bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Virological outcomes of various first-line ART regimens in patients harbouring HIV-1 E157Q integrase polymorphism: a multicentre retrospective study
Authors: Uno Shunsuke , Gatanaga Hiroyuki , Hayashida Tsunefusa , Imahashi Mayumi , Minami Rumi , Koga Michiko , Samukawa Sei , Watanabe Dai , Fujii Teruhisa , Tateyama Masao , Nakamura Hideta , Matsushita Shuzo , Yoshino Yusuke , Endo Tomoyuki , Horiba Masahide , Taniguchi Toshibumi , Moro Hiroshi , Igari Hidetoshi , Yoshida Shigeru , Teshima Takanori , Nakajima Hideaki , Nishizawa Masako , Yokomaku Yoshiyuki , Iwatani Yasumasa , Hachiya Atsuko , Kato Shingo , Hasegawa Naoki , Yoshimura Kazuhisa , Sugiura Wataru , Kikuchi Tadashi
Published: October 2023

Background

Integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTIs) are recommended as first-line ART for people living with HIV (PLWH) in most guidelines. The INSTI-resistance-associated mutation E157Q, a highly prevalent (2%–5%) polymorphism of the HIV-1 (human immunodeficiency virus type 1) integrase gene, has limited data on optimal first-line ART regimens. We assessed the virological outcomes of various first-line ART regimens in PLWH with E157Q in real-world settings.

Methods

A multicentre retrospective observational study was conducted on PLWH who underwent integrase genotypic drug-resistance testing before ART initiation between 2008 and 2019 and were found to have E157Q. Viral suppression (<50 copies/mL) rate at 24 and 48 weeks, time to viral suppression and time to viral rebound (≥100 copies/mL) were compared among the first-line ART regimens.

Results

E157Q was detected in 167 (4.1%) of 4043 ART-naïve PLWH. Among them, 144 had available clinical data after ART initiation with a median follow-up of 1888 days. Forty-five started protease inhibitors + 2 NRTIs (PI group), 33 started first-generation INSTI (raltegravir or elvitegravir/cobicistat) + 2 NRTIs (INSTI-1 group), 58 started once-daily second-generation INSTI (dolutegravir or bictegravir) + 2 NRTIs (INSTI-2 group) and eight started other regimens. In the multivariate analysis, the INSTI-2 group showed similar or favourable outcomes compared with the PI group for viral suppression rates, time to viral suppression and time to viral rebound. Two cases in the INSTI-1 group experienced virological failure.

Conclusions

The general guideline recommendation of second-generation INSTI-based first-line ART for most PLWH is also applicable to PLWH harbouring E157Q.
Early attainment of isavuconazole target concentration using an increased loading dose in critically ill patients with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation
Authors: Hatzl Stefan , Kriegl Lisa , Posch Florian , Schilcher Gernot , Eller Philipp , Reisinger Alexander , Grinschgl Yvonne , Muhr Tina , Meinitzer Andreas , Hoenigl Martin , Krause Robert
Published: October 2023

Background

In critically ill patients with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) attainment of target concentration of isavuconazole is delayed using the routine loading dose.

Objectives

We investigated the influence of increasing the first loading dose of isavuconazole on plasma concentrations in critically ill patients treated with ECMO.

Methods

Fifteen patients were included in this study, and isavuconazole concentrations were measured at several timepoints starting 2 h after the first isavuconazole dose up to 168 h. By interim analysis of isavuconazole concentrations and meticulous screening for adverse events, the first loading dose was stepwise increased from 200 to 300 mg, and finally to 400 mg.

Results

Seven of 15 patients (47%) received standard isavuconazole loading dosage with 200 mg as the first dose, 3/15 (20%) received 300 mg, and 5/15 (33%) received 400 mg isavuconazole as the first dose, followed by subsequent standard dosing in all patients. In patients receiving 400 mg as the first dose all isavuconazole concentrations were significantly higher at timepoints up to the first 24 h, resulting in higher proportions of isavuconazole concentrations ≥1 mg/L compared with patients with other loading dosages. In timepoints ≥24 h after isavuconazole initiation all patient groups reached comparable plasma concentrations, regardless of the first loading dose regimen. We did not observe concentrations above ≥5 mg/L or any adverse events related to isavuconazole administration.

Conclusions

In critically ill patients with ECMO the 400 mg loading dose of isavuconazole resulted in immediate median isavuconazole plasma concentrations ≥1 mg/L and remained constant above this threshold after the first loading dose.
Bilateral pulmonary infiltrates in a traveller from Saudi Arabia with probable electronic cigarette or vaping associated lung injury (EVALI)
Authors: Norman Francesca F , Diaz Jorge , Martin-Davila Pilar , Tato Marta , García-San Miguel Lucía , Gil Elisa , Casas Inmaculada , Gonzalez-Sanz Marta
Published: October 2023

A Saudi traveller presented with fever and pulmonary infiltrates. Principal causes of infectious pneumonia were ruled out (including MERS-coronavirus) and a diagnosis of probable drug-induced pneumonitis due to vaping/electronic cigarettes was established. Professionals should be aware of international epidemiological alerts but also consider non-infectious causes of pneumonia in travellers.
A Versatile and Reproducible Cryo-sample Preparation Methodology for Atom Probe Studies
Authors: Woods Eric V , Singh Mahander P , Kim Se-Ho , Schwarz Tim M , Douglas James O , El-Zoka Ayman A , Giulani Finn , Gault Baptiste
Published: October 2023

Repeatable and reliable site-specific preparation of specimens for atom probe tomography (APT) at cryogenic temperatures has proven challenging. A generalized workflow is required for cryogenic specimen preparation including lift-out via focused ion beam and in situ deposition of capping layers, to strengthen specimens that will be exposed to high electric field and stresses during field evaporation in APT and protect them from environment during transfer into the atom probe. Here, we build on existing protocols and showcase preparation and analysis of a variety of metals, oxides, and supported frozen liquids and battery materials. We demonstrate reliable in situ deposition of a metallic capping layer that significantly improves the atom probe data quality for challenging material systems, particularly battery cathode materials which are subjected to delithiation during the atom probe analysis itself. Our workflow design is versatile and transferable widely to other instruments.
Reconsidering Vestibular/Ocular Motor Screening Cutoff Scores for Concussion
Authors: Weightman Margaret M , King Laurie A , Fino Peter C , Dibble Leland E , Pelo Ryan , Michielutti Patrick G , Richard Holly , Parrington Lucy , Lester Mark E , Hoppes Carrie W
Published: October 2023

Introduction

Vestibular/Ocular Motor Screening (VOMS) is often part of a comprehensive evaluation to identify acute mild traumatic brain injury. Most of the reports describe the use of the VOMS in adolescents/young adults and not in older adults or military service members. The purpose of this study was to describe VOMS findings in healthy civilians and active duty military service members up to the age of 50 years.

Materials and Methods

Seventy-seven healthy civilians between 18 and 50 years of age (22 males, age 31.8 [9.0] years) participated across three sites in addition to 40 healthy active duty service members (25 males, age 27.5 [4.9] years) from one site. Demographics, Neurobehavioral Symptom Inventory scores, mean near point convergence (NPC) distance, and Total Symptom Change (TSS) scores from the VOMS were evaluated.

Results

For civilians, the group mean NPC distance was 4.98 (3.8) cm. For military service members, the group mean NPC distance was 6.17 (4.57) cm. For civilians, the mean TSS was 1.2 (2.3) with 53.2% reporting 0 TSS, 27.3% reporting one TSS, and 19.5% reporting two or more TSS. For military service members, the mean TSS was 0.20 (0.72) with 92.5% reporting 0 TSS, 0% reporting one TSS, and 7.5% reporting two or more TSS. Age did not correlate with the mean NPC distance and TSS in healthy civilians and active duty military service members.

Conclusions

Reconsideration of the Military Acute Concussion Evaluation, Version 2 cutoff value for abnormal mean NPC distance may be warranted to improve diagnostic accuracy in both civilian and military adult populations. Similarly, re-evaluating criteria for interpreting the TSS results of the VOMS, specifically in civilians, may be warranted.
Spectroscopic searches for evolutionary orbital period changes in WR+OB binaries: the case of V444 Cyg
Authors: Shaposhnikov I , Cherepashchuk A , Dodin A , Postnov K
Published: October 2023

We present the results of new photometric and spectroscopic observations of the WN5+O6 binary V444 Cyg and a detailed analysis of extant spectroscopy and photometry. Using elements of the spectroscopic orbit and assuming e ≈ 0, i ≈ 78° we determined the masses and orbit sizes of the components of V444 Cyg as MO6 ≈ 26.4 M⊙, MWN5 ≈ 10.7 M⊙, aO6 ≈ 10.6 R⊙, aWN5 ≈ 26.1 R⊙. Based on new and archival light curves and using the Hertzsprung method, we improved the photometric estimate of the secular increase rate of the orbital period in V444 Cyg, obtaining $\dot{P}_{\mathrm{ph}} = 0.119\pm 0.003$ s yr−1. From a comparison of the new and archival radial velocity curves of V444 Cyg, we independently derived the secular orbital period change rate as $\dot{P}_{\mathrm{sp}} = 0.147\pm 0.032$ s yr−1, in agreement with the photometric $\dot{P}_{\mathrm{ph}}$. The obtained secular increase rate of the binary orbital period $\dot{P}$ and the mean radii of the components enabled us to estimate the stellar wind mass-loss rate from the WR star as $\dot{M}_{\mathrm{WN5}} = -(6.0\pm 0.4)\times 10^{-6}~{\rm M}_{\odot }\mbox{ yr}^{-1}$.
CaeNDR, the Caenorhabditis Natural Diversity Resource
Authors: Crombie Timothy A , McKeown Ryan , Moya Nicolas D , Evans Kathryn S , Widmayer Samuel J , LaGrassa Vincent , Roman Natalie , Tursunova Orzu , Zhang Gaotian , Gibson Sophia B , Buchanan Claire M , Roberto Nicole M , Vieira Rodolfo , Tanny Robyn E , Andersen Erik C
Published: October 2023

Studies of model organisms have provided important insights into how natural genetic differences shape trait variation. These discoveries are driven by the growing availability of genomes and the expansive experimental toolkits afforded to researchers using these species. For example, Caenorhabditis elegans is increasingly being used to identify and measure the effects of natural genetic variants on traits using quantitative genetics. Since 2016, the C. elegans Natural Diversity Resource (CeNDR) has facilitated many of these studies by providing an archive of wild strains, genome-wide sequence and variant data for each strain, and a genome-wide association (GWA) mapping portal for the C. elegans community. Here, we present an updated platform, the Caenorhabditis Natural Diversity Resource (CaeNDR), that enables quantitative genetics and genomics studies across the three Caenorhabditis species: C. elegans, C. briggsae and C. tropicalis. The CaeNDR platform hosts several databases that are continually updated by the addition of new strains, whole-genome sequence data and annotated variants. Additionally, CaeNDR provides new interactive tools to explore natural variation and enable GWA mappings. All CaeNDR data and tools are accessible through a freely available web portal located at caendr.org.
Green and blue infrastructure (GBI) and urban nature-based solutions (NbS) contribution to human and ecological well-being and health
Authors: Pinto Luis Valenca , Inácio Miguel , Pereira Paulo
Published: October 2023

The article explores the contributions of urban green and blue infrastructure (UGBI) and nature-based solutions (NbS) to enhance human and ecological well-being and health in urban areas. It delves into the concepts of UGBI and NbS, highlighting their importance in creating sustainable and liveable cities. We consider UGBI natural elements in the urban environment, grouped into different typologies. NbS are considered solutions, or actions, to promote environmental and human health based on the use of UGBI. The assessment was done under the umbrella of human and ecosystem health, linking well-being dimensions from the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services—freedom of choice, social relations, mental health, physical health, food security and physical security—with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, showing a link with 12 of the 15 goals. The article presents non-exhaustive lists of UGBI types and NbS actions linked to well-being dimensions. We assess ecosystem services provided by GBI and NbS and the implications of incorporating these solutions in urban environments for human and ecosystem health and the future of healthy and liveable cities.
Doing Qualitative Analysis and Interpretation
Authors: Faulkner Sandra L. , Atkinson Joshua D.
Published: October 2023

This chapter covers the basics of doing qualitative analysis and interpretation from creating transcripts to code books and the coding process. The authors provide step-by-step guidelines for coding and thematic analysis that should have readers ready to code their own work and justify the coding decisions they make. The authors discuss how to do different types of interview transcription and the special considerations a researcher needs to work through. This chapter discusses the differences between a code, category, and theme, something that can be confusing for beginning qualitative researchers, and by the end of the chapter, the authors want readers to learn to trust in the process of data analysis.
Introduction
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This is the introduction of The Paradoxes of Time Travel. In The Paradoxes of Time Travel Lewis argues that time travel as it is imagined in certain science fiction narratives is a genuine possibility. In his own words, Lewis aimed, ‘(1) to solve a philosophical problem hitherto largely ignored or casually mis-solved by philosophers […]; (2) to introduce the layman to various topics in metaphysics, since our problem turns out to connect with many more familiar ones; and (3) to show several of my favorite doctrines and methods in metaphysics’. In the course of his 6 lectures, Lewis lays out his Quinean four-dimensionalist metaphysics and explains how our ordinary concept of person allows for causal loops. This requires a notion of ‘reverse causation’ which Lewis explains by analysing causation in counterfactual terms. Finally, Lewis elaborates on the sense in which we can and cannot be intelligibly said to be free to change the past.
Mapping Exercise
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This is the second chapter of The Paradoxes of Time Travel. In The Paradoxes of Time Travel Lewis argues that time travel as it is imagined in certain science fiction narratives is a genuine possibility. In his own words, Lewis aimed, ‘(1) to solve a philosophical problem hitherto largely ignored or casually mis-solved by philosophers […]; (2) to introduce the layman to various topics in metaphysics, since our problem turns out to connect with many more familiar ones; and (3) to show several of my favorite doctrines and methods in metaphysics’. In the course of his 6 lectures, Lewis lays out his Quinean four-dimensionalist metaphysics and explains how our ordinary concept of person allows for causal loops. This requires a notion of ‘reverse causation’ which Lewis explains by analysing causation in counterfactual terms. Finally, Lewis elaborates on the sense in which we can and cannot be intelligibly said to be free to change the past.
Personal Identity and Personal Time
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This is the third chapter of The Paradoxes of Time Travel. In The Paradoxes of Time Travel Lewis argues that time travel as it is imagined in certain science fiction narratives is a genuine possibility. In his own words, Lewis aimed, ‘(1) to solve a philosophical problem hitherto largely ignored or casually mis-solved by philosophers […]; (2) to introduce the layman to various topics in metaphysics, since our problem turns out to connect with many more familiar ones; and (3) to show several of my favorite doctrines and methods in metaphysics’. In the course of his 6 lectures, Lewis lays out his Quinean four-dimensionalist metaphysics and explains how our ordinary concept of person allows for causal loops. This requires a notion of ‘reverse causation’ which Lewis explains by analysing causation in counterfactual terms. Finally, Lewis elaborates on the sense in which we can and cannot be intelligibly said to be free to change the past.
Reversed Causation
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This is the fourth chapter of The Paradoxes of Time Travel. In The Paradoxes of Time Travel Lewis argues that time travel as it is imagined in certain science fiction narratives is a genuine possibility. In his own words, Lewis aimed, ‘(1) to solve a philosophical problem hitherto largely ignored or casually mis-solved by philosophers […]; (2) to introduce the layman to various topics in metaphysics, since our problem turns out to connect with many more familiar ones; and (3) to show several of my favorite doctrines and methods in metaphysics’. In the course of his 6 lectures, Lewis lays out his Quinean four-dimensionalist metaphysics and explains how our ordinary concept of person allows for causal loops. This requires a notion of ‘reverse causation’ which Lewis explains by analysing causation in counterfactual terms. Finally, Lewis elaborates on the sense in which we can and cannot be intelligibly said to be free to change the past.
Rational Beliefs: Kinematics
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This is the third chapter of Confirmation Theory. Confirmation Theory is a book manuscript that Lewis wrote in 1969 on the basis of a course he’d given at UCLA. He submitted the manuscript to Harvard University Press who expressed an interest. It consists of seven chapters covering intensional semantics, probability measures, rational belief, principles of indifference and Carnap and Hintikka’s inductive systems. The work was intended to be accessible to students with, as Lewis put it, ‘hairy high-school algebra’. He described the manuscript to Richard Jeffrey as ‘Mathematically self-contained, with proofs for the major theorems’. Lewis originally envisaged that Carnap’s The Continuum of Inductive Methods (1952) be used as an accompanying text. Lewis focused on Carnap and Hintikka in particular because he believed that their work constituted the attractive core of what competing theories of confirmation had in common.
Principles of Indifference
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

This is the fifth chapter of Confirmation Theory. Confirmation Theory is a book manuscript that Lewis wrote in 1969 on the basis of a course he’d given at UCLA. He submitted the manuscript to Harvard University Press who expressed an interest. It consists of seven chapters covering intensional semantics, probability measures, rational belief, principles of indifference and Carnap and Hintikka’s inductive systems. The work was intended to be accessible to students with, as Lewis put it, ‘hairy high-school algebra’. He described the manuscript to Richard Jeffrey as ‘Mathematically self-contained, with proofs for the major theorems’. Lewis originally envisaged that Carnap’s The Continuum of Inductive Methods (1952) be used as an accompanying text. Lewis focused on Carnap and Hintikka in particular because he believed that their work constituted the attractive core of what competing theories of confirmation had in common.
Reply to R.M. Adams, “Actualism and Thisness” (1979)
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

In this short paper, dating from 1979, Lewis considers Robert Adams’ actualism and haecceitism and argues against them. Lewis’s objections rely on distinguishing possibilities from possible worlds, structurally indiscernible twins, and the possibility which contains a person exactly intermediate between Lewis and Adams.
Richter’s Problem (1983)
Authors: Lewis David
Published: October 2023

In this short paper, dating from 1983, Lewis considers a complex problem in decision theory due to Reed Richter, and argues for a solution different from Richter’s own.
Electromagnetic field of moving charges
Authors: Maggiore Michele
Published: October 2023

In this chapter we study the electromagnetic fields generated by moving charges. At the mathematical level, a fundamental tool is provided by the retarded and advanced Green’s functions of the d’Alembertian operator, that we will introduce. We will then be able to study the field generated by charges with arbitrary motion, expressed by the Liénard-Wiechert potentials, and we will discover that, when a charge is accelerated, it produces electromagnetic waves. We will then study in detail the radiation emitted in different situations, such as the Larmor formula and its relativistic generalization, bremsstrahlung, cyclotron radiation, synchrotron radiation.
Radiation from localized sources
Authors: Maggiore Michele
Published: October 2023

In the previous chapter we discussed the radiation generated by a point-like charge, with arbitrary motion. We now expand over the previous discussion, studying the radiation generated by a localized, but otherwise generic, distribution of charges and currents. We first perform the computation for arbitrary source velocities, both in the Lorenz and in the Coulomb gauge. We then consider the low-velocity limit and the corresponding expansion in radiative multipoles, discussing in detail the radiation from electric dipole, electric quadrupole and magnetic dipole. We discuss the relevant scales defining the near and far zone.
Scattering of electromagnetic radiation
Authors: Maggiore Michele
Published: October 2023

In this chapter we discuss the scattering of electromagnetic waves by charged particles. We define the scattering cross-section. We then consider the scattering of electromagnetic waves from free electrons, giving rise to the Thomson cross section, expressed in terms of the classical electron radius. We discuss the limit of validity imposed by quantum mechanics, and the corresponding Compton scattering. We then consider the scattering from electrons bound in atoms or molecules and compute the corresponding cross-section and resonant scattering. We conclude with the classic explanation, from Lord Rayleigh, of why the sky is blue, and why the Sun at sunset looks redder than at noon.
Language stability I
Authors: Owens Jonathan
Published: October 2023

Chapters 10 and 11 shift the focus from language change to language stability. Setting a time frame of 1000+ years engenders the age-old question of how stable languages are. Surprisingly, historical linguistics has done little to define this issue, beyond noting that stability exists. To introduce the topic, Chapter 10 simply shows, using short sketches of three Arabic dialects, Najdi, Lake Chad Arabic, and Damascene, that there is a case to answer for as far as stability goes. The short sketches given here are idealized abstractions. In part, the descriptions on which these summaries are based are already abstractions. Ingham’s Najdi grammar, for instance, generalizes across what he identifies as three distinct dialects (see Ingham 1994: 193–195 for summary of differences). For the macro-comparison intended by this summary, however, these differences can be ignored, at least until issues raised by the comparison are scrutinized further.
The Balance of Power
Authors: Wight Martin
Published: October 2023

Wight analyzed nine meanings of “the balance of power” in international politics: “an even distribution of power,” “the principle that power ought to be evenly distributed,” “the existing distribution of power,” “the principle of equal aggrandizement of the Great Powers at the expense of the weak,” the principle of keeping “a margin of strength,” a “special role in maintaining an even distribution of power,” a “special advantage in the existing distribution of power,” “predominance,” and an “inherent tendency of international politics to produce an even distribution of power.” Three sources of confusion complicate assessments: “the mutability and inconstancy of the metaphor,” “the overlap between the normative and the descriptive,” and the fact that pertinent judgments “cannot be detached” and are “necessarily subjective.” In the two centuries after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, “the balance of power was generally spoken of as if it were the constituent principle of international society, and legal writers described it as the indispensable condition of international law.” Kant, Cobden, and others nonetheless found grounds to decry it. Oppenheim’s international law texts in 1905 and 1911 presented the balance of power principle as “indispensable” for international law, but in post-First World War editions it was replaced by the League of Nations and other new organizations. After the Second World War and the outbreak of the Cold War the balance of power became “once more a respectable and indeed indispensable part of the diplomatic vocabulary, and an object of almost metaphysical contemplation by the strategic analysts.”
War and Peace: The Hobbesian Predicament
Authors: Wight Martin
Published: October 2023

“The Hobbesian predicament,” wrote Wight, refers to “the insoluble problem when each person or state is so afraid for his or its own security that he or it cannot achieve minimum cooperation with others. The assumption of every foreign policy and of the great mass of every electorate still seems to be that the potential enemy is more to be feared than war … even when war means nuclear war.” In contrast, “a non-Hobbesian or anti-Hobbesian philosophy of politics … denies that the fundamental primeval human condition is one of mutual fear and war but asserts that it is one of potential sociability and readiness to cooperate.” After the Second World War, the “Hobbesian predicament seemed inescapable, as if it were the only fundamental of the situation. At this point, by an irony of history, a second fundamental appeared in the shape of nuclear power applied to war. … Traditional mechanisms were still at work and produced the deadlocked stability of the balance of power in the form of the balance of terror. … The hope is that America and Russia may recognise their common interest in preserving or recovering their monopoly of nuclear weapons. … Three fundamentals are the Hobbesian predicament, the meta-Hobbesian situation of nuclear deadlock, and moral protest. A fourth fundamental is that you cannot coerce history. You can only clarify your conscience and do what you believe is right and for the rest, trust in Providence.”
Interests, Honour, and Prestige
Authors: Wight Martin
Published: October 2023

As Wight observed, “the idea of vital interests tended, in the course of the nineteenth century, to oust the idea of national honour. In the dynastic age it was more likely that a sovereign would speak of the dignity, honour, and interests of his Crown. The notion of a state, a Power, having dignity and honour was appropriate when the state was legally indistinguishable from the monarch, and foreign affairs were his personal relations with his fellow sovereigns. In these circumstances it was true to say that if Louis XIV had made a treaty with James II, his honour was involved in its fulfillment. … But the notion of national honour has had a hard battle against the idea of raison d’état, that monarchs as representatives of their peoples cannot be expected to observe the same rules of morality that they would as private persons. … With the transition to the democratic or mass state, the sense of honour has tended to become diffused and lost among the anonymous electorate. … Moreover, honour in itself is an ambiguous word. It can mean allegiance to traditional and lofty standards of conduct. In this sense, the idea was given a new currency by Mr. Churchill, and it is interesting to note that it furnished the ultimate grounds for his condemnation of the Munich Agreement, in one of the most searching passages of his War Memoirs.”
The Security Council
Authors: Wight Martin
Published: October 2023

“The Security Council,” Wight wrote, “is essentially an ambiguous institution bound up with everyone’s hopes for peace. … Contrast the optimism about the U.N. in 1945 with the disillusionment and lack of interest now prevailing. … The General Assembly, the general body at which all members sit, does not have equal powers with the Security Council—it can only discuss and recommend. All powers are vested in the Security Council, with no legal limitations. It is not bound like the League Council to preserve the political integrity of all states. … The Security Council can change the existing order as it pleases, directed by the Great Powers. … Russia has a negative interest in the Council; by use of the veto, she can prevent the U.N. being turned into an alliance ganging up against the Soviet Union. … The U.N. has played an immensely important part in clearing the U.S. of isolationism and educating Americans to take their position as a leading world Power. They are learning a sense of responsibility. … The U.N., with the Security Council as its central organ, is a useful diplomatic organization for limited purposes. There must be an organization to transact business which is not transacted by means of war. The conclusion is that issues of peace and war are unlikely to be decided by the Security Council but, as always in the past, by the operation of the balance of power.”
Review of Hugh Seton-Watson, Neither War nor Peace: The Struggle for Power in the Post-War World (London, Methuen, 1960)
Authors: Wight Martin
Published: October 2023

Wight wrote that this volume is “vastly more” than “a superbly comprehensive textbook of world politics. … The heart of the book is a discussion of the forces of revolution and the nature of totalitarianism, and its most original section is that on the intelligentsia, ‘the social group that specializes in the formulation of political ideas’ (p. 164). Quotation may suggest its political force, though not its historical range. ‘The first priority for the West, the irreducible minimum, is that a given country should not become a satellite of the Sino-Soviet bloc, the second that it be not totalitarian, the third that it be not a dictatorship’ (p. 451). ‘The belief that opponents must be wicked, and that virtuous and courageous people cannot be implacable and dangerous enemies, is the most foolish of all democratic fallacies’ (p. 457). ‘The unpleasant truth [is] that powerful nations are often hated not so much for their crimes as for their virtues’ (p. 96). ‘A sceptic might observe that the race between totalitarianism and democracy … is a race to see which competitor will first collapse from his own ill health’ (p. 246). What is remarkable in sayings like these is neither brilliance nor profundity nor novelty of thought (though these are often present) so much as the rare combination of political clear-sightedness and fortitude—the level gaze at the struggle for power, and the knowledge that a victory for justice and freedom is not guaranteed by history.”
Confronting Colonial Objects
Authors: Stahn Carsten
Published: October 2023

In 1978, UNESCO Secretary General Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow compared cultural colonial objects to ‘witnesses to history’. Their treatment is one of the most debated questions of our time. Calls for a novel international cultural order go back to decolonization. However, for decades, the issue has been treated as a matter of comity or been reduced to a Shakespearean dilemma: to return or not to return. This book seeks to go beyond these classic dichotomies. It argues that contemporary practices are at a tipping point. It shows that cultural takings were material to the colonial project throughout different periods (early takings, birth of modern nation state, nineteenth-century scramble for objects) and went far beyond looting. It relies on micro histories and object biographies to trace recurring justifications and contestations of takings and returns, and the complicity of anthropology, racial science, and professional networks in colonial collecting. It demonstrates the dual role of law and cultural heritage regulation in enabling colonial injustices, and mobilizing resistance thereto. It challenges the argument that takings were acceptable according to the standards of the time. Drawing on the interplay between justice, ethics, and human rights, it develops a theory of entanglement to rethink contemporary approaches. It shows that future engagement requires a reinvention of knowledge systems and relations towards objects, including new forms of consent, provenance research, partnership and a rethinking of the role of museums themselves. It proposes principles of relational cultural justice to confront ongoing historic, legal, and economic entanglements and enable normative transformation.
Law’s Complicity in Cultural Takings and Colonial Violence: Double Standards, Discursive Silencing, and Social Transformation
Authors: Stahn Carsten
Published: October 2023

This chapter argues that positivist law and legal doctrines were actively used in colonial times to organize the world along lines of social or racial exclusion and to legitimatize domination, through double standards, discriminatory semantics, silencing, or dis-narration and social transformation. It shows how international law constituted colonial conditions through lack of recognition of legal subjectivities, hybrid frames of governance, and discriminatory standards regarding colonial violence (e.g. savage warfare). It highlights how colonial laws were used to facilitate cultural takings or erase native heritage. But it also demonstrates contestations and counter-readings to dominant colonial world views, which call into question the premises of the colonial condition. It claims that international law was more pluralist at the time than admitted. It thereby challenges the argument that takings occurred in a legal vacuum. It develops a theory of legal entanglement in order to enable a differentiated contemporary assessment of colonial takings.
Beyond to Return or Not to Return: Towards Relational Cultural Justice
Authors: Stahn Carsten
Published: October 2023

This chapter argues in favour of a pluralistic culture justice model, in order to overcome traditional impasses of restitution discourses. It first traces lessons from contemporary return practices, including the historical Dahomey returns and Benin bronzes. It then develops elements of a relational cultural justice approach. It introduces ethical and legal foundations of new forms of consent regarding the status of objects. It examines relational dimensions of procedures and the merits and limits of the concept of object mobility to break existing divides. It shows that new relations can be facilitated in a number of ways, such as return of ownership, modification of ownership relations, establishment of new forms of access and guardianship, participatory governance models, loan arrangements, ceremonial access, digital access, or transfer of rights. It concludes with some recommendations to rethink normative structures in domestic and international contexts and proposes principles of relational cultural justice.
The Foundations of Modality
Authors: Fritz Peter
Published: October 2023

This book develops an argument for a foundational theory of modality using higher-order logic. The use of higher-order logic in metaphysics is motivated, and a particular higher-order logic is introduced. Fine-grained theories of propositional individuation are shown to be problematic, and a course-grained theory of propositional individuation is defended. On the basis of this theory, it is argued that the metaphysical necessities can be delineated using purely logical terms; by adding an actuality operator, it is shown that the logic of metaphysical necessity is S5. The theoretical role of possible worlds is articulated, and shown to be satisfied by maximal propositions if it satisfied by anything; the existence of such maximal propositions is demonstrated using plural propositional quantification. The resulting theory reduces metaphysical modal terms to higher-order logical terms, and thereby vindicates a widespread modal conception of metaphysics.
Attitudes and Structured Propositions
Authors: Fritz Peter
Published: October 2023

A number of arguments for a fine-grained individuation of propositions are considered in the context of the formal language introduced in the previous chapter, and shown not to be compelling. The main arguments involve ascriptions of propositional attitudes such as belief. It is first shown that such arguments overgenerate, and lead to the untenable claim that distinct constants cannot codenote. As a fallback position, the view that propositions are structured is formalized. However, the resulting view is also untenable, as it is shown to be logically inconsistent by a result known as the Russell-Myhill argument. This result is extended to a number of apparently weaker claims, including a view according to which propositions exhibit logical structure, and some basic principles of grounding.
Cultivating Difference
Authors: Campbell Emma
Published: October 2023

Wauchier de Denain’s Histoire des Moines d’Egypte, a Latin-to-French translation produced in thirteenth-century Flanders, creatively manipulates translation’s capacity to confront linguistic and cultural difference. In translation studies, Venuti’s concept of the ‘remainder’ highlights how the foreignness of the translated text may be reflected in the translator’s discourse; this concept is used to analyse how Wauchier’s text uses defamiliarizing techniques for a lay public, such as inter- and intralinguistic gloss and paraphrase, as well as formal variation between prose and verse. Through such techniques, Wauchier draws attention to the communicative function of his work as a translation of a Latin source for an aristocratic audience. These features of the Histoire raise questions not only about what may or may not be translatable in the vernacular context into which the source is transposed but also about how Wauchier uses untranslatability strategically to support the pedagogical aims of the hagiographic text.
Translation, Memory, and the Limits of Translatability in the Writing of Marie de France
Authors: Campbell Emma
Published: October 2023

The ambivalent connection between translation and memory examined in translation studies whereby translation is simultaneously a site of effacement and preservation resonates with works attributed to Marie de France, particularly the Lais and the Espurgatoire. This chapter examines how the engagement with translation and memory in these texts is related to the vernacular multilingualism of the Angevin context in which they were written, a context in which French had particular significance as an instrument of insular cultural memory. It is argued that Marie’s consciousness of the value of translation into French in this setting intersects with more conceptual uses of translation. The Lais and the Espurgatoire connect (un)translatability as a feature of translational writing to the thematics of translation developed in the texts themselves; these works suggest that translation entails loss and preservation while grounding ways of thinking or knowing that partially compensate for such loss.
Monolingualism, Absolute Translation, and Linguistic Mastery in Franco-English Jargon Texts
Authors: Campbell Emma
Published: October 2023

Focusing on Jehan et Blonde and Renart teinturier, this chapter considers the depiction of franglais—or ‘Franco-English jargon’—as a translation effect used in thirteenth-century French texts. It is argued that what is at stake in these depictions is a distinctively medieval exploration of French monolingualism. While not asserting the singularity of French as a national language (as post-Enlightenment definitions of monolingualism would), these medieval texts have an interest in a ‘monolingual’ notion of French as a supranational language tied to class and individual influence rather than nation. In a way that resonates with Derrida’s concept of the ‘monolingualism of the other’, Jehan et Blonde and Renart teinturier acknowledge that nobody possesses the language that they speak outright. This, however, is the starting point for a fantasy of linguistic mastery that reinforces the native speaker’s superior claim to French as the one idiom that everyone appears to speak.
The Non-Place
Authors: Herd David
Published: October 2023

Chapter 1 shows that the intersecting mid-century writing projects with which the book is concerned all begin with an engagement with the spatiality of the geopolitical non-place. The authors of the Universal Declaration defined the setting in which geopolitical non-personhood was produced as a space in which the ‘arbitrary’ prevailed. Drawing on his engagement with Corrado Cagli’s images of Buchenwald and David Rousset’s L’Univers Concentrationnaire, Olson is shown to develop an anti-fascist practice to which the reassertion of the human form in space is crucial. The chapter details how discourses of ‘eligibility’ resulted in the curtailment of rights both in displaced persons camps and in the colonial framing of post-war Europe. Fanon is shown to articulate the intersection between fascism, colonialism, and the absence of rights. Arendt and Fanon provide a language for the lived experience of the geopolitical non-place which remains crucial in understanding contemporary politics of expulsion.
Making
Authors: Herd David
Published: October 2023

Chapter 4 shows why the right to work was crucial to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its objective of countering expulsion. The right to work is contextualized via two extended considerations of work as a mode of belonging, from Arendt’s Human Condition and in Charles Olson’s poetics of labour. Contemporary commentators on Arendt, notably Jacques Rancière and Ayten Gündoğdu, are drawn on to show how the right to work is an expression of agency necessary to the politics of rights. The chapter concludes by addressing the arguments for work as human relation expressed in Fanon and Lefebvre. To understand mid-century regimes of expulsion and contemporary hostile environments, the chapter argues, it is necessary to understand the prohibition of work in terms of Lefebvre’s account of alienation. To be denied the right to work is to be denied the agency of making that constitutes participation in the human commons.
Speaking
Authors: Herd David
Published: October 2023

Opening with a discussion of Hannah Arendt’s 1943 essay ‘We Refugees’, this chapter considers the importance of story in the mid-century discourse against expulsion. Arendt’s account of story is read through her discussion of the Aristotelian polis and through Balibar’s account of the politics of rights, where the voice of the newcomer is understood to be insurgent and also necessary to movement between polities. Olson is shown to articulate a poetics of listening where the defining resource is the story the state expels. The argument then details contexts in which Fanon politicized listening, notably in the reception of revolutionary Algerian radio broadcasts and in models of the psychiatric environment which refuse internment as a model. Finally, the chapter considers the right to be heard as a defining principle of the Universal Declaration, where the voice is an instrument of rights and where the obligation on the rights-based community is the act of listening.
Survey of Counterexamples
Authors: Russell Gillian K.
Published: October 2023

This chapter surveys counterexamples to Hume’s law proposed in the logical and metaethical literatures. These are split into two kinds: formal and informal. It is shown that each kind can be reformulated to work against the other, platitudinous, barriers, e.g. claims about the past don’t entail claims about the future, or particular claims don’t entail universal ones.
General Barrier Theorems
Authors: Russell Gillian K.
Published: October 2023

This chapter looks at how to generalise the technique applied in the previous two chapters. It generalises the idea of model-extension and future-switch fragility to a property of R-fragility over a set of models (for arbitrary binary relations R) and proves a General Barrier Theorem that has each of the previous two barriers as instances.
Multiple guilds
Authors: Wilkinson David M.
Published: October 2023

The problems faced by a hypothetical planet with only one species strongly suggest that any functioning ecological system must have organisms from at least two major ecological guilds: autotrophs and decomposers. While conventional predators do not seem to be crucial to planetary ecologies, it is likely that parasites will quickly evolve, and through density-dependent processes help to regulate population sizes. Density dependence may be crucial in preventing the runaway population growth of a species, leading to it monopolizing a planet's ecology. While density-independent processes (be they a cold winter on a local scale or the impact of a large meteorite at the planetary scale) can greatly affect abundance, they cannot provide regulation; this requires the ‘thermostat’-like behaviour of density dependence. As such, both multiple guilds and the presence of parasites are likely to have positive Gaian effects in most biospheres.
Ecological hypercycles: covering a planet with life
Authors: Wilkinson David M.
Published: October 2023

Ecological hypercycles are autocatalytic processes by which different organisms (or guilds) improve each other’s environment. For example autotrophs produce material of use to decomposers and decomposers release nutrients of use to autotrophs. Such autocatalytic processes will have a positive Gaian effect and are one of several reasons to expect life too quickly to become common on a planet. Environmental stochasticity makes it unlikely that life restricted to a small area of a planet’s surface would survive for geological periods of time. However, once widespread life may have a long drawn out end on a dying planet, with some cells surviving for at least millions of years after the biogeochemical cycles have returned to being mere geochemical cycles.
Abolishing Slavery, Imagining Peace
Authors: Gustafson Sandra M.
Published: October 2023

This chapter considers the literary dimensions of the peace cause and examines its intersections with anti-slavery activism. Victor Hugo’s opening address at the Paris Peace Congress of 1849 became a classic of the peace cause, and the Reverend James Pennington and William Wells Brown spoke to the Congress about the continuities between war and slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s two major anti-slavery novels examine the place of righteous violence and consider the nature of a just peace. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) she crystallizes these issues through the minor character Phineas Fletcher, while in Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), she draws a negative picture of Southern “peace” and begins to imagine a just peace after slavery. The chapter closes with a discussion of Wells Brown’s treatment of peace and violence, notably his characterization of Pennington in The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, His Achievements (1863).
Summarizing data
Authors: Upton Graham , Brawn Dan
Published: October 2023

The data analyst needs to be able to collect information in a compact form. An analyst cannot look at a set of a thousand values on a value-by-value basis. This chapter presents solutions to that situation; it provides a variety of methods for summarising and displaying data. In addition to the simple average value, which statisticians call the mean, alternatives are presented that reduce the influence of any atypical values. In the same way, while the simplest measure of summarising the spread of data values is the range, more useful measures, that take account of all the data values rather than just the extreme values, are the variance and standard deviation. As well as these summary statistics, the chapter also introduces several effective methods for displaying a set of data: the boxplot, the histogram, the cumulative frequency diagram, and the step diagram. The chapter closes by distinguishing between symmetric and skewed data