bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Burghers versus Bureaucrats: Enlightened Centralism, the Royal Towns, and the Case of the Propinacja Law in Poland-Lithuania, 1776-1793
Authors: Murphy Curtis G.
Published: February 2017

In the eighteenth-century, European rulers embraced a common policy of enlightened centralism aimed at undermining the prerogatives of local self-government, a trend that even reached the decentralized Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. In this article, Curtis G. Murphy investigates an example of an Enlightenment centralist policy that failed. A new reformist king sought to convert the burghers' right to produce alcohol, known as propinacja, into a state-controlled monopoly, but the effort produced only chaos and the diminishment of self-government. Contrary to the center's complaint that insufficient force undermined a beneficial effort, Murphy argues that the law failed because the priorities of the locals did not align with the government's goals and the habits of selfgovernment clashed with the bureaucratic methods of enlightened centralism. Historians of Poland have often praised the centralizing reforms of the late-eighteenth century, but the case of the propinacja law questions whether such efforts justified the costs of destroying self-government in the towns.
Recovering the Past for the Future: Guilt, Memory, and Lidiia Ginzburg's Notes of a Blockade Person
Authors: Buskirk Emily Van
Published: February 2017

In this article, Emily Van Buskirk uses archival manuscripts to peel back layers of Lidiia Ginzburg's palimpsestic Notes of a Blockade Person. She finds in Notes the fragmentary, distanced, and carefully contained traces of Ginzburg's “A Story of Pity and Cruelty,” an intense narrative about guilt and remorse. Relying on Ginzburg's own scholarship, Van Buskirk argues that the author's transformations of experience across multiple texts were inspired by Aleksandr Herzen. Herzen provided a model for developing—out of a family tragedy, personal failure, guilt, and remorse—an elevated memoir that would serve history. Yet Ginzburg's notion of character, her ethics, and her documentary aesthetic were born of a different era and gave rise to different kinds of narratives, written in the third person about a slighdy generalized other, in a single situation. In Ginzburg's attempts to represent the typical Leningrad intellectual's blockade experiences there are tensions (characteristic of documentary literature) between desires for universality and specificity. Self-examination battles against self-exposure, while a commitment to literature of fact withstands an aversion to autobiography.
The End of Muscovy: The Case for circa 1800
Authors: Ostrowski Donald
Published: February 2017

How Russia transformed itself from a relatively small principality on the steppe frontier in 1450 to a major Eurasian empire by 1800 is one of the fundamental questions of Russian historical study. The two main views posit a central role for Peter I (1682–1725) in that transformation either by singled-handedly “changing everything” and bringing Muscovy into the modern age through embracing contact with Europe and with the western enlightenment or by accelerating the pace of changes already occurring. In this article, Donald Ostrowski proposes that Russia's transition during this period can be better explained by examining the general trends of historical development and influences across Afro-Eurasia. This essay also raises questions about the use of the termmodernizationand examines eight categories of historical development: contact with the world; establishment of an empire; court politics; military; society and economics; governmental administration; church relations; and culture and education. Ostrowski concludes that in the early modern period one finds no turning points in Russian history, only more or less continuous trends, and that only roughly around 1800 do fundamental changes begin to occur within these eight categories.
Introduction
Authors: Steiner Lina
Published: February 2017

Among the topics in Slavic literary scholarship that have emerged in the second half of the twentieth century, the study of Russian modernism, also known as the Silver Age, has been one of the indisputable leaders. The groundwork for the canonization of the Silver Age was laid in the postwar Soviet Union, where young poets like Andrei Voznesenskii and Joseph Brodsky made pilgrimages to Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova. The allure of the Silver Age was increasingly felt in official Soviet culture as well. Just as Vladimir Maiakovskii's canonical status had earlier sanctioned the limited study of other futurists, the official recognition of Aleksandr Blok and Valerii Briusov as the bards of the October revolution provided the cover for scholars in the 1970s and 1980s to undertake a massive excavation of symbolist culture. After the beginning of perestroika, survivors from the Silver Age, from philosopher Aleksei Losev to émigré poet Irina Odoevtseva, came to be revered as emissaries from a lost, better world.
Kinship and Crisis: Embedded Economic Pressures and Gender Ideals in Postsocialist International Matchmaking
Authors: Patico Jennifer
Published: February 2017

The rise of the international matchmaking industry has been particularly rapid and noticeable in the former Soviet Union, where the end of the Cold War has intersected with daily socioeconomic pressures to make cross-cultural romance and marriage newly possible and newly desirable for some women of Russia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet states. Less acknowledged than the role of economics in women's decision making, however, is the fact that postsocialist financial strains are not experienced in social vacuums but are mediated by ideals of gender and marriage, such that the search for a foreign spouse is unlikely to be experienced as a simple desire for increased material comfort. Instead, discourses of gender “crisis” in the home country inform the desires for transnational kinship for both women from the former Soviet Union and men from the United States. When both women's and men's narratives of “crisis” (and how transnational marriage might alleviate it) are taken into account, they significantly complicate our understandings of east-west relations of “commodification” and power.
“In Accord with State Interests and the People's Wishes“: The Technocratic Ideology of Imperial Russia's Resettlement Administration
Authors: Holquist Peter
Published: February 2017

In this article, Peter Holquist traces both the institutional culture and personnel of one key late-imperial era agency, the Resettlement Administration, based within the Main Administration of Land Management and Agriculture. Holquist examines the technocratic ethos of a close-knit set of officials within the Resettlement Administration's central office, a group who from 1906 to 1917 oversaw plans to develop the empire's peripheries as well as incorporate territories annexed during World War I. Crucial to all their plans was a commitment to the rational and scientific administration of the empire's people and resources under the aegis of the central state. This ethos informed policies during the last decade of the old regime and throughout World War I, and both this ethos and this cohort of officials influenced the state policy of Red and White governments during the civil war and laid the foundation for the Soviet state's colonization programs in the early 1920s.
On “Colonial” Forms and Functions
Authors: Geraci Robert
Published: February 2017

In the many works published on the imperial dimension of Russian history during the past decade, it is often the mechanical or “nuts and bolts” aspects of the empire's administration that are least discussed. So it is impressive to see two articles with a common focus on a practical institution—the Resettlement Administration—both of which argue for a strong connection between technical expertise and a colonial style of rule in the eastern Eurasian steppe and borderlands. But in spite of this common denominator, Willard Sunderland's and Peter Holquist's pieces could not be more different, in part because they approach the matter from opposite directions: Sunderland from a broad discussion of colonialism, Holquist from an analysis of a specific field of expertise.
Russian Statecraft after the “Imperial Turn”: The Urge to Colonize?
Authors: McDonald David MacLaren
Published: February 2017

Willard Sunderland and Peter Holquist find in the same cohort of imperial officials—the “technocrats” in the Resettlement Administration—a key moment in the history of Russian statecraft (gosudarstvennost’), linked in turn to the Russian state's career as a “modern colonial empire.” Thus, each historian seeks to ensconce within a larger institutional historical framework the burgeoning discussion occasioned over the last two decades by the “imperial turn” in Russian and European historiographies.

However, each article situates the resettlement administration in very different developmental narratives, reaching equally distinctive conclusions. guided by the foucauldian notion of “governmentality” and james scott's insights on statecraft, sunderland presents the resettlement administration as a proto-ministry of asiatic russia, whose “experts“ would impose in asiatic russia the institutionalization of “difference“ between metropolis and periphery—defined and explained by the new hilfsiuissenschaften—that european empire-builders had applied in civilizing their own overseas colonies.
Feuilletons Don't Burn: Bulgakov'sThe Master and Margaritaand the Imagined “Soviet Reader“
Authors: Kisel Maria
Published: February 2017

Maria Kisel argues that Mikhail Bulgakov'sThe Master and Margaritacan be read as a persuasive novel, intended to educate Soviet readers who, like the character Ivan Bezdomnyi, are ignorant of history and culture beyond their insulated Soviet reality. Kisel demonstrates how Bulgakov's novel coopts the form and themes of the Soviet satirical feuilleton to explain the virtues of the prerevolutionary cultural realm rooted in the western European intellectual tradition. To render his own cultural perspective accessible, Bulgakov revisits his early feuilletons written for the newspaperGudok,a category of writings he claimed to disdain.The Master and Margaritademonstrates a complex relationship with the imagined “Soviet reader,“ who is both an object of ridicule and a desired interlocutor. Examining the connection between the Master and Ivan as analogous to the teacher and disciple dynamic between Bulgakov and his own “Soviet readers,” this article offers a new interpretation of this well-loved and much-discussed masterpiece.
A Hall of Mirrors: Sovietizing Culture under Stalinism
Authors: Rolf Malte
Published: February 2017

This article explores how culture in the USSR became “Soviet.” Malte Rolf describes how different fields of communication and cultural production generated criteria that could be used to attach the label “Soviet” to all features of culture. Sovietizing culture was a work in progress, and various institutions, agencies, and experts actively participated in defining an adequate “Soviet style.” Focusing on this interplay of agencies and taking mass festivals as an example, Rolf portrays the dynamics of a growing selfreferentiality within Soviet culture in the 1930s in such cultural spheres as architecture, city planning, and mass celebrations. Under Stalinism, canonized “Soviet” standards also set the agenda for everyday communications. By reproducing an officially privileged agenda, participants in these daily communications encouraged a cultural inner Sovietization during the prewar decade. This article explores how and why the cultural canon of a closed system of “Soviet” references made its way so smoothly into die microstructures of society.
Between Spiritual Self and Other: Vladimir Solov'ev and the Question of East Asia
Authors: Lim Susanna Soojung
Published: February 2017

In this essay, Susanna Soojung Lim examines the philosopher Vladimir Solov'ev's representation of China and Japan in his theory of Pan- Mongolism. Emerging at the disjuncture between Solov'ev's ecumenism and the geopolitical realities of contemporary history, Pan-Mongolism was a creation onto which the philosopher projected his anxiety and disillusionment at the failure of his vision. Lim begins by surveying Russian perceptions of East Asia before the 1850s and situating Solov'ev within the popular discourse of the “yellow peril.” Discussing how Solov'ev recapitulates previous notions of this east, she considers Pan-Mongolism in terms of an acute Russian response to the historical and cultural changes originating in China and Japan at a period when the modernization of these nations was challenging the existing relationship between, and indeed the very categories of, east and west. A hybrid construct shaped by Russian occidentalism as well as orientalism, Pan-Mongolism is an idea that reveals both the strength and weakness of Solov'ev's Utopian universalism.
A systematic review of early modelling studies of Ebola virus disease in West Africa
Authors: WONG Z. S. Y. , BUI C. M. , CHUGHTAI A. A. , MACINTYRE C. R.
Published: February 2017

Phenomenological and mechanistic models are widely used to assist resource planning for pandemics and emerging infections. We conducted a systematic review, to compare methods and outputs of published phenomenological and mechanistic modelling studies pertaining to the 2013–2016 Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemics in four West African countries – Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria. We searched Pubmed, Embase and Scopus databases for relevant English language publications up to December 2015. Of the 874 articles identified, 41 met our inclusion criteria. We evaluated these selected studies based on: the sources of the case data used, and modelling approaches, compartments used, population mixing assumptions, model fitting and calibration approaches, sensitivity analysis used and data bias considerations. We synthesised results of the estimated epidemiological parameters: basic reproductive number (R0), serial interval, latent period, infectious period and case fatality rate, and examined their relationships. The median of the estimated mean R0 values were between 1·30 and 1·84 in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Much higher R0 value of 9·01 was described for Nigeria. We investigated several issues with uncertainty around EVD modes of transmission, and unknown observation biases from early reported case data. We found that epidemic models offered R0 mean estimates which are country-specific, but these estimates are not associating with the use of several key disease parameters within the plausible ranges. We find simple models generally yielded similar estimates of R0 compared with more complex models. Models that accounted for data uncertainty issues have offered a higher case forecast compared with actual case observation. Simple model which offers transparency to public health policy makers could play a critical role for advising rapid policy decisions under an epidemic emergency.
Strontium Isotope Evidence for Prehistoric Migration at Chokepukio, Valley of Cuzco, Peru
Authors: Andrushko Valerie A. , Buzon Michele R. , Simonetti Antonio , Creaser Robert A.
Published: February 2017

Although Spanish chroniclers referred frequently to coerced migration in the Inca Empire, these migrations have been difficult to document archaeologically. One approach to migration studies, strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis, has emerged as an effective technique. Until now, however, this method has not been applied to the Inca heartland region of Cuzco, Peru. In this study, we use strontium isotope analysis to examine patterns of prehistoric migration in the Cuzco Valley. Human dental enamel samples from the Cuzco Valley site of Chokepukio are analyzed and compared to the local87Sr/86Sr signature established through faunal specimens. Though tentative due to a small sample size, the isotope results do not provide evidence for migration at this site from the time periods preceding the rise of the Inca Empire (200 B.C. to A.D. 1400). In contrast, there is substantial evidence for migration during the time of Inca imperialism (A.D. 1400–1532). Among these migrants, variation in 87Sr/86Sr values suggests that individuals emigrated from geologically diverse locations, while sex differences in the migrant group include a higher percentage of females and a greater diversity in female87Sr/86Sr values. These data, along with ethnohistoric evidence, reveal how Inca labor policies reconfigured the composition of populations in the imperial heartland.
Evaluating the Distributional Approach to Inferring Marketplace Exchange: A Test Case from the Mexican Gulf Lowlands
Authors: Garraty Christopher P.
Published: February 2017

Over a decade ago Kenneth Hirth (1998, 2000) developed a “distributional approach” for archaeologically inferring the existence of marketplace exchange based on analyses of domestic artifact collections. Domestic collections, he reasoned, will be relatively homogeneous in areas where most or all households rely on marketplace exchange to acquire domestic provisions. The present study evaluates Hirth’s distributional approach using a statistical measure of diversity (heterogeneity) to quantify variability among domestic collection units over a large area. The data for this study come from the Middle Postclassic lower Blanco region of Veracruz (A.D. 1200–A.D. 1350), an unknown context of marketplace exchange. A comparison of diversity scores calculated on surface sherd collections from the lower Blanco region with scores from Late Postclassic Teotihuacan (A.D. 1350–A.D. 1520)—a known context of marketplace exchange—suggests the existence of a marketplace exchange system in the lower Blanco region, likely centered at the town of El Sauce. In addition, changes in intercollection diversity (sherds) and obsidian concentrations with increasing distance from the center suggest El Sauce’s market service area encompassed a radius of approximately six to nine kilometers.
Strontium Isotopes and the Study of Human Mobility in Ancient Mesoamerica
Authors: Price T. Douglas , Burton James H. , Fullagar Paul D. , Wright Lori E. , Buikstra Jane E. , Tiesler Vera
Published: February 2017

We analyzed strontium isotopes in more than 500 samples of shell, bone, and dental enamel from modern and archaeological contexts throughout Mesoamerica. The results correspond closely with expectations based upon the local geology and earlier measurements of geological materials. The results show that isotopic variation is significant across Mesoamerica. Thus strontium isotope ratios in dental enamel, which mark the place of childhood residence, can be used not only to document mobility but also in some cases to determine geographic origin. We present five archaeological case studies to illustrate the anthropological significance and range of applications for this technique: the origins of individuals in the “Oaxaca Barrio” at Teotihuacan, a northern origin for the founder of Copan, a local king at Tikal, the regional origin of two of Palenque's rulers, and individuals of African birth in a colonial cemetery in Campeche.
Techniques of Ancient Maya Bone Working: Evidence from a Classic Maya Deposit
Authors: Emery Kitty F.
Published: February 2017

An assemblage of modified bone remains from the site of Dos Pilas, Guatemala, in the southern Maya lowlands, is used to describe the raw materials, tools, techniques, and reduction strategies of Classic period Maya bone working. Most Maya bone artifact assemblages are not closely associated with production locales, are sparsely distributed across sites (rarely more than a few per household), and include primarily finished artifacts. In contrast, this large collection includes high frequencies of debitage from all stages of artifact production in a single spatially and temporally discrete locus—a residential group close to the main plaza of the site and occupied both before and after political disintegration of the Petexbatún hegemony. Comparative Petexbatún materials are used to suggest that although the Dos Pilas assemblage is unusually dense, the methods used by the bone crafters in this complex were similar to those used in all other periods and locations in the region and likely in the southern Maya lowlands as a whole. The Dos Pilas assemblage presents therefore an excellent model for Classic Maya bone-working.
Specialized Production of San Martín Orange Ware at Teotihuacan, Mexico
Authors: Sullivan Kristin S.
Published: February 2017

Specialized production forms an important component of the socioeconomic organization of ancient complex societies. Excavation provides critical information on the internal organization of production within a particular workshop and permits the recovery of features not preserved on the surface. In large settlements like Teotihuacan where modern occupation covers much of the ancient city, it is not feasible to fully excavate every suspected craft production locale. At Teotihuacan and in other complex societies, the use of surface indications to generate thematic maps permits discussion of the spatial relationships between economic and social units within the settlement. I use the surface collections made by the Teotihuacan Mapping Project and the partial excavation of one apartment compound and ceramic workshop in the Tlajinga district to consider the organization of specialized production in this neighborhood. I rely on the co-occurrence of ceramic production indicators to define likely workshops, using the surface collections from the excavated workshop as a reasonable indicator of production. Considering the evidence for vessel form specialization and dimensional standardization and previous ethnoarchaeological analyses of the excavated materials, Tlajinga district pottery production appears to have been maximally organized at the community level, with individual apartment compounds forming the basic production units.
Serenading Spanish Students on the Streets of Paris: The International Projection of Estudiantinas in the 1870s
Authors: Christoforidis Michael
Published: February 2017

Spanish estudiantina plucked string ensembles achieved immense popularity in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and were an important catalyst in the creation of the sonority of a variety of European and American popular musics. Such ensembles had precedents in Spanish student groups dating back to the Renaissance and the rondallas (or groupings of plucked instruments) that were associated with popular outdoor serenades. However, the modern estudiantina movement can be traced back to 1878, and was consciously framed as a modern historical construct. A large grouping of youths and former students, donning Renaissance student dress, decided to form a society to visit Paris during Carnival, on the eve of the 1878 Exposition Universelle. They took Paris by storm, performing in a variety of street settings, reinforcing the exotic stereotypes of serenading musicians associated with Spain, and bringing to life historical notions of the minstrel. In the decade that followed, the European performance contexts of the estudiantinas included theatres, outdoor venues and expositions, garden parties and salons – and they became fixtures of the music hall and the café chantant. This paper explores early English and French constructions of the estudiantina phenomenon, and how the groups were framed in the light of exotic street musics and prevailing tropes of Spain. It also examines how the outdoor performance settings of the estudiantinas were translated onto the theatrical stage.
The Imaginary of a Sect: Literature, Politics, and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of the Camorra
Authors: Benigno Francesco
Published: February 2017

This article reconsiders the so-called “dangerous classes” by focusing on the historical origins of the Neapolitan camorra, one of the world’s major criminal organizations. In the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples, the term camorristi referred to marginalized individuals and extortionists who operated in prisons, gambling halls, and brothels. During the turbulent period of Italian unification, such figures were increasingly seen as belonging to a legendary, omnipotent, and influential sect: the camorra, an organized secret society with its own hierarchy, customs, and jargon. This image eventually permeated Italian society. This article examines the reasons behind this evolution by focusing on the (mainly literary) texts and (essentially political) dynamics behind it, which reveal a process of criminalization and folklorization. Such a discursive transformation had a major impact on the Italian collective imagination, one that persists today.
The Construction of Confessional Identities in Eighteenth-Century Germany
Authors: Julia Dominique
Published: February 2017

Christophe Duhamelle’s La frontière au village. Une identité catholique allemande au temps des Lumières is part of the rich field of studies devoted to confessionalization in the Holy Roman Empire. The book is, however, innovative on at least three levels. First, it moves away from macrohistorical perspectives favoring an overarching point of view, instead analyzing confessional identity as an interaction and constant tension between attempts at standardization imposed from above and appropriations by communities themselves. Its guiding thread is not the confessional norm, but an exploration of the different ways that individuals establish a sense of membership within a community. Discontinuities and areas of uncertainty persist along the frontiers between Catholics and Lutherans, and confessional identity is characterized by its specular nature, feeding off of what it borrows from its opponents. Second, Duhamelle’s study focuses on the second half of the eighteenth century, in contrast to other studies predominantly dealing with the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Lastly, Eischsfeld, an exclave of the Archbishopric-Electorate of Mainz, was a rural territory, while most studies have essentially been devoted to towns.
Everyday Life Under Communism: Practices and Objects
Authors: Zakharova Larissa
Published: February 2017

Why should we consider the everyday life of ordinary citizens in their countless struggles to obtain basic consumer goods if the priorities of their leaders lay elsewhere? For years, specialists of the Soviet Union and the people's democracies neglected the history of everyday life and, like the so-called “totalitarian” school, focused on political history, seeking to grasp how power was wielded over a society that was considered immobile and subject to the state's authority. Furthermore, studies on the eastern part of Europe were dominated by political scientists who were interested in the geopolitics of the Cold War. The way the field was structured meant that little attention was paid to sociological and anthropological perspectives that sought to understand social interaction.
Family Memory and Private Archives in the Soviet Twentieth Century
Authors: Narsky Igor
Published: February 2017

This article examines two sets of private family archives and the diaries they contain. The authors included items from their own archives throughout their texts. What was their goal in inserting photographs, fragments of letters, official documents, and private papers into these texts? Can this practice shed light on the mechanisms of construction and preservation of family identity as well as on communication within families in the Soviet Union, a perspective that has otherwise remained inaccessible using other sources?
Letters of Controversy: Religion, Publication, and the Public Sphere in Seventeenth-Century France
Authors: Gay Jean-Pascal
Published: February 2017

This article attempts to bring together religious history and the history of the public sphere. It proposes to reinterpret the historical significance of doctrinal controversies by examining the relationship between a regime of publicity and an ecclesiastic regime. For instance, seventeenth-century French theological controversies were characterized by the frequent publication of letters, which indicates just how strongly the religious legitimacy of a given controversy was called into question. The publication of letters appears to have offered a means of responding to the destabilization of publishing practice caused by these controversies. It also attests to both the religious refusal to transform the church into a public sphere and how the ecclesiastic aspect of doctrinal controversies made them difficult to resolve. The relationship between publicity and religion thus appears particularly relevant for both historians of early modern Catholicism and historians of the public sphere.
Sitting Bull’s Second Grave: Colonial Metamorphoses in Twentieth-Century America
Authors: Grillot Thomas
Published: February 2017

The Lakota leader Sitting Bull was first buried on the Standing Rock reservation, only to be disinterred and re-buried sixty years later. A historical study of these graves leads less to the commemoration of a great man than an opportunity to reexamine colonialism within America. While American colonial power was a fragile one and challenged by some, it was also deeply rooted in the symbolic interactions that took place on and around the reservations, which involved depriving people of land, singling out certain segments of the population, and Americanizing people’s belief systems. While this attempt at internal colonization has been considered a massive failure due to the resistance of native populations, this article seeks to lend nuance to this interpretation and analyze the situation in all its complexity
City and Reciprocity: The Role of Cultural Beliefs in the Roman Economy
Authors: Verboven Koenraad
Published: February 2017

Over the past decade, the New Institutional Economics have become a popular model for analyzing ancient economic history. However, the notion of cultural beliefs, which plays a central role in Douglass North’s recent work and Avner Greif’s analysis of institutional change, has been largely ignored. This article argues that a neo-institutional approach taking this notion into account offers a better means of understanding how ideology and moral values influenced the ancient economy than the Finleyan model. Rather than acting as a deterministic constraint on human behavior, cultural beliefs help to orient decision making and allow one to anticipate the (re)actions of others.

This article explores two key sets of norms and values in Roman culture that profoundly marked the economy’s institutional framework. The first focused on reciprocity, which supported social networks beyond the confines of the familia-freedmen group and underlay the development of contract and agency law. The second was based on citizenship, which shaped political culture by creating individual rights and obligations that the political elite was given the authority to enforce in order to secure and stimulate both private and common interests. This resulted in Roman law and the distribution of justice. Ideologically, the Roman Empire presented itself as a meta-city that incorporated local communities, which were in turn gradually transformed to fit the civitas model.

Both sets of beliefs lowered transaction costs without threatening the preeminent position of local and imperial aristocracies. Toward the end of the second century CE, local communities weakened as the imperial administration grew stronger, causing local and regional aristocracies to turn to the imperial court and army for status, influence, and power. The ideology of citizenship as the guiding principle of political culture gave way to that of the sacred emperor, who guaranteed divine justice and order.
Enlightenment America and the Hierarchy of Races: Disputes Over the Writing of History in the Encyclopaedia Britannica(1768-1788)
Authors: Sebastiani Silvia
Published: February 2017

In the 1780s, the dispute about the New World entered a new phase. Creole voices redesigned the spatial, political, and economic matrix of modern thought about race within an Atlantic framework. By focusing on the changing eighteenth-century entry on “America,” this article considers the successful commercial enterprise of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which was conceived in Scotland. It examines the intellectual shift in reference from the Scottish Enlightenment of William Robertson to the antiquarian history advocated by Francisco Xavier Clavijero, a Mexican Jesuit, exiled in the Papal States. The new cartography of knowledge endorsed by the Encyclopaedia led to a racial classification associating Scriptures and providential history.
Hotspots of aberrant enhancer activity punctuate the colorectal cancer epigenome
Authors: Cohen Andrea J. , Saiakhova Alina , Corradin Olivia , Luppino Jennifer M. , Lovrenert Katreya , Bartels Cynthia F. , Morrow James J. , Mack Stephen C. , Dhillon Gursimran , Beard Lydia , Myeroff Lois , Kalady Matthew F. , Willis Joseph , Bradner James E. , Keri Ruth A. , Berger Nathan A. , Pruett-Miller Shondra M. , Markowitz Sanford D. , Scacheri Peter C.
Published: February 2017

In addition to mutations in genes, aberrant enhancer element activity at non-coding regions of the genome is a key driver of tumorigenesis. Here, we perform epigenomic enhancer profiling of a cohort of more than forty genetically diverse human colorectal cancer (CRC) specimens. Using normal colonic crypt epithelium as a comparator, we identify enhancers with recurrently gained or lost activity across CRC specimens. Of the enhancers highly recurrently activated in CRC, most are constituents of super enhancers, are occupied by AP-1 and cohesin complex members, and originate from primed chromatin. Many activate known oncogenes, and CRC growth can be mitigated through pharmacologic inhibition or genome editing of these loci. Nearly half of all GWAS CRC risk loci co-localize to recurrently activated enhancers. These findings indicate that the CRC epigenome is defined by highly recurrent epigenetic alterations at enhancers which activate a common, aberrant transcriptional programme critical for CRC growth and survival.
Erratum: Plasticity and ductility in graphene oxide through a mechanochemically induced damage tolerance mechanism
Authors: Wei Xiaoding , Mao Lily , Soler-Crespo Rafael A. , Paci Jeffrey T. , Huang Jiaxing , Nguyen SonBinh T. , Espinosa Horacio D.
Published: February 2017

Nature Communications 6: Article number: 8029 (2015); Published 20 August 2015; Updated 7 February 2017 Professors SonBinh T. Nguyen and Jiaxing Huang were inadvertently omitted from the list of corresponding authors in this Article. The correct information for correspondence is: ‘Correspondence andrequests for materials should be addressed to H.
Molecular determinant of the effects of hydrostatic pressure on protein folding stability
Authors: Chen Calvin R. , Makhatadze George I.
Published: February 2017

Hydrostatic pressure is an important environmental variable that plays an essential role in biological adaptation for many extremophilic organisms (for example, piezophiles). Increase in hydrostatic pressure, much like increase in temperature, perturbs the thermodynamic equilibrium between native and unfolded states of proteins. Experimentally, it has been observed that increase in hydrostatic pressure can both increase and decrease protein stability. These observations suggest that volume changes upon protein unfolding can be both positive and negative. The molecular details of this difference in sign of volume changes have been puzzling the field for the past 50 years. Here we present a comprehensive thermodynamic model that provides in-depth analysis of the contribution of various molecular determinants to the volume changes upon protein unfolding. Comparison with experimental data shows that the model allows quantitative predictions of volume changes upon protein unfolding, thus paving the way to proteome-wide computational comparison of proteins from different extremophilic organisms.
Implementation of concurrent electrolytic generation of two homogeneous mediators under widened potential conditions to facilitate removal of air-pollutants
Authors: Govindan Muthuraman , Bond Alan M. , Moon Il-Shik
Published: February 2017

Electro-scrubbing is being developed as a futuristic technology for the removal of air-pollutants. To date, only one homogeneous mediator for the removal of air pollutants has been generated in each experiment using a divided electrolytic flow cell in an acidic medium. This paper reports the concurrent generation of two homogenous mediators, one at the anodic half-cell containing an acidic solution and the other at the cathodic half-cell containing a basic solution. The concept was inspired by the change in pH that occurs during water electrolysis in a divided cell. A 10 M KOH electrolyte medium assisted in the electrochemical generation of low valent 14% Co1+ ([CoI(CN)5]4−) mediator formed from reduction of [CoII(CN)5]3− which was accompanied by a change in the solution 'oxidation reduction potential' (ORP) of −1.05 V Simultaneously, 41% of Co3+ was generated from oxidation of CoIISO4 in the anodic half-cell. No change in the solution ORP was observed at the cathodic half-cell when both half-cells contain 5 M H2SO4, and Co3+ was formed in the anodic half-cell. An electro-scrubbing approach based on the above principles was developed and tested on gaseous-pollutants, CH3CHO and CCl4, by Co3+ and Co1+, respectively, with 90 and 96% removal achieved, respectively.
Tai Chi Chuan and Baduanjin practice modulates functional connectivity of the cognitive control network in older adults
Authors: Tao Jing , Chen Xiangli , Egorova Natalia , Liu Jiao , Xue Xiehua , Wang Qin , Zheng Guohua , Li Moyi , Hong Wenjun , Sun Sharon , Chen Lidian , Kong Jian
Published: February 2017

Cognitive impairment is one of the most common problem saffecting older adults. In this study, we investigated whether Tai Chi Chuan and Baduanjin practice can modulate mental control functionand the resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the cognitive control network in older adults. Participants in the two exercise groups practiced either Tai Chi Chuan or Baduanjin for 12 weeks, and those in the control group received basic health education. Memory tests and fMRI scans were conducted at baseline and at the end of the study. Seed-based (bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, DLPFC) rsFC analysis was performed. We found that compared to the controls, 1) both Tai Chi Chuan and Baduanjin groups demonstrated significant improvements in mental control function; 2) the Tai Chi Chuan group showed a significant decrease in rsFC between the DLPFC and the left superior frontal gyrus (SFG) and anterior cingulate cortex; and 3) the Baduanjin group showed a significant decrease in rsFC between the DLPFC and the left putamen and insula. Mental control improvement was negatively associated with rsFC DLPFC-putamen changes across all subjects. These findings demonstrate the potential of Tai Chi Chuan and Baduanjin exercises in preventing cognitive decline.
Novel peptides for deciphering structural and signalling functions of E-cadherin in mouse embryonic stem cells
Authors: Segal Joe M. , Ward Christopher M.
Published: February 2017

We have previously shown that E-cadherin regulates the naive pluripotent state of mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) by enabling LIF-dependent STAT3 phosphorylation, with E-cadherin null mESCs exhibiting over 3000 gene transcript alterations and a switch to Activin/Nodal-dependent pluripotency. However, elucidation of the exact mechanisms associated with E-cadherin function in mESCs is compounded by the difficulty in delineating the structural and signalling functions of this protein. Here we show that mESCs treated with the E-cadherin neutralising antibody DECMA-1 or the E-cadherin binding peptide H-SWELYYPLRANL-NH2 (Epep) exhibit discrete profiles for pluripotent transcripts and NANOG protein expression, demonstrating that the type of E-cadherin inhibitor employed dictates the cellular phenotype of mESCs. Alanine scanning mutation of Epep revealed residues critical for Tbx3, Klf4 and Esrrb transcript repression, cell-cell contact abrogation, cell survival in suspension, STAT3 phosphorylation and water solubility. STAT3 phosphorylation was found to be independent of loss of cell-cell contact and Activin/Nodal-dependent pluripotency and a peptide is described that enhances STAT3 phosphorylation and Nanog transcript and protein expression in mESCs. These peptides represent a useful resource for deciphering the structural and signalling functions of E-cadherin and demonstrate that complete absence of E-cadherin protein is likely required for hierarchical signalling pathway alterations in mESCs.
Growth-inducing effects of argon plasma on soybean sprouts via the regulation of demethylation levels of energy metabolism-related genes
Authors: Zhang Jiao Jiao , Jo Jin Oh , Huynh Do Luong , Mongre Raj Kumar , Ghosh Mrinmoy , Singh Amit Kumar , Lee Sang Baek , Mok Young Sun , Hyuk Park , Jeong Dong Kee
Published: February 2017

This study was conducted to determine the effects of argon plasma on the growth of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] sprouts and investigate the regulation mechanism of energy metabolism. The germination and growth characteristics were modified by argon plasma at different potentials and exposure durations. Upon investigation, plasma treatment at 22.1 kV for 12 s maximized the germination and seedling growth of soybean, increasing the concentrations of soluble protein, antioxidant enzymes, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as well as up-regulating ATP a1, ATP a2, ATP b1, ATP b2, ATP b3, target of rapamycin (TOR), growth-regulating factor (GRF) 1–6, down-regulating ATP MI25 mRNA expression, and increasing the demethylation levels of the sequenced region of ATP a1, ATP b1, TOR, GRF 5, and GRF 6 of 6-day-old soybean sprouts. These observations indicate that argon plasma promotes soybean seed germination and sprout growth by regulating the demethylation levels of ATP, TOR, and GRF.
New murine Niemann-Pick type C models bearing a pseudoexon-generating mutation recapitulate the main neurobehavioural and molecular features of the disease
Authors: Gómez-Grau Marta , Albaigès Júlia , Casas Josefina , Auladell Carme , Dierssen Mara , Vilageliu Lluïsa , Grinberg Daniel
Published: February 2017

Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC) is a rare neurovisceral disease caused mainly by mutations in the NPC1 gene. This autosomal recessive lysosomal disorder is characterised by the defective lysosomal secretion of cholesterol and sphingolipids. No effective therapy exists for the disease. We previously described a deep intronic point mutation (c.1554-1009 G > A) in NPC1 that generated a pseudoexon, which could be corrected at the cellular level using antisense oligonucleotides. Here, we describe the generation of two mouse models bearing this mutation, one in homozygosity and the other in compound heterozygosity with the c.1920delG mutation. Both the homozygotes for the c.1554-1009 G > A mutation and the compound heterozygotes recapitulated the hallmarks of NPC. Lipid analysis revealed accumulation of cholesterol in the liver and sphingolipids in the brain, with both types of transgenic mice displaying tremor and ataxia at 7–8 weeks of age. Behavioural tests showed motor impairment, hyperactivity, reduced anxiety-like behaviour and impaired learning and memory performances, features consistent with those reported previously in NPC animal models and human patients. These mutant mice, the first NPC models bearing a pseudoexon-generating mutation, could be suitable for assessing the efficacy of specific splicing-targeted therapeutic strategies against NPC.
Magnetoresistive sensors for measurements of DNA hybridization kinetics – effect of TINA modifications
Authors: Rizzi G. , Dufva M. , Hansen M. F.
Published: February 2017

We present the use of magnetoresistive sensors integrated in a microfluidic system for real-time studies of the hybridization kinetics of DNA labeled with magnetic nanoparticles to an array of surface-tethered probes. The nanoparticles were magnetized by the magnetic field from the sensor current. A local negative reference ensured that only the specific binding signal was measured. Analysis of the real-time hybridization using a two-compartment model yielded both the association and dissociation constants kon, and koff. The effect of probe modifications with ortho-Twisted Intercalating Nucleic Acid (TINA) was studied. Such modifications have been demonstrated to increase the melting temperature of DNA hybrids in solution and are also relevant for surface-based DNA sensing. Kinetic data for DNA probes with no TINA modification or with TINA modifications at the 5′ end (1 × TINA) or at both the 5′ and 3′ ends (2 × TINA) were compared. TINA modifications were found to provide a relative decrease of koff by a factor of 6-20 at temperatures from 57.5 °C to 60 °C. The values of kon were generally in the range between 0.5-2 × 105 M−1s−1 and showed lower values for the unmodified probe than for the TINA modified probes. The observations correlated well with measured melting temperatures of the DNA hybrids.
Loss of HSulf-1: The Missing Link between Autophagy and Lipid Droplets in Ovarian Cancer
Authors: Roy Debarshi , Mondal Susmita , Khurana Ashwani , Jung Deok-Beom , Hoffmann Robert , He Xiaoping , Kalogera Eleftheria , Dierks Thomas , Hammond Edward , Dredge Keith , Shridhar Viji
Published: February 2017

Defective autophagy and deranged metabolic pathways are common in cancer; pharmacologic targeting of these two pathways could provide a viable therapeutic option. However, how these pathways are regulated by limited availability of growth factors is still unknown. Our study shows that HSulf-1 (endosulfatase), a known tumor suppressor which attenuates heparin sulfate binding growth factor signaling, also regulates interplay between autophagy and lipogenesis. Silencing of HSulf-1 in OV202 and TOV2223 cells (ovarian cancer cell lines) resulted in increased lipid droplets (LDs), reduced autophagic vacuoles (AVs) and less LC3B puncta. In contrast, HSulf-1 proficient cells exhibit more AVs and reduced LDs. Increased LDs in HSulf-1 depleted cells was associated with increased ERK mediated cPLA2S505 phosphorylation. Conversely, HSulf-1 expression in SKOV3 cells reduced the number of LDs and increased the number of AVs compared to vector controls. Furthermore, pharmacological (AACOCF3) and ShRNA mediated downregulation of cPLA2 resulted in reduced LDs, and increased autophagy. Finally, in vivo experiment using OV202 Sh1 derived xenograft show that AACOCF3 treatment effectively attenuated tumor growth and LD biogenesis. Collectively, these results show a reciprocal regulation of autophagy and lipid biogenesis by HSulf-1 in ovarian cancer.