bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Suburban community vignette
Authors: Skrapek Candace , Jenssen Elliot Paus
Published: September 2021

This chapter highlights Saskatoon, the largest city in the province of Saskatchewan that is nestled on the meandering South Saskatchewan River and is considered to have many natural features that make it an attractive place to call home. The chapter describes warm, long summer days, green, clean spaces, and a variety of social and cultural events that contribute to active living, social engagement, and community participation. It also talks about the safe and friendly neighbourhoods of Saskatoon that offers a variety of housing options, excellent educational opportunities, public and accessible transit services, accessible buildings and services, and a range of health and community services. The chapter elaborates that winter poses challenges for all residents, especially older adults who face safety issues related to icy and cold conditions that result in reduced opportunities for social connectedness. It looks at the 2016 Canadian Census that lists the population of 295,095 residents, of which 10.9 percent are indigenous people.
Indigenous practitioner vignette
Authors: Paul Connie
Published: September 2021

This chapter emphasizes nursing the environment and the family, including their pets, as Connie Paul's advice about nursing in an Indigenous community. It discusses Elder care, which involves consulting Indigenous elders directly, which means protecting their safety as they define it. It also analyzes the reason why consulting with elders in their homes, community, and their environment is important; which has to do with the trauma that many older people in First Nations communities are living with. The chapter cites the Snuneymuxw First Nation health centre that is making changes to the ways that healthcare is provided in order to take the trauma, as well as the existing knowledge of the community, into account. It discusses the provision of care to Indigenous and non-Indigenous clients that increases the circle of care and transforms knowledge to include the wealth of knowledge that resides within the community itself.
Changing patterns of grandparenting and their implications for active ageing in England and South Korea
Authors: Choi Hyejin
Published: September 2021

This chapter begins with a brief description of active ageing strategy as a social investment strategy in the context of ageing populations. It gives an overview of recent studies that address the multiple aspects of grandparenting, and examines the cost–benefit trade-offs of grandparenting while being mindful of policy contexts such as public childcare services. The chapter then turns to focus on grandparenting in South Korea (hereafter, Korea) and the United Kingdom to examine whether and how childcare programme correlates differ across a wide range of contexts. The chapter uses data from the Korea Time Use Survey (K-TUS) and UK Time Use Survey (UK-TUS) to study the amount of time spent by older adults in providing childcare, and their general use of time in other activities. Ultimately, the chapter estimates fixed-effect models using the data from the Korea Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA) and the English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA) to investigate the inter-relationship between grandparenting and different productive activities.
Social-media-weaponised populism and community development
Authors: Boulet Jacques
Published: September 2021

This chapter assesses the resurfacing of populism and its much-discussed and documented adoption and enactment by leaders and citizens. More specifically, it discusses reasons for this (re-)emergence and its effects on people's daily lives and their participation in community life against the wider political-economic background, two areas central to much community development theory and practice. The first question posed is: what is going on with and around people — especially their modalities of 'being' and 'relating' — rendering them more 'prone' to being influenced by populisms and become populisms' 'accomplices'? Second, what role does social media play in this imposition/complicity dialectic? Indeed, social media powerfully invades and interpenetrates all levels and processes of the political economy, of people's everyday experiences and their subjective-affective lives, and they infest the mediating institutions operating 'between' the virtual global and the imperceptible here and now. Finally, a third question is posed: what is the effect of such socially mediated populism on communities and on efforts to (re)develop and maintain them? The chapter concludes with some ideas about ways to resist the (combined) assault of populism and social media and restart the project of democracy.
Alinsky revisited: ‘rubbing raw the resentments of the people’
Authors: Szynka Peter
Published: September 2021

This chapter analyses American community organiser Saul D. Alinsky's theoretical background and shows that his understanding of 'resentment' was drawn from the ethics of the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. 'Rubbing raw the resentments' and 'to fan the sores of discontent' are Alinsky's medical metaphors describing his technique to understand frustration and aggression, to cool down emotions and to transform its energy into common action and political negotiation. He tried to empower the people by turning personal discontents and problems into public issues. What are the lessons to be learned from Alinsky for contemporary community development responses to populism? His analysis and his confrontations with McCarthyism and proto-fascist agitator Father McCoughlin provide examples of ways of meeting the challenges we are facing in Germany today, where new prophets of deceit operating through populist politics again carry out the fine art of propaganda, using the new forms of mass communication and the opportunities of social media. Ultimately, the chapter offers a German perspective to the international discussion on community development, populism, and democratic culture.
Populism and community organising in Hong Kong
Authors: Kwok-kin Fung , Suet-lin Hung , Siu-mei Lau , King-lai Wong , Yu-cheung Chan
Published: September 2021

This chapter explores the potential responses of community development practice to the proliferation of populist practices in Hong Kong. Populism is an under-researched area in the community development field in Hong Kong, despite the increasing prominence of populism globally and the rising popularity of populist practice in Hong Kong since its return to China in 1997. Studies of populism, particularly right-wing populism, have developed the 'globalisation loser' hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, disadvantaged groups, which in the present context include young people, who are frequent users of community development programmes, support right-wing populism. Currently, community workers in Hong Kong are unprepared to respond to this phenomenon. This study is the first stage of a research project examining the implications of populism for community development practice in Hong Kong. To contextualise the study, the chapter outlines the productivist welfare regime of Hong Kong and the resultant characteristics of community development services in Hong Kong.
Ideology: an exclusionary idea?
Authors: Beresford Peter
Published: September 2021

This chapter explores the conventional discussion of ideology, focusing on political ideology to find out more about its origins and history, as well as the meanings attached to it and key forms it has taken. It aims to encourage fresh debate about ideology in relation to participation. By doing so, the chapter introduces the subject through a short, but hopefully not simplistic, discussion of ideology drawing on the existing literature. The chapter argues that we familiarise ourselves with the 'expert' discourse on the subject and look at the idea itself, how it has been shaped, its association with science and 'expertise'. The chapter addresses the history of ideology and encounters one that is essentially exclusionary rather than participatory.
Conclusion: reclaiming ideology
Authors: Beresford Peter
Published: September 2021

This chapter pulls together the arguments and the issues for democratizing ideology. Having raised and explored the hypothesis that exclusionary ideology is unlikely to achieve emancipatory goals, the chapter highlights the centrality of people working to achieve more say in society to work for more liberatory societies and a more sustainable planet. The chapter also reiterates that the best way to develop ideas about how to promote equality and freedom is to be involved in developing those ideas together, arguing that the only way we are likely to achieve democratic goals (ideology) is through democratic means (participation). Ultimately, the chapter states that different ideological perspectives are wielded by humans to explain, justify and legitimize a political or social order. With such awareness, the chapter holds that ideologies are essentially about power and most of us have little say in them, however liberatory their rhetoric and claimed aims may be.
Conclusion: Citizenship and the Centaur State
Authors: Cummins Ian
Published: September 2021

This final chapter will argue that to tackle the problems of poverty, social inequality and the damage that the penal state has done to individuals and communities, there is a need for a recasting of the notion of citizenship. This chapter is influenced by the work of Somers on notions of citizenship. In her discussion of the abandonment of poor African-Americans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she argued that this demonstrates that they had been denied the full rights of social inclusion in the political community. It is only by establishing that all individuals should be recognised as citizens of equal moral worth that we can restore meaningful membership in the political community.
Territorial Politics and Devolution in Wales
Authors: Bradbury Jonathan
Published: September 2021

This chapter addresses territorial politics and the introduction of devolution in Wales. In seeking to reappraise the politics of devolution in Wales, the chapter focuses on the power politics of how devolution was progressed; the chapter also applies the same framework of analysis on understanding how, why and with what intentions devolution was introduced. It discusses the nature of the territorial strain that Wales posed for the UK and the political resources behind territorial change, considering the extent to which bottom-up pressures had strengthened or not. It considers the politics of elite leadership of constitutional change and the code, strategy and goals of peripheral assertion applied. In so doing, it explores the utility of the proposition that instrumental policy arguments and mechanisms were at the forefront of the case for change. Equally, throughout the chapter there is consideration of how the British Labour leadership politically managed the development of devolution proposals both in opposition and in government, and again of the code, strategy and goals which it pursued. In so doing, the chapter explores the proposition that the Labour leadership adopted traditional territorial management methods to constrain the implications of devolution primarily through local elite assimilation. Finally, the chapter considers the policy process by which devolution proposals were created, both in opposition and in government, and the extent to which it contributed to their perceived effectiveness and legitimacy, and indeed the sense in which Welsh devolution could be also considered in the short to medium term as a successful reform.
A Vicarious Instinct
Authors: Waldman Thomas
Published: September 2021

This chapter explores the concept of vicarious warfare in terms of its deeper historical background in socio political forms, material-technological developments and opportunities, as well as its basis in the evolution of military and strategic thought. It identifies broader patterns and conditions that might assist our appreciation of the vicarious military approaches and provide a rough framework for our analysis of contemporary US strategic practice. The chapter also argues that the conduct of vicarious warfare in a holistic sense only becomes meaningful in certain historical conditions. In exploring these issues, the chapter presents a necessarily impressionistic historical analysis centred around broad recurring patterns apparent at different times in different periods; it utilizes representative cases, drawn mainly from European history, to tease out dynamics that have been apparent across other cultures and periods. Ultimately, the chapter offers some initial clues as to those deep underlying factors that might predispose and permit societies, including contemporary America, to wage the vicarious warfare. It also shows how states that had begun to amass significant power often took advantage of opportunities to adopt forms of vicarious warfare and to evade, minimize or limit the costs and requirements of war.
Drivers
Authors: Waldman Thomas
Published: September 2021

This chapter explains the phenomenon as vicarious warfare confronts us today, and studies the multiple factors driving its modern adoption. It argues that vicarious warfare has come to dominate US strategic practice over the last decade, but in its contemporary form, it emerged out of developments apparent since at least the early 1990s, and in certain areas well before that. The chapter begins by considering some of the underlying factors that make proactive, forceful US intervention appear to policymakers as both essential and feasible. These should be understood as necessary but not sufficient factors because they do not necessarily preclude alternative military approaches more in line with the prescriptions of the other traditions of conventional battle or small wars. Why predominantly vicarious methods have come to the fore will become apparent as the chapter progresses to consider more specific and circumstantial factors associated with core sections of US society: namely, the military, the wider public and the media. The chapter concludes by bringing the analysis together to explain how, due to the confluence of developments in these various spheres, vicarious warfare emerges as an especially appealing solution for defence officials and political leaders facing multiple competing pressures and exigencies.
Engaging Comparative Urbanism
Authors: Ren Julie
Published: September 2021

The concepts employed to understand cities around the world are sourced form a limited set of urban experiences. Comparative urbanism seeks to address this problem, but has yet to offer concrete tools to do so. This book engages with comparative urbanisms as one of the most critical debates facing urban studies. Rather than corrective inclusion, an analysis of the premises behind comparative urbanism suggests that the focus should be on how cities and cases are compared. An epistemic inversion is necessary to redraw the relationship of models and cases. Employing an empirical study of art spaces in Beijing and Berlin to engage with this experiment, the qualitative investigation delves into their motivations and practices, discovering how non-profit art spaces claim and sustain their space in a competitive urban landscape. The nature of these art spaces as temporary is considered in the context of precarity and nomadism, but also challenged as the durability of many art spaces transcend the material space. The spaces of possibility that are exposed in a context of perceived inevitabilities reveal the function of aspiration. Aspiration, as a navigational capacity, is not only a function of the individual but also about the presence of elsewhere. This was significant for the imagination of the possible, and for their attainment.
Envisioning Art Spaces
Authors: Ren Julie
Published: September 2021

Beginning with ideas about how these art spaces envision themselves as social sculptures, this chapter explores the spectrum of motivations ranging from utopian or apathetic isolationism to locational immersions lionizing ideas of history, community and social responsibility. These artistic concepts help define the kind of art space that is being made. Understanding the various motivations behind these spaces help elucidate their ideological nature, and the conceptual downgrading of the significance of materiality and physical space. The conflation of art-making and space-making, the depreciation of materiality in favor of process, the aspirations for utopic islands, nostalgic romanticizations, and the contradictory tendencies towards indifference all mark some of the key motivations. The aim of this chapter is to understand the stated intentions behind these art spaces.
Mother Knows Best? Bedsharing against Expert Advice
Authors: Hamilton Patricia
Published: September 2021

This chapter focuses on sleep as a universal and widely debated topic for parents and parenting experts. It talks about the where, when, and how of infant sleep that motivates public awareness campaigns, forum discussions, scholarly research, and parenting literature as each offers different solutions to the problem of managing babies' sleep. It also mentions the danger associated with the sleeping habit of babies, specifically the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The chapter mentions Back to Sleep as the most famous anti-SIDS campaigns in the mid-1990s, which advised parents to put babies to sleep on their backs. It examines bedsharing as the attachment parenting's solution to the problem of sleep, which is defined as a baby and its caregiver sharing an adult bed.
Conclusion
Authors: Hamilton Patricia
Published: September 2021

This chapter reviews attachment parenting (AP) through the lens of black mothers' experiences and draws attention to the philosophy's place in neoliberal parenting culture. It highlights how ideas about good parenting deploy or elide race, class, and gender at different moments and for different, sometimes contradictory, purposes. It also talks about ideologies of good parenting that intend to be free of gender, class, and race but identify women as uniquely responsible for children's wellbeing. The chapter explains how AP offers a unique constellation of raced, classed and gendered effects as it draws from monolithic 'primitive' cultures and rests on a taken-for-granted family form in which mothers are financially supported to stay at home. It recounts the narratives of the black women that demand an analysis of parenting that addresses the differential effects of racism and unequal access to resources.
The Challenges of Legalized Peacemaking: The Case of the 2012–16 Peace Negotiations in Colombia
Authors: Ozcelik Asli
Published: September 2021

This chapter challenges the assumption that conformity with international law and norms during a mediation processes contributes to the legitimacy of the process and the durability of the outcome by probing the contingency and complexity of the roles international law plays in peace negotiations. It does so with reference to the highly legalised peace negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian government during 2012-2016, particularly in relation to the negotiations on the legal entrenchment of the agreement and the transitional justice sub-agreement. The chapter argues that, despite certain advantages of the existence of a normative framework in peace mediation, the contested nature of the project of international law itself, especially as it relates to transitional justice and the reform of domestic politico-legal orders, and its malleability to strategic instrumentalisation need to be taken into account when mediation policy and practices are determined.
Technology and Peace Mediation: A Shift in the Mediator’s Profession?
Authors: Varela Miguel
Published: September 2021

This chapter examines the challenges and opportunities of the online space for peace mediation process design. While peace mediation as a core competence may remain largely unchanged, the design of interventions, from preparation to addressing questions of inclusivity or confidentiality or facilitating the implementation of a peace agreement, must now account for an additional layer of complexity that technology brings. The chapter outlines a number of specific functions for technology in mediation before assessing how these changes are likely to reshape the field as it seeks to adapt to these new tools and techniques. Ultimately, however, the chapter conclude that these changes will only come about once mediators themselves understand technology not just as a tool, but as a transversal component of the societies in which they operate.
Rethinking the Professionalization of Peace Mediation
Authors: Holper Anne , Kirchhoff Lars
Published: September 2021

This chapter comments on the changes experienced in the field of peace mediation as a result of the increased professionalisation and regulation of the field in the past decade. These processes deeply affect the practice of peace mediation, and yet it is as yet unclear whether and how professionalisation and regulation affect the outcomes of mediated negotiations. The chapter examines the ways in which the major paradigm shift from a traditional reliance on individualised, non-transferable skills to nuanced mediation expertise has changed, or not, the field of peace mediation. It argues that professionalisation has tested the field and its ability to co-operatively improve its own practices, and suggests a model for ‘sorting out’ the status quo and readjusting mediation as a form of conflict resolution.
Studying Urban Political (Dis)Orders
Authors: Davies Jonathan S.
Published: September 2021

Chapter 1 develops the framework through which urban political (dis)orders are explored in subsequent chapters. It begins by engaging debates about critical vantage-point. It advances a Gramscian approach to urban regime analysis, through which it pivots between perspectives, and explores the encounter between power and resistance in struggles over the normalisation, disruption and transformation of austere neoliberalism. It is further framed by neo-Gramscian conjunctural analysis, which derives from Marxist thinking about the history and periodisation of capitalist development and phases of struggle. The problem arising from this framing is how the dynamics of crisis, neoliberalisation, austerity and resistance play out in cities and constitute urban political (dis)orders, and what these in turn reveal about conjunctural continuity and change.
The ‘Activity of Ruling Groups’: Containment, De-mobilisation and Fragmentation
Authors: Davies Jonathan S.
Published: September 2021

This chapter considers the problem of containment, de-mobilisation and fragmentation, dimensions of urban governance that mitigate against both antagonistic and constructive modes of resistance. This endeavour casts light on a number of issues: first, the means by which urban regimes contain and enclose resistance, and insulate themselves from potential impacts; second, the chilling and divisive effects of social partnership traditions; third, the structural and institutional limitations on regime transition through the new municipalism; and finally, the recuperative power of neoliberalising and reactionary forces, consolidated through Syriza in Greece and Britain’s Conservatives in the struggle over Brexit.
Introduction
Authors: Devellennes Charles
Published: September 2021

This chapter gives introduces the gilet jaunes. The gilets jaunes, a group of French protesters named after their iconic yellow vests donned during demonstrations, have formed a new type of social movement. The gilets jaunes have been variously interpreted since they began their occupation of French roundabouts. They were at first received with enthusiasm on the right of the French political establishment, and with caution on the left. The fourth weekend saw scenes of violence erupt on the Champs Élysées, notably around and within the Arc de Triomphe, which towers over the first roundabout built in France. The headlines of newspapers and stories of the news media became almost exclusively focused on the violence of the protests. Images of state violence became ever-present on Twitter and independent media outlets, making it clear that it was the use of disproportionate force by police units that was at the centre of the events. The chapter explains that the aim of the book is to show that the use of violence is not the only tale to be told about the role of the protesters in the contemporary French context. Their contribution to the political landscape of France is quite different. They have provided a fundamental challenge to the social contract in France, the implicit pact between the governed and their political leaders. The movement has seen the numbers of participants diminish over time, but the underlying tension between the haves and the have-nots, the winners of globalization and those at risk of déclassement [social downgrading], are enduring and persistent.
Critical Times for the Social Contract
Authors: Devellennes Charles
Published: September 2021

This chapter proposes a theory of the social contract, in the context of the gilets jaunes. This theory is detailed in the five chapters that follow. The theory proposed here is that the movement itself is best understood as a fundamental challenge to the existing social contract in France — and by extension to other social contracts throughout the world — and its history is not limited to the months of political turmoil it engendered in France or even to the past couple of years of political upheaval in the wider world, but it poses a challenge to the very future of political order. A rethinking of the social contract is necessary given this crisis, and framing the present political turmoil in philosophical terms will help shed some light on the opportunities for change that are arising, in part thanks to the movement.
A Renewal of the Social Contract
Authors: Devellennes Charles
Published: September 2021

This chapter provides a reflection on the new social contract, taking Diderot as dialectician of change, and offer ways to think about the future of the tradition. It shows that such a model is possible. A new social contract will take into account the need for liberty, democracy and economic justice. Most working class people have finished high school and been awarded a Baccalauréat, and many are home-owners of one of the millions of bungalows built throughout peripheral France. Yet their ability to secure economic independence, a promise of the Enlightenment, has not materialized. Many are worse off than their parents, and those without family assistance are extremely exposed to the ebb and flow of macro-economic trends such as global slowdown and recession. A social contract of the future has to address these needs that were posited as the sine qua non condition for social advancement more than two centuries ago. The revolt of the gilets jaunes against rent-seeking economic actors, such as landlords, motorway management companies, insurance and mortgage companies, and utilities, is testament to the economic plight that needs redressing. Although the gilets jaunes have failed to organize themselves politically in the traditional sense, they have provided one of the strongest political challenges to the very existence of the French state as it currently stands. It is this new form of politics, which does not go through political parties but demands social and economic justice directly, that is at the centre of the new social contract they demand.
Periodization in Global History: The Productive Power of Comparing
Authors: Epple Angelika
Published: September 2021

This chapter develops a new perspective on fundamental problems of periodization and goes beyond postcolonial criticism. It argues that Eurocentrism is a symptom of a fundamental challenge in periodization as it relies on comparisons. It also elaborates that comparisons, even if they reject a 'telos' of history, depend on narrative objectives to distinguish important from less important historical movements and to identify directions, velocities, and standstills in these movements. The chapter demonstrates how history is cut up into epochs that show the heyday of Eurocentrism in nineteenth-century historicism up to the current global and world history writing based on comparing different velocities and drivers of change that vary in narrative objectives. It points out that Eurocentrism is caused not only by universalized time concepts, but also by justifications of periodization.
Introduction
Authors: Breslin Shaun
Published: September 2021

The introductory chapter stars by outlining the ‘Three Intents’ or the main objectives for the book as a whole. It then establishes the ‘Four Constraints’, or the major factors that shaped its focus and the nature of the underpinning scholarship. It finishes by explaining the ‘Eight Arguments’ that underpin the analysis, and which are explored in more detail throughout the following chapters.
Conclusion
Authors: Breslin Shaun
Published: September 2021

The conclusion shows how specific “themes of the time” can come to dominate the way that China is thought of and spoken about in different era. The idea of a clear China challenge to the existing western/liberal global order is one example of such a theme, and shows how attitudes to China as a risen power (rather than a still rising one) have evolved. While this change in perceptions was underway before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, it argues that the politics of the pandemic have acted to highlight existing concerns about the nature and consequences of Chinese global power, and suggest a future world that might not be bipolar in nature, but one where conflict and contention between China and the West is ever more common and pronounced.
Doing Deals
Authors: Reades Jonathan , Crookston Martin
Published: September 2021

We focus on transactions and their costs: how the where and who of ‘doing deals’ shapes choices about which business locations are more or less desirable. It unpicks the nature of the choices firms are making: what sort of transactions; what this imposes in terms of search costs; and how ICT is shifting the boundaries of these choices. Yet face-to-face interactions can still make or break a deal, and the informational advantages from being in central places and being able to meet a wide range of collaborators and competitors, can outweigh high urban costs. It looks at how distinguishing between co-location, agglomeration, and clustering can help us to understand the ‘stickiness’ of some locations and the vulnerability of others; and what drives firms’ choices along the axis of centralisation versus dispersal - where it seems that even in a digital age, many of them still can’t, or daren’t, operate without face-to-face contact.
Optical characterization of a neodymium-doped lithium-niobate-on-insulator (LNOI)
Authors: Rüter Christian E. , Hasse Kore , Chen Feng , Kip Detlef
Published: September 2021

A neodymium (Nd) doped lithium-niobate-on-insulator (LNOI) was fabricated from a lithium niobate (LN) substrate diffusion-doped with Nd prior to the LNOI fabrication process. Diffusion doping enables the fabrication of differently doped regions on a single LNOI substrate, a key advantage for future applications in highly integrated photonics. Fluorescence spectra, emission cross-section, fluorescence lifetime, and small-signal gain of Nd:LNOI were determined for the first time to our knowledge and compared with data published for diffusion-doped ridge or channel waveguides in LN substrates. For an 11 mm-long sample, we achieve a small-signal gain for π (σ) polarization of about 14 (10) dB when pumping with a Ti:Sapphire laser, which is promising for future active components in Nd:LNOI like amplifiers and lasers.
Lignin concentrations in phloem and outer bark are not associated with resistance to mountain pine beetle among high elevation pines
Authors: Soderberg David N. , Kyre Bethany , Bonello Pierluigi , Bentz Barbara J.
Published: September 2021

A key component in understanding plant-insect interactions is the nature of host defenses. Research on defense traits among Pinus species has focused on specialized metabolites and axial resin ducts, but the role of lignin in defense within diverse systems is unclear. We investigated lignin levels in the outer bark and phloem of P. longaeva, P. balfouriana, and P. flexilis; tree species growing at high elevations in the western United States known to differ in susceptibility to mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae; MPB). Pinus longaeva and P. balfouriana are attacked by MPB less frequently than P. flexilis, and MPB brood production in P. longaeva is limited. Because greater lignification of feeding tissues has been shown to provide defense against bark beetles in related genera, such as Picea, we hypothesized that P. longaeva and P. balfouriana would have greater lignin concentrations than P. flexilis. Contrary to expectations, we found that the more MPB-susceptible P. flexilis had greater phloem lignin levels than the less susceptible P. longaeva and P. balfouriana. No differences in outer bark lignin levels among the species were found. We conclude that lignification in Pinus phloem and outer bark is likely not adaptive as a physical defense against MPB.
Looking for more reliable biomarkers in breast cancer: Comparison between routine methods and RT-qPCR
Authors: Caselli Emanuele , Pelliccia Cristina , Teti Valeria , Bellezza Guido , Mandarano Martina , Ferri Ivana , Hartmann Kerstin , Laible Mark , Sahin Ugur , Varga Zsuzsanna , Lupi Chiara , Stracci Fabrizio , Sidoni Angelo
Published: September 2021

Purpose

Decades of quality control efforts have raised the standards of immunohistochemistry (IHC), the principle method used for biomarker testing in breast cancer; however, computational pathology and reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) may also hold promise for additional substantial improvements.

Methods

Herein, we investigated discrepancies in the assessment of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and marker of proliferation Ki67 comparing routinely obtained IHC (and FISH) data (ORI) with the results of manual (REV) and semi-automated (DIA) re-evaluation of the original IHC slides and then with RNA expression data from the same tissue block using the MammaTyper® (MT) gene expression assay.

Results

Correlation for ER and PR was high between ORI IHC and the other three study methods (REV, DIA and RT-qPCR). For HER2, 10 out of 96 discrepant cases can be detected between ORI and REV that involved at least one call in the equivocal category (except for one case). For Ki67, 22 (29.1%) cases were categorized differently by either REV alone (n = 17), DIA alone (n = 15) or both (n = 10) and 28 cases (29.2%) for RT-qPCR. Most of the discrepant Ki67 cases changed from low to high between the original and following assessment and belonged to the intermediate Ki67 expression range (between 9 and 30%).

Conclusions

Determination of the breast cancer biomarkers ER, PR, HER2 and Ki67 at the mRNA level shows high degree of correlation with IHC and compares well with correlations between original with subsequent independent manual or semi-automated IHC assessments. The use of methods with wider dynamic range and higher reproducibility such as RT-qPCR may offer more precise assessment of endocrine responsiveness, improve Ki67 standardization and help resolve HER2 cases that remain equivocal or ambiguous by IHC/FISH. In summary, our findings seem to configure RT-qPCR as a complementary method to be used in cases of either equivocal results or presenting, at the traditional determination assays, biomarkers expressions close to the cut-off values.
Validation of conventional PCR-like alternative to SARS-CoV-2 detection with target nucleocapsid protein gene in naso-oropharyngeal samples
Authors: Carvalho Rogério Fernandes , Oliveira Monike da Silva , Ribeiro Juliane , dos Santos Isac Gabriel Cunha , Almeida Katyane de Sousa , Conti Ana Carolina Muller , Alexandrino Bruna , Campos Fabrício Souza , Soares Célia Maria de Almeida , Ribeiro Júnior José Carlos
Published: September 2021

SARS-CoV-2 has spread worldwide and has become a global health problem. As a result, the demand for inputs for diagnostic tests rose dramatically, as did the cost. Countries with inadequate infrastructure experience difficulties in expanding their qPCR testing capacity. Therefore, the development of sensitive and specific alternative methods is essential. This study aimed to develop, standardize, optimize, and validate conventional RT-PCR targeting the N gene of SARS-CoV-2 in naso-oropharyngeal swab samples compared to qPCR. Using bioinformatics tools, specific primers were determined, with a product expected to be 519 bp. The reaction conditions were optimized using a commercial positive control, and the detection limit was determined to be 100 fragments. To validate conventional RT-PCR, we determined a representative sampling of 346 samples from patients with suspected infection whose diagnosis was made in parallel with qPCR. A sensitivity of 92.1% and specificity of 100% were verified, with an accuracy of 95.66% and correlation coefficient of 0.913. Under current Brazilian conditions, this method generates approximately 60% savings compared to qPCR costs. Conventional RT-PCR, validated herein, showed sufficient results for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 and can be used as an alternative for epidemiological studies and interspecies correlations.
From Lotte Reiniger to Nguyễn Trinh Thi: Examining the Evolution of Non-Western Representation in Artists’ Film and Video
Authors: Horan Peter
Published: September 2021

Experimental filmmakers are often celebrated for their radical engagement with both form and content. This article highlights how artists’ film and video have evolved in the past century when it comes to the representation of non-Western communities and their cultures. Employing close textual analysis, it compares Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed (), Len Lye’s Tusalava () and Free Radicals (), and Nguyễn Trinh Thi’s Letters from Panduranga (), through a postcolonial lens. Foregrounding how Nguyễn is engaged in the nuances of postcolonial identity in a manner that is not replicated by Reiniger and Lye, it concludes that depictions of non-Western cultures in artists’ film and video have developed in the past century from spaces of exoticization to sites of inclusion and respect.
Romanticist Philosophy in Hindi Cinema: A Comparative Study of Keats, Shelley, and October
Authors: Joshi Anushree , Waheed Saman
Published: September 2021

Using the premise of the 2018 Bollywood film, October, this article aims to contrast the poetry of Keats and Shelley with the film’s plot. It focuses upon the theme of the transience of human existence, inevitability of change, and ephemerality of life. In doing so, the article argues that the expression of urban ennui in October and Hindi cinema has tendencies of the Romanticist rendering, resembling the aesthetic of the given poets. The lack of human connectivity and self-centeredness in the contemporary times is similar to the ideas of the Enlightenment, which the Romantics contested.
“To Begin on Again”: A Study of Early Cinema’s Unique Influence on Modernist Literature
Authors: Mutka Maria
Published: September 2021

This article examines the intersectionality of modernist literature and the advent of cinema, particularly in the context of the incomparable tragedies of the First World War in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. Avant-garde writers like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, and T. S. Eliot utilized cinema-inspired techniques in some of their most famous literary works, including Ulysses and “The Waste Land.” These techniques are especially salient in light of how much both the First World War and cinema altered societal notions of time, space, and motion.
Three Cheers for the Essay Film: How Chris Marker’s Vive la baleine Epitomizes Timothy Corrigan’s Model
Authors: Walkur Abby
Published: September 2021

Chris Marker’s Vive la baleine (1972) is widely hailed as a quintessential essay film. This article examines how the film adheres to essayistic characteristics using film scholar Timothy Corrigan’s definition of the essay film mode. In particular, the article highlights the film’s following traits: the three-pronged and gendered approach to narration, the intentional aesthetic and stylistic inconsistency, the underlying critique of the whaling industry, the explicit adoration expressed toward the whale, and the film’s self-reflexivity.
Interview with Independent Filmmaker Mukesh Asopa
Authors: Morgan-Ritchie Chelsea
Published: September 2021

Personal interview with independent film director and actor, Mukesh Asopa.
“We Weren’t Friends after This”: Michael Paré on Playing the Adult Trip Fontaine
Authors: Ekaterina Anya
Published: September 2021

A phone interview from September 16, 2019, with actor Michael Paré, discussing his role as the adult Trip Fontaine in Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides (1999).
Raise the Red Lantern: A Critique of Patriarchy in Chinese Cinema
Authors: Standridge Anna Nicole
Published: September 2021

This article analyzes how cinematography reinforces the themes of feminism and patriarchy in Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern (1991).
Writing for the Screen: Creative and Critical Approaches, 2nd ed., Craig Batty and Zara Waldeback (2019)
Authors: Williford Andrew Steven
Published: September 2021

Review of: Writing for the Screen: Creative and Critical Approaches, 2nd ed., Craig Batty and Zara Waldeback (2019)

London: Red Globe Press, 310pp.,

ISBN: 9781352006087 (pbk), $27.99,

ISBN: 9781352006025 (hbk), $84.99
American Eccentric Cinema, Kim Wilkins (2019)
Authors: Lawler A. G.
Published: September 2021

Review of: American Eccentric Cinema, Kim Wilkins (2019)

New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 224pp.,

ISBN: 9781501336928 (ebk), $35.95,

ISBN: 9781501336935 (epdf), $35.95,

ISBN: 9781501368110 (pbk), $39.95,

ISBN: 9781501336911 (hbk), $120.00
Downton Abbey (2019)
Authors: Kernan Jessica
Published: September 2021

Downton Abbey (2019)

USA

Director Michael Engler

Runtime 123 minutes
Loving Vincent (2017)
Authors: Schaller’s August U.
Published: September 2021

Loving Vincent (2017)

Poland | UK | USA | Switzerland | Netherlands

Directors Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman

Runtime 94 minutes
Naples/Italy: An accented approach to city and nation
Authors: Glynn Ruth
Published: September 2021

Naples presents an intriguing case for the study of city and nation in cultural perspective. Historically viewed as a problem city and occupying an ambiguous place in the discursive construction of the nation, it has come to represent Italy in contemporary media and culture. This article reviews the historical construction of Naples in national discourse and interrogates new critical perspectives that re-evaluate the city in the light of postcolonial theory. Identifying the limitations of such theorization with respect to cultural representations of Naples’ relationship with Italy, I draw on theories of cultural accentedness to propose a new approach to Naples, premised upon a reframing of national culture in terms of differently accented practices, discourses and interpretations. The approach is intended as a model for critical interrogation of the relationship between city and nation more broadly.
Troubling national commemoration in Dublin, London and Liverpool: ANU Production and CoisCéim Dance Theatre’s These Rooms
Authors: Till Karen E.
Published: September 2021

The cultural production These Rooms challenged traditional nationalistic commemorations of war and rebellion during the ‘Decade of the Centenaries’. Created by the Dublin-based ANU Productions and CoisCéim Dance Theatre, and funded by the Irish and UK governments,
this series of theatre/dance performances, installations and public outreach projects in unconventional urban venues ran from 2016 to 2019 in Dublin, London and Liverpool, cities with mixed British and Irish populations. Fragmentary, embodied stories about the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin
communicated the perspectives of working-class Irish civilian women and confused young British soldiers through intimate domestic encounters that productively disrupted heroic narratives. Audiences were instead invited to create temporary communities of encounter and ‘unlearn’
dominant concepts supporting colonial, imperial and national spaces‐times. As a critical agonistic artistic intervention, These Rooms offered more inclusive ‘potential histories’ and forms of belonging across political, social and temporal borders during the geopolitically
uncertain times associated with Brexit.
A meditative enquiry into presence: Unmaking the autoethnographic self
Authors: Stephens Tim
Published: September 2021

The article consists of two parts, Introduction and/or Conclusion and a Meditative Enquiry, to be read in any order, if indeed we do ‘read’ meditative enquiry. Meditative enquiry here concerns the meditative writing and/or reading of this article on presence. The enquiry is divided into numerous subheadings that encourage a slow and circular, rather than linear, narrative, and a participative reading approach, in which each section aims to return to, or arrive in, the present moment. The materiality of our presence is continuous, whether or not we are conscious of being in the present. The article also enacts resistance to, or an apparent inability of conscious awareness to arrive in, and stay with, what is happening in this moment. Implications are, firstly, the unmaking of: a qualitative researcher-participant’s ‘Self’; and the autoethnographic self within writing as creative practice. Secondly, validating a dual contribution of meditation to philosophy and writing on presence.