bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Initial Evidence for Brain Plasticity Following a Digital Therapeutic Intervention for Depression
Authors: Hoch Megan M. , Doucet Gaelle E. , Moser Dominik A. , Hee Lee Won , Collins Katherine A. , Huryk Kathryn M. , DeWilde Kaitlin E. , Fleysher Lazar , Iosifescu Dan V. , Murrough James W. , Charney Dennis. S. , Frangou Sophia , Iacoviello Brian M.
Published: September 2019

Background

Digital therapeutics such as cognitive–emotional training have begun to show promise for the treatment of major depressive disorder. Available clinical trial data suggest that monotherapy with cognitive–emotional training using the Emotional Faces Memory Task is beneficial in reducing depressive symptoms in patients with major depressive disorder. The aim of this study was to investigate whether Emotional Faces Memory Task training for major depressive disorder is associated with changes in brain connectivity and whether changes in connectivity parameters are related to symptomatic improvement.

Methods

Fourteen major depressive disorder patients received Emotional Faces Memory Task training as monotherapy over a six-week period. Patients were scanned at baseline and posttreatment to identify changes in resting-state functional connectivity and effective connectivity during emotional working memory processing.

Results

Compared to baseline, patients showed posttreatment reduced connectivity within resting-state networks involved in self-referential and salience processing and greater integration across the functional connectome at rest. Moreover, we observed a posttreatment increase in the Emotional Faces Memory Task-induced modulation of connectivity between cortical control and limbic brain regions, which was associated with clinical improvement.

Discussion

These findings provide initial evidence that cognitive–emotional training may be associated with changes in short-term plasticity of brain networks implicated in major depressive disorder.

Conclusion

Our findings pave the way for the principled design of large clinical and neuroimaging studies.
Emapalumab for the treatment of relapsed/refractory hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis
Authors: Vallurupalli Mounica , Berliner Nancy
Published: September 2019

This Blood Spotlight highlights the background and recent data surrounding the use of the recently approved interferon-γ neutralizing antibody emapalumab, Gamifant, for the treatment of hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis.
Sequential screening for lung cancer in a high-risk group: randomised controlled trial
Authors: Spiro Stephen G. , Shah Pallav L. , Rintoul Robert C. , George Jeremy , Janes Samuel , Callister Matthew , Novelli Marco , Shaw Penny , Kocjan Gabrijela , Griffiths Chris , Falzon Mary , Booton Richard , Magee Nicholas , Peake Michael , Dhillon Paul , Sridharan Kishore , Nicholson Andrew G. , Padley Simon , Taylor Magali N. , Ahmed Asia , Allen Jack , Ngai Yenting , Chinyanganya Nyasha , Ashford-Turner Victoria , Lewis Sarah , Oukrif Dahmane , Rabbitts Pamela , Counsell Nicholas , Hackshaw Allan
Published: September 2019

Background

Low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) screening detects early-stage lung cancer and reduces mortality. We proposed a sequential approach targeted to a high-risk group as a potentially efficient screening strategy.

Methods

LungSEARCH was a national multicentre randomised trial. Current/ex-smokers with mild/moderate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) were allocated (1:1) to have 5 years surveillance or not. Screened participants provided annual sputum samples for cytology and cytometry, and if abnormal were offered annual LDCT and autofluorescence bronchoscopy (AFB). Those with normal sputum provided annual samples. The primary end-point was the percentage of lung cancers diagnosed at stage I/II (nonsmall cell) or limited disease (small cell).

Results

1568 participants were randomised during 2007–2011 from 10 UK centres. 85.2% of those screened provided an adequate baseline sputum sample. There were 42 lung cancers among 785 screened individuals and 36 lung cancers among 783 controls. 54.8% (23 out of 42) of screened individualsversus45.2% (14 out of 31) of controls with known staging were diagnosed with early-stage disease (one-sided p=0.24). Relative risk was 1.21 (95% CI 0.75–1.95) or 0.82 (95% CI 0.52–1.31) for early-stage or advanced cancers, respectively. Overall sensitivity for sputum (in those randomised to surveillance) was low (40.5%) with a cumulative false-positive rate (FPR) of 32.8%. 55% of cancers had normal sputum results throughout. Among sputum-positive individuals who had AFB, sensitivity was 45.5% and cumulative FPR was 39.5%; the corresponding measures for those who had LDCT were 100% and 16.1%, respectively.

Conclusions

Our sequential strategy, using sputum cytology/cytometry to select high-risk individuals for AFB and LDCT, did not lead to a clear stage shift and did not improve the efficiency of lung cancer screening.
Clinical phenotypes and outcomes of precapillary pulmonary hypertension of sickle cell disease
Authors: Savale Laurent , Habibi Anoosha , Lionnet François , Maitre Bernard , Cottin Vincent , Jais Xavier , Chaouat Ari , Artaud-Macari Elise , Canuet Matthieu , Prevot Grégoire , Chantalat-Auger Christelle , Montani David , Sitbon Olivier , Galacteros Fréderic , Simonneau Gérald , Parent Florence , Bartolucci Pablo , Humbert Marc
Published: September 2019

Rationale

Precapillary pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a devastating complication of sickle cell disease (SCD). Little is known about the influence of the SCD genotype on PH characteristics.

Objectives

To describe clinical phenotypes and outcomes of precapillary PH due to SCD according to disease genotype.

Methods

A nationwide multicentre retrospective study including all patients with SCD-related precapillary PH from the French PH Registry was conducted. Clinical characteristics and outcomes according to SCD genotype were analysed.

Results

58 consecutive SCD patients with precapillary PH were identified, of whom 41 had homozygous for haemoglobin S (SS) SCD, three had S-β0thalassaemia (S-β0thal) and 14 had haemoglobin SC disease (SC). Compared to SC patients, SS/S-β0thal patients were characterised by lower 6-min walk distance (p=0.01) and lower pulmonary vascular resistance (p=0.04). Mismatched segmental perfusion defects on lung scintigraphy were detected in 85% of SC patients and 9% of SS/S-β0thal patients, respectively, and 50% of SS/S-β0thal patients had heterogeneous lung perfusion without segmental defects. After PH diagnosis, 31 patients (53%) received medical therapies approved for pulmonary arterial hypertension, and chronic red blood cell exchange was initiated in 23 patients (40%). Four patients were managed for chronic thromboembolic PH by pulmonary endarterectomy (n=1) or balloon pulmonary angioplasty (n=3). Overall survival was 91%, 80% and 60% at 1, 3 and 5 years, respectively, without influence of genotype on prognosis.

Conclusions

Patients with precapillary PH related to SCD have a poor prognosis. Thrombotic lesions appear as a major component of PH related to SCD, more frequently in SC patients.
Corneal ectasia following cataract extraction surgery in a patient with keratoconus: a case report
Authors: Labiris Georgios , Panagiotopoulou Eirini-Kanella , Ntonti Panagiota , Taliantzis Sergios
Published: September 2019

Background

According to experimental and clinical published studies, patients with keratoconus have a genetic predisposition to corneal ectasia; however, ectasia might not be activated or reactivated unless an additional stressful event triggers the disease. Triggering factors are sources of reactive oxidative stress; among them, mechanical trauma (vigorous eye rubbing, poorly fit contact lenses), exposure to ultraviolet light, and atopy/allergies. The aim of this case report is to present for the first time a case of rapidly progressive corneal ectasia in a patient with keratoconus following uncomplicated phacoemulsification surgery for cataract removal.

Case presentation

A 38-year-old Caucasian man was referred to our out-patient’s service due to bilateral cataract. He also had bilateral keratoconus and had undergone corneal cross-linking in both his eyes 5 years prior to his referral. Ever since the corneal cross-linking, keratoconus had been stable. He underwent a full ophthalmological examination including slit-lamp biomicroscopy, optical biometry, Scheimpflug tomography, corneal biomechanical assessment, and fundus examination. He presented advanced centrally located cataract with count fingers for preoperative best-corrected visual acuity. An uncomplicated cataract extraction surgery was performed. Preoperative flat keratometry reading was 40.5 diopters, steep keratometry reading was 41.8 diopters, astigmatism was 1.3 diopters, corneal hysteresis was 8.2, corneal resistance factor was 7.5, and thinnest corneal thickness was 503 μm. Within 3 months, he demonstrated rapidly progressing corneal ectasia in his operated eye, while 6 months postoperatively, flat keratometry reading was 45.5 diopters, steep keratometry reading was 48.3 diopters, astigmatism was 2.8 diopters, corneal hysteresis = 6.8, corneal resistance factor = 7.5, and thinnest corneal thickness = 318 μm.

Conclusions

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report to describe corneal ectasia in a patient with keratoconus following phacoemulsification surgery. Cataract surgeons should provide extra caution to patients with keratoconus and take into consideration this rare but potentially sight-threatening complication.
“From Each according to Their Ability, to Each according to Their Need”
Authors: Lampland Martha
Published: September 2019

Two wage systems designed to improve productivity among Hungarian workers are compared. The first, calorie money, was a short-term solution to keep workers properly nourished and hard at work in a capitalist economy in the midst of inflationary chaos at the end of World War II. The second, technical norms, was a long-term project initiated by the socialist state to design norms based on workers’ physical capacity in order to extract the greatest amount of effort most efficiently. In both cases, wages were set according to the level of exertion expended by the worker, not by output, which is commonly understood to be the measure of productivity. The purpose of this article is twofold: (1) to situate the early socialist project in Hungary within a longer history of rationalization and scientific management in the first half of the twentieth century; and (2) to explain how different conceptualizations of labor generate distinct approaches to determining wages and establishing norm rates. This approach draws attention to two central questions: the structural character of the transition to socialism in 1940s Hungary and the historical contingencies of the definition and assessment of work.
“Commodity Sui Generis”
Authors: Ananyin Oleg , Melnik Denis
Published: September 2019

The article traces trends in Soviet economic discourse from the 1920s until perestroika. We examine the works of leading political economists of this period through the lens of debates on market exchanges under socialism—the central theoretical issue of the political economy of socialism. The discursive structure underlying the debates can be traced back to the writing of the first Soviet textbook on political economy, personally supervised by Joseph Stalin. Our purpose is to assess the impact of this textbook on subsequent discussions of the role of commodity production and market exchanges in a socialist economy. The story suggests that Soviet economic discourse was neither homogeneous nor stable. Rather, it consisted of several subdiscourses of different levels of authoritativeness allowing for a certain stable core as an attribute of any authoritative discourse, as well as for more flexible elements that adjusted the structure to new political and ideological challenges.
The Bureaucratic Bourgeoisie
Authors: Miller Chris
Published: September 2019

This article examines shifts in Soviet ideas about the economic and political role of the state. Drawing on documents from Russian archives as well as published debates, the article traces Soviet ideas about how states operate. Examining the role of writers such as Fedor Burlatsky and Karen Brutents, the article suggests that by the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet analysts increasingly believed that state structures could be self-interested, functioning as a type of class. Soviet scholars concluded that such self-interested state structures explained some of what they perceived as the failures of third-world economic development—as well as some of the pathologies of the USSR’s own politics.
The Struggle over Structural Adjustment
Authors: Bockman Johanna
Published: September 2019

In 1980 the World Bank extended its first structural adjustment loans. Scholars and activists have argued that structural adjustment policies, and the neoclassical economics that legitimates them, destroyed Keynesianism, developmentalism, and socialism. In contrast to the view that structural adjustment began as a clear neoliberal project, I argue that the second and third worlds, in fact, demanded structural adjustment, which, in response, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund sought to realize but in a way fundamentally different from what was demanded. In this article, I examine economists’ ideas about structural adjustment across socialist eras—from 1920s Weimar Germany and the Soviet Union to midcentury socialist Yugoslavia and the post-1964 UN Conference on Trade and Development—and explore the origins of what we know today as structural adjustment policies.
“Comradely Brainwashing”: International Development, Labor Education, and Industrial Relations in the Cold War
Authors: Schuhrke Jeff
Published: September 2019

In 1962, the AFL-CIO launched its government-funded labor education project in Latin America — the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) — to spread the tenets of anticommunist, “free” trade unionism. From its earliest days, leftists and anti-imperialists accused the Institute of being a CIA front with the mission of “brainwashing” Third World workers into becoming counterrevolutionaries. While AIFLD was indisputably a Cold War program aligned with US foreign policy objectives, its goal of proselytizing US-style industrial relations should not be understood solely as a CIA-manufactured ploy. It was also the product of a broader social-scientific vision in the 1950s and 1960s to rapidly “modernize” the Third World and to stabilize labor conflict through rational, pluralist industrial relations.
Exciting times to study the identity and evolution of cell types
Authors: Sachkova Maria , Burkhardt Pawel
Published: September 2019

The EMBO/EMBL Symposium on ‘The Identity and Evolution of Cell Types’ took place in Heidelberg, Germany, on 15-19 May 2019. The symposium, which brought together a diverse group of speakers addressing a wide range of questions in multiple model systems, provided a platform to discuss how the concept of a cell type should be considered in the era of single cell omics techniques and how cell type evolution can be studied.
Exosome-like vesicles in Apis mellifera bee pollen, honey and royal jelly contribute to their antibacterial and pro-regenerative activity
Authors: Schuh Christina M. A. P. , Aguayo Sebastian , Zavala Gabriela , Khoury Maroun
Published: September 2019

Microvesicles have become key players in cellular communication. Since glandular secretions present a rich source of active exosomes, we hypothesized that exosome-like vesicles are present in Apis mellifera hypopharyngeal gland secretomal products (honey, royal jelly and bee pollen), and participate in their known antibacterial and pro-regenerative effects. We developed an isolation protocol based on serial- and ultracentrifugation steps and demonstrated the presence of protein-containing exosome-like vesicles in all three bee-derived products. Assessing their antibacterial properties, we found that exosome-like vesicles had bacteriostatic, bactericidal and biofilm-inhibiting effects on Staphylococcus aureus. Furthermore, we could demonstrate that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) internalize bee-derived exosome-like vesicles and that these vesicles influence their migration potential. In an in vitro wound healing assay, honey and royal jelly exosome-like vesicles increased migration of human MSC, demonstrating their interkingdom activity. Summarizing, we have discovered exosome-like vesicles as a new, active compound in bee pollen, honey and royal jelly.
Pathology and regulation for research in the UK: an overview
Authors: Driskell Owen John , Lee Jessica L. , Oien Karin A. , Hall Andy , Verrill Clare ,   CM-Path QA Panel
Published: September 2019

The input of pathologists is essential for the conduct of many forms of research, including clinical trials. As the custodians of patient samples, pathology departments have a duty to ensure compliance with the relevant regulations, standards and guidelines to ensure the ethical and effective use for their intended investigational analysis, including when patients are participating in a research study. The results of research studies have impacts beyond the research study itself as they may inform changes in policy and practice or support the licensing of medicines and devices. Compliance with regulations and standards provides public assurance that the rights, safety and wellbeing of research participants are protected, that the data have been collected and processed to ensure their integrity and that the research will achieve its purpose. The requirements of the regulatory environment should not be seen as a barrier to research and should not significantly impact on the work of the laboratory once established and integrated into practice. This paper highlights important regulations, policy, standards and available guidance documents that apply to research involving NHS pathology departments and academic laboratories that are contributing to research involving human subjects.
Macroeconomics
Authors: Батудаева Лидия , Batudaeva Lidiya , Бондаренко Наталья , Bondarenko Natalya , Бурденко Елена , Burdenko Elena , Громыко Валентина , Gromyko Valyentina , Губарев Роман , Gubarev Roman , Дубовик Майя , Dubovik Mayya , Ермолаев Сергей , Ermolaev Sergey , Журавлева Галина , ZHuravlyeva Galina , Комарова Ирина , Komarova Irina , Мясников Александр , Myasnikov Aleksandr , Сапор Анатолий , Sapor Anatoliy , Селезнев Александр , Seleznev Aleksandr , Сигарев Александр , Sigarev Aleksandr , Устюжанин Владимир , Ustyuzhanin Vladimir , Чередниченко Лариса , CHyeryednichyenko Larisa , Шавина Евгения , Shavina Evgeniya
Published: September 2019

The textbook deals with the problems of the national economy and social reproduction, the theory of economic equilibrium, the money market and monetary policy, the cyclical development of the economy, inflation, the labor market. Special attention is paid to the issues of public Finance, public debt theory, income distribution and social policy of the state. International economic relations, theoretical models of economic growth, theories of globalization and the formation of a new type of economic system are revealed.
Meets the requirements of the Federal state educational standards of higher education of the last generation.
For students of economic universities studying in the field of training 38.03.01 "Economics".
Bedouin Culture in the Biblical Home
Authors: Bailey Clinton
Published: September 2019

In describing its main early characters as nomads, the Hebrew Bible provides us with features of their material culture and social behaviour that correspond closely to facets of pre-modern Bedouin life in the same areas: the Negev, Sinai, and the hills and deserts of eastern Canaan. These parallels are particularly evident when seen against the reasons that engendered them, explaining, for example, why the early Israelites dwelled in tents during their migrations and thatched booths at the end of summer, ate unleavened bread, quail, and manna, gave names to desert places, utilized stars in the desert sky and desert plants, and extended hospitality to travellers. The patriarch Abraham’s reception of the angels disguised as men who had come to announce the forthcoming motherhood of his barren wife, Sarah, for example, recalls Bedouin hospitality in all its detail.
The Postwar Moment
Authors: Woloch Isser
Published: September 2019

Toward the end of World War II, the three democracies faced a common choice: return to the civic order of prewar normalcy or embark instead on a path of progressive transformation. This book assesses the progressive agendas that crystallized in each of the allied democracies: their roots in the interwar decades, their development during wartime, the struggles to enact them in the early postwar years, and the mixed outcomes in each country. The book examines three progressive postwar manifestos that reveal a common agenda in the three nations. The issues at stake included priorities for reconstruction or reconversion; “full employment” via economic planning; price controls; the roles of trade unions; expansion of social security; national health care; public housing; and educational reform. The book persuasively adds the United States to a discussion that is usually focused solely on Europe.
Building Socialism British Style
Authors: Woloch Isser
Published: September 2019

This chapter examines the postwar legacy of the Labour Party. Labour's legacy included a fully formed welfare state with the National Health Service (NHS) at its core; an ambitious public housing program; strong trade union bargaining power; quasi-Keynesian fiscal tactics to sustain purchasing power; a degree of central planning for a mixed economy; and a constant reiteration of egalitarian values. A few of Labour's far-reaching programs no doubt had roots of a sort in the thought and experience of the coalition years of World War II. However, the forms and transformational heft of Labour's postwar settlement derived in the main from the party's prewar social democratic agenda, its surprisingly decisive victory in 1945, and its hard-fought exercise of power. After 1951, the Conservatives came to terms with Labour's bedrock achievements but worked steadily to modify them incrementally in favor of free enterprise.
The Promise of the Suburbs
Authors: Bilston Sarah
Published: September 2019

When did the suburbs gain their reputation as places of dullness and sterility? This book traces the origins of such suburban stereotypes back to the 1820s, the earliest decade of suburban growth, and argues that those stereotypes were forged from the first to denigrate women and the new middle classes. Disdain for the suburbs blazed especially hotly at the fin de siècle. Writers like George Gissing and H. G. Wells famously presented the suburbs as dull and tedious places, inimical to creativity, and these are the images of the Victorian suburbs scholars know best to this day. This book traces a long-forgotten counter discourse back into the early decades of the century, showing that in women’s fiction especially, the suburbs functioned narratively as places of opportunity and new beginnings. The very existence of suburban problems, meanwhile, offered women a vocation, with professional work in and around the suburban home offered tentatively as the answer, the solution, the future. Drawing on a broad range of Victorian literature, from Charles Dickens and Mary Elizabeth Braddon to less well-known writers like John Claudius Loudon, Emily Eden, Bertha Buxton, Julia Frankau, and Jane Ellen Panton, this book bring forgotten voices back into the conversation about the growth of a new landscape, a new way of life.
Plotting the Suburbs
Authors: Bilston Sarah
Published: September 2019

Novels set in suburban locales represent a world in flux. Beneath the shifting sands of social mobility run thick strands of apparently common knowledge that reassure readers of continuity with the past and the existence of enduring values. These values—such as suspicion of suburban homes’ commodity status, the charge of vulgar furnishing—undoubtedly express suspicion of the new masses. But they also form a means of fostering connections, shared perspectives, in a time of dizzying change.
Divine Bodies
Authors: Moss Candida R.
Published: September 2019

This book is an exploration of what the New Testament has to say about the nature of resurrected bodies. It argues that previous scholarship and tradition has been shaped by Pauline discussions of glorious bodies and has failed to appreciate the diverse and disorienting range of opinions about the nature of the resurrected body. Drawing upon previously unexplored evidence in ancient medicine, philosophy, and culture, this book both revisits central texts – such as the resurrection of Jesus – and mines virtually ignored passages in the Gospels to show how the resurrection of the body addresses larger questions about identity and the self.
The Temple in Early Christianity
Authors: Regev Eyal
Published: September 2019

The first scholarly work to trace the Temple throughout the entire New Testament, this book examines Jewish and Christian attitudes toward the Temple in the first century and provides both Jews and Christians with a better understanding of their respective faiths and how they grow out of this ancient institution. The centrality of the writing reveals the authors' negotiations with the institutional and symbolic center of Judaism as they worked to form their own religion.
Mark: Criticism or Rejection?
Authors: Regev Eyal
Published: September 2019

This chapter focuses on Mark's criticism of the Temple. The Temple plays an important role in Mark 11–15. It is central in Jesus's cleansing of the Temple, the reference to the “abomination of desolation,” the purported prediction of the destruction of the Temple in Mark 13, and several additional passages—all of which leads interpreters of Mark to conclude that Mark holds a completely negative view of the Temple. Important commentators think that Mark introduces Jesus as a new Temple that substitutes for the old one. Others argue that Jesus's mission in Mark is “anti-Temple”—that the Temple “stands condemned of corruption by trade and politics,” leading to Jesus's “disqualification” of it since “the Kingdom has been dissociated from the Jerusalem Temple.” The chapter then looks at an alternative approach which views Mark as less critical of the Temple.
Q and Matthew: The Sacred Temple
Authors: Regev Eyal
Published: September 2019

This chapter looks at Q and Matthew. The so-called Q source or Saying Source preserved in Luke and Matthew—and usually cited from Luke—has little to say about the Temple. Owing to its importance as an early document and its influence on both Matthew and Luke, clarity concerning Q's attitude toward the Temple is crucial for understanding pre-70 early Christian approaches to the Temple as a whole. Meanwhile, Matthew's attitude toward the Temple is argued among scholars. Some believe that the Temple is rejected and replaced by Jesus because, as in Mark, it is a place of conflict with the Jewish authorities. Others contend that Matthew's portrayal is consistently positive and that he accepts the legitimacy of the Temple. Despite his criticism of the Jewish leaders who run it, for Matthew, the Temple remains an appropriate setting for Jesus's teachings.
Friendship
Authors: Shklar Judith N.
Published: September 2019

In this chapter Shklar continues to discuss loyalty conflicts in classical times. She uses the case of the Roman general Coriolanus and a number of classical and modern commentaries on him in order to illustrate further complications arising from different positions taken inconflicts of loyalty.
Hegel and Ideology
Authors: Shklar Judith N.
Published: September 2019

For Shklar, Hegel prepares the philosophical and theoretical ground for modern ideologies by focusing on the (not always happy) development of the mind in the context of what he regards as historical progress and historical necessity. She argues that a similar view of history was implicit in other nineteenth-century ideological currents, and that this made the question of obligation insignificant, as individuals were regarded as mere carriers of events.
Obedience
Authors: Shklar Judith N.
Published: September 2019

This chapter discusses the various forms of obedience in “total institutions” such as religious orders and the military. Shklar here draws a distinction between functional, ultimate, and fatalistic forms of obedience and the top-down command structures of the organisations that favor such forms of obedience.
Military Obedience
Authors: Shklar Judith N.
Published: September 2019

Thematically this chapter follows directly from the previous chapter. It looks at the changes in military command structures that have occurred over time, from the Roman army to the Napoleonic Wars to, finally, the modern armed forces. Shklar further discusses modern warfare and the effects it had on the structures of command and obedience. This chapter also looks at various examples of disobedience in the military.
Conscientious Objection
Authors: Shklar Judith N.
Published: September 2019

Shklar draws a distinction between civil disobedience and conscientious objection. The difference is mainly to be found in the fact that the former consists in attempts to change the democratic polity while the latter does—not the latter claims only the right to follow through on a personal conscientious decision.
The Dukkha of Racism
Authors: Gleig Ann
Published: September 2019

This chapter examines some of the main features of diversity and inclusion work through a case study of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (DC) (IMCW). It considers the main pragmatic and hermeneutic strategies by which diversity and inclusion initiatives are legitimated within Buddhist thought and practices at IMCW as well as the opposition such work has faced from many of its overwhelmingly white, middle-class and upper-middle-class members. Then, it considers how the work at IMCW reflects shifts around racial diversity and white privilege in the wider Insight community. The chapter concludes by exploring the significance of racial justice and diversity work in terms of the status and unfolding of Buddhist modernism in the United States.
Conclusion: American Buddhism in a “Post” Age
Authors: Gleig Ann
Published: September 2019

This chapter suggests that to understand recent patterns and turns in American meditation-based convert Buddhism, one has to go beyond theories of modernity and explore what has come after it—as indicated by sociocultural signifiers such as postmodern, postcolonial, and postsecular. As the case studies have shown, new developments often explicitly and implicitly assert pressure on modernist characteristics and cannot be fully explained within the parameters of Buddhist modernism. The chapter then reviews a number of frameworks that either change the category of Buddhist modernism slightly or introduce a new analytical paradigm, and considers how well these alternatives attend to and account for emerging trends identified in this book.
Conclusion
Authors: Gallagher Noelle
Published: September 2019

This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some concluding thoughts. It argues that ultimately, venereal disease was used to explore many of the fundamental institutions on which eighteenth-century British society was based: patriarchy, consumer capitalism, nationalism, white supremacy. While it was only one of many metaphors that could be used to address these concerns, its potency and flexibility meant that it remained prominent not just in the literature and art of the Restoration and the 1700s, but also well beyond. Its persistence as a topic of literary and artistic representation likely speaks not only to the longevity of systems like patriarchy and consumerism, but also to our ongoing fascination with the human body and its complexities.
Refugees or Migrants
Authors: Chazan Robert
Published: September 2019

For millennia, Jews and non-Jews alike have viewed forced population movement as a core aspect of the Jewish experience. This involuntary Jewish wandering has been explained by pre-modern Jews and Christians as divine punishment, by some modern non-Jews as the result of Jewish harmfulness, by some modern Jews as fostered by Christian anti-Jewish imagery, and by other modern Jews as caused by misguided Jewish acceptance of minority status. This book explores these various perspectives and argues that pre-modern Jewish population movement was in most cases voluntary, the result of a sense among Jews that there were alternatives available for making a better life elsewhere.
Traditional Jewish and Christian Perspectives
Authors: Chazan Robert
Published: September 2019

This chapter discusses Jewish and Christian perspectives of Jewish suffering and exile. As Jews became a people living largely outside their homeland, they came to be viewed by others, especially Christians, as suffering the consequences of their sinfulness, as mired in exile, and as consigned to endless forced dislocation all across the face of the earth. The conviction that the Jews had been rejected and that the Church had taken their place as the human partners to the covenant became a core conviction in Christianity. To counteract this perception, Jewish leaders insisted on the totality of the biblical paradigm. Earlier Jews had sinned and were punished by God, which brought Jews into exile and scattered them throughout the nations. However, at some point, Jews would repent of their sinfulness; God would accept their repentance and redeem them from exile and its debilitating conditions. The Christian attack thus served to intensify Jewish absorption of and commitment to the biblical paradigm.
Which World?
Authors: Tanner Kathryn
Published: September 2019

This chapter discusses how finance-dominated capitalism encourages one to relate to oneself and the bearing of that on one’s understanding of relations with others. It considers the emphases on individual performance and responsibility in finance-dominated capitalism, the specific forms of competition typical of wage relations and market dynamics, winner-take-all profit mechanisms and herd behavior in financial markets, privatizing tendencies in the provision of public goods, and the shifting of risks onto vulnerable individuals. It contrasts these trends with the general ways that Christianity links one’s relationship with oneself to relations with others.
Choosing the Leader
Authors: Green Matthew N , Harris Douglas
Published: September 2019

How are congressional party leaders chosen? In the first comprehensive study since Robert Peabody's classic Leadership in Congress, this book draws on newly collected data about U.S. House members who have sought leadership positions from the 1960s to the present—data including whip tallies, public and private vote commitments, interviews, and media accounts—to provide new insights into how the selection process truly works. Elections for congressional party leaders are conventionally seen as a function of either legislators' ideological preferences or factors too idiosyncratic to permit systematic analysis. Analyzing six decades' worth of information, the book finds evidence for a new comprehensive model of vote choice in House leadership elections that incorporates both legislators' goals and their connections with leadership candidates.
Open Competition Races II: House Republicans
Authors: Green Matthew N. , Harris Douglas B.
Published: September 2019

This chapter continues the discussion on the open competition race, the most common type of leadership race in the House of Representatives, focusing on the GOP. It begins with a detailed discussion of perhaps the most consequential GOP leadership election in the past three decades: the 1989 race for whip, in which Newt Gingrich (R-GA) narrowly bested Ed Madigan (R-IL) and positioned himself to become the first Republican Speaker of the House in forty years. It then considers three additional cases of open competition for GOP posts: the minority leader and whip races in 1980 and the majority whip contest in 1994. As in the previous chapter, the findings are consistent with the mixed-motive model of vote choice.
A Garland of Bones
Authors: Steinberg Jonah
Published: September 2019

This intimate portrait examines the tracks, journeys, and experiences of child runaways in northern India. The book situates children's decisions to leave home and flee for the city in their larger cultural, social, and historical contexts, and considers histories of landlessness and debt servitude in narratives of child dislocation. The resulting work is an original perspective on the sociological trends in postcolonial India and a unique treatment of a population of individuals who live on the margin of society.
Nabil’s Predicament
Authors: Steinberg Jonah
Published: September 2019

This chapter begins with the author's account of the life of child runaway Muhammad Nabil. It then sets out the book's purpose, which is to examine not only what makes a child leave home, but what makes children in certain situations likely to leave home; and further, what are those situations and configurations that tend to produce this likely departure, and why and how widely are they shared. It seeks to make sense of whether it is culture, tradition, or rite, on the one hand, that generates child departure or, alternatively, the political-economic forces embedded in history, debt, and rule—or both. If running away is to be taken as an existing cultural form that children may mobilize or manifest, a blueprint that they follow, then a secondary question becomes how is information—instructions, methods, practices, itineraries—transmitted peer to peer or through public texts and images.
The Water Paradox
Authors: Barbier Edward B.
Published: September 2019

Water is essential to life, yet humankind's relationship with water is complex. For millennia, we have perceived it as abundant and easily accessible. But water shortages are fast becoming a persistent reality for all nations, rich and poor. With demand outstripping supply, a global water crisis is imminent. This book argues that our water crisis is as much a failure of water management as it is a result of scarcity. Outdated governance structures and institutions, combined with continual underpricing, have perpetuated the overuse and undervaluation of water and disincentivized much-needed technological innovation. As a result “water grabbing” is on the rise, and cooperation to resolve these disputes is increasingly fraught. The book draws on evidence from countries across the globe to show the scale of the problem, and outlines the policy and management solutions needed to avert this crisis.
The Future of Water
Authors: Barbier Edward B.
Published: September 2019

This concluding chapter looks at the future of water. There are two possible paths for managing water. First, if the world continues with inadequate governance and institutions, incorrect market signals, and insufficient innovations to improve efficiency and manage competing demands, most chronic water and scarcity problems will continue to worsen. The world will see a future of declining water security, freshwater ecosystem degradation, and increasing disputes and conflicts over remaining water resources. The alternative path to managing water is the one offered by this book. If, in anticipation of the coming decades of increasing water scarcity, humankind is able to develop appropriate governance and institutions for water management, instigate market and policy reforms, and address global management issues, then improved innovation and investments in new water technologies and better protection of freshwater ecosystems should secure sufficient beneficial water use for a growing world population.
Dust to Dust: An Age Beyond Extremes
Authors: Holleman Hannah
Published: September 2019

This chapter presents the salient features of the Epoch of Ecological Extremes contributing to the development of Dust Bowl conditions today. The twentieth century was deemed “the Age of Extremes.” It is clear, however, that the twenty-first century is poised to surpass the twentieth to become the Epoch of Ecological Extremes. Today the interconnected issues precipitating the new Dust Bowl era are the culmination of increasingly extreme exploitation—in terms of scale and technique—of the land, of the planet's hydrocarbon repositories, and of freshwater systems. As with the 1930s Dust Bowl, this extreme abuse of the global commons is mirrored in the extreme politics required to make such destruction possible. Also like the 1930s, these developments are associated with high levels of expropriation, social inequality, oppression, and dislocation.
The White Man’s Burden, Soil Erosion, and the Origins of Green Capitalism
Authors: Holleman Hannah
Published: September 2019

This chapter presents evidence that knowledge of both the dangers presented by soil erosion and the means to successfully address it exist deep in the memory and experience of agricultural societies and were understood by the white settlers who colonized North America. Yet, even as knowledge of the problem and efforts to contain it in the United States and around the world grew, so did the erosion crisis. As the erosion crisis developed in colonial societies, addressing its root causes was out of the question for those in charge because doing so “may well require a social and political revolution.” Colonial officials and colonists could not consider the radical social change needed to address the root cause of extreme socio-ecological crises because such change would threaten the racialized colonial social order. This is the denial represented by green capitalist and colonial approaches to ecological problems, which dominated early conservationists' attempts to address soil erosion.
Ecological Rifts and Shifts: The Accumulation of Catastrophe
Authors: Holleman Hannah
Published: September 2019

This chapter argues that the Dust Bowl is a perfect example of the accumulation of catastrophe, the result of decision makers shifting ecological problems down the line and denying the nature of the changes required to develop sustainable farming on the plains. As a result, the plains and the people living there in the 1930s suffered what Russell Lord, who worked for the Soil Conservation Service, called “the most spectacular mass sacrifice to strictly commercial mores in the history of mankind.” Over the decades, cultivated soils have become more exhausted and eroded. Agricultural science often has been applied to mask the effects of this degradation rather than to restore natural soil fertility. Moreover, the increased use of insecticides and herbicides in lieu of more ecological approaches to controlling weeds and insects, and synthetic fertilizers to replace lost soil nutrients, has led to further problems.
Confessions
Authors: O'Hara Matthew D.
Published: September 2019

This chapter discusses the conceptual and practical tools of Catholicism that many colonial subjects used to shape their futures. Christianity came with a host of ideas and practices that influenced one's relationship to the future, even the future of eternity in the form of salvation or damnation. Introduced through European missionaries in the sixteenth century, such concepts as free will and sin demanded new ways not only of thinking about religion and spirituality but also of living and relating to time. The chapter draws on a rich body of scholarship related to these themes but also delves into a unique set of primary sources, especially the intriguing genre of confession manuals. When examined over the arc of the colonial period, these sources reveal an evolving sense of individual futuremaking through the tools of Catholicism.
Stars
Authors: O'Hara Matthew D.
Published: September 2019

This chapter examines colonial modes of prediction, especially astrology and popular forms of divination. While most people in New Spain believed that heavenly objects could influence conditions on earth, there was great disagreement on the relative strength and importance of such forces and whether or not humans could or should discern them. Colonial consumers of prediction understood the twin notions of free will and divine intervention and used a vernacular theology to evaluate diviners and their accuracy. As a result, by the eighteenth century, many subjects in New Spain had adopted a more critical attitude toward the information produced by astrology and divination. As colonial subjects employed these tools of tradition, often in conversation with the Inquisition and its investigations, they helped to create a new culture of knowledge that championed a more precise and empirically grounded telling of the future.
Status and Identity
Authors: Larson Deborah Welch , Shevchenko Alexei
Published: September 2019

This chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book draws on social identity theory (SIT) for insights into how status concerns and social identity shape Chinese and Russian foreign policy. SIT argues that social groups strive to achieve a positively distinctive identity. When a group's identity is threatened, it may pursue one of several identity management strategies: social mobility, social competition, or social creativity. Using SIT as a framework, the book addresses several questions. First, how important were status considerations in shaping Chinese and Russian foreign policy? Second, why did China and Russia choose a particular strategy in a given context for improving their state's international standing? Third, how effective were their chosen strategies as measured by the perceptions and beliefs of the leading states.
Working with colleagues and other professionals when caring for people with dementia at the end of life: home care workers’ experiences
Authors: Manthorpe Jill , Vandrevala Tushna , Abrams Ruth , Samsi Kritika
Published: September 2019

Caring for people with dementia often necessitates inter-professional and inter-agency working but there is limited evidence of how home care staff work as a team and with professionals from different agencies. Through analysis of semi-structured interviews, we explored the experiences of home care workers (n = 30) and managers of home care services (n = 13) in England (2016–17). Both groups sought to collaboratively establish formal and informal practices of teamwork. Beyond the home care agency, experiences of interacting with the wider health and care workforce differed. More explicit encouragement of support for home care workers is needed by other professionals and their employers.
Caring for and about unaccompanied migrant youth
Authors: Gupta Anna
Published: September 2019

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (UNCRC) and domestic legislation, such as the Children Act 1989 in England and Wales, provide a framework for the provision of state services for unaccompanied migrant youth. This chapter critically examines the implementation of legal and policy frameworks in practice with a focus on age assessments, the provision of care placements, support and leaving care services. Fundamental tensions are explored between immigration and care priorities, particularly for social workers in local authorities experiencing financial cuts and influenced by wider political discourses and government policies. While the vulnerabilities of unaccompanied young migrants and their needs as individuals for tailored support services must be recognised, so must their agency in making decisions about their lives. The chapter concludes with recommendations for policy and practice that promotes young people’s voices, rights and welfare within a social justice framework.