bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Genetic Disability and Legal Action: Wrongful Birth, Wrongful Life
Authors: Bickenbach Jerome 
Published: June 2017

Abstract

Parents of children born with impairments, birth defects or health condition can sue health professionals for the tort of wrongful birth; the tort of wrongful life is based on the same events but is brought by the child. Wrongful birth actions are often successful, if the parents can show negligence and they have suffered compensable harm. Wrongful life actions, however, are almost always unsuccessful or blocked by legislation, primarily because courts are reluctant to allow that nonexistence is preferable to existence with impairments or find it impossible to calculate what these damages would be. Both actions are objectionable because they force parents, and courts, to devalue the lives of persons with impairments. Some scholars argue that tort law is inappropriate for such actions and that breach of warranty in contracts is more appropriate, as the damage is the unanticipated extra costs resulting from impairments or birth defects.

Key Concepts

If, because of the negligence of a health professional, a child is born with impairments or birth defects, parents can sue for the tort of wrongful birth and the child can sue for wrongful life.

Wrongful birth cases are often successful, if negligence and actual harm are proved; but wrongful life cases are almost always unsuccessful or banned by legislation.

Wrongful birth cases, when successful, usually rely on the argument that the negligent health professional breached the duty of professional care owed to the parents, and this led to unexpected additional costs of raising a child.

Courts are often reluctant to determine, as is required by wrongful birth and life cases, that a life of a child born with a birth defect or impairment is worse than nonexistence.

Wrongful life and birth cases are objectionable on the policy grounds that they force parents and courts to devalue the life of children born with impairments.

Scholars argue that wrongful birth and life cases would be better conceived as breach of warranty cases in contracts rather than as torts.
Biochemistry of
RNA
Silencing
Authors: Alagia Adele , Eritja Ramon 
Published: June 2017

Abstract

RNA interference is an inhibitory mechanism able to downregulate the expression of mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) in a very specific manner. This posttranscriptional gene regulation pathway relies on the action of a small noncoding RNA (miRNA). MiRNA is an imperfectly matched double‐stranded molecule deriving from large primary transcript (pri‐miRNA). The action of Drosha and DGCR8 proteins initiates the miRNA maturation producing shorter pre‐miRNA molecule. Following Exportin‐5:RanGTP‐driven nuclear export pre‐miRNA is subjected to Dicer processing, resulting in mature miRNA molecule. In addition to this canonical pathway, alternative miRNA biogenesis routes have been described. The understanding of canonical and noncanonical miRNA biogenesis is important to define the roles of miRNAs in cellular homeostasis processes and human diseases as well as to develop potential miRNA‐based treatments.

Key Concepts

The canonical maturation of pri‐miRNA involves processing of RNA polymerase II transcripts by Drosha and Dicer proteins.

Within the Microprocessor complex, DGCR8 is needed to orientate pri‐miRNA substrate and permit efficient Drosha‐mediated processing.

Other proteins such as Rbfox3, GSk3b, BRCA1 and HP1BP3 indirectly regulate the expression levels of pri‐miRNAs.

Drosha cleavage product, named pre‐miRNA, is translocated from the nucleus to the cytosol by the formation of a complex with Exportin‐5 and RanGTP.

TRBP and PACT are cofactor partners of Dicer protein and help the pre‐miRNA loading and processing.

Mature miRNA can also be produced by splicing mechanisms without the involvement of Drosha through mirtrons intermediates.

Processing of intronic‐derived miRNAs by Drosha generates simtrons with special characteristics.

Duplex RNA sequences adjacent to pre‐miRNA can also be processed to form miRNA‐offset RNAs (moRNAs).

In some cases, miRNA maturation is directed by Argonaute2 without the intervention of Dicer.

2 nt 3′‐overhang feature is important for miRNA biogenesis.
Age‐Related Changes in Tree Growth and Physiology
Authors: Groover Andrew 
Published: June 2017

Abstract

Trees pass through specific developmental phases as they age, including juvenile to adult, and vegetative to reproductive phases. The timing of these transitions is regulated genetically but is also highly influenced by the environment. Tree species have evolved different strategies and life histories that affect how they age – for example some pioneer species are fast growing and become sexually mature at younger ages but have shorter life spans. Trees do not have a strictly programmed senescence, and their life span is influenced by factors including challenges associated with increasing size, and ability to cope with environmental stress such as water availability, rot fungi, insects and disease pressure. Some long‐lived tree species escape threats in exceptionally dry environments, while others use clonal reproduction through sprouts from stumps or roots to enable the same genotype to persist for thousands of years. On longer timescales, tree species migrate across landscapes to suitable environments.

Key Concepts

Forest tree species display a range of strategies and life histories that affect their life span and ageing and can be described in terms of forest succession concepts.

Trees undergo juvenile to adult transitions that can be reflected in distinct differences in morphology of leaves, changes in physiology or changes in the anatomy and biochemical makeup of wood.

Trees also undergo a period of vegetative growth before becoming sexually mature and competent to make reproductive structures (flowers in angiosperm trees or strobili in gymnosperm trees).

Trees do not have a genetically programmed life span or senescence. Life span is affected by limitations imposed by size and abiotic and biotic factors.

In some species, while the original tree stem may die, clonal sprouts can form, allowing the same genotype to live for thousands of years.

Over long timescales, tree species migrate to accommodate changes in climate over time.
Visual Pigment Evolution in Reptiles
Authors: Simões Bruno F , Gower David J 
Published: June 2017

AbstractThe long history and great ecological and morphological diversity of reptiles (all amniotes except mammals and birds) is matched by their visual system diversity. Although less known than in other amniotes, visual pigments have been studied in all extant reptile orders except Sphenodontia. There have been no additions to the five visual pigments present in the ancestral vertebrate, although there have been multiple independent losses. Crocodylians retain three visual pigments, many lizards as well as Testudines four or five and snakes one to three. Adaptive pigment evolution includes tuning site amino acid substitutions and switches between chromophore types that together generate ultraviolet to infrared spectral sensitivity. Reptiles present some of the best evidences of evolutionary rod–cone and cone–rod transmutation with, for example typically cone visual pigments expressed in rod‐like photoreceptors. Reptile visual pigments show evidence of substantial adaptive evolution, at least some of which is associated with major ecological shifts.Key ConceptsReptiles have no more than five visual pigments, as few as one and typically at least three.Up to four of the ancestral vertebrate visual pigments have been lost independently in different reptile lineages, and no visual opsin gene duplications have been identified so far.Testudines have between four and five visual pigments and a wide range of photoreceptor oil droplets, representing one of the most complex visual pigment systems in tetrapod vertebrates.Despite many of them being nocturnal, no rhodopsin 1 has been detected in geckos.Nosws1orrh2opsin genes can be detected in genomic sequence data for crocodylians.Among squamates, some lizards have a mixture of A1and A2chromophores incorporated in their visual pigments, allowing a wide colour sensitivity, including infrared vision.In the green anole (Anolis carolinensis), only cone opsins have been reported (SWS1, SWS2, RH2 and LWS) in studies of the eye. However, a 515‐nm tunedrh1rhodopsin gene occurs in the genome of this species.Extant snakes have lost two visual pigments (SWS2 and RH2), likely as an adaptation to a low light environment inhabited by a snake ancestor.Extreme burrowing in scolecophidians (blind, worm and thread snakes) is correlated with the loss of the SWS1 and LWS visual pigments and cones, rendering these snakes rod (RH1) monochromats.The expression of RH1, SWS1 and LWS pigments in snake lineages with seemingly all‐cone and all‐rod retinae suggests multiple transmutations from cone to rod andvice versain snakes. Similar transmutations likely occurred in some lizards and perhaps crocodylians.Visual pigment spectral sensitivity in reptiles has been found to correlate with the light transmission properties of the ocular media (e.g. snakes) and photoreceptor oil droplets (e.g. testudines), that is the pigments are not sensitive to wavelengths of light filtered out by these structures.
Achebe, Chinua
Authors: Ashuntantang Joyce 
Published: June 2017

Abstract

Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His more than 30 published works of fiction – including his groundbreaking novel
Things Fall Apart
– poetry, children's literature, nonfiction, and critical essays continue to shape the way African literature is read, written, and disseminated around the world.
Aidoo, Ama Ata
Authors: Pinto Samantha 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo (née Christina Ata Aidoo, b. 1942) is perhaps one of the most well‐known African woman writers in the world. Her multi‐genre career has spanned half a century, and has included drama, poetry, novels, and short fiction, as well as numerous foundational essays on the topic of African literature and feminism. She is known for not shying away from taboo subjects in continental literature, including polygamy, African participation in chattel slavery, queer sexuality, birth control, marital rape, and childlessness.
Arab Anti‐Colonialism
Authors: Garrison Douglas H. 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
The history of anti‐colonial activism and thought among Arabic‐speaking peoples in the region known today as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) extends to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Over the past 300 years it has appeared in numerous locales and found myriad articulations throughout the Arab world. As such, Arab anti‐colonialism defies simple definition or categorization. Insofar as a unifying theme exists in its multiple iterations, it is the demand for self‐rule and treatment as equals upon the international stage.
Art
Authors: Bohrer Frederick N. 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
The topics included in postcolonial studies have deeply affected the discourses of art and art history, as well as the very objects and displays of art museums around the world. Questions of globalization, identity, race, and power resonate throughout contemporary and historical art, but also illuminate the biases or limitations of the art world and the discipline of art history itself. In addition, they put on display the differences between media and historical periods in ways that fruitfully allow us both to look closer at art and at ourselves looking.
Asian American Literature, Criticism and Theory
Authors: Kim Sue 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
Asian American literature has its roots in the nineteenth century, and Asian American criticism and theory grew out of the Asian American movement of the 1960s and 70s. An extremely broad field, Asian American criticism examines literature by people of East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, and Middle Eastern descent. Since its beginnings, Asian American literary criticism and theory have engaged with feminism, Marxism, poststructuralism, queer theory, postcolonialism, and cultural studies in heterogeneous and productive ways.
Beauvoir, Simone de
Authors: Houten Christina Van 
Published: June 2017

Abstract

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) was a French writer, existentialist philosopher, and feminist, whose career spanned the twentieth century. She believed that literature could effect social change and she encouraged the concept of a
littérature engagée
(committed literature). Her literary works, like her theoretical texts, investigate philosophical, social, and political themes: the concept of situated freedom, the relationship of an individual conscience to “the other,” the principles of ethical relationships, and the existentialist concern with the possibility of changing the world. Throughout her career, she was committed to leftist politics. Following World War II, she traveled extensively, offering a critique of capitalism and global race, class, and gender relations. Best known for her book
The Second Sex
, a critique of patriarchy and its positioning of woman as “other,” de Beauvoir argues for an equality between men and women that allows for sexual difference.
Arab Spring 2011
Authors: Alessandrini Anthony C. 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
“Arab Spring” is a phrase coined to describe a series of popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, and throughout the Middle East and North Africa, beginning in December 2010. These uprisings have led to the removal of dictatorial leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen; in other cases, most notably Bahrain and Syria, peaceful popular protests were met with overwhelming violence, with continuing effects. The uprisings themselves have led to debates as to how to best analyze them, and have offered a challenge to traditional categories for understanding revolts and revolutions. As such, they provide an important project for postcolonial and anti‐colonial analysis and action.
Borders in Latin America
Authors: Zavala Oswaldo 
Published: June 2017

AbstractThe term “borders” is crucial to the understanding and current debates of Latin American postcolonial studies. It refers to at least three stages of the region's history: first, as the geopolitical notion that was activated in the Spanish colonies in the sixteenth century; second, as the teleological objective of the various projects of modernity of the independent nations in the nineteenth century; and third, as a cultural signifier that has produced the deconstruction and further dispersion of national discourses and nationalist identities.
Brand, Dionne
Authors: Wallace Belinda Deneen 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
Trinidad author Dionne Brand is a poet, novelist and essayist whose creative works focus on the varying ways in which people map their lives. Mapping involves both the intimate act of conjuring one's own path, as well as the courageous act of traversing existing routes. Thus, for Brand's characters, mapping involves engaging different spatial arenas, such as the political, geographical, emotional, spiritual, ephemeral, and sexual, all the while wrestling with issues of identity, home, and belonging in their quest to participate fully in the human experience.
Carey, Peter
Authors: Henningsgaard Per 
Published: June 2017

Abstract

Peter Carey is best known as a novelist and two‐time winner of the Booker Prize – one of only a handful of writers to have managed this feat. He is also a writer of short stories, memoirs, screenplays, and a children's book. Carey is widely thought of as the literary heir to Patrick White (the only Australian writer, to date, to have won a Nobel Prize in Literature) by virtue of the former's popularity with readers outside his native home of Australia, as well as his interest in national themes. Peter Carey was born on May 7, 1943, in the small Australian town of Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. His novels include
Bliss
,
Illywhacker
,
Oscar and Lucinda
,
The Tax Inspector
,
The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith
,
Jack Maggs
,
True History of the Kelly Gang
,
My Life as a Fake
,
Theft: A Love Story
,
His Illegal Self
,
Parrot and Olivier in America
,
The Chemistry of Tears
, and
Amnesia
.
Banditry
Authors: Dabove Juan Pablo 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
Banditry is usually associated with offenses (often involving violence) against property, such as highway robbery, plunder, cattle rustling, protection rackets and so forth. But its significance in Latin American postcolonial history and culture stems from the fact that “banditry” does not name a specific offense well codified in penal codes. As such, it belongs to a “metalanguage of crime.” It is a trope designed to criminalize any challenge to the state monopoly of legitimate violence. Banditry belongs to the vocabulary of politics; it is one of the primary discursive tools used to enact the “original” definition of what politics (as opposed to crime) is in a given arena of struggle and to define political subjects (and behaviors) as opposed to criminal ones.
Catholicism in Latin America
Authors: Hoyos Héctor 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
This entry presents a brief chronological survey of landmark events in the relationship of Catholicism and society in Latin America and in the Iberian peninsula, with an emphasis on the postcolonial period. Consideration is given to the Catholic Church as an organization, as a doctrine, and as it pertains to their combined, broader cultural imprint. In relation to the work of Koselleck and Weber, the entry examines the conceptual history of “Catholicism” and its role in structuring societal relations and informing cultural production. Subthemes include patronage, concordats, legitimacy, social doctrine, and the definition of the human.
Chandra, Vikram
Authors: Reddy Sheshalatha 
Published: June 2017

Abstract

The Indian‐born, American‐based writer, Vikram Chandra has published two novels,
Red Earth
,
Pouring Rain
(1995) and
Sacred Games
(2006), and a collection of short stories,
Love and Longing in Bombay
(1997). He is known for his interest in narrative structure, and his works often feature embedded narratives, parallel narratives, multiple narrators, and the clever manipulation of the narrative conventions of various genres, including detective fiction, fantasy, and oral traditions. In his latest works, Chandra has also been one of the foremost chroniclers of the impact of “new,” market‐liberalized India on its urban landscapes, especially Bombay.
Chatterjee, Partha
Authors: Bhattacharya Anindya 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
A central figure of the subaltern studies collective, Partha Chatterjee is celebrated for his groundbreaking intervention in the understanding of nationalism as well as his work on empire, modernity, historiography, and political society. His writing is remarkable for its capacity to undermine the discourse of post‐Enlightenment liberal rationalism and modernity which claim a universal status. His central concern is the conflict of the two forces of capital and community in the colonial world and the politics of the governed, and his achievement a historiography that counters the universalizing Western and nationalist narratives by favoring the local, the cultural, and the fragmentary.
Coetzee, J. M.
Authors: Macaskill Brian 
Published: June 2017

AbstractJ. M. Coetzee is a prize‐winning Anglophone novelist and internationally distinguished academic, Nobel laureate, translator, and advocate for animal justice. A citizen of South Africa and also more recently of Australia, Coetzee has earned wide recognition as possibly the most important living writer of the English language, and heir to Samuel Beckett, whose presence – along with many other literary precursors from Flaubert and Joyce to Kafka and Borges – domestically haunts Coetzee's novels, none of which has only one author‐parent or monolithic nationality, and all of which, despite their singularity, resist the monology of a single and authoritarian word.
Cortázar, Julio
Authors: Cameron John H. 
Published: June 2017

Abstract

Julio Cortázar (1914–84) was an Argentinian writer of novels, short stories, and essays who is generally regarded as one of the seminal figures of the Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s. Cortázar is also considered one of the seminal postmodern writers, and his short stories have been generally ranked alongside those of Borges by many of his contemporaries; one of them, “Las babas del diablo,” provided the inspiration for two films, Michelangelo Antonioni's
Blowup
(1966) and Brian de Palma's
Blow Out
(1981). At the same time, and although he always referred to it as a “counter‐novel,” his 1963 novel (
Rayuela
or
Hopscotch
) is considered to be one of the most important novels of the late twentieth century.
Cuban Revolution
Authors: Kirk John M. 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
This entry analyzes the Cuban revolutionary process. It starts with a reference to the nineteenth century nationalistic roots of inspiration of José Martí and examines prerevolutionary Cuba under Fulgencio Batista. The main focus is the Cuban revolution, and an analysis is given of the salient features of the key historical periods (1959–61, 1962–89, and 1989–present). The foreign policy, economic model, social change, successes and challenges of this model are given, ending with the reforms undertaken by Raúl Castro.
Davidson, Basil
Authors: Wilkins Sam 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
Basil Davidson (1914–2010) was a prolific British historian of Africa. Notable for his lack of academic qualification and will to immerse himself in guerrilla movements and activist causes, he fought for the dignity of African history in European eyes. With 26 books and a popular television series on African history and politics, he sought a historical discourse on equal terms, recognizing that the empires and cultures of precolonial Africa were just as noteworthy to world history as those in Europe or Asia. Later in his career his focus became more theoretical, looking at the reasons why the European nation‐state model had failed to bring about its promise of liberation in the post‐independence era.
Education
Authors: Ramsey‐Kurz Helga 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
In order to do justice to the development of education in (formerly) colonial contexts, the entry draws a diachronic distinction between (1) precolonial, (2) colonial, (3) early‐national, (4) anti‐colonial, (5) postcolonial, and (6) neocolonial education, and describes each of these categories with regard to the historical circumstances under which it evolved and the specific structural features and ideological orientations that define it. While aiming to give a general and acceptably comprehensible overview of the phenomenon of education in colonial and postcolonial situations, it nonetheless addresses very specific aspects such as the role of missionaries, linguistic colonization, forced assimilation of indigenous learners, motivation for colonized societies to endorse Western education, critiques of colonial education, models of liberation through education, and, finally, the internationalization and globalization of teaching services.
European Anti‐Colonialism
Authors: Ganapathy‐Doré Geetha 
Published: June 2017

Abstract
Anti‐colonialism does not simply refer to native opposition to, and resistance against, European colonialism. From the early modern times to decolonization, anti‐colonial thought was expressed by Europeans themselves from the humanitarian, economic, and Marxist perspectives. The relevance of colonialism for national self‐interest, the injustice of slavery and racism, the universality of human rights, Europe's civilizing mission, and the growth of capitalism were debated before socialism and communism sent out the call for nationalist revolutions. Though the colonial present reawakens the ghosts of imperialism and neocolonialism, cosmopolitan friendship and hospitality offer a way out of the antithetic dialogue between Europe and the rest of the world. The rapprochement between rich and emerging nations in the multipolar world order is a sign of a synthesis of European and indigenous anti‐colonialism.