bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
On the formation of eccentric millisecond pulsars by accretion-induced collapse of massive white dwarfs
Authors: Wang D , Gong B P
Published: October 2023

Millisecond pulsars (MSPs) are believed to be old neutron stars that have undergone spin-up by the accreting material from the donor. However, the discovery of eccentric MSPs (eMSPs) in the Galactic field challenges such a scenario of producing MSP–white dwarf systems only in a circular orbit. As the orbital periods and companion masses of these eMSPs are located in a narrow range, it is reasonable to postulate that they have the same origin. Although many models have been proposed to interpret the origin of eMSPs, the origin of the narrow range of the orbital period is still an open question. The accretion-induced collapse (AIC) of the oxygen–neon white dwarf is considered to be an important pathway to form MSPs, as it is expected to result in the formation of MSPs in a circular orbit due to tidal circularization. Here we revisited this scenario using binary population synthesis including the specific circularization calculation. Our results indicate that binaries with insufficient circularization in this scenario can evolve into eMSPs. The narrow initial binary parameters required by insufficient circularization can naturally account for the narrow range of the orbital period. Although the evolution of the white dwarf AIC process is not yet well understood, the characteristic of a narrow range in the orbital period of eMSPs can still set constraints on the physics of their evolution.
Exploring the Sun’s birth radius and the distribution of planet building blocks in the Milky Way galaxy: a multizone Galactic chemical evolution approach
Authors: Baba Junichi , Saitoh Takayuki R , Tsujimoto Takuji
Published: October 2023

We explore the influence of the Milky Way galaxy’s chemical evolution on the formation, structure, and habitability of the Solar system. Using a multizone Galactic chemical evolution (GCE) model, we successfully reproduce key observational constraints, including the age–metallicity ([Fe/H]) relation, metallicity distribution functions, abundance gradients, and [X/Fe] ratio trends for critical elements involved in planetary mineralogy, including C, O, Mg, and Si. Our GCE model suggests that the Sun formed in the inner Galactic disc, Rbirth,⊙ ≈ 5 kpc. We also combined a stoichiometric model with the GCE model to examine the temporal evolution and spatial distribution of planet building blocks within the Milky Way galaxy, revealing trends in the condensed mass fraction (fcond), iron-to-silicon mass fraction (firon), and water mass fraction (fwater) over time and towards the inner Galactic disc regions. Specifically, our model predicts a higher fcond in the protoplanetary disc within the inner regions of the Milky Way galaxy, as well as an increased firon and a decreased fwater in the inner regions. Based on these findings, we discuss the potential impact of the Sun’s birth location on the overall structure and habitability of the Solar system.
Denaturing Bacteria
Authors: Schneider Daniel
Published: October 2023

In the first half of the twentieth century, competing chemical firms sought to develop and control the use of bacteria through patents. Patentability requirements of novelty and invention demanded that applicants differentiate the bacteria used in their processes from prior art. But how to determine whether one bacteria was different from another for purposes of intellectual property law interacted with the developing theoretical ideas of bacterial variability and taxonomy as well as bacteriological practice. This chapter shows how microbiologists, inventors, patent examiners, and the courts struggled to identify bacteria which in turn raised questions such as whether bacteria were defined by their morphology or by their function, whether they could be considered plants, and whether they were defined by how or when they were isolated.
Intellectual Property’s Antecedent
Authors: Chapman Susannah
Published: October 2023

Over the past century, states have used a diversity of juridical methods to regulate the emergence and circulation of biological materials. These have included a number of different forms of intellectual property protection—such as plant patents, plant variety rights, and utility patents—but they have also entailed a diversity of other legal interventions intended to regulate the quality and circulation of plant germplasm within economically important agricultural markets. This chapter tracks the rise and fall of one such intervention within the British Empire—the implementation of a Seednut Storage Law in colonial Gambia—in order to explore the relationship between living materials and intellectual property law.
Some Outlandish Legal Tales
Authors: Hermitte Marie-Angèle
Published: October 2023

This chapter traces the emergence of intellectual property protection for biological innovations in twentieth-century France. In doing so, the chapter highlights the struggles French law-makers had in ensuring that biological innovations were able to circulate as forms of intellectual property. More specifically, the chapter highlights the problems that plant breeders faced in translating the notion that their trade combines human creativity with the interplay of nature into a suitable legal form. The chapter retraces the historical process by which this legal form developed. In doing so, the chapter retraces the path that was followed in order to identify in the legal order the categories and concepts that best fitted the actual practices in agronomy. It ends by looking at how four decades later biological and technological breakthroughs undermined these new intellectual property laws.
Copyright, Nature, and Travel Narratives
Authors: Alexander Isabella
Published: October 2023

Focusing on the genre of travel writing, this chapter explores the intersections between copyright and nature and their relationship with empire during the formative years of the modern statutory regime of copyright law. It takes a detailed look at the publication of the accounts of Captain James Cook’s Pacific voyages, and the ensuing legal disputes over copyright, as well as non-legal disputes over authorship. In doing so, the chapter observes the parallels between the ways in which travel narratives enable nature to be valued for its exploitable potential, and the ways in which copyright law allows nature to be ‘authored’ and thus appropriated as an object of copyright.
Scientific Activism and Intellectual Property
Authors: Berry Dominic J
Published: October 2023

This chapter concerns plant breeders at the Organic Research Centre and synthetic biologists based in Cambridge and Norwich developing the OpenPlant project. Despite their differences, both groups directly intervened in intellectual property norms concerning their practices. The Organic Research Centre won an exemption from intellectual property laws governing its seeds from the European Commission, allowing it to sell a variety which would not otherwise have been protected. OpenPlant developed its own version of a material transfer agreement. This chapter documents these efforts and unpacks their significance in light of the longer history of intellectual property in plants and biological science.
Creating New Values in Animals in the Era of Mendel’s Rediscovery
Authors: Matz Brendan
Published: October 2023

In the years following the American Civil War, the problem of obtaining remunerative prices for skilled breeding work became acute, as deliberate misrepresentation of pedigrees increased. Breeders’ associations were created primarily to address the issue of fraud, and they succeeded to some degree in promoting higher prices for certified stock. Yet the prevalence of market fads and fluctuations eventually led to calls for more objective approaches to the selection of breeding animals. During the first decade and a half of the twentieth century, breeders began to advocate for evaluation based on the measurement and experimental testing of clearly defined performance characteristics. This chapter examines the rise of breeders’ associations and the shift to a performance ideal following 1900, paying close attention to the relationship between intellectual property and the market for purebred livestock.
Great King orCivilis Princeps?
Authors: Michels Christoph
Published: October 2023

Antoninus Pius appears in our literary sources as an emperor who embodied the ideal of the civilis princeps, limiting pomp and ceremony and acting as a private citizen. However, there was still considerable distance between the emperor and his courtiers, particularly in the way in which they interacted on a daily basis. This becomes very clear in the letters of M. Cornelius Fronto. Although he was the teacher of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, he was not a member of Antoninus’ inner circle. Fronto’s correspondence with the emperor shows that he did not present himself as the emperor’s equal. Instead, he used effusive and flattering language to heighten the distance between himself and Antoninus. This shows that the atmosphere of the Roman imperial court was shaped just as much by the courtiers as it was by the emperor.
Changing the Guard
Authors: Rollinger Christian
Published: October 2023

From the time of their creation under Augustus, a variety of guard units under the direct command of the emperors or his court officials acted in a number of roles ranging from military duties to ceremonial appearances in the service of representing imperial power. As with all bodyguard units throughout history, their ceremonial nature was reflected in their appearance during state ceremonies such as accession rituals or imperial funerals, but also in their (ceremonial) equipment and military (court) costume. This chapter shows the slow change in the role and nature of guard units, tracing this evolution from the ‘classical’ guard of the Principate, the Praetorians, to their replacements in the fourth and fifth centuries (the scholae palatinae and excubitores). As part of the pageantry of empire, guard units served to underscore and to represent visually imperial authority and dignity. The evolution of imperial guard units is demonstrated as progressing in step with the general evolution of the imperial court, not so much prefiguring as mirroring the development of new configurations of the court.
Cities, Palaces, and the Tetrarchic Imperial Courts
Authors: Jaeschke Verena , Davenport Caillan
Published: October 2023

This chapter considers the cities uses as principal residences by emperors during the Tetrarchic period (ad 284–324). These included Antioch (Antakya), Nicomedia (İzmit), Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica), Thessalonica (Thessaloniki), and Serdica (Sofia) in the eastern provinces and Mediolanum (Milan), Augusta Treverorum (Trier), and Aquileia (ancient name retained) in the western half of the empire. The cities were all equipped with infrastructure, such as palaces, circuses, and baths, which marked them out as suitable residences to house the emperor and his court. These transformations did not occur simultaneously, but over a period of some decades. The chapter considers the way in which the foundation of these principal residences, and the movement between them, shaped the court community during the Tetrarchic period.
Envisioning Audiences at the Roman Imperial Court
Authors: Davenport Caillan
Published: October 2023

This chapter examines how the emperor and his court were portrayed between the first and sixth centuries in accounts written by, or featuring, individuals who had audiences with the emperor, either as petitioners and ambassadors or as accused criminals committed to stand trial. These individuals were representatives of different religious, political, and cultural communities, or ‘interest groups’, including sophists, philosophers, the Greek community of Alexandria, Jews, and Christians. Despite their different time periods, genres, and cultural backgrounds, the narratives all share a common focus on the interaction between a representative of the interest group and the emperor at court, and the individual courtiers (women, slaves, officials) who help or hinder their encounter with the emperor. This shows that in the Roman world, the court was primarily envisioned in terms of people and personalities.
Arabic and the Case against Linearity in Historical Linguistics
Authors: Owens Jonathan
Published: October 2023

Interpretations of Arabic language history have been dominated by a linear conception beginning with its early transition from Semitic pre-history to pre-Islamic Arabic and then to the Classical language. Thereafter comes, “neo-Arabic,” in the history of western scholarship usually relegated to the status of dialectology. Expanding on A linguistic history of Arabic (OUP 2006/9), this book advocates a multiple pathways approach. Arabic has multifarious evidential sources: relations to other Semitic languages, epigraphic and papyrological traditions, a linguistically original classical Arabic linguistic tradition, a widely dispersed array of contemporary spoken varieties representing necessary components for reconstructing Arabic language history itself. These diverse sources meld to characterize a holistic but not necessarily linear Arabic language history. From a general linguistic perspective, Arabic in its wide geographical and chronological expanse provides fertile ground for a critical invocation of new perspectives and methodologies in historical linguistics: sociolinguistics, typology and grammaticalization theory, corpus linguistics, and attendant statistical treatment. This is demonstrated via more than 20 individual case studies covering over 1,500 years of documented and reconstructed history. An historical object more complex than traditional accounts emerges. Embedding the study in a wider comparative account, a comparison of the historical morphology of three languages documented over roughly the same period of interval time ca. ad 500–ad 2022, Icelandic, English, and Arabic is undertaken. Arabic contrasts with the linearity of English; it shares aspects of alinearity with Icelandic, but also contains within it elements of multilinearity spread across many individual historical speech communities.
Origins of the Debate Concerning Location of Cultural Objects
Authors: Gerstenblith Patty
Published: October 2023

This chapter traces the origins of the three strands that developed at the turn of the nineteenth century and that underpin the removals of cultural objects and the debate as to whether they should be returned. These strands became intertwined to provide the rationales and contexts for removal of cultural objects and continue to form the basis of the contemporary questions of where cultural objects should be located. The chapter begins with an account of cultural looting during the Roman Empire and notes the focus on legitimate versus illegitimate takings during that period. Moving forward to the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, the chapter explains the development of the concept of a shared world heritage, the emergence of the rescue narrative and the concept of cultural patrimony, and the principle of restitution that was applied at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The chapter then describes how the Enlightenment and the development of ‘connoisseurship’ in evaluating cultural objects provided the groundwork for the modern encyclopedic museum. The chapter ends with a discussion of the emergence of archaeology and the scientific study of the past and how the extensive geographic reach of the umbrella of imperialism and colonialism laid the groundwork for the large-scale expropriations that took place throughout the nineteenth century.
Appropriation of Archaeological Heritage: Market Demand and Legal Responses
Authors: Gerstenblith Patty
Published: October 2023

This chapter examines the particular issues of looting of archaeological sites, a phenomenon that became a significant factor in the middle of the twentieth century and continues today. It looks at the negative externalities and losses imposed on society, which increased as the application of scientific methodologies increased the knowledge that could be derived from proper excavation. The chapter begins with a consideration of the harms both to global society through the loss of knowledge caused by the destruction of archaeological context and to the communities and States of origin through loss of cultural and intellectual capital, damage to artefacts, the acceptance of fakes and forgeries, and finally the funding of armed conflict and other illegal activities. The chapter then turns to the legal responses to these issues starting with the historical approaches of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century and spanning to contemporary laws that rely on State control and ownership of archaeological artefacts. The purpose of this legal regime is to discourage looting by imposing consequences on looters and all those involved in the market chain and to provide legal recourse for the return of illegally taken artefacts. The chapter includes an analysis of judicial decisions in market States that recognize foreign State ownership of archaeological artefacts, along with international conventions that together constitute the legal framework to protect archaeological heritage.
The Gambling Century
Authors: Eglin John
Published: October 2023

The Gambling Century traces the role of commercial entrepreneurship in the expansion of certain forms of gaming, and the relationship of commercial gaming to the institutions of social and cultural exchange that emerged in seventeenth and eighteenth century Britain. It is concerned with the prototypes of casino gambling, games of chance played against a ‘house’ that derives profit from the mathematical edge it enjoys over long series of chance episodes. Rather than focus on the gambler as a character or an archetype, or on gamblers collectively, it shifts attention to those who enabled, facilitated, and profited from gaming. It is also concerned with the spaces that gaming occupied, and the way that these were configured or reconfigured in response to efforts either to regulate gaming or turn it into a reliable profit centre. Gaming as a commercial venture thrived in the institutions of social and cultural exchange that a generation of scholars associated with a ‘public sphere.’ The book accordingly follows gaming from the courtly to the commercial sector, from the Groom Porter’s lodge into coffeehouses and ‘ordinaries,’ then back into relative sequestration in private clubs and ’at-homes,’ all of which prefigure that quintessentially modern gambling space, the casino.
Introduction
Authors: Borkent Mike
Published: October 2023

This chapter briefly locates this book at the intersections of literary studies, cognitive linguistics, and multimodality studies, which befits a work of comics studies scholarship. It notes that the book further addresses the need for a cognitive poetic approach that combines form and meaning, and how this is the only way to properly address the complexity of comprehension and interpretation associated with multimodal texts. The chapter then gives an overview of the structure and key insights of subsequent chapters.
Conclusions and Extensions
Authors: Borkent Mike
Published: October 2023

This chapter offers a brief conclusion of previous chapters. It then proceeds to show how key aspects of the previous chapters are challenged and extended by digital comics. This very common area of comics creation operates with many similar conventions that pay homage to print comics, but expand the multimodal possibilities for expression and readerly interaction with the text. This chapter briefly explores a range of these options to illustrate how the multimodal cognitive poetics developed in previous chapters can extend to analyses of more dynamical forms in digital comics. Extending the cognitive approach to the complexity of digital comics is a crucial next step in developing a completely dynamical multimodal cognitive poetics of comics that can only be gestured to here.
Program Team Building
Authors: Searcy Yan Dominic , Harden Troy
Published: October 2023

Chapter 3 focuses on the importance of selecting a leader for program development, including the characteristics that youth program managers should embody. Good leadership can inspire and poor leadership can damage. Leadership is critically important. Leadership is operationalized in this chapter as a dynamic process-driven activity that involves role, goals, and influence between a person and a group. Much has been written about management and leadership within the human service context. Briefly covering a definition of leadership, the chapter moves to explore the concept of authentic leadership and then moves to explore the characteristics and leadership traits of successful youth development leaders. Those traits include authenticity, inclusiveness, availability, care, and accountability.
Recruitment, Retention, and Participation
Authors: Searcy Yan Dominic , Harden Troy
Published: October 2023

Chapter 4 covers recruitment, retention, and participation. Considered as both art and science, the focus of the chapter is on recruitment. Recruitment is considered by the authors as the most overlooked but important aspect of youth work. The authors note that the adage, “If you build it, they will come,” does not readily apply. The chapter considers competition between programs as an element that impacts participation. Transportation, safety getting to programming sites, and the actual program sites are also considered key elements for improving retention and participation. Additionally, the chapter discusses the importance of considering youth personality attributes and affinities. The authors caution that at risk or high risk is not a personality trait and that participation is impacted when programming is not matched to reflect the diversity of personalities and affinities that exist among youth.
Retreats
Authors: Searcy Yan Dominic , Harden Troy
Published: October 2023

Chapter 8 establishes the importance of including retreats as part of youth programming. Retreats have their roots in cultural traditions that suggest that departing from daily practices allows for clarity, reawakening, new perspective, meditation, rest, self-reflection, and community reflection. Nearly every cultural tradition has some type of retreat. Stepping back or stepping away is a valued human tradition. It continues to be practiced because of its impact. The chapter focuses primarily on retreat planning and identifies and discusses ten elements to include when planning for youth retreats. Those elements range from goal setting to whom should contribute to retreat planning.
From the Atom to Living Systems
Authors: Banchetti-Robino Marina Paola , Villani Giovanni
Published: October 2023

This book represents an original journey beginning from the simple and undifferentiated atom to differentiated atoms, molecules, macromolecules, and the thresholds of life. One of the most important aims of this book is to underline the philosophical function of the concept of molecule. The description of the material world permitted by the concept of structured entity has revolutionized the entire scientific worldview. Moreover, the concept of macromolecule has projected the molecular world toward the threshold of the biological world, and this analysis will also form an integral part of this book. The scientific and epistemological approach toward the molecular world will also serve to link chemistry with philosophy proper. Up to the 19th century, chemistry had enjoyed its own philosophical foundation, which was anchored in the concept of the atom, a concept with a rich philosophical heritage. The 20th-century appropriation of this concept by physicists deprived chemistry of its distinctive philosophical foundation, relegating it to being merely an applied branch of physics. In this regard, we consider the concept of molecular structure to be an exquisitely philosophical concept and the strong point permitting a solid differentiation of chemistry from physics. The recuperation of a fertile relationship between chemistry and philosophy can and must occur around the concept of structured and complex reality. Chemistry can be projected to the cultural vanguard but only if its practitioners once again attend to the conceptual and philosophical concerns within their discipline, albeit without abandoning the technical concerns that are essential to modern science.
Introduction: A Systemic Chemistry
Authors: Banchetti-Robino Marina Paola , Villani Giovanni
Published: October 2023

This introduction clarifies the philosophical vision of the world and the consequent methodology behind this book. The perspective used is the systemic one, but since today this term has assumed a wide and diversified meaning in the literature, this introduction will clarify the specific meaning of our approach, starting from the meaning of the term system. Our idea of system is based on three key assertions that may seem contradictory but are necessary and complementary to its definition. In particular, we consider the usual idea that the system is more and less than the sum of its juxtaposed parts, highlighting the role of emergences and constraints. In our idea of a system, however, we must consider a third fundamental characteristic: its dynamism, the dual nature of the system as an entity and as a process, its role as a “dynamic entity.” Afterward, the holistic and reductionist approaches are analyzed in detail, and both the specific merits and the fact that these two opposing worldviews, considered individually, cannot give a complete and balanced description of reality, are taken into account. For us, only the systemic approach provides a balanced description of both the parts and the whole and must, therefore, be preferred. Finally, the differences between our approach and the approaches mentioned above are considered in detail.
Early Modern Mechanistic Atomism and the Concept of Structure
Authors: Banchetti-Robino Marina Paola , Villani Giovanni
Published: October 2023

One of the most significant developments that helped usher in early modern science was the mechanistic theory of matter or mechanicism, as it was advocated by natural philosophers such as René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Robert Boyle. What distinguishes mechanicism from its Aristotelian and vitalistic predecessors is its attempt to explain natural phenomena by reducing all higher-level qualities of material bodies to the mechanistic properties of fundamental particles. A correlate of this reductionist perspective is the view that matter is an inert substance devoid of any “force,” inherent motion, or self-organization. In this view, all phenomena and interactions in nature are produced by the impact and collision of particles, which are themselves governed by the fundamental laws of mechanics. This conception of matter cannot account for the existence of chemical properties, since such properties do not exist at the level of fundamental particles. Yet, chemical properties have causal power and in addition govern how distinct substances react and interact with each other. In order to account for such higher-level properties, while still retaining a mechanistic theory of fundamental matter, several early modern natural philosophers posited that concretions of fundamental particles were the elementary chemical units that account for the existence of chemical properties. This chapter will focus on the ideas of Pierre Gassendi and Robert Boyle in this regard, since their conceptions of structure served to usher in complexity within the framework of the early modern particulate theory of matter.
Lavoisier and the Quantification of Chemistry
Authors: Banchetti-Robino Marina Paola , Villani Giovanni
Published: October 2023

Dissatisfied with his predecessors’ metaphysical speculations regarding fundamental matter, the 18th-century chemist Antoine Lavoisier took chemistry in a different direction from that followed in the previous century. He did so by eschewing philosophical theorizations and by rendering chemistry an entirely empirical pursuit with quantifiable experimental results. According to Lavoisier, rather than speculating about the fundamental nature of matter, chemists should restrict themselves to identifying the final products of analysis and to regarding those products that could not be further analyzed as elementary substances. The reformed chemical nomenclature that Lavoisier proposed focused on reflecting the elementary composition of compound substances and, thus, on identifying the “simple substances” of which compound substances were composed. Lavoisier was thus able to codify a simple, coherent, and accurate compositional chemistry. His approach allowed him to identify 33 elements, thus taking the first and essential step in the direction of modern chemistry. In spite of the success of his approach, Lavoisier claimed that neither experience nor experimental observation could furnish proof that a substance was truly elementary. In fact, he regarded the analytical approach to identifying elements as provisional and his table of elements as open to revision, since he recognized that future and more sophisticated methods of analysis might succeed in further breaking down the substances on his list of elements. Lavoisier’s quantification of chemistry and his identification of chemical elements represented crucial turning points not only for chemistry but for the entire conceptual structure of science.
John Dalton and Chemical Atomism
Authors: Banchetti-Robino Marina Paola , Villani Giovanni
Published: October 2023

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the relevance of atomism for chemistry remained unclear for both a practical and conceptual reason. From the practical point of view, atoms were not conceived as having properties that were experimentally quantifiable, and, from the conceptual point of view, classical atomism clashed with both the theory and practice of chemistry because it represented atoms as having uniform properties limited to shape, size, and motion. It was also unclear how the concept of atom could possibly be related to the concept of element, since these notions implied completely different ways of conceptualizing what it means for an entity or a substance to be fundamental. Although it was well known that chemical substances were qualitatively distinct from each other, it was not clear how qualitative differences could be explained by the microscopic properties of atoms. These questions were ultimately resolved by John Dalton, who discovered a way to measure indirectly the weight of atoms, thereby providing confirmation for the atomic hypothesis and transforming it into the atomic theory. Once Dalton discovered a way of differentiating microscopic substances, the atomic theory began to have a real effect on chemistry. Furthermore, although the definition of chemical element advanced by Lavoisier had deliberately separated the macroscopic plane from the experimentally inaccessible microscopic plane, Dalton eliminated this separation. In fact, the very co-presence of the microscopic and macroscopic planes of atoms, molecules, elements, and compounds has come to constitute the defining character of chemical explanation since Dalton.
Valence, Chemical Bonds, and the Theory of Elements
Authors: Banchetti-Robino Marina Paola , Villani Giovanni
Published: October 2023

Although Dalton’s theory was based on simple assumptions, what made it particularly difficult to accept was that it required the existence of about fifty distinct types of atoms. Many chemists at the time found it impossible to believe that God would have used so many types of substances to construct the world. There was also skepticism regarding whether Lavoisier had successfully identified elementary substances. Consequently, many 19th-century chemists avoided use of the term element and instead favored the term undecomposed bodies. This attitude stimulated the work of William Prout, who noticed that the atomic weights of many elements were almost exactly the multiple of the atomic weight of hydrogen. He thus proposed that heavier atoms were formed by the additive aggregation of hydrogen atoms. Furthermore, during this time, several electrochemical theories were advanced regarding chemical affinity, but the question remained open as to what enabled atoms to combine according to well-determined numerical relations. In other words, the nature of atomic valence was not yet understood. Although organic chemistry eventually concluded that each element has a constant valence, the evidence from inorganic chemistry demonstrated that valence is not a constant property, nor is it found in isolated atoms. It depends, instead, on the nature of bonded atoms and the physicochemical conditions in which such atoms interact. Furthermore, although valence theories like that of Kekulé-Couper claimed that all interatomic bonds were the same within molecules, the question of whether such bonds were indeed equal remained open.
The Relationship between Chemistry and Biology in the 19th Century
Authors: Banchetti-Robino Marina Paola , Villani Giovanni
Published: October 2023

In this chapter, we will develop the relationship between chemistry and biology in the 19th century along three lines: matter, energy, and entropy. The philosophical problem of vitalism falls within the first line. Justus von Liebig’s description of the animals as “walking stoves” and the concept of milieu interiéur by Claude Bernard will be part of the line of development of energy. Finally, the entropic guideline will include the general problem of reconciling the increase of disorder, linked to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, with the evidence that the living world is organized/ordered and evolution moves toward increasing species complexity. With regard to the philosophical problem of vitalism, we will be mainly concerned with three historical moments: (1) the artificial synthesis of urea by Friedrich Wöhler, (2) the dispute between Pierre-Eugène-Marcellin Berthelot and Louis Pasteur, and (3) Eduard Buchner’s discovery of cell-free fermentation. In addition, the birth of thermodynamics and its influence on the relationship between chemistry and biology will also be discussed. Also considered is the general problem of reconciling the increase of entropy (and of “disorder”) that is linked to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Scripting Revolution
Authors: Rosenberg William G.
Published: October 2023

Taking up the months preceding the February revolution, chapter 6 contrasts the liberals’ story of urgently needed political reform to the widespread narrative of “literally facing starvation.” Discussion shows how the confiscatory program of Minister of Agriculture Rittikh to force grain deliveries, supported by liberals, was complemented with an extension of compulsory labor and the unexpected onslaught of civil war as this obligation was extended to exempt Muslim communities. Among other effects, subsistence protests and a new wave of industrial strikes augured badly for the possibility of social peace and political liberalization. The chapter suggests that taking account of all this as well as the unabated anxieties and material losses of war, the convictions of democratic liberals and democratic socialists about how Russia should go forward became increasingly firm. In effect, figurative scripts were being written to guide an anticipated change of regimes through what many now widely regarded as Russia’s “revolutionary situation.”
Violence, Loss, and the Collapse of War Communism
Authors: Rosenberg William G.
Published: October 2023

The violence rampant throughout 1920 is examined here in terms of its origins and consequences, as “life in catastrophe” brought hunger and death to new peaks of anxiety and fear. Desertion from every army testified to the weaknesses of competing regimes and ideologies. The extension of Cheka powers, the Bolsheviks’ “labor armies,” the “Tsektran” controversy, and the ultimate impossibility of meeting workers’ or peasants’ needs are all discussed here, along with the meanings of labor protests in January 1921 and the Kronstadt sailors’ rebellion during the Tenth Party Congress. Lenin’s New Economic Policy promising material betterment and a relaxation of confiscation was ironically prelude to the massive peasant uprising in Tambov, the worst famine in modern Russian history, and the consolidation soon of Stalinist confiscations and losses as a still rebellious countryside and a restless intelligentsia remained unsecured.
The Promises of Exiles
Authors: Zoloth Laurie
Published: October 2023

This chapter is a critical review of the scholarly literature about religion and climate change. It then turns to sources in the tradition of Jewish thought to describe a larger issue: our existential state of exile itself. This chapter argues that this theme of exile is both ontological and theological. As such, because human beings do not possess the Earth, but only traverse it, we can move to a different relationship to the planet. The chapter reviews the structure of Jewish ethics, focusing on the way that discourse and argumentation operate in the logic of rabbinic ethics. The chapter introduces the centrality of the Sha’ma liturgy, which connects human moral behavior to the functioning of the seasons and the regularity of rain and sun, linking all of human productive activity to human moral choices. The chapter concludes with the prophetic voice we encounter in the text of Jeremiah, which makes this link strongly.
Quantum Information Science
Authors: Manenti Riccardo , Motta Mario
Published: October 2023

This comprehensive and self-consistent textbook presents quantum information science, a rapidly evolving interdisciplinary scientific field that will change modern computer science. The book is divided into four parts. The first part starts with a gentle introduction to some important mathematical concepts, followed by a discussion of computational models, linear algebra, and quantum mechanics. The second part explains more advanced topics of quantum mechanics, which are necessary to describe the decoherence of quantum states. The third part includes a presentation of entanglement, early quantum algorithms and quantum simulation, focussing on computational problems that quantum computers can solve faster than classical machines. The last part presents superconducting devices, a promising architecture for the implementation of quantum computers. With more than 200 figures and 100 exercises (with solutions), this book is ideal for a master’s course on quantum information processing. Readers starting a master’s program or a graduate course in physics, computer science, mathematics or quantum engineering will develop a good understanding of the fundamental concepts of the field.
Quantum mechanics
Authors: Manenti Riccardo , Motta Mario
Published: October 2023

In this chapter, we present the theoretical foundations of quantum mechanics. Our presentation follows the von Neumann postulates. We discuss them stepping through the parts of a typical quantum experiment: the preparation of the system, the subsequent time evolution, and the final measurement. Specifically, we present normalized vectors in a Hilbert space, that describe preparations; projection-valued measures and Hermitian operators, that describe measurable observables; and the Schrodinger equation governing time evolution. In the last part of the chapter, we present two examples of quantum systems: the qubit and the quantum harmonic oscillator. We study the interaction between them in two different regimes
The First World War and the Arrival of Jazz
Authors: Bonsaver Guido
Published: October 2023

Chapter 5 looks at the cultural impact of the arrival of US personnel in Italy when both countries entered the war against Austria and Germany. It also looks at the role of President Thomas Woodrow Wilson in shaping the policies and image of the USA abroad. On the one hand, Italians were impressed by Wilson’s communicative strategies and by the efficient propaganda and morale-boosting policies of the US contingent. The latter contained a small number of Italian Americans, one of whom, Fiorello La Guardia, was later to become mayor of New York City in the 1930s. On the other hand, in 1919 Italians were sorely disappointed by Wilson’s opposition to the fulfilment of the promised territorial gains following the secret Treaty of London. This ignited a strong anti-American sentiment among Italy’s educated elite, while the semi-illiterate masses continued to see America as a ‘land of plenty’. The second part of the chapter looks at the earliest Italian encounters with the syncopated rhythms of jazz music through the presence of US Army bands and individual musicians stationed in Italy.
America as a Mirror of Modernity
Authors: Bonsaver Guido
Published: October 2023

Chapter 6 begins the study of American culture during the Fascist period. By the 1920s, American films had become a powerful platform through which Italians acquired a vivid image of contemporary America. In the world of music, too, America rose to a new prominence. Ragtime and foxtrot rhythms were popular on the radio and in dancing halls. That all this should happen at a time when Italy fell into the hands of a nationalistic leader who made ‘autarky’ a buzzword of his policies adds further distinctive colour to the Italian perception of America during the interwar years. Benito Mussolini approached America with the ideological flexibility that characterized his leadership more broadly: America was a friend and a model of modernity to be praised, but at the same time could be pictured as a degenerate, materialistic country. The chapter also looks at the perception in Italy of the growing presence and importance of the Italian American community. By the 1920s, millions of first- and second-generation Italians were slowly climbing the social ladder, some very successfully so. The six sections of this chapter build towards a comprehensive understanding of these complex issues. Section 6.1 looks at the development of the pro- and anti-American stance; 6.2 focuses on the Italian national press and popular illustrated magazines; 6.3 focuses on Mussolini’s views on America and on those of influential individuals close to the regime. The final three sections are devoted, respectively, to three recurrent themes in the public debate: technology, women, and Italian Americans.
Scenographies of Waiting
Authors: Garrison John S.
Published: October 2023

This chapter explores the ways in which the speaker promises he can function as a double for the beloved, either in terms of the early modern friendship model or in terms of marriage. The poet draws upon a variety of dyadic models that promise pleasure, yet the power dynamics inherent in race and sexuality call that promise into question. The chapter draws upon psychoanalysis to consider idealized friends and married partners in Sonnet 122, Sonnet 24, Sonnet 73, Sonnet 74, as well as the master and the enslaved person in Sonnet 57 and Sonnet 58. Examining these poems along with Sonnet 43 yields a discussion that finds that each sonnet variously undermines the promise of the double to store and to carry forward memories as the speaker waits for the beloved.
Remembering, Repeating, and Writing Through
Authors: Garrison John S.
Published: October 2023

This chapter adapts its title from Freud’s early essay on the repetition compulsion and explores a question that has vexed many readers: why does repetition abound in the Sonnets, both within certain key poems and across the poems? This chapter argues for repetition as a form of erotic memory, revealing that this persistent rhetorical technique emphasizes that recollected pleasure intensifies with each instance. The chapter opens with an analysis of Sonnet 76 to explore how memory becomes unreliable when reliant on a network of minds. The argument then focuses on Sonnet 35 as well as a contemporary adaptation of it by Cedar Sigo to explore the pleasure inherent in toxic or bad memories. Further discussion of Sonnet 53 and Sonnet 55, as well as Sonnet 71 and Sonnet 72, considers how insights into forgetting from cognitive science and psychoanalysis grant new insight into Shakespeare’s poems.
The First Fiscal State Aid Wave
Authors: Kyriazis Dimitrios
Published: October 2023

This chapter analyses how the Commission started using State aid law as a tool against harmful tax competition in the early 2000s. It is divided into four parts. Section A introduces the key elements of the chapter. In Section B, the Commission’s relevant decision-making practice is scrutinized, mainly by focusing on five key Commission decisions and presenting their factual and legal background in order to demonstrate how effective State aid policy can be in the fight against harmful tax competition. In Section C, the Commission’s decisions’ common threads are identified and assessed. Finally, in Section D, the landmark Gibraltar case of the ECJ is used to argue that the evolution of the selectivity condition has had the effect of making it extremely difficult for Member States to enact or preserve harmful tax measures.
Totality
Authors: Littmann Mark , Espenak Fred
Published: October 2023

Totality: The Great North American Eclipse of 2024offers a relaxed, well-written, and information-packed journey discovering the history of eclipses. It also provides an overview of the mysteries surrounding solar eclipses. Photographs, maps, diagrams, charts, and illustrations aim to aid readers in safely understanding and enjoying the science, history, mythology, and folklore of eclipses. Moreover, Totalitydetails tips on how to best photograph or video record an eclipse depending on its total or partial phase. It looks into detailed maps, precise locations, and weather prospects surrounding the expected eclipse on April 8, 2024, which passes across Mexico, the United States, and Canada.
Constructing Quantum Mechanics Volume Two
Authors: Janssen Michel , Duncan Anthony
Published: October 2023

This is the second of two volumes on the genesis of quantum mechanics in the first quarter of the twentieth century. It covers the period 1923–1927. It traces how the old quantum theory of Bohr and Sommerfeld gave way to the matrix mechanics of Heisenberg and others, and to the wave mechanics of Schrödinger. It then turns to the emergence of statistical transformation theory and the Hilbert space formalism unifying these two forms of the new quantum theory. It uses the metaphor of an arch built on a scaffold to capture these developments. The volume provides detailed analyses of the classic papers of Heisenberg, Born, Jordan, Pauli, Dirac, De Broglie, Einstein, Schrödinger, von Neumann, and others, which helped to lay the foundations of modern quantum mechanics. Drawing on correspondence and later reminiscences of these authors and synthesizing much of the extensive secondary literature on the breakthrough to modern quantum mechanics in the mid-1920s, this volume presents an authoritative new account of the genesis of quantum mechanics.
Schrödinger and Wave Mechanics
Authors: Duncan Anthony , Janssen Michel
Published: October 2023

This chapter explores Schrödinger’s introduction of wave mechanics. After briefly covering Schrödinger’s earlier work, it turns to the investigations that led him to write a four-part paper in 1926 introducing and applying wave mechanics. The chapter provides a detailed analysis of these four papers, in which the analogy of the new theory to the Hamilton-Jacobi formulation of classical mechanics plays a central role, as well as the paper written in between the second and the third installment on the relation between wave and matrix mechanics. The chapter also discusses Schr "odinger’s original interpretation of his wave functions and the reception of his theory by the physics community.