bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Indeterminacy
Authors: Wilson Alastair
Published: March 2020

In Everettian quantum mechanics, the universal quantum state is fundamental, non-contingent, and wholly determinate. By contrast, the parallel worlds of diverging EQM, and the contingency constituted by self-location amongst those worlds, are emergent and partly indeterminate. In particular, it is indeterminate both how many worlds there are, and what microscopic qualitative features those worlds have. This chapter discusses various ways to understand indeterminacy in the Everettian multiverse, and argues that the indeterminacies of EQM present no obstacle to the analytic ambitions of quantum modal realism. Everettians can understand quantum indeterminacy using models of indeterminacy that are familiar from the philosophical literature on vagueness.
Conclusion
Authors: Wilson Alastair
Published: March 2020

Quantum modal realism is a strange and unfamiliar doctrine. That is not by itself a reason to disbelieve it. Physical reality has continually turned out to be larger than we imagined possible; quantum modal realism expands reality one step further, beyond the actual world. In this short conclusion, I trace the history of human beliefs about the size of the cosmos, and compare the expansion of our horizons that results from quantum modal realism to previous revolutions in cosmology. I also observe that in some ways quantum modal realism is economical; while it may expand our conception of reality, it does not expand our conception of what is possible or of what is actual.
Strange Beauty and the Platonic Narrative as History in The Renaissance
Authors: Lee Adam
Published: March 2020

Pater removed the word ‘history’ from the original title of The Renaissance (1873) for its second edition, and this chapter explores what Pater means by history. Although Pater was conversant with the historic method then popular at Oxford, which sought to contextualize its subject, he reveals a strong preference for depicting the individual genius of Michelangelo, Pico della Mirandola, and other Renaissance artists, beyond their historical conditions. Expanding his definition of the Renaissance beyond fifteenth-century Italy, Pater views it as a Platonic temper shared even by Johann Winckelmann as revealed in biographical narratives of ascension that are modelled on Plato’s Phaedrus and Symposium. The pattern of ascension is even evident in the charm and mystery of Pater’s style that refines from seen to unseen beauty.
The Revelation of Plato and Platonism and the Authority of Affinity
Authors: Lee Adam
Published: March 2020

This chapter traces the momentum of Platonic themes in essays leading up to Plato and Platonism (1893) and explores the book as a revelation of Pater’s lifelong philosophy informing his work. The structure of the book is explained as representative of Oxonian Platonism without losing sight of what makes it so characteristic of Pater. The central themes of Pater’s writing are elucidated through his understanding of Platonism, particularly through The Republic. Concerned with Plato as an author, Pater explains how he seeks organization in things, States as well as persons as well as artwork, for the sake of sanity, a conservative commitment that fights against decadence. The maintenance of sanity, the reason in beauty, is sought for the sake of one’s soul in Platonic education. It is Platonic love, explained as the affinity for persons like-to-like, that enables one to attain knowledge and express oneself with authority.
General Provisions
Authors: Guild Elspeth , Peers Steve , Tomkin Jonathan
Published: March 2020

This chapter discusses the general provisions of the citizens’ Directive (Articles 1–3), which state its purpose and define its territorial and personal scope. Essentially, the Directive applies to EU citizens and their family members who move to another Member State. While the basic tenets of the Directive can be described quite simply—EU citizens have the right to move to another Member State and to bring their family members with them—the detailed interpretation of the key rules defining the scope of that simple tenet has proven increasingly complex and controversial. The chapter then addresses three issues—the definition of EU citizens, the requirement of movement between Member States, and the position of family members—that determine the application of the rest of the Directive, and so delineate exactly which persons have the right to enter and reside, enter the labour market, resist expulsion, claim social benefits, and obtain permanent residence status.
Right of Residence
Authors: Guild Elspeth , Peers Steve , Tomkin Jonathan
Published: March 2020

This chapter details the right of residence provided for in the citizens’ Directive. The citizens’ Directive regulates and gives detailed expression to the right of free movement and residence conferred by the Treaties on Union citizens. At its simplest, the Directive regulates residence on the basis of the intended duration of a stay in another Member State. The chapter then evaluates case law which concerns the relationship between the right to equal treatment, on the one hand, and the right of residence, on the other, and whether mobile Union citizens could rely on the principle of equality as a basis for claiming a right to access social benefits and maintaining a right to reside in a host Member State.
Right of Permanent Residence
Authors: Guild Elspeth , Peers Steve , Tomkin Jonathan
Published: March 2020

This chapter focuses on the right of permanent residence provided for in the citizens’ Directive. Article 16, which creates a general status of permanent residence for EU citizens and their family members, is one of the novelties of Directive 2004/38. It builds on the conditional right to permanent residence for workers and the self-employed and their family members, which already existed, and which has been incorporated into the Directive at Article 17. Meanwhile, Article 18 provides for a permanent residence right for those third-country national family members whose EU citizen principal is no longer available as a source of rights, and who have retained rights of residence under Articles 12(2) or 13(2). The chapter also looks at the provisions of Articles 19–21 on administrative formalities, which are an important part of the protections for EU citizens and their family members.
Withdrawal Agreement
Authors: Guild Elspeth , Peers Steve , Tomkin Jonathan
Published: March 2020

This concluding chapter studies the citizens’ rights set out in Part Two of the Brexit withdrawal agreement. There are also some relevant provisions in Part One, setting out the ‘Common Provisions’, and Part Six, containing the ‘Final Provisions’. The relevant Part One provisions include Article 4, which states that the withdrawal agreement has the same legal effect as EU law in the UK, including the principle of supremacy; that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) judgments up until the end of the transition period shall be binding; and that subsequent CJEU rulings are to be taken into account. Meanwhile, the last provisions in Part Two of the agreement refer to publicity about the acquired rights of citizens, permit more favourable provisions to be applied, and confirm that the agreement provides life-long protection for those covered by the scope of the provisions.
Performative Utterance in Dans le leurre du seuil
Authors: McLaughlin Emily
Published: March 2020

This chapter investigates how Bonnefoy develops a theatrical model of poetic performance in the long sequence of poems ‘La Terre’, published in Dans le leurre du seuil in 1975. Examining how the poet repeatedly stages apostrophes to a flame and acts of address to a lover, it explores how he models his poetic performance on the fleeting movement of the light and the restless interactions between the lovers’ bodies. It analyses how Bonnefoy develops an inherently rhythmic conception of the act of relation, presenting it as an ecstatic gesture that has to be repeated endlessly. Investigating how both Bonnefoy and Nancy present this rhythmic act of relation as a generative worldly dynamic, this chapter scrutinizes how they develop a mobile and relational conception of ontology, conceiving of it as an open-ended and ongoing performance.
On Urines
Authors: Bouras-Vallianatos Petros
Published: March 2020

This chapter concentrates on John’s uroscopic theories as presented in his On Urines. It starts by examining the structure of the work, showing John’s intention to systematize knowledge on the subject by dividing his treatise into four large thematic areas, i.e. introductory details, diagnosis, aetiology, and prognosis, thus presenting a general-to-specific approach in each section. The analysis then shifts to John’s theories on the various stages of human digestion, which had remained undisputed for centuries. It is shown that John is eager to present his own understanding, especially on the role of the liver. John’s own observations are also evident in his discussion of the different colours of urine thanks to the extra explanatory information he provides in this respect, especially on how to differentiate between various colours. The last section focuses on John’s urine vial, which although identified as an important feature of his original approach by earlier scholars, was never fully contextualized in light of a holistic reading of John’s work or of the development of other, non-Byzantine, medieval theories on the subject. Consequently, it is argued that John’s most original contribution is the introduction and detailed definition of eleven subdivisions in the urine vial compared to the three areas traditionally identified.
On Urines
Authors: Bouras-Vallianatos Petros
Published: March 2020

This chapter focuses on the group of illustrated case histories narrated in John’s On Urines. An introductory section on clinical narratives provides the necessary background and emphasizes that John’s clinical accounts had no counterpart in the Greek-speaking world after Galen. It is argued that John’s case histories could function as didactic material for readers with specialist knowledge, while at the same time they could be used as self-promotional material to impress the specialist and non-specialist alike with the physician’s skills in diagnosing, prognostication, and his self-proclaimed ability to treat his patients successfully. The largest part of the chapter focuses on physician–patient encounters. It explores the significance of John’s acquaintance with the patients and the patient’s socio-economic background, but also their experience of the physician’s professional expertise. It is shown that the visual aspect of the urine vial constitutes a recurrent element of symbolic significance, which helps the patients decipher the physician’s actions and shows the latter’s awareness of the need for individualized patient care.
Introduction
Authors: Harding Robin
Published: March 2020

This chapter introduces the book’s central argument, and discusses the contribution that it makes to the literature. This contribution is twofold. First, Rural Democracy acknowledges that in addition to strategies of electoral fraud, clientelism, and ethnic politics, African rulers have also attempted to compete for votes by providing public goods and services to their citizens. A discussion of the range of strategies that governments use to secure rural votes, the distinctions and interactions between them, and their relative significance, serves to frame the book’s argument, and sets scope conditions to bound its generalizability. The book’s second major contribution relates to the impact of democracy on development more broadly. By theorizing the effects of electoral institutions within the specific contexts in which they are embedded, Rural Democracy suggests a way forward for future research on the impact of democracy on development in Africa, and elsewhere also. In discussing these contributions, Chapter 1 clarifies the minimalist understanding of democracy adopted in Rural Democracy. Although the argument in Rural Democracy is that even minimally competitive elections generate incentives for incumbents to consider voters’ preferences when making policy, the extent to which elections create incentives for the costlier strategy of pro-rural development likely diminishes below some level of democratic quality, or fairness. Chapter 1 also introduces and justifies the book’s threefold empirical strategy. This includes a discussion of case selection, and a consideration of how the results might generalize beyond the particular cases that are included in the analyses.
Democracy’s Rural Dividend
Authors: Harding Robin
Published: March 2020

This chapter evaluates the second and third hypotheses identified in Chapter 2, that the distribution of benefits resulting from the introduction of democratic electoral competition should be targeted primarily towards rural areas, and that the extent of any such urban–rural differences should be conditional on levels of urbanization. This is done using quantitative cross-national analysis of data from the Demographic and Health Survey Series. These household surveys provide incredibly detailed individual-level data on a range of essential education and health outcomes, across thirty African countries. This enables investigation of the extent to which these outcomes are affected by the introduction of electoral competition, and importantly, how these effects vary across urban and rural areas. Robust estimates demonstrate that democratic elections significantly increase access to primary education and reduce infant mortality rates, but only for children in rural areas. Moreover, these effects are conditional on the level of urbanization. The analysis provides no support for a series of alternative explanations, thereby strengthening confidence in the validity of the theoretical argument.
Land and Literature in a Cosmopolitan Age
Authors: Pecora Vincent P.
Published: March 2020

Despite its growing cosmopolitanism, European culture after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 was no stranger to ancient beliefs in a natural, religiously sanctioned, and aesthetically pleasing relationship to the land. The classical Greek notion translates as “autochthony”—literally, birth from the soil, enabled by a god. The biblical account in Exodus gives the idea of a Promised Land, designed for a particular people by their god. Twentieth-century versions of the first theme culminate in the Nordic (and then Nazi) notion of a Volksgemeinschaft—a folk community—built on the supposedly intrinsic link between Blut und Boden, blood and soil. And the idea of a Promised Land has motivated rebellious English Puritans, colonizing Americans obsessed with their “manifest destiny,” Dutch Voortrekkers, and a wide array of liberation movements.The many resonances of these topoi form a more or less coherent whole, from the novels of George Eliot to the poetry of T. S. Eliot, from thinkers such as J. G. Fichte to the Austrian historian Otto Brunner and the Indian social psychologist Ashis Nandy, and throughout the long history of Western aesthetics, from Meister Eckhart to Alexander Baumgarten to Martin Heidegger. The supposed cosmopolitanism of the modern age often obscures a deep commitment to regional, nativist, nationalist, and civilizational attachments, including a justifying theological politics, much of which is still with us today. Untangling the meaning of the vital geographies of the modern age, including how they shaped our accounts of literature and representation, is the goal of this book.
George Eliot’s Spot of a Native Land
Authors: Pecora Vincent P.
Published: March 2020

George Eliot reimagines what it means to belong to the land. In Adam Bede, Eliot explores both the importance of attachment to a rural life-world and the religious revival of Methodism. The too-earnest preacher of Adam Bede, Hetty Sorrell, is transformed into the too-earnest Daniel Deronda of Eliot’s last novel, Daniel Deronda. Here Eliot embraces the idea of a Promised Land for the diasporic Jews, with Daniel as a new Moses. But she also explores, in the novel’s competing plot lines, autochthonous attachments to the soil that emerge through blood continuities and long tenure on the soil. Eliot works out in parallel plots the moral deracination of Gwendolyn and the geographical deracination of Mirah. Daniel is the link between them. He has lived half his life as a spoiled, aimless English aristocrat, but then suddenly plans to live the second half as a migrating leader of his newly found people.
Epilogue
Authors: Pecora Vincent P.
Published: March 2020

The epilogue examines several ways of explaining our seemingly irreducible need for roots, for some sense that we authentically belong somewhere. The nostos of Joyce’s Ulysses famously recapitulates the nostos of Homer’s Odyssey. But is this millennial persistence of a sense of geographical belonging really, as we like to imagine today, at heart a product of local economic disruption that stimulates nostalgic fantasies? Franz de Waal describes the difference between the forms of belonging found in chimps and bonobos, one that determines how the different species define their social order. John Bowlby develops a theory of human psychological attachment that, perhaps, has ethological foundations in avian home-building. In his late interpretation of a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, Martin Heidegger recapitulates the theme that dominates his later work: dwelling on the earth is a poetic act of place-making before it is an instrument of domination.
Duties to the Dead
Authors: Stemplowska Zofia
Published: March 2020

Is it ever possible to mitigate any of the past injustice that was done to the living but who are no longer alive? Much has been written on what might be owed to the living on account of past injustices. Much less focus has been paid to the question of what might be owed at the bar of justice to the dead. This chapter advances an argument that does not rely on the possibility of posthumous benefit or harm. It argues that it is possible to mitigate some injustice done to those who are no longer alive. As a result, the living will sometimes have duties to the dead to mitigate some of the injustice they suffered while alive.
What Normative Facts Should Political Theory Be About?
Authors: List Christian , Laura Valentini
Published: March 2020

Just as different sciences deal with different facts—say, physics versus biology—so we may ask a similar question about normative theories. Is normative political theory concerned with the same normative facts as moral theory or different ones? By developing an analogy with the sciences, this chapter argues that the normative facts of political theory belong to a higher—more coarse-grained—level than those of moral theory. The latter are multiply realizable by the former: competing facts at the moral level can underpin the same facts at the political one. Consequently, some questions that moral theories answer are indeterminate at the political level. This proposal offers a novel interpretation of John Rawls’s idea that, in public reasoning, we should abstract away from comprehensive moral doctrines. The chapter contrasts its distinction between facts at different levels with the distinction between admissible and inadmissible evidence, and discusses some implications for the practice of political theory.
American Literature and the Long Downturn
Authors: Sinykin Dan
Published: March 2020

American Literature and the Long Downturn argues that the economic crisis of the 1970s established the conditions for a contemporary literary form: neoliberal apocalypse. Apocalyptic writing appears when groups perceive themselves as threatened and hope seems foreclosed. Focusing on James Baldwin, Cormac McCarthy, Leslie Marmon Silko, and David Foster Wallace, Neoliberal Apocalypse reveals how contemporary American experience has been shaped by the tendency to imagine our present as apocalyptic.
James Baldwin’s Apocalypse
Authors: Sinykin Dan
Published: March 2020

In the 1970s, critics asked, what happened to James Baldwin? In The Fire Next Time, Baldwin called for a moral revolution in which each American would radically transform and save America from racial warfare. A decade later, in No Name in the Street, Baldwin delivered an analysis of the failures of economic liberalism that heralded a generic shift in his literary career, transforming him from a prophet of the jeremiad—the nationalist holding out hope for American exceptionalism through individual reformation—to an apocalyptic visionary. The chapter shows how Baldwin’s apocalyptic turn—yet unregistered in the scholarship—emerged from a milieu of apocalypticism among black writers and artists in the mid- to late 1960s, including Amiri Baraka, Sun Ra, Ishmael Reed, and Malcolm X, all searching for an aesthetic form to solve a problem of political agency for black Americans in the wake of the civil rights movement.
White Rage, White Rapture
Authors: Sinykin Dan
Published: March 2020

The racial and sexual politics of the 1960s incited a sense of crisis among a subset of white Americans, whom Richard Nixon called his “silent majority.” The beginning of the long downturn limited the scope of governmental allocation at the same time that wages began to stagnate. Nixon encouraged his silent majority to see the racial other as a threat to white well-being in this new, economically constrained America. Two cultures of whiteness, and two apocalyptic discourses, emerged: white supremacy and Christian evangelicalism. Anxieties over globalization, finance capitalism, lost manufacturing, and rising wealth inequality become transfigured in these discourses into a wounded white masculinity that performs a violent recuperation of manliness.
Almost Magic
Authors: Sinykin Dan
Published: March 2020

As a teenager growing up in the Minneapolis suburbs in the 1990s, I believed the economy was strong, that liberal democracy, after the Cold War, was the final governmental form, and that the future was a place of unlimited growth. But this self-congratulation obscured the persistence of the long downturn and capitalism’s structural limits. Finance was an engine for creating personal debt and harvesting profits from America’s debtors. Neoliberalism collapsed the citizen into the consumer. David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest satirizes this America. It reveals addiction as a general condition within the debt economy. In anticipation of collective self-destruction, it hopes to save its readers from the pains of addiction and loneliness, but proves incapable of resolving the tension between the personal (addiction) and the structural (the economy), and so, instead, spills out toward infinity.
Land, Investment, and Migration
Authors: Toulmin Camilla
Published: March 2020

How do people survive and thrive in the uncertain and risk-prone Sahel? This long-term study portrays the people of Dlonguébougou in Central Mali, to show how they have adapted to change over the last 35 years, shaping new strategies and finding new sources of cash. Drawing on my 2 years in the village in 1980–1982, published in Cattle, Women, and Wells: Managing Household Survival in the Sahel (OUP 1992), I have revisited the people to explore the village economy and society today. A tripling in population, unpredictable rainfall, and the arrival of the Chinese have forced people into new ways of both making ends meet and building up wealth—some are doing much better than others. Using a combination of infographics, satellite images, interviews, and survey data, my research presents the different strategies and fortunes of individuals and their families, the search for new cash incomes, the shift of people from village to town, and the erosion of collective solidarity at household and village levels. Overall, people’s fortunes have been mixed. Many people acknowledge they have become financially better off, but they are no longer so rooted in the life and landscape of millet farming, which had structured household relationships and village society. Land has become much scarcer, and the villagers can no longer exert much power over the wider society and environment. In eight chapters, Land, Investment, and Migration is written in an engaging style, with plenty of illustrations and material from interviews.
History of Dlonguébougou and the wider region
Authors: Toulmin Camilla
Published: March 2020

Chapter 2 sets the village of Dlonguébougou within its wider region. Long-term shifts in rainfall have shaped the landscape and societies, from prehistory through to the emergence of the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai Empires, relying on trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, and slaves. The Bambara kingdom of Ségou used warfare to exact tribute and control trade, but by the time of the French conquest, much of the region had been taken under the jihadist rule of El Hajj Oumar Tall. The colonial administration had profound, long-lasting impacts on village life, taxation, forced labour, military recruitment, and legal and political systems. Economic and political events since Independence in 1960 are described, including the growing conflict in the north and centre of the country, sparked by demands for Tuareg autonomy, but now spread into widespread instability.
Introduction
Authors: Satz Helmut
Published: March 2020

Many similar individuals interacting only with their nearest neighbors create through self-organization a new collective entity, with its own laws and properties: swarms of locusts, flocks of birds, schools of fish, herds of antelopes and insect societies. The description of these phenomena in terms of mathematical models from statistical physics has provided the basis for our present understanding.
Complexity and Criticality
Authors: Satz Helmut
Published: March 2020

Complex systems and critical behavior in complex system are defined in terms of correlation between constituents in the medium, subject to screening by intermediate constituents. At a critical point, the correlation length diverges—as a result, one finds the scale-free behavior also observed for bird flocks. This behavior is therefore possibly a form of self-organized criticality.
The Audible Silence
Authors: Satz Helmut
Published: March 2020

Specific American crickets (snowy tree cricket) synchronize their chirps with the others in the swarm, with great precision. The chirp frequency is moreover a measure of the temperature of the environment, allowing a temperature measurement through chirp counting. Again the synchronization becomes possible only through intrinsic timing devices for each animal.
The Way to Go
Authors: Satz Helmut
Published: March 2020

Animals define the shortest route between two points on the ground through swarm intelligence: the most used and/or the one requiring the least time. Ants define traffic rules for most efficient travel. Bees have developed a symbolic language (waggle dance) to communicate orientation relative to the sun and to define the distance to the point of interest.
Communication and Language
Authors: Satz Helmut
Published: March 2020

Communication in animal swarms is restricted to concrete events in the present. The collective development of language provided humanity with a new tool to register and communicate past and future events as well as abstract concepts. All human languages follow Zipf’s law, indicating a common structure.
Introduction
Authors: Cobham Alex , Janský Petr
Published: March 2020

Global agreement in 2015 on the UN Sustainable Development Goals framework, to guide worldwide progress in the period to 2030, includes for the first time a target to reduce illicit financial flows (IFF). But without agreement on methodologies to measure the scale of IFF, it is not clear that global, regional or national efforts have any prospect of success. This book provides a critical survey of the leading methodologies and data for estimating illicit flows, with particular attention to tax-related IFF. This chapter lays out the structure of the book, and outlines the approach taken.
Lawrence Bragg and Linus Pauling: Comparisons and Rivalries
Authors: Meurig Thomas John
Published: March 2020

W. L. Bragg and L. C. Pauling were among the most famous scientists in the world for much of the twentieth century. Each was a Nobel Laureate, and each was admired, not only for their fundamental achievements in X-ray crystallography, but also as exemplary popularizers of science. In the fields of mineralogy (especially the structure of silicates) and protein structures, their interests overlapped. They admired their respective technical virtuosities, but there was deep-seated rivalry between them. It irked Bragg that Pauling had formulated simple stereochemical rules to account for the multiplicity of structures exhibited by vast numbers of silicates, and also that Pauling had proposed the existence of the alpha-helix and pleated sheets as motifs in the structure of proteins like keratin. The details of their rivalry, bordering on envy, is described through specific examples.
Dynamical system approaches to climate variability
Authors: Dijkstra Henk A.
Published: March 2020

A tutorial is provided on the application of dynamical systems theory to problems in climate dynamics. We start with the analysis of low-dimensional deterministic dynamical systems using bifurcation theory and provide examples in conceptual climate models.We then proceed to stochastic low-dimensional systems and eventually end with operator-based techniques within ergodic theory. In these notes, we start each section from a climate dynamics problem, motivate the choice of the model to study it, and use dynamical systems analysis to understand the behavior of the model solutions. In each of the chapters, a different phenomenon, a different type of model, and/or a different dynamical system tool will be presented.
Introduction
Authors: Socarides Alexandra
Published: March 2020

This Introduction describes the presence and absence of nineteenth-century American women’s poetry, both then and now; situates this book’s approach and method within the field of feminist recovery work, looking closely at the central role that subjectivity has played in past efforts to define the field; and explains how and why a study of conventions can provide a necessary intervention at this moment in nineteenth-century poetry studies. It articulates an argument for why the field should turn away from what is exceptional (namely, a study of individual women writers) and towards what might be seen as commonplace (namely, the conventions that those women employed).
Afterword
Authors: Socarides Alexandra
Published: March 2020

We arrive now at what I call “The Problem of Emily Dickinson.” This is neither a chapter proper nor a “conclusion,” but an “afterword,” precisely because Dickinson has, for a very long time, gotten the only word. It is not simply that the poems, or even the image, of Dickinson has eclipsed the literary landscape that I have tried to make visible in this book—she need not, as she herself claimed, take up that much space—but that the ...
Policing the Coronavirus Outbreak: Processes and Prospects for Collective Disorder
Authors: Reicher Stephen , Stott Clifford
Published: March 2020

This briefing is divided into three parts. First, we outline the factors which lead to incidents of collective disorder (or riots). Secondly, we consider how the overall response to the coronavirus outbreak and the role of the police within this response will impact the probability of such disorder. Thirdly, we apply these understandings to three specific scenarios of potential disorder.
Feasibility of manual white blood cell counts as a predictor of neonatal sepsis in a low-resource setting
Authors: Golding Christian N , Schaltz-Buchholzer Frederik , Sanca Lilica , Clipet-Jensen Clara , Benn Christine S , Au Nicholas , Chipperfield Kate , Kollmann Tobias R , Amenyogbe Nelly A
Published: March 2020

Background

Manual white blood cell (WBC) differential counts as a predictor for neonatal sepsis development in a low-resource setting have not been thoroughly evaluated. We hypothesized that manual differentiation (specifically immature:total [I:T] neutrophil ratios) would be feasible and useful as an adjunct to predict early-onset neonatal sepsis (EONS). Secondarily, we hypothesized that vaccination with bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) and oral polio vaccine (OPV) could alter WBC differential counts and thus might reduce its predictive performance.

Methods

We performed a prospective cohort study within a randomized trial, randomizing healthy, high-risk newborns admitted to the nursery at the national hospital in Guinea-Bissau 1:1 to BCG+OPV at admission or at discharge (usual practice). Thin capillary blood films were prepared at 2 d of age in a subset of 268 neonates. WBC counts were assessed by microscopy and neonates were followed up for sepsis development within 2 weeks.

Results

Ninety-eight percent (264/268) of smears provided interpretable reads. Of the 264 children, 136 had been randomized to receive BCG+OPV prior to sampling; the remaining 128 were vaccinated at discharge. The I:T ratio (average 0.017) was lower among children who did not develop clinical sepsis but did not predict sepsis (p=0.70). Only three children had an I:T ratio >0.2 (associated with a higher probability of clinical sepsis in previous studies) but did not develop sepsis. Immunization did not alter WBC composition.

Conclusions

Manual WBC differentials are feasible in low-resource settings. WBC differentials are not affected by standard newborn immunization. However, the I:T ratio had no value in predicting subsequent development of sepsis.
New symbiotic association in marine annelids: ectoparasites of comb jellies
Authors: San Martín Guillermo , Álvarez-Campos Patricia , Kondo Yusuke , Núñez Jorge , Fernández-Álamo María Ana , Pleijel Fredrik , Goetz Freya E , Nygren Arne , Osborn Karen
Published: March 2020

A new genus of ectoparasitic marine annelids living on ctenophores, Ctenophoricola gen. nov., is described and its feeding behaviour, reproduction and developmental stages are discussed. Its unusual morphology challenged its placement within the known marine families. However, analyses of mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data showed the new genus as member of the Alciopini, a group of holopelagic annelids included within the Phyllodocidae. Ctenophoricola masanorii sp. nov. from Japan and Ctenophoricola rousei sp. nov. from the Canary Islands (Spain) are described. A third species from the Gulf of California is not formally described because the specimens are in poor condition. The new genus is characterized by having: 1) two distinctive body regions, the anterior with reduced parapodia lacking chaetae, and the posterior with long parapodia and chaetae and 2) a pair of large, elongate lensed eyes. These eyes are here described using histology and 3D reconstruction based on a Californian specimen. The two new species mainly differ in colour pattern, shape of parapodia, number of chaetae and body ciliation.
Impact of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Species on Heterodera glycines
Authors: Pawlowski M. L. , Hartman G. L.
Published: March 2020

Soybean cyst nematode (SCN, Heterodera glycines) is a widely occurring pest and the leading cause of soybean yield losses in the U.S.A. There is a need to find additional SCN management strategies as sources of SCN resistance have become less effective in managing SCN populations. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) form symbiotic relationships with roots of most plants including soybean. Research has shown that AMF can reduce disease severity in plants caused by pathogens and pests, including plant parasitic nematodes. The goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of AMF on SCN cyst production, SCN juveniles in roots, and SCN egg hatching. In one experiment, all five AMF species tested (Claroideoglomus claroideum, Diversispora eburnean, Dentiscutata heterogama, Funneliformis mosseae, and Rhizophagus intraradices) reduced (P < 0.05) the number of cysts on soybean roots by 59 to 81%, compared with soybean roots not inoculated with AMF. Inoculation with F. mosseae reduced SCN J2–J3 stage juveniles in soybean roots by 60% at 7 days post inoculation. A separate experiment showed that egg hatch was reduced (P < 0.05) in the presence of F. mosseae spores and their exudates by 27% and 62%, respectively. Further research is needed to evaluate the potential usefulness of AMF in field conditions and to determine the usefulness and potential of the exudates associated with SCN hatching suppression by F. mosseae. Making AMF a more effective biological control agent would provide another management tool to reduce the negative impact of SCN on soybean production.
Discovery and Survey of a New Mandarivirus Associated with Leaf Yellow Mottle Disease of Citrus in Pakistan
Authors: Wu Jiaxing , Zhang Song , Atta Sagheer , Yang Caixia , Zhou Yan , Di Serio Francesco , Zhou Changyong , Cao Mengji
Published: March 2020

During biological indexing for viruses in citrus trees, in a collection of Symons sweet orange (SSO) (Citrus sinensis L. Osbeck) graft inoculated with bark tissues of citrus trees from the Punjab Province in Pakistan, several SSO trees exhibited leaf symptoms of vein yellowing and mottle. High-throughput sequencing by Illumina of RNA preparation depleted of ribosomal RNAs from one symptomatic tree, followed by BLAST analyses, allowed identification of a novel virus, tentatively named citrus yellow mottle-associated virus (CiYMaV). Genome features of CiYMaV are typical of members of the genus Mandarivirus (family Alphaflexiviridae). Virus particles with elongated flexuous shape and size resembling those of mandariviruses were observed by transmission electron microscopy. The proteins encoded by CiYMaV share high sequence identity, conserved motifs, and phylogenetic relationships with the corresponding proteins encoded by Indian citrus ringspot virus (ICRSV) and citrus yellow vein clearing virus (CYVCV), the two current members of the genus Mandarivirus. Although CYVCV is the virus most closely related to CiYMaV, the two viruses can be serologically and biologically discriminated from each other. A reverse-transcription PCR method designed to specifically detect CiYMaV revealed high prevalence (62%) of this virus in 120 citrus trees from the Punjab Province, Pakistan, where the novel virus was found mainly in mixed infection with CYVCV and citrus tristeza virus. However, a preliminary survey on samples from 200 citrus trees from the Yunnan Province, China failed to detect CiYMaV in this region, suggesting that the molecular, serological, and biological data provided here are timely and can help to prevent the spread of this virus in citrus-producing countries.
Precipitation Impacts Dissemination of Three Sooty Blotch and Flyspeck Taxa on Apple Fruit
Authors: Rosli Hafizi , Batzer Jean C. , Hernández Edward , Beruski Gustavo , Dixon Philip M. , Gleason Mark L.
Published: March 2020

The spatial dissemination of three prevalent taxa of sooty blotch and flyspeck (SBFS) fungi under several levels of precipitation was compared during 2015 and 2016 in an Iowa apple orchard. Overhead irrigation was used to supplement ambient precipitation in order to insure SBFS spore dissemination and colony development. There were five irrigation levels, involving 1-min-long periods of irrigation that were imposed either once or twice per hour at intervals of 3, 6, or 12 h, as well as a nonirrigated control. Preselected apple fruit were inoculated with one of the three SBFS taxa to serve as sources of inoculum. Dissemination from these inoculated apple fruit was assessed at harvest by counting SBFS colonies on water-sprayed and nontreated fruit. As a further control, additional fruit were enclosed in fruit bags throughout the fruit development period. In both 2015 and 2016, the number of colonies of the SBFS fungus Peltaster gemmifer per apple increased sharply as the duration of irrigation increased, whereas the number of colonies of Microcyclosporella mali increased to a lesser extent and Stomiopeltis sp. RS1 showed no increase. In 2015, the linear relationship between the duration of irrigation-imposed precipitation levels and the number of colonies on the water-sprayed apple fruit was similar for P. gemmifer (slope = 0.09), Stomiopeltis sp. RS1 (slope = 0.07), and Microcyclosporella mali (slope = 0.13); whereas, in 2016, the slope was higher for P. gemmifer (0.28) than for Stomiopeltis sp. RS1 (−0.09) or M. mali (0.06). The results indicated that dissemination of P. gemmifer increased sharply in response to increased irrigation-imposed precipitation, and that dissemination patterns differed considerably among the three SBFS taxa. The apparent advantage of P. gemmifer in precipitation-triggered dissemination may stem from its ability to produce spores rapidly by budding. To our knowledge, this is the first article to assess splash dispersal by SBFS fungi in the field and the first to document taxon-specific patterns of dissemination in this pathogen complex.
Lipid profile changes during the menopausal transition
Authors: Inaraja Veronica , Thuissard Israel , Andreu-Vazquez Cristina , Jodar Esteban
Published: March 2020

Objectives:

There is evidence that the menopausal transition in women is accompanied by changes in the metabolic profile. We evaluated the lipid profile during the perimenopause to postmenopause transition and its association with menopausal status.

Methods:

This is a retrospective observational study of laboratory studies from women presenting to the gynecology unit of Hospital Quirón Salud, Madrid (2007-2018) with irregular menstruation, amenorrhea or menopausal symptoms. Inclusion criteria were one or more blood samples with determinations of fasting glucose and lipids (total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol [LDL-c], high-density lipoprotein cholesterol [HDL-c] and triglycerides [TGs]) from women with a menopause diagnosis recorded in the hospital database. The determinations were classified as perimenopausal or postmenopausal based on the date of last menstruation.

Results:

In total, 13,517 laboratory studies (3,073 perimenopausal and 10,444 postmenopausal) from 275 women were analyzed. Total cholesterol, LDL-c, and TG levels were significantly higher in postmenopausal women than in perimenopausal women, whereas HDL-c levels were significantly lower (P < 0.05 in all cases). Further adjustment by age showed differences only in LDL-c levels. Menopausal status, TG levels, and the number of pregnancies were independently related with total cholesterol and LDL-c levels. HDL-c levels were independently affected by menopausal age, TG levels, and number of pregnancies. Finally, TG concentration was independently affected by total cholesterol, LDL-c, and HDL-c levels.

Conclusion:

Our study suggests that significant changes in LDL-c levels occur during the menopausal transition. Total cholesterol and LDL-c changes are independently affected by menopausal status and HDL-c is influenced by menopausal age.
Analysis procedures for assessing recovery of high quality, complete, closed genomes from Nanopore long read metagenome sequencing
Authors: Arumugam Krithika , Bessarab Irina , Haryono Mindia A. S. , Liu Xianghui , Zuniga-Montanez Rogelio E. , Roy Samarpita , Qiu Guanglei , Drautz-Moses Daniela I. , Law Ying Yu , Wuertz Stefan , Lauro Federico M. , Huson Daniel H. , Williams Rohan B. H.
Published: March 2020

New long read sequencing technologies offer huge potential for effective recovery of complete, closed genomes from complex microbial communities. Using long read (MinION) obtained from an ensemble of activated sludge enrichment bioreactors, we 1) describe new methods for validating long read assembled genomes using their counterpart short read metagenome assembled genomes; 2) assess the influence of different correction procedures on genome quality and predicted gene quality and 3) contribute 21 new closed or complete genomes of community members, including several species known to play key functional roles in wastewater bioprocesses: specifically microbes known to exhibit the polyphosphate– and glycogen–accumulating organism phenotypes (namely Accumulibacter and Dechloromonas, and Micropruina and Defluviicoccus, respectively), and filamentous bacteria (Thiothrix) associated with the formation and stability of activated sludge flocs. Our findings further establish the feasibility of long read metagenome–assembled genome recovery, and demonstrate the utility of parallel sampling of moderately complex enrichments communities for recovery of genomes of key functional species relevant for the study of complex wastewater treatment bioprocesses.
Global shortfalls in extinction risk assessments for endemic flora
Authors: Gallagher R. V. , Allen S. , Rivers M. C. , Allen A. P. , Butt N. , Keith D. , Auld T. D. , Enquist B. J. , Wright I. J. , Possingham H. P. , Espinosa-Ruiz S. , Dimitrova N. , Mifsud J. C. O. , Adams V. M.
Published: March 2020

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) ambitiously calls for an assessment of extinction risk for all recognised plant taxa by 20201. It is now clear that this target will not be met in the short-term; only 21-26% of known plant species have been assessed2– a monumental shortfall in anticipated knowledge. Yet the need for risk assessments has never been more urgent. Plants are rapidly going extinct3,4and face threats such as climate change5and permanent deforestation6. Extinction risk assessments continue to provide the critical foundation to inform protection, management and recovery of plant species7,8, the loss of which will have clear consequences for maintaining planetary systems and human well-being9. Here, we rank countries of the world based on progress towards assessing the extinction risk to their endemic flora. Overall, 67% of country-based endemic species do not have an extinction risk assessment completed (143,294 species). We show that some of the world’s wealthiest nations, which also have relatively strong species protections, are failing to protect their unique flora by not systematically assessing risks to their endemic species.
Highly sensitive and full-genome interrogation of SARS-CoV-2 using multiplexed PCR enrichment followed by next-generation sequencing
Authors: Li Chenyu , Debruyne David N. , Spencer Julia , Kapoor Vidushi , Liu Lily Y. , Zhou Bo , Pandey Utsav , Bootwalla Moiz , Ostrow Dejerianne , Maglinte Dennis T , Ruble David , Ryutov Alex , Shen Lishuang , Lee Lucie , Feigelman Rounak , Burdon Grayson , Liu Jeffrey , Oliva Alejandra , Borcherding Adam , Tan Hongdong , Urban Alexander E. , Gai Xiaowu , Bard Jennifer Dien , Liu Guoying , Liu Zhitong
Published: March 2020

Many detection methods have been used or reported for the diagnosis and/or surveillance of COVID-19. Among them, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is the most commonly used because of its high sensitivity, typically claiming detection of about 5 copies of viruses. However, it has been reported that only 47-59% of the positive cases were identified by some RT-PCR methods, probably due to low viral load, timing of sampling, degradation of virus RNA in the sampling process, or possible mutations spanning the primer binding sites. Therefore, alternative and highly sensitive methods are imperative. With the goal of improving sensitivity and accommodating various application settings, we developed a multiplex-PCR-based method comprised of 343 pairs of specific primers, and demonstrated its efficiency to detect SARS-CoV-2 at low copy numbers. The assay produced clean characteristic target peaks of defined sizes, which allowed for direct identification of positives by electrophoresis. We further amplified the entire SARS-CoV-2 genome from 8 to half a million viral copies purified from 13 COVID-19 positive specimens, and detected mutations through next generation sequencing. Finally, we developed a multiplex-PCR-based metagenomic method in parallel, that required modest sequencing depth for uncovering SARS-CoV-2 mutational diversity and potentially novel or emerging isolates.