bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Revisiting the chemical reactivity indices as the state function derivatives. The role of classical chemical hardness
Authors: Malek Ali , Balawender Robert
Published: February 2015

The chemical reactivity indices as the equilibrium state-function derivatives are revisited. They are obtained in terms of the central moments (fluctuation formulas). To analyze the role of the chemical hardness introduced by Pearson [J. Am. Chem. Soc. 105, 7512 (1983)], the relations between the derivatives up to the third-order and the central moments are obtained. As shown, the chemical hardness and the chemical potential are really the principal indices of the chemical reactivity theory. It is clear from the results presented here that the chemical hardness is not the derivative of the Mulliken chemical potential (this means also not the second derivative of the energy at zero-temperature limit). The conventional quadratic dependence of energy, observed at finite temperature, reduces to linear dependence on the electron number at zero-temperature limit. The chemical hardness plays a double role in the admixture of ionic states to the reference neutral state energy: it determines the amplitude of the admixture and regulates the damping of its thermal factor.
Catalytic microrotor driven by geometrical asymmetry
Authors: Yang Mingcheng , Ripoll Marisol , Chen Ke
Published: February 2015

An asymmetric gear with homogeneous surface properties is, here, presented as a prototype to fabricate catalytic microrotors. The driving torque arises from the diffusiophoretic effect induced by the concentration gradients generated by catalytic chemical reactions at the gear surface. This torque produces a spontaneous and unidirectional rotation of the asymmetric gear. By means of mesoscopic simulations, we prove and characterize this scenario. The gear rotational velocity is determined by the gear-solvent interactions, the gear geometry, the solvent viscosity, and the catalytic reaction ratio. Our work presents a simple way to design self-propelled microrotors, alternative to existing catalytic bi-component, or thermophoretic ones.
Bidirectional direct current-direct current converter for fuel cell and renewable energy hybrid systems
Authors: Kabalo Mohammad , Al-Durra Ahmed , Muyeen S. M. , Simôes Marcelo Godoy
Published: February 2015

A bidirectional dc-dc power converter is an essential part of a HFCEV (Hybrid Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle) and renewable energy hybrid system. This paper presents a new bidirectional dc-dc power converter for HFCEV and renewable energy hybrid systems. The proposed converter is called four phases floating interleaved boost converter. Two control strategies of the dc-bus voltage are discussed. In the first one, a dual loop with linear current and voltage controllers is developed, based on the frequency response of the system. In the second one, the linear current controller is replaced by a non-linear sliding mode current controller, to improve the system performance from the robustness point of view. The non-linear sliding mode controller is designed based on the average model of the proposed topology. The proposed control strategies have been validated by simulation and experimental results.
Relative Hom-Hopf modules and total integrals
Authors: Guo Shuangjian , Zhang Xiaohui , Wang Shengxiang
Published: February 2015

Let (H, α) be a monoidal Hom-Hopf algebra and (A, β) a right (H, α)-Hom-comodule algebra. We first investigate the criterion for the existence of a total integral of (A, β) in the setting of monoidal Hom-Hopf algebras. Also, we prove that there exists a total integral ϕ : (H, α) → (A, β) if and only if any representation of the pair (H, A) is injective in a functorial way, as a corepresentation of (H, α), which generalizes Doi’s result. Finally, we define a total quantum integral γ : H → Hom(H, A) and prove the following affineness criterion: if there exists a total quantum integral γ and the canonical map ψ : A⊗BA → A ⊗ H, a⊗Bb ↦ β−1(a) b[0] ⊗ α(b[1]) is surjective, then the induction functor A⊗B−:ℋ˜(ℳk)B→ℋ˜(ℳk)AH is an equivalence of categories.
Actively controlled fibrillar friction surfaces
Authors: Marvi H. , Han Y. , Sitti M.
Published: February 2015

In this letter, we propose a technique by which we can actively adjust frictional properties of elastic fibrillar structures in different directions. Using a mesh attached to a two degree-of-freedom linear stage, we controlled the active length and the tilt angle of fibers, independently. Thus, we were able to achieve desired levels of friction forces in different directions and significantly improve passive friction anisotropies observed in the same fiber arrays. The proposed technique would allow us to readily control the friction anisotropy and the friction magnitude of fibrillar structures in any planar direction.
Sub-terahertz spectroscopy reveals that proteins influence the properties of water at greater distances than previously detected
Authors: Sushko Oleksandr , Dubrovka Rostyslav , Donnan Robert S.
Published: February 2015

The initial purpose of the study is to systematically investigate the solvation properties of different proteins in water solution by terahertz (THz) radiation absorption. Transmission measurements of protein water solutions have been performed using a vector network analyser-driven quasi-optical bench covering the WR-3 waveguide band (0.220–0.325 THz). The following proteins, ranging from low to high molecular weight, were chosen for this study: lysozyme, myoglobin, and bovine serum albumin (BSA). Absorption properties of solutions were studied at different concentrations of proteins ranging from 2 to 100 mg/ml. The concentration-dependent absorption of protein molecules was determined by treating the solution as a two-component model first; then, based on protein absorptivity, the extent of the hydration shell is estimated. Protein molecules are shown to possess a concentration-dependent absorptivity in water solutions. Absorption curves of all three proteins sharply peak towards a dilution-limit that is attributed to the enhanced flexibility of protein and amino acid side chains. An alternative approach to the determination of hydration shell thickness is thereby suggested, based on protein absorptivity. The proposed approach is independent of the absorption of the hydration shell. The derived estimate of hydration shell thickness for each protein supports previous findings that protein-water interaction dynamics extends beyond 2-3 water solvation-layers as predicted by molecular dynamics simulations and other techniques such as NMR, X-ray scattering, and neutron scattering. According to our estimations, the radius of the dynamic hydration shell is 16, 19, and 25 Å, respectively, for lysozyme, myoglobin, and BSA proteins and correlates with the dipole moment of the protein. It is also seen that THz radiation can serve as an initial estimate of the protein hydrophobicity.
Growth orientation dependence of Si doping in GaAsN
Authors: Han Xiuxun , Dong Chen , Feng Qiang , Ohshita Yoshio , Yamaguchi Masafumi
Published: February 2015

The incorporation of Si in GaAsN alloys grown simultaneously on (100), (311)A, (311)B, and (211)B GaAs substrates by the chemical beam epitaxy has been investigated. The decrease in electron concentration with the increasing N composition suggests the occurrence of N and Si interaction, whereas the interaction exhibits evidently different extent depending on the growth orientation. Combined with the secondary ion mass spectrometry and photoluminescence measurements, it is revealed that (311)B and (211)B are the promising substrate orientations to reduce the N-Si passivation and improve n-type Si doping in GaAsN over a wider N composition range. A surface bonding model is utilized to explain the plane polarity dependent incorporation behaviors of Si and N.
Theoretical efficiency limits for thermoradiative energy conversion
Authors: Strandberg Rune
Published: February 2015

A new method to produce electricity from heat called thermoradiative energy conversion is analyzed. The method is based on sustaining a difference in the chemical potential for electron populations above and below an energy gap and let this difference drive a current through an electric circuit. The difference in chemical potential originates from an imbalance in the excitation and de-excitation of electrons across the energy gap. The method has similarities to thermophotovoltaics and conventional photovoltaics. While photovoltaic cells absorb thermal radiation from a body with higher temperature than the cell itself, thermoradiative cells are hot during operation and emit a net outflow of photons to colder surroundings. A thermoradiative cell with an energy gap of 0.25 eV at a temperature of 500 K in surroundings at 300 K is found to have a theoretical efficiency limit of 33.2%. For a high-temperature thermoradiative cell with an energy gap of 0.4 eV, a theoretical efficiency close to 50% is found while the cell produces 1000 W/m2 has a temperature of 1000 K and is placed in surroundings with a temperature of 300 K. Some aspects related to the practical implementation of the concept are discussed and some challenges are addressed. It is, for example, obvious that there is an upper boundary for the temperature under which solid state devices can work properly over time. No conclusions are drawn with regard to such practical boundaries, because the work is aimed at establishing upper limits for ideal thermoradiative devices.
Direct observation of surface plasmon vortex and subwavelength focusing with arbitrarily-tailored intensity patterns
Authors: Ku Chen-Ta , Lin Heh-Nan , Huang Chen-Bin
Published: February 2015

Surface plasmon (SP) vortices typically have annular intensity patterns. Here we show that fractional SP vortices with arbitrary, asymmetric intensity patterns can be synthesized via simple geometric arrangements. We provide the direct experimental observations over the existence of fractional SP vortices. Triangular SP vortex intensities are synthesized by circularly polarized plane waves. On the other hand, subwavelength focusing with user-desired patterns is also experimentally demonstrated. The synthesized SP vortex and focusing patterns are experimentally measured using a near-field scanning optical microscope with uncoated fiber probe and are found in good agreements as compared to numerical results.
Friday in Finnish
Authors: Taivalkoski-Shilov Kristiina
Published: February 2015

This article is based on a case study of intra- and extratextual voices in six different Finnish retranslations of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Voice is understood here as the set of textual cues characterizing a subjective or collective identity in a text. The author focuses on what is special about voice in retranslation and how intratextual (a character’s voice) and extratextual voices (translators’ and publishers’ voices) might be related in retranslation. The analysis indicates that a character’s voice as a whole can reflect the retranslator’s voice and the purpose of his/her translation. In addition, translators’ voices can recirculate in retranslation, but they do not necessarily do so if the purpose of the translation, the translator’s choice of source texts, or translation ethics prevents this.
Retranslation in a postcolonial context
Authors: Whitfield Agnes
Published: February 2015

This article explores theoretical dimensions of voice in retranslation in postcolonial situations through a contextualized analysis of extra-textual and intratextual voices in the English-Canadian translation and retranslation ofProchain épisode, Hubert Aquin’s 1965 political novel on Québec’s independence from Canada. The three decades between the translations are marked by important social, political and cultural changes in both source and target language communities: from the 1960s turmoil with respect to Québec’s aspirations for independence to a certain political fatigue in both groups in the 2000s, from a focus within Québec letters on a national agenda to other aesthetic and cultural concerns, and from a colonial to a postcolonial editorial context in both Anglophone and Francophone literatures in Canada. What may appear as target culture recuperative strategies in the editorial and translatorial positioning of a retranslation may correspond on closer analysis to parallel changes in the source culture reception of the book.
Age-0 Sturgeon Accessibility to Constructed and Modified Chutes in the Lower Missouri River
Authors: Gosch Nathan J. C. , Miller Marcus L. , Gemeinhardt Todd R. , Sampson Schuyler J. , Bonneau Joseph L.
Published: February 2015

Shallow-water habitat is hypothesized to provide nursery habitat for young fish. The construction of side-channel chutes to restore shallow-water habitat is common in the lower Missouri River; however, a recent adaptive management strategy document (developed by a multiagency, multidiscipline team), as well as previous research, has suggested that the accessibility of chutes to age-0 Scaphirhynchus spp. (sturgeon hereafter) may be limited. Access is a critical prerequisite for young fish utilizing chute habitat; thus, we investigated chute-specific accessibility for age-0 sturgeon at seven chutes (constructed and natural). Age-0 sturgeon were capable of accessing most chutes; however, accessibility appeared limited at sites with highly restrictive inlet structures. Our results suggest that future consideration of chute inlet designs that meet authorized Missouri River purposes while providing improved fish access is warranted. Additionally, capture sites for exogenously feeding age-0 sturgeon were usually deeper (>1.5 m) and faster (>0.5 m/s) than sites without sturgeon in chute and adjacent main-stem habitats. This finding is consistent with previous research that suggests that slow and shallow habitats may not be used by age-0 sturgeon as frequently as other habitat types in the lower Missouri River.

Received June 4, 2014; accepted September 24, 2014
It happens ‘in-between’: on the spatial birth of politics in Arendt's On Revolution
Authors: Cordero Rodrigo
Published: February 2015

This paper proposes a reading of Arendt's On Revolution that focuses on the spatial nature of the revolutionary phenomenon. It advances an understanding of political foundation as the ‘opening’ of a topos for political existence. I draw on the key notion of the ‘in-between’ that Arendt uses to depict the basic structure of the world as a space of coexistence and plurality. In the first part, I elucidate the anti-essentialist meaning of this term. Insofar as the ‘in-between’ refers to the constitutive distance that both separates and binds individuals together, it amounts to a social-ontological condition of political action. Yet On Revolution also shows that the grammar of the ‘in-between’ is a historical–political achievement that must be created and secured by human action on terms that are not given. In the second part, I reconstruct Arendt's account of the experience of modern revolutions and suggest that the political task of instituting and keeping such interstitial space open is enacted in the experience of rupture of time where the new can appear (the temporal abyss of freedom), and in the practice of establishing lasting institutions based on laws (the normative binding of foundation). The relation between these moments configures what I call the politics of the in-between.
GenoMetric Query Language: a novel approach to large-scale genomic data management
Authors: Masseroli Marco , Pinoli Pietro , Venco Francesco , Kaitoua Abdulrahman , Jalili Vahid , Palluzzi Fernando , Muller Heiko , Ceri Stefano
Published: February 2015

Motivation: Improvement of sequencing technologies and data processing pipelines is rapidly providing sequencing data, with associated high-level features, of many individual genomes in multiple biological and clinical conditions. They allow for data-driven genomic, transcriptomic and epigenomic characterizations, but require state-of-the-art ‘big data’ computing strategies, with abstraction levels beyond available tool capabilities.

Results: We propose a high-level, declarative GenoMetric Query Language (GMQL) and a toolkit for its use. GMQL operates downstream of raw data preprocessing pipelines and supports queries over thousands of heterogeneous datasets and samples; as such it is key to genomic ‘big data’ analysis. GMQL leverages a simple data model that provides both abstractions of genomic region data and associated experimental, biological and clinical metadata and interoperability between many data formats. Based on Hadoop framework and Apache Pig platform, GMQL ensures high scalability, expressivity, flexibility and simplicity of use, as demonstrated by several biological query examples on ENCODE and TCGA datasets.

Availability and implementation: The GMQL toolkit is freely available for non-commercial use at http://www.bioinformatics.deib.polimi.it/GMQL/.

Contact:  marco.masseroli@polimi.it

Supplementary information:  Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Incorporating peak grouping information for alignment of multiple liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry datasets
Authors: Wandy Joe , Daly Rónán , Breitling Rainer , Rogers Simon
Published: February 2015

Motivation: The combination of liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry (LC/MS) has been widely used for large-scale comparative studies in systems biology, including proteomics, glycomics and metabolomics. In almost all experimental design, it is necessary to compare chromatograms across biological or technical replicates and across sample groups. Central to this is the peak alignment step, which is one of the most important but challenging preprocessing steps. Existing alignment tools do not take into account the structural dependencies between related peaks that coelute and are derived from the same metabolite or peptide. We propose a direct matching peak alignment method for LC/MS data that incorporates related peaks information (within each LC/MS run) and investigate its effect on alignment performance (across runs). The groupings of related peaks necessary for our method can be obtained from any peak clustering method and are built into a pair-wise peak similarity score function. The similarity score matrix produced is used by an approximation algorithm for the weighted matching problem to produce the actual alignment result.

Results: We demonstrate that related peak information can improve alignment performance. The performance is evaluated on a set of benchmark datasets, where our method performs competitively compared to other popular alignment tools.

Availability: The proposed alignment method has been implemented as a stand-alone application in Python, available for download at http://github.com/joewandy/peak-grouping-alignment.

Contact:  Simon.Rogers@glasgow.ac.uk

Supplementary information:  Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Apology for the Abbé Mallet
Authors: McGinnis Reginald
Published: February 2015

The abbé Edme Mallet was one of the main contributors to the first volumes of Diderot and D'Alembert's
Encyclopédie
, and the work's official theologian. Whereas his reputation, derived largely from D'Alembert's eulogy, was formerly that of a moderate open to dialogue with philosophers, in an article from the 1970s Walter E. Rex argued that Mallet was in fact a rigid defender of orthodoxy recruited for the
Encyclopédie
to offset its anti-religious tendencies. This article offers a refutation of Rex's influential theory, questioning his assumption of a fundamental opposition between Mallet and the other contributors. Beginning with the observation that Rex made his analysis of Mallet's religious articles without realizing that these are, in many instances, either wholly or partly translations from Chambers's
Cyclopaedia
, I move on to consider the censored article ‘Constitution Unigenitus’, where Mallet's opinion of the Jansenists is shown to be similar, rather than opposed, to that of Diderot and D'Alembert. In view of their statements in important sections of the
Encyclopédie
, I suggest that, contrary to common opinion, the editors' association with Mallet may reflect a sincere desire for collaboration with theologians.
Design Characteristics and Tobacco Metal Concentrations in Filtered Cigars
Authors: Caruso Rosalie V. , O’Connor Richard J. , Travers Mark J. , Delnevo Cristine D. , Stephens W. Edryd
Published: February 2015

Introduction

While U.S. cigarette consumption has declined, cigar use has steadily increased, for reasons including price compared to cigarettes and the availability of filtered varieties resembling cigarettes, and flavors that have been banned in cigarettes (excluding menthol). Little published data exists on the design characteristics of such cigars.

Methods

A variety of filtered cigar brands were tested for design characteristics such as whole cigar weight, ventilation, and per-cigar tobacco weight. Cigar sticks were then sent to the University of St. Andrews for metal concentration testing of As, Pb, Cr, Ni, and Cd.

Results

Large and small cigars were statistically different between cigar weight (p ≤ .001), per-cigar tobacco weight (p = .001), rod diameter (p = .006), and filter diameter (p = .012). The differences in mean ventilation (overall mean = 19.6%, min. = 0.84%, max. = 57.6%) across filtered cigar brands were found to be statistically significant (p = .031), and can be compared to the ventilation of the average of 2013U.S. Marlboro Red, Gold, and Silver packs at 29% ventilation. There were no significant differences for metal concentrations between cigar types (p = .650), with Pb and As levels being similar to U.S. 2009 cigarette concentrations, Cd cigar levels being slightly higher, and Cr and Ni levels much lower than cigarette levels.

Conclusions

With cigar use rising, and filtered cigars displaying substantial similarities to filtered cigarettes, more research on product characteristics is warranted. Future plans include testing tobacco alkaloid and more observation of cigar weight for tax bracket purposes.
Comparison or Confluence In Philosophy?
Authors: Siderits Mark
Published: February 2015

This chapter examines the project of fusion or confluence philosophy: philosophizing that draws on resources from both Indian and Western philosophical traditions in seeking solutions to philosophical problems. A distinction is drawn between the confluence project and the project of comparative philosophy. Various challenges to the project are addressed, among them the criticism that the two traditions are incommensurable, and the charge that such a project is politically problematic. There is also discussion of some ways in which projects of this sort can go astray. Representative samples of the genre are discussed, and areas that might prove promising for future research are identified.
Judgments of Learning
Authors: Rhodes Matthew G.
Published: February 2015

Several decades of research have examined predictions of future memory performance—typically referred to as judgments of learning (JOLs). In this chapter, I first discuss the early history of research on JOLs and their fit within a leading metacognitive framework. A common methodological approach has evolved that permits the researcher to investigate the correspondence between JOLs and memory performance, as well as the degree to which JOLs distinguish between information that is or is not remembered. Factors that influence each aspect of the accuracy of JOLs are noted and considered within theoretical approaches to JOLs. Thus far, research on JOLs had yielded a number of findings and promising theoretical frameworks that will continue to be refined. Future work will benefit by considering how learners combine information to arrive at a judgment, the implications of alternative methods of measuring JOLs, and the potential for JOLs to influence memory.
Work–Family Issues for Men
Authors: Harrington Brad , Humberd Beth , van Deusen Fred
Published: February 2015

Recent research shows that most fathers today seek roles that are much more integrated and engaged with the lives of their families than fathers in previous generations. However, society in general, and workplaces in particular, have been slow to adapt to these new fatherhood roles. This situation causes increased work–family conflict for fathers and leaves them in a situation in which their aspirations are often inconsistent with their realities. Although these changes are beginning to be noted, existing research in the work–family field has focused much more on the issues women face in integrating work and family than it has on the issues facing men. This predominantly gendered approach to work and family integration has a number of deleterious effects on both men and women, and also inhibits moving this critical conversation forward. This chapter reviews the current state of research on work–family issues for men and suggests areas for additional research.
International Perspective
Authors: Sawyer Katina
Published: February 2015

This chapter outlines the ways in which the workforce is becoming increasingly global, such that having an international perspective on diversity is ever more important. Using an intersectional framework on diversity, this chapter suggests that intersectionality, or the consideration of multiple identity statuses, might be enriched with the consideration of culture as a personal identity layer and/or as a factor that may change perceptions of identity categories across context. This chapter will then outline how national context might shape the meaning of and reactions to diverse identities, highlighting the additional effects of organizational, local, and regional contexts. Finally, this chapter provides implications for research and practice related to discrimination, in order to ensure more nuanced approaches to diversity management, for academics and practitioners alike.
Individual Outcomes of Discrimination in Workplaces
Authors: Triana María del Carmen , Trzebiatowski Tiffany M. , Byun Seo-Young
Published: February 2015

This chapter reviews the recent literature on the outcomes of workplace discrimination against individuals. The chapter describes how discrimination affects individuals by reviewing theories related to outcomes of discrimination (e.g., social categorization, attributional ambiguity, and minority stress theories). From there, the review covers meta-analyses, empirical studies conducted between 2012 and 2014, and outcomes of discrimination (e.g., job attitudes, psychological outcomes, physical outcomes, and work-related outcomes). There is consistent support for an overall negative effect of discrimination on various individual-level outcomes. Recent studies are advancing our knowledge of individual-level consequences of discrimination by incorporating underrepresented samples, examining discrimination types other than race and sex, considering the nuances of boundary conditions, and connecting research streams from multiple areas (e.g., turnover, incivility). The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research directions on individual outcomes of workplace discrimination.
Adolescent Peer Aggression and Female Reproductive Competition
Authors: Gallup Andrew C.
Published: February 2015

Research suggests that intrasexual aggression during adolescence functions in competition over dating and reproductive opportunities and that aggressive strategies are more adaptive for females at this developmental stage. This sex difference appears to be related to the differential use of aggressive behavior and slightly uneven developmental trajectory between adolescent males and females. Competition over males is a common motive for female aggression during middle and high school, and, similar to adults, adolescent aggressors often use tactics of competitor derogation to lower the mate value of rivals. Taking an evolutionary perspective, findings demonstrate that adolescent females who engage in intrasexual peer aggression tend to have adaptive dating and sexual patterns, whereas those who are frequently victimized suffer maladaptive fitness outcomes. Recent research also shows that directed female intrasexual aggression during early stages of adolescence can be effective in both disrupting dating relationships of rivals and gaining access to desired dating partners.
Pharmacotherapy of Substance Use, Craving, and Acute Abstinence Syndromes
Authors: Swift Robert M.
Published: February 2015

Advances in the understanding of the neurobiological basis of addiction have led to a better understanding of the causes of drug and alcohol dependence, as well as to new alternatives in the treatment of these disorders. By addressing some of the underlying neurobiological changes that cause and maintain drug and alcohol dependence, pharmacotherapies can provide an important adjunctive treatment for alcohol- and drug-dependent and behaviorally addicted patients. During detoxification, pharmacotherapies can reduce the severity of withdrawal. After detoxification, pharmacotherapies can be useful as an adjunct to psychosocial treatments to help maintain abstinence or reduced addictive behaviors by reducing craving, reducing the rewarding effects of drugs, and improving the allostasis that accompanies abstinence. This chapter describes the neurobiology of drugs and alcohol, how chronic use leads to brain adaptations that result in addiction, and the actions of medications used to treat addictive disorders.
Archaeological Theories and Archaeological Sciences
Authors: Martinón-Torres Marcos , Killick David
Published: February 2015

Archaeological theory and archaeological science have traditionally been characterized as concerned with different issues and unable to interact productively. In this chapter, we present a brief history of the relationship between these two subdisciplines, and some clarification of the differences between scientific archaeology and archaeological science. We then focus on examples of recent and current projects to argue that we should no longer differentiate between archaeologists on the one hand and archaeological scientists on the other, since many leading practitioners of archaeological sciences are both. We contend that science-based archaeology today plays an important role in the formulation of new theories, and in challenging long-standing assumptions in archaeology and numerous other fields (e.g. ecology). Archaeological science is central to contemporary archaeological theory and practice, and will become increasingly important in the foreseeable future.
Promoting Maths to the General Public
Authors: Budd Chris J.
Published: February 2015

In this chapter I will address the issue that whilst mathematics is vital to all of our lives, playing a vital role in modern technology and even helping us to understand the brain, it is often perceived to be a dry, boring, and useless subject. The chapter will explore various ways that mathematics can be presented to the general public in a way that makes it seem to be exciting and relevant, and captures its essence without dumbing it down. In particular it will look at strategies that have been shown to work well with the public including the use of careful real life examples and relating maths to people, hands on maths at science fairs, and maths in the media and on the Internet. The chapter includes some case studies of what does and does not work in the field of maths communication.
Polarization and American Political Development
Authors: McCarty Nolan
Published: February 2015

One of the most fertile areas of research has been the question of why the American political system has polarized so sharply over the past four decades. The academic debates about polarization have largely been carried out by mainstream scholars of political behavior and institutions. Scholars of American Political Development (APD) have a major opportunity to participate in a vital debate about the emergence of a central feature of the contemporary American system while mainstream scholars should come to appreciate that one cannot easily develop explanations for dynamic change with static models of institutions and behavior. This chapter reviews the literature on polarization to introduce scholars of APD to debates about the measurement of polarization and its causes Also areas in which our knowledge about polarization can be improved by historical–institutional analysis are identified.
Unemployment and Its Wider Impact
Authors: Sinfield Adrian
Published: February 2015

Higher unemployment affects many more people than those currently out of work. A society with unemployment remaining high for many years is very different from one providing adequate opportunities for all who want work. The lack of jobs can be a major obstacle to preventing and reducing poverty and exclusion not simply among the unemployed but also among single parents, older people, and those with disabilities. Equal opportunity programs and rehabilitation services also encounter particular difficulties. The level of unemployment has wider implications for the distribution of resources, power, and opportunity across society. But analysis and research into this wider impact remain limited. The reasons lie in part in a general shift away from structural analyses. Yet more and better understanding of the broader impact of unemployment on society may help us to take account of and respond to the experiences of those currently out of work and to the wider repercussions.
Introduction, or Why This Handbook?
Authors: DeMartino George F. , McCloskey Deirdre
Published: February 2015

For more than a century, the economics profession has extended its reach to encompass policy formation and institutional design while largely ignoring the ethical challenges that attend the profession’s influence over the lives of others. Economists have proved to be disinterested in ethics, which, embracing emotivism, they often treat as a matter of preference, and they seem hostile to professional economic ethics, which they incorrectly equate with a code of conduct that would be at best ineffectual and at worst disruptive to good economic practice. But good ethical reasoning is not reducible to mere tastes, and professional ethics is not reducible to a code. Instead, professional economic ethics refers to a new field of investigation—a tradition of sustained inquiry into the irrepressible ethical entailments of academic and applied economic practice. The risks and costs of establishing the field are real, but a profession that purports to enhance social welfare cannot avoid them.
Lady Justice Versus Cult of Statistical Significance
Authors: Ziliak Stephen T. , McCloskey Deirdre
Published: February 2015

Economics and other sciences use null hypothesis statistical significance testing without a loss function and avoid asking “how big is a big loss or gain?.” Statistical significance is not equivalent to economic significance; the mistake is evident when one reflects that the estimated payoff from a lottery is not the same as the odds of winning that lottery. Yet a widespread failure to make the distinction between an estimate of human consequence and an estimate of its probability—between the meaning of an estimated average and the random variance around it—is killing people in medicine and impoverishing people in economics. The ethical problem created by a test of statistical significance is made worse by the method’s blatant illogic at the foundational level, a fact unacknowledged by most of those depending on it. Several changes to the literature and a recent Supreme Court decision could help.
Measuring Spillovers in Markets for Local Public Affairs Coverage
Authors: Hamilton James T.
Published: February 2015

This chapter explores the evidence on how media coverage generates spillovers that influence the election and actions of local politicians. If a news story influences a reader’s decisions about turning out to vote, supporting an incumbent, or selecting a particular party’s candidates, these decisions may have spillovers on other people in the community. If politicians anticipate these spillover effects when making their own choices, or if they learn new facts that cause them to change their public actions, this is another way that the media can affect local politics.
Introduction: Emerging Adulthood Theory and Research
Authors: Arnett Jeffrey Jensen
Published: February 2015

This chapter provides an introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Emerging Adulthood. It begins with an overview of the aims and scope of the handbook. Then it summarizes briefly the content of the chapters to come. The handbook is comprised of 35 chapters organized into 10 parts, with each part containing from two to six chapters. The chapters cover a broad range of areas, from structural factors (such as social class) to relationships (from family to friends) to risk and resilience. The final section of this introductory chapter presents suggestions for the future of the field. The explosive expansion of the field over the past 15 years is noted, and suggestions are made for the field to focus more on EAs who do not attend college, devote more research to international variations in EA, and examine the transition from EA to the next life stage.
Improvisatory Practices and the Dawn of the New American Cinema
Authors: Villa Sara
Published: February 2015

In 1960, cinema critic Jonas Mekas welcomed the advent of the New American Cinema, praising the wave of independent movies produced in late 1950s for their casual and fragmentary nature. The key feature of these productions, which was particularly remarkable in the case of two major features—Shadowsby John Cassavetes andPull My Daisyby Alfred Leslie and Robert Frank—was an anti-Hollywood style that relied on improvisatory practices affecting all structural levels: from the acting to the montage, from the photography to the soundtrack. The style of this “spontaneous cinema” was a pastiche of multiple improvisatory practices, borrowed from bebop, beat poetry, and Stanislavsky’s acting techniques, which defied traditional cinematographic narratives. A close analysis ofShadowsandPull My Daisyreveals the multiple forms of improvisation that shaped these movies’ “spontaneous poetics” and the ways in which they both managed to bring improvisation into film art.
Animals as Living Property
Authors: Favre David
Published: February 2015

For all recorded history domestic animals have been considered objects within the legal system, classified as personal property, the primary focus being on what an owner can do with property or how an owner can protect property from intrusions of others or the government. More recently, our society has developed a new perspective, focusing not on the owners’ rights but on the animals themselves and what level of protection and concern they should be given, regardless of the issue of ownership. To aid in the process of giving animals more visibility within the legal system, it is necessary to remove them from the category of personal property and place them in a new category of “living property.” Once this happens, the allocation of legal rights to domestic animals can begin on a clean slate allowing the issues of animal rights and legal personhood to be directly addressed.
The Struggle for Compassion and Justice through Critical Animal Studies
Authors: Gigliotti Carol
Published: February 2015

Critical animal studies (CAS) is a critical approach to human-animal relationships and explicitly committed to a global justice for animals, humans, and the earth. This essay argues that the global animal industrial complex, as well as the increasing global cultural push to eat meat, are inordinately causing calamitous current conditions of human-caused climate change and species extinction, as well as increasing poverty, hunger, disease, environmental damage and unprecedented animal misery and slaughter. Influenced by critical theory from the Frankfurt School and feminism, among other sources, CAS specifically critiques capitalism and globalization in its role in the domination of people, animals and the earth, but also sees the intersections of all oppression anywhere and for whatever reason as motivation for employing the powerful forces of compassion and social justice.
Sluggish Cognitive Tempo/Concentration Deficit Disorder
Authors: Barkley Russell A.
Published: February 2015

Sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT), or concentration deficit disorder (CDD), comprises excessive daydreaming, staring, mental fogginess and confusion, drowsiness, lethargy, sluggishness, and hypoactivity, among other symptoms. This article summarizes the findings on CDD/SCT and its relationship to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The cognitive dysfunction underlying CDD remains to be clarified. But its symptoms comprise a two-dimensional structure that is separate from those in ADHD. CDD is reliably associated with social withdrawal and is more strongly related to internalizing than to externalizing psychopathology, in contrast to ADHD. Both ADHD and CDD are impairing, but ADHD is more so. Little evidence exists on the etiologies of CDD or on response to treatments. More research is needed on all facets of CDD before its status as a new disorder can be confirmed.
Jury Nullification in the United States
Authors: King Nancy J.
Published: February 2015

This essay provides a comprehensive yet compact discussion of jury nullification in the United States. It includes a summary of (a) criminal cases in which juries have deliberately acquitted defendants they believed were guilty under the law as described by the judge, from the nation’s beginning through today; (b) legal rules that prevent nullification from occurring, as well as rules that protect it when it does; (c) constitutional and nonconstitutional arguments for and against recognizing a more robust role for jury nullification; and (d) the findings of empirical research examining how often and under what conditions jurors refuse to convict for reasons other than failure of proof. A list of references includes more than 100 books, articles, cases, and other resources on the topic.
Political Strategy in the Narrative of Ezra–Nehemiah
Authors: Laird Donna J.
Published: February 2015

This chapter surveys the changing narrative voices and diverse literary materials contained in Ezra and Nehemiah. It details how these various components coalesce into a sharply focused argument to define the membership and religious practices of the post-exilic community. To illustrate this in detail, an intertextual study compares the use of holy war motifs (anxiety about chaos, a warring patron deity, herem, concern for purity, and covenant loyalty) in the Nehemiah memoir with their use in the book of Joshua. Then, using Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological work on symbolic language and the social field, Nehemiah’s nuanced usage of holy war is evaluated with respect to the author’s cultural capital and social and political context. The findings suggest that Nehemiah’s rhetorical strategies can be used to map the state of power relations and the social and cultural context of the author.
Sustenance and Survival in Biblical Narrative
Authors: Koosed Jennifer L.
Published: February 2015

Food is a comprehensive cultural code. In ancient Israel and early Judaism, food production and preparation structured lives; what one did in the process was determined by gender and class status and sometimes even marked by ethnic and religious identity. Food also serves to structure narrative, shape characterization, and add layers of symbolic signification to story. In the Bible, the drama of the first few chapters revolves around proper versus improper eating, and the final book portrays God as a lamb sacrificed for the Passover meal. Between picking and tasting the forbidden fruit, and slaughtering and eating God, a whole host of food-related plots, characters, and images proliferate, many of which revolve around the most important of foodstuffs: bread. This chapter explores the centrality of bread in the story of Adam and Eve, the book of Ruth, and the gospels of Jesus.
The Economic Politics of Biblical Narrative
Authors: Boer Roland
Published: February 2015

Assuming that politics cannot be separated from economics, this chapter begins by outlining a framework for understanding the economic politics of ancient Israel within the context of the ancient Near East. Overwhelmingly agrarian, these economies functioned in terms of a primary tension between palatine estates and village communities. The estates (also of temples) were intended to supply the small ruling class with its everyday and luxury needs. By contrast, the village communities operated on their own terms, although when under the wavering sway of rulers, they were forced to pay taxes and provide labor for the estates. In this context, the chapter interprets three biblical accounts. The first concerns the “estate of Eden,” and it argues that the underlying perspective is one of palatine estates. Second, the chapter focuses on the narrative tension between Joseph and Moses, which is the real tension of the story of Egypt and the Exodus. While Joseph represents an estate system and the cause of Israelite enslavement, Moses represents the constitutive resistance to that situation. Third, the texts of Job and Proverbs may be seen in this light, with Job criticized for his holding of estates and Proverbs presenting a subtle ruling-class perspective on the tension traced throughout the chapter.
Pi64, Encoding a Novel CC-NBS-LRR Protein, Confers Resistance to Leaf and Neck Blast in Rice
Authors: Ma Jian , Lei Cailin , Xu Xingtao , Hao Kun , Wang Jiulin , Cheng Zhijun , Ma Xiaoding , Ma Jin , Zhou Kunneng , Zhang Xin , Guo Xiuping , Wu Fuqing , Lin Qibing , Wang Chunming , Zhai Huqu , Wang Haiyang , Wan Jianmin
Published: February 2015

Rice blast caused by Magnaporthe oryzae poses a major threat to rice production worldwide. The utilization of host resistance (R) genes is considered to be the most effective and economic means to control rice blast. Here, we show that the japonica landrace Yangmaogu (YMG) displays a broader spectrum of resistance to blast isolates than other previously reported broad-spectrum resistant (BSR) cultivars. Genetic analysis suggested that YMG contains at least three major R genes. One gene, Pi64, which exhibits resistance to indica-sourced isolate CH43 and several other isolates, was mapped to a 43-kb interval on chromosome 1 of YMG. Two open reading frames (NBS-1 and NBS-2) encoding nucleotide-binding site and leucine-rich repeat proteins were short-listed as candidate genes for Pi64. Constructs containing each candidate gene were transformed into three susceptible japonica cultivars. Only transformants with NBS-2 conferred resistance to leaf and neck blast, validating the idea that NBS-2 represents the functional Pi64 gene. Pi64 is constitutively expressed at all development stages and in all tissues examined. Pi64 protein is localized in both the cytoplasm and nucleus. Furthermore, introgression of Pi64 into susceptible cultivars via gene transformation and marker-assisted selection conferred high-level and broad-spectrum leaf and neck blast resistance to indica-sourced isolates, demonstrating its potential utility in breeding BSR rice cultivars.