bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Fricative vowels as an intermediate stage of vowel apicalization
Authors: Hu Fang , Ling Feng
Published: January 2019

Diphthongization and apicalization are two commonly detected phonetic and/or phonological processes for the development of high vowels, with the process of apicalization being of particular importance to the phonology of Chinese dialects. This paper describes acoustics and articulation of fricative vowels in the Suzhou dialect of Wu Chinese. Acquiring frication initiates the sound change. The production of fricative vowels in Suzhou is characterized by visible turbulent frication from the spectrograms, and a significant lower Harmonics-to-Noise Ratio vis-à-vis the plain counterparts. The acoustic study suggests that spectral characteristics of fricative vowels play a more important role in defining the vowel contrasts. The fricative high front vowels have comparatively greater F1 and smaller F2 and F3 values than their plain counterparts, and in the acoustic F1/F2 plane, the fricative vowels are located in an intermediate position between their plain and apical counterparts. The articulatory study revealed that that not only tongue dorsum but also tongue blade are involved in the production of fricative high front vowels in Suzhou. Phonologically, plain high front vowels, fricative high front vowels, and apical vowels distinguish in active place of articulation, namely being anterodorsal, laminal, and apical respectively; and frication becomes a concomitant and redundant feature in the production of fricative or apical vowels. It is concluded that the fine-grained phonetic details suggest that the fricative high front vowels in Suzhou is at an intermediate stage of vowel apicalization in terms of both acoustics and articulation.
Address forms in grammars and textbooks of West and South Slavic languages in the eighteenth and nineteenth century
Authors: Betsch Michael
Published: January 2019

This contribution studies address forms in grammars and textbooks of several West and South Slavic languages of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, especially in the pedagogical dialogues that accompany these works. The languages in focus had been using several address forms borrowed from German (or Italian), and due to the efforts of linguistic purism, these borrowings were eliminated in the nineteenth century. The result is in all those languages a system of address pronouns consisting of the second person singular and plural. The purist efforts were motivated by the wish of restoring an older language form, or to approach an imagined ideal type of Slavic language; they are an effect of the national movements of these non-dominant ethnic groups (National Revival).
The Nuovo Galateo (‘New Galateo’, 1802) by Melchiorre Gioja, politeness (pulitezza) and reason
Authors: Saltamacchia Francesca , Rocci Andrea
Published: January 2019

In 1802 Melchiorre Gioja published the Nuovo Galateo (‘New Galateo’), a treatise that supplants the aristocratic model based on conventional ceremonies with a model based on ragione sociale ‘social reason’. The word and its morphological derived lexemes play an important role in the argumentative architecture of the treatise. We hypothesize that reason can be considered an argumentative keyword of the treatise, i.e. a word that evokes beliefs and values that function as endoxa. We examine the collocations and the constructions in which ragione and its derived lexemes enter, and we demonstrate how different key-constructions based on ragione are used to argumentatively justify politeness evaluations. This investigation not only confirms the argumentative keyness of the reason-related constructions, but also casts light on the utilitarian nature of the social reason underlying Gioja’s view of politeness.
Polarity in sociology of knowledge: the relationship between disciplinarity, curriculum, and social justice
Authors: Shalem Yael , Allais Stephanie
Published: January 2019

This paper examines two influential views within the sociology of knowledge, specifically in literature examining relationships between knowledge, curriculum, and social justice, located in the South African context of extreme inequality and poverty. The first emphasizes the role of disciplines in creating criteria of powerful knowledge, arguing that knowledge must be evidence‐based, generalizable, and revisable. The second argues for the importance of the social origins of knowledge for reasons both of strengthening knowledge and creating curricula that foster confidence in young scholars. We then draw on what we see as the strongest claims of each view and explore the value they bring to thinking about knowledge and curriculum debates raised by community of practitioners within three disciplines in the social science – economics, education studies, and history. Our brief consideration of these disciplines reveals that different disciplines face specific challenges which transverse, in different ways, the polarity which characterizes the debate so far. Strong aspects of each view feature in the development of each of the three disciplines, some in negative ways. This is an interesting finding, which demonstrates that principled debates couched in epistemological terms, when applied to specific disciplines, do not remain as a simple binary.
A review on perfluoroalkyl acids studies: Environmental behaviors, toxic effects, and ecological and health risks
Authors: Liu Wenxiu , Wu Jingyi , He Wei , Xu Fuliu
Published: January 2019

Perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) are emerging persistent organic pollutants that are globally distributed in the environment. In the present review, the occurrence of PFAAs and their behavior in aquatic ecosystem were summarized, and the health and ecological risk assessment and the multimedia fate simulation were investigated. PFAAs are most likely to exist in the aqueous phase, and PFAAs in atmosphere are also able to enter water bodies through diffusion and wet and dry deposition and eventually become widely distributed in various environmental media. The air-solid partition is considered to be one of the major factors in the long-distance transportation of the pollutants. The pKa values and organic carbon fraction of the sediment could influence the partition of PFAAs between water and sediment. Otherwise, PFAAs have teratogenic, mutagenic and other toxic effects and they could be accumulated by biota, and magnified through trophic level. The ecological and health risks of PFOA and PFOS were assessment. In order to explore the partition mechanism and reduce the uncertainty of the simulation of the transport, transformation and fate, the experimental methods on physicochemical properties of PFAAs should be developed. Moreover, further studies on toxicities of PFAAs are necessary for health and ecological risk assessment.
A Fanonian Philosophy of Race
Authors: Towns Armond
Published: January 2019

Frantz Fanon was one of the most important voices in decolonial and black liberation struggles of the mid-20th century. Writing about race and colonialism in Martinique, France, and Algeria, he articulated the importance of blackness to Western frameworks of the human. The black studies scholarship influenced by Fanon has continued in a similar vein, arguing that much of modern, Western thought either does not discuss race at all or considers race as an add-on to the larger discussion of Western subjectivity. Alternatively, Fanon and his interlocutors argue that race is the central function of the larger fields of Western philosophy and science, even if race is not mentioned at all. To make this claim, they largely point toward two tendencies in Western thought. First, Fanon and his interlocutors often examine the centrality of time and space in modern Western philosophy. Indeed, much of Western philosophy and science has implicitly and explicitly examined time as a linear trajectory that is largely monopolized by the Western European and North American white male subject; alternatively, space has been theorized as the static and nondynamic measure of the Western subject’s capacity to progress. Second, Fanon and his interlocutors also critically interrogate the related discussion of mutual recognition that is assumed in much of Western thought. As such, Western thinkers have often contended that, historically, the self recognizes itself in the other, and vice versa, and that self/other relationship is the basis for concepts of subjectivity. Yet, Fanon and his interlocutors have also pointed out that the lack of recognition of black people as human or as subjects has done little to foreclose whiteness as the position overrepresented as the human. Rather than recognition, white people have historically enacted racial violence against black bodies as a central mode through which to enter into humanity. As such, time and space and the lack of recognition as outlined by Fanon and his interlocutors suggest that nonwhite bodies have always provided a crisis for Western concepts of universality and subjecthood.
Arjun Appadurai and Critical Cultural Studies
Authors: Rai Swapnil
Published: January 2019

Globalization as a phenomenon was seen by scholars as a compression of the world, where the world comes together as a global village in thought and in action. Arjun Appadurai, in his theorization of globalization, challenges this view. He argues that globalization is primarily disjunctive, scalar, and contextual. He defines five basic landscapes that are about people and their migration (ethnoscapes), technology (technoscapes), media (mediascapes), ideology (ideoscapes) and finance (finanscapes). Globalization, according to Appadurai, occurs at the points of rupture and disjuncture between these different landscapes. In this context he defines “imagination as a social practice” and situates the work of imagination at the center of all globalization processes. Media flows decidedly play a large role in shaping the imagination, therefore mediascapes are critical to the understanding of globalization in any given context. Similarly, the flows of capital, of people, of ideologies and technology help create new imagined worlds that are fluid and capable of producing a “globally variable synesthesia.” That is, one type of imagined world can trigger similar imaginaries in other parts of the world, yet they possess different shapes and forms.

Appadurai’s theorization was later criticized for presenting too optimistic a view of globalization, for ignoring its dark side. So, in his later work Appadurai explores the “dark” side of globalization. In Fear of Small Numbers, he addresses the widespread global violence against minorities and uses Freud’s “anxiety of incompleteness” to explicate the majority group’s predatory behavior. Globalization has deepened this behavior and thought because it intensifies the possibility and related fear of the majority morphing into the minority and vice versa. Collective group identities, therefore, are forever under threat as “volatile morphing” becomes a reality brought about by rapid global migrations across national boundaries. Appadurai’s later work also points in the direction of hope by presenting the idea of grassroots globalization which is happening alongside the pervasive violence. Grassroots globalization is the idea of globalization from below that is done by non-governmental organizations and transnational advocacy networks that work toward redressing lack of access, injustice and inequity. Appadurai also offers scholars a new framework for how to do globalization research which is not fixated on its “internationalization” but is focused on questions and is inclusive of other worldviews and approaches from around the world.
Donna Haraway and Communication Studies
Authors: Kuswa Kevin Douglas , Kuperman Edward Lubich
Published: January 2019

Donna Haraway is a prophet. Not only is her work indispensable to an understanding of science, technology, feminism, environmental studies, and protest, but she is also outlining a vivid description of where society is headed in a simultaneous array of dystopian and utopian futures. To think about human and nonhuman bodies (as well as their machinic and organic trajectories) requires engaging this provocative scholar and her work spanning over three decades. Like other prophets, Haraway has her critics, including many with understandable objections to her politics or her omissions. From any perspective, however, the way she merges genres and negotiates perspectives is unparalleled, even in critical and cultural studies. The insight she offers into the juxtaposition between humans and the environment shows how the interactions between the natural and social worlds are far more intricate and intertwined than previously conceived. The very survival of the planet depends on a new orientation to humanity’s impact on surrounding ecosystems, generating a personal, political, theoretical, and moral imperative to live in tandem with our surroundings, not in opposition. Reading Haraway thus becomes more than an academic exercise or form of intellectual tourism. In short, she is arguing for a sea-change in perspective that centers on animals and ecosystems as an indispensable part of human life on Earth.

Whether thinking through the relationships between humans and primates, ants and acacias, art and politics, compost and toxicity, or gods and pigeons, Haraway always finds ways to blur science and fiction, speculation and empiricism, or sustainability and rupture. As she demonstrates that the Anthropocene is better thought of as the Chthulucene, Haraway provokes her readers to think deeply and in unique and reflective ways. The three main clusters that constitute her work are each monumental: first, the merging of human and machine in the form of the cyborg; second, the concept of “natureculture” and the double-edged sword represented by technology that can either help natureculture contribute to a radical emancipation or experience a catastrophic exploitation; and, third, the available means of politics within both ideological structures and new identities. Between the clusters the various criticisms of Haraway’s work will also emerge, both highlighting and interrogating the clusters themselves. Overall, quilting a shelter to brave the ongoing storm is Haraway’s objective, but she knows that such a goal necessitates staying with the trouble.
Paul Gilroy and Communication Studies
Authors: Towns Armond
Published: January 2019

Paul Gilroy is a central figure in British cultural studies. From There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack to Darker than Blue, his work has consistently interrogated what the political means for cultural studies, particularly with an eye toward making the world anew at some point in the near future. Indeed, Gilroy’s work suggests that the construct of the “political,” for cultural studies, has at least two interrelated meanings, both future-focused: (1) the political involves one form of investigation as a mode of entering into the conjunctural analysis; and (2) the political is also a nod toward black futurities as a mode of forever transforming said conjuncture. First, as noted by Stuart Hall, the cultural studies scholar has the responsibility to “necessarily abstract” from the conjuncture to begin an analysis. What this means is, whereas disciplinary scholarship focuses on the cultural, social, economic, or the political as set boundaries, the cultural studies scholar can begin with the political, in the first instance, and this may (or may not) lead to an investigation of the social, economic, or cultural elements of the conjuncture. This is an inherent element of the interdisciplinary approach of cultural studies. For Gilroy, nationalism and fascism are political constructs that he begins with, in the first instance. These political constructs, then, disproportionately lead to questions of racism and colonialism, which are disproportionately left out of the larger British cultural studies project. Gilroy’s career outlines a position that arguably has changed very little in contemporary British cultural studies: that white men are largely the gatekeepers of what constitutes cultural studies, many of whom completely ignore race in their theorizations of nationalism and fascism, even when it serves as an absent presence. Further, this liberal position of cultural studies requires intervention. Thus, second, and as noted by Lawrence Grossberg, the political for cultural studies also assumes that one’s work should do something in the world; it should seek to forever transform the conjuncture. In short, cultural studies is not just a theoretical exercise, but it is about telling a “better story” that can lead to transformation in the world. Indeed, Gilroy’s treatise on “racelessness,” often considered a nod toward colorblindness, is actually his attempt to speak the world anew. Put differently, Gilroy’s project has always been concerned with “routes” toward a new construct of humanism to disrupt Western engagements with the human. Despite its potential for white liberalism, then, Gilroy views cultural studies as uniquely positioned to speak the world anew, to challenge the solidity of the Western human and its connections to the Western nation. This, for Gilroy, requires rethinking the future, not through Karl Marx’s communist future, but Frantz Fanon’s decolonial future. In short, black futurities are everyone’s future.
Colonialism and Postcolonialism
Authors: Burman Jenny
Published: January 2019

Colonial powers used electronic media and communication technologies to assert and extend control over spaces as well as attempt to influence the “hearts and minds” of colonized people, colonial settlers, and Europeans in the metropole. Colonized people adapted and repurposed these technologies, often toward anticolonial ends. In the early mid-19th century, the telegraph effectively became the “nervous system of empire,” collapsing distances and enabling colonizers to surveil and dominate colonized people and institutions from the metropole (with varying degrees of success). In the early 20th century, new media forms like wireless radio were used to “educate” and “civilize” colonial subjects, entertain and relieve the anxiety of settlers, and spread propaganda in the colonies and the metropole about the benefits of imperialism.

These technologies helped to build both deliberate and accidental, colonial and anticolonial, transnational networks. Some of those networks assisted in anticolonial political mobilizations, particularly in India, where the telegraph was accessible to the public and facilitated nationalist organizing, and Algeria, where radio helped to galvanize support for the revolutionary FLN. Postcolonial media landscapes hold the histories of colonial power asymmetries; we see present-day continuities in the concentration of ownership of media and communication technologies among racial and economic elites, and in the Eurocentrism of dominant regimes of representation.
Psychological Resilience and Adversarial Growth in Sport and Performance
Authors: Fletcher David
Published: January 2019

The ability to withstand or adapt to environmental demands is an inherent aspect of performance sport. At the highest level of competition, phenomenal levels of psychological resilience are necessary to attain and sustain success. Although various biopsychosocial factors contribute to the development of this resilience, an important differentiating factor in the emergence of the world’s best athletes is an ability to benefit in some way from the adversity they encounter, to the extent that they psychosocially grow and develop their resilience beyond their pre-trauma functioning, resulting in superior performance. These interrelated experiences of adversity, growth, and resilience involve ongoing complex interactions of numerous personal and situational factors. To briefly elaborate, following adversity-related trauma, athletes go through a “transitional process” whereby growth is facilitated through a combination of internal and external processes. For the world’s best athletes, changes to their motivation and personality appear to be particularly salient psychological aspects of adversarial growth. With regard to the development of resilience, the combined influence of psychological (i.e., personality, motivation, confidence, focus, support) and environmental (i.e., challenge, support) factors underpin athletes’ enhanced ability to withstand or adapt to environmental demands. Although there are a variety of potential beneficial outcomes of these experiences, it appears that there may also be some darker aspects to the world’s best athletes’ development and performance that have less desirable effects on their mental health and relationships. The integrative synthesis of psychological resilience and adversarial growth offers one of the most exciting and insightful avenues for future research in sport and performance.
Anxiety Disorders in Late Life
Authors: Gooblar Jonathan S. , Beaudreau Sherry A.
Published: January 2019

Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent and understudied mental health problems in late life. Specific phobia, social anxiety disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder are the most prevalent anxiety disorders in older adults among the 11 disorders identified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fifth edition). Anxiety disorders lead to significant functional burdens and interface with physical health problems and cognitive impairment, concerns frequently experienced in adults over age 65. Additional contextual factors should be considered when assessing and treating late-life anxiety, including the effects of polypharmacy, other mental health conditions, role changes, and societal attitudes toward aging. The relationship between anxiety and physical health problems in older adults can be causal or contextual, and can involve poorer estimates of subjective health and lower ratings of functioning. These factors present unique challenges to the detection, conceptualization, and treatment of late-life anxiety, including the tendency for older adults to focus on somatic symptoms and the potential for long-term behaviors that can mask distress such as substance use. Researchers are increasingly incorporating a gerodiversity framework to understand the contributions of cultural, individual, and other group differences that may affect the presentation of anxiety symptoms and disorders. Older adults in general are less likely to be treated for anxiety disorders, and intersecting individual and group differences likely further affect how anxiety disorders are perceived by healthcare providers. Cognitive behavioral therapy and its variants have the most empirical support for treatment. Newer evidence lends support to acceptance and commitment therapy and problem-solving therapy, which tend to address some of the contextual factors that may be important in treatment.
Documentary Sources and Methods for Precolonial African History
Authors: Mobley Christina
Published: January 2019

The goal of African history is not only to establish a chronology of events but also to recover the past from the local African perspective. The challenge is how to recover local ways of knowing and being in societies far different from the perspectives of both the contemporary scholar and the authors of many of the sources used to write history. For written documents, the question is how to extract meaningful data from sparse, biased, or unreliable texts. In a historical context, a documentary source is writing, whether ink or inscription, on material such as paper, papyrus, ceramic, stone, or any of the other surfaces upon which, in relation to Africa, Africans and travelers to Africa have chosen to write the continent’s history. While more and more written evidence from precolonial Africa is coming to light, the relative dearth of documents remains a major challenge for scholars seeking to investigate Africa’s past. This paucity also means that those sources available should be examined especially carefully with an eye to bias and to context. Such careful, grounded examination has not always been a strength of the field, which was initially divided between scholars who dismissed documentary sources (perceived as written by outsiders) as unreliable, and those who uncritically accepted them as eyewitness observation. Neither approach is helpful for historians seeking a nuanced understanding of Africa’s past. Used critically, written documents can provide a window into how human actors understood themselves, their history, specific events, and the world around them, which is difficult to discern in the absence of textual or visual representation. Scholars have developed to major strategies to utilize the unique strengths of documentary sources whilst minimizing their weaknesses. Firstly, historians pay close attention to local context, cultural bias, and pre-existing genealogies of knowledge about Africa and Africans evident in textual sources. Secondly, historians triangulate between different kinds of historical methods and sources such as archaeology, linguistics, ethnography, oral tradition, and even genetics and palynology.
The Civil Rights Movement in the Urban South
Authors: Harold Claudrena N.
Published: January 2019

The civil rights movement in the urban South transformed the political, economic, and cultural landscape of post–World War II America. Between 1955 and 1968, African Americans and their white allies relied on nonviolent direct action, political lobbying, litigation, and economic boycotts to dismantle the Jim Crow system. Not all but many of the movement’s most decisive political battles occurred in the cities of Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama; Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee; Greensboro and Durham, North Carolina; and Atlanta, Georgia. In these and other urban centers, civil rights activists launched full-throttled campaigns against white supremacy, economic exploitation, and state-sanctioned violence against African Americans. Their fight for racial justice coincided with monumental changes in the urban South as the upsurge in federal spending in the region created unprecedented levels of economic prosperity in the newly forged “Sunbelt.”

A dynamic and multifaceted movement that encompassed a wide range of political organizations and perspectives, the black freedom struggle proved successful in dismantling legal segregation. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 expanded black southerners’ economic, political, and educational opportunities. And yet, many African Americans continued to struggle as they confronted not just the long-term effects of racial discrimination and exclusion but also the new challenges engendered by deindustrialization and urban renewal as well as entrenched patterns of racial segregation in the public-school system.
Ancient and Traditional Agriculture in South America: Highlands
Authors: Taylor Geoffrey L. , Chiou Katherine L.
Published: January 2019

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. Please check back later for the full article.

The Andean highland region of South America was a center for the domestication of crops and the development of novel agricultural intensification strategies. These advances provided the social and economic foundations for one of the largest pre-Hispanic states in the Americas—the Inca—as well as numerous preceding and contemporaneous cultures. The legacy created by Andean agriculturalists includes terraced and raised fields that remain in use today as well as globally consumed foods including chili pepper (Capsicum spp.), potato (Solanum tuberosum), and quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa).

Research on modern forms of traditional agriculture in South America by ethnographers, geographers, and agronomists can be grouped into three general themes: (1) the physical, social, and ritual practices of farming; (2) the environmental impacts of farming; and (3) agrobiodiversity and genetic conservation of crop varieties. Due to conquest by European invaders in the 16th century and the resulting demographic collapse, aspects of native knowledge and traditions were lost. Consequently, much of what is known about pre-Hispanic traditional agricultural practices is derived from archaeological research.

To farm the steep mountainous slopes in the quechua and suni zones, native Andean peoples developed a suite of field types ranging from rainfed sloping fields to irrigated bench terracing that flattened the ground to increase surface area, raised soil temperatures, and reduced soil erosion. In the high plains or puna zone, flat wetlands were transformed into a patchwork of alternating raised fields and irrigation canals. By employing this strategy, Andean peoples created microclimates that resisted frost, managed moisture availability, and improved soil nutrient quality.

These agricultural approaches cannot be divorced from enduring Andean cosmological and social concepts such as the ayni and minka exchange-labor systems based on reciprocity and the ayllu, a lineage and community group that also integrates the land itself and the wakas (nonhuman agentive beings) that reside there with the people. To understand traditional agriculture in the highland Andes and how it supported large populations in antiquity, facilitated the rapid expansion of the Inca Empire, and created field systems that are still farmed sustainably by populations today, it is essential to examine not only the physical practices themselves, but also the social context surrounding their development and use in ancient and modern times.
Ancient and Traditional Agriculture, Pastoralism, and Agricultural Societies in Sub-Saharan Africa
Authors: Smith Andrew B.
Published: January 2019

African domesticated animals, with the exception of the donkey, all came from the Near East. Some 8,000 years ago cattle, sheep, and goats came south to the Sahara which was much wetter than today. Pastoralism was an off-shoot of grain agriculture in the Near East, and those herders immigrating brought with them techniques of harvesting wild grains. With increasing aridity as the Saharan environment dried up around 5000 years ago, the herders began to control and manipulate their stands resulting in millet and sorghum domestication in the Sahel Zone, south of the Sahara. Pearl millet expanded to the south and was taken up by Bantu-speaking Iron Age farmers in the savanna areas of West Africa and then spread around the tropical forest into East Africa by 3000 b.p. As the Sahara dried up and the tsetse belts retreated, sheep and cattle also moved south. They expanded into East Africa via a tsetse-free environment of the Ethiopian highlands arriving around 4000 b.p. It took around 1000 years for the pastoralists to adapt to other epizootic diseases rife in this part of the continent before they could expand throughout the grasslands of Kenya and Tanzania. Thus, East Africa was a socially complex place 3000 years ago, with indigenous hunters, herders and farmers. This put pressure on pastoral use of the environment, so using another tsetse-free corridor from Tanzania, through Zambia to the northern Kalahari, then on to the Western Cape, herders moved to southern Africa, arriving 2000b.p. They were followed to the eastern part of South Africa by Bantu-speaking agro-pastoralists 1600 years ago who were able to use the summer rainfall area for their sorghum and millet crops.

Control and manipulation of African indigenous plants of the forest regions probably has a long history from use by hunter-gatherers, but information on this is constrained by archaeological evidence, which is poor in tropical environments due to poor preservation. Evidence for early palm oil domestication has been found in Ghana dated to around 2550b.p. Several African indigenous plants are still widely used, such as yams, but the plant which has spread most widely throughout the world is coffee, originally from Ethiopia. Alien plants, such as maize, potatoes and Asian rice have displaced indigenous plants over much of Africa.
Adaptive Immune Responses in Humans During Nipah Virus Acute and Convalescent Phases of Infection
Authors: Arunkumar Govindakarnavar , Devadiga Santhosha , McElroy Anita K , Prabhu Suresh , Sheik Shahin , Abdulmajeed Jazeel , Robin Sudandiradas , Sushama Aswathyraj , Jayaram Anup , Nittur Sudheesh , Shakir Mohammed , Kumar Keeriyatt Govindan Sajeeth , Radhakrishnan Chandni , Sakeena Karayil , Vasudevan Jayasree , Reena Kalathil Joseph , Sarita Ragini Lohithakshan , Klena John D , Spiropoulou Christina F , Laserson Kayla F , Nichol Stuart T
Published: January 2019

Background

Nipah virus (NiV) is 1 of 10 potential causes of imminent public health emergencies of international concern. We investigated the NiV outbreak that occurred in May 2018 in Kerala, India. Here we describe the longitudinal characteristics of cell-mediated and humoral immune responses to NiV infection during the acute and convalescent phases in 2 human survivors.

Methods

Serial blood samples were obtained from the only 2 survivors of the NiV outbreak in Kerala. We used flow cytometry to determine the absolute T-lymphocyte and B-lymphocyte counts and the phenotypes of both T and B cells. We also detected and quantitated the humoral immune response to NiV by virus-specific immunoglobulin M (IgM) and immunoglobulin G (IgG) enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

Results

Absolute numbers of T lymphocytes remained within normal limits throughout the period of illness studied in both survivors. However, a marked elevation of activated CD8 T cells was observed in both cases. More than 30% of total CD8 T cells expressed Ki67, indicating active proliferation. Proliferating (Ki-67+) CD8 T cells expressed high levels of granzyme B and PD-1, consistent with the profile of acute effector cells. Total B-lymphocyte, activated B-cell, and plasmablast counts were also elevated in NiV survivors. These individuals developed detectable NiV-specific IgM and IgG antibodies within a week of disease onset. Clearance of NiV RNA from blood preceded the appearance of virus-specific IgG and coincided with the peak of activated CD8 T cells.

Conclusions

We describe for the first time longitudinal kinetic data on the activation status of human B- and T-cell populations during acute NiV infection. While marked CD8 T-cell activation was observed with effector characteristics, activated CD4 T cells were less prominent.
3. Alternative Dispute Resolution in Family Law
Authors: Sendall Jane
Published: January 2019

This chapter first discusses the methods by which a family lawyer may resolve family law disputes, including Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). It then reviews the various forms of negotiation that a family lawyer may undertake. These include settlement between clients, negotiation through correspondence, meeting between counsel, and at-court negotiation. Next, the chapter discusses mediation and collaborative law as different forms of ADR used in family law. It also briefly considers a recent development in family ADR: arbitration.
14. Procedure for Financial Orders
Authors: Sendall Jane
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses the procedure for financial orders, which includes the first appointment, financial dispute resolution hearing, and the final hearing. It covers funding options available to clients seeking financial orders, the protection of assets forming part of proceedings for financial orders, the pre-action protocol, and the role of consent orders in proceedings for financial orders.
15. Variation, Collection, and Enforcement of Financial Orders
Authors: Sendall Jane
Published: January 2019

Gaining a financial order is sometimes not the end of proceedings. A disgruntled spouse or civil partner may refuse to comply with the terms of an order, even a consent order, and so a family law solicitor must be able to use enforcement mechanisms to enforce the court order. This chapter discusses the circumstances in which a financial order can be varied, the collection of monies due under financial orders, and the enforcement of financial orders.
17. Separation and Maintenance Agreements
Authors: Sendall Jane
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses the use of separation and maintenance agreements, the essential features of both types of agreements, and the advantages and disadvantages of separation and maintenance agreements. A separation or maintenance agreement can help parties avoid expensive, drawn-out litigation. Separation agreements essentially record that the parties wish to live apart and can include terms about children, property, and maintenance. Maintenance agreements deal with the payment of maintenance to or for the benefit of spouses, civil partners, or children, but do not deal with the separation of the parties.
18. Child Support
Authors: Sendall Jane
Published: January 2019

The Child Support Act 1991 introduced a mechanism to recover maintenance from absent parents for their children. It created the Child Support Agency (CSA) as the organization responsible for collecting child support maintenance. This chapter discusses the framework of child support; when a client may be required to pay child support; what a client can do if they do not receive child support; and the future of child support. It examines the CSA scheme, which commenced in 2003, and the Child Maintenance Service, which opened its doors on 29 July 2013.
20. Taxation in Family Law
Authors: Sendall Jane
Published: January 2019

Family law practitioners must be aware of the tax implications of any financial settlement and make it tax- efficient for the client. This chapter discusses the types of tax most relevant to family law, including income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, and stamp duty land tax.
21. Welfare Benefits
Authors: Sendall Jane
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses the main types of welfare benefits that are available to family law clients. These include income support, jobseeker’s allowance, tax credits, employment and support allowance, housing benefit, council tax reduction, and child benefit.
23. Cohabitation and Finance
Authors: Sendall Jane
Published: January 2019

Cohabiting couples do not have any intrinsic legal rights by simply cohabiting. The ‘common law wife/husband’ does not exist in law. This chapter discusses the legal position of cohabitants; the legal remedies available to separating cohabitants; and the position of cohabitants in relation to the family home.
33. Protection under the Family Law Act 1996: Non-Molestation Orders
Authors: Sendall Jane
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses the following: the law regarding domestic abuse; practical issues arising from acting for clients facing domestic abuse; the availability of remedies under the Family Law Act 1996; funding for orders under the Family Law Act 1996; the concept of ‘associated persons’; non-molestation orders under the Family Law Act 1996; and remedies for clients escaping a forced marriage.
Universal Sums of m-Gonal Numbers
Authors: Kane Ben , Liu Jingbo
Published: January 2019

In this paper we study universal quadratic polynomials, which arise as sums of polygonal numbers. Specifically, we determine an asymptotic upper bound (as a function of $m$) on the size of the set $S_m\subset{\mathbb{N}}$ such that if a sum of $m$-gonal numbers represents $S_m$, then it represents ${\mathbb{N}}$.
Shifting Paradigms in the Mechanics of Nectar Extraction and Hummingbird Bill Morphology
Authors: Rico-Guevara A , Rubega M A , Hurme K J , Dudley R
Published: January 2019

As functional morphologists, we aim to connect structures, mechanisms, and emergent higher-scale phenomena (e.g., behavior), with the ulterior motive of addressing evolutionary patterns. The fit between flowers and hummingbird bills has long been used as an example of impressive co-evolution, and hence hummingbirds’ foraging behavior and ecological associations have been the subject of intense study. To date, models of hummingbird foraging have been based on the almost two-centuries-old assumption that capillary rise loads nectar into hummingbird tongue grooves. Furthermore, the role of the bill in the drinking process has been overlooked, instead considering it as the mere vehicle with which to traverse the corolla and access the nectar chamber. As a scientific community, we have been making incorrect assumptions about the basic aspects of how hummingbirds extract nectar from flowers. In this article, we summarize recent advances on drinking biomechanics, morphological and ecological patterns, and selective forces involved in the shaping of the hummingbird feeding apparatus, and also address its modifications in a previously unexpected context, namely conspecific and heterospecific fighting. We explore questions such as: how do the mechanics of feeding define the limits and adaptive consequences of foraging behaviors? Which are the selective forces that drive bill and tongue shape, and associated sexually dimorphic traits? And finally, what are the proximate and ultimate causes of their foraging strategies, including exploitative and interference competition? Increasing our knowledge of morphology, mechanics, and diversity of hummingbird feeding structures will have implications for understanding the ecology and evolution of these remarkable animals.
Risk prediction and segmentation models used in the United States for assessing risk in whole populations: a critical literature review with implications for nurses’ role in population health management
Authors: Jeffery Alvin D , Hewner Sharon , Pruinelli Lisiane , Lekan Deborah , Lee Mikyoung , Gao Grace , Holbrook Laura , Sylvia Martha
Published: January 2019

Objective

We sought to assess the current state of risk prediction and segmentation models (RPSM) that focus on whole populations.

Materials

Academic literature databases (ie MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library, PROSPERO, and CINAHL), environmental scan, and Google search engine.

Methods

We conducted a critical review of the literature focused on RPSMs predicting hospitalizations, emergency department visits, or health care costs.

Results

We identified 35 distinct RPSMs among 37 different journal articles (n = 31), websites (n = 4), and abstracts (n = 2). Most RPSMs (57%) defined their population as health plan enrollees while fewer RPSMs (26%) included an age-defined population (26%) and/or geographic boundary (26%). Most RPSMs (51%) focused on predicting hospital admissions, followed by costs (43%) and emergency department visits (31%), with some models predicting more than one outcome. The most common predictors were age, gender, and diagnostic codes included in 82%, 77%, and 69% of models, respectively.

Discussion

Our critical review of existing RPSMs has identified a lack of comprehensive models that integrate data from multiple sources for application to whole populations. Highly depending on diagnostic codes to define high-risk populations overlooks the functional, social, and behavioral factors that are of great significance to health.

Conclusion

More emphasis on including nonbilling data and providing holistic perspectives of individuals is needed in RPSMs. Nursing-generated data could be beneficial in addressing this gap, as they are structured, frequently generated, and tend to focus on key health status elements like functional status and social/behavioral determinants of health.
Evaluating a handheld decision support device in pediatric intensive care settings
Authors: Reynolds Tera L , DeLucia Patricia R , Esquibel Karen A , Gage Todd , Wheeler Noah J , Randell J Adam , Stevenson James G , Zheng Kai
Published: January 2019

Objective

To evaluate end-user acceptance and the effect of a commercial handheld decision support device in pediatric intensive care settings. The technology, pac2, was designed to assist nurses in calculating medication dose volumes and infusion rates at the bedside.

Materials and Methods

The devices, manufactured by InformMed Inc., were deployed in the pediatric and neonatal intensive care units in 2 health systems. This mixed methods study assessed end-user acceptance, as well as pac2’s effect on the cognitive load associated with bedside dose calculations and the rate of administration errors. Towards this end, data were collected in both pre- and postimplementation phases, including through ethnographic observations, semistructured interviews, and surveys.

Results

Although participants desired a handheld decision support tool such as pac2, their use of pac2 was limited. The nature of the critical care environment, nurses’ risk perceptions, and the usability of the technology emerged as major barriers to use. Data did not reveal significant differences in cognitive load or administration errors after pac2 was deployed.

Discussion and Conclusion

Despite its potential for reducing adverse medication events, the commercial standalone device evaluated in the study was not used by the nursing participants and thus had very limited effect. Our results have implications for the development and deployment of similar mobile decision support technologies. For example, they suggest that integrating the technology into hospitals’ existing IT infrastructure and employing targeted implementation strategies may facilitate nurse acceptance. Ultimately, the usability of the design will be essential to reaping any potential benefits.
New scenario of plasma evolution in IC 443
Authors: Hirayama Arisa , Yamauchi Shigeo , Nobukawa Kumiko K , Nobukawa Masayoshi , Koyama Katsuji
Published: January 2019

Most young and middle-aged supernova remnants (SNRs) exhibit an ionizing plasma (IP), an ionizing process following a shock-heated SNR gas. On the other hand, significant fractions of SNRs exhibit a recombining plasma (RP). The origin and the mechanisms of the RP, however, are not yet well understood. This paper proposes a new model that the RP follows after the IP process taken at the first epoch of the SNR evolution. Using the high-quality and wide-band (0.6–10 keV) spectrum of IC 443, we fitted it with a model of two RPs (two-RP model) plus a power law (PL) with an Fe i Kα line component. The ionization temperature in one RP monotonically increases from Ne–Ca, while that in the other RP shows a drastic increase from Cr–Ni. The origin and mechanism of the two-RP and PL with an Fe i Kα line components are possibly due to different evolution of two plasmas and ionization by low-energy cosmic rays.
B-Sure: a randomized pilot trial of an interactive web-based decision support aid versus usual care in average-risk breast cancer patients considering contralateral prophylactic mastectomy
Authors: Manne Sharon L , Smith Barbara L , Frederick Sara , Mitarotondo Anna , Kashy Deborah A , Kirstein Laurie J
Published: January 2019

The use of contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) is increasing among breast cancer patients who are at average or “sporadic” risk for contralateral breast cancer. Because CPM provides no survival benefit for these patients, it is not medically recommended for them. Decision support aids may facilitate more informed, higher quality CPM decision. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of B-Sure, an online decision support aid to facilitate informed decisions regarding CPM, and to compare the impact of B-Sure in increasing CPM knowledge, reducing decisional conflict, and increasing preparedness to make the CPM decision among breast cancer patients at sporadic risk who are considering CPM. Ninety-three patients with unilateral, nonhereditary breast cancer considering CPM completed a baseline survey, were randomized to receive B-Sure or Usual care, and completed a 4-week follow-up survey assessing decisional conflict, preparedness to make the CPM decision, and CPM knowledge as well as self-efficacy, perceived risk, worry, CPM motivations, and the surgical decision. Study participation was high. B-Sure was viewed by almost 80% of the participants and was evaluated positively. At follow-up, patients assigned to B-Sure reported significantly higher clarity regarding the personal values relevant to the CPM decision and higher knowledge about CPM. B-Sure had smaller effects on other aspects of decisional conflict. B-Sure improved CPM knowledge and reduced decisional conflict. Patients considering CPM may benefit from an online decision support aid, but may be sensitive to approaches that they perceive as biased against CPM.