bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Complex segmentectomy is not a complex procedure relative to simple segmentectomy
Authors: Okubo Yu , Yoshida Yukihiro , Yotsukura Masaya , Nakagawa Kazuo , Watanabe Shun-ichi
Published: July 2021

OBJECTIVES

Segmentectomies can be classified as simple or complex and are increasingly performed for early-stage lung cancer. Complex segmentectomy requires the creation of multiple intersegmental planes and is considered a more arduous procedure with higher risks of postoperative complications, relative to simple segmentectomy.

METHODS

This retrospective study evaluated patients who underwent simple or complex segmentectomy for primary lung cancer during 2012–2018. Perioperative factors were compared according to the procedure type.

RESULTS

The 538 eligible segmentectomies included 251 complex segmentectomies and 287 simple segmentectomies. There were no significant differences in terms of age, sex, smoking history or comorbidities. The most common procedure in the complex segmentectomy group was upper-lobe segmentectomy (e.g. S1, S2, S3 and S1 + 2; n = 170), which was followed by S8 segmentectomy (n = 39) and two-segment segmentectomies (e.g. S7 + 8, S8 + 9 and S9 + 10; n = 24). Simple segmentectomies involved left upper division (n = 117), the lingular segment (n = 30) and the S6 segment (n = 140). Comparing complex and simple segmentectomies revealed equivalent median operative times (113 vs 113 min) and blood loss (20 vs 20 ml). Complex segmentectomy had fewer postoperative complications (2.0% vs 7.0%, P = 0.006), including prolonged air leak (0.8% vs 3.5%, P = 0.035) and shorter median postoperative stays (3 vs 4 days, P < 0.001). However, median surgical margins were closer for complex segmentectomy (22 vs 25 mm, P = 0.005)

CONCLUSIONS

The perioperative outcomes of complex segmentectomy were satisfactory and comparable to those of simple segmentectomy. Surgeons should pay careful attention to the surgical margins during complex segmentectomy.
When I Was Growing Up: The Lasting Impact of Immigrant Presence on Native-Born American Attitudes towards Immigrants and Immigration
Authors: Eger Maureen A , Mitchell Jeffrey , Hjerm Mikael
Published: July 2021

Scholarship, including seminal research on prejudice, identifies adolescence as a critical period for the development of attitudes. Yet most sociological research on prejudice, especially in the form of anti-immigrant sentiment, focuses on the relationship between contemporaneous social conditions and attitudes towards out-groups while neglecting the demographic context during one’s impressionable years. Therefore, we design research to investigate the relationship among temporally distal and temporally proximal sub-national contexts and native-born attitudes towards immigration and immigrants. To do this, we merge geocoded data from the General Social Survey (1994–2016) with a unique US state-level dataset (1900–2015). Results from multilevel models reveal that immigrant presence during adolescence is a more consistent predictor of attitudes towards immigration and immigrants in adulthood. Thus, while the majority of sociological research on anti-immigrant sentiment asks if societal conditions matter, our results suggest that a more important question is when the context matters.
Coxsackievirus B4 sewage-isolate induces pancreatitis after oral infection of mice
Authors: Benkoova Brigita , Pospisilova Michaela , Kramna Lenka , Kissova Renata , Berakova Katarina , Klement Cyril , Cinek Ondrej , Bopegamage Shubhada
Published: July 2021

Numerous serotypes which belong to the genus Enterovirus (EV) show variability in their virulence and clinical manifestations. They are also known to undergo changes caused by mutations and recombination during their circulation in the environment and the population. Various EV serotypes are prevalent in groundwater, wastewater and surface waters. Our previous studies showed that oral infection induces pancreatitis depending on specific conditions, such as gravidity, in an outbred murine model. Our aim in the present study was to further explore the pancreatic histopathology in an outbred mouse model following oral infection with clinical isolates from a patient who had aseptic meningitis and an isolate from a treated-sewage sample recovered from the residential area of the patient. The isolates were identified as coxsackievirus B4 (CVB4) in tissue culture. The CVB4 sewage-isolate induced pancreatitis after oral infection. In contrast, pancreatitis was absent following infection with the clinical isolates. Comparison of polyprotein sequences showed that the treated-sewage strains differed from the patient's isolates by 9 and 11 amino acids. We conclude that the isolates of clinical and environmental origin differed in their pathogenic properties and showed genetic variation.
Commensal Streptococcus mitis produces two different lipoteichoic acids of type I and type IV
Authors: Gisch Nicolas , Peters Katharina , Thomsen Simone , Vollmer Waldemar , Schwudke Dominik , Denapaite Dalia
Published: July 2021

The opportunistic pathogen Streptococcus mitis possesses, like other members of the Mitis group of viridans streptococci, phosphorylcholine (P-Cho)-containing teichoic acids (TAs) in its cell wall. Bioinformatic analyses predicted the presence of TAs that are almost identical with those identified in the pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae, but a detailed analysis of S. mitis lipoteichoic acid (LTA) was not performed to date. Here, we determined the structures of LTA from two S. mitis strains, the high-level beta-lactam and multiple antibiotic resistant strain B6 and the penicillin-sensitive strain NCTC10712. In agreement with bioinformatic predictions, we found that the structure of one LTA (type IV) was like pneumococcal LTA, except the exchange of a glucose moiety with a galactose within the repeating units. Further genome comparisons suggested that the majority of S. mitis strains should contain the same type IV LTA as S. pneumoniae, providing a more complete understanding of the biosynthesis of these P-Cho-containing TAs in members of the Mitis group of streptococci. Remarkably, we observed besides type IV LTA, an additional polymer belonging to LTA type I in both investigated S. mitis strains. This LTA consists of β-galactofuranosyl-(1,3)-diacylglycerol as glycolipid anchor and a poly-glycerol-phosphate chain at the O-6 position of the furanosidic galactose. Hence, these bacteria are capable of synthesizing two different LTA polymers, most likely produced by distinct biosynthesis pathways. Our bioinformatics analysis revealed the prevalence of the LTA synthase LtaS, most probably responsible for the second LTA version (type I), among S. mitis and Streptococcus pseudopneumoniae strains.
Health promotion via Twitter: a case study of three medical centers in the USA
Authors: Kordzadeh Nima
Published: July 2021

Healthcare institutions including hospitals and clinics are increasingly using social media platforms, such as Twitter, to raise awareness in the community about health and wellness topics. In line with this trend, this study seeks to understand how three leading medical centers in the USA use Twitter to share educational content about medical conditions, treatments, preventive measures and other health-related topics. A sample of tweets posted by Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Mayo Clinic during a 6-month timeframe was collected and thematically analyzed. The first analysis, which focused on eight popular health topics, showed that diet and cancer were consistently the most and diabetes was the least frequently used topics in the tweets. The second analysis, which drew upon the health belief model to understand the educational themes embedded into the tweets, revealed that the three institutions mainly provided general health advice and information in their tweets and paid less attention to causes and consequences of diseases, preventive strategies and patient success stories. Accordingly, it is recommended that healthcare institutions adjust their tweeting activities and align them with society’s health education needs. Such revised content strategies can help medical institutions achieve their health promotion goals more effectively.
Expanding studies of chromosome structure and function in the era of T2T genomics
Authors: Miga Karen H , Sullivan Beth A
Published: July 2021

The recent accomplishment of a truly complete human genome has afforded a new view of chromosome structure and function that was limited 30 years ago. Here, we discuss the expansion of knowledge from the early cytological studies of the genome to the current high resolution genomic, epigenetic, and functional maps that have been achieved by recent technology and computational advances. These studies have revealed unexpected complexities of genome organization and function and uncovered new views of fundamental chromosomal elements. Comprehensive genomic maps will enable accurate diagnosis of human diseases caused by altered chromosome structure and function, facilitate development of chromosome-based therapies, and shape the future of preventative medicine and healthcare.
‘Treatment in Liberty’ Human Rights and Compulsory Detention for Drug Use
Authors: Lines Rick , Hannah Julie , Girelli Giada
Published: July 2021

This is the first detailed examination of compulsory detention for ‘drug treatment’ through the lens of a rapidly evolving international legal framework. It is estimated that as many as half a million people worldwide are detained for the purpose of ‘drug treatment’, many held for months or years at a time without being charged criminally or being able to challenge the legality of their detention. This is therefore a key issue sitting at the intersection of human rights, drug policy and medical ethics. The article explores arbitrary detention and involuntary committal on medical grounds within international human rights law, as well as the historical-legal evolution of drug ‘treatment’ as the term is understood within international drug control law. It assesses whether drug use or drug dependency constitute a reasonable limitation of the right to liberty, and concludes that this type of detention represents a violation of international law.
Weekly-specific ambient fine particular matter exposures before and during pregnancy were associated with risks of small for gestational age and large for gestational age: results from Project ELEFANT
Authors: Chen Juan , Li Peng-Hui , Fan Haojun , Li Chen , Zhang Ying , Ju Duan , Deng Furong , Guo Xinbiao , Guo Liqiong , Wu Shaowei
Published: July 2021

Background

Investigations on the potential effects of ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) on large for gestational age (LGA) are limited. Furthermore, no study has explored weekly-specific susceptible exposure windows for small for gestational age (SGA) and LGA. This study evaluated the associations of exposure to ambient PM2.5 over the preconception and entire-pregnancy periods with risks of SGA and LGA, as well as explored critical weekly-specific exposure windows.

Methods

10 916 singleton pregnant women with 24–42 completed gestational weeks from the Project Environmental and LifEstyle FActors iN metabolic health throughout life-course Trajectories between 2014 and 2016 were included in this study. Distributed lag models (DLMs) incorporated in Cox proportional-hazards models were applied to explore the associations of maternal exposure to weekly ambient PM2.5 throughout 12 weeks before pregnancy and pregnancy periods with risks of SGA and LGA after controlling for potential confounders.

Results

For a 10-μg/m3 increase in maternal exposure to PM2.5, positive associations with SGA were observed during the 1st to 9th preconceptional weeks and the 1st to 2nd gestational weeks (P<0.05), with the strongest association in the 5th preconceptional week [hazard ratio (HR), 1.06; 95% confidential interval (CI), 1.03–1.09]. For LGA, positive associations were observed during the 1st to 12th preconceptional weeks and the 1st to 5th gestational weeks (P<0.05), with the strongest association in the 7th preconceptional week (HR, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.08–1.12).

Conclusions

Exposure to high-level ambient PM2.5 is associated with increased risks of both SGA and LGA, and the most susceptible exposure windows are the preconception and early-pregnancy periods.
On Immersions of Surfaces into SL(2, ℂ) and Geometric Consequences
Authors: Bonsante Francesco , El Emam Christian
Published: July 2021

We study immersions of smooth manifolds into holomorphic Riemannian space forms of constant sectional curvature -1, including $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$ and the space of geodesics of $\mathbb{H}^3$, and we prove a Gauss–Codazzi theorem in this setting. This approach has some interesting geometric consequences: (1) it provides a model for the transitioning of hypersurfaces among $\mathbb{H}^n$, ${\mathbb{A}}\textrm{d}{\mathbb{S}}^n$, $\textrm{d}{\mathbb{S}}^n$, and ${\mathbb{S}}^n$; (2) it provides an effective tool to construct holomorphic maps to the $\textrm{SO}(n,\mathbb{C})$-character variety, bringing to a simpler proof of the holomorphicity of the complex landslide; and (3) it leads to a correspondence, under certain hypotheses, between complex metrics on a surface (i.e., complex bilinear forms of its complexified tangent bundle) and pairs of projective structures with the same holonomy. Through Bers theorem, we prove a uniformization theorem for complex metrics.
Intersubject Variation in ACE2 Protein Expression in Human Airway Epithelia and Its Relationship to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2
Authors: Li Kun , Wohlford-Lenane Christine , Bartlett Jennifer A , McCray Paul B
Published: July 2021

Background

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 ) initiates entry into airway epithelia by binding its receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2).

Methods

To explore whether interindividual variation in ACE2 abundance contributes to variability in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outcomes, we measured ACE2 protein abundance in primary airway epithelial cultures derived from 58 human donor lungs.

Results

We found no evidence for sex- or age-dependent differences in ACE2 protein expression. Furthermore, we found that variations in ACE2 abundance had minimal effects on viral replication and induction of the interferon response in airway epithelia infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Conclusions

Our results highlight the relative importance of additional host factors, beyond viral receptor expression, in determining COVID-19 lung disease outcomes.
Africa’s Development Debts
Authors: Ndulu Benno J , O’Connell Stephen A
Published: July 2021

Public debt levels in sub-Saharan Africa rose sharply in the wake of the global financial crisis, and a number of countries are now classified by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as at high risk of debt distress. By contrast with the debt crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, however, concerns were not region wide as recently as early 2020, and the policy environment for growth remains robust for the majority of countries in the region. The external environment nonetheless poses a set of region-wide risks that include the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and are exacerbated by the increase in market-based debt and the retreat of the Paris Club among official creditors. Changes in perceived creditworthiness can now drive distress, and new challenges of creditor coordination will complicate the debt restructuring process. We motivate a research agenda that focuses on development assets at risk as rising debt service obligations crowd out development as well as operational and maintenance budgets. Preserving and enhancing these assets, which include advances in human capital and infrastructure and an improved investment environment, should be a central objective of domestic policy actions, preventative debt restructurings and institutional approaches to debt distress.
Association of Adiponectin and Vitamin D With Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes and Survival in Stage III Colon Cancer
Authors: Sinicrope Frank A , Shi Qian , Smyrk Thomas C , Goldberg Richard M , Cohen Steven J , Gill Sharlene , Kahlenberg Morton S , Nair Suresh , Shield Anthony F , Jahagirdar Balkrishna N , Jacobson Sawyer B , Foster Nathan R , Pollak Michael N , Alberts Steven R
Published: July 2021

Background

Adipocyte-derived adiponectin may play a role in the host inflammatory response to cancer. We examined the association of plasma adiponectin with the density of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in colon cancers and with vitamin D, clinicopathological features, and patient survival.

Methods

Plasma adiponectin and 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] were analyzed by radioimmunoassay in 600 patients with stage III colon cancer who received FOLFOX-based adjuvant chemotherapy (NCCTG N0147 [Alliance]). TIL densities were determined in histopathological sections. Associations with disease-free survival (DFS), time to recurrence, and overall survival were evaluated by multivariable Cox regression adjusting for potential confounders (ie, body mass index, race, TILs, and N stage). All statistical tests were 2-sided.

Results

We found a statistically significant reduction in adiponectin, but not 25(OH)D, levels in tumors with high vs low TIL densities (median = 6845 vs 8984 ng/mL; P = .04). A statistically significant reduction in adiponectin was also observed in obese (body mass index >30 kg/m2) vs nonobese patients (median = 6608 vs 12 351 ng/mL; P < .001), in men vs women (median = 8185 vs 11 567 ng/mL; P < .001), in Blacks vs Whites or Asians (median = 6412 vs 8847 vs 7858 ng/mL; P < .03), and in those with fewer lymph node metastases (N1 vs N2: median = 7768 vs 9253 ng/mL; P = .01). Insufficiency of 25(OH)D (<30 ng/mL) was detected in 291 (48.5%) patients. In multivariable analyses, neither adiponectin nor 25(OH)D were associated with a statistically significant difference in DFS, overall survival , or time to recurrence in models adjusted for potential confounders. We found a statistically significant association of TILs with prognosis, yet no such interaction was observed for the association of adiponectin with TILs for DFS.

Conclusions

Lower circulating adiponectin levels were associated with a statistically significant increase in TIL densities in colon cancers, indicating an enhanced antitumor immune response. In contrast to TILs, neither adiponectin nor 25(OH)D was independently prognostic.
Tying the Hands of Militants: Civilian Targeting and Societal Pressures in the Provisional IRA and Palestinian Hamas
Authors: Brooks Risa
Published: July 2021

While social pressures have long been a theme in the targeting scholarship, this article develops and evaluates a theory for how social forces affect militant groups’ tactical choices to target civilians. It first identifies a class of groups that exhibit community ties, which occur when a group operates in proximity to a referent society that is geographically concentrated and comprised of dense social networks. Through observable indicators of endorsement and condemnation to their tactics, groups gain information and are subjected to normative pressures from community members, which constrain their leaders’ willingness to harm civilians. The argument is evaluated through within-case process tracing in qualitative case studies of the Provisional IRA during the Troubles and Palestinian Hamas in the 1990s. The findings demonstrate that both groups modified their tactics in conformity with social pressures, even when it was costly and contrary to their ideology, strategic, and organizational goals.
Bureaucratic Control and Strategic Compliance: How Do Subnational Governments Implement Central Guidelines in China?
Authors: Xiao Shiyang , Zhu Xufeng
Published: July 2021

Bureaucratic control, the constraint that a superior imposes on subordinate agencies’ discretion through guidelines, is ubiquitous in administrative organizations. Despite scholarly discussions on the merits and shortcomings of bureaucratic control, we still know little about the impact of the extents of bureaucratic control on subordinates’ compliance patterns. In this article, we argue that bureaucratic control might intensify subordinates’ burdens and incentivize them to strategically reduce compliance with the central guidelines that impose such control on them. We build a database containing 42 social regulatory guidelines issued by the Chinese State Council (central government) and 848 implementation documents issued by provincial governments between 2003 and 2012. As bureaucratic control in a central guideline increases, provincial governments might postpone the release or withhold the implementation documents and reiterate less content of the corresponding central guideline. Interestingly, when provincial governments lack financial resources, the aforementioned reactions to bureaucratic control is weakened and even reversed to be positive. Moreover, central mobilization alleviates the negative impact of bureaucratic control on the surface but might fail to address subordinates’ decrease of compliance in hidden ways. Central monitoring raises the overall level of subordinates’ compliance but does not moderate how subordinates circumvent central guidelines with high degree of control.
Assessing readiness for research: a pilot study of Indonesian pharmacists
Authors: Halim Steven Victoria , Wibowo Yosi Irawati , Uyanto Rheza Paleva , Setiadi Adji Prayitno , Setiawan Eko , Sunderland Bruce
Published: July 2021

Objectives

Readiness is a key factor that influences pharmacists’ willingness to get involved in research, thus promoting evidence-based pharmacy practice. While the data are lacking, this study aimed to assess readiness for research, as well as the associated demographic and attitudinal characteristics of pharmacists in a range of healthcare settings in East Java Province, Indonesia.

Methods

A questionnaire was administered to all pharmacists in a public hospital in Malang (n = 55), pharmacists from primary health centre (PHCs) (n = 63) and community pharmacies (n = 100) in Surabaya in 2017. The questionnaire consisted of three sections: (1) demographic characteristics, (2) attitudinal aspects and (3) readiness for research. Descriptive analysis was used to summarise the data. Spearman correlation tests determined the correlations between ‘demographic characteristics’ or ‘attitudinal aspects’ versus ‘readiness’.

Key findings

A total of 142 pharmacists responded which comprised hospital pharmacists (n = 46), community pharmacists (n = 51) and PHC pharmacists (n = 45), giving response rates ranged from 51.0% to 83.6%. Approximately half of the participating pharmacists demonstrated adequate ‘readiness’ to research [mean 2.53 ± 0.7 (range 0–4)]. Compared with hospital or PHC pharmacists, community pharmacists showed lower ‘readiness’ to research (mean 2.76 ± 0.71 versus 2.53 ± 0.66 versus 2.31 ± 0.68, respectively; P = 0.005). Two demographic characteristics positively correlated with ‘readiness’, that is, prior research training (rs = 0.217; P = 0.010) and prior research experience (rs = 0.221; P = 0.008). Meanwhile, all ‘attitudinal aspects’ were found to be positively correlated with research ‘readiness’ (all P-values <0.001).

Conclusions

Findings from this study provide baseline data to develop strategies to optimise the involvement of pharmacist practitioners in research, thus enhancing evidence-based pharmacy practice and quality use of medications in Indonesia.
Herbivory-induced systemic signals are likely to be evolutionarily conserved in euphyllophytes
Authors: Lei Yunting , Xu Yuxing , Zhang Jingxiong , Song Juan , Wu Jianqiang
Published: July 2021

Herbivory-induced systemic signaling has been demonstrated in monocots and dicots, and is essential for plant defense against insects. However, the nature and evolution of herbivory-induced systemic signals remain unclear. Grafting is widely used for studying systemic signaling; however, grafting between dicot plants from different families is difficult, and grafting is impossible for monocots. In this study, we took advantage of dodder’s extraordinary capability of parasitizing various plant species. Field dodder (Cuscuta campestris) was employed to connect pairs of species that are phylogenetically very distant, ranging from fern to monocot and dicot plants, and so determine whether interplant signaling occurs after simulated herbivory. It was found that simulated herbivory-induced systemic signals can be transferred by dodder between a monocot and a dicot plant and even between a fern and a dicot plant, and the plants that received the systemic signals all exhibited elevated defenses. Thus, we inferred that the herbivory-induced systemic signals are likely to be evolutionarily well conserved among vascular plants. Importantly, we also demonstrate that the jasmonate pathway is probably an ancient regulator of the biosynthesis and/or transport of systemic signals in vascular plants. These findings provide new insight into the nature and evolution of systemic signaling.
SDE2 is an essential gene required for ribosome biogenesis and the regulation of alternative splicing
Authors: Floro Jess , Dai Anqi , Metzger Abigail , Mora-Martin Alexandra , Ganem Neil J , Cifuentes Daniel , Wu Ching-Shyi , Dalal Jasbir , Lyons Shawn M , Labadorf Adam , Flynn Rachel L
Published: July 2021

RNA provides the framework for the assembly of some of the most intricate macromolecular complexes within the cell, including the spliceosome and the mature ribosome. The assembly of these complexes relies on the coordinated association of RNA with hundreds of trans-acting protein factors. While some of these trans-acting factors are RNA-binding proteins (RBPs), others are adaptor proteins, and others still, function as both. Defects in the assembly of these complexes results in a number of human pathologies including neurodegeneration and cancer. Here, we demonstrate that Silencing Defective 2 (SDE2) is both an RNA binding protein and also a trans-acting adaptor protein that functions to regulate RNA splicing and ribosome biogenesis. SDE2 depletion leads to widespread changes in alternative splicing, defects in ribosome biogenesis and ultimately complete loss of cell viability. Our data highlight SDE2 as a previously uncharacterized essential gene required for the assembly and maturation of the complexes that carry out two of the most fundamental processes in mammalian cells.
Forgotten fatalities: British military, mining and maritime accidents since 1900
Authors: Roberts S E , Carter T , Smith H D , John A , Williams J G
Published: July 2021

Background

Comparative long-term trends in fatal accident rates in the UK’s most hazardous occupations have not been reported.

Aims

To compare trends in fatal accident rates in six of the most hazardous occupations (the three armed forces, merchant shipping, sea fishing and coal mining) and the general British workforce during peacetime years since 1900.

Methods

Examinations of annual mortality reports, returns, inquiry files and statistics. The main outcome measure was the fatal accident rate per 100 000 population employed.

Results

These six occupations accounted for ~40% of all fatal accidents in the British workforce. Fatal accident rates were highest in merchant shipping to 1914 (400–600 per 100 000) and in the Royal Air Force and sea fishing by the early 1920s (around 300 per 100 000). Since the 1950s sea fishing has remained the most hazardous occupation (50–200). Widespread reductions in fatal accident rates for each occupation have been greatest in recent years in the three armed forces and merchant shipping. Compared with the general workforce, relative risks of fatalities have increased in recent decades in all these occupations except shipping.

Conclusions

All six occupations still have high fatal accident rates. The greatly increased fatalities in sea fishing generally and in the Royal Air Force during its early years reflect, for different reasons, cultures of extreme risk-taking in these two sectors. Reductions in fatality rates in the armed forces over the last 20 years are due largely to decreases in land transport accidents.
Longitudinal patterns in cohort income inequality, income instability, and income trajectories of a US cohort on the cusp of retirement
Authors: Hungerford Thomas L
Published: July 2021

Previous research has shown that the course of income inequality of a US cohort in retirement depends on the inequality measure used. For example, the variance of logarithmic income, a bottom sensitive measure, displays a decidedly declining trend. This study examines the mechanisms that underlie these income inequality changes as a cohort enters their retirement years using longitudinal data over a 20-year period and a variety of methods. In particular, individual income trajectories and income instability just before and in retirement are investigated. The results show (i) the variance of logarithmic income falls as the cohort ages primarily due to a reduction in income instability; (ii) on average, the rich and poor get poorer as they age into retirement; and (iii) consistent with previous research, a person’s place in the retirement income distribution is largely determined before retirement.
Re-hearing Op. 131
Authors: November Nancy
Published: July 2021

One sees a decisive shift in Beethoven reception in the late nineteenth century. The late quartets, in particular, were starting to be considered as a special group of “very late” masterpieces, cut off from contextual and social moorings and expressive only of Beethoven’s innermost thoughts and feelings. In the case of Op. 131, the meanings of the work became yet more restricted in later reception: this penultimate work is often considered to be Beethoven’s melancholy swansong. A rhetoric of “lack” emerges in the discourse about the C-sharp minor quartet from Wagner onwards, including seminal twentieth-century analytical accounts. At the same time, scholars seem to grapple with the wealth—perhaps overabundance—of material in the quartet by repeatedly showing how it is unified, in twentieth-century analytical terms. Only recently has this view started to change, so that scholars re-hear the work in ways that celebrate its plenitude.
“Like an overly large fantasy”
Authors: November Nancy
Published: July 2021

Audiences at Iganz Schuppanzigh’s 1820s quartet concerts in Vienna would have expected a string quartet to be a weighty, four-movement work with an emphasis on a sonata form, thematische Arbeit (motivic working) between parts, and an overall tonal plan based on one or two primary key areas. Beethoven no doubt had such connoisseur listeners in mind with this work, but was pushing far beyond that traditional idea of the string quartet. Op. 131 is full of all sorts of different kinds of writing. The chapter explores the quartet in terms of fantasia, a word found frequently in connection with Op. 131, starting with a discussion of the free fantasia as a work exhibiting apparently chaotic musings over a highly logical ground plan. As Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach pointed out in his influential discussion of the subject, there is method in the seeming madness of the free fantasia, especially as regards harmonic links. The chapter considers the entire work as a fantasia, exploring the clever linkage of seemingly disparate ideas within and between movements. The fantasia form might seem the opposite of the formalized string quartet genre as it was starting to be understood by Beethoven’s time, but in one important respect it was not. The free fantasia was a work for the connoisseur: as Carl Friedrich Michaelis noted in his article on music and humor of 1807, the free fantasia, in particular, reveals to the connoisseur listener the soul (or inventive repository) of the composer.
Abject Joy
Authors: Schellenberg Ryan S.
Published: July 2021

No extant text gives so vivid a glimpse into the experience of an ancient prisoner as Paul’s letter to the Philippians. As a letter from prison, however, it is not what one would expect. For although it is true that Paul, like some other ancient prisoners, speaks in Philippians of his yearning for death, what he expresses most conspicuously is contentment and even joy. Setting aside pious banalities that contrast true joy with happiness, and leaving behind too heroic depictions that take their cue from Acts, Abject Joy offers a reading of Paul’s letter as both a means and an artifact of his provisional attempt to make do. By outlining the uses of punitive custody in the administration of Rome’s eastern provinces and describing prison’s complex place in the social and moral imagination of the Roman world, this book provides a richly drawn account of Paul’s non-elite social context, where bodies and their affects were shaped by acute contingency and habitual susceptibility to violent subjugation. Informed by recent work in the history of emotions, and with comparison to modern prison writing and ethnography provoking new questions and insights, Abject Joy describes Paul’s letter as an affective technology, wielded at once on Paul himself and on his addressees, that works to strengthen his grasp on the very joy he names.
I Have Learned to Be Content
Authors: Schellenberg Ryan S.
Published: July 2021

Chapter 4 takes up Paul’s assertion in Philippians 4:11 that he is satisfied (autarkēs) even in prison. Although often read in relation to Stoic ideals, Paul’s claim in fact reflects a much more broadly attested moral ideal; philosophical discourses of autarky are not its source but coincidental products. Comparison with modern prison writing and ethnography invites a redescription of Paul’s rhetoric as an affective practice of survivalist dissent. As with other prisoners, for Paul to assert that he is satisfied in prison is to exercise his residual agency and thus perform an unabjected self, even as the hard somatic fact of his deprivation leaves him eager for relief and dependent on his Philippian addressees.
Rejoice with Me
Authors: Schellenberg Ryan S.
Published: July 2021

This chapter explores the expressions of joy that are surely the most conspicuous feature of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, making three complementary methodological moves: close reading of the language of joy in ancient letters between friends and kin; comparison with modern prisoners’ expressions of joy; and engagement with recent studies of collective emotions and their regulation. Emphasizing the role of Paul’s Philippian addressees in producing and sustaining his joy, it describes Paul’s letter as an epistolary vehicle for the cultivation of positive affect—the Philippians’ as well as Paul’s own.
Overview
Authors: Grossberg Stephen
Published: July 2021

An overview is provided of multiple book themes. A critical one is explaining how and where conscious states of seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing arise in our minds, why they are needed to choose effective actions, yet how unconscious states also critically influence behavior. Other themes include learning, expectation, attention, imagination, and creativity; differences between illusion and reality, and between conscious seeing and recognizing, as embodied within surface-shroud resonances and feature-category resonances, respectively; roles of visual boundaries and surfaces in understanding visual art, movies, and TV; different legacies of Helmholtz and Kanizsa towards understanding vision; how stable opaque percepts and bistable transparent percepts are explained by the same laws; how solving the stability-plasticity dilemma enables brains to learn quickly without catastrophically forgetting previously learned but still useful knowledge; how we correct errors, explore novel experiences, and develop individual selves and cumulative cultural accomplishments; how expected vs. unexpected events are regulated by interacting top-down and bottom-up processes, leading to either adaptive resonances that support fast and stable new learning, or hypothesis testing whereby to learn about novel experiences; how variations of the same cooperative and competitive processes shape intelligence in species, cellular tissues, economic markets, and political systems; how short-term memory, medium-term memory, and long-term memory regulate adaptation to changing environments on different time scales; how processes whereby we learn what events are causal also support irrational, superstitious, obsessional, self-punitive, and antisocial behaviors; how relaxation responses arise; and how future acoustic contexts can disambiguate conscious percepts of past auditory and speech sequences that are occluded by noise or multiple speakers.
How a Brain Sees: Neural Mechanisms
Authors: Grossberg Stephen
Published: July 2021

Multiple paradoxical visual percepts are explained using boundary completion and surface filling-in properties, including discounting the illuminant; brightness constancy, contrast, and assimilation; the Craik-O’Brien-Cornsweet Effect; and Glass patterns. Boundaries act as both generators and barriers to filling-in using specific cooperative and competitive interactions. Oriented local contrast detectors, like cortical simple cells, create uncertainties that are resolved using networks of simple, complex, and hypercomplex cells, leading to unexpected insights such as why Roman typeface letter fonts use serifs. Further uncertainties are resolved by interactions with bipole grouping cells. These simple-complex-hypercomplex-bipole networks form a double filter and grouping network that provides unified explanations of texture segregation, hyperacuity, and illusory contour strength. Discounting the illuminant suppresses illumination contaminants so that feature contours can hierarchically induce surface filling-in. These three hierarchical resolutions of uncertainty explain neon color spreading. Why groupings do not penetrate occluding objects is explained, as are percepts of DaVinci stereopsis, the Koffka-Benussi and Kanizsa-Minguzzi rings, and pictures of graffiti artists and Mooney faces. The property of analog coherence is achieved by laminar neocortical circuits. Variations of a shared canonical laminar circuit have explained data about vision, speech, and cognition. The FACADE theory of 3D vision and figure-ground separation explains much more data than a Bayesian model can. The same cortical process that assures consistency of boundary and surface percepts, despite their complementary laws, also explains how figure-ground separation is triggered. It is also explained how cortical areas V2 and V4 regulate seeing and recognition without forcing all occluders to look transparent.
Learning to Attend, Recognize, and Predict the World
Authors: Grossberg Stephen
Published: July 2021

This chapter begins to explain many of our most important perceptual and cognitive abilities, including how we rapidly learn to categorize and recognize so many objects and events in the world, how we remember and anticipate events that may occur in familiar situations, how we pay attention to events that particularly interest us, and how we become conscious of these events. These abilities enable us to engage in fantasy activities such as visual imagery, internalized speech, and planning. They support our ability to learn language quickly and to complete and consciously hear speech sounds in noise. The chapter begins to explain key differences between perception and recognition, and introduces Adaptive Resonance Theory, or ART, which is now the most advanced cognitive and neural theory of how our brains learn to attend, recognize, and predict objects and events in a changing world. ART cycles of resonance and reset solve the stability-plasticity dilemma so that we can learn quickly without new learning forcing catastrophic forgetting of previously learned memories. ART can learn quickly or slowly, with supervision and without it, and both many-to-one maps and one-to-many maps. It uses learned top-down expectations, attentional focusing, and mismatch-mediated hypothesis testing to do so, and is thus a self-organizing production system. ART can be derived from a simple thought experiment, and explains and predicts many psychological and neurobiological data about normal behavior. When these processes break down in specific ways, they cause symptoms of mental disorders such as schizophrenia, autism, amnesia, and Alzheimer’s disease.
From Seeing and Reaching to Hearing and Speaking
Authors: Grossberg Stephen
Published: July 2021

This far-ranging chapter provides unified explanations of data about audition, speech, and language, and the general cognitive processes that they specialize. The ventral What stream and dorsal Where cortical stream in vision have analogous ventral sound-to-meaning and dorsal sound-to-action streams in audition. Circular reactions for learning to reach using vision are homologous to circular reactions for learning to speak using audition. VITE circuits control arm movement properties of synergy, synchrony, and speed. Volitional basal ganglia GO signals choose which limb to move and how fast it moves. VAM models use a circular reaction to calibrate VITE circuit signals. VITE is joined with the FLETE model to compensate for variable loads, unexpected perturbations, and obstacles. Properties of cells in cortical areas 4 and 5, spinal cord, and cerebellum are quantitatively simulated. Motor equivalent reaching using clamped joints or tools arises from circular reactions that learn representations of space around an actor. Homologous circuits model motor-equivalent speech production, including coarticulation. Stream-shroud resonances play the role for audition that surface-shroud resonances play in vision. They support auditory consciousness and speech production. Strip maps and spectral-pitch resonances cooperate to solve the cocktail party problem whereby humans track voices of speakers in noisy environments with multiple sources. Auditory streaming and speaker normalization use networks with similar designs. Item-Order-Rank working memories and Masking Field networks temporarily store sequences of events while categorizing them into list chunks. Analog numerical representations and place-value number systems emerge from phylogenetically earlier Where and What stream spatial and categorical processes.
Adaptively Timed Learning
Authors: Grossberg Stephen
Published: July 2021

This chapter explains how humans and other animals learn to adaptively time their behaviors to match external environmental constraints. It hereby explains how nerve cells learn to bridge big time intervals of hundreds of milliseconds or even several seconds, and thereby associate events that are separated in time. This is accomplished by a spectrum of cells that each respond in overlapping time intervals and whose population response can bridge intervals much larger than any individual cell can. Such spectral timing occurs in circuits that include the lateral entorhinal cortex and hippocampal cortex. Trace conditioning, in which CS and US are separated in time, requires the hippocampus, whereas delay conditioning, in which they overlap, does not. The Weber law observed in trace conditioning naturally emerges from spectral timing dynamics, as later confirmed by data about hippocampal time cells. Hippocampal adaptive timing enables a cognitive-emotional resonance to be sustained long enough to become conscious of its feeling and its causal event, and to support BDNF-modulated memory consolidation. Spectral timing supports balanced exploratory and consummatory behaviors whereby restless exploration for immediate gratification is replaced by adaptively timed consummation. During expected disconfirmations of reward, orienting responses are inhibited until an adaptively timed response is released. Hippocampally-mediated incentive motivation supports timed responding via the cerebellum. mGluR regulates adaptive timing in hippocampus, cerebellum, and basal ganglia. Breakdowns of mGluR and dopamine modulation cause symptoms of autism and Fragile X syndrome. Inter-personal circular reactions enable social cognitive capabilities, including joint attention and imitation learning, to develop.
Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations
Authors: Landreth Grau Stacy
Published: July 2021

Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations: Insights and Innovations, Second Edition, is a comprehensive overview of the marketing process written specifically for nonprofit and social impact organizations. This book covers topics important to nonprofit professionals: branding; target audience selection; strategy; promotional tactics, including social media; and marketing evaluation. The “Insights” sections are based primarily on academic research that has been published and now translated into usable information for marketing professionals. The “Innovations” sections highlight organizations that are doing things in a different way and topics that are relatively new to the field. This second edition includes many updated examples as well as new information on several topics such as social enterprise, design thinking, collective impact, and narratives in nonprofits. Readers will find an organized, easy-to-read overview of important considerations in marketing for new and established nonprofit organizations and foundations.
The Heart of the Organization
Authors: Landreth Grau Stacy
Published: July 2021

Chapter 2 is all about the importance of the nonprofit brand. The purpose of the chapter is to define branding and emphasize the importance of developing a strong brand identity for nonprofit organizations. Having a strong brand image is vitally important to a nonprofit’s ability to gain traction and donor support. The chapter presents a brief discussion of the importance of brand image and the concept of brand equity for nonprofits. The chapter discusses how to create a strong brand and how to assess the current state of the nonprofit brand. The brand audit is an important part of the strategic planning process, one that is often misunderstood and forgotten. Finally, the chapter deals with the important topic of nonprofit stories and introduces a way to devise overarching nonprofit narratives.
Lessons from the History of Science
Authors: Nathan Marco J.
Published: July 2021

This chapter provides four historical illustrations of black boxes. The first two originate from two intellectual giants in the field of biology. Darwin acknowledged the existence and significance of the mechanisms of inheritance. But he had no adequate proposal to offer. How could his explanations work so well, given that a crucial piece of the puzzle was missing? A similar shadow is cast on the work of Mendel and his early-twentieth-century followers, the so-called classical geneticists, who posited genes having little to no evidence of the nature, structure, or even the physical reality of these theoretical constructs. Another illustration is found in the elimination of mental states from the stimulus-response models advanced by psychological behaviorism. A final example comes from neoclassical economics, whose “as if” approach presupposes that the brain can be treated as a black box, essentially setting neuropsychological realism aside. The history of science, the chapter concludes, is essentially a history of black boxes.
History of Science, Black-Boxing Style
Authors: Nathan Marco J.
Published: July 2021

This chapter revisits the earlier case studies from the perspective of the present analysis of black boxes. By breaking down these episodes into the three main steps outlined in Chapter 5, one is able to see how it was possible for Darwin to provide a simple and elegant explanation of such a complex, overarching explanandum: distributions of organisms and traits across the globe. It also explains why Mendel is rightfully considered the founding father of genetics, despite having virtually no understanding of what genes are, how they work, and even if they existed from a physiological perspective. Furthermore, if Darwin and Mendel are praised for skillfully setting the mechanisms of inheritance and variation aside, and keeping them out of their explanations, why is Skinner criticized for providing essentially the same treatment of mental states? Finally, the analysis sheds light on the contemporary dispute over the goals and methodology of economics.