bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Recent advances in managing chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome
Authors: Sandhu Jaspreet , TU Hin Yu Vincent
Published: September 2017

Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome is a common disorder seen in men under the age of 50 and has a considerable negative impact on quality of life; it is a complex and difficult condition to treat, owing to its wide symptomatology. In order to effectively treat this condition, the UPOINT system was developed: it allows clinical profiling of a patient’s symptoms into six broad categories (urinary symptoms, psychological dysfunction, organ-specific symptoms, infectious causes, neurologic dysfunction, and tenderness of the pelvic floor muscles) to allow individualized and multimodal therapy. In this review, we present the most recent advancements in the treatment of chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome from the past few years.
Cerebrospinal fluid markers to distinguish bacterial meningitis from cerebral malaria in children
Authors: Njunge James M. , Oyaro Ian N. , Kibinge Nelson K. , Rono Martin K. , Kariuki Symon M. , Newton Charles R. , Berkley James A. , Gitau Evelyn N.
Published: September 2017

Background. Few hospitals in high malaria endemic countries in Africa have the diagnostic capacity for clinically distinguishing acute bacterial meningitis (ABM) from cerebral malaria (CM). As a result, empirical use of antibiotics is necessary. A biochemical marker of ABM would facilitate precise clinical diagnosis and management of these infections and enable rational use of antibiotics.

Methods. We used label-free protein quantification by mass spectrometry to identify cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) markers that distinguish ABM (n=37) from CM (n=22) in Kenyan children. Fold change (FC) and false discovery rates (FDR) were used to identify differentially expressed proteins. Subsequently, potential biomarkers were assessed for their ability to discriminate between ABM and CM using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.

Results. The host CSF proteome response to ABM (Haemophilus influenza and Streptococcus pneumoniae) is significantly different to CM. Fifty two proteins were differentially expressed (FDR<0.01, Log FC≥2), of which 83% (43/52) were upregulated in ABM compared to CM. Myeloperoxidase and lactotransferrin were present in 37 (100%) and 36 (97%) of ABM cases, respectively, but absent in CM (n=22). Area under the ROC curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity were assessed for myeloperoxidase (1, 1, and 1; 95% CI, 1-1) and lactotransferrin (0.98, 0.97, and 1; 95% CI, 0.96-1).

Conclusion. Myeloperoxidase and lactotransferrin have a high potential to distinguish ABM from CM and thereby improve clinical management. Their validation requires a larger cohort of samples that includes other bacterial aetiologies of ABM.
Identification of Spiroplasma insolitum symbionts in Anopheles gambiae
Authors: Chepkemoi Sharon T. , Mararo Enock , Butungi Hellen , Paredes Juan , Masiga Daniel K , Sinkins Steven P. , Herren Jeremy K.
Published: September 2017

Background: Insect symbionts have the potential to block the transmission of vector-borne diseases by their hosts. The advancement of a symbiont-based transmission blocking strategy for malaria requires the identification and study of Anopheles symbionts.

Methods: High throughput 16S amplicon sequencing was used to profile the bacteria associated with Anopheles gambiae sensu lato and identify potential symbionts. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with specific primers were subsequently used to monitor symbiont prevalence in field populations, as well as symbiont transmission patterns.

Results: We report the discovery of the bacterial symbiont, Spiroplasma, in Anopheles gambiae in Kenya. We determine that geographically dispersed Anopheles gambiae populations in Kenya are infected with Spiroplasma at low prevalence levels. Molecular phylogenetics indicates that this Anopheles gambiae associated Spiroplasma is a member of the insolitum clade. We demonstrate that this symbiont is stably maternally transmitted across at least two generations and does not significantly affect the fecundity or egg to adult survival of its host.

Conclusions: In diverse insect species, Spiroplasma has been found to render their host resistant to infection by pathogens. The identification of a maternally transmitted strain of Spiroplasma in Anopheles gambiae may therefore open new lines of investigation for the development of symbiont-based strategies for blocking malaria transmission.
Design of the Poly-Artistic Activities Training System for Folk Arts Group Chiefs
Authors: Карникова О. , Karnikova O.
Published: September 2017

Thematic justifi cation is stipulated by renewal of the professional education system. In this context, there is a need to consider the training system for future folk arts group chiefs as the focus area of modern education. The primary goal of this article is to design a scientifi cally grounded poly-artistic activities training system for folk arts group chiefs and to experimentally test its effi ciency within the context of next-generation educational standards implementation. In the course of study, competence-based approach was used which corresponds to the modern requirements of higher education. In this paper, the following methods were applied: observation, self-observation, self-assessment, expert evaluation method, analysis of the artistic activities processes and products, descriptive statistics methods (mathematical-statistical analysis). Practical signifi cance of this article: it presents example of pedagogic system design, which may provide assistance for teachers in updating of contents, forms and methods of specialists’ education.
Lower Price or Higher Reward? Measuring the Effect of Consumers’ Preferences on Reward Programs
Authors: Rossi Federico
Published: September 2017

Despite criticisms regarding their effectiveness, reward programs today represent a prevalent and apparently successful form of marketing investment for several industries such as airlines, hotels, gas stations, and credit cards. To understand what might contribute to their success, this paper investigates the purchase behavior of consumers who participate in a reward program from the travel industry. We estimate a dynamic demand model of gasoline purchase, and compare the value that consumers attach to rewards with the value they attach to the money spent for gasoline. We find that there exists a significant portion of frequent travelers who extract more value from one dollar’s worth of rewards than from one dollar spent for gasoline. Most of the effectiveness of the reward program is due to the behavior of these consumers. Their insensitivity to price induces firms to increase fuel prices by 1 euro cent per liter, which corresponds to about 10% increase in their margins. The program also contributes to softening competition, increasing margins by 4%.

The web appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2821 .

This paper was accepted by Matthew Shum, marketing.
Pulmonary rehabilitation: Uptake and completion profile of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Authors: Adekunle Ademola O , Watson Tim , Schreuder Fiona M
Published: September 2017

Background/Aims:

Pulmonary rehabilitation is effective in the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients; however, 33% of patients referred for pulmonary rehabilitation do not start the programme. This study examines the relationship between participation in outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation and baseline measures of disease severity and psychosocial variables in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients.

Methods:

In an observational study and before their first outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation appointment, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients completed outcome measures of depression (Brief Assessment Depression Card), social support (Duke Social Support Index), multidimensional health locus of control and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease severity (Medical Research Council dyspnoea scale). Data on attendance at the pulmonary rehabilitation appointments were obtained from the pulmonary rehabilitation register.

Results:

A total of 51 patients (mean age 77.2 years, male=20), completed the study. Results indicated that the if the patient has depression, there was a moderate, but statistically significant association (P=0.02) with the uptake of pulmonary rehabilitation. There was no significant correlation between uptake status and any of the domains of multidimensional health locus of control, Duke Social Support Index or Medical Research Council dyspnea score (P>0.005).

Conclusion:

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and depression are less likely to take up a referral to pulmonary rehabilitation compared to those without depression. Social support, multidimensional health locus, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease severity does not have a relationship with the uptake or completion of outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation.
A strong geography department
Authors: Kitchen Rebecca
Published: September 2017

What are the characteristics of a quality geography department? Drawing on submissions from the most recent round of the Geography Quality Mark, Rebecca Kitchen offers some suggestions
Introduction
Authors: Johnson Benjamin Heber
Published: September 2017

This introductory chapter talks about a more comprehensive and balanced portrayal of conservation, exploring how it maintained race and class hierarchies, and how the movement laid the basis for real and lasting environmental improvements. Several spectators realized that conservation had a lot to do with Progressivism, as environmental measures were among the most important legacies of the Progressive era. The chapter thus introduces three goals for conducting this research. First, it aims to offer a more expansive synthesis of conservationist thinking and doing, one that stresses the movement's complexity, heterogeneity, ambition, and breadth. Second, it means to show how deeply tied this movement was to the larger course of Progressivism. And finally, it argues for the relevance of conservation for contemporary environmental reform.
Fighting Against Conservation
Authors: Johnson Benjamin Heber
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines how the optimism of conservationists led them to underestimate the challenges their movement faced. Allocating more control to the federal government in the name of environmental necessity provoked powerful opposition from those whose economic interests were threatened, those who doubted that pressing environmental problems existed at all, and those who objected in principle to the more muscular state called into being by Progressives. Moreover, because a wide range of rural Americans continued to hunt, fish, gather, log, and farm in the new parks and forests, the conservation state often criminalized their ways of making a living. While some of the resistance was conducted through formal politics, it also gave rise to widespread community-supported lawbreaking, violence against conservation officers, and arson and sabotage.
Epilogue
Authors: Johnson Benjamin Heber
Published: September 2017

This epilogue analyzes how environmental reform hardly ceased by the end of the 1910s. While the general expansion of the environmental state at the federal level paused with the eclipse of Progressivism during World War I, and became more coercive and reliant on state power, there was no abrupt end to conservation. Americans still sought to address the concerns about artificiality and resource scarcity that had animated the movement. In the next decade, the crisis of Depression and the politics of the New Deal particularly brought a kind of rebirth to conservation. The chapter asserts that environmental problems are about people as much as nature. Any effective remediation will be a triumph of social justice as much as a reflection of respect for nature. A better society and better laws depend on better people, as Progressive activists and theorists so acutely observed.
The Islamic World and Inner Asian Peoples down to the Mongol Invasion
Authors: Jackson Peter
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the relations, down to the eve of the Mongol invasions, between the Dār al-Islām and the nomads of the Eurasian steppe. When Mongol forces headed by Chinggis Khan first invaded Islamic territory in 1219, Muslims had been in contact for at least 500 years with the peoples of the great steppe belt that extends from Manchuria to Hungary and those of the forest zones of Siberia further north. The chapter first considers the Muslims' early contacts with the Inner Asian steppe before discussing the entry of the steppe peoples into the Islamic world. It also analyses the emergence of the Qipchaq-Qangli confederacy and the infidel Qara-Khitai. Finally, it looks at the Gür-khans and their Muslim subjects, the Khwārazmshāhs' attacks upon the Qipchaq-Qangli confederacy, and the rise of the Mongols in the eastern steppes.
Hülegü’s Campaigns and Imperial Fragmentation (1253–62)
Authors: Jackson Peter
Published: September 2017

This chapter chronicles Hülegü's campaigns in south-west Asia between 1253 and 1262. It begins with a discussion of the Mongol invasions of Iran and other parts of south-west Asia before considering why some of Hülegü's opponents acted in the way they did and thereby brought down destruction upon themselves. It then examines the question of armaments used by Hülegü and the terms of his commission during Möngke's reign. It also analyses Hülegü's actions in the wake of the conquest of Iraq, the temporary reduction of Syria and the death of Möngke, the Mongols' conflict with the Jochids, and Hülegü's creation of the Ilkhanate. Finally, it looks at the reconstitution of the ulus of Chaghadai and the dissolution of the Mongol empire.
Mediated Sovereignty
Authors: Jackson Peter
Published: September 2017

This chapter focuses on the local Muslim potentates who were allowed by the Mongols to keep their thrones in return for sovereignty and loyal service, with particular emphasis on the impact of Mongol overlordship upon subject Muslim rulers. It first considers the Qipchaq khanate and the subject principalities in the Ilkhanid territories before discussing the Mongols' new subject dynasties, including the Qutlughkhanids and the Kurtid rulers of Herat. It then examines two contrasting zones in Iran, the south and the north, as well as the obligations imposed by the Mongol conquerors and the advantages of vassalage. It also analyses Chinggisid intermarriage with the subject dynasties and asks whether, and to what degree, elite Muslim women exerted influence at the level of the provincial Muslim dynasties that ruled under Mongol suzerainty. Finally, it shows that some client Muslim princes revolted against their Mongol overlords.
The Onset of Islamization
Authors: Jackson Peter
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the conversion to Islam of the Mongol khans of Western Asia, with particular emphasis on the difficulties confronting royal converts who sought to impose their new faith on their infidel followers and to re-establish the Shariʻa. It begins with an overview of the conversion process among the Jochids and the Chaghadayids and within the Ilkhanate, after which it considers the charge that Mongol khans who had converted to Islam had abandoned the ‘yasa of Chinggis Khan’. It also compares the policies of Ghazan Mamūd and Tegüder Ahmad's towards Christians before concluding with an analysis of Rashīd al-Dīn's ‘official’ history of Ghazan's conversion and the religious stance of Ghazan's forebears.
Epilogue
Authors: Jackson Peter
Published: September 2017

This epilogue discusses the impact of infidel Mongol rule on the Islamic world in the longer term, down to the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. It begins with an analysis of the more direct legacy of infidel Mongol rule: the survival of what might be termed a ‘Mongol imperial culture’, which involved new Chinggisid concepts of legitimacy, new techniques of government, and a persistent allegiance to Mongol customary law (the Yasa). It then considers other consequences of the Mongol expansion, including the Turkicization of nomadic Mongols and Turks, the strengthening of external Muslim states through immigration from Mongol-occupied territories; the spread of the Islamic faith, and the emergence of new Muslim ethnicities. The chapter also examines the the relationship between the Mongol conquests and the genesis of the Black Death, through the integration of the whole of Eurasia (including the entire Dār al-Islām as far west as Spain) within a single disease zone.
Our Eugenics Past
Authors: Daar Judith
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the past eugenics movement in order to evaluate the motivations, patterns, strategies, and language that drew in so many. Searching the parameters of a movement that targeted natural reproduction for lessons about modern methods of assisted conception is both highly logical and utterly counterintuitive. One might insist that eugenics cares about individual reproduction only as it impacts the population, whereas ART cares about the population only as it assists in individual reproduction. However, both eugenics and ART are logically tied by their mutual focus on controlling reproduction. In reviewing and summarizing the detailed accounts of the lives, the lures, and the losses that define the eugenics movement, the chapter focuses on the themes that emerge from the analysis—science, language, tradition, and economics.
Race and Ethnicity as Barriers to ART Access
Authors: Daar Judith
Published: September 2017

This chapter analyzes the racialization of infertility care in the United States, and seeks to understand why ART stratifies along race and ethnic lines. Researchers and scholars have proposed several theories, including lower income levels and access to insurance in minority populations, social factors that make women of color less likely to seek treatment for infertility, historic factors that give rise to a continuing aura of mistrust in the doctor–patient relationship, and express and implied discrimination by doctors who view minority populations as less deserving of parenthood than white patients. The chapter shows how these new eugenics, like the old eugenics, can persist only so long as political power structures support and advance their agenda.
Disability and Procreative Diminishment
Authors: Daar Judith
Published: September 2017

This chapter looks at how today's denials for ART treatment based on a prospective parent's disability are worrying analogues to the eugenics past, an era in which misguided judgments about parental fitness culminated in the involuntary sterilization of thousands of Americans. Whereas past eugenicists coerced the “feeble-minded” into surrendering their reproductive capacity through forced sterilizations, today's practices deprive the differently abled of their capacity to reproduce by withholding the technological means necessary to produce a child. By focusing on the meaning of disability in contemporary society as both an acquired and inherited characteristic, the chapter considers how the presence of a disability in a would-be parent and its likely appearance in any resulting offspring shape the conduct of physicians and patients alike.
Invalids
Authors: Alexopoulos Golfo
Published: September 2017

This chapter presents the ways in which the Gulag administration dealt with its “inferior workforce.” Severely ill and disabled prisoners were considered as physically inferior (fizicheski nepolnotsennye), the defective labor force (nepolnotsennye rabsily), and the not-work-capable elements (netrudosposobnye elementy). They were unable to do the camp's basic work, which involved heavy physical labor in such sectors as construction, mining, and forestry. The so-called inferior workforce included both prisoners classified as invalids and those assigned to light labor. This segment of the Gulag labor force represented an enormous population of prisoners, and it grew significantly over the Stalin years. Given that a significant portion of the prison labor force was severely ill and disabled, the Gulag leadership sought ways to manage, conceal, and discard this enormous emaciated population.
Self-Evident Truths
Authors: Brown Richard D.
Published: September 2017

How did Americans in the generations following the Declaration of Independence translate its lofty ideals into practice? In this broadly synthetic work, distinguished historian Richard Brown shows that despite its founding statement that “all men are created equal,” the early Republic struggled with every form of social inequality. While people paid homage to the ideal of equal rights, this ideal came up against entrenched social and political practices and beliefs. Brown illustrates how the ideal was tested in struggles over race and ethnicity, religious freedom, gender and social class, voting rights and citizenship. It shows how high principles fared in criminal trials and divorce cases when minorities, women, and people from different social classes faced judgment. This book offers a much-needed exploration of the ways revolutionary political ideas, and especially the idea of equality, penetrated popular thinking and everyday practice.
The Declaration of Independence and the Mystery of Equality
Authors: Brown Richard D.
Published: September 2017

What were the meanings of “all men are created equal” for the signers of the Declaration, and how was the phrase understood in different states? The chapter traces the natural rights origins of the Declaration and how the idea of natural equality affected ideas and policy on slavery, race, and religion, especially in Massachusetts and Virginia. Public figures everywhere recognized a conflict between their deep commitment to individual property rights and their assertion of equal human rights. Concern for social stability in a time of revolution influenced ideology and practice.
Contending for Religious Equality
Authors: Brown Richard D.
Published: September 2017

In the new United States every state included a bill of rights guaranteeing religious liberty. But the meaning of those guarantees varied. Though Rhode Island and Pennsylvania had no established religion from their beginnings, most colonies had possessed a Protestant establishment, and most states retained official preference for Protestantism. Catholicism was generally tolerated, but Catholics, like Jews, were denied equal citizenship rights in several states. But over the course of two generations Americans adopted Virginia’s model of equal religious liberty. Hard-fought contests led to disestablishment everywhere, and to virtually complete religious equality before the law.
Equal Justice for Irishmen and Other Foreigners
Authors: Brown Richard D.
Published: September 2017

For a generation or two after 1776—perhaps longer—American nationality was not firmly established, nor was there a single “American” ethnicity. And the colonial legacy was broadly welcoming for European immigrants. So regardless of nationality, equality before the law became the policy of every state. But old ethnic and religious prejudices, reinforced by immigration from the British Isles, made equal treatment problematic. Irish immigrants, who stood out as Catholics and potential radicals, were targets of prejudice. But when they were tried for capital crimes like rape and murder, adherence to legal procedures—including talented defense counsel—blunted the effects of prejudice. Yet fear of Irish and other Atlantic immigrants led congressmen to debate the qualifications for naturalized citizenship. Representatives agreed new citizens must be white; but they argued over the length of their probation and whether they should pay for the privilege. In the Jefferson administration Congress settled on five years and minimal fees. Equal rights for white immigrants became the rule in law and largely in practice.
The Invasions of England in 1013 and 1016
Authors: Bolton Timothy
Published: September 2017

This chapter focuses on King Swen and Cnut's conquest of England in 1013. The English, or Anglo-Saxons, were themselves invaders who seized control over the crumbling remains of post-Roman Britain. However, half a millennium had passed since the invading barbarians had assembled themselves into highly organized kingdoms and produced a distinctive language and culture all of their own. They may have been prepared to accept that they were not so unlike the invading Scandinavians, but centuries of Christianization, legal developments and codifications, urbanization, social stratigraphization and the development of a scribal bureaucracy, separated them from the invaders. The chapter shows how King Swen differs from other Scandinavian invaders in that his aim was conquest, not raiding. He sought to seize control at the level of central and local government and permanently rule the country.
Gulag Letters
Authors: Formakov Arsenii
Published: September 2017

Memoirs and works of fiction that describe the Stalinist Gulag often depict labor camps as entirely cut off from the rest of Soviet society. In fact, however, many prisoners corresponded at least sporadically with relatives either through the official, censored Gulag mail system or by smuggling letters out of camp with free laborers. Examples of such correspondence that survive to the present day represent a powerful, largely unstudied historical source with the potential to fundamentally change the way we understand both the Soviet forced labor system and Stalinist society in general.
Gulag Letters offers readers an English-language translation of the letters of a single Gulag inmate, the journalist, poet, and novelist Arsenii Formakov (1900-1983), who was a prominent member of Latvia’s large and vibrant Russian Old Believer community during the interwar period. Formakov was arrested by the Soviet secret police in June 1940 as part of a broad round-up of anti-Soviet elements that began just weeks after the Soviet Union forcibly annexed Latvia, and survived two terms in Soviet labor camps (1940-1947 and 1949-1955). The letters that he mailed home to his wife and children while serving these sentences reveal the surprising porousness of the Gulag and the variability of labor camp life and describe the difficult conditions that prisoners faced during and after World War II. They also represent an important eye-witness account of the experience of Latvian citizens deported to internment sites in the Soviet interior during the 1940s.
1945
Authors: Formakov Arsenii
Published: September 2017

Throughout 1945, Formakov wrote to his family regularly through the official, censored Gulag mail system and illicitly. Letters sent in this year detail Formakov’s efforts to smuggle mail out of the camp, his two-week stay at a “house of rest” that gave favored inmates a chance to rebuild their strength, and his transfer from a relatively privileged indoor work assignment to a general work detail outdoors. During this period, Formakov’s wife sent him regular parcels of newspapers, which he bartered for money and food. Formakov also writes about his efforts to celebrate personal and religious holidays in camp and about the holiday programs staged by the Cultural-Educational Sector of Kraslag. Formakov comments on war news periodically in the correspondence. A special letter sent on May 9, 1945, records Formakov’s reaction to the Nazi capitulation.
The Historical Emergence of Replication
Authors: Goren Haim
Published: September 2017

This chapter explores the importance of replication for a crucial historical turning point, when new and progressive scientific measurements of physical locations were being developed. Revisiting a location is of necessary and critical importance when replicating research in the lab or the field, but identifying a precise location can be surprisingly problematic. Geography includes the study and identification of where objects are located and how they are arranged in space. Whether identifying spreads of emergent diseases or distribution of genetically distinct populations, we use maps and topographic contours. The maps used today are the result of over a millennium of repeated field work, analysis, and interpretation that provides additional insight into the process of replication. In this chapter, this process of geographic replication and its criteria of success are illustrated with two examples: the repeated mapping of the city of Jerusalem and the attempt to measure accurately the elevation of the Dead Sea relative to sea level. These examples also reveal multiple motives for repeated exploration and study.
The Battle of Wilson’s Creek and the First Spy Mission
Authors: Kelso John R.
Published: September 2017

In this chapter, John Russell Kelso talks about the Battle of Wilson's Creek and his first mission as a spy, which occurred between August and September 1861. Early in August, Kelso was sent with a wagon and a small escort to Springfield to obtain a supply of ammunition for their regiment. The journey required two days and was attended with a good deal of danger. They arrived safely, but found great excitement and anxiety prevailing among the Federal troops and the loyal people of that place. Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon, who was in command, lost to the Confederate rebels at the battle of Wilson Creek. Kelso recalls how he was summoned by Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis to carry out espionage work in South West Missouri.
Dear Reader
Authors: Troy Michele K.
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines how Albatross Press, through its books, made Anglo-American culture available to German readers. Despite their divergent philosophies, Albatross and the Nazi regime had one thing in common as the 1930s advanced: their mindful attention to readers. Since its early days, Albatross had enclosed cards in its volumes to encourage readers to send feedback. This chapter considers how Albatross titles fared under Nazi censorship and discusses John Holroyd-Reece's desire to imbue the hearts and minds of German readers with Anglo-American ideals. It also describes the Nazi authorities' efforts to persuade German readers to read German books instead of foreign ones. Finally, it looks at the official stance of the Reich Literary Chamber regarding Albatross and its books.
Building a State and a Nation
Authors: Mayhew David R.
Published: September 2017

This chapter analyzes three U.S. performances: the launch of a new nation, continental expansion, and national consolidation. The mid-nineteenth century, notably the 1860s, seems to have brought a spasm of special character across much of the developed or developing world. Centralizing states swung into place offering strong nationalisms, new constitutional formulas, a spirit of reform in state and economy, and a bent for commodifying property and homogenizing the rights of citizenship across entire populations. In these respects, the 1860s seem to have brought a transnational ideological high. Ensuing years brought a recession from it, as the promises and commitments of the decade wore down. In the United States, the thrusts of rights expansion lost force in the 1870s.
Legitimacy, Messiness, and Reflections
Authors: Mayhew David R.
Published: September 2017

This chapter presents transnational comparisons so as to show how the United States has performed distinctively. U.S. economic growth and foreign policy success have profited from its helpful size, natural wealth, and location, as well as an absence of powerful, aggressive nations next door. In many cases, however, the U.S. performance has been transnationally generic or close to that, offering little help for upside or downside readings of American distinctiveness or exceptionalism. As for Congress, it is difficult to capture it in isolation if one's concern is the performance of the whole U.S. government versus the performances of governments elsewhere. What cries out for comparison is the end result of complex complementarities between Congress and the presidency.
Introduction: “The True Watersheds in Human Affairs Are Seldom Spotted”
Authors: Fuller Christopher J.
Published: September 2017

This introductory chapter discusses how the CIA's use of armed drones has garnered increased attention from academia and investigative journalists, particularly those working in the foreign policy, defense, and legal fields. This is due in equal parts to the secrecy surrounding their use, the technological novelty of their unmanned operation, and concerns over the agency's suitability to undertake lethal operations. While disagreements over the putative military benefits, ethical downsides, and legal complexities of the CIA's campaign are common, a number of persistent themes in media and scholarly discussions have emerged over recent years, materializing into a dominant set of commonly held views about the agency's execution of drone warfare, many of which are challenged in the book.
“We Have to Find a Better Way to Send a Message”: The CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, from the Eagle Program to the Predator Drone, 1986–2001
Authors: Fuller Christopher J.
Published: September 2017

This chapter explores how the CIA's Counterterrorist Center (CTC) was established to function as a war room against terrorists, under the leadership of its first director, Duane Clarridge. Though the consequences of the Iran-Contra affair initially tempered the CTC's aggression, the foundations of the agency's post-9/11 role in the War on Terror were laid during this time, and its aggressive pursuit of al-Qaeda today owes much to the approach Clarridge sought to instill in his new department. The origins of the agency's involvement with drones as tools of counterterrorism are also traced back to this period—as early as 1986. Through its classified Eagle program, the CIA first explored the concept of using unmanned aircraft for both intelligence gathering and to conduct lethal precision strikes against targets such as the Libyan dictator and state sponsor of terror, Mu'ammar Gaddafi.
Media And Education
Authors: Valkenburg Patti M. , Piotrowski Jessica Taylor
Published: September 2017

This chapter focuses on the positive effects of educational media—media designed to support youth's development. Today, there are more platforms for educational media content than ever before. And while researchers have long identified the effectiveness of educational television, the potential for other educational platforms is still being understood. The chapter begins with a brief account of the history of educational media, along with statistics on the use of educational media in the family. It then discusses several effects of educational media content. For example, does educational content stimulate academic skills, such as literacy and numeracy? Can it facilitate social-emotional learning by promoting characteristics such as empathy, willingness to share, and self-regulation? And can it help children be more imaginative and creative? The chapter concludes with a discussion of future directions for the field of educational media.
Introduction
Authors: MacDonald Alexander
Published: September 2017

And what would be the purpose of all this? For those who have never known the relentless urge to explore and discover, there is no answer. For those who have felt this urge, the answer is self-evident.

—Hermann Oberth, Man into Space, 1957

The rise of private-sector spaceflight and American billionaires pursuing their ambitions in space seems to be a new phenomenon. After the origin of space exploration as a government enterprise during the Cold War Space Age, entrepreneurs and individuals have become a new force on the scene and are increasingly the drivers behind some of the most prominent space activities. In the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union developed intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver their nuclear warheads, creating the technology for satellites and spaceflight vehicles. The race into space then became an important dimension of the Cold War as the two superpowers competed vigorously to be the first to claim prestigious spaceflight achievements, culminating in an American victory with the successful expedition of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the surface of the Moon. After the unmatched success of the Apollo program, with no political need for further spectaculars, NASA was downsized, spaceflight was confined to low-Earth orbit, and further exploration was confined to robots. Since then, NASA spaceflight projects have continued to advance our knowledge of the solar system and the universe ...
Spaceflight, Millionaires, and National Defense: Robert Goddard’s Fund-Raising Program
Authors: MacDonald Alexander
Published: September 2017

Robert Goddard was the American “father of liquid-fuel rocketry” and his career constituted the world’s first spaceflight development program. This chapter provides an economic analysis of Goddard’s career and explores his motivations and financial strategy for long-run space development. Goddard was not only the first to achieve flight with a liquid-fuel rocket, he was also the first to earn significant funding for spaceflight research. He raised much of his funding from private and semi-public sources—including philanthropic funds provided by James Smithson, Andrew Carnegie, Daniel Guggenheim and Harry Guggenheim. Though it was largely private funding that allowed Goddard to make the substantial progress that he did, he also believed that the resources required to develop the first orbital launch vehicles would vastly exceed what private individuals were likely to provide. As a result, Goddard shared with his contemporaries, Werner von Braun in Germany and Sergei Korolev in Russia, a belief that military funding provided the key to the development of spaceflight and enthusiastically and persistently pursued U.S. military funding throughout his life. He was so committed to transacting this Faustian bargain that he would work with the Chemical Warfare Service on gas warfare applications and would later leave the security and long-standing patronage of the Guggenheim family in pursuit of a major military rocket development contract in the Second World War. An economic analysis of Goddard’s career thus situates the motivating force of space history at the level of the individual, with the spaceflight developer willing and able to manipulate external demands, particularly in the military, in order to achieve his interplanetary objectives.
Beyond Rain
Authors: Alley William M. , Alley Rosemarie
Published: September 2017

The chapter begins with looking at ways humans have dealt with drought—praying for rain, hiring a rainmaker, or hoping for the best. After World War II, the widespread availability of rural electrification, the deep turbine pump, and center pivot irrigation gave people the option of large-scale use of groundwater. This chapter provides an overview of how groundwater development has radically improved water and food security. The discussion then moves to the growing problems that have resulted from groundwater overuse in places such as the High Plains (Ogallala) Aquifer and the North China Plain. Recently, the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellites, which can provide precise estimates of changes in groundwater storage over very large areas, have helped draw attention to groundwater depletion around the world.
Arizona
Authors: Alley William M. , Alley Rosemarie
Published: September 2017

After examining one of the world’s worst case scenarios, the book turns to the state of Arizona that has one of the world’s more progressive groundwater management programs. After years of debate, the federal government eventually agreed to finance the Central Arizona Project to bring Colorado River water to central Arizona, but with a catch—Arizona first had to get their groundwater pumping under control. This chapter presents the historical background and role of key individuals involved in achieving this goal, as well as lessons to be learned from these efforts.
Not All Aquifers Are Created Equal
Authors: Alley William M. , Alley Rosemarie
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines how geology and climate create vastly different groundwater situations. Effective management of groundwater depends upon full consideration of these differences. The chapter begins with a distinction between confined and unconfined aquifers and a look at artesian wells, with a focus on Australia’s Great Artesian Basin. The characteristics of different rock types are illustrated by four basic aquifer rock types in sub-Saharan Africa. The chapter then turns to non-renewable aquifers in North Africa and Saudi Arabia. The fast-recharging Edwards Aquifer in Texas then provides a quite different story with its sensitivity to short-term climate variability and concerns about endangered species. The chapter concludes with a discussion of saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers and the potential of brackish groundwater for water supply.
Arsenic
Authors: Alley William M. , Alley Rosemarie
Published: September 2017

This chapter begins with what has been called “the largest poisoning of a population in history,” as a result of arsenic poisoning from wells in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. The chapter then examines the challenges of determining the safe level and standards for arsenic in drinking water. The ongoing challenges of educating homeowners in New Hampshire where high levels of arsenic occur in many private wells are then discussed. The chapter concludes with discussion of other naturally occurring contaminants in drinking water wells, such as fluoride, radon, radium, and uranium.
Corpse Desecration
Authors: Herzog Don
Published: September 2017

An exploration of how we and the law think about corpse desecration. The chapter explores skeptical arguments that it can’t be an injury to the dead person, the history of revulsion against such desecration, and how the law came to see it not just as a crime but also as a tort – against the survivors, not the dead person. It reproduces and analyzes art by Goya and Veber. And it closes by examining a series of recent cases, including autopsies gone awry, and not least that of a mortuary worker who liked to get high and have sex with corpses.
Christ
Authors: Martin Dale B.
Published: September 2017

A view of the nature of Jesus Christ that rises to the level of full Christian orthodoxy, as expressed in such creeds and definitions as the Apostles’ Creed, and the statements of Nicea, and Chalcedon, cannot be responsibly derived from the New Testament if the constraints of modern historical criticism are obeyed. But robust and faithful views of the nature of Christ may be read from the New Testament, and even from the Old Testament, when the text is interpreted via lenses of creative, Christian interpretation, led by the holy spirit, and interpreted with the guidance of love. Moreover, though constructions of “the historical Jesus” may be used for theological reflection, the Jesus of Christian faith is the Christ of Christian creed and confessions, not the Jesus of modern historical research and construction.
Spirit
Authors: Martin Dale B.
Published: September 2017

When the subject is the Christian view of the holy spirit, it is even more difficult to find an orthodox doctrine of the spirit if the Bible is read only through the method of modern historical criticism. Read historically, the Bible does not teach a doctrine of the trinity, and the Greek word for “spirit,” pneuma, refers to many different things in the New Testament. Moreover, the pneuma was considered in the ancient world to be a material substance, though a rarified and thin form of matter. Yet those ancient notions of pneuma may help us reimagine the Christian holy spirit in new, though not at all unorthodox, ways. The spirit may then become the most corporeal person of the trinity; the most present person of the trinity; or alternatively, the most absent. The various ways the New Testament speaks of pneuma—that of the human person, or the church, of God, of Christ, and even of “this cosmos”—may provoke Christian imagination in new ways once the constraints of modernist methods of interpretation are transcended. Even the gender of the spirit becomes a provocative but fruitful meditation for postmodern Christians.
Tracing the origins
Authors: Payne Geoff
Published: September 2017

For three decades after the mid-1970s there were almost no new sociological surveys of mobility. In this vacuum, findings (or rather a distorted version of them) were repeated and cross-referenced in successive government reports. Given the misrepresentation and misunderstanding of mobility revealed in Chapter 4, this chapter traces how mistakes have been copied from one document to another. The Cabinet Office Strategy Unit’s online discussion, Getting on, getting ahead is identified as a key influence on all three governing parties’ policies, with its incorrect measurements, and neglect of downward mobility. The earlier ‘Aldridge reports’ (2004, 2006) although over-pessimistic about mobility rates, briefly provided a better account.
Policy analysis in the central and regional governments
Authors: Aubin David , Brans Marleen , Fobé Ellen
Published: September 2017

This chapter analyses the locus and modus of in-house policy work in the Belgian central and regional government. First, it describes and explains differences in the way in which policy analytical roles within the department and agencies are organized. Second, it reviews the structures and procedures through which in-house policy analytical information is injected into the policy process. Thirdly, it comparatively analyses how Belgian governments have reorganized their policy work in response to the international professionalizing policy-making agenda, of which the main components are greater attention to evidence, evaluation, strategy, coordination, and consultation. The analysis draws upon two empirical sources. One is a recently conducted study on in-house policy work; the second is a survey, conducted in 2013, specifically designed for the contributions to this book.
Policy analysis instruction in Belgium
Authors: Brans Marleen , Aubin David , Ruebens Silke
Published: September 2017

Both academic and applied policy analysis are relatively young disciplines that have found their way into academic curricula of universities only towards the end of the previous century. This is surprising given that policy analytical models were disseminated in Belgium already in the late 1960s, as was the case in the Netherlands. While this sparked the policy analysis movement in the Dutch government and academia, policy analysis instruction in Belgium remained subsequently underdeveloped, and policy analytical knowledge was taught in a fragmented fashion. The concept of the policy cycle was for instance taught under general courses on political science, or as a section in a course on public administration. Other policy analytical knowledge appeared under public management courses, or substantive policy courses such as social policy, socio-economic policy, and urban planning. On the basis of document analysis (including the regional accreditation reports), the chapter seeks to explain the development of policy analysis instruction from a fragmented into a more autonomous discipline. Next to this, the chapter analyses two more questions: whether official professional training curricula have also come to embrace policy analytical knowledge, and whether divergences in policy analysis instruction across the language border reflect different practices in government