bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Composite bulges – II. Classical bulges and nuclear discs in barred galaxies: the contrasting cases of NGC 4608 and NGC 4643
Authors: Erwin Peter , Seth Anil , Debattista Victor P , Seidel Marja , Mehrgan Kianusch , Thomas Jens , Saglia Roberto , de Lorenzo-Cáceres Adriana , Maciejewski Witold , Fabricius Maximilian , Méndez-Abreu Jairo , Hopp Ulrich , Kluge Matthias , Beckman John E , Bender Ralf , Drory Niv , Fisher Deanne
Published: January 2021

We present detailed morphological, photometric, and stellar-kinematic analyses of the central regions of two massive, early-type barred galaxies with nearly identical large-scale morphologies. Both have large, strong bars with prominent inner photometric excesses that we associate with boxy/peanut-shaped (B/P) bulges; the latter constitute ∼30 per cent of the galaxy light. Inside its B/P bulge, NGC 4608 has a compact, almost circular structure (half-light radius Re ≈ 310 pc, Sérsic n = 2.2) we identify as a classical bulge, amounting to 12.1 per cent of the total light, along with a nuclear star cluster (Re ∼ 4 pc). NGC 4643, in contrast, has a nuclear disc with an unusual broken-exponential surface-brightness profile (13.2 per cent of the light), and a very small spheroidal component (Re ≈ 35 pc, n = 1.6; 0.5 per cent of the light). IFU stellar kinematics support this picture, with NGC 4608’s classical bulge slowly rotating and dominated by high velocity dispersion, while NGC 4643’s nuclear disc shows a drop to lower dispersion, rapid rotation, V–h3 anticorrelation, and elevated h4. Both galaxies show at least some evidence for V–h3correlation in the bar (outside the respective classical bulge and nuclear disc), in agreement with model predictions. Standard two-component (bulge/disc) decompositions yield B/T ∼ 0.5–0.7 (and bulge n > 2) for both galaxies. This overestimates the true ‘spheroid’ components by factors of 4 (NGC 4608) and over 100 (NGC 4643), illustrating the perils of naive bulge-disc decompositions applied to massive barred galaxies.
Periastron shift of compact stellar orbits from general relativistic and tidal distortion effects near Sgr A*
Authors: Lalremruati P C , Kalita Sanjeev
Published: January 2021

The Galactic Centre (Sgr A*), hosting a supermassive black hole, carries sufficient potential for testing gravitational theories. Existing astrometric facilities on Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Keck Telescope have enabled astronomers to study stellar orbits near Sgr A* and perform new astronomical tests of gravitational theories. These observations have provided strong field tests of gravity (ϕ/c2 ∼ 10−3, which is much greater than ϕ/c2 for the Solar system). In this work, we have estimated magnitudes of various contributions to the periastron shift of compact stellar orbits near Sgr A* for pericentre distance in the range rp = (0.3 – 50)au at a fixed orbital inclination, i = 90°. We take the spin of the black hole as χ = 0.1, 0.44, and 0.9 and eccentricities of the orbit as e = 0.9. The relativistic effects including orders beyond 1PN and spin induced effects are incorporated in the contributions. Effect of tidal distortion on periastron shift has also been added into the estimation by considering gravitational Love numbers for polytropic models of the stars. For the tidal effect, we have considered updated mass–radii relations for low-mass stars and high-mass stars. It has been found that the tidal effect on periastron shift arising from stars represented by polytropes of indices n = 1 and n  = 3 terminate above rp ∼ 2 au and rp ∼ 1 au, respectively. The periastron shift angle for the stars has been compared with the astrometric capabilities of existing large telescopes and upcoming extremely large telescopes. Challenges and prospects associated with the estimations are highlighted.
Immune Status and Mortality in Smokers, Ex-smokers, and Never-Smokers: The Ludwigshafen Risk and Cardiovascular Health Study
Authors: Delgado Graciela E , Krämer Bernhard K , März Winfried , Hellstern Peter , Kleber Marcus E , Leipe Jan
Published: January 2021

Introduction

Elevated leukocyte counts are associated with cardiovascular disease. Smoking induces inflammation and alters levels of leukocyte subtypes.

Aims and Methods

Our aim was to investigate the effect of smoking on circulating immune cells and their association with mortality. Lymphocyte subtypes were identified by flow cytometry of fluorescent-labeled cells. We analyzed the association of leukocytes with mortality using Cox regression and assessed their effect on risk prediction based on principle components (PCs) using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve and net-reclassification in 2173 participants from the Ludwigshafen Risk and Cardiovascular Health Study, a prospective case–control study in patients who underwent coronary angiography.

Results

The numbers of T cells, monocytes, and neutrophils were higher and natural killer cells were lower in smokers compared with never-smokers. In never-smokers, lymphocyte counts were inversely associated with mortality while a positive association was observed for neutrophils. The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) had the strongest association in never-smokers with a hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) of 1.43 (1.26–1.61). No associations were found in smokers. Adding the first five PCs or the NLR to a risk prediction model based on conventional risk factors did not improve risk prediction in smokers, but significantly increased the area under the curve from 0.777 to 0.801 and 0.791, respectively, in never-smokers.

Conclusions

Lymphocyte counts were inversely associated with mortality in never-smokers but not in active smokers. Markers of innate immunity, namely total neutrophils and CD11b+/CD18+ and CD31+/CD40− granulocytes, were directly associated with mortality. Adding markers of immune function like PCs or the NLR to basic risk models improved risk prediction in never-smokers only.

Implications

Total leukocyte counts were higher in active smokers as compared to never-smokers due to elevated counts of neutrophils and monocytes but declined in ex-smokers with increasing time since quitting. In the never-smokers but not in smokers, lymphocyte counts were inversely associated with mortality while there was a direct association with neutrophils, even after adjustment for conventional cardiovascular risk factors. Adding markers of immune function to basic risk models improved risk prediction in never-smokers only. Our data indicate that smoking status has an important impact on the ability of leukocyte counts to predict long-term cardiovascular outcomes.
The Many Faces of Zionism
Authors: Pappé Ilan
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines the evolvement of the Zionist idea and movement over the years. It traces the etymology of the concept and its early adoption by evangelical Christianity. This is followed by an analysis of the origins of political Zionism in Europe. Both the official Israeli narrative, viewing Zionism as the Jewish national movement, and the counternarrative that depicts it as a settler-colonial phenomenon are presented. The settler-colonial paradigm explains the achievement of Zionism of building the infrastructure for a modern Jewish state, on the one hand, and the catastrophic effect it had on the indigenous people of Palestine, on the other. The depiction of the movement as a settler-colonial movement explains the ethnic cleansing it perpetrated against the Palestinian people in 1948. This paradigm also explains how Zionism informed Israel’s strategy toward the Palestinians ever since 1948. The chapter also discusses the appearance of post-Zionism and assesses its future trends.
“When Women Change, Everything Changes”
Authors: Batmanghelichi Kristin Soraya
Published: January 2021

Discourses of marriage, sexual violence, and wilaya (male guardianship system) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have been transformed in part through women’s activism in the domain of sexuality and health. Local and global actors have labored to address gender-discriminatory policies, thinking, and behavior through international conventions, regional collaboration, and, more recently, mobile technologies and social media. When popular revolts shook the region’s status quo from 2009 to 2012, shifting practices and attitudes about gender and sexuality became more distinct, recalibrating discussions on sexual harassment, the necessity of wilaya, and a woman’s decision not to marry. Meanwhile, MENA women’s advocates have pushed back against conservative norms and policies that regularly dismiss or shame their quest for gender justice and equality. This chapter offers a glimpse into the ongoing debates and struggles among these women and their allies, who challenge traditions, stigmatization, and taboos on issues related to sexuality, in particular.
A Cognitive Arab Uprising?
Authors: Hanafi Sari
Published: January 2021

This chapter is a synthetical one, drawing on previous work on knowledge production in the Arab world in the last decade. It contributes to the debate about how scholarship in the Arab region has struggled with some dichotomies before being able to partially transcend them. The author presents different research trends that have evolved from mainstream critical “glocal” (global/local) trends to the more polarized ones of postcolonial and Islamic perspectives. When analyzing the latter, the author also highlights differences between the trends that existed or evolved previous to and immediately following the 2011 Arab uprisings—cognitively inspired movements that were induced by paradigm shifts in the Arab social sciences.
Critical Theories and Change in International Relations
Authors: Freyberg-Inan Annette
Published: January 2021

Critical theories advocate fundamental change in world politics. They attack the structural inequalities of power that maintain the status quo and are, in turn, maintained by it. Ideational power is seen to work in tandem with material power, which calls for a strategy of radical resistance that incorporates a battle for hearts and minds. One of those battlefields is the discipline of International Relations (IR) itself. This chapter begins by clarifying what critical theories in IR are and then explains why and how they problematize the notion of “peaceful change.” The changes desired by critical theories are fundamental and urgent, which imbues those theories with a level of radicalism that can justify violent means. At the same time, critical theories spotlight dimensions of power beyond the material on which material power vitally depends. This reveals possibilities for transformation by peaceful means.
Nubia, a Brief Introduction
Authors: Williams Bruce Beyer , Emberling Geoff
Published: January 2021

Nubia has emerged as an independent field of study partly because of dam projects that flooded long reaches of the Nile valley and adjacent deserts. The region itself includes the Nile Valley in Egypt and Sudan, from the First Cataract at Aswan to the confluence of the Blue and White Niles at Khartoum, as well as adjacent deserts. This vast area incorporates many regions, peoples, and languages, notably Nubian and Eastern Desert Bedja. Historically, the volume presents three Nubias: Islamic Nubia from the 15th century, Christian Nubia from the 6th century CE, and ancient Nubia, which centered for almost three millennia on Kush, but always encompassing diverse languages and cultures. From early times, relations with Egypt were important and sometimes decisive. Beginning with the geological and physical environment, the volume presents both narrative and topical chapters that reflect the complex developments in Nubian history and culture.
The Eastern Cemetery of Kerma
Authors: Bonnet Charles , Honegger Matthieu
Published: January 2021

The Eastern Cemetery of Kerma is located south of the Third Cataract, close to the ancient city that was likely the center of the Kingdom of Kerma. It extends over 70 hectares and contains about 40,000 graves. Its development from north to south covers the whole duration of the Kerma civilization (2500–1500 bce) and gives a general idea of the richness of funerary rituals and of the process of social stratification. At its beginning, the graves, small with few objects, express a relative equality of treatment in the face of death. Stratification is first perceptible during the Kerma Ancien II phase (2300–2100 bce) with larger graves of archers containing more objects, sacrificed animals, and sometimes accompanying people buried next to the main burial. A few decades later appear the first large tumuli of 20 m in diameter, which contain the graves of the rulers. During the next period which starts about 2050 bce (Kerma Moyen), the development of the cemetery is spectacular, with the multiplication of great tumuli following its central ridge. This trend culminates during the Kerma Classique (1750–1500 bce) with the royal graves excavated by George Reisner a century ago. Some of them can reach 90 m in diameter and contain hundreds of subsidiary burials; two funerary temples were erected in their proximity. The cemetery was abandoned just before the Egyptian conquest and a last royal grave was built close to the ancient city.
Egyptian Fortresses and the Colonization of Lower Nubia in the Middle Kingdom
Authors: Bestock Laurel
Published: January 2021

In the early part of the 2nd millennium bce, the Egyptian state took control of Lower Nubia, building a series of monumental fortresses along the Nile that are remarkable for their sophisticated military architecture. This was Egypt’s first major expansion beyond its traditional borders. Various theoretical models of imperialism and core-periphery interactions have been brought to bear on studies of the forts and their populations, seeking to explain the military, economic, and ideological purposes behind the original construction of the monuments as well as the apparently shifting nature of their occupation, from probable rotating garrisons to more permanent settlement, and their interactions with local populations (cf. Trigger 1976:64–81; Adams 1977:183–88; Zibelius-Chen 1988:69–135; S.T. Smith 1995, 2003; Williams 1999; Flammini 2008; Török 2009:79–101; Vogel 2004; Knoblauch 2008). The resulting picture of Egyptian occupation of Nubia is a nuanced if not entirely agreed upon one. The fortresses are important to archaeology more broadly because they offer a richly documented case study for consideration of state control of foreign territory; they belong in the broader discourse about imperialism, colonization, and colonialism, how different state strategies of control can be understood in the material record, and how people live and interact in border zones. That the methods of Middle Kingdom control can be contrasted to both earlier and later Egyptian strategies of interaction with Nubia, and that the region is one of modern colonial entanglements, makes a critical approach to its occupation in the Middle Kingdom all the more vital.
Nubians in Egypt from the Early Dynastic Period to the New Kingdom
Authors: Meurer Georg K.
Published: January 2021

Nubians lived in Egypt from Predynastic times and through all periods. In the Aswan region, they were part of the indigenous population from Old to Middle Kingdom (A-Group, C-Group). From late Middle Kingdom through Second Intermediate Period, representatives of the Pan-Grave culture, presumably to be identified with the Medjay, and later the Kerma culture was present in Upper Egypt (Theban area) progressively up to the Delta at Tell el-Dab’a until the 18th Dynasty. Despite the official Egyptian dogma that regarded foreigners as elements of chaos, the reality shows that Nubians were integrated in the Egyptian society when accepting the Egyptian way of life. This is also visible in the wider range of occupations performed by native Nubians. While from time to time foreign groups also left the Egyptian Nile Valley, this Egyptianization or cultural entanglement resulted in a disappearing of foreigners in the sources.
History and the Kushite Royal Inscriptions
Authors: Pope Jeremy
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines ancient Kushite perceptions and uses of the past that are featured in the corpus of royal inscriptions from the Second Kingdom of Kush, also known as the Napatan era (ca. 10th–3rd centuries bce), and it compares that corpus to previously published definitions of history as a genre. While most of the Kushite texts are retrospective in outlook, they also exhibit several features that differentiate them from paradigmatic Western examples of historical writing such as the accounts of Hecataeus of Miletus, Herodotus, and Thucydides. As a result, Kush is often portrayed as a prehistoric or ahistoric society in both scholarly and more popular literature. Nevertheless, the royal inscriptions of the Second Kingdom display at least four characteristics that are commonly associated with the writing of history: (1) commemoration of abrupt change; (2) explanation of human causality; (3) investigation of source material; and (4) presentation to a broad audience.
The X-Group Period in Lower Nubia
Authors: Dann Rachael J.
Published: January 2021

The X-Group (or Post-Meroitic) Period in Lower Nubia is a period of cultural continuity from the previous Meroitic Period, while also being a period of significant change and innovation. X-Group culture is characterized in the elite sphere by forms of material culture that frequently combine motifs with Egyptian, Classical, and Kushitic antecedents in inventive ways, long-distance trade relationships and monumental building projects in the mortuary domain. In both elite and non-elite circles a distinctive pottery tradition endures, and ritual practices focused at sites with long genealogies continued. The introduction of the waterwheel in Lower Nubia enabled an expansion of agricultural cropping regimes and supported settlement in the region, which was frequently based at sites that had seen Meroitic Period activity, although there is frequently a gap in the chronology rather than direct temporal continuity.
Nubian Texts, Nubian Lives
Authors: Ruffini Giovanni R.
Published: January 2021

Nubian texts provide valuable insight into Nubian social and economic history. Accounts reveal economic priorities both secular and sacred. Documentary evidence hints at the nature of state centralization and the movement of goods and coins in and out of Nubia. Magic reveals Nubia’s deep-seated hopes and fears. Literature shows innovative theology and Nubia’s sense of its place in world history. Funerary inscriptions record the careers of the elite and their sense of their own place in the cosmos. But much is missing from the Nubian textual record as well, suggesting that major literary genres never indigenized in Nubia the way they did in Egypt or Ethiopia. Other genres ebb and flow over time, hinting at the economy of Nubian literacy and the processes through which it ultimately dies.
The Topography of Power in Medieval Nubia
Authors: Żurawski Bogdan
Published: January 2021

The author synthesizes the intricacies of construction and evolution of the medieval Nubian power centers on the example of Old Dongola, known in the Banganarti inscriptions as Tungul, Pachoras (Faras), Soba East, Qasr Ibrim, Jebel Adda, and Ez-Zuma. All of them affected the local microcosm as a guarantor of the stability and social order in the state and as a source of faith and religious prestige. Their axiality in the religious and political sphere consisted, among other features, also in being a destination of pilgrimages, a home to the cathedral church and ruler’s palace, a seat of a bishopric, terminal to the caravan route, the location of the custom house etc. The potent relics, wonder-working icons and the tombs of the local holy men attracted pilgrims and provided the godly patronage over the city and the state. Last but not least, medieval Nubian power centers were encircled by powerful fortifications which were not a reliable source of safety but were everlasting symbols of might and wealth. A socially stratified cemetery full of extravagant tombs is also a fingerprint of a nearby power center, although the Christian religion brought in a significant standardization of grave forms and grave goods.
Landscape Archaeologies in Nubia and the Middle Nile
Authors: Edwards David N.
Published: January 2021

It is suggested that many landscape archaeology approaches have considerable potential to contribute to research in the large and environmentally varied region of the Middle Nile. Longer-term perspectives through the Holocene also require more specific engagements with major environmental as well as social transformations. A number of specific foci suggest themselves for further exploration. As in many other part of Africa exploring landscape histories in terms of their historical ecology seems likely to have much to offer. In a region with many millennia of pastoral traditions, studies of settlement may also be extended to consider landscapes of mobility and more varied understandings of space and place. The early development of larger-scale polities also invites more explicit investigation of landscapes of power and authority within the region.
Perspectives on the Body in Ancient Nubia
Authors: Dann Rachael J.
Published: January 2021

Despite the richness of the record relating to the art, texts, and archaeology of the Sudanese past there has been a lack of explicit study or theorization of the human body. There is much potential and scope for a discussion of how the body has been represented through time, but also for how the body as the medium through which the social is experienced has been constructed and has changed through time. A range of possible approaches to the study of the human body are presented here.
The History of Medieval Nubia
Authors: Ruffini Giovanni R.
Published: January 2021

The history of the medieval Nubian state begins as it ends, in a state of decentralization. The core of that state emerges through the unification of Nobadia in the north and Makuria in the center of the Nubian heartland, perhaps at some point in the 7th century. Makuria’s relationship with Alwa to the south is less clear, but some unification seems to have obtained there as well, in the 11th century. The Nubian state’s relationship with the wider world is variable. Nubia sometimes ignores or challenges its northern Islamic neighbors, and at other times defers to them or aggressively courts their diplomatic favor. Dotawo, the indigenous name for Nubia at least in later centuries, is still strong in the face of invasions in the 12th century, but shows signs of internal dynastic instability in later periods. Ongoing Egyptian interference in Nubian civil wars, coupled with increasing levels of Arab immigration to Nubia, destabilizes the Nubian state and returns it to its original fragmentation.
Ezekiel’s Map of Future Past
Authors: Sulzbach Carla
Published: January 2021

Attention to the spatial elements in the book of Ezekiel reveals a coherent plan that maps sin onto the spaces of city and temple which become the focus of correction in the visionary chapters that end the book (chs. 40–48). The book displays great disdain for all urban settings, including foreign cities, for their corrupt politics, trade and crime. These charges especially apply to Jerusalem. The temple also exhibits similar corruption in terms of personnel, iconography and impurity. The final vision reaches back first into the pre-urban history of Judah, the wilderness period, in order to find a setting free from such corruptions, but ultimately it returns to an Eden-like state as the only viable solution to the problems of innate sin and desecration. This is an Eden with no free-will and no human agency, the only way to safeguard sacred space.
Wisdom in Christian Theology
Authors: Fiddes Paul S.
Published: January 2021

This article argues that the concept of wisdom in modern Christian theology, to be most effective, should draw on two dimensions of wisdom that are present within Hebrew Wisdom Literature. These are wisdom as careful observation of the world, and wisdom as participation in the presence of God in the world, the latter expressed in the personification of “Lady Wisdom.” These two aspects are reflected in the duality between practical wisdom (Aristotelian phronēsis) and sophia in Christian tradition, though for Christian theology participative wisdom will be engagement in the relational love of a triune God. This two-fold approach to wisdom illuminates doctrines of creation, the Trinity, and Christology, and produces a theology which aims to articulate the relation of God to the world in creation and redemption, while taking seriously the awareness in late modern culture of the dangers of a human self that attempts to dominate the world around it.
Wisdom Influence
Authors: McLaughlin John L.
Published: January 2021

One would expect to see points of contact between the Israelite Wisdom Literature preserved in the Bible and the other components of that collection. Scholars have proposed Wisdom influence in books from most parts of the biblical corpus, including the Pentateuch, the Deuteronomistic History, the Psalms, and the Prophets. This essay proposes three criteria for evaluating such proposals and demonstrates their application to specific texts. The results range from no evidence of actual Wisdom influence to clear cases of direct influence from Israel’s Wisdom traditions on other types of biblical literature.
Law and Wisdom Literature
Authors: Burnside Jonathan P.
Published: January 2021

Biblical studies generally sees Law and Wisdom as separate, even opposed, categories. This dichotomous approach is unsatisfactory. It distorts our understanding of the traditions of both Law and Wisdom, as well as the more unified biblical tradition as a whole. Although the discipline generally has not so far been able to transcend this opposition, scholars have increasingly explored possible relationships between Law and Wisdom. Semantic, linguistic, cognitive, and semiotic studies collectively point towards the need for a paradigm shift away from a dichotomous approach to one that sees Law and Wisdom as complementary. This is crucial to re-evaluating the concept of wisdom—and law.
Wisdom in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Jewish Interpretation
Authors: Bakker Arjen
Published: January 2021

This article argues that wisdom in the Dead Sea Scrolls is not a continuation of the biblical Wisdom tradition. What we see in the scrolls is rather a reinterpretation of biblical Wisdom Literature within new conceptual frameworks and within the broader context of the interpretive culture of Second Temple Judaism. One of the main aspects of this new version of wisdom is that it is hidden and not available to just anyone. The emphasis on mystery and the hidden structures of time is shared by Wisdom texts from Qumran and from the Hellenistic world. Wisdom is omnipresent across Jewish traditions as it is integrated with Torah, revelation, and prayer. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has made clear how deeply embedded wisdom was across genres and traditions.
Avar
Authors: Forker Diana
Published: January 2021

This chapter provides a grammatical sketch of Avar, the largest indigenous language of Dagestan. Avar has five vowels and more than 40 consonants, among which there are a number of voiced, voiceless, ejective (glottalized), and tense (strong) obstruents. The language is agglutinative with some elements of fusion and strongly suffixing. Nouns are divided into three genders, and three inflectional classes, which largely correlate with the gender divisions. The core cases are absolutive, ergative, dative and genitive; furthermore, there are twenty spatial cases. Avar has gender and number agreement expressed by prefixes, suffixes, and occasionally infixes. Agreement targets are mainly verbs, adjectives, and certain pronouns. While agreement and case marking follow ergative alignment, no ergative patterns are found outside the realm of morphology. The rich inventory of verb forms consists of four synthetic and six analytic core tenses used in finite clauses. The non-finite verb forms include infinitive, masdar, and a wide range of participles and converbs. Noun phrases and subordinate clauses are head-final. In main clauses there is a clear tendency for A-P-V order, but other orders are also attested.
Archi
Authors: Chumakina Marina
Published: January 2021

The chapter provides a description of Archi, a Lezgic language of the Nakh-Daghestanian family spoken in one village in the highlands of Daghestan. First, the current sociolinguistic situation delivers a view of the language endangerment risks, then the chapter gives an overview of Archi phonological system and discusses the morphosyntactic properties of Archi nouns, pronouns, and minor lexical classes. Next, the article gives an overview of the Archi verb morphosyntax. The chapter then discusses the structure of the simple clause covering such topics as word order, finiteness, valency classes, negation, and agreement, among others. Complex sentences (clause chaining and converbs, relative clauses, complement clauses, adverbial clauses, and long-distance anaphora) are discussed. The chapter closes with outstanding issues that require further research. Whenever possible, the chapter views Archi against the general background of Nakh-Daghestanian languages and discusses the similarities and differences. Due to its unusual history (a Lezgic language which lost the contact with other languages of the group very early on and developed with Lak and Avar as its immediate neighbors), Archi has preserved some archaic phonological as well as morphosyntactic features of Lezgic on the one hand and shows the results of the contact with non-Lezgic languages on the other.
Iron Ossetic
Authors: Erschler David
Published: January 2021

Iron Ossetic is an Iranian language spoken in the Caucasus. The present chapter describes the main phonological, morphological, and syntactic properties of Iron Ossetic. A brief overview is given of the geographical and historical background, published sources, and history of research on Ossetic. The chapter proceeds with an overview of phonetics and phonology of the language, after which the morphology of nominals and verbs is addressed. The discussion of syntax touches upon the overall structure of simple clauses, the structure of noun phrases, valency classes, interrogative clauses, and complex clauses. A special emphasis is put on typologically unusual properties of this language. These properties include a rich system of second position pronominal clitics with a complex pattern of placement, the behavior of negation and negative indefinites, the syntax of wh-questions and complementizers, and the formation of finite embedded clauses, including relative clauses. Relative clause functions are always expressed by correlatives.
Word Stress in Languages of the Caucasus
Authors: Borise Lena
Published: January 2021

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the stress systems in Abkhaz-Adyghean/North-West Caucasian, Nakh-Dagestanian/North-East Caucasian, and Kartvelian/South-Caucasian languages, as well as the larger Indo-European languages of the area, Ossetic (Iron and Digoron) and Armenian. First, it addresses the so-called free stress languages, in which stress placement is not restricted to particular syllables/syllable types or morphemes, and the fixed stress languages, in which stress always targets a syllable in a certain position, counting from the left or right edge of a word. Next, quantity-sensitive stress systems are considered, in which stress is found on the heavier syllable within a given domain, such as a whole word or a part of it (a so-called stress window). Further, the chapter discusses languages in which stress assignment is morphologically conditioned. After the chapter introduces this classification of stress systems, it addresses the more complex cases that do not (fully) fit into it, notably the stress systems of Abkhaz-Adyghean and some of the Nakh-Dagestanian languages. Finally, the chapter considers underdescribed stress systems and languages for which conflicting descriptions have been proposed. The chapter closes with an overview of the available instrumental studies. Overall, the aim of the current chapter is to highlight the impressive diversity that the languages of the Caucasus exhibit in the realm of word stress and emphasize the need for further research in the area, both instrumental and theoretical.
North Caucasus
Authors: Kazenin Konstantin
Published: January 2021

This chapter deals with the dynamics of population structure and the ethnic composition of the North Caucasus within the recent hundred years. It also discusses changes in the administrative divisions of the region during that period. For each administrative area of the North Caucasus, the chapter describes the distribution of its population across geographical zones and major migration processes observed in the Soviet and post-Soviet epochs. This chapter also evaluates the size of each ethnic group from a historical perspective and presents changes of ethnic proportions which took place in the administrative areas of the North Caucasus in the time of the USSR and afterward. Special attention is paid to urbanization and to population growth in ethnically mixed zones, especially in the recent decades. It is shown that the Republics of the North Caucasus differ considerably in different ethnic groups. In addition, this chapter also presents the history of the formation of national Republics in the North Caucasus.
Information Structure in Languages of the Caucasus
Authors: Forker Diana
Published: January 2021

This chapter discusses the expression of information structure in the three indigenous language families of the Caucasus with a focus on constituent order and particles. At the clause level, all three language families show a clear preference for SOV, are generally flexible, and also admit other orders. The major focus position is pre-verbal, but postverbal focus is also attested; adjacency to the verb is a violable constraint. At the phrasal level, there is a sharp difference between Northwest Caucasian, with its prenominal and postnominal modifiers alike, and Kartvelian and Nakh-Daghestanian languages, which employ postnominal modifiers only for emphasis, contrast, or focus. Languages from all three families make wide use of cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions that normally express constituent focus. Another commonality is the frequent use of enclitics and suffixes of different types for information-structuring purposes. Modal markers, interrogative markers, additive affixes, and markers with grammatical meaning are used as focus-sensitive particles and usually placed after the item they scope over or after the head of the phrase.
Introduction to Genetics and the Law
Authors: Mehlman Maxwell , Hartlev Mette , Suter Sonia
Published: January 2021

This chapter provides an overview of the relationship between genetics and the law. Advances in genetics and genomics have created both hopes and concerns and raise a number of legal issues in both the United States and Europe. To understand the legal issues in genetics, it is helpful to have some understanding of the different types of genetic analysis that can be used and for which purposes. In virtually all these contexts, the doctrine of informed consent is important. While the law in the United States and Europe does not generally require non-directiveness, the legal doctrine of informed consent applies in all jurisdictions, imposing on physicians and genetic counselors the legal obligation to disclose material information that could influence a patient's decisions about genetic testing. The other ethical and legal issues that arise with genetic or genomic analysis differ depending on the purpose, context, and technology used. These legal issues concern the methods of regulating genetic tests offered in the clinical setting and through the “direct-to-consumer” online genetic testing industry; genetic discrimination; the scope of privacy protections of genetic information; and the regulation of human gene therapy, gene therapy research, and germline modifications.
Outer Space as a New Frontier for Technology Ethics
Authors: Abney Keith
Published: January 2021

As technologies help us to push further and further into outer space, new ethical issues emerge, as is typical for new frontiers. This chapter will survey issues ranging from the practical to the theoretical, such as bioethics for astronauts, including issues of sex and reproduction and whether we should initially send humans at all (instead of robots); commercial activities in space, including tourism and property rights; terraforming, colonization, and space settlements, including environmental considerations; planetary protection/quarantine and other safety and risk issues; dual-use technologies that could further militarize space; and more. This chapter will argue that, in addition to novel ethical issues arising from this new technological frontier, old ethical discussions generated by technology (e.g., abortion, genetic enhancement) will need revisiting once we escape terrestrial assumptions and context.
Styles of Objectivity in Scientific Instrumentation
Authors: Hoel A. S. Aurora
Published: January 2021

This chapter theorizes the epistemic roles of technology. Focusing on the example of magnetic resonance imaging, it approaches scientific instruments as adaptive mediators. The notion of adaptive mediator is drawn from the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon. The proposed approach aligns with accounts that historicize the conditions of knowledge but differs by pushing into an ecological and operational conceptual terrain. Challenging the dichotomy between sensibility and understanding, the ecologicizing move has the effect of putting technical mediation at the center of epistemology. The chapter explores the philosophical implications of replacing the subject/object model with an organism/environment model, showing how the latter fosters a new notion of ecological relationality that differs in philosophically significant respects from the poststructuralist relationality that underpins much science studies research. It proceeds to examine the epistemological implications of ecological relationality, pointing to how the ecological model opens the way for new epistemologies beyond the deadlocked positions of the science wars.
Youth Protagonism in Urban India
Authors: Nuggehalli Roshni K.
Published: January 2021

Amid shifting political and social contracts in India, young people are viewed both as a labor force that can propel economic growth and as a potentially problematic demographic to be restrained from questioning and dissent. Within this context, this essay advances a theory of urban youth protagonism in India, focusing on young people marginalized by caste, religion, and material deprivation. Based on examples of collective agency from youth groups in India supported by a local nonprofit, Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA), it explores how young people construct their own understandings and practices of citizenship. Despite a narrow focus on civic behavior in formal citizenship education, it is possible to enable action and agency for urban youth. This may be achieved through strengthening collectives, working toward community transformations, and utilizing a critical pedagogy of protagonism, in the process constructing substantive forms of citizenship.
Luxury Branding
Authors: Berghaus Benjamin
Published: January 2021

In business, luxury can be seen as a pronounced ambition of those companies that cater to the market of highly affluential consumers. Luxury branding is the critical managerial tool to express the individual company’s interpretation of that ambition. Branding has valuable inward- and outward-oriented functions, providing identification within and advertising outside the company. This mirrors luxury’s two-sided nature which integrates individual hedonism with ostentatious communication. This chapter introduces several facets and cases of luxury branding; outlines the contemporary research landscape on luxury branding (based on a review of 143 articles); proposes a system of five luxury branding core tasks leading from brand targeting to shaping, experience design, extension, and protection of luxury brands; follows modern publications’ roots to their most notable sources (based on analysis of 7,248 references); and discusses the topic from five stakeholder perspectives. The key insight for successful luxury businesses emerges on the subject of carefully balancing commercial growth with qualitative ambition.
The Biographer as Literary Artist
Authors: Kemezis Adam M.
Published: January 2021

This chapter focuses on Philostratus’ Apollonius. It begins by examining Philostratus’ explicit rhetorical claims and his curiously ambiguous narrative stance, before moving on to the anecdotal and doxographical material, and the overall characterization of the hero. The chapter then considers some key thematic strands of the work that seem to stretch normal generic parameters, these being its focus on foreign exoticism, Greek antiquarianism, and Roman political history. In all of these cases, the interplay between Philostratus’ stated aims and his grandiose means reveals much about the kinds of cultural work that biography could do in Antiquity. The Apollonius announces itself as a self-contained sort of work, neatly defined by the scope and extent of a single human life, and that rhetorical position is never fully abandoned. Much of the rest of the text, however, will sorely test the limits of biographical form as its author strives to display his own consummate skill by piling the largest conceivable variety of Hellenic cultural topics into the life story of one man and creating an outrageously over-sized literary hero whose story is capable of bearing such a weight.
Triumphant Lives
Authors: Varner Eric R.
Published: January 2021

This chapter explores the portraits, statues, and triumphal arches in Imperial Rome. Rome’s growing military and political ascendance throughout the Mediterranean during the third and second centuries bc coincided with significant artistic developments in the realm of portraiture and historical documentation in the visual arts. The visual landscape of the city was densely packed with statues in gold, silver, bronze, and marble, vast numbers of which were portraits honouring the men and women of Rome for their lifetime achievements. In addition, the statuary population included images which surmounted the numerous triumphal arches positioned throughout the city. Portraits formed the artistic analogue of written biographies, encomia, and panegyrics, as did the historical and allegorical narrative reliefs that often adorned triumphal arches.
Isocrates’ Evagoras
Authors: Poulakos Takis
Published: January 2021

This chapter discusses Isocrates’ Evagoras. One of many ancients to explore the genre of biography, the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates is reputed to be the first to have written a detailed account of a person’s life, in a form still recognizable today as biographical. By today’s standards, Isocrates’ biography of Evagoras—a lengthy exaltation of the recently deceased king of Cyprus—comes across as a verbose chronicle laden with exaggerated praise and magnified significance. However, to those interested in the origins of biography, this work provides a rare opportunity to witness this genre in the early process of its formation. In addition to being a rhetorician experimenting with a new genre, Isocrates was an educator, a teacher of rhetoric, who used his works as textbooks for his students’ learning. More than borrowing from his predecessors their practices of infusing biography into established forms of praise, he appropriated these practices for educational purposes and aligned them to his own pedagogical ends. The chapter then discusses the link between biography and education by exploring the process through which Isocrates developed this genre out of the rhetorical and poetic traditions of praise.
Sixteenth-Century Reception of Aquinas by Cajetan
Authors: Cuddy Cajetan
Published: January 2021

Thomas de Vio, Cardinal Cajetan (1469–1534) was a uniquely gifted Thomistic philosopher, theologian, biblical exegete, and churchman. His reception of Aquinas holds a meridian place in intellectual history because of the profundity his Thomistic commentaries manifest in their pages and the influence his writings exercised in Catholic life and thought. Cajetan’s was an intensive reception of Aquinas’ universal and necessary first principles. And this intensive reception proceeded according to two movements of concrete application: a defensive movement that responds to the objections of Aquinas’ critics, and an extensive movement that applies Aquinas’ principles to the questions and controversies of his own fifteenth- and sixteenth-century period. Cajetan’s philosophical, theological, and exegetical work received their shape from the fundamental first principles that governed Aquinas’ own thought. Finally, Cajetan’s reception of Aquinas accounts for both the manner and the significance of his ecclesial service in early modern history.
The Reception of Thomas Aquinas in Seventeenth-Century Reformed Orthodoxy and Anglicanism
Authors: Trueman Carl R.
Published: January 2021

Despite early Reformation anti-Thomist rhetoric, the thought of Thomas Aquinas proved a useful resource for seventeenth-century Reformed and Anglican thinkers, albeit modified within a distinctly Protestant context. There were a number of reasons for this: the establishment of Protestantism within the university context, the sharpening of doctrinal divisions at the Council of Trent, and the increasing sophistication of post-Reformation theological polemics. While rejecting his views of the sacraments, orthodox Protestants were able to utilize his thinking within the areas of metaphysics, the doctrine of God, and natural law, areas in which significant common ground existed between Protestantism and Thomism. While there were still differences with Thomas in some of these areas—for example, Protestants did not typically discuss ethics in terms of virtues but rather law, Thomas was a significant source for Protestant thought.
the Reception of Aquinas in Nouvelle Théologie
Authors: Cooper Adam G.
Published: January 2021

This chapter analyses the distinctive ways in which some of the main theologians associated with the nouvelle théologie reconstructed and appropriated Aquinas’ theological legacy. Turning to him as a sophisticated exemplar of vocational integrity, they proposed a historically conscious and philologically precise re-reading of his writings as a vital touchstone for evaluating the authenticity of theological proposals in his name. Such engagement presupposed the abiding value of Aquinas for contemporary theology and Christian life. At the same time the nouvelle théologie figures relativized Thomas’s doctrines. They found his doctrinal legacy to be neither monolithic nor unambiguous, but in need of judicious scrutiny, subtle unravelling, and constant re-evaluation in light of new knowledge and constant recourse to the divinely given norms of the faith. The resulting perception of Thomism was of a tradition less unified, less absolute, and more open to variables in interpretation.