bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Technology overuse Influencing Emerging Psychological Acquaintances among Youth
Authors: Khan Gull-e-laala , Jamshaid Amber , Hussain Yasir , Zaheer Hamna , Aamna Mukhtar
Published: December 2024

Family foundation is one of the main institutions prevailing since ages in all human communities. The main building block organization of developed societies are reverential families. To meet economic stability, social and emotional needs, family holds fundamental importance. Technological innovations as a cardinal principle have positioned a huge gap among intra-family relationships. Therefore, the current research emphasizes impact of modern electronic media creating psychological breaches among families in Pakistan. Phenomenological analysis in present research revealed that digital platforms impact negatively eradicating traditional family norms, values and ethical bonding by minimizing positive constructive interaction among family members for healthy upbringing. Data analysis in present research disclosed that digital platforms impact negatively eradicating traditional family norms, values and ethical bonding by minimizing positive constructive interaction among family members for healthy upbringing. In the collective scientific monogram, the influence of digitalization on family ties is not neglectable. It is pertinent to clarify that adulthood transitions rely on strong family bonding as families often hold prominent role in young-adult lives. Despite hindrances, electronic interruption among family bonding impacts deleteriously. To overcome future destructions, preemptive actions are quite necessary in terms of communal strategies, civic tutelage and healthcare.
Culturally appropriate, accessible healthy eating and active living programs for Aboriginal people
Authors: Goldberg Eileen , van Kemenade Cathelijne , Schiavuzzi Alex , Economidis George , Wilson Eleanor , Winch Scott , Knight Alice
Published: December 2024

The NSW Healthy Eating and Active Living (HEAL) Strategy 2022-2032 aims to reduce obesity in NSW, Australia, with a focus on Aboriginal communities. This Rapid Evidence Check aimed to identify effective healthy eating and active living programs for Australian Aboriginal people and describe their implementation and participation factors. The review included 21 studies from Australia, with 11 intervention and 10 non-intervention studies. Effective programs, like the Get Healthy Service, showed significant improvements in physical activity, healthy eating, and physical health. Key enablers were community co-design and cultural safety, while barriers included cultural misalignment and logistical challenges. Programs co-designed with Aboriginal communities and ensuring cultural safety are more effective and increase participation, highlighting the need for culturally relevant health initiatives.
Au-delà des normes : identifier et documenter les langues minorisées pour le traitement automatique des langues
Authors: Bernhard Delphine , Vergez-Couret Marianne , Dupuy Estèle
Published: December 2024

Cet article propose une réflexion sur les défis de la documentation des langues minorisées dans l’espace numérique à partir des travaux réalisés dans le cadre du projet DIVITAL. Les premiers travaux du projet ont concerné la collecte de corpus et leur documentation par des métadonnées à grain fin. Ces travaux ont mis en évidence deux défis majeurs : (i) l’identification des langues et de leurs variantes, dans le cadre des normes de codification des noms de langues, et (ii) la création de nouvelles ressources en lien avec les pratiques actuelles de ces langues.
Étudier et promouvoir les langues de la Bretagne
Authors: Thomas Mannaïg , Ôbrée Bèrtran , Lefranc Yannick
Published: December 2024

Cette contribution restitue les échanges d’une rencontre entre deux spécialistes des langues et cultures de Bretagne, sollicités pour partager les résultats de leurs analyses sur la place du breton et du gallo, reconnus aujourd’hui comme des langues de Bretagne, aux côtés du français. Attentifs aux problèmes théoriques et pratiques que posent la description et la diffusion de ces idiomes, les échanges ont porté sur les recherches dans les universités bretonnes, sur les collectes qui les ont précédées ou accompagnées, mais aussi sur les politiques publiques qui promeuvent ces langues dans la région. Il a également été question de la transmission ainsi que de l’écriture de ces langues et de leurs variétés.
BIOCIDAL ACTIVITY OF SEED EXTRACTS OF FRUITS AGAINST SOIL BORNE BACTERIAL AND FUNGAL PLANT PATHOGENS
Authors:   Mount Carmel College, 58, Palace Road, Bangalore- 560052, Karnataka, India., T Uma
Published: December 2024

Bacterial andfungal plant diseases affect virtually all crops of economic importance and aredifficult to control, resultingdevastating financial losses to farmers. The antimicrobial activity of eightfruit seed extract were tested against fourplant pathogens viz., Ralstonia solanacearum, Xanthomonascampestris, Phytophthora capsici and Pythium aphanidermatum byagar well diffusion method. Methanolic extract of Eugenia jambolana showedthe maximum inhibitory effect against X.campestris with theinhibitory zone of 34 mm, whereas the aqueous extract recorded aninhibition zone of 22 mm.
EFFECT OF CALENDULA OFFICINALIS EXTRACTS ON THE NUTRIENT COMPONENTS OF DIFFERENT TISSUES OF TOBACCO CUTWORM, SPODOPTERA LITURA FABRICIUS
Authors:   Department of Biotechnology & Microbiology, Bangalore University, Bengaluru-560056, Karnataka, India., N Medhini
Published: December 2024

The impact ofleaf and flower extracts of Calendula officinalis on total protein andtotal carbohydrate contents of the hemolymph, midgut and midgut content of Spodopteralitura larvae were studied. Among the leaf and flower extracts tested inthe hemolymph, the highest reduction in protein content of the larvae wascaused by chloroform leaf and benzene flower extracts whereas in the midgut,chloroform leaf and petroleum ether flower extracts reduced the protein to themaximum. Aqueous leaf and flower extracts had least activity in both hemolymph andmidgut. However, in the midgut content, methanol leaf and chloroform flowershowed maximum reduction in protein content and petroleum ether leaf andmethanol flower showed least reduction. Total carbohydrate content was reducedby chloroform leaf, and petroleum ether flower extracts in hemolymph with leastreduction in benzene leaf and flower extracts treated larvae. In the midgut,chloroform leaf and flower extract caused maximum reduction whereas in themidgut content, methanol leaf and petroleum ether flower extracts showed reductionin carbohydrate content, while aqueous leaf and flower extracts showed anincrease in carbohydrate content in midgut content contrary to midgut. However,when compared to control, the protein and carbohydrate content were reduced inall the tissues of treated larvae irrespective of the extracts tested. Theseresults suggest that Calendula extracts affect the nutritional status ofSpodoptera litura larvae.
BIOLOGY OF ENTOMOPATHOGENIC NEMATODES HETERORHABDITIS SP. AND STEINERNEMA SPP.
Authors:   Department of Nematology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641003, Tamil Nadu, India., M Muthulakshmi
Published: December 2024

Nematodesassociated with insects are referred to as entomophagous nematodes.Entomopathogenic nematodes

are highlypotential biocontrol agents for several lepidopteran and coleopteran insectpests. These nematodes are mutually symbiotic with the bacteria Xenorhabdus andPhotorhabdus spp. and the bacteria are responsible for the death of thehost. The biology of three species of Steinernema viz., Heterorhabditis wasstudied under laboratory conditions at a temperature of 28±2oC. The infectivejuveniles caused mortality of Corcyra cephalonica in about 48 hours.Hermaphrodites were observed 72 hrs after infection. Females and males ofamphimictic generation were observed 120 hrs after infection in Heterorhabditisand 48 hours after infection in Steinernema spp. Exit of infective juvenilesfrom cadavers of C. cephalonica was observed after 192 hrs in Heterorhabditis.In Steinernema glaseri and thermophilum the exit of infectivejuveniles was observed 120 hrs after infection while in S. tami the exitof infective juveniles was observed 96 hrs after infection. The study revealedthat H. indica completed two generations (First generation -hermaphrodite and Second generation - Amphimictic) in one insect. But all thethree species of Sterinernema completed only one generation(Amphimictic) in the insect host.
FORMULATION OF NATURAL INSECTICIDES AGAINST PANCHAETOTHRIPS INDICUS BAGNALL IN CURCUMA LONGA L. LEAVES OF PTS AND ERODE VARIETIES
Authors:   R & D centre, Bharathiyar University, Coimbatore, R Arutselvi , P Ponmurugan ,   K.S.Rangasamy College of Technology, Tiruchengode- 637215, Tamil Nadu, India, Saravanan T Bala ,   Nehru Arts and Science College, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India., R Suresh ,   Nehru Arts and Science College, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.
Published: December 2024

The toxicity ofthree concentrations (10%, 15% and 20% w/v) and foliar spraying schedules ofplant extracts from Azadiracta indica (Meliaceae), neem kernel and Vitexnegundo (Verbenaceae), Aloe vera (Asphodelacea) Gloriosa superba (Colchicaceae),Chrysanthimum cinearifolium (Asteraceae) and Ocimum tenuiflorum (Lamiaceae)for managing a major leaf pest of Curcuma longa, was investigated. Theinsect pest was Panchaetothrips indicus Bagnall (Thysanoptera :Thripidae) which causes the folding of leaves and affects the yield of itsrhizome. Two concentrations of extracts which proved efficacy in lab studieswere tried upon P.indicus in field in two seasons. Higher concentrations(20% w/v) and a combination of neem seed kernel and Vitex negundo leafextracts significantly (P < 0.05) reduced the number of the insect pest comparedto the untreated control in both years. Leaf damage was significantly reducedand rhizome yield increased compared to untreated plants.
THE POTENTIAL USE OF INDIGENOUS PLANT MATERIALS AGAINST CALLOSOBRUCHUS CHINENSIS L. AND CALLOSOBRUCHUS MACULATUS L. (COLEOPTERA, BRUCHIDAE) IN STORED LEGUMES IN SRI LANKA
Authors:   Department of Agricultural Biology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna, Matara, Sri Lanka., Ratnasekera Disna , Rajapakse Rohan ,   Department of Agricultural Biology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna, Matara, Sri Lanka.
Published: December 2024

Pulse beetles Callosobruchuschinensis and Callosobruchus maculatus are the most serious pests instored legumes in majority of tropical countries. Attention has been given tothe possible use of plant products or plant derived compounds as promisingalternatives to synthetic insecticides in controlling insect pests of stored products.Various indigenous plant species in different forms such as crude ethanol (CE)extracts, vegetable oils, dry powders and combinations of plant materials withinsecticides and effect of their concentration were tested against Callosobruchusspp. in laboratory conditions. The highest bioactivity (90 – 100% mortality)was manifested by the crude ethanol extracts of Azadirachta indica (Neem),Anona reticulata (Anona) and Ocimum sanctum (Maduruthala/sacredbail) among the crude ethanol extracts tested. Oils of O.sanctum at1.5 μL and A.reticulata at 3.0 μL completely inhibited oviposition andadult emergence. Clove powder was the most effective among the four powderstested for adult mortality followed by root dust of papaya. Among the plant powderstested, Maduruthala (O. sanctum) was the most effective for suppressingoviposition significantly followed by Getathumba (Leucas zeylanica). Ourexperiments also revealed enhanced toxicity and persistence of the insecticidein causing significant mortality to Callosobruchus spp. when combinedwith vegetable oils. Further, these results revealed that the potentialapplicability of some indigenous plant materials as stored grain protectants.The modes of action of these substances are not yet known and further studiesmust be carried out especially to clarify how it is involved in the physiologyof reproduction.
Who deserves to access their rights? Inequality in the action against non-take-up
Authors: Lovey Max , Bonvin Jean-Michel
Published: December 2024

The issue of non-take-up has increasingly been brought to light by scholars and field actors during the past decade. As a result, the issue gained political traction, and programs have been designed to reduce it. In canton Geneva, Switzerland, a town’s social services have recently launched two programs to enhance access to social rights. In this paper, we explore, notably through the lens of the deservingness literature, the variety of ways in which sub-groups of the population interact with the local authorities’ commitment to tackle non-take-up. Based on 45 semi-structured interviews with recipients, social workers and managers of these municipal programs, as well as stakeholders at cantonal level, we assess how the design, implementation and reception of the programs by their targeted population influence their unequal outcome. Our results show how the perception of various sub-groups of the population as more or less deserving informs how social policy is designed at macro level; implemented by state administration at federal and cantonal level and mediated by action against non-take-up at municipal level; and received by beneficiaries at micro level. By reproducing the deservingness rationale identified in the literature, local action against non-take-up tends to fuel a cumulative (dis-)advantage dynamic, and therefore reinforce or reproduce dynamics of inequality between sub-groups of the population whose starting point in terms of access to social rights does not seem to differ significantly.
Non-take-up as a social experience. Towards a typology of not claiming social benefits
Authors: Lucas Barbara
Published: December 2024

Non-take-up of financial social benefits is a prominent issue for contemporary welfare states, and studies exploring its causes have proliferated recently. However, most analyses are based on an “incapacity framework” or refer to a “rational choice model”, which makes it difficult to access the meaning that people attach to non-take-up. Based on qualitative research on the non‑take‑up of financial benefits by families living in Geneva, Switzerland, this paper proposes to explore this meaning by considering non-take-up as a social experience situated at the intersection of different logics of action: integration, strategy and subjectivation. This approach enables us to grasp how social inequalities, stigmatisation and discrimination – as structural explanations for non-take-up theorised separately in the literature – together help to shape different meanings of non-take-up. More precisely, we identify four meanings of not claiming social benefits in the narratives of the people interviewed, which are captured through four figures: Non-take-up as a means to combat social exclusion (Mr. Breadwinner); non-take-up as a consequence of the inadequacy of social policies (the Single Mother); non-take-up as part of an intergenerational integration project (the Migrant Worker); and non-take-up as an ethical stance (the Ethical Intellectual).
Multicultural Education in an Age of Globalization
Authors: DomNwachukwu Chinaka S.
Published: December 2024

Multicultural Education in an Age of Globalization: Compelling Issues for Engagement, starts out with a discussion of western colonization of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the residual effects of colonialism in the forms of colonial mindset of power, dominance, and white racial superiority that have continued to challenge the hopes of a peaceful and more harmonious exchange and interaction in the 21st century global communities. Issues such as white privilege and cultural humility are discussed in-depth. Subsequently, the idea of globalization and the concept of global citizenship are also addressed in light of their implications for multicultural education curriculum and practice in the 21st century classrooms. The book identifies and discusses compelling issues that must be carefully addressed as we undertake multicultural education in the 21st century educational setting: whether in the K-`12 or higher education setting. Such issues include Affirmative Action, Gender Equity issues, Religion in the public school setting, and the problem of Poverty in the 21st century societies.
More Than an Ally
Authors: Boucher Michael L.
Published: December 2024

The Caring Solidarity framework is both descriptive and aspirational. It is an attempt to empower White teachers to do the work of interrogating their racial privilege and join in Caring Solidarity with their African American students. The framework can be used to describe teachers who are working in Caring Solidarity with their students and to develop teachers with intention toward Caring Solidarity.

We are in a unique historical moment that demands White teachers become more effective in their schools, classrooms, and communities and for researchers to find ways to describe those teachers who build relationships of solidarity with students. Considering today’s tenor of the conversation around race, picking up this book and considering its contents is an act of defiance of the current climate, and/or one of devotion to the art and craft of teaching children.

Caring Solidarity is not a replacement for current frameworks such as Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy or Abolitionist Pedagogy but is a map for White teachers to journey toward those pedagogies. Everyone starts from somewhere. The path is winding and long but the goal, to create an equitable and humane classroom, is worth the trip. The purpose of this theory is to point the way.
Reading for Action
Authors: Boyd Ashley S. , Darragh Janine J.
Published: December 2024

This book illustrates how teachers can draw upon young adult literature to facilitate students’ social action. Each chapter centers on one novel that represents a contemporary topic including police brutality, women’s rights, ecojustice, and bullying. In each, authors provide pre-, during-, and after reading strategies for teaching that connect the social issues in the texts to students’ lives and to the world around them. They then offer a multitude of avenues for student action, emphasizing the need to move readers from understanding and awareness to asserting their own agency and capacities to effect change in their local, national, and global communities. In addition to methods for scaffolding students’ analysis of texts and topics, authors also offer a plethora of additional resources such as documentaries, canonical companions for study, connected music, and supplementary lesson plans.
Race Talk in the Age of the Trigger Warning
Authors: Grayson Mara Lee
Published: December 2024

To generate opportunities for transformative learning, educators must create learning environments that help students feel safe and encourage them to grapple with potentially difficult material. The trigger warning, a brief statement information students of potential distressing or re-traumatizing content, has been offered as a way to do just that, but this practice is neither as effective nor as equitable as it may seem. Intentionally or indirectly, the trigger warning limits the extent to which students are encouraged to engage in transformative critical conversations and reinforces the culture of silence that prevails in many educational spaces.

Emerging as a response to trauma amid an educational environment that professes student-responsiveness and celebrates diversity yet perpetuates the marginalization of many of the bodies in the classroom, the trigger warning is not the problem – but it is not the solution either.

What does this mean for the faculty members teaching this new generation of college students? And the teachers who find this generation’s younger siblings in their high school classrooms?

Drawing upon original research, Mara Lee Grayson tracks the rise of the trigger warning within historical and contemporary educational contexts; explores its potentialities, limitations, and abuses as praxis; and offers curricular suggestions for high school and college instructors seeking to implement equitable, antiracist pedagogies that simultaneously encourage students’ well-being, provoke intellectual and emotional growth, and challenge the cultures of silence that maintain inequity on school campuses.
Exploring White Fragility
Authors: Paslay Christopher
Published: December 2024

Exploring White Fragility uses both existing research and anecdotal classroom observations to examine the effects whiteness studies is having on America’s schools, and investigates how the antiracist movement to dismantle “white supremacy culture” is impacting student and teacher morale and expectations, school discipline, and overall academic achievement. Specifically, it analyzes the major tenets of whiteness studies, including awareness of white privilege and white fragility; the belief in colorblindness, individualism, and meritocracy; white racial identity development (WRID); implicit bias and microaggressions; and the methodologies underlying these concepts.

The book also compares traditional multicultural education to antiracist education; examines the impact of family and culture on learning, discipline, and achievement; investigates how whiteness studies and antiracism influence stereotype threat, the school-to-prison pipeline (STPP), and teacher and student expectations (Pygmalion Effect); studies the impact of race-based discipline approaches on student learning and achievement; and finally, offers solutions and improvements for whiteness scholars, teachers, administrators, and school reformers.
Lessons from the Bard
Authors: Wiles Marie
Published: December 2024

This book explores the school and district leadership lessons that can be gleaned from five of Shakespeare’s most well-known and frequently taught plays: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar and Hamlet. Each chapter focuses on one of the five plays and the leadership themes that can inform the work done by principals, superintendents and other school leaders. Those themes include everything from understanding how the adolescent brain works, to managing money and resources, to leading with a clear sense of purpose.This book does not require anyone to be a Shakespeare scholar. It simply asks readers to become reacquainted with some timeless stories, memorable characters, and remarkable feats that can be viewed as parallels to those that school leaders perform each and every day.
Empowering Learners
Authors: Small Roseboro Anna J. , Steffel Susan B.
Published: December 2024

Teaching is an ongoing learning process. Readers committed to improving their effectiveness in the use of class time will find practical ways to improve their practice. In a conversational style, co-authors Anna J. Small Roseboro and Susan B. Steffel share successful strategies based on their decades of experience in diverse settings. Woven into the methods, materials, and management strategies for teaching reading are the contributions of eighteen others from across the nation with experience teaching adult students in a range of courses, settings, cities, and states. Readers will gain insight to “engage, empower, and elevate” themselves as educators as they meet the varied needs of their students.
Historical Dictionary of Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Authors: Hoare James E.
Published: December 2024

As Kim Jong Un approaches the seventh anniversary of his coming to power he has pushed the military back. The modified Constitution adopted in 2016 saw the demotion of the National Defense Council in favor of a new State Affairs Council which was a more party and government dominated body. He has put his own men and women into positions of authority. Sanctions are an irritant yet are already weakening as a result of first ever meeting between a DPRK leader and a U.S. president took place in June of Singapore, as well as a string of North-South meetings covered issues such as family reunions and railway and road connections. Military talks also ed to the demilitarization of Panmunjom. Since then Japan wants to talk and even the Pope may visit.

This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Democratic People's Republic of Korea contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Historical Dictionary of Togo
Authors: Seely Jennifer C. , Decalo Samuel
Published: December 2024

Togo’s history from precolonial times to the present is one of a struggle for identity and leadership. A territory relatively untouched by neighboring pre-colonial empires was colonized by both the Germans and the French, and even before independence Togo was shaped by the struggle for political control by prominent families. Since the 1990s, widespread political movements have striven to unseat the ruling Gnassingbé family, in power for more than 50 years, only to be repressed by the military or thwarted at the ballot box. Economically more prosperous compared to many of the other countries in the West African region, Togo has diversified its economy from an early dependence on phosphates, and has navigated trade and foreign relations remarkably well for a country of only 7 million people, with a territory less than a quarter the size of neighboring Ghana. With at least 30 ethnic groups and wide array of languages, religions and cultural traditions, Togo is representative of the rich diversity of contemporary Africa, and a vibrant illustration of the dual quest for development and democracy that characterizes the West African region.

The fourth edition of Historical Dictionary of Togo contains a chronology, an introduction, an extensive bibliography, and a dictionary section has over 1,000 cross-referenced dictionary entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Togo.
Fracturing the Founding
Authors: Finn John E.
Published: December 2024

Many in the radical right, including the Tea Party, the militia movement, the Alt-right, Christian nationalists, the Oath Keepers, neo-Nazis, and a host of others, brand themselves as constitutional patriots. In Fracturing the Founding: How the Alt-Right Corrupts the Constitution, John E. Finn, one of America’s leading constitutional scholars, argues that these professions of constitutional devotion serve an important function in mainstreaming the radical right’s ideological and policy agenda: to camouflage its racism, bigotry, and sexism to appeal to a broader audience. The constitution the extreme right holds as its faith is an odd admixture of the forgotten, the rejected, the racist, and the bizarre. Finn illuminates the central precepts of the Alt-constitution and shows how and where it differs from the (true) American Constitution. The differences are disturbing. The Alt-constitution emphasizes absolute rights and unassailable liberties (especially for freedom of speech and guns, no matter the public interest), states’ rights and a corresponding suspicion of the federal government, racial classifications recognized and legitimated by law, and privilege for white Christians. Finn’s book will appeal to all readers interested in contemporary American politics, the contemporary radical right, the Founding and the history of America’s constitution.
The Voices of #MeToo
Authors: Gieseler Carly
Published: December 2024

The Voices of #MeToo: From Grassroots Activism to a Viral Roar is a timely analysis of how marginalized voices are engaged or silenced in one of the most successful social media projects in recent history. Accessibly written, this book unravels the ideas and practices of activism throughout the #MeToo movement from its inception to its current viral moment.

The movement went viral with a tweet from Alyssa Milano after the avalanche of sexual harassment and assault allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. The hashtag, however, got its start from African-American, grassroots activist Tarana Burke a decade earlier. Taking this as her starting place, Gieseler focuses on the marginalized communities that are often ignored once a movement goes mainstream. With chapters on black female activism, the LGBTQ+ community and disability, toxic masculinity, and international responses, The Voices of #MeToo issues a call for all movements to become more inclusive as they seek empowerment and resistance against oppressive and abusive forces. Perhaps in exploring issues of social justice through an intersectional lens, we may all begin to hear and amplify the voices that are often silenced in the louder, viral roar.
Historical Dictionary of Ancient Nubia
Authors: Lobban Jr. Richard A.
Published: December 2024

This new book descends from a former combined reference book on Ancient and Medieval Nubia but now expands and focuses primarily on Prehistoric and Ancient times. It contextualizes the foundational roots of human evolution in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic stone ages and on to the Neolithic revolution built on farming and livestock. Meanwhile, Kerma was the most ancient African states and their relationship with dynastic Egypt. Precisely, ancient Kerma a was a serious political, economic and military rival to Old and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt. But in the New Kingdom the balance of regional forces was dramatically changed with Egyptians defeating Kerma and occupying and colonizing Kush/Nubia for 500 years. In the 11th century BCE the political unity of Egypt withered away and after recovering from foreign exploitation, Nubians began to reconstitute a small state at Kurru with renewed pyramid building and then finding no Egyptian resistance, these Nubians kings advanced on Egyptian Nubia and then on to Upper Egypt. Finally, Nubians were able to take over all of Egypt as the pharaohs of century-long Dynasty XXV. This so-called ‘Ethiopian” dynasty had the famed pharaohs of Piankhy, Shabaka, Shabataka, Taharka and Tanutamun ruling for various terms, three of who are mentioned in the Biblical Old Testament.

Even when Nubians were expelled from Egypt by foreign Assyrian invaders, they retreated to Napata to carry on their ancient state for three more independent centuries as Egyptian remained conquered by various foreigners for 2,500 years. Most notable of these foreign conquers of Egypt were the Greeks (Ptolemies) and the Roman (who arrived and polytheists and left as Christians. During this Greco-Roman period in Egypt, Nubians strategically withdrew still further south to the Kingdom of Meroë (from the 4th century BCEE to the 4th century CE. Meroe is also covered in great detail as it was famed for many regnant queens, a unique and undeciphered writing system, iron-production and important monumental works including more pyramids than found in Egypt, Yes, smaller and later but many more pyramids that are still standing in several World Heritage sites in Nubia. After Meroë began a long decline it was finally vulnerable to attack from Christian Axum on the 4th century CE. Two murky centuries of regional rule, known as the X-Group were to follow, but by the 6th century Nubians recreated three Christian states that are covered in detail in the following Historical Dictionary of Medieval Christian Nubia and the Historical Dictionary of Sudan for Islamic and modern times.
Out of Sight
Authors: Kurtzer Jacob D.
Published: December 2024

Nigeria represents one of the United States’ most important relationships in Africa. Despite U.S. security sector and humanitarian assistance programs, ten years of violent insurgency in northeast Nigeria have led to massive humanitarian needs for more than seven million people, and the crisis shows no signs of abating. Ongoing restrictions by the government of Nigeria on humanitarian action threaten U.S. policy goals of improved humanitarian outcomes and a reduction in the presence of violent terrorist organizations.

This report unpacks the challenges for humanitarian actors, the role of the United States and other donor institutions in meeting humanitarian needs, and the effectiveness of the Nigerian government’s response. Jacob D. Kurtzer provides concrete recommendations for mitigating the civilian impact of the conflict in northeast Nigeria.
Ideology and Libraries
Authors: Buckland Michael K.
Published: December 2024

In 1950 Robert L. Gitler went to Japan to found the first college-level school of library science in that country. His mission, an improbable success, was documented in an assisted autobiography as Robert Gitler and the Japan Library School (Scarecrow Press, 1999). Subsequent research into initiatives to improve library services during the Allied occupation has revealed surprising discoveries and human interest of the lives of very diverse individuals.

A central role was played by a librarian, Philip Keeney, who later became well-known as an alleged communist spy. A national plan, designed for Japan’s libraries, was based directly on the county library system developed by progressive thinkers in California, itself a dramatic story. The School of Librarianship at the University of California and its founding director, Sydney Mitchell, was found to have deeply influenced key figures. The story also requires an appreciation of the deployment of American libraries abroad as tools of foreign policy, as cultural diplomacy. Meanwhile, library services in Japan were seriously underdeveloped, despite Japan’s extraordinarily high literacy rate, very well-developed publishing and book retail industries, and librarians who were far from backward.

The difference in library development lay in the huge divergence between the ethos of the American public library (dominated by support for individual self-development and Western liberal democracy) and the evolving political ideology of Japanese governments after the Meiji Restoration (1868). After absorbing authoritarian French and German administrative practices Japan became a militarist dictatorship from the 1920s onwards until surrender in 1945.

The literature on the Allied Occupation of Japan is vast, but library services have received very little attention beyond the creation of the National Diet Library in 1948. The story of initiatives to improve library services in occupied Japan, the role of libraries as cultural diplomacy, the dramatic development of free public library services in California have remained unknown or little known – until now.
Encyclopedia of American Classical Pianists
Authors: Masters Richard
Published: December 2024

This essential reference focuses on the lives, careers, and musical contributions of over 150 American pianists from early days of the nation until the present day.

Richard Masters spotlights both modern and historical pianists—including women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ pianists who either never had the opportunity to win widespread acclaim but were top notch performers or who achieved important careers against heavy odds but were soon forgotten after their deaths, such as Augusta Cottlow, George Copeland, and Natalie Hinderas. This volume also gives attention to important collaborative pianists—none of whom have ever appeared in any volume on classical pianists—and influential pedagogues, some of whom never had significant performing careers but produced important students.

Each entry explores an individual pianist’s life and career—from relevant biographical details to impact on American musical culture—and includes a selected list and brief discussion of existing and available recordings, if any. Additionally, an introduction situates these pianists into historical trends.

Overseen by a blue-ribbon editorial board, Encyclopedia of American Classical Pianists: 1800s to the Present provides a comprehensive view of the depth and breadth of American pianistic achievement and serves as the most up-to-date work for students, piano departments, music libraries, researchers, and interested pianophiles.
Millennials in America 2022
Authors: Scardamalia Robert L.
Published: December 2024

This completely updated fourth edition of Millennials in America provides a wide range of characteristics profiling the demographic, social, and economic status of the millennial generation. While the baby boom generation occupies much of our social and political dialogue, the millennial generation is actually a larger generation. As the boomers age, their numbers will decrease while the millennials will be the driving social and political force in the coming decades. Millennials in America focuses on the those born between 1982–2001.

Millennials in America is an invaluable source for helping people understand what the census data tells us about who we are, what we do, and where we live.

Benefits of this publication include:

It will fill an information gap due to the difficulty in extracting comparative data from the Census Bureau's American FactFinder dissemination system.

Users will have comparative data in a single reference volume.

It will eliminate the need for the data user to understand and manipulate detailed census data files and consolidate disparate tables in AFF.

This publication utilizes the PUMS data which is the ONLY source of data that can be used to define precise age ranges for the millennial generation. The age detail available for census summary data simply aren’t adequate for defining the millennials and therefore prohibit compilation of characteristics specific to this important generation.
Becoming Bikini Bodybuilders
Authors: Michalikova Nina
Published: December 2024

Becoming Bikini Bodybuilders: Challenges and Rewards of Ordinary Women Stepping on Stage offers an insight into the bikini category of natural female bodybuilding by revealing benefits and challenges experienced by ordinary women who decide to become bikini bodybuilders. Nina Michalikova challenges prevailing misconceptions and shows that not all female athletes follow extreme training and dietary measures for prolonged periods of time to achieve their desired physique. By highlighting the positive aspects of bikini bodybuilding, this book breaks the stereotypes of a “typical bikini competitor” as a hyper-sexualized woman with underlying health issues. In addition to studying a little understood population of bikini athletes, the study uses an innovative methodology to examine the topic.
Feminist Media
Authors: Sedgwick Claire
Published: December 2024

Feminist Media: From the Second Wave to the Digital Age analyses the relationship between second wave feminist media production and capitalism, as well as identifying the tradition that can be drawn between second wave feminism, Riot Grrrl and feminist blogging today. There has been a recent re-evaluation of the importance of second wave feminist media, demonstrated by the digitization of Spare Rib by the British Library in 2015. However, up until now, research on the magazine has been limited.

This book analyses the relationship between Spare Rib and the capitalist publishing industry, comparing it to American feminist magazine Ms. The book argues that it is important to understand the cultural economies of the magazines as this had an impact on the assumed readership of the magazines, therefore having an impact on the issues that were privileged. The second half of the book charts a crucial and often overlooked link between feminist media production in the ‘second wave’ and more contemporary forms of feminist media activism.
Pitch Battles
Authors: Hain Peter , Odendaal Andre
Published: December 2024

“There will be a black Springbok over my dead body.”

— Dr Danie Craven, President of the South African Rugby Board, 1969

Just a year after the controversial D’Oliveira affair, the organised disruption of the all-white 1969/70 South African rugby and cricket tours to Britain represented a significant challenge to apartheid politics. Led by future cabinet minister Peter Hain, the ‘Stop the Seventy Tour’ campaign brought about the cancellation of both tours, presaging white South Africa’s expulsion from the Olympics and the end of apartheid sport altogether.

With his brand of attention-grabbing, direct action sports protest, the 19-year-old Hain emerged as a hero to some and enemy to others. Now, reflecting on these experiences with fifty years of hindsight, Lord Hain, together with South Africa’s foremost sports historian and fellow anti-apartheid activist André Odendaal, shows how decades of relentless international and domestic campaigning for equality led to a Springbok team captained by black athlete Siya Kolisi winning the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

Interspersing a wide range of examples with personal testimony, Pitch Battles explores the themes of sport, globalisation and resistance from the deep past to the present day. Published in the same year as the Stop The Tour documentary from acclaimed director Louis Myles, this compelling story of sacrifice, struggle and triumph reveals how sport should never be divorced from politics or society’s values.
A Post-Western Account of Critical Cosmopolitan Social Theory
Authors: Murphy Michael
Published: December 2024

In this book, Michael Murphy argues that if cosmopolitanism is to remain critical and relevant, rather than set out another grand project, what is required is a process of critique and cooperation. At the level of inter-cultural exchange, this requires understanding the encounter with the Other as a mutual phase of development and holds out the potential to rejuvenate world philosophies.Through this process the cosmopolitan imagination emerges from a dialogue between global traditions of relational sociologies on matters of common concern.

The second stage of the book applies this methodology to provide a radical account of being and acting in the world. This will be achieved through engaging in conversation with the works of the critical theorist Gerard Delanty, the decolonial theorist Walter Mignolo, and the Buddhist, Confucian, and phenomenological inspired work of Watsuji Tetsurō. In providing a move away from abstractions and ideals to instead focus on injustices and the everyday life, Murphy uncovers an independent source for political legitimacy not defined by the rationality of the state or dependent on the ideals of Western philosophy. Part of this investigation also reveals a post-individual account of agency as an enactive being. Emphasising agency as becoming has the potential to allow us to reimagine the relationship between the self and the institutions of democracy. The main themes of this book are eurocentrism, critical cosmopolitanism, post-individual subjectivity and democracy.
Dictatorship by Degrees
Authors: Feldman Steven P.
Published: December 2024

Dictatorship by Degrees: Xi Jinping in China traces the totalitarian elements that linger in China’s governing policies and practices, such as extra-legal Anti-Corruption Campaign, great concentration of power in one man, increasing intolerance, increasing propaganda, increasing indoctrination, increasing self-criticism inside the Party, expansion of Party cells across society, increasing censorship, cult of personality, and mass incarceration in Xinjiang. Steven P. Feldman develops a concept of pre-totalitarianism to explore these developments through extensive field data, including interviews with business executives, professors, lawyers, and non-profit executives, and observations of daily life. Feldman argues that Chinese political culture, based on the core principle of small group loyalties is inherently unstable, resulting in an ongoing tendency for leaders to concentrate power to survive and accomplish their goals. Under communist dictatorial political organization, totalitarian domination is always a temptation and risk.
AN EFFECT OF APICAL PREPARATION ON THE QUALITY OF ENDODONTIC TREATMENT
Authors: Yurievna Orekhova , Yurievna Vashneva , Vasilyevna Porkhun , Sergeevich Korobkin , Evgenievna Khrushkova , Sergeevna Budarina
Published: December 2024

Relevance: The apical third of the root canal is difficult to access for high-quality endodontic treatment due to the complex anatomical and morphological structure of this area, which includes anastomoses, extra canals, apical deltas, various shapes of the apical foramen. Based on this, the accomplishment of suitable mechanical preparation of the apical part of the root canal remains one of the most complex and important tasks for successful endodontic treatment.
Aim: to evaluate the impact of mechanical preparation of the lower third of the root canal on the quality of endodontic treatment.
Materials and methods: 30 extracted teeth (incisors, premolars, molars), which root canals had been mechanical and medicamentous processing, were examined. All teeth were divided into two groups based on the extent of apical preparation: up to №25 and №50 according to ISO. The root canal obturation was done with the technique of vertical
condensation of gutta-percha. The X-ray diagnostics was used to control the quality of obturation. Teeth from each group that met the inclusion criteria were placed in a solution of methylene blue. Then, transversal cuts were received with a separation disc. The degree of dye penetration into the dentin of the root canal was recorded on these cuts.
Results: The study results demonstrated that the adhesion of the filling material to the walls of the root canal was significantly worse in the first group of teeth (apical enlargement up to 25/04), compared to the second group (apical enlargement to 50/04).
Conclusion: The root canal enlargement only to №25 according to ISO is not enough for the complete removal of contaminated dentin and the accomplishment of high-quality obturation. The suitable mechanical preparation of the apical part with large sizes allows do more thorough irrigation of the root canal and subsequent obturation, which is a keystone for successful endodontic treatment.