bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Development of Al1070-Quasicrystal (Al65Cu23Fe12) composites using friction stir processing and its mechanical characterization
Authors: Kamalnath M , Mohan B , Singh Alok , Thirumavalavan K
Published: January 2020

This study aims at analysing the microstructure and mechanical behaviour of quasicrystalline (Al65Cu23Fe12) strengthened Al1070 composites by Friction Stir Processing (FSP). The composites with various volume fractions of quasicrystal are fabricated by a multipass (3 passes) Friction Stir Processing with 1200 rpm speed, 30 mm min−1 feed rate and tilt angle of 2.5°. The hardness measurement and tensile test performed in the fabricated composites divulged an increasing trend in the hardness values and Ultimate tensile strength up to a volume fraction of 8% of quasicrystals. The microstructural studies disclosed the increase in the hardness values are ascribed to the reduction in grain size due to the dynamic recrystallization and the strengthening of Al matrix by quasicrystals. Though the composites with higher volume fraction exhibited improved Ultimate tensile strength, the fractographic studies depicted there is transformation from ductile to brittle failure in those composites.
Corrosion behavior of the weld joint of X80 pipeline steel in an acidic red soil
Authors: Cao Xianming , Wu Tangqing , Liu Meng , Wang Binbin , Zhang Minghua , Li Cong , Yin Fucheng
Published: January 2020

In this paper, the corrosion behavior of X80 pipeline steel weld joints in an acidic red soil solution was studied. The results show that uniform corrosion occurs on the entire surface of the weld joint after 840 h immersion. The corrosion degree of heat affected zone (HAZ) is more serious than that of base metal (BM) and weld zone (WZ). The corrosion rate of HAZ specimen is always higher than those of WZ and BM specimens throughout the separated immersion. The accelerating corrosion of HAZ may come from its microstructure change, its corrosion sensitivity and the deterioration of mechanical performance of corrosion product on it.
Study on corrosion resistance of copper matrix composites reinforced by Al2O3 whiskers
Authors: Lv Lan , Jiang Xiaosong , Xiao Xincong , Sun Hongliang , Shao Zhenyi , Luo Zhiping
Published: January 2020

The corrosion behavior of copper matrix composites with different Al2O3 whisker content in NaCl solution (3.6 wt%) at different temperatures was studied by electrochemical test and electron microscope. The results showed that with the increase of Al2O3 whisker content, the corrosion tendency of the composites first increases and then decreases. The charge-transfer resistance (Rct) value and corrosion current density tend to decrease first and then rise slowly. The whiskers can cause huge differences in performance in different directions so that it is easy to agglomerate and entangle in the matrix, which can increase the heterogeneity of materials in copper matrix alloys, hence, the addition of whiskers will cause the increase of corrosion phenomenon. As the whisker content continues to increase, a large number of reinforcing phases will form a natural protective layer when exposed on the metal surface, which will slow down the corrosion situation. As the temperature increases, the corrosion resistance decreases first and then increases. When the temperature increases from 25 °C to 50 °C, the electrochemical reaction is accelerated, the free electrons between the metal atoms obtain external energy, the ion migration rate is accelerated, and the corrosion reaction is more likely to occur. When the temperature increases from 50 °C to 75 °C, the corrosion reaction rate is mainly controlled by the diffusion of oxygen. As the temperature increases, the solubility of oxygen decreases and the cathode reaction requires oxygen to participate, consequently, the corrosion rate decreases. For the microstructure of the corrosion specimen, corrosion mainly occurred at or around the reinforcement phase/matrix interface. Intermetallic compound particles often appear near corrosion initiation points along the reinforcement phase/matrix interface, and the corrosion behavior of composites is mainly determined by copper. Copper is used as the anode of the battery, and the corrosion products are mainly copper chloride salts.
Investigation of microstructure and liquid lead corrosion behavior of a Fe-18Ni-16Cr-4Al base alumina-forming austenitic stainless steel
Authors: Chen Lingzhi , Wang Man , Tsisar Valentyn , Schroer Carsten , Zhou Zhangjian
Published: January 2020

The microstructure of an alumina-forming austenitic stainless steel with a composition design of Fe-18Ni-16Cr-4Al-2Mo-0.4 Nb (in wt%) is characterized. The steel contains about 75 vol% austenitic phase and 25 vol% ferritic phase. B2-NiAl precipitates with round shape can be found only in the ferritic phase in the as-rolled sample. The corrosion behavior in static liquid lead with different oxygen content of 10−9 and 10−6% by mass at 700 °C for 1000 h is investigated. After exposure for 1000 h in liquid lead with oxygen content of 10−9%, obvious lead penetration combined with nickel dissolution is found. In the case of liquid lead with 10−6% oxygen content, a thin oxide layer can be formed on the surface, thus protecting the steel from liquid lead attack. After the corrosion test, significant precipitations are found in both austenitic and ferritic phases in the matrix of the steel.
Rechy, John
Authors: Ortiz Ricardo L.
Published: January 2020

For half of his nearly sixty-year writing career, John Rechy was recognized primarily for his contributions to homosexual literature in the United States, even as from the beginning of that career he consistently cast his major protagonists as young men of mixed ethnicity, part-Mexican and part-Scottish, hailing like him from the border city of El Paso, Texas. As the fields of queer and US Latinx literary studies emerged in the 1980s, critics and scholars began to study the important intersectionalities of Rechy’s multiple identities more explicitly and intentionally, and that attention has been sustained ever since, leading to a significant rethinking of earlier responses to Rechy’s literary work, and a significant opening of the possible viable readerly approaches to Rechy’s entire writing career. Underrepresented in this matrix of critical approaches toward Rechy’s work that favor issues of identity, however, is a more direct, committed interest in describing the specifically literary, and aesthetic, aspects of Rechy’s contributions to the cultural traditions to which he matters, regardless of whether that interest foregrounds or not the understandably compelling factors of identity (ethnic, gender, sexual, class, geographic, etc.) that drive so much extant Rechy criticism. That critical project will surely benefit from a greater attention to, for example, Rechy’s experiments with form, style, and the materiality of print across the six decades of his career, very likely discovering there that those experiments can open alternative doors to understanding not only Rechy’s artistry, but also the unique qualities of his queerness, and the unique qualities of his latinidad.
Asian Americans in Opera: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Authors: Rao Nancy Yunhwa
Published: January 2020

Chinese opera in America has several intertwined histories that have developed from the mid-19th century onward to inform performances and representations of Asian Americans on the opera stage. These histories include Chinese opera theater in North America from 1852 to 1940, Chinese opera performance in the ubiquitous Chinese villages at various World Fairs in the United States from 1890 to 1915, the famous US tour of Peking opera singer Mei Lanfang from New York to Chicago and San Francisco in 1930, a constellation of imagined “Chinese” opera and yellowface plays from 1880 to 1930, and the more recent history of contemporary opera created by Asian Americans commissioned by major opera houses. Some of these varied histories are closely intertwined, not all are well understood, and some have been simply forgotten. Since the mid-19th century, Chinese opera theater has become part of US urban history and has left a significant imprint on the collective cultural and historical memory of Chinese America. Outside of Chinese American communities arose well-known instances of imagined “Chinese” opera, yellowface works that employ the “Chinese opera trope” as a source of inspiration, or Western-style theatrical works based on Chinese themes or plotlines. These histories are interrelated, and have also significantly shaped the reception and understanding of contemporary operas created by Asian American composers and writers. While these operatic works of the late 20th and early 21st centuries are significantly different from those of earlier moments in history, their production and interpretation cannot escape this influence.
High-Resolution Thunderstorm Modeling
Authors: Orf Leigh
Published: January 2020

Since the dawn of the digital computing age in the mid-20th century, computers have been used as virtual laboratories for the study of atmospheric phenomena. The first simulations of thunderstorms captured only their gross features, yet required the most advanced computing hardware of the time. The following decades saw exponential growth in computational power that was, and continues to be, exploited by scientists seeking to answer fundamental questions about the internal workings of thunderstorms, the most devastating of which cause substantial loss of life and property throughout the world every year.

By the mid-1970s, the most powerful computers available to scientists contained, for the first time, enough memory and computing power to represent the atmosphere containing a thunderstorm in three dimensions. Prior to this time, thunderstorms were represented primarily in two dimensions, which implicitly assumed an infinitely long cloud in the missing dimension. These earliest state-of-the-art, fully three-dimensional simulations revealed fundamental properties of thunderstorms, such as the structure of updrafts and downdrafts and the evolution of precipitation, while still only roughly approximating the flow of an actual storm due computing limitations.

In the decades that followed these pioneering three-dimensional thunderstorm simulations, new modeling approaches were developed that included more accurate ways of representing winds, temperature, pressure, friction, and the complex microphysical processes involving solid, liquid, and gaseous forms of water within the storm. Further, these models also were able to be run at a resolution higher than that of previous studies due to the steady growth of available computational resources described by Moore’s law, which observed that computing power doubled roughly every two years. The resolution of thunderstorm models was able to be increased to the point where features on the order of a couple hundred meters could be resolved, allowing small but intense features such as downbursts and tornadoes to be simulated within the parent thunderstorm. As model resolution increased further, so did the amount of data produced by the models, which presented a significant challenge to scientists trying to compare their simulated thunderstorms to observed thunderstorms. Visualization and analysis software was developed and refined in tandem with improved modeling and computing hardware, allowing the simulated data to be brought to life and allowing direct comparison to observed storms. In 2019, the highest resolution simulations of violent thunderstorms are able to capture processes such as tornado formation and evolution which are found to include the aggregation of many small, weak vortices with diameters of dozens of meters, features which simply cannot not be simulated at lower resolution.
Evolution and Political Decision Making
Authors: Lopez Anthony C.
Published: January 2020

The application of evolutionary theories or models to explain political decision making is
quickly maturing, fundamentally interdisciplinary, and irreducibly complex. This
hybridization has yielded significant benefits, including real progress toward understanding
the conditions under which cooperation is possible, and a clearer understanding of the
apparently “irrational” drivers of political violence.

Decision making requires a nervous system that conditions motivation and behavior upon
adaptively relevant cues in the environment. Such systems do not exist because they maximize
utility, enlightenment, or scientific truth; they exist because on average they led to
outcomes that were reproductively beneficial in ancestral environments. The reproductive
challenges faced by our ancestors included not only ecological problems of predator
avoidance but also political problems such as inter-group threat and the distribution of
resources within groups. Therefore, evolutionary approaches to political decision making
require direct and deep engagement of the logic whereby natural selection builds
adaptations. This view of human psychology yields valuable insights on the domain
specificity of political decision making as well as the psychological consequences of
mismatch between modern and ancestral environments. In other words, there is accumulating
evidence that many of the complex adaptations of the human brain were designed to solve the
many problems of ancestral politics.

This discussion begins by distinguishing evolutionary approaches from other frameworks used
to explain political decision making, such as rational choice, or realism in international
relations. Since evolutionary models of political decision making have now produced decades
of original theoretical and empirical contributions, we are in a useful position to take
stock of this research landscape. Doing so crystalizes the promises, perils, and scope of
evolutionary approaches to politics.
Political and Psychological Processes in Political Action
Authors: van Zomeren Martijn
Published: January 2020

Social change sometimes happens because groups in society make it happen. The social psychology of such “man-made” change in political contexts studies the key psychological and political processes that play an important role in driving such change. Theory and research have focused on political processes as conditions that foster change but also on the psychological processes that describe how a structural potential for change translates into political action, which puts pressure on political decision makers toward social change. This yields important scientific insights into how political action occurs and thus may affect political decision making.

As for political processes, one relevant model is McAdam’s political process model, which identifies a number of structural factors that increase the potential for political action to achieve social change. As for psychological processes, one relevant model is the Social Identity Model of Collective Action, which identifies a number of core motivations for political action, and which seeks to integrate psychological insights with political models of social change. A joint discussion of these models offers hope and scope for further theoretical and empirical integration, as well as a broader and more comprehensive understanding of political and psychological processes in political action toward social change.
LGBTQ Family Law and Policy in the United States
Authors: Mayo-Adam Erin
Published: January 2020

There is a growing body of research on law and policy concerning lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) family law and policy. LGBTQ families have existed for centuries despite laws and policies that criminalize their relational practices. However, the legal landscape has shifted a great deal over the past few decades, in large part due to the increased visibility of LGBTQ kinship networks and new constitutional protections for same-sex marriage. With this said, legal protections for LGBTQ families vary widely by state, especially parental, adoption, and foster care rights. Historically, family law and policy has fallen within the realm of state power, with some important exceptions (e.g., the Supreme Court has recognized a fundamental right to parent for legal parents). For this reason, there are broad protections afforded to LGBTQ kinship networks in some states, especially those with large urban and more liberal populations, and barriers that stand in the way of LGBTQ parental rights in other states that are more conservative or rural. The legalization of marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges did standardize some protections for same-sex couples in traditional relationships across the United States. Yet the case also presents new problems both for LGBTQ families that are more heteronormative and those that are not because it fails to recognize a fundamental right to parent for LGBTQ people who create non-biological families and live non-traditional lives.

In addition to these legal and policy changes, social scientists have used both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to shed light on the problems faced by LGBTQ families politically and legally. Researchers have examined how LGBTQ families attempt to protect their ability to parent in family court, how LGBTQ kinship networks identify innovative legal and political strategies aimed at overcoming barriers to legal recognition, and how LGBTQ identity is both constituted and made invisible through family law. Furthermore, scholars have produced a wealth of research refuting the myth that LGBTQ people are inadequate parents since the late 1980s and this research has been used in court cases across the United States to facilitate the legal recognition of LGBTQ families. Despite this research, gaps in both scholarship and legal recognition remain. Scholarship remains startlingly sparse given the legal and political barriers that stand in the way of LGBTQ family recognition, especially for LGBTQ people of color and trans and queer people. In order to address this gap, scholars should devote more resources to research on families that include LGBTQ people of color and trans and queer people, research on non-traditional queer kinship networks, and research on the unique ways that LGBTQ families are responding to political and legal barriers at the local level.
Russian LGBT Politics and Rights
Authors: Edenborg Emil
Published: January 2020

Research on LGBT politics in Russia is a growing but still relatively small field. The current conditions of LGBT politics in Russia have been shaped by various historical processes. A key event was the 1933–1934 Stalinist anti-homosexual campaign and the recriminalization of sodomy; during this period a discursive frame was established that, to a large extent, continues to structure public perceptions of homosexuality: according to this framework, it is a political as well as a national transgression, associated with imagined attempts to undermine Russia by Western states. A near-total silence about homosexuality in the post-Stalin Soviet Union—where same-sex relations were regulated by criminal (in the case of men) and psychiatric (in the case of women) institutions—was broken during late 1980s perestroika, leading up to the 1993 decriminalization of sodomy. The Putin years have seen the gradual rise of a nationalist conservative ideology that opposes LGBT rights and stresses the importance of “traditional values.” The latter concept became state ideology after Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012, as manifested in the 2013 ban on “propaganda for nontraditional sexual relations” and the foreign policy profiling of Russia as an international guardian of conservatism. In neighboring Eurasian countries—the post-Soviet republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus—the rise of “traditional-values” discourses and proposed propaganda bans in the 2010s indicate the extent to which LGBT politics have become entangled in geopolitical contestations over identity and regional influence. In Russia, a first wave of gay activism in the early 1990s failed to develop into a vital and lasting political movement but established a queer infrastructure in larger cities. It was followed by a second generation of activists in the mid-2000s, for some of whom the organization of Pride marches have been the main strategy, leading to controversies that have increased the public visibility and politicization of LGBT issues. In scholarship on LGBT politics in Russia and Eurasia, two important subjects of discussion have been visibility and geopoliticization. The first includes a critique of identity-based visibility politics and how it has structured perceptions of queer life in Russia as well as LGBT activism itself. Researchers have examined the multiple and contradictory effects and meanings of public visibility in the Russian context and have pointed at alternative forms of activism and organizing. Second, researchers have explored the geopolitical underpinnings of sexual politics, mapping how LGBT issues are interwoven in complex negotiations over national and civilizational identity, sovereignty and regional domination, security, progress, and modernity.
Federalism and Policy Implementation
Authors: Wiltshire Kenneth
Published: January 2020

Implementing public policies in federations involves clashes of concept and practice. In its design, federalism is not particularly conducive to the formulation and implementation of public policy because the acclaimed strengths of a federal form of government, including diversity, fragmentation of power and sovereignty, and responsiveness to regional and cultural interests, all serve to make the introduction of national policies complex and challenging. This is especially the case regarding the implementation phase of policies which tends to be a most difficult task given the layers and negotiating steps through which policies must pass before being delivered to clients. Success in implementing public policies in federations requires a mixture of strategies that can range from coercion to collaboration and cooperation. Achieving performance with accountability throughout this process has proven difficult in most federations. Moreover most of the literature has avoided the client perspective, in particular whether citizens really care about the vagaries of federal arrangements as they simply want to see the programs that affect their daily lives delivered efficiently, effectively, and accountably.
Governance Through Civil Society
Authors: Torfing Jacob
Published: January 2020

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the role of civil society in public governance, defined as the process of steering society and the economy through collective action and in accordance with some common objectives. Civil society holds valuable experiences, resources and ideas that may be mobilized in support of public governance processes. The heightened interest in civil society has stimulated scholarly debates about the conceptualization of civil society that tends to be defined as an institutional realm of private associations, voluntarism, and active citizens. The theoretical perception on the role of civil society vis-à-vis public governance seems to have moved from mainly considering the governance of civil society and governance in civil society to focusing on governance with civil society through various forms of collaborative network governance and co‑creation processes. In other words, civil society is no longer perceived merely as a target for public governance initiatives promoted by state agencies, nor is it solely praised for its capacity for self-governance. Civil society has been re-casted as a competent and resourceful partner in processes of co-governance in which public and private actors create a common ground for joint problemsolving. The new research on co-governance prompts analysis of the conditions for engaging civil society actors in public governance, the potential benefits and problems of governance based on interaction with civil society, and the need for meta-governance of cross-boundary collaboration. Civil society is often associated with local, place-bound groups and associations, but it is equally important to consider the prospects for global governance to involve the emerging global civil society. The interest in how civil society can play a role in and contribute to public governance has come to stay and prompts us to reflect on future research avenues, including the key question of how we can create platforms for cross-boundary collaboration between public and private for-profit and non-profit actors. As such, the re-casting of civil society as a partner in the co-governance of society also seems to transform the state from an authority standing above society to an opportunity structure that promotes cross-boundary collaboration and co-creation of public value outcomes.
European Union Governance
Authors: Tömmel Ingeborg
Published: January 2020

The term “governance” refers to interactive forms of political steering, characterized by the coordination of a wide spectrum of actors in pursuit of common goals (e.g., Rhodes, 1996; Pierre & Peters, 2000, 2005; Kooiman, 2003; Torfing, Peters, Pierre, & Sörensen, 2013; Ansell & Torfing 2016). Governance processes involve multiple actors and institutions into cooperative relationships and network structures. The corresponding steering mechanisms may range from hierarchical rule to mere persuasion.

The governance perspective appeared particularly suited to analyze political steering in the European Union (EU). The Union is not sovereign; it therefore developed steering mechanisms that do not (or only partly) rely on formal competences and hierarchical rule. The evolving system of European governance constituted the EU as a multilevel polity, held together by interlocking relationships of policy coordination and cooperation (Marks et al., 1996; Hooghe & Marks, 2001; Piattoni, 2010).

Scholarly reflection on EU governance evolved comparatively late during the 1990s (Hix, 1998); it proliferated after the turn of the century, when the European Union introduced the so-called Open Method of Coordination (OMC) (Kohler-Koch & Rittberger, 2006). Later, the perspective widened to the whole spectrum of governance modes and its innovative forms (e.g., Sabel & Zeitlin, 2008, 2010a; Tömmel & Verdun, 2009a, Héritier & Rhodes, 2011). Yet salient issues remained under-researched, particularly the power dimension of EU governance (Torfing et al., 2013, pp. 48–70).
Animal Welfare and Disasters
Authors: Glassey Steve
Published: January 2020

Public policy around animal welfare in disaster management is a new field, both in practice and in research. Early studies in the 1990s paved the way for a wider and more internationally focused approach to the challenge of protecting both people and animals during disasters, with some countries introducing specific legislative instruments to afford animals better protection in such events. Such reforms are largely motivated by the recognition of the bond humans often have with animals, and the likelihood that they will behave in a way that is protective of them, even at the risk of compromising human safety. However, the issues around animal disaster management and the associated policy are complex and are best categorized as a wicked problem.

Production animals are generally highly vulnerable to disaster due to high stock densities and lack of hazard mitigation. However, it is the lack of human–animal bond that leaves these animals largely without disaster-risk-reduction advocacy. In contrast, companion animals that enjoy the paternalistic protection of their guardians benefit from greater rights, and their advocates have a stronger voice to effect change in public policy through democratic processes. This article looks at the historical development of policy and legal reform of animal disaster management in a global context and draws upon numerous studies to provide evidence-based arguments as to why animals matter in disasters and why there are significant public safety and political benefits in protecting them.
Israel: A Politically Monitored Military in a Militarized Society
Authors: Levy Yagil
Published: January 2020

Two opposing arguments are heard in the political and academic discourse in Israel regarding the status of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). One claims that the IDF possesses too much power and that military thought governs political thought, thus it is “a military that has a state.” The other contends that the military is oversupervised by civilian groups. However, both arguments are correct if we relate each to a specific domain of civil–military relations.

Since its establishment in 1948, the IDF has become increasingly subordinated to civilian control. During the 1950s, it was a military that dictated policies and often acted in direct defiance of the elected government; but since then, it has gradually lost much of its autonomy and become highly monitored by civilians. Areas that were conventionally considered to be within the military’s sphere of professional competence have become subject to civilian control. There has been increasing civilian intrusion into the military domain, starting with the monitoring of military operations during the 1950s, and culminating in the 2000s with increased monitoring of the IDF’s human and material resources and its activities in policing the Palestinian population. This process also signifies a transition from control performed exclusively by formal state institutions to increasing engagement by extrainstitutional actors (such as social movements and civil rights organizations) backed by the media and focused on issues ranging from recruitment policies and the investigation of operational accidents to actual military operations.

At the same time, those ascribing too much power to the military are also right. Israeli political culture has been militarized from the early years of the state, except for a short period of demilitarization during the 1980s–1990s. Militarization developed from initially just prioritizing the military approach over political-diplomatic methods during the state’s first years, and continued with the predominance of military over political discourse after the 1967 War, and the religionization of politics since the 2000s. Throughout this process, the ongoing friction with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel’s wars in Gaza were presented as a religious war and the Palestinians were dehumanized.

Thus, it is military thought that is powerful rather than the military organization itself, which has lost much of its former autonomy; military thought still governs civilian politics. Moreover, to a large extent, during the 2000s, not only did rightist and religious groups become the main promoters of militarization rather than the IDF and its officers’ social networks, but the new trends of militarization even clashed with the military command and its secular rationale, thus further challenging its professional autonomy.
Gastropod Feeding Systems: Evolution of Neural Circuits that Generate Diverse Behaviors
Authors: Benjamin Paul , Crossley Michael
Published: January 2020

It is conceptually reasonable to explore how the evolution of behavior involves changes in neural circuitry. Progress in determining this evolutionary relationship has been limited in neuroscience because of difficulties in identifying individual neurons that contribute to the evolutionary development of behaviors across species. However, the results from the feeding systems of gastropod mollusks provide evidence for this concept of co-evolution because the evolution of different types of feeding behaviors in this diverse group of mollusks is mirrored by species-specific changes in neural circuitry. The evolution of feeding behaviors involves changes in the motor actions that allow diverse food items to be acquired and ingested. The evolution in neural control accompanies this variation in food and the associated changes in flexibility of feeding behaviors. This is present in components of the feeding network that are involved in decision making, rhythm generation, and behavioral switching but is absent in background mechanisms that are conserved across species, such as those controlling arousal state. These findings show how evolutionary changes, even at the single neuron level, closely reflect the details of behavioral evolution.
Human Capital Inequality: Empirical Evidence
Authors: Abbott Brant , Gallipoli Giovanni
Published: January 2020

This article focuses on the distribution of human capital and its implications for the accrual of economic resources to individuals and households. Human capital inequality can be thought of as measuring disparity in the ownership of labor factors of production, which are usually compensated in the form of wage income.

Earnings inequality is tightly related to human capital inequality. However, it only measures disparity in payments to labor rather than dispersion in the market value of the underlying stocks of human capital. Hence, measures of earnings dispersion provide a partial and incomplete view of the underlying distribution of productive skills and of the income generated by way of them.

Despite its shortcomings, a fairly common way to gauge the distributional implications of human capital inequality is to examine the distribution of labor income. While it is not always obvious what accounts for returns to human capital, an established approach in the empirical literature is to decompose measured earnings into permanent and transitory components.

A second approach focuses on the lifetime present value of earnings. Lifetime earnings are, by definition, an ex post measure only observable at the end of an individual’s working lifetime. One limitation of this approach is that it assigns a value based on one of the many possible realizations of human capital returns. Arguably, this ignores the option value associated with alternative, but unobserved, potential earning paths that may be valuable ex ante. Hence, ex post lifetime earnings reflect both the genuine value of human capital and the impact of the particular realization of unpredictable shocks (luck).

A different but related measure focuses on the ex ante value of expected lifetime earnings, which differs from ex post (realized) lifetime earnings insofar as they account for the value of yet-to-be-realized payoffs along different potential earning paths. Ex ante expectations reflect how much an individual reasonably anticipates earning over the rest of their life based on their current stock of human capital, averaging over possible realizations of luck and other income shifters that may arise. The discounted value of different potential paths of future earnings can be computed using risk-less or state-dependent discount factors.
Civil Rights and Schools: Tinker v. Des Moines
Authors: Schumaker Kathryn
Published: January 2020

The 1969 Supreme Court ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines established that students in public elementary and secondary schools do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Before Tinker, students often faced punishment from school officials for their role in protests both on and off campus. A rise in civil rights protests and the role of young people in the social movements of the 1960s led to frequent conflicts between students and school administrators. Many black students were especially vocal in contesting racial discrimination at school in the two decades following the 1954Brown v. Board of Education decision. But before Tinker, students in public elementary and secondary schools were not considered to have any constitutional rights, including the right to free expression. Some of these students brought lawsuits in response to punishments they believed unfairly disciplined them for participating in legitimate protests. The political activism of young people and developments in First Amendment law eventually brought the Constitution into the public school classroom, leading to Tinker and other cases that established students’ rights.
Ecclesiastical Geography of Colonial Brazil
Authors: Sales Souza Evergton
Published: January 2020

For many years Brazil was a mission land, a space for evangelization mostly occupied by non-Christian peoples and targets of the conversion work of Catholic missionaries. Furthermore, the slowness of the colonizing—and missionary—advance toward the vast sertões of Portuguese America meant that a large part of the territory remained outside the principal organizing institutions of the colonial space, among which was the diocesan church. However, by confusing the space effectively occupied by colonization with what would eventually form the extension of the territorial possessions of the Portuguese monarchy, the field was opened to mistaken perceptions about the presence and importance of the diocesan Church in colonial Brazil. Since 2000, the proliferation of studies about the episcopacy and different aspects of the structures and actions related to episcopal power has contributed to a change in the understanding of its role and relevance in the development of the Church and the Luso-American colony. Contemporary historians, more attentive to documentary sources related to diocesan administration, have sought to show that the diocesan geography of Portuguese America had greater complexity and importance than has been attributed to it by incautious researchers convinced they were aware of the limitations of the role played by secular clergy in the construction of the Church and Catholicism. Emerging out of recent 21st-century studies is a better knowledge of diocesan structures—bishoprics, ecclesiastic administrations, parishes, chapels—and the functioning of the mechanisms of pastoral vigilance and the punishment of deviants, whether they were clerics or simple believers. This demystifies the idea that the royal Padroado was a nefarious obstacle to the development of the diocesan church in Brazil and shows the importance of the study of diocesan geography not only for the understanding of the history of the Church and Catholicism but also for the development of colonial society.
Chile: A Center of Global Astronomy, 1850–2019
Authors: Silva Bárbara K.
Published: January 2020

By 2020, it is expected that approximately 70 % of the world’s surface astronomical observation will be located in Chile, considering both optical and infrared telescopes, belonging to international institutions. How did this happen? Can we explain the overwhelming importance of astronomy in this southern country only because of its geography? This process began when scientists from Europe, the United States, and the Soviet Union went to Chile in the 1960s, and each one of them decided to build a massive observatory in the country. The atmospheric conditions certainly had a role in these decisions, but they were also related to Cold War politics and, indirectly, to the previous history of astronomy in Chile.

The international dimension of astronomy in Chile had been preset since the mid-19th century, when the first modern astronomy initiative took place. An American expedition built the first observatory, which later became the National Astronomical Observatory. By the early 20th century, another American expedition had arrived in Chile, and this one stayed for more than twenty years. Decades later, the global dimension of astronomy took the decisive step in the southern country and set the milestone for the development in the hands of Europeans, Americans and Soviets. In the process, Chileans became involved with astronomy, trying to promote science, the country’s international relations, and to grasp the attractions of modernity.
Alcohol Intoxication and Suicide by Hanging in Poland
Authors: Lasota Dorota , Pawłowski Witold , Krajewski Paweł , Staniszewska Anna , Goniewicz Krzysztof , Czerski Robert , Goniewicz Mariusz
Published: January 2020

Aims

An integral part of the World Health Organization (WHO) plan to reduce suicide by 10% by 2020 is to identify areas and demographic groups, which should be priority target groups for preventive activities. This study aimed to present the demographic differences between victims of suicide by hanging in the Warsaw metropolitan area, in Poland, by examining the sobriety of victims.

Methods

Data for analysis were obtained from the documentation of the Department of Forensic Medicine (DFM) at the Medical University of Warsaw (MUW). The retrospective analysis included 358 out of 466 victims of suicides by hanging in the Warsaw metropolitan area, in Poland, recorded in the DFM documentation covering 2011–2013. The data gathered included age, gender, the cause of death, a post-mortem examination as well as the level of ethanol in the blood and muscles of victims.

Results

In both groups, men accounted for a larger percentage of victims than women, P = 0.068. In the no-alcohol group, the victims were older than in the alcohol group (47.52 ± 19.21 vs. 40.88 ± 12.77) (P < 0.001). The majority of the studied population were victims aged 25–34 (22.90%), mainly men (20.95%). Young men were also the largest group among victims in the alcohol group (28.33%). The most numerous age group among no-alcohol group were older victims aged 55–64 (19.10%), especially men (16.29%).

Conclusion

Regardless of sobriety, men were the largest group of suicide victims in the study population, which means that men die suicide more often than women. Differences in gender proportions are related to age. In the studied population, it was primarily young victims, mainly men. These are the groups that should be priority target groups for preventive activities aimed at reducing the number of suicides. The presence of ethanol in more than half of the victims of suicide in the study population indicates that alcohol is an important suicidal risk factor.
Allee effects drive the coevolution of cooperation and group size in high reproductive skew groups
Authors: Lerch Brian A , Abbott Karen C
Published: January 2020

The evolution of cooperation between conspecifics is a fundamental evolutionary puzzle, with much work focusing on the evolution of cooperative breeding. Surprisingly, although we expect cooperation to affect the population structures in which individuals interact, most studies fail to allow cooperation and population structure to coevolve. Here, we build two models containing group-level Allee effects (positive density dependence at low group sizes) to study the coevolution of cooperation and group size. Group-level Allee effects, although common in cooperatively breeding species, remain understudied for their evolutionary implications. We find that a trait that affects group size can cause increased cooperation to be favored evolutionarily even in a group with complete reproductive skew. In particular, we find a single evolutionarily stable attractor in our model corresponding to moderate helpfulness and group size. In general, our results demonstrate that, even in groups with complete reproductive skew, Allee effects can be important for the evolution of cooperation and that the evolution of cooperation may be closely linked to the evolution of group size. Further, our model matches empirical data in African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), suggesting that it may have an application in understanding social evolution in this endangered species.
Personalised Budgets: What Is the Future for Child Protection?
Authors: Plath Debbie , Dadich Ann , Evans Susan , Lawson Kenny D , Stout Brian
Published: January 2020

As the Australian state of New South Wales considers the adoption of a policy of personalised budgets in child protection, questions arise regarding how such a policy could take shape and how it would impact service delivery to promote safety and well-being amongst vulnerable children. This article presents findings from a mixed-method, realist evaluation of a pilot programme that adopted some of the features of personalised budgets, namely, personalisation, brokerage and keyworkers. Drawing on literature on personalised budgets in disability and aged care, the article highlights the features, potential benefits and challenges of personalised budgets in child protection. It concludes by arguing for a better understanding of how personalised budgets could benefit vulnerable children. This might involve: defining the roles of brokers and keyworkers, developing ways to increase service user engagement, clarifying implications for the wider service sector and planning for the provision of required supports and services for children and families.
Prism Adaptation Modulates Connectivity of the Intraparietal Sulcus with Multiple Brain Networks
Authors: Schintu Selene , Freedberg Michael , Gotts Stephen J , Cunningham Catherine A , Alam Zaynah M , Shomstein Sarah , Wassermann Eric M
Published: January 2020

Prism adaptation (PA) alters spatial cognition according to the direction of visual displacement by temporarily modifying sensorimotor mapping. Right-shifting prisms (right PA) improve neglect of left visual field in patients, possibly by decreasing activity in the left hemisphere and increasing it in the right. Left PA shifts attention rightward in healthy individuals by an opposite mechanism. However, functional imaging studies of PA are inconsistent, perhaps because of differing activation tasks. We measured resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) in healthy individuals before and after PA. When contrasted, right versus left PA decreased RSFC in the spatial navigation network defined by the right posterior parietal cortex (PPC), hippocampus, and cerebellum. Within-PA-direction comparisons showed that right PA increased RSFC in subregions of the PPCs and between the PPCs and the right middle frontal gyrus and left PA decreased RSFC between these regions. Both right and left PA decreased RSFC between the PPCs and bilateral temporal areas. In summary, right PA increases connectivity in the right frontoparietal network and left PA produces essentially opposite effects. Furthermore, right, compared with left, PA modulates RSFC in the right hemisphere navigation network.
Development and Clinical Validation of a Sensitive Lateral Flow Assay for Rapid Urine Fentanyl Screening in the Emergency Department
Authors: Li Zhao , Chen Hui , Feng Sheng , Liu Kengku , Wang Ping
Published: January 2020

Background

Rapid identification of fentanyl at the point-of-care is critical. Urine fentanyl concentrations in overdose cases start at single-digit nanograms per milliliter. No fentanyl point-of-care assay with a cutoff at single-digit nanograms per milliliter is available.

Methods

A competitive lateral flow assay (LFA) was developed using gold nanoparticles and optimized for rapid screening of fentanyl in 5 minutes. Urine samples from 2 cohorts of emergency department (ED) patients were tested using the LFA and LC-MS/MS. The 2 cohorts consisted of 218 consecutive ED patients with urine drug-of-abuse screen orders and 7 ED patients with clinically suspected fentanyl overdose, respectively.

Results

The LFA detected fentanyl (≥1 ng/mL) and the major metabolite norfentanyl (≥10 ng/mL) with high precision. There was no cross-reactivity with amphetamine, cocaine, morphine, tetrahydrocannabinol, methadone, buprenorphine, naloxone, and acetaminophen at 1000 ng/mL and 0.03%, 0.4%, and 0.05% cross-reactivity with carfentanil, risperidone, and 9-hydroxyrisperidone, respectively. In 218 consecutive ED patients, the prevalence of cases with fentanyl ≥1 ng/mL or norfentanyl ≥10 ng/mL was 5.5%. The clinical sensitivity and specificity of the LFA were 100% (95% CI, 75.8–100%) and 99.5% (95% CI, 97.3–99.9%), respectively. The positive and negative predictive values were 92.3% (95% CI, 66.7–98.6%) and 100% (95% CI, 98.2–100%), respectively. The concordance between the LFA and LC-MS/MS was 100% in the 7 suspected fentanyl overdose cases (5 positive, 2 negative).

Conclusions

The LFA can detect fentanyl and norfentanyl with high clinical sensitivity and specificity in the ED population with rapid fentanyl screening needs.