bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Strategic and Organizational Conditions for Success
Authors: Lindsay Jon R.
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines how a constrained problem and an institutionalized solution enabled the Royal Air Force (RAF) to successfully manage the air battle during the Battle of Britain. The RAF pioneered many concepts that the U.S. Air Force still uses today, including aircraft early warning, identification friend-or-foe, track management, aircraft vectoring, and operational research. The Battle of Britain is also one of the well-documented episodes in military history. Open archives, abundant data, and the electromechanical vintage of information technology make this case an accessible illustration of information practice in action. Britain won the battle because it put together a well-managed solution to the well-constrained problem of air defense. Germany, by contrast, met the inherently harder problem of offensive coercion with a more insular solution. The chapter first describes the historical development of the British air defense system, before looking at the “external problem” that Fighter Command faced during the battle and showing how the interaction produced “managed practice” that improved RAF performance.
World War I and the Roaring Twenties, 1915–1929
Authors: Spinney Robert G.
Published: January 2021

This chapter explores the effects and significant indirect impact of World War I on Chicago. It points out how America was only a combatant in the war for slightly longer than a year, which is a period of time insufficient for the nation to mobilize fully for the war. It also discusses how the World War unleashed anti-German sentiments that severely affected the Chicago's sizeable German population. The chapter analyzes how the war drove Chicago employers to hire large numbers of African American laborers, which triggered a historic migration of southern blacks to the city. It also specifies how the war convinced politicians for ethnic and national allegiances to remain strong among the city's numerous immigrants.
Richard J. Daley and the City That Works, 1955–1976
Authors: Spinney Robert G.
Published: January 2021

This chapter focuses on Richard J. Daley, who was elected mayor of Chicago in 1955 and won re-election in the city's next five mayoral contests. It describes Daley as the undisputed boss of Chicago and the man who perfected the Cook County Democratic Party machine. It analyzes why Daley might have been the best in American history at doing what he did, in which he used a political machine to govern a large city. The chapter investigates how Daley was a scrupulously honest politician who steered clear of financial and moral improprieties but failed to adjust to the changing realities of Chicago, especially those relating to its growing black population. It also recounts Daley's death in 1976 that marked the passing of an era in Chicago history.
The Challenges of the Post-Machine Years, 1976–1997
Authors: Spinney Robert G.
Published: January 2021

This chapter looks into the Democratic National Convention that returned to Chicago in 1996. It describes the Convention as the first presidential-nominating convention to be held in Chicago since the infamous and nationally televised 1968 Democratic National Convention. The chapter mentions Michael Bilandic, a shy, careful, competent, and hardworking lawyer, who succeeded Richard J. Daley as mayor of Chicago in 1976. It investigates how Bilandic kept Chicago on a straight course, even if he did not provide dynamic leadership. It also recounts Bilandic's undoing due to the fabled Blizzard of 1979, in which record-breaking snowstorms hit Chicago and caused a cold spell that kept the snow on the ground for fifty days.
Blut und Boden
Authors: Smolla Rodney A.
Published: January 2021

This chapter focuses on the famous alt-right American supremacists chant “Blood and Soil,” which translates to Blut und Boden in German. It explains that Blut und Boden paid tribute to idealized pure German blood and the organic connection of pure German blood to the physical German landscape. Blut und Boden was appropriated by the Nazis and used to invoke an almost supernatural union between the authentic German–Nordic race and the territorial state of Germany, which contemplated those who were not of pure German blood as invading nomadic races, such as Jews. Jews were the worst of the invaders. The chapter also provides information on a book published in 1930 called Neuadel aus Blut und Boden (A new nobility based on blood and soil) by Richard Walther Darré who argued that Germany should pursue a systematic eugenics program to purify the German race and strengthen the nation.
Cue the Counterprotesters— Stage Left
Authors: Smolla Rodney A.
Published: January 2021

This chapter discusses the Charlottesville Police Department that prepared for the July 8 rally led by Christopher Barker by gathering intelligence on the groups expected to protest against the Klan. It describes the police department's intelligence gathering, which included harvesting what was openly available on the internet, and interviews by Charlottesville police officers of groups and individuals that are likely to stage counterprotests. It also details how the police tactic backfired after democratic groups accused the police of engaging in an intimidation tactic intended to curtail leftist speech and expressive conduct. The chapter looks into the Antifa and Black Lives Matter national movements as the counterprotest groups planning to oppose the Klan rally. It explains that Antifa is a conglomeration of groups opposed to fascism, while the Black Lives Matter movement arose in reaction to incidents of unjust killings and beatings of African Americans by police.
The Idea of the University
Authors: Smolla Rodney A.
Published: January 2021

This chapter discloses how the University of Virginia (UVA), with the rest of Charlottesville, braced for the Unite the Right onslaught. It looks into the collection of essays edited by professors Louis P. Nelson and Claudrena N. Harold on the events in Charlottesville in 2017. It also explains Nelson and Harold's observation of UVA prior to the summer of 2017, noting that UVA as an institution generally positioned itself as separate from the city. The chapter explores the layers of complexity and intensity that were unique to UVA, starting from its founding by Thomas Jefferson, who owned slaves, to its complicity in the eugenics movement and resurgence of racism in the 1920s. It also notes how the conflicts of America's culture war and constitutional unconsciousness have played out with special intensity on public and private university and college campuses.
Rednecks and Saint Paul
Authors: Smolla Rodney A.
Published: January 2021

This chapter discusses the Silver Valley Redneck Revolt that traveled to Charlottesville to participate in the August 12 rally. It explains that the Redneck Revolt is a national movement that was founded in 2016 as an anti-racist and anti-fascist community defense formation. It also discloses that the Redneck Revolt is a part of the “armed left” that emphasizes being armed in defense of leftist groups that seek to counter supremacist groups like the alt-right or the Ku Klux Klan. The chapter analyzes the Redneck Revolt's use of the term “redneck,” which was a point of pride in a deliberate effort to counter the perceived views of the elites. It mentions Dwayne E. Dixon, a member of Redneck Revolt who defied traditional stereotypes.
Bloodshed
Authors: Smolla Rodney A.
Published: January 2021

This chapter describes the dozens of brawls that erupted throughout the Charlottesville downtown area, as groups of Unite the Right marchers advanced toward Emancipation Park from various directions while counterdemonstrators tried to block them. It mentions Tanesha Hudson, a Charlottesville local, who expressed frustration at the passivity of the police as Unite the Right marchers lowered their flags to use as weapons. It also talks about the Unite the Right marchers that displayed swastikas and wearing white shirts as they ran into the peaceful black-shirted demonstrators that sought to avoid direct confrontation. The chapter points out how Unite the Right demonstrators appeared to be focusing their aggression on a middle-aged African American man. It discloses the highly trained troopers of the Virginia State Police that did nothing to intervene as the violence erupted.
Tuyen
Authors: Norland Patricia D.
Published: January 2021

This chapter highlights the sixth Saigon sister, named Tuyen, and recounts her childhood in the Mekong Delta before passing the exam to enter Lycée Marie Curie. It mentions Tuyen's brother, Luu Huu Phoc, who composed the song “Len Dang”, which became known as the march of the students that spurred them to join the maquis in order to expel the French. It also looks into Tuyen's intimate glimpses into her brother and the political whirlwind he triggered. The chapter describes Tuyen as a quiet and reserved student at the lycée and details how she admired Thanh, who she pointed out was brilliant and “wrote French like an author”. It discloses Tuyen's course between obligations to family and the revolution while she remained in Saigon.
Thanh
Authors: Norland Patricia D.
Published: January 2021

This chapter recounts Thanh's time in serving the National Liberation Front (NLF), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), and eventually the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). It talks about Thanh's work with the foreign relations office in Hanoi and her assignment to escort journalists Wilfred Burchett and Madeleine Riffaud after the Geneva Accords. It also describes Thanh's duty of being a translator and assistant to Mme Nguyen Thi Binh, on the Central Committee of the NLF, where she traveled the world to meet with women's peace groups. The chapter looks into how Thanh was eventually assigned to the Vietnam mission to the United Nations. It also delves into Thanh's diplomatic career, in which she made immense personal sacrifices and was dubbed “Political Mother” by the Saigon sisters.
Sen
Authors: Norland Patricia D.
Published: January 2021

This chapter narrates how Sen and her husband, Nhieu, worked “directly for the people” through acts of charity. It explains how Nhieu's appointment as vice minister of health in South Vietnam provided cover for their clandestine actions, such as supplying food, donating medicines, arranging lodging for agents whose families disowned them, or who came to the city to give birth. It talks about the fear of Sen's friends of meeting her and her husband after the revolution and reunification, attributing her wealth to being guilty. The chapter explores Sen's belief that northerners and southerners are very different in how they live but they share patriotism as the one thing they have in common. It describes how Sen immersed herself in family and friends who remained in Saigon and was happy even if her friends formed at Lycée Marie Curie took different paths during the war.
Lien An
Authors: Norland Patricia D.
Published: January 2021

This chapter describes Lien An's long career in education in the school of pedagogy after she left her family in 1954 to answer the call of the government in Hanoi. It mentions how Lien An had to take her daughters to live with a peasant family in a village sixteen kilometers away during the period of U.S. bombing. It also discloses Lien An's life in Hanoi that revolved around her studies, political training, and standing in long lines for food rations. The chapter talks about the Ministry of Education's declaration for the return of teachers to southern Vietnam and Lien An's appointment as principal of Le Quy Don, which formerly Lycée Chasseloup–Laubat. It narrates Lien An's tenure at the school from 1977 until her retirement in 1986.
Big Conservatism and American Exceptionalism
Authors: Kerwick Jack
Published: January 2021

This chapter discusses “Big Conservatism,” or “the Big Con,” and the doctrine of American exceptionalism (AE). What is known as the conservative movement in America is not conservative in any traditional or historical sense. The present conservative movement is largely a creation of neoconservatism, which gained effective control of establishment conservative media in the 1980s. The Big Conservatism that emerged from this takeover is a recognizable form of the Rationalist, progressivist, imperialist Left, against which classical conservatives and later the interwar American Right were once furiously opposed. The movers and shakers of Big Conservatism, true to their ideological pedigree, anchor their political vision in a metaphysical abstraction, American exceptionalism. From the perspective of American exceptionalism, America is an Idea and perhaps the only nation in all of human history that is imagined to transcend history. It is on the basis of this equation of America with a concept—a borderless, immaterial, universal concept—that those in the Big Con seek to justify their policy prescriptions, particularly their linkage of idealistic military intervention abroaexceptionalism with unrelenting immigration at home.
Who Funds Conservatism, Inc.?
Authors: Cotto Joseph
Published: January 2021

This chapter focuses on conservative think tanks, which represent for Republicans and those who claim to be conservative a sort of alternative mass outlet. In these institutions, one encounters advocates of tax cuts, those who support pro-business economic policies, and opponents of runaway government spending. These think tanks also feature social conservatives who preach traditional values but who usually do not bring in as much funding as other groups represented in conservative think tanks. In understanding the politics of think tanks, it is necessary to look at those responsible for lavishing wealth on them. Once it is made clear who funds the Center Right establishment—also known as Conservatism, Inc.—it should become obvious why some in establishment conservatism rallied against Donald Trump's candidacy and continue to support public policy unpopular with most of the country. The chapter examines the assistance that Republican think tanks in the Washington area receive from defense industries and from those who are pushing for a more activist foreign policy.
Imagination and Its Failures
Authors: Jeffrey Marjorie L.
Published: January 2021

This chapter investigates American foreign policy, looking at the persistence of a neoconservative foreign policy in the conservative movement and why it has not been discarded despite its obvious limitations. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the American Right faced an existential question: Would it support the continuation of a semi-imperial foreign policy, or would it seek to redirect political energies toward domestic policy? The 1992 Republican primary and the victory of the incumbent president, George H. W. Bush, against his challenger, Pat Buchanan, answered that question. Until the election of 2016, both major parties were in agreement on matters of foreign policy, except for working out the details. The chapter studies the philosophic claims of the interventionist, or “neoconservative,” wing of the American conservative movement, against the foreign policy prescriptions of the American Founders, as well as those of such truly conservative modern critics as George Kennan and Buchanan.
Organized Labor and Social Conflict in Japan
Authors: Shibata Saori
Published: January 2021

This chapter analyzes the development of the Japanese labor movement throughout the postwar period. With some exceptions, workers in Japan have been predominantly organized in unions that have had a commitment to a relatively non-confrontational approach toward industrial relations. This organization has come to be challenged in more recent years, however, since the classic model of Japanese labor relations has faced increasing strain as part of the wider changes to the Japanese model of capitalism. Alongside this historical overview of organized labor, the chapter also considers the development of other (non-labor) social movements. This includes those movements that have emerged to promote the interests of social groups whose interests overlap with those of labor but who might not immediately identify themselves as part of the labor movement, such as the homeless, unemployed, and students. The trajectory of social conflict in Japan during the past thirty years has seen a move away from the classic model of social compromise. Various types of social conflict—both inside and outside of the workplace, and involving either workers or those less typically identified with organized labor—have become increasingly common.
Conclusion
Authors: Shibata Saori
Published: January 2021

This concluding chapter reflects on the trajectory of capitalism in Japan and the role of its precarious workers in that process. The key issues facing Japan are whether and how Japan's new labor movement will develop. It is only in studying this recomposition of Japan's working class that one will be able to understand and explain the trajectory of capitalism as it exists in Japan. It remains to be seen, therefore, whether a new mode of regulation emerges, and what role labor—either regular or nonregular, organized or disorganized—will play in any new socioeconomic regime. What is certain is that any attempt to undermine, sideline, or eradicate labor will ultimately be futile, as workers in Japan (as they do elsewhere) invariably continue to disrupt and resist—in different ways in different times and contexts—efforts to consolidate a model of global neoliberal capitalism that cannot be stable.
A Ride to Freedom
Authors: Feldmann Doug , Ditka Mike
Published: January 2021

This chapter discusses Bob Thomas's childhood. Robert Randall Thomas was born on August 7, 1952, the son of Italian immigrants. Young Bob was soon running up and down the soccer pitch with his father. When he was ten years old, his father launched a local youth team called the Baysiders. Playing with teenagers who had immigrated to Rochester from Italy, Mexico, Greece, Portugal, and other countries, the precocious Bob distinguished himself while his father searched out other teams for them to play. The Baysiders soon developed a reputation beyond Rochester as one of the finest amateur soccer teams to be found anywhere. With Bob's skills on the soccer field having become well known by the spring of his sophomore year at McQuaid Jesuit High School, he became a target for his football potential. When Bob graduated from McQuaid in the spring of 1970, it was time for him to consider what path his life would take from there.
South Bend
Authors: Feldmann Doug , Ditka Mike
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines how Bob Thomas headed for South Bend, Indiana, and arrived at the University of Notre Dame as a walk-on in football. When Thomas appeared for his first day of football workouts, he was greeted with the cold dismissal typically given to walk-ons. After waiting in line for the secondhand equipment issued to non-scholarship players, he was given the ignominious jersey number 98. With first-year students ineligible for the varsity at that time, Thomas spent his initial year at Notre Dame suiting up for the limited number of freshman football games while also playing in a few contests for the university's club soccer team. Otherwise, he acclimated himself to the milieu of college as he took up residence on the North Quad. After completing one semester of a pre-med curriculum, Thomas realized it would be difficult to continue that concentration while playing football. He took some business courses and ultimately ended up majoring in government studies. The chapter then details Thomas's career as a kicker for the Fighting Irish.
Faith Rewarded
Authors: Feldmann Doug , Ditka Mike
Published: January 2021

This chapter details how Bob Thomas was once again released from the Chicago Bears in 1985. Within a week, a new suitor in the National Football League (NFL) came calling, from faraway San Diego, California. A lingering injury to Rolf Benirschke had sent the San Diego Chargers' kicker to the sidelines, and the bitterness of seeing others perform his longtime role was similar to the pain Thomas was experiencing. On Wednesday, September 11, Thomas was among three possible substitutes, along with Dean Biasucci and Eddie Garcia. Rather than animosity arising between Thomas and Benirschke, the two instead developed an immediate kinship in discovering they had much in common. After Thomas signed his contract on Thursday afternoon, September 12, the two even hung out together at Rolf's home that very evening, watching the Raiders-Chiefs game on television.
Boot Camp—and Moving On
Authors: Feldmann Doug , Ditka Mike
Published: January 2021

This chapter describes how Bob Thomas acknowledged the inevitability of Rolf Benirschke returning at some point to compete for his old job. Although the San Diego Chargers' long-time kicker was indeed on his way back, the team still expressed an interest in negotiating a new deal with Thomas. But in deference to Benirschke, Thomas declined the team's qualifying offer and requested his release. It was time for Thomas to head back to the western suburbs of Chicago and resume his law work with the Callahan firm, while also keeping in shape in the hope that another chance would come. The chapter then recounts how Thomas landed at the New York Giants' training camp facilities at Pace University. It also looks at how Thomas became a circuit court judge.
Parties, Machines, and Personalities
Authors: Weiss Meredith L.
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines governance from the ground up in the world's two most enduring electoral authoritarian or “hybrid” regimes that blend politically liberal and authoritarian features to evade substantive democracy. It talks about skewed elections, curbed civil liberties, and a dose of coercion that help sustain Singapore and Malaysia's regimes. Selectively structured state policies and patronage partisan machines that effectively stand in for local governments and diligently sustained clientelist relations between politicians and constituents are also explained with importance. The chapter points out the different key attributes of Singapore's and Malaysia's regimes that affect the scope, character, and balance among national parties and policies, local machines, and personalized linkages. It discusses authoritarian acculturation as key to both regimes' durability, although weaker party competition and party–civil society links render Singapore's authoritarian acculturation stronger than Malaysia's.
Edging toward Sovereign Singapore
Authors: Weiss Meredith L.
Published: January 2021

This chapter talks about how the political institutionalization in Singapore, like in Malaya, proceeded on parallel local and national tracks against a backdrop of postwar reconstruction, anticommunism, ethnic tension, and uncertainty with the benefits and disadvantages of independence and uniting with Malaya. It describes Singapore's different environment from Malaysia, such as more solid Chinese settlers, smaller land area, a population less inclined toward Indonesia or pan-Malayism, and a fully separate administrative structure. The chapter also outlines Singapore's regime that reflected a different ethnic and ideological legacy from Malaya's. The regime's premises for accountability and legitimacy fast solidified, with party machines and substantially clientelistic linkages. It discusses Singapore's postwar economy that left ample room for intervention and shaped the People's Action Party's (PAP) approach to governance, which amplified the government's role in economic development.
Competitive Authoritarianism in Malaysia
Authors: Weiss Meredith L.
Published: January 2021

This chapter investigates how the same questions of ideology, identity, and institutions that complicated Singapore's integration has remained pertinent throughout Malaysia's development. It analyzes ways in which the state, economy, and society of Malaysia have all changed structurally and significantly over time. Most especially the installation of the Barisan Nasional (National Front, BN) coalition in the early 1970s. The chapter talks about the Alliance, Socialist Front, and Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PMIP or PAS) that offered ideological alternatives until episodic ethnic unrest peaked with riots following the 1969 elections. It also mentions Tunku Abdul Rahman who used the violence as justification to suspend the nearly completed election and declare emergency rule.
Conclusion
Authors: Riegg Stephen Badalyan
Published: January 2021

This chapter summarizes how the tsars' administrators, through trial and error, retained Armenians as a loyal service minority. It talks about the Armenians that cooperated with tsarist through much of the nineteenth century because Russia represented a real and idealized guarantor of Armenian security and prosperity. Whether subjects of the sultan and the shah or inhabitants of Russian cities far from the Caucasus, Armenians worked with, and within, the Romanov system to attain a better life. The chapter describes how the Russian Empire's Armenian project yielded more triumphs than defeats and explains why the outcome were as varied as the mechanisms of tsarist imperialism. It also analyzes the deduction of the Russo-Armenian encounter that appears permeated with inconsistencies and contradictions and reflects primarily the nature of imperial rule itself. This deduction emerges from ground now well tilled by the practitioners of “new imperial history,” who have effectively shattered notions of systematized central imperial policies and precise metropole–periphery relationships.
Crafting Legitimate Marital Relations
Authors: Yamaura Chigusa
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines suspended and declined visa cases, analyzing how marital relations became sites of regulation. Some forms of migration depend on relatives as sponsors. Others rely on employers, an applicant's “skills,” or specific qualifications. Marriage migration, however, rests on a different manner of validating a legitimate entry. Certificates of residency and spousal visas are not simply issued based on an individual's status or attributes. To gain a spousal visa, what is important for the immigration officers is to inspect the kind of relationship presented in the paperwork. The chapter then illuminates the ways cross-border marriages came under suspicion and participants were forced to perform marital relationships that were more “ideal” and “normatively acceptable” than those expected of couples in Japan. Even if partners have chosen married life with one another, they still require the approval of the state.
Remains of Socialism
Authors: Nadkarni Maya
Published: January 2021

This book investigates the changing fates of the socialist past in postsocialist Hungary. The book introduces the concept of “remains”—both physical objects and cultural remainders—to analyze all that Hungarians sought to leave behind after the end of state socialism. Spanning more than two decades of postsocialist transformation, the book follows Hungary from the optimism of the early years of transition to its recent right-wing turn toward illiberal democracy. The book analyzes remains that range from exiled statues of Lenin to the socialist-era “Bambi” soda, and from discredited official histories to the scandalous secrets of the communist regime's informers. It demonstrates that these remains were far more than simply the leftovers of an unwanted past. Ultimately, the struggles to define remains of socialism and settle their fates would represent attempts to determine the future—and to mourn futures that never materialized.
Introduction
Authors: Gilbert Andrew C.
Published: January 2021

This introductory chapter provides an overview of international intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Years of international intervention had significantly shaped postwar politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Comprising an uneasy encounter between and among the political classes claiming to represent one of Bosnia's three main ethnic groups (Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks) and a wide array of foreign agencies like the one headed by Austrian diplomat Wolfgang Petritsch, these interventions ranged from indirect relations of supervision to the direct participation of foreign agents in Bosnian government. This book studies international intervention and the problems of legitimacy that emerge in and through what can be called “intervention encounters.” It analyzes international intervention as a series of encounters to reveal the creative processes of cultural production and social transformation that happen in everyday interactions by members of unequally positioned groups.
Introduction
Authors: Le Renard Amélie , Vora Neha , Kanna Ahmed
Published: January 2021

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the exoticizing and exceptionalist discourses about the Arabian Peninsula. This exceptionalism came to the fore in media and academic coverage of the “crisis” in the Gulf region. In general, the Gulf crisis was framed as a “diplomatic spat,” a spectacle marked by tropes of exceptionalism and Orientalism that diminished the importance of the Gulf region, its rulers, and, especially, the people who live there. These exceptionalist representations of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Qatar evacuate society of the social while rendering “culture” as fixed in timeless ideas of bedouins, Islam, indentured labor, and gender repression. This kind of history, politics, and culture writing erases the long and complex histories of class, anticolonial, and nationalist struggles that have marked the region as much as any other postcolonial context, and removes the agency and complex role of both citizens and noncitizens in forming the fabric of Gulf societies. This book then studies Gulf exceptionalism, assessing what it means to conduct ethnography in supposedly exceptional spaces.
Tales from Albarado
Authors: Musaraj Smoki
Published: January 2021

This book revisits times of excitement and loss in early 1990s Albania, in which about a dozen pyramid firms collapsed and caused the country to fall into anarchy and a near civil war. To gain a better understanding of how people from all walks of life came to invest in these financial schemes and how these schemes became intertwined with everyday transactions, dreams, and aspirations, the book looks at the materiality, sociality, and temporality of financial speculations at the margins of global capital. It argues that the speculative financial practices of the schemes were enabled by official financial infrastructures (such as the postsocialist free-market reforms), by unofficial economies (such as transnational remittances), as well as by historically specific forms of entrepreneurship, transnational social networks, and desires for a European modernity. Overall, these granular stories of participation in the Albanian schemes help understand neoliberal capitalism as a heterogeneous economic formation that intertwines capitalist and noncapitalist forms of accumulation and investment.
The Pyramid Way
Authors: Musaraj Smoki
Published: January 2021

This chapter discusses the analogies of the former “kreditorë” regarding the modalities of financing and accumulation at the pyramid firms that captured the expression “the pyramid way,” which refers to a particular logic of investment and accumulation whereby initial investment relied on an unsustainable future return. It focuses on a practice of financing in construction known as “klering” or nonliquid payment arrangements among developers, subcontractors, and buyers. Developers typically promised to pay subcontractors with apartments or other construction materials rather than cash or credit. The chapter describes the empty klering apartments in Tirana's peripheries in the late 2000s that led to a crisis of liquidity. It traces the partial connections of different financial activities and suggests that the construction industry relied on social networks and remittance flows as sources of financing in order to avoid formal sources of credit and debt.
Winners and Losers in Financial Economics, or Fama versus Black
Authors: Polillo Simone
Published: January 2021

This chapter looks at the conflict between the exponents of two different and incompatible ways of conducting financial research by Fischer Black and Eugene Fama. It contrasts the trajectory of the efficient-market hypothesis with that of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). Financial economists ultimately relegated CAPM to the status of one among many competing methods of portfolio selection, while market practitioners continue using it to make quick, back-of-the-envelope calculations. The chapter discusses how CAPM is recognized as the “centerpiece of modern financial economics” and how it is mainly explained in terms of historical significance, practical implications, and empirical shortcomings. The heart of the matter is that CAPM could be framed as one of the auxiliary assumptions that tests of the joint hypothesis of market efficiency relied on.
Living Respectably and Negotiating Class
Authors: Forgash Rebecca
Published: January 2021

This chapter sets aside discourses on race and U.S. military men to focus on corresponding discourses on sexual propriety and class respectability used to police Okinawan women's behavior. It compares the accounts of women who married during the early postwar period from those who married after reversion in 1972, reflecting Okinawa's changing economic circumstances and a reworking and reimagining of class. The stories included in the chapter demonstrate the broader and deeply personal impacts of shifting notions of class, made visible through the lenses of gender and intimate relationships. It investigates Occupation-era discourses on moral purity and contamination and discourses that prescribe respectable behaviour are most meaningful to older women. It also discusses postreversion stereotypes that reveal changing formulations of class related to processes of political and economic integration and marginalization within Japan.
The Marine Corps Marriage Package
Authors: Forgash Rebecca
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines the complex procedures known as the “marriage package.” It explains that during the early 2000s, marriage package procedures were required by U.S. Marine Corps headquarters in Washington as the only legitimate means for marines and navy corpsmen to legalize a marriage in Japan. The process has been streamlined in recent years but it remains an instructive and relevant ethnographic example for understanding the nature of U.S. military and Japanese and U.S. government regulation of intimate relationships. The chapter focuses on institutional representations of marriage and family found in official documents and the mandatory premarital seminar. It analyzes the impact of institutional discourses on service members' expressions of military affinity and affiliation and the voices of Okinawan spouses as they articulated subject positions markedly different from their feminist counterparts in the antibase movement.
Conclusion
Authors: Manekin Devorah S.
Published: January 2021

This chapter summarizes the reasons why and in what ways participation in counterinsurgent violence vary. It explains the eager participation of some combatants and combat units in violence while others show considerable restraint or resistance on participating. It also reviews the patterns of violence and restraint in the case of counterinsurgency of the Israeli military in the Second Intifada. The chapter analyzes the Second Intifada that provides a unique opportunity to collect typically hard-to-saccess data on the details of military life at the small unit level, as well as on the nature of conducting combat operations among a chiefly civilian population. It also analyzes the Israeli case that challenged conventional wisdom regarding the behaviour of combatants in conflict, which is often assumed to be homogeneous and violence prone.
Interlude
Authors: Rios Jodi
Published: January 2021

This interlude details the death of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown Jr., who was shot by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014. Several witnesses of the shooting claim that Brown had had his hands above his head at the time he was shot. For over an hour, Brown remained uncovered with an increasing trail of blood moving down the street as his body bled out. As time went on, more people began arriving at the scene from across the St. Louis region, as did law enforcement officials. The Ferguson and St. Louis County police departments struggled to secure the area, and many people later reported that it was unclear who was in charge. Continued protests, arrests, and militarized police responses, which included repeated use of tear gas and the firing of rubber bullets into the crowd, escalated over the following days. Many people who witnessed Brown in the street recalled specific ways in which the image of his body conveyed their own vulnerability—as people out of place. Most viewed his death as a lynching. Residents also spoke of a disturbing irony they had long felt but saw play out before them on that day: their experience of being targeted, harassed, and regarded as less than human by those who simultaneously practice a most extreme inhumanity.
Introduction
Authors: Graber Kathryn E.
Published: January 2021

This chapter provides an ethnographic study of language politics and media produced in and for the Republic of Buryatia and other Buryat territories. It focuses on minority-language media in order to trace the circulation and uptake of ideas not just in Buryat but about being Buryat. From herders in the 1920s to lexicographers in the 2000s, this chapter examines the heterogenous ways people have envisioned Buryat through language and media. It shows how people producing and using media become a minority-language public. It draws on a mixed-methods approach to show how historical legacies matter in the present and confirm how the sites of linguistic action are interconnected and mutually informing.
Experience of Cancer Patients on their Visit to Cancer Outpatient Department: A Qualitative Study from a Regional Hospital in Mauritius
Authors: Kashyap Abhishek , Banerjee Indrajit , Thakur Akash , Notwani Vaishali , Raghuvanshi Mitanshi
Published: January 2021

Introduction: Cancer care studies suggest that being diagnosed with cancer, the patients and their families face various hardships such as financial crisis, increased mental stress, difficulty in managing their relationships and routine lifestyle activities. Moreover, psycho-oncological studies also describe the intense distress and disbelief experienced by patients on their initial diagnosis. The role of cancer care needs to be understood as well as implemented in cancer treatment, thus further enriching the insights of the treating oncologist about their patient’s state of mind. This ultimately allows for the betterment of treatment compliance. Aim: To study the experience of cancer patients on their visit to the cancer clinic and the emotional turmoil after diagnosis and throughout treatment. Materials and Methods: A descriptive phenomenological qualitative study was designed and conducted from August to September 2019 at the Oncology Department of Victoria Hospital, Mauritius. Participation in the study was voluntary, and written consent was taken from each of the study participants. The data was collected on an in-depth one on one interview basis and was recorded, and the purposive sampling technique was used for collecting the data. Results: Out of 12 patients, the male/female ratio equated to 5:7, these patients were from the ages of 23 to 70 years and the mean age of the participants was 48.2 years. A total of 25 different codes were generated in the study, seven main themes were established there from (Motivational factors, Psychological factors, Society, Message for others, Awareness about the disease, Economic factors and Perception towards the healthcare environment). Conclusion: The main implication that emerged from this study is the notion of the lateral views of informal caregivers, family members and medical professionals, towards the patient’s feelings and emotional reactions in respect to their experience of cancer. It has been noted that the positivity of the caregiver corresponds directly to positive outcomes in the cancer treatment whilst simultaneously decreasing the psychological ramifications of the process.
Identification of suitable reference genes for studies of Syringa pinnatifolia Hemsl.
Authors: Gao Jiaqi , Liu Juan , Jiang Chao , Chen Suyile , Huang Luqi
Published: January 2021

Syringa pinnatifolia Hemsl. (Oleaceae) is a species of shrub with a limited distribution in China. Several chemical compounds with pharmacological effects have been isolated from S. pinnatifolia, including new lignans and sesquiterpenes. Studies of gene expression in this species require the identification of suitable reference genes that are stably expressed under different conditions and in different tissues. To identify candidate reference genes, here we used the geNorm, NormFinder, and BestKeeper algorithms to analyze the stability of 12 candidate genes. The geometric mean of the rankings generated with these algorithms was used to obtain a comprehensive ranking. TBP and PP2A were found to be appropriate reference genes for calli treated with different external stimuli, and TIP41 and TBP were found to be appropriate reference genes in differentiated tissues. When calli and differentiated tissues were considered together, TBP and TIP41 were found to be the most reliable reference genes. The selected genes were validated by analysis of HMGR expression in calli and differentiated tissues. This study is the first to screen candidate reference genes in the genus Syringa and could help guide future molecular studies in this genus.
High Performance Core/Shell Ni/Ni(OH)2 Electrospun Nanofiber Anodes for Decoupled Water Splitting
Authors: Landman Avigail , Hadash Shabtai , Shter Gennady E. , Ben‐Azaria Alon , Dotan Hen , Rothschild Avner , Grader Gideon S.
Published: January 2021

Decoupled water splitting is a promising new path for renewable hydrogen production, offering many potential advantages such as stable operation under partial‐load conditions, high‐pressure hydrogen production, overall system robustness, and higher safety levels. Here, the performance of electrospun core/shell nickel/nickel hydroxide anodes is demonstrated in an electrochemical‐thermally activated chemical decoupled water splitting process. The high surface area of the hierarchical porous electrode structure improves the utilization efficiency, charge capacity, and current density of the redox anode while maintaining high process efficiency. The anodes reach average current densities as high as 113 mA cm−2 at a working potential of 1.48 VRHE and 64 mA cm−2 at 1.43 VRHE, with a Faradaic efficiency of nearly 100% and no H2/O2 intermixing in a membrane‐free cell.
Ultra‐Robust Flexible Electronics by Laser‐Driven Polymer‐Nanomaterials Integration
Authors: Rodriguez Raul D. , Shchadenko Sergey , Murastov Gennadiy , Lipovka Anna , Fatkullin Maxim , Petrov Ilia , Tran Tuan‐Hoang , Khalelov Alimzhan , Saqib Muhammad , Villa Nelson E. , Bogoslovskiy Vladimir , Wang Yan , Hu Chang‐Gang , Zinovyev Alexey , Sheng Wenbo , Chen Jin‐Ju , Amin Ihsan , Sheremet Evgeniya
Published: January 2021

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the most widely used polymer in the world. For the first time, the laser‐driven integration of aluminum nanoparticles (Al NPs) into PET to realize a laser‐induced graphene/Al NPs/polymer composite, which demonstrates excellent toughness and high electrical conductivity with the formation of aluminum carbide into the polymer is shown. The conductive structures show an impressive mechanical resistance against >10000 bending cycles, projectile impact, hammering, abrasion, and structural and chemical stability when in contact with different solvents (ethanol, water, and aqueous electrolytes). Devices including thermal heaters, carbon electrodes for energy storage, electrochemical and bending sensors show this technology's practical application for ultra‐robust polymer electronics. This laser‐based technology can be extended to integrating other nanomaterials and create hybrid graphene‐based structures with excellent properties in a wide range of flexible electronics’ applications.
Molecular Size Matters: Ultrafast Dye Singlet Sensitization Pathways to Bright Nanoparticle Emission
Authors: Liu Jing , Geiregat Pieter , Pilia Luca , Van Deun Rik , Artizzu Flavia
Published: January 2021

Dye‐sensitized luminescent lanthanide (Ln)‐based nanoparticles enable broad applications spanning from fluorescent microscopy to biological therapy. However, the limited understanding of the dye→Ln3+ sensitization process still leaves ample room for the improvement of its efficiency. In this work, a unique combination of photoluminescence and transient absorption spectroscopy is employed to reveal the hereto hidden dye→Ln3+ or dye→Ln13+→Ln23+ energy transfer pathways in the ultrafast time scale. Steady‐state and time‐resolved data, supported by density functional theory calculations, demonstrate that Ln3+ sensitization is realized directly from the singlet excited state of dye molecules and is strictly regulated by a distance‐dependent regime overcoming the role of the donor–acceptor spectral overlap for the size and geometry of dye molecules. It is shown that exceptionally high efficiency is achieved by judiciously selecting small‐sized dye molecules with localized molecular orbitals sitting close (<0.5 nm) to the nanoparticle surface. This new understanding will enable a rational design of dye‐sensitized Ln nanoparticles allowing for a dramatic improvement of the emission efficiency in a variety of nanomaterials for light conversion.
Spontaneous Radiation Amplification in a Microsphere‐Coupled CsPbBr3 Perovskite Vertical Structure
Authors: Yan Yinzhou , Yang Lixue , Liu Wei , Wang Qiang , Li Sijia , Xu Chunxiang
Published: January 2021

Microsphere (MS) cavities hold great potential in nanophotonics due to their extraordinary optical properties. All‐inorganic trihalide perovskites with high environmental stability and easy‐for‐preparation have shown great promise for the next‐generation optoelectronic nanodevices. Unfortunately, the nonradiative recombination of exciton is inevitably aggravating the photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs). Here, a microsphere‐coupled CsPbBr3 perovskite vertical structure is proposed for amplification of spontaneous radiation (SR) up to 190‐fold. The mechanisms of SR amplification by an MS cavity are completely revealed, for the first time, including Mie focusing (MF) for energy harvesting, directional antenna (DA) for emission convergence, and whispering‐gallery modes (WGMs) for regulation of exciton dynamics. The temperature‐dependent photoluminescence (PL) spectra clarify the contributions of WGMs for the boosting of SR decay and suppression of exciton–phonon interactions for giant PL enhancement. Furthermore, a straightforward approach is presented for a selective MS array capped on a perovskite microcrystal (PeMC) film as a vertical structure for patterned PL enhancement. The excitation‐power‐ and excitation‐observation‐angle‐dependent luminescence contrast inspire a novel anticounterfeiting strategy. The vertical architecture not only advances the understanding of microcavity‐based SR amplification from PeMCs, but also offers opportunities to facilitate the synergistic manipulation of optical fields and exciton–phonon interactions for developing high‐efficient optoelectronic devices.