bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
South Africa’s Post-apartheid ECONOMIC Development Trajectory
Authors: Francis David , Habib Adam , Valodia Imraan
Published: December 2021

South Africa’s economic and social development trajectory in the post-apartheid period remains a controversial subject, notwithstanding the extensive literature that has developed. This chapter covers the full spectrum of this debate, but importantly also offers new insights and analysis of the issues. The literature is vast. At one extreme, views from the far left argue that the African National Congress (ANC) has essentially ‘sold out’ and followed uncritically a neo-liberal growth path, to defenders of the ANC’s policies from active participants in the process at the other extreme. Between these two views, there are a number of significant contributions. This chapter reviews the history and contestation of economic policy in South Africa and offers some explanations for why the country’s economic progress has been so uneven. It argues that chronic economic underperformance is the result of two persistent problems in the political-economic structure of South Africa. The first is the failure of politicians and policymakers to account for the limits of South African state capacity to implement even simple economic reforms; post-apartheid economic policymaking is characterized by an assumption that the South African state is able to carry out complex economic coordination and effect reforms. Second, the impasse is really a political one caused by ideological contestation within the ANC which has no mechanism to resolve the impasse.
Constraints to Economic Growth in South Africa
Authors: Creamer Kenneth
Published: December 2021

This chapter analyses the drivers and constraints on the rate of economic growth in South Africa from the 1950’s apartheid-era through to the democratic period post-1994. Key structural factors identified as impacting on the rate and composition of economic growth include the country’s history of racial injustice and exclusion, its industrial structure and linkages to the global commodity price cycle, the evolution of macroeconomic imbalances and related infrastructure investment failures, and the impact of weak state capacity and corruption. Thereafter, the chapter outlines a number of strategic policy interventions for overcoming constraints to inclusive economic growth in South Africa.
Illuminating Sensory Archaeologies
Authors: Papadopoulos Costas , Moyes Holley
Published: December 2021

Light has a fundamental role to play in our perception of the world. It meditates the relationship between people and things within space, and is crucial to our understanding of the material culture of past societies. This chapter introduces light as the core focus of the volume; its qualities and affordances in different contexts and (im)material environments; its design and manipulation; and its elusive properties. The introduction also outlines how the contributions are structured. Chapters serve as case studies to show how diverse spatial and temporal contexts can advance archaeologies of light and with light. The volume is divided into seven thematic parts, each of which explores how light enables or hinders interactions, materializes and is being materialized, animates and illuminates, accentuates and shadows, generates symbols, meanings, and systems, creates beliefs and phenomena, transforms rituals and traditions, structures spaces, and shapes atmospheres. The volume then closes with an Afterword by Tim Ingold, who comments on the chapters and reflects on the role of light and dark as a constitutive element of the things we see around us.
Cyberwar Redux
Authors: Buchanan Ben
Published: December 2021

The notion of cyberwar has held a central place in technology and security scholarship for several decades. With the continued aggression of modern government hacking operations, cyberwar has again emerged as a popular frame. This chapter shows how the present reality, though, has strayed far from the original concept and how a closer examination of state activities suggests a scope for hacking that is different and more limited than many expected. Drawing on case studies, this chapter shows how virtually all hacking activities fall short of war. They are instead variants of espionage, sabotage, and subversion. This refined framing offers important implications for deterrence, coercion, and operational practice.
Opportunity, Threat, and Dependency in the Social Infosphere
Authors: Austin Greg
Published: December 2021

The technological revolution outlined in the previous chapter has unleashed a social upheaval. If a suite of machines came to be so central in global and national social order, as well as in our personal lives, how does that affect our security? Bearing in mind that we are only at the dawn of the cyber age, what will the future hold? This chapter gives an overview of the profound impact of the information revolution on human welfare for better and for worse, from the individual and community levels to the national and international levels. The chapter begins with some insight into how philosophers have viewed these questions. It then looks at how leading actors have responded to the opportunities and threats. The chapter’s most important single theme is the issue of dependency, arguably the most ignored security aspect of the information age.
Online Child Safety
Authors: Carr John
Published: December 2021

This chapter looks at the history and development of online child safety and how industry and regulatory responses have evolved. It shows how the agenda broadened from an initial focus largely on child abuse images (child pornography) and paedophile behaviour through to wider concerns such as age-inappropriate content, including legal pornography and violent or extremist materials. There is also a discussion of how technologies are having an impact on the overall quality of children’s lives. Children’s rights online, bullying, privacy, self-harm, and self-generated sexualized pictures and videos are now considered mainstream matters by those engaged with children’s welfare.
States, Proxies, and (Remote) Offensive Cyber Operations
Authors: Maurer Tim
Published: December 2021

This chapter addresses cyber proxies and offensive cyber operations. The market of cyber force is a complex and dynamic relationship between the state and actors detached from the state that can target a third party beyond a state’s border with unprecedented ease. Only hacking, also known as ‘remote cyber operations’ in the military bureaucracy's vernacular, makes global reach possible at such low cost. Research identifies three main types of proxy relationships between a state and non-state actors: (i) delegation, (ii) orchestration, and (iii) sanctioning. How to manage effectively both proxies and the market for cyber capabilities, both tools and services to the degree they can be separated, is not only of interest for academic scholarship but also for practitioners and policymakers. While a state may face significant challenges in affecting another state’s proxy relationships, it can exercise greater control over its own relationships with cybersecurity companies, hacktivists, and those breaking the law either at home or abroad.
International Law for Cyberspace
Authors: Wingfield Thomas , Wingo Harry
Published: December 2021

This chapter describes the role of international law in cyberspace and in addressing the legality of cyber-related actions taken by countries, companies, associations, and citizens on the world stage. Cyberspace has been described as a new ‘domain’ that is radically different from the land and sea upon which international law developed, but such law either covers or is evolving to cover issues that have been under development for hundreds of years. Such coverage includes the international law principles of sovereignty, due diligence, jurisdiction, and state responsibility. International law also covers numerous specialized regimes: human rights, diplomatic and consular law, law of the sea, air law, space law, and international telecommunications law. Another developing area of international law and cyberspace concerns international peace and security with respect to cyber activities, but those issues lead right up to the threshold of conflict. The once theoretical and purely academic literature of cybercrime, cyber espionage, and, especially, cyberwar must now be applied to real-world cases, and law and policy for the future of cybersecurity must be formulated with an understanding of these broadly accepted international norms.
The Evolving Concept of the Japanese Security Strategy
Authors: Nitta Yoko
Published: December 2021

This chapter studies how the significant cyberattacks perpetrated against the Japan Pension Services (JPS) served to heighten awareness of the significance of cyber threats among political and corporate executives. According to the Japanese cybersecurity strategy, cyberattacks constitute a global risk and remain a prime concern for the development of appropriate countermeasures. As a result, Japan has regarded the strengthening of cybersecurity as a priority and outlined this to the National Security Council in 2014. At present, information security institutions in Japan are chaperoned by the cybersecurity strategy headquarters, which aims to promote constructive and efficient cybersecurity policies. In addition, Japan has implemented its third action plan on information security for critical infrastructure and revised its cybersecurity strategy in 2015. By working in partnership with countries around the world, Japan pursues its own national security as well as the peace and stability of the international community. International cooperation and partnerships also contribute to the international campaign against cyberattacks, especially those in which foreign state actors may be implicated.
Cybercrime: Thieves, Swindlers, Bandits, and Privateers in Cyberspace
Authors: Broadhurst Roderic
Published: December 2021

This chapter describes the definitions and scope of cybercrime including an outline of the history of hackers and the role of criminal networks and markets in the dissemination of malicious software and other contraband such as illicit drugs, stolen credit cards and personal identification, firearms, and criminal services. Different cybercrime types and methods are described, including the widespread use of ‘social engineering’ or deception in computer misuse and identity theft. The challenges facing law enforcement in the suppression of cybercrime and the important role of private and public partnerships, as well as cross-national cooperation in the suppression of cybercrime is illustrated.
The Challenge of Food and Nutritional Security
Authors: McKune Sarah
Published: December 2021

Bringing together a wide diversity of authors based on three continents and from different disciplinary backgrounds, this book offers analyses of a wide range of factors that characterize and that are shaping the future of the African Sahel. In forty chapters, organized in nine sections, the book examines this complex and rapidly changing region on multiple dimensions. Collectively, the book attempts to offer an understanding of the specificity of the Sahel, and to examine its core characteristics as shaped by the geographic, cultural, and political parameters that define it. Following a series of chapters focused on the shaping of the Sahelian space as a region, six chapters explore the distinct national trajectories of the countries of the political Sahel: Senegal, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Chad. The extraordinary combination of environmental, economic, and political challenges, and the ways in which Sahelian states and societies have responded, are the primary focus of the three subsequent sections, while the various parameters of the lived realities of these societies in motion are explored in the four final sections of the book. Transversally throughout, the chapters aim to offer an interdisciplinary and holistic view of the challenges and the dynamics that are shaping a region at a historical crossroads, and an understanding of the many factors that feed and perpetuate its vulnerabilities and fragilities, as well as its sources of resilience.
The Democratic Struggle in the Sahel
Authors: Bodian Mamadou , Villalón Leonardo A.
Published: December 2021

The countries of the Sahel found themselves under intense domestic and international pressures to undertake political reforms in the name of democracy in the early 1990s, and indeed all of them launched efforts to do so. This chapter surveys the variations and the similarities in how the struggle to build and strengthen democratic institutions has played out in the Sahel. It examines some initial fundamental questions related to the nature of a democratic state that were raised by the transitions, before turning to a discussion of the core institutional debates that have defined the struggle. Subsequent sections discuss the political dynamics and the similarities and variations across countries in the institutions for organizing and administering elections and electoral systems; presidential term limits; the structure of legislatures; and the provisions for women’s representation.
French Interventions in the Sahel
Authors: Marchal Roland
Published: December 2021

This chapter examines the impact of external actors in the Sahel, with a focus on the regional crisis since 2012 and the subsequent French and US interventionism. At first glance, France and the United States have been the key strategic actors in the crisis. These two countries have reshaped political and military dynamics, and convinced other states and international agencies to play a role in the crisis. Yet the stakes are very different for each, and certainly more strategic for the French given their military role via Operation Serval and Operation Barkhane. The chapter also discusses other countries that have regularly acted as gatekeepers for international policies in the Sahel and their regional rivalries. Algeria and Morocco have long rivaled each other for influence, and their competition is a determining element in shaping the international interventions and what are optimistically described as the “solutions” for the regional crisis. At the heart of the region itself, Burkina Faso has also played an important intermediary role at various stages.
Social Stratification in the Sahel
Authors: Jourde Cédric
Published: December 2021

This chapter explores the politics of social status hierarchies in the Sahel (freeborn, “castes,” slaves) and the rich literature devoted to this theme. It looks specifically at two themes. First, the paradoxical relationship between Islam and social status stratification. The doctrinal equality of the believers before God has often been negated in practice, as “freeborn” lineages have taken over positions of Islamic leadership. But recently some religious movements (Islamism, Sufism, perhaps some jihadism as well) and social movements have challenged the hierarchy of status differences, some in words only, others in deeds as well. The second theme covers the relationship between the construction of colonial and postcolonial states and status hierarchies. Officially, in postcolonial states all citizens are equal under the law. But informally, little is done to counter practices that perpetuate status discrimination such as slavery. Also, electoral politics can both crystalize social status differences and trigger mobilization against status inequalities.
Chad
Authors: Hansen Ketil Fred
Published: December 2021

Chadians have experienced harsh governance and personal rule since colonization. Between independence in 1960 and the coup d’état in 1990 that brought President Déby to power, violent conflicts, and civil war continuously characterized life and politics in Chad. The political opening of the early 1990s under Déby, however, raised hopes among the populace. Yet the creation of more than one hundred new political parties did not change much in people’s lives or standards of living, resulting in a collective sense of aspirational deprivation, under the electoral authoritarian regime that resulted. Oil extraction starting in 2003 increased the sense of deprivation as the sudden wealth of some made inequality even more visible. Due to Chad’s geopolitical location, the regime’s firm fight against Islamic terror, and its natural resources, various outside powers are keen to maintain the country’s political stability, seemingly even at the price of tolerating the regime’s meager human rights record and internal political repressions.
Families, States, and Markets
Authors: Daly Mary
Published: December 2021

The primary objective in this chapter is to understand family as an object of state policy on the one hand, and market functioning on the other, in a range of countries today. This is accomplished through an analysis of the expansion and reform of family-related policies over the past ten years and a consideration of how these are to be explained, especially in light of the classical approaches to the family. The empirical line of analysis is to identify emerging policy approaches to the interrelations between family, state, and market, in their own right as they evolve in particular countries and in light of a seeming consensus on the part of the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) about the appropriate focus and organization of family and work life today.

The chapter proceeds in four steps. The first introduces the field, outlining the main features of family policy as it has developed over time and the insights of scholarship. Following this, the piece moves on to consider the main contours of current reform, especially in light of the model(s) of family policy being promoted by the EU and the OECD. The third section considers explanatory factors and the utility of the main approaches to understanding family policy. A conclusion brings the piece to a close.
Disciplinary Perspectives on Welfare States
Authors: Øverbye Einar
Published: December 2021

Academic disciplines offer different perspectives on welfare states, depending on what are core questions within the discipline. This review of seven disciplinary perspectives lists the following questions: Does the welfare state enhance social integration or does it undermine social integration (sociology)? Does the welfare state enhance economic efficiency or is it a drag on economic efficiency (economics)? Is the welfare state a result of conflict politics or of consensus politics (political science)? Does the welfare state redistribute to the poor or is it mainly of benefit to the better off (social policy)? Is a publicly or privately managed welfare state best able to provide cost-effective benefits and services of an acceptable quality (social administration)? Does a welfare state enable and empower marginal citizens or is it a means to control and discipline them (social work)? Does the welfare state represent a strengthening or a weakening of the rule of law (legal studies)?
Needs and Risks in the Welfare State
Authors: Zutavern Jan , Kohli Martin
Published: December 2021

Welfare states must respond to the needs and risks that arise from secular transformations such as deindustrialization, tertiarization, digitalization, population ageing, declining fertility, and changing gender and family relations. This chapter shows that understanding the impact of needs and risks on welfare states requires both empirical and normative considerations: examining the socio-economic consequences of these transformations as well as the normative underpinnings of needs- and risk-based claims to social policy. We first discuss the normative concepts of human needs and risks and the marks they have left on prominent theories of the welfare state, and then move to the empirical side, taking stock of the current socio-economic challenges for a range of welfare states, and of their manifestation in today’s employment and family-related need and risk profiles.
Unions and Employers
Authors: Ebbinghaus Bernhard
Published: December 2021

This chapter reviews the main theoretical perspectives which focus directly or indirectly on the role of employers and unions in welfare state development. It also examines the conditions under which collective interests become organized and mobilized, and how well worker and employer interests have been organized and integrated into the overall political economy. The differences in the degree to which welfare states share public space are addressed; that is, the influence of the social partners on policymaking and implementation in different countries. It then explores wage bargaining, labour market policy, pension policy, and health care and shows how the interests of labour and capital are differentially affected and have varying influence across advanced economies. A final comparison of the developing societies and emerging market economies indicates that in these countries, corporatist intermediation is more fragile than in advanced economies, and organized labour and capital have less influence on employment conditions and social protection.
Religion
Authors: van Kersbergen Kees , Manow Philip
Published: December 2021

This chapter discusses the impact of religion on welfare state development in Europe, North America, and the Antipodes. In one perspective, religion is seen as a cultural force: the tenets of the Christian doctrines have strongly influenced the notions of social justice on which modern social policies were built. Varying ethical principles gave rise to different institutional forms of distribution, redistribution, and social protection and to different demands for social security, which ultimately translated into distinctive economic and social outcomes. In another view, religion is seen as a political force: the social and political movements of organized religion, particularly Christian democracy and Catholic organizations, have shaped programmes of social reform and influenced social policy formation and outcomes.

Both perspectives have major shortcoming and this chapter therefore promotes a re-specification of the link between religion and the welfare state to refine and improve upon the existing views. The new approach highlights the interplay between socio-economic (class) and religious (state–church) cleavages on the one hand, and electoral systems (majoritarian or proportional) on the other. In majoritarian systems, pro-welfare state political coalitions are less likely to emerge than in proportional systems. This explains the huge contrast between the Anglo-Saxon lean welfare states and the more generous welfare states in Europe. However, taking into account the difference in cleavage structures and the party systems between Nordic and continental Europe, the new approach also explains why the former developed more universal and generous welfare systems than the latter.
Globalization
Authors: Swank Duane
Published: December 2021

This chapter examines the theory and research on the historical and contemporary impacts of economic globalization on trajectories of national welfare states across the globe. It reviews the central contending theories that globalization’s social policy impacts are negative (the efficiency thesis) or positive (the compensation thesis). It also summarizes various contingency arguments such as the idea that globalization’s impacts are conditioned by national political economic institutions. As to extant research, it surveys comparative, quantitative studies on social impacts of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century ‘first wave’ of globalization and of contemporary internationalization of markets in developed and developing political economies. The central findings of work on developed democracies are that during the first wave of globalization, and in the three decades after the Second World War, globalization was associated with increases in social protection against risks and transfers to losers of international competition (the compensation thesis); for recent decades, scholars lean towards the view that globalization is associated with modest retrenchments in social welfare provision. Substantial evidence also exists for the notion that these effects are contingent on domestic institutions. For developing nations, many studies show that international openness has been associated with cuts in core social insurance and welfare programmes and with increases in (or no effect on) education and health programmes. Studies also suggest that globalization’s social impacts are contingent on temporal context and domestic institutions. The chapter concludes with a discussion of promising new areas of inquiry on globalization and national welfare states in the twenty-first century.
Social Expenditure and Welfare State Financing
Authors: Obinger Herbert
Published: December 2021

This chapter focuses on both the expenditures and the revenues of the welfare state. Using the latest data available, it depicts and analyses major developments in social spending and public revenues in twenty-one advanced Western democracies since 1980. The entry discusses measurement issues, depicts the determinants of cross-national differences in spending and revenue levels identified in the literature, and sheds light on the impact of social spending and taxation on social outcomes, such as income inequality. It is argued that spending and revenue figures, irrespective of several shortcomings, provide important indicators of both the logic and pattern of welfare state development.
The Welfare State as Employer
Authors: Gottschall Karin , Tepe Markus
Published: December 2021

This chapter introduces the concept of public employment regimes to understand why reform trajectories aligning public to private employment take on different pathways and reflect differences in welfare regimes and political economy types referring to OECD countries. After mapping the state of the art on the relevance and development of public employment in Western welfare states, the chapter presents a comparative evaluation of the distinct features of public employment regimes. Specifically, we compare the costs and size of government employment (capturing the fiscal side of public employment regimes), the extent to which females and migrants are represented in the public workforce (referring to the societal integration function of the state as an employer), and public–private-sector wage differentials (referring to the role of the state as employer for the private sector). The chapter concludes by outlining future trends and the need for further research from a global perspective.
Health
Authors: Rothgang Heinz
Published: December 2021

This chapter deals with what is said to be the most important thing in life: health. Health, therefore, is a big deal in all OECD countries, which on average spent almost one-tenth of their GDP on their health-care system. These health-care systems are at the centre of this chapter. After having discussed their origins and developments and the existing typologies of health-care systems we analyse the three functions of each health-care system in detail, i.e. finance, delivery, and regulation. In a nutshell, we find that systems have become more complex and more hybrid over time, while the clear distinctions between different system types have been blurred. One reason for this is the attempt to pick up elements from other system types in order to increase effectiveness and efficiency. As different systems produce different results, performance measurement has become of increasing interest, an issue we turn on then. Respective approaches, however, are still—at best—highly disputable. As health-care systems seem to be in a state of permanent reform, in a subsequent section we present approaches to explain such reforms coming from different strands of theory. The chapter concludes with a view on international and global health, highlighting that health governance issues emerge at the interface of local, national, regional, and global interests.
Work Accident and Sickness Benefits
Authors: Kangas Olli
Published: December 2021

This entry traces past and present trends in the institutional development of income transfers in the case of work accident and sickness. The focus is mainly on OECD or European countries, but in some instances, references are made to a wider array of countries or continents. The entry begins with a review of the history of work accident insurance; in most countries, this was the first social insurance programme to be created. The history of this early programme highlights a number of factors behind the development of later programmes. The latter part of the entry focuses on sickness insurance. Again, we begin with historical developments, focusing in particular on the universalism and generosity of benefits. We then move on to discuss the extent to which sickness benefits have, in recent years, been targets for retrenchment. The final section tentatively discusses future trajectories of these two income maintenance programmes.
Education
Authors: Busemeyer Marius R. , Nikolai Rita
Published: December 2021

The analysis of the political and institutional connections between education and other parts of the welfare state is an expanding field of scholarship. The chapter starts by discussing the complex relationship between education and socio-economic inequality from a comparative and historical perspective. Discussing the variety of education regimes with a focus on OECD countries, the chapter goes on to highlight differences in the relative importance of education as part of more encompassing welfare state regimes. Furthermore, the chapter identifies different education regimes characterized by features such as levels of spending, the distribution between public and private education spending, the importance of vocational relative to academic education, and institutional stratification in secondary education. These education regimes correspond to a significant extent with established welfare state regime typologies. The final section of the chapter discusses factors that might explain the emergence of distinct and different educational regimes, such as historical legacies, religious heritage, and the balance of power between organized interests and political parties, as well as political institutions.
Macroeconomic Outcomes
Authors: Mares Isabela , Pierson Christopher
Published: December 2021

This chapter examines the consequence of larger welfare states on two macroeconomic outcomes: growth and employment. Much of the standard neoclassical literature predicts that large welfare states will necessarily have negative consequences for both growth and employment. This is not borne out by the empirical evidence. In part, this is because some welfare state measures, on education and health care, for example, have positive externalities in the wider economy. It also seems that national experience varies with differing institutional contexts, especially in relation to wage-bargaining institutions. After 2008, this argument played out in differing views about ‘austerity’, some suggesting that it was necessary to re-establish growth, with others dismissing it as a sort of economic primitivism.
Continental Western Europe
Authors: Palier Bruno
Published: December 2021

The chapter analyses the commonalities and transformations of the Bismarckian welfare systems of continental Western Europe. In these systems, social insurance is the primary delivery mechanism, access to benefits is mainly based on work and contribution record, benefits are mainly in cash and calculated as a proportion of past earnings, the biggest share of the financing comes from social contributions paid by employers and employees, and the governance and management of these systems is partly run by collective, compulsory social insurance funds. These features dominate the welfare systems of Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, and, to a lesser degree, the Netherlands. The first part of the chapter focuses on the origins of these systems, the main goals they tried to achieve through their historical development, and the specific principles on which they rely. The second part shows how these systems developed and functioned during their Golden Age, emphasizing their institutional traits and complementarities with certain forms of industrial capitalism. The third part analyses the specificities of the crises these systems are facing, especially the cost of labour. The final part presents the various sequences of welfare reform that have led these systems to adopt structural reforms, especially. The conclusion focuses on the dualization processes that characterize the main changes of Bismarckian welfare systems.
Religion and the Cold War in Europe
Authors: Kirby Dianne
Published: December 2021

This chapter examines the religious Cold War, spawned by the West, and its impact throughout Europe. The religious Cold War was a diverse, multidimensional, complex global phenomenon whose salience varied according to the stage of the conflict, geographical location, cultural underpinnings, as well as national and local dynamics. Europe, where the Cold War began and ended, was a multiconfessional continent wherein Christianity, with its intimate historical, cultural, and indeed national links, was the dominant religion. The chapter focuses on the impact of the East–West power struggle on the churches and how they met its various challenges, especially fear of nuclear obliteration. During the Cold War religious organizations negotiated the arms race, détente, decolonization, globalization, secularization, and the growing importance of the developing world. The chapter examines their religio-political evolution as they encountered the Cold War, their contribution to ending it, and their position in the post-Cold War global order.
Religion and Law in the European Union
Authors: Doe Norman , Cranmer Frank
Published: December 2021

All three major European supranational institutions—the European Union (EU), the Council of Europe (CoE), and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)—acknowledge the importance of religion within European history and culture and give special recognition to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. As has been argued elsewhere, the attitude of both the EU and the CoE to ‘religion’ is characterized by seven principles—the value of religion and of non-religion; subsidiarity; religious freedom; religious equality and non-discrimination; the autonomy of religious associations; cooperation with religion; and the special protection of religion by means of privileges and exemptions—principles that may be induced from their laws and other regulatory instruments. In doing so, they seek to maintain a balance between Europe’s religious, humanist, and cultural elements. How that balance and recognition operate in practice, however, is far from clear-cut and is highly sensitive to individual circumstances.
Eastern Orthodoxy and Europe
Authors: Fokas Effie
Published: December 2021

This chapter considers the relationship between ‘Orthodoxies’ and ‘Europes’, highlighting the multiplicity of Eastern Christian Orthodox approaches and attitudes towards Europe, from one majority Orthodox national context to another and one historical period to another, ranging from anti-Europeanism (and anti-Westernism) to Europhilism. It also draws attention to differences in Orthodox stances on the idea of Europe, on the one hand, and the political reality of the European unification project, on the other. A temporal perspective is particularly relevant in changing attitudes to the European Union. Special attention is paid to external perspectives on the relationship between ‘Orthodoxy’ and ‘Europe’, often politicized and influenced by the political turmoil in the Balkans. The chapter closes with reference to the situation of flux characterizing contemporary conceptions of Europe, and the impact of the latter on ‘Orthodoxy’ in relation to ‘Europe’.
Central Europe
Authors: von Klimó Árpád
Published: December 2021

Central Europe is still imagined as an area dominated by Christianity, for the most part the Catholic Church, in close alliance with Christian rulers who minimized the impact of both the Protestant Reformation and minorities such as Judaism. This idea rests, however, on an oversimplified picture of the religious history of the region. Recent research has shown that the reality was more complex, and that historians still know very little about what the overwhelming majority of people believed or how they practised their religion. Christianity has never completely monopolized the religious landscape of Central Europe and has itself been constantly changing. The history of Christianization, Reformation, empires, and nationalism present in Central Europe as well as state socialism, the Cold War and today’s relative pluralism give an idea of this complexity.
Criminalization of Abortion in Late Qing and Republican China
Authors: Xu Aymeric
Published: December 2021

The offence of abortion was a Western legal disposition introduced into late Qing China in the 1900s and it remained in effect during the Republican period. In Imperial China, abortion did not constitute a criminal offence, and foetal life was generally considered inferior to human life. The widespread humanization of the foetus in early twentieth-century China was closely intertwined with the nationalist ideology that exhorted women to reproduce for the nation. In this narrative, the foetus was valued as a future citizen, and abortion came to be seen as a demographic calamity for the nation. Abortion was also condemned by conservatives who depreciated it as a scandalous act mostly attempted by women engaged in ‘illicit’ sexual relationships. Although the 1935 Criminal Code decriminalized therapeutic abortion, it was still illegal to terminate a pregnancy resulting from rape. In this regard, the vision of legal Orientalism that portrays Chinese law as the inferior other to modern Western law is problematic, as certain aspects of Chinese legal tradition may provide a more appropriate protection of personal choices.
Massive Transfusion Protocol Predictive Modeling in the Modern Electronic Medical Record
Authors: Lao William Shihao , Poisson Jessica L. , Vatsaas Cory J. , Dente Christopher J. , Kirk Allan D. , Agarwal Suresh K. , Vaslef Steven N.
Published: December 2021

Objectives:

Integrate a predictive model for massive transfusion protocol (MTP) activation and delivery in the electronic medical record (EMR) using prospectively gathered data; externally validate the model and assess the accuracy and precision of the model over time.

Background:

The Emory model for predicting MTP using only four input variables was chosen to be integrated into our hospital’s EMR to provide a real time clinical decision support tool. The continuous variable output allows for periodic re-calibration of the model to optimize sensitivity and specificity.

Methods:

Prospectively collected data from level 1 and 2 trauma activations were used to input heart rate, systolic blood pressure, base excess (BE) and mechanism of injury into the EMR-integrated model for predicting MTP activation and delivery. MTP delivery was defined as: 6 units of packed red blood cells/6 hours (MTP1) or 10 units in 24 hours (MTP2). The probability of MTP was reported in the EMR. ROC and PR curves were constructed at 6, 12, and 20 months to assess the adequacy of the model.

Results:

Data from 1162 patients were included. Areas under ROC for MTP activation, MTP1 and MTP2 delivery at 6, 12, and 20 months were 0.800, 0.821, and 0.831; 0.796, 0.861, and 0.879; and 0.809, 0.875, and 0.905 (all P < 0.001). The areas under the PR curves also improved, reaching values at 20 months of 0.371, 0.339, and 0.355 for MTP activation, MTP1 delivery, and MTP2 delivery.

Conclusions:

A predictive model for MTP activation and delivery was integrated into our EMR using prospectively collected data to externally validate the model. The model’s performance improved over time. The ability to choose the cut-points of the ROC and PR curves due to the continuous variable output of probability of MTP allows one to optimize sensitivity or specificity.
STROCSS 2021: strengthening the reporting of cohort, cross-sectional and case-control studies in surgery
Authors: Mathew Ginimol , Agha Riaz
Published: December 2021

Introduction:

Strengthening The Reporting Of Cohort Studies in Surgery (STROCSS) guidelines were developed in 2017 in order to improve the reporting quality of observational studies in surgery and updated in 2019. In order to maintain relevance and continue upholding good reporting quality among observational studies in surgery, we aimed to update STROCSS 2019 guidelines.

Methods:

A STROCSS 2021 steering group was formed to come up with proposals to update STROCSS 2019 guidelines. An expert panel of researchers assessed these proposals and judged whether they should become part of STROCSS 2021 guidelines or not, through a Delphi consensus exercise.

Results:

A total of 42 people (89%) completed the DELPHI survey and hence participated in the development of STROCSS 2021 guidelines. All items received a score between 7 and 9 by >70% of the participants, indicating a high level of agreement among the DELPHI group members with the proposed changes to all the items.

Conclusion:

We present updated STROCSS 2021 guidelines to ensure ongoing good reporting quality among observational studies in surgery.
Brevibacillus marinus sp. nov., a thermophilic bacterium isolated from deep sea sediment in the South China Sea
Authors: Wang Ke-Xin , Li Cun , He Yuan-Qiu , Cui Lin-Qing , Chen Rou-Wen , Long Li-Juan , Tian Xin-Peng
Published: December 2021

A novel thermophilic bacterium, designated SCSIO 07484T, was isolated from marine sediment sampled in the South China Sea. Growth occurred at 30–60 °C, pH 6.0–8.0 and in the presence of 0–3 % (w/v) NaCl. Cells of strain SCSIO 07484T were rod-shaped and flagellum-forming. No soluble pigment was observed. The phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that SCSIO 07484T belonged to the family

Paenibacillaceae

and clustered with members of the genus

Brevibacillus

in the phylogenetic trees with less than 96.2 % similarities. The cell wall contained meso-diaminopimelic acid. Whole-cell hydrolysates contained arabinose, glucose and ribose. The predominant menaquinone was MK-7. Major fatty acids were iso-C16 : 0, iso-C15 : 0, C16 : 0 and iso-C14 : 0. Diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine were its diagnostic polar lipids. The whole genome size of strain SCSIO 07484T was 4 079 826 bp with a DNA G+C content of 56.2 mol%, including one circular chromosome of 3 978392 bp and one plasmid of 101434 bp. Based on the polyphasic analysis of strain SCSIO 07484T, it is considered to represent a novel species of the genus

Brevibacillus

, for which the name Brevibacillus marinus sp. nov. is proposed with the type strain SCSIO 07484T (=DSM 106769T=CGMCC 1.15814T).
A short prokaryotic argonaute cooperates with membrane effector to confer antiviral defense
Authors: Zeng Zhifeng , Chen Yu , Pinilla-Redondo Rafael , Shah Shiraz A. , Zhao Fen , Wang Chen , Hu Zeyu , Zhang Changyi , Whitaker Rachel J. , She Qunxin , Han Wenyuan
Published: December 2021

Argonaute (Ago) proteins are widespread nucleic acid-guided enzymes that recognize targets through complementary base pairing. While in eukaryotes Agos are involved in RNA silencing, the functions of prokaryotic Agos (pAgos) remain largely unknown. In particular, a clade of truncated and catalytically inactive pAgos (short pAgos) lacks characterization. Here, we reveal that a short pAgo protein in Sulfolobus islandicus, together with its two genetically associated proteins, Aga1 and Aga2, provide robust antiviral protection via abortive infection. Aga2 is a membrane-associated toxic effector that binds anionic phospholipids via a basic pocket, which is essential for its cell killing ability. Ago and Aga1 form a stable complex that exhibits RNA-directed nucleic acid recognition ability and directly interacts with Aga2, pointing to an immune sensing mechanism. Together, our results highlight the cooperation between pAgos and their widespread associated proteins, suggesting an uncharted diversity of pAgo-derived immune systems that await to be discovered.
Mitochondrial fission dysfunction alleviates heterokaryon incompatibility-triggered cell death in the industrial filamentous fungus Aspergillus oryzae
Authors: Lu Chan , Katayama Takuya , Mori Noriko , Saito Ryota , Iwashita Kazuhiro , Maruyama Jun-ichi
Published: December 2021

In filamentous fungi, cell-to-cell recognition is a fundamental requirement for the formation, development, and maintenance of complex hyphal networks. Basically, self/compatible individuals within the fungal species are capable of fusing together, a step important for crossbreeding, which results in the formation of viable vegetative heterokaryons. Conversely, the fusion of incompatible individuals does not result in the formation of viable hyphal networks, but it often leads to growth inhibition or cell death. Even though a number of studies have been conducted to investigate such incompatibility, the understanding of the associated molecular mechanism is still limited, and this restricts the possibility of crossbreeding incompatible individuals. Therefore, in this study, the characteristics of compatibility/incompatibility in the industrial filamentous fungus, Aspergillus oryzae, were comprehensively investigated. Protoplast fusion and co-culture assays indicated the existence of a correlation between strain phylogeny and compatibility/incompatibility features. Time-course fluorescence observations were employed to investigate the types of incompatible responses that are induced at different cellular levels upon incompatible cell fusion, which eventually lead to cell death. Propidium iodide-indicated cell death, ROS accumulation, and mitochondrial fragmentation were identified as the major responses, with mitochondrial fragmentation showing the most significant subcellular change immediately after incompatible cell fusion. Furthermore, the deletions of mitochondrial fission-related genes Aofis1 and Aodnm1 in incompatible pairing alleviated cell death, indicating that mitochondrial fission is an important mechanism by which incompatibility-triggered cell death occurs. Therefore, this study provides new insights about heterokaryon incompatibility.

IMPORTANCE

For a long time, it was believed that as an asexual fungus, A. oryzae does not exhibit any sexual cycle. However, the fungus has two mating types, indicating the potential for sexual reproduction besides a known parasexual cycle. Therefore, given that viable heterokaryon formation following cell fusion is an important step required for genetic crossing, we explored the mechanism of incompatibility, which restricts the possibility of cell fusion in A. oryzae. Protoplast fusion and co-culture assays led to the identification of various vegetative compatible groups. Mitochondrial fragmentation was found to be the most significant incompatible cellular response that occurred in organelles during incompatible pairing, while the deletion of mitochondrial fission-related genes was identified as a strategy used to alleviate incompatibility-triggered cell death. Thus, this study revealed a novel mechanism by which mitochondrial fission regulates incompatible responses.