bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Simulating organ biomass variability and carbohydrate distribution in perennial fruit crops: a comparison between the common assimilate pool and phloem carbohydrate transport models
Authors: Zhu Junqi , Gou Fang , Rossouw Gerhard , Begum Fareeda , Henke Michael , Johnson Ella , Holzapfel Bruno , Field Stewart , Seleznyova Alla
Published: August 2021

Variability in fruit quality greatly impedes the profitability of an orchard. Modelling can help find the causes of quality variability. However, studies suggest that the common assimilate pool model is inadequate in terms of describing variability in organ biomass. The aim of the current study was to compare the performances of the common assimilate pool and phloem carbohydrate transport models in simulating phloem carbohydrate concentration and organ biomass variability within the whole-plant functional–structural grapevine (Vitis vinifera) model that we developed previously. A statistical approach was developed for calibrating the model with a detailed potted experiment that entails three levels of leaf area per vine during the fruit ripening period. Global sensitivity analysis illustrated that carbohydrate allocation changed with the amount of leaf area as well as the limiting factors for organ biomass development. Under a homogeneous canopy architecture where all grape bunches were equally close to the carbohydrate sources, the common assimilate pool and phloem transport models produced very similar results. However, under a heterogeneous canopy architecture with variable distance between bunches and carbohydrate sources, the coefficient of variation for fruit biomass rose from 0.01 to 0.17 as crop load increased. These results indicate that carbohydrate allocation to fruits is affected by both the size of crop load and fruit distribution, which is not adequately described by the common assimilate pool model. The new grapevine model can also simulate dynamic canopy growth and be adapted to help optimize canopy architecture and quality variability of other perennial fruit crops.
Classification and analysis of asynchronous communication content between care team members involved in breast cancer treatment
Authors: Steitz Bryan D , Sulieman Lina , Warner Jeremy L , Fabbri Daniel , Brown J Thomas , Davis Alyssa L , Unertl Kim M
Published: August 2021

Objective

A growing research literature has highlighted the work of managing and triaging clinical messages as a major contributor to professional exhaustion and burnout. The goal of this study was to discover and quantify the distribution of message content sent among care team members treating patients with breast cancer.

Materials and Methods

We analyzed nearly two years of communication data from the electronic health record (EHR) between care team members at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. We applied natural language processing to perform sentence-level annotation into one of five information types: clinical, medical logistics, nonmedical logistics, social, and other. We combined sentence-level annotations for each respective message. We evaluated message content by team member role and clinic activity.

Results

Our dataset included 81 857 messages containing 613 877 sentences. Across all roles, 63.4% and 21.8% of messages contained logistical information and clinical information, respectively. Individuals in administrative or clinical staff roles sent 81% of all messages containing logistical information. There were 33.2% of messages sent by physicians containing clinical information—the most of any role.

Discussion and Conclusion

Our results demonstrate that EHR-based asynchronous communication is integral to coordinate care for patients with breast cancer. By understanding the content of messages sent by care team members, we can devise informatics initiatives to improve physicians’ clerical burden and reduce unnecessary interruptions.
Genetic and Usurpation Data Support High Incidence of Bumble Bee Nest Invasion by Socially Parasitic Bumble Bee, Bombus insularis
Authors: Koch Jonathan Berenguer Uhuad , McCabe Lindsie M , Love Byron G , Cox-Foster Diana
Published: August 2021

Cuckoo bumble bees (Psithyrus) (Lepeletier, 1832) (Hymenoptera: Apidae) are a unique lineage of bees that depend exclusively on a host bumble bee species to provide nesting material, nutritional resources, and labor to rear offspring. In this study, we document usurpation incidence and population genetic data of Bombus insularis (Smith, 1861) (Hymenoptera: Apidae), a bumble bee species in the Psithyrus subgenus, on field-deployed B. huntii colonies in northern Utah, United States. Within 12 d of deploying B. huntii Greene, 1860 (Hymenoptera: Apidae) colonies at two field sites, 13 of the 16 colonies contained at least one established B. insularis female. Although our results demonstrate that field-deployed bumble bee colonies are highly susceptible to B. insularis usurpation, applying a fabricated excluder to prevent the inquiline from invading a colony was 100% effective. Sibship analysis using microsatellite genotype data of 59 B. insularis females estimates that they originated from at least 49 unique colonies. Furthermore, sibship analysis found siblings distributed between the field sites that were 7.04 km apart. Our result suggests that B. insularis females have the capacity to disperse across the landscape in search of host colonies at distances of at least 3.52 km and up to 7.04 km. Our study underscores the detrimental impact B. insularis usurpation has on the host bumble bee colony. As B. insularis significantly impacts the success of bumble bee colonies, we briefly discuss how the utilization of excluders may be useful for commercial bumble bee colonies that are used to pollinate open field crops.
A case of ultrashort-segment Hirschsprung’s disease discovered after taking polyethylene glycol electrolyte solution for chronic constipation
Authors: Tatekawa Yukihiro
Published: August 2021

We report a case of ultrashort-segment Hirschsprung’s disease (HD) involving a 4-year-old girl. She was born at 29 weeks gestation from a twin pregnancy. She weighed 1013 g. After birth, she received glycerin enemas and sodium picosulfate hydrate to facilitate defecation. She passed stool once every 4–5 days. When she was 4 years old, she was medicated with polyethylene glycol electrolyte solution. After she drank the solution twice, the abdomen distended rapidly without passage of stool. An abdominal X-ray showed a stored stool mass and a barium enema study revealed dilatation from the rectum to the sigmoid colon due to the stool mass. She underwent anorectal manometry and a rectal biopsy, and was suspected to have HD. She underwent a Soave endorectal pull-through with an oblique anastomosis. She passed stool 4–10 times a day for 6 months postoperatively, but the frequency of passing stool gradually deceased without medications.
Chromatin accessibility landscapes activated by cell-surface and intracellular immune receptors
Authors: Ding Pingtao , Sakai Toshiyuki , Krishna Shrestha Ram , Manosalva Perez Nicolas , Guo Wenbin , Ngou Bruno Pok Man , He Shengbo , Liu Chang , Feng Xiaoqi , Zhang Runxuan , Vandepoele Klaas , MacLean Dan , Jones Jonathan D G
Published: August 2021

Activation of cell-surface and intracellular receptor-mediated immunity results in rapid transcriptional reprogramming that underpins disease resistance. However, the mechanisms by which co-activation of both immune systems lead to transcriptional changes are not clear. Here, we combine RNA-seq and ATAC-seq to define changes in gene expression and chromatin accessibility. Activation of cell-surface or intracellular receptor-mediated immunity, or both, increases chromatin accessibility at induced defence genes. Analysis of ATAC-seq and RNA-seq data combined with publicly available information on transcription factor DNA-binding motifs enabled comparison of individual gene regulatory networks activated by cell-surface or intracellular receptor-mediated immunity, or by both. These results and analyses reveal overlapping and conserved transcriptional regulatory mechanisms between the two immune systems.
Failed-transition outbursts in black hole low-mass X-ray binaries
Authors: Alabarta K , Altamirano D , Méndez M , Cúneo V A , Vincentelli F M , Castro-Segura N , García F , Luff B , Veledina A
Published: August 2021

Black hole low-mass X-ray binaries (BH LMXBs) evolve in a similar way during outburst. Based on the X-ray spectrum and variability, this evolution can be divided into three canonical states: low/hard, intermediate, and high/soft state. BH LMXBs evolve from the low/hard to the high/soft state through the intermediate state in some outbursts (here called ‘full outbursts’). However, in other cases, BH LMXBs undergo outbursts in which the source never reaches the high/soft state, here called ‘failed-transition outbursts’ (FT outbursts). From a sample of 56 BH LMXBs undergoing 128 outbursts, we find that 36 per cent of these BH LMXBs experienced at least one FT outburst, and that FT outbursts represent ∼33 per cent of the outbursts of the sample, showing that these are common events. We compare all the available X-ray data of full and FT outbursts of BH LMXBs from RXTE/PCA, Swift/BAT, and MAXI, and find that FT and full outbursts cannot be distinguished from their X-ray light curves, hardness–intensity diagrams, or X-ray variability during the initial 10–60 d after the outburst onset. This suggests that both types of outbursts are driven by the same physical process. We also compare the optical and infrared (O/IR) data of FT and full outbursts of GX 339−4. We found that this system is generally brighter in O/IR bands before an FT outburst, suggesting that the O/IR flux points to the physical process that later leads to a full or an FT outburst. We discuss our results in the context of models that describe the onset and evolution of outbursts in accreting X-ray binaries.
H, He-like recombination spectra – IV. Clarification and refinement of methodology for l-changing collisions
Authors: Badnell N R , Guzmán F , Brodie S , Williams R J R , van Hoof P A M , Chatzikos M , Ferland G J
Published: August 2021

Precise spectral diagnostic modelling of H i and He ii recombination spectra can constrain theoretical models that describe many astrophysical environments. Simple analytic expressions are of interest for collisional l-changing rate coefficients that are used by large-scale population modelling codes. We review, clarify, and improve upon the modified Pengelly & Seaton formulae of Guzmán et al. We show that the recent poor results for it shown by Vrinceanu et al. are due to their misinterpretation of its usage. We also detail efficient numerical algorithms which should enable the full quantum mechanical expression for such rate coefficients to be used much more routinely by modelling codes. We illustrate with some collisional-radiative population modelling for hydrogen.
Relationship between abdominal obesity (based on waist circumference) and serum vitamin D levels: a systematic review and meta-analysis of epidemiologic studies
Authors: Hajhashemy Zahra , Foshati Sahar , Saneei Parvane
Published: August 2021

Context

Although previous observational studies have investigated the association between waist circumference (WC) values and serum vitamin D levels, findings have been inconsistent.

Objective

A systematic review and meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the effect of abdominal obesity (based on WC) on vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency in adults.

Data Sources

A systematic search of the published literature up to September 2020 was conducted in electronic databases, including MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) (Web of Science), Scopus, and Google Scholar, for observational studies that investigated the association between abdominal obesity (based on WC) or different categories of WC as the exposure and serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels as the outcome.

Data Extraction

Eighteen cross-sectional studies were included in the review. The relationship between WC values and combined serum vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency (<30 ng/mL) or vitamin D deficiency (<20 ng/mL) was evaluated.

Data Analysis

Combining 8 effect sizes from 5 investigations, including 7997 individuals, illustrated that the highest category of WC, compared with the lowest category of WC, was related to 82% increased odds of combined serum vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency (<30 ng/mL) (OR: 1.82; 95% CI: 1.34, 2.49). Moreover, in studies that investigated both genders together, the highest category of WC, compared with the lowest category of WC, was associated with 61% increased odds of serum vitamin D deficiency (<20 ng/mL) (OR: 1.61; 95% CI: 1.12, 2.31). The same results were obtained for almost all subgroups for several covariates.

Conclusion

This meta-analysis of cross-sectional studies confirmed that increased WC was related to the elevated risk of combined vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency in adults. More prospective studies are needed to confirm causality.

Systematic Review Registration

PROSPERO registration no. CRD42020190485.
Sociology of Mass and New Media through an Interactionist Lens
Authors: Wiest Julie B.
Published: August 2021

This chapter explores symbolic interactionist insights and perspectives on both mass media and new media, with a concentration on the ways in which different forms of media influence meaning-making through social interaction while also being influenced by those interpretive processes. It also examines the relations between various media and the construction and interpretation of social reality, the ways that media shape the development and presentation of self, and the uses and interpretations of media within and between communities. Although it clearly distinguishes between mass media and new media, the chapter also discusses the variety of ways in which they intersect throughout social life.
Where There’s Fire There’s Smoke
Authors: Odell Margaret S.
Published: August 2021

What critics emphasize in their study of the Bible in art depends on a wide range of issues, including the artist’s sociohistorical context, the purpose for which the art is created, and critics’ own interpretive interests. Because all approaches treat biblical art as interpretation in its own right, critics must first address the relationship between text and image. This chapter applies Cheryl Exum’s method of visual criticism to establish a genuine dialogue between biblical texts and their artistic representations in order to interpret figural representations as artistic solutions to textual cruxes. This method is used to elucidate a difficult scene—the painting of Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones in the Dura-Europos Synagogue. This scene will be examined in light of textual problems in MT Ezekiel 9:1–6, rabbinic textual interpretation of Ezekiel 8-9, and the iconography of idolatry in the cycle of synagogue paintings. The scene does not focus on every detail in these chapters; rather, it produces evidence of idolatry, in the display of bowls and incense burners and, more dramatically, in the portrayal of the executioners’ search for the protective Tau as they carry out the divine command of judgment. The artists’ selection of these two episodes indicates a keen engagement of the artists with questions of identity and idolatry in the religiously plural city of Dura-Europos. Thus explained, the scene clarifies the contribution of the Ezekiel painting to the synagogue cycle’s emphasis on Jewish identity in a polytheist context.
Durkheim and the Sociality of Space
Authors: Schroer Markus
Published: August 2021

This chapter explores the topic of space in Émile Durkheim’s writings. It shows that spatial formations play a key role in his theory of modernity. He assigns to social morphology the task of systematically investigating the material substratum of societies. Of major concern in this regard is how different types of societies relate to space in distinctive ways. His sociological approach encompasses both an epistemological and a social-theoretic perspective on “space.” In effect, it can be argued that Durkheim is not primarily concerned with a society’s dependence on space, but rather with how space is shaped socially. Space is not an abstract category of thought, but the collectively produced foundation for all social activity. Contrary to many subsequent conceptions of space, Durkheim does not differentiate between physical and social space, arguing that physical space is inherently shaped by social practices of classification and division. It is this theoretical notion which, in light of the renewed attention given to materiality and space by proponents of the material and the spatial turn, makes his work seem surprisingly contemporary.
What Is Living and What Is Dead in Classic European Philosophy of Technology?
Authors: Mitcham Carl
Published: August 2021

Classic European philosophy of technology is the original effort to think critically rather than promotionally about the historically unique mutation that is anchored in the Industrial Revolution and has since progressively transformed the world and itself. Three representative contributions to this pivotal philosophical project can be found in texts by Alan Turing, Jacques Ellul, and Martin Heidegger. Despite having initiated analytic, sociological, and phenomenological approaches to philosophy of technology, respectively, all three are often treated today in a somewhat patronizing manner. The present chapter seeks to revisit and reconsider their contributions, arguing that, especially in the case of Ellul and Heidegger, what is commonly dismissed as their overgeneralizations about modern technology as a whole might reasonably be of continuing relevance to contemporary students in the philosophy of technology.
Urban Aesthetics and Technology
Authors: Lehtinen Sanna
Published: August 2021

Technology in one form or another has always been a part of urban life. Its development and uses have traditionally been dictated by the practical needs of the community. However, technologies also impact how a city looks and feels. Some technologies have a clear perceivable presence, whereas others are more invisibly embedded into the material structures of the city. This chapter is a study of how the aesthetic features of cities manifest through and in relation to technologies. The chapter bridges recent developments in philosophical urban aesthetics and contemporary approaches in the philosophy of technology. Central concepts include perception, aesthetic experience, aesthetic value, affordance, and attention. The chapter presents urban mobility as an example of how technology can be studied through the framework of urban aesthetics. The final part of the chapter highlights some implications of the aesthetics of technology for urban design.
Technological Multistability and the Trouble with the Things Themselves
Authors: Rosenberger Robert
Published: August 2021

Following Husserl, phenomenologists and “postphenomenologists” often use a rhetoric of getting back to the “things themselves.” However, open questions remain about how we should understand the metaphysical status of the technologies that we encounter. These questions remain especially open for perspectives such as postphenomenology (and sister accounts such as feminist new materialism, and actor-network theory), with their commitments to an ontology of relations. One way forward is through a deeper consideration of the postphenomenological notion of “multistability,” the idea that technologies always support multiple meanings and uses. Including a detour through Jean-Paul Sartre’s example of the letter opener, I explore what it can mean for technological multistability to constitute a jumping-off point for analysis, rather than a conversation stopper. The “things themselves” are a fine investigative target to be sought. Nevertheless, we should prepare for the possibility that we may find something else.
Guilty of Not Being White
Authors: Clayton Marcus
Published: August 2021

Punk is inherently music for the oppressed, yet it is often seen as a genre catering exclusively toward white male subcultures. However, when looking at the genesis of punk, one sees a rich history of blackness and radicalization usurped by white artists over time. From Elvis utilizing rock and roll in a more marketable fashion for a white populous than Ray Charles, to Minor Threat’s proclamation that the oppression of whites was on par with anti-blackness, to the mistreatment of black nonbinary punk act Fuck U Pay Us during a sold-out Bikini Kill concert, it is plain to see multiple instances of black punk voices being extinguished by supposed white allies, ultimately altering the histories of a genre centered around marginalized voices. Nevertheless, by dissecting the appropriation of black music and fashion, one begins to see that blackness not only created punk, but still permeates in the genre’s genes on a level more potent than white contemporaries. Looking at Afropunk, 80s Hardcore, the literary work of James Baldwin, and cover songs by black punk bands, this chapter’s argument will seek to understand people of color’s displacement in punk, as well as what steps need to be taken to reclaim identity, subvert the violence of white appropriation, and remain visible in a genre made for people of color.
You Ain’t No Punk, You Punk
Authors: Traber Daniel S.
Published: August 2021

Punk is unique in that it is the only subculture in which the absence of signifiers of the style and mindset can be twisted into actually representing the style and mindset: when a person says, “You don’t look punk,” the instant retort is “Well, isn’t that actually punk?” This opens an opportunity to reconsider punk’s semiotics, born from a postmodern sensibility, to see how well its signifiers “float.” The essay examines the phenomenon through the concept of doxa, the ideas and beliefs that become “taken for granted” in a community to then function as a tool of social control. A recent example of this is found in the anger expressed within the punk fan community concerning alt-right Trump supporters eagerly touting themselves as the “new punk.” The issue of deploying a closed definition of punk can then be extended to questioning systems of authenticity and ontology in relation to identity as a whole.
Luxury Brand Extensions and Perceived Luxury
Authors: Stegemann Nicole , Denize Sara
Published: August 2021

Luxury-brand managers must balance optimising brand value while simultaneously maintaining the exclusivity of the brand. Corporate interests increase the focus towards strategies that return greater profit for the business. For example, managers may consider brand extensions or greater channel exposure to increase revenues. However, these strategies may have an adverse impact on brand exclusivity. The damage to over-stretched brands like Pierre Cardin and Gucci has been attributed, in part, to the use of brand extensions and increased distribution. This article examines the impact of brand extensions on consumer perceptions of luxury. Careful consideration of the degree of fit of the extension with the luxury brand as well as the channel exposure offers mechanisms for brand managers to extract greater profit from the brand while maintaining luxury-brand perceptions.
Current Issues in Behavioral and Social Science Research Ethics
Authors: DuBois James M. , Lisi Emily C.
Published: August 2021

Many researchers consider behavioral and social science (BSS) studies as “soft” science with negligible ethical risk. However, specific ethical issues arise in BSS research that require special consideration on the part of researchers and ethics review committees. This chapter focuses on these issues within the context of three studies that demonstrate concerns that may arise in conducting BSS research. Topics include deciding what BSS studies should be defined as “research” (or not), risks inherent in specific types of BSS research, protection of privacy and confidentiality, and special considerations in informed consent for BSS studies. Special topics addressed in this chapter include the ethical issues associated with studies utilizing social media and community-based participatory research, as well as the importance of rigor and reproducibility in BSS research in the context of ethical review. Finally, the chapter highlights the necessity of empirical study of ethical issues in BSS research to assess decision-making in an ever-evolving social landscape.
Guidelines, Codes, and Regulations
Authors: Nelson Daniel K. , Forster David
Published: August 2021

Research involving human subjects is increasingly global in scope. This research is governed by over 1,000 guidelines, codes, and regulations spanning 130 countries. While there have been some attempts to construct international codes of conduct, particularly in the area of biomedical research, the reality is that these universal codes are superimposed over national and institutional norms, resulting in idiosyncrasies and discrepancies. Even within the United States as a single example, human subjects research is subject to a “patchwork quilt” of regulation, depending on the nature of the research and the source of funding. This chapter will provide an overview of these governing standards, recounting their historical evolution, discussing their key elements, and describing the challenges faced by researchers, sponsors, and regulatory bodies who must navigate this landscape.
Vulnerability in Research with Prisoners
Authors: Christopher Paul P.
Published: August 2021

Prisoners are often described as a vulnerable research population. This designation, while intuitively appealing, leaves unclear what is meant by “vulnerability” in the context of research with incarcerated individuals. Conceptual clarity would provide the ethical foundation needed to identify the full scope of research protections to afford prisoners. It would also militate against a tendency among some to view all prison research as irredeemably problematic and prohibitive. Drawing on a prior taxonomy of vulnerability, this chapter specifies eight vulnerability types that apply to prisoner research. It describes their predisposing factors and the ethical concerns they raise. It also considers possible strategies for addressing these concerns and highlights areas where effective strategies are lacking or need further development. This framework is intended to guide researchers and institutional review boards in the planning and review of protocols involving prisoners so that they may safeguard prisoners from abuse and promote the ethical advancement of science.
Major Events, State Interference, and Resilience
Authors: Uffelmann Dirk
Published: August 2021

This article elucidates the major events of the late Soviet underground, grouping them by trials (Chertkov’s from 1957, Brodsky’s from 1964, and Sinyavsky and Daniel’s from 1966); repressed exhibitions (the Manège exhibition of 1962 and the “Bulldozer Exhibition” of 1974); and publicity projects (Solzhenitsyn’s open letter to the 4th Congress of the Union of Soviet Writers from 1967 and the almanac Metropol’ in 1978). It argues that an “underground event” emerges through state interference into the sphere of unofficial art and literature, forcing individual members to surface from the underground. While most individual targets of repression were eventually expelled, the diffuse underground communities developed recurrent tactics of resilience. The article rounds off with distilling the patterns of resilience applied in the underground to undo the impact of the repression of the nonvoluntary protagonists of major underground events on others.
Digital Pornography and Everyday Life
Authors: Johnson Jennifer A.
Published: August 2021

No longer is the pornographic landscape restrictive, hidden, and controllable by conventional moral and regulatory frameworks. Instead, digital pornography is both hyperaccessible and hypersexualized, occupying an estimated 4%–20% of all digital media. The digital data generated through online interactions with this massive amount of content has opened new windows into an industry that has radically reshaped sexual practices and sexual health yet itself operates in the shadows of algorithms and bots. Sociology, as a critical social science, has little to say about the material realities of this ubiquitous sexual script, ceding important intellectual ground to medical/psychological sciences and cultural studies. Understanding the techno-economic structure of the digital pornography industry and its impact on sexuality requires a rethinking of conventional theoretical and empirical approaches, which I argue should be led by digital sociology. Digital sociology is a critical approach to studying the digital environment that focuses on ways in which digital media (re)produce institutions, structures, and systems of inequality as well as (re)shape human relationships and personal identities. Focusing on the production, distribution, and consumption of digital pornography using new forms of digital data would represent a paradigm adjustment to typical approaches the who, what, when, and where of pornography as well as the impact of types of content across particularized groups. Given that digital pornography is now the dominant normative framework for sexuality for adolescents and adults alike, it is essential that sociology re-engage with the material and structural realities of this powerful form of sexual education.
Digital War
Authors: Boichak Olga
Published: August 2021

Digital war is an elusive concept that invokes imaginaries of bloodless and fully virtual battles happening somewhere on a computer screen. Yet, the suffering and devastation brought about by armed conflicts around the world remains a harrowing constant. Digital technologies do not simply offer new capabilities in conducting military operations: extending the battlefronts into the realms of communication and perception, they reconstitute the social conditions shaping people’s relationship to wars. Blurring the boundaries between military and civilian actors, physical and mediated battlefronts, weapons and witnesses, digital media afford unprecedented opportunities for remote participation in wars. Sociologists are uniquely positioned to foreground the emerging participatory patterns in military conflicts, attending to the higher-order social transformations that challenge and transform present-day wars. This chapter begins by putting sociological traditions of studying wars in a dialogue with media studies literature, demonstrating how an understanding of digital media can inform social theory around contemporary conflicts. Next, I conceptualize digital war as a field of inquiry, mapping its emerging themes, objects of analysis, and interdisciplinary connections. The chapter concludes with an epistemological framework for making sense of emerging participatory patterns and their significance for the participants, as well as for the larger institutions on behalf of which wars are fought.
Gender and Comparative Environmental Politics
Authors: Detraz Nicole
Published: August 2021

This chapter uses gender lenses to evaluate recent population debates and the implications of dominant discourses within those debates. It asks about the gendered implications of environment and population discourses by focusing largely on population discourses in the US context that have also tended to have implications far outside US borders. Paying particular attention to the politics of climate change, the chapter argues that environment and population discourses in multiple spaces continue to reflect rigid gender norms and assumptions about who in society are environmental saviors and who are environmental problems. It argues that failure to critically evaluate population discourses contributes to injustice among peoples and among states. While the most extreme forms of population discourses linking women’s fertility to food insecurity and environmental decline have shifted away from their most extreme versions, other developments are also worrying from the perspective of gender justice.
An Intersectional Exploration of Climate Institutions
Authors: Kronsell Annica , Magnusdottir Gunnhildur Lily , Rask Nanna , Singleton Benedict E.
Published: August 2021

Governing bodies at different levels are authoritative institutions and civil servants/policy-makers are key actors in realizing global and national climate objectives. They have largely failed to create effective, legitimate, democratic, and just policies. This is problematic in light of research that views the climate transition as a social and behavioral concern and stresses the importance of paying attention to social effects in policy-making. The authors explore the Swedish climate institutions: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Traffic Administration, the Energy Agency, and the Innovation Agency. They analyzed key policy documents and 31 interviews questions on how social issues are understood and dealt with in institutional practices. The authors confirmed that emphasis has been on technological innovations and economic incentives. Although policy-makers recognize the relevance of social concerns, efforts to date seem insufficient. The main challenge is how to incorporate such concerns when action is restricted by institutional path dependencies. The authors’ approach starts in feminist institutionalism and adds intersectionality in an analytical lens that helps explore how power relations are embedded within climate institutions and can explain their effects. Insights are that power relations are context-specific and situated in a certain place and time. The authors’ method of how to pursue contextually sensitive and situated analyses of complex intersections of power can be used across contexts in further comparative studies.
Comparative International Fisheries Management
Authors: DeSombre Elizabeth R.
Published: August 2021

High-seas fisheries are managed by a set of approximate 20 regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) that vary in terms of membership, structure, processes, and health of the stocks they manage. These RFMOs have tackled similar challenges in sometimes different and sometimes convergent ways, learning from each other and occasionally collaborating. This chapter gives an overview of the difficulties of international fisheries management; the primary regulatory approaches (and their evolution) in these organizations, such as voting rules and options to opt out of collective regulations; and the efforts to monitor and enforce rules that have been created. Individually and sometimes collectively RFMOs have worked to decrease the ability of states or vessels to fish outside of the regulatory process, including making it difficult for fish caught outside of RFMO rules to find markets, and they have increased the ability to monitor compliance. While some scholars argue that the regional nature of fisheries management causes problems and that there should be fewer organizations regulating international fisheries, RFMOs have resisted consolidation or management collaboration. Ultimately there is still much to be learned about the sources of effectiveness in management of high-seas fisheries.
National Climate Mitigation Policy in Europe
Authors: Tobin Paul , Wylie Louise
Published: August 2021

Despite a reputation for climate policy leadership, European states vary markedly in their responses to climate change. During the 2010s, a “conglomerate of crises” afflicted Europe, stymying climate ambitions to varying degrees. Yet climate change had ascended European political agendas by the decade’s close, championed by new social movements and voices and mirrored by innovative policy approaches, such as “Climate Emergency” declarations. In turn, this peak of engagement was followed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In such a tumultuous setting, the literature on comparative European environmental politics faces a complexity crisis as it seeks to map multiple axes of ambition across multiple levels. In this chapter, the authors problematize the identification of leaders and laggards within climate mitigation studies, as well as identify the challenges inherent to comparing state performance. They also examine recent policy and research trends, analyze the importance of policy resilience during crises, and emphasize the utility of multilevel understanding in national climate analysis.
Fracked Taxpayers and Communities
Authors: Gamper-Rabindran Shanti
Published: August 2021

The US and Argentinian shale industry enjoyed staunch support from domestic political, financial, and legal institutions, which enabled the industry to expand while externalizing financial, public health, and environmental costs to the general public. The Argentinian government’s decision to finance shale investments and the US and Argentinian governments’ decisions to finance the industry bailout sustained the industry even as its poor financial outlook that predated the COVID-19 crisis became widely acknowledged. State and provincial governments in both the United States and Argentina employed the legal system to prohibit local government and local communities, including Indigenous communities, from restricting shale development and infrastructures in their localities. Politicians’ support for the industry, cloaked as concerns for workers and communities, fortified the industry’s privileges. Reforming the entrenched institutional support for the industry, although a formidable challenge, is necessary for these countries to shift away from oil and gas dependency.
Lexical Plurals
Authors: Alexiadou Artemis
Published: August 2021

This chapter discusses the morphological and semantic criteria that have been proposed in the literature to characterize lexical plurals. The chapter provides a distinction between lexical and grammatical plurality and offers a discussion of their respective syntactic representation. It discusses data from a variety of typologically unrelated languages and it briefly addresses the question of the morphosyntactic distribution of plurality in language contact and change.
Singulative Systems
Authors: Dali Myriam , Mathieu Eric
Published: August 2021

This chapter gives an overview of singulative systems, focusing on a few languages, including Arabic, Breton, Welsh. First, we introduce relevant data showing how a singulative noun is formed from a collective noun or a mass term. Second, we show that it is possible for singulative nouns to be pluralized and that, in some languages (e.g. Arabic), this plural contrasts semantically with the collective form. Third, we review existing accounts of singulatives and show that one main issue in the literature is whether the singulative operation is an inflectional or a derivational operation. Singulatives are interesting because they shed light on number and gender and show that, morphologically, the singular is not always unmarked.
Multiple Events and ‘N Preposition N’
Authors: Beck Sigrid
Published: August 2021

This chapter discusses structures like ‘Sandy wrote book after book’, in which a central preposition is combined with two identical nouns. The interpretation is a plurality of events, in the example a plurality of writing books. The semantic properties of the construction are discussed. An analysis is offered in terms of event pluralization, with ‘N-Preposition-N’ a pluractional modifier. This is embedded in a general theory of plural predication.
Dual in Slovenian
Authors: Marušič Franc , Žaucer Rok
Published: August 2021

Slovenian is one of only three contemporary Slavic languages which productively use the dual. In Standard Slovenian, all number-inflecting parts of speech exhibit special forms for the dual, but Slovenian dialects exhibit significant variation in the expression of dual, with most having neutralized one part of the dual paradigm or another. Although dual nouns are typically used together with the numeral ‘two’ or quantifier ‘both’, this is neither a hard-and-fast nor an across-the-board rule. The dual is traditionally described as the number referring to the value of ‘two’ or ‘one plus one’, but it is not used with pair nouns, such as paired body parts, despite their inherent duality. Its interpretation seems closest to that of the numeral ‘two’.
Noun Classes and Plurality in Bantu Languages
Authors: Marten Lutz
Published: August 2021

Noun classes are a prominent grammatical feature of Bantu languages where typically each noun (or noun stem) is assigned to one of between fifteen and eighteen noun classes. Noun classes are often analysed as a form of nominal classification system and seen as belonging to the same domain as grammatical gender systems. Number in Bantu languages is mediated by the noun class system and the intricate interaction between noun class and number in Bantu has given rise to different theoretical analyses. The chapter focuses on three approaches to analysing grammatical number in Bantu languages—approaches based on an inflectional notion of number, those which analyse number as a derivational relation, and approaches adopting notions of polysemy and paradigms for analysing Bantu noun class systems.
Character, Form, and Fiction
Authors: Bromley Amy
Published: August 2021

This chapter explores the ways in which Woolf conceptualizes character as ‘type’ and ‘figure’, as a textual entity and a construct of literary language. It argues that caricature and sketching are significant modes of characterization and ‘scene-making’ in much of Woolf’s writing. Approaching through analysis of Woolf’s rhetorical strategies and deployment of character in selected essays, it discusses the importance of character sketches in novels including Jacob’s Room, Mrs Dalloway, and Orlando: A Biography. The chapter also outlines the importance of the character sketch as a form in her diaries, letters, memoirs, and short fiction, and foregrounds ‘An Unwritten Novel’ (1920) as a character sketch in which Woolf demonstrates the dependence of narrative on the concept of character.
Woolf as Reviewer-Critic
Authors: McNees Eleanor
Published: August 2021

In 1904, Virginia Woolf embarked on a vocation that she, like her father, frequently disparaged, but one she continued to pursue for over three decades. From her first anonymous review of a novel by Howells, to her last review of a biography of Samuel Johnson’s friend, ‘Mrs Thrale’, Woolf arguably devoted more time to the profession of book reviewing than to her novels and essays. This chapter chronicles Woolf’s progression from novice reviewer in the Guardian through her long apprenticeship in the TLS to her final reviews in the New Statesman and Nation. Gradually Woolf learned to transform the review from a craft into an art and to teach her audience how to read both impressionistically and critically. Woolf’s oeuvre—over four hundred reviews in just under four decades—demonstrates a more fruitful partnership between author, reader, and reviewer than she admits in her 1939 essay ‘Reviewing’.
Biopower
Authors: Detloff Madelyn
Published: August 2021

Virginia Woolf lived and worked during the ascendancy of Euro-American biopower. This essay takes up the tools of queer, crip, and antiracist theories to analyse Woolf’s engagement with three strands of biopower—state racism, heteronormativity, and ableist normativity—as well as a fourth Woolfian form elaborated upon in Three Guineas, state genderism. We can trace the entwinement of biopower in the racist and ableist elements of Woolf’s own work, accounts of how Woolf herself was treated by medical and mental health practitioners, and in Woolf’s own attempts to break down reified notions of desire and bodily comportment that are harmfully crystalized by biopolitical discourse. Woolf’s engagement with biopower is not always progressive, but the complexities of her art and work yield a rich picture of how biopower worked in the early twentieth century and how artists and intellectuals both deployed and resisted its workings.
Feminist Theory
Authors: Mills Jean
Published: August 2021

This chapter examines Virginia Woolf’s foundational role in the development of feminist theory, placing her theoretical positions on women’s lives and life-writing, privacy, the body, and self-expression in dialogue with a diverse and actively changing continuum of feminist thought. Focusing on the return of rage to the forefront of feminist discourse and social media’s effect upon feminist politics, the chapter chronicles the changing critical responses to Woolf’s feminisms, in relation to her positions on feminist identities and feminist community. The chapter also investigates the ways in which women of colour feminists disclosed Woolf’s racialized self and racist thinking to assess the place of Woolf’s feminism in contemporary political thought. From issues seeking to reconcile and value difference and diversity with the uses of ambivalence and calls for unity and integration, the chapter places the concepts and vocabulary of feminist theory within the context of Virginia Woolf’s work and example.
Intersubjectivity is Activity Plus Accountability
Authors: Enfield N. J. , Sidnell Jack
Published: August 2021

Intersubjectivity is central to human social life. We argue that the uniquely human form of intersubjectivity can be defined as the combination of activity and accountability. It consists of more than merely sharing knowledge or perspectives. Intersubjectivity arises through human social activity in which people pursue shared goals and where their respective contributions are observable and subject to public evaluation. We also argue that human intersubjectivity is intertwined with language, in two ways. First, some form of intersubjectivity is necessary for language to have evolved in our species in the first place. Second, language then transforms the nature of our intersubjectivity, through its definitive properties of inferentially articulated description, self-reflexivity, and productive grammatical flexibility. Social accountability—the bedrock of society—is grounded in this linguistically transformed kind of intersubjectivity. We illustrate these points with reference to data from two relatively simple examples: two-person timber sawing and two-person mat-weaving.
The Origins of Money and Its Role in Modernity
Authors: Oakley Todd
Published: August 2021

Money is a human creation arising from organic, technological, and symbolic resources. The complexity of its operations makes it difficult to comprehend. The origins of money can be dated with some accuracy, but the social and symbolic processes that led to this world-changing invention are poorly understood. One of the most persistent misunderstandings that adversely affects modern economic thinking is that money emerged from barter. As will be discussed, the origins of money have more fundamental symbolic, social, and political foundations in statecraft, warfare, religion, and gift-giving. Moreover, money develops among beings capable of considerable flexibility in combining or “blending” ideas from diverse, sometimes incommensurate, domains of knowledge and experience, and specifically among a species for whom institutions—socially constructed habits of thought and action—are ontologically criterial. This chapter aims to provide a foundation for thinking about money as an institutional semiotic system. Topics covered include money and barter; sovereign money; money and gift-giving; money and violence; the money/language analogy; and international monetary exchanges.
Small States in Global Markets
Authors: Brazys Sam , Regan Aidan
Published: August 2021

The Irish foreign direct investment (FDI) growth model has attracted attention from around the globe. While a significant amount of attention has been focused on how tax strategies and industrial policy have helped attract FDI to Ireland, fewer have examined the domestic political economy that supports the model. In this chapter, we examine the spatial and sector nature of FDI in Ireland and find that it concentrates heavily in a small number of sectors and locations. Collectively, we argue that this concentration, pressure on the Irish tax regime, and changing global macroeconomic conditions may shake the political economy of the Irish FDI growth model and render it unsustainable in the long run.