bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of effectiveness and compliance with the mupirocin nasal ointment part of Staphylococcus aureus decolonization in real life using UPLC-MS/MS mupirocin quantification
Authors: Nicolas Roxane , Carricajo Anne , Morel Jérôme , Rigaill Josselin , Grattard Florence , Guezzou Salim , Audoux Estelle , Campisi Salvatore , Favre Jean-Pierre , Berthelot Philippe , Verhoeven Paul O , Botelho-Nevers Elisabeth
Published: January 2020

Background

Preoperative decolonization is recommended in Staphylococcus aureus nasal carriers scheduled for cardiac surgery. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of and compliance with mupirocin use in nasal S. aureus carriers in a real-life setting.

Methods

Prospective study including consecutive patients scheduled for cardiac surgery screened for S. aureus nasal carriage at preoperative consultation. Carriers were prescribed mupirocin nasal ointment, chlorhexidine shower and mouthwash. Effectiveness of decolonization was evaluated with a postoperative nasal sample. Compliance was evaluated objectively by determination of nasal mupirocin concentration using UPLC-MS/MS and self-reported by questionnaire.

Results

Over 10 months, 361 patients were included, 286 had preoperative screening, 75 (26.2%) were S. aureus nasal carriers and 19 of them (25.3%) failed to be effectively decolonized. No resistance to mupirocin was documented. Preoperative and postoperative strains were identical in all cases. Declared good compliance was associated with decolonization success (OR = 24; 95% CI 4–143, P < 0.0001). Mupirocin detection was significantly associated with the level of compliance. Mupirocin was detected in 52.2% (24/46) of patients effectively decolonized and in 12.5% (2/16) of patients with decolonization failure (P < 0.01). In 2/19 patients, failure of decolonization was not associated with a compliance issue. Postoperative carriage was associated with an increased risk of S. aureus infection (OR = 9.8; 95% CI 1.8–53, P < 0.01).

Conclusions

In real life, decolonization is not always effective, hence there is a persisting risk of S. aureus endogenous infection. Mupirocin concentration measurement may help to understand compliance issues and failures in decolonization.
Raising awareness of antimicrobial resistance among the general public in the UK: the role of public engagement activities
Authors: Redfern James , Bowater Laura , Coulthwaite Lisa , Verran Joanna
Published: January 2020

In response to the accepted risk of emerging antimicrobial resistance, many organizations and institutions have developed and delivered events and activities designed to raise awareness of the issue and to change the behaviour of the intended audience. However, few of these events for a general public audience are documented or able to be sourced by those who might wish to repeat, adapt or modify, particularly those events that are successful. ‘Insider knowledge’ appears to be the best search tool. Moreover, evaluation of the success or impact of the event is rarely published. It would be useful if there were a ‘hub’ where descriptions of such activities could be deposited, enabling the building of a significant resource with real academic value.
A Rapid Method for the Detection of Diarrhetic Shellfish Toxins and Azaspiracid Shellfish Toxins in Washington State Shellfish by Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry
Authors: Yang Li , Singh Avi , Lankford Shelley K , Stuart James , Rice Daniel , Wu Wen-Hsin , Hungerford James M
Published: January 2020

Background

Diarrhetic shellfish toxins (DSTs) in domestic shellfish and azaspiracids (AZAs) in imported products are emerging seafood safety issues in the United States. In addition to causing gastrointestinal illnesses, some of these toxins are also carcinogenic and genotoxic. Efficient analytical strategies are needed for their monitoring in U.S. domestic and imported shellfish.

Objective

In the US, DSTs and AZAs are the only lipophilic shellfish toxins addressed in regulations. Streamlining of existing methods for several classes of lipophilic toxins, based on liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry, was pursued.

Method

The resulting simplified LC-MS/MS method is focused on the separation and detection of just the AZAs and total DSTs using a C18 Hypersil gold column. Filter vials are used to expedite and simplify sample handling.

Results

The method has a run time of 7.25 min. LOQs for the AZAs and DSTs in shellfish were 0.3–0.4 µg/kg. Recoveries (AZAs and total DSTs) for three spiking levels in three matrixes ranged from 68 to 129%. Trueness was established using certified reference materials. Method equivalence was established using shellfish provided blind by the Washington State Department of Health Public Health Laboratory (WA DOH PHL). Data obtained from these samples agreed well with data from another LC-MS/MS method used in harvest control by WA DOH PHL (R = 0.999; P < 0.0001).

Conclusions

The LC-MS/MS method described offers more rapid sample handling and has excellent sensitivity, linearity, and repeatability.
Perioperative therapies for urological cancers
Authors: Inokuchi Junichi , Yokomizo Akira , Nishiyama Naotaka , Kitamura Hiroshi , Eto Masatoshi , Nishiyama Hiroyuki , Tomita Yoshihiko
Published: January 2020

Although surgery with curative intent is critical for management of many localized cancers, multimodal therapy including neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapy has been introduced to increase the effectiveness of local control of surgery and prolong survival. However, strong evidence supporting the utility of such multimodal therapy is limited. The utility of perioperative chemotherapy has been extensively investigated in bladder cancer, and several randomized controlled trials have indicated the benefit of neoadjuvant cisplatin-based chemotherapy in muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Regrettably, perioperative therapy for other urological cancers is controversial; therefore, no definitive conclusions have been drawn. Recently, the number of trials has rapidly increased due to the development of immune checkpoint inhibitors, used alone or in combination with other modalities. In this review, we summarize the current status and supporting evidence for perioperative therapies such as neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapies for urological cancers, including prostate cancer, urothelial cancer and renal cell carcinoma.
Government as Network Catalyst: Accelerating Self-Organization in a Strategic Industry
Authors: Whetsell Travis A , Siciliano Michael D , Witkowski Kaila G K , Leiblein Michael J
Published: January 2020

Governments have long-standing interests in preventing market failures and enhancing innovation in strategic industries. Public policy regarding domestic technology is critical to both national security and economic prosperity. Governments often seek to enhance their global competitiveness by promoting private sector cooperative activity at the inter-organizational level. Research on network governance has illuminated the structure of boundary-spanning collaboration mainly for programs with immediate public or nonprofit objectives. Far less research has examined how governments might accelerate private sector cooperation to prevent market failures or to enhance innovation. The theoretical contribution of this research is to suggest that government programs might catalyze cooperative activity by accelerating the preferential attachment mechanism inherent in social networks. We analyze the long-term effects of a government program on the strategic alliance network of 451 organizations in the high-tech semiconductor industry between 1987 and 1999, using stochastic network analysis methods for longitudinal social networks.
Combined surgical treatment of symptomatic carotid, coronary and mesenteric occlusive disease
Authors: Dali Dante C , Jhamb Satvik , Powell C Steven , Akhter Shahab A
Published: January 2020

The surgical management of advanced symptomatic atherosclerotic disease in multiple distributions including the coronary circulation presents unique challenges due to the high risk of perioperative ischemic complications in the setting of coronary artery bypass grafting. We present a novel case of the combined surgical management of symptomatic carotid, coronary and mesenteric ischemic disease. The patient underwent carotid endarterectomy followed by combined coronary and mesenteric revascularization using cardiopulmonary bypass during the same hospital admission. He had an uncomplicated post-operative course and was discharged to home on post-operative day 7 after the combined procedure. Ninety-day follow-up was also unremarkable with the patient having no recurrent symptoms of ischemia. This case demonstrates the feasibility and safety of our approach for this rare clinical presentation.
A novel rice fragile culm 24 mutant encodes a UDP-glucose epimerase that affects cell wall properties and photosynthesis
Authors: Zhang Ran , Hu Huizhen , Wang Youmei , Hu Zhen , Ren Shuangfeng , Li Jiaying , He Boyang , Wang Yanting , Xia Tao , Chen Peng , Xie Guosheng , Peng Liangcai
Published: January 2020

UDP-glucose epimerases (UGEs) are essential enzymes for catalysing the conversion of UDP-glucose (UDP-Glc) into UDP-galactose (UDP-Gal). Although UDP-Gal has been well studied as the substrate for the biosynthesis of carbohydrates, glycolipids, and glycoproteins, much remains unknown about the biological function of UGEs in plants. In this study, we selected a novel rice fragile culm 24 (Osfc24) mutant and identified it as a nonsense mutation of the FC24/OsUGE2 gene. The Osfc24 mutant shows a brittleness phenotype with significantly altered cell wall composition and disrupted orientation of the cellulose microfibrils. We found significantly reduced accumulation of arabinogalactan proteins in the cell walls of the mutant, which may consequently affect plant growth and cell wall deposition, and be responsible for the altered cellulose microfibril orientation. The mutant exhibits dwarfism and paler leaves with significantly decreased contents of galactolipids and chlorophyll, resulting in defects in plant photosynthesis. Based on our results, we propose a model for how OsUGE2 participates in two distinct metabolic pathways to co-modulate cellulose biosynthesis and cell wall assembly by dynamically providing UDP-Gal and UDP-Glc substrates.
Hormonal regulation of root hair growth and responses to the environment in Arabidopsis
Authors: Vissenberg Kris , Claeijs Naomi , Balcerowicz Daria , Schoenaers Sébastjen
Published: January 2020

The main functions of plant roots are water and nutrient uptake, soil anchorage, and interaction with soil-living biota. Root hairs, single cell tubular extensions of root epidermal cells, facilitate or enhance these functions by drastically enlarging the absorptive surface. Root hair development is constantly adapted to changes in the root’s surroundings, allowing for optimization of root functionality in heterogeneous soil environments. The underlying molecular pathway is the result of a complex interplay between position-dependent signalling and feedback loops. Phytohormone signalling interconnects this root hair signalling cascade with biotic and abiotic changes in the rhizosphere, enabling dynamic hormone-driven changes in root hair growth, density, length, and morphology. This review critically discusses the influence of the major plant hormones on root hair development, and how changes in rhizosphere properties impact on the latter.
The X-ray emissivity of low-density stellar populations
Authors: Heinke C O , Ivanov M G , Koch E W , Andrews R , Chomiuk L , Cohn H N , Crothers S , de Boer T , Ivanova N , Kong A K H , Leigh N W C , Lugger P M , Nelson L , Parr C J , Rosolowsky E W , Ruiter A J , Sarazin C L , Shaw A W , Sivakoff G R , van den Berg M
Published: January 2020

The dynamical production of low-mass X-ray binaries and brighter cataclysmic variables (CVs) in dense globular clusters is well-established. We investigate how the X-ray emissivity of fainter X-ray binaries (principally CVs and coronally active binaries) varies between different environments. We compile calculations (largely from the literature) of the X-ray emissivity of old stellar populations, including open and globular clusters and several galaxies. We investigate three literature claims of unusual X-ray sources in low-density stellar populations. We show that a suggested quiescent neutron star in the open cluster NGC 6819 is a foreground M dwarf. We show that the suggested diffuse X-ray emission from an old nova shell in the globular cluster NGC 6366 is actually a background galaxy cluster. And we show that a suggested population of quiescent X-ray binaries in the Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy is mostly (perhaps entirely) background galaxies. We find that above densities of 104 M⊙ pc−3, the X-ray emissivity of globular clusters increases, due to dynamical production of X-ray emitting systems. Below this density, globular clusters have lower X-ray emissivity than the other populations, and we do not see a strong dependence of X-ray emissivity due to density effects. We find significant correlations between X-ray emissivity and binary fraction, metallicity, and density. Sampling these fits via bootstrap techniques gives less significant correlations, but confirms the effect of metallicity on low-density populations, and that of density on the full globular cluster sample.
Non-linear evolutions of magnetized thick discs around black holes: dependence on the initial data
Authors: Cruz-Osorio Alejandro , Gimeno-Soler Sergio , Font José A
Published: January 2020

We build equilibrium solutions of magnetized thick discs around a highly spinning Kerr black hole and evolve these initial data up to a final time of about 100 orbital periods. The numerical simulations reported in this paper solve the general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic equations using the bhac code and are performed in axisymmetry. Our study assumes non-self-gravitating, polytropic, constant angular momentum discs endowed with a purely toroidal magnetic field. In order to build the initial data, we consider three approaches, two of which incorporate the magnetic field in a self-consistent way and a third approach in which the magnetic field is included as a perturbation on to an otherwise purely hydrodynamical solution. To test the dependence of the evolution on the initial data, we explore four representative values of the magnetization parameter spanning from almost hydrodynamical discs to very strongly magnetized tori. The initial data are perturbed to allow for mass and angular momentum accretion on to the black hole. Notable differences are found in the long-term evolutions of the initial data. In particular, our study reveals that highly magnetized discs are unstable, and hence prone to be fully accreted and expelled, unless the magnetic field is incorporated into the initial data in a self-consistent way.
IDR2D identifies reproducible genomic interactions
Authors: Krismer Konstantin , Guo Yuchun , Gifford David K
Published: January 2020

Chromatin interaction data from protocols such as ChIA-PET, HiChIP and Hi-C provide valuable insights into genome organization and gene regulation, but can include spurious interactions that do not reflect underlying genome biology. We introduce an extension of the Irreproducible Discovery Rate (IDR) method called IDR2D that identifies replicable interactions shared by chromatin interaction experiments. IDR2D provides a principled set of interactions and eliminates artifacts from single experiments. The method is available as a Bioconductor package for the R community, as well as an online service at https://idr2d.mit.edu.
Inhibition of cytoplasmic cap methylation identifies 5′ TOP mRNAs as recapping targets and reveals recapping sites downstream of native 5′ ends
Authors: del Valle Morales Daniel , Trotman Jackson B , Bundschuh Ralf , Schoenberg Daniel R
Published: January 2020

Cap homeostasis is the cyclical process of decapping and recapping that maintains the translation and stability of a subset of the transcriptome. Previous work showed levels of some recapping targets decline following transient expression of an inactive form of RNMT (ΔN-RNMT), likely due to degradation of mRNAs with improperly methylated caps. The current study examined transcriptome-wide changes following inhibition of cytoplasmic cap methylation. This identified mRNAs with 5′-terminal oligopyrimidine (TOP) sequences as the largest single class of recapping targets. Cap end mapping of several TOP mRNAs identified recapping events at native 5′ ends and downstream of the TOP sequence of EIF3K and EIF3D. This provides the first direct evidence for downstream recapping. Inhibition of cytoplasmic cap methylation was also associated with mRNA abundance increases for a number of transcription, splicing, and 3′ processing factors. Previous work suggested a role for alternative polyadenylation in target selection, but this proved not to be the case. However, inhibition of cytoplasmic cap methylation resulted in a shift of upstream polyadenylation sites to annotated 3′ ends. Together, these results solidify cap homeostasis as a fundamental process of gene expression control and show cytoplasmic recapping can impact regulatory elements present at the ends of mRNA molecules.
RNA processing machineries in Archaea: the 5′-3′ exoribonuclease aRNase J of the β-CASP family is engaged specifically with the helicase ASH-Ski2 and the 3′-5′ exoribonucleolytic RNA exosome machinery
Authors: Phung Duy Khanh , Etienne Clarisse , Batista Manon , Langendijk-Genevaux Petra , Moalic Yann , Laurent Sébastien , Liuu Sophie , Morales Violette , Jebbar Mohamed , Fichant Gwennaele , Bouvier Marie , Flament Didier , Clouet-d’Orval Béatrice
Published: January 2020

A network of RNA helicases, endoribonucleases and exoribonucleases regulates the quantity and quality of cellular RNAs. To date, mechanistic studies focussed on bacterial and eukaryal systems due to the challenge of identifying the main drivers of RNA decay and processing in Archaea. Here, our data support that aRNase J, a 5′-3′ exoribonuclease of the β-CASP family conserved in Euryarchaeota, engages specifically with a Ski2-like helicase and the RNA exosome to potentially exert control over RNA surveillance, at the vicinity of the ribosome. Proteomic landscapes and direct protein–protein interaction analyses, strengthened by comprehensive phylogenomic studies demonstrated that aRNase J interplay with ASH-Ski2 and a cap exosome subunit. Finally, Thermococcus barophilus whole-cell extract fractionation experiments provide evidences that an aRNase J/ASH-Ski2 complex might exist in vivo and hint at an association of aRNase J with the ribosome that is emphasised in absence of ASH-Ski2. Whilst aRNase J homologues are found among bacteria, the RNA exosome and the Ski2-like RNA helicase have eukaryotic homologues, underlining the mosaic aspect of archaeal RNA machines. Altogether, these results suggest a fundamental role of β-CASP RNase/helicase complex in archaeal RNA metabolism.
Structural studies reveal a ring-shaped architecture of deep-sea vent phage NrS-1 polymerase
Authors: Chen Xi , Su Shichen , Chen Yiqing , Gao Yanqing , Li Yangyang , Shao Zhiwei , Zhang Yixi , Shao Qiyuan , Liu Hehua , Li Jixi , Ma Jinbiao , Gan Jianhua
Published: January 2020

NrS-1 is the first known phage that can infect Epsilonproteobacteria, one of the predominant primary producers in the deep-sea hydrothermal vent ecosystems. NrS-1 polymerase is a multidomain enzyme and is one key component of the phage replisome. The N-terminal Prim/Pol and HBD domains are responsible for DNA polymerization and de novo primer synthesis activities of NrS-1 polymerase. However, the structure and function of the C-terminus (CTR) of NrS-1 polymerase are poorly understood. Here, we report two crystal structures, showing that NrS-1 CTR adopts one unique hexameric ring-shaped conformation. Although the central helicase domain of NrS-1 CTR shares structural similarity with the superfamily III helicases, the folds of the Head and Tail domains are completely novel. Via mutagenesis and in vitro biochemical analysis, we identified many residues important for the helicase and polymerization activities of NrS-1 polymerase. In addition to NrS-1 polymerase, our study may also help us identify and understand the functions of multidomain polymerases expressed by many NrS-1 related phages.
The Free-Market Family
Authors: Eichner Maxine
Published: January 2020

This book critiques the expectation embodied in American public policy today that families will privately provide the resources and circumstances they and their members need through the market and without the help of government. This expectation, it argues, is eroding the well-being of American families across the economic spectrum. Free-market family policy, it asserts, is undermining the promise of the American Dream, which envisions a social order that helps all people reach their full potential and that supports the opportunity for all to lead rich, fulfilling lives. Without thriving families, children can’t reach their full promise; nor can most adults live happy lives without strong family ties. Despite this, under free-market family policy, market forces are decimating the well-being of families. Part I demonstrates how the rising economic inequality and insecurity of the past several decades are making it increasingly difficult for family members to reconcile work and family, are destabilizing marriages and cohabiting relationships among poor and working-class adults, and are making it impossible for families at all income levels to secure for their children the circumstances they need to flourish. Part II shows that, for much of our nation’s history, government’s responsibility to buffer families from market forces was considered a key part of the social contract. It is only in recent decades that free-market family policy has supplanted this social contract. Part III considers how the United States can construct an economy that supports families and truly enables them to thrive.
America’s Free-Market Family Policy
Authors: Eichner Maxine
Published: January 2020

This chapter contrasts two models of the role that government can play with respect to families. Free-market family policy, which the United States has adopted, is premised on the view that all government needs to do to support sound families is to support strong markets, which will in turn benefit families. In contrast, pro-family policy, which other countries have adopted, is based on the idea that families do better when the government actively supports them. Pro-family policy considers markets an important tool for distributing the resources that families need, but it regulates them to reduce economic inequality and insecurity and institutes programs like paid family leave, paid vacation, universal childcare, and child benefits. Of the two types of policies, free-market policy leaves families more vulnerable to market forces. That creates devastating problems for families when economic inequality and insecurity increase, as they have in the United States.
The Overworked American Parent
Authors: Eichner Maxine
Published: January 2020

This chapter asks why Americans work such long hours and have so much difficulty balancing work and family lives. The answer, it asserts, lies in our lawmakers’ choice to favor markets over families. Families in the United States have to strike the balance between work and family on their own, with no help from the government. They must do so in an economy characterized by pervasive inequality and insecurity. Other countries help families strike this balance through a range of measures, including limits on mandatory work hours and paid parental leave. They have also intervened to reduce economic inequality and insecurity. In the United States, the result of half a century of failing to regulate markets to support families is that adults wind up working long hours in order to provide for their families. Even workers who succeed in the brutal economic competition that our economy incentivizes do so at significant cost to their family lives. When they get home, these same economic pressures cause parents to spend long hours intensively parenting their kids in efforts to ensure that they too can succeed in the economic competition once they become adults.
How We Fail Our Children Part II—Young Children from Poor and Low-Income Families
Authors: Eichner Maxine
Published: January 2020

Free-market family policy puts most American families in a difficult position when it comes to the trade-off between earning income to support a family and making sure young children get the caretaking that suits them best, but it clearly puts poor and low-income families in the toughest positions. This chapter considers the extent to which poor and low-income US families can privately provide the conditions that help young children thrive: adequate material support, a parent at home for up to the first year, good daycare and prekindergarten after that, and time with a nurturing parent. It also compares the likelihood that young children will receive this support in the United States under free-market family policy and in countries with pro-family policy.
Insulating Families from Market Forces—The Rise of the Welfare State
Authors: Eichner Maxine
Published: January 2020

This chapter shows that the constant in America’s relationship with markets hasn’t been the acceptance of a free-market economy, but rather the belief that the economy should serve the interests of families. The nineteenth-century rise of the market economy in the United States, it demonstrates, was accompanied by the rise of a set of beliefs that historians call the “ideology of separate spheres.” This ideology sold Americans on the market economy by claiming that it would help families thrive. By the end of the nineteenth century, though, it became clear that the market was failing to deliver on this promise for working-class families. Reformers then called for the government to step in to use regulation to support the promise that the market would protect families. The New Deal arose out of that view of the government’s role. For much of the twentieth century, the government’s responsibility to safeguard the well-being of families against harmful market forces was a fundamental part of our nation’s social contract.
What’s an Economy For?
Authors: Eichner Maxine
Published: January 2020

This chapter describes how US policymakers would regulate the economy if they became serious about supporting the American Dream. Legislators would stop making an ever-higher GDP the ultimate economic goal and instead focus on ensuring that every American gets the resources they need to thrive. Since thriving Americans require healthy families, this would require ensuring that families, too, receive the resources they need to thrive. To serve these goals, markets must be put in their proper place in the larger economy, alongside both families and government. When it comes to ensuring that families get the resources they need, the state has five critical functions to fill. These are: (1) partnering with parents to provide the conditions young children need at home; (2) investing in excellent daycare and prekindergarten programs; (3) regulating the economy to reduce economic inequality and insecurity; (4) constructing a strong social safety net; and (5) regulating the workplace to allow workers to reconcile work with family. The chapter closes by describing the public programs that would support each of these five functions.
Toward Thriving Families
Authors: Eichner Maxine
Published: January 2020

This chapter addresses three concerns that might arise when considering whether to adopt pro-family policies. First, it assesses whether adopting pro-family programs will make our economy less competitive. In answer, it demonstrates that countries that have adopted pro-family policies have experienced as much or more growth in GDP per hour worked in the last decades as the United States has. Furthermore, the employment rates in countries that have adopted pro-family policy are actually higher than our own. Second, the chapter considers whether the costs of pro-family programs, including paid parental leave, child benefits, and universal daycare and prekindergarten, would be prohibitively high. It demonstrates that the additional costs of pro-family programs could be readily absorbed either simply by shifting existing total social welfare spending to spend more on children publicly without paying a penny more overall or by raising taxes in a manner that placed no added burden on middle- and low-income families. Third and finally, the chapter considers whether pro-family policy would stifle Americans’ freedom. Free-market proponents who equate unregulated capitalism with freedom, this section shows, overlook the many ways that market pressures are increasingly constraining Americans’ lives.
The Jeffersonian Electoral College in the Nineteenth Century
Authors: Foley Edward B.
Published: January 2020

The Jeffersonian Electoral College performed as expected until, after the rise of Andrew Jackson, plurality winner-take-all became the prevailing method among states for appointing electors. Even then, the Jeffersonian Electoral College has usually operated consistently with the compound version of majority rule that the Jeffersonians had in mind. Using a mathematical measure, one can identify which elections clearly comply with the Jeffersonian conception of compound majority rule and which, by contrast, require further analysis to confirm their conformity to majoritarian principles. Undertaking this analysis, only two elections in nineteenth century—1844 and 1884—clearly contravene the Jeffersonian expectation for how the system was supposed to work. Of the two, the so-called accident of 1844 was hugely consequential for the rest of American history: the winner, James Polk, took the nation to war against Mexico in order to expand territory, particularly for slavery, according to his vision of Manifest Destiny.
An Exploration of Alternatives
Authors: Foley Edward B.
Published: January 2020

A constitutional amendment to replace the Electoral College is not feasible, at least for the foreseeable future. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact plan, as a method of nullifying the Electoral College without a constitutional amendment, is a seriously flawed idea for several reasons, the most significant of which is that it would award the presidency to a plurality winner of the national popular vote. Thus, if there were a three-way split in the popular vote—for example, 43 percent, 42 percent, 15 percent—the compact would award the presidency to the candidate with 43 percent even though 57 percent of the electorate strongly opposed that candidate. The fear that an independent candidate could cause Trump’s re-election even when roughly 60 percent of voters oppose this, because the opposition is split among two (or more) candidates, applies equally to the existing system and the compact. Litigation is unlikely to eliminate plurality winner-take-all. States must act.
From Identification to Rage
Authors: Lischer Richard
Published: January 2020

This chapter considers the most complex element in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s strategy of style: identification. For the first decade of his career, King worked incessantly to align the aims of the Movement with the values of moderate-to-liberal white America. His goal was the merger of black aspirations into the American dream. To do this he had to convince black Americans that his methods represented their best interests, and he had to convince white Americans that his vision was consistent with their heritage and in their best interests as well. King carried out his mission of identification before a vast racially mixed audience. He campaigned for identification as a man of dark color in one of the most color-obsessed nations in the world. For all its unconscious cunning, King’s strategy of identification led ineluctably to the language of confrontation and to the evenatual abandonment of rhetorical strategy. With the nation’s involvement in Vietnam, he burned his bridges to his liberal supporters and refused to mask the true nature of the conflict.
The Ebenezer Gospel
Authors: Lischer Richard
Published: January 2020

This chapter details Martin Luther King, Jr.’s stint as “copastor” of Ebenezer Baptist Church, which lasted for less than one hundred months. Although he did not preach at Ebenezer every Sunday, he spoke there often enough to establish “my gospel,” an evolving, sometimes volatile interpretation of God’s will for Ebenezer and the world. The Ebenezer Gospel is what the preacher King said to his people over the course of his pastorate. It is important to gather the fragments of this gospel into a coherent whole because he carried a modified version of it into world history, thus making knowledge of the Ebenezer Gospel essential to an understanding of his public message—his quest for justice, yearning for redemption, insistence on nonviolence, embrace of suffering, prophetic rage, and all else that emerged from his Sundays in Atlanta. King’s Ebenezer sermons are the religious subtext for his sermon to the nation.
Bearing “The Gospel of Freedom”
Authors: Lischer Richard
Published: January 2020

This chapter focuses on the vehicle of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s social gospel: the mass meeting. The mass meeting was born in Montgomery, Alabama, with the December 5, 1955 rally at the Holt Street Baptist Church. From the beginning, the meetings served an indivisibly sacred and civic agenda. At Holt, the throng listened to Bible readings, sang “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” and took courage from a sermonic speech by the young Dr. King. The mass meetings held throughout the South also served to solidify a sense of community among participants. The meetings provided a continuous social commentary on fast-breaking events, a forum for information and tactical planning, a school for correction and instruction in nonviolence, a place of praise and encouragement, but, most of all, a way of keeping together.
Prologue: Music and language
Authors: Johnson Julian
Published: January 2020

The Prologue explores the tension between language and music and the place that musicology might occupy as a way of thinking through that tension. Rather than collapsing this difference into the assumption that language deals adequately with music or that, conversely, music remains ineffable to language, the relationship is explored as one of non-identity that is mutually constitutive – in other words, that we understand both music and language better through an exploration of their non-identical proximity. Music is taken here to mount a challenge to philosophy – specifically, that music embodies a kind of thinking through particularity rather than thinking through the abstraction of the concept. It sets out the rationale for a musical focus on Debussy and later French composers, and a parallel exploration of French writers from Mallarmé and Bergson to Derrida and Nancy.
Taking place
Authors: Johnson Julian
Published: January 2020

Music ‘after Debussy’ does not present musical arguments or narratives, but rather ‘takes place’ and is thus experienced more like landscape, or the painting of landscape, than literature. It is concerned neither with representation nor communication. A central concern with the sea, from Debussy’s La mer (1905) through to Murail’s Le partage des eaux (1996) and Saariaho’s L’amour de loin (2001) denotes a concern with allowing music to be endlessly mobile in its play of forms and colours, but non-discursive. This requires a different kind of listening which relates to a different kind of consciousness of the sonic environment. The closed space of the garden is explored in Fauré’s song cycle Le jardin clos (1914). Debussy’s La mer forms a principal focus for exploring an immersive play of forms that work outside the linearity of tonal practice.
Studying the Qur'an in the Muslim Academy
Authors: Daneshgar Majid
Published: January 2020

This book sheds light on how the study of Islam in the Muslim lands become an exercise in politics and pious apologetics. It also displays the way modern critical historical approach to the Qurʾān is under threat across the world. The author shows the combination of traditional practices, sectarian rivalry, prejudice and outdated attitudes—reflexive censorship, mutual systemic exclusion by Sunni and Shi‘i traditions of each other’s points of view along with lack of interest in work done outside the Middle East and a fixation on a narrow and flawed interpretation of Orientalism, Edward W. Said’s classic study of imperialist cultural representation. It discusses the influence of oil-funded conservative inroads into religious studies programs in the West. It provides readers with a powerful case for understanding the sources and dynamics of “Islamic Apologetics” and the threat to critical historical methodologies particularly in the West as an essential first step toward protecting then strengthening modern scholarship, East and West.
Pasteur's Empire
Authors: Velmet Aro
Published: January 2020

In the 1890s, the Pasteur Institute established a network of laboratories that stretched across France’s empire, from Indochina to West Africa. Quickly, researchers at these laboratories became central to France’s colonial project, helping officials monopolize industries, develop public health codes, establish disease containment measures, and arbitrate political conflicts around questions of labor rights, public works, and free association. Pasteur’s Empire shows how the scientific prestige of the Pasteur Institute came to depend on its colonial laboratories and how, conversely, the institutes themselves became central to colonial politics. This book argues that decisions as small as the isolation of a particular yeast or the choice of a laboratory animal could have tremendous consequences on the lives of Vietnamese and African subjects, who became the consumers of new vaccines or industrially fermented intoxicants. Simultaneously, global forces, such as the rise of international standards and American competitors, pushed Pastorians to their imperial laboratories, where they could conduct studies that researchers in France considered too difficult or controversial. Chapters follow not just Alexandre Yersin’s studies of the plague, Charles Nicolle’s public health work in Tunisia, and Constant Mathis’s work on yellow fever in Dakar, but also the activities of Vietnamese doctors, African students and politicians, Syrian traders, and Chinese warlords. It argues that a specifically Pastorian understanding of microbiology shaped French colonial politics across the world, allowing French officials to promise hygienic modernity while actually committing to minimal development.
From Obama Victories to a GOP Edge in Florida
Authors: Caffrey Alexandra
Published: January 2020

Many observers believed the state of Florida was trending blue after Barack Obama won it twice, but instead Republicans have since won nearly every statewide election after 2012. What happened? This chapter explores the grassroots organizing strategies of presidential and statewide candidate-led political campaigns in Florida’s pivotal I-4 corridor. After Obama built a formidable ground game, the state Democratic Party allowed it to wither, and neither Hillary Clinton in 2016 nor Andrew Gillum in 2018 built a comparable operation. Meanwhile, Florida Republicans and Koch-aligned groups deliberately—and successfully—imitated and adapted Obama’s organizational strategies. Unless Democrats rebuild, Florida will likely be red for the foreseeable future.
Middle America Reboots Democracy
Authors: Putnam Lara
Published: January 2020

Right after the 2016 elections, Americans in towns, cities, and suburbs organized to oppose the Trump administration and reactivate grassroots citizenship. This chapter discusses who the newly active citizens are and what they have been doing in their communities and in electoral politics. Most group participants are educated white women. They formed new connections and encouraged locally grounded civic engagement, and many spent weekends going door-to-door on behalf of Democratic candidates. In the 2018 elections, some groups in Democratic strongholds perceived incumbents as blocking the way to pro-democracy reforms. Meanwhile, their deep-red-district counterparts supported Democratic contenders against entrenched Republican incumbents. The ideological coordinates of candidates they supported were diverse, yet the underlying pattern was consistent: new activists fought for better government, up and down the ballot.
Defining Torture and the Obligation of Systematic Review in the CAT Treaty
Authors: Nowak Manfred , Monina Giuliana
Published: January 2020

Torture is one of the most severe and violent human rights violations and is absolutely prohibited under international law. As we also know from experience, most cases of torture occur during interrogations by law enforcement officials for the purpose of extracting a confession. After elaborating on the legal definition of torture under international human rights law and how torture can be distinguished from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, the authors reflect on the need to address the root causes of torture. While Juan Méndez’ call for a Universal Protocol for non-coercive interviews is an important initiative in this direction, this contribution focuses on the obligation of systematic review of interrogation rules under Article 11 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). This article of the treaty requires States parties to systematically review their interrogation rules, instructions, methods, and practices. Although it has not received much attention in the literature and seems—at first sight—to only establish a formal obligation to keep interrogation and detention rules under systematic review, over the years the CAT Committee has given a broad interpretation to this provision, making it an important safeguard for the prevention of torture and other forms of ill-treatment. The authors provide an overview of the CAT Committee’s practice and discuss how Article 11 of CAT, acting as a guarantee of minimum standards of interrogation, could represent an important provision for ensuring the implementation of the CAT’s preventive obligations, laying the basis for bridging the gap between law and practice.
The Field of Torture Today
Authors: Rejali Darius
Published: January 2020

In this chapter, I review the achievements of those who have been studying torture and interrogation over the last decade. I go through the literature on the supply of torture techniques, the demand for torture, and discussions of tactical and strategic efficacy. I use my book, Torture and Democracy, to frame multifaceted efforts by scholars and practitioners, orienting readers to material elsewhere in this volume and suggesting fruitful connections and debates between them. To be specific, I review the studies of modern torture techniques, their historical origins, and the manner in which they travel; the statistical literature on global and American attitudes toward torture; the social-scientific and policy literature of incorporating coercive techniques into institutional policy, the formation of torture subcultures, and the challenges of prevention. Throughout, I identify how this remarkable body of work has led me to reconsider, correct, or refine claims I made a decade ago.
Developing Rapport and Trust in the Interrogative Context
Authors: Brimbal Laure , Kleinman Steven M. , Oleszkiewicz Simon , Meissner Christian A.
Published: January 2020

Decades of behavioral science research has consistently demonstrated the advantages of employing a rapport-based approach to investigative and intelligence interviewing. After identifying the problematic procedures of accusatorial approaches, current research has turned to a more proactive study of the techniques and tactics that align with a rapport-based and information-gathering framework that is effective for eliciting comprehensive and reliable information. Despite a growing body of research supporting the use of this framework, it stands in contrast with an accusatorial approach that is common practice in North America (and other parts of the world). This chapter reviews empirically supported approaches for investigative interviewing (including aspects of effective elicitation and deception detection) and describes recent research on tactics for developing rapport and trust in the interrogative context. Herein we distinguish how trust and rapport-based techniques differ from currently employed confrontational techniques, and provide operational examples of how these tactics have been employed in the field.
Investigative Interviewing
Authors: Bull Ray , Rachlew Asbjørn
Published: January 2020

In many places throughout world, suspects (and sometimes witnesses and victims) are still interrogated in a coercive, pressurizing manner. The beliefs underlying such practices are examined in this chapter, as is the emerging body of research on offenders’ opinions about effective interviewing, which actually supports the efficacy of a more humanitarian approach. A seismic shift away from coercive interrogation that seminally commenced in 1992 in England and Wales—involving the “PEACE” investigative interviewing approach—is described, together with the research that underpinned this (then novel) method. Later scientific work in the United Kingdom on its effectiveness is then presented and discussed. After these studies are reviewed, more recent research from various countries are put forward that have also found a rapport-based, humane approach to be effective. Building on this emerging science, a number of investigative organizations in a variety of countries have replaced coercive interrogation techniques with investigative interviewing (e.g., the Norwegian Police and the New Zealand Police), and a greater number are in the process of doing the same. The Norwegian Police experience is exemplary on this point, and will be described in detail. The chapter will then conclude with an account of the recent United Nations initiative to establish a Universal Protocol that adopts this type of non-coercive approach based on study and practice.
Interrogating the Brain
Authors: O’Mara Shane
Published: January 2020

Can torture be studied as a biomedical problem? I contend that it most certainly can. Torture can be approached as a biomedical problem in a variety of ways. Torture can be examined in terms of its consequences (e.g., in torture patients); torture can be modeled, using special populations (e.g., elite soldiers) undergoing particular training and combat regimes; torture can be treated deductively, in an analytic fashion, by investigating the consequences of stressors focused on shared aspects of neuropsychological function. Predictions can be made, based on contemporary models of the effects of stress on neurocognitive function, and outcomes tested in differing populations. It is an epistemic mistake to think that torture can only be approached using randomized-control trial methodologies, as this misunderstands the nature of empirical-deductive science. Torture is a demonstrably poor truth-seeking practice, for reasons rooted deep in our shared psychology and neurobiology. Besides being morally abhorrent and manifestly illegal, torture is a demonstrable failure on its own terms. The extreme stressors employed during torture negatively affect the integrated psychobiological functioning of our brains and bodies. Hence the intelligence yield from torture both in recent experience, and historically, has typically been very poor. Finally, I examine outdated ideas regarding human behavior, but which live on in practice (“zombie” ideas). I conclude with a discussion of the centrality of the behavioral and brain sciences as evolving research domains central to solving the problem of reliably and ethically gathering information from other human beings, with a focus on the importance of evidence-based policy formation.