bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Two-dimension trapezoidal grating raytracing based on the scalar diffraction and scattering theory
Authors: Yang Z. , Fan Q. , Li P. , Wei L. , Zhang Q. , Chen Y. , Wu Y. , Wang S. , Cao L.
Published: January 2019

Diffraction grating is a fundamental optical element in spectral measurement or source monochromation. A newly designed grating named as two-dimension trapezoidal grating (TG), which not only has non-harmonic diffraction, non-background contaminations, but also has high absolute diffraction efficiency and easy fabrication, was proposed, recently. However, its applications in spectral measurement or source monochromation are limited as its diffraction pattern is more complex than ordinary grating and there is no raytracing simulation tool to effectively analyze and evaluate the property of an optical system with TG. A raytracing model for TG based on the scalar diffraction and scattering theory is proposed to solve the above problem. Diffraction direction and absolute efficiency of each diffraction order are obtained by using mathematical derivation with scattering theory and scalar diffraction theory, respectively, which are the key parts of TG’s raytracing model. Once TG’s raytracing module is added into the optical simulation tool, X-LAB, it offers a new opportunity for design and numerical simulation of optical systems with a TG.
Polyaniline nanotubes prepared by one-step synergistic polymerization of aniline and acrylic acid
Authors: Huang Han-hong , Wu Yi-hu , Wang Mo-zhen , Ge Xue-wu
Published: January 2019

The electrochemical property of electrode materials greatly depends on their morphologies. This report introduces a novel and facile synthesis method for polyaniline (PANI) nanotubes from one-step synergistic polymerization of aniline and acrylic acid in an aqueous solution induced by the addition of ammonium persulfate (APS). The molar ratio of aniline to AA (Xani/AA) is found to have great influence on the morphology of the produced PANI. Hollow PANI nanotubes with an average inner diameter of 80 nm and outer diameter of 180 nm can be mainly produced when Xani/AA is not higher than 1. The electrochemical properties of the prepared PANI nanotubes have been investigated using a three-electrode system. The specific capacitance of PANI nanotubes can reach 436 F/g at a current density of 0.5 A/g in 1 mol/L H2SO4 solution. Furthermore, the specific capacitance of the PANI nanotube maintains 89.2% after 500 charging/discharging cycles at a current density of 0.5 A/g, indicating a good cycling stability.
Using self-referencing interlaced submatrices to determine the number of chemical species in a mixture
Authors: Wang Miao , Wang Wan-ping , Shao Li-min
Published: January 2019

Determining the number of chemical species is the first step in analyses of a chemical or biological system. A novel method is proposed to address this issue by taking advantage of frequency differences between chemical information and noise. Two interlaced submatrices were obtained by downsampling an original data spectra matrix in an interlacing manner. The two interlaced submatrices contained similar chemical information but different noise levels. The number of relevant chemical species was determined through pairwise comparisons of principal components obtained by principal component analysis of the two interlaced submatrices. The proposed method, referred to as SRISM, uses two self-referencing interlaced submatrices to make the determination. SRISM was able to selectively distinguish relevant chemical species from various types of interference factors such as signal overlapping, minor components and noise in simulated datasets. Its performance was further validated using experimental datasets that contained high-levels of instrument aberrations, signal overlapping and collinearity. SRISM was also applied to infrared spectral data obtained from atmospheric monitoring. It has great potential for overcoming various types of interference factor. This method is mathematically rigorous, computationally efficient, and readily automated.
Ultrafast investigation of excited-state dynamics in trans-4-methoxyazobenzene studied by femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy
Authors: Wang Ya-ping , Li Chun-hua , Zhang Bing , Qin Chen , Zhang Song
Published: January 2019

The ultrafast photoisomerization and excited-state dynamics of trans-4-methoxyazobenzene (trans-4-MAB) in solutions were investigated by femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy and quantum chemistry calculations. After being excited to the S2 state, the two-dimensional transient absorptions spectra show that cis-4-MAB is produced and witnessed by the permanent positive absorption in 400–480 nm. Three decay components are determined to be 0.11, 1.4 and 2.9 ps in ethanol, and 0.16, 1.5 and 7.5 ps in ethylene glycol, respectively. The fast component is assigned to the internal conversion from the S2 to S1 state. The other relaxation pathways are correlated with the decay of the S1 state via internal conversion and isomerization, and the vibrational cooling of the hot S0 state of the cis-isomer. Comparing of the dynamics in different solvents, it is demonstrated that the photoisomerization pathway undergoes the inversion mechanism rather than the rotation mechanism.
Imaging HNCO photodissociation at 201 nm: State-to-state correlations between CO (X1Σ+) and NH (a1Δ)
Authors: Zhang Zhi-guo , Xin Min , Wu Yan-ning , Zhao Shu-tao , Tang Yi-jia , Chen Yang
Published: January 2019

The NH(a1Δ)+CO(X1Σ+) product channel for the photodissociation of isocyanic acid (HNCO) on the first excited singlet state S1 has been investigated by means of time-sliced ion velocity map imaging technique at photolysis wavelengths around 201 nm. The CO product was detected through (2+1) resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI). Images were obtained for CO products formed in the ground and vibrational excited state (v=0 and v=1). The energy distributions and product angular distributions were obtained from the CO velocity imaging. The correlated NH(a1Δ) rovibrational state distributions were determined. The vibrational branching ratio of 1NH (v=1/v=0) increases as the rotational state of CO(v=0) increases initially and decreases afterwards, which indicates a special state-to-state correlation between the 1NH and CO products. About half of the available energy was partitioned into the translational degree of freedom. The negative anisotropy parameter β indicates that it is a vertical direct dissociation process.
Debris dams as habitat for aquatic invertebrates in forested headwater streams: a large-scale field experiment
Authors: Baillie Brenda R. , Hicks Brendan J. , Hogg Ian D. , van den Heuvel Michael R. , Kimberley Mark O.
Published: January 2019

To evaluate the effects of debris dams on aquatic invertebrate communities, we sampled benthic invertebrates in debris dams and riffles in three forested headwater streams in New Zealand. As part of a large-scale field experiment, debris dams were subsequently removed from three treatment sections in each of the streams to assess effects on invertebrate communities. Prior to debris dam removal, total invertebrate densities in debris dams were not significantly different from those in riffles. However, densities of Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera taxa were significantly higher in debris dams than in riffles. Debris dams contained a higher number of less common taxa (defined as <1% of total catch) and significantly higher densities of shredders. Densities for Coleoptera, Diptera and Trichoptera taxa were significantly higher in the autumn than in the spring. Non-metric multidimensional scaling axis scores indicated that both habitat and season had a significant effect on aquatic invertebrate community composition. At the reach scale, the effects of debris dam removal on the aquatic invertebrate communities were not statistically detectable because debris dams comprised only a small proportion of total habitat. However, these data highlight the importance of debris dams in contributing to the diversity of aquatic invertebrates in forested headwater streams.
Neural indicators of perceptual variability of pain across species
Authors: Hu L. , Iannetti G. D.
Published: January 2019

Significance

While several features of brain activity can be used to predict the variability of painful percepts within a given individual, it is much more difficult to predict pain variability across individuals. Here, we used electrophysiology to sample brain activity of humans and rodents, and demonstrated that laser-induced gamma oscillations sampled by central electrodes predict pain sensitivity across individuals both reliably and selectively: reliably, because they consistently predict between-subject pain intensity in both humans and rodents; selectively, because they do not track the between-subject reported intensity of nonpainful but equally salient auditory, visual, and nonnociceptive somatosensory stimuli. This discovery indicates that variability in an individual’s pain sensitivity is, at least partly, explained by variability in the amplitude of gamma oscillations of that individual.
Vaccine protection against SIVmac239 acquisition
Authors: Martins Mauricio A. , Bischof Georg F. , Shin Young C. , Lauer William A. , Gonzalez-Nieto Lucas , Watkins David I. , Rakasz Eva G. , Lifson Jeffrey D. , Desrosiers Ronald C.
Published: January 2019

Significance

Given the extreme difficulty in developing an effective vaccine against HIV, monkey models are being used in an attempt to discover novel approaches that may result in protective immunity. The difficult-to-neutralize cloned virus strain SIVmac239 has proven notoriously refractory to a variety of vaccine approaches. Here we describe significant vaccine protection against SIVmac239 acquisition following intravenous challenge. Only live attenuated strains of SIV have previously provided such protection against SIVmac239 acquisition.
Social Representation of Social Work in the Canadian Healthcare Setting: Negotiating a Professional Identity
Authors: Lévesque Maude , Negura Lilian , Gaucher Charles , Molgat Marc
Published: January 2019

Our article concerns the social representation of social work held by professional social workers in a Canadian healthcare setting. While there have been extensive theoretical debates on the professional identity of social workers, little is known about the representation of social work held by practitioners themselves. To better understand the viewpoints of practitioners, we performed an integrated content analysis of 30 semi-directed interviews focussing on the question of professional identity with clinical social workers practicing in three Canadian cities. The analysis identified four elements organising the social representation of social work: ‘counselling for support’, ‘empowerment and respect’, ‘social justice’ and ‘compassionate vocation’. Each element has implications for the daily practice of the profession, the cultivation of resilience and the core values of social work. This article further discusses the respondents’ perception of outside views of the profession and explores the tensions between the values of social work and its implementation in an institutional setting. This research seeks to open new lines of inquiry about social work based on the experiences and points of view of front-line practitioners. In proposing our representational analysis of the professional identity of social workers, we hope to further the understanding of social work in general.
Reconstructive surgery for Ebstein anomaly: three decades of experience
Authors: Veen Kevin M , Mokhles Mostafa M , Roos-Hesselink Jolien W , Rebel Bas R , Takkenberg Johanna J M , Bogers Ad J J C
Published: January 2019

OBJECTIVES

Since 1988, our centre employs vertical plication repair with deattachment and reattachment of the tricuspid valve for Ebstein anomaly. This study describes the characteristics and long-term outcomes of our single-centre cohort.

METHODS

Data from all patients operated on between 1988 and 2016 were retrospectively collected. Kaplan–Meier analyses were done for survival data and mixed models were used to analyse longitudinally collected clinical and echocardiography data.

RESULTS

Thirty-six patients (mean age: 25.4 ± 15.9 years, 36% male) were operated on using the Carpentier–Chauvaud 21 (58%) or Cone repair 15 (42%). One patient (3%) died in hospital. Two late deaths were observed, yielding a survival of 97 ± 3% at 25 years. Reoperation was performed in 6 patients after a mean follow-up of 14.1 ± 10.3 years, resulting in a freedom of reoperation of 80 ± 8% at 25 years. During follow-up, predicted probability of being in New York Heart Association III/IV did not exceed 10%. Modelling longitudinal evolution of tricuspid regurgitation showed no major changes over time. Additionally, a rigid ring repair was associated with a higher probability of tricuspid regurgitation, especially after the first years after the operation. A full Cone repair was associated with less progression of tricuspid regurgitation over time.

CONCLUSIONS

Repair of Ebstein abnomaly is associated with low mortality and morbidity, acceptable reoperation rate and excellent valve function over time, especially in patients with completed Cone repair. Therefore, we conclude that in our centre, repair of Ebstein abnomaly is a durable technique to treat patients.
Soft tissue facial profile in Class III malocclusion: long-term post-pubertal effects produced by the Face Mask Protocol
Authors: Pavoni Chiara , Gazzani Francesca , Franchi Lorenzo , Loberto Saveria , Lione Roberta , Cozza Paola
Published: January 2019

Objectives

The objective of this study was to analyze soft tissue changes produced by rapid maxillary expansion and facial mask therapy in growing Class III patients.

Materials

The treated group consisted of 32 Caucasian patients (15 females and 17 males) with dentoskeletal Class III malocclusion treated with the Face Mask Protocol (FMP, rapid maxillary expander, facial mask, and removable lower bite-block). All patients were evaluated before treatment (T1; mean age, 8.4 years), at the end of active treatment (T2; mean age, 10.7 years), and at a post-pubertal follow-up observation (T3; mean age, 15.8 years). The treated group was compared with a matched control group of 20 untreated subjects (10 females and 10 males) with dentoskeletal Class III malocclusion. Statistical comparisons between two groups were performed with the independent samples t-test (P < 0.05).

Results

Significant improvements were found during the long-term T1–T3 interval for profile facial angle (–5.8°), nasolabial angle (–4.4°), mandibular sulcus (–10.3°), upper lip protrusion (+0.7 mm), and lower lip protrusion (–1.1 mm) in the treated group. No significant post-pubertal effects were found in terms of lower face percentage between two groups.

Limitations

This study has a retrospective design and it used a historical control sample.

Conclusion

The FMP induced positive effects on soft tissue facial profile with a good long-term post-pubertal stability.
Nana Asma'u bint Usman ‘dan Fodio
Authors: Mack Beverly
Published: January 2019

Nana Asma’u bint Usman ‘dan Fodio (b. 1793–d. 1864/5 ce; Gregorian calendar dates vary in concordance with the Islamic calendar) was a Fulani poet, scholar, and teacher of both men and women in the area that gave rise to the city of Sokoto, in northern Nigeria. She was also an activist who used her poetic works to model behavior and promote reformed Islam. The clan name Fodio (also spelled Fodiyo) means “learned”; all children in the extended family were educated by their mothers and fathers. They were literate in Fulfulde, their first language; in Arabic, the pedagogical language; and Hausa, the lingua franca of the region. All three languages were written in Arabic script. Several individuals, including Asma’u, also acquired a working knowledge of spoken Tamchek, the language of the itinerant Tuareg. Asma’u was a daughter of Shehu Usman ‘dan Fodio (b. 1754–d. 1817), leader of the Sokoto Jihad (1803–1830) of Islamic reform, which began when she was ten years old. As an intelligent, articulate youngster, Asma’u readily absorbed the political ramifications of local kings’ oppression of Muslims and syncretic practices of non-Islamic and Islamic customs, which actions precipitated the Jihad. When she began to write her own long poetic works, the poems included her views about these conflicts, character evaluations of the primary historical personages of the time, and straightforward explanations of Islamic tenets of belief. Influenced by Qur’anic literary style, Asma’u wrote her poems in specific rhyme and meter, rendering them more easily memorized through repeated recitation. These mnemonic devices were useful in the program of women’s education of women, the ‘Yan Taru (Hausa, “the Associates”), which Asma’u established for the purpose of re-educating society according to reformed, mainstream Islam. Also evident in her poetic works are the theosophical perspectives inherent in Qadiriyya Sufi tenets (based on the teachings of Iranian Abdul Qadir Gilani, b. 1077–d. 1166 ce), which framed the Fodio family’s Islamic practices. Asma’u’s father’s mystic Sufi experiences began around the time of her birth and are said to account for his having named her; Asma’u was a twin, and the Islamic custom was to name twins gender-appropriate versions of Hassan and Hussein, commemorating the Prophet Muhammad’s grandsons. The Shehu duly named his son Hassan, but Asma’u was named after the historical Asma, daughter of Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s close friend. The historical Asma was known for having saved the Prophet Muhammad and her father by providing them with water during their escape from Makkah on their hejira to Medinah. The Shehu is said to have seen in a dream that his daughter would be equally important to the success of his own hejira and promotion of reformed Islam. That Asma’u’s ‘Yan Taru program has served to educate rural women for a century and a half since its inception proves the Shehu’s expectations about Asma’u’s legacy correct.
Ethical Deontology
Authors: Schroth Jörg
Published: January 2019

Deontology is usually contrasted with consequentialism (and both with virtue ethics). Whereas consequentialists maintain that the right action is determined solely by its consequences, deontologists deny this and hold that the right action is not determined solely by its consequences. This characterization makes room for the important distinction between moderate deontology (or threshold deontology) and absolutism: Absolutists assert that there are exceptionless moral rules or intrinsically wrong actions that are absolutely wrong and may never be performed, whatever the consequences. Moderate deontologists reject exceptionless moral rules or absolutely wrong actions and regard all moral rules as prima facie rules. A further distinction is between agent-centered deontological theories, which focus upon agents’ duties, and patient-centered (or victim-centered) deontological theories, which focus upon people’s rights. Deontology is associated with the following features which play a more or less significant role in different deontological theories: agent-relativity, especially agent-relative constraints (restrictions), options (prerogatives) and special obligations; priority of the right over the good; definition of the right independently of the good; priority of honoring values over promoting values; intrinsically wrong actions; absolutely wrong actions and exceptionless moral rules; duty for duty’s sake; pluralism of moral rules; respect of persons; non-instrumentalization of persons; human dignity; inviolable rights. Deontologists also maintain the moral relevance of the following distinctions: positive versus negative duties, doing versus allowing (killing versus letting die; see the Oxford Bibliographies article in Philosophy “Doing and Allowing.”), and intention versus foresight and unintended side-effects. Famous deontological moral principles are Kant’s Categorical Imperative, the Pauline Principle (“Evil may not be done for the sake of good”), the principle of double effect (see the bibliography on Bibliographien zu Themen der Ethik) and the principle that the end does not always justify the means. Deontology can take many forms, the most important ones are Kant’s and Kantian ethics (see the Oxford Bibliographies article in Philosophy “Immanuel Kant: Ethics”); Ross’s and Rossian-style moral pluralism, natural law theory, and moral contractualism (see the Oxford Bibliographies article in Philosophy “Moral Contractualism”); libertarianism (in political philosophy); moral particularism (see the bibliography on Bibliographien zu Themen der Ethik); and principlism (in bioethics). Deontology is also often associated with ethical intuitionism (see the Oxford Bibliographies article in Philosophy “Ethical Intuitionism”) although not every deontological theory is grounded in moral intuitions.
Abduction and Explanatory Reasoning
Authors: Douven Igor
Published: January 2019

The term “abduction” originates in the work of the American pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. Roughly, he meant it to indicate the process of searching for hypotheses guided by explanatory considerations. It thus had a place in (what later came to be called) the context of discovery. Nowadays, the term “abduction” is commonly used to refer to a type of inference which we take to be warranted on explanatory grounds, as when for instance we infer that it has been raining when we see that the streets are wet, given that it having rained is the best (although not the only possible) explanation of the streets being wet. Thus understood, abduction belongs to the so-called context of justification. In modern usage, “abduction” is typically taken to be synonymous with “Inference to the Best Explanation.” As such, it is standardly contrasted with deduction (in which the inference is warranted on the basis of form alone) and induction (in which the inference is warranted on the basis of statistical information). Abduction and induction share the feature of being ampliative, meaning that they do not guarantee the truth of the conclusion on the basis of the truth of the premises (unlike deduction); they lead to a conclusion that—one might say—goes “beyond” the premises. Philosophers have been mainly interested in the normative aspects of abduction—is it rational to infer to the best explanation, even if perhaps only under certain circumstances?—while psychologists have looked at how well the hypothesis that people reason abductively explains certain aspects of their cognitive behavior, for instance, how well that hypothesis explains some registered ways in which people tend to deviate from Bayesian norms of reasoning. For this reason, there is relevant work to be found both in the philosophical and in the psychological literature. Computer scientists, especially researchers in the field of artificial intelligence, have sought to implement abduction computationally, as part of a general attempt to develop a computational model of human reasoning, and have compared it with other inferential principles through the use of computer simulations. In philosophy, it has long been mostly philosophers of science, and to a lesser extent epistemologists, who were interested in abduction. More recently, abduction has come to be regarded as a key principle in the methodology of philosophy, with applications in a variety of areas of philosophical research.
Manuel Chrysoloras
Authors: Hobbs Christopher
Published: January 2019

Manuel Chrysoloras (b. c. 1350–d. 1415) was a Byzantine diplomat and influential teacher of early Italian humanists. Leonardo Bruni claimed that the study of Greek had been dead in Italy for seven hundred years until Chrysoloras revived it singlehandedly. While certainly exaggerated, such claims underscore the enthusiasm with which Chrysoloras was embraced by his pupils. A friend of the emperor, Manuel II Palaiologos, he left Constantinople to take up a professorship in Florence (1397 to 1400) at the behest of Coluccio Salutati. It was his diplomatic missions, however, that first brought Chrysoloras to Italy (Venice in the 1390s): he sought to win western military support for Byzantium against the rising Ottoman tide. He visited Venice, Padua, Genoa, Paris, London, Salisbury, Barcelona, and Bologna (1406–1411). Subsequently he settled in Rome (1411–1413) seeking to persuade the pope to convene a church council; he died at (or on the way to) the Council of Constance on 15 April 1415. Ultimately he converted to Catholicism. His pupils included Poggio Bracciolini, Leonardo Bruni, Guarino da Verona, Carlo Marsuppini, Niccolò Niccoli, Palla Strozzi, and Pier Paolo Vergerio the Elder. His influence lies chiefly in the enthusiasm for Greek scholarship which he instilled in his prominent pupils. His literary output, however, was rather small. He left behind a Comparison of the Old and New Rome in which he compared Constantinople and Rome. He wrote a textbook on Greek grammar, his Erotemata (Questions), which circulated widely and was the first Greek grammar to be printed (c. 1471). It was later used by Erasmus and Reuchlin; Guarino translated it into Latin. Chrysoloras was, unquestionably, a key figure in bringing Greek scholarship to Italy.
Antarctica
Authors: Convey Peter
Published: January 2019

Antarctica originally formed part of the southern supercontinent, Gondwana, and its fossil record shows that the continent hosted cool temperate and even subtropical forests, dinosaurs, early mammals, and many other biota, despite lying at high southern paleolatitudes for over 100 My. The Antarctica of today is a continent of extremes, inspiring awe, trepidation, and superlatives from those privileged to experience it. It is certainly a forbidding place, more than twice the area of Australia, distant and isolated from other southern continents, with around 0.2 percent of its area ever exposed from permanent ice and snow and covered on average with ice more than 2 kilometers thick. In winter, the surface of an area of ocean of approximately the same size as the continent freezes around it, and throughout the year ice is one of the major drivers of physical and biological processes in the Southern Ocean. Antarctica is also distinct among the Earth’s continents, being the only one not to have ever had a natural human population, and only being discovered and explored over the last one to two centuries. Even now, the human population is limited to the temporary residents of national research stations (about five thousand in summer and one thousand in winter), augmented by thirty to forty thousand mostly ship-based tourist visitors in the austral summer. At least to human perception, the environments of the polar regions are challenging to life. Organisms that live on land in Antarctica today must survive chronic, highly variable and extreme environmental stresses, in particular low temperatures, desiccation, high winds, and a harsh radiation climate. At latitudes beyond the Antarctic Circle, extreme seasonality is driven by the sun remaining permanently below the horizon for up to several months during winter and, conversely, above the horizon in summer. In winter terrestrial habitats experience extremely low air temperatures, typically −40 to −60°C or lower (the lowest instrumentally recorded temperature on Earth is −89.2°C, at Vostok Station on the Antarctic polar plateau). As well as its extreme climate, parts of Antarctica, in particular the Antarctic Peninsula region, have been facing rates of regional climate change in recent decades that are the most rapid in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as the consequences of the anthropogenically caused stratospheric ozone hole. These provide both further challenges to the organisms native to the continent and its surrounding oceans, and a test-bed or proxy for understanding the consequences of change for organisms and ecosystems globally. Terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity, the primary focus of this chapter, are generally depauperate, primarily comprised of cryptic and microscopic groups that are often overlooked except by specialists. Antarctic marine ecosystems, in contrast and despite also facing extreme seasonality and chronic exposure to near-freezing temperatures, can be highly diverse and comprise considerable biomass, possibly second only to tropical coral reefs.
Personalization of Politics
Authors: Garzia Diego , Ferreira da Silva Frederico
Published: January 2019

Over the last decades, the “personalization of politics” has turned into one of the defining elements of the democratic process. The common wisdom that sees popular political leaders as a fundamental electoral asset for their own parties has found increasing support in the existing comparative literature. Equally crucial aspects, such as the relationship between personalization and the old media, have been repeatedly addressed by communication research. A growing body of evidence from the fields of personality psychology and leadership studies has further refined our understanding of the role of individuals—politicians and voters alike—in driving this trend across time. Finally, institutional research dealing with parties, electoral systems, and cabinets has specified the structural transformations that fostered the personalization of politics in Western democracies and beyond. This article summarizes the growing body of available knowledge on the topic focusing, in turn, on General Overviews on personalization and politics; Electoral Research: Leader Effects on Voter Behavior and voting behavior; Personality Psychology and leadership studies; Party Politics; Political Communication; and Institutions: Primaries, Electoral Systems, and Executives and electoral systems.
Reproductive Technologies
Authors: Speier Amy , Zamarripa Caridad
Published: January 2019

Reproductive technologies are those technologies that aid in animal and human reproduction. Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) are more narrowly defined as those technologies that help people suffering from social or bodily infertility create a family. Socially infertile includes single women and men as well as homosexual couples who rely on donated gametes for the creation of a future child. Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) is usually the first step taken by couples having trouble conceiving. The most general type of reproduction technology is in vitro fertilization (IVF), which means that the egg is retrieved from a woman’s uterus and sperm is introduced to these eggs in a petri dish. In the case of male infertility, intracytoplasmic sperm injections (ICSI) may be employed, which means that sperm are injected directly into the egg. IVF may include the use of donated sperm, oocytes, and embryos. In addition to gamete donation, surrogacy may be employed in cases where an intended mother or intended gay fathers cannot carry a pregnancy to term. In addition to being used to create families, contraception is also considered a reproductive technology. Anthropologists have been conducting ethnographic analyses of reproductive technologies by studying the people intimately engaged with these varying technologies. Scholarship revolves around major questions about markets and gift exchange, kinship, and how our understandings of family have shifted with the advent of reproductive technologies, as well as globalization and the ways in which bodies, people, and technologies traverse the globe.
Religion and Post-Socialism
Authors: Köllner Tobias
Published: January 2019

Despite all the differences between different socialist states and different periods, one important feature of socialist ideology was a general objection to religion. Based on Marxist-Leninist-Maoist dogma, two main reasons were especially relevant. On the one hand, religion was considered to be a key obstacle to modernization and a major reason for backwardness. Thus, religion was perceived to be superstition. On the other hand, religion was used to legitimize the privileges of the ruling class and as a means to stay in command. Karl Marx’s famous interpretation of religion as the “opiate of the people” is the key phrase in this context. The influence of these two interpretations lost considerable ground and, with the demise of socialism, gave way to new readings. In this new reading, religion lost its negative connotations and gained more interest from the people and those in power. Religion reappeared in the public sphere and became one of the key topics for the post-socialist states. In the early 21st century, many people in these states understand the current situation by comparing it to the socialist past. Yet, the concept of post-socialism has diminishing explanatory power because the next generation has different points of reference. For the time being, however, socialism as a point of reference is still important and has left its mark on certain topics in particular. These topics are the possibility to express religious beliefs and practices in public; religious change; the interrelation among religion, politics, and the nation; the interrelation between religion and the economy; the introduction of religious education; and the interrelation between religion and morality.
Gender and Religion
Authors: Bjork-James Sophie
Published: January 2019

Gender is central to most religious orders. In turn, religions have a significant impact on gendered relations. The study of gender and religion stems from a broader interest in feminist anthropology, and multiple approaches to the study of gender and religion have been developed. An early approach explores the ways that religious practice influences male and female behavior. Studies in this vein explore changing gender norms attending conversion to new religions, or the ways that women’s and men’s roles are constrained and shaped by religious practice. More-recent work analyzes the ways that gender itself structures religious and spiritual ethics and practice. While patriarchal relations are central to many global religions, this is not a universal principle. Some religious orders emphasize cooperation and respect for women over hierarchy. Others may prioritize male leadership but indirectly provide women with types of ethical identities and spiritual positions that create spaces for women to practice their own agency and forms of power. The ethnographic record also demonstrates that there is often a significant difference between how patriarchal gender relations are prioritized in formal religious spaces and how they are practiced. Gender often shapes the religious meanings of space and materiality. Scholars studying women’s participation in nonliberal religious movements have shown that often women participate in patriarchal religions in the pursuit of their own interest. Even through submission, women can cultivate particular ethical selves or develop relationships that are understood as desirable. A broad literature exists exploring female submission and agency within patriarchal religious spaces, much of which challenges liberal assumptions that what individuals need is freedom. Through ethnographic explorations of female participants in patriarchal religions, scholars have exposed the multiple reasons women participate in religious gender hierarchies. Many religions have also recognized nonbinary gender roles. Within numerous cultures, including indigenous, Asian, and others, individuals occupying either transgendered or nonbinary gendered roles are granted special spiritual status. Thus, diverse religions display a variety of gendered systems. Some recognize gender identities as fluid rather than fixed during a person’s life course. Finally, a number of feminist scholars provide important critiques about the ways that religious women—specifically through wearing the veil or burqa or participating in female genital cutting—can become symbols of oppression that unite feminist and colonial logics, creating discourses of saving and inequality over solidarity.
Trans Studies in Anthropology
Authors: Edelman Elijah Adiv
Published: January 2019

Trans studies—or research on the experiences, identities, and practices of transgender, transsexual, trans*, or gender nonbinary communities of practice—is a relatively new area of focus within the discipline of anthropology. Anthropologists who engage in trans-specific research may do so in any geographic location and across the primary subfields of the discipline: sociocultural, biological/physical, archaeology, and linguistics. Historically, anthropologists who have conducted research or examined gender practices that do not fit within a traditional Western sex-gender binary have done so outside the context of North Atlantic populations, with the exception of indigenous communities. Much of this literature emerged out of a focus on nonheterosexual sexual practices or identities. Moreover, older scholarship on gender transgression did not necessarily reflect the words or experiences of those being researched but instead relied on and reflected the markedly Eurocentric and ethnocentric approach from the researchers. As such, much of modern trans-specific research conducted in anthropology relies heavily on interdisciplinary texts both for historical and theoretical orientations. Additionally, trans, as a category of analysis, has itself undergone shifts in usage and meaning, which continue to evolve as the field grows. Finally, authorship and representation are important features of trans studies in anthropology, since many of those who have had access to the capacity to conduct research and publish texts are not members of the communities that they represent.
Dependency Theory in Latin American History
Authors: Reyes Hernández Miguel , López López Miguel Alejandro
Published: January 2019

This article examines dependency theory, focusing especially on Latin America. Dependency theory includes different currents of thought stemming from analysis of extensive findings from literature, conferences, and discussions. Although it is of global dimensions, it has achieved greater impact in Latin America. At the end of the two world wars, many important colonial empires fell, including, after World War I, the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires, and, after World War II, those that belonged to Great Britain and France, among others. After World War II, the United States of America emerged as a hegemonic power. In this context, new nation-states emerged in the wake of many years of colonial or semi-colonial status. They included China, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Movements of national liberation in Asia and Africa; the emergence of new economies and polities influenced by colonialism and neocolonialism; criticisms arising from trends of thoughts in international organizations such as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Non-Aligned Movement, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); and the aspirations for political and economic independence in Latin America achieved, in part, by implementing import substitution industrialization policies are expressions of a new reality that set in the wider context of the Cold War. In the social sciences, this reality is reflected in the appearance of topics under the term development theory, in which concepts such as economic backwardness, underdevelopment, modernization, and dependency are treated. Since the 1960s, dependency theory seeks to explain the characteristics of dependent development in Latin America, although it also includes consideration of Asia and Africa. Dependency theory responds to a different economic and social reality in Latin America, Asia, and Africa in comparison to developed countries. International capitalism developed such that some countries secured dominant positions early on, and others, including those in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, dependent ones later on. This article is characterized by two central features. First, the roots of the term and the concepts that underlie it are treated. Debates about the development of capitalism in underdeveloped societies and criticisms of the dominant economic theory in international trade (neoclassical economy) are considered. Second, emphasis is placed in the article on the fundamental part played by Latin America in theories on the origins of dependency theory and in the literature that has emerged on it.
Georges Méliès
Authors: Tralongo Stéphane
Published: January 2019

Georges Méliès (b. 1861–d. 1938) was a magician and a French cinema pioneer with an extensive, inventive, and protean body of work. His films have been celebrated for both their technical innovations and their imaginary worlds, having at times a fantastic air and at others the appearance of fairy plays. The son of a manufacturer who made his fortune in the production of luxury footwear, in the 1880s Méliès went against his father’s wishes by learning the art of magic. With his share of the family business, he acquired and from 1888 to 1914 ran a famous Parisian theatre specializing in magic, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. Méliès worked mostly behind the scenes, where his administrative activities went hand in hand with the creation of a repertoire of illusions. Keeping a foot in the magic field as president of the Chambre syndicale de la prestidigitation from 1904 to 1934, he became interested in the cinematograph early on, and added films to his theatre’s programming in April 1896. From 1896 to 1912 he worked intensively in the manufacture of films, employing an artisanal mode of production: he took on the roles of author, draftsman, painter, actor, and director, and he financed his own work. Distancing himself from the Lumière model, Méliès preferred to produce “artificially arranged scenes” in the studio he built in 1897, and later in a second studio built in 1907. Although his output of around 520 films was extremely varied, he specialized in “fantastic pictures” based on both stage tricks and the reiteration of these tricks thanks to the technical possibilities of cinema. In 1902, his film A Trip to the Moon was seen around the world, but largely at Méliès’ expense because of the massive pirating of the film in the United States. As chair of two international congresses of film producers in Paris in 1908 and 1909, Méliès helped organize the film industry, but new production, distribution, and exhibition methods forced him to suspend the manufacture of films in 1909. He made a final six films for the Pathé company in the years 1911 and 1912. During the First World War, he acted in dramatic and lyric plays in his second studio, which was converted into the Théâtre des Variétés artistiques from 1917 to 1923. When he was rediscovered in the mid-1920s, numerous filmmakers paid him tribute (René Clair, Abel Gance, Hans Richter, etc.), and he himself contributed to valorizing his work.
Sociolinguistic Aspects of the Chinese Language
Authors: Tsou Benjamin
Published: January 2019

Like many dynamic systems, language undergoes change over time. For Chinese, the changes have come about in different ways, which could qualitatively affect the system underlying the language, and appropriate new classes or entities have to be recognized and given new labels or names. They could involve neologism, or there could be, for example, the emergence of tones in the archaic Chinese language (or more recently in the non-Sinitic Huihui language of Hainan Island), or development toward disyllabicity, or attrition of tones in the Dungan language, which is found in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and which has its origin in Shaanxi Province, China. The changes could give rise to new subsystems or even new alternate parallel systems (e.g., sub-dialects, pidgins and creoles, new languages, and new scripts). The impetus for such changes can be due to internal dynamics, or may have external origin as a result of contact. Very often the mutual influence of these linguistic traits can also constitute a major cause for change. These linguistic sub-varieties may not have equal status within a given social environment (e.g., social registers: local languages versus national language). One or more varieties may have greater significance within the usually stratified system (e.g., official language, high language, standard language). These developments may run their course naturally or may be managed (i.e., through language planning and policy) for a variety of reasons, and with different kinds of results (e.g., language reform, language maintenance, language endangerment, language revival). China’s territorial outreach has been at times wider than it is in the early 21st century. Many peoples speaking different languages from diverse cultures have come into intimate contact with the Chinese. The Chinese writing system was the dominant one in East Asia, where it had served as the model for the development of writing systems of other languages. Moreover, Chinese speakers have established speech communities outside China, long before the commonly known recent diaspora. Closer to home, there have been colossal concomitant political and social changes going back more than a hundred years and even more so since the 1950s. All these are an integral backdrop for studying various sociolinguistic aspects of the Chinese language, and would necessarily, if not preferably, encompass other disciplines, ranging from sociology and anthropology to cognition, and from geography to history.
Marco Polo
Authors: Whitfield Susan
Published: January 2019

Marco Polo (b. 1254–d. 1324), from a family of Venetian merchants, was only one among many merchants and missionaries who visited east Asia during the 13th and 14th centuries, but the account of his journey—variously rendered into English as The Travels or The Description of the World—became one of the most influential books of its time. No original text survives, but around 135 manuscript copies of translations into many European languages made over the following centuries are extant. Both Marco Polo’s Authorship and the Authenticity of the text have been subject to much discussion. The book continues to be influential in the modern era, giving rise to a rich field of scholarship, inspiring literary works, and being used as a brand to encapsulate luxury travel to exotic destinations.
The two most important questions for ethical public health
Authors: Coggon John , Gostin Lawrence O
Published: January 2019

Public health ethics is a distinct and established field, and it is important that its approaches and rationales are understood widely in the public health community. Such understanding includes the capacity to identify and combine principled and practical concerns in public health. In this paper, we present a background to the ideas that motivate public health ethics as a field of research and practice, and rationalize these through a critical ethico-legal approach to analysis. Two essential points of inquiry are identified and formulated to allow philosophical and practical agendas regarding public health to be combined. These come through asking the theoretical question ‘what makes health public?’; and the practical question ‘how do we make health public?’. We argue that these two questions require to be addressed if we are to achieve a robust and rigorous, ethical public health.