bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
On Genre, History, and Invention in the Analysis of Creative Processes in Music
Authors: Born Georgina
Published: March 2021

The chapter opens by reviewing recent directions in analyzing the creative process in music: research focused on the performer as creative actor, the contributions of nonhuman actors, the conditions within which the composer works, and the creative process as underdetermined and emergent. The chapter assesses the explanatory power of these directions and the extent to which they can be integrated, arguing that such approaches are necessary but not sufficient. Instead, the chapter proposes the need for anti-reductionist, explanatory accounts that probe the historicity of the creative process, the temporalities in which it is entangled, and how these relate to both the complexities of aesthetic identification and disidentification and the institutional conditions within which creativity proceeds—the last two issues highlighted by theories of genre. Thinking of the creative process in music in relation to genre highlights its profoundly social and temporal nature and how it cannot be reduced to individual creators and their actions.
Out of the Frame
Authors: Barham Jeremy
Published: March 2021

This chapter considers the philosophy of live-score film screenings in contexts of filmic diegesis, representation, and illusion. These performances hybridize categories of spatial co-presence/absence and temporal simultaneity/anteriority in media communication, disrupting the balance between audio-visual documenting and constructing of a posited prior event. They revisit a pre-sound-era aesthetic which by nature resisted the modernist need for a centered subject position and a uniform spectatorial space in which all sounds must appear to emanate from the screen. Such cinematic listening experiences undermine theories of film as cohesive illusion by inscribing the “real” (live music) into what is “represented.” Live ensembles conjure up the dramaturgical fantasy space of the operatic orchestra pit, hindering recipients’ “disavowal of the apparatus” and yet increasing the sense of film’s Aristotelian mimetic enactment, rather than its distanced diegetic recounting. This practice invites us to rethink ideas of diegesis and music’s role in creating filmic worlds.
“You Sorta Listen with Your Eyes”
Authors: Barker Martin
Published: March 2021

What might investigation of audience responses to films reveal about the role that music plays in responses, understandings, and evaluations? Peter Larsen’s excellent Film Music (2005) examines the “paradox” that audiences sense the importance of music to their experience of films—but often can’t recall it. While Larsen’s critical remarks are sharp and apposite, his discussion is limited by a tendency to talk of “the audience” in the singular. That actual audience research doesn’t figure in his account is not surprising, given how little such research has yet been done. This chapter draws on materials from a major audience research project to help formulate provisional findings and proposals for future research. What these suggest is that audiences use “music” (only sometimes distinguished from other sound-sources) for a range of purposes, from emotional heightening to cueing of understanding, knowledge of narrative developments to more complex determinations of cultural appropriateness.
Hearing the Shadows at the Chat Noir’s Pre-cinematic Theatre
Authors: Sala Emilio
Published: March 2021

In the methodological introduction to his book Silent Film Sound (2004), Rick Altman focused his attention on “the extremely diverse pre-cinema practices that served as early models for film sound.” The aim of this chapter is to closely examine one such practice: that of the Chat Noir’s Shadow Theatre between 1886 and 1897. The first part of the chapter analyzes the different kinds of music that were used to accompany the shadow plays at the Parisian cabaret. The latter part focuses on the reconfiguration of the shadow plays after the closure of the Chat Noir cabaret (1897), exploring how Maison Mazo transformed the Chat Noir’s “ombres artistiques” into a mediatized and industrial production, while also promoting their artistic character in opposition to cinema’s photographic realism.
Old(er) Media and New Musical Affordances in Virtual Reality Experiences
Authors: Kamp Michiel
Published: March 2021

This chapter explores how recent virtual reality experiences (from 2010 onward) have remediated musical “protocols” of older audiovisual media such as film, video games, and music videos while creating a number of new affordances that draw attention to the newness of VR. Soundtrack and music video protocols in 360° videos such as Lost and Gorillaz’s “Saturnz Barz” emphasize the affordance of looking for a sound source, while the addition of an ambient musical soundtrack to the VR remediation of Google Earth emphasizes the user’s bodily presence in the virtual environment. Critiquing and expanding the notion of VR as a form of what Bolter and Grusin would call “transparent immediacy,” the chapter suggests that the music in these VR applications also facilitates experiences of hypermediacy, foregrounding the apparatus and idiosyncrasies of a new medium.
Tasteful Networks of Attention
Authors: Szczepaniak-Gillece Jocelyn
Published: March 2021

Many moments in the history of American exhibition illuminate the entanglement of hearing and discipline. But few point as clearly at the intertwining of listening, class, architecture, language, taste, and technology—all of which culminate in a particular dispositif of institutional indoctrination via sensory discipline—as the art house theatre and its promise of aspirational uplift for the price of good audience behavior. This chapter considers the relationship between exhibition, subtitling, sense-making lingual sound, cinephilia, spectatorship, and discipline in the late-1950s and early-1960s art house cinemas across the United States. It argues that spectators were trained for import film watching by the practice of subtitling foreign, especially European, cinema. Listening, watching, and interpreting the balance between the two thus constituted a network of proper attention that helped indoctrinate post-war spectators into post-war American taste and leisure culture.
The Market
Authors: Watson Matthew
Published: March 2021

The market has no independent objective existence beyond the practices that are embedded within particular market institutions. Those practices, in turn, involve learning particular techniques of performance, on the assumption that each market environment rewards a corresponding type of market agency. However, the ability to reflect what might be supposed the right agential characteristics is not an instinct that is hardwired into us from birth. Instead it comes from perfecting the specific performance elements that allow people to recognize themselves as potentially competent actors in any given market context. This chapter takes the reader back to some of the earliest accounts of these performance elements, showing that important eighteenth-century debates about how to flourish as a market actor revolved around little else. In the early eighteenth century, Daniel Defoe emphasized the need for market actors to create convincing falsehoods, hiding their true feelings behind a presentation of self where customers’ whims were always catered to. In the late eighteenth century, Adam Smith was still wrestling with the dilemma of how genuinely the self could be put on display within market environments, believing that customers had a responsibility to curb excessive demands so that merchants’ interests could be respected. This meant not forcing them into knowingly false declarations, so that moral propriety and economic expedience were not necessarily antagonistic forces in the development of merchants’ character.
Empire
Authors: Charrett Catherine Chiniara
Published: March 2021

Frontiers on land and bodies are performative of imperial expansion and acceleration. This chapter argues that frontier sites are especially productive of imperial formations, as they expose inconsistencies and excesses that are met with a particular rage and discipline. As such, frontier sites are productive of iterations of imperial violence, which includes the construction of new infrastructures and technologies of violence, as well as the discursive justification for this violent apparatus. Palestine is a frontier of imperial formations that is productive of war technologies, but also a site where debates over the legitimization of the use of this violence takes place. Performances on the frontiers of empire such as Palestine are constitutive of subject and subjectivities on resistance and settler colonialism in global politics. The marking of Hamas as terrorists is central to the coding and interpretations of Palestine in public discourses. The democratic election of Hamas troubled the coding of the movement as an illegitimate terrorist Other, which was met with a performative anxiety and rage by the European Union. The EU had headed the election-monitoring mission in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and they had declared the elections transparent, free. and fair. Their response, however, was to diplomatically and financially sanction Hamas, which had profound consequences for Palestinian governance. Hamas and Gaza exposed fault lines in empire’s attempt to defend its use of violence. and as such they are also productive of new forms of enacting imperial violence. The chapter explores the performances of Tania El Khoury, whose work uses intimate scenes and audience interactivity to foreground the pain and oppression of imperial violence. Performance acts as a cultural frontier that negotiates and expresses subversive and resistant meanings of violence in global politics.
Authenticity and Theatricality
Authors: Kear Adrian
Published: March 2021

The image of the disaster at sea—the shipwreck staged for the spectator—is a highly conventionalized form of aesthetic encounter with the suffering of others, whose iconic operation serves as a reminder of the inseparability of the event from its mode of representation. The drama of the image, the chapter argues, remains dependent on the visual dramaturgy of the event of representation (its theatricality), and the construction of a spectator position framing the image’s withdrawal from the world of pure presentation (its authenticity). The chapter investigates the relationship between the apparent authenticity of the scenes depicted and their reliance on the theatricality of the image as the locus of the spectator’s political subjectification. It argues that the image functions as a drama staged to enable the construction of world spectatorship as a privileged political standpoint and demonstrates how this position operates within a racialized representational regime.
Adaptation and Environment
Authors: Angelaki Vicky
Published: March 2021

This chapter engages with the process of greening the theatrical canon by taking on the example of a significant play within the Ibsen oeuvre and within naturalism more broadly, Rosmersholm. As this chapter contends, productions such as those that Rosmersholm received at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London in 2019, adapted by the playwright Duncan Macmillan and directed by Ian Rickson, can serve well as paradigms for how the greening of the canon can work in practice, and how, similarly, we might recalibrate our critical reading to allow environmental concerns to emerge as primary while, at the same time, recognizing these as profoundly intertwined with issues relating to community, justice, politics, and social progress.
Constituency Performances
Authors: Crewe Emma , Sarra Nicholas
Published: March 2021

The representation of a constituency is at the heart of most democracies. In many countries an elected representative acts as a bridge between a parliament and a locality, while members of the parliament as a collective mediate between the center and the whole of that nation. This chapter explains why a methodological approach that relies on collaborative ethnography and multidisciplinary theorizing is a powerful way to probe the performances, identities, and emotions underlying the work of elected politicians. Taking a relational and performative approach, the chapter considers how these relationships in politics are not merely about interests, roles, or viewpoints; politicians have the power of evocation and so are important to people’s imagination and feeling of belonging. Politicians who ignore the sacred—the ritual, symbolism, and drama of politics—and merely try to impress voters with their ideological standpoints, will find it harder to secure support.
Comedy and the Performative Politics of Brexit
Authors: Brassett James
Published: March 2021

The chapter engages the outpouring of Brexit comedy as an important case study of the politics of humor. On one hand, the literature on comedy and politics has identified the subversive potential of jokes as a form of everyday resistance. On the other hand, sociological approaches have emphasized the role of stereotype and humiliation in jokes as part of a disciplinary function of humor. Building on these insights, the chapter reads prominent debates within comedy about Brexit as a vernacular form of politics. Jokes and satire perform and reperform discourses of identity. The chapter argues we should rephrase “Brexit comedy” or “the comedy of Brexit” as a socially consequential practice that teases at the (changing) social and political consensus.
Performance and Citizenship
Authors: Szeman Ioana
Published: March 2021

This chapter proposes the citizenship gap as a paradigm that connects the experiences of migrants and minorities who have legal citizenship but few de facto rights and uses a performance lens to bring scholarship on citizenship in conversation with research on migration and minorities. It argues that the concepts of performance and performativity allow us to grasp modes of citizenship that do not follow verbal, logocentric interactions and are not directly addressed to the state and state institutions and to follow the citizenship gap as it is experienced in people’s daily lives. Using an intersectional lens and ethnographic research with Roma in Romania, the chapter follows the performative and everyday iterations and enactments of citizenship among different Roma. It argues that the concepts of the public and audience in theorizations of citizenship need to be reconfigured to include Roma, other minorities, and migrants more generally, and shows how Roma artists and activists claim countercultural citizenship and belonging in a variety of media and through acts of citizenship that may otherwise be overlooked.
From Exile to Migration
Authors: Meerzon Yana
Published: March 2021

This chapter discusses the aesthetics and ethics of staging exile and migration as one of the focus points in the political theater of today. It argues that political theater has the power to engage with the strategies of critical countermapping of migration. Using affect, immersion, and embodiment, it can rehumanize migrants, the underclass, and national abjects. It can also stage the uniqueness of individual journeys within the impersonality of the global movements. Political theater can give voice to an asylum seeker and can return dignity to a victim. Telling stories about migration and confronting the bodies of the performers-refugees with the bodies of the spectators–their hosts, it can turn a nameless migrant into a proper individual, someone who possesses their personal history, memory, agency, and identity. Bringing stories of migration to the homes of those people who practice mixophobia, political theater can make the stranger relatable. The play The Jungle (2017), written by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin for the Good Chance Theatre, and presented by the National Theatre and the Young Vic in London, serves this chapter as its primary example of how political theater can educate its audiences about the other and help them realize that this other is already within us.
The Force of the Somatic Norm
Authors: Puwar Nirmal
Published: March 2021

Formal sites of politics assume the presence of particular types of bodies. Even though they may be legally open to all, there is a somatic norm. Namely particular dispositions, racialized and gendered configurations, have come to stand in as the normative figures of parliaments. Positions of political leadership are, historically and conceptually, reserved for some bodies over and above others. This chapter offers a tool of analysis for making sense of the tenuous location of “space invaders,” those who are not deemed to be normative figures, within institutional domains. The specific empirical focus of this chapter is upon the parliamentary representative institution Westminster. The framework points to how change and sedimentation occur together in line with the pervading centrifugal force of the somatic norm, a public figure that is historically and conceptually produced. Thinking globally, the white masculine figure of legislative political leadership is clearly not the norm in large parts of the world. Nonetheless he is a norm that has a bearing upon global political leadership, including in places where women have a strong numerical presence in parliament, such as Nordic countries and some countries in Africa and Latin American.
Postmemory
Authors: Blejmar Jordana
Published: March 2021

This chapter addresses the links between memory, politics, and performance in the works of the so-called postmemory generations in Latin America, composed of those who were born or grew up during the dictatorships and internal conflicts that shattered the region during the second half of the twentieth century. It specifically discusses two plays: Villa+Discurso (Villa+Speech), written and directed by the Chilean dramaturge Guillermo Calderón, and Cuarto Intermedio: Guía práctica para juicios de lesa humanidad (Recess: A practical guide for trials of crimes against humanity), directed by the Argentine filmmaker Juan Schnitman and performed by the writer Félix Bruzzone, a son of disappeared parents, and Mónica Zwaig, a French lawyer and actress. Both Villa+Discurso and Cuarto intermedio touch upon Latin America’s bleakest crimes but without solemnity and with (dark) humor, and raise important and uncomfortable questions, such as who decides what to do with the material traces of the painful past, and what is our responsibility, our implication, to shared national traumas. Both plays claim that (post)memory is not merely a familial and private issue but is also a collective effort. Moreover (post)memory is presented here not so much as a representation, a recollection, or even a reenactment of the past, but as concrete actions and political interventions in the present. Thus the focus in this chapter is not only on the content of these plays (how postmemory is represented) but, more important, on the effects, and affects, that they produce on and beyond the stage.
The Nation as Family
Authors: Anan Nobuko
Published: March 2021

This chapter examines mother-child love linked to love for the nation within two Japanese plays. In Rio Kishida’s Thread Hell (1984), a pre–World War II silk factory represents the Japanese Empire, where a mother and her daughter are manipulated by the nation. However, they eventually challenge this symbolic realm that forces women to sustain the national lineage through their reproductive function. In Hideki Noda’s MIWA (2015), a homosexual transvestite’s relationship with his mother in the postwar period is depicted. As resistance to heteronormative ideas about family, and the nation as its extension, he commits matricide, but this leads to his melancholia as he cannot fully give up his desire to belong to a “normal” family and nation. These plays explore the ways individuals develop a critical relation to the nation by reconfiguring their love for their mother.
Scripts, Authority, and Legitimacy
Authors: Strauss Julia C.
Published: March 2021

Although it is widely recognized that performance permeates politics, there is surprisingly little agreement on how politics in performance plays out across different political and cultural environments. Focusing on the script as both written text and mutually constituted social role that attempts to reinforce legitimacy, this chapter develops two typologies. The first considers the script itself as either optimistic or pessimistic and that appeals to either reason or the emotions; the second how the script is imbricated with its prospective target audience(s) and the degree to which it attempts to divide or unite and either is closed or permits room for improvisation. It develops these typologies by comparing and contrasting the political performances of Xi Jinping and his optimistic and unifying “China Dream” in the increasingly authoritarian People’s Republic of China with the divisive, antitechnocratic jeremiad performances of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson in the United States and the United Kingdom. It concludes that in other political contexts the substance of political performance scripts, the ways in which scripts engage audiences, and how they are modified over time are likely to vary, but to do so in patterned ways.
The Just Savings Principle
Authors: Brandstedt Eric
Published: March 2021

This chapter situates John Rawls’ just savings principle in a discussion about how much a nation-state should save. The main question addressed is whether this principle is a viable alternative to the dominant utilitarian theory of optimal growth. Rawls certainly gives savings a different aim (i.e., to create and maintain just institutions) and introduces additional permissibility conditions on reaching this goal (i.e., the necessary burdens should be fairly shared between generations). He thereby gives rise to the field of research now known as intergenerational justice. To assess the relative merits of the just savings principle, however, more details are needed; and this chapter aims to supply some of them. First, the principle of just savings is given a more determinate form whereby it is understood as a two-stage combination of a priority principle at the stage of institutional development and a difference principle at the maintenance stage. Second, some of its practical bearings are explored (i.e., its implications for real-life savings decisions). Among other things, the idea that the principle leads to a steady-state economy is problematized, and its relevance to concrete problems, such as climate change and the design of pension schemes, is assessed.
Creative Transformation, the Bible, and China
Authors: Yeo K. K.
Published: March 2021

This essay serves to introduce the structure and master themes of this Handbook, which showcases critical-descriptive evidence and the creative impact of the Bible in China and to the world. After a brief stocktaking of the Chinese Bible, the essay sets the agenda by explaining four synchronizing and transformative moves of the Chinese Bible: its translation into China’s languages and dialects; its expression in Chinese literary and religious contexts; its interpretation methods; and its reception in the institutions and arts of China. The essay ends with reflections on three critical issues of the significant role of the Bible over thirteen centuries of Chinese history and Chinese cultures. It also seeks to examine the thesis that, while the Bible is an ancient text, it is not a relic of the past, and the culturally enlivened Chinese Bible has been a living text for China.
Chinese Buddhist Writings and the Bible
Authors: Boyun Liu
Published: March 2021

This essay examines the influence of Buddhist writings on the Bible. In the Tang dynasty, when the Church of the East reached China, they did not hold onto the idea of fixed Scripture in the form of an Old and a New Testament. The growing Buddhist canon had its impact on Tang Christians’ concept of authoritative text. As a result, the clergy produced a wide range of sūtras as their canon. They also appropriated many Buddhist terms, but managed to keep their Christian doctrines intact. Later Bible translations show little Buddhist influence, but we can still see traces of Buddhist vocabulary.
Sino-Christian Theology and the Bible
Authors: Lai Pan-chiu
Published: March 2021

This essay offers an analysis of the relationship of Sino-Christian theology, a cultural qua theological movement flourishing in contemporary China, with the Bible. Based on a survey of the articles published in Logos & Pneuma: Chinese Journal of Theology (Dao Feng), the organ journal of Sino-Christian theology, and some other relevant publications, it argues that due to the political atmosphere, the institutional restriction, and the intellectual as well as religious orientations of the relevant scholars, Sino-Christian theology had made very limited efforts in developing biblical studies as an academic discipline in mainland China until the mid-2000s or so. Since then, the publications related to biblical studies proliferated dramatically in mainland China, and some approaches to biblical studies with certain Chinese characteristics have been developed. It is expected that some innovative approaches to the Bible as well as biblical studies will be further developed in the Chinese-speaking world.
Scriptural Reasoning in China
Authors: Bin You
Published: March 2021

Interreligious learning through cross reading the Scriptures, including the Christian Bible, has been a long-standing cultural phenomenon in China. The essay looks at the recent reception and experimental practice of Scriptural Reasoning (SR) in China in the last twenty years, and the extensions of SR made by Chinese scholars, for instance, the transformation of SR to a discipline of Comparative Scripture, the integration of SR with ancient Chinese values of deep learning in border crossing, and an inclusion of Chinese religious Scriptures in SR, etc. A report and evaluation of a ten-month experimental practice of SR at Minzu University of China follows. And finally, the essay identifies some prospects for SR in China, including promoting the practice of SR among religious communities, developing a systematic interpretation of sacred texts with the inspiration from SR, and a deep combining of SR, methodologically and theoretically, with the study of history of Chinese religions.
The Bible and Iconography in China
Authors: Standaert Nicolas
Published: March 2021

This essay discusses the link between Bible and iconography in China (seventeenth–eighteenth centuries) in three steps: first it sketches the background of the use of images in the Jesuit tradition in Europe—didactic use, visual meditation, spiritual exercises; next, it gives an overview of the major publications or productions in China by dividing them into sources from the late Ming (1582–1644) and early Qing (1644–1722); finally, it sketches how Chinese and European traditions were interwoven in these images. The essay underscores the fact that biblical iconography had a didactic function of using a narrative approach to mission by preaching the life of Christ with the support of images.
The Basset-Su Chinese new Testament
Authors: Gang Song
Published: March 2021

This essay examines the first Chinese New Testament translated by the missionary of the Paris Foreign Missions Society (M.E.P.) Jean Basset (1662–1707) in collaboration with Confucian convert Johan Su in the early Qing period. Though they did not complete a full translation of the New Testament, the work carried unique characteristics that went beyond the limitations of its time. One of the original manuscripts also exerted direct influence on nineteenth-century Protestant translations. With in-depth analysis of this exemplary piece among early Catholic endeavors, the essay addresses a set of key concerns that have not been sufficiently studied, including Basset’s vision of a Chinese Bible, the translation principle and techniques, Christian and Chinese terminology, and the interface of biblical translations and Chinese language and literature. The findings of this study offer fresh insights and facilitate a re-evaluation of Catholic contributions and legacy in the history of the Bible in China.
Development of Chinese Dialect Bibles
Authors: Rujie You
Published: March 2021

Bible versions in China are classified into five categories: the classical literary (high wenli) version; the simpler literary (easy wenli) version; the Mandarin version; the dialects version; and the national language version. This essay surveys the history and characteristics of the major Chinese dialect Bibles, including many dialects of the following regions: Wu, Min, Gan, Hakka, and Yue. On one hand, the Chinese dialects are necessary for the translation of the Bible and the propagation of Christian faith as well as the liturgical/spiritual life of the church; on the other hand, the Chinese dialect Bibles provide precious information for the synchronic study of every single dialect.
Sacredness in the Bible and Chinese Cultures
Authors: Tak-Kwong Chan
Published: March 2021

This article is an introduction to the meaning of sacredness in the Bible and the Chinese culture, ending with a synthesis of the concept. The methodology of this article consists of biblical studies, Chinese philosophy, and religious studies. What is particular to this article are the three stages of development of sacredness in the Bible, as well as the idea of sacredness as transformation according to the nature ordained by Heaven (Confucianism) or as a modeling after the nature of Dao (Daoism) in the Chinese culture. The finding of this study is to confirm that, despite different interpretations, both the biblical and the Chinese traditions would agree that each human being is destined to be a sacred or a divine person.
Venezuelan Youth and the Routinization of Conflict
Authors: Rojas Avendaño Inés
Published: March 2021

This essay examines young Venezuelans’ experiences of daily insecurities and critical situations and their responses using the framework of ontological security. The study uses the concept of ‘multiple youths,’ proposed by Latin American scholars, to link the ideas of security and identity, to explore the different intersubjective understandings of these notions in the lives of university students, and to explain their choice of conflict as part of the ordinary. Empirical analysis shows how routinization of conflict has a strong psychological impact on Venezuelan youth’s intersubjective identity formation and interpretation of events as ordinary or threatening. The routinization of conflict is a response to maintaining ontological security, providing a sense of constancy and continuity since it has become part of the routines of university students in Venezuela. In addition, conflict helps eliminate and/or delegitimize the ‘other,’ hence hindering dialogue and a negotiated solution to the current political impasse.
Gesture Is an Intrinsic Part of Modern-day Human Communication and May Always Have Been So
Authors: Goldin-Meadow Susan
Published: March 2021

This chapter reviews three types of evidence from current-day languages consistent with the view that human language has always drawn upon both the manual and oral modalities, a view that is contra the gesture-first theory of language evolution. First, gesture and speech form a single system, with speech using a categorical format and gesture a mimetic format. Second, when this system is disrupted, as when speech is not possible, the manual modality takes over the categorical forms typical of speech. Finally, when the manual modality assumes a categorical format, as in sign languages of the Deaf, mimetic forms do not disappear but arise in the gestures signers produce as they sign. This picture of modern-day language is consistent with the view that gesture and speech have both been part of human language from the beginning.
Transcranial Static Magnetic Field Stimulation
Authors: Foffani Guglielmo , Oliviero Antonio
Published: March 2021

Focal application of a relatively strong permanent magnet over the human cortex induces neurophysiological and behavioral effects. This discovery led to the inclusion of transcranial static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS) into the family of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques. Similarly to all NIBS techniques, we are far from understanding the exact mechanisms by which tSMS produces its effects, but converging evidence suggests that modulation of ionic interchange across the membrane may be responsible for its physiological effects at the cellular level. Promising results have been reported on the treatment effects of tSMS in Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The safety, simplicity, portability, and low cost of tSMS make it particularly appealing for shifting the NIBS therapeutic paradigm from clinic-based to home-based treatments.
Inflorescence abscission protein SlIDL6 promotes low light intensity-induced tomato flower abscission
Authors: Li Ruizhen , Shi Chun-Lin , Wang Xiaoyang , Meng Yan , Cheng Lina , Jiang Cai-Zhong , Qi Mingfang , Xu Tao , Li Tianlai
Published: March 2021

In many fruiting plant species, flower abscission is induced by low light stress. Here, we elucidated how signaling mediated by the peptide INFLORESCENCE DEFICIENT IN ABSCISSION (IDA) controls low light-induced flower drop in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). We analyzed the expression patterns of an IDA-Like gene (SlIDL6) during low light-induced flower abscission, and used tandem mass spectrometry to identify and characterize the mature SlIDL6 peptide. Tomato knockout lines were created to investigate the in vivo function of SlIDL6. In addition, yeast one-hybrid assays were used to investigate the binding of the SlWRKY17 transcription factor to the SlIDL6 promoter, and silencing of SlWRKY17 expression delayed low light-induced flower abscission. SlIDL6 was specifically expressed in the abscission zone and at high levels during low light-induced abscission and ethylene treatment. SlIDL6 knockout lines showed delayed low light-induced flower drop, and the application of SlIDL6 peptide accelerated abscission. Overexpression of SlIDL6 rescued the ida mutant phenotype in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), suggesting functional conservation between species. SlIDL6-mediated abscission was via an ethylene-independent pathway. We report a SlWRKY17-SlIDL6 regulatory module that functions in low light promoted abscission by increasing the expression of enzymes involved in cell wall remodeling and disassembly.
The rice germin-like protein OsGLP1 participates in acclimation to UV-B radiation
Authors: He Zhi-Dan , Tao Mi-Lin , Leung David W. M , Yan Xiao-Yu , Chen Long , Peng Xin-Xiang , Liu E.-E
Published: March 2021

Exposure to ultraviolet B radiation (UV-B) stress can have serious effects on the growth and development of plants. Germin-like proteins (GLPs) may be involved in different abiotic and biotic stress responses in different plants, but little is known about the role of GLPs in UV-B stress response and acclimation in plants. In the present study, knockout of GLP 8–14 (OsGLP1) using the CRISPR/Cas9 system resulted in mutant rice (Oryza sativa L.) plants (herein called glp1) that exhibited UV-B-dependent formation of lesion mimic in leaves. Moreover, glp1 grown under solar radiation (including UV-B) showed decreased plant height and increased leaf angle, but we observed no significant differences in phenotypes between wild-type (WT) plants and glp1 grown under artificial light lacking UV-B. Fv/Fm, Y (II) and the expression of many genes, based on RNA-seq analysis, related to photosynthesis were also only reduced in glp1, but not in WT, after transfer from a growth cabinet illuminated with artificial white light lacking UV-B to growth under natural sunlight. The genes-associated with flavonoid metabolism as well as UV resistance locus 8 (OsUVR8), phytochrome interacting factor-like 15-like (OsPIF3), pyridoxal 5′-phosphate synthase subunit PDX1.2 (OsPDX1.2), deoxyribodipyrimidine photolyase (OsPHR), and deoxyribodipyrimidine photolyase family protein-like (OsPHRL) exhibited lower expression levels, while higher expression levels of mitogen-activated protein kinase 5-like (OsMPK3), mitogen-activated protein kinase 13-like (OsMPK13), and transcription factor MYB4-like (OsMYB4) were observed in glp1 than in WT after transfer from a growth cabinet illuminated with artificial white light to growth under natural sunlight. Therefore, mutations in OsGLP1 resulted in rice plants more sensitive to UV-B and reduced expression of some genes for UV-B protection, suggesting that OsGLP1 is involved in acclimation to UV-B radiation.
Exploring Young Drivers’ Perceptions of Procedurally Just Policing
Authors: Bates Lyndel , Anderson Levi , McLean Rebecca
Published: March 2021

The procedural justice approach to policing may be an effective method of reducing young driver noncompliance with traffic laws. We undertook a qualitative study in two Australian states (Queensland and Victoria) to explore how procedural justice operates when police interact with young drivers. Metropolitan and regional focus groups were conducted (n = 31, 45% male, 17–25 years), and transcripts coded against the four procedural justice elements: (a) neutrality, (b) respect, (c) voice, and (d) trust. Young drivers did not perceive neutral treatment; they felt targeted due to their provisional licence plate, their gender (male), and vehicle type. Despite this, young drivers reported their interactions with police to be respectful, they were allowed to present their point of view (voice), and that police officers and agencies could be trusted. This has implications for how the procedural justice framework is conceptualized and operationalized, for it to be an effective tool for policing young drivers.
Homological bulk–edge correspondence for Weyl semimetals
Authors: Gomi Kiyonori
Published: March 2021

For a certain translationally invariant tight-binding model of 3D Weyl semimetals, we establish a bulk–edge correspondence as an equality of two relative homology classes, based on an idea of Mathai and Thiang: [14] and [15] From spectral information on the edge Hamiltonian, we construct a relative homology class on the surface momentum space. This class agrees with the image under the surface projection of a homology class on the bulk momentum space relative to the Weyl points, constructed from the bulk Hamiltonian. Furthermore, the relative homology class on the surface momentum space can be represented by homology cycles whose images constitute Fermi arcs, the loci where the edge Hamiltonian admits a zero spectrum.
The risk of thrombosis after acute-COVID-19 infection
Authors: Zuin M , Rigatelli G , Zuliani G , Roncon L
Published: March 2021

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) has been associated with coagulation dysfunction which predisposes patients to an increased risk of both venous and arterial thromboembolism, increasing the short-term morbidity and mortality. Current data evidenced that the rate of post-discharge thrombotic events in COVID-19 patients is lower compared to that observed during hospitalization. Rather than ‘true thrombotic events’, these complications seem more probably ‘immunothrombosis’ consequent to the recent infection. Unfortunately, the absence of data from randomized controlled trials, large prospective cohorts and ambulatory COVID-19 patients, left unresolved the question regarding the need of post-discharge thromboprophylaxis due to the absence of strong-level recommendations.
A Theory of Foreign Exchange Interventions
Authors: Fanelli Sebastián , Straub Ludwig
Published: March 2021

We study a real small open economy with two key ingredients (1) partial segmentation of home and foreign bond markets and (2) a pecuniary externality that makes the real exchange rate excessively volatile in response to capital flows. Partial segmentation implies that, by intervening in the bond markets, the central bank can affect the exchange rate and the spread between home- and foreign-bond yields. Such interventions allow the central bank to address the pecuniary externality, but they are also costly, as foreigners make carry trade profits. We analytically characterize the optimal intervention policy that solves this trade-off: (1) the optimal policy leans against the wind, stabilizing the exchange rate; (2) it involves smooth spreads but allows exchange rates to jump; (3) it partly relies on “forward guidance,” with non-zero interventions even after the shock has subsided; (4) it requires credibility, in that central banks do not intervene without commitment. Finally, we shed light on the global consequences of widespread interventions, using a multi-country extension of our model. We find that, left to themselves, countries over-accumulate reserves, reducing welfare and leading to inefficiently low world interest rates.
COVID-19 vaccination and antirheumatic therapy
Authors: Arnold Jack , Winthrop Kevin , Emery Paul
Published: March 2021

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination will be the largest vaccination programme in the history of the NHS. Patients on immunosuppressive therapy will be among the earliest to be vaccinated. Some evidence indicates immunosuppressive therapy inhibits humoral response to the influenza, pneumococcal and hepatitis B vaccines. The degree to which this will translate to impaired COVID-19 vaccine responses is unclear. Other evidence suggests withholding MTX for 2 weeks post-vaccination may improve responses. Rituximab has been shown to impair humoral responses for 6 months or longer post-administration. Decisions on withholding or interrupting immunosuppressive therapy around COVID-19 vaccination will need to be made prior to the availability of data on specific COVID-19 vaccine response in these patients. With this in mind, this article outlines the existing data on the effect of antirheumatic therapy on vaccine responses in patients with inflammatory arthritis and formulates a possible pragmatic management strategy for COVID-19 vaccination.
Spatiotemporal spread of chikungunya virus in Sarawak, Malaysia
Authors: Dass Sarat , Ngui Romano , Gill Balvinder Singh , Chan Yoke Fun , Wan Sulaiman Wan Yusoff , Lim Yvonne Ai Lian , Mudin Rose Nani , Chong Chee Kheong , Sulaiman Lokman Hakim , Sam I-Ching
Published: March 2021

Background

We studied the spatiotemporal spread of a chikungunya virus (CHIKV) outbreak in Sarawak state, Malaysia, during 2009–2010.

Methods

The residential addresses of 3054 notified CHIKV cases in 2009–2010 were georeferenced onto a base map of Sarawak with spatial data of rivers and roads using R software. The spatiotemporal spread was determined and clusters were detected using the space-time scan statistic with SaTScan.

Results

Overall CHIKV incidence was 127 per 100 000 population (range, 0–1125 within districts). The average speed of spread was 70.1 km/wk, with a peak of 228 cases/wk and the basic reproduction number (R0) was 3.1. The highest age-specific incidence rate was 228 per 100 000 in adults aged 50–54 y. Significantly more cases (79.4%) lived in rural areas compared with the general population (46.2%, p<0.0001). Five CHIKV clusters were detected. Likely spread was mostly by road, but a fifth of rural cases were spread by river travel.

Conclusions

CHIKV initially spread quickly in rural areas mainly via roads, with lesser involvement of urban areas. Delayed spread occurred via river networks to more isolated areas in the rural interior. Understanding the patterns and timings of arboviral outbreak spread may allow targeted vector control measures at key transport hubs or in large transport vehicles.
Identification and Characterization of Fungicide Resistance in Botrytis Populations from Small Fruit Fields in the Mid-Atlantic United States
Authors: Cosseboom Scott , Hu Mengjun
Published: March 2021

From 2014 to 2019, 249 isolates of Botrytis spp. were collected from blackberry, black raspberry, grape, red raspberry, and strawberry showing gray mold symptoms. All isolates were phylogenetically characterized as Botrytis cinerea. A mycelial growth assay determined the following overall frequencies of resistance to fungicides: 92% to pyraclostrobin, 86% to cyprodinil, 71% to thiophanate-methyl, 48% to fenhexamid, 47% to iprodione, 26% to boscalid, 11% to fludioxonil, 8% to penthiopyrad, 7% to benzovindiflupyr, 4% to pydiflumetofen, and 4% to isofetamid. Isolates collected from blackberry, red raspberry, and strawberry had a higher median chemical class resistance value compared with isolates from black raspberry and grape. Resistance-conferring mutations were found in a selection of isolates characterized as resistant to thiophanate-methyl, iprodione, pyraclostrobin, fenhexamid, and boscalid, including E198A in β-tubulin; I365N/S, Q369P, and N373S in bos1; G143A in cytb; P238S, N369D, and F412I/S in erg27; and P225F and H272R/Y in sdhB, respectively. Also, multiple drug resistance (MDR) phenotypes MDR1 and MDR1h were identified by analyzing fludioxonil sensitivity and mrr1 sequences. MDR1 and MDR1h isolates had multiple amino acid variations and two insertions in mrr1 that resembled the group S genotype. A detached grape assay confirmed that the aforementioned mutations in isolates from different small fruit crops resulted in field-relevant resistance. An additional in vitro assay found that values for the effective concentration that inhibits mycelial growth by 50% of B. cinerea isolates to pydiflumetofen and inpyrfluxam averaged 0.4 and 1.0, 0.8 and 0.7, 149.8 and 23.2, 0.9 and 0.9, and 38.8 and 48.8 µg/ml for the wild-type, H272R, H272Y, N230I, and P225F genotypes, respectively. These results revealed widespread fungicide resistance in B. cinerea from Mid-Atlantic small fruit fields, highlighting the need for resistance management alternatives.
Care Does Not Stop Following ROSC: A Quality Improvement Approach to Postcardiac Arrest Care
Authors: Pfeiffer Stephen , Zackoff Matthew , Bramble Katelyn , Jacobs Lindsey , Ruehlmann Kristen , Stalets Erika L. , Tegtmeyer Ken , Dewan Maya
Published: March 2021

Introduction:

Pediatric cardiac arrests carry significant morbidity and mortality. With increasing rates of return of spontaneous circulation, it is vital to optimize recovery conditions to decrease morbidity.

Methods:

We evaluated all patients who presented to a large quaternary pediatric intensive care unit with return of spontaneous circulation. We compared patient-specific postcardiac arrest care preimplementation and postimplementation of a standardized postcardiac arrest resuscitation pathway. We implemented evidence-based best practices using the Translating Research into Practice framework and Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles. Our primary aim was to increase the percent of postcardiac arrest care events meeting guideline targets for blood pressure and temperature within the first 12 hours by 50% within 18 months.

Results:

Eighty-one events occurred in the preintervention group (August 1, 2016–April 30, 2018) and 64 in the postintervention group (May 1, 2018–December 1, 2019). The percent of postcardiac arrest events meeting guideline targets for the entirety of their postarrest period improved from 10.9% for goal mean arterial blood pressure to 26.3%, P = 0.03, and increased from 23.4% for temperature to 71.9%, P < 0.0001.

Conclusions:

Implementing a postcardiac arrest standardized care plan improved adherence to evidence-based postcardiac arrest care metrics, specifically preventing hypotension and hyperthermia. Future multicenter research is needed to link guideline adherence to patient outcomes.