bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
“As a City on a Hill”
Authors: Wellman Kathleen
Published: November 2021

These curricula proudly distinguish themselves from other histories of America; they intend, as the Abeka textbook puts it, to offer “uplifting history texts,” allowing students to understand “its traditional values.” This chapter explores these curricula’s commitment to providential history as English colonies founded the Christian nation. This story of unquestionable religious fervor and Christian virtue relies on nineteenth-century national origin myths. The chapter explores the central arguments used to make this case. They reject Jamestown because the colony adopted the unchristian practice of sharing goods and was no model of virtue. They point to the Massachusetts colonies as the establishment of a Christian city on a hill and herald the Mayflower Compact as the source of the subsequent founding documents of the new nation. They disparage or exclude other colonies and native peoples.
The Christian Nation
Authors: Wellman Kathleen
Published: November 2021

This chapter begins with the question posed by a historian to the American Historical Association member forum, “Why do my students think America was founded as a Christian nation?” It explores how these curricula sustain crucial elements of that narrative by denying the influence of the Enlightenment and by making crucial claims about the founding: the Declaration of Independence defined a Christian nation; the American Revolution was either a Christian cause or not a revolution at all; and the Constitution, though silent on religion, nonetheless confirmed the intent of unquestionably Christian founders to establish a Christian nation. The chapter also highlights the nuanced work of historians of religion on these questions to show that such arguments contradict the historical consensus, are unduly simplistic, and are rooted in national origin myths.
Christian Colonialism and Capitalism
Authors: Wellman Kathleen
Published: November 2021

The nineteenth century tells the story of Christian success in England and America. Victorian England set a model of patriarchal family virtue rooted in “biblical Christianity.” God rewarded it with industrial development and capitalist expansion in its colonial ventures. The Industrial Revolution advances these curricula’s crucial economic argument: economic success reveals God’s favor. England’s virtues also allowed it to avoid the political tumult that beset the European continent. England and the United States enjoyed religious revivals, and missionaries spread Christianity throughout the world. Colonialism opened the world to missionary evangelization in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The capitalist success of the United States reveals it as the beneficiary of Divine Providence. Nineteenth-century evangelicals not only asserted these claims but also saw Christian hegemony as a realistic aspiration.
Evil Abroad and at Home
Authors: Wellman Kathleen
Published: November 2021

This chapter revisits the Cold War world, divided between capitalists and communists, a conflict that these curricula cast as a good-versus-evil morality play. American evangelicals allied with the Republican Party. They connected religion and corporate capitalism and rejected Democrats as New Deal socialists. These curricula praise Joseph McCarthy’s campaign to root out communism in the United States and condemn internationalism, especially the United Nations, as fostering a totalitarian, one-world government. They see the United States’ wars in Korea and Vietnam as insufficiently committed to the fight against communism. These textbooks weigh whether other nations developed collective political actions or social welfare programs; they deplore both as socialism or incipient communism. Decolonization made new parts of the world ripe for American capitalism or Soviet communism. They and their leaders were good or evil depending on whether they subscribed to the agenda of Christian conservatives.
A Latin American Critical Sociology Perspective on Religion
Authors: Morello Gustavo S.J.
Published: November 2021

Studying the interaction of modernity and religion has been at the heart of the sociology of religion. This chapter explores one of the most important explanations of this tension: secularization theory. Even when criticized, this theoretical perspective is present in debates and embedded in different methodologies in use to study religion. This chapter presents an alternative explanation of the Latin American religious landscape, inspired by the American-born religious-economy paradigm. Then the chapter considers the popular-religion approach, a model inspired by the Latin American cultural experience, which focuses on people’s practices. Finally, the chapter proposes a lived-religion approach to studying Latin American religiosity.
Educational Independence
Authors: Ellis Katharine
Published: November 2021

Two underresearched aspects of French provincial education concern the centralist (but “alternative”) ambitions of the Paris Schola Cantorum across France and the distinctive character of conservatoires which either freed themselves from the national system or refused to join it. Discussion centers on Montpellier (the Schola set up by Charles Bordes in 1905), Strasbourg (a proudly municipal conservatoire which retained many Germanic elements after its return to France in 1919), and Bordeaux (the Société de Sainte-Cécile, also independent, and which, unusually, included a plainchant class alongside its secular provision). Composition emerges as the elusive yet defining feature of the finest and most ambitious of the provincial conservatoires, whether national or not, while the pedagogical commitment of the “scholistes” to regionalist composition (ostensibly one of their calling cards) is revealed as both belated and fragile.
Operatic Competition
Authors: Ellis Katharine
Published: November 2021

The impact of the café-concert on the activity of residential opera companies was significant in French towns with significant working-class populations. Among stage-music genres, operetta was also a threat because it was staged by secondary theaters (and by café-concerts in breach of their licenses) and because large numbers of bourgeois patrons preferred it to either Grand Opera or opéra-comique. These forms of competition for licensed managers for opera and spoken theater characterize the 1850s onward, resulting in heated exchanges with all layers of local and national government and debates about how to preserve operatic decorum and status in the face of operetta’s popularity. A notable exception is 1870s Strasbourg, where French operetta acts as a vehicle of resistance. The role of touring companies (often from Paris) as a centralist threat to the resident company from the 1880s, especially, is contrasted with their enrichment of smaller towns; the increase in guest artists (often Parisian too) is discussed as a factor in the longer-term shrinking of permanent opera company personnel. A coda examines the often brutal impact of broadcast technology on opera management and audiences in the 1920s and 1930s.
Composition
Authors: Ellis Katharine
Published: November 2021

Despite its “regional” label, the 1937 Exposition offered meagre support for folk-related art music written by regionalists, suggesting that the tempering of folk music’s power was just as important here as in its popular sung and danced forms. Consistently across the century from the 1830s, provincial career paths for composers offered many more opportunities for decentralized or centralist activity (secular or as a maître de chapelle) than for regionalist expression, and the Schola Cantorum was not the catalyst for change to the extent that has hitherto been assumed. Discussion of the influence of the “Russian Five” on French music, and the contrasting ways regions (native and adoptive) are presented in new music, leads to case studies of operas by Bruneau, Séverac, Ropartz, Canteloube, and Leroux to show how French local and regionalist content played out in Paris during periods of changing nationalist intensity, including during World War I. The allegorical tactics of creative anachronism (Ropartz) prompt a broader discussion about the folk-historical nexus in French music from Chabrier to Poulenc, underpinned via modality. This nexus is what explains why France emerges with one of the few European modernisms to eschew folk sources except as folded into an upper-class patrimoine—the balletic dance that underpins much French neoclassicism.
Conclusions
Authors: Ellis Katharine
Published: November 2021

A decentralist history of Lyon’s musical life (Reuchsel, 1903) offers a springboard for rethinking the themes of decentralization, regionalism and deconcentration as they played out in France’s urban centers across the century from the 1830s to the 1930s. Comparison of decentralist and regionalist practice within the visual arts sets in relief the complex problems musicians experienced—from the ephemerality of composer groups to the state’s inability to showcase regional student compositions. Opera presented more opportunity to showcase regional difference, but the spectre of “colonization” remained, and local demands for “authentic” use of local material existed in tension with the vague atmospherics necessary for Parisian acceptance. The Vichy régime’s centralist appropriation of regionalism tainted the musical work of half a century as ruralist reaction of the extreme Right. New paradigms of thought stemming from ecomusicology suggest ways beyond the impasse of Left–Right politics that have dominated recent study.
The 1990s, Fulcrum of Change: Politics and Culture
Authors: Rosenfeld Michael J.
Published: November 2021

In his campaign for president in 1992, Bill Clinton did something surprising: he advocated for gay rights. After winning the presidency, however, he was unable to integrate gay soldiers into the military as he had promised to do. Congress instead created a program known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which forced gay soldiers back into the closet. Congress also passed, and President Clinton signed, the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevented the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages and allowed states to continue to deny marriage rights to same-sex couples. In 1997 television star Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian both in person and in character on her TV show Ellen, becoming one of the most prominent out-of-the-closet gay people in the US.
Public Opinion Change and the Uniqueness of Gay Rights
Authors: Rosenfeld Michael J.
Published: November 2021

Chapter 8 demonstrates that support for marriage equality is the fastest liberalizing attitude in the history of American public opinion. Abortion rights and gay rights divide the American public along similar lines (by region, religiosity, and party affiliation), but gay rights has undergone a remarkable transformation, while attitudes toward abortion rights are relatively static. One reason for the difference is that gay people have come out of the closet, while abortion histories remain closeted. Chapter 8 also shows that support for marriage equality seems to have made Americans more appreciative of all kinds of queer rights, including transgender rights. Marriage equality reduced the stigmas faced by all queer people and paved the way for more appreciation of all kinds of gay rights, exactly as the proponents of marriage equality said that it would.
April, Jayne, and Their Children
Authors: Rosenfeld Michael J.
Published: November 2021

Chapter 11 introduces April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, two Michigan nurses in a romantic union who had married, but whose marriage was not recognized by the state. For several years they sought to adopt children. As a couple they each adopted children who had special needs and they wanted their children to have two legal parents in order to safeguard their future. Michigan law specified that only married couples could jointly adopt children, so DeBoer and Rowse sued to force Michigan to recognize their marriage. The lawsuit started in 2012 and would eventually result in a trial, DeBoer v. Snyder which took place in federal court in Detroit in 2014.
Introduction
Authors: Roniger Luis
Published: November 2021

The introduction addresses the idea of “Latin America” as a constructed concept of transnational and comparative significance. It introduces the reader to the dynamic character of regional perspectives, with questions that have grown increasingly complex given the contested nature of borders, increasing globalization, multiculturalism, and transnational migration. Although diversity defines Latin America, supporting comparative approaches within and beyond its fluid boundaries, it is equally important to note the shared geopolitical, sociological, and cultural trends that have shaped a transnational domain of connected histories, recurrent interactions, and continental visions. These transnational trends have emerged time and again, affecting the nation-states that crystallized in the nineteenth century. It is to the analysis of this Janus face of Latin American development that the book’s chapters turn.
Fundamental Ontology
Authors: Siderits Mark
Published: November 2021

This chapter discusses three crucial metaphysical theses endorsed and argued for by all schools of Indian Buddhist philosophy: mereological nihilism, anti-substantialism, and momentariness. The “neither identical nor distinct” argument for mereological nihilism is presented and evaluated, and its consequence for fundamental ontology—that only entities with intrinsic natures are strictly speaking real—is explored. One important result, that only tropes and not substances as property-possessors belong in our ultimate ontology, is discussed. Two arguments for momentariness are presented: the argument from cessation and an argument from the nature of existence. Out of this investigation there should emerge a clearer picture of the Buddhist conception of just what the ultimate nature of reality would have to be like.
Causation
Authors: Siderits Mark
Published: November 2021

This chapter explores the notion of causation involved in the central Buddhist thesis of dependent origination, the thesis that the existence of a person just consists in the occurrence of a causal series of impersonal, impermanent psychophysical elements. It is claimed that as this thesis undergoes philosophical elaboration and development, the underlying notion of causal determination is subjected to a process of dehomuncularization: anthropomorphic elements of the folk notion of causation are stripped away, leaving in its place no more than the notion of regular succession across the Humean mosaic. The Abhidharma doctrine of four conditions is examined and compared to Aristotle’s doctrine of four causes. There is also discussion of an Abhidharma controversy concerning whether cause and effect may be simultaneous.
Time
Authors: Siderits Mark
Published: November 2021

This chapter examines the Buddhist version of the eternalism-presentism dispute. While all Buddhists hold that no existing thing is eternal, some did claim that past and future things are existent in the same sense in which presently existing things are, while other Buddhists denied that past and future things may be said to exist. The chapter begins by discussing the question of whether time is itself a real entity, examining an argument developed by Nāgārjuna against the view that time serves as the container that makes temporal relations possible. The bulk of the chapter is given over to a prolonged examination of the arguments given for and against eternalism. A major difficulty for the eternalist is to reconcile their view with the Buddhist orthodoxy that all is impermanent. The presentist is faced with the problem of explaining just what the present is if there is no past or future.
The Prevention of Schoolhouse to Jailhouse
Authors: Warren Mark R.
Published: November 2021

Chapter 4 documents the development of the Mississippi Delta Catalyst Roundtable to reform a deeply racist and abusive juvenile justice system and to build power in Black communities. It stresses the importance of grounding the national movement in African American communities in the South. It shows how these groups created models to combine community organizing with legal strategies and advocacy work in ways that centered the leadership of groups rooted in communities of those most impacted. Nevertheless, it demonstrates the critical importance of statewide and national networks to support local organizing carried out by small groups facing entrenched systems of oppression. It shows how people most impacted by injustice facing powerful white resistance spoke out and used intergenerational community organizing to confront systemic racism. Combining deep local organizing and national support, they made important breakthroughs and helped inspire a new racial justice movement.
The Movement Expands
Authors: Warren Mark R.
Published: November 2021

Chapter 8 examines the expansion of the movement to new issues and newly forceful constituents. It charts the rise of the police-free schools movement and discusses the influence of the Movement for Black Lives. It documents the assertion of voice and leadership by Black girls; girls of color; and gender nonconforming students in the movement, highlighting the intersectional ways that they experience the school-to-prison pipeline. Finally, it examines the role of teachers as allies to the movement and highlights efforts to implement restorative justice as an alternative to zero tolerance. It emphasizes the need to connect restorative justice to school-site organizing that connects teachers with students and parents in ways that transform relationships and create liberatory education.
The tone of Muslim coverage
Authors: Bleich Erik , van der Veen Maurits
Published: November 2021

This chapter discusses the method for measuring newspaper tone, which homes in on positive and negative words. It shows how to identify not just whether an article is positive or negative, but also how positive or negative it is. It validates the approach by showing that people can identify even comparatively small differences in tone between two texts. The chapter also introduces the corpus of articles used in the book, and shows that coverage of Muslims is very negative, and that the negativity is not limited to specific newspapers or time periods. In addition, it discusses how to identify aspects of media coverage that shape the tone of an article. In particular, it specifies which particular words are likely to be associated with important features of an article, such as whether it is set in a foreign location and whether it covers violence or religiosity.
The Annihilation of Tradition?
Authors: Roche Helen
Published: November 2021

When it came to founding new Napolas, the NPEA authorities often used the strategy of laying claim to educational institutions with venerable traditions, Nazifying and ‘Napolising’ them. This could include the appropriation of well-known humanistic boarding schools with a Protestant ethos such as Schulpforta (alma mater of Nietzsche, Ranke, and Fichte), or the Klosterschule in Ilfeld, which were both taken over as going concerns. However, the National Socialist regime’s deep hostility towards Catholic foundations also led to the forcible expropriation of former monastic schools such as the Ursuline convent school in Haselünne, or the Missionary School of the Society of the Divine Word (Steyler Orden) in St. Wendel, which were transformed into NPEA Emsland and NPEA Saarland respectively. Expropriation could also be used to punish oppositional non-religious schools such as the aristocratic Landschulheim in Neubeuern, Bavaria. Although most of these schools still retained the curriculum of a ‘humanistic Gymnasium’, teaching both Latin and ancient Greek, by the end of World War II, their existing traditions had been almost completely expunged. We can therefore see these forms of expropriation and Napolisation as part of a more general movement towards the de-Christianization of education during the Third Reich, with the NPEA in the vanguard. This chapter treats the schools at Schulpforta, Ilfeld, Haselünne, St. Wendel, and Neubeuern as case studies, concluding with a brief treatment of NPEA Weierhof am Donnersberg, a former Mennonite school which had collaborated with the Nazi authorities even prior to its transformation into a Napola.
Conclusion
Authors: Roche Helen
Published: November 2021

The conclusion succinctly summarizes the primary aims of the book as a whole, before considering how ‘effective’ the education provided by the Napolas was in comparison with the Third Reich’s other educational institutions. The NPEA appear to have been in the vanguard of many educational developments which the Reich Education Ministry subsequently intended to apply more broadly throughout the German school system. They also formed a prototype for the non-elite system of state boarding schools founded by August Heißmeyer at Hitler’s behest in 1941—the Deutsche Heimschulen. The programme of the Adolf-Hitler-Schools, rival elite schools founded in 1937 by Reich Organization Leader Robert Ley and Reich Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach, was also to a great extent deliberately copied from that of the Napolas; however, these Party elite schools were never able to realize their full potential and compete with the NPEA on equal terms. The Napolas were also more effective in their provision of a National Socialist ‘total education’ than ‘civilian’ schools and the Hitler Youth, as well as institutions such as the Reich Labour Service (RAD), the ‘Year on the Land’ (Landjahr), or the Order Castles (Ordensburgen). Taken on their own terms, then, the National Political Education Institutes can ultimately be seen as the Nazi dictatorship’s most effective educational experiment.
Negation and Denial
Authors: Mumford Stephen
Published: November 2021

It is assumed that we can assert that something is not the case. A simple alternative would be to deny that thing instead. The equivalence thesis, however, says that denial is simply equivalent to asserting the negation, and hence we do not need a separate act of denial in addition to assertion. We have seen, however, that such a move leads directly to an insoluble problem of finding truthmakers for negative truths. Instead, the equivalence thesis could be rejected, and there are some reasonable grounds to do so. Denial has distinct functions from the functions of assertion. Assertion requires a truthmaker and is relatively determinate. Denial, in contrast, is conventionally responsive and directly registers incompatibility. This suggests that denial is prior to negation, though the latter has become the standard way of marking the former. The account tells us that, rather than assert not-P, we are better simply denying P.
Analyzing the Politics of Legislative Debate
Authors: Laver Michael
Published: November 2021

This chapter considers why we should be interested in the politics of legislative debate. What does the analysis of legislative debate contribute to our understanding of politics more generally? This is particularly important given that legislative debate is not actually “debate” in any meaningful sense of the word, and that most legislators are not even present when most legislative speeches are made. The answers offered here rest on the assumption that speeches in the legislature allow legislators to commit to policy positions on the official record. If the main concern is politics between parties, debate speeches tend to concern actual policy implementation, likely closer to “true” preferences than electoral aspirations and promises. If the prime concern is politics within parties, debate speeches can give insight into internal party policy divisions, even in settings where the final legislative party vote is tightly whipped.
To “Suffer Severely from Injustice”
Authors: Davis Cynthia J.
Published: November 2021

With other turn-of-the-century Black intellectuals, Charles Chesnutt remained skeptical about the putative value of both human suffering and emotionally restrained and distanced responses to it. As a self-identified realist writing about race relations both during slavery and after Reconstruction, Chesnutt could not have ignored suffering altogether, yet representing it risked inadvertently perpetuating pernicious contemporary myths about Black inurement to pain. The challenge for Chesnutt across a range of fictional genres was to get a predominantly white audience to finally see Black suffering that they otherwise routinely ignore, discount, or deny. Upending racialized sensitivity hierarchies, Chesnutt flips the racist script that casts white people as sensitive to pain and Black people as insensitive to it. He also associates civilized superiority not simply with a remarkable sensitivity to suffering but with an even rarer inclination to respond altruistically even on behalf of those from whom the respondent feels demonstrably distanced.
Second-Personal Evidence
Authors: Stein Alex
Published: November 2021

This chapter draws on Hohfeld’s scheme of jural opposites and correlatives to identify the irreducibly second-personal nature of legal entitlements and the interplay between the right-holder’s authority and the duty-bearer’s accountability. Based on that insight, the author argues that facts that courts need to ascertain and—critically—the procedures that courts must carry out in ascertaining those facts, ought to be second-personal as well. As a corollary, courts must only rely upon second-personal evidence, that is: upon information concerning the alleged jural relationship between the holder of the underlying entitlement and the bearer of the correlative duty or obligation. Further, this fundamental requirement defines the modus operandi of the Anglo-American system of evidence and its core rules.
Argumentation and Evidence
Authors: Bex Floris
Published: November 2021

This chapter underscores the centrality of argumentation to legal and evidential reasoning: the prosecution argues that the suspect committed the crime; attorneys present their arguments; the plaintiff argues his case by citing a relevant precedent; the court presents concurring and dissenting arguments; and so on. The author reviews the different accounts of argumentation developed in the academic literature and then relates those accounts to the context of evidence and proof. Specifically, he focuses on the construction of arguments and counterarguments as involving consecutive reasoning steps, starting with identifying an item of evidence and then reasoning towards some conclusion with the help of general rules of inference and generalizations.
Coherence in Legal Evidence
Authors: Amaya Amalia
Published: November 2021

This chapter discusses the concept of coherence and its role in evidential reasoning in law. It examines three main approaches to coherence, namely, structural coherence, narrative coherence, and coherence as constraint satisfaction, and argues that coherence as constraint satisfaction provides an account of the kind of coherence that is relevant to legal fact-finding that is both descriptively adequate and normatively appealing. Next, it addresses some problems concerning the relation between coherence and inference, coherence and virtue, and coherence and truth in the context of legal factfinding. More specifically, it examines three main objections facing a coherentist account of inference, i.e., conservatism, circularity and unfeasibility, and conceptualizes it as an explanatory kind of inference. Then, it articulates a problem that has not been traditionally discussed in the coherentist literature, to wit, the coherence bias, and argues that virtue coherentism has the resources to effectively counteract it. Last, it defends the coherentist approach to evidence and legal proof against three objections that put into question the truth-conduciveness of coherence, namely, the isolation or input objection, the alternative coherent systems objection, and the truth objection. The chapter concludes by suggesting some avenues for further research on coherence, evidence, and legal proof.
De-Biasing Legal Factfinders
Authors: Zenker Frank
Published: November 2021

This chapter examines the psychological studies of biases and de-biasing measures in human decision-making with special reference to adjudicative factfinding. Research shows that factfinders are prone to cognitive biases (such as anchoring, framing, base-rate neglect, and confirmation bias) as well as social biases. Driven by this research, multiple studies have examined the extent to which those biases can be mitigated by de-biasing measures like “consider the opposite” and “give reasons.” After a brief overview of the research, the author points to the problematic evidential basis and identifies future research needs, and concludes that empirical research on de-biasing measures has so far delivered less than one would hope for.
Has China Caught up in the Global Innovation Race?
Authors: Zhang Marina Yue , Dodgson Mark , Gann David M.
Published: November 2021

This chapter shows how much China caught up in the global innovation race, using international indices of innovation performance, and data on R&D expenditures, higher education, scientific outputs, and patents. Frameworks such as ‘windows of opportunity’ are used to explore how China catches up in innovation and is changing policies from importing innovation to developing ‘indigenous innovation’. The bottlenecks confronting China’s catch-up and leadership are examined using the case of semiconductors, Huawei, and 5G, and the chapter poses the question whether the country can overcome such bottlenecks in core technologies. To do so, it is argued that greater investment is needed in basic research, especially by enterprises.
China’s Mega Supply Chains
Authors: Zhang Marina Yue , Dodgson Mark , Gann David M.
Published: November 2021

This chapter explains the development and significance of China’s mega supply chains and their position in the global division of labour. It explains the importance of modularity, standardization, and complementarity in supply chains. It analyses how efficiencies and resilience are achieved and balanced in supply chains and the importance of platforms, both geographical clusters, such as industrial bases in Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Suzhou, and digital platforms, such as Alibaba and Pinduoduo. The chapter also argues that China’s mega supply chains have become regional hubs supplying intermediate products to manufacturing facilities in countries with lower labour costs. It discusses the extent to which China is progressing towards Industry 4.0, with smart supply chains, and how the country is responding to the challenges from growing global trade tensions.
Substance and Property
Authors: Heil John
Published: November 2021

Substances are property bearers. Properties are particular ways substances are, modifications of substances, modes, not universals, not repeatable ‘general’ entities. Substances are simple, lacking parts that are themselves substances. Ordinary objects are probably not substances, hence not themselves property bearers. Modes are qualities of substances that empower those substances in distinctive ways. Qualities and powers of complex objects resolve themselves into the qualities and powers of their constituents organized as they are. The possibility of ‘coinciding objects’—a statue and a lump of bronze, for instance—is considered and rejected in favor of the idea that a particular lump of bronze could be the truthmaker for ‘this is a statue’ and ‘this is a lump’.
Essences, Kinds, Universals
Authors: Heil John
Published: November 2021

The chapter provides an account of essences according to which essences are not entities, but what it is to be a kind of entity or to be a particular entity of its kind. To grasp something’s essence is to have a sense of what it takes to be the kind of entity it is. Thinking about Bunkin as a rabbit requires having some conception of what it takes to be a rabbit. Trivially, everything is what it is, everything, however outlandish, has what it takes to be whatever it is. Essences might be thought to play the role of universals. Were that so, universals would be metaphysically unremarkable, and not a species of general entity, a thought in keeping with a conception of properties as modes. The chapter introduces the notion of ‘slippage’ in the course of discussing attempts by philosophers to align the manifest and scientific images.
The Art of the Possible
Authors: Heil John
Published: November 2021

The chapter provides an examination of competing accounts of truthmakers for judgments concerning contingency, necessity, possibility, and for counterfactual and subjunctive conditionals. On the one side are the ‘Humeans’ who see the universe as modally bereft, in David Lewis’ words, it is ‘just one little thing and then another’. Lewis’ account of modal discourse posits myriad alternative universes. Modal judgments are recast as judgments concerning similarities. The resulting picture is found to make contingencies hard to come by: necessities, not contingencies, rule. An Aristotelian universe, in contrast, would be populated by interacting objects, and would appear to provide ample truthmakers for modal judgments. This impression does not survive scrutiny, however. Humeans and Aristotelians alike are obliged to reconstrue modal discourse in a way that reflects pressures arising in the manifest image, but leaves the modal texture of reality untouched.
Roots of Things
Authors: Heil John
Published: November 2021

This chapter returns to idea that the manifest image concerns a higher-level reality, dependent on, but distinct from a more fundamental reality, the characterization of which falls to physics, noting that a more appealing option is available. Although the universe depicted by physics is apparently at odds with the Aristotelian character of the manifest image, the two images are not images of distinct realities, but different ways of depicting a single reality. The possibility that the scientific image is Humean in the manner of Lewis and Williams is explored and its implications for change and efficient causation discussed, setting the stage for Chapter 13, which concerns the reconciliation of the manifest and scientific images.
Imperial Metabolism
Authors: Hornborg Alf
Published: November 2021

The chapter presents a theoretical framework for the comparative study of imperialism, viewed as strategies used by expansive states to appropriate resources from their hinterlands. It interprets imperial projects as ecological phenomena and focuses on their material metabolism based on the redistribution of labor and land. A cursory review of the history of six empires (Han China, Rome, Inca, Aztec, Spain, and Britain) illustrates some continuities and discontinuities in imperial strategies through more than two millennia of world history. The emphasis is on how energy, land, and labor are appropriated and how such appropriation is legitimized ideologically. Imperial strategies are roughly categorized as agrarian, mercantile, industrial, or financial. Special attention is given to the role of technology in the expansion of the British Empire. Industrial technologies are reconceptualized as strategies for locally saving human time and natural space at the expense of time and space lost elsewhere in the world-system.
Phytoplankton growth regulation by dissolved P and mortality regulation by endogenous cell death over 35 years of P control in a Mountain Lake
Authors: Lewis William M , Roberson Jennifer
Published: November 2021

Dynamics of phytoplankton and phosphorus were quantified in Lake Dillon, Colorado, over 35 years of P control. The lake provides an example of early intervention for P enrichment rather than remediation of advanced eutrophication. Phosphorus control began with tertiary treatment of effluent, which caused a phytoplankton decline (8.1–4.5 μg L−1 chla); a second decline (4.6–2.5 μg L−1 chla) occurred later following replacement of failing septic systems. Results showed that bioavailable phosphorus (BAP) loading was the only significant correlate of phytoplankton biomass; total P loading was not significantly related to biomass measured as chlorophyll. Phytoplankton composition changed greatly over the study interval, even though there was no long-term trend in potential causes of phytoplankton abundance other than reduction in BAP. Gradual decline of BAP loading also appears to have been the cause of large, gradual changes in phytoplankton community composition. Factors typically assumed to control phytoplankton mortality accounted for only ~50% of phytoplankton biomass turnover; the balance of mortality appears to be accounted for by endogenous cell mortality.
CRISPR–Cas9-mediated editing of starch branching enzymes results in altered starch structure in Brassica napus
Authors: Wang Liping , Wang You , Makhmoudova Amina , Nitschke Felix , Tetlow Ian J , Emes Michael J
Published: November 2021

Starch branching enzymes (SBEs) are one of the major classes of enzymes that catalyze starch biosynthesis in plants. Here, we utilized the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats–CRISPR associated protein 9 (CRISPR–Cas9)-mediated gene editing system to investigate the effects of SBE mutation on starch structure and turnover in the oilseed crop Brassica napus. Multiple single-guide RNA (sgRNA) expression cassettes were assembled into a binary vector and two rounds of transformation were employed to edit all six BnaSBE genes. All mutations were heterozygous monoallelic or biallelic, and no chimeric mutations were detected from a total of 216 editing events. Previously unannotated gene duplication events associated with two BnaSBE genes were characterized through analysis of DNA sequencing chromatograms, reflecting the complexity of genetic information in B. napus. Five Cas9-free homozygous mutant lines carrying two to six mutations of BnaSBE were obtained, allowing us to compare the effect of editing different BnaSBE isoforms. We also found that in the sextuple sbe mutant, although indels were introduced at the genomic DNA level, an alternate transcript of one BnaSBE2.1 gene bypassed the indel-induced frame shift and was translated to a modified full-length protein. Subsequent analyses showed that the sextuple mutant possesses much lower SBE enzyme activity and starch branching frequency, higher starch-bound phosphate content, and altered pattern of amylopectin chain length distribution relative to wild-type (WT) plants. In the sextuple mutant, irregular starch granules and a slower rate of starch degradation during darkness were observed in rosette leaves. At the pod-filling stage, the sextuple mutant was distinguishable from WT plants by its thick main stem. This work demonstrates the applicability of the CRISPR–Cas9 system for the study of multi-gene families and for investigation of gene-dosage effects in the oil crop B. napus. It also highlights the need for rigorous analysis of CRISPR–Cas9-mutated plants, particularly with higher levels of ploidy, to ensure detection of gene duplications.
pHBMT1, a BAHD-family monolignol acyltransferase, mediates lignin acylation in poplar
Authors: de Vries Lisanne , MacKay Heather A , Smith Rebecca A , Mottiar Yaseen , Karlen Steven D , Unda Faride , Muirragui Emilia , Bingman Craig , Vander Meulen Kirk , Beebe Emily T , Fox Brian G , Ralph John , Mansfield Shawn D
Published: November 2021

Poplar (Populus) lignin is naturally acylated with p-hydroxybenzoate ester moieties. However, the enzyme(s) involved in the biosynthesis of the monolignol–p-hydroxybenzoates have remained largely unknown. Here, we performed an in vitro screen of the Populus trichocarpa BAHD acyltransferase superfamily (116 genes) using a wheatgerm cell-free translation system and found five enzymes capable of producing monolignol–p-hydroxybenzoates. We then compared the transcript abundance of the five corresponding genes with p-hydroxybenzoate concentrations using naturally occurring unrelated genotypes of P. trichocarpa and revealed a positive correlation between the expression of p-hydroxybenzoyl-CoA monolig-nol transferase (pHBMT1, Potri.001G448000) and p-hydroxybenzoate levels. To test whether pHBMT1 is responsible for the biosynthesis of monolignol–p-hydroxybenzoates, we overexpressed pHBMT1 in hybrid poplar (Populus alba × P. grandidentata) (35S::pHBMT1 and C4H::pHBMT1). Using three complementary analytical methods, we showed that there was an increase in soluble monolignol–p-hydroxybenzoates and cell-wall-bound monolignol–p-hydroxybenzoates in the poplar transgenics. As these pendent groups are ester-linked, saponification releases p-hydroxybenzoate, a precursor to parabens that are used in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. This identified gene could therefore be used to engineer lignocellulosic biomass with increased value for emerging biorefinery strategies.
Advances in magnetic resonance imaging contrast agents for glioblastoma-targeting theranostics
Authors: Wu Zijun , Dai Lixiong , Tang Ke , Ma Yiqi , Song Bin , Zhang Yanrong , Li Jinxing , Lui Su , Gong Qiyong , Wu Min
Published: November 2021

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most aggressive malignant brain tumour, with a median survival of 3 months without treatment and 15 months with treatment. Early GBM diagnosis can significantly improve patient survival due to early treatment and management procedures. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using contrast agents is the preferred method for the preoperative detection of GBM tumours. However, commercially available clinical contrast agents do not accurately distinguish between GBM, surrounding normal tissue and other cancer types due to their limited ability to cross the blood–brain barrier, their low relaxivity and their potential toxicity. New GBM-specific contrast agents are urgently needed to overcome the limitations of current contrast agents. Recent advances in nanotechnology have produced alternative GBM-targeting contrast agents. The surfaces of nanoparticles (NPs) can be modified with multimodal contrast imaging agents and ligands that can specifically enhance the accumulation of NPs at GBM sites. Using advanced imaging technology, multimodal NP-based contrast agents have been used to obtain accurate GBM diagnoses in addition to an increased amount of clinical diagnostic information. NPs can also serve as drug delivery systems for GBM treatments. This review focuses on the research progress for GBM-targeting MRI contrast agents as well as MRI-guided GBM therapy.
Increased risk of thoracic aortic complications among patients with giant cell arteritis: a nationwide, population-based cohort study
Authors: Therkildsen Philip , de Thurah Annette , Nielsen Berit Dalsgaard , Hansen Ib Tønder , Eldrup Nikolaj , Nørgaard Mette , Hauge Ellen-Margrethe
Published: November 2021

Objective

To assess the risk of aortic aneurysms (AA), aortic dissections (AD) and peripheral arterial disease (PAD) among patients with GCA.

Methods

In this nationwide, population-based cohort study using Danish national health registries, we identified all incident GCA patients ≥50 years between 1996 and 2018 who redeemed three or more prescriptions for prednisolone. Index date was the date of redeeming the third prednisolone prescription. Case definition robustness was checked through sensitivity analysis. We included general population referents matched 1:10 by age, sex and calendar time. Using a pseudo-observation approach, we calculated 5-, 10- and 15-year cumulative incidence proportions (CIP) and relative risks (RR) of AA, AD and PAD with death as a competing risk.

Results

We included 9908 GCA patients and 98 204 referents. The 15-year CIP of thoracic AA, abdominal AA, AD and PAD in the GCA cohort were 1.9% (95% CI 1.5, 2.2), 1.8% (1.4–2.2), 1.0% (0.7–1.2) and 4.8% (4.2–5.3). Compared with the referents, the 15-year RR were 11.2 (7.41–16.9) for thoracic AA, 6.86 (4.13–11.4) for AD, 1.04 (0.83–1.32) for abdominal AA and 1.53 (1.35–1.74) for PAD. Among GCA patients, female sex, age below 70 years and positive temporal artery findings were risk factors for developing thoracic AA. The median time to thoracic AA was 7.5 years (interquartile range 4.4–11.2) with a number needed to be screened of 250 (167–333), 91 (71–111) and 53 (45–67) after 5, 10 and 15 years.

Conclusion

Patients with GCA have a markedly increased risk of developing thoracic AA and AD, but no increased risk of abdominal AA.
Is Disease Induced by Flooding Representative of Nursery Conditions in Rhododendrons Infected with Phytophthora cinnamomi or P. plurivora?
Authors: Mestas Angie , Weiland Jerry E. , Scagel Carolyn F. , Grünwald Niklaus J. , Davis E. Anne , Mitchell Jesse N. , Beck Bryan R.
Published: November 2021

The degree of flooding commonly used to induce disease in Phytophthora root rot studies rarely occurs in container nurseries. Instead, over-irrigation and poor drainage result in plants periodically sitting in shallow pools of water. Rhododendron plants were grown in a noninfested substrate or substrate infested with Phytophthora cinnamomi or P. plurivora to determine whether root rot induced by flooding represents disease that occurs under simulated nursery conditions when plants are in a shallow pool of water (saucers), or are allowed to freely drain and maintained at ∼75% container capacity (CC). Generally P. cinnamomi caused more disease than P. plurivora, and all water treatments were conducive to root rot. In experiment 1, the amount of disease caused by flooding was similar to that in the saucer treatment (75% CC not tested) while in experiment 2, flooding often caused more rapid and severe disease than the saucer or 75% CC treatment. Pathogens differed in their response to water treatments. P. cinnamomi caused more disease in treatments with >90% substrate moisture for either a short (flood) or long duration (saucer), while P. plurivora was less capable of causing disease when soil moisture was maintained >90% than when substrate moisture was maintained at a more moderate level (flood, 75% CC). Our results indicate that it is not necessary to flood plants to induce disease under experimental conditions and that disease induced by flooding can represent disease in container nurseries when containers are in pools of water or maintained at ∼75% CC. In addition, our results suggest that P. cinnamomi is a more aggressive pathogen than P. plurivora in nursery conditions where drainage is poor; however, both species are capable of causing a similar amount of disease under more typical irrigation management.