bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Effect of cassava-banana flour composition and soy protein isolate addition on bread quality and antioxidant properties of gluten-free bread
Authors: Rachman A. , kie S. , Brennan M. A. , Brennan C. S.
Published: October 2023

The effect of cassava-banana flour formulation and soy protein isolate (SPI) addition on gluten-free bread quality and antioxidant properties has been studied. The gluten-free flour composition was 25:75, 50:50, and 75:25 for cassava & banana flour with SPI levels ranged 0, 2.5, 5.0, and 7.5%. Wheat bread was used as control. Different gluten-free flour formulations and SPI addition affected the quality of gluten-free bread (height, specific volume, hardness, springiness, cohesiveness, and resilience) significantly. Banana flour gave a better specific volume compared to cassava flour, and the addition of SPI also increased the height and specific volume of gluten-free bread. Total phenolic content (TPC) and antioxidant activities (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2-Azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS)) of gluten-free bread were altered by the type of flour composition and SPI addition. Banana flour composition increased TPC & antioxidant capacities. The SPI inclusion on the gluten-free bread also increased TPC and antioxidant activities. The highest DPPH and ABTS content were achieved from 25:75 cassava: banana flour with 5% and 0 % SPI addition (3.25 and 3.16 μmol Trolox equivalent (TE) respectively). These values were higher than the wheat bread control (2.04, and 2.92 μmol TE/100 g, respectively). It can be inferred that banana flour and SPI inclusion in the gluten-free bread gave a better gluten-free bread quality and enhanced antioxidant capacities.
Addition of various prebiotic sources on intestinal bacteria and growth performance of broiler given microparticle protein composed-diet
Authors: Suthama N , Sukamto B , Krismiyanto L
Published: October 2023

The research objective was to determine how the feeding diet made of microparticle protein combined with prebiotic sources affected broilers’ intestinal bacteria and growth performance. Micronized fish meals and soybean meals were produced. Inulin, glucomannan, and soybean oligosaccharide were obtained from extracts of the dahlia tuber (DTE), porang tuber (PTE), and soybean meal (SME), respectively. A completely randomized design with four treatments (D1: 21% intact protein (control), D2: 18% microparticle protein + 1.2% DTE, D3: 18% microparticle protein + 0.3% PTE, and D4: 18% microparticle protein + 0.2% SME) and six replication (8 birds each) was assigned. Protein digestibility, H/L ratio, growth performance, lactic acid bacteria (LAB), E. coli, and other variables were exposed to ANOVA and the Duncan test with a 5% probability. Except for FCR, all parameters were substantially (p0.05) higher when prebiotic sources were included in the diet compared to the control group (D1). However, D3‘s LAB population and H/L ratio were the same compared to other treatments, and feed consumption was the same across all treatments. Supplementing a diet with microparticle protein with inulin from dahlia tubers and soy-oligosaccharide of soybean meal extracts improves growth performance, which is supported by an increase in LAB population and more easily digestible protein with a lower H/L ratio
The Cholesterol Properties of Indonesian Ruminant By-Product
Authors: Susanto E , Fadlilah A , Amin M F , Wahyuni  , Sutanto E , Handayani I M , Sholikha R , Khasanah N , Yolanda G F , Nasikin A D
Published: October 2023

Products of the Ongole Crossbreed Cattle (OCC) and the Kacang Goat (KG). The research materials used consisted of red offal (RO), white offal (WO), and dark offal (DO). Through laboratory analysis using random purposive sampling and quantitative descriptively analyzed data, the cholesterol content of Indonesian ruminant by-products of OCC and KG was found to be relatively low. This discovery means that these by-products have the potential to be processed into high-quality livestock products. The results showed that the cholesterol content of OCC and KG was relatively low, with the mean cholesterol content of male and female OCC and KG ranging from 21.127 mg/100 g to 235.374 mg/100 g. These findings suggest that Indonesian ruminant by-products of OCC and KG could be developed further into livestock products. The studies decided the LDL cholesterol houses of Indonesian Ruminant By-Products of the Ongole Crossbreed Cattle (OCC) and the Kacang Goat (KG) intensively rearing in Lamongan District, Indonesia. The studies substances had been purple offal (RO), along with the liver, kidney, heart, tongue, trachea, lung, and spleen); white offal (WO) along with rumen, reticulum, omasum, abomasum, duodenum, jejunum, ileum, and colon), and dark offal (DO) turned into head pores and skin of male and lady OCC and KG. The studies method used laboratory evaluation with random purposive sampling. The statistics had been analyzed the use of quantitative descriptively. The consequences confirmed the suggest of male LDL cholesterol OCC turned into RO of one hundred.513±11.314, WO of 97.586±31.078, and DO turned into 70.423 mg/one hundred g. The suggest of lady LDL cholesterol OCC turned into RO of 95.573±43.193, WO of 116.197±9.707, and DO of 21.127 mg/one hundred g. The suggest of lady LDL cholesterol KG turned into RO of 109.658±26.925, WO of 119.718±8.131, and DO turned into 77.465 mg/one hundred g. The suggest of male ldl cholesterol KG turned into RO of 235.374±130.960, WO of 194.558±94.837, and DO of 57.143 mg/one hundred g. The LDL cholesterol content material of Indonesian ruminant by-merchandise of OCC and KG turned into fairly low and will be processed into the improvement cattle product.
Fermentability and Digestibility of Dairy Cattle Ration Containing Corn-NFC, Protected Soybean and Sulfur Supplementation
Authors: Pambudi F R , Rosmalia A , Permana I G , Despal
Published: October 2023

Protein is an essential nutrient for dairy cattle in order for them to produce milk. Ruminant protein value can be maximized by feeding autoclave-protected soybeans, non-fiber carbohydrate (NFC) from corn, and sulfur supplementation. The purpose of this study was to see how protected soybean protein, NFC corn, and Na2SO4 supplementation affected the fermentability and digestibility of dairy cattle rations. This study used a randomized block design with five treatments: rations without corn and soybeans (R1), rations with corn but no soybeans (R2), rations with corn and soybeans (R3), rations with corn and autoclave-protected soybeans (R4), and rations with corn, autoclave-protected soybeans, and sulfur supplementation (R5) (R5). As replications, the treatments were repeated four times. The ANOVA was used to analyze the data, which was then followed by an orthogonal contrast test. The treatment had no effect on pH, protozoal number, dry matter, or organic matter digestibility. Although treatment R3 produced significantly more ammonia (P0,05) than R4 and R5, R5 produced the most VFA and total bacteria. It can be concluded that rations containing protected soybean and corn as NFC sources, as well as sulfur supplementation, increase fermentability while decreasing in vitro digestibility.
Digestive Tract Development of Crossbreed Native Chickens due to Effect of Terminalia catappa Leaf (T. catappa L) Extract in Drinking Water
Authors: Suprijatna E , Ma’rifah B , Mahfudz L D , Sunarti D , Kismiati S , Sarjana T A , Muryani R
Published: October 2023

The purpose of the current study was to clarify the impact of drinking water extract from Terminalia catappa leaves on the development of the native chicken crossbreeds’ digestive systems. The study was set up with 4 treatments and 4 replications in a properly randomized design (5 bird for each replication). Water without Terminalia catappa leaf extract (T0), water with 3% of Terminalia catappa leaf extract for three days per week (T1), water with 3% of Terminalia catappa leaf extract for five days per week (T2), and water with 3% of Terminalia catappa extract for seven days per week (T3) were the study’s treatments (T3). Parameters observed are relative weight of digestive organs, length of digestive organs, and weight to length ratio of digestive organs. Results show that Terminalia catappa leaf extract in drinking water showed a significant effect in weight to length ratio of duodenum but had no effect in the other digestive organ. The use of Terminalia catappa leaf extract have a potensial effect to maintance digestive tract development.
LHC hadronic jet generation using convolutional variational autoencoders with normalizing flows
Authors: Orzari Breno , Chernyavskaya Nadezda , Cobe Raphael , Duarte Javier , Fialho Jefferson , Gunopulos Dimitrios , Kansal Raghav , Pierini Maurizio , Tomei Thiago , Touranakou Mary
Published: October 2023

In high energy physics, one of the most important processes for collider data analysis is the comparison of collected and simulated data. Nowadays the state-of-the-art for data generation is in the form of Monte Carlo (MC) generators. However, because of the upcoming high-luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), there will not be enough computational power or time to match the amount of needed simulated data using MC methods. An alternative approach under study is the usage of machine learning generative methods to fulfill that task. Since the most common final-state objects of high-energy proton collisions are hadronic jets, which are collections of particles collimated in a given region of space, this work aims to develop a convolutional variational autoencoder (ConVAE) for the generation of particle-based LHC hadronic jets. Given the ConVAE’s limitations, a normalizing flow (NF) network is coupled to it in a two-step training process, which shows improvements on the results for the generated jets. The ConVAE+NF network is capable of generating a jet in

18.30
±
0.04

μ
s

, making it one of the fastest methods for this task up to now.
Allele detection using k-mer-based sequencing error profiles
Authors: Ashraf Hufsah , Ebler Jana , Marschall Tobias
Published: October 2023

Motivation

For genotype and haplotype inference, typically, sequencing reads aligned to a reference genome are used. The alignments identify the genomic origin of the reads and help to infer the absence or presence of sequence variants in the genome. Since long sequencing reads often come with high rates of systematic sequencing errors, single nucleotides in the reads are not always correctly aligned to the reference genome, which can thus lead to wrong conclusions about the allele carried by a sequencing read at the variant site. Thus, allele detection is not a trivial task, especially for single-nucleotide polymorphisms and indels.

Results

To learn the characteristics of sequencing errors, we introduce a method to create an error model in non-variant regions of the genome. This information is later used to distinguish sequencing errors from alternative alleles in variant regions. We show that our method, k-merald, improves allele detection accuracy leading to better genotyping performance as compared to the existing WhatsHap implementation using edit-distance-based allele detection, with a decrease of 18% and 24% in error rate for high-coverage Oxford Nanopore and PacBio CLR sequencing reads for sample HG002, respectively. We additionally observed a prominent improvement in genotyping performance for sequencing data with low coverage. For 3× coverage Oxford Nanopore sequencing data, the genotyping error rate reduced from 34% to 31%, corresponding to a 9% decrease.

Availability and implementation

https://github.com/whatshap/whatshap.
Multiple sequence alignment based on deep reinforcement learning with self-attention and positional encoding
Authors: Liu Yuhang , Yuan Hao , Zhang Qiang , Wang Zixuan , Xiong Shuwen , Wen Naifeng , Zhang Yongqing
Published: October 2023

Motivation

Multiple sequence alignment (MSA) is one of the hotspots of current research and is commonly used in sequence analysis scenarios. However, there is no lasting solution for MSA because it is a Nondeterministic Polynomially complete problem, and the existing methods still have room to improve the accuracy.

Results

We propose Deep reinforcement learning with Positional encoding and self-Attention for MSA, based on deep reinforcement learning, to enhance the accuracy of the alignment Specifically, inspired by the translation technique in natural language processing, we introduce self-attention and positional encoding to improve accuracy and reliability. Firstly, positional encoding encodes the position of the sequence to prevent the loss of nucleotide position information. Secondly, the self-attention model is used to extract the key features of the sequence. Then input the features into a multi-layer perceptron, which can calculate the insertion position of the gap according to the features. In addition, a novel reinforcement learning environment is designed to convert the classic progressive alignment into progressive column alignment, gradually generating each column’s sub-alignment. Finally, merge the sub-alignment into the complete alignment. Extensive experiments based on several datasets validate our method’s effectiveness for MSA, outperforming some state-of-the-art methods in terms of the Sum-of-pairs and Column scores.

Availability and implementation

The process is implemented in Python and available as open-source software from https://github.com/ZhangLab312/DPAMSA.
Privacy-preserving federated genome-wide association studies via dynamic sampling
Authors: Wang Xinyue , Dervishi Leonard , Li Wentao , Ayday Erman , Jiang Xiaoqian , Vaidya Jaideep
Published: October 2023

Motivation

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) benefit from the increasing availability of genomic data and cross-institution collaborations. However, sharing data across institutional boundaries jeopardizes medical data confidentiality and patient privacy. While modern cryptographic techniques provide formal secure guarantees, the substantial communication and computational overheads hinder the practical application of large-scale collaborative GWAS.

Results

This work introduces an efficient framework for conducting collaborative GWAS on distributed datasets, maintaining data privacy without compromising the accuracy of the results. We propose a novel two-step strategy aimed at reducing communication and computational overheads, and we employ iterative and sampling techniques to ensure accurate results. We instantiate our approach using logistic regression, a commonly used statistical method for identifying associations between genetic markers and the phenotype of interest. We evaluate our proposed methods using two real genomic datasets and demonstrate their robustness in the presence of between-study heterogeneity and skewed phenotype distributions using a variety of experimental settings. The empirical results show the efficiency and applicability of the proposed method and the promise for its application for large-scale collaborative GWAS.

Availability and implementation

The source code and data are available at https://github.com/amioamo/TDS.
Coastal dwarf variants of the red swamp Banksia (Proteaceae) represent parallel ecotypic evolution rather than a divergent evolutionary lineage of single origin
Authors: Robins Timothy P , Binks Rachel M , Byrne Margaret , Hopper Stephen D
Published: October 2023

Morphological variation is common within widely distributed plant species and often raises interesting taxonomic and evolutionary questions. We sampled eight typical inland populations and two coastal dwarf populations of Banksia occidentalis to assess whether the coastal variant warrants taxonomic recognition. Genomic (single nucleotide polymorphisms) and morphometric analyses were undertaken to assess the variation within and between variants. Genetically, the coastal populations were more closely related to geographically adjacent populations of the typical variant than they were to each other, indicating that each coastal population has originated independently. Morphologically, the coastal populations also did not represent a cohesive phenotypic group, with both falling outside the range of variation for the typical variant, but also not overlapping each other. Wide morphological, but not genomic, variation was identified along a coastal–inland transect. Combined, these data indicate that the morphological variation in these coastal populations is the result of parallel ecotype evolution from experiencing similar environmental conditions and does not represent the diversification of a distinct evolutionary lineage that would have warranted taxonomic recognition. Our study highlights the consequences of strong selection pressures in marginal environments and provides fascinating insight to the long evolutionary history of the flora in this ancient Australian landscape.
Altered histone abundance as a mode of ovotoxicity during 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene exposure with additive influence of obesity
Authors: Rishi Jaspreet K , Timme Kelsey , White Hunter E , Kerns Karl C , Keating Aileen F
Published: October 2023

Histones are slowly evolving chromatin components and chromatin remodeling can incorporate histone variants differing from canonical histones as an epigenetic modification. Several identified histone variants are involved with the environmental stress-induced DNA damage response (DDR). Mechanisms of DDR in transcriptionally inactive, prophase-arrested oocytes and epigenetic regulation are under-explored in ovarian toxicology. The study objective was to identify ovarian proteomic and histone modifications induced by DMBA exposure and an influence of obesity. Post-pubertal wildtype (KK.Cg-a/a; lean) and agouti (KK.Cg-Ay/J; obese) female mice, were exposed to either corn oil (control; CT) or DMBA (1 mg/kg) for 7d via intraperitoneal injection (n = 10/treatment). Ovarian proteome analysis (LC-MS/MS) determined that obesity altered 225 proteins (P < 0.05) with histone 3 being the second least abundant (FC = −5.98, P < 0.05). Histone 4 decreased by 3.33-fold, histone variant H3.3 decreased by 3.05-fold, and H1.2, H1.4 and H1.1(alpha) variants increased by 1.59, 1.90 and 2.01-fold, respectively (P < 0.05). DMBA exposure altered 48 proteins in lean mice with no observed alterations in histones or histone variants. In obese mice, DMBA exposure altered 120 proteins and histone 2B abundance increased by 0.30-fold (P < 0.05). In DMBA-exposed mice, obesity altered the abundance of 634 proteins. Histones 4, 3 and 2A type 1-F decreased by 4.03, 3.71, 0.43-fold, respectively, whereas histone variant H1.2 and linker histone, H15 increased by 2.72- and 3.07-fold, respectively (P < 0.05). Thus, DMBA exposure alters histones and histone variants, and responsivity is more pronounced during obesity, potentially altering ovarian transcriptional regulation.
Left behind places in Brazil: the dynamics of regional inequalities and public policies in the early 21st century
Authors: Martins Humberto
Published: October 2023

This article aims to discuss left behind places in Brazil in the early 21st century. We conceptually debate the left behind places’ approach in dialogue with other contemporary theoretical perspectives. To evaluate regional inequalities in Brazil, we used the coefficient of variation, calculated at two different scales from 2002 to 2019 for GDP per capita, also considering social indicators. The results indicated a slow decline in regional inequalities. We debate the role of recently implemented public policies in this process, as well as the potentiality of these policies to identify left behind places and deal with them.
Analysis of Clinical Trial Screen Failures in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases [IBD]: Real World Results from the International Organization for the study of IBD
Authors: Vieujean Sophie , Lindsay James O , D’Amico Ferdinando , Ahuja Vineet , Silverberg Mark S , Sood Ajit , Yamamoto-Furusho Jesus K , Nagahori Masakazu , Watanabe Mamoru , Koutroubakis Ioannis E , Foteinogiannopoulou Kalliopi , Avni Biron Irit , Walsh Alissa , Outtier An , Nordestgaard Rie Louise Møller , Abreu Maria T , Dubinsky Marla , Siegel Corey , Louis Edouard , Dotan Iris , Reinisch Walter , Danese Silvio , Rubin David T , Peyrin-Biroulet Laurent
Published: October 2023

Background

Recruitment for randomized controlled trials [RCTs] in inflammatory bowel diseases [IBD] has substantially dropped over time. This study aimed to assess reasons why IBD patients are not included in sponsored multicentre phase IIb–III RCTs.

Methods

All IOIBD members [n = 58] were invited to participate. We divided barriers to participation as follows: [1] reasons patients with active IBD were not deemed appropriate for an RCT; [2] reasons qualified patients did not wish to participate; and [3] reasons for screen failure [SF] in patients agreeing to participate. We assess these in a 4-week prospective study including, consecutively, all patients with symptomatic disease for whom a treatment change was required. In addition, we performed a 6-month retrospective study to further evaluate reasons for SF.

Results

A total of 106 patients (60 male [56.6%], 63 Crohn’s disease [CD] [59.4%]), from ten centres across the world, were included in the prospective study. An RCT has not been proposed to 65 of them [mainly due to eligibility criteria]. Of the 41 patients to whom an RCT was offered, eight refused [mainly due to reluctance to receive placebo] and 28 agreed to participate. Among these 28 patients, five failed their screening and 23 were finally included in an RCT. A total of 107 patients (61 male [57%], 67 CD [62.6%]), from 13 centres worldwide, were included in our retrospective study of SFs. The main reason was insufficient disease activity.

Conclusion

This first multicentre study analysing reasons for non-enrolment in IBD RCTs shows that we lose patients at each step. Eligibility criteria, the risk of placebo assignment, and insufficient disease activity were part of the main barriers.
A comparison of excess deaths by UK country and region during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic
Authors: Hopper Neil A , Campbell Annie , Roberts Cath , Ramsay Julie , IJpelaar Jos , Glickman Myer , Nafilyan Vahé , Islam Nazrul
Published: October 2023

We compare the impact of the first two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic on risk of age-standardized mortality by sex, UK country, and English region. Each wave is defined as lasting 26 weeks and are consecutive beginning in 2020 week 11. The expected rate is estimated from 2015 to 2019 mean and the projected mortality trend from the same period are used to estimate excess mortality. By both measures, excess mortality was highest and lowest in regions of England, London and the South-West, respectively. Excess mortality was consistently higher for males than females.
Teaching and Learning Reflexivity in the World Politics Classroom
Authors: Krystalli Roxani
Published: October 2023

Complementing discussions of reflexivity as a research practice, this article turns its attention to the classroom. How does a pedagogy that invites students to practice reflexivity represent possibilities for thinking, writing, and imagining otherwise in scholarly engagements with world politics? In response to this question, I explore the dilemmas, challenges, and possibilities students encounter in practicing reflexivity. These include the challenge of meaningfully locating the self in relation to the workings of power, moving beyond a checkbox approach to vectors of identity, and learning to specifically analyze the manifestations of power in daily life. I argue that both the dilemmas and possibilities of practicing reflexivity are related to hierarchies of knowledge creation—and the opportunities to challenge those hierarchies—in the study of world politics. The aim is to illustrate how teachers and students of world politics alike can treat the invitation for reflexivity in the classroom as a potential site of experimentation and freedom that disrupts rigid frameworks of generating knowledge.
A two-component jet model for the optical plateau in the afterglow of GRB 191221B
Authors: Zhu Yi-Ming , Wang Yun , Zhou Hao , Lipunov Vladimir , Buckley David A H , Balanutsa Pavel , Jin Zhi-Ping , Wei Da-Ming
Published: October 2023

The long gamma-ray burst GRB 191221B has abundant observations in X-ray, optical, and radio bands. In the literature, the observed optical light curve of GRB 191221B displays a plateau around 0.1 d, which is rather peculiar in gamma-ray bursts. Here, we performed detailed analysis of the observational data from Swift/UVOT, Very Large Telescope, and Las Cumbres Observatory, obtained the light curve of the multiband afterglow of GRB 191221B. By examining optical, ultraviolet, X-ray, and radio data for this event, we demonstrate that an on-axis two-component jet model can explain the observations. Our analysis suggests that the narrow component has an initial Lorentz factor of 400 and a jet opening half-angle of 1.4°, while the wide component has an initial Lorentz factor of 25 and a jet opening half-angle of 2.8°. The narrow jet dominates the early decay, whereas the wider jet causes the optical plateau and dominates late decay. According to this model, the reason for the absence of the X-ray plateau is due to the steeper spectral index of the wide component, resulting in a less significant flux contribution from the wide jet in the X-ray bands than in the optical bands. Moreover, we have explained the inconsistency in the decay indices of the UVOT- and Rc-band data around 2000 s using reverse shock emission.
Designing a Qualitative Study
Authors: Faulkner Sandra L. , Atkinson Joshua D.
Published: October 2023

In this chapter on designing a qualitative study, the authors cover some of the most common methods for qualitative research in communication and media, including ethnography, grounded theory, interviews, and arts-based research, including poetic portraiture and visual methods. They discuss sampling in qualitative work, including the importance of selecting appropriate texts and participants for research. The authors describe the key role of the institutional review board in helping researchers ensure that their research meets ethical standards. By the end of the chapter, readers should be able to design a qualitative study and describe what makes for a good qualitative interview.
Doing Qualitative Media Analysis (Part 2)
Authors: Faulkner Sandra L. , Atkinson Joshua D.
Published: October 2023

In this chapter the authors continue the discussion of qualitative media analysis that they began in the prior chapter. This chapter focuses on the difference between mass communication and mass self-communication by introducing a contemporary model of qualitative media analysis. The authors explain the rhizomatic metaphor used in new media networks, which is the idea that new, alternative forms of media create intersections between different parts of society that would otherwise be disconnected; such intersections are diffused and develop organically. They also discuss different approaches to studying online networks and have readers consider how they can work collaboratively with others in qualitative research.
Victims and Criminal Justice
Authors: Cox Pamela , Shoemaker Robert , Shore Heather
Published: October 2023

This unique book sets out how crime victims’ experiences of, and engagement with, the process of criminal justice changed dramatically between the late seventeenth and late twentieth centuries. At the start of our period, victims drove the English criminal justice system. They brought prosecutions as complainants and prosecutors, gave evidence as witnesses, and put up personal rewards for the recovery of lost goods or claimed rewards for securing convictions. By the end, victims had been firmly displaced as the state took virtually full responsibility for the process of prosecution. This book is the first of its kind to examine both the origins and impacts of key legal, procedural, and institutional changes introduced in England and Wales in order to encourage and govern prosecutions—moving from rewards to rights. Combining qualitative analysis of a range of textual sources with quantitative analysis of large datasets of over 235,000 criminal prosecutions, we explore how victims were defined in law, what the law allowed and encouraged them to do, who they were in social and economic terms, how they participated in the criminal justice system, why many were unwilling or unable to engage in that system, and why some campaigned for specific rights. Our account situates these shifts in victim participation in criminal trials in the context of broader political, social, and cultural changes. In doing so, it places current policy debates in a much-needed critical historical context.
Victims at the Old Bailey
Authors: Cox Pamela , Shoemaker Robert , Shore Heather
Published: October 2023

This chapter assesses the impact of the changing prosecution, policing, and support arrangements discussed in previous chapters on the participation of victims in arguably the most important criminal court in England, the Old Bailey. The chapter opens with a discussion of the major datasets analysed: reports of prosecutions from the published Old Bailey Proceedings and The Times newspapers. Subsequent sections chart the changing profile of victims according to social class, gender, age, and ethnicity. While the overwhelming majority of victims were white, adult, middle-class men, the chapter demonstrates that victims from marginalized groups, notably female and working-class victims, young and elderly victims, and minority ethnic victims, increased over time. In addition, from the late nineteenth century there were a growing number of institutional prosecutors, both public and private. In considering the causes of this broadening access to justice, the chapter assesses the impact of statutes and practices (including the use of counsel and the police) which facilitated victims’ appearances in court.
Trials and Outcomes
Authors: Cox Pamela , Shoemaker Robert , Shore Heather
Published: October 2023

This chapter considers the conduct of criminal trials, in terms of who participated, when, and how much they spoke in court, demonstrating that the growing role of the police and counsel in the courtroom had the effect of reducing the role of victims. It then offers an analysis of trial outcomes, starting with the growth of plea bargaining from the 1830s, which dramatically increased the number of cases which did not go to trial. Verdicts and punishment sentences are then considered, as measures of whether prosecutions might be deemed ‘successful’ by victims, and the chapter assesses the extent to which marginalized groups achieved poorer outcomes. It shows that this was particularly the case for young female victims of sexual offences.
Collecting Humanity: Commodification, Trophy Hunting, and Bio-colonialism
Authors: Stahn Carsten
Published: October 2023

This chapter demonstrates the centrality of the human body as site of colonial violence. It shows that human remains were taken as war trophies, collected as items of racial science, and traded as communities. It illustrates how projections of violence onto non-Western subjects and belief in the objectivity of science marginalized ethical constraints and rationalized the dehumanization of others. It documents the political dimensions of human remains. It traces inter alia how the Mkwawa head was used as a site of inter-colonial rivalries, how the remains of Sarah Baartman turned from an object of racial science into an icon of post-apartheid identity in South Africa, and how colonial mindsets continue to shape the treatment of the remains of Irish giant Charles Byrne. It explores how evolutionary science and bio-politics of colonialism drove the chase for human fossils (e.g. Java man, Taung child).
Sacred Circles
Authors: Williamson Christina G.
Published: October 2023

In the Hellenistic period, cities increasingly organized major festivals in honour of their principal gods, often as an ‘echo’ of the great Panhellenic games, sending out invitations to cities and kings for support and participation. Cities thus opened up their prime sanctuaries to the Greek world through their festivals. At the same time, there was a growing tendency to enclose these sacred spaces within peristyle architecture. As the political borders of cities were temporarily suspended, so the edges of their great civic shrines were hardened, creating a paradox of simultaneous inclusion and exclusion. This chapter examines this phenomenon through the lens of the ‘sacred circle’, a special ritualized place cut out of the urban fabric of time and space that in this case also fostered connectivity across the Greek world. Three case studies from Asia Minor serve to highlight local strategies in effectuating festival connectivity through sacred space: Magnesia on the Maeander and the sanctuary of Artemis Leukophryene, Stratonikeia and the sanctuary of Hekate at Lagina, and Pisidian Antioch and the sanctuary of Men Askaenos.
The Materiality of Light in Religious Celebrations and Rituals in the Roman East
Authors: Chaniotis Angelos
Published: October 2023

Because of a variety of factors, nocturnal celebrations and rituals became more frequent and elaborate in the Hellenistic and imperial periods. The nocturnal setting had a cognitive and emotional impact on the participants, arousing fear, anxiety, and hope for a direct communication with the divine, generating the illusion of divine epiphanies, and creating feelings of exclusivity and identity. This impact was enhanced through sensory stimuli that included the manipulation of artificial light, fire rituals, and the selection or construction of suitable spaces. This paper discusses relevant evidence concerning the cults of Isis, the festival of an Oriental goddess in Larisa, the cult of Zeus Idaios in Crete, the ‘mysteries’ of Glykon Neos Asklepios in Abonou Teichos and of Mithras, the imperial cult in Messene, and the festival of the Daidala in Boiotia. In addition to the use of lamps and torches in these festivals, there is also evidence for the daily and periodic illumination of temples and shrines, the existence of personnel dedicated to the task of lighting the lamps, the specialized production of lamps for certain cults, and the setting up of torch-bearing statues. The study of the materiality of artificial light contributes to a better understanding of the emotional, sensory, and cognitive aspects of religious celebrations.
Cultural Objects and Reparative Justice
Authors: Gerstenblith Patty
Published: October 2023

This work provides a comprehensive legal and historical analysis of the issues surrounding the question of where tangible, movable cultural objects that were removed without consent should be located. The book traces the historical foundations of the current legal framework on both international and national scales and examines the four lenses through which cultural objects should be analysed: the international or universalistic, the national, the local or communal, and the contextual. As such, this book melds the fragmented debate of ownership utilizing an interdisciplinary approach based in law, history, art history, anthropology, and archaeology. In an innovative approach, the work analyses several examples of appropriation spanning the nineteenth century to consider the Parthenon Sculptures, the Yuanmingyuan Palace, the Benin objects, Indigenous human remains and cultural items, and artworks looted during the Holocaust. These types of cultural objects and different circumstances of their appropriation inform the work’s proposal of a paradigm for reparations. Acknowledging that the foundations of our modern laws and ethical guidelines with respect to cultural objects are built on a history of armed conflict, imperialism, and colonialism, this work advocates for a new structure based on reparation, restitution, repatriation, compensation, and market regulation in order to cease perpetuating past harms and to disincentivize new harms. Finally, it sets out a paradigm based on process and defined principles for the restitution of human remains and cultural objects that were removed from their communities and States as a result of colonialism, armed conflict, or imperialism.
Preaching and Narrative in Piers Plowman
Authors: Bennett Alastair
Published: October 2023

William Langland’s Piers Plowman was written and read during a ‘golden age’ of English preaching. The poem describes a world where sermons took many different forms and were delivered in many different contexts, from public events in the life of the realm to pastoral instruction in the parish. It dramatizes preaching as part of its allegorical action, showing how sermons shaped their listeners’ understanding of the world; it also includes polemical critique of corrupt, self-interested preaching, and offers radical prescriptions for its reform. This book argues that Langland’s central insight into the way that sermons moved and engaged their audiences had to do with their characteristic use of narrative. Preachers in the poem address listeners who are absorbed in the concerns of their present moment, and encourage them to new forms of social and spiritual endeavour by locating that moment in a larger, interpreted plot: the story of an individual life, or an emergent community, or of salvation history as a whole. The book employs a critical vocabulary derived from Paul Ricoeur to describe the process by which these narratives are composed, and to show how they mediate and reconfigure their listeners’ experiences.
Introduction
Authors: Bennett Alastair
Published: October 2023

The Introduction outlines the central argument of this book, that Piers Plowman dramatizes and explores the distinctive ways in which contemporary preachers used narrative to frame and interpret their listeners’ experiences. It considers the long history of scholarship on preaching and Piers Plowman, and the models it offers for reading the poem. It offers a reading of the sermon of Holy Church from the poem’s first vision, as an early example of preaching in the allegorical action that shows how Langland understood the role of narrative in the preacher’s project. It also offers an introduction to the work of Paul Ricoeur, which informs the approach to narrative in this book as a whole.
Preaching on the Half-Acre
Authors: Bennett Alastair
Published: October 2023

This chapter reads the second vision of Piers Plowman as a study of the way that sermons motivate reforming action. At the start of this vision, Reason explains the storms and plagues of recent experience as God’s punishments for human sin and as forerunning signs of the apocalypse, linking these events together as part of an interpreted narrative, and moving his listeners to confess their sins. As the people set out on their penitential pilgrimage, Piers Plowman appears to guide and direct them, offering new narratives that extend the interpretative project of Reason’s sermon, but also faces hostile or indifferent listeners who struggle to understand their lives in these terms. This chapter also considers sermons by Thomas Brinton and another, anonymous preacher that interpret storms and plagues as signs and punishments from God, but which also call for the ongoing effort at narrative interpretation in which Piers is engaged.
Realism and the Sources of Law
Authors: Green Leslie
Published: October 2023

The ‘legal positivist’ and ‘legal realist’ traditions have much in common; this chapter offers a new explanation of their differences. They agree that law is constituted by social facts, that judges have and exercise significant discretion, and that law is morally fallible. H. L. A. Hart and others accuse realists of conceptual errors. Brian Leiter holds that realists typically make no conceptual claims; their differences with positivists are about the utility and results of empirical inquiry. This chapter suggests that, on the contrary, some realists do have conceptual commitments that leave them liable to objections. But more importantly, there is also a substantive disagreement. Realists typically hold that many sources of law are permissive. Positivists hold that they are binding. The nature and importance of permissive sources of law is explored. We should neither overlook them nor exaggerate their significance.
The Inseparability of Law and Morals
Authors: Green Leslie
Published: October 2023

Many think that legal positivism commits us, as H. L. A. Hart put it, to a ‘separation of law and morals’. Lon Fuller rejected this, claiming that every legal system must conform to certain moral principles of legality. After attempting to clarify these ideas, the chapter argues that both are mistaken. There are a number of necessary connections between law and morality, including connections that flow from the necessary content, or aims, of legal systems. But some of these are connections between law and vices that come hand-in-glove with effective legal systems. Morally speaking, the rule of law is always a risky business.
Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights
Authors: Stoyanova Vladislava
Published: October 2023

This book identifies and explains the key analytical issues (state knowledge, causation, and reasonableness) that need to be considered in determining whether a State is responsible under the European Convention on Human Rights for omissions. In addition to this technical analytical question, the book also reflects upon what is at stake for the political community when the triggering, the content, and the scope of positive human rights obligations are determined. A central question is then how the search for a balance between intrusion and restraint by the State, between protection and freedom from invasion, defines this community and pulls the analysis of state responsibility for omissions in different directions. Designed to become the main reference source concerning ECHR positive obligations, this book makes four main contributions. First, it covers an important gap by isolating and studying the separate analytical elements (state knowledge, causation, and reasonableness) underlying state responsibility for failure to fulfil positive obligations. It explains the structure of review, the analytical steps taken to ascertain state responsibility for omissions. Secondly, the book offers a serious appreciation of the dangers associated with positive obligations whose scope might be too expansive or content too intrusive. Thirdly, it explains the different types of positive obligations. Fourthly, it offers the first examination of the conceptual hurdles if positive obligations under the ECHR were to be applied extraterritorially.
The Bench Versus the Banks
Authors: Eglin John
Published: October 2023

Local authorities, under pressure from central government, attempted to contain the expansion of commercial gaming in public venues, and largely failed. The metropolitan police apparatus that bore the brunt of the enforcement of gaming statutes faced a number of structural challenges in carrying out its mandate. Magistrates only moved against gaming operations when there was pressure from above; consequently, political developments at the centre in Whitehall could decisively affect local enforcement efforts. These realities created an atmosphere similar to continental capitals where commercial gaming was ‘tolerated, but not permitted.’
Commercial Gaming in the Wake of the Georgian Statutes
Authors: Eglin John
Published: October 2023

Gaming entrepreneurs responded decisively to aggressive legislative and judicial initiatives against gaming, and in so doing demonstrated newfound faith in probability. A wave of legislation aimed at prohibiting commercialized games of chance as ‘unlawful lotteries’ was met with a variety of stratagems aimed at evading the language of statute, with varying degrees of success. At the same time that the Georgian gaming statutes defined mathematical probability to be beyond the comprehension of the general public, the introduction of E.O., played on a wheel and based on ‘even-money’ wagers, signalled increasing sophistication about probability among gaming entrepreneurs.
At Home with Faro’s Daughters
Authors: Eglin John
Published: October 2023

Commercial gaming operations went forward in elite metropolitan households as high play momentarily subsided in clubs. Alongside the private subscription clubs that became a staple of elite sociability structured around gaming were the putatively domestic gaming venues constituted in at-homes in elite households superintended by socially conspicuous hostesses. As was the case with subscription clubs, these domestic entertainments were profitable concerns overseen by commercial gaming entrepreneurs and bankrolled, for the most part, by elite males. Nevertheless, it was the ‘Faro Ladies’ who drew media attention to these enterprises, given the particular censure that had always been cast on high-stakes play among women.
The Verbal System
Authors: Sharma Devyani
Published: October 2023

This chapter continues the assessment of L1 transfer and universally based speaker inferencing as hypothetical sources of change, but now in the verbal domain. Examining systems of tense, modality, and aspect (TMA) in Indian English, the chapter analyzes four dimensions of the TMA system of IndE: omission of past tense marking, use of progressive -ing, the perfect construction, and the use of modal verbs. The broad perfectivity system of TMA in Indo-Aryan languages is found to be reconstituted in the English used by Indian bilinguals. Once again, L1 influence does not lead to an exact replication of the substrate system. As before, mismatches between the L1 and L2 lead to speakers inferring a typologically distinct and innovative grammar.
Hypocritical Blame
Authors: Lippert-Rasmussen Kasper
Published: October 2023

This chapter opens with an example illustrating what it calls the appropriate dismissal claim, i.e., that we have a pro tanto reason to dismiss hypocritical blame, even when we are blameworthy for having done that for which we are blamed hypocritically. This illustrates the notion of (not) having the standing to blame. The chapter then proposes definitions of (1) hypocritical blame, (2) having standing to blame, and (3) what it is to indirectly dismiss blame as standingless, e.g., because of the hypocrisy(-generating facts) involved. The chapter also reviews a few competing accounts of what it is to dismiss blame as standingless. The main takeaway point from Chapter 1 is that to indirectly dismiss blame (on grounds of hypocrisy) is to deny either that the blamer has the liberty right to issue the demands involved in blame or to deny, inter alia, that the blamee has any obligation to the blamer to provide the blamer with an uptake of these demands. This captures what the chapter refers to as the moral authority account of (dismissing) standing to blame.
Morality, Normativity, and Standing
Authors: Lippert-Rasmussen Kasper
Published: October 2023

This chapter argues that the considerations about standing to hold morally accountable, especially standing to blame, extrapolate to a wide range of other illocutionary acts, e.g., encouraging. Specifically, they apply to the notion of epistemic blame. The chapter also draws some conclusions regarding the interpersonal nature of the moral norms constituting the ethics of holding accountable (and beyond). It uses these conclusions as a springboard for a critical examination of the influential distinction between consequentialist and deontologist moral theories. Specifically, it argues that standard formulations of this distinction overlook a central aspect of the ethics of blame, i.e., moral authority. Finally, it explores a possible implication of this interpersonal nature of norms for issues pertaining to moral encroachment and statistical discrimination.