bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Perceived Neighborhood Characteristics and Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence: A Multilevel Analysis
Authors: Thulin Elyse J. , Heinze Justin E. , Kusunoki Yasamin , Hsieh Hsing-Fang , Zimmerman Marc A.
Published: February 2020

Within a lifetime, one in four women and more than one in 10 men will experience intimate partner violence (IPV). Researchers have begun to examine physical and social neighborhood risk factors of IPV, often using cross-sectional data. Most studies focus on risk or promotive factors. Often, neighborhood factors are studied through the lens of social disorganization theory, which focuses on how a neighborhood slips into a violent and crime-ridden place. Busy streets theory provides an alternative perspective, focusing on how building up community assets and resources may help create a safe and vibrant neighborhood. A conceptual approach that utilizes risk and promotive neighborhood variables may help develop new conceptual frameworks for understanding how context may decrease risk for, or moderate, the negative consequences of IPV. Using five waves of data from a 24-year longitudinal study, we employ multilevel linear regression models to examine the trajectory of IPV experiences in relation to positive perceptions of neighborhood, neighborhood cohesion, and informal social control in individuals aged 28 to 33 years. We control for the neighborhood and individual-level risk factors of alcohol consumption, drug use, observed neighborhood violence, and demographic factors of age, race, sex, and socioeconomic status. We found that positive perceptions of neighborhood, alcohol consumption, drug use, economic need, and observed neighborhood violence are associated with IPV. Levels of IPV risk were relatively constant within individuals across waves, but varied significantly between individuals. The measure of positive perceptions of neighborhood is derived from busy streets theory, which may be a useful conceptual framework for understanding how neighborhoods may contribute to positive social contexts that can protect residents from IPV experiences, and potentially other violent behavior. Additional research examining promotive social neighborhood features derived from busy streets theory may help expand our understanding of contextual factors that affect IPV.
Heat transfer characteristics and flow visualization of anodized flat thermosiphon
Authors: Varughese Allen , Solomon A Brusly , Raj Benny , Sharifpur Mohsen , Meyer Josua P
Published: February 2020

Use of environmentally safe refrigerants is the need of the hour to minimize the carbon footprints and to reduce the ozone depletion. The application of such environmentally safe refrigerants in the thermosyphon with the micro/nanoporous coating is expected to operate efficiently. In this study, a simple cost-effective anodizing technique to form a uniform thin micro/nanoporous coating at the inner wall of the thermosiphon is undertaken, and the resulting performance enhancement is presented. Also, the effect of fill ratio, heat input and the porous coating on the heat transfer characteristics of flat thermosiphon are studied. The heat transfer coefficient in the evaporator of anodized and nonanodized thermosiphon is enhanced to a maximum of 3587 and 2742 W/m2 K, respectively. The number of pores present in the anodized evaporator surface is estimated as 3.4 × 109. The width (pore size) and depth of pore are measured as 0.25 µm and 16 nm respectively. The porosity of the coating is around 55%, and the contact angle is ≤10°. As a result, the heat transfer coefficient at the evaporator and condenser of anodized thermosyphon is enhanced to a maximum of 24% and 13% respectively, when compared to that of the nonanodized thermosiphon.
Publish less, read more: Replies to Clegg, Wiggins, and Ostenson; and to Trafimow
Authors: Phaf R. Hans
Published: February 2020

Clegg, Wiggins, and Ostenson, and Trafimow wrote two very different comments on “Publish Less, Read More.” In my reply to Clegg and colleagues, I agree that the inability to predict future success has led funding agencies and hiring committees to rely on social and political selection criteria and to use calculative audits as a proxy for scientific content. I argue that if it is clear that decisions to publish are based on theoretical criteria, and the numbers of publications per researcher decline, their relative value will increase, as will that of funding agencies and hiring committees. Trafimow argues that there are more than sufficient data for ad-hoc theorizing but that it does not happen, at least not enough. I agree that experimental psychologists often perform and publish research while being ill-prepared, and argue that only publication, but not data collection, should be limited to theoretically informed research.
Clinical features of transverse myelitis associated with systemic lupus erythematosus
Authors: Zhang S , Wang Z , Zhao J , Wu D i , Li J , Wang Q , Su J , Xu D , Wang Y , Li M , Zeng X
Published: February 2020

Objective

This study aimed to identify the clinical characteristics and prognostic factors of systemic lupus erythematosus with transverse myelitis (SLE-TM) in a relatively large patient series.

Methods

This retrospective study considered 45 SLE-TM individuals treated as inpatients and outpatients at Peking Union Medical College Hospital between 1993 and 2018. SLE-TM patients were compared with 180 controls, and SLE-TM patients with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) were compared to those without NMOSD.

Results

Compared to controls, the SLE-TM group frequently had a fever and had a significantly higher positive rate of anticardiolipin and lupus anticoagulant. Among the 45 patients, 22 met the NMOSD criteria. Compared to non-NMOSD patients, NMOSD patients had a lower incidence of rash ( p = 0.023), serositis ( p = 0.042) and renal disorder ( p = 0.073); a lower prevalence of decreased complement ( p = 0.083); and lower rates of positive anti-dsDNA ( p = 0.074) and anti-Sm ( p = 0.042). Among 22 SLE-TM patients with NMOSD, 18 underwent aquaporin 4 antibody testing, with 11 showing positive results. Out of the 45 patients, 39 were given methylprednisolone pulse treatment. After treatment, 32 patients had lower-limb muscle strength recovery (recovered group), whereas 13 had no change and persistent severe neurological deficits (non-recovered group). Compared to the recovered group, the non-recovered group were younger ( p = 0.002), had a higher likelihood of having a fever ( p = 0.020), initial severe myelitis ( p < 0.001), long spinal segment involvement ( p = 0.017) and higher C-reactive protein levels ( p = 0.020). Methylprednisolone pulse given within two weeks of onset was more frequent in the recovered group than in the non-recovered group ( p = 0.082).

Conclusions

Disease characteristics differed between SLE-TM patients with and without NMOSD. SLE and NMOSD tended to be co-morbidities. Initial severe neurological impairment, extensive spinal cord lesions, hyper-inflammation and delayed steroid impulse treatment could be predictors of poor outcome for SLE-TM.
Stabilization of a flexible pipe conveying fluid with an active boundary control method
Authors: Yu Beiming , Yabuno Hiroshi , Yamashita Kiyotaka
Published: February 2020

A method of stabilizing the self-excited oscillation of a cantilevered pipe conveying fluid because of non–self-adjointness is proposed theoretically and experimentally. Complex eigenvalues denoting the natural frequency and damping of the system vary with an increase in the flow velocity. When the flow velocity exceeds a critical value, the flow-generated damping becomes negative and the pipe is dynamically destabilized. The complex eigenvalues with respect to flow velocity are affected by boundary conditions. We, thus, propose a stabilization control actuating the boundary condition. The stabilization method is carried out by applying a bending moment proportional to the bottom displacement of the pipe. The effect of the proposed control method is shown by investigating the stability for the three lowest modes of the system depending on the feedback gain. It is theoretically clarified that the critical flow velocity is increased by the proposed control method. Furthermore, experiments are performed using a fluid conveying pipe with two piezoactuators at the downstream end. The piezoactuators apply a bending moment at the downstream end of the pipe according to the theoretically proposed method. Experimental results verify that the proposed stabilization method suppresses the self-excited oscillation.
5-azacitidine reversing “spent” phase polycythemia vera back to proliferative phase and need for phlebotomy
Authors: Lerner Jaren , Michel Miguel , Dasanu Constantin A
Published: February 2020

Introduction

Polycythemia vera is a myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) characterized by increased red blood cell mass. The natural evolution of this MPN is to progress to an anemic/cytopenic phase also known as “spent” phase prior to transformation into an accelerated and/or an overt leukemic phase.

Case Report

Herein, we describe a case of a patient with polycythemia vera transitioning though a “spent” phase to an MPN in accelerated phase (MPN-AP). The patient had anemia, thrombocytopenia, neutrophilia and increased blasts in the bone marrow. Management and outcome: Upon treatment with four cycles of 5-azacitidine, the patient’s polycythemia vera reversed back to the proliferative phase. Serial phlebotomies were again required.

Discussion

Reversal of a “spent” phase by 5-azacitidine back to a proliferative polycythemia vera phase requiring phlebotomies has not been previously reported in the scientific literature. We might witness similar cases in the literature in the future years, which could lead to yet another therapeutic indication of this important pharmacologic agent.
Life-threatening hypertriglyceridemia-induced pancreatitis related to alectinib successfully treated by plasmapheresis: A review of the literature on metabolic toxicities associated with anaplastic lymphoma kinase inhibitors
Authors: Rao Arundati , Reddy Aswanth , Dinunno Corey , Elali Ibrahim
Published: February 2020

Introduction

Actionable mutations are tested as standard of care for all new metastatic non-small cell lung cancers. Tumors harboring an anaplastic lymphoma kinase mutation respond to tyrosine kinase inhibitors targeting anaplastic lymphoma kinase pathway. Patients are monitored for common adverse effects, although we occasionally encounter unexpected side effects.

Case report

A 52-year-old male presented with a right hilar lung mass, and workup revealed a stage IIIA adenocarcinoma. He underwent treatment with concurrent chemoradiation; however, disease recurred one year later with a right hilar mass and contralateral mediastinal lymphadenopathy, biopsy of which resulted positive for adenocarcinoma. Molecular analysis showed anaplastic lymphoma kinase rearrangement and alectinib was started. Six months into therapy, he presented with hematochezia, nausea, and epigastric pain and was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis. Triglyceride level resulted above the measurable level at >5680mg/dL, thought to be the inciting event of pancreatitis. Management and outcome: Despite treatment with intravenous hydration, insulin infusion, and antibiotics, he decompensated with development of respiratory failure, shock requiring intensive care. Therapeutic plasmapheresis was initiated due to persistently elevated triglyceride. Following the third plasmapheresis, triglyceride level decreased to 359 mg/dL. With aggressive multidisciplinary management, he made a complete recovery. Follow-up imaging studies at three and six months show a stable mass-like abnormality in the right hilum without evidence of disease progression.

Discussion

Prior to starting alectinib, our patient’s triglyceride level was 420 mg/dL. While he consumed alcohol, he had no other traditional risk factor. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of hypertriglyceridemia-induced acute pancreatitis related to treatment with an anaplastic lymphoma kinase inhibitor.
Bortezomib-induced motor neuropathy: A case report
Authors: Singh Meghana , Thomas Vinay M , Mulay Sudhanshu
Published: February 2020

Introduction

Bortezomib is a proteasome inhibitor used in the treatment of multiple myeloma, Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, mantle cell lymphoma. The most reported adverse effects include fatigue, thrombocytopenia, gastrointestinal symptoms, and peripheral neuropathy, which mostly manifests as sensory neuropathic symptoms. We present a case of a patient who experienced motor neuropathy after initiating treatment with bortezomib.

Case report

An 87-year-old male was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and started on treatment with bortezomib, dexamethasone, and lenalidomide (VRd). After five cycles of therapy, he developed lower extremity weakness, which was severely debilitating, affecting his ability to walk, and this prompted his visit to the emergency department.

Management and outcome

The patient was admitted for further workup and underwent electromyography, which was consistent with demyelinating polyneuropathy with active denervation. His symptoms were attributed to bortezomib, and his VRd regimen was held. His symptoms failed to improve despite discontinuation of bortezomib. He then received steroids and intravenous immunoglobulin (IViG) with a gradual resolution of his symptoms. He was thereafter restarted on only lenalidomide and dexamethasone with no recurrence of his neuropathy.

Discussion

Clinicians need to be aware of the likely risk for motor neuropathy associated with bortezomib. Risk factors like older age and pre-existing neuropathy can predispose patients to this adverse effect, and clinicians should monitor for this toxicity and facilitate dose reduction or discontinuation of therapy if warranted. Sometimes, patients may also need further treatment with steroids or IVIG.
Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitors and the kidney: Focus on ibrutinib
Authors: Brener Zachary Z , Brener Heather , Losev Alexander
Published: February 2020

Introduction

Tumor lysis syndrome is an oncologic emergency resulting from rapid and massive tumor cell death that may lead to serious clinical complications including acute kidney injury and cardiac arrest. Tumor lysis syndrome most often occurs after the initiation of cytotoxic therapy in patients with high-grade lymphomas and acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Case report

We present a first case of patient with chemotherapy-resistant chronic lymphocytic leukemia and small lymphocytic lymphoma who developed tumor lysis syndrome upon treatment with ibrutinib (Imbruvica), a novel tyrosine kinase inhibitor.

Management and outcome

The patient showed dramatic improvement in kidney function, uric acid and phosphorus after discontinuation of ibrutinib and a short course of rasburicase (recombinant urate oxidase), and two haemodialysis treatments.

Discussion

Clinicians should be aware of this serious side effect and closely monitor kidney function in patients treated with this oral kinase inhibitor.
Stability studies of parenteral nutrition with a high dose of vitamin C
Authors: Stawny Maciej , Gostyńska Aleksandra , Olijarczyk Rafał , Dettlaff Katarzyna , Jelińska Anna , Ogrodowczyk Magdalena
Published: February 2020

Background

Postoperative administration of parenteral nutrition has become routine management in patients with gastrointestinal cancer. Providing patient the complete parenteral nutrition containing not only the macronutrients and electrolytes but also adequate doses of vitamins is a significant issue of nutritional therapy. The aim of the study was to develop parenteral nutrition containing a high dose of vitamin C (500 mg) and evaluate their stability.

Methods

Five compositions of parenteral nutrition were developed and stored for seven days in three different conditions. Physical stability studies including visual examination and determination of pH, size of lipid droplets (using dynamic laser scattering method), and zeta potential (using laser Doppler electrophoresis method) were performed for all studied parenteral nutrition with and without vitamin C immediately after preparation and after storage. The content of vitamin C was determined using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method.

Results

The addition of vitamin C to parenteral nutrition did not affect its physical stability. Degradation of vitamin C in parenteral nutrition occurred according to first-order kinetics reaction. The content of vitamin C remained above 90% of zero-time content within the first 24 h for each studied parenteral nutrition compositions stored at 4°C and 25°C with light protection.

Conclusions

Vitamin C added to parenteral nutrition was unstable regardless of the storage conditions nor parenteral nutrition compositions. However, for the first 24 h, the content of vitamin C remained in the pharmacopoeial limit. Therefore, supplementation of parenteral nutrition admixtures with vitamin C in the dose of 500 mg is possible in the condition of administration to the patients within the first 24 h.
The Influence of Childhood Engagement in the Context of Hospitality Service Failure Evaluation
Authors: Papen Marie-Christin , Siems Florian U. , Kunz Werner H.
Published: February 2020

Marketing research shows that customer relationship management can reduce consequences of service failures. The question is how long a former customer engagement can still have an effect on a current critical incident. In extreme cases, this means whether and how interactions between company and customer during childhood can still influence the effects of a service failure. This article proposes that engagement with a company during childhood (childhood engagement) can affect later perceptions of the relationship. An experiment with 152 participants showed that perceived controllability and childhood engagement moderated the effect of disappointment on repurchase intention. Customers with childhood engagement evaluate a service failure more favorably than customers without childhood experiences. Furthermore, customers are likely to react negatively if the responsibility for the failure is attributed to the company. Accordingly, from a managerial perspective, childhood engagement and credible communication can prevent the ending of a customer relationship after a failure.
Foveal cyst: Unknown etiology and unexplained response to treatment
Authors: Jayadev Chaitra , Thomas Sherina , Vinekar Anand , Gadde Santosh Gopi Krishna , Poornachandra B
Published: February 2020

Background:

Foveal cysts have been associated with vitreous traction due to a taut posterior hyaloid. These eyes may progress to become a full-thickness macular hole, remain stable, or resolve after a posterior vitreous detachment. A foveal cyst in an eye with a complete posterior vitreous detachment and no other obvious pathology is unusual.

Case presentation:

A 21-year-old male presented with blurred vision in the left eye of 1-month duration. On examination his left-eye vision was 20/60, and anterior segment examination was normal. Fundus examination showed internal limiting membrane folds with a suspected lamellar macular hole. A spectral domain optical coherence scan showed a thin dome-like cyst in the sub foveal region involving the outer retinal layer with a detached posterior hyaloid face. A trial of intravitreal dexamethasone implant was given, following which there was improvement in vision and resolution of the foveal cyst. At the third-month follow-up, the patient presented with a stellate pattern of hyporeflectivity in the macular area both on spectral domain optical coherence scan and multicolor imaging with no change in visual acuity.

Conclusion:

The presence of a foveal cyst in a young male without any risk factors is peculiar, and the rapid response to intravitreal dexamethasone implant raises questions about the pathogenesis. The stellate pattern of hyporeflectivity on spectral domain optical coherence scan imaging with an intraretinal “filling defect”–like picture on fluorescein angiography suggests a possible ongoing ischemic pathology.
Architectural parallax, neoliberal politics and the universality of the Palestinian struggle: Banksy’s Walled Off hotel
Authors: Khader Jamil
Published: February 2020

This article argues that Banksy’s new controversial project, the Walled Off installation-hotel, in Bethlehem, Palestine, can be productively interrogated in terms of what the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek calls the ‘architectural parallax’, as a site where the fundamental antagonism (the class struggle) in the context of the Palestinian struggle for freedom is played out. Structured around a few major architectural contradictions, Banksy’s new project in Bethlehem raises critical questions about the contradictions of post-Oslo Palestine within the neoliberal economic realities of the global capitalist system. The Walled Off hotel thus exposes the contradictions or ideological discrepancy between, on the one hand, the free mobility of ideas and capital which made such an installation-hotel possible in the first place, and on the other, the restrictions on the mobility of Palestinians under Israeli military occupation and Zionist settler-colonial regime. As an architectural parallax, Banksy’s Walled Off hotel inscribes the Palestinian struggle for freedom within a radical egalitarian dimension, that Žižek refers to after Hegel as ‘concrete universality’. This allows first, for recognizing the immanent universal dimension at the core of Palestinian particular identity. Second, it makes it possible to link the Palestinian struggle for freedom to other struggles around the world not simply by drawing parallels between them around identity politics, but as the obverse sides of the same class struggle that cuts through various disposable communities and nations within the neoliberal global capitalist system.
Friction and adhesive wear behavior caused by periodic impact in mixed-lubricated point contacts
Authors: Pei Xin , Pu Wei , Yang Jialong , Zhang Ying
Published: February 2020

Periodic impact is a common phenomenon experienced by functional components. The mechanisms governing the adhesive wear growth caused by the periodic impact are not well understood, which limits the development of antiwear and lubricating behavior. In this work, the periodic impact action caused by rubbing surface velocity and contact load is studied in the sliding wear process under mixed lubrication condition. At each wear simulation circle, the material removal at each asperity contact location is evaluated and the surface topography is renewed correspondingly. The evolutions of friction and wear track are revealed during wear process. We find that the friction coefficient changes periodically caused by the periodic speed, and the wear rate increases almost linearly with either speed period or speed amplitude. The load impact results in an abrupt variation in friction coefficient, while it appears to be limited in adhesive wear state compared to speed, highlighting the critical role of velocity impact in wear formation.
A high-efficiency, information-based exploration path planning method for active simultaneous localization and mapping
Authors: Li Peng , Yang Cai-yun , Wang Rui , Wang Shuo
Published: February 2020

The efficiency of exploration in an unknown scene and full coverage of the scene are essential for a robot to complete simultaneous localization and mapping actively. However, it is challenging for a robot to explore an unknown environment with high efficiency and full coverage autonomously. In this article, we propose a novel exploration path planning method based on information entropy. An information entropy map is first constructed, and its boundary features are extracted. Then a Dijkstra-based algorithm is applied to generate candidate exploration paths based on the boundary features. The dead-reckoning algorithm is used to predict the uncertainty of the robot’s pose along each candidate path. The exploration path is selected based on exploration efficiency and/or high coverage. Simulations and experiments are conducted to evaluate the proposed method’s effectiveness. The results demonstrated that the proposed method achieved not only higher exploration efficiency but also a larger coverage area.
Community prescribing of potentially nephrotoxic drugs and risk of acute kidney injury requiring renal replacement therapy in critically ill adults: A national cohort study
Authors: Tominey Steven , Timmins Alan , Lee Robert , Walsh Timothy S , Lone Nazir I
Published: February 2020

Background

Acute kidney injury demonstrates a high incidence in critically ill populations, with many requiring renal replacement therapy. Patients may be at increased risk of acute kidney injury if prescribed certain potentially nephrotoxic medications. We aimed to evaluate this association in ICU survivors.

Methods

Study design – secondary analysis of national cohort of ICU survivors to hospital discharge linked to Scottish healthcare datasets. Outcomes: primary – renal replacement therapy in ICU; secondary – early acute kidney injury (calculated using urine output and relative change from estimated baseline serum creatinine within first 24 h of ICU admission using modified-RIFLE criteria). Primary exposure: pre-admission community prescribing of at least one potential nephrotoxin: angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin-receptor blockers, diuretics or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Statistical analyses: unadjusted associations – univariable logistic regression; confounder adjusted: multivariable logistic regression.

Results

During 2011–2013, 12,838 of 23,116 patients (55.5%) were prescribed at least one community prescription of at least one nephrotoxin; 1330 (5.8%) patients received renal replacement therapy; 3061 (15.7%) had acute kidney injury. Patients exposed to at least one examined nephrotoxin experienced higher incidence of renal replacement therapy (6.8% vs 4.5%; adjOR 1.46, 95%CI 1.24, 1.72, p < 0.001) and acute kidney injury (19.8% vs 10.9%; adjOR 1.61, 1.44, 1.80, p < 0.001). Increased risk of RRT was also found for angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin-receptor blockers (adjOR 1.65, 1.40, 1.94), non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (adjOR 1.12, 1.02, 1.44) and diuretics (adjOR 1.35, 1.14, 1.59).

Conclusions

Community prescribing of potential nephrotoxins increases the risk of renal replacement therapy/early acute kidney injury in ICU populations. Analyses were limited by the survivor dataset and potential residual confounding. Findings add consistency to previous research improving understanding of the harmful potential of these important medications and their timely cessation in acute illness.
Peasant Resistance to Neoliberalism: La Via Campesina and Food Sovereignty
Authors: Desmarais Annette
Published: February 2020

Since emerging in 1993, La Vía Campesina has become a powerful voice of opposition to the globalization of a modern, industrial and neoliberal model of rural development. By “building unity within diversity” La Vía Campesina pulls together rural movements to work for an alternative model of agriculture and community based on food sovereignty. This article sheds light on La Vía Campesina's contributions to this growing food sovereignty movement.
The Insidious Work of the University: From Nationalism to Excellence to Entrepreneurialism1
Authors: Mitchell Don
Published: February 2020

“We are committed to grow the skills and competence of men and women who are or soon will be at the center of making decisions associated with strategic and operational security matters in the public or private sector. Content of our 2-week courses will expose them to the next generation of security thinking and allow them to interact with and learn from colleagues of other agencies and organizations. It will take them to the next level of their careers both intellectually and professionally.”

- Flyer for the National Security Studies Program, Maxwell School, Syracuse University
Method in the madness: A social justice manifesto for conflict analysis
Authors: Chatterjee Ipsita
Published: February 2020

Conflicts are complex, violent events. Justice becomes problematic when conflict research hesitates to identify oppressors. Such hesitation is due to an epistemological relativity that over-emphasizes situationality, preventing the researcher from taking sides with the oppressed. Over-emphasizing situationality often produces case-study oriented research that fails to go beyond case-specific micro causalities. I argue that heterogeneous micro events are often connected by macro phenomena that must be discerned for the sake of social justice. Using examples from a case of Hindu-Muslim conflict in India, I argue for a methodology that takes the side of the oppressed and links the specificity of this cultural conflict with neoliberal globalization.
The Neoliberal Geopolitics of Food Security: The Case of Indonesia
Authors: Essex Jamey
Published: February 2020

The centering of development in post-9/11 US national security strategies, combined with the restructuring of the US state's foreign development apparatus, promise deep changes in understandings and practices of food security and its relationship to development and processes of neoliberalization, securitization, and militarization. Long a stated objective within US foreign aid programs, especially those based around food aid, recent strategic shifts have rescripted food security as a basic need that should be met through the market, and as a proxy measurement for good governance. By the same token, food insecurity becomes a measure of poor governance and a contributor to political instability and persistent underdevelopment, laying the groundwork for international terrorism and criminal activity. This paper examines the altered contexts and practicalities of US food aid in Indonesia, as the relationship between such assistance and broader projects of sub-imperialism and neoliberalization, in Indonesia and in Southeast Asia more generally, must be interrogated. US development and geopolitical strategies identify Indonesia as both a strategically important ally in the global war on terror and a vulnerable state, prone to deteriorating security and governance. Under post-9/11 security and development strategies, development and humanitarian assistance centered on food aid and improved food security have become primary components of US policy in and toward Indonesia. I ground my discussion in two case studies: security-oriented food-for -work programs in Jakarta and the militarization of food aid in post-tsunami Aceh province.
On the Crisis of the Crisis: Finance and the Bourgeois State∗
Authors: Labban Mazen
Published: February 2020

There is no crisis in capitalism, from a political standpoint, but a discourse of crisis that has been employed to concentrate more political power with the bourgeoisie while deepening the fusion of (global) capital with an increasingly authoritarian state. This process, simultaneously national and international, has been mostly visible in the development of capitalism in the periphery, as an expression of the development of monopoly capital in general rather than a geographic variant of capitalism specific to the region. Today, to reverse the marxian maxim, the less developed country shows to the country that is more developed the image of its own future.
From Mixed Economy to Neo-Liberalism: Class and Caste in India's Economic Transition
Authors: Ahmed Waquar
Published: February 2020

Neoliberal transformation is not simply a top-down process. Neoliberal hegemony at the global level has an ally in the Indian elite in producing class-biased economic growth at the national scale. This paper examines the social contestations around India's economic policy regime, its reproduction and transformation. It shows how the coercive power of global governance institutions has worked in tandem with the interest of the local elite to produce neoliberal changes in India. But class elites are not a homogeneous group. Fractures in class power affect the nature of political-economic change. Post-independence, the rural bourgeoisie, i.e., the quasi-feudal landlords and the medium-size landowners, at different stages of political-economic history, were the main social forces influencing economic policy, and the Tatas and Birlas, India's big business houses, were their urban counterparts. 1980s were witness to the rise of a “new breed of entrepreneurs” in India with foreign business collaborations, who have now emerged as the dominant class-relevant force, constantly nudging India in the neoliberal direction. Additionally, neoliberalism has the support of the Indian upper caste since the new economic regime has created avenues for re-assertion of upper-caste power. Thus, the Indian economic space continues to be contested through endogenous politico-democratic contestations, fractured and continually reorganizing class power, caste assertions, global policy discourses and coercive power of global governance institutions.
Book Review: Space, Oil and Capital
Authors: Ahmed Waquar
Published: February 2020

Space, Oil and Capital contributes to the current and vibrant debate on energy resource scarcity and contestation. Conventional geopolitics and political economy focus on oil supply security, whose quantity and location are viewed in geologically deterministic terms (e.g., Klare 2001, 2004). A focus on geological limits makes competition for oil a competition for the control of the spaces in which it is located, or through which it is transported to consumers. Mazen Labban deviates from such arguments and proposes that it is not oil geology that produces geopolitical contestations, but the production of space in the process of competition that is crucial to producing the finiteness of oil. Drawing primarily from Marx, Luxemburg, Lefebvre and Harvey, Labban demonstrates that competition for oil is geared at ensuring that part of it stays out of the market in order to make its production profitable. Competition over oil, despite generally held beliefs, is not geared at ensuring supply, but at regulating supply and ensuring profit.
Is it Really Easier to Imagine the end of the World than the end of Industrial Meat?
Authors: Emel Jody , Hawkins Roberta
Published: February 2020

The food system is a major contributor to climate change, with livestock production accounting for a large percentage. Reducing the consumption of meat and dairy products can significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. FAO's landmark study found that 18 percent of GHG emissions in 2005 arose from livestock production – more than the global transportation sector. Despite the fact that livestock product consumption is increasing at a global level, the scientific findings about livestock producers’ contribution to climate change presents a tremendous opportunity to fundamentally dismantle an industry that is found significantly problematic in terms of public health, animal cruelty, worker compensation and safety, and environment. Movements to reduce meat consumption, like the “Meatless Monday” campaign, are increasingly popular and focus on institutional shifts. Not only are universities, hospitals, restaurants, and other institutions re-examining their meat and dairy consumption levels, they are also evaluating and changing their sourcing of such products, emphasizing local small farms over well establishing industrial supply chains. Nevertheless, these efforts often illicit serious backlash from consumers who claim their consumer rights and sovereignty are being jeopardized by institutional decisions to reduce meat consumption. We contend that consumer sovereignty is already something of an illusion because consumption is always already a collective endeavor. We base this argument on three points: (i) that meat eating is best understood not as an individual action alone, but as mediated through an historical and cultural politics; (ii) that our food choices at the institutional level are already highly constricted, especially as they relate to the political and economic clout of the meat and dairy industries; and (iii) that consumption choice is not based on knowledge or desire alone but is always a collective action dependent on choice-sets and information made available through a variety of institutional actors. We make the case for reducing meat consumption through institutional (as opposed to individual) campaigns and make some suggestions as to how these changes might best be implemented given the current backlash based on consumer “sovereignty”.
Bailing out the Wealthy: Responses to the Financial Crisis, Ponzi Neoliberalism, and the City
Authors: Walks Alan
Published: February 2020

This article seeks to critically examine public policy response to the global financial crisis in the core of the developed world, and to understand the likely implications of this set of policy responses for the future trajectory of urban social crises. Instead of dealing with the internal contradictions of the financial-economic system that characterizes recent capitalism, and that produced the global financial crisis, the governments of the wealthiest countries are actively attempting to ‘solve’ the problem by re-installing a form of capitalism that I refer to as ‘ponzi neoliberalism’. The increasing dominance of ponzi dynamics in this system means it is inherently contradictory, inequitable, wealth-destroying in the aggregate, and unsustainable – I stress in particular the implications for the future form and trajectory of urban social inequality. In this article, I trace the roots of the global financial crisis and outline the parameters of ponzi neoliberalism. I then discuss how nation states are using public policy to resuscitate this system, and in doing so, are reproducing highly contradictory and unsustainable, but self-reinforcing, dynamics (doom-looping) that imperil future social and economic sustainability. I then consider the impact on the geography of the city, and argue that this strategy risks deepening urban social crisis. The longer that ponzi neoliberalism is allowed to continue, the deeper and more problematic will be the crisis, and the more limited will be the state capacity to respond to its contradictions.
Introduction: The Occupied Palestinian Territories and Late-modern wars
Authors: Belcher Oliver Christian
Published: February 2020

The essays collected in this special issue address the intersections between the late-colonial occupation of the Palestinian Territories by the state of Israel, and the conduct of late-modern warfare. Taking the summer 2010 attack on the Gaza Aid flotilla, the devastating late-2009 assault on Gaza, and the everyday occupation and appropriation of the West Bank that continues to stranglehold the Palestinians as cues, each essay critically evaluates the material conditions that facilitate Israel's colonial project. As these essays attest, urbicide and infrastructural violence—institutionalized by the Israeli military most succinctly in the so-called “Dahiya Doctrine”— play a critical role in Israeli military practice. As the authors, each in their own way, argue, it is only by taking on these infrastructural material conditions which facilitate the Israeli occupation that one can begin to hold an honest conversation on the prospects for a peaceful solution, and an end to the colonial occupation and manufactured humanitarian crisis which plagues the Palestinians.
The Free Gaza Flotilla and the Christian Zionist Response: Territory, Media, and Race
Authors: Sturm Tristan
Published: February 2020

Repeated attempts by activists and aid volunteers to break Israel's unilaterally recognized borders around Gaza have been most often met with violent resistance from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In this paper, I argue that “Freedom Flotilla”, the ninth attempt at challenging Israel's blockade of Gaza by sea, has been challenged through a delegitimization campaign leveled on the behalf of powerful Christian Zionists. This campaign of discursive dispossession has taken at least three strategic forms: (1) the performance of the doctrine of terra nullius; (2) a culture jamming counter-media project; and (3) a biblically based racialized division of the world. These Christian Zionist discourses are important to consider in understanding the conflict because they have effects that influence how the conflict is to be framed, as well as material effects, and because they resonate with Israel's increasingly powerful religious settler movement and culturally conservative Americans.
“New Wars” and Classic Imperialism: The Siege on Gaza and the Occupation of the West Bank
Authors: Smith Ron J.
Published: February 2020

Proponents of the New Wars thesis contend that warfare is evolving into a new era, one that has by necessity placed warfare among civilians. Much of this era-based analysis is designed to condition the reader to acceptance of an overt targeting of civilian papers, justified through a claim that the war on terror will be fought in civilian spaces. A more critical reading of this notion of new wars rejects the notion that warfare can be divided into neat chronological categories, and that voluntary wars have always been fought against the civilian population, particularly in wars of colonialism. New Wars, rather than being an innovation in the strategies of war, are simply an evolution in the rhetoric of war, and are deeply bound with a process of neoliberal colonialism, essentially nothing new. Following the warnings of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine (Klein 2007), it stands to reason that New Wars are inseparable from neoliberal anti-state strategies, targeting civilians and the infrastructure and institutions they rely upon. This paper will examine the “New Wars” thesis in the context of the current Israeli occupation of Gaza to understand the significance of the New Wars thesis in a real-world context.

Much of the analysis of the Gazan context for this paper relies on participant observation and interviews undertaken by the author in the summer of 2009 in Gaza, and corroborated through press reports. The article relies on these sources due to the dearth of geographical academic writing on Gaza, a condition that this edited volume will help to address.
Socialism and ‘Social Economy’
Authors: Eisenschitz Aram , Jamie Gough
Published: February 2020

Many socialists support initiatives to develop the social economy. Yet the social economy is deeply ambiguous in its politics: it promises radical economic democracy, yet it is often sponsored by the Right and Centre as a means of class stabilization, workers’ self-exploitation, and social reproduction on the cheap. We locate this political ambiguity in the contradictions of capitalist accumulation, particularly the contradictions of socialisation with value relations, and show how the social economy has responded to these. This analysis of the mainstream actually-existing social economy throws doubt on its potential for socialists and on some optimistic perspectives among left commentators. We then discuss some elements of an approach to the social economy which could cut against its role in class stabilisation and begin to realise its radical promise, especially by making strong links to popular collective organisations and struggles in the mainstream economy and society. This approach provides an alternative to some recent left perspectives on the social economy which we regard as too modest and pessimistic.
‘Nothing Less than its Eradication'? Ireland'S Hunger Task Force and the Production of Hunger
Authors: Fraser Alistair
Published: February 2020

A wide range of actors have intervened in the debate about the causes of hunger and what can be done to eradicate it. One example is a 2008 report by the Hunger Task Force, a group of development experts mandated by the Irish government to explain the root causes of hunger and identify ways for Ireland to play a leading role in eradicating it. In this paper, I present a critical review of what the HTF report says about the causes of hunger. I argue the report fails to live up to its aim of commemorating those who died in the Irish Famine in the 1840s because it refuses to consider the role of the corporate food regime in the production of hunger. Further, I position the report's flaws relative to Ireland by asking how the report balances Ireland's drive to eradicate hunger against its political and economic interests. I pay particular attention to Ireland's diplomatic proximity to the United States and to the emerging corporate foodscape within Ireland; both considerations shed light on Ireland's place within the structures and mechanisms that produce hunger in the contemporary period.
Seeds of Change and Emancipation: Towards a Cognitive Mapping of Globilisation in Literature
Authors: Cuadrado-Fernandez Antonio
Published: February 2020

200 years of industrial capitalism, and 500 years of colonialism, have caused the worst human and environmental crisis in the history of human kind. Rapid and unprecedented depletion of natura resources, global warming, the exploitation of human beings, the global economic crises, and the military might needed to enforce the free flow of capital, al these call for a common, emancipatory articulation of local struggles. However, the creation of a larger empowering discourse requires the formation of a cognitive mapping whereby different local struggles can identify and map the structural source of their oppression.

In this paper I argue that recent approaches to globalisation from the perspective of complexity theory and recent developments in cognitive linguistics and poetics, can help to construct a cognitive mapping of contemporary postcolonial poetry that enables us to scrutinise the impact of global capitalism on the loca context. Complexity theory and cognitive theories regard language as rooted in human perception of a complex and dynamic environment. Cognitive mapping articulates the reader's bodily experience to the writer's embodied conceptualisations of the effects of global capitalism on their land. In this way modernity can be redefined in more democratic terms that incorporate the voice of the marginalised and the oppressed.
An Environmentalist Re-Patterning of Political Language and Practice: From Freedom and Justice to Responsibility for Nature
Authors: Poli Corrado
Published: February 2020

This essay: (a) criticizes the current political strategy of most environmentalists, radical and moderate; (b) proposes the intellectual terms of a political alliance that could overcome the traditional political separation between conservative and progressive when dealing with the environmental question; (c) reports on a case; (d) suggests how to shift from a non-political situation into political and institutional action. My goal is to create a political-cultural background which brings environmentalists together with people inspired by new economy, cultural creatives, wikinomics, organic farming, cultural and immaterial consumption models, etc. The alliance will be grounded on a new covenant between humans and nature, and on a non-materialist interpretation of politics. Therefore, I call for new research that helps to radically change the political and the production system, not because the system is unjust in the usually- considered terms, but because it endangers nature and society. By changing the order of priority I do not deny the importance of social justice and individual freedom in everyday life. Rather, I think that meaningful political reforms, and consistent political platforms, will be possible only if we put the relation between humans and nature first in the political debate.