bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Political Participation in the Digital Age
Authors: Vaccari Cristian , Valeriani Augusto
Published: September 2021

Forms of political engagement on and off social media can be grouped into three families. The first family is experiences that involve exposure to political content but do not entail any action from the user. The next one is forms of digital citizenship, which are active behaviors related to politics that ostensibly lack a deliberate aim to exercise influence on others. The third is participation, which comprises actions that aim to affect politically relevant outcomes. In particular, political participation entails a variety of political actions that are deliberately aimed at achieving different types of political influence: on specific policies (defined as primary influence), on the selection of public officials tasked to decide on such policies (defined as secondary influence), and on other citizens’ political preferences and behaviors (defined as tertiary influence). Importantly, tertiary influence may then recursively affect the ways citizens targeted by these participatory behaviors subsequently attempt to exercise primary, secondary, or tertiary influence on their own.
Picking Winners or Helping Losers?
Authors: Vaccari Cristian , Valeriani Augusto
Published: September 2021

Engaging with supportive viewpoints, accidentally encountering news, and being exposed to electoral mobilization on social media boost political participation among less politically involved users to a significantly greater extent than among those who are already involved. While both groups benefit, the less involved benefit more, and, thus, social media can help narrow, or even obliterate, participatory gaps rooted in different levels of motivation. By contrast, the participatory gains associated with political experiences on social media are evenly distributed across voters of different ideological views. Overall, political experiences on social media are not contributing to political polarization, in the sense of disproportionately enhancing participation among ideologically extreme voters. There is also little evidence that social media yield greater participatory benefits for users who voted for populist parties, or that they substantially tilt the competitive balance in favor of one particular set of political actors on the left or the right.
Comparing a Binary Dependent Variable Across Cultural Groups Using Applied Logistic Regression
Authors: Tran Thanh V. , Chan Keith T.
Published: September 2021

This chapter reviews the basic ideas of logistic regression involving a binary dependent regressed on independent variables, along with assumptions for analysis and interpretations of results. It provides strategies and practical guides for data analysis using Stata and explains the basic assumptions of logistic regression and its applications for cross-cultural data analysis. The chapter also provides examples of logistic regression models for cross-cultural comparison, and outlines the techniques for testing the equivalence of effects across groups. The text includes examples of charts and graphs that can be used to explain differences in effects across cultural groups.
The Role of Legal Texts in Mesopotamian Scribal Education
Authors: Milstein Sara J.
Published: September 2021

Mesopotamian scribal education in the Old Babylonian (OB) period included exposure to a wide range of legal-oriented texts, including sample or “model contracts,” “model cases” (or fictional cases), legal phrasebooks, and short series of laws. Although not all of these texts had immediate application, a number of them had ties to law on the ground. Sumerian model contracts, the fictional cases, and legal phrasebooks all include contractual clauses that mirror those used in actual OB contracts. The student exercise known as Laws about Rented Oxen likewise exhibits parallels with actual contracts of hire. When this diverse content is examined as a whole, it becomes apparent that the legal-pedagogical texts reflect a cultural matrix unto themselves, with copious cross-references and abundant links to law beyond the educational sphere. This legal-pedagogical content provides a crucial foundation for the reassessment of the origins of biblical law.
The Stoic World Soul and the Theory of Seminal Principles
Authors: Salles Ricardo
Published: September 2021

This chapter deals with the Stoic notion of world soul and discusses in detail one Stoic argument for the thesis that the cosmos is intelligent and its relation to the theory of “seminal principles” (spermatikoi logoi). This argument—the “Proof”—seeks to establish that the cosmos is intelligent not in the strong sense that the cosmos has the capacity for thinking, but in the weaker sense that it has the properties needed to give rise to beings that are capable of thinking. This does not mean that for the Stoics cosmic intelligence is limited to this kind of intelligence, but just that the latter is a component of the former. In this respect, cosmic intelligence bears an important similarity to human intelligence, which also involves both the capacity for thinking and the possession of the properties needed to give rise to beings capable of thinking.
Reflection I
Authors: Taub Liba
Published: September 2021

The Greek word harmonia refers to “joining,” “fastening,” “attunement,” and “agreement.” While various authors used the term, Pythagoreans are credited with giving it special meaning, in the context of mathematics and music. Pythagoras (born mid-sixth century BCE) and his followers were known for their view that numbers underlie the composition and structure of the entire world....
“The Universe Is an Animal”
Authors: Adamson Peter
Published: September 2021

This chapter looks at theories of world soul in the medieval period, considering texts from the Islamic world and Latin Christendom. The central theme is the comparison between the cosmos and an individual human, who is conceived as a so-called microcosm. By this logic, since the human has a soul, so must the cosmos. Plato’s Timaeus is shown to be a key source for both cultures, including in Christian authors who detected a reference to the Holy Spirit behind Plato’s notion of World Soul. Figures in focus include al-Razi, the Brethren of Purity, the School of Chartres, Peter Abelard, and Hildegard of Bingen.
Reflection III
Authors: White Bryan
Published: September 2021

By the beginning of the seventeenth century speculative music, the branch of musical thought the origins of which can be traced back to Pythagorean and Platonic concepts of the ordering of the cosmos through the proportions of musical intervals and of the music of the spheres, had diverged completely from practical musical performance and composition. Thomas Morley, in his ...
The Miracle and Mystery of Nature
Authors: Brusslan Elizabeth Millán
Published: September 2021

Millán Brusslan situates her discussion of the world soul in debates about the limits of reason and the domain of faith in the post-Kantian period. She focuses upon Schlegel’s critique of Jacobi’s foundationalist notion of reason grounded in faith. Jacobi and Fichte’s central roles in the development of Romantic thought are highlighted. The Jacobi-Mendelssohn Debate was a powerful philosophical springboard for Schlegel, who developed some of his central Romantic views in response to the debate. Schlegel’s critique of Jacobi’s salto mortale and of Fichte’s “world soul of cognition” gave rise to the German Romantic conception of a world soul of nature, which was part of a project to lend freedom to nature itself as part of the humble acceptance of the limits of human domination and mastery of the natural world. The manifestation of the divine in nature became a key element in the Romantic conception of the world soul.
Nature, Freedom, History
Authors: Bowman Brady
Published: September 2021

Post-Kantian philosophers historicize the world soul, reconceiving it as an implicitly rational, progressive, yet impersonal agency, at work throughout nature as a formative principle, more especially, however, in the progressive liberation and self-determination of spirit in human history. This chapter outlines the concept’s career in the thought of Kant, Maimon, Schelling, and Hegel, focusing especially on the overlapping functions they accord to the world soul. On the one side, it serves to mediate within nature between the opposing spheres of mechanism and organic life; on the other, between those of unconscious currents of historical development and self-consciously free human action. In thus tasking the world soul with mediating between nature and the history of human freedom, German idealists are faithful to their Platonic source of inspiration, even as they refashion the concept in a distinctively modern, post-Enlightenment spirit.
What Is “Game Music”?
Authors: Kellman Noah
Published: September 2021

Game music is an eclectic term, encompassing the many different musical genres that are used in video game scores. This chapter introduces readers to important game music history while seeking to define what musical characteristics are unique to game music. As composers found creative ways to work within the scope of this limited technology, unique challenges led to the conception of a new body of musical work that would later be referred to by the gaming world as “video game music,” or just “game music” for short. This chapter explores the history and development of game music as a genre. It focuses on analyzing how the limitations of previous gaming systems influenced composers to make specific musical choices, while also seeking to define what aesthetic characteristics are unique to video game music and how interactivity has led to new musical forms.
Player Immersion and Music
Authors: Kellman Noah
Published: September 2021

When players are “immersed” in a game, they become temporarily unaware of the existence of the outside world. Audio creators have a heavy responsibility to make each game experience as engrossing, or immersive, as possible. The choices can greatly enhance the player’s connection to the game world, or just as easily can be a distraction that detracts from his or her experience. There are certain factors that make game immersion unique compared to other forms of media immersion, and they stem primarily from interaction. This chapter will discuss how music affects player immersion, then will dive deeper into how the player interacts with the music.
Using Musical Codes to Enhance the Gaming Experience
Authors: Kellman Noah
Published: September 2021

Musical codes are musical devices, including melodies, timbres, or themes that carry predetermined associations for the listener. These types of codes have been used frequently in the world of film. However, the strange visual landscapes of video games provide composers with interesting opportunities to utilize and combine these codes in new ways to elicit different responses from the player. This chapter explores the different characteristics of sound that carry associations and how one can use these sounds to create new ones. It dives into a variety of well-known games that have used this technique and discusses the effectiveness, or conversely the ineffectiveness, of the resulting portrayal. Since codes can also be attached to a specific time period, this chapter also covers the concept of using codes in the creation of musical anachronism: using musical codes to layer multiple time periods on top of each other to blur the game’s timeline or create a stacked temporal atmosphere.
Designing Interaction between the Player and the Music
Authors: Kellman Noah
Published: September 2021

There are many different ways in which a player might interact with your music: the player may have either an indirect relationship with the music (that is, the player’s actions do not directly lead to distinct musical consequences) or a direct relationship with the music (that is, the player’s actions and decisions do result in distinct musical consequences). These interactions might also happen diegetically or nondiegetically. It is important to determine early in the audio-planning process whether or not the player will share a direct relationship with the music. Different types of games require different types of interaction for the best gaming experience, and this chapter will cover various interaction types and how they can be applied.
Emergence: Music’s Role in Player Experimentation
Authors: Kellman Noah
Published: September 2021

In the context of computer science, “emergent behavior” is when a number of simple behaviors interact and evolve into a larger, more complex behavior. This concept is quite common in video games. In cases of designed emergence, the music is designed to react to the player’s personality and to musically encourage the player to carry out certain actions. However, in unpredicted emergence, one must ask the question: how will the players’ personalities then affect the resulting music itself? This chapter will discuss different techniques that can be used to create a system that adapts well to both designed and unpredicted emergence, including the uses of model-based sound design, as well as modular orchestration. Among other examples, this chapter examines how Avalanche created a highly reactive music system which accounted systematically for the many possibilities in Just Cause 4.
Music in Virtual Reality
Authors: Kellman Noah
Published: September 2021

Virtual reality (VR) is a platform that is only just beginning to find its footing in the consumer industry. With a highly diverse line of products available, composers are challenged with different technological specifications for each VR project. This chapter discusses how VR, as a medium, is unique, covering important concepts and technological differences like degrees of freedom (DOF), positional tracking systems, binaural audio, ambisonics, and more. It then goes on to explore some different methods for designing scores for VR.
Soundproofing Scandal
Authors: Gautreau Justin
Published: September 2021

This chapter argues that hard-boiled detective fiction provided disillusioned screenwriters with a platform to project a fantasy version of themselves and preserve what was left of their ego under studio employment. Where the screenwriter felt emasculated, creatively stunted, and expendable, the hard-boiled detective was characteristically tough, autonomous, and invaluable in taking care of the studio’s dirty work. Meanwhile, in their aim to disrupt the promotional façade of Hollywood, these writers found inspiration not only in the political limits of the screen but also in the industry’s ongoing efforts to regulate Hollywood as a place. A.C. and Carmen Edington’s novel The Studio Murder Mystery and Raoul Whitfield’s Death in a Bowl therefore created a critical lens through which to view the “real” Hollywood in the era of the talkies. These novels treat Hollywood Boulevard and the Hollywood Bowl as extensions of soundstages where stars perform their studio-mandated morals clause for an unsuspecting public. It is only by realizing that movie “magic” is no longer exclusive to studio lots that the detective can solve the mystery.
Mary Shelley and the Conception of the Monstrous Vegan
Authors: Quinn Emelia
Published: September 2021

Chapter 1 argues that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) marks the origins of the ‘monstrous vegan’ trope. The chapter establishes the vegetarian contexts influencing Shelley’s novel before outlining the principal defining traits of the monstrous vegan. First, the monster’s refusal to eat meat is evidenced and explored in relation to Romantic vegetarianism. Second, his hybrid physiognomy, composed of remnants from the slaughterhouse and charnel house, allows for close attention to acts of visual recognition throughout the novel. Third, the creature’s birth outside of the confines of heterosexual reproduction is explored in relation to his challenge to reproductive futurities, with vegetarianism seen to offer a circular return to a Golden Age of humankind. Finally, the creature’s relation to literary authorship establishes that monstrous vegans bring to the fore the difficulty of inscribing ethical identities onto bodies.
Science with Boundaries: Yang Zhongjian and Vertebrate Paleontology in Republican China, 1919–1950
Authors: Yen Hsiao-Pei
Published: September 2021

The rapid development of paleontology–especially vertebrate paleontology and dinosaurology–has made ‘Chinese Paleontology’ an important subfield of paleontology since the 1990s, resulting in China becoming a powerhouse of paleontological research. This chapter focuses on YANG Zhongjiang (1897–1979), often celebrated as the father of Chinese vertebrate paleontology, to examine how the field of his specialty was established and developed as a scientific discipline in his country. It traces Yang’s early academic experience from a geology major at Peking University in the early 1920s to his graduate years in Germany under the famous paleontologist Ferdinand Broili. Yang’s professional study and training was strengthened by his rich field experience after returning to China in the late 1920s. He participated not only in the joint Sino-American Central Asiatic Expedition to Mongolia in 1930, but also in the extensive excavation project of the Peking Man fossils conducted by the Cenozoic Research Laboratory. His more independent work took place during the Second Sino-Japanese War, when he discovered, studied, and constructed China’s first complete dinosaur fossils (the Lufengosaurus). Besides describing the making of a professional paleontologist in China in the first half of the 20th century, this chapter also illuminates questions that are intrinsic to the development of scientific disciplines at a time when the rise of Chinese nationalism intersected with scientific internationalism and imperialism. How did the academic practice of paleontology reflect unequal political realities? Is paleontology a ‘local science’? Could the endeavor for ‘local science’ empower scientists from developing nations?
Herod the Liberator
Authors: Czajkowski Kimberley , Benedikt Eckhardt
Published: September 2021

The chapter starts with a discussion of two speeches, one by Nicolaus and one by Herod, that seem to make the very same point: the establishment of Roman rule in the East was a process of liberation, because it did away with the Hellenistic kings and secured everyone’s right to live under their own laws. The chapter discusses Herod’s role as a mediator of this kind of liberty, but the main concern is with the apparent simplicity of this image of Rome. Based on a discussion of other late Republican or Augustan texts that leave more room for an ambiguous presentation of Roman rule, the hypothesis is put forward that Nicolaus did actually offer just that by incorporating dissenting voices from Judea. These voices claimed that the exact opposite was true: true Judaism and Roman rule were incompatible, because accepting Roman rule lead to a dissolution of traditional laws. Nicolaus’ audience would have expected to see both sides argued; he did, however, make clear that the pro-Roman protagonists (including himself) were in the right.
Herod and his Sons
Authors: Czajkowski Kimberley , Benedikt Eckhardt
Published: September 2021

This chapter continues to explore the depiction of Herod’s domestic strife, and turns to the executions of Herod’s sons. This is a rare case where we have a separate fragment of Nicolaus, and thus can check Josephus’ censure of his predecessor’s account: the criticisms are not borne out, and Josephus’ accounts instead exhibit many Damascene traits. The executions, moreover, are a turning point in Herod’s decline from δραστήριος to ἄπορος, in which he is shown to have now forgotten piety and justice. Furthermore, because Nicolaus himself was intimately bound up with these events, he here encountered new challenges in his narrative as he became one of the principal actors. Thus, not only do we see in these trials the further development of, we argue, Nicolaus’ depiction of the king’s descent into tyranny, but also a sustained exploration of what it meant to be an adviser to such a monarch, and more generally what it meant to be a φίλος to king and emperor alike in the Augustan world.
Responsibility and the Moral Subject
Authors: McKenny Gerald
Published: September 2021

For Barth, responsibility is the characteristic feature of the human being as the hearer of God’s command. In its address to human beings, God’s command constitutes them as subjects who are answerable to it. Jesus Christ is the one to whom the command of God is addressed and who answers it; as such, he is the responsible subject on behalf of and in the place of other human beings. Yet in taking responsibility for other human beings in this way, God also makes them responsible—for being in their conduct those for whom God has taken responsibility. Insofar as God has taken responsibility for our responsibility, Barth rejects the tendency of modern responsibility to presume that everything is up to us. Yet insofar as God also makes us responsible, and thereby constitutes us as subjects, Barth retains another key feature of modern responsibility, which is its urgency. While answerability or accountability is the key aspect of responsibility, Barth also leaves room for the imputability of actions to agents and the liability of persons for the effects of their actions. One problem with Barth’s account of responsibility is that his insistence that we are constituted as responsible from outside ourselves, by God’s command, he leaves unclear how it is truly we who are responsible. Another problem is that if we are made responsible by the responsibility Jesus Christ has taken for us, it appears that only Christians know themselves to be responsible.
Morality from Compassion
Authors: Persson Ingmar
Published: September 2021

According to Arthur Schopenhauer, compassion is the basis of morality. He sees concern for justice as a negative form of compassion, directed at not harming anyone, as opposed to the more far-reaching, positive form of benefiting. He thinks a higher degree of compassion involves realizing that the spatio-temporal separation of individuals is illusory and that in reality they are all identical. Such compassion is impartial and all-encompassing. Compassion is suited to be the centre of morality because its object are negative feelings, and only these are real. Contrary to these Schopenhauerian claims, it is here argued that compassion must be supplemented with attitudes like sympathy and benevolence because positive feelings exist alongside negative feelings; that a concern for justice, though morally essential, is independent of these attitudes which are based on empathy; that these attitudes involve not identifying oneself with others, but taking personal identity as insignificant in empathically imagining how others feel. Schopenhauer is, however, right that, though these attitudes are spontaneously partial, this can be corrected. His morality is also interesting in raising the question rarely discussed in philosophical ethics of how moral virtue relates to ascetic self-renunciation. Both of these ideals are highly demanding, but the book ends by arguing that this is no objection to their validity.
Defining Stereotypes and Stereotyping
Authors: Puddifoot Katherine
Published: September 2021

How Stereotypes Deceives Us aims to illuminate the conditions under which stereotypes and stereotyping lead to misperceptions and misjudgements, but what exactly are stereotypes and what is stereotyping? This chapter defends the definitions of stereotypes and stereotyping that are adopted throughout this book. In particular, this chapter defends a non-normative conception of stereotyping, according to which stereotypes can be accurate or inaccurate, and stereotyping can be distorting or non-distorting. Existing arguments in favour of the non-normative account are critically evaluated before a pragmatic argument is presented and defended. It is argued that stereotypes should be defined as comparative social attitudes that make distinctions between social groups. Reasons are given for accepting that social attitudes other than beliefs, including implicit attitudes, should count as stereotypes.
Epistemic Innocence and the Ethics of Stereotypes
Authors: Puddifoot Katherine
Published: September 2021

Chapter 4 develops a challenge to two ideas that will be tempting to some: (i) harbouring and applying social attitudes that reflect social realities can only be good from an epistemic perspective, and (ii) harbouring and applying social attitudes that fail to reflect social realities can only be bad from an epistemic perspective. It is shown first that there can be epistemic costs associated with stereotyping, even where a stereotype reflects an aspect of social reality. Then it is argued that there can be epistemic benefits associated with having social attitudes that fail to reflect these realities where the alternative would be to suffer the epistemic costs of stereotyping. It is argued that social attitudes that are egalitarian but fail to reflect social realities can be epistemically innocent and the lesser of two epistemic evils. Finally, the chapter outlines some implications of these points for existing theories of the ethics of stereotyping, accounts of epistemic injustice and moral encroachment views.
The Unity of the Rational Mind
Authors: Marcus Eric
Published: September 2021

I argue that inference is a self-conscious act. The account appeals to the ‘being-in-mind-together’ of beliefs. Beliefs that are in mind together are subject to rationally grounded metaphysical necessity. Because one believes p, one can’t or must believe q. But what ultimately explains this sort of necessity? If it is impossible to hold a pair of mental states in mind at once and the impossibility has its source in our understanding of the necessary falsehood of a conjunction, then the subject has knowledge not just of the individual states they’re in but also of their combination. What, then, is the relation between the unity of our beliefs and consciousness of this unity? My answer: the unity of the rational mind consists in the subject’s consciousness of that unity.
The Acquisition of Legal Status by Individuals in Transnational Criminal Proceedings in Europe
Authors: Gless Sabine
Published: September 2021

Sabine Gless highlights the individual’s journey from an object of government caprice, susceptible to arrest on a foreign warrant without legal protection, to a legally protected defendant in the frameworks of transnational criminal law. Using in particular Germany and Switzerland as examples of different approaches taken in Continental Europe, she maps the evolution of defendants’ rights from domestic criminal justice to European Human Rights from the 19th to the 21st century, and the slow shift from a state-centred understanding of transnational criminal law to the acknowledgment of individual rights under a human rights narrative.
Disasters: An Additional (Legal) Dimension for the International Protection of Cultural Heritage
Authors: Bartolini Giulio
Published: September 2021

Even if disasters are a significant challenge for the protection of cultural and natural heritage, the interest of the international community towards this issue has been quite limited for a long period. Still, some changes more recently could be recorded. In particular, a more contextualized and evolutionary interpretation of existing treaty provisions provided by international cultural heritage law, and the development of innovative practices tailored to face this scenario, could provide states with pertinent guidance on measures to be adopted. At the same time cultural concerns have been able to progressively fertilize international disaster law instruments in light of their inherent general relevance. The chapter examines the ways in which these areas of the law interplay and how features commonly associated with community interest norms have characterized this scenario.
Nationalism and Secessionism
Authors: Lecours André
Published: September 2021

At the turn of the twentieth century, nationalist movements in Western democracies were not expected to feature strong secessionism. Catalonia and Scotland defied this expectation while Flanders and South Tyrol conformed to it. This divergence is the starting point for this chapter, which sets up the controlled comparison. The chapter discusses how to account for the strength of secessionism within nationalist movements in liberal-democratic contexts using historical institutionalism to build a framework where the nature of autonomy, more specifically its capacity to evolve in time, determines if a nationalist movement has a strong secessionist stream or not. It offers a conceptual innovation, distinguishing between static and dynamic autonomy. It lays out the expectation for the relationship between autonomy and secessionism analysed in the four case studies of the controlled comparison: static autonomy should stimulate secessionism because it reduces self-determination options to the status quo and independence while dynamic autonomy should weaken secessionism, since it involves on-going adjustments to the evolving identity and interests of the internal national community as defined by its political class. The chapter also discusses the research design for the controlled comparison and details the process-tracing methodology used to see how the nature of autonomy has impacted the self-determination claims of four nationalist movements in Western democracies.
Flanders
Authors: Lecours André
Published: September 2021

This chapter considers a case, Flanders, where secessionism has not gained strength despite many episodes fuelling tensions between the two main communities and significant, though episodic, cynicism about the future of the country. The singular political development of the Belgian state, which has involved an incremental and open-ended process of decentralization, has meant that Flemish autonomy is dynamic. Belgium is famous for its seemingly incessant constitutional politics leading to reforms of the state that transform the country’s institutional architecture in innovative ways. For Flanders, these state reforms have meant a gradual expansion of autonomy. Moreover, the reforms are never meant to conclude a process of decentralization; they always leave issues to be dealt with at an ulterior date. State reforms are high-profile events that often occur to manage a crisis between the two communities and are subject to government formation agreements in the context of the country’s consociational practices. Flemish parties can typically have a state reform if most of them want one or else the country remains without a government, which is something Francophone parties want to avoid for fear it makes Belgium seem unworkable and therefore feeds Flemish secessionist arguments. As Flemings know there is a forthcoming state reform that will enhance their collective autonomy and address some issues perceived as important for their national identity and interests, there is little incentive to support secessionist positions.
Nationalism, Secessionism, and Autonomy
Authors: Lecours André
Published: September 2021

This chapter examines three additional cases: the Basque Country, Puerto Rico, and Québec. The objective behind these supplemental case studies is twofold. First, for the Basque Country, the goal is to understand why there has not been a strengthening of secessionism like in Catalonia. The chapter explains that Basque nationalism is exceptional for its history of political violence, which renders extremely difficult the type of alliance between nationalist forces that has occurred in Catalonia. Next, the chapter looks at Puerto Rico and Québec to assess how a focus on the nature of autonomy to explain the strength of secessionism travels beyond Western Europe. The case of Puerto Rico, where secessionism has always been marginal, helps to tease out the potential importance of perceptions on autonomy. Although Puerto Rican autonomy has not been adjusted, political debates over the constitutional future of the island, namely through multiple referendums on status, have likely fed perceptions that Puerto Ricans can change their autonomy, either through an enhancement of the current status or by becoming a state of the American federation. In Québec, the weakening of secessionism in the last decades has corresponded with a switch from constitutional reform to intergovernmental agreements as instruments for managing the position of the province within the federation. Constitutional change is difficult in Canada; consequently, Québec’s autonomy has been static constitutionally. As a result, when the focus for managing autonomy is placed on constitutional negotiations, secessionism in the province strengthens. When autonomy is managed through intergovernmental agreements, secessionism weakens.
Restless motion
Authors: Sutton Adrian P
Published: September 2021

Atoms in solids are in constant random motion. Their kinetic energy is heat. Heat associated with local regions may fluctuate. The size of the fluctuations increases with decreasing size of the region. Such fluctuations enable thermally activated processes to occur. At equilibrium interstitials and vacancies undergo random walks in solids, which gives rise to diffusion in crystals and reptation in polymers. The activation energy is the free energy barrier these defects have to overcome to jump between sites. Diffusion is biased by driving forces resulting from gradients of chemical potential. The mobility relates the drift velocity of defects to the driving force on them. The Einstein relation relates the mobility to the diffusivity. It is an example of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. Atomic motion enables diffusion and limits mobility. Thermal expansion is also a consequence of atomic motion, resulting from a fundamental asymmetry in all interatomic forces.
Quantum behaviour
Authors: Sutton Adrian P
Published: September 2021

The identity and size of atoms is explicable only in quantum physics. The double slit experiment illustrates the wave-particle duality of light and of matter. To describe quantum interference the concept of a complex probability is introduced, the squared amplitude of which is the probability of a particle being at a particular location. The uncertainty relation requires atomic motion in solids even at absolute zero. The symmetry of exchanging indistinguishable particles leads to the classification of particles as fermions or bosons. The exclusion principle applies to electrons and rationalises the Periodic Table and much more. Electrons in solids exist in bands of energy. Band theory explains why some materials are electrical conductors, others are insulators or semiconductors. Chemical bonding involves quantum tunnelling of electrons. Hydrogen may diffuse in solids by quantum tunnelling. The temperature dependence of the specific heat of a solid is explicable only in quantum physics.
Small is different
Authors: Sutton Adrian P
Published: September 2021

As the size of a material decreases to the nanoscale its properties become size-dependent. This is the world of nanoscience and nanotechnology. At the nanoscale the crystal structure may change and thermodynamic quantities such as the melting point also change. Changes in the catalytic activity and colour of nanoparticles suspended in a liquid indicate changes to the electronic structure. Quantum dots have discrete energy levels that can be modelled with the particle-in-a-box model. Excitons may be created in them using optical illumination, and their decay leads to fluorescence with distinct colours. The classical and quantum origins of magnetism are discussed. The origin of magnetoresistance in a ferromagnet is described and related to the exclusion principle. The origin of the giant magnetoresistance effect and its exploitation in nanotechnology is outlined.
Collective behaviour
Authors: Sutton Adrian P
Published: September 2021

At each change of length-sale in a material new science emerges. The reductionist approach focuses on the atomic and electronic length scales in the belief that a fundamental understanding can be achieved only at this smallest scale. It is blind to the emergence of science no less fundamental at larger length scales resulting from interactions between very large numbers of atoms and defects. While the atomic scale always remains important, a complete understanding of plastic deformation and fracture involves long-range interactions between defects described by the theory of elasticity. Even the mechanism of electronic conduction in a metal changes from ballistic transport at the nanoscale to the diffusive transport of Ohm’s law at the macroscale.
Modesty in the Anthropocene
Authors: Dancer Thom
Published: September 2021

This chapter argues that modesty offers an alternative, legitimate model of critical engagement with a world defined by limited human agency and perpetual crisis in which we are irrevocably implicated. This argument is situated in the context of the profound changes in worldview entailed by what I call “Anthropocene thinking.” With this phrase, I signal a departure from solely environmental approaches to the Anthropocene, instead focusing on how the era unsettles conventional habits of aesthetic expression and critical inquiry. The second section offers a defence of “modesty” as opposed to other possible key terms (such as humility or generosity) by showing how critical modesty has a precursor in the style of William James’s pragmatism. The chapter offers a reading of literary and narrative form in the writing of Bruno Latour. Despite Latour’s growing popularity in literary studies, critics have tended to overlook the crucial function of form, style, and technique in his writing. Attending to Latour’s writing at a more granular level illustrates how a work can be formally modest about its position with respect to what it studies while also being critical, insofar as any redescription offers a contrasting account of the world. The chapter’s literary approach allows that the Latourian style of inquiry and novelistic discourse are up to the same kind of thing: attempting to make sharable a process of thinking that opens up conversation about the composition of our world.
David Mitchell’s Inefficiency
Authors: Dancer Thom
Published: September 2021

David Mitchell’s fiction provides an opportunity to reconsider the claims of modesty in the context of globalization. This chapter draws upon the arguments of the previous ones to put critical modesty to its most difficult test. Are minor achievements enough given the massive scale of planetary life and of urgent global problems facing humanity, not the least of which is environmental ruin? I argue that Mitchell’s novels directly face the problems of scaling that cast into doubt the place and function of the novel as a relevant cultural force in the twenty-first century and beyond. Mitchell’s work helps us to reconcile realism as a kind of modest speculation. Where the novel has long been understood as a form that easily scales from the local to the global, Mitchell emphasizes the discontinuity afforded by novelistic thinking. The efficient causality that has subtended literary realism aims to retroactively recreate the events that lead inevitably from the past to the future. Mitchell’s formal investment in discontinuity resists the tyranny of the inevitable by narrating moments of bifurcation in which a new possibility for action suddenly and unexpectedly emerges. Thus, his novels adopt an inefficient causality that give expression to the feeling that things might be different than they are, that inevitability (optimistic or pessimistic) is a dangerous trap. The challenge that Mitchell poses for himself and other novelists is to imagine a disposition modest enough to nurture and shepherd into being these moments of bifurcation when, by definition, there is nothing in the prior state that predicts them.
Metals, Machinery, and Mining Equipment Industries in South Africa
Authors: Andreoni Antonio , Kaziboni Lauralyn , Roberts Simon
Published: September 2021

The metals, machinery, and mining equipment industries have been at the heart of South Africa’s industrial ecosystem. Their central position is associated with the long-term importance of mining, with which there are extensive demand- and supply-side linkages. This chapter reviews key turning points in the development and restructuring of these value chains in post-apartheid South Africa, from 1994 to 2019. The overall record is of a basic steel industry that performed better in terms of value added relative to the more diversified downstream industries, despite government industrial policy targeting more labour-intensive downstream industries. The downstream machinery and equipment industry struggled to compete with imports in the 2000s and 2010s and only partially engaged with digitalization. In explaining these developments the grand bargains struck by the state with the main company producing basic steel and the use of procurement as a demand-side industrial policy are critically examined. The chapter also provides micro-level evidence of the evolving relationships between mining houses; engineering, procurement, and construction management services companies; and input suppliers along the value chain. Overall, it is argued that the relatively poor performance of this industry grouping in South Africa has been due to power asymmetries along the value chains, upstream concentration, high levels of fragmentation in the domestic ecosystem, the lack of key institutional ingredients, and poor policy design. Lessons for resource-endowed middle-income countries are discussed, and policy challenges for upgrading and diversification are presented.
The Basics and Origin of Functional Response Models
Authors: DeLong John P.
Published: September 2021

This chapter is the essential beginner’s guide to the functional response, its derivation, the various forms, its connection to other models in the literature, and what the parameters mean. It is the ground floor for the rest of the book, covering the four main types of functional response, what the parameters mean in biological terms, and how we arrived at these equations. Surprisingly, our understanding of the functional response as represented in the literature is quite muddled, with confusion ranging from the terminology used, to the various mathematical forms the functional response takes, to the biological interpretation of functional response model parameters. I provide a summary and forward-looking perspective on these issues.
What Causes Variation in Functional Response Parameters?
Authors: DeLong John P.
Published: September 2021

The parameters of the functional response are not traits. They represent processes such as hunting and digesting prey. Thus, all the traits that influence the way predators and prey encounter each other in space and the morphologies and behaviors that influence capture, evasion, or digestion are all potential sources of variation in the functional response parameters. In this chapter, I cover how we break the parameters down mathematically so that the connection between the parameters and traits is more transparent. I review the empirical evidence for the dependence of functional response parameters on phenotypic traits, temperature, and habitats, and I showcase some examples of these effects.
Selection on Functional Response Parameters
Authors: DeLong John P.
Published: September 2021

In this chapter I show why there should be selection on traits associated with functional response parameters. I describe this using standard quantitative genetics techniques to show how a classic evolutionary arms race arises and how it depends on key features of the functional response. I suggest this arms race is more aptly described as a tug-of-war. I then show that selection on the predator and prey components of space clearance rate is synchronous for predator and prey through population cycles but alternating between predator and prey for handling time. I suggest that trade-offs, ecological pleiotropy, and phenotypic plasticity can slow natural selection on traits that influence functional response parameters.
Breaking the Seal
Authors: Kizenko Nadieszda
Published: September 2021

Chapter 2 examines confession from the point at which it became a legal requirement. Shirkers of confession, most notably but not exclusively Old Believers, had to pay extra taxes. The 1722 Supplement to the Spiritual Regulation required priests to report to secular authorities anything treasonous they heard at confession. To many historians and theologians, this attempted breaking of the confessional seal, more than any other Petrine reform, embodied the reigning narrative of secularization, the submission of the Orthodox Church to the Emperor, and the beginning of the Church’s serving as the ‘handmaiden of the state’. But a closer study of confession in this period unsettles this picture. The impulse to harness confession in the service of the state came not only from Peter, but also from laypeople and his new ally among Ukrainian bishops. In the early eighteenth century as well as in the seventeenth, imperial Russia was well within broad European Enlightenment patterns, incorporating trends in Protestantism as well as Roman Catholicism.
Complexity as a Subject and Method in International Education
Authors: Kabay Sarah
Published: September 2021

The motivating premise of this book is that in a dynamic and complex system such as education, access and quality must be considered together. From the synapses that form in the brain to the dynamics of a classroom, to large networks of schools and education systems, the activity and structure of education is defined by connectivity, interaction, and interdependence: key features of complexity and complex adaptive systems. This book uses principles from research on systems and complexity in order to better understand the Global Learning Crisis. This chapter presents a brief review of research on complexity, considering primary education as a complex adaptive system, and also describes how complexity research suggests a mixed methods approach and other methodological strategies.
Grade Repetition and School Dropout
Authors: Kabay Sarah
Published: September 2021

The issue of grade repetition is relevant for policy and practice in every education system around the world—and yet it is rarely the topic of research in low-income countries. Typically, grade repetition is coupled with a second concern: early school dropout. Together, they are believed represent a constraint upon access to education—preventing children from progressing through school. On the other hand, repetition often intends to emphasize standards and enforce the quality of education. In this way, the issue of grade repetition represents the possible tension between access and quality, but methodological challenges associated with the study of repetition make it difficult to draw any definitive conclusions. This chapter investigates the association between repeating a grade and dropping out of school, the defining theme of existing literature on repetition in low-income countries. Empirical analysis in the sample of Ugandan schools brings to light two other concerns: age of entry into primary school and language of instruction.