bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Transoral flexible laryngoscope biopsy: Safety and accuracy
Authors: Hassan Nabeel Humayun , Usman Rahila , Yousuf Muhammad , Ahmad Ahmad Nawaz , Hirani Ismail
Published: November 2018

Objective

To determine the accuracy of transoral flexible laryngoscope (TFL) biopsy and also to identify the safety as office based procedure in terms of complications.

Methods

This is a diagnostic study; the type of intervention is outpatient department based biopsy of laryngeal lesions. All patients seen in ENT outpatient department of Lyari General Hospital with suspicious lesions of Larynx were referred for Transoral Flexible Laryngoscopy Biopsy under local anesthesia. The specimens were sent for histopathology. The patients with benign pathology or carcinoma in situ were referred for direct laryngoscopy and biopsy. The sensitivity and specificity were calculated and the frequencies of complications were monitored to determine the complication rate.

Results

During the course of study a total of 47 patients underwent TFL biopsy in office settings. Out of these patients 16 patients were referred for direct laryngoscopy biopsy. The study population included 32 men and 15 women with ages ranging from 28 to 52 years and mean of (39 ± 6) years. Among 43 patients squamous cell carcinoma was the final diagnosis in 31 patients. In the rest of 12 patients’ dysplasia and benign lesion was the diagnosis in 9 and 3 patients respectively. These 12 patients underwent direct laryngoscopy biopsy and 10 of them diagnosed with invasive carcinoma rest had benign lesions. Hence the specificity was 75.6% and sensitivity was 100%. None of the patients developed any serious complication.

Conclusions

All patients with a suspicious lesion diagnosed by TFL biopsy as being benign or carcinoma in situ should have direct laryngoscopy for verification of the findings. But the results positive for carcinoma are reliable. In addition, this is a safe procedure.
Ultralow Frequency Waves as an Intermediary for Solar Wind Energy Input Into the Radiation Belts
Authors: Georgiou M. , Daglis I. A. , Rae I. J. , Zesta E. , Sibeck D. G. , Mann I. R. , Balasis G. , Tsinganos K.
Published: November 2018

Enhancements of electron fluxes in the outer radiation belt have been closely linked to increases in solar wind speed and density as well as to prolonged intervals of southward interplanetary magnetic field. Periodic oscillations in the Earth's magnetic field with frequencies in the range of a few millihertz (ultralow frequency or ultralow frequency waves) may be an intermediary through which these solar wind drivers influence radiation belt dynamics due to their potential for resonant interactions with energetic electrons causing the radial migration of resonant electrons. Using data from more than 180 ground magnetometers contributing to the worldwide SuperMAG collaboration, we explore possible relationships between relativistic electron flux variations and the spatial and temporal profiles of ultralow frequency wave power contained in the Pc5 frequency band (2–7 mHz). During 19 geomagnetic storms marked by relativistic (1.5 MeV < E < 6 MeV) electron flux enhancements and 19 storms that led to prolonged electron flux depletions, Pc5 wave power is found penetrating to L shells as low as 2–3. The enhancement of Pc5 wave power starts almost simultaneously with the storm onset. The depth of wave activity penetration was found associated with the strength of geomagnetic activity (Spearman's ρ = 0.54), which is also related to the location of electron flux maximum observed in the recovery phase. Pc5 wave activity persists longer (for up to ≈62 hr) for those storms that produced relativistic electrons. We also investigate the combination of interplanetary conditions necessary to differentiate the response of relativistic electron fluxes to geomagnetic storms. A coupling function that captures the increased reconnection rate at the dayside magnetopause affecting magnetospheric processes which may produce Pc5 wave power offers an additional key to further understanding the outer belt dynamics.
Equatorial Evolution of the Fast Magnetosonic Mode in the Source Region: Observation‐Simulation Comparison of the Preferential Propagation Direction
Authors: Min Kyungguk , Boardsen Scott A. , Denton Richard E. , Liu Kaijun
Published: November 2018

Recent analysis of an event observed by the Van Allen Probes in the source region outside the plasmapause has shown that fast magnetosonic waves (also referred to as equatorial noise) propagate preferentially in the azimuthal direction, implying that wave amplification should occur during azimuthal propagation. To demonstrate this, we carry out 2‐D particle‐in‐cell simulations of the fast magnetosonic mode at the dipole magnetic equator with the simulation box size, the magnetic field inhomogeneity, and the plasma parameters chosen from the same event recently analyzed. The self‐consistently evolving electric and magnetic field fluctuations are characterized by spectral peaks at harmonics of the local proton cyclotron frequency. The azimuthal component of the electric field fluctuations is larger than the radial component, indicating wave propagation mainly along the azimuthal direction. Because the simulation box is within the source region, this also implies wave amplification mainly during azimuthal propagation. The excellent agreement between the wave polarization properties of the present simulations and the recently reported observations is clear evidence that the main wave amplification occurs during azimuthal propagation in the source region.
Modeling Sediment Transport in Ice‐Walled Subglacial Channels and Its Implications for Esker Formation and Proglacial Sediment Yields
Authors: Beaud Flavien , Flowers Gwenn E. , Venditti Jeremy G.
Published: November 2018

Sediment yields from glacierized basins are used to quantify erosion rates on seasonal to decadal timescales as well as conditions at the glacier bed, and eskers hold valuable information about past subglacial hydraulic conditions in their spatial organization, geometry, and sedimentary structures. Ultimately, eskers are a record of past glacio‐fluvial sediment transport, but there is currently no physical model for this process. We develop a 1‐D model of morphodynamics in semicircular bedrock‐floored subglacial channels. We adapt a sediment conservation law developed for mixed alluvial‐bedrock conditions to subglacial channels. Channel evolution is a function of melt opening by viscous heat dissipation from flowing water and creep closure of the overlying ice, to which we add the closure or enlargement due to sediment deposition or removal, respectively. We apply the model to an idealized land‐terminating glacier and find that temporary sediment accumulation in the vicinity of the terminus, or the formation of an incipient esker, is inherent to the dynamics of the channelized water flow. The alluviation of the bed combined with the pressurized channel flow produces unexpected patterns of sediment evacuation: We show that the direction of hysteresis between sediment and water discharge is not necessarily linked to a supply‐ or transport‐limited system, as has been hypothesized for proglacial sediment yields. We also find that the deposition of an incipient esker is a function of a compromise between water discharge and sediment supply, but perhaps more importantly, ice‐surface slope and the temporal pattern of water delivery to the bed.
Geoeffectiveness of Stream Interaction Regions From 1995 to 2016
Authors: Chi Yutian , Shen Chenglong , Luo Bingxian , Wang Yuming , Xu Mengjiao
Published: November 2018

Stream interaction regions (SIRs) are important sources of geomagnetic storms. In this work, we first extend the end time of the widely used SIR catalog developed by Jian et al. (2006, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-006-0132-3), which covered the period from 1995 to 2009, to the end of 2016. Based on this extended SIR catalog, the geoeffectiveness of SIRs is discussed in detail. It was found that 52% of the SIRs caused geomagnetic storms with Dstmin ≤−30 nT, but only 3% of them caused intense geomagnetic storms with Dstmin ≤−100 nT. Furthermore, we found that 10 of the intense geomagnetic storms caused by SIRs were associated with complex structures due to interactions between SIRs and interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs). In such a structure, an ICME is embedded in the SIR and located between the slow and fast solar wind streams. In addition, we found that the geoeffectiveness of SIRs interacting with ICMEs is enhanced. The possibility of SIR‐ICME interaction structures causing geomagnetic storms is markedly higher than that of isolated SIRs or isolated ICMEs. In particular, the geoeffectiveness of SIR‐ICME interaction structures is similar to that of the Shock‐ICME interaction structures, which have been demonstrated to be the main causes of geomagnetic storms.
Geometry and Structure of a Fault‐Bounded Extensional Basin by Integrating Geophysical Surveys and Seismic Anisotropy Across the 30 October 2016 Mw 6.5 Earthquake Fault (Central Italy): The Pian Grande di Castelluccio Basin
Authors: Villani F. , Sapia V. , Baccheschi P. , Civico R. , Di Giulio G. , Vassallo M. , Marchetti M. , Pantosti D.
Published: November 2018

The Pian Grande di Castelluccio (PGC) basin is the main Quaternary depocenter of the Mt. Vettore‐Mt. Bove normal fault system (VBFS), responsible for the 30 October 2016 Mw 6.5 Norcia earthquake (central Italy). Coseismic surface faulting through the basin attests the occurrence of active splays of the seismogenic master fault; thus, we explore the subsurface basin structure to infer the long‐term behavior of the VBFS. We integrate electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), time domain electromagnetic soundings (TDEM), and horizontal‐to‐vertical spectral ratios of ambient seismic vibrations (HVSR) along a transect crossing the surface ruptures. The ERT models provide high‐resolution details of three shallow fault zones. One‐dimensional resistivity models from TDEM and HVSR frequency peaks suggest abrupt steps in the top bedrock caused by previously unknown faults and indicate an infill thickness of up to ~300 m. We also analyze shear wave splitting of S phases (fast direction φ and delay time δt) from local earthquakes recorded during our surveys to better constrain the fracture field and the properties of the inferred fault zones. We relate the retrieved pattern of fault‐parallel φ, and the associated larger δt, to the main and secondary faults in the upper crust and to the cracks or shear fabric in the damage zones of the active splays. The PGC basin is due to the interference of an older N30° striking fault system subsequently crosscut by the N150° striking VBFS, which is currently active, seismogenic, and capable of rupturing the surface during M > 6 earthquakes.
Representation of coupled adiabatic potential energy surfaces using neural network based quasi-diabatic Hamiltonians: 1,2 2A′ states of LiFH
Authors: Guan Yafu , Zhang Dong H. , Guo Hua , Yarkony David R.
Published: November 2018

A general algorithm for determining diabatic representations from adiabatic energies, energy gradients and derivative couplings using neural networks is introduced.
Spin switching in tris(8-aminoquinoline)iron(ii)(BPh4)2: quantitative guest-losing dependent spin crossover properties and single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformation
Authors: Yang Feng-Lei , Chen Xin , Wu Wen-Hao , Zhang Jing-Hang , Zhao Xiang-Mei , Shi Yan-Hui , Shen Fei
Published: November 2018

Compound tris(8-aminoquinoline)Fe(ii)(BPh4)2·2(MeCN) displayed quantitative spin crossover properties with further occurrence of single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformation.
A Cu-NHC based phosphorescent binuclear iridium(iii)/copper(i) complex with an unpredictable near-linear two-coordination mode
Authors: Shi Chao , Huang Manli , Li Qiuxia , Xie Guohua , Yang Chuluo , Yuan Aihua
Published: November 2018

A Cu-NHC based phosphorescent binuclear iridium(iii)/copper(i) complex with an unpredictable near-linear two-coordination mode has been prepared and shows good optical properties.
A biomass based free radical scavenger binder endowing a compatible cathode interface for 5 V lithium-ion batteries
Authors: Ma Yue , Chen Kai , Ma Jun , Xu Gaojie , Dong Shanmu , Chen Bingbing , Li Jiedong , Chen Zheng , Zhou Xinhong , Cui Guanglei
Published: November 2018

A lignin binder has been introduced to high voltage lithium-ion batteries to suppress electrolyte decomposition by scavenging free radicals.
Bifacial stamping for high efficiency perovskite solar cells
Authors: Zhang Yong , Kim Seul-Gi , Lee Donghwa , Shin Hyunjung , Park Nam-Gyu
Published: November 2018

We report a novel approach for a fast phase transition of FAPbI3 at low-temperature and the effective removal of interfacial recombination in MAPbI3.
Ultrahigh-voltage integrated micro-supercapacitors with designable shapes and superior flexibility
Authors: Shi Xiaoyu , Pei Songfeng , Zhou Feng , Ren Wencai , Cheng Hui-Ming , Wu Zhong-Shuai , Bao Xinhe
Published: November 2018

A cost-effective and industrially applicable screen printing protocol is demonstrated for scalable fabrication of graphene-based planar integrated micro-supercapacitors, with shape diversity, outstanding flexibility and superior modularization.
Pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic modelling of effective components of Fangji Huangqi Tang for its treatment of nephrotic syndrome
Authors: Liu Xiao , Zhu Xiaochai , Xie Li , Cai Baochang
Published: November 2018

An interesting study on the underlying correlations between pharmacokinetic parameters and the effective indexes of FHT based on PK-PD model.
Scalable synthesis of one-dimensional Na2Li2Ti6O14 nanofibers as ultrahigh rate capability anodes for lithium-ion batteries
Authors: Wang Chao , Xin Xing , Shu Miao , Huang Shuiping , Zhang Yang , Li Xing
Published: November 2018

Na2Li2Ti6O14 nanofibers presented superior electrochemical performance with high rate capability and long cycle life and can be regarded as a competitive anode candidate for advanced Li-ion batteries.
An efficient amplification strategy for N-doped NiCo2O4 with oxygen vacancies and partial Ni/Co-nitrides as a dual-function electrode for both supercapatteries and hydrogen electrocatalysis
Authors: Choi Keorock , Moon In Kyu , Oh Jungwoo
Published: November 2018

N-doped NCO electrodes exhibited excellent electrochemical performance for supercapacitors and hydrogen evolution reaction electrocatalysis in KOH electrolyte.
Jets and outflows of massive protostars
Authors: Kölligan A. , Kuiper R.
Published: November 2018

Context. Massive stars live short but intense lives. While less numerous than low-mass stars, they enormously impact their surroundings by several feedback mechanisms. They form in opaque and far-away regions of the galaxy, such that one of these feedback mechanisms also becomes a record of their evolution: their bright large-scale jets and outflows.

Aims. In a comprehensive convergence study, we investigate the computational conditions necessary to resolve (pseudo-) disk formation and jet-launching processes, and analyze possible caveats. We explore the magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) processes of the collapse of massive prestellar cores in detail, including an analysis of the forces involved and their temporal evolution for up to two free-fall times.

Methods. We conduct MHD simulations using the state-of-the-art code PLUTO, combining nonideal MHD, self-gravity, and very high resolutions as they have never been achieved before. Our setup includes a 100 M⊙ cloud core that collapses under its own self-gravity to self-consistently form a dense disk structure and launch tightly collimated magneto-centrifugal jets and wide-angle tower flows.

Results. We show a comprehensive evolutionary picture of the collapse of a massive prestellar core with a detailed analysis of the physical processes involved and our high-resolution simulations can resolve a magneto-centrifugal jet and a magnetic pressure-driven outflow, separately. The nature of the outflows depends critically on spatial resolution. Only high-resolution simulations are able to differentiate a magneto-centrifugally launched, highly collimated jet from a slow wide-angle magnetic-pressure-driven tower flow. Of these two outflow components, the tower flow dominates angular-momentum transport. The mass outflow rate is dominated by the entrained material from the interaction of the jet with the stellar environment and only part of the ejected medium is directly launched from the accretion disk. A tower flow can only develop to its full extent when much of the original envelope has already dispersed. Taking into account both the mass launched from the surface of the disk and the entrained material from the envelope, we find an ejection-to-accretion efficiency of 10%. Nonideal MHD is required to form centrifugally supported accretion disks and the disk size is strongly dependent on spatial resolution. A converged result for disk and both outflow components requires a spatial resolution of Δx ≤ 0.17 au at 1 au and sink-cell sizes ≤3.1 au.

Conclusions. Massive stars not only possess slow wide-angle tower flows, but also produce magneto-centrifugal jets, just as their low-mass counterparts. The actual difference between low-mass and high-mass star formation lies in the “embeddedness” of the high-mass star which implies that the jet and tower flow interact with the infalling large-scale stellar environment, potentially resulting in entrainment.
Infrastructure for Entrepreneurship
Authors: Woolley Jennifer
Published: November 2018

Entrepreneurship is a critical driver of economic health, industrial rejuvenation, social change, and technological progress. In an attempt to determine how to best support such an important component of society, researchers and practitioners alike continue to ask why some countries, regions, and cities have more entrepreneurship than others. Unfortunately, the answer is not clear. This question is addressed by focusing on location-based support or infrastructure for entrepreneurship. A framework based on a social systems perspective guides this examination by concentrating on three main categories of infrastructure: resource endowments, institutional arrangements, and proprietary functions. Work from the knowledge-based perspective of entrepreneurship, systems of innovation, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and resource dependence literatures is integrated into this framework.
Organizational Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
Authors: May Steven K.
Published: November 2018

Given the scope of various ethical scandals in a wide range of organizations over the last several decades, research on organizational ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown significantly. Scholars have sought to better understand factors related to ethical awareness, judgment, and action through descriptive, normative, and analytical approaches. Organizations have established extensive policies and practices to enable employees to address the ethical dilemmas that they experience, drawing upon theories of duty, rights, utility, virtue, and care to facilitate compliance and, ultimately, produce aspirational ethics. In recent years, scholars have argued that organizational ethics is not only an individual-level phenomenon but also one influenced by organizational practices and societal expectations. As a result, debates regarding the role of businesses in society have also proliferated under the umbrella term of CSR, with attention paid to business initiatives such as philanthropy, volunteerism, cause-related marketing, and, most recently, strategic CSR. To better understand the opportunities and challenges of CSR, advocates and critics have turned to theories of shareholder value, stakeholder theory, corporate social performance, and corporate citizenship. In doing so, they have reintroduced an age-old question regarding the rights and responsibilities of business in society.
Evolutionary Approaches to Intergroup Communication
Authors: Zhang Jinguang
Published: November 2018

Intergroup communication concerns the verbal and nonverbal interaction between individuals from different groups. Since about the 1980s, the social identity perspective (including social identity, self-categorization, ethnolinguistic vitality, and communication accommodation theories) has provided much impetus to research on intergroup communication. One way to advance intergroup communication research, then, is to expand the social identity perspective. Evolutionary psychology, a research program firmly rooted in natural selection theory and its modern synthesis, can help achieve this goal. For example, a functional analysis of language acquisition suggests—and research confirms—that language (similar to sex and age but not race) is a dedicated dimension of social categorization. This is first of all because language is localized, with signal regularities (e.g., grammar, syntax) being meaningful only to in-group members. Second, there is a critical window of language acquisition that typically closes at late adolescence, and one can almost never reach native-level proficiency if the person tries to learn a language beyond that window. Thus, two people are very likely to have grown up in the same place if they speak the same language with similar high levels of proficiency. Conversely, the lack of proficiency in speaking a language suggests that one does not have the same childhood experience as others and is thus an out-group member. Because ancestral humans had recurrent exposure to people speaking different languages (or variants of the same language) even given their limited travel ability, language-based categorization appears to be an evolved part of human nature.

Evolutionary theories can also help renovate research on ethnolinguistic vitality and (non)accommodation. For example, an analysis of host-parasite coevolution suggests that maintaining and using one’s own language can help reduce the risk of contracting foreign diseases in places with high parasite stress. This is because out-group members are more likely than in-group members to carry diseases that one’s physiological immune system cannot tackle. Intergroup differentiation is thus needed more in places with higher parasite stress, and language (as noted) reliably marks group membership. It thus benefits people living in parasite-laden environments to stick to their own language, which helps them remain close to in-group members and away from out-group members. Research also shows that increases in perceived parasitic threats cause people higher in pathogen disgust sensitivity to perceive speakers with foreign accents as being more dissimilar to self. This enhanced perceived dissimilarity may cause non-accommodation or divergence in intergroup communication, resulting in negative language attitudes and even intergroup conflicts. These and many other areas of research uniquely identified by evolutionary approaches to intergroup communication research await further empirical tests.
Gender Issues in Intergroup Communication
Authors: Wingate V. Skye , Palomares Nicholas A.
Published: November 2018

Gender is conceptualized as a social construct rather than biologically determined. Gender shapes communication in intergroup contexts. Gender influences communication in assorted domains, such as nonverbal behavior and emotion, language, friendship, self-disclosure, social support and advice, group decision making, leadership emergence, gaming, and aggression. Considering gender-based communication in each of these domains provides insight into the manner in which gender-based communication is conceptualized and understood. Gender is a meaningful factor, but not the sole determinant, of communication because other factors can moderate gender’s influence.
The Spread of Conflict in International Relations
Authors: Metternich Nils W.
Published: November 2018

International relations as a subfield in political science has always been fundamentally concerned about the relations between actors and how they lead to conflictual or cooperative outcomes. However, despite this inherent interest in relations between actors, the gap between theoretical conceptualization and empirical estimation considerably widened until spatial econometric and network analytic estimation approaches allowed researchers to address interdependencies in multiactor settings empirically. However, the discipline needs to strengthen the link between theoretical and empirical network analysis by integrating formal theoretical advances and fully embracing inferential statistical network approaches that are available to researchers. Formal theories of network behavior need to be further developed to establish systematic insights into the conditions under which complex network structures arise and how they affect actor behavior. Rigorous theoretically guided research will form the basis of linking network theories of conflict and cooperation and empirical testing.
Politics of Vision in the Carceral State: Legibility and Looking in Hostile Territory
Authors: Hunt Ashley
Published: November 2018

As we begin to think about the United States as a carceral state, this means that the scale of incarceration practices have grown so great within it that they have a determining effect on the shape of the the society as a whole. In addition to the budgets, routines, and technologies used is the culture of that carceral state, where relationships form between elements of its culture and its politics. In terms of its visual culture, that relationship forms a visuality, a culture and politics of vision that both reflects the state’s carceral qualities and, in turn, helps to structure and organize the society in a carceral manner. Images, architecture, light, presentation and camouflage, surveillance, and the play of sight between groups of people and the world are all materials through which the ideas of a society are worked out, its politics played out, its technology implemented, its rationality or common sense and identities forming. They also shape the politics of freedom and control, where what might be a free, privileged expression to one person could be a dangerous exposure to another, where invisibility or inscrutability may be a resource. In this article, these questions are asked in relation to the history of prison architecture, from premodern times to the present, while considering the multiple discourses that overlap throughout that history: war, enslavement, civil punishment, and freedom struggle, but also a discourse of agency, where subordinated peoples can or cannot resist, or remain hostile to or in difference from the control placed upon them.
Collateral Sanctions
Authors: Ewald Alec C.
Published: November 2018

Collateral sanctions are legal restrictions on the rights and privileges of people who have experienced contact with the criminal justice system, particularly contact resulting in conviction. Usually placed in civil and regulatory codes, collateral sanctions may limit a person’s ability to vote, live in public housing, own a firearm, qualify for an occupational license, serve in the military, receive public benefits, sit on a jury, or borrow money for college, among other activities. Yet, because they are usually defined as “indirect” consequences of a conviction, they may never surface in the criminal justice process, and they frequently extend far beyond the sentence.

Such restrictions can deeply compromise the civic status and life chances of Americans with conviction records. But they are far from uniform: some serious restrictions are triggered by criminal justice involvement well short of a conviction, while others mark only some classes of offenders or operate only in some states. Layered into the federal system, multiplying the complications of criminal law and regulatory law, and imposed by civil servants with wide leeway in their interpretation of rules, American collateral sanctions are varied and complex. Their reach and severity in the United States appear to be unique in the democratic world and mark an important respect in which the American carceral state extends beyond mass incarceration.
Social Impact of Community-Based Educational Programs in Europe
Authors: Flecha Ramon
Published: November 2018

Community-based educational programs (CBEPs) have been recommended as a successful strategy for improving students’ results, family involvement, and community and social cohesion. However, research has shown that not all CBEPs generate the same results. An analysis of the social impact of community-based educational programs enables us to identify programs that achieve better social results and provide evidence of the extent to which these results contribute to improving citizens’ lives. To this end, this study describes the social impact of social improvements achieved as a consequence of implementing community-based educational programs informed by research and how those improvements contribute to addressing existing societal challenges and goals (such as EU2020 targets and Sustainable Development Goals).
Intellectual Property and Education
Authors: Willinsky John
Published: November 2018

Concerns about intellectual property in education typically involve administrative interest in improving institutional compliance with copyright and patent laws. The focus on compliance, rather than on intellectual property as an area of educational inquiry for students raises two questions: Are educational institutions adequately preparing students (a) to participate in a global economy that is increasingly driven by intellectual property and (b) for a future in which the creation and distribution of intellectual property is being reshaped by the emerging digital era? The educational value of intellectual property begins, however, with history of the concept in which learning played a strong role in giving shape to the idea of text as an intangible good associated with distinct properties, rights, and responsibilities, with all of this taking place well before the 18th-century introduction of the modern concepts of copyright and patent law. In light of this history and its contemporary standing, intellectual property has much to offer as a way for students and teachers to gain insight into the nature of creative work in relation to private property and the public domain. While education benefits from exceptions made for “fair use” and other exemptions in copyright law, the digital era has seen the introduction of new intellectual property strategies that support the collective educational enterprise, including Creative Commons licensing, open educational resources, open access to research, and open source software. While intellectual property has played a small part in business education and composition classes in the past, a number of innovative programs now involve students in different approaches to balancing the private and public interests associated with this concept, suggesting the value that intellectual property holds, as a teachable topic, for the curriculum and for thinking, more broadly, about education’s role as a public good.
Print Culture and the Circulation of Knowledge in Imperial China, 8th–17th Centuries
Authors: Chia Lucille
Published: November 2018

Print culture in imperial China spans over twelve hundred years, from the late 7th century ce to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. During this long period, mechanical reproduction of texts and image meant primarily woodblock printing (xylography), and, to a lesser extent, typography, using movable types made of wood, metal, and ceramics. Xylography was first used for religious purposes, such as prayer sheets and scriptures, but by the late 8th century, nonreligious imprints for daily use were produced. Only in the mid-10th century, however, did the state and the literati elite begin to produce and disseminate many nonreligious works in print. Thus, the dramatic growth in the number and diversity of imprints produced by government, private, religious, and commercial publishers took off in the Song Dynasty (960–1279), due in great part to the state’s efforts to compile and publish many works. One may argue, however, that not until the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) would print culture be sufficiently widespread to be in ascendance, as evidenced by the great variety of works, the evolving page designs, and the changing attitudes of readers toward imprints. By the mid Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), printing had spread throughout the country into remote regions and throughout all levels of society. Changes in publishing culture from the 19th century onward were spurred by the adoption of new print technologies from the West, such as lithography and movable-type letterpress, which allowed for faster publication of far greater press runs, even as the traditional printing technologies continued to be used. Finally, it is important to note that a thriving manuscript culture continued to coexist with print until at least the late 19th century. The parting of the ways between print and manuscript became lasting only with the dominance of modern print technologies in the 20th century.
Transregional Trade in Early Modern Eurasia
Authors: Romaniello Matthew
Published: November 2018

When the Mongol Empire expanded across Eurasia in the 13th century, it not only established a new political order but also unified the trade networks that spread across northern Eurasia, connecting China, Central Asia, the Middle East, and the East Slavs in Eastern Europe within one system. The collapse of Mongol rule and the rise of new states and dynasties, including the Ottoman Empire, Muscovite Russia, and Qing China, adjusted trade routes throughout Eurasia, but the commercial networks remained robust until the modern era. Historians have debated whether there was a notable “decline” of the overland caravan trade along the historic “Silk Roads” in the 18th century, as European maritime traders in Asia carried many of the goods that had traveled across Eurasia. The perception of a decline, however, is challenged by the robust intra-Eurasia trade among Russia, Central Asia, India, and China throughout the 19th century. This dynamic region was influenced by the maintenance and expansion of regional networks across Eurasia, the consequences of the involvement of state interests, and increasing economic regulations in the early modern period, and the variety of commodities exchanged east and west, which were far more than just a silk trade.
Boko Haram: History and Context
Authors: Matfess Hilary
Published: November 2018

Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, better known as “Boko Haram,” is the most violent phenomenon of the Nigerian Fourth Republic. It is responsible not only for a regional food crisis that has devolved into famine in some areas, but also the displacement of millions and the deaths of tens of thousands of people. The insurgency in Nigeria began as a dissident religious sect’s venting of local grievances in Maiduguri, the capital of the northeastern Borno State. The movement was founded at the turn of the century by Mohammed Yusuf, a Salafist preacher notorious for his rejection of Western education and government employment.

Boko Haram only gained significant international attention in the aftermath of the 2014 abduction of more than 270 schoolgirls from their dormitory in the remote town of Chibok, but the group did not always employ such deplorable tactics. Although policymakers in capitals the world over have been eager to emphasize the group’s connections to international terrorist groups, the movement is localized and often more akin to an African insurgency than to a prototypical terrorist organization. The group’s initial years were characterized by relatively benign activities like the provision of social services, punctuated by occasional bouts of criminality that, over time, escalated into a series of targeted assassinations that provoked federal government response. A series of violent actions ultimately transformed Boko Haram from a largely nonviolent fundamentalist religious movement into the lethal and resilient force it is today, known internationally for its brutality: notably, the group’s interactions with the Nigerian security sector, categorized by indiscriminate state violence; leadership changes within the insurgency’s ranks that elevated Abubakar Shekau following Mohammed Yusuf’s execution; and regional trends in weapons flows and ideological currents.
Women and Post-Independence African Politics
Authors: Bauer Gretchen , Darkwah Akosua , Patterson Donna A.
Published: November 2018

Building upon their participation in anti-colonial struggles across Africa in the mid-20th century, African women have taken on many political roles in the post-independence period. While military rule and single-party rule precluded access to elected office in many countries in the early years after independence, female combatants fought alongside their male counterparts in ongoing struggles for national liberation in other parts of Africa, especially southern Africa, into the 1980s and 1990s. In many countries, national gender machineries established in the 1970s provided an institutional infrastructure for pursuing women’s rights even if they were often not fully implemented. State feminism, articulated through First Ladyism and state-led national women’s associations, sought to co-opt women’s struggles for political gain. In some instances, it did ameliorate women’s economic hardships and promote political participation. Women’s mobilization in the 1980s, in part a response to the severe impact of structural adjustment programs on devastated African economies, led to local-level organizing and eventually to a focus on women’s access to political office. Since the political transitions that swept the continent beginning in the early 1990s, women have accessed political office in all three branches of government in unprecedented numbers just as new forms of mobilization have emerged around issues like the rights of sexual minorities.
African Foreign Policies
Authors: Quinn John James
Published: November 2018

Studies on African foreign policies, and the process involved with their formation, have received much less attention compared to other aspects of African studies. Most have been in-depth case studies illustrating how foreign policy decisions are centered on common concerns for the region, such as decolonization, nation building, economic and political autonomy, and Cold War competition. As such, most diplomacy is conducted with close neighbors, former colonial powers, or the super powers. Much is also conducted within intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). Interactions with multilateral institutions—the World Bank and IMF—also feature prominently. Most analyses indicate that foreign policy has been in the hands of a president, who has conducted it primarily as a means of consolidating or maintaining domestic rule. African foreign policies also tend to reflect the reality that most are small and weak states. A strand of empirical comparative foreign policy literature on Africa does exist, examining things such as UN voting or level of diplomatic activity. Finally, much literature on African foreign policies is embedded in African international relations and focuses on the choices of leaders within larger historic, material, ideological, and international contexts. Most scholars, but not all, eschew an analysis using a single paradigm: eclectic, historical approaches seem to be more common than either cross-national empirical studies or paradigmatically pristine approaches. With this in mind, African foreign policies must respond to, and evolve with, changing international and regional contexts, especially any with significant shifts in geopolitical power.
Art in International Relations
Authors: Baudot Barbara
Published: November 2018

Art can leave an impact on international politics by offering inspiration and perspective to relations between peoples of different nations and life experiences. It can furthermore “re-enchant” the world as humanity faces many critical challenges, such as threats to peace and security; widespread and massive violations of political, civil, social, and cultural rights; and the deterioration of the biosphere. The most direct and easily perceptible contribution of art to international relations is of an instrumental nature, where art is deliberately used to obtain certain objectives such as awakening a sense of patriotism, or stirring people’s emotions to take action against a perceived problem. Art also has an extrinsic value in international relations, where the knowledge, ideas, inspirations, and sympathies of international political relevance that can be derived from a work of art by the discerning reader, listener, or observer. It is differentiated from the instrumental value of art through the artist’s intent. A work of art is considered of instrumental value when it is meant to fulfill political objectives, while extrinsic works of art seek to convey the artist’s thoughts and feelings, regardless of political persuasion. Finally, there is the intrinsic value of art, which can be found in many artworks that have universal appeal. These pieces communicate feelings and ideas that are universally perceivable and enchant the sensitive observer, and can influence the affairs of nations by bringing into relief ennobled visions that draw together imagination, intuition, and objectivity.
Civil–Military Relations
Authors: Owens Mackubin Thomas
Published: November 2018

Civil–military relations is an interdisciplinary area of research, reflecting the work of political scientists, military, sociologists, and historians. History and culture, the constitution of the state and the statutes and practices arising therefrom, changes in the international security environment, technology, the character of conflict, and the changing concept of “soldier-hood” all influence the civil–military relations of a state. There are many possible patterns of civil–military relations that provide different answers to the questions of who controls the military and how, the degree of military influence appropriate for a given society, the appropriate role of the military in a given polity, who serves, and the effectiveness of the military instrument that a given civil–military relations produces. Moreover, there is no “general” or “unified field” theory that successfully explains all of these patterns. For a variety of reasons, Samuel Huntington's institutional theory remains the dominant paradigm for examining civil–military relations. When it comes to the question of civilian control of the military, Peter Feaver’s agency theory corrects some of the flaws in Huntington’s theory. Morris Janowitz and the military sociologists also provide useful insights, especially regarding the question of who serves and related issues. In the case of concordance theory, critics argue that the definition of military intervention sets the bar too low to be meaningful. Ultimately, the patterns of civil–military relations affect national security because of their impact on strategic assessment.
Computer-Mediated Communication Technology and Cross-National Learning
Authors: Cogburn Derrick L.
Published: November 2018

With the advent of globalization, the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for socioeconomic development are changing rapidly and dramatically. These skills include the need to better understand how to manipulate symbolic knowledge and how to work in global virtual teams. New applications of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and new organizational models have helped to create important developments in areas such as e-commerce, e-government, and e-learning. Universities, companies, governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and international organizations have worked to develop strategies for dealing with these monumental changes, including developing “global” strategies for building networks, fostering cooperation, and expanding their geographic reach. For all these reasons, it is important to identify and evaluate new methods of teaching international affairs and studies of globalization that capitalize on the tremendous advancements in ICTs. These approaches should take advantage of lessons learned from collaboratories and cyberinfrastructure that allow diverse groups of geographically distributed learners to collaborate in ways that are at times “beyond being there,” or more interactive than if they were located in the same laboratory or seminar room. Six broad and interdisciplinary streams guide the literature leading toward these changes: knowledge creation, education, and learning; group/team dynamics; building trust in virtual teams; culture in global virtual teams; geographically distributed collaborative learning; and infrastructure for distributed collaborative learning.
Conflict Resolution: Feminist Perspectives
Authors: Sharoni Simona
Published: November 2018

The academic study of conflict resolution was born as as a critique of mainstream International Relations (IR), which explains why feminist theory and conflict resolution share many things in common. For example, both feminists and conflict resolution scholars challenge traditional power politics grounded in realist or neorealists analyses of conflict. They also share the core belief that war is not inevitable and that human beings have the capacity to resolve conflicts through nonviolent means. In the past two decades, with the expansion of feminist scholarship in IR, feminist interventions in conflict resolution have gained more currency. This essay reviews feminist scholarship in conflict resolution, with particular emphasis on five elements: critiques of the absence and/or marginalization of women in the field and an effort to include women and to make women visible and heard; articulation of a unique feminist standpoint for approaching peacemaking and conflict resolution, which is essentially different to, and qualitatively better than, mainstream (or male-stream) perspectives; feminist theorization of difference in conflict resolution theory and practice (challenges to essentialism, intersections, power and privilege, culture); feminist redefinition of central concepts in the field, especially violence, power, peace, and security; and original feminist research and theorizing, including field research in conflict areas, designed to transform rather than just reform the field. This essay argues that in order to further expand and institutionalize conflict resolution studies, mainstream scholars must be willing to engage seriously the contributions and critiques of feminists.
Cultural Homogenization, Ethnic Cleansing, and Genocide
Authors: Conversi Daniele
Published: November 2018

Cultural homogenization is understood as a state-led policy aimed at cultural standardization and the overlap between state and culture. Homogeneity, however, is an ideological construct, presupposing the existence of a unified, organic community. It does not describe an actual phenomenon. Genocide and ethnic cleansing, meanwhile, can be described as a form of “social engineering” and radical homogenization. Together, these concepts can be seen as part of a continuum when considered as part of the process of state-building, where the goal has often been to forge cohesive, unified communities of citizens under governmental control. Homogenizing attempts can be traced as far back as ancient and medieval times, depending on how historians choose to approach the subject. Ideally, however, the history of systematic cultural homogenization begins at the French Revolution. With the French Revolution, the physical elimination of ideological-cultural opponents was pursued, together with a broader drive to “nationalize” the masses. This mobilizing-homogenizing thrust was widely shared by the usually fractious French revolutionary elites. Homogenization later peaked during the twentieth century, when state nationalism and its attendant politics emerged, resulting in a more coordinated, systematic approach toward cultural standardization. Nowadays, there are numerous methods to achieving homogenization, from interstate wars to forced migration and even to the more subtle shifts in the socio-political climate brought about by neoliberal globalization.