bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Singing the Congregation
Authors: Ingalls Monique M.
Published: October 2018

Singing the Congregation examines how contemporary worship music shapes the way evangelical Christians understand worship and argues that participatory worship-music performances have brought into being new religious social constellations (“modes of congregating”). Through ethnographic investigation of five of these modes—concert, conference, church, public, and networked congregations—this book seeks to reinvigorate the analytic categories of “congregation” and “congregational music.” Drawing from theoretical models in ethnomusicology, congregational studies, and ecclesiology, Singing the Congregation reconceives the congregation as a fluid, contingent social constellation that is actively performed into being through communal practice—in this case, the musically structured participatory activity known as “worship.” By extension, “congregational music-making” is recast as a participatory religious musical practice capable of weaving together a religious community inside and outside local institutional churches. Congregational music-making is not only a means of expressing local concerns and constituting the local religious community; it is also a potent way to identify with far-flung individuals, institutions, and networks that this global religious community comprises. The unique congregations examined in each chapter include but extend far beyond local churches, revealing widespread conflicts over religious authority and far-ranging implications for how evangelicals position themselves relative to other groups in North America and beyond.
Health Disparities
Authors: Brown Alison G.M. , Folta Sara C.
Published: October 2018

Diet- and nutrition-related health disparities and inequities are a growing issue globally and nationally. This chapter explores how race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status influence diet-related health outcomes, such as malnutrition, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, and the complexity of the underlying causes of these health disparities and inequities. First, the chapter provides a foundational understanding of the terms and concepts as well as the historical nature of these disparities. The array of factors that contribute to health disparities including the social determinants of health such as educational level, employment status, environmental factors, access and affordability of healthy food, neighborhood segregation, chronic stress, discrimination and access to health care are then described. Given the growing number of immigrants in the United States and their important role in society, the healthy immigrant hypothesis and the dietary acculturation process among various immigrant groups in the United States is also discussed. The authors conclude by elaborating on global diet-related health disparities and the global and societal factors that perpetuate these differences in outcomes.
From Soil to Stomach
Authors: Hepburn Erecia , Karpyn Allison
Published: October 2018

One important and growing strategy to help local communities reinvest in local food is agritourism. Although advances have been made over the past half-century to promote and ensure food security globally, volatility in food prices and an increasing reliance on processed foods have created a global deterioration of nutrition needs. Although the majority of countries consider agritourism a venture to assist smaller farms looking to diversify, the approach is also a promising mechanism to encourage participation in sustainable agriculture and health promotion. In this chapter, we define agritourism, explore examples in the Caribbean and Europe, and examine how forward and backward linkages support its growth.
Pursuing Pride
Authors: Batson C. Daniel
Published: October 2018

When we feel empathic concern, do we seek an empathy-specific boost to our esteem? This pride hypothesis was tested against the empathy–altruism hypothesis by looking at (a) mood change after individuals feeling high (vs. low) empathy for a person in need learn that, without their help, the person is no longer in need; (b) mood change after individuals learn that, through no personal fault, their help fails to remove the need; and (c) the association of reward-relevant thoughts with the helping of those feeling high empathy. Results of experiments using each technique failed to support the pride hypothesis; they supported the empathy–altruism hypothesis instead. Based on these and all the previous results, it seemed time to conclude that the motivation produced by empathic concern must be altruistic. But this conclusion was premature. Colleagues proposed two new egoistic explanations, each of which could explain all the apparent support for the altruism hypothesis. Their proposals extended the search.
Self–Other Merging
Authors: Batson C. Daniel
Published: October 2018

The second new possibility was that when you feel empathic concern, you no longer see yourself and the person for whom you feel empathy as distinct individuals. Rather, a perceptual/conceptual change occurs in which the two of you merge together in your mind, and you see his or her needs as yours. So, empathy-induced helping is really helping yourself: egoism. In three experiments, Bob Cialdini and colleagues found that participants said they would provide more costly, intimate help to people to whom they felt more connected (a good friend or family member vs. an acquaintance or near stranger). Cialdini and his colleagues interpreted this as support for merging. But subsequent research, in which actual (rather than imagined) helping was assessed and relationship confounds were avoided, provided a range of evidence that merging cannot account for the empathy–helping relationship. It seemed necessary to dismiss this second possibility and move on to the third.
Some Bad
Authors: Batson C. Daniel
Published: October 2018

Despite its virtues, empathy-induced altruism can at times harm those in need, other people, and the altruistically motivated person. Specifically, it can hurt those in need when acted on without wisdom and sensitivity or when a cool head is required. It can produce paternalism. It is less likely to be evoked by nonpersonalized, abstract, chronic needs. It can be a source of immoral action, leading us to show partiality toward those for whom we feel empathic concern even when we know that to do so is neither fair nor best for all. Indeed, when our behavior is public, empathy-induced altruism can pose a more serious threat to the common good than does self-interest. Finally, it can at times jeopardize our mental and physical health—even our life. Any attempt to call on empathy-induced altruism to build a more humane society needs to take these problems into account lest we do more harm than good.
Epistemology from a Sanskritic Point of View
Authors: Ganeri Jonardon
Published: October 2018

The author argues against the universality thesis, by which “the properties of the English word know and the English sentence “S knows that p” are shared by translations of these expressions in most or all languages.” The author argues that not only does the Sanskrit pramā, the closest term to English knowledge, have different properties, but its properties are most closely related to what epistemologists are investigating. English epistemic vocabulary brings with it parochial associations, including a static rather than a performative picture of epistemic agency, a model of justification that skews discussion about the value of epistemic practices, and possibly a nonfactive semantics at odds with the goals of epistemology. In this chapter, the author cites both theoretical writings about epistemology in Sanskrit and intuitions about the use of Sanskrit epistemic vocabulary to show that meaning is not easily translated.
Charles S. Peirce's Phenomenology
Authors: Atkins Richard Kenneth
Published: October 2018

No reasonable person would deny that the sound of a falling pin is less intense than the feeling of a hot poker pressed against the skin, or that the recollection of something seen decades earlier is less vivid than beholding it in the present. Yet John Locke is quick to dismiss a blind man’s report that the color scarlet is like the sound of a trumpet, and Thomas Nagel similarly avers that such loose intermodal analogies are of little use in developing an objective phenomenology. Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), by striking contrast, maintains that the blind man is correct. Peirce’s reasoning stems from his phenomenology, which has received little attention as compared with his logic, pragmatism, or semiotics. Peirce argues that one can describe the similarities and differences between such experiences as seeing a scarlet red and hearing a trumpet’s blare or hearing a falling pin and feeling a hot poker. Drawing on the Kantian idea that the analysis of consciousness should take as its guide formal logic, Peirce contends that we can construct a table of the elements of consciousness, much as Dmitri Mendeleev constructed a table of the chemical elements. By showing that the elements of consciousness fall into distinct classes, Peirce makes significant headway in developing the very sort of objective phenomenology which vindicates the studious blind man Locke derides.
The Platform Society
Authors: van Dijck José , Poell Thomas , de Waal Martijn
Published: October 2018

Individuals all over the world can use Airbnb to rent an apartment in a foreign city, check Coursera to find a course on statistics, join PatientsLikeMe to exchange information about one’s disease, hail a cab using Uber, or read the news through Facebook’s Instant Articles. In The Platform Society, Van Dijck, Poell, and De Waal offer a comprehensive analysis of a connective world where platforms have penetrated the heart of societies—disrupting markets and labor relations, transforming social and civic practices, and affecting democratic processes. The Platform Society analyzes intense struggles between competing ideological systems and contesting societal actors—market, government, and civil society—asking who is or should be responsible for anchoring public values and the common good in a platform society. Public values include, of course, privacy, accuracy, safety, and security; but they also pertain to broader societal effects, such as fairness, accessibility, democratic control, and accountability. Such values are the very stakes in the struggle over the platformization of societies around the globe. The Platform Society highlights how these struggles play out in four private and public sectors: news, urban transport, health, and education. Some of these conflicts highlight local dimensions, for instance, fights over regulation between individual platforms and city councils, while others address the geopolitical level where power clashes between global markets and (supra-)national governments take place.
The Trump Administration and International Law
Authors: Koh Harold Hongju
Published: October 2018

Will Donald trump international law? Since Trump’s administration took office in January 2017, this question has haunted almost every issue area of international law. This book, by one of our leading international lawyers—a former Legal Adviser of the U.S. State Department, former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, and former Yale Law Dean—argues that President Trump has thus far enjoyed less success than many believe, because he does not own the pervasive “transnational legal process” that governs these issue areas. This book shows how those opposing Trump’s policies in his administration’s first two years have successfully triggered transnational legal process as part of a collective counterstrategy akin to Muhammad Ali’s famous “rope-a-dope.” The book surveys many fields of international law: immigration and refugees, human rights, climate change, denuclearization, trade diplomacy, relations with North Korea, Russia and Ukraine, and America’s “Forever War” against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State and its ongoing challenges in Syria. This tour d’horizon illustrates the many techniques that other participants in the transnational legal process have used to blunt Trump’s early initiatives across a broad area of issues. While this counterstrategy has been wearing, the book concludes that the high stakes, and the long-term implications for the future of global governance, make the continuing struggle both worthwhile and necessary.
Liberty, Equality, and Humbug
Authors: Dwan David
Published: October 2018

Orwell is part of the political vocabulary of our times, yet, partly because of this popularity, what he stands for remains opaque. His writing confirms deep and widely shared intuitions about political justice, but part of its enduring fascination derives from the fact that these intuitions don’t quite add up. This book accounts for these inconsistencies by exploring the broader moral conflict at the centre of Orwell’s work and the troubled views of justice it yields. Examining five key concepts in turn—liberty, equality, solidarity, truth, and happiness—the book shows how Orwell entertained volatile views of each. He also had difficulty deciding between ideals when they clashed. Orwell’s contradictions express more than his intellectual shortcomings or complacency; they expose the peculiar difficulty of justice itself. By reading Orwell, we see that justice is a many-headed ideal that demands from us different and rival things. Examining the whole sweep of Orwell’s writings, but paying particular attention to Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, this book shows how literature—and narrative in particular—can be a source of political wisdom.
Embodying Punishment
Authors: Chamberlen Anastasia
Published: October 2018

This book offers a theoretical and empirical exploration of women’s lived experiences of imprisonment in England. It puts forward a feminist critique of the prison, and argues that prisoner bodies are central to our understanding of modern punishment, and particularly of women’s survival and resistance during and after prison. Drawing on a feminist phenomenological framework informed by a serious engagement with scholars such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Simone de Beauvoir, Erwin Goffman, Michel Foucault, Sandra Lee Bartky, and Tori Moi, Embodying Punishment revisits and expands the literature on the pains of imprisonment, and offers an interdisciplinary examination of the embodiment and identities of prisoners and former prisoners to press the need for a body-aware approach to criminology and penology. The book develops this argument through a qualitative study with prisoners and former prisoners by discussing themes such as: the perception of the prison through time, space, smells, and sounds; the change of prisoner bodies; the presentation of self in and after prison, including the centrality of appearance and prison dress in the management of prisoner and ex-prisoner identities; and a range of coping strategies adopted during and after imprisonment, including prison food, drug misuse, and a case study on women’s self-injuring practices. Embodying Punishment brings to the fore and critically analyses longstanding and urgent problems surrounding women’s multifaceted oppression through imprisonment, including matters of discriminatory and gendered treatment as well as issues around penal harm, and argues for an experientially grounded critique of punishment.
Relativity in Modern Physics
Authors: Deruelle Nathalie , Uzan Jean-Philippe
Published: October 2018

Newton’s ideas about how to represent space and time, his laws of dynamics, and his theory of gravitation established the conceptual foundation from which modern physics developed. This book offers a modern view of Newtonian theory, emphasizing those aspects needed for understanding quantum and relativistic contemporary physics. In 1905, Albert Einstein proposed a novel representation of space and time, special relativity. The text also presents relativistic dynamics in inertial and accelerated frames, as well as a detailed overview of Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism, thus providing the background necessary for studying particle and accelerator physics, astrophysics, and Einstein’s theory of general relativity. In 1915, Einstein proposed a new theory of gravitation, general relativity. Finally, the text develops the geometrical framework in which Einstein’s equations are formulated and presents several key applications: black holes, gravitational radiation, and cosmology.
Electron & Nuclear Spin Dynamics in Semiconductor Nanostructures
Authors: Glazov M. M.
Published: October 2018

In recent years, the physics community has experienced a revival of interest in spin effects in solid state systems. On one hand, solid state systems, particularly semicon- ductors and semiconductor nanosystems, allow one to perform benchtop studies of quantum and relativistic phenomena. On the other hand, interest is supported by the prospects of realizing spin-based electronics where the electron or nuclear spins can play a role of quantum or classical information carriers. This book aims at rather detailed presentation of multifaceted physics of interacting electron and nuclear spins in semiconductors and, particularly, in semiconductor-based low-dimensional structures. The hyperfine interaction of the charge carrier and nuclear spins increases in nanosystems compared with bulk materials due to localization of electrons and holes and results in the spin exchange between these two systems. It gives rise to beautiful and complex physics occurring in the manybody and nonlinear system of electrons and nuclei in semiconductor nanosystems. As a result, an understanding of the intertwined spin systems of electrons and nuclei is crucial for in-depth studying and control of spin phenomena in semiconductors. The book addresses a number of the most prominent effects taking place in semiconductor nanosystems including hyperfine interaction, nuclear magnetic resonance, dynamical nuclear polarization, spin-Faraday and -Kerr effects, processes of electron spin decoherence and relaxation, effects of electron spin precession mode-locking and frequency focusing, as well as fluctuations of electron and nuclear spins.
Spatial Poetics
Authors: Shamma Yasmine
Published: October 2018

Emphatically coming after the enthusiastic, dexterous, and avant-garde First Generation New York School poets, the Second Generation New York School poets Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley, Ron Padgett, and Joe Brainard engaged with highways and byways of both the poetic line and Manhattan’s grid. These poets lived in and wrote from alternative domestic spaces—untidy, disordered, congested apartments in downtown New York City. This study argues that the forms of their poems are accordingly untraditional, highlighting how New York School stanzas often take on the contours of these spaces, becoming linguistic rooms riddled with the tensions of urban life. Building on recent urban and spatial theory, this book offers a history and close reading of Second Generation New York School Poetry, which reads into the subtle formal elements of this supposedly wild poetry, while also suggesting that the dimensions of lived in urban space inform those elements. This first examination of the formal ramifications of Second Generation New York School poetry aims to situate these later twentieth-century American poetries within larger critical narratives of postmodern American innovation.
The European Landscape Convention
Authors: Strecker Amy
Published: October 2018

Chapter 6 discusses the origins and implications of the European Landscape Convention (ELC), the first international instrument solely dedicated to the protection, management and planning of landscape, adopted by the Council of Europe in 2000. It assesses the radical definition and concept of landscape espoused by the ELC as well as its institutional framework, before moving on to problematizing the ELC from a legal perspective. It argues that despite the Convention’s lack of legal bite, it has nevertheless been paradigm-changing for its societal influence and impact on landscape discourse more broadly. The chapter concludes by offering some observations on current proposals for a global landscape convention inspired by the ELC.
Pausanias’ Dead Poets Society
Authors: Hanink Johanna
Published: October 2018

This chapter examines the tombs of poets in Pausanias’ Description of Greece. It argues that the buried bones of ancient poets, and of heroes featured in their poetry, function as a kind of root system that, in Pausanias’ imagination, nourishes the sacred landscape of Greece, ensuring that the memories it holds always stay lush with life. For Pausanias, poets, through their deaths and their graves, become part of the mythical history that is itself a product of the poets’ imaginations. That history is, within the discursive topography of Pausanias’ Description, embodied—and entombed—in a landscape defined by its numinous places and monuments.
Inequality After the Transition
Authors: Karakoç Ekrem
Published: October 2018

This book provides empirical evidence showing that most new democracies either maintain the level of income inequality they inherited or even increase it over time. It then asks why new democracies do not generate income equality. Unlike previous studies, it directly analyzes the relationship between inequality and democracy by focusing on the trajectory of inequality after the transition to democracy. It challenges basic premises in the democratization–inequality studies and offers a new theory. It investigates the roots of change in social policy programs in Poland and the Czech Republic in Postcommunist Europe and Turkey and Spain in Southern Europe. It traces the origins and development of social policy, from the formation of nation-states to the present, and considers how different political regimes, whether totalitarian; post-totalitarian; or authoritarian, designed welfare policies to prioritize civil servants and the working classes in formal sectors at the expense of the majority poor, including the working poor in informal sectors. It then demonstrates how these legacies perpetuate and widen disparities in access to welfare policies, and thus income inequality in countries where low mobilization by the poor and unstable party systems prevail. It adopts a multimethod approach in which it uses large-N multivariate analysis, paired case studies, and process-tracing method. It employs interviews with Polish, Czech, Turkish, and Spanish union leaders; bureaucrats and business people while also conducting an original survey in Turkey to dissect the linkage between organized groups and parties.
Shadow Networks
Authors: Louçã Francisco , Ash Michael
Published: October 2018

The networks and institutions that support a finance-focused, market-centered model of economy and society from their intellectual roots through their ascendancy to their surprising resilience in the face of manifest failures are traced. The focus is on the quarter century, 1980–2006, leading to the global economic crisis and on the now decade-long crisis itself (2007–17). The approach uses political economy, with a focus on actors and their motives, the structures and resources that shaped them and that they in turn shaped, and the key events and turning points. The actors vary but come overwhelmingly from different branches of the power elite: investment bankers; finance ministers; bearers of dynastic wealth; college professors; government regulators; and central bankers. Their resources take many forms, from academic articles and white papers to cultural production, palace intrigue, and elections. A particular interest is taken in how the actors have mobilized institutions and networks to maintain the key tenets of the model despite the serious flaws indicated by the rise of inequality and the financial crises of both emerging and advanced economies at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
Rhythm
Authors: Eikelboom Lexi
Published: October 2018

This book argues that, as a pervasive dimension of human existence with theological implications, rhythm ought to be considered a category of theological significance. Philosophers and theologians have drawn on rhythm—patterned movements of repetition and variation—to describe reality, however, the ways in which rhythm is used and understood differ based on a variety of metaphysical commitments with varying theological implications. This book brings those implications into the open, using resources from phenomenology, prosody, and the social sciences to analyse and evaluate uses of rhythm in metaphysical and theological accounts of reality. The analysis relies on a distinction from prosody between a synchronic approach to rhythm—observing the whole at once and considering how various dimensions of a rhythm hold together harmoniously—and a diachronic approach—focusing on the ways in which time unfolds as the subject experiences it. The text engages with the twentieth-century Jesuit theologian Erich Przywara alongside thinkers as diverse as Augustine and the contemporary philosopher Giorgio Agamben, and proposes an approach to rhythm that serves the concerns of theological conversation. It demonstrates the difference that including rhythm in theological conversation makes to how we think about questions such as “what is creation?” and “what is the nature of the God–creature relationship?” from the perspective of rhythm. As a theoretical category, capable of expressing metaphysical commitments, yet shaped by the cultural rhythms in which those expressing such commitments are embedded, rhythm is particularly significant for theology as a phenomenon through which culture and embodied experience influence doctrine.
A Population History of India
Authors: Dyson Tim
Published: October 2018

This book provides an account of the size and characteristics of India’s population stretching from the arrival of modern human beings until the present day. The periods considered include those of: the millennia that were occupied by hunting and gathering; the Indus valley civilization; the opening-up of the Ganges basin; and the eras of the Delhi Sultanate, Mughal Empire, and British colonial rule. The book also devotes substantial consideration to the unprecedented changes that have occurred in India since 1947. With reference to these and other periods, key topics addressed include: the scale of the population; the levels of mortality and fertility that prevailed; regional demographic variation; the size of the main cities; the level of urbanization; patterns of migration; and the many famines, epidemics, invasions and other events which affected the population. The book is a work of synthesis—albeit one with few certainties. It draws on research of many different kinds—e.g. archaeological, climatic, cultural, economic, epidemiological, historical, linguistic, political, and demographic. The book considers the past trajectory of India’s population compared to the trends which seem to have been shared by China and Europe. In addition, it highlights some misconceptions about the history of India’s population.
Media Law
Authors: Butt Simon , Lindsey Tim
Published: October 2018

The Indonesian media is vibrant and expanding, although ownership concentration is a significant problem. This chapter describes the regulatory framework governing the media that was developed after Soeharto’s system of tight control was abolished. It pays particular attention to the Press Council and the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission. It also covers journalists’ associations, press freedom, censorship, and the right to privacy; and the law of defamation and related provisions in the law on electronic transactions and information. Freedom of information law and laws protecting state secrets are also covered. The chapter discusses two high-profile defamation cases that created controversy in Indonesia—those involving Prita Mulyasari and Tommy Soeharto. These reveal serious flaws in the current legal regime governing the media in Indonesia.
Four Underlying Principles of Contract Law and the Foundational Contract-Law Standard
Authors: Eisenberg Melvin A.
Published: October 2018

Chapter 3 develops four underlying principles of contract law and the foundational contract law standard. Under the most fundamental principle of contract law the aim of contract law should be to effectuate the objectives of parties to promissory transactions, provided that appropriate policy and moral conditions, such as freedom from duress and fraud, are satisfied, and subject to appropriate constraints, such as capacity and legality. The normative theory of contract law, taken together with the four underlying principles described in this chapter, comprise the foundational contract-law standard. Contract-law rules that are supported by the foundational standard are justified. Contract-law rules that are not so supported are unjustified.
Jews and Muslims in South Asia
Authors: Egorova Yulia
Published: October 2018

In the European imaginary Jews and Muslims have shared a common space reserved for the ultimate other and have been constructed in opposition to each other. This book examines the way Jewish and Muslim communities encounter each other in South Asia and interact in ways that do not easily fit conventional Western tropes of Jews-Muslim relations. In doing so, the book explores how, in the history of the subcontinent, globalized discourses about Jewishness and Islam intersect and acquire different dimensions in varying sociopolitical contexts in ways that cast analytical light on the notions of race, religion, and minorities. Moving on to the contemporary period, the book demonstrates how South Asian Jewish experiences have been turned into a rhetorical tool to negate the discrimination of Muslims and argues that the ostensible celebration of Jewishness in the discourse of the Hindu and, analogously, European right masks not only anti-Muslim but also anti-Jewish prejudice. It also interrogates both those accounts that inscribe Jews and Muslims as each other’s enemies and those that imagine them as linked by a commonality of theologies, rituals, and narratives, and suggests that rather than being considered as a category of analysis, Jewish-Muslim relations would be best thematized as a construct produced by the very processes of minoritization, stigmatization, and othering that have been applied to Jews and Muslims in Europe and then globalized at the turn of the twenty-first century.
Santana and the Metaphysics of Tone
Authors: Latour Melinda
Published: October 2018

Throughout his career, Carlos Santana has used music to express his idiosyncratic spiritual beliefs. Pursuing the guidance of guru Sri Chinmoy in the 1970s and subsequently seeking his own spiritual path, Santana sought to channel a higher power through his guitar technique and tone, describing the process of music making as a mystical endeavor. In order to attain these goals, Santana used amplifiers that prioritized depth of sound (described by himself in synesthetic terms), feedback loops for his signature sustained tones, an avoidance of hypermasculine performance, and a peaceful stage presence. This chapter investigates the role of timbre in Santana’s spiritual journey from the 1960s to the present.
Crossing the Electronic Divide
Authors: Waksman Steve
Published: October 2018

Guitar synthesizers gained prevalence in the 1980s thanks to the work of guitarists such as Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin, and Allan Holdsworth. This chapter explores how the guitar synthesizer challenged prevailing ideologies of technology, technique, and tone in the guitar community and was ultimately a commercial failure. It traces a brief history of the electric guitar and the synthesizer and their subsequent conjoining. The chapter discusses three cases in detail: Metheny’s use of the Roland GR-300, McLaughlin’s use of the Synclavier II, and Holdsworth’s use of the SynthAxe. The chapter concludes with an examination of the critical reception of the guitar synthesizer and speculates about the future of technological synthesis across the analog/digital divide.
A systematic study of Galactic infrared bubbles along the Galactic plane with AKARI and Herschel
Authors: Hanaoka Misaki , Kaneda Hidehiro , Suzuki Toyoaki , Kokusho Takuma , Oyabu Shinki , Ishihara Daisuke , Kohno Mikito , Furuta Takuya , Tsuchikawa Takuro , Saito Futoshi
Published: October 2018

Galactic infrared (IR) bubbles, which have shell-like structures in the mid-IR wavelengths, are known to contain massive stars near their centers. Infrared bubbles in inner Galactic regions (|l| ≤ 65°, |b| ≤ 1°) have so far been studied well to understand the massive star formation mechanisms. In this study, we expand the research area to the whole Galactic plane (0° ≤ l < 360°, |b| ≤ 5°), using the AKARI all-sky survey data. We limit our study to large bubbles with angular radii of >1′ to reliably identify and characterize them. For the 247 IR bubbles in total, we derived the radii and the covering fractions of the shells, based on the method developed by Y. Hattori et al. (2016, PASJ, 68, 37). We also created their spectral energy distributions, using the AKARI and Herschel photometric data, and decomposed them with a dust model to obtain the total IR luminosity and the luminosity of each dust component, i.e., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), warm dust, and cold dust. As a result, we find that there are systematic differences in the IR properties of the bubbles between the inner and outer Galactic regions. The total IR luminosities are lower in outer Galactic regions, while there is no systematic difference in the range of the shell radii between inner and outer Galactic regions. More IR bubbles tend to be observed as broken bubbles rather than closed ones and the fractional luminosities of the PAH emission are significantly higher in outer Galactic regions. We discuss the implications of these results for the massive stars and the interstellar environments associated with the Galactic IR bubbles.
The virtuous epidemiologist
Authors: Ip E C
Published: October 2018

This article addresses the scholarly gap in the ethics of epidemiology by exploring what virtue ethics, one of the oldest ethical traditions in moral philosophy, has to say about ‘the virtuous epidemiologist’. It expounds comparatively the content and merits of a virtue ethics approach against more popular contemporary schools of thought such as consequentialism and deontology. Without necessarily dismissing the value of principles and standards, it presents a vision that a virtuous epidemiologist should cultivate wisdom in making prudential judgments in conditions of uncertainty; fortitude in dealing with powerful politicians and administrators which does not sacrifice truth; temperance and self-restraint in keeping one’s ideological views from compromising one’s scientific credibility; and justice in giving due weight to individual rights and the public interest when doing research and giving advice on public health interventions.
The Association Between Residency Learning Climate and Inpatient Care Experience in Clinical Teaching Departments in the Netherlands
Authors: Smirnova Alina , Arah Onyebuchi A. , Stalmeijer Renée E. , Lombarts Kiki M.J.M.H. , van der Vleuten Cees P.M.
Published: October 2018

Purpose

To examine the association between residency learning climate and inpatient care experience.

Method

The authors analyzed 1,201 evaluations of the residency learning climate (using the Dutch Residency Educational Climate Test questionnaire) and 6,689 evaluations of inpatient care experience (using the Consumer Quality Index Inpatient Hospital Care questionnaire) from 86 departments across 15 specialties in 18 hospitals in the Netherlands between 2013 and 2014. The authors used linear hierarchical panel analyses to study the associations between departments’ overall and subscale learning climate scores and inpatient care experience global ratings and subscale scores, controlling for respondent- and department-level characteristics and correcting for multiple testing.

Results

Overall learning climate was not associated with global department ratings (b= 0.03; 95% confidence interval −0.17 to 0.23) but was positively associated with specific inpatient care experience domains, including communication with doctors (b= 0.11; 0.02 to 0.20) and feeling of safety (b= 0.09; 0.01 to 0.17). Coaching and assessment was positively associated with communication with doctors (b= 0.22; 0.08 to 0.37) and explanation of treatment (b= 0.22; 0.08 to 0.36). Formal education was negatively associated with pain management (b= −0.16; −0.26 to −0.05), while peer collaboration was positively associated with pain management (b= 0.14; 0.03 to 0.24).

Conclusions

Optimizing the clinical learning environment is an important step toward ensuring high-quality residency training and patient care. These findings could help clinical teaching departments address those aspects of the learning environment that directly affect patient care.
Advocacy Training for Residents: Insights From Tulane’s Internal Medicine Residency Program
Authors: Andrews Jane , Jones Catherine , Tetrault Jeanette , Coontz Kris
Published: October 2018

Problem

Physicians have unique insights into the impact of government policies on vulnerable populations. Sharing these with legislators can help them design policy solutions to address public health challenges such as the opioid epidemic, drug pricing, and gun violence. However, despite widespread interest among residents in advocacy and systems-based change, most physicians receive no formal training in the skills needed to become effective physician–advocates. Advocacy training curricula for residents can equip trainees with skills to bridge this gap.

Approach

The Advocacy and Leadership Track (ALT) of Tulane University’s internal medicine residency program was introduced in fall 2015. It incorporates a mix of skills-building and issue-focused participation, reflected in the portfolio of advocacy experiences to be completed by graduation to achieve Advocacy Distinction. Key features include monthly potluck dinner seminars, a persuasive writing workshop, and partnering with a local or national network on a longitudinal health justice campaign.

Outcomes

As of June 2018, the ALT has nine residents enrolled. Two residents have graduated with the Advocacy Distinction. The ALT has recruited a cohort of physician–advocate faculty mentors and built a cross-generational advocacy network with over 80 physicians and physicians-in-training. The authors share key lessons learned for residency programs developing their own advocacy training pathways.

Next Steps

As demands on physicians increasingly include care coordination tasks and the effects of social determinants of health become clearer, advocacy skills are becoming relevant for all physicians. The authors recommend incorporating basic advocacy training for all internal medicine residents in the ambulatory curriculum.
Cognitive Aids for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Neuroanesthetic Emergencies: Consensus Guidelines on Behalf of the Society for Neuroscience in Anesthesiology and Critical Care (SNACC) Education Committee
Authors: Hoefnagel Amie L. , Rajan Shobana , Martin Adriana , Mahendra Vibha , Knutson Amanda K. , Uejima Jamie L. , Kositratna Guy , Weller Mark , Yang Hui , Ahuja Sanchit , Bailey Caryl , Bebawy John F.
Published: October 2018

Cognitive aids and evidence-based checklists are frequently utilized in complex situations across many disciplines and sectors. The purpose of such aids is not simply to provide instruction so as to fulfill a task, but rather to ensure that all contingencies related to the emergency are considered and accounted for and that the task at hand is completed fully, despite possible distractions. Furthermore, utilization of a checklist enhances communication to all team members by allowing all stakeholders to know and understand exactly what is occurring, what has been accomplished, and what remains to be done. Here we present a set of evidence-based critical event cognitive aids for neuroanesthesia emergencies developed by the Society for Neuroscience in Anesthesiology and Critical Care (SNACC) Education Committee.
Postoperative Blood Loss and Coagulation Changes After Balanced 6% Hydroxyethyl Starch 130/0.4 Administration During Spine Surgery
Authors: Jang Myung-Soo , Han Jin-Hee , Lee SangHo , Kim Sung-Eun
Published: October 2018

Study Design:

Retrospective analysis.

Objective:

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of intraoperative balanced 6% hydroxyethyl starch (HES) 130/0.4 on postoperative blood loss and the coagulation profile.

Summary of Background Data:

The safety of colloid versus crystalloid transfusion for bleeding and coagulation during major spine surgery remains controversial and only a few studies exist. Thus, we compared the effects of balanced 6% HES 130/0.4 and crystalloid on postoperative bleeding and coagulation.

Methods:

Patients undergoing spine surgery between February 1, 2015 and February 28, 2017 were divided into 2 groups: patients receiving intraoperative balanced 6% HES 130/0.4 and patients receiving crystalloid. We compared the postoperative bleeding volume with changes in the coagulation profile and length of hospital stay between these 2 groups. Propensity score (PS)-matching and multivariate stepwise linear regression were performed.

Results:

A total of 169 patients who met the inclusion criteria were analyzed. The quantity of total colloid per patient was 10–15 mL/kg. A significant difference was observed in the total intraoperative transfused crystalloid volume between the 2 groups (colloid group, 1.394.6±1.414.0 mL; crystalloid group, 2.027.3±1.114.1 mL; P<0.001). Postoperative blood loss and coagulation profile changes were not significantly different in the 60 PS-matched paired patients. Furthermore, no differences in either postoperative transfusion requirement or length of hospital stay were observed between the groups. Multivariate stepwise linear regression revealed that operation time (β=0.549; P<0.001) and intraoperative transfusion of packed red blood cells (β=0.466; P=0.003) or fresh frozen plasma (β=−0.263; P=0.041) were independently associated with postoperative blood loss. However, intraoperative colloid administration was not a predictive factor.

Conclusions:

Intraoperative infusion of balanced 6% HES 130/0.4 in patients undergoing spine surgery presented clinically insignificant changes in postoperative blood loss and coagulation compared to crystalloid.

Level of Evidence: Level III.
The More the Merrier? Should Antibiotics be Used for Rhinoplasty and Septorhinoplasty?—A Review
Authors: Kullar Ravina , Frisenda Julia , Nassif Paul S.
Published: October 2018

Background:

With antimicrobial resistance a global threat, optimizing antibiotic usage across the surgical continuum is vital. The American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery Foundation recently published the first guidelines addressing management in rhinoplasty. The authors reviewed pertinent literature on the role of systemic antibiotics in rhinoplasty and septorhinoplasty.

Methods:

The authors performed a MEDLINE search through PubMed using the key terms rhinoplasty, septorhinoplasty, infection, antimicrobials, and antibiotics.

Results:

Ten studies met criteria. Studies evaluating antibiotics perioperatively showed similar infection and/or bacteremia rates (0–13.3%) in those receiving or not receiving antibiotics. No patients experienced significant local/systemic infections regardless of antibiotic use. In the 3 studies evaluating antibiotics postoperatively, antibiotics decreased the infection rate from 27% to 8% in complex revision cases. In a study evaluating postoperative antibiotics in noncomplex cases, there were no significant differences in infection rates between those receiving only a preoperative dose and those receiving preoperative in addition to 7 days of postoperative antibiotics, with the latter experiencing higher rates of antibiotic-related adverse events and costs.

Conclusions:

Peri- and postoperative antibiotics in noncomplex rhinoplasty and septorhinoplasty are not beneficial in decreasing infection risk. Antibiotics, with a first-generation cephalosporin such as cefazolin (non–β-lactam, such as clindamycin, if β-lactam allergy), should be considered in patients with comorbidities/undergoing complex surgery. If perioperative antibiotics are used, antibiotics should be administered within 1 hour of incision and discontinued within 24 hours of the operation. Further research is warranted to evaluate the optimal duration of postoperative antibiotics in complex cases.
Effects of age and comorbidity on survival vary according to risk grouping among patients with prostate cancer treated using radical prostatectomy
Authors: Hah Yoon Soo , Lee Kwang Suk , Choi In Young , Lee Ji Youl , Hong Jun Hyuk , Kim Choung-Soo , Lee Hyun Moo , Hong Sung Kyu , Byun Seok-Soo , Lee Seung Hwan , Rha Koon Ho , Chung Byung Ha , Koo Kyo Chul
Published: October 2018

A multicenter Korean Prostate Cancer Database (K-CaP) has been established to provide information regarding Korean patients with prostate cancer (PCa). We used the K-CaP registry to investigate the value of age and comorbidity for predicting cancer-specific mortality (CSM) and other-cause mortality (OCM) according to risk grouping.

The K-CaP registry includes 2253 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy (RP) between May 2001 and April 2013 at 5 institutions. Preoperative clinicopathologic data were collected and stratified according to the National Comprehensive Cancer Network risk criteria. Survival was evaluated using Gray's modified log-rank test according to risk category, age (<70 years vs ≥70 years), and Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) (0 vs ≥1).

The median follow-up was 55.0 months (interquartile range: 42.0–70.0 months). Competing-risk regression analysis revealed that, independent of CCI, ≥70-year-old high-risk patients had significantly greater CSM than <70-year-old high-risk patients (P = .019). However, <70-year-old high-risk patients with a CCI of ≥1 had similar CSM relative to ≥70-year-old patients. Survival was not affected by age or CCI among low-risk or intermediate-risk patients. Multivariate analysis revealed that a CCI of ≥1 was independently associated with a higher risk of CSM (P = .003), while an age of ≥70 years was independently associated with a higher risk of OCM (P = .005).

Age and comorbidity were associated with survival after RP among patients with high-risk PCa, although these associations were not observed among low-risk or intermediate-risk patients. Therefore, older patients with high-risk diseases and greater comorbidity may require alternative multidisciplinary treatment.