bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A276 TOTAL PANCREATIC LIPOMATOSIS AND EXOCRINE PANCREATIC INSUFFICIENCY IN A PATIENT WITH CELIAC DISEASE: AN UNUSUAL ENTITY
Authors: Nassiri S , Tomaszewski M , Ou G
Published: February 2020

Background

Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) is characterized by maldigestion and malabsorption of nutrients and is most commonly caused by diseases of the pancreatic parenchyma including chronic pancreatitis and cystic fibrosis (CF). However, EPI is also observed in other conditions including celiac disease (CD).

Aims

We report a case of EPI in a patient with CD found to have total fatty replacement of the pancreas.

Methods

A case report and review of the literature were performed.

Results

Case Report:

A 42-year-old man with CD on gluten-free diet (GFD) presented with a two-year history of increasing bowel frequency (4–6 times daily) and steatorrhea. Quantitative fecal fat over 72 hours confirmed fecal fat excretion of 101g/day; N < 7g) and total stool weight of 3761g. Nadir weight was 67.6 kg. There was a dramatic response to pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy (PERT) with marked improvement in bowel habits and weight gain to 74.8 kg over half a year. There is no history of pancreatitis, abdominal pain or alcohol abuse. He does not smoke but drinks 1–2 units of alcohol per week at most. Family history is negative for pancreatitis and pancreatic malignancy. On examination, following PERT, the patient appeared well-developed and nourished. He did not have clinical features or biochemical evidence of fat-soluble vitamin deficiency following PERT.

Anti-tTG was equivocal (7.6 U/mL; N < 7 U/mL). IgG subclasses were normal. Chromogranin was mildly elevated (100mcg/L; N < 94mcg/L), but gastrin (15ng/L) and 24-hour urine for 5-hydroxyindoleacetate [5-HIAA] (23umol/d) were normal. Endoscopic evaluations including upper endoscopy, colonoscopy, and capsule endoscopy demonstrated intact duodenal villous architecture without inflammation, no microscopic colitis, and no small bowel mucosal disease, respectively.

CT of the abdomen revealed total fatty replacement of the pancreas with no pancreatic parenchyma (Figure 1). Sweat sodium test was positive (67 mmol/L, N < 60 mmol/L) but CFTR gene sequencing was negative. There was no evidence of diabetes, hyperlipidemia, hyperferritinemia, Cushing’s syndrome, or hepatic disease on biochemical investigations.

Literature Review:

Total pancreatic lipomatosis (TPL), or fatty replacement of the pancreas, is a rare cause of EPI which leads to maldigestion, malabsorption, and malnutrition. The pathogenesis of TPL is poorly understood but predisposing factors include obesity, diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, malnutrition, Cushing’s syndrome, hemochromatosis, chronic pancreatitis and CF. EPI can also manifest in patients with CD due to active small bowel inflammation or chronic pancreatitis. Last but not least, there appears to be higher prevalence of CD in CF patients.

Conclusions

Persistent steatorrhea with weight loss despite GFD in patients with CD should prompt other considerations of EPI and trial of PERT.

Funding Agencies

None
Who can benefit from a lymph node boost in definitive chemoradiotherapy for node-positive cervical cancer: an evaluation of nodal failure in patients without nodal boost
Authors: Kim Haeyoung , Park Won , Cho Won Kyung
Published: February 2020

This study was performed to identify risk factors for pelvic nodal failure (PNF) after definitive concurrent chemo-radiotherapy (CCRT) in patients with metastatic pelvic lymph nodes (mPLNs) from squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the cervix. We retrospectively reviewed data on 80 patients who received definitive CCRT between 2005 and 2014 at our hospital. All patients underwent brachytherapy and whole-pelvic radiotherapy (WPRT) without nodal boost. mPLNs was diagnosed by magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography. The rate of PNF and factors affecting PNF were analysed. A total of 156 mPLNs were found. The median number of mPLNs was 2 per patient (range 1–6); the median short diameter was 1.7 cm (range 1.0–4.2 cm). After a median follow-up of 64 months, 10 (6.4%) mPLNs failed in 13 (16.3%) patients. The 5-year PNF-free survival (PNFFS), disease-free survival and overall survival rates were 83.4, 62.7 and 74.7%, respectively. The mPLN size was not associated with the risk of PNF. However, pre-radiotherapy SCC antigen (SCC-Ag) >6.8 ng/mL and number of mPLNs >2 were significant risk factors for PNF. Using the two risk factors, we categorized the patients into three risk groups. The 5-year PNFFS rates in patients with 0, 1 and 2 risk factors were 100.0, 78.3 and 44.4%, respectively (P < 0.01). SCC-Ag level and number of mPLNs were significant factors for PNF. Patients with both risk factors developed frequent PNF after WPRT without nodal boost. The two risk factors can be a guide in deciding whether to administer nodal boost radiotherapy.
Variability and transient search in the SUDARE–VOICE field: a new method to extract the light curves
Authors: Liu Dezi , Deng Wenqiang , Fan Zuhui , Fu Liping , Covone Giovanni , Vaccari Mattia , Radovich Mario , Capaccioli Massimo , De Cicco Demetra , Grado Aniello , Marchetti Lucia , Napolitano Nicola , Paolillo Maurizio , Pignata Giuliano , Ragosta Fabio
Published: February 2020

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) Optical Imaging of the CDFS and ES1 Fields Survey, in synergy with the SUDARE survey, is a deep optical ugri imaging of the CDFS and ES1 fields using the VST. The observations for the CDFS field comprise about 4.38 deg2 down to r ∼ 26 mag. The total on-sky time spans over 4 yr in this field, distributed over four adjacent sub-fields. In this paper, we use the multiepoch r-band imaging data to measure the variability of the detected objects and search for transients. We perform careful astrometric and photometric calibrations and point spread function modelling. A new method, referring to as differential running-average photometry, is proposed to measure the light curves of the detected objects. With the method, the difference of PSFs between different epochs can be reduced, and the background fluctuations are also suppressed. Detailed uncertainty analysis and detrending corrections on the light curves are performed. We visually inspect the light curves to select variable objects, and present some objects with interesting light curves. Further investigation of these objects in combination with multiband data will be presented in our forthcoming paper.
The soft state of the black hole transient source MAXI J1820+070: emission from the edge of the plunge region?
Authors: Fabian A C , Buisson D J , Kosec P , Reynolds C S , Wilkins D R , Tomsick J A , Walton D J , Gandhi P , Altamirano D , Arzoumanian Z , Cackett E M , Dyda S , Garcia J A , Gendreau K C , Grefenstette B W , Homan J , Kara E , Ludlam R M , Miller J M , Steiner J F
Published: February 2020

The Galactic black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070 had a bright outburst in 2018 when it became the second brightest X-ray source in the sky. It was too bright for X-ray CCD instruments such as XMM–Newton and Chandra, but was well observed by photon-counting instruments such as Neutron star Inner Composition Explorer (NICER) and Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array(NuSTAR). We report here on the discovery of an excess-emission component during the soft state. It is best modelled with a blackbody spectrum in addition to the regular disc emission, modelled as either diskbb or kerrbb. Its temperature varies from about 0.9 to 1.1 keV, which is about 30–80 per cent higher than the inner disc temperature of diskbb. Its flux varies between 4 and 12 per cent of the disc flux. Simulations of magnetized accretion discs have predicted the possibility of excess emission associated with a non-zero torque at the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) about the black hole, which, from other NuSTAR studies, lies at about 5 gravitational radii or about 60 km (for a black hole, mass is $8\, {\rm M}_{\odot }$). In this case, the emitting region at the ISCO has a width varying between 1.3 and 4.6 km and would encompass the start of the plunge region where matter begins to fall freely into the black hole.
Crystal structure of an Escherichia coli Hfq Core (residues 2–69)–DNA complex reveals multifunctional nucleic acid binding sites
Authors: Orans Jillian , Kovach Alexander R , Hoff Kirsten E , Horstmann Nicola M , Brennan Richard G
Published: February 2020

Hfq regulates bacterial gene expression post-transcriptionally by binding small RNAs and their target mRNAs, facilitating sRNA-mRNA annealing, typically resulting in translation inhibition and RNA turnover. Hfq is also found in the nucleoid and binds double-stranded (ds) DNA with a slight preference for A-tracts. Here, we present the crystal structure of the Escherichia coli Hfq Core bound to a 30 bp DNA, containing three 6 bp A-tracts. Although previously postulated to bind to the ‘distal’ face, three statistically disordered double stranded DNA molecules bind across the proximal face of the Hfq hexamer as parallel, straight rods with B-DNA like conformational properties. One DNA duplex spans the diameter of the hexamer and passes over the uridine-binding proximal-face pore, whereas the remaining DNA duplexes interact with the rims and serve as bridges between adjacent hexamers. Binding is sequence-independent with residues N13, R16, R17 and Q41 interacting exclusively with the DNA backbone. Atomic force microscopy data support the sequence-independent nature of the Hfq-DNA interaction and a role for Hfq in DNA compaction and nucleoid architecture. Our structure and nucleic acid-binding studies also provide insight into the mechanism of sequence-independent binding of Hfq to dsRNA stems, a function that is critical for proper riboregulation.
The ligation of pol β mismatch insertion products governs the formation of promutagenic base excision DNA repair intermediates
Authors: Çağlayan Melike
Published: February 2020

DNA ligase I and DNA ligase III/XRCC1 complex catalyze the ultimate ligation step following DNA polymerase (pol) β nucleotide insertion during base excision repair (BER). Pol β Asn279 and Arg283 are the critical active site residues for the differentiation of an incoming nucleotide and a template base and the N-terminal domain of DNA ligase I mediates its interaction with pol β. Here, we show inefficient ligation of pol β insertion products with mismatched or damaged nucleotides, with the exception of a Watson–Crick-like dGTP insertion opposite T, using BER DNA ligases in vitro. Moreover, pol β N279A and R283A mutants deter the ligation of the promutagenic repair intermediates and the presence of N-terminal domain of DNA ligase I in a coupled reaction governs the channeling of the pol β insertion products. Our results demonstrate that the BER DNA ligases are compromised by subtle changes in all 12 possible noncanonical base pairs at the 3′-end of the nicked repair intermediate. These findings contribute to understanding of how the identity of the mismatch affects the substrate channeling of the repair pathway and the mechanism underlying the coordination between pol β and DNA ligase at the final ligation step to maintain the BER efficiency.
Louis Sullivan
Authors: Siry Joseph M.
Published: February 2020

Louis Henry Sullivan (b. 1856–d. 1924) was the first internationally recognized architect in the United States to pursue the idea of a modern architecture independent of historic styles. He was supremely gifted as a designer of architectural ornament, which was an important component of almost all his major buildings and central to his thinking about architecture as art. Sullivan was also the first American modernist to write extensively about architecture—critically, theoretically, and philosophically. His central theme was that a modern American architecture should have form that follows function, based on the model of natural organisms. Born in Boston, Sullivan studied architecture at MIT (1872–1873) and in the atelier of Émile Vaudremer at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1873–1874). He returned to Chicago after its Great Fire of 1871 to work initially for William Le Baron Jenney, known for his early iron-and-masonry tall office buildings. From 1880 to 1895, Sullivan was continuously associated with Dankmar Adler (b. 1844–d. 1900), whose skills in architectural engineering complemented Sullivan’s design abilities to make Adler and Sullivan one of the most extraordinary architectural partnerships in US architectural history. Sullivan was the most outstanding creative figure of the Chicago school of the 1880s and 1890s, especially in his designs for theaters and tall office buildings. After the partnership ended in 1895, Sullivan continued to design major works in New York and Chicago, although his later practice, after 1905, focused mainly on banks in small midwestern towns. His work and thought inspired a number of younger contemporaries throughout his later life, including Frank Lloyd Wright, who was Sullivan’s assistant from 1887 to 1893. From Sullivan’s lifetime through the mid-twentieth century, he was known mainly for his role as a major advocate for and practitioner of a modern American architecture not derived directly from historical styles. In this way, much of the original scholarship on Sullivan was framed according to the overarching narrative of the rise of the modern movement. In this historiographic schema, Sullivan’s work was sometimes considered an American parallel to European Art Nouveau architecture. Since the 1970s, with the rise of postmodernism in architecture, Sullivan’s ornament and his relationships to historical sources, and to Romanticism, have been revalued as a focus for scholarship. Recently, there has been study of Sullivan’s and the Chicago school’s relationships to the city’s economic, political, social, and technical history in the later nineteenth century.
Arts and Crafts Movement
Authors: Meister Maureen
Published: February 2020

The Arts and Crafts movement emerged in 19th-century England in response to the hardships imposed on workers under a growing factory system. Critics denounced the degrading conditions that labor endured as well as the shoddy quality of goods flooding the market. Calling for a revival of handicraft, the movement’s leaders argued that handcrafted wares were morally superior because of the way they were created and also more beautiful. Inspired by the Middle Ages, Arts and Crafts architects embraced the Gothic revival, joining craftsmen, often in guilds, to ornament and furnish churches, houses, and other buildings. Over time, leaders in the movement encouraged revivals of national and regional traditions, the use of local materials, and simple designs. Preservation of historic buildings also was championed. The Arts and Crafts movement has spawned hundreds of books, some academic and many directed to the popular market. To confuse matters for the serious researcher, more than a few coffee table books have been written by experts and should be consulted. Another challenge is the fact that many publications on the Arts and Crafts movement integrate studies of architecture, interior design, and the decorative arts. These studies are worth exploring as many Arts and Crafts architects were engaged in many manifestations of design, ranging from tile and stained glass to pottery and printing. Yet another challenge is the lack of clarity about what is considered Arts and Crafts architecture. The views promulgated by England’s William Morris and his circle form an accepted basis for the movement. Its flowering in Great Britain is central to the literature, while the transmission of Arts and Crafts ideas to the United States has long been recognized. The influence of Arts and Crafts concepts to movements on the Continent, such as the Viennese Secession and Art Nouveau, is examined in some studies; however, architectural historians usually treat these developments as distinctive and do not position them directly under the Arts and Crafts umbrella. Most authors on American Arts and Crafts architecture have examined particular regions and specific architects. Others have written about various Arts and Crafts styles that took hold at the turn of the 20th century. A few writers have documented the craftsmen who collaborated with the Arts and Crafts architects while others have explored Arts and Crafts themes in garden design.
Edward Durell Stone
Authors: Hunting Mary Anne
Published: February 2020

The New York City–based modern architect Edward Durell Stone (b. 1902–d. 1978) achieved widespread success during his more than forty-year career. His enormous and prestigious output can be seen on four continents, in thirteen foreign countries, and in thirty-two states. Trained in the mid-1920s, first at Harvard University and then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (he did not graduate), Stone never lost the Beaux-arts bent he developed as a student. The elaborate watercolors he produced as a Rotch Travelling Scholar between 1927 and 1929 are a testament to his artistic sensibility. In the early 1930s, the first of his four phases of production, Stone was intent on trying out the European aesthetic of the first-generation modernists with whom he had been impressed in the 1932 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Disillusioned by its requisite Spartan decoration, however, he began to experiment with vernacular concepts using indigenous resources. He also absorbed the organic architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, who became a long-term friend and “personal hero.” By the late 1950s, Stone had synthesized these experiences in his own definition of modernism, which, suitably, has been called New Romanticism due to its decorative implications, and its originality and mass appeal made him an instant celebrity. With his second wife, Maria, he learned to work the fast-growing media to disperse his architecture through print, and, even more, the emergent medium of television. By 1966, Stone was said to have in production work valued at a billion dollars. So prolific was his output that some assumed he would inherit the mantle of Wright. However, as Stone spun out ever more variations of his signature aesthetic—increasingly classical but still with a rich variety of decoration—for corporations, institutions, and governments, he accumulated criticism and sometimes downright rejection. The disparity between the mass approval and critical dismissal of his architecture is illustrated in the contrasting appellations bestowed upon him: whereas J. William Fulbright, the Democratic senator from his native state, Arkansas, baptized Stone a “populist architect,” a Washington Post architecture critic labeled him a “kitsch-monger.” By the time Stone died, memories of his good fortune had faded. Stone’s legacy remained unresolved until the turn of the 21st century when some of his aging buildings began to be reassessed—for restoration, redevelopment, or demolition. Though lost to redevelopment, his building at Two Columbus Circle in New York City generated an extensive debate about his contributions, which, paradoxically, finally gave the architect a formidable presence in the histories of modern architecture. Researchers should be cognizant that current reassessments of his buildings—for maintenance, renovation, redevelopment, or demolition—are continuing to stimulate dialogue about Stone that can be insightful and informative.
Medieval Castles of Britain and Ireland from the 11th to the 15th Century
Authors: Kenyon John R.
Published: February 2020

The study of this subject has a long pedigree, from the late 18th and 19th centuries, although material of this date has varying degrees of authority in the light of more recent work since the 1960s. The first castles in England appear in the 1050s, built by Norman favorites of King Edward the Confessor (r. 1042–1066) and were few in numbered and mainly in the English county of Herefordshire, on the border with Wales. Following the Norman Conquest of 1066, earth-and-timber castles of both the motte and bailey and the ringwork forms were built throughout England, in towns and in the countryside, and where the Normans moved into Wales and Scotland. The first castles in Ireland appear after the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169; the matter of medieval private fortifications in pre-Norman areas is not discussed here. Some of the first castles were built in stone from the beginning, examples being the Tower of London, Chepstow in Monmouthshire and Richmond in Yorkshire. The development of the masonry castle as fortification, home, and administrative center is a feature of the history of medieval architecture. The great tower or keep is a dominant feature of the 12th- and 13th-century castle, although these towers can be found as late as the 15th century. Strong defenses through twin-towered gatehouses and mural towers along the curtain walls are hallmarks of defenses, but these towers also provided accommodation. Domestic features such as halls, private chambers, kitchens, stables, and other ancillary buildings would be found in the interiors, while gardens either inside the walls or immediately outside are known from documentary sources. The later Middle Ages, from the 14th century, witnessed few new castles built, apart from the tower houses of Ireland and Scotland, but in England in particular there was a growing sophistication in the domestic ranges built both by the monarch and the great lords of the land. While several of the major castles remain occupied as homes, many earth and timber structures had a limited life, particularly in England, with examples of longer use elsewhere, while others suffered in the British civil wars between king and parliament of the 1640s.
Winchester
Authors: Roffey Simon
Published: February 2020

Winchester lays claim to being one of the most important cities in British history. The city has a central place in British myth and legend and was once ancient capital and residence of the Anglo-Saxon and early Norman kings. Winchester is also one of the most extensively excavated medieval towns in England and was the training ground for modern British archeology. Situated in south-central England, Winchester was close to key communication routes via the south coast and the important medieval port at Southampton. Founded in the Roman period as Venta Belgarum, close to the site of the Iron Age market settlement, Winchester quickly grew into a prosperous Roman civitas. After the decline of Roman power in Britain, Winchester remained as an important power center in the south and by the mid-7th century was the pre-eminent town in the newly established Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex. With the consolidation of Wessex’s power in the 9th and 10th centuries and the eventual re-establishment of control over the former Viking-influenced areas of the midlands and the north, Winchester became the seat of English royal power. With the Norman Conquest in 1066, the early Norman kings sought to keep Winchester as the royal seat. However, with the rising pre-eminence of London in the mid-12th century, Winchester’s power declined as royal and secular power shifted to London. Nevertheless, Winchester was still to remain of some importance throughout the medieval period and its bishop one of the most powerful, influential, and richest lords in medieval England; a status still attested to by the city’s medieval cathedral. As a city of many religious foundations, Winchester’s fortunes waned after the Reformation to be briefly reborn in the later 17th century with the planned construction of Charles II palace on the site of the former medieval castle. Charles’ plans to reinvent Winchester as a revitalized English royal city were aborted with his untimely death in 1688, with the palace, designed by Christopher Wren, barely finished.
Susanne Langer
Authors: Gaikis Lona
Published: February 2020

Logician and philosopher of art Susanne K. Langer (b. 1895–d. 1985, née Knauth) has been a rather elusive protagonist in 20th-century philosophy. Mentioned alongside key thinkers such as Charles W. Morris or Abraham Kaplan in establishing the field of formal symbolic logic, she dedicated her early research to the study of symbols and contributed essential introductory literature. The young scholar—she was a student of Henry M. Sheffer and later completed her doctoral studies with Alfred N. Whitehead—continuously challenged analytic philosophy with audacious propositions and controversial semantic hypothesis. As philosophical hybrid, not only advancing elements from Whiteheadian process thought but sharing essential roots in Ernst Cassirer’s theory of symbolic form, the disputability in Langer’s theory, spans the continental divide. Langer introduced a “new key” to philosophy by emphasizing musical form in the making of meaning. Her 1942 book Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite and Art was a best-seller yet had little impact on major academic discourses. Herein she establishes the generative idea for a musical matrix from which symbolic articulation takes place in relational structure. Her aim was to address the problem of conceptualizing unlogicized areas of life, respectively myth, ritual, and arts. Growing emphasis placed on logical analysis rigidly divided the natural sciences and the humanities into “two cultures.” Whatever was excluded, following Langer, could nevertheless be reintroduced to the domain of genuinely intelligible symbols by expanding the spectrum of symbolic forms. Her semiology conceptualizes language, science, and logic hitherto as discursive form but adds artistic expression as presentational symbol to the semantic toolkit. She aimed to lever culture, religion, and artistic expression as equal mental resources for higher cognition. This emerges from her notion of logical symbolization as form, rather than determined by a concept of truth, which distinguishes her from her contemporaries in logical positivism. Langer’s core hypothesis suggests an art symbol analogue to feeling. Her theory, highly informed by process metaphysics, critiques and further supplements its ontology by advancing to scientific validation through empirical research. This culminates in a philosophy of mind enriched by anthropological, biological, and neuro-physiological studies in her magnum opus Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling I–II written between 1967–1982. Langer’s philosophy accounts for art’s epistemological import, hereby continuing a pluralistic approach with regard to the evaluation of its plentiful forms of expression.
Medieval London
Authors: Bradley Helen
Published: February 2020

There is no beginning or end date for medieval London. Long-term changes transformed the post-Roman city into a 16th-century metropolis. Crown and church worked with city institutions to manage the outcome, but economic, social, geographic, and demographic factors beyond their control were the determinants of London’s evolution. Medieval London owed much to a well-chosen Roman site with double-facing connectivity, providing access to mainland Europe by sea and to the interior by river. London was the lynchpin. The Roman settlement had a defensive fort and walls, an amphitheater—recently rediscovered underneath the medieval Guildhall–and an impressive road network converging on the city. This defensible hub, combining economic prosperity with popular entertainment, was the basis for London’s perennial appeal to English and alien migrants. It quite literally provided the foundation for medieval London. The early extramural Anglo-Saxon settlement relocated behind the walls as an Alfredian burh, expanding trade with nearby parts of the Continent. The Norman construction of the Tower, overshadowing the eastern aspect, demonstrated that control of London was essential to government of the realm. An economic driving force, the city was not the administrative capital until the 12th century. London generated trade revenues and ensured urban stability, in return for which the Crown granted self-government and privileges for its merchants and markets. The city’s own records survive from the later 13th century, although its institutions have earlier origins. Regarding itself as the New Troy, it engaged in public works and staged triumphant royal entries. London’s bread-basket extended to the Norfolk coast and the upper Thames valley. Apart from frank discussions at the wardmote, there were further opportunities for ordinary Londoners to express their views and participate. The craft guilds regulated the city’s trades and their members, developing separate livery and yeomanry organization. Parish fraternities were a neighborhood outlet for literate lay spirituality and accounting skills. The population, significantly reduced by the Black Death, recovered and prospered. London was above all a cosmopolitan city with thriving markets and accessible credit. Although there were recurrent demands for protection against alien competition, aliens joined the livery companies, became citizens of London and some became Englishmen. The royal Court, Parliament, and law courts a short ride away at Westminster guaranteed good business for city merchants. Most importantly, the lucrative 14th-century wool trade and 15th-century cloth trade were increasingly concentrated in the hands of Londoners who dominated English exports.
Pūjā
Authors: Foulston Lynn
Published: February 2020

The term pūjā is most commonly translated as worship but also means offering and is replete with meaning and inference. Although strictly speaking, pūjā, in a Hindu context, denotes honor and ritual offerings to deities, its ubiquitous presence means that it appears in numerous festivals and as part of other rituals. In most cases it involves making offerings, literal or figuratively, to a divinity or an aspect of the divine. While most often found in discussions of Hindu ritual, it is distinct from yajña (vedic sacrifice) and from bali (animal sacrifice), though it may well accompany the latter. It is one of the aspects that creates a connection between seemingly disparate aspects of what is usually referred to as Hinduism. It is perhaps the most fundamental and central aspect of Hindu ritual practice. In some instances, it is very simple, whereas in other situations it can be very complex. The range of occasions where pūjā predominates is wide ranging and numerous. From a shrine set up in a kitchen with a ritual undertaken by the householder during Domestic Pūjā to a complex ritual mediated by priests during Temple Pūjā, what connects them is that at the heart of the ritual practice, there will be found pūjā. In reality, pūjā is a rather wide term that encompasses many variations and is also subject to its cultural and regional context. Therefore, this article has sought to capture, in its many sections, the diversity of situations where pūjā rituals play a fundamental part. These range from Popular Pūjā, practiced widely and generally not orthodox, to Cyber Pūjā, a phenomenon that has seen considerable growth in the early 21st century. Although prescriptions for Hindu pūjā may appear in sacred texts, as a ritual it is fluid and also lends itself very well to an online presence, especially since Hinduism is a predominantly a visual religion.
Erosion
Authors: James L. Allan
Published: February 2020

Erosion is the movement of material from rest, as opposed to sediment transport, which is the ongoing movement of material, and deposition, which is the cessation of movement. The topics covered pertain to erosion of the land surface and related processes. It does not include subsurface movement of material that may occur by processes of dissolution or piping or subaqueous erosion may occur at the bottom of lakes and seas. The word “erosion” immediately conjures up a vast literature concerned with soil erosion, but it also refers to the movement of geologic materials in geomorphic systems such as rivers, dunes, beaches, glaciers, and landslides. Surface erosion may be caused by a variety of physical processes including water (fluvial erosion), wind (aeolian erosion or deflation), waves and tides (coastal erosion), ice (glacial erosion and nivation), gravitational failures (mass movement), and human movement of materials (anthropogenic erosion). The latter topic may be distinguished as accelerated as opposed to natural erosion. A broad view of erosion is important for many reasons including threats of property damage and public safety by geomorphic processes, chemical changes such as sequestration or release of carbon and toxins, and off-site damages of sedimentation. Studies of erosion covered in this article are grouped into two fundamental classes: soil erosion and geomorphic erosion. The first group of topics is concerned with soil erosion and includes agricultural sustainability, soil conservation, soil erosion processes, modeling soil erosion, and gully erosion. Much of the scientific literature on soil erosion has focused on (1) arable land because of the importance of soils to global food production or (2) other lands because of the ecosystem services that soils provide and the off-site costs of sediment. Erosion includes the removal of rock, beach, channel, and other geologic materials in addition to soils. Studies of erosion of these geologic materials are grouped by the various geomorphic systems in which they occur (e.g., channel erosion, aeolian [wind] erosion, coastal erosion [waves and tides], glacial erosion, and mass movements [landslides or gravitational failures]). This review ends with studies of anthropogenic erosion beyond the erosion of soil and geomorphic systems, such as mining and construction, and the effects of erosion on the global carbon budget and climate change. This article does not cover the large scientific literature on long-term denudation or landscape evolution studies, the history of soil erosion, or erosion following natural disturbances such as fire and pestilence. Nor does it attempt to cover the numerous regional studies of erosion or benefits of specific soil-conservation techniques. Nevertheless, a broad approach is taken to examine the erosion of soil and geologic materials in response to natural and anthropogenic processes.
Causation in International Relations
Authors: Humphreys Adam R. C.
Published: February 2020

Causal claims are bound into the fabric of international relations (IR). Efforts to explain past outcomes, to predict future developments, to comprehend the range of options open to international actors, to advance policy prescriptions, and to evaluate policy decisions vis-à-vis possible alternatives all typically rely, explicitly or implicitly, on causal claims. Moreover, politicians, policymakers, and other state and nonstate actors who seek to manipulate particular aspects of world politics are also (whether they realize it or not) typically acting on causal claims. Acquiring reliable causal knowledge is therefore extremely valuable. It is, however, a challenging task. The content of causal claims is shaped not only by relevant facts about the world, but also by ideas about causation itself—for example, about what ‘causing’ is, about the kinds of things that can be causes (and effects), about how causes can be identified, and about what constitutes an adequate Causal Explanation. These are tricky and controversial issues which are often submerged below the surface of our thinking. The challenge of arriving at a clear understanding is reflected in the divisions within work which explicitly engages with questions about causation in IR, divisions which are also found within the philosophical literature on which this work draws. It is also reflected in the tendency, within the broader discipline, to set questions about causation to one side, either because they are viewed as too hard to answer or because it is not obvious how answering them will improve our knowledge of world politics. In order to gain a full picture of debates about causation in IR and their implications for substantive topics it is helpful to explore three broad kinds of literature: first, the philosophical texts which provide the backdrop against which discussions of causation in IR take place; second, existing debates about causation in IR, encompassing both mainstream discussions of methods for causal inference and more specialist literatures on causal realism, the nature of causal explanation, and the relationship between historical and causal inquiry; and third, literature in IR which explicitly examines how positions on underlying questions about causation can and do shape positions on substantive topics in IR.
Minorities in the Middle East
Authors: Zabad Ibrahim
Published: February 2020

Minority is a difficult concept to deal with as there is no internationally agreed definition that specifies which groups are minorities. Minority is not simply a neutral term but is rather a sociological concept laden with meanings. Even in consolidated democracies, a parliamentary minority, for example, by definition lacks power. Any definition of the concept of minority must account for both objective and subjective factors. A minority must be a separate ethnic, linguistic, religious, or sectarian group, and clearly perceiving itself as a minority. A widely accepted definition is that of Francesco Capotorti, who believes that a minority must be numerically inferior to the rest of the population of a state and has to be in non-dominant position. The later principle of non-dominance might create some difficulties in defining minorities in the Middle East. For example, a numerical minority in Syria, the Alawites, are in power, so was the Sunni numerical minority in Iraq until the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003. However, in this article, I do not treat politically dispossessed majorities as minorities. Indeed, the oppressed majority “perceives” itself as a “majority” that is deprived of its rightful power privileges, and not as an oppressed minority. Additionally, looking at ethnic groups at the regional level, not state-level, we do have clear majorities and minorities: the Persians, the Arabs, the Turks are a majority and every other ethnicity is a minority; looking at religious groups, Sunni Muslims are a majority and every other religion is a minority. The Middle East is the cradle of ancient civilizations, the birthplace of the three monotheistic religions, and the land of a multitude of ethnic and religious minorities. However, most scholars who study the Middle East focused on wars, oil, and geopolitics and ignored minorities. But the tumultuous Arab Spring demonstrated that the fate of the region is intricately related to the fate of its minorities and that various minorities are positioned to play a crucial role in shaping the region. Minorities are not simply subjects of state persecution or minoritization processes but have become in some instances energetic actors and dynamic agents. Discrimination against minorities is common among almost all Middle Eastern countries. Historically speaking, minorities have been oppressed, marginalized, under-represented, and subjected to variable degrees of repression and violence. Many clerics, especially the Wahhabis, decry minorities, such as the Shiʿi, the Bahaʾis, and Yezidis as heretics, thus justifying and even encouraging violence against them. Religious freedom is another major issue that besets the region. The Sunni- Shiʿite divide has become a major fault line that shapes politics in the region, especially the Iranian-Saudi rivalry. Tensions between Muslims and Christians are still apparent in many countries, especially in Egypt and in Iraq.
Complex Systems Approaches to Global Politics
Authors: Janzwood Scott , Piereder Jinelle
Published: February 2020

The first attempts to integrate concepts from complexity theory into the study of international relations (IR) and global politics began in the early 1990s. Since then, adoption of complexity approaches to explain outcomes in global politics has grown significantly, particularly in the last decade. Complexity theory (or complex systems theory) describes a range of approaches aimed at addressing the perceived shortcomings of conventional approaches for explaining the behavior of physical and social systems. Complex systems approaches highlight the nonlinear, adaptive, coevolutionary, networked, and emergent behavior of systems. Increasingly, these concepts are being applied to systems implicated in the study of global politics by scholars of IR and its related disciplines, including global governance, public policy, security studies, critical security studies, peace and conflict studies, political economy, and environmental governance. Complex systems approaches have been used to critique conventional IR theories like realism, liberal internationalism, constructivism, and critical approaches that have dominated the field since the mid-20th century. While the application of complexity science methodologies has been relatively limited (with the exception of agent-based modeling), complexity concepts like emergence and coevolution have gained traction among scholars seeking to understand the myriad factors that lead to outcomes such as peace, violence, cooperation, system destabilization, and effective policymaking. Network approaches have also been commonly used to understand systems with many actors that have dynamic and distributed power structures. Complexity is sometimes flagged as an empty “buzzword” – which is certainly the case for some of the literature that claims to apply a complex systems approach to global politics. Thus, the challenge was to focus on scholarship that engaged earnestly with complexity theory rather than to simply applying a “complexity sheen” to conventional ideas. Beginning with General Overviews, three subcategories of literature are then presented that use complex systems approaches to critique and engage with IR theory: Paradigmatic Critiques, World Order, and Topic-Specific Theoretical Critiques. The remaining sections present literature from several subfields: Security Studies; Peace and Conflict Studies; Critical Theory; Policy and Governance; Environment and Energy Governance; Political Economy, Development, and Finance; and Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Science.
Comparative Foreign Policy Security Interests
Authors: Kulnazarova Aigul
Published: February 2020

The subject of comparative foreign policy security interests concerns itself with at least two separate subfields of international relations: foreign policy analysis and security studies. The foreign policy analysis concerns the decision-making processes of states in their daily interaction with other actors of international relations: state and nonstate, international organizations and individuals. Security studies in a broad sense also refer to the behavior of states, but, in particular, only to those measures that states take to ensure their own security and survival in the international arena. It is not surprising that any such measures have traditionally been viewed as national security interests. The term national security became widely used only after World War II to understand and explain the national interests of the leading powers, which the latter mainly used as a priority of their foreign policy. Often, national security was associated with military/physical security, strategic parity, and confrontation of mutual threat, although some authors, such as Wolfers 1952 (cited under Theoretical Overview), argue that the meaning of the term is not so clear and is, in fact, more complicated. Since the 1990s, due to the changing world order and the growing forces of globalization, the sphere of national security has expanded significantly and now includes nonmilitary or nontraditional security sectors: economic, environmental, societal, political, etc. The consequences of globalization are obvious, as they have influenced further changes in the behavioral tendencies of states in external relations. Old approaches to security no longer meet the challenges of the new millennium. Perhaps the emerging academic subfield of comparative foreign policy security interests will deal with aspects of state behavior and policy aimed at achieving, maintaining, or redistributing the positions of states in the transforming global system. It is possible to distinguish two levels of foreign policy security interests: public and private. While the first concerns the security and integrity of state sovereignty and independence, protected by diplomatic, political, economic, ideological, and military means, the second includes the need for states to establish themselves in international organizations by instituting and promoting relations in scientific, technological, cultural, educational, social, environmental, and other fields with various actors, and participating in the settlement of regional and local conflicts. The protection of security interests at the public level is more stable, while the private level is more variable, and the latter can turn into the public one. One way to understand how states develop and implement their foreign policy security interests is to use a comparative approach.
Gender Gap in US Public Opinion
Authors: Lizotte Mary-Kate
Published: February 2020

In a representative democracy, policymakers, elected officials, and bureaucrats should heed public opinion. Research to date provides evidence that policymakers do care about the public’s positions on policy and that presidential administrations often seek public approval of their legislative agenda (see the Oxford Bibliographies in Political Science article, “Policy Responsiveness to Public Opinion” by Robert S. Erikson. Therefore, it is valuable to understand consistent and significant influences on the public’s policy positions and political attitudes. Gender appears to be a consistent and often significant influence on opinion. Generally, women tend to be more likely than men to adopt liberal positions on a long list of policies, including force issues, the size of the welfare state, the environment, and equal rights. For certain issues, gender seems to have a more complicated, or more conservative, influence, such as on abortion and on the legalization of marijuana. Overall, gender matters when considering public opinion in the United States. Moreover, issue gaps partially account for the gender gap in party identification and vote choice where women are more likely than men to identify as Democrats and vote for Democratic candidates. For example, in electoral simulations when women are given the same policy positions as men, a considerable reduction in the voting gender gap occurs. Readers interested in how gender influences political behavior should consult the Oxford Bibliographies in Political Science article, “Gender, Behavior, and Representation” by Elisabeth Gidengil. With women being slightly more than half of the population and being more likely to vote than men in recent elections, gender differences in policy preferences have substantial political consequences. This article discusses research on several issue areas with established gender gaps in opinion and provides a brief overview of scholarship investigating the origins of gender differences in public opinion. Much of the research cited here focuses on gender differences in public opinion but some material controls only for gender and finds a significant relationship.