bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The self-reported health of the Sámi in Sweden: the SámiHET study
Authors: San Sebastián Miguel , Stoor Jon Petter
Published: March 2023

Background

The Sámi are an ethnic minority and the only Indigenous people in the European Union. Population-based health studies among Sámi in Sweden are scarce and outdated. The aim of this study was to analyse the ethnic, Sámi vs. non-Sámi, health differences among men and women living in Sweden.

Methods

This study combined two data sources: the national Health on Equal Terms (HET) survey and a similar study conducted among the Sámi population, the SámiHET study, both carried out during spring 2021. Twelve outcomes were used to capture different aspects of the population’s health organized along four dimensions: general health, physical health, mental health and lifestyle behaviours. Prevalence ratios, adjusted for age, civil status, education and income, were used as the measure of effect with 95% confidence intervals to provide inference. Analyses were disaggregated by sex.

Results

The prevalence of poor self-rated dental health (and chronically ill health among men), asthma and overweight were higher among the Sámi; however, the mental health outcomes were similar or lower among the Sámi participants. The Sámi ate less vegetables and fruits, but they were smoking and drinking alcohol less than the national Swedish population. These patterns were similar among both men and women.

Conclusion

Poor self-rated dental health, asthma, overweight and a low consumption of vegetables and fruits were a concern among the Sámi population in both men and women. These areas therefore require specific targeted interventions to decrease the observed ethnic health inequalities in Sweden. The design of this study opens the possibility for continuous monitoring of the health of the Sámi but also offers the best possible comparison with Swedish population health data.
Work–life balance and work engagement across the European workforce: a comparative analysis of welfare states
Authors: Björk-Fant Janina M , Bolander Pernilla , Forsman Anna K
Published: March 2023

Background

Few large-scale, comparative studies have examined both the positive mental well-being outcomes of work–life balance and the broader socio-economic context by which it is shaped. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the association between work–life balance and work engagement across a wide range of European welfare states, as well as to examine whether work–life balance varies across European countries and whether this variance can be explained by welfare regime, controlling for individual-level factors.

Methods

This study utilized data from the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey. In total, 35 401 workers from 30 European countries could be classified into the adopted welfare regime typology. Work engagement was measured using an ultra-short version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, and work–life balance with a question on the fit between working hours and family or social commitments. Due to the hierarchical structure of the data, multilevel regression models were applied.

Results

A statistically significant positive association between work–life balance and work engagement across the European workforce was found. Between-country variance in work–life balance was demonstrated and this can in part be explained by welfare regime.

Conclusions

While it has long been recognized that occupational stress and work-related mental health problems are shaped by the socio-economic context and thus regarded as public health concerns in Europe, our results suggest that this applies to well-being at work and related support factors as well.
Software Application Profile: The daggle app—a tool to support learning and teaching the graphical rules of selecting adjustment variables using directed acyclic graphs
Authors: Hanly Mark , Brew Bronwyn K , Austin Anna , Jorm Louisa
Published: March 2023

Motivation

Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are used in epidemiological research to communicate causal assumptions and guide the selection of covariate adjustment sets when estimating causal effects. For any given DAG, a set of graphical rules can be applied to identify minimally sufficient adjustment sets that can be used to adjust for bias due to confounding when estimating the causal effect of an exposure on an outcome. The daggle app is a web-based application that aims to assist in the learning and teaching of adjustment set identification using DAGs.

General features

The application offers two modes: tutorial and random. The tutorial mode presents a guided introduction to how common causal structures can be presented using DAGs and how graphical rules can be used to identify minimally sufficient adjustment sets for causal estimation. The random mode tests this understanding by presenting the user with a randomly generated DAG—a daggle. To solve the daggle, users must correctly identify a valid minimally sufficient adjustment set.

Implementation

The daggle app is implemented as an R shiny application using the golem framework. The application builds upon existing R libraries including pcalg to generate reproducible random DAGs, dagitty to identify all valid minimal adjustment sets and ggdag to visualize DAGs.

Availability

The daggle app can be accessed online at [http://cbdrh.shinyapps.io/daggle]. The source code is available on GitHub [https://github.com/CBDRH/daggle] and is released under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Klt Varieties With Conjecturally Minimal Volume
Authors: Totaro Burt
Published: March 2023

We construct klt projective varieties with ample canonical class and the smallest known volume. We also find exceptional klt Fano varieties with the smallest known anti-canonical volume. We conjecture that our examples have the smallest volume in every dimension, and we give low-dimensional evidence for that. In order to improve on earlier examples, we are forced to consider weighted hypersurfaces that are not quasi-smooth. We show that our Fano varieties are exceptional by computing their global log canonical threshold (or $\alpha $-invariant) exactly; it is extremely large, roughly $2^{2^n}$ in dimension $n$. These examples give improved lower bounds in Birkar’s theorem on boundedness of complements for Fano varieties.
Communication networks do not predict success in attempts at peer production
Authors: Foote Jeremy , Shaw Aaron , Hill Benjamin Mako
Published: March 2023

Although peer production has created valuable information goods like Wikipedia, the GNU/Linux operating system, and Reddit, the majority of attempts at peer production achieve very little. In work groups and teams, coordination and social integration—manifested via dense, integrative communication networks—predict success. We hypothesize that the conditions in which new peer production communities operate make communication problems common and make coordination and integration more difficult, and that variation in the structure of project communication networks will predict project success. In this article, we measure communication networks for 999 early-stage peer production wikis. We assess whether communities displaying network markers of coordination and social integration are more productive and long-lasting. Contrary to our expectations, we find a very weak relationship between communication structure and collaborative performance. We propose that technology may serve as a partial substitute for communication in coordinating work and integrating newcomers in peer production.
Integration of EM techniques for mapping buried historical harbours: a case study from the archaeological site of Tell el-Rub'a, Egypt
Authors: Mohamed Adel K , Beshr Ahmed M , Xue Guoqiang , El-Qady Gad
Published: March 2023

This study focuses on the integrated application of the frequency-domain terrain conductivity (TC) and transient electromagnetic (TEM) methods to map an ancient riverine harbour (port) at the Egyptian archaeological site of Tell el-Rub'a (prehistoric Mendes). Fifty-one TC profiles were measured using six EM frequencies and 16 TEM soundings were performed at the selected site. The apparent conductivity maps derived from the TC survey enabled defining the lateral extension of the harbour basin and its edges to penetration depths ranging between 12 and 30 m. The vertical extension of the harbour basin was determined using the TEM inversion. Three layers were defined: the topsoil, the conductive silty clay infill and the resistive sand bedrock. The bedrock is found at depths ranging from 19 to 31 m. The TC and TEM results were combined to form a 3D image of the harbour basin. This study confirms the existence of Mendes harbour and demonstrates the effectiveness of the TC and TEM methods for such archaeological studies.
The elevation of Henry Willett
Authors: Adelman David
Published: March 2023

Henry Willett (1823–1905) was a wealthy Brighton brewer who, funded by a large inheritance, became a nationally renowned collector and one of the founders of Brighton Museum. This article focuses on Willett as a ‘collector of collections’ and investigates the eclecticism of the artefacts that he accumulated in a wide range of areas: archaeology, books, curiosities, ethnography, fine art, fossils, furniture, minerals, natural history, ‘objects of vertue’ and pottery. It argues that collecting (and exhibiting) objects, for Willett, was partly a strategy for collecting people, a means of elevating himself into cultural and intellectual circles in both Brighton and London. It also speculates on the idea that Willett’s serial collecting reflected a desire to create his own private museum referencing the totality of human knowledge – an ‘imaginary museum’ whose specimens remained hidden away in premises in Brighton and Hove, only occasionally seeing the light of day.
Advanced microscopy resolves dynamic localization patterns of stress-induced mitogen-activated protein kinase (SIMK) during alfalfa root hair interactions withEnsifer meliloti
Authors: Hlaváčková Kateřina , Šamajová Olga , Hrbáčková Miroslava , Šamaj Jozef , Ovečka Miroslav
Published: March 2023

Leguminous plants have established mutualistic endosymbiotic interactions with nitrogen-fixing rhizobia to secure nitrogen sources in root nodules. Before nodule formation, the development of early symbiotic structures is essential for rhizobia docking, internalization, targeted delivery, and intracellular accommodation. We recently reported that overexpression of stress-induced mitogen-activated protein kinase (SIMK) in alfalfa affects root hair, nodule, and shoot formation, raising the question of how SIMK modulates these processes. In particular, detailed subcellular spatial distribution, activation, and developmental relocation of SIMK during early stages of alfalfa nodulation remain unclear. Here, we characterized SIMK distribution in Ensifer meliloti-infected root hairs using live-cell imaging and immunolocalization, employing alfalfa stable transgenic lines with genetically manipulated SIMK abundance and kinase activity. In the SIMKK-RNAi line, showing down-regulation of SIMKK and SIMK, we found considerably decreased accumulation of phosphorylated SIMK around infection pockets and infection threads. However, this was strongly increased in the GFP-SIMK line, constitutively overexpressing green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged SIMK. Thus, genetically manipulated SIMK modulates root hair capacity to form infection pockets and infection threads. Advanced light-sheet fluorescence microscopy on intact plants allowed non-invasive imaging of spatiotemporal interactions between root hairs and symbiotic E. meliloti, while immunofluorescence detection confirmed that SIMK was activated in these locations. Our results shed new light on SIMK spatiotemporal participation in early interactions between alfalfa and E. meliloti, and its internalization into root hairs, showing that local accumulation of active SIMK modulates early nodulation in alfalfa.
Tidal stripping in the adiabatic limit
Authors: Stücker Jens , Ogiya Go , Angulo Raul E , Aguirre-Santaella Alejandra , Sánchez-Conde Miguel A
Published: March 2023

We present a model for the remnants of haloes that have gone through an adiabatic tidal stripping process. We show that this model exactly reproduces the remnant of an NFW halo that is exposed to a slowly increasing isotropic tidal field and approximately for an anisotropic tidal field. The model can be used to predict the asymptotic mass loss limit for orbiting subhaloes, solely as a function of the initial structure of the subhalo and the value of the tidal field at pericentre. Predictions can easily be made for differently concentrated host-haloes with and without baryonic components, which differ most notably in their relation between pericentre radius and tidal field. The model correctly predicts several empirically measured relations such as the ‘tidal track’ and the ‘orbital frequency relation’ that was reported by Errani & Navarro (2021) for the case of an isothermal sphere. Further, we propose applications of the ‘structure–tide’ degeneracy, which implies that increasing the concentration of a subhalo has exactly the same impact on tidal stripping as reducing the amplitude of the tidal field. Beyond this, we find that simple relations hold for the bound mass, truncation radius, WIMP annihilation luminosity, and tidal ratio of tidally stripped NFW haloes in relation to quantities measured at the radius of maximum circular velocity. Finally, we note that NFW haloes cannot be completely disrupted when exposed adiabatically to tidal fields of arbitrary magnitudes. We provide an open-source implementation of our model and suggest that it can be used to improve predictions of dark matter annihilation.
Short-lived radioisotope enrichment in star-forming regions from stellar winds and supernovae
Authors: Parker Richard J , Lichtenberg Tim , Patel Miti , Polius Cheyenne K M , Ridsdill-Smith Matthew
Published: March 2023

The abundance of the short-lived radioisotopes 26Al and 60Fe in the early Solar system is usually explained by the Sun either forming from pre-enriched material, or the Sun’s protosolar disc being polluted by a nearby supernova explosion from a massive star. Both hypotheses suffer from significant drawbacks: the former does not account for the dynamical evolution of star-forming regions, while in the latter the time for massive stars to explode as supernovae can be similar to, or even longer than, the lifetime of protoplanetary discs. In this paper, we extend the disc enrichment scenario to include the contribution of 26Al from the winds of massive stars before they explode as supernovae. We use N-body simulations and a post-processing analysis to calculate the amount of enrichment in each disc, and we vary the stellar density of the star-forming regions. We find that stellar winds contribute to disc enrichment to such an extent that the Solar system’s 26Al/60Fe ratio is reproduced in up to 50 per cent of discs in dense ($\tilde{\rho } = 1000$ M⊙ pc−3) star-forming regions. When winds are a significant contributor to the SLR enrichment, we find that Solar system levels of enrichment can occur much earlier (before 2.5 Myr) than when enrichment occurs from supernovae, which start to explode at later ages (>4 Myr). We find that Solar system levels of enrichment all but disappear in low-density star-forming regions ($\tilde{\rho } \le 10$ M⊙ pc−3), implying that the Solar system must have formed in a dense, populous star-forming region if 26Al and 60Fe were delivered directly to the protosolar disc from massive-star winds and supernovae.
Stop or Not: Genome-Wide Profiling of Reassigned Stop Codons in Ciliates
Authors: Chen Wenbing , Geng Yupeng , Zhang Bing , Yan Ying , Zhao Fangqing , Miao Miao
Published: March 2023

Bifunctional stop codons that have both translation and termination functions in the same species are important for understanding the evolution and function of genetic codes in living organisms. Considering the high frequency of bifunctional codons but limited number of available genomes in ciliates, we de novo sequenced seven representative ciliate genomes to explore the evolutionary history of stop codons. We further propose a stop codon reassignment quantification method (stopCR) that can identify bifunctional codons and measure their frequencies in various eukaryotic organisms. Using our newly developed method, we found two previously undescribed genetic codes, illustrating the prevalence of bifunctional stop codons in ciliates. Overall, evolutionary genomic analyses suggest that gain or loss of reassigned stop codons in ciliates is shaped by their living environment, the eukaryotic release factor 1, and suppressor tRNAs. This study provides novel clues about the functional diversity and evolutionary history of stop codons in eukaryotic organisms.
Strong Positive Selection inAedes aegyptiand the Rapid Evolution of Insecticide Resistance
Authors: Love R Rebecca , Sikder Josh R , Vivero Rafael J , Matute Daniel R , Schrider Daniel R
Published: March 2023

Aedes aegypti vectors the pathogens that cause dengue, yellow fever, Zika virus, and chikungunya and is a serious threat to public health in tropical regions. Decades of work has illuminated many aspects of Ae. aegypti's biology and global population structure and has identified insecticide resistance genes; however, the size and repetitive nature of the Ae. aegypti genome have limited our ability to detect positive selection in this mosquito. Combining new whole genome sequences from Colombia with publicly available data from Africa and the Americas, we identify multiple strong candidate selective sweeps in Ae. aegypti, many of which overlap genes linked to or implicated in insecticide resistance. We examine the voltage-gated sodium channel gene in three American cohorts and find evidence for successive selective sweeps in Colombia. The most recent sweep encompasses an intermediate-frequency haplotype containing four candidate insecticide resistance mutations that are in near-perfect linkage disequilibrium with one another in the Colombian sample. We hypothesize that this haplotype may continue to rapidly increase in frequency and perhaps spread geographically in the coming years. These results extend our knowledge of how insecticide resistance has evolved in this species and add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that Ae. aegypti has an extensive genomic capacity to rapidly adapt to insecticide-based vector control.
Afro-Protestantism, Pluralism, and the Problem of the Color Line
Authors: Sorett Josef
Published: March 2023

Chapter 2 contends that Afro-Protestantism played a key role in the emerging genre of “race literature,” the practice of religious pluralism on display at the first World’s Parliament of Religion, and novel forms of Christianity that gave rise to the tradition of Afro-Pentecostalism. While varied, these phenomena offered a shared cultural terrain through which African Americans at the turn of the twentieth century could interpret and organize an increasingly heterodox black religious experience in the face of the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow. The generation of black writers, leaders, and preachers to emerge from this period pursued, in different ways, a modern form of religious expression that would orient the black masses and make a claim on the larger society. The aim of this modern religious ideal was to help both black people and the nation bring an end to Jim Crow, but it was often at odds with the predominant religious practices in American, and African American, culture. However, these developments helped to set the theoretical terms and disciplinary limits through which African American religion would be imagined and analyzed for decades to come.
Introduction Engaging Both Horns of the Ethical Dilemma
Authors: Schoeni Daniel E. , Vestner Tobias
Published: March 2023

This introductory chapter sets the scene for the book, providing an overview and a through-line for the myriad themes discussed in the substantive chapters and the conclusions drawn in the final chapter. This chapter marvels that more academic work has not been devoted to the ethical issues in this morally fraught sector. There exists a tension, it argues, between a weapons industry whose existence is necessary for national defense and the malevolent purposes for which those arms are sometimes used. Scholars’ reluctance to engage these issues parallels a broader human tendency to eschew such matters, perhaps because we would prefer not to think about what our collective responsibility may be for wrongdoing committed in times of war, in what are often far-off lands. But with modern, truly global defense industries, such ethical issues become harder to ignore.
The Ethics of Better Weapons
Authors: Ayres Thomas E , Govern Kevin , Meier Michael W.
Published: March 2023

This chapter offers a military lawyer’s perspective on how soldiers deserve the best weapons possible. Under the law of armed conflict (LOAC, also known as international humanitarian law, or IHL), deadly force may be used against an identified enemy as a first option. Service members need not put themselves at risk. LOAC similarly allows for the use of superior weapons that minimize risk to oneself. Therefore, when it comes to a service member’s perspective, the chapter postulates that there are five reasons that make it ethically permissible and even obligate the development and procurement of the best weapons possible. The chapter explains how U.S. laws, regulation, and practice ensure that the best weapons are provided to the armed forces within the international legal framework, including legal reviews of weapons, and the implementation of technology-specific ethical principles. When doing so, the chapter considers the ethical and legal particularities of emerging and disruptive technologies, notably artificial intelligence.
Protecting Civilian Data in Armed Conflicts
Authors: Biller Jeffrey , Goines Timothy
Published: March 2023

This chapter addresses one of the most salient yet normatively unresolved issues regarding cyber operations: protecting civilian data during armed conflicts. The chapter illustrates how certain state operations target civilian data in foreign countries, including the United States. The chapter describes the international humanitarian law (IHL) governing cyber operations in armed conflicts. It points out how international law is unclear on whether data qualifies as object, which is essential for the proper application of IHL to cyber operations and describe further inadequacies of existing protections of civilian data. After highlighting current initiatives to address this issue, which do not focus on the role of industry, the chapter presents original ideas on how the industry can make a difference: (1) cooperating in developing alternative methods of achieving strategic cyber effects without harming civilian data; (2) enhancing collaborative cybersecurity efforts related to the protection of key sectors of civilian data; and (3) using economic and social influence to push toward a more protective legal regime.
Defense Firms’ Duties to Society When Presented with an Opportunity to Pay a Bribe
Authors: Nichols Philip M.
Published: March 2023

This chapter examines defense firms’ duties to society when presented with an opportunity to pay a bribe. The chapter addresses this as a moral rather than a legal question, first confirming that defense firms are moral agents. Several factors strongly distort the industry in which these firms operate, including concentration of both supply and demand, secrecy, complexity, and close government and industry relationships. Society would be justified, using any moral framework, in intervening in this market or requiring defense firms to operate in nonmarket ways. Society, however, allows defense firms to work in and profit from markets. In exchange, defense firms owe a heightened duty to society. The chapter points out that society is at risk. The same factors that distort the defense market also render it vulnerable to bribery. Bribery by defense firms threatens both society and vulnerable persons, in the form of inappropriate or low-quality weapon systems, reduced defensive capacity, and wasted resources, and these harms can be directly attributed to bribe-paying firms. Bribery also opens a backdoor through which defense firms supply weapons to dangerous, prohibited buyers. This leads the chapter to an ineluctable conclusion: in exchange for permission to operate in a distorted market, defense firms owe a heightened duty to protect society. Bribery seriously damages society. Defense firms’ supposed duty to society takes priority over other duties. Thus, both legally and morally, defense firms should not participate in bribery.
Ethical Issues in the Global Arms Industry
Authors: Davis Michael
Published: March 2023

This chapter explores the role of engineers in the ethical development and proliferation of weapons and technology. It observes that engineers employed by manufacturers have a critical role in foreign military sales that is often unnoticed. Manufacturers’ engineers do much more than design the fighter jet, for instance. At an early stage of negotiations, engineers will be sent out to work with their foreign counterparts to evaluate the local infrastructure that would support the jets—air bases, maintenance practices, pilot training, local suppliers, and so forth. Such details involve ongoing discussions and handshake agreements between engineers. The chapter describes these relationships between the exporting firm’s and purchasing country’s engineers as “intimate and enduring.” Hence, the chapter proposes that ethical standards be embedded in the standards of the engineering profession. This would address arms industry ethical dilemmas in three directions. Horizontally, this would broaden the industrial and international ethical standards. Vertically, this would push existing standards down to the practical level of engineers, where many of the critical ethical decisions are made. Temporally, this would introduce ethical considerations from the very beginning that would endure throughout the life cycle of the weapon system.
Mandatory Disclosure
Authors: Yukins Christopher R.
Published: March 2023

This chapter offers a case study in how anti-corruption measures can affect competition in defense markets by focusing on mandatory disclosure. The chapter observes that the mandatory disclosure regime introduced to U.S. federal procurement can have a perverse effect on competition, favoring large incumbents over smaller upstarts. This policy, however well intentioned, exacerbates the divide between large and small contractors, as the latter will often find elaborate compliance systems unaffordable. This not only increased corruption risks but also caused undue reputational risks for the stakeholders with the most to lose: the government and major defense contractors. In response, the chapter proposes a return to the voluntary disclosure system existing for two decades after the “Ill Wind” procurement scandals of the 1980s, which served as a model for the World Bank’s voluntary reporting requirements. Making this program voluntary again would allow coverage of a broader array of misconduct, would reduce implementation costs, and, not least, would have a less damaging effect on competition. Counterintuitively, perhaps, lighter-touch anti-corruption measures may thus yield better results.
Egypt before the Saites
Authors: Li Jean
Published: March 2023

The Third Intermediate Period spanned the time period from the end of the New Kingdom (ca. 1070 bc) to the subsequent reassertion of Egyptian control by the Saite 26th Dynasty (664 bc). Virtually all aspects of the history, archaeology, and social and cultural developments of this era are complex, imperfectly understood, and subject to continued revision. Once characterized as a time of political weakness and cultural decay, Egypt before the Saites witnessed a dynamic period of diffusion of power, in which historically marginalized groups (foreigners and women) participated. The chapter also focuses on the tension between innovative interpretations of cultural concepts and practices, such as kingship, afterlife, religion, and written and material culture, and their place within the framework of enduring Egyptian traditions.
Assyria from Tiglath-pileser I to Ashurnasirpal II
Authors: Shibata Daisuke
Published: March 2023

This chapter deals with the political history of Assyria from the eleventh to the ninth century bc, from the reign of Tiglath-pileser I (1114–1076 bc) to that of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 bc). The most striking feature of this period is the temporary decline of Assyria, the territorial extent and political influence of which reached a nadir in the first half of the tenth century bc, and its subsequent revival during the late tenth and early ninth centuries bc. Based on a close examination of the extant textual sources, this chapter focuses on how the system of Assyrian territorial governance established in the late second millennium bc collapsed and how a new system of governance was established, especially during the reign of Ashurnasirpal II. This king also moved the political capital from Assur to Kalhu (modern Nimrud) and took the first, decisive steps toward the creation of an entirely new political entity: the Assyrian Empire.
The Assyrian Empire
Authors: Fales Frederick Mario
Published: March 2023

This chapter offers an overview of the Assyrian Empire’s society and culture—inevitably selective due to the wealth of sources and of research perspectives. After tracing continuities going back to the Late Bronze Age, a survey of the textual evidence (learned, official, and mundane) is used to reveal the multilayered culture of the empire, supplemented with evidence from figurative art, a further key source of narrative-historical information, with a particular focus on the depictions of war. The cosmopolitan character of the Assyrian imperial court is investigated by an analysis of the textual data and artifacts reflecting external cultural imprints from Anatolia to the Levant and Egypt. The multiethnic patchwork of peoples forming the empire’s population is analyzed through two distinct and complementary lenses: ethnicity, as a cultural and social construct that shapes group identities from within and outside; and language, as the archival data shed much light on the coexistence of languages and cultures in the cities and the countryside throughout the empire. In the first case, the crucial difference of status that was perceived between “Assyrians” and “others” is elucidated through positive and negative examples. In the second case, onomastics serve to highlight the diffuse tolerance of the imperial ruling class for the linguistically and culturally diverse component communities of the empire—provided that they honored the “Assyrian way of life.” Contextualizing the extraordinary “superiority complex” at state level that marked the Assyrian imperial experience, the chapter emphasizes the optimistic and ultimately positive dimensions of the Assyrian Empire.
The Neo-Babylonian Empire
Authors: Jursa Michael
Published: March 2023

As an accidental heir to major parts of the Assyrian Empire, the Neo-Babylonian Empire controlled in the sixth century bc much of the Middle East before falling to the rising Persian Empire. Imperial domination in Syria and especially the Levant led to large-scale destruction and deprivation, for which the case of Jerusalem and the Judeans’ “Babylonian exile” is the most consequential example. At the same time, the imperial center in Babylonia profited greatly from the inflowing spoils of empire, and the crown initiated an ambitious program of centralized institution-building. The physical transformation of Babylonian cities by large-scale royal building projects is but one feature of the resulting political and socioeconomic transformation.
Polemics and Confessional Ambiguity
Authors: Matthiesen Toby
Published: March 2023

This chapter explores the notion of polemics and confessional ambiguity following the emergence of the Mongols as a new invading force. Mongol conquests of Iran, Anatolia, and the Eastern Arab lands reshuffled the cards between Sunnism and Shiism, and Sufism. Moreover, the conquests upended pre-existing institutions and political arrangements and the Middle East became polarised between two major political powers: the Mongols and the Mamluks. The chapter cites that the rivalry between Sunni and Shii clerics resulted in the most elaborate and vicious polemics. It elaborates on how everyday religiosity became confessional ambiguous between the House of Othman and the Safavids.
Regime Change
Authors: Matthiesen Toby
Published: March 2023

This chapter explores the major transformations in the Middle East following the end of the Cold War. It cites that the period of American hegemony started from 1900 to 2010. Military interventions in the Middle East symbolised American power and its limits. Moreover, the intervention had profound consequences for Sunnis and Shia, wherein the views of Americans affected the Islamic world. Meanwhile, the different conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Yemen had local dynamics, but they were increasingly connected. The chapter also considers how online dissemination turns local events into global events, referencing how social media framed the news of Saudi Shia boys leaving concrete pathways across the cemetery of al-Baqia in Medina.
The Arab Uprisings
Authors: Matthiesen Toby
Published: March 2023

This chapter focuses on the Arab uprisings. Protests in Manama called for national unity without regard to the division between Sunni and Shia. Despite the call for changes, the region experienced the most extreme forms of ethno-sectarian violence, which correlates to how regimes in heterogeneous societies were formed via sectarianism in previous decades. The chapter also discusses the second wave of the Arab Spring in Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan and Algeria, referring to the protests against a sectarian political system ad the dysfunction of sectarian elites. It also mentions how US invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq triggered processes that were exacerbated during the Arab Spring.
Experimenting with Religion
Authors: Jong Jonathan
Published: March 2023

Whatever else it might be, religion is a human psychological phenomenon, and psychologists have been interested in it since the beginning of the discipline. In recent decades, psychologists have been pushing back against naysayers who assert that religion simply cannot be studied scientifically, cannot be brought into a lab and quantified. They have been figuring out ways to measure various aspects of religiosity, and to rigorously test theories about why people hold the beliefs that they do about gods, souls, and rituals. They have been experimenting with religion. Experimenting with Religion brings the reader behind the scenes, into the labs where scientists have been working to understand religion. This book describes a series of experiments, puts them in their intellectual context, and interviews the scientists themselves, asking them about where their ideas come from and how these turn into actual experimental data to be interpreted. Each chapter covers a related series of studies, with topics ranging from what children believe about the afterlife to how people assess the effectiveness of spells and charms. Written in the aftermath of the replication crisis in psychology, this book is also a meditation on psychological science itself, and whether and how it can help us understand anything at all, let alone religion.
Do children believe in souls?
Authors: Jong Jonathan
Published: March 2023

This chapter covers two distinct but related lines of research. First, it follows Bruce Hood’s studies with a duplicating machine that makes exact copies of things, including security blankets and live hamsters: or so he tells the children in the study. Then, it introduces Jesse Bering’s studies that ask people what it might be like to be dead. Both research programs suggest that we have deep-seated intuitions about the distinction between minds and bodies, such that minds are unique to individuals and might survive death. These may be the psychological building blocks of the belief in souls and spirits, and in the afterlife. In both cases, the reseachers were influenced by philosophical writings, which an important source for science.
What makes an effective ritual?
Authors: Jong Jonathan
Published: March 2023

This time, we are off to Brazil for another field study. Cristine Legare and Andre Souza invent some spells—simpatias, as they are called in Brazil—to figure out how they work in the minds of those who usually use them for anything from baldness to luck in love. They find that the specificity of the instructions and repetitiveness of the ritual convey a sense of effectiveness, which might explain why rituals are so often rigid and repetitive. This chapter considers the importance of ecological validity, not only of the setting of the research, but also of the materials used in the research: in this case, “artificial” simpatias constructed by the scientists.
Does death anxiety drive religion?
Authors: Jong Jonathan
Published: March 2023

The idea that people are religious because they fear death is a widespread and venerable one. This chapter tells the story of how three groups of researchers subjected this idea to the test, with mixed and somewhat confusing results. Contradictions in experimental findings are common, and it is not always clear how to resolve them. The limits of laboratory-based research also feels acute here, as it is impossible—not to mention unethical—to put the fear of death in participants. The difficulty of measurement is raised here too, as self-report and implicit measures of religiosity seem to diverge in the face of death.
An Overview of Social Roles and Their Ethics
Authors: Barber Alex , Cordell Sean
Published: March 2023

This introductory chapter offers a basic framework for thinking about the topic of social roles and their ethics, and in doing so addresses latent resistance to the very idea that the norms associated with social roles have an ethical claim on us. It suggests a working understanding of what social roles are, a default terminology, a set of key questions, a description of links to neighbouring debates, an overview of the other chapters in the volume, and finally a list of key works on a wrongly neglected topic.
Basics of ultrafast spectroscopy
Authors: Li Hebin , Lomsadze Bachana , Moody Galan , Smallwood Christopher L. , Cundiff Steven T.
Published: March 2023

Basics of ultrafast spectroscopy are introduced in this chapter. We first discuss the basic concept of spectroscopy in terms of linear and nonlinear spectroscopy. We then describe definitions and parameters of ultrashort pulses and the ultrafast nonlinear/coherent spectroscopy. The density matrix formalism of light-matter interaction and the Bloch sphere representation of quantum states are also introduced.
Introduction to multidimensional coherent spectroscopy
Authors: Li Hebin , Lomsadze Bachana , Moody Galan , Smallwood Christopher L. , Cundiff Steven T.
Published: March 2023

An introduction to multidimensional coherent spectroscopy (MDCS) is provided in this chapter. We start out by introducing MDCS in qualitative terms, as an extension of transient absorption spectroscopy. We proceed to discuss the meaning and utility of coherent spectroscopy more generally. We go on to discuss the specifics of MDCS as a specific form of coherent spectroscopy. Pulse sequences involved in generating MDCS plots are introduced. Finally, we discuss density matrix perturbation theory and double-sided Feynman diagrams, and the role of this formalism in simulating and interpreting MDCS.
Interpretation of multidimensional coherent spectra
Authors: Li Hebin , Lomsadze Bachana , Moody Galan , Smallwood Christopher L. , Cundiff Steven T.
Published: March 2023

Interpretation of multi-dimensional coherent spectra is presented in this chapter. Results are presented with the Bloch model. We begin by discussing the characteristic features of an MDCS rephasing plot corresponding to a two-level system. We then discuss the characteristics of inhomogeneous ensembles of two-level systems. We go on to discuss the origins of cross-peaks in MDCS, and then some of the signatures in MDCS that arise as a result of many-body effects. Double-quantum spectra, zero-quantum spectra, three-dimensional spectra, and nonrephasing single-quantum spectra are discussed. Finally, we discuss the impact that finite pulse effects can have on a multidimensional spectrum.
Multidimensional coherent spectroscopy of atomic ensembles
Authors: Li Hebin , Lomsadze Bachana , Moody Galan , Smallwood Christopher L. , Cundiff Steven T.
Published: March 2023

Multidimensional coherent spectroscopy (MDCS) of atomic ensembles is discussed in this chapter. Atomic vapors such as potassium and rubidium atomic vapors are used a model system for demonstrating MDCS. The technique of MDCS can also be used to probe many-body dipole-dipole interaction and correlation in atoms by using double-quantum 2D spectroscopy. Multi-quantum 2D spectroscopy can detect many-body correlations associated with coherent states of multiple atoms in atoms.
Two-dimensional spectroscopy of semiconductor quantum wells
Authors: Li Hebin , Lomsadze Bachana , Moody Galan , Smallwood Christopher L. , Cundiff Steven T.
Published: March 2023

Two-dimensional coherent spectroscopy of semiconductor quantum wells is discussed in this chapter. The chapter starts with an introduction of semiconductor optics. The signatures of many-body interaction and correlation are revealed as spectral features in 2D spectra including one-, double-, and multi-quantum 2D spectra. Two-dimensional coherent spectroscopy can also be used to study the coupling in coupled quantum wells and exciton-polaritons in microcavities.
Two-dimensional spectroscopy of atomically thin 2D materials
Authors: Li Hebin , Lomsadze Bachana , Moody Galan , Smallwood Christopher L. , Cundiff Steven T.
Published: March 2023

Two-dimensional spectroscopy experiments on atomically thin semiconductors, specifically transition metal dichalcogenides, are presented in this chapter. An introduction to 2D materials is given, followed by experiments measuring the homogeneous and inhomogeneous linewidth in 2D materials. Signature of exciton valley coherence and exciton-trion coherent coupling are revealed as unique spectral features in the spectra, which sheds light on the valley dephasing and relaxation processes in these materials.
Selfless Minds
Authors: Chadha Monima
Published: March 2023

Self is central to our ordinary understanding of the mind and ourselves. The fifth-century Abhidharma Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu presents a radical no-self metaphysics in his Abhidharmakośa-Bhāṣya. Selfless Minds offers a new reading of this no-self view as defending not only eliminativism about self but also about persons, and illusionism about the sense of self and all kinds of self-representation. This radical no-self thesis presents several challenges for Abhidharma Buddhist philosophy of mind. Even if we then grant that there is no self, we are left with deeper questions about the sense of self or self-representations implicated in our ordinary everyday experience and thought about the world and ourselves. This sense of self is involved in all kinds of experiential phenomena: episodic memories, unity of consciousness, sense of ownership, sense of agency, etc. And if we grant that there are no persons, questions remain about the status of our person-related concerns and interpersonal practices. Selfless Minds answers these questions on behalf of the Abhidharma Buddhist. The first part (Chapters 3–7) of the book defends the hypothesis that we can salvage much of our experience and thought without implicating self-representations. The second part (Chapters 8–9) of the book examines the normative implications of the revisionary no-person metaphysics. Some of these seem unpalatable, if not downright absurd. These revisionary implications for our normative commitments give us reason to re-evaluate both the Abhidharma metaphysics and our ordinary person-related practices and concerns in light of each other by using some sort of wide reflective equilibrium.
The Buddhist Path
Authors: Chadha Monima
Published: March 2023

This chapter explores what is required of an individual who chooses to follow and make progress on the Buddhist Path. As we shall see, making the commitment to follow the Buddhist Path means giving up a lot that we ordinarily value in the hope of a better world in which suffering is eliminated. The Buddhist is proposing a radical alteration of our individual cares and concerns, the very fabric of our being. The author argues that pursuing the Bodhisattva ideal would generate significant losses to human life (as we know it). Perhaps it is best for us (and for Buddhists more generally) to be cautious about embracing a Buddhist revolution wholeheartedly.
Concluding Remarks
Authors: Chadha Monima
Published: March 2023

The concluding remarks put forth a recommendation for making progress on some fundamental questions in philosophy: What are we? And how we should live? We can learn more about metaphysics of identity and ethics and be stimulated to develop new approaches to each of them, when we consider them not in isolation, and not from the standpoint of any one particular philosophical tradition. Rather, we should engage with comprehensive world views from a plurality of cultural locations, contexts, and times. Vasubandhu was highly influential in ancient India. This aims to show that his radical no-self view has much to offer to the contemporary debate about personal identity and ethics.
Roman Luxuria
Authors: Berno Francesca Romana
Published: March 2023

In classical Latin, luxuria means ‘desire for luxury’; it is linked with the ideas of excess and deviation from a standard, and in most cases labelled as a vice which contrasts with the innate frugal nature of the Romans. Indeed, Latin authors see it not as endemic, but as an import from the East in the aftermath of military conquests, and as a cause of fatal decline. After dealing with etymological and semantic issues, the book discusses the influence of Greek culture on the Roman concept and the peculiar characteristics of Roman luxuria. Roman views on luxuria are analysed through close readings of selected passages, in their historical evolution from Cato the Elder, who regards it as the opposite of the ideal way of life of the Romans, to the Christian poet Prudentius, who represents it in an allegorical fight with Sobriety. Attention is paid both to single authors and to literary genres, such as historiography and satire. Particular consideration is given to the rhetorical device of personification, which can be traced from the first appearances of luxuria in Latin literature to the ones in late antiquity. Much space is devoted to Seneca the Younger, whose work is very much concerned with this passion, and who both defends himself from the charge of luxuria and violently attacks it in others, describing it as the archenemy of philosophical life. Along the centuries, the focus of this vice shifts from the economic sphere, and the idea of the waste of money, to the erotic one, to the point that in the Christian world luxuria becomes one of the Seven Capital Sins, representing the vice of lust.