bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Indigena Self-Identity in Ecuador and The Rejection of Mestizaje
Authors: Beck Scott H. , Mijeski Kenneth J.
Published: October 2022

Indigenous peoples of Ecuador have organized and mobilized over the past thirty years, partly to reshape their identities after centuries of domination. This research is a preliminary effort to explore the contemporary complexity of that identity. Best viewed as a quantitative case study, this analysis uses responses from seventy-six indigenous college students to a self-administered questionnaire. The authors found that indigenous students with greater “acculturation experiences” with mestizo culture were more strident in rejecting elements of that culture than were their colleagues who had had fewer encounters with mestizo elements of Ecuadorian society. While the tendency to identify oneself ethnically by rejecting the dominant culture represents only one dimension of ethnic identity (maintaining distinctiveness), the authors consider the findings important for future research on the dynamics of the process of ethnic identification.
Latin American Materials in the Comintern Archive
Authors: Ching Erik , Pakkasvirta Jussi
Published: October 2022

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, restrictions on archives in Russia have diminished markedly. Some of the repositories have potential interest for Latin Americanists, including the Comintern Archive. This research note discusses the objectives of the archive and the types of material it contains. A list of the major collections relevant to Latin America is followed by comments on how to use the archive and websites that will facilitate research in Russia. Also provided are bibliographic references to academic studies on Latin America based on Comintern materials.
Income Distribution and Environmental Degradation in the Argentine Interior
Authors: Sawers Larry
Published: October 2022

This article analyzes the environmental degradation of the Argentine interior, emphasizing the roles played by different income groups. Argentina beyond the pampa is composed of fragile ecosystems that have been substantially degraded through decades or even centuries of overuse and abuse. This study ascertains the nature and extent of environmental degradation for each part of the interior, the relative importance of various income groups in agricultural production, and the differential tendency to degrade the environment of agriculturalists at different income levels. These variables are used to show that both the wealthy and the poor have played crucial roles in the environmental degradation of the Argentine interior.
Periodicos y Formacion Nacional: Bolivia en sus primeros años
Authors: Unzueta Fernando
Published: October 2022

Este artículo examina el papel constitutivo de los periódicos bolivianos en los inicios del proceso deformación nacional (1825–1855, aproximadamente). Discute su intervención en los debates políticos y legales del momento, sus esfuerzos por definir los elementos que identifican con la nacionalidad, su inserción en un precario mercado, su promoción de los valores patrios y participación en la formación de ciudadanos. El artículo muestra la capacidad incorporadora de elementos heterogéneos que tienen las hojas impresas y, sobre todo, la reconceptualización del tiempo y el espacio que articulan en términos de lo nacional. Finalmente, sin minimizar las contribuciones del proyecto letrado de construcción nacional, destaca también las tensiones y limitaciones que le son inherentes.
Religion, Authority, and Identity: Intergenerational Politics, Ethnic Resurgence, and Respect in Chimborazo, Ecuador
Authors: Lyons Barry J.
Published: October 2022

This essay examines the ambivalent interaction between liberation theology and notions of ‘respect’ among Quichua speakers in highland Ecuador. It focuses on three ways that notions of respect rooted in local history inform and transform current Catholic practice and ethnic politics. First, indigenous Catholic activists and mestizo priests appeal to respect for elders to argue for ethnic and religious loyalty. Second, the memory of hacienda-era discipline partly underpins current models of community authority and “indigenous law.” Finally, many villagers bring expectations shaped by hacienda prayer meetings to the Bible reflection that liberation theology promotes. This complex interaction contributes to local redefinitions of modernity.
Elite Families and Oligarchic Politics on the Brazilian Frontier: Mato Grosso, 1889–1937
Authors: Frank Zephyr Lake
Published: October 2022

One of the central issues in Latin American political history is the role played by oligarchies. In the case of Brazil, students of oligarchy have focused on elite family networks and coronelismo, the often violent manifestation of oligarchic politics at the local level. Drawing on the substantial body of literature on the family in Latin America, this essay proposes an interpretation of oligarchical politics in which changing family structures interacted in new political and economic contexts to produce distinctive types of oligarchy in a sequential rather than synchronic or functional manner. The dominance of traditional elite families on the Brazilian frontier was challenged during periods of social and economic change, resulting in the rise of transitional and new oligarchies with substantially different socioeconomic origins, career paths, and family structures.
Mexican Immigration to the United States: Continuities and Changes
Authors: Durand Jorge , Massey Douglas S. , Zenteno René M.
Published: October 2022

This research note examines continuities and changes in the profile of Mexican migration to the United States using data from Mexico's Encuesta Nacional de la Dinámica Demográfica, the U.S. Census, and the Mexican Migration Project. Our analysis generally yields a picture of stability over time. Mexico-U.S. migration continues to be dominated by the states of Western Mexico, particularly Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacán, and it remains a movement principally of males of labor-force age. As Mexico has urbanized, however, out-migration has come to embrace urban as well as rural workers; and as migrant networks have expanded, the flow has become less selective with respect to education. Perhaps the most important change detected was an acceleration in the rate of return migration during the early 1990s, reflecting the massive legalization of the late 1980s.
Institutional Reform of Agriculture Under Neoliberalism: The Impact of the Women's and Indigenous Movements
Authors: Deere Carmen Diana , León Magdalena
Published: October 2022

This article reviews recent neoliberal agrarian legislation in Latin America in terms of the advances and setbacks for women's and indigenous movements. Institutional reform of the agricultural sector has been heterogenous in part because of the role of these movements. In the twelve countries studied, the new legislation favors gender equity except in Mexico. The indigenous movement scored notable successes in Ecuador and Bolivia but suffered apparent setbacks in Mexico and Peru in the defense of collective land rights. The article also explores why the slightest progress toward gender equality was made in some of the countries with large indigenous populations and strong indigenous movements.
The Jorge Luis Borges Collection at the University of Texas at Austin
Authors: Wall Catharine E.
Published: October 2022

This research note reports on a collection of manuscript and print materials relating to Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986). The collection was acquired in 1999 by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. It features unpublished manuscripts in a variety of literary genres and an excellent representation of Borges's published works, including several rare books and periodicals from the 1920s, a period of increasing importance in Borges scholarship.
Why is Mexican Business so Organized?
Authors: Schneider Ben Ross
Published: October 2022

In the twentieth century, big business in Mexico invested much more in voluntary encompassing associations than business did elsewhere in Latin America. Multisectoral associations like the CCE, the CMNH, Coparmex, and COECE are rare in the other large countries of the region. Three primary factors gave Mexican business stronger incentives to invest in these associations. First, Mexican business was excluded from elections, PRI politics, and appointments to top government positions and therefore relied more on associations to channel business's organized participation in politics and policy making. Second, in some periods, government actions were threatening to business interests and prompted defensive organization. Third, in other periods of closer cooperation between business and government, government officials relied heavily on these associations to mediate relations with business, giving big business further incentives to invest in associations.
Pesticides, Parakeets, and Unions in the Costa Rican Banana Industry, 1938–1962
Authors: Marquardt Steve
Published: October 2022

This article explores one of the earliest large-scale uses of biocidal agro-chemicals in Latin America, the United Fruit Company's hand-spraying of its banana plantations to control sigitoka disease from 1938 to 1962. After discussing the environmental context of sigatoka and the early development and implications of the spray technology, the essay focuses on the thousands of workers who applied the chemicals. Using Costa Rica as a case study, it explores workers' sense of the personal costs of their work as well as their ambiguous relationship to the larger banana workers' union movement. Because of differences in ethnicity, age, and masculine status, pesticide workers were not part of the labor movement's militant core, but their participation in strikes gave unions great power for a time. This power, along with workers' individual job actions, forced fundamental changes in the pesticide program, demonstrating the importance of integrating labor into the study of environmental change in agricultural capitalism.
Forging an Indigenous Counterpublic Sphere: The Taller de Historia Oral Andina in Bolivia
Authors: Stephenson Marcia
Published: October 2022

This essay analyzes the impact of an indigenous counterpublic sphere in contemporary Bolivia, arguing that it functions as an arena of differential consciousness for Aymara intellectuals and activists. In examining the work carried out by the Aymara nongovernmental organization known as the Taller de Historia Oral Andina (THOA), the essay highlights this sphere's importance as both a discursive and territorial arena where agency is expressed in the collaborative spirit of community. THOA's work is significant in strategically formulating a methodology of decolonization based on revisionist Andean historiography, territorial demands, and collective political action.
Central American Unions in the Era of Globalization
Authors: Frundt Henry J.
Published: October 2022

Globalization has exacerbated the impact of three Northern-driven forces on Central American unions. Transnational firms have restructured or enhanced their levels of subcontracting. Governments, while weakening labor-code implemention, have launched extensive privatization schemes. And international supporters of unions have espoused new priorities and rechanneled funding. Although all three trends have caused major difficulties for unions, this article assesses whether or not their traditional spirit of “social-movement unionism” has been undermined. Based on extensive interviews and primary and secondary data, the study documents union resilience in the banana and maquila sectors despite problematic corporate behavior and market conditions. Stung by state privatizations, unions that fragmented following the Central American Peace Accords have partially regrouped to resist public-health takeovers and labor-code harmonization. Facing losses in Northern funding, unions have painfully adapted to fresh organizing strategies and sensitivity to women's issues, which they found to be fundamental to successful collaboration with corporate campaigns, trade pressure, and NGOs. Despite losses, unions have tapped a broader solidarity in their struggle against the demons of globalization.
La Politica Militar Alemana en Bolivia, 1900–1935
Authors: Bieber León E.
Published: October 2022

En 1931 un diplomático alemán destacó las razones debido a las cuales su país estaba interesado en prestar asistencia militar al extranjero en los siguientes términos:

Del empleo de instructores militares en servicios extranjeros se espera, en general, dos provechos: uno no material y otro material. Aquél reside en la expectativa de alcanzar, mediante las tareas de organización y enseñanza en base a preceptos alemanes, una cierta influencia entre los militares en favor de Alemania. … Una ventaja de esta naturaleza no debe subestimarse, sobre todo en Suramérica, donde la Fuerza Armada suele ser un factor importante en la política interna. … La utilidad material reside en el supuesto que con instructores alemanes también el armamento y equipamiento del ejército extranjero se realizará conforme al modelo alemán, y consiguientemente, los pedidos se realizarán en Alemania beneficiando a su industria y comercio.

Las traducciones de citas al castellano en el texto y las notas son del autor. Los nombres de los archivos se han abreviado del siguiente modo: Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Bund.-Militarch; Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Pol. A. des AA. Las Memorias del Ministerio de Guerra y Colonización de Bolivia se han abreviado con Memoria.
The Cross in the Polling Booth: Religion, Politics, and the Laity in Mexico
Authors: Camp Roderic Ai
Published: October 2022

The Catholic clergy and the military have played crucial roles in Mexican history yet have been largely ignored in recent twentieth-cenury scholarship. The military received some attention in the early post-revolutionary period because it was intertwined with political leadership, but religious elites and the Catholic Church, which were separate from the state and suppressed by it, have not been analyzed. As a rule, cohesive leadership groups in Mexico with values differing from politicians, strong institutional structures, and autonomy from the state have rarely been examined, especially in relationship to the state and politics in general. Conversely, the greater a group's ties to the Mexican political establishment, as measured by exchanges between leadership, the more scholars have learned about that group. Whereas intellectuals, entrepreneurs, military officers, and even opposition politicians share some ties with the state, the Catholic Church has no direct links, and its contemporary leaders, goals, and institutional structures remain relatively unknown and little understood.
Editor's Foreword
Authors: Merkx Gilbert W.
Published: October 2022

Why should one publish in LARR? How does one publish in LARR? These questions are asked by graduate students, foreign colleagues, and researchers moving into Latin American studies. For the benefit of such prospective authors, it may be worth reviewing the pros and cons of publishing in this journal.
Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic: The Agony of Democracy in Venezuela
Authors: Romero Aníbal
Published: October 2022

If one is to believe what a good number of commentators on the Venezuelan political scene have written over the years, democracy in that country has been in perpetual crisis. By at least the mid-1970s, the view that the democratic system established in 1958 was deteriorating rapidly had become widely accepted in the Venezuelan press and among Venezuelan academic analysts. It was not always clear, however, exactly what was meant by “the crisis” (Peña 1978; Stempel-Paris 1981; Romero 1986). This perception of crisis intensified some years later, to the point that one outsider observed in 1984 that according to the prevailing view of democracy in Venezuela, the political system must be totally bankrupt and its survival could be explained only as the result “of an unprecedented act of political will or of the imbecility of the population” (Baloyra n.d., 2).
At Union's Brink: Ideals and Problems in Restoring the United Provinces of Central America, 1920–1922
Authors: Evans Sterling
Published: October 2022

The Provincias Unidas del Centro de América (later called the Federación de la América Central) lasted from 1824 to 1838. Despite the various reasons for the union's disintegration in 1838, the dream of reunification has resurfaced at least twenty-five times. Geography, three hundred years of colonial union, and what Thomas Karnes has termed “more bonds of similarity than any other small group of nations” have all made the region of Central America an obvious candidate for unification.
Reconsidering Textile Production in Late Colonial Brazil: New Evidence From Minas Gerais
Authors: Libby Douglas C.
Published: October 2022

Scholars have long recognized that the final quarter of the eighteenth century in Brazil witnessed an agricultural renaissance in which traditional exports expanded and new tropical products began to find their way overseas (Prado Júnior 1967; Novais 1979; Arruda 1980, 1986; Alden 1984). In recent years, more attention has been paid to the diversified productive activities supplying an increasingly consolidated domestic market during this period (Brown 1986; Barickman 1991; Fragoso 1992). Although most of those activities were agricultural, artisan trades also flourished and domestic industry appears to have been growing, particularly the cottage textile industry. My examination of an unexplored and unusual primary source has revealed grounds for assuming that cloth and thread were being made throughout much of late colonial Brazil. The primary evidence also suggests that this cottage industry resembled the incipient stages of so-called European proto-industrialization to a remarkable degree, although important differences cannot be ignored. Nor does the regionalized nature of the source allow for generalizing about the colony as a whole. This research is thus a preliminary investigation that calls for further research. It nevertheless points out the potential importance of domestic industry within the overall Brazilian colonial economy and stimulates awareness of its complexities.
Effects of Liberalization Programs on Poverty and Inequality: Chile, Mexico, and Peru
Authors: Sheahan John
Published: October 2022

Programs of economic liberalization have many common features all over the world, but they do not necessarily have the same consequences. Differences in their effects reflect differences in the countries themselves along with accidental factors of timing and external events, and they can also embody systematic consequences of alternatives within the programs. The starting point in this discussion is that different versions of liberalization—alternatives consistent with the basic strategy—can have significantly different effects on poverty and inequality.
Transnational Peasant Politics in Central America
Authors: Edelman Marc
Published: October 2022

Since the late 1980s, peasants throughout Central America have begun to coordinate political and economic strategy. Agriculturalists from the five republics that constituted “la patria grande” of Spanish Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica) as well as representatives from Panama and Belize have founded regional organizations that meet to compare experiences with free-market policies, share new technologies, develop sources of finance, and create channels for marketing their products abroad. They have also established a presence in the increasingly distant arenas where decisions are made that affect their livelihood. Small-farmer organizations now lobby at the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and regional summit meetings. Central Americancampesinoshave attended numerous regional gatherings of agriculture ministers and presidents, as well as events like the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the 1995 Western Hemisphere Presidents' Summit in Miami, the 1995 World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, and the 1996 Food Security Summit in Rome.
Military Justice in the State of Pernambuco After the Brazilian Military Regime: An Authoritarian Legacy
Authors: Zaverucha Jorge
Published: October 2022

This article is based on research conducted in the archives of the Auditoria Militar do Estado de Pernambuco. It substantiates the violation of the basic principle of equality before the law resulting from the existence in Brazil of two different court systems—one civil and the other military—with varying legal proceedings and sentences for similar crimes committed by civilian police and military police. The article reviews how the authoritarian regime enlarged the scope of military jurisdiction, a situation little changed more than a decade after the authoritarian regime ended. The article also shows that the Justiça Militar do Estado de Pernambuco functions in a hybrid manner. It is an agency of the civil judicial branch, but most of the judges are military, while the lawyers are civilians and the trials are conducted by the Ministério Público. Thus the military police can influence the outcome of judgments without having to assume the burden of rendering decisions because the final responsibility rests with the civil judicial branch. Finally, the article highlights the incompatibility between the continuation of this kind of military justice and a democracy seeking consolidation.
La construccion social de la lectura y la novela nacional: El caso chileno
Authors: Poblete Juan
Published: October 2022

Este trabajo estudia la generificación (la asignación de un género sexual) de los elementos del debate sobre la novela nacional en el siglo XIX en Chile. Analizando el caso de Alberto Blest Gana, sostengo que la novela nacional se propuso como una intermediación entre dos polos. Por un lado, la lectura por placer era socialmente percibida como femenina. La lectura de los textos clásicos era, por otro, masculina porque suponía un trabajo y una dificultad que hacía que el retorno recibido de la inversión de tiempo y dinero en la actividad fuera productivo, es decir, legítimo. En este contexto, la novela nacional y su lectura se construían como formas de mediación de estas polaridades que organizaban y constituían la cultura nacional. La hipótesis general es que la lectura de periódicos y las lecturas hechas en periódicos (como folletines y artículos) ocuparía un lugar intermedio que terminaría por mediar la distancia entre aquellas formas de lectura socialmente construidas.
La Sociedad de Proteccion a los Inmigrantes Israelitas: Su aporte a la integración económica de judíos en Bolivia, 1939–1945
Authors: Bieber León E.
Published: October 2022

En base a correspondencia original es analizada la importancia que tuvo la Sociedad de Protección a los Inmigrantes Israelitas (SOPRO) para socorrer a los fugitivos judíos que llegaron de Europa a Bolivia entre mediados de 1938 e inicios de la década del 40. Después de exponer las razones que determinaron el flujo migratorio a este país y las dificultades que tuvo para prestar ayuda a la integración de los inmigrantes, se exponen cuatros dimensiones: la creación, las finalidades, los medios financieros y la estructura organizativa de la SOPRO; las formas de respaldo que ella otorgó; los mecanismos que empleó para conceder y recuperar sus créditos; las limitaciones y los éxitos de su labor. Considerando la falta de estudios respecto a la tarea que desempeñaron sociedades de amparo para facilitar la integración de inmigrantes israelitas en países latinoamericanos durante los decenios del 30 y del 40, el aporte busca enmendar esta negligencia y abrir posibilidades para estudios comparativos sobre la materia.
Quase pretos de tão pobres? Race and Social Discrimination in Rio de Janeiro's Twentieth-Century Criminal Courts
Authors: Fischer Brodwyn
Published: October 2022

Conceived as a contribution to debates about the role of state institutions in perpetuating racial inequality in modern Brazil, this article explores the relative importance of social and racial characteristics in determining defendants' treatment in Rio de Janeiro's criminal courts between 1930 and 1964. Focusing on rarely noted aspects of defendants' class and citizenship status, and emphasizing the importance of judicial procedure, it argues that social discrimination was open in Rio de Janeiro's courts, but that race alone was a relatively poor predictor of defendants' fates. At the same time, it suggests that racial and social characteristics ought not to be seen as separate and competing categories, both because “social' language had important racial meanings and because ”social“ discrimination had significant racial implications. Institutionalized social prejudice may thus go far in explaining the stubborn persistence of racial inequity in an age when ”racial democracy“ became a national hope and mantra.
From “Racial Democracy” to Affirmative Action: Changing State Policy on Race in Brazil
Authors: Htun Mala
Published: October 2022

By analyzing the Brazilian government's surprise endorsement of affirmative action in 2001, this article explores how the state constructs race in society and how ideas drive policy change. After decades defending the myth of “racial democracy,” the state admitted to racism and endorsed an extreme form of affirmative action—quotas—for Afro-Brazilians in government service and higher education. Based on fieldwork conducted in 2002, this article explains the recent policy turnaround as a dialectic between social mobilization and presidential initiative framed within unfolding international events. The presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso nurtured a transformation in political action on race at the same time that the president himself initiated major shifts in official discourse; later, preparations for the World Conference on Racism, held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, provoked national soul-searching on racial inequalities. The conference itself provided an occasion, and a moment of reckoning, for Brazil to jettison past policies and embrace a new approach. I conclude that ideas emerging from social networks, made salient by presidential interest, and legitimized by international agreements may account for discursive policy change, but that implementation of affirmative action will require attention to material interests and electoral incentives.
Civil Society in a Postwar Period: Labor in the Salvadoran Democratic Transition
Authors: Fitzsimmons Tracy , Anner Mark
Published: October 2022

This research note seeks to offer some resolution to the theoretical disagreements over how democratization affects civil society, specifically in a transition toward democracy that occurs through pacted settlements of an armed internal conflict. Using a comparative study over time of the labor movement in El Salvador, the authors demonstrate that while unions of the political center and left have weakened since the signing of the Salvadoran Peace Accords, independent labor groups show higher levels of organizing and right-leaning unions have maintained nearly constant levels of organizing. But the labor movement has become atomized because unions have been unable to redefine their once-common political goals to adopt other unified stances in the postwar period. The data show that the unions that have relinquished excessively politicized stances or never claimed them are the ones that survive and sometimes grow in the postwar environment. These findings have implications for the nature of the emerging Salvadoran democracy and the economic well-being of its citizens.
Struggles about class and Adivasi-ness in an eastern Indian steel plant
Authors: Strümpell Christian
Published: October 2022

In the eastern Indian steel town of Rourkela, Adivasis are widely stereotyped as uneducated, jangli (‘wild’), and drinkers, and they are therefore held to make for a special type of worker. Their Adivasi ‘nature’ makes them an ideal fit for facing the heat, dust, and fumes in the so-called ‘hot shops’ of the local public-sector steel plant. It is also said that Adivasis are, in fact, not well suited for the permanent and well-paid jobs the public-sector steel plant provides, and that they are better employed as contract workers who are paid little and by the day, and on whom the industry has increasingly relied since the 1970s. Critically engaging with Bourgois’ concept of ‘conjugated oppression’, I will show how these casteist stereotypes entrench the class position of Adivasis in the local steel industry, but also how this position has nevertheless changed over time—for some for the better, for many for the worse. Furthermore, although this polarization is driven by larger political economic changes it is exacerbated by the ways in which the better-off among the stereotyped Adivasi workers respond to them. This calls, I argue, for close attention to be given to the historical dynamics in the relations between class and caste (or ‘tribe’) and in the struggles related to them.
And red flows the Koina river: Adivasi resistance to the ‘loot’ of their land and resources in eastern India, 1980–2020
Authors: Dungdung Gladson , Padel Felix , Damodaran Vinita
Published: October 2022

This article documents Adivasi resistance to the ‘loot’ of their land and resources since 1980, especially during the Kalinganagar movement in Odisha, roughly between 2004 and 2010, and the Pathalgadi movement in Jharkhand, between 2016 and 2018. Using the lens of trauma and testimony, the article represents a combined effort by Gladson Dungdung, an Adivasi activist, journalist, and writer who has borne witness to events during these years; Felix Padel, an anthropologist; and Vinita Damodaran, a historian. The land grabs are mainly oriented towards mining and metals production, justified in terms of ‘development’, which leaves many dead and destroys landscapes that Adivasis have cared about for countless generations.
Cohabiting a textualized world: Elbow room and Adivasi resurgence
Authors: Hembrom Ruby
Published: October 2022

Stories matter—writing them down matters. For indigenous (Adivasi) peoples from oral traditions, literature has become a way to maintain culture and keep it alive. This article too is a story—an investigative one—questioning and vocalizing the challenges we encounter in trying to articulate our realities and histories in a form that is new to us, one that we've been denied as a practice and one we are not believed we are entitled to use. Mainstream cultures have side-lined, overshadowed, and subjugated our knowledge systems, placing us in structures we have to traverse, and within which we have to exist, which is possible only by internalizing and mirroring others' or mainstream ways and languages to gain legitimacy as peoples or, worse, being branded and judged by their versions of narratives of us. This article plots the course of Adivasi histories and narratives enduring, outlasting, or being demolished by dislocation and dispossession, by dominant languages and cultures, and how both writing and orality are practices of both resistance and resurgence.
William Burton Hurd (1894–1950)
Authors: H. A. I.
Published: October 2022

The academic achievements of William Burton Hurd (894-1950) were fittingly recognized in his election to the presidency of the Canadian Political Science Association in 1949. The meetings of the Association in 1950 will be saddened by the loss of a president and weakened by the absence of his presidential address.

He was a casualty of the turmoil of this century. Born in Brockville, a graduate of the University of Manitoba in 1913, he enlisted in spite of ill health for service in the First World War. He became an officer in the 52nd Battalion in 1915-16, in the 9th Brigade in 1916-17, and senior Y.M.C.A. officer in the second division and adjutant of the Khaki University in France in 1918-19. His services were recognized by being twice mentioned in despatches and an award of the O.B.E. (Military Division).

After the Armistice, he was appointed a Rhodes Scholar and, studying at Queens College, Oxford, took his bachelor’s degree in 1921. On his return to Canada he became professor of political economy in Brandon College in 1921 and dean of arts in 1928. It would not be too much to say that his efforts, linked to those of President Evans, kept Brandon College alive during the depression years but at a heavy cost to the health of both of them. Toward the end of the depression in 1935 he was appointed to the staff of political economy in McMaster University, an obvious promotion since at that time examinations in Brandon College were conducted by the staff of McMaster University and degrees were conferred by the latter institution. His interest in students was again recognized by his appointment as associate dean of arts in 1939. In 1946 he followed Professor H. Michell as head of the department of political economy.
Training for Public Administration: A Symposium. II. Public Administration Training at the Municipal Level
Authors: Crawford K. Grant
Published: October 2022

The quality of the administration in a municipal government is probably more dependent on the quality of the officers and employees than is the case in either of the senior levels of government, for there is not that constant daily supervision of the work of the permanent personnel which obtains where the various departments operate under the full time direction of a member of the elected body. It is probable also, although one of those things which cannot be proven with exactitude, that the permanent personnel in the higher ranks in municipal service has more influence upon the policies of the elected body than is the case in either the provinces or the Dominion.

The purpose of my remarks is to raise for your consideration some thoughts with respect to the possibilities of public administration training at the municipal level and to outline briefly what is being done in the matter. It is not necessary here for me to argue the desirability of the aims of such training.

In considering what might be done it is necessary to keep in mind the circumstances of employment peculiar to the municipal field, some of which are advantageous to our purpose and some are not. It is difficult to generalize with respect to municipal problems because the range is so great. In the Province of Ontario for example, we have over 900 organized municipalities varying from a township with an assessed population of 78 and a total tax levy of $1,692 per annum to a city of 674,000 people with an annual tax levy of over $29 million. Consequently, we have a wide variation in the problems of administration. The public employees in municipal government fall into two general groups. There are those who are employed on a part time basis, usually at a very low salary, and whose public employment is not their main source of livelihood. These occur in the smaller or rural municipalities and probably form the larger portion of the total number. There are also those who are employed on a full time basis, who are paid a reasonable (?) salary and among whom are many extremely competent administrators.
Practical Problems of the Retail Price Ceiling II. Problems of the Retailer
Authors: Heywood P. K.
Published: October 2022

The subject allotted to me was “Retail Business Under the Price Ceiling,” which I propose to deal with under three general headings: (1) some of the immediate problems that arose; (2) the effects of this legislation to date; (3) some problems we see ahead.

Let us keep in mind that price ceiling legislation is only one of several methods that the government is using to avoid inflation, and that all are interdependent to some degree. Constantly increasing taxation in all its forms, and borrowing, in war savings stamps, certificates, and bonds, is siphoning off some of the excess spending power. Industrial rationing and priorities have been in effect for some time. Subsidies to agriculture, importers, and primary producers are now being paid. But there are already grave doubts if even all of these controls are enough. Forced savings, direct rationing to consumers, and many other controls may be just around the corner.

It is well to remember, too, that price ceiling legislation is even now less than six months old. It is still in the heat of a distilling process. The outbreak of war in the East and the tremendous loss of supply occasioned thereby was, and still is, a severe jolt. That it has withstood this shock so well up to date is at least encouraging. That the United States has adopted the Canadian plan with very few changes is evidence that they consider our controls effective so far and had no better ideas to offer. It seems reasonable to expect that both countries working on the same plan will relieve some of our difficulties, and our services as the guinea pig of experimentation should be of some assistance to them. In any comparisons, however, that may be made between the two countries, it must be remembered that the United States's spiral of prices was much more rapid than ours and continued for a longer period. Their ceiling prices are, therefore, on a generally higher level in most commodities.
Evaluating SLIM-based human error probability for ECDIS cybersecurity in maritime
Authors: Kayisoglu Gizem , Bolat Pelin , Tam Kimberly
Published: October 2022

There is an undeniable recognition that maritime cybersecurity risk management should involve process, technology, and people. However, thus far, most studies have focused on the technical and process aspects of maritime cybersecurity, more than on the human element. On a vessel, the Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) is, amongst all the electronic devices on the bridge, a complex and indispensable maritime sociotechnical system that must consider both technical and human aspects. In the context of maritime cyber resilience, it is important to note that when developing strategies for maritime cybersecurity, one cannot only consider technical security measures and ignore human error, as this does not adhere to good cybersecurity practice. To address this, this study aims to identify the navigating officers’ responsibilities for ECDIS cybersecurity and find the human error probabilities during these tasks via the SLIM-based human reliability analysis method. The outputs of this study provide an insight for industrial policies and best practices, in ECDIS cybersecurity risk management in terms of the behavioural and cultural aspects of shipping.
Congratulations to the 2022 AGU Union Medal, Award, and Prize Recipients
Authors: Lozier Susan , Myles LaToya
Published: October 2022

AGU awards its highest honors for excellence in scientific research, education, communication, and outreach.
Comment on “The PC Index Variations During 23/24 Solar Cycles: Relation to Solar Wind Parameters and Magnetic Disturbances” by Troschichev et al.
Authors: Stauning Peter
Published: October 2022

Examination of the contribution from O. A. Troshichev, S. Dolgacheva, N. A. Stepanov, and D. A. Sormakov: “The PC index variations during 23/24 solar cycles: relation to solar wind parameters and magnetic disturbances,” https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JA028491 has disclosed inconsistencies in the applied methods and errors in the calculated values. Some of the discrepancies reported in the present commentary affect directly the illustrations presented in their contribution while other possible errors may not be apparent since the use of relative values in their presentation makes thorough assessments difficult.
A Generative Deep Learning Approach to Stochastic Downscaling of Precipitation Forecasts
Authors: Harris Lucy , McRae Andrew T. T. , Chantry Matthew , Dueben Peter D. , Palmer Tim N.
Published: October 2022

Despite continuous improvements, precipitation forecasts are still not as accurate and reliable as those of other meteorological variables. A major contributing factor to this is that several key processes affecting precipitation distribution and intensity occur below the resolved scale of global weather models. Generative adversarial networks (GANs) have been demonstrated by the computer vision community to be successful at super‐resolution problems, that is, learning to add fine‐scale structure to coarse images. Leinonen et al. (2020, https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2020.3032790) previously applied a GAN to produce ensembles of reconstructed high‐resolution atmospheric fields, given coarsened input data. In this paper, we demonstrate this approach can be extended to the more challenging problem of increasing the accuracy and resolution of comparatively low‐resolution input from a weather forecasting model, using high‐resolution radar measurements as a “ground truth.” The neural network must learn to add resolution and structure whilst accounting for non‐negligible forecast error. We show that GANs and VAE‐GANs can match the statistical properties of state‐of‐the‐art pointwise post‐processing methods whilst creating high‐resolution, spatially coherent precipitation maps. Our model compares favorably to the best existing downscaling methods in both pixel‐wise and pooled CRPS scores, power spectrum information and rank histograms (used to assess calibration). We test our models and show that they perform in a range of scenarios, including heavy rainfall.
Photon-counting statistics-based support vector machine with multi-mode photon illumination for quantum imaging
Authors: Kim Jin-Woo , Cho Jeong-Sik , Sacarelo Christian , Fitri Nur Duwi Fat , Hwang Ju-Seong , Rhee June-Koo Kevin
Published: October 2022

We propose a photon-counting-statistics-based imaging process for quantum imaging where background photon noise can be distinguished and eliminated by photon mode estimation from the multi-mode Bose–Einstein distribution. Photon-counting statistics show multi-mode behavior in a practical, low-cost single-photon-level quantum imaging system with a short coherence time and a long measurement time interval. Different mode numbers in photon-counting probability distributions from single-photon illumination and background photon noise can be classified by a machine learning technique such as a support vector machine (SVM). The proposed photon-counting statistics-based support vector machine (PSSVM) learns the difference in the photon-counting distribution of each pixel to distinguish between photons from the source and the background photon noise to improve the image quality. We demonstrated quantum imaging of a binary-image object with photon illumination from a spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) source. The experiment results show that the PSSVM applied quantum image improves a peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) gain of 2.89dB and a structural similarity index measure (SSIM) gain of 27.7% compared to the conventional direct single-photon imaging.
The elevation of different myocardial biomarkers on admission is associated with disease features and different outcomes in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage
Authors: Chen Yuqi , Cai Chengzhi , Fei Jiang , Luo Song , You Chao
Published: October 2022

Test of different myocardial biomarkers is commonly arranged in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). We sought to figure out whether different myocardial biomarkers' elevation is related to characteristics of ruptured aneurysms and patients' clinical outcomes. Patients with aSAH admitted in the Neurosurgery Department of West China Hospital from September 2019 to March 2020 were screened. Those who have one clear responsible aneurysm and met inclusion criteria were included. Clinical characteristics, site and size of the aneurysm, modified Fisher scale, troponin T (TPN-T), creatine kinase MB (CK-MB), and myoglobin (Myo) levels at admission, clinical outcomes (3-month mRS) were collected and compared. The study included 124 patients. After multivariate logistic regression, Hunt & Hess grade (per unit grade, OR 1.68, 95% CI 1.14–2.49), the size of ruptured aneurysm (equal to or more than 7 mm, OR 3.07, 95% CI 1.32–7.10) was highly predictive of myocardial biomarker elevation. All three biomarkers (TPN-T, CK-MB, Myo) were associated with unfavorable prognoses. Higher mortality (37.2% vs. 18.6%, P = 0.036) and a lower rate of good outcomes (41.9% vs. 71.2%, P = 0.003) were observed in patients with any positive myocardial biomarkers at admission. The clinical outcomes of patients with positive troponin T and negative creatine kinase MB were especially unfavorable. Our study demonstrates that the degree of neurological injury and size of ruptured aneurysm are strong predictors of myocardial biomarkers elevation, the site of ruptured aneurysm may not be associated with heart injury after SAH. The outcomes of patients with different combinations of abnormal biomarker levels may have significant differences and deserve further study.
Influence of Huangqin Decoction on the immune function and fecal microbiome of chicks after experimental infection with Escherichia coli O78
Authors: Wang Junyan , Li Rui , Zhang Minai , Gu Chensheng , Wang Haili , Feng Jianjian , Bao Linjie , Wu Yihe , Chen Shuming , Zhang Xichun
Published: October 2022

Huangqin Decoction (HQD), a traditional Chinese medicine formula from the Shang Han Lun written by Zhang Zhongjing, has been used in China for nearly two thousand years. According to the traditional Chinese medicine and previous literature, HQD has the effect of clearing heat, removing toxins, relieving diarrhea and pain. Therefore, HQD was used to prevent or cure many diseases, such as inflammation, diarrhea, malaria, and other acute or chronic gastrointestinal diseases. The effect of HQD, one-herb-absent HQD treatments and enrofloxacin (ENR) on the average daily gain (ADG), mortality rates, visceral index and toll-like receptors (TLRs), inflammatory factors and intestinal microflora in E. coli O78-inoculated chicks were investigated. HQD supplementation increased ADG and reduced the mortality rates caused by E. coli challenge, decreased the heart, liver, bursa of Fabricius (BF) and spleen index. HQD supplementation decreased the serum lysozyme (LZM), IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-10, IL-6 level, down-regulated the mRNA expression of TLR4, -5 and -15 in the spleen by E. coli challenged chicks, and up-regulated the mRNA expression of TLR4, -5 and -15 in BF. At the phylum level, HQD supplementation reversed the increase of Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTUs), decreased the relative abundance of harmful bacteria Proteobacteria, increased the relative abundance of probiotic bacteria Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes. At the genus level, HQD decreased the relative abundance of harmful bacteria Escherichia-Shigella and Pseudomonas. It means that HQD treatment reversed the change of the gut microbiota structure. Compared with HQD, HQD-DZ and HQD-HQ increased the mortality rates. HQD-HQ decreased the ADG and liver index. HQD-GC decreased the spleen index. All herb-absent increased the serum IL-6, but only the HQD-HQ and HQD-SY increased the serum TNF-α. All herb-absent did not activate the TLRs signaling pathways in spleen and BF of chicks. The harmful bacteria Escherichia-Shigella were increased in HQD-HQ and HQD-DZ treatments. HQD-DZ treatment also increased the level of Proteobacteria. The results showed that dietary supplementation with HQD, by down-regulating the mRNA expression of TLR4, -5 and -15 in the spleen, further decreasing the serum LZM and IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-10, IL-6 level, improves the immune function and reverses the change of fecal microbiome in chicks challenged with E. coli. In herb-absent supplementation, the results showed that SY and DZ play a key role in reducing the levels of inflammatory factors and keeping fecal microbiome balance respectively. More importantly, HQ is indispensable in HQD, not only play a key role in reducing the level of inflammatory factors, but also in keeping the balance of fecal microflora.