bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Putting Africa on the Black Death map: Narratives from genetics and history
Authors: Green Monica H. 
Published: December 2018

Did the Black Death, the famous, devastating plague pandemic that struck the Mediterranean and Western Europe in the mid-14th century and seeded new strains of the pathogen, Yersinia pestis, in new locales, also reach Sub-Saharan Africa? That it reached the Islamic North African littoral has never been in question: there is ample testimony from Arabic documentary sources for its devastating effects from Egypt to the Maghreb. But did it stop there? Archaeologists now have reason to believe that there was widespread abandonment of urban communities in West Africa in the 14th or 15th centuries. Focusing on the other side of the continent, the present essay argues that previously unutilized evidence—a “living archive” of genetic data combined with a new reading of linguistic and documentary evidence from the 14th through 20th centuries—suggests that plague did have a significant impact on pre-modern East Africa. The strains of Y. pestis currently found in East and Central Africa derive from one of the lineages involved in late medieval outbreaks in Central Eurasia. This post-Black Death strain, it is argued here, entered the continent most likely in the late 15th or early 16th century. This coincides with hitherto unexplained population migrations and other cultural signs of reactions to a deadly emerging disease. Although no aDNA (historical genetic material) for Y. pestis has yet been recovered from late medieval or early modern Africa, the present essay suggests that evidence for Y. pestis’s evolution and transcontinental movements, even those outside of Africa, can help archaeologists and historians draw Africa more centrally into the narratives of global history.
Ectonucleotidase Expression on Human Amnion Epithelial Cells: Adenosinergic Pathways and Dichotomic Effects on Immune Effector Cell Populations
Authors: Morandi Fabio , Horenstein Alberto L. , Quarona Valeria , Faini Angelo Corso , Castella Barbara , Srinivasan Raghuraman C. , Strom Stephen C. , Malavasi Fabio , Gramignoli Roberto 
Published: December 2018

Abstract
This study investigates the mechanism(s) underlying the immunoregulatory activities of placenta-derived human amnion epithelial cells (hAEC). The working hypothesis is that NAD+ and ATP, along with ectoenzymes involved in their metabolism, play a significant role in hAEC-mediated immune regulation. Proof of principle of the hypothesis was obtained by analyzing the interactions between hAEC and the main human leukocyte populations. The results obtained indicate that hAEC constitutively express a unique combination of functional ectoenzymes, driving the production of adenosine (ADO) via canonical (CD39, CD73) and alternative (CD38, CD203a/PC-1, CD73) pathways. Further, the picture is completed by the observation that hAEC express A1, A2a, and A2b ADO receptors as well as ADO deaminase, the enzyme involved in ADO catabolism. The contribution of the purinergic mediator to immunomodulation was confirmed by exposing in vitro different immune effector cells to the action of primary hAECs. B cells showed an enhanced proliferation and diminished spontaneous apoptosis when in contact with hAEC. T cell proliferation was partially inhibited by hAEC through ADO production, as confirmed by using specific ectoenzyme inhibitors. Further, hAEC induced an expansion of both T and B regulatory cells. Last, hAEC inhibited NK cell proliferation. However, the involvement of ADO-producing ectoenzymes is less apparent in this context. In conclusion, hAEC exert different in vitro immunoregulatory effects, per se, as a result of interactions with different populations of immune effector cells. These results support the view that hAEC are instrumental for regenerative medicine as well as in therapeutic applications for immune-related diseases.
Antigen-Specific TCR Signatures of Cytomegalovirus Infection
Authors: Huth Alina , Liang Xiaoling , Krebs Stefan , Blum Helmut , Moosmann Andreas 
Published: December 2018

Abstract
CMV is a prevalent human pathogen. The virus cannot be eliminated from the body, but is kept in check by CMV-specific T cells. Patients with an insufficient T cell response, such as transplant recipients, are at high risk of developing CMV disease. However, the CMV-specific T cell repertoire is complex, and it is not yet clear which T cells protect best against virus reactivation and disease. In this study, we present a highly resolved characterization of CMV-specific human CD8+ T cells based on enrichment by specific peptide stimulation and mRNA sequencing of their TCR β-chains (TCRβ). Our analysis included recently identified T cell epitopes restricted through HLA-C, whose presentation is resistant to viral immunomodulation, and well-studied HLA-B–restricted epitopes. In eight healthy virus carriers, we identified a total of 1052 CMV-specific TCRβ sequences. HLA-C–restricted, CMV-specific TCRβ clonotypes dominated the ex vivo T cell response and contributed the highest-frequency clonotype of the entire repertoire in two of eight donors. We analyzed sharing and similarity of CMV-specific TCRβ sequences and identified 63 public or related sequences belonging to 17 public TCRβ families. In our cohort, and in an independent cohort of 352 donors, the cumulative frequency of these public TCRβ family members was a highly discriminatory indicator of carrying both CMV infection and the relevant HLA type. Based on these findings, we propose CMV-specific TCRβ signatures as a biomarker for an antiviral T cell response to identify patients in need of treatment and to guide future development of immunotherapy.
Presurgical Nasoalveolar Molding in a 4-day-old Infant with Unilateral Cleft Lip, Alveolus, and Palate Deformity
Authors: Mathew Abin , Muddaiah Sunil , Subrahmanya Jayanth B. , Somaiah Sanju , Shetty Balakrishna , Reddy Goutham 
Published: December 2018

Introduction
A four day old male infant was referred to our department. Infant’s mother complained of an opening over lip and difficulty in feeding and desires to get it corrected. On clinical examination patient showed complete unilateral cleft lip, alveolus and palate deformity towards the left side.

Methods
On the initial visit, lip taping using 1/4inch 3M Steri-strip was applied and instructions were given to parents about lip taping, and advised to continue lip taping for 2 weeks. Initial impressions were taken to fabricate the Presurgical nasoalveolar molding appliance. Intraoral molding plate was made to approximate the maxillary segments. Nasal stent was added to correct the nose deformity. Presurgical impressions were made.

Results
Under this pre surgical treatment, the cleft alveolus reduced in size from 13mm to 3mm at the alveolar ridge and palate, respectively. The nasal wing was lifted considerably.

Conclusion
Pre-surgical nasoalveolar moulding helped to reduce the cleft gap, improve the arch form, approximate lip segments and distinctly improve the morphology of the nose by correcting flattened nasal wings. This aforementioned correction not only enabled better aesthetic results after surgery but also reduced tissues tension and scar formation post-surgery.
Estimación de la evapotranspiración real en zonas de llanura mediante productos de humedad de suelo de la misión SMAP
Authors: Walker E. , García G. A. , Venturini V. 
Published: December 2018

<p>Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important process in the water cycle and in the land-surface energy balance. Over the last decades, remote sensing has provided valuable information to quantify ET. However, methodologies that use data from microwave passive sensors, such as “Soil Moisture Active Passive” (SMAP) mission, have been recently developed. In this work, a formulation to derive the relative evapotranspiration and ET from <em>in situ</em> and microwave data, is presented. The methodology is based on a modification of the original Komatsu (2003) equation by introducing a calibration parameter to represent the wind speed and vegetation effects and estimate the relative evapotranspiration. This new equation was used on the Bouchet’s complementary relationship with the Priestley-Taylor’s equation, to estimate ET at regional scales. The results were compared with observed data in the Southern Great Plains – USA (SGP) area, indicating that the new model estimated ET with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.88 mmd<sup>–1</sup> and a coefficient of determination (R<sup>2</sup> ) greater than 0.8. The calibrated model was applied in an extremely humid period in Argentinean Pampas region with results near to potential rates.</p>
Compatible reuse of the single hall churches in Catania (IT): thinking and proposals
Authors: Lo Faro Alessandro , Mondello Attilio , Salemi Angelo 
Published: December 2018

<p>Summarizing the most recent studies about scientific approaches to the theme of building reuse, we propose a metadesign strategy applied to the single hall churches in Catania’s historic centre. We have performed a census and analyses on them from a morphological, technical and thermo-physical point of view. We also conducted an analysis of the urban settlement system in which these historic buildings are located, in order to verify compatibility with the "new" potential uses. However, a critical issue emerges regarding the possibility to standardize the decision-making processes involving historic buildings with a high cultural relevance.</p><p>This study proposes a meta-approach to the problem of compatible reuse, looking at the specificity of disused or little used religious buildings. After making a short state of art, a cataloging and expeditious anamnesis, we have analysed a framework of needs that would consider the settlement demands in the urban context of Catania. We performed, at the end, an assessment of compatibility of reuse that satisfies the historic building safeguard, the reversibility of possible action and the requirements of the new undertaken functions.</p><p class="Abstracttext-VITRUVIO"> </p>
Inborn Knowledge
Authors: McGinn Colin 
Published: December 2018

An argument that nativism is true and important but mysterious, examining the particular case of ideas of sensible qualities.
In this book, Colin McGinn presents a concise, clear, and compelling argument that the origins of knowledge are innate—that nativism, not empiricism, is correct in its theory of how concepts are acquired. McGinn considers the particular case of sensible qualities—ideas of color, shape, taste, and so on. He argues that these, which he once regarded as the strongest case for the empiricist position, are in fact not well explained by the empiricist account that they derive from interactions with external objects. Rather, he contends, ideas of sensible qualities offer the strongest case for the nativist position—that a large range of our knowledge is inborn, not acquired through the senses. Yet, McGinn cautions, how this can be is deeply problematic; we have no good theories about how innate knowledge is possible. Innate knowledge is a mystery, though a fact.
McGinn describes the traditional debate between empiricism and nativism; offers an array of arguments against empiricism; constructs an argument in favor of nativism; and considers the philosophical consequences of adopting the nativist position, discussing perception, the mind–body problem, the unconscious, metaphysics, and epistemology.
Inventing Atmospheric Science
Authors: Fleming James Rodger 
Published: December 2018

How scientists used transformative new technologies to understand the complexities of weather and the atmosphere, told through the intertwined careers of three key figures.
“The goal of meteorology is to portray everything atmospheric, everywhere, always,” declared John Bellamy and Harry Wexler in 1960, soon after the successful launch of TIROS 1, the first weather satellite. Throughout the twentieth century, meteorological researchers have had global ambitions, incorporating technological advances into their scientific study as they worked to link theory with practice. Wireless telegraphy, radio, aviation, nuclear tracers, rockets, digital computers, and Earth-orbiting satellites opened up entirely new research horizons for meteorologists. In this book, James Fleming charts the emergence of the interdisciplinary field of atmospheric science through the lives and careers of three key figures: Vilhelm Bjerknes (1862–1951), Carl-Gustaf Rossby (1898–1957), and Harry Wexler (1911–1962).
In the early twentieth century, Bjerknes worked to put meteorology on solid observational and theoretical foundations. His younger colleague, the innovative and influential Rossby, built the first graduate program in meteorology (at MIT), trained aviation cadets during World War II, and was a pioneer in numerical weather prediction and atmospheric chemistry. Wexler, one of Rossby's best students, became head of research at the U.S. Weather Bureau, where he developed new technologies from radar and rockets to computers and satellites, conducted research on the Antarctic ice sheet, and established carbon dioxide measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. He was also the first meteorologist to fly into a hurricane—an experience he chose never to repeat.
Fleming maps both the ambitions of an evolving field and the constraints that checked them—war, bureaucracy, economic downturns, and, most important, the ultimate realization (prompted by the formulation of chaos theory in the 1960s by Edward Lorenz) that perfectly accurate measurements and forecasts would never be possible.
New Tendencies
Authors: Medosch Armin 
Published: December 2018

An account of a major international art movement originating in the former Yugoslavia in the 1960s, which anticipated key aspects of information aesthetics.
New Tendencies, a nonaligned modernist art movement, emerged in the early 1960s in the former Yugoslavia, a nonaligned country. It represented a new sensibility, rejecting both Abstract Expressionism and socialist realism in an attempt to formulate an art adequate to the age of advanced mass production. In this book, Armin Medosch examines the development of New Tendencies as a major international art movement in the context of social, political, and technological history. Doing so, he traces concurrent paradigm shifts: the change from Fordism (the political economy of mass production and consumption) to the information society, and the change from postwar modernism to dematerialized postmodern art practices.
Medosch explains that New Tendencies, rather than opposing the forces of technology as most artists and intellectuals of the time did, imagined the rapid advance of technology to be a springboard into a future beyond alienation and oppression. Works by New Tendencies cast the viewer as coproducer, abolishing the idea of artist as creative genius and replacing it with the notion of the visual researcher. In 1968 and 1969, the group actively turned to the computer as a medium of visual research, anticipating new media and digital art.
Medosch discusses modernization in then-Yugoslavia and other nations on the periphery; looks in detail at New Tendencies' five major exhibitions in Zagreb (the capital of Croatia); and considers such topics as the group's relation to science, the changing relationship of manual and intellectual labor, New Tendencies in the international art market, their engagement with computer art, and the group's eventual eclipse by other “new art practices” including conceptualism, land art, and arte povera. Numerous illustrations document New Tendencies' works and exhibitions.
Creating Language
Authors: Christiansen Morten H. , Chater Nick 
Published: December 2018

A work that reveals the profound links between the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, and proposes a new integrative framework for the language sciences.
Language is a hallmark of the human species; the flexibility and unbounded expressivity of our linguistic abilities is unique in the biological world. In this book, Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater argue that to understand this astonishing phenomenon, we must consider how language is created: moment by moment, in the generation and understanding of individual utterances; year by year, as new language learners acquire language skills; and generation by generation, as languages change, split, and fuse through the processes of cultural evolution. Christiansen and Chater propose a revolutionary new framework for understanding the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, offering an integrated theory of how language creation is intertwined across these multiple timescales.
Christiansen and Chater argue that mainstream generative approaches to language do not provide compelling accounts of language evolution, acquisition, and processing. Their own account draws on important developments from across the language sciences, including statistical natural language processing, learnability theory, computational modeling, and psycholinguistic experiments with children and adults. Christiansen and Chater also consider some of the major implications of their theoretical approach for our understanding of how language works, offering alternative accounts of specific aspects of language, including the structure of the vocabulary, the importance of experience in language processing, and the nature of recursive linguistic structure.
Updating to Remain the Same
Authors: Chun Wendy Hui Kyong 
Published: December 2018

What it means when media moves from the new to the habitual—when our bodies become archives of supposedly obsolescent media, streaming, updating, sharing, saving.
New media—we are told—exist at the bleeding edge of obsolescence. We thus forever try to catch up, updating to remain the same. Meanwhile, analytic, creative, and commercial efforts focus exclusively on the next big thing: figuring out what will spread and who will spread it the fastest. But what do we miss in this constant push to the future? In Updating to Remain the Same, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun suggests another approach, arguing that our media matter most when they seem not to matter at all—when they have moved from “new” to habitual. Smart phones, for example, no longer amaze, but they increasingly structure and monitor our lives. Through habits, Chun says, new media become embedded in our lives—indeed, we become our machines: we stream, update, capture, upload, link, save, trash, and troll.
Chun links habits to the rise of networks as the defining concept of our era. Networks have been central to the emergence of neoliberalism, replacing “society” with groupings of individuals and connectable “YOUS.” (For isn't “new media” actually “NYOU media”?) Habit is central to the inversion of privacy and publicity that drives neoliberalism and networks. Why do we view our networked devices as “personal” when they are so chatty and promiscuous? What would happen, Chun asks, if, rather than pushing for privacy that is no privacy, we demanded public rights—the right to be exposed, to take risks and to be in public and not be attacked?
Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces
Authors: Palfrey John 
Published: December 2018

How the essential democratic values of diversity and free expression can coexist on campus.
Safe spaces, trigger warnings, microaggressions, the disinvitation of speakers, demands to rename campus landmarks—debate over these issues began in lecture halls and on college quads but ended up on op-ed pages in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, on cable news, and on social media. Some of these critiques had merit, but others took a series of cheap shots at “crybullies” who needed to be coddled and protected from the real world. Few questioned the assumption that colleges must choose between free expression and diversity. In Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces, John Palfrey argues that the essential democratic values of diversity and free expression can, and should, coexist on campus.
Palfrey, currently Head of School at Phillips Academy, Andover, and formerly Professor and Vice Dean at Harvard Law School, writes that free expression and diversity are more compatible than opposed. Free expression can serve everyone—even if it has at times been dominated by white, male, Christian, heterosexual, able-bodied citizens. Diversity is about self-expression, learning from one another, and working together across differences; it can encompass academic freedom without condoning hate speech.
Palfrey proposes an innovative way to support both diversity and free expression on campus: creating safe spaces and brave spaces. In safe spaces, students can explore ideas and express themselves with without feeling marginalized. In brave spaces—classrooms, lecture halls, public forums—the search for knowledge is paramount, even if some discussions may make certain students uncomfortable. The strength of our democracy, says Palfrey, depends on a commitment to upholding both diversity and free expression, especially when it is hardest to do so.
By Force of Thought
Authors: Kornai János 
Published: December 2018

János Kornai, a distinguished Hungarian economist, began his adult life as an ardent believer in socialism and then became a critic of the communist political and economic system. He lost family members in the Holocaust, contributed to the ideological preparation for the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and became an influential theorist of the post-Soviet economic transition. He has been a journalist, a researcher prohibited from teaching in his home country, and a tenured professor at Harvard. By Force of Thought traces Kornai's lifelong intellectual journey and offers a subjective complement to his academic research.
Disenchanted with communism, Kornai published Overcentralization (1956), the first book written by someone living behind the Iron Curtain to be openly critical of Soviet-style economics. Although it was attacked in Hungary, it was hailed by Western economists. The Kornai-Lipták theory on two-level planning captured the attention of mathematical economists. Kornai went on to publish the controversial Anti-Equilibrium (1971), a critique of the general equilibrium theory underpinning mainstream economic analyses of markets, Economics of Shortage (1980), The Road to a Free Economy (1990), and the summary of his lifetime research, The Socialist System (1992). An intellectual emissary between East and West, Kornai commuted between Harvard and Budapest for many years.
Kornai's memoir describes his research—including his present-day evaluation of his past work—as well as the social and political environments in which he did his work. The difficulties faced by a critic of central planning in a communist country are made especially vivid by material from newly opened secret police files and informers' reports on his activities. By Force of Thought will be an essential resource for students of economic thought, socialist systems, and postsocialist transition, and for readers interested in Eastern European intellectual life before, during, and after communism.