bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
PhoP induces RyjB expression under acid stress in Escherichia coli
Authors: Siddiqui Namra , Gupta Amit Kumar , Dutta Tanmay
Published: December 2021

Bacterial small RNAs (sRNAs) play a pivotal role in post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression and participate in many physiological circuits. An ~80-nt-long RyjB was earlier identified as a novel sRNA, which appeared to be accumulated in all phases of growth in Escherichia coli. We have taken a comprehensive approach in the current study to understand the regulation of ryjB expression under normal and pH stress conditions. RpoS was not necessary for ryjB expression neither at normal condition nor under acid stress. Hfq also emerged to be unnecessary for RyjB accumulation. Interestingly, RyjB was detected as a novel acid stress induced sRNA. A DNA binding protein PhoP, a component of PhoP/Q regulon, was found to regulate ryjB expression at low pH, as the elimination of phoP allele in the chromosome exhibited a basal level of RyjB expression under acid stress. Ectopic expression of PhoP in ΔphoP cells restored the overabundance of RyjB in the cell. Overexpression of RyjB increased the abundance of sgcA transcripts, with which RyjB shares a 4-nt overlap. The current study increases our knowledge substantially regarding the regulation of ryjB expression in E. coli cell.
The COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Households of Young Children With Special Healthcare Needs
Authors: Liu Sihong , Lombardi Joan , Fisher Philip A
Published: December 2021

Objective

This study examined how the COVID-19 pandemic differently affected households of children with versus without special healthcare needs. We compared caregivers’ and children’s emotional well-being (Aim 1), the utilization of preventive healthcare services for young children (Aim 2), and the promotive effects of social support on well-being outcomes (Aim 3) during the pandemic between the two groups.

Methods

Data were drawn from an ongoing, large, longitudinal, and national survey that assessed the pandemic impact on households of young children (0–5). Analyses for Aims 1 and 2 were based on 10,572 households, among which 10.96% had children with special healthcare needs. Analyses for Aim 3 were based on a subsample of 821 families, among which 12.54% had children with special healthcare needs.

Results

Caregivers of children with special healthcare needs exhibited more emotional distress and reported higher levels of household children’s behavioral problems during the pandemic. The percentages of missed preventive healthcare visits and vaccinations were also higher in families of children with special healthcare needs due to structural barriers. Lastly, emotional social support was indirectly related to children’s decreased behavioral problems through caregivers’ reduced emotional distress, only among households of children without special healthcare needs. In other words, social support alone was not sufficient in promoting caregivers’ and children’s better well-being outcomes among households of children with special healthcare needs.

Conclusions

The pandemic has caused extensive burdens on families of children with special healthcare needs. Actions from policymakers and early intervention service providers are urgently needed to mitigate these impacts.
Robotic-assisted renal autotransplant as a novel treatment option for nutcracker syndrome
Authors: Harkrader Lacy , Alwatari Yahya , Daisuke Imai , Christanson Johanna , Khan Aamir , Bhati Chandra
Published: December 2021

Nutcracker syndrome can present with various disabling symptoms. To our knowledge, there are no reports that describe a robotic-assisted approach in its management. We present a patient who underwent robotic-assisted nephrectomy after the failure of conservative management of nutcracker syndrome and a second patient who underwent robotic-assisted nephrectomy with autotransplant. Surgery and immediate post-op courses were uncomplicated. Robotic-assisted nephrectomy with or without autotransplant can be a feasible, minimally invasive option for select patients with nutcracker syndrome.
A silent giant staghorn renal calculus managed successfully with open pyelolithotomy: a case report
Authors: Kesharwani Damini , Samaddar Sohini , Ghose Aruni , Omorphos Nicolas Pavlos
Published: December 2021

Staghorn calculi (SC) are associated with high morbidity and mortality; therefore, meticulous planning is required to minimize complications. In this case report, we will discuss the management of a giant right-sided SC (~ 8 cm in diameter), which was incidentally found in a 40-year-old male, who presented with left-sided renal colic symptoms with no associated renal impairment. This case was further complicated by multiple smaller calculi surrounding the giant SC. Hence, open surgery was preferred to minimally invasive techniques. The patient underwent an uncomplicated right-sided open pyelolithotomy for his staghorn calculus and was calculi free at 1-month follow-up. His renal function returned to normal levels, highlighting effective management of the stones.
A nationwide study of imported Plasmodium ovale and mixed infections in Israel 2008–2020
Authors: Manor Dr Uri , Grossman Dr Tamar , Vainer Julia , Schwartz Professor Eli
Published: December 2021

Background

Plasmodium ovale is a rather neglected plasmodium. Rarity, a milder disease, and diagnostic difficulties compared with P. falciparum and P. vivax have led to this situation. This study’s objective is to present the epidemiological and diagnostical characteristics of imported P. ovale malaria in Israel.

Methods

Malaria is a reportable disease in Israel. All highly suspected cases are sent to the Ministry of Health central parasitology laboratory for molecular verification. We retrieved epidemiological and diagnostic data on all polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-proven P. ovale infections imported to between 2008 and 2020.

Results

In total, 508 malaria cases were identified, 489 monoinfections and 19 (3.7%) mixed. Fifty-one (10%) were due to P. ovale, among them 13 (25%) were mixed, comprising 68% of all mixed infections. Forty-eight of 51 (94%) underwent blood microscopy, with a sensitivity of 94% (45/48) for genus identification and 15% (7/48) for P. ovale identification. Only 8% (1/12) of mixed infections were identified as such by microscopy. Forty-two (82%) patients underwent RDTs, with a sensitivity of 69% (29/42) for genus identification, and 62% (26/42) for identifying non-falciparum infections. Cycle threshold (Ct) values of P. ovale were significantly higher compared with P. falciparum and P. vivax in both mono and mixed infections (P < 0.05, P < 0.005). Ct levels in RDT positive vs negative infections differed significantly (P < 0.05).

Conclusions

P. ovale is commonly imported to Israel from Africa, with a high rate of mixed infections. The use of RDTs and microscopy is insufficient for the species-specific diagnosis of P. ovale, and must be complemented by PCR.
Ab initio thermodynamics of one-component plasma for astrophysics of white dwarfs and neutron stars
Authors: Baiko D A , Chugunov A I
Published: December 2021

Using path-integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) simulations, we have calculated energy of a crystal composed of atomic nuclei and uniform incompressible electron background in the temperature and density range, covering fully ionized layers of compact stellar objects, white dwarfs, and neutron stars, including the high-density regime, where ion quantization is important. We have approximated the results by convenient analytic formulae, which allowed us to integrate and differentiate the energy with respect to temperature and density to obtain various thermodynamic functions such as Helmholtz free energy, specific heat, pressure, entropy etc. In particular, we have demonstrated, that the total crystal specific heat can exceed the well-known harmonic lattice contribution by a factor of 1.5 due to anharmonic effects. By combining our results with the PIMC thermodynamics of a quantum Coulomb liquid, updated in the present work, we were able to determine density dependences of such melting parameters as the Coulomb coupling strength at melting, latent heat, and a specific heat jump. Our results are necessary for realistic modelling of thermal evolution of compact degenerate stars.
SU Lyn - a transient symbiotic star
Authors: Iłkiewicz Krystian , Mikołajewska Joanna , Scaringi Simone , Teyssier François , Stoyanov Kiril A , Fratta Matteo
Published: December 2021

SU Lyn is a binary system composed of a white dwarf and a red giant star. Although it is known to be bright and variable at X-ray wavelengths, the optical counterpart of the source appeared as a single red giant without prominent emission lines. Because of the lack of optical features typical for interacting systems, the system was classified as a hidden symbiotic star. We present the results of optical monitoring of the system. While SU Lyn did not show substantial photometric variability, the spectroscopic observations revealed a complex behaviour. The system showed strong emission line variability, including P Cygni profiles, changing line emission environments, and variable reddening. Both X-ray and optical observations indicate that the components of SU Lyn were interacting only for a short time during the last twelve years of monitoring. For the first time, we showed that SU Lyn resembled a classical symbiotic star when it was X-ray bright, and remained hidden afterwards. We also discuss the current evolutionary status of the red giant, as well as possible future evolution of the system. We suggest that SU Lyn could be a progenitor of a classical, persistent symbiotic system.
Families and clusters of diffuse interstellar bands: a data-driven correlation analysis
Authors: Fan Haoyu , Schwartz Madison , Farhang Amin , Cox Nick L J , Ehrenfreund Pascale , Monreal-Ibero Ana , Foing Bernard H , Salama Farid , Kulik Klay , MacIsaac Heather , van Loon Jacco Th , Cami Jan
Published: December 2021

More than 500 diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) have been observed in astronomical spectra, and their signatures and correlations in different environments have been studied over the past decades to reveal clues about the nature of the carriers. We compare the equivalent widths of the DIBs, normalized to the amount of reddening, EB-V, to search for anticorrelated DIB pairs using a data sample containing 54 DIBs measured in 25 sightlines. This data sample covers most of the strong and commonly detected DIBs in the optical region, and the sightlines probe a variety of interstellar medium conditions. We find that 12.9 per cent of the DIB pairs are anticorrelated, and the lowest Pearson correlation coefficient is rnorm ∼ −0.7. We revisit correlation-based DIB families and are able to reproduce the assignments of such families for the well-studied DIBs by applying hierarchical agglomerative and k-means clustering algorithms. We visualize the dissimilarities between DIBs, represented by 1 − rnorm, using multidimensional scaling (MDS). With this representation, we find that the DIBs form a rather continuous sequence, which implies that some properties of the DIB carriers are changing gradually following this sequence. We also find that at that least two factors are needed to properly explain the dissimilarities between DIBs. While the first factor may be interpreted as related to the ionization properties of the DIB carriers, a physical interpretation of the second factor is less clear and may be related to how DIB carriers interact with surrounding interstellar material.
The interaction between rising bubbles and cold fronts in cool-core clusters
Authors: Fabian A C , ZuHone J A , Walker S A
Published: December 2021

We investigate whether the swirling cold front in the core of the Perseus cluster of galaxies has affected the outer buoyant bubbles that originated from jets from the active galactic nucleus in the central galaxy NGC 1275. The inner bubbles and the outer southern bubble lie along a north–south axis through the nucleus, whereas the outer northern bubble appears rotated about 45° from that axis. Detailed numerical simulations of the interaction indicate that the outer northern bubble may have been pushed clockwise accounting for its current location. Given the common occurrence of cold fronts in cool-core clusters, we raise the possibility that the lack of many clear outer bubbles in such environments may be due to their disruption by cold fronts.
On the tidal formation of dark matter-deficient galaxies
Authors: Ogiya Go , van den Bosch Frank C , Burkert Andreas
Published: December 2021

Previous studies have shown that dark matter-deficient galaxies (DMDG) such as NGC 1052-DF2 (hereafter DF2) can result from tidal stripping. An important question, though, is whether such a stripping scenario can explain DF2’s large specific frequency of globular clusters (GCs). After all, tidal stripping and shocking preferentially remove matter from the outskirts. We examine this using idealized, high-resolution simulations of a regular dark matter-dominated galaxy that is accreted on to a massive halo. As long as the initial (pre-infall) dark matter halo of the satellite is cored, which is consistent with predictions of cosmological, hydrodynamical simulations, the tidal remnant can be made to resemble DF2 in all its properties, including its GC population. The required orbit has a pericentre at the 8.3 percentile of the distribution for subhaloes at infall, and thus is not particularly extreme. On this orbit the satellite loses 98.5 (30) per cent of its original dark matter (stellar) mass, and thus evolves into a DMDG. The fraction of GCs that is stripped off depends on the initial radial distribution. If, at infall, the median projected radius of the GC population is roughly two times that of the stars, consistent with observations of isolated galaxies, only ∼20 per cent of the GCs are stripped off. This is less than for the stars, which is due to dynamical friction counteracting the tidal stirring. We predict that, if indeed DF2 was crafted by strong tides, its stellar outskirts should have a very shallow metallicity gradient.
Insights into rotational (de-)excitation of protonated tricarbon monoxide (HC3O+) by collision with helium atoms at low temperature
Authors: Jrad Abdelhak , Naouai Manel
Published: December 2021

New 2D potential energy surface (2D-PES) of interaction between protonated tricarbon monoxide (HC3O+) in its electronic ground state (X1Σ+) and helium (He) atoms is generated. The ab initio 2D-PES is computed by adopting explicitly correlated coupled cluster approach with single, double, and perturbative triple excitation (CCSD(T)-F12a) connected to augmented-correlation consistent-polarized valence triple zeta (aVTZ) Gaussian basis set. A global minimum at (θ = 80°, R = 5.6 bohr) with a well depth of 135.67 cm−1 and a local minimum at (θ = 180°, R = 9.95 bohr) with a well depth of 113.39 cm−1 are obtained. Rotational cross-sections of propynol cation HC3O+ induced by collision with He atoms are performed involving the 11 first rotational levels for total energy up till 150 cm−1, to be under the first vibrational mode, via coupled states (CS) approach. Thermal rate coefficients are then calculated for temperature until 25 K. No clear propensity rules are obtained where |ΔJ| = 1 processes predominate.
Searching for nova shells around cataclysmic variables – II. A second campaign
Authors: Sahman D I , Dhillon V S
Published: December 2021

We report on our second campaign to search for old nova shells around cataclysmic variables (CVs). Our aim was to test the theory that nova eruptions cause cycles in the mass transfer rates of CVs. These mass transfer cycles change the behaviour of CVs during their intereruption periods. We examined Hα images of 47 objects and found no new shells around any of the targets. Combining our latest results with those of our previous campaign (Sahman et al.), and the searches by Schmidtobreick et al. and Pagnotta & Zurek, we estimate that the nova-like phase of the mass transfer cycle lasts ∼3000 yr.
Metallohelix vectors for efficient gene delivery via cationic DNA nanoparticles
Authors: Malina Jaroslav , Kostrhunova Hana , Novohradsky Vojtech , Scott Peter , Brabec Viktor
Published: December 2021

The design of efficient and safe gene delivery vehicles remains a major challenge for the application of gene therapy. Of the many reported gene delivery systems, metal complexes with high affinity for nucleic acids are emerging as an attractive option. We have discovered that certain metallohelices—optically pure, self-assembling triple-stranded arrays of fully encapsulated Fe—act as nonviral DNA delivery vectors capable of mediating efficient gene transfection. They induce formation of globular DNA particles which protect the DNA from degradation by various restriction endonucleases, are of suitable size and electrostatic potential for efficient membrane transport and are successfully processed by cells. The activity is highly structure-dependent—compact and shorter metallohelix enantiomers are far less efficient than less compact and longer enantiomers.
Structural and biochemical characterization of human Schlafen 5
Authors: Metzner Felix J , Huber Elisabeth , Hopfner Karl-Peter , Lammens Katja
Published: December 2021

The Schlafen family belongs to the interferon-stimulated genes and its members are involved in cell cycle regulation, T cell quiescence, inhibition of viral replication, DNA-repair and tRNA processing. Here, we present the cryo-EM structure of full-length human Schlafen 5 (SLFN5) and the high-resolution crystal structure of the highly conserved N-terminal core domain. We show that the core domain does not resemble an ATPase-like fold and neither binds nor hydrolyzes ATP. SLFN5 binds tRNA as well as single- and double-stranded DNA, suggesting a potential role in transcriptional regulation. Unlike rat Slfn13 or human SLFN11, human SLFN5 did not cleave tRNA. Based on the structure, we identified two residues in proximity to the zinc finger motif that decreased DNA binding when mutated. These results indicate that Schlafen proteins have divergent enzymatic functions and provide a structural platform for future biochemical and genetic studies.
Job search, unemployment protection, and informal work
Authors: Long Iain W , Polito Vito
Published: December 2021

Informal work is a significant feature of labour markets in many developed countries, despite having unemployment protection (UP) programmes. We use a model of job search over the duration of unemployment to study how the structure of these programmes influences the incentive of the unemployed to engage in informal work while searching for formal jobs. Accounting for informality enables the model to jointly explain three known features on job search dynamics: a temporary re-employment spike, low search effort, and negative duration dependence. The quantitative analysis finds that both informality and unemployment can be reduced by redistributing (across either workers or programmes), rather than increasing, the overall UP budget.
Diaspora in Modern Jewish Thought
Authors: Pianko Noam
Published: December 2021

This chapter explores the broad contours of concepts of diaspora in modern Jewish thought. Philosophers, intellectuals, religious thinkers, and non-Zionist nationalists who disagreed on the ideal political structure for Jewish collective life (including Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Simon Dubnow, Hannah Arendt, Mordecai Kaplan, and Horace Kallen) shared a commitment to diaspora as a value, rather than just a fact, of modern Jewish life. Yet the emergence of the terminology of diaspora in tandem with the rise of nationalism and Zionism shaped the theoretical evolution of diaspora as the binary opposite to homeland and statist visions of Jewish identity. As a result, seminal Zionist theorists deeply critical of diaspora life, such as Theodor Herzl, Achad Ha’am, and David Ben-Gurion, also had a key role in framing the significance of diaspora. Modern theories of diaspora internalized and contested the privileged position of territory and sovereignty demanded by the rise of nationalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Ashkenazic Diaspora of Early Modern Central Europe
Authors: Teplitsky Joshua
Published: December 2021

This chapter uses theories of diaspora—which transcend narrative of origins/dispersal and explore instead synchronic ties between multiple centers—to examine phenomena of Jewish cultural and social life in Central Europe during the early modern period (ca. 1500–1800), an geo-cultural association that was captured by the term “Ashkenaz.” Using examples from print culture, social history, and epistolary exchanges, it argues that Jews occupied a position of “variant-participants”—at once participating in wider social, intellectual, and cultural trends and translating those trends into a particular idiom with a distinctly Jewish inflection, shaped both by relationship to past texts and traditions and to other Jewish communities both within and outside of Central Europe. Considering the accommodations of diaspora existence, which creates a “home away from home,” provides a useful lens for conceptualizing the dimensions of Jewish distinctiveness, even while recognizing their local indigeneity, and allows for a consideration of the creation of local practices as well as extra-territorial forms of identification.
Globalizing Diaspora
Authors: Brinkmann Tobias
Published: December 2021

Between the 1860s and the early 1920s, more than two million Jews moved from small towns in Eastern Europe to the United States. Smaller groups went to other destinations in the Americas, Western Europe, Palestine, and South Africa. This chapter discusses the background and impact of that mass migration around the world. The global diffusion of Jews from Eastern Europe concentrated in three new Jewish centers: the United States, the Soviet Union, and Israel. The Eastern European Jewish mass migration, however, did not ultimately lead to the formation of a distinct diaspora of Yiddish-speaking Jews, but rather became the driving force behind a dramatic transformation of the Jewish diaspora as a whole. The reasons for this can be explained by several factors: accelerated Jewish assimilation in these centers, the short period of the mass migration, the great diversity of the migrants, and the almost complete destruction of Jewish life and culture in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust.
A New World Babylonia
Authors: Moore Deborah Dash
Published: December 2021

This chapter discusses the distinctive rise of American Jews as a new center of Jewish culture. It focuses on the conditions in the United States, especially separation of church and state, which encouraged religious creativity, and the genocide of the Holocaust that spurred the transfer of aspects of European religious and intellectual Jewish life. It argues that feminism encouraged women to contribute in vital ways to the creation of Jewish culture that had a profound impact throughout the Jewish world. America has exemplified a new Babylonia, one that would produce influential forms of Judaism shaped by women as well as men.
Saving Soviet Jews and the Future of the Global Jewish Diaspora
Authors: Shneer David
Published: December 2021

Soviet Jews were once an object of Israeli, American, British, and other Jews’ efforts to get the Soviet government to “free them,” since the borders to the Soviet Union were closed without permission. With the collapse of the country, post-Soviet Jews went from being a group in need of other Jews’ assistance to active subjects of their and others’ destinies. Post-Soviet Jews speak multiple languages and hold dual citizenships, which gives them financial, social, and political capital with which they shape the global Jewish future. They have done so by forming political parties in Israel such as Yisrael ba’aliya to the far right Yisrael beiteinu, whose politics have become mainstream in the Israeli electorate. Wealthy post-Soviet Jews have used their vast financial resources and connections with political power to shape the future. They have done this by donating huge sums of money to cultural institutions and universities as well as by forming large-scale Jewish philanthropic endeavors like the Genesis Philanthropy Group and the Blavatnik Archive to put issues of concern to former Soviet Jews on the global Jewish communal agenda. This has not been without consequences for the future of global Jewish life.
Coin Iconography and Social Practice in the Roman Republic
Authors: Woytek Bernhard E.
Published: December 2021

This chapter focuses on the images on pre-imperial Roman coinage. It provides a brief outline of the typological development of Roman issues between c. 300 bce and the end of the Republic and discusses coin iconography against the background of political and social changes during this period. Furthermore, the contribution tackles several key questions: Who was responsible for the choice of types on the different urban and imperatorial series, from the beginnings of Roman coinage to the age of Augustus? Why was the typological behavior of Roman Republican denarii exceptional among the coinages of the ancient world? Were the images on the coins intelligible to the people using them? Is specific audience targeting in evidence in the Republican series?
The Iconography of Early Christian Roman Art
Authors: Leatherbury Sean V.
Published: December 2021

Focusing on works of art produced in the third and early fourth centuries, this chapter considers works in four media—sculpture, painting, mosaic, and textile—in order to illuminate how artists working for Christian patrons adapted and ultimately transformed earlier Roman visual traditions. While some traditional Roman media such as sculpture went out of fashion in the period, iconographies were transferred from three- to two-dimensional forms such as mosaics, which became popular in church interiors. Christian image programs in spaces of worship as well as burial used visual strategies such as typology, the comparison of events from the Old and New Testaments, to present statements of belief, including the hope for salvation after death. Many of the images of “Christian art” were also popular with pagans and Jews but took on particular meanings in the context of spaces used by Christians.
Iconography and Roman Religion
Authors: Rask K. A.
Published: December 2021

Roman iconography depicts religious practices, divine figures, mortal worshippers, and beliefs about the gods. Religious imagery reflects the importance of religion in Roman conceptions of the past, the fashioning of self-identity, and discursive practices. Representations of sacred spaces and occasions often emphasize their topographic arrangement within landscapes, giving religious imagery a strong sense of place. Inside sanctuaries, decorative imagery is augmented by iconography that facilitates ritual activity, illustrates cult-specific details, and shapes the experience of visitors. Religious iconography also highlights the contested natures of artifacts as well as the ways images enacted and reacted to social tensions. Although legal experts attempted to categorize the sacrality of images and artifacts, thoughts about an image’s status were mutable and rooted in personal experience and local factors. Many sacred images possessed agentive and talismanic properties, and manifested divine powers and presence.
Imagery in Jewish and Christian Ritual Settings
Authors: Grey Matthew J. , Ellison Mark D.
Published: December 2021

During the Roman period, Jewish and Christian communities throughout the Mediterranean had a complex relationship with the visual culture of the larger Greco-Roman world. Both groups, in their attempts to be set apart as distinct ethnic or religious entities while at the same time remaining integrated within their surrounding social landscape, expressed themselves in different times and places along a spectrum of selective adoption, adaptation, and rejection of the artistic forms used by their neighbors. For instance, owing to a shared hostility toward pagan idolatry, both communities in the early part of this period largely avoided figural iconography (they instead drew in limited ways upon the non-figural artistic repertoire of local Hellenistic and Roman society), but by later centuries distinctly Jewish and Christian art began to emerge and incorporate a fuller range of Greco-Roman motifs for use in a variety of communal settings.
Iconography and Style in Republican and Early Imperial Art (200 bce to 14 ce)
Authors: Maschek Dominik
Published: December 2021

This chapter identifies pertinent trends in the scholarship of late republican and early imperial Roman art, from the early second century bce to the end of the Augustan period. By looking at specific themes and case studies, such as mythological terracottas, historical reliefs, decorative marble statues from elite villas, so-called neoattic art, and honorific as well as funerary portraits, the essentially eclectic nature of artistic themes and styles across a range of media and materials is illustrated. Moreover, based upon these case studies, the chapter explores the relations between stylistic choice and aspects like class, society, and politics. From this it becomes clear that the systematic use of archaizing, classicizing, and Hellenistic styles in the late republican and early imperial period was deeply rooted in a vibrant community of commissioners and artists who acted under the influence of profound sociopolitical transformations in Rome, central Italy, and the wider Mediterranean.
Cultural Criminology and Ethnography
Authors: Ferrell Jeff
Published: December 2021

This chapter explores the many dynamics linking cultural criminology and ethnography and outlines the distinctive features of cultural criminological ethnography. The chapter first notes the ethnographic sensibility on which cultural criminology is constructed and summarizes some of the foundational ethnographies in cultural criminology. It next documents the dynamic interplay between ethnography and theory in cultural criminology, especially in regard to the concept of verstehen. The chapter then considers ethnographic innovations in cultural criminology, among them instant ethnography, liquid ethnography, visual ethnography, and autoethnography. A larger innovation is also explicated: cultural criminological employment of ethnography as an alternative epistemology within criminology, and a methodological critique of conventional criminological research. The chapter concludes with two discussions: cultural criminology’s use of ethnographic research findings as counterpoint and corrective to harmful criminal justice policies, and the trajectory of cultural criminological ethnography as it increasingly engages with interdisciplinary approaches, and explores issues of absence, drift, and ephemerality.
Feminist Ethnographies on Crime and Deviance: Contemporary Trends and Contributions to Criminology
Authors: Tillman Korey , Ray Ranita
Published: December 2021

This chapter reviews the origins of, and contemporary trends in, feminist ethnographies of crime and deviance to highlight how these works have shaped the broader field of criminology. First, this chapter underlines how the Chicago School, post-World War II, facilitated the growth of ethnographies on crime and deviance. Second, it traces the influence of second-wave feminisms and Black feminisms on criminology that challenged White masculinist modes of knowledge production. Next, contemporary works that examine carceral institutions, their collateral consequences, and stigmatized groups are considered for their potential to advance understandings of crime, deviance, and victimization. The chapter concludes by offering directions for future research and a discussion on the policy implications and radical potential of feminist ethnographies of crime and deviance.
Ethnographies of Organized Crime
Authors: Varese Federico
Published: December 2021

This chapter discusses how the ethnographic method has been used to study organized crime (OC). The first part defines OC, the mafia, and ethnography. The second section reviews early field studies, and the third focuses on the seminal contribution by W.F. Whyte, Street Corner Society (1943/1993). Whyte has set the model for subsequent ethnographies of OC and the mafia as involving (1) extensive periods in the field, (2) a project that is independent of authorities, (3) developing an intimate knowledge of the place or an organization, (4) the observation of interactions, and (5) a concern for the validity and the reliability of the data collected, including the impact of the ethnographer’s position on the information gathered. The fourth section offers a selective review of subsequent ethnographies of OC which are compared and contrasted with Street Corner Society. The final section discusses risk, the use of official data, the issue of anonymity, “rapid ethnographies,” and the limitations of fieldwork.
Uneasy Relations: Crime Ethnographies and Research Ethics
Authors: Haggerty Kevin D.
Published: December 2021

This chapter accentuates some of the reasons why crime ethnographies can face difficulties with the ethics review process, including prominent issues relating to informed consent, risk and harm, anonymity, and criminal behavior. Universities in most Western countries have established research ethics boards over the past twenty years responsible for assessing the ethical conduct of research. Qualitative research can fit poorly into the largely positivist ethics framework, resulting in an often-frustrating situation for ethnographers seeking to move ahead with their research. One paradox of this situation is that the ethics process itself seems poised to give rise to a subset of academic deviants in the form of crime ethnographers who may find that they are obliged to circumvent or disregard some formal ethical strictures in order to engage in ethnographic practices that otherwise seem uncontroversial or even innocuous.
Ethnographies of Terrorism and Terrorists
Authors: Khade Natasha B. , Decker Scott
Published: December 2021

This chapter discusses the importance of conducting ethnographic work to study terrorism. It summarizes ethnographic studies conducted in conflict zones across the globe including Ireland, India, Philippines, and Spain. It then follows with a discussion about the lessons learned from these studies. While clearly highlighting the advantages associated with conducting research in conflict zones, the difficulties that may arise with such work are acknowledged. Innovative methods for studying terrorism are also discussed. Specifically, the chapter highlights the usefulness of prison ethnographies to learn more about terrorism and terrorists. This is followed by a review of our own experiences of doing fieldwork with ex-inmates in order to understand the radicalization process in prisons. Finally, the policy implications of ethnographies and directions for future research are provided.
The Police
Authors: Holdaway Simon
Published: December 2021

This chapter interrogates the contemporary dominance of a “What Works” approach in studies of the police. It examines and finds wanting the methodological and theoretical foundations of this orientation. Instead, it argues that researchers should begin with an understanding of human beings, adopting research methods resonating with their conclusion. Ethnography is based on the meanings human beings attribute to the social world; it is concerned with a systematic, detailed description and analysis of the police and policing. After this introduction, major ethnographic studies of the police are discussed, and their main findings analyzed. Studies conducted beyond Anglo-American societies are covered. Each study reveals a key feature of policing that would not have been identified if ethnographic, participatory methods had not been used. The consequences of each finding for policing and for academic knowledge are discussed briefly, and somewhat ironically, key implications for police policy are considered.
“You Have No Idea What We Do”: Correctional Officers, Mental Health, and Prison Ethnography
Authors: Schultz William J.
Published: December 2021

Correctional officers occupy key positions of power and influence in prisons, yet experience massive stress and perceive themselves as vulnerable. Existing research outlines the significant mental health challenges officers face, but there is limited information on exactly how mental health concerns influence officer behavior on a day-to-day basis. I draw on ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews with 131 Canadian provincial correctional officers, to demonstrate that stress, perceptions of vulnerability, and tension between management and staff strongly influence officer behavior. My participants outline common officer narratives relating to mental health, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and even suicide. In addition, a portion of officers describe using substances to manage stress. I detail how these narratives influence officer behavior toward prisoners, managers, other officers, and people outside prison. I conclude by examining existing mental health programming for officers and assess what steps correctional administrators can take to address common concerns.
Pragmatics of Crime Ethnographies
Authors: Bucerius Sandra M.
Published: December 2021

This chapter lays out some of the “how to” of crime ethnographies, from its early planning stages to securing funding and institutional approval, going through ethics review, and arriving at the field site. It also provides an overview of the difficulties establishing and maintaining a presence in different criminological field sites, the ethical dilemmas involved in carrying out a crime ethnography, and questions about positionality that researchers have to contemplate. It further provides an insight into how ethnographic knowledge is produced in practice, from writing field notes to questions about if, when, and how to record to analyzing data and discusses questions of staying safe and when to leave the field.
Ethnography and Criminal Cultures: Urban Change and the Context of Ethnographic Fieldwork
Authors: Hobbs Dick
Published: December 2021

This chapter addresses ethnographies of criminal culture. It refers in particular to the fluctuating political economic context within which this academic tradition has functioned and its historical trajectory. It addresses criminal cultures of the industrial era, the ethnographic studies that chart the criminal cultures that emerged from post-industrial society, and the constraints imposed upon contemporary ethnographers by the neoliberal university. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the author’s long-term engagement in the field, and queries the relevance of the concept of criminal culture by referring to an ongoing case study that is informed by the political economy of post-industrial society rather than by the dead hand of criminological orthodoxy.
11-, 12-, and 13½-Bar Blues: Time and African American Country Blues Recordings (1925–1938)
Authors: Bowsher Andrew
Published: December 2021

This chapter examines commercially-issued recordings of African American country blues from the early twentieth century, and considers the politics of representation involved with these recordings related to the metric and structural orthodoxies of blues performance. Often featuring solo male singers performing with guitar accompaniment, the recorded country blues of the 1920s–30s are markedly flexible in their approaches to timing. Drawing upon recordings of important country blues artists including Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, and Charley Patton, the chapter considers key issues such as the controversy over the speed at which Johnson’s records were recorded, the flexible approach musicians took to the standard 12-bar format, and the strictures that the three-and-a-half minute 78 rpm record side posed for artists’ songcraft. How these factors challenge musicological orthodoxies over conventional blues structures and historical insights into the practice of the blues is illuminated through the proposal that these recordings struggle with contentious narratives of primitivism, racial stereotyping, and authenticity, whereby canonical 78 rpm records are reified to fit a prevailing narrative of the country blues as atavistic and authentic.
Music as Time, Music as Timeless
Authors: Knowles Kristina
Published: December 2021

This chapter presents a framework for parsing differing conceptual and analytical positions on time in music, focusing specifically on two contrasting ideologies. The first perspective views music as an art form that exists only in and through the unfolding of time; the second views music as capable of evoking a static temporality, referred to by many scholars as a sense of stasis or timelessness. Discussions on the relationship between time and music typically engage with a subset of overlapping and interacting positions on time. Time is sometimes analysed as external and objective, but can also be construed as internal and subjective. Finally, time is also understood to be created or represented by music, an idea encapsulated by the term ‘musical time’. References to timelessness in music engage with these latter two views on time, specifically music’s ability to represent temporal concepts associated with specific structures (musical time) and perceptual mechanisms related to certain musical features that result in a subjective experience interpreted as timelessness. Using the dual lenses of psychology and philosophy, I argue that timelessness is an inherent part of the multiple systems of temporal production and perception that underlie the way we experience and discuss time in music.
To Be in Time: Repetition, Temporality, and the Musical Work
Authors: Mercieca Nathan
Published: December 2021

This chapter begins by examining recent scholarship in ‘music as performance’, especially that of Nicholas Cook, and its implications for the work concept. By exploring various formulations of the work concept from a temporal perspective, it becomes clear that contradictions occur whenever the work concept is tied too closely to the notion of a musical work’s identity. Instead, a Deleuzian understanding of the musical work is advanced, based on Deleuze’s idea of repetition: this is seen as allying closely with a deconstructive approach to musical material, which provides an additional opportunity to consider musical temporality, in the arena of history and the musical past. Finally, to recapture the spirit of Cook’s original theories, and drawing on Hannah Arendt, a parallel between musical and human ontology is drawn, based on their identical interaction with time, which reconstitutes but fundamentally changes the idea of (the) musical ‘work’.
Rhythm, Time, and Presence
Authors: Danielsen Anne
Published: December 2021

Repetitive rhythm-oriented or groove-based music is specifically designed to usher the listener into a state of absorption or presence in the music. This chapter argues that this particular form of musical time originates with the repetition of a certain inner dynamics within the basic rhythmic pattern of the groove. The first part of the chapter presents structural and microrhythmic features that seem to be particularly impactful upon the listener’s state of groove absorption. The second part discusses the consequences of the fact that it is impossible to describe such an experience of musical time without stepping outside it. An initial observation is that in the very moment one starts to consider the state of being-in-the-groove, one’s state of being is changed.
Challenges and Complexities of the South African Economy
Authors: Tregenna Fiona , Ewinyu Arabo K. , Oqubay Arkebe , Valodia Imraan
Published: December 2021

This chapter discusses the key characteristics and core challenges of the South African economy in the post-apartheid era. South Africa shares some commonalities with other African and middle-income economies, yet has a unique history and some distinctive economic features. South Africa’s economic complexities and challenges are discussed here with reference to six comparator countries. We examine South Africa’s growth path, considering the low rates of economic growth as well as the lack of structural transformation and the unsustainable and non-inclusive nature of this growth. The ‘triple challenges’ of poverty, inequality, and employment are both a manifestation of the nature of this growth path and a constraint on overall growth. This is also briefly evaluated in the context of the political economy and policy context of growth and development in South Africa. The chapter reviews South African economic data, with a focus on microeconomic survey data.
Food Security, Hunger, and Stunting in South Africa
Authors: May Julian
Published: December 2021

Although South Africa is considered to be food secure at the national level, it faces a double burden of malnutrition comprising under-nutrition and micro-nutrient deficiencies, and over-weight/obesity. Almost one quarter of the population live below the national food poverty line, and 27 per cent of children under five years are stunted. At the same time, 68 per cent of adult women and 31 per cent of men are overweight or obese. The high prevalence of overweight and obesity translates into diet-related non-communicable disease. As a result, South Africa bears a disproportionate burden of food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa given its wealth. The absence of progress is concerning since public investments in child and maternal nutritional programmes have increased significantly since 1993. High levels of unemployment, the enduring legacy of poor services, and unhealthy diets are among the reasons for this. Covid-19 is a further shock to food and nutrition security.
Investment in South Africa
Authors: Driver Ciaran , Harris Laurence
Published: December 2021

Abstract: Since the achievement of democracy, high levels of gross fixed capital formation have been required for the economic and social transformation of South Africa. Public-sector investment has risen, particularly since 2008, but private-business investment has not grown enough, while manufacturing’s share of the capital stock has declined substantially. Common explanations for low investment in manufacturing are examined in the light of empirical literature and are judged to have inadequate evidential support. Industrial policies derived from these views, such as maintaining low interest rates to promote investment, need to be based on stronger evidence. An argument is put forward for a system-based approach to research on the determinants of investment.
Monetary Policy in South Africa
Authors: Viegi Nicola
Published: December 2021

Monetary policy in emerging countries is a difficult balancing act between supporting economic transformation, maintaining a sound macroeconomic environment, and reacting to internal and external shocks. This chapter reviews monetary policy in South Africa focusing on the structural constraints that affect the efficiency of policy. The main argument is that future of monetary policy depends on how the country deals with the underlying structural constraints. The country needs to return to growth and build strong resilience in its economic and social institutions. Monetary policy can help in the transition process if the policy is strongly anchored to long-term stability objectives and the Central Bank remains a credibly independent institution.