bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Nicht nur Slapstick: Stummfilme als unterschätzte Zeugen der Medizingeschichte
Authors: Henkel Dennis , Wijdicks Eelco M. , Karenberg Axel
Published: December 2020

Medicine in silent film has a long history. Although the silent era in cinema was dominated by burlesques (using escaped “lunatics”) a number of themes emerged after systematic review. The cinematic representation of medicine coincided with the discovery of X-rays. During this “roentgenomania”, short films were produced showing groundbreaking X-ray images, which fitted perfectly into needs of dramatic cinema. But soon the “cinema of narration” evolved: Starting just after the turn of the century, the short film “The Country Doctor” was able to address complex interplay between duties and limitations of the medical profession. This was followed by numerous feature films on infectious diseases, which often used tuberculosis as a centerpiece of its story. Directors often took advantage of the well-known stereotype of the omnipotent physician. But in certain medical fields, such as psychiatry or surgery, a more ambivalent figure of the doctor was portrayed, f. e. in “Hands of Orlac” (1924). Silent cinema also offered interesting ideas on the healing powers of the medium itself: in “The Mystery of the Kador Cliffs” (1912) a film screening could cure the patient of fears after reenactment. Finally, a closer look at the early era of film echoes how social conflicts where dramatized, especially in the case of nationwide birth control. How illegal abortion kept the society on its edge, was most clearly shown in the adaption of the scandalous play “Cyankali” (1930).

In addition to discussing various topics in the cinematic representation of medicine, this brief overview shows that silent movies were a new and true art form, representing an exceptional resource for historians of film and medicine.
Therapeutischer Ultraschall bei Krankheiten des Bewegungsapparats
Authors: Elster Aleksandra
Published: December 2020

Die Ultraschalltherapie, auch als Sonotherapie bekannt, gehört zu den häufig durchgeführten physikalischen Behandlungen in der Rehabilitation von Erkrankungen des Bewegungsapparats. Die Wirksamkeit und Sicherheit des Verfahrens hängt in erster Linie von einer optimal gewählten Dosierung und der richtigen Behandlungstechnik ab. Um dies zu gewährleisten, sind Kenntnisse über physikalische Eigenschaften und die Wirkung des Ultraschalls unabkömmlich.
Akuter Lymphstau beim Hund nach Kreuzbandoperation
Authors: Maier Tine , Schiffmann Christian
Published: December 2020

Chronische Lymphabflussstörungen sind in der Human- wie auch der Veterinärmedizin bekannte Krankheitsbilder. Deutlich seltener ist ein akuter Lymphstau, der bei Haustieren kaum einmal beschrieben wurde. Umso relevanter erscheint der nachfolgende Fallbericht eines akuten sekundären hochgradigen Lymphstaus bei einem Hund.
Neuromuskuläre Erkrankungen –Shivering beim Pferd
Authors: Börner Dr. Doris
Published: December 2020

Nicht selten wird Pferden im Reitsport eine Leistungsverweigerung unterstellt, die dann leider entsprechend korrigiert wird. Abgesehen von vielen anderen Ursachen, wie Schmerz oder Angst, könnte jedoch auch eine neurologische Problematik ursächlich für solches Verhalten sein. Aus Tierschutzgründen ist es darum umso wichtiger, Trainer und Pferdebesitzer unbedingt besser über diese Ursachen aufzuklären. Sie sollten bei kritischen Situationen in der Ausbildung in Erwägung ziehen, dass ihre Pferde die Leistung möglicherweise nicht verweigern, sondern aufgrund von Funktionsstörungen gar nicht erbringen können.
Rhythmus im Blut
Authors: d’Albert Yan
Published: December 2020

Rhythmusaktivitäten können das Leben, das Bewusstsein und die Gesundheit der praktizierenden Person positiv verändern. Die pädagogischen und therapeutischen Wirkungen von Rhythmusaktivitäten werden mittlerweile an Universitäten erforscht und in Kliniken gezielt eingesetzt. Zu den beliebten Rhythmusaktivitäten gehören Trommeln, Schlagzeugspielen, TaKeTina und Trommel-Fitness. Für den Einstieg eignen sich bestimmte Instrumente besonders.
Die Komplexität der Therapie bei CRPS – ein Fallbeispiel und Interview
Authors: Dopfer Barbara
Published: December 2020

„Ungeheilt ist nicht unheilbar.“ Dieses Zitat von Walter Ludin, einem Theologen, Journalisten und Autor aus der Schweiz, stellt Barbara Dopfer ihrem Artikel voran. Anhand eines Fallbeispiels aus der eigenen Praxis und eines Interviews gibt sie Einblicke in die Therapie von zwei Frauen, die an dem komplexen regionalen Schmerzsyndrom (CRPS) erkrankt sind. Beide setzen mit therapeutischer Unterstützung ihre ganze Energie ein, mit der Krankheit möglichst gut umzugehen. Die eine entdeckt dabei die italienische Sprache, die andere fokussiert sich darauf, ihrer Leidenschaft, dem Klettern, weiterhin nachzugehen. Vielleicht bedeutet dies dann Heilung – bestmögliches Leben mit oder trotz CRPS.
CRPS – ein Syndrom mit Forschungsbedarf
Authors: Allgöwer Kathrin
Published: December 2020

Mit den Budapester Diagnosekriterien ist zwar ein klares Diagnosewerkzeug für das komplexe regionale Schmerzsyndrom (CRPS) vorgegeben, aber welche Therapie welchen Patienten tatsächlich hilft, ist immer noch nicht vollständig erforscht. Wichtig scheint in jedem Fall zu sein, interdisziplinär zusammenzuarbeiten, um den Betroffenen die beste Therapie zu bieten.
Unterschiedliche Wirkung von COX- und COX-2-Hemmern auf die Weichteilheilung
Authors: Vielitz Arne
Published: December 2020

Ghosh N, Kolade OO, Shontz E et al. Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) and Their Effect on Musculoskeletal Soft-Tissue Healing: A Scoping Review. JBJS Rev 2019; 7: e4. doi:10.2106/JBJS.RVW.19.00055
10 Tests der motorischen Kontrolle bei Patienten mit Rückenschmerzen
Authors: Vielitz Arne
Published: December 2020

Biele C, Möller D, von Piekartz H et al. Validity of Increasing the Number of Motor Control Tests within a Test Battery for Discrimination of Low Back Pain Conditions in People Attending a Physiotherapy Clinic: a Case-Control Study. MJ Open 2019; 25: e032340. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2019-032340
Macrophage migration inhibitory factor modulates cytokine expression in the trophoblast cell line HTR-8/SVneo
Authors: Jovanović Krivokuća Milica , Stefanoska Ivana , Vilotić Aleksandra , Ćujić Danica , Vrzić Petronijević Svetlana , Vićovac Ljiljana
Published: December 2020

Extravillous trophoblasts are specific placental cells that invade the uterine stroma and spiral arteries modifying and adjusting them to pregnancy. Many pregnancy pathologies are associated with impairment of this process, including preeclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction, among others. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a pleiotropic cytokine that is abundant at the fetomaternal interface. Previous results from our group showed that MIF participates in trophoblast invasion and modulates the expression of molecules known to mediate stromal and endovascular trophoblast invasion. In this study we investigated the possibility that MIF could act as a regulator of cytokines known to modulate trophoblast invasion using the normal extravillous trophoblast-derived cell line HTR-8/SVneo. Expression of trophoblast MIF was attenuated by MIF mRNA-specific small interfering RNAs. Cytokine expression was assessed at the mRNA and protein levels using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction and flow cytometry respectively. Knockdown of MIF led to a significant decrease in mRNA for IL-1β (IL1B) and IL-8 (CXCL8) and interleukin (IL)-8 protein. The addition of recombinant human MIF to cell culture medium increased IL-6 after 24h treatment and IL-6 and IL-8 after 72h treatment. Cell viability was not affected by MIF silencing or rhMIF treatment. The results of this study imply that at least some of the effects of MIF on trophoblast invasion could be mediated through autocrine or paracrine modulation of trophoblast cytokine production.
The development of weak normativity in Solomon Islands Pijin
Authors: Jourdan Christine , Angeli Johanne
Published: December 2020

Pijin, the lingua franca of Solomon Islands, has acquired the functions of a creole in the capital city of Honiara. Yet, though Pijin is the common language of the urban culture of Honiara, it lacks linguistic legitimacy. Speakers of Pijin did not, until recently, consider it a true language in the same way that English and local vernaculars, with which it co-exists, are deemed to be. Specters of inauthenticity and illegitimacy were part of that assessment. In this paper, we consider that the nascent legitimacy ascribed to Pijin by some urban speakers is informed by the affirmation of their own legitimacy as a new socio-cultural group, that of the Pijin-speaking urbanite. This contributes to the complexification of the sociolinguistic scene. We show that while different ways of speaking Pijin are progressively becoming associated with various sociolinguistic groups and seem to constitute emergent social varieties, the question of a Pijin norm is also emerging.
Variable subject pronoun expression in Cabo-Verdean Creole
Authors: Rodríguez-Riccelli Adrián
Published: December 2020

The Cabo-Verdean Creole (CVC) subject domain has clitic and tonic pronouns that often amalgamate in double subject pronoun constructions; the possibility of a zero-subject and the formal category underlying subject clitics are disputed (Baptista 1995,2002;Pratas 2004). This article discusses five variable constraints that condition subject expression across three descriptive and inferential analyses of a corpus of speech collected from 33 speakers from Santiago and Maio. Double subject pronoun constructions and zero-subjects were promoted by a persistence effect, though for the former this applied across nonadjacent clauses since double subject pronoun constructions are switch reference and contrastive devices resembling the doubling of agreement suffixes by independent pronouns in languages traditionally classified aspro-drop. Zero-subjects were favored in third-person contexts as previously observed byBaptista and Bayer (2013), and when a semantically referentially deficient (Duarte & Soares da Silva 2016) DP antecedent was in an Intonational Unit that was prosodically and syntactically linked to the Intonational Unit containing the target anaphor (Torres Cacoullos & Travis 2019). Results support reclassification of CVC subject clitics as ambiguous person agreement markers (Siewierska 2004) and suggest that CVC is developing a split-paradigm for person marking and subject expression (Wratil 2009;Baptista & Bayer 2013).
The Dynamics of Retraction in Epistemic Networks
Authors: LaCroix Travis , Geil Anders , O’Connor Cailin
Published: December 2020

Sometimes retracted or refuted scientific information is used and propagated long after it is understood to be misleading. Likewise, retracted news items may spread and persist, despite being publicly established as false. In this article, we explore the dynamics of retraction using agent-based models of epistemic networks, to see why false beliefs might persist despite retraction. We find that, often, those who received false information simply fail to receive retractions because of social dynamics. Surprisingly, delaying retraction can increase its impact. Further, retractions are most successful when issued by the original source of misinformation, rather than a separate source.
Does location matter? Investigating the spatial and socio-economic drivers of residential energy use in Dar es Salaam
Authors: Luo Chibulu , Posen I Daniel , MacLean Heather L
Published: December 2020

Africa is set to become a key contributor to global energy demand. Urban growth and the energy use of city residents will drive much of the region’s changing energy picture. However, few studies have assessed residential energy use among African cities, and the heterogeneity in energy use at the sub-city scale. We use the case of Dar es Salaam, which is among Africa’s fastest-growing cities, and to our knowledge, present the first disaggregated estimates of residential energy use at the ward level. We show three main findings. First, we find a statistically significant difference in mean residential energy use among the surveyed wards, which group into four clusters representing distinct levels of household and transport-related energy use. These results show that mean residential energy use (the sum of household and transport-related energy use) is not always correlated with the socio-economic or spatial characteristics of wards—e.g. Msasani (high-income, formal ward) showed similar residential energy use as Keko (low-income, informal ward). Second, we show differences in energy use and fuel switching that occur between low-income and high-income wards: wood fuel (i.e. charcoal) is a majority contributor to residential energy use in low-income wards (Buguruni, Keko and Manzese), compared to gas, electricity and transport oils in high-income wards (Msasani and Kawe). Finally, regression models indicate that ward density has a statistically significant effect on transport-related energy use, while fuel stacking and proxies for household wealth have a statistically significant effect on household-related energy use. To conclude, we recommend that policymakers account for ward level differences in residential energy use when crafting energy sector strategies for Dar es Salaam (e.g. electrification, energy-efficient cooking, or public transportation initiatives). Policymakers may also anticipate possible convergence towards higher levels of energy use and a shift towards modern fuels, as wards develop socio-economically over time.
Exact first-passage time distributions for three random diffusivity models
Authors: Grebenkov Denis S , Sposini Vittoria , Metzler Ralf , Oshanin Gleb , Seno Flavio
Published: December 2020

We study the extremal properties of a stochastic process x

t
defined by a Langevin equation

x

̇

t

=

2

D

0

V

(

B

t

)

ξ

t

, where ξ

t
is a Gaussian white noise with zero mean, D
0 is a constant scale factor, and V(B

t
) is a stochastic ‘diffusivity’ (noise strength), which itself is a functional of independent Brownian motion B

t
. We derive exact, compact expressions in one and three dimensions for the probability density functions (PDFs) of the first passage time (FPT) t from a fixed location x
0 to the origin for three different realisations of the stochastic diffusivity: a cut-off case V(B

t
) = Θ(B

t
) (model I), where Θ(z) is the Heaviside theta function; a geometric Brownian motion V(B

t
) = exp(B

t
) (model II); and a case with

V

(

B

t

)

=

B

t

2

(model III). We realise that, rather surprisingly, the FPT PDF has exactly the Lévy–Smirnov form (specific for standard Brownian motion) for model II, which concurrently exhibits a strongly anomalous diffusion. For models I and III either the left or right tails (or both) have a different functional dependence on time as compared to the Lévy–Smirnov density. In all cases, the PDFs are broad such that already the first moment does not exist. Similar results are obtained in three dimensions for the FPT PDF to an absorbing spherical target.
An investigation on improving the homogeneity of plasma generated by linear microwave plasma source with a length of 1550 mm
Authors: ZHOU Jicheng , XU Wei , CHEN Techao
Published: December 2020

To develop a larger in-line plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) device, the length of the linear microwave plasma source needs to be increased to 1550 mm. This paper proposes a solution to the problem of plasma inhomogeneity caused by increasing device length. Based on the COMSOL Multiphysics, a multi-physics field coupling model for in-line PECVD device is developed and validated. The effects of microwave power, chamber pressure, and magnetic flux density on the plasma distribution are investigated, respectively, and their corresponding optimized values are obtained. This paper also presents a new strategy to optimize the wafer position to achieve the balance between deposition rate and film quality. Numerical results have indicated that increasing microwave power and magnetic flux density or decreasing chamber pressure all play positive roles in improving plasma homogeneity, and among them, the microwave power is the most decisive influencing factor. It is found that the plasma homogeneity is optimal under the condition of microwave power at 2000 W, chamber pressure at 15 Pa, and magnetic field strength at 45 mT. The relative deviation is within −3.7% to 3.9%, which fully satisfies the process requirements of the equipment. The best position for the wafer is 88 mm from the copper antenna. The results are very valuable for improving the quality of the in-line PECVD device.
Federalism and LGBT Politics and Policy in the United States
Authors: Taylor Jami K. , Haider-Markel Donald P. , Lewis Daniel C.
Published: December 2020

The LGBT policymaking process in the United States is fragmented and LGBT citizens face different policy contexts depending on which local government and state they reside in. With a lack of national consensus on LGBT rights and the country’s federal political system, which allows states to have substantial policymaking authority, policymakers have created a diverse and decentralized set of policies. Indeed, this governmental system significantly shapes the opportunity structure for the adoption of LGBT inclusive policy. It allows for remarkable LGBT rights advances in some states and localities, but little to no progress in others. States in the Northeast and on the West Coast tend to have more LGBT inclusive policies than those in the South or Midwest. In some instances, localities in states that lack inclusive policies engage in compensatory policymaking to provide added LGBT protections. However, the ability of localities to do this is shaped by state law concerning home rule authority and whether the state legislature has decided to proscribe such action. When trying to advance LGBT rights policy, advocates must venue-shop for favorable policymaking circumstances. Favorable circumstances commonly include institutional control by Democrats or municipalities with greater diversity, higher education levels, and more people engaged in management, business, science, and arts occupations. Opponents to LGBT rights are engaged in venue-shopping as well, but they normally hold the defensive advantage of maintaining the status quo. Both proponents and opponents of LGBT rights have used the court systems of states and the national government to shape LGBT rights related policy.
U.S. Military Service and LGBT Policy
Authors: Reilly Marissa , Hillman Elizabeth L. , Koltnow Elliot
Published: December 2020

Examining the evolution of U.S military policy reveals how debates about the rights and opportunities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people have been shaped by military personnel policies, federal laws, and cultural practices within military units. LGBT individuals have experienced U.S. military service through regulatory regimes that have often defined them as burdensome deviants and denied them civil rights enjoyed by other service members.

LGBT people have served as volunteers and conscripts, openly and in the closet. Key periods of U.S. military history for LGBT service include World War II, the Cold War, as well as the Vietnam War era, the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) regime (1994–2010), and the post-DADT period (2011 and beyond). During these periods of time, the armed forces and the United States reassessed the regulation of the service of LGBT service members and implemented changes that affected the rights, opportunities, and safety of LGBT military personnel and potential recruits. Those changes traced a path from outright exclusion of open service by LGBT persons to exemption, under which LGBT persons may serve under certain conditions, which often included the threat of expulsion, punishment, and extra-legal violence. In the post-DADT period, inclusion, or open service by some, but not all, LGBT groups, was made legal and safer through changes in law and military regulations and training that protected against some types of gender-identity and sexual orientation discrimination.

Because serving openly in the military is a sign of full citizenship in the United States as well as a means of achieving economic security, eliminating limits on LGBT military service has long been a focus of advocates for civil rights. Military service has been perceived as proving a citizen’s loyalty and patriotism as well as offering material and social advancement. With many LGBT people at greater risk of unemployment, homelessness, and premature death as a result of violence and social ostracism, military service has been an especially critical opportunity for political and economic advancement.

Honoring this history and identifying existing trends can help the United States, other nations, and international organizations to adapt their policies in recognition of gender and sexual diversity. Even when excluded by formal policy, people have found ways to serve, sometimes at great personal risk. Although their labor is officially lauded as an asset, their contributions and needs have not been fully recognized or appreciated by the state they pledged to serve. As the nation’s largest employer and provider of structural resources, the U.S. military’s support of LGBT military personnel and veterans matters greatly to social equity for a still-vulnerable LGBT population.
Woodrow Wilson and the Tradition of Dualism in Public Administration
Authors: Svara James
Published: December 2020

Woodrow Wilson’s early writings contributed to the emerging effort in the 1880s to redefine and reform the field of public administration and to clarify its relationship to elected officials. Wilson envisioned an active and independent administration that was accountable to elected officials for carrying out the policies they established. Administrators should display expertise and operate efficiently, yet they should be attuned to the views of the public and not seek to determine the content of public policy. Elected officials should stop intervening in determining the detailed decisions made by administrators. The central interpretation of Wilson’s views is that politics and policy, on the one hand, and administration, on the other, were not strictly divided in a dichotomous relationship. They were two distinct but interconnected parts of a duality. There was clear support for the view espoused by Wilson in the next half century and a recognition that administrators assisted elected officials in the formulation of policy. The view that the ideal relationship between elected officials and administrators was a dichotomy took hold, and some claimed that Wilson advocated this strict separation. Subsequent theorizing and empirical research by public administration scholars have clearly supported a dualistic view of the relationship and have recognized Wilson’s contribution to establishing a model for the field that would stress complementarity between elected officials and administrators, rather than dichotomy.
The Principal–Agent Approach and Public Administration
Authors: Lane Jan-Erik
Published: December 2020

In the years since Ross published the article “The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal’s Problem” in 1973, many publications have established the principal–agent framework as an interesting paradigm for the analysis of incentives in contracting, both short-term and long-term. The practice of public administration can be conceptualized from a principal–agent approach. New light can be shed on established arguments in the discipline of public administration by the key concepts of principal–agent interaction. In this context principal is used to describe the government responsible for legislation and policymaking in well-ordered societies, whereas the set of agents includes all organizations and people engaged in policy implementation: traditional departments, bureaus, public trading departments/public enterprises (using the vocabulary of New Public Management (NPM)), executive agencies, boards, quangos, and public joint stock corporations.
The United States: Politicians, Partisans, and Military Professionals
Authors: Feaver Peter , Coletta Damon
Published: December 2020

The United States boasts an enviable record regarding the military’s role in politics: never a coup and never a serious coup attempt. However, this does not mean that the military always played only a trivial role in politics. On the contrary, as the Framers worried, it is impossible for a democracy to maintain a military establishment powerful enough to protect it in a hostile international environment without at the same time creating an institution with sufficient clout to be a factor in domestic politics.

The U.S. military’s political role has ebbed and flowed over the nearly 250 years of the nation’s history. The high-water mark of political influence came in the context of the gravest threat the country has faced, the Civil War, when the military enforced emergency measures approved by Congress, beyond the letter of the Constitution, including during Reconstruction when the military governed rebellious states of the former Confederacy. These were notable exceptions. For most of the 19th century, the military operated on the fringes of civilian politics, although through the Army Corps of Engineers it played a key role in state-building.

When the United States emerged as a great power with global interests, the political role of the military increased, though never in a way to directly challenge civilian supremacy. Today, the military wields latent political influence in part because of its enormous fiscal footprint and in part because it is the national institution in which the public express the highest degree of confidence. This has opened the door for myriad forms of political action, all falling well below the red lines that most concern traditional civil–military relations theory.

Military involvement in the American political system may be monitored and evaluated using a typology built around two columns that highlight the means of military influence—the first column is comprised of formal rules and institutions and the second encompasses the norms of military behavior with respect to civilian authority and civil society. While traditional civil–military relations theory focuses on military coups and coup prevention, theory based on this typology can help explain American civil–military relations, illuminating the warning signs of unhealthy friction under democratic governance and promoting republican vigilance at those moments when the U.S. military takes a prominent role and wades more deeply into domestic politics.
India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh: Civil-Military Relations
Authors: Ganguly Sumit
Published: December 2020

Civil–military relations in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh constitute an interesting puzzle because all three nations are inheritors of the British colonial tradition of military subordination to civilian authority. The patterns that have emerged and evolved in these countries stand out in marked contrast to one another. In India, barring important and marked exceptions, the military has mostly remained away from politics and has, for the most part, been subordinate to civilian authority. In the early part of the 21st century, however, there have been some disturbing developments which call into question the political neutrality of the military. Yet it is unclear if these will lead to an erosion of the mostly apolitical ethos of the military. In Pakistan, in marked contrast, the military took part in four coups (1958, 1969, 1978, 1999), ruled the country for extensive periods of time and has secured a position in the country’s governing structure. Barring extraordinary endogenous or exogenous shocks, it is hard to envisage a dramatic change in the structure of civil–military relations in the country. In Bangladesh, the military led coups in 1975, 1982, and 2007. Even though it does not have a formal role in government, it nevertheless remains an important force in the politics of the country. No national leader can act on critical questions of public policy without taking into account the views of the uniformed military. More to the point, elements within the military have remained restive and have chafed at civilian control.

What explains the three divergent pathways in these countries despite their common colonial heritage? What are the salient features of civil–military relations in these states? How have India and Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons affected the scope and dimensions of their civil–military relations? What does the future hold for civil–military relations in all three states? These are the principal questions that will addressed be drawing on a substantial swath of extant literature.
Curriculum and Learning Environments
Authors: Fraser Barry J.
Published: December 2020

Various curriculum theorists and commentators have identified curriculum/instruction and the learning environment/milieu as two of the major codeterminants of students’ educational outcomes. Although learning environment is a somewhat subtle concept, considerable progress has been made over the past few decades in conceptualizing and assessing it and investigating its determinants and consequences. The learning environment is important in the curriculum field because a positive classroom environment is both a worthwhile end in its own right and a means to improved student outcomes. The field of learning environments has a rich diversity of valid and economical questionnaires that have been adapted and used in many countries. The world’s most-frequently used classroom climate questionnaire is the What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) which assesses students’ perceptions of student cohesiveness, teacher support, involvement, investigation, task orientation, cooperation and equity. Other specific-purpose instruments include the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory (SLEI), Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES) and Place-Based Learning and Constructivist Environment Survey (PLACES) for evaluating the unique learning environments of community-based and place-based environmental education programs. A major application of learning environment assessments is their use as criteria of effectiveness in evaluating educational programs/curricula and instructional methods/alternatives. These studies reveal that traditional curricula could be distinguished from new curricula in terms of students’ classroom environment perceptions when outcome measures cannot. Although much research has been undertaken on educational environments, less effort has been focused on helping teachers to improve the climates of their schools and classrooms. A simple approach for improving environments based on using climate surveys involves identifying and reducing discrepancies between students’ actual and preferred perceptions. Teachers who have administered these questionnaires as part of their action research typically have found that assessments of their students’ perceptions of classroom environment provide useful bases for reflection, discussion and classroom improvement.
From Curriculum Theory to Theorizing
Authors: Huddleston Gabriel , Helfenbein Robert
Published: December 2020

Curriculum theory is shaped and held within the larger field of curriculum studies, but its distinctive focus on understanding curriculum as opposed to developing it places it is stark contrast with other parts of the larger field. This focus is further distinctive when curriculum theory shifts to curriculum theorizing. Curriculum theorizing emerged in the United States, principally at Bergamo conferences and precursor conferences, in the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (JCT), and through scholars associated with the reconceptualization. It has spread internationally via the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies and its subsidiaries in many different countries and cultures. Some scholars hold that curriculum theory includes curriculum theorizing as well as normative and analytic conceptualizations that justify or explain curriculum decisions and actions. Curriculum theorizing attempts to read broadly in social theory so as to embody those insights in dealing with issues of curriculum, and can take philosophical, sociological, psychological, historical, or cultural studies approaches to analyses, interpretations, criticisms, and improvements. This approach has built upon what has become known as the reconceptualization, which began in the late 1970s and continues into the early 21st century. Increasingly, the field has taken up analysis of contemporary education policy and sociopolitical contexts as an outgrowth of its work. Issues of race, gender, class, sexuality, and dis/ability, and the ways in which their intersectionality impact the lived experience of schools, continue to motivate and direct the field of curriculum studies. In so doing, criticism, analysis, interpretation, and expansion of such issues have moved the focus of curriculum theorizing to include any aspects of social and psychological life that educate or shape the ways human beings reflect upon or interact with the world.
Community Organizing as Curriculum and for Curriculum Critique and Reform
Authors: Huckaby M. Francyne
Published: December 2020

The article explores the connections and contradictions between community organizing and curriculum. Huckaby distinguishes coordinated habits that move a. populace in a particular direction from community organizing that is intentional collective work that is corrective in nature as it aims to advance freedom, rectify injustices, and amend inequalities. Community organizing also functions to expose and reveal the oppressive structures and processed bolstered by hidden curricula that implicitly inform individual actions and practices enacted by people en masse. Community organizing builds movements that are collective in nature, taking into consideration the wisdom and experiences of the community without imposing a prescribed solution or agenda to the issues. This piece specifically attends to grassroots community organizing around neoliberal impositions on education. To disrupt, resist, and refuse neoliberal policies, laws, and structures that further marginalize individuals, grassroots efforts must go beyond networking. Huckaby turns Haraway’s cyborg theory to understand the necessity of weaving, rather than simply networking, to create and sustain solidarity that binds different kinds of things, moving in different directions together. Weaving makes for transformation through connection, affinity, coalition, and political kinship. This process, a process toward not only transformation but also toward freedom offers reciprocal, yet unguaranteed benefits for individuals and the world. As individuals work in groups to better understand their needs, the world, too, has an opportunity to learn. While community organizing as curriculum may not solve all the problems of the world, it acts as a robust vehicle for collective steps toward various types of freedom as individuals demand rights for themselves and others. This text offers examples and forms of community and grassroots organizing including testimonies, teachers’ strike, #hashtags, and teach-ins conceptualized via participatory democracy, critical pedagogy, Kaupapa Maori research, cyborg weaving, freedom from, and freedom for. Community organizing as curriculum and for curriculum critique and reform has a corrective purpose that reveals injustices and seeks to unravel inequalities, while weaving relations that create and sustain solidarity and conjoined liberation.
Preparing the Dutch Educational System for the 21st Century
Authors: van Veen Klaas , Bloemert Jasmijn , Wolthuis Fenna
Published: December 2020

Educational reforms in the Netherlands have a strong ideological nature. The main reason is that the quality of the educational system is generally high. Due to the ideological nature of educational reforms, teachers and schools are often not involved in the design of the reforms, which constitutes the central cause of reforms failing. The current reform regarding preparing the Dutch educational system for the 21st century also has ideological features, although attempts were made to involve teachers and schools to a large extent, making it more promising to succeed.
Educational Leadership, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Swedish School
Authors: Hjörne Eva , Säljö Roger
Published: December 2020

In the early 21st century, school leaders play an important role—mediating between political ambitions and policies on the one hand and local conditions in schools and classrooms on the other. Mediating between general policies and local needs and constraints becomes increasingly challenging in diverse and complex societies. One interesting element of this dilemma is how to handle the balance between inclusion and segregation of children who have difficulties following mainstream teaching. In such cases, educational policies have to be interpreted in the context of the needs and prospects of specific individuals; that is, school leaders have to close the gap between the general (policy) and the specific (students and their capacities). When engaging in such decisions, school leaders as mediators rely on categories that characterize students and their abilities. In recent decades, neuropsychiatric categories, especially attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and attention deficit disorder (ADD), have played an increasingly prominent role when such decisions are made, and this is an international phenomenon. An interesting set of problems that has not been the focus of much research is how school leaders perceive such dilemmas of deciding on the educational futures of children. In addition, we know little about what happens when children, after being diagnosed with ADHD, are placed in special educational groups. Important issues at this level concern what the teaching and learning situation they encounter is like, and what the likelihood is that participation in such special educational groups will improve their opportunities for the future. In other words, what are the gains and losses of such placements for students, and does the placement in a special educational group contribute to a successful educational career? Swedish school leaders emphasize the dilemmas they perceive in such high-stakes situations when the diagnosis ADHD is invoked as the main explanation for learning difficulties, since the most frequent outcome is segregation and placement in a special teaching group. In addition, research shows that the instructional strategies dominating these segregated settings are highly individualized forms of teaching, where often one teacher is instructing one student. Despite this arrangement, it is found that the students do not actively contribute to the instructional activities and dialogues; rather, it is the teacher who dominates the instruction. The question raised is whether exposure to such special educational practices will prepare children for a return to their regular classroom. If this is not the case, the dilemma is that the educational solution offered risks being counterproductive in the sense that the student will be even further away from reintegration into mainstream classrooms.
The History of Gabon
Authors: Yates Douglas A.
Published: December 2020

Primeval rainforest at the Equator on the west coast of Africa, the land we know as Gabon, was settled prehistorically by Pygmies during the late Stone Age, and then by Bantu-speaking migrants during the Iron Age. These culturally diverse peoples did not develop a common language or political system with one another until after their violent conquest by Europeans during the colonial era. The Age of Discovery in the 15th century brought European explorers to the coast. The Atlantic triangle trade, with its slave barracoons and entrepôts, transformed some African communities along the coast into centralized kingdoms, and turned other clan-based societies of the forested interior into hunted peoples suspicious of any and all outsiders, European or African. The Scramble for Africa brought military expeditions into Gabon in the 19th century, when French colonial rule was established. Colonialism bestowed on the ethnic groups of Gabon a protonational identity of being “Gabonese,” although this nationalist impulse was muted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by the effort of French authorities and missionaries to assimilate black Africans into France’s culture and civilization. Unassimilated colonial subjects in the interior of the newly conquered territory violently resisted French colonial rule until the world wars, by which time the assimilation project had sufficiently fashioned a new coastal French-educated Gabonese elite. The two world wars weakened France and led these assimilated elites to a call for political reforms, at first taking the form of mono-ethnic-based political parties, but eventually coalescing around multiethnic coalitions, largely francophone in outlook, while retaining many elements of older precolonial identities. Independence in 1960 brought to power three authoritarian rulers—Léon Mba, Omar Bongo, and Ali Bongo—as well as consolidation of an oil-rentier state and an oxymoronic dynastic republic. “Gabonese” national identity emerged, an imagined community constructed out of African music, literature, and art, yet incorporating French as its lingua franca.
Portugal’s Resistance to Decolonization and the “White Redoubt” (1950–1974)
Authors: Barroso Luís
Published: December 2020

Portugal’s resistance to decolonization lasted from the mid-1950s until the fall of the regime in April 1974, and it helps to explain why Portugal fought thirteen years of war in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea. Contrary to other colonial powers, the Portuguese rulers were not willing to accept the winds of change nor to meet the demands for the self-determination of its overseas territories that had swept Africa and Asia from the early 1950s. Several factors can explain the inflexibility of Lisbon to accept them, ranging from the ideological nature of the New State; from the strategic context of the Cold War due to the importance of the Azores islands for the United States and NATO; or from Portugal’s alliance with Great Britain. When the war broke out in Angola, and the Indian Union seized the “Portuguese India” territories in 1961, prime-minister Salazar did not receive the political support he expected from Washington and London as traditional allies.

In early 1962, Salazar decided to strengthen relations with South Africa and Rhodesia in an attempt to maintain white rule in its overseas territories amidst a drive for independence by African nationalists, so-called “white redoubt,” that was the terminology used by the Kennedy administration to refer to the set of African countries and territories dominated by white minority governments: Angola, Mozambique, Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Strengthened ties would aid his strategy to keep the war effort in Africa by taking advantage of the importance of Angola and Mozambique to the security of South Africa. In 1964, Salazar encouraged Ian Smith to unilaterally declare independence from Great Britain to link Angola and Mozambique to the Southern Africa Security Complex led by South Africa, despite widespread criticism of the apartheid in the United Nations (UN). Concurrently, Lisbon tried to seduce Hastings Banda and Kenneth Kaunda in expelling the liberation movements from Malawi and Zambia in exchange for granting transit facilities to ease the international pressure with regards to its colonial policy.

Following several years of military collaboration, in October 1970, Portugal, South Africa, and Rhodesia established a military alliance codenamed “Exercise ALCORA,” which aimed to coordinate the global efforts against the insurgency in Southern Africa. Portugal used the ALCORA to obtain substantial aid in the form of military equipment and financial support, which Portugal needed to keep the war effort in the three African territories. In early 1974, Caetano channeled the South African loan to prevent a significant setback in Guinea, because if it were lost, Mozambique and Angola would follow, and consequently the regime.
Customary International Law
Authors: Barrett Kathleen
Published: December 2020

Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice lists “international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law” as the second source of law to be used by the Court. In other words, customary international law (CIL) requires state practice and opinio juris, the belief that the practice is legally required. A basic principle of international law is that sovereign states must consent to be bound by international legal requirements. Therefore, for a norm to become CIL, a widespread group of states must consistently follow the norm and indicate, either explicitly or implicitly, that they consent to the norm. Consistent action is important in two ways: consistent state practice following the norm indicates state consent to be bound by the norm and consistent objection to the norm indicates that the state does not consent to the norm. To avoid being bound by a rule of CIL, a state must persistently object to the rule during and after its formation. Changing CIL requires new state practice and evidence that opinio juris supports the new, not the old, state practice. Debates surrounding state practice include the number of states required to demonstrate “widespread” action, whether the states must be representative of the community of states, and how long consistent practice must occur before CIL is formed. Opinio juris is debated because it is subjective unless there is a specific, official statement that there is a belief that the practice is legally required.

Once a state consents, implicitly or explicitly, to a CIL rule, it cannot withdraw that consent. States that gain independence after a CIL rule is established are bound by that rule if the former government was not a persistent objector. This is problematic, particularly for former colonies that were not able to object during the formation of existing CIL rules because they were not considered “sovereign states.” Scholars supporting this perspective argue that, prior to decolonization, CIL was used to control the colonies and, since their independence, it is used by the colonizers to maintain their power and perpetuate inequality.
Finite Verb Morphology in the Romance Languages
Authors: Esher Louise , Floricic Franck , Maiden Martin
Published: December 2020

The term finite morphology corresponds to the morphological expression of person and number and of tense, mood, and aspect in the verb. In Romance languages, these features are typically expressed “synthetically,” that is, in single word forms. These latter generally comprise a ‘root’, usually leftmost in the word, which conveys the lexical meaning of the verb, and material to the right of the root which conveys most of the grammatical meaning. But lexical and grammatical information is also characteristically ‘compressed’, or ‘conflated’ within the word, in that it can be impossible to tease apart exponents of the grammatical meanings or to extricate the expression of lexical meaning from that of grammatical meaning.

The range of grammatical meanings encoded in Romance finite verb forms can vary considerably cross-linguistically. At the extremes, there are languages that have three tenses of the subjunctive, and others that have no synthetic future-tense form, and others that have two future-tense forms or no (synthetic) past-tense forms. There can also be extreme mismatches between meanings and the forms that express them: again, at the extremes, meanings may be present without formal expression, or forms may appear which correspond to no coherent meaning.

Both for desinences and for patterns of root allomorphy, variation is observed with respect to the features expressed and their morphological exponence. While some categories of Latin finite synthetic verb morphology have been entirely lost, many forms are continued, with or without functional continuity. An innovation of many Romance varieties is the emergence of a new synthetic future and conditional from a periphrasis originally expressing deontic modality.