bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Aggañña Sutta and the Theravāda Buddhist Tradition
Authors: Walton Matthew J.
Published: December 2019

This chapter looks at two different interpretations of the Theravāda Buddhist Aggañña Sutta that argue for notably different models of leftist politics. Aung San, writing as he struggled to establish an independent socialist government in Burma in the middle of the twentieth century, saw in this story of the first elected leader a radical critique of property and capitalism. By contrast, the Thai monk Buddhadāsa was writing in the turbulent 1970s, when he needed to distinguish himself from communist ideas and re-establish the legitimacy of a moral individual as leader. A comparison of their accounts illustrates the complex ways in which Buddhism can be and has been figured as a political philosophy in the modern era.
Liberalisms in India
Authors: Bajpai Rochana
Published: December 2019

Liberal ideas in India are relatively understudied as liberalism, although these have been examined as part of other ideologies, such as nationalism, socialism, and secularism.This chapter offers an exploratory sketch of strands of liberalism in India in theory and practice. Arguing that liberal ideas have historically had a significant presence in the Indian polity, I distinguish three strands of liberalism that have been influential in nineteenth- and twentieth-century India: colonial, nationalist, and radical. Whereas politically, these traditions have been antagonistic, in terms of ideology, all share a strong belief in the state as the principal agent of liberal reform and an acceptance of group-differentiated rights. This in turn has meant that strong liberalism remains weakly articulated in India: the need for protecting individuals from state power has rarely been elaborated. Its Indian itineraries, however, serve also as a reminder of the limits of liberalism and the significance of other moral horizons for the pursuit of individual freedom.
Eastern European Political Thought as a Conceptual Tool
Authors: Popescu Delia
Published: December 2019

The canon of political theory rarely deals with Eastern European political thought, either as a regional category or in relation to particular thinkers. The omission has to do with both the current focus on historiography and the assumptions that underlie political theory methods concerning the creation of a canon. This chapter explores how the geopolitical category of Eastern Europe has imposed a hegemonic interpretation of political thought, relegating Eastern European thinkers to a particular and subaltern niche in European studies. To illustrate the argument, the chapter briefly invokes the example of Vaclav Havel’s political thought and its reception. The discussion is meant to serve as a springboard to propose a reconsideration of both the study of political theory (and its canon) and the East–West duality as an analytical category.
Santo Domingo and the Politics of Classical Reception in the Caribbean
Authors: Padilla Peralta Dan-el
Published: December 2019

This chapter argues that studying appropriations of the classical Greco-Roman past in the cultural and political life of the Dominican Republic can be heuristically productive for the field of comparative political theory. After opening with a brief literature review of classical reception studies, the chapter then considers Hispanophone Caribbean receptions and their political valence. Next it turns to the specific case of classical reception in the Dominican Republic, focusing on the hitching of this reception to racial and antidemocratic ideologies and practices. The conclusion flags domains of classical reception in the Hispanophone Caribbean that may prove fertile for future work. Concentrating on the manifestations of classical appropriation as constitutive of Dominican identity shows that (1) the Hispanophone Caribbean and in particular the Dominican Republic is a site of dynamic disciplinary exchange between classical reception and political theory, and (2) bringing to light the imbrications of the classical past in Hispanophone settings can refine how we think about comparative political theory’s heuristic objectives and payoffs, in particular its potential for decolonizing the Greco-Roman past and that past’s reception in political theory.
History, the Hindu Right, and Subversion of Brahmanical-Hindu Political Thought
Authors: Gray Stuart
Published: December 2019

How can scholars critically engage premodern Indic traditions without falling prey to Hindu conservatism or Brahmanical-Hindu apologism? This question is pressing for Indic political theory and contemporary Indian democracy because of ethnically exclusivist, Hindu nationalist movements that have emerged in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This chapter argues that a positive answer to the question must begin by taking seriously the tremendous pluralism in India’s political and philosophical history, which requires systematically engaging with premodern source material and uncovering the internal pluralism within a longer and larger Brahmanical-Hindu tradition of political thought. The author explains how it is both possible and politically necessary to internally subvert Brahmanical-Hindu political thought, which can help diffuse essentialist and exclusivist arguments coming from the Hindu right. Locating such plurality and engaging in internal subversion can help challenge historical justifications for Indian nationalism and contribute to decolonization, thus contesting the Hindu right on its own conceptual and genealogical turf. To advance this argument, the author provides a critical reinterpretation of the infamous “Puruṣa Sūkta,” which is often viewed as the locus classicus of the modern caste system, providing a novel interpretation that challenges caste hierarchy and supplies new resources for democratic thought and practice in India.
Gender and Slavery in Islamic Political Thought
Authors: Urban Elizabeth
Published: December 2019

This chapter considers the profound impact enslaved women had on medieval Islamic political institutions and ideologies. It begins by reviewing scholarly literature on the concubine queens who ruled several Islamic polities and the wealthy courtesans who composed poetry and song in the Abbasid court. It then provides a new analysis of how enslaved women in early Islamic society indirectly shaped notions of family, lineage, and ethnicity. Particularly, it argues that enslaved women are crucial to historical debates about what it means to be an “Arab” in a heterogeneous Islamic empire. Throughout, the chapter suggests ways to read male-authored texts against the grain; it suggests expanding the notion of political thought beyond the realm of formal, theoretical treatises; and it challenges scholars to ground their understanding of Islamic political thought in Islamic texts and vocabularies themselves, instead of foisting their preconceived notions of politics onto such texts.
War without End, or, Ambedkar, Time, and Stasis
Authors: Kumar Aishwary
Published: December 2019

Under what conditions does a state of “armed neutrality” mutate from being a precarious, contingent balance of forces into becoming the foundation of a society’s moral law and order? In his revolutionary interwar treatise Annihilation of Caste, moral philosopher and constitutional theorist Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) deploys the term armed neutrality to excavate a vacillating border that cuts across generations and epistemologies, running like a self-lacerating stasis inscribed on the logic of time itself. Often in his later works, Ambedkar organizes his critique of this disciplinary truce, this spiritual “mechanism” of an armistice without amnesty—in Indian parlance, maryada or “sanction”—under the French phrase cordon sanitaire. This chapter argues that at the heart of his cosmopolitical experiments with juridical untranslatables lies Ambedkar’s rigorous “archaeology” of political cruelty. It then explores the topography of democratic judgment and nonsovereignty that emerges from Ambedkar’s archaeology, or, as he calls it, “paleontology” of epistemic militarism. Fundamental to Ambedkar’s political thought is not only a critique of temporal reason—the sacrificial cast of time—that defines stasis in its classical sense, but also a theory of the partisan whose action embodies, in its dynamic potentiality, a force without sovereignty, freedom without mastery.
Toward a Tradition of Ghanaian Political Philosophy
Authors: Odei Ajei Martin
Published: December 2019

This chapter discusses the contributions of Kwame Nkrumah, Kwasi Wiredu, William. E. Abraham, and Kwame Gyekye to the corpus of African philosophy. It elaborates their normative perspectives on three themes: the relevance of tradition to modernity, the appropriate form of democracy as means of legitimating political power in Africa, and the relative status of person and community; it also reflects on the significance of these themes in postcolonial African social and political philosophical discourse. The chapter then points out points of convergence and divergence among these individuals and how they relate with Western philosophical perspectives and argues that their work configures a coherent discourse that justifies joining them in a tradition of Ghanaian political philosophy.
A Postcolonial Critique of Comparative Political Theory
Authors: Seth Sanjay
Published: December 2019

This chapter develops a postcolonial critique of comparative political theory by engaging with its theoretical and methodological reflections on its enterprise, including how it anticipates and refutes the postcolonial critique that this chapter offers. While efforts to deparochialize political theory are welcome, the means by which this laudable aim is pursued in comparative political theory undermines the end that is sought. If the idea that there is an activity or practice called “political theory” that has been cultivated for centuries, even millennia, in “the West” is an unhelpful and misleading fiction, to extend it to include the non-West is doubly so. It is to impose a modern, Western category on thinkers, texts, and modes of writing and reflecting that it does not fit and that distorts our understanding of such traditions.
Civilization and Culture in Anticolonial and Comparative Political Theory
Authors: Klausen Jimmy Casas
Published: December 2019

This chapter interrogates the political practices and forces that constitute anticolonial thought and comparative political theory. Both anticolonial and comparative political theorists are curators or collectors of culture and civilization. However, their political projects often point in distinct, if not opposed, directions. This chapter aims to map the different conditions under which each group collects, the different strategies by which they curate, the subject positions these conditions and strategies produce, and, most important, the effects of their appropriations. It does so by way of four contrapuntal pairings: Aurobindo Ghose with Fred Dallmayr, Mohandas Gandhi with Farah Godrej, Frantz Fanon with Leigh Jenco, and Amilcar Cabral with Roxanne Euben. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the need to take seriously a politics of incommensurability as a political practice, one attuned to the constraints that enable subjectivity oriented toward minimizing (usually historically sedimented) forms of domination.
Situated Political Theory in Latin America
Authors: Gordy Katherine A.
Published: December 2019

Many Latin American theorists have addressed how and why to understand and engage with political thought produced in a different geographical and historical context and how to engage with abstract theoretical principles while also situating those principles within specific contexts. This chapter treats three particularly illustrative examples: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Simón Bolívar, and José Carlos Mariátegui. Writing in different periods and settings, and with distinct concerns, they vary in their degree of self-consciousness about and engagement with European political thought, yet all three engage with “Western” political thought strategically, selectively, and self-consciously to address localized problems and produce localized political results. Doing so showed the limits of the same European universalizing theories with which they engaged. All three thinkers illustrate the importance of situating political thought and of understanding how ideas settle in different contexts and can be put to different uses.
The Neurobiology of Pain
Authors: Fitzgerald Maria , Salter Michael W.
Published: December 2019

The influence of development and sex on pain perception has long been recognized but only recently has it become clear that this is due to specific differences in underlying pain neurobiology. This chapter summarizes the evidence for mechanistic differences in male and female pain biology and for functional changes in pain pathways through infancy, adolescence, and adulthood. It describes how both developmental age and sex determine peripheral nociception, spinal and brainstem processing, brain networks, and neuroimmune pathways in pain. Finally, the chapter discusses emerging evidence for interactions between sex and development and the importance of sex in the short- and long-term effects of early life pain.
Readings and Receptions
Authors: Haynes Stephen R.
Published: December 2019

The range of interpretations of Bonhoeffer’s life and thought continues to expand. Because he lived during dramatic times and made fateful decisions that placed him in grave danger, people inside and outside the Christian community are continually reassessing his contemporary relevance. As a way of demonstrating Bonhoeffer’s unique place in the religious imagination, this chapter explores some of the diverse and conflicting ways his legacy has been appropriated in the years since his death. Three constellations of ‘readings and receptions’ will be reviewed: the radical Bonhoeffer shaped by the secularizing theologians of the 1960s, the post-Holocaust Bonhoeffer fashioned by advocates of Jewish–Christian reconciliation, and the populist Bonhoeffer that has emerged in the second decade of the current century. Those who care about Bonhoeffer will do well to pay close attention to the ebb and flow of his reception as uninformed and politicized readings of his legacy become more common.
Bonhoeffer, South Africa, and Global Contexts
Authors: Koopman Nico
Published: December 2019

This chapter examines the reception of Bonhoeffer in global contexts by taking one such context as a detailed case study, namely South Africa. The chapter begins by examining the complex concept of ubuntu, which has been appealed to in South African ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ processes. Exploring the emphases upon the notions of solidarity, communion, unity and reconciliation which are ingredient within that influential concept, the chapter then moves to outline some of the concerns that have been levelled against this concept and its application in public theology, before suggesting how Bonhoeffer’s own relational anthropology, with its Christological and ecclesiological dimensions, might ameliorate some of these potential problems. It concludes by suggesting that Bonhoeffer’s thinking here can make a significant contribution to the development of a contemporary public theology of human dignity and rights both in South Africa and beyond.
Eschatology
Authors: Lindsay Mark
Published: December 2019

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s eschatology has received far less scholarly attention than many other aspects of his theology, and in fact has occasionally been relegated to near-insignificance for any proper understanding of his work. It is certainly the case that the theological function of eschatology changed for him during the course of his life. However, far from being simply an addendum to his writings, eschatology was deeply embedded within Bonhoeffer’s theological development. Eschatological themes made their first appearance in his academic work in a seminar paper from 1926, formed a crucial element of his catechetical instruction in early-1930s Berlin, and later provided him with a crucial hermeneutical perspective from which to view both his own final imprisonment, and the future directions of authentic ecclesial proclamation. Perhaps most strikingly, eschatology—that insistence that we must interpret our present (penultimate) circumstances from the lens of ultimate reality—was the irreplaceable foundation to Bonhoeffer’s wartime theological ethics, and to his insistence on the socio-political character of Christian discipleship.
Bonhoeffer the Preacher
Authors: Lose David J.
Published: December 2019

In addition to being a noted systematic theologian, ethicist, and leader of the Confessing Church, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was also a preacher. In fact, at the centre of all his theological work stands his unfaltering conviction that the preached Word is the primary expression of the Gospel and the place where contemporary believers encounter their living Lord. Bonhoeffer’s homiletic revolves around the preacher’s role of listening attentively to the witness of Scripture in order to accompany the living Word into the congregation so it may meet people where they are, sustain them in their present circumstances, and form them into the living Body of Christ in order to respond to the current needs of the world.
The Reality of Christian Ethics
Authors: Lovin Robin
Published: December 2019

Reality is a central idea in Bonhoeffer’s Ethics. Ethics must deal with real human problems and choices. Bonhoeffer learned this as a participant in the German resistance to Hitler, but he believed the lesson applies to all conditions of modern life. People seek concrete direction for their choices and find abstract ethics irrelevant. The contrast between concrete reality and abstraction found in the philosophy of Hegel thus provided an important resource for Bonhoeffer’s theological understanding of Jesus Christ as the reality of God in human experience. Because we cannot separate God from the world or understand either apart from Christ, responsible action is always a venture undertaken on behalf of others, and it involves a risk of guilt. Despite the uncertainty that accompanies all responsible action, the four ‘divine mandates’ of church, family, culture, and government provide contexts in which it is possible to hear the concrete commandment of God.
God
Authors: Ziegler Philip G.
Published: December 2019

In the field of theology proper, God’s graciousness is Bonhoeffer’s preoccupying theological concern. Who and what we see when we ‘see the God of the Bible’ is, Bonhoeffer contends, simply God for us. Formally, Bonhoeffer’s theological inquiry is marked by a relentless christological concentration practiced as the discipleship of thought to the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Materially, its central concern is to explicate the reality of divine promeity as the quintessence of the God of the Christian Gospel: God is for us. By taking divine promeity as his primary theme Bonhoeffer makes divine freedom and transcendence important subsidiary concerns, as concepts analytic in the idea of promeity. In Bonhoeffer’s hands, these concepts receive apt, self-consciously evangelical elucidation.
Sin and Salvation
Authors: Knight Mark
Published: December 2019

Bonhoeffer’s varied corpus dictates that his reflections on sin and salvation are diverse in register and range between expositing his theological inheritance and a more deliberative reworking of key themes. The towering element of that inheritance is, naturally, Luther and the doctrine of justification. A resolute focus on the person of Christ that runs throughout all his writings leads Bonhoeffer to reframe the notion of justification as the reality of being incorporated into the life of one who creates a ‘new humanity’. In the words of Hofmann, whom Bonhoeffer quotes: ‘To understand his person and history properly is to understand our reconciliation properly’ (cf. DBWE 1: 142). This emphasis opens Bonhoeffer to theological resources beyond his proximate tradition, while also providing ways to draw together the various ‘moments’ of classical soteriology, to critique problematic turns in Protestant thought, and to show the comprehensive relevance of the dialectic of sin and salvation for all Christian thinking.
Bonhoeffer and Race
Authors: Williams Reggie L.
Published: December 2019

The political ideology of the Third Reich was the culmination of years of lingering hope for an ideal German ethnic community populated with ideal German humanity. The theology of the German Christian movement turned Jesus into a divine representation of the racially pure Aryan, enabling race-hatred to become a core part of German religious life. That social reality was also the context in which Bonhoeffer was raised, and trained as a theologian and a pastor. Bonhoeffer had to confront that ideology within himself, and to grow beyond what he had received as a child growing up in Germany in order to come to see racism as a defining problem for genuine Christianity in Nazi Germany.
Bonhoeffer and Ecumenism
Authors: Clements Keith
Published: December 2019

Bonhoeffer’s ecumenism was central and decisive to both his theology and activity from his later student days to his imprisonment. It was founded upon his ecclesiology as basically set out in Sanctorum Communio. The church being ‘Christ existing as community’ was applied by him to the fellowship of Christians across national and confessional boundaries and especially in its calling to embody and proclaim peace in the wold. In the Church Struggle he vigorously promoted the claim of the Confessing Church as the authentic Evangelical Church of Germany and argued for the ecumenical movement, for the sake of its own integrity and renewal, to accept that claim. His recruitment into the German resistance owed much to his having so many ecumenical contacts in the allied and neutral countries, but it also enabled him to pursue still more deeply his ecumenical interests, including relations with the Roman Catholic Church.
Bonhoeffer’s Christian Peace Ethic, Conditional Pacifism, and Resistance
Authors: Green Clifford
Published: December 2019

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was first and foremost a Christian theologian whose peace ethic grew out of his theology, as did his role in the coup d’état conspiracy to overthrow Hitler and National Socialism. Bonhoeffer’s was not an ethic of principles, neither nor did he abandon his Christian peace ethic to support the conspiracy. This chapter traces the development of his peace ethic to a form of conditional pacifism whose main components were Christological, ecclesial, scriptural, and doctrinal. Likewise it argues that his ethic of free responsibility exercised in the conspiracy must be understood from key theological passages and ethical themes in his book Ethics.
Interdisciplinary Enqueeries from India
Authors: Sherinian Zoe
Published: December 2019

The goal of this article is to conceive of a cross-cultural queer theory for ethnomusicology that allows for the consideration of the widest diversity and inclusive conceptualization of the relationship of performing arts to human desire, intimate behavior, and identity. It begins from an assumption that Western meanings of “queer” do not match the ways of living and musicking with sex, gender, and sexuality that exist throughout the world. To this end, it presents eight theoretical guidelines to help scholars scrutinize the dominant Western gaze in queer scholarship, while allowing for local phenomena to expand global understanding of not just difference, but of human possibility. These guidelines engage concepts of gender and sexuality, ethnographic methodology, mainstream and marginal cultures, indigenous conceptualizations, intersectionality, and performative identities. It then applies these ideas and guidelines to case studies from South Asia by Jeff Roy (2017), Serena Nanda (1990), and Joyce Flueckiger (1996).
Cultural Perspectives for Assessing Infants and Young Children
Authors: Sarche Michelle , Tsethlikai Monica , Godoy Leandra , Emde Robert , Fleming Candace M.
Published: December 2019

This chapter presents an outline of eight general features of culture that provide a background for understanding the role of culture in assessment. The eight general features define culture as shared meaning; distinct from ethnicity, race, and minority status; as occurring in a setting or ecology; as dynamic and transactional; as experienced subjectively; as operating silently as well as with voices; as providing multiple views of reality and the world; as influencing the ways in which individuals express distress; and, for infants and toddlers in particular, as mediated through the parenting relationship. The authors distinguish the classification of disorder from the assessment of the individual and the role of current diagnostic systems, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition, and the revised Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood (DC:0–5).
Dimensional and Multicultural Assessment of Preschoolers’ Behavioral, Emotional, and Social Problems
Authors: Achenbach Thomas , Rescorla Leslie A.
Published: December 2019

This chapter presents nosological models for early childhood psychopathology embodied in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), fifth edition, and the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision. It also presents the revised Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Development Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood as another nosological approach that provides more differentiated diagnostic categories and criteria for early childhood disorders. As an alternative to the top-down nosological approaches based on experts’ concepts of disorders, the chapter presents bottom-up approaches that statistically derive dimensional syndromes from ratings of problems in large samples of children. Statistically derived syndromes have been supported by data from multiple informants in dozens of societies around the world. The data from these societies have been used to construct multicultural norms for the syndromes, for DSM-oriented scales, and for broad-spectrum Internalizing, Externalizing, and Total Problems scales. Case illustrations are provided for translational applications in medical, mental health, educational, and child or family service settings.
Assessment of Sensory Processing Disorder
Authors: Miller Lucy Jane , Witten Molly , Ahn Roianne R. , Schoen Sarah A.
Published: December 2019

This chapter explores the influence of sensory processing disorder on mental health in infants and young children. A bidirectional and interconnected framework is proposed for understanding the interplay between sensory processing and affect expression, across a wide range of emotions, within a caring relationship. Sensory processing disorder is defined and described. Current research on sensory processing disorder is summarized and evaluation tools are reviewed. A clinical method is proposed for screening for sensory processing and affect difficulties during mental health evaluations of young children. Finally, future directions for research and treatment are suggested.
A Community-Based Approach to Infant Mental Health Assessment
Authors: Keren Miri , Feldman Ruth
Published: December 2019

This chapter follows the establishment and operation of an infant mental health clinic in central Israel. It presents a general model of community-based assessment of infant mental health, which is based on the principle of expanding the context of infant assessment outside the clinician’s office. The chapter then focuses on the unique challenges of mental health assessment of infants in multirisk families and in those placed out of home because of abuse and/or neglect. It describes the pretreatment and posttreatment evaluation battery for very high-risk infants and their parents who have agreed to enroll in a specially designed intensive treatment program that was developed at the unit during the past two years. Finally, this chapter presents a case study of high-risk infants that describes the process of assessment.
Screening for Risk in a Primary Care Setting
Authors: Huffman Lynne C. , Baran Joan
Published: December 2019

Behavioral issues in children can emerge as early as infancy and be clearly apparent by toddlerhood and preschool age. Though pediatricians see infants and young children for up to a dozen well-child visits during the first two years of life, such problems are often not appreciated or identified, and consensus is lacking on a reliable and valid way to determine quickly whether a concern is significant enough to warrant a referral for further assessment/intervention. Given the pediatrics developmental surveillance and anticipatory guidance models, these visits provide an important opportunity for both prevention and early intervention efforts in the behavioral health domains. A few screening tools that reliably identify behavioral health problems in young children can help pediatricians begin the conversation, substantiate parental concerns, validate clinical impressions, inform immediate care, facilitate appropriate referrals, and, ultimately, potentially change the trajectory of a child’s life. Follow-up after screening is essential to increase likelihood of linkage to care. This chapter describes the primary health care context and examines the role of primary care pediatricians in caring for young children with behavioral health problems. Next, it gives a brief overview of the problems typically seen in this age range. Then, screening tools available to primary care pediatricians are reviewed, noting the reliability and validity data for each tool. Summary recommendations for useful screening strategies are given and the limits of what is available to primary care providers are addressed.
The Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment
Authors: Egger Helen Link , Angold Adrian , Small Brian , Copeland William
Published: December 2019

This chapter describes the Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment (PAPA), a structured diagnostic parent-administered psychiatric interview about children ages 2–5 (24 months through 72 months) that assesses parent-reported psychiatric symptoms, disorders, and impairment in preschool children. The PAPA also assesses school or day-care functioning, family structure and functioning, parenting behaviors, adverse life events, and a host of demographic variables including socioeconomic status (Egger, Ascher, & Angold, 1999). Also described is the ePAPA, a web-based tool for administering the PAPA electronically. The PAPA is derived from the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment, an interview for children ages 9–18 years old. The PAPA, the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment, and now the Young Adult Psychiatric Assessment comprise a suite of interviews that employ a consistent approach to the assessment of psychopathology in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. The chapter reviews the history of the PAPA’s development and describes the structure, content, reliability, and uses of the PAPA in research. Implications for clinical practice are also discussed.
Preparing for the Future: Music Students with Special Education Needs in School and Community Life
Authors: Darrow Alice-Ann , Adamek Mary S.
Published: December 2019

This article considers the status of music education for disabled students. Music has long played a key role in special education programs for students with disabilities. However, the inclusive practices in schools today, have increased music educators' accountability in the education of their students. Though instructional roles may differ, music educators often work with students who are along the continuum of abilities ranging from gifted to those with the most severe disabilities. Music educators can prepare themselves by engaging in continuous education, collaborating with other school personnel, and staying up to date on appropriate readings in professional journals.
Transfecting Taxus � media Protoplasts to Study Transcription Factors BIS2 and TSAR2 as Activators of Taxane-Related Genes
Authors: Sanchez-Mu�oz Raul , Almagro Lorena , Cusido Rosa M , Bonfill Mercedes , Palazon Javier , Moyano Elisabeth
Published: December 2019

Taxane diterpenes are secondary metabolites with an important pharmacological role in the treatment of cancer. Taxus spp. biofactories have been used for taxane production, but the lack of knowledge about the taxane biosynthetic pathway and its molecular regulation hinders their optimal function. The difficulties in introducing foreign genes in Taxus spp. genomes hinder the study of the molecular mechanisms involved in taxane production, and a new approach is required to overcome them. In this study, a reliable, simple and fast method to obtain Taxus � media protoplasts was developed, allowing their manipulation in downstream assays for the study of physiological changes in Taxus spp. cells. Using this method, Taxus protoplasts were transiently transfected for the first time, corroborating their suitability for transfection assays and the study of specific physiological responses. The two assayed transcription factors (BIS2 and TSAR2) had a positive effect on the expression of several taxane-related genes, suggesting their potential use for the improvement of taxane yields. Furthermore, the results indicate that the developed method is suitable for obtaining T. � media protoplasts for transfection with the aim of unraveling regulatory mechanisms in taxane production.
AAAPT Diagnostic Criteria for Acute Knee Arthroplasty Pain
Authors: Abdallah Faraj W , Gilron Ian , Fillingim Roger B , Tighe Patrick , Parvataneni Hari K , Ghasemlou Nader , Sawhney Mona , McCartney Colin J L
Published: December 2019

Objective

The relationship between preexisting osteoarthritic pain and subsequent post-total knee arthroplasty (TKA) pain is not well defined. This knowledge gap makes diagnosis of post-TKA pain and development of management plans difficult and may impair future investigations on personalized care. Therefore, a set of diagnostic criteria for identification of acute post-TKA pain would inform standardized management and facilitate future research.

Methods

The Analgesic, Anesthetic, and Addiction Clinical Trial Translations, Innovations, Opportunities, and Networks (ACTTION) public–private partnership with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the American Pain Society (APS), and the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM) formed the ACTTION-APS-AAPM Pain Taxonomy (AAAPT) initiative to address this goal. A multidisciplinary work group of pain experts was invited to conceive diagnostic criteria and dimensions of acute post-TKA pain.

Results

The working group used contemporary literature combined with expert opinion to generate a five-dimensional taxonomical structure based upon the AAAPT framework (i.e., core diagnostic criteria, common features, modulating factors, impact/functional consequences, and putative mechanisms) that characterizes acute post-TKA pain.

Conclusions

The diagnostic criteria created are proposed to define the nature of acute pain observed in patients following TKA.
Cancer Rehabilitation Publications (2008–2018) With a Focus on Physical Function: A Scoping Review
Authors: Harrington Shana E , Stout Nicole L , Hile Elizabeth , Fisher Mary Insana , Eden Melissa , Marchese Victoria , Pfalzer Lucinda A
Published: December 2019

Background

Cancer rehabilitation research has accelerated over the last decade. However, closer examination of the published literature reveals that the majority of this work has focused on psychological interventions and cognitive and behavioral therapies. Recent initiatives have aggregated expert consensus around research priorities, highlighting a dearth in research regarding measurement of and interventions for physical function. Increasingly loud calls for the need to address the myriad of physical functional impairments that develop in people living with and beyond cancer have been published in the literature. A detailed survey of the landscape of published research has not been reported to our knowledge.

Purpose

This scoping review systematically identified literature published between 2008 and 2018 related to the screening, assessment, and interventions associated with physical function in people living with and beyond cancer.

Data Sources

PubMed and CINAHL were searched up to September 2018.

Study Selection

Study selection included articles of all levels of evidence on any disease stage and population. A total of 11,483 articles were screened for eligibility, 2507 full-text articles were reviewed, and 1055 articles were selected for final inclusion and extraction.

Data Extraction

Seven reviewers recorded type of cancer, disease stage, age of participants, phase of treatment, time since diagnosis, application to physical function, study design, impairments related to physical function, and measurement instruments used.

Data Synthesis

Approximately one-third of the articles included patients with various cancer diagnoses (30.3%), whereas the rest focused on a single cancer, most commonly breast (24.8%). Most articles (77%) measured physical function following the completion of active cancer treatment with 64% representing the assessment domain. The most commonly used measures of physical function were the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Health Survey Questionnaire (29%) and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Cancer 30 (21.5%).

Limitations

Studies not written in English, study protocols, conference abstracts, and unpublished data were excluded.

Conclusions

This review elucidated significant inconsistencies in the literature regarding language used to define physical function, measurement tools used to characterize function, and the use of those tools across the cancer treatment and survivorship trajectory. The findings suggested that physical function in cancer research is predominantly measured using general health-related quality-of-life tools rather than more precise functional assessment tools. Interdisciplinary and clinician-researcher collaborative efforts should be directed toward a unified definition and assessment of physical function.
Methylmercury Induces Metabolic Alterations in Caenorhabditis elegans: Role for C/EBP Transcription Factor
Authors: Caito Samuel W , Newell-Caito Jennifer , Martell Megan , Crawford Nicole , Aschner Michael
Published: December 2019

Methylmercury (MeHg) is a well-known neurotoxicant; however, its role in metabolic diseases has been gaining wider attention. We have previously shown that MeHg causes metabolic alterations in Caenorhabditis elegans, leading to decreased nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide cofactor, mitochondrial dysfunction, and oxidative stress. We were, therefore, interested in whether MeHg also affects nutrient metabolism, particularly lipid homeostasis, which may contribute to the development of metabolic conditions such as obesity or metabolic syndrome (MS). RNA from wild-type worms exposed to MeHg was collected immediately after treatment and used for gene expression analysis by DNA microarray. MeHg differentially regulated 215 genes, 17 genes involved in lipid homeostasis, and 12 genes involved in carbohydrate homeostasis. Of particular interest was cebp-1, the worm ortholog to human C/EBP, a pro-adipogenic transcription factor implicated in MS. MeHg increased the expression of cebp-1 as well as pro-adipogenic transcription factors sbp-1 and nhr-49, triglyceride synthesis enzyme acl-6, and lipid transport proteins vit-2 and vit-6. Concurrent with the altered gene expression, MeHg increased triglyceride levels, lipid storage, and feeding behaviors. Worms expressing mutant cebp-1 were protected from MeHg-induced alterations in lipid content, feeding behaviors, and gene expression, highlighting the importance of this transcription factor in the worm’s response to MeHg. Taken together, our data demonstrate that MeHg induces biochemical, metabolic, and behavioral changes in C. elegans that can lead to metabolic dysfunction.
Temperature and moisture dependence of daily growth of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) roots in Southern Finland
Authors: Ding Yiyang , Schiestl-Aalto Pauliina , Helmisaari Heljä-Sisko , Makita Naoki , Ryhti Kira , Kulmala Liisa
Published: December 2019

Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is one of the most important conifers in Northern Europe. In boreal forests, over one-third of net primary production is allocated to roots. Pioneer roots expand the horizontal and vertical root systems and transport nutrients and water from belowground to aboveground. Fibrous roots, often colonized by mycorrhiza, emerge from the pioneer roots and absorb water and nutrients from the soil. In this study, we installed three flatbed scanners to detect the daily growth of both pioneer and fibrous roots of Scots pine during the growing season of 2018, a year with an unexpected summer drought in Southern Finland. The growth rate of both types of roots had a positive relationship with temperature. However, the relations between root elongation rate and soil moisture differed significantly between scanners and between root types indicating spatial heterogeneity in soil moisture. The pioneer roots were more tolerant to severe environmental conditions than the fibrous roots. The pioneer roots initiated elongation earlier and ceased it later than the fibrous roots. Elongation ended when the temperature dropped below the threshold temperature of 4 °C for pioneer roots and 6 °C for fibrous roots. During the summer drought, the fibrous roots halted root surface area growth at the beginning of the drought, but there was no drought effect on the pioneer roots over the same period. To compare the timing of root production and the aboveground organs’ production, we used the CASSIA model, which estimates the aboveground tree carbon dynamics. In this study, root growth started and ceased later than growth of aboveground organs. Pioneer roots accounted for 87% of total root productivity. We suggest that future carbon allocation models should separate the roots by root types (pioneer and fibrous), as their growth patterns are different and they have different reactions to changes in the soil environment.
Transcriptome profiling reveals the crucial biological pathways involved in cold response in Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis)
Authors: Liu Yuanyuan , Wu Chu , Hu Xin , Gao Hongye , Wang Yue , Luo Hong , Cai Sen , Li Guowei , Zheng Yushan , Lin Chentao , Zhu Qiang
Published: December 2019

Most bamboo species including Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) are tropical or subtropical plants that greatly contribute to human well-being. Low temperature is one of the main environmental factors restricting bamboo growth and geographic distribution. Our knowledge of the molecular changes during bamboo adaption to cold stress remains limited. Here, we provided a general overview of the cold-responsive transcriptional profiles in Moso bamboo by systematically analyzing its transcriptomic response under cold stress. Our results showed that low temperature induced strong morphological and biochemical alternations in Moso bamboo. To examine the global gene expression changes in response to cold, 12 libraries (non-treated, cold-treated 0.5, 1 and 24 h at −2 °C) were sequenced using an Illumina sequencing platform. Only a few differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified at early stage, while a large number of DEGs were identified at late stage in this study, suggesting that the majority of cold response genes in bamboo are late-responsive genes. A total of 222 transcription factors from 24 different families were differentially expressed during 24-h cold treatment, and the expressions of several well-known C-repeat/dehydration responsive element-binding factor negative regulators were significantly upregulated in response to cold, indicating the existence of special cold response networks. Our data also revealed that the expression of genes related to cell wall and the biosynthesis of fatty acids were altered in response to cold stress, indicating their potential roles in the acquisition of bamboo cold tolerance. In summary, our studies showed that both plant kingdom-conserved and species-specific cold response pathways exist in Moso bamboo, which lays the foundation for studying the regulatory mechanisms underlying bamboo cold stress response and provides useful gene resources for the construction of cold-tolerant bamboo through genetic engineering in the future.
Association of Neonatal Hypothermia with Morbidity and Mortality in a Tertiary Hospital in Malawi
Authors: Phoya Frank , Langton Josephine , Dube Queen , Iroh Tam Pui-Ying
Published: December 2019

Objectives

To evaluate associations with neonatal hypothermia in a tertiary-level neonatal unit (NU) in Malawi.

Methods

Neonates with a birth weight >1000 g were recruited and temperatures were recorded 5 min after birth, on admission and 4 h thereafter. Clinical course and outcome were reviewed. Data were analysed using Stata v.15 and p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results

Between August 2018 to March 2019, 120 neonates were enrolled, and 112 were included in the data analysis. Hypothermia at 5 min after birth was noted in 74%, 77% on admission to the NU and 38% at 24 h. Neonates who had hypothermia 5 min after birth were more likely to have hypothermia on admission to the NU compared with normothermic subjects (p < 0.01). All neonates with hypothermia on admission to the NU died (100 vs.72%, p = 0.02), but hypothermia at 5 min nor at 24 h were not associated with mortality. After adjusting for potential confounders, the odds ratio of hypothermia at 5 min for hypothermia on admission to NU was 13.31 (95% CI 4.17–42.54).

Discussion

A large proportion of hospitalized neonates is hypothermic on admission and has associated morbidity and mortality. Our findings suggest that a strong predictor of mortality is neonatal hypothermia on admission to the NU, and that early intervention in the immediate period after delivery could decrease the incidence of hypothermia and reduce associated morbidity and mortality.
Hepatocyte p53 ablation induces metabolic dysregulation that is corrected by food restriction and vertical sleeve gastrectomy in mice
Authors: Holter Marlena M. , Garibay Darline , Lee Seon A. , Saikia Mridusmita , McGavigan Anne K. , Ngyuen Lily , Moore Elizabeth S. , Daugherity Erin , Cohen Paul , Kelly Kathleen , Weiss Robert S. , Cummings Bethany P.
Published: December 2019

P53 has been implicated in the pathogenesis of obesity and diabetes; however, the mechanisms and tissue sites of action are incompletely defined. Therefore, we investigated the role of hepatocyte p53 in metabolic homeostasis using a hepatocyte‐specific p53 knockout mouse model. To gain further mechanistic insight, we studied mice under two complementary conditions of restricted weight gain: vertical sleeve gastrectomy (VSG) or food restriction. VSG or sham surgery was performed in high‐fat diet‐fed male hepatocyte‐specific p53 wild‐type and knockout littermates. Sham‐operated mice were fed ad libitum or food restricted to match their body weight to VSG‐operated mice. Hepatocyte‐specific p53 ablation in sham‐operated ad libitum‐fed mice impaired glucose homeostasis, increased body weight, and decreased energy expenditure without changing food intake. The metabolic deficits induced by hepatocyte‐specific p53 ablation were corrected, in part by food restriction, and completely by VSG. Unlike food restriction, VSG corrected the effect of hepatocyte p53 ablation to lower energy expenditure, resulting in a greater improvement in glucose homeostasis compared with food restricted mice. These data reveal an important new role for hepatocyte p53 in the regulation of energy expenditure and body weight and suggest that VSG can improve alterations in energetics associated with p53 dysregulation.