Search

Organized immaturity, the reduction of individual capacities for public use of reason constrained by sociotechnological systems, constitutes a significant pushback against the project of Enlightenment. Forms of immaturity have long been a concern for philosophers and social theorists, such as Kant, Arendt, Fromm, Marcuse, and Foucault. Recently, Zuboff's concept of "surveillance capitalism" describes how advancements in digital technologies lead to new, increasingly sophisticated forms of organized immaturity in democratic societies. We discuss how sociotechnological systems initially designed to meet human needs can inhibit the multidimensional development of individuals as mature citizens. To counteract these trends, we suggest two mechanisms: disorganizing immaturity as a way to safeguard individuals' and collectives' negative freedoms (freedoms from), and organizing maturity as a way to strengthen positive freedoms (freedoms to). Finally, we provide an outlook on the five further articles that constitute the Business Ethics Quarterly Special Issue "Sociotechnological Conditions of Organized Immaturity in the Twenty-First Century." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article interrogates United Nations (UN) calls that 'making peace with nature' should become the crucial mission of the 21st century. It ponders the kind of diplomacy envisioned for such a reconciliation ecology to be credible. Drawing on one of the most promising and less known programmes of the UN system – namely, Harmony with Nature (HwN), which pioneers Earth-based jurisprudence and rights of nature – it conceptualises this diplomatic shift and assesses the conditions under which ecological diplomacy can be productively operationalised in the 21st century vis-à-vis a mere rhetorical appropriation and co-optation by intergovernmental agendas. Building on Indigenous thought and animist epistemologies, programmes such as HwN espouse a new relationship with Planet Earth and make it possible to explore 'nature' as diplomatic interlocutor. We argue that existing paradigms of peacebuilding fail to sufficiently capture the diplomatic aspects and complex local dynamics of the human–nature relationship and suggest a reconceptualisation based on an ecological diplomacy that is both expansive and transformative and views this relationship as one of troubled coexistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the extension of the Persianate framework into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries through the lens of Iranian cultural production. Topics include the interlingual and intercultural dynamics in works by Simin Daneshvar, Bahram Beizaei, and Damahithe impact of the Persianate concept on modern Iranian literature and art, and the influence of historical and political contexts on these works.

In the 21st century, the performance culture of critique has transformed with the increasing implementation of AI technologies upon which the operative functions of data capitalism are built. Operating within the performance-based culture industry, the works of Trevor Paglen, Gerald Nestler/Sylvia Eckermann, and Vladan Joler respond critically to data capitalism's modes of data extraction and how the societal performances of capitalism condition people's physical and digital performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considered the epidemic of the 21st century by the WHO, obesity is a global problem that is on the rise and will continue to increase in the coming years. Spain and Andalusia, in particular, are no exception to this pathology, which has tripled since the 1970s, representing a public health challenge. The aim of this study is to analyse the socioeconomic determinants of this pathology, with special emphasis on answering the question of what has a greater influence on overweight, education level, or income. For this purpose, we have used the European Survey of Health in Spain (ESHS-2020), a microdata base, with a total of 22,072 valid individual observations (of which 2,820 belong to the Andalusian population). Results we obtain in our estimations of qualitative response models reveal that, although both income and educational attainment could be effective in the fight against overweight, the social gradient of this health problem is greater with respect to educational attainment. Additionally, there are many other variables and other factors related to the individual's overweight (mental health, subjective state of health, oral health, among others) which are much less explored and which must be considered in health policies to combat this disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates continuities and changes in abbreviation practices from late Middle English to twenty-first-century digital platforms. Adopting a diachronic perspective and lexicological framework, it quantitatively analyses frequency patterns across fifteenth-century memoranda, letters and administrative receipts, seventeenth-century letters and depositions, late nineteenth-century letters, early twentieth-century letters and a subcorpus of WhatsApp instant messages dating from 2018–19. It then presents analyses of the frequencies of various abbreviation forms, such as clippings, and abbreviated lexemes, such as their use for names, over time. The article then provides a qualitative analysis of these lexeme categories over the centuries, with a focus on specific examples. Major changes to overall abbreviation density across time are identified. The forms of abbreviation also go through major change, but the types of lexemes that are abbreviated stay more consistent over time. For example, abbreviations being used for closed-class function words such as the and that are dominant from the earliest data we have looked at to the present day. Overall, the study demonstrates how situating new media abbreviation practices within a historical continuum can enhance our understanding of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the United Nations (U.N.) is typically seen as a major humanitarian actor—that is, an organization committed to alleviating human suffering and improving human welfare, it is not often thought of as a military power. But that is one of the many functions that the U.N. has adopted since its origin in 1945. For over seventy years, the U.N. Secretariat—the international bureaucracy responsible for the U.N. organization's executive and administrative functions—has conducted long-term expeditionary military operations across the globe in the form of peacekeeping and observer missions. The military wing of U.N. operations has only continued to grow in the twenty-first century. As of July 2023, 87,544 peacekeepers were deployed on active operations. And that number is lower than in the recent past, down from a height of 107,805 in April 2015. During that time, only the United States has regularly maintained more foreign-deployed forces than the U.N. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IR scholars increasingly turn to the writings of Existentialists to make sense of the multiple and entangled planetary crises that characterise the twenty-first century. In this article, I argue that two postwar intellectuals, Günther Anders (1902–1992) and J. G. Ballard (1930–2009), offer a rich intellectual ancestry and inspiration to such scholarship. Both authors critically and creatively reworked central Existentialist ideas in the context of postwar technological acceleration and the development of nuclear weapons. To Anders and Ballard, nuclear weapons symbolised, and were the most extreme manifestation of, the pathologies they associated with technological modernity: mass consumption, spectacular violence, a deadening of affect, and an increased inability of humans to psychologically process and grasp the destructive capacities of science and technology. To counter these trends, they both firmly relied on Surrealism to bolster the human imagination as a catalysator for personal and social transformation. I argue that their work offers an opportunity to reconnect the study of nuclear weapons in IR to broader existentialist questions and suggest that their respective attempts to foreground human being in the nuclear age as 'being-towards-extinction' holds important lessons for recent attempts to recentre the study of IR around planetary imaginaries of extinction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moving more deeply into the 21st century and acknowledging the ongoing patterned needs of children, there continues to be broadly voiced sentiments about the importance of all children's thriving, adaptive coping, and resiliency. This paper notes that social science more broadly and developmental science specifically is a major resource determinative of the nature of remedies conceptualized, designed, and implemented. Evident is that the harms experienced by children and the solutions implemented by delivery systems are frequently unaligned. Efficacy and impact do not appear to be improved by multisystem integration delivery. This paper explores the benefits of incorporating inclusive and shared human development theory. As well, it examines the need to question the character virtue of the multisystem integration efforts intended to afford supportive solutions required for youths' thriving and resiliency. Specifically, it addresses whether democratic and equity relevant character values are integrated into public and privately funded intended supportive systems. The position taken is that whether considered under conditions of trauma illustrated by the global COVID pandemic or the efficacy of systems intended to aid the most vulnerable youngsters, the character of the content of support and its delivery matter and can benefit from inclusive human development interrogation and theorizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first decades of the twentieth century saw a marked rise in the number of recorded murders in British-ruled Burma. The sentence for murder prescribed by the Indian Penal Code—in force in Burma as a province of British India—was death or transportation for life. However, while Burma's murder count was rising sharply, the number of executions taking place in the province's jails remained broadly stable, with perhaps a tendency to fall, and indeed it fell decisively at the end of the 1930s. By that point, a high standard of evidence was being increasingly demanded for conviction for murder and increasingly the death penalty was being imposed only when murder had clearly been premeditated. In other words, in the administration of justice in murder cases, the rule of law had been markedly tightened. The focus in the article will be on the local pressures, on the practices and perspectives of Burma's colonial administration and of the Burmese themselves that led in time to a decisive fall in the number of convicted murderers who were hanged for their crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reconstruction and representation of ancient artifacts and scenes through illustration is a cornerstone in the communication of archaeological findings. Sketches of the past have transformed over time, incorporating broader technological changes, from photography to the digital tools that have become prevalent through the twenty-first century. Most recently, developments in generative artificial intelligence (AI) promise to reshape the way we represent the past to professional and public audiences. This article shows how to use an accessible and inexpensive artificial intelligence platform to generate complex archaeological illustrations. As a case study, we create multiple scenes representing competing hypotheses about Neanderthal behavior. Using the images to visually communicate alternative hypotheses, we demonstrate how archaeological illustration using artificial intelligence promises to democratize the production of visual representations of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores contemporary representations of wartime sexual violence on the operatic stage. Rape and the threat of rape loom over many operas in the canon, but even those operas that do not thematise rape may have sexual violence introduced to them in performance. Through analysis of four twenty-first century productions, I consider how the idea of sexual violence works in these wartime stories. Staging the implicit or explicit sexual violence in canonic operas can, in the best cases, allow for nuanced commentary on the subject in our cultural moment. But putting sexual violence on stage is controversial and can pose real risks to audience members. Instead of dismissing the proliferation of depictions of rape in wartime opera productions as mere scandalmongering, I explore specific representations through a feminist ethical framework, and ask: What do we risk and what might we gain by putting rape on stage in these operas? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a relatively open academic atmosphere related to religious studies in general became manifest in the People's Republic of China in the early 1990s, new possibilities for studies of various forms of Christianity in greater China (the mainland and Chinese communities outside of the PRC) began to be realised both within China and overseas. Within the first decade of the twenty-first century, two major handbooks related to the study of Christianity in China were produced under the editorships of the Belgian Jesuit scholar, Nicolas Standaert (1959–) and the German Protestant scholar, R. G. Tiedemann (1941–2019), initiating what should be considered to be the most up-to-date and essentially new standard reference works regarding the study of all forms of Christianity that have had interactions with various Chinese persons over the period of time from the beginning of the Tang dynasty (seventh century) to the year 2000. Both volumes were large by any standard, the former being nearly a thousand pages in length, and the latter extending beyond a thousand pages. Both produced a state-of-the-art account of their particular historical coverage of varying forms of Christianity that came to or emerged within China during those periods. Notably, most of the supporting authors who contributed to those two massive volumes were foreign scholars of the history of Christianity in China and Chinese Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increases in ocean temperatures in the Filchner Ronne region of Antarctica are likely to result in increased ice mass loss and sea level rise. We constrain projections of the 21st century sea level contribution of this region using process-based ice-sheet modeling, with model parameters controlling ice dynamics calibrated using observed surface speeds and Markov-chain Monte Carlo sampling. We use climate forcing from Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios as well as a set of hypothetical scenarios of deep ocean warming to evaluate the sensitivity of this region to ocean temperatures. Projected changes in regional ice mass correspond to a decrease in global mean sea level of 24±7 mm over 2015–2100 under RCP 2.6 and 28±9 mm under RCP 8.5. Increased regional inland surface accumulation related to higher warming levels in RCP 8.5 leads to more ice above flotation, offsetting increased ice shelf basal melt. The tests involving step changes in ocean temperatures with constant surface forcing show that one degree of ocean warming from present results in an additional +11 mm contribution to sea level by 2100 and 1% of the ice-covered area in the domain becomes ungrounded (23 200 km2). The rate of mass loss with temperature increases at higher temperatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Northern and Southern Patagonian Icefields are rapidly losing volume, with current volume loss rates greater than 20 km3 a−1. However, details of the spatial and temporal distribution of their volume loss remain uncertain. We evaluate the rate of 21st-century glacier volume loss using the hydrological balance of four glacierised Patagonian river basins. We isolate the streamflow contribution from changes in ice volume and evaluate whether the rate of volume loss has decreased, increased, or remained constant. Out of 11 glacierised sub-basins, seven exhibit significant increases in the rate of ice volume loss, with a 2006–2019 time integrated anomaly in the rate of glacier volume loss of 135 ± 50 km3. This anomaly in the rate of glacier-volume-loss is spatially heterogeneous, varying from a 7.06 ± 1.69 m a−1 increase in ice loss to a 3.18 ± 1.48 m a−1 decrease in ice loss. Greatest increases in the rate of ice loss are found in the early spring and late summer, suggesting a prolonging of the melt season. Our results highlight increasing, and in some cases accelerating, rates of volume loss of Patagonia's lake-terminating glaciers, with a 2006–2019 anomaly in the rate of glacier volume loss contributing an additional 0.027 ± 0.01 mm a−1 of global mean sea-level rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a nearly identical analysis, see Cooper's '"Inner Necessity": Fabulation, Frame, and Musical Memory in Mendelssohn's I Lobgesang i ', in I Rethinking Mendelssohn i , ed. Thus, Cooper used this piano solo version of the Sinfonia as a source for editing the Sinfonia in the piano vocal score for the present edition (p. xi). Unless any landscape-altering new autograph sources for the I Lobgesang i are discovered, Cooper's edition is probably the last we will need until the LMA edition is released. [Extracted from the article]

Chapter 5, "Cultural keywords in Indian English" by Pam Peters, is a sophisticated chapter which highlights how dictionaries and corpora can be used to carry out sound research on lexical and semantic change. Edgar W. Schneider's platform paper, 'Reflections of cultures in corpus texts: Focus on the Indo-Pacific region', presents the theoretical framework upon which the book's remaining chapters are built. On one level, her results for the use of first-person personal pronouns seem comparable to Schneider's (chapter 2) results for Singapore, though slightly lower than Schneider's results for India. [Extracted from the article]

This article reflects on some textual and institutional elements that distinguish literary life in Portuguese-speaking African countries. These elements concern, firstly, the peculiarities of the Portuguese empire. Combining precarity, epistemological backwardness, and violence in equal proportion, it inspired an artistic response that was consolidated even before the independences. Secondly, they relate to the type of decolonization produced in these territories. Contrary to the majority of other African contexts, their independence was not negotiated, but conquered through armed struggle. Thirdly, there are the thematic and formal aspects: the "animal," the "dead," and an internationalist geographical imaginary play a structuring role in the literary fields. Thus, this article demonstrates how these contexts, unique to African literatures, can also offer new data for the analysis of cultural goods in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pandemics have a history of interrupting civilisations. From the Greeks and Romans to the British Empire, pandemics have eroded political authority and caused economic instability. The twenty-first century has been hailed as the 'Asian century', with China's ascent as central to a reconfiguration of global capital and power. The COVID-19 pandemic, that began in 2019 and still rages as of this writing, started in China and was exacerbated by initial repression by the local government authorities before the central government could implement appropriate disaster response. Since then, COVID-19 has been one of the most devastating pandemics in the history of globalisation. Its mortality has been coupled with regulatory responses which at times have been debilitating to national economies, no less is this true for China's own regulatory response which has been anomalous across the world. This Special Issue explores the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on Chinese overseas direct investment and the concomitant forms of capital (symbolic, social, and political). It features collaborative research and writing by early career experts from throughout the world, as part of the 'China, Law and Development' project, based at the University of Oxford. It examines how China, its trade partners, and transnational orders have responded to the pandemic through law and regulation across an array of fields: dispute resolution, legal services, immigration law and policy, digital surveillance, global health governance, and democratic fragility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East, 405 glaciers with an estimated total mass of 49 Gt were reported in the 1970s. These have been retreating at an accelerated rate since the start of the 21st century. Because glacier studies in this region are scarce, ice loss and its influence on sea level rise and regional environments is poorly understood. In this study, we analyzed satellite data to quantify glacier mass change from 2000 to 2016 in six major glacier-covered regions on the peninsula. The mean rate of the glacier mass change over the study period was −0.46 ± 0.01 m w.e. a−1 (total mass change was −4.9 ± 0.1 Gt, −304.2 ± 9.1 Mt a−1), which is slightly lower than other regions in mid-latitude and subarctic zones. The mass loss accelerated from >−0.33 ± 0.02 m w.e. a−1 in the period 2000–2006/2010 to <−1.65 ± 0.12 m w.e. a−1 in 2006/2010–2015/16. The increase in mass loss is attributed to a rise in average decadal summer temperatures observed in the region (+0.68°C from 1987–99 to 2000–13). Moreover, a recent trend in Pacific decadal oscillation suggests future acceleration of mass loss due to a decline in winter precipitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly work rarely examines the labor of the contemporary dance artist as a performer. Flexible performativity describes the discrete skill set dancers today must be able to deploy in performance. Flexible performativity and its characteristics of negotiating proximity, autodramaturgy, hyperindividualism, and hyperreferentialism mold the dancer prototypical of the movement logics of the early 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Article offers a summary of some of the major themes of Emilios Christodoulidis's The Redress of Law. In addition, it engages critically with social systems theory by calling into question whether it provides us with an adequate perspective on constitutional law. The concluding observations address the deplorable state of the left-wing project at the beginning of the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea-level science has seen many recent developments in observations and modelling of the different contributions and the total mean sea-level change. In this overview, we discuss (1) the evolution of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections, (2) how the projections compare to observations and (3) the outlook for further improving projections. We start by discussing how the model projections of 21st century sea-level change have changed from the IPCC AR5 report (2013) to SROCC (2019) and AR6 (2021), highlighting similarities and differences in the methodologies and comparing the global mean and regional projections. This shows that there is good agreement in the median values, but also highlights some differences. In addition, we discuss how the different reports included high-end projections. We then show how the AR5 projections (from 2007 onwards) compare against the observations and find that they are highly consistent with each other. Finally, we discuss how to further improve sea-level projections using high-resolution ocean modelling and recent vertical land motion estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a major approach for controlling electromagnetic (EM) waves, metamaterials have experienced an abundant and rapid development in the 21st century. They have provided flexible and powerful techniques for controlling EM waves and brought many unique applications that are difficult to realise with natural materials. With increasing demands on dynamic controls of the EM waves, many innovations have been conducted in both three-dimensional metamaterials and two-dimensional metasurfaces, in which the meta-atom has been gradually evolved from passive to active. In 2014, coding and digital mechanisms were initially introduced to the metamaterials, further advancing the appearance of digitally programmable metamaterials. The programmable metamaterials have shown great potentials in not only real-time manipulations of the EM waves, but also direct information processing on the EM wave level. In this article, we present an in-depth review of the programmable EM metamaterials and metasurfaces, focusing on the programmable features including theoretical concepts, implementing methods and applications in EM controls. We first give a short retrospect of traditional metamaterials and metasurfaces, followed by the concepts and detailed discussions of digital coding and field-programmable metamaterials. Then, we introduce space-domain, time-domain and space–time-domain programmable metamaterials and metasurfaces, mainly focusing on their theories, functionalities, experimental implementations, and system-level applications. Finally, we conclude the current advances of the programmable metamaterials and metasurfaces, and give a prospect for the future developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Plays by Women: The Early Twenty-First Century," edited by Peggy Farfan and Lesley Ferris. The book is a collection of twenty-eight chapters that explore the field of feminist theatre criticism and the significance of plays by women. It highlights the influence of feminist scholarly approaches in the academy and the need to articulate the importance of women's plays and research in the larger fields of theatre and performance. The book offers diverse essays that analyze texts from around the world through various methodologies, making it a valuable resource for students and instructors. However, the article notes that the book could have benefited from a discussion on the category of "women playwrights" and its complexities. Overall, the book is praised for its comprehensive scope and skillful treatment of feminism's intersectionalities. [Extracted from the article]

I China's Grandmothers i , by Diana Lary, uses the experiences of Chinese grandmothers from the late Qing dynasty to the present as a lens to provide vivid pictures of intergenerational relationships and interactions in Chinese families. Although women have been easily marginalized and overlooked, especially in the public realm, by traditional historical narratives in China's patriarchal society, they have found ways to be active and influential in their own lives and in those of surrounding others through the remarkable grandparents-children-grandchildren relationships within families. [Extracted from the article]

"Good Governance in Nigeria: Rethinking Accountability and Transparency in the Twenty-First Century" by Portia Roelofs explores the concept of good governance in Nigeria, challenging the prevailing notion that Nigeria is not a suitable case study for this topic. The author argues for the importance of socially embedded good governance, using the Lagos Model as a focal point. Roelofs deconstructs the concept of neo-patrimonialism and highlights the desire of Nigerian citizens for socially accountable politicians. The book incorporates a wide range of research, including ethnographic fieldwork and archival study, and engages with political theory to examine the implications of socially embedded good governance. The book is well-written and incorporates scholarship from Nigerian researchers, providing a comprehensive understanding of the topic. The author's findings may have practical implications, as Nigeria's new president, Bola Tinubu, was involved in implementing the Lagos Model and may apply its lessons at the national level. [Extracted from the article]

Introduction: Self-injurious behavior (SIB) among adolescents has become a hot topic in psychiatry. Despite the consensus that the prevalence of SIB is high, 26-22% among adolescence, there are conflicting results about whether it has increased in the 21st century and about the global distribution of the prevalence. Objectives: The aim of the current study was to make a systematic search and meta-analysis of publications from the last 5 years on the prevalence of SIB in adolescents and to examine definitions and assessments of SIB, gender, continental, and year differences. The hypotheses were the following: 1) the prevalence of SIB did not change over time between the examined period for both girls and boys; 2) girls reported a higher prevalence of a history of SIB than boys. Methods: The systematic search was made in June 2020. Six databases were used. The main search terms were "self-injurious behavior", "prevalence" and "adolescence". First the titles and abstracts of the relevant articles were checked, then the full texts were read and collected those papers that met the inclusion criteria. The inclusion criteria were the following: published between 01/01/2015, and 06/18/2020, focused on community sample, and written in English. Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software was used to conduct the analyses. Results: In sum, a total of 97 articles were included in the meta-analysis with data from 439 818 participants. The overall average SIB prevalence was 16.0% in these studies. The first hypothesis was only partially confirmed. When all data that were published between 2015 and 2018 were considered, x significant increase was found in the prevalence of SIB between 1998 and 2018. However, when the analysis was restricted to the time frame between 2013 and 2018, no change in prevalence was found. The second hypothesis was fulfilled, girls reported a significant higher prevalence than boys (19.4% and 12.9%, respectively). A significantly higher prevalence was found when suicidal intent was excluded (18.3%), than when it was not excluded (11.3%) from the definition of SIB. The largest prevalence was found when measurement instruments were used that had been validated for SIB (18.9%). A significantly higher SEB prevalence was found among Asian articles than those from other continents (19.5% and 14.7% respectively). Conclusions: The current systematic review and meta-analysis draw attention to the high prevalence of SIB among adolescents, especially among girls and those living in Asia. It is important to address this behavior, in terms of prevention and intervention as well. Disclosure of Interest: None Declared [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the "one China" framework's significance for Japan–Taiwan relations since Tokyo switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1972. Drawing on Chinese-, Japanese- and English-language sources, it examines developments since the breakthrough Japan–PRC normalization communiqué and the "Japan formula," which enabled Tokyo to normalize relations – six years before Washington – without recognizing Beijing's claim of sovereignty over Taiwan, and while maintaining robust, if unofficial, ties with Taipei thenceforth. Highlighting distinctions between Beijing's self-asserted "one-China principle" and Japan's ambiguous official position and subsequent effective policies, it assesses incremental but practically significant evolutions of Japan–Taiwan relations over the past half-century. In the 21st century, the trend towards incrementally closer ties has proven strikingly resilient to political transitions in Japan and Taiwan, China's growing power, pushback from Beijing and worsening cross-Strait frictions. Beyond Japan–Taiwan relations and theoretical debates on "one China," this article's findings carry significant implications for Taiwan's international space, cross-Strait dynamics and China–Japan–United States relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Vatican pragmatically accepted the establishment of segregated Catholic institutions in the Jim Crow South during the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, its condemnation of Nazi and fascist racism and espousal of the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ rejected racial distinctions. This article argues that Rome's postwar transnational interest in countering international communism and appealing to the global South also encouraged its support for racial equality, integration and the civil rights movement, and denial of religious legitimacy to segregationists. Yet Catholic desegregation in the South was largely token and one-sided, and closed many black institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian & Latin American Economic History is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since the mid-20th century, ice shelves around the Antarctic Peninsula have declined in extent and thickness, and some have shown signs of structural instability. Here, using satellite imagery from 1999/2000 to 2019/20 (Landsat 7 and 8, Sentinel-2 and ASTER), we measure areal changes, calculate surface flow speeds, and quantify structural changes of Bach, Stange and George VI ice shelves, located in the southwest Antarctic Peninsula. We recorded a total area loss of 797.5 km2 from 2009/10 to 2019/20, though spatial and temporal patterns varied at individual ice fronts. Flow speeds remained largely stable over the observation periods, but notable acceleration was calculated for Bach Ice Shelf, and at the northern and southern extents of George VI Ice Shelf. Open fractures widened and lengthened between 2009/10 and 2019/20 on all three ice shelves. We conclude that Stange Ice Shelf is stable, and not under any immediate threat of enhanced recession. Continued ice-mass loss and consequential speed up of George VI South may cause further fracturing and destabilisation in the coming decades. Of more immediate concern are the glaciological changes noted for Bach Ice Shelf and George VI North; substantial areas of stabilising ice have already, or will soon be removed, that may lead to enhanced recession within the next decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pearson's correlation coefficients (R 2) for mean annual temperature trends between stations and b. summary of linear regression statistics and rates of change of mean annual air temperature for sub-Antarctic stations. Keywords: air temperature; climate change; ecosystem change; global warming; sub-Antarctic; tipping point EN air temperature climate change ecosystem change global warming sub-Antarctic tipping point 124 126 3 05/16/23 20230401 NES 230401 This paper presents the rate of warming in the sub-Antarctic region in the 21st century and summarizes the landscape and ecosystem responses to the increased warming. Air temperature, climate change, ecosystem change, global warming, sub-Antarctic, tipping point. [Extracted from the article]

Genetic and biochemical studies have greatly advanced our understanding of the biology of seeds in recent years. Another area of study, which could accelerate contemporary seed biology research, is phylogenomics that integrates the wealth of genome sequence data with evolutionary biology. The recent phylogenomic study of the DELAY OF GERMINATION1 family genes exemplifies how the molecular evolution of seed genes can be traced back through early diverging plants and what implications can be obtained from the analysis of seed gene diversification at ancient times. The identification of possible ancestors of seed genes in non-seed plants could illuminate the ancient roots of the molecular mechanisms driving seed maturation programmes. It is possible that the origins of molecular mechanisms associated with the induction of seed storage proteins and desiccation tolerance proteins date back to the time of, or even prior to, early diverging land plants. Abscisic acid-dependent growth arrest or dormancy mechanisms might date back to red algae, one of the oldest algal groups. Thus, understanding algal cell biology will also be an integral part of future seed biology research. Unravelling key events associated with the evolution of seed- and non-seed plants will not only advance basic research but could also contribute to applied aspects of seed science, potentially leading to technology development for agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prompted by two recent articles in European Review about the place of Islam in Europe, this article argues for the importance of considering the variants of Islam in Europe that are autochthonous as opposed to connected with migration or immigration. The article discusses the specifics of the Crimean Tatars, Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania, and the Muslims of Georgia by way of illustrating how the issues around European Islam are far from being a marginal curiosity and, in fact, point to key issues in continental culture and politics in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is foreign aid an effective instrument of soft power? Does it generate affinity for donor countries and the values they espouse? This article answers these questions in the context of Chinese aid to Africa and the competing aid regime of the United States. The study combines data on thirty-eight African countries from Afrobarometer, AidData, and the Aid Information Management Systems of African finance and planning ministries. The authors use spatial difference-in-differences to isolate the causal effects of Chinese and US aid. The study finds that Chinese aid to Africa does not increase (and may in fact reduce) beneficiaries' support for China. By contrast, US aid appears to increase support for the United States and to strengthen recipients' commitment to liberal democratic values, such as the belief in the importance of elections. Chinese aid does not appear to weaken this commitment, and may strengthen it. The study also finds that Chinese aid increases support for the UK, France and other former colonial powers. These findings advance our understanding of the conditions under which competing aid regimes generate soft power and facilitate the transmission of political principles and ideals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

British Cochin was a port in southwestern India surrounded by princely states. This article uses a dispute surrounding its limits to interrogate the role international law played in generating novel forms of political claim-making among European and non-European powers at the turn of the twentieth century. Cochin was located in an area where both physical and political boundaries were hard to define. Situated at the tip of a narrow coastline surrounded by water, it was also lodged amid territories belonging to two princely states—Cochin State and Travancore. Its ever-shifting coastline and proximity to princely states forced colonial authorities to adopt a flexible approach to the port's boundaries, allowing the tiny princely state of Cochin to become progressively more involved with the British port's development over the nineteenth century. The article starts by examining the forces that shaped these entanglements, and then explores a territorial dispute involving British Cochin to illuminate the ways in which, during the twentieth century's first quarter, both the colonial administration and the Cochin State deployed the language of international law to try to extend their powers over the port. By highlighting the Cochin State's partially successful attempts at claiming sovereignty over the waters surrounding the harbor in order to become involved with the development of a port in British India, this article shows how international law emerged as a site through which semi-sovereign territories began testing and even extending the limits of their sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, Maria Callas rose from the dead. During a series of tours dubbed Callas in Concert , local orchestras performed with a three-dimensional hologram of the departed diva as she re-sounded arias of her past. This virtual manifestation of Callas put on a convincing show. Listeners were struck by the quality of the diva's voice – 'from heart-breaking vulnerability to imposing strength' – and marvelled at foley effects such as the clicking of her heels and rustling of her gown. Notably, however, the performance fell victim to repeated technical failures. In Chicago, a glitch caused her final encore to end prematurely; in Blacksburg, Virginia, audience members were distracted by the transparent nature of the hologram, which gave Callas an 'especially ghostly appearance'. The performances set the operatic sphere atwitter with questions of ethics and taste, debates over classical music's obligations to the living and devotions to the dead. Anthony Tommasini likened the performances to a grand séance, an act of operatic necrophilia. Catherine Womack interpreted the spectral shows as a sign that 'in the twenty-first century, living and breathing are not prerequisites for a successful performing career'. However, as Deirdre Loughridge, Gundula Kreuzer and Gabriela Cruz demonstrate in their monographs, Callas in Concert is not a phenomenon unique to the twenty-first century. Indeed, the authors show that technologically mediated resurrections of the dead, operatic appeals to nostalgia, and illusion-busting technical failures are instead part of a long operatic tradition, one which began well before the holographic revitalisations of Maria Callas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"China's Energy Security in the Twenty-First Century: The Role of Global Governance and Climate Change" by Kaho Yu explores China's evolving global energy activities over the past 30 years. The book highlights China's transition from being a net oil importer in 1993 to the emergence of its national oil companies (NOCs) as major acquirers of oil and natural gas assets worldwide. It also discusses China's efforts to enhance energy supply security through closer relations with resource-rich countries. The book examines how China has used multilateralism, including initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), to advance its energy and climate objectives. It provides case studies on China's energy cooperation with Central Asia, the European Union, and Africa, showcasing how multilateral diplomacy has helped China achieve specific energy goals. The book also emphasizes China's bilateral energy diplomacy, such as its engagement with Russia. Overall, "China's Energy Security in the Twenty-First Century" offers a concise and readable overview of China's international energy engagement and is a valuable resource for understanding Chinese energy policies and activities. [Extracted from the article]

Automated facial recognition (AFR) is perhaps the most controversial policing tool of the twenty-first century. Police forces in England and Wales, and beyond, are using facial recognition in various contexts, from evidence gathering to the identification and monitoring of criminal suspects. Despite uncertainty regarding its accuracy, and widespread concerns about its impact on human rights and broader social consequences, the rise of police facial recognition continues unabated by law. Both the Government and the domestic courts were satisfied that police use of this technology is regulated adequately by existing statutory provisions regulating the processing of data and police surveillance generally. That is, until the recent judgment of the Court of Appeal in R (Bridges) v Chief Constable of South Wales Police and Others [2020] EWCA Civ 1058, where it was held that the respondent's use of AFR was unlawful. This paper provides an analysis of AFR, reflecting on the outcome of that case and evaluates its nuanced findings. We suggest that the judgment leaves considerable room for police AFR to continue with only minor, piecemeal amendment to the legal framework. Drawing on comparative experience and relevant socio-legal scholarship, we argue that the relatively unfettered rise of police facial recognition in England and Wales illuminates deeper flaws in the domestic framework for fundamental human rights protection and adjudication, which create the conditions for authoritarian policing and surveillance to expand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ice-sheet simulations of Antarctica extending to the year 3000 are analysed to investigate the long-term impacts of 21st-century warming. Climate projections are used as forcing until 2100 and afterwards no climate trend is applied. Fourteen experiments are for the 'unabated warming' pathway, and three are for the 'reduced emissions' pathway. For the unabated warming path simulations, West Antarctica suffers a much more severe ice loss than East Antarctica. In these cases, the mass loss amounts to an ensemble average of ~3.5 m sea-level equivalent (SLE) by the year 3000 and ~5.3 m for the most sensitive experiment. Four phases of mass loss occur during the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet. For the reduced emissions pathway, the mean mass loss is ~0.24 m SLE. By demonstrating that the consequences of the 21st century unabated warming path forcing are large and long term, the results present a different perspective to ISMIP6 (Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP6). Extended ABUMIP (Antarctic BUttressing Model Intercomparison Project) simulations, assuming sudden and sustained ice-shelf collapse, with and without bedrock rebound, corroborate a negative feedback for ice loss found in previous studies, where bedrock rebound acts to slow the rate of ice loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has dominated Japanese politics since its foundation in 1955. The party's ability to support the interests of small farmers and its commitment to the middle-class through redistributive economic policies have been regarded as among the primary factors leading to its prolonged hegemony. Yet, the LDP has occasionally relied on non-economic political appeals addressing rather conservative issues such as Japan's military force and the country's traditional values. These appeals have significantly intensified under the premiership of Junichirō Koizumi and his successor Shinzō Abe, whose authoritative leadership styles and nationalist agendas reveal the relevance of non-economic values. This study focuses on the role of authoritarian values in shaping vote choice in twenty-first century Japan. Previously emphasized in The Japanese Voter, the authority–liberty dimension has gradually lost prominence in recent models of voting behavior, where socio-economic factors have had a central role in explaining vote choice. Our inquiry places new emphasis on this value dimension and provides evidence for the enduring relevance of individual authoritarian dispositions in models of vote choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the author's discovery of mindfulness and its method and describes the bias against mindfulness even at the beginning of the 21st century. The short essay also throws light on recent developments in mindfulness training and practice in the world and in the state of Kerala in South India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two of South African literature's best-known titles from the turn of the twenty-first century are works of campus fiction that rarely get recognized as such. In this article I read J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace (1999) and Phaswane Mpe's Welcome to Our Hillbrow (2001) as novels whose figuration of the university is far more central to their treatment of the contradictions and ambiguities that characterize postapartheid South Africa than is generally acknowledged. In the course of narratives that seem largely focused on other things, these texts offer up a distinctly South African but also distinctly postcolonial variety of campus fiction, and a critical engagement with the neoliberal university and the conditions under which upward mobility and intellectual inquiry take shape in the twenty-first-century global south. Coetzee and Mpe suggest capacious and transformative, if also deeply ambivalent, ways of imagining an as-yet unrealized decolonial future for universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a broad class of dynamic portfolio optimization problems that allow for complex models of return predictability, transaction costs, trading constraints, and risk considerations. Determining an optimal policy in this general setting is almost always intractable. We propose a class of linear rebalancing rules and describe an efficient computational procedure to optimize with this class. We illustrate this method in the context of portfolio execution and show that it achieves near optimal performance. We consider another numerical example involving dynamic trading with mean-variance preferences and demonstrate that our method can result in economically large benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A basic intuition is that arbitrage is easier when markets are most liquid. Surprisingly, we find that momentum profits are markedly larger in liquid market states. This finding is not explained by variation in liquidity risk, time-varying exposure to risk factors, or changes in macroeconomic condition, cross-sectional return dispersion, and investor sentiment. The predictive performance of aggregate market illiquidity for momentum profits uniformly exceeds that of market return and market volatility states. While momentum strategies have been unconditionally unprofitable in the United States, in Japan, and in the Eurozone countries in the last decade, they are substantial following liquid market states. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent empirical studies have shown that during the financial crisis of 2007–2008, banks that were more heavily exposed to liquidity risk contracted their supply of credit more sharply. I contribute to the identification of this effect by relying on the use of micro-level data on U.S. mortgage loan applications, which allows me to identify liquidity risk as an important determinant of the contraction of credit in the mortgage market but as separate from the precipitous fall in credit demand, disruptions in the securitization and subprime markets, shifts in asset risk, and changing risk aversion among loan officers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reviews three books that offer thought-provoking insights on a central political science question, namely the relationship between capitalism and democracy in the twenty-first century. First, 'Democracy and Prosperity' by Iversen and Soskice posits a symbiotic relationship between capitalism and democracy. Advanced capital thrives on nationally rooted institutions, hence it needs democratic politics. A majority of voters ask for pro-advanced-capital reforms, hence democratic politics needs advanced capital. Second, 'Capitalism, Alone' by Milanovic depicts a troubled coexistence between capitalism and democracy. The former's tendency to concentrate economic and political power in the hands of the few is the main reason why democratic politics is under pressure. Third, 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism' by Zuboff suggests a negative relationship between digital capitalism and democracy. Surveillance capitalism increasingly acts as a control means of individuals' behaviour, which undermines democracy at its roots. The last section brings the three contributions together. It maintains that a mutually beneficial coexistence between capitalism and democracy currently faces both internal (from within) and external (from without) challenges. In line with Milanovic and Zuboff, it argues that the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of the few is the most apparent from-within challenge. Drawing on Milanovic, it contends that rise of China as a global power combining capitalism with non-democracy challenges the relationship between capitalism and democracy from without. Finally, it contends that the environmental question and the pandemic represent two windows of opportunity for democracy to recover lost ground and re-establish a more balanced relationship with capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American studies has developed excellent critiques of post-1945 imperial modes that are grounded in human rights and Enlightenment liberalism. But to fully gauge US violence in the twenty-first century, we also need to more closely consider antiliberal cultural logics. This essay traces an emergent mode of white nationalist militarism that it calls Identitarian war. It consists, on the one hand, of a formal ideology informed by Identitarian ethno-pluralism and Carl Schmitt, and, on the other, an openly violent white male "structure of feeling" embodied by the film and graphic novel 300, a key source text for the transatlantic far right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]