bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Performing Epic Now
Authors: Macintosh Fiona , McConnell Justine
Published: February 2020

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, technological wizardry and the fragmentation or complete eschewal of narrative were rapidly becoming the staples of the commercial and the fringe stages respectively. In a postmodern world where ‘grand narratives’ were suspect, all narrative in the theatre was increasingly being viewed as no different from the artifice of the ‘well-made play’ and thus inadequate in the face of contemporary uncertainties. The decisive moment in this anti-narrative turn is often identified as the early 1950s, when the avant-garde in the visual arts, music, and theatre pioneered alternative modes of representation, seen in the works of Ad Reinhardt, John Cage, and Samuel Beckett. Hans-Thies Lehmann dates the turning point in performance to the 1970s and the ‘mediatization’ culture, when a split is perceptible between (text-based) drama and theatre that embraces performance in the broadest terms. Yet in recent decades there has also been plenty of resistance to any avowedly anti-narrative turn in performance and plenty of evidence that epic narratives have been making a comeback on the stage. Chapter 1 examines some of the reasons behind the return to narrative during this period, and the forms in which it can be seen, from storytelling to video games, podcasts to opera.
Telling Tales on Stage
Authors: Macintosh Fiona , McConnell Justine
Published: February 2020

While Hans-Thies Lehmann dated the postdramatic turn in performance to the 1970s, Christian Biet and Christophe Triau have argued that, on the contrary, it is a seventeenth-century construct. ‘Drama’, they argue, was fashioned in the rule books of neoclassical theorists, who sought to elevate French tragedy in order to distinguish it from both its forebears and from other (less ‘serious’) contemporary performance arts. Chapter 2 examines the divisions between theatre and narrative that have come to dominate performance thinking since the closing decades of the twentieth century. The longstanding theoretical interplay between narrative and theatre has often been agonistically cast as epic versus drama, but this is a false dichotomy, erected by neoclassical theory and practice and promulgated most successfully by Schiller and Goethe; it does not stem from Aristotle’s Poetics, where drama is pronounced to possess ‘epic’ qualities. But for Brecht, ‘dramatized epic’ is precisely what he strove to re-make in his ‘Epic Theatre’. This, in Peter Szondi’s view, was a result of a ‘crisis’ in dramatic form around 1900, when Aristotelean teleological form and its dialogic structure no longer sufficed—and it is Szondi’s privileging of Brechtian epic, and Brecht’s challenge to the perceived and longstanding opposition of epic and drama, that lies behind Lehmann’s postdramatic theatre. Yet theory, it seems, is out of step with practice because narrative and ‘stories’ appear to matter in the theatre in ways that Lehmann’s schema doesn’t allow, notwithstanding his often overlooked speculation that a ‘new narrative theatre’ may follow the postdramatic one.
The Author's Effects
Authors: Watson Nicola J.
Published: February 2020

The Author’s Effects: On Writer’s House Museums is the first book to describe how the writer’s house museum came into being as a widespread cultural phenomenon across Britain, Europe, and North America. Exploring the ways that authorship has been mythologized and materialized through the conventions of the writer’s house museum, The Author’s Effects anatomizes the how and why of the emergence, establishment, and endurance of popular notions of authorship in relation to creativity. It traces how and why the writer’s bodily remains, possessions, and spaces came to be treasured in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as a prelude to the appearance of formal writer’s house museums. It ransacks more than 100 museums and archives to tell the stories of celebrated and paradigmatic relics—Burns’ skull, Keats’ hair, Petrarch’s cat, Poe’s raven, Brontë’s bonnet, Dickinson’s dress, Shakespeare’s chair, Austen’s desk, Woolf’s spectacles, Hawthorne’s window, Freud’s mirror, Johnson’s coffee-pot, and Bulgakov’s stove, amongst many others. It investigates houses within which nineteenth-century writers mythologized themselves and their work—Thoreau’s cabin and Dumas’ tower, Scott’s Abbotsford and Irving’s Sunnyside. And it tracks literary tourists of the past to such long-celebrated literary homes as Petrarch’s Arquà, Rousseau’s Île St Pierre, and Shakespeare’s Stratford to find out what they thought and felt and did there, discovering deep continuities with the redevelopment of Shakespeare’s New Place for 2016
Introduction
Authors: Watson Nicola J.
Published: February 2020

This chapter introduces an enquiry into the writer’s house museum as an idea and cultural form, arguing that it begins to emerge in the late eighteenth century as a widespread phenomenon. Starting from the working hypothesis that such museums are primarily designed to effect a figure of the author through the preservation and display of belongings within quasi-domestic space, it opens an investigation into the ways that authorial remains, possessions, and spaces came to remediate and locate the simultaneous materiality/immateriality of the author in ways that typically conceived place as national. It sites its investigation within current scholarship, defines terms, lays out a methodology, offers a guide to the remainder of the book, and argues its timeliness.
Household effects
Authors: Watson Nicola J.
Published: February 2020

Chapter 5 widens the focus beyond the staging of the immediate scene of writing to develop a taxonomy of the ways that domestic objects and spaces have been made to bear witness to the writer’s life and work through inscription, caption, and representations of the author in life-size effigy or statue. It canvases objects that bear witness to authorial biography such as Johnson’s coffee-pot, explores how (and why) objects may choose instead to materialize the author’s writing, as in the Hans Christian Andersen museum in Odense, the James Joyce Museum in Sandycove, and the Mikhail Bulgakov museum in Kiev, and investigates how life-size representations of the adult author have been used in the Hannibal, Missouri Twain Boyhood Museum and in Lichfield to ‘remember’ childhood homes.
Civilization and the Culture of Science
Authors: Gaukroger Stephen
Published: February 2020

How does science, in the period from the end of the eighteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, come to have such a central place in Western culture? At issue in the consolidation of a scientific culture is the way in which all cognitive values, and subsequently many moral, political, and social ones, come to be modelled around scientific values, and Civilization and the Culture of Science explores how these values were shaped and how they began in turn to shape those of society. The book continues the trajectory of three earlier volumes, which traced key aspects of the legitimation of science and the establishment of a scientific culture up to the early decades of the nineteenth century. The core nineteenth- and twentieth-century development is that in which science comes to take centre stage in shaping ideas of civilization. A central question is the role played by projects to unify the sciences, showing how the motivation for these comes from outside. A crucial part of this process was a fundamental rethinking of the relations between science and ethics, economics, philosophy, and engineering. The developments here are not linear or one-dimensional, and five issues that have underpinned the transition to a scientific modernity are explored: changes in the understanding of civilization; the push to unify the sciences; the rise of the idea of the limits of scientific understanding; the ideas of ‘applied’ and ‘popular’ science; and the way in which the public was shaped in a scientific image.
The Metaphysics of Representation
Authors: Williams J. Robert G.
Published: February 2020

What is representation? How do the more primitive aspects of our world come together to generate it? How do different kinds of representation relate to one another? This book identifies the metaphysical foundations for representational facts. The story told is in three parts. The most primitive layer of representation is the ‘aboutness’ of sensation/perception and intention/action, which are the two most basic modes in which an individual and the world interact. It is argued that we can understand how this kind of representation can exist in a fundamentally physical world so long as we have an independent, illuminating grip on functions and causation. The second layer of representation is the ‘aboutness’ of (degrees of) belief and desire, whose representational content goes far beyond the immediate perceptable and manipulable environment. It is argued that the correct belief/desire interpretation of an agent is the one which makes their action-guiding states, given their perceptual evidence, most rational. The final layer of representation is the ‘aboutness’ of words and sentences, human artefacts with representational content. It is argued that one can give an illuminating account of the conditions under which a compositional interpretation of a public language like English is correct by appeal to patterns emerging from the attitudes conventionally expressed by sentences. The three-layer metaphysics of representation resolves long-standing underdetermination puzzles, predicts and explains patterns in the way that concepts denote, and articulates a delicate interactive relationship between the foundations of language and thought.
Radical Interpretation as a Metaphysics of Mental Content
Authors: Williams J. Robert G.
Published: February 2020

This chapter sets out the metaphysics of the mental content of belief and desire that is the focus of the first five chapters of the book: Radical Interpretation. This says that the correct interpretation of an agent is that which best rationalizes the agent’s actions given their evidence. Radical Interpretation therefore combines two ingredients to ground mental content: a set of base facts involving an agent’s action and evidence, and a relation of rationalization. The chapter makes progress on the second of these, with the ‘bubble puzzle’ being used to argue that the relation of rationalized involved must be a substantive one. The best rationalizing interpretation of an agent will make that agent as morally and epistemically good as possible.
Radical Interpretation and the Logical Form of Thoughts
Authors: Williams J. Robert G.
Published: February 2020

This chapter is one of three that draws out the consequences of Radical Interpretation for how concepts represent the world. The focus in this chapter is on logical concepts: conjunction, negation, and universal generalization. This connects Radical Interpretation as a foundational theory of mental content to inferentialism, where commitment to certain kinds of rules of inference or coherence is cited to explain why our connectives mean what they do. Radical Interpretation, together with auxiliary assumptions about cognitive architecture and epistemology, predicts these patterns. One of the upshots is an explanation of how quantification over absolutely everything is possible, rebutting long-standing skolemite underdetermination puzzles.
Radical Interpretation and Reference Magnetism
Authors: Williams J. Robert G.
Published: February 2020

This chapter is one of three that draws out the consequences of Radical Interpretation for how concepts represent the world. A claim associated with David Lewis is that metaphysically fundamental properties are ‘reference magnets’—that if usage is equipoised between two candidate referents, the one that is ‘closer to the metaphysical fundamentals’ is the one that gets to be the referent. This chapter examines how such a thesis might arise as a prediction of Radical Interpretation. It looks to epistemology of inference to the best explanation to make a connection between concepts used in explanations and naturalness. The connection to concepts used in induction is discussed.
Reducing Mental Representation?
Authors: Williams J. Robert G.
Published: February 2020

This chapter evaluates whether Radical Interpretation as it has been articulated in this book can be a reduction or foundational metaphysics of mental representation. One can be worried about this from two angles: first, whether it really qualifies as foundational metaphysics; second, whether what it targets is the whole of mental representation. Both challenges are addressed here. The chapter defends a reductive, foundational construal of Radical Interpretation against charges of circularity, while acknowledging a more modest fallback construal of what it achieves. It also shows how to extend the metaphysics of reference and truth conditions of the previous chapters to a metaphysics of Fregean sense.
From Mental Representation to Linguistic Representation
Authors: Williams J. Robert G.
Published: February 2020

This chapter is one of three that sets out a metaphysics of linguistic representation, and here the basic features of the approach is set out. The base facts for linguistic representation are conventional associations between sentences and propositions (the propositions being the contents of beliefs conventionally expressed by the sentences). The correct linguistic interpretation is then selected as the best theory of this data. The chapter considers two preliminary objections to the approach: an alleged need for a prior and independent identification of words and language-using populations, and an inability to handle declarative sentences that fail to express beliefs—a presupposition of expressivism. Both charges are rebutted.
Linguistic Convention and Shared Mental Content
Authors: Williams J. Robert G.
Published: February 2020

This chapter is the second of three that sets out a metaphysics of linguistic representation, and here I turn to the key ingredient of linguistic convention. The focus is on a tension between the apparently individualistic character of the metaphysics of mental representation given by Radical Interpretation, and the presupposition of shared mental content apparently presupposed by appeals to linguistic convention. By considering the way in which beliefs about others’ beliefs influence the metaphysics of mental representation, the apparent tension is resolved. Either belief-attributions characterize others’ mental states indirectly, as having content somehow related to the contents used to characterize them, or they don’t. In the first case, there is no presupposition of shared mental content in the characterization of conventions. In the second case, there is such a presupposition, but Radical Interpretation will predict that there is metasemantic pressure to attribute shared content.
The Academy at Work
Authors: Nehamas Alexander
Published: February 2020

Zeno’s argument against plurality in the Parmenides does not support the view that there is only one object in the world—only the view that every object in the world is one. Socrates counters that every sensible object can be many by participating in Forms, but none of the Forms can be many. Parmenides retorts that participation is not consistent with the Forms’ unity. The dialectic Parmenides offers derives a series of contradictions from supposing either that each Form is one or that it is many (that is, qualified by any other feature). The implicit solution is that participation must allow the Forms to participate in one another without losing their essential unity. The net result, central to the Academy’s educational programme, is to articulate, for the first time, the concept of predication as we understand it today. Its results are summarized in the Sophist’s discussion of ‘Greatest Kinds’.
Pleasure and Human Good in Epicurus
Authors: Dimas Panos
Published: February 2020

In this paper, I argue that Epicurus is a psychological hedonist but not an ethical one. Though he holds a unitary conception of pleasure, he also maintains a distinction between kinetic and katastematic pleasures. This is designed to serve diagnostic purposes by identifying categorially distinct psychological conditions in which an agent may experience pleasure. I show that the evidence does not commit Epicurus to ethical hedonism but rather provides grounds for doubting it. I then sketch a proposal regarding Epicurus’ conception of the human good. Though not hedonistic, this conception does justice to Epicurus’ well-attested preoccupation with pleasure and pain by pointing to these feelings as the only reliable epistemic tool available to humans in pursuing their final end. Finally, this conception identifies the individual human being’s phusis as the fundamental bearer of value.
The Energic–Energetic Distinction and Coleridge’s Two-Level Theory of Mind
Authors: Cheyne Peter
Published: February 2020

Chapter 6 reconstructs what the author identifies as Coleridge’s two-level theory of the higher and lower levels of mind. Section 6.1 draws on a Coleridgean distinction to characterize the higher mind of idea-directed freedom as energic and the lower mind of desire and association as energetic. Applying this to Coleridge himself, the chapter describes his restless, flowing, and challenging writings as balanced by—and subordinated to—the higher mind that strives towards ultimate ends and meaningful values. Section 6.2 explores the ‘refluent’ dynamic between the higher level of imagination and reason and the lower, of sensation, desire, and the ‘mechanical understanding’. Here, the author elaborates his theory of intellectual, noetic contemplation versus sensuous, inchoate contemplation, developing from Coleridge’s higher–lower, energic–energetic dynamic. Section 6.3 explores what the author calls the ordination of thought and being by ideas, involving the orientation of the mind to ends and values, relating this to Coleridge’s view of the three main modes of balance or imbalance in the human mind.
The Way Down and the Way Up
Authors: Cheyne Peter
Published: February 2020

Chapter 10 presents what the author holds to be the most important dimension to Coleridge’s logic and metaphysics, namely the pursuit of the contemplation of ideas—the ‘Noetic’. This chapter provides the humane meaning promised in the more technical Chapter 9. Section 10.1 interprets Coleridge’s pentads, when read as ‘the way down’, as ladder-like schemata of the actualization of ideas and laws into phenomena. Section 10.2 reads them as aids to contemplation when read in the opposite direction, ‘the way up’, both readings exemplifying Heraclitus’ dictum that ‘the way up and the way down are one and the same’. Section 10.3 explicates Coleridge’s claim that ‘the likeliest way of begetting’ ideas is through ‘Anticip[ation] + Theoresis’, uniting the positive, intuitive drive towards ideas (the genius of anticipation), with the negative techniques of logical and conceptual abstraction (the cleverness of theory), each balancing the other towards the idea.
The Blind that Gaze, the Blind that Creep Back, Shades that Flit, and the Dragon
Authors: Cheyne Peter
Published: February 2020

The baroque title of Chapter 11 alludes to Coleridge’s ‘Limbo’ sequence of poems (1811). Section 11.1 contrasts Coleridge’s notion of faith as fidelity to ideas with the refusal to contemplate them, either to diminish the expectations on one to merely empirical considerations, or, more extreme, from a self-love that Coleridge calls ‘demonic’, refusing any but itself as the highest principle. The theme of degrees of contemplation from the limited positive to the negativity of anti-contemplation is explored in the ‘Limbo’ sequence in Section 11.2. The Behmenist aspects of this poetic sequence refer back to Chapter 5, but also bring this book to its conclusion by contrasting the blind ‘Old Man’ who ‘seems to gaze’ on the moon as a partly positive, though deprived, contemplation, against three progressively more negative modes in the sequence, the light-avoiding moles, the departed souls in Limbo, and the absolute rejection of light by the Dragon, the Satan of ‘Ne Plus Ultra’.
“The World is Made for Men”
Authors: Christie Nancy
Published: February 2020

Canvassing the criminal and civil courts of Quebec, this chapter uncovers the patterns of male assault, both against other men and against women, with a focus upon the ways in which quotidian social practices defined a variety of modes of masculine behavior, which reinforced and subverted cultural codes of normative manhood built around patriarchal authority. This chapter argues that there was considerable state and non-state violence within the colony, which was used as a primary instrument by which to demarcate small differences of rank, and that while insults and assaults largely occurred within ethnic enclaves, over time these became increasingly characterized by interethnic conflict.
“Unfrenchifying” Quebec
Authors: Christie Nancy
Published: February 2020

In keeping with the overall theme of the contested nature of British rule, this chapter investigates the establishment of the first French-language newspaper, Le Canadien, demonstrating the way in which the French Canadian political opposition appropriated the tenets of classical republicanism to break the natural equation between Britishness and liberty. Because of this move, the English press was compelled to embrace Court Whig political discourse so that political allegiances and ideologies were now synonymous with two ethnic political factions. The discourse of political opposition was not derived from the model of the American Republic, as historians have previously contended, but was adapted from a longstanding mode of political argument within the colony and was driven by an often stridently anti-Catholic and anti-French British nationalism.
Conclusion
Authors: Christie Nancy
Published: February 2020

This chapter provides a concluding summary of the book. As it demonstrates, British policymakers as well as the local governing elite of Quebec hoped to establish a system of rule based on assimilating the French Canadian majority to British institutions, culture, and language. However, it also outlines the multiple ways in which British systems of governance and rule of law were contested not only through quotidian social practice, litigation, collective resistance, and cultural discourse more broadly. Where previous studies of colonialism have largely focused upon the subjugation and marginalization of racialized others, the book analyses how various techniques of rule were deployed to suppress the political activism of French Canadians, and how these became increasingly more authoritarian and anti-democratic in direct relation to the assertion of French Canadian claims to equality as British subjects.
Locke on Enthusiasm and the Association of Ideas
Authors: Tabb Kathryn
Published: February 2020

Locke added two new chapters to the fourth edition of his Essay concerning Human Understanding (1700): ‘Of the Association of Ideas’, and ‘Of Enthusiasm’. When examined together, these chapters reveal that Locke was increasingly attentive to—and troubled by—the potential of mad ideas and pathological principles to thwart the reasonableness at the heart of his political and theological projects. While Locke saw religious zealotry as a vice, he attributed its ultimate causes not to a sinfulness of the will but to a disease of the understanding. Unlike later theorists who would treat the association of ideas as a general mechanism of cognition, Locke saw it as a pathological force that could explain the failures of otherwise rational people to respond to evidence. This technical account of madness is a linchpin not only for Locke’s theory of enthusiasm, but also for his mature views on toleration.
Cultural Narratives and the Application of Non-Discrimination Law
Authors: Mulder Jule
Published: February 2020

This chapter discusses differences and changes in the national interpretation and application of EU anti-discrimination law through the lens of cultural myths and national identities with a focus on the German, Dutch, and English context. It argues that legal consciousness influencing the application of EU law is not only shaped by the broader legal framework, but also by cultural self-understanding relating to that legal framework. Specifically, it highlights how the Dutch culture of tolerance, German constitutional patriotism, and English pragmatism have shaped the interpretation and application of implemented EU non-discrimination law and turned it into national legal concepts that serve different purposes and cover a different scope in each jurisdiction.
The Pre-Eminence of the General Principle of Equality over Specific Prohibition of Discrimination on Suspect Grounds in Czechia
Authors: Havelková Barbara
Published: February 2020

This chapter shows that the general principle of equality is the pre-eminent doctrine in Czechia. It is more often and more readily applied than ground-related anti-discrimination law by courts and administrative bodies alike, and the two doctrines are often conflated. This is paradoxical, because ground-related anti-discrimination law is distinctive and arguably addresses a graver wrong: while the general principle of equality targets random arbitrariness, irrationality or unfairness, the prohibition of discrimination on specific grounds focuses on oft-repeated, systematic behaviour and practices which track deep historical and/or current disadvantages.
Access to Justice in Sweden from a Comparative Perspective
Authors: Carlson Laura
Published: February 2020

This chapter explores reasons for why discrimination legislation is not successful in Sweden, despite Sweden having legislated all the requirements of EU law. The chapter first focuses briefly on the Anglo-American historical development of the concept of access to justice and then examines how access to justice has been addressed in Sweden. Though the differences of approach are often explained as simply that of common and civil law, this chapter demonstrates that they are instead anchored in the interplay between civil society, government agencies, courts, and law-makers, as well as a concept of law (regardless of whether judge-made or statutory) as individually enforceable or simply policy declarations.
Combating Pregnancy Discrimination in the Netherlands
Authors: Burri Susanne
Published: February 2020

The Dutch Institute for Human Rights offers an easy accessible complaint procedure free of charge and has more recently focused on enforcing Dutch and EU anti-discrimination law in relation to pregnancy. In the context of a labour market increasingly characterized by so-called flexible work relations, recent research commissioned by this equality body shows that the non-renewal of a fixed-term employment contract of pregnant women is widespread. Proving that pregnancy was one of the reasons for the non-renewal of a contract often presents difficulties in practice, however. The enhanced awareness of the prohibition of pregnancy discrimination might even result in more hidden forms of discrimination, turning combating pregnancy discrimination into quite a challenge.
The French Atlantic World
Authors: Forrest Alan
Published: February 2020

This chapter examines the development of France’s colonial empire over the long eighteenth century, from the early settlements to the eve of the revolution. It demonstrates the geopolitical logic of an empire stretching from the St Lawrence River to Louisiana and across the Caribbean, and shows how this empire had been cut back through a series of colonial wars, especially with Great Britain, leading to the loss of Canada at the Peace of Paris in 1763. By the end of the Ancien Régime, France’s principal interest in the Americas was in the Caribbean and especially Saint-Domingue, which was the wealthiest of all European colonies in the Atlantic world. The chapter concludes with a discussion of France’s trade with its Atlantic possessions and of the system of imperial preference it imposed.
‘What’s in a name?’—The effective promotion of brain health in preterm babies
Authors: Aziz Khalid
Published: February 2020

The achievement of optimal brain health in very preterm babies is a challenge for modern neonatology. There has been limited success in this area of concern despite improvements in other neonatal outcomes. The barriers to progress are (a) the language and definitions that clinicians and scientists use to describe outcomes, (b) our representation of causation, and (c) the rigour with which we apply quality improvement science. Quality improvement science requires clear, relevant, and discriminating language to explain aims, drivers, processes, outcomes, interventions, and definitions. To date, clinical guidelines and research publications have not addressed prevailing flaws in language, causation, and definition. The persisting flaws have restricted identification of quality improvement opportunities and limited the impact of quality improvement efforts. Our community of neonatal caregivers and researchers needs a new and comprehensive approach to language, causation, and implementation science in order to address brain health in very preterm babies.
The palivizumab patchwork: Variation in guidelines for Respiratory Syncytial Virus prevention across Canadian provinces and territories
Authors: Jalink Matthew , Langley Joanne M
Published: February 2020

Background

Respiratory Syncytial Virus is the leading cause of hospitalization for lower respiratory tract infection in young children. The only preventive intervention is an anti-Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) monoclonal antibody (palivizumab, Synagis) administered as monthly intramuscular injections during the winter. Recommendations for palivizumab use have been published by the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) and other agencies. We sought to determine if there was interjurisdictional variation in eligibility for palivizumab across provinces and territories and in comparison to CPS recommendations, as well as the nature of this variation.

Methods

Eligibility criteria were obtained from personnel coordinating provincial and territorial programs and from public governmental websites.

Results

All 13 jurisdictions provided information about their palivizumab eligibility policies. No province or territory (PT) follows CPS guidelines exactly and substantial heterogeneity exists among jurisdictions. All PT jurisdictions provide prophylaxis in the first year of life to infants with hemodynamically significant congenital heart disease or chronic lung disease on ongoing therapy for those conditions, and to premature children in remote areas. In general, PTs had more liberal policies than the CPS, offering palivizumab to a wide range of children with conditions such as cystic fibrosis, Down syndrome or to moderately premature children with risk factors.

Conclusions

Substantial variation in PT criteria for RSV prevention exists in Canada, and no jurisdiction follows CPS criteria exactly. Variability in subnational policy may reflect access to human or material resources, varying interpretation of evidence for efficacy, variation in epidemiology, the effect of local pressures, or advocacy.
Determinants of quality of research environment: An assessment of the environment submissions in the UK’s Research Excellence Framework in 2014
Authors: Pinar Mehmet , Unlu Emre
Published: February 2020

One of the assessed research elements in the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise in 2014 was the research environment. The quality of the research environment was assessed by expert peer reviewers who were given a set of quantitative factors to support their decision making. However, there is no systematic procedure to integrate this quantitative information into the evaluation process. This article evaluates the relevance of quantitative factors in explaining the assessed quality of the research environment. Findings suggest submitting units with high external research income generation tend to have a better research environment evaluation in almost all the assessed subject areas. The importance given by reviewers to similar quantitative factors was distinctively different in two units of assessment (UoA) in which the evaluation criteria were the same, which highlights the internal inconsistency of the peer review evaluation. Our findings also confirm the existence of the ‘halo effect’ in some UoA where submitting units that belong to the Russell group and have sub-panel members in the REF exercise obtained higher scores even after controlling for the assessed quantitative factors.
Social Cognition and Schizophrenia: Unresolved Issues and New Challenges in a Maturing Field of Research
Authors: Vaskinn Anja , Horan William P
Published: February 2020

Social cognition has become a topic of widespread interest in experimental and treatment research in schizophrenia over the past 15 years. This explosion of interest largely reflects the robust evidence that social cognition is among the strongest known correlates of poor community functioning throughout the course of schizophrenia. While progress has been impressive, we consider several fundamental questions about the scope, structure, and optimal measurement of social cognition that remain unanswered and point to the need for continued method development. We also consider more recently emerging questions about individual differences, ecological and cross-cultural validity, and intervention approaches, as well as broader technological changes that impact how we understand and use social cognition at a societal level. Continued efforts to creatively grapple with the complexities and challenges the field now faces hold great promise for helping us understand and more effectively treat a major source of functional disability in schizophrenia.
Emotion Recognition and Adverse Childhood Experiences in Individuals at Clinical High Risk of Psychosis
Authors: Tognin Stefania , Catalan Ana , Modinos Gemma , Kempton Matthew J , Bilbao Amaia , Nelson Barnaby , Pantelis Christos , Riecher-Rössler Anita , Bressan Rodrigo , Barrantes-Vidal Neus , Krebs Marie-Odile , Nordentoft Merete , Ruhrmann Stephan , Sachs Gabriele , Rutten Bart P F , van Os Jim , de Haan Lieuwe , van der Gaag Mark ,   EU-GEI High Risk Study, McGuire Philip , Valmaggia Lucia R
Published: February 2020

Objective

To investigate the association between facial affect recognition (FAR) and type of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in a sample of clinical high risk (CHR) individuals and a matched sample of healthy controls (HCs).

Methods

In total, 309 CHR individuals and 51 HC were recruited as part of an European Union-funded multicenter study (EU-GEI) and included in this work. During a 2-year follow-up period, 65 CHR participants made a transition to psychosis (CHR-T) and 279 did not (CHR-NT). FAR ability was measured using a computerized version of the Degraded Facial Affect Recognition (DFAR) task. ACEs were measured using the Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse Questionnaire, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, and the Bullying Questionnaire. Generalized regression models were used to investigate the relationship between ACE and FAR. Logistic regressions were used to investigate the relationship between FAR and psychotic transition.

Results

In CHR individuals, having experienced emotional abuse was associated with decreased total and neutral DFAR scores. CHR individuals who had experienced bullying performed better in the total DFAR and in the frightened condition. In HC and CHR, having experienced the death of a parent during childhood was associated with lower DFAR total score and lower neutral DFAR score, respectively. Analyses revealed a modest increase of transition risk with increasing mistakes from happy to angry faces.

Conclusions

Adverse experiences in childhood seem to have a significant impact on emotional processing in adult life. This information could be helpful in a therapeutic setting where both difficulties in social interactions and adverse experiences are often addressed.
Genome-Informed Recombinase Polymerase Amplification Assay Coupled with a Lateral Flow Device for In-Field Detection of Dickeya Species
Authors: Boluk Gamze , Dobhal Shefali , Crockford Alex B. , Melzer Michael , Alvarez Anne M. , Arif Mohammad
Published: February 2020

Dickeya spp. cause blackleg and soft rot diseases of potato and several other plant species worldwide, resulting in high economic losses. Rapid detection and identification of the pathogen is essential for facilitating efficient disease management. Our aim in this research was to develop a rapid and field-deployable recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) assay coupled with a lateral flow device (LFD) that will accurately detect Dickeya spp. in infected plant tissues without the need for DNA isolation. A unique genomic region (mglA/mglC genes) conserved among Dickeya spp. was used to design highly specific robust primers and probes for an RPA assay. Assay specificity was validated with 34 representative strains from all Dickeya spp. and 24 strains from other genera and species; no false positives or negatives were detected. An RPA assay targeting the internal transcribed spacer region of the host genome was included to enhance the reliability and accuracy of the Dickeya assay. The detection limit of 1 fg was determined by both sensitivity and spiked sensitivity assays; no inhibitory effects were observed when 1 µl of host sap, macerated in Tris-EDTA buffer, was added to each reaction in the sensitivity tests. The developed RPA assay is rapid, highly accurate, sensitive, and fully field deployable. It has numerous applications in routine diagnostics, surveillance, biosecurity, and disease management.
Elsinoë australis Causing Spot Anthracnose on Poplar in China
Authors: Zhao Lijuan , Xiao Hongju , Ma Xujie , Cheng Qiang
Published: February 2020

Poplar plantations provide important industrial feedstock in China. Red spot symptoms were observed on leaves of Populus tomentosa and P. deltoides in southeastern China. Based on morphology and molecular phylogenetic analysis, the fungus isolated from disease spots was identified as Elsinoë australis, which has been previously recognized as a pathogen of Citrus spp. and jojoba but has not been reported in China. Pathogenicity tests found that isolates from two poplar species caused red spot symptoms on leaves from different poplar species and also led to scab formation on the fruit of one hybrid citrus but not on fruit of orange, lemon, or grapefruit. The draft genome of one E. australis isolate was generated. The genetic architecture of the MAT1-1 and MAT1-2 loci of E. australis was revealed by genome sequence and long-range PCR analyses. Single isolates carried only one of two opposite mating-types was confirmed by idiomorph-specific PCR, suggesting a heterothallic mating system. Our results not only revealed a new E. australis pathotype causing poplar spot anthracnose in China but also provided its genome and mating system information.
Prediction of Early Season Beet Leafhopper Populations in Southern New Mexico
Authors: Lehnhoff Erik , Creamer Rebecca
Published: February 2020

Curly top is an important widespread disease in semiarid regions that can be caused by several Curtovirus and Becurtovirus species. The strains of beet curly top virus (BCTV) have been some of the most widely reported to be associated with curly top. The viruses causing curly top are phloem limited and transmitted by the beet leafhopper (BLH), Circulifer tenellus Baker (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae). The BLH can also transmit other important pathogens such as phytoplasmas. Both the virus and insect vector have a broad host range of crops and weeds, including the winter annual weed London rocket (Sisymbrium irio L.). Prior prediction of disease would allow growers a window of opportunity to make informed management choices. A prediction model of BLH abundance was developed for southern New Mexico based on fall precipitation, which corresponds with London rocket emergence, and BLH sticky trap catch data for 2001 to 2018. Regression analyses showed positive associations between BLH numbers and October + November rainfall (P < 0.001) for two areas within southern New Mexico. A third area, where good weed management was used, had lower BLH numbers, and the relationship with precipitation was not significant (P = 0.190). Cumulative-season BLH abundance was correlated with BLH abundance in late April (r = 0.43) and late May (r = 0.56), indicating that early season knowledge of BLH abundance is useful for planning later season management. Although models based on October + November precipitation are good predictors of BLH abundance through June, they may not predict year-long BLH abundance because other environmental and biological factors contribute to subsequent BLH success and movement.
Ancylomarina longa sp. nov., isolated from southern Okinawa Trough sediment and emended description of the family Marinifilaceae
Authors: Fu Tianyu , Cui Hongchang , Jia Chao , Sun Wen , Zhou Shun , Han Yanqiong , Liu Lijun , Shi Xiaochong , Zhang Xiao-Hua
Published: February 2020

A Gram-stain-negative, obligately anaerobic, non-motile, non-spore-forming, long-rod-shaped and non-flagellated bacterial strain, designated T3-2 S1-CT, was isolated from a sediment sample collected at the Okinawa Trough. Phylogenetic analyses of 16S rRNA gene sequences and the whole genome revealed that strain T3-2 S1-CT was a member of the family

Marinifilaceae

and exhibited less than 95.1 % sequence similarities to the closely related type strains of the family

Marinifilaceae

. Optimal growth occurred at pH 7.0, 28 °C and in the presence of 3 % (w/v) NaCl. The isoprenoid quinone of strain T3-2 S1-CT was identified as menaquinone-7 (MK-7) and the predominant fatty acids (>10 %) were iso-C15 : 0 (38.9 %) and anteiso-C15 : 0 (11.6 %). The major polar lipids were one phosphatidylethanolamine, one phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine, one aminolipids, two unidentified lipids and two unidentified phospholipids. The DNA G+C content of strain T3-2 S1-CT was 35.7 mol%. On the basis of the results of polyphasic analyses, strain T3-2 S1-CT is considered to represent a novel species of the genus

Ancylomarina

, for which the name Ancylomarina longa sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is T3-2 S1-CT (=KCTC 15505T=MCCC 1K01617T).
MEK inhibition causes Bim stabilization and sensitivity to Bcl2 family member inhibitors in RAS-MAPK mutated neuroblastoma
Authors: Eleveld Thomas F , Vernooij Lindy , Schild Linda , Koopmans Bianca , Alles Lindy K , Ebus Marli E , van Sluis Peter , Caron Huib N , Koster Jan , Versteeg Rogier , Dolman M. Emmy M. , Molenaar Jan J
Published: February 2020

Mutations affecting the RAS-MAPK pathway occur frequently in relapsed neuroblastoma tumors and are associated with response to MEK inhibitionin vitro. However, these inhibitors alone do not lead to tumor regressionin vivo, indicating the need for combination therapy. Through high throughput combination screening we identify Trametinib and inhibitors of the BCL2 family (Navitoclax and Venetoclax) as a promising combination in neuroblastoma cells with RAS-MAPK mutations. In these lines, inhibiting the RAS-MAPK pathway leads to Bim stabilization and increased sensitivity to compounds inhibiting Bim binding to Bcl2 family members. Combining Trametinib with BCL2 inhibitors causes increased growth inhibition compared to Trametinib only inNRASmutant SKNAS xenografts, while BCL2 inihibitors alone do not affect growth of these tumors. These results show that MEK inhibitors and specific Bcl2 family member inhibitors are a potent combination for RAS-MAPK mutated neuroblastoma tumors.
Disadvantages of writing, reading, publishing and presenting scientific papers caused by the dominance of the English language in science: The case of Colombian PhD in biological sciences
Authors: Ramírez-Castañeda Valeria
Published: February 2020

The success of a scientist depends on their production of scientific papers and the impact factor of the journal in which they publish. Because most major scientific journals are published in English, success is related to publishing in this language. Currently, 98% of publications in science are written in English, including researchers from English as a Foreign Language (EFL) countries. Colombia is among the countries with the lowest English proficiency in the world. Thus, understanding the disadvantages that Colombians face in publishing is crucial to reducing global inequality in science. This paper quantifies the disadvantages that result from the language hegemony in scientific publishing by examining the additional costs that communicating in English creates in the production of articles. It was identified that more than 90% of the scientific articles published by Colombian researchers are in English, and that publishing in a second language creates additional financial costs to Colombian doctoral students and results in problems with reading comprehension, writing ease and time, and anxiety. Rejection or revision of their articles because of the English grammar was reported by 43.5% of the doctoral students, and 33% elected not to attend international conferences and meetings due to the mandatory use of English in oral presentations. Finally, among the translation/editing services reviewed, the cost per article is between one-quarter and one-half of a doctoral monthly salary in Colombia. Of particular note, we identified a positive correlation between English proficiency and higher socioeconomic origin of the researcher. Overall, this study exhibits the negative consequences of hegemony of English that preserves the global gap in science. Although having a common language is important for science communication, generating multilinguistic alternatives would promote diversity while conserving a communication channel. Such an effort should come from different actors and should not fall solely on EFL researchers.