bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Remote Control: TPP’s Administrative Law Requirements as Megaregulation
Authors: Mertenskötter Paul , Stewart Richard B.
Published: July 2019

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) includes many and varied administrative law obligations for the parties’ domestic regulation and administration which form an integral part of its megaregulation project. These treaty requirements for regulatory procedures operate as instruments of transnational remote control by empowering private actors to use the procedures to pursue and defend their interests in other states. To create this remote control, TPP uses rules and structures for regulatory decision-making that reflect a US understanding of administrative law and its implicit regulatory capitalist model for the structuring of state–market relations. To explain how remote control works, we synthesize McNollgast’s conception of regulatory procedures in the purely domestic context as instruments of political control and Putnam’s theorization of international treaty negotiations as a two-level game. We show how procedural obligations in TPP are designed to stack the deck to favor certain interests—business firms rather than environmental and social interests—and why treaty negotiators may find it easier to agree on procedures than on substantive commitments.
Regional and Preferential Agreements: The ‘Pacific’ and ‘Atlantic’ Styles in Latin America
Authors: Polanco Lazo Rodrigo
Published: July 2019

Nowadays, two fundamentally different institutional responses to global economic liberalization coexist in Latin America: the ‘Atlantic style’ (closer to closed regionalism) and the ‘Pacific style’ (closer to open regionalism). In the context of never-ending efforts of an elusive Latin-American integration, this chapter advances the idea that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is at least successful in consolidating a model of economic integration based on preferential trade and investment agreements for an important group of Latin American countries that follow the ‘Pacific’ style. Whereas the Pacific Alliance countries have embraced neoliberal trade and investment agreements actively and expanded their scope of influence, other countries, such as the Bolivarian Alliance, have responded with active counter-organizing but with fading influence in the region. But as often happens in Latin America, these styles are not absolute and being tempered by countries like Argentina that have blends or pragmatist (pick-and-choose) strategies, taking elements from both styles.
Freud on the Acropolis
Authors: Lev Kenaan Vered
Published: July 2019

Freud’s essay “A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis” is the focus of the third chapter. Freud’s short essay revisits an enigmatic memory from the visit to the Acropolis. Two different yet inseparable themes surface in the text; the chapter unravels their connectedness through their relation to the cultural and intellectual dual origins of Freud’s upbringing. In the essay the twofold thematics of Freud’s Jewish background at home and his classical education in the gymnasium intersect, creating a picture of a life of duality, ambivalence, and internal contradictions. The cultural intersection between Athens and Jerusalem constitutes the essence of Freud’s personal history and is responsible for the creation of his indissolubly tangled narrative. The chapter deals with the notion of the woven materiality of the text, the inner ties between antiquity and modernity, as well as those between Freud’s past and present, and the unconscious language of analogies.
Conclusion
Authors: Zimmermann Jens
Published: July 2019

This brief, final chapter, summarizes the main points made in the previous chapters to demonstrate the relevance of Bonhoeffer’s theology for our time. In creatively appropriating biblical and patristic anthropology for our modern age, Bonhoeffer contributes important insights to Christian reflection on current debates about human nature, politics, and secularity. In drawing his insights from the Christ-centered, incarnational theology of the greater tradition, Bonhoeffer’s work also possesses a deeply ecumenical appeal much needed for our time. His Christian personalism, together with his careful correlation of the nature-grace relation appeals to Eastern Orthodox theologians and strongly resembles the integral humanism of Catholicism in thinkers like Henri de Lubac and Jacques Maritain. Given our present postmodern, secular culture, Bonhoeffer’s hermeneutic theology, his humanist ethics, and integral humanism offer exactly the biblically based, philosophically informed and ecumenically appealing model of engaging life, i.e., the kind of Christian humanism, Christians ought to consider in responding to current cultural issues.
The Primacy of Metaphysics
Authors: Peacocke Christopher
Published: July 2019

Is the metaphysics of a domain prior in the order of philosophical explanation to a theory of intentional contents and meanings about that domain? Or is the opposite true? This book argues from the nature of meaning and intentional content to the conclusion that content and meaning are never prior to the metaphysics. For every domain, either a metaphysics-first view or a no-priority view is correct. Metaphysics-first views are developed for several specific domains. For extensive magnitudes, a new realistic metaphysics is developed, and this metaphysics is used to explain features of the perception of magnitudes, and to elucidate analogue computation and analogue representation. A metaphysics-first treatment of time is developed and used to develop new accounts of temporal representation, and to address some puzzles about time and present-tense content. A metaphysics-first treatment of subject and the first person develops a new account of the ownership of mental events by subjects, and argues for a greater role of agency in the first person than in earlier accounts. A noncausal metaphysics-first view is developed for the natural numbers and the real numbers. The account gives an explanatory priority to the application of numbers to properties and to ratios of magnitudes. The final chapter of the book argues the materials earlier in the book permit a new account of the limits of intelligibility. Spurious concepts, such as absolute space, are ones for which there is no account of the relation that would have to hold for a thinker to latch onto it.
Metaphysics and the Theory of Content
Authors: Peacocke Christopher
Published: July 2019

Is the metaphysics of a domain prior in the order of philosophical explanation to a theory of intentional contents and meanings about that domain? Or is the opposite true? There is a general argument from the nature of meaning and intentional content that, contrary to Brandom and Dummett, meaning cannot be prior to metaphysics. In every domain, either the metaphysics is prior, or else the case is one of no priority. McDowell treats all cases as no-priority cases; his arguments overlook the case for a metaphysics-first treatment in certain domains. Order of explanation must also be distinguished from order of discovery, something that distinguishes the metaphysics-first view of a domain from that of Devitt. We must distinguish, for each domain, the task of explaining how a metaphysics-involving view can be correct from explaining that it is correct. Consequences for current theories of meaning follow from the metaphysics-involving view.
The Self
Authors: Peacocke Christopher
Published: July 2019

This chapter presents a metaphysics-first treatment of subjects and the first-person way of representing subjects. It develops a new explanation of the metaphysical principle that it is in the nature of mental events that they have subjects. It advocates the view that the identity of a subject over time involves the identity of a subpersonal integration apparatus, and contrasts the resulting position with Johnston’s conception of personites. A new treatment of the first person is developed that gives a greater role for agency than in previous accounts. Only by doing so can we explain how the first person brings a subject, rather than something else, into the contents of the states and events in which it is involved. Some of the consequences of the resulting agency-involving account of the first person are traced out.
Conclusion
Authors: Peacocke Christopher
Published: July 2019

The account of the relation between metaphysics and the theory of content suggests further investigation in four areas: the acquisition of concepts; the detailed accounting of what is involved in possession and acquisition in no-priority cases; the wider application, to other areas, of the principle that Individuation Precedes Representation; and the integration of a metaphysics-involving account of concept possession into the general task of integrating the epistemology and metaphysics of a domain. This concluding chapter looks at the connection between the claims of this book and further possible directions of investigation.
Moby-Dick and the Shadows of “The Poet”
Authors: Riley Peter
Published: July 2019

Reading the “Sub-Sub librarian” and “consumptive usher” in Moby-Dick as experiments in “virtual biography,” this chapter initially examines how the author-narrator uses these contingent figures to explore the various possibilities that may have otherwise defined his working life. “The Grand Armada” is read as the dramatization of existential retreat from industrial violence towards the security of a “lyric center”. Skepticism towards vocational thinking can be seen in the juxtaposed reactions of Ishmael and Ahab in relation to this lyric security. The chapter then shifts focus to consider Melville’s decision to become an epic poet while holding down a 6-day-a-week job as a deputy customs inspector on the New York docks. While this later phase of Melville’s career has been typically characterized as one of retreat and creative decline, it is argued that Clarel’s form embodies a sustained engagement with the contingencies of his new working context rather than an attempt to escape them.
The ‘King of All Burglars’
Authors: Moss Eloise
Published: July 2019

Chapter 1 charts the emergence of the ‘professional’ London burglar as a masculine, daring, and diabolically clever criminal type, embodied in the exploits of Charles Peace (d. 1879). Peace, a notorious burglar and murderer originally from Sheffield, committed twenty-six burglaries in London’s Blackheath district single-handed in 1878. Using inventive disguises, hand-made tools, and enjoying an extensive and prolific ‘career’, Peace gained a notoriety which endured into the late 1930s. Peace was exceptional. His life and criminal exploits were an anomaly among a much larger number of opportunistic thieves, whose burglaries, from predominantly working-class homes, were few and their rewards meagre. Why, then, did Peace become the archetype of burglars, upon whose legacy police and public were encouraged to dwell when deciding how to regulate the city and secure their homes? Chapter 1 traces how a real-life villain was turned into a legendary criminal, in a process that had profound implications for all subsequent versions of burglary whether legal, criminological, or circulating through popular culture.
Marvellous Mrs Raffles?
Authors: Moss Eloise
Published: July 2019

Women burglars were supposedly rare throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century. When caught in the act, they were greeted with shock and ridicule, both their triumphs and failures as thieves dismissed as ‘amateurish’ in comparison with those of male burglars. The final chapter of this section unpacks the relationship between gender, crime, and the home. Burglary had always been perpetrated by both sexes, albeit in greater numbers by men—at least, of those burglars who were caught. For a woman to raid someone’s home during a period when the ideology of women’s roles was still intimately entwined with domesticity and family life was seen as a ‘betrayal’ of their ‘nature’. These ‘forays’ into burglary by women consequently met with denial; as ‘freaks’ among their sex they were usually portrayed as spinsters or somehow ‘wronged’ romantically. Burglary was the ultimate symbol of their want of love and the stability of a family. This chapter traces how popular denial of the female burglar responded to fears about women’s greater political and social agency following the rise of the suffragette movement, as well as later symbols of female independence such as the Edwardian ‘new’ woman and the interwar ‘flapper’.
Designing the Burglar-Proof Home
Authors: Moss Eloise
Published: July 2019

Chapter 6 takes a closer look at the relationship between crime, gender, and the home through analysing the security devices that began populating middle-class houses from the mid-nineteenth century. Designed to be impenetrable and invisible to the wandering eye of the thief, locks and safes were increasingly decorated with particular rooms in mind, especially feminized, sexualized spaces such as the boudoir and the bedroom. The chapter analyses how this reflected the heightened publicity accorded burglaries of women’s jewellery, possessions which held their own gendered, emotional significance as tokens of love and familial bonds. Crime prevention began to reshape domestic space in this era, whether via locks and safe doors hidden beneath gloriously elaborate carvings and intricate metalwork or taking the form of burglar alarms with sensors fitted snugly between carpets, walls, and window-ledges, trailing pressure-points like a net around the home’s perimeter. While existing scholarship on the history of domestic space has thus far treated decoration and security separately, this chapter considers how the design and placement of anti-burglar devices crafted an interplay between boundaries and furnishings that maintained the facade of carefree residential harmony.
Russia
Authors: Marangé Céline
Published: July 2019

This chapter argues that Russia’s current leadership has consistently promoted a grand strategy that is fundamentally defensive in nature and offensive in practice. It has prioritized security and the quest for recognition in assuming that Russia’s status has been purposely diminished, and that the strategic environment poses a tangible threat to both Russian national interests and the regime’s survival. The institutional setting and strategic culture play a crucial role in the formulation of a strategic security agenda. Although defensive in character and reactive in nature, Russian strategies have embraced bold, proactive, and transformational agendas that have extended beyond military activity. New ways and means have been developed to heighten Russia’s security, assert regional dominance, and attain global recognition. Russia’s leadership not only resorts to military interventions and hybrid warfare and to strategic deterrence and intimidation, but also to comprehensive influence and political destabilization, while using military rhetoric and victories to conceal its domestic shortcomings.
United Kingdom
Authors: Johnson Robert
Published: July 2019

Great Britain has been influenced strongly by its history, and its grand strategy is shaped by both this legacy and by shifting geopolitics. Nevertheless, it has adapted to these forces, adjusted to its post-imperial posture, and remains an influential, nuclear-armed global power. While Great Britain promotes multilateralism and collective security, and is staunch in its alignment to the United States, it is—as Brexit demonstrates—less certain with regard to its relationship with Europe. It is a firm advocate of NATO, but—harking back to the nineteenth nentury—seeks to avoid the dominance of the continent by any single country. This chapter addresses the tension in the GB’s grand strategy through the legacy of its history, its close alliance with the United States, and the influence of domestic politics on key strategic choices. It also addresses the proactive British approach to the Global War on Terror, and the constraints that now impose themselves in the early decades of the twenty-first century.
Orbicular Poetics
Authors: Owens Thomas
Published: July 2019

Chapter 3 recovers the formal lineage of Wordsworth’s ‘Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty’ by following it back through Milton’s political sonnets to the Tuscan poets of the cinquecento, pre-eminently Giovanni della Casa and Torquato Tasso. It suggests that Wordsworth’s conception of the Miltonic sonnet as a dewdrop exemplifies the relationship between gravity and gravità and asprezza, and proposes that the moral force of Wordsworth’s political achievement across the first decade of the nineteenth century was the result of his intricate negotiation with the actual weight and tendency to downward motion of the sonnet form. The chapter demonstrates the influence of the ‘Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty’ on Wordsworth’s political pamphlet the Convention of Cintra, and also discusses Samuel Daniel’s Defence of Rhyme and John Donne’s sonnets in this tradition.
Orrery Imaginings
Authors: Owens Thomas
Published: July 2019

Chapter 5 looks at how Coleridge articulated the governing dynamics of the imagination in the 1810s and 1820s with persistent reference to gravity and the interaction of centripetal and centrifugal forces. This regulated his thinking about matters as big as idealist philosophy, poetics, the origins of life, and aesthetics, and as small as conversation. It shows that Coleridge used astronomical forces to understand the underlying structure of creative, philosophical, and critical activity, which he illustrated with spider-webs and ripples on the water. Texts given close attention: Biographia Literaria; The Statesman’s Manual; ‘The Theory of Life’; Marginalia; Notebooks; and the Opus Maximum.
Telescoping Faith
Authors: Owens Thomas
Published: July 2019

Chapter 6 examines Coleridge’s recourse to the discoveries of William Herschel to conceptualize and communicate his conversion to Trinitarian theology, explaining it as part of a complicated effort to break free from Joseph Priestley’s Socinianism, materialism, and philosophical necessity. Modernizing Priestleian science with a set of spiritual symbols taken from William Herschel was a way in which Coleridge hoped to escape from Priestley’s metaphysics. The handling of Herschelian science—especially infra-red and triple stars—is thus seen as a seismometer for Coleridge’s faith. The implications of this symbolic logic on Coleridge’s epistemological categories of the Reason and the Understanding are explored, together with his persistent use of a telescope as a symbol for faith.
Circles
Authors: Burnham Michelle
Published: July 2019

This chapter recovers and analyzes a forgotten 1778 novel set in New Zealand and the wider Pacific world. The Travels of Hildebrand Bowman implicitly links North America’s Atlantic Revolution against England with indigenous anti-colonial Pacific uprisings against Europeans. It does so by transforming European stadial theory—then in vogue as a framework for understanding the long conjectural history of human development—from a linear into a cyclical narrative. Written and published in a historical moment when debates about British empire were considerably more complex and unresolved than they would be a decade later, the novel brings cannibalism and consumption together in a critique of transoceanic capitalism. Hildebrand Bowman positions Britain as a cannibal empire that feeds on the bodies of others. The novel moreover sexualizes this relation in ways that draw from European explorers’ depictions of the Pacific, as the bodies of women expose imperialist consumption as its own form of cannibalism.
Labour Productivity and Employment in Surplus Labour Countries
Authors: Nattrass Nicoli , Seekings Jeremy
Published: July 2019

Chapter 3 argues that the ILO’s decent work agenda is insensitive to the needs of countries with high unemployment. We identify thirteen developing countries whose unemployment rate in 2016 was over twice the mean for low- and middle-income countries. Most are war-torn, post-communist, and unfree. However, for a set of Southern African countries, high unemployment is the consequence of domestic policy within a regional context of relatively limited opportunities for smallholder agriculture and dominated by the strength of the South African economy. Contemporary development policy advice, especially from the ILO, prioritizes labour productivity growth without confronting the need to foster relatively low-productivity employment to provide jobs for large numbers of relatively unskilled people in these countries. Rising labour productivity in the surplus labour countries during the 2000s came at the cost of stagnant, and even falling, employment rates. Given inadequate welfare support for the unemployed, such growth paths undermined inclusive development in these countries.
Decent Work Fundamentalism and Job Destruction in the South African Clothing Manufacturing Industry
Authors: Nattrass Nicoli , Seekings Jeremy
Published: July 2019

Chapter 6 reviews the history of collective bargaining in the South African clothing manufacturing industry. We show that its profoundly dualist character (high- and low-productivity firms co-existing) has historical and market-related roots and highlight the role of wage policy during and after apartheid in shaping the regional location of firms. The rise of China as a global producer of clothing had a profound impact on the South African industry—but it was the simultaneous introduction of national collective bargaining and the enforcement of minimum wages on relatively low-wage labour-intensive firms that drove the job losses. We describe the 2010/11 ‘compliance drive’ that resulted in legal action against the National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Manufacturing Industry by low-wage employers, including the Chinese firms (that is, owned by people who originated from Taiwan, Hong Kong, or China) in Newcastle seeking to obtain relief from the imposition of sector-wide minimum wages on their labour-intensive firms. Whilst trade union strategy as well as government policy adapted to some extent and many employers transformed their enterprises into workers’ co-operatives, that is to circumvent wage regulation, the outcome was nonetheless the preclusion of employment growth in this crucial sector.
The Political Economy of Upgrading
Authors: Nattrass Nicoli , Seekings Jeremy
Published: July 2019

Chapter 7 argues that the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU) strategy was complicated by its dual role as a trade union and investment manager. Having taken advantage of investment opportunities provided through ‘black economic empowerment policies’ to grow substantial financial assets and later also direct investments in the clothing manufacturing industry, the union, in effect, was both a representative of labour as well as a capitalist. Its political connections meant that it was well positioned to take advantage of subsidies. The incentives and opportunities facing SACTWU were consistent with a union strategy to have a smaller body of better-paid workers rather than growing its membership of lower-wage workers through labour-intensive job creation. SACTWU is suspicious of the growth of workers’ co-operatives (seeing them as sham and designed solely to avoid minimum wage regulation). We argue that the potential for workers’ co-operatives to generate more transparent and inclusive productive and distributional practices is exciting and consistent with inclusive dualism.
A Mellow Bit of Rhythm
Authors: Burrows George
Published: July 2019

This concluding chapter considers the 1957 album, A Mellow Bit of Rhythm, as a Signifyin(g) form of musical recollection. It rounded off the recorded output of Kirk as a bandleader in a way that re-illuminated the earlier recordings made by his Clouds of Joy within a 1950s hot-jazz context. The retrospective album is shown to be as much a form of stylistic mask-play as the original recordings, as it served to represent a particular kind of ‘authentic’ black-jazz legacy for Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy within contemporary stylistic parameters and expectations. The bigger band and its more voluminous sound are considered relative to contemporary audio technologies and tastes and the louder big-band style is shown to re-present Kirk’s recordings of the previous two decades in fresh stylistic and racial garb. Exploring that album ultimately presents an opportunity to reflect on the whole race-political enterprise of the records of Kirk and his band.
Structure, Organization, and Knowledge Production of Clinical Trial Industry
Authors: Jeffery Roger , Porter Gerard , Sariola Salla , Jesani Amar , Ravindran Deapica
Published: July 2019

This chapter reviews the evidence about the scale and significance of clinical trials in India. After describing some of the new social forms that service these trials it assesses the growth in their number from 2005 to 2012 and the reasons for—and implications of—a decline since then. The main argument is that the nascent Indian clinical trials industry rapidly adjusted to the opportunities provided by reforms, linked to India’s accession to the TRIPs agreement and the World Trade Organization in 2005. By contrast, Indian regulators were slow to come to terms with the challenges of responding to well-co-ordinated trial sponsors and contract research organizations.
Women, Fair Trade Tea, and Everyday Entrepreneurialism in Rural Darjeeling
Authors: Sen Debarati
Published: July 2019

Based on more than a decade of ethnographic research in Darjeeling’s non-plantation tea producing areas, this chapter highlights the gendered effects of Fair Trade certification of organic non-plantation tea on rural tea cooperatives. Through a focus on rural women’s everyday entrepreneurialism and their run-ins with the transnational Fair Trade bureaucracy, the chapter underscores how Fair Trade interventions can inadvertently strengthen patriarchal/gendered power relations in Fair Trade certified tea cooperatives in Darjeeling. It highlights how women tea farmers also creatively use specific Fair Trade interventions to defend their own entrepreneurial priorities and rupture Fair Trade’s imbrications with local patriarchies. Women tea farmers creatively juxtapose Fair Trade and swaccha vyāpār, a local translation of Fair Trade, to defend their own entrepreneurial ambitions and enact new modalities of women’s collective self-governance. This chapter brings much needed attention to women’s contemporary economic lives and their role in tea production in non-plantation rural locations of Darjeeling.
Madrasas and the Making of Islamic Womanhood
Authors: Borker Hem
Published: July 2019

This ethnography provides a theoretically informed account of the educational journeys of students in girls’ madrasas in India. It focuses on the unfolding of young women’s lives as they journey from home to madrasa and beyond. Using a series of ethnographic portraits and bringing together the analytical concepts of community, piety, and aspiration, it highlights the fluidity of the essences of the ideal pious Muslim woman. It illustrates how the madrasa becomes a site where the ideals of Islamic womanhood are negotiated in everyday life. At one level, girls value and adopt practices taught in the madrasa as essential to the practice of piety (amal). At another level, there is a more tactical aspect to cultivating one’s identity as a madrasa-educated Muslim girl. The girls invoke the virtues of safety, modesty, and piety learnt in the madrasa to reconfigure conventional social expectations around marriage, education, and employment. This becomes more apparent in the choices exercised by the girls after leaving the madrasa, highlighted in this book through narratives of madrasa alumni pursuing higher education at a central university in Delhi. The focus on journeys of girls over a period of time, in different contexts, complicates the idealized and coherent notions of piety presented by anthropological literature on women’s participation in Islamic piety projects. Further, the educational stories of girls challenge the media and public representations of madrasas in India, which tend to caricature them as outmoded religious institutions with little relevance to the educational needs of modernizing India. Mapping madrasa students’ personal journeys of becoming educated while leading pious lives allows us to see how these young women are reconfiguring notions of Islamic womanhood.
Whole Genome Sequence Resource of the Asian Pear Scab Pathogen Venturia nashicola
Authors: Johnson Shakira , Jones Dan , Thrimawithana Amali H. , Deng Cecilia H. , Bowen Joanna K. , Mesarich Carl H. , Ishii Hideo , Won Kyungho , Bus Vincent G. M. , Plummer Kim M.
Published: July 2019

Venturia nashicola, the cause of scab disease of Asian pears, is a host-specific, biotrophic fungus. It is restricted to Asia and is regarded as a quarantine threat outside this region. European pear displays nonhost resistance (NHR) to V. nashicola and Asian pears are nonhosts of V. pyrina (the cause of European pear scab disease). The host specificity of these two fungi is likely governed by differences in their effector arsenals, with a subset hypothesized to activate NHR. The Pyrus-Venturia pathosystem provides an opportunity to dissect the underlying genetics of nonhost interactions in this potentially more durable form of resistance. The V. nashicola genome will enable comparisons to other Venturia spp. genomes to identify effectors that potentially activate NHR in the pear scab pathosystem.
Baseline Sensitivity and Action Mechanism of Propamidine Against Alternaria brassicicola, the Causal Agent of Dark Leaf Spot on Cabbage
Authors: Wang Yong , Wang Miaomiao , Zhou Mingxia , Zhang Xing , Feng Juntao
Published: July 2019

In the current study, a total of 53 isolates of Alternaria brassicicola collected from Shaanxi Province of China were characterized for their sensitivity to propamidine. The EC50 (50% effective concentration) values for propamidine inhibiting mycelial growth and spore germination ranged from 0.515 to 3.247 µg/ml and 0.393 to 2.982 µg/ml, with average EC50 values of 1.327 ± 0.198 µg/ml and 1.106 ± 0.113 µg/ml, respectively. In greenhouse experiments, propamidine at 100 µg/ml provided >90% efficacy against dark leaf spot on cabbage, which was higher than the efficacy obtained by azoxystrobin at the same concentration. After treatment with propamidine, fungal growth distortions were observed in the form of excess mycelial branching, thickened cell walls, decreased cell membrane permeability, and increased chitin content. Interestingly, colony color faded after treatment with propamidine compared with that of the untreated parental isolates. Importantly, the expressions of melanin biosynthesis–associated genes Amr1, Scd1, Brn1, and Brn2 were downregulated at different levels. The obtained baseline sensitivity and control efficacy data suggested that propamidine inhibited not only growth of A. brassicicola but also melanin biosynthesis, which could reduce the biocompatibility of A. brassicicola in the field. These biological characteristics encourage further investigation of the mechanism of action of propamidine against A. brassicicola.
Is the Phenomenon of Mefenoxam-Acquired Resistance in Phytophthora infestans Universal?
Authors: González-Tobón Juliana , Childers Richard , Olave Carolina , Regnier Melissa , Rodríguez-Jaramillo Alejandra , Fry William , Restrepo Silvia , Danies Giovanna
Published: July 2019

Phytophthora infestans is the causal agent of late blight disease of potatoes and tomatoes. This disease causes devastating economic losses each year, and control is mainly achieved by the use of fungicides. Unfortunately, populations of P. infestans resistant to fungicides have been documented. Furthermore, studies have reported that sensitive isolates to the phenylamide fungicide, mefenoxam, become less sensitive in vitro after a single passage through sublethal concentrations of fungicide-amended medium. The first objective of this study was to investigate if isolates of P. infestans are capable of acquiring resistance to two additional systemic fungicides, fluopicolide (benzamide) and cymoxanil (cyanoacetamide-oxime). In contrast to the situation with mefenoxam, exposure of isolates to sublethal concentrations of fluopicolide and cymoxanil did not induce reduced sensitivity to these two fungicides. The second objective was to assess if reduced sensitivity to mefenoxam could occur in naturally sensitive isolates of other Phytophthora species and of Phytopythium sp., another oomycete plant pathogen. All Phytophthora spp. assessed (P. infestans, P. betacei, and P. pseudocryptogea) as well as Phytopythium sp. acquired resistance to mefenoxam after previous exposure through medium containing 1 µg ml−1 of mefenoxam. Interestingly, isolate 66 of Phytopythium sp. and the isolate of P. pseudocryptogea tested do not seem to be acquiring resistance to mefenoxam after exposure to medium containing 5 µg ml−1 of this fungicide. The tested isolates of P. palmivora and P. cinnamomi were extremely sensitive to mefenoxam, and thus it was not possible to perform a second transfer to access acquisition of resistance to this fungicide.
TRANSIENT PARADOXICAL WORSENING OF VISION DUE TO GRAVITATIONAL SHIFT OF SUBRETINAL FLUID AFTER PHOTODYNAMIC THERAPY FOR CENTRAL SEROUS CHORIORETINOPATHY
Authors: Saengsirinavin Aim-On , Ma Dahui , Stewart Jay M.
Published: July 2019

Purpose:

To report an atypical treatment-related complication from photodynamic therapy in central serous chorioretinopathy patient and explain its mechanism.

Methods:

History, physical examination, and imaging data were retrospectively reviewed and obtained from the electronic medical records of the patient.

Results:

A central serous chorioretinopathy patient with several focal leakage spots near the superotemporal arcade was treated with half-fluence verteporfin photodynamic therapy. The patient complained of worse vision after the treatment. Examination showed relocation of subretinal fluid from the superior macula to the central and submacular area, explained by a gravitational shift of subretinal fluid and the predisposing factor of a previously weakened junction between the retinal pigment epithelium and neurosensory retina. Without further treatment, the fluid reabsorbed, and the patient's vision returned to normal.

Conclusion:

This is the first report to describe this transient atypical adverse visual outcome early after photodynamic therapy in a central serous chorioretinopathy patient, caused by a gravitational shift of viscous subretinal fluid.
SPONTANEOUS RESOLUTION OF SUBMACULAR PERFLUOROCARBON LIQUIDS
Authors: Baumann Carmen , Cheng Clarissa , Jalil Assad , Patton Niall
Published: July 2019

Purpose:

To demonstrate a case of spontaneous resolution of submacular heavy liquid.

Methods:

This is a case report analyzing consecutive data and optical coherence tomography scans of a patient who underwent revisional retinal detachment surgery with pars plana vitrectomy using perfluorocarbon liquid (PFCL) as an adjunct. Postoperatively submacular PFCL bubbles were noted, and after an only partially successful surgical attempt to remove them, the residual PFCL bubbles were monitored over the course of several months. The primary outcome measure was the anatomical appearance and size of the PFCL bubbles on optical coherence tomography. The secondary outcome measure was the functional outcome based on the best-corrected visual acuity.

Results:

We present a case of retained submacular PFCL after complex retinal detachment repair, which could only partially be removed surgically. However, the remaining PFCL droplets resolved spontaneously over several months, with partial anatomical restoration of the retinal layers and improvement in visual acuity.

Conclusion:

We hypothesize that the PFCL bubble was resorbed presumably by the retinal pigment epithelium.
EVALUATION OF SEGMENTAL RETINAL ARTERITIS WITH OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY ANGIOGRAPHY
Authors: Tsui Edmund , Leong Belinda C. S. , Mehta Nitish , Gupta Akash , Goduni Lediana , Cunningham Emmett T. , Freund K. Bailey , Lee Gregory D. , Dedania Vaidehi S. , Yannuzzi Lawrence A. , Modi Yasha S.
Published: July 2019

Purpose:

To describe the vascular anatomy and intraluminal flow characteristics of segmental retinal arteritis (SRA) using structural and angiographic optical coherence tomography (OCT).

Methods:

Retrospective case series of consecutive patients presenting with SRA. All patients were evaluated at presentation with fundus photography, spectral domain OCT, and OCT angiography. One patient was imaged with dense B-scan OCT angiography.

Results:

Three eyes of three male patients were evaluated. All examinations were consistent with reactivation of ocular toxoplasmosis with an area of active retinochoroiditis adjacent to a focal chorioretinal scar. Spectral domain OCT through areas of SRA noted on clinical examination demonstrated areas of hyperreflectivity circumscribing the affected vessel with a normoreflective lumen. Optical coherence tomography angiography and dense B-scan OCT angiography demonstrated narrowing of the intraluminal flow signal that correlated with areas of segmental hyperreflectivity on spectral domain OCT. Vascular sections proximal and distal to areas of SRA showed normal flow signal.

Conclusion:

Vessels with SRA demonstrated hyperreflectivity highlighting the vessel wall on spectral domain OCT. Optical coherence tomography angiography showed narrowing of the flow signal within these segments suggesting reduced lumen diameter. Coupling these finding with previous indocyanine green imaging findings in SRA, the collective data suggest the plaques are localized within the vessel wall to either the endothelium or the muscular tunica media without occlusion of the vessel lumen.
Quenching active swarms: effects of light exposure on collective motility in swarming
Serratia marcescens
Authors: Yang Junyi , Arratia Paulo E. , Patteson Alison E. , Gopinath Arvind
Published: July 2019

Swarming colonies of the light-responsive bacteria
Serratia marcescens
grown on agar exhibit robust fluctuating large-scale flows that include arrayed vortices, jets and sinuous streamers. We study the immobilization and quenching of these collective flows when the moving swarm is exposed to intense wide-spectrum light with a substantial ultraviolet component. We map the emergent response of the swarm to light in terms of two parameters—light intensity and duration of exposure—and identify the conditions under which collective motility is impacted. For small exposure times and/or low intensities, we find collective motility to be negligibly affected. Increasing exposure times and/or intensity to higher values suppresses collective motility but only temporarily. Terminating exposure allows bacteria to recover and eventually reestablish collective flows similar to that seen in unexposed swarms. For long exposure times or at high intensities, exposed bacteria become paralysed and form aligned, jammed regions where macroscopic speeds reduce to zero. The effective size of the quenched region increases with time and saturates to approximately the extent of the illuminated region. Post-exposure, active bacteria dislodge immotile bacteria; initial dissolution rates are strongly dependent on duration of exposure. Based on our experimental observations, we propose a minimal Brownian dynamics model to examine the escape of exposed bacteria from the region of exposure. Our results complement studies on planktonic bacteria, inform models of patterning in gradated illumination and provide a starting point for the study of specific wavelengths on swarming bacteria.
Avian malaria-mediated population decline of a widespread iconic bird species
Authors: Dadam Daria , Robinson Robert A. , Clements Anabel , Peach Will J. , Bennett Malcolm , Rowcliffe J. Marcus , Cunningham Andrew A.
Published: July 2019

Parasites have the capacity to affect animal populations by modifying host survival, and it is increasingly recognized that infectious disease can negatively impact biodiversity. Populations of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) have declined in many European towns and cities, but the causes of these declines remain unclear. We investigated associations between parasite infection and house sparrow demography across suburban London where sparrow abundance has declined by 71% since 1995.Plasmodium relictuminfection was found at higher prevalences (averaging 74%) in suburban London house sparrows than previously recorded in any wild bird population in Northern Europe. Survival rates of juvenile and adult sparrows and population growth rate were negatively related toPlasmodium relictuminfection intensity. Other parasites were much less prevalent and exhibited no relationship with sparrow survival and no negative relationship with population growth. Low rates of co-infection suggested sparrows were not immunocompromised. Our findings indicate thatP. relictuminfection may be influencing house sparrow population dynamics in suburban areas. The demographic sensitivity of the house sparrow toP. relictuminfection in London might reflect a recent increase in exposure to this parasite.
Poly(butylene succinate-
co
-salicylic acid) copolymers and their effect on promoting plant growth
Authors: Wang Lei , Zhang Min , Lawson Tom , Kanwal Aqsa , Miao Zongcheng
Published: July 2019

Biodegradable random copolymers were successfully synthesized by melt polycondensation of poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) and salicylic acid (SA). The obtained copolymers were characterized by proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The effect of different SA contents on the properties of copolymers was investigated by universal testing machine, thermogravimetric analyser, differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffraction analysis. The results showed that the copolymers with 0.5% SA contents exhibited excellent elastic modulus (1413.0 MPa) and tensile strength (192.8 MPa), and similar thermal decomposition temperature (≈320°C) compared with pure PBS. By molecular docking simulations, it was proved that the degradability of copolymers was more effective than that of pure PBS with a binding energy of −5.77 kcal mol
−1
. PBS copolymers with a small amount of SA were not only biodegradable but could stimulate the growth of green vegetables. So biodegradable copolymers can be used over a wide range as they are environmentally friendly.
Children can control the expression of masculinity and femininity through the voice
Authors: Cartei Valentina , Garnham Alan , Oakhill Jane , Banerjee Robin , Roberts Lucy , Reby David
Published: July 2019

Pre-pubertal boys and girls speak with acoustically different voices despite the absence of a clear anatomical dimorphism in the vocal apparatus, suggesting that a strong component of the expression of gender through the voice is behavioural. Initial evidence for this hypothesis was found in a previous study showing that children can alter their voice to sound like a boy or like a girl. However, whether they can spontaneously modulate these voice components within their own gender in order to vary the expression of their masculinity and femininity remained to be investigated. Here, seventy-two English-speaking children aged 6–10 were asked to give voice to child characters varying in masculine and feminine stereotypicality to investigate whether primary school children spontaneously adjust their sex-related cues in the voice—fundamental frequency (F0) and formant spacing (ΔF)—along gender stereotypical lines. Boys and girls masculinized their voice, by loweringF0 and ΔF, when impersonating stereotypically masculine child characters of the same sex. Girls and older boys also feminized their voice, by raising theirF0 and ΔF, when impersonating stereotypically feminine same-sex child characters. These findings reveal that children have some knowledge of the sexually dimorphic acoustic cues underlying the expression of gender, and are capable of controlling them to modulate gender-related attributes, paving the way for the use of the voice as an implicit, objective measure of the development of gender stereotypes and behaviour.
Satellite conjunction analysis and the false confidence theorem
Authors: Balch Michael Scott , Martin Ryan , Ferson Scott
Published: July 2019

Satellite conjunction analysis is the assessment of collision risk during a close encounter between a satellite and another object in orbit. A counterintuitive phenomenon has emerged in the conjunction analysis literature, namely, probability dilution, in which lower quality data paradoxically appear to reduce the risk of collision. We show that probability dilution is a symptom of a fundamental deficiency in probabilistic representations of statistical inference, in which there are propositions that will consistently be assigned a high degree of belief, regardless of whether or not they are true. We call this deficiency false confidence. In satellite conjunction analysis, it results in a severe and persistent underestimate of collision risk exposure. We introduce the Martin–Liu validity criterion as a benchmark by which to identify statistical methods that are free from false confidence. Such inferences will necessarily be non-probabilistic. In satellite conjunction analysis, we show that uncertainty ellipsoids satisfy the validity criterion. Performing collision avoidance manoeuvres based on ellipsoid overlap will ensure that collision risk is capped at the user-specified level. Furthermore, this investigation into satellite conjunction analysis provides a template for recognizing and resolving false confidence issues as they occur in other problems of statistical inference.
Visually attending to a video together facilitates great ape social closeness
Authors: Wolf Wouter , Tomasello Michael
Published: July 2019

Humans create social closeness with one another through a variety of shared social activities in which they align their emotions or mental states towards an external stimulus such as dancing to music together, playing board games together or even engaging in minimal shared experiences such as watching a movie together. Although these specific behaviours would seem to be uniquely human, it is unclear whether the underlying psychology is unique to the species, or if other species might possess some form of this psychological mechanism as well. Here we show that great apes who have visually attended to a video together with a human (study 1) and a conspecific (study 2) subsequently approach that individual faster (study 1) or spend more time in their proximity (study 2) than when they had attended to something different. Our results suggest that one of the most basic mechanisms of human social bonding—feeling closer to those with whom we act or attend together—is present in both humans and great apes, and thus has deeper evolutionary roots than previously suspected.
Risk alleles for tuberculosis infection associate with reduced immune reactivity in a wild mammalian host
Authors: Tavalire Hannah F. , Hoal Eileen G. , le Roex Nikki , van Helden Paul D. , Ezenwa Vanessa O. , Jolles Anna E.
Published: July 2019

Integrating biological processes across scales remains a central challenge in disease ecology. Genetic variation drives differences in host immune responses, which, along with environmental factors, generates temporal and spatial infection patterns in natural populations that epidemiologists seek to predict and control. However, genetics and immunology are typically studied in model systems, whereas population-level patterns of infection status and susceptibility are uniquely observable in nature. Despite obvious causal connections, organizational scales from genes to host outcomes to population patterns are rarely linked explicitly. Here we identify two loci near genes involved in macrophage (phagocyte) activation and pathogen degradation that additively increase risk of bovine tuberculosis infection by up to ninefold in wild African buffalo. Furthermore, we observe genotype-specific variation in IL-12 production indicative of variation in macrophage activation. Here, we provide measurable differences in infection resistance at multiple scales by characterizing the genetic and inflammatory variation driving patterns of infection in a wild mammal.