bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Philosophical Thinking
Authors: Verene Donald Phillip
Published: January 2022

This chapter is intended to establish the necessity of philosophy. It takes the distinction Aristotle raises — whether to philosophize or not to philosophize — in Quintilian's rhetorical and dialectical sense: that it is an example of two propositions, formulated in such a way that the choice of either leads to the same conclusion. This is the point Aristotle attempts to advance, according to the chapter. In taking this approach, the chapter attempts to go between the horns of any dilemma that the various versions of Aristotle's text may contain. To gain perspective on what this double pursuit entails, the chapter considers claims about philosophy made by three figures in the history of philosophy — Bishop Berkeley, G. W. F. Hegel, and F. H. Bradley — all masters of rhetorical expression as well as holders of metaphysical positions.
The Rhetoric of the Philosophical Frontispiece
Authors: Verene Donald Phillip
Published: January 2022

This chapter analyzes how Hobbes, Vico, and Rousseau employ the frontispieces they include in their works as rhetorical devices or emblems to impress on our memory the ideas they contain. The art of the frontispiece was prominent in the founding of modern philosophy but has been lost in later philosophy. The critical literature on philosophical authors' works is enormous, but one finds in it almost no attention to the presence of their frontispieces or to their importance for the contemplation and comprehension of their themes. As such, the chapter considers what may be learned if one interprets the whole of these three works in terms of the frontispieces the authors have placed in them. The aim in the chapter is to discover the authors' intent in putting forth the ideas the texts contain. In seeking this intent the chapter endorses the principle that all books are about other books.
Epilogue
Authors: Verene Donald Phillip
Published: January 2022

This concluding chapter summarizes the work's discussion on the rhetorical sense of philosophy. In philosophical education, students are most often taught to seek out the arguments in a work. But all arguments presuppose a narrative in which the arguments stand. If a philosophical work is approached in rhetorical terms, the reader should look for the images or metaphors upon which the thought depends. Image and question go hand in hand, as in Socrates' speech, when he moves from the elenchos to the “likely story.” The image often sets the stage for the question and the argument. To view philosophical works in this manner is to consider their narratives as containing an internal dialectic that the reader must grasp in order to comprehend them. The thought of the author of the work is caught up in this dialectic, and the author intends to transmit it to the reader. The reader will understand the work when the reader can remake its dialectic, grasp its inner form. The author's oration is then effective. In this way the reader discovers the meaning of the work and, perhaps, its truth.
The Staggering Growth in Homelessness
Authors: Weikart Lynne A.
Published: January 2022

This chapter talks about the increase of homeless people in temporary shelters during Mayor Michael Bloomberg's term in New York City, which was considered the largest number since the Great Depression. It notes that in fiscal year 2014, the Coalition for the Homeless stated that 53,615 people were residing in New York City's temporary shelter system. It also discusses the growth in temporary shelters that reduced the number of people living on the street by 28 percent. The chapter mentions how Bloomberg's plan to decrease the overall numbers of homeless people seemed inadequate, but it points out that he could not have done any better as he had no financial support from the state and there was no change in federal policy. It emphasizes the mistake of seeing the city's problems as purely local without considering the role of state and federal decision making.
Antipoverty Initiatives
Authors: Weikart Lynne A.
Published: January 2022

This chapter highlights the small improvement in the condition of New York City residents who lived in poverty during the Bloomberg administration. It cites the New York City Government Poverty Measure, 2005–2015, which notes that the citywide poverty rate fell to 19.9 percent from 20.6 percent in 2014 and the share of the population living at or near the poverty rate declined to 44.2 percent. It also reviews Mayor Michael Bloomberg's anti-poverty work, which focused on job creation, education, public health, justice, affordable housing, social services, and policies to help working families. The chapter focuses on Bloomberg's comprehensive strategy of increasing jobs, improving education, and building enough affordable housing to increase the number of people that would move out of poverty. It mentions Robert Doar and Verna Eggleston, HRA commissioners during Bloomberg's terms, who both endorsed work components first in any welfare program rather than training and education.
Crime and Punishment
Authors: Weikart Lynne A.
Published: January 2022

This chapter recounts Mayor Michael Bloomberg's public appearance at the Christian Cultural Center after he announced his run for president in 2019, wherein he apologized to the community for his record on “stop-and-frisk.” It elaborates that stop-and-frisk was practiced by the NYPD to stop people on the street, particularly young men of color, to question and search them. It also recounts the US Supreme Court's ruling in 1968 that allowed the police to stop-and-frisk a citizen given that there is a reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed. The chapter reviews Bloomberg's record on crime and punishment. It mentions Bloomberg's response to abysmal reports of mistreatment of juvenile delinquents in upstate New York facilities and talks about how he sought to improve programs for juvenile offenders.
Conclusion
Authors: Weikart Lynne A.
Published: January 2022

This chapter reviews Mayor Michael Bloomberg's policy mix of economic and social investment. It uses urban theory to help explain how Bloomberg, who exemplified a strong leader with considerable skills, sometimes failed to meet his own objectives because of external constraints. It also discusses how Bloomberg's own limitations accounted for some of his failures, such as his reluctance to step in when his commissioners were inadequate to the task, causing further problems. The chapter emphasizes how Michael Bloomberg governed differently as he brought business discipline and analytics to running a global city. It refers to Bloomberg's greatest contribution, which was his enthusiastic embrace of all people regardless of ethnicity, race, or religion.
Sculpting Ideal Bodies
Authors: Quinlan Sean M.
Published: January 2022

This chapter recounts how one doctor and his fellow travelers sutured together medical knowledge, gender, and political ideals, not in the family realm but in the fraternal and egalitarian world of the anatomist's studio. It begins with the scientific study conducted by the physician and artist Jean-Galbert Salvage (1772–1813) on the anatomical structure of the so-called Borghese Gladiator. The chapter investigates the settings of his work — and the ideological, aesthetic, and gendered assumptions that guided him. Ever since the Gladiator was first dug up and installed at the Villa Borghese outside of Rome, art critics had hailed the figure as a paragon of male beauty, elegance, and anatomical precision. The chapter then explores how Salvage was fusing political ideals and medical language in France during the post-revolutionary years: namely, the continuing desire, within critical legislative and intellectual groups, to regenerate the French nation in its “physical and moral” totality. The chapter argues that Salvage molded his Gladiator specimens so that he might bridge medicine and the fine arts and thus localize the regenerated male ideal in the material body. Here, medicine served as an essential means for expressing and mediating ideological hopes, fears, and memories.
Physiology as Literary Genre
Authors: Quinlan Sean M.
Published: January 2022

This chapter talks about another great cultural fashion that hit Paris, one deeply steeped in the biomedical science of the day: a vogue for picturesque and satirical books called “physiologies.” It analyzes physiologies' cultural, social, and, above all, scientific settings — focusing on the journalistic or formal aesthetic qualities of the texts. The early physiological craze shows how conventions of medical writing had begun to influence general approaches to literary form and content. The chapter then examines the emergence of the physiological literary genre in the 1820s and 1830s, focusing upon four of the genre's defining works: Dr. Jean-Louis Alibert's La Physiologie des passions (1825), Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's La Physiologie du goût (1825–1826), Honoré de Balzac's La Physiologie du mariage (drafted in the 1820s, but published in 1830), and Dr. Morel de Rubempré's La Physiologie de la liberté (1830) — the last which appeared in the aftermath of the July Revolution. It focuses upon how these works emerged from techniques of analysis and narration found in physiological medicine, as authors and editors capitalized upon the successes (and scandals) associated with the new physiological science, as it emerged in the early 1800s, but also how these texts engaged particular political and ideological realities of the post-revolutionary decades.
The Precious Scroll, as Preached by the Buddha, of Little Huaxian: How Woman Yang as a Ghost Embroidered Red Gauze
Authors: Idema Wilt L.
Published: January 2022

This chapter highlights the Precious Scroll, as Preached by the Buddha, of Little Huaxian: How Woman Yang as a Ghost Embroidered Red Gauze, which was first introduced to the scholarly world in an article by Ma Xisha in 1986. It cites that the expression “newly cut” from the Precious Scroll implies that the preserved edition was not the first printing. It also talks about the imperial court involved, which was the Jürched Jin dynasty, as Chongqing was a reign period that lasted only one year during the short rule of Weishaowang. The chapter stresses the similarities of the formal features of the present text of the Precious Scroll to the precious scrolls of the sixteenth century, wherein the dates 1212 and 1290 are rejected as fakes. It explains why the Precious Scroll stood out due to its atypical factuality and considered a commercial venture.
The Precious Scroll, as Preached by the Buddha, of the Handkerchief: How Wang Zhongqing Lost Everything
Authors: Idema Wilt L.
Published: January 2022

This chapter discusses the Precious Scroll, as Preached by the Buddha, of the Handkerchief: How Wang Zhongqing Lost Everything, which shows all the typical formal characteristics of precious scrolls of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It highlights the sections of the Precious Scroll that includes an opening song and a passage in prose. It also covers the couplet of two seven-syllable lines, passage in ballad verse, hymn, and quatrain of the Precious Scroll. The chapter reviews the liturgical opening of the Precious Scroll and its liturgical conclusion, which are identical to those found in many sectarian texts and make reference to the Unborn Old Mother. It mentions the scholar Che Xilun, who suggested that the Precious Scroll represents an adaptation of the story by a preacher belonging to one of the new religions of the Ming.
The Road to Calvary
Authors: Morrison James Ashley
Published: January 2022

This chapter discusses the framework used to explain England's return to gold in 1925. It reconstructs the narratives that Britons told themselves about the place of the gold standard within the British Empire and the position of the United Kingdom within the international gold standard system. The chapter also shows that the cataclysm of the First World War, particularly the introduction of (largely) unbacked pound notes, materially challenged these ancient myths, ripening conditions for a “critical juncture.” It then summarizes the essential features of the contending gold standard dogmas that emerged among the monetary authorities. Moreover, it extends recent scholarship on uncertainty and story-telling in political economy to illuminate the use of such constructed narratives. Finally, the chapter shows the usefulness of the metaphor of religion in explaining the ascent of belief in “the return to gold” and of that small group of men anointed to bring it about.
Liberalization
Authors: Morrison James Ashley
Published: January 2022

This chapter describes how the Cunliffe Committee had crafted a plan for peacetime, for a return to gold after the First World War had finished. John Bradbury fought successfully to see the capital controls steadily liberalized across the two years following the armistice. He did this even as Montagu Norman emerged as a major advocate of increasing those restrictions and delaying the restoration. Bradbury did this even as Norman's influence over, and resistance from, the Bank of England grew. Carefully tracing the shifting terms of debate and policies embraced by these figures reveals the roots of the titanic clash between competing versions of the gold standard that erupted several years later. It also provides additional evidence disconfirming the prediction of social scientific theories about the policy preferences of treasuries and independent central banks.
The Sanhedrin
Authors: Morrison James Ashley
Published: January 2022

This chapter evaluates how, given the terrible consequences of England's “return to gold” in 1925, the conventional wisdom is that Winston Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was either a fool or a knave. It argues that this characterization is unfair to Churchill. So far from discounting the employment implications of his decision, Churchill actually embraced the gold standard precisely because he thought it would decrease unemployment. Churchill seriously engaged John Maynard Keynes's attacks on the gold standard. That critique, however, focused on the tendency of the gold standard to generate transitional unemployment, whereas Churchill was concerned with the UK's chronic unemployment. As such, Churchill recognized that restoring the gold standard entailed transition costs that might well exacerbate unemployment in the short run. However, desperate to address the root of the UK's postwar woes, Churchill took the gamble that returning to gold would ultimately resolve this problem in the long run.
Introduction
Authors: Osokina Elena
Published: January 2022

This introductory chapter presents an overview of Torgsin, which provided one-fifth of the expenses for industrial imports during the first half of the 1930s, the decisive years of Stalin's industrialization. Torgsin — initially a small bureau and then the All-Union Association for Trade with Foreigners — was a state trade agency with a chain of hard-currency stores, the supplier of food and goods in the country. Initially, only foreigners were allowed to make purchases in its stores, but the need to finance an ambitious industrialization program forced the Soviet government to search for new sources of hard currency. Starting in 1931, the government allowed Soviet citizens to make purchases in Torgsin in exchange for tsarist Russian gold and silver coins, and objects made of precious metals and gemstones. Ultimately, the story of Torgsin and Stalin's drive for gold reveals an unknown side of Soviet industrialization and Soviet social history and illuminates new facets of Stalinism.
The Red Directors of Torgsin
Authors: Osokina Elena
Published: January 2022

This chapter focuses on Artur Karlovich Stashevskii, the man who led Torgsin through its triumphant years. Contemporaries remembered him as a “firm Bolshevik” and “a rock-ribbed Stalinist” but also, and quite paradoxically, as a businessman. A Soviet intelligence agent, Stalin's commissar in the Spanish Civil War and, in sharp contrast, a founder of the Soviet fur industry and head of Torgsin: Stashevskii's appointments may look random and even contradictory, but all of them share one invariable — Stashevskii provided gold for the USSR. Under Stashevskii, Torgsin began to accept silver, platinum, diamonds, and other precious stones to supplement hard currency and gold. In terms of hard-currency earnings, in 1933 Torgsin occupied first place among Soviet export organizations, overtaking grain, timber, and oil exports. Under Stashevskii, Torgsin fulfilled its currency mission spectacularly: the valuables that it procured in 1933–1934 paid for almost a third of industrial import costs.
Send Dollars to Torgsin!
Authors: Osokina Elena
Published: January 2022

This chapter explores how, in the early 1930s, the Soviet government faced a dilemma of how to increase hard-currency transfers from abroad while not paying even a cent in foreign money to recipients in the USSR. The mass famine and Torgsin prompted a solution: pleas for help from the starving forced their relatives abroad to send money to the USSR, but instead of foreign currency, the recipients received Torgsin rubles and were forced to buy goods in its stores at high prices. All hard currency from foreign remittances went to the state. Torgsin became a truly ingenious solution to the crisis of foreign-currency transfers. Eventually, Soviet trade missions abroad started advertising these hard-currency transfer operations. The call “Send dollars to Torgsin!” was not so much a line from an ad as a cry for help. Due to rumors of raging famine, Torgsin's fame abroad grew quickly.
The Red Directors of Torgsin
Authors: Osokina Elena
Published: January 2022

This chapter focuses on Mikhail Abramovich Levenson, the third and last head of Torgsin. From an early age he became interested in politics, but this did not bring him right away to the Marxists; instead, in 1905, Levenson joined the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs). As a professional revolutionary in exile abroad, Levenson took the time to receive an education. With the victory of the February Revolution, Levenson, with many other political emigrants, returned to Russia. Levenson then left the SRs and became a Bolshevik; thus began his convoluted career in the maze of Soviet power. For three years he worked at Rabkrin as a member of the Collegium and as a head of the Labor and Health Inspectorate — the appointment was probably predicated on his medical education and experience as a doctor. In Rabkrin, Levenson's boss was Stalin. Then, for a year, Levenson served on the board of the Sol'sindikat. From there, in 1924, he went to work in Gostorg RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic), where he occupied, until 1928, the position of the board's deputy chair. Levenson remained in Soviet trade, although in changing positions, until the end of his life.
Introduction
Authors: Fujii Lee Ann
Published: January 2022

This introductory chapter expounds on the central thesis of this work: the critical importance of embodied action in transforming how people see and experience themselves and others. This is an underappreciated dimension of collective violence. For bodies moving and acting in particular ways, these displays would never come to be; nor would they have the power to draw in new audiences over time and place. The chapter argues that despite the risks and costs, actors put violence on display because such displays can do “things” that undisplayed violence cannot. By putting violence on display, actors are telling others who they are. In this way, violent displays reinscribe what it means to belong to a specific category, group, or “side” and make going along with the violence the basis for belonging.
Fixations
Authors: Fujii Lee Ann
Published: January 2022

This chapter examines how the state and ordinary people deployed social categories before the period of violence. It argues that lines of difference were more changeable and context dependent than nationalist claims would imply. To contextualize how violent displays transform the basis for belonging, the chapter explores what came before. Through a brief survey of category making in all three countries, it makes three arguments. First, fixity is a fiction. Variability in meanings and usage is the norm, even during conditions of violence. Second, state institutions do not reflect existing relations between “groups;” they are mechanisms for creating uniform categories, fitting everyone into them, then arranging those categories in a hierarchy of rights, privileges, and entitlements. Third, despite states' best efforts, meanings remain not just variable, but also ambiguous. It is this ambiguity that becomes a potent force for those who put violence on display.
Encore
Authors: Fujii Lee Ann
Published: January 2022

This chapter examines the immediate aftermath of the violent displays from Chapter 5. It finds that violence did not simply end with the killing of the victims, but continued through the dumping of bodies, the taking of souvenirs, and continued narrativizing of the event. In Rwanda, the displays continued through official commemorations of the dead, which involved exhumations and reburials of alleged victims of the genocide. In reality, these reburials were a hoax. Through official genocide reburials, the government was able to recategorize many dead bodies, transforming victims of Rwandan Patriotic Front killings and even génocidaires into victims of the genocide. The chapter then moves back to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where the violence continued through the days and weeks that followed, with tourists descending on Princess Anne to find out what they missed and others bragging about what they saw and did during the lynching.
Nizwa Fort and the Dalla During the Imamate
Authors: Sachedina Amal
Published: January 2022

This chapter focuses on two forms of material heritage once integral to the governance of the twentieth-century Ibadi Imamate: Nizwa Fort and the dalla. These modes of governance were presided over by the hulking contours of the fort, in its role as sharīʿa adjudicator, and circulated by the form and function of the dalla as part of daily social interactions in the sabla. The past became a knowledge that was read, recited, and debated while being sedimented in an embodied disposition. Through daily readings and discussion, local affairs and conflicts were addressed by honing a relationship to the past that cultivated and amended disposition, thought, and action on the basis of exempla. It was a past that was primarily moral, oriented toward God, and grounded in tribal mores and Ibadi doctrine and practice. Both material forms facilitated a history that held that life's interactions and relationships could be sanctioned and critiqued based on past forms that also held templates for future action. This conception of history formed the foundation of religiosity, law, governance, and ethics.
Developmental Regimes Reconstructed
Authors: Pempel T. J.
Published: January 2022

This chapter analyzes how the previously successful fusion of regime and economy in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan moved away from embedded mercantilism and into relative economic slowdown, greater global openness, and regime reorganization. Recurrently explosive gains in GDP and repeatedly expanding shares of world exports are, of course, quite plausible. Slowing growth rates are logical as countries move closer to the technological frontier. Yet the developmental regimes in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan all confronted compounding difficulties under radically altered global conditions that impeded continued regime coherence and economic momentum. The results were dramatic regime reconfiguration accompanied by drops in their rates of growth, declines in productivity per capita, drop-offs in shares of world GDP, and noteworthy reductions in the market shares within many previously dominated manufacturing sectors.
The Fall and Rise of Nonstate Violence
Authors: Thomas Ward
Published: January 2022

This chapter explores the dramatic growth in nonstate actor violence, focusing on the crucial role played in this trend by changes in international norms. It seeks to understand the rise of nonstate violence by bringing attention back to the word “legitimate” in Max Weber's definition. In doing so, the chapter addresses the question of how to explain the relatively rapid decline of the norm against actors other than states using military force — a norm that once resided at the conceptual core of the sovereign states system. The chapter then turns to analyze militias and paramilitaries together in a somewhat generic category of armed nonstate groups. The chapter looks at the literature on nonstate violence. It then assesses the increasingly important role played by the private military and security companies.
Vulnerability Disclosure, Bounties, and Markets
Authors: Stewart Andrew J.
Published: January 2022

This chapter focuses on the obsession with technical security vulnerabilities at the beginning of the twenty-first century. A vulnerability that is not common knowledge and for which no patch has yet been released is referred to as a zero-day vulnerability. The term zero-day refers to the fact that there have been zero-days' advance warning, meaning no days, regarding the risk that the security vulnerability represents. Security technologies such as intrusion detection systems and antivirus software normally try to detect known patterns of attack and so typically would be unlikely to detect the use of a zero-day vulnerability. The chapter then looks at stunt hacking, which was portrayed as a way to draw attention to dangerous vulnerabilities. What went unsaid was that stunt hacking was a means by which hackers and commercial security companies could promote themselves and their technical skill sets.
Data Breaches, Nation-State Hacking, and Epistemic Closure
Authors: Stewart Andrew J.
Published: January 2022

This chapter explores data breaches, nation-state hacking, and epistemic closure. After being compromised in a data breach, personal information, such as financial records and health history, is offered for sale on black markets. Criminals buy that information and use it to commit crimes such as identity theft and fraud. Breach disclosure laws have two intended goals: to enable the people whose information has been compromised to become aware of that fact and to perform a kind of public shaming of the organization that experienced the breach. The nation-states have also become so accomplished at hacking that they have forced a restructuring of the entire field of information security. Meanwhile, stunt hacking is a striking manifestation of the epistemic closure within the field of information security because it ignores the root causes of security failures and instead places the focus on the surface manifestation of those root causes.
The Story That Died
Authors: Doder Dusko , Branson Louise
Published: January 2022

This chapter begins by discussing a story that the author got from Senator Tom McIntyre, who was President Lyndon Johnson's campaign manager in New Hampshire and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He found out that General Westmoreland had asked the president for an extra 206,000 US troops in Vietnam. Johnson already had 550,000 troops in Vietnam, and he was insisting the war was nearly won. Asking for 206,000 more was all but admitting that the US was defeated. The author decided to pitch the story to his boss in Albany, Earl Aronson. However, Aronson did not greenlight the story and it ended up being picked up by the New York Times. Soon after, the author handed his notice and later took a job at United Press International in Moscow. The chapter then recounts how the author had fallen in love with journalism when he was still in high school in his native Sarajevo; he had written some stories for the city's Oslobodjenje (Liberation) newspaper.
Wireless Goes to War
Authors: Lewis Tom
Published: January 2022

This chapter explores the changing reliance on telegraph and how more and more governments and private companies were employing wireless to transmit their messages over great distances of land and sea. It begins with recounting the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia. The chapter uncovers how had the German kaiser learned of the murders and how Americans found out that the loose fabric of European alliances had been irreparably torn. The chapter then argues that the Great War altered the nature of radio, just as radio began to alter the nature of war. Shortly after the declaration of war, the US federal government imposed a moratorium on radio patent litigation for the duration of the hostilities. The chapter then investigates how the moratorium ignored the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America and De Forest Radio Telephone and Telegraph Company suits and all other patent infringement cases. The chapter analyzes the implications of the government's actions — arguing its orders brought about an institutionalization of radio development that signaled the end of the lone inventor — the Marconi, de Forest, or Armstrong — who had brought radio to life.
Armstrong and the FM Revolution
Authors: Lewis Tom
Published: January 2022

This chapter unravels Howard Armstrong's creation of wide-band frequency modulation — FM. It follows a trail of research from hundreds of thousands of tests and measurements, tens of thousands of hours of work for Armstrong and his assistants, to ultimate triumph. Like most revolutions, Armstrong's FM had been a long time in the making. The chapter argues that Armstrong began exploring the nature of frequency modulated waves in as thorough a way as he had the operation of the vacuum tube and the phenomenon of static. The chapter then tracks Armstrong's fundamental changes in the radio receiver. The chapter investigates the challenges and hearings faced by Armstrong. It became clear to all in radio that new portions of the spectrum were needed for television, police, and government communications as well as FM. The chapter then recounts how the introduction of FM began to move more swiftly.
Forgotten Markets
Authors: Bos Marieke , Carter Susan Payne , Skiba Paige Marta
Published: January 2022

This chapter focuses on pawnshops and the institutions of pawnbroking. Studies show that large numbers of poor people and especially those who are unbanked use pawn loans by leaving collateral. This institution has existed for centuries and while attention has shifted away from it, the informal pawn broker remains a source of survival for the very poor. And this is not unconnected to what happens in the larger, formal economy. After the global financial crisis that began in the United States in 2007–2008, quickly engulfed the world, and became the protracted Great Recession, the pawnbroking industry in the United States and Sweden grew by an astonishing 20 percent per year, as poor people were forced to turn to informal credit for their survival. Despite this industry's importance, pawnbroking has characteristically received little attention and also little regulation. The chapter then raises a host of questions regarding the welfare consequences of these informal lending markets in rich countries and how they could be regulated.
Law and International Monetary Policy Regimes
Authors: Listokin Yair
Published: January 2022

This chapter assesses one aspect of the large political economy of multi-country policy interventions, that which works through the money markets, liquidity, price controls, and overall macroeconomic policy. This is an important area of research and policy activism involving important multilateral organizations, like the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of International Settlements. There have been debates about exchange-rate policies (which by definition, have effects on other countries), about capital controls (which may block money from entering one nation but also blocks the movement of money from other countries), and price controls (which is often treated as a no-go area). Capital controls and interventions in the price system have also been politically divisive topics. The creation of the European Union helped stimulate these debates, since there were immediate policy spillovers that directly affected human well-being, from Britain and Germany to Greece and Ireland. The chapter then puts forward some radical proposals with special commentary on the European Union.
Exploring the relationship between ADHD, its common comorbidities, and their relationship to organizational skills
Authors: Durand Guillaume , Arbone Ioana-Smarandita
Published: January 2022

Background

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting numerous executive functioning skills, such as organizational skills. While the relationship between the inattention aspect of ADHD and poor organizational skills is well documented, it is still unclear if lower organizational skills are only associated with ADHD or if they are also associated with other comorbid disorders commonly diagnosed in conjunction with ADHD. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship between organizational skills and ADHD in adults, as well as the impact of comorbid disorders on ADHD in relation to organizational skills.

Methods

Four hundred seven (n = 201 with a diagnosis of ADHD) adults from the general population were recruited online. Participants completed a measure of organizational skills, measures assessing levels of ADHD, depression, and anxiety, and extensive demographic information related to their diagnosis of ADHD or other possible diagnosis.

Results

Participants with a diagnosis of ADHD were significantly more likely to have a comorbid diagnosis of depression and/or anxiety. Organizational skills were significantly lower in individuals who reported having received a diagnosis of ADHD, but not in those with a past diagnosis of depression and anxiety. However, organizational skills were lower in individuals currently experiencing higher levels of depression and anxiety. The results of regression analyses suggest that levels of organizational skills are most strongly predicted by inattention and more weakly predicted by comorbid disorders.

Discussion

These results highlight the centrality of organizational skills deficit in ADHD as well as the influence of the inattention component over other components commonly observed in ADHD on organizational skills. Suggestions for treatment of ADHD in adults are discussed.
Residents’ Perception towards Beach Tourism Development in Sri Lanka
Authors: Kaluthanthri P. C. , Weerappuli U.
Published: January 2022

Aims: This study aims to explore the relationship between residents’ perception of beach tourism and their support for beach tourism development. Specifically, the study examined the effects of residents’ perceptions on community participation and their support for beach tourism development. The mediation effect of community participation on residents’ perception of beach tourism and support for beach tourism was also investigated.

Study Design: This positivistic quantitative study was carried out based on the conceptual model developed on the theoretical foundation of Doxey's Irridex model and Social Exchange theory. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire.

Place and Duration of Study: This study was carried out in Polhena beach, a village away from 160 km of Colombo, capital of Sri Lanka, during the period of March - September 2018.

Methodology: A total of 467 residents has been selected through the random sampling method. The model was analyzed based on the reflective research guidelines of Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM).

Results: It was confirmed that the perception of residents caused a significant impact on their community participation and support for beach tourism development. However, community participation does not create a meditation effect on support for beach tourism development. As such results reviled that support for tourism development is an outcome of the positive perceptions of the residents and they were also willing to join activities aimed at further tourism development. In this context, the study suggested that education and awareness programs on beach tourism would be an avenue to ensure the support of residents for beach tourism development.

Conclusion: The finding of the research validates the relationship between residents’ perception and support for beach tourism development. In this context, tourism development authorities need to design programmes to improve the positive perception of residents to ensure their support for beach tourism development. The results provide insight for policymakers of tourism to implement the strategic programme on residents ‘perception and their support of beach tourism development.
An Economic Analysis of Climate Change Trend and Its Impact in Sivagangai District of Tamil Nadu, India
Authors: Rajinikanth G. R. , Amarnath J. S. , Sivasankari B. , Arun V.
Published: January 2022

The present study was taken up in Sivagangai district to examine the issues of trend in climate change, association between climate change and area, production and productivity of crops and impact of climate change on production of crops. The climate trend in Sivagangai district was studied using the descriptive statistics of skewness, kurtosis, coefficient of variation and compound growth rate of climatic variables of maximum temperature, minimum temperature and rainfall over the past 50 years from 1971 to 2020. Pearson correlation technique was used to analyze the degree of association between climatic variables and area, production and productivity of principal crops namely paddy, black gram and groundnut. Cobb-Douglas production function model was fitted to study the quantitative relationship between the average production of principal crops grown in the district and the climatic variables of temperature and rainfall and cropped area. Maximum temperature and minimum temperature were negatively skewed and rainfall was positively skewed. Kurtosis for maximum temperature was platykurtic and for the minimum temperature and rainfall of Sivagangai district, the kurtosis was Leptokurtic. The maximum temperature and minimum temperature were less variable and rainfall was highly variable. Pearson correlation coefficient revealed that maximum temperature, minimum temperature and rainfall had significant association with area, production and productivity of crops in Sivagangai district of Tamil Nadu. Cobb- Douglas production function analysis revealed that annual rainfall had a positive relationship with production of paddy. On the other hand, climatic variables of temperature and rainfall were not influencing the groundnut and black gram production.
Association of Polygenic Risk Scores With Radiographic Progression in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis
Authors: Honda Suguru , Ikari Katsunori , Yano Koichiro , Terao Chikashi , Tanaka Eiichi , Harigai Masayoshi , Kochi Yuta
Published: January 2022

Objective

To investigate whether polygenic risk scores obtained using data from a genome‐wide association study (GWAS) of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) susceptibility can be predictors of radiographic progression.

Methods

We constructed polygenic risk scores using GWAS summary data on associations of single‐nucleotide polymorphisms with RA susceptibility. The polygenic risk scores were stratified into quintiles based on levels of significance (ranging from top quintile of polygenic risk scores to bottom quintile). In addition, change in the Sharp/van der Heijde score (SHS) of radiographic progression over the first 5 years after onset of RA was assessed. The change in SHS over 5 years was stratified according to quartiles, with the top quartile of change in SHS defined as severe radiographic progression (score change of >35 points) and the remaining 3 quartiles defined as nonsevere radiographic progression. Polygenic risk scores were assessed for their ability to predict the SHS status over 5 years in a training set (n = 500 RA patients) for selection of the best model, and in a testing set (n = 740 RA patients) for validation of the data. We evaluated the performance of the polygenic risk score as a predictor of severe radiographic progression in univariable and multivariable analyses with inclusion of other factors.

Results

Polygenic risk scores constructed from 43,784 single‐nucleotide polymorphisms significantly differed between patients who experienced severe radiographic progression and those with nonsevere radiographic progression in both the training set (P = 0.0064) and the testing set (P = 0.017). Patients with polygenic risk scores in the top quintile had a higher risk of severe progression compared to those with polygenic risk scores in the bottom quintile (odds ratio [OR] 1.90, P = 0.0022), and the risk of severe radiographic progression was even higher when restricted to patients who were younger at disease onset (OR 5.06, P = 0.00038). The group with polygenic risk scores in the top quintile and the anti–citrullinated protein antibody (ACPA)–positive group had significantly higher proportions of patients with severe radiographic progression (P = 0.00052 and P = 0.0022, respectively) compared to the remaining groups. Multivariable analysis showed that polygenic risk score (P = 0.00019) as well as female sex (P = 0.0033), ACPA positivity (P = 0.0023), and body mass index (P = 0.024) were independent risk factors for severe radiographic progression.

Conclusion

A polygenic risk score that is derived from GWAS data on RA susceptibility is associated with the level of severity of radiographic progression in patients with RA.
Enhanced Surface Kinetics and Charge Transfer of BiVO4 Photoanodes by Rh2O3 Cocatalyst Loading for Improved Solar Water Oxidation
Authors: Gan Li Ting , Zhang Yang , Liu Peng Fei , Yang Hua Gui
Published: January 2022

A Rh2O3/BiVO4 composite photoanode exhibits enhanced surface reaction kinetics and charge transfer efficiency, enabling a photocurrent density of ca. 3.5 mA/cm2 at 1.23 V (vs. RHE), which is about 3.89 times higher than that of the pristine BiVO4, with a lower onset potential of 0.29 V (vs. RHE).
Structural determination of model phospholipid membranes by Raman spectroscopy: Laboratory experiment
Authors: Giancaspro Joseph , Scollan Patrick , Rosario Juan , Miller Elizabeth , Braziel Samuel , Lee Sunghee
Published: January 2022

In an upper‐division interdisciplinary laboratory experiment, students use Raman spectroscopy to highlight how the overall structure and conformational order of lipid bilayers can be influenced by their individual phospholipid composition. Students prepare a supported lipid bilayer, as a model cell membrane, by spreading liposomes made of various phospholipids on a solid support. The characterization of phospholipid bilayers, a major component of cellular membranes, can advance our fundamental understanding of important biological phenomena, with significant implications in various fields including drug delivery and development. We use Raman spectroscopy as an analytical tool to investigate the structural and packing properties of model cell membranes. The spectral frequency, intensity, and line‐width of lipid Raman bands are extremely sensitive to structural alterations. This experimental module effectively exposes students to the fundamentals of Raman spectroscopy and teaches students the importance of interdisciplinary education as they integrate concepts from chemical structure, molecular interactions, and analytical spectroscopic techniques to gain a more holistic understanding of biological membrane properties.
Examining the promotive versus the protective impact of culturally informed shift‐&‐persist coping in the context of discrimination, anxiety, and health behaviors
Authors: Christophe N. Keita , Martin Romero Michelle Y. , Stein Gabriela L.
Published: January 2022

This study aims to better understand how racially/ethnically minoritized youth exhibit adaptive psychological functioning (less anxiety) and health behaviors (better sleep and less binge drinking) in the context of discrimination, ethnic‐racial identity and coping. Among 364 minoritized emerging adults (Mage = 18.79, 85.2% female), we utilized higher‐order factor analysis to examine how culturally informed shift‐&‐persist (S&P), a higher‐order construct explaining associations between coping factors (shift, persist, spiritually based coping, civic engagement), and ethnic‐racial identity were related to anxiety, binge drinking, and sleep in the context of discrimination. Culturally informed S&P promoted better sleep and less anxiety controlling for discrimination. No significant effects were observed for binge drinking and no moderated effects were observed across outcomes. The harmful effect of discrimination on sleep was intensified for those with stronger ethnic‐racial identities. The promotive and potentially protective effects of culturally informed S&P coping differs across mental health and health behavior outcomes.
Specific nutrition and metabolic characteristics of critically ill patients with persistent COVID‐19
Authors: Viana Marina V. , Pantet Olivier , Charrière Mélanie , Favre Doris , Piquilloud Lise , Schneider Antoine G. , Hurni Claire‐Anne , Berger Mette M.
Published: January 2022

Background

Little is known about metabolic and nutrition characteristics of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) and persistent critical illness. We aimed to compare those characteristics in patients with PCI and COVID‐19 and patients without COVID‐19 infection (non‐CO)—primarily, their energy balance.

Methods

This is a prospective observational study including two consecutive cohorts, defined as needing intubation for >10 days. We collected demographic data, severity scores, nutrition variables, length of stay, and mortality.

Results

Altogether, 104 patients (52 per group) were included (59 ± 14 years old [mean ± SD], 75% men) between July 2019 and May 2020. SAPSII, Nutrition Risk Screening (NRS) score, proportion of obese patients, duration of intubation (18.2 ± 11.7 days), and mortality rates were similar. Patients with COVID‐19 (vs non‐CO) had lower SOFA scores (P = 0.013) and more frequently needed prone position (P < 0.0001) and neuromuscular blockade (P < 0.0001): lengths of ICU (P = 0.03) and hospital stays were shorter (P < 0.0001). Prescribed energy targets were below those of the ICU protocol. The energy balance of patients with COVID‐19 was significantly more negative after day 10. Enteral nutrition (EN) started earlier (P < 0.0001). During the first 10 days, COVID‐19 patients received more lipid (propofol sedation) and less protein. Higher admission C‐reactive protein (P = 0.002) decreased faster (P < 0.001). Whereas intestinal function was characterized by constipation in both groups during the first 10 days, diarrhea was less common in patients with COVID‐19 thereafter.

Conclusion

Compared with non‐CO patients, COVID‐19 patients were not more obese, had lower SOFA scores, and were fed more rapidly with EN, because of a more normal gastrointestinal function possibly due to fewer non–respiratory organ failures: their energy balances were more negative after the first 10 days. Propofol sedation reduced protein delivery.