bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
No evidence that economic inequality moderates the effect of income on generosity
Authors: Schmukle Stefan C. , Korndörfer Martin , Egloff Boris
Published: April 2019

A landmark study published in PNAS [Côté S, House J, Willer R (2015)
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA
112:15838–15843] showed that higher income individuals are less generous than poorer individuals only if they reside in a US state with comparatively large economic inequality. This finding might serve to reconcile inconsistent findings on the effect of social class on generosity by highlighting the moderating role of economic inequality. On the basis of the importance of replicating a major finding before readily accepting it as evidence, we analyzed the effect of the interaction between income and inequality on generosity in three large representative datasets. We analyzed the donating behavior of 27,714 US households (study 1), the generosity of 1,334 German individuals in an economic game (study 2), and volunteering to participate in charitable activities in 30,985 participants from 30 countries (study 3). We found no evidence for the postulated moderation effect in any study. This result is especially remarkable because (
i
) our samples were very large, leading to high power to detect effects that exist, and (
ii
) the cross-country analysis employed in study 3 led to much greater variability in economic inequality. These findings indicate that the moderation effect might be rather specific and cannot be easily generalized. Consequently, economic inequality might not be a plausible explanation for the heterogeneous results on the effect of social class on prosociality.
Ebola vaccination in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Authors: Wells Chad R. , Pandey Abhishek , Parpia Alyssa S. , Fitzpatrick Meagan C. , Meyers Lauren A. , Singer Burton H. , Galvani Alison P.
Published: April 2019

Significance

Using a spatial model that incorporates human mobility, poverty, and population density, we assessed the effectiveness of the vaccination program that was implemented during the 2018 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Our results demonstrate that even modest delays in initiating vaccination would have markedly eroded the impact of the program. The methodology we present has applicability for identifying areas at risk during outbreaks of other emerging and reemerging diseases, which is imperative for swift control.
Complete arsenic-based respiratory cycle in the marine microbial communities of pelagic oxygen-deficient zones
Authors: Saunders Jaclyn K. , Fuchsman Clara A. , McKay Cedar , Rocap Gabrielle
Published: April 2019

Microbial capacity to metabolize arsenic is ancient, arising in response to its pervasive presence in the environment, which was largely in the form of As(III) in the early anoxic ocean. Many biological arsenic transformations are aimed at mitigating toxicity; however, some microorganisms can respire compounds of this redox-sensitive element to reap energetic gains. In several modern anoxic marine systems concentrations of As(V) are higher relative to As(III) than what would be expected from the thermodynamic equilibrium, but the mechanism for this discrepancy has remained unknown. Here we present evidence of a complete respiratory arsenic cycle, consisting of dissimilatory As(V) reduction and chemoautotrophic As(III) oxidation, in the pelagic ocean. We identified the presence of genes encoding both subunits of the respiratory arsenite oxidase AioA and the dissimilatory arsenate reductase ArrA in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific (ETNP) oxygen-deficient zone (ODZ). The presence of the dissimilatory arsenate reductase gene
arrA
was enriched on large particles (>30 um), similar to the forward bacterial
dsrA
gene of sulfate-reducing bacteria, which is involved in the cryptic cycling of sulfur in ODZs. Arsenic respiratory genes were expressed in metatranscriptomic libraries from the ETNP and the Eastern Tropical South Pacific (ETSP) ODZ, indicating arsenotrophy is a metabolic pathway actively utilized in anoxic marine water columns. Together these results suggest arsenic-based metabolisms support organic matter production and impact nitrogen biogeochemical cycling in modern oceans. In early anoxic oceans, especially during periods of high marine arsenic concentrations, they may have played a much larger role.
Optical properties of high-pressure fluid hydrogen across molecular dissociation
Authors: Rillo Giovanni , Morales Miguel A. , Ceperley David M. , Pierleoni Carlo
Published: April 2019

Significance

The properties of warm, dense hydrogen are important in material science, plasma physics, planetary science, and astrophysics. We present simulations of its behavior in relation to ongoing, and in some cases controversial, results from static- and dynamic-compression experiments. The optical properties of dense liquid hydrogen are computed under conditions such that hydrogen is changing from a molecular insulating fluid into an atomic metallic fluid. The computed reflectivity and absorption of light agree with recent experimental observations and reconcile the observations with each other, leading to an understanding of this transition, thereby guiding future experimental and theoretical work, as well as being useful for planetary and astrophysical models.
Dimorphic sperm formation by
Sex-lethal
Authors: Sakai Hiroki , Oshima Hiroyuki , Yuri Kodai , Gotoh Hiroki , Daimon Takaaki , Yaginuma Toshinobu , Sahara Ken , Niimi Teruyuki
Published: April 2019

Significance

Sperm exhibit dramatic evolutionarily divergent morphologies in almost all taxa. Some sexually reproductive species show polymorphisms in the sperm produced by single males. Here, we focused on
Sex-lethal
(
Sxl
), which is the master sex-determination gene in
Drosophila melanogaster
, and investigated its function in the lepidopteran insect
Bombyx mori
. Our genetic analyses revealed that
Sxl
is essential for the formation of anucleate nonfertile parasperm. It is not expected that
Sxl
would be involved in sperm polymorphisms. Yet, whereas many morphological observations and ecological surveys have been conducted on sperm polymorphisms, this paper identifies the gene involved in sperm polymorphisms. Moreover, we clearly demonstrate that parasperm of
B. mori
is necessary for sperm migration in female organs.
Hypervariable region 1 and N-linked glycans of hepatitis C regulate virion neutralization by modulating envelope conformations
Authors: Prentoe Jannick , Velázquez-Moctezuma Rodrigo , Augestad Elias H. , Galli Andrea , Wang Richard , Law Mansun , Alter Harvey , Bukh Jens
Published: April 2019

Significance

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a pervasive human pathogen for which a vaccine is urgently needed. Vaccine development relies on inducing neutralizing antibodies (NAbs), but HCV employs complex mechanisms to evade neutralization that remain incompletely understood. Here, we discover a unique interplay between two separate molecular features of HCV envelope protein E2, the hypervariable region 1 and N-linked glycans, that protect HCV from NAbs. Furthermore, we find that they share a mechanism in which they broadly modulate NAb epitope availability by influencing stability of closed and open envelope protein conformations (e.g., envelope breathing) and virus entry dependency on scavenger receptor BI. The apparent importance of structural dynamics in understanding HCV NAb evasion and entry have important implications for rational vaccine design.
Nanomechanics of cellulose deformation reveal molecular defects that facilitate natural deconstruction
Authors: Ciesielski Peter N. , Wagner Ryan , Bharadwaj Vivek S. , Killgore Jason , Mittal Ashutosh , Beckham Gregg T. , Decker Stephen R. , Himmel Michael E. , Crowley Michael F.
Published: April 2019

Significance

Cellulose plays an important role as a structural polymer for natural material applications and as a source of sugars for production of renewable fuels and chemicals. Previously, kink defects have been observed in isolated cellulose nanofibrils. In this work, we provide direct evidence that these defects can be induced by mechanical deformation and are often accompanied by molecular-level bond breakages that are exploited by cellulase enzymes as initiation sites for processive hydrolysis. This relationship between mechanical stress and molecular defect formation has likely played a role in the evolution of both plants and natural cellulolytic enzyme systems. An improved understanding of these principles provides insight for the development of advanced cellulose utilization and processing technologies.
Oxidation of phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetase positively regulates translational quality control
Authors: Steiner Rebecca E. , Kyle Amanda M. , Ibba Michael
Published: April 2019

Significance

Regulation of translational quality control during adverse growth conditions is critical to maintain cellular homeostasis. Translational quality control is maintained by proofreading by the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRS), which ensure that cognate aminoacyl-tRNAs are provided to the ribosome for protein synthesis. Our findings now show that under oxidative stress a global conformational change in the phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetase positively regulates quality control by increasing the rate of proofreading. These results demonstrate that the translational machinery is able to rapidly and positively respond to environmental challenges to maintain the accuracy of protein synthesis.
Pleiotropic neuroprotective effects of taxifolin in cerebral amyloid angiopathy
Authors: Inoue Takayuki , Saito Satoshi , Tanaka Masashi , Yamakage Hajime , Kusakabe Toru , Shimatsu Akira , Ihara Masafumi , Satoh-Asahara Noriko
Published: April 2019

Significance

Cerebrovascular amyloid-β deposition is highly implicated in the pathogenesis of cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), one of the major causes of dementia. We previously showed that orally administered taxifolin, a natural bioactive flavonoid, enhanced the clearance of amyloid-β, improved cerebral blood flow, and suppressed cognitive decline in a mouse model of CAA. Here we investigate the in vivo effects of taxifolin on intracerebral factors associated with neuronal injury in these mice. We find that orally administered taxifolin may have neuroprotective effects through suppressing intracerebral amyloid-β production, neuroinflammation, and oxidative tissue damage, despite the low permeability of the blood–brain barrier to taxifolin. Our findings suggest taxifolin as a potential target for clinical applications to prevent/treat CAA.
Shallow particulate organic carbon regeneration in the South Pacific Ocean
Authors: Pavia Frank J. , Anderson Robert F. , Lam Phoebe J. , Cael B. B. , Vivancos Sebastian M. , Fleisher Martin Q. , Lu Yanbin , Zhang Pu , Cheng Hai , Edwards R. Lawrence
Published: April 2019

Significance

Plankton in the sunlit surface ocean photosynthesize, fixing dissolved CO
2
into particulate organic carbon (POC). This POC sinks and is respired, releasing CO
2
into subsurface waters that are sequestered from the atmosphere. The depth scale over which this regeneration happens strongly affects atmospheric CO
2
, but estimates to date have been sparse and challenging to interpret. We use a new geochemical method to determine POC regeneration depth scales at unprecedented resolution in the South Pacific Ocean, finding shallow regeneration in both oxygen-deficient zone and oligotrophic gyre settings. Our results imply decreased future ocean carbon storage due to gyre expansion and two opposing feedbacks to expanding oxygen-deficient zones, the net effects of which on ocean carbon storage require future research.
Believability of evidence matters for correcting social impressions
Authors: Cone Jeremy , Flaharty Kathryn , Ferguson Melissa J.
Published: April 2019

To what extent are we beholden to the information we encounter about others? Are there aspects of cognition that are unduly influenced by gossip or outright disinformation, even when we deem it unlikely to be true? Research has shown that implicit impressions of others are often insensitive to the truth value of the evidence. We examined whether the believability of new, contradictory information about others influenced whether people corrected their implicit and explicit impressions. Contrary to previous work, we found that across seven studies, the perceived believability of new evidence predicted whether people corrected their implicit impressions. Subjective assessments of truth value also uniquely predicted correction beyond other properties of information such as diagnosticity/extremity. This evidence shows that the degree to which someone thinks new information is true influences whether it impacts implicit impressions.
Tinbergen’s challenge for the neuroscience of behavior
Authors: Pfaff Donald , Tabansky Inna , Haubensak Wulf
Published: April 2019

Nobel laureate Nikolaas Tinbergen provided clear criteria for declaring a neuroscience problem solved, criteria which despite the passage of more than 50 years and vastly expanded neuroscience tool kits remain applicable today. Tinbergen said for neuroscientists to claim that a behavior is understood, they must correspondingly understand its (
i
) development and its (
ii
) mechanisms and its (
iii
) function and its (
iv
) evolution. Now, all four of these domains represent hotbeds of current experimental work, each using arrays of new techniques which overlap only partly. Thus, as new methodologies come online, from single-nerve-cell RNA sequencing, for example, to smart FISH, large-scale calcium imaging from cortex and deep brain structures, computational ethology, and so on, one person, however smart, cannot master everything. Our response to the likely “fracturing” of neuroscience recognizes the value of ever larger consortia. This response suggests new kinds of problems for (
i
) funding and (
ii
) the fair distribution of credit, especially for younger scientists.
Human interleukin-2 receptor β mutations associated with defects in immunity and peripheral tolerance
Authors: Zhang Zinan , Gothe Florian , Pennamen Perrine , James John R. , McDonald David , Mata Carlos P. , Modis Yorgo , Alazami Anas M. , Acres Meghan , Haller Wolfram , Bowen Claire , Döffinger Rainer , Sinclair Jan , Brothers Shannon , Zhang Yu , Matthews Helen F. , Naudion Sophie , Pelluard Fanny , Alajlan Huda , Yamazaki Yasuhiro , Notarangelo Luigi D. , Thaventhiran James E. , Engelhardt Karin R. , Al-Mousa Hamoud , Hambleton Sophie , Rooryck Caroline , Smith Kenneth G.C. , Lenardo Michael J.
Published: April 2019

Interleukin-2, which conveys essential signals for immunity, operates through a heterotrimeric receptor. Here we identify human interleukin-2 receptor (IL-2R) β chain (IL2RB) gene defects as a cause of life-threatening immune dysregulation. We report three homozygous mutations in the IL2RB gene of eight individuals from four consanguineous families that cause disease by distinct mechanisms. Nearly all patients presented with autoantibodies, hypergammaglobulinemia, bowel inflammation, dermatological abnormalities, lymphadenopathy, and cytomegalovirus disease. Patient T lymphocytes lacked surface expression of IL-2Rβ and were unable to respond to IL-2 stimulation. By contrast, natural killer cells retained partial IL-2Rβ expression and function. IL-2Rβ loss of function was recapitulated in a recombinant system in which IL2RB mutations caused reduced surface expression and IL-2 binding. Stem cell transplant ameliorated clinical symptoms in one patient; forced expression of wild-type IL-2Rβ also increased the IL-2 responsiveness of patient T lymphocytes in vitro. Insights from these patients can inform the development of IL-2–based therapeutics for immunological diseases and cancer.
The fifty years it has taken to understand the dynamics of UO2 in its ordered state
Authors: Lander G H , Caciuffo R
Published: April 2019

In 1966 Roger Cowley (together with Gerald Dolling) reported the first neutron inelastic scattering from the magnetic excitations from UO2 below its antiferromagnetic ordering temperature of 30 K. They showed the strong magnon–phonon coupling in this material and that the excitations appeared to contain an additional mode that was not anticipated. Cowley never returned to UO2, but showed a keen interest in the developments. Forty years after this pioneering work, unambiguous evidence was found (using resonance x-ray techniques) for the ordering below T

N
of the electric quadrupoles involving the anisotropy of the 5f charge distribution around the uranium nuclei. A further 10 years later, now armed with a full theory for the excitation spectrum expected for phonons, magnons, and quadrupoles, we can identify the latter as the source of the ‘extra’ mode reported first in 1966. The story is a long winding one, with the expected serendipity and dead ends, but is now (almost) completed.
A spatially resolved in situ calibration applied to infrared thermography
Authors: Elfner Maximilian , Glasenapp Tobias , Schulz Achmed , Bauer Hans-Jörg
Published: April 2019

When using thermography at elevated ambient temperature levels to determine the surface temperature of test specimen, radiation reflected on the test surfaces can lead to a large measurement error. Calibration methods accounting for this amount of radiation are available in the open literature. Those methods, however, only account for a scalar calibration parameter. With new, complex test rigs and inhomogeneous reflected radiation distribution, the need for a spatially resolved calibration arises. Therefore, this paper presents a new correction method accounting for a spatially varying reflected radiation. By computing a geometrical ray-tracing, a spatially resolved correction factor is determined. An extended calibration technique based on an in situ approach is proposed, allowing a local correction of reflected radiation. This method is applied to a test case with defined boundary conditions. The results are compared to a well-known in situ calibration method. A major improvement in measurement accuracy is achieved: the error in calibrated temperature can be reduced from over 10% to well below 2.5%. This reduction in error is especially prominent when the test surfaces are colder than the hot ambient, which is the case in many cooling applications, e.g. in gas turbine cooling research.
Bayesian estimation of switching rates for blinking emitters
Authors: Geordy Jemy , Rogers Lachlan J , Rogers Cameron M , Volz Thomas , Gilchrist Alexei
Published: April 2019

Single quantum light emitters are valuable resources for engineered quantum systems. They can function as robust single-photon generators, allow optical control of single spins, provide readout capabilities for atomic-scale sensors, and provide interfaces between stationary and flying qubits. Environmental factors can lead to single emitters exhibiting ‘blinking’, whereby the fluorescence level switches between on and off states. Detailed characterisation of this blinking behaviour including determining the switching rates is often a powerful way to gain understanding about the underlying physical mechanisms. While simple thresholds can be used to identify the on and off intervals and thus extract the rates from the time-series of counts for bright emitters with low background noise, such approaches become difficult for emitters fluorescing at low levels, high noise, or switching at fast rates. We develop a Bayesian approach capable of inferring switching rates directly from the time-series. This is able to deal with high levels of noise and fast switching in fluorescence traces. Moreover, the Bayesian inference also yields a robust picture of the parameter uncertainties, providing a benefit also for bright emitters in low-noise settings. The technique can be adapted to identify the underlying states as well as extracting the rates of switching. Finally, our method is applicable to a broad range of systems that show behaviour analogous to a blinking emitter.
Stimulus for land grabbing and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
Authors: Brito Brenda , Barreto Paulo , Brandão Amintas , Baima Sara , Gomes Pedro Henrique
Published: April 2019

We assessed the impact on the Brazilian Amazon of a 2017 land law that reinforces a mechanism for acquiring land rights historically linked to deforestation, since land grabbers clear the forest to signal land occupation and claim land rights. In particular, we assessed two significant potential impacts: (i) the loss of government revenue due to the sale of public land below market prices and (ii) the risk of future deforestation and associated CO2 emissions in 19.6 million hectares allocated to expand land privatization. The short-term revenue loss ranges from U$ 5 to 8 billion for 8.6 million hectares; the future revenue loss ranges from U$ 16.7 to 23.8 billion for 19.6 million hectares; and between 1.1 and 1.6 million hectares would risk being deforested until 2027, which could emit 4.5–6.5 megatonnes of CO2. The Brazilian government should review the decision about this area allocation; prioritize land allocation for conservation and, if selling part of this area, charge market prices.
Liquid Waste Processing of Tofu Industry for Biomass Production as Raw Material Biodiesel Production
Authors: Widayat W , Philia J , Wibisono J
Published: April 2019

Indonesia as a producer of tofu generated more liquid waste. Nutrients that contained in the tofu wastewater are very useful for the production of microalgae. Chlorella sp. is a microalgae that potential for food supplement, pharmaceuticals, animal feed, aqua culture and cosmetics. Chlorella sp. comonly grow in sea water. Glycerol in the cultivation medium as supplemental organic carbon sources for Microalgae. Cultivation carried out for 9 days at different percentages volume of tofu liquid waste and addition of glycerol. The result showed that increased concentration of tofu waste in microalgae cultivation media is proportional to the increase in lipid levels of Chlorella sp. Variable of 70%V has the highest concentration of lipid. The addition of glycerol in the cultivation medium enchancing lipid production. Variable of 5 g/l glycerol has the highest concentration of lipid. The higher ratio of carbon and nitrogen produces higher lipid content.
Latina/o Literature and War: Gendered Combat Zones
Authors: Vigil Ariana E.
Published: April 2019

Latina/o literary engagements with war include a wide variety of texts that touch on more than a century of US militarism and encompass a broad range of genres and perspectives. This body of work includes memoirs by soldiers and novels set during various military conflicts (often based on the authors’ own experiences), as well as short stories, plays, poems, and essays that reflect on, question, and problematize Latina/o participation in war. Just as Latina/o individuals and peoples occupy a variety of positions vis-à-vis the US nation-state—as conquered and colonized populations, as internal “minorities,” and as migrants and refugees—so, too, have Latina/o texts that take up war reflected a variety of positions. Taking an expansive view of war that includes movements of military-backed annexation and colonization, this literature may include Latina/o literary and cultural engagements with the annexation of Texas in 1845, the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), and the annexation of Puerto Rico in 1898. These topics sit alongside very different perspectives on US militarism such as those that reflect Latina/o experiences within the US armed forces in World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, Central America, and Iraq. This literature, then, covers works that celebrate and oppose US military action. Although factors such as geopolitical setting, history, ethnicity, and nationality affect the ways Latinas/os have experienced and interacted with US militarism, gender, and sexuality have also played important roles in these articulations. Gender is a necessary category of analysis that facilitates a more nuanced understanding of the way individuals and communities experience war. Just as it is best not to assume that military service for Latinas/os has had a singular or constant meaning (such as an experience of bravery or pride), it is necessary to avoid approaching gender as synonymous with women. Thus a gendered analysis facilitates questioning of the way masculinity and femininity shape and are shaped by questions of violence, military intervention, and national cohesion.
Asian Dimensions of Caribbean Latina/o Identity and Cultural Production
Authors: López Kathleen
Published: April 2019

Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, intellectuals and politicians have focused on three main groups as foundational to national and cultural identities: indigenous, African, and European. Mestizaje or racial mixing as a political project has worked to silence the presence and contributions of people of African and Asian descent, while favoring intermixing among European and indigenous. Researchers in the fields of history, anthropology, and sociology have long debated the role of Asians in the transition from slavery to wage labor and produced studies on the transnational and diasporic dimensions of Asian migration and settlement in the region. However, literature and cultural production captures aspects of the Asian presence in the Caribbean Latina/o world that remain absent or underplayed in most empirical studies. Prominent Latina/o writers and artists from the Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic) incorporate Asian characters and themes into their work on history, migration, and diaspora. They explore the Asian dimensions of Caribbean Latina/o racial, ethnic, gendered, and class identities and pose a challenge to foundational discourses of national and cultural identities based on mestizaje and syncretism that serve to subsume and erase the Asian presence. Secondary migrations of Asians from Latin America and the Caribbean to North America has produced a small but significant demographic of Asian Latina/os, some of whom reflect on their experiences through essays, memoirs, fiction, poetry, and art. The cultural production of Asian Latinas/os resists hegemonic concepts of race, nation, citizenship, and identity.
Pérez, Emma
Authors: Hernández Ellie D.
Published: April 2019

The work of writer, historian, and theorist Emma Pérez encompasses a broad intersectional approach to the study of Chicanas. Her life’s work crosses disciplinary boundaries by working with history and literary fiction. Noted for her dedicated study of gender and sexuality, Pérez also demonstrates a commitment to feminist studies, Chicana studies, and especially Latinx LGBTQ communities. Her complex interlaced approach brings together a powerful critique of the problems within the historical discipline and redirects her concerns for the erasures of Chicana lesbians from the historical record and cultural archive by writing novels that revise the past. Furthermore, in her theoretical work, particularly her groundbreaking book, The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas Back into History (1999), Pérez revises the representation of Chicanas by revisiting the history of colonialism and devising a theoretical approach that aims to recast Chicana subjectivity. In her theory of the “decolonial imaginary,” she identifies a set of conditions that presumptively casts Chicanas in a subservient or sexualized role that cannot be easily undone without changing the representations of these conditions, specifically the representations of conquest and colonialism. Likewise, Pérez’s effort to rework the colonial past is performed by her inclusion of Chicanas and Chicana lesbians in her literary works. Her first book of fiction, the novel Gulf Dreams (1996), is unique for its portrayal of sexual violence, racial ambivalences, and romantic love. In her second book, the historical novel Forgetting the Alamo, or Blood Memory (2009), she explores deep same-sex love, complex political histories revolving around differential regard for the lives of women and people of color, and gritty depictions of hardship, loss, historical memory, and the complexities of forgiveness. In the larger scope of Chicana/o literature, Pérez bears no claim to idealizing Chicana/o culture; rather she harmonizes the good with the bad and lets the reader decide what is real. Trained as a historian, Emma Pérez understands that changing the historical past requires reassessing reality, and her work accomplishes this goal.
Bollywood and Asian American Culture
Authors: Desai Jigna
Published: April 2019

Popular conceptions of Bollywood imagine it as a recent entry onto the global screen and stage. Although it is not incorrect to think of Bollywood as a recent formation, scholars can point to an early-20th-century coining of the neologism, even while suggesting that the more recent use of the term coincides with the liberalization of the Indian economy and the globalization of cultural forms and industries since the 1980s. Components of the current transnational assemblage that is popularly called Bollywood can be traced to the long-standing international formations of Bombay Hindi-Urdu cinema. Early and mid-20th-century Bombay cinema was mobilized through colonial, diasporic, and international circuits that brought it to London, China, Russia, and the United States. Consequently, Bollywood has been present in the United States and specifically playing to Asian American publics for over seven decades. During the mid-20th century, Bombay films ran in American art-house theaters; their distribution was often assisted by the effort and labor of Indian Americans who were seeking to gain greater exposure for Indian films. But it was post-1965 Asian migration that established the centrality of film and film cultures to Asian American communities, including but not limited to South Asian diasporic publics; this growth coincided with the globalization of Bombay cinema into a transnational Bollywood media ecology. It is important to recognize the significance of Bollywood as an assemblage within the cultural citizenship and racialized socialities of South Asian Americans and its significance to the affect and temporality of other groups, including Hmong American refugees.
Korean North Americans in Film and Television
Authors: Kim Eun Joo
Published: April 2019

Koreans have been represented in North American film and television for almost a century. However, in the early part of the 20th century most representations took place only through the actual bodies of Korean American actors who were portraying Chinese or Japanese characters in American films. The practice of crossethnic, and even crossracial, casting was common for Asian characters in these earlier productions. It was not until the mid-20th century that Korean American actors began to portray ethnically Korean characters. However, these roles often required them to speak, dress, and act as if they were not assimilated to American culture, contributing to the stereotype of Asians as perpetual foreigners to Western society.

Since the turn of the 21st century there have been more opportunities for Korean Americans and Korean Canadians to draw from their own lived experiences in their portrayals of characters who speak unaccented English and whose cultural backgrounds are not necessarily their most distinguishing features. Consciously challenging discriminatory practices and countering stereotypes of Asians and Asian Americans led to shifts in media representations and more fully developed portrayals of Korean North American characters.
Cultural Fusion Theory
Authors: Kramer Eric Mark
Published: April 2019

Cultural fusion is the process of integrating new information and generating new cultural forms. Cultural fusion theory recognizes the world as a churning information environment of cultural legacies, competing and complementing one another, forming novel cultural expressions in all aspects of life, including music, cuisine, pedagogy, legal systems, governance, economic behavior, spirituality, healthcare, norms of personal and interpersonal style, family structures, and so forth. This is a process of pan-evolution, involving countless channels, not merely two cultures coming together to form a third, hybrid culture. During this process the traditional pace and form of change is itself changing. Cultures are also transformed as a result of the churning process of an emergent global semantic field generated by countless networked exchanges.
Photojournalism
Authors: Langton Loup
Published: April 2019

Photography has been a practical reality for about 190 years, and, from its beginnings, journalism seemed like a natural application of the medium since most people believed that the photograph was an objective representation of reality. During the years since the first surviving photograph was produced in a camera, the evolution of photojournalism has been driven by a combination of technology, public demand, and a passion for the profession by its practitioners. In the first decades after that initial photograph, improvements in lenses, negatives, and prints made photographic reportage of the Crimean War (1853–1856) and the American Civil War (1861–1865) possible. The British and American populaces created immense markets for war images, and entrepreneurial photographers such as Roger Fenton and Mathew Brady provided them.

Technological advances in cameras, lenses, film, lighting, photographic reproduction methods, and an ability to transmit photographs worldwide continued to advance the boundaries of photojournalism throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The topics of that work were mostly motivated by public demand. Wars, politics, photographs of “exotic” cultures from around the world, sports, everyday features, and celebrity portraits provided popular themes and continue to do so into the present, but photojournalists have also pursued subjects that they deemed important to humankind though not necessarily popular. Many have produced social, political, environmental, and cultural documentaries that challenge the status quo. Some have challenged this work as being outside the bounds of “objectivity,” but the usefulness of this argument has been rejected by many in the profession. Legendary photojournalist W. Eugene Smith, for example, stated succinctly, “there is nothing objective about journalism.”

The final decade of the 20th century brought the evolution of the digital camera. Today’s photojournalism is almost exclusively a digital endeavor. The transformation of photography from analog to digital has revolutionized photojournalism in terms of workflow, mobility, transmission of images, ethics, image availability, and the question of “who is a photojournalist?” Finally, the gradual mutation of the term “photojournalism” to “visual journalism” denotes a transformation of the medium itself from the still image to a combination of still and moving images or perhaps exclusively moving images in the future. This, in turn, may fundamentally change the ways in which photojournalistic stories are told and experienced.
Climate and Conflict in Africa
Authors: Scheffran Jürgen , Link Peter Michael , Schilling Janpeter
Published: April 2019

Climate change was conceived as a “risk multiplier” that could exacerbate security risks and conflicts in fragile regions and hotspots where poverty, violence, injustice, and social insecurity are prevalent. The linkages have been most extensively studied for the African continent, which is affected by both climate change and violent conflict. Together with other drivers, climate change can undermine human security and livelihoods of vulnerable communities in Africa through different pathways. These include variability in temperature and precipitation; weather extremes and natural disasters, such as floods and droughts; resource problems through water scarcity, land degradation, and food insecurity; forced migration and farmer–herder conflict; and infrastructure for transport, water, and energy supply. Through these channels, climate change may contribute to humanitarian crises and conflict, subject to local conditions for the different regions of Africa. While a number of statistical studies find no significant link between reduced precipitation and violent conflict in Africa, several studies do detect such a link, mostly in interaction with other issues. The effects of climate change on resource conflicts are often indirect, complex, and linked to political, economic, and social conflict factors, including social inequalities, low economic development, and ineffective institutions.

Regions dependent on rainfed agriculture are more sensitive to civil conflict following droughts. Rising food prices can contribute to food insecurity and violence. Water scarcity and competition in river basins are partly associated with low-level conflicts, depending on socioeconomic variables and management practices. Another conflict factor in sub-Saharan Africa are shifting migration routes of herders who need grazing land to avoid livestock losses, while farmers depend on land for growing their harvest. Empirical findings reach no consensus on how climate vulnerability and violence interact with environmental migration, which also could be seen as an adaptation measure strengthening community resilience. Countries with a low human development index (HDI) are particularly vulnerable to the double exposure to natural disasters and armed conflict. Road and water infrastructures influence the social and political consequences of climate stress. The high vulnerabilities and low adaptive capacities of many African countries may increase the probability of violent conflicts related to climate change impacts.
Liability and Climate Change
Authors: Faure Michael , Peeters Marjan
Published: April 2019

In view of the need to curb greenhouse gases, the question arises as to the functions of liability in providing effective incentives for emitters in order to change their behavior. Liability for emitting greenhouse gases exists (or can exist) in the area of public law and private law and can be subdivided into international, administrative, and criminal liability (public law liabilities) and tort law liability (private law liability). Actions for holding individual and legal persons (such as states, authorities, and companies) liable can, depending on the specific jurisdiction, be triggered by citizens but also by legal persons, such as authorities, companies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), particularly environmental NGOs. The central question in this article is how climate liability is arranged under public law and whether there would be any role for climate liability to play under private law, thereby applying a legal and economic methodology. That so-called law and economics doctrine is a useful approach as it has given a lot of attention, for example, to the different functions of specific legal instruments (more particularly regulation, including taxation and emissions trading and tort law liability) for mitigating greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, in practice, various examples can be identified whereby tort law liability is used as a complement to greenhouse gas regulation. This specific use of tort liability is analyzed in the light of the law and economics literature, thereby pointing at prospects but also at remaining core questions. The success of tort law actions will most likely greatly depend on the (lack of) ambition vested into the emissions regulations at international and national levels. One of the exciting questions for the near future is to what extent judges feel able to step into the regulation of the climate change problem, in an ex ante way. The most difficult cases are obviously those where a regulatory system concerning greenhouse gas mitigation has been put in place and where the court system is strong, but where particular groups consider the regulations to be insufficient.
Legitimacy and European Union Politics
Authors: Hurrelmann Achim
Published: April 2019

Political scientists use the concept of legitimacy to assess the rightfulness of political rule. Their research can approach legitimacy from two perspectives: When taking a normative approach, political scientists develop and justify their own evaluation of the rightfulness of political arrangements. When taking an empirical approach, they study how other people—such as political elites or citizens—evaluate the rightfulness of political rule.

Both approaches have been used in research on the European Union. Scholarly discussions that approach the EU’s legitimacy from a normative perspective revolve around the question of which standards of rightfulness are appropriate for the EU. These depend largely on how the EU polity is conceptualized: as a technocratic regulatory agency, an intergovernmental organization, a federation, a demoi-cracy, or a system of multilevel governance. Since the EU is hybrid polity that possesses elements of each of these models, and is therefore difficult to classify, no consensus has emerged in this debate.

Scholarship that approaches the EU’s legitimacy as an empirical phenomenon examines political attitudes and discourses in European society, asking whether, and why, societal actors treat the EU as legitimate. A diverse set of research methods—including public opinion surveys, content analysis of different kinds of texts, and qualitative interviews with citizens—have been applied to shed light on this question. While this research has not provided clear evidence of a “legitimacy crisis” of the EU, it does show that many Europeans relate to the EU with a sense of diffuse unease and skepticism, in part because they find it opaque and difficult to understand.
Malta and the European Union
Authors: Pace Roderick
Published: April 2019

Fifteen years ago Malta joined the European Union (EU) and four years later in 2008 it joined the Economic and Monetary Union. Throughout this period its economy performed exceptionally well, to the extent that it managed to escape the worse ravages of the Great Recession. In general, the majority of the Maltese people support EU membership. Rapid economic growth has produced a general “feel good” sentiment, which is not, however, shared by everyone.

The Maltese political system has been dominated for many years by two parties, the Partit Nazzjonalista and the Labour Party, the only ones to elect candidates to the national parliament since 1966. In 2003, the Labour Party, which had opposed EU membership for many years, changed its policy. This brought the curtain down on parliamentary Euroscepticism in the country. In the meantime, economic success has meant that populist small parties have not been able to gain much traction with the electorate, and the established political parties were not dethroned by populist upsurge as happened in most of the rest of southern Europe. Growth has not led only to benefits, however. The construction sector is putting pressure to bear on scarce land resources, and the influx of foreign labor and a growing demand for housing have inflated rents and housing prices, often beyond the reach of lower income households. Unemployment stands at a low 3.8%, but more people are close to the poverty line. Malta is failing on some of the national targets of the Europe 2020 strategy. These challenges will have to be watched more closely in the years to come should this rate of growth be maintained.
Belgium and the European Union
Authors: Drieskens Edith
Published: April 2019

Belgium is one of the six founding members of European integration, but it is often seen as a special one. In both policy and research, the country is widely known as the “heart of Europe.” It even sells itself to the outside world in this way. This metaphor has a double meaning, a literal and a figurative one. First, Belgium’s capital, Brussels, qualifies as the unofficial capital of the European Union. This meaning is strongly supported by facts, with the city hosting the most numerous and the most important institutions. The second meaning requires more detailed consideration. Indeed, and second, Belgium is perceived to be the most European of all European countries, even prepared to exchange sovereignty for supranationalism at any time and any price. A closer look at data, decisions, and developments shows, however, that while support for European integration is widespread, it is not omnipresent either in time or in place. Particularly in Flanders, the northern part of the country, support has been less obvious than elsewhere.

Indeed, to understand Belgium and/in the European Union, one also has to understand the functioning of Belgium as a federal state composed of communities and regions, thus as a system of multilevel governance. While it is not the only federation among European Union member states, it uniquely combines a wide variety of federal characteristics. Most importantly here, the gradual process of federalization that Belgium has experienced has given the federated entities a strong voice in European Union decision-making. Member states still need to speak with one voice, however, resulting in a complex system of coordination and representation. The possibilities and realities of this system have attracted quite a lot of scholarly interest. The same goes for the rather fundamental question of whether the European Union and federated entities should be seen as unintended partners in the hollowing out of the federal state or whether the opposite holds true and the European Union is coming to Belgium’s rescue. The jury is still out on this, though the answer seems to be growing more and more complex as time passes.
Media, War, and Foreign Policy
Authors: Aday Sean
Published: April 2019

Mass media play an important but often misunderstood role in wartime. Political elites try to marshal support for military intervention (or justify avoiding such involvement) through the press. Media sometimes serve as watchdogs, holding leaders accountable for their claims and actions in times of conflict, but more often appear to act as uncritical megaphones for bellicose rhetoric. The public, meanwhile, has little choice but to see war through the prism of media coverage, placing a great burden on the press to cover conflicts truthfully and thoroughly, a responsibility they sometimes live up to, but in important ways do not.

Scholarship about these issues goes back decades, yet many questions remain unanswered or up for debate. There seems to be strong consensus that media coverage of conflict is even more elite driven than is domestic coverage, for instance, yet how much that matters in shaping public attitudes and support for war remains contested. Similarly, research consistently shows that the press shies away from showing casualties, yet the effects of exposure to casualty information and images are still not well understood. Finally, digital media seem to be important factors in contemporary crises and conflicts, but scholars are still trying to understand whether these platforms more serve the interests of protest or repression, peace or violence, community or polarization.
The Comparative and International Political Economy of Anti-Globalization Populism
Authors: Franzese Robert J.
Published: April 2019

The basic economics of international trade imply that globalization will have driven in the developed democracies of the Western world an increasing divergence between the material advancement of human, physical, and financial capitalists—a minority of the population—and the material stagnation or even decline of labor—a majority. This article reviews that theory and the strong comparative-historical empirical record substantiating those effects, and explains how the rise of xenophobic, nationalistic, anti-elite populism has its complementary roots in these economic developments.