bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
In Vitro Evaluation of Hydroalcoholic Extracts of Capparis spinosa, Ricinus communis, and Solanum luteum on Leishmania major (MRHO/IR/75/ER) Promastigotes
Authors: Zadeh-Abbasi Zarandi Hedieh , Shirani-Bidabadi Leila , Aghaei-Afshar Abass , Eghbalian Mostafa , Zolala Jafar , Mirtadzadini Mansour , Saghafipour Abedin , Salarkia Ehsan
Published: September 2021

Background: Plant extracts or compounds derived from plants are a valuable source for finding new anti-leishmaniasis drugs. Objective: In this study, Capparis spinosa, Ricinus communis, and Solanum luteum were used as lethal agents for the promastigotes of Leishmania major parasites in the culture medium. Methods: Diluted extracts of 12.5, 100, and 500 mg/mL were prepared from medicinal plant dried extracts. Glucantime at a concentration of 500 mg/mL was used as a positive control. Results: For all three extracts, concentrations of 100 and 500 mg/mL could kill promastigotes at higher rates and speeds compared to other concentrations. The high concentrations of extracts (500 mg/mL) presented similar effects. According to the findings, hydroalcoholic extract of C. spinosa presented considerably lower antiparasitic effects, and S. luteum and R. communis extracts could kill most of the parasitic promastigotes at higher doses. The ANOVA test did not show any significant viability percentage difference of Leishmania extracts between different extract types. Conclusions: In this study, the lethal effects of R. communis and S. luteum hydroalcoholic extracts on L. major promastigotes were found to be stronger than the C. spinosa L. extract.
Evaluating the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Dental Academics and the Future of Dental Education Across India
Authors: Singhal Rameshwari , Chandra Anil , Tripathi Shuchi , Rastogi Pavitra , Khanna Richa
Published: September 2021

Background: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to the transition of dental education from chair-side clinical teachings to virtual didactic lectures. The future of dental education is not clear in these uncertain times. Objectives: This survey-based study aimed to evaluate the current scenario and preparedness of dental colleges/universities and faculty in adapting to the new situation and understanding the challenges faced during this phase. The survey also explored the opinions, limitations, and possible solutions in dental academics through open-ended qualitative questions. Methods: This survey-based study utilized exploratory mixed methods through both open- and closed-ended questions. The survey was distributed electronically to the majority of dental colleges across India to be answered voluntarily by the dental academicians involved in COVID-19 planning. The survey was inspired by the pre-existing questionnaire proposed by the Association of Dental Education in Europe (ADEE), and it was modified by the committee consisting of the study authors. Validation and piloting of the study were done through in-house dental faculty. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and expressed in percentages. Broad themes for qualitative data were derived by two independent authors and collated by the third author to finalize the results. Results: The questionnaire was answered by 89 dental schools from all parts of the country with varying stages of COVID-19 prevalence. Quantitative data revealed 100% adaptation of dental schools to online teaching, uncertainty regarding online (31.46%) and offline (10.11%) exams, and assessment of clinical competence. Qualitative analysis indicated uncertainty, ambiguity, and lack of direction among study respondents regarding how best to deal with the current situation. Conclusions: According to our results, collaborative effort from governing bodies was urgently required at this point to prevent dental education from being divided into multi-directional, incoherent, and isolated units.
Prevalence of Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Men of 25 - 60 Years in Iran
Authors: Aliakbari Fereshteh , Emadeddin Majid , Taghizabet Neda , Rezaei-Tazangi Fatemeh , Sadeghzadeh Zahra , Hosseini Jalil
Published: September 2021

Background: Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), especially in men, can lead to multiple morbidities and facilitate the transmission of serious pathogens, such as the human immunodeficiency virus. The present study used the data from a nationwide survey on male morbidities to estimate the prevalence of STDs among men in Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study used the data from a nationwide project on male reproductive morbidities in 2007. A total of 2296 men within the age range of 25 - 60 years were recruited by systematic cluster sampling from four provinces (i.e., Golestan, Hormozgan, Kermanshah, and Isfahan, Iran). The data on the symptoms of STDs, including genital secretion, pushing out, itching or genital ulcers, and lymphadenopathy of the inguinal area after sexual contact, were collected by trained urologists. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS software (version18.0, Chicago, IL, USA). The independent samples t-test and chi-square test were used for data analysis. Results: A total of 2296 men with a mean age value of 39.95 ± 10.3 years were interviewed in this study. Two-thirds of all the subjects (75%) were aware of using condoms in suspected sexual relationships; however, only 69% of the aforementioned subjects used condoms in those circumstances. Overall, 14 subjects (0.6%) had one type of STDs at the study time. Moreover, 110 subjects (4.7%) answered “yes” to the question of whether they were referred to a physician for sexual problems. Conclusions: The prevalence of STDs is still low among the male population in Iran. Careful and well-designed surveillance systems to monitor the incidence of STDs and proper preventive measures to restrict the spread of sexually transmitted pathogens are among the proposed recommendations.
The Association Between Communication Skills and the Mental Health of Elderly Patients’ Hospitalization in the South of Iran Hospitals in 2020
Authors: Yusefi Ali Reza , Nasabi Narjes Sadat , Amin Elham , Bordbar Shima , Kavosi Zahra , Shahmohammadi Javad
Published: September 2021

Background: Aging is considered a critical period of life, and paying attention to the needs of this stage is a social necessity. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the association between communication skills and mental health of elderly patients who were hospitalized in the south of Iran hospitals in 2020. Methods: The present study is a descriptive-analytical study conducted on 386 elderly patients. The data of the present study were collected through a three-section questionnaire consists of demographic information, interpersonal communication skills, and mental health. The data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistical methods, Pearson correlation coefficient, t-test, ANOVA, and multiple linear regression tests in SPSS software version 23 and at a significance level of α = 0.05. Results: Elderly patients’ communication skills were assessed at a low level (67.01 ± 7.36). The mean score of total mental health among elderly patients indicated mild symptoms of mental disorders among them (177.84 ± 9.21). A significant association was also found between communication skills and mental health disorders among elderly patients (P < 0.001, r = -0.631). The results of multiple linear regression revealed that the components of understanding the message (P < 0.001), emotional control (P = 0.001), listening (P = 0.001), assertiveness (P = 0.005), and insight (P = 0.006) had a positive and significant impact on the mental health of elderly patients. Conclusions: Owing to the correlation between communication skills and mental health, it is recommended to develop and use supportive programs in the form of elderly health programs in medical centers to improve the mental health status of elderly patients.
Primary Small-Cell Carcinoma of the Hard Palate: An Extremely Rare Occasion
Authors: Doroudinia Abtin , Salahi Siamak , Dorudinia Atosa , Mehrian Payam , Naseri Reza , Modiri Roshanak
Published: September 2021

: Most primary small cells carcinoma develop from the lung, and extra-pulmonary small cell carcinoma accounts for less than 5% of all small cell carcinoma cases. In the head and neck region, the most common sites are the larynx and salivary glands; however primary involvement of the palate is extremely rare. The extra-pulmonary small cell carcinoma is similar to its pulmonary counterpart regarding morphology, immunohistochemistry, and electron microscopy features and derives from pluripotential stem cells that develop neuroendocrine features. There is growing evidence regarding the ability of extra-pulmonary small cell carcinoma to arise from pluripotent basilar cells capable of divergent differentiation with the consequence of arising neuroendocrine phenotype as a trans-differentiation phenomenon in the progression of an organ-specific carcinoma. The differentiation between primary and metastatic extra-pulmonary small cell carcinoma is challenging. There is also no standard guideline for treatment as it is a rare occasion, and there is no consensus between radiation oncologists and cancer surgeons about the best treatment strategy. In this study, a very rare case of hard palate small cell carcinoma with neuroendocrine pathology features is presented. To our best of knowledge, this is the third case report of extra-pulmonary small cell carcinoma involving the palate in the literature review. Knowing the clinical presentation and pathology characteristics of such rare tumor in addition to follow-up outcome can be highly useful to establish a reliable guideline for hard palate small cell carcinoma management.
The Effect of Music Therapy on Sense of Loneliness and Life Expectancy in Methamphetamine-Addicted Individuals Attempting to Quit
Authors: Mohammadirad Reza , Hosseinkhanzadeh Abas Ali , Zebardast Azra , Salimi Hamed
Published: September 2021

Background: Since there has been no research on music therapy in a systematic way so far to develop motivation and hope in the course of treating individuals who are addicted to drugs, especially stimulant drugs whose use has increased in Iran, the present research was conducted to examine the effect of music therapy on the sense of loneliness and life expectancy in methamphetamine-addicted individuals who were attempting to quit. Methods: The research is pretest, posttest, and test and control groups. The research sample includes 30 methamphetamine-addicted individuals who were quitting in a midterm residential center in Sowme'eh Sara who were selected by convenience sampling and allocated to two control (N = 15) and experiment (N = 15) groups randomly. UCLA sense of loneliness scale and Schneider statistical questionnaire (1991) were used for data collection. Results: Studies showed that music therapy could reduce the symptoms related to the sense of loneliness and increased life expectancy (P < 0.001). Conclusions: It is concluded that mental health professionals can use group music therapy to improve sense of loneliness and life expectancy in methamphetamine-addicted individuals attempting to quit. Also, it is suggested that future research should investigate the effectiveness of group music therapy in improving other psychological constructs in addicted females and males who are attempting to quit.
Rhythms of intuition. Methodological reflections in phenomenological psychology
Authors: Kudahl Benedikte , Roald Tone
Published: September 2021

This paper discusses how different concepts of rhythm apply to phenomenological psychological research. We suggest that viewing phenomenological research in psychology as rhythmic not just enables us to notice how the research procedure implies certain shifts within in a series of temporally structured movements of repetition and change; it also enables us to deepen our understanding of the manner in which the researcher engages with the studied phenomenon through intuition. In other words, we argue that rhythm is fundamental to the method of how we understand “the things themselves.”
Current trends of international cooperation in the area of education on the example of Spain and Russia (due to implementation of the joint degree program between Peoples' Friendship University of Russia and University of the Balearic Islands)
Authors: Kuznetsova Viktoriia , Kargovskaia Elena
Published: September 2021

This article explores the cooperation of Spain and Russia in the area of education due to implementation of the joint degree program between Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia and University of the Balearic Islands). The study of the bilateral dialogue within the framework of educational policy and outlining its prospects is relevant since Spain is the strategically important partner for the Russian Federation. Analysis of the potential of university cooperation between the two countries at the present stage is also necessary for expanding the presence of Spain and Russia in the humanitarian sphere abroad, and creating a positive image of both countries among foreign partners. The novelty of this research lies in the detailed analysis of the joint Master’s program and postgraduate education implemented between Peoples' Friendship University of Russia and University of the Balearic Islands), its current state and development prospects, as well as the challenges faced in the process of implementation of this project. It is noted that the joint degree program between the Russian and Spanish universities are an integral part of their cooperation in the sphere of education. The author establishes that the difference in academic degrees in the Russian and Spanish systems of education remains a crucial and unresolved issue, which obstructs the bilateral partnership in this area.
Generation of pure spin current in graphene nanoribbons with continous antidots
Authors: Chen Xing , Zhao Han , Zhang Yan , Liu Lu , Yang Zhi-Hong , Song Ling-Ling ,   School of Electronic Science and Applied Physics, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230601, China
Published: September 2021

Spin caloritronics, which combines the characteristics of thermoelectronics with the characteristics of spintronics, has a wide range of promising applications in high-speed and low-dissipation devices. In this paper, according to the density functional theory combined with nonequilibrium Green’s function method, we propose a scheme for generating pure spin current with spin dependent Seebeck effect in the zigzag-edged graphene nanoribbons by introducing continuous antidots (hexagonal defects). Specifically, by creating an antidot at one edge of the nanoribbon, an X-shape transmission spectrum around the Fermi level is formed, which results from the disrupted edge of the nanoribbon. The mechanism is well explained by the cooperation between the varying localization features of the eigenstates around the Fermi level for the unit cell and the scattering states at the Fermi level for the device. Therefore, the electrons of the two spin channels flow in the opposite directions under a temperature gradient, generating the spin current and charge current. By slightly tuning the chemical potential of the device, the charge current can be zero, while the spin current is not equal to zero. With the increase of adjacent antidot number along the width of the nanoribbons, the structures are more disrupted, thus promoting the pure spin current due to the increase of the spin Seebeck coefficient. However, for zigzag graphene nanoribbons with W zigzag carbon chains, the pure spin current decreases when the number of the antidots are more than (W/2–1), which results from the decrease of the spin conductance. So, the maximum pure spin current can be obtained when the number of the continuous antidots introduced along the width of nanoribbons reaches (W/2–1). These findings indicate a novel strategy for thermally generating the spin current by introducing continuous antidots along the nanoribbon bandwidth in zigzag graphene nanoribbons and will be greatly instructive in designing the graphene spintronic devices.
Theoretical explanation of scanning tunneling spectrum of cleaved (110) surface of InGaAs
Authors: Dai Hao-Guang , Zha Fang-Xing , Chen Ping-Ping ,   Department of Physics, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China,   National Laboratory for Infrared Physics, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200083, China
Published: September 2021

The cross-sectional (110) surface of In0.53Ga0.47As/InP hetero-structure grown by molecular beam epitaxy on an InP (001) substrate is characterized by the cross-sectional scanning tunneling microscopy (XSTM). The cleaved (110) surface across the interface between the In0.53Ga0.47As layer and InP layer is atomically flat but displays slight different image contrast between the two neighbor regions. The scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) is used to measure the current/voltage (I-V) spectra. The I-V data of the InGaAs surface and InP (110) surface show the different characteristics. The voltage range of zero-current plateau (apparent band gap) in the I-V spectrum of InP displays the values close to its energy band gaps whereas the plateau ranges in the spectra of In0.53Ga0.47As are by contrast generally 50% larger than the energy band gap of In0.53Ga0.47As. The above phenomenon implies the different physical pictures on the tunneling of two surfaces. In the case of InP, the flat band model is feasible since the band edge states existing in the InP (110) surface can prevent the surface from being affected by the tip –induced band bending (TIBB) effect. In contrast, the TIBB effect must be taken into account to explain the I-V spectra of the In0.53Ga0.47As (110) surface. A statistical analysis of the I-V data of In0.53Ga0.47As reveals that the width of current plateau in the I-V spectrum is generally between 1.05 eV and 1.20 eV and the current onset points (turn-points) with the plateau for the different spectra are slightly different from each other. We are able to explain quantitatively the above features based on the three-dimensional TIBB model given by Feenstra (2003 J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 21 2080). Our calculation reveals that the parameter of density of surface states (DOSS) is a sensitive parameter responsible for the I-V features mentioned above. According to an appropriate assignment of the value of DOSS, which is generally taken in the scope of (0.8–3.0) × 1012 (cm2·eV)–1, we well predict both the width and the onset points of the current-plateau. Moreover, the model also reproduces the line-shapes of the I-V spectra measured on In0.53Ga0.47As.
Character Polarity and Inferring Homology
Authors: Brower Andrew V. Z. , Schuh Randall T.
Published: September 2021

This chapter assesses character polarity and homology. Prior to the advent of computer-based analyses, German entomologist and systematic theorist Willi Hennig and other cladistic pioneers routinely used prepolarized characters to construct their phylogenetic hypotheses and developed a specialized terminology to describe their practices. In Hennig's view, all the states of a character — be they plesiomorphic, apomorphic, or homoplastic — are homologous. He argued that synapomorphies — shared derived characters — provide the only evidence for the existence of natural groups. This is the fundamental aspect of his arguments for the phylogenetic system; all of Hennig's other principles are subsidiary to it. Thus, in the Hennigian view, synapomorphy is the only “kind” of homology that bears upon patterns of relationship, a distinction that has led many cladists to equate the two terms.
Postscript
Authors: Brower Andrew V. Z. , Schuh Randall T.
Published: September 2021

This postscript reflects on the role of parsimony in the future of systematics. Under the view of systematics advocated in this book, the exuberantly messy data of biological diversity are organized into a clear and coherent explanatory framework through the application of the principle of parsimony. The principle of common cause, the principle of cause and effect, and the principle of uniformitarianism are all applications of the principle of parsimony to the explanation of events unfolding in time. Thus, parsimony is not merely an old-fashioned phylogenetic method that has been superceded by purportedly more powerful and sophisticated statistical tools: it is the epistemological key to evaluating empirical evidence and discovering orderly patterns in the world to the extent that our perceptions allow. Ultimately, the success of every scientific inference and prediction relating to empirical phenomena in the world hinges upon parsimony.
Challenging Yin Hierarchy
Authors: Wang Y. Yvon
Published: September 2021

This chapter demonstrates that, under the regime of licentiousness, hierarchies of pleasure largely matched the distribution of worldly power: elites backed up both articulation and denial with physical and material domination. The chapter then introduces the early modern challenge to yin ideology. Despite the crisis in control over sexual depictions that began in the sixteenth century, hierarchical values around the regulation of these representations largely persisted. By exemplifying the crucial developments in Chinese markets for, and regulations of, sexual representations from the earliest periods of Chinese history up to about the year 1880, the chapter traces these developments as they form a culturally specific backdrop essential to understanding the pornographic transition after 1880. Ultimately, the remainder of the chapter turns to the late imperial breakdown of elite dominance over the circulation and consumption of sexual representations and how the legal and cultural authorities tried to impose new controls over licentious print goods.
The Implied Masturbator Speaks
Authors: Wang Y. Yvon
Published: September 2021

This chapter builds on the material and technological transformations described in the previous chapter to discuss changing ideas about sexual representations. The chapter begins to directly talk about the desires of the implied masturbator. From the late Qing into the early twentieth century, mass media conquered the Chinese cultural world. Ambitious intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century increasingly put their ideas onto a print market that was more open than ever before. The chapter analyses how literary professionalization remained a deviation from the orthodox path of officialdom. It also elaborates the five aspects of ideological change around sex and sexual representations at the turn of the twentieth century. Many of these ideological transformations were led by political and cultural reformers, including proponents of a “New Culture.” These self-declared iconoclasts argued for revising the boundaries of legitimacy around desire itself. Ultimately, the chapter introduces the downfall of Zhang Jingsheng, a leading member of the New Culture group. The chapter addresses how Zhang's open discussion of his personal desires made him vulnerable to becoming seen as no better than an implied masturbator.
Looking for Patterns
Authors: Dan-Cohen Talia
Published: September 2021

This chapter focuses on ambiguous experimental results, paying close attention to experimental processes and tracking the ways that practitioners tackle, reason, and think through puzzling experimental results. It investigates the context of experiments with modified life-forms and experimental results that take the form of a vast array of biotic not-quites. It also highlights organismic by-products that point in various directions when it comes to figuring out how much control synthetic biologists have over their designs and what steps should be taken as correctives. The chapter explains how experiments often come packaged together with the choices, standards, and observational skills of others. It discusses the problem of the definition of growth that was deferred through the delineation of a category for the indeterminate results.
From Muslims in America to American Muslims
Authors: Cury Emily
Published: September 2021

This chapter analyzes the historical trajectory of Muslim immigration, settlement, and institution building in the United States. It focuses on the structural conditions and collective traumas that have shaped the lives of Muslims in America, particularly in the post-9/11 period. It also shows the broad ethnic, national, denominational, and socioeconomic diversity among Muslims in the United States, including the emergence of organizations aiming to represent the collective interests of the group. The chapter elaborates that the emergence of Muslim American interest groups is the result of a long process of negotiated integration, which is mostly influenced by the American social, political, and legal context. It highlights the preferences of Muslim American advocacy organizations and the policy interests they pursue that resulted from the broader historical experience of Muslims in America.
Advocating for the Muslim Ummah
Authors: Cury Emily
Published: September 2021

This chapter provides answers to the important question on why Muslim American interest groups continue to lobby on issues related to US foreign policy following 9/11. It describes the US Muslim organizations' foreign policy activism that contradict their interests and fuel perceptions of Muslims as outsiders concerned with the interests of other nations. It also shows how foreign policy activism is seen as a means through which US Muslim organizations communicate their belongingness to America. The chapter talks about the Muslims in the United States who say they feel a strong sense of belonging to the ummah, the global Muslim community. It explains that for Muslims the sense of belonging can be to a country of origin, but it is mostly to the larger, global Muslim community and to the religious symbols of Islam.
Land Fictions and the Politics of Commodification in City and Country
Authors: Ghertner D. Asher , Lake Robert W.
Published: September 2021

This chapter explores the “land fictions” underpinning this variable land commodification recipe, without presuming that the cocktail of commodified outcomes it produces follows a single storyline or shares a fixed cast of characters. It emphasizes the continuous work of legal, regulatory, and narrative fictions that go into the making of land as a commodity and that enact and sustain the property relations that underpin linked value projects. This involves following the stories spun by land aggregators, developers, financiers, and marketers in all their guises. To open up the narratives, storylines, and discourses that govern the commodity world of land, the chapter introduces Karl Polanyi's classic argument about the commodity fiction underpinning what he termed market society, by which he meant a political-economic order in which social life is organized to meet the pecuniary, ideological, and administrative needs of a so-called self-regulating market. With the recognition of commodity fiction, this chapter unveils the constitutive fictions by which various nonmarket functions of land, labor, and money become imaginatively and practically stripped away, reducing complex social and natural systems to “elements of industry” or mere objects of exchange.
The Fiction of Formalization
Authors: Dwyer Michael B.
Published: September 2021

This chapter explores the regulatory fictions of presumably fixed administrative categories in the vastly different context of rural Cambodia. It examines the work of property formalization in the country, through processes of titling and concession making associated with the global land rush of the late 2000s. Through an impressive cartographic deconstruction of Cambodia's uneven geography of formalization as well as the land allocations for a private sugar plantation, the chapter illustrates that this formalization fix operates more as a promise than a reality. It shifts to discuss the discursive work that renders formalization logical, legal, and hegemonic. The chapter then explores the bureaucratic work that gives it a subnational geography, and ends with the political work of enforcing it at the margins where hegemony breaks down and conflicts erupt with those who openly question its fictions. The chapter argues that the goal is not to argue against formalization per se, but to denaturalize it so that its powers can be put to work in better ways.
Rights Gone Wrong on the City’s Edge
Authors: Harms Erik
Published: September 2021

This chapter states that the village residents, described as being displaced for a new urban zone in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, very much participated in the vision of an aesthetically upgraded city. Using state resettlement policies to examine the fiction that liberal property automatically delivers liberal political rights, the chapter shows how residents adopted the expectation that improvements to the land they occupied would improve their standing as urban citizens. The chapter also exhibits how land-related documents — including petitions, titles, government-issued reclamation orders, and a labyrinthine array of legal papers — simultaneously do and do not have the power to act on the world. In addition to offering a novel way of looking at land fictions in Vietnam, the chapter argues for a reconciliation of what have heretofore been seen as antagonistic Latourian and Marxist perspectives on fetishism. On the one hand, a Latourian perspective would rightly highlight how the land documents in this case engender novel forms of action. But such an approach would only capture part of the story, because the evidence also shows that documents like these also contribute to forms of mystification. This chapter further uses insights from Marx's critique of the commodity form to show the work of nonhuman actors in staging and maintaining the commodity fiction.
Syncretism
Authors: Agathocleous Tanya
Published: September 2021

This chapter shows how various forms and practices of modernist syncretism — the idea of East–West unity through cultural exchange and the melding of traditions — influenced Indian journals such as East and West, a modernist periodical published in Bombay, as well as famous British writers such as E. M. Forster and Rudyard Kipling. Syncretic works shared an interest in the redemptive potential of affection between colonizer and colonized and represented his idea via the romance of intercultural union: the ambivalence built into articulations of this romance, however, illuminates the dialectical tension between affection and disaffection that underwrote cultural exchange under imperialism. The chapter demonstrates how this tension took literary form and how it influenced new anticolonial formations, such as those that took shape in London at the Universal Races Congress of 1911. Ultimately, the chapter examines the tactic of syncretism and ends with a reading of the modernist journal East and West, which ceased publication in 1921.
Liberty Triumphant
Authors: Jones Brad A.
Published: September 2021

This chapter examines the Stamp Act Crisis, which features prominently in the history of the American Revolution. It raised important questions about ideas of consent and representation, and ultimately the very sovereignty of Parliament in Britain's Atlantic colonies — questions that grew in significance over the following decade. Additionally, the loosely formed methods of resistance adopted by colonists, which included calls for boycotts, violent rioting, and the use of the press to spread ideas and create unity, played a decisive role in colonial opposition to imperial policies in the years to come. For some, the dispute also led to a crisis of identity. The arbitrary actions of Parliament began to cast doubt on the very meaning of British loyalty in the American colonies, which some colonists were ultimately able to resolve only by declaring their independence. For many historians, popular opposition to the Stamp Act was the opening act in a political debate that ultimately ended in rebellion.
King-Killing Republicans
Authors: Jones Brad A.
Published: September 2021

This chapter explains that many Britons across the Atlantic remained loyal in the early months of 1775. A significant minority of New Yorkers, in fact, opted for loyalty over rebellion. They took to the streets and turned to Rivington's press to construct a persuasive pro-British narrative of the crisis that enjoyed support in mainland British cities like Glasgow and even among some Britons in colonial port cities like Halifax and Kingston. This narrative — Britain's common cause — was, to some extent, defensive and reactive, for it depended mostly on refuting an emerging Patriot cause. But their cause was proactive, too. Loyalist writers took particular aim at the newly formed Continental Congress and the various local committees created to enforce the Continental Association, which they declared were illegitimate, unrepresentative, and resembled popish tyranny. The problem, however, was that this British common cause failed to articulate a clearly defined enemy at a crucial moment in the conflict. Ultimately, the British common cause — a new, shared understanding of Loyalism constructed by loyalist writers in the winter and spring of 1774–75 — struggled to convince a majority of Britons that the Patriot cause was dangerous and that Patriot leaders and their supporters were a legitimate threat to the nation.
International Memory Wars
Authors: Laruelle Marlene
Published: September 2021

This chapter argues that the perception of Russia as an antifascist power has been reinforced by memory wars that have reshaped the relationship between Russia and its Central and Eastern European neighbors. It examines how the emergence and gradual visibility gained by the narrative of the Soviet Union as an occupier with a totalitarian ideology shocked the Russian elite and public opinion. Given the context of memory wars, the chapter focuses on the issue of defining who was fascist and who colluded with Nazism — the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1941 or the collaborationist forces in Central and Eastern Europe. This chapter then presents Russia's response to the new memories articulated by Central and Eastern European countries on two fronts: legal and historiographical. Ultimately, the chapter highlights how the Ukrainian crisis demonstrated that memories have been instrumental in “real” wars, as all parties claim that their martyrdom and heroism during the Second World War entitle them to some recognition today.
Alcohol, Auxiliaries, and Mass Murder
Authors: Westermann Edward B.
Published: September 2021

This chapter focuses on other perpetrators, including Wehrmacht soldiers, non-German auxiliaries, and local policemen who engaged in acts of brutality and mass murder often in very similar ways. It discusses how foreign auxiliaries, whether serving in German Security or Order Police units, in the labor and death camps in Poland, or with armed formations of the Waffen-SS and the Wehrmacht, proved a key adjunct to overstretched German forces and critical instruments for mass murder in the East. The chapter also explains how the act of heavy alcohol consumption at village taverns and rural communities of Eastern Europe intertwined perceptions of masculinity and antisemitism. It details the roles of widespread abuse of alcohol among the auxiliaries in the murder of the Jews. The plundering of Jewish goods was an important part of the killing and celebratory ritual among the auxiliaries. Ultimately, the chapter emphasizes how ethnic auxiliaries and local policemen integrated alcohol consumption into their daily routine and discusses its impact on cultural perceptions of masculinity.
The Mothers
Authors: Krasas Jackie
Published: September 2021

This chapter looks at the vast majority of cases in which a child's primary residence is with their mother even if they spend significant overnight time at their father's house. It elaborates how sole-mother custody has declined in recent decades from 76 percent in 1989 to 42 percent due to a dramatic increase in shared residential custody in 2010. It also points out how a single or divorced mother without her children presents somewhat of an anomaly, even in the twenty-first century. The chapter focuses on understanding why mothers became noncustodial mothers after divorce and what can be learned from their stories. It highlights brief portraits that represent a part of the very wide range of experiences of noncustodial mothers in the United States, from completely involuntarily noncustodial to happily, voluntarily noncustodial.
Has Private Regulation Improved Labor Practices in Global Supply Chains?
Authors: Bae Jinsun
Published: September 2021

This chapter evaluates whether private regulation has brought about meaningful and sustainable improvements in labor standards and the lives of workers. It first looks at overall progress in terms of the number of violations recorded through more than twenty thousand reliable audits in multiple industries and countries over a seven-year period, before considering progress in specific factories that have been audited multiple times in India to see whether the improvement is being sustained. It appears reasonable to assume that a factory that is audited multiple times over a three-year period will register improvements (in terms of having fewer violations) after each audit. The data for these two examinations were provided by AUDCO, a global auditing company. The chapter then explores progress in specific factories, with data from the Better Work program. Finally, it examines the specific case of the supply chain of a global home products retailer, in which the factories have demonstrated remarkable progress in compliance over a short time frame.
From Opacity to Transparency
Authors: Kuruvilla Sarosh
Published: September 2021

This chapter studies specific ways in which opacity can be reduced — through the use of niche institutions, by stimulating the internalization goals of private regulation, and through fostering a critical mindset. It draws attention to the varieties of transparency required and specifically to the integration and inclusion of workers in private regulation programs to stimulate internalization of goals, especially through worker participation in compliance auditing and through methods such as surveys by which workers' perspectives are heard. The chapter then highlights the need for more data sharing, data analysis, and predictive modeling and concludes with specific recommendations for the variety of actors in private regulation to move the institutional field from opacity to transparency. Only through data analysis can we generate the predictive models that allow for evidence-based decision making and identification of other means by which the coupling of private regulation programs with worker outcomes can be increased. Ultimately, workers and trade unions, in what has been called contingent coupling, can help “shrink the gap between practices and outcomes” for workers by leveraging the private regulation policies of brands.
Conclusion
Authors: Kuruvilla Sarosh
Published: September 2021

This concluding chapter reviews the key findings and arguments of this book regarding private regulation. It also looks at other suggestions to reform and improve private regulation which are not canvassed extensively in this book. An important one is to reform the buyer–supplier contract to make the contract “work both ways” — that is, level the playing field so suppliers and workers can sue for buyer compliance. A second concerns institutionalizing unemployment insurance for supply chain workers. Meanwhile, a third suggestion is that global buyers reform their sourcing to source only from countries with good labor standards, or at a minimum, clearly indicate to those country's governments that they will stop sourcing if labor laws are not enforced. Ultimately, private regulation is not a panacea, and researchers have pointed to other steps that could improve working conditions in supply chains. For one thing, national governments need to do a better job enforcing existing labor laws; indeed, it was governments' failure to do so that gave rise to private regulation. Another step is regionalization — harmonizing national labor standards within regional trade blocs through arrangements similar to those employed by the European Union. Moreover, labor standards could be improved if the International Labour Organization (ILO) could be more forceful with its members with respect to adhering to ILO conventions.
Relative Decline Is Decline All the Same
Authors: Dutton Paul V.
Published: September 2021

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the actual health of Americans. Health outcomes fall into two broad categories: mortality and health-related quality of life. Mortality refers to life expectancy at birth, while health-related quality of life outcomes capture health status and are measured in functional terms drawn from clinical data and surveys. In addition to describing the average health of a nation, health outcomes also provide crucial information about the distribution of health among population subgroups according to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender, sexual orientation, and other criteria. These data are essential to the identification of health inequities and the formulation of policies to rectify them. The chapter elaborates that the book argues that a nation's health system must be constructed in order to protect people's health from many culprits, such as infectious disease and lack of medical care, but also social factors like financial insecurity, housing shortages, and racial discrimination, all of which influence one's opportunity to live a healthy life. It compares the US health system to that of France, Germany, and Sweden. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the strengths of social democratic health systems while simultaneously exposing analogous weaknesses in the United States.
Tough-on-Crime for You, Serve-and-Protect for Me
Authors: Freeman Jim
Published: September 2021

This chapter discusses the United States' support for the highly aggressive enforcement of extremely broad criminal laws in the country. It seeks to understand the primary mechanism that has been used to turn the often-violent suppression and caging of human beings into a wealth-building opportunity, and focuses on the impact that the criminalization trap has had on US citizens. The chapter also explores how media and “public education” efforts shift and distort people's perception of crime in significant ways. It analyses the process of criminalization and how the media tend to direct the public gaze toward Black and Brown communities. It then highlights the United States' attention on criminal justice efforts within Back and Brown communities, and how the police's militant boots-on-the-ground strategy, enforcement discretion, and hyperaggressive policing tactics impacted communities of color. Ultimately, the chapter presents some examples of the many ways in which the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in the United States benefit from the mass criminalization and incarceration system.
From Jim Crow to Juan Crow
Authors: Freeman Jim
Published: September 2021

This chapter details how the expanded criminalization trap terrorized immigrant communities in the United States, with the threat of not only criminal justice consequences but immigration consequences as well. It investigates a small group of Corporate America and Wall Street executives who have been instrumental in creating and preserving the immigration policies that have forced millions of people to live “in the shadows” as far less than equal members of the society. While many immigration issues contribute to racial injustice, the chapter focuses on whether the people, as a country, are going to continue allowing undocumented residents of the United States to be ruthlessly exploited and treated as a virtually permanent underclass. To address that issue, and demonstrate how the ultra-wealthy profit off immigrants' pain, the chapter seeks to understand how the immigration policies work in practice. Ultimately, it looks at the US policy makers' lack of genuine interest in discouraging undocumented migration into the United States and how this is intimately related to the fact that most US corporations are more than happy to benefit from an expanded and more easily exploitable labor market.
The End Comes to Byzantium
Authors: Cohn Samuel
Published: September 2021

This chapter examines how the Byzantine Empire crested and began to fade under the rule of Basil II. When Byzantium lost wars, the emperor had to find some other way to pay for military and governmental expenses. Basil's innovation was to give the nobles tax relief rather than direct payment. He also got them to fight “for free” by letting them take land from smaller peasants. Increasing the size of nobles' estates increased the power of regional aristocrats. This gave them independent power bases, which increased their capacity to hold back resources from future wars — or to try to take over the empire for themselves. Civil wars and regional uprisings flourished. A particularly nasty civil war between 1341 and 1354 gutted Byzantium's military strength and led to gains by the Serbs, the Venetians, and the Genoese. While Constantinople did not disappear entirely, Byzantium did. Byzantium went from being a center of power, wealth, and culture to being a subordinate outpost of an Atlantic economy.
Networks of Cooperation
Authors: Cohn Samuel
Published: September 2021

This chapter describes Talcott Parsons's theory of social systems, which argues that all social progress comes from networks of cooperation. Parsons referred to these networks of cooperation as systems, which have to perform four critical functions. This set of four key functions include adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latent pattern maintenance. Parsons believed that systems evolve through a process of “homeostasis,” which is often accomplished by developing distinctive institutions that specialize in solving the problem under consideration. He argued that human history consists of constant progress owing to this ever-continuing process of differentiation; societies become more complex and specialized. However, homeostatic adjustment does not mean that problems are always solved. Sometimes, large networks of cooperation would stop functioning.
The Origins of National Technological Advantage
Authors: Cohn Samuel
Published: September 2021

This chapter addresses how big government is also responsible for countries achieving strategic technological advantages. Strategic technological advantage is the key to gaining from unequal terms of trade. If your country has invented something and controls proprietary technology, your nation has a monopoly and can charge monopoly prices. Other countries have to compete with other vendors to sell their goods and sell at low competitive prices. But how do countries get technological monopolies? America's scientific and engineering dominance comes from the superiority of its higher education. The United States was the only country to create large public universities with cheap tuition in every state or province in the nation. The chapter then looks at the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890; the Hatch Act of 1914; and the GI Bill. It also considers the founding of the National Science Foundation. The plan was that not only would the United States have stronger armed forces due to military technology, but it would also have a better economy due to civilian technology and would be better able to solve social problems with the use of social technology.