bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
What unmanaged fishing patterns reveal about optimal management: applied to the balanced harvesting debate
Authors: Burgess Matthew G , Plank Michael J
Published: January 2020

Balanced harvesting (BH)—the idea of harvesting all species and sizes in proportion to their production rate—has been a topic of recent debate. Developed world fisheries tend to fish more selectively, concentrating on certain species and sizes preferred in the market. However, fishing patterns in some developing countries, with a range of different fishing gears and more generalist markets, more closely resemble BH. The BH debate therefore hinges on whether selective fisheries should become more balanced, whether unselective fisheries should do the opposite, both, or neither. In this study, we use simple and general analytical theory to describe the ideal free distribution that should emerge in unmanaged fisheries, and we show that this ideal free distribution should approximately produce BH only when prices, catchabilities, and fishing costs are similar across species and sizes. We then derive general properties of yield and profit maxima subject to conservation constraints. We find that BH is unlikely to be optimal in any fishery but may be closer to optimal in fisheries in which it emerges without management. Thus, BH may be more useful as a heuristic for understanding differences between fisheries in locally appropriate management than as an exact management strategy.
Penetration of the ascending aorta and bronchus by a crossbow bolt
Authors: Futamura Yasuhiro , Watanuki Hirotaka , Okada Masaho , Matsuyama Katsuhiko
Published: January 2020

We report the successful repair in a 29-year-old man who experienced penetration of the ascending aorta and bronchus by a crossbow bolt. Imaging studies revealed the arrow penetrating the sternum, right lung, ascending aorta and right bronchus, with mediastinal emphysema. The top of the arrow (8 mm in diameter) was deeply embedded in the body of the thoracic vertebra. The arrow was successfully removed while maintaining a stable respiratory condition by performing differential lung ventilation. There was no need for cardiopulmonary bypass. To our knowledge, this is the first case of a through-and-through penetrating ascending aorta injury.
Serious games for smoking prevention and cessation: A systematic review of game elements and game effects
Authors: Derksen M E , van Strijp S , Kunst A E , Daams J G , Jaspers M W M , Fransen M P
Published: January 2020

Objective

Serious health games might have the potential to prevent tobacco smoking and its health consequences, depending on the inclusion of specific game elements. This review aimed to assess the composition of serious games and their effects on smoking initiation prevention and cessation and behavioral determinants.

Materials and Methods

We systematically searched MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, and Web of Science for publications that evaluated serious games aimed at changing smoking behavior or behavioral determinants. A taxonomy by King et al was used to classify game elements.

Results

We identified 15 studies, evaluating 14 unique serious games. All games combined multiple game elements (mean 5.5; range, 3-10). Most frequently used were general and intermittent rewards, theme and genre features, and punishments. Six studies on smoking prevention together assessed 20 determinants and found statistically significant positive effects for 8 determinants (eg, attitude, knowledge, intention). Of 7 studies on smoking cessation, 5 found positive, statistically significant effects on smoking cessation or status. These studies found statistically significant positive effects for 6 of 12 determinants (eg, self-efficacy, attitude, intention). The majority of included studies had poor or fair methodological quality, lacked follow-up measures, and had fixed (as opposed to free, on-demand) play sessions.

Conclusions

Serious games included multiple types of game elements. The evidence from a number of studies suggests that games may have positive effects on smoking-related outcomes, particularly smoking cessation. However, as most studies had important methodological limitations, stronger designs are needed to demonstrate, quantify, and understand the effects of serious games.
Validated Chromatographic and Spectrofluorimetric Methods for Analysis of Silodosin: A Comparative Study with Application of RP-HPLC in the Kinetic Investigation of Silodosin Degradation
Authors: Boltia Shereen A , Abdelkawy Mohammed , Mohamed Taghreed A , Mostafa Nahla N
Published: January 2020

Background

Stability indicating determination of pharmaceuticals is crucial, especially for drugs which have few published official analytical methods. Silodosin (SLD) is an FDA approved α1A-adrenoceptor blocker.

Objective

Efficient analytical methods were suggested, based on different instrumental techniques for quantification of SLD, besides conducting kinetic investigation of its degradation.

Methods

The first method is based on Reversed Phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography with Photodiode Array Detector (RP-HPLC-PDAD). Detection is done at wavelength 225 nm. The second method is focused on using High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) and eluting the drug by solvent mixture followed by scanning at wavelength 270 nm. The third method depends on the First Derivative Synchronous Fluorescence Spectroscopy (1DSFS) for analysis of solutions of SLD and its acid and oxidative induced degradation products at Δλ = 90 nm, then determining the first derivative of the spectra and measuring peak amplitudes at 360 nm.

Results

Acceptable linearities were found in the concentration range of 0.50–90 μg/mL, 0.10–3.0 μg/band, and 0.05–0.50 µg/mL, for RP-HPLC-PDAD, HPTLC, and spectrofluorimetric methods, respectively.

Conclusion

Statistical analysis showed no significant difference between the suggested and the reported method. In monitoring the kinetics of SLD degradation, the order of reactions was determined and effects of degrading agent concentration and temperature on reaction rate were studied.

Highlights

Three analytical methods were developed for the determination of SLD based on RP-HPLC-PDAD, HPTLC, and 1DSFS in bulk and capsule dosage form. In addition, kinetic investigation of SLD degradation was performed using the developed RP-HPLC-PDAD method.
Understanding the environmental impact of global dairy production
Authors: Holden Lisa A
Published: January 2020

Some popular press articles and social media discussions continue to cite the erroneous data presented in the “Livestock’s Long Shadow” publication (FAO, 2006). While this data has subsequently been shown to be incorrect (Pitesky et al, 2009), on-going discussions about the high level of impact of livestock on global GHG emissions continue to be shared as fact nearly 15 years later. There is inherent complexity in studying the biology of livestock for meat and milk production. Efforts to make this complexity more understandable can lead to incorrect assumptions and create an unfavorable and incorrect view of dairy and livestock production for the general public. An unfavorable image of animal production creates added challenge for dairy and livestock producers. If the general public is to believe information about the environmental impact of livestock production, it is critical that that information is both accurate and easily understood. The following paper that highlights sustainable animal science and practices by Capper and Cady (2020) provides a review using modeling techniques for more recent updates (2007–2017), GHG emissions and overall impact of dairy production on environmental sustainability. Additionally, the contribution of ruminants to overall GHG emissions has also been more recently been summarized by Mitloehner (2018.)
The crustacean Armadillidium vulgare (Latreille, 1804) (Isopoda: Oniscoidea), a new promising model for the study of cellular senescence
Authors: Depeux Charlotte , Samba-Louaka Ascel , Becking Thomas , Braquart-Varnier Christine , Moreau Jérôme , Lemaître Jean-François , Laverre Tiffany , Paulhac Hélène , Dechaume-Moncharmont François-Xavier , Gaillard Jean-Michel , Beltran-Bech Sophie
Published: January 2020

Senescence, the decline of physiological parameters with increasing age, is a quasi-ubiquitous phenomenon in the living world. The observed patterns of senescence, however, can markedly differ across species and populations, between sexes, and even among individuals. To identify the drivers of this variation in senescence, experimental approaches are essential and involve the development of tools and new study models. Current knowledge of the senescence process is mostly based on studies on vertebrates and the main information about senescence in invertebrates is mostly limited to model organisms such as Caenorhabditis elegans or Drosophila melanogaster. In this context, we tested whether biomarkers of vertebrate ageing could be used to study senescence in a new invertebrate model: the common woodlouse Armadillidium vulgare (Latreille, 1804). More specifically, we looked for the effect of age in woodlouse on three well-established physiological biomarkers of ageing in vertebrates: immune cells (cell size, density, and viability), β-galactosidase activity, and the gene expression of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT), an essential subunit of telomerase protein. We found that the size of immune cells was higher in older individuals, whereas their density and viability decreased, and that the β-galactosidase activity increased with age, whereas the TERT gene expression decreased. These findings demonstrate that woodlouse displays age-related changes in biomarkers of vertebrate senescence, with different patterns depending on gender. The tools used in studies of vertebrate senescence can thus be successfully used in studies of senescence of invertebrates such as the woodlouse. The application of commonly used tools to new biological models offers a promising approach to assess the diversity of senescence patterns across the tree of life.
Supporting Accountability for Sexual Violence in the Syria and Iraq Conflicts
Authors: Barbour Stephanie
Published: January 2020

This article examines innovations in investigating sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) through private investigations of international criminal and humanitarian law violations in Syria and Iraq. Drawing on the progress, challenges and lessons learned at the international level, a few notable initiatives have endeavoured to implement high-quality criminal investigations driven by local actors. The article first sets out the context in which private initiatives have moved to fill the gaps in the international response to crimes in Syria and Iraq through a shift to supporting national investigators engaged in evidence-gathering in their own countries and amid ongoing conflict. Next, the article explores efforts to build the capacity of national investigators to conduct safe and ethical evidence-gathering concerning sexual violence, often facing down socio-cultural barriers and other obstacles to effective investigations. Thirdly, the article examines the case-building strategy pursued by initiatives such as the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), from ensuring a focus on demonstrating leadership responsibility for crimes of sexual violence by the Syrian military and security apparatus and Islamic State to feeding cases into viable avenues for prosecution. This section explores some of the innovations, good practices and lessons learned in such initiatives in response to challenges arising in sexual offence investigation. Such issues include socio-cultural barriers to effective investigation of SGBV, the risk of creating SGBV silos, and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of national investigators. Finally, the article offers a prognosis for these efforts’ successful contribution to future accountability for conflict-related sexual violence in Syria and Iraq, and concludes with wider lessons for the role of private criminal investigations of this category of criminality and beyond.
Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus (Ixodida: Ixodidae) Larvae Collected From Vegetation in the Coastal Wildlife Corridor of Southern Texas and Research Solutions for Integrated Eradication
Authors: Osbrink Weste L A , Showler Allan T , Abrigo Veronica , Pérez de León Adalberto A
Published: January 2020

The potential for reinvasion of the United States by cattle fever ticks, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) annulatus and Rhipicephalus microplus (Canestrini), which remain established in Mexico, threatens the viability of the domestic livestock industry because these ticks vector the causal agents (Babesia bovis and Babesia bigemina) of bovine babesiosis. The Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program safeguards the health of the national cattle herd preventing the reemergence of bovine babesiosis by keeping the United States free of cattle fever ticks. Here, the collection of free-living southern cattle tick, R. microplus, larvae by sweeping flannel flags over vegetation in the wildlife corridor of Cameron and Willacy Counties, TX, is reported. Finding R. microplus larvae on vegetation complements reports of infestations in wildlife hosts inhabiting the southern Texas coastal plains. Land uses and environmental conditions have changed since cattle fever ticks were eradicated from the United States by 1943. These changes complicate efforts by the Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program to keep cattle in the United States free of the cattle fever tick disease vectors. Current scientific research on technologies that could be used for area-wide management of fever tick larvae in south Texas and how this could be applied to integrated eradication efforts are discussed.
Geographical Genetic Variation and Sources of Korean Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) Populations
Authors: Lee EunJung , Yang Seong-Chan , Kim Tae-Kyu , Noh Byung-Eon , Lee Hak Seon , Kim Hyunwoo , Roh Jong Yul , Lee Wook-Gyo
Published: January 2020

Aedes albopictus (Skuse, 1894) is a mosquito vector raising global health concerns owing to its transmission of dengue, Zika, and chikungunya viruses. This vector accounts for a large proportion of the Korean mosquito community; however, autochthonous clinical cases resulting from this species remain unreported in South Korea. This study aimed to examine the geographical genetic variations and sources of Ae. albopictus populations in South Korea exclusively on the basis of COI gene analysis from 292 samples collected from 37 localities in 2016–2018 and 290 reference sequences from GenBank. Thirty-eight haplotypes were identified among the 292 Ae. albopictus samples, with H1 (n = 190, 65.1%), H29 (n = 24, 8.22%), and H32 (n = 24, 8.22%) being the most common and widely distributed haplotypes in the mainland, southern coastal region, and Jeju Island, respectively. In general, high haplotype (≥0.5; 44.7%) and low nucleotide (≤0.00148 max.) diversity were observed in these populations. Based on eight regional groups, results of neutral tests and a mismatch analysis supported demographic expansions after bottlenecks. Furthermore, analysis of molecular variance, FST, and K2P distance showed that Gyeongsangnam-do, Jeju Island, and mainland groups were genetically differentiated. Haplotype network and phylogenetic analyses revealed that the sources of the main haplotypes are related to strains from other countries. The current findings need to be validated with additional sampling from heterogeneous habitats and different genetic markers. However, our results suggest that haplotype changes should be closely monitored for efficient vector surveillance and control.
Do Children Interpret ‘or’ Conjunctively?
Authors: Skordos Dimitrios , Feiman Roman , Bale Alan , Barner David
Published: January 2020

Preschoolers often struggle to compute scalar implicatures involving disjunction (or), in which they are required to strengthen an utterance by negating stronger alternatives, e.g. to infer that, ‘The girl has an apple or an orange’ likely means she does not have both. However, recent reports surprisingly find that a substantial subset of children interpret disjunction as conjunction, concluding instead that the girl must have both fruits. According to these studies, children arrive at conjunctive readings not because they have a non-adult-like semantics, but because they lack access to the stronger scalar alternative and, and employ doubly exhaustified disjuncts when computing implicatures. Using stimuli modelled on previous studies, we test English-speaking preschoolers and replicate the finding that many children interpret or conjunctively. However, we speculate that conditions which replicate this finding may be pragmatically infelicitous, such that results do not offer a valid test of children’s semantic competence. We show that when disjunctive statements are uttered in contexts that render the speaker’s intended question more transparent, conjunctive readings disappear almost entirely.
Wives for the Wounded: Marriage Mediation for Japanese Disabled Veterans during World War II
Authors: Pennington Lee K
Published: January 2020

Japan’s armed invasion of China in July 1937 catalyzed the creation of new welfare services for the rapidly escalating number of Japanese disabled veterans. Among those reforms was the emergence of public and private marriage mediation services that aimed to introduce potential brides to disabled veterans and create independent households for men with severe war injuries. Acting through the Greater Japan Disabled Veterans Association and Patriotic Women’s Association, the Japanese state established formal procedures for arranging such marriages. Concurrently, private matchmakers created marriage mediation services expressly for disabled veterans. Public and private marriage mediation efforts sought the multifaceted rehabilitation of disabled veterans and contributed to total war mobilization on the Japanese home front. In the process, wartime marriage mediation for disabled veterans reinforced contemporary social customs and gender norms by positioning women within married households to support their husbands. However, women possessed an extraordinary degree of personal agency because their consent was needed to produce marriages intended to benefit wounded servicemen and the war effort. This essay examines the origins of marriage mediation services for Japanese disabled veterans as well as popular wartime depictions of such endeavors and their female participants.
Automatically extracted parallel corpora enriched with highly useful metadata? A Wikipedia case study combining machine learning and social technology
Authors: Aghaebrahimian Ahmad , Stauder Andy , Ustaszewski Michael
Published: January 2020

The extraction of large amounts of multilingual parallel text from web resources is a widely used technique in natural language processing. However, automatically collected parallel corpora usually lack precise metadata, which are crucial to accurate data analysis and interpretation. The combination of automated extraction procedures and manual metadata enrichment may help address this issue. Wikipedia is a promising candidate for the exploration of the potential of said combination of methods because it is a rich source of translations in a large number of language pairs and because its open and collaborative nature makes it possible to identify and contact the users who produce translations. This article tests to what extent translated texts automatically extracted from Wikipedia by means of neural networks can be enriched with pertinent metadata through a self-submission-based user survey. Special emphasis is placed on data usefulness, defined in terms of a catalogue of previously established assessment criteria, most prominently metadata quality. The results suggest that from a quantitative perspective, the proposed methodology is capable of capturing metadata otherwise not available. At the same time, the crowd-based collection of data and metadata may face important technical and social limitations.
Lagrangian coherent structures in the planar parabolic/hyperbolic restricted three-body problem
Authors: Qu Qingyu , Lin Mingpei , Xu Ming
Published: January 2020

It is clarified that the parabolic/hyperbolic restricted three-body problem (PRTBP/HRTBP) can be adopted to provide a simple description of the dynamics of fly-by asteroids or the close encounters between different galaxies. For these reasons, PRTBP and HRTBP have been investigated for long intervals of time. However, they are quite different from the circular restricted three-body problem due to the time-dependent and non-periodic dynamics. The Lagrangian coherent structures (LCSs), as a useful tool to analyse the time-dependent dynamical system, could be applied to explain some mechanics of the PRTBP and HRTBP. In this paper, we verify the invariant manifolds on the boundary manifolds of PRTBP by analysing the LCSs in proper Poincaré sections, which shows that it works in such a non-periodic problem. One of the contributions is to investigate the LCSs in the complete phase space of PRTBP, and then some natural escape and capture trajectories from or to the two main bodies can be obtained in this way. Another contribution is to establish and study the dynamics of HRTBP and its boundary. The LCSs can be introduced into this system, reasonably, to work as the analogues of the invariant manifolds, and the similar natural escape and capture trajectories corresponding to the two main bodies can also be obtained in the complete phase space of HRTBP. As a typical technique applied to fluid, flows to identify transport barriers in the time-dependent system, the LCSs provide an effective way to determine the time-dependent analogues of invariant manifolds for the PRTBP/HRTBP.
Towards uterus tissue engineering: a comparative study of sheep uterus decellularisation
Authors: Tiemann T T , Padma A M , Sehic E , Bäckdahl H , Oltean M , Song M J , Brännström M , Hellström M
Published: January 2020

Uterus tissue engineering may dismantle limitations in current uterus transplantation protocols. A uterine biomaterial populated with patient-derived cells could potentially serve as a graft to circumvent complicated surgery of live donors, immunosuppressive medication and rejection episodes. Repeated uterine bioengineering studies on rodents have shown promising results using decellularised scaffolds to restore fertility in a partially impaired uterus and now mandate experiments on larger and more human-like animal models. The aim of the presented studies was therefore to establish adequate protocols for scaffold generation and prepare for future in vivo sheep uterus bioengineering experiments. Three decellularisation protocols were developed using vascular perfusion through the uterine artery of whole sheep uteri obtained from slaughterhouse material. Decellularisation solutions used were based on 0.5% sodium dodecyl sulphate (Protocol 1) or 2% sodium deoxycholate (Protocol 2) or with a sequential perfusion of 2% sodium deoxycholate and 1% Triton X-100 (Protocol 3). The scaffolds were examined by histology, extracellular matrix quantification, evaluation of mechanical properties and the ability to support foetal sheep stem cells after recellularisation. We showed that a sheep uterus can successfully be decellularised while maintaining a high integrity of the extracellular components. Uteri perfused with sodium deoxycholate (Protocol 2) were the most favourable treatment in our study based on quantifications. However, all scaffolds supported stem cells for 2 weeks in vitro and showed no cytotoxicity signs. Cells continued to express markers for proliferation and maintained their undifferentiated phenotype. Hence, this study reports three valuable decellularisation protocols for future in vivo sheep uterus bioengineering experiments.
Optimizing eligibility criteria and clinical trial conduct to enhance clinical trial participation for primary brain tumor patients
Authors: Lee Eudocia Q , Weller Michael , Sul Joohee , Bagley Stephen J , Sahebjam Solmaz , van den Bent Martin , Ahluwalia Manmeet , Campian Jian L , Galanis Evanthia , Gilbert Mark R , Holdhoff Matthias , Lesser Glenn J , Lieberman Frank S , Mehta Minesh P , Penas-Prado Marta , Schreck Karisa C , Strowd Roy E , Vogelbaum Michael A , Walbert Tobias , Chang Susan M , Nabors L Burt , Grossman Stuart , Reardon David A , Wen Patrick Y
Published: January 2020

Building on an initiative to enhance clinical trial participation involving the Society for Neuro-Oncology, the Response Assessment in Neuro-Oncology Working Group, patient advocacy groups, clinical trial cooperative groups, and other partners, we evaluate the impact of eligibility criteria and trial conduct on neuro-oncology clinical trial participation. Clinical trials often carry forward eligibility criteria from prior studies that may be overly restrictive and unnecessary and needlessly limit patient accrual. Inclusion and exclusion criteria should be evaluated based on the goals and design of the study and whether they impact patient safety and/or treatment efficacy. In addition, we evaluate clinical trial conduct as a barrier to accrual and discuss strategies to minimize such barriers for neuro-oncology trials.
Compliance in Controlled E-cigarette Studies
Authors: Rebuli Meghan E , Liu Feifei , Urman Robert , Barrington-Trimis Jessica L , Eckel Sandrah P , McConnell Rob , Jaspers Ilona
Published: January 2020

Introduction

E-cigarette studies have found that the use of a variety of flavors and customizable devices results in greater use frequency and user satisfaction. However, standardized research e-cigarettes are being developed as closed systems with limited flavor options, potentially limiting user satisfaction. In this study, we explore protocol compliance in an e-cigarette study using a standardized, assigned device with puff time and duration tracking (controlled e-cigarette) and potential limitations that controlled devices and e-liquids can introduce.

Methods

In a crossover study, 49 young adult e-cigarette users were recruited using convenience sampling and assigned a controlled e-cigarette device and flavored or unflavored e-liquids on standardized protocols. E-cigarette use frequency (number of puffs per day, collected from the device) and serum cotinine levels were obtained at each of three study visits over 3 weeks. The correlation of cotinine and e-cigarette use over the preceding week was calculated at each study visit.

Results

Correlation of nicotine intake, as measured by serum cotinine, and puff time, as measured by puffs count and duration from the e-cigarette device, as an indicator of study protocol compliance, substantially declined after the first week of the study and were no longer correlated in the remaining study weeks (R2 = 0.53 and p ≤ .01 in week 1, R2 < 0.5 and p > .05 for remaining weeks).

Conclusions

There is an emerging need for controlled e-cigarette exposures studies, but low compliance in the use of assigned devices and e-liquids may be a limitation that needs to be mitigated in future studies.

Implications

This study is the first to analyze compliance with instructions to use a standardized e-cigarette device with puff time and duration tracking (controlled e-cigarette) across all subjects and an assigned e-liquid flavor over a 3-week period. We find that protocol compliance, as measured by correlations between e-cigarette use measures and cotinine levels, was only achieved in the first week of the study and declined thereafter. These findings indicate that the assignment of a study device and instruction to only use the study device with assigned e-liquid flavor may not be sufficient to ensure participant compliance with the study protocol. We suggest that additional measures, including behavioral and biological markers, are needed to ensure sole use of the study e-cigarette and e-liquid and to be able to interpret results from controlled e-cigarette studies.
Public Characters
Authors: Jasper James M. , Young Michael P. , Zuern Elke
Published: January 2020

Admirable heroes, threatening villains, innocent victims, and ridiculous minions have long been central to politics and related strategic arenas. These public characters populate the dramas through which people understand those around them, and they are important because of the emotions felt toward them. Public Characters shows the work that goes into these reputations, through words, images, and sounds. Whether it is Garibaldi’s role in Italian nation-building or Donald Trump’s vicious epithets for opponents, this book takes an interdisciplinary look at this important aspect of culture and politics. The stories people tell move audiences only because of the characters in them.
The Art of the Word
Authors: Jasper James M. , Young Michael P. , Zuern Elke
Published: January 2020

Words are the main tool with which we construct characters, especially in literary narratives. Opening with Shakespeare’s King John, this chapter looks at narrative theory, epidictic rhetoric, public relations, and theater to show how characters are constructed in literary and other genres. Traditional characters are often considered “flat,” but even those stereotyped portrayals have many uses. They have faded somewhat in literature but are still crucial to political reputations. They embody what we fear and hate, admire and love, respect or pity.
The Psychology of Creating Persons
Authors: Jasper James M. , Young Michael P. , Zuern Elke
Published: January 2020

Starting from the hero Jon Snow, in Game of Thrones, this chapter turns to several traditions of psychology to show the cognitive processes by which people put together small pieces of information in order to see others as “persons.” Public characters are a prominent special case of this process. According to affect control theory, strength, morality, and activity represent three basic dimensions along which people judge others—and build them into characters in public arenas. People make snap judgments about others’ morality and strength, and move away from these judgments reluctantly and slowly in the face of contrary evidence. People tend to see more consistency and coherence in others than the evidence warrants.
Arenas of Character Work
Authors: Jasper James M. , Young Michael P. , Zuern Elke
Published: January 2020

This chapter examines how institutional environments elicit and shape character work. Their reputed characters help or hinder players in a range of strategic arenas. This chapter explores the founding of nations, mobilization for war, corporate public relations, protest movements, elections, and legal proceedings for the nuances of character work in each of them. The media and politics often intersect, especially to stoke outrage through the identification of villains. Rumors, scandals, and gossip affect characters in subtle and sometimes sudden ways. The character work in these public arenas shows how much is at stake in the politics of reputation and blame.
We Fear Villains
Authors: Jasper James M. , Young Michael P. , Zuern Elke
Published: January 2020

This chapter presents villains as part of a typology of primary characters including heroes, villains, victims, and minions. Within this framework, villains are bad and powerful. They can be cruel, arrogant, greedy, hypocritical, sacrilegious. They are also secretive. This heightens people’s sense of urgency in stopping them, generates collective identities forged against the evil outsiders, and places god-fearing citizens in the role of protective heroes prepared for sacrifice. People construct villains for the powerful emotions they inspire in audiences who fear and hate them. They focus blame, transforming anxiety and frustration into indignation and purpose. Demonizing opponents is one of the oldest political strategies, and still plays a role in politics today. Character workers exaggerate their opponents’ strength, malevolence, and activity levels. They may be either superhuman or subhuman, but urgent action is required to thwart them. They are always busy, looking for weaknesses.
We Pity Victims
Authors: Jasper James M. , Young Michael P. , Zuern Elke
Published: January 2020

This chapter presents victims as part of a typology of primary characters including heroes, villains, victims and minions. The same attributes that make heroes appear strong also make victims—who lack them—appear weak: a soft or feeble physique, small size, a lack of experience, intelligence, wisdom, wealth, offices, or special skills. Victims cannot protect themselves or maneuver in the political realm or other strategic arenas. They must be good, and are therefore also innocent. Victims can arouse pity, horror, and indignation in audiences. But those very emotions can make them seem something less than human. Victimhood creates a gap between viewer and viewed, objectifying the victim and freezing her outside the possibility of will or reasoned action. They lack agency. Victimhood is thus a risky self-presentation, as with victims of rape or abuse who are sometimes criticized for not having done enough to save themselves.
Conclusion
Authors: Jasper James M. , Young Michael P. , Zuern Elke
Published: January 2020

The conclusion looks at how public characters offer lesson to understand culture more generally. It includes a critique from Robert Zussman and a response to that critique. Zussman challenges the claim that social and political life inevitably involves character work. And when it does, he strongly doubts it is a good thing. The simplifications of characters do not contribute to rich and reasoned political debates, they short-circuit them. He finds the tone of Public Characters too positive about the role characters can play in public life. The conclusion responds by defending the claim of inevitability. It is hard to imagine political arguments without characters. Characters streamline meaning, but they are not always so simple after all. They evoke emotions that can inspire action and draw new voices into public debate. Like all tools, characters can be used to harm others, but understanding how characterization works can only help everyone.
The Death of the Welfare State and the Rise of Free-Market Family Policy
Authors: Eichner Maxine
Published: January 2020

This chapter shows how, in the last decades of the twentieth century, the United States abandoned its view that insulating families from harm by market forces was a basic function of government. This shift began in the early 1970s. At that time, it had looked like the government would move further toward protecting families by enacting two proposed pieces of legislation: a guaranteed income plan for families with children and universal daycare. Both plans ultimately failed, however. Their failure was partly a product of happenstance, but two other forces were also at work. The first of these was the growing—but false—belief that government support for families weakened them, whereas markets made them strong. The second was the rising racist—and equally false—belief that the majority of government benefits were going to undeserving African Americans. These forces coalesced in the passage of welfare reform in 1996 and gave rise to the free-market family policy we have today.
Apprenticed to the Word
Authors: Lischer Richard
Published: January 2020

This chapter describes the individuals who influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. as a preacher. It was from Benjamin E. Mays, president of Morehouse College, that King first heard the challenge “Clearly, then, it isn’t how long one lives that is important, but how well he lives, what he contributes to mankind and how noble the goals toward which he strives. Longevity is good . . . but longevity is not all-important.” King paraphrased this sentiment many times in his career, perhaps most poignantly in his speech in Memphis the night before his death. King also discovered three mediating influences who, like Mays, appreciated a good theological argument and, like King Sr., sat astride enormous urban congregations. These influences were William Holmes Borders, Sandy Ray, and Gardner C. Taylor.
Dexter Avenue and “The Daybreak of Freedom”
Authors: Lischer Richard
Published: January 2020

This chapter details the events that followed Martin Luther King, Jr.’s arrival in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954 when he assumed the pastorate of the most distinguished Negro church in the city, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Dexter was built during Reconstruction on the site of one of the city’s four slave pens. As a black church, it therefore occupies an incongruously central location in the old city of Montgomery. King approached Dexter Avenue Baptist Church as the first test of all that he had learned from the church and his mentors. Even before the Boycott of 1955–56, Dexter had proved to be every bit the challenge he was looking for.
What He Received
Authors: Lischer Richard
Published: January 2020

This chapter considers the preaching and sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr. Like all preachers, King relied on what had been given him. For the construction of his sermons, what he received was a body of titles, outlines, and formulas from other preachers. The outlines followed the conventional sermon schemes he had learned in the black church and from his seminary teachers. The formulas were what classical orators would have called proofs of the speaker’s arguments. The proofs illustrate or substantiate the often unexceptional arguments with a sensual beauty that overshadows the logic of the ideas themselves. Together, the outlines and the proofs constitute what the classical tradition called the topoi, or “places,” where a culture or religious tradition “stores” its nuggets of wisdom and its basic methods of telling the truth.
The Strategies of Style
Authors: Lischer Richard
Published: January 2020

This chapter focuses on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speaking style. King’s style did not mirror a mysterious and inaccessible “inner man,” nor what King would have called his “personality.” Instead, it reflected a strategy for the public presentation of a message, which in turn was related to a larger strategy of social change. He did not preach and speak the way he did because “that is the sort of person he was,” but because he had a mission no less calculated or comprehensive than Demosthenes’s appeal to Athens or Lincoln’s to America. His mission was, as he put it simply in a 1963 sermon, “to make America a better nation.” Paradoxically, he pursued his high and serious purpose with a style whose first principle was the achievement of pleasure.
The Masks of Character
Authors: Lischer Richard
Published: January 2020

This chapter discusses the personae, or “masks,” implicit in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s strategies of style by which he communicated his purposes for America. These roles he accepted and played with absolute fidelity. For example, when speaking prophetically, no unseemly aside, unmeant gesture, or hint of backstage behavior ever detracted from his role or diminished the high ground he had chosen for himself. Like a Greek actor, he moved across the stage speaking his lines with a passion appropriate to his mask. He never broke character. What sociologist Erving Goffman calls the “front,” which is a performer’s setting, appearance, and manner, remained in King utterly consistent.
In the Mirror of the Bible
Authors: Lischer Richard
Published: January 2020

This chapter discusses how Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of the Movement was a calculated act of interpretation that mirrored the Bible’s imagery, stories, and characters: the morning star of freedom illumined the darkness of an ordinary Southern city. Baptist and Methodist Rotarians were assigned and grudgingly assumed the role of “the pharaohs of the South.” A festive parade of thousands along a state highway symbolized the Exodus from Egypt. Blood-spattered Negroes enacted the mystery of unmerited suffering. All of it was presided over by the black Moses who was willing to die for his people.
Reckoning
Authors: Callison Candis , Young Mary Lynn
Published: January 2020

The book is about how journalists know what they know, who gets to decide what good journalism is, and how we know when it’s done right. Until a couple decades ago, these questions were rarely asked by journalists. When journalists were questioned by malcontented publics and critics about how they were doing journalism, these questions were easily ignored. Now, if you’re on social media, you’re likely to see multiple critiques of journalism on a daily basis. It seems not only convenient but pragmatic to give most of the credit to digital technologies and/or market failure for how relationships between journalists and diverse audiences have changed. This book rests on a different assumption, however. We contend that technologies offer a diagnostic to understand much deeper, persistent, and structural problems confronting journalism. Counter to much of the recent journalism scholarship, we argue that you can’t talk about the role journalists and journalism organizations could, should, and have played in society without talking about gender, race, other intersectional concerns—and settler-colonialism. Drawing on mixed methods and ethnography as well as interdisciplinary scholarship, this book examines the reckoning under way between journalists, their methods and their audiences in sites as diverse as social media, legacy newsrooms, journalism startups, novel forms of journalism memoir, and among indigenous journalists. The book explores journalism’s long-standing harms alongside repair, reform, and transformation. It suggests that a turn to strong objectivity and systems journalism provides a path forward.
Opening up Journalism’s Crisis
Authors: and Callison
Published: January 2020

Despite a wide range of concerns, the multiple overlapping crises in North American journalism have been largely circumscribed as stemming from either economic decline and/or technological disruption and change. This narrow lens has limited the possibility for discussion of wider and often prior challenges to the current state of journalism and their solutions. This introduction brings together wider conversations about journalism and complicates the notion of crisis, situating concerns about technology and economics alongside chronic issues related to power, structure, and epistemology in order to analyze gaps and exclusions. Understanding what journalism can and should do—its limits and possibilities—is essential to imagining new contours for how journalism might respond to the digital reckonings taking place at a time when good journalism is determined via an iterative process that is both internal to journalism (professional norms and practices) and external to journalism (taking into account audience experiences).
Final Remarks
Authors: Daneshgar Majid
Published: January 2020

The final chapter of the book is divided into two sections: conclusions, and “Islamic Apologetics” everywhere. It informs readers about the future of Islamic studies in the West and the way it gets gradually changed to Islamic Apologetics. In so doing, some of the true stories that have happened in both Muslim and Western academic contexts are discussed. The final remarks aim to show that, in fact, the stronger the connection with politics and traditionalism, the more diminished is the academic approach toward religion and the greater the conservative presentation of religious studies, in both Western and Muslim academic contexts.
Hope for Democracy
Authors: Gastil John , Knobloch Katherine
Published: January 2020

Concerned citizens across the globe fear that democracy is failing them, but civic reformers are crafting new tools that bring back into politics the wider public and its capacity for reason. This book spotlights one such innovation—the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR). Each review gathers a random sample of twenty voters to study a statewide ballot measure. These citizen panelists interrogate advocates, opponents, and experts and distill what they learn into a one-page analysis for the official Voters’ Pamphlet. The Oregon government permanently established the CIR in 2011, and reformers have tested it in locations across the United States and Europe. This book introduces the citizen activists responsible for the development of the CIR, as well as key participants at the inaugural CIR whose experiences changed their lives. Along with these stories, this book provides evidence of the CIR’s impact on voters, who not only make better decisions as a result of reading the citizen analysis but also change the way they understand their role in government. The CIR fits into a larger set of deliberative reforms occurring around the world and into a long history of democratic experiments that stretch back through the American revolution to ancient Athens. The book weaves together historical vignettes, contemporary research, and personal narratives to show how citizens, civic reformers, and politicians can work together to revitalize modern democracy.
Professional Standards in the Aftermath of Torture
Authors: Soldz Stephen , Reisner Steven
Published: January 2020

In addition to direct effects on detainees, interrogators, intelligence agencies, and law, the U.S. torture program had additional corrupting influences on other aspects of society. This chapter explores the effects that the torture program had on civil society by exploring its effects on the profession of psychology and on the largest U.S. psychological professional organization, the American Psychological Association (APA). We briefly summarize public knowledge regarding the involvement of psychologists in the CIA and DoD "enhanced interrogation" torture programs. We then describe the public response of the APA as news of this knowledge emerged. However, the public response did not match the APA’s behind-the-scenes actions, as was revealed by a 2015 Independent Review of APA leaders' potential complicity with the torture program conducted by Chicago attorney David Hoffman. The resultant Hoffman Report found a pattern of backchannel collaboration ("collusion") to ensure that APA ethics guidelines on psychologists' interrogation support did not constrain psychologists beyond permissive DoD rules. We then put psychology's interrogation controversy in the context of broader issues regarding the ethics of “operational psychology,” that is, the use of psychological knowledge and expertise by psychologists to further military and intelligence operations. We argue that certain operational psychology applications conflict with the ethics of the profession, and question whether practitioners of such applications properly belong to the profession of psychology. We conclude with a call for a Truth Commission to document the involvement of psychologists in post-9/11 detention and interrogation processes, and to focus on lessons learned regarding professional relations with the security sector, so that future generations of psychologists are less likely to repeat post-9/11 mistakes.