bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A direct measurement method of quantum relaxation time
Authors: Zhang Peng , Tang Haoqi , Gu Chuanchuan , Wang Hong , Luo Guangfu , Lu Yalin , Xiang X-D 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
The quantum relaxation time of electrons in condensed matters is an important physical property, but its direct measurement has been elusive for a century. Here, we report a breakthrough that allows direct determination of quantum relaxation time at zero and non-zero frequencies using optical measurement. Through dielectric loss function, we connect bound electron effects to the physical parameters of plasma resonance and find an extra term of quantum relaxation time from inelastic scattering between bound electrons and conduction electrons at non-zero frequencies. We demonstrate here that the frequency-dependent inelastic polarization effect of bound electrons is the dominant contribution to quantum relaxation time of conduction electrons at optical frequencies, and the elastic polarization effect of bound electrons also dramatically changes the plasma resonance frequency through effective screening to charge carriers.
The Paradox of the Low Prevalence of Current Smokers Among COVID-19 Patients Hospitalized in Nonintensive Care Wards: Results From an Italian Multicenter Case–Control Study
Authors: Meini Simone , Fortini Alberto , Andreini Roberto , Sechi Leonardo Alberto , Tascini Carlo 
Published: September 2020

Abstract

Introduction
COVID-19, a respiratory illness due to SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, was first described in December 2019 in Wuhan, rapidly evolving into a pandemic. Smoking increases the risk of respiratory infections; thus, cessation represents a huge opportunity for public health. However, there is scarce evidence about if and how smoking affects the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Methods
We performed an observational case–control study, assessing the single-day point prevalence of smoking among 218 COVID-19 adult patients hospitalized in seven Italian nonintensive care wards and in a control group of 243 patients admitted for other conditions to seven COVID-19-free general wards. We compared proportions for categorical variables by using the χ 2 test and performed univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses to identify the variables associated with the risk of hospitalization for COVID-19.

Results
The percentages of current smokers (4.1% vs 16%, p = .00003) and never smokers (71.6% vs 56.8%, p = .0014) were significantly different between COVID-19 and non-COVID 19 patients. COVID-19 patients had lower mean age (69.5 vs 74.2 years, p = .00085) and were more frequently males (59.2% vs 44%, p = .0011). In the logistic regression analysis, current smokers were significantly less likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 compared with nonsmokers (odds ratio = 0.23; 95% confidence interval, 0.11–0.48, p &lt; .001), even after adjusting for age and gender (odds ratio = 0.14; 95% confidence interval, 0.06–0.31, p &lt; .001).

Conclusions
We reported an unexpectedly low prevalence of current smokers among COVID-19 patients hospitalized in nonintensive care wards. The meaning of these preliminary findings, which are in line with those currently emerging in literature, is unclear; they need to be confirmed by larger studies.

Implications
An unexpectedly low prevalence of current smokers among patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in some Italian nonintensive care wards is reported. This finding could be a stimulus for the generation of novel hypotheses on individual predisposition and possible strategies for reducing the risk of infection from SARS-CoV-2 and needs to be confirmed by further larger studies designed with adequate methodology.
Trends in Economic Inequality and News Mediascape
Authors: Theine Hendrik , Grabner Daniel 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
Chapter 2 engages with two major background themes: a review of inequality trends and how these are addressed by researchers in the economics field, and, secondly, the contours of change in the news media landscape. The first section reviews a key set of recent contributions in the field of economics on economic inequality. The next section turns to an overview of wealth and income inequality in the four countries that are at the centre of the empirical part of this volume (UK, Germany, Austria, and Ireland). The next two sections are concerned with academic responses to Piketty’s (2014) book and the subsequent academic debate on shifts in policies and institutional settings which can contribute to the reduction of inequality. The latter part of the chapter turn to the analysis of communicative resources, in particular changes in the news media sectors. It examines forms of inequality in ownership structures and concentration trends unfolding within the daily newspaper markets. Chapter 2 also wraps up with some concluding comments.
Inequality, Mediatization, and Critical Takes on Making the News
Authors: Preston Paschal 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
Chapter 3 continues the initial review of existing research literature related to the changing role and forms of the media and economic affairs, and the issues of economic inequality in particular. It aims to identify some high-level ideas and concepts drawn from the fields of socioeconomics and political economy, as well as certain sub-sets of the communication and journalism studies fields, which shed light on the meaning of economic inequality and the key influences on the selection or making of news culture and journalistic practices. The chapter considers the shifting forms and meanings of economic equality in the modern social sciences, indicating the diversity of prior studies, engagement with, or neglect of inequality matters. It then moves on to address the notion of mediatization and select aspects of the evolving role and scope of the media in relation to economic and other societal processes, including those related to economic inequality. Next, some of the major approaches and prevailing perspectives on ‘making the news’ are identified. This outlines a typology of the prior research literature, noting a number of distinct schools in explaining the key influences on newsmaking and shaping journalism discourses. The authors focus on certain macro- and meso-level factors which influence news media and journalistic discourse (rather than individual-level characteristics or failings of journalists). The chapter ends with an outline of the authors’ transdisciplinary approach towards ‘making the news’, combining conceptual elements from both the critical cultural studies and political economy approaches. A final section considers conclusions and implications.
Media and Economic Inequality
Authors: Grisold Andrea , Theine Hendrik 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
Chapter 4 reviews a focused selection of the existing research which sheds light on the role that the media play in relation to the circulation of certain sets of ideas and discourses concerning inequality issues and redistribution policies (i.e., the shaping of inequality preferences and beliefs). The main aim in this chapter is to analyse prior empirical studies which explore how this is shaped and informed by media coverage and engagement. To do so, the authors first outline the findings of survey data analyses on individuals’ perception of inequality, and their related position towards the necessity of redistribution. After that, the chapter provides a systematic overview of contemporary empirical studies which examine the media coverage of economic inequality and redistribution policies, and thus debate the role mass media play as information providers. We assess the underlying assumptions and the methodological approaches guiding the respective empirical findings, highlight the merits of this body of work and identify open questions for further research. The last part of this chapter provides a discussion of (currently rather neglected) political economy theories that offer rich theoretical approaches to study media, power, and inequality, thus an enhanced theoretically informed understanding beyond the mere empiricism.
Social Semiotics and Journalistic Discourses on Economics and Inequality
Authors: Rieder Maria , Silke Henry 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
This chapter continues the review of research and discussion of key features of economic news and how economic ideas and practices are shaped by the media. The focus falls on communication channels and the various ways in which language is used to construct certain perceptions of society and the economy. In particular, it introduces social semiotics and critical discourse analysis as theories in the field of communication studies and linguistics. In tandem, these provide rich concepts and analytical tools to explore the communicative and meaning-making patterns that journalists, editors, and news agencies use when describing particular social or economic concepts. This chapter also addresses related issues such as journalistic blind spots and silences in public discourse. It provides an overview of social semiotic theory, followed by a discussion on some of the relevant key concepts. It then moves on to discuss discourse analysis and journalism, focusing on the text. Next the attention turns to journalistic texts, discourses and ideologies and the role they play in wider society. Here, we will contend that journalism cannot be seen as simply an objective and dispassionate observer but rather a part of the wider system of semiosis, that is the dialectical relationship between discourse and society often represented by ‘common sense’ ideas on how the world works, ideas that may go on to influence both macro and micro decision-making in the economic and wider world. Finally, the authors address the role of journalism in economic processes alongside journalistic representation of economics and economic processes.
The Slaves of the Churches
Authors: Sommar Mary E. 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
This is the story of how the church sought to establish norms for slave ownership on the part of ecclesiastical institutions and personnel and for others’ behavior toward such slaves. The story begins in the New Testament era, when the earliest Christian norms were established, and continues through the late Roman Empire, the Germanic kingdoms, and the Carolingian Empire, to the thirteenth-century establishment of a body of ecclesiastical regulations (canon law) that would persist into the twentieth century. Chronicles, letters, and other documents from each of the various historical periods, along with an analysis of the various policies and statutes, provide insight into the situations of these unfree ecclesiastical dependents. The book stops in the thirteenth century, which was a time of great changes, not only in the history of the legal profession, but also in the history of slavery as Europeans began to reach out into the Atlantic. Although this book is a serious scholarly monograph about the history of church law, it has been written in such a way that no specialist knowledge is required of the reader, whether a scholar in another field or a general reader interested in church history or the history of slavery. Historical background is provided, and there is a short Latin lexicon.
“Interests” and Elections
Authors: Charnock Emily J. 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
This empirical chapter draws on a series of congressional investigations into election campaigns and lobbying conducted between 1912 and 1957 (plus additional data on the early 1960s) to identify interest groups and related organizations—including early PACs—that participated in elections during this period. The major groups so identified—primarily business organizations, labor unions, and ideological groups—form the spine of the narrative throughout the book. This chapter highlights changes in their major organizational features and electoral practices over time. Furthermore, it explores the controversies surrounding both political parties and “special interests” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly concerning the influx of money into election campaigns, which prompted these congressional investigations in the first place. It also offers an overview of campaign finance legislation and reforms that Congress passed in response.
A Tale of Two Leagues
Authors: Charnock Emily J. 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
This chapter recounts a significant shift in interest group behavior during the 1930s, as the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal policies sparked intense political conflict over the power and reach of the federal government. Prominent labor and business groups took opposing sides in this conflict, which mobilized them politically in new ways. This chapter looks particularly at the 1936 election, when campaign groups associated with the labor and business communities—Labor’s Non-Partisan League (LNPL) and the Liberty League—squared off in the presidential contest. In key ways, these groups appear much like proto-PACs: they signaled a more assertive approach to elections and pumped large amounts of money into campaigns in support of opposing party nominees. Nonetheless, the LNPL and the Liberty League still tried to justify their electoral support in “nonpartisan” terms by emphasizing individual candidates rather than parties, reflecting lingering controversy over interest group electioneering.
Introducing P.A.C.
Authors: Charnock Emily J. 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
This chapter examines the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations’ (CIO’s) political action committee or P.A.C. in 1943, following the collapse of Labor’s Non-Partisan League and passage of a new law restricting union money in elections. This was a critical point in the CIO’s embrace of a “dynamic partisan” electoral strategy. Through interventions in primary elections and the targeted provision of general election support to sympathetic Democratic candidates, P.A.C. sought to reshape the Democratic Party along more pro-labor and liberal lines. As this chapter reveals, P.A.C. leaders hoped to elect supportive lawmakers in the 1944 and 1946 elections, seeking out candidates who were strongly committed to labor’s goals. Despite public pronouncements of nonpartisanship, however, they chose not to look for allies on both sides of the aisle, instead favoring liberal Democrats over liberal Republicans—hoping to impress Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal vision onto the Democratic Party as a whole.
A Tale of  Two PACs
Authors: Charnock Emily J. 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
This chapter traces the diffusion of the PAC concept from the left to the right of the political spectrum in the late 1950s, with the formation of conservative electoral groups such as the Americans for Constitutional Action (ACA) to counter liberal ones like the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). By the early 1960s the business community had cast off its earlier resistance to overt electioneering, with the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) forming the Business-Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC) to channel campaign resources to favored congressional candidates. Though they initially sought to bolster the conservative coalition, these groups soon embraced a dynamic partisan strategy focused on the Republican Party, seeking to shift it rightward much as labor and liberal groups sought to push the Democratic Party to the left. This reactive process culminated in the presidential election of 1964, a contest to which the roots of modern partisan “polarization” are often traced.
Conclusion
Authors: Charnock Emily J. 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
This conclusion highlights the importance of PACs in twentieth-century American political development. The emergence of partisan PACs, initially formed by major interest groups, played an important and neglected role in fostering the polarization of American politics—a phenomenon that has raised concern in recent decades. Seeking to reconfigure party politics around specific policy issues—more broadly, to realign the party system along an ideological dimension of conflict—these PACs helped make the parties more distinct and more deeply divided over time. They did so via electoral tools and tactics that are now ubiquitous in political life but are rarely probed in scholarship. A focus on PACs thus illuminates the very mechanisms through which party change was brought about, as much as its wider meaning. The book concludes with a consideration of contemporary US politics, in which PACs continue to play a prominent role.
Commercial approach to rivers
Authors: Islam S. Nazrul 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
Chapter 2 reviews the origin and spread of the Commercial approach to rivers. It explains the origin of this approach in the first Industrial Revolution, which provided human societies both the commercial motive and the machine power required to undertake large-scale frontal and lateral interventions in rivers. The chapter catalogues various types of frontal intervening structures—including dams, barrages, and weirs—that the Commercial approach deploys to achieve its purpose. The chapter then follows the spread of the frontal version of the Commercial approach across the world, beginning with the developed countries and then the developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The chapter ends by providing a statistical summary of the global picture regarding dams and barrages, which are the main instruments of the Commercial approach to rivers.
Application of the Commercial approach
Authors: Islam S. Nazrul 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
Chapter 4 provides a few case studies of rivers to illustrate the consequences of the Commercial approach. These rivers are: the Colorado River of the United States; the Murray-Darling river system of Australia; the Amu Darya and Syr Darya of the former Soviet Union; the Nile River of Africa; and the Indus River of South Asia. It shows that in each case, the application of the Commercial approach has led to river fragmentation and excessive withdrawal of water, leading to exhaustion of rivers, which in turn led to salinity intrusion and erosion, subsidence, and desiccation of the deltas. The ecology of the river basins has been damaged, including loss of aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity. In case of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers, this damage includes the destruction of the Aral Sea, once considered the second-largest inland waterbody of the world. In each case, the Commercial approach has led to conflicts among co-riparian countries.
Taming the Megabanks
Authors: Wilmarth Jr. Arthur E. 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
This book demonstrates that universal banks—which accept deposits, make loans, and engage in securities activities—played central roles in precipitating the Great Depression of the early 1930s and the Great Recession of 2007–09. Universal banks promoted a dangerous credit boom and a hazardous stock market bubble in the U.S. during the 1920s, which led to the Great Depression. Congress responded by passing the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which separated banks from the securities markets and prohibited nonbanks from accepting deposits. Glass-Steagall’s structural separation of the banking, securities, and insurance sectors prevented financial panics from spreading across the U.S. financial system for more than four decades. Despite Glass-Steagall’s success, large U.S. banks pursued a twenty-year campaign to remove the statute’s prudential buffers. Regulators opened loopholes in Glass-Steagall during the 1980s and 1990s, and Congress repealed Glass-Steagall in 1999. The United Kingdom and the European Union adopted similar deregulatory measures, thereby allowing universal banks to dominate financial markets on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition, large U.S. securities firms became “shadow banks” as regulators allowed them to issue short-term deposit substitutes to finance long-term loans and investments. Universal banks and shadow banks fueled a toxic subprime credit boom in the U.S., U.K., and Europe during the 2000s, which led to the Great Recession. Limited reforms after the Great Recession have not broken up universal banks and shadow banks, thereby leaving in place a financial system that is prone to excessive risk-taking and vulnerable to contagious panics. A new Glass-Steagall Act is urgently needed to restore a financial system that is less risky, more stable and resilient, and better able to serve the needs of our economy and society.
Our Shadow Immigration System
Authors: Cox Adam B. , Rodríguez Cristina M. 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
This chapter explains how legal and institutional developments in immigration enforcement coincided with the dramatic acceleration of illegal immigration during the final third of the twentieth century. Together, these legal and demographic phenomena gave rise to a massive shadow immigration system that today operates alongside the formal immigration regime. This shadow system has rendered Congress’s intricate, detailed code of immigration rules increasingly less central to defining the content and character of the immigrant population. Instead, the Executive’s enforcement judgments—decisions about whom to target from the pool of deportable immigrants—have taken center stage. Indeed, the rise of the shadow system has effectively delegated vast screening authority to the President and other executive branch officials—authority that has culminated in events as dramatic as President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The large number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States today amplifies the role of enforcement discretion and further entrenches the shadow immigration system.
Epilogue
Authors: Cox Adam B. , Rodríguez Cristina M. 
Published: September 2020

Abstract
This epilogue explores the justifications for a radical reimagination of the immigration system—for an immigration law and politics that shrinks the domain of enforcement and limits the scope of executive power exercised through coercion. In a reconstituted regime, the Executive should not be sidelined, but rather delegated a different set of authorities. The system of de facto delegation that has driven immigration policymaking for two generations should be brought above board, supplanted by a model of de jure delegation. Doing so would retain a central role for the President in setting immigration policy but would marginalize the enforcement imperative at the heart of the current regime and place presidential immigration law on a footing that more closely resembles other arenas of the modern regulatory state. In order to begin this process, Congress must first drastically decrease the number of people who live under the perpetual threat of enforcement. A reform strategy must therefore begin with a legalization initiative for the current unauthorized population.