bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Evolution of Corporate Form
Authors: Deakin Simon
Published: March 2019

This chapter focuses on the evolution of the concept of corporate personality in English law. Recent developments in experiments with legal organizational forms are injecting diversity into the relative monoculture of the corporate form. Two threads are of particular interest in this chapter. The first concerns the creation of hybrid legal structures for “social enterprise.” The second stems from a revival of interest in cooperative structures, particularly in tandem with the digital economy. The chapter places these two threads in dialogue with Simon Deakin’s recent stimulating argument that the commons provides the most convincing conceptual foundation for understanding corporate governance.
Growth Strategies of the New Multinationals
Authors: Guillén Mauro F. , García-Canal Esteban
Published: March 2019

Emerging market multinationals have expanded around the world and upgraded their capabilities at the speed of light using aggressive growth strategies. This chapter argues that the success of these companies lies on new axioms of global competitiveness. It aims to answer two questions. First, do these firms share some common distinctive features that distinguish them from the traditional MNEs? Second, how have they been able to expand abroad at dizzying speed, in defiance of the conventional wisdom about the virtues of a staged, incremental approach to international expansion? Before being in a position to answer these questions, the established theory of the MNE is outlined, and the extent to which its basic postulates need to be re-examined is explored.
The Dutch East India Company
Authors: Frentrop Paul
Published: March 2019

This chapter analyzes the experience of the Dutch East India Company, the first company in which thousands of investors participated. This dispersed shareholder base gave rise to two new institutional developments: the spontaneous growth of a lively securities market and agency problems as investors soon had reason to complain about lack of strategic focus, lack of dividends, lack of accountability, self-enrichment by managers, fraud, and mismanagement. Nonetheless, after two hazardous first decades—helped by the exit that the stock market provided to investors—the company managed to stay in existence for almost two centuries although the agency problems were only partially addressed.
Corporations, Organization, and Human Action
Authors: Chanlat Jean-François
Published: March 2019

This chapter considers the major developments in management thought over the last century. How market logic, new interpretations in economics, and the development of the entrepreneurial corporation have impacted on management thinking are explored. The management science that has resulted projects a questionable conception of humanity. This analysis questions the anthropological foundations of the dominant conceptions of human agency, and how this has impoverished the understanding of both people and organizations.A broader anthropology is traced through the European literature on the advance of management, which identifies the essential capacity of humanity to contribute to collaborative endeavor and engage in meaningful social production.
The Japanese Corporation
Authors: Seki Takaya
Published: March 2019

The majority of Japanese companies have taken what they regard as significant steps in the direction of accountability. In Japan, however, there is a different conception of the role of the board, the function of corporate governance, and the purpose of the corporation. This chapter argues that significant changes in these enduring Japanese corporate values and practices can only be accomplished if a more convincing theory and model of the corporation is proposed. In important respects, the contemporary evolution of corporate governance in Japan reflects the fundamental dilemmas inherent in defining corporate purpose that were first recognized by Berle and Means. The negotiation of the contemporary corporate community, purpose, and strategy in Japan will be of relevance to the definition of the distinctive orientations of Asian corporations.
Corporate Responsibility and the Embedded Firm
Authors: Williams Cynthia A.
Published: March 2019

This chapter examines institutional and political economy accounts of corporate social responsibility debates in law and business, and how those debates have been used to shape the social expectations of business and the view of firms as either oriented toward shareholders or stakeholders. The chapter brings a number of disciplinary perspectives to bear on the study of the regulatory evolution and relationship between firms, corporate governance, and labor in the transformation from industrial to finance capitalism. It engages with Karl Polanyi’s concept of embeddedness while reassessing the foundations of corporate social responsibility as an emerging trend. Ultimately it concludes that the problem to be solved in the corporate social relationship is the deeper one of the business corporation being conceptualized in narrow economic terms, and the fiduciary duties of directors being misconceptualized as to maximize shareholder wealth, even as the business corporation acts throughout the world today as a powerful social and political actor.
English East India Company-State and The Modern Corporation
Authors: Stern Philip J.
Published: March 2019

This chapter offers an analysis of the history of the English East India Company in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially in light of its value for understanding the modern corporation. Considering the various ways in which the Company has been of interest to business and economic historians, this chapter considers instead the implications of its history on understanding the nature of the modern multinational as a global political actor and thus the ways in which both domestic and international law must engage with the problem of the political subjectivity, jurisdictional scope, and sovereign ambitions of non-state, especially corporate, actors.
Phenomenology and Hermeneutics
Authors: Rosfort René
Published: March 2019

The aims of phenomenology are to clarify, describe, and make sense of the structures and dynamics of pre-reflective human experience, whereas hermeneutics aims to articulate the reflective character of human experience as it manifests in language and other forms of creative signs. This suggests that the two approaches differ in aims, methods, and subject matter. A closer look at the two disciplines reveals, however, that in terms of history, themes, and philosophical goals they have more in common than that which separates them. This chapter examines these differences and common features in the philosophy of Heidegger and Gadamer, then demonstrates how Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology provides us with a dialectical account of personal identity that can contribute to phenomenological psychopathology. The combination of a phenomenological clarification of selfhood and a hermeneutical emphasis on interpretation paves the way for an interdisciplinary approach to mental illness.
Modelling Improvisation as Emergence
Authors: Dunagan Colleen , Fenton Roxane L. , Dorn Evan D.
Published: March 2019

This chapter examines improvisation through the lens of emergence in order to continue a dialogue with cognitive science, emphasize the action of dancers as bodyminds, and reflect on the value of emergence as a conceptual model for dance improvisation pedagogy. By first introducing the basic tenets of emergence and then revisiting the existing work on emergence in relationship to ensemble improvisation, the chapter offers an examination of the concept of self-organizing consciousness and its possible manifestation within the practice of contact improvisation. By linking scientific and dancerly concepts of sensory perception, habitual/automated decision-making, and the multiple mental aspects that comprise higher-level consciousness, the chapter argues for the adoption of emergence as a model for understanding dance improvisation that provides students with a way of understanding the act of improvisation as an exercise in critical thinking rather than one that grounds creativity in a Romantic notion of the individual.
Dancing Keystrokes, Excavating Memory
Authors: Bingham Robert , Hanna Stephanie
Published: March 2019

This chapter presents a transatlantic improvised duet enacted through the medium of email. The authors, a dance artist and visual artist, respectively, stir up memories of a shared past in Berlin, Germany. Sifting through these remains, they discover new harmonies and dissonances as they improvise a duet of keystrokes. The authors share a virtual space but are not always on the same page as they revisit hours spent together in a sun-flooded dance studio at Tanzfabrik. Together and alone, they experience a dissolution of lines separating past, present, memory, and imagination as new thoughts and images take shape through their words. While several years and an ocean stand between their present bodies and shared past, a brittle intimacy emerges.
Life Practices
Authors: Albright Ann Cooper
Published: March 2019

Everybody’s life is an improvisation, but for people who work daily with teaching and performing movement improvisation there is a heightened awareness of how this practice structures one’s life. This chapter discusses how work in improvisation has influenced three main areas of the author’s life: her movement practice and teaching, her intellectual trajectory, and her relationship to her family. In this context, improvisation can best be thought of as an approach rather than a subject; a method of inquiry rather than an academic discipline—no matter how cutting-edge. Indeed, this chapter proposes that instead of asking ‘what is improvisation?’ one might ask ‘what if improvisation?’ Implicated in this conditional statement is a practice of dwelling in possibility that can be both personally useful and politically profound.
Contact Improvisation and Embodied Social Cognition
Authors: Flakne April
Published: March 2019

Contact improvisation offers profound insights to anyone interested in social cognition and ontology. As contact between improvisers breaks down dance conventions, habits, and gestural expectations, practitioners must exploit often repressed alloceptive resources to generate sense intercorporeally and create spaces for action and embodied understanding. This supports recent phenomenological work on social cognition that subverts analogical approaches to other minds. Resonating with the most radical of these, participatory sense-making, contact improvisation allows us to catch sense-making in the act of occurring on a bodily level. By returning to the coming-to-be of sense, contact improvisation allows a privileged glimpse into the ontology of intercorporeal affectivity running through bodies and making mutual understanding and communication possible.
Unpredictable Manoeuvres
Authors: George Doran
Published: March 2019

Eva Karczag improvises resistance towards the institutional appropriation of a ‘somatic’ approach she helped develop. Since leaving London Festival Ballet in the 1970s to join Strider, Britain’s first experimental dance company, and later the Australian experimental collective Dance Exchange, Karczag has mined motile and creative latitude against institutional control. In somatics training, and related choreographic modalities, she cultivates principles of physical ease and individual authenticity. She brought this facility to the development of some of Trisha Brown’s signature works when she joined the company in 1979, yet Karczag left in 1985 concerned that New York’s careerist arts culture was erasing her creative difference. She has since pursued improvisation on the margins of Western contemporary dance. In her choreography and pedagogy, Karczag critiques professionalization with a body that eludes commercial and institutional agendas. She chooses audience proximity over the proscenium arch, dancing radical contingency. She thus resists the collapsing of 1970s experimentation into commercial ideas of innovation.
Ethico-aesthetic Practice of Improvising
Authors: Bannon Fiona
Published: March 2019

The discussion explores ways we can enrich the possibilities of our thinking through merged relations between improvisation and ethics. In experiences of being-in-practice, we generate material ideas that are deliberately provisional, in what is a continuously in-between state of being. Nurturing our facility to prosper in such states of uncertainty can lead to the recognition of unforeseen, enriched forms of knowledge. Working together, improvisers draw on the fluid interchange between their bodily thinking and relational opportunities forged in being-with others. Appreciation of the varied trajectories that can emerge during codetermined practice is significant in terms of putting self-learning alongside the generation of ‘in-common’ knowledge. The crux of the discussion is that in the generation of such knowledge we come to realize more of our own potential, striving as we do to combine our sensual, intellectual, emotional, responsive selves. Ultimately we can frame these relations as an ethico-aesthetic practice of improvising.
An Agile Mind in an Agile Body
Authors: Hagendoorn Ivar
Published: March 2019

Dancers and choreographers have developed numerous improvisation techniques to facilitate the real-time composition of movement sequences, from simple behavioural tasks, such as drawing imaginary figures with different parts of the body, to problem-solving tasks that require the dancer to translate a word or a phrase into movement. This chapter explores the science behind a number of improvisation techniques. Among other things, it will show how some familiar dance improvisation techniques have their roots in properties of the motor system. In addition, it will show how experimental findings from cognitive neuroscience and psychology may inspire novel improvisation techniques. The emphasis is on practical techniques that can be easily performed by dancers and nondancers alike. Ultimately, the chapter argues that dance improvisation requires not just an agile body but first and foremost an agile mind.
Rethinking Improvisation from a Daoist Perspective of Qi-Energy
Authors: Wu I-Ying
Published: March 2019

This study rethinks the concept of improvisation from a Daoist perspective of qi-energy, focusing on improvisation emerging from qi in a performative field. It aims to fill the gap resulting from cultural differences between current concepts of improvisation inherited from American and European dance contexts, and the author’s specific cultural position. This essay reviews various ways of improvisation that have developed in American and European dance contexts and improvisation practices in Taiwan that have mixed Chinese, Japanese, American, and European cultures. To rethink improvisation from her own cultural thinking, the author investigates the Chinese literal meaning of ‘improvisation’ (即興, ji-xing), that is, ‘instant emergence’, in terms of Daoist qi. Through a practice-as-research process, the essay also explores how an improvisational work is meanwhile a process of practising the self and the meaning of ‘performative’ from a Daoist perspective.
Lost in the Footlights
Authors: De Spain Kent
Published: March 2019

The chapter is an investigation of the concepts of ‘improvisation’ and ‘choreography’ and of the reasons why many contemporary ‘choreographers’ (artists whose movement is primarily predetermined and rehearsed) might build moments of real-time movement generation and choice-making into their concert dances, a practice of which audiences may be completely unaware. What does improvisation bring to a danced moment? What are the benefits and the costs? By engaging with the literature and through interviews with two American dance artists who direct successful companies—Bebe Miller and Joe Goode—this essay attempts to shed some light on improvisation’s ‘secret life’.
The Emancipation of Improvisation
Authors: Lavender Larry
Published: March 2019

Affordance-based movement finding is described as a body-freedom practice that can contribute to the emancipation of improvisation from the controlling grip of the danced-choreographic. Affordance-based movement finding privileges presence-ing movement over past-ing movement. Performance works animated and nourished by affordance-based movement finding are described along with facets of the danced-choreographic from which these works seek to unfasten. Discussion of patriarchal dualisms that appear to underlie core values of, and routine habits in, the danced-choreographic are discussed.
Valorizing Uncertainty
Authors: Ross Janice
Published: March 2019

Chance. Improvisation. Uncertainty. During the Cold War, these words came to be freighted with a complex set of aesthetic meanings in the Soviet Union and the United States. These nuances in the usage of these terms, the kind of arts practice they made possible, and the ways they were linked to each nation’s political frames hold important insights into the politicizing of aesthetic practices and the aestheticizing of social revolutions. This essay considers the affordances of constraints when paired with the selective use of improvisation in the work of Russian choreographer Leonid Yakobson. A close reading of the work of Yakobson, the leading modernist at the Kirov Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet throughout the years of Stalin’s rule and into the first decades of the Cold War, is a relevant case study. It reveals how, clandestinely in his rehearsal rooms, a degree of improvisation and chance carried unique aesthetic force and political risk.
Chance Encounters, Nietzschean Philosophy, and the Question of Improvisation
Authors: Rothfield Philipa
Published: March 2019

This essay is an attempt to think of dancing per se as a mode of improvisation. It draws on Nietzschean philosophy as a means to conceive of dance as a dynamic flux, made up of a multiplicity of forces. Improvisation ensues from the selection of these forces and their consequent corporeal becoming. What follows is a reading of Nietzsche’s work in terms of force and the will to power, which also draws on Deleuze’s engagement with Nietzschean philosophy. Improvisation is posed in these terms, as an encounter with chance that offers and produces the force of the future.
Embodiology
Authors: Wray S. Ama
Published: March 2019

Dance-drumming performance practices in West Africa reveal multiple modes of communication that take place between performers and informed audiences, in an ongoing exchange of novelty. In the Ewe case, the critical nature of the relationship between movement, music, and language lies within their explicit drum syntax producing Ewephone comprehension, which is processed through the body’s varying porous kinaesonic surfaces. This principle process is conceptualized as Dynamic Rhythm, the metacomponent of Embodiology, which is both a training methodology and a theoretical framework that makes inherent improvisation discernable to the nonpractitioner. In addition, as a result of this understanding, interlocking aesthetic values within West African performance practices are identifiable within the African Diaspora. This articulation of improvisation from a West African perspective creates a gateway for both the scholarly and artistic fields of dance to develop a way to understand these autopoietic phenomena that were, until now, largely hidden.
Improvisation in Argentinean Tango
Authors: Ravn Susanne
Published: March 2019

Based on recent phenomenological research on improvisation, body memory, and interaction, this essay explores how different kinds of body memory are in operation—and played with—at the same time when improvising the tango. The essay first argues that body memories are revitalized through both the interaction of the embrace and the way this embrace is further shaped by the interactions and implicit negotiations characterizing the tango as a social event. Thereafter, the essay focuses on how the tango dancers sense movement not only because of but also through their partner and how the intentionality of the improvisation unfolds in the connection, which is in a state of flux. The essay accordingly indicates that in the kinaesthetic meeting established in the tango embrace, body memories are both revitalized and transformed, based on how the intentionality is given life through the microcosm of interaction.
Improvisation and the Earth
Authors: Ashley Tamara
Published: March 2019

This chapter draws upon artistic practice research to discuss the construction of improvisation scores as a deeply site-sensitive, time-sensitive, and person-sensitive process that leads to the construction of specific microrelations that connect specific practitioners to specific places on the earth. These microrelations manifest as mindful actions in the detailed cultivation of the earth as a score, where the artists can become concerned with the relational dimensions of their actions in terms of sustainability. The chapter proposes that the cultivation of mindfulness and explicit intention of each and every gesture as a contribution to the cultivation of the earth as score is where the ethical work of the artists resides. The chapter offers a broad, questioning, and critical perspective on how the practices of improvisation might contribute to the development of a future dance ecology that is both sustainable and interconnected. Dance improvisation is thus proposed as an activist and applied practice that enables the experiential examination of ecologically sensitive relations, and the chapter asserts that the future of the dance ecology is entwined with how we relate to and embody the places in which dance is made
Moving In Medias Res
Authors: Stewart Nigel
Published: March 2019

This essay considers how dance improvisation involves processes of interpretation which are fundamental to human experience. Particular attention is given to psychosomatic practices, that is, approaches to performance that depend on a relation between a ‘score’ of external actions and an ‘underscore’ of internal images. The essay first refers to several historically significant psychosomatic methods that promise a plenitude of self-presence, but then questions those methods through Paul Ricoeur’s critique of idealist phenomenology. However, the essay also argues that improvised dance in general, and the work of Marie-Gabriella Rotie and Jennifer Monson in particular, can offer an alternative psychosomatic approach which exemplifies the phenomenological hermeneutics of Ricoeur and Hans Georg Gadamer. Through exploration of concepts such as distanciation, appropriation, conversation, and occasion, the essay grasps dance improvisation as a unfinished practice in which the moving body unfolds the world—in particular the natural world—of which it is already a part by relating to it through a subtext that it interprets kinaesthetically.
Introduction
Authors: Midgelow Vida L.
Published: March 2019

This introduction speaks of the encompassing approach this handbook takes to the topic of improvisation in dance. Following an overview of published writings, I discuss the nature and potentialities of improvised practices in dance, with a focus on the question: ‘What if improvisation?’,. The introduction ends with a short discussion of the difficulties of writing about improvisation, before presenting the handbook authors and the topics readers will find in the pages that follow.
A Philosophy of the Improvisational Body
Authors: Fraleigh Sondra
Published: March 2019

This essay is both analytical and personal. The first section, ‘A Philosophical Approach’, develops key terms of the chapter through a philosophy of active embodiment and being seen. The second section, ‘Moving through Time’, is the author’s story of moving through nine historical phases of dance improvisation. The third section, ‘Why Improvise?’, inquires into the improvisational body in somatics and human development and reviews ascendant pyramidal conceptions of dance improvisation, preferring attributes relative to distinctiveness in motion, intimacy with body and others, inclusive aesthetics, and variables of intentionality. The chapter aims to show how improvisational qualities are both abstract and personal, and that they involve an interplay of possibilities—how things draw apart, alternate, disintegrate, or assemble throughout a creative whole. Love and faith both live in dance, stirring the intangibles of dance improvisation.
Slaves as Active Subjects
Authors: McKeown Niall
Published: March 2019

Ancient slave owners often wanted to see slaves merely as extensions of their own social persona. Modern historians, however, have given increasing attention to ancient slaves as active social actors, and not just in exceptional circumstances such as rebellion. Slaves could have family lives and sometimes had a social existence with ties beyond that of their masters’ households. Our evidence (chiefly from Athens and from the Roman Empire) comes with considerable caveats. It is nonetheless clear that slave families, interaction between slaves of different households, and interaction between slave, freed, and free in wider society may have been greater than previously assumed, especially in Rome. It may even match what could be seen, for example, in the later slave societies of the urban USA and Brazil.
Contextual Influences on Reference
Authors: Roberts Craige
Published: March 2019

This chapter considers a number of ways in which the understood reference of a definite noun phrase—definite description, pronoun, demonstrative, indexical, or proper name—may depend on the context in which it is uttered. Contextual influences are reflected in phenomena such as anaphora and familiarity presuppositions, descriptive incompleteness, domain restriction, dependence on a shifted perspective in intensional contexts resulting in de re, de dicto, and de se interpretations, and inclusion of context-sensitive predicates. Careful investigation of particular types of context dependence has played an important role in the evolution of semantic theories of these NP types over the past fifty years. But outstanding puzzles about how context influences reference pose challenges to the most influential current semantic theories of some NP types, including direct reference theories of indexicals and demonstratives, and rigid designator accounts of proper names.
Reference Resolution
Authors: Kaiser Elsi , Fedele Emily
Published: March 2019

This chapter reviews psycholinguistic research on reference resolution. Firstly, it discusses experiments on the interpretation of overt pronouns indicating that topicality-related properties of potential antecedents—such as subjecthood, givenness, and pronominalization—guide pronoun interpretation. Perhaps surprisingly, other studies show that focus-related factors are also at play. Experimental data is then reviewed from languages with both null and overt pronouns (e.g., Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Korean). Many experiments on reference views pronoun resolution as a search process, in contrast to an alternative account which regards it as by-product of general inferencing/reasoning about the semantic coherence relations between clauses. Recent work has explored possible ways of reconciling these views, and has also started to investigate the mental representation of coherence relations and the relation to perspective-taking. The final part of the chapter, reviews consequences of humans’ processing limitations on pronoun production and interpretation, including cataphora and the possibility of shallow processing.
Processing Anaphoric Relations
Authors: Barkley Christopher , Kluender Robert
Published: March 2019

This chapter discusses electrophysiological studies of anaphora, attempting to situate findings within the context of literature on language processing as a whole. First, it reviews what is known about electrophysiological indices of processing long-distance anaphoric dependencies, linking these brain responses to cognitive operations required to form anaphoric relations. Then the focus turns to the brain’s response to referentially ambiguous anaphors and it is argued that these responses, rather than being specific to ambiguity, reflect general cognitive processes. Finally, the chapter focuses on an array of recent studies, including research on parallels between processing of referential and syntactic dependencies, the role of referential specificity in reference resolution, and cataphoric dependencies. In doing so, it summarizes where the field currently stands, in terms of what we know and the outstanding issues that remain. In all cases, from the brain’s perspective, the ultimate question is: is there anything special about processing referential anaphora?
Computational Models of Referring
Authors: van Deemter Kees
Published: March 2019

This chapter discusses computational models of the act of referring, focusing on limitations of the classic algorithms in this area, as illustrated by a number of common referential scenarios. After a brief introduction to the computational enterprise known as Referring Expressions Generation, the chapter focuses on a range of issues that can arise from the situation in which a referring expression is uttered. The chapter discusses situations in which there is uncertainty over the hearer’s domain knowledge, situations in which the referent cannot be pinned down precisely, and situations in which identifying the referent is not the main goal. It is shown that situations of this kind complicate the referential task, and strategies that speakers use to cope with them are discussed.
Cognitive Status and the form of Referring Expressions in Discourse
Authors: Gundel Jeanette , Hedberg Nancy , Zacharski Ron
Published: March 2019

In this chapter a case is made for six implicationally related cognitive statuses relevant for explicating the use of referring expressions in natural language discourse. These statuses are the conventional meanings signaled by determiners and pronouns, and interaction of the statuses with general conversational principles such as Grice’s Maxim of Quantity accounts for the actual distribution and interpretation of forms when necessary conditions for the use of more than one form are met. This proposal is supported by an empirical study of the distribution of referring expressions in naturally occurring discourse in five languages: English, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Spanish.
Beyond the “Continental Translation” of Newtonian Mechanics
Authors: Shank J.B.
Published: March 2019

This chapter challenges the traditional origin story of rational, or “classical Newtonian,” mechanics, which holds that Isaac Newton created the core foundations of this science in his Principia Mathematica, and then delivered them to Continental European mathematicians, who translated and developed them in creating modern analytical mechanics. Instead, the article outlines the dispersed origins of calculus-based mathematical physics in Europe around 1700, locating its sources in Newton’s work, but also, and more importantly, in the work of many others as well. Overall, the chapter traces a Continental origin for what we now, perhaps erroneously, call “classical Newtonian mechanics” rooted in many developments, especially in France, that were contrary to Newton’s own thinking on this topic.
The little Aplysia coming of age: from one species to a complex of species complexes in Aplysia parvula (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Heterobranchia)
Authors: Golestani Haleh , Crocetta Fabio , Padula Vinicius , Camacho-García Yolanda , Langeneck Joachim , Poursanidis Dimitris , Pola Marta , yokeş M Baki , Cervera Juan Lucas , Jung Dae-Wui , Gosliner Terrence M , Araya Juan Francisco , Hooker Yuri , schrödl Michael , valdés Ángel
Published: March 2019

The widespread sea hare species Aplysia parvula includes four genetically distinct lineages, containing a total of ten different species. While the four lineages can be differentiated by their external characteristics, species in each clade are often morphologically indistinguishable. A review of literature and type material revealed that several available names exist for species recognized herein: Aplysia parvula is retained for a species from the north-eastern Atlantic; A. atromarginata, A. elongata, A. nigrocincta and A. japonica are resurrected for species from the western Pacific Ocean, the Hawaiian Islands, the Indian and western Pacific Oceans, and Japan and Korea, respectively. Two new species names are introduced for animals from the eastern Pacific, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Mitochondrial sequences from Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic specimens identified as A. parvula, resulted to be A. punctata. However, two specimens were heterozygotes of histone H3 alleles of A. punctata and of a new Atlantic species described herein, suggesting they could be hybrids. These results contradict the hypothesis that the Mediterranean was colonized by A. parvula. If an invasion occurred, it was a limited introgression of nDNA from an Atlantic species into native A. punctata populations.
Extrafasicular and Intraperineural, but No Endoneural, Spread after Deliberate Intraneural Injections in a Cadaveric Study
Authors: Reina Miguel A. , Sala-Blanch Xavier , Monzó Enrique , Nin Olga C. , Bigeleisen Paul E. , Boezaart André P.
Published: March 2019

Editor’s Perspective

What We Already Know about This Topic

What This Article Tells Us That Is New

Background

There is confusion regarding the spread of intraneurally injected local anesthetic agents during regional anesthesia. The aim of this research was to deliberately inject a marker that does not leave the neural compartment into which it is injected, and then to study the longitudinal and circumferential spread and possible pathways of intraneural spread.

Methods

After institutional review board approval, we intraneurally injected 20 and 5 ml of heparinized blood solution under ultrasound guidance into 12 sciatic nerves in the popliteal fossa and 10 median nerves, respectively, of eight fresh, unembalmed cadavers using standard 22-gauge “D” needles, mimicking the blocks in clinical conditions. Ultrasound evidence of nerve swelling confirmed intraneural injection. Samples of the nerves were then examined under light and scanning electron microscopy.

Results

Extrafascicular spread was observed in all the adipocyte-containing neural compartments of the 664 cross-section samples we examined, but intrafascicular spread was seen in only 6 cross-sections of two nerves. None of the epineurium, perineurium, or neural components were disrupted in any of the samples. Spread between the layers of the perineurium was a route of spread that included the perineurium surrounding the fascicles and the perineurium that formed incomplete septa in the fascicles. Similar to the endoneurium proper, subepineural compartments that did not contain any fat cells did not reveal any spread of heparinized blood solution cells. No “perineural” spaces were observed within the endoneurium. We also did not observe any true intrafascicular spread.

Conclusions

After deliberate intraneural injection, longitudinal and circumferential extrafascicular spread occurred in all instances in the neural compartments that contained adipocytes, but not in the relatively solid endoneurium of the fascicles.
Age-Dependent Psychological Factors Influencing the Outcome of Cochlear Implantation in Elderly Patients
Authors: Knopke Steffen , Häussler Sophia , Gräbel Stefan , Wetterauer David , Ketterer Manuel , Fluger Andreas , Szczepek Agnieszka J. , Olze Heidi
Published: March 2019

Introduction:

Increasing number of older adults undergo cochlear implantation (CI). Accumulating evidence implicates that the outcome of implantation may not only depend on physical and psychological health status of patients but also on their age. In the present work, we analyzed the elderly (70–80) and very old (80+) patients who underwent CI regarding their hearing abilities, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and psychological comorbidities.

Patients and Methods:

Eighty-six patients were included in this prospective study. The patients were split into two groups: 70–80 years-old (n = 62) and ≥ 80 years-old (n = 24). Hearing performance was assessed with Freiburg monosyllabic test and Oldenburg inventory (OI); the health-related quality of life was measured with Nijmegen Cochlear Implantation Questionnaire (NCIQ); depressive symptoms with General Depression Scale (ADS-L); stress with Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) and anxiety with General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7).

Results:

Prior to CI, the hearing performance (Ol) impacted positively the HRQoL of both groups whereas the perceived stress (PSQ) had a negative impact. Six months after implantation, the HRQoL of 70–80 group was still positively influenced by the hearing performance (Ol) whereas HRQoL of 80+ group was influenced by stress perception (negative impact) and anxiety (positive impact). Twelve months later, anxiety and depressive symptoms correlated negatively with HRQoL of both age groups. Hearing performance had the positive and anxiety the negative impact on HRQoL in both groups but in addition, the 80+ group seemed to benefit from an increased level of anxious symptoms.

Conclusion:

In elderly patients, the outcome of CI depends on their psychological status. Differences found between the age groups imply a need for an age-group targeted psychological counselling, which might further improve outcome of CI.
Efficacy of Auditory Implants for Patients With Conductive and Mixed Hearing Loss Depends on Implant Center
Authors: Snik Ad , Maier Hannes , Hodgetts Bill , Kompis Martin , Mertens Griet , van de Heyning Paul , Lenarz Thomas , Bosman Arjan
Published: March 2019

Introduction:

Although from a technological point of view, progress is impressive, most implantable hearing devices for conductive or mixed hearing loss have a limited capacity. These devices all bypass the impaired middle ear; therefore, the desired amplification (gain) should be based on the cochlear hearing loss (component) only. The aim of the study is to review the literature with regard to accomplished gain with current implantable devices.

Method:

Thirty-one articles could be included. Aided thresholds were compared with prescribed values, based on cochlear hearing loss (bone-conduction thresholds), according to the well-validated NAL rule.

Results:

For the majority of the studies, NAL targets were not met. Variation in accomplished gain between implant teams was unacceptably large, largely independent of the type of device that was used. NAL targets were best met at 2 kHz, with worse results at the other frequencies.

Conclusion:

Large variations in reported results were found, which primarily depended on implant center. Based on the analyses, a pragmatic fitting procedure is proposed which should minimize the differences between implant centres.
Automated Detection and Segmentation of Multiple Sclerosis Lesions Using Ultra–High-Field MP2RAGE
Authors: Fartaria Mário João , Sati Pascal , Todea Alexandra , Radue Ernst-Wilhelm , Rahmanzadeh Reza , O'Brien Kieran , Reich Daniel S. , Bach Cuadra Meritxell , Kober Tobias , Granziera Cristina
Published: March 2019

Objectives

The aim of this study was to develop a new automated segmentation method of white matter (WM) and cortical multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions visible on magnetization-prepared 2 inversion-contrast rapid gradient echo (MP2RAGE) images acquired at 7 T MRI.

Materials and Methods

The proposed prototype (MSLAST [Multiple Sclerosis Lesion Analysis at Seven Tesla]) takes as input a single image contrast derived from the 7T MP2RAGE prototype sequence and is based on partial volume estimation and topological constraints. First, MSLAST performs a skull-strip of MP2RAGE images and computes tissue concentration maps for WM, gray matter (GM), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) using a partial volume model of tissues within each voxel. Second, MSLAST performs (1) connected-component analysis to GM and CSF concentration maps to classify small isolated components as MS lesions; (2) hole-filling in the WM concentration map to classify areas with low WM concentration surrounded by WM (ie, MS lesions); and (3) outlier rejection to the WM mask to improve the classification of small WM lesions. Third, MSLAST unifies the 3 maps obtained from 1, 2, and 3 processing steps to generate a global lesion mask.

Results

Quantitative and qualitative assessments were performed using MSLAST in 25 MS patients from 2 research centers. Overall, MSLAST detected a median of 71% of MS lesions, specifically 74% of WM and 58% of cortical lesions, when a minimum lesion size of 6 μL was considered. The median false-positive rate was 40%. When a 15 μL minimal lesions size was applied, which is the approximation of the minimal size recommended for 1.5/3 T images, the median detection rate was 80% for WM and 63% for cortical lesions, respectively, and the median false-positive rate was 33%. We observed high correlation between MSLAST and manual segmentations (Spearman rank correlation coefficient, ρ = 0.91), although MSLAST underestimated the total lesion volume (average difference of 1.1 mL), especially in patients with high lesion loads. MSLAST also showed good scan-rescan repeatability within the same session with an average absolute volume difference and F1 score of 0.38 ± 0.32 mL and 84%, respectively.

Conclusions

We propose a new methodology to facilitate the segmentation of WM and cortical MS lesions at 7 T MRI, our approach uses a single MP2RAGE scan and may be of special interest to clinicians and researchers.
Acute Activation of α7-Nicotinic Receptors by Nicotine Improves Rodent Skin Flap Survival Through Nitrergic System
Authors: Abbaszadeh-kasbi Ali , Haddadi Nazgol-Sadat , Dehdashtian Amir , Afshari Khashayar , Jazaeri Seyedeh Zarifeh , Khodaei Naser , Momeni Majid , Dehpour Ahmad-Reza
Published: March 2019

Background

Recent reports have identified angiogenic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties of acute treatment with nicotine via activation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). In addition, the nitric oxide (NO) pathway is involved in ischemic reperfusion injuries.

Objectives

We investigated the effects of acute pretreatment with nicotine in a rat model of random-pattern skin flap and the potential role of the NO pathway.

Methods

The Sprague-Dawley rats received increasing doses of (−)-nicotine (0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, and 3 mg/kg) before the procedure. Dorsal skin flaps with caudal pedicles were elevated at the midline, and flap survival was evaluated 7 days after surgery. In addition, animals received an α7-nAChR antagonist, methyllycaconitine, with nicotine. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction was also applied to measure the dermal expression of α7-nAChR. Next, a nonselective NO synthase inhibitor, N-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester hydrochloride; a selective inducible NO synthase inhibitor, aminoguanidine; and an NO precursor, l-arginine, were administered with nicotine.

Results

Nicotine at doses of 1, 1.5, and 2 mg/kg significantly increased flap survival, whereas the protective effects of nicotine disappeared at higher doses. Methyllycaconitine completely reversed the protective effects of nicotine and the elevated cutaneous expression of α7-nAChR in nicotine-pretreated rats. In addition, systemic administration of N-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester hydrochloride or aminoguanidine with an effective dose of nicotine caused a significant decrease in flap survival. Conversely, coinjection of a subeffective dose of l-arginine with the subeffective dose of nicotine significantly boosted its protective effects.

Conclusions

Acute pretreatment with nicotine by stimulating the expression and activation of cutaneous α7-nAChR improves skin flap survival, which is partially mediated through modulation of the NO pathway.
The Pattern of Residual Tumor After Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy for Locally Advanced Esophageal Cancer and Its Clinical Significance
Authors: Hashimoto Tadayoshi , Makino Tomoki , Yamasaki Makoto , Tanaka Koji , Miyazaki Yasuhiro , Takahashi Tsuyoshi , Kurokawa Yukinori , Motoori Masaaki , Kimura Yutaka , Nakajima Kiyokazu , Morii Eiichi , Mori Masaki , Doki Yuichiro
Published: March 2019

Objectives:

To investigate the residual pattern of esophageal cancer in the esophageal wall after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) and its clinical significance.

Background:

NAC is a standard treatment for locally advanced esophageal cancer; however, residual tumor patterns in resected specimens after NAC and their clinico-pathological characteristics remain unknown.

Methods:

One hundred twenty consecutive patients with cT3 or deeper esophageal cancer underwent curative esophagectomy after NAC and achieved grade 2 histological responses between 2000 and 2016. Hematoxylin-eosin staining of residual tumor sections revealed 4 remnant categories: Type 1: shallow, Type 2: central, Type 3: deep, and Type 4: diffuse. We examined associations between these Types and clinico-pathological factors, including prognosis.

Results:

Forty-five (38%) specimens had no residual tumor cells in the mucosal layer. The adventitia layer displayed the lowest residual tumor cell frequency (18%) among all layers. Types 1, 2, 3, and 4 residual tumor patterns were found in 49 (41%), 33 (28%), 9 (8%), and 29 (24%) patients, respectively. Type 4 showed the maximum standard uptake value after NAC; Types 3 and 4 had higher ratios of venous invasion than Type 1 or 2. Patients with Type 3 or 4 more frequently developed pleural dissemination or distant metastasis than patients with Type 1 or 2. Survival was similar among the 4 Types.

Conclusions:

After NAC for locally advanced esophageal cancer, the shallow residual tumor pattern was most common, but approximately 40% of specimens showed no tumor cells in the mucosal layer. Deep and diffuse remnant patterns were associated with high risks of pleural dissemination and distant metastasis.