bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
PedigreeNet: a web-based pedigree viewer for biological databases
Authors: Braun Bremen L , Schott David A , Portwood John L , Andorf Carson M , Sen Taner Z
Published: March 2019

Motivation

Plant breeding aims to improve current germplasm that can tolerate a wide range of biotic and abiotic stresses. To accomplish this goal, breeders rely on developing a deeper understanding of genetic makeup and relationships between plant varieties to make informed plant selections. Although rapid advances in genotyping technology generated a large amount of data for breeders, tools that facilitate pedigree analysis and visualization are scant, leaving breeders to use classical, but inherently limited, hierarchical pedigree diagrams for a handful of plant varieties. To answer this need, we developed a simple web-based tool that can be easily implemented at biological databases, called PedigreeNet, to create and visualize customizable pedigree relationships in a network context, displaying pre- and user-uploaded data.

Results

As a proof-of-concept, we implemented PedigreeNet at the maize model organism database, MaizeGDB. The PedigreeNet viewer at MaizeGDB has a dynamically-generated pedigree network of 4706 maize lines and 5487 relationships that are currently available as both a stand-alone web-based tool and integrated directly on the MaizeGDB Stock Pages. The tool allows the user to apply a number of filters, select or upload their own breeding relationships, center a pedigree network on a plant variety, identify the common ancestor between two varieties, and display the shortest path(s) between two varieties on the pedigree network. The PedigreeNet code layer is written as a JavaScript wrapper around Cytoscape Web. PedigreeNet fills a great need for breeders to have access to an online tool to represent and visually customize pedigree relationships.

Availability and implementation

PedigreeNet is accessible at https://www.maizegdb.org/breeders_toolbox. The open source code is publically and freely available at GitHub: https://github.com/Maize-Genetics-and-Genomics-Database/PedigreeNet.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
ASTRAL-MP: scaling ASTRAL to very large datasets using randomization and parallelization
Authors: Yin John , Zhang Chao , Mirarab Siavash
Published: March 2019

Motivation

Evolutionary histories can change from one part of the genome to another. The potential for discordance between the gene trees has motivated the development of summary methods that reconstruct a species tree from an input collection of gene trees. ASTRAL is a widely used summary method and has been able to scale to relatively large datasets. However, the size of genomic datasets is quickly growing. Despite its relative efficiency, the current single-threaded implementation of ASTRAL is falling behind the data growth trends is not able to analyze the largest available datasets in a reasonable time.

Results

ASTRAL uses dynamic programing and is not trivially parallel. In this paper, we introduce ASTRAL-MP, the first version of ASTRAL that can exploit parallelism and also uses randomization techniques to speed up some of its steps. Importantly, ASTRAL-MP can take advantage of not just multiple CPU cores but also one or several graphics processing units (GPUs). The ASTRAL-MP code scales very well with increasing CPU cores, and its GPU version, implemented in OpenCL, can have up to 158× speedups compared to ASTRAL-III. Using GPUs and multiple cores, ASTRAL-MP is able to analyze datasets with 10 000 species or datasets with more than 100 000 genes in <2 days.

Availability and implementation

ASTRAL-MP is available at https://github.com/smirarab/ASTRAL/tree/MP.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
High burden of drug therapy in adult congenital heart disease: polypharmacy as marker of morbidity and mortality
Authors: Woudstra Odilia I , Kuijpers Joey M , Meijboom Folkert J , Post Marco C , Jongbloed Monique R M , Duijnhouwer Anthonie L , van Dijk Arie P J , van Melle Joost P , Konings Thelma C , Zwinderman Aeilko H , Mulder Barbara J M , Bouma Berto J
Published: March 2019

Aims

To assess medication use in adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) patients compared to the age- and sex-matched general population, identify patterns of pharmacotherapy, and analyse associations between pharmacotherapy and adverse outcomes in ACHD.

Methods and results

Data of 14 138 ACHD patients from the CONCOR registry [35 (24–48) years, 49% male] and age- and sex-matched referents (1:10 ratio) were extracted from the Dutch Dispensed Drug Register for the years 2006–14. Adult congenital heart disease patients had more cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular drugs than referents (median 3 vs. 1, P < 0.001). Polypharmacy, defined as ≥5 dispensed drug types yearly, was present in 30% of ACHD and 15% of referents {odds ratio [OR] = 2.47 [95% confidence interval (CI) 2.39–2.54]}. Polypharmacy was independently associated with female sex [OR = 1.92 (95% CI 1.88–1.96)], older age [for men: OR = 2.3/10 years (95% CI 2.2–2.4) and for women: OR = 1.6/10 years (95% CI 1.5–1.6); Pinteraction < 0.001], and ACHD severity [mild: OR = 2.51 (95% CI 2.40–2.61), moderate: OR = 3.22 (95% CI 3.06–3.40), severe: OR = 4.87 (95% CI 4.41–5.38)]. Cluster analysis identified three subgroups with distinct medication patterns; a low medication use group (8-year cumulative survival: 98%), and a cardiovascular and comorbidity group with lower survival (92% and 95%, respectively). Cox regression revealed a strong association between polypharmacy and mortality [hazard ratio (HR) = 3.94 (95% CI 3.22–4.81)], corrected for age, sex, and defect severity. Polypharmacy also increased the risk of hospitalization for adverse drug events [HR = 4.58 (95% CI 2.04–10.29)].

Conclusion

Both cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular medication use is high in ACHD with twice as much polypharmacy compared with the matched general population. Patients with polypharmacy had a four-fold increased risk of mortality and adverse drug events. Recognition of distinct medication patterns can help identify patients at highest risk. Drug regimens need repeating evaluation to assess the appropriateness of all prescriptions. More high-quality studies are needed to improve ACHD care with more evidence-based pharmacotherapy.
ESBLs and resistance to ceftazidime/avibactam and ceftolozane/tazobactam combinations in Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Authors: Ortiz de la Rosa José-Manuel , Nordmann Patrice , Poirel Laurent
Published: March 2019

Objectives

To evaluate the efficacy of the recently launched β-lactam/β-lactamase inhibitor combinations ceftazidime/avibactam and ceftolozane/tazobactam against ESBL-producing Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains.

Methods

A series of ESBL-encoding genes (blaTEM, blaSHV, blaCTX-M, blaVEB, blaPER, blaGES and blaBEL) was cloned and expressed in E. coli or P. aeruginosa recipient strains. Cultures of E. coli TOP10 harbouring recombinant plasmids and therefore producing the different ESBLs tested were grown in order to perform measurements of catalytic activities, using benzylpenicillin, ceftazidime and ceftolozane as substrates. IC50s were additionally determined for clavulanic acid, tazobactam and avibactam.

Results

We showed here an overall better activity of ceftazidime/avibactam compared with ceftolozane/tazobactam toward ESBL-producing E. coli and P. aeruginosa. Several ESBLs of the GES, PER and BEL types conferred resistance to ceftolozane/tazobactam in E. coli and P. aeruginosa. For GES-6 and PER-1 producers, resistance to ceftolozane/tazobactam could be explained by a high hydrolysis of ceftolozane and a low activity of tazobactam as an inhibitor. On the other hand, PER-producing P. aeruginosa also exhibited resistance to ceftazidime/avibactam.

Conclusions

Altogether, the results show that the ESBL PER-1, which is widespread worldwide, may be a source of resistance to both ceftolozane/tazobactam and ceftazidime/avibactam. Excellent activity of ceftazidime/avibactam was highlighted for both ESBL-producing E. coli and ESBL-producing P. aeruginosa.
Discovering small molecules as Wnt inhibitors that promote heart regeneration and injury repair
Authors: Xie Shuying , Fu Wenbin , Yu Guangju , Hu Xueli , Lai Kaa Seng , Peng Xiangwen , Zhou Yating , Zhu Xuejiao , Christov Plamen , Sawyer Leah , Ni Terri T , Sulikowski Gary A , Yang Zhongzhou , Lee Ethan , Zeng Chunyu , Wang Wei E , Zhong Tao P
Published: March 2019

There are intense interests in discovering proregenerative medicine leads that can promote cardiac differentiation and regeneration, as well as repair damaged heart tissues. We have combined zebrafish embryo-based screens with cardiomyogenesis assays to discover selective small molecules that modulate heart development and regeneration with minimal adverse effects. Two related compounds with novel structures, named as Cardiomogen 1 and 2 (CDMG1 and CDMG2), were identified for their capacity to promote myocardial hyperplasia through expansion of the cardiac progenitor cell population. We find that Cardiomogen acts as a Wnt inhibitor by targeting β-catenin and reducing Tcf/Lef-mediated transcription in cultured cells. CDMG treatment of amputated zebrafish hearts reduces nuclear β-catenin in injured heart tissue, increases cardiomyocyte (CM) proliferation, and expedites wound healing, thus accelerating cardiac muscle regeneration. Importantly, Cardiomogen can alleviate the functional deterioration of mammalian hearts after myocardial infarction. Injured hearts exposed to CDMG1 display increased newly formed CMs and reduced fibrotic scar tissue, which are in part attributable to the β-catenin reduction. Our findings indicate Cardiomogen as a Wnt inhibitor in enhancing injury-induced CM proliferation and heart regeneration, highlighting the values of embryo-based small molecule screens in discovery of effective and safe medicine leads.
Revisiting the attempts to fortify methionine content in plant seeds
Authors: Amir Rachel , Cohen Hagai , Hacham Yael
Published: March 2019

The sulfur-containing amino acid methionine belongs to the group of essential amino acids, meaning that humans and animals must consume it in their diets. However, plant seeds have low levels of methionine, limiting their nutritional potential. For this reason, efforts have been made over the years to increase methionine levels in seeds. Here, we summarize these efforts and focus particularly on those utilizing diverse genetic and molecular tools. Four main approaches are described: (i) expression of methionine-rich storage proteins in a seed-specific manner to incorporate more soluble methionine into the protein fraction; (ii) reduction of methionine-poor storage proteins inside the seeds to reinforce the accumulation of methionine-rich proteins; (iii) silencing methionine catabolic enzymes; and (iv) up-regulation of key biosynthetic enzymes participating in methionine synthesis. We focus on the biosynthetic genes that operate de novo in seeds and that belong to the sulfur assimilation and aspartate family pathways, as well as genes from the methionine-specific pathway. We also include those enzymes that operate in non-seed tissues that contribute to the accumulation of methionine in seeds, such as S-methylmethionine enzymes. Finally, we discuss the biotechnological potential of these manipulations to increase methionine content in plant seeds and their effect on seed germination.
The Problem of Closure in Neo-Tonal Music
Authors: Eng Clare Sher Ling
Published: March 2019

Closure is a problem in neo-tonal music because endings often reference conventions with different implications for closure. For such multivalent utterances, I build on Leonard B. Meyer’s communication model of music and propose that closure is a relational construct that engages with conventions on the levels of a corpus, a composer’s practice, and an individual work. Within this semiotic paradigm, I highlight the role of conventions that describe a composer’s practice when interpreting endings with similar features. To demonstrate that similar endings can have different closural qualities, I discuss differences between how Bartók and Britten employ retrospective collage and partial motivic recollection.
Institutionalizing Multilingualism
Authors: Leung Janny H.C.
Published: March 2019

This chapter compares some of the ways official multilingualism has transformed public institutions across jurisdictions, and comments on why these transformations fall short of expectations. This gap is a product of, among other things, the general lack of specificity in constitutional provisions. The status of official or national language does not carry a fixed legal meaning. What does a government have to do to “enforce” an official language status? Polities that have granted official language status diverge in their understanding of the legal implications of such a status, their degree of commitment, and their corresponding institutional adaptation. The chapter goes on to consider the significance of the current state of legal implementation. It is observed that bureaucratic and funding structures of official language offices limit their power and representativeness, and attempts to create linguistic equality may inadvertently enlarge inequalities among speakers of the same language.
Interpreting Multilingual Legislation
Authors: Leung Janny H.C.
Published: March 2019

This chapter discusses the intricacies of interpreting multilingual legal texts. Multiplicity of legal languages potentially amplifies linguistic indeterminacy, which in turn contributes to legal indeterminacy. It would be a nightmare for a bilingual or multilingual jurisdiction if the application of two or more language versions of the law to the same case leads to two or more different legal outcomes. Such legal indeterminacy could give rise to chaos. Indeed, these nightmares have periodically haunted bilingual and multilingual jurisdictions. Established rules of legal interpretation, having been derived with the assumption that there is only one official text of the law, are not always helpful in resolving interpretation problems in a multilingual jurisdiction. In multilingual jurisdictions, the authority of the law is shifted away from the text that represents it. The cost of linguistic inclusivity is that each constituent group of a multilingual jurisdiction has to surrender predictability of legal outcome derivable from a single version of the law.
Conferring Official Language Rights in Legal Communication
Authors: Leung Janny H.C.
Published: March 2019

This chapter asks two questions about the nature of official language rights. The first is a practical one—whether and how official language law enhances language rights for the communities concerned. A comparative approach is taken to answer this question, which will also reveal situations where official language rights conflict with existing legal principles and norms. The second question is a philosophical one. Should language rights derived from official status be distinguished from language rights derived from fair trial rights? Since natural justice rationale only seeks to ensure effective communication and fair trial, and is indifferent to the choice of particular languages, the enlargement of language rights through official status must be justified through additional principles. Courts in multilingual jurisdictions have been trying to come up with persuasive principles that justify the derivation of language rights from official status. Such justifications include a constitutional promise about linguistic equality, the cultural survival of official language communities, and respect for the cultural identity of these communities.
Creating the Experience of Death in Late Ancient Sermons
Authors: Muehlberger Ellen
Published: March 2019

Chapter 2 examines how the sufferings of the individual at death were then raised to salience in Christian preaching. It investigates in detail a phenomenon that other scholars have remarked in passing: that late antiquity saw an increase in sermons that depicted death as a terrifying, awful situation, one that required fear and attention. The author says “depicted” because, as this chapter shows, such sermons were sophisticated rhetorical displays—the ancient version of inducing a virtual reality. The mechanisms by which they did their work were subtle, but had a specific effect: they existed not simply to convey information about what death would be like, but to enact a fully realized scene of death in which audience members could imagine themselves and thereby experience the moment of death in advance.
Stay or Leave?
Authors: Frechon Isabelle , Marquette Lucy
Published: March 2019

This chapter reports on results of a study conducted with 1,622 young adults between the ages of 17 and 20, comparing the profiles of youth who either opt out or do not have access to extended services beyond the age of 18 to those who benefit from these services. Young adult protection in France, also known as Young Adult Contract, is a welfare contract between a young adult and a Child Welfare Officer that “commits” the young person to either continue their education or actively seek a job and accommodations, continue medical treatment, update administrative documentation, and learn to manage a budget. Opportunities and the limitations of extended care contracts are reviewed and the perverse effects of this measure are reviewed in a context of fiscal restraint when youth have difficulties acquiring vital skills essential for a successful transition to adulthood.
Care Leaving and the Transition Jungle in Germany
Authors: Thomas Severine , Ehlke Carolin , Koch Josef , Schröer Wolfgang
Published: March 2019

This chapter presents the situation of care leavers in Germany within a so-called transition jungle and illustrates the difficulties of transitioning of young adults from residential care to independent living, focusing especially on education and access to vocational training and employment. Leaving care can be understood as a status passage in young people’s lives, during which the public welfare system produces accelerated transitions into adult life. This acceleration restricts the space and time available for individual transitions and processes of development, especially in the transition to work. The chapter will also outline two models of good practice and describe how care leavers can be supported within their transition to vocational training and work.
The Revuers Emerge, Soar … and Coast
Authors: Propst Andy
Published: March 2019

Betty Comden and Adolph Green suddenly found themselves thrust into the limelight in New York in 1939 when they formed, with Judy Holliday and two other friends, a sketch-comedy group named the Revuers. They performed initially at the Village Vanguard, and strong critical response meant that they were soon performing in larger and more upscale venues, such as the Rainbow Room and Carnegie Hall. The group’s rise to the top seemed to be assured when they got a offer to appear in a movie, but it fell through shortly after they traveled to California. Undaunted, they secured another project, but their work in that ended on the cutting room floor. As 1944 wound down Comden and Green returned to New York, wondering what would come next.
Theatrical Adventures On Screen and On- and Offstage
Authors: Propst Andy
Published: March 2019

Betty Comden and Adolph Green found themselves in 1952 developing for MGM’s Arthur Freed a screenplay using pre-existing songs by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz. The result was the movie The Band Wagon, which starred Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse and was directed by Vincente Minnelli. Not long after they finished writing this they got an urgent call from Broadway director George Abbott. He was working on a new musical, and the show’s star, Rosalind Russell, did not like the songs that had been penned for it. He wondered if they might be willing to write a new score for the show with Leonard Bernstein. They agreed and in four weeks turned out all of the necessary material for the hit musical Wonderful Town.
Going Backstage, Then Getting Nostalgic
Authors: Propst Andy
Published: March 2019

As the 1960s end and the 1970s begin, Betty Comden and Adolph Green worked on two new shows. The first was Applause, which though set in then-present-day New York was something of a backward glance. It was a musical version of the classic Bette Davis film All About Eve. The show, which had a score by composer Charles Strouse and lyricist Lee Adams, was a hit for the writers and its star, film luminary Lauren Bacall, who was making her debut in a musical. They followed with another nostalgic piece of writing, Lorelei, a revision of the musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, penned specifically for its original star, Carol Channing. Comden and Green were only to provide lyrics for a handful of new songs, but when the production was foundering on the road they stepped in as its directors, working on it for over a year.
Returning (Artistically) to the 1930s
Authors: Propst Andy
Published: March 2019

Betty Comden and Adolph Green found themselves in the early and mid-1970s returning to their earliest days artistically, when they formed the Revuers. They penned lyrics for a pair of songs heard in one revue, Straws in the Wind, and wrote the book for a second, By Bernstein. Their collaborator on the former was composer Cy Coleman, and with him they continued their 1930s-inspired artistry with their next show, On the Twentieth Century, which was a musical version of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s hit 1932 farce, Twentieth Century.
Learn about R and Write First Toy Programs
Authors: Li Quan
Published: March 2019

This first chapter provides an overview of the steps for completing a research project, offers a one-paragraph introduction to R, shows how to install R and its add-on packages, mentions how to get help, presents an example of how to write and execute a simple R program as an ice-breaker, demonstrates how to create, describe, and graph a variable in R with a simple numerical example, illustrates how to report descriptive statistics in a table, and concludes by applying the R code to a real-world data example from a published article. The chapter also shows common coding errors and a variety of logical and mathematical operators, how to use R on Mac machines, how to export output from R, and how to install and use RStudio.
Get Data Ready: Import, Inspect, and Prepare Data
Authors: Li Quan
Published: March 2019

This chapter shows how to read an original raw dataset Penn World Table 7.0 in the comma-delimited format into R, how to create a corresponding data object, how to inspect the imported data visually, how to obtain information on dataset attributes (dimensions, variable names, etc.), how to graph select variables, and how to manage variables, observations, and datasets in order to get data ready for analysis. The chapter also shows how to import datasets of different formats into R and other miscellaneous programming information. Chapter 2 covers a large amount of materials that are necessary for getting data ready for analysis, even at the beginner’s level
Regression Analysis
Authors: Li Quan
Published: March 2019

This chapter teaches how to use R to conduct regression analysis to answer the question: Does trade promote economic growth? It demonstrates how to specify a statistical model from a theoretical argument, prepare data, estimate and interpret the statistical model, and use the estimated results to make inferences and answer the question of interest. More specifically, it discusses the logic of regression analysis, the relationship between population and sample regression models, how to estimate a regression model in theory and practice, the estimation of sample regression model using OLS (ordinary least squares), the interpretation of estimation results, the statistical inference in regression analysis using hypothesis testing and confidence interval, the types of sum of squares and overall model fit, and how to report the model results. The validity of regression analysis is contingent upon the assumptions of the Gauss-Markov theorem being met.
Intelligible Matter
Authors: Nikulin Dmitri
Published: March 2019

The concept of matter is in many ways central to Plotinus, who portrays it as negativity, indefiniteness, and unlimitedness, as a deficiency that has nothing of itself and thus cannot be affected. However, in Ennead II.4, he also famously introduces the notion of intelligible matter. This chapter argues, first, that the notion of intelligible matter plays an important role not only in Plotinus’ earlier treatises but also throughout the entire corpus of his works; second, that bodily matter and intelligible matter are necessarily related as different yet inseparable; and third, that intelligible matter is not only represented by the indefinite dyad and constitutes the primary indefiniteness of the thinking of the intellect, but is also connected with the imagination and thus with geometrical objects.
Imagination and Mathematics
Authors: Nikulin Dmitri
Published: March 2019

Chapter 8 considers the role of the imagination as it appears in Proclus’ commentary on Euclid, where mathematical or geometrical objects are taken to mediate, both ontologically and cognitively, between thinkable and physical things. With the former, mathematical things share the permanence and consistency of their properties; with the latter, they share divisibility and the possibility of being multiplied. Hence, a geometrical figure exists simultaneously on four different levels: as a noetic concept in the intellect; as a logical definition, or logos, in discursive reasoning; as an imaginary perfect figure in the imagination; and as a physical imitation or representation in sense-perception. Imagination, then, can be equated with the intelligible or geometrical matter that constitutes the medium in which a geometrical object can be constructed, represented, and studied.
Learning to Differentiate Objects
Authors: Connolly Kevin
Published: March 2019

This chapter explains memory color as an enhancement of perceptual learning, which enables us to better differentiate objects from their backgrounds. In cases of memory color, faded types of objects with which we associate a prototypical color are sometimes perceived as closer to that color than they actually are. For instance, discolored hearts sometimes appear redder to us than they actually are, and discolored bananas yellower. The goal of this chapter is to understand memory color in terms of perceptual learning. The chapter argues that memory color enhances perceptual learning by enabling us to better differentiate objects from their backgrounds. This account of cases of memory color parts ways with an influential philosophical interpretation of them: that they should be understood as cases of cognitive penetration. It also parts ways with the standard interpretation of memory color cases in psychology: that they should be understood as cases of color constancy.
Introduction
Authors: Emerson Blake
Published: March 2019

This chapter introduces the basic problem and thesis of the book. The problem is that modern democracy requires administration by unelected officials and bodies, but such administration often appears undemocratic. The thesis is that the administrative state should be structured to empower the public sphere. This thesis grows out of the American Progressives’ democratization of Hegelian political philosophy. Their view is particularly important in our historical moment, when the Trump administration has attempted the “deconstruction the administrative state.” The Introduction situates the Progressive theory in relation to major critiques of bureaucracy from Tocqueville, Arendt, and Foucault. It describes the book’s method of “reconstructive” political theory, where normative commitments develop out of a critical analysis of intellectual and institutional history. It then describes how the book ties in with recent work on administrative law and democratic legitimacy from scholars such as Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek, Jon Michaels, Adrian Vermeule, and K. Sabeel Rahman.
Finding the Story
Authors: Kamler Erin M.
Published: March 2019

This chapter focuses on the creation of the story of “Land of Smiles”—a story designed to push back against the dominant trafficking narrative driving the U.S. Abolitionist Project. I illustrate the process by which I drew on the field interviews of the Phase One research to find the arc of this dramatic story and build it through scenes and songs. I discuss the analytical and intuitive aspects of “power moments”: notable incidents, occurrences, and themes in the interview data that emerged as dramatically significant. These power moments not only steered the arc of the dramatic narrative, but also served as indicators of the power dynamics at play within the anti-trafficking movement itself. I conclude with a discussion of how in the DAR praxis, the unconsciously produced dramatic narrative helps us make new discoveries about the subject of our original research.
The Effects on the Labor Market
Authors: Luiten Jan
Published: March 2019

The chapter offers a new explanation for the “great conundrum,” or why population growth accelerated in England in the second half of the eighteenth century while growth in literacy and human capital stagnated. Reviewing various attempts to reconcile this anomaly, the authors discuss (a) the switch from the post–Black Death labor scarcity to a labor surplus, which harmed the economic position of women; and (b) changes in the structure of agriculture, which led to the rise of large-scale, capital-intensive and labor-extensive farms with limited demand for female wage labor. Moreover, the decline in wages had important effects on England’s demographic development, reflected in a decline in the average age of marriage between 1600 and 1800 and an increase in fertility. As a consequence, the authors link the “great conundrum” to the changing position of women in the labor market and within marriage.
Mysticism, Mesmerism, Mind Cure
Authors: Hickey Wakoh Shannon
Published: March 2019

This chapter explores the far-reaching influences in American religion and medicine of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist and mystic, and Franz Anton Mesmer, who developed Mesmerism, the forerunner of hypnosis. Swedenborg’s theology filtered into homeopathy and the religious movements of Shakerism, Transcendentalism, Unitarianism, Mormonism, modernist Buddhism, Theosophy, Spiritualism, and New Thought. Mesmer’s theories about illness contributed to the development of osteopathy, chiropractic, and hypnotherapy. Before the development of chemical anesthesia, some nineteenth-century doctors performed complex and successful surgeries on patients who were sedated only by hypnotic suggestion. Ideas and practices derived from Mesmer and Swedenborg converged in the nineteenth-century mental-healing practice of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, a New England clockmaker and the first American to discover that beliefs and mental states can affect one’s physical health.
Between the Ottomans and the Entente
Authors: Fahrenthold Stacy D.
Published: March 2019

Between the Ottomans and the Entente is the first social history of the First World War written from the perspective of the Arab diasporas in the United States, Brazil, and Argentina. The war between the Ottoman Empire and the Entente Powers placed the half million Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian migrants living abroad in a complicated geopolitical predicament. As Ottoman citizens living in a pro-Entente hemisphere, Arab migrants faced new demands for loyalty by their host societies; simultaneously, they confronted a multiplying legal regime of migration restriction, passport control, and nationality disputes designed to claim Syrian migrants while also controlling their movements. This work tracks the politics and activism of Syrian migrants from the 1908 Young Turk Revolution through the early French Mandate period in the 1920s. It argues that Syrian migrant activists opposed Ottoman rule from the diaspora, collaborating with the Entente powers because they believed this war work would bolster the cause of Syria’s liberation from Unionist rule. Instead, the Entente Powers used support from Syrian migrant communities to bolster colonial claims on a post-Ottoman Levant. This work captures a series of state projects to claim Syrian migrants for the purposes of nation-building in the Arab Middle East, and the efforts of Syrian migrants to resist the categorical schema of the homogenous nation-state and policies of partition and displacement.
The Mahjar of the Young Turks, 1908–1916
Authors: Fahrenthold Stacy D.
Published: March 2019

This chapter examines the Ottoman Empire’s rediscovery of the Syrian mahjar after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. The revolution toppled the Hamidian states and brought the constitutionalists to power in Istanbul. The new Committee of Union and Progress party saw in the Ottoman diasporas the opportunity to reclaim migrants through diplomacy, economic development, and repatriation. The Unionists cultivated Syrian, Armenian, and Turkish ethnic fraternal societies in the American mahjar, opening new Ottoman consulates in the Syrian and Lebanese communities, especially under Mundji Bey in New York City and Amin Arslan in Buenos Aires. Although Syrian clubs readily promoted Young Turk ideas to bring the ‘spirit of 1908’ to America, these clubs also transformed into spaces for substantive citizenship and critique. As the Ottoman Empire slid into a militarized Unionist government after 1909, the Syrian societies abroad formed the nuclei of the mahjar’s decentralist, reform, and Arabist political movements.
New Syrians Abroad
Authors: Fahrenthold Stacy D.
Published: March 2019

This chapter focuses on Syrian migrant activists who lobbied for American intervention and a US Mandate in Syria after the 1918 armistice. Calling themselves the “New Syrian” parties, activists in New York City, Boston, Buenos Aires, and Cairo petitioned for the United States to take guardianship of Syria as a bulwark against French colonialism in the region. The New Syrians were rejected by the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, which led them to promote their ideas through petitioning and mass meetings held in the mahjar. Examining a history of the Wilsonian moment from beyond the Paris petitions, the chapter argues that the conference engaged in the construction of a legal fiction: that the Syrian mahjar favored the French Mandate. Far from partners in empire, the diaspora Syrians and Lebanese presented the French with the difficult task of pacifying an extraterritorial subject population that could not be controlled through blunt military suppression.
Conclusion
Authors: Fahrenthold Stacy D.
Published: March 2019

This conclusion briefly examines how the French Mandate’s incomplete pacification of the mahjar allowed Syrian migrants space to contest the brutality of French rule during the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925–1927. Revisiting the story of former Ottoman consul to Argentina, Emir Amin Arslan, the conclusion illustrates how the Mandates managed migrant anticolonialism through papers. Contrasting the use of newsprint, petitions, passports, and propaganda to promoted a post-Ottoman free Syria during the war, by the mid-1920s the Mandate employed its documentary regimes in new ways to cut ties with Syrian émigré activists and political problems abroad. French threats to denationalize 110,000 Syrians in Argentina in retaliation for the perceived support of Syria’s revolutionaries amounted to a new partitioning of Syria from its diasporas. The chapter closes with a consideration of how this politics of partition have been repeated in histories of the Middle East that elide migrant stories through archival silencing.
Introduction
Authors: Lenhard Johannes
Published: March 2019

The chapter provides a brief overview of the history of simulation modeling and of philosophical accounts dealing with simulation. Computer and simulation modeling, it is stated, do form a new exploratory and iterative type of mathematical modeling. Four aspects are introduced: experiment and artificiality, visualization, plasticity, and epistemic opacity. The key thesis is that the novelty of simulation modeling rests on how these aspects are combined into a combinatorial style of reasoning. The computer as an instrument does not only speed up calculations but also channels mathematical modeling. This is exerting transformational power on central concepts like solution, validation, and the real—instrumental divide.
Plasticity
Authors: Lenhard Johannes
Published: March 2019

This chapter introduces the property of plasticity. A model has this property when its dynamic behavior can vary over a broad spectrum while its structure remains unchanged. Simulations present a special case, because plasticity does not appear as a shortcoming that needs to be compensated for but, rather, as a systematic pillar of modeling. The structure of the model is designed to include a measure of plasticity that creates room to maneuver. It is argued that the model dynamics can be called structurally underdetermined. Only the process of specification—which involves the activities of experimenting and visualizing—fully determines the model behavior. In short, plasticity and exploratory modeling complement one another. Various illustrations from neural networks, finite differences, and cellular automate are discussed.
Solution or Imitation?
Authors: Lenhard Johannes
Published: March 2019

This chapter distinguishes two fundamental but opposing conceptions of simulation. The first conception conceives simulations as numerical solutions of equations. The second approach does not involve the concept of solution, but takes simulation as the imitation of the behavior of a complex system by a computer model. This chapter claims that simulation modeling combines both conceptions. Large parts of the sciences involve a compromise (in one way or another) between two diverging forces. Theoretical understanding and epistemic quality stand on the one side; applicability and tractability on the other. What is interesting about simulation is the way in which a balance is achieved—that is, how the conflicting types are combined. The chapter analyzes the relationship between the simulation pioneers John von Neumann, who advocated the solution, and Norbert Wiener, who advocated the imitation concept.
Validation, Holism, and the Limits of Analysis
Authors: Lenhard Johannes
Published: March 2019

This chapter has two parts. The first part boils down to the thesis that simulations simply extend or amplify the validation problem, because they include steps that are not part of traditional mathematical modeling—but they arguably do not pose a conceptually new type of validation problem. The second part deals with the problem of holism that emerges when complex interactions together with a modular design govern how the model behaves. Simulations then gain a particular twist with dramatic consequences. Modularity is the very basis for handling complex systems, but it erodes for reasons inherent to simulation modeling. In a way, simulations undermine their own working basis, and as a consequence, the problem of holism emerges to reveal the limits of analysis.
Novelty and Reality
Authors: Lenhard Johannes
Published: March 2019

This last chapter summarizes the findings presented in earlier chapters, and the major part of the chapter presents an outlook on critical challenges for a philosophy of simulation. One of these challenges is to take into account the science–technology nexus. Another is to account for the relationship between human activity and reality that results from this nexus. This makes it necessary to rethink the instrumentalism versus realism divide in the philosophy of science. It is argued that simulation evades the stalemate of this divide. Finally, this chapter provides an outlook on rationality. To the extent that mathematization forms a constitutive part of modern scientific rationality, the philosophy of simulation faces the question whether and how the new type of mathematical modeling affects and potentially changes the conception of rationality.
Raising the Drawbridge to Cuba
Authors: FitzGerald David Scott
Published: March 2019

U.S. policies toward Cubans have oscillated between periods of welcome and restriction embedded in an overall trajectory of restriction. The biggest difference between the treatment of Haitian and Cubans was that only Cubans seeking protection were granted realistic legal paths to enter the United States through visa waivers for air passengers, relaxation of enforcement of immigration laws, more robust asylum screening on the high seas, and in-country processing programs for dissidents and other programs guaranteeing slots in the immigration stream. The favorable treatment of Cubans shows that even tens of thousands of asylum seekers arriving over the course of a few months did not threaten the capacity of the United States to provide sanctuary for those facing persecution at home. The Cuban case also challenges the conceptualization of remote control. Remote control’s efficacy is highly dependent on collaboration by other governments, such as Cuba’s willingness to accept Cubans intercepted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard.
“Give Me My Child”
Authors: Berman Elise
Published: March 2019

Chapter 1 introduces Marshallese social and economic life, arguing that in the Marshall Islands age is power and power is age. The chapter tells the story of a young woman who faces a very common situation in the Marshall Islands: a request from a relative to adopt her newborn infant. Examining how and why different family members had the right to claim this infant, the chapter also discusses Marshallese history, social life, interaction patterns, and the culturally specific emotion āliklik (shame). Readers will learn about Marshallese kinship patterns, economic practices, colonial and postcolonial histories, religious organizations, subjectivities, and the power of age. As the chapter discusses different aspects of Marshallese history and society, it becomes clear that kin and age relationships were themselves transformed by negotiations for an infant girl.
Conclusion
Authors: Berman Elise
Published: March 2019

The conclusion argues for a view of culture and linguistic practices as aged. It describes what happened to several of the children after the events in this book and then considers the impact of historical change. It discusses the distinction between cohort variation and age variation, demonstrating that all of the differences discussed in the book are examples of age variation. The conclusion then reviews data that show how understanding cultural reproduction, socialization, cultural change, agency, and giving requires an analysis of age differences. Finally, it argues for a renewed attention to age in cultural and linguistic anthropology.
Deaf Education in Ghana
Authors: Oppong Alexander Mills , Fobi Daniel
Published: March 2019

This chapter describes deaf education in Ghana, including the practices and challenges in public special schools for the deaf, early identification, hearing screening, audiological and educational assessment, and the impact of cultural beliefs and practices on school enrollment. For the past sixty years, Ghana has been striving to promote the development of formal education for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals through improvement in school participation rates and lifelong learning for independent living and sustainable development. The authors provide information on basic education (kindergarten to junior high school), secondary education placement options, medium of instruction, and the curriculum. Tertiary education, support services, legislation, and advocacy for deaf persons are also discussed. The chapter ends with conclusions and suggestions for future research in the promotion of best practices in the education of deaf individuals.
Old Orders in New Times
Authors: Diefendorf Barbara B.
Published: March 2019

This chapter traces the story of three convents caught up in the religious wars that devastated Montpellier in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The southern city fell into Protestant hands on the eve of France’s Wars of Religion and remained largely under Protestant control until 1622. Catholic religious life was thoroughly undermined by the repeated expulsions and destruction of property that resulted from the conflicts. This was especially hard on nuns, who, having lost their homes and income, also lost the prestige and sanctity of religious enclosure. Living under wartime conditions that made it difficult to observe their rule, they were unable to recruit new members, much less to enact reforms needed to raise the standards of community life. At the wars’ end, the bishop established convents of Visitandines and Ursulines, reformed orders then gaining popularity elsewhere in France, instead of helping the old orders to reform and rebuild.
Introduction
Authors: Yost Benjamin S.
Published: March 2019

The introduction situates Against Capital Punishment within larger philosophical debates about punishment. It begins by reminding readers why punishment needs to be justified at all, emphasizing punishment’s normative significance in liberal polities, where any coercive state action must survive rigorous scrutiny. Moving to capital punishment, it explains why it is most philosophically profitable to focus on the retributive slice of the debate and exclude communicative, restitutive, and consequentialist competitors: restitutive and communicative theories are fundamentally incompatible with execution, and deterrence theories stand or fall with social scientific research, which fails to establish execution’s preventative effect. The introduction also lays out the dialectical strategy of the book, which is to present the strongest possible case for the retentionist program, then develop an abolitionism that defeats this view.
Divine Generation and Human Potentiality
Authors: Mercer Jarred A.
Published: March 2019

Chapter 1 demonstrates that divine generation is the beginning of Hilary of Poitiers’s trinitarian anthropology. This chapter frames the discussion of divine generation within the boundaries of early Christian interpretation of John 1:1–4, Hilary’s favored text for the discussion. This illuminates the importance of divine generation in fourth-century Christianity and also Hilary’s unique contributions and the significant anthropological implications therein. In his reading of the passage (in polemical engagements with Homoian theology) the nature of God as eternally generative is seen to directly implicate humanity in that productivity. Hilary argues that in the eternal generation of the Son all things are potentially created, so that the nature of humanity is directly dependent upon the eternal generation of the Son, as this is where it finds its origin. This chapter also provides a trenchant reading of third-century ideas of divine generation (in Origen, Tertullian, and Novatian), which provide the foundation on which Hilary builds.
Conclusion
Authors: Mercer Jarred A.
Published: March 2019

The Conclusion provides a summary of the arguments of each chapter and shows how they cohere in Hilary of Poitiers’s trinitarian anthropology. In his autobiographical section of De Trinitate Hilary claims to have found “a hope greater than expected” (Trin. 1.11) in his contemplation of the infinite God, in which humanity, aided by its educative embodied existence (1.14), is destined for life and progress, not death and regress. Hilary’s theology reconstructed within his framework of trinitarian anthropology illuminates his own thought and provides avenues to reassess the nature of fourth-century theology and its controversies in a way that implicates the nature of humanity in that theological discourse. For Hilary, imperfect, mutable, finite human existence is defined by God’s perfect, immutable, and infinite life, so as to place the human condition in a state of perpetual progress from potentiality to perfection.