bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Neurons and conductance-based models
Authors: Trappenberg Thomas P.
Published: January 2023

Neurons are specialized cells that thought to be essential for the information-processing mechanisms in the brain. This chapter summarizes the basic functionality of neurons and outlines some of their fascinating biochemical processes. These include an outline of chemical synapses, the parametrization of the response of the postsynaptic membrane potential to synaptic events, the origin of action potentials and how they can be modelled using elegant differential equations introduced by Hodgkin and Huxley, generalizations of such conductance-based models, and compartmental models that incorporate the physical structure of neurons.The review in this chapter is intended to justify simplifications of following models and to mention some of the neuronal characteristics that may be relevant in future research.
Feature maps and competitive population coding
Authors: Trappenberg Thomas P.
Published: January 2023

This chapter is about representing information with maps, and about competitive dynamics in neuronal tissue. The chapter starts with an outline of a basic model of a hypercolumn in which neurons respond to specific sensory input with characteristic {tuning curves}. Such features are often represented in topographically organized maps in the brain. It is discussed how such topographic feature maps can be self-organized. The chapter goes on to study the dynamics of activating such maps and model this with dynamic neural field theory. Several examples are discussed of how signatures of such competitive dynamics can be seen in a variety of examples from different parts of the brain. This chapter includes some more formal discussions of population coding, as well as some extensions of the basic models including dynamic updates of internal represented through path-integration.
Modular networks and complementary systems
Authors: Trappenberg Thomas P.
Published: January 2023

This chapter explores combinations of basic networks, starting with a discussion of modular mapping networks that can improve the performance of monolithic networks through the strategy of divide-and-conquer. The following discussion of modular recurrent networks explores how coupled dynamical system could balance between the independence of the modules and the cooperation between them. This seems important when considering coupled networks in the brain with drastic consequences of catastrophic synchronization when this balance is disrupted. A system-level example of interacting networks is a model of a complementary memory systems.
Motor Control and Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Trappenberg Thomas P.
Published: January 2023

This chapter discusses control and decision systems that learn from general guidance in form of environmental feedback. It starts with a short overview of classical control systems that describe well basic motor control in the brain. The chapter then continues to adaptive control systems that can learn optimal actions from reward feedback. This is somewhat different to the basic supervised learning discussed previously where the teacher would specify precisely the desired response of an agent. It is also different to unsupervised learning as there is still some feedback from the environment in form of reward. The goal of a reinforcement learning agent is to figure out which actions to take in order to achieve optimal returns, often in noisy settings.
The cognitive brain
Authors: Trappenberg Thomas P.
Published: January 2023

This last chapter has the intention to give some examples of these systems in theories on a higher cognitive level and a brief introduction to causal networks as one important framework for such models. It with outlining some hierarchical and attentive vision to give a small example how the brain integrates mechanisms beyond monolithic models such as deep learning. This chapter includes a discussion of a workspace hypothesis that shows how the brain is able to produce novel solutions to new tasks within modular architectures. Finally, there is an outline of models that describe cognitive reasoning with Bayesian causal networks and also give an outlook to more general directions of causal learning.
Belief Fundamentalism and Representational Pluralism
Authors: Silva Jr Paul
Published: January 2023

The belief requirement on knowledge together with the existence of distinct representational states is central to understanding the relationship between knowledge and factual awareness. This chapter explores two principal claims. The first is that knowing that p requires believing that p. The second is that there are representational states that are not beliefs states: seeming states and states of inferential representation. Both claims pave the way for understanding how and why factual awareness is a more basic state than knowledge, as well as for understanding the more specific claim that factual awareness is a genus of which knowledge is but one species.
Knowledge, Awareness, and Ordinary Language
Authors: Silva Jr Paul
Published: January 2023

There are different ways of seeking to relate knowledge and factual awareness. One way is to treat knowledge as the more general state and to treat factual awareness as a kind of knowledge. Alternatively, one could identify knowledge and factual awareness, and thus treat neither state as being more general. Another way is to treat factual awareness as the more general state and to then treat knowledge as a kind of factual awareness. This chapter argues against the idea that knowledge is more general than factual awareness, and it also argues that the case for identifying knowledge and factual awareness is underdetermined.
Awareness and the Possession of Reasons
Authors: Silva Jr Paul
Published: January 2023

It is now common, though not uncontroversial, to regard facts as the normative reasons that justify our actions and attitudes. But in order for a fact to be a reason that justifies an action or attitude for a given agent it must be a fact that is possessed by that agent. Knowledge-centric views of possession ground our possession of reasons, at least partially, in our knowledge of them or in our being in a position to know them. This chapter defends two claims: that awareness-centric accounts of possession are just as well placed to explain the motivations behind knowledge-centric views of possession, and that such views are also better placed to explain the reasons we possess in certain cases of inference and environmental luck.
The Natures of Awareness and Knowledge
Authors: Silva Jr Paul
Published: January 2023

This chapter provides a theory of factual awareness and of knowledge. The basic idea is that factual awareness is to be understood along virtue-theoretic lines while knowledge is to be understood as safe belief for sufficient reasons. The result is an ideologically unique normative, anti-luck, virtue epistemology whose motivations are natural and grounded in insights about the natures of factual awareness and knowledge. Despite optimism that a reductive analysis of both knowledge and factual awareness is possible, this chapter concludes with a discussion of what would happen if factual awareness were taken to be beyond reductive analysis.
Justifying Public Reason
Authors: Sadurski Wojciech
Published: January 2023

The ideal of public reason is an exemplification of ‘common good’ but understood not as a common denominator of actual human preferences but rather as ‘publicly admissible criteria of argument’ (Pettit) expresses the fundamental value of respect for persons, and it is argued that, as a value underlying public reason, respect must be understood in a sense which is at the same time thin, as ‘recognition’ (in contrast to thick, evaluative, merit-based conceptions of respect) and active (in contrast to passive manifestations of respect, such as deference or toleration). Still, respect itself is too vague to sustain a political ideal as weighty as that of public reason. Respect has to be seen as part of a constellation of values, of which freedom and equality are of particular importance. Each of these values enhances our political life in ways which can be explained in terms of another value. In this constellation, freedom is understood through a presumptive evil of coercion; and political equality, in an outcome-oriented agency sense. These three values interact and support each other in a configuration of moral ideals which render the principle of public reason attractive and, indeed, compelling.
The Parameters of Public Reason
Authors: Sadurski Wojciech
Published: January 2023

This chapter aims to recalibrate the philosophical concept of public reason in a way which renders it suitable to the evaluation of the legitimacy of law. It first compares the concept of public reason with Joseph Raz’s concept of exclusionary reasons, and finds strong resonance between second-order exclusionary reasons and public reason. It then places public reason in the context of a discussion sparked by Bernard Williams’ distinction between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ reasons, and finds the concept ‘internal’ reasons helpful for understanding public reason. When discussing the ‘publicness’ of public reason, two ideas are useful: that of the ‘input model of democracy’, and that of the ‘state’s neutrality’ towards competing conceptions of the good. In an attempt to recalibrate John Rawls’s conception of public reason so that it is rendered convincing in a constitutional context, the concept must be freed from two implausible limitations on its range urged by Rawls: that of its scope of application (which Rawls wanted to limit to ‘constitutional essentials’) and that of its agents (with the privileged position of judges in ascertaining public reasons). Finally, the chapter compares public reason with a concept which may be seen to be contiguous with it: that of reason of state. It is shown that, in some versions, (a ‘thin’ meaning) reason of state is functionally equivalent to public reason but that it also has problematic features related to its heavy reliance on the institutions of state.
Defending Public Reason
Authors: Sadurski Wojciech
Published: January 2023

The idea of public reason (PR) has been subjected to some critiques, and this chapter rebuts the most powerful ones. First, the ‘non-feasibility objection’ which claims it is impossible to identify a sufficient consensus, misconstrues the type of consensus needed to undergird public reason, and confuses inconclusiveness with indeterminacy. Second, there is an objection that public reason is ‘too thin’, a toothless ideal which would eliminate nothing from public discourse. The chapter shows that this objection is tenable only if we adopt an implausibly subjectivist conception of reasonableness. Third, the ‘too thick’ objection, claims that the adoption of this ideal would lead to a drastic erosion of public discourse. The chapter argues that this objection disregards the distinction between generalized public discourse and the advocacy of laws that are to become legislation. Fourth, the chapter discusses the argument that the adoption of PR as a reason-constraining device necessarily distorts the process of public justification. The chapter demonstrates that the requirement of Public Reason rests on the same type of restrictions on public arguments which we adopt as legitimate in many spheres of argument and justification anyway. Fifth, the chapter considers and rebuts the argument that the ideal of PR is detrimental to the principle of candour in public, and that it provides participants of the discourse with incentives for insincerity. It is argued that one should not confuse ‘strategic’ choice of argument, triggered by the principle of respect to the audience, with deception and insincerity.
Manuscripts
Authors: Day Matthew
Published: January 2023

Chapter 1 surveys manuscripts of Virgil’s works which were owned in England between c. 1400 and 1550. Through an analysis of readers’ annotations in these manuscripts, the chapter illustrates the continuities in Virgilian exegesis throughout the long fifteenth century. Much like Virgilian exegesis throughout the Middle Ages, fifteenth-century readers’ approaches to Virgil were structured by the pedagogic disciplines of grammar and rhetoric and the influence of the late antique commentator Servius. Although humanism dramatically increased the readership and canonical status of Virgil, it did not initiate a corresponding methodological change in exegetical practice. In many Virgil manuscripts owned in England, the most prominent signifiers of humanist influence are visual differences of script and decoration rather than the intellectual content of glossing. Beyond Virgil, this consistency of intellectual approach is representative of the major classical poets in this period.
Caxton’s Eneydos
Authors: Day Matthew
Published: January 2023

Chapter 4 discusses William Caxton’s Eneydos (1490) in relation to its French source material, the Livre des Eneydes (1483). Although widely described as an ‘adaptation’ of the Aeneid, the French source in fact contains substantial portions of direct translation from Virgil’s Latin, including a complete translation of Aeneid Book IV. The first half of the chapter unravels the complex production history of the French source, and closely analyses its relationship to the text and commentaries of the Aeneid. In light of this new understanding of the French source, the second half of the chapter presents a revisionist analysis of Caxton’s translation technique. His rendering of the French source into English displays a more accomplished, sensitive translator than previous studies of his translation practice typically allow.
Ancient Beauty in Timoleon
Authors: Marrs Cody
Published: January 2023

This chapter considers how and why Melville persistently returns to the ancient world. For Melville, the ancients had something crucial which has since been lost or forgotten: a sense of beauty’s radical ubiquity. Timoleon turns back to antiquity to apprehend the beauty of natural forms, which ancient artists took as both a raw material and a source of inspiration. As they migrate through ancient places and stories, Melville’s poems identify three defining features of beauty: it inheres in nature’s shapes and materials, it is mixed rather than pure, and it is a common part of earthly life. This chapter tracks the ways in which these features of beauty appear in various sounds, lines, and phases of matter throughout Melville’s poems.
Intersecting Crises and Exponential Inequalities
Authors: Loper Kelley
Published: January 2023

This chapter considers the capacity of equality law to address exponential inequalities arising from intersecting crises, that is, when more than one crisis occurs simultaneously or in close succession. It examines the case of Hong Kong, which has, in recent years, experienced increasing inequalities arising from a democracy deficit, shrinking space for civil society, political and ideological polarization, and strict responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. This has played out against the backdrop of a vast wealth gap and shortage of affordable housing. These crises intersect in complex ways with negative implications for the aims of substantive equality. They have also occurred alongside, and been influenced by, global developments including the pandemic, the rise of authoritarian regimes and populist movements, and other threats to democracy and human rights. As such, insights from Hong Kong may inform strategies for dealing with the effects of crisis elsewhere. Multiple crises in Hong Kong have predominantly impacted groups facing intersectional disadvantage, including migrant domestic workers, refugees, mainland immigrants, and people of South Asian origin. Hong Kong equality law, however, is generally ill-equipped to prevent or remedy such complex disadvantage. The Hong Kong situation illustrates the importance of enhancing the participation of groups lacking political and social voice as a critical element of substantive equality. When a democracy deficit prevails, the general inability to participate, compounded by a worsening disproportionate lack of representation by marginalized communities, makes it even more difficult to advance equality claims.
Reframing Providence
Authors: Kopf Simon Maria
Published: January 2023

The doctrine of providence, which states that God guides his creation, has been widely conceived in action terms in recent theological scholarship. A telling example is the so-called divine action debate, which is largely based on two principles: (i) providence is best conceptualised in terms of divine action; and (ii) divine action is best modelled on human action. By examining this debate, and especially the Divine Action Project (1988–2003), which led to the ‘scientific turn’ of the debate, this book argues that theo-physical incompatibilism, as a corollary of this ‘framing’ of providence, can be identified as a main reason for the current deadlock in divine action theories—namely, the assumption that just as human (libertarian) free action presupposes causal indeterminism, so, too, does divine action in the world presuppose causal indeterminism. Instead of recalibrating the much-discussed non-interventionist objective divine action (NIODA) approaches, this book advocates a ‘reframing’ of providence in terms of the virtue of prudence. To this end, this book examines the ‘prudential-ordinative’ theory of Thomas Aquinas and contrasts it with the prevalent ‘actionistic’, or action-based, model of providence. In this process, the book discusses, among other topics, the doctrine of divine transcendence, primary and secondary causation, natural necessity and contingency, and teleology as essential features of this ‘prudential-ordinative’ theory. How these two approaches fare when applied to the question of biological evolution is the subject of the final part of this book, which revisits the controversy between Stephen Jay Gould and Simon Conway Morris over what would happen if one were to rerun the tape of life.
Business, Business Organization, and Personnel Management
Authors: Som Rana
Published: January 2023

Business is a process of conversion in terms of quality, quantity, space, and time. The term ‘Business’ includes all value-adding activities, which form the basis of human survival and growth. A business organization means a combination of people who join together to work for a common objective. People, therefore, occupy the centre stage of an organization and thus, management of people or personnel management is not only an integral part of business, but it is also probably the most important function in a business organization; it integrates people with business and business objectives and motivates people, in a planned and structured manner to unveil their full potential for their own benefit as well as for the benefit of their organization; it builds a structure to define the role and responsibility of each member of an organization. The structure is, however, not static but dynamic, as people in a business organization tends to discover and rediscover himself or herself and the success of personnel management lies in its ability to aid and assist this process.
Personnel Management Takes a New Leap Forward
Authors: Som Rana
Published: January 2023

The beginning of twentieth century also witnessed new experiments on human motivations and productivity. These unveiled new opportunities to understand human behaviour and scope to make working people not only more productive but also more satisfied. Hawthorne studies conducted in the 20s of the 20th century built the foundation of behavioural science and its application in industries. For the first time it was understood through recorded experiments that the industries did so far have only limited understanding of the factors which made people work as individuals or as members of informal groups they belonged to. Research of Elton Mayo established that along with individual motivation people were also guided by group affiliation in determining the level of output they would produce.
Great Depression, War, and New World Order
Authors: Som Rana
Published: January 2023

The gains of labour in the post WW I period and the new perceptions of employers on labour management were short-lived due to the great depression that engulfed the western world soon. The personnel managers who were looking forward to having new approaches to integrate labour with the respective organizations had now to inflict retrenchments and pay cuts on workmen. The depression was followed by another World War, which brought about unimaginable devastation to human civilization. Not only labour, but all sections of population in the warring nations suffered. War-time emergency robbed the workers of a substantial part of the gains that they had made during their century long struggle to combine and agitate for their rights. New ways to motivate the workers on which the man managers had just acquired novel ideas became redundant. But then, even during these difficult years personnel management did not cease to evolve itself.
Later Theories of Behavioural Science
Authors: Som Rana
Published: January 2023

Even before the Second World War ended, new theories emerged in behavioural science providing very useful insights into human minds. These inputs created a lasting impression on those managing people in industries. The theories of Maslow, McGregor, and Herzberg brought revolutionary changes in the mindset of man managers and convinced them that it would be beneficial for both the industries and working people to adopt new ways to handle the employees, which may make them more creative, more satisfied and more useful partners in the business activities. The importance of these theories lies in the fact that they are still relevant and useful in understanding the human minds and the matrix of man’s motivation.
The Indian Experience
Authors: Som Rana
Published: January 2023

The new phase of industrialization started in India almost from the beginning of the twentieth century. Being a late starter, Indian workers did not have to wait for a century or more like their British counterparts to acquire their minimum rights and facilities though they also did have to face resistance from their employers in the initial years. The situation changed fast and the workers’ rights were largely recognized after the Trade Unions Act was passed in 1926 and a few other labour legislations came into force. India gained independence in 1947 under the leadership of nationalist leaders in whose struggle for freedom the workers had provided unflinching support. After independence, India adopted a democratic form of government. The state as a policy decided to give importance to industrial peace and harmony by securing cooperation of trade unions. Tripartite forums were created at the national level to formulate policies with the consent of all concerned. These efforts had achieved only limited success.
Labour Codes
Authors: Som Rana
Published: January 2023

Though Indian economy underwent important changes during the last few decades, India’s labour laws remained unchanged for a long time. The Government of India since 2019 took initiatives to modify all labour laws and club them into four labour codes to give them a simplified form. As many as 29 labour legislations were subsumed into 4 Labour Codes by modifying them to some extent, introducing clarity wherever necessary, and making them easy to implement. The effort has also been to make the codes more compatible with the economic realities of the present time. In other words, the Codes were attempted to be framed by striking a balance between the need of the industry to keep the labour cost reasonably low and creating more employment at modest wages.
Theological Prolegomenon
Authors: Tanton Tobias
Published: January 2023

Chapter 1 opens with a fundamental problem in theological epistemology, namely how finite, limited human creatures can comprehend an infinite God. To resolve this quandary, theologians have typically appealed to the long-standing principle of divine accommodation, which posits that God accommodates revelation to limited human capacities. Accommodation began as a hermeneutical tool to explain, for example, changes between the Old and New Covenants, but soon developed into a broader principle for understanding the doctrine of the incarnation and for theological epistemology tout court: any divine knowledge which is imparted to humans must be framed in terms of their limited and particular capacities for understanding. Insofar as this principle posits that theological understanding is accommodated to human capacities, it provides a helpful framework for bringing theology into conversation with cognitive sciences which investigate the precise nature of such human capacities. Hence accommodation will provide a theological framework for the remainder of this volume as it seeks to bring new developments in cognitive science into dialogue with theology.
Embodied Cognition in Ecclesial Practices
Authors: Tanton Tobias
Published: January 2023

Taking its cue from replacement and constitution hypotheses (Chapter 5), this chapter highlights the cognitive significance of embodied religious practices and religious material culture. It applies dozens of specific empirical findings from embodied cognition research to Christian Eucharistic practices, among other examples. Studies should be treated with caution given methodological issues identified in experimental psychology, including replication, small or unrepresentative samples, and ecological validity. Nevertheless, these findings illuminate how bodily postures and movements, ritual objects, pilgrimage routes, visual culture, multisensory stimuli, and social interactions serve as cognitive scaffolding by supporting numerous aspects of cognition including memory, emotion, attention, judgement, and conceptualisation. Although such mechanisms are most readily identified with elaborate liturgical practices, I draw upon ethnographic accounts to argue that they are also relevant to ‘non-liturgical’ traditions.
Architecture and the Arts
Authors: Petropoulos Jonathan
Published: January 2023

This chapter offers an overview of the arts in Nazi Germany. Organized by discipline—architecture, the visual and plastic arts, music, and literature. The author explores the nexus of culture and barbarism in the Third Reich. Nazi leaders, beginning with Adolf Hitler, invested significant time and resources in the arts during their twelve-year rule. The arts were tools for the totalitarian regime, useful for indoctrination and for the articulation of ideological precepts. The Nazis dominated the public sphere and created a distorted ‘subjective social reality’. But the arts were more than propaganda. For Hitler, a former painter, art was part of his personal identity, and for the nation as a whole, a sense of cultural superiority helped justify the racist and expansionist Nazi programme. This chapter shows how culture factored into the Holocaust, including expropriating cultural property as a means to dehumanize the victims. Topics covered include the emigration of Jewish cultural figures in the 1930s, the ambitious Nazi building programme, the purge of so-called ‘degenerate’ art, the accomplishments of Jewish artists under duress, the collaboration of titans of music, the burning of books, ‘internal emigration’, and efforts in the post-war period to come to terms with culture in Nazi Germany.
The Holocaust
Authors: Bartov Omer
Published: January 2023

This chapter begins with a survey of Holocaust historiography, stressing especially the recent focus on eastern Europe, links to colonialism, and victim accounts. It then discusses the diverse origins of the Holocaust, ranging from premodern anti-Judaism to scientific racism and racial hygiene, culminating in the Nazi belief in ‘redemptive anti-semtism’. The chapter goes on to analyse Nazi Germany’s pre-war anti-Jewish policies, the expansion of these policies as part of Germany’s invasion of Poland, and the transition to mass murder as part of the war of extermination in the Soviet Union, first by mass shootings in situ and then, with the decision on the ‘final solution of the Jewish question’ throughout Europe, by transporting Jews from the entire continent to several extermination camps located in Poland. The chapter emphasizes the crucial involvement of numerous collaborators in the genocide of the Jews, often in pursuit of their own nationalist agendas, and the public and intimate nature of the killings in a vast number of eastern European towns and cities. Moving on to an examination of the grey zones of complicity and resistance among the victims, whose legacy haunts the memory of the Holocaust to this day, the chapter also queries different theories of perpetrator motivation, ending with a discussion of the skewed understanding of the Holocaust in the early post-war decades.
Twenty-First-Century Archaeology
Authors: Harding D. W.
Published: January 2023

Archaeology in the twenty-first century has seen its equivalent of the radiocarbon dating revolution in the DNA archaeogenetics revolution, with its notable impact on interpretation of Beaker communities in Europe, and more recently the recognition of later Bronze Age immigration. A lesser but important impact has also been made by isotope analysis, and more generally by advances in palaeopathological research. The biggest single change in field archaeology has been the scale of development-led excavation, with major infrastructure projects on a trans-landscape dimension. Whilst the outcome has seen some decline in detailed presentation of results, the major achievement has been in landscape environmental synthesis. Study is increasingly focusing on the use of materials and resources, potentially with lessons in terms of sustainable building and environmental impact. Academic archaeologists still debate issues such as egalitarian societies vs hierarchical societies and still borrow yesterday’s models from anthropology, like Lévi-Strauss’ ‘house societies’. A major concern remains the standing of archaeology as a university discipline, especially with the adoption of online technology during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the public perception of archaeology as entertainment or an adjunct to tourism.
Archaeotectural Alternatives
Authors: Harding D. W.
Published: January 2023

The cone-on-a-cylinder model of roundhouse is incapable of extension beyond a maximum diameter determined by maximum length of rafter. By contrast, the split roof with central tower is limited only by the maximum height that can be achieved by the tower. Roundhouses seldom show evidence of partial repairs, which suggests rebuilding took place only periodically, when the roof thatch required replacement, or perhaps generationally. Multi-ringed houses suggest a different superstructure, possibly involving turf as a roofing material. One variant of roundhouse is the oval house, drawing apart the two semi-circles with a medial ridge, as in the Roman Iron Age houses of Cornish ‘rounds’. A major variant on the roundhouse theme are figure-of-eight houses, notably documented archaeologically and historically in the early historic period in Ireland. Further variants include ‘shamrocks’ and cellular houses of the Later Iron Age in Northern Britain. The penannular ridge-roof model, advanced many years ago and generally now overlooked, conceptually linked round and rectangular plans. In the early Roman period the aisled hall likewise can be viewed as the counterpart of roundhouses in the social use of space, despite apparent contrasts in plan. Strict typology may thus inhibit interpretation.
Roundhouses
Authors: Harding D. W.
Published: January 2023

Understanding the life-cycle of roundhouses is important for understanding what it is that we are excavating, since we cannot simply assume that surviving evidence was representative of use. What are the defining criteria of roundhouses, and how different are they from rectangular houses? Were there common factors of social use, and have these been neglected in our preoccupation with architectural plans? How did roundhouses change over time, and why, and how did they function within diverse larger settlement units? How far has interpretation been determined by theoretical approaches and methodology? Was there an ‘Atlantic’ roundhouse society in north-western Europe?
How socio-demographic factors have fared over time
Authors: Dassonneville Ruth
Published: January 2023

This chapter engages with a first explanation of change: that the rise in electoral volatility results from a weakening of the impact of socio-demographic characteristics on the vote. The chapter reviews the literature on the role of long-term socio-demographic determinants on the vote, starting with the role of three factors that are connected to the cleavage structures in Western societies: class, religion and place of living. The chapter then turns to reviewing previous work that has studied the electoral effects of three socio-demographic factors that are thought of as emerging cleavages: gender, age and education. Having reviewed previous work that has examined the role of these socio-demographic factors, the chapter then turns to an empirical assessment of the explanatory power of these factors - and how it varies over time. To do so, the chapter uses longitudinal election survey data from eight established democracies and decomposes the pseudo-R2 statistic for models of the vote choice to assess the relative roles of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ cleavage variables. While there are some indications of change, the results indicate that in many countries, the explanatory power of class, religion and place of living has remained fairly stable. The explanatory power of gender, education and age also appears fairly stable over time. Overall, the results of this chapter suggest that the increase of volatility cannot be explained solely by a declining impact of socio-demographic characteristics on the vote choice.
Increasingly short term?
Authors: Dassonneville Ruth
Published: January 2023

The final chapter of the first part of the book asses the claim that voting behaviour is more volatile because voters are influenced more by short-term determinants of the vote, like the state of the economy or party leaders. In a first section, this theoretical point of view is presented in more depth and the findings from earlier work that have studied this question are discussed. Overall, it is clear that the empirical evidence for the idea that the weight of short-term determinants on the vote choice has increased over time is limited. The next section of this chapter tries to make sense of this lack of evidence by pointing out that previous work studying short-term factors has overlooked their connection with other, more long-term, determinants of the vote - like party attachments and socio-demographic characteristics. In a third section of this chapter, the election survey data from the eight countries studied in this book are used to assess over-time variation in the impact of economic evaluations and leader evaluations on the vote. In line with earlier work, these analyses suggest a great deal of stability in the impact that short-term determinants have on voters' choices.
Cross-pressures, late deciding, and volatility
Authors: Dassonneville Ruth
Published: January 2023

The final empirical chapter provides a test of the main argument that this book makes: that cross-pressures are a main source of volatility. The chapter relies on a measure of extent to which individuals are group-based cross-pressured, and assesses the association between this measure and two dependent variables: late-deciding and switching parties from one election to the next. The empirical analyses of longitudinal election study data provide strong evidence that voters who are more cross-pressured, based on their socio-demographic characteristics, decide later what party to vote for. The results that are presented in this chapter further point out that group-based cross-pressured voters are substantially more likely to switch parties between elections. These findings hold even when partisanship is controlled for and also appear when using panel data to examine the correlates of party switching. A final section indicates that the association between group-based cross-pressure and electoral volatility holds when accounting for alternative explanations for volatility, such as cognitive mobilization and dissatisfaction.
Conclusion
Authors: Dassonneville Ruth
Published: January 2023

The concluding chapter provides a summary of the main findings that are presented in the preceding chapters. In a second section, attention is given to the similarities and differences in patterns between the eight countries that are the focus of the book. This discussion draws attention to the role of context and provides indications of the extent to which the trends are generalizable or country-specific. The chapter then turns to a discussion of what the trends that the book describes imply for the future of elections and voting behaviour. In a fourth section, future research directions are identified and discussed. These avenues for future research should address some of the limitations of the observational analyses that are presented in the book. The chapter ends with some concluding thoughts on the importance and relevance of the findings for research on electoral behaviour and for our understanding of voting behaviour in current-day democracies
Unnecessary Aphorisms
Authors: Masud Noreen
Published: January 2023

Chapter 1 argues that the style and structure of aphorisms, whose accomplished rhetorical suaveness allows them to imprint on the mind but quickly slip from it, mirrors an aesthetic which pervades Stevie Smith’s poetry. Smith designs her poems so that the reader cannot absorb or assimilate their content. Through comparison to aphoristic techniques, this chapter examines the passionate rhetorical gestures made by Smith’s poems, where a proposition is announced clearly and insistently. Poems such as ‘Croft’ insist on themselves, yet are self-sufficient: they inhabit the solid shape of a rhetorical position though their content may, despite appearances, be minimal. Revelations are both made and concealed, rooting these dynamics in the aphorism’s promise that absolute truth lies within its boundaries, though the reader inevitably fails to marshal a set of interpretative terms with which to tackle it. Arguing that unsuccessful epiphany is built into the aphorism’s truth-value, the chapter reads Smith’s poems as texts which cannot live up to the extent of the revelation which their forms promised. Both over- and underdetermined, in form and content respectively, they signal that they have power even as they cauterise the interpretative mechanisms which readers might rely on to access that power. Smith’s aphoristic aesthetic allows her to drive towards a model of value which constructs itself in the moments of lapse implicit in the rhythm of aphoristic engagement. Aphorism offers a model of reading which can accommodate illegitimate extremes of feeling, by allowing the reader to depart from them and return as necessary.
Aphoristic Messages, Too Late
Authors: Masud Noreen
Published: January 2023

Chapter 2 filters Smith’s Novel on Yellow Paper (1936) through her reading of aphoristic moments in classical literature. Like many twentieth-century women writers, Smith’s poetry and prose rewrite classical texts; what she adds to this literary history is to foreground, rather than to reverse, the unheedability of aphoristic speakers who move to and from the margins. The chapter therefore makes a critical intervention in this literary tradition, offering a new lens on women writers’ reworkings of the classics in the twentieth century. Smith’s classical lines reveal and effect nothing; they come too late to be used or heeded. In inhabiting that mode deeply and curiously, she finds a narrative schema for Novel on Yellow Paper, in which everything that might happen has already occurred, too late to change. Excess detail swallows up the aphorism, preventing its revelatory promise from being located or listened to.
Introduction
Authors: Frajzyngier Zygmunt
Published: January 2023

This Introduction states the goal of the study, viz. the discovery of functions in reference systems in more than twelve languages. The importance of reference systems consists of the role they play in (1) the formation of utterances, including clauses and sentences; (2) the interpretation of meanings of utterances; and (3) the determination of basic units of semantic analysis. The study of reference systems is a contribution to an empirically based theory and a methodology for semantic analysis of natural languages. Such a theory and methodology is explicitly not based on inferences from individual sentences. Such a theory is a prerequisite for any discussion of the meaning of individual utterances, including sentences if a language has such formal units. The discussion of individual utterances is the prevalent approach in current semantic research. The theory and methodology implemented in the present study of reference systems are necessary prerequisites for logical analyses and representations of individual utterances. The chapter discusses the expected contribution to the typology of reference systems, the methodology of research, the coding means in the reference systems, the state of the art with respect to reference systems, and a summary of main findings and implications.
The reference system in non-literary varieties of Russian
Authors: Frajzyngier Zygmunt
Published: January 2023

The term ‘non-literary varieties of Russian’ refers to Russian spoken by people with little or no exposure to the literary language be it through schools, newspapers, radio, or extensive personal contacts. The coding means participating in the reference system of non-literary Russian include: bare nouns and bare nominal expressions, i.e. adjectives, numerals, quantifiers; pronouns; a three-gender system; a two-number system; coding of the person, number, and gender of the subject on the verb in the present tense; coding of the number and gender of the subject on the verb in the past tense; demonstratives; and a case system applying to all nominal categories including pronouns, demonstratives, and quantifiers. Some of these coding means are dedicated means of coding references, such as the gender system, coding on the verb, nouns, pronouns, and demonstratives, and others are dedicated coding means for other functions. Some of the functions within the reference system include no instructions to identify the referent and an unknown human and unknown non-human participant in the proposition. The number of functions through which the subject participant can be identified is larger than the number of functions through which the object participant can be identified. With respect to the reference coded within noun phrases, the non-literary variety of Russian is unique in that the system of determiners instructs the listener to identify the referent as relevant to current discourse based on the content of the preceding discourse. The traditional distinction between ‘proximate’ and ‘remote’ does not account for the function of determiners.
The reference system of Mina
Authors: Frajzyngier Zygmunt
Published: January 2023

The system of reference in Mina (Central Chadic) contains several functions that are not attested in other languages discussed in this volume. Bare nouns in Mina refer to entities rather than semantic concepts. Referential functions that have the subject in their scope differ from those that have other grammatical relations in their scope. The coding of the referent of a noun phrase includes: a specific referent, deduced referent, remote previous mention, unspecified referent, locative referent, and no instructions to identify the referent. The language codes the function of a switch reference, which can have all grammatical relations in its scope.
Introduction
Authors: Cockell Charles S.
Published: January 2023

What freedoms can people expect in space and how will governance beyond Earth tread the fine line between authority and liberty? In this multi-author book, the contributors consider all aspects of liberty beyond Earth, from the near term: freedom to claim satellite orbits, to the very long-term: freedom on interstellar worldships. Liberty in societies on the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere in the solar system is considered. Gathering together scientists, ethicists, lawyers, philosophers, and social scientists, this book considers one of the most enduring questions of human organization: what institutional arrangements can allow for the realization of diverse forms of human freedom?.
Art, institutions, and liberty in extraterrestrial communities
Authors: Beattie Annalea
Published: January 2023

On Earth our institutions of art generate borders that shape societal and cultural norms by attempting to define what art is. As they frame and impose meaning upon our bodies, and our objects and cultures, they perform a democratic role, changing the way we view art and ourselves. As art and its institutions are active sites for understanding liberty, it is critical we address a speculative, institutional model for art before we leave our planet to live somewhere else. This chapter begins an exploration of what kind of art institutions are needed in young, developing, healthy societies on Mars. It overviews recent changes in the role of our art institutions and suggests that the art archive and the art school are appropriate as starting points for thinking about art and community and cultural growth off-Earth.
Space for opportunity
Authors: Bhatt Mukesh Chiman
Published: January 2023

Space settlers will require air, water, and essential nutrients for survival. Power will be needed for their manufacture and supply with maintenance of associated equipment. The property rights, ownership, and maintenance of this equipment can therefore determine the economic, political, and social structures of the settlement. Current terrestrial law places restrictions on these property rights under the jurisdiction of the founding nation under the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. An alternative transcultural jurisprudence responsive to the new and extreme environments of space is proposed to avoid the loss of liberty in such situations.
The law of Mars’ colonization
Authors: Costa Raphaël
Published: January 2023

Space colonization is almost exclusively approached from a scientific perspective discussing its technical feasibility. Although since 1967 (year of adoption of the Outer Space Treaty) human activities in outer space are regulated by international law, the legal feasibility of colonizing celestial bodies is still a new topic. This paper aims to consider the law already applying to Mars colonization by analysing the legal conditions relating to installing a human colony on Mars and the legal problems that will be created by the long-term occupation of the red planet’s surface. It follows work on same topic (including space colonization by space stations) that comprehensively examines the subject and was published (in French) by The Hague Academy for International Law in a book entitled 50 Years of Space Law—Space Law in 50 Years.
Scarcity in space
Authors: Elvis Martin
Published: January 2023

The vast resources of space suggest a post-scarcity age ahead. Most people will then live in space cities necessarily designed in ways that also promote freedom. Space cities cannot have full autarky or independence because they must import raw materials, products, and skills. Scarce valuable resources produce disputes and are conducive to monopolies. Initially, resources will come from a few sources, the Moon or the largest near-Earth asteroids, possibly controlled by powerful cartels. The governance we set up now, during scarcity, may become hard to alter when great abundance is available. We should act soon, before vested interests are settled.