Contamination of detector-gas by O2 may occur due to insufficient gas-tightness or the use of long plastic pipes. Being an electronegative gas, O2 attach with the electrons inside a gaseous detector and influence the performance. The concern is higher when the detector has a large scale extension.
We are reporting our measurements on the diffusion of O2 through a couple of commonly used plastic pipes. Then, in a hermetic gas system, by infusing O2 in a controlled and precise way, we have measured the effects of O2 on the performance of a resistive Micromegas. In pure Ar-CO2 mixture, we have also compared the gas-gain of the Micromegas with simulation to better estimate the gas-gap. The effects of temperature and pressure fluctuations on our study have also been investigated.
The feasibility of reconstructing hydroclimate over West Africa using tree-ring chronologies in the Mediterranean region
Authors: Fosu Boniface O , Cook Edward R , Biasutti Michela , Buckley Brendan M , Nicholson Sharon E
Published: June 2022

Dendrochronology in West Africa has not yet been developed despite encouraging reports suggesting the potential for long tree-ring reconstructions of hydroclimate in the tropics. This paper shows that even in the absence of local tree chronologies, it is possible to reconstruct the hydroclimate of a region using remote tree rings. We present the West Sub-Saharan Drought Atlas (WSDA), a new paleoclimatic reconstruction of West African hydroclimate based on tree-ring chronologies from the Mediterranean Region, made possible by the teleconnected climate relationship between the West African Monsoon and Mediterranean Sea surface temperatures. The WSDA is a one-half degree gridded reconstruction of summer Palmer Drought Severity indices from 1500 to 2018 CE, produced using ensemble point-by-point regression. Calibration and verification statistics of the WSDA indicate that it has significant skill over most of its domain. The three leading modes of hydroclimate variability in West Africa are accurately reproduced by the WSDA, demonstrating strong skill compared to regional instrumental precipitation and drought indices. The WSDA can be used to study the hydroclimate of West Africa outside the limit of the longest observed record and for integration and comparison with other proxy and archaeological data. It is also an essential first step toward developing and using local tree-ring chronologies to reconstruct West Africa’s hydroclimate.
Disentangling physical and dynamical drivers of the 2016/17 record-breaking warm winter in China
Authors: Zhang Tuantuan , Deng Yi , Chen Junwen , Yang Song , Gao Peng , Zhang Henian
Published: June 2022

Understanding the physical and dynamical origin of regional climate extremes remains a major challenge in our effort to anticipate the occurrences and mitigate the adverse impacts of these extremes. China was hit by a record-breaking hot winter in 2016/17 with remarkable surface warming over the northern and southeastern regions. Here we made a quantitative attribution of this 2016/17 winter’s surface temperature anomalies utilizing an updated version of the coupled atmosphere-surface climate feedback response analysis method (CFRAM), that recently incorporates the effect of aerosols and more species of trace gases (CFRAM-A). The CFRAM-A analysis reveals that the overall warming pattern may be largely attributed to the effects of anomalous water vapor, atmospheric dynamics, and aerosols, followed by anomalies of surface albedo, clouds, solar irradiance, ozone, and carbon dioxide. The effect of methane turns out to be negligible. Anomalies in surface dynamics provides an overall cooling effect, compensating the warming associated with other processes to some extent. Among the three major positive contributors, effects of water vapor and atmospheric dynamics prevail over both northern and southeastern China while the impact of anthropogenic aerosols appears much more pronounced over southeastern China, likely due to the implementation of highly effective emission reduction policies in China since 2013. The CFRAM-A thus provides an efficient, model-free approach for quantitatively understanding sources of regional temperature extremes and for assessing the impacts of environmental policies regulating anthropogenic emissions of aerosols and atmospheric trace gases.
Gravity-based patterning of osteogenic factors to preserve bone structure after osteochondral injury in a large animal model
Authors: Zlotnick Hannah M , Locke Ryan C , Hemdev Sanjana , Stoeckl Brendan D , Gupta Sachin , Peredo Ana P , Steinberg David R , Carey James L , Lee Daeyeon , Dodge George R , Mauck Robert L
Published: June 2022

Chondral and osteochondral repair strategies are limited by adverse bony changes that occur after injury. Bone resorption can cause entire scaffolds, engineered tissues, or even endogenous repair tissues to subside below the cartilage surface. To address this translational issue, we fabricated thick-shelled poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) microcapsules containing the pro-osteogenic agents triiodothyronine and β-glycerophosphate, and delivered these microcapsules in a large animal model of osteochondral injury to preserve bone structure. We demonstrate that the developed microcapsules ruptured in vitro under increasing mechanical loads, and readily sink within a liquid solution, enabling gravity-based patterning along the osteochondral surface. In a large animal, these mechanically-activated microcapsules (MAMCs) were assessed through two different delivery strategies. Intra-articular injection of control MAMCs enabled fluorescent quantification of MAMC rupture and cargo release in a synovial joint setting over time in vivo. This joint-wide injection also confirmed that the MAMCs do not elicit an inflammatory response. In the contralateral hindlimbs, chondral defects were created, MAMCs were patterned in situ, and nanofracture (Nfx), a clinically utilized method to promote cartilage repair, was performed. The Nfx holes enabled marrow-derived stromal cells to enter the defect area and served as repeatable bone injury sites to monitor over time. Animals were evaluated one and two weeks after injection and surgery. Analysis of injected MAMCs showed that bioactive cargo was released in a controlled fashion over two weeks. A bone fluorochrome label injected at the time of surgery displayed maintenance of mineral labeling in the therapeutic group, but resorption in both control groups. Alkaline phosphatase (AP) staining at the osteochondral interface revealed higher AP activity in defects treated with therapeutic MAMCs. Overall, this study develops a gravity-based approach to pattern bioactive factors along the osteochondral interface, and applies this novel biofabrication strategy to preserve bone structure after osteochondral injury.
Lightweight jet reconstruction and identification as an object detection task
Authors: Pol Adrian Alan , Aarrestad Thea , Govorkova Ekaterina , Halily Roi , Klempner Anat , Kopetz Tal , Loncar Vladimir , Ngadiuba Jennifer , Pierini Maurizio , Sirkin Olya , Summers Sioni
Published: June 2022

We apply object detection techniques based on deep convolutional blocks to end-to-end jet identification and reconstruction tasks encountered at the CERN large hadron collider (LHC). Collision events produced at the LHC and represented as an image composed of calorimeter and tracker cells are given as an input to a Single Shot Detection network. The algorithm, named PFJet-SSD performs simultaneous localization, classification and regression tasks to cluster jets and reconstruct their features. This all-in-one single feed-forward pass gives advantages in terms of execution time and an improved accuracy w.r.t. traditional rule-based methods. A further gain is obtained from network slimming, homogeneous quantization, and optimized runtime for meeting memory and latency constraints of a typical real-time processing environment. We experiment with 8-bit and ternary quantization, benchmarking their accuracy and inference latency against a single-precision floating-point. We show that the ternary network closely matches the performance of its full-precision equivalent and outperforms the state-of-the-art rule-based algorithm. Finally, we report the inference latency on different hardware platforms and discuss future applications.
Sexual Pleasure in Queer Communication Studies
Authors: Frischherz Michaela
Published: June 2022

Both inside and outside of the Communication Studies discipline, the place of sexuality scholarship is unsettled—and that shaky ground materializes especially around the discussion of sexual pleasure in the field and beyond. Candid discussions of sex, pleasure, desire, sexual tastes, fantasies, and bodily responses have long inspired heavy-breathing anxiety inflected by a reach for “propriety.” This anxiety envelopes public discourses of what feels good—especially things that feel really good under less-than-great conditions and things that deviate from what normative structures say should feel good. There are three areas in which pleasure emerges in the field of queer communication studies: analyses of representational pleasure, resistance to normative public discourses, and embodied autoethnographies of pleasure, which trace moments of queer sexual pleasure articulation in communication research despite disciplinary attempts to elide this field of study.
Critical Infrastructure Disruption and Crisis Management
Authors: Stern Eric , Nussbaum Brian
Published: June 2022

Explicitly considering major critical infrastructure disruptions from the perspective of crisis/crisis management enables policymakers, analysts, and researchers to draw inspiration from an extensive multidisciplinary literature. Furthermore, this approach takes infrastructure failures or disruptions, and provides crucial institutional, economic and social context that is too often ignored when such challenges are treated as exclusively technical problems. The added value from this approach enables analysts and decision makers to understand the complexity of such failures and consider the many levers—technical, economic and social—that might be used to respond to them. Attempts to understand infrastructure failures as crises are not new, but the literature—like the field of practice—is to some extent underdeveloped and continuously evolving (e.g., with regard to the challenges associated with cybersecurity), generating a need for a more comprehensive approach to understanding the leadership tasks associated with the management of such crisis events in dynamic and complex organizational environments.
Task Performance in Groups
Authors: Smith Christine
Published: June 2022

When individuals decide to work together to complete a task, they often do so in the belief that the product of their collective effort will exceed that which could be accomplished alone. Task-performing groups are resource-rich entities in that members have access to one another’s uniquely possessed knowledge, skills, and abilities and can, in many instances, reduce each individual’s workload by dividing the labor among themselves. However, faulty interaction processes often hinder a group’s ability to utilize maximally the resources available to them, resulting in a performance that falls short of the group’s potential. For example, coordination loss occurs when group members fail to combine their efforts in an optimal manner. This type of loss is especially likely when the group task requires a high level of precision or has heavy cognitive demands. For example, coordination loss is especially problematic in the context of brainstorming groups, because group members are often asked to interact with one another while simultaneously generating ideas and processing the ideas generated by others. Motivation loss occurs when individual group members fail to give their best effort to the group’s endeavor. This type of loss, called social loafing, is especially likely to occur when individual group members believe that their contributions cannot be identified or evaluated. Alternatively, free-riding occurs when group members believe that their contributions to the group product are ultimately dispensable. Finally, group interaction can result in a performance that exceeds what is expected from a simple pooling of individual group members’ efforts, although instances of such are less frequently addressed and documented within the group performance literature. Synergistic or assembly bonus effects are likely when collective work conditions emphasize strong associations between individual effort and highly desirable outcomes, as in the case of Köhler motivation gains. Furthermore, synergistic effects have been documented in instances where groups have used their increased capacity to process information to identify patterns or draw conclusions that individuals alone would find challenging.
Spatial Vision for Action
Authors: Brenner Eli , Smeets Jeroen B. J.
Published: June 2022

The way we see the world seems perfect, but it is not. What we see at any moment is based on a very limited part of the information that is available to us, and even details of that part are not always judged correctly. Moreover, perception is often inconsistent. There are persistent idiosyncratic discrepancies between visual and haptic spatial judgments. Even within the visual modality, related attributes such as size and position can be judged in a manner that is inconsistent with the physical relationship between them. People deal with all these differences and inconsistencies by selecting the best attributes to rely on for the task at hand and updating the information whenever possible. Doing so is presumably responsible for people’s proficiency in interacting with their environment, even when faced with the constantly changing spatial relationships with objects in the environment that result from using tools or that arise from the observer or the object moving. The best information to use depends not only on the goal of the action but also on how quickly and how reliably information can be acquired. This makes it complicated to make general claims about spatial vision for action, but it also provides unique opportunities to determine which attributes are used to guide our actions and evaluate why. Such opportunities can be used to identify the attributes that are used to perform a task, for instance revealing that judgments of position rather than size are used to determine how far to open one’s grip when grasping an object. They can also be used to determine how information guides ongoing movements, showing that judgments of position are continuously updated rather than inferred from judged motion. It is evident that we still have a lot to learn about how spatial vision guides action.
Evolution, Homology, Cell Classification, and Parallel Processing for Vision
Authors: Usrey W. Martin , Sherman S. Murray
Published: June 2022

A first step in analyzing complex systems is a classification of component elements. This applies to retinal organization as well as to other circuit components in the visual system. There is great variety in the types of retinal ganglion cells and the targets of their axonal projections. Thus, a prerequisite to any deep understanding of the early visual system is developing a proper classification of its elements. How many distinct classes of retinal ganglion cells are there? Can the main classes be broken down into subclasses? What sort of functional correlates can be established for each class? Can homologous relationships between apparently similar classes between species be established? Can a common nomenclature based on homologous cell and circuit classes be developed?
Lifelong Learning
Authors: Billett Stephen
Published: June 2022

The concepts of lifelong learning and lifelong education are related to but different from each other. A corrective is required, as public and governmental discourses often mention lifelong learning when referring to lifelong education and these distinct concepts are frequently conflated. It is important, therefore, to make clear delineations between them as they are not consonant, but distinct and interdependent. Lifelong learning is advanced as being a personal fact, that is, learning and development that arises from and is secured by individuals through their experiencing in diverse ways and through activities and interactions in distinct settings (e.g., workplaces, community, and educational) across their lives. Lifelong education is an institutional fact, that is, its goals, concepts, and experiences arise from and are projected by the social world. In schooled societies, experiences in educational institutions and programs are privileged and sometimes seen as encompassing all the worthwhile learning that can occur. However, what shapes and directs that learning is premised upon individuals’ readiness (i.e., what they already know, can do, and value) and their mediation of what they experience. Also, what constitutes lifelong education needs extending beyond the provision of taught courses offered through educational institutions to include educative experiences far more broadly. That is, it should include the educative experiences afforded by the communities and work practices in which adults participate and should engage in the activities and interactions through which they learn. These include experiences in which adults engage interpersonally and those that are more distant and indirect, such as through engaging with text, social media, and other sources of information. So, both concepts are important, as is the interdependence between them. However, without clarity about their distinctiveness and elaboration of these two concepts, they may well remain misunderstood and limited in their explanatory power and their interdependencies not fully elaborated. Identifying these can enhance the utility in guiding the provisions of educative experiences required to support effective learning. Given the range of circumstances and means through which learning and development occurs across adults’ working lives, accounting for the range of educative experiences and how they can support and sustain that learning is important.
The Aesthetics of Decolonization in South Asia
Authors: Sunderason Sanjukta
Published: June 2022

Often subsumed within narratives of political “transfer of power” from colonial empires to postcolonial nation-states, decolonization was a longue durée sociocultural process that traversed the long 20th century. Its trails were global and intertwined with parallel metapolitical processes like the Cold War, and it cast long shadows that revealed the afterlives of political decolonization beyond the events that marked the arrivals of independence. South Asia is a particularly fertile ground for studying such expanded temporalities, sociocultural structures, and shadows of decolonization. While the late 1940s saw the retreat of the British Empire from India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka after 1972), as well as the climactic partition of India and creation of Pakistan, decolonization itself remained an unfolding process. It manifested in continuing struggles around cultural sovereignty and the liberation war of 1971 that birthed Bangladesh from the former East Pakistan, and continued in unresolved ethnic conflicts and regional struggles for autonomy and social democracy. The cultural field offers a unique lens for reading the more quotidian and less spectacular sites where such longue durée trails of decolonization were experienced, negotiated, and imagined via artistic forms. Aesthetics of decolonization can be read as the sensorial, imaginational, and ethical negotiations of postcolonial freedom, as well as the micropolitical and contradictory dynamics that lay therein. It can loosen the metaframe of the nation-state and the nation-form to reveal both locational and subnational differences, as well as the multiple ways in which the global itself was filtered, invoked, or negotiated from below. Aesthetics of decolonization, in other words, is the imagination of a new historiographical modality for thinking through how freedom was visualized in the postcolonies, how such visions produced new cultural modernities unique to such transitional polities, and how such modernities can be read in their transnational trails in the long 20th century.
Masculinities in Bangladesh: 'Sofol Purush' as Hegemonic Masculinity Model at the State Level
Authors: Imtiaz Sayed Saikh
Published: June 2022

The emergence and reproduction of hegemonic masculinities in state-level institutional practices in a developing country like Bangladesh are still underresearched. Since its independence Bangladesh has gone through different periods of political turmoil leading to several autocratic regimes. After the fall of General Ershad in 1990, the country started a renewed journey to democracy and electoral politics. Over the years, the corrupt political processes interacting with modernization and different nationalist projects have resulted in a patron-client system that resulted in a new gender order. This gender order celebrates the creation of the sofol purush model as a symbol of power and status and thus constitutes hegemonic masculinity. Although this hegemonic masculinity model does not correspond to any particular man, it could sustain itself by dominating the ideas and fantasies of young men across classes in general. The discursive construction of the sofol purush model and corresponding institutional mechanisms to embody such a model refer to a situation in which young men, in general, find a place for them to be a sofol purush, although in reality, only a very few of them could achieve the attributes. Nevertheless, as most young men endorse the model in one way or another, sofol purush as a hegemonic masculinity model is reproduced and sustained.
Social and Gender Norms Influencing Sexual and Reproductive Health: Conceptual Approaches, Intervention Strategies, and Evidence
Authors: Lahiri Shaon , Costenbader Elizabeth , Bingenheimer Jeffrey B.
Published: June 2022

Research in diverse fields has examined how social and gender norms, broadly defined as informal rules of acceptable behavior in a given group or society, may influence sexual and reproductive health outcomes. One set of conceptual and empirical approaches has focused on perceptions of how commonly others perform a behavior and the extent to which others support or approve of the behavior. Another set of approaches has focused on how social norms emerge from structures of gender and power that characterize the social institutions within which individuals are embedded. Interventions intended to improve sexual and reproductive health outcomes by shifting social and gender norms have been applied across a wide range of populations and settings and to a diverse set of behaviors, including female genital mutilation/cutting, the use of modern contraceptive methods, and behavioral risk reduction for HIV. Norms-based intervention strategies have been implemented at multiple socioecological levels and have taken a variety of forms, including leveraging the influence of prominent individuals, using community activities or mass media to shift attitudes, and introducing legislation or policies that facilitate the changing of social norms.

Recent advances in social and gender norms scholarship include the integration of previously disparate conceptual and empirical approaches into a unified multilevel framework. Although challenges remain in measuring social and gender norms and studying their impacts on sexual and reproductive health-related behaviors across cultures, the research will continue to shape policies and programs that impact sexual and reproductive health globally.
A Retrospective on Mars Polar Ice and Climate
Authors: Smith Isaac B.
Published: June 2022

The polar regions of Mars contain layered ice deposits that are rich in detail of past periods of accumulation and erosion. These north and south polar layered deposits (NPLD and SPLD, respectively) contain primarily water–ice and ~5% and ~10% dust derived from the atmosphere, respectively. In addition, the SPLD has two known CO2 deposits—one thin unit at the surface and one buried, much thicker unit. Together, they comprise less than 1% of the SPLD volume. Mars also experiences seasonal deposits of CO2 that form in winter and sublimate in spring and early summer. These seasonal caps are visible from Earth and have been studied for centuries.

Zooming in, exposed layers at the PLDs reveal histories of climate change that resulted when orbital parameters such as obliquity, eccentricity, and argument of perihelion changed over tens of thousands to millions of years. Simpler environmental conditions at the NPLD, especially related to seasonal and aeolian processes, make interpreting the history of that polar cap much easier than the SPLD.

The history of Mars polar science is linked by numerous incremental advancements and unexpected discoveries related to the observed geology of both poles, the interpreted and modeled climatic conditions that gave rise to the PLDs, and the atmospheric conditions that modify the surface.
The Recognition of Meteorites and Ice Ages
Authors: Rubin Alan E.
Published: June 2022

Two important scientific questions that confronted 18th- and 19th-century naturalists were whether continental glaciation had occurred thousands of years earlier and whether extraterrestrial rocks occasionally fell to Earth. Eventual recognition of these hypotheses as real phenomena resulted from initial reports by nonprofessionals, subsequent investigation by skeptical scientists, and vigorous debate. Evidence that kilometer-thick glaciers had once covered Northern Europe and Canada included (a) the resemblance of scratched and polished rocks near mountain glaciers to those located in unglaciated U-shaped valleys; (b) the similarity of poorly sorted rocks and debris within “drift deposits” (moraines) to the sediment load of glaciers; and (c) the discovery of freezing meltwater at the base of glaciers, hypothesized to facilitate their movement. Three main difficulties naturalists had with accepting the notion that rocks fell from the sky were that (a) meteorite falls are localized events, generally unwitnessed by professional scientists; (b) mixed in with reports of falling rocks were fabulous accounts of falling masses of blood, flesh, milk, gelatin, and other substances; and (c) the phenomenon of falling rocks could neither be predicted nor verified by experiment. Five advances leading to the acceptance of meteorites were (a) Ernst Chladni’s 1794 treatise linking meteors, fireballs, and falling rocks; (b) meteor observations conducted in 1798 showing the high altitudes and enormous velocities of their meteoroid progenitors; (c) a spate of several widely witnessed meteorite falls between 1794 and 1807 in Europe, India, and America; (d) chemical analyses of several meteorites by Edward Charles Howard in 1802, showing all contained nickel (which is rare in the Earth’s crust); and (e) the discoveries of four asteroids between 1801 and 1807, providing a plausible extraterrestrial source for meteorites.
Hizbollah in the Global Arena
Authors: Saeidi Shirin
Published: June 2022

A comprehensive review of the scholarly literature on the transnational movement of Hizbollah (Party of God) in the global arena examines the sociopolitical history, military capacities, strategies, and alliances of the Hizbollah movement. Situated in a narrow understanding of global politics and international relations such an examination reveals that Hizbollah poses a particular problem for international relations when the hegemonic nation-state remains the primary site of analysis. The literature on Hizbollah consistently fails to acknowledge the limitations of this worldview, and as such, continues to characterize Hizbollah as a disruptive Iranian-led militia instead of a transnational social movement rooted firmly in its followers’ self-confidence and commitment to an ideology with religious elements. As a transnational movement, Hizbollah has all but abandoned the realization of an Islamic state, holds limited military power, and is influenced by international norms and socialization. As such, the most interesting aspect of Hizbollah’s political trajectory is its imaginative politics—forms of expression rooted in its transnational attributes, developed in historical contexts, and acted upon by individual supporters of the movement through social relationships. A narrow view of the global arena as organized states in a hierarchy expands explorations of the Hizbollah movement into areas and subfields such as a Middle East studies and gender studies. These subfields have contributed valuable ethnographic research that informs a new methodological approach and resulting arguments. From this framework, based on a spatially cognizant recognition of a global Middle East, the analysis shows that Hizbollah’s various transnational attributes—including a commitment to ideological production, becoming a martyr, and following the spiritual leadership of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—become “transitioning spaces” (as used by diaspora studies scholar Dora Silva Santana) forged in kinship that make it possible to imagine other worlds. The spiritual and sensual world that Hizbollah supporters conjure competes with the international system of political organization to make the movement noteworthy to the global arena. Importantly, this is not an alternative world, but one that coexists to challenge a focus on military, alliance, or material approaches alone.
Dollarization and Crisis in Argentina
Authors: Perelman Mariano D.
Published: June 2022

Since the early 21st century the US dollar has been a public issue in Argentina, where the dollarization of sectors of the economy has been an ongoing process for some time. Indeed, circulation of the dollar has grown to the point that it is considered the best way to build savings and has a significant influence on daily economic life. Since 1980, the process of dollarization and outbreak of economic crises have been intertwined. This period can be divided into different crises: 1989 was a crisis of hyperinflation, 2001 was a major debt crisis, and the 2011–2015 crisis grew out of a struggle between the middle classes and the government in response to a ban on buying and accumulating dollars in large quantities. This latest round of crisis continues.

Money is a universal measurement of value, encompassing values beyond the purely economic. In Argentina, the US dollar both activates crisis and is activated by crisis. Quotidian rituals have developed and standardized in conjunction with the popularization of the dollar, making it a central object of everyday life in Argentina. Indeed, the dollar provides an excellent starting place for a decently thorough history of contemporary Argentina. By focusing on the relationships and practices that have developed around the dollar, one can begin to understand how flesh and blood people have worked to build dignified lives and ways of living in relationship to one another. The dollar, both as a form of currency and in its demonetarized form, articulates a series of imaginaries about what a life worth living is. The dollar has catalyzed national models and projects. The dollar is a part of the daily experience of large portions of the population. And, when uncertainty grows, the dollar stabilizes.
Cold War in the American Working Class
Authors: Feurer Rosemary
Published: June 2022

The US working class and the institutional labor movement was shaped by anticommunism. Anticommunism preceded the founding of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, and this early history affected the later experience. It reinforced conservative positions on union issues even in the period before the Cold War, and forged the alliances that influenced the labor movement’s direction, including the campaign to organize the South, the methods and structures of unions, and US labor’s foreign policy positions. While the Communist Party of the USA (CP) was a hierarchical organization straitjacketed by an allegiance to the Soviet Union, the unions it fostered cultivated radical democratic methods, while anticommunism often justified opposition to militancy and obstructed progressive policies. In the hottest moments of the postwar development of domestic anticommunism, unions and their members were vilified and purged from the labor movement, forced to take loyalty oaths, and fired for their association with the CP. The Cold War in the working class removed critical perspectives on capitalism, reinforced a moderate and conservative labor officialdom, and led to conformity with the state on foreign policy issues.