bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Desimplification of Single Tablet Antiretroviral (ART) Regimens—A Practical Cost-Savings Strategy?
Authors: Krentz Hartmut , Campbell Shayna , Gill John
Published: January 2019

Introduction:

The use of lifelong antiretroviral therapy (ART) results in increased costs of care; the ability to finance and control sustained costs of ART needs to be discussed.

Approach:

The Southern Alberta Clinic initiated a practical cost savings approach that switched select patients from a branded ART to a less expensive generic variation. Our approach surveyed physicians and patients on their acceptance of switching and then launched a program asking patients if they would switch to generic variations for cost control purposes.

Results:

Our early findings found >50% of patients approached agreed to switch. We found no evidence of increased risk of viral breakthrough, resistance, side effects, or displeasure with generic drugs. Measured cost savings in the first year were >$1.1 million with annual projected savings of between $4.3 million and $2.6 million (in 2017 Cdn$).

Conclusion:

Our approach can provide an option for controlling costs of HIV care without compromising quality.
Feasibility and Acceptability of the Modified Antiretroviral Treatment Access Study (MARTAS) Intervention Based on a Pilot Study in Ukraine
Authors: Neduzhko Oleksandr , Postnov Oleksandr , Bingham Trista , Myers Janet J. , Flanigan Timothy , Kiriazova Tetiana
Published: January 2019

We conducted a pilot of the Modified Antiretroviral Treatment Access Study (MARTAS), a linkage to HIV treatment intervention, prior to implementing a multisite randomized controlled trial (RCT) in Ukraine. The objectives of the pilot were to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the MARTAS intervention among a small sample of adults recently diagnosed with HIV at specialty clinics in the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine in 2015. The adapted intervention consisted of up to 6 individual-level sessions with a linkage coordinator (nurse) over a 90-day period. Overall, 22 persons participated in the pilot. On average, participants received 4.2 sessions and 14 participants linked to HIV care within 3 months of study enrollment. All 18 participants who completed the acceptability survey expressed high satisfaction with their interaction with their linkage coordinator. The results of the pilot demonstrated feasibility and acceptability of the MARTAS intervention in advance of a larger scale RCT in Ukraine.
Recent US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Activities to Reduce HIV Stigma
Authors: Beer Linda , McCree Donna Hubbard , Jeffries William L. , Lemons Ansley , Sionean Catlainn
Published: January 2019

HIV stigma affects many persons living with HIV in the United States, and reducing stigma is central to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) mission to promote health and prevent HIV transmission. To this end, CDC funds and implements programmatic activities, research, communication campaigns, and monitoring through data collection and public health surveillance. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded programs have developed promising interventions and educational materials for reducing HIV stigma. Research conducted by CDC staff and their collaborators have made important contributions to the scientific literature on stigma, which have informed current CDC programmatic efforts, including public education activities and social marketing campaigns. By monitoring HIV stigma in multiple populations, CDC can evaluate the population-level effectiveness of stigma-reduction efforts and identify key populations in need of support and intervention. This article describes these and other recent CDC efforts to address HIV stigma, and discusses new strategies with the potential to further reduce stigma.
Optimizing bus stop locations for walking access: Stops-first design of a feeder route to enhance a residential plan
Authors: Taplin John HE , Sun Yuchao
Published: January 2019

Feeder buses provide a small but important part of the public transport system by carrying people between residential areas and transport interchanges. A feeder bus to a train station planned in advance will attract new residents of a housing development to use the bus. The bus route can influence the location choice of a buyer concerned about access for children, the elderly or anyone not wishing to drive a car. Our bus route modelling starts with the bus stops – not the route – to be reached from each dwelling by the shortest possible walk. In demand terms, people locating close to bus stops are more likely to use the service than those choosing more distant locations, and the nearby residences have higher values. The stops-first application determines a feeder bus route to enhance an irregular residential plan covering an area of one square kilometre. The planned road and housing lot locations provide the data for calculating the access measure from each dwelling to each potential bus stop, the closest stop being used. A genetic algorithm tests potential bus stops to find demand maximizing locations, the propensity to use the bus being formulated as an exponential (increasing elasticity) function of walking distance. Then a ‘travelling salesman’ genetic algorithm finds the shortest route linking the stops, so that an efficient circuit route is generated for each alternative number of bus stops, ranging from 7 to 11. More stops not only give better access but also increase the route length, so that total accessibility must be assessed against route length. The distribution of walking distances shows most between 150 and 240 metres, with none more than 400 metres. The results indicate that planning policy should require prior design of a bus route to achieve good walking accessibility, so that residents become accustomed to the convenience of using the bus. This study shows that, at the planning stage, estimating a bi-objective model giving a Pareto front between accessibility and route length can reveal a policy compromise that shortens the route with little reduction in expected patronage.
Effects of the maternal and current social environment on female body mass and reproductive traits in Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica)
Authors: Langen Esther M. A. , Goerlich-Jansson Vivian C. , von Engelhardt Nikolaus
Published: January 2019

The social environment of breeding females can affect their phenotype with potential adaptive maternal effects on offspring experiencing a similar environment. We housed Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) females in two group sizes (pair of two vs. groups of four) and studied the effects on their offspring under matched and mismatched conditions. We measured F1 body mass, reproduction, and plasma levels of androgens and corticosterone. F1 group housing led to an increase in body mass. In addition, F1 group housing had a positive effect on weight in daughters of pair-housed P0 females only, which were heaviest under mismatched conditions. At the time of egg collection for the F2 generation, F1 group females were heavier, irrespective of the P0 treatment. F1 females in groups laid heavier eggs, with higher hatching success, and produced heavier offspring, most likely a maternal effect of F1 mass. F1 plasma hormones were affected neither by the P0 nor the F1 social environment. These results contrasted with effects in the P0 (reported previously), in which plasma hormone levels differed between social environments, but not mass. This may be due to changes in adult sex ratios since P0 females were housed with males, whereas F1 females encountered males only during mating. Our study demonstrates potentially relevant mismatch effects of the social environment on F1 weights and maternal effects on F2 offspring, but further study is needed to understand their adaptive significance and physiological mechanisms.
Microplastics in the surface sediments from the eastern waters of Java Sea, Indonesia
Authors: Yona Defri , Sari Syarifah Hikmah Julinda , Iranawati Feni , Bachri Syamsul , Ayuningtyas Wulan Cahya
Published: January 2019

Background: This study aimed to investigate the abundance of microplastics in the eastern water of Java Sea. The study areas are well known for the high population and high industrial activities that can contribute to the plastic pollution.

Methods: Microplastics were sampled from the surface sediments at five different stations representing different local activities: fish landing area (St 1), mangrove forest (St 2), abandoned shrimp pond (St 3), river mouth (St 4) and open sea (St 5).

Results: Three types of microplastics were found; the most common was plastic fragments (54.34±6.39%) followed by fibers (41.45±4.59%) and films (4.21±3.90%). The highest abundance of microplastics was observed in the mangrove area (896.96±160.28 particles/kg), dominated with fragments and fibers. Films were found in greatest quantities in the fish landing area, but compared to the other types of microplastics, the abundance was much lower (80.73±37.62 particles/kg). Domestic wastes and fisheries activities were the main causes of the high microplastics in the study areas.

Conclusions: The results of this study showed that microplastic pollution is a serious problem that needs to be paid attention not only from the government but also from the local people. Plastics management waste is needed.
Good Clusterings Have Large Volume
Authors: Borgwardt Steffen , Happach Felix
Published: January 2019

In “Good Clusterings Have Large Volume,” S. Borgwardt and F. Happach study the strong contrast between the favorable performance of clustering algorithms in practice and their bad theoretical worst cases. They explain this contrast using polyhedral theory. Classical clustering algorithms can be interpreted as the search for vertices in the so-called bounded-shape partition polytopes, following a "random" direction. The vertices correspond to clusterings with extraordinary separation properties, and the quality of this separation depends on the volume of the normal cone of the vertex—the larger the better. This gives rise to a new quality criterion for clusterings and explains why good clusterings are also the most likely to be found. The authors further characterize the edges of the polytopes, which allows for an explicit description of the normal cone, and in turn the computation of a best separation between the clusters of a given clustering.
Research roundup
Authors: Heggs Karen
Published: January 2019

Synopses of a selection of recently published research articles of relevance to palliative care
Backward walking effects on activation pattern of leg muscles in young females with patellofemoral pain syndrome
Authors: Abdelraouf Osama R , Abdel-Aziem Amr A , Ahmed Alaa A , Nassif Nagui S , Matar Ayman G
Published: January 2019

Background/Aims:

Little is known regarding the activation of knee and hip muscles during backward walking in patellofemoral pain syndrome. This study examineD the effects of backward walking and forward walking on the activation of knee extensors, hip abductors, and adductors in patients with patellofemoral pain syndrome.

Methods:

A total of 20 females with patellofemoral pain syndrome and 20 age-matched typically healthy female controls participated in this study. Surface electromyography from vastus medialis obliquus, vastus lateralis, gluteus medius, and adductor longus muscles were collected during forward walking and backward walking.

Findings:

The patellofemoral pain syndrome group had a significantly higher normalised root mean square of the vastus medialis obliquus, vastus lateralis and gluteus medius muscles (P=0.001), without significant difference in adductor longus muscle activity during backward walking versus forward walking (P=0.098). During forward walking, the patellofemoral pain syndrome group showed significantly higher activation of adductor longus muscle (P=0.001) and significantly lower activation of the gluteus medius muscle (P=0.002) compared to the healthy group. During backward walking there was a significant increase in the vastus medialis obliquus and adductor longus muscle activity of the patellofemoral pain syndrome group compared to the control group (P=0.003, 0.001) respectively.

Conclusions:

Clinicians should consider backward walking training to increase the muscle strength of knee extensors and hip abductors when developing rehabilitation programmes for patients with patellofemoral pain syndrome.
Hot media, technological transformation and the plague of the dark emotions: Erich Fromm, Viktor Frankl and the recovery of meaning1
Authors: Liss Barry
Published: January 2019

This article takes the position that our contemporary overheated media environment lends itself to comfortable passivity, resulting in mental breakdown in the guise of the dark emotions: anxiety, melancholia and boredom. This is especially the case with the inevitable synergy of the upcoming technological transformations from genetic modification, virtual reality simulacra and artificial intelligence/robotics. After discussing the data from the World Health Organization regarding the stark increase of people across the globe suffering from depression and anxiety, this article weds the concepts of McLuhan’s hot–cool distinction with Fromm’s delineation of the productive character orientation. Following Fromm, this article argues that joy ensues from reason, productive labour and love–sorrow from ignorance, alienated work and indifference. When we wilfully abrogate our responsibilities to self and other via non-participational mediated forms, we cede away our potential for growth and development. This leads to the emotional breakdowns of guilt, boredom, anxiety and melancholia. Viktor Frankl’s logotherapeutic perspective is discussed as a counterbalance to the social effects wrought by our overheated technological environment. Frankl’s stress on phenomenological meaning as the cornerstone of existence provides a lens to understanding the affects of an over-reliance on technological gadgetry.
Partnership Program on Bali Cattle Fattening Based on Local Resources in the Suboptimal Land Area of Nusa Tenggara Timur
Authors: Priyono Priyono , Priyanto Dwi
Published: January 2019

Bali cattle is one of the Indonesian germplasm that well adapted to suboptimal areas including East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). Difficulties in accessing capital became one of the factors that hamper effort the development of Bali cattle in larger scale. One alternative to access capital is through partnership model of Bali cattle fattening based on local resources. Partnership model of Bali cattle fattening was intiated by village cooperative centre (pusat koperasi unit desa =PUSKUD) since 2002 in Kupang District, South Central Timor District, North Central Timor District, and Belu District. Profit sharing in this program is 70% for farmers and 30% for PUSKUD NTT. The partnership program has been performing well and growing rapidly. On the other hand, some problems occurred such as cattle death and forced sale due to lack of feed, especially during dry season. In its development, the partnership model has resulted in empowering farmers through increasing income and employment.
Polyneuropathy on the background of thyrotoxicosis with thiamazole drug treatment
Authors: Oblaukhova Veronika I. , Svetlana Duma N. , Mustafina Svetlana V.
Published: January 2019

The article is devoted to the clinical case of the development of toxic polyneuropathy in patients receiving thiamazole 25 mg per day in a 43-year-old patient with manifest thyrotoxicosis, which is clinically manifested by severe pain in the muscles of the upper and lower extremities; muscle weakness in the upper limbs. The patient, prescribed by a neurologist, was treated with carbamazepine-retard 400 mg per day for 1 month, and the attending physician decided to replace tiamazole with propylthiouracil 300 mg per day, followed by dose adjustment. The patient categorically refuses surgical treatment or treatment with radioactive iodine. The diagnosis of toxic polyneuropathy was confirmed during the differential diagnosis with inflammatory diseases of the joints and muscles, polyneuropathy on the background of thyrotoxicosis. In the outcome of the treatment, all neurological symptoms were stopped. The observation time on the occasion of polyneuropathy was 1 month, the total time of observation of the patient at the time of publication was 5 years. This clinical case demonstrates the possibility of the development of toxic polyneuropathy in patients receiving thiamazole in the treatment of thyrotoxicosis. Given the low frequency of this complication in clinical practice, it is necessary to draw additional attention of clinicians to this case and recommend including this condition in the differential diagnosis of polyneuropathy.
Indian Deed to Area near Success Mill in Colliers Mill Wildlife Area – Jackson Township, New Jersey
Authors: Historical Society Ocean County
Published: January 2019

The Ocean County Historical Society (OCHS) is pleased to share this document, dated July 12, 1734. It appears to record the sale of land now in Jackson Township’s 12,000-acre Colliers Mills Wildlife Management Area, and has not been widely viewed since 1979. Additional research on this document (and a multitude of other Native American artifacts) is currently underway, as OCHS prepares a new Native American History exhibit for its Museum at 26 Hadley Avenue, Toms River, NJ 08753.
Research Notes
Authors: Authors Various
Published: January 2019

In this issue, we bring you the third edition of “Research Notes,” inaugurated to allow scholars to share their works in progress and solicit feedback from others in the NJ History community. All are welcome to contribute- simply send submissions for inclusion in future issues to the editor (mziobro@monmouth.edu).
Z „małej ojczyzny” do grodu Kraka
Authors: Gawlik Stanislaw
Published: January 2019

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III Walne Zebranie Członków Towarzystwa Historii Edukacji
Authors: Apanel Danuta , Dąbrowska Joanna
Published: January 2019

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Działalność Sekcji Szkolnictwa Specjalnego Związku Nauczycielstwa Polskiego na rzecz kształcenia specjalnego w pierwszym dziesięcioleciu po II wojnie światowej
Authors: Kulbaka Jacek
Published: January 2019

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Cabanis: między medycyną, rewolucją i filozofią
Authors: Chomiszczak Tomasz
Published: January 2019

The article is concerned with quite forgotten character and work of Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis, a physician and philosopher, but also a strong supporter of the French Revolution from the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. His main scientific opus was the dissertation On the relations between the physical and moral aspects of man (Rapports du physique et du moral de l’homme) first published in 1802 and then repeatedly resumed in the 19th century, but virtually unknown in Poland. His medical points of view originally corresponded with materialistic philosophy; however, they also took into account the role of the spiritual and mental aspects of a human – this “biological, thinking mechanism”, as Cabanis thought. An important role in his book was played by theories related to sensualism. Using modern terms, Cabanis created something like physiological psychology. According to him, the body, or more precisely its organs, take part in the creation of human thoughts which seem to be only the physiological result of brain perception. This classic work was often invoked by successive generations of doctors and thinkers; it even appeared in artistic prose. Cabanis himself has had a fixed position in research and scientific studies for over two centuries.
Emigracyjna „epistolomania” (na marginesie listów Jana Lechonia i Kazimierza Wierzyńskiego)
Authors: Osiński Jakub
Published: January 2019

The review devoted to the epistolography of Polish emigration in the last century on the example of correspondence between Jan Lechoń and Kazimierz Wierzyński, issued by Beata Dorosz and Paweł Kądziela (Warsaw 2016). The author presents the main problems with the correspondence of emigrants in the context of biographies and history, and analyzing the issue of Lechoń and Wierzyński letters.
Filozofia postrzegania. Początki literackie Bolesława Prusa w świetle psychologicznych dociekań Hipolita Taine’a
Authors: Jauksz Marcin
Published: January 2019

The article’s aim is to present Bolesław Prus’s [Aleksander Głowacki’s] early literary endavours in the light of the reception of Hippolite Taine’s psychological studies at the turn of the sixties and seventies of the nineteenth century. The Author challenges the common conviction of the fact that Taine’s work has not been a strong point of reference for Prus before 1880 and shows how the strategies of gaining knowledge described by the French philosopher are reflected in the structure and peculiar fragments of Prus’s Warsaw sketches. The syncretism of those literary pieces, that join Prus’s column writing style with journalistic interventionism on the one hand and romantic musings of the literary wanderer, a figure at the core of the stories, on the other allows to show writer’s indecisiveness as a sign of positivistic doubt in approachableness of the nature of reality and of every singular experience.
Exploring the impact of individual differences in aural vocabulary knowledge, written vocabulary knowledge and working memory capacity on explaining L2 learners’ listening comprehension
Authors: Masrai Ahmed
Published: January 2019

Listening comprehension constitutes a considerable challenge for second language learners, but little is known about the relative contribution of individual differences in distinct factors to listening comprehension. Since research in this area is relatively limited in comparison to that focusing on the relationship between reading comprehension and factors such as vocabulary knowledge and working memory, there is a need for studies that seek to fill the gap in our knowledge about the specific contribution of aural vocabulary knowledge, written vocabulary knowledge and working memory capacity to explaining listening comprehension. Among 130 non-native speakers of English, the present study examines what proportion of the variance in listening comprehension is explained by aural vocabulary knowledge, written vocabulary knowledge, and working memory capacity. The results show that aural vocabulary knowledge is the strongest predictor of listening comprehension, followed by working memory capacity, while written vocabulary knowledge contributes only marginally. The study discusses implications for the explanatory power of aural vocabulary knowledge and working memory to listening comprehension and pedagogical practice in second language classrooms.
Prospects of Pharmacological Interventions to Organismal Aging
Authors: Hillson Olivia , Gonzalez Suam , Rallis Charalampos
Published: January 2019

Intense research in the areas of cellular and organismal aging using diverse laboratory model systems has enriched our knowledge in the processes and the signalling pathways involved in normal and pathological conditions. The field finds itself in a position to take decisive steps towards clinical applications and interventions not only for targeted age-related diseases such as cardiovascular conditions and neurodegeneration but also for the modulation of health span and lifespan of a whole organism. Beyond nutritional interventions such as dietary restriction without malnutrition and various regimes of intermittent fasting, accumulating evidence provides promise for pharmacological interventions. The latter, mimic caloric or dietary restriction, tune cellular and organismal stress responses, affect the metabolism of microbiome with subsequent effects on the host or modulate repair pathways, among others. In this mini review, we summarise some of the evidence on drugs that can alter organismal lifespan and the prospects they might offer for promoting healthspan and delaying age-related diseases.
Reading UAE Contract Law through the Lens of Islamic Jurisprudence: A Case Study on the ‘Extraneous Cause’ Exception in the UAE Civil Code
Authors: Jadalhaq Iyad Mohammad , El Maknouzi Mohammed El Hadi
Published: January 2019

This article reveals the different formative layers at work in a mixed system of law, such as that of private law in the United Arab Emirates (uae), by focusing on the lack of coherence between competing ‘architectural principles’. This experience of friction is regularly encountered by a skilled interpreter of the law, in the course of his/her activity of ensuring predictable and appropriate legal responses to practical problems. Specifically, this piece tracks the interpretive difficulties surfacing in cases of supervening impossibility of performance for loss or damage to a necessary item, when that loss or damage originates in a causal factor outside of the defendant’s sphere of control (‘extraneous cause’). In such cases, the contract is terminated and the legal question shifts to one of awarding compensation for the loss or damage suffered by the item. In the face of this question, two competing criteria for assigning liability come into play. On the one hand, the civil law distinction between unilateral and bilateral contracts, meaning contracts giving rise to obligations upon only one or both parties to the contract. On the other hand, the categories of trust-based, liability-based and mixed possession in Islamic law. Here, liability is assigned based on the material circumstances that define the manner of possession, as opposed to looking at the abstract scheme of performance and (if available) counter-performance. The categories drawn from Islamic law have the potential to unify a number of apparently scattered provisions in the uae Civil Code: for this reason, the article puts forth a recommendation to follow the approach of the Iraqi Civil Code and acknowledge those categories as an explicit organising principle for assigning liability in the presence of an extraneous cause. The paper makes an additional recommendation to treat the classification of possession (as trust-based or liability-based) as a matter of public policy, unavailable for the parties’ consensual deviation.
Computational design of structured loops for new protein functions
Authors: Kundert Kale , Kortemme Tanja
Published: January 2019

The ability to engineer the precise geometries, fine-tuned energetics and subtle dynamics that are characteristic of functional proteins is a major unsolved challenge in the field of computational protein design. In natural proteins, functional sites exhibiting these properties often feature structured loops. However, unlike the elements of secondary structures that comprise idealized protein folds, structured loops have been difficult to design computationally. Addressing this shortcoming in a general way is a necessary first step towards the routine design of protein function. In this perspective, we will describe the progress that has been made on this problem and discuss how recent advances in the field of loop structure prediction can be harnessed and applied to the inverse problem of computational loop design.
Crystal structure of coordination polymer catena-poly[diaqua-(2,6-dichloropyridine-4-carboxyliato-κ2
O,O′)-bis(μ2-2,6-dichloropyridine-4-carboxyliato-κ2
O:O′)terbium(III), C18H10Cl6N3O8Tb
Authors: Liu Guang-Zhen , Xin Ling-Yun , Li Xiao-Ling
Published: January 2019

C18H10Cl6N3O8Tb, monoclinic, I2/a (no. 15), a = 9.8281(2) Å, b = 11.8792(2) Å, c = 21.1568(4) Å, β = 91.1599(19)°, V = 2469.54(9) Å3, Z = 8, R
gt(F) = 0.0196, wR
ref(F
2) = 0.0473, T = 293(2) K.
Crystal structures, Hirsfeld surface analysis and a computational study of four ethyl 2-oxo-2H-chromene-3-carboxylate derivatives: a survey of organyl 2-oxo-2H-chromene-3-carboxylate structures
Authors: Gomes Ligia R. , Low John N. , van Mourik Tanja , da Silveira Pinto Ligia S. , de Souza Marcus V.N. , Wardell Jámes L.
Published: January 2019

Crystal structures, Hirshfeld surface analysis and a computational study have been carried out on 2-oxo-2H-chromene-3-carboxylates. Crystal structures are reported for ethyl R-2-oxo-2H-chromene-3-carboxylate derivatives, 2a: R=6-Me, 2b: 7-Me, 2c: 7-Me, 2d: R=7-MeO. In contrast to 2-oxo-2H-chromene-3-carboxamides, 1, in which classical intramolecular N–H···O hydrogen bonds stabilize planar structures and hinder rotation of the amido group out of the coumarin plane in 2, without an equivalent hydrogen bond, there is a greater rotational freedom of the carboxylate group. The interplanar angles between the coumarin core and its attached –C(O)–R substituent in crystalline 2a, 2b, 2c and 2d are 10.41(6), 36.65(6), 10.4(2) and 5.64(6)°, respectively, with distances between the carbonyl oxygen atoms of 2.8255(16), 2.9278(16), 4.226(2) and 2.8328(14) Å, respectively. A theoretical study of molecular conformations was carried out at the M06-2X density level with the 6-31+G(d) and aug-cc-pVTZ basis sets, in methanol solution modeled by PCM, indicated that the most stable conformations had the carbonyl group of the ester in the plane of the coumarin core: the s-cis arrangement of the ester carbonyl and the 2-oxo moieties being the slightly more stable than the s-trans form by less than 0.5 kcal/mol. The experimental conformations of 2a and 2d match well the low energy s-cis arrangement, and 2c matches the slightly lesser stable s-trans arrangement found in the theoretical study. A survey of the molecular conformations of more than 50 2H-chromene-3-carboxylates derivatives in the CCDC data base indicated two distinct groupings of conformations, s-cis and s-trans, each with interplanar angles <30°.
Telling Gender Stories
Authors: Meadow Tey
Published: January 2019

This chapter outlines a new set of narratives parents consolidate to make sense of their child’s gender. While we typically think of medical and psychiatric discourses as inherently normative, these families appear to repurpose them, along with biomedical discourses, to fashion a more mutable construct of gender than they once held. Families use rhetorics from biomedicine, psychiatry, and even religion to imagine worlds in which their child’s self-understanding is inevitable, intrinsic, and immutable, the sorts of justifications demanded by the institutions from which they seek social support.
Curtain, Gong, Steam
Authors: Kreuzer Gundula
Published: January 2019

Exploring opera from the perspectives of media studies and technology studies, this pioneering book examines how composers since the late eighteenth century have increasingly integrated specific audiovisual details into their creative visions, thereby furthering the development of stage machineries as well as the means of their codification. In particular, composers fostered what the author calls “Wagnerian technologies”: multisensory devices intended to veil both the artificiality of illusionist stage representation and their own mechanicity. Building on Richard Wagner’s theories of the total work of art and exposing its reliance on technology, the book looks in detail at the uses and effects of curtains, the gong (or tam-tam), and steam. Designed to appeal directly to the audience’s sensorium like media interfaces, these technologies not only mediated between the sound and sight of a production but also smoothed over its heterogeneous materialities. Drawing on scores, performance documents, treatises, reviews, and cultural discourses, the book traces the practical, hermeneutic, and artistic implications of each titular technology in a wealth of European operatic works—both well known and obscure—by Wagner and the generations of composers around him. Each technology was temporarily absorbed into common notions of the relevant operas but gradually transformed in later productions, in its own mechanical evolution, and its resurgence across performance genres of the last half century. With its interdisciplinary angle on the history and materiality of staging, Curtain, Gong, Steam thus expands the concept of the operatic work.
Introduction
Authors: Kreuzer Gundula
Published: January 2019

Starting with the Metropolitan Opera’s paradoxical emphasis on both authenticity and technological innovation in its 2010–12 Ring cycle, the introduction highlights the longstanding dissociation in European thought of the technical and the cultural, a distinction that influenced both the aesthetics and the study of nineteenth-century opera. A post-revolutionary appetite for realism and spectacle was fed by the ever more advanced stage technologies that composers deployed to realize their creative visions. But, as Richard Wagner championed in his 1849 essay “The Art-Work of the Future,” the artificiality of these supplementary machineries had to be veiled so that they might appear a natural part of the illusionist stage image. Novel “Wagnerian technologies” were designed to be perceived as media interfaces and thus to promote opera’s intended seamless multimediality. The study of their application and reception over time sheds new light on the materiality, ephemerality, and historicity of operatic staging.
Gong
Authors: Kreuzer Gundula
Published: January 2019

First imported to Europe in the 1780s, Chinese gongs (or tam-tams) are shown in this chapter to have migrated between commerce, science, theater, orchestra, technology, and stage prop. Their novel sound effect was adopted into opera in London and Paris for a range of music-dramatic situations that are discussed here as “gong topoi.” Yet the tam-tam’s unusually loud, non-pitched resonance challenged conceptions of musical tone, while its European dissemination required either costly imports or metallurgical experiments. By midcentury, Berlioz and Wagner were experimenting with more subtle playing techniques that might enhance their orchestration while masking the instrument’s metallic timbre. Less nuanced, the chapter proposes, were the theater practitioners who gratuitously struck the gong to enhance climaxes or cover stage noises, rendering it an all-purpose sound technology. Puccini’s Turandot consummated the tam-tam as audiovisual prop. Its loudness was subsequently reconciled with musical aesthetics in twentieth-century music, both popular and avant-garde.
Ford Goes to the World; the World Comes to Ford
Authors: Esch Elizabeth D.
Published: January 2019

As the workers of the world came to the United States and to Detroit, Ford went into the world. This chapter details the massive global expansion of the Ford Motor Company that was made possible by the changes in the labor regime and the patterns of social reproduction of immigrant workers in Ford’s Highland Park plant. In the Highland Park years, Ford managers bossed—and the “sociologists” he employed molded—immigrant workers thought to be of multiple European “races.” They were required to participate in Americanization programs that included learning to speak English and professing allegiance to new values on and off of the job.
Breeding Rubber, Breeding Workers
Authors: Esch Elizabeth D.
Published: January 2019

From 1925 to 1945 the Ford Motor Company engaged in an experiment in social engineering at its new rubber plantations in the Amazon, Fordlandia and Belterra. This chapter demonstrates how fully in line with the aspirations of Brazilian politicians and modernizers Ford’s intervention was. Further, the company’s belief in the racial improvability of Amazonian people structured the very location and construction of the plantations. Specifically influenced by what it perceived as the racial potential of the people in the region, Ford first recruited single men and then whole families to the plantations. Social and biological reproduction of children replaced attempts to improve rubber tappers who resisted Ford’s importation of its “one best way.”
From the One Best Way to The Way Forward to One Ford
Authors: Esch Elizabeth D.
Published: January 2019

AS THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY’S PLACE in multiple national economies deepened in the decades after World War I so, too, did analysis and assessment of the political and cultural implications of Ford’s various presences. No one offered greater insight into the promise and peril represented by Ford than Antonio Gramsci, despite the stark limits imposed on him by incarceration and the multiple deprivations that attended it. In “Americanism and Fordism” Gramsci described the process through which the United States had relatively easily “made the whole life of the nation revolve around production” through a combination of “force … and persuasion.”...
1887
Authors: Dawson Alexander S.
Published: January 2019

In this chapter, we consider the moment when European and American scientists “discovered” peyote. John Briggs was one of the first Americans to write about peyote (in 1887), followed shortly by James Mooney, who recounted his experiences among the Kiowa of Oklahoma at the Anthropological Association in Washington DC in 1891. Around this time, the German scientist Louis Lewin encountered peyote while on a trip to the United States. Americans proved less adept at unlocking the chemistry of the cactus than their German counterparts, who identified four different alkaloids in the cactus by the mid-1890s. This period also saw notable studies of peyote by investigators in the United Kingdom, including some fairly dramatic self-experimentation among English intellectuals overseen by Havelock Ellis. Though their work did not yield widely accepted breakthroughs, these researchers were early pioneers in the exploration of the use of peyote and then mescaline as a tool for mental health professionals.
1909
Authors: Dawson Alexander S.
Published: January 2019

Even as some Americans saw in peyotism a fascinating and perhaps even salubrious Native American religion, others responded with a visceral disgust to what they saw as a degenerate and dangerous cult. This chapter traces the powerful response by missionaries, Indian Agents, and conservatives to the growing popularity of peyotism in Native American communities in the first decades of the twentieth century, beginning with an incident in which the famed temperance activist William “Pussyfoot” Johnson attempted to purchase all the peyote for sale in Laredo and then burn it in a symbolic gesture. The chapter also considers the origins of the peyote religions within Native American communities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
1958
Authors: Dawson Alexander S.
Published: January 2019

Around the same time that Salvador Roquet was investigating the use of hallucinogenic drugs in the sierra mazateca, the Mexican government undertook its first sustained efforts to implement a development agenda in the region where Mexico’s most important peyotists (the Huichols) lived. The Huichols had existed largely beyond the authority of the Mexican state for most of its existence. This chapter explores the shape of that development project, focusing on the ways that federal officials made sense of the traditions they encountered in the sierra. They showed an almost complete lack of interest in Huichol peyotism, in spite of the fact that Mexican and foreign researchers were increasingly fascinated by the customs they found in this region. We also see the top down, authoritarian state at its peak. Government officials simply sought to impose development on an unruly countryside and made almost no effort to develop programs or priorities through a cooperative relationship with the erstwhile clients of the developmentalist state.
“A Rose out of This Cement”
Authors: Jones Nikki
Published: January 2019

Chapter 5 tells the story of Jay, one of several young men that Eric and his group tried to support shortly in his efforts to break free from the criminal justice system. I first met Jay when he was in his early twenties. He was just beginning to construct the kind of narrative and life that would lead him away from the street. Five years after our first meeting, I found myself speaking at Jay’s funeral. This chapter reveals the limitations of buffer-and-bridge work when it comes to changing the life trajectory of young men like Jay and highlights the limitations of the crime-fighting community when it comes to protecting Black youth from violence. The chapter provides a compelling illustration of how and why individualistic efforts at transformation or narrowly focused calls for the redemption of Black men in general and Black fathers in particular – narratives often embraced by a variety of community residents – will always fall short of delivering young people from the various forms of violence that shape their adolescence.
Conclusion
Authors: Jones Nikki
Published: January 2019

The conclusion of this book summarizes the most compelling lessons from this study. These lessons are likely to be of interest to practitioners, policymakers, and scholars interested in helping to address what is commonly described as “the crisis” facing young Black men. At the interpersonal level, these lessons are profound in their simplicity. First, change takes time. Second, change is often framed as an individual’s personal journey, but successful change is better imagined as an interactional process. Finally, relationships are transformative. Put simply, an individual’s pathway to change may begin with an internal awakening, but successful efforts at change are often sustained with and for others. At the structural level, these lessons challenge the objectives and organization of the crime-fighting community and strengthens calls for a more effective, inclusive and liberating form of organization that would build buffers and bridges for youth most vulnerable to violence and contact with the criminal justice system. An appreciation of these lessons can improve current efforts to support people and programs that are committed to helping people change their lives. The conclusion moves beyond the Fillmore to programs that embrace these principles. These lessons are necessary, but not sufficient components to addressing the persistence of violence in poor, Black neighborhoods; reaching that objective requires a commitment from social institutions to create the conditions for change and, more importantly, freedom for those most vulnerable to violence.
The Fieldwork Tradition
Authors: Gmelch George , Gmelch Sharon Bohn
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the nature of “fieldwork” and its central place in the identity and methods of anthropology. It begins with a brief history of the fieldwork as anthropology’s hallmark methodology, its role as a rite of passage in becoming an anthropologist, and the preparations anthropology students receive before going off to the field. It also introduces the authors ad their own training in anthropology.
Dynastic Sanctuaries
Authors: Canepa Matthew P.
Published: January 2019

Chapter 11 argues that the post-Seleucid dynasties appropriated the Seleucid traditions of dynastic cult and dynastic eras as a new Iranian royal tradition. Shifting over the centuries with the rise of new empires and cultural and regional influences, such sanctuaries nevertheless played a central role in defining these dynasties’ royal identity and consolidating their hold over provincial or even transregional Iranian legacies.
The Palace of the Lord of the Sevenfold World
Authors: Canepa Matthew P.
Published: January 2019

Chapter 16 offered a portal into a different reality or perceptual plane and, for those privileged, a means to inhabit, at least momentarily, this hyperreality. That is not to say that everyone who beheld such spaces need be convinced or overawed. Indeed, the casual observer or outsider might only see a crowd milling around a large building. Yet if one were allowed- or physically, cognitively and ritually compelled- to enter into the implied realities of the microcosm of the ayvān, you as viewer or ritual participant were afforded, or perhaps confronted with, depending on the degree to which one identified with the regime, a stunning view of the cosmos and the Iranian king’s place within it.
Moral Formation and the Path to Scripture
Authors: Satran David
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the lengthy central portion of the address, in which the author presents his training in ethics and proceeds to discuss the study of theology and scripture. The description of ethics places an emphasis on the balanced control of the passions and the consequent flowering of the classical virtues, a widespread contemporary amalgam of Stoicizing psychology and Platonic moral theory. The emphasis on the interiorization of virtue leads to a discussion of the theme of deification and its relationship to the traditional Platonic goal of the attainment of a “likeness to God.” These concerns are reflected in the portrayal of Origen as the paradigmatic exegete of scripture, his unique achievements being dependent upon his direct communication with the divine spirit. The culminating description of Origen as a “copy of the Paradise of God” is investigated in light of the pedagogic context of that phrase within his eschatological thought.
Eating NAFTA
Authors: Gálvez Alyshia
Published: January 2019

In the two decades since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, Mexico has seen an epidemic of diet-related illness. While globalization has been associated with an increase in chronic disease around the world, in Mexico, the speed and scope of the rise has been called a public health emergency. The shift in Mexican foodways is happening at a moment when the country’s ancestral cuisine is now more popular and appreciated around the world than ever. What does it mean for their health and well-being when many Mexicans eat fewer tortillas and more instant noodles, while global elites demand tacos made with handmade corn tortillas? This book examines the transformation of the Mexican food system since NAFTA and how it has made it harder for people to eat as they once did. The book contextualizes NAFTA within Mexico’s approach to economic development since the Revolution, noticing the role envisioned for rural and low-income people in the path to modernization. Examination of anti-poverty and public health policies in Mexico reveal how it has become easier for people to consume processed foods and beverages, even when to do so can be harmful to health. The book critiques Mexico’s strategy for addressing the public health crisis generated by rising rates of chronic disease for blaming the dietary habits of those whose lives have been upended by the economic and political shifts of NAFTA.
The Baratillo and the Enlightened City
Authors: Konove Andrew
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the Baratillo’s role in Enlightenment-era reforms to Mexico City’s public administration and built environment. While New Spain’s Bourbon rulers took a number of steps to transform the physical and social worlds of Mexico City’s poor, the government never targeted the Baratillo—a site that was synonymous with crime, license, and plebeian sociability. To understand this apparent contradiction, the chapter examines the politics of urban reform in eighteenth-century Mexico City, which saw royal, viceregal, and local authorities jostle for control over urban public spaces.