bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Mitigation and Fairness
Authors: Saprai Prince
Published: April 2019

The doctrine of mitigation in contract law limits the recovery of damages available to the innocent victim of a breach of contract to cover only those losses that would have been incurred had the promisee acted reasonably in avoiding or not exacerbating the losses caused by breach. The doctrine has troubled ‘promise theorists’ who fail to see why the guilty party should not in such circumstances be responsible for all the losses that, after all, her own wrongdoing has caused. Charles Fried attempted to accommodate the doctrine by linking promise to the principle of altruism but that attempt has faced important criticisms; which reflect a deeper failure on Fried’s part to perceive that contractual relations involve an invocation of a ‘thinner’ type of trust than is usually found when promises take place in the context of close or intimate relationships. This chapter claims that the doctrine only makes sense if we recognize that it reflects the interaction between the promise principle and a principle of fairness that we find as a matter of first-order moral reasoning. On this view, contract law mirrors what we find in promissory morality (broadly conceived). It is another example of a ‘composite doctrine’ reflecting the interaction between multiple moral concerns.
Introduction
Authors: Fox Brian
Published: April 2019

The introduction outlines the case that Joyce was far more attentive to the history, culture, and politics of the United States than the critical consensus has previously allowed for. It does so by delineating the specific historical factors that made America significant for Irish writers, including Joyce; by summarizing the textual and manuscript evidence for the significance of America in Joyce’s works; by arguing that those works display an increasing level of engagement with the US roughly in line with key points of transition in Irish and American histories; and by signalling that the focus on the interrelation of those histories provides an explanatory category for a synoptic reading of Joyce’s work as a whole. Finally, in presenting an overview of the chapters to follow, it builds on this historically focused rationale to discuss briefly in broader terms the necessary frames and limits of a study on Joyce and America.
Reading Rhetoric and Poetics
Authors: Gilby Emma
Published: April 2019

Chapter 1 looks in detail at how Aristotle’s Poetics, overlapping in various ways with his Rhetoric and his moral philosophy, uses tragedy to interrogate conditions for the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom. It moves on to the rediscovery and translation of these and other ancient texts on rhetoric, poetics, and ethics. Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and other ancient writers obtained a footing in France chiefly through the treatises of Italian and Dutch thinkers. As one starting point for how Descartes interacts with this body of work, this chapter considers the syllabi of Jesuit schools such as the one he attended.
The Paris Context
Authors: Gilby Emma
Published: April 2019

This chapter considers Descartes’s connections with Guez de Balzac and his circle, and looks more closely at the language of contemporary poetic practice and theory. In his 1623 preface to Marino’s Adone, Jean Chapelain develops a critical vocabulary of novelty, generic hybridity, and verisimilitude. Meanwhile, Alexandre Hardy accuses modern dramatists of neglecting dispositio, or the coherent ordering of dramatic subject matter. The state of tragicomedy in France is exemplified in the 1628 tragicomic reworking of Schélandre’s 1608 tragedy Tyr et Sidon, prefaced by Balzac’s apologist François Ogier. At the crux of these debates, we find the question of how to balance the need for variety to dispel boredom with the need for structure to dispel distraction.
Contemplating the Divine
Authors: Gilby Emma
Published: April 2019

This chapter focuses on Descartes’s more general articulation of our reliance on God, who alone, he says, can offer us continuing certainty. Descartes is struck by wonder at the beauty of God’s ‘immense light’, even if his own understanding is ‘shrouded in darkness’. In contemplating the divine, Descartes needs to come to terms with dramatic paradigms of necessity and contingency. Here, we consider Descartes’s statements about eternal truths. Like Virgil’s Jupiter, God simultaneously creates laws and sees them fulfilled. Contemporary debates about whether we can ‘univocally’ conceive of the divine and the human also return us, in this chapter, to themes of conversion, humility, and an attention that is strengthened even as it recognizes its own limits. Throughout, we observe cross-currents of association between philosophy, patristics, and poetics.
Grammar and Ontology
Authors: Egan David
Published: April 2019

Wittgenstein characterizes his investigations as ‘grammatical’ and emphasizes their difference from factual or empirical investigations. In particular, he claims, philosophical confusion arises when we regard philosophical questions as questions of fact. Wittgenstein’s emphasis on keeping distinct grammatical and factual investigations echoes Heidegger’s emphasis on what he calls the ‘ontological difference’, namely the distinction between ontic investigations of beings and ontological investigations of being. For both philosophers, keeping their investigations distinct from factual investigations means that they understand themselves not to be discovering and expressing novel truths but to be retrieving and clarifying an understanding that we already have. And for both of them, this retrieval calls for a careful examination of our everyday practices.
Attunement and Being-With
Authors: Egan David
Published: April 2019

Both Wittgenstein and Heidegger emphasize the public nature of the everyday: we not only share our world with others, but the intelligibility of that world finds public articulation. Wittgenstein emphasizes our attunement in sharing forms of life and constantly invokes the first person plural in talking about what ‘we’ do. This chapter offers a deflationary account of this ‘we’, resisting conventionalist and transcendental idealist readings. Heidegger’s account of Dasein as being-with takes on darker tones, as he describes the levelling influence of das Man, whereby we unreflectively align ourselves with what ‘one’ does. Contrary to some interpreters, the author argues that the influence of das Man, while inescapable, is not also suffocating, and that Heidegger’s account of distantiality allows us to see that we constantly maintain a necessary distance from das Man.
Heidegger’s Pursuit of Authenticity in Philosophy
Authors: Egan David
Published: April 2019

The concern with authenticity exhibited by both Heidegger and Wittgenstein applies reflexively to their work: being authentic and philosophizing authentically are deeply intertwined concerns. This chapter focuses on the way in which Heidegger attempts to extricate himself from traditional philosophical problematics, focusing primarily on the problematic of realism and idealism and on the concept of truth. Heidegger develops a method of formal indication by which he tries to direct us toward an ontological understanding without relying on the problematic form of the assertion. However, Heidegger attempts at points to articulate this ontological understanding—most notoriously when he asserts that Newton’s Laws were not true before Newton—in ways that work against him.
Tristram Shandy and the Divided Worlds of Politics
Authors: Havard John Owen
Published: April 2019

This chapter examines the extent to which The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne engaged with politics. Beginning with Sterne’s fleeting involvement in Whig political journalism, the chapter shows how these early experiences as a writer coincided with dramatic changes to the organization of partisanship and the emergence of cynicism towards the political establishment as such. Tristram Shandy took shape, the chapter goes on to show, in relation both to the changing parameters of political activity and to a growing impulse to escape from politics altogether. Taking cues from a Dublin-published pamphlet that imagined Tristram entering into the fray of political activity, the chapter brings into focus the diverse political trajectories that Sterne incorporated into his fiction—and the ways they were subsequently closed down or rerouted by the ongoing composition and reception of his works and with the onset of his sentimental reputation.
Literary Leviathans
Authors: Havard John Owen
Published: April 2019

This chapter shows how Samuel Johnson’s authorial persona focalized a larger crisis of political and literary authority during the period spanning the American War and the French Revolution. Where Johnson’s commitment to absolute sovereignty set him at odds with changing conceptions of power, the ‘warm Toryism’ of James Boswell allowed him to navigate the onset of Britain’s counter-revolutionary turn and its imperial correlatives with far greater success. These changing conceptions of authority converged in Boswell’s monumental biography, which thereby illuminates crucial changes to the relationship between literature and politics. Through Johnson’s reputation in America and posthumous satires about his views on popular revolution, the chapter shows how Johnson’s dogmatic views on authority, together with his volatile personality, infused both his writings and his politics with uncertainty. Boswell’s depiction of Johnson in his 1791 Life of Johnson in turn acquired heightened and transformed significance amidst fears of anti-royalist unrest and the explosion of plebeian political activity associated with the aftermath of the French Revolution, and, to an important and neglected degree, was the product of both this changing political atmosphere and changing conceptions of the literary domain.
Conclusion
Authors: Havard John Owen
Published: April 2019

The Conclusion looks ahead to the political and literary changes that accompanied the transition into the Victorian age, drawing a contrast between recent critical discussions of the ‘liberal’ subject and this book’s more unsettled account of the interaction between literary forms and the political arena. The 1820s and ’30s—examined here with reference to contemporary accounts of Byron and Austen as well as George Eliot’s later Felix Holt (1866)—look ahead to subsequent efforts to harmonize literary and political domains and to subsume earlier political divides within changed conceptions of governance and of the political nation. As the Conclusion demonstrates, these appeals to a coming age of equipoise not only consigned the unrest around the French Revolution to a closed past; neglect of the directly preceding decades amounted, at least in places, to strategic erasure, as the Conclusion shows through a series of examples including the novels of Sir Walter Scott. By contrast with these later efforts to maintain an autonomous literary or artistic domain, the authors addressed in this book emphasize an account of authorship as in the thick or the margins of a messy political world (whether the authors in question liked this fact or not). Literature thereby helped, directly or otherwise, to introduce alternative possibilities into the political arena, if only as a reimagined role for literary authorship itself.
Introduction
Authors: Havard John Owen
Published: April 2019

Disaffected Parties offers a prehistory for modern political disaffection that underscores literature’s importance as a means of thinking about a diverse array of relationships with politics, in this period and beyond. The Introduction lays out some of the historical frameworks and changing conceptions of politics—including the understandings of disaffection and the expanded conception of political parties—employed in the book, while also looking to the wider questions posed by the disaffected stance and its bearing on the status of the literary. The opening section explores the political valences of disaffection from the mid-seventeenth century down to the present, employing the term’s historical and conceptual proximity to terms including disinterest, dissent, and indifference to reflect on the prospect of a literature of disaffection (defined by its aspiration to absolute withdrawal and disinterest, but also animated by disavowed investments). The Introduction goes on to explain the historical rationale for the book and to outline the book’s approach to literary form.
Praise and Blame
Authors: Mason Elinor
Published: April 2019

This chapter examines the idea of blame, as an activity distinct from judging blameworthy but not equivalent to punishing. There are different sorts of blame, that correspond to different sorts of wrongdoing. Ordinary blame is communicative, and applies to agents who have acted subjectively wrongly. Ordinary praise is, likewise, communicative, and also depends on the agent knowing what she is doing. These can be contrasted with detached praise and blame, which apply to agents outside our moral community. Detached blame is a mixed bag, and this chapter offers a general account of how such blame reactions work. They are not communicative, rather they function from a distance. That does not entail that they are mere appraisals: they are genuinely a species of blame, in that they are a response to wrongdoing that goes beyond a mere judgment. This leads to a discussion of detached blameworthiness, which corresponds to detached blame.
Is the Citizen-Exclusive State an Agent?
Authors: Lawford-Smith Holly
Published: April 2019

In light of the failure of the preferred model to count as a collective agent on the strong or moderate accounts, this chapter turns to the citizen-exclusive state. It outlines the structure of two versions of the model—one accounting for the separation of powers and one including only the smallest group with decision-making power in government. It argues that the bigger group is characterized by two important features: it has a hierarchical power structure, and it includes ‘nested’ agency (some of its members are collective agents rather than individuals). The chapter concludes with a general discussion of whether this group has both agency and moral agency, and argues that it does.
Early Fourteenth-Century Iberia
Authors: Linehan Peter
Published: April 2019

Early fourteenth-century Iberia was a peninsula in chaos, with the kingdoms of both Castile and Portugal brought low by dynastic divisions, with the territorial nobility which was in the ascendant absorbing churchmen into their following. Both kingdoms had at least a century of struggle with the papacy behind them. With the beginnings of recovery in Castile (recently attributed to ‘Molinism’, so-called) hardly under way, secularist churchmen of both kingdoms were roundly denounced by Pope John XXII, while the year 1325, the beginning of the reign of Afonso IV and coming of age of Alfonso XI of Castile (king since the age of 13 months) gave early warning of an independent approach to their relationship with the papacy.
Portuguese Lineages and the Privatization of the Portuguese Church
Authors: Linehan Peter
Published: April 2019

The history of the Portuguese episcopate reveals the extent of family ambitions at work in annexing ecclesiastical properties to the families of its temporary trustees, a conclusion justified by the gloomy analysis of the Franciscan bishop Álvaro Pais. The privatization of the Portuguese Church and the outburst of a royal bastard when faced with a church court that ‘he was a layman and had his own judge’ reveal the secular aspect of this. This chapter considers Bishop Egas of Viseu’s ‘Summa de libertate ecclesiastica’ and the issue of mortmain. It also examines Portugal’s eternal quadrilateral: Church, king, bishops, and nobility. The problems caused by the privatization of monastic land and consequent intrusion of unwelcome members of the new owners’extended families is the focus of the following section. Finally, the chapter touches on the inter-related questions of the new Portuguese stadium, the secular ethic, and the career of Miguel Vivas.
Nobility and Naturaleza
Authors: Linehan Peter
Published: April 2019

This chapter opens with an examination of the secular ethic in 1329, the Cortes of Madrid, the contest between crown and Church for supremacy, and the importance of the Assembly of Vincennes in the history of the Iberian peninsula. Matters dynastic that are covered are the defiance of the pope by Alfonso XI and his Portuguese wife, and by Alfonso XI and his mistress. The threat to the Church of Thomas Scot, the apostate friar, and events at Avignon are discussed, and the symptoms of schism surveyed in Paris, Portugal, and Castile. Papal letters and mysterious silences likewise are weighed, and the chapter concludes with the Castilian succession, and ‘liturgical innovation’ in 1332, culminating in the self-coronation of Alfonso XI.
J.M. Keynes as Sociologist
Authors: McKibbin Ross
Published: April 2019

This chapter is concerned with J.M. Keynes’s analysis of the rentier, the ‘functionless investor’ in Britain (and Europe) in the interwar years. Even though Keynes had no coherent idea of who the rentier was, he was central to Keynes’s economics and to his political sociology. The rentier was also essential to Keynes’s political-economic account of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Hence, Keynes was forced to a view that while the rentier remained unchained society would be based upon conflicting interests and social tensions. Such a view undermined Keynes’s original allegiances to the kind of Liberalism associated with the former Liberal prime minister, H.H. Asquith, and the argument Keynes sometimes presented, that economic policy was determined by an intellectual muddle, not warring interests. Asquithian Liberalism, however, depended on notions of political agreement and social harmony and that was, in practice, not something Keynes ever believed characterized modern capitalism.
Sport Between ‘Play’ and ‘System’
Authors: McKibbin Ross
Published: April 2019

Modern sport, though not wholly a British invention, very largely is so. It is one of Britain’s most important gifts to the modern world. But it is also representative of a whole social system, and sport in Britain has always been intimately connected to British social and political life. It is a powerful marker, of which the ‘amateur tradition’ and apparent class exclusiveness are the two most obvious marks. I argue, however, that Britain did not differ much from other comparable countries, except that its class exclusiveness was exaggerated, partly because it was more openly expressed and less obviously concealed. I also argue that the amateur spirit was an attempt by men to preserve the notion of ‘play’ as against the sporting ‘system’ which they themselves had created.
Sport as Religion and Emotion
Authors: McKibbin Ross
Published: April 2019

We frequently speak of sport as a religion and that sporting loyalties are religious. This chapter asks what exactly this means and suggests that it partly depends on how we define religion. The chapter argues that the definitions of religion and sport as religion overlap—something that common sense would support. The chapter attempts to define more closely sport as religion by looking at those sporting disasters which excited an apparently ‘religious’ response—two In Britain, one in Italy, one in Germany, and one in Australia—and compare them with similar events which did not seem to evoke a similar response. It offers explanations for this and what they tell us about sport as religion and about sporting emotions. It also argues that religion in sport is a product of sporting culture, not sport as such.
Do As I Say, Not As I Do?
Authors: Driediger-Murphy Lindsay G.
Published: April 2019

This chapter challenges the modern belief that augural theory permitted practitioners to create or nullify signs simply by making announcements about them, regardless of the empirical results of observation. It analyses the passages in ancient texts which have typically been seen as proof for this view, ranging from the Middle/Late Republic to Late Antiquity. Specific kinds of auspication such as the tripudium ritual and the auspication of investiture are discussed. The most important conclusions are (1) we have not paid sufficient attention to the context and genre of these statements, which do not all point in the same direction; (2) in the Republican period empirical observation remained a fundamental part of augury. This suggests that augural practitioners and their contemporaries did not believe Jupiter to be bound by their own announcements but instead saw themselves as vulnerable to the messages the god chose to send.
Out of Control?
Authors: Driediger-Murphy Lindsay G.
Published: April 2019

This chapter considers Roman augury in practice, arguing that the results of augury did not always cohere with human will and challenging the ‘alignment model’ of Roman divination. In modern scholarship on Roman divination, the dominant assumption remains that state divination procedures, including augury, were so contrived as to tell the individual magistrate/politician or the senate what they wanted to hear. The question posed here is whether it is true that augury never or seldom produced results which its users did not want. The shortcomings of the methodology used by proponents of the alignment model are highlighted. The chapter presents evidence that some Roman recipients chose to heed signs which they might have preferred to ignore and concludes that there was at Rome a religious dimension of ideas, motives, and activities which was separate from, and at odds with, the political.
Is Aristotle an Archimedean Naturalist?
Authors: Berryman Sylvia
Published: April 2019

This chapter examines the evidence of the ethical treatises regarding Aristotle’s use of the appeal to human nature to provide substantive guidance or justification for the demands of ethics. The so-called function argument, the notion that human beings have a natural direction of development, and the references to natural virtue or natural justice are canvassed as possible grounds for believing that Aristotle was an Archimedean naturalist about ethics. The status and relationship of the various ethical treatises is also discussed, together with the place of ethics within the hierarchy of sciences, as necessary background to the examination of Aristotle’s views.
CJEU Case Law and the Interplay with Policy and Legislative Action in the DSM
Authors: Rosati Eleonora
Published: April 2019

The final chapter tackles recent initiatives for a reform of the EU copyright acquis. In particular, it focuses on a number of selected areas in the proposed Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM), which require to be considered in light, not just of existing legislation, but also—and perhaps most importantly—existing case law. These areas are: the ‘value gap’ (‘transfer of value’) proposal, the press publishers’ right, fair compensation for private copying, and licensing of out-of-commerce works. The chapter discusses whether and to what extent the EU copyright reform may be regarded as a ‘codification’ of existing CJEU case law, or rather as a departure from it. Either way, the centrality of judicial interpretation of existing legislation is apparent also in the context of policy discourse.
Conclusion
Authors: Bennett Joshua
Published: April 2019

The conclusion stands back from the themes of the individual chapters, to reflect on the wider tensions at work within the Victorians’ reliance upon history as their preferred approach for resolving contentious questions. It became very common for nineteenth-century commentators to regard the movements of history as recording the progressive Christianization of civilization, and as confirming Christian claims. But Mark Pattison hinted at a disturbing possibility when he argued that historical law determined the thought of successive ages, without itself guaranteeing the truth of any one system of religious belief. Progressive understandings of religious history helped Victorians to enter their own kind of modernity; and secularization was not the future most anticipated. Yet they struggled to realize their widespread conviction that historical study would ultimately yield a stable and commonly agreed religious foundation for society, which would prove capable of decisively repelling unbelief.
Conclusion
Authors: Levering Matthew
Published: April 2019

In dialogue with Brian Robinette and Jürgen Moltmann, the chapter asks what kind of apologetics is appropriate to the subject matter of Jesus’ Resurrection. It argues that Jesus’ Resurrection does have “external grounds” for its truth. It can be considered credible even without supernatural faith. Yet, even if non-believers can reasonably affirm that Jesus’ Resurrection happened, such knowledge becomes truly living and powerful within the whole worldview of faith, what Lonergan calls the “horizon of love.” Behind this approach to theological apologetics stands the masterwork of John Henry Newman. In his Grammar of Assent, Newman remarks that certitude in historical matters comes from “the cumulation of probabilities, independent of each other, arising out of the nature and circumstances of the particular case which is under review.” This book provides such an accumulation of probabilities, which Newman deems to be sufficient (through what he calls the “illative sense”) for certitude.
Bewilderment in Dear Life
Authors: Mitchell Lee Clark
Published: April 2019

This assessment of Alice Munro’s career begins by focusing on the way in which she moves increasingly toward a vision of narrative sequence that undercuts expectations for sequence itself. Turning first to “Amundsen” (from her last collection, Dear Life), the chapter explores her growing tendency towards displacement and indeterminacy, relying ever more on a narrative strategy that can begin anywhere in a finished story and read in either direction. Discussion then turns toward earlier stories, which anticipate her ­distinctive late style in achieving a sense of “chaos” and bewilderment that Munro finds essential. Stories are never “finished” for her (explaining so many revisions and republications), and character is never quite known, remaining a mystery, with plots that rarely sum up or resolve themselves into any clearer understanding.
Regulatory Competition and Utilitarianism
Authors: Stark Johanna
Published: April 2019

The hypothesis this chapter sets out from is that regulatory competition is promising as a political strategy only if one shares a number of basic premises that are associated with political utilitarianism. The chapter thus discusses the following questions. In what way could regulatory competition be interpreted as being linked to utilitarianism? To what extent does the appeal of law markets depend on utilitarian assumptions that also underwrite welfare economics? An answer to these questions leads to the conclusion that problems with certain utilitarian assumptions translate into criticisms of regulatory competition as a policy approach. Two particular instances of regulatory competition are used to illustrate its utilitarian pedigree and associated problems. First, tax competition and its effects on states’ ability to implement policies leading to resource redistribution. Second, labour law regarding the employee involvement in corporate decision-making, particularly by mandatory co-determination.
Conclusion
Authors: Stark Johanna
Published: April 2019

The final chapter summarizes the arguments of the book that have exposed the ‘philosophical externalities’ of regulatory competition. If taken seriously as an interpretive framework of law production and reform, regulatory competition commits us to an understanding of law that is inconsistent with other views about law and its role in society that we appear to hold. What does not follow from these arguments is that regulatory competition and the resulting law markets are, in any possible scenario, inherently bad. It would be utopian to assume that the clock on the structural preconditions that have led to competitive dynamics in several areas of law could simply be turned back. To a significant extent, regulatory competition is one of the many symptoms of globalization. The global integration of political, legal, and economic spheres in numerous ways calls into question the role and impact of the nation state. What you think about regulatory competition therefore may not depend so much on the plausibility of its resulting in a race to the top or the bottom in legal standards, but on what you think about the purpose and function of the state in a globalized world.
An Introduction to Quantum Optics and Quantum Fluctuations
Authors: Milonni Peter W.
Published: April 2019

This book is an introduction to quantum optics for students who have studied electromagnetism and quantum mechanics at an advanced undergraduate or graduate level. It provides detailed expositions of theory with emphasis on general physical principles. Foundational topics in classical and quantum electrodynamics, including the semiclassical theory of atom-field interactions, the quantization of the electromagnetic field in dispersive and dissipative media, uncertainty relations, and spontaneous emission, are addressed in the first half of the book. The second half begins with a chapter on the Jaynes-Cummings model, dressed states, and some distinctly quantum-mechanical features of atom-field interactions, and includes discussion of entanglement, the no-cloning theorem, von Neumann’s proof concerning hidden variable theories, Bell’s theorem, and tests of Bell inequalities. The last two chapters focus on quantum fluctuations and fluctuation-dissipation relations, beginning with Brownian motion, the Fokker-Planck equation, and classical and quantum Langevin equations. Detailed calculations are presented for the laser linewidth, spontaneous emission noise, photon statistics of linear amplifiers and attenuators, and other phenomena. Van der Waals interactions, Casimir forces, the Lifshitz theory of molecular forces between macroscopic media, and the many-body theory of such forces based on dyadic Green functions are analyzed from the perspective of Langevin noise, vacuum field fluctuations, and zero-point energy. There are numerous historical sidelights throughout the book, and approximately seventy exercises.
Scandal in the Courts
Authors: Perry Elisabeth Israels
Published: April 2019

In 1930, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized an investigation first into New York City’s lower court system and then into its entire government. The investigation, known by the name of its head, retired judge Samuel Seabury, had a dramatic impact on the city’s politics and its powerful Democratic Party machine, Tammany Hall. Because the investigation began with an inquiry into the entrapment of women for alleged sex crimes and their subsequent treatment in the city’s women’s court, it attracted great interest from the city’s women civic activists. These women played significant roles in encouraging and later broadening the Seabury investigation and in making decisions about its consequences.
Dissenting Traditions and Indigenous Christianity
Authors: Ming Ng Peter Tze
Published: April 2019

There had been two stages of development of Protestant dissenting traditions in China. They both were found to be related closely with the indigenous Christian movements in China. This paper is an attempt to study both the dissenting traditions and the indigenous Christian movements in China. Three important theological forces were found actively behind these movements. They were namely: the Pentecostalism, Evangelicalism, and Holistic Movements, which helped to account for the close relationships between dissenting traditions and the indigenous Christian movements in twentieth-century China. The latter comprised those which attempted to move beyond the Western mainline/denominational understanding of Christianity, hence developing an independent Chinese Christianity.]
Effect of Brine Acidification on Fermentation Microbiota, Chemistry, and Texture Quality of Cucumbers Fermented in Calcium or Sodium Chloride Brines
Authors: McMurtrie Erin K. , Johanningsmeier Suzanne D. , Breidt Fred , Price Robert E.
Published: April 2019

Commercial fermentation for bulk preservation of cucumbers relies on natural microbiota and approximately 1 M sodium chloride (NaCl) brines, resulting in large volumes of high‐salt wastewater. An alternative process utilizing 0.1 M calcium chloride (CaCl2) as the only salt was developed to eliminate NaCl from fermentation brines for reduced environmental impact. This study determined the effect of brine acidification on the fermentation microbiota and texture quality of cucumbers fermented in CaCl2 brines. Cucumber fermentations were conducted in sealed glass jars for six independent lots of cucumbers in a randomized complete block design with a full‐factorial treatment structure for brine acidification (acetic acid, hydrochloric acid, or nonacidified) and brining salt (1 M NaCl or 0.1 M CaCl2). Enterobacteriaceae spp. survived longer and were >1 log colony forming units/mL higher in fermenting cucumbers than in brines. Addition of 25 mM acetic acid to fermentation brines (but not the addition of hydrochloric acid at the same pH) reduced Enterobacteriaceae spp. in brines and cucumbers (P < 0.002) during the initiation of fermentation for both brining salts. However, acidification had no effect on texture quality of fermented cucumbers (P = 0.8235). Despite differences in early fermentation microbiota, fermentation of cucumbers in calcium chloride brines under controlled conditions, with or without acidification, resulted in high retention of tissue firmness. These results differ from fermentations in a commercial setting initiated in brines of neutral pH, indicating that production variables, such as air exposure, interact with brining in CaCl2 to negatively affect the texture quality of fermented cucumbers.

Practical Application

This study examined the effects of initial brine acidification on the course of lactic acid fermentation and resulting texture quality of cucumbers fermented in calcium or sodium salt brines. Fermentation brines containing acetic acid (the acid in vinegar) reduced the pH of the cucumber and the soil‐associated Enterobacteriaceae spp. most rapidly, and favored the conversion of sugars to lactic acid. Interestingly, the texture quality was not affected by brine acidification, and all cucumbers fermented in calcium brines in the absence of air retained their firmness during fermentation and bulk storage.
The Genetic Relationship Between Alcohol Consumption and Aspects of Problem Drinking in an Ascertained Sample
Authors: Johnson Emma C. , St. Pierre Celine L. , Meyers Jacquelyn L. , Aliev Fazil , McCutcheon Vivia V. , Lai Dongbing , Dick Danielle M. , Goate Alison M. , Kramer John , Kuperman Samuel , Nurnberger John I. , Schuckit Marc A. , Porjesz Bernice , Edenberg Howard J. , Bucholz Kathleen K. , Agrawal Arpana
Published: April 2019

Background

Genomewide association studies (GWAS) have begun to identify loci related to alcohol consumption, but little is known about whether this genetic propensity overlaps with specific indices of problem drinking in ascertained samples.

Methods

In 6,731 European Americans who had been exposed to alcohol, we examined whether polygenic risk scores (PRS) from a GWAS of weekly alcohol consumption in the UK Biobank predicted variance in 6 alcohol‐related phenotypes: alcohol use, maximum drinks within 24 hours (MAXD), total score on the Self‐Rating of the Effects of Ethanol Questionnaire (SRE‐T), DSM‐IV alcohol dependence (DSM4AD), DSM‐5 alcohol use disorder symptom counts (DSM5AUDSX), and reduction/cessation of problematic drinking. We also examined the extent to which an single nucleotide polymorphism (rs1229984) in ADH1B, which is strongly associated with both alcohol consumption and dependence, contributed to the polygenic association with these phenotypes and whether PRS interacted with sex, age, or family history of alcoholism to predict alcohol‐related outcomes. We performed mixed‐effect regression analyses, with family membership and recruitment site included as random effects, as well as survival modeling of age of onset of DSM4AD.

Results

PRS for alcohol consumption significantly predicted variance in 5 of the 6 outcomes: alcohol use (Δmarginal R2 = 1.39%, Δ area under the curve [AUC] = 0.011), DSM4AD (Δmarginal R2 = 0.56%; ΔAUC = 0.003), DSM5AUDSX (Δmarginal R2 = 0.49%), MAXD (Δmarginal R2 = 0.31%), and SRE‐T (Δmarginal R2 = 0.22%). PRS were also associated with onset of DSM4AD (hazard ratio = 1.11, p = 2.08e−5). The inclusion of rs1229984 attenuated the effects of the alcohol consumption PRS, particularly for DSM4AD and DSM5AUDSX, but the PRS continued to exert an independent effect for all 5 alcohol measures (Δmarginal R2 after controlling for ADH1B = 0.14 to 1.22%). Interactions between PRS and sex, age, or family history were nonsignificant.

Conclusions

Genetic propensity for typical alcohol consumption was associated with alcohol use and was also associated with 4 of the additional 5 outcomes, though the variance explained in this sample was modest. Future GWAS that focus on the multifaceted nature of AUD, which goes beyond consumption, might reveal additional information regarding the polygenic underpinnings of problem drinking.
Genome‐wide association analysis and gene set enrichment analysis with SNP data identify genes associated with 305‐day milk yield in Holstein dairy cows
Authors: Clancey E. , Kiser J. N. , Moraes J. G. N. , Dalton J. C. , Spencer T. E. , Neibergs H. L.
Published: April 2019

Milk production traits, such as 305‐day milk yield (305MY), have been under direct selection to improve production in dairy cows. Over the past 50 years, the average milk yield has nearly doubled, and over 56% of the increase is attributable to genetic improvement. As such, additional improvements in milk yield are still possible as new loci are identified. The objectives of this study were to detect SNPs and gene sets associated with 305MY in order to identify new candidate genes contributing to variation in milk production. A population of 781 primiparous Holstein cows from six central Washington dairies with records of 305MY and energy corrected milk were used to perform a genome‐wide association analysis (GWAA) using the Illumina BovineHD BeadChip (777 962 SNPs) to identify QTL associated with 305MY (P < 1.0 × 10−5). A gene set enrichment analysis with SNP data (GSEA‐SNP) was performed to identify gene sets (normalized enrichment score > 3.0) and leading edge genes (LEGs) influencing 305MY. The GWAA identified three QTL comprising 34 SNPs and 30 positional candidate genes. In the GSEA‐SNP, five gene sets with 58 unique and 24 shared LEGs contributed to 305MY. Identification of QTL and LEGs associated with 305MY can provide additional targets for genomic selection to continue to improve 305MY in dairy cattle.
Improving university students’ web savvy: An intervention study
Authors: McGrew Sarah , Smith Mark , Breakstone Joel , Ortega Teresa , Wineburg Sam
Published: April 2019

Background

Young people increasingly turn to the Internet for information about social and political issues. However, they struggle to evaluate the trustworthiness of the information they encounter online.

Aims

This pilot study investigated whether a focused curricular intervention could improve university students’ ability to make sound judgements of credibility.

Sample

Participants (n = 67) were students in four sections of a ‘critical thinking and writing’ course at a university on the West Coast of the United States. Course sections were randomly assigned to treatment (n = 29) and control conditions (n = 38).

Methods

We conducted a pre‐and‐posttest, treatment/control experiment using a 2 × 2 × 2 design (treatment condition × order × time) with repeated measures on the last factor. Students in the treatment group received two 75‐min lessons on evaluating the credibility of online content. An assessment of online reasoning was administered to students 6 weeks prior to the intervention and again 5 weeks after.

Results

Students in the treatment group were significantly more likely than students in the control group to have shown gains from pretest to posttest.

Conclusions

Results suggest that teaching students a small number of flexible heuristics that can be applied across digital contexts can improve their evaluation of online sources.
Phosphoproteome Analysis of Cells Infected with Adapted and Nonadapted Influenza A Virus Reveals Novel Pro- and Antiviral Signaling Networks
Authors: Weber Axel , Dam Sharmistha , Saul Vera V. , Kuznetsova Irina , Müller Christin , Fritz-Wolf Karin , Becker Katja , Linne Uwe , Gu Hongbo , Stokes Matthew P. , Pleschka Stephan , Kracht Michael , Schmitz M. Lienhard
Published: April 2019

Infection with IAVs leads to the induction of complex signaling cascades, which apparently serve two opposing functions. On the one hand, the virus highjacks cellular signaling cascades in order to support its propagation; on the other hand, the host cell triggers antiviral signaling networks. Here we focused on IAV-triggered phosphorylation events in a systematic fashion by deep sequencing of the phosphoproteomes. This study revealed a plethora of newly phosphorylated proteins. We also identified 37 protein kinases and a range of phosphatases that are activated or inactivated following IAV infection. Moreover, we identified new phosphorylation sites on IAV-encoded proteins. Some of these phosphorylations support the enzymatic function of viral components, while other phosphorylations are inhibitory, as exemplified by PB1 Thr223 modification. Our global characterization of IAV-triggered patterns of phospho-proteins provides a rich resource to further understand host responses to infection at the level of phosphorylation-dependent signaling networks.
Draft Genome Sequence of Lactobacillus plantarum EBKLp545, Isolated from Piglet Feces
Authors: Choi Sukjung , Kim Eun Bae
Published: April 2019

Lactobacillus plantarum
strain EBKLp545 was isolated from piglet feces in South Korea and sequenced using an Illumina HiSeq system. This draft genome of strain EBKLp545 consists of 3,306,513 bp with 3,049 protein-coding genes in 138 contigs (≥500 bp), 54 noncoding RNA genes, and a 44.3% G+C content.
Suicide after inhaling a pyrethrins containing insecticide spray
Authors: van den Bersselaar L R , van der Hoeven J G , de Jong B
Published: April 2019

Pesticide self-poisoning is rare in developed countries. We report a suicide case after inhalation of a pyrethrins containing insecticide spray. The patient presented at the emergency department with respiratory failure. Despite mechanical ventilation, he developed severe pulmonary inflammation with a systemic inflammatory response syndrome and died 5 days later. Studies reporting on acute pyrethrins or pyrethroids insecticide poisoning in both occupational and non-occupational cases usually describe mild and self-limiting respiratory symptoms as the predominant symptom. Severe or fatal cases of pyrethrins or pyrethroids poisoning are very rare. Patients with asthma or allergies are apparently more at risk for severe symptoms. In these cases, early and aggressive treatment with bronchodilatators, steroids, antihistamines and epinephrine should be considered.
Man with epigastric pain and persistently elevated serum lipase
Authors: Bachmeier Caroline Annette Erika , Morton Adam
Published: April 2019

Serum lipase and amylase are commonly requested in individuals presenting with abdominal pain for investigation of acute pancreatitis. Pancreatic hyperenzymaemia is not specific for acute pancreatitis, occurring in many other pancreatic and non-pancreatic conditions. Where persistent elevation of serum lipase and amylase occurs in the absence of a diagnosed cause or evidence of laboratory assay interference, ongoing radiological assessment for pancreatic disease is required for 24 months before a diagnosis of benign pancreatic hyperenzymaemia can be made. We report a case of a 71-year-old man with epigastric pain and elevated serum lipase levels. He was extensively investigated, but no pancreatic disease was detected. He is asymptomatic, but serum lipase levels remain elevated 18 months after his initial presentation.
The Impact of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure upon Pleural Fluid Pressures during Thoracentesis
Authors: Abouzgheib Wissam , Arya Rohan , Cruz-Morel Karla , Koleman Diana , Kass Jonathan , Boujaoude Ziad , DelGiacco Eric , Bartter Thaddeus
Published: April 2019

Background: Excessive drop of pleural pressure (Ppl) during therapeutic thoracentesis may be related to adverse events and/or to repeated procedures due to incomplete drainage. Objective: This was a pilot study of the impact of the application of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) at +5 cm H2O upon the Ppl profile during thoracentesis. Methods: This was a prospective, controlled study of 49 consecutive adults who underwent thoracentesis. Enrollment was via alternation on a one-to-one basis. Pleural manometry was used to compare serial Ppl in patients using CPAP at +5 cm H2O (CPAP group) with Ppl in patients without CPAP (control group). Results: Mean volumes drained were comparable between CPAP and control groups (1,380 vs. 1,396 mL). Patients in the CPAP group had a significantly greater change in volume per centimeter water column pressure (p = 0.0231, 95% confidence interval 6.41–82.61). No patient in the CPAP group had a Ppl less than –20 cm H2O at termination of the procedure, while 8 (33%) control group patients developed a pressure lower than –20. No patient in either group developed re-expansion pulmonary edema. Conclusion: The application of CPAP at +5 cm H2O mitigates the decreases in Ppl caused by thoracentesis via an increase in pleural compliance. The clinical implications of this finding merit study.
Effect of Postoperative Radiotherapy for Brain Metastases: An Analysis
Authors: Oertel Michael , Baehr Andrea , Habibeh Omar , Haverkamp Uwe , Stummer Walter , Eich Hans Theodor , Trog Daniela
Published: April 2019

Introduction: Brain metastases (BM) have a very poor prognosis, creating a demand for effective local therapies, such as radiotherapy (RT) and neurosurgery, the combination of which is debatable. The aim of the present study was to investigate prognostic factors and to develop treatment recommendations for patients with BM. Material and Methods: A total of 84 patients treated between May 2011 and July 2016 were analyzed in a single-institution retrospective study. Results: Overall survival (OS) was 10.3 months. Poor OS was defined by a Karnofsky performance index of ≤70% (2.9 vs. 15.8 months; p = 0.009), male gender (6.5 vs. 18.3 months; p = 0.044), and incomplete neurosurgical resection (2.5 vs. 15.8 months; p = 0.017). These factors were also shown to be significant in univariate analysis, while only radical resection remained significant in multivariate testing (p = 0.023). A direct comparison between whole-brain RT (with or without boost) and local RT illustrated a superior OS for local therapy (22.7 vs. 9.5 months; p = 0.022), especially in case of up to 3 metastases (p = 0.041). Intracranial control was 81% with a median duration of 31.6 months. Conclusion: Combined modality treatment of RT and neurosurgery is effective and feasible. A complete removal of all metastases is the cardinal prognostic factor.