bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The African Union and Emerging Patterns of Global Health Governance
Authors: Nash Kathryn
Published: September 2023

During the global COVID-19 pandemic, the shortcomings and inequities in the global health system were amplified. International actors lost faith in the major global health institutions, and there was intense competition amongst states for critical supplies and vaccines. During these challenging circumstances, the African Union (AU) and its specialized technical institute (now autonomous agency) the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), led a multi-faceted response to combat COVID-19 in Africa and advocate for the African region globally. Beyond responding to the immediate crisis, the AU and Africa CDC recognized that Africa would need to build its capacity to respond to future public health security threats. They embraced the idea of the New Public Health Order for Africa to build public health institutions and workforces, expand manufacturing of critical medical supplies, increase public health resources, and build balanced and respectful partnerships ("Call to Action: Africa's New Public Health Order" 2022). In the years since the emergence of COVID-19, the AU and Africa CDC seized on the momentum created by the pandemic to build public health institutions and to take concrete action to begin to implement their vision for a New Public Health Order for Africa. This article focuses on how the response of the AU and Africa CDC to COVID-19 is driving an evolution in public health within Africa and the emerging impacts on global health governance more generally. It demonstrates that Africa is creating a space between state-based public health and global health governance by regionalizing public health to enhance Africa’s capacity and agency.
Impact of aSaccharomyces cerevisiaefermentation product during an intestinal barrier challenge in lactating Holstein cows on ileal microbiota and markers of tissue structure and immunity
Authors: Jiang Qianming , Sherlock Danielle N , Elolimy Ahmed A , Vailati-Riboni Mario , Yoon Ilkyu , Loor Juan J
Published: September 2023

Feeding a Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation product (SCFP; NutriTek, Diamond V, Cedar Rapids, IA) during periods of metabolic stress is beneficial to the health of dairy cows partially through its effect on the gut microbiota. Whether SCFP alters the ileal microbiota in lactating cows during intestinal challenges induced by feed restriction (FR) is not known. We used 16S rRNA sequencing to assess if feeding SCFP during FR to induce gut barrier dysfunction alters microbiota profiles in the ileum. The mRNA abundance of key genes associated with tissue structures and immunity was also detected. Multiparous cows (97.1 ± 7.6 days in milk (DIM); n = 7 per treatment) fed a control diet or the control plus 19 g/d NutriTek for 9 wk were subjected to an FR challenge for 5 d, during which they were fed 40% of their ad libitum intake from the 7 d before FR. All cows were slaughtered at the end of FR. DNA extracted from ileal digesta was subjected to PacBio Full-Length 16S rRNA gene sequencing. High-quality amplicon sequence analyses were performed with Targeted Amplicon Diversity Analysis and MicrobiomeAnalyst. Functional analysis was performed and analyzed using PICRUSt and STAMP. Feeding SCFP did not (P > 0.05) alter dry matter intake, milk yield, or milk components during FR. In addition, SCFP supplementation tended (P = 0.07) to increase the relative abundance of Proteobacteria and Bifidobacterium animalis. Compared with controls, feeding SCFP increased the relative abundance of Lactobacillales (P = 0.03). Gluconokinase, oligosaccharide reducing-end xylanase, and 3-hydroxy acid dehydrogenase were among the enzymes overrepresented (P < 0.05) in response to feeding SCFP. Cows fed SCFP had a lower representation of adenosylcobalamin biosynthesis I (early cobalt insertion) and pyrimidine deoxyribonucleotides de novo biosynthesis III (P < 0.05). Subsets of the Firmicutes genus, Bacteroidota phylum, and Treponema genus were correlated with the mRNA abundance of genes associated with ileal integrity (GCNT3, GALNT5, B3GNT3, FN1, ITGA2, LAMB2) and inflammation (AOX1, GPX8, CXCL12, CXCL14, CCL4, SAA3). Our data indicated that the moderate FR induced dysfunction of the ileal microbiome, but feeding SCFP increased the abundance of some beneficial gut probiotic bacteria and other species related to tissue structures and immunity.
Current Trend in the Epidemiology of Thermal Burn Injury at a Tertiary Hospital in South Western Nigeria
Authors: Ademola Samuel Adesina , Michael Afieharo Igbibia , Iyun Ayodele Olukayode , Isamah Chinsunum Peace , Aderibigbe Rotimi Opeyemi , Olawoye Olayinka Adebanji , Oluwatosin Odunayo Moronfoluwa
Published: September 2023

Worldwide, thermal burn is the leading etiological type of burn injury accounting for 86% of burn injuries requiring admissions. Flame, Scald, and contact burn are the leading causes of thermal burn. Changes in the sociodemographic characteristics of societies have led to alterations in the epidemiology of burn. An understanding of such changes in the epidemiology of burn is essential in formulating and executing adequate burn prevention programs. We sought to establish the current trend in the etiology, gender distribution, age, occurrence of inhalation injury, burn surface area, burn depth, and mortality rate of thermal burns at Ibadan. This was a retrospective study carried out between January 2013 and December 2022. Thermal burns constitute 92% of burn injuries. The male-to-female ratio was 1.4:1. There were 265 (45%) patients in the pediatric age group and 323 adults (55% of the patients). The proportion of flame, scald, and contact burns were 378 (58%), 203 (32%), and 14 (2%), respectively. Flame burns resulting from liquified petroleum gas (LPG) explosion show a rising trend, with a decline in flame burns from kerosene (P < .001). One hundred and ninety (32%) patients had inhalation injury. The overall mortality was 19% (N = 114). Kerosene flame, 38% (17 of 45 patients), and LPG, 32% (41 of 130 patients), were the most lethal causes of flame injuries (P < .043). The study shows the increasing contribution of LPG to the etiology of thermal burn injuries. Burn prevention programs should target safe use of LPG stoves and cylinders.
Rethinking the Human Right to Food from a Single Perspective to a Four-Fold Legal Interpretation
Authors: Milian Gómez Jorge Freddy
Published: September 2023

The human right to food is a fundamental pillar for guaranteeing human dignity and the existence of human beings. It is configured in the international legal system as the possibility of supplying a minimum amount of food necessary to avoid death by hunger, as well as healthy and adequate food for all people. The path to its recognition and conceptualization has been hazardous and is currently not free of real problems that affect its realization. Protection of the right at the national level has taken different forms: express or indirect recognition, recognition of the validity of international law norms in national law, jurisprudence or through the principles of the State. Nevertheless, the hunger problem persists, and the problems associated with nutrition continue to increase. Issues of nutritional security and food sovereignty are linked to the human right to food and are not incompatible with that right. In this regard, conceptual currents define the right from various perspectives, but they are insufficient to meet today’s demands. This research aims to support the four-fold legal interpretation thesis with a legal-theoretical approach to contextualize the right to food in the current circumstances. This article is structured in the first part to analyse the different definitions that shape the right to food. It then briefly presents the four-fold legal interpretation thesis and, finally, some arguments for reconfiguring the human right to food. The research methods used are legal-theoretical, legal-analytical and document analysis.
Overall signature of acquired KRAS gene changes in advanced non-small cell lung cancer patient with EGFR-TKI resistance
Authors: Zheng Jie , Dou Yuanyao , Huang Daijuan , Wang Yubo , Han Rui , Hu Chen , Zhu Mengxiao , Lu Conghua , Lin Caiyu , Wu Di , Liu Yihui , Tang Huan , He Tingting , Jiang Weilin , He Yong
Published: September 2023

Objective

Numerous scattered case studies continue to demonstrate a strong correlation between acquired KRAS mutations and epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor resistance in non-small cell lung cancer. However, the comprehensive understanding of the KRAS pathway following the failure of epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy remains limited.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective evaluation of the next generation sequencing data from 323 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer and EGFR-activating mutations after experiencing progression with epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy. Our analysis specifically focused on the acquired changes to the KRAS gene.

Results

Among the 323 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer and EGFR-activating mutations who experienced resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy, 14 individuals (4.3%) developed resistance due to acquired KRAS alterations. Of these 14 patients, 10 cases (71.4%) were due to KRAS missense mutations, 1 case (7.2%) was due to KRAS gene fusion and 3 cases (21.4%) were due to KRAS amplification. Notably, we identified one newly demonstrated KRAS gene fusion (KRAS and LMNTD1), one KRAS G13D and one KRAS K117N. The emergence of acquired KRAS alterations was often accompanied by novel mutations and high tumor mutation burden, with TP53, CNKN2A, PIK3CA, MYC, STK11, CDK4, BRCA2 and ERBB2 being the most frequently observed concurrent mutations. The median progression-free survival and overall survival for the 14 patients were 5.2 and 7.3 months, respectively. Acquired KRAS missense variants were associated with significantly worse progression-free survival compared with other KRAS variant subtypes (P < 0.028).

Conclusions

This study provides significant evidence of the role of acquired KRAS variants in the development of resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy. Our results contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the mutational profiles associated with resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment. Furthermore, our study highlights the KRAS gene change as a significant mechanism of resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy.
The Psychological Impact of Exposure to Battle on Medics: A Cross-Sectional Study of Ex-Soldiers Who Sought Help From the IDF Combat Reaction Unit
Authors: Shelef Leah , Bechor Uzi , Ohayon Ofir , Tatsa-Laur Lucian , Antonovsky Avishai
Published: September 2023

Introduction

The present study’s central aim was to examine two questions: (1) Will there be differences in mental health outcomes between medics and non-medics who sought help at the Israeli Combat Reaction Unit (CRU)? (2) Will there be differences in mental health outcomes between combatants and non-combatants?

Materials and Methods

This cross-sectional study included files of 1,474 Israeli Defense Forces ex-service members (89% combatants, of whom 13% were medics; 11% non-combatants, of whom 6% were medics), who filled out questionnaires on admission for evaluation at the CRU.

Dependent variables were mental health measures and included two PTSD measures (Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale and PTSD Checklist for DSM-5), Beck Depression Inventory, Dissociative Experience Scale, and Brief Symptom Inventory. Military profession (medics vs. non-medics) and status (combatant vs. non-combatant) were the independent variables. Background variables were also examined.

Results

We found no substantial differences between medics and non-medics in the mental health measures. When looking at combat and non-combat separately, the non-combat medics (CMs), in general, were in better mental health conditions than the other three groups— CMs, non-medic combatants, and non-medic non-combatants—all of whom had similar scores in the mental health measures. However, compared to the rest, non-CMs took considerably longer years before approaching the CRU.

Conclusions

The elapsed time to seek help for non-MCs was explained by their reluctance to seek help, not being combatants, and being medics who are portrayed as resilient. Recommendations for encouraging this subgroup to seek help were given.
Prevalence of Enteric Infections in Patients on Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors and Impact on Management and Outcomes
Authors: Magahis Patrick T , Satish Deepika , Esther Babady Ngolela , Kamboj Mini , Postow Michael A , Laszkowska Monika , Faleck David M
Published: September 2023

Background

Stool pathogen testing is recommended as part of the initial evaluation for patients with new-onset diarrhea on immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), yet its significance has not been well-studied. We aimed to determine the impact of multiplex gastrointestinal (GI) pathogen PCR testing on the clinical course and use of immunosuppressive therapy in patients who develop diarrhea on ICIs.

Methods

This retrospective cohort included individuals who underwent GI pathogen panel PCR for diarrhea on ICIs at Memorial Sloan Kettering between 7/2015 and 7/2021. The primary outcome was use of immunosuppressive therapy for suspected immunotherapy-related enterocolitis (irEC). Secondary outcomes included diarrhea severity and endoscopic and histologic disease patterns.

Results

Among 521 ICI-treated patients tested for GI pathogens, 61 (11.7%) had a positive PCR. Compared to patients without detectable infections, patients with infections had more frequent grades 3-4 diarrhea (37.7% vs. 19.6%, P < .01) and colitis (39.3% vs. 14.7%, P < .01). However, patients with infections did not have higher rates of persistent or recurrent diarrhea and were less likely to receive steroids (P < .01) and second-line immunosuppressive agents (P = .03). In 105 patients with lower endoscopy, similar trends were observed and no differences in endoscopic severity or histologic patterns were noted between groups.

Conclusions

GI infections in ICI-treated patients presenting with diarrhea are linked to more severe but self-limited clinical presentations and may be optimally treated with observation and supportive care alone. Routine and timely stool pathogen testing may help avert unnecessary empiric immunosuppression for suspected irEC, which has been linked to blunted antitumor responses and numerous adverse effects.
Applying Implementation Science Theory in Evaluation Research
Authors: Keith Rosalind E. , Crosson Jesse C. , Damschroder Laura J.
Published: September 2023

Implementation science seeks to provide implementation stakeholders and program decision-makers with guidance on how to successfully operationalize an intervention to achieve intended outcomes. This chapter provides an overview on using theory to guide evaluations focused on identifying determinants of implementation. Determinants include factors that may emerge to facilitate or challenge implementation efforts. An overarching premise within implementation science is that knowledge of these determinants is a necessary precondition for implementation, which is most effective when implementation strategies are informed by such determinants. Understanding determinants of implementation is essential to explaining intervention outcomes and reducing variation in outcomes. The authors first discuss the emergence of implementation science in evaluation research and define key terms. They then introduce theoretical frameworks intended to guide the evaluation of determinants of implementation. In the remainder of the chapter, they describe step by step how to use an implementation framework to guide an evaluation focused on identifying determinants of implementation.
Evaluating Implementation Strategies
Authors: Knocke Kathleen , Powell Byron J.
Published: September 2023

Implementation strategies are actions that can be taken to improve the way an intervention is implemented. In this chapter, we describe how to select an implementation strategy, and we discuss how to identify the mechanisms underlying the strategy that influence implementation success. Understanding these mechanisms is important for generating actionable findings about how implementation strategies influence implementation. Clearly identifying implementation strategies to support a given intervention—as well as the hypothesized mechanisms of action underlying their expected effect—provides a foundation for monitoring and evaluating implementation success and for structuring reports to ensure replication of effective interventions and related implementation efforts.
Conducting Performance Evaluations
Authors: Lemrow Celeste , Hong Kevin Cyrus
Published: September 2023

As implementers and donors seek to expand their analytical toolbox to assess program results, many are advancing performance evaluations as an approach to analyze their investments’ contributions to expected outcomes in the absence of a clear counterfactual. Performance evaluations stake a middle ground between process and impact evaluations, drawing on a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to credibly correlate program activities with higher-order results. They provide systematic analysis when an impact evaluation is not feasible or appropriate, and when a process evaluation cannot fully address evaluation questions related to both rigor and cost-effectiveness. They examine questions such as: Did the program plausibly lead to changes in observed outcomes? What are the most important factors influencing the success (or failure) of a program? How do activities contribute to particular outcomes? This chapter establishes a basic framework for performance evaluations, covers key considerations for selecting a performance evaluation, and provides a practical overview of planning, implementing, and using these evaluations.
Program Monitoring as a Tool for Measuring, Communicating, and Improving Program Effectiveness
Authors: Goldsmith Rebecca , Pizer Anne
Published: September 2023

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is a US foreign assistance agency created to reduce poverty through economic growth. To accomplish this, MCC’s work rests on four pillars, one of which is a focus on results. Focusing on results means taking a systematic and rigorous approach to track and evaluate the effects of its programs. MCCs approach is distinct in that it links pre-investment analysis, which includes cost-benefit analysis (CBA), to its monitoring indicators’ baselines and targets. These analyses are directly connected, and MCC uses baseline and target values from the benefit and cost streams as its baseline and target values for its monitoring indicators. This chapter describes how MCC uses monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to connect the project assessment phase with project monitoring to ensure that its funding is put to good use.
Applying Multiple Methods to Implementation Research
Authors: Manno Michelle S. , Treskon Louisa
Published: September 2023

This chapter describes the use of multiple-methods approaches to answer process and implementation questions, drawing on studies of two programs that engaged young people under age 25 in various activities to promote education and employment. The first study, Project Rise, documents how five providers operated the flexible program model by combining qualitative and quantitative information. This implementation study also assessed participant engagement in services and the characteristics of those most likely to continue or cease engagement. The second study, YouthBuild, demonstrates the measurement of fidelity using qualitative and quantitative information in the context of a randomized controlled trial. It examines 75 programs that implemented a “principle-based” model organized around broad guidelines rather than narrow objectives or detailed processes. Together, these studies show a range of research questions and approaches that implementation studies address.
Systems Research Overview and Its Application to Early Childhood Education Systems
Authors: Powers Shawn , Paulsell Diane
Published: September 2023

Systems research aims to look beyond evaluation of individual programs and policies and seeks to understand the functioning of the systems in which those programs and policies are embedded. This chapter provides an overview of this nascent field through the lens of a multiyear research program on early childhood education (ECE) systems. It discusses the selection and adaptation process for a research framework based on Pritchett’s (2015) concept of “coherence” in education systems. The chapter then presents four types of research applications for the systems framework, with examples from country-level work in Liberia: a general diagnostic of the system’s ability to deliver quality early learning, a problem-based diagnostic aimed at understanding the root causes of overage enrollment, program and policy design with the goal of addressing these challenges, and analysis of system response to shocks in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Conducting Cost Analysis
Authors: Mamun Arif
Published: September 2023

The chapter focuses on the practical aspects of conducting cost and cost-effectiveness analyses. It presents two illustrative examples: (1) a cost analysis of programs supporting orphans and other vulnerable children in Uganda, and (2) a cost-effectiveness analysis of a girl-friendly school infrastructure program in Burkina Faso. For each case, the author describes how the study operationalized the various methodological considerations, the type of stakeholder engagements that were necessary, how data were collected, and how the analyses were carried out. The chapter provides a summary of the findings and reflects on the practical lessons learned from the operations and modalities of doing the analysis in these applications.
Oh, All the Wrongs I Could Have Performed!
Authors: Enoch David , Weinshtock Saadon Itamar
Published: September 2023

Suppose someone is brought up as an orthodox Jew, and so only eats kosher, is very conservative sexually, etc. Suppose they then find out that this Judaism stuff is just all a big mistake. If they then regret all the shrimp they could have eaten, all the sex!, this makes perfect sense. Not so, however, if someone finds out that moral realism is false, and they now regret all the fun they could have had hurting people’s feeling, etc. Even if this does make sense, there’s a strong disanalogy between the moral and the religious case. This asymmetry, on a realist picture of morality, calls for explanation. This chapter tries to explain it. The discussion engages some topics familiar from objections to Robust realism—the why-be-moral challenge, the status of de-dicto moral motivation, and whether and why we should care about the moral properties, robustly realistically understood.
Does Anything We Care about Distinguish the Non-Natural from the Natural?
Authors: van Roojen Mark
Published: September 2023

Non-naturalists and nonreductive naturalists both believe that there are normative properties over and above the properties postulated by the non-normative sciences. One bunch thinks that these properties are natural the other doesn’t. What does this disagreement amount to? It could be about a division of properties and kinds, into higher-level kinds. The argument would then be about whether normative/moral properties and kinds share the relevant real similarity distinctive of natural properties. It is hard to see how the present literature, with its focus on grounding as the arena in which this debate is engaged, fits with that understanding of the issue. Nor is it obvious that either view is more or less compatible with a scientific world view, which seems to have been the primary motivator for old-line naturalists. This chapter will explain some of the difficulties with reconciling motivations for each position with reasonable ways of distinguishing the positions.
The Bearing of Moral Rationalism on Moral Realism
Authors: Smith Michael
Published: September 2023

The main aim of this chapter is to bring out the connections between a number of debates in metaethics, foremost among them being the debates between realists and antirealists and that between rationalists and antirationalists. Other debates considered along the way include those between cognitivists and noncognitivists, mind-dependence theorists and mind-independence theorists, naturalists and non-naturalists, absolutists and relativists, and theorists who draw the distinction between the moral and the nonmoral in a content-free way and those who draw it in a content-committed way. The view that emerges as most plausible is a combination of moral realism, cognitivism, mind-dependence, naturalism, absolutism, a content-free way of drawing the distinction between the moral and the nonmoral, and, most importantly, moral rationalism.
Defining Moral Realism
Authors: Foster Jennifer , Schroeder Mark
Published: September 2023

Wherever philosophers disagree, one of the things at issue is likely to be what they disagree about, itself. In addition to asking whether moral realism is true, and which forms of moral realism are more likely to be true than others, we can also ask what it would mean for some form of moral realism to be true. The usual aspiration of such inquiry is to find definitions that all can agree on, so that we can use terms in a uniform way. But we doubt that this aspiration is always possible, or even desirable. It will be our goal in this chapter to sketch out some of our reasons for such skepticism, and to lay out a picture of what philosophical inquiry can look like in metaethics and beyond, even when it is impossible to reach uniform agreement on the terms of the debate.
Epistemology for Realists
Authors: McGrath Sarah
Published: September 2023

According to the moral realist, moral judgments express beliefs in objective moral facts. Moreover, moral realists tend to hold that, while we can be mistaken about morality, many of our moral beliefs amount to substantial moral knowledge. What kind of story should the realist offer in order to explain how such knowledge is achieved? One might expect that the correct answer to this question depends on whether naturalism or non-naturalism is true. But in this chapter, I argue that, irrespective of whether moral facts are natural, the most plausible epistemological story is an unexceptionalist picture on which any source of nonmoral knowledge is a potential source of moral knowledge.
Ethical Naturalism
Authors: Antony Louise , Garcia Ernesto V.
Published: September 2023

This chapter discusses fundamental problems and prospects for ethical naturalism. Section 1 explains what is meant by “ethical naturalism” and surveys different versions of the view. Section 2 discusses the central philosophical challenge to ethical naturalism, viz., the “Normativity Objection.” Section 3 offers a battery of responses to it on behalf of the ethical naturalist. Section4 explores a promising and novel approach to ethical naturalism, viz., a moral nativist theory that that combines a Chomskian approach to moral competence with a structuralist metaphysics.
Illicit Networks and Nuclear Material Trafficking
Authors: Murauskaite Egle E.
Published: September 2023

The chapter discusses the illicit trafficking of nuclear and radiological materials and focuses on examples of independently formed and state-sponsored criminal networks during the period of 1990–2010, which is considered the peak of nuclear proliferation. While highlighting the loose and temporary nature of identifiable networks, the chapter briefly presents three of the better-known cases, involving the Vagner network in Eastern Europe, the global A. Q. Khan network, and the Dadayan network in the Black Sea region. These cases are connected to the prevailing proliferation concerns and evolving counter-measures characteristic to each of the decades. The chapter also addresses some of the common controversies and contradictions concerning research on radioactive trafficking—including definitional differences, the nature of a market, and the potential nexus between criminal and terrorist enterprises. The chapter closes with reflections on future trafficking concerns pertaining to Russia and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, in its current stage as well as the aftermath.
Frankfurt School Aesthetics
Authors: Hartle Johan Frederik
Published: September 2023

Frankfurt School aesthetic theories are strongly inspired by psychoanalysis and react to the political challenges of their time. Against this background, the political dangers of European fascism and its aftermath are decisive for the theoretical efforts of their critical theories. In this respect, the early Studies in Authoritarianism (by Horkheimer, Fromm, & Marcuse) lay the ground for further analyses. In the aesthetic theory of Walter Benjamin, the relation between anti-fascist aesthetics and mental health is explicitly formulated. According to Benjamin, modern (media) art is a therapeutic confrontation with technological overload in terms of fragmentation, acceleration, and spatial compression. In the aesthetic theories of Adorno and Marcuse, aesthetics appears as a critique of (deformed or reduced) ‘rationality’. Their aesthetic models suggest that pathologies of reason are (in part) to be corrected or supplemented by aesthetic theory and practice. Pre-rational moments (the ‘mimetic’, a somatic, impulsive dimension) play a decisive role in this. In the writings of Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt, representatives of a second generation of Frankfurt School aesthetics, such aesthetic politics culminates in the aesthetic politics of obstinacy and the politics of non-conformism, which liberates the whole range of experience (much in analogy with psychoanalysis). Throughout its history, the main impulse of Frankfurt School aesthetics is the ambition to develop aesthetic models that confront the political situation of their time, or, more specifically, that outline possibilities for alternative models of subjectivity pointing beyond authoritarianism.
Everyday Aesthetics and the Good Life
Authors: Saito Yuriko
Published: September 2023

This chapter first situates the emerging field of everyday aesthetics within the trajectory of the Western aesthetics tradition, which became increasingly focused on the fine arts and related issues in the twentieth century. By restoring aesthetics to its original mission, a study of perception and sensibility, everyday aesthetics not only expands the scope of inquiry but also illuminates the importance of cultivating our aesthetic life to promote our well-being. The discussion focuses on five ways in which everyday aesthetics contributes to the good life: appreciation of those aspects of daily lives which normally do not garner aesthetic attention; body engagement in everyday aesthetic life; exercise of active agency in enacting aesthetic experiences both for oneself and others; cultivation of respect and humility through working with the world around; and empowerment for shaping one’s life and the world.
Bibliotherapy or the Healing Power of Reading in the Context of Cultural History
Authors: Engelhardt Dietrich V.
Published: September 2023

Since antiquity literature has been ascribed a role in medical therapy and psychotherapy. Medicine itself combines art (ars) and science (scientia); living with disease is also an art. The positivistic nineteenth century with its scientific orientation caused a decline; new initiatives can be observed in the present, supporting the contribution of literature and all arts of coping with disease, pain, and death. Six dimensions are central: reading in health and disease; influence of the different diseases; dependence on the specific form of therapy; personality of the patient; provision and communication of the literary text; and occupational image of the bibliotherapist. Literature cannot be ‘prescribed’ like medicaments; decisive is the empathic–communicative interrelationship in the triangle therapist, patient, text. The success of bibliotherapy is measured by the effects on: body-relationship, space-relationship, time-relationship, social-relationship, self-relationship, and world-relationship. Literature as cultural response to birth, disease, and death goes beyond every therapy in the biological sense, opening a medium of immanent transcendence, contributing to medicine as medical humanities—humane and for humans.
Connoisseurs of the Soul, Psycho Villains
Authors: Poltrum Martin
Published: September 2023

Film is an inspiring medium for mental health experts. The vast majority of academic contributions to the portrayal of the psychotherapist, psychologist, and psychiatrist in feature films take the perspective that films are a truncated representation of the reality of mental disorders and their treatment, and for that reason, there is nothing to learn from films. This paper contradicts this belief and argues that historically, it was film that contributed significantly to the popularization and thus the spread of psychotherapy and that there is enormous didactic potential in film for nascent psychotherapists. Screen therapists are more than Dr Dippys, Dr Evils, Dr Wonderfuls, and Dr Hornys as typologies of the psychotherapist in feature films suggest and who this paper presents and discusses, as well as the beginnings of the psychotherapist film, Freud’s position on film, and the most important publications on the subject. In this contribution, special attention is paid to erotic infections and psychotherapists falling in love with their patients and, above all, to the romantic topic of healing through love as it appears in film.
EMDR Therapy and OCD
Authors: Marsden Zoe , Böhm Karsten
Published: September 2023

This chapter examines the use of EMDR therapy for individuals with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). The chapter reviews the evidence for the use of EMDR, how obsessive–compulsive symptoms and trauma may occur more frequently than assumed, and how this can be understood within the EMDR Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model. The authors suggest an integrative approach of EMDR and some aspects of cognitive behavioral therapy, namely the in-vivo triggering of OCD symptoms, leads to effective treatment of OCD. Different ways to conceptualize and select target memories for EMDR reprocessing are discussed, as well as working with the underlying conflicts in the complexity of treating OCD.
Engendering Socioeconomic Rights
Authors: Fredman Sandra
Published: September 2023

This chapter argues that, since gender shapes disadvantage and poverty, socioeconomic rights need to reflect the specificities of gender. Simply extending socioeconomic rights to women does little to address the gendered nature of social institutions and structures. Instead, socioeconomic rights should be “engendered” or infused with substantive gender equality. Engendered socioeconomic rights aim to take account of the power relations in which rights are exercised. This is necessary to enhance the set of feasible options open to women while valuing and supporting their roles within a complex network of interdependence. Section 1 sketches the ways in which gender shapes disadvantage for women. Section 2 develops the principle of infusing socioeconomic rights with substantive gender equality, based on a four-dimensional understanding of substantive equality. Section 3 considers how this principle could be developed, by examining recent jurisprudence in the European Court of Human Rights, South Africa, CEDAW, and ICESCR.
E. E. Constance Jones and the Law of Significant Assertion
Authors: Peijnenburg Jeanne , van der Schaar Maria
Published: September 2023

Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones (1848–1922), a Cambridge logician and Mistress of Girton College, is especially known for her law of significant assertion, with which she tries to escape Hermann Lotze’s skepticism about categorical propositions. Her first formulation of it dates from 1890, and several philosophers have pointed out the similarities with Gottlob Frege’s use of Sinn and Bedeutung in 1891 and 1892. This chapter argues that there are also important differences from Frege’s approach, and that Jones’s discovery relies on the traditional distinction between extension and intension. Although Bertrand Russell did not think highly of Jones’s views, he seems to have felt the pressure to discuss them in his paper “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description” of 1911, where his criticism resembles the way he criticized Frege in “On Denoting” of 1905. The chapter surmises that Russell’s argument against Jones may be questionable, since it is based on an assumption that Frege makes, but that Jones rejects.
Sojourner Truth
Authors: Mandela Gray Biko , Robinson Marcia C.
Published: September 2023

This chapter highlights the religious and phenomenological foundations of Sojourner Truth’s public life. By nearly all accounts, Truth had a palpable presence. People were deeply moved by what she said and how she said it. As one eyewitness put it, words could not capture her; a “Daguerrian act” was needed. This had much to do with Truth’s experiences of the brutality of slavery and the presence of a God who redeemed and liberated her. As a result, Truth had no problem calling her largely white audiences to account for their antiblack racism and sexism, injustices contributing to the “night-time” state of America. This, however, did not preclude some from curating, even caricaturing her. The “African” had to conform to white perceptions of blackness, even to the point of speaking words she probably never said. But if we listen, we might still hear Truth saying “what time of night it is.”
Memory/Remedy
Authors: Anyaduba Chigbo Arthur , Maiangwa Benjamin
Published: September 2023

The chapter provides a provisional critique of transitional justice practices and scholarship advancing memory as a remedy to historical injustices. The chapter contends that certain uses of traumatic memory as a remedy to past injustices often attend the serious questions of injustice in terms suggestive of trauma healing. The emphasis on trauma and on the vocabulary of healing and reconciliation that have gained increasing currency in recent years often distracts attention from the apparent political preconditions of violence which in most cases have remained unresolved in the aftermath of mass violence. The chapter cites the example of the Biafra-Nigeria War (1967–1970) to elaborate our argument that this discourse on traumatic memory is inadequate for addressing troubled pasts. In making this point, the authors agree with the scholarship emphasizing revolutionary political reforms that attend to the political preconditions of violence.
The Welcome Return of Political Economy to International Political Economy Scholarship
Authors: Underhill Geoffrey R. D.
Published: September 2023

This chapter argues that methodological pluralism and innovation, combined with new data sources and research technologies, have steadily eroded the divisions observed in the “Cohen debate” on the UK versus US schools of (International) Political Economy. A problem-solving approach that nonetheless addresses big questions of global and normative importance has reduced the influence of “gatekeeper” approaches such as critical theory or Open Economy Politics, integrating many of their insights on the way. Understanding the observable variation in state-market-governance relationships remains central to the contemporary field: a focus on the interface between what people do as they go about their material life, and the many collective forms of governance and organization, private or public, formal or informal, local or cross-border, that emerge as a result.
Eye-Tracking and Experimental Syntax
Authors: Kush Dave , Dillon Brian
Published: September 2023

In order to use eye-tracking to investigate grammatical representations and the commitments made by formal syntactic theories, researchers must have clear linking hypotheses between reading behavior, parsing operations and grammatical constructs. The ability to articulate linking hypotheses presupposes a basic understanding of reading and eye-tracking measures. To this end, we provide an overview of the psychology of reading and eye-tracking-while-reading method. We review findings that grammatical processing is reflected in the eye-tracking record, offer remarks on practical aspects of constructing eye-tracking experiments, and discuss issues related to aligning grammatical model with parsing models. We offer in-depth case-studies on the processing of A’-dependencies and reflexive anaphors, and discuss how their results reflect on grammatical questions.
Formal Methods in Experimental Syntax
Authors: Hunter Tim
Published: September 2023

This chapter provides an overview of some ways to bring evidence from experimental language-processing work to bear on theories of syntax, where the relevant syntactic theories are formulated as explicit, self-contained formal grammars. The focus is on linking hypotheses that take the form of complexity metrics, at differing levels of abstraction. At one level are information-theoretic metrics such as surprisal and entropy reduction, where a grammar’s role is to define a probability distribution over generated expressions; a key point emphasized here is the way a grammar’s generative mechanisms constrain the shapes of these distributions. At a lower, explicitly algorithmic, level of abstraction are metrics based on the memory load incurred by particular parsing algorithms. The concluding section outlines applications of these ideas to modern syntactic theory.
(Quantifier) Scope Judgments
Authors: Szendrői Kriszta Eszter
Published: September 2023

This chapter is an overview of the state-of-the art of how adults and children interpret scopal ambiguities in sentences with a universal and an existential quantifier and in sentences with a quantifier and negation, and of the theoretical considerations raised by these findings. It has been observed that both children and adults sometimes have an overt scope preference and that inverse scope interpretations sometimes come with an extra processing cost. Experimental results are often sensitive to the nature of the task involved and also to the presence or absence of a discourse context. Although the available evidence paints a complex picture, it seems that ultimately, both adults and children have access to both overt and inverse scope readings most of the time. It is conjectured that studying the process of sentence verification, as suggested by for instance Conroy (2008), would further our understanding of how children and adults interpret sentences with scopal ambiguities.
Experimental syntax and linguistic fieldwork
Authors: Polinsky Maria
Published: September 2023

This chapter surveys conceptual and practical aspects of experimental work in the field involving lesser-known languages. Although experimental syntax and fieldwork in syntax are often considered separate enterprises, they address the same fundamental issues and are similar in a number of ways. Both work with massive amounts of data, rely on hypothesis testing, and constantly refine and update their techniques. While lab-based experimental syntax may seem to have captured the spotlight these days, applying the experimental approach to lesser-known languages in a fieldwork setting is an equally rewarding pursuit. The chapter also discusses the ideal composition of an experimental fieldwork team, where different members (the fieldworker, the experimentalist) bring different skill sets and areas of expertise while sharing common goals. Engagement of native speakers in the research team is an important ingredient of successful experimental work in the field.
Behavioral Acquisition Methods With Preschool-Age Children
Authors: Syrett Kristen
Published: September 2023

This chapter reviews the main experimental methodologies used by researchers in language acquisition and development to assess preschoolers’ syntactic competence. The review highlights the importance of the choice of methodology given the phenomenon under investigation, as well as the connection between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and how this connection also feeds into the choice of methodology and conclusions based on experimental findings. Topics covered include overt and covert movement, wh-questions, quantification, pronominal reference, binding, verb frames and argument structure, adjectives, relative clauses, verb phrase ellipsis, reconstruction, and the passive construction.
An Introduction
Authors: Smyth Adam
Published: September 2023

This chapter considers the different ways in which bibliographers and book historians have in the past responded to one astonishingly popular book, Eikon Basilike: The Pourtrature of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, in order to survey the kinds of stories scholars have in the past told about the production, circulation, and consumption of books. The chapter reflects critically on these stories, and considers other possible ways of thinking about books. The chapter concludes by considerirng the ‘politics of citation’, and the way bibliography and book history have in the past rehearsed an unhelpfully narrow and excluding narrative of its origins and development.
Illustrated Books
Authors: Hunter Michael
Published: September 2023

This chapter surveys the visual element in books of the period. It looks at major projects for heavily illustrated books, from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Holinshed’s Chronicles in the Elizabethan period, through portrait collections like Basiliωlogia (1618) and Herωologia (1620), to the mid–late seventeenth-century enterprises of John Ogilby, Sir William Dugdale, and Richard Blome (whose projects are given long overdue attention). It considers how the reliance on woodcut was replaced by a growing fashion for intaglio illustrations, whether etched or engraved, and the technical implications of this for book production. It also examines the marketing implications of the increasing preference for engravings, including the growing reliance on aristocratic and gentry patrons to pay for individual plates, for which they were rewarded by the display of their coats of arms. The chapter ends with brief reflections on what contemporaries perceived as the ‘added value’ of such highly illustrated volumes.
Beyond the Book
Authors: Phillips Harriet
Published: September 2023

Early modern England was at once a highly textualized society and one in which the experience of texts went well beyond the codex. Early moderns had many responses to writing outside reading, responses which are often invited or presupposed by the texts themselves. This could be a communal, aural, visual, or otherwise object-centred experience beyond not just the book but also what we might think of as ‘reading’. This essay focuses on single-sheet printing as one of the most omnipresent textual forms in early modern England. The broadsheet was a highly flexible form, supporting a plurality of adaptive responses to diverse content. Traces of use include blotches, folds, and holes, alongside annotation and more conventional marks of reading. Reading broadsides through this history of use testifies to the range of textual encounter outside the codex in early modern England.