bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Effect of Rhenium(I) Complexation on Aza-Michael Additions to 5-Amino-1,10-Phenanthroline with [18F]Ethenesulfonyl Fluoride towards PET Optical Tracer Development
Authors: Klenner Mitchell A. , Pascali Giancarlo , Zhang Bo , Ciancaleoni Gianluca , Massi Massimiliano , Fraser Benjamin H.
Published: January 2019

Conjugations with the recently developed [18F]ethenesulfonyl fluoride ([18F]ESF) were performed on 5-amino-1,10-phenanthroline, in its free form and coordinated to a rhenium(i) tricarbonyl complex, as a means of radiosynthesizing dual-modal optical and positron emission tomography (PET) tracers. The Michael-donating ability of the aromatic amine was noticeably perturbed on coordination with the rhenium(i) centre, resulting in decreased radiochemical yields from 34%, in the case of the free ligand, to 1%. We attribute the decreased nucleophilicity of the amine to metal deactivation from the electron-withdrawing feature of the rhenium(i) tricarbonyl centre, based on spectroscopic and computational evidence, thus highlighting this effect as a crucial parameter in designing late-stage metal coordination methods employing related aza-Michael additions. Photophysical analyses were also performed on the ESF-conjugated rhenium(i) complex, exhibiting a longer decay lifetime from the triplet metal-to-ligand charge transfer excited state when compared with the non-conjugated analogue.
Alleviation of field water stress in wheat cultivars by using silicon and salicylic acid applied separately or in combination
Authors: Maghsoudi Kobra , Emam Yahya , Ashraf Muhammad , Arvin Mohammad Javad
Published: January 2019

The role of exogenous individual or combined application of silicon (Si) and salicylic acid (SA) (control, 6mm Si, 1mm SA, and 6mm Si+1mm SA) on grain yield and some key physiological characteristics of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cvv. Shiraz (drought-sensitive) and Sirvan (drought-tolerant) was investigated under field water-stress conditions (100% and 40% field capacity). Drought stress caused a considerable reduction in biological yield, yield and yield components, relative water content and leaf water potential of both cultivars. Application of Si and SA effectively improved these parameters in water-deficit treatments. Moreover, water-limited conditions markedly promoted the activities of key antioxidant enzymes including peroxidase, ascorbate peroxidase, catalase and superoxide dismutase as well as the levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), while enhancing the accumulation of soluble sugars, potassium, magnesium and calcium in leaf tissues. Application of Si and SA further enhanced the activities of the key antioxidant enzymes and accumulation of osmolytes, and decreased the levels of H2O2 and MDA in drought-stressed plants; the positive effects of Si were greatest when it was applied with SA. Synergistic effects of Si+SA application on yield and physiological parameters were apparent compared with Si or SA applied separately. Water-stress alleviation and yield improvement in the wheat cultivars by Si and SA application was attributable to partly improved osmotic adjustment and antioxidant activity as well as to more favourable water status under stress conditions. Overall, Si and SA application proved to have great potential in promoting grain yield of wheat in drought-prone areas.
Barriers and facilitators to implementing playlists as a novel personalised music intervention in public healthcare settings in New South Wales, Australia
Authors: Dimopoulos-Bick Tara , Clowes Kim E. , Conciatore Katie , Haertsch Maggie , Verma Raj , Levesque Jean-Frederic
Published: January 2019

Listening to personalised music is a simple and low-cost intervention with expected therapeutic benefits, including reduced agitation, stress responses and anxiety. While there is growing evidence for the use of personalised music as a therapeutic intervention, there has been little investigation into processes and strategies that would support the implementation of playlists. The aim of this study was to identify the perceived barriers and facilitators to implementing personalised playlists on a large scale in public healthcare settings. A mixed-methods approach was used to evaluate the feasibility of the intervention in 21 different acute, sub-acute and primary healthcare settings in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, between June 2016 and June 2017. Data collection included 153 survey responses (staff n=35, patients n=49 and family members n=69), six focus groups (staff n=21) and an analysis of 37 documents. Data sources were systematically categorised using a Policy Analysis Framework. Facilitators included the use of implementation leads and volunteers, a high level of staff engagement and the integration of music selection and playlist development into routine clinical practice. Barriers included ongoing and unexpected funding, time to prepare playlists and staff turnover. The results from this study support the feasibility and acceptability of implementing playlists in different healthcare settings.
Fifty years of reproductive biology in Australia: highlights from the 50th Annual Meeting of the Society for Reproductive Biology (SRB)
Authors: Bromfield Elizabeth G. , Dowland Samson N. , Dunleavy Jessica E. M. , Dunning Kylie R. , Holland Olivia J. , Houston Brendan J. , Pankhurst Michael W. , Richani Dulama , Riepsamen Angelique H. , Rose Ryan , Bertoldo Michael J.
Published: January 2019

The 2018 edition of the Society for Reproductive Biology’s (SRB) Annual Meeting was a celebration of 50 years of Australian research into reproductive biology. The past 50 years has seen many important contributions to this field, and these advances have led to changes in practice and policy, improvements in the efficiency of animal reproduction and improved health outcomes. This conference review delivers a dedicated summary of the symposia, discussing emerging concepts, raising new questions and proposing directions forward. Notably, the symposia discussed in this review emphasised the impact that reproductive research can have on quality of life and the health trajectories of individuals. The breadth of the research discussed encompasses the central regulation of fertility and cyclicity, life course health and how the environment of gametes and embryos can affect subsequent generations, significant advances in our understanding of placental biology and pregnancy disorders and the implications of assisted reproductive technologies on population health. The importance of a reliable food supply and protection of endangered species is also discussed. The research covered at SRB’s 2018 meeting not only recognised the important contributions of its members over the past 50 years, but also highlighted key findings and avenues for innovation moving forward that will enable the SRB to continue making significant contributions for the next 50 years.
Accounting for potassium reserves and fixation in developing sugarcane fertiliser requirements
Authors: Elephant D. E. , Miles N. , Muchaonyerwa P.
Published: January 2019

Knowledge gaps exist in the literature regarding inclusion of reserve-potassium (K) and K fixation when formulating K fertiliser requirements for sugarcane. This study investigated the levels of reserve-K and K fixation in the soils of the South African sugar industry, as well as their potential impacts on K requirements for crop growth. The investigation involved 113 topsoil (0–20cm) samples, which included Acrisols, Arenosols, Ferralsols, Fluvisols, Leptosols, Luvisols, Nitisols, Plinthisols, and Vertisols. The release of K from the non-exchangeable reserves was measured using 1.0M boiling HNO3 minus exchangeable K, and was termed reserve-K. The capacity of the soil to fix added K was estimated through medium-term incubations and termed the K requirement factor (KRF, the amount of fertiliser K required to raise exchangeable K by a single unit). Both reserve-K and KRF varied widely across all soils and within soil types. Furthermore, there were also wide variations in the relationship between reserve-K and K fixation capacity. Soils were grouped according to their varying levels of reserve-K and K fixation, with a view to improve the reliability of fertiliser K recommendations. Soils with a combination of high to very high reserve-K and low K fixation capacity are of particular concern because of the risk of luxury uptake of K resulting in reduced sucrose recovery, whereas soils with low to medium reserve-K and high K fixation may maintain inadequate supplies of K for crop growth. In this study, the introduction of reserve-K and KRF in fertiliser K recommendations resulted in significant reductions in average K requirements across all soils. These findings point to a need to re-evaluate the basis upon which K soil testing is conducted, as well as current approaches to the development of fertiliser K recommendations.
Impacts of the New 2017 ACC/AHA Hypertension Guideline on the Prevalence of Brachial Hypertension and Its Concordance with Central Hypertension
Authors: Chuang Shao-Yuan , Chang Hsing-Yi , Cheng Hao-Min , Pan Wen-Harn , Chen Chen-Huan
Published: January 2019

OBJECTIVES

The 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guideline lowers the blood pressure (BP) thresholds for defining brachial hypertension. We therefore aimed to investigate how the new guideline influences the prevalence of brachial hypertension and whether it improves the identification of central hypertension in an Asian national representative population.

METHODS

A total of 2,742 adults older than 19 years participated in the 2013–2016 National Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan. Central and brachial BPs were simultaneously measured twice and averaged using a cuff-based stand-alone central BP monitor purporting to measure invasive central BP (type II device). Brachial hypertension was defined by brachial systolic/diastolic BP ≥ 130 or 80 mm Hg or using antihypertensive medication, and central hypertension was defined by central systolic/diastolic BP ≥ 130 or 90 mm Hg or using antihypertensive medication.

RESULTS

The national weighted prevalence rates of brachial hypertension according to the 2017 AHA/ACC guideline were 48.7% in men and 30.7% in women. The prevalence of brachial hypertension increased by 18.8% in men and 9.4% in women, when compared with the prevalence defined by the conventional thresholds of brachial systolic/diastolic BP ≥ 140 or 90 mm Hg. In comparison with the conventional criteria, the new hypertension criteria had a higher sensitivity (93.0% vs. 77.4%) and a lower specificity (86.7% vs. 99.6%) for detecting central hypertension.

CONCLUSIONS

Adoption of the 2017 AHA/ACC BP thresholds substantially increases the prevalence of brachial hypertension, especially in men, and identifies over 90% of those with central hypertension at the expense of lesser specificity.
OLGA: fast computation of generation probabilities of B- and T-cell receptor amino acid sequences and motifs
Authors: Sethna Zachary , Elhanati Yuval , Callan Curtis G , Walczak Aleksandra M , Mora Thierry
Published: January 2019

Motivation

High-throughput sequencing of large immune repertoires has enabled the development of methods to predict the probability of generation by V(D)J recombination of T- and B-cell receptors of any specific nucleotide sequence. These generation probabilities are very non-homogeneous, ranging over 20 orders of magnitude in real repertoires. Since the function of a receptor really depends on its protein sequence, it is important to be able to predict this probability of generation at the amino acid level. However, brute-force summation over all the nucleotide sequences with the correct amino acid translation is computationally intractable. The purpose of this paper is to present a solution to this problem.

Results

We use dynamic programming to construct an efficient and flexible algorithm, called OLGA (Optimized Likelihood estimate of immunoGlobulin Amino-acid sequences), for calculating the probability of generating a given CDR3 amino acid sequence or motif, with or without V/J restriction, as a result of V(D)J recombination in B or T cells. We apply it to databases of epitope-specific T-cell receptors to evaluate the probability that a typical human subject will possess T cells responsive to specific disease-associated epitopes. The model prediction shows an excellent agreement with published data. We suggest that OLGA may be a useful tool to guide vaccine design.

Availability and implementation

Source code is available at https://github.com/zsethna/OLGA.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
A Method to Bound the Number of Active S-Boxes for a Kind of AES-Like Structure
Authors: Wang Qian , Jin Chenhui
Published: January 2019

Due to the strong security and high performance of the AES block cipher, many hash functions take AES-like structures as building blocks. To evaluate the security of these AES-like structures against differential cryptanalysis, giving the lower bounds on the number of active S-boxes in a differential trail, is an important perspective. However, the original ‘wide-trail strategy’ for AES becomes less effective to get tight bounds for these AES-like structures, because of the different state dimensions (M×M2, instead of M×M) and different round functions from AES. In this paper, we focus on a kind of AES-like structure with state dimensions M×M2, diffusion-optimal permutations and MixColumns transformations using MDS matrices. Inspired by the ‘wide-trail strategy’, we propose a theoretical method to count active S-boxes, by which we prove that there are at least rBd(Bd−1) active S-boxes in any 2r(r≥3) rounds of such an AES-like structure, where Bd is the differential branch number of the MixColumns transformation and equals to M+1. What’s more, this lower bound can be achieved by some diffusion layers. As examples, we apply our method to the LANE hash function and 3D block cipher, optimal lower bounds are both got.
Variety Is the Spice of Late Life: Social Integration and Daily Activity
Authors: Fingerman Karen L , Huo Meng , Charles Susan T , Umberson Debra J
Published: January 2019

Objectives

Social integration (involvement with a diverse array of social ties) has been linked to positive outcomes including better physical health. Research has not investigated whether encounters with diverse social ties enhance individuals’ daily behaviors. The objectives of this study were to assess whether social ties connect individuals to more diverse daily behaviors, physical activity, and nonsedentary time as well as more positive mood.

Method

Older adults (aged 65+, n = 313) provided information about their 10 closest social ties. Then they completed ecological momentary assessment (EMA) surveys every 3 hr for 5–6 days where they reported on social encounters and behaviors. They also wore Actical accelerometers to objectively measure physical activity.

Results

Multilevel models revealed that encounters with a greater variety of social ties was associated with engaging in a greater variety of behaviors, more objectively measured physical activity, and a smaller proportion of time spent sedentary. Encounters with weak ties/peripheral social ties accounted for this increased activity (compared to being alone or with close friends or family). Moreover, involvement with diverse ties or diverse behaviors was associated with better mood.

Discussion

Findings are discussed in terms of social engagement theory, network diversity, and the benefits of weak ties.
Shear wave imaging to determine near-borehole faults for ocean drilling
exploration
Authors: Lee Sheng-Qing , Tang Xiao-Ming , Su Yuan-da
Published: January 2019

The Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) or Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), and the recent International Discovery Program (IODP) usually acquire borehole geophysical data for planetary exploration. A recently developed shear wave imaging technique was applied to the acoustic waveform log data of the IODP U1473A hole to image a fault system about 40 m away from the borehole. The shear wave imaging not only allowed us to delineate the fault structure in the vicinity of the borehole, but also to determine the orientation of the fault system, providing much needed information for the interpretation of the tectonic situation of the well site. Theory and method for the imaging application are elaborated and data processing results are presented along with the supporting borehole geophysical data. Its successful application to the IODP U1473A hole suggests that the shear wave imaging technique can be applied to the previously recorded and future ODP/IOPD borehole acoustic data, promising the extraction of valuable geophysical and geological information.
Ensemble models for data-poor assessment: accounting for uncertainty in life-history information
Authors: Rudd Merrill B , Thorson James T , Sagarese Skyler R
Published: January 2019

Length measurements from fishery catch can be used in data-limited assessments to estimate important population parameters to guide management, but results are highly sensitive to assumptions about biological information. Ideally, local life history studies inform biological parameters. In the absence of reliable local estimates, scientists and managers face the difficult task of agreeing on fixed values for life-history parameters, often leading to additional uncertainty unquantified in the assessment or indecision defaulting to status-quo management. We propose an ensemble approach for incorporating life history uncertainty into data-limited stock assessments. We develop multivariate distributions of growth, mortality, and maturity parameter values, then use bivariate interpolation and stacking as an ensemble learning algorithm to propagate uncertainty into length-based, data-limited stock assessment models. Simulation testing demonstrated that stacking across life history parameter values leads to improved interval coverage over simple model averaging or assuming the parameter distribution means when the true life-history parameter values are unknown. We then applied the stacking approach for a U.S. Caribbean stock where the Scientific and Statistical Committee did not accept the assessment due to uncertainty in life history parameters. Stacking can better characterize uncertainty in stock status whenever life-history parameters are unknown but likely parameter distributions are available.
Symplectic Geometry of a Moduli Space of Framed Higgs Bundles
Authors: Biswas Indranil , Logares Marina , Peón-Nieto Ana
Published: January 2019

Let $X$ be a compact connected Riemann surface and $D$ an effective divisor on $X$. Let ${\mathcal N}_H(r,d)$ denote the moduli space of $D$-twisted stable Higgs bundles (a special class of Hitchin pairs) on $X$ of rank $r$ and degree $d$. It is known that ${\mathcal N}_H(r,d)$ has a natural holomorphic Poisson structure that is in fact symplectic if and only if $D$ is the zero divisor. We prove that ${\mathcal N}_H(r,d)$ admits a natural enhancement to a holomorphic symplectic manifold that is called here as ${\mathcal M}_H(r,d)$. This ${\mathcal M}_H(r,d)$ is constructed by trivializing, over $D$, the restriction of the vector bundles underlying the $D$-twisted Higgs bundles; such objects are called here as framed Higgs bundles. We also investigate the symplectic structure on the moduli space ${\mathcal M}_H(r,d)$ of framed Higgs bundles as well as the Hitchin system associated to it.
Estimating the impact of deploying an electronic clinical decision support tool as part of a national practice improvement project
Authors: Kerns Ellen K , Staggs Vincent S , Fouquet Sarah D , McCulloh Russell J
Published: January 2019

Objective

Estimate the impact on clinical practice of using a mobile device–based electronic clinical decision support (mECDS) tool within a national standardization project.

Materials and Methods

An mECDS tool (app) was released as part of a change package to provide febrile infant management guidance to clinicians. App usage was analyzed using 2 measures: metric hits per case (metric-related screen view count divided by site-reported febrile infant cases in each designated market area [DMA] monthly) and cumulative prior metric hits per site (DMA metric hits summed from study month 1 until the month preceding the index, divided by sites in the DMA). For each metric, a mixed logistic regression model was fit to model site performance as a function of app usage.

Results

An increase of 200 cumulative prior metric hits per site was associated with increased odds of adherence to 3 metrics: appropriate admission (odds ratio [OR], 1.12; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.06-1.18), appropriate length of stay (OR, 1.20; 95% CI, 1.12-1.28), and inappropriate chest x-ray (OR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.75-0.91). Ten additional metric hits per case were also associated: OR were 1.18 (95% CI, 1.02-1.36), 1.36 (95% CI, 1.14-1.62), and 0.74 (95% CI, 0.62-0.89).

Discussion

mECDS tools are increasingly being implemented, but their impact on clinical practice is poorly described. To our knowledge, although ecologic in nature, this report is the first to link clinical practice to mECDS use on a national scale and outside of an electronic health record.

Conclusions

mECDS use was associated with changes in adherence to targeted metrics. Future studies should seek to link mECDS usage more directly to clinical practice and assess other site-level factors.
Data linkages between patient-powered research networks and health plans: a foundation for collaborative research
Authors: Agiro Abiy , Chen Xiaoxue , Eshete Biruk , Sutphen Rebecca , Bourquardez Clark Elizabeth , Burroughs Cristina M , Nowell W Benjamin , Curtis Jeffrey R , Loud Sara , McBurney Robert , Merkel Peter A , Sreih Antoine G , Young Kalen , Haynes Kevin
Published: January 2019

Objective

Patient-powered research networks (PPRNs) are a valuable source of patient-generated information. Diagnosis code-based algorithms developed by PPRNs can be used to query health plans’ claims data to identify patients for research opportunities. Our objective was to implement privacy-preserving record linkage processes between PPRN members’ and health plan enrollees’ data, compare linked and nonlinked members, and measure disease-specific confirmation rates for specific health conditions.

Materials and Methods

This descriptive study identified overlapping members from 4 PPRN registries and 14 health plans. Our methods for the anonymous linkage of overlapping members used secure Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act–compliant, 1-way, cryptographic hash functions. Self-reported diagnoses by PPRN members were compared with claims-based computable phenotypes to calculate confirmation rates across varying durations of health plan coverage.

Results

Data for 21 616 PPRN members were hashed. Of these, 4487 (21%) members were linked, regardless of any expected overlap with the health plans. Linked members were more likely to be female and younger than nonlinked members were. Irrespective of duration of enrollment, the confirmation rates for the breast or ovarian cancer, rheumatoid or psoriatic arthritis or psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, or vasculitis PPRNs were 72%, 50%, 75%, and 67%, increasing to 91%, 67%, 93%, and 80%, respectively, for members with ≥5 years of continuous health plan enrollment.

Conclusions

This study demonstrated that PPRN membership and health plan data can be successfully linked using privacy-preserving record linkage methodology, and used to confirm self-reported diagnosis. Identifying and confirming self-reported diagnosis of members can expedite patient selection for research opportunities, shorten study recruitment timelines, and optimize costs.
Advances in population ecology and species interactions in mammals
Authors: Kelt Douglas A , Heske Edward J , Lambin Xavier , Oli Madan K , Orrock John L , Ozgul Arpat , Pauli Jonathan N , Prugh Laura R , Sollmann Rahel , Sommer Stefan
Published: January 2019

The study of mammals has promoted the development and testing of many ideas in contemporary ecology. Here we address recent developments in foraging and habitat selection, source–sink dynamics, competition (both within and between species), population cycles, predation (including apparent competition), mutualism, and biological invasions. Because mammals are appealing to the public, ecological insight gleaned from the study of mammals has disproportionate potential in educating the public about ecological principles and their application to wise management. Mammals have been central to many computational and statistical developments in recent years, including refinements to traditional approaches and metrics (e.g., capture-recapture) as well as advancements of novel and developing fields (e.g., spatial capture-recapture, occupancy modeling, integrated population models). The study of mammals also poses challenges in terms of fully characterizing dynamics in natural conditions. Ongoing climate change threatens to affect global ecosystems, and mammals provide visible and charismatic subjects for research on local and regional effects of such change as well as predictive modeling of the long-term effects on ecosystem function and stability. Although much remains to be done, the population ecology of mammals continues to be a vibrant and rapidly developing field. We anticipate that the next quarter century will prove as exciting and productive for the study of mammals as has the recent one.
Targeted Genomic Profiling of Acral Melanoma
Authors: Yeh Iwei , Jorgenson Eric , Shen Ling , Xu Mengshu , North Jeffrey P , Shain A Hunter , Reuss David , Wu Hong , Robinson William A , Olshen Adam , von Deimling Andreas , Kwok Pui-Yan , Bastian Boris C , Asgari Maryam M
Published: January 2019

Background

Acral melanoma is a rare type of melanoma that affects world populations irrespective of skin color and has worse survival than other cutaneous melanomas. It has relatively few single nucleotide mutations without the UV signature of cutaneous melanomas, but instead has a genetic landscape characterized by structural rearrangements and amplifications. BRAF mutations are less common than in other cutaneous melanomas, and knowledge about alternative therapeutic targets is incomplete.

Methods

To identify alternative therapeutic targets, we performed targeted deep-sequencing on 122 acral melanomas. We confirmed the loss of the tumor suppressors p16 and NF1 by immunohistochemistry in select cases.

Results

In addition to BRAF (21.3%), NRAS (27.9%), and KIT (11.5%) mutations, we identified a broad array of MAPK pathway activating alterations, including fusions of BRAF (2.5%), NTRK3 (2.5%), ALK (0.8%), and PRKCA (0.8%), which can be targeted by available inhibitors. Inactivation of NF1 occurred in 18 cases (14.8%). Inactivation of the NF1 cooperating factor SPRED1 occurred in eight cases (6.6%) as an alternative mechanism of disrupting the negative regulation of RAS. Amplifications recurrently affected narrow loci containing PAK1 and GAB2 (n = 27, 22.1%), CDK4 (n = 27, 22.1%), CCND1 (n = 24, 19.7%), EP300 (n = 20, 16.4%), YAP1 (n = 15, 12.3%), MDM2 (n = 13, 10.7%), and TERT (n = 13, 10.7%) providing additional and possibly complementary therapeutic targets. Acral melanomas with BRAFV600E mutations harbored fewer genomic amplifications and were more common in patients with European ancestry.

Conclusion

Our findings support a new, molecularly based subclassification of acral melanoma with potential therapeutic implications: BRAFV600E mutant acral melanomas with characteristics similar to nonacral melanomas that could benefit from BRAF inhibitor therapy, and non-BRAFV600E mutant acral melanomas. Acral melanomas without BRAFV600E mutations harbor a broad array of therapeutically relevant alterations. Expanded molecular profiling would increase the detection of potentially targetable alterations for this subtype of acral melanoma.
Police Encounters with Persons with a Mental Illness
Authors: Chappell Duncan , O'Brien Anthony
Published: January 2019

Involvement with people with a mental illness (PMI) has been a feature of the role of police in Western societies since the earliest mental health legislation in the 19th century. It is only in recent times, however, and especially since the era commencing in the 1960s with the widespread closure of most asylums for the mentally ill, that this role has become the subject of systematic research and analysis. Early literature reflects concern about a role thrust on police as state-provided, institutionally based mental health services were rolled back. Police were confronted with a new phenomenon: the presence, especially in urban centers, of large numbers of people with disabling mental illness for whom there was no longer a residentially based mental health service, and frequently little in the way of a community-based program of mental health care and social services. Police were left to deal as best they could with what was often a crisis situation. One of the principal resulting consequences of a lack of comprehensive policy in this area, and the absence in particular of collaboration with and by mental health services, became a well-known cycle of arrest, incarceration, inadequate treatment, and chronicity for persons with mental illness. Without an effective model of interaction, any police response also ran the risk of escalating increasingly to the use of aversive measures, including deadly force. For these reasons, progressive police agencies sought new approaches to their involvement with people with mental illness. Since at least the 1960s the scholarly literature is reflective of this search. From this recognition emerged a variety of policing models designed to enhance the delivery of assistance to persons experiencing some form of mental health crisis. One of these models, the so-called Memphis Crisis Intervention Team (MCIT), has proven to be particularly influential and has now been widely adopted in some form or other in police agencies across North America and elsewhere. There is a considerable literature about the MCIT program that suggests it is effective in many areas, including changes in police beliefs and attitudes, improved pathways for those apprehended, and improved referrals to mental health services. There is less evidence about the effectiveness of other models as the literature reviewed in this article indicates. Attention is also directed to a number of emerging issues as well as those surrounding the education and training of police personnel, the protection of special populations de-escalation of crises, the use of force, and the particular challenges of extending these police response models to less developed parts of the globe.
European, Javanese, and African and Indentured Servitude in the Caribbean
Authors: Roopnarine Lomarsh
Published: January 2019

The movement of indentured laborers from Europe, Java, and Africa to the Caribbean in the decades before and after the abolition slavery (British Caribbean (1838), Dutch Guiana (1873), and the Danish West Indies (1848) in particular) has been overshadowed by the larger movement of indentured Indians and Chinese to the region. An estimated 500,000 Indians and 250,000 Chinese were brought to the Caribbean and Spanish Peru. By contrast, no less than 90,000 indentured Europeans, Africans, and Javanese were brought to the Caribbean region. Nevertheless, the smaller number of indentured from the latter group pales in comparison to their significance and contribution to the Caribbean plantation society in the 19th and early 20th centuries in terms of providing labor, serving as a buffer between the planters and other ethnic groups, and adding to the mosaic of culture in the Caribbean. However, European, African, and Javanese indentured servitude in the Caribbean has to be contextualized in its own domain before any careful assessment can be made. The European indentured were mainly from Ireland, Germany, Scotland, and Denmark, on the one hand, and Portugal (honorary whites), on the other. The former groups were brought to the Caribbean before African slavery while the Portuguese were brought to the region, mainly to British Guiana, after the abolition of slavery, although the first batch of Portuguese arrived in British Guiana in 1835. Taken together, both groups of indentured proved to be a supplementary source of labor to the plantation system for reasons relating to maladjustment to tropical labor and victims of social ills. The Portuguese, in particular, when their contracts expired drifted toward retail business. Some indentured Africans were brought or recruited from the West African coast but a majority of them were rescued on the high seas on slave ships bound for Cuba, Brazil, and the southern United States by British warships policing the Atlantic Ocean after the slave trade was abolished in 1807. Instead of sending these rescued Africans back to their homeland, they were indentured mainly to the British Caribbean. The Javanese were brought from the Dutch colony of Indonesia, mainly inland Java and the seaports of Batavia, Surabaya, and Semarang to Dutch Guiana after 1873. When their contracts expired, they formed independent communities and engaged in large-scale agriculture and retail business. The Javanese were brought only to Dutch Guiana, now Suriname.
Cultural Persuadables
Authors: Muñoz Kristine L.
Published: January 2019

Cultural persuadables refers to a perspective on persuasion that focuses on the power of membership in a cultural group to influence the actions of individuals. The nature and boundaries of cultural groups fall within the intellectual tradition of the ethnography of communication, in which group membership is a matter of understanding and having available for use the resources of distinctive codes of meaning that pertain to that group. Three forms of observable resources for persuasion exist within cultural codes. First, in every culture there is a range of actions that people may be persuaded to do. Outside of that range are (a) actions that no amount of persuasion, as distinct from coercion, would be effective, and (b) actions that are so fully prescribed and expected within the culture that no persuasive attempt would be understood as sensible. The range of persuadable action is thus the range of what people may be persuaded. Knowing how to frame persuasive attempts to fall within that range is one resource for persuasion. Second, among the many patterned forms of speaking that compose cultural codes there are some that are particularly functional for persuasive attempts because of their ability to encode the norms, premises, and symbolic meanings of the group of people. Examples of these forms are native terms for kinds of persuasive talk, accounts, gossip, and relationship-specific systems of meaning (relational codes). To know how to formulate and deploy these forms in both public and private contexts is to know with what members of the group may be persuaded. Finally, the strategies and tactics observed in overt persuasive attempts themselves constitute the how of persuasion within a given culture. The cultural persuadables perspective emphasizes the sociopragmatic aspects of influence attempts—sequential organization of talk, facework, impression management and the cultural elements described above—over the traditional psychological phenomena used to explain persuasion such as attitudes, emotions, cognition, and personality. Cultural persuadables applies to interpersonal processes of social influence as well as public forms of persuasion, otherwise considered to fall within the realm of rhetoric.
Ruth Benedict
Authors: Schachter Judith
Published: January 2019

Ruth Fulton Benedict, an American anthropologist (1887–1948), is best known for her contribution to the “culture and personality” school of American anthropology. Her 1934 book, Patterns of Culture, offers an analysis of cultures in terms of dominant character or, as she writes, a “configuration” based on selection from a wide arc of possible ways of organizing life. The concept of configuration figured in the writings she did over the next two decades, including her 1946 study of Japanese culture, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. She extended her analysis of the integrity and character of a configuration to assess the freedom and opportunity provided to individuals. In comparing societies on this basis, Benedict qualified the “cultural relativism” for which she is often known, and proposed an anthropology that produced critical culture consciousness as the basis for change. On that theoretical foundation, throughout the 1930s she wrote critically of a contemporary American culture that suppressed and marginalized individuals whose temperaments did not fit the dominant ethos—one of ambition, competition, individualism, and narrow definitions of gender identity. While her writings analyze the impact of cultural values, customs, and ideologies on the individual, she never portrayed culture as deterministic but claimed that individuals have the capacity to change the conditions under which they live. The anthropologist’s duty was to present the variability that might guide individuals to “direct” change in society in a rational and enlightened way. Less well-known is her work as editor of the Journal of American Folklore (1925–1940), and her writings on myths and tales. The stories people tell, she wrote, compose an “autobiography” of their culture. The threat of fascism across the Atlantic pushed Benedict to act on her responsibility as an anthropologist first by publishing a condemnation of racism in Race: Science and Politics (first published 1940) and then by joining the government to serve as a scientist-advisor. A series of reports on nations participating in the global conflict culminated in the influential The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946). In her postwar project, Research on Contemporary Cultures (RCC), Benedict pursued her wartime practice of applying anthropological insights to highly complex societies. She did not live to see the fruits of the project or the criticisms that pointed to the dangers of such inquiries in the service of American imperialism.
Guatemala (Modern & National Period)
Authors: Konefal Betsy
Published: January 2019

Guatemala is stunningly beautiful and rich in geographic and cultural diversity. The country also has had a long history of oppression, ethnic discrimination, and violence, resistance, and rebellion. Historical legacies loom large and continue to shape lives and possibilities, but Guatemalans share in a culture of resilience and a remarkable ability to find joy in the present. The early republic took shape amid Latin America’s familiar struggles between liberal and conservative ideologies. After two years as part of Mexico (1821–1823) and then as the capital of an unstable, Liberal-led Central American federation, an independent Guatemala emerged under Conservative-backed Rafael Carrera, who dominated the nation for a quarter-century beginning in 1840. Liberals prospered with the growth of coffee after 1860, gaining national power in 1871. So-called Liberal dictatorships during the next seven decades (except for an important reformist interruption in the 1920s) solidified Guatemala’s agro-export model and opened the door to the Boston-based United Fruit Company, which created a powerful banana enclave. Between coffee and fruit, peasants and workers suffered land loss and labor coercion in the highlands where most of the country’s Maya majority lived and in lowland plantations where workers (Mayas and “Ladinos,” as non-Mayas are known) produced fruit, sugar, and cotton under onerous conditions. In 1944, reformists overthrew dictator Jorge Ubico, opening the way to Guatemala’s first democratic governments. The Arévalo and Árbenz presidencies brought changes in labor laws, voting rights, education, and, in 1952, land tenure. The agrarian reform law encouraged the distribution of fallow portions of the nation’s largest landholdings. The mobilization that the law spurred and fierce backlash it provoked prompted Árbenz’s ouster in 1954 in a coup orchestrated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intervening in the name of anti-Communism. US-backed military dictatorships followed almost uninterrupted for the next thirty years, and a guerrilla oppositional insurgency began in 1960. The thirty-six-year war resulted in about 200,000 people killed, an estimated 83 percent of them Maya civilians. A truth commission found state forces to be responsible for 93 percent of killings, including genocidal army massacres of entire communities. The government and guerrilla forces signed an agreement in 1996 bringing an end to the war. The postwar era has been fraught and unsettled, with underlying causes of conflict unresolved; however, much has changed. A new “multiculturalism” is the norm, with at least lip service paid to the rights of Guatemalan Mayas, and a vocal civil society works openly and vigorously to insist on a government accountable to its citizens.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Authors: Lacey Andrew
Published: January 2019

Percy Bysshe Shelley (b. 1792–d. 1822) is now recognized as a major writer, chiefly a poet, of the Romantic period. His life was short, peripatetic, and frequently dogged by scandal. Treated badly in the reviews, he never knew great literary success in his lifetime. From privileged beginnings, Shelley quickly ran into trouble at Oxford: he was expelled in his second term, in 1811, for refusing to deny the authorship of the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism. By the time of the private publication of his long “Philosophical Poem” Queen Mab (1813), Shelley had been married, increasingly unhappily, for nearly two years to Harriet Westbrook, who would later commit suicide in 1816. Having eloped with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in 1814, Shelley published his first major volume Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude: and Other Poems in early 1816, and the pair spent the summer of that year with Byron on the Continent, during which time Shelley wrote his famous lyrics “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” and “Mont Blanc.” Shelley and Mary married in late 1816. Never secure in his finances, and feeling generally disillusioned with life in England, Shelley left for good in 1818, moving with Mary to Italy, where Byron, a firm influence, was residing. There, the Shelleys, Byron, and their circle lived as exiles, Shelley writing and publishing some of his finest poems, including Prometheus Unbound (1820), Epipsychidion, and Adonais (both 1821), all in spite of difficult personal circumstances: in his final years, Shelley endured grief (the deaths of his children Clara and William), anxiety (increasing strain in his relationship with Mary), and bouts of ill health (nephritis and ophthalmia). Before reaching the age of thirty, Shelley drowned in the Bay of Spezia, his boat, the Don Juan, having gone down in a storm. The twenty-four-year-old Mary, in the midst of a fresh bereavement, heroically took on the task of saving and copying Shelley’s manuscripts, publishing his Posthumous Poems in 1824; further (highly admirable, but flawed) editions of Shelley’s poetry and prose, also edited by Mary, followed (1839/40). Since his death, critical opinion on Shelley has varied wildly, and his reputation has been checkered. Famously, Matthew Arnold defined Shelley as “a beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain,” T. S. Eliot lamented that “the ideas of Shelley seem to me always to be ideas of adolescence,” and F. R. Leavis judged that he had “a weak grasp on the actual.” Since the 1950s in North America (later in Britain), Shelley’s status as an important writer, and his place on university syllabuses, has become more secure. This article will present, selectively, some of the most important sources on Shelley, concentrating primarily on post-1950s scholarship.
Tertiary Education in Contemporary China
Authors: Zha Qiang , Wang Chuanyi
Published: January 2019

Tertiary education in contemporary China (1990–) marks an era of reforms and expansion. In this period, the Chinese tertiary education sector struck the world with its ambitious moves that simultaneously push for rapid enrollment growth, constitute new governance structures, and seek to build world-class universities. Though some of the initiatives were started as early as in the mid-1980s when the Chinese government proclaimed reform programs in the education realm, these moves were forged intensively and extensively since the 1990s. The aggregate enrollment of the tertiary education sector grew from 3.4 million in 1998 (the year immediately before the latest expansion that aimed at having a mass system) to 38 million in 2017, increasing more than eleven times in less than twenty years. The number of institutions increased from 1,022 to 2,913 in the same time span, or by nearly three times. Now the Chinese tertiary education sector stands out as the world’s largest, and a majority of high school graduates in the country are able to continue their education and training at the tertiary level, which used to be a privilege for the very few. In the meantime, the Chinese government has been investing hugely in the elite university schemes (i.e., Projects 211 and 985) to raise some universities and programs to a world-class standing. Put together, tertiary education in contemporary China exhibited extraordinary changes in the past two decades, thus has attracted interest from researchers worldwide to study it. Against this backdrop, we have compiled this bibliographic text in the hope that it would provide a useful research instrument for scholars and students in the field. For this sake, we set up five criteria when selecting the bibliographical items: (i) frequency of citations (it is commonly perceived that solid works are more likely to be referenced and good for further references); (ii) reputation of the publisher or the journal (reputable publishers and journals arguably produce high-quality publications); (iii) status of the author(s) (active researchers in good standing always contribute a bulk of meritorious works in their own fields); (iv) scholarly awards and honors (the recipients of scholarly awards and honors often make outstanding publications in the field); and (v) nominations by scholars in the field (as a highly eclectic thematic area that draws vigor from a large array of scholarly pursuits, it is the field’s practitioners who are most knowledgeable about the remarkable works with respect to tertiary education in contemporary China). The last criterion may especially help identify recent and important works that don’t necessarily get high visibility/citations yet. Based on these criteria, we have collected slightly over two hundred journal articles and scholarly books, published in English or Chinese since 1990, with roughly equal emphasis on literature in either language.
Preventing Controversial Catastrophes
Authors: Baker Steven D , Hollifield Burton , Osambela Emilio
Published: January 2019

We model, in a market-based democracy, different constituencies that disagree regarding the likelihood of economic disasters. Costly public policy initiatives to reduce or eliminate disasters are assessed relative to private alternatives presented by financial markets. Demand for such public policies falls as much as 40% with disagreement, and crowding out by private insurance drives most of the reduction. As support for disaster-reducing policy jumps in periods of disasters, costly policies may be adopted only after disasters occur. In some scenarios constituencies may even demand policies oriented at increasing disaster risk if these policies introduce speculative opportunities.

Received September 25, 2017; Editorial decision September 3, 2018 by Editor: Thierry Foucault