bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Offshore Finance and State Power
Authors: Binder Andrea
Published: March 2023

Offshore financial centres such as Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands, or the City of London provide non-residents with a legal framework that is strong on property rights and soft on taxation and regulation. Building on a historical-institutionalist comparison of Britain, Germany, Brazil, and Mexico, Offshore Finance and State Power asks how these offshore financial services affect the power of the state to finance its political goals. It looks into the mechanics—how does it work?—and the outcome of this effect—is it enhancing or limiting state power? Combining a concept analysis with empirical data from descriptive banking statistics and qualitative expert interviews, the book finds that economic actors go offshore to create money more than to hide it. Legal offshore banking trumps tax planning or money laundering in its impact on state power. Offshore Finance and State Power also reveals that the outcome of that impact on state power is not straightforward. Offshore finance limits state power by transmitting the volatility of unregulated offshore banking into the domestic economy. Counterintuitively, however, offshore finance can also enhance state power. It provides governments with an extraterritorial vehicle to cover up political conflicts over how to finance the state and mitigate class conflict. To which extent a state can put offshore finances at its own service, depends on a country’s domestic elite constellation and the tax and bank bargains they have forged throughout history.
Sexed Bodies/(Im)Possible Bodies/Polyphonic Bodies
Authors: Amico Stephen
Published: March 2023

This chapter highlights the importance of attention to musical, sonic, aesthetic, and affective cultural production in the phenomenological theorization of an always complex, multiple subjectivity. Focusing on the digital and live performances of Russian popular music superstar Valeriia—including her appearances in Estonia—and exploring the role of a corporeality that is in part sexed (as opposed to gendered), the chapter reveals that lived experience is a constant interplay between materiality and the productive possibilities suggested by phenomenological “horizons.” It is ultimately argued that foregrounding the sensual and somatic aspects of experience, and the sonic rather than the visual (via the concepts of the “catalytic aide mémoire” and “polyphonic embodiment”), contributes to a more nuanced understanding of multifaceted, capacious human-environment interaction. Such a theorization can encompass the limitless components (including material, geo-/socio-cultural, and ideological) that contribute to the subject’s being and becoming, a process of perpetual formations and re-formations.
The Exegesis of the Latin Bible in the Middle Ages
Authors: Dahan Gilbert
Published: March 2023

Abstract: The Middle Ages was a key period for biblical exegesis, through the activities of writers in monasteries, schools, and universities. This chapter lists the sources in which hermeneutic activity is present, including treatises, biblical commentaries, prologues, and principia. The principles of exegesis are then considered, bringing together the concept of the Aristotelian cause with the divine inspiration of Scripture. The limitations of human understanding are emphasized both by Christian and Jewish commentators. Different forms of glossa and the Sentences of Peter Lombard also contributed to exegesis. Despite the traditional emphasis on the four senses of Scripture (literal, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical) and their appearance in theoretical treatises, their practical application is strictly limited. Instead, the principal opposition was between the categories of literal and spiritual, with each broken down into specific elements. Techniques of spiritual interpretation include the procedures of concordant verses, distinctiones, interpretationes, and the significance of “realities” (res), with a role also being played by “modes” (modi).
Musical Settings of Latin Biblical Texts
Authors: Dowling Long Siobhán
Published: March 2023

Abstract: This chapter discusses the use of Latin biblical texts in music from Gregorian chant through Renaissance polyphony to the present day. Comprising five sections—Gregorian Chant; Latin Hymns and Sequences; From Tropes to Passions; Motets; and Oratorios and Other Large-Scale Works—it provides a brief overview of the Latin Bible’s reception in music. The development of musical forms is described, along with the attention given to the biblical text. Liturgical usage includes settings of the mass, including the Requiem, as well as canticles, antiphons, and motets. Early hymns were used in theological debates. Despite the move to larger-scale works in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, performed in concert halls rather than churches, the setting of traditional texts associated with the Latin Bible continues to provide continuity across the centuries of Western music.
Latin Tradition and the Greek New Testament
Authors: Elliott J. K.
Published: March 2023

Abstract: After some introductory remarks, this chapter considers the most popular hand editions of the Greek New Testament, the twenty-eighth edition of Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Societies’ fifth edition. It then lists Latin manuscripts in two gospel synopses before a retrospective analysis of three bilingual (Latin–Greek) New Testaments. Next come larger critical editions of specific Gospels and the volumes of the Editio Critica Maior for the Catholic Epistles and the Acts of the Apostles. Finally, this chapter examines why Latin manuscripts are found in critical editions of a Greek New Testament and assesses some limitations imposed when using or relying on the Latin found in such editions.
Jerome and the Hebrew Scriptures
Authors: Kamesar Adam
Published: March 2023

Abstract: The great bulk of the Latin Bible known as the Vulgate is made up of Jerome’s translations of the books of the Old Testament in its Hebrew form. Isidore of Seville, in his Etymologiae, one of the most influential works of medieval Latin literature, offers a brief statement about those translations, noting two points: Jerome made them from the Hebrew, and he did so in an eloquent fashion (Etym. 6.4.5). This chapter therefore focuses on Jerome’s change of the textual basis of the Latin Old Testament from the Greek to the Hebrew, and his work of translation as a literary endeavor.
The Production of Medieval Bibles
Authors: Lobrichon Guy
Published: March 2023

Abstract: This chapter presents the development of the Latin Bible in the West from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. Overall, five types of Bibles are found in this period: liturgical Bibles, glossed Bibles, portable Bibles, luxury Bibles, and picture Bibles. Some are in the form of pandects containing the complete text, from the giant “Atlantic Bibles” to the all-in-one Paris Bibles. Their production, contents, and organization are described, including details of the sequence of books and their paratexts (prefaces, prologues, and argumenta). The rise of illustrated Bibles is seen in the two Bibles of Pamplona and the Bible moralisée, as well as certain “parabiblical” books such as the Speculum humanae salvationis and the Biblia pauperum. Consideration is given to the role played by patrons as well as producers and users in developing new styles and formats, and the contexts in which they were used, such as the requirements of the different religious orders and schools.
Modern Scholarship on the Latin Bible
Authors: Bauer Thomas Johann
Published: March 2023

Abstract: This chapter presents the development of scholarship on the Latin Bible from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. The predominance of the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate meant that early proposals to revise the Vulgate bore little fruit, although Pierre Sabatier published a scholarly edition of the Old Latin text in the middle of the eighteenth century. The development of New Testament textual criticism in the latter part of the nineteenth century led to the discovery of new manuscripts and major critical editions, most notably the Oxford Vulgate for the New Testament and the Roman Vulgate for the Old Testament. The series of publications related to these editions have provided a steady stream of academic research into individual manuscripts and editorial principles and methodology.
The Vetus Latina Institute
Authors: Bauer Thomas Johann
Published: March 2023

Abstract: Since 1945, the Vetus Latina Institute at the Archabbey of Beuron has overseen the preparation and publication of a comprehensive edition of the remains of the Old Latin Bible in order to replace the eighteenth-century edition of Pierre Sabatier, with material initially gathered by Josef Denk. This chapter describes the history of the Institute and the principles of the edition as developed by its first director, Bonifatius Fischer. The types of evidence and the layout of each page are introduced. The Institute has also been responsible for numerous publications and has collaborated on other editions, including the Stuttgart Vulgate and editions of the Greek New Testament.
The Use of the Latin Bible in the Early Church
Authors: Mattei Paul
Published: March 2023

Abstract: The use of the Bible is more than simply the application of hermeneutic principles and exegetical techniques, or the literary genres within which these are deployed. This chapter offers a broad account of the presence of Scripture within the intellectual and religious life of Latin Christians in antiquity. The chronological scope is from the beginnings of Christian literature in Latin to the time of Bede. This may be divided into three stages: the Antenicene period, with its three major personalities of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Lactantius; the zenith, from Nicaea to Chalcedon, marked by the great Christological and Trinitarian controversies, with individuals such as Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Jerome of Stridon, and Augustine of Hippo (and especially De doctrina christiana); the inheritance, with teachers such as Cassiodorus, Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, and Bede, who lead to the dawn of the Carolingian age. The perspective taken is necessarily selective, focussing on the most important examples.
Travel and Itinerancy
Authors: Marquis Timothy Luckritz
Published: March 2023

This essay explores themes and narrative constructs of travel and itinerancy in the Synoptic traditions, how interpretation of those themes has conditioned reconstructions of Christian origins, and some paths for future research. Beginning with contextualizing travel within a Roman context, the essay dwells on Q scholarship to understand how categories of voluntary and involuntary travel, homeless wandering and official journeys, and ideology and materialism structure scholarly conversations. For Mark, Jesus’s travels overlay periods of eschatological history with a dual focus on the crucifixion and the destruction of the Temple. In Matthew, Mark’s eras of eschatological history become two distinct movements: a homeless discipleship and an international movement cast against the precarity of travel under Rome. Luke-Acts deploys travel as a narrative device and a thematic venue for displaying its logic of exchange, which attempts to outbid the global view of Roman ideology and anticipates later Western abstractions such as universality.
Body
Authors: Moore Stephen D.
Published: March 2023

The ancient body has, in recent decades, been reconceived in the fields of classics and early Christian studies. It has been reshaped by gender theory but also by queer theory: performativity, whether explicitly named or not, has become key for work on it. This essay reviews the recent history of the ancient body as well as representative recent studies of Synoptic bodies that analyze them primarily in terms of gender performance. The essay proceeds to ask, first, whether performativity is the only reality that might be imagined for literary bodies, and second, how one might fold into one’s analysis of Synoptic bodies the fact that, like all literary bodies, they are incorporeal entities. The main section of the essay then attempts a theoretical return to first principles, analyzing the Synoptic body through lenses provided by two of the most influential figures in contemporary critical theory, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.
Play Cultures, Social Worlds, and Youth in Familial Settings, 1700–1905
Authors: Martin Mary Clare
Published: March 2023

Debates on youth culture have frequently focused on rituals of misrule, gangs, the music industry, and other activities and institutions external to the home and family. Yet from 1700 to 1900, many young people developed play cultures within domestic and familial settings. This chapter focuses on outdoor play, imaginative play, and young people’s writing and dramatic performances from 1700 to 1900. While the activities of girls and young women have received far less attention than those of males, recent research reflects a rich social world of activities generated by young people on the threshold of adulthood in all social classes, which was shared with siblings and friends, male as well as female. As mainly self-generated and distinct from adult worlds, these activities are as worthy of the definition “youth culture” as twentieth-century developments that were strongly influenced by adult celebrities, the mass media, and commercial interests. Although this chapter argues that, for all the idealistic visions of play as a youth-generated activity, the intervention of adults was necessary for such play cultures to develop, it casts new light on the definition of “youth culture,” and on the transition to adulthood.
Exploring Queer Theories as a Framework for Anti-Oppressive Music Therapy Practice with Neurodivergent Children and Youth
Authors: Metell Maren , Leza Jessica
Published: March 2023

Queer theories, in particular neuroqueer theory, challenge normative and exclusionary approaches and perspectives. This chapter considers how queer theories both interrogate and contribute to music therapy as an anti-oppressive practice in the context of neurodivergent children and youth. It explores multiple perspectives and concepts within queer theories and their affordances for thinking around music therapy theory and practice. These concepts are reflected in our own music therapy practices with neurodivergent children and youth. The implications of these connections are discussed and considered for the development of queer theory-informed anti-oppressive practice. We argue that queer theories challenge music therapists to constantly re-examine assumptions and preconceived notions and to embrace anti-oppressive music therapy as a constantly evolving practice of collaborative learning from and with music therapy participants. Queer theories offer a frame for anti-oppressive music therapy that speaks to the importance of fostering resistance and challenging power and the need and potential for the development of practice and theory.
Child Protection in Lebanon
Authors: Rizk Hoda
Published: March 2023

This chapter looks into Lebanon’s child protection system. It highlights the significance of the National Social Development Strategy which includes measures for improved protection of children. Higher Council for Childhood is the principal body established for the coordination of children’s issues with the governmental, non-governmental and international parties concerned with children's rights. Additionally, the HCC pursued the implementation of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and its respective recommendation. The legal system gives religious communities judicial autonomy on issues of custody and maintenance. All religions, moreover, agree on the responsibility of the parents to provide for their children.
A New Era for Child Protection in Japan
Authors: Tokunaga Shoko , Fukui Mitsuru , Saigo Misa , Nagano Saki
Published: March 2023

This chapter expounds on the challenges of Japan in terms of serving children who cannot live with their biological parents due to maltreatment issues. The Child Welfare Act (1947) determines the roles of local child welfare authorities and their funding, while the Child Abuse Prevention Act (2000) codifies the definition of child abuse and establishes guidelines for early intervention and child protection and services. Additionally, the Child Guidance Centres are the frontline in child protection work with social workers at the core. The chapter also discusses institutional care and family-based care for looked after children. It mentions how Japan fronted the challenge of encouraging youth participation in policy-making.
The Child Protection System in Nigeria
Authors: Elekwachi Chimezie L. , Ebigbo Peter O.
Published: March 2023

This chapter discusses the Nigerian child protection system. Child maltreatment in Nigeria is a significant issue, while HIV/AIDS remains to be a major issue currently influencing child protection. As inequality grows rapidly, the unstable economic growth of Nigeria continued to impose substantial welfare costs on Nigerian households. The lack of job opportunities is the core of high poverty levels, regional inequality, and social and political unrest across Nigeria. Moreover, the majority of children never tell anyone about the physical violence or sexual violence they experienced, while only less than 5% of them receive the support they need to recover. Child labor becomes the focus of the child protection programming in Nigeria and the rest of Africa.
Child and Adolescent Protection Systems in Ecuador
Authors: Jiménez Borja Verónica , Jiménez-Borja Micaela , Borja-Álvarez Teresita
Published: March 2023

This chapter outlines Ecuador’s child protection systems. Ecuador’s signing of the Convention of the Rights of the Child in 1989 was the result of a long struggle to institutionalize and legislate children’s rights in the country. There have been important improvements in terms of the availability of a comprehensive public child protection system. However, ongoing political, economic, institutional, and legislative upheaval in the country poses difficulties to the implementation of the rights of children. As such, this chapter explores difficulties in the implementation of the National Decentralized Comprehensive Child Protection System. In particular, it highlights how Ecuador is suffering from deep structural socio-economic, regional, ethnic, and gender inequality.
Child Protection Systems
Authors: Duerr Berrick Jill , Gilbert Neil , Skivenes Marit
Published: March 2023

This chapter discusses the global typology of child protection systems. It also highlights how child protection continues to evolve within and across countries. In line with the UNCRC, countries are mandated to protect children’s civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights equal to those of adults. The UNCRC’s Article 19 is primarily focused on protecting children from abuse, neglect, and maltreatment when parents or families are incapable of caring for them. Additionally, the legal authority and responsibility of states are the essential features of child protection systems. Research sparked insights into how societal and cultural differences affect protective services and preliminary typologies of child protection systems. Interventions were driven by high-risk situations for the child in the child protection system and their needs in the family service system.
Child Protection in Finland and Sweden
Authors: Höjer Ingrid , Pösö Tarja
Published: March 2023

This chapter discusses Finland and Sweden’s child protection which is based on the principle that children’s overall well-being need a wide range of universal services and benefits. Child protection measures are only evoked when the children and families’ universal services and needs are insufficient to ensure children’s well-being. However, vulnerability related to socio-economic factors is often overlooked when child protection issues are at hand. The chapter notes the differences between the Swedish and Finnish systems with regards to legislation, organisation, decision-making, and practice of child protection.
The Anthropocene and Ecosophy
Authors: Canavan Gerry
Published: March 2023

Popularized by Paul Crutzen, the “Anthropocene” names the present geological era, when the effects of human activity on the environment are becoming visible in the planet’s geological, climatological, and fossil record. Much contemporary science fiction (sf) film frames itself as a response to climate change and related ecological crises, visualizing transformations in the global climate, while suggesting how we might counter such trends. These films typically favor a radical, “deep ecological” politics that seeks to imagine alternative relationships between humans, animals, and the natural world. This chapter examines this dual agenda of representation and political activism, considering how these goals align and how they are at odds. It examines Simon Wells’s version of The Time Machine, which uses time-lapse cinematography and the orbital zoom out to visualize the vastness of the Anthropocene—effects that demonstrate the temporal and spatial dislocation that has become common to sf cinema’s environmentalist rhetoric.
Object-Oriented Ontology and Science Fiction Cinema
Authors: Bryant Levi R.
Published: March 2023

This chapter approaches science fiction cinema from the standpoint of objects, proposing that we view science fiction (sf) as an exploration of the agency of objects in society and in our lives. Drawing on the resources of object-oriented ontology, the chapter argues that objects constitute dynamic characters within these fields. Drawing on such films as The Flat (1968), Total Recall (1990), and Cube (1997), the text explores the genre from the standpoint of how objects afford and constrain people’s agency or ability to act in the world, how they afford people ways of escaping from oppressive assemblages, and finally from the fraught and precarious relationships between parts and wholes. What emerges is a picture of sf in which the dramatic arc of its films unfolds around disruptive and unruly objects.
Introduction
Authors: Telotte J. P.
Published: March 2023

The introduction describes science fiction’s ongoing process of genre-izing, that is, the various efforts to give the form a name, set its boundaries, and establish a reliable corpus of markers, and of semantic and syntactic elements. In the case of science fiction (sf) cinema, that process has consistently underscored the genre’s high level of fluidity—or slipperiness—a character especially evident in contemporary film, where audiences commonly encounter not one version of sf, but rather a rich and challenging variety of genre forms. These various “slant” forms of sf, or “new sf cinemas,” demonstrate how the form’s very fluid character has allowed it to effectively respond to different cultural stresses, and to give voice to some of the latest theoretical accounts of humanity’s present and future condition.
Ethnogothic Film
Authors: Morris Susana M.
Published: March 2023

Ethno-Gothic films frame the African American historical situation within a Gothic context, one that, Ytasha Womack argues, provides ethnic audiences a distinctive way of dealing with cultural trauma. While drawing heavily on a gothic tradition most often associated with horror, it merges that material with a Black cultural context, an iconography that emphasizes a haunting sense of otherness, which it then uses to interrogate the contemporary techno-scientific world—as both a repressive power and a power that might be turned upon itself—and to sketch the complexly haunted identity of the African American experience within a science fiction (sf) frame.
Concealments and Exposures
Authors: Kothari Rita
Published: March 2023

This chapter is based on the premise that language is both expressive and constitutive of caste. It is in language that the most embedded and almost invisibly settled ideologies of caste can be seen—glimpses of which become evident if quotidian language is examined closely. Caste often lies in the ellipsis, the half-said, and the unspoken. Through attention to language, the chapter demonstrates that caste is illegible and does not demonstrate the kind of structure assumed in the English word “caste.” By drawing from examples in several Indian languages, particularly Gujarati, the chapter also shows how language works to hide and to reveal caste. The chapter draws particular attention to the language of the upper castes and the sophistry they use to find out about caste.
The Stoic Lesson
Authors: Erler Michael
Published: March 2023

In the Stoic tradition Cornutus and Epictetus deserve special attention. Both were famous Stoics at their time with great influence and important pupils; they were involved in the political situation of the time and are also of importance because of the contribution they could make toward understanding better some of the Stoic teachings used by Latin poets. Both have their teachings presented in literary formats that are early examples of educational treatises and are to be understood in the context of Roman Stoic philosophical education, but also were of great influence in antiquity and beyond. The so called Epidrome of Cornutus and the Manual or Encheiridion of Epictetus belong in the tradition of systematic handbooks. The handbooks of Cornutus and of Arrian wish to introduce readers to Stoic philosophy or special aspects of this school. In addition the eight books of the “dissertations” of Epictetus, written down again by Arrian offer the content of Epictetus’s stoic teachings. But they also reflect on Epictetus’s teaching method. Thus the dissertations allow for an insight in Epictetus’s classroom.
Consolation
Authors: Ker James
Published: March 2023

Organized efforts to assuage a person’s grief and to counter lament were already commonplace in Greek literature predating the formalization of philosophy, and throughout the Greco-Roman tradition the “consolation” (Lat. consolatio; Gk. paramuthêtikos logos) is recognized above all as a rhetorical enterprise. Yet when deployed by philosophers the discourse included morally and psychologically specific analyses and arguments regarding grief as well as the nature of death. The fullest Roman examples of consolatory theory and practice arise in the writings of Cicero and Seneca the Younger, where we learn much of what we know about the distinct responses to grief recommended by the various ancient schools, especially the Academics, the Stoics, and the Epicureans—though even philosophical consolers were generally permitted to make use of whatever technique held the most promise of success. Philosophy’s role, however, is molded by the highly specific social and biographic situations of these writers. This is also the case in the wide array of Roman authors who experiment with consolation, writing in poetry and prose, in Latin and in Greek, in both real-life and fictional scenarios. Philosophical ideas provide both an organizing framework and a foil, especially in cases where consolation is diverted into parody or where it is allowed to fail conspicuously and thereby throw a more powerful light upon grief. Christian eschatology, however, put at the disposal of authors such as Jerome a new and more decisive argument against grieving at all.
Time
Authors: Kennedy Duncan F.
Published: March 2023

This chapter explores the ways in which Lucretius and Augustine engage with Greek philosophies of time in distinctive ways that continue to resonate through subsequent philosophical thinking about human mortality, the question of the creation of the world, the relationship of the human and the divine, change and permanence, the relationship between discourse about the world and the world it seeks to describe, and not least time itself. Time poses particular challenges in reconciling first-person (“am”) ontology and third-person (“is”) ontology, the human experience of change and the world as it “really” is that both authors directly confront from their very different Epicurean and Christian perspectives. As well as detailed engagement with their discussions, this chapter seeks to situate those discussions within the history of debates about time that continue to be pressing now.
Ethical Argument and Epicurean Subtext in Horace, Odes 1.1 and 2.16
Authors: Davis Gregson
Published: March 2023

The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate the prominence of Epicurean thought in the ethical subtext of Horatian lyric by focusing on two key poems (C.1.1 and 2.16) that frame his deep-seated “conversations” regarding central precepts of the Garden. Both of these Odes on the eudaimonist theme rely on the self-defining scaffolding of the priamel: the programmatic inaugural poem of the Tribiblos (C.I.I) robustly endorses the fundamental Epicurean doctrine of pleasure (hedone/voluptas) as the summum bonum, while the argument of C.2.16 advances the central view that happiness is best pursued through the attainment of ataraxia/otium. In both Odes the poet engages in oblique dialogue with Epicurean ethical norms as filtered principally through allusions to canonic texts attributed to the founder of the school, such as the collection of maxims, Kuriai Doxai, and the Letter to Menoeceus.
Apuleius and Roman Demonology
Authors: Ulrich Jeffrey
Published: March 2023

Apuleius’s status as philosopher and intellectual has long been diminished in scholarship, and his lectures on demonology, Platonic doctrine, and cosmology disregarded as lacking innovation and “popularizing.” This chapter reassesses Apuleius’s relationship to his predecessors in the philosophical discourse of demonology: rather than searching for the Greek sources for his “hack” pastiche treatises on daemones, it analyzes instead how he embodies the role of translator and intermediary of demonological doctrine for his local, African audience—both by phrasing Platonic ideas about the divine in terms of ancient Roman ritual and archaic and classicizing poetry, and by positioning himself, in turn, as a Socrates Africanus for his Carthaginian listeners/readers.
Small RNAs >26 nt in length associate with AGO1 and are upregulated by nutrient deprivation in the alga Chlamydomonas
Authors: Li Yingshan , Kim Eun-Jeong , Voshall Adam , Moriyama Etsuko N , Cerutti Heriberto
Published: March 2023

Small RNAs (sRNAs) associate with ARGONAUTE (AGO) proteins forming effector complexes with key roles in gene regulation and defense responses against molecular parasites. In multicellular eukaryotes, extensive duplication and diversification of RNA interference (RNAi) components have resulted in intricate pathways for epigenetic control of gene expression. The unicellular alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii also has a complex RNAi machinery, including 3 AGOs and 3 DICER-like proteins. However, little is known about the biogenesis and function of most endogenous sRNAs. We demonstrate here that Chlamydomonas contains uncommonly long (>26 nt) sRNAs that associate preferentially with AGO1. Somewhat reminiscent of animal PIWI-interacting RNAs, these >26 nt sRNAs are derived from moderately repetitive genomic clusters and their biogenesis is DICER-independent. Interestingly, the sequences generating these >26-nt sRNAs have been conserved and amplified in several Chlamydomonas species. Moreover, expression of these longer sRNAs increases substantially under nitrogen or sulfur deprivation, concurrently with the downregulation of predicted target transcripts. We hypothesize that the transposon-like sequences from which >26-nt sRNAs are produced might have been ancestrally targeted for silencing by the RNAi machinery but, during evolution, certain sRNAs might have fortuitously acquired endogenous target genes and become integrated into gene regulatory networks.
Central sensitization in CRPS patients with widespread pain: a cross-sectional study
Authors: De Schoenmacker Iara , Mollo Anna , Scheuren Paulina Simonne , Sirucek Laura , Brunner Florian , Schweinhardt Petra , Curt Armin , Rosner Jan , Hubli Michèle
Published: March 2023

Objective

Widespread pain hypersensitivity and enhanced temporal summation of pain (TSP) are commonly reported in patients with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and discussed as proxies for central sensitization. This study aimed to directly relate such signs of neuronal hyperexcitability to the pain phenotype of CRPS patients.

Methods

Twenty-one CRPS patients and 20 healthy controls (HC) were recruited. The pain phenotype including spatial pain extent (assessed in % body surface) and intensity were assessed and related to widespread pain hypersensitivity, TSP, and psychological factors. Quantitative sensory testing (QST) was performed in the affected, the contralateral and a remote (control) area.

Results

CRPS patients showed decreased pressure pain thresholds in all tested areas (affected: t(34)  = 4.98, P < .001, contralateral: t(35) = 3.19, P = .005, control: t(31) = 2.65, P = .012). Additionally, patients showed increased TSP in the affected area (F(3,111) = 4.57, P = .009) compared to HC. TSP was even more enhanced in patients with a high compared to a low spatial pain extent (F(3,51) = 5.67, P = .008), suggesting pronounced spinal sensitization in patients with extended pain patterns. Furthermore, the spatial pain extent positively correlated with the Bath Body Perception Disturbance Scale (ρ = 0.491; P = .048).

Conclusions

Overall, we provide evidence that the pain phenotype in CRPS, that is, spatial pain extent, might be related to sensitization mechanism within the central nociceptive system. This study points towards central neuronal excitability as a potential therapeutic target in patients with more widespread CRPS.
Intelligent decision support in medical triage: are people robust to biased advice?
Authors: van der Stigchel Birgit , van den Bosch Karel , van Diggelen Jurriaan , Haselager Pim
Published: March 2023

Background

Intelligent artificial agents (‘agents’) have emerged in various domains of human society (healthcare, legal, social). Since using intelligent agents can lead to biases, a common proposed solution is to keep the human in the loop. Will this be enough to ensure unbiased decision making?

Methods

To address this question, an experimental testbed was developed in which a human participant and an agent collaboratively conduct triage on patients during a pandemic crisis. The agent uses data to support the human by providing advice and extra information about the patients. In one condition, the agent provided sound advice; the agent in the other condition gave biased advice. The research question was whether participants neutralized bias from the biased artificial agent.

Results

Although it was an exploratory study, the data suggest that human participants may not be sufficiently in control to correct the agent’s bias.

Conclusions

This research shows how important it is to design and test for human control in concrete human–machine collaboration contexts. It suggests that insufficient human control can potentially result in people being unable to detect biases in machines and thus unable to prevent machine biases from affecting decisions.
Mahler measure of a non-reciprocal family of elliptic curves
Authors: Samart Detchat
Published: March 2023

In this article, we study the logarithmic Mahler measure of the one-parameter family $$Q_\alpha=y^2+(x^2-\alpha x)y+x,$$ denoted by $\mathrm{m}(Q_\alpha)$. The zero loci of Qα generically define elliptic curves Eα, which are 3-isogenous to the family of Hessian elliptic curves. We are particularly interested in the case $\alpha\in (-1,3)$, which has not been considered in the literature due to certain subtleties. For α in this interval, we establish a hypergeometric formula for the (modified) Mahler measure of Qα, denoted by $\tilde{n}(\alpha).$ This formula coincides, up to a constant factor, with the known formula for $\mathrm{m}(Q_\alpha)$ with $|\alpha|$ sufficiently large. In addition, we verify numerically that if α3 is an integer, then $\tilde{n}(\alpha)$ is a rational multiple of $L^{\prime}(E_\alpha,0)$. A proof of this identity for α = 2, which corresponds to an elliptic curve of conductor 19, is given.
Income, Liquidity, and the Consumption Response to the 2020 Economic Stimulus Payments
Authors: R. Baker Scott , Farrokhnia Robert A , Meyer Steffen , Pagel Michaela , Yannelis Constantine
Published: March 2023

The 2020 CARES Act directed large cash payments to households. We analyze households’ spending responses using data from a Fintech nonprofit, exploring heterogeneity by income, recent income declines, and liquidity as well as linked survey responses about economic expectations. Households respond rapidly to payments, with spending increasing by about $0.14 per dollar during the first week and plateauing around $0.25–$0.30 over 3 months. In contrast to previous stimulus programs, we see little response of durables spending. Households with lower incomes, greater income declines, and less liquidity display stronger responses whereas households that expect employment losses and benefit cuts display weaker responses.
Compositionally Constrained Sites Drive Long-Branch Attraction
Authors: Szánthó Lénárd L , Lartillot Nicolas , Szöllősi Gergely J , Schrempf Dominik
Published: March 2023

Accurate phylogenies are fundamental to our understanding of the pattern and process of evolution. Yet, phylogenies at deep evolutionary timescales, with correspondingly long branches, have been fraught with controversy resulting from conflicting estimates from models with varying complexity and goodness of fit. Analyses of historical as well as current empirical datasets, such as alignments including Microsporidia, Nematoda, or Platyhelminthes, have demonstrated that inadequate modeling of across-site compositional heterogeneity, which is the result of biochemical constraints that lead to varying patterns of accepted amino acids along sequences, can lead to erroneous topologies that are strongly supported. Unfortunately, models that adequately account for across-site compositional heterogeneity remain computationally challenging or intractable for an increasing fraction of contemporary datasets. Here, we introduce “compositional constraint analysis,” a method to investigate the effect of site-specific constraints on amino acid composition on phylogenetic inference. We show that more constrained sites with lower diversity and less constrained sites with higher diversity exhibit ostensibly conflicting signals under models ignoring across-site compositional heterogeneity that lead to long-branch attraction artifacts and demonstrate that more complex models accounting for across-site compositional heterogeneity can ameliorate this bias. We present CAT-posterior mean site frequencies (PMSF), a pipeline for diagnosing and resolving phylogenetic bias resulting from inadequate modeling of across-site compositional heterogeneity based on the CAT model. CAT-PMSF is robust against long-branch attraction in all alignments we have examined. We suggest using CAT-PMSF when convergence of the CAT model cannot be assured. We find evidence that compositionally constrained sites are driving long-branch attraction in two metazoan datasets and recover evidence for Porifera as the sister group to all other animals. [Animal phylogeny; cross-site heterogeneity; long-branch attraction; phylogenomics.]
The Good, The Bad, and The Misleading: How to Improve the Quality of ‘Genome Announcements’?
Authors: Kusch Stefan , Vaghefi Niloofar , Kiss Levente
Published: March 2023

When comparing the requirements of diverse journals to publish microbial ‘Genome Reports,’ we noticed that some mostly focus on benchmarking universal single-copy orthologs scores as a quality measure, while the exclusion of possible contaminating sequences from genomic resources and the possible misidentification of the target microbes receive less attention. To deal with these quality issues, we suggest that DNA barcodes that are widely accepted for the identification of the target microbe species should be extracted from newly reported genome resources and included in phylogenetic analyses to confirm the identity of the sequenced microorganisms before Genome Reports are published. This approach, applied, for example, by the journal IMA Fungus, largely prevents the misidentification of the microbes that are targeted for whole-genome sequencing (WGS). In addition, contig similarity values, including GC content, remapping coverage of WGS reads, and BLASTN searches against the National Center for Biotechnology Information nucleotide database, would also reveal contamination issues. The values of these two recommendations to improve the publication criteria for microbial Genome Reports in diverse journals are demonstrated here through analyses of a draft genome published in Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions and then retracted due to contaminations.

[Formula: see text] Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .
Old but Gold: Captan Is a Valuable Tool for Managing Anthracnose and Botrytis Fruit Rots and Improving Strawberry Yields Based on a Meta-Analysis
Authors: Gama André B. , Cordova Leandro G. , Baggio Juliana S. , Mertely James C. , Peres Natalia A.
Published: March 2023

Botrytis fruit rot (BFR) and anthracnose fruit rot (AFR) are diseases of concern to strawberry growers. Both diseases are managed mainly by fungicide applications from the nursery (plant production) to the end of the growing season (fruit production). In Florida, captan is the main broad-spectrum fungicide used to control BFR and AFR. It has been tested in many trials over the years in various programs in alternation with single-site fungicides or weekly applications. Due to its broad-spectrum activity, captan is a pivotal tool in fungicide resistance management, because resistance to several fungicides has been reported in populations causing BFR and AFR. Our objective was to determine the effectiveness and profitability of applications of captan for controlling BFR and AFR based on a univariate meta-analysis considering data from 25 field trials conducted from 2005 to 2021 in Florida. Captan applications significantly improved marketable yields and reduced BFR and AFR incidence during late- and total-season periods. Marketable yields were significantly improved even when the effect on disease control was not significant. Our results indicate 100% probability that weekly captan applications would return the investment during low, medium, and high strawberry pricing regimes, although the magnitude of the return will depend on strawberry market prices. However, the probabilities of reducing BFR, AFR, and culls were lower. Results from our meta-analysis demonstrate the value of captan as an important tool for strawberry growers. Captan applications, in addition to effectively controlling BFR and AFR and improving marketable yields, will result in investment returns at any strawberry price level.
Biocontrol Potential of Beneficial Fungus Aureobasidium pullulans Against Botrytis cinerea and Colletotrichum acutatum
Authors: Iqbal Mudassir , Broberg Anders , Andreasson Erik , Stenberg Johan A.
Published: March 2023

Biological control is a promising approach to reduce plant diseases caused by fungal pathogens and ensure high productivity in horticultural production. In the present study, we evaluated the biocontrol potential and underlying mechanisms of the beneficial fungus Aureobasidium pullulans against Botrytis cinerea and Colletotrichum acutatum, casual agents of gray mold and anthracnose diseases in strawberry. Notably, this is the first time that A. pullulans has been tested against C. acutatum in strawberry. A. pullulans strains (AP-30044, AP-30273, AP-53383, and AP-SLU6) showed significant variation in terms of growth and conidia production. An inverse relationship was found between the growth and conidiation rate, suggesting a trade-off between resource allocation for growth and conidial production. Dual plate co-culturing assays showed that mycelial growth of B. cinerea and C. acutatum was reduced by up to 35 and 18%, respectively, when challenged with A. pullulans compared with control treatments. Likewise, culture filtrates of A. pullulans showed varying levels of antifungal activity against B. cinerea and C. acutatum, reducing the mycelial biomass by up to 90 and 72%, respectively. Furthermore, milk powder plate assays showed that A. pullulans produced substantial amounts of extracellular proteases, which are known to degrade fungal cuticle. Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS) analyses revealed that A. pullulans produced exophilins, liamocins, and free fatty acids known to have antifungal properties. A. pullulans shows high potential for successful biological control of strawberry diseases and discuss opportunities for further optimization of this beneficial fungus.
Combining Air Sampling and DNA Metabarcoding to Monitor Plant Pathogens
Authors: Reich Jonathan , Chen Wen , Radford Devon , Turkington Kelly , Yevtushenko Dmytro , Hamelin Richard , Chatterton Syama
Published: March 2023

Monitoring the air for airborne plant pathogens is an increasingly common method for the management of economically important plant diseases. In Alberta, Canada, several commodity clusters, including dry bean, canola, potato, and wheat, currently support air monitoring research programs for airborne pathogens of interest. In this study, we assessed the feasibility of monitoring for these, and more, plant fungal pathogens simultaneously using two different sampler types (cyclone versus rotation impaction) and by metabarcoding the ITS1 region using the Illumina sequencing platform. We collected air samples from four geographically distant sites across Alberta and monitored four crop types in southern Alberta. Overall, we found weak, but statistically significant, effects of geographic location and crop type on the aeromycobiota community composition. A few common taxa, such as Ramularia, Alternaria, and Epicoccum, constituted the vast majority of reads across all samples. Nevertheless, in each sample, we identified many plant pathogens of interest and organisms that previous research has found antagonistic to those pathogens, highlighting the utility of these approaches in understanding the pathobiome. In assessing the real-world implications of read counts, we discovered that they were only weakly correlated with spore counts quantified by qPCR. The two types of samplers collected different community profiles, reinforcing the importance of carefully considering which sampler type to use in monitoring programs. Taken together, our results show promise for the future of monitoring the air pathobiome, although much more work is required to understand the relationship of airborne communities to their in-field impact on disease development.

[Formula: see text] Copyright © 2023 His Majesty the King in Right of Canada, as represented by the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .
Practicing cultural humility toward Black and Brown communities in the ED
Authors: Wall Aishia
Published: March 2023

Recent studies indicate that practicing cultural humility versus cultural competency increases the quality of care for patients. This article discusses the differences between cultural competence and humility and explores the best practices for adopting and demonstrating cultural humility in nursing care.