bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Variation of the sticking of methanol on low-temperature surfaces as a possible obstacle to freeze out in dark clouds
Authors: Gadallah K A K , Sow A , Congiu E , Baouche S , Dulieu F
Published: March 2020

Sticking of gas-phase methanol on different cold surfaces – gold, 13CO, and amorphous solid water (ASW) ice – was studied as a function of surface temperature (7–40 K). In an ultrahigh-vacuum system, reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS) and temperature-programmed desorption methods were simultaneously used to measure methanol sticking efficiency. Methanol band strengths obtained by RAIRS vary greatly depending on the type of the surface. Nevertheless, both methods indicate that the sticking of methanol on different surfaces varies with surface temperature. The sticking efficiency decreases by 30${{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ as the surface temperature goes from 7 to 16 K, then gradually increases until the temperature is 40 K, reaching approximately the initial value found at 7 K. The sticking of methanol differs slightly from one surface to another. At low temperature, it has the lowest values on gold, intermediate values on water ice, and the highest values are found on CO ice, although these differences are smaller than those observed with temperature variation. There exists probably a turning point during the structural organization of methanol ice at 16 K, which makes the capture of methanol from the gas phase less efficient. We wonder if this observation could explain the surprising high abundance of gaseous methanol observed in dense interstellar cores, where it should accrete on grains. In this regard, a 30${{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ reduction of the sticking is not sufficient in itself but transposed to astrophysical conditions dominated by cold gas (∼15 K), which could reduce the sticking efficiency by two orders of magnitude.
Responsibility, Reflection, and Rational Ability
Authors: Kay Nelkin Dana
Published: March 2020

This paper takes as its starting point the thesis that one is responsible for one’s actions insofar as one has the ability to act for good reasons. Such a view faces a challenge: it is plausible that only beings with the ability to reflect are responsible agents, and yet it seems that not only is it possible to act for reasons without reflecting, it seems to happen quite frequently. Thus, advocates of the rational-ability view of responsibility must either reject as a necessary condition that responsible agents must have the ability to reflect, or locate a plausible role for reflective ability. In this paper, I propose and assess a variety of ways to meet this challenge.
Determinants of cyclization–decyclization kinetics of short DNA with sticky ends
Authors: Jeong Jiyoun , Kim Harold D
Published: March 2020

Cyclization of DNA with sticky ends is commonly used to measure DNA bendability as a function of length and sequence, but how its kinetics depend on the rotational positioning of the sticky ends around the helical axis is less clear. Here, we measured cyclization (looping) and decyclization (unlooping) rates (kloop and kunloop) of DNA with sticky ends over three helical periods (100-130 bp) using single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). kloop showed a nontrivial undulation as a function of DNA length whereas kunloop showed a clear oscillation with a period close to the helical turn of DNA (∼10.5 bp). The oscillation of kunloop was almost completely suppressed in the presence of gaps around the sticky ends. We explain these findings by modeling double-helical DNA as a twisted wormlike chain with a finite width, intrinsic curvature, and stacking interaction between the end base pairs. We also discuss technical issues for converting the FRET-based cyclization/decyclization rates to an equilibrium quantity known as the J factor that is widely used to characterize DNA bending mechanics.
SynergyFinder 2.0: visual analytics of multi-drug combination synergies
Authors: Ianevski Aleksandr , Giri Anil K , Aittokallio Tero
Published: March 2020

SynergyFinder (https://synergyfinder.fimm.fi) is a stand-alone web-application for interactive analysis and visualization of drug combination screening data. Since its first release in 2017, SynergyFinder has become a widely used web-tool both for the discovery of novel synergistic drug combinations in pre-clinical model systems (e.g. cell lines or primary patient-derived cells), and for better understanding of mechanisms of combination treatment efficacy or resistance. Here, we describe the latest version of SynergyFinder (release 2.0), which has extensively been upgraded through the addition of novel features supporting especially higher-order combination data analytics and exploratory visualization of multi-drug synergy patterns, along with automated outlier detection procedure, extended curve-fitting functionality and statistical analysis of replicate measurements. A number of additional improvements were also implemented based on the user requests, including new visualization and export options, updated user interface, as well as enhanced stability and performance of the web-tool. With these improvements, SynergyFinder 2.0 is expected to greatly extend its potential applications in various areas of multi-drug combinatorial screening and precision medicine.
The nature of the purine at position 34 in tRNAs of 4-codon boxes is correlated with nucleotides at positions 32 and 38 to maintain decoding fidelity
Authors: Pernod Ketty , Schaeffer Laure , Chicher Johana , Hok Eveline , Rick Christian , Geslain Renaud , Eriani Gilbert , Westhof Eric , Ryckelynck Michael , Martin Franck
Published: March 2020

Translation fidelity relies essentially on the ability of ribosomes to accurately recognize triplet interactions between codons on mRNAs and anticodons of tRNAs. To determine the codon-anticodon pairs that are efficiently accepted by the eukaryotic ribosome, we took advantage of the IRES from the intergenic region (IGR) of the Cricket Paralysis Virus. It contains an essential pseudoknot PKI that structurally and functionally mimics a codon-anticodon helix. We screened the entire set of 4096 possible combinations using ultrahigh-throughput screenings combining coupled transcription/translation and droplet-based microfluidics. Only 97 combinations are efficiently accepted and accommodated for translocation and further elongation: 38 combinations involve cognate recognition with Watson-Crick pairs and 59 involve near-cognate recognition pairs with at least one mismatch. More than half of the near-cognate combinations (36/59) contain a G at the first position of the anticodon (numbered 34 of tRNA). G34-containing tRNAs decoding 4-codon boxes are almost absent from eukaryotic genomes in contrast to bacterial genomes. We reconstructed these missing tRNAs and could demonstrate that these tRNAs are toxic to cells due to their miscoding capacity in eukaryotic translation systems. We also show that the nature of the purine at position 34 is correlated with the nucleotides present at 32 and 38.
Effect of 2′-5′/3′-5′ phosphodiester linkage heterogeneity on RNA interference
Authors: Habibian Maryam , Harikrishna S , Fakhoury Johans , Barton Maria , Ageely Eman A , Cencic Regina , Fakih Hassan H , Katolik Adam , Takahashi Mayumi , Rossi John , Pelletier Jerry , Gagnon Keith T , Pradeepkumar P I , Damha Masad J
Published: March 2020

We report on the synthesis of siRNAs containing both 2′-5′- and 3′-5′-internucleotide linkages and their effects on siRNA structure, function, and interaction with RNAi proteins. Screening of these siRNAs against their corresponding mRNA targets showed that 2′-5′ linkages were well tolerated in the sense strand, but only at a few positions in the antisense strand. Extensive modification of the antisense strand minimally affected 5′-phosphorylation of the siRNA by kinases, however, it negatively affected siRNA loading into human AGO2. Modelling and molecular dynamics simulations were fully consistent with these findings. Furthermore, our studies indicated that the presence of a single 5′p-rN1-(2′-5′)-N2 unit in the antisense strand does not alter the ‘clover leaf’ bend and sugar puckers that are critical for anchoring the 5′-phosphate to Ago 2 MID domain. Importantly, 2′-5′-linkages had the added benefit of abrogating immune-stimulatory activity of siRNAs. Together, these results demonstrate that 2′-5′/3′-5′-modified siRNAs, when properly designed, can offer an efficient new class of siRNAs with diminished immune-stimulatory responses.
Renoprotective effects of sucroferric oxyhydroxide in a rat model of chronic renal failure
Authors: Neven Ellen , Corremans Raphaëlle , Vervaet Benjamin A , Funk Felix , Walpen Sebastian , Behets Geert J , D’Haese Patrick C , Verhulst Anja
Published: March 2020

Introduction

Sucroferric oxyhydroxide (PA21) is an efficacious, well-tolerated iron-based phosphate binder and a promising alternative to existing compounds. We compared the effects of PA21 with those of a conventional phosphate binder on renal function, mineral homeostasis and vascular calcification in a chronic kidney disease–mineral and bone disorder (CKD-MBD) rat model.

Methods

To induce stable renal failure, rats were administered a 0.25% adenine diet for 8 weeks. Concomitantly, rats were treated with vehicle, 2.5 g/kg/day PA21, 5.0 g/kg/day PA21 or 3.0 g/kg/day calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Renal function and calcium/phosphorus/iron metabolism were evaluated during the study course. Renal fibrosis, inflammation, vascular calcifications and bone histomorphometry were quantified.

Results

Rats treated with 2.5 or 5.0 g/kg/day PA21 showed significantly lower serum creatinine and phosphorus and higher ionized calcium levels after 8 weeks of treatment compared with vehicle-treated rats. The better preserved renal function with PA21 went along with less severe anaemia, which was not observed with CaCO3. Both PA21 doses, in contrast to CaCO3, prevented a dramatic increase in fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-23 and significantly reduced the vascular calcium content while both compounds ameliorated CKD-related hyperparathyroid bone.

Conclusions

PA21 treatment prevented an increase in serum FGF-23 and had, aside from its phosphate-lowering capacity, a beneficial impact on renal function decline (as assessed by the renal creatinine clearance) and related disorders. The protective effect of this iron-based phosphate binder on the kidney in rats, together with its low pill burden in humans, led us to investigate its use in patients with impaired renal function not yet on dialysis.
Catholic/Counter-Reformation
Authors: Scully Robert
Published: March 2020

The traditional terms for the religious changes and upheavals centered in the 16th century were the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, the first referring to the Protestant Reformation in its various subdivisions, and the second referencing the Catholic Counter-Reformation. The later term emphasized the reactive nature of the Catholic Church’s response to the burgeoning Protestant movement and its spread, especially across much of northern and central Europe. The historiography of the Reformation has been transformed since the late 20th century, including the use of the term “Reformations,” stressing the equally dramatic impact of developments in both Protestantism and Catholicism in early modern Europe, as well as diversity and divisions within each of these religious denominations. The historiography on the Catholic side has particularly shifted, including the current consensus that, despite some serious problems, the late medieval church was generally vibrant and largely popular with the majority of the people of Western Christendom. At the same time, there was a wide range of individuals and movements engaged in reforms of religious life and practice, from the Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life to the Observant movements in many religious orders. Thus, there was an active Catholic Reform or Reformation underway well before Luther and the onset of Protestantism. It is also true that once Lutheran, Calvinist, and other Protestant churches began to take hold by the mid-16th century, the Catholic Church launched various measures to counteract the Protestant tide via a Counter Reformation. In light of this intermixture of proactive and reactive, traditional and progressive developments, it is now common to use a more encompassing term: Early Modern Catholicism. This has the advantage of placing Catholicism at the heart of the myriad developments of the Early Modern era: the Renaissance, the Reformation, major economic and social changes, the emergence of nation-states, and overseas expansion. With regard to the current historiography, in addition to continuing interest in the Catholic heartlands of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France, much attention has shifted to central and eastern Europe, as well as to Catholic minorities in northern Europe. Related to these topics are studies on networks, religious exiles and refugees, and religious identity. Besides the importance of Trent and the Catholic hierarchy as continuing topics of research, the new and renewed religious orders of men and women, as well as the crucial role of the laity, have moved to center stage. Our framework has also considerably broadened, across both time (into the 17th and 18th centuries) and space (the expansive Catholic overseas missions).
Jews in Florence
Authors: Bregoli Francesca
Published: March 2020

The first sporadic Jewish presence in Florence is attested from the 1320s. In 1437, Jewish bankers were formally granted the license to lend money at interest in Florence, an act that stimulated the establishment of a small but permanent Jewish community composed of families from central Italy and their entourages (100–300 people). The fate of the community was closely connected to its elite’s banking specialization and to the Medici patrons who protected them. Threatened with expulsion on multiple occasions, Florentine Jews managed at times to stave off exile thanks to the economic services they offered the state. The presence of wealthy patrons, most notable among them Yehiel da Pisa, also benefited Jewish intellectual life, as evidenced by both Hebrew manuscript production and cultural flourishing in the last decades of the 15th century. Figures such as Elijah del Medigo, Abraham Farissol, and Yohanan Alemanno were all active in Renaissance Florence, while Christian interest in Hebrew and kabbalistic traditions led humanists such as Giannozzo Manetti, Marsilio Ficino, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola to associate with Jewish scholars. Around the time of the Florentine Republic (1527–1532), the city saw an initial influx of Sephardic Jews, whose traditions and economic focus were different from the established local Jewish community. After the Medicis returned to Florence, they granted generous freedoms to these “Levantine Jews” (1551), hoping to attract them to the capital and benefit from their mercantile networks. This initial experiment failed, and only with the Livornina of 1591 was a growing Sephardic presence drawn to the Medici state—not to Florence, but to coastal Livorno. In 1570, the Jews of Florence and the surrounding countryside were ordered to resettle in a segregated enclosure, the third ghetto to be established on Italian soil after Venice and Rome; the community grew to 600–700 individuals due to the destruction of rural communities and their confluence into Florence. In the 17th century, the economic activities of Florentine Jews dwindled significantly as a result of the forced closure of Jewish banks and new limitations imposed by the Medicis. Despite these restrictions, Jewish life endured. Current research is increasingly shedding light on the opportunities and challenges Florentine Jews experienced during the ghetto period, a previously understudied topic.
Yoginīs
Authors: Hatley Shaman
Published: March 2020

Goddesses known as yoginīs (feminine of the Sanskrit yogin, “practitioner of yoga” or “possessed of yoga”) were prominent in the esoteric or “tantric” religious traditions of premodern India, beginning from around the 7th century ce. They feature especially in tantric Śaiva cults of Bhairava and allied goddesses, as well as within the Vajrayāna Buddhist Yoginītantras or Yoganiruttaratantras. In fact yoginī cults form a significant shared dimension of these tantric traditions. This bibliography is primarily concerned with yoginīs in premodern Hindu traditions, especially Tantric Śaivism, while nonetheless including some representative works on Buddhist and other traditions. While sharing characteristics with several other deity types, yoginīs have particularly deep connections with mātṛs or “mother-goddesses,” ancient deities associated with fertility, motherhood, disease, and warfare. Several key aspects of yoginīs are shared with the earlier mātṛs, such as the ability to fly, the high frequency of animal faces, occurrence in groups, martial prowess, and their simultaneous beauty and dangerous power. Yoginīs have particularly strong connections with the Gupta-era Seven Mothers (saptamātṛs or saptamātṛkās), who are often included in yoginī sets. Within Tantric Śaivism, yoginīs surface first in the Vidyāpīṭha division of Bhairavatantras, such as the extant Siddhayogeśvarīmata and Brahmayāmala, remaining prominent in Kaula traditions of the late 1st and early 2nd millennia. This literature depicts yoginīs as powerful, potentially dangerous flying goddesses who embody the numinous powers of yoga, powers sought by tantric practitioners through visionary, transactional encounters. Organized into clans (kula), yoginīs were regarded as both guardians and potential sources for the transmission of tantric revelation. While quintessentially tantric goddesses, the veneration of yoginīs took on more public forms by the 10th century. Temples dedicated to groups of yoginīs were constructed across India, mainly from the 10th to 12th centuries, and yoginīs also left their mark in non-tantric religious and narrative literatures. Although yoginī worship waned in the latermedieval period, these goddesses remained important in some tantric traditions, and have received renewed attention in the modern world. Distinctive to the figure of the yoginī is the blurring of boundaries between goddesses and women: in many contexts, the word yoginī simply refers to a female yogi or tantric initiate, and female adepts were viewed as potentially becoming divine yoginīs through sudden gnosis or ritual perfection. For this reason, while the bibliography is mainly devoted to scholarship on tantric goddesses, rather than yoginī in the more general sense of “female practitioner of yoga,” it also necessarily concerns female tantric adepts, gender and sexuality in the tantric traditions, and the impact of belief in yoginīs upon women. Indeed, one of many meanings of yoginī and closely related terms is “tantric sorceress” or “witch,” a notion carried into the modern world, sometimes with tragic consequences.
The Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions
Authors: Draper Mary
Published: March 2020

Between the 1770s and the 1820s, revolutions erupted across the Atlantic world. In North and South America, colonists rebelled against their colonial governments. Old and new nations experienced political upheaval on both sides of the Atlantic. At the same time, the enslaved population of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) overthrew its masters, inspiring acts of resistance throughout the Caribbean and beyond. While these events were once studied separately, the field of Atlantic history has enabled historians to examine the connections among the American, French, Haitian, and Latin American Revolutions. Yet, the maritime spaces that enabled these connections remained in the background of historical scholarship until recently. New scholarship foregrounds the ocean as a place of exploitation, political development, identity formation, and cross-cultural interaction. Diverse peoples—sailors, fishermen, enslaved Africans, refugees, and revolutionaries—traversed sea lanes during the Age of Revolutions. Some brought with them news of political developments, ideas about sovereignty, or revolutionary materials. Others sought freedom and new opportunities. They hoped to escape enslavement, find refuge from revolution, or envision a different political future. Still others saw the sea as a site of exploitation. There, Africans endured the Middle Passage, the Royal Navy impressed sailors, and fishermen harvested the ocean’s bounty. Indeed, the Age of Revolutions was inherently a maritime age. Given this diversity of maritime experience, this article complements many other Oxford Bibliographies in Atlantic History articles, including those that consider “The American Revolution,” “The French Revolution,” “The Haitian Revolution,” and “Latin American Independence.” It also draws extensively on scholarship that highlights networks, communications, and mobility, more of which can be found in “Communications in the Atlantic World,” “Merchants’ Networks,” “Smuggling,” and “Ships and Shipping.” While this bibliography highlights English-language scholarship, scholars will find relevant non-English-language scholarship in these linked bibliographies. As scholars continue to reconstruct the inter-imperial and transatlantic connections that residents forged across the Atlantic world, the ocean will become a key site for understanding the Age of Revolutions.
Rumor and Communication
Authors: DiFonzo Nicholas
Published: March 2020

An ocean of rumors, hearsay, half-truths, fake news, factoids, speculations, and conspiracy theories engulfs us. Rumor is a pervasive characteristic of human communication, a quintessentially social activity in service of making meaning. It is not surprising then that rumor has attracted attention from ancient peoples, from a wide array of scholarly disciplines (e.g., psychology, communication, political science, sociology, philosophy, literature, mathematics, computer science) and from a varied assortment of practice-oriented specializations (e.g., medicine, law, defense, politics, journalism, intelligence, marketing, management, finance, public relations). The intensity of interest in rumor has risen of late in exponential fashion amidst polarized political landscapes, reduced trust in institutional authorities (e.g., the academy, government, business, and the press), the ever-increasing ubiquity of the Internet, and a general lassitude about the concept of truth. This annotated bibliography reflects thinking and research about foundational issues inherent in rumor research (e.g., What is rumor?), features of rumor activity that have attracted longstanding attention (e.g., Why do people believe and transmit rumors? How do they become more accurate or more distorted?), and current areas of active inquiry (e.g., conspiracy theories, rumors about health and risk, organizational rumors, propaganda, intergroup stereotyping and conflict, journalism and fake news, and the prevention and management of harmful rumors).
Global Media Organizations
Authors: Jin Dal Yong , Kim Ju Oak
Published: March 2020

Global media organizations are not only extremely broad but also continuously changing. Global media organizations refer to various agencies that conduct diverse activities, from content production to regulation. Some media organizations such as mega media corporations play a key role in globalization and transnationalization as they produce and disseminate cultural products around the globe, while other media organizations, including the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), develop global media governance structures. In other words, several forms of global media organizations, from global media industries, such as Disney, Sony, and 21st Century Fox, to international agencies including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), shape and reshape the global media systems that greatly influence people’s lives in many parts of the world. To explore these global media organizations, experts must have at least some knowledge of international communication, globalization theory, media regulation, and media policy. To understand global media organizations, experts also need the same wide-ranging knowledge for several countries, regions, and comparative national priorities in the realm of media and communication. Tackling this broad topic requires choices on what to include and what to exclude. Most of the citations annotated in this article come from diverse perspectives, with a strong historical, theoretical, policy, and governance flavor as we want to include as many relevant academic materials as possible. These books and articles focus on global media agencies, organizations, networks, and infrastructure that tie together plus their consequences, regulation, and governance. Also included are issue-based sections, each of which contains six to ten important items that introduce readers to key issues. These are Theories and Concepts; Business: Sites of Investment and Source of Employment; Digital Convergence; Ownership, Structures, and Power Dynamics; News Organizations; Transnational Corporations; Media Management; and Media Work and Labor. Academic journals that deal with important aspects of global media organizations are also noted. This article does not attempt to cover everything in relation to global media organizations, and simple national and comparative perspectives are not included here, with rare exceptions.
Anthropology of Language Contact and its Sociocultural Contexts
Authors: Makihara Miki , Rodriguez Juan L.
Published: March 2020

Language contact is not just about language. It extends to a whole complex set of sociocultural and historical formations that characterize life in intersecting communities of language users. It is a space of linguistic as well as sociocultural reproduction and transformation. Early anthropologists and linguists focused narrowly on how languages, understood here as structural codes, influence each other, producing lexical, phonological, and morphosyntactic changes. The discipline of linguistics has largely continued this line of inquiry and focused on issues of variation and structural change. In conducting empirical ethnographic studies, sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists have exposed the constructedness of the static, bounded notions of “languages” and “communities” of monolingual speakers. They have also increasingly emphasized the embeddedness of language in its sociocultural and historical context (see Foundational Texts). Anthropology of language contact, accordingly, investigates changing practices of language use, unequal acquisition, socialization, and development of linguistic norms. This article highlights the dynamic relationship between the use and conceptualization of language. It includes works on multilingual and dialectal practices (see Multilingual Practices and Discursive Construction of Identity), and how linguistic differences function, produce, and perpetuate forms of social inequality (see Linguistic Differences and Social Inequality). It also addresses the historical, sociocultural, and interactional contexts of encounters and power dynamics. As such, we examine the context of colonialism and missionization (see Language and Colonialism) and the rise of nation-states in which standard language has been taken to be coterminous with the polity (see Language Contact and Nation-Building). Nationalism based on an association between nation and language is important in understanding the processes of language endangerment and revitalization (see Language Endangerment, Documentation, and Revitalization). This article also covers the flow of people and commodities, as well as industrialization, urbanization, and the introduction of new technologies (see Language Contact, Migration, and Globalization). Such flows and movements occur at different scales, from face-to-face interaction to global trade, and transform boundaries between languages (or what counts as such) and the communities that use them. Notwithstanding the fluidity of global communication, the school has been the most important site of the reproduction of standard and monolingual ideologies, closely connected to the process of nation-building, colonization, and the reproduction of privilege and inequality (see Education and Social (Re)production). The final section gathers works that highlight the poetic function of language and individual creative choice in multilingual verbal arts (see Verbal Play and Aesthetics of Contact).
Valency Theory
Authors: Höllein Dagobert
Published: March 2020

Valency theory is a grammatical theory that focuses on the verb or the predicate as its center. Modern valency theory was founded in 1959 by Lucien Tesnière and is based on the idea that verbs structure sentences by binding specific elements (complements, actants) in the same way as atoms do. Other, freely addable elements are not determined by the verb; these are called supplements, adjuncts, or circonstants. The basic items of valency theory are valency carriers, complements, and supplements. Take for example sentence (1), “He gave the book to Sandra in the library.” While the NPs He and the book and the PP to Sandra in sentence (1) are valency governed complements, the PP in the library is not governed. It is a supplement. Tesnière compares sentences to a stage play, with actors and requisites. The verb is considered the central valency carrier and the complements depend on the valency carrier. In contrast to other projective theories of grammar, such as generative grammar, the binary division of the sentence into subject and predicate is abolished: the prime element of a sentence is the verb, the subject is governed by the verb, and so are the other objects. In valency theory the number of complements that depend on the verb constitute its valency. There are monovalent (run), bivalent (build), and trivalent verbs (give). The verb run requires a subject to form a minimal sentence and to communicate a scenario, build requires a subject and direct object for this purpose, give a subject, direct, and indirect object. However, it is not necessary that every complement be realized. For instance, sentence (2): “He sold the car (to his neighbor).” A trivalent verb such as to sell can easily be realized with only two complements, as shown in example (2). Complements such as the directive complement in (2) (called facultative complements) and supplements differ by the fact that complements are determined in their form (syntactic valency) and their meaning (semantic valency) by the valency carrier, while supplements, such as temporal or local adjuncts, are not. The ability of a valency carrier to determine formal aspects, such as case marking of its complement(s), is subsumed under syntactic valency and the ability to determine semantic aspects, such as its thematic role, is called semantic valency/specificity.
Photography and Cinema
Authors: Trifonova Temenuga
Published: March 2020

A number of studies have explored the notions of “medium specificity” and “intermediality,” while others have analyzed the different ways in which photographs and films signify or the different phenomenological experiences they make possible. The notions of “photographic truth,” “indexicality,” “stillness,” and “movement,” and the relationship of photography and cinema to life, death, history, memory, and the unconscious, are recurring themes. The scholarship on photography and that on cinema trace two parallel tendencies in the history of the two media: on the one hand, the photograph as “trace” versus the tradition of staged photography; on the other hand, the “realist” versus “formalist” tendency in cinema. For most of its history, photography has been said to enjoy a privileged relationship to reality: the photograph has been described as “an imprint,” “a mold,” or “a trace” of reality. Parallel to the idea of the photographic index and the photography of spontaneous witness it gave rise to, however, is another tradition of photography, one that runs from early staged photography and pictorialist photography, through surrealist photography, to “cinematic photography”—this tradition foregrounds the discursive character of the photographic image, its origins in other images. While the history of photography has been defined by the tension between these two parallel traditions, the balance of power shifting from one to the other and back again, the digital turn is generally believed to have put an end to the idea of photography as “witness,” even as a number of early-21st-century photographers claim to pursue “new documentary” or “new realism” within a highly stylized, staged photography. The digital has provoked similar anxieties among film historians and theorists, who continue to debate whether the digital has brought about the disappearance of “cinema” or just the disappearance of “film.” The tension between these two parallel traditions in scholarship on photography and cinema has been complicated by a third criterion, according to which the two media have been theorized: stillness/movement. If indexicality and stillness have been the two key concepts in photography scholarship, movement has played a similar structuring role in the case of cinema. And just as the two dichotomies undergirding photography and cinema scholarship—the indexical versus discursive nature of the photographic image, and the realist versus formative tendency in cinema—are increasingly losing their credibility and usefulness, the still/moving distinction has also been challenged by the proliferation of hybrid artistic practices. This article is organized around four categories: (1) photography and cinema in their relation to modernity, (2) debates on medium specificity and the challenge of the digital both to photography and cinema, (3) cinematic photography, and (4) photography and cinema as “spectral” media.
Publishing
Authors: Bassett Troy
Published: March 2020

Over the course of the 19th century, British publishing evolved unevenly from a handcrafted industry run by gentleman publishers to the modern industrialized mass media of the 20th century. At the same time, the period witnessed a massive increase in the size of the reading public due to population growth and increased literacy. These changes affected all aspects and levels of literary production. For authors, the increase in publishing output meant more opportunities to earn a living at writing, particularly for women writers and especially in the fields of literature and journalism. For publishers, the growing demand for print materials led to the adoption of mechanized production and the cultivation of a mass market for print. For readers, the increasing abundance of print materials at decreasing prices created a mass market where thousands of publications competed for readers’ eyes and pennies. To take the novel as one example, early in the century a new novel frequently appeared in an expensive three-volume edition of 500 copies priced at 31s 6d (thirty-one shillings and sixpence) each, a price well out of the range of the majority of readers who then depended on circulating libraries for access. By the end of the century, a new novel typically appeared in a one-volume edition of thousands of copies priced at 3s 6d or 6s each, an appealing price for nearly all middle-class readers. Magazine publication followed a similar transition: in the 1830s, monthly magazines such as Bentley’s Miscellany cost 2s 6d; at midcentury, monthly magazines such as the Cornhill cost 1s; and by century’s end, monthly magazines such as the Strand cost 6d, with stark increases in circulation. Past scholarship of publishing has often focused on the history of one author’s or publisher’s experiences in publishing: for instance, the descriptive bibliography of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s editions of poems or the general history of William Blackwood’s publishing company. Based on this well-developed bibliographical foundation, recent scholarship has been influenced by the development of book history as a field—the History of the Book, sometimes called print history or print culture, focuses on the authorship, production, and reading of books as a material practice. Broadly speaking, the history of the book investigates book production as an important cultural practice: in what ways do the interactions between authors, publishers, and readers affect what print material is produced? Alternately, how do social forces—such as class and gender—affect the production and consumption of print materials? The history of the book field has greatly widened our scope of study to, among other things, the lives of lesser-known authors, the business practices of publishers, and the experiences of readers: for example, on the experiences of women authors in the literary marketplace, the adoption of steam-powered presses by magazine publishers, or the changing tastes of children readers.
Nineteenth-Century American Newspapers
Authors: Grant David
Published: March 2020

Though political scientists and historians of the 19th-century United States have always turned to newspapers as an important source, there has in recent years been a growing interest in newspapers as a distinct object of study among historians, communications scholars, and literary critics. Newspapers were not only publishers and promoters of important literature but also central to the culture of literary production and consumption. All the scholarship, by various disciplines, produced on newspapers is relevant to the ongoing project to historicize, interpret, contextualize, and theorize 19th-century American literature in all its varied relations to its readership and to the nation generally. Though circulation grew rapidly over the century, the reach of newspapers was not limited to official subscription lists or, later, to street sales. As both scholars and contemporary observers have noted, various mechanisms—formal exchanges between newspapers hundreds of miles apart, reading rooms, coffee houses, and the general cultural practice of reusing and sharing newspapers—meant that the readership for newspapers extended beyond their paying subscribers throughout the century, but especially in the antebellum years. Although in some senses newspapers may in the nineteenth century have ceded to magazines their 18th-century function of presenting a miscellany of material, for all practical purposes throughout the nineteenth century many newspapers, most often only four pages long, continued to play that role—they included poems, reviews, serialized novels, orations and lectures, cultural laments, letters from abroad, and reports on scientific discoveries along with the more expected news, random reflections or anecdotes, and editorial opinion. Through most of the century, however, the majority of newspapers devoted at least a quarter of their space to advertising. In the first third of the nineteenth century, party organs and commercial papers for the mercantile class grew to the point where they came to be seen as representing the two primary functions of the American newspaper. From the 1830s to the Civil War, various developments, including the penny press, the reform press, the religious press, and the African American press, changed the character of newspapers, even though their party functions remained uppermost. After the war, urban newspapers gradually grew in length and in the range of their coverage. Commercialization and the first steps toward professionalization began to change the mission of journalism, so that by the 1890s many urban papers more closely resembled newspapers of the next fifty years than they did newspapers of the previous generation.
Hans Eysenck
Authors: Buchanan Rod
Published: March 2020

Hans Jurgen Eysenck (b. 1916–d. 1997) was a towering figure in personality psychology, notable for the audacity of his theorizing, the expansive scope of his empirical research, and the often-controversial views he expressed. Eysenck was the most significant figure in the history of British psychology by almost any measure. He is also likely to remain so because historical circumstances ensured he had an impact on a developing discipline that can never be duplicated. Eysenck was born in Berlin in 1916 at the height of the Great War, the only child of German film and stage performers Ruth Werner (aka Helga Molander) and Eduard Eysenck. The toxic prewar political climate in Germany saw him emigrate to England in 1934 soon after finishing secondary school. Almost by accident, Eysenck took up psychology at University College, London, and was mentored by Cyril Burt. He was almost interred as an enemy alien during the early stages of the war but was subsequently recruited by Aubrey Lewis in 1942 to lead the psychology program at Mill Hill Emergency Hospital – which functioned as the relocated Maudsley Hospital at the time. After the war, Lewis founded the Institute of Psychiatry, adjacent and affiliated with the Maudsley in south London. By 1955, Eysenck was made full professor within an independent psychology department at the institute and remained there for the rest of his career. Eysenck took the individual differences approach pioneered by Spearman and Burt to a new level. He developed a distinctively programmic approach that began with his derivation of three key dimensions of personality: neuroticism, extraversion, and psychoticism. Much of Eysenck’s later research explored how these dimensional differences played out across a wide variety of areas. Eysenck also attempted to give his personality dimensions a neurobiological basis. Eysenck’s research legacy was assured by his huge output—at least eighty-five books and more than a thousand scientific papers, many highly cited. He also laid the blueprint for the development of clinical psychology in Britain, founded several journals and professional associations, and trained many students. Yet Eysenck was full of contradictions. He advocated a no-nonsense, empirical rigor, but his critics came to distrust the numbers he presented. He consistently lambasted psychoanalysis at the height of its mainstream influence but took fringe areas such as astrology, ESP, and parapsychology seriously. For much of his career, this quiet, introverted man was the public face of the discipline in Britain. Many of his books were geared to popular audiences. However, Eysenck’s late career interventions in the race and IQ debate and the smoking and health issue would cement his polarizing reputation as a fearless, if politically incorrect, controversialist.
Sexualities in Africa
Authors: Epprecht Marc
Published: March 2020

Human sexuality is a highly complex phenomenon that involves the ways we feel, think, and act (or not) sexually, all subject to change over time in relation to our physical bodies as they age, and to the political economy and culture in which we live and relate to others. Nature (genetics, hormones, physical endowments) interacts with nurture (childhood socialization, culture, law) in ways that are not predictable and indeed often only rudimentarily understood. Scholars thus often prefer the term “sexualities” to reflect the contingent and changeable plurality of human sexual behavior, and the ways in which sex is conceived in relation to the wider worlds, seen and unseen. Yet in Africa, political and religious leaders frequently assert or imply that “African sexuality,” as distinct from “Western sexuality” or “Arab sexuality,” exists as a distinctive, timeless, and singular phenomenon, often in ways that promote harmful stereotypes. “Homosexuality is un-African,” to give one notorious example, is a widely made claim that has been made to justify vigilantism and state repression against sexual minorities throughout the continent. Certain features of Africa’s modern political economy, in conjunction with inherited gender, ethnic, and other aspects of culture and identity, have meanwhile facilitated the emergence of seemingly distinctive expressions of sexuality on the continent, or among specific peoples from regions within. For instance, high levels of male migration together with low levels of male circumcision and a long-standing culture of having multiple concurrent sexual partners have combined to abet the spread of HIV in southern Africa to a far greater extent than elsewhere, particularly in contrast to Muslim-majority regions. Such distinctions bear important social, health, and human rights implications. The study of how local or regional sexual cultures within Africa arose can thus potentially address harms, like HIV transmission, that are linked to stigma, stereotypes, secrecy, and shame around sexuality. This essay introduces some of the key issues as revealed through a range of literatures primarily in the social sciences and humanities. The various headings chosen for this article are for convenience only—the works cited in most cases transcend easy categorization, much as sexuality itself transcends neat heuristic borders. Note as well that the number of studies devoted to the topic has exploded since the late 1990s to shed light on an ever-widening circle of factors pertinent to understanding sexualities (alcohol and drug use, pornography, asexuality, cults, and social media, for example). I have included a small number of references to material in French but there are bound to be further rich sources in Arabic, in indigenous African languages, and in other former colonial languages like Portuguese that await future research projects.
Latinos and Health Policy
Authors: Cabrera Rasmussen Amy
Published: March 2020

Latinos make up a large and growing segment of the US population, while also having lower rates of health insurance coverage than other racial and ethnic groups within the US context. The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and, in particular, the ACA’s Medicaid expansion significantly altered the policy terrain in practical and research terms. Estimates are that, as of 2017, as many as four million non-elderly Latinos gained insurance coverage who did not have it prior to the policy’s enactment. Yet Latinos remain least likely to be covered by private insurance, and many are ineligible for government health subsidies or programs due to their residence in states that did not participate in the expansion of Medicaid, as well as the status of a segment of this population that is undocumented. Such data also shows that Hispanic youth are more likely to lack coverage compared to their peers. Despite much discussion and debate about a Latino epidemiological paradox, there are also significant health inequities experienced among Latinos in regard to specific health issues, such as HIV diagnoses, being less likely to have a usual source of care, or living in a household that is food insecure. In addition, because the Latino population is heterogeneous in many ways, ranging from national origin, immigrant status, economics, educational attainment, and more, it is often difficult to speak in sweeping generalizations about Latinos’ views and experiences with health care and health policy. Race, ethnicity, and interlinked notions of deservingness figure prominently in contemporary debates about health reform measures. And Latinos, especially via the frequent conflation of Latinos with immigrants, have often taken center stage in these discussions among policymaking elites and the broader public alike. The intersections of these various factors mean that Latinos’ health and well-being are impacted significantly by health policy making: what happens in national health policy matters to the Latino community. Additionally, while Latinos live in every state in the nation, Latinos’ concentration in states such as California, Texas, New Mexico, New York, and Florida mean that state-level policy actions can also have a significant impact on coverage rates and outcomes. Health policy is also affected by Latinos: images and narratives of the Latino community, and especially its immigrant segments, can shape the broader health policy terrain. The materials in this bibliography tend toward the contemporary moment and recent publications; the reader will note that while a piece may be situated in one substantive category, many of the materials also have clear utility to several of the other substantive sections. I would like to acknowledge the substantial contributions to the project of Noelle A. Chin for her work assisting me in gathering the relevant research literature.