bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Do financial hardships affect health? A study among older adults in Switzerland
Authors: Dumontet Magali , Henchoz Yves , Santos-Eggimann Brigitte
Published: November 2023

Background

A growing number of studies have underlined the relationship between socioeconomic status and health. Following that literature, we explore the causal effect of financial hardships on changes in health at older ages. Rather than traditional measures of socioeconomic variables, we study the role of financial hardships. The declarative measurement of financial hardships is particularly relevant for assessing the impact of short-term financial difficulties on health among older adults.

Methods

In this study, we use data from the Lausanne cohort 65+. Participants are community-dwelling older adults representative of the population aged 65–70 years in 2004 and living in Lausanne (Switzerland) (n = 1352). We use longitudinal annual data with 11 years of follow-up (2006–16) to estimate dynamic panel models on several indicators measuring older adults’ health (self-rated health, number of medical conditions, depressive symptoms, difficulties with daily living activities).

Results

We find evidence of causal effects of financial hardships on self-rated health (coef. = 0.059, P < 0.10) and on depressive symptoms (coef.=0.060, P < 0.05). On the other hand, we find no evidence of causality running from financial hardships to the number of medical conditions and the difficulties in daily living activities.

Conclusion

These results make a contribution to the literature where nearly all previous research on associations between financial hardship and health does not establish causal relationships. Our results support the need to integrate health policies that mitigate the potential adverse health effects of financial hardship for older adults.
Genome reports: enhancing rigor, reproducibility, and relevance
Authors: Whiteman Noah K
Published: November 2023

In this Editorial, Senior Editor for Genome Reports Noah Whiteman discusses G3’s new approach to the article type, outlining the specialized peer review process used. In addition to a traditional, open-ended review, Genome Reports receive a structured review that evaluates the article for best practice in both sequencing strategy and data analysis, reproducibility, and data availability. This carefully designed approach to Genome Reports supports G3’s commitment to serving the community through rapid, robust, and helpful peer review.
Comparative Trophic Levels of Phragmocone-Bearing Cephalopods (Nautiloids, Ammonoids, and Sepiids)
Authors: Ward Peter , Barord Gregory J , Schauer Andrew , Veloso Job
Published: November 2023

Synopsis

Cephalopods are among many marine animals that through some combination of habit and/or habitat have proven difficult to study, especially understanding their trophic positions in marine communities. Stable isotope analyses have provided powerful tools for discovering quantitative aspects about the ecology and food sources of many cephalopod species. Here, we present new gut content and isotopic data (carbon and nitrogen isotopes) from phragmocone-bearing cephalopods (both ectocochleates, as well as those with internal, hard part buoyancy maintenance apparatuses). To this, we also include observations from baited remote underwater video systems to describe feeding habits and potential prey types to correlate with gut contents analyses. These data come from extant Allonautilus, Nautilus, and Sepia species, as well as from extinct nautiloids and ammonites. Extant nautiloids occupy a different isotopic niche than all other cephalopod groups where such data have been published to date. We conclude that these species are obligate scavengers rather than predators on any living species in their environments. Extant Nautilus and Allonautilus also demonstrate different patterns of functional allometry of nitrogen isotope values over ontogeny than do most other cephalopods (or animals in general), by showing decreasing nitrogen isotope levels during ontogeny. This pattern is shown to be different in Sepia and the yet small number of ammonite cephalopods studied to date, supporting the increasingly accepted view that ammonites were far closer to coleoids in basic biology than nautiloids. Overall, phragmocone-bearing cephalopods appear fundamentally different ecologically than cephalopods without this kind of buoyancy system. Of these groups, nautiloids appear to live a low-energy existence that allows them to subsist on energy-poor food sources, such as crustacean molts, as well as being able to scavenge in low oxygen basins where rare food falls, such as dead fish, remain unobtainable by most other animals.
Co-pyrolysis of pinewood and HDPE: pyrolysis characteristics and kinetic behaviors study
Authors: Luo Guanqun , Wang Weimin , Zhao Yuan , Tao Xuan
Published: November 2023

Co-pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass and hydrogen-rich petroleum-based polyolefin plastics is a promising to way to improve bio-oil quality and alleviate the waste plastic pollution issues. In this study, co-pyrolysis of pinewood and HDPE was systematically investigated. The addition of HDPE decreased yield of char and gas while increased that of bio-oil, enhancing the selectivity to alcohols and hydrocarbons. The most obvious synergistic effect was observed at the HDPE mixing proportion of 0.25, at which hydrocarbon selectivity derived from co-pyrolysis experiments was 41.19% higher than the calculated weighted average values. As pyrolysis temperature increased from 500°C to 700°C, the yield of bio-oil from co-pyrolysis at the HDPE mixing proportion of 0.25 decreased from 69.11 wt.% to 50.33 wt.%, alkanes selectivity decreased from 27.41% to 3.67% and olefins selectivity increased from 14.96% to 47.12%. At 700°C, aromatics started to produce with a selectivity of 15.50%. The surface morphologies of char were not significantly affected by the HDPE mixing proportion and pyrolysis temperature. The thermogravimetric analysis results revealed that the global co-pyrolysis process can be divided into two major degradation stages, based on which multi-step method was adopted to analyze the kinetics of the process. The average apparent activation energies of stage I and stage II were 167.73 kJ/mol and 274.74 kJ/mol, respectively. The results from this work provide a theoretical guide for further development of co-pyrolysis of pinewood and high-density polyethylene (HDPE).
An experimental evaluation on thermal comfort and fatigue of human wearing mascot costumes in summer
Authors: Liu Zijian , Wang Rui , Guo Zifa , Liu Zixi , Gao Yanna , Pang Feng
Published: November 2023

Staffs wearing mascot costumes are quite common in performances and commercial promotions, but the internal thermal environment is usually poor in summer due to the high heat resistance of clothes and low ventilation efficiency, which increase the fatigue and discomfortable level of staffs greatly. In this study, thermal sensation and fatigue of human wearing mascot costumes in summer were explored. The three physiological indicators, including oral temperature, skin temperature and weight loss percentage, were measured, while the subjective indicators including thermal sensation, moisture sensation, air movement sensation, thermal comfort and fatigue level were inquired by a survey questionnaire. The results showed that compared volunteers dressed normal cloths, the average oral and skin temperatures of volunteers wearing mascot costumes was increased by 0.15°C and 0.60°C and their weight loss percentage was increased by 20.5%. Through the 40-minute experiment, the thermal discomfort votes of two groups are 3.22 (higher than ‘very uncomfortable (+3)’) and 1.51 (between ‘a little uncomfortable (+1)’ and ‘uncomfortable (+2)’), respectively, while their fatigue votes are 13.07 and 7.02, respectively. It showed wearing mascot costumes increased thermal discomfort and fatigue greatly.
The Maximal Length of q-ary MDS Elliptic Codes Is Close to
Authors: Han Dongchun , Ren Yuan
Published: November 2023

Determining the maximal length of MDS codes with certain dimension is one of the central topics in coding theory and finite geometry. The MDS Main Conjecture states that the maximal length of a non-trivial $q$-ary MDS code of dimension $k$ is $q+1$ except when $q$ is even and $k=3$ or $k=q-1$. We prove that the maximal length of non-trivial $q$-ary MDS elliptic codes is close to $\frac{q}{2}$, which gives an affirmative answer to a conjecture of Li, Wan, and Zhang. Moreover, we apply our result to derive an answer to a question on subset sums in finite abelian groups from elliptic curves.
Women in AI: Navigating ED&I
Authors: Hung Kitty
Published: November 2023

Dr Kitty Hung PHD CITP FBCS explores the implications of AI for women by tackling three key issues relating to equity, diversity and inclusion (ED&I): sexism, hate speech and the imbalance between the number of men and women working in AI.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Authors: Cooper Martin
Published: November 2023

Clare Walton, Transformation Lead with Aviva, tells Martin Cooper MBCS how the insurance, wealth and retirement firm is putting diversity and inclusion at the very heart of its digital products and services.
Practical Security
Authors: Clark Tim
Published: November 2023

Tim Clark MBCS explains AI prompt injection, the difficulties associated with mitigating its potential effects, and the moves that can be made to address the challenges it presents.
Stepping into Someone Else's Shoes
Authors: Tweedie Oli
Published: November 2023

Nominet CTO, Oli Tweedie FBCS, joined as the custodian of the .uk domain in November 2022, taking over a tech transformation project that was already in progress. He considers what questions those in his position should be asking themselves and others.
Lack of antiviral activity of probenecid in vitro and in Syrian golden hamsters
Authors: Box Helen J , Sharp Joanne , Pennington Shaun H , Kijak Edyta , Tatham Lee , Caygill Claire H , Lopeman Rose C , Jeffreys Laura N , Herriott Joanne , Neary Megan , Valentijn Anthony , Pertinez Henry , Curley Paul , Arshad Usman , Rajoli Rajith K R , Jochmans Dirk , Vangeel Laura , Neyts Johan , Chatelain Eric , Escudié Fanny , Scandale Ivan , Rannard Steve , Stewart James P , Biagini Giancarlo A , Owen Andrew
Published: November 2023

Objectives

Antiviral interventions are required to complement vaccination programmes and reduce the global burden of COVID-19. Prior to initiation of large-scale clinical trials, robust preclinical data to support candidate plausibility are required. This work sought to further investigate the putative antiviral activity of probenecid against SARS-CoV-2.

Methods

Vero E6 cells were preincubated with probenecid, or control media for 2 h before infection (SARS-CoV-2/Human/Liverpool/REMRQ0001/2020). Probenecid or control media was reapplied, plates reincubated and cytopathic activity quantified by spectrophotometry after 48 h. In vitro human airway epithelial cell (HAEC) assays were performed for probenecid against SARS-CoV-2-VoC-B.1.1.7 (hCoV-19/Belgium/rega-12211513/2020; EPI_ISL_791333, 2020-12-21) using an optimized cell model for antiviral testing. Syrian golden hamsters were intranasally inoculated (SARS-CoV-2 Delta B.1.617.2) 24 h prior to treatment with probenecid or vehicle for four twice-daily doses.

Results

No observable antiviral activity for probenecid was evident in Vero E6 or HAEC assays. No reduction in total or subgenomic RNA was observed in terminal lung samples (P > 0.05) from hamsters. Body weight of uninfected hamsters remained stable whereas both probenecid- and vehicle-treated infected hamsters lost body weight (P > 0.5).

Conclusions

These data do not support probenecid as a SARS-CoV-2 antiviral drug.
Who Is a Refugee in Jordan? Hierarchies and Exclusions in the Refugee Recognition Regime
Authors: Turner Lewis
Published: November 2023

This article dissects the refugee recognition regime in Jordan. It argues that refugee recognition, despite being conducted by UNHCR, is a heavily politicized process shaped by intersecting racial and national hierarchies, restrictive government regulations, and UNHCR policies. Despite Jordan hosting the ‘second highest share of refugees per capita in the world’, relatively few protection seekers gain refugee status, and when they do, it is almost always as part of the resettlement process. Many remain asylum seekers for years or decades, while others cannot even register their claim for international protection with UNHCR. This article contributes to refugee studies by demonstrating how UNHCR policies are changing RSD in non-signatory states, the importance of asylum/refugee registration, how state and humanitarian policies lead to some protection seekers being missed in academic analyses, and highlighting the ever-growing gap between the legal and ‘everyday’ uses of the term ‘refugee’.
Fadh, Sharaf and Respectable Passing as New Frameworks for Understanding Transmasculinity in the MENA Region: Case Studies of Transmasculine Refugees in Lebanon
Authors: Chaer Nisrine
Published: November 2023

Centring transmasculine refugees in Lebanon as a case study, this article examines the role of the state and the patriarchal family in regulating the lives of transmasculine subjects. It does so by introducing and elaborating on the concept of fadh, defined as the practices of scandal and shameful outing, a move that provides new ways of understanding transmasculinity through analysing the imposition of womanhood onto transmasculine subjects living under fadh, in tandem with an attention to class, as well as citizenship status, instead of a narrow focus on sex/gender. The article offers the concept of ‘respectable passing’ as a way to account for how transmasculine refugees ‘pass’ by investing in markers of class, citizenship, and age over those of gender and offers fadh as a potential framework for understanding anti-trans violence and trans passing. The framework of fadh is an attempt to afford more complexity to transmasculinity as a simultaneously classed, raced, and gendered formation, avoiding the limited and often deceitful framing as complicit with hegemonic masculinity (or lack thereof), a narrative common in existing scholarship on transmasculinity and in recent debates in feminist/LGBT circles globally.
Cat-transmitted human sporotrichosis in a non-endemic region in Brazil
Authors: Martins-Filho Paulo R , Cavalcante Taise F , de Souza Barboza Waneska , dos Santos Costa Sidney M , da Silva Carneiro Marina S , Moura Karine D , dos Reis Carlos H L , dos Santos Cliomar A
Published: November 2023

This emerging case of feline-transmitted sporotrichosis in a non-endemic area underscores the global rise and geographical expansion of the disease, necessitating vigilant epidemiological surveillance in Brazil.
Cortico-Cortical Communication through the Thalamus
Authors: Javadzadeh Mitra , Hofer Sonja B.
Published: November 2023

Trans-thalamic pathways are neural pathways connecting neocortical areas indirectly through the thalamus. Based on cortico-thalamocortical connectivity, 3 types of trans-thalamic circuit motifs have been described: recurrent loops between a cortical and a thalamic area, and feedforward and feedback trans-thalamic pathways from a hierarchically lower to a higher cortical area and vice versa. This chapter describes current evidence for these connectivity motifs and interactions between them in different neural systems and modalities. The authors then introduce the diverse functions attributed to trans-thalamic pathways such as the maintenance and regulation of cortical activity within cortical areas, as well as communication between them. Moreover, some trans-thalamic circuits may constitute information-processing pathways in their own right, carrying sensory as well as non-sensory signals important for perceptual inference, decision-making, and action selection.
The Connections of the Prefrontal Cortex and Thalamus and Plasticity Within This Circuitry
Authors: Mitchell Anna S.
Published: November 2023

The cortex and the thalamus are anatomically interconnected, sharing a common developmental trajectory. Cortico-thalamocortical interactions between different subdivisions of the mediodorsal thalamus (MD) and distinct parts of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are essential in cognition. The anterior thalamic nuclei (ATN) and nucleus reuniens (NRe) are also vital for cognitive processes and connect with the PFC. The cortico-thalamocortical connections of the MD, ATN and NRe, along with other thalamic nuclei (e.g., the pulvinar, intralaminar, and motor thalamic nuclei, not covered in this chapter) will each uniquely influence the cortex, including with neural oscillatory activity in relation to how the cortex governs cognitive processes. Each thalamic nucleus also receives distinct potent subcortical glutamate, GABAergic, and neuromodulator inputs that will additionally influence oscillatory patterns within the cortex. Given that the connectivity of these thalamic nuclei is heterogeneous but has some overlap in the PFC, further studies need to identify how these cortico-thalamocortical neural networks together support cognitive processes and neuroplasticity. In turn, this knowledge may offer avenues to develop effective treatment strategies to improve the debilitating cognitive deficits observed in various neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodegenerative diseases that uniquely affect the MD, ATN, NRe, and other thalamic nuclei and their cortico-thalamocortical neural networks.
Evolution of Frontal Cortex and Thalamus in Primates
Authors: Baldwin Mary K. L. , Wise Steven P.
Published: November 2023

The frontal cortex and thalamus changed during primate evolution, both in size and composition. New, primate-specific areas include the granular prefrontal cortex (PFC) and several premotor areas, and an emphasis on vision increased the size and complexity of cortical visual areas, which directly influenced the frontal cortex. When they first evolved, visual inputs to the PFC guided foraging, while those to premotor areas improved reaching and leaping. A key development occurred during the Miocene, when the frontal lobe enlarged independently in New World monkeys, Old World monkeys, and hominoids (the ape-human lineage). Parallel developments occurred in thalamic nuclei connected to the PFC. The magnocellular division of the mediodorsal nucleus (MDmc) functions like sensory and cerebellar relay nuclei, but—unlike its homolog in other mammals—some of its outputs go to new, primate-specific orbitofrontal areas. These thalamocortical projections relay information from the amygdala about the current desirability of hidden food items, which improves foraging choices. In early primates, these specializations enhanced fitness as they foraged among the terminal branches of rainforest trees in dim light. Like the granular PFC, the medial pulvinar (PulM) and most of the lateral mediodorsal nucleus (MD) are primate specializations. These nuclei, which include the parvocellular division of MD (MDpc), integrate inputs from several cortical areas, including many primate-specific ones. MDpc and PulM expanded during anthropoid evolution, in parallel with the granular PFC; and, during human evolution, MD and the pulvinar became the largest thalamic nuclei as the granular PFC came to dominate the frontal lobe.
Corticothalamic Network Abnormalities Underlying Absence Seizures
Authors: Leresche Nathalie , Crunelli Vincenzo
Published: November 2023

Absence seizures (ASs) are genetic generalized seizures and one of the critical neurological phenotypes that originate from abnormalities in corticothalamic (CT) networks. Genetic analyses of cohorts with only ASs have identified 2p16.1 and 2q22.3 as significant loci and a few genes related to intrinsic and synaptic membrane channels. In normal animals, the genetic mutation of a single voltage- or ligand-gated channel in a single cortical or thalamic neuronal population can lead to spontaneous ASs. The electrographic activity of ASs invariably initiates from a localized cortical area, but the full expression of these seizures’ clinical symptoms requires interactions between cortical and thalamic networks. In contrast to focal and other genetic generalized seizures, the ictal activity of cortical and thalamic neurons during ASs is predominantly characterized by a decreased, but highly synchronized firing, with individual neurons often showing a different firing pattern from one seizure to the next. The high remittance rate of children with ASs indicates that CT networks, and/or their modulatory inputs from the basal ganglia and brainstem, have the inherent capacity to compensate for the developmental abnormalities that lead to ASs, but the mechanisms of remittance have not been investigated since all available models lack this feature of human ASs.
A new tidal scenario for double bar formation
Authors: Semczuk Marcin , Łokas Ewa L , de Lorenzo-Cáceres Adriana , Athanassoula E
Published: November 2023

Double bars make up a significant fraction of barred galaxies. We propose a new formation scenario for double bars that involves tidal interactions. We demonstrate the viability of this scenario using two examples of simulated galaxies from run TNG50-1 of the IllustrisTNG project. In the proposed scenario the inner bar forms first, either in isolation, via instabilities, or through previous tides. The outer bar forms later from the material that is tidally distorted by a strong interaction. The inner and outer bars formed this way rotate with different pattern speeds and can be mistaken for a single bar when their phases align. The double-barred structure is stable and can last for at least 3 Gyr. The inner bars of the tidally induced double bars can also have big sizes, which can possibly explain the origin of sizable inner bars recently found in some galaxies.
Radiation modes in FRB 20220912A microshots and a Crab PSR nanoshot
Authors: Katz J I
Published: November 2023

A microshot from FRB 20220912A (Hewitt et al. 2023) satisfies the uncertainty relation ΔωΔt ≥ 1 by a factor of only ⪅3. A Crab pulsar nanoshot (Hankins & Eilek 2007) exceeds this bound by a similar factor. The number of orthogonal plasma modes contributing to the coherent radiation is also ≈ΔωΔt, placing constraints on their excitation and growth.
VLBI detection of the AE Aqr twin, LAMOST J024048.51+195226.9
Authors: Jiang Pengfei , Cui Lang , Liu Xiang , Zhang Bo , Huang Yongfeng , Cao Hongmin , An Tao , Yang Jun , Shu Fengchun , Tan Guiping , Yuan Jianping
Published: November 2023

LAMOST J024048.51+195226.9 (J0240+1952) was recently identified as the second AE Aquarii (AE Aqr)-type cataclysmic variable, possessing the fastest known rotating white dwarf. We performed a Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observation of J0240+1952 utilizing the European VLBI Network at 1.7 GHz, to obtain the first view of the radio morphology on mas scale. Our high-resolution VLBI image clearly shows that the radio emission is compact on mas scale (≲2 AU), with no evidence for a radio jet or extended emission. The compact radio source has an average flux density of ∼0.37 mJy, and its brightness temperature is given at ≳2.3 × 107 K, confirming a non-thermal origin. The emission exhibits irregular variations on a time-scale of tens of minutes, similar to the radio flares seen in AE Aqr. The measured VLBI position of J0240+1952 is consistent with that derived from Gaia. Our results favour the model in which the radio emission is attributed to a superposition of synchrotron radiation from expanding magnetized blobs of this system.
Cross-species investigation into the requirement of XPA for nucleotide excision repair
Authors: Kose Cansu , Cao Xuemei , Dewey Evan B , Malkoç Mustafa , Adebali Ogün , Sekelsky Jeff , Lindsey-Boltz Laura A , Sancar Aziz
Published: November 2023

After reconstitution of nucleotide excision repair (excision repair) with XPA, RPA, XPC, TFIIH, XPF-ERCC1 and XPG, it was concluded that these six factors are the minimal essential components of the excision repair machinery. All six factors are highly conserved across diverse organisms spanning yeast to humans, yet no identifiable homolog of the XPA gene exists in many eukaryotes including green plants. Nevertheless, excision repair is reported to be robust in the XPA-lacking organism, Arabidopsis thaliana, which raises a fundamental question of whether excision repair could occur without XPA in other organisms. Here, we performed a phylogenetic analysis of XPA across all species with annotated genomes and then quantitatively measured excision repair in the absence of XPA using the sensitive whole-genome qXR-Seq method in human cell lines and two model organisms, Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila melanogaster. We find that although the absence of XPA results in inefficient excision repair and UV-sensitivity in humans, flies, and worms, excision repair of UV-induced DNA damage is detectable over background. These studies have yielded a significant discovery regarding the evolution of XPA protein and its mechanistic role in nucleotide excision repair.
Lessons learned from phase 3 trials of immunotherapy for glioblastoma: Time for longitudinal sampling?
Authors: Chen Ethan , Ling Alexander L , Reardon David A , Chiocca E Antonio
Published: November 2023

Glioblastoma (GBM)’s median overall survival is almost 21 months. Six phase 3 immunotherapy clinical trials have recently been published, yet 5/6 did not meet approval by regulatory bodies. For the sixth, approval is uncertain. Trial failures result from multiple factors, ranging from intrinsic tumor biology to clinical trial design. Understanding the clinical and basic science of these 6 trials is compelled by other immunotherapies reaching the point of advanced phase 3 clinical trial testing. We need to understand more of the science in human GBMs in early trials: the “window of opportunity” design may not be best to understand complex changes brought about by immunotherapeutic perturbations of the GBM microenvironment. The convergence of increased safety of image-guided biopsies with “multi-omics” of small cell numbers now permits longitudinal sampling of tumor and biofluids to dissect the complex temporal changes in the GBM microenvironment as a function of the immunotherapy.
Perspectives on the Treatment of Multiple Myeloma
Authors: Rafae Abdul , van Rhee Frits , Al Hadidi Samer
Published: November 2023

The treatment of multiple myeloma has evolved significantly over the past few decades with the development of novel therapeutics. The introduction of proteasome inhibitors, immunomodulatory drugs, monoclonal antibodies, and high-dose chemotherapy followed by hematopoietic stem cell transplantation has led to improved response rates and survival outcomes. The use of bispecific antibodies and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy is currently under study, and early results are showing promise. Although outcomes for patients with MM have improved with the development of new treatments, there remains a subset of patients with high-risk disease who have a particularly poor prognosis. Therefore, it is critical that future clinical trials focus on developing new therapies specifically for high-risk multiple myeloma. Here we review the literature and provide guidance on treating patients with multiple myeloma for practicing oncologists.
Measurement
Authors: Koenig Harold G. , VanderWeele Tyler J. , Peteet John R.
Published: November 2023

This chapter provides measures and scales for quantifying religiosity, and to some extent, for spirituality as well. The focus, however, is on religiosity and religious involvement. First, different types of measurement are examined (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods), then methods of administration are explored (self-rated, interviewer-administered, combined), followed by single measures of religiosity, multi-item measures of religiosity, and religion-specific scales. The most widely used scales in research are then examined, and recommendations are made on the best scales to use depending on the purpose of the research. Developing a new scale from scratch, determining its psychometric properties, and translating a scale into a different language are then described.
Ambiguous Evidence for God
Authors: Byerly T. Ryan
Published: November 2023

This chapter argues that there is a sizable population of individuals with ambiguous evidence for the God of minimal theism. It does this by supporting arguments for a limited version of agnosticism that claims that the total public evidence for God neither strongly supports God’s existence nor strongly supports God’s nonexistence. To support agnosticism in this way, the chapter evaluates the intrinsic probability of minimal theism, a sample of theistic and atheistic arguments, and higher-order evidence about the evidence for God. Included is an updated discussion of the author’s own previous proposed solution to the gap problem facing theistic arguments. The chapter also introduces and defends a version of higher-order agnosticism, which claims that the publicly available evidence for God strongly supports that it neither strongly supports God’s existence nor God’s nonexistence. A variety of pathways whereby individuals may acquire ambiguous evidence for God is thereby identified.
Introduction
Authors: Kundu Manujendra
Published: November 2023

The introductory chapter endeavours to contextualize the articles in this volume traversing more than two centuries’ socio-politico-cultural-scape vis-à-vis women’s position/challenges/negotiations as performers/cultural workers in Bengal and Bangladesh touching upon/considering those areas that the contributors chose to discuss in their articles. On the basis of an argument that ‘home’ (not just the place of abode but workplace as well) is the most ‘treacherous terrain’ vis-à-vis women performers’ precarity, the Introduction is a synopsis of the processes of construction of women in Bengal and Bangladesh and their resistance to it. It has been attempted to conflate the intellectual exercises of bhadramahila (gentlewoman) writers-thinkers-activists and women performers-thinkers (both bhadra, i.e. gentle and ‘fallen’) in concatenation. The word ‘performer’ has been seen to denote them who labour for an audience as entertainers and/or artistic preceptors and those who belong(ed) to other types of social, political agencies, yet also influence(d) cultural/artistic performances through various industrious performances/processes. It has been argued that the trials and tribulations of women performers have to be read together with the challenges of writer/activist/reformer and performer, and not in isolation. However, in spite of improvements, with time, this contested locale has transformed itself to appear more ‘democratic’, ‘equitable’, and ‘permissive’, but the elemental truths have remained unchanged, more so because of rising religious fundamentalism coupled with deep-seated misogyny and poor economic policies. So far, it has been a story of existential dialectics which will persevere to settle and unsettle in this part of South Asia!
Feminine Experiences in the Bengali Stage
Authors: Banerjee Sumanta
Published: November 2023

The first generation of Bengali actresses in the late 18th century, when the Western-style proscenium was established in Calcutta, was recruited from the city’s red-light areas, because of the traditional expertise of the prostitutes (who were otherwise looked down on as ‘patita’s or ‘fallen women’ in contemporary Bengali parlance) in performances like singing that they had learnt to entertain their clients. Over the next hundred years and more, their descendants emerged as eminent actresses on the Bengali stage. They also trained a new generation of aspiring Bengali young women coming up from the educated middle classes (known as bhadramahilas) who wanted to enter the stage. The Bengali theatre has turned full circle with the reentry of the modern descendants of the ‘patita’s in the Bengali performance space, this time with their own original plays. This chapter is a portrayal of that journey.
Actresses in a Period of Transition (1947–1952)
Authors: Dutt Bishnupriya
Published: November 2023

Actresses and women performers, although very active in the Calcutta amateur theatre scene during the 1940s and 1950s, have been grossly neglected in the writing of its histories. The amateur theatre scene in the purview refers to activities affiliated to St. Xavier’s College and The Amateur Shakespeareans, who performed Shakespeare in English with actresses from various communities in Calcutta at that time: English, Anglo Indians, and Jews. The chapter aims to look at the meagre archive which exists to retrieve the names and backgrounds of these actresses and locate them within the historical transition from the pre- to postcolonial period; to understand their contribution to postcolonial theatre practice, particularly Utpal Dutt’s theatre which draws its lineage from The Amateur Shakespeareans. The chapter highlights the postcolonial cosmopolitanism inherent in the practice distinct from envisaging the nation along the lines of ethnic-Indian identities.
Women in Search of a Play
Authors: Sinha Roy Mallarika
Published: November 2023

This chapter intends to unpack the complex connection between political activism and the politics of theatricality in the context of the Naxalbari movement (1967–1975). The principal argument makes an attempt to unravel the relationship between the theatre that served the political ideology of the movement and the nature of political actions that became mass spectacles. The analytical angle for such an analysis remains gender, as the interplay between ideals of masculinities and femininities has the potential to unpick through the intricate seams of ideology, revolutionary romanticism, and activism within the larger context of women’s participation in cultures of the left beginning with the Indian People’s Theatre Association in the 1940s. The substantive argument of the chapter focuses on Utpal Dutt’s play text Teer (Arrow, 1967), and the public spectacle of Naxalite murtibhanga (iconoclasm) activism. The chapter proposes to read ‘acts’ and ‘actions’ in these two uneven yet deeply connected texts in the history and memory of Naxalbari.
Survival, Agency, and the Politics of Compromise
Authors: De Madhubanti
Published: November 2023

Historically, women performers of Bengal have demonstrated a tendency to traverse different media, moving seamlessly from theatre to television and the film industry. In a similar vein, more recently, actresses from the stage in Bengal have also worked in digital media (OTT platforms) in addition to these fields. The intermedial (situated at the intersection of different media) nature of the actress’ work, alongside its sporadic documentation, problematizes any effort to trace a historiography of her work, bringing it into negotiation with the category of memory. This chapter attempts to examine the place held by women in their public lives as performers in Kolkata through recollections, correspondence, and essays by and interviews with veteran and contemporary actresses, directors, playwrights, and technicians working full-time as well as freelancers on individual projects, film/television, and web serials. Through these sources, the chapter seeks to trace the emergence of a new intermedial field rife with structural and interpersonal inequalities, within which these performers negotiate their survival through a unique politics of agency and compromise.
Desire, Decadence, and a ‘Dirty’ Dancer
Authors: Chakraborty Aishika
Published: November 2023

In the immediate aftermath of India’s partition, Arati Das, a struggling refugee girl from East Pakistan, rose to fame as a celebrated cabaret dancer in Calcutta by the name of Miss Shefali (1947–2020). This interview walks through the moments of conflicts and reconciliations where the cabaret queen of yesteryear forges new concepts of history and subjectivity against the hegemony of law, moral policing, and sexual hypocrisy of the democratic state. The liminality, within which the erotic gyrations of her body were mapped, negotiated the underbelly of performance culture vis-à-vis the opulent niches of the middle-class elite. Weaving together many conversations, this chapter presents some crucial moments of her life, as Miss Shefali returns her gaze to the patriarchal state and Bengali bhadralok, her biggest customers, who once ogled her dance and then stripped her of her claims to culture and livelihood.
‘Extending’ Uday Shankar’s Dance Pedagogy?
Authors: Munsi Urmimala Sarkar
Published: November 2023

Amala Shankar (1919–2020) often told her students—the essayist being one of them—the stories of her first prolonged tour of Europe, as a small child of eleven years, with Uday Shankar and his dance troupe. Over the years, the essayist has tried to imagine the glory and grandeur of their dance explorations, in which Amala was first an apprentice, then a troupe member, and finally Uday’s wife, a fellow performer, and a pedagogue of repute. Amala’s book Sat Sagarer Pare (Beyond the Seven Seas) about her first tour with Uday, the innumerable anecdotes she often shared with her students, and her national and global tours with them as the Director of Uday Shankar India Culture Centre motivated the essayist to write about Amala’s deep love for dance—trying to create a nuanced understanding of her agency and contributions as a modern dancer/choreographer/teacher in her own rights.
Feminist Technofutures
Authors: Atanasoski Neda
Published: November 2023

In this chapter, Atanasoski problematises two different approaches to sex robots. The first, a liberal feminist approach, characterises sex robots as a threat to women’s rights, and in doing so, roots itself in technology’s relationship to the figure of the human within the juridical realm of rights. The second, a feminist approach centred on diversity, makes use of and commodifies proliferating categories of human difference and life itself by calling for the ‘diversification’ of sex robots beyond white, Eurocentric beauty norms. Atanasoski thus considers how diversified technologies still uphold rather than disrupt racialised notions of use and value, commodifying those differences seen as profitable. She concludes by considering what a queer approach to technological speculative futures might look like through an analysis of the art project ‘Lauren AI’.
The False Binary of Reason and Emotion in Data Visualisation
Authors: D’Ignazio Catherine , Klein Lauren
Published: November 2023

In this chapter, D’Ignazio and Klein call for the incorporation of emotions and embodied experiences into data visualisation practices. They ask: how did the field of data communication arrive at conventions that prioritise rationality and exclude emotion? Ignazio and Klein argue that data selection and presentation is always political, and should be visualised in such a way as makes this evident. The piece features a number of stunning data visualisations created by artists and designers that bring to life their feminist emphasis on ‘elevating emotion’ and ‘stories from a standpoint’. Ultimately, D’Ignazio and Klein argue that rebalancing emotion and reason enlarges the data communication toolbox and allows one to focus on what truly matters in a data design process: honouring context, gathering attention and taking action in service of rebalancing social and political power.
Digital Ageism, Algorithmic Bias, and Feminist Critical Theory
Authors: Nyrup Rune , Chu Charlene H. , Falco Elena
Published: November 2023

In this chapter, Nyrup, Chu, and Falco coin the term digital ageism to highlight the interplay between social inequality and tech development, aligning with feminist work that views society and technology as co-constitutive. The essay details the results of encoded ageism, including medical technologies that offer less accurate diagnoses on older populations, the unequal division of resources, and the perspective that younger people are inevitably better at using new technologies. Drawing on the work of Sally Haslanger and Iris Marion Young, they explore how technical limitations and the insufficient representation of older people in design and development teams are shaped by self-reinforcing structural inequality. This essay therefore offers a crucial intervention in the debate by identifying and tracking ageist harms and their intersections with disability, race, gender, and class-based injustices.
A Relational Ethics of Immigration
Authors: Bulley Dan
Published: November 2023

Understanding the ethics of immigration needs to start from the way it is enacted and understood by everyday actors: through practices of hospitality and hostility. Drawing on feminist and poststructuralist understandings of ethics and hospitality, this book offers a new approach to immigration ethics beginning from state and societal responses to immigration from the global north and south. Rather than treating ethics as a determinable code for how we ought to behave towards strangers, the book treats hospitality as a relational ethics—an ethics without moralism—that aims to understand and possibly transform the way we already do embrace and deflect obligations and responsibilities to each other. Building from specific examples in Colombia, Turkey, and Tanzania, as well as the EU, US and UK, hospitality is developed as a structural and emotional practice of drawing and redrawing boundaries of inside and outside; belonging and non-belonging. It thereby actively creates a society as a communal space with a particular ethos: from a welcoming home to a racialised and nationalist hostile environment. Hospitality is therefore treated as a critical mode of reflecting on how we create a ‘we’ and relate to others through entangled histories of colonialism, displacement, friendship, and exploitation. Only through such a reflective understanding can we seek to transform immigration practices to better reflect the real and aspirational ethos of a society. Instead of simple answers—removing borders or creating global migration regimes—the book argues for grounded negotiations that shape local capacities to respond to immigration.
Indigenous Audibilities
Authors: Minks Amanda
Published: November 2023

In the middle decades of the twentieth century, transnational networks sparked a range of cultural projects focused on collecting Indigenous music and folklore in the Americas. Indigenous Audibilities follows the social relations that created these collections in four interconnected case studies linking the United States, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Chile. Indigenous collections were embedded in political projects that negotiated issues of cultural diplomacy, national canons, and heritage. The case studies recuperate the traces of marginalized voices in archives, paying special attention to female researchers and Indigenous collaborators. Despite the dominant agendas of national and international institutions, the diverse actors and the multidirectional influences often created unexpected outcomes. The book brings together theories of collection, voice, media, writing, and recording to challenge the transparency of archives as a historical source. Indigenous Audibilities presents a social-historical method of listening, reading, and thinking beyond the referentiality of archived texts, and in the process uncovers neglected genealogies of cultural music research in the Americas.
Between the Ear and the Letter
Authors: Minks Amanda
Published: November 2023

Chapter 1 examines a collection of Indian and Pioneer oral histories in the state of Oklahoma, formerly Indian Territory, which is also a lens for exploring Southwest borderlands history. This collection was connected to the US Works Progress Administration, a key site for reconfiguring discourses of national and regional heritage in the 1930s. The chapter analyzes the representation of music, language, and dance in this oral history collection, as well as the differential functions of orality and aurality. The chapter argues that the constructedness of oral histories, their production through historical and cultural processes, should not invalidate them as sources. Rather, like all historical sources, oral histories are the product of multiple voices and political forces, some visible and audible, and others obscured in the archive. We need to listen and read beyond the referential function of this genre to place it in its own social-historical context and consider what it may reveal.
Folklore, Region, and Revolution in Nicaragua
Authors: Minks Amanda
Published: November 2023

Chapter 3 analyzes folkloric discourse in the writings of Nicaraguan intellectuals and poets, including Pablo Antonio Cuadra and Ernesto Mejía Sánchez, and the great nineteenth-century poet Rubén Darío. While Indigenous peoples in western Nicaragua were considered sources for national heritage, Indigenous peoples in eastern Nicaragua were excluded from national heritage. The eastern, Caribbean coast of Nicaragua had initially been colonized by England prior to annexation by Nicaragua (with US support) in the late nineteenth century. The region included many English speakers with a range of racial/ethnic identities; those with some African ancestry were especially subject to exclusion from national belonging in folkloric writings. This Nicaraguan case study brings out the contestation of who counts as Indigenous, tracing the different positioning of Indigenous peoples in western and eastern Nicaragua, as well as the exclusionary ideologies around African ancestry. There is also a tension in this chapter between political repression and psychological repression, suggesting that repressed voices are not entirely silenced.
Epilogue
Authors: Minks Amanda
Published: November 2023

The epilogue returns to the Southwest United States as a key site for examining the representation of Indigenous culture at the intersection of North and South. A discussion of the historical work of Francis Joseph Attocknie (Comanche) challenges rigid divisions between orality and inscription. Indigenous communities and institutional archives should not be approached as dichotomous spheres. The idea of the colonial archive is often overgeneralized, obscuring the lively interaction and multiple affiliations of people who have created heritage institutions. Discourses of repatriation should consider not only Indigenous claims to archival heritage, but also Latin American claims to US archives. The recognition of mobile, embodied memory must also accompany the study of archival memory.
Automating Empathy
Authors: McStay Andrew
Published: November 2023

Automating Empathy assesses technologies used to gauge how people are feeling. The book begins by historically situating the belief that by reading the body and its expressions one might ‘feel-into’ another. Finding this premise to be epistemologically problematic, the book then progresses to highlight the role of ethics. Automating Empathy advances a ‘hybrid’ approach to questions of technology and ethics, which starts from the position that people are entangled in new technologies. The book is pluralistic, attending to philosophies well-equipped to deal with questions of what is collectively good for society in relation to technologies that interact with intimate dimensions of human life. With early chapters introducing recurrent arguments and positions, the second part of the book addresses technologies and organisational uses. These include education and uses of automated empathy in classrooms and online settings; cars and transport, where cameras and other sensors gauge states such as fatigue, anger, and other emotions, and where cars themselves are design to feel; usage in the workplace, including assessment of bodies and voices in physical sites of work and online settings, and gauging of emotion through proxies in gig work settings; development of brain–computer interfaces that have scope to impact on multiple aspects of everyday life; and finally, renewed interest in enabling people to sell data about themselves. The book concludes automated empathy and its deployment needs to be inverted if systems are to function ethically.