bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A scoping review of theories and conceptual frameworks used to analyse health financing policy processes in sub-Saharan Africa
Authors: Jones Catherine M , Gautier Lara , Ridde Valéry
Published: November 2020

Health financing policies are critical policy instruments to achieve Universal Health Coverage, and they constitute a key area in policy analysis literature for the health policy and systems research (HPSR) field. Previous reviews have shown that analyses of policy change in low- and middle-income countries are under-theorised. This study aims to explore which theories and conceptual frameworks have been used in research on policy processes of health financing policy in sub-Saharan Africa and to identify challenges and lessons learned from their use. We conducted a scoping review of literature published in English and French between 2000 and 2017. We analysed 23 papers selected as studies of health financing policies in sub-Saharan African countries using policy process or health policy-related theory or conceptual framework ex ante. Theories and frameworks used alone were from political science (35%), economics (9%) and HPSR field (17%). Thirty-five per cent of authors adopted a ‘do-it-yourself’ (bricolage) approach combining theories and frameworks from within political science or between political science and HPSR. Kingdon’s multiple streams theory (22%), Grindle and Thomas’ arenas of conflict (26%) and Walt and Gilson’s policy triangle (30%) were the most used. Authors select theories for their empirical relevance, methodological rational (e.g. comparison), availability of examples in literature, accessibility and consensus. Authors cite few operational and analytical challenges in using theory. The hybridisation, diversification and expansion of mid-range policy theories and conceptual frameworks used deductively in health financing policy reform research are issues for HPSR to consider. We make three recommendations for researchers in the HPSR field. Future research on health financing policy change processes in sub-Saharan Africa should include reflection on learning and challenges for using policy theories and frameworks in the context of HPSR.
The association between the pattern of change in N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide and short-term outcomes in children undergoing surgery for congenital heart disease
Authors: Zheng Haiqing , Cui Yanqin , Li Kuanrong , Zhang Jiexin , Qu Jiangbo , Shi Hui , Li LiJuan , Xia Huimin , Chen Xinxin , Liang Huiying
Published: November 2020

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to determine whether changes in perioperative N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) are associated with short-term outcomes in children undergoing surgery for congenital heart disease (CHD).

METHODS

We retrospectively included 873 consecutive children with CHD after cardiac surgery. NT-proBNP concentrations were collected from each child prior to and at 1, 12, 36 and 72 h after surgery. The patients had postsurgical follow-ups at 30, 90 and 180 days. The end point was postoperative composite adverse events.

RESULTS

The patients were classified into 3 groups using joint latent class mixture time-to-event models: (i) relatively stable (86.7%), (ii) decreasing (7.2%) and (iii) increasing (6.1%). In total, 257 (29.4%) adverse events occurred. The joint latent class mixture time-to-event models showed that increasing NT-proBNP was strongly associated with adverse events, with adjusted hazard ratio of 2.33 (95% confidence interval 1.52–3.60). Multinomial logistic regression showed that the variables associated with the pattern of change were age, weight at surgery, mode of delivery and cardiopulmonary bypass time.

CONCLUSIONS

The pattern of dynamic postsurgical changes in NT-proBNP may facilitate outcome stratification and identification of a high risk for adverse events.
Who Owns What in Macondo? The Flexibilization of the Rules of Evidence in Land Restitution in Colombia
Authors: Ruiz González Luis Enrique , Peña-Huertas Rocío Del Pilar , Parada-Hernández María Mónica , Lozano Valcárcel Alfonso Javier , Triana Ancínez Bryan , Valencia-Herrera Milton Alberto
Published: November 2020

Land restitution programmes, as part of transitional justice systems, make victims face obstacles to prove their material and legal relationship with their dispossessed land. The literature suggests that these obstacles can be overcome by changing the rules of evidence, such as reversing the burden of proof, introducing different legal presumptions and adopting alternative forms of evidence. In Colombia, the Land Restitution Law introduced changes to the rules of evidence for processing land restitution claims. In this article, we claim that this flexibilization of the rules of evidence is essential to guarantee the restitution of property rights to victims, based on a comparison of the evidentiary rules that must be fulfilled by the victims of land dispossession under two transitional justice systems, both of which have been implemented in Colombia in recent years.
Escherichia coli amino acid auxotrophic expression host strains for investigating protein structure–function relationships
Authors: Iwasaki Toshio , Miyajima-Nakano Yoshiharu , Fukazawa Risako , Lin Myat T , Matsushita Shin-ichi , Hagiuda Emi , Taguchi Alexander T , Dikanov Sergei A , Oishi Yumiko , Gennis Robert B
Published: November 2020

A set of C43(DE3) and BL21(DE3) Escherichia coli host strains that are auxotrophic for various amino acids is briefly reviewed. These strains require the addition of a defined set of one or more amino acids in the growth medium, and have been specifically designed for overproduction of membrane or water-soluble proteins selectively labelled with stable isotopes, such as 2H, 13C and 15N. The strains described here are available for use and have been deposited into public strain banks. Although they cannot fully eliminate the possibility of isotope dilution and mixing, metabolic scrambling of the different amino acid types can be minimized through a careful consideration of the bacterial metabolic pathways. The use of a suitable auxotrophic expression host strain with an appropriately isotopically labelled growth medium ensures high levels of isotope labelling efficiency as well as selectivity for providing deeper insight into protein structure–function relationships.
Mating Systems of the Tree-Killing Bark Beetle Polygraphus proximus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae)
Authors: Köbayashi Kenta , Takagi Etsuro
Published: November 2020

Polygraphus proximus Blandford (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae) has caused mass mortality of fir (Abies spp. (Pinaceae)) forests across large areas of Russia in the past decade. More recently, mass mortality of A. veitchii  Lindl. due to P. proximus infestation has been reported in Japan. This bark beetle species traditionally has been considered to be polygynous because their galleries have multiple gallery arms, and because harem-polygyny is common in the tribe Polygraphini. Although the mating system(s) potentially could have a marked effect on their reproductive success and population dynamics, the reproductive behavior of the tree-killing bark beetle P. proximus has not been investigated in detail in a natural setting in Japan. We, therefore, investigated the number of males and females in a gallery and the number of gallery arms in Abies species in Japan. None of the galleries examined contained more than one male, and 57.2% of the galleries had multiple gallery arms, even though only 2.8% of the galleries contained two females. The findings showed that the typical mating system employed by P. proximus is monogyny and that this species constructs multiple gallery arms in each gallery. In addition, 70.4% of galleries in which the sex of adult beetles could be determined contained no males, and 26.6% contained no females, suggesting that P. proximus males and females re-emerge.
Success of native and invasive plant congeners depends on inorganic nitrogen compositions and levels
Authors: Geng Xi-Mei , He Wei-Ming
Published: November 2020

Aims

Successful plant invaders usually exhibit three strategies: Jack-of-all-trades (more robust in stressful sites), Master-of-some (more responsive in favorable sites) and Jack-and-master (both robustness and responsiveness). To revisit these strategies, we examined how soil inorganic nitrogen (N) compositions and levels influence the success of native and invasive plant congeners in the context of plant communities.

Methods

We conducted an experiment involving three fixed factors: species origin, N composition and N level. Here, we selected 21 plant species (eight pairs of invasive and native congeners and five non-congeneric natives) to assemble plant communities, which were subject to nine N environments consisting of three N compositions (3:1, 2:2 and 1:3 NO3−/NH4+) and three N levels (low, medium and high N). We determined the following metrics: total biomass, relative biomass (a proxy of species success), mortality rate and mortality time.

Important Findings

Across nine N environments, native and invasive congeners exhibited similar total biomass, relative biomass and mortality time, but invaders had a marginally lower mortality rate than natives. Similar success between native and invasive congeners was linked to their similar growth and tolerance. N compositions influenced mortality time and N levels affected the total biomass and relative biomass. Importantly, species origin, N composition and N level interactively affected the total biomass, relative biomass and mortality time. These findings suggest that native and invasive plant congeners may be similarly successful across different N environments, and that inorganic N compositions and levels both contribute to plant invasion success.
Beethoven and Neefe—A Reappraisal
Authors: van der Zanden Jos
Published: November 2020

Deeply entrenched in Beethoven biography is the view that Christian Gottlob Neefe was the composer’s most important teacher in Bonn and that Beethoven was grateful to him. Critical writing has always vaunted Neefe’s merits in lavish terms, in sharp contradiction to the recollection of a contemporary in Bonn, his friend Franz Wegeler, who downplayed Neefe’s significance. This essay investigates the primary sources with regard to the role of Neefe in an attempt to shed light on the discrepancy. Early biographical writing is scrutinized to investigate how these early sources were presented and interpreted. Decisive were the views of Alexander Wheelock Thayer, whose authoritative biography set the standard for decades. A contextualization of Neefe’s role in musical Bonn and his leadership of the Illuminati (a branch of freemasonry), together with information on Beethoven’s trip to Holland in 1783, leads to the conclusion that Neefe’s alleged importance is a nineteenth-century construction based on uncertain evidence. The cherished notion of a close affinity between teacher and pupil is debunked as a myth that would better not be perpetuated.
On the precision of full-spectrum fitting of simple stellar populations – II. The dependence on star cluster mass in the wavelength range 0.3–5.0 µm
Authors: Goudfrooij Paul , Asa’d Randa S
Published: November 2020

In this second paper of a series on the accuracy and precision of the determination of age and metallicity of simple stellar populations (SSPs) by means of the full-spectrum fitting technique, we study the influence of star cluster mass through stochastic fluctuations of the number of stars near the top of the stellar mass function, which dominate the flux in certain wavelength regimes depending on the age. We consider SSP models based on the Padova isochrones, spanning the age range $7.0 \le \mbox{log(age/yr}) \le 10.1$. Simulated spectra of star clusters in the mass range 104 ≤ M/M⊙ < 106 are compared with SSP model spectra to determine best-fitting ages and metallicities using a full-spectrum fitting routine in four wavelength regimes: the blue optical (0.35–0.70 µm), the red optical (0.6–1.0 µm), the near-infrared (near-IR; 1.0–2.5 µm), and the mid-IR (2.5–5.0 µm). We compare the power of each wavelength regime in terms of both the overall precision of age and metallicity determination and its dependence on cluster mass. We also study the relevance of spectral resolution in this context by utilizing two different spectral libraries (BaSeL and BT-Settl). We highlight the power of the mid-IR regime in terms of identifying young massive clusters in dusty star-forming regions in distant galaxies. The spectra of the simulated star clusters and SSPs are made available online to enable follow-up studies by the community.
Influence of a quasi-molecular mechanism of recombination on the formation of hydrogen in the early Universe
Authors: Kereselidze Tamaz , Noselidze Irakli , Ogilvie John F
Published: November 2020

In the framework of a quasi-molecular approach, the formation of hydrogen atom in the pre-recombination period of evolution of the Universe is analysed quantitatively. Calculations in an adiabatic multilevel representation enable estimates of probabilities of radiative transitions. The quasi-molecular mechanism of recombination allows the formation of hydrogen molecular ion, ${\mathrm{ H}_2}^+$, in its ground state. The probability of this process is comparable with the probability of the creation of atomic hydrogen. The participation of a second proton in the recombination increases the binding energy of an electron and decreases the rate of recombination of hydrogen.
dearseq: a variance component score test for RNA-seq differential analysis that effectively controls the false discovery rate
Authors: Gauthier Marine , Agniel Denis , Thiébaut Rodolphe , Hejblum Boris P
Published: November 2020

RNA-seq studies are growing in size and popularity. We provide evidence that the most commonly used methods for differential expression analysis (DEA) may yield too many false positive results in some situations. We present dearseq, a new method for DEA that controls the false discovery rate (FDR) without making any assumption about the true distribution of RNA-seq data. We show that dearseq controls the FDR while maintaining strong statistical power compared to the most popular methods. We demonstrate this behavior with mathematical proofs, simulations and a real data set from a study of tuberculosis, where our method produces fewer apparent false positives.
Clinical, histopathologic and molecular features of idiopathic and diabetic nodular mesangial sclerosis in humans
Authors: Eadon Michael T , Lampe Sam , Baig Mirza M , Collins Kimberly S , Melo Ferreira Ricardo , Mang Henry , Cheng Ying-Hua , Barwinska Daria , El-Achkar Tarek M , Schwantes-An Tae-Hwi , Winfree Seth , Temm Constance J , Ferkowicz Michael J , Dunn Kenneth W , Kelly Katherine J , Sutton Timothy A , Moe Sharon M , Moorthi Ranjani N , Phillips Carrie L , Dagher Pierre C ,   for the Kidney Precision Medicine Project
Published: November 2020

Background

Idiopathic nodular mesangial sclerosis, also called idiopathic nodular glomerulosclerosis (ING), is a rare clinical entity with an unclear pathogenesis. The hallmark of this disease is the presence of nodular mesangial sclerosis on histology without clinical evidence of diabetes mellitus or other predisposing diagnoses. To achieve insights into its pathogenesis, we queried the clinical, histopathologic and transcriptomic features of ING and nodular diabetic nephropathy (DN).

Methods

All renal biopsy reports accessioned at Indiana University Health from 2001 to 2016 were reviewed to identify 48 ING cases. Clinical and histopathologic features were compared between individuals with ING and DN (n = 751). Glomeruli of ING (n = 5), DN (n = 18) and reference (REF) nephrectomy (n = 9) samples were isolated by laser microdissection and RNA was sequenced. Immunohistochemistry of proline-rich 36 (PRR36) protein was performed.

Results

ING subjects were frequently hypertensive (95.8%) with a smoking history (66.7%). ING subjects were older, had lower proteinuria and had less hyaline arteriolosclerosis than DN subjects. Butanoate metabolism was an enriched pathway in ING samples compared with either REF or DN samples. The top differentially expressed gene, PRR36, had increased expression in glomeruli 248-fold [false discovery rate (FDR) P = 5.93 × 10−6] compared with the REF and increased 109-fold (FDR P = 1.85 × 10−6) compared with DN samples. Immunohistochemistry revealed a reduced proportion of cells with perinuclear reaction in ING samples as compared to DN.

Conclusions

Despite similar clinical and histopathologic characteristics in ING and DN, the uncovered transcriptomic signature suggests that ING has distinct molecular features from nodular DN. Further study is warranted to understand these relationships.
Tracing Choreography
Authors: Ritter Julia M.
Published: November 2020

Chapter 1 contextualizes choreography as integral to, yet invisibilized within, immersive performance. The chapter's focus is the thematic concerns of choreography in Western dance history, specifically the intentionality with which it is created, the portability of its concepts outside of the realm of formal dance, and its resulting ubiquity across domains in the twenty-first century. Deployed by European aristocrats in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a practice for reinforcing structures of ritual and power when assigning societal roles, choreography as a term emerged alongside the professionalization of dance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the mid-twentieth century, choreography became a tacitly borrowed resource for creators of physical theater. In the twenty-first century, choreography is seen as an expanded practice, having surged beyond the bounds of dance to the point that it can be used to organize the behavior of spectators such that they perceive themselves to be immersed.
Speculative Futures
Authors: Ritter Julia M.
Published: November 2020

Chapter 6 expands upon fundamental arguments put forth in the preceding chapters to further assert the importance of centering choreography within the discourse that surrounds the field of immersive theater studies. In addition, this chapter looks forward, speculating on the potential contributions of dance to the changing landscape of immersive performance, as strategies used to create participatory performance and experiential entertainment are increasingly adopted within commercial business sectors. The book concludes with a defense of dance as a broad field of study, and a call to properly acknowledge its contributions to the development of new cultural forms, including the innovation of immersive performance.
Introduction
Authors: Hájková Anna
Published: November 2020

The introduction outlines the objectives of the book and contextualizes it in terms of existing Holocaust studies scholarship in general and Theresienstadt in particular. It offers a brief chronology of the ghetto and explains why it was a ghetto and not a concentration camp. It also relates the work to issues pertinent to modern Jewish history, the history of everyday life, and research on ethnicity and Central Europe. Specifically, it shows how ethnicity became the central category of difference in the prisoner society, one directly linked to stratification. This introduction also lays out the central claim of the book that social interaction continues under extreme circumstances and brings Holocaust and Jewish history into the wider context of modern history. It also discusses forms of prisoners’ agency in the everyday of the ghetto.
The Overorganized Ghetto
Authors: Hájková Anna
Published: November 2020

This chapter examines the administration of the ghetto, the most complex and largest Jewish self-administration per capita in German-occupied Europe. It also offers background on the German and Austrian SS, who controlled but did not administer the ghetto. The Theresienstadt bureaucracy developed its own politics, wherein the ethnicity of functionaries carried as much weight as belonging to one of the often competing departments of the self-administration. The chapter explores the agency of the Jewish functionaries vis-à-vis the SS, and how they interacted with and were perceived by ordinary prisoners. In doing so it contributes to the debate on Jewish Councils. It also discusses the role of Leo Baeck and shows that he was a skillful, occasionally cunning functionary. Finally, the chapter discusses the Jewish informers, their motivation, and their contributions to the German running of the ghetto.
A Society Based on Inequality
Authors: Hájková Anna
Published: November 2020

This chapter looks at the formation and hierarchy of the prisoner society. It explores the differentiation of prisoner society by ethnicity, time of arrival, age, and social capital. It shows how people got used to life in Theresienstadt, what it meant to be “well off” and “poor,” and how inmates made sense of their lives. Prisoners employed an “ethnic gaze” that made sense of others through perceived ethnic and biological differences, with Jewishness not functioning as a connecting factor but rather as an ethnic demarcator. The Terezín prisoners employed a binary vision that differentiated between Czech and “foreign” prisoners. The periodic arrival of new inmates and the emergence of a master narrative of Theresienstadt meant that the veterans—young Czech Jews—became the social elite. The chapter also explores the role of gender, sexuality, and queer desire in the workings of the victim society.
The Age of Pearl Barley
Authors: Hájková Anna
Published: November 2020

This chapter presents a hidden history of how food and hunger shaped the politics of everyday life in Terezín. It offers a social and cultural history of food, eating, and hunger, and of how food defined social structures and kinship. The German authorities consigned Jews to Terezín and restricted the supply of food. Shortages led to maldistribution, caused by the food categories introduced by the Jewish self-administration and corruption, which vastly increased rates of hunger and death. Maldistribution was a consequence of inmate society. The social hierarchy in Theresienstadt resulted in stark differences in access to food, with younger prisoners enjoying relatively good access while the underfed elderly population was deprived and had an extremely high mortality rate. Mass starvation in Theresienstadt was caused more by maldistribution than by lack of food.
Medicine and Illness
Authors: Hájková Anna
Published: November 2020

Illness was a defining experience for Holocaust victims, yet their medical history is missing. This chapter studies the medical staff, patients, and diseases in the Theresienstadt ghetto. In examining medical care in extremis, it studies how the Central European Jewish doctors succeeded in providing comparably excellent healthcare and good medications for the inmates. However, the medical staff applied triage, separating “important” from “irrelevant,” that is elderly, patients. The chapter examines the mentality, experience, and gendered power mechanisms that characterized the medical staff; the agency of the doctors; and the hierarchies they assigned to patients. Finally, in exploring how the prisoner physicians made sense of Theresienstadt as a part of their medical careers, the chapter shows what kind of historical protagonists doctors are.
Conclusion
Authors: Walker Paul
Published: November 2020

Western art music developed at the most fundamental level out of the desire to elaborate on and heighten the body of Gregorian Chant that lay at its heart. As this development unfolded, musicians settled on a scheme to slow the chant down, place it at the bottom of, or later within, a polyphonic texture, and adorn it with their own musical ideas and inventions. Such a long-note cantus firmus served as the foundation of sophisticated composition for an astonishingly long time; indeed, thanks to Johann Joseph Fux, one could say that it has never entirely disappeared from compositional engagement. By the end of the fifteenth century, musicians had been laying out their most sophisticated music, whether improvised or composed, on top of and surrounding such a cantus firmus since at least the high Middle Ages, and this music thus had its structural foundation largely determined for it at the pre-compositional stage. The musicians’ goal, then, was to adorn this foundation with all of the variety they could provide....
Nominal Arguments and Language Variation
Authors: Jiang Li Julie
Published: November 2020

This book investigates nominal arguments in classifier languages. A long-held claim is that classifier languages do not have overt article determiners (D). This book, however, brings to the forefront the theoretical investigation on the typologically unique Nuosu Yi, a classifier language that will be shown to have an overt article determiner. By comparing nominal arguments in Nuosu Yi to those in Mandarin, the book provides a parametric account of variation among classifier languages and extends the account to argument formation in general. This book begins with a detailed examination of bare numeral classifier phrases in Mandarin by comparing them with bare numeral noun phrases in number marking languages, such as English, French, and Russian. The book argues for a unified structure of bare numeral containing phrases with no reference to D across languages as well as for a D-less structure for various types of nominal arguments in Mandarin. It further studies nominal argument formation in Nuosu Yi. The facts from Nuosu Yi essentially alter the landscape of empirical data and constitute an immediate (prima facie) challenge to the proposed analysis of nominal arguments based on the Mandarin data. This book argues that despite the fact that Nuosu Yi has an overt article determiner, this should not force us to change anything about the proposed analysis of nominal arguments. Lastly, the book puts the analysis of Mandarin and Nuosu Yi nominal arguments in a broader, cross-linguistic perspective and develops a parametric account of variation in nominal argument formation in general.
A Classifier Language with D
Authors: Jiang Li Julie
Published: November 2020

Chapter 4 analyzes argument formation in Nuosu Yi, a language that is typologically unusual in having classifiers as well as a definite determiner. Also unusual is the fact that its demonstratives do not combine directly with nouns but require the mediation of classifiers. Properties such as these are shown to challenge accounts of argument formation developed in Chapters 2 and 3. In particular, the discovery of a classifier language with an overt determiner may seem to tilt the balance in favor of the Universal DP Hypothesis and also disprove Chierchia’s (1998b) Nominal Mapping Hypothesis adopted in Chapters 2 and 3. However, this chapter argues that the opposite is the case. It proposes a modification of Chierchia’s (1998b) framework, which accounts for why classifier languages with overt Ds are possible but rare and also allows us to make further predictions about classifier languages.
Hatred
Authors: Brogaard Berit
Published: November 2020

The book explores how personal hatred can foster domestic violence and emotional abuse; how hate-proneness is a main contributor to the aggressive tendencies of borderlines, narcissists, psychopaths, and hatemongers; how seemingly ordinary people embark on some of history’s worst hate crimes; and how cohesive groups can develop extremist viewpoints that motivate hate crimes, mass shootings, and genocide. The book’s first part explores hate in personal relationships, looking for an answer to the question of why our personal relationships can survive hate and resentment but not disrespect or contempt. It shows that where contempt creates an irreparable power imbalance, hate is tied to fear, which our brains may reinterpret as thrill, attraction, and arousal. But this can also make hate a dangerous emotion that convinces people to hang on to abusive relationships. When tied to vengeance and the dark triad of personality, hate is not only dangerous but also dehumanizing. Vengeance and the dark personalities are not essential to hate, however. Without them, hate can have more admirable ends. The book’s second part explores the polarizing forces that can bias cohesive groups of like-minded individuals and contribute to what is effectively a hate crisis. Drawing on history, politics, legal theory, philosophy, and psychology, it shows how cultural myths about femininity, ethnic groups, and the land of opportunity perpetuate misogyny, racism, white supremacy, and anti-Semitism. But politicians and policymakers have it in their power to address the hate crisis through legislation that preserves the original incentive behind our constitutional rights.
Print and the Urdu Public
Authors: Robb Megan Eaton
Published: November 2020

In early twentieth-century British India, prior to the arrival of digital medias and after the rise of nationalist political movements, a small-town paper from the margins became a key node for an Urdu journalism conversation with particular influence in the United Provinces and Punjab. Understanding this newspaper’s rise shows how a print public characterized by bottom-up as well as top-down approaches influenced the evolution of a new type of Urdu public in twentieth-century South Asia. Addressing a gap in scholarship on Urdu media in the early twentieth century, during the period when it underwent some of its most critical transformations, this book contributes a discursive and material analysis of a previously unexamined Urdu newspaper, Madinah, augmenting its analysis with evidence from contemporary Urdu, English, and Hindi papers; government records; private diaries; private library holdings; ethnographic interviews with families who owned and ran the newspaper; and training materials for newspaper printers. Madinah identified the Urdu newspaper conversation both explicitly and implicitly with Muslim identity, a commitment that became difficult to manage as the pro-Congress paper sought simultaneously to counter calls for Pakistan, to criticize Congress’s treatment of Muslims, and to emphasize Urdu’s necessary connection to Muslim identity. Since Madinah delineated the boundaries of a Muslim, public conversation in a way that emphasized rootedness to local politics and small urban spaces like Bijnor, this study demonstrates the necessity of considering spatial and temporal orientation in studies of the public in South Asia.
A Public Is a Place and Time
Authors: Robb Megan Eaton
Published: November 2020

Founded in 1912 in Bijnor, a small town in northwest United Provinces, the newspaper Madīnah became one of the most successful newspapers of any language circulating in North India and the Punjab. This paper’s ultimate success is not something most observers could have predicted. It was published in a qasbah, a market town with an Islamic hue, and its proprietor, Majīd Ḥasan, was not influential or rich. Nonetheless, despite its isolated beginnings, the paper Madīnah went on to become popular across North India and the Punjab and to play an important role in the independence movement. The story of Madīnah newspaper shows how understanding the relationship between distinctive urban spaces and attitudes to time is important for understanding the early twentieth-century public sphere that orbited around the star of Urdu, a sphere that increasingly emphasized ties to Islamic space and time.
A Century of Saints
Authors: Calvillo Jonathan E.
Published: November 2020

This chapter chronicles the emergence of Santa Ana’s distinct Latinx majority religious ecology. The diversity of Latinx religious communities significantly shapes Santa Ana as an ethnic space. The author delineates how the religious ecology navigated today by Santaneros is tied to histories of local religious institutions and to patterns of racialized, ethnic exclusion. Ethnic identities that residents have had to contend with today are rooted in patterns of negotiations and struggles that Mexican-identified individuals have long contended with. Religion, the author argues, has often been used by whites in the construction of exclusionary boundary markers against Latinxs. Likewise, religious differences among co-ethnics have been salient points of in-group distinction. Nevertheless, Latinx majority religious communities have provided Mexican immigrants in Santa Ana with opportunities to exercise agency and leadership.
Introduction
Authors: Jha Himanshu
Published: November 2020

This chapter introduces the book by presenting the case for institutional change. It starts by explaining what institutions are and subsequently argues how RTI is a valid case of institutional change. It poses the core research puzzle and the guiding research questions. It engages with the existing alternate scholarly explanations, point to the gaps, and suggests an alternate explanation. It proposes an endogenous model of institutional change that builds on gradual and incremental ideational shifts over time to finally reach a ‘tipping point’. In this chapter the entire book plan is laid out by indicating that this volume, spread over six chapters, deals with two distinct yet interrelated layers of the ideational and policy moves within the state apparatus and related institutions. The socio-political processes within both state and society and the role of global norms are part of these phases/layers.
Nascent Ideas to Embedded Norms
Authors: Jha Himanshu
Published: November 2020

This chapter covers Phase 1 (1947–89) or what is termed as the first layer of institutional change. In this stage, the norm of secrecy was securely ‘locked in’ as an institution. At the same time, a counter-narrative of ideas on ‘openness’ emerged on the fringes of policy discourse, albeit in a nascent form. The state pushed for secrecy; yet, ‘openness’ was demanded by some technocratic elements within the state and Members of Parliament (MP) from opposition parties, who demanded greater openness regarding the internal affairs of states. These nascent ideas created pulls and pressures and deepened the ideational churning on openness and transparency within the state. The process of ideational churning can be likened with an ‘institutional cropping’ where the seeds of norm of ‘openness’ were in the process of being planted on the policy periphery.
Educational Ideals of Paul Geheeb and Rabindranath Tagore
Authors: Kämpchen Martin
Published: November 2020

The focus of this chapter is on a comparison of the two educational systems—one, Odenwaldschule–Ecole d’Humanité, and second, Rabindranath Tagore’s school in Santiniketan. For both, the most important underlying principle was freedom of the students to express and develop themselves. The similarities between the two systems are obvious: emphasis on a natural life, the role of religion, of asceticism, of music and singing, of co-education, of the ritualizing of daily life, and the reverence of the child’s personality. The idea of seva (social service) distinguished Tagore’s school. The importance of manual work and of the crafts has an important place in Geheeb’s school, but not so much in Santiniketan.
Relationship of the Ecole d’Humanité with India
Authors: Kämpchen Martin
Published: November 2020

There were several links between India and the Ecole. The most important of these have been discussed in this chapter. Aurobindo Bose was among the early students of Rabindranath Tagore’s Brahmacharya Ashram in Santiniketan. He was later also a part of the Ecole. In 1930, it was Aurobindo Bose who urged Tagore to visit the school. During his later life, he became attached to Edith Geheeb and lived at the Ecole d’Humanité as a permanent resident until his death. Edith Geheeb felt inspired by Indian philosophy which she first studied with V.N. Sharma and Alwine von Keller. Edith was in touch with two senior monks of the Ramakrishna Mission— Swami Yatiswarananda and Swami Nikhilananda. She was their loyal student, devotee, and supporter until their demise. In 1953, the two sons of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv and Sanjay, were admitted to the Ecole for several months while their mother was on a diplomatic mission. This resulted in a prolonged and affectionate correspondence between Edith Geheeb and Indira Gandhi. During that time, the Geheebs also met Jawaharlal Nehru in Geneva. Edith was deeply interested in visiting India, her spiritual home, but felt she could not leave the Ecole for very long. At the age of 80, when Paul Geheeb, had already died, she overcame her scruples and visited India, mainly Belur Math in Kolkata, Santiniketan, but also Madras, Bombay and Delhi.
Zionism Reconsidered
Authors: Slater Jerome
Published: November 2020

In some ways, Zionism is legitimate and persuasive, but in other ways it has undermined the possibilities of Israeli peace with the Arab world. The argument that the history of murderous anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust, justified the creation of a Jewish state, somewhere, was strong. However, the arguments that the Jews had an eternal right to Palestine were weak. The religious claim that God gave Palestine to the Jews is challenged by Christian and Islamic counterclaims. The argument that 2,000 years ago the Jews were predominant in Palestine until they were driven out by the Romans has long been shown by archaeologists and historians to have little foundation. Even if true, it would be irrelevant to establishing a convincing claim for exclusive Jewish sovereignty today. Likewise, the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate to Britain, the basis for the Zionist claims based on modern history, were simply colonialist impositions.
The 1948 War
Authors: Slater Jerome
Published: November 2020

Israeli historians have shown that the 1948 war might have been averted had Israel explored a number of opportunities to reach agreements with the Palestinians, as well as with Egypt, the most important Arab country. Even during the Arab invasion, the Arab armies were small, uncoordinated, and lacking in the capability to destroy Israel; their primary intentions were to counter the territorial goals of their Arab rivals. Nonetheless, their bloodthirsty anti-Semitic rhetoric ensured that Israel would regard the attack as designed to annihilate it. Even before the invasion, the Zionists began the process of expelling some 700,000–750,000 Palestinians from the territories it intended to include in the state of Israel. These actions became known as the “Nakba” (Arabic for “catastrophe”), or in the modern term, “ethnic cleansing.” and they continue to haunt the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially on the issue of “the right of return.”
Israel, Egypt, the United States, and the 1956 War
Authors: Slater Jerome
Published: November 2020

During the early 1950s, there were a number of secret negotiations between Nasser and Moshe Sharett, the leading Israeli government dove. Nasser agreed to reach a peace agreement with Israel if it turned over the Negev Desert to Egypt. However, the negotiations were deliberately sabotaged by Ben-Gurion and Dayan, who sought further Israeli territorial gains in Gaza and parts of the Sinai, for both defensive and Zionist expansionist goals. In 1956, Israel, Britain, and France reached a secret agreement to attack Egypt and overthrow Nasser. Though the attack was successful, they were forced to withdraw from their territorial seizures in Sinai and the Suez Canal by threats of Soviet military intervention and intense US pressures, as the Eisenhower administration threatened to end all US assistance to Israel. Nasser’s determination to reverse the humiliation put Egypt and Israel on the road to the 1967 war.
The Rise and Fall of the Peace Process, 1975–99
Authors: Slater Jerome
Published: November 2020

A number of international and US efforts to bring about an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement were undertaken between 1975 and 2000, but all failed, largely though not entirely because Israeli intransigence. Rejectionism and continuing settlement expansion in the West Bank and Jerusalem led to the first Palestinian intifada (uprising). The most important and initially hopeful peace effort was the 1993 Oslo Accords, negotiated by Palestinian and Israel doves. On paper, Oslo established a number of “principles” that would govern a peace settlement, which would be negotiated in the next five years. However, Oslo ultimately failed and no peace settlement was reached, largely because the Israeli governments of Rabin, Peres, and Netanyahu continued to resist a two-state settlement and extremists on both sides turned to violence and terrorism.
Israeli Occupation and Palestinian Resistance, 2000–2008
Authors: Slater Jerome
Published: November 2020

This chapter begins with a discussion of the second Palestinian intifada and the Israeli response. Though Arafat had not ordered the intifada, it is likely that as he gained control he allowed it to continue, having reason to believe it might lead to Israeli concessions. The previous pattern of Israeli concessions only under duress is described. However, this time Palestinian terrorism hardened Israeli resistance to compromise. The Israeli occupation of Gaza is discussed, along with the development of Palestinian resistance and its repression by Israel, not only of Palestinian violence but nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience as well. The rise of Hamas is discussed. In its early years, Hamas was clearly a highly anti-Semitic and terrorist organization. However, at the end of the 1990s, Hamas began a gradual and inconsistent but nonetheless significant shift away from terrorism and toward a de facto acceptance of a two-state settlement. .
Israel, the “Siege of Gaza,” and Hamas, 2008–14
Authors: Slater Jerome
Published: November 2020

This chapter first discusses the conflicting interpretations of why Sharon withdrew the Israeli settlements from Gaza but continued the indirect occupation there. The economic siege of Gaza and the Israeli military attacks inflicted grave damage on the Gazan people. Four major Israeli military attacks on Gaza during the 2008–14 period are discussed. Hamas sought to maintain ceasefires and end Palestinian terror attacks on Israel, but it did not have total control over extremists. Israel knew leading Hamas officials not only wanted long-term truces with Israel but were moving toward acceptance of a two-state political settlement. The chapter concludes with an examination of whether Israel could justly claim it had the right to “defend itself” against Palestinian terrorism, so long as that terrorism was the consequence of the continuing Israel occupation and repression of the Palestinian people, and Israel had made nonterrorist armed resistance and even nonviolent resistance impossible.
Summary and Conclusions
Authors: Slater Jerome
Published: November 2020

This chapter begins with extended summary of the main arguments of this book, especially that Israel has missed or refused a number of opportunities to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict. Almost all the wars could have been avoided if Israel had agreed to fair compromises. The second half of this chapter examines possible solutions to the conflict, arguing that the standard two-state solution is dead. Various proposed alternatives, such as a binational single Israeli-Palestine state, are either impractical or undesirable. A mini-Palestinian state is proposed—a “Luxembourg solution”—and the reasons that it could prove acceptable to both sides are examined. If Israel refuses, the United States should employ both pressures and incentives to overcome its opposition. The national interest of the United States in the Middle East is reviewed, in the past and today. The pros and cons of offering Israel a formal mutual defense treaty in the context of a political settlement with the Palestinians are explored.
Education
Authors: Shandler Jeffrey
Published: November 2020

This chapter traces the dynamics of learning Yiddish and of its role as a language of instruction, beginning with its traditional role in the study of sacred texts in Hebrew and Aramaic. Formal instruction in Yiddish begins among Christian humanists in the seventeenth century, who wrote the first textbooks for learning the language. The establishment of secular Yiddish-language schools for Jewish children is largely a twentieth-century phenomenon. This development reflects major shifts in Jews’ social and political circumstances as well as their cultural and linguistic literacy. This period also witnessed the advent of academic research on Yiddish language, literature, and culture.
Occupation
Authors: Shandler Jeffrey
Published: November 2020

This chapter examines the place of work in the development of the Yiddish language, including trades that generated their own argots. Because of its role in the Jewish labor movement of the modern period, Yiddish came to be regarded as emblematic of the Jewish proletariat. At this time, Yiddish itself became professionalized, with the emergence of journalists, belletrists, translators, and teachers who work in the language. The advent of language standardization prompted the need for experts in Yiddish as lexicographers and grammarians, while the growing interest in the diversity of Yiddish speech has become the work of linguists and folklorists.
Personality
Authors: Shandler Jeffrey
Published: November 2020

This chapter examines the attention paid to the symbolic value of Yiddish, attributing an expressive character to the language, irrespective of semantic value. This attention becomes especially pronounced when Yiddish is engaged in the postvernacular mode—that is, when the fact that someone writes or speaks in Yiddish is deemed at least as meaningful as the content of what they have written or uttered. The attributions of a character to Yiddish range widely, from the pious to the carnivalesque, reflecting observers’ desires (or fears) as well as their self-consciousness about Yiddish in relation to other languages and to Jewish life.
After Arminius
Authors: H. McCall Thomas , D. Stanglin Keith
Published: November 2020

“Arminianism” was the subject of important theological controversies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it maintains an important position within Protestant thought. What became known as “Arminian” theology was held by people across a swath of geographical and ecclesial positions; it developed in European, British, and American contexts, and it engaged with a wide range of intellectual challenges. While standing together in their common rejection of several key planks of Reformed theology, proponents of Arminianism took various positions on other matters. Some were broadly committed to catholic and creedal theology; others were more open to theological revision. Some were concerned primarily with practical concerns; others were engaged in system building as they sought to articulate and defend an overarching vision of God and the world. The story of this development is both complex and important for a proper understanding of the history of Protestant theology. However, this historical development of Arminian theology is not well known. In this book, Thomas H. McCall and Keith D. Stanglin offer a historical introduction to Arminian theology as it developed in modern thought, providing an account that is based upon important primary sources and recent secondary research that will be helpful to scholars of ecclesial history and modern thought as well as comprehensible and relevant for students.
Arminianism
Authors: McCall Thomas H. , Stanglin Keith D.
Published: November 2020

Chapter 1 discusses the purpose of the book as an introduction to the historical development of Arminian theology. It then offers a preliminary description and definition of Arminianism. The late medieval and early modern background of Arminianism is summarized. This background includes a brief overview of the most well-known aspects of Arminius’s thought. The chapter concludes with an outline of the contents of the subsequent chapters.