bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Subduing always defecting mutants by multiplayer reactive strategies: non-reciprocity versus generosity
Authors: Sadhukhan Shubhadeep , Shukla Ashutosh , Chakraborty Sagar
Published: January 2022

A completely non-generous and reciprocal population of players can create a robust cooperating state that cannot be invaded by always defecting free riders if the interactions among players are repeated for long enough. However, strict non-generosity and strict reciprocity are ideal concepts, and may not even be desirable sometimes. Therefore, to what extent generosity or non-reciprocity can be allowed while still not be swamped by the mutants, is a natural question. In this paper, we not only ask this question but furthermore ask how generosity comparatively fares against non-reciprocity in this context. For mathematical concreteness, we work within the framework of multiplayer repeated prisoner’s dilemma game with reactive strategies in a finite and an infinite population; and explore the aforementioned questions through the effects of the benefit to cost ratio, the interaction group size, and the population size.
Up-regulation of the Cdc42 GTPase limits the replicative life span of budding yeast
Authors: Kang Pil Jung , Mullner Rachel , Li Haoyu , Hansford Derek , Shen Han-Wei , Park Hay-Oak
Published: January 2022

Cdc42 is a central regulator of cell polarity in diverse cell types. Genetic analyses and live-cell imaging suggest that up-regulation of Cdc42 is likely to limit the replicative life span of budding yeast.
Phytoplasma effector Zaofeng6 induces shoot proliferation by decreasing the expression of ZjTCP7 in Ziziphus jujuba
Authors: Chen Peng , Chen Lichuan , Ye Xia , Tan Bin , Zheng Xianbo , Cheng Jun , Wang Wei , Yang Qiqi , Zhang Yu , Li Jidong , Feng Jiancan
Published: January 2022

The jujube witches’ broom (JWB) phytoplasma is associated with witches’ broom, dwarfism, and smaller leaves in jujube, resulting in yield losses. In this study, eight putative JWB effector proteins were identified from potential mobile units of the JWB genome. Among them, Zaofeng6 induced witches’ broom symptoms in Arabidopsis and jujube. Zaofeng6-overexpressing Arabidopsis and unrooted jujube transformants displayed witches’ broom-like shoot proliferation. Transient expression of Zaofeng6 induced hypersensitive response like cell death and expression of hypersensitive response marker genes, like harpin-induced gene 1 (H1N1), and the pathogenesis-related genes PR1, PR2, and PR3 in transformed Nicotiana benthamiana leaves, suggesting that Zaofeng6 could be a virulence effector. Yeast two-hybrid library screening and bimolecular fluorescence complementation confirmed that Zaofeng6 interacts with ZjTCP7 through its first two α-helix domains in the cell nuclei. ZjTCP7 mRNA and protein abundance decreased in Zaofeng6 transgenic jujube seedlings. The expression of some genes in the strigolactone signaling pathway (ZjCCD7, ZjCCD8, and CYP711A1) were down-regulated in jujube shoots overexpressing Zaofeng6 and in zjtcp7 CRISPR/Cas9 mutants. Zaofeng6 induces shoot proliferation through decreased expression of ZjTCP7 at the transcriptional and translational levels.
Expanding the genetic variation of Brassica juncea by introgression of the Brassica rapa genome
Authors: Zhang Li , Li Xiangsheng , Chang Lichun , Wang Tianpeng , Liang Jianli , Lin Runmao , Wu Jian , Wang Xiaowu
Published: January 2022

Brassica juncea is an important vegetable and oil crop cultivated worldwide. To increase its genetic variation, we introgressed the A genome of Brassica rapa into B. juncea. We used three each of heading and semi-heading B. juncea accessions as recipient parents and a B. rapa line, B9008, as the donor parent. We obtained 101 BC1S1 lines in total with expanded phenotypic variations such as leafy head shapes. We developed 132 single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers that could distinguish the A genome of B. juncea from the B. rapa genome, and tracked the introgression of B. rapa segments in the new B. juncea germplasm. On average, 59.2% of the B. juncea A genome in the B. juncea introgression lines was covered by the donor segments. We also identified three markers whose donor genotype frequencies were significantly lower than the theoretical value, suggesting strong selection of the recipient genotype during the introgression process. We provide an effective strategy to evaluate the diversity of the new germplasm based on the combination of parental resequencing data and marker genotyping results. Further genetic analysis of 1642 SNPs showed that the genetic diversity of the new B. juncea germplasm with the introgressed B. rapa genome was significantly increased. This study illustrates the potential for expanding the genetic diversity of B. juncea through the introgression of the B. rapa genome.
Development of a single-cell atlas for woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca) leaves during early Botrytis cinerea infection using single-cell RNA-seq
Authors: Bai Yibo , Liu Hui , Lyu Haimeng , Su Liyao , Xiong Jinsong , Cheng Zong-Ming (Max)
Published: January 2022

Pathogen invasion leads to fast, local-to-systemic signal transduction that initiates plant defense responses. Despite tremendous progress in past decades, aspects of this process remain unknown, such as which cell types respond first and how signals are transferred among cell types. Here, we used single-cell RNA-seq of >50 000 single cells to document the gene expression landscape in leaves of woodland strawberry during infection by Botrytis cinerea and identify major cell types. We constructed a single-cell atlas and characterized the distinct gene expression patterns of hydathode, epidermal, and mesophyll cells during the incubation period of B. cinerea infection. Pseudotime trajectory analysis revealed signals of the transition from normal functioning to defense response in epidermal and mesophyll cells upon B. cinerea infection. Genes related to disease resistance showed different expression patterns among cell types: disease resistance-related genes and genes encoding transcription factors were highly expressed in individual cell types and interacted to trigger plant systemic immunity to B. cinerea. This is the first report to document the single-cell transcriptional landscape of the plant pathogenic invasion process; it provides new insights into the holistic dynamics of host–pathogen interactions and can guide the identification of genes and the formulation of strategies for resistant cultivar development.
Ultraviolet radiation causes leaf warming due to partial stomatal closure
Authors: Williams Tom B , Dodd Ian C , Sobeih Wagdy Y , Paul Nigel D
Published: January 2022

Variation in solar ultraviolet radiation induces a wide-range of plant responses from the cellular to whole-plant scale. We demonstrate here for the first time that partial stomatal closure caused by ultraviolet radiation exposure results in significant increases in leaf temperature. Significant leaf warming in response to ultraviolet radiation was consistent in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) across different experimental approaches. In field experiments where solar ultraviolet radiation was attenuated using filters, exposure to ultraviolet radiation significantly decreased stomatal conductance and increased leaf temperature by up to 1.5°C. Using fluorescent lamps to provide ultraviolet radiation treatments, smaller but significant increases in leaf temperature due to decreases in stomatal conductance occurred in both multi-day controlled environment growth room experiments and short-term (<2 hours) climate cabinet irradiance response experiments. We show that leaf warming due to partial stomatal closure is independent of any direct warming effects of ultraviolet radiation manipulations. We discuss the implications of ultraviolet radiation-induced warming both for horticultural crop production and understanding broader plant responses to ultraviolet radiation.
Correcting a bias in TIGER rates resulting from high amounts of invariant and singleton cognate sets
Authors: List Johann-Mattis
Published: January 2022

In a recent issue of the Journal of Language Evolution, Syrjänen et al. (2021) investigate the suitability of computing Cummins and McInerney’s (2011) TIGER rates for estimating the tree-likeness of linguistic datasets compiled for phylogenetic reconstruction. The authors test the TIGER rates on a diverse sample of simulated data, which by and large confirms the usefulness of TIGER rates as an analytic tool for investigating linguistic data, but they test them only on one real-world dataset of Uralic languages which turns out to behave quite differently from the simulated data. When testing the TIGER rates on additional datasets, I detected a bias in the computation which leads to an unnatural increase in those cases where a dataset contains many characters with invariant or singleton states. To overcome this problem, I suggest a modified variant of TIGER rates, which is provided in the form of a freely available Python package. Testing the modified TIGER scores on the simulated data of Syrjänen et al. shows that the corrected TIGER rates still readily distinguish between different degrees of tree-likeness. Testing them on a dataset in which the number of singletons and invariants was artificially increased further shows that the corrected TIGER rates are not influenced by the bias. A final tests on seven linguistic datasets show the usefulness of the corrected TIGER rates on a larger variety of linguistic datasets and illustrate the importance to take specific aspects of linguistic data into account when using biological methods in the domain of language evolution.
Development and Implementation of Urologic Care Army/Air Force/Navy Provider Education, a Urologic Emergency Simulation Curriculum
Authors: Hafer Ashley S , Sweeney W Brain , Battista Alexis L , Meyer Holly S , Franklin Brenton R
Published: January 2022

Background

Military general surgeons commonly perform urologic procedures, yet, there are no required urologic procedural minimums during general surgery residency training. Additionally, urologists are not included in the composition of forward operating surgical units. Urologic Care Army/Air Force/Navy Provider Education was created to provide military general surgeons with training to diagnose and treat frequently encountered urologic emergencies when practicing in environments without a urologist present.

Study Design

A literature review and needs assessment were conducted to identify diagnoses and procedures to feature in the course. The course included a 1-hour didactic session and then a 2-hour hands-on simulated skills session using small, lightweight, cost-effective simulators. Using a pretest–posttest design, participants completed confidence and knowledge assessments before and after the course. The program was granted educational exemption by the institutional review board.

Results

Twenty-seven learners participated. They demonstrated statistically significant improvement on the knowledge assessment (45.4% [SD 0.15] to 83.6% [SD 0.10], P < .01). On the confidence assessment, there were statistically significant (P ≤ .001) improvements for identifying phimosis, paraphimosis, and testicular torsion, as well as identifying indications for suprapubic catheterization, retrograde urethrogram, and cystogram. There were also statistically significant (P < .001) improvements for performing: suprapubic catheterization, dorsal penile block, dorsal slit, scrotal exploration, orchiopexy, orchiectomy, retrograde urethrogram, and cystogram.

Conclusion

We created the first-ever urologic emergencies simulation curriculum for military general surgeons that has demonstrated efficacy in improving the diagnostic confidence, procedural confidence, and topic knowledge for the urologic emergencies commonly encountered by military general surgeons.
Outpatient Therapies for COVID-19: How Do We Choose?
Authors: Lee Todd C , Morris Andrew M , Grover Steven A , Murthy Srinivas , McDonald Emily G
Published: January 2022

Background

Several outpatient coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) therapies have reduced hospitalization in randomized controlled trials. The choice of therapy may depend on drug efficacy, toxicity, pricing, availability, and available infrastructure. To facilitate comparative decision-making, we evaluated the efficacy of each treatment in clinical trials and estimated the cost per hospitalization prevented.

Methods

Wherever possible, we obtained relative risk for hospitalization from published randomized controlled trials. Otherwise, we extracted data from press releases, conference abstracts, government submissions, or preprints. If there was >1 study, the results were meta-analyzed. Using relative risk, we estimated the number needed to treat (NNT), assuming a baseline hospitalization risk of 5%, and compared the cost per hospitalization prevented with the estimate for an average Medicare COVID-19 hospitalization ($21 752). Drug pricing was estimated from GoodRx, from government purchases, or manufacturer estimates. Administrative and societal costs were not included. Results will be updated online as new studies emerge and/or final numbers become available.

Results

At a 5% risk of hospitalization, the estimated NNT was 80 for fluvoxamine, 91 for colchicine, 72 for inhaled corticosteroids, 24 for nirmatrelvir/ritonavir, 50 for molnupiravir, 28 for remdesivir, 25 for sotrovimab, 29 for casirivimab/imdevimab, and 29 for bamlanivimab/etesevimab. For drug cost per hospitalization prevented, colchicine, fluvoxamine, inhaled corticosteroids, and nirmatrelvir/ritonavir were below the Medicare estimated hospitalization cost.

Conclusions

Many countries are fortunate to have access to several effective outpatient therapies to prevent COVID-19 hospitalization. Given differences in efficacy, toxicity, cost, and administration complexity, this assessment serves as one means to frame treatment selection.
Coccidioidal Peritonitis: A Review of 17 Cases
Authors: Johnson Royce H , Sharma Ritika , Sharma Rupam , Civelli Valerie , Narang Vishal , Kuran Rasha , Goldstein Ellie J C , Deresinski Stan , Jones Amber , Ramzan Amin , Posalski Irving , El-sayed Dena , Thompson George R , D’Assumpcao Carlos , Heidari Arash
Published: January 2022

Coccidioidomycosis is the second most common endemic fungal infection in the United States. Prior descriptions of coccidioidal peritonitis include only single cases. We describe 17 new cases previously unreported from healthcare institutions in California. The majority of cases presented with nonspecific abdominal complaints. PubMed and Google Scholar were searched for additional case series and only single case reports and reviews of single cases were found.

The diagnosis was confirmed by culture or histopathology and/or serology in each patient. All patients were treated with anti-fungal therapy. This case series demonstrates that coccidioidal peritonitis may be asymptomatic or present with only subtle abdominal symptoms. In a minority of our patients, the diagnosis was established incidentally during surgery. Based on this series, the overall outcome of coccidioidal peritonitis is favorable with long-term triazole treatment. The term cure is not usually used in disseminated coccidioidal disease because of the risk of late relapse.
Symptomatic Plasmodium vivax Infection in Rwanda
Authors: McCaffery Jessica N , Munyaneza Tharcisse , Uwimana Aline , Nace Doug , Lucchi Naomi , Halsey Eric S , Rogier Eric
Published: January 2022

We report a Plasmodium vivax infection in a Rwandan child misdiagnosed with Plasmodium falciparum and administered artemether-lumefantrine. Antigen detection revealed an absence of P falciparum histidine-rich protein 2 (HRP2) and presence of Plasmodium vivax lactate dehydrogenase. Nested and real-time polymerase chain reactions verified that the sample only contained P vivax deoxyribonucleic acid.
The Emergence of New Polities in the Breakup of the Western Roman Empire
Authors: Pohl Walter
Published: January 2022

This chapter explores the manifold meanings of ethnicity in the post-Roman West. The intellectual elites of the later Roman Empire, who regarded themselves as a populus defined by law, categorized the surrounding gentes by genealogical descent. As the empire gave way to the barbarian successor kingdoms, these distinctions remained but adapted to the increasing role of Christianity in the self-styling of the elites in each of the new kingdoms. The new religion endorsed and to some extent justified ethnic identities and gave the new “peoples” who ruled over former imperial provinces a framework for the “ethnic” law codes and the political prerogatives they propagated, while political agency of these new groups was codified in new modes of historiographical rhetoric. Although these “ethnic” polities were essentially inhabited by composite and varied groups, a sense of common origin was created, which nonetheless turned out to be flexible enough for them to form loose aggregates of ethnic, political, territorial, and religious identities that could provide some stability of identification.
Comparative Perspectives
Authors: Pohl Walter , Kennedy Hugh
Published: January 2022

This coauthored chapter is a comparative synthesis of the preceding two chapters. It identifies ten elements in which, despite superficial similarities between the two processes, differences between the roles of ethnicity in the process of imperial devolution of the Roman and Abbasid realms are made visible. The result of the comparison is a complex matrix of similarities and differences, in which the different outcomes are the result not of any deep-seated alterity between the two societies but of the way seemingly quite similar conditions were combined in different ways and the way contemporary observers made sense of the perceived changes.
Pearl of the Desert
Authors: Raja Rubina
Published: January 2022

This volume explores the oasis city of Palmyra in the Syrian Desert through an in-depth examination of the site’s unique archeology and history. Palmyra is best known as the Pearl in the Desert of the Roman Empire, a vibrant living center that stood at the heart of flourishing international networks of trade and politics in the first three centuries CE. It is from this period that the vast majority of the material and written sources stem, and it is Palmyra’s position as a city, caught between the empires of Rome and Parthia, that is the main focus of the book. However, the volume also touches on Palmyra before the Roman period as well as after Zenobia’s rebellion and the city’s sack in 272 CE and again in 273 CE, and it traces Palmyra’s developments over the years—from the events of the Umayyad period to the arrival of the first European tourists. Finally, the volume explores the tragic eruption of civil war in Syria in the twenty-first century, showing how in modern times, Palmyra has once again become enmeshed in international political networks as well as being drawn into global debates about the trade and protection of cultural heritage.
Bands, Bonds, and Affections
Authors: Lee Michael J. , Atchison R. Jarrod
Published: January 2022

Nearly as soon as human societies began organizing themselves in nations, they adopted a word to describe getting out of them. Although secession and separatism remain thorny concepts to define, as the era of revolutionary nationalism began, secession began denoting a people and a place, a demos attached to a space, a group leaving a nation and taking part of it with them. Separatism, both in practice and imagination, has been conspicuous in the American national experience. Questions about the boundaries of national union, about the consent to be governed, about the limits of freedom, and about remedies to polarization sprout in every democracy. Those questions are given particular shape in the key words, narratives, lines of argument, shared histories, vaunted heroes, fallen villains, and nation-defining acts of particular political cultures. Since the beginning, separatists have used distinctly American symbols to unmake the nation.
“Dykes First”
Authors: Lee Michael J. , Atchison R. Jarrod
Published: January 2022

This chapter explores the alternative, boundary-dwelling communities built by lesbian separatists in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. We examine their acidic criticisms of mixed-sex societies, their hope for multiple yet homogeneous communities of lesbians, and the strategies they used to recruit, build, and sustain collectives beyond the patriarchal United States. Like other separatists, they framed categories of identity—sex and sexuality in their case—as reasons to separate. Unlike other separatist movements, they did not seek to build a new nation. Other separatists wanted to leave their American prison and retreat into a national fortress; lesbian separatists envisioned a far more formless, scattered alternative. Other separatist discourses were stocked with singular ideals of a national homeland. Lesbian separatist discourse was, on the whole, nearly totally devoid of positive references to nations, nationality, or nationalism generally.
Whaling with Turner
Authors: Noë Alva
Published: January 2022

This chapter describes Joseph Mallord William Turner's famous quartet of whaling paintings, which were on display in New York City in 2016 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Whaling is a beguiling subject. On the one hand, back in the 1840s, when Turner made these paintings, whaling was a hugely important industry. But on the other hand, it was a big business whose work took place not in local factories but far from public view in the most remote places in the world, out in the middle of the ocean. Turner himself probably never saw a whale or witnessed whaling firsthand. His renderings, therefore, are products of educated fantasy. One of the exhibition's preoccupations is whether Herman Melville saw these paintings and was influenced by them when he wrote Moby Dick. However, it is hard to see how a fantasy of the whale hunt by a painter who had never even seen a whale or the hunt could have made that big an impression on Melville, who had been a whaler.
Take My Breath Away!
Authors: Noë Alva
Published: January 2022

This chapter explores Tony Scott's Top Gun (1986) and Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). Top Gun is a dangerous movie: it aestheticizes killing machines and invites the audience to get caught up in Cold War jingoism. But more than anything else, it is a work of dazzling filmic choreography. The movie is an extended rock video, a dance-on-film put together from imagery of men in uniforms and planes moving impossibly through and around and astride the painted sky. The timing and repetition remind one of the opening scenes of Alien. Alien is blanketed in the dark silence of space. But it is also a composition of movement and sound, an unfolding dance between human beings, their machines, and an alien with fertile and violent impulses. As in the case of Top Gun, the action happens in the hot, closed confines of spaces that have been designed by distant governments or corporations for obscure ends that finally mean little to the people sweating it out onstage.
The Importance of Being Dressed
Authors: Noë Alva
Published: January 2022

This chapter focuses on a church in Florence where women and girls wearing shorts or other summer garb are made to don a blue gown upon entering. In her book on dress in Western painting, art historian Anne Hollander notices that when it comes to human beings, it is not nakedness that is the norm, but the clothed body. Nakedness is the absence of clothing, or its removal. The politics of dress, in Europe and elsewhere, is not always so benevolent. In Florence, they made women cover up. But sometimes women—for example, Muslim women—are forced to uncover; their insistence on covering up is a perceived threat.
Peering into Rembrandt’s Eyes
Authors: Noë Alva
Published: January 2022

This chapter reflects on the exhibition “Late Rembrandt” that ran in 2015 at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which was the first exhibition ever to focus on the adventurous and experimental painting of the last eighteen years of Rembrandt's life. Many of the figures portrayed by Rembrandt seem to have opaque and unseeing eyes. As Rembrandt's near contemporary René Descartes argued, the soul is not present in the body the way a pilot is present in a vessel. The connection is tighter than that. And Rembrandt's pictures offer a kind of exhibition of this idea—one can encounter the manifest spirit of a living person in a picture even when there is no seeing “into” them, even when we are confined, as we are, to seeing them from the “outside.” Meanwhile, there are a group of portraits by Rembrandt that are in an entirely different key—his self-portraits. In these paintings, almost miraculously, there is no question of lifeless or unseeing eyes. The differences between the blank eyes one sees in almost every figure painting of Rembrandt in this exhibition and the animate gaze of the self-portraits is not so much a difference in what the viewer actually sees but a difference in the acts these paintings perform.
The Opportunity of Boredom
Authors: Noë Alva
Published: January 2022

This chapter analyzes the role of boredom in art. One might say that boredom is the besetting sin not just of art but also of the lecture hall and the classroom. What all of these have in common is the structure of detachment. Some artists, writers, and teachers see boredom as the enemy; in their effort to deviate from the baseline, from boredom, they engage the audience. At its best, they do this by, in effect, putting on display a thing of value—knowledge, a story, a sculpture, or a painting—while also providing the tools the audience needs to understand it. At its worst, the impulse to deny boredom finds its expression in mere stagecraft and manipulation, in the willingness to pander and entertain. There is another approach to boredom in the arts, one that is perhaps more common in the avant-garde. If boredom stems from detachment, and if some measure of detachment is unavoidable in art (and in life), then getting bored is not just an irritating state, it is an opportunity.
Reproductions in the Age of Originality
Authors: Noë Alva
Published: January 2022

This chapter evaluates the reproductions of Michelangelo's and Sebastiano's works of art, which was on display as part of the “Michelangelo and Sebastiano” exhibition at the National Gallery in 2017. The show's high point is a remarkable new reproduction of the Borgherini Chapel in the church of San Pietro in Montorio, in Rome. In the “copy cultures” of the past, works of art lived in and through their copies. The transition from a copy culture to a cult of original production is one that seems to have taken place in Michelangelo's day. So it is somehow fitting that the curators of the exhibition have made free use of copies. In doing so, and in doing so with such a light touch, they cast illumination on the fact that in the age of Michelangelo and Sebastiano, the status of a copy would have been uncertain and problematic.
Aesthetic Evolution
Authors: Noë Alva
Published: January 2022

This chapter assesses aesthetic evolution. The basic problem with attempts to biologize art by grounding it in natural selection is that they end up treating art as just another form of conspicuous consumption. However, in Richard O. Prum's view, beauty is the result of a coevolutionary process. According to Prum, the pleasures we take in art are directly and specifically bound up with art. Not because art generates a special sort of aesthetic feeling or sensation, but because our responses to art—the pleasures we take in it—are bound up with art itself by processes of coevolution. What we like shapes art, and art, in turn, shapes and reshapes what we like. Art, like attractive ornament in the biological world, is the result of a coevolutionary processes spanning evolutionary and cultural time scales.
All Things Shining
Authors: Noë Alva
Published: January 2022

This chapter studies Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). In this movie, Deckard is a blade runner, a cop charged with capturing rebel androids (replicants). To find out whether a suspected replicant is really a replicant, Deckard deploys a sort of lie detector test: he poses emotionally loaded questions to them and uses a device to measure a telltale physiological response. Deckard's hard-cop detachment is deeply incompatible with the kinds of relationships—even romantic ones—that he himself carries on with replicants. This brings us to the argument of the movie: in treating others as if a physiological response is called for to decide if they count or not—in taking up a detached attitude that is willing to call their very humanity into question—Deckard convincingly puts his own humanity in jeopardy. This is driven home when we learn that Deckard himself, unbeknownst to him, is probably a replicant. Although Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly do not discuss Blade Runner in their important book All Things Shining, they might have. Deckard's is just the sort of perversion they investigate. Dreyfus and Kelly warns us not only of the dangers of our hubris but of its basic incoherence.
Boundary Spanners of Humanity
Authors: Zaharna R.S.
Published: January 2022

Boundary Spanners of Humanity tackles the growing severity of global problems and our strained ability to collaborate by critically re-examining two pivotal tools: communication and public diplomacy. R. S. Zaharna, a leading scholar of public diplomacy and international strategic communication, exposes the limitations of intercultural communication and state-based public diplomacy and proposes a pan-human vision of communication that can revolutionize how we communicate globally. The book reveals how dominant views of communication and public diplomacy are based on a 19th-century mindset of separateness that clashes with today’s global connectivity and human diversity. In a radical break from outdated models that divide humanity into cultural categories, Zaharna introduces a vision of humanity-centered public diplomacy featuring three complementary logics of communication. Used together, these communication logics are key to leveraging diversity, navigating connectivity, and enhancing our capacity for global collaboration. Zaharna’s innovative approach stems from decades-long, interdisciplinary research spanning ancient cosmologies, diverse intellectual heritages, contemporary social science, and emerging neuro-biological science. Boundary Spanners of Humanity provides a rich array of examples from ancient diplomacies to the Covid-19 pandemic to illustrate a vision of pan-human communication that spans our diversity and harnesses it as an essential strength in collective problem solving and global collaboration.
Introduction
Authors: Zaharna R.S.
Published: January 2022

At a time when global problems are growing in frequency and severity, we are seeing a growing strain on humankind’s evolutionary capacity for cooperation. Why is that capacity declining now, when we need it most? This introductory chapter takes a critical look at the 19th and 20th century conceptual tools that divided humanity into mutually exclusive national and cultural categories. That mindset of separateness runs counter to accelerating 21st century dynamics of global connectivity and diversity. To break from that old mindset, the chapter critically examines four interrelated pillars of the book: public diplomacy, culture, human communication, and identity. The chapter provides an overview of the book and the three logics of communication. It concludes with a call to humanity’s “Boundary Spanners,” those who would span the boundaries between human diversity and commonality to foster innovative problem-solving and global collaboration.
A World of Relations, World of Communication
Authors: Zaharna R.S.
Published: January 2022

Chapter 2 traces the backstory of how the three communication logics developed. It opens with the appeal of prominent intercultural models and the unexpected inconsistencies that plague them. In an effort to break out of the circular argument of using “communication” to define “communication,” the chapter adopts the analytical lens of relationalism and embarks on a global trek to understand the varying assumptions about “relations” in the world’s intellectual heritages. The trek begins by unpacking the assumptions buried in the ideal of individualism and moves to new conceptual territory for envisioning the idea of relations in individuality, relationality, and relational universes. The chapter reveals how assumptions about “relations,” far from being universal, vary and impact our understandings of communication and diplomacy. The chapter concludes with take-away points for Boundary Spanners and implications for intercultural communication and public diplomacy.
Individual Logic
Authors: Zaharna R.S.
Published: January 2022

Chapter 3 travels back to the agora (Ἀγορά), or public square, of ancient Athens and Aristotle’s legacy of rhetoric as a window into the Individual or Expressive logic. The chapter explores the interlocking premises of individuals as bounded, separate, and autonomous entities and the communication imperative of agency, control, and expression. In the Individual logic, expression is an existential imperative. Expression becomes synonymous with communication as the primary way for the separate individual to be known to others, to connect with others, and to maintain autonomy. The chapter highlights the central role of the Communicator in defining communication. Communication dynamics of the Individual logic spotlight Communicator attributes and agency, message, medium, audience, goal orientation, and measurability. The chapter concludes with notes for the Boundary Spanners on individualism and individuality, identity and expression, and sharing and preserving intellectual heritages.
Relational Logic
Authors: Zaharna R.S.
Published: January 2022

Chapter 4 ventures back to the ancient Near East to explore the diplomatic bonding practices among a brotherhood of the kings. Their reciprocal exchange of gifts, greetings, and brides, known as Amarna diplomacy, provides a window into the Relational logic. The Relational logic focuses on the level of the paired relationship and views the communication experience through the prism of the relational bond. Emotion serves as the key thread running throughout the communication dynamics that seek to define and strengthen relational bonds. Drawing on examples from ancient Amarna diplomacy and contemporary public diplomacy, the chapter presents the communication dynamics associated with the Relational logic: contact points, nonverbal behaviors, emotional expression, perspective-taking, reciprocity, and symbolism. The chapter concludes with insights from neuroscience and the communication functions of emotions in shaping relational identities, forging relational bonds, and fostering intuitive ways of knowing.
Holistic Logic
Authors: Zaharna R.S.
Published: January 2022

Chapter 5 draws upon the creation myths and cosmograms of the ancient world as a window into the communication dynamics of the Holistic logic. The chapter opens by surveying sacred cosmic circles that ancient societies used to convey their relational assumptions of an all-encompassing, indivisible relational universe. Because the relational universe provides meaning for the communication experience, maintaining the integrity and continuity of the whole is a communication imperative. The communication dynamics of the Holistic logic assume relational interaction and embodied communication. Examples from ancient cosmograms, including the Sri Yantra and Yin-Yang, are used to illustrate the interactive dynamics of the Holistic logic: expanding relations, finding commonality, preserving diversity, developing contextual sensitivity, creating interaction synchrony and synergy, and adopting a cooperative orientation. The chapter concludes with notes for Boundary Spanners on hierarchy and identity and the powerful role of synchrony and spirituality in shaping the human communication experience.
The Ethical Dilemmas of (Un)Healthy Eating
Authors: Barnhill Anne , Bonotti Matteo
Published: January 2022

This chapter introduces healthy eating efforts and briefly illustrates some ethical objections to them. The chapter also outlines a conception of eating and food experiences that underlies the book: food and eating have many kinds of value for individuals, families, and communities, and the value of food and eating can be both positive and negative. Healthy eating can result in trade-offs between different valued ends, such that people face dilemmas related to food, eating, and health. Central to this chapter is the claim that when particular healthy eating efforts are envisioned, public health policymakers should consider how such efforts may affect citizens in the context of their lives, given the importance that food, eating, and health (as well as other values) can have for them.
George Gershwin
Authors: Wilder Alec
Published: January 2022

George Gershwin was one of the few famous songwriters who wrote also wrote large-scale “classical” works. This chapter discusses only his songs. It is perhaps surprising to note that in spite of his experiments with larger, more complex compositions, Gershwin kept his songs simple, and, if anything, they became less complex during his career. This contrasts markedly from several other composers, such as Cole Porter and Harold Arlen, who boldly experimented with the established popular song format. While acknowledging his musicality and skill at turning out splendid songs, this survey also suggests that some of his quite popular songs do not appear to contain the substance to account for their great success. Among other characteristics, it is observed that Gershwin relied heavily on repeated notes in his songs.
Monopolies of Competence
Authors: D'Errico Mike
Published: January 2022

In the mid-2000s, Ableton’s Live became a dominant software for electronic music producers working across genres. Designed for “real-time” musical performance onstage and in the studio, Live introduced unique affordances for engaging digital sound, such as a nonlinear “Session View” which allows for the modular juxtaposition of musical ideas, as well as increased interoperability between Live and other media. Through design analyses of Avid’s Pro Tools, Apple’s Logic Pro X, and Live, as well as discourse analysis among producers and designers, this chapter details how the design of music software moved away from the representation of preexisting instruments, toward more abstract interfaces for engaging digital sound. Further, the chapter considers how these changes in design reflected social and cultural changes in user demographics, especially following popular feminist movements such as Me Too.
Terminal Aesthetics
Authors: D'Errico Mike
Published: January 2022

While DAWs such as FL Studio and Live appealed to music producers because of the influx and accessibility of creative options presented by the software, other programs embodied minimalist aesthetics, fostering creativity through limitations in design. Max, for example, is rarely described as software at all but rather as a musical “environment.” As the visual and algorithmic nature of the program suggests, Max requires composers to embrace an alternative digital literacy when working with the software, one more akin to computer coding than to traditional music composition. This chapter aligns the creative practices of multimedia composition in Max with the technical skills and design aesthetics of computer programmers and software designers. Surveying concepts from software studies, computer science, and the individual aesthetics of software developers—including those of original Max developer Miller Puckette—the chapter presents insights into the nature of composition and instrumentality in the digital age.
Conclusion
Authors: D'Errico Mike
Published: January 2022

The concluding chapter contextualizes virtual music making in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and the tumultuous social and political landscape of the year 2020. Through analyses of remote music-making apps, video games, and VR programs that individuals turned to as a means of escape, the chapter expands on the concept of procedural listening in order to develop a relational ethics of digital audio production and HCI. The major argument advanced by the book—that forms of contemporary media production exist within an increasingly convergent technological and aesthetic space, and thus forms of HCI have become more focused on process-oriented practices—opens up a space through which the relationships between interface aesthetics and ethics can be discussed. In this context, the goal of HCI and the development of new software shifts away from the perennial narrative of control and mastery into more vulnerable, exploratory modes of mediation.
Hegel’s Philosophical Interpretation of Christianity
Authors: Stewart Jon
Published: January 2022

Chapter 6 is dedicated to Hegel’s interpretation of Christianity as the highest development in the history of religion. In previous cultures, according to Hegel, there was no conception of the true freedom of human beings, and for this reason people were not recognized as free beings in their religion and in their relations to their gods. Hegel’s claim is that only in Christianity is human freedom realized. Human freedom means having this inward sphere of rationality, which is able to recognize and give its consent to the external sphere of, for example, custom and law insofar as it is rational. This is something that requires that humans have reached a certain level of development. Prior to Christianity, humans were not understood to have this inward rational side, Hegel claims. Only the Christian God recognizes this. An account is given of Hegel’s analyses of the various Christian doctrines: the Revelation, miracles, the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity. Hegel also believes that Lutheranism’s focus on the subjective belief of the individual is an important chapter in the story of the development of human freedom. Hegel’s account of Lutheranism sheds light on his view that Christianity alone is the religion of freedom. It celebrates the inward subjective side of the individual and regards conscience as something irreducible.
Rational Choice and Common Knowledge of Rationality
Authors: Gauthier David
Published: January 2022

This chapter challenges the scepticism of Brian Skyrms and some others about the notion of common knowledge in game theory. According to Skyrms, rational choice and common knowledge of rationality are in some situations incompatible. Focusing on the Centipede Game rather than the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the essay rejects the assumption that for an agent to choose rationally she must maximize her expected utility, and argues that in situations like Centipede, where one expects one’s mode of deliberation to affect the actions of others, reciprocation can be rational. If this view is correct, then rational choice and common knowledge of rationality can exist in mutual harmony.
Twenty-Five On
Authors: Gauthier David
Published: January 2022

This article updates Morals by Agreement. It distinguishes two opposed conceptions of deliberative rationality—maximization and Pareto-optimization. It defends the latter. The constrained maximizers of Morals by Agreement are replaced by rational cooperators. They do not bargain but reach agreement on the principle of maximin proportionate gain, which is a relabeling of maximin relative benefit. The contractarian test, of the acceptability of social arrangements and norms, is introduced, and the Lockean proviso assumes an enhanced role as a cornerstone of rational cooperation. But questions about the force and rationale of the proviso remain.
Hobbes on Demonstration and Construction
Authors: Gauthier David
Published: January 2022

In the Epistle Dedicatory to Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics, Hobbes distinguished the demonstrable from the indemonstrable arts. The significance of this work for Hobbes’s account of science in general, and civil philosophy or politics in particular, has perhaps not been sufficiently understood. In this chapter Hobbes’s thoughts about demonstration in this text and in De Homine are examined to show how what he says enables us to understand the status he gives to definitions in science and the emphasis he places on their role, and finally, to show how Hobbes employs his method of demonstration in treating the rights of sovereigns and the liberty of subjects in Leviathan.
Hobbes on Sovereign Authority
Authors: Gauthier David
Published: January 2022

The right to (private) property in Hobbes’s Leviathan is established by each man authorizing the sovereign, acting in the person of each, to renounce the natural right to unlimited possession in favour of an exclusive claim right (i.e. one that obligates others) to goods acquired and exchanged in accordance with procedures established by the sovereign. Yet this useful way to ground the right to private property and other rights runs afoul of punishment because Hobbes both asserts and denies that a person may authorize his own punishment. This chapter introduces a “Neo-Hobbesian” definition of punishment, which permits authorizing the sovereign to punish oneself if one expects to gain from the system of punishment.
Public Reason
Authors: Gauthier David
Published: January 2022

Law is the expression of public reason. This chapter explicates and justifies this assertion, which lies at the core of a normative theory of law. It focuses primarily on the concept of public reason, showing what it is, relating it to private or individual reason, and finding its rationale in that relation. It is argued that public reason exhausts the normative space where law may be found. By appealing to public reason, it is shown that the authority that law claims over the judgments and actions of citizens must ultimately be grounded in their own rationality. Public reason supplants, within limits, the individual reason of each citizen. We construct a public person who creates in law, a single public judgment that all are to accept and to express in their actions, enabling them to achieve their individual concerns.
Discovering Rome's Eastern Frontier
Authors: Mitford Timothy Bruce
Published: January 2022

An account, primarily academic, of the eastern Roman frontier extending from northern Syria to the western Caucasus, across a remote and desolate region 800 miles from the Aegean. This is the product of solo exploration of sensitive territory in challenging conditions over four decades, to discover the material remains of Rome’s last unexplored frontier. Barely visited and until now effectively unknown, it followed the Euphrates valley, passed over and through two great ranges, and penetrated the harsh mountains, ‘cleansed’ of Armenians and Greeks, of Armenia Minor and south of the Black Sea. From Trapezus a chain of forts stretched along the Pontic coast to the foothills of the Caucasus. The geographical framework introduces frontier installations as they occur: fortresses and forts, roads, bridges, signalling stations, and navigation of the Euphrates. It is illustrated with large-scale maps, observations of consuls and travellers, memories of Turkish and Kurdish villagers, notes and photographs of a way of life little changed since antiquity, and encounters with the modern world. The process of discovery was mainly on foot, with local guides and staying in villages, following ancient tracks, and conversing with great numbers of people – provincial and district governors, village elders and teachers, police and jandarma, farmers and shepherds, and everyone else. So there are encounters with treasure hunters and apparent bandits; arrests and death threats; Armenian massacres and crypto-Christians; memories of saints, caravans and the Russian advance in 1916; tensions between Kurds and Turks; the menace of the PKK; escorts and village guards; birds, bears and wild boars; rafts and fishing; earthquakes.