bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Authoritarian Societies and Journalism
Authors: Dragomir Marius
Published: December 2019

In spite of journalism’s transnational nature, there is no common history of the subject and thus no common history of journalism in authoritarian societies, a field which can only be studied by bringing together historical facts about journalism in societies that experienced authoritarian regimes at some point in their history. Journalism in authoritarian societies is closely linked with forms of manipulation and censorship. While censorship is older than journalism, it was the rise of journalism as a profession that prompted authoritarian states to develop fully fledged censorship mechanisms and systems.

The first forms of censorship of the printed word were introduced by the Catholic Church shortly after the printing press was invented in the 16th century. But it was from the 17th century on that censorship models aimed at controlling the emergent periodical press were created by absolutist monarchies. Secular institutions gradually took over censorship from the church, developing a more complex control system that would methodically check on the printed information distributed widely to the general public.

While censorship systems were scrapped in most of Europe for a short period during the 19th century, the following century saw the rise of more sophisticated and repressive forms of censorship. They were developed by fascist dictatorships in several European countries and by the Soviet system in Russia. These models, particularly the Soviet propaganda system, influenced a spate of authoritarian regimes in communist nations all over the globe during the Cold War.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s sounded the death knell of a series of authoritarian regimes, heralding an era of press freedom and independent journalism. But many regimes, particularly in the former Soviet Union, soon revived old authoritarian practices to keep their people under control.

In spite of the limitations on journalistic coverage in authoritarian societies, journalists reacted in various ways to all sorts of authoritarian practices, ranging from harsh censorship systems to less intrusive, yet effective, controlling mechanisms. They did so either by seizing opportunities that appeared during more relaxed political times or by developing circumvention tools that allowed them to reach out to their audiences. The rise of the Internet brought about new opportunities for journalism to reach and engage audiences, as governments struggle to push back by designing new forms of control and censorship.
Environmental Policy and European Union Politics
Authors: Torney Diarmuid
Published: December 2019

The European Union (EU) has developed an extensive body of environmental policies spanning a wide range of areas. No other international organization shapes the environmental affairs of its members to anywhere near the same extent. However, implementation of environmental policy has remained a persistent challenge, and Europeanization of member states’ environmental policies remains partial. There has not been a wholescale convergence of environmental policy, though the differentiation between leaders and laggards is not as stark as it once was.

The rules, regulations, and policies that make up EU environmental policy have increasingly impacted not only member states but also the wider world, and the EU has emerged as a key player in global environmental politics across a range of policy domains. It has been central to the creation of many international environmental regimes and has integrated environmental issues into a variety of facets of its external relations.

Looking forward, increasingly stark warnings from bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services should raise questions regarding existing responses to environmental challenges, which to a significant extent favor incremental over transformational change. The EU faces the task of responding to these profound challenges against the backdrop of increasing political turbulence at home and abroad. Over the past decade, the EU has been beset by profound challenges that have shaped both its internal and external environmental policies. At home, the EU has been shaken by the global financial crisis as well as the decision of the United Kingdom to withdraw from the EU. The EU’s external environment is to a growing extent shaped by nativist regimes such as Donald Trump in the United States and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, both of whom seem determined to undermine not just the foundations of global environmental governance but the rules-based international order more generally. The coming generation of scholarship on EU environmental policy will need to reflect upon how these competing forces serve to reshape the EU’s environmental policies.
Organization Theory and Public Administration
Authors: Christensen Tom
Published: December 2019

Organizational theories can be classified into three types—structural, cultural, and mythical. The structural perspective is based in “bounded rationality” and focuses on how formal structures influence the thoughts and actions of public actors. According to this perspective, leaders are central in decision-making processes and are scoring high on rational calculation and control, achieving public goals using the formal structure as a tool. The leaders could either hierarchical dominate decisions or there could be negotiations among them. The cultural perspective focuses on the role of informal norms and values in public organizations; how they develop and their impact. Gradual institutional development by adapting to internal and external pressure is creating unique or distinct cultural identities. Concepts like path dependency and cultural compatibility are central. The mythical perspective focuses on the social construction of reality and how symbols have importance in public organizations. Political and administrative leaders often talk in one way and act in another, meaning that it’s a loose coupling between talk and action. Symbols may be important in supporting instrumental actions. The dynamics between the theories in explaining public decision-making theory is discussed. It’s argued that these theories in combination with democratic theories are needed to develop a specific set of theories for studying public organizations, because the public sector is distinct from the private sector. The theories can be used to analyze decision-making in public organizations, whether related to agenda-setting, policy-making, negotiations, regulation, implementation, public reforms, and so forth. It’s discussed a research agenda where the potential of the theories for researching public decision-making is discussed and examples given.
Central Agencies and Control in Public Administration
Authors: Savoie Donald J.
Published: December 2019

The concentration of power at the center of government transcends both political systems and geography. Heads of government everywhere are dealing with powerful forces from permanent election campaigns, social media, 24-hour news channels, the requirement to provide a government-wide perspective on virtually all policy issues, and the need to manage the blame game at a time when transparency requirements are becoming more demanding. They need help to deal with these powerful forces, to manage the policy process, and to direct the work of their government. They can turn to both partisan political advisors and central agencies to assist them in governing from the center.

Central agencies stand at the apex of power linking the political with the administrative. They have grown in size and influence in both parliamentary and presidential systems and, in the process, helped heads of government to concentrate more and more power in their own hands. They have grown in size and influence because heads of government have allowed it, if not encouraged it. Central agencies play a leading role in generating policy advice, in allocating financial and human resources, in shaping human resources policies, in monitoring the performance of line departments and agencies, and in establishing regulatory policies that apply both inside and outside government. They have proven to be helpful in helping heads of government to define new measures, to coordinate activities to pursue overarching goals and to make certain that line departments and agencies run on their tracks. It is necessary to explore the capacity of the center of government from several different national settings and from several perspectives to exercise direction on policy and control over the rest of government.
Venezuela's Oil Wealth and Social Transformation
Authors: Azzellini Dario
Published: December 2019

With the victory of Hugo Chávez in the 1998 presidential elections, Venezuela became the first country in the Latin American “pink tide.” Up to then, mainstream political analysis had considered Venezuela a stable liberal democracy. Little attention had been paid to the country internationally. Former army officer Chávez was met with suspicion by the international left, which knew little about the Venezuelan left and the contemporary history of the country, and the right thought it could persuade him to act in its interests. The process of social transformation launched, named the “Bolivarian Revolution” after Venezuelan independence leader Simón Bolivar, became radicalized rapidly and was soon declared socialist. Internal policies were characterized by popular participation, expropriations, and redistribution of the oil wealth. Internationally, Venezuela took an active role in promoting regional integration and South–South cooperation. Chávez and the social transformation process in Venezuela rapidly gained strong sympathies among social movements and the radical left throughout the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region; for the same reasons, Venezuela came to be the number-one enemy of the Latin American right and the United States, which supported several attempts to overthrow the government. After Chávez’s death in 2013, his successor, Nicolás Maduro, faced an increasingly violent opposition, a severe economic crisis, growing hostility from the United States and the European Union (EU), and a regional context in which the rise of right-wing governments reversed the “pink tide.” Since early 2019, the situation has escalated because of sanctions by the U.S. and EU countries; the recognition of a self-proclaimed “interim president” belonging to the opposition, by the United States, most EU countries, and the right-wing governments in Latin America; coup attempts; and the open threat of U.S. military intervention. The unfolding of the Bolivarian Revolution, the forces at play, and the main points of conflict need to be analyzed in their historical context.
Hormones and Animal Communication
Authors: Brenowitz Eliot A.
Published: December 2019

Animals produce communication signals to attract mates and deter rivals during their breeding season. The coincidence in timing results from the modulation of signaling behavior and neural activity by sex steroid hormones associated with reproduction. Adrenal steroids can influence signaling for aggressive interactions outside the breeding season. Androgenic and estrogenic hormones act on brain circuits that regulate the motivation to produce and respond to signals, the motor production of signals, and the sensory perception of signals. Signal perception, in turn, can stimulate gonadal development.
The Maratha Empire
Authors: Guha Sumit
Published: December 2019

The Marathas, now sometimes called “Maharashtrians,” are an Indic people, speakers of the Marathi language. The boundaries of the modern Indian state of Maharashtra were drawn so as to include all majority Marathi-speaking areas. The Marathi language emerged a thousand years ago, but the Maratha Empire took shape only after 1674. Its leaders contended with the Mughal Empire and contributed to its downfall. They created a loosely knit but dynamic political system that grew within the frame of Mughal imperial power while reducing it to a shadow of its former self. Maratha governors ruled the great cities of Agra and Delhi, and it was from them that the British wrested control of north India in 1803–1806. The residual Maratha states still put up a fierce resistance before succumbing to the new British Empire in 1818.

British historians wrote the first draft of Indian history. The English public was uninterested in the Marathas. The Mughal dynasty and the older states of Rajasthan received far more favorable attention. The historical narrative that the British rescued India from chaos also required a depiction of the Marathas as predatory sources of disorder. This representation has resulted in minimizing the commercial dynamism and flexibility of Maratha administration. Maratha taxation was far from destructive. It operated within a dynamic political economy. While periodically affected (as Indian governments had long been) by climatic catastrophe or political breakdown, this economy could recuperate quickly in better times. The Maratha Empire also represented a unique identification between a people and an empire. Ordinary Maharashtrian farmers served in its armies, were proud of its political achievements, and identified with the Maratha patria. The empire was also marked by a continuity with the symmetrical patterns of kinship and marriage customary in Maharashtra. While sons of secondary wives could rise to high positions in the lineage, primary marriages continued to be with women of status. Affinal relatives were recognized and played a large role in governance. Also, unlike the Mughal Empire, the Marathas used their own language wherever they ruled, enriching and elaborating it all the while. This prefigured the rise of linguistic nationalisms more generally in India under British rule.
Turkic Identity in Mongol and Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Qipchaq Steppe
Authors: Lee Joo-Yup
Published: December 2019

The Turkic identity that first emerged with the rise of the Türk empire in the mid-6th century did not encompass all Turkic-speaking nomads in the Inner Asian world. The Türks, who founded the first Turkic nomadic empire, reserved the term Türk for themselves. In turn, the Uighurs and the (Yenisei) Qirghiz, who succeeded the Türks in the Mongolian steppes, did not identify themselves as Türk. As a result, after the final collapse of the Türk empire in the mid-8th century, Turkic identity did not survive among non-Türk groups in the Mongolian steppes.

Turk became a much broader identity in the Islamic world. Muslim writers spread the term Turk (plural Atrāk), virtually using it as a synonym for Inner Asian nomads including both Turkic- and non–Turkic-speaking groups. Accordingly, when the Mongols entered the Islamic world, Muslim writers in general identified them as Turks. The Muslim view of the Turks as Inner Asian nomads was adopted by the Mongols of the Ilkhanate and the Mongol successors in Central Asia (Timurids, Moghuls, and Shibanid Uzbeks), who viewed themselves as the most prominent branch of the Turks. (The designation Central Asia is used here for the interior region stretching from the Caspian Sea in the west to Xinjiang, China in the east. Inner Asia denotes the steppe regions.)

Essentially, their Turkic identity was a non-Tajik, Inner Asian nomadic identity, not a non-Mongol, Türk-related identity. Importantly, it encompassed Mongol identity. In the histories and documents produced in the Ilkhanate and the Mongol successor states in Central Asia, Turk in the phrase “Turk and Tajik” and various Chinggisid and Timurid genealogies primarily denoted the Mongols.

However, a Central Asian type of Turkic identity was non-existent in the Qipchaq Steppe during the Mongol and post-Mongol period. Apparently, the term Turk had not been used as a self-appellation among such non-Türk groups of the Qipchaq Steppe as the Qipchaqs. Likewise, the Mongol successors of the Qipchaq Steppe (Uzbeks, Qazaqs, and Tatars) did not self-identify as Turks. However, like their Central Asian counterparts, they identified themselves as Mongol descendants.
The History of Islam in Mauritania
Authors: Pettigrew Erin
Published: December 2019

The study of the long-term history of what has been known since 1960 as the Islamic Republic of Mauritania is possible largely because of inhabitants’ early embrace of Islam in the 8th century. While research on the early pre-Islamic history of the region is limited by the availability of sources to primarily the archaeological, the arrival of Islam through trade networks crossing the Sahara from North Africa meant that Arab merchants and explorers supplied and produced knowledge about the region’s inhabitants, polities, and natural resources that was then written down in Arabic by Muslim chroniclers and historians. Early Muslims were largely Khajirite and Ibadi but the 11th-century Almoravid reformist and educational movement ensured that the region’s Muslims would predominantly follow Sunni Islam as defined by the Maliki school of law and ʿAshari theology. By the time the Almohad empire succeeded the Almoravid in the 12th century, important centers of Islamic scholarship were emerging in major trading towns in the Sahara and along the Senegal River. The expansion of Sufi thought and practice, the arrival of the Arabic-speaking Banu Hassan, and the subsequent development of political entities known as emirates occurred in ensuing centuries and played a part in the genesis of a social structure that valorized the Arabic language, the study of Islam, and claims of descent from the Prophet Muhammad. The arrival of European merchants in the 15th century and the subsequent colonization of the region by the French led to rapid changes in the economic and cultural bases of political authority and social hierarchy, with colonial policy largely valorizing Sufi leaders as political interlocutors and community representatives. Independence from France in 1960 meant the establishment of an Islamic Republic whose laws are based on a mixed legal system of Maliki Islamic and French civil law. The basis of presidential rule is not religious in nature, though presidents have increasingly used a discourse of religion to legitimize their rule in the face of internal political opposition and external threats from extremist groups such as al-Qaʿeda.
Juggling Currencies in Transborder Contexts
Authors: Villarreal Magdalena , Greene Joshua
Published: December 2019

Financial practices only partially entail money. People and institutions weave their economic lives intermixing pecuniary but also social, cultural, geographic, moral, and emotional elements. These elements are often knitted together in ways that appear erratic or that only conform to established models in a single dimension, which leaves the analyst ill-informed concerning the workings of finance in everyday life. Fortunately, conceptual tools to go beyond narrow economic perspectives and explore the interaction of the multiple dimensions involved are on the rise.

In this effort, it is critical to explore such dimensions in motion. People act in certain social milieus, push distinct fundamentals, exclude others, do their best to meet specific goals, and prioritize or overlook certain issues. Such actions are framed in what we can call economic exchange “languages” wherein assessments of equivalence are interpreted according to conventional significations. This brings up the notion of currencies, not only those represented in dollars, pesos, or euros, but currencies portraying values in social, symbolic, and cultural terms that embody economic transactions. Currencies flow within specific circuits involving different means of equivalence that entail diverse normative and moral frameworks.

Multiple currencies coexist and interplay in everyday life, and people and institutions are obliged to juggle in order to make do. The allusion to juggling of currencies implies that there are a number of different economic and livelihood circuits that people operate in simultaneously. Some of these circuits involve religion, gender, identity, family, and markets, which operate with distinct criteria. Others involve hard cash or perhaps social and symbolic assets. It is the act of keeping these multiple circuits in motion at the same time that is the juggling of currencies. Juggling currencies is a key to success, however success may be depicted.

Placing the lens on borderlines and transborder crossings is revealing, particularly when the aim is to explore monetary practices and economic lives. It is here that discontinuities, conflicts, and dilemmas become evident. People who are obliged to operate in two or more officially sanctioned monetary currencies, for example, need to be deeply knowledgeable about different normative frameworks and schemes of value equivalences wherein diverse social categories, expectations, and moralities are mobilized. Juggling is the name of the game.
Laws in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
Authors: Greengus Samuel
Published: December 2019

Biblical laws are found mainly in the Pentateuch (i.e., the first five books of the Hebrew Bible). The laws are linked to the figure of Moses, who is depicted as having received them directly from God in order to transmit them to the people of Israel during the years in the Wilderness after being released from slavery in Egypt. Biblical laws are thus presented as being of divine origin. Their authority was further bolstered by a tradition that they were included in covenants (i.e., formal agreements made between God and the people as recorded in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy). Similar claims of divine origin were not made for other ancient Near Eastern laws; their authority flowed from kings, who issued the laws, although these kings might also be seen as having been placed on their thrones through the favor of the gods. The biblical law collections are unlike other ancient Near Eastern “codes” in that they include sacral laws (i.e., governing cult, worship, and ritual, as well as secular laws: namely, governing civil, and criminal behaviors). This mingling of sacral and secular categories is the likely reason both for the many terms used to denote the laws, as well as for the unexpected number of formulations in which they are presented. The formulations used in biblical law can be classified as “casuistic” or “non-casuistic.” They are not equally distributed in the books of the Pentateuch nor are they equally used with secular and sacral laws. While there are similarities in content between secular laws found in the Hebrew Bible and laws found in the ancient Near Eastern law “codes,” the latter do not exhibit a comparable variety in the numbers of law terms and formulations. The Hebrew Bible tended to “blur” the differences between the law terms and their formulations, ultimately to the point of subsuming them all under the law term torah (“teaching”) to describe the totality of the divinely given laws in the Pentateuch. Biblical studies in general and Pentateuchal studies in particular are challenged by the fact that manuscripts contemporary with the events described have not survived the ravages the time. Scholars must therefore rely on looking for “clues” within the texts themselves (e.g., the laws cited by the prophets, the reform of Josiah, the teaching of torah by Ezra, and evidence for customs and customary laws found in books of the Hebrew Bible outside of the Pentateuch).
Saint Óscar Romero, Liberation Theology, and Human Rights in El Salvador
Authors: Cangemi Michael
Published: December 2019

Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (b. Ciudad Barrios, San Miguel, El Salvador, August 15, 1915; d. San Salvador, El Salvador, March 24, 1980) was the seventh Archbishop of San Salvador. During his episcopate (February 22, 1977–March 24, 1980), Romero gained international renown for his human rights activism, advocacy for the poor, and denunciation of El Salvador’s political repression and violence. Romero was one of Latin America’s most influential political and social voices and routinely drew thousands of people to San Salvador’s Metropolitan Cathedral, while his homilies were broadcast across Central America on shortwave radio. In 1978, members of Britain’s Parliament, the United States Congress, and the US press supported Romero’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his efforts to halt the economic, political, and social violence that plagued El Salvador and, more broadly, Central America, during the late 1970s. In his final homily, delivered on March 23, 1980, Romero directly addressed members of the Salvadoran military and police forces, “in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.” The following day, Romero was murdered by Salvadoran government forces while he celebrated Mass at the Church of Divine Providence in San Salvador. His assassination sent shockwaves through Central America, and over one hundred thousand people attended his funeral. In May 2015, Pope Francis beatified Romero and elevated him to sainthood on October 14, 2018.
Slavery and Its Economic Structures in Colonial Brazil
Authors: Marques Leonardo
Published: December 2019

Between the arrival of Columbus and the last slave voyage to Cuba in the 1860s, over 12 million enslaved Africans were carried and sold in the Americas. Brazil received almost half of all these captives, most of them during the colonial period. An efficient slave-trading system allowed slavery to become a major force in the development of Portuguese America. The institution became pervasive throughout the colony in the three centuries comprising the colonial era, with important differences across time and space. Some of the major exports produced by African slaves in Brazil, such as sugar, tobacco, and gold, had various global impacts. They also stimulated important domestic developments, such as the creation of internal markets and the growth of cities like Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, with African slaves playing essential roles everywhere. Moreover, the history of African slavery became intertwined with the history of native Brazilians in peculiar ways.
Environmental Change and Mobilization in Brazil
Authors: Duarte Regina Horta
Published: December 2019

Brazil’s environmental history is often told as a tale of irresponsible exploitation and societal indifference. However, a broader perspective must consider the country’s diverging traditions of environmental thought and practice. During the 19th century, several naturalists wrote about the need for the rational use of natural resources, founding a conservationist cultural tradition. In the 1920s and 1930s, a group of naturalists from the National Museum produced various initiatives related to biological research and conservationism. In the 1950s, another group of scientists, agronomists, and journalists founded the National Foundation for the Protection of Nature, active until the 1980s. Although none of these initiatives led to a continuous environmental mobilization, they shaped public policies and cultural sensibilities toward the environment. Beginning in the 1970s, a new wave of environmentalism emerged in several cities—with protests against pollution, nuclear energy, and deforestation—but also in rural areas and forests, with demands from traditional peoples. Over the years, several conservation units and federal institutions were founded to implement environmental policies. Finally, the 1992 Earth Summit gave a special boost to these movements in an era of growing NGO activism. All of these fueled the feeling that environmental activism in Brazil had entered a golden age of dialogue and negotiation.

Contrary to this view, some activists claimed that major political advances were still needed. Through the lens of socio-environmentalism and environmental justice, they denounced the displacement of communities by mining companies and the construction of hydroelectric plants, as well as the unhealthy and violent conditions faced by inhabitants of urban peripheries and areas where agribusiness was expanding.

Skepticism toward gradual advances was warranted following the election of Jair Bolsonaro, whose administration threatened environmental legislation and institutions and prior achievements. To confront these perils, environmental activism must become a political, scientific, and cultural movement.
First-Language Acquisition of Morphology
Authors: Ravid Dorit
Published: December 2019

First-language acquisition of morphology refers to the process whereby native speakers gain full and automatic command of the inflectional and derivational machinery of their mother tongue. Despite language diversity, evidence shows that morphological acquisition follows a shared path in development in evolving from semantically and structurally simplex and non-productive to more complex and productive. The emergence and consolidation of the central morphological systems in a language typically take place between the ages of two and six years, while mature command of all systems and subsystems can take up to 10 more years, and is mediated by the consolidation of literacy skills. Morphological learning in both inflection and derivation is always interwoven with lexical growth, and derivational acquisition is highly dependent on the development of a large and coherent lexicon. Three critical factors platform the acquisition of morphology. One factor is the input patterns in the ambient language, including various types of frequency. Input provides the context for children to pay attention to morphological markers as meaningful cues to caregivers’ intentions in interactive sociopragmatic settings of joint attention. A second factor is language typology, given that languages differ in the amount of word-internal information they package in words. The “typological impact” in morphology directs children to the ways pertinent conceptual and structural information is encoded in morphological structures. It is thus responsible for great differences among languages in the timing and pace of learning morphological categories such as passive verbs. Finally, development itself is a central mechanism that drives morphological acquisition from emergence to productivity in three senses: as the filtering device that enables the break into the morphological system, in providing the span of time necessary for the consolidation of morphological systems in children, and in hosting the cognitive changes that usher in mature morphological systems in both speech and writing in adolescents and adults.
A deep learning architecture for metabolic pathway prediction
Authors: Baranwal Mayank , Magner Abram , Elvati Paolo , Saldinger Jacob , Violi Angela , Hero Alfred O
Published: December 2019

Motivation

Understanding the mechanisms and structural mappings between molecules and pathway classes are critical for design of reaction predictors for synthesizing new molecules. This article studies the problem of prediction of classes of metabolic pathways (series of chemical reactions occurring within a cell) in which a given biochemical compound participates. We apply a hybrid machine learning approach consisting of graph convolutional networks used to extract molecular shape features as input to a random forest classifier. In contrast to previously applied machine learning methods for this problem, our framework automatically extracts relevant shape features directly from input SMILES representations, which are atom-bond specifications of chemical structures composing the molecules.

Results

Our method is capable of correctly predicting the respective metabolic pathway class of 95.16% of tested compounds, whereas competing methods only achieve an accuracy of 84.92% or less. Furthermore, our framework extends to the task of classification of compounds having mixed membership in multiple pathway classes. Our prediction accuracy for this multi-label task is 97.61%. We analyze the relative importance of various global physicochemical features to the pathway class prediction problem and show that simple linear/logistic regression models can predict the values of these global features from the shape features extracted using our framework.

Availability and implementation

https://github.com/baranwa2/MetabolicPathwayPrediction.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) fledglings use crop habitat more frequently in relation to its availability than pasture and other habitat types
Authors: Boynton Chloe K , Mahony Nancy A , Williams Tony D
Published: December 2019

Populations of birds that forage on aerial insects have been declining across North America for several decades, but the main causes of and reasons for geographical variation in these declines remains unclear. We examined the habitat use and survival of post-fledging Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, using VHF radio telemetry. We predicted that fledgling Barn Swallows hatched in higher-quality natal habitat (pasture) would fledge at higher quality, stay closest to the nest, disproportionately use higher-quality habitat during the post-fledge stage, and have higher survival rates in the region. Contrary to our predictions, we found that natal habitat (crop, pasture, or non-agriculture) had no effect on fledgling quality or movement distance. Barn Swallow fledglings used crop habitat more frequently in relation to its availability than other habitat types, including pasture. Barn Swallows had low post-fledging survival rates (0.44; 95% CI: 0.35–0.57), which could negatively influence the population trend of the species in this region. While natal habitat had only minor effects, crop habitat appears to be important for fledgling Barn Swallows and, therefore, a decline in this habitat type could have further negative implications for an already declining species.
The associations between unemployment at a young age and binge drinking and alcohol-related problems
Authors: Thern Emelie , Ramstedt Mats , Svensson Johan
Published: December 2019

Background

Youth unemployment remains at a high stable level in many countries making it a public health problem of importance. The aim was to examine the short-term effect of unemployment at a young age (aged 17–29 years) on self-reported binge drinking and alcohol-related problems.

Methods

We used data from a cross-sectional national study that took place in 2013, with a follow-up in 2014. A sample of young adults aged 17–29 years (n = 1188, response rate of 46.3%) that completed both surveys served as the study sample in the current study. The same self-reported questionnaire, consisting of questions regarding their alcohol habits and sociodemographic information, was used on both occasions. Information on the outcomes of binge drinking and alcohol-related harm were obtained from the 2014 survey. From the 2013 survey, information on individual and family level covariates were collected. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) with employed individuals as the reference group were estimated by logistic regression analysis.

Results

At baseline, results indicate that employed individuals reported the greatest prevalence of weekly binge drinking. In the fully adjusted models, unemployment appeared to be associated with an increased risk of alcohol-related problems (OR 1.37, 95% CI 0.77–2.45); however, this was not the case for weekly binge drinking (OR 0. 94, 95% CI 0.45–1.96).

Conclusion

Unemployment at a young age may be a risk factor for later alcohol-related problems. Thus, targeting youth unemployment could be one element in an effective health policy aimed at reducing rates of alcohol use disorders.
Reflection on modern methods: Revisiting the area under the ROC Curve
Authors: Janssens A Cecile J W , Martens Forike K
Published: December 2019

The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) is commonly used for assessing the discriminative ability of prediction models even though the measure is criticized for being clinically irrelevant and lacking an intuitive interpretation. Every tutorial explains how the coordinates of the ROC curve are obtained from the risk distributions of diseased and non-diseased individuals, but it has not become common sense that therewith the ROC plot is just another way of presenting these risk distributions. We show how the ROC curve is an alternative way to present risk distributions of diseased and non-diseased individuals and how the shape of the ROC curve informs about the overlap of the risk distributions. For example, ROC curves are rounded when the prediction model included variables with similar effect on disease risk and have an angle when, for example, one binary risk factor has a stronger effect; and ROC curves are stepped rather than smooth when the sample size or incidence is low, when the prediction model is based on a relatively small set of categorical predictors. This alternative perspective on the ROC plot invalidates most purported limitations of the AUC and attributes others to the underlying risk distributions. AUC is a measure of the discriminative ability of prediction models. The assessment of prediction models should be supplemented with other metrics to assess their clinical utility.
Cryptosporidium parvum Elongation Factor 1α Participates in the Formation of Base Structure at the Infection Site During Invasion
Authors: Yu Xue , Guo Fengguang , Mouneimne Rola Barhoumi , Zhu Guan
Published: December 2019

Background

Cryptosporidium is a genus of apicomplexan parasites, the causative agents of cryptosporidiosis in humans and/or animals. Although most apicomplexans parasitize within the host cell cytosols, Cryptosporidium resides on top of host cells, but it is embraced by a double-layer parasitophorous vacuole membrane derived from host cell. There is an electron-dense band to separate the parasite from host cell cytoplasm, making it as an intracellular but extracytoplasmic parasite. However, little is known on the molecular machinery at the host cell-parasite interface.

Methods

Cryptosporidium parvum at various developmental stages were obtained by infecting HCT-8 cells cultured in vitro. Immunofluorescence assay was used to detect CpEF1α with a polyclonal antibody and host cell F-actin with rhodamine-phalloidin. Recombinant CpEF1α protein was used to evaluate its effect on the invasion by the parasite.

Results

We discovered that a C parvum translation elongation factor 1α (CpEF1α) was discharged from the invading sporozoites into host cells, forming a crescent-shaped patch that fully resembles the electron-dense band. At the same time, host cell F-actin aggregated to form a globular-shaped plug beneath the CpEF1α patch. The CpEF1α patch remained for most of the time but became weakened and dissolved upon the completion of the invasion process. In addition, recombinant CpEF1α protein could effectively interfere the invasion of sporozoites into host cells.

Conclusions

CpEF1α plays a role in the parasite invasion by participating in the formation of electron-dense band at the base of the parasite infection site.
Estimating dominance genetic variances for growth traits in American Angus males using genomic models
Authors: Garcia-Baccino Carolina A , Lourenco Daniela A L , Miller Stephen , Cantet Rodolfo J C , Vitezica Zulma G
Published: December 2019

Estimates of dominance variance for growth traits in beef cattle based on pedigree data vary considerably across studies, and the proportion of genetic variance explained by dominance deviations remains largely unknown. The potential benefits of including nonadditive genetic effects in the genomic model combined with the increasing availability of large genomic data sets have recently renewed the interest in including nonadditive genetic effects in genomic evaluation models. The availability of genomic information enables the computation of covariance matrices of dominant genomic relationships among animals, similar to matrices of additive genomic relationships, and in a more straightforward manner than the pedigree-based dominance relationship matrix. Data from 19,357 genotyped American Angus males were used to estimate additive and dominant variance components for 3 growth traits: birth weight, weaning weight, and postweaning gain, and to evaluate the benefit of including dominance effects in beef cattle genomic evaluations. Variance components were estimated using 2 models: the first one included only additive effects (MG) and the second one included both additive and dominance effects (MGD). The dominance deviation variance ranged from 3% to 8% of the additive variance for all 3 traits. Gibbs sampling and REML estimates showed good concordance. Goodness of fit of the models was assessed by a likelihood ratio test. For all traits, MG fitted the data as well as MGD as assessed either by the likelihood ratio test or by the Akaike information criterion. Predictive ability of both models was assessed by cross-validation and did not improve when including dominance effects in the model. There was little evidence of nonadditive genetic variation for growth traits in the American Angus male population as only a small proportion of genetic variation was explained by nonadditive effects. A genomic model including the dominance effect did not improve the model fit. Consequently, including nonadditive effects in the genomic evaluation model is not beneficial for growth traits in the American Angus male population.
Mitochondrial nucleoid morphology and respiratory function are altered in Drp1-deficient HeLa cells
Authors: Ota Azusa , Ishihara Takaya , Ishihara Naotada
Published: December 2019

Mitochondria are dynamic organelles that frequently divide and fuse with each other. The dynamin-related GTPase protein Drp1 has a key role in mitochondrial fission. To analyse the physiological roles of Drp1 in cultured human cells, we analysed Drp1-deficient HeLa cells established by genome editing using CRISPR/Cas9. Under fluorescent microscopy, not only mitochondria were elongated but their DNA (mtDNA) nucleoids were extremely enlarged in bulb-like mitochondrial structures (‘mito-bulbs’) in the Drp1-deficient HeLa cells. We further found that respiratory activity, as measured by oxygen consumption rates, was severely repressed in Drp1-deficient HeLa cells and that this was reversible by the co-repression of mitochondrial fusion factors. Although mtDNA copy number was not affected, several respiratory subunits were repressed in Drp1-deficient HeLa cells. These results suggest that mitochondrial fission is required for the maintenance of active respiratory activity and the morphology of mtDNA nucleoids in human cells.
The Emergence of the Concept of ‘General Principle of International Law’ in Investment Arbitration Case Law
Authors: Dumberry Patrick
Published: December 2019

This article examines the concept of ‘general principle of international law’ and the way it has so far been used by tribunals in investment cases. It will first outline the nature and meaning of these principles emerging on the international plane and distingue them from other general principles grounded in States’ domestic laws. The empirical analysis of four general principles (burden of proof, estoppel, res judicata and abuse of rights) shows that many tribunals have explicitly recognized them as general principles of international law. The reasoning of other tribunals, the expressions they have used and the international law material they have referred to strongly suggest that they have also come to the same conclusion. Finally, this article considers the reasons why this concept is important to the further development of investment arbitration.
Trusting Through the Moscow-Washington Hotline: A Role Theoretical Explanation of the Hotline's Contribution to Crisis Stability
Authors: Simon Eszter , Simon Agnes
Published: December 2019

This article explores how the Moscow-Washington hotline has contributed to crisis stability. Drawing on symbolic interactionist role theory, the article argues that the hotline provides leaders with an opportunity to engage in altercasting behavior so as to trust each other, even if only temporarily, when they contact each other through the hotline to communicate about a situation they define as a crisis. This function of the hotline is particularly useful when leaders have not managed to develop interpersonal trust between them. This new understanding of the hotline questions the dominant view that it merely facilitates communication, and improves on existing symbolic understandings of the device by offering a conceptualization that explains why the intentions with which it is used to communicate are seen as credible. Furthermore, seeing trust as role contributes to trust scholarship in International Relations by offering a middle ground between defining trust as interests, which are often ambiguous in crises, and as shared identity, which is unattainable between adversaries in the short term. We use two historical cases studies, the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, to illustrate our theoretical claims.
Breast Cancer Risk Assessment and Chemoprevention Use Among Veterans Affairs Primary Care Providers: A National Online Survey
Authors: Bidassie Balmatee , Kovach Amanda , Vallette Marissa A , Merriman Joseph , Park Yeun-Hee Anna , Aggarwal Anita , Colonna Sarah
Published: December 2019

Introduction

Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed among women and the second most common cause of cancer death among women. There are ways to reduce a woman’s risk of breast cancer; however, most eligible women in the United States are neither offered personalized screening nor chemoprevention. Surveys have found that primary care providers are largely unaware of breast cancer risk assessment models or chemoprevention. This survey aims to investigate Veterans Health Administration primary care providers’ comfort level, practice patterns, and knowledge of breast cancer risk assessment and chemoprevention.

Materials and Methods

An online, Research Electronic Data Capture-generated survey was distributed to VHA providers in internal medicine, family medicine, and obstetrics/gynecology. Survey domains were provider demographics, women’s health experience, comfort level, practice patterns, barriers to using risk models and chemoprevention, and knowledge of chemoprevention.

Results

Of the 167 respondents, 33.1% used the Gail model monthly or more often and only 2.4% prescribed chemoprevention in the past 2 years. Most VHA primary care providers did not answer chemoprevention knowledge questions correctly. Designated women’s health providers were more comfortable with risk assessment (P < 0.018) and chemoprevention (P < 0.011) and used both breast cancer risk models (P < 0.0045) and chemoprevention more often (P < 0.153). Reported barriers to chemoprevention were lack of education and provider time.

Conclusions

VHA providers and women Veterans would benefit from a system to ensure that women at increased risk of breast cancer are identified with risk modeling and that risk reduction options, such as chemoprevention, are offered when appropriate. VHA providers requested risk reduction education, which could improve primary care provider comfort level with chemoprevention.