bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Comparative Study of Dichloromethane and Ethyl Acetate Root Extracts of Celosia trigyna: Phytochemical and Wound Healing Effect Analyses
Authors: Ofusori Adebimpe Esther , Raharjo Yanuardi , Ofusori David Adesanya , Adekunle Victory Opeyemi
Published: July 2023

Background: Celosia species have been validated to possess antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant potential. This study was thus designed to comparatively determine the effect of dichloromethane and ethyl acetate root extracts of Celosia trigyna on Wistar rat wounds created by 8 mm biopsy punches.Methods: Phytochemical screening was performed on dichloromethane and ethyl acetate root extracts of C. trigyna. For animal studies, 25 adult female Wistar rats were randomly divided into five groups (group A-E; n=5). Group A served as the negative control, group B as a positive control, group C received dichloromethane extract (once/day), group D ethyl acetate extract (once/day), and group E was the vehicle control. All extracts and medication were administered topically. Wound area, wound contraction, period of epithelialization, macroscopic analysis, and histological examination were studied.Results: Phytochemical screening showed that saponins and terpenoids were particularly high in dichloromethane extracts while ethyl acetate extracts were highly rich in terpenoids. The results of wound areas, wound contraction, periods of epithelialization, and macroscopic and histological analyses showed that dichloromethane extract, ethyl acetate extract, and penicillin-treated groups showed better remediation respectively in order of efficacy compared to the negative and vehicle control groups. The histological examination revealed an evidence of tissue regeneration and collagen deposition in the extract-treated groups compared to the positive, negative, and vehicle control groups.Conclusion: In conclusion, both extracts of C. trigyna have a better healing potential compared to penicillin treatment with dichloromethane extract having a better wound healing potential than the ethyl acetate extract.
Undiagnosed Behçet Syndrome Presenting with Abdominal Wall Ulceration: A Case Report
Authors: Choi Hyun Beom , Lee Chan Yeong , Song Woo Jin
Published: July 2023

Behçet syndrome (BS) is a chronic inflammatory disease that damages blood vessels and affects multiple systems, including the skin, mucosa, joints, eyes, nervous system, and gastrointestinal tract. The disease follows a relapsing course, characterized by recurrent episodes of inflammation. Cutaneous lesions are a common manifestation of BS, presenting as ulcerations exhibiting the pathergy response, posing a challenge for healing. We report an unusual case of abdominal wall ulceration in a female patient with previously undiagnosed BS. The atypical characteristics and course of the ulcerations, as well as the data obtained from the patient’s medical history and laboratory findings, prompted a multidisciplinary approach. The findings, in conjunction with the clinical suspicion, resulted in a diagnosis of BS. Following the diagnosis, the patient received appropriate management, including local wound care and medical treatment for BS, resulting in rapid wound epithelialization within a few days of treatment initiation. The patient was referred to a rheumatologist for further evaluation and long-term management of BS. This case underscores the significance of including BS in the differential diagnosis of unusual ulcerations.
Reconstruction with an Anterolateral Thigh Free Flap Following a Skin Graft from the Same Donor Site for Tissue Use Efficacy: Two Case Reports
Authors: Ki Sae Hwi , Park Tae Jun , Yoon Jin Myung
Published: July 2023

The coverage of extensive soft tissue defects requires several considerations, such as limited donor sites, reconstruction methods, and the outcome of functional recovery. In the cases described herein, when a significant soft tissue defect was present on an extremity, we opted for staged reconstruction. We first performed a split-thickness skin graft (STSG) to reduce the soft tissue defect, using the anterolateral thigh (ALT) as the donor site. In the second stage, the remaining soft tissue defect was reconstructed with an ALT free flap, utilizing the same lateral thigh area that had previously served as the STSG donor site. After the free flap procedure, we encountered several challenges in monitoring the ALT flap; however, all flaps ultimately survived. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of using an ALT free flap following STSG from the same donor site, demonstrating efficient tissue utilization. We believe this approach is beneficial for reconstructing extensive soft tissue defects, as it maximizes tissue use efficiency and reduces donor site morbidity when donor options are limited.
EDUCAÇÃO EM RELIGIOSIDADE: DESAFIOS E PERSPECTIVAS
Authors: Itoz Sonia de
Published: July 2023

O objetivo deste artigo é trazer presente desafios e perspectivas que se colocam para uma educação em religiosidade no contexto da educação básica. O termo religiosidade é compreendido e assumido aqui como condição do ser humano, no aspecto do antropológico, razão pela qual fundamenta-se nos estudos e análises de diferentes ciências sociais. Tomamos como referência, para uma compreensão de religiosidade, estudos da Psicologia do desenvolvimento humano, tendo como parâmetro o desenvolvimento pessoal e moral em Kohlberg, e o desenvolvimento da religiosidade em Fowler. Levantamos pertinências para um currículo escolar que tenha como objeto de conhecimento o “conhecimento religioso” proposto pela Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC), e propomos, assim, uma educação em religiosidade desde a condição antropológica do ser humano. A finalidade de uma educação em religiosidade é para que se contribua com a percepção do ser humano na sua complexa totalidade e, neste aspecto, levar o estudante a aprender sobre o sentido da esperança que norteia a vida, o compreender-se no mundo, o constituir-se na alteridade e para saber interpretar fenômenos subjacentes às culturas.
HACIA UNA EDUCACIÓN RELIGIOSA INTERCULTURAL. NOTAS ECHUSÍACAS
Authors: Borges Cristina
Published: July 2023

Embora a interculturalidade na escola seja uma necessidade urgente no Brasil, a educação intercultural não parece ter a importância adequada. Isto é, o que podemos ver quando olhamos para a educação brasileira, que ainda está adormecida em um sonho colonial. Entretanto, a luta histórica de setores marginalizados da sociedade contra a opressão colonial, como o movimento negro, obteve algum sucesso. As leis 10639/2003, 12.711/2012 e o fato de a Educação Religiosa brasileira ter a interculturalidade como fundamento teórico e pedagógico demonstram isso. Este artigo visa, a partir de uma perspectiva exusíaca e com foco na cultura afro-brasileira, refletir e discutir a interculturalidade na educação no Brasil, especialmente no Ensino Religioso, e reforçar sua urgência como um campo que permite aberturas para uma interculturalidade libertadora.
QUANDO A RELIGIÃO VAI À ESCOLA: DESAFIOS E PERSPECTIVAS NO CAMPO EDUCACIONAL BRASILEIRO
Authors: Paiva Andréa Lúcia da Silva de
Published: July 2023

Este trabalho propõe analisar a presença da religião em alguns espaços públicos educacionais. Por meio da metodologia da observação participante identificamos dois momentos que se articulam entre si: a influência da Escola sem Partido ao longo dos estágios docentes do curso de Ciências Sociais Licenciatura em Campos dos Goytacazes; e a presença de movimentos missionário cristãos, originários dos EUA, que visam influenciar a juventude estudantil evangélica a uma transformação social, nacional e mundial, no espaço universitário. Tais descrições nos traz questionamentos sobre os desafios e perspectivas da formação docente nos voltando, novamente, para a discussão entre ciência, religião e política. Sendo assim, o presente trabalho nos traz muitas interrogações sobre algumas questões que perpassam a questão religiosa e são pertinentes ao debate educacional. Diante da organização e expressões de fé demarcados por discursos e ações de estudantes visamos trazer breves reflexões sobre o ensino de Sociologia no cotidiano escolar e despertar atenção para a presença de movimentos religiosos no espaço universitário.
“A GENTE CONSEGUE FALAR SOBRE TUDO, MAS QUANDO CHEGA NA RELIGIÃO, É PISAR EM OVOS”: FORMAS DE SUPERAR O PRECONCEITO E A INTOLERÂNCIA COM AS RELIGIÕES DE MATRIZ AFRICANA NAS ESCOLAS
Authors: Backes Benício , Backes José Licínio
Published: July 2023

O preconceito e a intolerância com as religiões de matriz africana foram construídos no contexto da colonização e atualizam-se cotidianamente por meio da colonialidade. O artigo objetiva analisar o que professores negros têm feito para superar essa realidade. Para tanto, foram realizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas com professores negros, militantes da causa negra, que atuam em escolas públicas. A análise mostrou que esses professores desenvolvem várias estratégias com vistas à desconstrução do preconceito e da intolerância.
O RACISMO MACHUCA O CORPO, A CABEÇA, A BRINCADEIRA. O TERREIRO CUIDA DO MACHUCADO QUE O RACISMO FAZ
Authors: Caputo Stela Guedes , Carlantonio Elaine Di
Published: July 2023

Quanto mais avançamos em nossas pesquisas com crianças de terreiros, mais percebemos os terreiros como lugares de acolhimento para crianças, sobretudo, crianças negras. Para o artigo que apresentamos, reunimos conversas com duas meninas negras e de candomblé. Eduarda de Souza, de 9 anos e Maria Hellena Nzinga, de 8 anos. As duas apontam a escola como um espaço de silenciamentos, apagamentos e constrangimentos. Ambas identificam o racismo como o grande causador desse sofrimento vivido. Ao mesmo tempo, ambas identificam seus terreiros como espaços de proteção e de fortalecimento para a luta antirracista na sociedade e também na escola.
Informasi Potensi Pergeseran Zonasi Agroklimat di Wilayah Lembah Palu Sulawesi Tengah
Authors: Alfiandy Solih , Hadid Abdul , Syakur Abdul
Published: July 2023

The information of agroclimate zonation according by Oldeman and Schmidt – Ferguson, and the potential of changes has never been done before. So, the purpose of this study is to determine the potential of agroclimate zonation changes according by Oldeman and Schmidt – Ferguson in the Palu Valley Central Sulawesi. The method used in this study is by counting the number of wet and dry months based on observation and prediction data results using ANN. The results of zonation according by Oldeman and Schmidt – Ferguson show that 2 points have the potential to changes and 2 points are fixed. The zonation by Oldeman at the Stageof Palu which was originally type E5 changes to E2 and Tawaili from E5 changes to E3, then based on Schmidt – Ferguson at Stageof Palu which was originally type F changes to E and Tawaili from F changes to D. This research found that the potential for agroclimate zonation of changes according to Oldeman and Schmidt Ferguson in the upcoming period has the potential will changes towards wetness due to the increasing number of humid and wet months, and the decreasing number of dry months.
B-spline Based on Vector Extension Improved CST Parameterization Algorithm
Authors: Yan Bowen , Si Yuanyuan , Zhou Zhaoguo , Guo Wei , Wen Hongwu , Wang Yaobin
Published: July 2023

In this paper, the vector extension operation is proposed to replace the
de Boor-Cox formula for a fast algorithm to B-spline basis functions.
This B-spline basis function based on vector extending operation is
implemented in the class and shape transformation (CST) parameterization
method in place of the traditional Bezier polynomials to enhance the
local ability of control and accuracy to represent an airfoil shape. To
calculate the k-degree B-spline function’s nonzero values, the algorithm
can improve the computing efficiency by 2k+1 times.
Species richness of Orthoptera declines with elevation while elevational range of individual species peaks at mid elevation.
Authors: Thomas Jen , Segar Simon , Cherrill Andrew
Published: July 2023

Species richness has been shown to decrease, and elevational range
increase (the Rapoport effect), with elevation as a consequence of
biotic and abiotic factors, but patterns are inconsistent across
taxonomic groups. Despite being an important indicator taxon and
component of local communities, Orthoptera distributions at higher
elevations in Europe remain unclear. We investigated the relationship of
Orthoptera species richness and elevational range with elevation by
conducting field studies at 28 sites across three study areas in the
Pyrenees mountains, Europe. We found that species richness declined with
elevation. Study area and the site-specific factors of sampling effort,
topography (slope) and vegetation structure (density and cover) were
also important predictors of species richness. We did not observe a
Rapoport effect, with elevational range peaking at mid-elevation
instead. Smaller elevational ranges found at high elevations may be due
to a combination of sampling over a restricted elevational range and the
presence of specialist high-elevation species. We also explored the
composition of Orthoptera assemblages using multivariate methods,
finding no clear effect of elevation, slope or vegetation structure on
these communities, although study area somewhat influenced assemblages.
To our knowledge, this is the first study of the Rapoport effect along
an elevational gradient using insects as a study system in Europe. We
argue that our findings are useful for understanding species
distributions with elevation at the interface between local and regional
scales. Clarifying the biotic and abiotic predictors of species
distribution is important for informing conservation efforts and
predicting consequences of climate change.
Feasibility of a cannabidiol (CBD)-dominant cannabis based medicinal product (CBMP) for the treatment of Long COVID symptoms: A single arm open label feasibility trial
Authors: Thurgur Hannah , Lynskey Michael , Schlag Anne , Croser Carol , Nutt David , Iveson Elizabeth
Published: July 2023

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection
may be associated with long-term health problems termed Long COVID or
post COVID-19 syndrome. Symptoms can include fatigue, cognitive
dysfunction, pain, anxiety, depression and sleep disturbances. There are
few treatments available. Cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs) may
reduce some of the common symptoms associated with Long COVID as they
are known to ameliorate these symptoms occurring in other conditions. We
conducted a single arm open label feasibility trial of the safety and
tolerability of a full spectrum cannabidiol (CBD)-dominant CBMP for
treating the symptoms of Long COVID. The treatment phase ran for a total
of 21 weeks, followed by ~3 weeks without the study
drug. Participants received up to 3 mL of MediCabilis 5% CBD Oil (50 mg
CBD/mL, <2 mg THC/mL) per day orally. We recruited 12 (1 male,
11 female) individuals diagnosed with Long COVID into the trial. Monthly
patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) of common symptoms and daily
self-report of symptoms were collected via a smartphone app. Key
measures of heart rate, activity, sleep, and oxygen saturation were
assessed using wearable technology. All patients adhered to the
treatment protocol for the duration of the study and there were no
serious adverse events. Response rates for the research assessments were
high with over 90% completion of PROMs and daily self-report.
CBD-dominant CBMPs are safe and well tolerated in individuals diagnosed
with Long COVID. Future work with larger samples and incorporating a
control group should test the efficacy of this treatment.
Unilateral hypoglossal nerve palsy after mild COVID-19: a case report
Authors: Lee Sang Jae , Song Si-Youn , Na Hyung Gyun , Bae Chang Hoon , Kim Yong-Dae , Choi Yoon Seok
Published: July 2023

Post-acute coronavirus disease (COVID-19) syndrome is defined as persistent symptoms or delayed complications after COVID-19. Several cases of cranial nerve invasion related to COVID-19 have been reported. However, to our knowledge, no cases of solitary unilateral hypoglossal nerve paralysis after mild COVID-19 without intubation have been reported to date. Herein, we report the case of a 64-year-old man with unilateral hypoglossal nerve palsy as a complication of COVID-19. He complained of dysarthria and tongue discomfort 2 weeks after COVID-19 onset. Brain and neck computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasonography, and blood tests ruled out other possible causes. The patient’s nerve palsy was rapidly diagnosed and improved with early rehabilitation. Understanding of the pathology of COVID-19 is still limited. Physicians should focus on patients’ symptoms and their relationship to COVID-19, and investigate complications immediately. This case highlights the importance of early detection and rehabilitation of post-acute COVID-19 syndrome.
Epidemiology of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae in Jeju Province, Korea, using national surveillance data, 2018–2021
Authors: Park Juyoung , Cho Eun-Suk , Bae Jong-Myon
Published: July 2023

Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) infections have increased rapidly over the past decade and are recognized as a severe health threat in Korea and worldwide. This study aimed to identify the status and characteristics of CRE infection in Jeju province and provide important basic data for the prevention and management of CRE infection. A descriptive epidemiological analysis was performed on reported cases of CRE infection in Jeju Province between 2018 and 2021 using the integrated management system for disease, an infectious disease reporting system from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. The annual difference and distribution trends of CRE infection were analyzed using CRE isolates, carbapenemase-producing CREs (CP-CRE) and their genotypes, and the type of medical institution in Jeju Province. CRE infections steadily increased in Jeju from 2018 to 2021, and the proportion of CP-CRE among the CREs also showed a statistically significant increase each year. Among the CRE isolates, Klebsiella pneumoniae (KPC, 62.13%) was the most common, and among the CP-CRE genotypes, KPC (81.62%) showed the highest distribution and increased each year. As the distribution of CP-CRE in have increased over the past 4 years, measures to prevent the spread and outbreak of CRE infections are warranted. The results of this study are expected to be used as basic data for prevention and management of CRE infections in the province.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination-induced unilateral axillary lymphadenopathy: case series with follow-up and literature review
Authors: Kim Jeong Jae , Ko Su Yeon
Published: July 2023

Multiple studies have reported on unilateral axillary adenopathy following coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination, which is currently recognized as a common finding. Here, we present a series of eight adult patients with reactive axillary lymphadenopathy following COVID-19 vaccination, in whom the follow-up ultrasonography (US) showed resolution of a previously noted unilateral axillary adenopathy. From March 2021 to March 2022, 2,599 consecutive women underwent breast US in Jeju National University Hospital. We identified 10 patients with unilateral axillary lymphadenopathy following COVID-19 vaccination detected on the breast US. The 10 patients were recommended for follow-up US. Two patients were lost to follow-up, whereas the remaining eight patients underwent follow-up US, in whom resolution of the unilateral axillary lymphadenopathy was noted. Radiologists should be aware of evolving guidelines for evaluating and managing axillary lymphadenopathy to avoid false positive biopsies. Recent studies on lymphadenopathy following COVID-19 vaccination show that a prolonged duration until resolution is often observed. Therefore, a follow-up US examination at least 12 weeks after vaccination may be reasonable. Furthermore, management guidelines should include a risk-stratified approach considering both vaccination timing and the patient’s overall risk of metastatic disease.
Consideration of fractionation or field size prior to radiation therapy in patients with breast cancer and psoriasis: a case report
Authors: Hyun Jin Yi , Park So Hyun , Kim Dae-Hyun , Choi Jinhyun
Published: July 2023

We present three cases of patients with breast cancer and psoriasis who received radiotherapy following breast-conserving surgery. One patient developed an extensive flare-up of psoriasis during chemotherapy. After discontinuing chemotherapy, she received conventional radiotherapy to the ipsilateral whole breast, axillary, and supraclavicular lymph nodes with 50.4 Gy in 28 fractions and boosted with 10 Gy in five fractions to the tumor bed. Two patients received hypofractionated whole-breast radiotherapy at a total dose of 40.05–42.4 Gy in 15–16 fractions. In all three cases, there was no flare-up of psoriatic events at least 6 months after the completion of radiotherapy. We hypothesized that there is a close relationship between psoriatic events and the extent of trauma rather than the daily dose of the fraction. Therefore, we confirmed that the effect of radiotherapy on psoriatic events is minimal if the radiation field size does not exceed that of the whole breast.
Belief and Cult
Authors: Mackey Jacob L.
Published: July 2023

This book argues that belief isn't uniquely Christian but was central to ancient Roman religion. Drawing on cognitive theory, the book shows that despite having nothing to do with salvation or faith, belief underlay every aspect of Roman religious practices. In doing so, the book also offers a thorough argument for the importance of belief to other non-Christian religions. At the individual level, the book argues, belief played an indispensable role in the genesis of cult action and religious emotion. However, belief also had a collective dimension. The cognitive theory of Shared Intentionality shows how beliefs may be shared among individuals, accounting for the existence of written, unwritten, or even unspoken ritual norms. Shared beliefs permitted the choreography of collective cult action and gave cult acts their social meanings. The book also elucidates the role of shared belief in creating and maintaining Roman social reality. Shared belief allowed the Romans to endow agents, actions, and artifacts with socio-religious status and power. In a deep sense, no man could count as an augur and no act of animal slaughter as a successful offering to the gods, unless Romans collectively shared appropriate beliefs about these things. Closely examining augury, prayer, the religious enculturation of children, and the Romans' own theories of cognition and cult, the book promises to revolutionize the understanding of Roman religion by demonstrating that none of its features makes sense without Roman belief.
Utopianism for a Dying Planet
Authors: Claeys Gregory
Published: July 2023

In the face of Earth's environmental breakdown, it is clear that technological innovation alone won't save our planet. A more radical approach is required, one that involves profound changes in individual and collective behavior. This book examines the ways the expansive history of utopian thought, from its origins in ancient Sparta and ideas of the Golden Age through to today's thinkers, can offer moral and imaginative guidance in the face of catastrophe. The utopian tradition, which has been critical of conspicuous consumption and luxurious indulgence, might light a path to a society that emphasizes equality, sociability, and sustainability. The book unfolds its argument through a wide-ranging consideration of utopian literature, social theory, and intentional communities. It defends a realist definition of utopia, focusing on ideas of sociability and belonging as central to utopian narratives. The book surveys the development of these themes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before examining twentieth- and twenty-first-century debates about alternatives to consumerism. It contends that the current global warming limit of 1.5C (2.7F) will result in cataclysm if there is no further reduction in the cap. In response, the book offers a radical Green New Deal program, which combines ideas from the theory of sociability with proposals to withdraw from fossil fuels and cease reliance on unsustainable commodities. An urgent and comprehensive search for antidotes to our planet's destruction, the book asks for a revival of utopian ideas, not as an escape from reality, but as a powerful means of changing it.
The Triumph of Unsocial Sociability?
Authors: Claeys Gregory
Published: July 2023

This chapter considers how the problems of luxury and simplicity in relationship to utopianism were conceived in mainstream thinking and the non-literary expression of utopian ideas. It points out how inequality has been regarded as the greatest threat to Gemeinschaft-style communities throughout history. Luxury has long been regarded as a key cause and effect of inequality, and as such subversive of both sociability and utopia. The chapter talks about the diffusion of luxury that is practically synonymous with modernity, noting how its pursuit has stimulated and delighted senses and hastened the pace of life while fuelling greed and inhumanity. It talks about how luxury fostered the slave trade and resulted in the killing of millions of Africans and indigenous Americans in the quest for spices, gold, silver, sugar, and cotton.
Twentieth-Century Consumerism and the Utopian Response
Authors: Claeys Gregory
Published: July 2023

This chapter recounts the first stage of modern consumerism that emerged in northern Europe from the late seventeenth century onwards, foreshadowing a second stage that began on a larger scale in the mid-nineteenth century. It focuses on the third stage of modern consumerism that commenced after World War Two and was dominated by the United States. By the late twentieth century, it became evident that aspiring to a universal high standard of living threatened to deplete resources and degrade the environment. The chapter highlights seventy years from 1945 to 2015 that represent the apogee of modern materialism and consumerism, and the unsustainable ideal of the indefinite progress of population, production, and consumption. The chapter considers consumerism as the age of the greatest excess and waste of any in history.
Life after Consumerism
Authors: Claeys Gregory
Published: July 2023

This chapter discusses applied utopianism or utopistics. It confirms how far the various forms of restraint on utopian and non-utopian consumption have contemporary utility and might be adapted from historical experience. It also reviews how utopianism has functioned throughout the ages to hold up a critical mirror to deepening social inequality and oppression by the rich, as well as the folly of obsessively pursuing wealth and luxury. The chapter examines the concept of utopia, which gained meaning in reaction to greedy landlords dispossessing the poor of their land. Utopia long remained the ghostly nostalgic memory of the imagined original equality of a lost paradise or Golden Age before the wealthy ruined everything.
A Place in the Elite
Authors: Pfeifer Helen
Published: July 2023

This chapter analyzes one of the most pressing concerns of sixteenth-century Ottoman high society: clarifying social hierarchies. The conquests had introduced a new group of elites into the imperial system, elites that had to be accounted for, their specific position within the social order ascertained. Salons acted as theaters for this process because they materialized status in highly visible ways. Seating arrangements were especially charged, since where someone sat in a gentlemanly circle was a function of his social standing. In Damascus, Ottoman officials took the head at many a polite assembly, presiding over local magnates by virtue of their office. And yet what made the transactional world of the salon so complex was that it recognized many different, and often competing, social currencies. As a gathering in the residence of the Damascene chief judge Hasan Bey reveals, different claims to high social status—office, age, wealth, learning, lineage—had to be weighed against one another. As salon-goers negotiated their particular place in the salon, they also negotiated their place in the Ottoman social order.
“Axial in the Spin of Life”
Authors: Dever Carolyn
Published: July 2023

This introductory chapter examines the life and work of Michael Field, the alias of two women, Katharine Bradley (1846–1914) and her niece, Edith Cooper (1862–1913), as well as their shared diary, Works and Days. Framed by two voices, Works and Days stages an extended dialogue internal to a pair of writers and lovers engaging sensitive questions of beauty, desire, and fame. While the diary is certainly full of the stuff of everyday life, it is equally introspective, delving deep into the private thoughts and conflicts of each of the two narrators. For that matter, it is intraspective as well, focused on what happens between the text's two voices when they find each other on the page. The two narrative voices fragment across time, uncannily sensitive to the historical past, intensely anxious about what the future will bring and where they might stand within it.
The Conspiracy of the Merchants
Authors: Sagar Paul
Published: July 2023

This chapter tackles Adam Smith's major concerns about the commercial society. According to Smith, instead of the threat of moral corruption, advanced European commercial societies face the threat of political dangers from the merchant and manufacturing classes' systemic corruption. Smith's account of the conspiracy of the merchants is embedded in his wider assessment of the political condition of modern Europe. In his final analysis, Smith deemed merchants dangerous but necessary to modern commercial society in an effort to continue operation and flourish simultaneously. The chapter cites that politicians of today are still highly vulnerable to the influence of merchant elites.
A Commonwealth of Hope
Authors: Lamb Michael
Published: July 2023

When it comes to politics, Augustine of Hippo is renowned as one of history's great pessimists, with his sights set firmly on the heavenly city rather than the public square. Many have enlisted him to chasten political hopes, highlighting the realities of evil and encouraging citizens instead to cast their hopes on heaven. This book challenges prevailing interpretations of Augustinian pessimism, offering a new vision of his political thought that can also help today's citizens sustain hope in the face of despair. Amid rising inequality, injustice, and political division, many citizens wonder what to hope for in politics and whether it is possible to forge common hopes in a deeply polarized society. The book takes up this challenge, offering the first in-depth analysis of Augustine's virtue of hope and its profound implications for political life. The book draws on a wide range of Augustine's writings—including neglected sermons, letters, and treatises—and integrates insights from political theory, religious studies, theology, and philosophy. It shows how diverse citizens, both religious and secular, can unite around common hopes for the commonwealth. Recovering this understudied virtue and situating Augustine within his political, rhetorical, and religious contexts, the book reveals how Augustine's virtue of hope can help us resist the politics of presumption and despair and confront the challenges of our time.
Introduction
Authors: Eilstrup-Sangiovanni Mette , Sharman J. C.
Published: July 2023

This chapter provides a background on the growing, but so far neglected, role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as independent enforcers of international law. Over the last few decades, more NGOs have moved beyond a focus on educating, socializing, and pressuring states to act to instead take direct action aimed at enforcing international laws. The chapter proposes that international enforcement by NGOs can be understood within a broader concept of transnational authority that treats states and nonstate actors as co-authors and joint suppliers of global governance. The chapter demonstrates that actors other than states are increasingly enforcing international laws. It explains what drives this phenomenon of enforcement of international laws and considers its consequences for world politics.
Vigilantes and Global Governance
Authors: Eilstrup-Sangiovanni Mette , Sharman J. C.
Published: July 2023

This chapter challenges and expands existing accounts of the pluralization of global politics by exploring the enforcement role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). It addresses the question of what is meant by enforcement and what can explain the growing role of NGOs in enforcement, defining NGO enforcement and distinguishing it from advocacy or service delivery. It also identifies the conditions under which transnational enforcement is likely to unfold, noting the rise of transnational vigilantism by elaborating the main drivers of this trend. The chapter considers why some NGOs are more likely to embrace enforcement than others. It cites literature that discusses how NGOs pressure and socialize governments into making and enforcing international rules.
Human Rights Vigilantes
Authors: Eilstrup-Sangiovanni Mette , Sharman J. C.
Published: July 2023

This chapter surveys the different approaches to vigilante human rights enforcement, looking first at actions enabled by developments in the law and considering the impact of technological change. It looks at one particular aspect of the history of international human rights or the human rights movement, which is the autonomous enforcement of international human rights laws. It also reviews the body of international human rights law that has been continuously expanding in terms of the number of international treaties and conventions and in terms of the number of states that adhere to them. The chapter points out how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have represented victims in regional international courts. It mentions a transnational approach to human rights enforcement that has depended on the legal doctrine of civil or criminal universal jurisdiction.
Vigilantes against Corruption
Authors: Eilstrup-Sangiovanni Mette , Sharman J. C.
Published: July 2023

This chapter give a brief account of the relevant international rules, addressing what is the global regime to counter corruption, and how it is meant to work. After presenting a thumbnail sketch of the international rules, the chapter explains the rise of vigilante enforcement in this domain. The broad trends parallel those in human rights and the environment as more rules have not been matched by proportionate state enforcement, and hence a gap has opened, creating the demand for greater anti-corruption enforcement. The chapter highlights how this gap reflects the fact that countering corruption involves especially acute challenges of enforcement. Corruption often takes place in secret, the victims are seldom obvious, and governments may face political pressure to turn a blind eye or may themselves be the guilty party.
Conclusion
Authors: Eilstrup-Sangiovanni Mette , Sharman J. C.
Published: July 2023

This chapter draws out lessons and patterns from a comparison of non-governmental organization (NGO) enforcement across different policy areas. It considers the wider implications of vigilante justice for the international legal order. The global NGO community has important resources to bring to international law enforcement, especially in weak jurisdictions where governments may lack capacity to enforce laws that transcend international boundaries. The chapter emphasizes how positive effects may be cancelled out by negative influences on state incentives if the contributions of NGOs invite governments to shirk their duty by reducing efforts to enforce international law. It explores how transnational vigilante enforcement raises thorny questions about legitimacy, due process, and accountability.
Pliny’s Economic Observations and Reasoning
Authors: Saller Richard P.
Published: July 2023

This chapter analyzes Pliny's scattered comments in several sectors of the economy: primarily agriculture but also mining, urban crafts, and trade. It then turns to some general themes that draw the attention of the contemporary discipline of economics: labor, agency, and slavery; prices and currency; investment and consumption; finally, trust and fraud. Pliny's economic reasoning was inevitably bound up in a set of cultural values. These included moral values regarding the sanctity of Mother Nature, the moral vocabulary of honor and shame, and a belief in a direct connection between morality and profitability, all set within a narrative of decline of both morality and productivity. In addition, Pliny valued prudence over risk, safe profits over maximum profits. To claim that Pliny and fellow Romans made economic decisions based on a different set of values and a bounded rationality is not to blame them but to suggest that their values differed in some degree from those of modern capitalism.
“Utility” and the Afterlife of the Natural History
Authors: Saller Richard P.
Published: July 2023

This chapter assesses whether Pliny's Natural History aimed to foster a culture nurturing increases in useful knowledge for succeeding generations to improve productivity. How did readers of the late antique and medieval eras make use of Pliny's work, which for many centuries was among the most frequently copied, quoted, and excerpted classical texts? The reception of the Natural History during this millennium provides insights into the limitations on its practical value. And then in the early modern period, given their shared purpose of “usefulness,” what is revealed by a comparison of Pliny's Natural History and the eighteenth-century encyclopedias that played a part in the culture of growth during the Great Enrichment? The chapter then looks at John Harris's Lexicon Technicum (1704) and Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia (1728). Because these earlier encyclopedias predated the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and because they were produced in the country that led the way in the growth of the eighteenth century, they may offer a more interesting comparison. The purpose, tone, organization, and content of these monumental works show similarities with the Natural History and also telling contrasts.
Extreme Conditionality in International Lending
Authors: Queralt Didac
Published: July 2023

This chapter elaborates on the concept of extreme conditionality in international lending. It discusses the conditions under which private bondholders took over local assets. The conditions of developing nations accessing external finance are crucial to understanding the persistence of limited state capacity in emerging economies. Moreover, pledging public assets reduced the interest rates of emerging economies but exposed them to foreign financial control. The chapter covers the risks of pledging national assets for long-term state-building while considering how bondholders' temporary control of local tax administrations may be good for state-building. It explains how pledges decreased the spread conditional on bondholders gaining organizational capacity and creditors' governments becoming more interventionist in lending markets.
War Finance
Authors: Queralt Didac
Published: July 2023

This chapter expounds on the nature and finance of war beyond Europe. It cites that interstate war is the main driver of state building. To cover military expenses, governments regularly floated loans overseas to cope with this fiscal shock. The chapter reflects upon the consequences of external war finance for long-term state capacity by referencing a reinterpretation of the haute finance hypothesis. It elaborates on colonial war finance by studying the effect of war, access to foreign funds, and fiscal performance with a paired comparison of quantitative analysis between the Cape of Good Hope and the Transvaal in South Africa.
The Making of Barbarians
Authors: Saussy Haun
Published: July 2023

Debates on the canon, multiculturalism, and world literature often take Eurocentrism as the target of their critique. But literature is a universe with many centers, and one of them is China. The book offers an account of world literature in which China, as center, produces its own margins. The book investigates the meanings of literary translation, adaptation, and appropriation on the boundaries of China long before it came into sustained contact with the West. When scholars talk about comparative literature in Asia, they tend to focus on translation between European languages and Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, as practiced since about 1900. In contrast, the book focuses on the period before 1850, when the translation of foreign works into Chinese was rare because Chinese literary tradition overshadowed those around it. The book looks closely at literary works that were translated into Chinese from foreign languages or resulted from contact with alien peoples. It explores why translation was such an undervalued practice in premodern China, and how this vast and prestigious culture dealt with those outside it before a new group of foreigners—Europeans—appeared on the horizon.
A Brief History of Contention: 100 Organizations in the News
Authors: Amenta Edwin , Caren Neal
Published: July 2023

This chapter identifies the movement organizations that were the most newsworthy in their days, offering a contentious history from the journalistic point of view. It focuses on 100 organizations that received extensive news coverage in a given year. Some were often highly newsworthy and are well known, such as the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) (AFL-CIO), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Yet several others are obscure today, including many from the first half of the century, including the Independence League, German–American Alliance, National Security League, Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, and Ham and Eggs. However, some from the second half of the century also do not appear much in scholarship or current memory, including the Peace and Freedom Party, Jewish Defense League, and Major League Baseball Players Association. The chapter shows that the most covered organizations almost all had high membership, disruptive capacities, and an orientation toward politics. It then addresses debates about whether movement organizations have become less membership-oriented, less material, and less protest-oriented over time.
Introduction
Authors: Favre Charles , Gauthier Thomas
Published: July 2023

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the exploration of the moduli space Polyd of complex polynomials of degree d ≥ 2 in one variable using tools primarily coming from arithmetic geometry. A polynomial is said to be post-critically finite (or PCF) if all its critical points have a finite orbit. The Julia set of a PCF polynomial is connected, of zero measure, and the dynamics on it is hyperbolic off the post-critical set. PCF polynomials play a pivotal role in the study of the connectedness locus of Polyd. Height theory yields interesting new perspectives on the geometry of Polyd, and more specifically on the distribution of PCF polynomials. The chapter explains that the book is mostly interested in the so-called dynamical André-Oort conjecture. The proof roughly follows the line of arguments devised in the original paper of Baker and DeMarco. The chapter then explains polynomial dynamical pairs.
Special curves in the parameter space of polynomials
Authors: Favre Charles , Gauthier Thomas
Published: July 2023

This chapter begins by proving Baker-DeMarco's conjecture characterizing curves in the moduli space of complex polynomials containing an infinite set of PCF parameters. It then investigates a combinatorial classification of special curves inspired by the classification of PCF polynomials in terms of Hubbard trees. More precisely, the chapter seeks a one-to-one correspondence between special curves and decorated graphs, but due to the presence of symmetries, this task turns out to be delicate to achieve. The chapter focuses on presenting a partial correspondence encoding a large class of special curves by a combinatorial gadget that can be called critically marked dynamical graphs. It then shows how to associate a marked dynamical graph to an irreducible curve, and defines the category of special graphs.
Undesirable Immigrants
Authors: Rosenberg Andrew S.
Published: July 2023

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 officially ended the explicit prejudice in American immigration policy that began with the 1790 restriction on naturalization to free White persons of “good character.” By the 1980s, the rest of the Anglo-European world had followed suit, purging discriminatory language from their immigration laws and achieving what many believe to be a colorblind international system. This book challenges this notion, revealing how racial inequality persists in global migration despite the end of formally racist laws. The book argues that while today's leaders claim that their policies are objective and seek only to restrict obviously dangerous migrants, these policies are still correlated with race. It traces how colonialism and White supremacy catalyzed violence and sabotaged institutions around the world, and how this historical legacy has produced migrants that the former imperial powers and their allies now deem unfit to enter. The book shows how postcolonial states remain embedded in a Western culture that requires them to continuously perform their statehood, and how the closing and policing of international borders has become an important symbol of sovereignty, one that imposes harsher restrictions on non-White migrants.The book demonstrates that we cannot address the challenges of international migration without coming to terms with the brutal history of colonialism.
Assessment of the alveolar clearance: a critical review
Authors: Kobylyansky V. I.
Published: July 2023

Respiratory homeostasis is fine-tuned system largely dependent on the clearance of inhaled substances from both upper and lower airways. The least studied is alveolar clearance, which, however, is crucial for the proper lung function and requires a detailed examination in order to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and treatment of lung diseases. Here, I analysed relevant literature from publicly available databases (Index Medicus, PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, ClinicalTrials.gov, Google Patents) to compare various methods for determining alveolar clearance, their advantages and shortcomings, their applicability in routine clinical practice and prospects for their use. The most accessible, informative, and inexpensive method to assess the alveolar clearance is bronchoalveolar lavage and the study of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Confocal laser endomicroscopy, a new and powerful imaging modality, has not been widely implemented hitherto. A non-invasive inhalation of a radioaerosol tracer for studying alveolar clearance in vivo seems to be promising but still requires adaptation for the broad use.