bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Brain changes in the early course of schizophrenia
Authors: Keshavan Matcheri S. , Lizano Paulo , Padmanabhan Jaya
Published: May 2019

Psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia are serious, common, and highly disabling illnesses. Their pathophysiologies remain unclear, and have been a subject of many theories. In recent years, there has been considerable progress in understanding the pathophysiology of the early course of psychoses, as it pertains to the adolescent onset of these illnesses. This chapter summarizes recent literature and the authors’ work in the neurobiology of early-course psychotic disorders using neurocognitive, structural, functional, and spectroscopic neuroimaging, as well as electrophysiological and sleep studies. Extant literature and the authors’ studies suggest alterations in cognition, brain structure, function, and neurochemistry in the early course of psychotic illnesses and in young relatives at risk for this illness. The literature points to alterations in grey matter volumes and white matter connectivity across several key brain regions, aberrations in task and default network function. Spectroscopy and PET studies suggest alterations in glutamatergic and dopaminergic neurotransmission. These alterations begin around early adolescence and progress during the early phases of psychotic illnesses. Pathophysiology might be related to a neurodevelopmental derailment involving aberrations in programmed synaptic refinement and plasticity processes. Recent genetic data point to the involvement of developmental, immune, glutamatergic, and dopaminergic function. These emerging insights may suggest novel targets for prevention and early intervention.
Brain changes in psychosis
Authors: Falkai Peter , Schmitt Andrea , Rossner Moritz , Schulze Thomas , Koutsouleris Nikolaos
Published: May 2019

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder where risk genes involved in neuroplasticity are interacting with environmental risk factors. Schizophrenia and related psychotic illnesses are not degenerative in origin, but are disturbances of regenerative/plastic processes of the brain, involving neurogenetic events in the dentate region focusing on oligodendrocyte- and synaptogenesis-related processes. In order to prevent psychosis, persons at risk need to be identified at the early phases of the illness in order to initiate a phase-specific treatment. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms underlying the development of psychosis and strengthening the plasticity of the brain could effectively stop the progression of psychosis from the early at-risk mental state (ARMS) to the full picture of schizophrenia.
Early intervention in personality disorders
Authors: Oldham John M.
Published: May 2019

Personality disorders have their onset in adolescence or early adulthood. It is now well-established that these conditions emerge in individuals who have heritable risk factors and who experience disruptions in the attachment process, a critical component of early development that, when successful, sets the stage for healthy, stable personality functioning in adulthood. The importance of early identification of, and intervention for, emerging personality disorders is increasingly recognized. A new dimensional model for personality disorders relies on assessing self and interpersonal functioning, impairment of which during adolescence may signal the early onset of potentially disabling personality disorders.
Early detection and timely intervention for borderline personality disorder
Authors: Chanen Andrew
Published: May 2019

Although borderline personality disorder (BPD) usually has its onset in young people, its diagnosis is often delayed, and specific treatment is usually only offered late in the course of the disorder. Over the past two decades, the explosion of knowledge about personality disorder has shown that BPD is neither a variant of normal adolescent development, nor a ‘passing phase’ of little consequence. In fact, BPD is associated with harmful personal, social, and economic consequences. This has provided solid ground for early diagnosis and treatment of both subthreshold borderline personality pathology (‘indicated prevention’) and full-syndrome disorder (‘early intervention’). Over the past two decades, the Helping Young People Early (HYPE) programme has been developed and researched in Melbourne, Australia. HYPE is a comprehensive and integrated indicated prevention and early intervention programme for youth (15–25 years of age). HYPE is comprised of a service model and an individual therapy, and incorporates the principles of cognitive analytic therapy. HYPE primarily aims to alter the life-course trajectory of young people with borderline personality pathology by improving functional outcomes, interpersonal relationships, and self-management, developing support networks independent of mental health services, promoting adaptive help-seeking, and avoiding or reducing iatrogenic harms.
Coalescent Theory of Migration Network Motifs
Authors: Alcala Nicolas , Goldberg Amy , Ramakrishnan Uma , Rosenberg Noah A
Published: May 2019

Natural populations display a variety of spatial arrangements, each potentially with a distinctive impact on genetic diversity and genetic differentiation among subpopulations. Although the spatial arrangement of populations can lead to intricate migration networks, theoretical developments have focused mainly on a small subset of such networks, emphasizing the island-migration and stepping-stone models. In this study, we investigate all small network motifs: the set of all possible migration networks among populations subdivided into at most four subpopulations. For each motif, we use coalescent theory to derive expectations for three quantities that describe genetic variation: nucleotide diversity, FST, and half-time to equilibrium diversity. We describe the impact of network properties on these quantities, finding that motifs with a high mean node degree have the largest nucleotide diversity and the longest time to equilibrium, whereas motifs with low density have the largest FST. In addition, we show that the motifs whose pattern of variation is most strongly influenced by loss of a connection or a subpopulation are those that can be split easily into disconnected components. We illustrate our results using two example data sets—sky island birds of genus Sholicola and Indian tigers—identifying disturbance scenarios that produce the greatest reduction in genetic diversity; for tigers, we also compare the benefits of two assisted gene flow scenarios. Our results have consequences for understanding the effect of geography on genetic diversity, and they can assist in designing strategies to alter population migration networks toward maximizing genetic variation in the context of conservation of endangered species.
Archaeology and Material Culture of Moab and the Moabites
Authors: Porter Benjamin
Published: May 2019

Moab was both a culture area and an Iron Age kingdom located in the west-central half of the modern Middle Eastern country of Jordan. Moab is mentioned frequently in the Hebrew Bible and was often in contact with its Israelite neighbors. Scholars have used the biblical text to reconstruct Moab’s history and society despite the original authors’ and editors’ skewed perspectives on the kingdom. Moab has been the subject of archaeological research since the latter third of the nineteenth century. Landscape surveys have identified many large and small settlements across the region while excavations at key settlements have documented public and private architecture, and recovered art and epigraphic evidence. This research has been reported over many decades in archaeological and landscape survey reports, and the evidence has been frequently summarized in scholarly syntheses. Moab’s development occurred in three phases. During the Iron I period, a collection of small settlements was founded at the end of the second millennium bce. These semi-autonomous settlements organized their household and communal agro-pastoral subsistence economies at local levels. The point at which these settlements began to be integrated into a political polity likely occurred in the late tenth or early ninth century, the beginning of the Iron II period. The Mesha Inscription, a royal inscription of one of Moab’s earlier kings, describes how he increased his territory, established a new capital and cult center at Dhiban, and incorporated new populations within an expanded kingdom. The Mesopotamian empire of Assyria began to intervene in Moab’s and its neighbors’ affairs starting in the mid-eighth century, commencing the Iron III period. Soon after, Moab’s agro-pastoralist economy and textile industries intensified, a change likely brought on by producers responding to new international markets and Assyria’s demand for taxes and tribute. Currently, very little is known about Moab in the final centuries of the Iron Age, the sixth through fourth centuries bce. Permanent settlement activity decreased during these centuries, possibly due to a combination of population deportations and the return to semi-sedentary and nomadic settlement practices. Readers should note that transliterations of ancient and Arabic place names have shifted over the course of modern scholarship. Some titles may preserve older variants that contrast with the now updated versions.
Anne Askew
Authors: Cohen Jason
Published: May 2019

Anne Askew was born of a notable Lincolnshire family and became a Protestant voice of radical reformation at the end of the reign of Henry VIII. According to Bale, Askew was compelled to marry Thomas Kyme as a substitute for her sister’s prior betrothal upon her untimely death. Askew sought a divorce after Kyme drove her from their home for her unorthodox beliefs. It is likely that her vocal criticisms of church policy regarding demonstrations of faith brought her to the attention of the bishops. She was first interrogated by Bishop Bonner and subsequently released before being re-captured. During her second imprisonment, Bishop Gardiner and Chancellor Wriothesley conducted the interrogation and torture, which historians generally attribute to the effort to prove the Protestant leanings of Henry VIII’s last queen. The unusual torture Askew endured as a gentlewoman has been understood to suggest her direct affiliation with the circle of Katherine Parr. In 1546, at age twenty-five, she was burned at the stake as a heretic. She became a significant martyr when John Bale and John Foxe published accounts of her interrogation, imprisonment, and torture. Askew is known almost exclusively from the two narratives she wrote of her interrogations: The first examinacyon (1546) discusses her beliefs and her efforts to frustrate her interrogators; The lattre examinacyon (1547) describes her re-arrest and the judicial torture she endured along with interrogation leading to her execution. John Bale first published her works along with commentary and framing, which supply much of the biographical information about Askew that remains available.
Vaiṣṇava Pāñcarātra
Authors: Rastelli Marion
Published: May 2019

The Pāñcarātra is a Hindu tradition that worships Viṣṇu as the supreme god. Its origins date back to the pre-Christian era, and certain features of it can still be found in the related Hindu-tradition of the Śrīvaiṣṇavas. Its earliest textual source, having been composed around the 3rd to the 5th century ce, is the so-called Nārāyaṇīya, which is a part of the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata. In this text the Pāñcarātra does not yet bear the tantric features that become characteristic for the tradition as known from the Saṃhitās, which may have been composed from around the 9th century onward. The Saṃhitās are the most important texts of the tradition and are traditionally considered to have been revealed by god Viṣṇu himself. They deal with the theology and philosophy of the tradition, but most prominently with rituals. Rituals are the main means for a Pāñcarātra follower to achieve the tradition’s religious goals. As in other tantric traditions, these goals are worldly pleasures (bhukti) and liberation (mukti) from transmigration. In early Pāñcarātra Saṃhitās, rituals are to be performed by individual persons for their own benefit. In later Saṃhitās, probably due to political influences, public temple worship for the benefit of the king and the state becomes the main focus. The early extant Saṃhitās probably originate from North India, and there is evidence that Pāñcarātra was widely practiced in Kashmir. However, from perhaps the 11th century, Pāñcarātra mainly flourished in South India. The social background of Pāñcarātra followers over the centuries has not yet been investigated in depth, but we do know that the tradition’s historical development was shaped by various social groups and subtraditions, as well as their interactions, sometimes involving rivalry.
Third Culture Kids
Authors: Lijadi Anastasia Aldelina
Published: May 2019

Third culture kids (TCK) are individuals who follow their parents on their overseas assignment, relocating to one (or more) countries for a period of time with an option to either repatriate or stay abroad if permitted. The day-to-day routine for these TCK families starts with continuous efforts to adapt to their new place while juggling their work and colleagues, culture, language, schools, weather, environment, living arrangements, and the most daunting mission: making new friends. At the same time, TCK families have to deal with homesickness, losses, and nostalgia for their previous country of residence. It is understandable that while living overseas, TCK families tend to find comfort and build relationships with other expatriates as they undergo similar experiences. As a result, TCK grow up being exposed to three different cultures. The first is the primal culture or heritage culture; the second is the culture of the countries where they have lived; and the third is the interstitial culture and lifestyle shared and understood by TCK and other communities of expatriates. After the initiation of the term “TCK” in the 1960s, social science researchers have shown interest in this unique population. The emergence of journals dedicated to capturing the occurrences of high-mobility lifestyles and people who directly or indirectly affect TCK followed. Sponsoring organizations, international schools, and expatriate communities are contributing stakeholders during the developmental years of TCK. Living in several countries with cross-cultural exposure offers many benefits for TCK. They become bilingual or multilingual, gain a worldview perspective, are sensitive to different cultures and peoples, and develop early maturity, all of which match the qualities of a future international leader. Because of the promising benefits gained from living overseas, recent decades have witnessed the emergence of self-initiated expatriation, mostly with individuals who are TCK themselves wishing to give the same benefits to their family. However, numerous life disruptions (i.e., moving, losses, changing schools, learning a new language) have lasting effects on TCK. In their adulthood, on top of dealing with potential repatriation issues, TCK may be confronted with commitment issues, nostalgia, and unsettling emotions. Therefore, there is a strong urge for creating awareness of the TCK phenomenon within the society to prevent backlash from this upbringing.
Ancient Andean Textiles
Authors: Dransart Penelope
Published: May 2019

This article includes publications on the yarns, fabrics, and textiles produced for millennia in the Andes before the 16th-century European invasion. The geographical coverage is from Colombia in the north as far as northern Chile and northwestern Argentina in the south. Textile scholars often distinguish between fabrics and textiles. The former term is more encompassing and includes nonwoven cloth, such as felt or constructions made with a single element such as looping. Textiles, on the other hand, are the outcome of regularly interlacing a vertical set of elements, the warp, with a horizontal one, the weft, in a pliable plane of interacting threads. In the form of garments, regalia, bags, wall hangings, and funerary offerings, pre-Hispanic fabrics and textiles from the Andes can be spectacular, in both visual appearance and technique. A particularly long record exists of extremely well preserved examples, including a large number of complete garments, conserved due to the aridity of Andean deserts and the freezing conditions at 6,000 meters above sea level, where mountaintop shrines are encountered. The iconographic range is impressive—from naturalistic renditions of the creatures and beings of this and other cosmological worlds to highly abstract and geometric forms of expression. Some Andean visual imagery characteristically refers to yarn and fabric construction, whether it be plying yarn or looping, twining, or braiding cloth. In this sense, to borrow Marshall McLuhan’s well-used coinage, “the medium is the message.” This interest in the visual characteristics of the medium precedes the introduction of record-keeping by means of the khipu or chinu, the Quechua and Aymara terms for what, in Spanish, is called quipu (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Latin American Studies article “Quipu”). Scholars have therefore explored the significance of textiles, sometimes using as a premise that Andean textiles encode culturally meaningful information in an analogous manner to the storing of information in the knots of a khipu. Such characteristics have led to the publications included here, in which the authors pay attention both to concepts of structure, construction, and process in the production of yarn and fabrics as well as to the visual expression of iconographic themes.
Acquisition of Pragmatics
Authors: Grigoroglou Myrto , Papafragou Anna
Published: May 2019

How do children learn to bridge the gap between the literal, semantic meaning of words and the intended, pragmatic meaning of an utterance? The acquisition of pragmatics is the topic of an experimental field of study that investigates this question. According to an influential pragmatic theory proposed by the philosopher Paul Grice, communication is a collaborative effort governed by specific rules (or “maxims”). A collaborative speaker is expected to be as informative as required by the purpose of the communicative exchange (maxim of Quantity), truthful (maxim of Quality), relevant (maxim of Relation), and unambiguous (maxim of Manner). A collaborative listener makes inferences about the speaker’s intentions based on the assumption that the speaker is being cooperative and following the conversational rules. Later pragmatic theories such as Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson’s relevance theory have offered important alternatives to the Gricean framework but share several foundational assumptions with Grice’s approach, including the idea that human communication involves representing the speaker’s beliefs and goals. Whether young children are capable of making such inferences about the speaker’s mental states and how aspects of this ability might develop are the most important questions in the study of children’s pragmatic development. For many years, it was believed that children before the age of five or six were not able to entertain pragmatic inferences about the speaker’s intentions or knowledge state. However, more recent theoretical advancements in the semantics-pragmatics interface and the development of new methodological tools have led to a reconsideration of older findings. It appears increasingly likely that the skills required for pragmatic reasoning are in place from a very young age, but the process of applying those skills in communication is effortful and highly task dependent, and continues to develop until late childhood. This article focuses on prominent work on the acquisition of children’s pragmatic abilities in three areas that have generated a considerable body of data: Reference, Implicature, and Figurative Language.
Transgender Children
Authors: Kennedy RM , Farley Lisa
Published: May 2019

The scholarly literature on transgender children spans many disciplines including medicine, law, humanities, the social sciences, and the emergent field of transgender studies. However, the most contentious discipline to claim epistemological ownership over knowledge of the trans child is psychology. In 1980, “Transsexualism” as well as the accompanying child diagnosis, “Gender Identity Disorder in Childhood” (GIDC), first entered the lexicon of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), thereby setting transgender children on a trajectory of being understood in Western discourse as mentally disordered. The DSM, published by the American Psychiatric Association, sets out a common international language and the standard criteria for the classification and diagnosis of all mental disorders and therefore has wide implications for governing the legal, social, and medical experience of trans people. Refusing the construction of gender variance as disordered, a growing chorus of voices in recent years has contested the pathologization of transgender lives and the dominance of medical-scientific narratives about trans experience. Many parents of transgender children, trans adults, and trans children themselves have become outspoken activists, demanding authentic supports and safe spaces for children whose gender expression diverges from their natal sex and the socially constructed meanings attributed to this sex. In turn, scholars, particularly in the field of transgender studies, have interrogated the assumptions that tie particular gender expressions and identifications to biology. Rather than confine the debate about trans children to how they should be psychologically or medically treated, these scholars challenge the social and cultural forces that regulate bodies and restrict or enable diverse forms of gender expression and embodiment. The struggle of trans people, youth, and children for the right to a gender existence not threatened by pathologization, violence, and exclusion may be read as one of the defining questions of our time and is one that is still rapidly unfolding.
Enforced Disappearances in International Law
Authors: Calvet Martínez Elisenda
Published: May 2019

Enforced disappearances is a multiple and ongoing violation of human rights that is often associated with Latin America; however, it is neither the exclusive patrimony of any single region of the world nor a practice of the past. During the Second World War, the Nazis exercised the practice of enforced disappearances through the Night and Fog Decree by transferring the detained persons from occupied territories to the Reich without any contact with the outside nor could they be visited by their families. At present, the phenomenon of enforced disappearances is presented in more complex contexts like humanitarian crises, migration, and organized crime as well as within the framework of the “war” against terrorism. Since its creation in 1980, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) has received more than 55,000 cases, of which more than 44,000 remain unresolved and affect more than 107 countries. Enforced disappearance can be defined as a deprivation of liberty by agents of the state or by persons with its support or authorization, followed by the refusal to acknowledge the detention or by the concealment of the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared person. In this sense, children have also been the objects of enforced disappearance either because their parents were subjected to enforced disappearance or they were born in captivity to a mother subject to enforced disappearance. The anguish and stress of the families due to the uncertainty of the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared have been considered by the international mechanisms of human rights as an inhuman treatment and therefore have been considered direct victims of enforced disappearance. As a result, the relatives have the right to know the truth about the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared person and, in the case of death, the right to recover the remains. In international human rights law, there are three instruments that specifically address this practice, namely, the 1992 UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, the 1994 Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance, and the 2006 UN International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances that created the Committee on Enforced Disappearance. Moreover, the prohibition of enforced disappearance is a customary humanitarian law rule applicable to both international and non-international armed conflict, and the widespread practice of enforced disappearance constitutes a crime against humanity and has been incorporated at the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Octavia Butler
Authors: Holden Rebecca J.
Published: May 2019

Octavia E. Butler (b. 1947–d. 2006), one of the first African American science fiction (sf) authors, remains the most prominent African American women science fiction author. She was born to Laurice and Octavia M. Butler in Pasadena, CA. Her father died when she was a toddler and she was raised an only child by her mother and grandmother. Her family called her “Junie” but most of her friends called her Estelle. An avid reader her entire life, Butler wrote her first sf story when she was about twelve years old after she watched sci-fi B-movie “The Devil Girl from Mars” and realized she could write a better story. She earned an associate’s degree from Pasadena City College and took classes at both Cal State and UCLA. At the behest of Harlan Ellison, whom she met at the “Open Door” Workshop, she attended the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop in 1971, after which she sold her first two stories, one of which, “Crossover,” was published in 1971. She published her first novel, Patternmaster, in 1976, and went on to publish a total of twelve novels, seven short stories, and ten Essays. Two additional short stories, both written early in her career, were published posthumously in 2014. Butler also gave numerous Interviews and presentations at sf conventions and conferences. Her writings transformed the science fiction field by showing us futures—usually difficult futures—in which African American women play primary roles and futures in which being black was not exceptional. She brought together multiple genres—slave narrative, fantasy, science fiction, dystopia, historical narrative, and vampire literature—and transformed sf tropes—including alien invasion, first contact, post-apocalypse, cyborgs, genetic manipulations, and others—in her boundary-breaking sf. Butler often commented that her fiction addressed three sometimes overlapping audiences: those interested in feminism, African American literature, and science fiction. Her fiction was nominated for and won the top science fiction awards, including two Hugos, two Nebulas, two Science Fiction Chronicle awards, and a Locus award. Butler was the first sf author to receive a MacArthur “genius” grant (1995) and also won a Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing from the PEN American Center (2000). Butler’s fiction and life has had a significant influence on the sf genre and field. Teaching at Clarion West, participating in panel discussions, and offering advice and mentorship, Butler inspired many from the recent generation of sf writers of color and has been claimed by the Afrofuturism movement. Her untimely death rocked the sf world, depriving society of a necessary critical and intuitive voice.
Regionalism
Authors: Joseph Philip
Published: May 2019

In American literature, regionalism refers to works that describe a distinctive local geography and culture, and to movements that value smaller-scaled representations of place over representations of broad territorial range. Regionalism emerges from the perception of modern geographic plurality; writers and readers understand a larger unit of space (commonly the national territory) to be diversified at its periphery according to topographical features, economy, history, dialect, and manners. A region is always one among many within a common container, characterized by uneven development between center and periphery. Regionalism indicates that a writer has chosen to focus on one of the areas outside the centers of power, and to organize the work around that region. In American literature, regionalism has been associated with the sketch or short story, although the category can accommodate poetry and the novel. Regionalism’s detractors have treated it as a minor form portraying outdated folkways, more parochial than literature that features a larger spatial scale and cosmopolitan characters. Its defenders reject that evaluation, often arguing that regionalism provided access to female, nonwhite, and rural writers, who used the form in innovative and empowering ways. As a literary category, regionalism originates in the post-Civil war era, but many critics locate its origins in the antebellum period, when women writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe offered sketches of rural New England, while Southwestern humorists promoted the storytelling style and wilderness settings of the nation’s frontier territories. In the late 19th century, the term gets used interchangeably with “local color” to designate stories set in relatively undeveloped areas, such as coastal New England, the South, the Midwest, and California. Regionalist writers like Sarah Orne Jewett, Hamlin Garland, and Charles Chesnutt were perceived to be contributing to American realism, doing so by describing, piecemeal-style, the varied conditions of American life. In the 20th century, regionalist movements such as the “Revolt from the Village” school (Sherwood Anderson, Edgar Lee Masters) and the “New Regionalism” (Mary Austin and John Crowe Ransom, for example) rejected both modern American standardization and the “local color” writers, accusing those earlier artists of capitulating to East Coast taste. Writers who have been studied as instrumental in the development of 20th-century southern regionalism include William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, Flannery O’Connor, and Eudora Welty, while Willa Cather, Wallace Stegner, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Gloria Anzaldúa have been especially important in literary regionalism of the West.
Samuel R. Delany
Authors: Matharoo Sean
Published: May 2019

Samuel R. Delany is a profoundly influential and award-winning African-American gay author, critic, and teacher, whose many novels, short stories, memoirs, and essays are among the most important of the 20th and 21st centuries. His works have fundamentally altered the terrain of science fiction (SF) due in part to their formally consummate, theoretically sophisticated, materially grounded, and politically radical explorations of difference. These explorations reach an apogee in Dhalgren (1975), a bestselling countercultural classic. Delany is a Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) Grand Master. He is also one of SF’s best critics. The courageous humility and pragmatism with which he treats his subjects, when considered alongside the virtuosity with which he writes, gesture at a cosmologically scaled multiplicity, the understanding of which is dependent on biography, a point rendered clear in his exquisite autobiography The Motion of Light in Water (1988). Delany was born in Harlem, New York, on 1 April 1942. He was educated at the prestigious Dalton School and Bronx High School of Science. He spent summers at progressive youth camps. He also briefly attended the City College of New York. Delany has held professorships at University of Massachusetts Amherst, SUNY Buffalo, and Temple University. From 1961 to 1980, he and poet Marilyn Hacker had an open marriage; they have one child. He has been in an open relationship with Dennis Rickett since 1991. He was astoundingly prolific at a prodigal age. He translated Rimbaud’s Le bateau ivre (1871) when he was eighteen. For a time, he lived in a commune in New York, writing songs for the folk-rock band Heavenly Breakfast. He has worked on shrimp boats in Texas. He has written graphic novels and a couple of stories for the Wonder Woman comics. He has written an opera, and he has written and directed a film. He has published pornographic novels that engage thoughtfully with the HIV/AIDS crisis. In short, to borrow a concept he develops in Empire Star (1966), Delany might be described as “multiplex”: even an ephemeral biography such as this one casts light on his singular ability to sustain and synthesize presumably opposed differences into a greater unity.
Academic Assessment
Authors: Gischlar Karen L.
Published: May 2019

In the field of education, assessment is used to evaluate and document the learning progress and educational needs of students. Assessment takes many forms, including direct and indirect methods and summative and formative measures, and occurs across levels from the individual student to the district and state levels. At the individual student, classroom, and school levels, academic assessment data are used to make instructional decisions regarding differentiation, intervention, program placement, and special education eligibility. Specifically, academic skills assessment enables the educator to determine student performance on tasks in the basics of reading, writing, and math against a criterion or standard (e.g., grade-level expectations) and in relation to same age or grade peers. At the district level, high-stakes statewide assessment data are used for accountability purposes, such as documenting adequate student progress. Additionally, statewide assessment results often are used to “grade” and rank schools and may influence decisions regarding allocation of resources and school choice vouchers. The purpose of this annotated bibliography is to provide an overview of general resources for academic assessment as well as more-specific resources for differing modalities and methods of assessment, applications, and implications for policy and practice. The bibliography includes seminal and contemporary references from educational publishers and peer-reviewed sources.
Archaeology of West Africa
Authors: Swanepoel Natalie
Published: May 2019

West Africa is a vast geographic region that in archaeological terms is usually circumscribed by the Tropic of Cancer in the north, Cameroon in the east, and the Atlantic Ocean in the west and south. It encompasses a great deal of variation and diversity on environmental, linguistic, cultural, and political fronts. One of its defining features is the parallel environmental zones that run east to west so that as the traveler moves south to north, they pass through coastal, forest, savanna (wooded and grassland), and Sahelian zones until they reach the Sahara in the north. The region’s modern-day political borders created by European colonialist competition cut through existing ethnolinguistic groups and erstwhile kingdoms and states. Politically, during the last 2,000 years West African societies ranged in scale from decentralized agricultural societies to mobile pastoralists to state-level societies and empires. As is to be expected, West African archaeology reflects this complexity. It is for this reason that, rather than reducing it to an “ages and stages” formulation, most West African(ist) archaeologists speak about the material record as a “mosaic” which varied over time and space. In comparison to the rest of the continent, very little is known about the very early period of human history, with scant evidence for settlement during the Early and Middle Stone Age periods. The region’s past is better known from about midway through the Holocene (Later Stone Age), 6,000 bce. This is also coincident with wide-ranging transformations in the lifestyles of hunter-gatherers in the region, as this is when the transition to food production occurs, first with pastoralism and later with crop cultivation. Iron technology was introduced in the 1st millennium bce, and the rise of complex societies with their accompanying institutions occurred in the 1st millennium ce. Any discussion of the literature will be partial, but this is exacerbated by the patchy archaeological coverage of the region. This is for a number of reasons: the size of the area to be covered, the variable history of archaeological research in different parts, the difficulty of working in some ecological settings such as the forest zone, conflict-ridden zones that make it unsafe to conduct research, and difficulties in African scholars accessing resources and funding. Despite this, considerable progress in our knowledge of the region has been made.
Early Medieval Architecture in Western Europe
Authors: McClendon Charles
Published: May 2019

The precise definition of the early Middle Ages as a historical period is far from clear, as is the specific beginning and end of the Middle Ages as a whole. In terms of architecture, it is generally taken to postdate the experiments of the late antique/early Christian period and to end sometime soon after the year 1000, when according to the monk Raoul Glaber the world put on a “white mantle of churches,” which is usually related to the emergence of Romanesque. This bibliography follows these general chronological perimeters, extending from the middle of the 6th to the early 11th century. Unlike Romanesque and later Gothic, early medieval architecture does not embody a single, particular style, aside from the often perceived antiquarian tendencies of the so-called Carolingian Renaissance of the late 8th and 9th centuries under Charlemagne and his immediate successors. Most studies are therefore regional, produced often by scholars writing in their native languages and focused on the monuments of their homeland.
Police Union Contracts: An Analysis of Large Cities
Authors: Harris Christopher , Sweeney Matthew M
Published: May 2019

The impact of police union contracts on administrators’ ability to hold their officers accountable is an understudied are of police accountability. While there is anecdotal evidence that some contracts contain provisions that could militate against accountability, and some scholarship has reviewed state Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights and found troublesome provisions, whether or not municipal police contracts routinely contain similar provisions is unknown. The research conducted herein is designed to address this knowledge gap. We review 47 contracts from some of the largest cities in the USA with a view towards finding provisions which could impede misconduct investigations, along with describing the frequency and contours of those provisions. Using directed content analysis, we find provisions across several domains of interest—including citizen complaints, police interrogations, disciplinary hearings, and police disciplinary records—within union contracts that could shield officers from accountability, and discuss their implications.
Osteogenesis effects of magnetic nanoparticles modified-porous scaffolds for the reconstruction of bone defect after bone tumor resection
Authors: Li Ming , Liu Jianheng , Cui Xiang , Sun Guofei , Hu Jianwei , Xu Sijia , Yang Fei , Zhang Licheng , Wang Xiumei , Tang Peifu
Published: May 2019

The treatment of bone defect after bone tumor resection is a great challenge for orthopedic surgeons. It should consider that not only to inhibit tumor growth and recurrence, but also to repair the defect and preserve the limb function. Hence, it is necessary to find an ideal functional biomaterial that can repair bone defects and inactivate tumor. Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have its unique advantages to achieve targeted hyperthermia to avoid damage to surrounding normal tissues and promote osteoblastic activity and bone formation. Based on the previous stage, we successfully prepared hydroxyapatite (HAP) composite poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) scaffolds and verified its good osteogenic properties, in this study, we produced an HAP composite PLGA scaffolds modified with MNPs. The composite scaffold showed appropriate porosity and mechanical characteristics, while MNPs possessed excellent magnetic and thermal properties. The cytological assay indicated that the MNPs have antitumor ability and the composite scaffold possessed good biocompatibility. In vivo bone defect repair experiment revealed that the composite scaffold had good osteogenic capacity. Hence, we could demonstrate that the composite scaffolds have a good effect in bone repair, which could provide a potential approach for repairing bone defect after bone tumor excision.
Moral Education in Japan: The Disjoint Between Research on Policy and Research on Practice
Authors: BAMKIN Sam
Published: May 2019

Moral education has the explicit aim of contributing to the character formation of Japanese citizens through school education. For this reason, policy intentions for moral education, as communicated by official documents such as curricula and textbooks and by political discourse, hold great significance. Document-based studies on policy intent have expanded in recent years. In particular, there has been sustained interest in the potential of moral education for statist indoctrination and, often incompatibly, its potential for cultivating a modern democratic society. Less developed, however, is research that directly addresses how moral education is implemented in schools and classrooms. This research on practice is important to understand what moral education is and the extent to which policy intentions are realised. Moreover, practice-based research undertaken during times of reform can provide a window into understanding the role of the school in shaping how moral education changes and the enactment of school reform more generally. Ultimately, this knowledge is important to understand the actual effect of moral education and the manifest relationship between individual, school and the state.
Exploring the Effects of Vitamin D Supplementation on Cognitive Functions and Mental Health Status in Subjects Under Methadone Maintenance Treatment
Authors: Ghaderi Amir , Rasouli-Azad Morad , Farhadi Mohammad Hassan , Mirhosseini Naghmeh , Motmaen Maryam , Pishyareh Ebrahim , Omidi Abdollah , Asemi Zatollah
Published: May 2019

Objectives:

Vitamin D deficiency may be linked to several mental complications including cognitive deficits, depression, and anxiety in patients under methadone maintenance treatment (MMT). This study was designed to explore the effect of vitamin D supplementation on cognitive functions and mental health parameters in subjects under MMT.

Methods:

This randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial was carried out among 64 patients under MMT. Participants were randomly allocated to receive either 50,000 IU vitamin D supplements (n = 32) or placebo (n = 32) every 2 weeks for 24 weeks. Cognitive functions and mental health parameters were taken at baseline and posttreatment to evaluate relevant variables.

Results:

After the 24-week intervention, compared with the placebo, serum 25(OH) vitamin D levels significantly increased in participants who received vitamin D supplements (β 14.50; 95% confidence interval [CI], 13.17–15.83;P < 0.001). In addition, compared with the placebo, subjects who received vitamin D had a significant reduction in Iowa Gambling Task (β −6.25; 95% CI, −8.60 to −3.90;P < 0.001), and significant increases in Verbal Fluency Test (β 2.82; 95% CI, 0.78–4.86;P = 0.007), Immediate Logic Memory (β 1. 32; 95% CI, 0.27–2.37;P = 0.01), Reverse Digit Span (β 2.06; 95% CI, 1.18–2.94;P < 0.001) and visual working memory (β 0.75; 95% CI, 0.33–1.16;P = 0.001). Also, vitamin D supplementation significantly improved BDI (β −2.76; 95% CI, −3.97 to −1.55;P < 0.001) compared with the placebo. When we applied Bonferroni correction, LM-Immediate (P = 0.07) became nonsignificant, and other mental health parameters did not alter.

Conclusions:

Overall, taking 50,000 IU vitamin D supplements every 2 weeks for 24 weeks by patients under MMT had beneficial effects on cognitive functions and some mental health parameters. Further studies are needed to confirm our findings.
Deficient Inhibitory Endogenous Pain Modulation Correlates With Periaqueductal Gray Matter Metabolites During Chronic Whiplash Injury
Authors: Serrano-Muñoz Diego , Galán-Arriero Iriana , Ávila-Martín Gerardo , Gómez-Soriano Julio , Florensa José , García-Peris Antonio , Romero-Muñoz Luis M. , Barriga-Martín Andrés , Taylor Julian
Published: May 2019

Objectives:

This study examined predictive correlations between periaqueductal gray (PAG) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) metabolite levels with deficient inhibitory endogenous pain modulation (EPM), including sensory and affective measures of pain during chronic whiplash injury (WHI).

Materials and Methods:

Healthy patients, and participants with chronic WHI, without (WHI-noP) or with pain (WHI-P), were screened with the Douleur Neuropathique 4 tool (DN4). EPM was assessed with C6 tonic heat pain stimuli with a Conditioned Pain Modulation (CPM) protocol. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy quantified ACC and PAG metabolite levels.

Results:

WHI-P participants were characterized with high pain intensity and interference, and lower quality of life scores, compared with WHI-noP. Inhibitory CPM at 30 seconds was identified in the healthy noninjured (−45±16%; P<0.001) and WHI-noP groups (−36±8%; P<0.001). However, inhibitory EPM was not detected in the WHI-P group (−25±15%; P=0.06). Best fit and stepwise multiple regression revealed that the PAG glutamate/myoinositol metabolite ratio (P=0.01) and total creatine levels (P=0.02) predicted loss of EPM in the WHI-P group (r
2=0.71, α=0.97). Although myoinositol predicted loss of EPM in the ACC (P=0.04), this was below statistical power (r
2=0.31; α=0.56). The ACC N-acetyl-aspartate/myoinositol ratio (P=0.006) predicted chronic pain (DN4, r
2=0.53; α=0.87).

Discussion:

The results of this study demonstrate deficient EPM at 30 seconds during tonic heat pain stimulation in WHI-P participants, compared with noninjured healthy volunteers or individuals with WHI-noP. In addition, quantification of PAG and ACC metabolites related to glutamate and glia predicted central chronic pain mechanisms related to loss of inhibitory EPM, while ACC metabolites characterized chronic pain described by descriptors and sensory changes.
What’s New in Pediatric Orthopaedic Trauma: The Upper Extremity
Authors: Hosseinzadeh Pooya , Rickert Kathleen D. , Edmonds Eric W.
Published: May 2019

Background:

Upper extremity fractures are the most common fractures in children. Many high-quality studies have been reported regarding operative and nonoperative treatment of different upper extremity fractures in children. This review will summarize the literature on 4 major upper extremity fractures in children over the past 5 years.

Methods:

PubMed and Embase databases were queried for publications in the English language on supracondylar humerus (SCH) fractures, lateral humeral condyle fractures, medial epicondyle fractures, and clavicle fractures from January 1, 2013 until November 1, 2018. Papers believed to yield significant findings to our profession were included in this review.

Results:

A total of 1150 studies were related to the search terms, and after cursory assessment, the authors elected to fully review 30 papers for this publication: 12 related to SCH fractures, 10 related to lateral condyle humerus fractures, 3 related to medial epicondyle humerus fractures, and 5 involving clavicle fractures. The level of evidence for these studies was either level III or IV.

Conclusions:

SCH fractures are increasingly being treated at trauma centers or pediatric hospitals in the United States. The rate of open reduction in this fracture type is decreasing overall, but the flexion type SCH fractures (especially in the setting of ulnar nerve injury) continue to be at increased risk of requiring open reduction. There has been a paradigm shift in the treatment of lateral condyle humerus fractures, wherein authors have demonstrated successful management with closed reduction and percutaneous pinning when an adjunct arthrogram is performed demonstrating articular congruity. More studies are needed to find the optimal treatment for displaced medial epicondyle and clavicle fractures in adolescents, as results to date do not necessarily mirror those seen in the adult population.

Level of Evidence:

Level IV.