bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Writing History: Problems of Neutrality
Authors: Bloxham Donald
Published: August 2020

Part 2 Writing History: Problems of Neutrality This Part of the book challenges widespread assumptions that, where it matters, it is possible or desirable for historians to avoid value judgements and the sorts of evocative descriptions that imply or could reasonably be expected to prompt such judgements. The first section distinguishes between History and particular traditions within the social sciences in order to show why the ‘rules’ about moral evaluation can be different in these differing endeavours. The second section establishes the widespread existence of evocations and evaluations in the very labelling and description of many historical phenomena, suggesting not just how peculiar works of History would look in their absence of evocations and appraisals, but that their absence would often distort what is being reported. These arguments are key to the distinction made in the third section about rejecting value neutrality as a governing ideal while insisting on truthfulness as a historian’s primary duty. The fourth section highlights the nature of most historical accounts as composites of a range of perspectives as it considers questions of context, agency, outcome, and experience. The composition gives rise to the overall impression, evaluative or evocative, provided by the work. The fifth section brings together a number of the chapter’s themes as it examines an important case of the historian’s judgement—judgement about the legitimacy of power in past worlds where legitimacy could be as contested as often today.
Introduction
Authors: Hewitt Elizabeth
Published: August 2020

This introductory chapter details the Jeffersonian bias in early United States literary history and makes a case for attending to Alexander Hamilton’s economic writing from the early 1790s. It argues that Hamilton’s writing provides a very different way to explain the complex mechanics of commerce and finance, albeit a method that has largely disappeared from literary history. The chapter also explains why we should approach economic writing through formal literary analysis.
Choosing a Prime Minister
Authors: Brazier Rodney
Published: August 2020

This unique book for the first time makes a precise analysis of all the possible circumstances in which a politician can become, and cease to be, the British Prime Minister. A critical examination is made of all the relevant constitutional conventions, precedents, non-legal codes, historical events, and law. Of the holders of the office since 1902 (the starting date for the book) more individuals have obtained the office in circumstances other than following a General Election. The book follows a sequence beginning with how a Prime Minister can lose power (for example losing an election, illness, death, a party coup, or retirement), then examines the procedures that might have to be followed (including any need for a caretaker during an interregnum, and how a person can be elected leader of his or her party), and considers at length the ways in which a person can become Prime Minister. The book concludes with a chapter examining whether all this could be made more accessible in a code, and a draft of one is provided at the end of the book.
A Vacancy at Number 10
Authors: Brazier Rodney
Published: August 2020

When Prime Ministers resigned they used to be replaced through informal means, often requiring the Sovereign’s personal discretion to choose the replacement. The secrecy in which this was done extended to matters such as a Prime Minister’s fitness for office, for example regarding serious illness. Prime Ministers rarely wish to retire wholly voluntarily: some resignations have been called retirements, but they were not retirements in the true sense of the word—circumstances left the premiers concerned with no option but to go. Death, serious illness, and ousting by the Cabinet or party have all led to vacancies. The two world wars resulted in six different Governments fighting them. Very rarely a coalition government has been needed to meet a peacetime national emergency.
Minding the Shop
Authors: Brazier Rodney
Published: August 2020

NGBetween the resignation (or death) of a Prime Minister and the formal appointment of a successor the office is vacant. How is the office discharged during an interregnum, or when a Prime Minister is away from the United Kingdom, or is ill, or on holiday? There is no consistency on whether there is a Deputy Prime Minister, and indeed sometimes it is difficult to say who in a Cabinet should take temporary charge if the Prime Minister is unable to act. The constitutional nature of prime-ministerial deputies is fully explored, including examples of Ministers who are designated—in one of a number of ways—to act for a Prime Minister. The constitutional and political difficulties which would be caused by the death of a Prime Minister are examined, and possible answers to those difficulties are set out.
Electing a Leader
Authors: Brazier Rodney
Published: August 2020

A person normally becomes Prime Minister either after winning a General Election, or after the Government party has elected a new leader to succeed a Prime Minister. Leadership of one of the main political parties is therefore a prerequisite for entering Number 10 Downing Street. This chapter examines exactly how the main parties have elected their leaders since 1902, setting the processes in their historical contexts, and explaining why the systems have been changed down the years. The Conservative Party did not have a formal system until after a major crisis in 1963; Labour has always elected its leader; but the systems which have been used have been altered for political reasons. Recent leadership elections, e.g. of Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Jeremy Corbyn, are examined. The chapter also explains the ways in which an opposition party can get rid of a leader who doesn’t want to quit.
Moral Realism and Philosophical Angst
Authors: Blanchard Joshua
Published: August 2020

This chapter defends pro-realism, the view that it is better if moral realism is true rather than any of its rivals. After offering an account of philosophical angst, I make three general arguments. The first targets nihilism: in securing the possibility of moral justification and vindication in objecting to certain harms, moral realism secures something that is non-morally valuable and even essential to the meaning and intelligibility of our lives. The second argument targets antirealism: moral realism secures a desirable independence for moral justification that is qualitatively different from the anti-realistic construal of independence that is only explicable in terms of degrees of distance from our subjective responses and attitudes. Finally, the chapter argues that while the pan-expressivist semantic program of quasi-realism has significant effects on what can be appropriately said in meta-ethical discourse, it provides no comfort to the pro-realist who is already angsty about anti-realism.
Getting a Moral Thing into a Thought
Authors: Werner Preston
Published: August 2020

Non-naturalism is the view that normative properties are response-independent, irreducible to natural properties, and causally inefficacious. An underexplored question for non-naturalism concerns the metasemantics of normative terms. Ideally, the non-naturalist could remain ecumenical, but it appears they cannot. Call this challenge the metasemantic challenge. This chapter suggests that non-naturalists endorse an epistemic account of reference determination of the sort recently defended by Imogen Dickie, with some modifications. An important implication of this account is that, if correct, a fully fleshed out moral epistemology will simultaneously rebut metasemantic objections to non-naturalism. Thus, both the metasemantic and the more widely discussed epistemological challenges in effect amount to one. Before setting out the positive view, the chapter considers why all of the traditional metasemantic theories cause trouble for the non-naturalist. This includes discussions of teleosemantics, conceptual role semantics, as well as Schroeter and Schroeter’s “connectedness” model.
Class, Patronage, and Poetry in Hanoverian England
Authors: Batt Jennifer
Published: August 2020

This book explores the complex and contested relationships that existed between class, patronage, and poetry in Hanoverian England by examining the life and work of Stephen Duck, the ‘famous Threshing Poet’. In 1730, Duck became the most famous agricultural labourer in the nation when his writing won him the patronage of Queen Caroline. The man, and the writing he produced, intrigued contemporaries. How was it possible, they asked, for an agricultural labourer to become a poet? What would a thresher write? Did he really deserve royal patronage, and what would he do with such an honour? How should he be supported? And was he an isolated prodigy, or were there others like him, equally deserving of support? Duck’s remarkable story reveals the tolerances, and intolerances, of the Hanoverian social order. This book sheds new light on the poet’s early life, revealing how the farm labourer developed an interest in poetry; how he wrote his most famous poem, ‘The Thresher’s Labour’; how his public identity as the ‘famous Threshing Poet’ took shape; and how he came to be positioned as a figurehead of labouring-class writing. It explores how the patronage Duck received shaped his writing; how he came to reconceive his relationship with land, labour, and leisure; and how he made use of his newly acquired classical learning to develop new friendships and career opportunities. And it reveals how, after Duck’s death, rumours about his suicide came to overshadow the achievements of his life. Both in life, and in death, this book argues, Duck provided both opportunity and provocation for thinking through the complex interplay of class, patronage, and poetry in Hanoverian England.
Physics of Elasticity and Crystal Defects
Authors: Sutton Adrian P.
Published: August 2020

Mechanical properties of crystalline materials are almost always dominated by the defects within them. The ability to shape metals into pipes, girders and furniture stems from the generation, motion and interaction of these defects. Defects are also the agents of chemical changes within crystals, enabling mass transport by atomic diffusion and changes of phase. Defects distort the crystal and these distortions enable defects to interact over large distances. The theory of elasticity is used to describe these interactions. Assuming no familiarity with the theory, this book introduces the reader to linear elasticity and its application to point defects, dislocations and cracks. A unique feature of the book is the attention given to the atomic structure of defects and its influence on their properties and their elastic fields. Where it is available brief biographical information is provided about prominent contributors to the field. This textbook is written for postgraduate students in physics, engineering and materials science. It is very likely that even those students with some knowledge of elasticity and defects will find much that is new to them in this book.There are exercises to help the student check their understanding as they work through each chapter. The student is guided through more advanced problems at the end of each chapter. Worked solutions to all exercises and problems are available to course instructors from the OUP website. The last chapter describes four technologically important areas requiring fundamental research, with suggestions for possible PhD projects.
Performing Numbers
Authors: Prey Robert
Published: August 2020

This chapter explores the implications of performance metrics as a source of self-knowledge and self-presentation. It does so through the figure of the contemporary musician. As performers on-stage and online, musicians are constantly assessed and evaluated by industry actors, peers, music fans, and themselves. The impact of powerful modes of quantification on personal experiences, understandings, and practices of artistic creation provides insight into the wider role that metrics play in shaping how we see ourselves and others; and how we present ourselves to others. Through in-depth interviews with emerging musicians, this chapter thus uses the artist as a lens through which to understand everyday life within the “performance complex.”
Cosmopolitan Cynicisms
Authors: Small Helen
Published: August 2020

This chapter turns to one of the most flexible and complex political effects of cynicism: its taking of distance on the politics of the nation state. It starts by re-reading the old story of cosmopolitanism’s point of origin in the claim of Diogenes of Sinope to be ‘not a citizen’ of Athens, or any other city state, but kosmopolites, a citizen of the world. It examines the difference between the classical historical literature, in the main, wary of giving Diogenes credit for advocating universal humanitarianism, and the more-and-less critical uses made of classical history by twentieth- and twenty-first-century political theorists. On that basis, the chapter traces the lines of a specifically ‘cynic cosmopolitanism’ as it finds expression within two literary writers looking to challenge the role, and the rights, of Englishness in an international frame: George Eliot (as she turns away from ‘moral realism’, at the end of her writing career, towards more experimental engagement with the form of the character sketch), and Ford Madox Ford, as he develops and revises his literary ‘Impressionism’ during and immediately after the First World War. For both, cosmopolitanism was less a moral matter than one of psychology, requiring an internal balance to be found, in one’s own mind, between idealism and a bracingly cynical realism.
Religious and Secular Conceptions of the Human Good
Authors: Wynn Mark R.
Published: August 2020

Having sketched the idea of goods that are relative to our theological or metaphysical context, this chapter considers some varieties of such goods, taking as its focus two instances of infused moral virtue: abstinence and neighbour love. We note a distinction between these two: in the case of abstinence, the introduction of a theological frame has the effect of lifting an action that would otherwise be morally permissible but under-motivated into the realm of the obligatory, whereas in the case of neighbour love, the introduction of such a frame constitutes as obligatory an action that would otherwise be supererogatory. We consider how we can understand this difference by distinguishing between the kinds of good that can be produced by the infused moral virtues, and noting that one of these kinds of good, what we call an extended good of reason, is present only in the case of neighbour love. We then explore the relevance of extended goods of reason for a consideration of the practical rationality of religious commitment, noting how this kind of good allows the religious way of life to appear as worthwhile from a secular vantage point.
The Nature of Faith
Authors: Wynn Mark R.
Published: August 2020

This chapter examines what kind of assent a person needs to give to a theological narrative if it is to support their pursuit of hybrid goods whose realization is tied to the truth of the narrative. It expounds Aquinas’s account of faith as in the relevant senses cognitive, action-guiding, voluntary, confident and certain, and notes how the idea of hybrid goods allows us to understand the spiritual life in comparable terms. The chapter proposes that faith is best conceived not as first of all a commitment to a world view, from which we are then to read off a set of practical implications, nor as first of all a commitment to a way of life, which then calls for the introduction of a supporting world view, but instead as a commitment to a way of life and world view taken in combination. In this way, the notion of hybrid goods allows us to develop an account of the practical reasonableness of particular forms of the spiritual life, where it is axiological questions at least as much as evidential or epistemic questions that determine the shape of that life.
The Hazards of Social Rank
Authors: Wilson T. K.
Published: August 2020

In any longer-term consideration of the evolution of political violence, it is tempting to start at the very top: with the killing of leaders. This chapter follows the general convention of treating assassination as the slaying of truly elite figures: the rulers. Next the discussion broadens out from killing to hostage-taking: another violent practice that in the more distant past tended to be directed exclusively at political elites but which has since diffused to catch holiday-makers and tourists. Finally, and very briefly, this chapter notes the general historical trend towards a ‘democratization’ of target-widening from the (upper) classes to the wider masses; preparing the way for a subsequent discussion of the specific ways and means by which the threat of political violence has come to be diffused more equitably throughout society.
Violence, Sabotage, and the Mobile Society
Authors: Wilson T. K.
Published: August 2020

Dynamite’s illicit political career is a reminder that new technology can be adopted in radically unforeseen ways. Likewise, the revolutions in transport that characterized the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have transformed the patterns and practice of political violence. New means of transport—and the mobility they bring—have been used to facilitate radically new types of violence; and those means of transport have themselves become targets. Indeed, the extent to which modern political violence has become fixated on complex transport networks is one of its most distinguishing features. This chapter focuses on the rise of the motorized society and aviation: the new means of transport that distinguished the twentieth century. Finally, it turns to deliberate tactics of forced immobilism—attempts to use sabotage to attack the mobile society and its processes of production. While sabotage is broader than just attacks on transport, for reasons of analytical convenience I deal with it as an integrated subject area here.
Conclusion
Authors: Wilson T. K.
Published: August 2020

Any survey of the evolution of political violence over the past 250 years needs to pay attention to the deep roots of stability in Western societies. Western states have successfully controlled violence through the exercise of infrastructural power over wide areas of public and private life. More than any other single factor, it has forced the prospect of insurrectionist violence from modern politics. Basic state stability endures, despite new challenges throw up by the network society. Political violence no longer seems to offer an existential threat. But there are also less comforting lessons. Before the late eighteenth-century revolutions, violent threats to political elites were limited and sporadic. They focused on the very top of society—where real power was located. But by the early twenty-first century, a general aura of threat was more democratic. While much of this violence remains fairly minor, there seems to be more of it. And it is harder to ignore.
Gandhi’s ‘Bitter Fortnight’
Authors: Coovadia Imraan
Published: August 2020

The chapter explores the drawn-out process of Gandhi’s radicalization, which began almost immediately on his arrival in South Africa on 24 May 1873. In the next fortnight, Gandhi would meet unexpected resistance to his presence in a courtroom, on a train, and on top of a stagecoach, a series of adversarial encounters. The chapter considers Gandhi’s drive to engagement and confrontation, which predated his emergence as a community leader and organizer of passive resistance. In trying to understand how a junior representative of a modest company trading along the rim of the Indian Ocean became the focus of a global movement, as well as establishing himself as an original critic of economics and politics, the chapter examines material covering the duration of Gandhi’s sojourn in Southern Africa.
Conclusion
Authors: Coovadia Imraan
Published: August 2020

The conclusion explores the ways in which, in the transition between the old regime and a democratic government, J.M. Coetzee turned the radical tradition in South Africa and the history of colonialism and decolonization into subjects of his storytelling, and in so doing criticized and reformulated revolutionary thought. The conclusion explores Coetzee’s relationship with Tolstoy, as well as with Gandhi, comparing Tolstoy’s writing on animal butchery with Coetzee’s essays and novels including Age of Iron and Foe. The conclusion also considers the tension between human rights and animal rights in a colonial and postcolonial context, examining the role of dogs in Gandhi’s and Coetzee’s work.
The Epistemic Innocence Project
Authors: Bortolotti Lisa
Published: August 2020

Human agents do not simply survive but navigate their world quite successfully despite being inclined to adopt and hang onto irrational beliefs. In this introductory chapter, the author justifies the new framework of epistemic innocence as an attempt to make sense of the idea that our undesirable and at times cringeworthy irrationality may be instrumental to succeed as imperfect agents. The challenge is to create the conceptual resources for evaluating the epistemic status of beliefs that violate standards of truth, accuracy, and epistemic rationality but play an important role in supporting epistemic functionality. The notions of epistemic irrationality, epistemic functionality, and epistemic innocence are introduced and the methodological assumptions guiding the discussion in the subsequent chapters are explained.
Distorted Memory Beliefs
Authors: Bortolotti Lisa
Published: August 2020

In this chapter, the author argues that beliefs about the past that are based on distorted autobiographical memories have the potential for epistemic innocence. The focus is on beliefs about the past that people report in the context of dementia and other conditions in which autobiographical memory is severely compromised. Such beliefs may embellish people’s past achievements or present circumstances, or simply be inconsistent with life events that people can no longer remember. Having memory beliefs to report increases the opportunity for socialisation and information exchange with peers, making content available for sharing and enabling feedback on it. More important still, the maintenance and reporting of memory beliefs about the autobiographical past, when these are not entirely fabricated and contain a grain of truth, enable the retention of key self-related information that would otherwise be threatened by progressive memory loss.
The Impossibility of Language Acquisition (And How They Do It)
Authors: Gleitman Lila R. , Liberman Mark Y. , McLemore Cynthia A. , Partee Barbara H.
Published: August 2020

This autobiographical article, which began as an interview, reports some reflections by Lila R. Gleitman on the development of her thinking and her research—in concert with a host of esteemed collaborators over the years—on issues of language and mind, focusing on how language is acquired. Gleitman entered the field of linguistics as a student of Zellig Harris and learned first-hand of Noam Chomsky’s early work. She chose the psychological perspective, later helping to found the field of cognitive science. With her husband and long-term collaborator, Henry Gleitman, for more than 50 years, she fostered a continuing research community aimed at answering fundamental questions in the theory of language and its acquisition.
The Emergence of the Child as Grammarian
Authors: Gleitman Lila R. , Gleitman Henry , Shipley Elizabeth F.
Published: August 2020

Demonstrations of some young children’s awareness of syntactic and semantic properties of language are presented. Rudiments of such “meta-linguistic” functioning are shown in two-year olds, who give judgments of grammaticalness in a role-modelling situation. The growth of these abilities is documented for a group of five- to eight-year-old children, who are asked explicitly to give judgments of deviant sentences. Adult-like behavior, in these talented subjects, is found to emerge in the period from five to eight years. Possible relations of meta-linguistic functioning to other “meta-cognitive” processes are suggested. Résumé Cet article présente des exemples de la connaissance qu’ont les enfants des propriétés syntaxiques et sémantiques du langage. Les rudiments d’un fonctionnement “méta-lingui-stique,” peuvent être mis en évidence chez les enfants de deux ans qui donnent des jugements de grammaticalité dans une situation de jeux. Les auteurs ont examiné le développement de ces capacités avec un groupe d’enfants de 5 à 8 ans, à qui l’on a demandé explicitement de donner des jugements sur des phrases déviantes. Les résultats montreraient qu’un comportement semblable à celui des adultes apparait entre 5 et 8 ans. Il est suggeré qu’il y a des relations possible entre le fonctionnement “meta-linguistique” et d’autres processus “meta-cognitifs.”
Language Use and Language Judgment
Authors: Gleitman Henry , Gleitman Lila R.
Published: August 2020

This chapter examines population variation in meta-linguistic abilities, exploring both differences in socio-economic status and cognitive development. It also explores the role of meta-linguistic awareness in learning to read.
Every Child an Isolate
Authors: Gleitman Lila R. , Landau Barbara
Published: August 2020

This chapter reviews several studies revealing the robustness of language acquisition to variability in learners’ access to input that would seem crucial to the function being acquired. It also discusses the ability of children to reconstruct meanings of sentences with covert structure.
On the Semantic Content of Subcategorization Frames
Authors: Fisher Cynthia , Gleitman Henry , Gleitman Lila R.
Published: August 2020

This paper investigates the relations between the meanings of verbs and the syntactic structures in which they appear. The investigation is motivated by the puzzle of how children discover verb meanings. Well-known problems with unconstrained induction of word meanings from observations of world circumstances suggest that additional constraints or sources of information are required. Five experiments are presented which investigate the hypothesis that the closer any two verbs are in their meaning, the greater their overlap should be in their licensed syntactic structures.
Human Simulations of Vocabulary Learning
Authors: Gillette Jane , Gleitman Henry , Gleitman Lila R. , Lederer Anne
Published: August 2020

This paper investigates the generalization that noun learning systematically precedes verb learning. Rather than blame this observation on differences in conceptual content, the authors argue that the information requirements of verb learning crucially determine the acquisition order. Efficient verb learning requires access to structural features of the exposure language and thus cannot take place until a scaffolding of noun knowledge enables the acquisition of clause level syntax. A set of experiments with adult subjects ask about the kinds of information that support learning nouns vs. verbs. The proportion correctly identified and the type of word that is identifiable changes significantly as a function of information type.
Understanding How Input Matters
Authors: Lidz Jeffrey , Gleitman Henry , Gleitman Lila R.
Published: August 2020

Studies under the heading of “syntactic bootstrapping” have demonstrated that syntax guides young children’s interpretations during verb learning. We evaluate two hypotheses concerning the origins of syntactic bootstrapping effects. The “universalist” view, holding that syntactic bootstrapping falls out from universal properties of the syntax-semantics mapping, is shown to be superior to the “emergentist” view, which holds that argument structure patterns emerge from a process of categorization and generalization over the input. These theories diverge in their predictions about a language in which syntactic structure is not the most reliable cue to a certain meaning. Experiments with Kannada speaking children and adults support the universalist view.
Hard Words
Authors: Gleitman Lila R.
Published: August 2020

This paper suggests that the chief limiting factor in acquiring a vocabulary of natural languages consists not in overcoming conceptual difficulties with abstract word meanings, but rather in mapping these meanings onto their corresponding lexical forms. We describe an overlapping series of steps through which novices move in representing the lexical forms and phrase structures of the exposure language, a probabilistic multiple-cue learning process known as syntactic bootstrapping.
How Words Can and Cannot Be Learned by Observation
Authors: Medina Tamara Nicol , Snedeker Jesse , Trueswell John C. , Gleitman Lila R.
Published: August 2020

Three experiments explored how words are learned from hearing them across contexts. Adults watched 40-s videotaped vignettes of parents uttering target words (in sentences) to their infants. Videos were muted except for a beep or nonsense word inserted where each “mystery word” was uttered. Participants were to identify the word. Exp 1 demonstrated that most (90%) of these natural learning instances are quite uninformative, whereas a small minority (7%) are highly informative, as indexed by participants’ identification accuracy. Preschoolers showed similar information sensitivity in a shorter experimental version. Two further experiments explored how cross-situational information helps, by manipulating the serial ordering of highly informative vignettes in five contexts. Response patterns revealed a learning procedure in which only a single meaning is hypothesized and retained across learning instances, unless disconfirmed. Neither alternative hypothesized meanings nor details of past learning situations were retained. These findings challenge current models of cross-situational learning. Learners appear to use a one-trial fast mapping procedure, even under conditions of referential uncertainty.
What Some Concepts Might Not Be
Authors: Armstrong Sharon Lee , Gleitman Lila R. , Gleitman Henry
Published: August 2020

A discussion of the difficulties of prototype theories for describing compositional meaning motivates three experiments that inquire how well-defined concepts fare under paradigms that are commonly interpreted to support the prototype view. The stimulus materials include exemplars of prototype categories (sport, vehicle, fruit, vegetable) previously studied by others, and also exemplars of supposedly well-defined categories (odd number, even number, female and plane geometry figure)
Why Stereotypes Don’t Even Make Good Defaults
Authors: Connolly Andrew C. , Fodor Jerry A. , Gleitman Lila R. , Gleitman Henry
Published: August 2020

Many concepts have stereotypes. This leaves open the question of whether concepts are stereotypes. It has been argued elsewhere that theories that identify concepts with their stereotypes or with stereotypical instances of their instances fail to provide an adequate account of the compositionality of concepts. This paper extends that argument and reports and experiment suggesting that participants do not assume, even as a default strategy, that complex concepts inherit the stereotypes of their constituents. Thus, propositions such as “baby ducks have webbed feet” were judged to be less likely to be true than propositions like “ducks have webbed feet”. Moreover, manipulation of the type and number of noun phrase modifiers revealed a systematic departure from the unmodified noun’s stereotype both with the addition of stereotypical modifiers (“quacking ducks”) and with the addition of a second modifier (“baby Peruvian ducks”). Thus in the general case the stereotypical properties of a head noun are systematically discounted when that head noun combines with modifiers. This effect represents a general principle of compositional combination that argues against the inheritance of stereotypical features of concepts as a default strategy. Instead, we advocate a model of conceptual combination where concepts remain inert under combination, supported by a separate machinery that introduces pragmatic and world-dependent inferences.
The Emergence of the Formal Category “Symmetry” in a New Sign Language
Authors: Gleitman Lila R. , Senghas Ann , Flaherty Molly , Coppola Marie , Goldin-Meadow Susan
Published: August 2020

Logical properties such as negation, implication, and symmetry, despite the fact that they are foundational and threaded through the vocabulary and syntax of known natural languages, pose a special problem for language learning. Their meanings are much harder to identify and isolate in the child’s everyday interaction with referents in the world than concrete things (like spoons and horses) and happenings and acts (like running and jumping) that are much more easily identified, and thus more easily linked to their linguistic labels (spoon, horse, run, jump). Here we concentrate attention on the category of symmetry [a relation R is symmetrical if and only if (iff) for all x, y: if R(x,y), then R(y,x)], expressed in English by such terms as similar, marry, cousin, and near. After a brief introduction to how symmetry is expressed in English and other well-studied languages, we discuss the appearance and maturation of this category in Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL). NSL is an emerging language used as the primary, daily means of communication among a population of deaf individuals who could not acquire the surrounding spoken language because they could not hear it, and who were not exposed to a preexisting sign language because there was none available in their community. Remarkably, these individuals treat symmetry, in both semantic and syntactic regards, much as do learners exposed to a previously established language. These findings point to deep human biases in the structures underpinning and constituting human language.
Turning the Tables
Authors: Li Peggy , Gleitman Lila R.
Published: August 2020

This paper investigates possible influences of the lexical resources of individual languages on the spatial organization and reasoning styles of their users. That there are such powerful and pervasive influences of language on thought is the thesis of the Whorf–Sapir linguistic relativity hypothesis which, after a lengthy period in intellectual limbo, has recently returned to prominence in the anthropological, linguistic, and psycholinguistic literatures. Our point of departure is an influential group of cross-linguistic studies that appear to show that spatial reasoning is strongly affected by the spatial lexicon in everyday use in a community. Specifically, certain groups customarily use an externally referenced spatial-coordinate system to refer to nearby directions and positions (“to the north”) whereas English speakers usually employ a viewer-perspective system (“to the left”). Prior findings and interpretations have been to the effect that users of these two types of spatial system solve rotation problems in different ways, reasoning strategies imposed by habitual use of the language particular lexicons themselves. The present studies reproduce these different problem-solving strategies in speakers of a single language (English) by manipulating landmark cues, suggesting that language itself may not be the key causal factor in choice of spatial perspective. Prior evidence on rotation problem solution from infants and from laboratory animals suggests a unified interpretation of the findings: creatures approach spatial problems differently depending on the availability and suitability of local landmark cues. The results are discussed in terms of the current debate on the relation of language to thought, with particular emphasis on the question of why different cultural communities favor different perspectives in talking about space.
Relations Between Language and Thought
Authors: Gleitman Lila R. , Papafragou Anna
Published: August 2020

In this chapter we consider the question of whether the language one speaks affects one’s thinking. We discuss arguments showing that language cannot be taken to be the vehicle of thought. We then review evidence from several domains in which language has been proposed to reorganize conceptual representations, including color, objects and substances, space, motion, number, and spatial orientation. We conclude that linguistic representations have significant online processing effects in these and other cognitive and perceptual domains but do not alter conceptual representation.
Corporate Cash Shortfalls and Financing Decisions
Authors: Huang Rongbing , Ritter Jay R
Published: August 2020

Given their actual revenue and spending, most net equity issuers and an overwhelming majority of net debt issuers would face immediate cash depletion without external financing. Debt issuers tend to have short-lived cash needs, while equity issuers often have persistent cash needs. On average, debt issuers immediately spend almost all of the proceeds, while equity issuers retain much of the proceeds in cash. Anticipated near-future cash needs and fixed costs of financing help explain the fraction of the proceeds being retained. Our findings support a funding-horizon theory in which cash needs and the nature of cash needs motivate financing decisions.
Position Paper on Critical Care Pharmacy Services (Executive Summary): 2020 Update
Authors: Lat Ishaq , Paciullo Christopher , Daley Mitchell J. , MacLaren Robert , Bolesta Scott , McCann Jennifer , Stollings Joanna L. , Gross Kendall , Foos Sarah A. , Roberts Russel J. , Acquisto Nicole M. , Taylor Scott , Bentley Michael , Jacobi Judith , Meyer Tricia A.
Published: August 2020

Objectives:

Provide a multiorganizational statement to update the statement from a paper in 2000 about critical care pharmacy practice and makes recommendations for future practice.

Design:

The Society of Critical Care Medicine, American College of Clinical Pharmacy Critical Care Practice and Research Network, and the American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists convened a joint task force of 15 pharmacists representing a broad cross-section of critical care pharmacy practice and pharmacy administration, inclusive of geography, critical care practice setting, and roles. The Task Force chairs reviewed and organized primary literature, outlined topic domains, and prepared the methodology for group review and consensus. A modified Delphi method was used until consensus (> 66% agreement) was reached for each practice recommendation. Previous position statement recommendations were reviewed and voted to either retain, revise, or retire. Recommendations were categorized by level of ICU service to be applicable by setting, and grouped into five domains: patient care, quality improvement, research and scholarship, training and education, and professional development.

Main Results:

There are 82 recommendation statements: forty-four original recommendations and 38 new recommendation statements. Thirty-four recommendations were made for patient care, primarily relating to critical care pharmacist duties and pharmacy services. In the quality improvement domain, 21 recommendations address the role of the critical care pharmacist in patient and medication safety, clinical quality programs, and analytics. Nine recommendations were made in the domain of research and scholarship. Ten recommendations are in the domain of training and education and eight recommendations regarding professional development.

Conclusions:

The statements recommended by this taskforce delineate the activities of a critical care pharmacist and the scope of pharmacy services within the ICU. Effort should be made from all stakeholders to implement the recommendations provided, with continuous effort toward improving the delivery of care for critically ill patients.
Anterior, posterior, and nonkeratometric contributions to refractive astigmatism in pseudophakes
Authors: Kansara Neal , Cui David , Banerjee Kalins , Landis Zachary , Scott Ingrid U. , Pantanelli Seth M.
Published: August 2020

Purpose:

To investigate the relationship between measured anterior (ACA) and posterior (PCA) keratometric astigmatism and postoperative refractive astigmatism (RA) and to quantify noncorneal astigmatism (NCA) contributions to RA.

Setting:

Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA.

Design:

Retrospective consecutive case series.

Methods:

Consecutive eyes underwent preoperative biometry (IOLMaster 700) and tomography/topography using a dual Scheimpflug–placido disk–based device (Galilei G4), cataract surgery with implantation of a monofocal intraocular lens (IOL), and postoperative manifest refractions. RA was compared with keratometric astigmatism using the following methods: IOLMaster, SimK, CorT, SimK + measured PCA, total corneal power at the corneal plane (TCP2), and CorT(Total). An ocular residual astigmatism (ORA) vector was calculated between RA and each measured astigmatism.

Results:

Analysis was based on 296 eyes. ORA centroids were 0.28 @ 179, 0.45 @ 001, 0.37 @ 001, 0.19 @ 003, 0.19 @ 001, and 0.23 @ 178 diopter (D) for the 6 aforementioned methods, respectively (P < .000001 [ORAx, ORAy]). Based on TCP2 measurements, eyes with against-the-rule ACA and with-the-rule (WTR) ACA had ORA centroids of 0.09 @ 082 and 0.58 @ 001 D (P < .000001 [ORAx, ORAy]), respectively. ORA was nonzero and not entirely explained by the cornea, especially in those with WTR ACA.

Conclusions:

Total keratometric astigmatism did not explain all ocular astigmatism. Noncorneal contributions were significant, especially in eyes with WTR ACA.
Modified dagger-tip Sheets glide to facilitate 2-point fixation across the anterior chamber in aniridic aphakic eyes
Authors: Shah Shaily D. , Tse Stephen , Papakostas Thanos D. , Sales Christopher S.
Published: August 2020

Presented is a modified technique for removing a failed endothelial allograft in an aniridic aphakic eye that reduces the risk of posterior dislocation. This technique involves the creation of an artificial iris plane using a Sheets glide by trimming it into the shape of a dagger so that it can be pulled through the anterior chamber and fixated by both its passage through a paracentesis incision and the main incision. The Sheets glide then acts as a physical barrier, or scaffold, to allow safe removal of the failed endothelial allograft and subsequent repeat endothelial keratoplasty while avoiding posterior dislocation of the tissue into the vitreous cavity.
Optimized CorT Total to compare Scheimpflug vs dual Scheimpflug/Placido imaging devices
Authors: Ferguson Tanner J. , Piccinini Andre L. , Thulasi Praneetha , Ong James K.Y. , Stamatelatos George , Alpins Noel , Randleman J. Bradley
Published: August 2020

Purpose:

To compare the manufacturer-provided measures of total corneal power (TCP) generated by Scheimpflug and dual Scheimpflug/Placido imaging compared with corneal topographic astigmatism calculated on the basis of measured TCP data (CorT Total).

Setting:

Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Design:

Retrospective case series.

Methods:

TCP values were exported from virgin 209 eyes that underwent imaging with both the Scheimpflug (Pentacam HR) and dual Scheimpflug–Placido (Galilei G4) imaging devices to compute an optimized CorT Total. The standard deviation of the ocular residual astigmatism (ORAsd), which serves as a value describing the vectoral difference between the corneal astigmatism measure and manifest refractive cylinder at the corneal plane, was evaluated for all eyes to compare manufacturer-provided measurements vs the optimized CorT Total.

Results:

The Scheimpflug CorT Total had the lowest ORAsd (0.306 diopter [D]; spherical equivalent [SE] 0.018) of all the parameters evaluated, although the difference was not statistically significant (P = .22) from the dual Scheimpflug/Placido CorT Total (0.32 2 D; SE 0.017). For the Scheimpflug device, the CorT Total had a statistically significant lower (P < .05) ORAsd in comparison to the best measure on the device (total corneal refractive power apex zone 2 mm: 0.324 D; SE 0.021). For dual Scheimpflug/Placido measurements, the CorT Total had the lowest ORAsd (0.322 D; SE 0.017), but the difference was not statistically significant (P = .43) from the lowest manufacturer-provided measure (TCP 2).

Conclusions:

CorT Total generated with the Scheimpflug device corresponded better with the manifest refractive cylinder than all measures of total corneal astigmatism calculated by the software from both the Scheimpflug and the dual Scheimpflug/Placido devices.
Prevention of infection after corneal refractive surgery: a French survey
Authors: Tourabaly Moïse , Knoeri Juliette , Leveziel Loïc , Bouheraoua Nacim , Ameline Barbara , Borderie Vincent
Published: August 2020

Purpose:

To report the French refractive surgeons' real-life practices for preventing infection after corneal refractive surgery (photorefractive keratotomy [PRK], laser in situ keratomileusis [LASIK], and small-incision lenticule extraction).

Setting:

France.

Design:

Anonymous practice survey.

Methods:

The questionnaire was sent in a single email invitation to 400 declared refractive surgeons. The following information was recorded between December 2019 and April 2020, before the coronavirus pandemic: demographics data, preoperative evaluation and preparation of the patient, surgical management, immediate and postoperative protocol, and infections reported after corneal refractive surgery.

Results:

Eighty-three of 400 surgeons (20.75%) responded to the questionnaire; 55 (66.0%) performed more than 50 corneal refractive surgeries a year, and 25 (30.1%) performed more than 200 procedures a year. Thirty-six (43.4%) surgeons wore 3 protective items, 37 (44.6%) 2, 5 (6.0%) 1, and 5 (6.0%) zero. Seventy-seven (92.8%) surgeons used povidone–iodine for skin area disinfection and 54 (65%) for conjunctival fornix disinfection. The contact time of povidone–iodine was less than 3 minutes for 71 (85.0%) surgeons. Twenty surgeons (24.1%) reported at least 1 postrefractive surgery infection. Twenty percent of surgeons who wore sterile gloves for PRK reported postoperative infections compared with 62.5% for those who did not (P = .008). These figures were, respectively, 8.7% and 66.7% for the use of sterile gloves during LASIK (P = .002); 8.9% of surgeons who wore surgical masks for LASIK reported postoperative infections compared with 50.0% for those who did not (P = .01).

Conclusions:

Practices are variable among French refractive surgeons. Wearing a surgical mask and sterile gloves during corneal refractive surgery appears to be advisable.