bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Management and Systemic Implications of Diabetic Neovascular Glaucoma
Authors: Sánchez-Tabernero Sara , Juberías Jose R. , Artells Núria , Crespo-Millas Sara , Meneses Carolina , Muñoz-Moreno Mª Fe , Manzanas Lucía , López Gálvez María I.
Published: June 2019

Objectives: To study the efficacy and safety of different treatments for diabetic neovascular glaucoma (NVG). We additionally attempt to determine if the presence of NVG could be a predictor of cardiovascular disease or death. Method: This is a retrospective, observational cohort study including patients diagnosed with diabetic NVG from 2006 to 2016 at the Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valladolid (Spain). Extracted data included clinical characteristics of the patients, glycated haemoglobin levels, and ocular treatment. Visual acuity (VA), intraocular pressure (IOP), cardiovascular events, and deaths were registered. Results: 30 eyes from 23 patients were followed for a mean of 4.48 years (SD = 2.82 years). The IOP-lowering intervention groups were: Ahmed implant (11 eyes), laser cyclo-photocoagulation (CPC; 6 eyes), both (4 eyes), or none (9 eyes). IOP success was achieved in 100% of the eyes with Ahmed and/or laser CPC and in 44.4% of the eyes with no IOP-lowering procedure (p= 0.002). Most eyes with Ahmed implant (with or without CPC) maintained or improved their VA (100 and 63.6%, respectively). 33.3% of the eyes with laser CPC and 25% of those with no IOP-lowering intervention maintained or improved their VA (p = 0.028). Hypotony was the only adverse effect (after laser CPC). No statistically significant difference could be established between low VA (finger count or worse), poor IOP control, or bad metabolic control and mortality or cardiovascular event (p > 0.05), however, the four patients who died had poor VA at the time of NVG diagnosis. Conclusions: Ahmed implant surgery is a safe and effective treatment option for diabetic NVG. Medical treatment alone is not the best option for most cases. Advanced NVG could be an indicator of higher mortality risk in diabetic patients.
Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura Cases and Consumption of Large Quantities of Energy Drink: Related or Coincidence?
Authors: Göçer Mesut , Iltar Utku , Aykaş Fatma , Aslan Vedat , Nizam İlknur , Çelik Mehmet , Kurtoğlu Erdal
Published: June 2019

The vast majority of cases of thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) are the result of acquired antibodies which inhibit the activity of the ADAMTS13 enzyme. Acquired TTP is more frequently seen in young females or in individuals with autoimmune disease. The development of antibodies against ADAMTS13 may also result from the administration or consumption of drugs and other substances. However, specific laboratory tests to identify the pathogenic mechanism of a particular drug may not be available, and the role of a potentially implicated drug or other ingested substance may not be clear. In this report we present 2 acquired TTP cases involving the consumption of a large amount of energy drink.
Quantitative mRNA Expression Assays and Synchronous Breast Cancers: A Case Report
Authors: Sorscher Steven
Published: June 2019

Quantitative mRNA analysis of breast tumors represents a routinely applied example of precision oncology. Currently the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) recommends quantitative mRNA profiling (e.g., 21-gene RT PCR or Oncotype Dx assay) for nearly all surgically resected lymph node (LN) negative hormone receptor (HR) positive, HER2 negative breast cancers in order to predict recurrence risk with endocrine therapy compared to chemotherapy followed by endocrine therapy after surgery. The incidence of synchronous breast cancers is low and evidence concerning distant recurrence risk is limited, but the risk of distant recurrence from one or the other of two primary breast cancers appears to be higher than the recurrence risk of the single largest of the two cancers. In this report, a woman with synchronous primary breast cancers is described. Oncotype Dx testing was done on each of her two cancers. By assuming that the recurrence risk from each with adjuvant endocrine therapy is an independent event, the recurrence likelihood from one or the other or both is calculated. I propose that this calculated value more accurately should predict the recurrence from one or the other or both tumors with endocrine therapy or chemotherapy followed by endocrine therapy compared with using only the higher of the two Oncotype Dx estimated risks.
A comunicação do sensível: acolher, vivenciar, fazer sentir
Authors:   Universidade de São Paulo. Escola de Comunicações e Artes, Marcondes Filho Ciro
Published: June 2019

Este livro se dedica a investigar como se dá o sensível na comunicação, por que estranhos caminhos ele passa e quais misteriosas agências ele potencializa, sensibilizando-nos. É tanto uma obra que busca se aproximar daquilo que outros chamam de insondável, imperscrutável, impalpável, intangível, furtivo, ou seja, das coisas sutis que, mesmo assim, têm a capacidade de mexer conosco, de transformar-nos, às vezes, profunda e definitivamente, ao mesmo tempo em que busca oferecer um instrumental de estudo para quem quiser se aprofundar no obscuro e estranho caminho das coisas discretas, pequenas, voláteis, etéreas, diáfanas, vaporosas, vestígios, em suma, de fenômenos outros, aparentemente inalcançáveis, mas capturáveis por seus efeitos.
Six‐Year Incidence of Cardiometabolic Risk Factors in a Population‐Based Cohort of Chinese Adults Followed From 2009 to 2015
Authors: Wang Yiqing , Wang Huijun , Howard Annie Green , Adair Linda S. , Popkin Barry M. , Su Chang , Du Wenwen , Zhang Bing , Gordon‐Larsen Penny
Published: June 2019

Background

China faces a substantial burden from cardiometabolic diseases, but longitudinal studies on a wide range of cardiometabolic risk factors are limited. We examined the 6‐year incidence of 8 cardiometabolic risk factors in a diverse, population‐based cohort.

Methods and Results

In the China Health and Nutrition Survey, anthropometry, blood pressure, and fasting blood samples were collected from 9621 adults (47.6% men) aged 18 to 99 years in 2009 who were followed into 2015. Using inverse probability weights to account for loss to follow‐up, we estimated the 6‐year incidence of 8 cardiometabolic risk factors and compared the incidence of each risk factor across age groups using inverse probability–weighted sex‐stratified logistic regression models. Incidence was noted for the following cardiometabolic risk factors during 2009–2015: hypertension (systolic/diastolic blood pressure ≥140/90 mm Hg; men: 29.2%; women: 24.9%), high waist circumference/height ratio (≥0.5; men: 42.4%; women: 43.8%), and high total to
HDL
(high‐density lipoprotein) cholesterol ratio (≥5; men: 17.0%; women: 14.5%). Older men and women (aged ≥65 years) had the highest incidence of hypertension. Incidence of high waist circumference/height ratio and high
LDL
(low‐density lipoprotein) cholesterol (≥130 mg/
dL
) was highest among older (aged ≥65 years) women, whereas incidence of overweight (body mass index ≥25) and high triglycerides (≥150 mg/
dL
) was highest among younger (aged 18–35 and 35–50 years) men.

Conclusions

We found increases in cardiometabolic risk among Chinese adults during this recent, short, 6‐year period that are higher than previous studies in China. The higher incidence of overweight and elevated dyslipidemia markers in younger versus older men portends an increasing burden of cardiometabolic diseases in China as the younger population ages.
Blood Pressure and the Electronic Health Record: A Work in Progress
Authors: Ahmad Amier , Oparil Suzanne
Published: June 2019

See Article
Ayala Solares et al
Medical Treatment Failure for Symptomatic Vasospasm After Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Threatens Long-Term Outcome
Authors: Suwatcharangkoon Sureerat , De Marchis Gian Marco , Witsch Jens , Meyers Emma , Velazquez Angela , Falo Cristina , Schmidt J. Michael , Agarwal Sachin , Connolly E. Sander , Claassen Jan , Mayer Stephan A.
Published: June 2019

Background and Purpose—

Symptomatic vasospasm is a common cause of morbidity and mortality after subarachnoid hemorrhage. We sought to identify predictors and the long-term impact of treatment failure with hypertensive therapy for symptomatic vasospasm.

Methods—

We performed a retrospective analysis of 1520 subarachnoid hemorrhage patients prospectively enrolled in the Columbia University SAH Outcomes Project between August 1996 and August 2012. One hundred ninety-eight symptomatic vasospasm patients were treated with vasopressors to raise arterial blood pressure, with and without volume expansion. Treatment response, defined as complete or near-complete resolution of the initial neurological deficit, was adjudicated in weekly meetings of the study team based on serial clinical examination after hypertensive treatment. Outcome was evaluated at 1 year with the modified Rankin Scale.

Results—

Twenty-one percent of the 198 patients who received hypertensive therapy did not respond to treatment. Treatment failure was associated with an increased risk of death or severe disability at 1 year (modified Rankin Scale score of 4–6; 62% versus 25%;
P
<0.001). Failure of medical therapy was also associated with an admission troponin I level >0.3 μg/L (64% versus 28%;
P
=0.001), aneurysm coiling (43% versus 20%;
P
=0.004), and involvement of >1 symptomatic vascular territory at onset (39% versus 22%;
P
=0.02). In multivariable analysis, treatment failure was independently associated only with troponin I elevation (adjusted odds ratio, 4.30; 95% CI, 1.69–11.09;
P
=0.002).

Conclusions—

Failure to respond to induced hypertension for symptomatic vasospasm threatens 1-year outcome. Subarachnoid hemorrhage patients with symptomatic vasospasm who have elevated initial troponin I levels, indicative of neurogenic cardiac injury, are at twice the risk of medical treatment failure. Expedited endovascular therapy should be considered in these patients.
Dosage Matters
Authors: Winstein Carolee , Kim Bokkyu , Kim Sujin , Martinez Clarisa , Schweighofer Nicolas
Published: June 2019

Background and Purpose—

For stroke rehabilitation, task-specific training in animal models and human rehabilitation trials is considered important to modulate neuroplasticity, promote motor learning, and functional recovery. Little is known about what constitutes an effective dosage of therapy.

Methods—

This is a parallel group, 4 arms, single-blind, phase IIb, randomized controlled trial of 4 dosages of arm therapy delivered in an outpatient setting chronically after stroke. Participants were randomized into groups that varied in duration of scheduled therapy (ie, 0, 15, 30, or 60 hours). Forty-one participants completed the study. Planned primary analyses used linear mixed effects regression to model changes from baseline to postintervention in the Motor Activity Log-Quality of Movement rating and the Wolf Motor Function Test time score over 3 weeks of training as a function of therapy dosage.

Results—

We observed a dose response for the Motor Activity Log-Quality of Movement: the model that included dose and dose by week interaction significantly better fit the data than the model that included week only (log-likelihood test,
P
=0.0026). In addition, the greater the dosage of training, the greater the change in Motor Activity Log-Quality of Movement, with the dose by week interaction parameter equal to 0.0045 (
P
=0.0016; 95% CI, 0.0018–0.0071). Over the 3 weeks of therapy, there was a gain of 0.92 in Motor Activity Log-Quality of Movement for the 60-hour group compared to the 0-hour group. There was no dose response for the Wolf Motor Function Test.

Conclusions—

For mild-to-moderately impaired stroke survivors, the dosage of patient-centered, task-specific practice systematically influences the gain in quality of arm use but not functional capacity. We caution that we may have been underpowered for the functional capacity outcome. These findings highlight the importance of recovery outcomes that capture arm use in the natural environment.

Clinical Trial Registration—

URL:
https://www.clinicaltrials.gov
. Unique identifier: NCT01749358.
Interhospital Transfers for Endovascular Therapy for Acute Ischemic Stroke
Authors: Stein Laura K. , Tuhrim Stanley , Fifi Johanna , Mocco J. , Dhamoon Mandip S.
Published: June 2019

Background and Purpose—

Multiple randomized clinical trials have demonstrated the superiority of endovascular therapy (ET) for large vessel occlusion acute ischemic stroke (AIS). Few centers can provide ET, and significant debate exists about the most efficient and effective ways to provide ET. We sought to assess real-world utilization of ET, the extent to which patients are transferred from one hospital to another for therapy and the implications of transfer status on outcomes.

Methods—

We used the 2015 to 2016 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Nationwide Readmissions Database, which contains nationwide data on nearly half of US admissions. We identified index AIS admissions, vascular risk factors, and treatment with intravenous thrombolysis and ET using
International Classification of Disease, Ninth Revision
, and
International Classification of Disease, Tenth Revision
Clinical Modification codes. Main predictors of outcome were treatment with ET and whether there was an interhospital transfer during the index AIS hospitalization. Among patients with AIS readmitted within 30 days, we examined 3 main outcomes: total charges, length of stay, and in-hospital mortality.

Results—

A total of 23 121 AIS admissions were treated with ET and 874 229 without. Over 5% of patients who received ET were transferred during the index admission compared with <2% of those not treated with ET. Length of stay and total charges were significantly higher in patients transferred (12.3 versus 9.6 days and $233 626 versus $182 881, respectively). More patients treated with ET who were not transferred to the index hospital were discharged home (25.3% versus 44.4%), and ≈25% of patients transferred for ET died during the hospitalization compared with 15.5% not transferred.

Conclusions—

The minority of all patients with AIS receive ET. The majority of patients who receive ET present directly to the center that performs the procedure, and those transferred for ET have higher length of stay, cost, and mortality that those not transferred.
The Traveling Waqf: Property, Religion, and Mobility beyond China
Authors: Erie Matthew S.
Published: June 2019

For most of their millennial history in China, Muslims have established pious endowments called waqfs that served a variety of functions, including providing land to build mosques. The founding of waqfs radically changed in 1949, when the Communists confiscated land. Recently, a Hui who was performing the hajj in Saudi Arabia discovered a pre-Communist waqfiyya or document that established a waqf in Gansu Province in northwest China. The contemporary Chinese property regime prohibits religious land and hence the waqfiyya is legally void, yet its return afforded the Hui an opportunity to reflect on the relationships between law, lineage, and public goods, laying a foundation for an historical anthropology of Chinese waqfs. Drawing on material from historical Gansu and ethnographic encounters, I argue that whereas shariʿa suffered a kind of “structural death” in China, it does have its own “afterlife,” as illustrated in documents that travel across time and assume new meanings through transnational mobility and memory.
“They Enjoy Syrup and Ghee at Tables of Silver and Gold”: Infant Loss in Ancient Mesopotamia
Authors: Valk Jonathan
Published: June 2019

The present study draws on interdisciplinary research to establish an interpretative framework for an analysis of the material and textual evidence concerning infant loss in ancient Mesopotamia (c. 3000-500 bce). This approach rejects the notion that high infant mortality rates result in widespread parental indifference to infant loss, arguing instead that underlying biological and transcultural realities inform human responses to this phenomenon. With this conclusion in mind, a review of ancient Mesopotamian archaeological evidence reveals patterns of differential infant burial; while the interpretation of these patterns is uncertain, the broader contexts of infant burials in ancient Mesopotamia do not point to parental indifference, but rather the opposite. The available textual evidence in turn indicates that ancient Mesopotamians valued their infants, sought actively to protect them from harm, and mourned deeply when they died, a conclusion that is not controverted by evidence of infant exposure.
Geographical Literature in Nineteenth-Century Iran: Regional Identities and the Construction of Space
Authors: Gustafson James M.
Published: June 2019

A series of local geographical texts appeared throughout Iran in the 1870s and 1880s in the context of an attempt by the Qājār dynasty to collect information on its imperial possessions. These texts combine the instrumental approach of compiling knowledge for the court with literary traditions in local historiography. This article explores these local geographical writings through theories on identity and space, arguing that these texts reflect the shifting spatial imagination of Persianate elites in the context of rapid social and economic change. These texts are an alternate entry point for viewing the politics of identity in Qājār Iran, challenging the teleological approach to the emergence of nationalism in secondary literature. Taking the close relationship between territory and community as a starting point, this article argues that expressions of regional socio-economic unities, which are a key feature of the geographical writings of Iranian elites, reflect the consolidation of regional identities.
Early Medieval Central Asian Population Estimates
Authors: de la Vaissière Étienne
Published: June 2019

Census data from 8th-century Eastern Central Asian oases, combined with the measurements of the oases and data from archives discovered there, allow us to calculate estimates both of the individual oases’ populations and of their respective feeding capacities, which is to say the number of people who could be fed from the output of one hectare of agricultural land. These numbers in turn have parallels in Western Central Asia, where oasis sizes can also be calculated by examination of preserved archaeological landscapes and oasis walls. It is therefore possible to reach a rough idea of the populations dwelling in the main oases and valleys of sedentary Central Asia. As regards nomadic regions, the data are far more hypothetical, but references in certain sources to the sizes of nomad armies and rates of nomadic military levying can allow us to calculate at least the possible scales of magnitude for populations living to the north of the Tianshan.
Babylonian Populations, Servility, and Cuneiform Records
Authors: Tenney Jonathan S.
Published: June 2019

To date, servility and servile systems in Babylonia have been explored with the traditional lexical approach of Assyriology. If one examines servility as an aggregate phenomenon, these subjects can be investigated on a much larger scale with quantitative approaches. Using servile populations as a point of departure, this paper applies both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore Babylonian population dynamics in general; especially morbidity, mortality, and ages at which Babylonians experienced important life events. As such, it can be added to the handful of publications that have sought basic demographic data in the cuneiform record, and therefore has value to those scholars who are also interested in migration and settlement. It suggests that the origins of servile systems in Babylonia can be explained with the Nieboer-Domar hypothesis, which proposes that large-scale systems of bondage will arise in regions with plentiful land but few workers. Once established, these systems persisted and were reinforced through Babylonia’s high balance mortality, political ideologies, economic incentives, and social structures.
Speaking the End Times: Early Modern Politics and Religion from Iberia to Central Asia
Authors: Green-Mercado Mayte
Published: June 2019

This introduction delineates the contours of early modern apocalyptic thought and practice among Christians, Muslims, and Jews by discussing specific themes explored in the five articles included in this special issue. It also situates the articles in the expansive scholarship on apocalypticism, highlighting the contribution of this collection of essays to the field. Paying close attention to and problematizing the importance of the terminology that expressed early modern notions of sacred history and political authority—in a context of intense inter-confessional contact and conflict—this introduction calls for a contextual examination of apocalyptic thought and practice.
Space, Sociality, and Sources of Pleasure: A Response to Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Authors: Kia Mana
Published: June 2019

This response essay engages with the themes of space, sociality, and sources (of pleasure and of scholarship) in Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s article in this issue, “The Hidden Face of Surat.” I reflect on how the Persianate adab that was a dominant cultural form in this port city might cause us to mitigate our analytical concepts when approaching phenomena from different historical contexts. I propose historical inquiry as a form of translation, to look for ways of understanding difference and engaging across it that may or may not be the same as European cosmopolitanism.
The Adoption of Paper in the Middle East, 700-1300 ad
Authors: Shatzmiller Maya
Published: June 2019

The adoption of paper in the Middle East changed literacy practices and improved economic performance, yet current accounts remain unhelpful for understanding why and how it happened. This paper offers a new analysis of the long-term factors behind the adoption of paper in the Middle East, combining insights from economic theory, economic history and evidence from quantitative studies. The paper establishes a long-term trend in the price of writing material and books in the Middle East, and suggests an explanation based on economic factors which led to a decline in the price of inputs in paper production.
The Hidden Third Siren of the Orphic Argonautica
Authors: Madeła Alexandra
Published: June 2019

The Orphic Argonautica features a scene involving a group of Sirens. Their number is assumed to be two, since the text mentions one each throwing away a flute and a lyre. This paper argues that the author leaves open the possibility and even hints that there are in fact three Sirens, one of whom holds no instrument. This conclusion is supported by numerous—both literary and artistic—representations of three Sirens, which include one bare-handed such creature and two holding flute and lyre. It also finds confirmation in an allusion to an epigram by Antipater about three Muses, as well as some intra-textual parallels. The final part of the article discusses the implications of this ambiguity, such as reconciling the Homeric tradition of two Sirens with the number of three that was current in the author’s lifetime, but also allowing for an allegorical reading of the episode.
Manteis and Medicine
Authors: Harris W.V.
Published: June 2019

The many scholars who have supposed that there were persons known as iatromanteis (healing-seers) who offered medical assistance in archaic and classical Greece have been in error—there was no such occupation. But manteis (seers) did sometimes offer medical advice in classical Greece, in addition to their other roles, especially—so it seems—during epidemics and to chronic patients, and notwithstanding the rise of Hippocratic medicine. The evidence to this effect is more extensive than is commonly realized.
Balinese Hindus’ Afterlife Beliefs as Stable Constructs: An Effect of High Frequency Domestic Rituals
Authors: Sebestény Anikó , Emmons Natalie
Published: June 2019

In this investigation, Balinese Hindus were interviewed to explore the impact of ritual practice on the flexibility and pattern of afterlife beliefs. Adults from communities where ancestral ritual practices are widespread were asked whether bodily and mental processes continue after death. Prior research with the ancestor-worshiping Malagasy Vezo revealed that their responses to such questions varied depending on narrative context (tomb vs. corpse scenario) and which conception of death they subsequently deployed: A religious conception, wherein death marks the beginning of a new form of spiritual existence, or a biological conception, wherein death terminates all living processes (Astuti & Harris, 2008). No studies to date have looked at the narrative effect in a culture having close proximity to altars dedicated to ancestors and frequent rituals to honor them. To explore the cross-cultural replicability of the narrative effect, an adaptation of Astuti and Harris’ experiment (Study 1, 2008) was conducted with Balinese Hindu adults. Participants heard one of two death scenarios and were asked about a deceased person’s capacities. Results revealed that Balinese adults were not influenced by narrative context. While they ascribed more mental than bodily capacities to the dead, they attributed comparatively more capacities overall than the Vezo. A distinctive Balinese pattern of capacity attribution was found, notably high attributions of an enduring spirit and real-time perceptual capacities. Findings suggest that the proximity and high frequency of rituals directed toward ancestors serve to shape, strengthen, and stabilize religious conceptions of death, while weakening the salience of solely biological conceptions.
Conceptual Similarities Among Fantasy and Religious Orientations: A Developmental Perspective
Authors: Thibodeau Rachel B. , Brown Melissa M. , Nancarrow Alexandra F. , Elpers Karrie E. , Gilpin Ansley Tullos
Published: June 2019

Often in conservative religious populations, fantastical thoughts, interests, and beliefs are discouraged because fantastical beliefs are thought to contradict religious doctrine. However, beliefs in invisible, omnipotent entities such as God and Santa Claus likely rely on similar conceptual abilities that might complement rather than contradict religiosity. Therefore, the present study examined how one’s current and retrospective fantasy orientation together are associated with religious orientation. Data from a sample of 150 adults demonstrated that propensity toward fantasy predicted degree of religious orientation in adulthood, even after controlling for an individual’s openness to experience. Specifically, individuals who reported higher fantastical cognitions and behaviors (currently and retrospectively) reported higher religious orientations. These data are counter to cultural concerns that fantastical play and thinking in childhood might undermine or contradict religious doctrine. This finding has important implications for our understanding of how religiosity and fantasy are related conceptually, as well as how cultural practices may impact conceptual development.
Costs do not Explain Trust among Secular Groups
Authors: Shaver John H. , DiVietro Susan , Lang Martin , Sosis Richard
Published: June 2019

Many human groups achieve high levels of trust and cooperation, but these achievements are vulnerable to exploitation. Several theorists have suggested that when groups impose costs on their members, these costs can function to limit freeriding, and hence promote trust and cooperation. While a substantial body of experimental research has demonstrated a positive relationship between costs and cooperation in religious groups, to date, this relationship has not held for secular groups. Here we extend this line of research by comparing trust and cooperation among 11 secular groups, including four U.S. Greek fraternities that impose high costs on their members. We find that although fraternities impose greater costs on their members than social clubs, fraternities and social clubs do not significantly differ in their levels of intra-group trust. Moreover, variation in costs does not explain variation in trust among fraternities. We suggest that the lack of an evident relationship between costs and trust in our results is because secular groups, unlike religious groups, lack repeated rituals that are coupled with supernatural ideologies. We conclude by suggesting possible avenues for future research.
Seeking Common Cause between Cognitive Science and Ethnography: Alternative Logic in Cooperative Action
Authors: Widlok Thomas , Stenning Keith
Published: June 2019

Alternative logics have been invoked periodically to explain the systematically diﬀerent modes of thought of the subjects of ethnography: one logic for ‘us’ and another for ‘them’. Recently anthropologists have cast doubt on the tenability of such an explanation of diﬀerence. In cognitive science, [Stenning and van Lambalgen, 2008] proposed that with the modern development of multiple logics, at least several logics are required for making sense of the cognitive processes of reasoning for diﬀerent purposes and in diﬀerent contexts. Alongside Classical logic (CL) — the logic of dispute), there is a need for a nonmonotonic logic (LP) which is a logic of cooperative communication. Here we propose that all people with various cultural backgrounds make use of multiple logics, and that diﬀerence should be captured as variation in the social contexts that call forth the diﬀerent logics’ application. This contribution illustrates these ideas with reference to the ethnography of divination.
Trance, Dissociation, and Shamanism: A Cross-Cultural Model
Authors: Wood Connor , Diallo Saikou , Gore Ross , Lynch Christopher J.
Published: June 2019

Religious practices centered on controlled trance states, such as Siberian shamanism or North African zar, are ubiquitous, yet their characteristics vary. In particular, cross-cultural research finds that female-dominated spirit possession cults are common in stratified societies, whereas male-dominated shamanism predominates in structurally flatter cultures. Here, we present an agent-based model that explores factors, including social stratification and psychological dissociation, that may partially account for this pattern. We posit that, in more stratified societies, female agents suffer from higher levels of psychosocial trauma, whereas male agents are more vulnerable in flatter societies. In societies with fewer levels of formal hierarchy, males come into informal social competition more regularly than in stratified contexts. This instability leads to a cultural feedback effect in which dissociative experiences deriving from chronic psychosocial stress become canalized into a male religious trance role. The model reproduces these patterns under plausible parameter configurations.
Marx’s Reading of Spinoza: On the Alleged Influence of Spinoza on Marx
Authors: Bianchi Bernardo
Published: June 2019

In this article, I investigate a hypothesis concerning the supposed influence of Spinoza on Marx’s works. Setting out from a comment made by Althusser – ‘[Spinoza] is the only direct ancestor of Marx’ – I try to demonstrate that even though the relationship between Spinoza and Marx has limited support at a historiographical level, a determined set of ideas of Spinoza can be connected to some of Marx’s political objectives in the period prior to 1845. This argument is supported through Marx’s notebooks devoted to studying Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise, written in 1841, and his refutation of Spinoza in The Holy Family. However, contrary to what could be expected, when Marx abandoned his most pronounced idealistic phase, within which Spinoza played a certain role, he rebelled against Spinozism at the same time. Nonetheless, it is one thing to repudiate Spinoza’s name, and a very different thing to repudiate Spinoza’s ideas.
A ‘Beautiful half hour of being a mere woman’: The Feminist Subject and Temporary Solidarity
Authors: Freedman Lucy
Published: June 2019

Taking Mina Loy’s articulation of femininity in her poem ‘One O’Clock at Night’ as a point of departure, I examine a false dichotomy facing contemporary feminism: should we identify with or reject the gender imposed upon us? In conjunction with a materialist analysis which posits women as a class, this paper argues that Loy’s discussion of gender could provide a useful framework with which to critique the ‘soft abolitionist’ approach trending today; a largely online movement which assumes that the individual can permanently sever themselves from the confines of gender and construct an autonomous political subjectivity from this shared (and often openly traumatised) ‘non-identity’. I discuss criticisms by trans theorists of the notion that liberation can be located from within gender, and explore ways in which the identification- versus-rejection question has been engaged with in historical feminisms. This includes Monique Wittig’s partial rejection of the term ‘woman’, and a strand of 1970s radical feminism termed (by its critics) ‘the anti-woman line’. In its conclusion, this paper looks to the present – using the feminist-activist group Sisters Uncut as a case study. It asks whether a dialectical praxis, looking to the conversations around ‘identity’ had within historical feminist movements, could inject contemporary feminisms and struggles with a politics of solidarity or political subjecthood, cutting through debates based on narrow understandings of identity and non-identity.
An Introduction to the Special Issue on Identity Politics
Authors: Kumar Ashok , Elliott-Cooper Adam , Iyer Shruti , Gebrial Dalia
Published: June 2019

This special issue responds to ongoing debates around what has been termed ‘identity politics’. We aim to intervene in what are make-or-break questions for the Left today. Specifically, we wish to provoke further interrogative but comradely conversation that works towards breaking-down the wedge between vulgar economism and vulgar culturalism. Critically, we maintain that just as all identity categories are spatially and temporally contingent – socially constructed, yet naturalised – so too is this current bifurcation between ‘class politics’ and ‘identity politics’. Ultimately, we call for an intellectual and organisational embracing of the complexity of identity as it figures in contemporary conditions; being a core organising-principle of capitalism as it functions today, a paradigm that Leftist struggle can be organised through and around – and yet all with a recognition of the necessity of historicising, and ultimately abolishing, these categories along with capitalism itself.
Maia Ramnath and the Search for a Decolonised Antiauthoritarian Marxism
Authors: Jain Dhruv
Published: June 2019

In her two books, Maia Ramnath attempts to construct an antiauthoritarian/anarchist anti-colonialist politics through an analysis of India’s freedom struggle. Ramnath reconstructs a history of Indian anti-colonial movements from an anarchist perspective, while seeking to locate forgotten possibilities such as the ‘libertarian Marxism’ of the Ghadar party and its successors. Haj to Utopia is an important addition to the literature on early communism in India inasmuch as it allows us to revisit said history in India in a renewed and critical manner. On the other hand, Decolonizing Anarchism is an ambitious book that seeks to unearth an antiauthoritarian account of India’s struggle for independence, but falls far short of its intended goal because of Ramnath’s inattentiveness to the implications of Hindu revivalism on caste and gender in India. Thus, she reproduces many of the characteristics of mainstream nationalist narratives.
Writing Sumerian, Creating Texts: Reflections on Text-building Practices in Old Babylonian Schools
Authors: Crisostomo C. Jay
Published: June 2019

Sumerian lexical and literary compositions both emerged from the same social sphere, namely scribal education. The complexities of inter-compositional dependence in these two corpora have not been thoroughly explored, particularly as relevant to questions of text-building during the Old Babylonian period (c. 1800–1600 bce). Copying practices evident in lexical texts indicate that students and scholars adopted various methods of replication, including visual copying, copying from memory, and ad hoc innovation. They were not confined to reproducing a received text. Such practices extend to copying literary compositions. A study of compositions from Advanced Lexical Education in comparison with several literary compositions shows a complex inter-dialectic between the corpora, in which lexical compositions demonstrate dependence on literary compositions and vice versa. Thus, Old Babylonian students and scholars could experiment with multiple text-building practices, drawing on their knowledge of the lexical and the literary, regularly creating new versions of familiar compositions.
Memorization and Hittite Ritual: New Perspectives on the Transmission of Hittite Ritual Texts
Authors: Marcuson Hannah , van den Hout Theo
Published: June 2019

Scholarly discussion of Hittite ritual texts in recent years has centered around scribal context and textual transmission. Using the method already demonstrated by Paul Delnero for Sumerian literary texts, the authors show that certain Hittite rituals were memorized, and that the variations among some exemplars resulted from errors in memory. The influence of conscious redaction on these texts must therefore be reassessed, and the questions of textual purpose, authorship, and context cast into new light.
From the Beginning to the End: How to Generate and Transmit Funerary Texts in Ancient Egypt
Authors: Scalf Foy
Published: June 2019

With a continuous tradition spanning more than two millennia, funerary texts from ancient Egypt offer an excellent data set for studying how compositions were composed and passed on in the ancient Near East. Clear evidence demonstrates the importance and mechanics of scribal copying in the transmission process. What remain less clear are the methods by which new compositions were created. In some cases, the accretion of scholia, commentary, and exegesis produced new versions of old texts. This is well illustrated by the continuum between Coffin Text (ct) spell 335 and Book of the Dead (bd) spell 17. In other cases, however, large collections appear in writing for the first time showing few hints at the earlier stages of their production. This is true for the Pyramid Texts (pt), whose pre-written forms can only be hypothesized. Fortunately, fragmentary steps from conception to textualization are partially preserved for a relatively little studied corpus from Roman Period Egypt, sometimes known by the title the Demotic Book of Breathing. Despite clearly representing the final stage in the pt-ct-bd tradition, scribes did not create this composition by copying from its predecessors. Instead, a new composition was crafted without direct parallel. In addition, the new text was never fixed, as fifty separate exemplars attest to a core set of formulae that could be added to, subtracted from, or rearranged at will. The variance in this corpus reflects a growing trend toward multiplicity in similar funerary manuscripts from Greco-Roman Egypt. A portion of this variance can be demonstrated to derive from an active oral tradition and it is this oral tradition, I will argue, that provided the raw material for new compositions such as the Demotic Book of Breathing. This paper will therefore address how textual traditions began by looking at the very end of funerary literature in ancient Egypt.
Reconsidering the Function of Tomb Inscriptions in Iron Age Judah: Khirbet Beit Lei as a Test Case
Authors: Mandell Alice , Smoak Jeremy D.
Published: June 2019

The following article challenges the widely held view that refugees wrote the inscriptions preserved on the tomb walls of Khirbet Beit Lei. We argue that the so-called “refugee-hypothesis” should be based upon a stronger methodological foundation and that the interpretation of the inscriptions at the site should give more serious consideration to their context in the space of a tomb. Toward this end, the article argues that the inscriptions should be connected to the funerary context in which they appear and that their content should be understood as relating to the larger function and materiality of the mortuary complex at Beit Lei. Rather than reconstructing a hypothetical scenario in which refugees stopped and inscribed “hymns” or “prayers” on the walls of the tomb, the article argues that the function of the inscriptions was largely semiotic and served to mark the boundary between the antechamber and bench rooms of the tomb complex.
An Altar for Yhwh in the Land of Aram (2 Kings 5:17)
Authors: Na’aman Nadav
Published: June 2019

The article discusses the date and cultural background of the Elisha and Naaman story (2 Kings 5). It first analyses the story and emphasizes the difference in its presentation of the prophet and the way he operates vis-à-vis all other stories in the Elisha story-cycle. It then analyses Naaman’s request to carry soil from the Land of Israel in order to erect an altar for Yhwh in Damascus (5:17) and brings evidence that the transportation of earth from one sacred place to another was known in Mesopotamia from the late second millennium BCE onward. In light of all the available evidence, it suggests that the story is not part of Elisha’s original story-cycle; rather, it illuminates the shift of ideas about the prophet, his prophecy, and the land of Israel in the transition from the monarchical to the early post-exilic period.
Toward a Kuyperian Ethic of Public Life
Authors: Pahman Dylan
Published: June 2019

This article examines the sphere of ethics in the thought of the Dutch Calvinist statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper. The first section establishes that Kuyper did consider ethics to be a sphere and what he believed it to be. The second section uses this outline of the sphere of ethics to elucidate the relationship between ethics and the state for Kuyper. It teases out three theses in Kuyper’s work: (1) Ethics and the scope of the state stand in inverse (or negative) relationship. (2) Ethics and legal advancement stand in direct (or positive) relationship. (3) Ethics needs the state to help facilitate its own development throughout society. Taken together, I argue that the spheres of ethics and the state thus stand in mutually dependent (or reciprocal) relationship to, rather than “hermetically sealed off” from, one another.
Aorist voice patterns in the diachrony of Greek
Authors: Tronci Liana
Published: June 2019

This paper deals with the aorist voice system in NT Greek and focuses on middle-passive markers, namely middle inflection, e.g. in the middle sigmatic aorist, and affixes -η-/-θη-, in the so-called passive aorist. The research is corpus-based and investigates the occurrences of ca. 1800 verbal items. According to the grammarians, in the NT both middle and passive aorists spread. The present study confirms this observation by providing a comprehensive account of the distribution of these forms, but also shows how they have functionally reorganised. Passive aorists spread at the expense of middle aorists in all kinds of intransitive constructions, namely passive, unaccusative, and reflexive, whereas middle aorists are either found in transitive middles, e.g. possessive, benefactive etc., or occur as deponent verbs in both transitive and intransitive clauses. The parameter transitive vs intransitive appears to be relevant for this functional reorganisation.
The Domestic and the General Function of Anglican Schools in England and Wales
Authors: Francis Leslie J.
Published: June 2019

This paper differentiates between two functions in education of Anglican Schools. The domestic function focuses on the inward looking concern to equip the children of the church to take their place in the Christian community. The general function focuses on the outward looking concern to serve the nation through its children. The paper puts the discussion about these functions against the background of the criticism on Church schools. For the three decades between 1970 and 1998 the Anglican Church emphasized, implicitly and explicitly, the Church's general role in education. A new prominence is suggested for the Church's domestic role in education at the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium.
Defining Identity in a Multicultural Society: The Challenge to Religious Schools
Authors: Furst Lyndon G.
Published: June 2019

This paper focuses on the meaning of school culture in the realization of the purposes of religious schools. Successful school leaders understand and utilize the mechanisms that embed culture within their organization. Multicultural society puts a challenge to this task. The paper states that the state of the art of school leadership has not yet found a way to maintain cultural integrity while having an open-door policy.
Conflicting Goals for Moral Education: A study of the behavioral intentions of teachers in Catholic secondary schools in the Netherlands
Authors: Hermans Chris A.M.
Published: June 2019

This article examines the criticism from liberal educators that the goals of moral education in religiously affiliated schools are incompatible. This paper addresses whether it is true that teaching a religious community’s values is incompatible with the development of moral autonomy; that teaching civic values is incompatible with teaching Christian values; and that teaching Christian values is incompatible with introducing children to the plurality of value systems in our society. This research demonstrates that from the perspective of teacher’s behavioral intentions, these goals are not in conflict within Catholic schools of secondary education in the Netherlands. The article concludes with a reflection on the research results from an ethical perspective and from the perspective of philosophy of education
A THREE DIMENSIONAL MODEL OF IDENTITY OF RELIGIOUSLY AFFILIATED SCHOOLS
Authors: Hermans Chris A.M.
Published: June 2019

The author gives an outline for a dynamic model of identity of religiously affiliated schools. The model is composed of three dimensions: the different actors in the school, the educational aims, content and processes and the socio-cultural context that influences the first two dimensions. The dynamic in this model is caused by the interaction of the variables in the three dimensions. Against the background of this model, the contributions of this issue on identity are outlined.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES FOR THE IDENTITY FORMATION OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
Authors: Schmälzle Udo
Published: June 2019

From the introduction of compulsory education on, there is a competition between the state and parents with regard to the question who is responsible for the education of children. The author holds a playdoyer for partnership between school and parents. Schools need this partnership if one looks to the importance of the family for the formation of identity of children. At the end of the article, different forms of partnership are presented and also results of research carried out by the author.
Jeroboam's Rise and Fall in the Hebrew and Greek Bible
Authors: Schenker Adrian
Published: June 2019

The Jeroboam narrative occurs in two main forms, one in the Hebrew Bible, 1 Kings 11-14, and the other in the Greek Bible, 3 Kingdoms 12:24a-z. This difference gave rise to a scholarly debate over many decades. In a recent article in the JSJ, Marvin A. Sweeney has proposed a new method in order to settle this old problem. In this present note, his proposal and arguments are evaluated, and it is suggested that Sweeney has not taken into account all aspects which should have been considered, and that some of his arguments may not be entirely convincing.