bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Effect of Silver Diamine Fluoride Treatment on Microbial Profiles of Plaque Biofilms from Root/Cervical Caries Lesions
Authors: Mitwalli Heba , Mourao Marcio D.A. , Dennison Joseph , Yaman Peter , Paster Bruce J. , Fontana Margherita
Published: May 2019

Purpose: To assess the effect of silver diamine fluoride (SDF) on microbial profiles present in plaque from root/cervical carious lesions, and its association with caries lesion arrest. Materials and Methods: Twenty patients with at least one soft cavitated root/cervical carious lesion were included. One lesion/patient was randomly selected and treated with 38% SDF. Supragingival plaque samples were harvested at preintervention and 1 month postintervention. Using an MiSeq platform, 16S rDNA sequencing of the V3-V4 regions was used to determine bacterial profiles. Clinical evaluation of lesion hardness was used to evaluate arrest. t tests, principal component analysis (PCA), multidimensional scaling (MDS), and generalized linear models (GLMs) tests were used for statistical comparisons. Results: From a total of 40 plaque samples, 468 probe targets were observed. Although 60% of lesions became hard postintervention, PCA and MDS tests showed no distinct pre- and postintervention groups. In addition, pre- and postintervention differences in diversity (Shannon index) of microbial profiles between patients with and without lesion arrest were not statistically different. A likelihood ratio test for pre- versus postintervention differences within patients, i.e., adjusting for differences between patients using negative binomial GLMs, showed 17 bacterial taxa with significant differences (FDR <0.05). Conclusion: Although 60% of lesions hardened after SDF treatment, this was not directly due to either overall statistically significant differences in microbial profiles or differences in microbial diversity. Nevertheless, there was a trend with some acid-producing species in that their relative abundance was reduced postintervention. The negative binomial GLMs showed 17 bacterial taxa that were significantly different after SDF treatment.
Proinflammatory Effects of Cardiotonic Steroids Mediated by NKA α-1 (Na+/K+-ATPase α-1)/Src Complex in Renal Epithelial Cells and Immune Cells
Authors: Khalaf Fatimah K. , Dube Prabhatchandra , Kleinhenz Andrew L. , Malhotra Deepak , Gohara Amira , Drummond Christopher A. , Tian Jiang , Haller Steven T. , Xie Zijian , Kennedy David J.
Published: May 2019

Cardiotonic steroids (CTSs) are NKA α-1 (Na
+
/K
+
-ATPase α-1) ligands that are increased in volume expanded states and associated with cardiac and renal diseases. Although initiation and resolution of inflammation is an important component of cellular injury and repair in renal disease, it is unknown whether CTS activation of NKA α-1 signaling in this setting regulates this inflammatory response. On this background, we hypothesized that CTS signaling through the NKA α-1–Src kinase complex promotes a proinflammatory response in renal epithelial and immune cells. First, we observed that the CTS telocinobufagin activated multiple proinflammatory cytokines/chemokines in renal epithelial cells, and these effects were attenuated after either NKA α-1 knockdown or with a specific inhibitor of the NKA α-1–Src kinase complex (pNaKtide). Similar findings were observed in immune cells, where we demonstrated that while telocinobufagin induced both oxidative burst and enhanced Nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells activation in macrophages (
P
<0.05), the effects were abolished in NKA α-1
+/−
macrophages or by pretreatment with pNaKtide or the Src inhibitor PP2 (
P
<0.01). In a series of in vivo studies, we found that 5/6th partial nephrectomy induced significantly less oxidative stress in the remnant kidney of NKA α-1
+/−
versus wild-type mice. Similarly, 5/6th partial nephrectomy yielded decreased levels of the urinary oxidative stress marker 8-Oxo-2′-deoxyguanosine in NKA α-1
+/−
versus wild-type mice. Finally, we found that in vivo inhibition of the NKA α-1–Src kinase complex with pNaKtide significantly inhibited renal proinflammatory gene expression after 5/6th partial nephrectomy. These findings suggest that the NKA α-1–Src kinase complex plays a central role in regulating the renal inflammatory response induced by elevated CTS both in vitro and in vivo.
Comparison between diffusion MRI tractography and histological tract-tracing of cortico-cortical structural connectivity in the ferret brain
Authors: Delettre Céline , Messé Arnaud , Dell Leigh-Anne , Foubet Ophélie , Heuer Katja , Larrat Benoit , Meriaux Sebastien , Mangin Jean-Francois , Reillo Isabel , de Juan Romero Camino , Borrell Victor , Toro Roberto , Hilgetag Claus C.
Published: May 2019

The anatomical wiring of the brain is a central focus in network neuroscience. Diffusion MRI tractography offers the unique opportunity to investigate the brain fiber architecture in vivo and noninvasively. However, its reliability is still highly debated. Here, we explored the ability of diffusion MRI tractography to match invasive anatomical tract-tracing connectivity data of the ferret brain. We also investigated the influence of several state-of-the-art tractography algorithms on this match to ground truth connectivity data. Tract-tracing connectivity data were obtained from retrograde tracer injections into the occipital, parietal, and temporal cortices of adult ferrets. We found that the relative densities of projections identified from the anatomical experiments were highly correlated with the estimates from all the studied diffusion tractography algorithms (Spearman’s rho ranging from 0.67 to 0.91), while only small, nonsignificant variations appeared across the tractography algorithms. These results are comparable to findings reported in mouse and monkey, increasing the confidence in diffusion MRI tractography results. Moreover, our results provide insights into the variations of sensitivity and specificity of the tractography algorithms, and hence into the influence of choosing one algorithm over another.
Loess is More: The Spatial and Ecological History of Erosion on China’s Northwest Frontier
Authors: Mostern Ruth
Published: May 2019

This is a paper about the speed and intensity with which new and intensive human land use in a semi-arid environment can bring about large-scale environmental change. In particular, this paper pinpoints how and why it was that the Yellow River shifted from a long-term condition of relative stability to a later state of frequent floods and course changes in the eleventh century. It is possible to trace the environmental history of this dramatic and sudden change of state with precision and confidence. Historical sources that record the dates and characteristics of flood events downstream align well with those that note the locations and dates of human activity upstream. More important, each aligns well not only with one another, but also with information from environmental science: sediment cores that preserve soil and pollen evidence for the timing and processes of systematic change.
Water, Justice, and Local Government in Turn-of-the-Century Xinjiang
Authors: Schluessel Eric
Published: May 2019

How local government worked in late-Qing and early Republican Xinjiang (1877-1918) in Turkic Muslim-majority areas remains largely a mystery, since the few available official records obscure the very relationships between Chinese magistrates and local powerholders that made government possible. This article uses documents from a brief period in the early Republic when the provincial government actively intervened in local disputes over water resources to explore the expectations of Muslim commoners and practices of Chinese officials. It argues that the boundaries established within the provincial system and the unsuccessful transformation of structures of authority and communication disrupted preexisting long-distance arrangements for water distribution.
Continuities and Novelties in Early Soviet Law-Making about Central Asian Water
Authors: Penati Beatrice
Published: May 2019

This article analyses the drafting process and underlying principles of early Soviet legislation on water rights and taxation on water in Central Asia. While the new Bolshevik ideology provided an ideal justification to enact the State-centric, technocratic principles implicit in the Tsarist Turkestan “water law” of 1916, it took a very long time for the Soviet regime to produce a comprehensive legislation that would explicitly replace the local pre-existing customs which had survived in the colonial period. This is surprising especially in the light of the continuity in personnel in the government agencies that governed land and water resources across the 1917 revolution. Two possible reasons for this slowness were the early Soviet “decolonisation” imperative and the inertial persuasion that the legislator could not fully grasp the intricacies of water-related rights and duties.
Descending Transcendence
Authors: Peers Glenn
Published: May 2019

This essay argues for the importance of stuff for understanding human significance and humility. It examines a number of contemporary artists’ work in the motile miniature, the scale of transcendence that suits both our relation to the world surrounding us and to that below our habitual perception. The transcendence proposed is not vertical and anagogical, but downward toward the level of the minute, even molecular, where we can find the vitalist forces of the world, and our own responsibilities and roles within them. This essay takes as it subject several projects by modern and contemporary artists, in order to argue for why matter matters. Each follows the route to transcendence through descent that was first recorded in the method of Thales of Miletus in archaic Greece, when he went below ground for a wormworld view into the heavens so that he could see the stars more clearly. Each of these artists allows us to enter into the perspective of stuff that might push against our insistence on human priority and open to a different level of sublime.
Are People More Disturbed by Dog or Human Suffering?
Authors: Levin Jack , Arluke Arnold , Irvine Leslie
Published: May 2019

This research examines whether people are more emotionally disturbed by reports of non-human animal than human suffering or abuse. Two hundred and fifty-six undergraduates at a major northeastern university were asked to indicate their degree of empathy for a brutally beaten human adult or child versus an adult dog or puppy, as described in a fictitious news report. We hypothesized that the vulnerability of victims—determined by their age and not species—would determine participants’ levels of distress and concern for them. The main effect for age but not for species was significant. We also found more empathy for victims who are human children, puppies, and fully-grown dogs than for victims who are adult humans. Age makes a difference for empathy toward human victims, but not for dog victims. In addition, female participants were significantly more empathic toward all victims than were their male counterparts.
Urban Animals—Domestic, Stray, and Wild: Notes from a Bear Repopulation Project in the Alps
Authors: Brighenti Andrea Mubi , Pavoni Andrea
Published: May 2019

This piece explores “domesticity” as a social territory defined by its relationship with the conceptual and ecological space of “the wild,” and asks whether these spaces stand in opposition to each other or more subtle relations of co-implication are at play. As we look into the domestic and the wild, a conceptual map of notions emerges, including the public, the common, the civilized, and the barbarian. The paper suggests the domestic and the wild constitute two semiotic-ecological domains constantly stretching into each other without any stable or even clear boundary line, and it elaborates on a series of corollaries for studying non-human animals in urban contexts. As an illustrative case study, we follow the story of Daniza, a wild brown bear introduced in the Brenta Natural Park on the Italian Alps in the 2000s. Declared a “dangerous animal,” Daniza was accidentally, and controversially, killed by the public authorities in 2014.
The Metageography of the Northern and Southern Dynasties
Authors: Felt David Jonathan
Published: May 2019

Sui and Tang historians constructed a geographical conceptualization for the Northern and Southern Dynasties that depicted them as equal and complementary halves of one greater whole, now “unified” under the Sui-Tang empire. This spatial model has been the dominant way in which modern historians have thought about the fifth and sixth centuries. But literati of that time conceptualized their geopolitical landscape very differently. This article examines the varied ways in which literati of the Northern and Southern Dynasties conceptualized their own geopolitical landscape. In each of the models examined, the spatial relationship between north and south is described as hierarchical and adversarial, differing considerably from the equal and complementary model espoused by Tang historians. 

Les historiens des époques Sui et Tang ont élaboré une conceptualisation géographique des dynasties du Nord et du Sud qui les décrit comme les moitiés égales et complémentaires d’un tout, unifié par les empires Sui et Tang. Ce modèle spatial est devenu le principal mode d’appréhension de l’histoire des ve et vie siècles pour les historiens modernes. Les intellectuels de ces deux siècles cependant, avaient de toutes autres conceptions de leur paysage géopolitique. Cet article examine ces différentes conceptions; il identifie plusieurs modèles, dans lesquels les relations entre Nord et Sud sont toujours décrites comme hiérarchiques et hostiles, au contraire du modèle complémentaire adopté ensuite par les historiens des Tang
How Did Buddhism Matter in Tang Poetry?
Authors: Owen Stephen
Published: May 2019

Buddhism was often a theme in poetry, especially when writing to monks and on Buddhist sites; it was sometimes a deep conviction on the part of individual poets that contributed to the way they represented the world. There was a period, however, from the ninth through early eleventh century, when Chan meditation shaped how poets thought about the very way of writing poetry. The common use of the [Buddhist] “Way” or Chan in parallel with “poetry” in couplets from this period worked through the possible relations: identity, similarity, complementarity, and mutual exclusion. But the presumption was that the composition of poetry was the counterpart of Chan meditation. Such serious reflection on the relation between Chan meditation practice and poetry eventually devolved into Yan Yu’s thirteenth-century comparison of Chan sectarian doctrine with the study of poetry. 

Le bouddhisme est un thème très fréquent dans la poésie chinoise, en particulier quand le poète écrit à un moine ou au sujet d’un site bouddhique. Il constitue dans certains cas une conviction profonde qui contribue fortement à forger la représentation du monde telle que le poète l’exprime en vers. Il y eut cependant une époque, entre le ixe et le début du xie siècle, où la méditation Chan a façonné la façon même dont les poètes concevaient l’écriture poétique. L’usage fréquent des termes “Voie”  (bouddhique) ou Chan en parallèle avec celui de “poésie” dans les couplets de cette époque couvre la gamme de leurs relations possibles: identité, similarité, complémentarité et exclusion mutuelle. L’hypothèse commune à ces diverses options était que l’écriture poétique était l’homologue de la méditation Chan. Ces réflexions élaborées sur les rapports entre les pratiques de la méditation Chan et de la poésie ont débouché au xiiie siècle sur la comparaison menée par Yan Yu entre la doctrine Chan et l’étude de la poésie.
Michael Boym’s Medicus Sinicus: New Facts, Reflections, Conclusions
Authors: Kajdański Edward
Published: May 2019

Following the author’s previous work on reconstituting the transmission to Europe, disappearance, and eventual publication under other names of the Polish Jesuit Michael Boym’s manuscript work on Chinese medicine, this article recounts the recent discovery of some of these manuscripts. They are kept at the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow, and were originally part of the Chinese Library of the Elector of Brandenburg, where they were acquired from Dutch officials who had earlier bought them from the Jesuit Philippe Couplet (who had obtained them from Boym’s last companion). The complex story of these manuscripts’ travels documents the keen interest in Chinese medicine among the many competing European powers and institutions in the seventeenth century; it also shows that we should be careful in assessing whether the publication of Boym’s seminal work under other names was willful plagiarism, or a result of contemporary tensions and confusion. 

Cet article fait suite aux travaux antérieurs de l’auteur sur la transmission en Europe, la disparition puis la publication sous d’autres noms des travaux manuscrits sur la médecine chinoise du jésuite polonais Michael Boym. Il relate la découverte récente d’une partie de ces manuscrits dans la bibliothèque Jagiellonienne à Cracovie, et montre qu’ils viennent de l’ancienne bibliothèque chinoise du Grand Electeur de Brandebourg, où ils ont été originellement acquis auprès d’officiers hollandais qui les avaient achetés auprès du jésuite Philippe Couplet, qui lui-même les avait obtenus du dernier compagnon de Boym à la mort de celui-ci. L’histoire complexe des voyages de ces manuscrits met en lumière le fort intérêt pour la médecine chinoise de la part des diverses puissances et institutions européennes du 17e siècle, alors en vive concurrence ; elle nous engage aussi à la prudence quant aux jugements que l’on peut porter sur la publication des travaux pionniers de Boym sous d’autres noms, qui doit autant aux tensions et confusions politiques du temps qu’à un plagiat intentionnel.
Crossing Borders: Control of Geographical Mobility in Early China
Authors: Sou Daniel Sungbin
Published: May 2019

Qin and Han subjects were required by law to register residency with local governments. Their mobility was thus subject to government scrutiny. This study explores (a) how such control extended to both official and private travel and (b) the various reasons that led people to travel. To facilitate surveillance, the Qin and Han governments both demarcated their territory through administrative units and checkpoints, issued transit permits, and enforced strict laws controlling the flow of travelers. Such control meant that people required permission to travel on private business to manage family matters, seek employment, and perform various other tasks. Although control was tight, the people in the early empire were still free to move from place to place.
Moral Sensibilities, Emotions, and the Law: Extralegal Considerations in Tang Literary Judgments on Spousal Relationships
Authors: Qian Tony D.
Published: May 2019

Literary judgments (pan 判) were highly stylized prose pieces from the Tang dynasty written in response to legal and administrative controversies. The ability to compose judgments was the principal criterion by which candidates were selected for offices in the Tang bureaucracy. In this article, judgments written for cases that involved disputes between (prospective) spouses and their families are examined, with a focus on the use of extralegal considerations to resolve sensitive domestic conflicts. By analyzing select hypothetical judgments from Bai Juyi’s literary collection and three other judgments on family law cases (from a Dunhuang manuscript, a Tang miscellany, and the Song compendium Wenyuan yinghua 文苑英華), we may see how literary language and allusions played a role in eliciting the moral sensibilities and emotions of readers. For these cases, this strategy was more effective than arguments based on formal legal sources alone.
What Tang Taizong Could Not Do: The Korean Surrender of 1259 and the Imperial Tradition
Authors: Wang Sixiang
Published: May 2019

The surrender of the Koryŏ crown prince to Khubilai Khan in 1259 heralded a century of Mongol domination in Korea. According to the Koryŏ sa, the official Korean dynastic history, Khubilai saw the timely Korean capitulation as demonstrating his superiority over the Tang emperor Taizong, who had failed to subjugate Korea by force. Although the account certainly embellished certain details, notably the voluntary nature of the surrender, this paper argues that it nonetheless captures an important dynamic between Korean diplomatic strategy and the political and ideological goals of Khubilai and his advisers. The Koryŏ court, hoping to ensure the kingship’s institutional survival, portrayed Korea as representing the cultural and political legacies of the imperial past to make common cause with Khubilai’s officials who sought to recast the Mongol empire in the image of China’s past imperial dynasties. The convergence of Korean diplomatic missives, accounts in Chinese and Korean historiography, and writings by Khubilai’s closest Chinese advisers on the themes of imperial restoration and cultural revival result in part from these interactions. Moreover, these interactions helped interpolate Korea into the repertoire of political legitimation, in which Korea’s role was redefined from an object of irredentist desire, to a component in the construction of imperial authority
Looking Beyond Dichotomies: Hidden Diversity of Voices in the Yantielun 鹽鐵論
Authors: Polnarov Anatoly
Published: May 2019

This study investigates the Yantielun 鹽鐵論, a text that recreates the 81 BCE court debate during which government officials clashed with “literary scholars” (wenxue 文學) and “worthy and good persons” (xianliang 賢良) over multiple policy issues. I show that a careful look at the Yantielun allows us to distinguish between the voices of the two subgroups of critics, who hitherto have been viewed almost ubiquitously as a uniform camp. The “worthy and good persons” appear as a “third voice” attempting to bridge the gap between the polar standpoints of the officials and the literary scholars. I argue that this hidden diversity is proof of the reliability of the Yantielun as an account of the debate and a testimony to the complexity of the intellectual and political environment of the mid- to late Former Han.
On Sacred or Secular Ground? Callicott and Environmental Ethics
Authors: Taylor Bron
Published: May 2019

In Earth's Insights Baird Callicott develops a science-based but religiously influenced global environmental ethics that attempts to resolve the relationships between science, religion, and morality. He proposes to privilege science and relegate religion to a supportive and corrective role in environmental ethics. I argue, on the contrary, that a rationally compelling environmental ethics is dependent on religion and that, ironically, the only way to resolve conundrums regarding science, religion, and morality, is to stand environmental ethics on sacred ground.
What's Postmodern about Earth's Insights?
Authors: Lorentzen Lois Ann
Published: May 2019

Callicott convinces us that diverse religious traditions provide resources in constructing an environmental ethic. However, his use of the term postmodern, while rejecting most of postmodern thought, is not helpful for his project. Callicott also presumes that nonanthropocentrism and holism are necessary for a universal environmental ethic, and provides only one version of ecofeminism. There are reasons to prefer pluralism in environmental ethics and ecofeminism.
Discourse on Knowledge, Dialogue and Diversity: Peasant Worldviews and the Science of Nature Conservation
Authors: Parajuli Pramod
Published: May 2019

This article suggests that people endowed with an ecosystem operate within their own tradition of knowledge and can offer a useful critique of the increasingly globalised schemes of nature conservation such as parks, sanctuaries and biodiversity preserves. I compare and contrast two competing proposals for nature conservation. While one is the conservation strategy based upon in-farm nurturing of the biodiversity that adheres to the cultural diversity of people residing in an ecosystem, the other is a strategy that excludes the ecosystem people in order to conserve nature. But the contest between the two is not about whether nature should be kept pristine or be made available for human use; it is about the scale of use and the mode of use. It is about who should use, how much, and for what purpose. The debate is also about what kinds of technologies are going to be used in preserving as well as harvesting, using as well as enhancing nature. Ultimately, it is about the very nature of the relationship between human collectivity and non-human collectivity.
What Has God to Do with Sustainable Development? A Sahelian Dialogue
Authors: Hintjens Helen M.
Published: May 2019

The Sahel region has become fairly well known as an environmentally vulnerable region where human inventiveness and collective organisation have been able to reverse processes of land degradation, brought about by earlier 'maldevelopment'. This paper sets out to explore schisms between local accounts of the spiritual significance of environmental decay, and regeneration involving interventions by external development agencies. It focuses on the case of two Northern NGOs. The two project-level examples are located in Mali; one is a World Vision-sponsored tree seedling project, the other an SOS Sahel-sponsored well-digging scheme. Each presents a contrasting approach to local beliefs in God; the first attempts to 'correct' what are seen as wrong beliefs: the second seeks to build on existing beliefs and religious practices. In the one. relations between humans and the natural environment are conceived as being spiritually laden, in the other they are seen as almost purely functional. If Sahelian people are to be held responsible for environmental regeneration, then their religious beliefs about nature, however complex, need to be incorporated into the design of development interventions from the outset.
Loving the World as Our Own Body: The Nondualist Ethics of Taoism, Buddhism and Deep Ecology
Authors: Loy David R.
Published: May 2019

The ecological problem seems to be the perennial personal problem writ large: a consequence of the alienation between myself and the world I find myself 'in'. If so, the solutions we seek require a more nondual relationship with the objectified other. Asian philosophical and religious traditions have much to say about the nonduality of subject and object. This paper discusses and compares the relevant insights of Taoism, Buddhism and deep ecology.
Masks and the Space of Play
Authors: Massie Pascal
Published: May 2019

Masks are devices and symbols. In the first instance, they are artifacts that allow opposite poles to take each other’s place. They split the world into appearance and reality, manifest and repressed, sacred and profane. In this sense, they are dualistic. But by so doing they invert these terms. In this sense, they are dialectical. In the second instance, they exemplify doubt about people’s identities and the veracity of their words; they denote duplicity, inauthenticity, and hypocrisy. The conjunction of these two senses resides in the fact that masks are at the threshold between reality and fiction. Such a threshold makes possible the emergence of a space of play which asserts that the world does not express a determinate and final order but is infinitely open to the emergence of new, yet transient, forms of self-organization and open new spatiotemporal worlds.
“The Very Place of Apparition”: Derrida on Husserl’s Concept of Noema
Authors: Terzi Pietro
Published: May 2019

In Specters of Marx, Derrida suggests that the most fundamental condition of phenomenality lies in the ambiguous status of the noema, defined as an intentional and non-real component of Erlebnis, neither “in” the world nor “in” consciousness. This “irreality” of the noematic correlate is conceived by Derrida as the origin of sense and experience. Already in his Of Grammatology, Derrida maintained that the difference between the appearing and the appearance, between the world and the lived experience, is the condition of all other differences. Unfortunately, Derrida limits himself to a few self-evident remarks, without further elaborating.

The aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, to contextualize Derrida’s interpretation of the noema from a theoretical and historical perspective; on the other hand, to show its effects on the early moments of Derrida’s philosophy. The result will shed light on a neglected issue in the relationship between deconstruction and phenomenology.
Africa between Gandhi and Nehru
Authors: Mazrui Ali A.
Published: May 2019

The author’s interest in Africa’s relations with India goes back to his doctoral thesis at Oxford University, published under the title of Towards a Pax Africana. The impact of India upon twentieth century Africa has a special place for Gandhi’s strategies of civil disobedience and Nehru’s principle of nonalignment. Gandhi’s satyagraha (soul force) inspired African political figures as diverse as Nobel laureate Albert Luthuli of South Africa and Ivorian president Houphouet-Boigny. Nehru’s ideas about what used to be called “positive neutralism” helped to shape African approaches to foreign policy in the entire post-colonial era. The essay, published almost two decades ago, explored these historical dimensions in this prescient analysis.
The Indian Experience as a Swahili Mirror in Colonial Mombasa
Authors: Mazrui Alamin
Published: May 2019

People of Indian descent had long interacted with the Swahili of East Africa. This interrelationship became particularly momentous during British colonial rule that gave additional impetus to Indian migration to East Africa. In time East Africa, in general, and Mombasa, Kenya’s second largest city, in particular, became home to significant populations of Indian settler communities. Motivated by an immigrant psychology and relatively privileged status under colonial rule, Indian immigrants took full advantage of the opportunities to become remarkably successful socially and economically.

Local inhabitants were fully aware of the success of Indian immigrants of East Africa, and for some of them, the Indian record became a yard stick for their own successes and failures. Among these was Sheikh Al-Amin bin Ali Mazrui (1891-1947), famed for his reformist ideas about East African Islam. Using his Swahili periodical, Swahifa, he tried to galvanize members of Swahili-Muslim community towards the goal of community uplift by drawing on the experiences of East African Indians as a way of referring them back to some of the fundamentals of a progressive Islamic civilization in matters of the economy, education, and cultural preservation. In this sense, the East African Indian “mirror” became an important means of propagating Sheikh Al-Amin’s agenda of an alternative modernity rooted in Islamic civilization.
Sowing Dragon’s Teeth and Harvesting Fleas? – A Historical Inquiry into China’s Education-Aid Programs since the 1970s
Authors: Liu Yun
Published: May 2019

This paper reviews the historical evolution of China’s education-aid programs. These specific programs are seemingly consistent with China’s education reform legacy. With a cross-disciplinary survey regarding how foreign-aid policy commitments got delivered, the paper proposes more inclusive approaches for interpreting local contexts relevant to China’s education-aid policies. The following discussion first presents local evidence to provide plausible explanations from the national background of China’s social-economic reforms since the 1970s. Then it gives a case study of Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei, to examine how the local higher-education institutions have managed those education-aid practices since the late 1990s. Re-visiting a variety of mainstream views on China’s evolving national identity as a member of the Global South, the article ends by making some analysis of significance to the evolution of China’s education-aid policies.
Turning ‘Water Babies’ (Zaza Rano) into ‘Real Human Beings’ (Vrai Humains)
Authors: Nourse Erin
Published: May 2019

This article examines the protective measures and rites of blessing that residents of Diégo Suarez use to keep their babies safe from harm and incorporate them into their respective religious and ethnic communities. I argue that new mothers, and their ‘water babies,’ are ‘acquiring bones’ (establishing themselves within the community) in ways that challenge the widely held perception that Malagasy practices around ancestors are primarily remembrance-oriented. By shifting our gaze away from death, and towards the family-specific ancestral practices around pregnancy and birth, we see that the process of ‘acquiring bones’ is as aspirational as it is retrospective. Moreover, securing one’s worth in society is not exclusively tied to adulthood activities or paternal ancestral lineages; instead it is a flexible process that begins in childhood when parents first instill in their children a sense of what it means to be a member of a particular family or religious community.
‘Their Children Might be Christians’
Authors: Jenkins Julie
Published: May 2019

This article examines the ritual specialists and initiates of the three Adzima shrines in the southeastern Volta Region of Ghana and their criticism of Christianity, particularly Neo-Pentecostalist discourse that encourages adherents to sever lineage-based ties to deities and ancestors. The influence of Christianity is an issue that the Adzima shrine ritual specialists deal with on a regular basis since different types of people are drawn into hierarchical relationships with the Adzima deities through the fiasidiwo initiates. The Adzima ritual specialists have to manage shifting perspectives on the appropriate relationship between persons embedded in lineage structures and with deities, which could undermine the meanings attributed to the fiasidiwo and potentially threaten the initiates’ livelihoods.
The Participle κολαφιζόµενοι in Martyrium Polycarpi 2.4 and 2Cor 12:1-10
Authors: Kozlowski Jan M.
Published: May 2019

There is no consensus among editors and translators of Martyrium Polycarpi regarding what reading should be accepted in 2.4: κολαζόµενοι or κολαφιζόµενοι. A hitherto unnoticed intertextual reference to 2Cor 12:1-10 is proposed as an argument in favor of the reading κολαφιζόµενοι. Moreover, detecting this allusion deepens our understanding of the theology of martyrdom in Martyrium Polycarpi.
Vom Antitsiganismus zum antiziganism Zur Genese eines unbestimmten Begriffs
Authors: Bartel Berthold P.
Published: May 2019

The German term “Antiziganismus” could be translated as “antigypsyism”, but the semantic roots are, in fact, different. Coined in the 1980s, “Antiziganismus” might be misconceived as a sheer abstraction: a “close reading” of the term's context could indeed partially justify the assumption that it in many ways reproduces certain impacts and implications of its better known equivalent – an actively employed anti-Semitism. However, the article's main thesis is that “Antiziganismus” denotes a term in its own right. This status cannot be challenged even by the most recent development, which is an interest group's attempt to internationalize the scope of the term by coining the derivative “antiziganism”.
Zur Verbrennung der sogenanten Chrestiani (Tac. Ann. 15,44)
Authors: Lund Allan A.
Published: May 2019

The following article shows what Tacitus Ann. 15,44 thought of the role of the Chrestiani at the burning of the Roman capital A.D. 64 and why they themselves as punishment of their ,,crime“ were crucified and burned. In order to demonstrate this the textus receptus is first analysed linguistically and its content interpreted in its historical and sociological context. It is ethnohistorically established as a fact that Tacitus counted the Chrestiani as a minority of the Iudaei. Linguistically it is proved that the words aut flammandi atque ubi are corrupt and have to be emended ad flammas dati, ut, cum why some of the Chrestiani as part of their punishment were given to the flames, i.e. Latine: ad flammas dati (sunt).
The International Criminal Court and Reparations: Judicial Innovation or Judicialisation of a Political Process?
Authors: Owiso Owiso
Published: May 2019

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court bestows reparative powers upon the court, a significant development in international criminal justice. However, the court still struggles to effectively discharge this mandate. This article proceeds on the assumption that reparations for mass atrocities are best handled through domestic political processes rather than international criminal justice processes. The article interrogates the effectiveness of the court’s reparative powers by testing them as against the court’s practice, specifically in the Lubanga, Katanga and Al-Mahdi cases. The article concludes that despite noble intentions, practical realities and difficulties make doubtful the court’s suitability as a reparative forum for mass atrocities. Nevertheless, in the absence of a more suitable alternative for effective and meaningful reparations, the article proposes policy reforms to achieve robust reparative complementarity between the court and transitional states, and complementarity between the court’s reparative mandate and the Trust Fund for Victims’ assistance mandate.
Distinction, Privilege and the Role of Code Switching
Authors: Touna Vaia
Published: May 2019

Code switching is a term used to describe switching between language systems and, more specifically, between informal and formal language. Although I see code switching as a daily practice and therefore quite mundane – although with stakes always high and in various degrees – it seems that the term is preserved for some switches and not for others. In this paper I explore the taxonomic implications of naming something, and not something else, as “code switching,” by comparing to the practice of naming groups as “voluntary associations” or “mystery cults” in the Graeco-Roman world.
Latin American Liberation Theology and Postcolonial Studies
Authors: Puggioni Roberto
Published: May 2019

This paper argues in favour of the need of a continuous decolonisation and contextualisation of theology. Global capitalism, modernity, and the persistent colonial attitudes of the Western world are the phenomena in which to frame the presence of striking inequalities among and within countries. By assuming a liberationist standpoint, the analysis points at the convergence in methods and scopes of the Western postcolonial thought and the Latin American Christian theology of liberation for an effective decolonisation of theology. Liberation, with all its implications, becomes the key term through which to understand this relationship.
The Gospel of Mark, Orality Studies and Performance Criticism
Authors: Botha Pieter J.J.
Published: May 2019

Orality/aurality is recognised by a growing number of scholars as a significant aspect of the context of New Testament texts. As part of the exploration of the oral features of New Testament texts some are turning to Greco-Roman storytelling and oratory, informed by performance studies. A selection of these explorations are discussed to introduce scholarship that attempts to identify various elements of performance events in the early church as a basis for re-thinking our ways of studying and our interpretations of the New Testament writings in their original context. The obstacles to such efforts are considerable, but some significant gains have been made. Focusing on research on the Gospel of Mark, this discussion shows how performance critical studies allow new insights into the origins of the Gospels, leading to interesting new and meaningful perspectives on the history of the early Jesus movement with specific attention to the role telling and presenting the Markan story played.
The Great Christian Failure of Mastery
Authors: de Wet Chris L.
Published: May 2019

The purpose of this article is to investigate the intersection of the discourse of slavery – or doulology – and Romanness in Salvian of Marseilles’ De gubernatione Dei. After providing a short overview of the author and his work, the study examines how Salvian considers the slavery to God as the most important expression of true Christian-Roman pietas. Thereafter Salvian’s vice list, which is based on servile vices or uitia seruorum – including robbery, lying, greed, homicide, and sexual misconduct – is investigated to show how his Christian opponents fail both at being good masters of slaves and good slaves of God. The sexual abuse of slaves by Christian masters receives special attention. Finally, the study delineates the key dynamics and implications of Salvian’s doulology, and shows that the Christian failure of mastery, both of the self and others, is what informs Salvian’s view of why the Christian-Roman Empire is disintegrating under barbarian powers.
The Eusebian and Meletian Roots of John Chrysostom’s Trinitarian Theology
Authors: Lai Pak-Wah
Published: May 2019

Chrysostom has often been regarded as an Antiochene theologian, who is more a pastor and moralist than a serious theologian. When we study his Chrysostom’s Trinitarian doctrine, in the context of the Eusebian-Meletian traditions, a different picture emerges. Firstly, he has a well-thought-out theological epistemology and structure. His prioritisation of faith before reason, doctrine of divine incomprehensibility, endorsement of the Nicene homoousios formula, and use of hypostatic language as a safeguard against Sabellianism are strong evidence that he was operating within the Eusebian-Meletian lineages. Secondly, the ease by which he uses Eusebian and Homoian expressions indicates that he has embraced Meletius’ reconciling stance. Most intriguingly, his Christological departure from Diodore calls into question his indebtedness to his teacher. When all these are taken into account, Chrysostom should be better understood as a Neo-Nicene Eusebian-Meletian theologian rather than a representative of the School of Antioch.
Imitating the Devil: Cyprian on Jealousy and Envy
Authors: Murphy Edwina
Published: May 2019

If imitating Christ in his humility leads to peace and unity, imitating the devil in his jealousy leads to conflict and self-destruction. So warns Cyprian of Carthage in De zelo et livore, where he identifies the devil as the originator of envy, precipitating humanity’s downfall as well as his own. Cyprian further illustrates these fatal effects by pairing exemplars of jealousy with their innocent victims. Cyprian’s use of these models demonstrates the importance of this reading strategy for his exegesis and the value he ascribes to imitation in Christian formation. Furthermore, whilst Cyprian’s emphasis on unity is well known, this study highlights that it is not achieved simply by avoiding schism. Rather, structural concerns are just one expression of Cyprian’s conviction that conflict and division are vices rooted in the flesh. Those who claim to be Christians must, like Christ, live according to the Spirit in love and peace.
Addressing Conflict in the Fifth Century: Rome and the Wider Church
Authors: Neil Bronwen
Published: May 2019

In seeking to trace the escalation, avoidance or resolution of conflicts, contemporary social conflict theorists look for incompatible goals, differentials in power, access to social resources, the exercise of control, the expression of dissent, and the strategies employed in responding to disagreements. It is argued here that these concepts are just as applicable to the analysis of historical doctrinal conflicts in Late Antiquity as they are to understanding modern conflicts. In the following, I apply social conflict theory to three conflicts involving the late antique papacy to see what new insights it can proffer. The first is Zosimus's involvement in the dispute over the hierarchy of Gallic bishops at the beginning of the fifth century. The second and longest case-study is Leo I's intervention in the Chalcedonian conflict over the natures of Christ. The final brief study is the disputed election of Symmachus at the end of the fifth century.
The Apology of Justin Martyr and the Legatio of Athenagoras: Two Responses to the Challenge of Being a Christian in the Second Century
Authors: Sheather Mary
Published: May 2019

Most second-century Christians were likely to experience challenges, both internal and external, to the new way of life, belief and worship that they had adopted. With the Apology of Justin Martyr and the Legatio of Athenagoras we encounter responses to the common accusations and an exposition of those aspects of life and belief which the writers considered it important to present to ally and opponent alike. These works deal with similar issues, but from rather different perspectives, and here we attempt to draw out some of the ways in which each writer presented his case, and assess their significance and effectiveness.
Rhetorical, Political, and Ecclesiastical Perspectives of Augustine’s and Julian of Eclanum’s Theological Response in the Pelagian Controversy
Authors: Yamada Nozomu
Published: May 2019

In Opus imperfectum, Augustine’s last controversy against Julian of Eclanum, we can recognize these two theologians’ rhetorical devices in which they tried to condemn each other as heretics. Particularly in the interpretations of both polemists on the issue of human sexual desire, Augustine and Julian fiercely confronted each other, making extensive use of a variety of rhetorical measures. In this article, referring to important recent research while at the same time focusing on crucial primary texts, I first would like to clarify these rhetorical arguments, particularly, the supremacy of Augustine in using such rhetorical devices. Next, the quite different philosophical frameworks of both polemists are clarified. In addition, the political and ecclesiastical perspectives of Augustine’s and Julian of Eclanum’s theological reasoning are investigated and the political tactics and ecclesiastical diplomacy of Augustine clarified. The ultimate purpose of this article is to explicate the mechanism and the true reasons for the victory of Augustine and the excommunication of Julian and other Pelagians.
Rewritten Bible in the “Museum” Slavonic Translation of the Song of Songs
Authors: Lourié Basil
Published: May 2019

The so-called “Museum” Slavonic translation of the Song of Songs contains a specific recension enrooted in Jewish Second Temple traditions. It becomes more plausible that the Slavonic translation has been produced in the earliest period of Slavic writing directly from Syriac rather than from Hebrew, as it was proposed earlier.
How to Study the Slavic Apocrypha in the 21st Century?
Authors: Mirkovic Sladjana
Published: May 2019

This article argues that Rezeptionsgeschichte is an appropriate methodology to study the Slavonic apocrypha in the twenty-first century. This methodology is applied to the reception of the biblical discourse on Moses and the Plagues against the Egyptians, which has been preserved in both ethnic and transnational Slavic textual and material remains that deal with divinized state-founders in the Balkan region.
Seven Sessions or Just a Letter? Observations on the Structure of the Disputations between Elias, Metropolitan of Nisibis, and the Vizier Abū l-Qāsim al-Maghribī
Authors: Seleznyov Nikolai N.
Published: May 2019

The following article examines the structure of a remarkable Christian Arabic treatise from the eleventh century, the heyday of Arabic culture: the Book of Sessions (Kitāb al-majālis) of Elias of Nisibis (975-1046), metropolitan of the Church of the East. In this treatise, Elias presents his discussions with his Muslim interlocutor, the vizier Abū l-Qāsim al-Maghribī (981-1027). The article compares the Book of Sessions with Elias’ Epistle to the vizier, taking into consideration some further documents that shed new light on the genesis of the Book of Sessions.