bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Martin Luther’s Concept of Doctrine
Authors: Nüssel Friederike
Published: March 2017

Luther conceives Christian doctrine drawn from the Bible and summarized in the articles of faith as the essential resource and topic of all Christian teaching and preaching. In contrast to both scholastic and post-Reformation theology, Luther emphasizes the strong connection and interdependence between doctrine and proclamation. While doctrine communicates God’s word in his law and his gospel, doctrine can only be pure if it does not confuse law and gospel but carefully distinguishes God’s demand in the law from the promise and gift of his mere grace in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus, the core topic of Christian doctrine is Christ’s redemption through his proclamation, his death on the cross, and his resurrection by which God in the power of his spirit graciously offers justification by faith alone. By representing God’s gracious revelation in the incarnation and redemptive and salvific activity of his son, Christian doctrine communicates the presence of the loving and justifying God who evokes faith and trust through his word. While Christian doctrine grants knowledge about God’s triune activity, it is not only informative, but communicates God’s promise efficiently.

In the course of the Reformation, Luther emphasized more the importance of the verbum externum as an instrument to communicate pure doctrine. To support Christian teaching and education, he wrote the catechisms in which he explains the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Apostle’s Creed as the essential resources of Christian doctrine, but unlike Melanchthon, he did not summarize Christian doctrine in loci theologici. Yet he understood the articles of faith to be inherently connected and inseparable as they refer to the unity of God. Thus, the systematic explanation of the Christian faith in Lutheran orthodoxy meets with Luther’s understanding of the structure of doctrine and his concern for fully exploring and apprehending God’s grace and justice as revealed in the gospel. At the same time, Luther always used doctrine in soteriological context. Because of its particular content, theological reflection of doctrine cannot exclude the dimension of proclamation.
Martin Luther and Modernity, Capitalism, and Liberalism
Authors: Zachhuber Johannes
Published: March 2017

The concept of modernity has emerged as a major philosophical, theological, and sociological category of interpretation in the aftermath of the French Revolution. It was meant to embrace fundamental changes to the fabric of Western culture, including the rise of capitalism, liberalism, democracy, and secularity. From its inception, references to Luther and the Reformation have been a frequent element of this kind of theory. The first major theorist of modernity in this sense was arguably Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel, who set the tone of subsequent contributions by aligning modernity with subjectivity. For him, the religious dimension of this development was crucial, and he was explicit in his claim that it was the Reformation that brought the turn to subjectivity in the realm of religion. A side effect of the turn to subjectivity was the alienation of the subject from the world. Modernity is thus deeply ambivalent, and so is Protestantism. Later thinkers developed these insights further, but also criticized the identification of Luther with the origin of modernity, pointing to continuities between his theology and earlier, medieval thought.
Portrayals of Martin Luther in Print, Stage and Film
Authors: Nelson Derek R.
Published: March 2017

So much is known about Martin Luther, and the stakes of telling his story have been perceived to be so high, that an astonishing variety of presentations of his life have been offered. Some of his earliest opponents sought to discredit and vilify Luther by highlighting and in some cases fabricating shameful details about his life. His collaborators and sympathizers came to his defense. With similar one-sidedness, they inaugurated a long tradition of Luther hagiography. The man who did much to diminish the role that devotion to the saints played in the piety of Christianity came to function much like a Protestant saint. Miracles, such as his portrait not burning up in house fires, even came to be attributed to him.

As the process of confessionalization took place, subsequent generations told the Luther story as one of divine intervention in history. The monastic theologian became an evangelical prophet as well as a “national” hero. For Roman Catholics, Luther became the quintessential heresiarch, because the spate of divisions emerging from medieval Christendom were thought to be attributed to him, and thus any attempt to characterize and caricature him could be justified by appealing to the urgency to refute him. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century biographies of Luther display evidence of the growing sensitivity to objective historical scrutiny but maintained their confessional biases. Protestants in their 20th-century portrayals tend to exemplify the dominant philosophical and methodological interests of biographers: existentialists see an existentialist Luther, psychoanalysts see a manic-depressive Luther, and so on.

Portrayals of Luther come in other media, as well. Stage adaptations and numerous films show a tormented, angst-ridden soul who faces his pain with sometimes heroic resolve. And Luther becomes a wax nose, easily bent for organizers’ agendas, when he is depicted and contextualized in various anniversaries of his life, death, and Reformation.
Martin Luther’s Doctrine of Creation
Authors: Schwanke Johannes
Published: March 2017

Martin Luther’s doctrine of creation can be identified as the center of his theology. The justification for this judgement is threefold. First, the centrality of creation to Luther’s theology is rooted in Luther’s expansive interpretation of the act of creation. Luther’s theology of creation is neither limited to a description of what happened “in the beginning” nor restricted to some initial and selective point of life. Instead, Luther understands creation as the principal and permanent feature of God’s action and communication, something happening constantly and taking place in a threefold way: by creation, preservation, and re-creation. In addition to this Martin Luther’s doctrine of creation is a strong antidote against any present Deism or present Gnosticism. Second, creation may be seen as central to Luther’s theology because it describes God’s sovereignty and is directly linked to it. For Luther, God’s action is always sola gratia, always a creatio ex nihilo. This does not mean that Luther ignores or denies the vast creational involvement in creatural matters, for instance, in the emergence of new life. Instead, his intention is to emphasize God’s almightiness: God acts purely out of freedom and love and not because of any obligation. When God creates, he needs no available material substance, when God justifies, he needs no preliminary human work. Of course, God may use them but he does not need them. In principle, God’s actions are all initial and initiating beginnings. Therefore, creation, preservation, and re-creation happen “without any of my merit and worthiness.” Every calculating do ut des—I give to you so that you give to me—comes to an end here. All creatural and theological creation, preservation, and re-creation is not earned by one’s own virtue but given sola gratia. Third, the doctrine of creation is central because Luther develops out of it the basis of his ethical thinking. God’s already described creational activity puts all humankind into place and determines their role in creation. Luther understands the human’s response to God’s gift to lie in the gratitude of the creature toward the creator, and not in the critique of the creator or in a tempting or attempting “improvement” of the gift through an effort of self-creation. As creature, one is called to shape the given world, but more so to receive one’s own personal destiny with gratitude. For Luther, this thankfulness also means embracing, or at least accepting, one’s own creation as a destiny that is determined, individual, and in many respects unalterable. In addition to this personal perspective of gratitude, God’s verbal and communicative means of creation in dialogue with his creature is for Luther a basic feature of his ethics as well. Luther generalizes this creational dialogical structure and uses it in the ethical field not only to characterize the relationship between creator and creature but also to characterize the relationships among the creatures themselves.
Law in Doctrine and Life According to Martin Luther
Authors: Saarinen Risto , Nelson Derek R.
Published: March 2017

The law both is and functions in Martin Luther’s theology. To the extent that it simply is, the law is wholly good, just, and pure. It reveals God’s benevolent providence for creation by instantiating structures of human relationships, natural processes, and social arrangements within which human life and all of creation can flourish. Luther regards the essential character of the law in a way reminiscent of the haggadah tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, where the law is a narrative which reveals features of the lawgiver. Under the conditions of sin, however, the law can be experienced as wrath by humans who cannot fulfill what it requires, and who suffer as a result of their own transgression of the Word of God or as a result of the transgressions of others. It functions thus as a curb against wickedness and as a means of exposing sin to be sin. Its continued presence in the life of the believer is necessary, as Luther clarified in his various debates with Johann Agricola and the so-called “Antinomians.” When the law is understood only in its antinomy with the gospel, the life-affirming elements of the law are occluded, even as the gospel’s life-redeeming elements are thereby rendered clear.

While numerous fine distinctions can be found in Luther’s theology of the law, it maintains a basic unity-in-diversity. God wills singly in dealing with human beings as his creatures. Therefore “civil law,” the Decalogue, and other manifestations of the law are facets of the one will of God for the flourishing of creation. Recent Pauline scholarship has criticized Luther for eisegesis on Paul’s view of the law; Luther needed to see his contemporary Roman partisans as Paul’s legalistic Jewish opponents, they say, and so he read Romans as a critique of 16th-century “works righteousness.” This view ignores the fact that Luther (and Augustine) viewed the post-conversion Paul as “continent” in doing the works of the law, neither weak-willed nor perfectly virtuous.

Law is necessary for doctrine, but it is also important for the “Christian life” because it helps the believer to understand the reciprocity that underlies interpersonal relationships, seen especially in the “golden rule” that functions as the epitome of the Christian life. The radical receptivity (i.e., passivity) that characterizes the life of faith in believers enables the experience of God’s will, understood as law or command, in a constructive and beneficial way. While Christian life should employ a “faith approach” rather than a “law approach,” genuine faith in God does, in fact, reveal the true meaning of the law. This might be called the “second use of the gospel” in that God’s command (Gebot), viewed in light of the gospel, becomes a source of guidance for the Christian life, the ten commandments, the double love command, and the Sermon on the Mount chief among them.
The Incarnation in Martin Luther’s Theology
Authors: Käfer Anne
Published: March 2017

Luther’s understanding of the Incarnation concerns various subject areas in his theology, among them his understanding of scripture, his teaching on the sacraments in particular, as well as his description of a human being’s life of faith. All these subject areas are based on Luther’s Christology, which is essentially determined by his insights into the Incarnation and the humanity of God in Jesus Christ.

Luther’s description of the Incarnation and the humanity of God is particularly oriented towards the creed of Chalcedon. The insight that Christ is at the same time true human and true god is something Luther holds as relevant to salvation. For this reason, it is important for him on the one hand to think about the Incarnation of God in a Trinitarian context and thereby to highlight Christ’s divine existence. On the other hand, he refers to the concept of the Virgin Birth in order to show that God was born a real human being. Luther describes the union of God and man in Christ principally as a reciprocal exchange of the respective divine and human characteristics. He uses the figure of the communication of properties (communicatio idiomatum) to highlight the Incarnation’s fundamental significance for salvation, which becomes manifest in the course of Christ’s life.

Luther’s conception of the fact and manner in which human and divine natures are united with each other in Christ is of soteriological relevance. With the incarnate God, the sin that Christ has taken upon himself for the salvation of humankind is defeated on the Cross, since by virtue of his human nature the characteristics of being able to suffer and to die were proper to the incarnate Son of God. Accordingly, God himself suffers and dies on the Cross in Christ for his own creatures under the burden of their sins. On the Cross, the God who died in Christ and with his resurrection has overcome the death of sin meets his creatures so that they attain faith and ultimately eternal life in community with God. This saving event is, according to Luther, founded in God’s immeasurable love.

The saving effectiveness of Incarnation, Cross, and resurrection presupposes Christian proclamation, according to Luther. The preaching of the incarnate God is needed, so that through the operation of the Holy Spirit the truth of the proclaimed event can be recognized and faith can thereby arise. In faith in the Son of God who has become man, the believer himself experiences a most intimate connection with Christ. According to Luther, this community of faith determines the consummation of the life of the believer, who therefore lives in love for God and for neighbor because the love of God has been revealed to him/her in Christ.

The community of Christ’s faithful with one another is, according to Luther, above all formed through the celebration of the sacraments. In celebrating them, the believers experience the real presence of the incarnate God in Christ, through whom they are bound in faith based on the communication of properties between the human and divine natures.
The Word of God in Martin Luther’s Theology
Authors: Wolff Jens
Published: March 2017

Luther develops a new concept of the Word of God that concentrates on the word and image of Christ. He uses performative images and presence metaphors not only in the field of Christology, but also in the field of creation and consummation. The Word of God and the image of Christ are the only medial possibilities for proclaiming the presence of God with the prevalence of the oral word over the written word (scripture). Christ is understood as the personal Word of God, which can be communicated only through interpersonal mediality and polysemy. The cultural technique of communication makes faith possible (e.g., through the sermon, Lord’s Supper, or baptism). Rhetoric is the effective and affective way to communicate this Word of God.

The rhetoric of the crucified as the imaginative Word of God is the medium that liberates the believer from being entangled with sin, hell, and death. Yet speech cannot be functionalized to become a guaranteed presence of this word—although Christ understands himself as a communicator. At the same time, his word is a rhetorical strategy for coping with the absence of God. The cry at the cross, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) is a verbal expression of the complete Godforsakenness of the crucified. The words on the cross express the radical absence of God. The rhapsodic cry is centered on abandonment. It cannot be whitewashed by ontology or logic. With these words Luther accentuates the negativity of the dead body as a communicative practice. The Word of God (and the word of the Christian) is characterized by polysemy: the word of the resurrection of Christ is gospel. Only this oral word enables the perception of resurrection. In many other dogmatic fields, such as creation, theological anthropology, incarnation, the sacraments, ecclesiology, and eschatology, faith and words belong together because God’s companionship with us is verbal. The iconic and metaphoric character of the word is not a representation of the fourfold sense of scripture, but a unique way to accentuate the performativity and at the same time the polysemy of the Word of God.
Reason and Philosophy in Martin Luther’s Thought
Authors: Grosshans Hans-Peter
Published: March 2017

Throughout his academic life, Martin Luther was in constant discussion with philosophy. He was prepared for this with a substantial study of philosophy at the University of Erfurt, finishing with a master of arts degree. In many parts of Luther’s work, there are explicit discussions of philosophy, in the interpretation of biblical texts and in the definition of theological concepts. Quite early in his theological career, Luther became aware of the problematic dominance of Aristotelian scholastic philosophy in the formation and definition of theological concepts. He was always attempting to develop a clear distinction between philosophy and theology, which freed theology from the concepts of Aristotelian philosophy and from the limits of Aristotelian logic, but the same time respected the significance of philosophy. As Luther preferred clear critique and often used strident language for this, his sometimes polemical critique of philosophy, logic, and “the philosopher” (Aristotle) was often interpreted as a fundamental dismissal of philosophy. Since the late 20th century, research has presented a very different picture of Luther’s understanding of philosophy, of the role and significance he gave to philosophy theoretically and in his practical academic work, and of the relation of Luther’s references to Aristotle and the concrete Aristotelian philosophy in scholasticism, as well as to the relationship between theology and philosophy in general. All this research showed how deeply Luther was rooted in the philosophical discourses and contexts of late scholasticism and involved in the debates of nominalism. But this research also made clear how Luther successfully struggled to come to a very different model of the relationship between theology and philosophy than the models of scholasticism, which secured the independence of both intellectual disciplines despite their close relatedness their relatedness. Luther’s understanding of philosophy and philosophy’s significance for theology is closely related to his concept of reason. Again, there is some polemical critique of reason in Luther’s writings, but in fact Luther had a high appreciation of reason, when reason was in exploring the physical, social, and psychic reality and in shaping the natural, social, and moral world. Luther was critical and polemical toward reason when it was used in matters of faith. But although the use of reason in theology had its limits, it was nevertheless indispensable in theological work. This was especially clear in Luther’s hermeneutics, as reason was the means to come to the external clarity of biblical texts in the process of interpretation.
Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil
Authors: de Mello e Souza Laura
Published: March 2017

Popular religiosity in colonial Brazil was marked by the process of colonization, which placed populations of differing ethnic and cultural origins together in dynamic and conflicting ways. On the one hand, the lived experiences of these various populations reflected the beliefs of their continent of origin: Europe, Africa, and America. On the other hand, they were unavoidably intertwined, giving rise to novel forms of religious practice. Heterodox behaviors were notable from the beginning of colonization, adding to the peculiarities of the slave system that constituted colonial life and defined its social relations. In a vast territory over which the surveillance and control of religious institutions—both ecclesiastical and inquisitorial—proved unworkable, daily experiences of religiosity became increasingly distinct from the more dogmatic and “official” traits sustained by the Catholic Church. A particular type of religiosity, as heterodox and mixed as the population itself, took shape within the limits of Catholicism while continuously escaping its confines. Catholicism endured from the earliest times as the guiding orientation of Brazil, supported by the Crown as well as regular and secular clergy alike. The education of the elites was Catholic, and many of the earliest writings about the new land of Brazil came from the quills of the pious, producing foundational images marked by religious metaphors. For these reasons, popular religiosity reveals a great deal about the nature of Brazilian culture, and it is necessary to analyze it within the context of broader dynamics that define popular beliefs that do not always fit within the orthodox guidelines of official Catholicism and erudition.
Mercury and Silver Mining in the Colonial Atlantic
Authors: Brown Kendall
Published: March 2017

From the time that Columbus arrived in the Caribbean until Spain surrendered power over its mainland American colonies in the early 19th century, Spanish and Portuguese colonial mines poured forth vast amounts of bullion, including some gold and a far greater quantity of silver, both in terms of weight and its overall value relative to gold. Fiscal records indicate that Spanish Americans officially refined gold worth approximately 374,000,000 pesos, each consisting of 272 maravedís, whereas the amount of silver produced reached a value of 3,432,000,000 pesos (to these figures need to be added contraband output, estimated to have been around 17–20 percent). In other words, the colonies refined nine times more silver than gold. While Columbus, Cortés, and other earlier explorers may have fantasized primarily about gold, it was the flood of American silver that touched off the price revolution in Europe and monetarized the emerging world economy, especially because China had a voracious appetite for silver, not gold. At the same time in the American colonies, mining distorted economic life because of the incentives the industry received from a silver-hungry monarchy. Mining also had profound consequences for indigenous society, severely exploited to provide workers for the mines and refining mills.

Colonial refiners used two methods to beneficiate their silver ores, smelting and amalgamation. Smelting was suitable for all types of American silver ores but required large amounts of fuel to heat the ovens. It remained widely used throughout Mexico during the entire colonial period. Amalgamation was a newer technology, adapted to American ores during the mid-16th century. Although it did not require large quantities of charcoal and other fuels, as smelting did, amalgamation depended on the availability of mercury. Nearly all quicksilver used in colonial Spanish American silver mining came from either Huancavelica (Peru) or Almadén (Spain), with occasional supplements from Idria (Slovenia). Whereas both smelting and amalgamation were used widely in Mexico, Andean mines relied on amalgamation.
Juliet Barrett Rublee and Flame of Mexico
Authors: Rashkin Elissa , Arredondo Isabel
Published: March 2017

The 1932 film Flame of Mexico (released in Mexico as Alma mexicana), written and produced by the US feminist activist Juliet Barrett Rublee (b. 1875–d. 1966), provides a window on to political and cultural aspects of US-Mexican relations during the 1920s. A melodrama whose themes include land, education, oil, and the Mexican Revolution, Flame of Mexico takes an activist stance toward international politics, critiques economic exploitation, and argues for US support of Mexican sovereignty in a time of conflict. Addressed to diplomatic circles and mass audiences alike, the message is rendered subtler by its central romantic love story and numerous action sequences drawn from the nascent Hollywood industry, as well as its finely filmed picturesque scenery and its tapestry of regional Mexican music, woven into an appealing soundtrack by leading composers and musicians of the era.

Long overlooked by film historians, Flame of Mexico is a unique artifact in film history: made in the first years of sound cinema, the film contains both intertitles and a synchronized musical score and is a transnational project. Latin American musicians living or working in Los Angeles recorded the score, while a Hollywood crew shot the film in Mexico. The film is credited with being the first feature film about Mexico shot on location in that country, and it preceded Sergei Eisenstein’s unfinished Mexico project, a version of which was released in the United States almost simultaneously with Flame as Thunder over Mexico (1933). Also unique is Flame’s mix of melodrama and travelogue genres; it features a cast of Mexican actors, some of whom would go on to enjoy stable binational acting careers, with US actors playing the gringo villains as well as numerous non-actors playing themselves in ethnographic scenes designed to show, in the words of its producer, “the real Mexico.”

Although masked in the film’s publicity and press reviews, Rublee’s personal, multifaceted history as an activist is key to understanding her film as an important political and cultural undertaking, rather than the extravagant failure that some critics have portrayed, often relying on secondhand opinions without having had access to the film itself. In spite of its limited distribution and meager box-office returns—in the midst of an economic depression—the film is an act of political intervention whose colorful and romantic love story is deployed in the service of a message of peace and transnational cooperation.
Evo Morales and Bolivian Politics in the 20th and 21st Centuries
Authors: Crabtree John
Published: March 2017

Evo Morales Ayma was elected president of Bolivia in December 2005, taking office in January 2006. He has since been reelected on two separate occasions, in 2009 and 2014. Like Lula in Brazil, Morales is one of the few Latin American leaders to emerge from truly humble origins, a trait that helps explain his lasting popularity with a largely poor and indigenous voting public. The evolution of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), Morales’s party, had its roots in the struggles to resist the United States–inspired “war on drugs” in the late 1990s, yet it managed to broaden the scope of its appeal to involve a range of social movements, both rural and urban, using the defense of natural resources as a leitmotiv to bring together disparate groupings. In government, Morales sought to engineer an abrupt change from neoliberal policies pursued by elite-led civilian administrations since the 1980s, reasserting the role of the state in development, bringing the all-important hydrocarbons industry back into public control, speeding up land reform, introducing a constitution that reasserted indigenous rights, and enacting policies designed to redistribute income and combat poverty.

A polemical figure, Morales has attracted adulation from supporters and bitter criticism from opponents. Scholarship has reflected this polarization. Conservative critics, at one end of the spectrum, have tended to stress the authoritarian features of his government and its disdain for democratic niceties; Marxists at the other end tend to see it as an exercise in pale reformism that has left the power structure in Bolivia largely intact. In between, of course, there are a variety of intermediary positions that draw out both the achievements and limitations that this article seeks to assess.
Computational Phonology
Authors: Chandlee Jane , Heinz Jeffrey
Published: March 2017

Computational phonology studies the nature of the computations necessary and sufficient for characterizing phonological knowledge. As a field it is informed by the theories of computation and phonology.

The computational nature of phonological knowledge is important because at a fundamental level it is about the psychological nature of memory as it pertains to phonological knowledge. Different types of phonological knowledge can be characterized as computational problems, and the solutions to these problems reveal their computational nature. In contrast to syntactic knowledge, there is clear evidence that phonological knowledge is computationally bounded to the so-called regular classes of sets and relations. These classes have multiple mathematical characterizations in terms of logic, automata, and algebra with significant implications for the nature of memory. In fact, there is evidence that phonological knowledge is bounded by particular subregular classes, with more restrictive logical, automata-theoretic, and algebraic characterizations, and thus by weaker models of memory.
Pitch Accent in Korean
Authors: Ito Chiyuki , Kenstowicz Michael J.
Published: March 2017

Typologically, pitch-accent languages stand between stress languages like Spanish and tone languages like Shona, and share properties of both. In a stress language, typically just one syllable per word is accented and bears the major stress (cf. Spanish sábana ‘sheet,’ sabána ‘plain,’ panamá ‘Panama’). In a tone language, the number of distinctions grows geometrically with the size of the word. So in Shona, which contrasts high versus low tone, trisyllabic words have eight possible pitch patterns. In a canonical pitch-accent language such as Japanese, just one syllable (or mora) per word is singled out as distinctive, as in Spanish. Each syllable in the word is assigned a high or low tone (as in Shona); however, this assignment is predictable based on the location of the accented syllable.

The Korean dialects spoken in the southeast Kyengsang and northeast Hamkyeng regions retain the pitch-accent distinctions that developed by the period of Middle Korean (15th–16th centuries). For example, in Hamkyeng a three-syllable word can have one of four possible pitch patterns, which are assigned by rules that refer to the accented syllable. The accented syllable has a high tone, and following syllables have low tones. Then the high tone of the accented syllable spreads up to the initial syllable, which is low. Thus, /MUcike/ ‘rainbow’ is realized as high-low-low, /aCImi/ ‘aunt’ is realized as low-high-low, and /menaRI/ ‘parsley’ is realized as low-high-high. An atonic word such as /cintallɛ/ ‘azalea’ has the same low-high-high pitch pattern as ‘parsley’ when realized alone. But the two types are distinguished when combined with a particle such as /MAN/ ‘only’ that bears an underlying accent: /menaRI+MAN/ ‘only parsely’ is realized as low-high-high-low while /cintallɛ+MAN/ ‘only azelea’ is realized as low-high-high-high. This difference can be explained by saying that the underlying accent on the particle is deleted if the stem bears an accent. The result is that only one syllable per word may bear an accent (similar to Spanish). On the other hand, since the accent is realized with pitch distinctions, tonal assimilation rules are prevalent in pitch-accent languages.

This article begins with a description of the Middle Korean pitch-accent system and its evolution into the modern dialects, with a focus on Kyengsang. Alternative synchronic analyses of the accentual alternations that arise when a stem is combined with inflectional particles are then considered. The discussion proceeds to the phonetic realization of the contrasting accents, their realizations in compounds and phrases, and the adaptation of loanwords. The final sections treat the lexical restructuring and variable distribution of the pitch accents and their emergence from predictable word-final accent in an earlier stage of Proto-Korean.
Housing, Indoor Air Pollution, and Health in High-Income Countries
Authors: Sharpe Richard , Osborne Nicholas , Paterson Cheryl , Taylor Timothy , Fleming Lora , Morris George
Published: March 2017

Despite the overwhelming evidence that living in poor-quality housing and built environments are significant contributors to public health problems, housing issues persist and represent a considerable societal and economic burden worldwide. The complex interaction between multiple behavioral, lifestyle, and environmental factors influencing health throughout the “life-course” (i.e., from childhood to adulthood) in high-income countries has limited the ability to develop more salutogenic housing interventions. The resultant, usually negative, health outcomes depend on many specific housing factors including housing quality and standards, affordability, overcrowding, the type of tenure and property. The immediate outdoor environment also plays an important role in health and wellbeing at the population level, which includes air (indoor and outdoor), noise pollution and the quality of accessible natural environments. These exposures are particularly important for more vulnerable populations, such as the elderly or infirm, and those living in insecure accommodation or in fuel poverty (i.e., being unable to heat the home adequately). Being homeless also is associated with increased risks in a number of health problems.

Investigating pathways to protecting health and wellbeing has led to a range of studies examining the potential benefits resulting from accessing more natural environments, more sustainable communities, and housing interventions such as “green construction” techniques. Built environment interventions focusing on the provision of adequate housing designs that incorporate a “life-course” approach, affordable and environmentally sustainable homes, and urban regeneration along with active community engagement, appear capable of improving the overall physical and mental health of residents. While some interventions have resulted in improved public health outcomes in more high-income countries, others have led to a range of unintended consequences that can adversely affect residents’ health and wellbeing. Furthering understanding into four interrelated factors such as housing-specific issues, the immediate environment and housing, vulnerable populations, and natural spaces and sustainable communities can help to inform the development of future interventions.
Mentoring and Coaching
Authors: Ross-Sheriff Fariyal , Orme Julie
Published: March 2017

This article provides a synopsis of mentoring and coaching, with a focus on the importance of mentoring in academia. Although there are considerable differences between mentoring and coaching, both of these processes share similar goals and foundational elements. Over time, the traditional concept of mentoring has evolved to become more relational in nature. Scholars have noted the benefits of this contemporary type of relational mentoring, as well as the challenges of mentoring with select populations (i.e., women and people of color) who have historically experienced barriers to receiving appropriate mentorship. Theoretical frameworks and practice recommendations are presented for understanding and developing mentoring relationships. By using a relational and holistic approach to mentoring, social work educators and practitioners can help to advance the next generation of leadership within the profession.
School Safety, Victimization, and Bullying
Authors: Pitner Ronald , Moore Hadass , Capp Gordon , Iachini Aidyn , Berkowitz Ruth , Benbenishty Rami , Astor Ron Avi
Published: March 2017

This article focuses on socio-ecological and whole-school approaches to coping with school violence, while highlighting best practices for selecting, developing, and monitoring interventions. We present several empirically supported programs, followed by identified characteristics of successful interventions and considerations on selecting an appropriate program for a particular school. Finally, we discuss the systematic monitoring method and approach and its utility in creating safer schools while emphasizing the contextual features and the nested environment in which schools reside. We suggest manners in which the systematic monitoring approach can be considered, advocated, and implemented by school staff members, particularly school social workers.
Accommodating Students with Physical Disabilities in Higher Education
Authors: Escamilla Anna
Published: March 2017

Students with disabilities are becoming more and more common in higher education classrooms, including social work classrooms. The challenges that come with accommodating students so as to allow equal access to the educational experience are surmountable with the assistance of student disability offices. New technology is being developed to assist students with learning both in and out of the classroom. Supportive attitudes from faculty in including students with disabilities allow all students to benefit from the experience. As compliance with laws such as the ADA becomes commonplace for new construction, the concept of universal design makes inclusion a norm.
Practice Cybernetics
Authors: Hall J. Christopher
Published: March 2017

This article presents a history and overview of first- and second-order cybernetics and the ways in which the theories inform models of social work practice. A foundational understanding of cybernetics is crucial for social workers because it forms the groundwork for how models of practice operationalize the ideal counseling relationship and how client problems will be assessed. A first-order approach invites the social worker to begin counseling via an objective assessment derived from a defined theory of normality, whereas a second-order approach suggests that a social worker adopt a curious or not-knowing approach to explore collaboratively with the client to decide how problems will be understood and how solutions to problems may be constructed. These approaches are sometimes differentiated as first-order, or modern, and second-order, or postmodern.
Kart: a divide-and-conquer algorithm for NGS read alignment
Authors: Lin Hsin-Nan , Hsu Wen-Lian
Published: March 2017

Motivation

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) provides a great opportunity to investigate genome-wide variation at nucleotide resolution. Due to the huge amount of data, NGS applications require very fast and accurate alignment algorithms. Most existing algorithms for read mapping basically adopt seed-and-extend strategy, which is sequential in nature and takes much longer time on longer reads.

Results

We develop a divide-and-conquer algorithm, called Kart, which can process long reads as fast as short reads by dividing a read into small fragments that can be aligned independently. Our experiment result indicates that the average size of fragments requiring the more time-consuming gapped alignment is around 20 bp regardless of the original read length. Furthermore, it can tolerate much higher error rates. The experiments show that Kart spends much less time on longer reads than other aligners and still produce reliable alignments even when the error rate is as high as 15%.

Availability and Implementation

Kart is available at https://github.com/hsinnan75/Kart/.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Information technology to support patient engagement: where do we stand and where can we go?
Authors: Walker Daniel M , Sieck Cynthia J , Menser Terri , Huerta Timothy R , Scheck McAlearney Ann
Published: March 2017

Objective

Given the strong push to empower patients and make them partners in their health care, we evaluated the current capability of hospitals to offer health information technology that facilitates patient engagement (PE).

Materials and Methods

Using an ontology mapping approach, items from the American Hospital Association Information Technology Supplement were mapped to defined levels and categories within the PE Framework. Points were assigned for each health information technology function based upon the level of engagement it encompassed to create a PE-information technology (PE-IT) score. Scores were divided into tertiles, and hospital characteristics were compared across tertiles. An ordered logit model was used to estimate the effect of characteristics on the adjusted odds of being in the highest tertile of PE-IT scores.

Results

Thirty-six functions were mapped to specific levels and categories of the PE Framework, and adoption of each item ranged from 23.5 to 96.7%. Hospital characteristics associated with being in the highest tertile of PE-IT scores included medium and large bed size (relative to small), nonprofit (relative to government nonfederal), teaching hospital, system member, Midwest and South regions, and urban location.

Discussion

Hospital adoption of PE-oriented technology remains varied, suggesting that hospitals are considering how technology can create partnerships with patients. However, PE functionalities that facilitate higher levels of engagement are lacking, suggesting room for improvement.

Conclusion

While hospitals have reached modest levels of adoption of PE technologies, consistent monitoring of this capacity can identify opportunities to use technology to facilitate engagement.
Pain
Authors: Paice Judith A.
Published: March 2017

To provide safe and effective pain relief, the palliative advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) must possess exceptional pain assessment skills including thorough history-taking and physical examination. Biological, psychological, social, and spiritual factors should be considered part of a complete assessment and serve as a guide for the development of a comprehensive plan of care. APRNs must have comprehensive knowledge of pain management options including appropriate pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic therapies. The chapter includes a discussion of various pain syndromes, physical therapy, interventional techniques, and cognitive-behavioral strategies in addition to medical management of pain. Universal precautions to detect aberrant behavior is described, and safe prescribing practices are outlined.
Dyspnea
Authors: Broglio Kathleen
Published: March 2017

This chapter provides an overview of the prevalence, pathophysiology, assessment, and clinical management of dyspnea, also known as shortness of breath or air hunger. This chapter describes the current understanding of the pathophysiology of dyspnea, potential causative factors, and evidence-based pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic management. Assessment of dyspnea is outlined using a biopsychosocial approach, emphasizing the understanding that dyspnea is a subjective experience, the severity of which is guided by patient perception. Evidence-based pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic interventions are offered. Guidelines for the use of opioids and benzodiazepines, invasive procedures such as tunneled catheters, and low-tech strategies such as fans to lessen the distress of dyspnea are included.
Challenging Symptoms
Authors: Bobb Barton T. , Fletcher Devon
Published: March 2017

Dry mouth, hiccups, fevers, pruritus, and sleep disorders are symptoms often found in palliative care patients. These symptoms can be challenging to treat, and they require that the advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) has a working knowledge of the causative conditions in order to effectively manage the symptoms. Appropriate assessment tools for these common symptoms are reviewed, as are their various causes, from medication side effects, systemic illness, and physical and psychological causes. Pharmacological, nonpharmacological, and interventional treatments are offered, with the caveat that all interventions must be individualized to the patient’s care goals and with quality of life in mind.
Nausea and Vomiting
Authors: Lynch Maureen
Published: March 2017

This chapter provides an overview of the assessment and management of nausea and vomiting and data on their prevalence. Successful management of these complex symptoms requires an ongoing comprehensive assessment to describe the patient’s experience and associated factors, formulate a symptom diagnosis based on an understanding of likely etiologies, and use appropriate nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic management strategies based on best evidence, expert opinion, and patient acceptability. An understanding of the physiological pathways of vomiting and nausea, and common etiologies, including bowel obstruction, provides an evidence-based management plan. Such interventions include patient education, lifestyle changes, selected integrative therapies, and a review of the mechanisms of action of antiemetics.
Palliative Sedation
Authors: Nelson Peg
Published: March 2017

This chapter examines palliative sedation and the advanced practice registered nurse’s (APRN) roles and responsibilities when caring for patients with intractable suffering at the end of life. Palliative sedation is an important therapy of last resort to relieve suffering in patients who have intractable pain and/or other symptoms. It requires knowledge of appropriate medications and an interdisciplinary approach. The chapter discusses definitions of palliative sedation and situations where it is appropriate. Key aspects of safe implementation and appropriate medications for palliative sedation are discussed. Ethical and legal aspects and national position statements from nursing and medical professional societies are also reviewed.
Palliative Care of the Geriatric Patient
Authors: Whitehead Phyllis B.
Published: March 2017

More than 50% of all deaths occur in medical and surgical units where the focus is on active, curative treatment, not on managing symptoms and establishing realistic goals of care. Many of these patients are older adults and are vulnerable to many condition. Often they develop end-stage renal disease dementia, hip fractures, and pulmonary conditions and their associated sequelae. Seriously ill, hospitalized patients represent a specialized patient population that greatly benefits from the expanded skills and knowledge of palliative advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs). This chapter reviews renal failure, dementia, pulmonary conditions, and hip fractures and their management for the geriatric patient.
Literature Review and Evidence
Authors: Nicol Andrea L. , Latif Usman
Published: March 2017

This chapter reviews concepts underlying critical analysis of literature and evidence-based medicine because a thorough understanding of these topics is of utmost importance in the interpretation of medical literature and applicability of the results therein. Basic principles of valid clinical research and components of clinical trials are reviewed. The chapter explores specific topics pertaining to the designing, reporting, and interpreting of clinical studies about the treatment of pain. The effects of the analysis on the clinical applicability of study results are discussed. Finally, it identifies special features specific to the study of pain. A number of references are provided for further reading.
Imaging
Authors: Bendel Markus A. , Trainor Drew M. , Moeschler Susan M.
Published: March 2017

This chapter focuses on diagnostic and procedural imaging techniques that are essential for the pain medicine practitioner. Attention is given to most modern imaging modalities, including ultrasonography, fluoroscopy, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging. The chapter includes a review of many advanced pain medicine procedures, such as celiac plexus and stellate ganglion blocks. A discussion regarding the use of imaging to elucidate a problem with an implanted intrathecal drug delivery system is included as well. In addition to the procedure suite, this chapter provides a review of common radiological findings that are critical for the proper diagnosis and management of pain patients, including spondylolysis and Modic changes. Special attention is paid to the use of ultrasound in pain medicine, including diagnostic techniques in musculoskeletal disorders. Many questions contain a review of the significant anatomic considerations with each procedural technique.