bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Religious Establishment as a Subject of Political Science
Authors: Driessen Michael
Published: April 2019

Recent scholarly attention to religious establishment can be understood as a response to the crisis of secularization theory and the apparent return of religion to global politics. As a category, religious establishment represents a concrete instance of the religious touching the political, which political scientists can systematically measure and analyze to qualify the nature of religion’s return to global politics. Theoretical advances in the conceptualization of religious establishment as a combination of various policies of government regulation and favoritism of religion, in addition to the creation of cross-national databases to measure these policies, has led scholars to rediscover and categorize a broad range of patterns of religious establishment across the globe. Furthermore, these advances in conceptualization and data collection have enabled scholars to produce new political science research on the relationship between religious establishment and patterns of national religious life; cross-national levels of democracy; and the probability of political violence. Several hidden threads bind much of this scholarship together, including implicit assumptions made about normative debates on the meaning of religious liberty, as well as historical patterns of state formation. By explicitly recognizing these assumptions and linking them to future research agendas, political science scholarship on religious establishment is well placed to advance debates on the contemporary role of religion in global politics.
The Inclusion-Moderation Thesis: India’s BJP
Authors: Flåten Lars Tore
Published: April 2019

In 1925, the Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was founded. The main aim of the RSS was to make India into a nation state defined according to Hindu cultural and religious values, which in the RSS version reflected a distinct high-caste outlook. Internal enemies, namely Muslims, Christians, and Marxists, had no place in such a state. This ideology goes under the name Hindutva, which can be translated as Hinduness. Due to the large-scale and religiously based violence experienced in the final stages of its freedom struggle, independent India adopted democracy and secularism as its foundational values. Hindu nationalist parties were present, but never influential in the first decades after independence. This circumstance was about to change in the 1980s, as the newly founded Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with strong links to the RSS, decided to mobilize on the Ayodhya issue. According to the BJP, the Ayodhya temple had been demolished by the Muslim ruler, Babur, and replaced with a mosque. The time had come to rebuild the temple.

This campaign catapulted the BJP onto the political scene in India. The strategy, however, was not without its flaws, and the weaknesses connected to the BJP’s Ayodhya campaign summed up the party’s main challenges. It has been difficult for the BJP to promote the existence of a nationwide Hindu identity in heterogeneous India, characterized by religious pluralism, different regional political cultures, and caste divisions. Particularly caste has proved difficult for the BJP, since the party is associated with high-caste values. Moreover, the way in which the BJP has utilized anti-Muslim rhetoric and campaigns has alienated potential alliance partners. The BJP has managed to overcome most of these challenges and was elected to power at the national level in 1998 and then again in 2014. In addition, the party governs many different states. During several national election campaigns, the BJP has actually chosen to background the most contentious issues in order to attract alliance partners. Instead, the party has conveyed its message of Hindu cultural unity in more subtle ways, most prominently through educational reforms. The BJP has also managed to adapt to regional variations and conveys its ideology in different ways throughout India. The landslide victory of Narendra Modi and the BJP in the 2014 elections represents a new phase in the history of the party. With a majority of its own, one could expect that the BJP would implement its Hindu nationalist agenda. For the most part, Modi has kept some degree of distance from Hindutva. However, through a division of labor, it appears that Modi has left the Hindutva agenda to the states governed by the BJP as well to the well-organized and influential Hindu nationalist movement.
Terrorism and Religion: Palestine
Authors: Perliger Arie
Published: April 2019

In its early stages the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was dominated by two secular nationalist movements, which marginalized religious practices and institutions. However, since the early 1980s, it has gradually become a struggle that includes, and some may argue also is led by, fundamentalist parties that justify their national aspirations via religious texts, principles, and practices. It is no wonder then that a conciliation seems less and less of a realistic endeavor. On the Palestinian side, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are the main forces that dominant the violent Palestinian struggle, while aspiring to establish a Palestinian state that will operate as a theocracy. In Israel, Religious Zionist militant organizations engaged in violent campaigns to solidify Israel’s control over the West Bank as part of a theological framework that sees such a control as a crucial phase in the re-creation of a Jewish kingdom. Moreover, Jewish ultra-orthodox parties, which in the past refrained from engaging with the conflict with the Palestinians, in the last couple of decades became strong opposition to any conciliation efforts which will include territorial concessions by Israel.
Reentry Processes in the United States
Authors: Binnall James M. , Alderson Maryanne
Published: April 2019

Reentry is the process of ending a period of incarceration, leaving jail or prison, and returning to society. Not to be confused with reintegration or recidivism, reentry is not a measure of success or failure. Instead, reentry is a journey, and no two reentries are analogous. The reentry process is individualized and highly dependent on a number of factors including a reentering individual’s sentence structure, incarceration experience, and postrelease resources. Depending on these factors, a reentering individual may find his or her return to the free world a relatively smooth transition or a task riddled with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. To navigate such obstacles, most reentering individuals need assistance. Traditionally, reentry assistance was provided by the state, through correctional programming in prison or by parole authorities tasked with monitoring a reentering individual postrelease. In recent years, nonprofit and faith-based organizations have increasingly been a part of innovative reentry initiatives. There has also been a recent expansion of Internet-based reentry resources, such as reentry.net and exoffenders.net, which allow those experiencing reentry to obtain reentry resources online.

Reentry initiatives typically take two forms: deficit-based and strengths-based. Deficit-based reentry models use actuarial assessments to identify a reentering individual’s criminogenic risks and needs. In theory, deficit-based models then address those risks and needs through measured, tailored responses. Critics of deficit-based models argue that by focusing only on risks and needs, such approaches overlook reentering individuals’ talents and skills. Acknowledging these criticisms, many reentry initiatives have shifted away from the traditional deficits-centered model of reentry and toward a strengths-based approach. Rather than focusing on the risks and needs of a reentering individual, strengths-based approaches highlight the attributes of reentering individuals and draw on the experiences of former offenders who have successfully navigated their own reentry and best understand the pitfalls of the process. Recent, albeit limited empirical and experiential evidence supports the strength-based approach to reentry, suggesting that the concerns and insights of those who have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system make the transition from incarceration to freedom a smoother one.
Gangs and Social Media
Authors: Pyrooz David C. , Moule, Jr. Richard K.
Published: April 2019

It was once presumed that costs of Internet adoption were too great for gang members to absorb. They lacked the financial resources to access the Internet or the technological know-how to use it. That is no longer the case, which leads to two questions: What are gang members doing online? What are the responses to gangs online? The growing research on this topic indicates that gang members are online and using the Internet at a rate comparable to their peers. This occurs in the United States and abroad. Gangs do not exploit the Internet to its criminal potential, even though the law enforcement community suggests otherwise. This is most likely due to the low technological capacities of gang members. However, gang members do engage in higher rates of crime and deviance online than their non-gang peers. Gang members also use the Internet to posture, provoke, and project group power, particularly on leading social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, which in turn allows activities occurring online to have ramifications for crime and violence offline. It is debatable whether online space is as important to gangs as physical space, but the Internet is undoubtedly a valuable medium to gangs. The potential for conflict and the posting of gang images has attracted the attention of law enforcement as well as researchers to document this activity. Platforms are being developed to anticipate the spilling of online gang conflicts offline. Since the Internet is a value-neutral medium that engages youth and young adults, it is anticipated that social media and the Internet will continue to appeal to gangs and gang members for the foreseeable future.
Neurobiology of Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Abuse
Authors: Wood Ruth I. , Wallin-Miller Kathryn G.
Published: April 2019

Anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) are both performance-enhancing substances and drugs of abuse. Although AAS are banned in competitive sports, they are widely used by both elite and rank-and-file athletes. All AAS are derived from testosterone, the principle endogenous androgen produced by the testes of adult men. While AAS increase muscular strength and athletic performance, they also have serious consequences for health and behavior. AAS are implicated in maladaptive behavioral and cognitive changes such as increased risk-taking and altered decision-making. However, effects of AAS on cognition are not well understood. Studies of human AAS users are limited by an inability to control for pre-existing psychopathology and behavioral differences. Furthermore, in order to understand AAS effects on behavior, it is important to discover how AAS impact the brain. Animal models of AAS abuse parallel human studies to uncover effects on cognition, decision-making, and underlying neurobiological mechanisms. In operant discounting tests, rats treated with chronic high-dose testosterone are less sensitive to effort, punishment, and delay but are more sensitive to uncertainty. Likewise, they demonstrate impaired cognitive flexibility when tested for set-shifting and reversal learning. It appears that AAS induce many of these cognitive changes via effects on the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system, particularly through the dopamine D1- and D2-like receptors in subnuclei of the nucleus accumbens. AAS also have rewarding effects mediated by similar neural circuits. In preclinical studies, animals will voluntarily self-administer AAS. Human users may develop dependence. These findings highlight the vulnerability of brain circuits controlling cognition and reward to androgens at high doses.
Neuroendocrine Mechanisms of Psychological Stress: Age and Sex Differences in Adults
Authors: Gaffey Allison E. , Martinez Brandy S.
Published: April 2019

There are two main branches of the human stress response. The autonomic nervous system acts rapidly and is often referred to as our fight or flight response. The slow-acting arm of the stress response refers to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which triggers a hormone cascade resulting in the release of various hormones including cortisol. Healthy functioning of the HPA axis is tightly regulated by negative feedback, the endogenous self-regulatory mechanism of the system that terminates cortisol production. Alterations in HPA axis functioning are characterized by both hypo- and hypersecretion of cortisol in response to psychological stress and are typically associated with negative physical health outcomes as well as clinical pathology. What remains poorly understood is how HPA activity changes with age and the pathways through which these changes occur.

In addition to changes associated with the normative aging process, age-related changes in cortisol may also be driven by the cumulative effects of stress experienced across the life span (e.g., traumatic stress); stressors unique to later life (e.g., caring for an ailing loved one); or health problems. Although research examining how the HPA axis might change with age is inconsistent, there appears to be reasonable evidence to suggest that: (1) both stress-induced and diurnal cortisol output may increase with age, potentially beginning with changes in the cortisol awakening response, (2) variability in cortisol production increases with age, (3) diurnal (i.e., daily) cortisol rhythms are preserved in later life, and (4) age-related differences in cortisol may be more distinct in men than in women. However, it remains unknown whether these changes in older adults’ physiology reflect maladaptive functioning of the HPA axis or interact with other health concerns to negatively affect overall psychophysiological health. Further research is needed to disentangle the interplay between aging and HPA axis functioning to better understand what alterations are associated with the normative aging process, when they occur, and how they influence longevity.
The Positive Economic Theory of Tort Law
Authors: Grady Mark F.
Published: April 2019

Tort law is part of the common law that originated in England after the Norman Conquest and spread throughout the world, including to the United States. It is judge-made law that allows people who have been injured by others to sue those who harmed them and collect damages in proper cases. Since its early origins, tort law has evolved considerably and has become a full-fledged “grown order,” like the economy, and can best be understood by positive theory, also like the economy. Economic theories of tort have developed since the early 1970s, and they too have evolved over time. Their objective is to generate fresh insight about the purposes and the workings of the tort system.

The basic thesis of the economic theory is that tort law creates incentives for people to minimize social cost, which is comprised of the harm produced by torts and the cost of the precautions necessary to prevent torts. This thesis, intentionally simple, generates many fresh insights about the workings and effects of the tort system and even about the actual legal rules that judges have developed. In an evolved grown order, legal rules are far less concrete than most people would expect though often very clear in application. Beginning also in the 1970s, legal philosophers have objected to the economic theory of tort and have devised philosophical theories that compete. The competition, moreover, has been productive because it has spurred both sides to revise and improve their theories and to seek better to understand the law. Tort law is diverse, applicable to many different activities and situations, so developing a positive theory about it is both challenging and rewarding.
The Evolution of Forecast Density Combinations in Economics
Authors: Aastveit Knut Are , Mitchell James , Ravazzolo Francesco , van Dijk Herman K.
Published: April 2019

Increasingly, professional forecasters and academic researchers in economics present model-based and subjective or judgment-based forecasts that are accompanied by some measure of uncertainty. In its most complete form this measure is a probability density function for future values of the variable or variables of interest. At the same time, combinations of forecast densities are being used in order to integrate information coming from multiple sources such as experts, models, and large micro-data sets. Given the increased relevance of forecast density combinations, this article explores their genesis and evolution both inside and outside economics. A fundamental density combination equation is specified, which shows that various frequentist as well as Bayesian approaches give different specific contents to this density. In its simplest case, it is a restricted finite mixture, giving fixed equal weights to the various individual densities. The specification of the fundamental density combination equation has been made more flexible in recent literature. It has evolved from using simple average weights to optimized weights to “richer” procedures that allow for time variation, learning features, and model incompleteness. The recent history and evolution of forecast density combination methods, together with their potential and benefits, are illustrated in the policymaking environment of central banks.
Investments in Children’s Mental Health
Authors: Eisenberg Daniel , Raghavan Ramesh
Published: April 2019

One of the most important unanswered questions for any society is how best to invest in children’s mental health. Childhood is a sensitive and opportune period in which to invest in programs and services that can mitigate a range of downstream risks for health and mental health conditions. Investing in such programs and services will require a shift from focusing not only on reducing deficits but also enhancing the child’s skills and other assets. Economic evaluation is crucial for determining which programs and services represent optimal investments. Several registries curate lists of programs with high evidence of effectiveness; many of these programs also have evidence of positive benefit-cost differentials, although the economic evidence is typically limited and uncertain. Even the programs with the strongest evidence are currently reaching only a small fraction of young people who would potentially benefit. Thus, it is important to understand and address factors that impede or facilitate the implementation of best practices. One example of a program that represents a promising investment is home visiting, in which health workers visit the homes of new parents to advise on parenting skills, child needs, and the home environment. Another example is social emotional learning programs delivered in schools, where children are taught to regulate emotions, manage behaviors, and enhance relationships with peers. Investing in these and other programs with a strong evidence base, and assuring their faithful implementation in practice settings, can produce improvements on a range of mental health, academic, and social outcomes for children, extending into their lives as adults.
Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) in Healthcare Decision-Making
Authors: Hansen Paul , Devlin Nancy
Published: April 2019

Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is increasingly used to support healthcare decision-making. MCDA involves decision makers evaluating the alternatives under consideration based on the explicit weighting of criteria relevant to the overarching decision—in order to, depending on the application, rank (or prioritize) or choose between the alternatives. A prominent example of MCDA applied to healthcare decision-making that has received a lot of attention in recent years and is the main subject of this article is choosing which health “technologies” (i.e., drugs, devices, procedures, etc.) to fund—a process known as health technology assessment (HTA). Other applications include prioritizing patients for surgery, prioritizing diseases for R&D, and decision-making about licensing treatments. Most applications are based on weighted-sum models. Such models involve explicitly weighting the criteria and rating the alternatives on the criteria, with each alternative’s “performance” on the criteria aggregated using a linear (i.e., additive) equation to produce the alternative’s “total score,” by which the alternatives are ranked. The steps involved in a MCDA process are explained, including an overview of methods for scoring alternatives on the criteria and weighting the criteria. The steps are: structuring the decision problem being addressed, specifying criteria, measuring alternatives’ performance, scoring alternatives on the criteria and weighting the criteria, applying the scores and weights to rank the alternatives, and presenting the MCDA results, including sensitivity analysis, to decision makers to support their decision-making. Arguments recently advanced against using MCDA for HTA and counterarguments are also considered. Finally, five questions associated with how MCDA for HTA is operationalized are discussed: Whose preferences are relevant for MCDA? Should criteria and weights be decision-specific or identical for repeated applications? How should cost or cost-effectiveness be included in MCDA? How can the opportunity cost of decisions be captured in MCDA? How can uncertainty be incorporated into MCDA?
Buddhist Wizards (Vidyādhara/Weizzā/Weikza): Contemporary Burma/Myanmar
Authors: Patton Thomas
Published: April 2019

Supernatural wizards with magical powers to heal the sick and who inhabit the minds and bodies of men, women, and children, as well as defend religion from the forces of evil: this is not the popular vision of Buddhism. But this is exactly what one finds in the Buddhist country of Myanmar, where the majority of people abide by Theravāda Buddhism—a form of Buddhism generally perceived as staid, lacking religious devotion and elements of the supernatural. Known as “weizzā,” the beliefs and practices associated with this religion have received little scholarly attention, especially when compared with research done on other aspects of Buddhism in Myanmar. Reasons for this are varied, but two stand out. Firstly, because such phenomena have been labeled by scholars and Buddhists alike as “popular” and “syncretic” forms of religion, scholars of Buddhism in Myanmar have tended to focus their research on aspects of Buddhism considered orthodox and normative, such as vipassana and abhidhamma. Secondly, the academic study of religion has been slow to develop new interpretive strategies for studying religious phenomena that do not readily fit existing categories of what constitutes “religion.”

These two dilemmas will be confronted by introducing and employing the framework of “lived religion” to examine the religious lives of those who engage the world of Buddhist wizards, as well as the experiences these individuals consider central to their lives—along with the varied rituals that make up their personal religious expressions. The reader is invited to think of religion dynamically, reconsidering the landscape of Myanmar religion in terms of practices linked to specific social contexts. After delineating a genealogy of scholarly approaches to the study of Buddhism-as-lived and the ways in which scholars have constituted the subject of their studies, the article will examine aspects of Myanmar religious life from the perspectives of those whose experiences are often misrepresented or ignored entirely, not only in Western academic works on religion but also in Myanmar historical monographs and other written, oral, and pictorial sources. In addition to increasing our understanding of the lived religious experiences and practices of the weizzā and their devotees, this approach to religious studies also enriches our investigation of the complex interrelationship between these experiences and practices and the wider social world they are enacted in. Acknowledging that any lens we study religion through offers only a partial truth, an improved religious studies approach to the weizzā and similar phenomena can get closer to the truths that people make in their own lives: thus, moving further from the contested boundaries that scholars and practitioners of religion place on religious worlds.
Digital Resources: Digital Peru
Authors: Ragas José
Published: April 2019

Over the last two decades or so, scholars and enthusiasts have found several ways to preserve historical documents, taking advantage of the evolution of the Internet and an expansive audience interested in such material. Digital Peruvian historical sources reflect this global trend, with primary sources being especially rich. In Peru, the digitization process or technique has not been confined to archivists, librarians, and historians. Rather, the digital format has brought a revolution itself that has blurred the distance between experts and amateurs and has posed new challenges for preservation and access to historical collections. Images, photographs, paintings, interviews, testimonies, TV commercials, and much more have been digitized and stored in multiple online platforms, such as various different social media, YouTube, and SoundCloud among others, by professionals and amateurs alike. The result may be mixed, but historians with a focus on the Peruvian experience will find a bounty of material among which to pick and choose.
wetlands (bog, marsh)
Authors: Traina Giusto
Published: April 2019

The most common words to designate a marsh, a swamp, or a bog are helos in ancient Greek and palus in Latin; beside these terms, less common words were also employed. Literary and epigraphic texts give evidence for marshlands in the countryside, in the coastal areas, and also close to urban agglomerations. The sources often give evidence for drainage activity, but cases of extensive drainage are rare. In fact, they were possible only at public expense, by employing free or slave labor. On the other hand, several territories were characterized by a sort of marsh economy. Although rarely portrayed in literature, and despite the risk of malaria, marshy areas presented some economic potential: fishing, hunting, salt extraction, and farming. In many respects, the negative image of wetlands is a modern invention. The contrast between the rational order of the Roman countryside and the “barbaric” medieval landscape was introduced by the Enlightenment, and must be treated with caution.
inconsistencies in Latin literature
Authors: Glauthier Patrick
Published: April 2019

In the context of Latin literature, inconsistency is most often invoked to mean self-contradiction: for example, in the second Georgic, Virgil declares that Italy is blissfully free from snakes, but in the following book, snakes pose a deadly threat to the Italian farmer and his animals. Inconsistency, however, can also describe general ambiguity, lack of unity, factual inaccuracy, and incoherence of almost any kind. A number of historically contingent factors affect how readers recognize and respond to inconsistencies. Ancient criticism of the Homeric poems and the Aeneid often considered inconsistencies flaws, and this tradition has influenced modern thinking about the topic. From the late 20th century onwards, critics have frequently viewed the creation of inconsistency as a deliberate authorial strategy: the reader is exposed to two different realities, and the resulting tension contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. The apparent receptivity of Roman literary culture to inconsistency may imply a worldview that had more in common with quantum mechanics than an Aristotelian universe dominated by the law of non-contradiction.
athletics, late antiquity
Authors: Remijsen Sofie
Published: April 2019

Whereas chariot races gained popularity in late antiquity, athletics declined. Traditional agones, such as the Olympics, disappeared in the course of the 4th and 5th centuries ce. The traditional explanation, that they were abolished by Theodosius I, is no longer widely accepted, as the imperial policy clearly remained positive towards games. Changes to the administration of the cities, which administered the funds of these games, must have had a stronger effect, as did the rise of new, and in particular Christian, values. The drive to compete in the individual competitions typical of Greek athletics can be linked to the ambition to excel that was typical of the earlier political culture, but which was increasingly perceived as a vain pursuit and replaced by an ideal of humility. Not all forms of athletics disappeared, however, as the spread of circus games created new opportunities for the demonstration of spectacular feats by athletes.
landscapes, Roman
Authors: Bowes Kim
Published: April 2019

Roman landscapes exhibited enormous diversity, from the rolling hills of the Mediterranean heartland, to Nile marshlands, Apennine mountain pastures, and African pre-deserts. New work on this diversity has demonstrated the intensive methods with which they were managed for agriculture and artisanal output, as well as their highly periodized histories. While much debate in the study of these landscapes has revolved around ancient climate change, more apparent is robust human intervention, which often reached a peak during the Roman period. Romans thought deeply about landscapes, and their literature and religious rituals used landscape to frame moral, religious, and political values.
Marcian of Heraclea
Authors: Altomare Bianca Maria
Published: April 2019

Marcian of Heraclea (beginning of the 5th century ce) was the editor of a geographical corpus, as well as an important researcher and intermediary between the ancient Greek and Byzantine traditions. He was the author of three works: The Periplous of the Outer Sea, an epitome of Artemidorus’ Geographoumena, and an edition of Menippus’ Periplous. Only the first survives directly, albeit transmitted in a fragmentary state via a sole medieval manuscript, but the others can be reconstructed on the evidence of Stephanus of Byzantium.
History of the Portuguese Lexicon
Authors: Pöll Bernhard
Published: April 2019

The basic vocabulary of Portuguese—the second largest Romance language in terms of speakers (about 210 million as of 2017)—comes from (vulgar) Latin, which itself incorporated a certain amount of so-called substratum and superstratum words. Whereas the former were adopted in a situation of language contact between Latin and the languages of the conquered peoples inhabiting the Iberian Peninsula, the latter are Germanic loans brought mainly by the Visigoths. From 711 onward, until the end of the Middle Ages, Arabic played a major role in the Peninsula, contributing about 1,000 words that are common in Modern Portuguese. (Classical) Latin and Greek were other sources for lexical enrichment especially in the 15th and 16th centuries as well as in the 18th and 19th centuries. Contact with other European languages—Romance and Germanic (especially English, and to a lower extent German)—led to borrowings in several thematic fields reflecting the economic, cultural, and scientific radiance that emanated from the respective language communities. In the course of colonial expansion, Portuguese came into contact with several African, Asian, and Amerindian languages from which it borrowed words for concepts and realia unknown to the Western world.
Denominal Verbs in Morphology
Authors: Baeskow Heike
Published: April 2019

Denominal verbs are verbs formed from nouns by means of various word-formation processes such as derivation, conversion, or less common mechanisms like reduplication, change of pitch, or root and pattern. Because their well-formedness is determined by morphosyntactic, phonological, and semantic constraints, they have been analyzed from a variety of lexicalist and non-lexicalist perspectives, including Optimality Theory, Lexical Semantics, Cognitive Grammar, Onomasiology, and Neo-Construction Grammar. Independently of their structural shape, denominal verbs have in common that they denote events in which the referents of their base nouns (e.g., computer in the case of computerize) participate in a non-arbitrary way. While traditional labels like ‘ornative’, ‘privative’, ‘locative’, ‘instrumental’ and the like allow for a preliminary classification of denominal verbs, a more formal description has to account for at least three basic aspects, namely (1) competition among functionally similar word-formation patterns, (2) the polysemy of affixes, which precludes a neat one-to-one relation between derivatives displaying a particular affix and a particular semantic class, and (3) the relevance of generic knowledge and contextual information for the interpretation of (innovative) denominal verbs.
Morphology in Cognitive Linguistics
Authors: Nesset Tore
Published: April 2019

Cognitive linguistics and morphology bear the promise of a happy marriage. Cognitive linguistics provides theoretical concepts and analytical tools for empirical analysis, while morphology offers fertile ground for testing hypotheses and refining core concepts. It is no wonder, then, that numerous contributions to the field of morphology have been couched in cognitive linguistics, and that morphological phenomena have figured prominently in cognitive linguistics.

Cognitive linguistics is a family of closely related frameworks that share the idea that language should be analyzed in terms of what is known about the mind and brain from disciplines other than linguistics. Cognitive linguistics furthermore adopts a semiotic perspective, claiming that the raison d’êtreof language is to convey meaning. Another central tenet is the usage-based approach, the idea that grammar emerges through usage, which implies a strong focus on language use in cognitive linguistics.

An example of how cognitive linguistics relates morphology to general principles of cognition is the application of general principles of categorization to morphology. Morphological categories are analyzed as radial categories, that is, networks structured around a prototype. Such category networks can be comprised of the allomorphs of a morpheme or be used to model theoretical concepts such as paradigm and inflection class.

The radial category is also instrumental in analyzing the meaning of morphological concepts. Rather than assuming abstract invariant meanings for morphemes, cognitive linguistics analyzes the meaning of morphological phenomena through networks of interrelated meanings. The relationships among the nodes in a category network are analyzed in terms of general cognitive processes, such as metaphor, metonymy, and blending.

The usage-based approach of cognitive linguistics manifests itself in the strong focus on frequency effects in morphology. It is argued that frequency is an important structuring principle in cognition, and that frequent forms have a privileged status in a morphological paradigm.
Valuation of Beach Quality
Authors: Barfield Ashley , Landry Craig E.
Published: April 2019

The result of interactive dynamics of the ocean, landforms, and weather patterns, sandy beaches and dunes are a natural feature along many coastlines around the world. Their contributions to overall social welfare are multifaceted and complex. Providing water access, recreation and tourism potential, scenic beauty, and leisure amenities, sandy coastlines have witnessed extensive commercial and residential development. Intact beach–dune systems provide coastal development projects with protection from storms, erosion, flooding, and (to some extent) sea-level rise. While yielding value through capital investment, market expansion, and the enhancement of access to natural amenities, increases in buildings and infrastructure can upset the delicate dynamic equilibrium in coastal systems. This, in turn, puts beaches, dunes, wetlands, wildlife habitats, and other ecological resources at risk. Concerns about these impacts have provided the impetus for several environmental management initiatives. Critical to these initiatives is information about the multidimensional economic and social values of coastal amenities, especially beaches and dunes.

The economic valuation of beach quality and coastal ecosystem services has traditionally focused on the implementation of non-market valuation techniques, including revealed (e.g., hedonic prices and travel costs) and stated preference (e.g., contingent valuation and choice experiment) approaches, in conjunction with survey/experimental design methods. Analysis of beach quality has become a vibrant topic, especially in response to concerns about the need for climate change adaptation; the impacts of sea-level rise; worsening and more frequent storm events; and changes in ocean temperature, salinity, and alkalinity. Each of these factors can ultimately impact beaches and coastal economies. As a result, the literature has broadened to include a number of interdisciplinary studies that feature the contributions of environmental economics, marine science, applied geology, natural resource management, risk and insurance, and urban planning disciplines, among others. These collaborations have advanced the science of coastal economics and management, but many significant challenges remain. Questions about the optimal order and timing of adaptation procedures, how to balance the provision of synergistic or conflicting goods and services, and how to design dynamic models that incorporate real-world management scenarios across different jurisdictions all require further investigation.
Desalination Technology and Advancement
Authors: Goh P.S. , Ismail A.F. , Hilal N.
Published: April 2019

Water scarcity as an outcome of global population expansion, climate change, and industrialization calls for new and innovative technologies to provide sustainable solutions to address this alarming issue. Seawater and brackish water are abundantly available on earth for drinking water and industrial use, and desalination is a promising approach to resolving this global challenge. Recently, the considerable reduction in the cost of desalination has contributed to the growing capacity for global desalination. The desalination technologies that have been deployed worldwide for clean water production can be categorized into two main types: membrane-based and thermal-based. Technological advancement in this field has focused on the reduction of capital and operating cost, particularly the energy consumption of the systems. Seawater and brackish desalination technologies are promising solutions for water shortages.
Nectar traits differ between pollination syndromes in Balsaminaceae
Authors: Vandelook F , Janssens S B , Gijbels P , Fischer E , Van den Ende W , Honnay O , Abrahamczyk S
Published: April 2019

Background and Aims

The attractiveness of nectar rewards depends both on the quantity of nectar produced and on its chemical composition. It is known that nectar quantity and chemical composition can differ in plant species depending on the main pollinator associated with the species. The main aims of this study were to test formally whether nectar traits are adapted to pollination syndromes in the speciose Balsaminaceae and, if so, whether a combination of nectar traits mirrors pollination syndromes.

Methods

Comparative methods based on Ornstein–Uhlenbeck models were used to test whether nectar volume, nectar sucrose proportion, sugar and amino acid concentration and amino acid composition had evolved as a function of pollination syndromes in 57 species of Balsaminaceae. Cluster analysis and ordination were performed to derive clusters of species resembling each other in nectar composition.

Key Results

Evolutionary models for nectar volume and nectar sucrose proportion performed best when including information on pollination syndrome, while including such information improve model fit neither for sugar and amino acid concentration nor for amino acid composition. A significant relationship emerged between pollination syndrome and the combined nectar traits.

Conclusions

Our results show that nectar volume and nectar sucrose proportion evolve rapidly towards optimal values associated with different pollination syndromes. The detection of a signal indicating that nectar traits in combination are to a certain extent able to predict pollination syndromes in Balsaminaceae suggests that a holistic approach including the whole set of nectar traits helps us to better understand evolution of nectar composition in response to pollinators.
Tibanna: software for scalable execution of portable pipelines on the cloud
Authors: Lee Soohyun , Johnson Jeremy , Vitzthum Carl , Kırlı Koray , Alver Burak H , Park Peter J
Published: April 2019

We introduce Tibanna, an open-source software tool for automated execution of bioinformatics pipelines on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Tibanna accepts reproducible and portable pipeline standards including Common Workflow Language (CWL), Workflow Description Language (WDL) and Docker. It adopts a strategy of isolation and optimization of individual executions, combined with a serverless scheduling approach. Pipelines are executed and monitored using local commands or the Python Application Programming Interface (API) and cloud configuration is automatically handled. Tibanna is well suited for projects with a range of computational requirements, including those with large and widely fluctuating loads. Notably, it has been used to process terabytes of data for the 4D Nucleome (4DN) Network.

Availability and implementation

Source code is available on GitHub at https://github.com/4dn-dcic/tibanna.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
The metastatic phenotype shift toward myofibroblast of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells promotes ovarian cancer progression
Authors: Tang Huijuan , Chu Yijing , Huang Zaiju , Cai Jing , Wang Zehua
Published: April 2019

Ovarian cancer metastasizes to organs in the abdominal cavity, such as the omentum that is a rich source of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADSCs). In present, ADSCs have received more and more attention for their roles in the development of cancer. In this study, we examined α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) expression and carcinoma-associated fibroblast (CAF)-like differentiation capabilities in ADSCs from omentum of different patients. The effects of ADSCs on the proliferation and invasion of epithelial ovarian cancer cells (EOCCs) were also assessed in vitro and in vivo. Our results showed that ADSCs from omentum of ovarian cancer patients, no matter whether metastasis or not, expressed higher levels of α-SMA than ADSCs from patients with benign gynecologic disease. Using direct and indirect co-culture system, we found that EOCCs induced ADSCs to express CAF markers, including α-SMA and fibroblast activation protein, via the transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-β1) signaling pathway. Moreover, co-cultured ADSCs exhibited functional properties similar to those of CAFs, including the ability to promote EOCCs proliferation, progression and metastasis both in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, blocking the TGF-β1 pathway can counteract the CAF-like differentiation and tumor promotion effect of ADSCs. Our results suggest that ADSCs are a source of CAFs and that they participate in the interaction between EOCCs and the omental microenvironment. EOCCs could induce ADSCs in the omentum to differentiate before ovarian cancer metastasis, which participate in the formation of omental metastatic niches and promote the proliferation and invasion of ovarian cancer.
Hippocampal Blood Flow Is Increased After 20 min of Moderate-Intensity Exercise
Authors: Steventon J J , Foster C , Furby H , Helme D , Wise R G , Murphy K
Published: April 2019

Long-term exercise interventions have been shown to be a potent trigger for both neurogenesis and vascular plasticity. However, little is known about the underlying temporal dynamics and specifically when exercise-induced vascular adaptations first occur, which is vital for therapeutic applications. In this study, we investigated whether a single session of moderate-intensity exercise was sufficient to induce changes in the cerebral vasculature. We employed arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging to measure global and regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) before and after 20 min of cycling. The blood vessels’ ability to dilate, measured by cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) to CO2 inhalation, was measured at baseline and 25-min postexercise. Our data showed that CBF was selectively increased by 10–12% in the hippocampus 15, 40, and 60 min after exercise cessation, whereas CVR to CO2 was unchanged in all regions. The absence of a corresponding change in hippocampal CVR suggests that the immediate and transient hippocampal adaptations observed after exercise are not driven by a mechanical vascular change and more likely represents an adaptive metabolic change, providing a framework for exploring the therapeutic potential of exercise-induced plasticity (neural, vascular, or both) in clinical and aged populations.
The Association Between Breast Milk Group B Streptococcal Capsular Antibody Levels and Late-onset Disease in Young Infants
Authors: Dangor Ziyaad , Khan Mahtaab , Kwatra Gaurav , Izu Alane , Nakwa Firdose , Ramdin Tanusha , Fredericks Joy , Lala Sanjay G , Madhi Shabir A
Published: April 2019

Background

Animal-model studies have demonstrated less group B streptococcal (GBS) invasive disease and gastrointestinal colonization after enteral administration of serotype-specific capsular antibodies. There is, however, a paucity of information on the association of breast milk GBS serotype-specific capsular antibodies and risks for invasive disease in infants. The aim of this study was to explore the association between natural secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA) capsular antibodies in breast milk and the occurrence of late-onset disease (LOD) in young infants.

Methods

A matched case-control study was undertaken in infants <3 months of age in Johannesburg, South Africa. Breast milk samples were collected on cases and controls matched for gestational age, maternal age, and human immunodeficiency virus status at time of enrollment. Capsular serotype Ia, Ib, III, and V sIgA antibody concentrations were measured using the fluorescence-based micro-bead immunosorbent assay.

Results

Breast milk samples were available for 31 LOD cases (8 serotype Ia and 23 serotype III), 21 recto-vaginally colonized matched controls (10 serotype Ia and 11 serotype III), and 84 serotype Ia and 105 serotype III noncolonized matched controls. Using a Bayesian model to estimate the probability of disease, there were 90% reductions in the risks of developing serotypes Ia and III LOD with sIgA concentrations ≥0.14 µg/mL and ≥2.52 µg/mL, respectively.

Conclusions

Breast milk sIgA capsular antibodies were associated with lower risks for LOD in young infants. The ability of GBS polysaccharide-protein conjugate vaccines currently under development to induce sIgA responses warrant investigation as potential mediators of protection against LOD.