bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
THE EFFECT OF WORK ETHIC AND DISCIPLINE ON EMPLOYEE’S PRODUCTIVITY AT VILLAGE BUSINESS OFFICE (BUMDES) IN LUTUR VILLAGE SOUTH NORTH ARU DISTRICT
Authors: Kriekhoff Shella
Published: February 2025

This research was conducted at Village Owned Enterprises Office (BUMDES) in Lutur Village, North South Aru District. This study uses work ethic and discipline as independent variables, and work productivity as the dependent variable. The purposes of this study were to determine the effect of work ethic and discipline on employees’ work productivity at the Village Owned Enterprise (BUMDES) Lutur Village, North South Aru District, and to determine the dominant variables between work ethic and discipline on employees’ work productivity at Village Owned Enterprise (BUMDES) Lutur Village, North South Aru District. The sample used is Amaris Hotel Ambon employees with a total sample of 37 respondents. The analysis used includes validity test, reliability test, model test, and multiple linear regression analysis and research hypotheses. Based on the results of the research, it can be seen that work ethic and discipline in this study proved to have a significant influence on work employees’ productivity at Village Owned Enterprise (BUMDES) Lutur Village, North South Aru District. Also, work ethic is the dominant variable that affects the employees’ work productivity at the Village Owned Enterprise (BUMDES) Lutur Village, North South Aru District. In this study, it was found that the variation in employee performance explained by work ethic and discipline is 74.8% while 25.2% was explained by other not-analyzed variables, including work stress, work environment, etc.
BOPO ANALYSIS, NON-PERFORMING LOAN (NPL), AND LOAN TO DEPOSIT RATIO (LDR) TO PROFITABILITY
Authors: Pattiruhu Jozef
Published: February 2025

Bank is the financial institution with the main business in collecting public money and funds it back in form of credit. Also, provide services in payment traffic and money circulation. Therefore, in doing its daily business activities, banks need to have money in order to provide the credit. In providing credit to customers, Bank management implements various policies in lending process. This study aims to determine and analyze whether BOPO, Non Performing Loan (NPL), and Loan to Deposit Ratio (LDR) have a significant effect on the profitability of PT. Maluku–Malut Bank in Ambon City or not with the research data from 2015–2019 periods. The analytical method used is multiple linear regressions using t-test to examine the hypothesis. Based on the research, the results show that: BOPO has a positive effect on profitability; NPL has a negative effect on profitability; furthermore, LDR has a negative effect on the profitability of PT. Maluku–Malut Bank in Ambon City.
THE EFFECT OF GREEN ACCOUNTING IMPLEMENTATION, SUSTAINABILITY REPORT, ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION, AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE ON FIRM VALUE
Authors: Saputra Mashari , Windyastuti Windyastuti
Published: February 2025

This research examines the effect of green accounting, sustainability report, asymmetric information, and financial performance on firm value. Green accounting and sustainability reports are becoming more important as awareness of sustainability and corporate social responsibility increases. On the other hand, asymmetric information can affect investors’ decisions, while financial performance is often a primary indicator in company valuation. The basic materials sector companies are concerned with the environment. Besides the environment, companies also need to be concerned about social issues, balanced information, and financial performance. By analyzing these factors, this research aims to determine whether green accounting, sustainability report, asymmetric information, and financial performance affect firm value. Firm value is measured by Tobin’s Q ratio, while other variables are measured by methods such as PROPER for green accounting, CSRIj for sustainability report, Bid Ask Spread (BAS) for asymmetric information, and Return on Assets (ROA) for financial performance. Data was taken from the company website, IDX, and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, with a sample of 77 basic material sector companies listed on the IDX for the 2019-2022 period. Data analysis was conducted with multiple regression using Excel and SPSS 23. The results of this research indicate that green accounting and sustainability reports affect firm value. While asymmetric information and financial performance have no effect on firm value.
Behindertenhilfe: Ein Gesetz verliert den Anschluss an die Realität
Authors: Rey Roman
Published: February 2025

Die private Behindertenhilfe in der Schweiz steht vor einem Dilemma: Während die Nachfrage nach Beratung und Unterstützung stetig steigt, stagnieren die Bundesbeiträge seit Jahren beziehungsweise gehen sie unter Berücksichtigung der Teuerung sogar zurück. Die Folgen sind bereits deutlich spürbar – erste Organisationen müssen ihre Angebote einschränken. Pro Infirmis, die grösste Fachorganisation im Behindertenbereich, musste erstmals in ihrer hundertjährigen Geschichte die Sozialberatung reduzieren. Auch andere Organisationen wie Procap oder SZBLIND stossen an ihre Grenzen. Eine Analyse der aktuellen Situation zeigt: Das System braucht dringend eine Anpassung.
Intervention strategies for type 2 diabetes prevention targeting low socioeconomic groups: protocol for a scoping review
Authors: Thylefors Josefine , Annersten Gershater Magdalena , Mangrio Elisabeth , Zdravkovic Slobodan
Published: February 2025

Introduction: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a public health issue with increasing prevalence, projected to affect 1.27 billion people in 2050. Its onset can largely be prevented or delayed by lifestyle changes. Access to screening is crucial for early diagnosis and treatment to avoid complications due to long-term elevated blood glucose levels. Studies have shown that populations with low socioeconomic status (SES) are among those groups that are more prone to developing T2D. With rising incidence and prevalence of the disease, prevention measures specifically targeting vulnerable groups such as socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, become increasingly relevant. The objective of the scoping review is to investigate what types of interventions have been tested and reported regarding prevention of T2D targeting low socioeconomic populations and that are applicable in a high-income country.
Methods: Studies addressing T2D prevention interventions tailored for populations with low SES that are applicable in high-income countries will be included. A systematic search strategy to identify peer-reviewed literature was developed in consultation with research librarians. Databases searched are Cinahl, PubMed and Web of Science. Interventional studies of various designs will be included and the researchers will independently assess studies for inclusion. The results of the study inclusion process will be reported in the final scoping review and presented in a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses extension for scoping review (PRISMA-ScR) flow diagram. Analysis of the data will be presented using a narrative approach, as studies are expected to have heterogeneous design features and variable outcome measures.
Discussion: The results will provide an overview of tested T2D prevention intervention studies targeting populations with low SES and will be used to inform and guide the research team and healthcare management for future interventions in Malmö.
Access for domestic workers to labour and social protection: the case of Kosovo
Authors: Haxhikadrija Amir , Mustafa Artan
Published: February 2025

Survey data suggests that there are around 2000 domestic workers in Kosovo (i.e. around 0.5% of all workers). Women are present in greater numbers, while most domestic workers are aged between 35 and 49. However, Kosovo currently lacks a specific legal framework and clear legal definition of domestic workers. The general collective agreement was the only formal document that explicitly acknowledged domestic work, but this expired in 2017 and no new agreement has been agreed. The legal framework that pertains to formal employees there­ fore only extends to domestic workers under contract, leaving the majority of workers in this sector without adequate labour and social protection. Since most domestic work is, in reality, undeclared, this situation makes workers highly vulnerable. Current policy discussions are focused on formally defining domestic workers within the proposed new law on labour and on improving employment registration procedures to benefit all stakeholders, although these are still in their early stages. The article concludes with a series of suggestions for improving such workers’ social protection and labour rights.
Access for domestic workers to labour and social protection: the case of Serbia
Authors: Stokić Ljiljana Pejin
Published: February 2025

2023 EU LFS data suggests that there are around 17 000 domestic workers in Serbia (i.e. less than 1% of all workers). Almost 85% of them are women and more than 60% are aged at least 50. Serbia has not ratified ILO Convention 189 and no legal definition of domestic workers has been adopted. Employment arrangements are still dominated by the direct engagement of domestic work­ ers by private households, due also to the limited number of private and state providers of homecare services. Some domestic workers are not willing to take up formal engagements, worrying that this will reduce their wages or that they might lose rights to other social benefits. Undeclared work is being tackled within broader efforts to combat the grey economy, although a proposed draft law on work engagement remains pending. This would bring a positive simplification of procedures and a reduction of fiscal burdens; however, it fails to address the nature and dynamic of domestic help. The article concludes by identifying some of the main ways in which social protection and labour rights for domestic workers could be improved.
Living conditions of workers and retirees in Türkiye in the context of the rising cost of living
Authors: Karadoğan Emirali
Published: February 2025

The cyclical crises of the global capitalist system have begun to occur more fre­ quently. In these times of crisis, while real income is decreasing or disappearing for many individuals and families, the cost of the goods and services necessary for a family to survive – that is, the cost of living – is also increasing. Therefore, in all countries that are integrated into this system, people who live by means of their labour have to struggle harder in order to survive and thrive. The aim of this article is to analyse the situation of employees and retirees in Türkiye in the context of the cost of living with reference to various economic and social indicators. The cost of living is not independent of the welfare practices operated in a country. For this reason, the article also features a short discussion of welfare and concludes by highlighting the policies and action agendas of the trade unions regarding the situation in Turkey, in view of the author’s conclusion that the solution lies in the coming together of a conscious and organised society with the political will that prioritises economic policies in favour of the people and workers.
FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN NIGERIA: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS
Authors: Ninyio Ninette Nyalyen
Published: February 2025

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Nigeria represents a pivotal component of the nation's economic landscape, positioning it as the third host economy for FDI in Africa, trailing behind Egypt and Ethiopia. Despite encountering significant setbacks, such as negative FDI flows amounting to USD 187 million in 2022, primarily due to equity divestments, Nigeria continues to attract substantial investor interest, particularly in sectors like hydrocarbons, energy, and construction. Noteworthy greenfield projects have surged, with investments such as Airtel Nigeria's USD 731 million data centre in Lekki and Sun Africa's USD 1.8 billion solar power plant and battery storage facility exemplifying this trend. Nigeria's strategic economic diversification efforts aim to reduce dependency on oil by fostering a competitive manufacturing sector and enhancing integration into global value chains. The consolidation of trade, industry, and investment under the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment underscores this coordinated approach. While Nigeria offers advantages like a partially privatized economy, favourable taxation, abundant natural resources, and low labour costs, challenges such as corruption, political instability, lack of transparency, security challenges, import restrictions, and inadequate infrastructure persist. Additionally, bureaucratic hurdles and an underdeveloped power sector impose further constraints on FDI potential. The Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) plays a crucial role as a one-stop investment centre, authorized to negotiate special incentives for substantial investments. Despite the country's placement at 145th out of 180 economies on the 2023 Corruption Perception Index, 109th on the Global Innovation Index 2023, and 125th on the Index of Economic Freedom 2024, Nigeria remains a promising destination for foreign investors because of low labour costs, favourable taxation and a privatized economy. This article delves into the multifaceted challenges and prospects of FDI in Nigeria, offering a comprehensive analysis of the current investment climate and future outlook.
The Tragic Paradox
Authors: Moss Leonard
Published: February 2025

Paradox informs the narrative sequence, images, and rhetorical tactics contrived by skilled dramatists and novelists. Their literary languages depict not only a war between rivals but also simultaneous affirmation and negation voiced by a tragic individual. They reveal the treason, flux, and duplicity brought into play by an unrelenting drive for respect. Their patterns of speech, action, and image project a convergence of polarities, the convergence of integrity and radical change, of constancy and infidelity. A fanatical drive to fulfill a traditional code of masculine conduct produces the ironic consequence of de-forming that code—the tragic paradox.

Tragic literature exploits irony. In Athenian and Shakespearean tragedy, self-righteous male or female aristocrats instigate their own disgrace, shame, and guilt, an un-expected diminishment. They are victimized by a magnificent obsession, a fantasy of un-alloyed authority or virtue, a dream of perfect self-sufficiency or trust. The authors of tragedy revised the concept of “nobility” to reflect the strange fact that grandeur elicits its own annulment. “Strengths by strengths do fail,” Shakespeare wrote in Coriolanus.

The playwrights made this paradoxical predicament concrete with a narrative format that equates self-assertion with self-detraction, images that revolve between incredible reversals and provisional reinstatements, and speech that sounds impressively weighty but masks deception, disloyalty, cynicism, and insecurity. Three heroic philosophers, Plato, Hegel, and Nietzsche, contributed invaluable but contrasting accounts of these literary languages (Aristotle's Poetics will be discussed in connection with Plato's attitude toward poetry). Their divergent descriptions can be reconciled to show that invalidations as well as affirmations—the transmission of contraries—are essential for tragic composition.

An equivocal rhetoric, a mutable imagery, and an ironic progression convey the tortuous pursuit of personal preeminence or (in later tragic works by Kafka and Strindberg) family solidarity and communal safety. I am trying to integrate the disparate arguments offered by several notable theorists with technical procedures fashioned by the Athenian dramatists and recast by Shakespeare and other writers, procedures that articulate the tragic paradox.
Aristotle on Knowledge of Nature and Modern Skepticism
Authors: Colaner Nathan R.
Published: February 2025

Confronting the scientific revolution’s dismissal of Aristotle’s physics and epistemology, Nathan R. Colaner revives this foundational philosopher’s work to expose within it the underpinnings of modern philosophers’ most common intuitions about knowledge. After Aristotle’s picture of reality had been judged obsolete by the physics of the scientific revolution, modern Western epistemologists fumbled along with doctrines that had little to do with everyday life. These included Descartes’ notion of the evil genius, Hume’s claim that we can’t know anything that we are not presently observing, and Kant’s rescue of knowledge in the context of idealism. In Aristotle on Knowledge of Nature and Modern Skepticism, Colaner articulates a notion of knowledge that is characteristically Aristotelian without being dependent on his metaphysics. Simultaneously, Colaner places Aristotle in dialogue with modern thinkers to create a bridge between classical and modern philosophy and reinstate Aristotle’s prominence in the discipline of epistemology.
Domination and Subordination As a Social Organization Principle in Georg Simmel's Soziologie
Authors: Bianco Adele
Published: February 2025

Analyzing Georg Simmel’s theory of domination and subordination as presented in his Soziologie (1908), Adele Bianco focuses on concrete case studies to derive an interpretation of globalization processes. Within sociology, domination and subordination are reciprocal. They represent constitutive modes of associated living, based on a hierarchical structure. Domination and subordination reflect social configurations, but are very controversial categories. Sometimes perceived as a justification of the status quo, they also run the risk of legitimizing the perpetuation of inequalities. In truth, they are tools to help us understand social order and identify inequalities' regulating structures.

Domination and Subordination as a Social Organization Principle in Georg Simmel's Soziologie begins by defining the relationship between domination and subordination at the micro level—the relationship among subjects. Then, after discussing the macro level, Bianco employs a variety of case studies to expose the intricacies of Simmel's domination and subordination theory. The ensuing discussions of democracy, employment relationships, social relationships, and globalization answer such questions as: Why is society divided between a top and a bottom? What does it mean to wield authority? What degrees of power are held by those in a position of inferiority? Why is the strong subject ultimately in need of the weak subject? What can be said of a majority winning in a democracy, and what is the minority left with? How can the social condition of the modern worker be reconciled with his proclaimed freedom? (and) What does subordination to the employer effectively comprise?

Scholars and students of sociology, social theory, labor studies, and psychology will benefit from this book's combination of intricate theories and real-world case studies towards a comprehensive theory of modern globalization.
Heritage Politics
Authors: Loo Tze May
Published: February 2025

Heritage Politics: Shuri Castle and Okinawa's Incorporation into Modern Japan, 1879–2000 is a study of Okinawa’s incorporation into a subordinate position in the Japanese nation-state, and the role that cultural heritage, especially Okinawa’s iconic Shuri Castle, plays in creating, maintaining, and negotiating that position. Tze May Loo argues that Okinawa’s cultural heritage has been – and continues to be – an important tool with which the Japanese state and its agents, the United States during its 27-year rule of the islands (1945–1972), and the Okinawan people articulated and negotiated Okinawa’s relationship with the Japanese nation state. For these three groups, Okinawa’s cultural heritage was a powerful way to utilize the symbolism of material objects to manage and represent the islands’ cultural past for their own political aims. The Japanese state, its agents, and American authorities have all sought to use Okinawa’s cultural heritage to control, discipline, and subordinate Okinawa. For Okinawans, their cultural heritage gave them a powerful way to resist Japanese and American rule, and to negotiate for a more equitable position for themselves. At the same time, however, this book finds that Okinawan strategies to deploy their cultural heritage politically are deeply intertwined with, and to a significant extent enabled by, precisely these Japanese and American attempts to govern Okinawa through its heritage. This examination of the political role of Okinawa’s cultural heritage is a window into a wider process of how nation-states and other political formations make themselves thinkable to the people they rule, how the ruled seek out spaces to make claims of their own, and how cultural pasts, once made usable, are implicated in these processes.
Western Art and Jewish Presence in the Work of Paul Celan
Authors: Cameron Esther
Published: February 2025

Western Art and Jewish Presence in the Work of Paul Celan: Roots and Ramifications of the “Meridian” Speech addresses a central problem in the work of a poet who holds a unique position in the intellectual history of the twentieth century. On the one hand, he was perhaps the last great figure of the Western poetic tradition, one who took up the dialogue with its classics and who responded to the questions of his day from a “global” concern, if often cryptically. And on the other hand, Paul Celan was a witness to and interim survivor of the Holocaust. These two identities raise questions that were evidently present for Celan in the very act of poetry. This study takes the form of a commentary on Celan’s most important statement of his poetics and beliefs, “The Meridian,” which is an extraordinarily condensed text, packed with allusions and multiple meanings. It reflects his early work and anticipates later developments, so that the discussion of “The Meridian” becomes a consideration of his oeuvre as a whole. The commentary is an act of listening—an attempt to hear what these words meant to the poet, to see the landscapes from which they come and the reality they are trying to project; and in the light of this, to arrive at a clear picture of the relation between Celan’s Jewishness and his vocation as a Western writer.
Aquinas on Beauty
Authors: Sevier Christopher Scott
Published: February 2025

Aquinas on Beauty explores the nature and role of beauty in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Beginning with a standard definition of beauty provided by Aquinas, it explores each of the components of that definition. The result is a comprehensive account of Aquinas’s formal view on the subject, supplemented by an exploration into Aquinas’s commentary on Dionysius’s Divine Names, including a comparison of his views with those of both Dionysius and those of Aquinas’s mentor, Albert the Great. The book also highlights the tight connection in Aquinas’s thought between aesthetics and ethics, and illustrates how Aquinas preserves what is best about aesthetic traditions preceding him, and anticipates what is best about aesthetic traditions that would follow, marrying objective and subjective aesthetic intuitions and charting a kind of via media between the common extremes.
Media and Politics in Contemporary Italy
Authors: D'Arma Alessandro
Published: February 2025

Media and Politics in Contemporary Italy is the first book to provide a comprehensive examination of the media system in Italy during the last twenty years. Seeing the rise of new political actors and the growing role of the Internet and social media, the general elections of February 2013 have symbolically closed a twenty-year period of Italian history dominated by Silvio Berlusconi politically and by television as channel of political communication. The analysis focuses on change and continuity with past media structures, cultures and practices, and considers the “Berlusconi factor,” namely the impact of one man on the country’s media system, journalism, and political communication.
Britain's Unfulfilled Mandate for Palestine
Authors: Reynold Nick
Published: February 2025

This book provides an in-depth survey of Britain’s Mandate in Palestine, an issue crucial to understanding the continuing atmosphere of mistrust and violence in the region that continues to the present.

At the conclusion of the First World War (1914–18), the League of Nations awarded a Mandate to Great Britain, which entailed governing a part of the defunct Ottoman Empire, a part which became known as Palestine. The Mandate, empowering Britain to govern this area for an unspecified period, had as one of its main objectives the understanding that Britain would assist the Zionist Movement in the creation of a Homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.

During the thirty years that Britain ruled Palestine, it made no serious effort to carry out this commitment. The author discusses a variety of reasons for this failure, but the greatest obstacle preventing it from fulfilling its Mandate was that Britain completely miscalculated the reaction of the large Arab majority in the country. In fear of repercussions from the growing Arab nationalism various British Governments over the years decided that their best interests would be served by appeasing the Palestine Arabs and reneging on the British promise to Zionism. As the author shows, Britain’s failure to fulfil its Mandate obligations was a major contribution to the problems that have persisted in the Middle East for decades.
Women and Capitalism in the Croatian Hinterland
Authors: Hofman Nila Ginger
Published: February 2025

In Women and Capitalism in the Croatian Hinterland: The Practice of Labor and Consumption, Nila Ginger Hofman examines the effects of post-socialist capitalism on the lives of Croatian women. Croatia’s secession from socialism and a more recent gestating capitalist landscape provide the contexts in which the author examines how women navigate the labor and consumer markets. The women consulted for this book experienced two decades of developing free-market capitalism. They also experienced the disintegration of the self-managing socialism that existed in Yugoslavia from 1948 to 1991; four years of the Balkan War, which brought emotional and infrastructural tolls; and the emergence of the new Croatian Republic in 1991. The transition to capitalism in the last part of the twentieth century brought anticipation, angst, and excitement. The new millennium has also been plagued by unemployment rates hovering around 20 percent as well as the emergence of western-style shopping malls. Women and Capitalism in the Croatian Hinterland details the cumulative effects of these changes, which resulted in an unprecedented upheaval in the lives of Croatians.
Echoes of Aquinas in Cusanus's Vision of Man
Authors: Führer Markus
Published: February 2025

Echoes of Aquinas in Cusanus’s Vision of Man demonstrates the influence that the philosophical and theological anthropology of Saint Thomas Aquinas had on Nicholas of Cusa’s (Cusanus) view of human nature. Markus Führer demonstrates that Cusanus's view of the place of man in the universe is remarkably similar to the view of Aquinas. Führer thereby challenges the prevailing opinion that Cusanus was a Renaissance philosopher dedicated to the philosophy of man and that he was one of the founders of Renaissance humanism. A close examination of the texts of both Aquinas and Cusanus, when compared to some of the leading Renaissance writers, indicates that it is not entirely true that Cusanus was Renaissance in his analysis of the human condition. Because Cusanus’s copies of some of the works of Aquinas are still intact and his marginal comments in these manuscripts indicate not only that he read Aquinas carefully, but also actually reacted to texts in Aquinas, it is possible to conduct a study of Cusanus’s use of Aquinas based directly on the text of Aquinas. Führer also explores similarities by studying the formulae that both writers used in expressing their respective positions. This book, with its unique examination of the impact of Aquinas’s thought upon Cusanus, will appeal to students and scholars of late medieval theology and philosophy.
Timor-Leste
Authors: Joseph Abraham , Hamaguchi Takako
Published: February 2025

Timor-Leste: The History and Development of Asia’s Newest Nation is a study of how a small Asia-Pacific nation has emerged from protracted conflict and successfully navigated a path to durable peace and sustainable development. Despite early setbacks, Timor-Leste has made an amazing turnaround and today finds itself in a new era in which it will certainly continue its advance toward the goal of long-term stability and prosperity, leaving permanently behind the past that was once marked by a descending spiral of destruction.

Yet, a number of development challenges lie ahead for Timor-Leste, particularly in strengthening human, institutional, and infrastructural capacities in the short to medium term, and in transforming the national economy from oil-based to more diversified and better balanced in the longer run. Other countries may draw valuable lessons from Timor-Leste’s experience, especially those that are emerging from as well as are currently affected by conflict and instability. Such lessons would center on the questions such as management of natural resources, empowerment of the vulnerable, implementation of transparent and accountable governance, advancement of women, and mobilization of civil society and the public in general for democratization and the national development process.
Anthropology of Childhood and Youth
Authors: Vitale Geoffrey
Published: February 2025

In Anthropology of Childhood and Youth, author Geoffrey Vitale shows the ways in which people understand, raise, and educate children and youth differently from century to century and from country to country according to the culture, lifestyle, politics, and economics of their place of origin. He also introduces the reader to the manner in which professionals relate to these matters, with a focus on an anthropological perspective.

Vitale discusses similar problems and matters for inquiry a thousand years apart, and separated by oceans. The adoption or abandonment of children, for instance, created problems of inheritance, sexual relationship, and family support and integration in Ancient Greece, just as it does today in contemporary Japan. The author therefore, proposes a flexible tour of human society, intended essentially to introduce the reader to points of view, strategies, and approaches that go beyond the purely domestic, both in place and time—which may introduce new ideas and present new theories and diverse understandings.

Anthropology of Childhood and Youth establishes the work of a wide range of specialists and familiarizes readers both with their skills and their writings.
Hitler and Abductive Logic
Authors: Novak Ben
Published: February 2025

Adolf Hitler is the greatest mystery of the 20th century, and the mystery surrounding him consists of two unanswered questions that have baffled biographers and historians. First, how did he ever rise to power? Second, who was he really?

Hitler had the power to mesmerize crowds as the most dynamic orator of the modern age. Yet, his power was not in his ideas, which he collected from the gutter sheets of Vienna, nor was it in his personality; his biographers describe him as an "unperson" and his character as a "void" and a "black hole." What, then, was the source of his power? Was he a medium or a magician with paranormal powers, as many contemporaries thought? Or did he have a secret or method that has not yet been revealed?

Ben Novak spent fourteen years searching for the secret of Hitler's political success and his power as a speaker. Hitler's most astute contemporary observer, Konrad Heiden, who wrote the first objective books on Hitler warning that this man was "the greatest massdisturber in world history," suggested that Hitler's secret lay in his use of "eine eigentiimliche art von Logik,"or a "peculiar form of logic." Beginning with this clue, Novak finds that there is a new form of logic in accordance with Heiden's description and examples that can explain Hitler's phenomenal political success. This new form of logic, called "abduction," was discovered by an American philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), who is rapidly becoming America's most well-known philosopher and logician.

Abduction is a third form of logic, in addition to deduction and induction. Unlike the other forms of logic, abduction is based on instinct and has a power over emotions. Novak argues that Hitler was the first politician to apply the logic of abduction to politics. This book provides the first coherent account of Hitler's youth that ties together all the known facts, clearly showing the genesis of the strangest and most terrible man of the twentieth century while identifying the power he discovered that allowed him to break out into the world in such a terrifying way.
Progressive Lawyers under Siege
Authors: Wark Colin , Galliher John F.
Published: February 2025

This is a study of a progressive law firm and its three partners. The firm was founded in 1936 and existed until the death of one partner in 1965. The partners were harassed by the FBI primarily for defending labor union members and leaders and the defense of both. The firm’s primary client was Harry Bridges, the long term President on the International Longshoreman’s and Warehouseman’s Union (ILWU). The irony was that the more the FBI persecuted labor unions, the more business the firm had from those harassed by the FBI. During this time the FBI was primarily interested in controlling the Communist Party. While the clients of the firm were sometimes Communists, the law partners were not Communist Party members. In both of these ways the FBI was wasting its time in persecuting this firm. Although the primary data used involved existing records (for example all of the partners had extensive FBI files), we also interviewed colleagues and relatives of the partners.
Historical Dictionary of the British Empire
Authors: Panton Kenneth J.
Published: February 2025

For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Britain was the dominant world power, its strength based in large part on its command of an Empire that, in the years immediately after World War I, encompassed almost one-quarter of the earth’s land surface and one-fifth of its population. Writers boasted that the sun never set on British possessions, which provided raw materials that, processed in British factories, could be re-exported as manufactured products to expanding colonial markets. The commercial and political might was not based on any grand strategic plan of territorial acquisition, however. The Empire grew piecemeal, shaped by the diplomatic, economic, and military circumstances of the times, and its speedy dismemberment in the mid-twentieth century was, similarly, a reaction to the realities of geopolitics in post-World War II conditions. Today the Empire has gone but it has left a legacy that remains of great significance in the modern world.

The Historical Dictionary of the British Empire covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Britain.
Historical Dictionary of Fiji
Authors: Lal Brij V.
Published: February 2025

This book is the first concise account of the history of the Fiji islands from the beginning of human settlement to the early years of the 21st century. Its primary focus is on the period since the advent of colonial rule in the late 19th century to the present, benefiting from the author’s internationally acknowledged expertise as a scholar and writer on the Fijian past. Besides factual information, the book also offers a scholarly assessment of the people and events which have shaped Fiji’s history.

The Historical Dictionary of Fiji contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Fiji.
Depression
Authors: Schwartz Tina P.
Published: February 2025

Nearly one in six people will develop major depression, and teens are just as susceptible as adults—if not more so. Serious depression afflicts more than two million teenagers each year in the United States alone, but it can often be difficult for teens to recognize their ailment and get help. Clearly, teens with depression are not alone, and it is important that they realize the condition does not have to be “forever” but is something they can work toward overcoming.

In Depression: The Ultimate Teen Guide, Tina P. Schwartz helps teens and young adults learn how to deal with this often debilitating affliction. Throughout the book, teens tell their personal stories of living with depression and other mood disorders, describe what treatments were successful and what were not, and share how they are coping today. Topics covered in this book include

warning signs and symptoms

internal and external triggers

coping mechanisms

stigmas of mental health issues

preserving relationships

helping a sibling, parent, or friend who suffers from depression

Aimed to support teens and young adults who might otherwise feel helpless and hopeless about their situation, Depression: The Ultimate Teen Guide is a valuable resource. This book will benefit not only teens dealing with depression but also their family and friends.
Neoclassical Music in America
Authors: Tobin R. James
Published: February 2025

From the 1920s to the 1950s, neoclassicism was one of the dominant movements in American music. Today this music is largely in eclipse, mostly absent in performance and even from accounts of music history, in spite of—and initially because of—its adherence to an expanded tonality. No previous book has focused on the nature and scope of this musical tradition. Neoclassical Music in America: Voices of Clarity and Restraint makes clear what neoclassicism was, how it emerged in America, and what happened to it.

Music reviewer and scholar, R. James Tobin argues that efforts to define musical neoclassicism as a style largely fail because of the stylistic diversity of the music that fall within its scope. However, neoclassicists as different from one another as the influential Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith did have a classical aesthetic in common, the basic characteristics of which extend to other neoclassicists This study focuses, in particular, on a group of interrelated neoclassical American composers who came to full maturity in the 1940s. These included Harvard professor Walter Piston, who had studied in France in the 1920s; Harold Shapero, the most traditional of the group; Irving Fine and Arthur Berger, his colleagues at Brandeis; Lukas Foss, later an experimentalist composer whose origins lay in neoclassicism of the 1940s; Alexei Haieff, and Ingolf Dahl, both close associates of Stravinsky; and others. Tobin surveys the careers of these figures, drawing especially on early reviews of performances before offering his own critical assessment of individual works.

Adventurous collectors of recordings, performing musicians, concert and broadcasting programmers, as well as music and cultural historians and those interested in musical aesthetics, will find much of interest here. Dates of composition, approximate duration of individual works, and discographies add to the work’s reference value.
The Bible in Music
Authors: Long Siobhán Dowling , Sawyer John F.A.
Published: February 2025

There have been numerous publications in the last decades on the Bible in literature, film, and art. But until now, no reference work has yet appeared on the Bible as it appears in Western music. In The Bible in Music: A Dictionary of Songs, Works, and More, scholars Siobhán Dowling Long and John F. A. Sawyer correct this gap in Biblical reference literature, providing for the first time a convenient guide to musical interpretations of the Bible. Alongside examples of classical music from the Middle Ages through modern times, Dowling Long and Sawyer also bring attention to the Bible’s impact on popular culture with numerous entries on hymns, spirituals, musicals, film music, and contemporary popular music.

Each entry contains essential information about the original context of the work (date, composer, etc.) and, where relevant, its afterlife in literature, film, politics, and liturgy. It includes an index of biblical references and an index of biblical names, as well as a detailed timeline that brings to the fore key events, works, and publications, placing them in their historical context. There is also a bibliography, a glossary of technical terms, and an index of artists, authors, and composers.

The Bible in Music will fascinate anyone familiar with the Bible, but it is also designed to encourage choirs, musicians, musicologists, lecturers, teachers, and students of music and religious education to discover and perform some less well-known pieces, as well as helping them to listen to familiar music with a fresh awareness of what it is about.
The 21st-Century Voice
Authors: Edgerton Michael Edward
Published: February 2025

In The 21st-Century Voice: Contemporary and Traditional Extra-Normal Voice, Michael Edward Edgerton considers contemporary vocal techniques within an acoustic and anatomical framework. Throughout, he proposes new directions for vocal exploration. Much more than a historical treatise on 20th-century masterworks or vocal science, The 21st-Century Voice explores experimental methods of sound production, offering a systematic series of approaches and methods for assessing, engaging, and, in some instances, overcoming the assumed limits of vocal singing.

Appearing a decade after the publication of the first edition, this second editiondraws on and advances our current understandings of voice production. Divided into four parts—air flow, source, resonance/articulation, and heightened potentials—Edgerton considers crucial matters affecting vocal production, such as

Registral challenges

Filtering

Airflow modification

Combinatorial, multiphonic principles

Extreme voice possibilities

Multidimensional vocal issues

With more than 250 illustrations, 150 associated audio tracks, an extended appendix on voice science, a glossary of key terms, and lists of representative compositions, The 21st-Century Voice will appeal to composers and performers interested in exploring the ever-broadening range of vocal possibilities. Its engagement with the complexities of vocal production should also be relevant to students and scholars of voice science, acoustics, linguistics, computer modeling, and more.
The Myths of Modern Medicine
Authors: Leifer John
Published: February 2025

The American health care system is terminally ill. It is astonishingly expensive, remarkably variable in quality, and incapable of stemming the rising tide of chronic illness in our population. Yet, the majority of Americans believe it is the best system in the world and cling to the belief that, far from ailing, it delivers care superior to those of countries across the globe.

The system has obliged us by providing an elaborate set of myths and misconceptions about American health care that significantly shape our beliefs. These myths keep us blissfully ignorant about the true quality, safety, and value of the care we receive. This ignorance has a price: it leads us to draw erroneous conclusions about our conditions, fail to properly evaluate potential treatment options, and rarely question our providers’ competency.

The Myths of Modern Medicine looks at the real issues contributing to the dysfunction of our healthcare system and how these issues affect the care we receive. The book, based upon John Leifer’s 30 years of immersion in the healthcare industry, challenges some of our most commonly held misperceptions about this vitally important industry. Leifer strips away the elaborately constructed myths that conceal the ugly underbelly of healthcare and lays bare the truth about an industry that serves special interest groups far better than it serves its patients.

A survival guide for anyone entering the healthcare system, this timely work helps consumers better research provider competency; ask the right questions to evaluate potential treatment options; and communicate the information that will help yield the right treatment decisions. Several studies have shown patients today have only about a 50 percent chance of getting the generally accepted best treatment for their conditions. This book helps consumers increase these odds with step-by-step directions on how to interact more productively with their doctors and become true partners in making what may be the most crucial decisions of their lives.
Central Asian Militancy
Authors: Fitz Duncan
Published: February 2025

As Western forces withdraw from Afghanistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) could become more dangerous to Western and Afghan interests. Both groups are active in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater and may use northern Afghanistan as a springboard for extending the banner of Sharia north of the Amu Darya River, the natural boundary separating Afghanistan from post-Soviet Central Asia.
South Asia Regional Dynamics and Strategic Concerns
Authors: Lamb Robert A. , Hameed Sadika , Mixon Kathryn
Published: February 2025

Once the United States withdraws most or all of its forces from Afghanistan, what issues are likely to continue to be of concern to U.S. policymakers in South Asia? What regional dynamics are likely to affect their ability to achieve policy priorities there? While the United States and its coalition partners have focused primarily on Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past 12 years, the strategic dynamics most likely to be relevant over the next 12 years will probably be clustered around relationships linking Pakistan, India, and China. The authors of this report propose a framework for U.S. policy in South Asia centered around that cluster rather than the more common cluster of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The report includes an analysis of U.S. policy priorities, contingencies, and regional dynamics in South Asia.
Listening to Art Song
Authors: Olson Margaret
Published: February 2025

Listening to Art Song: An Introduction offers an easy-to-read, fresh perspective on the remarkably diverse musical genre of art song. As the ultimate expression of the human singing voice, song has provided succor and entertainment to humanity in many forms since the dawn of civilization. Margaret Olson examines art song’s development, outlines the elements that comprise it, offers ideas on how to effectively listen to it, provides brief biographical sketches of key art song composers, and lists important recordings in the Italian, French, German, British, and American art song traditions. By instructing readers in how to evaluate art songs, Olson informs and enhances the art song experience for listeners. Listening to Art Song is the ideal text for any student studying voice or anyone interested in the genre of song.