bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Easy‐to‐use algorithm would provide faster diagnoses for mucopolysaccharidosis type I and enable patients to receive earlier treatment
Authors: Tylki‐Szymańska Anna , De Meirleir Linda , Di Rocco Maja , Fathalla Waseem M. , Guffon Nathalie , Lampe Christina , Lund Allan M. , Parini Rossella , Wijburg Frits A. , Zeman Jiri , Scarpa Maurizio
Published: May 2018

Aim

The aim of this study was to develop an algorithm to prompt early clinical suspicion of mucopolysaccharidosis type I (MPS I).

Methods

An international working group was established in 2016 that comprised 11 experts in paediatrics, rare diseases and inherited metabolic diseases. They reviewed real‐world clinical cases, selected key signs or symptoms based on their prevalence and specificity and reached consensus about the algorithm. The algorithm was retrospectively tested.

Results

An algorithm was developed. In patients under two years of age, kyphosis or gibbus deformity were the key symptoms that raised clinical suspicion of MPS I and in those over two years they were kyphosis or gibbus deformity, or joint stiffness or contractures without inflammation. The algorithm was tested on 35 cases, comprising 16 Hurler, 10 Hurler–Scheie, and nine Scheie patients. Of these 35 cases, 32 (91%) – 16 Hurler, nine Hurler–Scheie and seven Scheie patients – would have been referred earlier if the algorithm had been used.

Conclusion

The expert panel developed and tested an algorithm that helps raise clinical suspicion of MPS I and would lead to a more prompt final diagnosis and allow earlier treatment.
Transcriptomic rationale for synthetic lethality‐targeting ERCC1 and CDKN1A in chronic myelomonocytic leukaemia
Authors: Hurtado Ana M. , Luengo‐Gil Gines , Chen‐Liang Tzu H. , Amaral Fabio , Batta Kiran , Palomo Laura , Lumbreras Eva , Przychodzen Bartlomiej , Caparros Eva , Amigo Marıa L. , Dıez‐Campelo Maria , Zamora Lurdes , Salido Fierrez Eduardo J. , Maciejewski Jaroslaw P. , Ortuño Francisco J. , Vicente Vicente , del Canizo Marıa , Sole Francesc , Ferrer‐Marin Francisca , Wiseman Daniel H. , Jerez Andres
Published: May 2018

Despite the absence of mutations in the DNA repair machinery in myeloid malignancies, the advent of high‐throughput sequencing and discovery of splicing and epigenetics defects in chronic myelomonocytic leukaemia (CMML) prompted us to revisit a pathogenic role for genes involved in DNA damage response. We screened for misregulated DNA repair genes by enhanced RNA‐sequencing on bone marrow from a discovery cohort of 27 CMML patients and 9 controls. We validated 4 differentially expressed candidates in CMML CD34+ bone marrow selected cells and in an independent cohort of 74 CMML patients, mutationally contextualized by targeted sequencing, and assessed their transcriptional behavior in 70 myelodysplastic syndrome, 66 acute myeloid leukaemia and 25 chronic myeloid leukaemia cases. We found BAP1 and PARP1 down‐regulation to be specific to CMML compared with other related disorders. Chromatin‐regulator mutated cases showed decreased BAP1 dosage. We validated a significant over‐expression of the double strand break‐fidelity genes CDKN1A and ERCC1, independent of promoter methylation and associated with chemorefractoriness. In addition, patients bearing mutations in the splicing component SRSF2 displayed numerous aberrant splicing events in DNA repair genes, with a quantitative predominance in the single strand break pathway. Our results highlight potential targets in this disease, which currently has few therapeutic options.
Breaking bad news to people with learning disabilities: A literature review
Authors: Brownrigg Sophie
Published: May 2018

Accessible Summary

A literature review was undertaken to explore reasons why relatives, staff and healthcare professionals choose to tell or not tell people with learning disabilities bad news.

People with learning disabilities’ views on being told bad news are discussed.

The author looks at who should tell people with learning disabilities bad news.

The author found that relatives, staff and healthcare professionals have different reasons for telling and not telling people with learning disabilities bad news.

The author suggests talking about bad news is important.

Background

This article provides a literature review exploring reasons for disclosure and nondisclosure of bad news to people with learning disabilities. Connections are made to current policy, law and ethics to highlight the complexity of this issue.

Methods

This review examines literature on disclosing bad news to people with learning disabilities from 2007 to 2017. A total of 13 articles were found with nine articles having a direct focus on breaking bad news.

Results

The main themes identified from this review are maintaining rights and dignity, upholding duty of care, underestimating resilience, protection from harm and capacity to understand. Exploration of who should disclose is examined in reference to relatives, staff and healthcare professionals.

Conclusions

Trends surrounding disclosure of diagnosis and prognosis to people with learning disabilities have not kept pace with the trend to disclose with the general population. People with learning disabilities are frequently not informed of their terminal diagnosis and often die without this knowledge. Equally, bad news concerning a friend or relative may also be withheld.
Railways and borderland spaces: The Canada–US case
Authors: Widdis Randy W.
Published: May 2018

Transportation has played a decisive role in transforming the economic and social geography of both the United States and Canada and in this context, railways have been prominent. Their extension in both the American and Canadian hinterlands was designed to organize territory, increase the number of settlements, support resource exploitation, and facilitate the development of regional and national markets. While geopolitical protectionism played a somewhat more prominent role in the development of railways in Canada than the United States, rail expansion in both countries was not circumscribed by the international boundary. In fact, in many cases the border actually transcended such development. In other words, the Canada–United States border has historically presented both limitations and opportunities to railway interests. This paper argues that while the basic alignment of borderland rail networks was established during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the nodal structure, hub status, and corridor alignments of railways since the 1930s have changed drastically. It also contends that because such networks responded to changes in technologies, regional development, and market forces, they played different roles in configuring the various regions of the Canadian‐American borderlands.
Spontaneous resting‐state gamma oscillations are not predictive of autistic traits in the general population
Authors: De Groot Kristel , Van Strien Jan W.
Published: May 2018

The autism spectrum hypothesis states that not only diagnosed individuals but also individuals from the general population exhibit a certain amount of autistic traits. While this idea is supported by neuroimaging studies, there have been few electrophysiological studies. In particular, there have been no spontaneous resting‐state studies yet. In order to examine the autism spectrum hypothesis, the present study tried to predict the level of autistic traits typically developing young adults (n = 93) exhibit from spontaneous resting‐state gamma power, a measure that has been linked to social functioning impairments seen in autism. The influence of age and gender was controlled for by employing regression. It was expected that enhanced gamma activity would be predictive of self‐reported autistic traits. The model with only age and gender included reached significance, with higher age within this student population being related to more autistic traits. However, no relationship between either low (30–50 Hz) or high (50–70 Hz) gamma power and autistic traits was found. Models with eyes closed low gamma asymmetry and eyes closed high gamma asymmetry included did reach significance, but these findings were not robust, and the gamma asymmetry explained very little additional variance above age and gender. In addition, exploratory correlation analyses showed no relationship between the other power spectra (delta, theta, alpha and beta) on the one hand and autistic traits on the other hand, suggesting that any relationship between spontaneous resting‐state brain electrophysiology and autistic traits might not be strong enough to be detected in the general population.
Conservation of the behavioral and transcriptional response to social experience among Drosophilids
Authors: Shultzaberger R. K. , Johnson S. J. , Wagner J. , Ha K. , Markow T. A. , Greenspan R. J.
Published: May 2018

While social experience has been shown to significantly alter behaviors in a wide range of species, comparative studies that uniformly measure the impact of a single experience across multiple species have been lacking, limiting our understanding of how plastic traits evolve. To address this, we quantified variations in social feeding behaviors across 10 species of Drosophilids, tested the effect of altering rearing context on these behaviors (reared in groups or in isolation) and correlated observed behavioral shifts to accompanying transcriptional changes in the heads of these flies. We observed significant variability in the extent of aggressiveness, the utilization of social cues during food search, and social space preferences across species. The sensitivity of these behaviors to rearing experience also varied: socially naive flies were more aggressive than their socialized conspecifics in some species, and more reserved or identical in others. Despite these differences, the mechanism of socialization appeared to be conserved within the melanogaster subgroup as species could cross‐socialize each other, and the transcriptional response to social exposure was significantly conserved. The expression levels of chemosensory‐perception genes often varied between species and rearing conditions, supporting a growing body of evidence that behavioral evolution is driven by the differential regulation of this class of genes. The clear differences in behavioral responses to socialization observed in Drosophilids make this an ideal system for continued studies on the genetic basis and evolution of socialization and behavioral plasticity.
Control of invasive predators improves breeding success of an endangered alpine passerine
Authors: Weston Kerry A. , O'Donnell Colin F. J. , van dam‐Bates Paul , Monks Joanne M.
Published: May 2018

Birds living in alpine environments are becoming increasingly impacted by human‐induced threats. We investigated the impacts of introduced mammalian predators on an endangered alpine species, the New Zealand Rockwren Xenicus gilviventris, and assessed whether predator control improved its breeding success. Nest monitoring revealed that the primary cause of nest failure was predation by invasive mammals, primarily Stoats Mustela erminea and House Mice Mus musculus. Daily survival rates (DSR) decreased with nest age, and nests were at their most vulnerable to predators just prior to fledging. DSR, egg‐hatching and fledgling rates were all improved by predator trapping, demonstrating the significant impacts that even low numbers of invasive predators can have on sensitive alpine and upland species.
Challenging behaviours at early adulthood in autism spectrum disorders: topography, risk factors and evolution
Authors: Rattaz C. , Michelon C. , Munir K. , Baghdadli A.
Published: May 2018

Background

Challenging behaviours are highly prevalent in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), but little is known about the prevalence and course of these behaviours during adulthood. The aims of this study were to describe the topography of challenging behaviours in a cohort of 106 young adults with ASD and to identify the risk factors for challenging behaviours. Our secondary objective was to study the changes in challenging behaviours from adolescence to early adult years.

Method

The present study uses data from the EpiTED prospective follow‐up study in France. The presence of challenging behaviours was assessed by the Aberrant Behaviour Checklist (ABC) completed by parent informants. Several dimensions of behaviour were studied: irritability, stereotypy, lethargy, hyperactivity and self‐injury. Clinical variables were collected on ASD symptom severity, cognitive and language levels, adaptive behaviours and comorbid medical disorders.

Results

The presence of challenging behaviours at early adulthood was related to the young adult's cognitive and language level, ASD symptom severity and comorbid gastrointestinal and sleep disorders. The main risk factor for challenging behaviours was ASD symptom severity. The level of language impairment was a significant predictor of self‐injury. Gastrointestinal disorders were a significant predictor of stereotypy. The change in behaviour topography from adolescence to early adult years corresponded with decreased parent report of hyperactivity, but no significant decrease in parent reports of irritability, stereotypy, lethargy and self‐injurious behaviours.

Conclusions

The challenging behaviours in individuals with ASD persist in early adulthood and are related to core symptom severity, levels of cognitive and language impairments and medical comorbidity. The results emphasise the importance of early interventions for children with ASD to target cognitive and language abilities and to alleviate the severity of ASD symptoms. They also underscore the need to enhance opportunities for individuals with ASD to better communicate discomforts and pain in the context of medical illness.
Cross‐Border Auction Cycle Effects of Sovereign Bond Issuance in the Euro Area
Authors: BEETSMA ROEL , GIULIODORI MASSIMO , HANSON JESPER , DE JONG FRANK
Published: May 2018

We provide evidence for the euro area of spillovers from foreign public debt auctions into domestic secondary‐market auction cycles. We also confirm existing evidence of such spillovers from domestic issues into the domestic secondary market. Consistent with a theory of primary dealers’ limited risk‐bearing capacity, we find that auction cycles from domestic issues are stronger during the recent crisis period, whereas cross‐border effects are stronger in the precrisis period, but this evidence is not strong. This finding likely reflects the opposing effects of reduced sovereign bond market integration during the crisis and higher yield covariances caused by more market volatility.
The prevalence and morphological characteristics of the knee anterolateral ligament in a Chinese population
Authors: Zhang Hua , Qiu Man , Xu Zhongwei , Wang Weilin , Chen Shiyang , Zhang Jian , Zhou Aiguo , Lu Kaihui , Huo Michael , Jiang Dianming
Published: May 2018

The anterolateral ligament, a distinct structure connecting the lateral femoral epicondyle to the anterolateral proximal tibia, is gaining attention because of its possible function in ensuring internal rotational stability of the tibia. To study the prevalence and precise anatomical characteristics of the anterolateral ligament and its relationship to adjacent structures in a Chinese population, a total of 20 amputated knee specimens were collected. The anterolateral regions of the knees underwent detailed surgical dissection, followed by precise measurement of the anterolateral ligament and its adjacent structures. Histological analysis of the anterolateral ligament was performed using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining. A thin soft tissue deep to the iliotibial band running obliquely across the lateral fibula ligament and connecting the lateral head of the gastrocnemius with the tibia, termed the ‘gastrocnemius‐tibial ligament’ or superficial layer of the anterolateral ligament, was observed in 18 of the 20 specimens, corresponding to a prevalence of 90%. Furthermore, a well‐defined anterolateral ligament deep to the gastrocnemius‐tibial ligament and distinct from the lateral fibula ligament was found in all 20 knees (prevalence, 100%). The independent gastrocnemius‐tibial ligament and anterolateral ligament had separate femoral originations at the lateral head of the gastrocnemius and the lateral femoral epicondyle, and the same osseous tibial insertion at the midpoint between Gerdy's tubercle and the most lateral aspect of the fibular head. H&E staining showed that both the anterolateral ligament and gastrocnemius‐tibial ligament were ligaments consisting of collagenous bundles. In the Chinese Han population, the gastrocnemius‐tibial ligament and anterolateral ligament may form a complex at the anterolateral aspect of the knee, which is likely involved in ensuring the internal rotational stability of the tibia.
Compassion satisfaction, burnout and secondary traumatic stress among termination of pregnancy providers in two South African provinces
Authors: Teffo Mantshi E. , Levin Jonathan , Rispel Laetitia C.
Published: May 2018

Focusing on compassion satisfaction, burnout and secondary traumatic stress (STS) among termination of pregnancy (TOP) providers, a cross ‐ sectional study was conducted among these providers in Gauteng and North West provinces of South Africa during 2014 and 2015. During 2014 and 2015, a cross‐sectional study was conducted among TOP service providers in Gauteng and North West provinces. Consented providers completed a self‐administered professional quality of life (PRoQOL) questionnaire, sociodemographic information and possible reasons for working as TOP providers. STATA 13 was used for data analysis. We recruited 105 TOP providers, obtaining 98% response rate. Participants mean age was 43.4 (standard deviation [SD] = 8.7), majority were nurses (70.9%), female (82%), married (47.6%) and 63% were working in hospitals. The overall mean score for compassion satisfaction was high at 42 (SD 5.5). Predictors of compassion satisfaction were finding work stimulating, belief in making a difference, enjoying relationships with other nurses and years of TOP service (P < 0.05). Province and gender were significant, with significant interaction. Burnout mean scores were average at 33 (SD = 4.0), with belief in helping women to make informed choices a marginally significant predictor of burnout. The overall STS mean score was average with a mean of 23 (SD = 6.8). Significant predictors of STS scores were finding work stimulating, belief in women's rights, belief in allowing informed choices, age and gender. Health policy makers and managers should endeavor to provide employee assistance programs that enhance compassion satisfaction and reduce burnout and STS among TOP providers.
Homonegativity in the Religious Dress History of the Marist Brothers, 1817–1840
Authors: Keenan William J.F.
Published: May 2018

This article presents a historical sociological case study of sexual oppression within the early nineteenth‐century foundation period of a French Roman Catholic male religious order, the Marist Brothers, founded in 1817. The different sexualities of two rival founder figures, the priests Jean‐Claude Courveille and Marcellin Champagnat, the former homosexual, the latter heterosexual, found expression in radically divergent conceptions of the religious habit. For Courveille, the costume design for the Brothers was ostentatious and stylish; for Champagnat, it was sober and clericalised. This archive‐based investigation shows how Courveille's sexual orientation led to his fall from grace within the Church and the suppression of his sartorial self‐expression. Champagnat, whose conventional dress rules prevailed, became a canonized saint. In the victory of the orthodox sacred dress code, the ideology of ‘clerical masculinism’ weaves its hegemonic power over the bodies of ‘men of the cloth’.
Serine/threonine protein phosphatase 5 is a potential therapeutic target in cholangiocarcinoma
Authors: Hu Ming‐Hung , Huang Tzu‐Ting , Chao Tzu‐I , Chen Li‐Ju , Chen Yen‐Lin , Tsai Ming‐Hsien , Liu Chun‐Yu , Kao Jia‐Horng , Chen Kuen‐Feng
Published: May 2018

Background & Aims

Few molecules are currently verified to be actionable drug targets in cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). Serine/threonine protein phosphatase 5 (PP5) dysregulation is related to several malignancies. However, the role of PP5 in CCA is poorly defined.

Methods

Colony and tumorsphere formation assays were conducted to establish the role of PP5 in CCA tumorigenesis. Cantharidin (CTD) and norcantharidin (NCTD), both potent PP5 inhibitors, were used in in vitro and in vivo experiments to validate the potential therapeutic role of PP5.

Results

Increased cell growth, colony formation and tumorsphere formation were observed in PP5‐overexpressing CCA cells, whereas PP5 knockdown by shRNA decreased cell growth and colony formation. Tumours from HuCCT1 xenograft‐bearing mice treated with PP5‐shRNA showed decreased growth and increased AMP‐activated protein kinase (AMPK) phosphorylation. Furthermore, CTD treatment decreased cell viability, reduced PP5 activity and enhanced AMPK phosphorylation in CCA cell lines. Overexpressing PP5 or enhancing PP5 activity suppressed AMPK phosphorylation and decreased CTD‐induced cell death. Suppressing p‐AMPK with siRNA or inhibitors also decreased CTD‐induced cell death, suggesting a pivotal role for PP5‐AMPK cascades in CCA. Immunoprecipitation revealed that PP5 interacted with AMPK. Importantly, treatment of HuCCT1 xenograft‐bearing mice with NCTD, a CTD analogue with a lower systemic toxicity in vivo, suppressed PP5 activity, increased p‐AMPK and reduced tumour volume.

Conclusions

Protein phosphatase 5 negatively regulates AMPK phosphorylation and contributes to CCA aggressiveness; thus, PP5 may be a potential therapeutic target in CCA.
A combination of the on‐treatment FIB‐4 and alpha‐foetoprotein predicts clinical outcomes in cirrhotic patients receiving entecavir
Authors: Chiang Hung‐Hsien , Lee Chuan‐Mo , Hu Tsung‐Hui , Hung Chao‐Hung , Wang Jing‐Houng , Lu Sheng‐Nan , Lai Hsueh‐Chou , Su Wen‐Pang , Lin Chia‐Hsin , Peng Cheng‐Yuan , Chen Chien‐Hung
Published: May 2018

Background & Aims

This study investigates the long‐term incidences and predictors of developing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), cirrhotic events and mortality in cirrhotic patients receiving entecavir (ETV) therapy.

Methods

We enrolled 481 nucleos(t)ide analogue‐naïve chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients who had compensated cirrhosis upon entry and had received ETV monotherapy for >12 months.

Results

The 8‐year cumulative incidences of developing HCC, cirrhotic events and liver‐related mortality were 26.5%, 8.62% and 10.03% respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that diabetic mellitus (DM), higher fibrosis‐4 (FIB‐4) and alpha‐foetoprotein (AFP) levels at 12 months of treatment, and FIB‐4 increase from baseline to 12 months were independent factors of HCC. FIB‐4 and AFP levels at 12 months of treatment were also independent factors of cirrhotic events and mortality. FIB‐4 cut‐off values of 3, 3 and 5 as well as AFP cut‐offs of 5, 5, and 9 ng/mL at 12 months of treatment were optimal for predicting HCC, cirrhotic events and mortality during therapy respectively. The FIB‐4 and AFP levels at 12 months of treatment were assessed for the combined risk of developing clinical outcomes. The 8‐year incidences of HCC, cirrhotic events and liver‐related mortality in the subgroups with low FIB‐4 and AFP levels were only 5.95%, 1.03% and 2.43% respectively. DM was an independent predictor of HCC and mortality.

Conclusion

The combination of FIB‐4 and AFP levels at 12 months of treatment is a useful marker for predicting the development of HCC, cirrhotic events and mortality in compensated cirrhotic patients with CHB who are receiving ETV therapy.
Differential insular cortex subregional vulnerability to α‐synuclein pathology in Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies
Authors: Fathy Y. Y. , Jonker A. J. , Oudejans E. , de Jong F. J. J. , van Dam A.‐M. W. , Rozemuller A. J. M. , van de Berg W. D. J.
Published: May 2018

Aim

The insular cortex consists of a heterogenous cytoarchitecture and diverse connections and is thought to integrate autonomic, cognitive, emotional and interoceptive functions to guide behaviour. In Parkinson's disease (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), it reveals α‐synuclein pathology in advanced stages. The aim of this study is to assess the insular cortex cellular and subregional vulnerability to α‐synuclein pathology in well‐characterized PD and DLB subjects.

Methods

We analysed postmortem insular tissue from 24 donors with incidental Lewy body disease, PD, PD with dementia (PDD), DLB and age‐matched controls. The load and distribution of α‐synuclein pathology and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) cells were studied throughout the insular subregions. The selective involvement of von Economo neurons (VENs) in the anterior insula and astroglia was assessed in all groups.

Results

A decreasing gradient of α‐synuclein pathology load from the anterior periallocortical agranular towards the intermediate dysgranular and posterior isocortical granular insular subregions was found. Few VENs revealed α‐synuclein inclusions while astroglial synucleinopathy was a predominant feature in PDD and DLB. TH neurons were predominant in the agranular and dysgranular subregions but did not reveal α‐synuclein inclusions or significant reduction in density in patient groups.

Conclusions

Our study highlights the vulnerability of the anterior agranular insula to α‐synuclein pathology in PD, PDD and DLB. Whereas VENs and astrocytes were affected in advanced disease stages, insular TH neurons were spared. Owing to the anterior insula's affective, cognitive and autonomic functions, its greater vulnerability to pathology indicates a potential contribution to nonmotor deficits in PD and DLB.
Late‐phase human herpesvirus 6B reactivation in hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients
Authors: Miura Hiroki , Kawamura Yoshiki , Hattori Fumihiko , Tanaka Makito , Kudo Kazuko , Ihira Masaru , Yatsuya Hiroshi , Takahashi Yoshiyuki , Kojima Seiji , Yoshikawa Tetsushi
Published: May 2018

Background

We sought to determine whether late‐phase human herpesvirus 6B (HHV‐6B) infection in hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients was associated with serious outcomes and mortality.

Methods

The occurrence and course of HHV‐6B infection was monitored for at least 60 days after transplant using virus isolation and real‐time polymerase chain reaction. Risk factors for late‐phase HHV‐6B infection were examined, and the propensity score was calculated with significant risk factors. The inverse probability‐weighted multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and the 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for mortality.

Results

Late‐phase HHV‐6B infection was observed in 12/89 (13.5%) of the HSCT recipients. Older age (OR: 10.3, 95% CI: 2.1/72.9, P = .0027), hematologic malignancy (OR: 10.3, 95% CI: 1.8/97.1, P = .0063), unrelated donor transplantation (OR: 5.3, 95% CI: 1.1/36.0, P = .0345), and sex‐mismatched donor transplantation (OR: 6.3, 95% CI: 1.4/39.5, P = .0149) were identified as risk factors for late‐phase HHV‐6B infection. Fifteen subjects died (17%). Inverse probability‐weighted multivariable logistic model analysis revealed that late‐phase HHV‐6B infection was an independent risk factor for mortality (OR: 4.2, 95% CI: 1.7/11.0, P = .0012). Among 5 of the fatal cases of late‐phase HHV‐6B infection, viral infection might be associated with severe clinical manifestations.

Conclusion

Late‐phase HHV‐6B infection in HSCT recipients was associated with worse outcomes. The full spectrum of clinical features of the infection has not been fully elucidated, and therefore, recipients with high‐risk factors for late‐phase HHV‐6B infection should be carefully monitored.
Problems and Responses
Authors: Osborne Evan
Published: May 2018

Social systems can always function better than they do at a particular moment. Whether there is a need to return to normal after an unexpected disruption or to try to permanently improve the system’s performance, there is a never-ending set of problems to address. This book describes the contrast between addressing such problems from outside that system through politics and allowing the participants in that system to self-regulate without external guidance of this kind. This chapter introduces this problem and these two contrasting approaches to it, and defines some terms that are frequently used in the book.
A Better Way Forward
Authors: Osborne Evan
Published: May 2018

There is a long history of condemning merchants as agents of social disorder and little advocacy of free commerce as essential to ensure the proper allocation of efforts across economic activities and promote socioeconomic improvements. This began to change with both Aquinas and thinkers in the late Renaissance in Spain asking different questions about how producers could be induced to provide goods in a way that benefits society. The contributions of Bernard Mandeville, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and, Adam Smith are sketched. By the end of the nineteenth century, much of the general public and even political leaders in Europe and North America believed in the virtues of the self-regulating socioeconomy. Through colonialism and observation of the “modern” West’s seemingly obvious successes, people and societies around the world began in ever-larger numbers to believe as well. But such widespread confidence was not to last.
Realignment
Authors: Osborne Evan
Published: May 2018

The later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed arguments from social reformers and artists and economists that the new, spontaneously evolving society was deficient. It worsened poverty, and it impoverished the soul. The tool of political regulation, exercised in the growing political power of the emerging organization known as the nation, was called in to polish the rough edges of the self-regulating society. As time went on, political regulation gradually came to be seen as the default, and self-regulation needed to be justified. The chapter particularly emphasizes the growth in such thinking among socialists and progressives in the United States and Western Europe. The catastrophe of the Great Depression, combined with admiration for a Soviet Union, Italy, and Germany, where political regulators said they were rationally designing a better society, meant that by the onset of World War II, this presumption was firmly in place throughout the West.
Assessing the Decline of Confidence in Self-Regulation
Authors: Osborne Evan
Published: May 2018

This chapter uses the new Google nGrams database to track the rise and fall of different English-language phrases in order to illustrate the corresponding rise and fall in confidence in self-regulation. After briefly introducing evidence on the rise in the extent of political regulation over the last century or so, documentation is presented on the parallel rise in skepticism of the self-regulating socioeconomy and self-regulating science generally, and in skepticism of the cognitive capacity of individuals to make socially productive choices in particular.
Corporate Dilemmas in the Absence of Integrity and Trust
Authors: Alexandra Christina Countess of Frederiksborg , Fort Timothy L.
Published: May 2018

This chapter uses the preceding foundational perspectives to examine corporate scandals over time. It looks at common explanations for why they happen and also looks at how these scandals may be explained with reference to the frameworks presented in earlier chapters. This chapter draws heavily from interviews with leading CEOs, sharing their observations about this kind of corporate trainwreck. The chapter identifies a number of key traits that seem to be associated with these scandals in order to build a set of practical recommendations for how to avoid them.
To Belong in Buenos Aires
Authors: Bryce Benjamin
Published: May 2018

This book analyzes the activities and fantasies of the people who sought to create a lasting German community in Buenos Aires and the behavior of others who challenged that project. It argues that ideas about the future drove thousands of German-speaking immigrants to carve out a place for ethnicity and pluralism in the cultural and linguistic landscape of Buenos Aires. In a moment when there was increasing pressure from the Argentine state and new nationalist forces to create a culturally homogeneous citizenry, the leaders of German-language institutions promoted a pluralistic vision of Argentine belonging by insisting that it was possible to be both ethnic and Argentine. Such efforts to create a lasting ethnic community that involved itself in issues of citizenship--particularly when repeated across groups in the Argentine capital--expanded the very meaning of that citizenship. At the same time, actors in the German Foreign Office, Lutheran and Catholic organizations in Germany, and nationalist associations interacted with German speakers in the Americas, and migrants and their children came to occupy an important space in the German national consciousness. In taking such an interest in Latin America, people in Germany promoted the idea that the German nation transcended not only political but also generational boundaries. Against the backdrop of ideologies of weltpolitik and imperialism, they espoused a belief in a territorially unbounded nation that would supposedly help Germany increase its global influence.
The Future of Ethnicity
Authors: Bryce Benjamin
Published: May 2018

The introduction discusses the importance of the future in shaping ethnic communities in Buenos Aires. Underlining the significance of temporality and the future for the social history of migration offers new perspectives on how state institutions developed, how a culturally plural society formed, and how immigrants and families participated in that society. Ethnicity is an unstable category worthy of analysis in itself, and that, as a result, ethnic communities should similarly be studied with that point in mind. The introduction also discusses the transnational turn in German historiography, which has highlighted how people and ideas outside the nation-state influenced conceptions of the nation during the Imperial and Weimar periods. German-speaking immigrants in Buenos Aires actively embraced the transatlantic relationship that groups in central Europe sought to establish, but they had their own ideas about their relationship with their nation of heritage and their nation of residence.
The Question of Representation
Authors: Etherington Ben
Published: May 2018

Chapter 4 reconsiders the question of primitivist representation in light of the theoretical and historical arguments presented in Chapters 1 through 3. Discussing works by Emil Nolde, D. H. Lawrence, Langston Hughes, and Jacques Roumain, it argues that primitivism has an inherent tendency to transcend any fixed notion or representation of the primitive, and that it is the work itself that must produce the sought-for primitive experience. Thus we find a vacillation between concrete representations of “primitive” remnants and an abstracted, nonspecific ideal of the primitive to come.
Césaire, Fanon, and Immediacy as a Project
Authors: Etherington Ben
Published: May 2018

Chapter 5 is the book’s central literary study. It “slow reads” Frantz Fanon’s epochal essay “The Lived Experience of the Black” as a critical dramatization of Aimé Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal (Notebook of a Return to the Native Land). Reconstructing the full literary and philosophical context of the essay, the chapter argues that Fanon’s riposte to Jean-Paul Sartre’s misreading of the primitivism of the negritude poets consists of himself enacting Césaire’s primitivism. In Fanon reading Césaire, we observe literary primitivism achieving consciousness of itself as a historical phenomenon. The chapter argues for the centrality of Césaire’s achievement to literary primitivism, at the heart of which lies a poetics of passionate sarcasm.
Claude McKay’s Primitivist Narration
Authors: Etherington Ben
Published: May 2018

This chapter considers Claude McKay’s novels Home to Harlem and Banjo as attempts to undertake literary primitivism’s project of immediacy by means of a musical aesthetics. Exploring his relationship both to the negritude poets and to Lawrence, especially the latter’s Aaron’s Rod, it argues that of all the writers discussed in this book, McKay’s work most strenuously attempts to enter the immediate mode. In McKay’s novels the hope for a reconciliation of reflexivity and immediacy, the primitive and the civilized is enacted simultaneously at the level of prose style and narrative structure. This allows us to identify a number of fissures and contradictions that beset the aesthetics of primitivism, especially the pitfalls of a utopian racialism.
Diplomatic Divergence
Authors: White Joshua M.
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses the political and religious-legal challenge that North African corsairs posed to the Ottoman treaty regime in a post–“Northern Invasion” Mediterranean, and explores the reasons for and consequences of the diplomatic divergence of the 1620s, when England, France, and the Netherlands began concluding treaties directly with the North African port cities. It argues that the legal and diplomatic fallout of a series of Algerian-Tunisian piratical raids in the 1620s and 1630s led to a permanent restructuring of the imperial center’s relationship with North Africa. As a result, Istanbul washed its hands of responsibility for the North African corsairs’ predations, granting explicit permission to its treaty partners to destroy any African corsairs who threatened them and creating conditions that led to dozens of European punitive expeditions against the North African port cities beginning in the 1660s and culminating in the French invasion of Algiers in 1830.
Piracy in the Courts
Authors: White Joshua M.
Published: May 2018

Relying on Ottoman court records from Istanbul to Crete, this chapter shows how merchants, monks, and mariners, Muslims, Christians, and Jews, Ottomans, and foreigners used the Ottoman Islamic courts, how victims of piracy sought restitution and sometimes revenge. It asks how complex jurisdictional questions were addressed and how the legal theory introduced in the previous chapter impacted the legal strategies of litigants, Ottoman and foreign alike, in Ottoman courts. It explores examples of disputes over ships and cargo seized by pirates, suits lodged by victims against their alleged pirates, privateering arrangements contracted and disputed in court, and prosecutions of alleged pirates. Telling these stories and examining their outcomes, the chapter ties together the threads from the preceding examination of the courts, Islamic law, the Ottomans’ diplomatic dealings, and Ottoman administrative responses to piracy.
The Indonesian Way
Authors: Rüland Jürgen
Published: May 2018

This book challenges the proposition that regional organizations across the world exhibit increasing similarities with the European Union as a result of norm diffusion. It examines how and to what extent Indonesian foreign policy stakeholders—the government, civil society, legislators, the academe, the press and business representatives—sought to influence reforms of Southeast Asian regionalism by adopting ideas and norms of regional integration championed by the EU. Triggering the Indonesian debate on regionalism was the decision of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Indonesia is a founding member, to draft an ASEAN Charter, a quasi-constitutional document adjusting the grouping’s repository of cooperation norms to a changing international environment. Applying and developing further Amitav Acharya’s theory of “constitutive localization,” the analysis of the ASEAN Charter debate shows that—to varying degrees—Indonesian foreign policy stakeholders transfer the terminology of European integration to ASEAN’s organizational structure, but that they adopt only partially, if at all, the normative substance of the EU model for regional integration. Instead, they skillfully reconcile alien norms with local norms, with the effect of retaining what could be called an Indonesian way of foreign policy-making.
Introduction
Authors: Rüland Jürgen
Published: May 2018

This chapter contextualizes the study in current debates on the effects of norm diffusion. Research intellectually influenced by world polity theory projects an increasing similarity of regional organizations as a result of two concurring processes: the promotion of the European model of regional integration by the EU and the model’s imitation by other regional organizations. Highlighting diversity, this book takes a different perspective. It argues that world polity theory overemphasizes structural similarities and underestimates cultural differences, thus lacking context sensitivity. By grounding the research in Eisenstadt’s “multiple modernities” paradigm, the chapter argues that the belief in only one modernity is a myth and that modern institutions are socially and culturally embedded. As culture is diverse and path dependent, terminological and organizational similarities tend to be superficial and often conceal extant normative underpinnings, which do not match the seemingly appropriated model of regional integration.
The Charter and the Academe
Authors: Rüland Jürgen
Published: May 2018

The chapter details how in the last two decades the participation of academics in Indonesian foreign policymaking broadened. While in the past only a few think tanks provided input on the government’s foreign policy decisions, in the Era Reformasi many university scholars also became foreign policy stakeholders. The chapter examines how the academe localized European ideas on regionalism during the ASEAN Charter debate. While most academics strongly opted for a democratization of regional governance and the establishment of a regional human rights mechanism, the motivations differed. One group supported such reforms from a strictly normative point of view, others saw in them a leverage to increase ASEAN efficiency in the wake of the challenges posed by rising regional giants China and India. Academics localized European ideas of regionalism to a lesser extent than the government and legislators. Yet they too fused them with extant local ideas of security.
Bedouin Territory and Settlement
Authors: Kedar Alexandre , Amara Ahmad , Yiftachel Oren
Published: May 2018

This chapter continues the challenging of the Dead Negev Doctrine and its various components by addressing the issue of Bedouin settlement. The DND and official Israeli narrative represents the Bedouins as nomads who had no permanent settlements in the Negev, whereas the chapter argues that although some maps from the Ottoman period do not demarcate Bedouin localities, they did exist. These localities or “dira” (Bedouin settlement and cultivation areas) were usually marked on the maps according to the names of confederations and tribes. Bedouins were not nomadic and their settlements were interlinked with cultivation and the establishment of sedentarized geography that began to appear in maps during the 1890s. Tens of thousands of Bedouins lived in villages that developed gradually over generations, before the British mandate was established.
Conclusion
Authors: Kedar Alexandre , Amara Ahmad , Yiftachel Oren
Published: May 2018

This chapter presents an epilogue which revisits the al-‘Uqbi case, and then presents the conclusion, dealing with the possible transformation of the DND into transitional justice. The chapter further demonstrates that Israeli law does have sufficient tools to overwrite or bypass the debilitating DND. A new enlightened and savvy political approach would enable Bedouins to attain property rights to their ancestor’s lands and introduce criteria of distributive justice for future management of land and development needs. Hence, the conclusion argues, the DND should be replaced with a decolonizing approach, based on principles of recognition, equality and transitional justice. The process of reconciliation will bring about a more egalitarian and fair allocation of space and will benefit all living in the Negev—Bedouin, Jews and others—as well as the broader Jewish-Palestinian conflict.
The Controversial Ecstasy of Sor María Teresa Aycinena
Authors: Leavitt-Alcántara Brianna
Published: May 2018

Chapter 5 explores the devotion and controversy surrounding Sor María Teresa Aycinena, a Carmelite nun, who in 1816 in the midst of the Independence wars, reportedly began to experience the stigmata, visions, mystical crucifixions, and miraculous images formed with the blood of her wounds. The powerful archbishop, priests, and lay devotees, many of them women, supported the Carmelite nun as a holy woman, but her divine revelations fueled controversy and political conflicts. Modern scholars treat the case only in passing, accepting the liberal nineteenth-century view that Sor María Teresa and her lay devotees were conservative political pawns. This case certainly highlights the early politicization of networks between priests and laywomen, but it also reveals how religious motivations significantly shaped clerical support of the mystic nun, while the Church’s weakened position created openings for assertive female claims to spiritual authority and a renewal of devotions long popular with laywomen.
“With Knives Drawn”
Authors: Leavitt-Alcántara Brianna
Published: May 2018

Chapter 6 analyzes how non-elite women outside of marriage navigated the shifting religious and political landscape in the decades after Independence. Laboring women undeniably faced new challenges, including their exclusion from republican citizenship, pastoral instability, and the decline of confraternities, which undermined traditional forms of spiritual and social support, and the renewed emphasis upon female sexual purity by both Church and State. While laboring women could not live up to the elite ideal of “Republican Motherhood,” they found new ways of establishing their moral status as public defenders of the faith. Their actions shaped the development of popular conservatism in Guatemala, which successfully reigned from 1838 to 1871. Non-elite women also forged alliances with Jesuit missionaries and took advantage of new devotional opportunities as nineteenth-century Church officials, more dependent than ever upon laywomen, mostly abandoned early modern restrictions on active lay female religiosity.