bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Food, genetics and knowledge politics
Authors: Walters Reece
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the issues of genetic technologies and the politics and power of food production and distribution. It argues that food crime must also be understood within the discourses, debates and contestations surrounding ‘knowledge’ and its application to food security, distribution and consumption. Those in positions of state and corporate power that have the means to shape the contours of global food trade, notably what is safe to eat and what is not, requires an examination of the ways in which ‘knowledge politics’ plays a crucial role in shaping public discourse and influences political debate. In doing so, this chapter extends definitions of ‘food crime’ to include a political economy analysis of food production, distribution and consumption and the ways in which ‘knowledge’ becomes imperative in a global politics of power and profit.
Food crimes, harms and carnist technologies
Authors: Laestadius Linnea , Deckers Jan , Baran Stephanie
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores some of the ways in which technologies designed to meet human demand for animal based foods, which this chapter terms carnist technologies, facilitate or remedy food crimes and harms. First-generation carnist technologies designed to achieve increased efficiency in animal rearing, as well as second-generation technologies for ‘happy meat’, cellular agriculture, and plant-based analogues of animal products as are all considered. The latter two technologies hold promise for reducing some of the key harms tied to demand for animal products, but leave other harms unaddressed. None of the technologies are found to fully challenge carnism, and may also perpetuate or even compound more systemic food crimes given the extent to which developers and promoters have embraced neoliberal principles. The benefits of these technologies should be recognised, but advocates must acknowledge the limitations of a techno-fix approach to what is ultimately a social problem requiring more significant reforms.
Counter crimes and food democracy: Suspects and citizens remaking the food system
Authors: Booth Sue , Coveney John , Paturel Dominique
Published: January 2019

This chapter acknowledges the concept of food crime within the current global industrialised food system and explores three examples of crimes of consumption. A variety of acts of citizen resistance or ‘counter crimes’ in response to food crime are discussed. Counter crimes can be seen as a spectrum of acts of crime or disobedience, which have used food to make public statements. Both opposition and constructivist politics are employed in counter crime. Constructivist activities are incubators for the emergence of new food systems, while oppositional activities focus on the current food system. Constructivist efforts involve fostering and building different food systems for consumers, underpinned by democratic processes, for example farmer’s markets and community gardens. Actions underpinned by democratic principles, constitute a participatory movement whereby citizens exert some modicum of control over their food system. Collectively known as food democracy, it offers some hope in ‘re-making’ an honest food system.
A slow march forward: the impact of religious change on gender ideology in the contemporary United States
Authors: Tuttle Joshua D. , Davis Shannon N.
Published: January 2019

This chapter talks about the substantial decline of Mainline Protestantism and the tremendous growth of the religiously unaffiliated population. It examines how these cultural changes are related to the trends in gender ideology since the late 1970s, with a specific focus on the reversal in the trend towards gender egalitarianism in the mid-1990s, and the slow growth of gender egalitarianism throughout the 2000s. A constrained age period cohort model to several decades of data from the GSS General Social Survey is applied to evaluate the effect that religious change has had on gender ideology in the US. The results show that the decline of Mainline Protestantism has undermined progress towards gender egalitarianism, while the rise of the religiously unaffiliated seems not significantly related to trends in gender ideology.
Formation of ‘religious’ identity among British Muslim women
Authors: Velayati Masoumeh
Published: January 2019

This chapter explains how Muslim women are generally disadvantaged in the UK, as reflected in their high unemployment and inactivity rates compared to their male counterparts and other ethnic minority women, despite policies to reduce the diversity gap in the UK labour market based on gender and religious affiliations. Applying feminist theory and questioning Muslim women's place as a marginalized group at the centre of social inquiry, the chapter aims to understand the ways in which Muslim women negotiate religious and cultural norms and values. Studies indicate a feminist consciousness tapping into the Islamic framework as an enabling means for personal empowering in a rapidly changing world that challenges traditional gender issues.
‘Lad culture’ and sexual violence against students1
Authors: Phipps Alison
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the issue of sexual violence against students in relation to the concept of ‘lad culture’. Adopting a more nuanced approach to the understanding of campus sexual violence and the masculine cultures that frame it, the chapter places such issues within the institutional cultures of neoliberal competitively driven universities. The chapter discusses the results of a 2013 study conducted by the National Union of Students (NUS) in the UK showing that many of the behaviours associated with lad culture, including sport, heavy alcohol consumption, casual sex and sexist/discriminatory ‘banter’, constituted sexual harassment. It theorises sexual violence and laddish masculinities in order to better understand them and develop effective interventions. It also considers how power and privilege, as well as patriarchy, neoliberalism and carceral feminism, intersect in student lad culture.
Student feminist activism to challenge gender based violence
Authors: Lewis Ruth , Marine Susan
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines how feminist student activism in UK and US universities is resisting and challenging gender based violence (GBV), as well as the ways that the feminists' work is fostered by community building and connection. Drawing on data from a qualitative study of young women feminists in UK and US universities, the chapter investigates how feminist communities help young feminists to find their voice and to speak out about GBV. The chapter first considers how, in addition to developing effective systems of accountability, student activism is resisting GBV in universities and creating cultures which support freedom, resistance and respect. More specifically, it shows how students are coming together to form feminist communities to challenge the attitudes, behaviours and institutional practices that support GBV, while also developing pragmatic and theoretical approaches to GBV. It argues that feminist communities play a vital role in the struggle against GBV in universities.
The challenge of Afrikaans language rights in South African education
Authors: Bishop Michael
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores how the unique South African context affects the way one evaluates the right to own-language education of the White Afrikaans minority. International human rights law affords linguistic minorities the right to education in the language of their choice. However, for one particular minority community, the Afrikaners, the protection of that right is complicated by South Africa's history of racial inequality, particularly in the area of education. As such, the chapter argues that it is not possible to apply the ordinary principles concerning minority languages to Afrikaans. However, that does not mean that Afrikaners are not entitled to some protection for their language. Rather, it requires looking for compromises and innovative solutions that acknowledge both the position of privilege built on a history of racial discrimination and the legitimate demand for protecting Afrikaans-language education.
Women and education: the right to substantive equality
Authors: Fredman Sandra
Published: January 2019

This chapter studies the right to substantive equality in education. The right to equality demands much more than parity for girls and boys in education. Simply requiring parity ignores the specifically gendered way in which inequality in education manifests itself. Instead, it is argued that the principle of substantive equality should be the framework for evaluating progress towards equality in education. The meaning of substantive equality remains somewhat contested, with some focusing on dignity, others on equality of opportunity, and still others on equality of results. Instead of reducing substantive equality to a single principle, it should be regarded as having four interconnected dimensions: redressing disadvantage (distributive dimension); addressing stigma, stereotyping, prejudice, and violence (recognition dimension); facilitating participation (participative dimension); and accommodating difference and achieving structural change (transformative dimension).
Being ‘ideal’ or falling short? The legitimacy of lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender victims of domestic violence and hate crime
Authors: Donovan Catherine , Barnes Rebecca
Published: January 2019

This chapter argues for the need to make victimised lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender (LGB and/or T) people visible within discussions of eligibility for ideal victim status. In considering two examples of victimisation the authors consider why LGB and/or T people can more easily access an ideal victim status when victimised by hate than is possible for those victimised by (or enacting) DVA. The contrasting examples demonstrate that LGB and/or T individuals’ status as ideal victims (or offenders) is tenuous and dependent on the type of victimisation experienced. In both cases, the importance of raising awareness, countering victim-blaming and building trust and accessibility of support services is critical to improve responses to LGB and/or T people.
Conclusion
Authors: Duggan Marian
Published: January 2019

This chapter reiterates the importance of Christie’s work, and this volume’s reinterrogation of the ‘Ideal Victim’, both historically and in our modern age. The chapter then explores the relationship between Christie’s work and the development of restorative and transitional justice movements. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the limitations of the volume and suggests further work to be undertaken both in keeping with Christie’s work and in the field of victimology more generally.
‘Boomerang effect’: the bottleneck of public policy analysis in Turkey
Authors: Akdoğan Akif Argun
Published: January 2019

This chapter seeks to explain the poor performance of public policy tools in Turkey through strategic planning and performance auditing utilising the “boomerang effect” concept mainly used in communication studies. For this analysis the study follows the steps of the heuristic public policy cycle model. After clarifying the transfer process of strategic planning and performance auditing to the Turkish administrative system, the study focuses on the implementation of these policy tools. Demonstrating the poor performance of these tools with reference to some empirical studies, the chapter discusses four reasons of non-implementation of policy tools, namely the exposure of political power to public scrutiny, Turkish administrative culture, lack of domestic contribution and the leverage power of international and regional organizations.
Beyond phenomenology: embodiment in qualitative research
Authors: Vacchelli Elena
Published: January 2019

This chapter looks back at the intellectual traditions within which embodiment is situated, that is, the phenomenological tradition on the one hand and the overcoming of the phenomenological tradition through Foucauldian understandings of the body on the other. It interrogates embodied research by looking at the embodied positionalities of researcher and research participants during the research process. It discusses affect and the sensory as examples of embodied epistemologies that stem from phenomenology and post-phenomenology, and the specific contribution of feminist research to embodiment theory is highlighted. Attempts at embodying research are becoming more common and the field is expanding in several directions. The chapter engages with the origin of this approach and with its current debates.
Careful families and care as ‘kinwork’: an intergenerational study of families and digital media use in Melbourne, Australia
Authors: Sinanan Jolynna , Hjorth Larissa
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines how digital media practices, relating to care and intimacy (the ‘intimate surveillance’), are being played out in the daily lives of intergenerational and cross-cultural families in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Melbourne with thirteen households in 2015–2016, it considers how ‘doing family’ practices — the ways that family members maintain co-presence through routines and everyday tasks — are interwoven with intergenerational and cross-cultural relationships, revealing textures of intimacy and boundary work that intersect with the mundane to create new types of social surveillance and disappearance. The chapter also introduces the framework of ‘digital kinship’, which provides a life course perspective to take into account the differing roles, positions, meanings and contexts over a person's lifespan, and concludes with a discussion of how friendly surveillance, staying in touch and caring at a distance are made possible through social media platforms.
Afterword
Authors: Silva Elizabeth B.
Published: January 2019

As digital technologies – used socially for information, communication or entertainment – allow for new ways of living social life and of knowing about it, it is increasingly significant that we inquire about the crucial matter of what the digital does to the ways we know about each other, how we live, and what social scientists can learn from and with the digital....
Main themes
Authors: Palfrey Colin
Published: January 2019

This book examines the evidence on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of health promotion policies and projects, with particular emphasis on the UK. As an introduction, this chapter clarifies the key concepts in the health promotion literature such as ‘new public health’, civil society, poverty and empowerment. It first considers the potentially disputed assumption that ‘health’ is an unequivocal concept before discussing the social determinants of health, the emergence of a ‘new public health’ in the UK that consists of health promotion as a model of health policy, and the role of civil society in health promotion. It also explains what poverty is, the impact of public health and health promotion interventions, the purpose of health promotion, and motives for improving people's health (such as empowerment, charity, economics). Finally, it reflects on the future for health promotion.
Evidence base and methods for evaluation
Authors: Palfrey Colin
Published: January 2019

This chapter focuses on the importance of the evidence base in evaluation methodologies for health promotion policies. It first considers the use of performance indicators for measuring the effectiveness of health promotion strategies, along with their limitations, before discussing two other methods designed to generate hard data on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of health promotion policies and projects: randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and interviews. It then explains what is meant by project, programme and policy in the context of Public Health England's policy to tackle child obesity and goes on to examine two extended health promotion projects in Wales: the National Exercise Referral Scheme (NERS) and the Caerphilly Cohort Study. The chapter concludes by looking at qualitative evaluation methods as alternatives to RCTs, including focus groups, and ‘empowerment’ as a key aim of health promotion.
Introduction: coming to terms with trans health
Authors: Pearce Ruth
Published: January 2019

This chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book asks two key questions about discourses of trans health: (1) How are ‘trans’ possibilities produced, reified and legitimated through health discourses and practices? (2) How are discourses of trans health negotiated within and between trans community groups, trans activists and health professionals? How are they disseminated, and how are they contested? These questions aim to uncover how trans identities and experiences, along with conceptualisations of trans health, are understood in multiple contexts. The purpose is to grasp the social processes at play in encounters where trans patients feel marginalised, misunderstood, and/or discriminated against.
(Re)defining trans
Authors: Pearce Ruth
Published: January 2019

This chapter looks primarily at how a considerable number of the ideas and conflicts discussed within Chapter Two remain relevant, as the discursive repertoires of trans as condition and trans as movement continue to operate within the contemporary settings of trans health in the UK. It examines how trans possibilities are both constructed and constrained within and between health services and trans community groups. It draws upon the concept of cisgenderism to show how some trans narratives are rendered impossible within certain healthcare settings, due to the power differential between practitioner and patient. It links this process to the challenges that many trans patients encounter in accessing treatment in a range of settings, with reference to the discursive clashes that can occur when health professionals and trans patients subscribe to different notions of trans possibility.
The economy, work and employment
Authors: Torry Malcolm
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the changing employment market in the UK and suggests that a Citizen's Basic Income is appropriate to any future scenario. It first considers the economic efficiency of a Citizen's Basic Income and how a Citizen's Basic Income would facilitate a more flexible employment market, resulting in a more efficient allocation of labour, and thus in a more efficient economy. It then discusses the effects of a Citizen's Basic Income on employment with respect to the so-called precarity trap, marginal deduction rates, part-time employment, choice in employment patterns, and education and training. It also explains why a Citizen's Basic Income is appropriate to any future employment market and concludes by outlining how, by disconnecting work and income, it would ascribe value to all kinds of work, thus creating a level playing field between paid employment, care work and voluntary activity in and for the community.
Pilot projects and experiments
Authors: Torry Malcolm
Published: January 2019

This chapter describes a number of Citizen's Basic Income pilot projects and other experiments. It first considers the social dividend (a form of Citizen's Basic Income) distributed in Alaska, known as Alaska Permanent Fund dividend. The dividend has increased personal income, and therefore consumption and employment. The chapter then turns to Iran's cash transfer programme, which replaced subsidies on food and fuel with an unconditional cash payment of about US$40 per month to every individual. It then examines the pilot project in Namibia, which disproved the critics of unconditional cash transfers. It also discusses the pilot projects in India, and in particular the establishment of an unconditional cash benefit as an entirely pragmatic measure; social transfers in Latin America and elsewhere; and several experiments at various stages of planning or implementation. Finally, it asks whether it is possible to launch a Citizen's Basic Income pilot project in the UK.
Alternatives to a Citizen’s Basic Income
Authors: Torry Malcolm
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines three policy proposals with characteristics similar to those of a Citizen's Basic Income: Negative Income Tax, genuine Tax Credits and Participation Income. It first considers the Tax Credits scheme proposed by the UK's Conservative government in 1972, and which was close to a genuine Tax Credits scheme before discussing Negative Income Tax and the problems that it entails. It then describes Negative Income Tax experiments with interesting outcomes that have clear implications for the current debate on the Citizen's Basic Income approach to tax and benefits reform. It also looks at Participation Income and the issues that it raises before concluding with an analysis of the outcomes that would be created by an increase in the value of National Insurance Benefits compared to the outcomes of a Citizen's Basic Income.
Policy and practice proposals to support children and young people coping with interparental conflict and separation
Authors: Murch Mervyn
Published: January 2019

This chapter considers how the Caplanian approach might in time become embedded in a whole school system committed to a child's wellbeing and resilient mental health. The first part outlines policy and practice proposals, and looks further at how this approach to primary prevention should be applied not only in state schools but in the context of private boarding schools as well. The second part considers its potential application in the context of child-related litigation in family courts. The third part touches on its relevance to child and adolescent mental health services, and argues for the development of a broader consultative preventive mental health approach to augment and complement their specialist therapeutic intervention.
Methodology and fieldwork
Authors: Antonopoulos Georgios A. , Hall Alexandra , Large Joanna , Shen Anqi , Crang Michael , Andrews Michael
Published: January 2019

Chapter two presents the methods and data used by the research team. Recognising the value of different sources of data, the research adopted a mixed-methods approach. The combined expertise of the research team was utilised to incorporate approaches from social sciences, law and humanities.
Borders and walls
Authors: Gilmartin Mary , Wood Patricia Burke , O’Callaghan Cian
Published: January 2019

This chapter considers how the dominant performance of borders and bordering is being reworked through Brexit and the Trump presidency. The impact of Brexit has brought renewed attention and anxiety to the 310-mile land border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, while also unsettling the norms around the EU's external borders. In the United States, President Trump campaigned on the promise to ‘build a wall’ between Mexico and the United States and, not incidentally, to ‘make Mexico pay for it’. Since his election, the US–Mexico border has been intensely politicised and racialised. In contrast, there is a relative lack of anxiety regarding the US–Canada border. The chapter considers the ways in which borders are discursively invoked and materially reconfigured such that particular types of migrants are constructed as a threat and specific borders in need of securitisation.
Belonging
Authors: Gilmartin Mary , Wood Patricia Burke , O’Callaghan Cian
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses the issue of belonging. It first focuses on citizenship, which is often described as formal belonging. While citizenship is regularly framed as ‘natural’ and ‘common sense’, it is argued that it is never fully stable or secure. This is shown in practice through the example of the United Kingdom and Ireland, specifically, how the Brexit vote has had knock-on consequences for how citizenship and belonging is being re-imagined in both places. This is contrasted with the practice of citizenship in the United States, where, despite effusive expressions of unity, articulations of belonging have a deep history of division and exclusion. It considers both the barriers to formal belonging experienced by undocumented residents of the United States and the ways in which citizens themselves struggle to achieve inclusion and equality in the face of increasingly explicit intolerance.
Conclusion
Authors: Gilmartin Mary , Wood Patricia Burke , O’Callaghan Cian
Published: January 2019

This concluding chapter summarizes key themes. This book has shown that migration and citizenship rights are again coming under sustained attack. States have long used their control over migration and citizenship to demonstrate their power, while, at the same time, espousing liberal-democratic values that run contrary to these acts of control. The responses to the perceived threat posed by migration take three key forms: the reinforcement of borders, efforts to regulate mobility, and limiting the ability of people to develop a sense of formal belonging in their place of residence. These disruptions have opened a space for heightened forms of nationalism and exclusionary policies, and enabled the creation of new forms of political activism and subjectivity that seek to expand and recast what it means to move and to belong.
Local Knowledge Matters
Authors: Nugroho Kharisma , Carden Fred , Antlov Hans
Published: January 2019

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book explores the critical role that local knowledge plays in public policy processes as well as its role in the co-production of policy relevant knowledge with the scientific and professional communities. The authors consider the mechanisms used by local organisations and the constraints and opportunities they face, exploring what the knowledge-to-policy process means, who is involved and how different communities can engage in the policy process. Ten diverse case studies are used from around Indonesia, addressing issues such as forest management, water resources, maritime resource management and financial services. By making extensive use of quotes from the field, the book allows the reader to ‘hear’ the perspectives and beliefs of community members around local knowledge and its effects on individual and community life.
‘Good solid Conservatism’: Theresa May’s ‘doctrine’ and her approach to the welfare state
Authors: Page Robert M.
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores Theresa May’s brand of Conservatism and her approach towards the welfare state since she unexpectedly became Prime Minister in June 2016. It is argued that her self-ascription as a ‘good solid’ conservative accurately captures her ‘non-ideological’ doctrine and her pragmatic approach to social policy. May’s desire to create a ‘fairer’ society is unlikely to come to fruition given the pressing need to deliver a ‘successful’ Brexit and maintain party unity.
New Labour and adolescent disadvantage: a retrospective
Authors: Dean Rikki , Wallace Moira
Published: January 2019

Labour invested significant public expenditure and policy effort in trying to remedy multi-dimensional problems of adolescent disadvantage. The effects were intended to be long-term and multi-faceted. However, individual programmes were evaluated in isolation and over a short time-scale. The generation of children whose life-course coincided with most of these policy and expenditure changes is now making the transition to adulthood. As such, it is a good time to ask what happened to them throughout their adolescence. This paper outlines Labour’s approach to adolescent disadvantage and analyses the data on their key Public Service Agreement targets, namely: child poverty; educational underachievement, school exclusion and truancy, teenage conceptions, NEETs, juvenile crime, and drug and alcohol misuse. The remarkable decline in teenage pregnancy is now well documented. Our analysis shows a similar or greater magnitude in reductions across the other indicators of youth disadvantage for the cohort who experienced these policies.
The Art of Stand-Up Comedy
Authors: Smith Daniel R.
Published: January 2019

This chapter provides a sociological theory of the stand-up comedian. It seeks to establish a theory of humour which arises in modern societies and the sociality that drives such humour. Although there are philosophical theories of humour, as well as anthropological theories of comedy figures – clowns, jokers, jesters, fools, tricksters – this chapter argues that a sociological theory of humour needs to be sensitive to the type of sociality, personhood and collective representations which drive contemporary stand-up comedy. To this end it outlines stand-up comedy as the art of ‘intra-personal’ relations where ‘self-other’, stranger sociality is built, improvised and performatively situated.
The Professionalisation of Stand-Up Comedy
Authors: Smith Daniel R.
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the contemporary institutional realities and obligations which stand-up comedians are under. These realities are sociologically explored in relation to wider, societal processes of ‘professionalisation’: stand-up comedy claims an exclusive jurisdiction for itself – the ability to know and produce a belief in the ‘funniness’ of the comedian. This professional knowledge is explored by demonstrating how a theory of ‘absolute stand-up’ drives contemporary comedy practice. This is illustrated by the modernist ‘writer’ ethos which governs contemporary stand-up material, as well as the desire for ‘comic originality’. These twin features are then situated in relation to the dramaturgy which underlines contemporary stand-up show writing.
The Critique of Comic Reason
Authors: Smith Daniel R.
Published: January 2019

This chapter brings together themes and arguments from the preceding chapters to outline a theory of stand-up comedians as proto-sociologists. It begins by outlining a potential ‘subterranean’ history of the elective affinity between New Left, ‘Alt. Comedy’ and British sociology. From this the chapter explores the distinctive figuration of and mode of critique provided by the stand-up comedian as a proto-sociologist. This is then illustrated through a reading of four contemporary stand-up comedians and their potential contribution to sociological knowledge.
Constitutional language: lessons from beyond Westminster
Authors: Williams Matthew
Published: January 2019

This chapter provides international comparisons of constitutional language and the clarifying potential of higher constitutional law in order to put the UK's struggles with indeterminate legislation into a broader context. Using data generated from an analysis of the parts of speech used in 644,422 words from thirty-three OECD constitutions, it examines how legislative indeterminacy in these constitutional texts affects economic performance and corruption. The chapter first explains the theory, hypotheses and research design before discussing the results. One important finding is that noun-qualifying adjectives and adverbs are increasingly used in constitutional language. Furthermore, the proportion of adjectives and adverbs in a constitution is strongly correlated with its interpretability, and correlates even better with macroeconomic performance and corruption than does word length alone. Substantive restrictions in a constitution, as well as under-substantiated restrictions couched in qualified language, cause rigidity.
Conclusions
Authors: Williams Matthew
Published: January 2019

This concluding chapter discusses the theoretical, empirical and normative implications of the book's findings. It first restates the book's central argument with respect to changes in Parliament's use of language, why Parliament's use of language has changed, how such changes have affected policy, and what can and has been done to address indeterminate legislation in the UK and other regions of the world. It then explores the causes and implications of legislative indeterminacy before drawing some broader historical lessons. In particular, it considers the implications of legislative language for the Westminster model of government and the importance of a logic of communication to British constitutionalism. Finally, it looks at the moral implications of indeterminacy and some possible solutions to a failing logic of communication.
Features of formation of Yersinia enterocolitica biofilms
Authors: Lenchenko E. , Lozovoy D. , Strizhakov A. , Vatnikov Yu , Byakhova V. , Kulikov Eu , Sturov N. , Kuznetsov V. , Avdotin V. , Grishin V.
Published: January 2019

Aim: The work aimed to study the morphology of colonies and their comparison by features of the formation of Yersinia enterocolitica biofilms.

Materials and Methods: Bacteria were cultured on a Yersinia Selective Agar medium ("CIN-agar") at 28°C for 24 h. The microorganisms were grown in meat-peptone broth with 1.0% glucose to measure the absolute values of the optical density of the culture. The optical density of the liquid was determined in a microplate photometric analyzer Immunochem-2100 (HTI, USA) at a wavelength of 490 nm. For the study of biofilms, the specimens were fixed for 3-5 h in pairs of 25.0% solution of glutaraldehyde (according to DV), and pairs of a 1.0% aqueous solution of osmic acid (OSO4) were used for contrasting for 2-3 min. The specimens were examined with stereoscopic microscopy "BIOMED MS-1 Stereo" (Russia) and scanning electron microscope "TM 3030 plus" (Holland).

Results: With stereoscopic microscopy of the colonies of Y. enterocolitica, the S-forms had an elevated intensely colored center, radial striation along the periphery, smooth edges, d ≤ 1.0 mm. R-form colonies had a dark color and a dry surface, were tuberous and had a dense center with a peripheral ridge, rugged edges, d ≥ 1.5 mm. The optical density of the Y. enterocolitica S-form showed that this type of microorganism belongs to the moderate producers of biofilms since the optical density of the sample (density of the sample - Ds) exceeded the optical density of control (density of the control - Dc) by 3 times. In Y. enterocolitica R-form (D ≤ 0.197) weakly produced biofilms, the optical density of the sample exceeded the optical density of the control by <2 times.

Conclusion: The ability to form biofilms, the variability of phenotypic features, and the multiplicity of virulence factors of bacteria significantly reduce the effectiveness of diagnostic studies. The development of accelerated methods of detection and differentiation of the virulent properties of pathogenic bacteria will allow scientifically to substantiate and develop a set of measures aimed at preventing animal diseases and obtaining safe livestock products to prevent human diseases. Thus, we need to pay attention to which forms of colonies do Y. enterocolitica form on solid nutrient media: S- or R-forms. Through this study, we know that bacteria-forming S-shaped colonies are more capable of forming biofilms than R-forms. It means that they are more pathogenic and can cause persistent infections due to adhesion and biofilm formation.
A Randomized Trial of Topical Epinephrine and Rectal Indomethacin for Preventing Post-Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography Pancreatitis in High-Risk Patients
Authors: Kamal Ayesha , Akshintala Venkata S. , Talukdar Rupjyoti , Goenka Mahesh K. , Kochhar Rakesh , Lakhtakia Sundeep , Ramchandani Mohan K. , Sinha Saroj , Goud Rajesh , Rai Vijay K. , Tandan Manu , Gupta Rajesh , Elmunzer B. Joseph , Ngamruengphong Saowonee , Kumbhari Vivek , Khashab Mouen A. , Kalloo Anthony N. , Reddy D. Nageshwar , Singh Vikesh K.
Published: January 2019

INTRODUCTION:

Rectal indomethacin and topical spray of epinephrine have separately shown efficacy in the prevention of post-endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography pancreatitis (PEP) in randomized controlled trials. We hypothesized that the combination of indomethacin and topical spray of epinephrine on the duodenal papillae would further reduce PEP than when indomethacin was used alone.

Methods:

We conducted a comparative effectiveness, multicenter, double-blinded, randomized trial of rectal indomethacin alone vs a combination of rectal indomethacin and topical spray of epinephrine for the prevention of PEP in high-risk patients. The primary outcome was the incidence of PEP and the secondary outcome was the severity of PEP. A 2-tailed Fisher's exact test was used to analyze the difference in the proportion of patients with PEP in the indomethacin alone vs the combination group.

Results:

A total of 960 patients (mean age 52.33 ± 14.96 years; 551 [57.4%] females) were randomized and 959 completed follow-up. The baseline demographic and clinical characteristics were similar between the 2 groups. Women <50 years of age (25.4%) and difficult cannulation (84.9%) were the most common PEP risk factors. The incidence of PEP was 6.4% in the indomethacin alone group (n = 482) compared to 6.7% in the combination group (n = 477; P = 0.87). Severe PEP was found in 5 (12%) and 7 (16%) patients in the indomethacin alone and combination groups, respectively (P = 0.88). The overall mortality was 0.6%, which was unrelated to the primary outcome.

Conclusions:

The combination of rectal indomethacin and topical spray of epinephrine does not reduce the incidence of PEP compared to rectal indomethacin alone in high-risk patients; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02116309.
Fracture Risk in Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study From 1964 to 2014
Authors: Ludvigsson Jonas F. , Mahl Martin , Sachs Michael C. , Björk Jan , Michaelsson Karl , Ekbom Anders , Askling Johan , Backman Ann-Sofie , Olén Ola
Published: January 2019

INTRODUCTION:

Most studies on fractures in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are based on patients from tertiary centers or patients followed up before the introduction of immunomodulators or biologics. In addition, the role of corticosteroids in fracture risk has rarely been examined.

METHODS:

We conducted a nationwide population-based cohort study of 83,435 patients with incident IBD (ulcerative colitis [UC]: n = 50,162, Crohn's disease [CD]: n = 26,763, and IBD unclassified: 6,510) and 825,817 reference individuals from 1964 to 2014. Using multivariable Cox regression, we estimated hazard ratios (HRs) for hip fracture and any fracture and the association with cumulative corticosteroid exposure.

RESULTS:

During 1,225,415 person-years of follow-up in patients with IBD, there were 2,491 first-time hip fractures (203/100,000 person-years) compared with 20,583 hip fractures during 12,405,642 person-years in reference individuals (159/100,000 person-years). This corresponded to an HR of 1.42 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.36–1.48). The risk for hip fracture was higher in CD compared with UC (P < 0.001). Inflammatory bowel disease was also associated with any fracture (IBD: HR = 1.18; 95% CI = 1.15–1.20). Hazard ratios for hip fracture had not changed since the introduction of immunomodulators or biologics. Increasing exposure to corticosteroids was associated with hip fracture in both IBD and non-IBD individuals (P < 0.001), but only in elderly (>60 years) patients with IBD. The association between IBD and hip fracture was nonsignificant among individuals without corticosteroids (HR = 1.11; 95% CI = 0.86–1.44).

CONCLUSIONS:

Inflammatory bowel disease (CD and UC) is associated with an increased risk of hip fracture and any fracture, but not in individuals without a history of corticosteroid treatment. The association between corticosteroids and hip fracture was restricted to elderly patients with IBD.
Design of the Texas Hepatocellular Carcinoma Consortium Cohort Study
Authors: Feng Ziding , Marrero Jorge A. , Khaderi Saira , Singal Amit G. , Kanwal Fasiha , Loo Nicole , Beretta Laura , Ning Jing , El-Serag Hashem B.
Published: January 2019

OBJECTIVES:

The Texas Hepatocellular Carcinoma Consortium cohort study investigates risk factors of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and biomarkers for early HCC detection in patients with liver cirrhosis.

METHODS:

Adult patients with liver cirrhosis are enrolled at 5 clinical centers from 3 cities in Texas, with a target of 5,000 patients. Clinical history, risk factor questionnaires, liver imaging, laboratory data, and blood samples were collected at enrollment and at each 6-month follow-up visit.

RESULTS:

The primary outcome was the development of HCC. Biomarkers were tested in banked blood samples using prospective specimen collection, retrospective blinded evaluation design.

CONCLUSIONS:

We describe study design, eligibility criteria, recruitment, study cores, and sample size and analysis considerations.
Full Court Press
Authors: Peterson Jason A.
Published: January 2019

During the civil rights era, Mississippi was cloaked in the hateful embrace of the Closed Society, historian James Silver’s description of the white caste system that enforced segregation and promoted the subservient treatment of blacks. Surprisingly, challenges from Mississippi’s college basketball courts brought into question the validity of the Closed Society and its unwritten law, a gentleman’s agreement that prevented college teams in the Magnolia State from playing against integrated foes. Mississippi State University was at the forefront of the battle for equality in the state with the school’s successful college basketball program. From 1959 through 1963, the Maroons won four Southeastern Conference basketball championships and created a championship dynasty in the South’s preeminent college athletic conference. However, in all four title-winning seasons, the press feverishly debated the merits of an NCAA appearance for the Maroons, culminating in Mississippi State University’s participation in the integrated 1963 National Collegiate Athletic Association’s National Championship basketball tournament. Full Court Press examines news articles, editorials, and columns published in Mississippi’s newspapers during the eight-year existence of the gentleman’s agreement, the challenges posed by Mississippi State University, and the subsequent integration of college basketball within the state. While the majority of reporters opposed any effort to integrate athletics, a segment of sports journalists, led by the charismatic Jimmie McDowell of the Jackson State Times, emerged as bold and progressive advocates for equality. Full Court Press highlights an ideological metamorphosis within the press during the Civil Rights Movement, slowly transforming from an organ that minimized the rights of blacks to an industry that weighted the plight of blacks on equal footing with their white brethren.
War’s Traumatic Impact
Authors: Trott Sarah
Published: January 2019

Chapter one examines Chandler’s biography to question the established view of the author’s life and war experience. By employing a psychological sketch of Chandler’s experience during World War One, fresh new insights into his writing, war trauma, and characterization can be gleaned.
A New View: Chandler and War
Authors: Trott Sarah
Published: January 2019

Chapter two discusses the version of Chandler’s experiences presented by his biographers, before conducting a new and original investigation into the accuracy of their survey. Chandler’s correspondence was used to formulate a narrative version of his World War One experience in France.
Prison Power
Authors: Corrigan Lisa M.
Published: January 2019

This chapter traces rhetorical and political history of imprisonment before and after the birth of Black Power, focusing on major moments of activist imprisonment as well as movement discourses written from prison. In charting the role of prison in the movement, the chapter also discusses the emergence and legitimacy of Black Power as a slogan, as a theoretical device, and as a series of rhetorical strategies designed to be a particularly historical intervention into the stagnating discourses of “civil rights” and “law and order.” This chapter contends that incarceration became a major strategy used by both black activists and white conservatives during the Black Power era; consequently, the period following 1966 marked a new phase of Jim Crow as Black Power became a rallying cry against state repression. This chapter suggests that the legitimacy of Black Power as a term of art, as a series of vernacular signs, and as an organizing principle in a new phase of the black liberation movement, hinged upon whether the state or the activists controlled the frame and how closely it became associated with violence. Because the Black Power slogan and ideology were articulated by activists with extensive rap sheets as the state circumscribed their activism, Black Power ideology took up the relationship between state repression and incarceration as a place to excavate new arenas for the black liberation struggle, particularly in the memoirs of movement activists.
Recovering Black Identity and History, Feminizing and Regenerating Black Power
Authors: Corrigan Lisa M.
Published: January 2019

This chapter analyzes the poetry and prose of Assata: An Autobiography and contextualizes the memoir within the revolutionary aesthetics Black Power vernacular and the political realities of northern Blue Power in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It examines the feminized rhetorical strategies in Assata that help to circulate Black Power activism. Like Mumia Abu-Jamal, Shakur situates herself as a leader and as a martyr using nostalgia for Black Power leaders as inspiration for the activism ahead. She uses black history as a rhetorical resource for new political action and highlights the importance of cultural nationalism. In addition, she commits herself to self-defense and Third World solidarity through a gendered articulation of the Black Power vernacular. Shakur’s vernacular is mobile, flexible, and global as she uses the history of slavery in the U.S. and colonialism abroad to explain the BLA’s resistance to “law and order” culture. Finally, she explains the historical and contemporary exigencies that prompt continued action, including police brutality, the expansion of the prison-industrial complex, judicial corruption, and false accusations of cop killing. Still in print, Assata demands a place for Shakur’s narrative among the prison manifestos of the Black Power movement.
Chad Rowan
Authors: Panek Mark
Published: January 2019

Chad Rowan is the first non-Japanese to reign in the sport of Sumo. Using the ring name, Rowan’s foreign status in the sport made him an anomaly that was exceedingly problematic for Japan. This chapter explores the ways the athlete represents the essence of being Japanese against the backdrop of the challenges that Rowan’s presence brings to the culture.
Rodney Marsh
Authors: Standish Dominic
Published: January 2019

Rodney Marsh is a British footballer who found his sporting success in his home country and the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. This chapter frames Marsh as a maverick, as a result of his drinking, womanizing, gambling, but also his blatant disregard for the rules of the game and society. Largely based on Marsh’s own words, from interviews and his autobiography, the chapter examines the ways Marsh was understood as a maverick in the sport of football.
Ayrton Senna
Authors: Shah Viral
Published: January 2019

The focus of this chapter is Brazil’s Formula One race car driver and champion Ayrton Senna. Senna’s untimely death in his sport in 1994 resulted in three days of national mourning and in many respects helps cement his global reputation as an icon in his sport. This chapter examines several aspects of Senna’s career, including rivalries and feuds with other drivers and teams, and his varied and often storied personal relationships.
“A Well-Traveled Mudhole”: Nostalgia, Labor, and Laughter in The Reivers
Authors: Clark Rebecca Bennett
Published: January 2019

This chapter presents a reading of William Faulkner's final novel, The Reivers. Critics have called the novel alternately “the least ironic of his novels,” an “engagingly happy fairy tale,” and “a surrender to sententious banality.” In short, the book has been understood as “sentimental, nostalgic, optimistic, and limited in both reach and grasp.” The chapter pushes against these established readings of the novel to argue—through a focus on nostalgia, labor, and laughter in the text—for its value, instead, as an often uncomfortable study in Jim Crow-era engagements with the equally uncomfortable idea of southern history.