bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Characterization of the ganglioside recognition profile of Escherichia coli heat-labile enterotoxin LT-IIc
Authors: Zalem Dani , Juhás Martin , Terrinoni Manuela , King-Lyons Natalie , Lebens Michael , Varrot Annabelle , Connell Terry D , Teneberg Susann
Published: December 2021

The heat-labile enterotoxins of Escherichia coli and cholera toxin of Vibrio cholerae are related in structure and function. Each of these oligomeric toxins is comprised of one A polypeptide and five B polypeptides. The B-subunits bind to gangliosides, which are followed by uptake into the intoxicated cell and activation of the host’s adenylate cyclase by the A-subunits. There are two antigenically distinct groups of these toxins. Group I includes cholera toxin and type I heat-labile enterotoxin of E. coli; group II contains the type II heat-labile enterotoxins of E. coli. Three variants of type II toxins, designated LT-IIa, LT-IIb and LT-IIc have been described. Earlier studies revealed the crystalline structure of LT-IIb. Herein the carbohydrate binding specificity of LT-IIc B-subunits was investigated by glycosphingolipid binding studies on thin-layer chromatograms and in microtiter wells. Binding studies using a large variety of glycosphingolipids showed that LT-IIc binds with high affinity to gangliosides with a terminal Neu5Acα3Gal or Neu5Gcα3Gal, e.g. the gangliosides GM3, GD1a and Neu5Acα3-/Neu5Gcα3--neolactotetraosylceramide and Neu5Acα3-/Neu5Gcα3-neolactohexaosylceramide. The crystal structure of LT-IIc B-subunits alone and with bound LSTd/sialyl-lacto-N-neotetraose d pentasaccharide uncovered the molecular basis of the ganglioside recognition. These studies revealed common and unique functional structures of the type II family of heat-labile enterotoxins.
Proximal tubular dysfunction in pregnant women receiving tenofovir disoproxil fumarate to prevent mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B virus
Authors: Liegeon Geoffroy , Ngo-Giang-Huong Nicole , Salvadori Nicolas , Bunpo Piyawan , Cressey Ratchada , Achalapong Jullapong , Kanjanavikai Prateep , Patamasingh Na Ayudhaya Orada , Prommas Sinart , Siriwachirachai Thitiporn , Sabsanong Prapan , Yves Mary Jean , Jourdain Gonzague
Published: December 2021

Background

Data evaluating the risk of proximal tubular dysfunction in women receiving tenofovir disoproxil fumarate for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HBV are scarce.

Objectives

To assess the risk of proximal tubulopathy in pregnant women receiving tenofovir disoproxil fumarate for PMTCT of HBV.

Patients and methods

We used urine samples collected from HBV monoinfected pregnant women who participated in a Phase III, multicentre, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial assessing a tenofovir disoproxil fumarate short course from 28 weeks gestational age (28-wk-GA) to 2 months post-partum (2-months-PP) for PMTCT of HBV in Thailand. Markers of tubular dysfunction, including retinol binding protein, kidney injury molecule-1, α1-microglobuin and β2-microglobulin, were assayed at 28- and 32-wk-GA and 2-months-PP visits. Proximal tubulopathy was defined as the presence of ≥2 of the following: tubular proteinuria, euglycaemic glycosuria and increased urinary phosphate.

Results

A total of 291 women participated in the study. No kidney-related adverse events were severe, and none led to tenofovir disoproxil fumarate discontinuation. At 2-months-PP, 3 of the 120 (3%) evaluated women in the tenofovir disoproxil fumarate group experienced proximal tubulopathy versus 3 of 125 (2%) in the placebo group (P = 1.00). None of the six women met the criteria for proximal tubulopathy at 12-months-PP but proteinuria persisted in three of them. No growth abnormalities were found at 1 year of age in infants born to mothers with proximal tubulopathy at 2-months-PP.

Conclusions

In these HBV-infected pregnant and breastfeeding women, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate administered from 28-wk-GA to 2-months-PP was not associated with a higher risk of proximal tubulopathy.
Treatment for Brain Metastases: ASCO-SNO-ASTRO Guideline
Authors: Vogelbaum Michael A , Brown Paul D , Messersmith Hans , Brastianos Priscilla K , Burri Stuart , Cahill Dan , Dunn Ian F , Gaspar Laurie E , Gatson Na Tosha N , Gondi Vinai , Jordan Justin T , Lassman Andrew B , Maues Julia , Mohile Nimish , Redjal Navid , Stevens Glen , Sulman Erik , van den Bent Martin , Wallace H James , Weinberg Jeffrey S , Zadeh Gelareh , Schiff David
Published: December 2021

Purpose

To provide guidance to clinicians regarding therapy for patients with brain metastases from solid tumors.

Methods

ASCO convened an Expert Panel and conducted a systematic review of the literature.

Results

Thirty-two randomized trials published in 2008 or later met eligibility criteria and form the primary evidentiary base.

Recommendations

Surgery is a reasonable option for patients with brain metastases. Patients with large tumors with mass effect are more likely to benefit than those with multiple brain metastases and/or uncontrolled systemic disease. Patients with symptomatic brain metastases should receive local therapy regardless of the systemic therapy used. For patients with asymptomatic brain metastases, local therapy should not be deferred unless deferral is specifically recommended in this guideline. The decision to defer local therapy should be based on a multidisciplinary discussion of the potential benefits and harms that the patient may experience. Several regimens were recommended for non–small-cell lung cancer, breast cancer, and melanoma. For patients with asymptomatic brain metastases and no systemic therapy options, stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) alone should be offered to patients with one to four unresected brain metastases, excluding small-cell lung carcinoma. SRS alone to the surgical cavity should be offered to patients with one to two resected brain metastases. SRS, whole brain radiation therapy, or their combination are reasonable options for other patients. Memantine and hippocampal avoidance should be offered to patients who receive whole brain radiation therapy and have no hippocampal lesions and 4 months or more expected survival. Patients with asymptomatic brain metastases with either Karnofsky Performance Status ≤ 50 or Karnofsky Performance Status < 70 with no systemic therapy options do not derive benefit from radiation therapy. Additional information is available at www.asco.org/neurooncology-guidelines.
Spiritual Alchemy
Authors: Zuber Mike A.
Published: December 2021

This book reclaims the problematic term “spiritual alchemy” as a precisely definable category for historical research and documents for the first time that there was a continuous tradition of spiritual alchemy from around 1600 to 1910. At the turn of the seventeenth century, the confluence of two important currents—German mysticism and alchemical Paracelsianism—led to a new spiritual alchemy of rebirth that entailed the formation of a subtle body within born-again believers that provided the basis for their subsequent resurrection at the Last Judgment. Embryonic forms of spiritual alchemy in pseudepigraphic writings attributed to Valentin Weigel inspired Jacob Boehme’s description of rebirth. Although he initially knew little about alchemy, Boehme developed his own spiritual alchemy in a number of works written between 1619 and 1622. According to Boehme’s understanding, laboratory alchemy was but a lesser, grossly material reflection of spiritual alchemy. All of the later key figures—Abraham von Franckenberg, Georg Lorenz Seidenbecher, Friedrich Breckling, Dionysius Andreas Freher, Mary Anne Atwood (née South)—drew on Boehme’s spiritual alchemy and communicated it to their contemporaries. Drawing extensively on the manuscript record, this book shows that Boehme’s spiritual alchemy came to shape Mrs. Atwood’s Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery and thus had a decisive impact on modern conceptions, such as those of C. G. Jung and Mircea Eliade. Ultimately, spiritual alchemy gave rise to a bewildering variety of spiritual interpretations of alchemy.
The Rising Seas
Authors: Taillant Jorge Daniel
Published: December 2021

This chapter focuses on the impacts of glacier melt on our oceans and related sea level rise. It discusses past and present sea levels and the relative influence of the ice age cycles. The chapter also reviews risks posed now to life on Earth due to glacier melt and related sea level rise, considering these in relation to ongoing and new flooding impacting coastal areas. It goes on to discuss the theories of Hot House Earth and Snowball Earth, the likelihood of these scenarios being realized, and the impact of high levels of CO2 concentrations on the likelihood of either eventuality.
Do You Drink Glacier Water? Probably
Authors: Taillant Jorge Daniel
Published: December 2021

This chapter discusses the relationship between glacier melt, sea level, and water supply and the relationship between the water we drink at home and use for agriculture to mountain glaciers. It describes the Earth’s freshwater supply and its various compositions and locations. It gives concrete examples of different sized glaciers and their relative freshwater contribution to nearby populations. It reviews the freshwater basin storage and regulation role that glaciers play in ecosystems and the importance of glaciers as sources of freshwater for human consumption and agriculture during warm and dry months as well as during prolonged drought periods.
Glaciers Are White, Oceans Are Blue, the Earth Is Warming, and So Are You!
Authors: Taillant Jorge Daniel
Published: December 2021

This chapter discusses the critical role glaciers play in reflecting solar heat back into space and how the melting of glaciers reveals darker land and water surfaces that leads to surface heat absorption and global warming. The chapter gets into the dynamics of albedo and surface heat, explaining the causes of color change on glaciers, such as soot and volcanic ash deposits. It reviews the significant albedo contributions of glacier and sea-ice covered surfaces of the Arctic, Greenland, and Antarctica and discusses the urban heat island effect in cities as an analogy to glacier surface warming due to darkening. The chapter also examines geological history and anthropogenic causes of glacier surface albedo changes, such as the industrial revolution.
Trajective Locomotion
Authors: Schonig Jordan
Published: December 2021

This chapter examines the perceptual and aesthetic properties of the “follow shot,” a tracking shot that follows a human subject on foot from behind. Analyzing two films that conspicuously explore the follow shot as their core stylistic principle, Alan Clarke’s Elephant (1989) and Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003), this chapter shows how the formal properties of the follow shot—the camera’s forward movement, its denial of the subject’s face, and its sense of being tethered to its subject—are crucial to each film’s meditation on violence and human agency. By visually emphasizing the forward movement of its subjects while denying access to their interiorities (via the face), the follow shot attunes its viewers to its subject’s agency as a sense of pure “towardness” devoid of psychological insight, an effect the chapter calls “trajectivity.” Such a mode of representing subjectivity, the chapter argues, opposes cinematic traditions that rely on a seamless relation between psychological motivation, human expression, and human action. In doing so, the chapter offers a revised film theoretical account of the relation between camera movement, expression, and ethics.
Bleeding Pixels
Authors: Schonig Jordan
Published: December 2021

This chapter examines the aesthetic properties and phenomenological effects of compression glitches—blocky image distortions that momentarily deform digitally compressed video. As visible expressions of the invisible processes of digital video compression, compression glitches offer unprecedented encounters with the technological production of cinematic motion. Two distinct consequences of these encounters are explored in this chapter. First, because compression glitches are more likely to occur when the compression algorithm is overworked by large volumes of onscreen movement, the ubiquity of compression glitches has yielded a spectatorial sensitivity to the magnitude of movement on screen. Second, because compression glitches extract movement itself (i.e., algorithmic motion instructions) from its original visual context, the visual qualities of such glitches heighten our attention to the formal qualities of movement as distinct from the actions and events that such movements comprise. Taken together, these two spectatorial effects of the compression glitch illuminate new orientations toward cinematic motion in the digital era. Describing these orientations, the chapter argues, can model a form of inquiry that bridges the gap between technologically oriented and phenomenologically oriented accounts of “digital cinema.”
“With Deep Regret and Reluctance”
Authors: Waller James
Published: December 2021

On January 9, 2020, a compromise agreement was reached that promised “a fair and balanced basis upon which to restore the institutions” of Northern Ireland’s system of governance. Governance refers, broadly, to the ways in which authority in a country is exercised. How are governments selected, monitored, and replaced? What is the capacity of the government to develop and implement sound policies? To what degree do the citizens respect the state and the institutions that govern them? Nearly all early warning systems for violent conflict include various traits of governance as risk factors. In contemporary Northern Ireland, where politics is now the weapon of choice, this chapter will consider five specific risk factors related to the practice of governance: (1) regime type, (2) state legitimacy deficit, (3) weakness of state structures, (4) identity-based polar factionalism, and (5) systematic state-led discrimination.
Conclusion: “I Hope It Wasn’t All a Waste”
Authors: Waller James
Published: December 2021

As we have seen throughout history, the road to a sustainable peace is a long and winding one, rife with potholes and perils. So, in a comparative sense, Northern Ireland deserves credit that the Good Friday Agreement, despite rewarding separateness over integration, has held for more than 20 years. Yet it seems there is a dangerous trajectory in contemporary Northern Ireland that has regional, global, and, most importantly, human implications for how we understand the transitions a society goes through in moving from conflict to a stable, enduring, and sustainable peace. More than two decades after the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland finds itself in a shallow, troubled sleep, and its future, moving more quickly each day, is trending in a darker and more dangerous direction. How it awakes from that troubled sleep will determine whether it is on the edge of a new beginning or a painfully familiar old precipice.
Indian Volleyball
Authors: Paul Bino
Published: December 2021

Bino Paul’s essay examines international data on participation and success in volleyball and draws some interesting, early linkages between sports performance and institutional changes outside sports to answer the question, how do participative sports such as volleyball under global conditions assume success or failure? Positing one’s own local lived experience as a starting point, helps to delve into an understanding these developments, of the political economy of fading sponsorships, commercial ventures, and professional competitions.
Women’s Cricket in India
Authors: Gupta Raadhika
Published: December 2021

Raadhika Gupta’s essay steps into cricket deploying a gender lens locating women’s cricket squarely within the larger, ‘masculine’ world of cricket where it essays a disruptive path. Despite occupying an outsider status, several factors have pushed for women’s inclusion within cricket, with implications of such changing gender dynamics within the sport for gender equality in the wider field of sport and society. The possibilities of transcending exclusion is suggested through early training, local support, more match opportunities, common governing and similar compensation structures, and media attention. These and other societal forces can act as a strong equalizer in social relations.
Testing the Limits of Science
Authors: Pape Madeleine
Published: December 2021

Madeleine Pape’s critical essay puts the issue of gender eligibility regulations in Olympic sports in historical perspective and examines the scientific debates around gender verification pointing to its formation and continued grounding in the racialized colonial gaze. A historical review of the field of athletics illuminates the deeply subjective nature of the production of scientific knowledge and its application in the verification of gender. Further, discriminatory role of sport governing bodies in perpetuating masculinist and racialized ideologies in insisting on scrutiny in the participation of women, inspection of their ‘unfeminine’ bodies, to invasive gender tests of ‘suspicious’ cases, continues unabated, especially of the global South.
Perspectives on Sports History in India
Authors: Bandyopadhyay Kausik
Published: December 2021

Kausik Bandyopadhyay’s chapter provides an account of what a history of sports should mean in India and the travails of establishing it with an academic focus provides a glimpse of an emerging, vibrant sub-discipline. Beginning with histories of established sports such as football and cricket, the essay focuses on researching sports history in the contemporary that poses numerous dilemmas and constraints for academics interested in history writing. Added to this are the experiences of teaching of sports, and the pedagogical engagement in the academy.
Performance-Enhancing Substances in Sports
Authors: Prakash Kaveri
Published: December 2021

Given that the current strategies focusing on deterrence and punishment are increasingly ineffective worldwide, is there a radically different approach to ensuring a level playing field? This essay explores the growing discourse on alternate approaches to controlling the use of performance enhancing substances (PES) in sports and reflects on the fact that social and cultural behaviour patterns, plus a lack of ethics in the practice of medicine are the issues that need to be tackled urgently in this eagerness to ensure a level playing field in sports. Kaveri Prakash cautiously argues for adopting a relatively new approach, under wide discussion, centring on a harm reduction strategy, that would allow performance enhancing substances to be administered under supervision. However, this will only be successful if regulatory and ethical frameworks in related areas are strengthened and current practices are systematically reviewed and either discarded or reformed. Moreover, India needs to pay serious attention to its sporting population, on and off the field, in order to gauge its response to regulation.
Sport for Development and Peace
Authors: Ananthakrishnan S.
Published: December 2021

Sport has been used as a core component of programming and in building inclusive social spaces long before it was finally recognized and mainstreamed as a part of the Millennium Development Goals and later in the Sustainable Development Goals. S Ananthakrishnan describes in detail the progressive incorporation of sports in the UN development agenda and discusses the limits and possibilities for member countries like India. The chapter is designed around the issue of sports as a new engine for social development across the globe and its role in empowering the disadvantaged, and its potential for combatting discrimination, engaging youth and women. Until very recently development studies scholars have neglected the rich possibilities of sports as an entry point and a stimulus for change. However, over the decade it has become a strategy for social intervention among disadvantaged communities. The richer countries of the Global North have to be persuaded to invest in sports and its equitable growth in the developing regions, thus defining a new path of international cooperation.
Protocols and Set-Ups
Authors: Madhiwalla Neha
Published: December 2021

Within the larger context of commodified medical practice and compromised standards in under-resourced government services, premier government medical colleges are reputed to be the enclaves where ‘scientific medicine’ is practised. In the past decade, these have begun to admit a significant proportion of less socially privileged students. This chapter examines the contribution to the production of knowledge of obstetricians graduating from two such institutions who have returned to the ‘periphery’. These students approach medical education without the cultural resources to engage with medicine as a knowledge system. The focus is on instilling discipline and imparting skill in technique, which students imbibe as protocols, without acquiring a broader understanding of the field, an affinity for research, or an exposure to evidence-based practice. Unable to visualize their practice as a conscious engagement with their context, they define their adaptations as violations of the ‘protocolic practice’, undermining their self-assessment as practitioners of science.
Introduction
Authors: Bosco David
Published: December 2021

Near the Senkaku Islands, Chinese and Japanese vessels regularly engage in tense encounters about who has rights to control the nearby waters. Their standoffs represent just one of several points of friction that center on who controls the world’s oceans and what the rules are for their use. The oceans are often described as lawless or anarchic, but that characterization obscures as much as it explains. For centuries, there has been a rudimentary legal framework for the oceans: “freedom of the seas.” Yet freedom of the seas has come under strain in recent decades as governments have won more control of ocean space and as international regulation of the oceans has intensified. Constructing a stable basis for future ocean governance remains a significant international challenge.
Adrift
Authors: Bosco David
Published: December 2021

The years following the Second World War saw dramatic national expansion into the ocean. The United States began the process in 1945 by claiming the continental shelf and expanded fishing rights. Other countries followed suit, sometimes with even more ambitious claims. New concerns about overfishing motivated many countries to expand their national waters. National pressure on freedom of the seas combined with a conceptual challenge as newly independent countries argued that the doctrine had aided colonialism by the West. On the environmental front, figures like Rachel Carson warned about the damage humans were inflicting on the oceans. Meanwhile, ocean commerce went through a revolution prompted by the development of container shipping. The Soviet Union became a major maritime power, a transformation that would have major implications for the effort to provide a new legal framework for the oceans.
System Under Strain
Authors: Bosco David
Published: December 2021

Seabed mining became more active as companies invested in technologies to harvest valuable minerals. Momentum toward commercial mining would test directly the idea of international control of ocean space. The industry’s prospects also revived attention to whether the United States might join the Convention, and the Obama administration pushed to secure ratification. That effort failed, mostly because of conservative concerns about the internationalization of the seabed. Washington’s continued refusal to join the Convention created a complicated situation in which the leading maritime power claimed to defend maritime rules but was outside the Convention. From inside the Convention, China and Russia both challenged maritime rules. Both countries rejected international rulings critical of their maritime behavior. Despite an international ruling, China continued its efforts to secure special rights in the South China Sea, and the United States responded by increasing its naval activities in the area and conducting more freedom of navigation operations.
Making Broadway Dance
Authors: Gennaro Liza
Published: December 2021

Musical theater dance is an ever-changing and evolving dance form, egalitarian in its embrace of any and all dance genres. It is a living, transforming art developed by exceptional dance artists requiring dramaturgical understanding; character analysis; knowledge of history, art, design; and, most importantly, an extensive knowledge of dance, both intellectual and embodied. Its ghettoization within criticism and scholarship as a throw-away dance form, undeserving of analysis—derivative, cliché ridden, titillating and predictable, the ugly stepsister of both theater and dance—belies and ignores the historic role it has had in musicals as an expressive form equal to book, music, and lyric. The standard adage, “when you can’t speak anymore sing, when you can’t sing anymore dance,” expresses its importance in musical theater as the ultimate form of heightened emotional, visceral, and intellectual expression. Through in-depth analysis author Liza Gennaro examines Broadway choreography through the lens of dance studies, script analysis, movement research, and dramaturgical inquiry offering a close examination of a dance form that has heretofore received only the most superficial interrogation. This book reveals the choreographic systems of some of Broadway’s most influential dance-makers, including George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, Katherine Dunham, Bob Fosse, Donald McKayle, Savion Glover, Sergio Trujillo, Steven Hoggett, and Camille Brown. Making Broadway Dance is essential reading for theater and dance scholars, students, practitioners, and Broadway fans.
Musical Theater Dance Training and Choreography in the 1920–1930s
Authors: Gennaro Liza
Published: December 2021

This chapter provides an examination of how Broadway dancers were trained, the introduction of jazz dance to Broadway, the 1920s gradual move away from unison line dancing in favor of the individuated chorus, and how a few dance directors began to consider dance in musicals in relation to the libretto as an integrated and meaningful addition to the musical play. The common practice of Black choreographers being pushed aside while white choreographers claimed credit for their work and the essential role Black dance teachers and coaches played in training white dancers for Broadway is discussed here. Examinations of choreographic works by dance directors Buddy Bradley, Charlie Davis, Seymour Felix, Sammy Lee, Albertina Rasch, and George Balanchine establish a historical basis in preparation for the radical innovations to be discussed in subsequent chapters.
Discussion of Issues Related to Assessing Signed or Spoken Language in Children with Developmental Language Disorder
Authors: Murphy Carol-Anne , Frizelle Pauline , McKean Cristina , Quintos-Pozos David
Published: December 2021

Issues regarding assessment of the deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HH) child with developmental language disorder (DLD) have implications for the assessment of the child with DLD who is not D/HH. Of note are suggestions regarding literacy, the potential for semantic fluency assessment to contribute to the identification of DLD, the use of standardized protocols to support assessment at the conversational level, and the necessary skills of those completing assessments. Similarly, issues in assessment and identification of children with DLD who are not D/HH have implications for practice with children who are D/HH. These include the shift from exclusionary approaches to identification and recognition of co-occurring conditions, addressing the impact of development over time and considering the contribution of dynamic assessment. This chapter is a joint discussion of key items related to the assessment of deaf and hearing children with a developmental language disorder that were presented in Chapters 5.1 and 5.2.
Assessing the Oral Language Skills of Bi-/Multilinguals
Authors: Bedore Lisa M. , Peña Elizabeth D. , Durant Kathleen , McMillen Stephanie
Published: December 2021

Bilingual/multilingual children who speak two (or more) languages demonstrate variability in their semantic and morphosyntactic knowledge of each of their languages. This impacts their performance on language assessment tasks that tap into knowledge of semantics and morphosyntax. As a result, children from bilingual/multilingual backgrounds tend to be misdiagnosed more often than their monolingual peers. In this chapter, the authors review how best practices in the development of assessments can be applied to bilingual/multilingual language learners. They provide examples of the development and use of language history questionnaires and of assessments of semantics and morphosyntax for bilingual/multilingual populations. The chapter focuses in large part on the development and use of these measures for the US Spanish-English speaking population because the approach has been used for a very large group of children and can inform the development of assessments in other language pairs.
Discussion of Issues Related to Assessment Constructs in Spoken and Signed Languages
Authors: Macqueen Susy , Haug Tobias
Published: December 2021

Thinking about what is assessed—the construct—in any language assessment raises questions about the nature of language use, the nature of developmental trajectories, and whose language patterns determine what is ‘standard’. The assessment of signed languages draws attention to assessment practices and understandings that are entrenched, for better or worse, in the assessment of spoken languages. Spoken language assessments of standardized varieties tend to value the written sentence as an ideal unit, a legacy of standardization. Signed language assessments, on the other hand, may be emerging alongside processes of standardization. Capturing semiotic complexity in the construct remains a significant challenge for both signed and spoken language assessments, despite the development of corpora which exemplify it. This chapter discusses these theoretical, ideological, and practical challenges for assessing signed and spoken language abilities. It brings together key ideas from chapters Chapters 7.1 and 7.2 and offers future directions in the development of theory and practice in signed and spoken language assessments.
Validation of Spoken Language Assessments for Adult L2 Learners
Authors: Chapelle Carol A. , Lee Hye-won
Published: December 2021

Assessments of second language speaking are used for a range of purposes, from assigning grades in language courses to certifying qualifications for employment and assessing readiness for university study. The types of validation efforts undertaken across language assessment contexts are equally wide-ranging. This chapter introduces the validation practices used to evaluate the degree to which interpretations and uses of test scores are justified in particular contexts. The types of validation practices are tied to the types of inferences that are made when tests of spoken language are used as well as the need to present empirical evidence and theoretical rationales to support the inferences.
Discussion of Validation Issues in Signed and Spoken Assessments for Adult L2 Learners
Authors: Chapelle Carol A. , Hauser Peter C. , Lee Hye-won , Rathmann Christian , Schönström Krister
Published: December 2021

The use of argument-based validity as a framework for discussion of validity issues in spoken and signed second language (L2) assessment reveals many areas of commonality. Common areas include the role of systematic test development practices in the validity argument, the complexity of rating issues, the need to define and assess a construct of functional communication of meaning, and the centrality of test use in the validity argument. Examining these areas of commonality in this chapter reveals the fundamental similarities in the basic validity issues faced in spoken and signed language assessment. This chapter is a joint discussion of key items related to validation issues related to signed and spoken language assessment that were discussed in Chapters 8.1 and 8.2.
Discourse Analysis in Second Language Speaking Assessment
Authors: Frost Kellie
Published: December 2021

Discourse analysis has been widely used in the field of language testing. This chapter provides an overview of research examining features of test-taker discourse across different task types and under different task conditions and the extent to which these features align with rating scale criteria. Attention is also drawn to discourse analytic studies of the language demands of study and work domains and the extent to which test tasks can elicit relevant features. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the challenges posed to existing high-stakes test constructs by increasing diversity in universities and workplaces and the potential for discourse analytic approaches to establish stronger alignments between testing practices and the aspects of spoken discourse relevant and valued in communication.
Discourse Analysis in Second Language Signing Assessment: Sign Language Proficiency Interviews
Authors: McKee Rachel , Pivac Alexander Sara , Walton Wenda
Published: December 2021

The Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) was modeled on the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) in the 1980s in North America and has been adapted for various national signed languages. To date, there has been no published analysis of interview discourse in the SLPI. This chapter examines accommodative question strategies used by deaf interviewers in New Zealand SLPI interviews. Findings reveal that interviewers use interlocutor support strategies that parallel accommodative question types described for OPI interviews and features of spontaneous interaction between fluent and novice signers. Sixty-six percent of questions had accommodative features, which were more frequent with lower proficiency candidates. Evidence of interviewer “helping” strategies is useful for training interviewers and refining the construct of the SLPI.
Language Assessment Literacy in Second Signed Language Assessment Contexts
Authors: Boers-Visker Eveline , Hammer Annemiek
Published: December 2021

There are growing numbers of students who enroll sign language programs. Most of them are hearing students whose first language is in the aural-oral modality. Learning signed language challenges them to communicate via the visual-manual modality; a process that is known to be demanding (Kemp, 1998). Therefore, in instruction it is essential to monitor this process by means of effective and efficient assessment (Miller et al., 2008). Rather remarkably, there are only a few tests developed to assess students’ proficiency in sign language. This implies that most instructors, who are involved in sign language teaching, have to develop tests and assessments themselves. Complicating factor, however, is that most instructors are not specifically trained on this topic, i.e. their knowledge and skills to evaluate or design language tests is limited. In this chapter, we will bring issues to view that are involved with the design of sign language assessments. Sign language proficiency can be broken down into two components: the visual receptive and manual expressive component. The assessment of these components will be discussed in the context of validity, reliability, authenticity, impact and practicality. We aim to provide a comprehensive matrix of issues in test design, with special focus on the pitfalls one may encounter in using or developing sign language tests for production as well as receptive skills. The matrix is a first attempt to provide a knowledge base on sign language assessment that might be helpful for instructors to become more literate on the subject matter.
Courtier and Swordsman
Authors: Jackson Christine
Published: December 2021

During the years 1610 to 1612 the threat of war returned to haunt Europe and James I’s critics looked increasingly to Henry, prince of Wales, as a future military and Protestant leader. Chapter 4 looks at Herbert’s engagement with courtly politics and support for his kinsman, Pembroke, who opposed the powerful pro-Catholic and pro-Spanish Howard faction and favoured providing military assistance to fellow Protestants in Europe and seeking alliance with France. It examines Herbert’s determination to secure honour and military experience by fighting as a volunteer in the Protestant army defending Jülich-Cleves in 1610 and the contribution of his military exploits in camp, where he learned the art of making war under Sir Edward Cecil, and his emerging chivalric reputation in England and on the continent. It considers his attempt to defend his honour in a series of duels, including most notoriously with Theophilus Howard, Lord Walden, and Sir John Eyre, and the reaction of the Privy Council and fellow courtiers to the fashion for duelling. It explores Herbert’s involvement in courtly and literary circles; the favour shown him by Anne of Denmark; his friendship with John Donne, Sir Robert Harley, and Sir Thomas Lucy; his commissioning of portraits by leading court artists; and his difficult relationship with members of the Howard family that led, following the rise of Robert Carr, earl of Somerset, as royal favourite and the deaths of Robert Cecil, earl of Salisbury, and Prince Henry, to his withdrawal from court politics.
Changing Times
Authors: Jackson Christine
Published: December 2021

Returning to England, Herbert found James I’s court and government in disarray but was forced to witness events from the side-lines due to illness. Chapter 6 explores his re-engagement with his family, estates, and court politics and his interest in the religious conflict of the period. It looks at his response to the trial of the earl and countess of Somerset for Sir Thomas Overbury’s murder, the removal of the Howard family from royal office, and the rising influence of the earl of Pembroke and his protégé, Sir George Villiers. It examines Herbert’s intellectual engagement with the soteriological conflict between Gomarists and Arminians in the United Provinces over the doctrine of predestination and his growing interest in Arminian and Socinian religious teaching. The development of his religious thinking is captured in letters written to Sir Robert Harley during 1617 to 1619, critiquing hard-line Calvinist teaching on salvation, and clearly influenced the writing of De Veritate which he drafted during the same period. The chapter ends with his return to court circles and successful application (with the support of Villiers, created earl and later duke of Buckingham by the besotted king) to advance his career as ambassador to the court of Louis XIII following the outbreak of rebellion in Bohemia.
Counterstorytelling in International Economic Law
Authors: Windsor Matthew
Published: December 2021

This chapter critically evaluates the phenomenon of counterstorytelling in the context of international economic law. The intellectual origins and conceptual assumptions of the narrative turn in legal thought are surveyed, before counterstorytelling is discussed—a style of narrative jurisprudence that emerged primarily in the context of critical race theory, and whose power inheres in its mythbusting potential. Counterstorytelling is illustrated with reference to the past, present, and future of international economic law, focusing respectively on: Adom Getachew’s historical account of the New International Economic Order in Worldmaking after Empire; the diagnostic of the current backlash against economic globalization in Lynn Nottage’s play Sweat; and efforts to forecast the trajectories of neoliberal capitalism.
Good and Good-For
Authors: Rønnow-Rasmussen Toni
Published: December 2021

‘Good and Good-For’ introduces three views concerning the distinction between final goodness and final goodness-for. These two value notions mark the divide between the impersonally (non-relationally) and personally (relationally) valuable—the value gap which this book is about. Two of the views—‘Mooreanism’ and ‘good-for monism’—deny there is any gap at all. Both reject value dualism, the theory that final goodness and final goodness-for are independent value notions that cannot be fully understood in terms of one another. The book’s discussion of good and good-for depicts these as being about two kinds of property (not necessarily in a realistic sense). According to Mooreanism, either final good-for is an incoherent value notion or, ultimately, at best a disguised reference to what is finally good. Good-for monists reverse this, and insist that either final good is an incoherent value notion or, ultimately, at best one referring to what is finally good for someone or something. Dualism in its turn does not imply that anything that is good-for someone is also good, or vice versa. Intuitively, there could be things that are good for a person which do not carry any impersonal value, or vice versa.
FA and Motivating Reasons
Authors: Rønnow-Rasmussen Toni
Published: December 2021

The main aim in ‘FA and Motivating Reasons’ is to clear the ground for the discussion in Chapter 11 by drawing attention to some notions and distinctions that help us to understand the core elements of fitting-attitude analysis (FA). In particular, the distinction between explanatory and motivating reason plays a core part in this and the next chapter. In light of this distinction, the focus is on whether we should accept either ‘the guise of the good thesis’ or the more plausible ‘guise of reason thesis’. Eventually (in Chapter 11), it is argued that we should endorse neither of these. While the previous chapters gave us a positive insight (they lead to a modification of the FA pattern of analysis), this—and the next chapter also, as we shall see—will mainly have a negative impact. It suggests we should refrain from introducing certain modifications of FA analysis that at first sight might seem compelling.
Beliefs
Authors: Jenkins Lyndsey
Published: December 2021

This chapter explains why these women wanted the vote through a case study of Annie Kenney’s political beliefs. Annie Kenney’s autobiography, Memories of a Militant, is largely a justification of militancy activity: an explanation of how women sought to gain the vote, rather than an explanation of why she wanted it herself. Yet to understand why she and her sisters devoted their efforts to the cause, it is important to examine what they believed it signified. Annie Kenney tended to emphasize three main principles in her claims for the vote. First, that working-class women would benefit from enfranchisement because it would help them achieve better living and working conditions. Second, that all women, regardless of class, would benefit from joining the campaign, which she saw in moral and spiritual terms as transformative for women. Finally, she argued that women had both the desire and the duty to contribute to national life, framing her claims in terms of women’s potential and responsibility to serve the race, nation, and Empire. While these ideas will be familiar to scholars of suffrage, this chapter suggests they had the potential to cut across class. While focused on Annie Kenney, the chapter indicates possible reasons why working-class women were drawn not only to the suffrage cause but to the WSPU in particular. This chapter not only highlights the range and significance of the concerns which motivated Annie Kenney, but also identifies the limitations and consequences of her political vision.
Class
Authors: Jenkins Lyndsey
Published: December 2021

This chapter shows that Annie Kenney’s suffragette career offers fresh insight into the way that class was represented, understood, and experienced within the WSPU. While WSPU activists frequently claimed that theirs was a classless organization, historians have often been sceptical as to whether this was reflected in their policies and attitudes. Class remained a significant source of tension in the organization even as women attempted to pursue a common goal. This chapter traces how Annie Kenney was first positioned as a representative of, and advocate for, working-class women, and later celebrated for her outstanding commitment to the cause, indicating that the meaning of class was fluid and shifting rather than fixed and static. The chapter raises ideas about the role and representation of working-class women within the WSPU, and demonstrates how women themselves attempted to navigate the complicated terrain of class hierarchies and gendered inequality.
international law’s comic disposition
Authors: Simpson Gerry
Published: December 2021

This chapter considers irony and laughter as responses to, perhaps even an effect of, international legal solemnity. Ironic laughter, it argues, arises organically from the gap between our hopes and the abridgement of these hopes, or in the abyss between illusion and experience. These gaps will be immediately recognisable to the student of international law brought up on a steady diet of unrealised expectations and normative overreach. With this in mind, the chapter first reflects on the parallels between the dead languages of Edwardian English and the solemnities of international legalism and then, second, asks how the ironic international lawyer might chart a passage for laughter—indeed, live an ironic life—amid the dangers of sentimentality and tastelessness. The chapter ends by turning, albeit sketchily, to the rebellious, instinctive laughter of a world in which some deaths are more sacred than others—a blasphemous comedy of rebellion, associated with the Greek anti-philosopher Diogenes and the contemporary German writer Peter Sloterdijk.
‘bluebeard on trial’: the experience of bathos
Authors: Simpson Gerry
Published: December 2021

It was a characteristic of early international criminal law that a search for precedents coexisted alongside obsessive declarations of ‘unprecedentedness’. The ‘unprecedented’ provided a moral and diplomatic basis for the invention of the field and its various novel doctrines. It is unprecedented outrage that engages—perhaps establishes the existence of—a ‘conscience of mankind’ so vital to the spirit behind the original war crimes tribunals. This chapter concerns itself, then, with the relationship between lawful precedents (often disappointing and ahistorical) and unprecedented, sublime violence, and the production of bathos in the exchange between the two.
postlude: last thoughts on sentimentality
Authors: Simpson Gerry
Published: December 2021

In these very short final two paragraphs I use the idea of the ‘uncanny’ as a way to re-introduce the idea of a defamiliarised, sentimental life of international law.
Horsing around the Americas
Authors: Clements Ashley
Published: December 2021

This chapter explores the programmatic role of Classical conceptions in the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century European assimilation of the Americas. A passing detail in a foundational text of anthropological criticism, Michel de Montaigne’s satirical Essay Of Cannibals, prompts us to re-examine the conquest idea of the New World centaur invoked by European writers to explain indigenous American responses to their first encounters with mounted Europeans. Written into the story of early conquistador rationalizations of the New World ‘Indians’, as Montaigne well knew and contemporary indigenous American voices confirm, is a lesson about cross-cultural (mis)understanding and the dangers of fallaciously generalizing from the particular.
Analogous Apes
Authors: Clements Ashley
Published: December 2021

From the dissection table of a London physician to the tropical forests of Borneo and Sumatra, this chapter places the reader amidst the bestiary of Classical animals populating seventeenth-century scientific responses to the problem of the anthropoid ape. The anatomical puzzle of a strangely man-like creature recently arrived to British shores from the Congo inadvertently reveals the influence of Classical figurations in early-modern European conceptions of the human and animal. Guided by ‘indigenous’ idioms and simian similitude, a perplexed comparative anatomist resorts to Classical philology and the authority of Homer to posit a new non-human anthropoid species also known to the ancients.