bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Lifelong recurrent takotsubo cardiomyopathy: a case report
Authors: Chandy Shekinah , Dawson Dana K
Published: October 2019

Background

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a transient left ventricular dysfunction with an established recurrence rate in populations, however, recurrences in the same individual have not been well described.

Case summary

We present a 76-year-old woman who had likely a total of six recurrent takotsubo cardiomyopathy episodes spanning over 33 years. Her diagnosis of takotsubo cardiomyopathy was first made in 2014 when she presented with chest pain, raised cardiac enzymes, and the presence of normal coronary arteries. Cardiac magnetic resonance was performed, ruling out any current or previous myocardial infarction. Subsequently, she had two further recurrences in 2015 and 2018. Stressors were identified on three occasions. She was diagnosed with ‘myocardial infarction’ in 1986, 1988, and 1998 when she presented with chest pain and electrocardiogram changes, despite demonstrating normal coronary arteries on each occasion.

Discussion

This case demonstrates three confirmed recurrent episodes of takotsubo in the same individual, showing three different left ventricular phenotypic morphologies on the background of three previous episodes of ‘myocardial infarction with normal coronary arteries’, which most likely might have been takotsubo episodes as well. Any myocardial infarction-type injury was definitely ruled out in the 2014 admission instigating a potential change in this patient’s past medical history and implicitly requirement for lifelong secondary prevention. It is notably difficult to make a confirmed diagnosis of takotsubo cardiomyopathy back in 1986, 1988, and 1998 due to the lack of awareness in this novel topic.
Atrial fibrillation ablation in patients with transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis
Authors: Donnellan Eoin , Wazni Oussama , Kanj Mohamed , Elshazly Mohamed B , Hussein Ayman , Baranowski Bryan , Hanna Mazen , Patel Divyang , Trulock Kevin , Martyn Michael , Menon Venu , Saliba Walid , Jaber Wael A
Published: October 2019

Aims

Atrial fibrillation (AF) occurs in as many as 70% of patients with transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis (ATTR CA). The aim of our study was to investigate the impact of AF ablation on freedom from recurrent arrhythmia, hospitalization for AF or heart failure (HF), and mortality.

Methods and results

This was a retrospective observational cohort study of 72 patients with ATTR CA and AF, of whom 24 underwent AF ablation and were matched in a 2:1 manner based on age, gender, ATTR CA stage, New York Heart Association functional class, ejection fraction, and date of AF diagnosis with 48 patients with ATTR CA and AF undergoing medical management. During a mean follow-up of 39 ± 26 months, 10 (42%) patients remained free of recurrent arrhythmia following ablation. Ablation was significantly more effective in those with Stage I or II ATTR CA, with 9/14 (64%) patients with Stage I or II ATTR CA remaining free of recurrent arrhythmia compared to only 1/10 (10%) patients with Stage III disease (P = 0.005). Death occurred in 7 (29%) patients in the ablation group compared to 36 (75%) in the non-ablation arm (P = 0.01). Rates of ischaemic stroke were similar in both groups. Ablation was associated with a significant reduction in the frequency of hospitalization for HF/arrhythmia (1.7 ± 2.4 hospitalizations vs. 4 ± 3.5, P = 0.005). On Cox proportional hazards analyses, ablation was associated with improved survival (hazard ratio 0.38, 95% confidence intervals 0.17–0.86; P = 0.02).

Conclusion

Atrial fibrillation ablation is associated with reduced mortality in ATTR CA and is most effective when performed earlier during the disease process.
Transcriptional Mutagenesis Prevents Ribosomal DNA Deterioration: The Role of Duplications and Deletions
Authors: Colizzi Enrico Sandro , Hogeweg Paulien
Published: October 2019

Clashes between transcription and replication complexes can cause point mutations and chromosome rearrangements on heavily transcribed genes. In eukaryotic ribosomal RNA genes, the system that prevents transcription–replication conflicts also causes frequent copy number variation. Such fast mutational dynamics do not alter growth rates in yeast and are thus selectively near neutral. It was recently found that yeast regulates these mutations by means of a signaling cascade that depends on the availability of nutrients.

Here, we investigate the long-term evolutionary effect of the mutational dynamics observed in yeast. We developed an in silico model of single-cell organisms whose genomes mutate more frequently when transcriptional load is larger. We show that mutations induced by high transcriptional load are beneficial when biased toward gene duplications and deletions: they decrease mutational load even though they increase the overall mutation rates. In contrast, genome stability is compromised when mutations are not biased toward gene duplications and deletions, even when mutations occur much less frequently.

Taken together, our results show that the mutational dynamics observed in yeast are beneficial for the long-term stability of the genome and pave the way for a theory of evolution where genetic operators are themselves cause and outcome of the evolutionary dynamics.
Innovation and job creation in (high-growth) new firms
Authors: Santoleri Pietro
Published: October 2019

Recent research has underscored the prominent role played by a small fraction of fast-growing new firms in contributing to aggregate net employment growth. While it is typically assumed that those firms experience this superior performance thanks to their ability in undertaking technological innovation, few empirical studies have explicitly addressed this issue. This article examines the innovation-employment nexus for startups using the Kauffman Firm Survey, a unique longitudinal dataset tracking a single cohort of US firms founded in 2004. Results based on fixed effects panel quantile regressions indicate an overall positive but heterogeneous effect of innovation activities on the conditional employment growth distribution. More in detail, the findings reveal that both research and development and patents have a positive association with employment growth especially for those new firms experiencing high growth.
Effects of a blend of Saccharomyces cerevisiae-based direct-fed microbial and fermentation products in the diet of newly weaned beef steers: growth performance, whole-blood immune gene expression, serum biochemistry, and plasma metabolome1
Authors: Adeyemi James A , Harmon David L , Compart D M Paulus , Ogunade Ibukun M
Published: October 2019

We examined the effects of dietary supplementation of a Saccharomyces cerevisiae-based direct-fed microbial (DFM) on the growth performance, whole-blood immune gene expression, serum biochemistry, and plasma metabolome of newly weaned beef steers during a 42 d receiving period. Forty newly weaned Angus crossbred steers (7 d post-weaning; 210 ± 12 kg of BW; 180 ± 17 d of age) from a single source were stratified by BW and randomly assigned to 1 of 2 treatments: basal diet with no additive (CON; n = 20) or a basal diet top-dressed with 19 g of the DFM (PROB; n = 20). Daily DMI and weekly body weights were measured to calculate average daily gain (ADG) and feed efficiency (FE). Expression of 84 immune-related genes was analyzed on blood samples collected on days 21 and 42. Serum biochemical parameters and plasma metabolome were analyzed on days 0, 21, and 42. On day 40, fecal grab samples were collected for pH measurement. Compared with CON, dietary supplementation of PROB increased final body weight (P = 0.01) and ADG (1.42 vs. 1.23 kg; P = 0.04) over the 42 d feeding trial. There was a tendency for improved FE with PROB supplementation (P = 0.10). No treatment effect (P = 0.24) on DMI was observed. Supplementation with PROB increased (P ≤ 0.05) the concentrations of serum calcium, total protein, and albumin. Compared with CON, dietary supplementation with PROB increased (P ≤ 0.05) the expression of some immune-related genes involved in detecting pathogen-associated molecular patterns (such as TLR1, TLR2, and TLR6), T-cell differentiation (such as STAT6, ICAM1, RORC, TBX21, and CXCR3) and others such as TNF and CASP1, on day 21 and/or day 42. Conversely, IL-8 was upregulated (P = 0.01) in beef steers fed CON diet on day 21. Plasma untargeted plasma metabolome analysis revealed an increase (P ≤ 0.05) in the concentration of metabolites, 5-methylcytosine and indoleacrylic acid involved in protecting the animals against inflammation in steers fed PROB diet. There was a tendency for lower fecal pH in steers fed PROB diet (P = 0.08), a possible indication of increased hindgut fermentation. This study demonstrated that supplementation of PROB diet improved the performance, nutritional status, and health of newly weaned beef steers during a 42 d receiving period.
Aurora kinase A-mediated phosphorylation of mPOU at a specific site drives skeletal muscle differentiation
Authors: Karthigeyan Dhanasekan , Bose Arnab , Boopathi Ramachandran , Rao Vinay Jaya , Shima Hiroki , Bharathy Narendra , Igarashi Kazuhiko , Taneja Reshma , Trivedi Arun Kumar , Kundu Tapas K
Published: October 2019

Aurora kinases are Ser/Thr-directed protein kinases which play pivotal roles in mitosis. Recent evidences highlight the importance of these kinases in multiple biological events including skeletal muscle differentiation. Our earlier study identified the transcription factor POU6F1 (or mPOU) as a novel Aurora kinase (Aurk) A substrate. Here, we report that Aurora kinase A phosphorylates mPOU at Ser197 and inhibit its DNA-binding ability. Delving into mPOU physiology, we find that the phospho-mimic (S197D) mPOU mutant exhibits enhancement, while the wild type or the phospho-deficient mutant shows retardation in C2C12 myoblast differentiation. Interestingly, POU6F1 depletion phenocopies S197D-mPOU overexpression in the differentiation context. Collectively, our results signify mPOU as a negative regulator of skeletal muscle differentiation and strengthen the importance of AurkA in skeletal myogenesis.
A Load off Whose Heart? Psychiatry and the Politics of Respectability and Race Representation in Harlem, 1943-45
Authors: Doyle Dennis
Published: October 2019

In wartime Harlem, liberal mental health professionals, eager to serve the black freedom struggle, sought to depict the minds of troubled black children as human without reinforcing pernicious racial stereotypes. This paper examines how psychiatrist Viola W. Bernard and the Community Service Society struggled to portray the black community as both psychologically damaged and morally beyond reproach when publicly presenting the cases of her male and female clients. As a consequence, liberals helped champion the mental health needs of delinquent black males as a matter of racial justice while rendering young unmarried mothers effectively invisible.
Periacetabular osteotomy using three-dimensional cutting and reposition guides: a cadaveric study
Authors: Wirth Stephan H , Rahm Stefan , Kamath Atul F , Dora Claudio , Zingg Patrick O
Published: October 2019

The goal of periacetabular osteotomy (PAO) is to reorient the acetabulum in a more physiological position. Its realization remains challenging regarding the final position of the acetabulum. Assistance with custom cutting- and reorientation-guides would thus be very helpful. Our purpose is to present a pilot study on such guides. Eight cadaveric hemipelvis were scanned using CT. After segmentation, 3D models of each specimen were created, a PAO was virtually performed and reorientation of the acetabula were defined. A specific guide was designed aiming to assist in iliac, posterior column and superior pubic ramus cuts as well as in acetabulum reorientation. Furthermore, the acetabular position was planned. Three-dimensional printed guides were used to perform PAO using the modified Smith-Peterson approach. The post-operative CT images and virtually planned acetabulum reorientation were compared in terms of acetabular index (AC), lateral centre edge angle (LCE), acetabular anteversion angle (AcetAV). There was no intra-articular or posterior column fracture seen. Two cadavers showed very low bone quality with insufficient stability of fixation and were excluded from further analysis. Correlation between the post-operative result and planning of the six included cadavers revealed the following mean deviations: 5° (SD ±3°) for AC angle, 6° (SD ±4°) for LCE angle and 15° (SD ±11°) for AcetAV angle. The use of 3D cutting and reorientation blocks for PAO was possible through a modified Smith-Peterson approach and revealed accurate fit to bone, accurate positioning of the osteotomies and acceptable planned corrections in cadavers with good bone quality.
Predictors of venous thromboembolism development before and during chemotherapy for advanced germ cell tumor
Authors: Nitta Satoshi , Kawai Koji , Kimura Tomokazu , Kawahara Takashi , Kandori Shuya , Hoshi Akio , Kojima Takahiro , Nishiyama Hiroyuki
Published: October 2019

Objective

We retrospectively analyzed the incidence and localization of venous thromboembolism in patients undergoing chemotherapy for advanced germ cell tumor and separately evaluated the risk factors for venous thromboembolism development before and during chemotherapy.

Methods

We included 121 patients treated with cisplatin-based chemotherapy between 2005 and 2018. Venous thromboembolism was defined as venous thrombosis diagnosed using radiological imaging with or without thromboembolic symptoms. We analyzed the clinical parameters for identifying the possible venous thromboembolism risk factors. Khorana score was used to calculate the venous thromboembolism risk.

Results

Thirteen patients showed prechemotherapy venous thromboembolism and 13 developed venous thromboembolism during chemotherapy. The most common venous thromboembolism was deep vein thrombosis (10 patients), followed by inferior vena cava thrombus (eight patients) and pulmonary thrombus (six patients). Compared to the group without venous thromboembolism, the group with prechemotherapy venous thromboembolism showed higher proportion of patients with tumors originating in the right testis (10 out of 13), significantly higher lactate dehydrogenase levels (828 IU/L versus 436 IU/L, P = 0.013), significantly higher proportion of patients with retroperitoneal lymph node (RPLN) metastases >5 cm in diameter (76.9% versus 33.7%, P = 0.003) and slightly higher proportion of patients with high-risk Khorana score (≥ 3; 30.8% versus 11.6%). No significant differences were observed between the clinical characteristics of patients with venous thromboembolism developed during chemotherapy and patients without venous thromboembolism.

Conclusions

We show that both RPLN mass > 5 cm and high lactate dehydrogenase levels are significant risk factors for prechemotherapy venous thromboembolism but not for venous thromboembolism development during chemotherapy.
Elevated Lipase in an Infant with Altered Mental Status
Authors: González Iván , Roper Stephen
Published: October 2019

The pancreatic enzymes lipase and amylase serve important functions in digestion/absorption of fats and polysaccharides. Measurement of these enzymes is often used in the emergency department to rule out acute pancreatitis in patients with nonspecific abdominal pain. In acute pancreatitis, serial measurements of plasma lipase and amylase typically follow a predictable temporal pattern of rise-and-fall kinetics: lipase levels rise within 4 to 8 hours, crest at 2× to 50× the upper reference limit at 24 hours, and decline to normal concentrations in 7 to 14 days. In situations in which the duration and magnitude of pancreatic enzyme elevation are more transient, clinicians should consider alternative causes for enzyme elevation. In this case report, incidental discovery of elevated lipase in an African American baby girl who ingested oxycodone resulted in additional laboratory and radiological work-up. Stronger awareness of exogenous influences on gastrointestinal motility may have prevented the need for further testing in this patient.
Urban (Economic) Success Is Never a Straight Line
Authors: Polèse Mario
Published: October 2019

Chapter 1 is in part autobiographical and invites the reader on four urban journeys. First, we go to New York, whose decline and subsequent resurgence are recounted through the author’s eyes: In this journey, we revisit the violent neighborhoods of 1950s Westside Manhattan, and we also show how New York’s unequaled concentration of human and institutional resources allowed the city to rebound. We then travel to Vienna, which went from imperial grandeur to urban hell, losing its intellectual elites and historic hinterland, only to rise up again. The voyage to Port au Prince follows, introducing us to a Third World city and the struggles of daily life under conditions of extreme poverty and institutional dysfunction, whose roots take us back to Haiti’s sad history. The final stop is Buenos Aires, which was once in the same league with New York and London but is now reduced to the status of a Third World city, providing the textbook example of the power of national government to undermine even the greatest cities.
Montreal
Authors: Polèse Mario
Published: October 2019

This chapter recounts the history of Montreal since the 1950s, detailing its passage from Canada’s metropolis to second city and its subsequent rebirth as an economically vibrant and eminently livable city. Montreal is the story of a metropolis initially divided between two unequal linguistic groups that overcame their divisions, the result of provincial/state policies that explicitly favored the initially lower-income group (French Canadians), both by investing massively in education and (more controversially) by promulgating measures to promote the French language and restrict the use of English. The latter policy produced an exodos of human capital and business, triggering Montreal’s decline. But that shock also laid the groundwork for Montreal’s resurgence and a new economic elite, new economic hinterland, and new economic base. Montreal’s story demonstrates not only that social divides can be healed and that societies can change, but also that economic change often first requires social change.
Shaping the Playing Field
Authors: Polèse Mario
Published: October 2019

This chapter looks at the conditions under which cities compete within nations and also globally. Those conditions vary across nations because of differences in geography as well as differences in political cultures and institutions. The chapter explores four factors that shape competition: (1) national fiscal regimes, including the presence or absence of equalization payments across jurisdictions (cities, states, etc.); (2) housing markets, notably the impact of regulatory regimes on costs; (3) transportation infrastructure and the formation of transport hubs; and (4) the spatial mobility of brains and talent and the economic and social consequences of the concentration of human capita in selected cities. The chapter ends by exploring the relationship between social cohesion and urban competiveness. The sorting populations across cities is a double-edged sword, a potential source of wealth creation but also of social divides.
A kāvya Casting for Pradyumna
Authors: Austin Christopher R.
Published: October 2019

The Pradyumnābhyudaya—a thirteenth-century Sanskrit play by King Ravivarman—is the focus of Chapter 7. This work, based directly on the Prabhāvatī episode of the late Harivaṃśa, appears to be the first Brahminical kāvya or courtly belles-lettristic work to make Pradyumna its protagonist. Of central importance is Ravivarman’s molding of the story into conformity with common standards and expectations for poetic expression in courtly writing. In particular it is argued that two conventions of the Sanskrit drama, the garbhāṅka or nested play, and the śleṣa or double-meaning verse form, become the means for an underscoring and sharpening the signature double love-and-war geste of Kṛṣṇa’s son. As such, the chapter argues that the recasting of the Prabhāvatī romance into belles-lettristic form, far from hijacking the figure of Pradyumna for new purposes, in fact powerfully restates the persisting appeal of the masculine sex-and-violence triumphalism fundamental to his mythic persona.
Operating in a Zone of Ambiguity: Tensions and Risks
Authors: Katz Mark
Published: October 2019

This chapter explores the central tensions that animate hip hop diplomacy. One tension is between art and diplomacy, particularly in their distinctive approaches to process and views on outcomes. A second tensions arises because of the asymmetry of power between the United States and the countries that hip hop diplomacy programs visit. This chapter posits that hip hop diplomacy (and cultural diplomacy in general) operates in a zone of ambiguity, a state in which palpable, inescapable tensions and uncertainties hang over one’s every action. Specific examples come from hip hop diplomacy initiatives in El Salvador, India, Morocco, Senegal, and Zimbabwe. The chapter ends by offering guidelines for respectful, collaborative interactions in cultural diplomacy and cultural exchange programs.
Introduction
Authors: Brett Mark G.
Published: October 2019

Political theology can be understood very broadly as God-talk located in the context of multiple, often competing, perspectives on social life. The focus of this book, however, falls particularly on conceptions of nationhood and empire, and how these have figured in the forming and re-forming of Israel’s social body in a number of geographical settings. The book argues that both the national imaginary and its imperial alternatives were woven into the biblical traditions by authors who enjoyed very little in the way of political sovereignty. But this complex literature has shaped the imaginations of nations and empires until today, and understanding its internal debates will continue to be relevant for those who still live within its history of reception.
Intergenerational Trauma: Children of the Exile
Authors: Brett Mark G.
Published: October 2019

This chapter explores the hypothesis that Ezra 7–10 reflects the legacies of intergenerational trauma, particularly in the restriction of Israel’s core identity to children of the exile. This conception of a qᵉhal haggôlāh built on the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who had pronounced judgment against all those who remained in the land during the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BCE. Laying claim to imperial authority, Ezra’s social policy may have led to ethnic fissure if it had succeeded, since it excluded all the Remainees who claimed descent from Abraham. In later developments reflected in Ezra 1–6, however, the gōlāh identity was expanded to include Benjamin, an area that had been continuously occupied during the sixth century, but it still did not include the northern territory of Samaria.
Legal Compromises: Imperial Contexts of the Pentateuch
Authors: Brett Mark G.
Published: October 2019

The “hexateuchal” imagination (the six-book story stretching from Genesis to Joshua) located the center of Israel’s life in Shechem, in the north. How that story was cut back to a Pentateuch is not explicitly told, but we can assume that it entailed negotiation and compromise well into the fourth century bce. Instead of the earlier Priestly internationalism, a renewed “Deuteronomic” vision could see Abraham as the founder of a single descent group and a single, great nation (gôy gādôl). Read from the perspective of the completed Pentateuch, the ancestors in Genesis were promised a “Torah republic” with a homeland that could nourish communal identity even from afar. This theocracy was envisaged more in national terms, but communal obligations included the broader range of both Priestly and Deuteronomic provisions now collected within the Pentateuch’s common law, and renegotiated especially within the book of Numbers.
Wise Reservations: Places of Understanding in Job
Authors: Brett Mark G.
Published: October 2019

Bringing skeptical wisdom to the conversation, the book of Job contests the various accounts of covenantal right order and, more broadly, the location of God in the cult. Job 28 condenses the larger intellectual tradition when it suggests that the many places of wisdom in creation might be regarded as traces of the divine. In this respect, Job connects with the cosmic understanding of God in Psalm 104. Foreigners like Job are shown to be fully capable of sharing public space, much as the “Elohim theology” within Priestly tradition also suggests. Neither Job nor the earlier Priestly version of monotheism are inherently opposed to other religious traditions. Wisdom speaks in the earth, not in heaven, and this allows for a broader spirituality of place beyond any theology of divine names.
Economics
Authors: Bromley Daniel W.
Published: October 2019

Possessive individualism has acquired a profound grip on contemporary political thought and action—on daily life—because it relies on a number of economic notions that now constitute our civic religion. Central concepts of that creed—efficiency, rational choice, market exchange as an arena of liberty and autonomy, consumer sovereignty, price as a measure of value, assertions of aggregate well-being—are accepted as irrefutable truths that insulate them from serious challenge. These core attributes of contemporary economics are misleading and generally false. Recent efforts to attribute civic virtues to markets are incoherent.
Reimagining the Private Firm
Authors: Bromley Daniel W.
Published: October 2019

Escape from possessive individualism requires that the terms of engagement between households and firms be rebalanced. Rarely is the firm seen as the essential component in the economic well-being of households. And when it is seen in this light, contestation over wages and work conditions arises. The post-revolutionary regimes in China and the Soviet Union then tried to situate that obligation on the government. We know how that turned out. A better solution—economically and politically—is to bring capitalist firms into a joint obligation with the government in this essential task. The persistence of union-busting, desultory pay and fringe benefits, layoffs, plant closings, automation, and out-sourced jobs to foreign countries ought to remind politicians—and capitalists—that radical solutions are always available if hope is too long delayed. We now concentrate on the difficult realm of ideas. For here lurks the greatest barrier to necessary institutional change—defective imagination.
Reimagining the Individual
Authors: Bromley Daniel W.
Published: October 2019

Beginning in the 1980s, inequality of incomes in the metropolitan core began to increase. This great divergence was most pronounced in the Anglophone world—Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This divergence suggests that there is nothing inherent—structurally determinative—in capitalism as it operates in the rich metropole that brings about this unwelcome trend. Rather, inequality is willful—intended. Ironically, inequality is enabled by the prevalence of possessive individualism that reveals the acquisitive individualist to be the source of his or her own unwanted economic marginalization. The individualist’s embrace of a livelihood strategy based on the celebration of rights and the illusion of freedom—being free to choose—has placed him or her at the mercy of the capitalist firm equally committed to possessive individualism. The capitalist firm must be transformed into a public trust. However, this will not be sufficient. Improved livelihoods will also require that the possessive individual be reimagined.
Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton
Authors: Boatright Robert G. , Sperling Valerie
Published: October 2019

This chapter provides details regarding the gender dynamics of the presidential primaries and general election campaign in 2016, in order to show how these phases of the presidential contest set the stage for and affected the down-ballot races. It reviews the various ways in which gender became a central theme in the presidential election and in the public discourse surrounding the election, and considers Trump’s rhetoric in the context of hypermasculine politicians’ behavior in other countries. It also describes in detail how the Republican primary deteriorated into a peculiarly graphic masculinity contest, and how Trump’s tendency toward bigoted and misogynist comments provided fuel for the Clinton campaign and its supporters, and set the stage for Republican down-ballot candidates to respond to the “Trump factor” in their own campaigns.
The Gender Content of Senate Campaign Advertisements
Authors: Boatright Robert G. , Sperling Valerie
Published: October 2019

This chapter explores themes in the campaign advertising of Senate candidates and their allies in the 2016 general election. It details the ways in which Democrats sought to tie their opponents to Donald Trump, highlighting Trump’s more offensive statements, and alleging that their opponents were “weak” or unmanly in their response to Trump. It also examines the extent to which Republican candidates sought to distance themselves from Donald Trump’s campaign in their ads, and how campaigns on both sides sought to tie their opponents to Trump and Clinton. The chapter pays particular attention to explicit and implicit references to gender and gender norms. It also examines whether particular ads were aimed at influencing particular demographic groups (men, women) by activating gender-normative expectations about candidates, in both positive ads and attack ads.
Conclusion
Authors: Boatright Robert G. , Sperling Valerie
Published: October 2019

The book concludes with some thoughts on the differential impact that gender norms may have on presidential-level elections compared to those at lower levels of office. The chapter offers further reflections about the dynamics of down-ballot candidates’ responses to the presidential race, asking what these campaigns say about the effectiveness of gender-normative appeals and tactics, and about the ways in which the American party system is capable, given the recent trend toward political polarization, of allowing candidates to distance themselves from their parties and their parties’ presidential candidates. And finally, the conclusion looks at the tendency to use gender-normative masculinity—in the form of homophobia—as a means of making fun of Trump in the post-election period, and explain why doing so, even against a hypermasculine politician—can reinforce gender inequality in the long run.
Introduction
Authors: Maskivker Julia
Published: October 2019

This chapter introduces the basic argument of the book and explains how considered voting can be viewed as an act of Samaritan aid toward our fellow citizens. The chapter delineates the general claim that we should see voting as an individual contribution to a collective endeavor that is valuable and instrumentally effective in bringing about justice. Importantly, the chapter highlights that our common sense understanding of duties to improve the world does not necessarily entail the rule that individual acts have to be discernibly efficacious alone, in isolation from other similar acts.
Self-Standing Arguments against a Duty to Vote and Why They Fail
Authors: Maskivker Julia
Published: October 2019

This chapter addresses two popular criticisms against the duty to vote. They are enlisted separately from the main argument in the book because they are self-standing. The first criticism holds that voting is irrational because it is individually ineffective, therefore not the stuff of a moral duty. The second criticism sustains that seeing voting as a moral duty is an affront to freedom because it means that the political life is superior to other human pursuits. The chapter shows that rationality in voting does not have to mean the capacity to determine the electoral outcome individually. It also argues that the moral duty to vote enhances freedom as non-domination because it has the capacity to increase political accountability and political responsiveness. We can justify a moral duty to vote on instrumental grounds without passing moral judgment on the value of politics vis-à-vis other human pursuits.
The Omnipresent Person
Authors: Stevenson Leslie
Published: October 2019

Many biblical and Qur’anic texts represent God as a person, who is incorporeal but present everywhere with consciousness, perception, intelligence, and will. This chapter discusses difficulties in this conception and cites some theologians who flatly deny that God is a person.
The Unchangeable Necessary Being
Authors: Stevenson Leslie
Published: October 2019

In medieval times a metaphysical conception of God was developed from Greek and Islamic ideas. According to this, God is the unchangeable necessary being who is the ultimate cause for everything that contingently happens in the world. This chapter raises some doubts about the intelligibility of this conception.
Instrumentalism
Authors: Stevenson Leslie
Published: October 2019

Religious language can be used in worship and ritual in an instrumentalist fashion, as an activity that can have beneficial effects in commitment to a loving way of life, but without objective reference or truth. It is not dishonorable to take part in traditional rites in this spirit, but it risks missing an important dimension.
Age Matters
Authors: Gottfredson Michael , Hirschi Travis
Published: October 2019

This chapter presents a review of the research and theorizing about age and crime as depicted in control theory. It critiques psychological and sociological studies of the meaning of the age–crime relationship. It also discusses testing general theory when age is a direct cause of crime, methods of accounting for the age–crime relationship in criminology, and the value of typologies and statistical treatments of age and crime. The accumulated evidence from the best research supports the conclusion that statistical and theoretical models meant to account for the age effect in criminology lack empirical and methodological support. As a result, the best stance for criminology, in both theory and policy, is to assume a direct effect for age. Implications for juvenile justice and the role of age in separate systems for adults and juveniles are discussed.
Self Control, Social Control, Morality, and Opportunity in a Choice Theory of Crime
Authors: Gottfredson Michael , Hirschi Travis
Published: October 2019

Control theory is consistent with the notion of situational crime prevention and many of the ideas that support it. This chapter discusses several contemporary issues in control theory, including the connection between self-control theory and social control theory, the connection between morality and crime, and the role and conception of the opportunity or situational factors in a choice theory of crime causation. It is concluded that self and social control are the same theory operating under common logic, assumptions, and terms. Efforts to show them as competing are misguided. How situational causes are integrated into control theory and the connections among belief, morality, and self control are explored.
General Theory, Public Policy, and the Limits of Criminal Justice
Authors: Gottfredson Michael , Hirschi Travis
Published: October 2019

In this chapter, the general theory of crime depicted in self-control theory is taken as valid, and the implications for criminal justice are explored. The historical connections between classical theory and criminal sanctions are described, and the relations between classical deterrence theories and control theory are examined. The classical theory assumption that deterrence places limits of effectiveness on state sanctions is used in conjunction with the modern notion of self control. The result is that modern control theory, supported by contemporary research on the effectiveness of criminal sanctions, explains why criminal sanctions have limited effectiveness for crime and sets limits on the appropriate use of criminal sanctions. Modern control theory, using classical school assumptions of human nature and choice, shows why public policy should focus on early socialization and prevention.
Prisons, Deterrence, and Incapacitation
Authors: Gottfredson Michael , Hirschi Travis
Published: October 2019

Modern control theory doubts the effectiveness of criminal sanctions to affect the crime rate substantially. This view is contrasted with the expectations of the criminal career perspective, a leading view on the nature of crime and the role of the criminal justice system in controlling crime by deterrence and incapacitation. The contrast is illustrated with differing expectations about how age is related to crime (including serious offending), the importance of the versatility effect for offending, and evidence about how changes in incarceration levels are expected to be related to crime rates. On all counts, the results of competent contemporary research support the expectations of the general theory of crime over the expectations of criminal career/career criminal traditions. The research on statistical modeling and offender typologies in the criminal careers tradition has not provided consistent or replicated results demonstrating that criminal sanctions effectively incapacitate or deter offending. Control theory is inconsistent with mass incarceration, with the belief that increasing severity of sanctions reduces crime rates either by incapacitation or by deterrence, and notes that crime tends overwhelmingly to decline with age for all offenders beginning in early adulthood.
Crime, Immigration, and Public Policy
Authors: Gottfredson Michael , Hirschi Travis
Published: October 2019

This chapter uses self-control theory to explain the generally low crime rates for immigrants in the United States. The benefits of control theory versus other common sociological theories of crime is demonstrated with contemporary and historical research on immigration and crime. The misinterpretation of the relationship historically in American criminology was used to support sociological perspectives on the causes of crime, such as cultural deviance and social disorganization, by implying a high rate of criminal involvement by immigrants. Modern research on causes and consequences of immigration disputes these earlier depictions and illustrates how characteristics of recent immigrants result in comparatively low crime rates, consistent with the theory of self control. The immigration–crime relationship illustrates the theory of self control and how the theory can be used for effective public policy.
Weighing Relative and Absolute Proportionality in Punishment
Authors: Duus-Otterström Göran
Published: October 2019

Conflicts between relative and absolute proportionality are an important puzzle facing retributivist thought. The question of how those conflicts should be handled has long been neglected. Relative proportionality refers to the ideal that punishments should be comparatively fair among offenders. Absolute proportionality refers to the ideal that punishments should be fitting, that is, neither too harsh nor too lenient. The two senses of proportionality contribute independently to the ideal of proportionality. Thus, it is not plausible to resolve conflicts between them by dropping one of them. Instead, the two senses of proportionality must be weighed. Recent literature about comparative and noncomparative desert provides some guidance for how the two types of proportionality should be weighed. If the two types of proportionality are of roughly equal moral weight, then our greater ability to reliably satisfy relative proportionality gives us some reason to give priority to relative proportionality.
The Place of Proportionality in Penal Theory
Authors: Matravers Matt
Published: October 2019

The idea that the severity of punishments ought to be proportionate to the seriousness of crimes is an established and central feature of much of the literature on the justification of punishment of the last several decades. Yet in practice, sentencing is an inexact science, and the project of developing metrics of both penal severity and crime seriousness is burdened by substantial theoretical difficulties. The focus on an individualistic, moralized account of criminal law exacerbates these issues both by making proportionality more central than it needs to be in penal theory and by making the metrics harder to determine. An alternative account can be premised on a view of criminal law and punishment as an institution of public policy addressed to the need to sustain the fragile achievement of the modern liberal democratic state. The questions of metrics and of proportionality appear somewhat differently in such a political theory and in ways that allow us to overcome some of the difficulties that afflict current theorizing about punishment.
Leviathan Comes of Age
Authors: Friedman Lawrence M.
Published: October 2019

This chapter discusses changes in American law in the twentieth century. Change in the twentieth century was, in some ways less dramatic than those in the previous century; in other ways, more so. The United States now dominated large portions of the world, even when it did not actually own these far-off places. At home, the population grew enormously; according to the 2000 census, the population was just over 280 million, and by 2016, grew to something over 325 million. The main engines of revolution were social and technological. The technological revolution was, perhaps, a chief cause of the social revolution. This was the century of the automobile and the airplane, radio, the movies, and television, the computer and the internet, antibiotics and the birth control pill. Each of these great advances in science and technology eventually had a deep impact on society and on law.
Internal Legal Culture in the Twentieth Century: Lawyers, Judges, and Law Books
Authors: Friedman Lawrence M.
Published: October 2019

This chapter discusses changes in the legal profession in the twentieth century, covering legal ethics, the organized bar, legal education, legal literature, and the twentieth century bench. The dominant theme of the twentieth century was growth, and nowhere was this more evident that in the legal profession itself. At the beginning of the century, there were some 100,000 lawyers in the country. At the end of the century, there were about a million—the population had more or less doubled, but the number of lawyers had increased by a factor of ten. This growth process had accelerated in the last part of the century; in the early 1980s, there were about 600,000 lawyers—400,000 more joined their ranks in the next generation.
Immunity to Error through Misidentification
Authors: Fernández Jordi
Published: October 2019

Chapter 6 offers an account of an epistemic feature of memories; their immunity to error through misidentification. When one judges that one experienced something, based on a full and accurate memory, it is not possible for one to be wrong because one has misidentified the person who one remembers to have had the experience as being oneself. Two challenges to the idea that memories have this feature are considered. One employs the notion of quasi-memory. The other one appeals to the phenomenon of observer memory. It is argued that neither challenge is successful and that the self-referential content of memories does suggest that memory judgments are immune to error through misidentification. The key to this immunity concerns the presence of the self in the content of memories. And that presence, in turn, is due to the nature of perceptual content and the relation between perceptual content and mnemonic content.
Cryptoasset Valuation
Authors: Carter Nic
Published: October 2019

This chapter reviews practitioner and academic work on the topic of cryptoasset valuation, introduces a value-driven taxonomy of cryptoassets, and investigates several assets directly to demonstrate how they might be valued. The ease of creating a token and an upswing of global retail enthusiasm inaugurated a token sale boom in 2017 that eclipsed venture funding for start-ups within the industry. A maturing data environment and the innate transparency of blockchains has led to more sophistication in the analysis of these economic systems; but widely agreed-upon valuation methodologies still do not exist. It has been suggested that cryptoassets such as bitcoin cannot be valued, only priced. Practitioners would do well to cross the aisle and work with their academic counterparts on deriving meaningful models for these assets; equally, academia should continue to grant cryptoassets the attention they deserve.
Policy and Regulatory Challenges of Distributed Ledger Technology and Digital Assets in Asia
Authors: Arner Douglas , Buckley Ross P. , Zetzsche Dirk , Zhao Bo , Didenko Anton N. , Park Cyn-Young , Pashoska Emilija
Published: October 2019

Since the launch of Bitcoin in 2009, cryptocurrencies and their underlying blockchain technology have risen to global attention. It is now clear Bitcoin and a number of other cryptocurrencies were the focus of one of the largest speculative bubbles in history. This chapter explores blockchain, cryptocurrencies and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), as well as policy and regulatory responses in Asia. It demystifies key aspects of blockchain systems, while also disentangling concepts that are often (incorrectly) used interchangeably, such as distributed ledgers and blockchains. The chapter provides data on total capital raised through ICOs and analyzes the distribution of ICOs by country and region. Based on this framework, it conducts a comprehensive analysis of regulatory statements and disparate policy approaches in Asian countries toward digital assets, focusing on cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and ICOs.
Onto the World Stage
Authors: Crist Stephen A.
Published: October 2019

This chapter concerns the internationalization of the Dave Brubeck Quartet. After several years of preliminary discussions, in 1958 the group finally traveled abroad for the first time, on a three-month trip, largely under the auspices of the US State Department. By this time, the Quartet’s personnel finally reached a steady state, after a series of different bass players and drummers. The “classic” Quartet was the group of musicians who recorded Time Out the next year. Around the same time, Brubeck became increasingly involved with issues of civil rights. The Quartet also made history in the late 1950s by performing jazz in concert halls and on college campuses. Finally, Dave and Iola Brubeck devoted themselves tirelessly to the creation and promotion of The Real Ambassadors, a musical that they hoped would be produced on Broadway.
Watershed
Authors: Crist Stephen A.
Published: October 2019

1959 was a watershed for the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Not only was it the year of Brubeck’s most famous creative project, Time Out, but it also marked the midpoint of the “classic” Quartet with Paul Desmond, which was formed in 1951 and disbanded in 1967. This chapter discloses the specific factors involved in the production of Time Out. These include early concert performances of the repertoire, the recording sessions, and decisions concerning the album’s title, cover art, and liner notes. The other trajectory followed here concerns several important matters that were uppermost in Brubeck’s life and career at that time. Chief among them were an enormous amount of domestic and international travel, a high-profile stand against racism and segregation in the South, an all-out effort to finish his musical and see it produced on Broadway, and a series of performances with the New York Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall.