bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Alien vs. herbivore: ant-mediated plant defense as an option for biological control of leafcutter ants
Authors: Schulze-Sylvester Maria , Sylvester Francisco , Torres Víctor Manuel , Paris Carolina Ivon , Corronca José Antonio
Published: October 2022

Leafcutter ants are a major pest in vineyards in Argentina, but their damage to vine plants has not been sufficiently quantified. Biological control against leafcutter ants has not been successful so far. Sugary rewards can trigger ants to act as plant bodyguards against a wide range of herbivores. The Argentine ant Linepithema humile (Mayr) is a common invader of vineyards worldwide and has a strong preference for carbohydrates. In a first 10-week field experiment, we attracted L. humile ants to a group of plants using sugar feeders, while no feeders were used for a second group. Ant-excluded control plants were also deployed. We quantified the damage inflicted by the leafcutter ant Amoimyrmex bruchi (Forel) on potted vines with and without L. humile ants. In a second short field experiment, we evaluated the impact of L. humile on A. bruchi foraging through the quantification of foraging activity and the amount of transported material as a function of L. humile presence. We found that A. bruchi caused >90% leaf area reductions in plants without L. humile, while plants where the species was present were rarely attacked and leaves developed similar to those of ant-excluded controls. Active interaction with L. humile decreased A. bruchi’s foraging activity and the amount of material transported by it. This is the first report of A. bruchi as a vineyard pest and the first quantification of the damage inflicted by a leafcutter ant on organic grapevines. We demonstrate that L. humile defends vine plants against herbivore pests and artificial sugar sources boost can this defense service. The development of biological control strategies that include the ecological services of ants as natural enemies of herbivorous pests could become a useful tool in sustainable viticulture and horticulture.
Material-specific predicting of the optimal joining parameters for the screw blind rivet joining process
Authors: Held C. , Hillemeyer J. , Moritzer E.
Published: October 2022

The screw-blind riveting combines direct screwing with the blind riveting. The novel joining element can be integrated into every injection-molded component like a standard screw boss without significantly increasing the processing time. The screw-blind-rivet (SBR) consists of a screw boss connected to a substrate by a thin sleeve. The joining process of screw-blind-riveting can be divided into two phases. The first is the screw-in phase. The screw is secured into the SBR. The second phase is the forming phase. Further turning of the screw will cause the sleeve to buckle out and form an undercut. To qualify the connection element for industrial use, in addition to the strengths of the design, suitable connection parameters are required for the user. The independent parameters of the joining process are the contact pressure of the screw and the screwing-in speed. The rate is reduced to avoid damage and ensure a proper alignment. The speed after the headrest is an additional influencing parameter. The most influencing parameter for the undercut is the rotation angle after the initial screw placement as it affects the shape of the undercut. The larger the undercut is, the more stable the rivet. However, the larger the undercut is, the more deformations and material damage occur. Thus, the optimal angle for the forming depends on the material of the rivet. Consequently, the deformation angle must be selected depending on the material properties. For this, various materials were tested. The results show a well predictability of the optimum joining parameters by using the elongation at yield stress of the used material.
A hybrid spectral clustering simulated annealing algorithm for the street patrol districting problem
Authors: Jiang Yirui , Zhao Shan , Li Hongwei , Qin Yulu , Yang Xiaoyue
Published: October 2022

Reasonable districting plays an important role in the patrolling process. In this paper, workload attributes are considered, and a mixed integer programming model is developed to solve the street patrol districting problem (SPDP). The improved spectral clustering algorithm named spectral clustering algorithm based on the road network (SCRn) and simulated annealing algorithm (SA) are combined. This results in a hybrid algorithm called SCRn-SA. The SCRn-SA algorithm is tested on small examples and real instances in Zhengzhou, China. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is effective for solving SPDP. It has better performance when compared to other advanced algorithms.
Distribution matching and structure preservation for domain adaptation
Authors: Li Ping , Ni Zhiwei , Zhu Xuhui , Song Juan
Published: October 2022

Cross-domain classification refers to completing the corresponding classification task in a target domain which lacks label information, by exploring useful knowledge in a related source domain but with different data distribution. Domain adaptation can deal with such cross-domain classification, by reducing divergence of domains and transferring the relevant knowledge from the source to the target. To mine the discriminant information of the source domain samples and the geometric structure information of domains, and thus improve domain adaptation performance, this paper proposes a novel method involving distribution matching and structure preservation for domain adaptation (DMSP). First, it aligns the subspaces of the source domain and target domain on the Grassmann manifold; and learns the non-distorted embedded feature representations of the two domains. Second, in this embedded feature space, the empirical structure risk minimization method with distribution adaptation regularization and intra-domain graph regularization is used to learn an adaptive classifier, further adapting the source and target domains. Finally, we perform extensive experiments on widely used cross-domain classification datasets to validate the superiority of DMSP. The average classification accuracy of DMSP on these datasets is the highest compared with several state-of-the-art domain adaptation methods.
Energy efficiency initiatives and the academic community’s behaviour: a Brazilian experience
Authors: Rebelatto Bianca Gasparetto , Salvia Amanda Lange , Reginatto Giovana , Brandli Luciana , Frandoloso Marcos Antonio Leite
Published: October 2022

The Sustainable Development Goals are part of the 2030 Agenda and the seventh goal is dedicated to affordable and clean energy, aiming to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. Energy efficiency is an important component of this goal and is associated with reducing energy consumption and its costs and increasing the source of clean energy production. Some authors have been discussing the relation between theory and practice of sustainability, and how the practice can contribute to behaviour change. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to assess the level of knowledge of the academic community about energy efficiency practices implemented during recent years by the University of Passo Fundo, in Brazil, and students, professors and employees’ energy behaviour. The paper intends to illustrate how education practices on energy efficiency can be added to universities’ actions to improve the progress towards reducing energy consumption and promoting occupants’ change of behaviour on campus. The methodology represents a case study of the University, based on a questionnaire applied to the academic community, with a sample of 400 respondents. The results showed that the university should invest more in its energy efficiency actions but always connecting these with the academic community and highlighting their importance for the success of the practices and for a more sustainable culture on campus. Our findings show the importance of connecting energy efficiency initiatives to the academic community’s behaviour, and especially of making these initiatives more visible and engaging. The contribution of this study is expected to support other educational institutions developing similar strategies in the energy context, but could also be useful to other sectors and sustainability topics, as the need for further dissemination and awareness-raising efforts is universal.
Introduction to Computational Nanomechanics
Authors: Li Shaofan , Li Jun
Published: October 2022

An original comprehensive guide on computational nanomechanics discussing basic concepts and implications in areas such as computational physics, materials, mechanics and engineering as well as several other interdisciplinary avenues. This book makes the underlying theory accessible to readers without specialised training or extensive background in quantum physics, statistical mechanics, or theoretical chemistry. It combines a careful treatment of theoretical concepts with a detailed tutorial on computer software and computing implementation, including multiscale simulation and computational statistical theory. Multidisciplinary perspectives are provided, yielding a true insight on the applications of computational nanomechanics across diverse engineering fields. The book can serve as a practical guide with step-by-step discussion of coding, example problems and case studies. This book will be essential reading for students new to the subject, as well as an excellent reference for graduates and researchers.
Planet in Peril
Authors: Bess Michael D.
Published: October 2022

Written by an award-winning historian of science and technology, Planet in Peril describes the top four mega-dangers facing humankind – climate change, nukes, pandemics, and artificial intelligence. It outlines the solutions that have been tried, and analyzes why they have thus far fallen short. These four existential dangers present a special kind of challenge that urgently requires planet-level responses, yet today's international institutions have so far failed to meet this need. The book lays out a realistic pathway for gradually modifying the United Nations over the coming century so that it can become more effective at coordinating global solutions to humanity's problems. Neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but pragmatic and constructive, the book explores how to move past ideological polarization and global political fragmentation. Unafraid to take intellectual risks, Planet in Peril sketches a plausible roadmap toward a safer, more democratic future for us all.
Operational Research Approaches
Authors: Utley Martin , Crowe Sonya , Pagel Christina
Published: October 2022

Operational research is a collection of modelling techniques used to structure, analyse, and solve problems related to the design and operation of complex human systems. While many argue that operational research should play a key role in improving healthcare services, staff may be largely unaware of its potential applications. This Element explores operational research's wartime origins and introduce several approaches that operational researchers use to help healthcare organisations: address well-defined decision problems; account for multiple stakeholder perspectives; and describe how system performance may be impacted by changing the configuration or operation of services. The authors draw on examples that illustrate the valuable perspective that operational research brings to improvement initiatives and the challenges of implementing and scaling operational research solutions. They discuss how operational researchers are working to surmount these problems and suggest further research to help operational researchers have greater beneficial impact in healthcare improvement. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Implementation Science
Authors: Wilson Paul , Kislov Roman
Published: October 2022

This Element introduces and critically reflects on the contribution of implementation science to healthcare improvement efforts. Grounded in several disciplines, implementation science is the study of strategies to promote the uptake of evidence-based interventions into healthcare practice and policy. The field's focus is threefold. First, it encompasses theory and empirical research focused on exploring, identifying, and understanding the systems, behaviours, and practices that influence successful implementation. Second, it examines the evaluation of strategies to address barriers or enablers to implementation in a given context. Last, it increasingly seeks to understand the process of implementation itself: what actually gets implemented, and when, why, and how? Despite the growing body of evidence, challenges remain. Many important messages remain buried in the literature, and their impact on implementation efforts in routine practice may be limited. The challenge is not just to get evidence into practice, but also to get implementation science into practice. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The Joy of Abstraction
Authors: Cheng Eugenia
Published: October 2022

Mathematician and popular science author Eugenia Cheng is on a mission to show you that mathematics can be flexible, creative, and visual. This joyful journey through the world of abstract mathematics into category theory will demystify mathematical thought processes and help you develop your own thinking, with no formal mathematical background needed. The book brings abstract mathematical ideas down to earth using examples of social justice, current events, and everyday life – from privilege to COVID-19 to driving routes. The journey begins with the ideas and workings of abstract mathematics, after which you will gently climb toward more technical material, learning everything needed to understand category theory, and then key concepts in category theory like natural transformations, duality, and even a glimpse of ongoing research in higher-dimensional category theory. For fans of How to Bake Pi, this will help you dig deeper into mathematical concepts and build your mathematical background.
Emotions and Surgery in Britain, 1793–1912
Authors: Brown Michael
Published: October 2022

In this innovative analytical account of the place of emotion and embodiment in nineteenth-century British surgery, Michael Brown examines the changing emotional dynamics of surgical culture for both surgeons and patients from the pre-anaesthetic era through the introduction of anaesthesia and antisepsis techniques. Drawing on diverse archival and published sources, Brown explores how an emotional regime of Romantic sensibility, in which emotions played a central role in the practice and experience of surgery, was superseded by one of scientific modernity, in which the emotions of both patient and practitioner were increasingly marginalised. Demonstrating that the cultures of contemporary surgery and the emotional identities of its practitioners have their origins in the cultural and conceptual upheavals of the later nineteenth century, this book challenges us to question our perception of the pre-anaesthetic period as an era of bloody brutality and casual cruelty. This title is also available as open access.
Substance
Authors: O'Conaill Donnchadh
Published: October 2022

Substance has long been one of the key categories in metaphysics. This Element focuses on contemporary work on substance, and in particular on contemporary substance ontologies, metaphysical systems in which substance is one of the fundamental categories and individual substances are among the basic building blocks of reality. The topics discussed include the different metaphysical roles which substances have been tasked with playing; different critieria of substancehood (accounts of what is it to be a substance); arguments for and against the existence of substances; and different accounts of which entities, if any, count as substances.
The Overlooked Advantages of the Independent Monitoring and Complaint Investigation System in the Worker-driven Social Responsibility Model in US Agriculture
Authors: Angelini Antonella , Curphey Shauna
Published: October 2022

Across the United States (US), farmworkers and their allies are mobilizing to encourage companies to join a Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) program. On May Day, hundreds marched in support of Migrant Justice’s campaign to convince the Hannaford supermarket chain to join the Milk With Dignity program, a WSR program focused on working conditions in the dairy industry.1 At the most recent annual shareholder meeting of Wendy’s, a US-based fast food franchise, several members of the board of directors faced opposition to renewal of their positions in response to what some shareholders perceived as Wendy’s inadequate disclosure on its efforts to protect workers in its supply chain.2 The opposition forms part of a years-long campaign by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and its allies to convince Wendy’s to join the Fair Food Program, the inaugural WSR program.3
Cross-Sectional Study on Risk of Flooding and Landslides and Their Associated Perceptions Among Home Health-Care Patients Living in Fukui Prefecture, Japan
Authors: Yoshida Makoto , Miyatake Hirotomo , Masunaga Hidehisa , Kosaka Makoto , Kaneda Yudai , Kotera Yasuhiro , Nishikawa Yoshitaka , Tsunetoshi Chie , Yoshida Izumi , Ogawa Fubuki , Ozaki Akihiko , Beniya Hiroyuki
Published: October 2022

Objective:

This study aimed to evaluate a risk of flooding and landslides among home-care patients, to reveal an extent to which patients require support for evacuation, and to determine whether risk was accurately perceived among the patients.

Methods:

This is a cross-sectional study targeting the patients who were actively treated at the home-care clinic in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. We collected data on the patients’ sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. Additionally, we collected data on their risk of flooding and landslides through hazard maps and distributed a questionnaire to these patients regarding their risk awareness of flooding and landslides.

Results:

Of the 199 eligible home-care patients, 84.9% (169 of 199) were at risk of flooding and/or landslides, and 58.6% (99 of 169) of them needs support during evacuation. Furthermore, of those who were at risk of flooding and/or landslides, 46.0% (45 of 99) had accurate risk assessments. Factors that resulted in inadequate risk awareness of flooding and landslides included: not placing importance on evacuation, not using medical equipment, and living on the first floor.

Conclusions:

There was limited risk awareness of flooding and/or landslides among the home-care patients. The information of the risk factors regarding inadequate risk awareness of flooding and landslides should be used to sophisticate flooding and landslides evacuation strategy.
Needs Assessment and Best Practices for Digital Trainings for Health Professionals in Ethiopia Using the RE-AIM Framework: COVID-19, Case Study
Authors: Yudkin Joshua S. , Hodes Richard M. , Sandler-Loeff Avital , Messiah Sarah E.
Published: October 2022

Objectives:

This study is aimed to assess the implementation science outcomes of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) e-health educational intervention in Ethiopia targeting health care workers via the RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adaption, Implementation, Maintenance) framework.

Methods:

A series of three 1-hour medical seminars focused on COVID-19 prevention and treatment education were conducted between May and August 2020. Educational content was built from medical sites previously impacted by COVID-19. Post-seminar evaluation information was collected from physician and other participants by a survey instrument. Cross-sectional evaluation results are reported here by RE-AIM constructs.

Results:

The medical seminars reached 324 participants. Key success metrics include that 90% reporting the information delivered in a culturally sensitive/tailored manner (effectiveness), 80% reporting that they planned to share the information presented with someone else (adoption and implementation), and 64% reporting using information presented in their daily clinical responsibilities 6 months after the first medical seminars (maintenance).

Conclusion:

Grounded in a theoretical framework and following evidence-based best practices, this intervention advances the field of dissemination and implementation science by demonstrating how to transition health care training and delivery from an in-person to digital medium in low-resource settings like Ethiopia.
Discussions About COVID-19 Vaccination on Twitter in Turkey: Sentiment Analysis
Authors: Mermer Gülengül , Özsezer Gözde
Published: October 2022

Objectives:

The present study aims to examine coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination discussions on Twitter in Turkey and conduct sentiment analysis.

Methods:

The current study performed sentiment analysis of Twitter data with the artificial intelligence (AI) Natural Language Processing (NLP) method. The tweets were retrieved retrospectively from March 10, 2020, when the first COVID-19 case was seen in Turkey, to April 18, 2022. A total of 10,308 tweets accessed. The data were filtered before analysis due to excessive noise. First, the text is tokenized. Many steps were applied in normalizing texts. Tweets about the COVID-19 vaccines were classified according to basic emotion categories using sentiment analysis. The resulting dataset was used for training and testing ML (ML) classifiers.

Results:

It was determined that 7.50% of the tweeters had positive, 0.59% negative, and 91.91% neutral opinions about the COVID-19 vaccination. When the accuracy values of the ML algorithms used in this study were examined, it was seen that the XGBoost (XGB) algorithm had higher scores.

Conclusions:

Three of 4 tweets consist of negative and neutral emotions. The responsibility of professional chambers and the public is essential in transforming these neutral and negative feelings into positive ones.
Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Toward COVID-19 Among Rural Residents of Hebei Province: A Cross-Sectional Survey
Authors: Fang Tingting , Li Yanling , Jiang Donghui , Liu Lan , Fan Fengning , Chen Yuping , Zhao Zihui
Published: October 2022

Objective:

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has spread worldwide due to high infectivity. The social sexual environment in rural areas of China and the weak basic medical facilities may affect the treatment and transmission of the disease. The aim of this study was to understand the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) related to COVID-19 among residents in rural areas experiencing the epidemic and the factors, to provide a basis for further epidemic prevention and control.

Methods:

The COVID-19 KAP of rural residents in Hebei Province was collected by the snowball sampling method. The COVID-19 KAP questionnaire was distributed on social platforms such as WeChat and QQ through a network questionnaire.

Results:

The overall level of COVID-19 KAP in rural residents was good, but in terms of knowledge, the correct rate of isolation was 73.2%, the correct rates of 2 disinfection items were 72.3% and 77.4%, and the correct rate of hand-washing was 70.7%; 54.5% residents felt panic; 81.0% disinfected household items; and 84.9% washed their hands correctly. Residents still needed to strengthen these aspects. A binary logistic analysis showed that age, education, and participation in training were factors affecting the level of COVID-19 KAP.

Conclusions:

This study found that rural residents had good levels of COVID-19 KAP, but there were gaps in specific issues that warrant attention. We advocate training on COVID-19 for rural residents.
Pour (tear) gas on fire? Violent confrontations and anti-government backlash
Authors: Chau Tak-Huen , Wan Kin-Man
Published: October 2022

How do voters in a developed economy react to political violence at the ballot box? Most of the current literature suggests that a social movement turning violent dampens its support. To this end, we examine the effect of violent clashes and indiscriminate state repression on Hong Kong's 2019 municipal election. Using original geocoded data, we proxy violence and repression by the frequency of police shooting tear gas rounds at protesters. Despite the movement turning in part violent, the presence of indiscriminate state repression reduces regime support. We offer evidence that repression de-mobilized pro-regime voters. We discuss possible explanations behind our findings and how the specificity of political violence may matter in shaping public support in protest movements.
Numerical simulation of rim seal flows in axial turbines
Authors: Boudet J. , Autef V. N. D. , Chew J. W. , Hills N. J. , Gentilhomme O.
Published: October 2022

In a gas turbine, ingestion of hot gas into the high-pressure turbine disc cavities could cause metal overheat. To prevent this, cool air is taken from the compressor and ejected through the cavities. However, this sealing flow also reduces the overall efficiency, and a compromise has to be found between the level of ingestion tolerated and the losses. Recent advances made in applying Computational Fluid Dynamics to such configurations are presented, with the aim of better understanding the physical phenomena and providing reliable design tools. First, results showing the pumping effect of the rotating disc are presented, including the influence of flow instabilities observed in both computational and experimental results. Second, the influence of the main annulus pressure asymmetries are analysed on a simplified representation of an available experiment, showing the combined influence of asymmetries generated by vanes and struts. Finally, a rim seal geometry representative of aero-engine design is studied in comparison to experiment, exhibiting the coupled influence of the cavity instabilities and annulus asymmetries.
Nature of the evidence base and strengths, challenges and recommendations in the area of nutrition and health claims: a position paper from the Academy of Nutrition Sciences
Authors: Ashwell Margaret , Hickson Mary , Stanner Sara , Prentice Ann , Williams Christine M.
Published: October 2022

The regulation of health claims for foods by the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation is intended, primarily, to protect consumers from unscrupulous claims by ensuring claims are accurate and substantiated with high quality scientific evidence. In this position paper, the Academy of Nutrition Sciences uniquely recognises the strengths of the transparent, rigorous scientific assessment by independent scientists of the evidence underpinning claims in Europe, an approach now independently adopted in UK. Further strengths are the separation of risk assessment from risk management, and the extensive guidance for those submitting claims. Nevertheless, four main challenges in assessing the scientific evidence and context remain: (i) defining a healthy population, (ii) undertaking efficacy trials for foods, (iii) developing clearly defined biomarkers for some trial outcomes and (iv) ensuring the composition of a food bearing a health claim is consistent with generally accepted nutrition principles. Although the Regulation aims to protect the consumer from harm, we identify some challenges from consumer research: (i) making the wording of some health claims more easily understood and (ii) understanding the implications of the misperceptions around products bearing nutrition or health claims. Recommendations are made to overcome these challenges. Further, the Academy recommends that a dialogue is developed with the relevant national bodies about Article 12(c) in the Regulation. This should further clarify the GB Guidance to avoid the current non-level playing field between health professionals and untrained ‘influencers’ who are not covered by this Article about the communication of authorised claims within commercial communications.
The Admissibility of Expert Evidence in Criminal Proceedings in Malawi: A Call for Reliability Safeguards
Authors: Makanje Gift Dorothy
Published: October 2022

Expert evidence is an increasingly prominent feature of criminal litigation. Confidence in the reliability of such evidence is therefore vital to the integrity of the justice process. Of late, there have been concerns in most jurisdictions that liberal admissibility standards allow expert evidence of doubtful reliability to be admitted by courts, leading to miscarriages of justice. Consequently, most adversarial common law systems now apply reliability standards to the reception of expert evidence. Malawian law makes provision for the admissibility of expert evidence on mere production if the parties to the case consent. This article critically evaluates this position, arguing that it provides no safeguards for assessing the reliability of expert evidence, thereby making the criminal justice system prone to injustices and challenges related to the use of such evidence. It proceeds to consider how the law and the courts can enhance the reliability of expert evidence in criminal proceedings.
Applications of new measures of population ageing using quantity and quality of remaining life years to India and selected states
Authors: Kundu Sampurna , Dhillon Preeti
Published: October 2022

In the latter part of the third stage, India is in demographic transition with declining fertility and mortality. This marked decline in death rates is driven by improvements in health conditions due to medical progress and better living conditions. The conventional measures of ageing do not account for the significant improvements in health and life expectancy, thus leading to a tendency to overestimate the impact of population ageing when these indicators are used. The old-age threshold in the conventional measures of ageing depends on chronological age. The present study estimated the multi-dimensional old-age thresholds (MOAT) based on the remaining life expectancy (RLE), self-rated health, activities of daily living (ADL), handgrip strength, and cognition in India and selected states. The standard population was derived for each dimension for 50 and over in states using the WHO Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health data. Keeping the dimensional characteristics as of the standard population, the estimated MOAT for India was 67 years where Maharashtra stands at the top (68.6), followed by, West Bengal (66.5) and Karnataka (66). A 64 year old woman was similar to 68.8 year old man, and a 66 year old rural person was equivalent to 68 year old urban person. The study suggests implications of MOATs on reducing the burden of ageing and increment in retirement age.
Household Structure and Political Crisis: Buenos Aires, 1810–1860
Authors: Szuchman Mark D.
Published: October 2022

This article will provide an overview of the changes in household composition in the city of Buenos Aires during the first decades of nation building. The discussion of household structures is based on a detailed analysis of the homes of thirty-five thousand porteños (residents of the city of Buenos Aires). The quantitative data are taken from three relatively complete manuscript census returns for the years 1810, 1827, and 1855. Once certain flaws in these census tracts are taken into account, the tracts represent an ample cross-section of urban Buenos Aires society. The variations found in household structures will be used to advance a theory about an underlying dimension of the durability of caudillo rule in Argentina. The proposed thesis on the relationship between strongman leadership and popular following is also based on interpretations employing classic sociological theory. The tentative conclusions concern the nature of early nineteenth-century political culture and afford opportunities for fresh explanations of the period's caudillismo. The data are thus presented in the hope of broadening the scope of discussion about political leadership in the early stages of nation building in Spanish America.
Panamanian Historical Sources
Authors: Ward Christopher , Junkins Richard J.
Published: October 2022

Considered a part of neither Central America nor the Gran Colombian area, and too small to claim a loyal following among scholars, Panama remains virtually unstudied by contemporary historians. Consequently, sources for the study of Panamanian history have been neglected, a situation this research note seeks to correct in part by identifying the principal holdings in Panamanian archives and libraries.
Argentine Sociopolitical Commentary, the Malvinas Conflict, and Beyond: Rhetoricizing a National Experience
Authors: Foster David William
Published: October 2022

It was inevitable that after the demise of the series of military dictatorships that ruled Argentina so violently between 1976 and 1983, the return to democratic institutions would occasion an outpouring of the kinds of writing and cultural activities banned or censored by the generals. Movie distributors in Argentina today cannot keep up with the demand for films that could not be seen during these years (or were seen only with extensive and capricious cuts). Theaters are competing with each other to present works dealing with human rights violations and related themes. Television programming, which the military assiduously controlled, has now begun to evince some social consciousness. Meanwhile, the print media have filled bookstores and kiosks with myriad publications bearing witness to the attempt to recover a cultural tradition altered and fragmented by the so-called Proceso de Reorganización Nacional.
Economic Migrants or Refugees from Violence?: A Time-Series Analysis of Salvadoran Migration to the United States
Authors: Stanley William Deane
Published: October 2022

A heated debate has arisen over U.S. policy toward the large number of Salvadorans and Guatemalans who have come to the United States in recent years. The question is whether the U.S. government should continue to deport these individuals or should offer them some special protection. The key point of debate is the motivation of the émigrés. Officials of the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Justice have maintained that Salvadorans and Guatemalans who come here are merely economic migrants in search of a better life, and that as such, they are ineligible for any special treatment under U.S. immigration law. According to representatives of the Reagan administration, the fact that many Central Americans pass through Mexico on their way to the United States is evidence of their economic motivations.
Recent Research on Women in Brazil
Authors: Hahner June E.
Published: October 2022

The last half-dozen years have witnessed an outpouring of Brazilian publications, both rigorous academic studies and popular essays, on women and their roles and activities within Brazilian society. Since the late 1970s, publishers and educated audiences have demonstrated an active interest in works on women that contrasts sharply with the hostile reception accorded Betty Friedan and the Brazilian translation of her Feminine Mystique in 1971. What was once a subject for ridicule has become a timely topic. In 1980 a compendium of the year's nonfiction titles revealed more books listed under the heading of feminism than under biology or botany, and almost as many as under anthropology or cooking.1 The expanding publications on socially determined sex roles have accompanied the development of a small, but active, feminist movement and a general increase in publishing activities in Brazil as the “redemocratization” process gains strength and readers seek more information on previously forbidden topics.
The War of the Triple Alliance: Three Explanatory Models
Authors: Abente Diego
Published: October 2022

The Paraguayan War, or War of the Triple Alliance, fought by Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay (1864–1870), remains unique in the Latin American context in several respects. Dire in its duration and human toll, the war's underlying conflict was not directly related to specific boundary disagreements. Unlike other Latin American conflicts, the War of the Triple Alliance has stirred a passionate controversy involving heavy ideological connotations, with some analysts viewing it as a struggle between civilization (the Alliance) and barbarism (Paraguay) and others depicting it as a confrontation between British imperialism (the Alliance) and Latin American nationalism (Paraguay).
Urbanization, Race, and Class in Brazilian Politics
Authors: Soares Glaucio Ary Dillon , Silva Nelson do Valle
Published: October 2022

Late in 1982, elections were held in Brazil for governors, congressional representatives in both houses, state legislators, mayors, and city council members. According to many observers, they were the first truly free elections in twenty years, the first unhampered by the ominous presence of an institutional act that had overridden the Brazilian constitution.
Surviving Conquest: The Maya of Guatemala in Historical Perspective
Authors: Lovell W. George
Published: October 2022

Little by little heavy shadows and black night enveloped our fathers and grandfathers and us also, oh, my sons …!

All of us were thus. We were born to die!

The Annals of the Cakchiquels (ca. 1550–1600)

The Maya of Guatemala are today, as they have been in the past, a dominated and beleaguered group. Few have expressed this enduring reality more poignantly than the late Oliver La Farge. Commenting forty years ago on why Kanjobal Indians take to drink, La Farge observed that “while these people undoubtedly suffer from drunkenness, one would hesitate to remove the bottle from them until the entire pattern of their lives is changed. They are an introverted people, consumed by internal fires which they cannot or dare not express, eternally chafing under the yoke of conquest, and never for a moment forgetting that they are a conquered people.”
ECLAC and the Political Economy of the Central American Common Market
Authors: Irvin George
Published: October 2022

The Central American Common Market (CACM) was once described as “the most successful example of economic integration in the Third World.” Today the CACM is nearly defunct, a victim of the smoldering crisis that erupted in Central America in 1979 following the second oil shock and the Nicaraguan Revolution. Various arguments may be found in the literature on the economics of the region that purport to explain this collapse.
Sorghum and the Mexican Food Crisis
Authors: Barkin David , DeWalt Billie R.
Published: October 2022

Mexico achieved food self-sufficiency and raised rural living standards in the thirty years prior to the mid-sixties, yet the country is now plagued by a profound agricultural crisis that is manifesting itself in serious natural resource disequilibria, unemployment and underemployment, and inadequate food production. This seemingly contradictory outcome has resulted from an agricultural growth strategy that reoriented production toward agroexports and animal feeds. Understanding the effects of this strategy is essential because these same trends are the most important phenomena in the agricultural sector of many developing countries today (Barr 1981; Winrock International 1981; DeWalt 1983).
Una nota sobre el desenvolvimiento de la economia venezolana, 1830–1920
Authors: Baptista Asdrúbal
Published: October 2022

La historia cuantitativa de la economía venezolana tiene antecedentes de importante significación. En particular, desde 1920 hasta el presente se dispone de cálculos y estimaciones del nivel agregado de la actividad económica. Más hacia atrás, sin embargo, la investigación histórica, ricamente documentada como sin duda lo es y por tanto de gran valor científico, apenas se ha ocupado en esa suerte de indagaciones macroeconómicas, al menos para intentar brindar una visión cuantitativa global del desempeño económico agregado.
Television and Video in the Transition from Military to Civilian Rule in Brazil
Authors: Straubhaar Joseph D.
Published: October 2022

Until now, discussions of theories of media and society or media and the state in the North American literature have been limited. The four theories of the press advanced by Fred Siebert, Wilbur Schramm, and Theodore Peterson cover the main approaches of Western liberal society, the libertarian and social responsibility models, and some aspects of the Eastern bloc in the “totalitarian” model. Under the heading of “authoritarian,” however, a number of very diverse systems are lumped together. One major variation seen in Brazil is the continued vitality of the corporatist model of state and society, which has distinct implications for the role of mass media. In particular, aspects of corporatism seem to be combining with aspects of democracy and mass mobilization politics in ways that shed light on the role of the media in constructing or undercutting ideological hegemony in the heterogeneous, class-divided societies of Latin America.
Protestantism in Rural Guatemala, 1872–1954
Authors: Burnett Virginia Garrard
Published: October 2022

For eighteen months, between March 1982 and August 1983, Guatemala was ruled by a born-again Christian, General Efrain Ríos Montt. He drew world attention to Guatemala because of his brutally effective suppression of the nation's guerrilla movement and his idiosyncratic style of rule but above all, because of his religion. The idea that a Protestant could serve as the chief of state in a country as staunchly Catholic as Guatemala struck many observers as an anomaly. Closer examination reveals, however, that it was not anomalous for a Protestant to be president of Guatemala. By 1982 nearly 30 percent of the Guatemalan population were Protestants, the result of a quiet wave of conversion that started during the nineteenth century and has accelerated dramatically in the last three decades. The idea that President Ríos Montt's religion would influence his entire administration was even less surprising, for Protestantism has been wed to politics in Guatemala ever since it first arrived in the country. The purpose of this research report is to examine the development of patterns in the relationship between the Guatemalan state and Protestantism as they evolved during the formative years between 1872 and 1954 and to explore the effects of this relationship on Protestant conversion.
Mariategui's Aesthetic Thought: A Critical Reading of the Avant-Gardes
Authors: Unruh Vicky
Published: October 2022

José Carlos Mariátegui devoted the most productive years of his short life (1894–1930) to analyzing contemporary Peru. Because of this emphasis, a substantial portion of the research conducted in the past thirty years has addressed his political and social thought. More recent investigations, however, have sought to document the significance of his aesthetic ideas, an appropriate development in light of Mariátegui's extensive writings on literature and the visual arts. For example, the periodical Amauta, which appeared under his editorship twenty-nine times between September 1926 and March 1930, was primarily a magazine of the arts and intellectual life, notwithstanding its political agenda and indigenista orientation. Also, Mariátegui's detailed essay on Peruvian literature, “El proceso de la literatura,” is the most extensive of the Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (1928). In addition, between 1924 and 1930, the widely read Lima weeklies Variedades and Mundial regularly published his critical articles on national and international topics, including a large number of pieces on literature and the arts. Recent inquiries into Mariátegui's literary thought have addressed such issues as his modern concept of literary realism, the relationship between his artistic concerns and a Marxism that has been repeatedly characterized as “open,” and the role of aesthetic issues in his social agenda for Peru. This research has established Mariátegui's importance in the arts, not as a creative writer (although he did write poetry, plays, and short stories in his youth) but as one of Latin America's first practicing literary critics.
International Trade, Government, and Income Distribution in Peru Since 1870
Authors: Berry Albert
Published: October 2022

Whether and how the international trade and investments of less-developed countries affect their patterns of income distribution has long been a matter of interest and debate. Classical economic theory has tended to be optimistic on this count based on the assumption that when poor, heavily populated countries specialize in and export the labor-intensive goods in which they are expected to have an advantage, they will grow fast and improve their income distribution as well. But while trade's positive impact on distribution may be the natural expectation when a country's exports are mainly labor-intensive manufactures, no such generalization is warranted when primary products dominate the export mix, even though one might still expect some loose tendency toward labor intensity. The distribution of rents associated with an export-specific input or inputs may be very concentrated (often the case with mineral exports) or relatively egalitarian (as with exports produced by small family farms), but political factors also affect who gets them. Other, less-direct effects may also be important, including the type of linkages from the export sector, the demands created by the income they generate, and the direction of government expenditure of the fiscal revenues resulting from the trade.
Cultural Agenda of Latin American Newspapers and Magazines: Is U.S. Domination a Myth?
Authors: Buckman Robert
Published: October 2022

During the early 1960s, when U.S.-Cuban relations reached their nadir and threatened to embroil this planet in the ultimate superpower showdown, a prophetic cartoon appeared in one of the then-popular U.S. feature magazines. It showed a bearded, fatigue-clad newscaster seated at the microphone in the Radio Cuba studios, telling his audience, “And now for the baseball scores from the hated imperialistic Yankee mainland.” The cartoonist had no way of knowing that a quarter of a century later, his whimsical sketch would exemplify the controversy over alleged U.S. cultural penetration of Latin America through its own mass media, in some cases transcending even political barriers. The purpose of this study is to examine what role, if any, the Latin American printed mass media are playing in the intrusion of foreign cultures.
Stabilization, Destabilization, and the Popular Classes in Nicaragua, 1979-1988
Authors: Stahler-Sholk Richard
Published: October 2022

The political tensions surrounding economic stabilization in revolutionary Nicaragua between 1979 and 1988 will be examined in this article. A review of the Nicaraguan case reveals that the Sandinista model of a mixed economy (presupposing at least simple reproduction of the capitalist, small producer, and state sectors) with multiclass “national unity” created a series of demands that were increasingly difficult to reconcile with defense priorities and longer-term goals for socioeconomic transformation. After 1981, access to external finance became more restrictive, the payoff horizon for investment projects began to lengthen, and destabilization intensified. Failure to assess these internal and external tensions realistically contributed to inflationary pressures and de facto shifts in income distribution, which at times undermined the consolidation of revolutionary hegemony and required reconsidering alliance strategies.