bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Growth and characterization of ErAs:GaBixAs1−x
Authors: Bomberger Cory C. , Nieto-Pescador Jesus , Lewis Matthew R. , Tew Bo E. , Wang Yuejing , Chase D. Bruce , Gundlach Lars , Zide Joshua M. O.
Published: October 2016

We explore the growth and characterization of ErAs:GaBiAs as a candidate material for terahertz generation and detection via photoconductive switches. Spectrophotometry shows that the incorporation of small amounts of bismuth causes a reduction in the band gap, making these materials compatible with fiber-coupled lasers. ErAs pins the Fermi level within the band gap, causing high dark resistance while maintaining high mobility, shown by Hall effect measurements. Finally, transient absorption (optical pump, optical probe) measurements show that the ErAs provides a carrier recombination pathway, causing short carrier lifetimes. These material properties make ErAs:GaBiAs an interesting choice for fiber-coupled photoconductive switches.
Sleep restriction in Wistar rats impairs epididymal postnatal development and sperm motility in association with oxidative stress
Authors: Siervo Gláucia E. M. L. , Ogo Fernanda M. , Valério Aline D. , Silva Thamara N. X. , Staurengo-Ferrari Larissa , Alvarenga Tathiana A. , Cecchini Rubens , Verri Waldiceu A. , Guarnier Flávia A. , Andersen Monica L. , Fernandes Glaura S. A.
Published: October 2016

Good sleep quality has a direct effect on the activity of the neuroendocrine–reproductive control axis and oxidative stress. Thus, the aim of the present study was to evaluate whether sleep restriction (SR) during the peripubertal period impaired the postnatal development of the epididymis in Wistar rats. After 21 days SR (18 h per day), epididymides were collected on Postnatal Day (PND) 62 for evaluation of oxidative stress markers, inflammatory profile, sperm count and histopathological and stereological analyses; in addition, the motility of spermatozoa from the vas deferens was examined. SR significantly increased lipid peroxidation and glutathione levels in the caput and cauda epididymidis, and increased levels of total radical-trapping antioxidant potential in the caput epididymidis only. Neutrophil migration to the caput or corpus epididymidis was decreased by SR, and the size of the luminal compartment in the 2A region and the epithelial compartment in the 5A/B region was also decreased. In these regions, there was an increase in the size of the interstitial compartment. The percentage of immotile spermatozoa was higher in the SR group. In conclusion, SR affects epididymal postnatal development, as well as sperm motility, in association with increased oxidative stress and a decrease in the size of the epithelial compartment in the cauda epididymidis.
A systematic review of the impacts and management of introduced deer (family Cervidae) in Australia
Authors: Davis Naomi E. , Bennett Ami , Forsyth David M. , Bowman David M. J. S. , Lefroy Edward C. , Wood Samuel W. , Woolnough Andrew P. , West Peter , Hampton Jordan O. , Johnson Christopher N.
Published: October 2016

Deer are among the world’s most successful invasive mammals and can have substantial deleterious impacts on natural and agricultural ecosystems. Six species have established wild populations in Australia, and the distributions and abundances of some species are increasing. Approaches to managing wild deer in Australia are diverse and complex, with some populations managed as ‘game’ and others as ‘pests’. Implementation of cost-effective management strategies that account for this complexity is hindered by a lack of knowledge of the nature, extent and severity of deer impacts. To clarify the knowledge base and identify research needs, we conducted a systematic review of the impacts and management of wild deer in Australia. Most wild deer are in south-eastern Australia, but bioclimatic analysis suggested that four species are well suited to the tropical and subtropical climates of northern Australia. Deer could potentially occupy most of the continent, including parts of the arid interior. The most significant impacts are likely to occur through direct effects of herbivory, with potentially cascading indirect effects on fauna and ecosystem processes. However, evidence of impacts in Australia is largely observational, and few studies have experimentally partitioned the impacts of deer from those of sympatric native and other introduced herbivores. Furthermore, there has been little rigorous testing of the efficacy of deer management in Australia, and our understanding of the deer ecology required to guide deer management is limited. We identified the following six priority research areas: (i) identifying long-term changes in plant communities caused by deer; (ii) understanding interactions with other fauna; (iii) measuring impacts on water quality; (iv) assessing economic impacts on agriculture (including as disease vectors); (v) evaluating efficacy of management for mitigating deer impacts; and (vi) quantifying changes in distribution and abundance. Addressing these knowledge gaps will assist the development and prioritisation of cost-effective management strategies and help increase stakeholder support for managing the impacts of deer on Australian ecosystems.
Neonatal isolation augments social dominance by altering actin dynamics in the medial prefrontal cortex
Authors: Tada Hirobumi , Miyazaki Tomoyuki , Takemoto Kiwamu , Takase Kenkichi , Jitsuki Susumu , Nakajima Waki , Koide Mayu , Yamamoto Naoko , Komiya Kasane , Suyama Kumiko , Sano Akane , Taguchi Akiko , Takahashi Takuya
Published: October 2016

Significance

Social separation early in life can lead to the development of impaired interpersonal relationships and profound social disorders. However, the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms involved are largely unknown. In a rat model of neonatal isolation, we examined social dominance in juveniles. We further investigated the relationship between actin dynamics and glutamate synaptic AMPA receptor delivery in spines of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of isolated animals. Here, we report that neonatal isolation alters spines in the mPFC by reducing actin dynamics, leading to the decrease of synaptic AMPA receptor delivery and altered social behavior later in life. Our study provides molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the influence of social separation early in life on later social behaviors.
Stable
Caenorhabditis elegans
chromatin domains separate broadly expressed and developmentally regulated genes
Authors: Evans Kenneth J. , Huang Ni , Stempor Przemyslaw , Chesney Michael A. , Down Thomas A. , Ahringer Julie
Published: October 2016

Significance

Genomes are organized into domains of different structure and activity, yet our understanding of their formation and regulation is poor. We show that
Caenorhabditis elegans
chromatin domain organization in early embryos and third-larval stage animals is remarkably similar despite the two developmental stages containing very different cell types. Chromatin domains separate genes into those with stable versus developmentally regulated expression. Analyses of chromatin domain structure suggest that transcription regulation and germ-line chromatin regulation play roles in separating chromatin domains. Our results further our understanding of genome domain organization.
Interval singing links to phenotypic quality in a songbird
Authors: Richner Heinz
Published: October 2016

Significance

Many animals—insects, fish, frogs, birds, and mammals—sing sequences of pitched melodic tones to communicate with conspecifics. As noted by Pythagoras (AD 1500) and later music theorists, the tonal frequencies of structurally important notes in melodies form small-integer ratios, based on the harmonic series of natural sounds. Here I show for a songbird with a simple two-note song, the great tit, that males with large black ventral ties, which are a signal of social status and reproductive potential, sing intervals with smaller deviations from the predicted small integers than males with small ties. This study illuminates a pathway for the evolution of melodic singing in animals, and perhaps of music in general, where defined intervals are a key feature.
An evolutionary conserved Hexim1 peptide binds to the Cdk9 catalytic site to inhibit P-TEFb
Authors: Kobbi Lydia , Demey-Thomas Emmanuelle , Braye Floriane , Proux Florence , Kolesnikova Olga , Vinh Joelle , Poterszman Arnaud , Bensaude Olivier
Published: October 2016

Significance

The positive transcription elongation factor (P-TEFb) is required for transcription of most genes by RNA polymerase II. Hexim proteins associated to 7SK, a noncoding RNA, bind to P-TEFb and reversibly inhibit its activity. This transcription factor comprises the kinase Cdk9 and a cyclin T. Using a photoreactive amino acid incorporated into proteins, we provide the first evidence of a direct interaction between Cdk9 and Hexim1, in live cells, in cell extracts and in in vitro assembled complexes. An evolutionary conserved Hexim1 peptide, the “PYNT” sequence, cross-links to the Cdk9 activation segment that controls access to the catalytic cleft. Interference with binding of substrates accounts for kinase inhibition.
Rethinking the Asymmetry
Authors: Chappell Richard Yetter
Published: October 2016

According to the Asymmetry, we’ve strong moral reason to prevent miserable lives from coming into existence, but no moral reason to bring happy lives into existence. This procreative asymmetry is often thought to be part of commonsense morality, however theoretically puzzling it might prove to be. I argue that this is a mistake. The Asymmetry is merely prima facie intuitive, and loses its appeal on further reflection. Mature commonsense morality recognizes no fundamental procreative asymmetry. It may recognize some superficially similar theses, but we will see that they derive from more familiar principles, and are compatible with there being moral reason to bring happy lives into existence.
Melt-spinning and semi-solid processing of bainitic steel
Authors: Rogal Ł. , Solano-Alvarez W. , Bhadeshia H. K. D. H.
Published: October 2016

A steel with a chemical composition meant to form nanostructured bainite following appropriate heat treatment, was, cooled rapidly from the liquid phase (1550°C) using melt spinning and modified injection-suction methods, as well as from a semi-solid temperature (1430°C) through thixoforming. The hardness of the as-cast melt spun ribbons was ∼960 HV due to a fine martensite–austenite mixture surrounded by three-dimensional skeleton-like primary carbides of length scale 0.2–0.3 µm. The suction-injection cast method led to a similar structure but less hard (780 HV) due to a lower cooling rate. The thixoformed material showed unmelted globular, fine grains and a fine eutectic mixture formed directly from the liquid phase. The variety of processed steel samples were tempered and their microstructures, examined.
Report on NIM-NMC bilateral comparison: SPRT calibration comparison from −190°C to 420°C
Authors: Sun Jianping , Ye Shaochun , Wang Li , Zhang Jintao , Kho Haoyuan
Published: October 2016

A bilateral comparison of local realization of the International temperature scale of 1990 (ITS-90) between National Institute of Metrology (NIM) and National Metrology Centre (NMC) was carried out over the temperature range from -190°C to 420°C. It involved six fixed points including the argon triple point, the mercury triple point, the triple point of water, the melting point of gallium, the freezing point of tin and the freezing point of zinc. In 2009, NMC asked NIM to participate in a bilateral comparison to link the NMC results to the Consultative Committee for Thermometry Key comparison 3 (CCT-K3) and facilitate the NMC's Calibration and measurement capabilities (CMCs) submission. This comparison was agreed by NIM and Asia Pacific Metrology Programme (APMP) in 2009, and registered in the Key Comparison Database (KCDB) in 2010 as CCT-K3.2. NMC supplied two 25 Ω fused silica sheath standard platinum resistance thermometers (SPRTs) as traveling standards. One of them was used at the Ga, Sn and Zn fixed points, while the other one was used at the Ar and Hg fixed point. NMC measured them before and after NIM measurement. During the comparison, a criterion for the SPRT was set as the stability at the triple point of water to be less than 0.3 mK. The results for both laboratories are summarized. A proposal for linking the NMC's comparison results to CCT-K3 is presented. The difference between NMC and NIM and the difference between NMC and the CCT-K3 Average Reference Value (ARV) using NIM as a link are reported with expanded uncertainties at each measured fixed point.

Main text

To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/.

The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCT, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (CIPM MRA).
Final report on the key comparison of hydrocarbon liquid flow: CCM.FF-K2.2015
Authors: Shimada T , Bittner-Rohrhofer K , López V J Medina , Arias R , Su C -M , Chen I -C , Ribere F , Rowan L , Dignan S
Published: October 2016

Seven laboratories: BEV (Austria), CENAM (Mexico), CMS (Chinese-Taipei), LNE-TRAPIL (France), NEL (United Kingdom), NMIA (Australia), and the pilot lab NMIJ (Japan), participated in the key comparison CCM.FF-K2.2015 for hydrocarbon flow measurement. A screw type positive displacement flow meter was selected as a transfer standard. The calibration stability of the transfer standard was evaluated from repeated measurements by NMIJ and showed standard reproducibility of 0.0035 %. The transfer standard was also thoroughly tested for sensitivity to temperature, viscosity, pressure, and other effects. The uncertainty due to the transfer standard of 0.0080 % was less than the quoted uncertainties of the participants. The key comparison reference values (KCRVs) at Reynolds number of 70 000 and 300 000 were obtained as the weighted mean from the calibration results, and the KCRV at Reynolds number of 100 000 was obtained as the median by using the Monte Carlo method according to Cox's procedure B, since the consistency check at Reynolds number of 100 000 failed at the 95 % confidence level. All participant results selected to determine the KCRVs have En values which show consistency with the evaluated KCRVs.

Main text

To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/.

The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCM, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (CIPM MRA).
Invariant manifolds of interior multi-spike states for the Cahn-Hilliard equation in higher space dimensions
Authors: Bates Peter , Fusco Giorgio , Jin Jiayin
Published: October 2016

We construct invariant manifolds of interior multi-spike states for the nonlinear Cahn-Hilliard equation and then investigate the dynamics on it. An equation for the motion of the spikes is derived. It turns out that the dynamics of interior spikes has a global character and each spike interacts with all the others and with the boundary. Moreover, we show that the speed of the interior spikes is super slow, which indicates the long time existence of dynamical multi-spike solutions in both positive and negative time. This result is the application of an abstract result concerning the existence of truly invariant manifolds with boundary when one has only approximately invariant manifolds. The abstract result is an extension of one by P. Bates, K. Lu, and C. Zeng to the case of a manifold with boundary, consisting of almost stationary states.
Local geometry of the 𝑘-curve graph
Authors: Aougab Tarik
Published: October 2016

Let

S
S

be an orientable surface with negative Euler characteristic. For

k
∈

N

k \in \mathbb {N}

, let

C

k

(
S
)

\mathcal {C}_{k}(S)

denote the k-curve graph, whose vertices are isotopy classes of essential simple closed curves on

S
S

and whose edges correspond to pairs of curves that can be realized to intersect at most

k
k

times. The theme of this paper is that the geometry of Teichmüller space and of the mapping class group captures local combinatorial properties of

C

k

(
S
)

\mathcal {C}_{k}(S)

, for large

k
k

. Using techniques for measuring distance in Teichmüller space, we obtain upper bounds on the following three quantities for large

k
k

: the clique number of

C

k

(
S
)

\mathcal {C}_{k}(S)

(exponential in

k
k

, which improves on previous bounds of Juvan, Malnič, and Mobar and Przytycki); the maximum size of the intersection, whenever it is finite, of a pair of links in

C

k

\mathcal {C}_{k}

(quasi-polynomial in

k
k

); and the diameter in

C

0

(
S
)

\mathcal {C}_{0}(S)

of a large clique of

C

k

(
S
)

\mathcal {C}_{k}(S)

(uniformly bounded). As an application, we obtain quasi-polynomial upper bounds, depending only on the topology of

S
S

, on the number of short simple closed geodesics on any unit-square tiled surface homeomorphic to

S
S

.
Combinatorial extension of stable branching rules for classical groups
Authors: Kwon Jae-Hoon
Published: October 2016

We give new combinatorial formulas for decomposition of the tensor product of integrable highest weight modules over the classical Lie algebras of typesB,C,DB, C, D, and the branching decomposition of an integrable highest weight module with respect to a maximal Levi subalgebra of typeAA. This formula is based on a combinatorial model of classical crystals called spinor model. We show that our formulas extend in a bijective way various stable branching rules for classical groups to arbitrary highest weights, including the Littlewood restriction rules.
Spaces of conics on low degree complete intersections
Authors: Pan Xuanyu
Published: October 2016

Let

X
X

be a smooth complete intersection contained in

P

C

n

\mathbb {P}^n_{\mathbb {C}}

and of low degree. We consider conics contained in

X
X

and passing through two general points of

X
X

. We show that the moduli space of these conics is a smooth complete intersection in a projective space. The main ingredients of the proof are a criterion for characterizing when a smooth projective variety is a complete intersection in a projective space, the Grothendieck-Riemann-Roch theorem, and the geometry of spaces of conics.
The role of HYAL2 in LSS-induced glycocalyx impairment and the PKA-mediated decrease in eNOS–Ser-633 phosphorylation and nitric oxide production
Authors: Kong Xiangquan , Chen Liang , Ye Peng , Wang Zhimei , Zhang Junjie , Ye Fei , Chen Shaoliang
Published: October 2016

Hyaluronan (HA) in the endothelial glycocalyx serves as a mechanotransducer for high-shear-stress–stimulated endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) phosphorylation and nitric oxide (NO) production. Low shear stress (LSS) has been shown to contribute to endothelial inflammation and atherosclerosis by impairing the barrier and mechanotransduction properties of the glycocalyx. Here we focus on the possible role of hyaluronidase 2 (HYAL2) in LSS-induced glycocalyx impairment and the resulting alterations in eNOS phosphorylation and NO production in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). We show that LSS strongly activates HYAL2 to degrade HA in the glycocalyx. The dephosphorylation of eNOS–Ser-633 under LSS was triggered after HA degradation by hyaluronidase and prevented by repairing the glycocalyx with high–molecular weight hyaluronan. Knocking down HYAL2 in HUVECs protected against HA degradation in the glycocalyx by inhibiting the expression and activity of HYAL2 and further blocked the dephosphorylation of eNOS–Ser-633 and the decrease in NO production in response to LSS. The LSS-induced dephosphorylation of PKA was completely abrogated in HYAL2 siRNA–transfected HUVECs. The LSS-induced dephosphorylation of eNOS–Ser-633 was also reversed by the PKA activator 8-Br-cAMP. We thus suggest that LSS inhibits eNOS–Ser-633 phosphorylation and, at least partially, NO production by activating HYAL2 to degrade HA in the glycocalyx.
Nuclear constriction segregates mobile nuclear proteins away from chromatin
Authors: Irianto Jerome , Pfeifer Charlotte R. , Bennett Rachel R. , Xia Yuntao , Ivanovska Irena L. , Liu Andrea J. , Greenberg Roger A. , Discher Dennis E.
Published: October 2016

As a cell squeezes its nucleus through adjacent tissue, penetrates a basement membrane, or enters a small blood capillary, chromatin density and nuclear factors could in principle be physically perturbed. Here, in cancer cell migration through rigid micropores and in passive pulling into micropipettes, local compaction of chromatin is observed coincident with depletion of mobile factors. Heterochromatin/euchromatin was previously estimated from molecular mobility measurements to occupy a volume fraction f of roughly two-thirds of the nuclear volume, but based on the relative intensity of DNA and histones in several cancer cell lines drawn into narrow constrictions, f can easily increase locally to nearly 100%. By contrast, mobile proteins in the nucleus, including a dozen that function as DNA repair proteins (e.g., BRCA1, 53BP1) or nucleases (e.g., Cas9, FokI), are depleted within the constriction, approaching 0%. Such losses—compounded by the occasional rupture of the nuclear envelope—can have important functional consequences. Studies of a nuclease that targets a locus in chromosome-1 indeed show that constricted migration delays DNA damage.
Carl Schmitt’s Literary Criticism
Authors: Hohendahl Peter Uwe
Published: October 2016

As early as 1916, Carl Schmitt underscored the centrality of myth and religion in his analysis of the expressionist Theodor Däubler. He celebrated Däubler as a Christian poet and radical critic of modernity. This critique of modernity was then articulated in more systematic terms his 1919 essay Political Romanticism, which opposed the Romantic approach to life and art as ironic escapism and relativism. During the 1920s and 1930s, a personal search for new ground led Schmitt to the Catholic author Konrad Weiss, and subsequently to Herman Melville’s story Benito Cereno as a private allegory of Carl Schmitt as persecuted intellectual. His late literary criticism focused on William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. His interpretation emphasizes the tragic nature of the play, explicitly taking issue with Walter Benjamin’s reading of Hamlet as a Christian Trauerspiel (mourning play). For Schmitt, the central issue is the presence of contemporary history as a force that deeply impacts the drama. This argument is directed against the notion of play and the idea of aesthetic autonomy. Instead, for Schmitt, the older concept of representation defines the place and relevance of art and the aesthetic within a broader cultural and religious configuration.
Proletarian Literature Reconsidered
Authors: Mullen Bill V.
Published: October 2016

Proletarian literature is best understood as strongly anticapitalist literature by or about working-class people. As a cultural form, proletarian literature is an expression of the experiences of working-class people under capitalism, an index to the social relationships created in and against capitalism. As a genre, proletarian literature was formalized in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917 as the cultural arm of the Bolshevik Revolution, amid intense debate about the nature and function of workers’ culture under socialism. Yet its roots run much deeper, coinciding with the development of capitalism, industrialization, and the making of class society itself. In the 19th century, for example, both the slave narrative and nonfiction writing by factory workers can be counted as expressions of working-class life and subjectivity. Rebecca Harding Davis’s Life in the Iron Mills, published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1861, may be taken as one of the first full-length, self-conscious examples of proletarian writing. That Davis’s book was written by a woman is also significant: proletarian literature reflects the disproportionate experiences of women, immigrants, migrants, African Americans, colonial subjects, and other people of color as members of the working class globally. Indeed, because the genre has historically been tied to the development of communist and socialist movements worldwide, proletarian literature is necessarily a global phenomenon, and an insightful indicator of the relationships between workers in different nations and colonies yoked together by global capitalism. Thus, proletarian literature should be studied as corollary to the development of capitalism across time and space; as an index to the lived experience of race, gender, sexuality, and class; and as one of the most important expressive forms and historical records left by members of the working class as a whole.
Women and Writing in Spanish America from Colonial Times through the 20th Century
Authors: Alzate Carolina , Osorio Betty
Published: October 2016

As in the case of other Western literary traditions, women’s relationship to writing in Spanish America has been problematic since early modernity. From colonial times onward, women’s emergence on the writing scene as authors went hand in hand with a redescription of the feminine that allowed them to become producers of written culture and to find a respectable entry into the public sphere from which they were excluded. Spanish-American feminine tradition from the 16th through the 20th centuries may be read as a gradual, heterogeneous, and difficult but nonetheless sustained and very productive occupation of new ground. Legitimation of their voice passed through the reading of the male tradition, the establishment of a female tradition, and the redescription of a subjectivity that would make it possible for them to take up the pen and eventually to imagine themselves being read by others. Establishing the contents of these women’s libraries, reconstructed through their testimonies of reading both in a colonial society in which illiteracy was very high—especially among women—and in 19th-century society in general, and in which access to the written word remained restricted, are key elements for understanding their writing. Most female authorship during the colonial period took the form of religious writing and was dependent upon the male figure of the confessor, as was the possibility of publishing their life stories and writings. But women authors were not only nuns, and it is also possible to find examples of women who left their mark on writing due to special circumstances (travelers and so-called witches). Male tutelage tended to remain in force throughout the 19th century, and newspapers would provide vitally important new spaces for publication in the young independent republics. Women’s relationship to newspapers, both as readers and authors, was essential to this writing tradition, and it would allow them to build reading and editorial networks—both within the Americas and across the Atlantic, a context that must be understood to properly understand their writing projects. Women writers in the early 20th century would travel, not without difficulty, along the roads paved by the pioneers. The year 1959, a provisional closing date marked by the Cuban Revolution, helps position 20th-century literature as one of the forms of the crisis of modernity: that which reveals and celebrates heterogeneity and could no longer openly continue excluding women from the authorized spaces for the production of meaning.
Reception in the Digital Era
Authors: Sedo DeNel Rehberg
Published: October 2016

The digital era offers a plethora of opportunities for readers to exchange opinions, share reading recommendations, and form ties with other readers. This communication often takes place in online environments, which presents reading researchers with new opportunities and challenges when investigating readers’ reading experiences.

What readers do with what they read is not a new topic of scholarly debate. As early as the 14th century, when scribes questioned how their readers understood their words, readers have been scrutinized. Contemporary reading investigations and theory formation began in earnest in the 1920s with I. A. Richards’s argument that the reader should be considered separate from the text. In the 1930s, Louise Rosenblatt furthered the discipline, using literature as an occasion for collective inquiry into both cultural and individual values and introducing the concerns for the phenomenological experience of reading and its intersubjectivity. While there is no universal theory of how readers read, more recent scholarly discourse illustrates a cluster of related views that see the reader and the text as complementary to one another in a variety of critical contexts.

With the advent of social media and Web 2.0, readers provide researchers with a host of opportunities to not only identify who they are, but to access in profound ways their individual and collective responses to the books they read. Reader responses on the Internet’s early email forums, or the contemporary iterations of browser-hosted groups such as Yahoo Groups or Google Groups, alongside book talk found on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, present data that can be analyzed through established or newly developed digital methods. Reviews and commentary on these platforms, in addition to the thousands of book blogs, Goodreads.com, LibraryThing.com, and readers’ reviews on bookseller websites illustrate cultural, economic, and social aspects of reading in ways that previously were often elusive to reading researchers.

Contemporary reading scholars bring to the analytical mix perspectives that enrich last century’s theories of unidentified readers. The methods illustrate the fertility available to contemporary investigations of readers and their books. Considered together, they allow scholars to contemplate the complexities of reading in the past, highlight the uniqueness of reading in the present, and provide material to help project into the future.
Book Culture from Below in Finland
Authors: Laine Tuija , Salmi-Niklander Kirsti
Published: October 2016

Vernacular literacy began in Finland with the Reformation. Michael Agricola, the first Finnish reformer, studied in Wittenberg, and, after returning to Finland, translated the first books into Finnish. The books were originally intended for priests, but in the middle of the 17th century a literacy campaign was conducted throughout the Swedish realm, one that was quite effective in expanding the reading audience. A number of bishops in the diocese of Turku were also active in writing basic religious material for the common people, including primers, catechisms, and hymnals. The church also examined its parishioners’ reading skills. People could not acquire the status of godparent, attend the Eucharist, or marry without proper reading skills and a knowledge of basic Christian doctrine. In the first phase of the campaign, reading was only learning by rote, but by the last decades of the 17th century bishops and priests were emphasizing the importance of reading from books and understanding their content. Literacy progressed further in the 18th century, and literature published in Finnish became more varied.

During the 19th century, Finland’s literacy rate continued to rise gradually. For the vast majority of the rural population, however, “literacy” meant only the very basic reading skills required and examined by the Lutheran Church. The statute for primary schools was laid down in 1866, but the law on compulsory primary education was not enacted until 1921. The Russian government began to promote the Finnish language in the 1860s. The consequent growth of Finnish-language literature and the expansion of the press allowed for reading by large segments of the population. The popular movements established during the final decades of the 19th century (the temperance movement, agrarian youth movement, and labor movement, for example) provided further opportunities for literary training. Among the lower classes in rural Finland, many self-educated writers submitted manuscripts to the Finnish Literature Society and sent news of their home parishes to newspapers. Some of them became professional writers or journalists.
Reading Culture in Japan
Authors: Kamei-Dyche Andrew T.
Published: October 2016

Reading in Japan has a rich history replete with transformative moments. The arrival of Chinese logographs by the 5th century necessitated the development of reading mechanisms adapting the logographs to the Japanese language which had previously lacked writing. In the Heian (794–1185) court, reading was often a social activity incorporating performance. Small reading communities read romances aloud to one another, while poetry competitions involved intense bouts of composition and reading. During the medieval era (1185–1600), literature spread through the recitation of epic tales with musical accompaniment, while in early modern times (1600–1867) the gradual expansion of literacy combined with a print revolution fueled the emergence of socially and geographically diverse communities of readers. Alongside studies of medicine and Neo-Confucian thought a market in popular fiction flourished. The arrival of modern printing technology at the end of the 19th century ushered in mass-market readership. Cheap printings of classic texts competed with popular serial fiction, both of which were encouraged by newspapers. During the early 20th century, reading came to be seen as an act of self-cultivation but retained a social element as students and educated urbanites read together and discussed literature. Contemporary Japanese society retains a strong emphasis on the social values of reading, understanding reading not primarily as an individual engagement with one’s interests but rather as a means to acquire a consciousness of one’s group and nation. Newspaper readership continues to be enormous, and the influence exercised by newspaper corporations and prominent publishers in Japanese society is significant, shaping not only what is read but how. Japanese manga, meanwhile, continue to enjoy a diffuse range of reading communities that represent considerable wealth and influence. Such communities vary by gender, age, and political leanings, and demand media suited to their own particular reading practices and identities. Technological innovation has also facilitated new reading experiences, such as visual novels, a type of interactive fiction game popular among Japanese gamers. The Internet has given rise to virtual reading cultures, embracing both traditional print readerships and visual novel fandoms, further enhanced by ubiquitous smartphone use among readers of all ages. Tokyo’s book town, Kanda-Jinbochō, is a thriving cultural center, and book fairs and other events are widely celebrated.
Nineteenth-Century Southern Literature
Authors: Hinrichsen Lisa , Pitts Michael
Published: October 2016

Defined by both cultural vibrancy and widespread poverty, and marked by a long and complex history of trade, migration, cultural exchange, and slavery, the literature of the U.S. South is born of the intricacies of a complex, polymorphous history and culture. The 19th century was a particularly tumultuous period, as the region experienced the rise and fall of chattel slavery through a military loss in 1865 that left in its wake a devastated country, a decimated generation, widespread poverty and physical destruction, the ruin of an agricultural economy that once offered the promise of cotton as “king,” and a legacy of explosive racial rage that would continue throughout the 20th century. Against these social, political, and economic changes, the dominant literatures that emerged reflected stratified life across color lines: a white pastoral tradition that celebrated the plantation and mourned for a past that never was, and a literature of slavery and resistance that envisioned a different future for African Americans.

Cloaking in romance their fervent beliefs in class hierarchy and enlightened upper-class rule, Confederate poets such as Paul Hamilton Hayne, Henry Timrod, and William Gilmore Simms positioned white mastery as the natural outcome of chivalry, while Joel Chandler Harris, John Pendleton Kennedy, and Thomas Nelson Page spun nostalgic fantasies of antebellum plantation life that reinforced myths about the continuing docility and inexpensiveness of the South’s black workforce. As blacks began to protest new forms of subjugation—the “Jim Crow” legislation that prohibited racial intermingling in public spaces, the recourse to lynching to terrorize African Americans—plantation fiction increasingly came to form an imagined defense against the new racial realities that would unfold over the course of the 20th century.

Meanwhile, black voices during the period offered a powerful alternative to white command, repudiating seductive myths of plantation life. The slave narratives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Booker T. Washington revealed a system infested with greed, inhumanity, deception, and cruelty. Slave writers George Moses Horton, Hannah Crafts, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and post–Civil War poets Albery A. Whitman and Joseph S. Cotter, Sr. wrote skillfully about racial and nonracial topics in ways that powerfully demonstrated black agency and subjectivity against a white rule that sought to strip them of it, while the work of Charles Chesnutt, William Wells Brown, and other writers drew on black vernacular language and folklore.

Entangled by a color line that would soon be singled out by W. E. B. Du Bois as a resistant and virulent problem for the nation at large, white and black Southerners, as the literature of the nineteenth century American South testifies, alternately struggled to evade and express the demands of racism’s intimate psychological consequences and the polyvalent power of interconnected ideologies of class and gender formed in this era.
Copyright
Authors: Bannerman Sara
Published: October 2016

Copyright is a bundle of rights granted to the creators of literary, artistic, and scientific works such as books, music, films, or computer programs. Copyright, as one of the most controversial areas of communication law and policy, has always been the subject of political contention; however, debates surrounding the subject have reached new levels of controversy since the 1990s as a result of the new formats of creative works made possible by digital media, and as a result of the new practices of authorship, creativity, consumption, collaboration, and sharing that have arisen in light of networking and social media. Technological change has not been the only driving force of change; social and political change, including changing concepts of authorship, the recognition of the rights of women and indigenous peoples, and the changing structures of international relations and international civil society, have also been reflected in copyright law. Copyright policymaking has become an increasingly internationalized affair. Forum-shifting has contributed to the proliferation of regional and international copyright policymaking forums under the rubric of stand-alone intellectual property institutions such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), as well as under institutions dedicated more broadly to international trade negotiations.

Communication scholars and others have contributed extensively to the field of copyright and intellectual property law. Communication scholars have made significant contributions in examining the cultural significance, political economy, history, and rhetoric of copyright, drawing on diverse fields that include cultural studies and critical political economy. Communications scholars’ influence in the field of copyright scholarship has been significant.
TV and Cable News Coverage of Climate Change
Authors: Gavin Neil T.
Published: October 2016

Television and cable are two routes by which broadcasters reach the public. Citizens are known to rely on a variety of media sources; however, television is seen by people in a very wide range of geographical locales, as a main or major source of reliable and trusted information. The coverage of climate change by broadcasters is, however, modest relative to press coverage of the topic and reports on topics other than global warming. Journalists in the televisual media can struggle to justify the inclusion of climate change in programming because it can lack the “newsworthiness” that draws editors and reporters to other issues. A range of incentives and pressures have tended to ensure that commentary and claims that stand outside the scientific consensus are represented in “balanced” reporting. The literature on broadcast programming output on climate change is highly diverse and often country specific. Nevertheless, certain features do stand out across locales, notably a focus on alarming (and possibly alarmist) commentary, limited reporting on the causes and consequences of climate change, and widespread reproduction of climate sceptic claims. These common forms of coverage seem unlikely to prompt full understanding of, serious engagement with, or concern about the issue.
Fiscal Politics
Authors: Hallerberg Mark
Published: October 2016

The topic of fiscal politics includes taxation and spending, budget balances and debt levels, and crises and the politics of austerity. The discussion often focuses on how some variable—such as the international environment, or political institutions—constrains “politics” in this realm. Almost omnipresent concerns about endogeneity run through this research. While this is a “big” policy area that deserves study, tracing causation is difficult.
Civil War Termination
Authors: Hartzell Caroline A.
Published: October 2016

Civil wars typically have been terminated by a variety of means, including military victories, negotiated settlements and ceasefires, and “draws.” Three very different historical trends in the means by which civil wars have ended can be identified for the post–World War II period. A number of explanations have been developed to account for those trends, some of which focus on international factors and others on national or actor-level variables. Efforts to explain why civil wars end as they do are considered important because one of the most contested issues among political scientists who study civil wars is how “best” to end a civil war if the goal is to achieve a stable peace. Several factors have contributed to this debate, among them conflicting results produced by various studies on this topic as well as different understandings of the concepts war termination, civil war resolution, peace-building, and stable peace.
Pro-Government Militias and Conflict
Authors: Carey Sabine C. , Mitchell Neil J. , Scharpf Adam
Published: October 2016

Pro-government militias are a prominent feature of civil wars. Governments in Ukraine, Russia, Syria, and Sudan recruit irregular forces in their armed struggle against insurgents. The United States collaborated with Awakening groups to counter the insurgency in Iraq, just as colonizers used local armed groups to fight rebellions in their colonies. A now quite wide and established cross-disciplinary literature on pro-government nonstate armed groups has generated a variety of research questions for scholars interested in conflict, political violence, and political stability: Does the presence of such groups indicate a new type of conflict? What are the dynamics that drive governments to align with informal armed groups and that make armed groups choose to side with the government? Given the risks entailed in surrendering a monopoly of violence, is there a turning point in a conflict when governments enlist these groups? How successful are these groups? Why do governments use these nonstate armed actors to shape foreign conflicts, whether as insurgents or counterinsurgents abroad? Are these nonstate armed actors always useful to governments or perhaps even an indicator of state failure? How do pro-government militias affect the safety and security of civilians?

The enduring pattern of collaboration between governments and pro-government armed groups challenges conventional theory and the idea of an evolutionary process of the modern state consolidating the means of violence. Research on these groups and their consequences began with case studies, and these continue to yield valuable insights. More recently, survey work and cross-national quantitative research have contributed to our knowledge. This mix of methods is opening new lines of inquiry for research on insurgencies and the delivery of the core public good of effective security.
History of Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology in Southern Africa
Authors: Gahwiler Clinton , Hill Lee , Grand’Maison Valérie
Published: October 2016

Since the 1970s, significant growth globally has occurred in the related fields of sport, exercise, and performance psychology. In Southern Africa, however, this growth has occurred unevenly and, other than isolated pockets of interest, there has been little teaching, research, or practice.

South Africa is an exception, however, even during the years of apartheid. A number of international sport psychology pioneers in fact visited South Africa during the 1970s on sponsored trips. Virtually all this activity took place in the economically advantaged sectors of the country, and it is only since the end of apartheid in 1994 that applied services have been extended to the economically disadvantaged areas through both government and private funding.

The 2010s have also seen a growing awareness in other Southern African countries, which have begun sporadically using (mainly foreign-based) sport psychology consultants. Among these countries, Botswana is currently leading the way in developing locally based expertise.

Throughout the Southern African region, sport, exercise, and performance psychology remain organizationally underdeveloped and unregulated. Local researchers and practitioners in the field face unique challenges, including a multicultural environment and a lack of resources. In working to overcome these challenges, however, they have the potential to significantly add value to the global knowledge base of sport, exercise, and performance psychology.
Physical Activity and Sleep
Authors: Aritake-Okada Sayaka , Uchida Sunao
Published: October 2016

Research indicates that both acute and chronic physical activity improve sleep. Effects on sleep include prolongation of total sleep time, slow wave sleep increase, rapid eye movement sleep decrease, wake after sleep onset reduction, and shortened sleep latency. However, detailed biological mechanisms of these effects have not been well elucidated.

Past studies strongly suggest that the sleep-promoting effect of exercise could be multifactorial. Increase of slow wave sleep, which has been repeatedly reported, strongly suggests physical activity effects on central nervous system function. Physical activity also elevates body temperature, alters glucose, and impacts other metabolic regulations. Habitual exercise also alters autonomic nervous system predominance measured by heart rate variability.