bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Religious Studies as a Life Science
Authors: Bulbulia Joseph , Bulbulia Joseph , Slingerland Edward 
Published: November 2012

AbstractReligious studies assumes that religions are naturally occurring phenomena, yet what has scholarship uncovered about this fascinating dimension of the human condition? The manifold reports that classical scholars of religion have gathered extend knowledge, but such knowledge differs from that of scientific scholarship. Classical religious studies scholarship is expansive, but it is not cumulative and progressive. Bucking the expansionist trend, however, there are a small but growing number of researchers who approach religion using the methods and models of the life sciences. We use the biologist’s distinction between “proximate” and “ultimate” explanations to review a sample of such research. While initial results in the biology of religion are promising, current limitations suggest the need for greater collaboration with classically trained scholars of religion. It might appear that scientists of religion and scholars of religion are strange bedfellows; however, progress in the scholarly study of religions rests on the extent to which members of each camp find a common intellectual fate.
Give a Dog a Bad Name and Hang Him: Evaluating Big, Black Dog Syndrome
Authors: Woodward Lucinda , Milliken Jennifer , Humy Sonya 
Published: November 2012

AbstractTwo studies examined human perceptions of dog personality attributes based upon exposure to pictures of dogs of select breeds. The proposed hypotheses evaluated the validity of “big, black dog syndrome”—whereby large, black dog breeds are reportedly spurned for adoption due to negatively perceived personality attributes—by assessing each dog’s relative trait dominance and affiliation based upon a taxonomy drawn from the eight-factor interpersonal circumplex. Results of two separate studies indicated that among participants’ ratings, breed-specific differences were more powerful predictors of interpersonal trait attributions than the color or size of the dog. In general, with the exception of the golden retriever, black labs were perceived as consistently less dominant and less hostile than other large breeds, contrary to the assumption that large, black dogs are viewed negatively.
End of the Era of Productivist Welfare Capitalism? Diverging Welfare Regimes in East Asia
Authors: Choi Young Jun 
Published: November 2012

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of recent transformations in East Asian welfare regimes, applying a ‘real-typical’ perspective, based on the ‘productivist welfare capitalism’ thesis of Ian Holliday (2000). Unlike Western welfare-state regimes in which the politics of austerity has dominated, the politics of welfare expansion has been noticeable in East Asian welfare regimes. This paper will analyse whether these changes have fundamentally dismantled the productivist feature where social policy is subordinate to economic objectives. While the trajectories are different depending on different political institutional contexts, this study shows that there are two strong signs that these states are moving out of their productivist nature and also that they are in the process of establishing their own welfare states. Japan seems to still be a productivist welfare-state regime struggling to accommodate rapid socio-economic changes, whereas Korea is a welfare state regime with strong liberal characteristics via modern welfare politics. Since the needs for social policy expansion in China correspond to economic and political needs, the productivist feature has been significantly weakened. However, this study argues that these transitory welfare regimes are in critical stages of formulating their new welfare regimes and that welfare politics based on contingent events could affect the future trajectories of these regimes.
Le Yahwiste salomonien au regard des sciences sociales
Authors: Marx A. 
Published: November 2012

Abstract
La présente étude se propose de revisiter la thèse traditionnelle d’un Yahwiste salomonien en faisant appel aux données des sciences sociales. Après un examen critique des arguments pro et contra et une nouvelle proposition de critères de datation, elle s’efforce de démontrer que le Yahwiste est un écrit de propagande rédigé à la cour royale, à la fin du règne de David ou, plus vraisemblablement, au début de règne de Salomon, en vue de renforcer la cohésion de ce jeune Etat dont la création est largement artificielle et qui, au vu de son caractère composite, est extrêmement fragile. L’hypothèse présentée se fonde, non sur tel ou tel détail censé référer à la situation du royaume uni, mais sur une lecture d’ensemble des textes habituellement attribués au Yahwiste.
Die vorliegende Untersuchung beabsichtigt, die traditionelle These eines salomonischen Jahwisten neu zu beleuchten anhand der Sozialwissenschaft. Nach einer kritischen Prüfung der Pro- und Contra-Argumente und der Vorstellung eines neuen Vorschlags zu den Datierungskriterien soll der Versuch unternommen werden, zu beweisen, dass es sich beim Jahwisten um eine auf dem königliche Hof gegen Ende der Herrschaft Davids oder eher zu Beginn derjenigen Salomos verfasste Propagandaschrift handelt, die mit dem Ziel entstanden ist, den Zusammenhang dieses jungen Staates zu stärken, dessen Gründung angesichts seiner Verschiedenartigkeit weitgehend künstlich und somit höchst brüchig ist. Die aufgestellte Hypothese stützt sich nicht auf dieses oder jenes Detail, das auf die Lage des vereinten Königsreichs verweisen soll, sondern auf eine Gesamtlektüre der Texte, die gewöhnlich dem Jahwisten zugeschrieben werden.
From Universals to Topics: The Realism of Rudolph Agricola, with an Edition of his Reply to a Critic
Authors: Nauta Lodi 
Published: November 2012

Abstract
Rudolph Agricola’s De inventione dialectica has rightly been regarded as the most original and influential textbook on argumentation, reading, writing, and communication in the Renaissance. At the heart of his treatment are the topics (loci), such as definition, genus, species, place, whole, parts, similars, and so on. While their function in Agricola’s system is argumentative and rhetorical, the roots of the topics are metaphysical, as Agricola himself explicitly acknowledges. It has led scholars to characterize Agricola as a realist or even an extreme realist. This article studies two little treatises on universals by Agricola that throw further light on his realism. It is suggested that they could be viewed as an early step in his long-term project of revising and re-organizing the systems of topics as he encountered them in Aristotle, Cicero, and Boethius. The article offers a close analysis of the treatises, suggesting that Agricola’s realism owes a (general) debt to the school of the Scotists. In both earlier and later work Agricola emphasizes the common aspects of things that enable us to categorize and talk about things without denying their fundamental unicity and individuality. An edition of Agricola’s second treatise on universals—a reply to a critic—is added.
Determinants of Household Access to Formal Credit in the Rural Areas of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam
Authors: Duy Vuong Quoc , D’Haese Marijke , Lemba Jacinta , Hau Le Long , D’Haese Luc 
Published: November 2012

Abstract
This paper investigates the factors affecting the access of rural individual and group-based households to formal credit in the Mekong Delta (MD), Vietnam. Poverty levels in the Mekong Delta have reduced significantly over the last decades, but in the rural areas they remain significant. If it is assumed that access to credit is a vehicle for poverty alleviation, it is necessary to assess how households decide on borrowing. This paper identifies the determinants of the decision to borrow and of the amount that is borrowed by using the double hurdle model and Heckman selection model. Data used in this paper was obtained from a survey of 325 rural households, conducted between May and October 2009. The results indicate that household’s capital endowments, marital status, family size, distance to the market center, and locations affect the probability to ask for and amount of credit.
Does Import Substitution Industrialisation Strategy Hurt Growth?: New Evidence from Brazil and South Africa
Authors: Adewale Aregbeshola R. 
Published: November 2012

Abstract
More economies have sprung up through home-grown import substitution industrialisation (ISI) strategy in the developing world as compared to those that have plummeted by adopting the prescripts of the Washington Consensus. The recurring economic and financial crises, essentially the 2008/2009 experiences, present another perspective for macroeconomic policy embracement. For instance, major economies, especially those of the United States and the countries in the European Union, jettisoned their neoliberal ideology for protectionist measures in dealing with the 2008/2009 financial and economic turbulence. This lends credence to a rethink of macroeconomic policies for the less developed and developing economies. Using data generated from the World Development Indicators (WDI), an organ of the World Bank, in regression analyses, this article argues that the macroeconomic policy of import-substitution industrialisation contributed to the current economic developments in Brazil and South Africa. The article suggests that an import-substitution industrialisation policy is not only appropriate to galvanise industrialisation in less industrialised economies, but also augments a sustainable economic growth.
Latent Class Analysis of Reproductive Decision Making in Zambia
Authors: Pillai Vijayan K. , Opollo Diana 
Published: November 2012

Abstract
Coale (1973) pointed out that a first step in the transition to modern contraceptive use involves making calculated choices with respect to fertility and use of contraception. As women become aware of the fertility choices, they are likely to actively seek information and become engaged in reproductive decision making. Research studies on the role of social network on contraceptive decision making in Zambia are few and far. The objective of this study is to examine women’s strategies and approaches to fertility decision making in Zambia. The sample is gathered from two poor income neighborhoods in Kitwe, Zambia. The sample consists of women from 163 households. Latent class analysis provides a useful technique for identifying the presence of distinct strategies with respect to birth control. Though several heterogeneous categories with respect to various reproductive strategies were expected, only two categories were identified. The first category (latent class) is composed of women who engage in spousal communication with respect to fertility, acquire information though seeking and receiving advices from close social relations on reproductive issues, and are aware of the high cost of raising children. Implications of our finding for family planning programs are discussed.
‘Native’ Conversion to Islam in Southern Côte d’Ivoire: The Perils of Double Identity
Authors: Miran-Guyon Marie 
Published: November 2012

Abstract
This article presents a synthetic, historical-cum-anthropological overview of the collective trajectory of Ivoirian converts to Islam from southern autochthonous lineages who can be referred to—albeit unsatisfyingly—as ‘native’ Muslims. It focuses on what is effectively an invisible and silent minority within southern native groups and the majority Dioula Muslim society alike: a community that has barely received any attention from social scientists despite the transformative impact of its slow but steady Islamization process. The study aims first at shedding light on salient socio-religious and political aspects of this group’s development, from colonial to postcolonial times. Given that this plural group is situated at the crossroads of various ethnic, national, and religious controversies, having enflamed Côte d’Ivoire in olden days as much as in recent years, the article eventually makes use of this group’s distinct prism to question the contested Ivoirian interface between Islam, ethnic geography, and nationalism at large, and attempt some nuanced answers.
Bridging Islamic Juristic Differences in Contemporary Islamic Finance
Authors: Soualhi Younes 
Published: November 2012

Abstract
This article is an attempt to formulate a viable Sharīʿah framework for juristic differences in contemporary Islamic finance. While acknowledging the legitimacy of juristic differences as an inherent feature of Islamic law, such differences could jeopardize a nascent Islamic finance industry, leading to what has come to be arbitrarily termed ‘Sharīʿah risk’ in Islamic finance. Two blocks appear to represent the two disputing sides since the launch of this industry, i.e., the Middle Eastern and South East Asian markets. Thus, this article aims to bridge differences in Islamic finance by proposing a framework and set of parameters that can be applied to all Islamic banking, Islamic capital market and takāful products. Apart from the outlined framework that aims to circumvent juristic disputes, this article concludes that juristic dispute resolution in Islamic finance will not be attainable until one can appreciate the legal and regulatory differences in which Islamic finance operates worldwide.
Religion’s Political Role in Rawlsian Key
Authors: van der Ven Johannes A. 
Published: November 2012

AbstractIn Political Liberalism, expanded edition, Rawls repeatedly wants religions to accept liberal democracy for intrinsic reasons from their own religious premises, not as a modus vivendi. This article is to be considered an exploration in that field. In the first part the narrative of the St. Paul’s speech before the Areopagus in Athens by Luke is hermeneutically analyzed, as it tries to find common ground with Hellenistic philosophy and to do so by using deliberative rhetoric. In the second part these two characteristics of the Lukean story are considered the building blocks for the intrinsic acceptance of liberal democracy, albeit not in a substantive, but a formal key. The common ground Luke explored then was religious in nature, whereas in our days, at least in North-Western Europe, religion belongs to a cognitive minority. Moreover philosophy does not provide a common ground either, as there is a pluralism of competing schools nowadays. But intercontextual hermeneutics metaphorically permits to draw the following quadratic equation: as Lukean Paul related the Christian message to his philosophical context in order to find common ground, so we are to relate it to our context, the common ground of which is not philosophical, but political, which refers to the context of public reason. This article argues for accepting Rawls’ concept of using a bilingual language game for religion to present its religious convictions into the public debate and in due course translate them in terms of public reason. Such a translation requires a deliberative argumentation, that corresponds to the rules of logics and epistemology in practical reason.
An Early Doctrinal Controversy in the Iranian School of Ismaʿili Thought and Its Implications
Authors: K. Poonawala Ismail 
Published: November 2012

AbstractThe controversy stemmed from Nasafi’sKetāb al-Mahsul, wherein he introduced a pre-Fārābian version of Neo-Platonism into Ismaʿili cosmology, adapting it to Shiʿi-Ismaʿili doctrines. It provoked a sharp reaction among the Ismaʿili missionaries of Khorasan. Rāzi, an accomplished theologian and Nasafi’s contemporary, wrote hisKetāb al-Eslāhmending Nasafi’s errors. This led Sejestāni to defend the views of his teacher Nasafi and rebut Rāzi’s arguments in hisKetāb al-Nosra. Kermāni tried to reconcile the debate from a vantage point of post-Fārābian philosophy in hisKetāb al-Riāz. The controversy demonstrates that even a difference of opinion concerning major doctrinal issues was tolerated and resolved by scholarly debate.
Transition, Co-Optation and Permeation—Evolution of the Party’s Organizing Techniques in a Challenging Environment
Authors: Yuejin Jing 
Published: November 2012

Abstract
In the last 30 years, China’s ruling party, with its Reform and Opening, has made achievements that have astonished the world. In that same time span, the Party has overcome a variety of foreseeable and non-foreseeable challenges. Meeting these challenges, even turning them into momentum for reform and resources for institutional innovation, is a matter of great importance for the existence and evolution of the current system. This article considers three challenges facing the Party from the angle of organization-building: the challenge of democratic elections, revolving around village self-government; the challenge of social fragmentation resulting from the market economy; and the challenge, intimately linked to the first two, of a growing civil society. Amidst our missteps, as we “cross the river by feeling the stones”, the ruling Party has adopted various policy responses to these challenges. This article focuses on three organizing techniques: transition, co-optation, and permeation. After briefly introducing these three techniques, the article then attempts a holistic analysis and explores a few related theoretical issues.
Society Managing Society: Innovation in the System of Management for Social Organizations
Authors: Xiuping Zhou , Qiushi Liu 
Published: November 2012

Abstract
Categorized management is one of the main lines of thinking on the reform of the Chinese system of management for social organizations. However, there is a divergence of opinion amongst different researchers on the standards for categorization. On the basis of the findings of international research about supportive social organizations, the authors attempt to set forth a way of categorizing social organizations into two main groups: supportive and implementing organizations. They go on to demonstrate that the management of implementing organizations through supportive social organizations is a new kind of innovation within the self-governance of society and system of management for social organizations in China. Three methods of supportive social organization management and service for implementing organizations are explored, including industry leadership, bridging between sectors and self-regulation. Finally, a description is given of the challenges faced by China’s supportive social organizations themselves during their own development.
The Effect of Video Game Training on the Vision of Adults with Bilateral Deprivation Amblyopia
Authors: Jeon Seong Taek , Maurer Daphne , Lewis Terri L. 
Published: November 2012

Amblyopia is a condition involving reduced acuity caused by abnormal visual input during a critical period beginning shortly after birth. Amblyopia is typically considered to be irreversible during adulthood. Here we provide the first demonstration that video game training can improve at least some aspects of the vision of adults with bilateral deprivation amblyopia caused by a history of bilateral congenital cataracts. Specifically, after 40 h of training over one month with an action video game, most patients showed improvement in one or both eyes on a wide variety of tasks including acuity, spatial contrast sensitivity, and sensitivity to global motion. As well, there was evidence of improvement in at least some patients for temporal contrast sensitivity, single letter acuity, crowding, and feature spacing in faces, but not for useful field of view. The results indicate that, long after the end of the critical period for damage, there is enough residual plasticity in the adult visual system to effect improvements, even in cases of deep amblyopia caused by early bilateral deprivation.
Postoperative Facial Nerve Function in Pediatric Parotidectomy
Authors: Owusu James A. , Parker Noah P. , Rimell Frank L. 
Published: November 2012

ObjectiveTo analyze the incidence of postparotidectomy facial nerve dysfunction in pediatric patients and to evaluate the association between patient demographics or underlying pathology and functional outcomes.Study DesignCase series with chart review.SettingTertiary‐care pediatric hospital.Subjects and MethodsWe reviewed charts of patients younger than 18 years who underwent parotidectomy performed by a pediatric otolaryngologist between 1999 and 2011 at a tertiary pediatric center. Distributions of postoperative facial nerve dysfunction and timing of recovery were noted. Chi‐square and t‐test analyses were conducted to determine the association between demographics or pathology and functional outcomes.ResultsForty‐three patients met inclusion criteria: 41 underwent superficial parotidectomy, and 2 underwent total parotidectomy. Leading indications for surgery were atypical mycobacterial infection (16/43 [37.2%]) and first branchial cleft anomaly (8/43 [18.6]). The facial nerve was sacrificed in 1 (2%) patient with Ewing’s sarcoma involving the nerve. The incidence of immediate facial nerve paresis was 21% (9/43), involving the marginal mandibular nerve (n = 7), buccal branch (n = 1), and both marginal mandibular and frontal branches (n = 1). Full recovery of nerve function in patients with paresis occurred within 1 month (n = 2), 2 months (n = 1), 6 months (n = 3), or 10 months (n = 2).ConclusionPostparotidectomy paresis of distal branches of the facial nerve is a common occurrence in the pediatric population and should be discussed during preoperative evaluation. The risk is comparable to that of the adult population. Age, gender, and pathologic diagnosis were not predictive of postoperative nerve dysfunction.
Improving public perceptions around cleanliness and health care associated infection in hospitals (service improvement)
Authors: Whatley Vanessa , Jackson Louise , Taylor Jane 
Published: November 2012

A qualitative study was undertaken to understand public perceptions of hospital cleanliness and how this might be improved following national initiatives to reduce infection rates and invest in domestic services. Eleven focus groups were held across the West Midlands. Results demonstrated that perceptions are attained from a variety of sources. For patients and visitors the things they see, hear, smell and taste in hospitals and health services shaped their perceptions of cleanliness. For the public the media, friends and family are important. Key factors for attention include: ensuring hospital floors, walls, ceilings, doors and toilets are kept clean, tidy, and unstained; an absence of strong odours; patients have the opportunity for regular baths/showers; staff have clean hands and uniforms, have short, clean finger nails and hair tied back; and eye-catching material on why cleanliness is important as well as what people need to do. Participants were generally unaware of the symptoms of MRSA, Clostridium difficile or Norovirus. The results of the study suggest that attention needs to be focussed on developing effective communication strategies. This will only be possible by adopting a multifaceted approach and enabling collaborative working between infection control staff, communications teams and other frontline staff.