bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
France: Civil-Military Relations in the Antiterrorist Frame
Authors: Daho Grégory
Published: October 2020

French civil–military relations are usually described as an example of subordination of the military command to political authorities. This subordination is the legacy of the mutual distrust inherited from the “events” in Algeria and, more specifically, the coups in Algiers in 1958 and 1961 that gave birth to the current Fifth Republic. With the end of the Cold War, civil–military relations have rebalanced to the benefit of general officers because of the increasingly technical nature of external interventions and the consolidation of interprofessional relations with diplomats and industrial networks, facilitating the return of some officers into decision-making circuits. After this functional reintegration, the antiterrorist framing, both outside of the country (Opération Serval in January 2013 in Mali) and within France’s borders (Opération Sentinelle , which followed the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris), seems to recast the military as the forge of the national community. The evolution of the political uses of the military forces in France shows how ambivalent the antiterrorist resources are in the contemporary civil–military game.
Human Attachment and Affiliation
Authors: Zayas Vivan , Sakman Ezgi
Published: October 2020

One of the defining features of human experience is the formation and maintenance of affiliative and attachment ties. As these ties offer numerous adaptive advantages, human beings have evolved behavioral and neurobiological systems to ensure their formation and maintenance. The need to affiliate is pervasive and powerful. Consequently, the affiliative system is hypersensitive to social cues signaling any possibility that the ties could be under threat. This alarm system motivates restorative behavior, ensuring valued social ties are protected. Whereas affiliative ties can develop between any two individuals, attachment bonds are typically formed with a few significant others, and in many cases only one person serves as the main attachment figure. The attachment system functions in a similar way in both infancy and adulthood, ensuring proximity to attachment figures in the face of physical and psychological threats. Even though the need to form affiliative ties and attachment bonds has been shown to be universal, significant cross-cultural variations in how they unfold are also reported. Both the affiliative and the attachment systems protect the individual against various risks and aid in maintaining a physically and psychologically healthy existence via regulating the stress reactivity system.
Countering Violent Extremism: A Framework for Comparative Analysis
Authors: Hardy Keiran
Published: October 2020

Countering violent extremism (CVE) has become a core component of counterterrorism strategies. As a concept and field of research, the CVE label lacks clarity, but it refers to policy and programs designed to prevent violent extremism and radicalization.

The major components of CVE include community engagement, interventions for vulnerable youth, efforts to counter online extremism, and attempts to deradicalize terrorist offenders through psychological and religious counseling. Evidence about the effectiveness of these programs remains limited, but empirical research in the field is growing.

CVE is commonly understood through a public-health framework that focuses on program targets: communities, at-risk individuals, and convicted offenders. A more thorough comparative approach would also consider governance, definitions of key concepts, aims, actors, targets, activities, and context.
Curriculum for Liberation in the Neoliberal Era
Authors: De Lissovoy Noah , Armonda Alex J.
Published: October 2020

In neoliberalism, an emphasis on free markets and fiscal austerity, along with a hostility to the commons and the public, coincide with an insistence on the inevitability of capitalism. In education, neoliberalism is associated with the privatization and marketization of schools and districts at the macro level, and an alienation and fragmentation at the level of curriculum, in which knowledge and teaching are reduced to a mechanized sequence of discrete items and acts. As it erodes the relationship between teachers and their work in the name of efficiency, neoliberalism transforms schools into spaces of epistemological and ontological foreclosure. In this context, an approach to curriculum is necessary that is concerned not just with the common senses that education reinforces but also with the basic possibilities for being, knowing, and agency that it makes available. Thus, the deep imbrication of racism in neoliberalism (expressed in the discourse of color-blindness and in state violence) means that in order to imagine alternatives to the latter we need to understand and interrupt the logic of coloniality that has organized capitalism from its origin, and which is intensified in the neoliberal moment. Furthermore, as the ideological work of schooling increasingly inheres in the ubiquitous rituals themselves of neoliberal accountability’s culture of constant assessment and auditing, a liberatory commitment means staging a public curriculum of collective refusal. These broad emancipatory principles suggest that, in practical terms, teachers ought to move beyond private resistance at the classroom level—a form of subversion that leaves intact the material and institutional practices that secure neoliberal governmentality—and begin to participate in larger actions against privatization, standardized testing, and budget cuts. Likewise, at the level of knowledge production, curriculum for liberation should expose the white and Western technicist rationality that undergirds neoliberal education. Affirming epistemological diversity, liberatory curriculum should prioritize non-Western texts and standpoints; explore the links between politics, culture, and spirituality; and ask what it would look like for society as a whole to start from marginalized values and understandings.
Gender and Bullying
Authors: Meyer Elizabeth J.
Published: October 2020

The field of bullying research initially paid minimal attention to the influences of gender role expectations (masculinity, femininity, and gender role conformity), as well as heteronormativity, cisnormativity, homophobia, and transphobia in understanding the phenomenon. This has shifted since the late 2000s, when more research emerged that analyzes gender as an influential factor for understanding bullying dynamics in schools. More recent studies have focused on LGBTQ youth, issues of disability, and racialized identities, as well as the impacts of online interactions. When examining gender and bullying, it is important to also examine related forms of gender-based violence, including sexual harassment, dating violence, and other forms of sexual and violent assault such as transphobic violence and murder. In order to more effectively support schools and professionals working to reduce bullying, there must be a deeper understanding of what is currently known about gender and bullying, what works to reduce it in schools, and what still needs more attention in the research literature.
Popular Media and Youth Resistances
Authors: Moore Amber , Marshall Elizabeth
Published: October 2020

“Popular media” and “youth resistance” are significant areas of inquiry in studies and theorizations of gender and sexuality in education. Yet, the terms popular media, youth, and resistance are highly contentious, sometimes overlapping and consistently posing definitional challenges. Popular media is at first exactly what it sounds like: broadly accessible and commercially produced texts like the Harry Potter franchise; however, popular media is also deeply complex and contextually determined, shifting over time in accordance with audiences as well as popular discourses to produce plural meanings. Likewise, youth resistance encompasses ever-changing, and often reductively problematic conceptualizations. Young people are frequently misrepresented in popular media as rebellious which in turn informs popular understanding(s) of resistance as calcified, domesticated, fetishized, masculinized, and romanticized. Youth resistance then, is complex, discursive, and a nuanced material reality. The complexity of popular culture and youth’s resistance within and against it demonstrates and demands creativity and criticality.
Assessing the Impact of Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Policies
Authors: Toomey Russell B. , Zhao Zhenqiang
Published: October 2020

The United States prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education via federal law. Case law in the United States also applies the prohibition of sex discrimination to incidents that were motivated by a person’s sex or gender, including gender identity and expression. Enumerated nondiscrimination, school-based policies that include gender identity and expression are among the foundational policies advocated for by researchers and practitioners that aim to make schools safer for transgender and gender nonconforming students. These policies serve as a foundation for all other interventions or policies that may be implemented in a school to increase safety for transgender and gender nonconforming students. Further, enumerated nondiscrimination policies provide students with a clear understanding of their rights at school, and they provide school personnel with grounding to prevent and intervene in gender-based discrimination.

Research has found that transgender and gender nonconforming students experience high levels of stigma (e.g., manifested as discrimination, stigma-based bullying) in schools, and that these school-based experiences are associated with compromised educational outcomes in addition to disparities in behavioral, physical, and psychological health. Students in schools that have enumerated nondiscrimination policies report less bias stigma-based bullying attributed to gender identity and expression compared to students in schools with non-enumerated policies. Further, students are more likely to report that teachers intervene in stigma-based bullying attributed to gender identity and expression in schools that have enumerated nondiscrimination policies compared to those that do not. Finally, studies have found that nondiscrimination policies that include gender identity and expression attenuate the negative consequences of stigma for students.
Sex Segregated Schools to Challenge Gender and Racial Bias
Authors: Herr Kathryn , Grant Kathleen , Price Jeremy
Published: October 2020

Sex segregated schooling in the United States is one of the fastest-growing movements in education in the 21st century. The current movement toward single-sex schooling is embedded in a national discourse of school choice and an adoption of market principles in education. This framing espouses that when schools compete for educational consumers, the needs of those currently underserved in U.S. schools will be better served and their academic performance will improve. Scholars argue that there are three main rationales typically put forward for sex segregated schools: they will eliminate distractions and harassment from the other sex; they can address the espoused different learning styles of boys and girls, and, finally, they can remedy inequities experienced by low-income students of color. Many of the single sex schools have large proportions of low-income youth of color. In general, while the sex segregated structure of these schools seems to offer opportunities to disrupt gendered stereotypes, there is little evidence that this occurs. Instead, as society’s conceptualizations of sexuality and gender evolve, single-sex education upholds a largely heteronormative and cisgendered understanding of gender and sexuality. Much of the research documents a reinforcement of gendered stereotypes and heterosexism. The literature on single-sex schools for boys also presents a puzzling mix of academic success for some boys, and no significant difference for others. There is little attention to the accomplishments and current experiences of girls in single-sex schools at the K–12 levels. Research shows that successful schools, whether they are single-sex or coeducational, tend to have factors in common like creating strong mentoring relationships and keeping smaller class sizes. In sum, research would indicate that the rationales noted earlier to justify the development of sex segregated schools are not much realized in the research.
Urban Teaching and Black Girls’ Pedagogies
Authors: Pratt-Clarke Menah , Baldwin Andrea N. , Brown Letisha Engracia Cardoso
Published: October 2020

To discuss and understand urban teaching and Black girls’ pedagogies, the fundamental premise is that Black girls are not monolithic, but complex and nonhomogenous. Black girlhood studies recognize that, because of their intersectional race, class, and gender status, Black girls have different experiences than Black boys and White girls. Core themes in Black girlhood include self-identity and socialization; beauty and self-expression; popular culture, hip hop, and stereotypes; violence; systemic discipline in schools; and resiliency and survival. Responding to the unique experiences of Black girls, Black women educators developed and adopted a pedagogy that focuses on and centers Black girls and Black girlhood in all their complexity. Using a strengths-based approach, Black girls’ pedagogy is built on a Black feminist and womanist framework that recognizes the need for culturally informed curriculum and classroom experiences, more Black women educators, and a commitment to an ethics of care.
Histories and Theories in Childhood Studies
Authors: Farley Lisa , Sonu Debbie
Published: October 2020

Childhood studies is an interdisciplinary area of theory and research comprised of intersecting fields that have evolved since the inception of childhood itself. Despite the pervasiveness of psychological frameworks that predominate early studies of childhood and that continue to dominate within teacher education programs, paradigmatic shifts within childhood studies have opened critical questions about the exclusive social norms, racial privileges, and unequal life chances maintained by the idea of childhood as a biologically determined and universal stage of life. Across a range of perspectives, critical scholarship in childhood studies begins with the idea that childhood is a social and historical construction tied to colonial discourses and ongoing injustices that have material effects on children’s lives. Drawing on the fields of history, sociology, postcolonial studies, psychoanalysis, and educational theory, scholars of childhood show how childhood is inextricably bound to philosophical ideals, political forces, social constructs, and emotional conflicts. In identifying and interrogating the ways that race, class, ability, gender, and sexuality affect and limit meanings of childhood, scholars open new metaphors for rethinking social life, development, belonging, relationality, and existence as such.
History of Education and Emotions
Authors: Toro-Blanco Pablo
Published: October 2020

The encounter between the history of education and the emerging field of historical interest in emotions is a phenomenon of recent and fast development. Researchers must bear some specific dilemmas and challenges implied in attention to affective ties regarding the past of education, being the first to define critical concepts for the delimitation of the topic. Furthermore, this new path requires that theoretical and methodological issues be addressed. Among these issues are the difference in the development of educational historiographical research in countries or cultural regions. There are challenges for education historians interested in emotions and their efforts to overcome methodological chasms, as for example, the disparities between discourse and experience. Given the fact that the research on the history of emotions applied to education is still in its first steps, it is possible to outline some potential advances in the confluence of the historic-educational and the emotional fields.
Intersectionality in U.S. Educational Research
Authors: Sibbett Lisa
Published: October 2020

Intersectionality is celebrated in education research for its capacity to illuminate how identities like race, gender, class, and ability interact and shape individual experiences, social practices, institutions, and ideologies. However, although widely invoked among educational researchers, intersectionality is rarely unpacked or theorized. It is treated as a simple, settled concept despite the fact that, outside education research, it has become in the early 21st century one of the most hotly debated concepts in social science research. Education researchers should therefore clarify and, where appropriate, complicate their uses of intersectionality. One important issue requiring clarification concerns the question: “Who is intersectional?” While some critical social scientists represent intersectionality as a theory of multiple marginalization, others frame it as a theory of multiple identities. Either choice entails theoretical and practical trade-offs. When researchers approach intersectionality as a theory of multiple marginalization, they contribute to seeking redress for multiply marginalized subjects’ experiences of violence and erasure, yet this approach risks representing multiply marginalized communities as damaged, homogenous, and without agency, while leaving the processes maintaining dominance uninterrogated. When scholars approach intersectionality as a theory of multiple identities, meanwhile, they may supply a fuller account of the processes by which advantage and disadvantage co-constitute one another, but they risk recentering Whiteness, deflecting conversations about racism, and marginalizing women of color in the name of inclusivity. A review of over 60 empirical and conceptual papers in educational research shows that such trade-offs are not often made visible in our field. Education researchers should therefore clarify their orientations to intersectionality: They should name the approach(es) they favor, make arguments for why such approaches are appropriate to a particular project, and respond thoughtfully to potential limitations.
Gun Violence and Democratic Education in America
Authors: Deane Samantha
Published: October 2020

Rampage school gun violence elicits strong public reaction but often results in stop-gap policies that do little to address the violence. Such policies include but are not limited to zero-tolerance discipline, employing school resource officers, installing metal detectors, arming teachers, and active shooter drills. What nearly all of these post-rampage policies share is a desire to secure the school by making the school impenetrable to would be assailants. These policies have an effect on the democratic education in the United States. To this end, the educational and democratic significance of post-rampage policies “harden” schools. Post-rampage schooling of this sort turns children into soldiers and schools into bunkers at the expense of democratic education for the renewal of a democratic society. Thus it is critical to introduce methods and practices that “soften” schools and sustain education for democratic citizenship.
Intellectual Styles
Authors: Zhang Li-fang , Sternberg Robert J.
Published: October 2020

“Intellectual styles” refers to people’s preferred ways of processing information and dealing with cognitive and other tasks. Styles comprise an all-embracing way of understanding such constructs as cognitive styles, learning approaches, career personality types, thinking styles, teaching styles, and many others—constructs with or without the word “style.” The field of intellectual styles has a history of more than eight decades. Until the early 21st century, however, the field was constantly struggling with its identity as a result of three major challenges: (a) the lack of a common language and a conceptual framework with which work on styles could be understood, (b) the difficulty in distinguishing styles from intelligence/abilities and personality traits, and (c) the ambiguity concerning the link between work on styles and work in other fields. This identity crisis was exacerbated by three principal controversial issues regarding the nature of intellectual styles: whether styles are distinct constructs or similar constructs that overlap with one another but have different labels; whether styles represent traits or states, or whether they have elements of both; and whether styles are value free or value laden (i.e., some styles are more desirable than others in terms of human learning and performance).

Over the years, the aforementioned difficulties inherent in intellectual styles impeded the progress of the field and confused both practitioners and the general public. Despite these and other difficulties, the field has flourished since the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Concerted attempts at theoretical conceptualizations have given some degree of unity to disparate bodies of literature. At the same time, tens of thousands of empirical investigations based on a wide range of style models and carried out in diverse populations across the globe have consistently demonstrated the critical roles that styles play in various domains of human lives. Undoubtedly, the existing literature has proved that intellectual styles are real, distinct psychological phenomena. Moreover, research findings have scientific value as well as practical implications for human learning and performance. Nevertheless, for the field to prosper further, several major limitations with the existing work must be overcome, and investigations that take into account the fast-changing world need to be initiated.
Gender and Demography in Asia (India and China)
Authors: Kaur Ravinder
Published: October 2020

China and India together account for over one-third of the world’s population and both countries have considerably fewer women than men.. With long histories of skewed sex ratios and gender discrimination, these two countries have experienced a sharp decline in the birth of girls since the late 20th century. The unfolding and intimate relationship between gendered social structures, son preference, fertility decline, and new sex determination technologies has had serious demographic and social consequences, resulting in millions of “missing” girls, surplus males, bride shortages, and possibly, rising levels of gender violence. Even as women’s socio-economic indicators such as life expectancy, literacy, education, and fertility have improved, families continue to show a preference for sons raising questions between the tenuous relationship between development and gender equality. The advantages of raising sons over daughters, supported by traditional kinship, family, and marriage systems, appear to have got further entrenched in the era of neoliberal economies. Family planning policies of both nations, advocating small families, and the advent of pre-natal sex selection technologies further set the stage for the prevention of birth of daughters. Governments in both countries have since banned sex determination and launched policies and schemes to redress the gender imbalance and improve the value of the girl child. While these policies have not been highly successful, other social forces such as urbanization and rising educational levels are beginning to transform the way girls are perceived. A kernel of hope seems to be emerging at the beginning of the 21st century, as some improvement is visible in the sex ratio at birth in some of the worst affected regions in the two countries.
International Organizations in Colonial Africa
Authors: Bandeira Jerónimo Miguel , Pedro Monteiro José
Published: October 2020

European imperial expansion and consolidation in Africa was, from its inception, a trans-imperial process that was increasingly codified, regulated, and legitimized in an international sphere. Similarly, initiatives that aimed to counter Western dominance and hegemony across the 20th century looked for international institutions as privileged instances for claim-making and enhanced resistance against imperial and colonial projects. All these dynamics included several and diverse actors, networks, and institutions, from distinct geographies and with varied political and social outlooks. They gave origin to the global normative and institutional order of today. From the different but competing “civilizing missions” to the crystallization of self-determination as the global political norm, the history of Africa has been a recurrent feature of the mounting drives for internationalization that marked 20th century, offering several possible avenues of research for a global history of colonialism in the continent.
Women in Mali
Authors: Thiam Madina
Published: October 2020

Over centuries, a variety of decentralized societies and centralized states have formed in territories across the western Sahel and southwest Sahara, and along the Niger and Senegal river valleys. Women have played central yet often unacknowledged roles in building these communities. By the late 11th century, some were rulers, as tombstones from the Gao region seem to suggest. A travelogue describing the Mali empire, and a chronicle from Songhay, tell stories of women who plotted political dissent or staged rebellions in the 14th–16th centuries. By and large, everyday women’s reproductive and productive labor sustained their families, and structured life in agricultural, pastoral, fishing, or trading communities. In the 1700s in Segu, women brewed mead, cultivated crops, dyed textiles, and participated in the building of fortifications. In Masina in the 1800s, girls attended qurʾanic school, and a woman was the custodian of the caliph’s library. Women also suffered great violence stemming from conflicts, forced displacement, and slavery. By the end of the 19th century, they made up a considerable portion (at times the majority) of enslaved individuals in the region. After the European conquest and creation of the French Soudan colony, the French administration imposed an export-oriented wage economy, in which women worked to supply crops and sustain infrastructure projects. From the regions of Kayes, Kita, and Nioro, many migrated to groundnut- or gold-producing regions of Senegambia. While women’s labor and migrations were seldom accounted for in administrative records, their attempts to leave unhappy marriages or escape enslavement do appear in court records. However, colonial domination was gendered: the administration ultimately shunned women’s emancipation efforts, seeking to channel its rule by reinforcing patriarchal authority in communities. In 1960, the Republic of Mali achieved independence. Under the democratic and military governments that followed, women built pan-African and transnational alliances. In 1991 and beyond, they fought to achieve more rights, and greater political power and representation. Their labor and migrations have continued to sustain a large portion of the economy. Post-2011, they have been both active participants in, and victims of, the conflicts that have engulfed the country, suffering displacement, loss of livelihood, and sexual violence, for which many have yet to receive justice.
New Economic Geography
Authors: Chen Ching-mu , Peng Shin-Kun
Published: October 2020

For research attempting to investigate why economic activities are distributed unevenly across geographic space, new economic geography (NEG) provides a general equilibrium-based and microfounded approach to modeling a spatial economy characterized by a large variety of economic agglomerations. NEG emphasizes how agglomeration (centripetal) and dispersion (centrifugal) forces interact to generate observed spatial configurations and uneven distributions of economic activity. However, numerous economic geographers prefer to refer to the term new economic geographies as vigorous and diversified academic outputs that are inspired by the institutional-cultural turn of economic geography. Accordingly, the term geographical economics has been suggested as an alternative to NEG.

Approaches for modeling a spatial economy through the use of a general equilibrium framework have not only rendered existing concepts amenable to empirical scrutiny and policy analysis but also drawn economic geography and location theories from the periphery to the center of mainstream economic theory. Reduced-form empirical studies have attempted to test certain implications of NEG. However, due to NEG’s simplified geographic settings, the developed NEG models cannot be easily applied to observed data. The recent development of quantitative spatial models based on the mechanisms formalized by previous NEG theories has been a breakthrough in building an empirically relevant framework for implementing counterfactual policy exercises. If quantitative spatial models can connect with observed data in an empirically meaningful manner, they can enable the decomposition of key theoretical mechanisms and afford specificity in the evaluation of the general equilibrium effects of policy interventions in particular settings.

Several decades since its proposal, NEG has been criticized for its parsimonious assumptions about the economy across space and time. Therefore, existing challenges still require theoretical and quantitative models on new microfoundations pertaining to the interactions between economic agents across geographical space and the relationship between geography and economic development.
Germany and US Foreign Relations
Authors: Etheridge Brian
Published: October 2020

Not many bilateral relationships in modern world history have as many twists and turns as the one shared by the United States and Germany. Their relationship has waxed and waned like few others: from mild indifference to faint and uncomplicated appreciation in the 18th and 19th centuries, to growing awareness, rivalry, and then outright hostility in the early 20th century, to codependent enabling and then horrific existential conflict in the mid-20th century, and finally to occupation, reconstruction, and mutually supportive and global-stabilizing friendship after 1945. With early trajectories that informed and mirrored each other, the paths of the United States and Germany eventually collided in the First World War, a conflict born of issues that were only half-resolved in its immediate aftermath. The outbreak of the Second World War laid bare the incompleteness of the Versailles settlement, leading to the complete and utter destruction of German civil society and ushering in an era of American supremacy in the Western world. The United States’ ambitious effort to reconstruct German society along American lines defined the relationship during the postwar period, but a turn toward nationalism in both countries in the early 21st century resurrected old questions and fears.
Balkan-Romance
Authors: Dragomirescu Adina
Published: October 2020

Balkan-Romance is represented by Romanian and its historical dialects: Daco-Romanian (broadly known as Romanian), Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian (see article “Morphological and Syntactic Variation and Change in Romanian” in this encyclopedia). The external history of these varieties is often unclear, given the historical events that took place in the Lower Danubian region: the conquest of this territory by the Roman Empire for a short period and the successive Slavic invasions. Moreover, the earliest preserved writing in Romanian only dates from the 16th century. Between the Roman presence in the Balkans and the first attested text, there is a gap of more than 1,000 years, a period in which Romanian emerged, the dialectal separation took place, and the Slavic influence had effects especially on the lexis of Romanian.

In the 16th century, in the earliest old Romanian texts, the language already displayed the main features of modern Romanian: the vowels /ə/ and /ɨ/; the nominative-accusative versus genitive-dative case distinction; analytical case markers, such as the genitive marker al; the functional prepositions a and la; the proclitic genitive-dative marker lui; the suffixal definite article; polydefinite structures; possessive affixes; rich verbal inflection, with both analytic and synthetic forms and with three auxiliaries (‘have’, ‘be’, and ‘want’); the supine, not completely verbalized at the time; two types of infinitives, with the ‘short’ one on a path toward becoming verbal and the ‘long’ one specializing as a noun; null subjects; nonfinite verb forms with lexical subjects; the mechanism for differential object marking and clitic doubling with slightly more vacillating rules than in the present-day language; two types of passives; strict negative concord; the SVO and VSO word orders; adjectives placed mainly in the postnominal position; a rich system of pronominal clitics; prepositions requiring the accusative and the genitive; and a large inventory of subordinating conjunctions introducing complement clauses.

Most of these features are also attested in the trans-Danubian varieties (Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian), which were also strongly influenced by the various languages they have entered in direct contact with: Greek, Albanian, Macedonian, Croatian, and so forth. These source languages have had a major influence in the vocabulary of the trans-Danubian varieties and certain consequences in the shape of their grammatical system. The differences between Daco-Romanian and the trans-Danubian varieties have also resulted from the preservation of archaic features in the latter or from innovations that took place only there.
Where Is Equity in Integrated Approaches for Water Resources Management?
Authors: Allouche Jeremy
Published: October 2020

The challenges of integrated approaches and equity in water resources management have been well researched. However, a clear division exists between scholars working on equity and those working on integration, and there is remarkably little systematic analysis available that addresses their interlinkages. The divide between these two fields of inquiry has increased over time, and equity is assumed rather than explicitly considered in integrated approaches for water resources management. Historically, global debates on water resources management have focused on questions of distributional equity in canal irrigation systems and access to water. This limited focus on distributional equity was side-lined by neoliberal approaches and subsequent integrated approaches around water resources management tend to emphasize the synergistic aspects and ignore the political trade-offs between equity and efficiency. The interlinkages among equity, sustainability, and integration need deeper and broader interdisciplinary analysis and understanding, as well as new concepts, approaches, and agendas that are better suited to the intertwined complexity of resource degradation.
Team-Based Health Care
Authors: Patchner Michael A. , Patchner Lisa S.
Published: October 2020

The complicated nature of illness and health care delivery along with the complexity of insurance and health policy demand team-based health care. As a consequence, social workers have become engaged in team-based health care with numerous other professionals within multiple settings. Through the engagement of client-centered practice social workers experience systems that weigh the provision of direct services against macro quantitative accountability. This has resulted in newly defined roles and expectations for social workers who are well trained for both micro and macro practice. In multiple health care settings, social workers are partners in team-based models of care where patient-centered practice is a component within larger public and private delivery systems.
Rural Social Work on the US–Mexico Border
Authors: Villa Robert
Published: October 2020

The profession of social work continues to struggle with the provision of services that must be culturally sensitive to the values and traditions of the people who live in rural neighborhoods and colonias along the U.S.–Mexico border. The diverse populations that live in the border environment are self-reliant and distrust outsiders. This most salient fact creates opportunities for social work programs to adopt the person-in-the-environment approach to assessment. In so doing, the gente (people) in need of services are more apt to feel respected and will facilitate access to their families and communities. The rurality paradigm was developed to provide an understanding of the underlying ideologies of the community first and foremost. Rurality views people’s self-image as constructed by their interactions with each other and the environment. Social work practice in rural areas continues to be at the forefront of both educational and professional concerns. A paradigm shift is advocated to capture the “rurality”- defined lifestyle found along the U.S.–Mexico border of South Texas. This approach provides a more in-depth view of the social interactions necessary for competent, culturally sensitive social work practice.
Clark, Elizabeth J.
Authors: Logan Sadye L. M.
Published: October 2020

Elizabeth J. Clark (1944–2020) was an author, speaker, and hope advocate. She was a healthcare professional who worked extensively with cancer survivors, those facing life-challenging illnesses, and those struggling with loss and grief. Clark grew up in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. She earned multiple degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, the University of North Carolina, and Wartburg College. She served as chief executive officer of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) for over a decade and was a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers (ACSW), the National Academies of Practice (NAP), and the international work group on Death, Dying and Bereavement.
Stratified Mucin Producing Intraepithelial Lesion (SMILE): Report of Two Cases
Authors: Bellamkonda V , Avalos Hernandez S R , Dal Zotto V
Published: October 2020

Introduction/Objective

Stratified mucin producing intraepithelial lesion (SMILE) is an uncommon variant of adenocarcinoma in-situ (AIS), often confused with immature squamous metaplasia or high-grade intraepithelial lesion (HG-SIL). This premalignant lesion is often found in proximity to HG-SIL, AIS and invasive carcinomas. SMILE is also a precursor for Invasive Stratified Mucinous Carcinoma. As was first described in the original article, SMILE lesions are considered derived from the reserve cells at the transformation zone where HPV infections lead to varied phenotypes.

Methods

Two cases of SMILE were collected from our files. A 31-year-old female with a previous abnormal Pap smear result. She underwent cervical biopsy and subsequent LEEP.The second patient, a 26-year-old female, underwent a cervical biopsy after an abnormal Pap smear.

Results

Histologically, stratified cells with presence of conspicuous mucin production with abundant cytoplasm separating cells in mid and lower layer of epithelium accompanied with conspicuous spacing of nuclei in the lower to middle epithelial layer are seen. Additionally, there is nuclear pleomorphism with absence of gland formation.

Mucicarmine stain was performed and showed positive staining in mucin producing dysplastic cells throughout the epithelium. Immunoperoxidase stains demonstrated positivity for p16 (nuclear and cytoplasmic) and p63 in the basal cells. The Ki67 proliferation index was high (approximately 90%). These results supported the diagnostic interpretation of SMILE.

Conclusion

SMILE is a rare variant of glandular precursor lesion in the cervix. It is frequently associated with HG-SIL and/or AIS, but may rarely appear as an isolated finding. The differential diagnosis include adenocarcinoma in-situ, atypical immature squamous metaplasia and squamous intraepithelial lesion. Since these lesions are cervical glandular intraepithelial neoplasms, the morphologic recognition of a SMILE in a biopsy is important for patient follow up, particularly in cases were only squamous intraepithelial lesion is present in the sample.
Primary Pulmonary NUT Carcinoma with NSD3-NUTM1 Fusion
Authors: Khan J , Whaley R , Cheng L
Published: October 2020

Casestudy: NUT carcinoma is a rare poorly differentiated carcinoma that is highly aggressive and resistant to multiple treatment modalities. It is estimated to represent 0.6% of non-glandular lung carcinomas. The undifferentiated morphology presents a challenge in arriving at the correct diagnosis, especially on biopsy specimens. Since its original description in 2004, the demographics are shifting to include older individuals and non-midline structures due to the broader availability of ancillary studies. Classically, NUT carcinoma harbors a t(15;19)(q14;p13.1) resulting in the BRD4- NUTM1 fusion gene while other fusion partners are rare. We present a case of primary pulmonary NUT carcinoma with a NSD3-NUTM1 (WHSC1L1-NUTM1) fusion in a 78-year-old male. The patient was lifelong nonsmoker with no significant past medical history who presented with abdominal pain. Imaging revealed 1.4 cm nodule in the right lower lobe. Subsequent biopsy revealed a poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma. The neoplastic cells expressed positivity for p40 while lacking expression of TTF1, CK7, CK20, and chromogranin. Resection and lymph node dissection revealed a highly cellular neoplasm composed of epithelioid cells with variable amounts of faintly eosinophilic cytoplasm. Focal keratinization was apparent. The nuclei were plump, vesicular, and fairly uniform with variably prominent nucleoli. Metastatic disease was present in 5 of 5 mediastinal lymph nodes. Adjuvant chemotherapy was planned and next generation sequencing was performed. A NSD3-NUTM1 (WHSC1L1-NUTM1) fusion was discovered and was followed with NUT immunohistochemistry which displayed the characteristic speckled nuclear pattern. Thus refining the original diagnosis to NUT carcinoma. Chemotherapy consisted of cisplatin- gemcitabine and carboplatin-gemcitabine. At last follow-up (7 months) he is alive with no evidence of disease. This case highlights the importance of familiarity with NUT carcinoma and including this rare disease in the differential diagnosis in patients who are lifelong nonsmokers with poorly differentiated lung carcinomas.
Should CD138 Immunohistochemistry be Standard Recommended Practice for Bone Marrow Evaluation of Plasma Cell Neoplasms?
Authors: Vijayanarayanan A , Inamdar K , Menon M , Kuriakose P
Published: October 2020

Introduction/Objective

Myeloma diagnosis by a pathologist requires 10% plasma cells (PC) or a biopsy proven plasmacytoma in addition to myeloma defining events. PC% > 60% is a biomarker of malignancy under this definition. WHO allows for assesment of plasma cell percentage either by aspirate count or by CD138 immunohistochemistry (IHC). There is lack of consensus on aspirate smear adequacy for PC% estimation. Uneven distribution of plasma cells, hemodilution and/or patchy infiltration can lead to gross underestimation. We compared PC% by aspirate count and CD138 IHC and established corelation with serum protein electrophoresis (SPEP) values.

Methods

67 myeloma cases were included after excluding cases with suboptimal or inadequate aspirate smears. Two hematopathologists evaluated the diagnostic marrow (therapy naive) for PC% by aspirate count and CD138 IHC on biopsy/clot section. Corresponding SPEP and Free light chain (FLC) values were obtained. Correlation coefficent was calculated using Pearson correlation coefficient (GraphPad Prism).

Results

The Ig subtypes included IgG (41/67) and IgA (17/67). 12 cases had available FLC values. Both average and median PC% by CD138 IHC was considerably higher (50%, 52%) compared to aspirate count (29%, 21%). However, PC% by aspirate smear count and CD138 IHC demonstrated a significant linear correlation (r=0.71, p60% by CD138 (and not by aspirate count).

Conclusion

CD138 IHC based PC% is consistently higher, nevertheless, statistically significant linear corelation is observed between aspirate count PC% and CD138 IHC. A significant linear correlation is observed between CD138 IHC and SPEP (IgG and IgA), however, no such correlation is observed with aspirate count. More cases were diagnosed as myeloma (11%) and higher propotion of cases (35%) had biomarker of malignancy i.e. PC% >60% by CD138 IHC. Based on these findings, we propose estimation of PC% by CD138 immunostain be a recommended standard practice for better clinicopathologic and biologic correlation.
Error Reduction in Specimen Processing of Irretrievable Body Fluids
Authors: Gannon V , Albright T , Wells T , Cahak C , Harrington A M , Buchan B , Ledeboer N , Kloc W
Published: October 2020

Introduction/Objective

A lack of standardized processes for laboratory handling of irretrievable body fluid specimens, such as cerebrospinal fluid, serous fluids, synovial fluids, and aspirates, can result in failures that put the patient at risk by delaying testing results and/or requiring specimen recollection. We noted increased patient safety issues with irretrievable specimens in our laboratory and implemented a process improvement plan to mitigate patient harm.

Herein, we report our findings of this intervention.

Methods

A task force was organized with wide representation across the laboratory to design a new workflow for irretrievable specimens. Hospital Patient Safety Reporting data was used to identify flaws in the pre-analytical processes pre-intervention and to monitor effectiveness of process change, post-intervention. Our intervention consisted of developing a standardized pre-analytical process for both technical and non-technical staff that could be enforced through consistent and proper training, with well-defined responsibilities for each department involved including specimen processing, microbiology, hematology, and chemistry. Our process included a centralized sterile processing location within the Micro department as well as a standardized sample log in and sample distribution process that incorporated a chain of custody form.

Results

Pre-intervention, we had 23 patient safety reports during a 3-month period (5-10/month; average 8/month) on irretrievable specimens; post-intervention, we had 9 patient safety reports over a 5-month period (0-4/month; average 2/month). Pre-intervention, failures identified included inconsistent workflows and training among staff, the absence of established protocols, and inadequate communication. Post-intervention, failures were noted due to improper and inconsistent training (n=4) or deviation from the established procedure by staff members. These failures were investigated and addressed through retraining or corrective actions as needed.

Conclusion

Our data shows that the implementation of a standardized process within the laboratory significantly decreases patient safety events by improving testing turn-around-times and quality of results and by preventing the need for specimen recollections.