bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Quantum molecular unfolding
Authors: Mato Kevin , Mengoni Riccardo , Ottaviani Daniele , Palermo Gianluca
Published: May 2022

Molecular docking is an important step of the drug discovery process which aims at calculating the preferred position and shape of one molecule to a second when they are bound to each other. During such analysis, 3D representations of molecules are manipulated according to their degree of freedoms: rigid roto-translation and fragment rotations along the rotatable bonds. In our work, we focussed on one specific phase of the molecular docking procedure i.e. molecular unfolding (MU), which is used to remove the initial bias of a molecule by expanding it to an unfolded shape simpler to manipulate within the target cavity. The objective of the MU problem is to find the configuration that maximizes the molecular area, or equivalently, that maximizes the internal distances between atoms inside the molecule. We propose a quantum annealing approach to MU by formulating it as a high-order unconstrained binary optimization which was possible to solve on the latest D-wave annealing hardware (2000Q and advantage). Results and performances obtained with quantum annealers are compared with state of art classical solvers.
Integral means of derivatives of univalent functions in Hardy spaces
Authors: Pérez-González Fernando , Rättyä Jouni , Vesikko Toni
Published: May 2022

We show that the norm in the Hardy space

H
p

H^p

satisfies
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(

†

)

‖
f

‖

H
p

p

≍

∫
0
1

M
q
p

(
r
,

f
′

)
(
1
−
r

)

p

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−

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\begin{equation} \|f\|_{H^p}^p\asymp \int _0^1M_q^p(r,f’)(1-r)^{p\left (1-\frac 1q\right )}\,dr+|f(0)|^p\tag {$\dagger $} \end{equation}

for all univalent functions provided that either

q
≥
2

q\ge 2

or

2
p

2
+
p

>
q
>
2

\frac {2p}{2+p}>q>2

. This asymptotic was previously known in the cases

0
>
p
≤
q
>
∞

0>p\le q>\infty

and

p

1
+
p

>
q
>
p
>
2
+

2
157

\frac {p}{1+p}>q>p>2+\frac {2}{157}

by results due to Pommerenke [Math. Ann. 145 (1961/62), pp. 285–296], Baernstein, Girela and Peláez [Illinois J. Math. 48 (2004), pp. 837–859] and González and Peláez [J. Geom. Anal. 19 (2009), pp. 755–771]. It is also shown that

(
†
)

(\dagger )

is satisfied for all close-to-convex functions if

1
≤
q
>
∞

1\le q>\infty

. A counterpart of

(
†
)

(\dagger )

in the setting of weighted Bergman spaces is also briefly discussed.
Invited Commentary: Go BIG and Go Global—Executing Large-Scale, Multisite Pharmacoepidemiologic Studies Using Real-World Data
Authors: Maro Judith C , Toh Sengwee
Published: May 2022

At the time medical products are approved, we rarely know enough about their comparative safety and effectiveness vis-à-vis alternative therapies to advise patients and providers. Postmarket generation of evidence on rare adverse events following medical product exposure increasingly requires analysis of millions of longitudinal patient records that can provide complete capture of data on patient experiences. In the accompanying article by Pradhan et al. (Am J Epidemiology. 2022;191(8):1352–1367), the authors demonstrate how observational database studies are often the most practical approach, provided these databases are carefully chosen to be “fit for purpose.” Distributed data networks with common data models have proliferated in the last 2 decades in pharmacoepidemiology, allowing efficient capture of patient data in a standardized and structured format across disparate real-world data sources. Use of common data models facilitates transparency by allowing standardized programming approaches that can be easily reproduced. The distributed data network architecture, combined with a common data approach, supports not only multisite observational studies but also pragmatic clinical trials. It also helps bridge international boundaries and further increases the sample size and diversity of study populations.
Severity of alcohol use disorder influences sex differences in sleep, mood, and brain functional connectivity impairments
Authors: Zhang Rui , Wiers Corinde E , Manza Peter , Tomasi Dardo , Shokri-Kojori Ehsan , Kerich Mike , Almira Erika , Schwandt Melanie , Diazgranados Nancy , Momenan Reza , Volkow Nora D
Published: May 2022

Growing evidence suggests greater vulnerability of women than men to the adverse effects of alcohol on mood and sleep. However, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms are still poorly understood. Here, we examined sex difference in resting state functional connectivity in alcohol use disorder using a whole-brain data driven approach and tested for relationships with mood and self-reported sleep. To examine whether sex effects vary by severity of alcohol use disorder, we studied two cohorts: non-treatment seeking n = 141 participants with alcohol use disorder (low severity; 58 females) from the Human Connectome project and recently detoxified n = 102 treatment seeking participants with alcohol use disorder (high severity; 34 females) at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. For both cohorts, participants with alcohol use disorder had greater sleep and mood problems than healthy control, whereas sex by alcohol use effect varied by severity. Non-treatment seeking females with alcohol use disorder showed significant greater impairments in sleep but not mood compared to non-treatment seeking males with alcohol use disorder, whereas treatment-seeking females with alcohol use disorder reported greater negative mood but not sleep than treatment-seeking males with alcohol use disorder. Greater sleep problems in non-treatment seeking females with alcohol use disorder were associated with lower cerebello-parahippocampal functional connectivity, while greater mood problems in treatment-seeking females with alcohol use disorder were associated with lower fronto-occipital functional connectivity during rest. The current study suggests that changes in resting state functional connectivity may account for sleep and mood impairments in females with alcohol use disorder. The effect of severity on sex differences might reflect neuroadaptive processes with progression of alcohol use disorder and needs to be tested with longitudinal data in the future.
Astrocytic function is associated with both amyloid-β and tau pathology in non-dementedAPOE ϵ4carriers
Authors: Spotorno Nicola , Najac Chloé , Stomrud Erik , Mattsson-Carlgren Niklas , Palmqvist Sebastian , van Westen Danielle , Ronen Itamar , Hansson Oskar
Published: May 2022

A growing body of evidence suggests that astrocytes play a major role in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease. Given that APOE is primarily expressed in astrocytes, these cells might be an important link between the APOE ε4 allele and the development of Alzheimer’s disease pathology. Here, we investigate this hypothesis in vivo by measuring myo-inositol, a metabolite involved in astrocytic functions, with magnetic resonance spectroscopy. ﻿Currently, there is conflicting evidence regarding the relationship between APOE ε4 and myo-inositol concentration. Furthermore, data supporting a relationship between APOE ε4, myo-inositol and Alzheimer’s disease pathology (amyloid-beta and tau proteins) in the preclinical stage of Alzheimer’s disease are limited. A previous study revealed differences in myo-inositol levels between APOE ε4 carriers and non-carriers already in preclinical Alzheimer’s disease participants. However, other reports showed no impact of APOE genotype on the association between myo-inositol and the rate of amyloid-beta accumulation. In the present study, we determined the effect of APOE genotype on the association between myo-inositol and both amyloid-β and tau deposition quantified by PET in 428 cognitively unimpaired elderly and patients with mild cognitive impairment from the Swedish BioFINDER-2 cohort. APOE genotype impacted the associations between myo-inositol and amyloid-β pathology as revealed by an interaction effect between APOE genotype and levels of myo-inositol (P < 0.001) such that higher myo-inositol concentration was related to more amyloid-beta pathology in APOE ε4 carriers only. A similar interaction effect was also found when investigating the effect of APOE on the association between myo-inositol and tau pathology (P < 0.01). Focusing on the APOE ε4 subsample, myo-inositol partially (17%) mediated the association between amyloid-beta and tau pathology (P < 0.05). Furthermore, in a subgroup of participants with available plasma levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein, a marker of astroglial activation and astrocytosis, we found that glial fibrillary acidic protein correlated with myo-inositol only in APOE e4 carriers (APOE ε4 carriers: P < 0.01; APOE ε4 non-carriers: P > 0.8), suggesting that myo-inositol might reflect an aspect of the astrocytic involvement in Alzheimer’s pathology which is specific to the impact of APOE ε4. Therefore, we suggest that myo-inositol is a candidate in vivo marker to study the impact of APOE ε4 on the interplay between astrocytes and the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease.
Microstructural alterations predict impaired bimanual control in Parkinson’s disease
Authors: Loehrer Philipp A. , Weber Immo , Oehrn Carina R. , Nettersheim Felix S. , Dafsari Haidar S. , Knake Susanne , Tittgemeyer Marc , Timmermann Lars , Belke Marcus
Published: May 2022

Bimanual coordination is impaired in Parkinson’s disease affecting patients’ ability to perform activities of daily living and to maintain independence. Conveyance of information between cortical and subcortical areas is essential for bimanual coordination and relies on the integrity of cerebral microstructure. As pathological deposition of alpha-synuclein compromises microstructure in Parkinson’s disease, we investigated the relationship between microstructural integrity and bimanual coordination using diffusion-weighted MRI in 23 patients with Parkinson’s disease (mean age ± standard deviation: 56.0 ± 6.45 years; 8 female) and 26 older adults (mean age ± standard deviation: 58.5 ± 5.52 years). Whole-brain analysis revealed specific microstructural alterations between patients and healthy controls matched for age, sex, handedness, and cognitive status congruent with the literature and known Parkinson’s disease pathology. A general linear model revealed distinct microstructural alterations associated with poor bimanual coordination in Parkinson’s disease, corrected for multiple comparisons using a permutation-based approach. Integrating known functional topography, we conclude that distinct changes in microstructure cause an impediment of structures involved in attention, working memory, executive function, motor planning, motor control, and visual processing contributing to impaired bimanual coordination in Parkinson’s disease.
Left ventricular dysfunction with preserved ejection fraction: the most common left ventricular disorder in chronic kidney disease patients
Authors: Mark Patrick B , Mangion Kenneth , Rankin Alastair J , Rutherford Elaine , Lang Ninian N , Petrie Mark C , Stoumpos Sokratis , Patel Rajan K
Published: May 2022

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a risk factor for premature cardiovascular disease. As kidney function declines, the presence of left ventricular abnormalities increases such that by the time kidney replacement therapy is required with dialysis or kidney transplantation, more than two-thirds of patients have left ventricular hypertrophy. Historically, much research in nephrology has focussed on the structural and functional aspects of cardiac disease in CKD, particularly using echocardiography to describe these abnormalities. There is a need to translate knowledge around these imaging findings to clinical outcomes such as unplanned hospital admission with heart failure and premature cardiovascular death. Left ventricular hypertrophy and cardiac fibrosis, which are common in CKD, predispose to the clinical syndrome of heart failure with preserved left ventricular ejection fraction (HFpEF). There is a bidirectional relationship between CKD and HFpEF, whereby CKD is a risk factor for HFpEF and CKD impacts outcomes for patients with HFpEF. There have been major improvements in outcomes for patients with heart failure and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction as a result of several large randomized controlled trials. Finding therapy for HFpEF has been more elusive, although recent data suggest that sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibition offers a novel evidence-based class of therapy that improves outcomes in HFpEF. These observations have emerged as this class of drugs has also become the standard of care for many patients with proteinuric CKD, suggesting that there is now hope for addressing the combination of HFpEF and CKD in parallel. In this review we summarize the epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnostic strategies and treatment of HFpEF with a focus on patients with CKD.
Double Reducer implantation in the coronary venous system for treatment of refractory angina: a case report
Authors: Picchi Andrea , Misuraca Leonardo , Calabria Paolo , Limbruno Ugo
Published: May 2022

Background

The coronary sinus (CS) Reducer can be considered for the treatment of refractory angina in patients unsuitable for coronary revascularization, but its effect can be influenced by the significant heterogeneity in the anatomy of the cardiac venous system.

Case summary

We report the case of a 70-year-old woman with recurrent episodes of rest angina refractory to optimal medical therapy [Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) Class IV] and inducible ischaemia in a large myocardial territory. Given the diffuse and peripheral nature of the coronary disease, the patient was considered ineligible for percutaneous or surgical revascularization and she was regarded as a good candidate for a CS occluder. Since coronary venous angiography showed the middle cardiac vein (MCV) to be at least as relevant as the CS, successful implantation of two devices, one in the CS and the second in the MCV, was performed. At 6-month follow-up, the patient reported a significant improvement in angina, resulting in a reduction of the CCS class from Grades IV to III.

Discussion

In patients affected by refractory angina and regarded as good candidates for Reducer implantation, a thorough comprehension of the cardiac venous pathway drainage is of pivotal importance to guarantee the therapeutic success of the procedure. In this patient, since the CS and the MCV seemed to contribute equally to coronary venous drainage, Reducer implantation in both vessels allowed to obtain a significant improvement of symptoms. The clinical effectiveness of this strategy needs to be validated in randomized clinical trials.
On Predicting and Being Predicted: Navigating Life in a Competitive Landscape Full of Mind Readers
Authors: Ybarra Oscar , Rios Kimberly , Keller Matthew C. , Michalak Nicholas , Wang Iris , Chan Todd
Published: May 2022

We inhabit a world full of other humans. We will cooperate with some, but most will remain strangers or competitors for resources. These potential cooperators and competitors will try to make predictions about us, as we likewise attempt to predict whether they will cooperate or compete. From the target’s perspective, such attempts at being judged and predicted should have different implications, depending on whether the one doing the predicting is a potential cooperator or competitor. Using this as the lens for the present analysis, this chapter organizes the psychological literature into a coherent framework to highlight the causes and consequences associated with predicting any given target and to paint a more complex picture of the target experience, as they decide when they will or will not be predicted. The authors conclude the chapter by offering novel predictions and shedding new light on the implications for various areas of research.
Du Bois and Marx’s Influence
Authors: Douglas Andrew J.
Published: May 2022

This chapter situates W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America (1935) within the context of his evolving critical theory of global capitalism and considers the influence of Marxist theory on some of the book’s central claims. Du Bois did not seriously engage with Marx’s thought until the early 1930s, after he had already developed an independent critical analysis of capitalist imperialism and the class struggle. But his embrace of Marx during the writing of Black Reconstruction affected his analysis in three ways: it sharpened his conception of capital as a social relation of production; it emboldened his disillusionment with liberal ideology; and it reinforced his sense that the irrational contradictions of capitalist modernity could not be sustained. Ultimately Marxist theory was for Du Bois a powerful resource, one that resonated with his own revolutionary project, but it needed modification in order to reckon with capitalism’s racial violence and inequality.
W. E. B. Du Bois and American Anthropology
Authors: Baker Lee D.
Published: May 2022

W. E. B. Du Bois had a major impact on anthropology because he served as a model and mentor to Franz Boas as he was becoming a public intellectual. Anthropology in the United States changed significantly when Franz Boas (1858–1942) began challenging ideas of racial inferiority and the hierarchy of cultures in the popular press. In first decades of the 20th century the two had developed close relationship. It was Du Bois who invited, pulled, and recruited Franz Boas onto the public stage and into the struggle for Black liberation. Du Bois saw Boas as an ally, and he leveraged anthropology in two specific ways. The first was using anthropology to showcase advanced African civilizations of the past. Second, he used anthropology to demonstrate that there was no proof that one race was inferior to any other. Finally, Du Bois deployed anthropologically inflected categories and types to describe and document the diversity of African American communities.
Sociology Hesitant
Authors: Wortham Robert A.
Published: May 2022

Over his long career, W. E. B. Du Bois generated a massive body of sociological literature that provided empirical documentation and analysis of human behavior. Du Bois argued that sociologists should document patterns and unpredictable outcomes in human behavior rather than offer abstract speculations. Therefore, the sociologist’s goal is to understand and analyze how patterns and chances effect human behavior. This sociological approach was outlined in his essay “Sociology Hesitant,” written in 1905. From this perspective, sociologists were to study human action rather than ideas about people. Hence, sociological concepts were to be grounded in observable, measurable lived experiences. Thus, the task of scientific sociology is the discovery of verifiable “laws” of human behavior and “chance,” random variation in human behavior. Thus, in that essay Du Bois succinctly articulated the scope and method of sociology. Although it took many decades, the sociological approach Du Bois outlined in this often-overlooked statement is the one advocated by most contemporary sociologists.
The Global Color Line and White Supremacy
Authors: Quisumbing King Katrina
Published: May 2022

This chapter addresses how Du Bois theorized race globally. Based on close readings of his work on the global color line and white supremacy, the chapter draws attention to four Du Boisian guideposts for today’s students of race. First, race is a category of exclusion and oppression. Second, empirical observation attendant to oppressed people grants insight into the workings of global color line. Third, a global understanding of the color line links local cases to a global theory of racial colonial capitalism. Fourth, the color line is the product of economic exploitation, war, and white supremacy. For Du Bois, the color line was global, but always with local manifestations. His attention to documenting processes of exploitation in the United States, Africa, and Asia formed a basis for his calls for decolonization.
The Du Bois-Washington Debate
Authors: Rabaka Reiland
Published: May 2022

This chapter offers a critical exploration of the historic debate between W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington and the ways it enriched and expanded African American social, political, and educational thought. Washington’s work is not as difficult to present as Du Bois’s work because, by most accounts, Washington was invariably committed to his accommodationist stance, and his heyday lasted only two decades, from 1895 to 1915. By contrast, Du Bois’s thought was multidimensional and constantly changing in light of new research and novel historical times. He had an almost unfathomable eighty-year publishing career, from 1883 to 1963, and spent more than half a century preoccupied with Black leadership and Black liberation. Therefore, one of the best ways to explore the Du Boisian dimension of the Du Bois–Washington debate is to examine the main theory he created to combat and offer an alternative to Washington’s accommodationism: his classic 1903 essay “The Talented Tenth.”
W. E. B. Du Bois, Historian
Authors: Holt Thomas C.
Published: May 2022

To more fully appreciate Du Bois’s work as a historian, one must understand how his capacious historical imagination was shaped by—and shaped—his approach to other fields of study, and one must realize that his historical scholarship articulated with his political agenda. For Du Bois, as for most of his Black intellectual contemporaries, the very raison d’être of historical study was the belief that a better understanding of the past could help shape a better present and future. Trained in a German historical tradition that emphasized archival and empirical approaches to historical recovery, Du Bois recognized no necessary contradiction between political utility and intellectual integrity, since useful work had to be grounded in approaches that were scientifically objective. Thus from his first book on the slave trade to his dissection of American Reconstruction, Du Bois sought to create a factual record of African American struggles for freedom, and resistance to the repressive regime of America’s slaveholders’ republic.
Eco-uncertainty as a Frame and Way of Life
Authors: Harvey Daina Cheyenne
Published: May 2022

Because at the heart of symbolic interactionism is the idea that our social world is constructed for and by us, notions of ambiguity or uncertainty remain underexplored in the paradigm. This chapter uses work on framing and meaning-making to show how the multiple framings of an event can result in uncertainty. Using Čapek’s (2006) eco-self and Zerubavel’s thought communities (1997), this chapter shows how eco-uncertainty is used in New Orleans to both make sense of and deal with environmental suffering (Auyero and Swistun 2009a; Harvey 2016). In particular, against the backdrop of the long-term aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the chapter analyzes a chemical dusting of the Lower Ninth Ward to explore this concept. In what follows, it surveys some of the work in symbolic interaction on nature and the environment and then turns to themes within environmental inequality. It then describes the Lower Ninth Ward and the long-term aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to situate the event in question here. Finally, it uses eco-uncertainty to show how uncertainty structured interaction and meaning-making in the Lower Ninth Ward.
Writing Multimethod Assessment Reports
Authors: Smith Steven R. , Pade Hadas
Published: May 2022

This chapter highlights the main issues most relevant to effective report writing. It also introduces a few new ideas, such as alternative report formats to consider and a focus on social justice often lacking in the field. The chapter is based on the underlying assumption that psychologists are utilizing a multimethod and collaborative assessment process. The chapter is organized into three sections: (1) social justice factors that relate to language, hazards of assessment, and integrating person-in-context; (2) contextual factors that impact assessment writing; and (3) process and organizational factors related to data integration, report format, writing style, and general organization. The chapter concludes with a few suggestions for writing strong reports.
Corpus Linguistics and Sexuality
Authors: Baker Paul , Love Robbie
Published: May 2022

Corpus linguistics involves the use of computer software to aid the analysis of language data, in some cases up to billions of words of text. Techniques like frequency lists, keyword lists, collocates, and concordancing can be used to identify linguistic patterns that humans might otherwise overlook. This chapter demonstrates how corpus methods have been applied to research on language and sexuality, enabling both examination of language usage and representation of sexual identities and practices. This is followed by a case study that considers changing press discourses in the United Kingdom concerning a gay professional football player, Justin Fashanu. The study compares two corpora of newspaper articles, collected before and after Fashanu’s suicide in 1998. Analysis reveals the ways in which Fashanu was negatively represented as a result of his sexuality, from a criminal who allegedly “sodomized” a 17 year-old against his will to an emblematic victim of a prejudiced society.
Deuteronomy, the Deuteronomistic History, and the Books of Joshua through Kings
Authors: Lasine Thelle Rannfrid I.
Published: May 2022

Martin Noth’s Deuteronomistic History hypothesis built on earlier source criticism that saw some form of Deuteronomy as one of the sources of the Pentateuch or Hexateuch. Source critics had argued for the presence of the D-source also in other biblical books. According to Noth the Deuteronomistic historian wrote a unified history in the exilic period comprising Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. Following Noth, this hypothesis was developed in two main directions: the double redaction hypothesis and the concept of successive redactions. This chapter charts these developments and ends by exploring ways of reading Deuteronomy in relation to the books of Joshua through Kings using a literary approach, independently of the Deuteronomistic History hypothesis.
Buddhist Practice in South Asia
Authors: Shaw Miranda
Published: May 2022

This chapter draws on material culture and written sources to offer a broadly chronological treatment of South Asian Buddhism as it evolved through the early, Mahayana, “proto-Tantric,” and Vajrayana phases. The main thematic focus is the veneration of female generative power that wends through Buddhist thought, iconography, and practice. By adducing multiple iterations of primary source as female and a range of creative and transformative forces envisioned as female, the chapter elicits a unifying principle of an extensive range of monument features, visual motifs, meditative and ceremonial processes, and merit-making endeavors. A secondary focus of the chapter is bodily, sensory, and material practices and performances.
Ritual Identification and Purification in Esoteric Practice
Authors: Payne Richard K.
Published: May 2022

In the ritual action central to tantric Buddhist praxis, the practitioner identifies with the deity. Ritual identification involves the practitioner’s body, speech, and mind being identified with the body, speech, and mind of the deity evoked in the ritual. Always and already awakened, ritual identification is a practice that enables the practitioner to realize that state. In a widely employed ritual known as homa, offerings are made into a fire. While scholarship on the process of awakening has most frequently employed the semiotic pairing of sudden and gradual, or leap and path, it is difficult to fit tantric praxis into one or the other. Looking at the metaphors for the process of awakening, this chapter identifies three models of awakening instead of two: cleansing, cultivating, and transmuting, the last being closest to the tantric conception of the path from ground to goal.
Dance as Vajrayana Practice
Authors: Shaw Miranda
Published: May 2022

The Vajrayana dance tradition of Nepal is a yogic practice and ritual art of the Vajracharyas, the Vajrayana priesthood of the Kathmandu Valley. Charya dance (caryā-nṛtya) serves primarily as a form of deity yoga (deva-yoga), a method of bodily transformation into deity. To the staple practices of mantra recitation and visualization common to all Tantric traditions, Charya dance adds the full-bodied, kinesthetic dimension of embodying the dynamic movement quality of the deity. After situating dance within Newar Vajrayana, this chapter considers how dance figures in the goal of embodying deity. The chapter presents three strands of explanation offered within the tradition, elicits the differing views of deity they entail, and identifies principles that support and unify the three explanatory modes. A dance of Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of universal compassion, serves as a focus for the analyses.
Koan Practice
Authors: Shore Jeff
Published: May 2022

Koan practice in the Zen Buddhist tradition is a catalyst to awaken as Gautama Buddha did. Impromptu encounters and statements attributed to the early Chan (J. Zen) tradition can be considered precursors of koans. Eventually these encounters and statements spawned, on one hand, the practice of focusing on the koan as one’s own deepest problem-question in order to directly awaken no-self, that is, being without self. This was done through rousing the fundamental religious quandary known as great doubt, a doubt in which the very nature of one’s being, and that of all others, is fundamentally called into question. On the other hand, a unique literature of koan cases and commentaries developed to probe and express awakening from the dream world or nightmare of isolation and opposition. Particularly in Japan, koan practice has been formulated into curricula both to foster awakening and to refine it in all facets of life. Modern scholarship has examined koan practice, including its historical development, literary texts, sociopolitical contexts, and sectarian rivalries. While taking critical scholarship into account, this chapter clarifies what koans are and how they are used in authentic practice.
Pure Land Practice
Authors: Jones Charles B.
Published: May 2022

The phrase “Pure Land practice” encompasses many ideas and methods besides oral repetition of the Buddha Amitābha’s name. Even when we restrict the inquiry to practices that lead to rebirth in his buddha-land Sukhāvatī after death, we find that any means of Buddhist cultivation can become Pure Land practice if one directs its merit toward that goal. In addition, the term nianfo/nembutsu covers a multitude of practices from highly complex visualizations to simple vocalization of the name. Moreover, the explanations by which people understand nianfo to work are as various as the practices. Different authors may mix self-power and other-power in a variety of ways: one may invoke the Mahayana philosophical concept of non-duality to show that the two are not ultimately separate, or use the mechanism of ganying (sympathetic resonance) in order to understand how one’s efforts evoke the Buddha’s response. One can even exclude self-power altogether and rely on Amitābha to provide a moment of true conversion, entrusting that it is beyond one’s ability to bring this about by any practice. Finally, making any distinction between self-power and other-power carries a risk. Including self-power among the factors leading to rebirth creates anxieties about the possibility of failure, while excluding self-power raises the possibility of antinomianism in the community.
Monastic Discipline and Local Practice
Authors: Wallace Vesna A.
Published: May 2022

Despite contradicting the Vinaya, traditional Mongolian cultural norms characteristic of pastoral life were integrated into Mongolian Buddhist practice. Consumption of substances that might be interpreted as counter to Vinaya regulations—such as fermented mare’s milk (airag) or vodka as “internal offering” mentally transformed into ambrosia—form an important part of monastic and tantric ritual practices. While monks’ recreational consumption of fermented mare’s milk has been traditionally acceptable, monks’ recreational drinking of vodka, being highly intoxicating, has been always regarded as problematic. Seeing Mongolian Buddhist practice through textual and ethnographic lenses offers a view of the significant cultural current that undergirds Mongolian monastic practice of the Vinaya, highlighting the primacy of the traditional customary law over the Vinaya. Although the prohibition of smoking tobacco is nowhere found in the Vinaya, the Buddhist cultural norms and regional laws in Mongolia dictated the avoidance of tobacco smoking. However, cultural silence on snuffing tobacco has given rise to acceptance and practice of tobacco powder snuffing.
Buddhist Practice in Southeast Asia
Authors: McGovern Nathan
Published: May 2022

This chapter explores Buddhist practice in Southeast Asia, with a focus on practice in the Theravada branch of Buddhism found in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. The first half surveys the religio-historical geography of Southeast Asia and contemporary practices found in Theravada Buddhist cultures. The second half then explores important issues in the study of Theravada Buddhist practice, including the appropriateness of the term “Theravada,” the relationship between Theravada Buddhism and other religious practices, “Tantric Theravada,” and the encounter between Theravada Buddhism and modernity. This inquiry into Southeast Asian Buddhist practice is situated within a theoretical framework that recognizes the distortion that has been wrought for many years by a modernist construction of the Buddhist tradition that conflates “Theravada Buddhism” with “early Buddhism.”
Buddhist Death Practices
Authors: Gouin Margaret
Published: May 2022

The present chapter examines what is done in a Buddhist culture when there is a death, focusing on Tibetan Buddhist practice. The rich complexity of the many ritual structures is explored, with reference where possible to similarities in other traditions of Buddhism. A trajectory is traced from the moment death is assumed to be certain, through preparation for death, concerns immediately after death, disposal of the corpse, and continuing rituals thereafter. The parallel goals of benefiting the deceased by promoting their fortunate birth in the next life, and of protecting the survivors from the negative effects of the death, are located on this trajectory. The chapter concludes with an enumeration of the many aspects of death practices that remain to be explored in Tibetan Buddhism, and by extension in other traditions as well.
Women’s Ordination
Authors: Kawanami Hiroko
Published: May 2022

The discussion about Buddhist women’s ordination in recent decades has focused primarily on its legality and technical procedures by drawing from the stipulations in the Vinaya to assess the validity of restoring the bhikkhunī order in the Theravada and Tibetan traditions. While Buddhist scholars pay more attention to the legal process of ordination in conferring a legitimate status to the female candidate, the monastic practitioners focus on the ritual efficacy of ordination that validates their status change. In an attempt to explore doctrinal as well as socio-anthropological approaches to women’s ordination, this chapter discusses various forms of ordination that grant monastic status to Buddhist nuns, and pays special attention to their real-life experiences both prior to and during ordination that have profound implications on their religious life.
Disciplining the Body-Mind
Authors: Pokorny Charles Korin
Published: May 2022

Buddhist traditions entering a new cultural sphere undergo a broad array of developments, some quite profound. This chapter examines how engaging Sōtō Zen monastic discipline in America functions for Western practitioners. Tassajara Zen Mountain Center serves as a case study of this phenomenon. A basic description of monastic training is offered in terms of the dynamics of its transformative practices. Exploration of practices will focus on meditation (zazen), engaging ritual forms, following a rigorous training regimen, and studying the self in a highly relational, communal approach to monastic discipline. The issues of economic support and interfacing with larger communities of lay supporters are discussed. As most Western monastic practitioners return to lay life, the relevance of Zen monastic training to post-monastic life is also addressed.
Home Altars
Authors: Peché Linda Ho
Published: May 2022

This chapter grapples with the question: How do Buddhist Vietnamese American home altar practices organize domestic life? In the following analysis, domestic altars materialize as shifting positions in the realms of the diasporic, the political, and the civic. First, the author argues that Vietnamese American home altar practices are organic, material spaces that practitioners manipulate to invoke the intersections between the homeland and a new home. Second, domestic altars enact an individualized moral or spiritual orientation and also express a complex and politically engaged imaginary through the particular positioning of objects and imagery. And third, they can reveal a creative, adaptable, and civically engaged Vietnamese American spirituality and subjectivity. In sum, home altar practices organize and manifest religious embodiment, political and civic proclivities, and an appeal to diasporic and national belonging.
Calendrical, Life-Cycle, and Periodic Rituals
Authors: Walters Jonathan S.
Published: May 2022

This chapter surveys lay Buddhist practices in traditional Sri Lankan lives and communities, including performing pūjā; chanting Pali praises, refuges, or pirit; adopting moral precepts (numbering five, eight, or ten in an ascending level of commitment); visiting temples; constructing and maintaining shrines in the home and/or in temples; participating in pilgrimages and festivals; and performing funerals. It frames these practices according to a typology that distinguishes regular, scheduled “calendrical” rituals from those practices performed instead according to “life-cycle” timing or on more haphazard “periodic” occasions. The chapter also frames these practices as specific attempts to make the lived world—time and space—Buddhist, enhancing the rarely achieved potential to perform meritorious deeds that lead to nirvana, which is afforded those born human in a Buddhist place during a Buddha Era.
Food Practices
Authors: Grumbach Lisa
Published: May 2022

This chapter examines how food is used in Buddhist practice. It begins by reviewing Buddhist attitudes toward food, including the valuation of food within practice, how food is defined, the role of food in creating karmic and dharmic relationships among beings, and the status of food offerings in relationship to the Dharma. Practices from various regions of the Buddhist world (South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, East Asia) are then introduced to demonstrate a range of food-related rituals and observances: food offerings from the laity to the sangha; the feeding of various classes of beings (buddhas, deities, spirits, ancestors, animals); the use of Buddhist rites in festivals of food production; Buddhist vegetarianism and meat eating; and the ritualization of drinking and cooking. In conclusion, food practices, like all practices based in the Buddhist teachings, reflect Buddhist ideals and offer diverse ways for Buddhists to engage in and live the Dharma.
Buddhist Practice in East Asia
Authors: Arai Paula , Cho Eun-su
Published: May 2022

In this chapter, “Buddhist Practice in East Asia,” Paula Arai offers an overview of indigenous impulses in China and Japan that fueled the transformation of Buddhist teachings and practices in these cultures. Tailoring the aesthetics, values, and social dynamics to suit the people are integral and critical features of transformation. Later in the chapter, Eun-su Cho provides a historical overview of Korean Buddhist developments. Discussion extends into the purification movement after the colonial period and into contemporary developments, including introducing popular music, publications, and internet sites aimed at reaching a general public that is increasingly focused on a global context.
Tree Ordinations and Global Sustainability
Authors: Darlington Susan M.
Published: May 2022

This chapter examines tree ordinations as performed in northern Thailand to address issues of agricultural sustainability. While global environmental problems have similar roots everywhere, their specific manifestations vary from place to place, as do the ways in which people deal with them. Yet common elements emerge: of community resilience, creative interpretation of religious teachings, and modes of agriculture and livelihood that reflect an increasing concern about human impact on the earth. Tree ordinations began in northern Thailand in a small community facing drought, soil degradation, and deforestation that turned to its spiritual values and practices as a response, and quickly spread across the country. This chapter draws from Roy A. Rappaport’s seminal article, “The Obvious Aspects of Ritual,” to unpack the practice of tree ordinations. Key to this process is how the three main elements of Rappaport’s analysis—formality, performance, and public acceptance—help develop understanding of the local effectiveness of a new ritual practice in addressing the social and ecological impacts of environmental degradation and globalization.
Seeing through Mindfulness Practices
Authors: Braun Erik
Published: May 2022

Mindfulness is now seen by many as a “basic human quality,” a natural ability to see things just as they are, that is liberative and healing. This chapter explores how the practice of mindfulness has come to be viewed in this way. By examining the translation of the Buddhist concept of sati as mindfulness, shifts in the uses of the English term under the influence, especially, of the concept of “bare attention,” the reformulations of understandings of mindfulness under the influence of therapeutic modalities such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and the recent turn to neurological study, the chapter shows that mindfulness’s variability contravenes any stable characterization of it. Seeing through mindfulness means seeing it for the unfinished series of projects, including secularization, that make up its formations.
Contemplative Science and Buddhist Science
Authors: Dunne John D.
Published: May 2022

The scientific study of Buddhist and Buddhism-derived practices such as mindfulness meditation has accelerated dramatically since the start of the twenty-first century, and this dramatic increase in research emerges from a vibrant community of inquiry that often adopts the moniker of “contemplative science.” This chapter begins with a brief history of contemplative science, focusing on the pivotal role of the Mind and Life Institute, and then examines a related and even more contentious term: “Buddhist science.” Rooted in the notion that Buddhism is exceptional in its compatibility with science, Buddhist science has been the target of critiques that, in at least one context, turn out to be inaccurate and exaggerated. The chapter concludes by examining how the thematization of experience, which emerges from common assumptions in both contemplative science and Buddhist science, leads to significant challenges in conducting research on contemplative practices.
Internet-Based Practices
Authors: Connelly Louise
Published: May 2022

With the advent of cheaper, accessible internet access and the development of new technologies, including smartphones, social media, and virtual worlds, there has been a significant change in how people communicate with one another, share information, and even practice religion. This chapter focuses on Buddhist internet-based practice, including virtual meditation in the online world of Second Life, mobile phones apps, and Buddhist monks and nuns using social media. In order to deepen our understanding of what Buddhist internet-based practice looks like, who is practicing online and why, the efficacy of the practice, and what implications there might be (if any) for traditional Buddhism, this chapter explores the themes of authority, community, identity, and ritual while referring to a variety of examples of internet-based practice.
Buddhist Chaplaincy
Authors: Gauthier Jitsujo T.
Published: May 2022

Contemporary chaplains train in clinical pastoral education (CPE) to minister without proselytizing the person(s) they serve. Theirs is a pluralistic approach of meeting in mutuality. A person who is sick, incarcerated, dying, or in emotional/psychological distress is vulnerable. Buddhist chaplains undergo training to identify maladies and guide recipients of their care to utilize inner resources to uncover suffering. There is complexity in their role. As a religious minority, Buddhists have opportunities to bring open-ended notions to diversity, shared experience, deep listening, and genuinely noncompetitive dialogue. This chapter is divided into three sections: a conceptual overview of Buddhist chaplaincy; training; and vow, vocation, and right livelihood in ministry.
Buddhist and Non-Buddhist Practitioner Relations
Authors: Harris Elizabeth J.
Published: May 2022

From the birth of Buddhism, followers of the Buddha have engaged with non-Buddhist practitioners, from members of other parivrājaka (“wanderer”) groups to Brahmins and, as Buddhism spread, with Muslims and Christians. At the birth of modernity, relations between Buddhist and non-Buddhist practitioners in Asia were conditioned by the power relations of Western imperialism and the Christian mission that accompanied it. Strategies developed in former centuries were adapted and transformed to address the threats that this brought. In later modernity, Buddhist missions helped to establish Buddhist communities in the West, and the emerging practice of inter-religious dialogue drew Buddhists into new forms of encounter with non-Buddhist practitioners. This chapter surveys the changing landscapes within which Buddhists have and are relating to non-Buddhist practitioners in modernity, in Asia and the West, from Buddhist practice under colonialism and Buddhist missionary movements to inter-monastic exchange, dialogues in spirituality and art, cooperative social engagement, and formal, intellectual dialogue.
Heavenly Rebirth and Buddhist Soteriology
Authors: Jenkins Stephen
Published: May 2022

Both Buddhist monastics and laity strove for heavenly rebirth from early times. The “dharmalogical heavens” and the related beliefs and practices provided precedents and competition for pure lands. Devatā are the blessed dead who ascend, never to fall, to pure realms of bliss, radiance, and super-longevity ideal for receiving Dharma. Devatā actively participate in the Buddha’s mission, descending and engaging in myriad merit-making activities supporting the sangha. Buddhists pursue heaven through merit-making, the power of relics, mindfulness of the Buddha, mindfulness of deities, compassion-pervasion practices, deathbed rituals, and as standardized outcomes of meditative attainment.