bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Likelihood-based inference under nonconvex boundary constraints
Authors: Wang J Y , Ye Z S , Chen Y
Published: October 2023

Likelihood-based inference under nonconvex constraints on model parameters has become increasingly common in biomedical research. In this paper, we establish large-sample properties of the maximum likelihood estimator when the true parameter value lies at the boundary of a nonconvex parameter space. We further derive the asymptotic distribution of the likelihood ratio test statistic under nonconvex constraints on model parameters. A general Monte Carlo procedure for generating the limiting distribution is provided. The theoretical results are demonstrated by five examples in Anderson’s stereotype logistic regression model, genetic association studies, gene-environment interaction tests, cost-constrained linear regression and fairness-constrained linear regression.
Nonparametric priors with full-range borrowing of information
Authors: Ascolani F , Franzolini B , Lijoi A , Prünster I
Published: October 2023

Modelling of the dependence structure across heterogeneous data is crucial for Bayesian inference, since it directly impacts the borrowing of information. Despite extensive advances over the past two decades, most available methods only allow for nonnegative correlations. We derive a new class of dependent nonparametric priors that can induce correlations of any sign, thus introducing a new and more flexible idea of borrowing of information. This is achieved thanks to a novel concept, which we term hyper-tie, and represents a direct and simple measure of dependence. We investigate prior and posterior distributional properties of the model and develop algorithms to perform posterior inference. Illustrative examples on simulated and real data show that the proposed method outperforms alternatives in terms of prediction and clustering.
Histology and transcriptome insights into the early processes of intestinal anastomotic healing: a rat model
Authors: van Helsdingen Claire P M , Wildeboer Aurelia C L , Zafeiropoulou Konstantina , Jongen Audrey C H M , Bosmans Joanna W A M , Gallé Camille , Hakvoort Theodorus B M , Gijbels Marion J J , de Jonge Wouter J , Bouvy Nicole D , Li Yim Andrew Y F , Derikx Joep P M
Published: October 2023

Background

Understanding the early processes underlying intestinal anastomotic healing is crucial to comprehend the pathophysiology of anastomotic leakage. The aim of this study was to assess normal intestinal anastomotic healing and disturbed healing in rats to investigate morphological, cellular and intrinsic molecular changes in the anastomotic tissue.

Method

Anastomoses were created in two groups of Wistar rats, using four sutures or 12 sutures to mimic anastomotic leakage and anastomotic healing respectively. At 6, 12, 24 hours and 2, 3, 5 and 7 days, anastomotic tissue was assessed macroscopically using the anastomotic complication score and histologically using the modified Ehrlich–Hunt score. Transcriptome analysis was performed to assess differences between anastomotic leakage and anastomotic healing at the first three time points to find affected genes and biological processes.

Results

Ninety-eight rats were operated on (49 animals in the anastomotic leakage and 49 in the anastomotic healing group) and seven rats analysed at each time point. None of the animals with 12 sutures developed anastomotic leakage macroscopically, whereas 35 of the 49 animals with four sutures developed anastomotic leakage. Histological analysis showed increasing influx of inflammatory cells up to 3 days in anastomotic healing and up to 7 days in anastomotic leakage, and this increase was significantly higher in anastomotic leakage at 5 (P = 0.041) and 7 days (P = 0.003). Transcriptome analyses revealed large differences between anastomotic leakage and anastomotic healing at 6 and 24 hours, mainly driven by an overall downregulation of genes in anastomotic leakage.

Conclusion

Transcriptomic analyses revealed large differences between normal and disturbed healing at 6 hours after surgery, which might eventually serve as early-onset biomarkers for anastomotic leakage.
‘Digital Tournaments’: the colonisation of freelancers’ ‘free’ time and unpaid labour in the online platform economy
Authors: Pulignano Valeria , Marino Stefania , Johnson Mathew , Domecka Markieta , Riemann Me-Linh
Published: October 2023

This article challenges positive views of the assumed relationships between skills, productivity and rewards in self-employed digital freelancing. It suggests that the upfront investments made by freelancers to build up positive platform ratings are not necessarily recouped in the form of increased autonomy, guaranteed work or more lucrative ‘gigs’. Drawing on 38 autobiographical narrative interviews and 12 audio working diaries with diverse online freelancers in Europe, we show how the low barriers to enter platform work provide opportunities for those with limited work experience and other commitments outside of work. However, the intense competition between an ever-expanding pool of (both skilled and unskilled) task freelancers within ‘digital tournaments’ results in the colonisation of worker’s free time, and the normalisation of unpaid labour. This implies that ‘free time’ for freelancers is largely an illusion. Furthermore, the significant ‘sunk costs’ that freelancers make in terms of time, platform-specific skills, reputation and networks are not fully recovered and cannot be transferred to other platforms.
Characteristics of employment history and self-perceived barriers to healthcare access
Authors: Hoven Hanno , Backhaus Insa , Gerő Krisztina , Kawachi Ichiro
Published: October 2023

Background

Research suggests that people in disadvantaged social positions are more likely to perceive barriers to accessing healthcare, especially to specialists and preventive services. In this study, we analyze if adversity during past employment histories (e.g. spells of unemployment) is linked to subsequent subjectively perceived barriers in healthcare access. Further, we investigate if the associations vary according to national healthcare access and quality indicators.

Methods

We use data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe with a study sample of 31 616 men and women aged 52–80 from 25 countries. Data include retrospective information on employment histories allowing us to derive characteristics of past careers, including the number of unemployment periods, main occupational position and pension contributions. Barriers to healthcare access are measured by self-perceived forgone care due to costs and unavailability of services. We apply multilevel Poisson regression for binary outcomes and test for cross-level interactions between career characteristics and national healthcare system characteristics.

Results

Career characteristics are linked to later self-perceived healthcare access barriers, consistently in the case of cost barriers and less consistently for unavailability of services. Associations are similar for men and women, and persist after controlling for current income, wealth and subjective health. We find no cross-level interactions between career characteristics and country-level healthcare access and quality indicators.

Conclusion

Self-perceived barriers to healthcare access are linked to people’s past working lives. More in-depth investigation is needed to identify the reasons for the lingering effects of characteristics of employment history on reduced healthcare access.
Discovery of a novel circulation route of free-living Serratiasymbiotica mediated by predatory ladybird beetles
Authors: Du Xue-Yong , Zhang Pei-Fang , Gong Sen-Rui , Liang Yuan-Sen , Huang Yu-Hao , Li Hao-Sen , Pang Hong
Published: October 2023

Horizontal transmission of bacteria to varied hosts can maintain and even expand microbial niches. We previously found that the aphid gut bacterium Serratia symbiotica strain SsMj can be transmitted to ladybird beetles via predation, but whether the predator is a new host, a reservoir or a dead end of this bacterium is unknown. This study aims to provide a clear picture of SsMj circulation from aphids to plants and predators. We first found that SsMj in aphids and ladybirds was abundantly distributed not only in digestive tracts but also in droppings. We found no evidence for vertical transmission of SsMj to aphid offspring. Instead, we showed that it could be transmitted to conspecific aphids by sharing the same plant or contacting honeydews. The key finding of this study is that SsMj was transmitted from aphids to ladybirds through predation, while ladybirds could also transfer SsMj back to aphids, possibly through feces. Together, this evidence suggests that SsMj is able to survive in the digestive tracts and droppings of insects and to expand its host range with plants and predators as reservoirs.
Higher-order adaptive methods for exit times of Itô diffusions
Authors: Hoel Håkon , Ragunathan Sankarasubramanian
Published: October 2023

We construct a higher-order adaptive method for strong approximations of exit times of Itô stochastic differential equations (SDEs). The method employs a strong Itô–Taylor scheme for simulating SDE paths, and adaptively decreases the step size in the numerical integration as the solution approaches the boundary of the domain. These techniques complement each other nicely: adaptive timestepping improves the accuracy of the exit time by reducing the magnitude of the overshoot of the numerical solution when it exits the domain, and higher-order schemes improve the approximation of the state of the diffusion process. We present two versions of the higher-order adaptive method. The first one uses the Milstein scheme as the numerical integrator and two step sizes for adaptive timestepping: $h$ when far away from the boundary and $h^2$ when close to the boundary. The second method is an extension of the first one using the strong Itô–Taylor scheme of order 1.5 as the numerical integrator and three step sizes for adaptive timestepping. Under some regularity assumptions, we show that for any $\xi>0$, the strong error is ${\mathcal{O}}(h^{1-\xi })$ and ${\mathcal{O}}(h^{3/2-\xi })$ for the first and second method, respectively. Provided quite restrictive commutativity conditions hold for the diffusion coefficient, we further show that the expected computational cost for both methods is ${\mathcal{O}}(h^{-1} \log (h^{-1}))$. This results in a near doubling/trebling of the strong error rate compared to the standard Euler–Maruyama-based approach, while the computational cost rate is kept close to order one. Numerical examples that support the theoretical results are provided, and we discuss the potential for extensions that would further improve the strong convergence rate of the method.
Transmission Dynamics and Rare Clustered Transmission Within an Urban University Population Before Widespread Vaccination
Authors: Turcinovic Jacquelyn , Kuhfeldt Kayla , Sullivan Madison , Landaverde Lena , Platt Judy T , Alekseyev Yuriy O , Doucette-Stamm Lynn , Hamer Davidson H , Klapperich Catherine , Landsberg Hannah E , Connor John H
Published: October 2023

Background

Universities returned to in-person learning in 2021 while SARS-CoV-2 spread remained high. At the time, it was not clear whether in-person learning would be a source of disease spread.

Methods

We combined surveillance testing, universal contact tracing, and viral genome sequencing to quantify introductions and identify likely on-campus spread.

Results

Ninety-one percent of viral genotypes occurred once, indicating no follow-on transmission. Less than 5% of introductions resulted in >3 cases, with 2 notable exceptions of 40 and 47 cases. Both partially overlapped with outbreaks defined by contact tracing. In both cases, viral genomics eliminated over half the epidemiologically linked cases but added an equivalent or greater number of individuals to the transmission cluster.

Conclusions

Public health interventions prevented within-university transmission for most SARS-CoV-2 introductions, with only 2 major outbreaks being identified January to May 2021. The genetically linked cases overlap with outbreaks identified by contact tracing; however, they persisted in the university population for fewer days and rounds of transmission than estimated via contact tracing. This underscores the effectiveness of test-trace-isolate strategies in controlling undetected spread of emerging respiratory infectious diseases. These approaches limit follow-on transmission in both outside-in and internal transmission conditions.
Loop-mediated isothermal amplification of economically important Ceratitis species (Diptera: Tephritidae)
Authors: Zhang Yue , Li Weisong , Virgilio Massimiliano , De Meyer Marc , Li Zhihong
Published: October 2023

Ceratitis is an economically important genus of fruit flies that originated in Africa, has a wide host range, and causes serious economic losses due to its invasive damage. As a result, it is critical to identify them accurately and quickly in the world. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), as one of the representatives of isothermal amplification technology, has been widely used in the rapid nucleic acid detection of human pathogens and has shown its advantages in the identification of insect agricultural pests. In this study, using the mitochondrial cox1 and cob genes as target genes, the rapid molecular identification of the Ceratitis FARQ complex, C. cosyra, and C. capitata was realized based on LAMP. The experimental conditions optimization results showed that F3/B3:FIP/BIP = 1:8 was the optimal primer concentration ratio and 63 °C was the optimal reaction temperature. The sensitivity of the primers obtained in this study can reach up to 0.01 ng/μl DNA. A loop-mediated isothermal amplification identification technology system was established based on rapid, rough DNA extraction and visual detection of Ceratitis economically important fruit flies. The positive reaction system changed from pink to khaki by visual detection. The identification flow can be completed within 1 hour, including sample processing, DNA extraction, and LAMP visual detection.
Low-noise chopper amplifier design for low-frequency induction magnetometers
Authors: Tang Yao , Xi Zhenzhu , Chen Xingpeng , Long Xia
Published: October 2023

Induction magnetometers (IM) are commonly used in the magnetotelluric method for exploration. 1/f noise in the low-frequency band of the preamplifier reduces the signal-to-noise ratio of IM, thus affecting the exploration results. We designed a low-noise chopper amplifier with equivalent input voltage noise of 9.8 nV/√Hz at 1 mHz, 2.1 nV/√Hz at 0.01 Hz, and 1.9 nV/√Hz at 0.1 Hz; 1/f noise corner frequency of 8 mHz, and equivalent input current noise of 200 fA/√Hz at 1 mHz, 100 fA/√Hz at 0.01 Hz, and 60 fA/√Hz at 0.1 Hz. The IM using this chopper amplifier is 85.5 cm long, 6.0 cm in diameter, and has a total weight of 4.8 kg. Its sensitivity is 300 mV/nT during 20 Hz and 1 kHz, with a theoretical equivalent input magnetic field noise of 0.3 pT/√Hz at 1 Hz and a measurement frequency range of 1 mHz to 1 kHz.
Ultrasonic P-wave to determine pore parameters of Spergen limestone
Authors: Li Guangquan , Liu Zhongyuan , Li Bohua
Published: October 2023

Ultrasonic waves are capable of helping characterize pores of rocks. A model of viscous squirt is used to simulate phase velocity and the quality factor of ultrasonic P-wave measured in water-saturated Spergen limestone, thus determining pore parameters of the limestone. The measured P-wave had a centroid frequency of ∼0.75 MHz, and two simulations are conducted in this paper. The first simulation yields a dispersion curve with a dipping spike followed by a rising spike. However, it cannot yield the measured quality factor. Another drawback is that one of the pore parameters violates rock physics. The second simulation yields a dispersion curve with a small velocity depression followed by an upward velocity concave; the measured phase velocity and quality factor are simultaneously predicted. The resulting dimensions of the rock unit are 0.3 by 0.333 mm, which is consistent with the mean grain diameter of 0.3 mm. The relative first and second porosities are ascertained to be 0.97 and 0.03, respectively. The aperture distance at contact of grains is inverted as 1.8 µm. Remarkably, the minimum phase velocity of the water-saturated limestone is lower than the Gassmann velocity.
An improved Compton parameter map of thermal Sunyaev–Zeldovich effect from Planck PR4 data
Authors: Chandran Jyothis , Remazeilles Mathieu , Barreiro R B
Published: October 2023

Taking advantage of the reduced levels of noise and systematics in the data of the latest Planck release (PR4, also known as NPIPE), we construct a new all-sky Compton-y parameter map (hereafter, y-map) of the thermal Sunyaev–Zeldovich (SZ) effect from the Planck PR4 data. A tailored Needlet Internal Linear Combination (NILC) pipeline, first validated on detailed sky simulations, is applied to the nine single-frequency Planck PR4 sky maps, ranging from 30 to 857 GHz, to produce the PR4 y-map over 98 per cent of the sky. Using map comparisons, angular power spectra, and one-point statistics, we show that the PR4 NILC y-map is of improved quality compared to that of the previous PR2 release. The new y-map shows reduced levels of large-scale striations associated with 1/f noise in the scan direction. Regions near the Galactic plane also show lower residual contamination by Galactic thermal dust emission. At small angular scales, the residual contamination by thermal noise and cosmic infrared background (CIB) emission is found to be reduced by around 7 and 34 per cent, respectively, in the PR4 y-map. The PR4 NILC y-map is made publicly available for astrophysical and cosmological analyses of the thermal SZ effect.
Mini-quenching of z = 4–8 galaxies by bursty star formation
Authors: Dome Tibor , Tacchella Sandro , Fialkov Anastasia , Ceverino Daniel , Dekel Avishai , Ginzburg Omri , Lapiner Sharon , Looser Tobias J
Published: October 2023

The recent reported discovery of a low-mass z = 5.2 and an intermediate-mass z = 7.3 quenched galaxy with JWST/NIRSpec is the first evidence of halted star formation above z ≈ 5. Here, we show how bursty star formation at z = 4–8 gives rise to temporarily quenched, or mini-quenched galaxies in the mass range M⋆ = 107–109 M⊙ using four models of galaxy formation: the periodic box simulation IllustrisTNG, the zoom-in simulations vela and FirstLight and an empirical halo model. The main causes for mini-quenching are stellar feedback, lack of gas accretion onto galaxies, and galaxy–galaxy interactions. The abundance of (mini-)quenched galaxies agrees across the models: the population first appears below z ≈ 8, after which their proportion increases with cosmic time, from ∼0.5–1.0 per cent at z = 7 to ∼2–4 per cent at z = 4, corresponding to comoving number densities of ∼10−5 and ∼10−3 Mpc−3, respectively. These numbers are consistent with star formation rate duty cycles inferred for vela and FirstLight galaxies. Their star formation histories (SFHs) suggest that mini-quenching at z = 4–8 is short-lived with a duration of ∼20–40 Myr, which is close to the free-fall time-scale of the inner halo. However, mock spectral energy distributions of mini-quenched galaxies in IllustrisTNG and vela do not match JADES-GS-z7-01-QU photometry, unless their SFHs are artificially altered to be more bursty on time-scales of ∼40 Myr. Studying mini-quenched galaxies might aid in calibrating sub-grid models governing galaxy formation, as these may not generate sufficient burstiness at high redshift to explain the SFH inferred for JADES-GS-z7-01-QU.
Ribocentre-switch: a database of riboswitches
Authors: Bu Fan , Lin Xiaowei , Liao Wenjian , Lu Zhizhong , He Yuanlin , Luo Yuhang , Peng Xuemei , Li Mengxiao , Huang Yuanyin , Chen Xiaoxue , Xiao Bowen , Jiang Jiuhong , Deng Jie , Huang Jian , Lin Tianxin , Miao Zhichao , Huang Lin
Published: October 2023

Riboswitches are regulatory elements found in the untranslated regions (UTRs) of certain mRNA molecules. They typically comprise two distinct domains: an aptamer domain that can bind to specific small molecules, and an expression platform that controls gene expression. Riboswitches work by undergoing a conformational change upon binding to their specific ligand, thus activating or repressing the genes downstream. This mechanism allows gene expression regulation in response to metabolites or small molecules. To systematically summarise riboswitch structures and their related ligand binding functions, we present Ribocentre-switch, a comprehensive database of riboswitches, including the information as follows: sequences, structures, functions, ligand binding pockets and biological applications. It encompasses 56 riboswitches and 26 orphan riboswitches from over 430 references, with a total of 89 591 sequences. It serves as a good resource for comparing different riboswitches and facilitating the identification of potential riboswitch candidates. Therefore, it may facilitate the understanding of RNA structural conformational changes in response to ligand signaling. The database is publicly available at https://riboswitch.ribocentre.org.
Added prognostic value of 3D deep learning-derived features from preoperative MRI for adult-type diffuse gliomas
Authors: Lee Jung Oh , Ahn Sung Soo , Choi Kyu Sung , Lee Junhyeok , Jang Joon , Park Jung Hyun , Hwang Inpyeong , Park Chul-Kee , Park Sung Hye , Chung Jin Wook , Choi Seung Hong
Published: October 2023

Background

To investigate the prognostic value of spatial features from whole-brain MRI using a three-dimensional (3D) convolutional neural network for adult-type diffuse gliomas.

Methods

In a retrospective, multicenter study, 1925 diffuse glioma patients were enrolled from 5 datasets: SNUH (n = 708), UPenn (n = 425), UCSF (n = 500), TCGA (n = 160), and Severance (n = 132). The SNUH and Severance datasets served as external test sets. Precontrast and postcontrast 3D T1-weighted, T2-weighted, and T2-FLAIR images were processed as multichannel 3D images. A 3D-adapted SE-ResNeXt model was trained to predict overall survival. The prognostic value of the deep learning-based prognostic index (DPI), a spatial feature-derived quantitative score, and established prognostic markers were evaluated using Cox regression. Model evaluation was performed using the concordance index (C-index) and Brier score.

Results

The MRI-only median DPI survival prediction model achieved C-indices of 0.709 and 0.677 (BS = 0.142 and 0.215) and survival differences (P < 0.001 and P = 0.002; log-rank test) for the SNUH and Severance datasets, respectively. Multivariate Cox analysis revealed DPI as a significant prognostic factor, independent of clinical and molecular genetic variables: hazard ratio = 0.032 and 0.036 (P < 0.001 and P = 0.004) for the SNUH and Severance datasets, respectively. Multimodal prediction models achieved higher C-indices than models using only clinical and molecular genetic variables: 0.783 vs. 0.774, P = 0.001, SNUH; 0.766 vs. 0.748, P = 0.023, Severance.

Conclusions

The global morphologic feature derived from 3D CNN models using whole-brain MRI has independent prognostic value for diffuse gliomas. Combining clinical, molecular genetic, and imaging data yields the best performance.
Acceptability and feasibility of assisted telepsychiatry in routine healthcare settings in India: a qualitative study
Authors: Nadkarni Abhijit , Garg Ankur , Agrawal Ravindra , Sambari Seema , Mirchandani Kedar , Velleman Richard , Gupta Devika , Bhatia Urvita , Fernandes Godwin , D’souza Ethel , Amonkar Akshada , Rane Anil
Published: October 2023

Technology-enabled interventions are often recommended to overcome geographical barriers to access and inequitable distribution of mental healthcare workers. The aim of this study was to examine the acceptability and feasibility of an assisted telepsychiatry model implemented in primary care settings in India. In-depth interviews were conducted with patients who received telepsychiatry consultations. Data were collected about domains such as experience with communicating with psychiatrists over a video call and feasibility of accessing services. Data were analysed using a thematic analysis approach. Patients recognized that technology enabled them to access treatment and appreciated its contribution to the improvement in their mental health condition. They reported that the telepsychiatry experience was comparable to face-to-face consultations. They had a positive experience of facilitation by counsellors and found treatment delivery in primary care non-stigmatizing. While some adapted easily to the technology platform because of increased access to technology in their daily lives, others struggled to communicate over a screen. For some, availability of care closer to their homes was convenient; for others, even the little travel involved posed a financial burden. In some cases, the internet connectivity was poor and interfered with the video calls. Patients believed that scale could be achieved through adoption of this model by the public sector, collaboration with civil society, enhanced demand generation strategies and leveraging platforms beyond health systems. Assisted telepsychiatry integrated in routine healthcare settings has the potential to make scarce specialist mental health services accessible in low resource settings by overcoming geographical and logistical barriers.
Time Travel without Hyperkinesis
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This is the first chapter of The Paradoxes of Time Travel. In The Paradoxes of Time Travel Lewis argues that time travel as it is imagined in certain science fiction narratives is a genuine possibility. In his own words, Lewis aimed, ‘(1) to solve a philosophical problem hitherto largely ignored or casually mis-solved by philosophers […]; (2) to introduce the layman to various topics in metaphysics, since our problem turns out to connect with many more familiar ones; and (3) to show several of my favorite doctrines and methods in metaphysics’. In the course of his 6 lectures, Lewis lays out his Quinean four-dimensionalist metaphysics and explains how our ordinary concept of person allows for causal loops. This requires a notion of ‘reverse causation’ which Lewis explains by analysing causation in counterfactual terms. Finally, Lewis elaborates on the sense in which we can and cannot be intelligibly said to be free to change the past.
Rational Belief: Statics
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This is the second chapter of Confirmation Theory. Confirmation Theory is a book manuscript that Lewis wrote in 1969 on the basis of a course he’d given at UCLA. He submitted the manuscript to Harvard University Press who expressed an interest. It consists of seven chapters covering intensional semantics, probability measures, rational belief, principles of indifference and Carnap and Hintikka’s inductive systems. The work was intended to be accessible to students with, as Lewis put it, ‘hairy high-school algebra’. He described the manuscript to Richard Jeffrey as ‘Mathematically self-contained, with proofs for the major theorems’. Lewis originally envisaged that Carnap’s The Continuum of Inductive Methods (1952) be used as an accompanying text. Lewis focused on Carnap and Hintikka in particular because he believed that their work constituted the attractive core of what competing theories of confirmation had in common.
Reply to Sommers’ “Composite Things” (1969)
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This is a brief draft reply to Fred Sommers’ ‘Structural Ontology’. The paper, dating from 1969, was handwritten by Lewis, and apparently never fully finished. In this reply Lewis grapples with the extensions required for Sommers’ distinction between being P and un-P for some predicate P, and raises some sceptical questions about Sommers’ argument for phenomenalism, suggesting that it would generalise to apply to machines as well as persons.
Insatiable Quantifiers (1972)
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This short paper, dating from 1972, is related in its content to Lewis’s 1975 paper ‘Adverbs of Quantification’. In it Lewis lays out the semantic advantages of ‘insatiable quantifiers’, namely quantifiers which bind all variables in their scope. Lewis discusses the application of such quantifiers to donkey sentences.
To the Thursday Logic Seminar (1976)
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This is a short note, written by Lewis in 1976. It is inspired by Lewis’s contribution to the discussion session of a paper by Richard Epstein at Victoria University of Wellington in 1976. Lewis’s note is a brief but specific proposal working out his suggestion to Epstein that in relevance logics, the relevance relation between sentences could be modelled as a relation of subject matter overlap: Lewis proposes an assignment of subject matters to sentences such that sentences are relevant iff their subject matters overlap.
Russian Roulette (1984)
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

In this short paper, dating from 1984, Lewis poses a problem for what he calls the ‘Sure Thing Principle’, which says that rational agents ought to pay equivalent amounts to avoid risk in equivalent situations. Lewis’s problem case relies on taking equivalently risky cases of Russian Roulette presented under different-sounding descriptions.
Acceptance Speech for the Behrman Award (1991)
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

In this short paper, dating from 1991, Lewis offers an overview of his overall views on philosophy, his historical ancestors and influences, and the methodology of philosophy.
Modal Demifictionalism (1994)
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

In this short paper, dating from 1994, Lewis considers the question whether his opponents, Pettit and Menzies, who take a fictionalist attitude towards possible worlds, can state their view in such a way that the truth of ‘necessarily, if pigs fly, then there are many worlds’ or some equivalent statement is accounted for. He concludes that they cannot.
Nihil Obstat: An Analysis of Ability (2001)
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This is an outline, dating from 2001, of a paper Lewis had planned to write on ability. He argues that compatibilists about free will ought to take ability as absence of obstacles, and considers the question what an obstacle is.
Double Explanation by Double Having (2001)
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This short piece is the introduction of a paper Lewis had begun to write in May 2001 and never finished. Lewis argues that the problem of the statue and the clay can be solved by appealing to distinct statue-counterparts and clay-counterparts for the same actual object, likening his solution to Quine’s scepticism about essence.
Quick Impact Projects
Authors: Oksamytna Kseniya
Published: October 2023

Quick impact projects emerged in the early 2000s due to the Brahimi Panel’s ‘authority talk’. The Panel operated under favourable circumstances. It had an image as an independent, representative, knowledgeable, and cohesive group of experts led by a figure of significant international stature. While the chair and the panellists enjoyed an image of impartiality, they also had an insider status in UN circles due to their long and distinguished careers in diplomacy, peacekeeping, and humanitarian affairs. Quick impact projects were a specific and not very salient recommendation, coming across as intuitive and commonsensical. Quick impact projects’ low salience compared favourably with the more significant and controversial Brahimi Report’s recommendation on mission integration, so humanitarian and development actors focused their energy on opposing the latter rather than the former. The absence of other voices discussing the issue made the Brahimi Panel the only source of information, adding to its authoritativeness. Other favourable conditions included a cultural match with UN values of assistance and the crisis of peacekeeping. The Secretariat developed unofficial guidance on quick impact projects in 2006 and official policy in 2007. While there were posts, units, and committees at the mission level to select and manage quick impact projects, there was no dedicated section at headquarters. Some financial contributors questioned the necessity of quick impact projects beyond the start-up stage, yet quick impact projects grew in size and scope. They also contributed to the legitimization of programmatic funding in peacekeeping.
Vegetable Genius
Authors: Biagioli Mario
Published: October 2023

Over time, many scholars have looked at how breeders, farmers, and scientists have attempted to codify and protect the value they saw in the plants they had selectively bred or modified. This chapter looks at this process from a different direction: analysing the role that the figure of the plant has played in the conceptual development of intellectual property law. Through an analysis of eighteenth-century theoretical works on literary originality, it argues that the very notion of genius—the romantic trope central to the development of copyright law—has vegetable roots. The chapter also argues that what made the figure of the plant and of organic growth remarkable is its enduring capacity to capture the conceptual conundrums embedded in intellectual property law, for both supporters and critics, from the eighteenth century to the present.
Novelties, Frauds, and Protections
Authors: Kevles Daniel J
Published: October 2023

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, only a limited number of commercial seed, fruit, and flower houses and nurseries were operating in the United States. Their catalogues did littlr to differentiate and brand their products. Practices changed in the 1820s as a result of the transportation revolution, westward migration, and expanding markets which enlarged competition and put a premium on innovation. Seed houses and plant nurseries sought to protect their investments in the creation or acquisition of novelties by branding their products. However, cheats could offer fraudulent or adulterated seeds, fruit trees, or vines under the branded name. Purchasers would be none the wiser because it was virtually impossible to tell what plant or plant quality seeds or seedlings would eventually produce. This chapter shows the strategies that nurseries and seed houses devised to protect their brands and ultimately to recognize and begin to defend the intellectual property in the products the brands represented.
Maxwell’s equations
Authors: Maggiore Michele
Published: October 2023

We introduce Maxwell’s equations and we begin to extract their consequences. We assume that the reader already has an elementary knowledge of the basic phenomenology of electrostatic and magnetostatic phenomena, from a first course of electromagnetism, and we proceed in a more formal and advanced manner. We first present Maxwell’s equations, both in the local and the integrated form. We then show how they imply conservation laws for the electric charge and for energy, momentum and angular momentum, and we identify the energy, momentum and angular momentum of the electromagnetic field, with the latter two written in terms of the Poynting vector. We then introduce the gauge potentials, which play a fundamental role at the conceptual level. Their introduction also brings in the notion of gauge invariance, of which electromagnetism is the prototype, and which is fundamental to all modern theoretical physics.
Does Peace Take Care of Itself?
Authors: Wight Martin
Published: October 2023

This review-essay offers a critical analysis of F. H. Hinsley’s 1963 book, Power and the Pursuit of Peace: Theory and Practice in the History of Relations between States. Wight notes that peace could in principle be established through imperial dominance or agreements providing for a federation or confederation. The failures of these efforts—and recurrent wars—could ultimately lead to one power imposing “a durable hegemony” or even “a universal state.” In contrast, Hinsley embraces the Kantian argument that “peace will take care of itself,” thanks to “a fundamental historical trend … towards the containment and obsolescence of war.” In Hinsley’s view, the enhanced power of public opinion will promote peace in conjunction with “the increased administrative control of increasingly cautious and responsive state-machines over the means of violence.” Moreover, “growing cultural approximation … will make political unification unnecessary,” at least in the short term. In the end, Wight observes, Hinsley presents “only a short-term forecast” that disregards “how every known system of states hitherto has ended in political unification through an ascending series of wars.” Wight concludes that Hinsley’s work will not undermine the belief that “foreign policy should have some concern with bringing war under political control and strengthening the rudiments of international government.”
War and Peace: Nuclear Weapons and Change in International Politics
Authors: Wight Martin
Published: October 2023

Wight asked, “Have international politics fundamentally changed by reason of the application of nuclear power to war since 1945?” According to John Herz, Wight observed, in “the twentieth century … the hard shell of the territorial state … dissolved, owing to economic blockade, ideological penetration, air warfare, and finally atomic warfare.” Wight pointed out, however, that “territorial impermeability in politics and strategy, like sovranty in the sphere of law, was never more than an imperfectly attained ideal for most states in international society. We easily forget that most states in international society, at most times, are small and weak, and that Great Powers are few, elite, and in a sort of aristocracy. … It might be argued that territorial impermeability has been the mark not of any state but only of Great Powers. … The change that has taken place in international politics, then, is not so much that the state has ceased to be the ultimate protector of our lives and interests, since for the most part it has never been that, except notionally; but that Great Powers have ceased to be exceptions to this rule and have been downgraded and assimilated to Minor Powers. … In international affairs every country has always had, in principle, two alternatives to peace. One is submission. The other is war.”
From the League to the UN
Authors: Wight Martin
Published: October 2023

If Britain and France had opposed Germany on the principles of the Covenant of the League of Nations, they would have put resistance to Hitler upon “a higher footing.” “It is insufficiently recognized that the resistance to Hitler was morally and legally identical with the resistance to the previous attempts to dominate Europe, from imperial Germany back to Counter-Reformation Spain. … None of Hitler’s opponents went to war with him for a moral or juridical principle; all of them acted in desperation and self-defence; Britain and France when they saw that their betrayal of Czechoslovakia had failed of its purpose, and all the other Powers when they were individually attacked. … Nevertheless the League idea … kept on creeping back. National self-defence against aggression was not enough. The idea persisted that the Allied powers were a collective body with standards and aims that distinguished them from the Axis. … Under the UN … the small powers have fewer rights than they had under the League; the Great Powers on the other hand accept fewer restraints than they did under the League and retain an unqualified right to go to war whenever they please. … Our retrogression has been so rapid and has gone so far that it is still difficult to take the measure of it. There are still those who do not want to face it and who talk of the UN being an advance upon the League.”
The Power Struggle within the United Nations
Authors: Wight Martin
Published: October 2023

Wight saw the three-cornered power struggle in the United Nations as dominated by the Communist Powers led by the Soviet Union; the status quo Powers such as Britain, France, and the United States, bound together by “neither constitutional government nor democratic values, but a common interest in the existing international distribution of power and wealth;” and the “have-not powers,” often termed “the Afro-Asian bloc or the Bandung Powers.” In Wight’s words, “Perhaps the essence of the have-not powers is to be found in a state of mind, a motive, in which resentment, a sense of inferiority, and self-pity are prime ingredients.” As Wight observed, “It was not contemplated at San Francisco that the United Nations should be an organization for collective intervention in the domestic affairs of its members. Yet … the United Nations is tending to become an instrument of the have-not and Communist Powers for promoting revolutionary movements. … The United Nations is useful as a clearing-house for minor disputes. It cannot settle big issues; these are settled, if at all, as they have always been, in direct negotiation between the powers directly concerned; thus the Korean armistice was reached, and thus the Indo-China crisis was handled at Geneva in 1954. No government or army chiefs regard membership in the United Nations as adding anything to the security of their country, except in so far as the rulers of weak states calculate its publicity advantages.”
Review of Barbara Ward, Policy for the West (London: Penguin, 1951)
Authors: Wight Martin
Published: October 2023

In the inter-war period, collective security was regarded as “the only means of transforming the international anarchy into a rule of law.” Since the Second World War, owing to the division of the world into two blocs, the West’s policy become one of containment. This policy assumes that “war is not inevitable, and that a combination of strength and patience in the West will control further Communist aggression.” In Ward’s words, the West’s pursuit of this policy ought to be “sustained, calm, and supremely positive.” In Wight’s view, Ward’s merits in making this case for containment stand out as “clarity of principle—a fervent but critical attachment to the traditions of the West; intellectual span—the power of seeing the political and economic world-picture as a whole; and hopefulness of temper.”
Review of John H. Herz, International Politics in the Atomic Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959)
Authors: Wight Martin
Published: October 2023

In Wight’s view, “Herz’s estimate of the contemporary strategic revolution follows from his picture of the classical state-system. Ideological conflict and nuclear weapons have, in principle, replaced territorial impermeability by mutual pervasion, ‘so that the power of everyone is present everywhere simultaneously,’ and in the two Great Powers the extreme of military strength coincides with the extreme of vulnerability. But here, once again, it might be permissible to reduce the emphasis on discontinuity with the past. In every age the majority of Powers have been Small Powers, and for them territorial impermeability, like legal sovereignty, has been largely a fiction. Effective impermeability has been a mark of Great Power status (witness Soviet anger over the U2). Similarly, the Clausewitzian doctrine of war as imposing your will on the enemy may need reformulation. It might be truer if transposed into the negative, saying that most Powers in most ages have seen war as the means to prevent the enemy (usually a neighbouring Great Power) from imposing his will on them, by maintaining forces to discourage any but the most determined attack. This is what we now call deterrence. On such a view, the chief political consequence of the strategic revolution has been to reduce the Great Powers to the Small Powers’ condition of permeability, and to adopting a deterrent instead of an acquisitive conception of war.”
Expanding Empire: Curiosity, Power, and Prestige
Authors: Stahn Carsten
Published: October 2023

This chapter explores the genealogy and different modes of extractive colonial collecting. It develops a typology of takings and forms of violence. It illustrates practices from the sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century through selected micro-histories of objects taken, including the Rosetta stone, the Koh-i-Noor, and Benjarmasin diamonds, the Gweagal shield, or the Parthenon Marbles. The different stories show that the objectification and taking of things was not only driven by curiosity, exoticism, commercial interests, or an urge for preservation of cultural heritage (‘rescue’ ideology, nostalgia), but an inherent part of inter-colonial rivalry, performative features, and the method of colonization, bolstering the colonizers’ claim to superiority and involving a taking of ownership and cultural identity.
The Scramble for Cultural Colonial Objects: Other Types of Acquisition
Authors: Stahn Carsten
Published: October 2023

This chapter demonstrates how collectors, traders, or missionaries benefited from colonial contexts. It argues that market labels, such as purchase or the idea of a ‘gift’ do not necessarily reflect the context of colonial transactions. It also traces forms of resistance to colonial narratives and the social transformation of objects. It demonstrates entanglements through object histories from different colonial contexts (settler colonialism, extractive colonialism, and colonial occupation), namely: (1) the Māori ancestral house from Tūranga; (2) Moai Hoa Hakananai (1868); (3) the ‘Great Zimbabwe Birds’; (4) the Bangwa ‘Queen’ and the Ngonnso statue; (5) the grand canoe from Luf in German New Guinea; (6) missionary collecting of minkisi power figures in the Congo; (7) the gifting of King Nsangu’s throne; (8) the ‘sale’ and return of the Olokun head from Ife; (9) the removal of Nefertiti from British occupied Egypt; and (10) the Venus of Cyrene and the Axum Obkelisk.
Acknowledging the Past, Righting the Future: Changing Ethical and Legal Frames
Authors: Stahn Carsten
Published: October 2023

This chapter traces the dialectics between ethics and law in the return of cultural colonial objects. It challenges the claim that takings were acceptable according to the ethics or laws of the time. It analyses changing ethical frames and museum guidelines, before presenting different legal models to engage with past and ongoing injustices: responsibility for past wrong, complicity in ongoing structures, and contemporary duties to provide access to cultural heritage. It shows that the dual focus on acknowledgement of the past, and righting the future, challenges the ‘fatalistic view’ which ‘sees the people of today’ imprisoned ‘by a past that pre-dates their own existence’. It claims that the social biography of objects may turn museums into spaces of transitional justice. It illustrates at the same time some of the critiques of existing frameworks, such as the risk of neutralizing violence or seeking guilt relief, and proposes a rethinking of semantics.