bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
l-Serine Reduces Spinal Cord Pathology in a Vervet Model of Preclinical ALS/MND
Authors: Davis David A , Cox Paul Alan , Banack Sandra Anne , Lecusay Patricia D , Garamszegi Susanna P , Hagan Matthew J , Powell James T , Metcalf James S , Palmour Roberta M , Beierschmitt Amy , Bradley Walter G , Mash Deborah C
Published: February 2020

The early neuropathological features of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/motor neuron disease (ALS/MND) are protein aggregates in motor neurons and microglial activation. Similar pathology characterizes Guamanian ALS/Parkinsonism dementia complex, which may be triggered by the cyanotoxin β-N-methylamino-l-alanine (BMAA). We report here the occurrence of ALS/MND-type pathological changes in vervets (Chlorocebus sabaeus; n = 8) fed oral doses of a dry powder of BMAA HCl salt (210 mg/kg/day) for 140 days. Spinal cords and brains from toxin-exposed vervets were compared to controls fed rice flour (210 mg/kg/day) and to vervets coadministered equal amounts of BMAA and l-serine (210 mg/kg/day). Immunohistochemistry and quantitative image analysis were used to examine markers of ALS/MND and glial activation. UHPLC-MS/MS was used to confirm BMAA exposures in dosed vervets. Motor neuron degeneration was demonstrated in BMAA-dosed vervets by TDP-43+ proteinopathy in anterior horn cells, by reactive astrogliosis, by activated microglia, and by damage to myelinated axons in the lateral corticospinal tracts. Vervets dosed with BMAA + l-serine displayed reduced neuropathological changes. This study demonstrates that chronic dietary exposure to BMAA causes ALS/MND-type pathological changes in the vervet and coadministration of l-serine reduces the amount of reactive gliosis and the number of protein inclusions in motor neurons.
How the Comforting Process Fails: Psychological Reactance to Support Messages
Authors: Tian Xi , Solomon Denise Haunani , Brisini Kellie St.Cyr
Published: February 2020

This study extends the theory of psychological reactance to the context of social support by examining how supportive communication is associated with psychological reactance and subsequent support outcomes. The final sample included 325 married adults who had experienced a marital disagreement, and were asked to evaluate a hypothetical support message that varied in the level of person-centeredness provided by a social network member. The results indicated that perceptions of support messages as conveying dominance and having weak argument quality were positively associated with psychological reactance. Low person-centered messages corresponded with more dominance and weaker argument quality. Low person-centered messages were associated with more psychological reactance through an indirect effect conveyed by a perceived threat to freedom. There was a significant, indirect effect between person-centeredness and emotional improvement conveyed by a perceived threat to freedom and psychological reactance. The discussion highlights the role of psychological reactance in social support.
ADVOCACY VERSUS ENFORCEMENT IN ANTITRUST COMPLIANCE PROGRAMS
Authors: Chang Hung Hao , Sokol D Daniel
Published: February 2020

We focus on the question of why firms self-regulate to avoid more severe public regulation in the area of antitrust compliance. We distinguish the effects of an antitrust authority’s outreach and enforcement on firms’ adoption of antitrust compliance programs. Furthermore, we examine the mechanism that may drive an antitrust authority’s actions on firms’ decisions to adopt compliance programs. Using a 2-year survey of 432 firms drawn from the top 300 Taiwanese enterprises and applying mediation analysis, we find that “voluntary” self-regulation actions, encouraged by the antitrust authority to promote compliance programs through advocacy, significantly increase the creation of antitrust compliance programs. Moreover, “coercive” actions of the antitrust authority in terms of enforcement are less effective than voluntary actions for firms’ compliance program creation. Within “coercive” actions, large fines are more likely to lead to the adoption of antitrust compliance programs relative to other forms of government prosecution.
Massive megarectum secondary to constipation in institutionalized patient
Authors: Ayalew Dawit , Alwatari Yahya , Riccio Lin M
Published: February 2020

Chronic constipation is a common cause of morbidity in the elderly and institutionalized population. It can be associated with significant morbidity and socioeconomical burden. Chronic resistance constipation can rarely be associated with megarectum. Herein, we present the case of a patient with physical and mental disability that presented with refractory constipation associated with extreme stool burden and a massive megarectum. We discuss chronic constipation in the elderly population, its etiologies and diagnostic work-up including surgical options. The management of chronic constipation with megarectum should be on a case-by-case basis.
Reserve lipids and plant autophagy
Authors: Masclaux-Daubresse Céline , d’Andrea Sabine , Bouchez Isabelle , Cacas Jean-Luc
Published: February 2020

Autophagy is a universal mechanism that facilitates the degradation of unwanted cytoplasmic components in eukaryotic cells. In this review, we highlight recent developments in the investigation of the role of autophagy in lipid homeostasis in plants by comparison with algae, yeast, and animals. We consider the storage compartments that form the sources of lipids in plants, and the roles that autophagy plays in the synthesis of triacylglycerols and in the formation and maintenance of lipid droplets. We also consider the relationship between lipids and the biogenesis of autophagosomes, and the role of autophagy in the degradation of lipids in plants.
Review of Biomarkers and Analytical Methods for Organophosphate Pesticides and Applicability to Nerve Agents
Authors: Therkorn Jennifer , Drewry David G , Tiburzi Olivia , Astatke Mekbib , Young Charles , Rainwater-Lovett Kaitlin
Published: February 2020

Introduction

Recent malicious use of chemical warfare agents (CWAs) is a reminder of their severity and ongoing threat. One of the main categories of CWAs is the organophosphate (OP) nerve agents. Presently, there is an urgent need to identify and evaluate OP nerve agent biomarkers that can facilitate identification of exposed individuals post-CWA incident. While exposures to OP nerve agents may be scenario-specific, the public is commonly exposed to OP compounds through the ubiquitous use of OP pesticides, which are chemically related to nerve agents. Therefore, a systematic literature review and methodological quality assessment were conducted for OP pesticide biomarker studies to serve as a baseline to assess if these approaches may be adapted to OP nerve agent exposures.

Materials and Methods

We conducted a systematic literature review to identify biomarkers of OP pesticide exposures. English language studies of any design that reported primary data on biomarkers for exposures in nonhuman primates or adult human study participants were eligible for inclusion. Using standard criteria for assessing the completeness of reported analytical methods, the quality of study methods was critically evaluated.

Results

A total of 1,044 studies of biomarkers of OP pesticide exposure were identified, of which 75 articles satisfied the inclusion and exclusion criteria. These studies described 143 different analyte/sample matrix combinations: 99 host-based biomarkers, 28 metabolites, 12 pesticides, and 4 adducts. The most commonly reported biomarkers were dialkyl phosphate urinary metabolites (22 studies), blood acetylcholinesterase, and plasma butyrylcholinesterase (26 studies each). None of the assessed quality review criteria were fully addressed by all identified studies, with almost all criteria scoring less than 50%.

Conclusion

Cholinesterase activity may have utility for identifying individuals with exposures surpassing a given threshold of OP nerve agent, but further investigation of how acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase levels correlate with observed patient symptoms may be required to ensure accuracy of results. As CWAs and nerve agents are more readily used, more standardized reporting of biomarker measurements are needed to develop new approaches for OP nerve agent biomarkers.
Angular momentum-related probe of cold gas deficiencies
Authors: Li Jie , Obreschkow Danail , Lagos Claudia , Cortese Luca , Welker Charlotte , Džudžar Robert
Published: February 2020

Recent studies of neutral atomic hydrogen (H i) in nearby galaxies found that all field disc galaxies are H i saturated, in that they carry roughly as much H i as permitted before this gas becomes gravitationally unstable. By taking this H i saturation for granted, the atomic gas fraction fatm of galactic discs can be predicted as a function of the stability parameter q = jσ/(GM), where M and j are the baryonic mass and specific angular momentum of the disc and σ is the H i velocity dispersion (Obreschkow et al. 2016). The log-ratio Δfq between this predictor and the observed atomic fraction can be seen as a physically motivated ‘H i deficiency’. While field disc galaxies have Δfq ≈ 0, objects subject to environmental removal of H i are expected to have Δfq > 0. Within this framework, we revisit the H i deficiencies of satellite galaxies in the Virgo cluster and in clusters of the EAGLE simulation. We find that observed and simulated cluster galaxies are H i deficient and that Δfq slightly increases when getting closer to the cluster centres. The Δfq values are similar to traditional H i deficiency estimators, but Δfq is more directly comparable between observations and simulations than morphology-based–deficiency estimators. By tracking the simulated H i deficient cluster galaxies back in time, we confirm that Δfq ≈ 0 until the galaxies first enter a halo with $M_{\rm halo}\gt 10^{13}\rm M_{\odot }$, at which moment they quickly lose H i by environmental effects. Finally, we use the simulation to investigate the links between Δfq and quenching of star formation.
The Thousand-Pulsar-Array programme on MeerKAT – I. Science objectives and first results
Authors: Johnston Simon , Karastergiou A , Keith M J , Song X , Weltevrede P , Abbate F , Bailes M , Buchner S , Camilo F , Geyer M , Hugo B , Jameson A , Kramer M , Parthasarathy A , Reardon D J , Ridolfi A , Serylak M , Shannon R M , Spiewak R , van Straten W , Venkatraman Krishnan V , Jankowski F , Meyers B W , Oswald L , Posselt B , Sobey C , Szary A , van Leeuwen J
Published: February 2020

We report here on initial results from the Thousand-Pulsar-Array (TPA) programme, part of the Large Survey Project ‘MeerTime’ on the MeerKAT telescope. The interferometer is used in the tied-array mode in the band from 856 to 1712 MHz, and the wide band coupled with the large collecting area and low receiver temperature make it an excellent telescope for the study of radio pulsars. The TPA is a 5 year project, which aims at to observing (a) more than 1000 pulsars to obtain high-fidelity pulse profiles, (b) some 500 of these pulsars over multiple epochs, and (c) long sequences of single-pulse trains from several hundred pulsars. The scientific outcomes from the programme will include the determination of pulsar geometries, the location of the radio emission within the pulsar magnetosphere, the connection between the magnetosphere and the crust and core of the star, tighter constraints on the nature of the radio emission itself, as well as interstellar medium studies. First, results presented here include updated dispersion measures, 26 pulsars with Faraday rotation measures derived for the first time, and a description of interesting emission phenomena observed thus far.
Evidence of an evolved nature of MWC 349A
Authors: Kraus M , Arias M L , Cidale L S , Torres A F
Published: February 2020

The Galactic emission-line object MWC 349A is one of the brightest radio stars in the sky. The central object is embedded in an almost edge-on oriented Keplerian rotating thick disc that seems to drive a rotating bipolar wind. The dense disc is also the site of hot molecular emission such as the CO bands with its prominent band heads in the near-infrared spectral range. Despite numerous studies, the nature of MWC 349A is still controversial with classifications ranging from a pre-main sequence object to an evolved supergiant. We collected new high-resolution near-infrared spectra in the K and Lbands using the GNIRS spectrograph at Gemini-North to study the molecular disc of MWC 349A, and in particular to search for other molecular species such as SiO and the isotope 13CO. The amount of 13CO, obtained from the 12CO/13CO ratio, is recognized as an excellent tool to discriminate between pre-main-sequence and evolved massive stars. We find no signatures of SiO band emission, but detect CO band emission with considerably lower intensity and CO gas temperature compared to previous observations. Moreover, from detailed modelling of the emission spectrum, we derive an isotope ratio of 12CO/13CO = 4 ± 1. Based on this significant enrichment of the circumstellar environment in 13CO, we conclude that MWC 349A belongs to the group of B[e] supergiants, and we discuss possible reasons for the drop in CO intensity.
GMRT observations of IC 711 – the longest head-tail radio galaxy known
Authors: Srivastava Shweta , Singal Ashok K
Published: February 2020

We present low frequency, GMRT observations at 240, 610, and 1300 MHz of IC 711, a narrow angle tail (NAT) radio galaxy. The total angular extent of the radio emission, ∼22 arcmin, corresponds to a projected linear size of ∼900 kpc, making it the longest among the known head-tail radio galaxies. The objectives of the GMRT observations were to investigate the radio morphology, especially of the long tail structure, at low frequencies. The radio structure, especially initial ∼10 arcmin of tail being a long straight feature, does not seem to be consistent with a simple circular motion around the cluster centre, as previously suggested in the literature. Two sharp bends after the straight section of the tail cast doubt on the prevailing idea in the literature that the long narrow tails represent trails left behind by the fast moving parent optical galaxy with respect to the cluster medium, as the optical galaxy could not have undergone such sharp bends in its path, under any conceivable gravitational influence of some individual galaxy or of the overall cluster gravitational potential. In fact, the tail does not seem to have been influenced by the gravitational field of any of the cluster-member galaxies. The radio spectrum of the head, coinciding with the optical galaxy, is flat ($\alpha \stackrel{\lt }{_{\sim }}0.4$ for S∝ ν−α), but steadily steepens along the radio tail, with the end part of the tail showing the steepest spectrum ($\alpha \, {\sim}$ 4–5) ever seen in any diffuse radio emission region.
Stellar mass as a galaxy cluster mass proxy: application to the Dark Energy Survey redMaPPer clusters
Authors: Palmese A , Annis J , Burgad J , Farahi A , Soares-Santos M , Welch B , da Silva Pereira M , Lin H , Bhargava S , Hollowood D L , Wilkinson R , Giles P , Jeltema T , Romer A K , Evrard A E , Hilton M , Vergara Cervantes C , Bermeo A , Mayers J , DeRose J , Gruen D , Hartley W G , Lahav O , Leistedt B , McClintock T , Rozo E , Rykoff E S , Varga T N , Wechsler R H , Zhang Y , Avila S , Brooks D , Buckley-Geer E , Burke D L , Carnero Rosell A , Carrasco Kind M , Carretero J , Castander F J , Collins C , da Costa L N , Desai S , De Vicente J , Diehl H T , Dietrich J P , Doel P , Flaugher B , Fosalba P , Frieman J , García-Bellido J , Gerdes D W , Gruendl R A , Gschwend J , Gutierrez G , Honscheid K , James D J , Krause E , Kuehn K , Kuropatkin N , Liddle A , Lima M , Maia M A G , Mann R G , Marshall J L , Menanteau F , Miquel R , Ogando R L C , Plazas A A , Roodman A , Rooney P , Sahlen M , Sanchez E , Scarpine V , Schubnell M , Serrano S , Sevilla-Noarbe I , Sobreira F , Stott J , Suchyta E , Swanson M E C , Tarle G , Thomas D , Tucker D L , Viana P T P , Vikram V , Walker A R ,   DES Collaboration
Published: February 2020

We introduce a galaxy cluster mass observable, μ⋆, based on the stellar masses of cluster members, and we present results for the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 1 (Y1) observations. Stellar masses are computed using a Bayesian model averaging method, and are validated for DES data using simulations and COSMOS data. We show that μ⋆ works as a promising mass proxy by comparing our predictions to X-ray measurements. We measure the X-ray temperature–μ⋆ relation for a total of 129 clusters matched between the wide-field DES Y1 redMaPPer catalogue and Chandra and XMM archival observations, spanning the redshift range 0.1 < $z$ < 0.7. For a scaling relation that is linear in logarithmic space, we find a slope of α = 0.488 ± 0.043 and a scatter in the X-ray temperature at fixed μ⋆ of $\sigma _{{\rm ln} T_\mathrm{ X}|\mu _\star }= 0.266^{+0.019}_{-0.020}$ for the joint sample. By using the halo mass scaling relations of the X-ray temperature from the Weighing the Giants program, we further derive the μ⋆-conditioned scatter in mass, finding $\sigma _{{\rm ln} M|\mu _\star }= 0.26^{+ 0.15}_{- 0.10}$. These results are competitive with well-established cluster mass proxies used for cosmological analyses, showing that μ⋆ can be used as a reliable and physically motivated mass proxy to derive cosmological constraints.
Is multiphase gas cloudy or misty?
Authors: Gronke Max , Oh S Peng
Published: February 2020

Cold T ∼ 104 K gas morphology could span a spectrum ranging from large discrete clouds to a fine ‘mist’ in a hot medium. This has myriad implications, including dynamics and survival, radiative transfer, and resolution requirements for cosmological simulations. Here, we use 3D hydrodynamic simulations to study the pressure-driven fragmentation of cooling gas. This is a complex, multistage process, with an initial Rayleigh–Taylor unstable contraction phase that seeds perturbations, followed by a rapid, violent expansion leading to the dispersion of small cold gas ‘droplets’ in the vicinity of the gas cloud. Finally, due to turbulent motions, and cooling, these droplets may coagulate. Our results show that a gas cloud ‘shatters’ if it is sufficiently perturbed out of pressure balance (δP/P ∼ 1) and has a large final overdensity χf ≳ 300, with only a weak dependence on the cloud size. Otherwise, the droplets reassemble back into larger pieces. We discuss our results in the context of thermal instability and clouds embedded in a shock-heated environment.
Increases in Secondhand Smoke After Going Smoke-Free: An Assessment of the Impact of a Mandated Smoke-Free Housing Policy
Authors: Plunk Andrew D , Rees Vaughan W , Jeng Anna , Wray Jasilyn A , Grucza Richard A
Published: February 2020

Objective

The 12-month impact of federally mandated smoke-free housing (SFH) policy adoption (July 2018) was assessed using two markers of ambient secondhand smoke (SHS): airborne nicotine and particulate matter at the 2.5-micrometer threshold (PM2.5).

Methods

We measured markers of SHS in Norfolk, VA from December 2017 to December 2018 in six federally subsidized multi-unit public housing buildings. Multi-level regression was used to model the following comparisons: (1) the month immediately before SFH implementation versus the month immediately after, and (2) December 2017 versus December 2018.

Results

There was a 27% reduction in indoor PM2.5 and a 32% reduction in airborne nicotine in the first month after SFH adoption, compared to the month prior to adoption. However, there was a 33% increase in PM2.5 and a 25% increase in airborne nicotine after 12 months.

Conclusions

US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-mandated SFH can reduce SHS in multi-unit housing. However, SFH could also plausibly increase indoor smoking. Policy approaches adopted by individual properties or housing authorities—for example, property-wide bans versus allowing designated smoking areas—could be driving this potential unintended consequence.

Implications

Successful implementation of SFH by public housing authorities in response to the HUD rule requires ongoing attention to implementation strategies. In this sense, SFH likely differs from other policies that might be seen as less intrusive. Long-term success of SFH will depend on careful policy implementation, including plans to educate and support housing authority staff, inform and engage residents, and build effective partnerships with community agencies.
The effect of college acquisitions and mergers on student dropout behaviour: evidence from the UK
Authors: Capuccinello Rossella Iraci , Bradley Steve
Published: February 2020

We investigate the effect of college acquisitions on the probability of students dropping out of college. Using administrative data for the further education (FE) sector, which covers multiple cohorts, we estimate matching models and combine them with difference-in-differences methods to remove the effects of unobserved student and college heterogeneity. Overall our findings show that acquisitions reduce the probability of dropout by 0.01 percentage points, but this varies in magnitude and direction over time. In general, positive effects of acquisitions on drop out behaviour tend to be small (e.g. 0.001 for acquisitions in 2004) and dissipate over time, whereas negative effects persist and tend to increase in magnitude over time (e.g. −0.05 one year later and −0.07 two years later). We discuss the implications for policy and practice in the sector, as well as suggesting a need for similar analyses in other education sectors, such as primary and secondary schooling.
Introduction
Authors: Jillions John A.
Published: February 2020

For good or ill, people throughout the world of the 21st century continue to act on perceptions of divine guidance, inspiration, and revelation in personal and public life. Religious experience can lead to both extraordinary lives of human creativity and lives of crippling religious fear and violence. The first-century world of the apostle Paul’s Corinth brought together Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians in vigorous conversation and debate about mystical experience, religion, divination, superstition, providence, the rational mind, discernment, and delusion. Contemporary biblical scholarship has generally been wary of religious experience, but the texts themselves swim in this environment. The introduction argues that religious and biblical scholars as well as those who pursue or question spiritual exploration in the 21st century will benefit from engagement with these first-century debates.
The Archeology of Divine Guidance in Corinth
Authors: Jillions John A.
Published: February 2020

This chapter looks at some of the archeological discoveries in Corinth that reflect popular attitudes toward the gods, religious experience, and divine guidance. The most prominent was the healing cult centered in the Temple of Asklepios, where interpretation of dreams was a key feature. Other sites and household shrines would have brought to mind Fortuna, family ancestors, the oracle of Delphi, and mythical stories of divine intervention with a Corinthian slant (Venus, Medea, Glauce, Bellerophon, Sisyphus, Dionysus). But for an alternative point of view, there was the tomb of Diogenes the Cynic (fourth century bce), who settled in Corinth “to be where fools were thickest.” He was highly critical of superstitious piety and advised instead to follow the inscription at Delphi, “Know Thyself.” He concluded that oracles are deceptive not because the gods are deceitful but because human beings are incapable of properly understanding the gods.
Plutarch
Authors: Jillions John A.
Published: February 2020

Plutarch straddled the first and second century, Greece and Rome, philosophy and religion, the rational and the mystical. He was a Greek who spent many years in Rome, and he admired the combination of contemplation and action that he saw in the best examples of heroic Greek and Roman lives. He returned to serve as a priest of Delphi, overseeing the famous shrine. He understood the perils of superstition and was highly sympathetic to atheists’ rejection of the mystical world based on what they had seen of religion. Even the gods, he says, would rather not exist than be burdened with the ugly characters ascribed to them by false religion. And yet Plutarch felt that his own experience testified to the reality and beauty of the divine. He was thus equally sympathetic to those who came to Delphi with their humble requests for guidance and those willing to take initiative and action.
Neither Jew nor Greek
Authors: Jillions John A.
Published: February 2020

This chapter shows how issues of decisions, divine guidance, discernment, and delusion are woven throughout 1 Corinthians. Paul’s community was shaped by Greco-Roman and Jewish views, but he presents a distinctive new way based on the Cross. As he himself told them, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). Identification with the crucified and risen Christ gave access to the Spirit and a life of communion with God in various ways: through the scriptures (reinterpreted in the light of Christ), the liturgical life of the community (especially baptism and the Lord’s Supper), tradition, preaching, apostles and community leaders, service, co-suffering, and, above all, love. But this does not eclipse individual divine communion, calling, and discernment. Nor does it exclude rational thought, which in Paul’s approach is equally illumined by divine guidance to integrate rational and mystical.
State-Sanctioned Violence Definition, Parameters, and Conceptual Foundation
Authors: Delgado Melvin
Published: February 2020

Social work’s quest takes on greater significance at this critical time in the nation’s history, responding to a society that has persisted in marginalizing groups because of the color of their skin, sexual identities, and abilities, and is increasingly being segregated. This book illustrates (conceptually, case examples, and statistically) how state-sanctioned violence is a modern-day manifestation with deep historical roots of government serving as a principal contributor to the persistence and reproduction of racism, as it has since the founding of the nation, illustrating state power to carry out a violence agenda targeting communities of color covering centuries. Violence establishes and maintains nation-states (Fenton, 2017). A nation willing to exercise violence and sacrifice segments of its population is one resting on a very precarious foundation. This chapter lays out a conceptual foundation for understanding state-sanctioned violence.
Unauthorized Immigration
Authors: Delgado Melvin
Published: February 2020

Although immigration covers a wide sociopolitical spectrum, this chapter’s focus will be on the unauthorized (“illegal”) and how state violence unfolds for them. This state violence is generally focused on Brown people, and increasingly children—there are approximately 23,000 unaccompanied children. It is sad witnessing the full-scale assault on this group (those seeking asylum or entering with a desire to return) who originate in countries not held in high esteem by the state. There are many such countries, stretching across many continents and hemispheres, but the emphasis is on Central America. This chapter examines how state-sanctioned violence targets the unauthorized and undermines their communities across the country.
Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice
Authors: Delgado Melvin
Published: February 2020

Law enforcement and criminal justice are topics that can stand alone as separate chapters, but due to limited space they have been combined. They are two sides of the same coin. Connecting criminal justice and state violence is not difficult from an intellectual and empirical standpoint, with countless scholars, activists, and victims doing this. The long-term consequences are prodigious and multifaceted, as people of color increase numerically, including their youth population, justifying more extreme state measures. This chapter addresses topics social workers are well versed with and other subjects that bring a new or more nuanced perspective on state violence and the law. The classification of state violence provided in this book addresses the vast majority of acts of state violence. Death at the hands of the state, for example, is not limited to police encounters. One has only to examine death sentences to see dramatic racial disparities, reinforcing state willingness to exercise violence on people of color because they are expendable.
Military–Industrial Empire
Authors: Delgado Melvin
Published: February 2020

Viewing the military as a major state-sanctioned violence mechanism brings challenges, and not because of the absence of scholarly material or varied perspectives to craft an analysis. Rather, the challenge is how to narrow the scope and still do justice to the broadness of this subject. This chapter may well be the first time that readers have been exposed to the military in state-sanctioned violence, particularly when focused on people of color. Historical material gives context to state violence manifestation in the military–industrial complex and veterans, and a natural follow-up to the chapter on law enforcement and criminal justice. It may seem odd to include the military alongside subjects typically found within a state-sanctioned violence paradigm focused on cities and youth of color; although the military–industrial complex may have escaped attention in social work education, there are increasing numbers of veterans entering our profession. At first glance, it simply does not fit, but upon closer examination when viewing the military as (1) a prime source for recruiting police officers, (2) providing equipment meant for wars that find their way to the nation’s streets, (3) a system that relies on the young, (4) having a role in foreign conflicts causing population displacements, and (5) increasingly a source for recruits of color, it becomes worthy of attention. It is easy to view the military as its own separate category of state-sponsored violence with minimal interactions with other forms of state violence due to the enormity of its influence.
Worthy Objects of Charity
Authors: Chopra Preeti
Published: February 2020

The British colonial government received requests for assistance in the establishment of charitable institutions in Bombay in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This chapter underscores the role of the colonial government as protector of the European community in Bombay, in contrast with similar efforts towards native communities (ethnic and religious) in the city. In particular, it demonstrates how a study of Bombay’s charitable institutions provides a deeper understanding of what British colonials deemed as “worthy objects of charity” in western India. It is not simply the dichotomy between colonial engagements with charitable institutions for Europeans and native communities that is of interest. What is unexpected and enlightening is that the government's relationship with the charitable institutions of native religious communities---Parsi, Hindu, Muslim, and Jewish--was not always the same. Based on these varied engagements, this chapter reveals the colonial government’s complex and diverging ideas of “worth.”
China’s Global Economic Interactions
Authors: Naughton Barry
Published: February 2020

Since 2009–2010, China has developed a distinctive set of international economic policies that were by no means inevitable. These policies grew out of the unusual economic events that marked the first part of the twenty-first century—including the Global Financial Crisis (GFC)—and from the determination the Chinese leaders displayed thereafter to exert worldwide global economic influence. The broad policy orientation that grew from these forces can be best considered by examining two complex policy initiatives: renminbi internationalization and the Belt and Road Initiative. Each can be seen as a response to the surplus of domestic saving that emerged in the wake of sustained rapid economic growth, and they are to a certain extent competing strategies. The chapter also assesses China’s overall international economic position as of 2018. It concludes with some prognostications about the future of China’s position in the global economy.
Regional Multilateralism with Chinese Characteristics
Authors: Kondapalli Srikanth
Published: February 2020

While it is notable that China has become a member of almost all international organizations (excepting the OECD, International Energy Agency, and Missile Technology Control Regime), much less noticeable has been China’s steadily increasing involvement in regional multilateral organizations and groups of nations. As China has expanded its global footprint into literally every continent and part of the planet, Beijing has sought to join existing institutions in those regions—but what is particularly noteworthy is that China has stimulated and created a wide range of new organizations and regional groupings all around the world. That is what this chapter is about—China’s regional multilateralism. Such Chinese initiatives most notably include: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Association of Southeast Asian Nations Plus China (ASEAN + 10), Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS), Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), China–Arab States Cooperation Forum (CACF), China–Central and Eastern Europe Countries (CEEC), and a series of groupings in Latin America (China–Latin America Forum, China-Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum, China–Latin America Common Market Dialogue, and China–Latin America Business Summit). China has been either the initiator of, or actively engaged in, the creation of all these groupings.
Turkish Sports
Authors: Tınaz Cem
Published: February 2020

This chapter examines Turkish sport policy with a particular emphasis on the period since 2002 when the tenure of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government began. Based on in-depth interviews with former Turkish sport ministers and other sport authorities, as well as a review of academic literature, government files, and press articles, this chapter concludes that a main focus of Turkish sports policy is gaining domestic and international prestige rather than increasing sports participation. While Turkey was unsuccessful in its bids for the Olympic Games, it could boast of several other accomplishments, including having hosted other high-profile international sporting events such as the 2005 UEFA Champions League Final, constructing football stadiums, and achieving elite sport success at international championships and the Olympic Games, with the naturalization of foreign-born athletes as a main driver. This chapter stresses the central role of the state, and the sport sector’s dependence on government subsidies since most financial resources come from the sports betting company Iddaa. It also argues that the government has failed to properly integrate sports with the education system, making school sports one of the most problematic areas of sport development in Turkey.
Islands in a Cosmopolitan Sea
Authors: Walker Iain
Published: February 2020

Many people today have never heard of the Comoros, but these islands were once part of a prosperous economic system that stretched halfway around the world. A key node in the trading networks of the Indian Ocean, the Comoros thrived by exchanging slaves and commodities with African, Arab and Indian merchants. By the seventeenth century, the archipelago had become an important supply point on the route from Europe to Asia, and developed a special relationship with the English.
The twentieth century brought French colonial rule and a plantation economy based on perfumes and spices. In 1975, following decades of neglect, the Comoros declared independence from France, only to be blighted by a series of coups, a radical revolutionary government and a mercenary regime. Today, the island nation suffers chronic mismanagement and relies on foreign aid and remittances from a diasporic community in France. Nonetheless, the Comoros are largely peaceful and culturally vibrant—connected to the outside world in the internet age, but, at the same time, still slightly apart.
Iain Walker traces the history and unique culture of these enigmatic islands, from their first settlement by Africans, Arabs and Austronesians, through their heyday within the greater Swahili world and their decline as a forgotten outpost of the French colonial empire, to their contemporary status as an independent state in the Indian Ocean.
Maps, Space, and Power
Authors: Callahan William A.
Published: February 2020

This introduction explains how the chapters in Part III, “Visual Artifacts and Sensory Spaces” move beyond existing debates in visual IR to see how visual artifacts can provoke a different kind of sensible politics. The chapters highlight a broad range of visual and multisensory experiences—making maps, wearing a veil, building a wall, enjoying a garden, surfing the Web—to argue that visual artifacts not only mean things, but also can “do” things and “make” things in nonnarrative, multisensory, and performative ways. It develops the concept of “visual artifacts” and stresses how Asian and Middle Eastern concepts, practices, and experiences can aid us in understanding sensible politics both beyond Eurocentrism and within Euro-America. Part III thus argues that to understand social theory and international politics, we need to expand from analysis of visual images to appreciate visual artifacts as material modalities and sensory spaces.
Gardens in Diplomacy, War, and Peace
Authors: Callahan William A.
Published: February 2020

Chapter 10 continues the exploration of how visual artifacts can be sensory spaces and infrastructures of feeling that provoke unexpected affective communities of sense. It examines gardens as social constructions of social-ordering and world-ordering that both shape and participate in international politics. It questions how we use peace/war to understand international politics and argues that the “civility/martiality” dynamic is better for grasping such social-ordering and world-ordering performances. It develops civility/martiality to explore the sensible politics of how two key national war memorial sites—China’s Nanjing Massacre Memorial and Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine—work as gardens to perform international politics in unexpected ways. The conclusion considers how civility/martiality is useful for understanding (and feeling) the sensible politics of other key national memorial spaces, such as the National September 11 Museum and Memorial in New York. As with film-making, here garden-building is theory-building: by producing new sites and sensibilities, it creatively shapes our understanding of international politics.
Lessons Learned: Nuclear Reversal, International Relations, and Future Challenges
Authors: Mehta Rupal N.
Published: February 2020

The concluding chapter summarizes the book’s findings and examines its implications for both theorists and practitioners of international relations and nuclear security. In specific, it begins by providing a brief summary of the main argument, empirical results, and insights into current proliferation challenges. It next identifies four implications of this study for further consideration: rewards for tough proliferators, nuclear latency, multilateral bargaining, and credibility. It focuses on developments regarding current counterproliferation policy and how best to engage potential nuclear proliferators in the future. The chapter concludes with a summary of the recommendations for policymakers engaging in broader international efforts at nuclear reversal. Given the threat that future nuclear proliferators can pose to international security, there is no better time to focus our attention on the politics of nuclear reversal.
Toward Hegemony
Authors: Palshikar Suhas
Published: February 2020

This chapter discusses the paradigm shift in Indian politics beyond the realm of electoral hegemony. The historical mandate of 2014 was the watershed moment which has resulted in the restructuring of the party system and the emergence of a new ideological framework in the public sphere. The BJP succeeded in breaching linguistic, cultural and state barriers by creating an All India Imagination, this marks the dawn of the second dominant party system since the Indian National Congress in 1989. This vision of New India with Modi as the central force spells trouble for the state parties. The potent combination of development, Hindutva and nationalism shapes this new hegemony. Paradoxically, only an electoral upset can bring the BJP’s march to hegemony to a halt.
Ethics for Everyone
Authors: Churchill Larry R.
Published: February 2020

This book argues that an ethical life is more about mastering basic skills than applying theories. It describes the basic skills as follows: interrogating our moral prehistories; taming moral vanity and recognizing others; giving up the comforts of moral certainty; learning from our feelings; thinking slowly; expanding the reach of our empathy; claiming our own moral authority; linking goodness with happiness; and story-making at intersecting life trajectories. Nineteen exercises for better understanding and using these skills are provided. Five common pitfalls of ethical thinking are defined and explored. These are the trap of either/or thinking; expecting too much from moral theory; the desire for a unifying definition of ethics; restricting what experiences have more weight; and treating mysteries as moral problems. Concepts fundamental to ethics are emphasized in terms of their practical use. Among these are some that are typically neglected in ethics texts, such as forgiveness, love, spirituality, hope, and death. The use of the skills and concepts is illustrated for matters that extend beyond-the-lifespan, notably for the ethical problems of global warming. In the final chapter, 12 cases are provided, along with a section describing how to critically interrogate cases for bias. Throughout the book there is an emphasis on the way changes over the lifespan require rethinking ethical values.
Islamophobia and Radicalisation
Authors: Abbas Tahir
Published: February 2020

Since the 1970s, there have been three challenges to traditional, homogeneous ‘national’ identities across the Western world: political and socioeconomic inequality; neoliberal globalization; and more diverse, multicultural societies. As in the US and elsewhere in Western Europe, the decline of an old, masculinized national identity has now begun to open a new, dark era for Britain.
Ever since the ‘war on terror’ was added to the mix, ‘others’ in Britain have been brutally demonized. Muslims, routinely presented as the source of society’s ills, are subjected to both symbolic and actual violence. Deep-seated and structurally racialized norms amplify the isolation and alienation impeding Muslim integration. Both these ‘left-behind’ Muslims and white-British groups who perceive themselves as the true nation are under pressure from ongoing geopolitical concerns in the Muslim world, as well as widening divisions at home.
Tahir Abbas argues that, in this context, the symbiotic intersections between Islamophobia and radicalization intensify and expand. His book is a warning of the world that results: a rise in hate crime, the institutionalization of Islamophobia, and the normalization of war and conflict.
Living in The Church of Almighty God
Authors: Introvigne Massimo
Published: February 2020

The chapter discusses the demographics of The Church of Almighty God and the difficulties of obtaining reliable statistics. It then presents the organization of the church. Although for theological reasons the church is reluctant to use the word “leader,” there are in fact leadership positions in China at the level of individual churches (20–50 members), sub-districts, districts, and provinces, with a parallel organization in the diaspora. There are internal administrative rules and a procedure to expel those who transgress them. The chapter also addresses the minimalist but rich worship style of the church. It concludes with a thorough examination of the church’s theology of beauty and of the artworks (paintings and movies) produced by the church.
The Red Dragon and the Pastors
Authors: Introvigne Massimo
Published: February 2020

In 2002 The Church of Almighty God was accused of having kidnapped thirty-four pastors and lay leaders of another Christian group, the China Gospel Fellowship (CGF). The police were informed, or so CGF claims, but did not arrest anybody. Eventually the CGF leaders returned home; only one ended up converting to The Church of Almighty God. However, the CGF kept the accusations alive, and two novels were published about the incident. The chapter discusses different interpretations of what happened and concludes that the same events may have been described as “kidnapping,” a serious crime, by the CGF and as mere “deception,” a minor misdemeanor, by the authorities.
Some Conclusions
Authors: Introvigne Massimo
Published: February 2020

The confrontation between the Chinese regime and The Church of Almighty God does not happen in a vacuum. The chapter reconstructs the different attitudes the Chinese Communist Party has had toward religions. Mao originally believed that, with the progress of Communism in China, religion will naturally disappear. Meanwhile, he tried to control it through five national associations (Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist, and Daoist), to which all believers should mandatorily adhere. This strategy, however, failed to prevent the growth of independent religious bodies, and the Cultural Revolution tried to wipe religion out entirely. After the dust of the Cultural Revolution settled, Deng Xiaoping restored the five national associations and granted religion a limited tolerance. The chapter also shows that, under Xi Jinping, the attitude toward religion became again more negative. The groups banned as xie jiao suffer more than all the others.
Tragedy and Desire
Authors: Gilmore Jonathan
Published: February 2020

This chapter addresses the question of normative invariance vis-à-vis the desires people have for fictions, particularly tragic dramas for which one’s desires are often mutually inconsistent. One wants, e.g., for the tragic heroine to thrive and yet also for the story to culminate in her narratively mandated fate. In probing the kinds of rational constraints that may apply to one’s desires, including the apparently contrary desires elicited by tragic drama, this chapter asks whether what we want to happen within a fiction is—or should be—consistent with what we want to happen outside of it.