bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Octopus, a computational framework for exploring light-driven phenomena and quantum dynamics in extended and finite systems
Authors: Tancogne-Dejean Nicolas , Oliveira Micael J. T. , Andrade Xavier , Appel Heiko , Borca Carlos H. , Le Breton Guillaume , Buchholz Florian , Castro Alberto , Corni Stefano , Correa Alfredo A. , De Giovannini Umberto , Delgado Alain , Eich Florian G. , Flick Johannes , Gil Gabriel , Gomez Adrián , Helbig Nicole , Hübener Hannes , Jestädt René , Jornet-Somoza Joaquim , Larsen Ask H. , Lebedeva Irina V. , Lüders Martin , Marques Miguel A. L. , Ohlmann Sebastian T. , Pipolo Silvio , Rampp Markus , Rozzi Carlo A. , Strubbe David A. , Sato Shunsuke A. , Schäfer Christian , Theophilou Iris , Welden Alicia , Rubio Angel
Published: March 2020

Over the last few years, extraordinary advances in experimental and theoretical tools have allowed us to monitor and control matter at short time and atomic scales with a high degree of precision. An appealing and challenging route toward engineering materials with tailored properties is to find ways to design or selectively manipulate materials, especially at the quantum level. To this end, having a state-of-the-art ab initio computer simulation tool that enables a reliable and accurate simulation of light-induced changes in the physical and chemical properties of complex systems is of utmost importance. The first principles real-space-based Octopus project was born with that idea in mind, i.e., to provide a unique framework that allows us to describe non-equilibrium phenomena in molecular complexes, low dimensional materials, and extended systems by accounting for electronic, ionic, and photon quantum mechanical effects within a generalized time-dependent density functional theory. This article aims to present the new features that have been implemented over the last few years, including technical developments related to performance and massive parallelism. We also describe the major theoretical developments to address ultrafast light-driven processes, such as the new theoretical framework of quantum electrodynamics density-functional formalism for the description of novel light–matter hybrid states. Those advances, and others being released soon as part of the Octopus package, will allow the scientific community to simulate and characterize spatial and time-resolved spectroscopies, ultrafast phenomena in molecules and materials, and new emergent states of matter (quantum electrodynamical-materials).
High power edge-cum-surface emitting terahertz laser arrays phased locked by vacuum guided plasmon waves
Authors: Jin Yuan , Zhu Qiyao , Reno John L. , Kumar Sushil
Published: March 2020

Terahertz semiconductor quantum-cascade lasers (QCLs) are widely implemented with metallic cavities that support low-loss plasmonic optical modes at long wavelengths. However, resonant optical modes in such cavities suffer from poor radiative characteristics due to their subwavelength transverse dimensions. Consequently, single-mode terahertz QCLs with metallic cavities and large (>100  mW) output power have only been realized in the surface-emitting configuration that affords a large radiating surface. Here, we demonstrate a method to enhance radiative outcoupling from such plasmonic lasers for high-power emission in the edge-emitting (end-fire or longitudinal) direction. Single-sided plasmon waves propagating in vacuum are resonantly excited in surrounding medium of metallic cavities with the QCL semiconductor medium. The vacuum guided plasmon waves with a large wavefront phase-lock multiple metallic cavities longitudinally, which leads to intense radiation in multiple directions, including that in the longitudinal direction in a narrow single-lobed beam. The multicavity array radiates predominantly in a single spectral mode. A peak-power output of 260  mW and a slope efficiency of 303  mW/A are measured for the end-fire beam from a 3.3  THz QCL operating at 54  K in a Stirling cooler. Single-mode operation and lithographic tuning across a bandwidth of ∼150  GHz are demonstrated.
Terahertz excitation of spin dynamics in ferromagnetic thin films incorporated in metallic spintronic-THz-emitter
Authors: Choi B. C. , Rudge J. , Jordan K. , Genet T.
Published: March 2020

An experimental approach to trigger ultrafast spin dynamics at frequencies of the terahertz (THz) regime is explored by directly incorporating ferromagnetic Ni80Fe20 films to a Fe/Au spintronic-THz-emitter. It is found that Ni80Fe20 magnetization is directly coupled to the terahertz magnetic fields, in which the magnetic responses of Ni80Fe20 are phase-locked with terahertz pulses. High efficiency of metallic spintronic-terahertz emitters in driving terahertz-induced magnetization dynamics is observed; the maximum precession amplitude of the out-of-plane component of the Ni80Fe20 magnetization reaches over 10% of its saturation magnetization. Analytical integrations of THz magnetic field pulses reproduce the experimental results, confirming that the underlying mechanism of the observed spin dynamics is the Zeeman coupling between the terahertz magnetic field and magnetization in the Ni80Fe20 film. Our results open up possibilities for the studies of terahertz spin dynamics by integrating highly efficient low-cost metallic spintronic-THz-emitters into magnetic thin film elements.
A wire waveguide channel for terabit-per-second links
Authors: Shrestha Rabi , Kerpez Kenneth , Hwang Chan Soo , Mohseni Mehdi , Cioffi John M. , Mittleman Daniel M.
Published: March 2020

The rise in consumer data usage has increased the demand for higher data rates in telecommunication in both wireless and wired systems. In order to meet the demands for increased data rates for wired services, one possibility is to switch to higher frequencies, beyond the MHz-range frequencies typically used in digital subscriber line (DSL) services. In this work, we investigate the channel properties of a 200 GHz signal transmitted through a waveguide structure that is designed to approximately emulate the type of paired phone cable typically used for DSL transmissions. We report the attenuation characteristics of such a channel and explore the achievable data rates of a realistic vectored scenario that exploits the modal diversity of this multi-mode channel. We find that aggregate data rates on the order of terabits per second are feasible over short distances.
Label-free deeply subwavelength optical microscopy
Authors: Pu T. , Ou J. Y. , Papasimakis N. , Zheludev N. I.
Published: March 2020

We report the experimental demonstration of deeply subwavelength far-field optical microscopy of unlabeled samples. We beat the ∼λ/2 diffraction limit of conventional optical microscopy several times over by recording the intensity pattern of coherent light scattered from the object into the far-field. We retrieve information about the object with a deep learning neural network trained on scattering events from a large set of known objects. The microscopy retrieves dimensions of the imaged object probabilistically. Widths of the subwavelength components of the dimer are measured with a precision of λ/10 with the probability higher than 95% and with a precision of λ/20 with the probability better than 77%. We argue that the reported microscopy can be extended to objects of random shape and shall be particularly efficient on object of known shapes, such as found in routine tasks of machine vision, smart manufacturing, and particle counting for life sciences applications.
Multi-bottle beam generation using acoustic holographic lens
Authors: Zhou Qinxin , Zhang Jing , Ren Xuemei , Xu Zheng , Liu Xiaojun
Published: March 2020

Acoustic tweezers are a method of using acoustic waves to manipulate small particles in medium such as water or air without touching or contaminating them. Here, we report a water-immersed phase-modulating acoustic holographic lens as kinds of acoustic tweezers. It can be used to generate single-bottle beams or even multi-bottle beams at specific locations. These types of acoustic tweezers can be used to examine single or multiple particle trapping. The concept is based on the highly localized acoustic radiation force induced by the destructive interference of the acoustic waves across the holographic lens, which makes the particles trapped in the center of the bottle beam. Because the proposed system is independent of reflection, it is suitable for studying the interaction between cells in vivo.
Prevalence of sexually transmissible infections and HIV in men attending sex-on-premises venues in Australia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies
Authors: Ooi Catriona , Kong Fabian Y. S. , Lewis David A. , Hocking Jane S.
Published: March 2020

Background
In Australia, men who have sex with men (MSM) have high rates sexually transmissible infections (STIs) and sex-on-premises venue (SOPV) patrons are at risk. This paper assesses Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG), Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), syphilis and HIV prevalence in men tested at Australian SOPVs and describes testing services. Methods: EMBASE, Medline, PubMed and international conference proceedings were searched for articles reporting on-site SOPV testing between 1 January 2000 and 31 January 2017. Meta-analysis calculated pooled prevalence estimates of STIs by anatomical site. Results: Twelve cross-sectional studies were identified. Most (8/12) were local sexual health clinics (SHC) outreach services. Participants’ mean age was 41.1 years (95% confidence interval (CI) 37.0–43.3; range 17 to 84 years). Testing included CT and NG (9/12), HIV (8/12) and syphilis (5/12). CT and NG prevalence overall summary estimates were 3.4% (95% CI 1.9–5.2%, I2 = 88.7%, P < 0.01) and 1.3% (95% CI 0.7–2.2%, I2 = 75.5%, P < 0.01) respectively. CT and NG prevalence was highest in the ano-rectum and oro-pharynx respectively. The HIV and syphilis pooled estimates were 2.3% (95% CI 1.6–2.9%, I2 = 93.1%, P < 0.01) and 3.2% (95% CI 1.8–4.6%, I2 = 72.8%, P < 0.01) respectively. Participation rate varied. Conclusion: This review examines HIV and STI testing in Australian SOPVs before HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Findings indicate a high prevalence of STIs. PrEP use and resultant condomless sex may influence STI prevalence. Further research is required to determine the effect of PrEP on the STI prevalence among SOPV patrons.
Comparing the ‘phrasicon’ of teenagers in immersive and non-immersive settings
Authors: Bulon Amélie
Published: March 2020

Foreign language learners’ phraseological proficiency remains problematic, even at advanced levels (e.g., Meunier, 2012; Meunier & Granger, 2008;
Siepmann, 2008). While the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) method
is believed to facilitate foreign language learning by fostering input, interaction, and output, little attention has been paid to
the phraseological competence of CLIL learners. The present study aims to fill this gap as it is framed within an
interdisciplinary project on CLIL in Belgium and specifically focuses on the phrasicon, i.e. the phraseological lexicon, of 5th
year French-speaking secondary school learners of English in immersive (CLIL) and non-immersive (NON-CLIL) settings. The paper
reports on (1) an analysis of the variety/range of the phrasicon and (2) an overview of phraseological accuracy. The analyses are
based on a corpus of written productions of 180 learners. The findings of this study indicate higher frequency, range and accuracy
in the phrasicon of CLIL learners.
Tex19.1 inhibits the N-end rule pathway and maintains acetylated SMC3 cohesin and sister chromatid cohesion in oocytes
Authors: Reichmann Judith , Dobie Karen , Lister Lisa M. , Crichton James H. , Best Diana , MacLennan Marie , Read David , Raymond Eleanor S. , Hung Chao-Chun , Boyle Shelagh , Shirahige Katsuhiko , Cooke Howard J. , Herbert Mary , Adams Ian R.
Published: March 2020

Age-dependent oocyte aneuploidy, a major cause of Down syndrome, is associated with declining sister chromatid cohesion in postnatal oocytes. Here we show that cohesion in postnatal mouse oocytes is regulated by Tex19.1. We show Tex19.1−/− oocytes have defects maintaining chiasmata, missegregate their chromosomes during meiosis, and transmit aneuploidies to the next generation. Furthermore, we show that mouse Tex19.1 inhibits N-end rule protein degradation mediated by its interacting partner UBR2, and that Ubr2 itself has a previously undescribed role in negatively regulating the acetylated SMC3 subpopulation of cohesin in mitotic somatic cells. Lastly, we show that acetylated SMC3 is associated with meiotic chromosome axes in mouse oocytes, and that this population of cohesin is specifically depleted in the absence of Tex19.1. These findings indicate that Tex19.1 regulates UBR protein activity to maintain acetylated SMC3 and sister chromatid cohesion in postnatal oocytes and prevent aneuploidy from arising in the female germline.
Somatic SMAD3-activating mutations cause melorheostosis by up-regulating the TGF-β/SMAD pathway
Authors: Kang Heeseog , Jha Smita , Ivovic Aleksandra , Fratzl-Zelman Nadja , Deng Zuoming , Mitra Apratim , Cabral Wayne A. , Hanson Eric P. , Lange Eileen , Cowen Edward W. , Katz James , Roschger Paul , Klaushofer Klaus , Dale Ryan K. , Siegel Richard M. , Bhattacharyya Timothy , Marini Joan C.
Published: March 2020

Melorheostosis is a rare sclerosing dysostosis characterized by asymmetric exuberant bone formation. Recently, we reported that somatic mosaicism for MAP2K1-activating mutations causes radiographical “dripping candle wax” melorheostosis. We now report somatic SMAD3 mutations in bone lesions of four unrelated patients with endosteal pattern melorheostosis. In vitro, the SMAD3 mutations stimulated the TGF-β pathway in osteoblasts, enhanced nuclear translocation and target gene expression, and inhibited proliferation. Osteoblast differentiation and mineralization were stimulated by the SMAD3 mutation, consistent with higher mineralization in affected than in unaffected bone, but differing from MAP2K1 mutation–positive melorheostosis. Conversely, osteoblast differentiation and mineralization were inhibited when osteogenesis of affected osteoblasts was driven in the presence of BMP2. Transcriptome profiling displayed that TGF-β pathway activation and ossification-related processes were significantly influenced by the SMAD3 mutation. Co-expression clustering illuminated melorheostosis pathophysiology, including alterations in ECM organization, cell growth, and interferon signaling. These data reveal antagonism of TGF-β/SMAD3 activation by BMP signaling in SMAD3 mutation–positive endosteal melorheostosis, which may guide future therapies.
Semiotics
Authors: Hodge Bob
Published: March 2020

Semiotics refers to an intellectual tradition that deals with processes of making and interpreting meaning in all kinds of text, in all modes. However, semiotics was never integrated into mainstream disciplinary structures. Because of this marginal status semiotic tendencies flourished outside and between the major disciplines. As a discipline semiotics seems small, vulnerable and out-of-date. But as a broad intellectual tradition semiotics can be seen as a meta-theory which encompasses literary theory. This second perspective makes semiotics more useful for literary readers, and hence is emphasized in this chapter. Semiotics’ value is enhanced when it is seen as a complex, heterogeneous field with fuzzy boundaries and productive entanglements with literary objects and theories.

“Semiotics” comes from Greek semeion (sign, omen, or trace), something that points towards important, often hidden meanings. Signs in this sense go beyond words and verbal media. This scope gives “semiotics” a radically disruptive quality. Western culture in the modern era has been based on the primacy of words as carriers of all meaning and thought. Semiotics is the site of a radical challenge to this dominance. Semiotics sees signs and meanings everywhere, in every mode, not just in words.

The changing media of literature in the present and past raise many semiotic issues for literary theory. Poetry always carried meanings through sound as well as words. Drama needs to be performed. Film and multimedia carry the role of print fiction in new contexts. In the multimedia 21st century, literature has gone beyond writing, and its theories need a semiotic dimension.

Semiotics has a divided history, with two founding fathers. Peirce emphasized complexity and flow, and Saussure emphasized structure. Before 1960 structuralism dominated, but by the end of the 20th century post-structuralism prevailed. Semiotics went underground, but left traces everywhere of the intellectual revolution it participated in. It helped to trigger the turn to meaning across the social sciences and celebrated the irreducible complexity and diversity of forms and meanings in literature and life in the modern world.
Literacy: A Literary History
Authors: Morrissey Lee
Published: March 2020

Literacy is a measure of being literate, of the ability to read and write. The central activity of the humanities—its shared discipline—literacy has become one of its most powerful and diffuse metaphors, becoming a broadly applied metaphor representing a fluency, a competency, or a skill in manipulating information. The word “literacy” is of recent coinage, being little more than a century old. Reading and writing, or effectively using letters (the word at the root of literacy), are ancient skills, but the word “literacy” likely springs from and reflects the emergence of mass public education at the end of the 19th and the turn of the 20th century. In this sense, then “literacy” measures personal and demographic development. Literacy is mimetic. It is synesthetic—in some languages, it means hearing sounds (the phonemes) in what is seen (the letters); in others, it means linking a symbol to the thing symbolized. Although a recent word, “literacy” depends upon the emergence of symbolic sign systems in ancient times. Written symbolic systems, by contrast, are relatively recent developments in human history. But they bear a more complicated relationship to the spoken language, being in part a representation of it (and thus a recording of its contents) while also offering a representation of the world, the referent: that is, literacy involves an awareness of the representation of the world. Reading and writing are tied to millennia of changes in technologies of representation. As a term denoting fluidity with letters, literacy has a history and a geography that follow the development and movement of a phonetic alphabetic and subsequent systems of writing. If the alphabet encodes a shift from orality to literacy, HTML encodes a shift from verbal literacy to a kind of numerical literacy not yet theorized.
Posthumous Editing in the Modern United States
Authors: Fagan Allison
Published: March 2020

Posthumous publication is part of a long-standing literary tradition that crosses centuries and continents, giving works of art ranging from The Canterbury Tales to The Diary of Anne Frank, from Northanger Abbey to 2666. Preparing for print work that was incomplete and unpublished at the time of the author’s death, posthumous editing is a type of public and goal-oriented grieving that seeks to establish or preserve the legacy of a writer no longer able to establish it for herself. Surrounding the work of posthumous editing are questions of authorial intent, editorial and publisher imperative, and reader response, each shaping the degree to which a posthumously published edition of a text is considered valuable. The visibility of the work of such editing spans from conspicuously absent to noticeably transformative, suggesting a wide range of possibilities for imagining the editorial role in producing the posthumous text. Examples drawn from 20th- and 21st-century US literature reveal the nature of editorial relationships to the deceased as well as the subsequent relationships of readers to the posthumously published text.
Whiteness in Organizations: From White Supremacy to Allyship
Authors: Chrobot-Mason Donna , Campbell Kristen , Vason Tyra
Published: March 2020

Many whites do not identify with a racial group. They think very little about their own race and the consequences of being born into the dominant racial group. They do not think much about race because they do not have to. As a member of the dominant group, whites view their race as the norm. Furthermore, whites consciously or unconsciously typically view their experiences as race-less. In actuality whites’ experiences are far from race-less.

Many whites also fail to acknowledge the privileges their racial group provides. As long as whites continue to dominate leadership roles and positions of power in organizations, there will continue to be strong in-group bias providing unearned advantages to whites in the workplace, such as greater hiring and advancement opportunities. Additionally, as long as whites fail to acknowledge privilege, they will likely adopt a color-blind perspective, which in turn leads to a lack of recognition of microaggressions and other forms of discrimination as well as a lack of support for organizational initiatives to improve opportunities for employees of color.

In order to create a more inclusive workplace, it is imperative that both whites and white dominated organizations promote and foster white allies. For whites who wish to become allies, acknowledging white privilege is a necessary but insufficient step. Becoming a white ally also requires questioning meritocracy as well as working in collaboration with employees to implement lasting change.
U.S. Freedom of Information Act and Democratic Accountability
Authors: Schudson Michael
Published: March 2020

In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. Congress, with allies in the news media, created legislation that came to be known as the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). It was designed to help hold the federal executive accountable to the public. It became law in 1966. Its significance can be understood in several contexts: (1) in connection with a special relationship of journalists to the operation of the FOIA; (2) in terms of arguments that transparency in government is necessary for citizens’ informed participation in democracy and that, on the other side, there are strong democratic arguments that transparency should be limited in the pursuit of other legitimate values, some of them recognized in the language of the FOIA itself that government agencies may deny a citizen's request for information on the grounds that honoring the request could endanger national security, personal privacy, the integrity of internal government deliberations, or other significant objectives; and (3) that freedom of information law are one institution within a wider web of institutions and practices dedicated to holding government accountable. In this regard, the U.S. Freedom of Information Act can also be seen in a broad context of a cultural shift toward “openness” and a political shift toward what has been called a “monitory” model of democracy.
Hate Crime Policy in the United States
Authors: Osterbur Megan
Published: March 2020

Hate crime policy has developed from the early legislation of the 1968 Civil Rights Act to the 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act, to be increasingly inclusive in terms of identity and comprehensive in terms of ramifications. Hence a body of scholarship around the trajectory and implications of hate crime laws has developed, as has a robust discourse on the definitions of hate crime itself and theories on who perpetrates bias-motivated violence and why it occurs. Between definitions of hate crime, a tension exists between legal definitions and those of theorists who are attempting incorporate understanding of context into the definition. Similarly, the theories on who perpetrates hate crimes and why they occur exhibit tensions between strain-based theories. While some scholars have deployed Merton’s (1938) strain theory associated with societal anomie, others point to changing norms.

As hate crime laws have become more inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, avenues of research into the disparities in experience of bias-motivated crimes between enumerated categories has increased. Persistent in the research on hate crime is the deficiency of data on victimization and ramifications beyond direct victims. While data on the scope of the policies is clear, inconsistencies in data collection around victimization render available resources insufficient.

Most recently, research on hate crime policy has intersected with queer theory to question whether hate crime laws are positive for the LGBTQ community or society at large. Organizations such as the Silvia Rivera Law Project, for example, have pushed back on calls for inclusive hate crime laws via challenging the propensity to provide additional resources to the prison-industrial complex. Furthermore, queer scholars of history find a disconnect between the origins of the LGBTI movement in resisting police powers to be antithetical to promoting increased police powers in the form of hate crime legislation.
Competing Values in Public Administration
Authors: van der Wal Zeger
Published: March 2020

Public administration theory and practice are been rife with competing values, and 21st-century trends and challenges create new value dilemmas. Values—standards and qualities that guide behavior and decision making—can compete for attention because they may be of equal importance to the larger public interest that administrative actors are aiming to realize yet adhering to each of them at once is not feasible or possible. Examples are transparency, accountability, equity, effectiveness, efficiency, and legality. Hence, administrative actors have to find ways to manage competing values at an individual and institutional level.
Leadership and Change in the Public Sector
Authors: Mendez Jose Luis
Published: March 2020

The nature and evolution of the field of studies of public sector leadership can be understood by focusing on four theoretical orientations: institutional, transformational, collaborative, and contingent. The first one argues that, within a democracy, public sector executives do not exercise—or should not exercise—a strong leadership. The second one, on the contrary, stresses their “transformational” role. The third orientation favors more horizontal leading styles, while the last one argues that all the previous types of leadership could emerge depending on the specific conditions. Each of these four orientations takes a specific position toward change and has led to a considerable number of books and articles. This clearly shows that leadership is an important issue in the study of the public sector. It also shows the theoretical fragmentation present in this field and that there is not a fit-all type of leadership. Paradoxically, there is still a noticeable lack of research on some topics, such as the causes and effects of leadership. Thus, there is not a clear understanding yet of the extent to which leading within government makes a positive difference and, in case it does, of how to make it happen. Filling these voids would certainly help this field to gain greater relevance within the wider field of leadership studies as well as in the social sciences in general.
Environmentalism in Latin America
Authors: Castro H. Guillermo
Published: March 2020

The environment is considered here as the product of the human interventions in natural systems through socially organized work processes. These processes also produce environmental conflicts, when different human groups try to make mutually exclusive uses of the same ecosystem. As a consequence, every society has a characteristic environment associated with particular landscapes, as well as a peculiar environmental culture, developed along time. Environmentalism, in this perspective, expresses the cultural values and political conducts of different social sectors resulting from the contradictions inherent to their role in the production of the environment, as well as those between the natural conditions necessary for the production of goods and the reproduction of human societies. In Latin America, this has led to the formation of at least three different environmentalisms: a liberal technocratic one, closely related with international organizations, centered on the concept of sustainable development; an ecological one, centered on the conflicts associated with the fracture of the social metabolism of nature due to an extra-activist approach to human and natural resources in the region, and a popular de facto environmentalism, associated both with peasant and indigenous groups that resist the transformation of their natural legacy into natural capital, and urban popular demands for the access to basic environmental conditions of life, such as potable water, sanitation, clean air, and public spaces.
Gender and Memory in Truth Projects in Brazil
Authors: Snider Colin M.
Published: March 2020

Truth commissions have become common instruments to document human rights violations for societies emerging from authoritarian violence around the world since the 1980s. First appearing as mechanisms to attempt to address rights violations and to pursue reconciliation or justice in the aftermath of Latin American dictatorships that ended in the 1980s and early 1990s, such commissions and their published reports became important tools for societies transitioning from authoritarianism and for addressing the state’s past rights violations in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America. These commissions, and the reports they issue, serve to recognize the state’s responsibility in violence and repression. Such reports can be an important factor in uncovering the truth of repression and the experiences and voices of victims, victims’ family members, and survivors. These reports also often address reconciliation and even justice for victims, though such reports’ successes in these areas are more mixed. Nonetheless, truth commission reports and other truth projects from non-governmental organizations are important artifacts in documenting the repressive past for societies transitioning from authoritarian regimes.

As important as such reports—from states and from non-governmental organizations alike—are, they are also a product of their particular historical, political, and social milieus. Consequently, truth project reports are important artifacts in understanding both the violently repressive past and resistance to it, and the historical moment in which such reports on that past are produced. Memory is especially integral in the production of such documents. The voices of survivors and of victims’ families allow previously silenced memories to gain public expression, even while their framing and use of language reflects the ways power operates in memory and in transitional societies. As a result, scholars can treat such reports not just as documents of authoritarian repression, but as snapshots of societies addressing transitional justice. These moments and documents not only seek to thoroughly narrate past repression; they reflect power relations at the very moment of a report’s production. As a study of these types of reports—non-governmental and official—in Brazil reveal, such documents can thus be read for expressions of power along gendered lines. The result is an ability to read truth reports both as a document detailing repression within and resistance to authoritarian regimes, and how memory serves as a site for the intersection of power along gendered, class-based, or other social markers present in the use of language, narrative structures, and memories of repression and resistance in a post-authoritarian setting.
Argentina: The Journey From Military Intervention to Subordination
Authors: Pion-Berlin David
Published: March 2020

Argentina has moved through two defining eras. The first was one of military coups and dictatorships that repeatedly interrupted democratic periods of governance. The second has been one of uninterrupted democratic rule marked by firm military subordination to civilian control. From 1930 to 1976, the Argentine armed forces cut short the tenure of every democratically elected head of state. Eleven of 16 presidents during this period were generals. Military coups in Argentina were brought on by a combination of factors, including societal pressures, tactical and strategic blunders on the part of political leaders, and the military’s own thirst for power and privileges. Militaries would eventually leave power, but their repeated interventions would weaken respect for democratic processes.

The last coup, which occurred in 1976, marked a turning point, giving rise to an authoritarian regime that spelled political, economic, and military disaster for the nation. So disgusted was the public with the dictatorship’s incompetence and brutality that it discovered a newfound respect for democratic rules of the game. The demise of the Proceso dictatorship helped usher in a long and unbroken period of democratic rule. Still, contemporary Argentine democratic governments have had to grapple with civil-military issues. Notable progress has been made, including the holding of human rights trials, the enactment of laws that restrict the military’s use in internal security, and the strengthening of the defense ministry. Notwithstanding a few rebellions in the late 1980s, the Argentine armed forces have remained firmly under civilian control since the return of democracy. Nonetheless, administrations have varied in their abilities and motivation to enact reforms.
Neuroendocrine and Neuroimmune Mechanisms Regulating the Blood-Brain Barrier
Authors: Nwafor Divine C. , Brichacek Allison L. , Chakraborty Sreeparna , Gambill Catheryne A. , Benkovic Stanley A. , Brown Candice M.
Published: March 2020

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a dynamic structural interface between the brain and periphery that plays a critical function in maintaining cerebral homeostasis. Over the past two decades, technological advances have improved our understanding of the neuroimmune and neuroendocrine mechanisms that regulate a healthy BBB. The combination of biological sex, sex steroids, age, coupled with innate and adaptive immune components orchestrates the crosstalk between the BBB and the periphery. Likewise, the BBB also serves as a nexus within the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and gut-brain-microbiota axes. Compromised BBB integrity permits the entry of bioactive molecules, immune cells, microbes, and other components that migrate into the brain parenchyma and compromise neuronal function. A paramount understanding of the mechanisms that determine the bidirectional crosstalk between the BBB and immune and endocrine pathways has become increasingly important for implementation of therapeutic strategies to treat a number of neurological disorders that are significantly impacted by the BBB. Examples of these disorders include multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury.
Applied Linguistics and Education
Authors: Kettle Margaret , Macqueen Susy
Published: March 2020

Language is fundamental to teaching and learning, yet is prone to invisibility in education systems. Drawing on work from applied linguistics that foregrounds language use in education, a “power” heuristic can be used to highlight linguistic privilege and its implications for students and their individual language repertoires. Language can be understood as a tool for performing particular interpersonal and ideational functions; its structure and uses are determined by context. For most students, experiences of language that is education-related reside in three core domains: the home and community, the school, and the nation state. Language expectations in these domains vary and position the linguistic repertoires of students differently. A key consideration is the student’s first language and its relationship to the expectations and privileged varieties of different institutions, for example, the local school and the national education department. By foregrounding linguistic privilege in education, the alignment, or misalignment, between students’ language resources and the prevailing language norms of educational institutions is made visible and open to change. Inherent in the level of alignment are issues of educational inclusion, access to powerful language forms and genres, and academic achievement. The concept of power affordances can be used to refer to the enabling potential of the relationship between language status, language affiliation and a student’s linguistic repertoire. Power affordances can operate as three broad potentials, capabilities or statuses: socioeconomic power, which resides in the language of global and state institutions ranging from government to schools and manifests in instruments such as national standardized tests; sociocognitive power, which enables the capacity to learn and recognizes the language intensity of knowledge; and identity power, which references social belonging and is strongly indexed to language. Conceptualizing language and its power affordances in education provides a useful framework for understanding the relationship between students’ language resources and the often implicit linguistic demands and practices of education systems. It also highlights the rich potential of applied linguistics in understanding education.
Diversity and Multiculturalism
Authors: Beachum Floyd
Published: March 2020

The words diversity and multiculturalism are ubiquitous in the contemporary educational lexicon. They are certainly hallmarks in many educational conversations. Recent trials, tribulations, and triumphs in the areas of diversity and multiculturalism are not without historical context or educational precedent. The evolution of diversity and multiculturalism in the United States has been and continues to be a struggle. The lofty language that is immortalized in the United States Constitution and the Pledge of Allegiance promises all U.S. citizens the right to life, liberty, safety, happiness, and so forth. However, this promise has not always been kept for all U.S. citizens. The full recognition of one’s rights in the United States has depended on one’s race/ethnicity, gender, social class, religious beliefs, ability status, and so forth. Consequently, the United States has also denied, ostracized, and oppressed groups of people based on these same aforementioned identities (e.g., slavery, segregation, sexism, etc.). This resulted in amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the American Civil Rights Movement, and the Women’s Rights Movement, as well as others. These movements were no panacea; they simply weakened overt manifestations of bias, and allowed for more nuanced, covert, and/or institutionalized forms of bias. The elimination of overt bias also creates the illusion of success. People begin to think that the problems are solved because they are not obvious anymore. This highlights the need for diversity and multiculturalism in order to identify and expose covert bias and remind people that the struggles of the past are not just part of history; they undergird the problems we face today (e.g., achievement gaps, disproportionate discipline, and misidentification for special education).

Ultimately, diversity/multiculturalism has the ability to provide a kind of interconnectedness among people by having them face the perplexing problems of equity, equality, social identity, and personal philosophy. Embracing and understanding diversity/multiculturalism is the key to unlocking its transformational power.
Current School Reforms in Transnational Policy Landscapes
Authors: Wahlstrom Ninni
Published: March 2020

The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) play an important role in forming transnational education policy. Based on the results of the PISA measurements and other evaluations, the OECD can claim that its policy proposals are evidence based and in accordance with international standards. There is growing interest from the national governments to adapt their national policy strategies to these international standards. However, the translation from the transnational to national policy is a complex process, whereby the national receivers of the policy are selective regarding the policy elements they borrow from those who create and influence transnational policy. Thus, discursive power regarding transnational policy can be understood as power through ideas, making national reforms similar but not identical, and promoting incremental or imperceptible reforms.
The Concept of the Silk Road in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Authors: Jacobs Justin M.
Published: March 2020

The concept of the Silk Road first attained prominence in the latter half of the 19th century as part of European attempts to impose economic and political claims upon the lands and peoples of Xinjiang (also known as East Turkestan, Chinese Central Asia, or Chinese Turkestan). These claims were given cultural substance at the turn of the century by a series of expeditions undertaken by Western explorers and archaeologists, who ventured into the deserts of northwestern China in search of Greco-Indian art and antiquities. The study and display of such artifacts were motivated primarily by a desire to highlight the eastward migrations of Indo-European speakers into Central Asia. When these same expeditions began to reveal the presence of ancient Chinese ruins and antiquities as well, Chinese scholars and officials joined their Western counterparts in the field, using the material proceeds of their excavations to construct competing narratives of the westward influence of Chinese civilization. In the decades since the end of World War II, the concept of the Silk Road has come to dominate popular and scholarly associations with the region, monopolizing everything from the advertising of Central Asian and Middle Eastern cuisine to the names of academic monographs and international string ensembles.

The elusive and malleable idea of “the Silk Road” has provided an attractive ideological platform over the past 200 years for major political, economic, and cultural actors throughout Eurasia to assert their imagined historical importance across both time and space, often with a highly romanticized gloss. In that sense, it is a purely modern intellectual construct, one that would have been utterly unfamiliar and likely incomprehensible to those historical agents it purports to describe.
The Vijayanagara Empire
Authors: Talbot Cynthia
Published: March 2020

Founded in central Karnataka in the mid-14th century, the Vijayanagara empire eventually extended over the southern Deccan and much of the Tamil country. Frequent battles over territory were fought with the Bahmani Sultanate and its successors that lay to the immediate north and, during the 15th century, with the Gajapati kingdom on the east coast. Three of the empire’s royal dynasties ruled from a capital called Vijayanagara, but the city was abandoned after a massive defeat in 1565 at the Battle of Talikota; the fourth dynasty retrenched in southern Andhra and survived until the mid-17th century as no more than a regional power. Because the original capital remained largely uninhabited, it has offered an unusual opportunity for archaeological and art-historical research in recent decades. The city contains distinct zones: a sacred center along the Tungabhadra River, an urban core that contains a walled royal center, and a strip of irrigated agricultural land in between. Although Vijayanagara was previously characterized as a Hindu state hostile to Muslims, recent research has emphasized its cosmopolitanism. The secular structures of the capital, built in an innovative style combining elements of Islamicate and Indic architecture, are among the clearest attestations to Vijayanagara’s multicultural nature. The early empire’s control over its distant territories was loose and tenuous, but inscriptions and foreign travel accounts indicate that the political structure of the state changed dramatically in the late 15th century. From that time on, Vijayanagara’s commanders and officials were remunerated with revenues from assigned territories and required to supply a set number of troops for military service. Many of the commanders who were assigned territories in the Tamil country were from the southern Deccan, leading to a greater integration of these areas of South India. The extensive migration and trade activities of the Vijayanagara era also created closer networks within South India.
Women and Slavery in Africa
Authors: Candido Mariana P.
Published: March 2020

Kidnapping, warfare, seizure, and enslavement were gendered experiences in the sense that men, women, and children did not necessarily face the same process. Each enslaved woman and man was an individual who navigated bondage, resistance, dependency, and violence with different degrees of success within specific contexts. Recognizing their complexities and the variations regarding their enslavement and bondage is vital to avoiding essentialization of African slavery as a monolithic or an ahistorical institution. Women composed most of the enslaved population within the African continent, due in part to the operation of internal markets and local demands. The internal demand for enslaved women affected prices, values, and flows of the external slave trades, as well as gender imbalance.

Women in bondage played major economic roles in the domestic and public spheres as farmers, skilled craftspersons, street vendors, miners, healers, and cooks, performing tasks that respectable and honorable free women would not do. They were valued as producers and reproducers who could attend to sexual demands and be incorporated into lineages as unfree people. In different societies within and outside of Africa, enslaved women in bondage were sexually objectified and exploited. There is thus nothing “African” about this violence, since one of the premises of enslaving girls and women was the ability to abuse their bodies. The sexual dimension of the use of women’s bodies explains the higher value for female captives in internal African markets, as well as the silence surrounding the enslavement of women. It is important to recognize that in Africa, as elsewhere, the institution of slavery was not monolithic. Detailed regional studies indicate variations across time and space. Women experienced capture, enslavement, and bondage in different ways. One cannot make general assumptions when analyzing exceptional lives.
Motherhood and Maternalism in Africa
Authors: Semley Lorelle
Published: March 2020

The nature of motherhood and maternalism in Africa challenges perceptions and assumptions about women, families, and societies in unexpected ways. Across Africa, motherhood has operated as an institution and ideology that shaped social, economic, and political organization, especially before European colonialism expanded across the continent during the late 19th century. The sociocultural significance of biological motherhood and childrearing remains an important theme in the study of the past and the present as African women form families, sometimes outside of the bonds of marriage. Ideas about biological motherhood have also shifted to address health, disease, and sexuality. African women and men are reimagining motherhood in the face of diverse issues such as infertility, the impact of HIV/AIDS, and an emergent, self-identified LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) community.

Similarly, maternalism in Africa extends beyond the common focus on issues such as women’s rights, reproductive health, or children’s education. Maternalist politics in Africa in the 20th and 21st centuries have addressed broader political questions such as state policies, housing, and infrastructure, often with an internationalist vision. Taken together, motherhood and maternalism in Africa not only encompass personal and emotional realms often associated with both terms but also bridge historical and political questions, including ones about belonging and citizenship in an interconnected world.