bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Evolutionary epidemiology theory of vaccination
Authors: Gandon Sylvain
Published: February 2019

The aim of vaccination is to prevent or limit the risk of pathogen infections for individual hosts but large vaccination coverage often has dramatic epidemiological consequences at the scale of the whole host population. This massive perturbation of the ecology and transmission of the pathogen can also have important evolutionary effects. In particular, vaccine-driven evolution may lead to the spread of new pathogen variants that may erode the benefits of vaccination. This chapter presents a theoretical framework for modelling the short- and long-term epidemiological and evolutionary consequences of vaccination. This framework can be used to make quantitative predictions about the speed of such evolutionary processes. This work helps identify the relevant phenotypic traits that need to be measured in specific parasite populations in order to evaluate the potential evolutionary consequences of vaccination. In particular, this may help in the debate regarding the involvement of evolution in the re-emergence of pertussis in spite of the high coverage of vaccination.
Surveillance and diagnostics
Authors: Bolotin Shelly , Quinn Helen , McIntyre Peter
Published: February 2019

This chapter discusses the characteristics and limitations of diagnostic tests for Bordetella pertussis infection, including bacterial culture, polymerase chain reaction, and serology. It then discusses surveillance for pertussis at the population level in high- and low-income settings, outlining the interplay of clinical, laboratory, and surveillance criteria in the identification and reporting of pertussis cases. The characteristics of pertussis surveillance systems are related to both detection and reporting of pertussis and can change, even within countries, if changes in diagnostic practice occur, making comparisons over time problematic. These considerations have significant implications for optimal surveillance of pertussis in different settings and assessment of resurgence, as also discussed in Chapter 4 on pertussis epidemiology.
Prologue
Authors: Rohani Pejman , Scarpino Samuel V.
Published: February 2019

And children became unconscious, and many people, old and young, died in the first epidemic because of this fainting and the intensity of cough1
,
2.

As you will see in the coming chapters, most issues relating to the ecology, evolution, and immunobiology of whooping cough remain contentious. Even the origins of the bacterium that causes this disease, ...
Humility, Pride, and Christian Virtue Theory
Authors: Dunnington Kent
Published: February 2019

This book proposes an account of humility that relies on the most radical Christian sayings about humility, especially those found in Augustine and the early monastic tradition. It argues that this was the view of humility that put Christian moral thought into decisive conflict with the best Greco-Roman moral thought. This radical Christian account of humility has been forgotten amid contemporary efforts to clarify and retrieve the virtue of humility for secular life. The book shows how humility was repurposed during the early modern era—particularly in the thought of Hobbes, Hume, and Kant—better to serve the economic and social needs of the emerging modern state. This repurposed humility insisted on a role for proper pride alongside humility, as a necessary constituent of self-esteem and a necessary motive of consistent moral action over time. Contemporary philosophical accounts of humility continue this emphasis on proper pride as a counterbalance to humility. By contrast, radical Christian humility proscribes pride altogether. The book shows how such a radical view need not give rise to vices of humility such as servility and pusillanimity, nor need such a view fall prey to feminist critiques of humility. But the view of humility set forth makes little sense abstracted from a specific set of doctrinal commitments peculiar to Christianity. The book argues that this is a strength rather than a weakness of the account since it displays how Christianity matters for the shape of the moral life.
Forgetting Christian Humility
Authors: Dunnington Kent
Published: February 2019

Recent scholarship on humility can be grouped into five major accounts of humility. This chapter canvasses those accounts before suggesting that two accounts—“low concern” and “limitations-owning”—have become the dominant contemporary views. A recurring feature of the current discussion is the need to distance contemporary accounts of humility from their Christian antecedents, since those antecedents are typically thought to be grounded by unacceptable metaphysical commitments. But the contemporary “memory” of the major contours of Christian humility is mistaken. The chapter isolates a recurring story told by contemporary theorists about what Christian humility once was, and then shows why that story is almost certainly false.
Mundane Humility
Authors: Dunnington Kent
Published: February 2019

Christian humility was repurposed in the early modern period to suit the goals of the emerging liberal state. After sketching how Thomas Hobbes achieved this repurposing, this chapter shows how David Hume’s critique of Christian humility and Immanuel Kant’s attempt to rescue Christian humility from Hume’s critique created a new kind of “mundane” humility newly committed to the need for a counterbalancing proper pride alongside anything that could be called virtuous humility. After showing how this concern for proper pride was a modern development, the chapter then shows how it drives most contemporary theorizing about humility, including the dominant low concern account of humility. Given that early Christian sayings about humility show no regard for the proper prides, an account of Christian humility will need to confront the claim that the virtue of humility requires counterbalancing by pride.
Conclusion
Authors: Dunnington Kent
Published: February 2019

Because it is so clearly indexed to Christian theological convictions, the account of humility developed in this book may appear irrelevant to the field of virtue theory broadly conceived. The Conclusion argues that this way of thinking fails to recognize that the rediscovery of the virtue tradition was originally animated—especially in the thought of Alasdair MacIntyre—by the realization that the moral life is more deeply tradition-dependent than reigning normative theories allow. This book should then be thought of as an exercise in general virtue theory insofar as it attempts carefully to display how one particular virtue, humility, is tradition-dependent all the way down. The Conclusion argues that attempts to specify the virtues in less tradition-dependent ways actually conceal ideological commitments to a liberal political agenda.
Introduction
Authors: Dunnington Kent
Published: February 2019

The Introduction clarifies the aims of the book: to set forth an account of Christian humility as it was envisioned by the early and most radical proponents of Christian humility. The book does not aim to invalidate other views of humility, whether historic or contemporary. The methodological aim of the book is to display what other virtue theorists tend merely to assert—namely, that specific metaphysical and anthropological commitments matter for thorough specifications of the virtues. The Introduction also quotes several passages from the writings of the early desert monastic tradition to show the discrepancy between early Christian and contemporary visions of humility. The task of the book is conceptually to clarify the early Christian stream of wisdom about humility, and to defend it against contemporary detractors.
The Game of Love in Georgian England
Authors: Holloway Sally
Published: February 2019

Courtship in Georgian England was a decisive moment in the life cycle, imagined as a tactical game, an invigorating sport, and perilous journey across a turbulent sea. This book brings to life the emotional experience of courtship using the words and objects selected by men and women to navigate this potentially fraught process. It provides new insights into the making and breaking of relationships, beginning with the formation of courtships using the language of love, the development of intimacy through the exchange of love letters, and sensory engagement with love tokens such as flowers, portrait miniatures, and locks of hair. It also charts the increasing modernization of romantic customs over the Georgian era—most notably with the arrival of the printed valentine card—revealing how love developed into a commercial industry. The book concludes with the rituals of disintegration when engagements went awry, and pursuit of damages for breach of promise in the civil courts. The Game of Love in Georgian England brings together love letters, diaries, valentines, and proposals of marriage from sixty courtships sourced from thirty archives and museum collections, alongside an extensive range of sources including ballads, conduct literature, court cases, material objects, newspaper reports, novels, periodicals, philosophical discourses, plays, poems, and prints, in order to create a vivid social and cultural history of romantic emotions. The book demonstrates the importance of courtship to studies of marriage, relationships, and emotions in history, and how we write histories of emotions using objects. Love emerges from this study as something that we do in practice, enacted by couples through particular socially and historically determined rituals.
Structures of Exploitation
Authors: Wolff Jonathan
Published: February 2019

Although the term ‘exploitation’ is widely used, there is little agreement about the precise cut-off point between exploitative and non-exploitative relations. The chapter argues that the reason for this is that background structural factors need to be taken into account in determining whether or not a relationship is exploitative, and it is likely that there will be differing moral assessments of those background factors. Furthermore, although background conditions affect whether a relation is exploitative, they do not fully determine whether the ‘fairness’ or ‘flourishing’ norms intrinsic to exploitation are violated. The argument is illustrated through discussion of the Marxist and Perfect Market approaches to exploitation.
The Elizabethan Settlement, the Issue of the Royal Succession, and the Emergence of Religious Dissent, c.1558–1571
Authors: Questier Michael
Published: February 2019

This chapter rehearses the dis/continuities between the reigns of Mary Tudor and Elizabeth Tudor. It looks at the attempts to embed the new regime in England and Ireland in and after 1558/1559 and at the foreign policy issues which Elizabeth’s accession generated. First and foremost, this meant the relationship with Scotland, particularly after the return from the Continent of Mary Stuart. In the early and mid-1560s contemporaries witnessed the Scottish queen doing all the things that the English queen was conspicuously failing to do, that is, until the implosion of Mary’s government, her deposition, and the civil war in Scotland. Mary’s arrival in England produced a breakdown of consensus about how her relationship to Elizabeth should be negotiated; in the end there was a rebellion in the North of England which was phrased in part by reference to Catholic hostility to the Elizabethan settlement of religion.
Protestant Foreign Policy and the Coming of War, 1582–1593
Authors: Questier Michael
Published: February 2019

The Anjou marriage diplomacy triggered a series of reactions. The chapter deals with James VI’s attempts to free himself from the control of Anglophile elements within his court. The response of those around Elizabeth was to become increasingly hostile to Mary Stuart and, against Elizabeth’s wishes, to evolve republican schemes in response to the unsettled English succession and also to intervene militarily in the Netherlands. The narratives of the English and French succession crises began to move in step at this point, that is as, after Anjou’s death, it became an issue as to whether the Huguenot Henry of Navarre ought to be allowed to take the French crown after Henry III. The latter half of the chapter deals with the exclusion of the Scottish queen from the English line of succession, the war with Spain and the Armada of 1588, and the turn of a certain sort of Catholic to the Scotland of James VI as their best hope for the political future.
The Ethical Demand and Social Norms
Authors: Stern Robert
Published: February 2019

This chapter covers Chapters 3 and 4 of The Ethical Demand. In these chapters, Løgstrup adds to his characterization of the demand by claiming that it is ‘radical’. He explains this radicality in terms of various further key features, including the way it may intrude on our lives and pick us out as individuals, while even the enemy is included in the requirement on us to care. At the same time, Løgstrup argues that we do not have the right to make the demand, while also denying that it is ‘limitless’. The features of the demand that make it radical distinguish it from the social norms, while the unconditional and absolute nature of the demand contrasts with the variable character of such norms, a contrast which he uses to respond to the challenge of relativism.
Christian Ethics and Life as a Gift
Authors: Stern Robert
Published: February 2019

This chapter covers Chapters 5 and 6 of The Ethical Demand. Having distinguished the ethical demand from social norms, Løgstrup now turns to consider where this leaves him in relation to Christian ethics, and his claim to be operating from a ‘purely human’ standpoint. While he resists the suggestion that Christianity can break the ‘silence’ of the demand by providing it with a content that rests on religious doctrines, Løgstrup also claims that the ethical demand only makes sense if we consider life to be a gift, which raises the interpretative question whether for Løgstrup the giver of this gift is God, or whether this idea can be made sense of in more secular terms.
The Ethical Demand and the Failure of Love
Authors: Stern Robert
Published: February 2019

This chapter covers Chapters 7 to 9 of The Ethical Demand. In these chapters, Løgstrup considers how it is that the demand enters our life as a demand, which happens when natural love fails, and we therefore come to feel under some obligation to do what we would have done, had we loved the other person properly. The demand is thus characterized as unfulfillable, as once it arises, we have already failed to love and so to respond to the other in the right way. Nonetheless, Løgstrup argues, we cannot use this unfulfillability to claim that the demand no longer applies to us, as the failure to love is our fault, while any goodness must be attributed to life and not ourselves. This failure is reflected in the many and various ways which we find to wriggle out of facing up to the demand and what it requires of us.
Dealing with Darwall
Authors: Stern Robert
Published: February 2019

This chapter contrasts Løgstrup’s position with the account of moral obligation offered by Stephen Darwall, which bases obligation on second-personal authority. The chapter begins by setting out Darwall’s position (§10.1). It then focuses on three respects in which he could seem to claim an advantage over Løgstrup: namely, in the way he links obligations to rights; in the place he gives to respect for autonomy in his account; and in the greater explanatory resources he has available to make sense of the idea of moral obligation (§10.2). The chapter then considers responses that Løgstrup might give to these challenges (§10.3), arguing that Løgstrup’s objection to the command account of obligation is also telling against Darwall.
Learning from Luther
Authors: Stern Robert
Published: February 2019

This chapter considers Løgstrup’s relation to Martin Luther. It begins by outlining Luther’s account of human wickedness, and the crucial role this plays in his distinctive theology and ethics. It then shows how Løgstrup takes over this account, but also departs from Luther in certain fundamental respects (§11.1). It then considers how K. Olesen Larsen, building on Kierkegaard, exploits this departure to mount a critical challenge to Løgstrup (§11.2). It is then shown how Løgstrup might respond to Olesen Larsen, but in a way that reveals how his ethics is indeed a step beyond Luther, but arguably a defensible one (§11.3). Finally, the chapter considers how Løgstrup deals with an issue that is central to his Lutheran approach, namely the conception of moral agency that is possible on this model, making a critical comparison with Iris Murdoch (§11.4).
The Newest Sappho (2016) and Ovid’s Heroides 15
Authors: Thorsen Thea S.
Published: February 2019

This chapter argues that Ovid’s Heroides 15, also known as Epistula Sapphus, appears singularly receptive to the sequence of poems that have recently been recovered in the newest Sappho papyrus, which belongs to a Roman-period copy of an Alexandrian edition of Sappho. Among the most striking similarities is the sustained combination of love and personal desire on the one hand and issues concerning family and autobiography on the other, which has become apparent with the recovered sequence of Sappho poems and which—uniquely in a post-Sapphic context—is also found in Heroides 15. The chapter shows how Heroides 15 displays striking similarities with a number of these fragments, concerning both general aspects and specific details.
Frege’s and Russell’s New Logic
Authors: Kuusela Oskari
Published: February 2019

This chapter discusses the background of Wittgenstein’s work in the logical methodologies of Frege and Russell. It outlines the dialectical context and background for the problems in the work of Frege and Russell discussed in chapters 2 and 3, and to which Wittgenstein responds in the Tractatus by developing further their philosophies of logic and logical methodologies. Key issues to be addressed are the notion of a logical language or a concept-script, the sense in which logic is not a branch of psychology, and Frege’s and Russell’s accounts of logic as a science. The final section 1.4 contextualizes the interpretation of the Tractatus proposed in subsequent chapters by situating it in the context of current scholarly disputes regarding the Tractatus, between the so-called resolute reading and traditional metaphysical interpretations that attribute ineffable nonsensical theses to the Tractatus.
Ideality and Reality
Authors: Kuusela Oskari
Published: February 2019

This chapter discusses Wittgenstein’s later account of the status of logic and logical idealization. It explains how Wittgenstein solves the problem of logic seeming to lose its rigour, consequent to the acknowledgement that the uses of language targeted for logical clarification often do not meet the ideals of logic of simplicity and exactness, and that language use therefore apparently cannot be described in the simple and exact terms of logic without falsification. This solution then makes it possible for the discipline of logic to acknowledge that thinking and language use are natural historical phenomena, not abstract ideal objects, and at the same time to retain its non-empirical character. The novel account of the status of logic developed by Wittgenstein is distinguished from the extant aprioristic, conventionalist, and empiricist accounts of logic, and Wittgenstein’s account of idealization in logic is contrasted with idealization in science. The chapter also explains how this account solves a number of problems that arise for the logical methodologies of Frege, Russell, the Tractatus and Carnap, and how logic need not involve any metaphysical claims.
Non-Empiricist Naturalism
Authors: Kuusela Oskari
Published: February 2019

This chapter elucidates Wittgenstein’s later non-empiricist naturalism. This novel kind of naturalism makes it possible to recognize the relevance of natural historical considerations concerning humans and language use for logic, while retaining the traditional conception of logic as a non-empirical discipline. The justification and generality of the employment of natural history based logical models is explained, and distinguished from the justification and generality of empirical statements. The different ways in which Wittgenstein makes use of natural historical considerations in logical or grammatical clarification are discussed, and the difference of Wittgenstein’s approach from broadly Kantian philosophical anthropology clarified. The correctness or truth of logical accounts is explained and a method of multidimensional logical descriptions introduced.
Spain
Authors: Guillén Ana M. , Begega Sergio González
Published: February 2019

Ana M. Guillén and Sergio González Begega address the crisis management strategies of Spain’s long-lasting recession and its associated protracted period of austerity. The Spanish economy enjoyed two decades of very intense expansion prior to the onset of the recession in 2008. That expansion was, nonetheless, unsustainable. Hence Spain went into a profound crisis with harsh social and employment consequences. Youth unemployment became excessive. The analysis of the overall policy responses to the recession and the reforms of the social protection system indicate a trajectory aimed unequivocally at regaining fiscal balance and appeasing the markets, while tending to growing social need remained a secondary objective. The outcome has been a substantive increase in financial hardship and socio-economic insecurity, borne principally by the lowest income quintile and by some active age population groups, such as single parents, immigrants, the unemployed, and, indirectly, children.
Finland
Authors: Kangas Olli
Published: February 2019

Olli Kangas analyses crisis management strategies in two economic crises in Finland: the very deep crisis of the 1990s and the post-2008 recession. Since 2008, gross domestic product (GDP) growth has been weak, unemployment has increased, and domestic demand is being held back by low-income growth. Due to the EU embargo against Russia, Finnish exports to the East ceased, reinforcing the stagnation. For nine years, the national budget and those of municipalities have been running a deficit. A series of austerity packages have made the Finnish welfare state leaner and meaner. Surprisingly, despite cuts in welfare provisions and the high level of unemployment, poverty and inequality of disposable incomes have been declining during the 2010s, due to the protective capacity of the Finnish welfare state. Financial hardship has not increased. However, the prolonged recession may have some long-standing negative consequences that may only become visible in the coming decades.
Bureaucratic Geographies of the State
Authors: Ross Anna
Published: February 2019

This chapter explores the nature of the Prussian state on the eve of 1848 and the administrative challenges it posed to officials. This includes an overview of Prussia’s territories and administrative structures. Within this bureaucratic geography, the Prussian Central Statistical Office comes to the fore as an institution that would be of great importance to state-building in the post-revolutionary decade. The chapter examines the activities undertaken by the director of this office and the bureaucrats who worked with him. It also establishes their role in facilitating an exchange of government materials with other states in the 1850s. The Prussian Ministry of State would rely on many of these statistical materials in exacting reforms, as will be indicated in the chapters that follow.
Crime and Punishment
Authors: Ross Anna
Published: February 2019

This chapter sets out to chart the reforms to criminal and penal affairs undertaken in Prussia in the 1850s. Both Manteuffel and the Justice Minister Ludwig Simons believed that revolutionary unrest could be countered by completing unattended work from the Vormärz era pertaining to criminal justice. But realizing a reform agenda was no easy task. On the political extremes it elicited opposition, especially in the symbolically charged terrain of substantive criminal law. To avoid such complications, both ministers worked hard to shift debate to the realm of procedural reform in the 1850s, creating a surprising and largely integrating space for state-building. In doing so, the post-revolutionary ministries pursued reform without slipping into parochialism. That is, they did not permanently close avenues for the creation of a set of unified national codes to regulate criminal and penal affairs.
Public Opinion and Press Management
Authors: Ross Anna
Published: February 2019

This chapter explores the adoption of a system of press management by the Brandenburg–Manteuffel and Manteuffel Ministries of State in the 1850s. Press management included the institutionalization of a press office, which was responsible for the production of daily reports on the state of the news. It also included the production of official newspapers, circulation of government friendly articles, and granting of subventions to non-oppositional papers. Yet it soon became clear that the office could not shape public debate, as had been hoped. The disappointing results of official press measures in Prussia and other German states meant that governments had increasingly to show themselves willing to open up the workings of the state to greater scrutiny through a circulation of state materials. This would shift the relationship between the state and public sphere, especially after the unification of the German states.
Necessity, Between Tragedy and Predestination
Authors: Leo Russ
Published: February 2019

Chapter 4 examines how Daniel Heinsius’ path-breaking treatise De Tragoediae Constitutione (1611) belongs not only to the Arminian Controversy but also to larger debates concerning providence and predestination in early modernity. Theologies of election and reprobation necessarily traffic in mystery, taxing the limits of the human understanding. Tragedy, however, enables readers to comprehend actions in terms of natural cause and effect; in this sense Heinsius renders divinity intelligible, even tentatively, when he develops Aristotle’s comments concerning necessity and probability (or verisimilitude) as well as his strictures regarding devices and dei ex machinis. In his tragedy Herodes Infanticida, moreover, Heinsius reframes Scripture as a tragedy, eschewing miracles and theological explanations, demonstrating instead how this key evangelical episode—Herod’s massacre of the innocents—is an all-too-human story of fear, power, ignorance, and interpretation.
The Making of Modern Hindi
Authors: Mody Sujata S.
Published: February 2019

The Making of Modern Hindi examines the politics and processes of making Hindi modern at a formative moment in India’s history, when British imperialism was at its peak and anti-colonial sentiments were on the rise. It centres on the figure of Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi (1864-1938), an enterprising and contentious Hindi litterateur, and his project of constructing Hindi as a national language with a modern literature in the early twentieth century. Dwivedi’s unprecedented multimedia literary campaign as long-time editor of the Hindi journal Sarasvatī paved the way for Hindi’s progress into the modern era. This study casts new light on Dwivedi as an innovative and dynamic arbiter of literary modernity. He advanced his agenda by exploring the collaborative potential of art and literature, a critical element in national language and literary reform that has received little attention in other studies. This book also considers tensions between the editor and others in his realm of influence. His project sparked contest amongst a range of authorities who participated alongside Dwivedi in constructing Hindi modernity. Despite a common enthusiasm for Hindi, they challenged some aspects of his endeavour, based on their differing agendas and perspectives. Dwivedi’s responses to their challenges were pragmatic and strategically varied.
Archiving the British Raj
Authors: Bhattacharya Sabyasachi
Published: February 2019

The archives are generally sites where historians conduct research into our past. Seldom are they objects of research. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya traces the path that led to the creation of a central archive in India, from the setting up of the Imperial Record Department, the precursor of the National Archives of India, and the Indian Historical Records Commission, to the framing of archival policies and the change in those policies over the years. In the last two decades of colonial rule in India, there were anticipations of freedom in many areas of the public sphere. These were felt in the domain of archiving as well, chiefly in the form of reversal of earlier policies. From this perspective, Bhattacharya explores the relation between knowledge and power and discusses how the World Wars and the decline of Britain, among other factors, effected a transition from a Eurocentric and disparaging approach to India towards a more liberal and less ethnocentric one.
The Beginnings of the Cult of Relics
Authors: Wiśniewski Robert
Published: February 2019

Christians always admired and venerated martyrs who died for their faith, but for a long time thought that the bodies of martyrs should remain undisturbed in their graves. Initially, the Christian attitude toward the bones of the dead, whether a saint’s or not, was that of respectful distance. This book tells how, in the mid-fourth century, this attitude started to change, swiftly and dramatically. The first chapters show the rise of new beliefs. They study how, when, and why Christians began to believe in the power of relics, first, over demons, then over physical diseases and enemies; how they sought to reveal hidden knowledge at the tombs of saints and why they buried the dead close to them. An essential element of this new belief was a strong conviction that the power of relics was transferred in a physical way and so subsequent chapters study relics as material objects. The book seeks to show what the contact with relics looked like and how close it was. Did people touch, kiss, or look at the very bones, or just at reliquaries which contained them? When did the custom of dividing relics appear? Finally, the book deals with discussions and polemics concerning relics and tries to find out how strong was the opposition which this new phenomenon had to face, both within and outside Christianity on the way to relics becoming an essential element of medieval religiosity.
Discussions and Theology
Authors: Wiśniewski Robert
Published: February 2019

This chapter deals with polemics about the cult of relics. It studies pagan, Jewish, and Christian attitudes, trying to answer the question of how strong the hostility toward the new phenomenon was and discussing its sources (whether ritual pollution, disgust, an association with magic, or lack of a biblical model). It also deals with the doctrinal implications of the cult of relics, such us the problem of the relation between the soul and the body after death, and describes attempts at creating a theology of relics. It studies more closely the debate on the cult of relics which was under way in the West at the turn of the fifth century and involved a group of promoters of the new religiosity to which Victricius of Rouen, Jerome of Stridon, Paulinus of Nola, and Augustine of Hippo belonged.
Conclusions
Authors: Wiśniewski Robert
Published: February 2019

This part of the book summarizes the findings presented in the preceding chapters and in particular traces the chronological development of the cult of relics. It also shows this phenomenon against a wide background of the new Christian religiosity which started to emerge in the Mediterranean in the fourth century and which profoundly changed Christian attitudes to space and time and the material world. The cult of relics was an element of this new religiosity, but it can be fully understood only when studied together with its other aspects, such as the idea of the Holy Land and the practice of pilgrimages, the rise of monasticism and monastic holiness, the development of the Christian calendar, and the habit of feasting.
Considering Comparison
Authors: Freiberger Oliver
Published: February 2019

This book seeks to rehabilitate the comparative method in the study of religion by highlighting its fundamental role for the academic mission of religious studies and by proposing both a responsible theoretical approach and a methodological framework. Analyzing the ways in which comparison is used in the study of religion, the book identifies the primary goals of this method and argues that it is constitutive for religious studies as an academic discipline. Revisiting various critiques of comparison—decontextualization and essentialization charges, postcolonialist and postmodernist critiques, and the perspectives of recent naturalistic approaches—the book incorporates insights gained from such debates into an approach that is based upon thorough epistemological analysis of comparison and that takes the scholar’s situatedness and agency seriously. Few scholars have reflected deeply upon how comparison works in practice. The book argues, and tries to demonstrate, that such reflections are useful both for producing and for evaluating comparative studies. It proposes a methodological framework for the analysis of comparison that is meant to prove relevant both for theoretical reflections and for the pragmatics of comparative work. In addition, it suggests a comparative approach—discourse comparison—that helps to confront the omnipresent risks of decontextualization, essentialization, and universalization. Arguing that the comparative method is indispensable for a deeper analytical understanding of what we call religion, this book makes a case for comparison. It seeks to enrich the considerations of both aspiring and seasoned comparativists, stimulate much-needed further discussions about methodology, and encourage scholars to produce responsible comparative studies.
Dietary Ingredients Requiring Further Research Before Evidence-Based Recommendations Can Be Made for Their Use as an Approach to Mitigating Pain
Authors: Crawford Cindy , Boyd Courtney , Berry Kevin , Deuster Patricia ,   HERB Working Group
Published: February 2019

Objective

Approximately 55–76% of Service members use dietary supplements for various reasons; although such use has become popular, decisions are often driven by information that is not evidence-based. This work evaluates whether current research on dietary ingredients for chronic musculoskeletal pain provides sufficient evidence to inform decisions for practice and self-care, specifically for Special Operations Forces personnel.

Methods

A steering committee convened to develop research questions and factors required for decision-making. Key databases were searched through August 2016. Eligible systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials were assessed for methodological quality. Meta-analysis was applied where feasible. Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation was used to determine confidence in the effect estimates. The committee used a decision table to make evidence-informed judgments across decision-making factors and recommendations for practice and self-care use.

Results

Nineteen dietary ingredients were assessed. No recommendations were given for boswellia, ginger, rose hip, or s-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAMe); specifically, although ginger can be obtained via food, no recommendation is provided for use as a supplement due to unclear research. Further, there were insufficient strong research on boswellia and SAMe and possible compliance issues (i.e., high number of capsules required daily) associated with rose hip.

Conclusions

No recommendations were made when the evidence was low quality or trade-offs were so closely balanced that any recommendation would be too speculative. Research recommendations are provided to enhance the quality and body of evidence for the most promising ingredients. Clinicians and those with chronic pain can rely on evidence-based recommendations to inform their decisions.
“Self-inactivating” rabies viruses are susceptible to loss of their intended attenuating modification
Authors: Jin Lei , Matsuyama Makoto , Sullivan Heather A. , Zhu Mulangma , Lavin Thomas K. , Hou YuanYuan , Lea Nicholas E. , Pruner Maxwell T. , Dam Ferdínez María Lucía , Wickersham Ian R.
Published: February 2019

Monosynaptic tracing using rabies virus is an important technique in neuroscience, allowing brain- wide labeling of neurons directly presynaptic to a targeted neuronal population. A 2017 article reported development of a noncytotoxic version – a major advance – based on attenuating the rabies virus by addition of a destabilization domain to the C-terminus of a viral protein. However, this modification did not appear to hinder the ability of the virus to spread between neurons. We analyzed two viruses provided by the authors and show here that both were mutants that had lost the intended modification, explaining the paper’s paradoxical results. We then made a virus that actually did have the intended modification in at least the majority of virions and found that it did not spread efficiently under the conditions described in the original paper, namely, without an exogenous protease being expressed in order to remove the destabilization domain. We found that it did spread when the protease was supplied, although this also appeared to result in the deaths of most source cells by three weeks postinjection. We conclude that the new approach is not robust but that it could become a viable technique given further optimization and validation.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT

Rabies virus, which spreads between synaptically-connected neurons, has been one of the primary tools used by neuroscientists to reveal the organization of the brain. A new modification to rabies virus was recently reported to allow the mapping of connected neurons without adverse effects on the cells’ health, unlike earlier versions. Here we show that the conclusions of that study were probably incorrect and based on having used viruses that had lost the intended modification because of mutations. We also show that a rabies virus that does retain the intended modification does not spread efficiently between neurons under the conditions reported previously; however, it does spread between neurons under different conditions, suggesting that the approach may be successful if refined further.
Similar patterns of background mortality across Europe are mostly driven by drought in European beech and a combination of drought and competition in Scots pine
Authors: Archambeau Juliette , Benito Paloma Ruiz , Ratcliffe Sophia , Fréjaville Thibaut , Changenet Alexandre , Muñoz Castañeda Jose M. , Lehtonen Aleksi , Dahlgren Jonas , Zavala Miguel A. , Garzón Marta Benito
Published: February 2019

Aim

Background tree mortality is a complex demographic process that affects forest structure and long-term dynamics. We aimed to test how drought intensity interacts with interspecific and intraspecific competition (or facilitation) in shaping individual mortality patterns across tree species ranges.

Location

European latitudinal gradient (Spain to Finland).

Time period

1985 – 2014.

Major taxa studied

Scots pine (Pinus sylvestrisL.) and European beech (Fagus sylvaticaL.).

Methods

We performed logistic regression models based on individual tree mortality recorded in five European National Forest Inventories. We computed the relative importance of climatic drought intensity, basal area of conspecific and heterospecific trees (proxy of indirect intra- and interspecific competition or facilitation) and the effects of their interactions on mortality along the latitudinal gradient of both species range.

Results

Increase in drought intensity over the study period was associated with higher mortality rates in both species. Drought was the most important driver of beech mortality at almost all latitudes while Scots pine mortality was mainly driven by basal area. High conspecific basal area was associated with high mortality rates in both species while high heterospecific basal area was correlated with mortality rates that were high in Scots pine but low in beech.

Main conclusions

Beech mortality was directly affected by drought while Scots pine mortality was indirectly affected by drought through interactions with basal area. Despite their different sensitivity to drought and basal area, the highest predicted mortality rates for both species were at the ecotone between Mediterranean and cool temperate biomes, which can be explained by the combined effect of drought and competition. In the context of global warming, which is expected to be particularly strong in the Mediterranean biome, our results suggest that populations at the southern limit of species ranges may experience increased mortality rates in the near future.

BIOSKETCH

The authors’ research is focused on functional trait ecology and global change, with special attention to mortality and demography processes. The authors use modelling multidisciplinary approaches to understand complex processes in ecology on a large geographical scale.
SEDS-bPBP pairs direct Lateral and Septal Peptidoglycan Synthesis in Staphylococcus aureus
Authors: Reichmann Nathalie T. , Tavares Andreia C. , Saraiva Bruno M. , Jousselin Ambre , Reed Patricia , Pereira Ana R. , Monteiro João M. , Sobral Rita G. , VanNieuwenhze Michael S. , Fernandes Fábio , Pinho Mariana G.
Published: February 2019

Peptidoglycan (PGN) is the major component of the bacterial cell wall, a structure essential for the physical integrity and shape of the cell. Bacteria maintain cell shape by directing PGN incorporation to distinct regions of the cell, namely through the localisation of the late stage PGN synthesis proteins. These include two key protein families, SEDS transglycosylases and the bPBP transpeptidases, proposed to function in cognate pairs. Rod-shaped bacteria have two SEDS-bPBP pairs, involved in cell elongation and cell division. Here, we elucidate why coccoid bacteria, such as Staphylococcus aureus, also possess two SEDS-bPBP pairs. We determined that S. aureus RodA-PBP3 and FtsW-PBP1 likely constitute cognate pairs of interacting proteins. Lack of RodA-PBP3 decreased cell eccentricity due to deficient pre-septal PGN synthesis, whereas the depletion of FtsW-PBP1 arrested normal septal PGN incorporation. Although PBP1 is an essential protein, a mutant lacking PBP1 transpeptidase activity is viable, showing that this protein has a second function. We propose that the FtsW-PBP1 pair has a role in stabilising the divisome at midcell. In the absence of these proteins, the divisome appears as multiple rings/arcs that drive lateral PGN incorporation, leading to cell elongation. We conclude that RodA-PBP3 and FtsW-PBP1 mediate lateral and septal PGN incorporation, respectively, and that the activity of these pairs must be balanced in order to maintain coccoid morphology.
The tortoise strategy as an arbovirus fitness phenotype within the mosquito as revealed by a novel formulation of age-structured vectorial capacity
Authors: Mayton E. Handly , Tramonte A. Ryan , Wearing Helen J. , Christofferson Rebecca C.
Published: February 2019

The transmission dynamics of arboviruses like Zika virus (ZIKV) are most often evaluated by vector competence and the related extrinsic incubation period (EIP), which represent the proportion of vectors that become infectious given exposure and the time it takes for a vector to become infectious given exposure, respectively. Thus, EIP is the temporality of vector competence, and these measures have been used to evaluate the relative fitness of arbovirus systems. However, another temporal process critical to assessing arbovirus transmission dynamics is the age-structure of vector populations, as studies have demonstrated how vector mortality interplays with vector competence and EIP to alter transmission system efficiency. These and other parameters are critical to vectorial capacity (VC), a measure of transmission potential of a vector-pathogen system. However, how these three components – EIP, vector competence, and age – affect VC still needs to be addressed. We first compared experimentally how vector competence/EIP and mosquito age at the time of infection acquisition (Ageacquisition) interacted in an Aedes aegypti-ZIKV model system. We found that Ageacquisition did not alter the vector competence/EIP using traditional analyses, except in the context of mortality. To capture and quantify this age-dependent context, we developed an age-structured vectorial capacity framework (VCage) by experimentally determining daily mortality and probability of biting, as well as vector competence/EIP parameterized as EIPMin and EIPMax. Like previous studies, we found that arbovirus phenotypes leading to outbreaks are not straightforward and may follow a tortoise and the hare (TotH), whereby slow and steady is as or better than fast and furious phenotypes. Understanding the contributions of these age-dependent life traits as well as VCage allows for quantification and visualization of both the magnitude and temporality of transmission dynamics in an age-dependent manner, which reveals this TotH model that should change how compare and rank arbovirus phenotypes, and perhaps even how we identify ‘highly’ or ‘negligibly’ competent vectors.
De novo diploid genome assembly for genome-wide structural variant detection
Authors: Zhang Lu , Zhou Xin , Weng Ziming , Sidow Arend
Published: February 2019

Structural variants (SVs) in a personal genome are important but, for all practical purposes, impossible to detect comprehensively by standard short-fragment sequencing. De novo assembly, traditionally used to generate reference genomes, offers an alternative means for variant detection and phasing but has not been applied broadly to human genomes because of fundamental limitations of short-fragment approaches and high cost of long-read technologies. We here show that 10x linked-read sequencing, which has been applied to assemble human diploid genomes into high quality contigs, supports accurate SV detection. We examined variants in six de novo 10x assemblies with diverse experimental parameters from two commonly used human cell lines, NA12878 and NA24385. The assemblies are effective in detecting mid-size SVs, which were discovered by simple pairwise alignment of the assemblies’ contigs to the reference (hg38). Our study also shows that the accuracy of SV breakpoint at base-pair level is high, with a majority (80% for deletion and 70% for insertion) of SVs having precisely correct sizes and breakpoints (<2bp difference). Finally, setting the ancestral state of SV loci by comparing to ape orthologs allows inference of the actual molecular mechanism (insertion or deletion) causing the mutation, which in about half of cases is opposite to that of the reference-based call. Interestingly, we uncover 214 SVs that may have been maintained as polymorphisms in the human lineage since before our divergence from chimp. Overall, we show that de novo assembly of 10x linked-read data can achieve cost-effective SV detection for personal genomes.