Books on the topic 'Method of detecting influences'

The monograph presents a methodology for assessing the vulnerability of landscapes to external influences. A comparative analysis of the concepts of "stability", "sensitivity", "vulnerability" in relation to natural complexes. An overview of existing methods for assessing the vulnerability of natural complexes is presented. The author's method of assessing the vulnerability of landscapes to anthropogenic impacts is described. The methodology is based on: selection and justification of criteria for assessing the vulnerability of landscapes; preparation of a parametric matrix and gradation of assessment criteria in accordance with the developed vulnerability classes; calculation of weighting factors of vulnerability assessment parameters; selection of optimal territorial operational unit for landscape vulnerability assessment. The method is implemented in the GIS environment "Assessment of vulnerability of landscapes of the Kaliningrad region to anthropogenic impacts", created by the authors using modern geoinformation products. The specificity of spatial differentiation of different landscapes in terms of vulnerability to anthropogenic impacts at the regional and local levels is revealed. It is stated that the use of the methodology for assessing the vulnerability of landscapes to anthropogenic impacts and its integration into the system of nature management will ensure a balanced account of geoecological features and environmental priorities in territorial planning. It is of interest to specialists in the field of rational nature management, environmental protection, spatial planning.

The book includes materials of young scientists from Russia and the Republic of Abkhazia, revealing various aspects of modern marine and freshwater biology. Abstracts highlight the results of scientific research in the field of population dynamics and genetic differentiation of aquatic organisms, the features of their life cycle. The book present works on the influence of abiotic and anthropogenic environmental factors on the physiological status of aquaculture species. A number of works describes the capabilities of modern research methods applied in marine and freshwater biological studies, such as metabarcoding, "frame" and "rake method" for detecting beach debris, NGS sequencing, and satellite monitoring. In addition, the book reveals the features of the functioning of coastal ecosystems. The book is valuable for young scientists in the field of marine and freshwater biology, water ecology, biotechnology, aquaculture, marine ecology and zoology

Systemic diseases are generally an interdisciplinary challenge in clinical practice. Systemic diseases are able to induce tissue damage in different organs with ongoing duration of the illness. The heart and the circulation are important targets in systemic diseases. The cardiac involvement in systemic diseases normally introduces a chronic process of alterations in cardiac tissue, which causes cardiac failure in the end stage of the diseases or causes dangerous and life-threatening problems by induced acute cardiac events, such as myocardial infarction due to coronary thrombosis. Thus, diagnostic methods—especially imaging techniques—are required, which can be used for screening as well as for the detection of early stages of the diseases. Two-dimensional echocardiography is the predominant diagnostic technique in cardiology for the detection of injuries in cardiac tissue—e.g. the myocardium, endocardium, and the pericardium—due to the overall availability of the non-invasive procedure.The quality of the echocardiography and the success rate of detecting cardiac pathologies in patients with primary non-cardiac problems depend on the competence and expertise of the investigator. Especially in this scenario clinical knowledge about the influence of the systemic disease on cardiac anatomy and physiology is essential for central diagnostic problem. Therefore the primary echocardiography in these patients should be performed by an experienced clinician or investigator. It is possible to detect changes of cardiac morphology and function at different stages of systemic diseases as well as complications of the systemic diseases by echocardiography.The different parts of this chapter will show proposals for qualified transthoracic echocardiography focusing on cardiac structures which are mainly involved in different systemic diseases.

This chapter identifies realpolitik influences on the implementation of the proposed method for judicial review. It dispels the formalist notion that the judicial embrace of the method—any method—will itself assure its faithful operation. The chapter acknowledges the importance of judicial methods both for case adjudication and for judicial legitimacy. But, in light of the “flux and pressure of contemporary events,” it also identifies a crucial role for legal advocates and the American populace. It posits that careful judicial scrutiny in practice often results from a ragged combination of law and politics. This chapter’s final section tightly illustrates the impact of this kind of advocacy and pressure in Dr. Wen Ho Lee’s national security prosecution debacle. Dr. Lee’s story uplifts the realpolitik insight that there “is a symbiotic relationship between politics and law, in which civil society’s appeal to law informs politics, and that politics reinforces the law’s appeal.”

Hip pain is a common presentation in medical practice, and causes include osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, congenital hip abnormalities, and trauma. Chronic hip pain significantly alters the patient’s quality of life and commonly leads to disability due to damage of structural elements of the hip joint. Ultrasound-guided hip injections are a viable alternative to fluoroscopically guided hip injections. Ultrasound imaging of the hip is a highly sensitive method for detecting joint pathology and periarticular pathology as well. This method is fast, safe, can be used in an ambulatory setting, and allows precise deposition of injectate into the hip joint.

Chapter 9 “Single-species detection” deals with the practical aspects of detecting a single and predefined taxon with eDNA, with a particular focus on the use of quantitative PCR (qPCR) for this purpose. After presenting how single-species detection has been implemented in a few seminal studies, it details the principles underlying qPCR. More specifically, it describes the typical qPCR amplification curve and the different systems (SYBR green and TaqMan probe assays) available to record amplicon accumulation in real time via fluorescence measurements. Chapter 9 also explains how the initial number of target sequences can be estimated with the Ct method, and addresses the design and test of reliable qPCR barcodes and probes targeting a single species. Finally, several important experimental considerations are highlighted, including the particular concerns of contamination and inhibition in qPCR.

This article gives information on the clinical application of motor-evoked potential (MEP). Transcranial stimulation of the cerebral cortex to elicit MEPs is a noninvasive method for assessing the integrity of the central motor pathway function. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is used in diagnosing and monitoring neurological disorders. This article highlights the neurophysiological differences between TMS and transcranial electric stimulation. All the different MEP parameters that can be measured by TMS, the latency of the MEP is generally regarded as the most reliable and useful. TMS studies have been described in many neurological disorders. The sensitivity of TMS in detecting subclinical upper motor neuron lesion varies in different disorders, depending on number of muscles and different parameters used. This article talks about the application of MEP in pathophysiology, multiple sclerosis, motor neuron diseases, meyloptahy, cerebral infarction, movement disorders, epilepsy, Lumbar spinal stenosis and radiculopathies, peripheral nerve disorders etc.

Examination of serum and other body fluids for the presence of antibodies to fungi, or the direct detection of the fungal antigens themselves, can play an important role in the diagnosis of fungal disease. Various methods have been applied, though currently the most commonly used is some form of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Antigen detection has become a standard method for diagnosing cryptococcosis and can play a key role in detecting aspergillosis, and to a lesser extent candidiasis, depending on the underlying disease. Antibody testing is routine for many fungal diseases, including coccidioidomycosis, histoplasmosis, and many forms of aspergillosis. Beta-D-glucan is a generic fungal antigen found in the cell walls of many fungi, and detection of BDG is a test which many find useful when screening the sera of at-risk patients. Increasingly, physicians and scientists are looking to serodiagnostic tests not only to diagnose, but also to monitor treatment outcomes.

Critical illness can be considered to be any disease process which causes physiological instability that leads to disability or death within minutes or hours. Fortunately, physiological instability associated with critical illness is easily detected by perturbations of simple clinical observations such as blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturations, level of consciousness, and urine output. Individual abnormalities in these observations are sensitive for the presence of critical illness but non-specific. Specificity for critical illness improves as the number of abnormal clinical observations increases. Over recent years, a greater appreciation of the importance of deviations in simple clinical observations as a method of detecting critical illness has led to the development of a number of ‘early warning’ or ‘track and trigger’ systems. These systems attribute a score according to the magnitude and number of abnormal observations that are present, and a high score prompts immediate medical review. Although intuitively sensible, the evidence that these systems are effective in ameliorating or preventing critical illness is currently lacking. This chapter looks at the approach to diagnosis of critical illness, including the pitfalls in diagnosis.

The monograph reflects the problems of Russian psycholinguistics from the moment of its inception in Russia to the present day and presents its main directions that are currently developing. In addition, theoretical developments and practical results obtained in the framework of different directions and research centers are described in a concise form. The task of the book is to reflect, as far as it is possible in one edition, firstly, the history of the formation of Russian psycholinguistics; secondly, its methodology and developed methods; thirdly, the results obtained in different research centers and directions in different regions of Russia; fourthly, to outline the main directions of the further development of Russian psycholinguistics. There is no doubt that in the theoretical, methodological and applied aspects, the main problems and the results of their development by Russian psycholinguistics have no analogues in world linguistics and psycholinguistics, or are represented by completely original concepts and methods. We have tried to show this uniqueness of the problematics and the methodological equipment of Russian psycholinguistics in this book. The main role in the formation of Russian psycholinguistics was played by the Moscow psycholinguistic school of A.A. Leontyev. It still defines the main directions of Russian psycholinguistics. Russian psycholinguistics (the theory of speech activity - TSA) is based on the achievements of Russian psychology: a cultural-historical approach to the analysis of mental phenomena L.S. Vygotsky and the system-activity approach of A.N. Leontyev. Moscow is the most "psycholinguistic region" of Russia - INL RAS, Moscow State University, Moscow State Linguistic University, RUDN, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Sechenov University, Moscow State University and other Moscow universities. Saint Petersburg psycholinguists have significant achievements, especially in the study of neurolinguistic problems, ontolinguistics. The most important feature of Russian psycholinguistics is the widespread development of psycholinguistics in the regions, the emergence of recognized psycholinguistic research centers - St. Petersburg, Tver, Saratov, Perm, Ufa, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Voronezh, Yekaterinburg, Kursk, Chelyabinsk; psycholinguistics is represented in Cherepovets, Ivanovo, Volgograd, Vyatka, Kaluga, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Abakan, Maikop, Barnaul, Ulan-Ude, Yakutsk, Syktyvkar, Armavir and other cities; in Belarus - Minsk, in Ukraine - Lvov, Chernivtsi, Kharkov, in the DPR - Donetsk, in Kazakhstan - Alma-Ata, Chimkent. Our researchers work in Bulgaria, Hungary, Vietnam, China, France, Switzerland. There are Russian psycholinguists in Canada, USA, Israel, Austria and a number of other countries. All scientists from these regions and countries have contributed to the development of Russian psycholinguistics, to the development of psycholinguistic theory and methods of psycholinguistic research. Their participation has not been forgotten. We tried to present the main Russian psycholinguists in the Appendix - in the sections "Scientometrics", "Monographs and Manuals" and "Dissertations", even if there is no information about them in the Electronic Library and RSCI. The principles of including scientists in the scientometric list are presented in the Appendix. Our analysis of the content of the resulting monograph on psycholinguistic research in Russia allows us to draw preliminary conclusions about some of the distinctive features of Russian psycholinguistics: 1. cultural-historical approach to the analysis of mental phenomena of L.S.Vygotsky and the system-activity approach of A.N. Leontiev as methodological basis of Russian psycholinguistics; 2. theoretical nature of psycholinguistic research as a characteristic feature of Russian psycholinguistics. Our psycholinguistics has always built a general theory of the generation and perception of speech, mental vocabulary, linked specific research with the problems of ontogenesis, the relationship between language and thinking; 3. psycholinguistic studies of speech communication as an important subject of psycholinguistics; 4. attention to the psycholinguistic analysis of the text and the development of methods for such analysis; 5. active research into the ontogenesis of linguistic ability; 6. investigation of linguistic consciousness as one of the important subjects of psycholinguistics; 7. understanding the need to create associative dictionaries of different types as the most important practical task of psycholinguistics; 8. widespread use of psycholinguistic methods for applied purposes, active development of applied psycholinguistics. The review of the main directions of development of Russian psycholinguistics, carried out in this monograph, clearly shows that the direction associated with the study of linguistic consciousness is currently being most intensively developed in modern Russian psycholinguistics. As the practice of many years of psycholinguistic research in our country shows, the subject of study of psycholinguists is precisely linguistic consciousness - this is a part of human consciousness that is responsible for generating, understanding speech and keeping language in consciousness. Associative experiments are the core of most psycholinguistic techniques and are important both theoretically and practically. The following main areas of practical application of the results of associative experiments can be outlined. 1. Education. Associative experiments are the basis for constructing Mind Maps, one of the most promising tools for systematizing knowledge, assessing the quality, volume and nature of declarative knowledge (and using special techniques and skills). Methods based on smart maps are already widely used in teaching foreign languages, fast and deep immersion in various subject areas. 2. Information search, search optimization. The results of associative experiments can significantly improve the quality of information retrieval, its efficiency, as well as adaptability for a specific person (social group). When promoting sites (promoting them in search results), an associative experiment allows you to increase and improve the quality of the audience reached. 3. Translation studies, translation automation. An associative experiment can significantly improve the quality of translation, take into account intercultural and other social characteristics of native speakers. 4. Computational linguistics and automatic word processing. The results of associative experiments make it possible to reveal the features of a person's linguistic consciousness and contribute to the development of automatic text processing systems in a wide range of applications of natural language interfaces of computer programs and robotic solutions. 5. Advertising. The use of data on associations for specific words, slogans and texts allows you to predict and improve advertising texts. 6. Social relationships. The analysis of texts using the data of associative experiments makes it possible to assess the tonality of messages (negative / positive moods, aggression and other characteristics) based on user comments on the Internet and social networks, in the press in various projections (by individuals, events, organizations, etc.) from various social angles, to diagnose the formation of extremist ideas. 7. Content control and protection of personal data. Associative experiments improve the quality of content detection and filtering by identifying associative fields in areas subject to age restrictions, personal information, tobacco and alcohol advertising, incitement to ethnic hatred, etc. 8. Gender and individual differences. The data of associative experiments can be used to compare the reactions (and, in general, other features of thinking) between men and women, different social and age groups, representatives of different regions. The directions for the further development of Russian psycholinguistics from the standpoint of the current state of psycholinguistic science in the country are seen by us, first of all:  in the development of research in various areas of linguistic consciousness, which will contribute to the development of an important concept of speech as a verbal model of non-linguistic consciousness, in which knowledge revealed by social practice and assigned by each member of society during its inculturation is consolidated for society and on its behalf;  in the expansion of the problematics, which is formed under the influence of the growing intercultural communication in the world community, which inevitably involves the speech behavior of natural and artificial bilinguals in the new object area of psycholinguistics;  in using the capabilities of national linguistic corpora in the interests of researchers studying the functioning of non-linguistic and linguistic consciousness in speech processes;  in expanding research on the semantic perception of multimodal texts, the scope of which has greatly expanded in connection with the spread of the Internet as a means of communication in the life of modern society;  in the inclusion of the problems of professional communication and professional activity in the object area of psycholinguistics in connection with the introduction of information technologies into public practice, entailing the emergence of new professions and new features of the professional ethos;  in the further development of the theory of the mental lexicon (identifying the role of different types of knowledge in its formation and functioning, the role of the word as a unit of the mental lexicon in the formation of the image of the world, as well as the role of the natural / internal metalanguage and its specificity in speech activity);  in the broad development of associative lexicography, which will meet the most diverse needs of society and cognitive sciences. The development of associative lexicography may lead to the emergence of such disciplines as associative typology, associative variantology, associative axiology;  in expanding the spheres of applied use of psycholinguistics in social sciences, sociology, semasiology, lexicography, in the study of the brain, linguodidactics, medicine, etc. This book is a kind of summarizing result of the development of Russian psycholinguistics today. Each section provides a bibliography of studies on the relevant issue. The Appendix contains the scientometrics of leading Russian psycholinguists, basic monographs, psycholinguistic textbooks and dissertations defended in psycholinguistics. The content of the publications presented here is convincing evidence of the relevance of psycholinguistic topics and the effectiveness of the development of psycholinguistic problems in Russia.

Cystic echinococcosis (CE)\cystic hydatid disease is one of the most widespread and important global helminth zoonoses. The parasite Echinococcus granulosus is maintained in a wide spectrum of intermediate hosts, including sheep, goats, camels, cattle, pigs and equines. A number of wild intermediate hosts occur, including cervids in the northern part of the North American continent and Eurasia, marsupials in Australia and wild herbivores in East and southern Africa. The application of a range of molecular techniques to the characterization of the parasite has confirmed the existence of mostly host-adapted strains and genotypes of the parasite and several new species have been proposed. The ubiquitous domestic dog serves as the most important definitive host for the transmission of the parasite throughout its wide geographical range.A wide range of diagnostic techniques, including necropsy, arecoline purgation, coproantigen ELISA and DNA based tests are available for detecting E. granulosus infection in the definitive host. In intermediate animal hosts, diagnosis at post mortem still remains the most reliable option. In humans, imaging techniques including ultrasound, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) or computer aided tomography (CAT-scan provide not only a method of diagnosis but also reveal important clinical information on the location, condition, number and size of the hydatid cysts in man. Of these ultrasound is the most widely used diagnostic technique and is the only imaging technique for screening of populations in rural areas, where the disease is most common. A classification system has been developed which can be used to assess the likely development of a cyst and hence guide the clinician in treatment options for the patient. Treatment relies on surgery and/or percutaneous interventions, especially ‘Puncture, Aspiration, Injection, Re-aspiration’ (PAIR) and/or antiparasitic treatment with albendazole (and alternatively mebendazole).CE is largely a preventable disease. Successful elimination programmes have focused on frequent periodic treatments of dogs with anthelmintics and the control of slaughter of domestic livestock. In many regions elimination or even control remains a problem as the parasite is endemic over vast areas of low income countries where there may be limited resources for control. In some areas, such as former communist administered countries, the parasite is resurgent. New tools are becoming available to control the parasite, including a highly effective vaccine in sheep which prevents the infection in sheep and breaks the transmission cycle. In addition cost effective methods are being developed which may be appropriate in low income countries where financial resources are not available for intensive control programmes that have been successful in high income countries.

This introductory chapter introduces ethnography as a distinct research and writing tradition. The author begins by historically contextualizing ethnography’s professionalization within the fields of anthropology and sociology. While highlighting the formidable influences of, for example, Bronislaw Malinowski and the Chicago school, the author complicates existing understandings by bringing significant, but less-recognized, influences and contributions to light. The chapter next outlines three principal research methods that most ethnographers utilize—namely, participant-observation, fieldnote writing, and ethnographic interviewing. The discussion then shifts from method to methodology to explain the primary qualities that separate ethnography from other forms of participant-observation-oriented research. This includes introducing a research disposition called ethnographic comportment, which serves as a standard for gauging ethnography throughout the remainder of the book. The author presents ethnographic comportment as reflecting both ethnographers’ awarenesses of and their accountabilities to the research tradition in which they participate.

Ives’s essay on Emerson is less a description of that writer than an apologia for Ives’s compositional method, which is intentionally disunified and based on the discontinuous way in which humans perceive reality. The idea that Ives was a Transcendentalist himself (like Emerson) is difficult to maintain given the other, more conventional religious influences evident in Ives’s thinking. But there is a strong parallel between the way Emerson left the church at age 29, and Ives left the music world at page 27, both because they could no longer carry on the conventions of those worlds in good conscience.

This chapter discusses two punishments most often mentioned as examples of American national exceptionalism—capital punishment and imprisonment. It examines the available data on state penal power and patterns of these two most prominent issues implicated in discourse about American penal exceptionalism. The chapter shows that, in each setting, there are huge variations among American states. Moreover, in both cases, the study of interstate variation is a useful method of investigating the causes of penal difference. In the case of imprisonment trends over time, there may also be a nearly uniform pattern that reveals much about the influences of culture and public opinion on penal policy.

Integration is where one method influences in some way the objectives, sampling, data collection, analysis, or interpretation of the other methods within a mixed methods study. Studies of qualitative research undertaken with RCTs have identified that publications often have no evidence of integration of findings. That is, the promise of qualitative research helping to explain the RCT results is simply not delivered in practice, or at least not in a way that is visible outside the original research team. The focus of this chapter is on where integration can occur within a study, the techniques that can facilitate integration, and examples of integration in the context of qualitative research and RCTs.

This article describes the fabrication of high-temperature superconducting nanowires and their characterization by magnetic and electric transport measurements. In the literature, nanowires of high-temperature superconductors (HTSc) are obtained by means of lithography, using thin film material as a base. However, there are two main problems with this approach: first, the substrate often influences the HTSc nanowire, and second, only electric transport measurements can be performed. This article explains how nanowires and nanobelts of high-temperature superconducting cuprates can be prepared by the template method and by electrospinning. It also considers the possibilities for employing substrate-free HTSc nanowires as building blocks to realize new, nanoporous bulk superconducting materials for a variety of applications.

The chapter opens with a brief description of Paris at around the time of Bodin’s arrival. It notes the location of the Carmelite house, near the colleges of the University of Paris, and specifies intellectual influences at work there, both humanist and scholastic. They included ongoing debate over key philosophical, theological, and jurisprudential issues to consideration of which Bodin would have been exposed. They also included debates over the proper use of language, over modes of literary presentation, and over analytical methodology. The contribution of Pierre de La Ramée (Ramus) to these debates is examined, and the principal components of his celebrated ‘method’ are identified. Attention is drawn to the continued importance of Aristotle in these areas of thought and instruction. Finally, the question is examined whether the ‘Jehan Baudin’ arrested and imprisoned in 1548 as a suspect heretic was in fact the Carmelite novice, Jean Bodin of Angers.

Herder develops a number of very important principles both in meta-ethics and in first-order morality. In meta-ethics he argues for a form of sentimentalism, but a form of it that acknowledges a role for cognition in the sentiments involved and which emphasizes their radical variability between periods and cultures. He also invents a “genetic” or “genealogical” method predicated on such variability and applies it to moral values in particular in order to make them better understood. And finally, he develops an ambitious theory and practice of moral pedagogy that rests on his sentimentalism and which accordingly focuses on causal influences on moral character formation, such as role models and literature. In first-order morality he invents an important pluralistic form of cosmopolitanism to replace the more usual but problematic homogenizing cosmopolitanism of the Enlightenment; an influential ideal of individual Bildung, or self-formation; and a distinctive ideal of humanity.

The appropriate normalization of exercise performance data for differences in body size underpins the clarification of growth and maturational influences on physiological function. Therefore, scaling is an issue of fundamental importance for all paediatric exercise scientists. The selection and application of a scaling method appropriate for the data and research question being addressed is at least as important as ensuring that the methodology used to collect the data is valid, reliable, and appropriate for use with young people. Several scaling methods are available and some methods can be applied in different ways. Unfortunately, taken as a whole, the extant literature presents a confusing picture as to which of these techniques is preferable, how they should be applied, and the meaning of the results obtained. The aim of this chapter is to clarify these issues through a description of the techniques available for analysing both cross-sectional and longitudinal data sets, highlighting their statistical and theoretical derivations.

The appropriate normalization of exercise performance data for differences in body size underpins the clarification of growth and maturational influences on physiological function. Therefore, scaling is an issue of fundamental importance for all paediatric exercise scientists. The selection and application of a scaling method appropriate for the data and research question being addressed is at least as important as ensuring that the methodology used to collect the data is valid, reliable, and appropriate for use with young people. Several scaling methods are available and some methods can be applied in different ways. Unfortunately, taken as a whole, the extant literature presents a confusing picture as to which of these techniques is preferable, how they should be applied, and the meaning of the results obtained. The aim of this chapter is to clarify these issues through a description of the techniques available for analysing both cross-sectional and longitudinal data sets, highlighting their statistical and theoretical derivations.

This chapter addresses methods to study situational influences of setting characteristics on adolescent offending. In particular, it describes data collection methods (space-time budget interviews, census data, community surveys, and systematic social observations) that enable precise measurement of what respondents do, with whom they undertake these activities, and in what kind of places (both the geographical area and the function of the location) they find themselves. Such data capture presence in and exposure to different kinds of settings during particular periods in time. This chapter illustrates the usefulness of these method for criminological research by summarizing the results of three sub-studies from the Study of Peers, Activities, and Neighborhoods (SPAN) conducted in the Netherlands. It first discusses the design of the SPAN data collection and the instruments that were used in it. It then reviews each study in turn by summarizing its theoretical motivation, data structure, and analytical strategy, and by describing the main findings it has generated.

This book explores one of the more puzzling findings in modern young adulthood. Most emerging adults report they value marriage highly, yet more and more of them are delaying and appear to be avoiding marriage. Using a mixture of national data and a mixed-method study of middle-class emerging adults from the Midwest, the book explores why this paradox might exist. Using interview data, the authors weave stories of real emerging adults into their narrative to provide illustrative examples of the concepts and themes being discussed. National data are provided to connect themes to national trends in the United States. Within the book, the authors explore how the context of emerging adulthood influences this paradox as well as the specific paradoxes being created around emerging adults’ beliefs regarding the timing of marriage, its importance, and how emerging adults seek potential spouses. Finally, the authors explore how factors such as parents, religion, and the media have all helped create many of these paradoxes before giving suggestions for how some of these paradoxes might be resolved.

This book examines the factors that facilitate women’s representation on high courts worldwide. Diverse courts improve collective decision-making, strengthen public confidence in the judiciary and judicial decisions, and broaden access to the judicial process. Taken together, domestic and international factors explain women’s representation. These influences include judicial pipelines, domestic institutions including selection processes, and international expectations about gender equity. These explanations are evaluated using an original dataset, which includes both men and women appointed to high courts in all regions of the world. Pathways and processes are examined in-depth through five case studies: Canada, Colombia, Ireland, South Africa, and the United States. Taking a multi-method approach, the book combines insights from a cross-national, time-serial dataset with case studies drawing on fieldwork. Women are being appointed to high courts in greater numbers across every region of the world, and political and legal institutions provide context for where the gains are earliest and strongest. The findings suggest a chain of favorable promoters for women’s representation on high courts: new norms of gender equality encourage the reimagining of the judiciary; advocacy organizations challenge the status quo; and windows of opportunity enable change.

This book examines the long history of cowboy Christians in the American West, including the cowboy church movement of the present day and closely related ministries in racetrack and rodeo settings. Early chapters move from the postbellum period through the twentieth century, tracing religious life among cowboys on the range as well as projected in popular imagery and the media. The central chapters focus on the modern cowboy church and examine its structure, theology, and method of perpetuation, as well as exploring future challenges the institution may face, such as its relegation of women to subordinate participant roles. The final chapter considers present-day incarnations of rodeo and racetrack ministries as examples of the cowboy Christian proclivity for blending the secular and the sacred in leisure environments. Woven throughout the text is a discussion of the religious significance of the cowboy church movement, particularly relative to twenty-first century evangelical Protestantism. The author demonstrates that its antecedents and influences include muscular Christianity, the Jesus movement, and new paradigm church methodology. With interdisciplinary research that blends history and sociology, the text draws on interviews with leaders from cowboy churches, traveling rodeo ministries, and chaplains who serve horse racing and bull riding environments, as well as incorporating the author’s own experiences as a participant observer.