bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Climate Change Communication in the United Kingdom
Authors: Anderson Alison
Published: February 2019

There is a comparably lengthy history of climate change communication research in the United Kingdom that can be traced back to the late 1980s. As is the case for media research in general, most attention has historically focused on print media and elite newspapers in particular. The British public appears to have a rather ambivalent response to climate change, and most people do not view it as a pressing threat. While surveys suggest that most citizens believe that climate change is occurring and is at least partly caused by human activity, skeptic views have received greater prominence in the mainstream media than in many other comparable countries. Climate deniers have received considerable space on the opinion pages of some right-leaning British newspapers. This is no doubt linked to vigorous denial campaigns mounted by climate-skeptic think tanks in the United Kingdom. The left-of-center Guardian newspaper (and its counterpart Sunday edition, The Observer) has led the way on climate change reporting, far exceeding the amount of space devoted to the topic by other print news outlets—yet it has one of the lowest readerships. While traditional media remain important agenda setters, online and social media are increasingly significant sources of news—especially for younger individuals. Future climate communication scholarship should play a vital role in informing stakeholder strategies and better understanding the complex linkages between media framing, political agendas, and public perceptions.
Downscaling Wind
Authors: Pryor S.C. , Hahmann A.N.
Published: February 2019

Winds within the atmospheric boundary layer (i.e., near to Earth’s surface) vary across a range of scales from a few meters and sub-second timescales (i.e., the scales of turbulent motions) to extremely large and long-period phenomena (i.e., the primary circulation patterns of the global atmosphere). Winds redistribute momentum and heat, and short- and long-term predictions of wind characteristics have applications to a number of socioeconomic sectors (e.g., engineering infrastructure). Despite its importance, atmospheric flow (i.e., wind) has been subject to less research within the climate downscaling community than variables such as air temperature and precipitation. However, there is a growing comprehension that wind storms are the single biggest source of “weather-related” insurance losses in Europe and North America in the contemporary climate, and that possible changes in wind regimes and intense wind events as a result of global climate non-stationarity are of importance to a variety of potential climate change feedbacks (e.g., emission of sea spray into the atmosphere), ecological impacts (such as wind throw of trees), and a number of other socioeconomic sectors (e.g., transportation infrastructure and operation, electricity generation and distribution, and structural design codes for buildings). There are a number of specific challenges inherent in downscaling wind including, but not limited to, the fact that it has both magnitude (wind speed) and orientation (wind direction). Further, for most applications, it is necessary to accurately downscale the full probability distribution of values at short timescales (e.g., hourly), including extremes, while the mean wind speed averaged over a month or year is of little utility. Dynamical, statistical, and hybrid approaches have been developed to downscale different aspects of the wind climate, but have large uncertainties in terms of high-impact aspects of the wind (e.g., extreme wind speeds and gusts). The wind energy industry is a key application for right-scaled wind parameters and has been a major driver of new techniques to increase fidelity. Many opportunities remain to refine existing downscaling methods, to develop new approaches to improve the skill with which the spatiotemporal scales of wind variability are represented, and for new approaches to evaluate skill in the context of wind climates.
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the Committee of the Regions (CoR)
Authors: Panke Diana
Published: February 2019

In the European Union (EU), there are two consultative committees, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the Committee of the Regions (CoR). Both, the EESC and the CoR are involved in EU decision-making but lack formal competencies to influence European secondary law directly. Instead of having votes or veto rights concerning EU directives or regulations, the two consultative committees provide recommendations to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. In addition to providing advice to the two EU legislative chambers, the two consultative committees can also approach the European Commission and give input into the drafting of EU policies at the very early stage.
Islamism and Party Politics in Indonesia
Authors: Tomsa Dirk
Published: February 2019

The inclusion-moderation theory posits that radical parties will abandon their most extreme goals and become more moderate in ideology and behavior if they are included in competitive electoral politics. The case of Indonesia confirms many assumptions of this theory, demonstrating that Islamist parties can indeed become more moderate as a result of their inclusion in formal electoral politics. Certain supporting conditions, however, may need to be in place, and even if moderation does occur it may not always be conducive to the quality of democracy.

In Indonesia, the first experiment with including Islamist parties in electoral politics in the 1950s failed, but when democracy was eventually restored in 1998, the evolution of the two main Islamist parties that established themselves in the party system followed what proponents of the inclusion-moderation theory would expect. Both the United Development Party (Partai Persatuan Pembangunan) and the Prosperous Justice Party (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera) abandoned their original goals of turning Indonesia into an Islamic state based on sharia law. Like other radical parties in similar political contexts, they moderated in response to institutional incentives and immersion in parliamentary and cabinet politics. By the time Indonesia started preparing for the 2019 elections, both parties were basically mainstream conservative Islamic parties, which, in view of their behavioral and to a lesser extent ideological moderation, should no longer be considered Islamist parties.

However, the moderation of these parties has not led to a deepening of Indonesian democracy. On the contrary, while Islamist parties moved to the center, ostensibly secular parties moved increasingly to the right, supporting religiously conservative initiatives and policies, and forming alliances with Islamist actors outside the party spectrum. Thus, Indonesia underwent a process of Islamization despite the moderation of its Islamist parties.
Church, State, and Political Culture in Orthodox Christianity
Authors: Roudometof Victor
Published: February 2019

Conventional views assume a systematic intertwining between the Orthodox Church and the state, which makes Orthodox countries culturally hostile to modernity. These views have been shaped by a long history of antagonistic relationships between Western and Eastern European states and fail to grasp important long-term trends within the Orthodox religious landscape. The political culture in Orthodox countries has undergone several changes across the centuries. Under the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire, complementarity provided the blueprint for church-state relations. In later centuries, this model was modified to suit the Ottoman and Russian empires. Modernization also prompted Orthodox states to create state churches. Church-state separation was further pursued by communist and colonial regimes and was sometimes accompanied by the active persecution of clergy and the faithful. The political culture of modern Orthodox countries was decisively shaped by the nationalization of the faith, spurred by various national revivals. In the 19th century, Orthodox Christianity became a nationalized religion, whereby strong associations were established between newly constructed churches in Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania and these countries’ respective nations. This version of Orthodoxy was exported into the New World through communities of East European immigrants. The communist takeover of Eastern Europe further strengthened administrative fragmentation. After 1989–1990, the fragmentation of the USSR allowed for a more open expression of the model of national religion. Orthodoxy was revitalized but also served as a cornerstone for Russian, Ukrainian, and Estonian national identities, leading to regional ecclesiastical disputes. Current institutional dilemmas have resulted from these long-term processes.
Southern Africa: Regional Politics and Dynamics
Authors: Chan Stephen
Published: February 2019

Southern Africa is a region marked by huge tensions caused by the longevity of colonial rule and racial discrimination. Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa all achieved independence only years after most of Africa, and only with protracted militarized struggle. Even those countries that did enter independence in the 1960s, alongside most of Africa, were marked by the struggles of their neighbors—Zambia, host to exile liberation movements, was a frequent military target; and wars, sponsored or supported by apartheid South Africa, continued to rage in Angola and Mozambique even after they achieved independence. This has marked the post-independence politics of most countries of the region, almost all of whom have gone through, or remain within, an era of one-party politics or dominant party rule. In part, this can be read as a residual longing for stability. In other part it can be read as a “liberation generation” using its history as a lever by which to hang onto power. Having said that, the politics of each country has distinctive characteristics—although one has certainly been protracted effort to adhere to forms of ethics, such as “Humanism” in Zambia, and truth and reconciliation in South Africa. The contemporary politics of the region, however, is one with forms of authoritarianism and corruption and, in many cases, economic decline or turmoil. The rise of Chinese influence is also a new marker of politics in the region as all of Southern Africa, with many different former colonial powers, enters a new era of problematic cosmopolitanism—with the international jostling with already sometimes-volatile elements of ethnic diversity, balancing, and conflict.
Issue Voting: Modern and Classic Accounts
Authors: Weldon Steven , McNeney Denver
Published: February 2019

Political scientists have long assumed that issues were at the heart of vote choice and a causal determinant of it—that is, citizens came to politics with clear issue preferences and they voted for the party or candidate that best represented those interests. Many would say democracy demands this kind of link between issue preferences and vote choice. And yet, studies have consistently shown that surprisingly few voters measure up. Many voters know remarkably little about politics, including even basic facts about their own political system. They have little conception of issues, party, and candidate positions on those issues or how issues relate to one another as part of a coherent political ideology. As a result, they often have unstable and ephemeral preferences. Worse, among the fraction of voters who are engaged and well-informed, many appear susceptible to persuasion and possibly manipulation of their issue opinions from the media and their partisan leaders. This raises questions about the viability of representative democracy and, at its most pessimistic, the possibility that elites are largely free to pursue personal goals unchecked and independent of the public good.

Some of the most innovative work on issue voting is focusing on partisan bias, including its limitations and how it relates to other social divisions. When mapped onto existing social divisions in society, such as those arising from race, religion, and immigration, issues can indeed matter for elections because they tap into and stimulate the same psychological and affective processes that make partisanship so powerful in the first place—in-group and out-group bias. Cross-national research has also increasingly pointed to the role of such issues as part of an emerging political cleavage related to globalization that is transforming elections and party systems across Europe and other postindustrial democracies. The causal determinants of issue voting is a promising avenue for future research.
Religious Regulation in France
Authors: Manuel Paul Christopher
Published: February 2019

Its past appears to be in constant tension with the present over the question of religious restriction. That tension might properly be understood as a centuries-long struggle between those favoring traditional, pro-clerical views and those espousing anti-clerical, Enlightenment understandings of church–state relations. This tension has given rise to many inconsistencies in legislative actions and public policy decisions around religion, as political power has shifted between the opposing sides at different points in history. This tension continues to the present day.
Germany’s Christian Democrats
Authors: Rosenberg Emma
Published: February 2019

The German Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), known collectively as the Union, were founded in the immediate aftermath of World War II as anti-materialist Christian responses to the atrocities of the war and as buffers to encroaching Communism and Fascism. The first Volkspartei, the CDU has served as a “catch-all” party since its inception, prioritizing its inter-confessional appeal to a diverse group of both Protestant and Catholic voters throughout Germany over ideology. Over seven decades, the CDU/CSU has enjoyed enormous success, by broadly adhering to core elements of a Christian understanding of self, promotion of a social market economy, focus on family, and a Western-focused European community. The CDU presided over the first post-war German government under long-serving Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, German reunification in 1990 under Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and European stability in the face of a refugee crisis under Chancellor Angela Merkel. The CDU has evolved from a chancellor’s party centered around charismatic leadership and antipathy to Ostpolitik, to the most successful German Volkspartei and a staunch bulwark of the European community.
The Possibility of Developmental States in Africa
Authors: Hillbom Ellen
Published: February 2019

Since roughly the turn of the millennium, there has been a growing literature discussing the potential characteristics of African Developmental States—if they exists and in that case how they should be defined and exemplified. The basis for this literature has been the experience of the trajectory for sustained economic growth in Pacific Asia. But it has expanded into a broader discussion about the role of authoritarian regimes versus democratic states, outcomes versus intentions, and overall ambitions versus concrete strategies. The most common suggestions for African counterparts have been the two growth miracles—Botswana and Mauritius, although other countries such as South Africa, Rwanda, and Ethiopia have also been on the agenda. The original Developmental State concept entails a specific type of social engineering that has so far been rare in Africa: a legitimate state leading a planned capitalist economy with a competent and autonomous bureaucracy spearheading industrialization efforts in profound collaboration with the private sector. With such a narrow definition, it is only the development pathway of Mauritius that can be said to fit the criteria while Botswana falls short due to its weak industrialization efforts, longstanding interconnectedness between the bureaucracy, political power, and cattle elite, and lack of dynamic cooperation between the state and private-sector entrepreneurial groups. Whether or not we will see more examples of African countries following the specific Developmental State trajectory or if they will create alternative development paths to economic diversification, transformation, and prosperity remains to be seen.
Sport Psychology Considerations in Intercollegiate Athletics in the United States
Authors: Bader Christopher M. , Martin Scott B.
Published: February 2019

As a field of study, sport psychology is relatively young, gaining its formalized start in the United States in the 1920s. Then and now, the practice of sport psychology is concerned with the recognition of psychological factors that influence performance and ensuring that individuals and teams can perform at an optimal level. In the past 30 years, sport psychologists have made their way into intercollegiate athletics departments providing mental health and performance enhancement services to intercollegiate student-athletes. The differentiation between mental health practice and performance enhancement practice is still a source of some confusion for individuals tasked with hiring sport psychology professionals. Additionally, many traditionally trained practitioners (in both mental health and performance enhancement) are unaware of the dynamics of an intercollegiate athletic department. The interplay of the practitioner and those departmental dynamics can greatly influence the efficacy of the practitioner.
Supervision in Performance Settings (Dance, Music, Acting)
Authors: Moyle Gene M.
Published: February 2019

Literature regarding supervision and related supervisory and training models applied within the field of sport, exercise, and performance psychology (SEPP) has grown exponentially as the field continues to define and redefine itself. A range of supervision models from mainstream psychology has been explored and applied within SEPP settings, with research indicating that regardless of the preferred model of supervision, a key component of effective supervision is the supervisor’s knowledge and skills related to the area of service delivery.

Whilst the supervision of psychologists-in-training within performing arts settings presents similar challenges faced by those working in sport and exercise settings, the social, cultural, and artistic considerations embedded within these performance contexts necessitates a nuanced approach. The provision of supervision for psychologists within performing arts (e.g., dance, music, acting) requires scaffolded learning opportunities that assist the practitioner to gain an in-depth understanding of the context, including how to best tailor, translate, and communicate psychological concepts and skills to their clients that will address their unique challenges and meet their distinctive needs. Furthermore, clarity regarding the roles and responsibilities of the supervisee within the organizational context of an artistic setting is vital to ensuring that effective and ethical service delivery can be provided.
Psychological Considerations for Physical Activity Participants With Intellectual Disabilities
Authors: Hutzler Yeshayahu , Almosni Joelle
Published: February 2019

Persons with intellectual disability (ID) exhibit reduced levels of participation in recreational and habitual physical activity, which leads to an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and resulting medical and psychosocial burdens. In spite of their cognitive limitations, persons with ID are able to benefit from utilization of learner-centered approaches to physical activity participation. Several theoretical models, including social cognitive theory (SCT), self-determination theory (SDT), and constructivism, are helpful for explaining the benefits of internalizing learning within the framework of physical activity in persons with ID. Peer modeling, decision-making for leisure (DML), divergent production style (DPS), and the cycle of internalization (CIL) are practical teaching models focusing on internalizing learning experiences and developing an intrinsic motivation for action in the physical domain. These models have been successfully practiced in persons with ID, and their feasibility and effectiveness was established particularly for developing autonomy and social relatedness. In this article the theoretical constructs and the research literature pertaining to SCT, DML, DPS and CIL is reviewed, enabling to synthesize perspectives on how to integrate these models within residential, vocational or community based physical activity programs for persons with ID. Utilizing such models and practices may facilitate persons with ID developing an internalized motivational approach to participation in physical activity and therefore be beneficial for reducing risk factors, keeping fit and enhance quality of life. Staff members in community residences and homes for persons with ID as well as in day-care and vocational centers, should be encouraged to utilize such models as an alternative to the widely used directive teaching model following the behaviorist approach.
Intraindividual Variability in Lifespan Developmental Methodology
Authors: Cerino Eric S. , Hooker Karen
Published: February 2019

Intraindividual variability (IIV) refers to short-term fluctuations that may be more rapid, and are often conceptualized as more reversible, than developmental change that unfolds over a longer period of time, such as years. As a feature of longitudinal data collected on micro timescales (i.e., seconds, minutes, days, or weeks), IIV can describe people, contexts, or general processes characterizing human development. In contrast to approaches that pool information across individuals and assess interindividual variability in a population (i.e., between-person variability), IIV is the focus of person-centered studies addressing how and when individuals change over time (i.e., within-person variability). Developmental psychologists interested in change and how and when it occurs, have devised research methods designed to examine intraindividual change (IIC) and interindividual differences in IIC. Dispersion, variability, inconsistency, time-structured IIV, and net IIV are distinct operationalizations of IIV that, depending on the number of measures, occasions, and time of measurement, reflect unique information about IIV in lifespan developmental domains of interest. Microlongitudinal and measurement-burst designs are two methodological approaches with intensive repeated measurement that provide a means by which various operationalizations of IIV can be accurately observed over an appropriate temporal frame to garner clearer understanding of the dynamic phenomenon under investigation. When methodological approaches are theoretically informed and the temporal frame and number of assessments align with the dynamic lifespan developmental phenomenon of interest, researchers gain greater precision in their observations of within-person variability and the extent to which these meaningful short-term fluctuations influence important domains of health and well-being. With technological advancements fueling enhanced methodologies and analytic approaches, IIV research will continue to be at the vanguard of pioneering designs for elucidating developmental change at the individual level and scaling it up to generalize to populations of interest.
Population Aging and Globalization: The Impact of Cultural and Social Change
Authors: Phillipson Christopher
Published: February 2019

Globalization has become an influential force in the construction of older age, notably in the framing of social and economic policies designed to manage and regulate demographic change. National institutions such as the welfare state provided a distinctive shape and associated meanings to the final phase of the life course in Western societies during the 20th century. This process was disrupted from the 1990s onward, with a combination of more intense processes of globalization and accelerated international migration. A transformed cultural context is influencing a move from a linear life course toward one in which events influencing later life are scattered across a broad spectrum of time, space, and chronological age.

Globalization will undoubtedly be a major factor in shaping the lives of older people through the 21st century. The types of changes it will bring are easy to predict in some respects, much less so in others. Older people will certainly be living in a culturally and socially diverse world, increasingly aware not only of the aging of their own society but also the impact of growing old on communities across the globe. An additional change will be the influence of supranational bodies in determining policies in areas such as Social Security and health and social care, these creating the framework for resources for support for old age. Globalization—as one constituent of the “risk society”—may also generate new forms of insecurity for individuals, of which anxieties and fears about aging could represent a significant dimension.
Capital Punishment
Authors: Kaplan Paul
Published: February 2019

The death penalty, also referred to as capital punishment, is the process whereby a state government orders a sentence of death for a person found guilty of a particular set of criminal offenses. In the United States, the primary capital crime is first-degree murder with an additional aggravating factor, usually called a “special circumstance” (e.g., murder of a law enforcement officer). Capital punishment is a complex process that includes a criminal charge, an involved legal process, sentencing, special “death row” prison housing, post-conviction appeals, and the ultimate execution of the defendant. Persons sentenced to death are called condemned. Execution refers specifically to the process in which the defendant is killed.

Capital punishment has been practiced throughout human history, with considerable variation across eras and regions. In the last 50 years, the use of capital punishment has declined across the globe, and there are relatively few countries that use it regularly as a form of punishment, most notably China. Some countries have abolished the death penalty completely, such as all member states of the European Union. Most other countries have seen a decline in its use. For instance, only 31 out of 50 states in the United States currently have death penalty statutes (there are also federal death penalty statutes, which are rarely used). The other 19 U.S. states are referred to as “abolitionist.”

The “modern era” of capital punishment in the United States was spurred by two important Supreme Court cases. The Furman v. Georgia (1972) decision ruled that arbitrariness in the application of the death penalty deemed its use unconstitutional. The reversal of that ruling four years later in Gregg v. Georgia (1976) reestablished the death penalty in America, and experts refer to the modern era as 1976 to the present.
Biosocial Theories in Criminology
Authors: Wells Jessica , Walsh Anthony
Published: February 2019

While the roots of criminology largely lie in sociological explanations for crime and delinquency, a resurgence has begun wherein human behavior is explained as a product of both environmental and biological factors: biosocial criminology. Biosocial criminology encompasses many perspectives that seek to explain the relationships between human behavior and genes, evolution, neurobiology, and more. While biosocial criminology does not have a long history in the broader field of criminology, modern advances in technology have made access to data to explore biosocial criminological questions far more readily available. Advanced technology, coupled with studies suggesting that a large proportion of the variance in antisocial behavior is attributable to genetic factors has spurred many criminologists to explore how both nature and nurture influence behavior.

A wide variety of perspectives is apparent within biosocial criminology. These perspectives can be seen as tools to uncover different elements of the equation seeking to understand human behavior. Behavior genetic studies seek to explain what proportion of the variation in a trait or behavior is due to genetic factors. Molecular genetic studies seek to uncover which genes are related to that trait or behavior and how strongly they are associated. Evolutionary psychology seeks to explain why a trait or behavior emerged and remained through the process of natural selection. Neurobiological studies explain how the complex structure and function is related to traits and behavior. While these perspectives vary widely in their approach, one fact remains: neither environmental nor biological explanation for human behavior is sufficient on its own; rather, the complex interplay between environments and biology is critical to advance knowledge about the causes and correlates of criminal and delinquent behavior.
Race and Re-Entry After Incarceration
Authors: Hoskins Kayla M. , Sanders Kaelyn
Published: February 2019

Racially minoritized individuals experience distinct challenges to re-entry following incarceration in early 21st-century United States. Mass incarceration and tough-on-crime policies have contributed to a system that disproportionately punishes and incarcerates racially minoritized people. For the correctional system, these racial and ethnic disparities translate to issues related to “successful” community re-entry following incarceration. Traditionally, re-entry success has been considered to be avoidance of lawbreaking. However, ideas about re-entry success have developed to include broader concepts of successful reintegration into society. Prominent scholarship investigating criminal justice policies, procedures, and processes has made strides in identifying facilitators and barriers to successful reintegration for formerly incarcerated individuals and has uncovered obstacles uniquely faced by minoritized groups. Specifically, researchers have identified racially disparate correctional issues in areas such as probation and parole experiences, familial ties, resource access, employment and educational opportunities, community disadvantage, civic disenfranchisement, and access to quality health care. Recent scholarship has provided a wealth of considerations to ameliorate these obstacles to re-entry. Withal, extant research indicates a need for reform initiatives targeted to meet the needs of diverse correctional populations, including a shift toward equitable evidence-based policies and interventions and show support for positive re-entry outcomes for minoritized incarcerated and re-entering persons. Assisting re-entering individuals with accessing vital resources (e.g., health care, housing, government assistance), equipping them with necessary skills to live stable and independent lives (e.g., prison-based services, educational assistance, professional training, employment opportunities), promoting healthy connections with their families and communities, and restoring their civic power are all steps that evidence supports to improve re-entry success and reintegration. Continued research on these areas and race is essential to understanding the dimensions of disparate re-entry experiences and creating an even road to successful reintegration after incarceration.
Developmental and Life-Course Perspectives on Gangs
Authors: Buchanan Molly , Simonsen Elise T. , Krohn Marvin D.
Published: February 2019

With distinct advances since the 1980s, developmental, life-course criminology has expanded to become one of the most prominent subdivisions in the field of criminology, as the knowledge gained from this perspective has propelled the field forward. Although studies of gangs and gang membership predate the emergence of developmental, life-course criminology, the proliferation of research in both of these areas shares many parallels. Furthermore, increased applications of developmental, life-course perspectives to gang-related research, as well as scholars’ continued efforts to generate life-course-rooted theories specific to gang delinquency, can and have benefited the study of gangs.

Some of the life-course models and theories commonly applied in studies of gangs include Sampson and Laub’s age-graded theory of informal social control, Hawkins and colleagues’ social developmental model, Thornberry and Krohn’s interactional theory, and Howell and Egley’s developmental model of gang membership. The foundation of each of these theories is the life-course perspective, the thrust of which demonstrates the utility of following individuals, or gang members, throughout their lives. Viewing gang-related issues through a developmental, life-course lens further permits studying gang membership from multiple time points and angles and has allowed for theoretically rooted analyses of the precursors to gang joining, experiences while being gang involved, and factors related to gang exiting.

For example, studies have found that, in general, the “timing” of most gang joining aligns well with the average onset of criminal careers, both typically occurring during early to mid-adolescence. Studies informed by the developmental, life-course perspective have also explored the periods during which individuals are actively engaged in their gang activities and identities, along with members’ abrupt or gradual gang-exiting processes (i.e., desistence). Overall, research guided by these models and theories has established myriad consequences of gang membership in the short-term and over the life course. The findings have been integral in informing new and continuing gang-related prevention and intervention efforts, as well as in highlighting relevant topical arenas in need of continued scholarly attention.
The Characteristics of Illegal Markets
Authors: Dewey Matías
Published: February 2019

The phenomenon of illegal markets is pervasive. The circulation of illegal goods and services reaches all social segments, crosses national boundaries, and produces enormous revenues. Scholarship has typically addressed issues of illegal exchanges by focusing on criminal organizations, their members’ activities, internal structures, and businesses while leaving the very notion of illegal markets conceptually underdeveloped. Different from organized crime, the notion of “illegal market” compels us to consider the demand side and to investigate the varied ways it relates to the supply side. Following the path opened up by economic sociology scholarship, this article brings illegal markets to the center of the scene in order to develop them conceptually, observe them in a differentiated way, and investigate their relationships with legal structures. From this perspective, the social organization of markets comes to the fore, highlighting such aspects as the formal and informal institutions sustaining illegal markets; the modes of internal coordination that deal with problems such as value, competition, or trust; moral attitudes toward the production, exchange, or consumption of certain products or services; the cultural elements or cognitive dispositions that promote illegal exchanges; the role of state power in defining what is and is not illegal, and thus how it controls certain exchanges; and the role of the enforcement of the law in the emergence, expansion, or extinction of these markets.
Women and White-Collar Crime
Authors: Dodge Mary
Published: February 2019

Women and white-collar crime is a topic that has, overall, received little attention in the literature. Initially, women were omitted from discussion and research because of their lack of participation, though some early commentary focused on victimization. When Edwin Sutherland first drew public and academic attention to white-collar crimes, few women were employed in positions that were conducive to commit elite crimes related to occupations or professions. According to Sutherland, white-collar crime involved professional men in positions of trust. From 1939 until the 1970s, work on white-collar offenders and offenses was male-centric, which included both scholarly researchers who were exploring the topic and males committing the majority of crimes. Corporations and respected professionals, not women, were presented with a multitude of opportunities to engage in white-collar crimes with little or no serious consequences. Primarily male corporate executives, politicians, and medical professionals committed white-collar crimes that included, for example, activities such as price fixing, insider trading, bribery, insurance fraud, and Ponzi schemes.

Women, who lacked opportunity outside the private sphere of the home, were less involved in crime overall and certainly were in no position to commit white-collar offenses. In the 1940s and 1950s, female crime was typically viewed as promiscuous, aberrant, and male-like behavior. Eventually, in the mid-1970s as more women moved into the public sphere seeking employment, early predictions by female scholars suggested that an increased involvement in white-collar crime was inevitable. The types of crimes committed by women, as noted by pioneering female scholars, were likely to expand beyond prostitution, check kiting, and shoplifting to white-collar offenses as opportunities became increasingly available in the public sphere. Gender inequality in most criminal endeavors continues to exist and more recent debates continue about the role of women in white-collar crime.
The Hypocretin Arousal Network
Authors: Borniger Jeremy C. , de Lecea Luis
Published: February 2019

The hypocretins (also known as orexins) are selectively expressed in a subset of lateral hypothalamic neurons. Since the reports of their discovery in 1998, they have been intensely investigated in relation to their role in sleep/wake transitions, feeding, reward, drug abuse, and motivated behavior. This research has cemented their role as a subcortical relay optimized to tune arousal in response to various salient stimuli. This article reviews their discovery, physiological modulation, circuitry, and integrative functionality contributing to vigilance state transitions and stability. Specific emphasis is placed on humoral and neural inputs regulating hcrt neural function and new evidence for an autoimmune basis of the sleep disorder narcolepsy. Future directions for this field involve dissection of the heterogeneity of this neural population using single-cell transcriptomics, optogenetic, and chemogenetics, as well as monitoring population and single cell activity. Computational models of the hypocretin network, using the “flip-flop” or “integrator neuron” frameworks, provide a fundamental understanding of how this neural population influences brain-wide activity and behavior.
Women in Central African History
Authors: Mianda Gertrude
Published: February 2019

This examination of the history of women’s situation in Central Africa from the late colonial period of the 19th to the early 21st century sheds light on women’s experiences by highlighting their agency in confronting the changes they faced. The colonizers’ introduction of cash crop production and forced labor in the late 19th century to modernize the economy impacted the sexual division of labor, transforming the organization of the work within the family and community. In the post-independence period, traditional gender expectations continued to shape the lives of the majority of women, but a small number were able to take advantage of social mutations in the domains of education, politics, and work to become leaders. Transformations brought about by postcolonial armed conflict in three Central African countries profoundly affected women’s lives.
Legacies of South Africa’s Apartheid Wars
Authors: Baines Gary
Published: February 2019

South Africa’s Apartheid Wars had a profound effect on shaping the postcolonial landscape of the region, as well as the country itself. This much is evident from the difficulties encountered by the liberation movements in making the transition to government. The armed struggle and the experience of exile left a deep imprint on these movements and shaped them as political organizations. They have not been able to divest themselves of internal hierarchical structures, as well as intolerant and authoritarian tendencies. On the other hand, the counterrevolutionary war waged by the apartheid state’s security nexus delayed decolonization and shaped the political culture considerably. The militarization of South African society undermined civil-military relations, contributed to a legacy of corruption in the defense sector, and proved detrimental to the practices of governance.

The integration of the armed formations of the state and the liberation movements into new national armies were fraught processes. Reconciliation became the byword in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa, but only the latter established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as an exercise in nation-building. However, cohesion and consensus remain elusive as the fault lines of colonial and apartheid society are still very much in evidence. Moreover, the governments of the region harbor resentment about South Africa’s dominance of the region and remain suspicious of its intentions. Therefore, relations between these states, and groups within them, are still prickly. The conflicts might be over but the countries of the region are still having to deal with contestations over their remembrance and commemoration.
Ozurumba Mbanaso or King Jaja of Opobo
Authors: Davey Joseph
Published: February 2019

Between 1800 and 1900, West Africa’s coastal states struggled to maintain autonomy in the face of imperial overtures from European trade partners. Simultaneously, these states coped with an overwhelming buildup of domestic slaves, some of whom rose to unprecedented higher political and economic positions. One particular individual, King Jaja of Opobo, came to the fore as an extreme example of how slaves became more capable of taking advantage of the changing political, religious, and economic landscape of the Eastern Niger Delta during this period.

Born Mbanaso Ozurumba in the Igboland village of Umuduruoha in 1821, Jaja, as he would become known to his European trading partners, traversed the domestic slave systems of Southeastern Nigeria and arrived in the Delta trading state of Bonny in 1833. He obtained tremendous wealth and political influence through the burgeoning palm oil trade, ultimately becoming the head of one of Bonny’s most influential canoe-houses. Due to an internal dispute with a rival canoe-house in the late 1860s, Jaja removed his followers to a previously uninhabited island and cut off Bonny’s access to the lucrative interior oil markets. From 1871 on, Jaja monopolized the palm oil trade in the region to become the most influential trader from his new position as king of the island community, which he would name Opobo. However, by 1884, the relationship between Jaja and his British trade partners deteriorated, leading to Jaja’s exile in the West Indies. Political pressure forced the British to return Jaja to Opobo. Unfortunately, the once-powerful slave-turned-king died while trying to return home in 1891.
Technological Origins: Primate Perspectives and Early Hominin Tool Use in Africa
Authors: Carvalho Susana , Beardmore-Herd Megan
Published: February 2019

The origin of technology is believed to have marked a major adaptive shift in human evolution. Understanding the evolutionary process(es) underlying the first human adaptation to tool use, and the subsequent process(es) that led Homo sapiens to become the only extant primate fully dependent on technology, is one of the most stimulating topics of research of present-day archaeology. New fields of research have been founded (e.g. primate archaeology, Pliocene archaeology) during the quest to find out how old technology is, where it originated, and who were the first tool users. Historically, the vast majority of the information on this topic comes from the study of lithic (stone) tools, tools whose manufacture was generally believed to be a uniquely human characteristic until well into the 1960s. The production of lithic technology was linked first to the origin of the earliest hominins (the taxonomic group comprising modern humans, extinct human species, and all immediate human ancestors), being thought to have co-evolved with traits such as bipedalism or hunting/scavenging, and later to the evolution of the genus Homo and accompanying increases in brain size. As a result of breakthroughs in the field of primatology, and greater interdisciplinary work between archaeologists and primatologists, a paradigm shift in beliefs surrounding the uniqueness of human technology is underway. Following discoveries from the second half of the 20th century and the early 21st century, habitual tool use, tool manufacture, and the production of flakes are now known to occur in extant non-human species, firmly decoupling brain size expansion, bipedalism, and the origins of technology. Knapped stone tools and cut-marked bones have been discovered dating to ca. half a million years before the earliest evidence of Homo, giving rise to the possibility that earlier, previously unconsidered hominins, or even other extinct non-human primates, could have been responsible for the inception of tool use and manufacture. Following these advances, it is reasonable to hypothesize that the origins of technology may lie much further back in time than the earliest discovered modified stone tools—perhaps as far back as the late Miocene with the last common ancestor of Homo and Pan. Moreover, discoveries of lithic technology in more distantly related species, where convergent evolution is the most parsimonious explanation, strongly suggest the existence of multiple evolutionary pathways for technological emergence. While there is still much to unearth, the extension of the antiquity of modified stone tools, combined with the increased focus on interdisciplinary studies between archaeologists, primatologists, and paleoanthropologists, has gone a long way in overturning outdated beliefs by demonstrating that the development of technology is unlikely to have been a simple, linear process resulting from a single event or factor in the evolutionary history of humans.
Health Information Technology
Authors: Everson Jordan , Buntin Melinda Beeuwkes
Published: February 2019

The potential for health information technology (HIT) to reshape the information-intensive healthcare industry has been recognized for decades. Nevertheless, the adoption and use of IT in healthcare has lagged behind other industries, motivating governments to take a role in supporting its use to achieve envisioned benefits. This dynamic has led to three major strands of research. Firstly, the relatively slow and uneven adoption of HIT, coupled with government programs intended to speed adoption, has raised the issue of who is adopting HIT, and the impact of public programs on rates of adoption and diffusion. Secondly, the realization of benefits from HIT appears to be occurring more slowly than its proponents had hoped, leading to an ongoing need to empirically measure the effect of its use on the quality and efficiency of healthcare as well as the contexts under which benefits are best realized. Thirdly, increases in the adoption and use of HIT have led to the potential for interoperable exchange of patient information and the dynamic use of that information to drive improvements in the healthcare delivery system; however, these applications require developing new approaches to overcoming barriers to collaboration between healthcare organizations and the HIT industry itself. Intertwined through each of these issues is the interaction between HIT as a tool for standardization and systemic change in the practice of healthcare, and healthcare professionals’ desire to preserve autonomy within the increasingly structured healthcare delivery system. Innovative approaches to improve the interactions between professionals, technology, and market forces are therefore necessary to capitalize on the promise of HIT and develop a continually learning health system.