bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Concluding Remarks and Future Directions
Authors: Posteraro Tano S.
Published: January 2023

This chapter concludes the book by overviewing three general ideas that inform its argument. The first is that Bergson’s philosophy can be reconstructed as a work of metaphysics in something like a unified, systematic fashion. The second idea is that Bergson’s metaphysics receives its fullest extension and deepest instantiation in a philosophy of evolution. This is one of the book’s defining claims. The third idea is that Bergson should be studied not only for his historical importance, but for his contemporary relevance as well. Though his work has been out of fashion for many decades, it is animated by problems, informed by critical tools, and structured through insights that remain pressing for the philosophy, the biology, and the philosophy of biology of today. The final sections of the chapter reflect on the way the book opens the way for a series of fresh interpretations of important topics in Bergson studies. These include a Bergsonian interpretation of the ubiquity of symbiosis in evolution, a symbiosis-based reading of Bergson’s theory of intuition, a biological understanding of Bergson’s philosophy of technology, and an evolutionary understanding of his theory of sympathy.
Intricate Walking: Scully’s Livelihood
Authors: Lloyd David
Published: January 2023

This chapter focuses on the volume Livelihood that forms the centerpiece of Scully’s eight-volume poetic work, Things that Happen, composed over 25 years. Scully’s departs from the traditional lyric even as his work constantly reflects on fundamental elements of the lyric tradition and its relation to singing or humming, ballad or sonnet, forms that he thoroughly deconstructs. Scully’s processive mode of composition, working always at the edge of attention and in the moment, effects a continual letting-go rather than an appropriation of what passes into the poem and offers an unprecedented poetics of displacement and of dispossession.
Rome’s Wreck : Joyce’s Baroque
Authors: Lloyd David
Published: January 2023

Joyce’s poetry and its critical practice are viewed in relation to Mannerism and the Baroque, not as anachronistic art-historical practices, but as stylistic modes that emerge in times of rapid and violent political or economic transition. Joyce’s deployment of elemental figures—stone, water or river, ash—and his allegorical mode that registers the effects of a contemporary intensification of reification constitute a mannerist mode of colonial baroque. Joyce’s Irish colonial baroque constitutes a counterpoetic with its own broken and dispersed lines of transmission. The ruination that afflicts it is not only an effect of its procedural destruction of all naturalized models of reference and representation, but also an echo of unrelenting historical catastrophe such as has haunted Irish modernity and Irish modernisms since the nineteenth century
Xenophon's Anabasis
Authors: Brennan Shane
Published: January 2023

Xenophon's Anabasis tells the story of Cyrus the Younger’s failed rebellion against his brother, the Persian King, in 401 BCE and of what happened afterwards to the Ten Thousand Greek mercenaries who enlisted in his army. The account provides a vivid insight into the lived experience of the journey and the key events that defined it. Through his telling of the story, Xenophon furthermore integrates a number of the themes and concerns that recur across his oeuvre, including leadership, panhellenism, Sparta and apologia. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, Brennan offers a fresh reading of the text which originates in a broad-ranging consideration of Xenophon’s aims in writing the book some thirty years after the event. The central argument brings the presence of Socrates into relief and demonstrates how the author, representing himself in the story as a model pupil of the philosopher, perpetuates Socratic teachings and values through ‘Xenophon’s’ leadership. Ultimately, Anabasis is revealed to be a ‘Socratic history’, a narrative rooted in a historical event or period and in which the author embeds a reflection of the philosopher and his values.
Xenophon’s Self-Defence
Authors: Brennan Shane
Published: January 2023

Chapter 2 identified four different apologetic strands in Anabasisand in this chapter the first and second of these is examined. In the first, charges made against Xenophon’s character in the story, ‘Xenophon’ explicitly defends himself on at least three major occasions: in Book 5, the plan to establish a colony, and the review of the generals’ conduct, and in Book 7, accusations of corruption and collusion with Seuthes. In the second, the author Xenophon fends off criticisms from external audiences on a number of scores: other accounts that diminished, or overlooked, his role in the rescue of the Ten Thousand; condemnations of mercenaries (the Ten Thousand included); his relations with Sparta; and other aspects of his life history, notably his exile from Athens. The analyses presented aim to bring out the nature and pervasiveness of the personal apologetic element in Anabasis and the extent to which it shapes the story. The chapter finishes with a reconsideration of the exile question, looked at in Chapter 1, and puts forward a new solution to the problem of cause and dating.
Tired Of Religion: Atheism And Non-Belief In ‘New Turkey’
Authors: Hecker Pierre
Published: January 2023

Religious identity has always been a contentious issue in Turkish politics. A commonly shared Sunni Muslim identity has been an essential component of Turkish nationalism ever since the early Republican era. The dominant political discourse therefore commonly denies the existence of atheism and non-religion and emphasises the Muslim nature of the Turkish nation. Being Turkish supposedly equals being Muslim. Being atheist, on the contrary, means to represent the Turkish nation’s virulent adversary spawned by Western imperialism. Turkey’s ideological fixation on Islam has obscured the fact that a significant number of people have left Islam in recent years; many of them in reaction to the present government’s political abuse of religion and an increased sense of disillusionment with religious values. This chapter provides insight into the awakening of organised atheism in Turkey and investigates the recent debate on ‘religious fatigue’ among conservative youths. With the help of individual stories of becoming atheist, this chapter also seeks to provide possible answers to why Turkey’s ‘Islamic adventure’ is falling apart.
The Boundaries Of Womanhood In ‘New Turkey’: The Case Of Kadem
Authors: Çakıl-Dinçer Gülʂen
Published: January 2023

Since the 1970s, women who define themselves as pious conservative have successfully increased their visibility in Turkey’s public sphere. These women have positioned themselves vis-a-vis a range of ‘others’ – such as secular Western feminists, secular Kemalist women and, finally, pious conservative men. In this way, most of these women have developed their own anti-feminist women’s rights discourse that prioritises ‘justice over equality’. This discourse is positioned principally in opposition to egalitarian feminism. It encourages women to be religious and to actively participate in the public sphere and in politics. It has been institutionalised through KADEM, a pro-government women’s rights association founded in 2013. This chapter is based on empirical data obtained as a participant observer within KADEM between December 2014 and January 2017. It enquires into the impact of the ‘justice over equality’ discourse on women’s identities. It further explores how the idea of the ‘acceptable woman’ has contributed to establishing a new cultural hegemony in Turkey.
A Politics Of Presence: Public Performances Of Roma Belonging In Istanbul 1
Authors: Schoon Danielle V.
Published: January 2023

In the years following the Gezi Park protests of summer 2013, the AK Party, once hailed as a moderate Islamist party with aspirations to the European Union, has responded harshly to all forms of civil dissent. Meanwhile, state-led urban renewal projects demolish minority neighbourhoods and displace their residents. Paradoxically, Turkish Romanlar (‘Gypsies’) frequently appear in the public realm to represent the government’s tolerance of diversity and commitment to minority integration. This raises two important questions: first, why is Turkey’s Islamist government invested in representing the Romanlar as ‘happy citizens’? Second, why do the Romanlar accept their role as performers of pluralism, and do such performances result in any tangible benefits for them? Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this chapter argues that Turkey’s Romanlar engage in the ‘art of presence’ via public performance. An analysis of several public events in Istanbul demonstrates how Turkey’s urban Romanlar engage in public performance as a strategy to make their presence known without explicitly resisting the hegemony of the ruling elite.
Politics of Impunity
Authors: Furtado Henrique Tavares
Published: January 2023

Politics of Impunity investigates the failure of the anti-impunity agenda in Brazil, from the release of the truth commission report denouncing the crimes of the military regime (1964-1985) in 2014, to the election of the former-paratrooper and far-Right leader Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. Connecting debates on critical military studies, transitional justice and memory studies, the book moves beyond the conditions of implementation of accountability measures, the so-called best practices for the delivery of justice and reconciliation in the wake of conflict. It examines the conditions of possibility of the global anti-impunity agenda: when, how and why the question of impunity came to dominate debates on large-scale political violence. The book provides an extensive analysis of Brazilian official documents of the truth commission, including semi-structured interviews with activists and practitioners. It opens a pathway for exchange and comparison between representations of militarism and different strategies for resisting military violence, from both the Global North and the Global South. Finally, the manuscript reveals non-Eurocentric ways to represent and think about militarism by investigating the work of local scholars and practitioners in Brazil.
The ‘Common Language’ of Justice
Authors: Furtado Henrique Tavares
Published: January 2023

The first chapter offers a historical account of transitional justice’s ‘punishment vs impunity’ debates, from the prehistory of transitional justice in the 1970s to the formation of a ‘common language of justice’ at the turn of the century. First, the chapter recounts the rise of a global, anti-impunity movement during the Cold War, focusing in particular on the resistance to authoritarianism in the Southern Cone. Second, the chapter moves on to the last decades of the twentieth century (1980s–1990s). It recounts how the strategies of accountability devised by HRAs and politicians in South America and South Africa reached global notoriety and how a series of political compromises were mainstreamed and disseminated globally as the best practices of the emerging discipline of transitional justice. Finally, the chapter clarifies how the efforts of scholars and practitioners to reconnect the ideas of truth, memory and justice – separated during the South African experience – led to a new development at the turn of the century (1990–2010): the creation of a ‘common language of justice’.
Chapter 2 Nancy, Descartes, the Exposition of Bodies and the Extension of the Soul
Authors: Morin Marie-Eve
Published: January 2023

This chapter turns to Nancy’s own reading of Descartes, which also focuses on the problematic relation between the union of the soul and the body on the one hand and the cogito on the other. Against Heidegger, who interprets the Cartesian cogito as the self-positing of the subject of thought and knowledge, Nancy focuses on the performative utterance of the cogito in order to show how this utterance consists in a double movement of withdrawal and exposition. Such movement is only possible because what utters or opens itself in the cogito is not a substance but a body. The reading of Descartes proposed here allows for a more careful interpretation of the notion of body in Nancy, one that does not merely focus on the spacing between bodies and their exposure to one another through the touch of the skin, but also emphasises the spacing or differance of the body to itself.
Chapter 6 Nancy’s Materialism and the Stone
Authors: Morin Marie-Eve
Published: January 2023

Chapter 6 takes up the question of things from the Nancean perspective. Because Nancy does not distinguish between the lived body and the bodies of things, he can assert, against Heidegger, that the stone has a world and makes sense independently of its givenness to a subject or a sentient body. In order to provide an interpretation of these claims that is not animistic or panpsychic, Nancy is brought into conversation with recent materialist and realist thinkers, such as Bruno Latour, Tim Ingold, and Graham Harman. This allows to specify the kind of materialism defended by Nancy and spell out what thinking means for such materialism. In the end, the author shows how Nancy undermines anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism in a way that resists both eliminative materialism and panpsychism, as well as vitalism.
Hong Kong Dreams in Mainland China: The Leap of Peter Chan
Authors: Yiu-Wai Chu
Published: January 2023

The career of Peter Chan, a director whose career is transnational from local Hong Kong to Thailand, Hollywood and then to mainland China, is a success story of a Hong Kong filmmaker. His model of flexible identity, however, was closely intertwined with the waning of the distinctive characteristics of Hong Kong cinema. As one of the forerunners to go north after the signing of the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement, Chan is very familiar with co-productions. This chapter takes on Leap, a film about the legendary Chinese women’s volleyball team, to address his ability to sing the mainland melody in commercial genre films. It is argued that he is good at merging a mainland theme into a mainstream film genre.
Epilogue
Authors: Yiu-Wai Chu , Yiu-Wai Chu
Published: January 2023

To wrap up the discussion in this book, this chapter re-examines the implications of Hong Kong filmmakers’ participation in Chinese main melody films. Summarising the paradigm shift of mainland-Hong Kong cross-border cooperation in the cultural realm, it recapitulates the theoretical thrust of these examples, which will hopefully point towards a larger project on the transmission and transformation of Hong Kong culture in the mainland. Given the increasing importance of the Chinese film market, although alternative, local imaginaries in low- to mid-budget and independent productions are also important, the future of Hong Kong cinema is bound to be envisioned in relation to the mainland market.
The Animal-To-Come
Authors: Briggs Robert
Published: January 2023

What happens to political thought if we take the problematic nature of the human-animal distinction, not as something to be demonstrated, but rather as a given? Departing from well-established positions in animal studies, The Animal-To-Come takes up this question to develop new ways of thinking animal politics today. Premised on an original interpretation of Jacques Derrida’s work, the book formulates a thought of ‘the animal-to-come’ as a means for reflecting on and further developing ‘the question of the animal’ in contemporary humanities inquiry. Conventionally read for their potential to foster an expanded animal ethics, Derrida’s reflections on animals and animality are here recast in terms of institutionality and politics, laying the foundation for a thought of animals and animality that ventures beyond the critique of political and philosophical anthropocentrism. Thus eschewing ethics-based approaches grounded in animal vulnerability, the book sets out to review prevailing concepts of power, politics and culture in terms of their capacity to enable novel images of ‘zoopolitics’. Along the way, it engages with established figures in Continental philosophy (Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Isabelle Stengers), as well as introducing and exploring recently translated work in the emerging field of philosophical ethology, including Vinciane Despret’s ‘ethology of ethology’ and Dominique Lestel’s empirical and constructivist phenomenology of human-animal relations. Interdisciplinary in its approach, the argument is supported by analyses of ‘human-animal’ distinctions as forms of institutional (rather than ontological) difference, revealing new potentialities in human-animal interactions while lending empirical support to philosophical points.
Specifically Cultural
Authors: Briggs Robert
Published: January 2023

What is at stake, both conceptually and politically, in the search for ‘culture in animals’? Via a brief genealogy of Enlightenment attempts to account for human difference and cultural diversity (Thomas Hobbes, Giambattista Vico, Johann Gottfried Herder), this chapter exposes the essential ambivalence of ‘the’ concept of culture, a duplicity which seems inevitably to frustrate the search for ‘culture in animals’. Against the routine characterisation of culture as a form of internal or intraspecific transmission, Jacques Derrida’s discussion of invention as ‘in-coming’ is drawn on to highlight the fundamental heterochthony of culture(s). Proceeding from this view of culture as a condition of openness to the in-coming of the new or the otherwise from the ‘outside’, the chapter challenges the tendency to focus on cultural and biological specificity by analysing instead moments of cultural exchange that arise from various animal-animal and human-animal interactions. Dominique Lestel’s theorisation of the ‘porosity’ of (animal) cultures, which challenges the methodological ideal of a ‘pure’ animal that informs much ethological research today, is examined for its insights into such processes of acculturation.
Image-Thinking
Authors: Bal Mieke
Published: January 2023

Studies in filmmaking as innovative thinking on key issues of culture, through the author's own practice; making “thought-images” by means of “image-thinking”. Her experience in making film and video installations was that making images and thinking through what the process involved and yielded, as a mode of theorizing and analysing, led to more subtle, complex analyses of and insights into the cultural productions and processes of art. Analyses embedded in the collective process of making are more open to surprise. The insights generated remain “in becoming”, rather than ending up finished. Between image-thinking and thought-images there is a perpetually moving, dynamic, and reciprocal process going on. The idea of “theoretical fiction” structures the chapters and the interrelations between film practice and theory. Making images can inspire, and is, thinking. This book sets out the ways the author has experimented with this in exploring situations in reality in social, experimental documentaries, and in fiction – films and installations based on “pre-texts”. Documentaries explore social issues through an intense interaction between participants. The fictions revisit mostly literary masterpieces, simultaneously investigating their elite cultural status and their historical prestige as “cultural legacy”, and questioning the ease with which history relegates them to the past, rendering them immutable. Films are based on Cervantes' Don Quixote, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, the writing of Descartes and a “theoretical fiction” by Françoise Davoine. The reciprocal process of image-thinking and the production of thought-images that deploys understandings of cultural artefacts, supports insight and knowledge on an integrated level of affect, cognition, and sociality resulting in a specific, effectively affective aesthetic. The book gives an overview and analysis of a practice as a filmmaker and a theorist together.
Showing Trauma? Difficulty And Necessity
Authors: Bal Mieke , Mitchell W. J. T.
Published: January 2023

The combined issue of both the impossibility and the need for attention to the horrors that cause trauma is at stake in this chapter. In dialogue with Freud, the works analysed propose that his opinion that trauma cannot be helped through psychoanalysis because psychotic patients are incapable of transference, does not relieve the society whose violence caused the trauma from the obligation to repair what it had destroyed. This imposes the conclusion that trauma must be dealt with in committed art, even if, or precisely because it cannot be represented. A detailed look at some photographs that “stage” trauma will help understand how this is possible, difficult as it is, because it is necessary.
Japanese High School Films
Authors: Pugsley Peter C.
Published: January 2023

Japanese High School Films: Iconography, Nostalgia and Discipline explores how contemporary films set in high schools capture a distinct view of Japanese adolescent life, uncovering significant links with the themes of discipline and institutionalisation that underpin Japanese society. It illustrates how Japanese high school films link directly to manga, anime, TV dramas and pop music, triggering audience recognition and nostalgia through on-screen use of iconographic images, from school uniforms to rooftop recreational spaces. This book identifies universal themes of teen romance, friendship, and bullying, and the spatial and temporal changes that affect every student’s journey. The casting of already-famous music and fashion celebrities as students and as teachers allows the films to capitalise on cross-generational fandom across Japan’s prolific entertainment and popular culture industries. Drawing on established Japanese film aesthetics, some high school films explore taboo student-teacher relationships, adolescent sexuality, and the possibility of teen same-sex relationships. Japanese High School Films is the first book to give a detailed account of this popular cinematic genre that informs us about contemporary Japanese culture.
Playing to the Audience
Authors: Pugsley Peter C.
Published: January 2023

This chapter analyses the connection of high school films with their audience through memory as a form of nostalgia. This chapter shows that high school films follow themes found in romantic comedies and dramas that invest the films with emotions that will appeal to audiences of all ages. Links to nostalgia develop through the use of seasonal images, most particularly that of spring (the season of love) and its iconographic cherry blossoms, and intertextuality through the use of explicit links to original source texts in manga and anime. The casting of existing and emerging celebrities from the worlds of popular music (J-pop) and TV dramas adds to the appeal of high school films.
A Call to Dissent
Authors: Sim Stuart
Published: January 2023

Dogmatism, prejudice and bigotry are becoming ever more evident in Western politics. Divisive governments looking to cement their power strive to close down anyone who disagrees with them: political opponents, members of their own parties, the mainstream media, educators, protesters and, ultimately, voters. The political right have declared 'war' on 'woke', as though it was wrong to believe in social justice and respect for beliefs and opinions other than one's own. That is, to support the principles of liberal democracy.
A Call to Dissent defends dissent as an essential part of democracy. It argues that the political left are falling into despair in the face of growing right-wing populism, rather than challenging and standing up to it. Taking a wide-ranging view, the book identifies how dissent works in philosophy, religion, science and the arts as well as in politics. Ultimately, it calls on all of us to become dissenters ourselves in order to challenge authoritarianism and counter the growth of prejudice, bigotry, and extremism in public life.
The Philosophy of Dissent
Authors: Sim Stuart
Published: January 2023

The role of dissent within the discipline of philosophy is discussed in this chapter. The tradition of scepticism is argued to be a particularly valuable form of dissent in that it challenges the assumptions of philosophical discourse from within the subject itself. It plays a central role in the argument of the book overall, as a means of countering the dogmatism which is so widespread in contemporary political debate. Postmodernism and poststructuralism are recent intellectual movements that have created much controversy in philosophical circles for their radical scepticism. The concerns of each (as expressed in leading thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard), and the role they can play in combating authoritarianism, are considered here.
Internal Dissent: The Case for Self-Critique
Authors: Sim Stuart
Published: January 2023

All of us are capable of lapsing into dogmatism about our beliefs, and this chapter looks at ways to keep this tendency at bay as much as possible. A strong case is made for the value of self-critique in doing so. The practice of self-critique within religion and ideology is examined, in particular within communism and Christianity (John Bunyan again constituting an interesting case study). It is argued, however, that in each case the critique is merely judging the depth of one's faith in a belief-system rather than the belief-system itself. The point of self-critique ought to be to bring to light our unconscious biases. The role of self-critique within psychiatry and psychoanalysis is also discussed.
Conclusion: The Dissent Project
Authors: Sim Stuart
Published: January 2023

This chapter sums up on the book's argument that dissent ought to be enthusiastically encouraged in all areas of our culture, in order to keep authority under constant scrutiny and resist any tendency it might display towards authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Dissent versus authoritarianism is identified as one of the most crucial socio-political issues of our time. The importance of the green movement as a source of dissent against the fossil-fuel industry, and its lack of action on climate change, is also emphasised. Democracy is seen to depend on dissent being freely expressible and both governments and corporations being held to account. The conclusion is that dissent is a project we should all be engaged in.
The Hunger Artist: Testimony, Representation, and Embodiment in Primo Levi
Authors: Roth Zoë
Published: January 2023

Chapter 5 interrogates the relationship between the body and representation through Primo Levi's testimonial literature of the Holocaust. The Holocaust exterminated the overwhelming majority of witnesses, and postmodernist theorists have often treated it as the unrepresentable event par excellence. Yet the Holocaust's supposed unrepresentability marginalizes the embodied experience of its victims, placing their suffering beyond understanding. This chapter argues that embodiment underpins Levi's testimonial writing. Not only is embodiment a fundamental element of testimonial form, but testimony makes embodiment representable. Even when undergoing unthinkable trauma, the body retains a material integrity that imbues Levi's testimony with the vitality of phenomenological experience, particularly through the process of writing itself. Drawing on Jacques Rancière's critique of the unrepresentable, the chapter demonstrates how Levi's use of aporia and parataxis offers more opportunities for representing embodiment, not less.
R. B. Cunninghame Graham and Scotland
Authors: Munro Lachlan
Published: January 2023

This multidisciplinary work explores the complex life of the most controversial and enigmatic Scot of his generation, and his contribution to Scottish life and letters. R. B. Cunninghame Graham was a very well-known and hugely influential figure in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Scottish politics and literature, and the book explores his early political views, his time as a Member of Parliament, his disillusionment with the Liberal Party, his arrest and imprisonment, and his reputation as the first declared ‘socialist’ M.P. Using documentary evidence and tangible philosophical links, the book traces Graham’s early political influences, derived directly or indirectly from key nineteenth-century figures, particularly William Morris, and his friendships with George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and Joseph Conrad. It also examines Graham’s anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and anti-racist speeches and writings, and his active support for women’s rights and universal suffrage, his relationship with Keir Hardie, and their founding of the first party of Labour in Britain, his later active support for Irish and Scottish independence, and his highly original evocations of Scottish landscape and character. The book strips away the mythology surrounding Graham to reveal an altogether more complex picture, exploring his political and literary achievements, during a time of enormous political, economic, and cultural upheaval, the reverberations of which are still ongoing.
Land and Labour: Words Adorned by Reason
Authors: Munro Lachlan
Published: January 2023

Graham’s early campaigns to become a Liberal MP, and his extraordinary maiden speech. His support for Irish and Scottish home-rule, and the nationalisation of land. His disillusionment with the Liberals and with Parliament, and his attacks on his own party.
Literary Career: A Queer Potency
Authors: Munro Lachlan
Published: January 2023

Graham’s recruitment to The Saturday Review. Graham’s writing talents and personality aid his success. New kudos.
Conclusion
Authors: Rebeiz Mireille
Published: January 2023

The Conclusion reminds the readers of the major points examined in the book and asks if it possible to speak of trauma narratology. It also wonders whether the expression of trauma varies depending on the language of expression. It suggests an examination of translation studies, trauma, and women’s writing in Arabic and English.
Terminus: The Night, the Crossroads and the Stake
Authors: Angus Bill
Published: January 2023

This chapter explores the nature, popularity, and cultural resonances of the long practice of outcast burial at crossroads, whose liminal status meant they were considered appropriate places to leave materials expelled from society. These were often the worst of criminals, the murderers and traitors. But since the unfortunate victims of suicide were regarded as a species of criminal in the early modern period, they were also buried at the crossroads. However, the fact that these burials are often commemorated might suggest that such interment can become almost auspicious to the culture that orders it. Although the more dominant view of such burials is negative, this alternative line of interpretation expresses a more nuanced response to the historical outcasting of the undesirable dead.
Protection: The X in the Landscape
Authors: Angus Bill
Published: January 2023

This chapter makes a case that the very shape of the crossroads accords with the symbolism of intersecting lines most often used for the binding or banning of evil forces. It considers the concept and practice of spiritual binding through a variety of early modern examples of apotropaic devices wrought to protect the domestic space and takes into account the traditions of the precise movements of spirits. It suggests that the reason the crossroads has been a historical locality of access to power for the function of binding is that it is also in itself an apotropaic sign, which is in a sense written into in the landscape by human movement.
Managing Design Uncertainty: Building an Asynchronous Online Simulation
Authors: Usherwood Simon
Published: January 2023

Simulation and negotiation game design typically works from matching learning objectives to specific settings for delivery. Understanding how variables like student numbers, prior knowledge and available time and space for game play will look like is vital for producing efficient active learning environments. This paper demonstrates the challenges that are posed when that definition is lacking by presenting the process of creating an exercise for a distance-teaching programme. Strategies for addressing each of these elements are discussed, grounded in a central focus on resilient design. It highlights the need to design around a structure that can cope with such uncertainty and (relative) novelty, and the potential that is contained in such an approach for more conventional settings. In so doing, it reaffirms the need to have a conscious and transparent design and implementation process in delivering simulation and negotiation games that maximise student learning.
Morphological and mechanical alterations in articular cartilage and subchondral bone during spontaneous hip osteoarthritis in guinea pigs
Authors: Gao Jiazi , Ren Pengling , Gong He
Published: January 2023

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the morphological and mechanical changes in articular cartilage and subchondral bone during spontaneous hip osteoarthritis in guinea pigs.

Materials and methods: Hip joints of guinea pigs were investigated at 1, 3, 6, and 9 months of age (hereafter denoted as 1 M, 3 M, 6 M, and 9 M, respectively; n = 7 in each group). Morphological and mechanical alterations during spontaneous hip osteoarthritis in guinea pigs were investigated. The alterations included the micromechanical properties of articular cartilage (stiffness and creep deformation), microstructure of the subchondral bone (bone mineral density, bone volume fraction, trabecular thickness, trabecular number, and trabecular separation), micromorphology of the articular cartilage, and surface nanostructure (grain size and roughness) of the articular cartilage and subchondral bone.

Results: Micromechanical properties of articular cartilage in 1 M showed the lowest stiffness and highest creep deformation with no significant differences in stiffness or creep deformation amongst 3 M, 6 M, and 9 M. Articular cartilage thickness decreased with age. The earliest degeneration of articular cartilage occurred at 6 months of age, characterised by surface unevenness and evident chondrocytes reduction in micromorphology, as well as increased grain size and decreased roughness in nanostructure. No degeneration at micro- or nanostructure of subchondral bone was observed before 9 months.

Conclusion: Morphological degeneration of cartilage occurred before degeneration of mechanical properties. Meanwhile, degeneration of cartilage occurred before degeneration of subchondral bone during hip osteoarthritis. The current study provided novel insights into the structural and micromechanical interaction of hip osteoarthritis, which can serve as a theoretical basis for understanding the formation and progression of osteoarthritis.
Motile Cilia on Kidney Proximal Tubular Epithelial Cells Are Associated With Tubular Injury and Interstitial Fibrosis
Authors: Eymael Jennifer , Willemsen Brigith , Xu Joyce , Mooren Fieke , Steenbergen Eric , Wetzels Jack F. , Dijkman Henry , Jansen Jitske , Van der Vlag Johan , Smeets Bart
Published: January 2023

Graphical Abstract
β-Ecdysterone Enhanced Bone Regeneration Through the BMP-2/SMAD/RUNX2/Osterix Signaling Pathway
Authors: Yan Cai-Ping , Wang Xing-Kuan , Jiang Ke , Yin Chong , Xiang Chao , Wang Yong , Pu Chaoyu , Chen Lu , Li Yu-Ling
Published: January 2023

Graphical Abstract

Schematic illustrations of the fabrication of the bone defect model and action of β-Ecd in promoting bone regeneration and repair of bone defects. We established a rat model of a femoral bone defect in vivo to evaluate the effect of β-Ecd on bone regeneration. Rats injected intraperitoneally with 72 mg/kg β-Ecd showed a higher degree of ossification of regenerated bone tissue at the site of the bone defect at weeks 4 and 8. β-ecdysterone binding to the BMP2 receptor activates SMAD1 to bind to SMAD1/5/8, promotes RUNX2 and OSTERIX replication in the nucleus, and mediates bone regeneration. This study provides a new approach to the treatment of bone injury and degenerative diseases represented by bone defects and osteoporosis.
Case Report: Chlamydia psittaci pneumonia complicated by Guillain-Barré syndrome detected using metagenomic next-generation sequencing
Authors: Fang Changquan , Xu Limin , Tan Jiarong , Tan Hongyi , Lin Junhong , Zhao Ziwen
Published: January 2023

Psittacosis and Guillain-Barré syndrome are both rare clinical diseases with low incidence, and their combination has rarely been reported. Here, we report a case of Chlamydia psittaci pneumonia combined with Guillain-Barré syndrome. The patient initially presented with high fever, difficulty breathing, and fatigue. Chest computerised tomography indicated large consolidation opacities in both lungs. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing clearly identified the pathogen as C. psittaci. The patient’s fever subsided after targeted antibiotic treatment, but difficulty breathing and fatigue worsened, and the patient developed symmetric limb numbness and weakness. Lumbar puncture, electrophysiological examination, and clinical characteristics were suggestive of Guillain-Barré syndrome, and the symptoms improved after treatment with human immunoglobulin. The results of this study suggest that metagenomic next-generation sequencing is useful for the rapid diagnosis of pulmonary infectious agents. Psittacosis is closely associated with the development of Guillain-Barré syndrome; however, more cases are needed to support this conclusion, and early targeted antibiotic treatment, immunotherapy, and basic supportive treatment are essential for improving outcomes.
Quantitative MRI in cardiometabolic disease: From conventional cardiac and liver tissue mapping techniques to multi-parametric approaches
Authors: Fotaki Anastasia , Velasco Carlos , Prieto Claudia , Botnar René M.
Published: January 2023

Cardiometabolic disease refers to the spectrum of chronic conditions that include diabetes, hypertension, atheromatosis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and their long-term impact on cardiovascular health. Histological studies have confirmed several modifications at the tissue level in cardiometabolic disease. Recently, quantitative MR methods have enabled non-invasive myocardial and liver tissue characterization. MR relaxation mapping techniques such as T1, T1ρ, T2 and T2* provide a pixel-by-pixel representation of the corresponding tissue specific relaxation times, which have been shown to correlate with fibrosis, altered tissue perfusion, oedema and iron levels. Proton density fat fraction mapping approaches allow measurement of lipid tissue in the organ of interest. Several studies have demonstrated their utility as early diagnostic biomarkers and their potential to bear prognostic implications. Conventionally, the quantification of these parameters by MRI relies on the acquisition of sequential scans, encoding and mapping only one parameter per scan. However, this methodology is time inefficient and suffers from the confounding effects of the relaxation parameters in each single map, limiting wider clinical and research applications. To address these limitations, several novel approaches have been proposed that encode multiple tissue parameters simultaneously, providing co-registered multiparametric information of the tissues of interest. This review aims to describe the multi-faceted myocardial and hepatic tissue alterations in cardiometabolic disease and to motivate the application of relaxometry and proton-density cardiac and liver tissue mapping techniques. Current approaches in myocardial and liver tissue characterization as well as latest technical developments in multiparametric quantitative MRI are included. Limitations and challenges of these novel approaches, and recommendations to facilitate clinical validation are also discussed.
New Yuomys rodents from southeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau indicate low elevation during the Middle Eocene
Authors: Ni Xijun , Li Qiang , Deng Tao , Zhang Limin , Gong Hao , Qin Chao , Shi Jingsong , Shi Fuqiao , Fu Shubing
Published: January 2023

Yuomysare medium-sized Hystricomorpha rodents. They are known for coming from areas of low elevation in China during the middle and late Eocene. Two newYuomyswere discovered from a locality near Xueshuo village in Litang County, Sichuan Province. The locality lies in the Gemusi pull-apart basin formed in the Litang Fault System (LTFS) in the Hengduan Mountains. The current average elevation is about 4200 m. One of the two newYuomysis larger and shows clear lophodont and unilateral hypsodont morphology, similar toYuomys yunnanensis, which was discovered as being from the early middle Eocene (Irdinmanhan, Asian Land Mammal Ages) in the Chake Basin of Jianshui County, Yunnan Province. The Chake Basin is one of the small pull-apart basins formed in the Xianshuihe-Xiaojiang Fault system (XSH-XJF). The other newYuomysrodent is smaller, brachydont, and less lophodont than the larger new species. The small newYuomysis smaller than all knownYuomysexceptYuomys huheboerhensis, which is from the early middle Eocene Irdinmanhan of Inner Mongolia in Northern China. Given their narrow biochronological distribution and presumably preferred living environment, the occurrence ofYuomysin the pull-apart basins in LTFS and XSH-XJF suggests that the two deep fault systems probably started strike-slip movement by the early middle Eocene, about 49–45 million years ago. Well-studied middle Eocene mammalian faunas from Henan and Inner Mongolia includeYuomys, primates, and other low elevation forest mammals. We suggest that the two newYuomysspecies reported here probably also lived in a similar low elevation forest environment.
Nanoscale pore characteristics of the Jurassic Dongyuemiao member lacustrine shale, Eastern Sichuan Basin, SW China: Insights from SEM, NMR, LTNA, and MICP experiments
Authors: Zhou Yadong , Wang Zhanlei , Hu Dongfeng , Wei Zhihong , Wei Xiangfeng , Liu Ruobing , Wang Daojun , Jiang Yuqiang
Published: January 2023

The Jurassic Dongyuemiao Member is the most promising target for lacustrine shale gas exploration in Sichuan Basin. By integrating SEM, NMR, LTNA, and MICP experiments, and other basic measurements, the nanoscale pore category and structure and the corresponding controlling factors of Dongyuemiao lacustrine shale in Eastern Sichuan Basin are studied. The results denote that organic pores comprise primary pores within plant debris and secondary pores within bitumen. Inorganic pores are composed of intraparticle pores within calcite particles, intercrystalline pores between pyrite crystals, and interparticle pores between different minerals. The 4th Section lacustrine shale of Dongyuemiao Member has the best pore structure, exhibiting high organic pore proportion, large amounts of gas adsorption, and parallel plate-shaped pore morphology. Micropores (<2 nm) are the main contributors of the pore volume and surface area of Dongyuemiao lacustrine shale. Moreover, the enrichment of organic matter positively affects the formation of micropores and has no influence on the mesopore–macropore (>2 nm). Quartz does not significantly affect the nanoscale pore formation. The intraparticle pores within calcite particles constitute part of mesopore–macropore but not micropores. Clay minerals are conducive to the formation of micropores but play a negative role in the formation of mesopore–macropore.
Low-intensity anomaly involving ML≥4 events preceding strong earthquakes in Tibet
Authors: Gao Jinrui , Zhu Ye , Ji Yingfeng , Zhu Weiling , Qu Rui , Li Jiaji , Xu Liang , Xie Chaodi
Published: January 2023

Seismic quiescence or enhanced phenomena are anomalous changes against the background of normal seismic activity. Preliminary studies have found that earthquakes with a magnitude of ML≥4 often occur at a low occurrence frequency before giant earthquakes in Tibet. This study analyzed the catalog of ML≥4 earthquakes from 2008 to 2022 and examined the anomalous occurrence of ML≥4 earthquakes preceding most ML≥6 earthquakes. When the monthly occurrence frequency of ML≥4 earthquakes was lower than 4 times over six consecutive months, the subsequent occurrence of ML≥6 earthquakes was highly likely as evidenced by observations. The anomalous characteristics of low-intensity activities were analyzed as a medium- and short-term forecasting index for large earthquakes in the Tibetan area.
Formation conditions and enrichment mechanisms of the Jurassic lacustrine organic-rich shale in the East Fukang Sag, Junggar Basin, NW China: A reassessment based on organic geochemistry
Authors: Qiao Jinqi , Luo Qingyong , Zhang Ye , Wang Dandan , Cui Hao , Shang Xiaoqing , Liu Luofu , Zhang Tong
Published: January 2023

Chemical composition of sediments is often used to evaluate paleoclimate condition, provenance, tectonic setting, depositional condition, and paleoproductivity. However, the validity of these proxies has long been questioned. The comprehensive use of organic and inorganic multi-indicators in combination when interpreting issues related to terrestrial shales should be advocated. The paleodepositional environment, origin of organic matter (OM) and factor controlling OM accumulation in the Early Jurassic Badaowan (J1b) and Sangonghe (J1s) as well as Middle Jurassic Xishanyao (J2x) lacustrine shales in the East Fukang Sag are reassessed by using organic geochemical characteristics of the OM. Some previous knowledge is updated, and some knowledge is further supported by more evidence. The typical clay-rich shale developed under a lacustrine sedimental environment, and the thermal maturity of these organic-rich shales has entered the oil window and formed economic hydrocarbon potential for the tight-oil and shale-oil reservoirs. The paleoclimate conditions of the study area were warm and humid from the Early to Middle Jurassic periods but were colder and drier after the Middle Jurassic period. The salinity of the water column ranged from freshwater to brackish conditions. The J2x Formation was deposited under oxic conditions, while J1b and J1s formations developed under suboxic and reducing environmental conditions. The J2x Formation OM mainly derived from higher plants was deposited in a terrestrial environment,while the OM of J1b and J1s formations was a mixed OM derived from higher plants and bacteria with little algae deposited under bay/estuary environments alternated with terrestrial environments. It is effective to reflect the paleoclimate by element index and judge the salinity by the updated element thresholds, but it is not effective to evaluate the paleoredox conditions by common elemental ratios and to evaluate the paleoproductivity by Ba in the study area.