bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyradiculoneuropathy
Authors: Kissel John T , Mendell Jerry R
Published: October 2023

Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) is an acquired immune-mediated neuropathy that causes significant neurological morbidity. Since there have been no population-based incidence studies of CIDP, there is no clear estimate of its frequency outside of tertiary care referral centers, where it may represent as many as 10%-30% of previously undiagnosed cases of neuropathy.1-2 Although diagnostic criteria for the condition have been established, not all cases fulfill these criteria, and the condition is often misdiagnosed, especially in the early stages. CIDP is clearly the most common form of treatable neuropathy likely to be encountered by the practicing clinician, and most patients show a very gratifying early response to treatment. The high rate of relapse, and the significant side effects associated with many forms of treatment, however, frequently preclude a long-term successful outcome.
The Social Health of the Nation
Authors: Miringoff Marc , Miringoff Marque-Luisa
Published: October 2023

For the past twelve years, the annual release of the Index of Social Health has been a major event, cited in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other national media our most reliable barometer of progress in addressing America’s social ills. Now, in The Social Health of the Nation, the Index for 1999—an invaluable fount of information—is available for the first time in book form. Rejecting the notion that the Dow Jones Industrial Averages and its ilk are the sole valid measures of progress in the United States, the authors offer a fuller and deeper view of our nation’s quality of life, gathering together statistical information on such factors as the well-being of America’s children and youth, the accessibility of health care, the quality of education, or the adequacy of housing. Readers will find solid information about drug abuse, children in poverty, life expectancy, homicides, and health insurance coverage. And we get these facts in context, so that we know where we are improving—for instance, poverty among the elderly, infant mortality, and the high school dropout rate have all declined. Equally important, we discover where we are losing ground—suicide rates among the young are 40 percent higher than in 1970, for example, and income inequality is at its worst level in 50 years. Here then is the key to the true State of the Union. The first national survey in the U.S. to bring together varied aspects of social health, including education, work, family, medical care, American culture, and the arts, The Social Health of the Nation gives us a more finely focused picture of the national fabric—and reveals where that fabric needs mending.
Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine
Authors: Vinten-Johansen Peter , Brody Howard , Paneth Nigel , Rachman Stephen , Rip Michael , Zuck David
Published: October 2023

The product of six years of collaborative research, this fine biography offers new interpretations of a pioneering figure in anaesthesiology, epidemiology, medical cartography, and public health. It modifies the conventional rags to riches portrait of John Snow by synthesising fresh information about his early life from archival research and recent studies. It explores the intellectual roots of his commitments to vegetarianism, temperance, and pure drinking water, first developed when he was a medical apprentice and assistant in the north of England. The authors argue that all of Snow’s later contributions are traceable to the medical paradigm he imbibed as a medical student in London and put into practice early in his career as a clinician: that medicine as a science required the incorporation of recent developments in its collateral sciences, chiefly anatomy, chemistry, and physiology, in order to understand the causes of disease. Snow’s theoretical breakthroughs in anaesthesia were extensions of his experimental research in respiratory physiology and the properties of inhaled gases. Shortly thereafter, his understanding of gas laws led him to reject miasmatic explanations for the spread of cholera, and to develop an alternative theory in consonance with what was then known about chemistry and the physiology of digestion. Using all of Snow’s writings, the authors follow him when working in his home laboratory, visiting patients throughout London, attending medical society meetings, and conducting studies during the cholera epidemics of 1849 and 1854. The result is a book that demythologises some overly heroic views of Snow by providing a fairer measure of his actual contributions. It will have an impact not only on the understanding of the man but also on the history of epidemiology and medical science.
Cholera Theories: Controversy and Confusion
Authors: Vinten-Johansen Peter , Brody Howard , Paneth Nigel , Rachman Stephen , Rip Michael
Published: October 2023

As Late Summer Turned To Autumn in the year 1848, Snow occupied himself with narcotism research and his growing anesthesia practice. No other British physician or scientist was engaged in the project he had undertaken: to study ether and chloroform as members of a family of volatile narcotic agents related by common chemical and physical properties and to determine the physiological mechanisms by which members of the family exerted their effects. In addition, following the initial reports from Flourens’s laboratory, no work on the basic physiology of anesthesia was underway in France. Occasional reports of deaths under chloroform continued to appear in the medical literature. These deaths demanded Snow’s analysis because, as an advocate of inhalation anesthesia, he needed to determine whether they were due to the chloroform itself or (as he had stated on many occasions) defects in the apparatus and improper administration.
From Olympus to Camelot
Authors: Leeming David
Published: October 2023

From the stories suggested by the great cave paintings of the Paleolithic period to the thought experiments of modern scientists, From Olympus to Camelot provides a sweeping history of the development of the rich and varied European mythological tradition. David Leeming, an authority on world mythology, begins with a general introduction to mythology and mythological terms, and then turns to the stories themselves. Discussing well-known figures such as Zeus, Aphrodite, Thor, and Cuchulainn, and less familiar ones such as Perun, Mari, and the Sorcerer of Lescaux, Leeming illustrates and analyzes the enduring human endeavor to make sense of existence through deities and heroes. Following an initial exploration of the Indo-European sources of European mythology and the connections between the myths of Europe and those of India and Iran, the book proceeds to survey the major beliefs of Greek, Roman, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic cultures, as well as the mythologies of non-Indo-European cultures such as the Etruscans and the Finns. Among its contents are introductions to the pantheons of various mythologies, examinations of major mythological works, and retellings of the influential mythical stories. This work also examines European deities, creation myths, and heroes in the context of Christian belief, and considers the translation of traditional stories into the mythologies of modern European political, scientific, philosophical, and economic movements. European mythology is the core mythology of Western civilization. This wide-ranging volume offers a lively and informative survey, along with a provocative new way of understanding this fundamental aspect of European culture.
The Mythology of South America
Authors: Bierhorst John
Published: October 2023

Bierhorst traces the principle myths from tribe to tribe in seven carefully mapped regions of South America. This book includes samples from mythological stories and some chapters are devoted to special topics such as myth and politics. Bierhorst introduces readers to the female creators of the northern Andes, the male gods of the Ancient Incas, and the shameless tricksters Sun and Moon. The book includes notes, a pronunciation guide, index, maps, and photos. The new afterword focuses on the durability of Indian mythology and the abundant material increasingly available since the mid 80s. Bierhorst offers new information on previously obscure tribes on the mythological map.
The Expert versus the object
Authors: Spencer Ronald D
Published: October 2023

The authenticity of visual art has always commanded the attention of experts, dealers, collectors, and the art-minded public. Is it "real" or "original" is a way of asking what am I buying? What do I own? What am I looking at? And today more sophisticated questions are being asked: How is authenticity determined and what weight does this determination have in court? This book of essays proposes to answer those questions. Three lines of inquiry are basic to determining authenticity: a connoisseur’s evaluation, historical documentation or provenance, and scientific testing. A connoisseur is an expert who evaluates the "rightness" of a work based on much careful scrutiny of many works by an artist and familiarity with that artist’s usual manner of working with materials. In determining provenance, a researcher traces the physical object from the artist through a chain of ownership to the present owner--simple enough in concept, though it assumes that the documentation is not faked or inaccurate. The goal is to ensure that the object is the same one that left the artist’s hand. Scientific testing, although sometimes useful, is often longer on promise than result. Dating paint or wood samples, for instance, can show that a painting was made in Rembrandt’s lifetime, but it cannot prove that it is by Rembrandt’s hand. If expert opinion is divided, and large sums of money are involved, a dispute over authenticity may end up in a court of law, where evaluation of expert opinion evidence can be problematic. The essays in this book clarify the nature of the methods outlined above and explain, based on case law, the present status of authentication issues in court. Contributors include experts from Christie’s, London; Sotheby’s, New York; and the former director of the Frick Collection; as well as leading art historians and art dealers; an art conservator; a forensic graphologist; a philanthropist and collector; and a specialist in French art law. Their collective knowledge on issues of authenticity will be invaluable for anyone interested in the world of visual art.
Authenticating the Attribution of Art
Authors: O’Connor Francis V
Published: October 2023

It is unlikely that the many millions of commuters who pass beneath Grand Central Station’s famous “Sky Ceiling” every year are aware that the depiction of the ceiling’s constellations is an inauthentic work of art. Designed by the French muralist Paul Helleu (1859 – 1927) and painted in 1913, it was “restored” in 1945 by pasting grossly conspicuous asbestos panels over the original, then crudely copying the outline of the various zodiacal figures upon them. Fifty years later, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, in an otherwise commendable restoration of the entire station, spent millions of dollars to clean the fake ceiling rather than a few more to reveal the aesthetically superior original underneath. Their argument? New Yorkers were used to the copy, so why restore the admittedly better original at greater expense? This is a typically American response to the matter of authenticity.While we would condemn a politician caught in a verbal lie, however artful, visual lies in art are somehow forgivable as a matter of public policy.
The Catalogue Raisonné
Authors: Findlay Michael
Published: October 2023

A catalogue raisonné is a systematic listing of all known works by an individual artist, usually presented in chronological order and accompanied by details such as date, medium, dimensions, provenance, references, and sometimes exhibition history. Although catalogues raisonnés come in all shapes and sizes and vary in the amount of data provided, most include a descriptive analysis of the work, with a discussion of relevant issues, such as attribution or condition. Some also contain essays on the artist’s life and work, similar to those in monographic studies. What distinguishes catalogues raisonnés from the studies is the inclusion of a work-by-work itemization.
Epidemiology of Systemic Fungal Diseases: Overview
Authors: Hajjeh Rana A , Warnock David W
Published: October 2023

The last 2 decades have seen unprecedented changes in the pattern of systemic fungal diseases in humans. These infections have assumed a much greater importance, largely as a result of major advances in health care that have made possible the improved support of transplant recipients, critical-care patients, and other immunosuppressed individuals for longer periods of time. In developed countries, changing demographic patterns, in particular an aging population with a higher incidence of chronic illness and debilitation, have also resulted in an increase in the size of the population at risk for fungal infections. In addition to infections acquired in hospitals and other health-care settings, another significant development has been an increase in the occurrence of several of the endemic mycoses, in particular histoplasmosis and coccidioidomycosis, among previously healthy persons (Ampel et al, 1998; Cano and Hajjeh, 2001). Urban development, migration of populations, and natural disasters are among the factors that have contributed to this trend. The AIDS epidemic is one of the most important factors that have contributed to the rising incidence of fungal diseases. Prior to the widespread usage of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in developed countries, up to 80% of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected persons developed mucosal candidiasis, while others developed cryptococcosis, histoplasmosis, or coccidioidomycosis during the course of their disease. In this population, these infections are frequently disseminated and often life threatening. In many developing countries, the HIV epidemic is continuing to escalate, and has led to dramatic increases in the incidence of diseases previously considered rare, such as cryptococcosis and disseminated histoplasmosis.
Cell Wall Synthesis Inhibitors: Echinocandins and Nikkomycins
Authors: Groll Andreas H , Walsh Thomas J
Published: October 2023

Ever since the discovery that penicillin inhibits bacterial cell wall synthesis, developing equivalent agents to target the fungal cell wall has been a focus in antifungal drug development. Because the cell wall is essential to the vitality of fungal organisms and because its components are absent in the mammalian host, the fungal cell wall represents an ideal target for antifungal compounds. With considerable variation among different species, the gross macromolecular components of the cell wall of most fungi include chitin, alpha- or beta-linked glucans and a variety of mannoproteins. The dynamics of the fungal cell wall are closely coordinated with cell growth and cell division, and its predominant function is to control the internal turgor pressure of the cell. Disruption of the cell wall structure leads to osmotic instability, and may ultimately result in the lysis of the fungal cell. Systemic antifungal agents directed against or involving the major constituents of the fungal cell wall include the new class of echinocandin lipopeptides and the nucleoside-peptide antibiotic nikkomycin Z.
Paracoccidioidomycosis
Authors: Restrepo-Moreno Angela
Published: October 2023

Paracoccidioidomycosis is an endemic fungal infection of pulmonary origin that disseminates to different sites, notably oral mucous membranes, adrenal glands, reticulo endothelial system and skin; other organs may also be involved. The disease tends to run a chronic course with acute cases being rare; outbreaks have not been reported. Four clinical presentations are recognized: regressive subclinical infection, progressive disease that can be either chronic (adult-type), or acute/subacute (juvenile-type), and the residual form. This mycosis has certain peculiarities such as its restricted geographic distribution to Latin America, the predominance of male patients and the long periods of latency elapsing from the time of infection to the manifestations of overt disease. The etiologic agent is a thermally dimorphic fungus Paracoccidioides brasiliensis which at 35°C–37°C has a yeast form characterized by a mother cell surrounded by multiple blastoconidia resembling a pilot’s wheel. At lower temperatures (< 28°C) the fungus grows as a mould that sporadically gives rise to conidia. The fungus microniche in nature has not yet been precisely defined. The disease can be successfully treated although fibrotic sequelae are common. A comprehensive review in l994 describes the various aspects of the mycosis and its etiologic agent (Franco et al, 1994). Paracoccidioides brasiliensis is a dimorphic fungus that in host’s tissues and in cultures at 36°C–37°C grows as a yeast (Y) whereas at lower temperatures (< 28°C), it develops as a mould (M). This eukaryotic micro-organism is presently known only in its asexual (anamorph) state (Lacaz et al, 2002; Lacaz et al, 1998; Queiroz-Telles F, 1994). Yeast colonies appear within a week of incubation at 36°C (range 28°C–37°C); they are soft, wrinkled and tan to cream. Microscopically, colonies reveal yeast cells of varying sizes (4–35 µ,m) and shapes but with predominance of round to oval structures. The most characteristic grouping is that a of mother cell surrounded by multiple buds of equal or different sizes resembling a pilot’s wheel; the buds may present a connecting bridge with the mother cell. Sometimes single cells, with one bud or arranged in short chains can be observed; chalice-, balloon-shaped or broken cells are not infrequent. The yeast has a thick, refractile cell wall and contains prominent intracytoplasmic lipid vacuoles (See Color Figs. 21–1 and 21–2 in separate color insert.) (Lacaz et al, 2002; Lacaz et al, 1998; Brummer et al, 1993; Queiroz-Telles, 1994).
Electroconvulsive Therapy In The High-Risk Patient
Authors: Abrams Richard
Published: October 2023

Electroconvulsive therapy is a low-risk procedure. Its inherent safety, combined with an increasingly precise understanding of its medical physiology and the widespread availability and application of advanced monitoring techniques, now enables its routine and successful application in a group of patients previously believed to be too old or too physically ill to undergo the stress of induced convulsions: the “high-risk” patient to whom this chapter is devoted. The most recently published mortality statistic of about 2 deaths per 100,000 treatments (Kramer, 1985; 1999) has remained constant over almost 20 years, and places ECT at the low end of the risk range reported for anesthesia induction alone (Fink, 1979)—lower, in fact, than the risk for childbirth-a development that is all the more gratifying in view of the steadily increasing average age of patients for whom ECT is prescribed.
Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown
Authors: Brown Henry Box , Newman Richard , Gates Henry Louis
Published: October 2023

In 1849, Henry Brown escaped from slavery by shipping himself in a crate from Virginia to an anti-slavery office in Philadelphia. Twenty seven hours and three hundred and fifty miles later, Brown stepped out of his box to begin a new life. This is the memoir, originally published in 1851 in England, as fresh and compelling today as it was one hundred and fifty years ago. This extraordinary narrative paints an indelible portrait of life in slavery, and describes one of the most audacious, creative escapes ever completed. With a keen sense of irony, Brown examines the "peculiar institution" - from the hypocrisy of slave-owning Christian preachers, to the system of bribery that forced slaves to purchase the rights to their own belongings, to the practice of separating slave families with no warning. Indeed, it was when his own wife and children were sold away that he became determined to escape, and he enlisted the aid of a friend, who nailed him into a three-foot-by-two-foot wooden box. He travelled by railroad car, steamboat and horse cart - to the free state of Pennsylvania. His unprecedented manner of arrival made him a public sensation in the North, and a celebrity on the anti-slavery lecture circuit. With an introduction by Richard Newman and a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Narrative of the Life of Henry "Box" Brown conveys the unquenchable spirit of a hero who risked death rather than live a slave. A classic slave narrative, it makes unforgettable reading.
Democratic Autonomy
Authors: Richardson Henry S
Published: October 2023

What would our decision-making procedures look like if they were actually guided by the much-discussed concept of “deliberative democracy”? What does rule by the people for the people entail? And how can a modern government’s reliance on administrative agencies be reconciled with this populist ideal? What form must democratic reasoning take in the modern administrative state? Democratic Autonomy squarely faces these challenges to the deliberative democratic ideal. It identifies processes of reasoning that avert bureaucratic domination and bring diverse people into political agreement. To bridge our differences intelligently, Richardson argues, we cannot rely on instrumentalist approaches to policy reasoning, such as cost-benefit analysis. Instead, citizens must arrive at reasonable compromises through fair, truth-oriented processes of deliberation. Using examples from programs as diverse as disability benefits and environmental regulation, he shows how the administrative policy-making necessary to carrying out most legislation can be part of our deciding what to do. Opposing both those liberal theorists who have attacked the populist ideal and those neo-republican theorists who have given up on it, Richardson builds an account of popular rule that is sensitive to the challenges to public deliberation that arise from relying on liberal constitutional guarantees, representative institutions, majority rule, and administrative rulemaking. Written in a nontechnical style and engaged with practical issues of everyday politics, this highly original and rigorous restatement of what democracy entails is essential reading for political theorists, philosophers, public choice theorists, constitutional and administrative lawyers, and policy analysts.
A Merciful End
Authors: Dowbiggin Ian
Published: October 2023

How did today’s debate over euthanasia (taken from the Greek word for ‘good death’) become so divisive in American society? In A Merciful End Ian Dowbiggin tells, for the first time, the dramatic story of those reformers who struggled throughout the twentieth century to change the nation’s attitudes towards mercy killing and assisted suicide. Having had access to confidential records in the United States, England and Canada, and having interviewed leading figures in the American euthanasia movement, he reveals that euthanasia has been a contentious issue in America for over a century, long before Jack Kevorkian began helping patients to die. Over the course of the twentieth century, a group of public-spirited men and women tried to break down ancient Judeo-Christian prohibitions against mercy killing, overturn state laws criminalizing assisted suicide, and convince the US Supreme Court that there is a right to die in the Constitution. In their eagerness to succeed, these euthanasia advocates have often sanctioned public policies that blur the fine line between choice and duty, freedom and coercion, the rights of the individual and the needs of society. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, they had won some small victories, and the debate over whose lives were worth living still raged, but Dowbiggin argues that more and more Americans seemed to prefer better end-of-life care to sweeping changes in laws about euthanasia. America’s euthanasia movement entered the twenty-first century ready and willing to fight new wars but facing an uphill battle against sentiments such as these. Original, wide-ranging in scope, but sensitive to the personal dimensions of euthanasia, A Merciful End is an illuminating and cautionary account of the tension between motives and methods within twentieth century social reform. It provides a refreshingly new perspective on an old debate.
Faith In Nation: Exclusionary Origins Of Nationalism
Authors: Marx Anthony W .
Published: October 2023

Common wisdom has long held that the ascent of the modern nation coincided with the flowering of Enlightenment democracy and the decline of religion, ringing in an age of tolerant, inclusive, liberal states. Not so, demonstrates Anthony W. Marx in this landmark work of revisionist political history and analysis. In a startling departure from a historical consensus that has dominated views of nationalism for the past quarter century, Marx argues that European nationalism emerged two centuries earlier, in the early modern era, as a form of mass political engagement based on religious conflict, intolerance, and exclusion. Challenging the self-congratulatory geneaology of civic Western nationalism, Marx shows how state-builders attempted to create a sense of national solidarity to support their burgeoning authority. Key to this process was the transfer of power from local to central rulers; the most suitable vehicle for effecting this transfer was religion and fanatical passions. Religious intolerance—specifically the exclusion of religious minorities from the nascent state—provided the glue that bonded the remaining populations together. Out of this often violent religious intolerance grew popular nationalist sentiment. Only after a core and exclusive nationality was formed in England and France, and less successfully in Spain, did these countries move into the "enlightened" 19th century, all the while continuing to export intolerance and exclusion to overseas colonies. Providing an explicitly political theory of early nation-building, rather than an account emphasizing economic imperatives or literary imaginings, Marx reveals that liberal, secular Western political traditions were founded on the basis of illiberal, intolerant origins. His provocative account also suggests that present-day exclusive and violent nation-building, or efforts to form solidarity through cultural or religious antagonisms, are not fundamentally different from the West’s own earlier experiences.
Charles Dickens In Cyberspace
Authors: Clayton Jay
Published: October 2023

Charles Dickens in Cyberspace opens a window on a startling set of literary and scientific links between contemporary American culture and the nineteenth-century heritage it often repudiates. Surveying a wide range of novelists, scientists, filmmakers, and theorists from the past two centuries, Jay Clayton traces the concealed circuits that connect the telegraph with the Internet, Charles Babbage's Difference Engine with the digital computer, Frankenstein's monster with cyborgs and clones, and Dickens' life and fiction with all manner of contemporary popular culture--from comic books and advertising to recent novels and films. In the process, Clayton argues for two important principles: that postmodernism has a hidden or repressed connection with the nineteenth-century and that revealing those connections can aid in the development of a historical cultural studies. In Charles Dickens in Cyberspace nineteenth-century figures--Jane Austen, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Ada Lovelace, Joseph Paxton, Mary Shelley, and Mary Somerville--meet a lively group of counterparts from today: Andrea Barrett, Greg Bear, Peter Carey, Hélène Cixous, Alfonso Cuarón, William Gibson, Donna Haraway, David Lean, Richard Powers, Salman Rushdie, Ridley Scott, Susan Sontag, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, and Tom Stoppard. The juxtaposition of such a diverse cast of characters leads to a new way of understanding the "undisciplined culture" the two eras share, an understanding that can suggest ways to heal the gap that has long separated literature from science. Combining storytelling and scholarship, this engaging study demonstrates in its own practice the value of a self-reflective stance toward cultural history. Its personal voice, narrative strategies, multiple points of view, recursive loops, and irony emphasize the improvisational nature of the methods it employs. Yet its argument is serious and urgent: that the afterlife of the nineteenth century continues to shape the present in diverse and sometimes conflicting ways.
Mobile Armies
Authors: LeDonne John P
Published: October 2023

One of the first principles of Russia’s grand strategy was the determination to maintain highly mobile armies in order to carry out deep strategic penetrations across the frontier and into the enemy core areas. Here, the Russians were well ahead of their times: they pursued a Napoleonic strategy long before Napoleon was born. His strategy would be “to beat the enemy—to shatter him—to gain the capital—to drive the government into the last corner of the empire—and then, while the confusion was fresh, to dictate the peace.” The Northern War was an excellent example of such a strategy. It began in 1700 as a joint offensive operation, in alliance with Poland and Denmark, designed to take advantage of the youth of Charles XII in order to break Swedish hegemony in the Baltic.
Under The Cope of Heaven
Authors: Bonomi Patricia U
Published: October 2023

In this path breaking study, Patricia Bonomi argues that religion was as instrumental as either politics or the economy in shaping early American life and values. Looking at the middle and southern colonies as well as at Puritan New England, Bonomi finds an abundance of religious vitality through the colonial years among clergy and churchgoers of diverse religious background. The book also explores the tightening relationship between religion and politics and illuminates the vital role religion played in the American Revolution. A perennial backlist title first published in 1986, this updated edition includes a new preface on research in the field on African Americans, Indians, women, the Great Awakening, and Atlantic history and how these impact her interpretations.
Dancing with Broken Bones
Authors: Moller David Wendell
Published: October 2023

Dancing with Broken Bones provides a chilling portrait of what it is like to die while living in urban poverty. Via interviews with patients and their families as well as powerful photographs, the author demonstrates that a complex array of factors shape the experience of dying poor in the inner city: mistrust of physicians; inadequate communication among providers, patients, and families; a sense of alienation within the bureaucratic maze of the public hospital system; and indignities in care. By demystifying the stereotypes surrounding poverty, the book illumiates how faith and an unassailiable spirit provide strength and courage throughout the end of life experience. Dancing with Broken Bones is a rallying call for compassionate individuals everywhere to understand and respond to the needs of the especially vulnerable people who comprise the world of inner-city dying poor.
Who Are the Asset Poor? Levels, Trends, and Composition, 1983–1998
Authors: Haveman Robert , Wolff Edward N
Published: October 2023

The booming U.S. economy of the 1990s, particularly the big run-up in the stock market, created the impression that American households have done well, particularly in terms of wealth acquisition. As we shall show, this is decidedly not the case for many households. In this chapter, we introduce the concept of “asset poverty” as a measure of economic hardship, distinct from and complementary to the more commonly used concept of “income poverty.” We develop several measures of asset poverty and use them to document changes from 1983 to 1998 in the extent to which American households are unable to rely on an asset cushion to sustain themselves during temporary hard times. These measures indicate that in the face of the massive growth in overall assets in the United States, the level of asset poverty has actually been rising. In addition to showing the trends in overall asset poverty in the United States, we describe the patterns of asset poverty rates for various socioeconomic (e.g., race, age, schooling, family structure) groups over the 1983–1998 period.
Reaching Out to the Unbanked
Authors: Caskey John P
Published: October 2023

This chapter presents a strategy for helping the “unbanked”—those who do not have deposit accounts of any type—to join the financial mainstream. The purpose is to help these individuals build savings and improve their credit-risk profiles, in order to lower their cost of payment services, eliminate a common source of stress, and gain access to lower-cost mainstream credit. The proposed strategy has five elements. First, participating banks should open special branch offices, called “outlets,” that are conveniently located for lower-income households and that provide fee-based, check-cashing services in addition to traditional consumer banking services. Second, these outlets should offer “starter” bank accounts that have low minimum-balance requirements, cannot be overdrawn, and include access to low-cost money orders for making long-distance payments. Third, the outlets should offer accounts, similar to traditional “Christmas Club” accounts, designed to help people accumulate savings. Fourth, the outlets should offer deposit-secured loans to individuals whose credit histories would make them ineligible for mainstream credit. Fifth, banks should form partnerships with nonprofit community-based organizations to help promote the outlets and to offer budget-management and credit-repair seminars to interested clients of the outlets.
The EITC and USAs/IDAs: Maybe a Marriage Made in Heaven?
Authors: Smeeding Timothy M
Published: October 2023

This chapter addresses the possibility of linking the savings desires of the low-income population to two or more policy instruments: the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and a set of proposed policy instruments that subsidize savings behavior for low-income households through the tax code and other mechanisms, which we call universal savings accounts/ individual development accounts (USAs/IDAs). The evidence presented here suggests both motive and desire for low-income families to save. The EITC offers low-income families a clear-cut opportunity to accumulate assets and to build positive net worth. The USA/IDA legislation hopes to build on this motivation and to assist financially and logistically to meet these goals. We call this interaction “asset-based transfer policy.” However, a number of important questions need to be addressed before we can determine if this marriage of policies between the EITC and USAs/IDAs is indeed a heavenly one. In particular, further consideration of the design of USA/ IDA-type asset accumulation policies and their congruency with the savings desires of low-income beneficiaries, particularly those who benefit from the EITC, seems a good next step. The potential is there, but the case is not yet strong for such a linkage.
Regulating Specialists in the British Manner
Authors: Weisz George
Published: October 2023

In Germany, France, and the United States, organized medical professions orchestrated the regulation of specialties while navigating among a host of external forces and pressures. Doctors justified specialty regulation on the grounds that it was (1) needed to protect the public from untrained specialists and (2) imperative to restrict competition within the profession. These requirements seemed so overwhelming that little thought was given to the larger context of population health needs. In Great Britain, however, the pattern of development was different.
Infotopia How Many Minds Produce Knowledge
Authors: Sunstein Cass R
Published: October 2023

The rise of the "information society" offers not only considerable peril but also great promise. Beset from all sides by a never-ending barrage of media, how can we ensure that the most accurate information emerges and is heeded? In this book, Cass R. Sunstein develops a deeply optimistic understanding of the human potential to pool information, and to use that knowledge to improve our lives. In an age of information overload, it is easy to fall back on our own prejudices and insulate ourselves with comforting opinions that reaffirm our core beliefs. Crowds quickly become mobs. The justification for the Iraq war, the collapse of Enron, the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia--all of these resulted from decisions made by leaders and groups trapped in "information cocoons," shielded from information at odds with their preconceptions. How can leaders and ordinary people challenge insular decision making and gain access to the sum of human knowledge? Stunning new ways to share and aggregate information, many Internet-based, are helping companies, schools, governments, and individuals not only to acquire, but also to create, ever-growing bodies of accurate knowledge. Through a ceaseless flurry of self-correcting exchanges, wikis, covering everything from politics and business plans to sports and science fiction subcultures, amass--and refine--information. Open-source software enables large numbers of people to participate in technological development. Prediction markets aggregate information in a way that allows companies, ranging from computer manufacturers to Hollywood studios, to make better decisions about product launches and office openings. Sunstein shows how people can assimilate aggregated information without succumbing to the dangers of the herd mentality--and when and why the new aggregation techniques are so astoundingly accurate. In a world where opinion and anecdote increasingly compete on equal footing with hard evidence, the on-line effort of many minds coming together might well provide the best path to infotopia.
The Undercover economist
Authors: Harford Tim
Published: October 2023

An economist's version of The Way Things Work, this engaging volume is part field guide to economics and part expose of the economic principles lurking behind daily events, explaining everything from traffic jams to high coffee prices. The Undercover Economist is for anyone who's wondered why the gap between rich and poor nations is so great, or why they can't seem to find a decent second-hand car, or how to outwit Starbucks. This book offers the hidden story behind these and other questions, as economist Tim Harford ranges from Africa, Asia, Europe, and of course the United States to reveal how supermarkets, airlines, and coffee chains--to name just a few--are vacuuming money from our wallets. Harford punctures the myths surrounding some of today's biggest controversies, including the high cost of health-care; he reveals why certain environmental laws can put a smile on a landlord's face; and he explains why some industries can have high profits for innocent reasons, while in other industries something sinister is going on. Covering an array of economic concepts including scarce resources, market power, efficiency, price gouging, market failure, inside information, and game theory, Harford sheds light on how these forces shape our day-to-day lives, often without our knowing it. Showing us the world through the eyes of an economist, Tim Harford reveals that everyday events are intricate games of negotiations, contests of strength, and battles of wits. Written with a light touch and sly wit, The Undercover Economist turns "the dismal science" into a true delight.
Classical Mythology
Authors: Hansen William
Published: October 2023

The birth of Aphrodite, the Trojan Horse, Zeus disguised as a swan. These and other classical myths and legends are usually encountered separately, but together they make up a coherent, multigenerational saga of epic battles, bizarre metamorphoses, immortal heroes, and all-too-human gods-a fantastic world recognizably real to its audience. Classical Mythology offers newcomers and long-time enthusiasts new ways to navigate the world of Greek and Roman myths, beginning by exploring the landscapes where the myths are set. It then provides a richly detailed timeline of mythic episodes from the origin of the cosmos to the end of the Heroic Age-plus an illustrated mythological dictionary listing significant characters, places, events, objects, and concepts. Whether you wish to explore the world that gave rise to ancient mythology or research a specific piece of the whole, this handbook is the best introduction available to an extraordinary cast of characters (gods, nymphs, satyrs, monsters, heroes) and the natural and supernatural stages upon which their fates are played out. Features. A detailed timeline serves as a convenient “episode guide” chronicling events described in classical mythology. A comprehensive A-Z section offers a quick way to identify the gods, mortals, events, and objects that are key to specific myths and legends
Introduction
Authors: Yekelchyk Serhy
Published: October 2023

In late 2004, hundreds of thousands of orange-clad protesters occupied the Ukrainian capital’s city centre to protest electoral fraud and the poisoning of an opposition candidate. A very modern revolt, the Orange Revolution featured slogans text-messaged to cellular phones, protest songs set to rap, and big television screens on the streets showing larger-than-life opposition leaders. The events in Kyiv were one of the most televised revolutions in history. Although the Ukrainian media at first obeyed the outgoing regime in minimizing the protests, Western television crews worked freely, and viewers all around the world received daily updates from Ukraine. The images of Kyiv’s Independence Square filled with demonstrators and the tents set up on Khreshchatyk Boulevard became familiar to a large international audience. Almost a “reality show” of a popular rebellion against corrupt authorities, the reports from Kyiv remained the top news until January 2005, when foreign viewers cheered the bad guys being voted off the new island of democracy. The winners of the Orange Revolution, meanwhile, faced the much less photogenic struggle to reform their country-an effort that would rarely be featured in international headlines.
Inheritance, Dowry, and Dower
Authors: Hanawalt Barbara A
Published: October 2023

The “Good Wife” poem advised that a mother should busy herself as soon as her daughters were born and “gather fast for their marriage, and give them spousing, as soon as they be of age.” Early marriage guarded against unacceptable romantic dalliances, but marriage usually required material wealth on the part of both the bride and groom. The training of young women, as we have seen, was more for marriage than for a craft, although not all young women married. As in most of northwestern Europe, London marriage contracts retained the dowry (the bridal gift at marriage) and dower (the husband’s provision for his widow should he predecease her). Dowry and dower in London could be in the form of freehold real estate, leased property, money, and goods. London women could, as we have seen, inherit property and wealth in their own names and pass it on to heirs or heiresses. Even among the poor, the presumption was that a girl should contribute a dowry Inheritance, Dowry, and Dower to the economic partnership of marriage with some money and chattels or perhaps some supplemental trade.
The Formation of Marriage
Authors: Hanawalt Barbara A
Published: October 2023

Marriage was both a contractual agreement and an emotional investment. For women, it was a defining moment in their lives. A woman ceased to be identified in the records and in daily life as “daughter of ” and became the “wife of ” her husband. On her husband’s death, she was called “widow of ” or “relict of.” In a subsequent marriage, she would take the identity of her new husband, but if she had property from her first husband, she would be the relict of the former husband and the wife of the current husband. Marriage usually meant a change of domicile for the woman. Unlike the Italian pattern, in which the bride moved into the husband’s family household, she and her husband would usually have their own establishment. The English seemed to have a strong preference for conjugal family residences.
Standard of Living and Women as Consumers
Authors: Hanawalt Barbara A
Published: October 2023

The standard of living of women in various status groups in urban centers and the consumer products they bought were essential to all urban economies, including that of London. From the high end of the economy to the low, women were major participants in the day-to-day commerce of London. While not major producers of wealth in terms of crafts or large entrepreneurial activities, they were among the important consumers. They owned, bought, and rented houses, rooms, and shops, and they were often in charge of the upkeep on these establishments. They received as dowry and gifts clothing, jewelry, and household goods. They bought food for themselves and their households, and they purchased clothing and such luxury items as they could afford. To understand women’s standard of living, we must look at the spaces women frequented, the housing they occupied, the goods they possessed, and the things—both material and spiritual—they bought. The living conditions of women from the highest status to the lowest offer an intimate understanding of their lives.
Servants, Casual Labor, and Vendors
Authors: Hanawalt Barbara A
Published: October 2023

The number of women who held prestigious entrepreneurial roles, either in trade or real estate, was limited, but those in small businesses, service jobs, wage labor, and illegal activities for economic gain was much larger. Women in medieval cities did much of the day-to-day retail trade. The numbers and the marital status of these women are impossible to determine statistically in London. Those historians who have seen the demographic slump of the late Middle Ages as a “golden age” permitting women to enter entrepreneurial activities extend the glow to working women, seeing new opportunities for women in wage labor. But others have taken a more reserved view, seeing their position as marginal or little changed from the past. London evidence for these women is mostly anecdotal, as is much of the evidence in other studies. The historian Marjorie Keniston McIntosh has produced the best study of women and work in England from the thirteenth through the early seventeenth centuries. Women were most numerous as servants with few skills, but some women found more skilled trades and made a living at them, particularly in the luxury items. Other women made their way as hucksters, selling beer, wine, and prepared foods in the streets. Women did not generally enjoy continuity of work but changed their occupations and work as the needs arose. These women’s lives tended to be determined by opportunities that came and went and were combined with domestic responsibilities for family, their own health, and their old age. When all else failed, women sold their bodies, not as a glamorized “sex workers” but in casual encounters to tide them over. One cannot romanticize the lives of the working women, most of whom lacked stable employment situations.