bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of carinata meal or cottonseed meal as protein sources in silage-based diets on behavior, nutrient digestibility, and performance in backgrounding beef heifers
Authors: Tarnonsky Federico , Vargas Martinez Juan , Maderal Araceli , Heredia Daniella , Fernandez-Marenchino Ignacio , Cuervo Wilmer , Podversich Federico , Schulmeister Tessa M , Chebel Ricardo C , Gonella-Diaza Angela , DiLorenzo Nicolas
Published: February 2023

Changing climatic conditions are imposing risks and diminishing yields in agriculture. Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) silage is a feasible option for backgrounding beef cattle in terms of economic risk management and animal productivity when compared with corn (Zea mays) silage, due to its drought adaptability. Similarly, Brassica carinata meal has proven to be a viable alternative as a protein supplement in forage-based beef cattle systems, when included at 10% of the diet dry matter (DM). However, research is scarce regarding its inclusion in silage-based diets for backgrounding animals. The objective of this trial was to compare a processor-chopped sorghum silage (SS) against a typical corn silage (CS) in a digestibility and performance trial while supplementing two protein sources; one traditionally used like cottonseed meal (CSM) and one novel like B. carinata meal (BCM). A total of 84 Angus crossbred heifers (307 ± 33 kg BW) were evaluated in a randomized block design with a 2 × 2 factorial treatment arrangement with type of silage and protein source as factors. Diets were fed ad libitum, consisting of 89% silage source plus 10% protein source, and 1% mineral inclusion on DM basis. The experimental period consisted of 14 d of adaptation followed by 5 d of apparent total tract digestibility measurements and 56 d of animal performance and intake behavior measurements. Heifers fed SS showed greater number of daily meals but decreased meal sizes (P ≤ 0.05), not differing in meal length (P > 0.10) when compared with CS. Dry matter and organic matter (OM) digestibility showed a silage type × protein source interaction (P ≤ 0.01), where in CS diets, OM tended to be more digestible with CSM vs. BCM, and it did not differ between protein sources in SS based diets. There was an effect of protein (P ≤ 0.01) on ADF digestibility, where CSM was greater than BCM. No effect of treatment was observed (P ≥ 0.10) on DM intake. Average daily gain (ADG) and gain-to-feed ratio were greater for CS than SS (P ≤ 0.01) regardless of protein source. Although heifers fed CS had greater feed efficiency and digestibility, SS can still be considered a viable option for backgrounding beef heifers, obtaining adequate ADG rates of 0.945 kg/d. Lastly, BCM did not differ from CSM in terms of feed efficiency and animal performance, proving to be a viable alternative protein source in silage-based diets.
Glucose-induced enhanced anti-oxidant activity inhibits apoptosis in goose fatty liver
Authors: Sun Qingyun , Dai Erpeng , Chen Meng , Zhang Jinqi , Mu Ji’an , Liu Long , Geng Tuoyu , Gong Daoqing , Zhang Yanjun , Zhao Minmeng
Published: February 2023

The development of mammalian nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is associated with oxidative stress, reduced mitochondrial function, and increased apoptosis in hepatocytes; however, the expressions of mitochondria-related genes are elevated in goose fatty liver, suggesting that there may be a unique protective mechanism in goose fatty liver. The aim of the study was to investigate this protective mechanism in terms of anti-oxidant capacity. Our data showed no substantial differences in the mRNA expression levels of the apoptosis-related genes including B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2), BCL2-associated X (Bax), cysteinyl aspartate-specific proteinase-3 (Caspase-3), and cysteinyl aspartate-specific proteinase-9 (Caspase-9) in the livers of the control and overfeeding Lander geese groups. The protein expression levels of Caspase-3 and cleaved Caspase-9 were not markedly different between the groups. Compared with the control group, malondialdehyde content was significantly lower (P < 0.01), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activity, glutathione (GSH) content, and mitochondrial membrane potential levels were higher (P < 0.01) in the overfeeding group. The mRNA expression levels of the anti-oxidant genes superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1), glutathione peroxidase 1 (GPX1), and glutathione peroxidase 2 (GPX2) were increased in goose primary hepatocytes after 40 mM and 60 mM glucose treatment. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels were significantly reduced (P < 0.01), whereas the mitochondrial membrane potential was maintained at normal levels. The mRNA expression levels of the apoptosis-related genes Bcl-2, Bax, and Caspase-3 were not substantial. There were no significant differences in the expression levels of Caspase-3 and cleaved Caspase-9 proteins. In conclusion, glucose-induced enhanced anti-oxidant capacity may help protect the function of mitochondria and inhibit the occurrence of apoptosis in goose fatty liver.
Critical Market Tipping Points for High-Grade White Oak Inventory Decline in the Central Hardwood Region of the United States
Authors: Dhungel Gaurav , Rossi David , Henderson Jesse D , Abt Robert C , Sheffield Ray , Baker Justin
Published: February 2023

This study expands the spatial scope of the Subregional Timber Supply (SRTS) model to include states in the central hardwood region and examine critical market tipping points of high-grade (large diameter) white oak under a set of illustrative scheduled demand scenarios. In light of the growing concern for future white oak timber supply, we illustrate the sensitivity of future inventory tipping points to market structure and price responsiveness. Particularly, we examined the importance of market demand parameters, including growth rates for product demand and supply/demand elasticities, in influencing future inventory trajectories in different subregions over the projection horizon. Results of this study indicate that more elastic demand and more inelastic supply response concomitantly defers the time before inventory culminates. This modeling framework shows promise in examining key ecological, climatic, and economic interrelationships that will drive future resource changes.
An application of Saddlepoint approximation for period detection of stellar light observations
Authors: Derezea Efthymia , Kume Alfred , Froebrich Dirk
Published: February 2023

One of the main features of interest in analysing the light curves of stars is the underlying periodic behaviour. The corresponding observations are a complex type of time series with unequally spaced time points. The main tools for analysing these type of data rely on the periodogram-like functions constructed with a desired feature so that the peaks indicate the presence of a potential period. We explore a particular periodogram for the irregularly observed time series. We identify the potential periods by implementing the saddlepoint approximation, as a faster and more accurate alternative to the simulation based methods that are currently used. The power analysis of the testing methodology is reported together with applications using light curves from the Hunting Outbursting Young Stars citizen science project.
The Power of Cooperation: A Quantitative Analysis of the Benefit of Civilian Partnerships on the Academic Output of Military Surgeons
Authors: Fannon Elise E H , Learn Peter A , Horton John D , Latham Kerry P , Valerio Ian L
Published: February 2023

Introduction

Military–civilian partnerships are crucial to maintaining the skills of active duty surgeons and sustaining readiness. There have been no publications to date that report the quantitative effect of these partnerships on academic research. To address this question, the Hirsch indices (H-indices) of active duty surgeons with a civilian affiliation (CA) were compared to those without. As a secondary outcome, H-indices of military surgeons with and without an appointment to the Uniformed Services University (USU) were similarly compared. We hypothesized that military surgeons with a CA would have a higher H-index as compared to those without.

Materials and Methods

Rosters of active duty military surgeons were obtained confidentially through each branch consultant. H-indices were found on Scopus. Graduation dates and hospital affiliations were identified via public Doximity, LinkedIn profiles, and hospital biographies. Rosters were cross-referenced with USU appointments. Stata software was used for final analysis.

Results

Military surgeons without a civilian association have a median H-index of 2 versus 3 in those with such an affiliation (P = .0002). This pattern is also seen in average number of publications, at 3 and 5 articles (P < .0001). When further stratified by branch, Air Force surgeons have median H-indices of 2.5 and 1 with and without a CA, respectively (P = .0007). The Army surgeons follow a similar pattern, with median H-indices of 5 and 3 for those with and without affiliations, respectively (P = .0021). This significance does not hold in the Naval subgroup. Similar results are found for the secondary outcome of USU appointment, with median H-indices of 3 and 2 in those with and without CAs, respectively (P < .0001). In the multivariable negative binomial regression model, both CA and USU appointment significantly increased H-index in the overall cohort, with incidence rate ratios of 1.32 (95% CI = 1.08, 1.61) and 1.56 (95% CI = 1.28, 1.91), respectively.

Conclusion

This article provides objective evidence that there is a benefit to military–civilian partnerships on the academic output of military surgeons. These relationships should continue to be fostered and expanded.
A shared ‘vulnerability code’ underpins varying sources of DNA damage throughout paternal germline transmission in mouse
Authors: Burden Frances , Ellis Peter J I , Farré Marta
Published: February 2023

During mammalian spermatogenesis, the paternal genome is extensively remodelled via replacement of histones with protamines forming the highly compact mature sperm nucleus. Compaction occurs in post-meiotic spermatids and is accompanied by extensive double strand break (DSB) formation. We investigate the epigenomic and genomic context of mouse spermatid DSBs, identifying primary sequence motifs, secondary DNA structures and chromatin contexts associated with this damage. Consistent with previously published results we find spermatid DSBs positively associated with short tandem repeats and LINE elements. We further show spermatid DSBs preferentially occur in association with (CA)n, (NA)n and (RY)n repeats, in predicted Z-DNA, are not associated with G-quadruplexes, are preferentially found in regions of low histone mark coverage and engage the remodelling/NHEJ factor BRD4. Locations incurring DSBs in spermatids also show distinct epigenetic profiles throughout later developmental stages: regions retaining histones in mature sperm, regions susceptible to oxidative damage in mature sperm, and fragile two-cell like embryonic stem cell regions bound by ZSCAN4 all co-localise with spermatid DSBs and with each other. Our results point to a common ‘vulnerability code’ unifying several types of DNA damage occurring on the paternal genome during reproduction, potentially underpinned by torsional changes during sperm chromatin remodelling.
Toward the unknown: consciousness and pain
Authors: Ambron Richard
Published: February 2023

Studies of consciousness are hindered by the complexity of the brain, but it is possible to study the consciousness of a sensation, namely pain. Three systems are necessary to experience pain: the somatosensory system conveys information about an injury to the thalamus where an awareness of the injury but not the painfulness emerges. The thalamus distributes the information to the affective system, which modulates the intensity of the pain, and to the cognitive system that imparts attention to the pain. Imaging of patients in pain and those experiencing placebo and hypnosis-induced analgesia shows that two essential cortical circuits for pain and attention are located within the anterior cingulate cortex. The circuits are activated when a high-frequency input results in the development of a long-term potentiation (LTP) at synapses on the apical dendrites of pyramidal neurons. The LTP acts via α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) and N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, and an anterior cingulate cortex–specific type-1 adenylate cyclase is necessary for both the LTP and the pain. The apical dendrites form an extensive network such that the input from serious injuries results in the emergence of a local field potential. Using mouse models, I propose experiments designed to test the hypothesis that the local field potential is necessary and sufficient for the consciousness of pain.
Nivolumab with or without ipilimumab in pediatric patients with high-grade CNS malignancies: Safety, efficacy, biomarker, and pharmacokinetics—CheckMate 908
Authors: Dunkel Ira J , Doz François , Foreman Nicholas K , Hargrave Darren , Lassaletta Alvaro , André Nicolas , Hansford Jordan R , Hassall Tim , Eyrich Matthias , Gururangan Sridharan , Bartels Ute , Gajjar Amar , Howell Lisa , Warad Deepti , Pacius Misena , Tam Rachel , Wang Yu , Zhu Li , Cohen Kenneth
Published: February 2023

Background

Therapeutic options are limited in pediatric CNS malignancies. CheckMate 908 (NCT03130959) is an open-label, sequential-arm, phase 1b/2 study investigating nivolumab (NIVO) and NIVO + ipilimumab (IPI) in pediatric patients with high-grade CNS malignancies.

Methods

Patients (N = 166) in 5 cohorts received NIVO 3 mg/kg every 2 weeks (Q2W) or NIVO 3 mg/kg + IPI 1 mg/kg every 3 weeks (4 doses) followed by NIVO 3 mg/kg Q2W. Primary endpoints included overall survival (OS; newly diagnosed diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma [DIPG]) and progression-free survival (PFS; other recurrent/progressive or relapsed/resistant CNS cohorts). Secondary endpoints included other efficacy metrics and safety. Exploratory endpoints included pharmacokinetics and biomarker analyses.

Results

As of January 13, 2021, median OS (80% CI) was 11.7 (10.3–16.5) and 10.8 (9.1–15.8) months with NIVO and NIVO + IPI, respectively, in newly diagnosed DIPG. Median PFS (80% CI) with NIVO and NIVO + IPI was 1.7 (1.4–2.7) and 1.3 (1.2–1.5) months, respectively, in recurrent/progressive high-grade glioma; 1.4 (1.2–1.4) and 2.8 (1.5–4.5) months in relapsed/resistant medulloblastoma; and 1.4 (1.4–2.6) and 4.6 (1.4–5.4) months in relapsed/resistant ependymoma. In patients with other recurrent/progressive CNS tumors, median PFS (95% CI) was 1.2 (1.1–1.3) and 1.6 (1.3–3.5) months, respectively. Grade 3/4 treatment-related adverse-event rates were 14.1% (NIVO) and 27.2% (NIVO + IPI). NIVO and IPI first-dose trough concentrations were lower in youngest and lowest-weight patients. Baseline tumor programmed death ligand 1 expression was not associated with survival.

Conclusions

NIVO ± IPI did not demonstrate clinical benefit relative to historical data. The overall safety profiles were manageable with no new safety signals.
Molecular changes underlying decay of sensory responses and enhanced seizure propensity in peritumoral neurons
Authors: Tantillo Elena , Scalera Marta , De Santis Elisa , Meneghetti Nicolò , Cerri Chiara , Menicagli Michele , Mazzoni Alberto , Costa Mario , Mazzanti Chiara Maria , Vannini Eleonora , Caleo Matteo
Published: February 2023

Background

Glioblastoma growth impacts on the structure and physiology of peritumoral neuronal networks, altering the activity of pyramidal neurons which drives further tumor progression. It is therefore of paramount importance to identify glioma-induced changes in pyramidal neurons, since they represent a key therapeutic target.

Methods

We longitudinal monitored visual evoked potentials after the orthotopic implant of murine glioma cells into the mouse occipital cortex. With laser microdissection, we analyzed layer II-III pyramidal neurons molecular profile and with local field potentials recordings we evaluated the propensity to seizures in glioma-bearing animals with respect to control mice.

Results

We determine the time course of neuronal dysfunction of glioma-bearing mice and we identify a symptomatic stage, based on the decay of visual response. At that time point, we microdissect layer II-III pyramidal neurons and evaluate the expression of a panel of genes involved in synaptic transmission and neuronal excitability. Compared to the control group, peritumoral neurons show a decrease in the expression of the SNARE complex gene SNAP25 and the alpha1 subunit of the GABA-A receptor. No significant changes are detected in glutamatergic (ie, AMPA or NMDA receptor subunit) markers. Further reduction of GABA-A signaling by delivery of a benzodiazepine inverse agonist, DMCM (methyl-6,7-dimethoxy-4-ethyl-beta-carboline-3-carboxylate) precipitates seizures in 2 mouse models of tumor-bearing mice.

Conclusions

These studies reveal novel molecular changes that occur in the principal cells of the tumor-adjacent zone. These modifications may be therapeutically targeted to ameliorate patients’ quality of life.
Suburbanization
Authors: Lewis-McCoy R. L’Heureux , Foley Nadirah Farah
Published: February 2023

For over half a century, scholars have studied the processes by which Black people come to live in the suburbs, what they experience in those communities, and the complex interplay of race, class, and place. That scholarship, however, reveals that processes of Black suburbanization began earlier than often envisioned in the scholarly or popular imagination, reaching back to the prewar period. The study of Black suburbanization crosses disciplines, ranging from sociology to history to political science, and traverses domains, ranging from housing to education to policing and the criminal legal system. To understand the Black suburban experience, it must remain in conversation with other spatial categories like the city and the country (also known as rural areas) as well as in conversation with the suburbanizing experiences of other ethnic groups. As is often the case, what happens to Black people is both classically Americana, as well as uniquely Black. In the study of Black suburbanization, one finds a microcosm of Black life in the United States: a history of discrimination and exclusion, a contemporary landscape that is varied and resists being characterized in monolithic ways, and a consistent thread of resilience and community in the face of marginalization. This means that Black suburbanization is a topic of import not just for scholars of African American history and contemporary life, or those studying metropolitan America, but for scholars studying topics as varied as inequality, segregation, politics, education, housing, and policing. The suburbs are, in many ways, America. And as the suburbs are increasingly home to the majority of Americans, including the majority of Black Americans in the one hundred largest metropolitan areas, the study of Black suburbanization is not simply the study of one demographic group, but a window into the contemporary landscape of this country. What the suburbs meant in 1970 is not what they mean in the 2020s, but the strands of the past that feed the present will also shape the future. An emerging set of conversations on immigration, real estate practices, legal and policy interventions is coming into critical focus now. Importantly, in the last twenty years scholarship that centers the voices of Black residents in suburbia and scholarship by Black scholars is now just beginning to emerge in reshaping the study of suburbs and the rich tapestry of life that exists within it. In this entry, we synthesize the literature on Black suburbanization as a means of underscoring the importance of the suburbs and establishing that understanding Black suburban experiences—which have too often been erased from the suburban narrative—is central to understanding this quintessentially American landscape.
LGBTIQ Hermeneutics
Authors: Hoke Jimmy
Published: February 2023

LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics cover an umbrella of approaches to biblical literature, its historical contexts, its reception, and its ongoing uses today. These approaches take root around LGBTIA2Q+ folks—i.e., people who identify as lesbian, gay, bi, trans, intersex, asexual/ace, two-spirit, and queer, with the plus indicating the many other queer and trans identities that exist beyond this acronym (e.g., pansexual, nonbinary). LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics include readings by LGBTIA2Q+-identified scholars who read biblical texts from explicitly queer/trans perspectives; readings that analyze LGBTIA2Q+ presence in biblical literature and texts that support queer/transphobic oppressions; considerations of the construction of gender and sexuality in ancient texts and contexts; and readings that draw from wider queer and trans studies to bring their ideas into biblical studies. LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics began entering the field in recognizable quantity in the mid-1990s, in the aftermath of LGBTIA2Q+ activism during the height the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the coining (by Teresa De Lauretis in 1990) and subsequent explosion of “queer theory” as a field of inquiry. LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics have been a recognized unit of the Society of Biblical Literature since 2006, with intersex identity being added to the title in 2015. Although they are still often dismissed within the norms of biblical studies, LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics have, since 2000, grown expansive in their contributions to the field. LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics can be categorized under the umbrella of ideological methods that critically reflect on the identity and social location of the scholar and insist upon centering marginalized and minoritized perspectives. LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics are impossible without—and, indeed, inseparable from—feminist, postcolonial, African and African American, womanist, Asian and Asian American, Latino/a, Islands and Islanders, and disability hermeneutics. LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics blur with studies of gender and sexuality in the Bible. While many LGBTI/Queer scholars frame their work within this broader study, this bibliography emphasizes scholarship that explicitly names its perspective as queer, trans, and/or rooted in LGBTIA2Q+ politics or identities. This does not deny the importance of the study of sexuality and gender in the Bible/biblical world to LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics, but it is important to acknowledge how explicitly LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutical work is more likely to be dismissed. The scholarship that falls under this umbrella vastly exceeds this overview’s attempt to define LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics, much like all queerness inherently exceeds any attempt to contain it. Researchers are encouraged to use this overview to orient them to the resources that follow—in the hope that, as they engage the scholarship, they will reorient it from their own queer and trans perspectives.
Philosophy of Childhood
Authors: Mullin Amy
Published: February 2023

In this entry, questions raised by pregnancy, abortion, and assisted reproductive technologies are set aside. A child is born. What philosophical questions and issues now arise? After a brief account of the historical context in which philosophical discussion of children and childhood emerged, works are grouped by the questions they seek to answer. Answers to these questions of course overlap. The questions include: What is the moral status of children and do children have full moral status? If so, is this possessed by all children? What kinds of rights and responsibilities do children have and what grounds them? What differentiates childhood from adulthood and are childhood and adulthood life stages of comparable value? Are there goods that make a childhood go well apart from its serving as adequate preparation for adulthood? How are parental rights and responsibilities acquired and what serves as the moral ground for them? What responsibilities do parents, nonparents, and the state have for children’s care? How suddenly or gradually should children acquire the rights and responsibilities of adults and when should their autonomy be respected? Answers to these questions lead to a host of difficult bioethical questions about children’s health and medical decision-making involving children. Some of the major bioethical topics connected to children’s health are outlined. Finally, most philosophical discussion of children focuses on the value of children’s lives to children and their parents. Another set of important works ask about broader social costs and benefits associated with children.
British Colonialism and Imperialism
Authors: Banerjee Sandeep , Majumder Atreyee
Published: February 2023

The advent of British colonialism in Bengal in 1757 and its spread to other parts of South Asia during the latter half of the eighteenth century structured indigenous society in significant ways. The institution of individual property rights since the 1790s reshaped the class structure of Indian society in decisive ways leading to the rise of propertied classes in Bengal and beyond. At this time the British also began codifying indigenous religious practices to develop a legal framework to rule over their Indian subjects. This inaugurated a process that drew in a wide cast of actors and groups ranging from colonial administrators to orientalist scholars and Hindu (and Muslim) reformers and revivalists as well as Christian missionaries. The collaboration and contestation between these groups gave shape to the modern identity of Hinduism. This process saw the emergence of new Hindu religious groups and sects such as the Brahmo Samaj and the Ramakrishna Mission while also seeing the recoding of earlier religious traditions such as Gaudiya Vaishnavism and Tantra. It also led to the reconfiguration of the identities and status of older Hindu divinities and festivals while engendering a new deity of the nation: Bharat Mata or Mother India. These reconfigurations went hand in hand with the recasting, at times violently, of the earlier fuzzy religious identities into more identifiable Hindu (and Muslim) subjects that came to define—and continues to define—South Asian polity and society. The nexus of colonialism and Hinduism also shaped gender and caste identities in British India in decisive ways. Indian women were projected as victims of their own societies who required protection. Literary productions emerging from colonial South Asia bear witness to this complex and contested process of the Indo-British colonial encounter and provided a locus for the imagination and contestation of Hindu tradition and its social ramifications. Hinduism also became a key conceptual resource for anticolonial politics and the articulation of a putative nationalism whose conception ranged from the inclusive to the parochially sectarian.
Captain John Smith
Authors: Appelbaum Robert
Published: February 2023

Soldier of fortune, colonist, colonialist, explorer, cartographer, ethnologist, reporter, and raconteur, Captain John Smith (b. 1580–d. 1631) has always loomed large in the early history of the English colonies in North America. He was the son of a yeoman farmer in Lincolnshire and educated at local grammar schools. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a local merchant, but on the death of his father, when he was just sixteen, Smith quit the apprenticeship in search of adventure. He traveled in Europe and fought on the side of Protestant rebels in the Low Countries against the Spanish crown. After more travel and studies in warcraft, he joined the Imperial Army in Vienna in its struggle against the Ottoman Empire. Named a captain for his efforts and hence something of a gentleman, he was eventually taken captive by Ottoman forces and sold into slavery. Killing one of his minders and escaping, he traveled through eastern and central Europe as well as northern Africa and then returned to England, where he found himself attracted to colonialist circles in London. At the age of twenty-six, he was brought on board with the Virginia Company and sailed with its first expedition, at the end of 1606, to colonize the area of the Chesapeake Bay. He landed with the expedition in 1607 on a bank of what the expedition called the James River, where the town of what was first called James Fort was established. As a member of the ruling council, and eventually president of the colony, Smith led expeditions of exploration, trade, and armed confrontation through the Chesapeake constellation of river settlements, acquiring much-needed food for the settlers, as well as knowledge of the environment and the natives who inhabited it. In 1609 he was injured in a gunpowder explosion and took ship to England to heal. He was never to return to Virginia, but he made something of a career as a writer about Jamestown and the North American Eastern Seaboard. In 1614 and 1615 he went on expeditions to explore the region that he was the first to name New England, the second expedition aborting because of interference by French pirates. In the years that followed, unable to sail again to New England to complete his studies and help colonize it, he published a series of books on colonizing North America and on seamanship, as well as an autobiography. He was not only a central figure in the colonization of North America; he was also a new kind of man, representing in advance a new North American personality and ideology.
Learning Analytics in Higher Education
Authors: Stokes Jennifer , Fudge Anthea
Published: February 2023

In the 2010s, growth of information and communication technologies and the emergence of big data led to the possibility of meaningful analysis of data at scale. University student interactions were channeled through learning management systems (LMS) or virtual learning environments (VLEs), so researchers were able to collect clickstream data and observe patterns of use which were previously invisible or non-existent. Leading thinkers saw the potential for learning analytics and led the development of this distinct field, separating away from other data-informed approaches, such as electronic data mining and academic analytics. The field was strengthened through the development of the Society of Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR). SoLAR publish the Journal of Learning Analytics and established leading conferences to build a worldwide network of disciplinary expertise. Thought leaders from Australia, Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States led the global movement to implement learning analytics. Initially, learning analytics focused on the potential for using data-driven decision-making to inform actionable insights or interventions, which could improve student learning outcomes. As data reveals information not previously accessible, ensuring ethical approaches and respecting student privacy have been consistent themes. Data collection has grown to be multimodal in nature and analytic approaches have continued to develop, expanding to include social and networked analyses, cluster analyses, and others. Attention was directed to the way students and instructors visualize and communicate findings from the wealth of data. There is a continued focus on sense-making via visual displays to ensure information is effectively interpreted and understood. Tools and applications for implementing interventions were often initially tested in siloed or individual courses. The field is now expanding to bring insights and positive findings from initial learner support to inform a broader understanding of how and in what way these tools specifically support learners through this complex, situational, and social process across institutions worldwide. Researchers argue for greater pedagogical and theoretical links to ensure scalability and support for learners and educators alike. The most effective use of these technologies combines established learning theories and learning design with analytics to generate useful and actionable insights. The ideal is to support student success through personalized learning. However, the significant potential for improving student learning outcomes can only be achieved through broad stakeholder engagement. To support widespread adoption by educators and implementation at an institutional-level, policy frameworks such as the SHEILA framework and DELICATE checklist have been developed.
Anti-Asian Racism
Authors: Lim Rachel , Fernández de Lara Harada Jessica
Published: February 2023

Race and racism have deeply shaped social, political, and cultural hierarchies of belonging across different colonial and national contexts in Latin America and the Caribbean, as a growing scholarship on Black, Indigenous, and Asian communities has demonstrated. This bibliography features interdisciplinary scholarship on the historical and contemporary experiences of Asians in the Americas, which has shown that anti-Asian racism is inseparable from the development of national racial ideologies, immigration regimes, and cultural citizenship throughout the region. The works included here also demonstrate how these overlapping national ideologies, racial regimes, and bureaucratic structures have coalesced in inter-imperial contestations and US imperialism in the Americas and Asia. These longue durée processes have shaped the positions, life experiences, and responses of people of Asian descent at different periods throughout the region. In the face of systemic racism, particularly expressions of xenophobia, prejudice, and violence, Asian migrants and their descendants have negotiated transnational and diasporic homeland connections as well as citizenship and belonging in their new homes. This bibliography also includes sections on transpacific and hemispheric approaches to anti-Asian racism that call attention to racism and white supremacy, transnational and overlapping racial formations, and migrant itineraries. These works also expose the limits of the often-assumed boundedness of Latin America as a region as well as of ethnic identities and communities. Next, it charts comparative, relational, and panethnic approaches to Asian racialization that emphasize the intersections between Asian migrants and their descendants and other minoritarian groups, recognizing that singling out groups may elide the co-constitution of their historical experiences under similar racial structures—mestizaje, racial hybridity, and racial democracy among them. It also includes sections on racial formations and mobilizations in relation to specific Asian ethnoracial minorities in a variety of national settings. These works rectify the invisibility and erasure of Asian migrants in the region by documenting their historical experiences, present communities, and ongoing contributions, providing an insight into the histories, life experiences, and responses of these groups to racism and anti-racism.
Structural Borrowing
Authors: Renner Vincent
Published: February 2023

The concept of structural borrowing stands in a binary contrast to that of matter borrowing, which entails the copying of any concrete linguistic element, which prototypically corresponds to the borrowing of lexical units, but also comprises that of function words, bound morphemes, and phonemes. In contrast, structural borrowing can thus be explained as the copying of any abstract linguistic element (i.e., pattern) from one language to another. A crucial difference between the two types of borrowing is that matter borrowing is overt and thus, usually, easily identifiable, while structural borrowing is covert, because of its abstract nature, and this abstractness necessarily leads to broadening the definition of the concept so as to include all cases of significant contact-induced change in frequency of use of an abstract pattern. The dichotomy between matter and structural borrowing has been widely discussed in the contact linguistics literature and is expressed through a variety of oppositive terms including matter v. pattern replication, MAT v. PAT borrowing, global v. selective copying, direct v. indirect diffusion, and direct v. indirect transfer. This bibliography starts with a select number of suggested readings that offer general overviews of the field of linguistic borrowing and contact studies, and then, more narrowly, of structural borrowing. The subsequent sections introduce the various linguistic domains in which structural borrowing can be found. Each of them includes both a general overview of structural borrowing in the given domain and a select number of exemplary case studies. For a broader view of linguistic borrowing, readers may also consult the Oxford Bibliographies in Linguistics articles “Loanwords” and “Language Contact.”
Prehistoric Warfare
Authors: Fry Douglas P. , Souillac Geneviève
Published: February 2023

What are the bioarchaeological lines of evidence for prehistoric war? Under what conditions does war originate? How old is war? Does prehistoric war relate to social organization and other factors such as demography and resource use? What are the major debates and controversies in the study of prehistoric war? Archaeology provides the main sources of data on prehistoric war, since, by definition, prehistory precedes written records. War, as opposed to individual aggression, involves intergroup conflict and can be defined as relatively impersonal lethal aggression between communities. Regarding archaeological evidence, skeletal remains reflect trauma and violent death, mutilations, trophy-taking, scalping, and so on. Archaeologists deduce warfare, or at least the fear of attack, from fortifications and settlements located in defendable places. Other indicators of prehistoric war include specialized weapons or an abundance of projectile points suggestive of an attack. War can be reflected in rock art, although sometimes ambiguously, and other artistic media. The most clear-cut indication of war comes from multiple lines of archaeological evidence. When a complete archaeological record shows absolutely no evidence of war, then war probably was absent. The worldwide archaeological record shows that war originated multiple times in distinct locations during the Holocene, which began 11,000 Before Present (BP). For example, transitions from warlessness to warfare occurred at 2,000 BP in Northwest Alaska, by about 3,500 BP in the Valley of Oaxaca, and at 9500 BP in parts of the Near East. Overall increases in human population and higher population densities are associated with the origins of war as is the transition from nomadic to sedentary lifestyles. Increasing population and sedentism require more intensive food acquisition. War is likely to originate along with a host of changes occurring along a trajectory toward settled life, complexification in social organization, changes in subsistence methods, and population increases. Such major shifts are reflected in archaeological sequences from different parts of the globe that begin with no evidence of warfare during mobile forager periods followed by war originating and then often intensifying over time along with complexification, typically via the intensified harvesting of aquatic resources or the development of farming. Despite the lack of evidence for pre-Holocene war and the numerous Holocene sequences showing transitions from warlessness to war, some writers continue to assert that warfare is millions of years old. Such an assertion usually takes two directions. The first is that both chimpanzees and humans make war. The second is the statement that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Such a statement is not only unfalsifiable but also ignores what is known from archaeology about how war originates. Whether war is recent or ancient remains a lively debated topic.
Zhang Yimou
Authors: Larson Wendy
Published: February 2023

One of the most famous film and controversial directors in China, Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 (b. 1951– ) has directed over twenty feature films, beginning with the award-winning Red Sorghum (Hong gaoliang 红高粱) in 1987. Following the Cultural Revolution, Zhang, at twenty-seven, was too old to enter the newly reopened Beijing Film Academy, but, after showing admissions officials his photography portfolio, he was allowed to begin his formal studies. He graduated with the class of 1982, known as the Fifth Generation, and started his career as a cinematographer, developing a striking aesthetic style. Zhang worked as the director of photography in Zhang Junzhao’s 张军钊One and Eight (Yige he bage 一个和八个 1983), a film that broke through the melodrama and socialist realism or revolutionary romanticism of the past. He also worked as cinematographer on Chen Kaige’s 1984 film Yellow Earth (Huang tudi 黄土地), which, after attracting considerable attention in Hong Kong and Japan, was shown in art cinema houses in Europe and the United States and gave notice that a new kind of filmmaking was emerging in China. Zhang’s films have won several prizes and have been nominated for Academy Awards. His early films, including Red Sorghum, Judou (Judou 1990), Raise the Red Lantern (Dahong denglong gaogao gua 大红灯笼高高挂 1991), The Story of Qiuju (Qiuju da guansi 秋菊打官司, 1992), and To Live (Huozhe, 1994), have been noted for their strong female protagonists (all played by Gong Li 巩俐 [b. 1965– ), but also criticized for their stark display of cruel and sometimes unrealistic traditional customs. Zhang’s later work includes Hero (Yingxiong 英雄 2002), which became an international hit while also eliciting criticism for pandering to the authoritarian government. After directing several other films, in 2016, Zhang came out with The Great Wall (Changcheng 长城), which was a Chinese and American co-production. Although Wall received mediocre reviews, martial arts film Shadow (Ying) was widely admired. In 2021, Zhang directed Cliff Walkers (Xuanya zhishang悬崖之上), a historical spy thriller, which was followed by Sniper (Jujishou狙击手), co-directed by Zhang and his daughter Zhang Mo 张末 (1983– ), in 2022. Zhang also directed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and he has produced or directed several other short films or live productions.
James Agee
Authors: Millichap Joseph
Published: February 2023

The life of James Agee (b. 1909–d. 1955) spanned the first half of the twentieth century, so that his profuse and varied works engaged international modernism in many ways that evolved as regional and national responses to it. Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Agee’s childhood was suddenly altered at the age of six by the unexpected death of his father in 1916. His mother later moved her young family to Sewanee, Tennessee, where he was enrolled in an Anglican boarding school. After his mother remarried, Agee was sent north to Phillips Exeter Academy in 1925 to prepare for Harvard, where he was enrolled in 1928. Although Agee’s academic progress was unremarkable, his literary development thrived as editor of the Harvard Advocate. After graduation in 1932, Agee moved to New York and took a writing post at the newly launched Fortune magazine. The young writer’s first book was Permit Me Voyage (1934), a volume in the Yale Younger Poets Series. In 1936 an assignment at Fortune led him to the cotton belt of Alabama in the company of photographer Walker Evans, a sojourn that slowly evolved into their hybrid classic, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). The book evoked little response on publication, and Agee returned to journalism, mostly book and film reviewing at Time. He faced a number of personal and professional challenges during the war years and after, including health problems and two divorces, as well as career dead ends and frustrated literary ambitions. Over these decades, Agee’s sporadic counseling sessions led him into autobiographical fiction, one aspect of which was his short novel The Morning Watch (1951). In later life, Agee turned toward film writing, working on several screenplays, notably The African Queen (1951), and spending more time in California than New York. Years of self-neglect finally caught up with him, however, and Agee died of a heart attack in 1955. At his death, all three of his books were out of print, and he enjoyed only a modest reputation as a writer about film. Appreciation of his career and canon soon developed in the second half of the century, however, starting with the posthumous publication of his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, A Death in the Family (1957). A second edition of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men followed in 1960, and appreciation of Agee’s work grew with the publication of his collected works and innovative criticism. By his centennial in 2009, Agee was generally recognized as a significant figure in American letters during the first half of the twentieth century.
Phenotypic Plasticity
Authors: Travis Joseph
Published: February 2023

Phenotypic plasticity is the capacity of a single genotype to produce a variety of phenotypes under different environmental conditions. The response of a genotype to a particular environmental factor is called its “norm of reaction.” Some norms of reaction reflect unavoidable consequences of adverse situations, like the progressive stunting of fish when developing at progressively higher densities. Others reflect the influence of physical or chemical factors in an organism’s environment, like the slowing of development in ectothermic animals as temperatures decrease. Many responses to an environmental stimulus enhance fitness, like the production of toxic chemicals in the leaves of some plants when attacked by herbivores. Plasticity takes many forms. Some plasticity is reversible, like the remodeling of muscle and bone in vertebrates in response to physical stress or the ability of an animal to learn and, in some cases, unlearn. Irreversible plasticity is reflected in developmental transitions like the response of flowering time to temperature in plants. For over a century, biologists have devoted enormous effort to understanding plasticity. Some of the earliest studies focused on how much phenotypic variation among populations might be due to plasticity. The widespread prevalence of plasticity led to asking whether observed norms of reaction, characteristic of particular populations, were the signature of natural selection in a variable environment. A classic case study was the demonstration that water fleas produce a thicker carapace, often with long projections, when they develop in the presence of a predator, the larvae of the phantom midge. The thickened carapace and its projections protect the water flea from predation by midges. In the absence of midges, the water fleas do not develop the thickened carapace. The theory for how norms of reaction could evolve through natural selection and the tests of these theories in a staggering array of organisms has produced an enormous literature. In recent years, ecologists have examined the role of plasticity in helping organisms survive and persist in stressful conditions and how it facilitates the establishment and expansion of populations in novel environments. Evolutionary biologists have asked when plasticity will promote or preclude further evolutionary change. The recognition that norms of reaction could reach across generations via maternal effects opened an enormous opportunity for new research. The search for the mechanistic bases of norms of reaction—that is, their genetic control—has led to the integration of epigenetics into ecology and evolutionary biology.