bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cell death-based treatment of neuroblastoma
Authors: Valter Kadri , Zhivotovsky Boris , Gogvadze Vladimir
Published: January 2018

Neuroblastoma (NB) is the most common solid childhood tumor outside the brain and causes 15% of childhood cancer-related mortality. The main drivers of NB formation are neural crest cell-derived sympathoadrenal cells that undergo abnormal genetic arrangements. Moreover, NB is a complex disease that has high heterogeneity and is therefore difficult to target for successful therapy. Thus, a better understanding of NB development helps to improve treatment and increase the survival rate. One of the major causes of sporadic NB is known to be MYCN amplification and mutations in ALK (anaplastic lymphoma kinase) are responsible for familial NB. Many other genetic abnormalities can be found; however, they are not considered as driver mutations, rather they support tumor aggressiveness. Tumor cell elimination via cell death is widely accepted as a successful technique. Therefore, in this review, we provide a thorough overview of how different modes of cell death and treatment strategies, such as immunotherapy or spontaneous regression, are or can be applied for NB elimination. In addition, several currently used and innovative approaches and their suitability for clinical testing and usage will be discussed. Moreover, significant attention will be given to combined therapies that show more effective results with fewer side effects than drugs targeting only one specific protein or pathway.
Cellular stressors contribute to the expansion of hematopoietic clones of varying leukemic potential
Authors: Wong Terrence N. , Miller Christopher A. , Jotte Matthew R. M. , Bagegni Nusayba , Baty Jack D. , Schmidt Amy P. , Cashen Amanda F. , Duncavage Eric J. , Helton Nichole M. , Fiala Mark , Fulton Robert S. , Heath Sharon E. , Janke Megan , Luber Kierstin , Westervelt Peter , Vij Ravi , DiPersio John F. , Welch John S. , Graubert Timothy A. , Walter Matthew J. , Ley Timothy J. , Link Daniel C.
Published: January 2018

Hematopoietic clones harboring specific mutations may expand over time. However, it remains unclear how different cellular stressors influence this expansion. Here we characterize clonal hematopoiesis after two different cellular stressors: cytotoxic therapy and hematopoietic transplantation. Cytotoxic therapy results in the expansion of clones carrying mutations in DNA damage response genes, including TP53 and PPM1D. Analyses of sorted populations show that these clones are typically multilineage and myeloid-biased. Following autologous transplantation, most clones persist with stable chimerism. However, DNMT3A mutant clones often expand, while PPM1D mutant clones often decrease in size. To assess the leukemic potential of these expanded clones, we genotyped 134 t-AML/t-MDS samples. Mutations in non-TP53 DNA damage response genes are infrequent in t-AML/t-MDS despite several being commonly identified after cytotoxic therapy. These data suggest that different hematopoietic stressors promote the expansion of distinct long-lived clones, carrying specific mutations, whose leukemic potential depends partially on the mutations they harbor.
Chemical durability of peraluminous glasses for nuclear waste conditioning
Authors: Piovesan Victor , Bardez-Giboire Isabelle , Fournier Maxime , Frugier Pierre , Jollivet Patrick , Montouillout Valérie , Pellerin Nadia , Gin Stéphane
Published: January 2018

For the handling of high level nuclear waste (HLW), new glass formulations with a high waste capacity and an enhanced thermal stability, chemical durability, and processability are under consideration. This study focuses on the durability of peraluminous glasses in the SiO2–Al2O3–B2O3–Na2O–CaO–La2O3 system, defined by an excess of Al3+ ions compared with the network-modifying cations Na+ and Ca2+. To qualify the behavior of such a peraluminous glass in a geological storage situation, its chemical durability was studied in various environments (pure water, groundwater, and alkaline solutions related to a cement environment) and glass alteration regimes (initial rate, residual rate, and resumption of alteration). The alteration solution was characterized by inductively coupled plasma, and the altered glass by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and secondary ion mass spectrometry. A comparative study of the chemical durability of these and reference glasses (ISG and SON68) over all timescales highlights the remarkable properties of the former. While their initial dissolution rate is of the same order as the reference glasses, the gel formed under silica saturation conditions is more passivating, making its dissolution rate at least one order of magnitude lower, while its low alkalinity makes it less susceptible to clayey groundwater and highly alkaline solutions.
Quantum key distribution with an efficient countermeasure against correlated intensity fluctuations in optical pulses
Authors: Yoshino Ken-ichiro , Fujiwara Mikio , Nakata Kensuke , Sumiya Tatsuya , Sasaki Toshihiko , Takeoka Masahiro , Sasaki Masahide , Tajima Akio , Koashi Masato , Tomita Akihisa
Published: January 2018

Quantum key distribution (QKD) allows two distant parties to share secret keys with the proven security even in the presence of an eavesdropper with unbounded computational power. Recently, GHz-clock decoy QKD systems have been realized by employing ultrafast optical communication devices. However, security loopholes of high-speed systems have not been fully explored yet. Here we point out a security loophole at the transmitter of the GHz-clock QKD, which is a common problem in high-speed QKD systems using practical band-width limited devices. We experimentally observe the inter-pulse intensity correlation and modulation pattern-dependent intensity deviation in a practical high-speed QKD system. Such correlation violates the assumption of most security theories. We also provide its countermeasure which does not require significant changes of hardware and can generate keys secure over 100 km fiber transmission. Our countermeasure is simple, effective and applicable to wide range of high-speed QKD systems, and thus paves the way to realize ultrafast and security-certified commercial QKD systems.
Biomaterials-enabled cornea regeneration in patients at high risk for rejection of donor tissue transplantation
Authors: Islam M. Mirazul , Buznyk Oleksiy , Reddy Jagadesh C. , Pasyechnikova Nataliya , Alarcon Emilio I. , Hayes Sally , Lewis Philip , Fagerholm Per , He Chaoliang , Iakymenko Stanislav , Liu Wenguang , Meek Keith M. , Sangwan Virender S. , Griffith May
Published: January 2018

The severe worldwide shortage of donor organs, and severe pathologies placing patients at high risk for rejecting conventional cornea transplantation, have left many corneal blind patients untreated. Following successful pre-clinical evaluation in mini-pigs, we tested a biomaterials-enabled pro-regeneration strategy to restore corneal integrity in an open-label observational study of six patients. Cell-free corneal implants comprising recombinant human collagen and phosphorylcholine were grafted by anterior lamellar keratoplasty into corneas of unilaterally blind patients diagnosed at high-risk for rejecting donor allografts. They were followed-up for a mean of 24 months. Patients with acute disease (ulceration) were relieved of pain and discomfort within 1–2 weeks post-operation. Patients with scarred or ulcerated corneas from severe infection showed better vision improvement, followed by corneas with burns. Corneas with immune or degenerative conditions transplanted for symptom relief only showed no vision improvement overall. However, grafting promoted nerve regeneration as observed by improved touch sensitivity to near normal levels in all patients tested, even for those with little/no sensitivity before treatment. Overall, three out of six patients showed significant vision improvement. Others were sufficiently stabilized to allow follow-on surgery to restore vision. Grafting outcomes in mini-pig corneas were superior to those in human subjects, emphasizing that animal models are only predictive for patients with non-severely pathological corneas; however, for establishing parameters such as stable corneal tissue and nerve regeneration, our pig model is satisfactory. While further testing is merited, we have nevertheless shown that cell-free implants are potentially safe, efficacious options for treating high-risk patients.
Angiogenesis and evading immune destruction are the main related transcriptomic characteristics to the invasive process of oral tongue cancer
Authors: Pérez-Valencia Juan Alberto , Prosdocimi Francisco , Cesari Italo M. , da Costa Igor Rodrigues , Furtado Carolina , Agostini Michelle , Rumjanek Franklin David
Published: January 2018

Metastasis of head and neck tumors is responsible for a high mortality rate. Understanding its biochemistry may allow insights into tumorigenesis. To that end we carried out RNA-Seq analyses of 5 SCC9 derived oral cancer cell lines displaying increased invasive potential. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were annotated based on p-values and false discovery rate (q-values). All 292 KEGG pathways related to the human genome were compared in order to pinpoint the absolute and relative contributions to the invasive process considering the 8 hallmarks of cancer plus 2 new defined categories, as well as we made with our transcriptomic data. In terms of absolute contribution, the highest correlations were associated to the categories of evading immune destruction and energy metabolism and for relative contributions, angiogenesis and evading immune destruction. DEGs were distributed into each one of all possible modes of regulation, regarding up, down and continuum expression, along the 3 stages of metastatic progression. For p-values twenty-six genes were consistently present along the tumoral progression and 4 for q-values. Among the DEGs, we found 2 novel potentially informative metastatic markers: PIGG and SLC8B1. Furthermore, interactome analysis showed that MYH14, ANGPTL4, PPARD and ENPP1 are amenable to pharmacological interventions.
Proposed mechanism of HCP → FCC phase transition in titianium through first principles calculation and experiments
Authors: Yang Jia Xi , Zhao Heng Lv , Gong Hao Ran , Song Min , Ren Qing Qiang
Published: January 2018

By means of first principles calculation and experiments, a detailed mechanism is proposed to include the stages of slip, adjustment, and expansion for the HCP → FCC phase transformation with the prismatic relation of $${{\{}{10}\bar{{1}}{0}{\}}}_{{hcp}}{\parallel }{\{}{1}\bar{{1}}{0}{{\}}}_{{fcc}}$$

{
10

1
¯

0
}

hcp

∥
{
1

1
¯

0

}

fcc

and $${{[}{0001}{]}}_{{hcp}}{\parallel }{[}{001}{{]}}_{{fcc}}$$

[
0001
]

hcp

∥
[
001

]

fcc

in titanium. It is revealed that the formation of four FCC layers is preferable after the slip of Shockley partial dislocations of 1/6 $$\langle {1}\bar{{2}}{10}\rangle $$
〈
1

2
¯

10
〉
on $${\{}{10}\bar{{1}}{0}{\}}$$
{
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0
}
planes, and that the adjustment of interplanar spacing and the volume expansion are energetically favorable and could happen spontaneously without any energy barrier. It is also found that the transformed FCC lattice first follows the c/a ratio (1.583) of HCP and then becomes an ideal FCC structure (c/a = √2). The proposed mechanism could not only provide a deep understanding to the process of HCP → FCC prismatic transformation in titanium, but also clarify the controversy regarding volume expansion of HCP-FCC phase transition of titanium in the literature.
Monoclinic oxygen-deficient tungsten oxide nanowires for dynamic and independent control of near-infrared and visible light transmittance
Authors: Zhang Shengliang , Cao Sheng , Zhang Tianran , Yao Qiaofeng , Fisher Adrian , Lee Jim Yang
Published: January 2018

Independent control of near-infrared and visible light using a single-component electrochromic material and its underlying mechanism are demonstrated.
Detection of pesticide residue distribution on fruit surfaces using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy imaging
Authors: Chen Jiannan , Dong Daming , Ye Song
Published: January 2018

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is an emerging technique for the detection of pesticide residues on food surfaces, permitting quantitative measurement of pesticide residues without pretreating the sample.
Promoting early neovascularization of SIS-repaired abdominal wall by controlled release of bioactive VEGF
Authors: Tang Rui , Wang Xin , Zhang Hanying , Liang Xi , Feng Xueyi , Zhu Xiaoqiang , Lu Xinwu , Wu Fei , Liu Zhengni
Published: January 2018

Insufficient early neovascularization post-operation is thought to be the main reason of surgical recurrence of porcine small intestinal submucosa (SIS)-repaired abdominal wall defects.
Catalyst- and solvent-free approach to 2-arylated quinolines via [5 + 1] annulation of 2-methylquinolines with diynones
Authors: Zhao Hai-Yuan , Wu Fu-Song , Yang Li , Liang Ying , Cao Xiao-Lin , Wang Heng-Shan , Pan Ying-Ming
Published: January 2018

A novel route for the synthesis of 2-arylated quinolines through a [5 + 1] annulation directly from 2-methylquinolines and diynones under catalyst-free and solvent-free conditions was disclosed.
Fluorine-functionalized ionic liquids with high oxygen solubility
Authors: Vanhoutte Gijs , Hojniak Sandra D. , Bardé Fanny , Binnemans Koen , Fransaer Jan
Published: January 2018

Oxygen solubility in ionic liquids is improved by increasing the number of fluorine atoms in the alkyl side chains.
Hybrid biopolymer electrodes for lithium- and sodium-ion batteries in organic electrolytes
Authors: Navarro-Suárez A. M. , Carretero-González J. , Casado N. , Mecerreyes D. , Rojo T. , Castillo-Martínez E.
Published: January 2018

Hybrid biopolymers, composed of lignin and PEDOT, show enhanced storage capacity for lithium- and sodium-ion batteries.
Novel dual superlyophobic materials in water–oil systems: under oil magneto-fluid transportation and oil–water separation
Authors: Xu Chang-Lian , Wang Yu-Zhong
Published: January 2018

Dual superlyophobic materials were fabricated via a simple hydrothermal method for non-loss liquid transportation and oil-water separation.
High glucose contributes to the proliferation and migration of non-small-cell lung cancer cells via GAS5-TRIB3 axis
Authors: Ding Cheng-Zhi , Guo Xu-Feng , Wang Guo-Lei , Wang Hong-Tao , Xu Guang-Hui , Liu Yuan-Yuan , Wu Zhen-Jiang , Chen Yu-Hang , Wang Jiao , Wang Wen-Guang
Published: January 2018

Despite the growing number of studies exhibiting an association of diabetes mellitus (DM) and lung cancer progression, the concrete mechanism of DM aggravating lung cancer has not been elucidated. The present study was to investigate whether and how high glucose (HG) contributes to the proliferation and migration of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells in vitro. In the present study, we confirmed that HG promoted the proliferation and migration of NSCLC cells, and also induced an anti-apoptotic effect on NSCLC cells. Moreover, HG inhibited the expression of growth arrest-specific 5 (GAS5) in NSCLC cells but elevated the protein level of tribbles homolog 3 (TRIB3). GAS5 overexpression promoted the degradation of TRIB3 protein by ubiquitination and inhibited the HG-induced proliferation, anti-apoptosis, and migration of NSCLC cells. Importantly, TRIB3 overexpression reversed the effects of GAS5 on the HG-treated NSCLC cells. Taken together, down-regulated GAS5 by HG significantly enhanced the proliferation, anti-apoptosis, and migration in NSCLC cells through TRIB3, thus promoting the carcinogenesis of NSCLC.
Fractal‐based autonomous partial discharge pattern recognition method for MV motors
Authors: Ma Zhuo , Yang Yang , Kearns Martin , Cowan Kevin , Yi Huajie , Hepburn Donald M. , Zhou Chengke
Published: January 2018

On‐line partial discharge (PD) monitoring is being increasingly adopted to improve the asset management and maintenance of medium‐voltage (MV) motors. This study presents a novel method for autonomous analysis and classification of motor PD patterns in situations where a phase‐reference voltage waveform is not available. The main contributions include a polar PD (PPD) pattern and a fractal theory‐based autonomous PD recognition method. PPD pattern that is applied to convert the traditional phase‐resolved PD pattern into a circular form addresses the lack of phase information in on‐line PD monitoring system. The fractal theory is then presented in detail to address the task of discrimination of 6 kinds of single source and 15 kinds of multi‐source PD patterns related to motors, as outlined in IEC 60034. The classification of known and unknown defects is calculated by a method known as centre score. Validation of the proposed method is demonstrated using data from laboratory experiments on three typical PD geometries. This study also discusses the application of the proposed techniques with 24 sets of on‐site PD measurement data from 4 motors in 2 nuclear power stations. The results show that the proposed method performs effectively in recognising not only the single‐source PD but also multi‐source PDs.
Factors affecting herder adoption of winter lambing practices in the desert steppe region of Inner Mongolia, China
Authors: Yin Yantin , Wang Zhen , Li Xiliang , Langford Colin , Yun Xiangjun , Mu Huaibin , Hou Xiangyang
Published: January 2018

Although winter lambing practices (WL) have been shown to be a ‘win-win’ strategy for reducing the degradation of grasslands and improving herder livelihood in the pastoral regions of China, the adoption rate is still low. A survey was conducted to explore herders’ opinions of WL and other factors which influenced the adoption in the desert steppe region of Inner Mongolia, China. Herders who have spring lambing practices generally hold unfavourable opinions about WL. Most have only heard about WL but did not understand the detailed information of implementation or how it increases income. Herder ethnical background, distance to market and neighbours’ choices significantly affected the adoption rate. Han herders were more likely to adopt WL than Mongolian herders. Proximity to market led herders to be more market-focused and to adopt WL. Herders were more inclined to make the same choices as their neighbours. The results showed that herders were prepared to change and were carefully assessing the gains and losses of adopting WL. Results had implications for improving the adoption rate for WL and other livestock management practices in China.
Progress in the Democratic Peace Research Agenda
Authors: Chan Steve
Published: January 2018

According to the democratic peace theory, democracies are hesitant to engage in armed conflict with other identified democracies. Contrary to theories explaining war engagement, it is a “theory of peace” outlining motives that dissuade state-sponsored violence. The proposition that democracies are more peaceful than autocracies has spawned a huge literature. Much of the relevant quantitative research has shown that democracies indeed rarely, if ever, fight each other, although they are not necessarily less aggressive than autocracies in general. Although, statistically, the probability of war between any two states is considerably low, the absence of war among liberal democracies across a wide range of different historical, economic, and political factors suggests that there is a strong predisposition against the use of military violence between democratic states. According to scholars, the democratic peace theory can elaborate on the empirical phenomena previously explained by the earlier dominant research program, realism in international relations; in addition, the initial statement that democracies do not, or rarely, wage war on one another, has been followed by a rapidly growing literature on novel empirical regularities. This democratic peace proposition not only challenges the validity of other political systems, but also the prevailing realist account of international relations, which emphasizes balance-of-power calculations and common strategic interests.
Prospect Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis
Authors: Taliaferro Jeffrey W.
Published: January 2018

Prospect theory is one of the most influential behavioral theories in the international relations (IR) field, particularly among scholars of security studies, political psychology, and foreign policy analysis. Developed by Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, prospect theory provides key insights into decision making under conditions of risk and uncertainty. For example, most individuals are risk averse to secure gains, but risk acceptant to avoid losses (loss aversion). In addition, most people value items they already posses more than they value items they want to acquire (endowment effect), and tend to be risk averse if they perceive themselves to be facing gains relative to their reference point (risk propensity). Prospect theory has generated an enormous volume of scholarship in IR, which can be divided into two “generations”. The first generation (1990–1999) sought to establish prospect theory’s plausibility in the “real world” by testing hypotheses derived from it against subjective expected-utility theory or rational choice models of foreign policy decision making. The second generation (2000–present) began to incorporate concepts associated with prospect theory and related experimental literature on group risk taking into existing mid-level theories of IR and foreign policy behavior. Two substantive areas covered by scholars during this period are coercive diplomacy and great power intervention in the periphery as they relate to loss aversion. Both generations of prospect theory literature suffer from conceptual and methodological difficulties, mainly around the issues of reference point selection, framing, and preference reversal outside laboratory settings.
Public Opinion in Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration
Authors: Luedtke Adam
Published: January 2018

Ethnicity, nationalism, and migration are popular topics in many academic disciplines, but research on public opinion in these areas has suffered from a lack of good data, disciplinary fragmentation, and a dearth of studies that engage one another. This is evident in the case of public opinion survey research undertaken in the world’s hotspots of ethnic conflict. As a result, ethnic conflict scholars have had to rely on proxy measures or indirect studies to test “opinion” towards ethnicity and nationalism in the developing world. In the developed world, however, there is more to work with in terms of opinion measurements. A prominent example is the European Union’s “Eurobarometer” surveys, which gauge attachment to and identification with “Europe” and the individual nation. Research on national identity and ethnic conflict has often been the starting point for theories of public opinion regarding immigration. A common finding is that there is a weak connection (if any) between opinion and policy on the immigration issue. Several areas need to be addressed as far as research is concerned. For example, the picture of xenophobic hostility in rich countries must be understood in a context of general changes in word migration patterns, with some emerging economies also experiencing high levels of immigration, and concurrent anti-immigrant public opinion. Two shortcomings of the literature also deserve closer attention: a focus on developing-to-developed country migration; and a lack of analyses that combine push and pull factors, to measure their relative causal weight in terms of bilateral immigration flows.
Rationalism and Security
Authors: Wagner R. Harrison
Published: January 2018

In 1969, the game theorist John Harsanyi wrote an article criticizing the two main postulates of the general theory of social behavior prevalent at the time: the functionalist approach to the explanation of social institutions and the conformist approach to the explanation of individual behavior. According to Harsanyi, functionalist and conformist theories overstated the degree of consensus in societies, could not account for change, and described observed behavior without explaining it. Harsanyi proposed an alternative approach provided by theories based on the concept of rational choice (rational behavior, or rational decision-making). His goal was to develop a hypothetico-deductive theory explaining (and possibly predicting) a large number of empirical facts from a few relatively simple theoretical assumptions or axioms. Among students of international politics, Harsanyi’s approach sparked a controversy about rationalism. However, some critics of rationalism do not distinguish clearly between the interest-based theories Harsanyi criticized and the rational choice methods he advocated, and some even confuse both with neoclassical economics. In order to understand the issues raised in the controversy about rationalism, it is helpful to look at interest-based theories of politics and their relation to neoclassical economics. Game theory has provided a useful framework for the intellectual agenda outlined by Harsanyi, especially in the area of international security.
Realism and Security
Authors: Walt Stephen M.
Published: January 2018

Political Realism has been described as the “oldest theory” of international politics, as well as the “dominant” one. Central to the realist tradition is the concept of “security.” Realism sees the insecurity of states as the main problem in international relations. It depicts the international system as a realm where “self-help” is the primary motivation; states must provide security for themselves because no other agency or actor can be counted on to do so. However, realists offer different explanations for why security is scarce, emphasizing a range of underlying mechanisms and causal factors such as man’s innate desire for power; conflicts of interest that arise between states possessing different resource endowments, economic systems, and political orders; and the “ordering principle” of international anarchy. They also propose numerous factors that can intensify or ameliorate the basic security problem, such as polarity, shifts in the overall balance of power, the “offense–defense balance,” and domestic politics. Several alternative approaches to international relations have challenged the basic realist account of the security problem, three of which are democratic peace theory, economic liberalism, and social constructivism. Furthermore, realism outlines various strategies that states can pursue in order to make themselves more secure, such as maximizing power, international alliances, arms racing, socialization and innovation, and institutions and diplomacy. Scholars continue to debate the historical roots, conceptual foundations, and predictive accuracy of realism. New avenues of research cover issues such as civil war, ethnic conflict, mass violence, September 11, and the Iraq War.
Russian Security and Nuclear Policies: Successor to the Superpower Arsenal?
Authors: Omelicheva Mariya Y.
Published: January 2018

The Cold War was a period of hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union as the two superpowers engaged in a nuclear arms race. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, some scholars perceived that Russia’s military-industrial complex has deteriorated considerably, and that the country has fallen behind the United States and Europe in the area of information technologies and other strategically important sectors of national economy. Others insist that the image of Russia’s political irrelevancy and demotion of the country to a status of a “small” or even “medium” power is mistaken. The new Russia, they argue, has never surrendered its claims as a great power. Discussions about Russia’s global role have been fueled by its continuing nuclear standoff with the United States, along with growing concerns about its plans to develop more robust nuclear deterrents and modernize its nuclear arsenals. There is substantial scholarly literature dealing with Russia’s foreign, security, military, and nuclear policy, as well as the role of nuclear weapons in the Russian security framework. What the studies reveal is that the nuclear option remains an attractive alternative to Russia’s weakened conventional defense. Today, as before, Russia continues to place a high premium on the avoidance of a surprise attack and relies on its nuclear capabilities for strategic deterrence. There are a host of issues that deserve further investigation, such as the safety of Russia’s nuclear sites and the regional dimension of its nuclear policy.
Statistical Analysis of International Interdependencies
Authors: Ward Michael D.
Published: January 2018

The origin of the statistical analysis of international relations can be traced back to 1920s with the work of Quincy Wright, who founded the University of Chicago’s Committee on International Relations. He led an interdisciplinary study of war that provided a first compendium of what was then known about the causes of war. Wright's studies and those that came after them were based on the assumption that systematic data were required to advance our knowledge about the causes of violent conflicts, and that an analysis of the dynamics of strategic decision making were essential; in short, systematic data coupled with a theoretical framework that focused on the decision-making calculus. However, debates soon raged over whether this scientific approach was better than the classical approach, which was based on philosophy, history, and law, and did not conform to strict standards of verification and proof. Since then, the literature has evolved into studies with a strong theoretical motivation, often expressed via game theoretical analytics, examined empirically with statistical frameworks that are specifically sculpted to probe those strategic dependencies. As such, existing models have resolved the levels of analysis problem that appeared daunting to earlier generations by actually focusing on the modeling of aspects of world politics that enjoin many different levels simultaneously.
Teaching Post-Communist Politics
Authors: Anderson Leah Seppanen
Published: January 2018

A review of undergraduate course offerings at top-ranked colleges and universities in the United States and analysis of course syllabi from undergraduate programs in political science have revealed certain trends in the teaching post-communist politics. For instance, majority of schools now offer post-communist politics courses, although a student at a national university is more likely than one at a liberal arts institution to have the opportunity to learn about the region. Regardless of the type of school, students will most commonly study post-communism from a comparative, rather than international relations, perspective. Comparative courses usually focus on Russia and East Central Europe. Undergraduates curious about why a course on Russian politics matters will most often find syllabi that present the course as an examination of one of the most “dramatic political events of the twentieth century.” The examination of political change and continuing instability or chaos in Russian politics is another common theme. A few syllabi structure the course around theoretical concerns of the discipline and practical policy questions, framing the semester as a study of the quality and scope of democracy in Russia since the end of communism. East Central European (ECE) politics courses encompass multiple states, which creates opportunities and challenges not present in teaching Russian politics. Undergraduates are most likely introduced to East Central Europe through a thematic study of the entire region rather than extensive, individual country case studies.
Terrorism and Foreign Policy
Authors: Skuldt Amanda
Published: January 2018

Before the late 1960s, terrorism was commonly viewed as an internal problem that belonged to the realm of policing rather than foreign policy. The Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s airplane hijackings in Europe, combined with the 1972 Munich Olympics wherein eleven Israeli athletes were captured and held hostage by Black September, gave rise to some foundational counterterrorism policy features; for example, no negotiations with terrorists. But it was not until the 1983–1984 attacks on its embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut that the United States began to see terrorism as a policy concern. The terrorist attacks of September 11 also led scholars to become increasingly interested in integrating work on international terrorism into international relations (IR) and foreign policy theories. The theories of IR, foreign policy concerns of policy makers, and terrorism studies intersect in areas such as the development of international law governing terrorism, poverty, economic development, globalization, military actions, and questions of whether deterrence is still possible in the age of decentralized terrorist groups and suicidal terrorism. Despite decades of research on terrorism and counterterrorism, some very basic and important gaps remain. Issues that the academic literature on foreign policy or terrorism must address include the effects of the evolving organizational structure of terrorist groups, illegal immigration, the radicalization of European Muslims, and the phenomenon recently identified as “swarming.”
The Right to Health
Authors: Chapman Audrey R.
Published: January 2018

The right to health and health services is generally framed as the right to the highest attainable standard of health. Like other human rights, the right to health confers to all people specific entitlements and imposes duties on governments to protect and promote them. It reflects a broadened sense of governmental responsibility for the welfare of its citizens and a more inclusive understanding of human rights. All countries, including the United States, have ratified at least one binding human rights convention that includes a provision on the right to health. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations more than six decades ago, has given rise to a series of international human rights instruments that legally obligate states to implement their provisions. The two most important of these are the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Despite substantial progress, a number of issues still need to be addressed for the realization of the right to health, such as the lack of political commitment on the part of many states with regard to implementation and the weakness of the international human rights system. Furthermore, many states which have ratified international or regional human rights instruments that recognize a right to health or have relevant constitutional provisions still do not invest the necessary resources or apply human rights standards to the framing of health policies.
Trade: Neoclassical Liberal Views on Impacts
Authors: Ladewig Jeffrey W.
Published: January 2018

International trade is a dynamic and powerful force that affects nearly every individual, business, and nation in the world. Its scope and scale have also made international trade an immense, intense, and perennial subject of interest and inquiry. Some of the foundational works on international trade can be traced back to Adam Smith and David Hume, whose theories sought to debunk the commonly held idea of international trade at the time: mercantilism, which viewed exports as beneficial because they generated an increase in foreign currency and a nation’s wealth, and imports as detrimental because they were thought to decrease a nation’s wealth. Today, the general idea of comparative advantage informs almost all neoclassical economists’ models of international trade. However, neoclassical economists tend to assume that the theoretical benefits of international trade are clear, and thus, often ignore or dismiss the negative impacts of international trade and the studies that challenge their theories. In fact, many countries have not seen the benefits predicted by neoclassical economic theories. This is particularly evident when comparing the effects of international trade across developed and developing countries. Furthermore, there is evidence that international trade has developed along patterns that are not predicted by the traditional theories of comparative advantage. Given these, the practice of trade and its international impact can be much murkier.
Transnational Communities and Diasporic Politics
Authors: Lindenstrauss Gallia
Published: January 2018

Diasporas are transnational communities that have received significant interest from international relations (IR) scholars. Attempts to conceptualize diaspora as a modern analytical term posed a major challenge in terms of drawing a distinction between people on the move—such as migrants, refugees, and seasonal workers—and people who are diasporic members of a transnational community. There are different categories of diaspora: historical (or classical/core) diasporas, modern (or recent) diasporas, incipient diasporas, state-linked diasporas, and stateless diasporas. A widely used system of categorization distinguishes among victim, trade, labor, and imperial diasporas. Most of the diaspora research done today in IR deals with the relations between diasporas and their host state and state of origin. There is also a growing body of literature on the role of diasporas in conflict and peace in the homeland. Recent studies have focused on ethnonational diasporic communities, especially the relations between diasporic kin groups in the homeland and in other states of residence, as well as their influence on the foreign policy of their host states. The study of diasporas presents a few major challenges. For instance, it forces us to rethink the rubrics of state and of nation, to challenge accepted notions of citizenship, and to question existing conceptualizations of the importance of territoriality. It also exacerbates the fuzziness between inner and outer politics in research and practice.
Culture and Foreign Policy Analysis
Authors: Grove Andrea
Published: January 2018

There are several conceptions of culture which have become dominant in foreign policy analysis (FPA) in particular: culture as the organization of meaning, culture as value preferences, and culture as templates for human strategy. Prior to the 1990s, the Cold War constraints of bipolarity had left little room for idiosyncratic domestic-level variables such as culture to affect FP. However, once systemic constraints lessened and the decision making milieu became more ambiguous, scholars increasingly turned to questions about culture and identity. Using classic frameworks as a jumping off point, early work on national role conception and operational code analysis incorporated culture as a significant filter for decision making. Operational code analysis is another early approach that had elements of culture as part of the decision making context. In addition, there are a few works that investigate culture and FP with a different focus than FPA. But perhaps one of the most notable elements of FPA studies exploring culture is the idea that it need not be viewed as explaining whatever cannot be explained by anything else. Instead of merely an alternative theoretical explanation of state behavior, use of culture in the post-Cold War revival and today reflects an effort not so much to refute neorealism but to look at different questions.
Ethics and Sovereignty
Authors: Weinert Matthew
Published: January 2018

Literature concentrated on sovereignty’s location laid the groundwork for the distinctive sort of ethical detachment that has characterized sovereignty in international relations (IR). While it is customary to refer to sovereign absolutism as linking a logic of prerogative with sovereignty, mainstream IR theory has reproduced its own variation on the theme and done little until recently to decouple the two. Yet beginning in the late 1970s, the literature began to entertain the idea that interdependence and globalization impede, constrain, corrode, or diminish the core assumptions of sovereignty: the centralization of power and authority, the supremacy of the state, the state’s capabilities to achieve its objectives, and the degree of permissiveness afforded by an anarchical system. Put differently, the space within which sovereignty could operate unencumbered rapidly diminished in size and scope, and the sovereign state, by losing control over various functions, was becoming incoherent at minimum, and irrelevant at maximum. If these arguments focused on a narrow question, then a new literature emerged in the mid to late 1990s that focused on, and questioned, sovereignty as authority. Moreover, the debates about globalization underscored sovereignty’s disjunctive nature. Yet by linking it so closely with material structures and factors, the literature generally elided consideration of the constitutive effect of international norms on sovereignty and the ways the institution of sovereignty has changed over time.
Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration in Southeast Asia
Authors: Brown David
Published: January 2018

In southeast Asia, ethnic tensions and conflicts stem in large part from economic or power rivalries rather than cultural differences. The political relationships between ethnic identities and nation-state identities in southeast Asia can be analyzed based on three different frameworks, each offering important insights into the region’s complexities and variations. The first is the plural society approach, which points to cultural pluralism as the source of political tensions in southeast Asia. The implication of this view is that ethnic violence will tend to take the form of rioting between people of different cultures as they compete for state resources or power. The second framework is a state legitimacy approach, which argues that the national identity strategies adopted by the state elites are the key factor influencing the structure of ethnic politics. In this context, the strategy of state legitimation is employed to promote the migration of highland ethnic minorities out of their ancestral homeland areas so as to facilitate their economic development, but also their assimilation into the ethnic core. The third framework is a globalized disruption approach, which suggests that globalization has three negative impacts relating to economic disparities, the problematical politics of democratization, and fears of international or domestic terrorism. It can be said that the politics of ethnicity and nationalism in southeast Asia arises from the enhanced appeal of ethnic and national stereotypes for people experiencing diverse insecurities, giving rise to inter-ethnic distrust as well as intra-ethnic factionalism.
Game Theory and Other Modeling Approaches
Authors: Zagare Frank C. , Slantchev Branislav L.
Published: January 2018

Game theory is the science of interactive decision making. It has been used in the field of international relations (IR) for over 50 years. Almost all of the early applications of game theory in international relations drew upon the theory of zero-sum games, but the first generation of applications was also developed during the most intense period of the Cold War. The theoretical foundations for the second wave of the game theory literature in international relations were laid by a mathematician, John Nash, a co-recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize in economics. His major achievement was to generalize the minimax solution which emerged from the first wave. The result is the now famous Nash equilibrium—the accepted measure of rational behavior in strategic form games. During the third wave, from roughly the early to mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, there was a distinct move away from static strategic form games toward dynamic games depicted in extensive form. The assumption of complete information also fell by the wayside; games of incomplete information became the norm. Technical refinements of Nash’s equilibrium concept both encouraged and facilitated these important developments. In the fourth and final wave, which can be dated, roughly, from around the middle of the 1990s, extensive form games of incomplete information appeared regularly in the strategic literature. The fourth wave is a period in which game theory was no longer considered a niche methodology, having finally emerged as a mainstream theoretical tool.
Historical Sociology
Authors: Hobson John M. , Lawson George , Rosenberg Justin
Published: January 2018

Over the past 20 years, historical sociology in international relations (HSIR) has contributed to a number of debates, ranging from examination of the origins of the modern states system to unraveling the core features and relative novelty of the contemporary historical period. By the late 1980s and 1990s, a small number of IR scholars drew explicitly on historical sociological insights in order to counter the direction that the discipline was taking under the auspices of the neo-neo debate. Later scholars moved away from examining the specific interconnections between international geopolitics and domestic social change. A further difference that marked this second wave from the first was that it was driven principally by IR scholars working within IR. To date, HSIR has sought to reveal not only the different forms that international systems have taken in the past, but also the ways in which the modern system cannot be treated as an ontological given. Historical sociologists in IR are unanimous in asserting that rethinking the constitutive properties and dynamics of the contemporary system can be successfully achieved only by applying what amounts to a more sensitive “nontempocentric” historical sociological lens. At the same time, by tracing the historical sociological origins of the present international order, HSIR scholars are able to reveal some of the continuities between the past and the present, thereby dispensing with the dangers of chronofetishism.
International Relations and Comparative Politics
Authors: Nadkarni Vidya , Williams J. Michael
Published: January 2018

Both the political science fields of International Relations (IR) and Comparative Politics (CP) developed around a scholarly concern with the nature of the state. IR focused on the nature, sources, and dynamics of inter-state interaction, while CP delved into the structure, functioning, and development of the state itself. The natural synergies between these two lines of scholarly inquiry found expression in the works of classical and neo-classical realists, liberals, and Marxists, all of whom, to varying degrees and in varied ways, recognized that the line dividing domestic and international politics was not hermetically sealed. As processes of economic globalization, on the one hand, and the globalization of the state system, on the other, have expanded the realm of political and economic interaction, the need for greater cross-fertilization between IR and CP has become even more evident. The global expansion of the interstate system has incorporated non-European societies into world politics and increased the salience of cultural and religious variables. These dynamics suggest that a study of cultures, religions, and histories, which shape the world views of states and peoples, is therefore necessary before assessments can be made about how individual states may respond to varied global pressures in their domestic and foreign policy choices.