bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Bulk photovoltaic effect in monodomain BiFeO3 thin films
Authors: Yang Ming-Min , Luo Zheng-Dong , Kim Dong Jik , Alexe Marin
Published: May 2017

The bulk photovoltaic effect of ferroelectric semiconductors is increasingly being studied for potential applications in solar energy harvesting thanks to their unique charge separation mechanism and the resultant anomalous photovoltage. However, the intrinsic properties regarding the temperature dependence of photovoltaic current and its correlation with the ferroelectric polarization in such systems still require proper understanding. Here, by studying monodomain BiFeO3 thin films with only a single ferroelectric variant, we demonstrate that the photovoltaic current of BiFeO3 ferroelectric semiconductors possesses a preferred direction depending on the light polarization direction and working temperature, which is not along the ferroelectric polarization direction. The results indicate that the bulk photovoltaic effect originates from non-centrosymmetry of ferroelectric semiconductors but is independent of the ferroelectric polarization. Moreover, we showed that the bulk photovoltaic effect can be tailored by modifying the activity of sub-band gap levels via chemical doping, thus enhancing the power conversion efficiency in ferroelectric semiconductors.
The role of momentum transfer during incoherent neutron scattering is explained by the energy landscape model
Authors: Frauenfelder Hans , Young Robert D. , Fenimore Paul W.
Published: May 2017

Significance

Quasielastic neutron scattering (QENS) has been used for > 40 y to study complex systems. Fascinating questions remain. The neutron has to be a de Broglie wave packet to obtain dynamics information on biological systems. During its interaction with a proton in a protein, the wave packet puts pressure on the proton and its environment. The protein acts like an ideal spring and by Hooke’s law transiently stores the energy produced by the pressure. On leaving, the wave packet regains essentially the full energy. However, during the passage, fluctuations in the sample change the neutron energy slightly and broaden the energy spectrum. The results call for a reexamination of the theory of quasielastic neutron scattering from complex systems.
MEF2D haploinsufficiency downregulates the NRF2 pathway and renders photoreceptors susceptible to light-induced oxidative stress
Authors: Nagar Saumya , Noveral Sarah M. , Trudler Dorit , Lopez Kevin M. , McKercher Scott R. , Han Xuemei , Yates John R. , Piña-Crespo Juan C. , Nakanishi Nobuki , Satoh Takumi , Okamoto Shu-ichi , Lipton Stuart A.
Published: May 2017

Significance

Currently, there is no effective treatment for blindness resulting from loss of photoreceptors in humans. Elucidating degenerative pathways in photoreceptors may thus facilitate therapeutic strategies. Myocyte enhancer factor 2d (MEF2D) is a transcription factor known to be important for photoreceptor survival. Here, we explore the impact of low-level environmental light exposure on photoreceptor loss in
Mef2d
-haploinsufficient mice. We elucidate a mechanism linking genes and environment, implicating oxidative stress in photoreceptor pathology. Specifically, we identify the MEF2D–nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 (NRF2) pathway as a therapeutic target for photoreceptor survival. The transcription factor NRF2 stimulates antioxidant and antiinflammatory cascades. We find that activation of NRF2 with the pro-electrophilic drug carnosic acid can protect
Mef2d
-haploinsufficient photoreceptors from light-induced damage.
Stability of bound species during alkene reactions on solid acids
Authors: Sarazen Michele L. , Iglesia Enrique
Published: May 2017

Significance

This report combines kinetic and spectroscopic data with state-of-the-art theoretical methods to provide insights into the stability of covalently bound species ubiquitous as intermediates in hydrocarbon and alcohol reactions on solid acids [e.g., coupling, alkyl(methyl)ation, isomerization, cracking, dehydration,…]. In doing so, the study addresses the long-standing search for a systematic analysis of the effects of the size and shape of organic guests (alkoxides) and inorganic hosts (catalysts). It reveals how framework distortions act to balance the requirements for covalency with the need for optimal void geometries that maximize van der Waals contacts. These details are essential to understand the stability and reactivity of bound alkoxides, prevalent as reactive intermediates in host–guest systems of catalytic interest.
High spatial correspondence at a columnar level between activation and resting state fMRI signals and local field potentials
Authors: Shi Zhaoyue , Wu Ruiqi , Yang Pai-Feng , Wang Feng , Wu Tung-Lin , Mishra Arabinda , Chen Li Min , Gore John C.
Published: May 2017

Significance

We found that blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal changes within single-digit representation columns in the primary somatosensory cortices of areas 3b and 1 aligned spatially very closely with local field potential (LFP) signals in response to tactile stimulation. Moreover, resting state BOLD fMRI and LFP signals also exhibited very similar intervoxel spatial correlation profiles. These findings indicate that at a columnar level, BOLD signals faithfully reflect underlying neuronal activity both during information processing and at rest. Importantly, the spread of BOLD activity and correlations at high field are no greater than the extent of LFP signals. These results demonstrate that high-field fMRI has the ability to delineate brain activity at the columnar level, and BOLD signals faithfully reflect electrophysiological activity.
Paper-based plasma sanitizers
Authors: Xie Jingjin , Chen Qiang , Suresh Poornima , Roy Subrata , White James F. , Mazzeo Aaron D.
Published: May 2017

Significance

Conventional plasma-based treatments deactivate microbes in confined, nonatmospheric chambers. During the last few decades, new concepts have led to portable, chamberless generators with rigid configurations of electrodes. This work explores unique designs and methods of antimicrobial sanitization with flexible plasma generators consisting of laminated assemblies of patterned, metallized paper. Under oscillating potentials (±1 to ±10 kV from 100 Hz to 8 kHz), the paper-based devices produced plasma that deactivated 99% of
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
and
Escherichia coli
cells with 30 s of treatment. Future uses of this type of plasma generator might include the sanitization of protective garments, origami- or kirigami-like devices, and human–machine user interfaces in healthcare and/or contaminated environments.
CXCR4 signaling and function require the expression of the IgD-class B-cell antigen receptor
Authors: Becker Martin , Hobeika Elias , Jumaa Hassan , Reth Michael , Maity Palash C.
Published: May 2017

Significance

Mature B cells express two classes of B-cell antigen receptor (BCR), IgM and IgD. The relevance of each isotype is still enigmatic. The BCR cross talks with a number of other receptors on the B-cell surface. We here show that CXCR4 engages in broad cross talk with the IgD–BCR specifically. CXCR4 function is strongly compromised in the absence of IgD, revealing its significance for B-cell homeostasis. We show that cross talk is also mediated via CD19 and the actin cytoskeleton. Furthermore, actin depolymerization by Latrunculin-A (Lat-A) mimics almost all effects of CXCL12. Hence, CXCR4 signaling modifies the actin cytoskeleton to communicate with other receptors such as CD19 and IgD. This view places the cytoskeleton at the center of receptor cross talk.
Nonequilibrium thermodynamics of the Markovian Mpemba effect and its inverse
Authors: Lu Zhiyue , Raz Oren
Published: May 2017

Significance

It is commonly expected that cooling a hot system takes a longer time than cooling an identical system initiated at a lower temperature. Surprisingly, this is not always the case; in various systems, including water and magnetic alloys, it has been observed that a hot system can be cooled faster. These anomalous cooling effects are referred to as “the Mpemba effect”, and so far they lack a generic details-independent explanation. Based on recent developments in the theory of nonequilibrium thermodynamics, we propose a generic mechanism for similar effects, demonstrate it in various systems, and predict a similar anomalous behavior in heating.
Biocompatible and totally disintegrable semiconducting polymer for ultrathin and ultralightweight transient electronics
Authors: Lei Ting , Guan Ming , Liu Jia , Lin Hung-Cheng , Pfattner Raphael , Shaw Leo , McGuire Allister F. , Huang Tsung-Ching , Shao Leilai , Cheng Kwang-Ting , Tok Jeffrey B.-H. , Bao Zhenan
Published: May 2017

Significance

Organic electronics, particularly polymers, can be synthesized and processed with low temperatures and, more importantly, have the potential to be environmentally benign candidates for electronic applications. However, there has been no report of totally decomposable polymer semiconductors. Their availability will enable low-cost and fully disintegrable transient electronics. We have developed an innovative concept based on imine chemistry that allows totally disintegrable and biocompatible semiconducting polymers. Using an ultrathin biodegradable substrate, we successfully fabricated polymer transistors and logic circuits that show high performance and are ultralightweight, but they can be fully disintegrable. Our work significantly advances organic materials to enable environmentally friendly and biointegrated electronic applications.
Suppressors and activators of JAK-STAT signaling at diagnosis and relapse of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Down syndrome
Authors: Schwartzman Omer , Savino Angela Maria , Gombert Michael , Palmi Chiara , Cario Gunnar , Schrappe Martin , Eckert Cornelia , von Stackelberg Arend , Huang Jin-Yan , Hameiri-Grossman Michal , Avigad Smadar , te Kronnie Geertruy , Geron Ifat , Birger Yehudit , Rein Avigail , Zarfati Giulia , Fischer Ute , Mukamel Zohar , Stanulla Martin , Biondi Andrea , Cazzaniga Giovanni , Vetere Amedeo , Wagner Bridget K. , Chen Zhu , Chen Sai-Juan , Tanay Amos , Borkhardt Arndt , Izraeli Shai
Published: May 2017

Significance

Children with Down syndrome are at increased risk for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (DS-ALL), often expressing cytokine receptor-like factor 2 (CRLF2). Here we studied matched diagnosis and relapse DS-ALLs to understand the pathogenesis of relapse. We confirm that enhanced JAK-STAT signaling frequently “drives” CRLF2posDS-ALL at diagnosis, but discovered that clones with JAK mutations are unstable, suggesting that they also endowed the transformed cells with vulnerabilities. We find USP9X loss in up to 25% of CRLF2posALLs, and demonstrate that its ablation decreases the toxic effect of JAK2 hypersignaling. Thus, in CRLF2posALLs JAK-STAT signaling is often buffered by loss of USP9X. These results have therapeutic implications because they suggest that ALL cells can tolerate a limited range of JAK-STAT signaling.
Effect of media presentations on willingness to commit to organ donation
Authors: Harel Inbal , Kogut Tehila , Pinchas Meir , Slovic Paul
Published: May 2017

Significance

We often encounter cases of organ donation in the press or on television. How might these stories affect readers? We found that reading coverage of cases that include identifying information about the receiver (saved by organ donations) increased participants’ willingness to commit to organ donation themselves, to donate the organs of a deceased relative, or to support a transition to an “opt-out” policy. Conversely, identifying the deceased donor induced thoughts of death rather than about saving lives, resulting in fewer participants willing to donate organs or to support policies that facilitate organ donation. We show that most of the stories that appear in the press include an identified donor rather than an identified receiver, possibly reducing organ donations.
NLRP3 inflammasome assembly is regulated by phosphorylation of the pyrin domain
Authors: Stutz Andrea , Kolbe Carl-Christian , Stahl Rainer , Horvath Gabor L. , Franklin Bernardo S. , van Ray Olivia , Brinkschulte Rebecca , Geyer Matthias , Meissner Felix , Latz Eicke
Published: May 2017

NLRP3 is a cytosolic pattern recognition receptor that senses microbes and endogenous danger signals. Upon activation, NLRP3 forms an inflammasome with the adapter ASC, resulting in caspase-1 activation, release of proinflammatory cytokines and cell death. How NLRP3 activation is regulated by transcriptional and posttranslational mechanisms to prevent aberrant activation remains incompletely understood. Here, we identify three conserved phosphorylation sites in NLRP3 and demonstrate that NLRP3 activation is controlled by phosphorylation of its pyrin domain (PYD). Phosphomimetic residues in NLRP3 PYD abrogate inflammasome activation and structural modeling indicates that phosphorylation of the PYD regulates charge–charge interaction between two PYDs that are essential for NLRP3 activation. Phosphatase 2A (PP2A) inhibition or knock-down drastically reduces NLRP3 activation, showing that PP2A can license inflammasome assembly via dephosphorylating NLRP3 PYD. These results propose that the balance between kinases and phosphatases acting on the NLRP3 PYD is critical for NLRP3 activation.
Classicism and Deviation in His Girl Friday and Double Indemnity
Authors: Berliner Todd
Published: May 2017

Chapter 2 illustrates an aesthetically productive balance between easy understanding and cognitive challenge in classical Hollywood cinema with extended analyses of His Girl Friday and Double Indemnity. These films combine classical narrative, stylistic, ideological, and genre properties with artistic devices that complicate formal patterning and thwart audience expectations.
Finding the Fit
Authors: Berliner Todd
Published: May 2017

Chapter 4 illustrates the theory of narration presented in the previous chapter, offering an extended analysis of an unusual narrative pattern in Red River, which violates Hollywood’s cardinal rules regarding narrative unity, probability, causality, and story logic. Disunity in this classical Hollywood narrative adds variety to our filmgoing experience; stimulates our imagination, curiosity, and creative problem-solving processes; and liberates our thinking from the burdens and limitations of good sense.
Genre and Ideology in Starship Troopers
Authors: Berliner Todd
Published: May 2017

Whereas chapter 8 demonstrates how ideology can complicate a film’s artistic design, chapter 9 shows how a film’s artistic design can complicate its ideology. Starship Troopers illustrates the commercial risks, and the aesthetic excitement, of a Hollywood film whose formal properties muddle up its ideological content. The film’s unconventional use of genre devices leads to ideological complexities that pose challenges for spectators trying to make sense of the film’s form and meaning. Starship Troopers employs the conventions of the Hollywood war film and the war film satire in ways that make the film’s worldview incoherent. The film’s mercurial form limited its success in a mass market but exhilarated cult audiences engaged by the film’s unusual design.
Bursting into Song in the Hollywood Musical
Authors: Berliner Todd
Published: May 2017

Chapter 11 examines the aesthetic value of novelty in a genre’s evolution by tracing the history of the convention that characters in Hollywood musicals spontaneously burst into song without realistic motivation. The convention emerged in 1929 and largely vanished by the end of the 1950s. The chapter studies how studio-era filmmakers developed novel conventions that exploited the aesthetic possibilities of song in cinema. The eventual loss of the convention created new constraints on the uses of song, but it also enabled new aesthetic possibilities. Post-studio-era filmmakers transformed the convention, exposed it, and reclaimed it in ways that added novelty to spectators’ aesthetic experience.
Introduction
Authors: Berliner Todd
Published: May 2017

The very name Hollywood has colored the thought of this age. It has given to the world a new synonym for happiness because of all its products happiness is the one in which Hollywood—the motion-picture Hollywood—chiefly interests itself.

—Carl Milliken, President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association, 1928...
Introduction
Authors: Arregui Ana , Rivero María Luisa , Salanova Andrés
Published: May 2017

This chapter offers an introduction to the book. Modality is a core research topic for most disciplines interested in language, including linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. By putting forward specific case studies across an extensive range of languages, the chapters in this book allow us to gain insights into features that are common across languages in the construction of modal meanings, as well as into constraints that are language-specific. The broad range of syntactic and morphological configurations under study in this book succeed in giving readers a sense of the extremely rich diversity found in natural language under the “modal umbrella.”
Epistemic indefinites: On the content and distribution of the epistemic component
Authors: Alonso-Ovalle Luis , Menéndez-Benito Paula
Published: May 2017

Epistemic indefinites make an existential claim and convey that the speaker does not know which individual satisfies it. This epistemic component is absent in some environments, like the scope of downward entailing operators and the nuclear scope of a universal quantifier. This chapter discusses two types of theories of epistemic indefinites: the Conceptual Cover Approach (Aloni and Port 2013, circulated since 2010) and the Implicature Approach (Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002; Alonso-Ovalle and Menéndez-Benito 2008, 2010; Fălăuş 2009, 2014; Chierchia 2013). We assess the extent to which these theories can account for the content and the distribution of the epistemic effect of the Spanish epistemic indefinite algún. We present a number of arguments showing that neither approach can capture the whole range of data in its current formulation, and we sketch a preliminary proposal that adopts insights from both theories.
Modal indefinites: Where do Japanese wh-kas fit in?
Authors: Alonso-Ovalle Luis , Shimoyama Junko
Published: May 2017

Most work on modal indefinites has focused on a small sample of languages, and has therefore provided only a limited picture of the cross-linguistic empirical landscape within this domain. Although much progress has been made in trying to determine the properties along which modal indefinites can vary, the development of a semantically based typology of modal indefinites (and of modal expressions more generally) will benefit from the consideration of data from a broader sample of languages. This chapter situates the properties of a Japanese existential construction (the so-called wh-ka indeterminates) in the broader typology of modal indefinites by taking into consideration some of the parameters of variation that have been discussed in the literature.
The non-modality of opinion verbs
Authors: Bouchard David-Étienne
Published: May 2017

This chapter is concerned with the interpretation of predicates of personal taste and epistemic modals. Specifically, I argue that while there are some interpretive similarities between the two, they do not warrant the unified treatment that they receive in Stephenson (2007) and others. I show that the relevant judge for predicates of personal taste and the relevant knower for epistemic modals can only be assigned by non-overlapping syntactic means. More specifically, epistemic verbs do not necessarily shift the judge of their embedded clause, and opinion verbs are not licensed by the presence of an epistemic modal in the complement, only by a true predicate of personal taste. I therefore argue that the interpretation of epistemic modals should not contain any reference to a judge index, and that judge dependency should not be accounted for using the mechanisms of modal semantics.
Dimensions of variation in Old English modals
Authors: Gergel Remus
Published: May 2017

The chapter investigates aspects of variation in Old English modals with respect to functional status, modal base, modal force, and event realization under the modals in the actual world. The main goal is to view—in tandem, rather than in isolation—aspects of variation that are of interest at the syntax–semantics interface. The chapter focuses on three modals, the cognates of ‘can,’ ‘may,’ and ‘must,’ which show the full range of variation available in the categories investigated. The role of circumstantial modality in the diachronic development is underlined. It is furthermore argued that the modals of the period occupy a structural position in the aspectual domain. Evidence for functional status includes ellipsis, topicalization, and the complementary distribution with the aspectual prefix ge-.
Introduction
Authors: Boutcher Warren
Published: May 2017

The ‘Introduction’ describes how in Volume 2 we switch focus from the patron-author to the reader-writers of the Essais, as they circulated around Europe. These are seventeenth-century descendants of the free literate of the late medieval period, as described by Armando Petrucci. The Essais become a context for their works, instead of vice versa. The primary objects of study are less, now, contexts involving Montaigne and his collaborators than those involving various commentators, imitators, promoters, translators, and their networks of friends and family. We are concerned less with Montaigne’s book than with their books—whether printed, manuscript, or a hybrid of both, whether literary works, or personal records. There follow summaries of the individual chapters.
Safe Transpassage
Authors: Boutcher Warren
Published: May 2017

The paratexts to Florio's Montaigne claim that Montaigne's worth was recognized everywhere. But what was the fate of the Essais in cities from Geneva in Switzerland to Ferrara, Padua, and Venice in northeastern Italy? In Geneva, the Essais were first published in a heavily censored edition, before appearing unexpurgated with false title pages. Lyon [Geneva] 1595 combines with other evidence to show how one of the most significant early reader-writers of the Essais (Simon Goulart) corrected and used the work. There are some parallels with Ferrara 1590, which we can see as part of the oeuvre both of its translator, Naselli, and of the Ferrarese court. In the late 1620s, early 1630s, clerics in the Veneto including Paolo Sarpi called upon the Essais to assist in the construction of virtù civile and models of the philosophico-religious life for the noble elite. They understood them to be a contribution to Renaissance moral philosophy and 'civil conversation'.
Learning Mingled with Nobility in Shakespeare’s England
Authors: Boutcher Warren
Published: May 2017

Chapter 2.3 analyses the English school of Montaigne in the context of the relationship between Renaissance education and the early modern nobility. The Englished Montaigne––translated by John Florio and dramatized by Samuel Daniel, Ben Jonson, John Marston, and others––was introduced as a critic of the tyranny of custom and as a participant in the aristocratic culture of private learning in the late Elizabethan, early Jacobean noble household. Documents discussed range from the paratexts to Florio’s translation and the English text of ‘Of the institution and education of children’ to James Cleland’s work on the same subject and the famous portrait of Lady Anne Clifford. The chapter ends by offering a new perspective on Shakespeare’s use of Florio’s translation in The Tempest: that we should understand it in relation to Samuel Daniel’s use of similar passages in a play staged for the 1605 royal progress to the University of Oxford: The Queenes Arcadia.
The Essais Framed for Modern Intellectual Life
Authors: Boutcher Warren
Published: May 2017

The core topic of 2.6 is two modern reader-writers of Donald Frame’s American translation of the Essais (Gore Vidal and David Denby). We consider a range of related intellectual contexts for Frame’s work, a product of the culture of liberal education and of American liberal individualism: modern, pedagogical versions of ‘human philosophy’; the educational goals of elite institutions such as the École Normale Supérieure and Columbia University; the legacy of Pierre Villey’s work in twentieth-century Montaigne studies. We see how twentieth-century humanists in America and Europe called up the real person ‘Montaigne’ from behind his text and made him explain that text’s value to idealist programmes of general literary education. The chapter includes discussions of figures in the German idealist tradition such as Auerbach,and Burckhardt, as well as the critic of Renaissance ‘self-fashioning’, Stephen Greenblatt, and the British critic Terence Cave.
Pluralism and Systemic Defiance in the EU
Authors: Avbelj Matej
Published: May 2017

This chapter aims to shed light on systemic defiance from a pluralist perspective. It first explains what is meant by pluralism here and what normative advantages are expected to flow from it. Secondly, the chapter outlines a pluralist take on the EU. This then flows into an examination of what counts as systemic defiance in a pluralist constellation and what special challenges the latter poses to the identification and remedying mechanisms. By way of conclusion, the chapter addresses the question of the extent to which pluralism is at all a viable theoretical framework for addressing the challenges of systemic defiance in the EU.
Preliminary References as a Means for Enforcing EU Law
Authors: Broberg Morten
Published: May 2017

This chapter examines to what extent and how the preliminary reference procedure provided in Article 267 TFEU can be used as a means for private parties to enforce EU law against the Member States. The procedure enables national courts to apply to the Court of Justice to obtain a ruling on the interpretation or validity of an EU legal act. It has in fact become a highly important means for private parties’ enforcement of EU law. Today, the preliminary reference procedure has attained such importance as an enforcement measure that the prospect of a reference to the Court of Justice can of itself induce a Member State party to proceedings before a national court to settle the dispute. Indeed, the preliminary reference procedure is sometimes referred to as ‘indirect enforcement’.
Francovich Enforcement Analysed and Illustrated by German (and English) Law
Authors: Reich Norbert
Published: May 2017

This chapter considers the relevance of the Francovich liability to enforcement. Francovich liability can be regarded as an element of enforcement of EU law, but this is limited in scope in an objective and subjective sense, which might confound critical observers of EU law. To overcome the somewhat haphazard approach of citing national—the German and to some extent English—cases pointing in one or other direction regarding the relevance of the liability, this chapter turns to two contrasting approaches. The first is the thorough study by Takis Tridimas analysing all subsequent ECJ case law relating to Francovich. The second is the study based on an economic theory of deterrence advanced by Hans-Bernd Schäfer. The chapter also briefly refers to a comparative empirical study of the case law in German and UK courts.
Rule of Law Values in the Decentralized Public Enforcement of EU Competition Law
Authors: Cseres Katalin J
Published: May 2017

This chapter evaluates the functioning of the decentralized public enforcement of EU competition law. The analysis focuses on the effectiveness of the decentralized enforcement, which relies on Rule of Law principles. It has been argued that Rule of Law principles are a prerequisite for effective competition law enforcement. Aside from that, assessing the effectiveness of the decentralized enforcement framework also takes account of the problems of multilevel governance which have emerged as a result of the decentralization of enforcement powers and the creation of parallel competences for the Commission and national actors which made it essential to guarantee uniform and consistent application of the EU competition rules. Centrifugal pulls from the Member States towards their national legal systems and centripetal pushes from the Commission create uniformity and consistency in this multilevel system. Analysing these bottom-up and top-down approaches allows us to analyse decentralized enforcement as a specific governance model.
A Democracy Commission of One’s Own, or What it would take for the EU to safeguard Liberal Democracy in its Member States
Authors: Müller Jan-Werner
Published: May 2017

This chapter proposes a new institution to remedy the EU’s current democracy protection deficit, tentatively called the ‘Copenhagen Commission’. The idea is to create an EU-specific democracy and Rule of Law watchdog, an institution which in certain respects would be comparable to the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission. Before suggesting alternatives to existing approaches, the chapter first considers what it would take for democracy and Rule of Law protection to function properly. It then seeks to specify what it would take for the EU in particular to protect liberal democracy within Member States. After expanding on the institutional setup and powers of the Copenhagen Commission, the chapter concludes by addressing a number of common objections to this proposal, as well as discussing some necessarily speculative thoughts about the conditions under which the proposal might be implemented.
Enforcement of Federal Law against the German Länder
Authors: Hanschel Dirk
Published: May 2017

This chapter examines the various legal and political means of federal law enforcement by Germany’s Federal Government and by the Federal Constitutional Court. This is understood as a form of resolution of vertical power conflicts within federations. While by its nature the main focus of this chapter lies on the legal means of federal law enforcement within the context of the notion of executive federalism, it also devotes some attention to the political dimension. Since German federalism is strongly based on consensus and cooperation, this dimension is very important in practice. Where antagonism between the Federation and the Länder occurs (whether expressed in political or legal terms), it is frequently either motivated by party politics or triggered by matters where specific subnational interests are at stake. Apart from negotiation, adjudication by the Constitutional Court is one of the key instruments to deal with that.
The Enforcement of Federal Law in the Belgian Federal State
Authors: Romainville Céline , Verdussen Marc
Published: May 2017

This chapter looks at enforcement in the Belgian federal system. It first introduces the dynamics of Belgian federalism, how it channels processes of defiance to some extent through a dismantling of the federal state, and how it avoids the issue of enforcement of federal law by federate entities by reference to the exclusivity and equality principles. The chapter then analyses the exceptional situations where the enforcement of federal law is clearly provided for—concurrently through framework competences and parallel competences. It likewise analyses expressions of defiance in the framework of cooperative Belgian federalism, before turning to the power of the Constitutional Court to sanction violations of the enforcement of federal law. Finally, the chapter examines the scenario where defiance is brought to a higher level, with the flagrant and explicit disrespect by the federate entities of the Federal Constitution and of the judgments of the Constitutional Courts.
Regional Defiance and Enforcement of Federal Law in Spain
Authors: López-Basaguren Alberto
Published: May 2017

This chapter analyses three cases of challenges to the federal law in Spain. These episodes can offer an ideal opportunity to consider the resources available to the Spanish constitutional system in order to impose compliance with federal law. The first issue under discussion is the so-called ‘Ibarretxe plan’, which initially consisted of the proposal for a ‘New Political Statute’ for the Basque Country, which was rejected by the Lower House of the Spanish Parliament. The second great political challenge concerns the Catalan Parliament’s claim to the ‘right to decide’: a demand for a referendum in which Catalan citizens could decide their political future. The third episode is the ‘Atutxa case’, involving the former President of the Basque Parliament, which showcases the characteristics of criminal coercion in the event of non-compliance with Court decisions as a form of refusal to comply with federal law.
The Enforcement of ECtHR Judgments
Authors: Abdelgawad Élisabeth Lambert
Published: May 2017

This chapter analyses the measures adopted both to prevent and sanction defiance, and also tries to sketch possible reforms to improve compliance in the European system of human rights. Strictly speaking, States very rarely openly refused to comply with a judgment of the ECtHR, even if there are some such cases. The concern is more about judgments where the State refuses to adopt parts of the required measures, and/or where the State delays the adoption of some reforms. Not surprisingly, more efforts have been made over the last twenty years to prevent the defiance of judgments than in sanctioning the effects of such defiance. Indeed, greater emphasis has now been placed on assistance, exchange of good practice, cooperation, and training to help national actors internalize European standards.
Enforcing WTO Law
Authors: Tancredi Antonello
Published: May 2017

This chapter provides a brief analysis of the enforcement tools foreseen in the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. It focuses in particular on some of the peculiarities which differentiate them from the EU legal system. As the analysis shows, the relevance of reciprocity and post-litigation negotiations between States influences the legal nature of the WTO dispute settlement system, which today remains to a large extent a mixed or hybrid system. This contrasts one of the mantras diffused in the legal scholarship immediately after the entry into force of the Uruguay Round Agreements. It also represents a vehicle for the potential fragmentation of the multilateral legal framework governing international trade, which contributes to undermining the idea of uniformity of the obligations arising under the WTO Agreements for all Members.
Enforcement of UN Security Council Resolutions and of ICJ Judgments
Authors: Couzigou Irène
Published: May 2017

This chapter outlines the different enforcement mechanisms of Security Council resolutions as well as of ICJ judgments. Overall, enforcement can take two forms: direct enforcement, when the content of the decision not implemented by the addressee is implemented by another actor; or indirect enforcement, when coercive measures are taken against the non-complying actor in order to compel compliance. The chapter first outlines how binding Security Council measures are enforced, before analysing the enforcement of ICJ judgments. It then examines the enforcement of Security Council resolutions and of ICJ judgments, arguing that such enforcement is mostly political, influenced by State sensitivities and thus, unreliable. The chapter finally concludes with some proposed alternatives to improving the consistency of the enforcement of Security Council and ICJ measures.
Defiance for European Influence—the Empty Chair and France
Authors: Ziller Jacques
Published: May 2017

This chapter covers the Empty Chair crisis, the context of events leading up to the crisis, and its impact and implications on European integration. It begins with an account of the events leading up to the crisis, which was triggered by the 1965 EEC Council meeting. The issue to be solved was that of the financing rules for the common agricultural policy (CAP), although the chapter soon reveals that much more was at stake for France as well as the other Member States. One observer notes that the conflict ‘centred, more fundamentally, on the question of the governance of the Community (to use the modern phrase). The legal basis of the Commission’s activities and its independence were both in the balance’.
Challenging the Basic Values—Problems in the Rule of Law in Hungary and the Failure of the EU to Tackle Them
Authors: Szente Zoltán
Published: May 2017

This chapter investigates Hungary’s non-compliance problems and the insights these can provide into the relations between the EU and Hungary. Since 2010 there has been a new period in these relations—the Hungarian constitutional changes have challenged the EU, testing its capacity and ability to protect the Rule of Law in the Member States. This situation stands in contrast to Hungary’s legal harmonization and institutional adaptation to EU requirements prior to 2010. Now, when the challenge from the inside—that is, from a Member State—to the democratic value system of the community is significantly greater than ever, the EU faces an unexpected obstacle. To work out an effective and long-term solution to a situation which has never occurred before, the chapter examines the problem in greater detail—in particular whether it threatens the foundations of EU law as a whole.
Inside but Out? The UK and the EU
Authors: Łazowski Adam
Published: May 2017

This chapter explores the UK’s relations with Europe and the political discourse dominated by the ‘inside but out’ school of thought. In this context, the chapter considers three issues: whether the UK has remained a difficult Member State all the way through, where the UK’s defiance has manifested the most, and whether it will exercise even more defiance as it leaves the EU. This chapter argues that the approach pursued by the UK authorities was to fight for its own interests in the negotiations leading up to the adoption of legal acts, be it primary or secondary legislation. Once concessions and opt-outs were secured, the UK would stop being a difficult Member State and in general terms complied with the obligations undertaken. However, the chapter also considers the implications of Brexit and how it will affect the UK’s relations with the EU afterwards.
Language and the Structure of Berkeley's World
Authors: Pearce Kenneth L.
Published: May 2017

According to George Berkeley, there is fundamentally nothing in the world but minds and their ideas. Ideas are understood as pure phenomenal ‘feels’ which are momentarily had by a single perceiver, then vanish. Surprisingly, Berkeley tries to sell this idealistic philosophical system as a defense of common sense and an aid to science. However, both common sense and Newtonian science take the perceived world to be highly structured in a way that Berkeley’s system does not appear to allow. This book argues that Berkeley’s solution to this problem lies in his innovative philosophy of language. The solution works at two levels. At the first level, it is by means of our conventions for the use of physical object talk that we impose structure on the world. At a deeper level, the orderliness of the world is explained by the fact that, according to Berkeley, the world itself is a discourse ‘spoken’ by God—the world is literally an object of linguistic interpretation. The structure that our physical object talk—in common sense and in Newtonian physics—aims to capture is the grammatical structure of this divine discourse. This approach yields surprising consequences for some of the most discussed issues in Berkeley’s metaphysics. Most notably, it is argued that, in Berkeley’s view, physical objects are neither ideas nor collections of ideas. Rather, physical objects, like forces, are mere quasi-entities brought into being by our linguistic practices.
Introduction
Authors: Pearce Kenneth L.
Published: May 2017

According to George Berkeley, “the doctrine of signs [is] a point of great importance, and general extent, which, if duly considered, would cast no small light upon things, and afford a just and genuine solution to many difficulties” (Alc, §7.16). As has long been recognized (...
Berkeley’s Attack on Meanings
Authors: Pearce Kenneth L.
Published: May 2017

Most of Berkeley’s predecessors assumed that words get to be meaningful by having meanings, where a meaning is understood as a special intrinsically representational entity such as a Platonic form, an Aristotelian universal, or an abstract idea. Berkeley’s arguments in the Introduction to the Principles are often interpreted as a narrow criticism of Locke’s theory of abstraction. This chapter argues, on the contrary, that Berkeley’s aim is to show that there cannot possibly be such things as meanings. The rejection of meanings prompts Berkeley to abandon the entire approach to theorizing about mind and language found in nearly all of his predecessors.
Berkeley’s Early Thoughts on Language
Authors: Pearce Kenneth L.
Published: May 2017

Berkeley’s rejection of meanings (intrinsically representational entities) requires a complete rethinking of the philosophy of mind and language. This chapter addresses Berkeley’s remarks on these subjects from the 1708 Manuscript Introduction to the 1721 essay De Motu. In these works, Berkeley analyzes several specific uses of language, including general words, operative language, and the technical discourses of math and science. In each case, Berkeley’s analysis proceeds by identifying the practical purposes at which the discourse aims and the conventional rules speakers follow in their use of words in order to attain those purposes. These considerations are designed to explain how words can be meaningful without having meanings.
Quasi‐Referring to Bodies
Authors: Pearce Kenneth L.
Published: May 2017

It is widely held that, in Berkeley’s view, bodies (ordinary macro-physical objects) are either ideas or collections of ideas. This interpretation underestimates just how radical Berkeley’s claims in metaphysics and philosophy of language are. Berkeley’s fundamental criticism of materialism is that it supposes that in order for the names of bodies to be meaningful and occur in true sentences these names must label entities that exist and have a nature independent of our linguistic activities. Berkeley rejects this claim and holds instead that the names of bodies, like the theoretical terms of physics, are mere quasi-referring expressions. The existence of bodies is a product of our linguistic practice.
Referring to Spirits and Their Actions
Authors: Pearce Kenneth L.
Published: May 2017

According to Berkeley, we may genuinely refer only to things that resemble the objects of our immediate awareness. Immediate awareness is, however, of two types: perception and reflection. By perception we are aware of our ideas, and by reflection we are aware of ourselves and our actions. Although a spirit (self) or an action is neither an idea nor like an idea, our reflective awareness of ourselves and our actions allows words like ‘spirit’ and ‘action’ to be employed as genuine referring expressions. That Berkeley’s philosophy of language permits genuine reference to spirits is important because of the central role played by spirits—and particularly God—in Berkeley’s metaphysics.
Assent and Truth
Authors: Pearce Kenneth L.
Published: May 2017

Berkeley’s contemporary Peter Browne objected that, on Berkeley’s philosophy of language, “Words may be Significant, tho’ they signify Nothing” with the result that “all Faith would terminate in the Ear.” The key problem for Berkeley is that even given an adequate theory of reference it is unclear, in the absence of ideas, how words can be put together into truth-evaluable propositions which are possible objects of belief. This chapter argues that Berkeley endorses a dispositional theory of assent (belief) which takes a believer to be a follower of certain rules. This theory of assent is combined with a radical holism about truth. Although true belief does involve a sort of fit with reality, this fit must be understood as involving feelings and actions and not only ideas.
Epilogue
Authors: Jones Emily
Published: May 2017

This epilogue outlines Burke’s afterlife in the period after 1914 up until the present day. Between 1830 and 1914 a dramatic transformation in Burke’s reputation occurred. He became established, in Britain, as one of the principal founders of conservatism. Though this is the end of our story, this was the beginning of a new period in Burke’s reception history. This book has shown how a distilled political theory was gradually extracted from his corpus and de-contextualized accordingly. It was a trend which continued into the twentieth century—not just in Britain, but also in America. This has been countered and challenged by more recent scholarship. But Burke remains an attractive icon globally because of the worldwide importance of the events on which his work provides a comment. His history is bigger than C/conservatism, though this has provided a crucial (because simple) method of interpretation.
To be a Showboy
Authors: Hoover Lou Henry
Published: May 2017

Lou Henry Hoover writes about his experience of creating persona-driven performance, performing gender, and using camp to toe the line between comedy and tragedy. As an artist, Lou works at the intersection of drag king-ing, burlesque, and modern dance to create a persona—“Lou Henry Hoover—as a way to draw attention to the artifice of gende sexuality. In the essay, Hoover discusses how the stage offers a platform to borrow from the drag queen performance, the genre of queer performance most often association with play with artifice, and then remix that better known form of camp with other dance forms and a wider range of masculinity and femininity. The essay discuses Hoover’s work with several collaborators, most notably artistic and life partner Kitten LaRue, and Hoover’s work in several contexts, ranging from theatrical venues in New York and Seattle to television appearances with Tony Bennett and Lady Gag.
Women Dancing Otherwise
Authors: Wilcox Emily E.
Published: May 2017

In twenty-first-century urban Chinese contemporary dance, gender and female sexuality are often constructed in ways that reinforce patriarchal and heterosexual social norms. Although “queer dance” as a named category does not exist in China, it is possible to identify queer feminist perspectives in recent dance works. This essay offers a reading of representations of gender and female sexuality in two works of contemporary dance by Beijing-based female Chinese choreographers: Wang Mei’s 2002 Thunder and Rain and Gu Jiani’s 2014 Right & Left. Through choreographic analysis informed by ethnographic research in Beijing’s contemporary dance world, this essay argues that Thunder and Rain reinforces patriarchal and heterosexual social norms common in Chinese contemporary dance, while Right & Left disrupts such norms. Through its staging of unconventional female-female duets and its queering of nationally marked movement forms, Right & Left offers a queer feminist approach to the presentation of women on the Chinese stage.
Dancing Marines and Pumping Gasoline
Authors: Campbell Jennifer L.
Published: May 2017

This essay offers close readings of two of Depression-era ballets that arts impresario Lincoln Kirstein developed for his troupe The Ballet Caravan. Because of Kirstein’s integrated method of ballet creation, pairings of ballet components, specifically dance and visual art and dance and music, should be closely evaluated for their queer semiotic freight, and so the chapter examines Filling Station and Time Table, teasing out the queering of masculine codes that occurs within these pieces. Furthermore, it argues that in these works the interplay between working-class characters, cartoonish costumes, suggestive choreography, and campy burlesque music alludes to an underlying subtext that reflected aspects of homosexual behavior as practiced in New York during the first half of the twentieth century.