bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Earliest human occupations at Dmanisi (Georgian Caucasus) dated to 1.85–1.78 Ma
Authors: Ferring Reid , Oms Oriol , Agustí Jordi , Berna Francesco , Nioradze Medea , Shelia Teona , Tappen Martha , Vekua Abesalom , Zhvania David , Lordkipanidze David
Published: June 2011

The early Pleistocene colonization of temperate Eurasia by
Homo erectus
was not only a significant biogeographic event but also a major evolutionary threshold. Dmanisi's rich collection of hominin fossils, revealing a population that was small-brained with both primitive and derived skeletal traits, has been dated to the earliest Upper Matuyama chron (
ca
. 1.77 Ma). Here we present archaeological and geologic evidence that push back Dmanisi's first occupations to shortly after 1.85 Ma and document repeated use of the site over the last half of the Olduvai subchron, 1.85–1.78 Ma. These discoveries show that the southern Caucasus was occupied repeatedly before Dmanisi's hominin fossil assemblage accumulated, strengthening the probability that this was part of a core area for the colonization of Eurasia. The secure age for Dmanisi's first occupations reveals that Eurasia was probably occupied before
Homo erectus
appears in the East African fossil record.
Reference-guided assembly of four diverse
Arabidopsis thaliana
genomes
Authors: Schneeberger Korbinian , Ossowski Stephan , Ott Felix , Klein Juliane D. , Wang Xi , Lanz Christa , Smith Lisa M. , Cao Jun , Fitz Joffrey , Warthmann Norman , Henz Stefan R. , Huson Daniel H. , Weigel Detlef
Published: June 2011

We present whole-genome assemblies of four divergent
Arabidopsis thaliana
strains that complement the 125-Mb reference genome sequence released a decade ago. Using a newly developed reference-guided approach, we assembled large contigs from 9 to 42 Gb of Illumina short-read data from the Landsberg
erecta
(L
er
-1), C24, Bur-0, and Kro-0 strains, which have been sequenced as part of the 1,001 Genomes Project for this species. Using alignments against the reference sequence, we first reduced the complexity of the de novo assembly and later integrated reads without similarity to the reference sequence. As an example, half of the noncentromeric C24 genome was covered by scaffolds that are longer than 260 kb, with a maximum of 2.2 Mb. Moreover, over 96% of the reference genome was covered by the reference-guided assembly, compared with only 87% with a complete de novo assembly. Comparisons with 2 Mb of dideoxy sequence reveal that the per-base error rate of the reference-guided assemblies was below 1 in 10,000. Our assemblies provide a detailed, genomewide picture of large-scale differences between
A. thaliana
individuals, most of which are difficult to access with alignment-consensus methods only. We demonstrate their practical relevance in studying the expression differences of polymorphic genes and show how the analysis of sRNA sequencing data can lead to erroneous conclusions if aligned against the reference genome alone. Genome assemblies, raw reads, and further information are accessible through
http://1001genomes.org/projects/assemblies.html
.
New TIPs for successfully growing microtubules
Authors: Short Ben
Published: June 2011

Two studies identify new proteins that promote microtubule dynamics.
SLAIN2 links microtubule plus end–tracking proteins and controls microtubule growth in interphase
Authors: van der Vaart Babet , Manatschal Cristina , Grigoriev Ilya , Olieric Vincent , Gouveia Susana Montenegro , Bjelić Saša , Demmers Jeroen , Vorobjev Ivan , Hoogenraad Casper C. , Steinmetz Michel O. , Akhmanova Anna
Published: June 2011

The ends of growing microtubules (MTs) accumulate a set of diverse factors known as MT plus end–tracking proteins (+TIPs), which control microtubule dynamics and organization. In this paper, we identify SLAIN2 as a key component of +TIP interaction networks. We showed that the C-terminal part of SLAIN2 bound to end-binding proteins (EBs), cytoplasmic linker proteins (CLIPs), and CLIP-associated proteins and characterized in detail the interaction of SLAIN2 with EB1 and CLIP-170. Furthermore, we found that the N-terminal part of SLAIN2 interacted with ch-TOG, the mammalian homologue of the MT polymerase XMAP215. Through its multiple interactions, SLAIN2 enhanced ch-TOG accumulation at MT plus ends and, as a consequence, strongly stimulated processive MT polymerization in interphase cells. Depletion or disruption of the SLAIN2–ch-TOG complex led to disorganization of the radial MT array. During mitosis, SLAIN2 became highly phosphorylated, and its interaction with EBs and ch-TOG was inhibited. Our study provides new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying cell cycle–specific regulation of MT polymerization and the organization of the MT network.
EB1 promotes microtubule dynamics by recruiting Sentin in Drosophila cells
Authors: Li Wenjing , Miki Tomohiro , Watanabe Takashi , Kakeno Mai , Sugiyama Ikuko , Kaibuchi Kozo , Goshima Gohta
Published: June 2011

Highly conserved EB1 family proteins bind to the growing ends of microtubules, recruit multiple cargo proteins, and are critical for making dynamic microtubules in vivo. However, it is unclear how these master regulators of microtubule plus ends promote microtubule dynamics. In this paper, we identify a novel EB1 cargo protein, Sentin. Sentin depletion in Drosophila melanogaster S2 cells, similar to EB1 depletion, resulted in an increase in microtubule pausing and led to the formation of shorter spindles, without displacing EB1 from growing microtubules. We demonstrate that Sentin’s association with EB1 was critical for its plus end localization and function. Furthermore, the EB1 phenotype was rescued by expressing an EBN-Sentin fusion protein in which the C-terminal cargo-binding region of EB1 is replaced with Sentin. Knockdown of Sentin attenuated plus end accumulation of Msps (mini spindles), the orthologue of XMAP215 microtubule polymerase. These results indicate that EB1 promotes dynamic microtubule behavior by recruiting the cargo protein Sentin and possibly also a microtubule polymerase to the microtubule tip.
On various Teichmüller spaces of a surface of infinite topological type
Authors: Alessandrini Daniele , Liu Lixin , Papadopoulos Athanase , Su Weixu
Published: June 2011

We investigate various Teichmüller spaces associated to a surface of infinite topological type. We show that the length spectrum metric is complete. We give results and examples that compare the length spectrum Teichmüller space with the quasiconformal and the Fenchel-Nielsen Teichmüller spaces.
Lucretius
Authors: Campbell Gordon Lindsay
Published: June 2011

Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus, b. c. 94–d. c. 55 or 51 bce) was one of the most important Latin poets of Antiquity. He was a predecessor of Virgil, who was profoundly influenced by him. His only known work is his poem De rerum natura (On the nature of the universe, or On the nature of things; frequently referred to as DRN), a didactic work of six books in epic hexameter verse in which he expounds the philosophical system of Epicurus. Lucretius has been an important source for Epicureanism and has been profoundly influential on progressive thinking from Antiquity to the modern world. Often accused of atheism, Lucretius was in fact a deeply religious poet who strove to combat what he saw as the religious errors of his day, to convince his readers that they should not fear the gods or fear death. If they can free themselves from these fears, Lucretius tells them, there is nothing to prevent them from living a life equal to that of the gods.
Topography of Athens
Authors: Hurwit Jeffrey M. , Mitsios Ioannis
Published: June 2011

The ancient city-state (or polis) of Athens was contiguous with the region known as Attica, a large, triangular peninsula extending southeastward from the Greek mainland into the Aegean Sea. In the western angle of Attica, on a coastal plain surrounded by four mountains (Hymettos, Pentelikon, Parnes, and Aigaleos), lay the city itself. Although the modern city has thickly spread up the slopes of the mountains as well as to the sea, the study of Athenian topography concentrates on the monuments, buildings, and spaces of the ancient urban core, an area roughly 3 square kilometers surrounding the Acropolis and defended in the Classical period by a wall some 6.5 kilometers in length. Athens is the ancient Greek city that we know best, and it is unquestionably the Greek city whose art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and political history have had the greatest impact on the Western tradition and imagination. As a result, “Athenian” is sometimes considered synonymous with “Greek.” It is not. In many respects, Athens was exceptional among Greek city-states, not typical: it was a very different place from, say, Thebes or Sparta. Still, the study of Athens, its monuments, and its culture needs no defense, and the charge of “Athenocentrism” is a hollow indictment when one stands before the Parthenon or holds a copy of Sophocles’ Antigone. This article will refer to the following periods in the history of Athens and Greece (the dates are conventional): late Bronze, or Mycenaean, Age (1550–1100 bce); Dark Age (1100–760 bce); Archaic (760–480 bce); Classical (480–323 bce); Hellenistic (323 –31 bce); and Roman (31 BCE–c. 475 ce).
Neuroscience and Social Work
Authors: Serbinski Sarah , MacFadden Robert J.
Published: June 2011

Social work has historically embraced a biopsychosocial perspective, but in teaching, practice, and research there has been much less emphasis on the biological side of this professional stance. Recent advances in neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, education, interpersonal neurobiology, and related fields have provided an exciting new paradigm to explore the issues that are central to social work, such as coping, adjustment, mental health, child and adult development, attachment, learning, emotion, and relationships. Social work is at the earliest of stages in translating the meaning and significance of this emerging knowledge for its own professional purposes, as recently highlighted within the special edition of Smith College Studies in Social Work in 2014. As has been the tradition, social work will continue to benefit from knowledge developed from cognate professions, such as psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and education. At the same time, neuroscience itself is at an early stage in the development and refinement of knowledge relevant to the understanding of the brain, mind, emotions, thinking, and behavior. However, even in this early stage of knowledge, neuroscience and related fields are providing some insights for social work.
Daniel
Authors: Newsom Carol
Published: June 2011

The book of Daniel contains a collection of short narratives about Daniel and his three friends at the courts of pagan kings (chapters 1–6), followed by a series of apocalyptic visions received by Daniel (chapters 7–12). In Christian canons the book is placed with the prophetic works, following Ezekiel, whereas in the Jewish canon Daniel is grouped with the writings, following the Megillot and preceding Ezra. The book of Daniel played a major role in the development of modern historical criticism, since historical critical methods cast doubt on the book’s claims that Daniel was a historical figure from the time of the Babylonian exile who saw visions of a distant future. Modern scholarship now judges that the book had a long process of development. Although oral traditions concerning Daniel may indeed go back to the end of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (mid-6th century bce), the story collection appears to have taken shape during the Persian period and to have reached its final form in the early Hellenistic era (3rd century bce). The apocalypses, however, can be closely dated to the time of the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes (168–164 bce). Additional literature about Daniel was also produced. Some of these compositions (Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and Additions to Daniel 3) are considered canonical by the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. Other noncanonical Danielic compositions have been discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The book was widely influential both in early Judaism and in Christianity.
David
Authors: Matthews Victor H. , Pioske Dan
Published: June 2011

Few persons mentioned in the biblical text have had as much influence on later traditions as has David. This complex biblical character is portrayed against the backdrop of the establishment of a newly minted united monarchy over the Israelite tribes in the tenth century bce, but the ideal image created about him continued to serve as a model for later kings. The debate over the historicity of the narrative and of the person of King David had a revival in 1993 after the discovery of the “House of David” inscription at Tel Dan, the earliest reference to David outside the Hebrew Bible. Recent archaeological finds produced from Jerusalem and Khirbet Qeiyafa have further contributed to these debates. Much of what has been written about David reflects the struggles between minimalists and maximalists, historians and literary critics. Ultimately, whether David was a historical character or not is not as important as the influence his story and traditional image have had on literature, drama, poetry, and popular culture.
Jesus of Nazareth
Authors: Piovanelli Pierluigi
Published: June 2011

In modern and contemporary research, the study of the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth has become a specialized branch of New Testament and early Christian studies, distinct from research into the different forms of worship of the divinized Christ found in various early Christian communities. The first approach presupposes a critical reading of the primary sources (mainly canonical and extracanonical Christian texts) in order to retrieve the historical evidence buried beneath layers of Christological interpretations. Conversely, the scope of the second is more exegetical and focuses precisely on the Christological ideas and theological messages that the first Christian thinkers and authors tried to convey in their writings. The first is the outcome of the European Enlightenment and its appeal to reason and rationality in order to explain the diverse phenomena of human history, including the miraculous events that, according to Christian traditions, characterized Jesus’ earthly life. The second corresponds to the scholarly side of time-honored Christian faith and confession, rooted in the proclamation of Paul and echoed by the authors of the first biographies of Jesus. However, in spite of the apparently irreconcilable opposition between history and theology, in the case of the historical Jesus, specialists of either discipline cannot simply ignore what is accomplished in the other field. On the one hand, an exegetical and theological background is required in order to navigate through the textual complexities of Christian primary sources—a methodological sophistication that is now perfectly encapsulated in the holistic approach of sociorhetorical criticism. On the other hand, the Jewish and Christian religions are based on a special relationship that God has established with his creatures in and through the course of history; the human career of the Christ is not an exception and should not be less relevant than the proclamations of his followers—in fact, the opposite is true. Actually, this is exactly the feeling of the majority of Christian specialists who, in the last 250 years, have devoted themselves to the controversial study of the historical Jesus: many of them did and still do wish to use the results of their research to build alternative models for a radical reformation of Christianity. From a postmodern point of view, we could say that the large majority of those often self-proclaimed historians had and still have a robustly theological agenda. (Because of the vast amount of scholarship on Jesus, including many anthologies and collections of significant essays, articles published in journals or chapters in collective volumes will not be mentioned in this bibliography. Almost all of the books treated here have been published since 1985.)
Pentateuch
Authors: Dozeman Thomas B.
Published: June 2011

The Pentateuch includes the first five books of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The literary category of the Pentateuch reflects the traditional Jewish grouping of these books together as the Torah. The thematic design of the five books of the Pentateuch can be divided into two unequal parts: Genesis and Exodus–Deuteronomy. Genesis traces the ancestral origins of Israel. It is composed in narrative, with no single character dominating the story. Genesis narrates the creation of the world (Genesis 1–11) and the ancestral origins of Israel (Genesis 12–50) through a series of genealogies that narrow from all humanity (2:4a, heaven and earth; 5:1, Adam; 6:9, Noah; 10:1, Noah’s sons; 11:10, Shem) to the Israelite ancestors (11:27, Terah; 25:12, Ishmael; 25:19, Isaac, 36:1, Esau; 37:2, Jacob). Exodus through Deuteronomy recounts the Israelite salvation from Egypt, the wilderness journey, and the revelation of law at the divine mountain. These books are a mixture of narrative and law, with Moses emerging as the central character. The story is framed by his birth (Exodus 2) and death (Deuteronomy 34) and recounts his leadership of the Israelites over two generation. Moses liberates the first generation of Israelites from Egypt (Exodus 5–14), leads them in the wilderness (Exodus 15–18; Numbers 11–21), and mediates divine law at the mountain of God. He repeats the revelation of law to the second generation on the plains of Moab (Deuteronomy).
Rhetoric of the New Testament
Authors: Watson Duane F.
Published: June 2011

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. In the Western world, its practice is rooted in Greece and Rome where the ability to speak well was essential to political life and perpetuating the power of the upper class. Rhetoric provided the content of secondary and tertiary education as it prepared the sons of the wealthy to take their places in the judicial and political system. Rhetoric was carefully systematized and influenced both oral and written speech. Its use is evident in the New Testament at every turn, including the Gospel writers’ development of the sayings of Jesus into more elaborate pronouncement stories, Luke’s composition of the speeches in the Acts of the Apostles, Paul’s sophisticated use of argumentation in 2 Corinthians 10–13, and John’s multivalent and emotive use of imagery in Revelation. Rightly, rhetoric has been used intermittently throughout church history to interpret the New Testament. Its use is conspicuous in the writings of the early Church Fathers up to and including Augustine, only to be mentioned sporadically by a handful of scholars during the medieval period. Its use is revived in the Reformation, especially by Philip Melanchthon, and continued to be a vital part of interpretation until the end of the 19th century with a crescendo of works produced in Germany. It plays only a nominal role throughout most of the 20th century, until the mid-1970s when works by Hans Dieter Betz and George A. Kennedy, among others, revived the role of rhetoric in interpretation. In fact, rhetoric is currently one of the more prominent tools used in New Testament interpretation, both as a historical enterprise using Greco-Roman rhetoric and in broader studies using modern rhetoric to understand the functions of rhetoric.
Slavery
Authors: Byron John
Published: June 2011

Slavery was an accepted part of the world in which the biblical authors lived and wrote. It was a vital part of the empires in the ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman West. The Hebrew Bible condones slavery, contains laws regulating it, and even uses it as a metaphor to describe God’s relationship with Israel. The New Testament, entrenched in the Greco-Roman world, accepts the fact of slavery, commands slaves to obey their masters, and even recounts the return of a slave to his master. But as attitudes began to change and abolitionism became a motivating force, biblicists were challenged to reexamine the Bible in light of the new worldview. The Bible was used both to support and to condemn slavery. More recently, the descendants of former slaves have asked how the Bible, used to subjugate their ancestors, can still be a valuable religious text. These shifts in attitude have led to a reevaluation of how slavery is studied. Scholars have moved away from legal definitions of slavery, which view the institution from the owner’s perspective, to sociological definitions that provide insight into how the institution was experienced by the enslaved.
Amitābha
Authors: Amstutz Galen
Published: June 2011

The three topics of Amitābha (in Japanese, Amida; in Chinese, Amituo), Pure Land Buddhism, and nembutsu are always linked together. The Buddha Amitābha was the Mahayana deity at the center of the mythos, was the icon of nembutsu practice, and was the occupier of the relevant Pure Land. Linguistically, the name means “infinite light” and an associated name Amitāyus meant “infinite life.” Amitābha traditions are thought to have grown out of an understanding that the actual presence of the founding teacher Śākyamuni was an essential element of Buddhism in its origins, and consequently there was a continuing desire among followers to somehow reexperience such a presence. The Sanskrit term for this orientation was buddhānusmṛti (literally, “recollection of the Buddha, thinking on the Buddha, keeping the Buddha in mind”; later pronounced nembutsu in Japanese), and the concept became particularly associated with Pure Land teachings since it was by means of “recollection of the Buddha” that karmic birth in the Pure Land realm—however interpreted—could be achieved. However, despite its common core body of mythic materials, Amitābha Buddhism has been a flexible, polysemic network of texts, terms, ideas, and images, in which nembutsu practice meant a variety of engagements—contemplation, visualization or recitation—involving symbolic information (especially visual or auditory) that came from the Pure Land sutras. A broad historical shift took place in East Asia toward popularization and especially the simplification of practice into a vocal recitation of the Buddha Amitābha’s name. Amitābha traditions eventually formed one of the most important parts of Mahayana Buddhism, especially in East Asia.
Buddhist Modernism
Authors: McMahan David L.
Published: June 2011

Scholars have used a cluster of terms—“Protestant Buddhism,” “modern Buddhism,” and most commonly, “Buddhist modernism”—to refer to forms of Buddhism beginning in the 19th century that combined Buddhist ideas and practices with key discourses of Western modernity. They identify Buddhist modernism as characterized by an emphasis on texts, rationality, meditation, egalitarianism, and increased participation of women and laity, along with a deemphasis on ritual, dogma, clerical hierarchy, “superstition,” traditional cosmology, and icon worship. Buddhist modernism began in the context of European colonization and Christian missionization of peoples in Buddhist countries. It emerged both as a form of resistance to these forces and an appropriation of Western philosophy, religion, social forms, and ways of life, creating a hybrid of Buddhism and modern Western discourses and practices. It was a co-creation of educated, reform-minded Asian Buddhists and Western Orientalists and sympathizers, who presented Buddhism as rational and compatible with modern science, while at the same time drawing from rationalism’s critics, the Romantics and Transcendentalists, with their emphasis on interior exploration, creativity, and an organic, interdependent cosmos. Although novel in many ways, its advocates often claimed it went back to the original, “pure” Buddhism of the Buddha himself, prior to what many considered extraneous cultural accretions that had adhered to it over the centuries. It was more than just a return, however; it was a reformulation of Buddhist concepts in the categories, discourses, and vocabulary of Western modernity. Much of what is considered Buddhism today is inevitably part of, or at least deeply influenced by, these modernist forms that emerged over a century ago. Indeed, many 20th-century scholarly studies of Buddhism followed the modernists, assuming that this was “true Buddhism” and popular Buddhism on the ground was less than relevant. Only in recent decades have scholars begun to fully appreciate the modernity of these articulations of Buddhism against the backdrop of the great diversity of Buddhist traditions across Asia and throughout their long history. Recent iterations of Buddhist modernism include global lay meditation movements such as the Insight Meditation, or vipassanā, movement, modernist forms of Zen, and socially engaged Buddhism, which vigorously addresses political and social realities while liberally borrowing from Western political and social theory and the language of rights. The works below include scholarly analyses of Buddhist modernism and scholarly works that assume certain modernist perspectives (i.e., feminist analyses of Buddhism and socially engaged advocacy scholarship), along with a small sampling of primary sources (i.e., popular or apologetic works) that reveal Buddhist modernism from the inside and in its historical development.
Medically Assisted Dying
Authors: Young Robert
Published: June 2011

Although a few noteworthy philosophical contributions were made in the middle of the last century to the debate about the moral and legal permissibility of physician-assisted suicide, voluntary euthanasia, and nonvoluntary euthanasia, the intensity of the debate within philosophical (and other) forums has risen dramatically since the late 1970s. This article covers both the moral permissibility of medically assisted dying and the distinct issue of whether it should be legalized. The focus is on works of philosophical significance, except for one section on key empirical studies of legalized medically assisted dying in the Netherlands and Oregon. Restrictions on the number of sources have resulted in many worthy philosophical, medical, legal, and more popular publications not being included.
Practical Reason
Authors: Suikkanen Jussi
Published: June 2011

Practical reason is the mental faculty that enables agents to deliberate about what they ought to do and to act on the basis of such deliberation. Much of the philosophical investigation of practical reason and its limits has been done in three historical traditions, originating from Aristotle, Hume, and Kant. This article begins from some of the most interesting recent publications within these traditions. It then moves on to the literature of the different problem-centered debates concerning practical reason, practical reasoning, and rationality. The notion of philosophy of practical reason has also been used more widely to cover philosophy of normativity generally, that is, philosophical investigation about what we ought to do, what reasons we have, and so on. Two sections of this bibliography—Dualism of Practical Reason: Prudence versus Morality and Practical Reasons—include some literature of the philosophy of practical reason in this wider sense.
Peacekeeping
Authors: Rundquist Erik K.
Published: June 2011

Although the term “peacekeeping” is not defined in the original 1945 United Nations (UN) Charter, the act of using civilian police and military forces to deter and halt conflict has been used on at least sixty-three major operations around the world since 1948. Chapter VI of the UN Charter covers the pacific settlement of disputes whereby the Security Council can decide to take action if a dispute is “likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.” Likewise, Chapter VII of the UN Charter describes the Security Council’s activities concerning threats and breaches to the peace about which the UN may “take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.” To highlight the murkiness of peacekeeping, the second UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld is purported to have said that peace operations should fall under “Chapter Six and a Half” of the UN Charter. The goals of this bibliography are to familiarize readers and researchers on the evolution of peacekeeping operations using various works from the 1970s to 2010 in order to better understand the complex nature of these types of missions. The bibliography seeks to examine peacekeeping from multiple reference points to include time (Cold War vs. post–Cold War), geography (campaigns involving peacekeeping operations around the world), actor (perspectives of nations and non-UN coalitions that contribute to peacekeeping forces), activity (ranging from traditional peacekeeping to enforce cease-fire agreements and the use of lightly armed military observer teams, to more aggressive peace enforcement operations without consent of the belligerents), and operating environment (complex humanitarian relief operations conducted in the midst of intrastate conflict and civil war).
Imperialism
Authors: Hodge Carl Cavanagh
Published: June 2011

Imperialism refers to the extension of the dominion of one nation over others by military conquest, political or economic compulsion, or some combination of the three. Derived from the Roman notion of imperium, connoting the dominion brought by way of the conquest, imperialism is in substance a form of large-scale political organization as old as recorded history. Varying both in terms of territorial expanse and formal institutional organization, all imperialism entails a fundamental political inequality between the imperial nation and its various subject nations or tribes. Ancient empires, such as Pharaonic Egypt, lasting from the founding of the Old Kingdom in 3500 bce to the end of the New Kingdom in 715 BCE, the Persian Empire (556–330 bce), the First and Second Athenian empires (454–404 bce and 378–355 bce), the Roman Empire (264 bce–527 ce), and the successive Chinese empires from the Qin (221–206 bce) to the Han (206 bce–8 ce ) developed governing and administrative institutions sophisticated and durable enough to be ranked as significant chapters in the history of government. Others, such as the Macedonian Empire under Alexander the Great (334–324 bce ) accomplished rapid expansion over vast territory yet left little behind, save military inspiration to future conquerors such as Gaius Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte. The most expansive empire in human history, the Mongol Empire of Chinggis Khan (1206–1294) brought peoples from China through Central Asia to the Black Sea and Poland under its sway but left mostly desolation in its wake.
Geopolitics and Geostrategy
Authors: Gardner Hall
Published: June 2011

Concepts of geopolitics and geostrategy are moving in new directions in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse in 1991 and the antistate “terrorist” attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. A reconceptualization has proved necessary in the effort to better analyze the global ramifications of the collapse of the amphibious Soviet empire, if not predict the future geopolitical contours of the global system. At present, the essentially insular United States continues to sustain global military predominance, but appears to be losing its overseas political and economic influence in a number of regions due to the rise of emerging powers. Questions remain as to whether a new form of polycentrism is truly in the making, how long the United States can sustain its global predominance, and whether the advent of globalization and rise of new regional powers will result in wider regional, if not global conflict, or else in new systems of global governance that could help mediate more traditional territorial state rivalry. This article examines works that deal with geopolitics and geostrategy and that generally seek to examine multiple systemic factors that affect global decision-making processes, not to overlook the forces of globalization as they have impacted upon more traditional geopolitical analysis. It consequently looks at those studies that seek to formulate or discuss the multidimensional aspects of global strategy, including military strategy and diplomacy, particularly when the latter is used as the art of statecraft to reach settlements over territory or other vital issues of geostrategic, military-technological or political-economic concerns.
Liberalism
Authors: Cristol Jonathan
Published: June 2011

Liberal international relations (IR) theory is related to, but distinct from, the Utopianism of the interwar period. The utopians believed that war could be eliminated either by perfecting man or by perfecting government. The roots of modern liberal international relations theory can be traced back farther than utopianism to Immanuel Kant’s essay “To Perpetual Peace” (1795) (and arguably farther; see Kant 2003, cited under Immanuel Kant). In that essay Kant provided three “definitive conditions” for perpetual peace, each of which became a dominant strain of post–World War II liberal IR theory. Neoliberal Institutionalism (also called “neoliberalism” or “institutional liberalism”) emphasizes the importance of international institutions (Kant’s “federation of free states”) in maintaining peace. Commercial Liberalism emphasizes the importance of economic interdependence and free trade (Kant’s “universal hospitality”) in maintaining peace. Democratic Peace Theory argues that democracies rarely, if ever, go to war with each other, and thus an executive accountable to the people or the parliament is important to maintain peace (Kant’s call for all states to have “republican constitutions”). There are other forms of liberal IR theory that are not explicitly dealt with in this article, such as functionalism and neofunctionalism, for example. For the purposes of a broad overview of the theory, only the predominant strains of liberal IR theory are included. Earlier generations of scholars refer to liberalism as “idealism.” More recent scholarship uses “idealism” to refer to “utopianism” or even “constructivism.” However, all postwar liberal theories share a few basic concepts that allow them to be called “liberal”: (1) states are the primary actors in the international system, but they are not unitary—domestic politics matters; (2) there are factors beyond capabilities that constrain state behavior; and (3) states’ interests are multiple and changing. The key concepts found in liberal theory are absolute gains, international institutions, free trade, and democracy. International Law is also important in liberal IR theory as it is seen as forming a major constraint on state behavior. Particular international institutions are also important in the development of liberal IR theory, but they are not explicitly dealt with in this article. Liberal IR theory is a particularly Western-focused theory that deals with the advantages, limitations, and exportability of typically Western forms of government. Thus, American and English sources dominate this article. It could be argued that the “English school” belongs here, but the placement of the English school in solely a realist, liberal, or constructivist framework could be considered quite controversial, as its locus within IR theory is contested. Therefore, the English school is dealt with in the “International Relations Theory” article, and more extensively in the “International Society” article.
Gatekeeping
Authors: Shoemaker Pamela , Riccio Jaime , Johnson Philip
Published: June 2011

Billions of events occur in the world each day, but only a few of them become news. The process through which this occurs is referred to as gatekeeping. Gatekeeping theory is the nexus between two inarguable facts: events occur everywhere all of the time and the news media cannot cover all of them. And so, when an event occurs, someone has to decide whether and how to pass the information to another person, such as a friend, an official, or even a journalist. Many decisions are made between the occurrence of an event and its transmission as news: decision points are referred to as gates and decision makers as gatekeepers. The decision-making process is the core of gatekeeping. It is possible for anyone to be a gatekeeper—anyone who has information about the event and decides to pass it to another person or organization. In processing information and conveying it to someone else, gatekeepers consciously or unconsciously change the information. Some is withheld and the rest is not unchanged, as if it were merely squeezed from a gatekeeping sponge. Traditionally, the role of the gatekeeper was seen as that of a journalist or news editor. Today we see that interpersonal chains of social media organizations and their participants, for instance, connect with media chains in an entirely new way—moving information from one to another, overlapping the news media, and integrating into a new journalism in which reporters and officials have less control over the flow of information than they did in the 20th century. Individuals in the former mass audience have substantial influence as gatekeepers. Everyone constantly evaluates the importance of events. We are participant observers in our own lives, continually making decisions about bits of information. Whereas once we were able to tell only our social circles about news that was relevant to us, those who have the technology and skills to use social media are gatekeepers for people in larger and larger circles. This can result in sharing more information than was consciously or unconsciously intended. Multiple audiences now exist, some more influential than others, with gatekeepers of all sorts monitoring social media content to learn which units of information may be important to large numbers of people. For the first time since the invention of the printing press, individuals in multiple audiences control the flow of information within and across social systems. No longer can a small number of officials and journalists control decisions about which information is acceptable and which is inappropriate. The 21st century marked the start of an age of new combinations between the news media and social media, journalists and individuals. The linear, top-down path of the 20th-century gatekeeping process has been changed irrevocably.
Codes and Cultural Discourse Analysis
Authors: Carbaugh Donal
Published: June 2011

The concept of code is used in this body of work to identify a system of beliefs and values that is immanent in communication practices. The concept has its roots in the works of Basil Bernstein, who explored patterns of communication among social classes in Britain. Bernstein formulated the idea to account for variation in communication practice, and it is that commitment to variability or diversity, along with others, such as distinctiveness and membership, which grounds the idea of speech code, or communication code, as it is used here. Cultural Discourse Analysis is a methodology for examining codes, and has been developed within this intellectual tradition. According to Gerry Philipsen, a pioneer and seminal figure in such study, cultural communication is the realization of a code in a communal conversation. The theory of cultural communication and of cultural discourse focuses on distinctive means of communication that are used in specific contexts, and the meanings of those practices to participants who use them. The methodology employed in this type of analysis is rigorously based on five analytically different yet complementary modes of analysis; these involve four nonoptional modes of theoretical, descriptive, interpretive, and comparative analyses. A fifth mode is also valuable at times, and it involves critical study.
Public Relations
Authors: Len-Ríos María
Published: June 2011

The practice of public relations (PR) has been around for a long time, although the modern practice of public relations has become more sophisticated with its increased focus on research, which has been examined in the academic literature only since the 1980s. Public relations has been interpreted in many different ways, but is most commonly thought of as promotions and publicity, that is, garnering media attention for an organization or client. Practitioners and scholars in public relations recognize that the practice is much more complex and have traditionally defined it in the broadest sense as the management of communication between an organization or individual and all of its audiences (or “publics” in PR parlance). Using this broad definition allows for the inclusion of not only media relations but also government public affairs, labor relations-mediation, crisis communication, conflict management, investor and financial relations, corporate communication, internal/employee communication, fund-raising and donor relations, special events, health care and public health communication, public affairs and lobbying, as well as image and reputation management. Defining public relations as a management function is not without controversy, but has been thought to be important in maintaining the same professional rank and status as communication professionals in advertising and marketing. Not all academics or practitioners agree with this definition. Postmodernist critiques warn that this orientation privileges the dominant organizations and the most powerful individuals within them. What follows is an overview of PR textbooks and books (introductory, specialized, and cross-cultural), professional best practices, academic public relations journals, and the field’s dominant theoretical perspectives.
Mass Communication
Authors: Brosius Hans-Bernd , Karnowski Veronika
Published: June 2011

Mass communication can be best described by its counterparts. With regard to the number of people involved, mass communication has many participants, whereas interpersonal communication has few. With regard to visibility, mass communication is highly visible and public; private communication is hidden from others. Mass-communication messages are mostly provided by media professionals who collect, process, structure, and distribute information. It is a one-to-many communication with little feedback possibilities. In mass societies, mass communication is probably the most effective way of finding, discussing, and resolving issues that are relevant for the existence of a given society. Accordingly, research in mass communication is mainly concerned with its effects. Scholars have developed many theories—such as agenda setting—that are focusing on the beneficial and detrimental effects of the mass media. Many other topics are indirectly related to the effects of mass communication, such as freedom of the press, journalism, or media systems, but also entertainment. The internet and its diverse communication modes serve as a challenge to this role of mass communication. Mass communication is often framed within a normative point of view: Mass media, particularly radio, television, and other instances of audiovisual communication, enable a mass society to exchange views effectively on important problems and issues, thus helping democracies to come to the right decisions. In terms of usage, however, audiovisual mass media mostly carry entertainment content. Entertainment, however, might not be without political and societal consequences (e.g., cultivation theory). Although mass-communication content includes many genres and modalities and appears across all media, this entry focuses more on processes and intellectual arcs that transcend any single type of content.
Social Change
Authors: Servaes Jan
Published: June 2011

In the social and communication sciences, social change has traditionally been associated with “development problems” that occurred in “developing countries.” It is only since the late 1980s and early 1990s that social change has become a global issue. The study of communication for development and social change has therefore been through several paradigmatic changes. From the modernization and growth theory to the dependency approach and the multiplicity or participatory model, the new traditions of discourse are characterized by a turn toward local communities as targets for research and debate, on the one hand, and the search for an understanding of the complex relationships between globalization and localization, on the other hand. The early-21st-century “global” world, in general as well as in its distinct regional, national, and local entities, is confronted with multifaceted economic and financial crises but also social, cultural, ideological, moral, political, ethnic, ecological, and security crises. Previously held traditional modernization and dependency perspectives have become more difficult to support because of the growing interdependency of regions, nations, and communities in the globalized world. The conclusion we can draw from late-20th- and early-21st-century reconceptualizations and reorientations of development and social change is that while income, productivity, and gross national product (GNP) are still essential aspects of human development, they are not the sum total of human existence. Just as this has important implications for the way we think about social change and development, so too does it present opportunities for how we think about the role of communication in development and social change processes.
Health Communication
Authors: Leshner Glenn , Gardner Elizabeth
Published: June 2011

The area of health communication research and theory focuses primarily on the application of communication theory, concepts, and strategies in the service of enhancing public health, and understanding how such processes work. The approaches are numerous and represent significant scholarship across bio-psycho-social levels of analysis. Research can range from how individuals cognitively and emotionally process individual health-related messages to social and cultural contexts that influence how health campaigns are implemented. It can include targeted messaging through mass media or interpersonal communication between patient and health-care provider. Recently, research on issues involving new media and technology has emerged. Overall, research represents efforts from two perspectives: from the field of public health and from the field of communication. Although both areas are interested in improving public health as a general goal, communication scholars emphasize theory and processes, while public health emphasizes outcomes. Recent advances in health communication are integrating these two approaches.