bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Bank Governance
Authors: Armour John
Published: October 2016

According to a common narrative, the failure of banks in the financial crisis reflected poor corporate governance practices, as well as inadequate prudential regulatory safeguards. Yet it turns out that the “best” governance practices according to ordinary standards were the ones that did worst during the financial crisis. In the period leading up to the financial crisis, it was believed that regulation would cause banks to internalize the costs of their activities, meaning that what maximized bank shareholders’ returns would also be in the interests of society. Consequently, large banks used the same governance tools as non-financial companies to minimize shareholder-management agency costs, namely independent boards, shareholder rights, the shareholder primacy norm, the threat of takeovers, and equity-based executive compensation. Unfortunately, such tools had the adverse effect of encouraging bank managers to take excessive risks. Consequently, a significant rethink about the way in which banks are governed is required.
The Emergence of Scholarship and Science on Hypo-egoic Phenomena
Authors: Brown Kirk Warren , Leary Mark R.
Published: October 2016

To introduce the Handbook and the range of hypo-egoic phenomena that it represents, this chapter describes the psychological roots of egoic and hypo-egoic functioning, drawing on theory and research in philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience. Two forms of self-processing—self-as-subject and self-as-object—are first identified and functionally described. The chapter then describes how these self processes offer humans a mental model of ourselves, others, and the world that allows us to represent or simulate reality as we perceive it in the present, the remembered past, and the imagined future. Though a major evolutionary achievement, the conscious self model becomes a liability when people overidentify with its inherently self-centric functioning. The chapter introduces the concept of hypo-egoic functioning, describes its nature as currently understood, and provides a glimpse of the multidisciplinary scholarship that has begun to explore this phenomenon and its various expressions.
Beyond Self-Interest
Authors: Hill Peter , Laney Elizabeth K.
Published: October 2016

Not to be confused with modesty or low self-esteem, humility is a multifaceted construct that is quite different from the misguided caricature that humble people are weak or timid and do not value themselves. In contrast, humility is a hypo-egoic phenomenon that involves a nondefensive willingness to see oneself accurately by acknowledging one’s personal limitations, combined with an appreciation for the strengths and contributions of other people from which one can learn. Research is reviewed that investigates humility both as a general dispositional characteristic, as well as in terms of the two specific domains of intellectual and relational humility. Although research clearly portrays humility primarily as a positive character strength, the potential liabilities of humility are also noted. The chapter also examines efforts to measure humility through self-reports and alternative approaches, along with the significant challenges of creating valid measures of humility.
Developmental and Prosocial Dimensions of Hypo-egoic Phenomena
Authors: Harter Susan
Published: October 2016

This chapter provides a developmental perspective on phenomena that involve a hypo-egoic perspective—such as perspective taking, prosocial behavior, empathy, true-self behavior, and self-coherence—with a focus on whether hypo-egoic processes that have been described in adult populations also exist in childhood and adolescence. The chapter examines the extent to which children and adolescents have the cognitive skills to engage in various hypo-egoic behaviors and explores the motives that might underlie hypo-egoic phenomena at different developmental levels. Along the way, the development of skills and motives that promote self-absorbed and self-aggrandizing tendencies, such as egocentrism and narcissism, are also discussed. The role of cognitive-developmental changes, socially driven developmental transitions, developmentally salient needs, and individual differences in parenting and socialization practices on hypo-egoic perspectives and behaviors are also examined.
The Neuroscience of Hypo-Egoic Processes
Authors: Farb Norman , Desormeau Philip A. , Dinh-Williams Le-anh
Published: October 2016

The term “hypo-egoic” can refer to a variety of cognitive states, ranging from internal experiences of meditation, hypnosis, or spirituality, to overt acts of forgiveness or altruism. This chapter reviews the nascent literature on the neuroscience supporting such states, aiming to provide a more unified neural account. For parsimony, research findings are framed in terms of implicated brain networks, with particular attention as to whether networks are modulated to directly inhibit of egoic processes, or to generate competing, experientially salient, hypo-egoic states. The chapter concludes that hypo-egoic processing is not purely inhibitory in its neural architecture but often incorporates generative neural representations, enhancing sensory awareness in meditation and hypnosis, the theory of another’s mind in love and forgiveness, and vicarious enjoyment in altruistic acts. These generative processes may anchor attention and attenuate prepotent tendencies toward egoic thinking, allowing for the transcendence of self-concern in favor of some greater good.
Managing Transboundary Rivers to Avert Conflict and Facilitate Cooperation
Authors: Zawahri Neda
Published: October 2016

Increasing populations, climate change, and industrialization are challenging states’ ability to meet domestic demands for scarce freshwater resources. In fact, world leaders and international organizations are warning of the increasing potential for interstate conflict and tension over transboundary rivers. Relying on qualitative and quantitative analysis, experts have analyzed means by which states can peacefully manage their transboundary basins. Despite substantial improvements in our understanding of some of the factors influencing riparian conflicts along with the forces leading to treaty formation, treaty design, and treaty effectiveness, several controversies remain, including the influence of the balance of power within the basin, the role of water shortages, and the effectiveness of treaties in managing transboundary water disputes. In addition, there are a number of understudied topics that require future research. These include the influence of climate change and increasing abstraction of groundwater resources on the management of transboundary water resources.
Fashion as a Set of Signals in Female Intrasexual Competition
Authors: Johnsen Laura L. , Geher Glenn
Published: October 2016

Fashion is one tool that women employ to enhance their overall attractiveness to increase mating opportunities and repel competition from other females. This essay first discusses how evolution has shaped the female form and how clothing is used to enhance desirable traits. Additionally, this essay addresses how fashion trends have endured throughout history because they have been continually successful in maintaining women’s attractiveness. Further, the reasons why women… clothing when engaging in competitive strategies such as self-promotion and competitor manipulation is also explored. The second section covers how women’s physiological occurrences influence the way they dress and how males perceive them. Third, this essay delves into the social perceptions and consequences of wearing certain kinds of clothing. It explores how fashion is used to attract and retain mates by enabling a woman to stand out among her potential rivals and/or forcing rivals to back down from pursuing a potential partner.
Religion and Morality
Authors: Teehan John
Published: October 2016

The relationship between religion and morality is a subject of widespread interest and intense debate: Is morality a product of religion? Can one be moral without religion? Can moral claims be justified outside of a religious context? These are important questions that have been subject to much investigation by theologians and philosophers, among others. Evolutionary studies provide a different way into this topic. Morality has long been a subject for evolutionary research, but an evolutionary approach to religion, based on research into the evolution of the brain, is a recent development, and one that is developing a substantial empirical grounding. Drawing on the insights from both of these fields, this chapter sets out the evolved cognitive mechanisms that constitute the nexus of religion and morality. In addition to providing insight into the nature of religious morality, this model may also help clarify the role religion played in human evolution.
The Elephant in the Pews
Authors: Weeden Jason , Kurzban Robert , Kenrick Douglas T.
Published: October 2016

When it comes to religiosity and its lifestyle correlates, the typical assumption is that the causal arrows run primarily from religiosity to morals to one’s own behavior. In contrast, this chapter argues that differences in sexual and reproductive lifestyles can substantially influence individual choices regarding religious involvement and related beliefs. Religious groups provide attractive benefits to high-commitment, high-fertility strategists, but are simultaneously less helpful or harmful to low-commitment, low-fertility strategists. The chapter reviews evidence showing not only that sexual and reproductive variables have relatively large statistical relationships with religiosity in modern, developed societies but also that the causal role of these sexual and reproductive variables helps to account for various longitudinal and correlational patterns involving religiosity. Human life is driven by concrete, fitness-relevant concerns, and contemporary differences in religiosity are no exception.
Belief, Ritual, and the Evolution of Religion
Authors: Rossano Matt J. , Vandewalle Benjamin
Published: October 2016

This chapter outlines an evolutionary scenario for the emergence of religion. From cognitive science, four mental prerequisites of religious cognition are discussed: (1) hyperactive agency detection, (2) theory of mind, (3) imagination, and (4) altered states of consciousness. Evidence for these prerequisites in nonhuman primates suggests their presence in our early hominin ancestors. From comparative psychology, evidence of ritual behavior in nonhuman primates and other species is reviewed. Archeological evidence of ritual behavior is also discussed. Collectively, these data indicate that the first step toward religion was an elaboration of primate social rituals to include group synchronized activities such as dancing, chanting, and singing. Control of fire, pigment use, and increasing brain size would have intensified group synchronized rituals over time, which, in the context of increased intergroup interactions, eventually led to the first evidence of supernatural ritual at about 70,000 years before present.
Civic Religions
Authors: Marnef Guido
Published: October 2016

As centers of a vivid socioeconomic, cultural and religious life cities acted as important agents of religious change. This chapter starts with a survey of the multilayered religious landscape of the late medieval cities. Civic authorities played an increasing role in the administration and supervision of the sacred and developed a specific type of civic religion. The religious Reform movement launched in the 1520s by Martin Luther and other evangelic-minded Reformers was to a large extent an urban event. The pace and the dynamics of Reform were complex and diverse depending on the political and social context of the cities involved. City governments aimed for civic unity and religious uniformity but this ideal was difficult to realize in a period of increasing religious fragmentation.
al-Qadi
Authors: Fadel Mohammad
Published: October 2016

The paradigmatic public institution associated with the application of Islamic law from the rise of Islam until the end of the nineteenth century has been the qadi. This essay examines the scholarship on this institution, organizing studies into doctrinal works and empirical works. Doctrinal studies of the qadi are based almost entirely on literary sources, most commonly legal texts. Historical sources have also been important, especially for the pre-Ottoman period. Empirical studies of the qadi, by contrast, base themselves almost entirely on surviving court records. Thus, most empirical studies are limited to courts of the Ottoman Empire which kept systematic records of court decisions in contrast to the courts of previous Muslim states, which did not. In the modern period, there has been a distinct rise in an anthropological approach to the qadi, with numerous studies having been published based on direct observation of the behavior of Muslim judges.
Introduction
Authors: Hall Patricia
Published: October 2016

This volume is a collection of thirty in-depth studies of music censorship from the eighth century to the present and covers music ranging from Gregorian chant to eighteenth-century opera to contemporary pop music. It includes studies from every continent and consists of six sections. Section I explores religion both as an object of censorship and as a censoring agent; Section II focuses on the censorship of three iconic operas during the Enlightenment in France and Austria: Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, and Fidelio; Section III deals with censorship in transitional governments, from nineteenth-century Italy to present-day Taiwan; Section IV examines censorship in totalitarian governments during the twentieth century; Section V discusses censorship in democracies such as the United Kingdom and the United States; and Section VI looks at how censorship intersects with issues of race, gender and sexual orientation.
History of Italian Neuropsychology
Authors: Boller François , Gainotti Guido , Grossi Dario , Vallar Giuseppe
Published: October 2016

Early Italian clinicians and researchers dedicated their work to human neuropsychology mainly through analysis of variations of cognitive and behavioral functions caused by brain damage. The systematic development of neuropsychology in Italy started in the early 1960s in Milan with the neurologist Ennio De Renzi and his collaborators (mainly Luigi A. Vignolo, early on) in the Clinic of Nervous and Mental Diseases. The “Milan group” investigated several neuropsychological deficits caused by focal hemispheric lesions in human brain-damaged patients, developing standardized tests and advanced statistical methods applied to the clinical diagnosis and the rehabilitation of aphasia. It first used the new imaging techniques (CT scan) in the 1970s to correlate lesion sites with behavioral deficits. Since then, neuropsychology and neuropsychological research, both basic and applied, have developed extensively in other parts of Italy and include clinical diagnosis and rehabilitation of patients with brain damage or dysfunction throughout the life span.
Introduction
Authors: Filppula Markku , Klemola Juhani , Sharma Devyani
Published: October 2016

This volume brings together thirty-six chapters on World Englishes, which are here understood to refer to the full range of Englishes, both where English dominates as a native language and not. The collection is designed to offer a mutually constructive engagement with current linguistic theories, methods, questions, and hypotheses. With this primary theoretical orientation in sight, the chapters in the volume are divided into four thematic parts: Foundations, World Englishes and Linguistic Theory, Areal Profiles, and Case Studies. This arrangement offers balanced coverage of detailed accounts of the foundations and social histories of varieties of English spoken across the globe as well as the mutually enriching potential of studying World Englishes within diverse theoretical subareas of Linguistics. The collection closes with a set of case studies that exemplify this type of analysis.
Jeremiah
Authors: Leuchter Mark
Published: October 2016

This chapter discusses the major issues surrounding the study of the book of Jeremiah in contemporary scholarship, with special attention given to the book’s rhetorical structure, the value of its contents as historical resources, and the matter of its text-critical variants and the implications of these variants for the book’s literary evolution. The question of the book’s Deuteronomistic profile is raised, with some suggestions regarding whether or not that profile should be assigned to a secondary recasting of sources. In addition, a number of assumptions and axioms are challenged, especially those concerning text-critical evaluations and the use of the book as a site of cultural memory regarding ancient Israel, its monarchic institutions, and the prophet Jeremiah himself.
The Twelve
Authors: Kessler Rainer
Published: October 2016

The chapter deals with the biblical book of the Twelve Prophets. It presents the individual books and their order in the Hebrew and Greek traditions. It discusses unifying elements (superscriptions, dates, the theology of the word of YHWH) and themes (day of YHWH, Israel and the nations, the use of the grace formula of Exodus 34:6–7 within the book). It raises the hermeneutical question of how the book can be read as a unity, distinguishing between intentional allusions within the individual books and the effect of mere juxtaposition of the books. This is followed by a discussion of various theories about the formation of the book. Probable precursors to the Twelve are presented, as well as theories about redactional layers. The chapter ends with the proposal to read the book as a unity in variety.
Genre Criticism and the Prophets
Authors: Green Barbara
Published: October 2016

This chapter offers a current explanation of the term “genre,” to distinguish it from form, and then proposes twenty-five genres that are found typically and frequently in the Latter Prophets. For each genre, a definition is offered, and a biblical text is instanced, with the shape, function, and effect of the genre suggested. The genres include the following: allegory; argumenta minori ad maius; call/commission; day of the Lord saying; dialogue; dirge; discourse ascribed; disputation; doxology/hymn; exhortation/admonition; lament; metaphor; metonymy; parable; parodic speech; personification; prayer; pronouncement; question; root metaphor; satire/taunt; symbolic action report; theophany report; uncreation saying; and vision report.
Redaction Criticism and the Prophets
Authors: Nogalski James D.
Published: October 2016

This chapter describes the current state of redactional discussions as practiced on the four scrolls of the Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve). It begins by describing the changes in understanding the nature and importance of redactional work on the prophets from the beginning of the twentieth century until today, including the rise of redaction history and the interplay between redactional studies and text criticism. Methodological issues take center stage in the second section, where key concepts of prophetic redactional treatments are defined and illustrated in order to chart the processes of composition, compilation, and shaping of the scrolls. Key concepts include individual compositions, actualizations, small collections, source blocks, the idea of a rolling corpus, scribal awareness of readers, and editorial thematic threads. Limitations of the method are also mentioned. Finally, the chapter concludes with summaries of major redactional models for each of the four scrolls.
Prophetic Words and Acts as Survival Literature
Authors: Stulman Louis
Published: October 2016

Informed by historical interests and contemporary trauma theories, this chapter reads written prophecy in the Hebrew Bible—as opposed to its oral iteration—as ancient Israel’s disaster and survival literature. Specifically, the literarization of prophecy connects word and sign-act to prophetic performance of the realities of trauma. When this complex alchemy “enacts” the horrors of war, exile, and confinement through the prism of word and deed, it (1) gives expression to unspeakable loss, (2) generates space for the work of grief, and (3) constructs new trajectories of meaning for survivors struggling to cope with the collapse of their social and symbolic worlds.
Prophecy and Priesthood
Authors: Grabbe Lester L.
Published: October 2016

Prophets and priests are often seen as opponents, but this is far from true. Prophets might well criticize what they see as priestly corruption, while in a similar vein priests might denounce prophets whom they think are false. Yet although each category of office has certain unique characteristics, their activities and functions often overlap with one another. Both act as intermediaries between humans and the divine, and both provide various means for seeking and obtaining a message from the deity. Some prophets came from priestly families, and there seem to have been cultic prophets connected with the temple. A variety of prophets and models of prophets are found in the Hebrew Bible, including female prophets, “sons/bands of the prophets,” and shaman-like figures.
The Prophets in the New Testament
Authors: Wagner J. Ross
Published: October 2016

Traditions about Israel’s ancient prophets, along with sacred texts handed down in their names, exercised a profound influence on the various portrayals of Jesus in the New Testament; at the same time, by reading the prophetic scriptures in light of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, the New Testament writers discovered indispensable resources for shaping emerging Christian convictions and practices. The first claim is developed through a brief examination of John the Baptist, Jesus, and other prophetic figures in Luke-Acts. The second finds exemplification in three case studies that show how particular New Testament writers employ prophetic texts to convey the significance of Jesus’ life (the Gospel of Matthew), to promote a distinctive communal ethic (1 Peter), and to disclose the divine plan for Israel and the nations (Romans 9–11).
Early Christian Reception of the Prophets
Authors: Heine Ronald E.
Published: October 2016

The Hebrew prophets were essential to the early Christian understanding of the identity of Jesus. This chapter first examines the use of the Hebrew prophets in the reading practices in the second-century worship assemblies of the Christians in relation to those of the early synagogue. This provides an understanding of an early Christian appropriation of the prophets that was not apologetic. It then turns to the third century to show the concern for unity between the Hebrew prophets and the Christian Gospel. Finally, it compares the way four major Christian exegetes of the third and fourth centuries, traditionally separated into the opposing hermeneutical camps of Alexandria and Antioch, interpreted Isaiah’s vision of God, to argue that differing theological positions had come to influence the interpretation of Scripture more than differing hermeneutical procedures.
Womanist Approaches to the Prophets
Authors: Bridgeman Valerie
Published: October 2016

Womanist approaches to interpreting the prophets stand among other liberationist interpretive traditions, in which the intersections of the ways in which gender, race, class, and sexuality, among other identity markers, are taken into consideration when reading and making sense of the text. The role of how power is shared or wielded also matters in Womanist interpretations. This chapter provides examples of Womanist interpretative strategies by examining the ways prophets employ language about women as mothers, women as promiscuous, children as progeny, and poverty, which has its most adverse impact on women and children. Uncovering and exposing the oppressive use of power as it relates to women and children among prophetic writings allows Womanist interpreters to help those interested in pursuits of liberation and freedom to know whether the prophetic texts provide resources for a life worth living.
Postmodern Engagements of the Prophets
Authors: Kalmanofsky Amy
Published: October 2016

This chapter offers a postmodern analysis of the representation of the body in the biblical prophets, focusing on the rhetorical and literary representation of bodies in the prophetic books. The multiple ways the prophets use the body suggest that they recognize its rhetorical power as well as its subtlety. The body can be a blunt rhetorical tool that demands a powerful emotional response, and a narrative device that requires interpretation and conveys theological meaning. The body can also be a subtle means of communication that conveys the prophets’ experience of personal vulnerability and their burden of having to communicate God’s word. Used in these ways, the image of the body is oriented to the reader and reflects postmodern interest in examining the ways a text engages its audience, as well as the ways it communicates subjective human experience.
The Prophets
Authors: Tiemeyer Lena-Sofia
Published: October 2016

This chapter explores some of the challenges for future scholarship on the Latter Prophets. It highlights the difficulty of bridging the methodological gap that sometimes exists between different scholarly approaches, for example between evangelical and secular research methods or between synchronic and diachronic reading strategies; yet it also draws attention to existing scholarly collaborations across this divide. The chapter further points out some issues that scholars face who are involved in the ideological study of the prophets (such as feminist scholarship). The chapter also surveys some of the recent changes in the understanding of prophecy as a phenomenon and of prophetic texts as a scribal endeavor. Is the prophet a visionary, a scribe, a redactor, a literary persona? Who created the prophetic texts and what purposes did those texts fulfill in ancient Israelite society? Finally, the chapter calls for more studies on the reception of prophetic texts.
Material Culture, Iconography, and the Prophets
Authors: Strawn Brent A.
Published: October 2016

This chapter probes one aspect of material culture—namely, ancient Near Eastern iconography—for its pertinence for the prophets. It focuses on lion imagery in the book of Amos and lion iconography in the ancient Near East, but especially in the archaeology of ancient Israel/Palestine. The artistic remains contribute to a better understanding of this motif in Amos, and the same holds true for the many other images and metaphors that may be found in both the biblical text and the archaeology. In certain cases, as with the lion in Amos, attention to the iconographic data can cast light not only on singular instances of an idea in a specific verse or two, but also on wider complexes of ideas across larger units, if not entire prophetic books. Still further, the iconographic data can sometimes contribute to—or, in fact, chasten—debates about a book’s composition and redaction history.
Isaiah
Authors: Berges Ulrich
Published: October 2016

“Whoever wishes to discover the prophet cannot bypass the book.” This motto adequately characterizes the current exegetical paradigm in studies on the Book of Isaiah. It emphasizes the priority of the prophetic book emanating from the literary account of the historical prophet, which has been preserved, significantly extended, and shaped by its tradents for almost half a millennium. In order to enable readers to gain a deeper understanding of the prophetic message, this chapter outlines the history of research and gives an overview of the key periods of literary development, focusing on their influence on the book’s formation and prophetic massage. The Book of Isaiah in its final form is understood as a “literary drama” in which the readers witness the transformation of Jerusalem from a place of judgment into a place of eschatological salvation for both the righteous in Israel and the just ones from the nations.
Contextualism in Epistemology
Authors: Pynn Geoffrey
Published: October 2016

In epistemology, contextualism is the view that the truth-conditions of knowledge claims vary with the contexts in which those claims are made. This article surveys the main arguments for contextualism, describes a variety of different approaches to developing the view, and discusses how contextualism has been used to treat the problem of radical skepticism. Many different objections to contextualism have appeared since the view first achieved prominence. This article explores and responds to a range of objections to contextualism, focusing particularly those arising from aspects of the linguistic behavior of the word “know” and its cognates. Finally, several alternatives to contextualism are described, including: traditional invariantism, contextualism’s original opponent; subject-sensitive invariantism, which emerged as a way of accommodating the primary data that motivates contextualism within an invariantist framework; and relativism, a new competitor according to which the truth-conditions of knowledge claims vary not with the context in which they are made, but the context in which they are assessed.
Treason, Seditious Libel, and Literature in the Romantic Period
Authors: Mee Jon
Published: October 2016

This article examines the effects of the unprecedented number of prosecutions for political opinion in the 1790s and afterward on romantic period literature. The chief instrument for these prosecutions was the law on libel. This legal framework placed a premium on various forms of metaphor, irony, and allegory, which the Crown had to construe as concrete libels in any prosecution. Many trials became major public events, a visible part of the period’s print culture, widely reported in newspapers and eagerly consumed by the public in a variety of media. The courtroom provided a theater of radical opinion in which defendants could publicize their views and mock the authority of the state. The pressure exerted on writers by the law on libel also conditioned a more general anxiety and may even have influenced developing ideas of the autonomy of the aesthetic.
Graffiti
Authors: Ilan Jonathan , Snyder Gregory J.
Published: October 2016

Graffiti writing is often intensely policed despite being a relatively low-harm crime. Graffiti can be read by members of the public as a visual indicator of lawlessness and thus induce a certain amount of alarm. While there are a range of different kinds of graffiti, the most ubiquitous is that practiced by subcultural “writers.” Research indicates that there is an order and logic to writing. Writers often cultivate skills, experiences, and dispositions that imbue them with particular value in the postindustrial economy, offering them heightened career prospects. Graffiti and street art are increasingly featured as part of mainstream commercial aesthetics, even as unsanctioned writing continues to be met with zero-tolerance policing and tough situational crime prevention measures. Ultimately, writing can be managed in a more subculturally sensitive manner that better balances the needs and visions of different kinds of urban residents in local contexts.
The Role of Remorse in Criminal Justice
Authors: Bennett Christopher
Published: October 2016

This essay reviews the role that remorse does and ought to play in criminal justice. Evidence of remorse appears to influence decision-making in a number of stages of the criminal process. But should it? Remorse might have an appropriate role given certain assumptions about the general justifying aim of criminal justice. The chapter also looks at the nature of remorse as an emotion, and how different conceptions of the emotions can inform our understanding of the role remorse might play. There are serious challenges that face any proposal to give criminal justice officials powers to evaluate remorsefulness and to treat offenders differently on that basis. The chapter concludes that it may be the best we can do is to attempt to design a system that acknowledges the appropriateness of remorse but does not disadvantage those who are unable to display it to the satisfaction of a designated official.
Introduction
Authors: Francis Leslie
Published: October 2016

A Handbook on Reproductive Ethics faces many challenging tasks: choosing topics, selecting contributors, addressing nearly constant changes in reproductive technologies, and ensuring that contributions are of high quality. From abortion to surrogate parenthood, fetal tissue research to assisted reproduction, and parental rights to concomitant responsibilities, reproduction raises some of the most fundamentally divisive issues of our time. This introduction to the volume provides an overview of the political and moral theories underlying reproductive ethics, accounts of the status of the fetus, the roles and responsibilities of parents and professionals, and the variety of emerging reproductive issues to come.
Who Am I When I’m Pregnant?
Authors: Lindemann Hilde
Published: October 2016

Who you understand yourself to be when you are pregnant depends to a greater or lesser extent on whether you wanted to be pregnant in the first place. Pregnant women may step gladly into a desired new role, may seek an abortion if the pregnancy is unwelcome, or may be forced into a new identity as prospective mother if abortion is unavailable. In either case, the bodily changes of pregnancy may alter the woman’s self-conception in many ways. This chapter explores three destructive master narratives of pregnancy: the pregnant woman as fetal container, as good mother, and as public body. It concludes that counterstories must be constructed and socially circulated to counter the master narratives that damage pregnant women’s identities, stories that more accurately represent the women and depict them as worthy of respect. Examples are stories that describe pregnant women as calling the fetuses they carry into personhood.
Twenty-First-Century Eugenics
Authors: Gyngell Christopher , Selgelid Michael
Published: October 2016

Technologies available since the 1970s have enabled parents to influence the genetic makeup of their children. As the twenty-first century unfolds, emerging technologies—including gamete selection, gene editing, and in vitro gametogenesis—may allow greater control over heredity. These technologies have been criticized for involving “eugenics.” However, it is often not clear what this criticism amounts to. What is eugenics and/or why it is a bad thing? This chapter provides a conceptual analysis of “eugenics” and discusses its relevance to debates about twenty-first-century reproductive technologies. We argue for the plausibility of a broad definition of eugenics as “an attempt to improve heredity.” Whereas most common usages of reproductive genetic technologies fall under this broad definition, this alone does not entail they are morally problematic. Indeed, there will often be moral reasons to pursue eugenic aims. We conclude by discussing the types of practices that may be justified in the name of eugenics.
Self-Ownership as a Form of Ownership
Authors: Russell Daniel C.
Published: October 2016

Merely by sharing an environment, we each face a trade-off between freedom to act and freedom from interference. The goal of this chapter is to elucidate self-ownership by taking it seriously as a form of ownership, understood as an institution for optimizing the trade-off between freedom to go about one’s life and freedom from the interference of others, in a world in which going about one’s life almost always interferes with someone else’s. The central thesis is that self-ownership is an institution entitling the bearer of a claim right to protection from interference with his person, labor, and freedom, in ways that that person can afford to be protected in the greater scheme of things as the bearer of a liberty right to live a life of his own.
Physical properties and evolutionary status of the W-subtype contact binary V502 Oph with a stellar companion
Authors: Xiao Zhou , Shengbang Qian , Binghe Huang , Hao Li , Jia Zhang
Published: October 2016

Multi-color (B, V, Rc, Ic) CCD photometric light curves of the contact binary V502 Oph are analyzed using the Wilson–Devinney program. The solutions reveal that V502 Oph is a W-subtype contact (f = 35.3%) binary system. The temperature difference between its two components is 240 K and the more massive star has a lower surface temperature. A cool spot is added in our model to account for the light curves’ asymmetry (O'Connell effect) and a third light is detected for the first time in the light curves’ modeling. Combining the orbital inclination (i = 76 $_{.}^{\circ}$4) with the published mass function of V502 Oph, the absolute physical parameters of the two components are determined, which are M1 = 0.46(±0.02) M⊙, M2 = 1.37(±0.02) M⊙, R1 = 0.94(±0.01) R⊙, R2 = 1.51(±0.01) R⊙, L1 = 1.13(±0.02) L⊙, and L2 = 2.49(±0.03) L⊙. The formation and the evolutionary status of V502 Oph are discussed. All photoelectric and CCD times of light minimum about V502 Oph are gathered and its orbital period variations are analyzed. The results show that the orbital period of V502 Oph is decreasing continuously at a rate of dP/dt = −1.69 × 10−7 d yr−1,which corresponds to a conservative mass transfer rate of dM2/dt = −3.01 × 10− 8 M⊙ yr−1. The light-travel time effect is due to the presence of a close-in tertiary component with a period of P3 = 18.7 yr and an amplitute of 0.00402 d. V502 Oph is an ideal target to test the formation and evolution theories of binary and multiple systems in which the light curves, the O − C curve and spectroscopic observations are comprehensively researched.
Comparison of Outcomes and Complications of Isolated Acetabular Fractures and Acetabular Fractures With Associated Injuries
Authors: Phruetthiphat Ong-art , Willey Michael , Karam Matthew D. , Gao Yubo , Westerlind Brian O. , Marsh J. Lawrence
Published: October 2016

Objective:

To compare patients with acetabular fractures that are isolated (acetabular fracture alone) and acetabular fracture presenting with additional nonacetabular injury using functional outcomes, complications, and readmissions.

Design:

Retrospective review.

Setting:

Level 1 Trauma Center.

Patients/Participants:

Two hundred fifteen patients underwent open surgical treatment for acetabular fracture between 2003 and 2012 with age ≥18 years and minimum 1-year follow-up inclusive of functional scores and complications.

Intervention:

Surgical treatment of acetabular fracture.

Main Outcome Measurements:

Postoperative functional outcomes at 1 year as assessed with the Short Form 36 (SF-36) Health Survey Questionnaire and the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), postoperative complications including readmissions.

Results:

Acetabular fractures patients with associated nonacetabular injuries exhibited a longer length of hospital stay (P < 0.0001) and higher readmission rate within 90 days (P = 0.012) compared with patients in the isolated injury group. Acetabular fracture with either chest or abdominal injury had the longest average hospital stay (19.2 and 19.1 days, respectively). Functional scores between 2 groups were comparable at 1-year follow-up, except acetabular fractures with pelvic ring injury, which had a significantly lower physical component score of SF-36 (P = 0.007) compared with the isolated group.

Conclusions:

Acetabular fractures with associated nonacetabular injuries have longer hospital stays, higher complications, and readmissions. Specifically, patients with associated truncal injury had worse clinical outcome and longer hospital stays. These conclusions should be taken into account when counseling patients with acetabular fractures, as additional injuries will greatly affect the course of treatment and the outcomes.

Level of Evidence:

Prognostic level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Evaluating Loading Deflection of Distraction Osteogenic Rib in a Rabbit Model
Authors: Shen Weimin , Tang Chenlu , Yang Junyi , Kong Liangliang , Zhang Xiaoying
Published: October 2016

Background:

The treatment of patients with partially atrophic rib and rib defects requires an ideal arc of the rib that has adequate bone length and width. To design and assemble a distraction device with a strain gauge, we need to establish an animal model for testing it during rib distraction osteogenesis.

Methods:

Osteotomies were performed at the same position in the fifth rib in 8 rabbits. Customized distraction devices attached to strain gauges were used to distract the ribs. After a month of distraction and consolidation, loading deflection gauges were used, and specimens were examined histologically to record bone formation.

Results:

Distraction osteogenesis was carried out successfully in all rabbits when the device used to distract the rib up to 4 cm.

Conclusions:

The device can be used for strain testing during rib distraction osteogenesis performed in a rabbit model. There was no significant difference in the loading deflection gauges of the bone between osteogenic and contralateral ribs. This animal model of costal distraction osteogenesis is successful.
Surgical and Locoregional Treatment of DCIS and Early-Invasive Breast Cancer
Authors: HETZEL DAVID J.
Published: October 2016

Surgical and radiation therapy for DCIS and early stage 1 and 2 invasive breast cancer is detailed and described.
Association of Lysyl Oxidase-Like 1 Gene Polymorphism in Turkish Patients With Pseudoexfoliation Syndrome and Pseudoexfoliation Glaucoma
Authors: Asfuroglu Mahmut , Cavdarli Busranur , Koz Ozlem G. , A. Yarangumeli Ahmet , Ozdemir Emine Y.
Published: October 2016

Purpose:

To investigate the genetic association of lysyl oxidase-like 1 (LOXL1) gene polymorphisms in patients with pseudoexfoliation (PEX) syndrome and PEX glaucoma of Turkish descent.

Methods:

Three LOXL1 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs1048661, rs3825942, and rs2165241) were analyzed in 109 Turkish patients (44 patients with PEX syndrome, 65 patients with PEX glaucoma) and 47 healthy subjects.

Results:

“A” allele of SNP rs3825942 was underrepresented in control group compared with the glaucoma [odds ratio (OR)=4.5, confidence interval (CI): 95%] and syndrome (OR=4.5, CI: 95%) groups. “AA+AG” genotype of SNP rs3825942 was more frequent in the syndrome group (OR=10, CI: 95%) rather than the control group. “GT” genotype of SNP rs1048661 was presented less frequently in the control group compared with the glaucoma group (OR=4.25, CI: 95%). “T” allele of SNP rs1048661 was more frequent in glaucoma group (OR=2.05, CI: 95%) compared with control group. “T” allele of SNP rs2165241 was more frequent in the syndrome (OR=2.59, CI: 95%) and the glaucoma group (OR=3.78, CI: 95%) compared with the control group. “TT” genotype of SNP rs2165241 was underrepresented in control group compared with the syndrome (OR=3.85, CI: 95%) and the glaucoma (OR=6.58, CI: 95%) group.

Conclusions:

Findings of this current study indicate a different LOXL1 gene expression pattern compared with a recent study that was also performed in the Turkish population. Other gene replication studies are required to accurately assess genetic factors in the pathogenesis of PEX syndrome and glaucoma.
Piezosurgery in External Dacryocystorhinostomy
Authors: Czyz Craig N. , Fowler Amy M. , Dutton Jonathan J. , Cahill Kenneth V. , Foster Jill A. , Hill Robert H. , Everman Kelly R. , Nabavi Cameron B.
Published: October 2016

Background:

Dacryocystorhinostomy (DCR) can be performed via an external or endoscopic approach. The use of ultrasonic or piezosurgery has been well described for endoscopic DCRs but is lacking for external DCRs. This study presents a case series of external DCRs performed using piezosurgery evaluating results and complications.

Methods:

Prospective, consecutive case series of patients undergoing primary external DCR for lacrimal drainage insufficiency. A standard external DCR technique was used using 1 of 2 piezosurgery systems for all bone incision. All patients received silicone intubation to the lacrimal system. Surgical outcome was measured in terms of patient-reported epiphora as follows: 1) complete resolution, 2) improvement >50%, 3) improvement <50%, and 4) No improvement. Intra and postoperative complications were also recorded.

Results:

Fifty-two patients, 14 male and 38 female, were included in the study, with 2 patients having bilateral surgery. The average age of the patients was 55.8 years. The average length of follow up was 221 days. Surgical outcomes showed 72% of patients with complete resolution of epiphora and 21% with >50% improvement. There were 4 patients (7%) who had <50% improvement. There was 1 (2%) intraoperative complication and 2 (4%) postoperative complications recorded.

Conclusions:

Piezourgery is a viable modality for performing external DCRs. The lack of surgical complications shows a potential for decreased soft tissues damage. The surgical success rate based on patient-reported epiphora is similar to those published for mechanical external DCRs. This modality may benefit the novice surgeon in the reduction of soft and mucosal tissue damage.
Clinical Presentation and Bacteriology of Eyebrow Infections: The Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary Experience (2008–2015)
Authors: Carniciu Anaïs L. , Chou Jonathan , Leskov Ilya , Freitag Suzanne K.
Published: October 2016

Purpose:

This study retrospectively reviews preseptal cellulitis and abscesses involving the eyebrow to elucidate the bacteriology and potential causative factors.

Methods:

A retrospective chart review was conducted to identify patients who had been diagnosed with preseptal cellulitis or abscess involving the eyebrow at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary between 2008 and 2015. Demographic, clinical, and microbiological data were collected.

Results:

Eighty patients with eyebrow infections were identified, of whom 49 (61.3%) were female and 31 (38.7%) were male. The median age was 37 years (range 14–67 years). Eyebrow abscess was present in 54 cases (67.5%), while 26 cases (32.5%) were limited to preseptal cellulitis without abscess formation. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus was found in 20 abscesses (39.2% of culture results), and methicillin-sensitive S. aureus was found in 12 abscesses (23.5% of culture results). Coagulase-negative staphylococci were present in 7 eyebrow abscesses (13.7% of culture results). Clinical history was remarkable for eyebrow hair removal (tweezing, waxing, threading, or shaving) in 17 cases (21.3%), manipulation of acne lesions (“popping,” “picking,” or “squeezing”) in 6 cases (7.5%), and both brow hair removal and acne manipulation in 1 case (1.3%).

Conclusions:

There is a high incidence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the bacteriology of eyebrow infections. Empirical antibiotic coverage for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus should be strongly considered in any patient with an eyebrow area abscess or preseptal cellulitis. Individuals who practice cosmetic eyebrow grooming should be encouraged to consider hygiene practices, which could reduce the risk of infection.