bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Metabolism-dependent secondary effect of anti-MAPK cancer therapy on DNA repair
Authors: Aubé Fabien , Fontrodona Nicolas , Guiguettaz Laura , Vallin Elodie , Fabbri Lucilla , Lapendry Audrey , Vagner Stephan , Ricci Emiliano P , Auboeuf Didier
Published: April 2024

Amino acid bioavailability impacts mRNA translation in a codon-dependent manner. Here, we report that the anti-cancer MAPK inhibitors (MAPKi) decrease the intracellular concentration of aspartate and glutamate in melanoma cells. This coincides with the accumulation of ribosomes on codons corresponding to these amino acids and triggers the translation-dependent degradation of mRNAs encoding aspartate- and glutamate-rich proteins, involved in DNA metabolism such as DNA replication and repair. Consequently, cells that survive MAPKi degrade aspartate and glutamate likely to generate energy, which simultaneously decreases their requirement for amino acids due to the downregulation of aspartate- and glutamate-rich proteins involved in cell proliferation. Concomitantly, the downregulation of aspartate- and glutamate-rich proteins involved in DNA repair increases DNA damage loads. Thus, DNA repair defects, and therefore mutations, are at least in part a secondary effect of the metabolic adaptation of cells exposed to MAPKi.
Controversies in neuro-oncology: Focal proton versus photon radiation therapy for adult brain tumors
Authors: Eekers Danielle B P , Zegers Catharina M L , Ahmed Kamran A , Amelio Dante , Gupta Tejpal , Harrabi Semi Ben , Kazda Tomas , Scartoni Daniele , Seidel Clemens , Shih Helen A , Minniti Giuseppe
Published: April 2024

Radiation therapy (RT) plays a fundamental role in the treatment of malignant and benign brain tumors. Current state-of-the-art photon- and proton-based RT combines more conformal dose distribution of target volumes and accurate dose delivery while limiting the adverse radiation effects. PubMed was systematically searched from from 2000 to October 2023 to identify studies reporting outcomes related to treatment of central nervous system (CNS)/skull base tumors with PT in adults. Several studies have demonstrated that proton therapy (PT) provides a reduced dose to healthy brain parenchyma compared with photon-based (xRT) radiation techniques. However, whether dosimetric advantages translate into superior clinical outcomes for different adult brain tumors remains an open question. This review aims at critically reviewing the recent studies on PT in adult patients with brain tumors, including glioma, meningiomas, and chordomas, to explore its potential benefits compared with xRT.
Introduction
Authors: Osterweis Ariel
Published: April 2024

The introduction theorizes the concept of virtuosity as it pertains to contemporary dance and goes on to introduce the themes of the book, including Africanist aesthetics, black radical performance, and queer black masculinities in contemporary dance. The introduction also summarizes each chapter of the book.
Choreography’s Photographic Skin
Authors: Osterweis Ariel
Published: April 2024

This chapter questions the relationship between the moving body and the supposed stillness of photographic imagery. Through a reading of surface and stasis, it explores the status of labor as manifested in the particular photo-choreographic context of an Alvin Ailey poster. Placing dance studies into conversation with critical race studies and visual studies, this chapter asks how skin, flesh, mutability, and labor coalesce to present or undermine a multicultural ideology. It focuses on a poster image for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s (AAADT) City Center season in New York City in 1989, depicting an airborne Desmond Richardson with dancer Elizabeth Roxas in choreographer Donald McKayle’s 1959 Rainbow ’Round My Shoulder, a modern dance piece about a chain gang in the American South. The chapter places movement theory and sociohistorical discourses from AfroAsian studies in conversation with visual race studies’ preoccupation with the photographic. In doing so, it destabilizes assumptions that modern dance (in its focus on the body’s movements over a strict adherence to character) is “postracial,” on the one hand, and best theorized through concepts of kinesthesia and motion, on the other. The chapter questions the relationship between the visuality of skin and the commodified value of black and Asian bodies. It suggests that this poster image fits into a history of the consumption of racialized bodies. Ultimately, this poster urges us to consider how the raced body labors in the service of a multicultural ideology.
Introduction
Authors: Eghigian Greg
Published: April 2024

Since 2017, UFOs (or UAP, as they are now being called) have become a focus of interest for the media, American intelligence agencies, and some prominent scientists. But public interest in UFOs has been around since the Cold War, and it has been a global phenomenon. The history of UFOs is as much about the way UFOs have been investigated and discussed as it is about sightings and encounters. This book chronicles the rise and spread of the world’s preoccupation with UFOs. It begins with a series of unsettling reports of unusual flying objects spotted soon after World War II that first captivated the world’s attention about the prospect that aliens might be visiting earth. It then follows how UFO reports were transformed into mysterious stories that traveled the globe to become the subject of debate and controversy.
From Mystery to Movement, 1947–1960
Authors: Eghigian Greg
Published: April 2024

Over the course of the 1950s, flying saucers and speculation about them traveled the globe and stirred a generation of enthusiasts. UFO groups and clubs emerged at this time in Latin America, Europe, Great Britain, and elsewhere. And in the United States, two of the largest and most influential groups were founded: APRO and NICAP. Most all these organizations took it upon themselves to investigate local sightings and publish news bulletins for subscribers. And as they did, new and even more bizarre stories about UFOs took shape, such as tales about Hitler and the Nazis being behind the phenomenon. None of the developments were centrally directed nor even particularly coordinated. But the early pioneers in ufology succeeded in transforming their shared curiosity into an organized, worldwide movement.
Late Modernism and Its Discontents
Authors: Williamson Ella , Patell Cyrus R. K.
Published: April 2024

This chapter examines the later work of these two canonical US modernist writers, who are treated as major figures in the sixth volume of this literary history, and the role that the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes played in the formation of their literary reputations as the pillars of “high modernism” in the United States. Canonizing Faulkner and Hemingway aligned well with the masculinist perspective that was implicit in this high modernist view, because both writers tended to focus on male protagonists struggling to assert both their individuality and their masculinity against hostile natural, social, and political environments. The chapter concludes by examining the work of Beat writers like Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac, who were both inspired and antagonized by the high modernism of Faulkner and Hemingway and who would, at least for a while, replace these writers on the center stage of the US literary scene.
The Wright Era
Authors: Sollors Werner
Published: April 2024

This chapter investigates the ways in which African American literature after the Second World War can be read as a form of “protest fiction” profoundly influenced by the work of Richard Wright. Understanding the study of African American literature as a child of the Enlightenment and of Quaker-inspired agitation against the slave trade and slavery, the chapter argues that what was once called “Negro literature” was from the start understood to be global and to have deep historical roots, because its discussions included writing and artistic expression of all times, in many languages, and from many known places around the globe. The postwar African American novel continues a tradition of creativity that served as a vindication against racial prejudice. The chapter demonstrates that Wright bequeathed to later African American writers a double legacy of modernism and social urgency.
Science Fiction
Authors: James Edward
Published: April 2024

Arising from the Gothic (with Mary Shelley), from tales of exploration (with Jules Verne), and from stories of the wondrous or horrific potentials of science (with H. G. Wells), science fiction was not a US invention, though the label “science fiction” was first used by the US magazine editor Hugo Gernsback in 1929 and became current in the United States much earlier than in Britain or elsewhere. Aided by the cultural power of Hollywood, US writers in the second half of the century created a new kind of science fiction, which readily translated into other languages. The active creation of a canon, in which US authors predominated, was aided by the growth in the US (and later in the rest of the world) of a community of science fiction fans, as well as international networks kept alive by amateur publications (fanzines) and conventions, and then by email and social media.
The Graphic Novel
Authors: Borenstein Eliot
Published: April 2024

Asking whether a “novel” must be written in prose, this chapter argues that the term “graphic” novel emerged in order to confer prestige on a genre that struggled with an equally inaccurate, but more embarrassing, label: “comics.” Although most of what are called “graphic novels” are simply collections of comics collected and published in hardcover or trade paperback form, the chapter argues that the term “graphic novel” can be usefully applied to the subset of comics that resemble novels by being largely self-contained works of some length that does not seem small, and that usually (but not always) has a beginning, middle, and end. The chapter suggests that we might adapt the idea of the novel in verse to reconceive the graphic novel as a “novel in comics.” The chapter considers the impact of the comics publishing industry and concludes with a consideration of the rise of independent comic publishers.
The Anthropocene Novel
Authors: LeMenager Stephanie
Published: April 2024

This chapter investigates US fiction that engages with the implications of the idea of the Anthropocene, the conception of the current geological age as the first during which human civilization has been the predominant force shaping the earth’s environment. The chapter glosses the genre of “cli fi,” which focuses on climate change as its primary subject and develops the concept of “Anthropocene social fiction,” in which the drama of consciousness becomes entangled in the historical contexts and ecological losses of the period that begins with the Great Acceleration of the 1950s. Examining the ways in which the Anthropocene novel dramatizes the phenomenon of living with a global-scale phenomenon that exceeds individual imagination, the chapter argues that Anthropocene social fictions mark the loss of global capitalist hegemonies which were naturalized by the temperate Holocene climate and attempt to improvise alternative social modes.
Coda
Authors: Patell Cyrus R. K. , Williams Deborah Lindsay
Published: April 2024

The coda to the volume speculates about future developments in the literary history of the US novel. It argues that the move away from the idea of “Americanness” charted in the volume as a whole is likely to continue, whether the novels adopt an epic engagement with the climate emergency or the small-scale intimate approach associated with autofiction. The coda notes a growing sense that “American Literature” is becoming less relevant as an organizing category than the idea of “World Literature,” which is built on the permeability of national boundaries. Noting that the volume’s chapters were written during a time of upheaval in the US, the coda argues that the novel has a continuing role to play in the transformation of thinking that will be necessary if the human race is to survive.
Evolutionary Tax Reform in Emerging Economies
Authors: Conrad Robert F. , Alexeev Michael
Published: April 2024

One approach to tax reform in emerging economies is developed in this text. The approach, labelled ‘Collection-Driven Taxation’ is based on three elements: the taxpayer is always the individual; compliance is enhanced by the extensive use of advanced payments; and suppliers of goods and services, other than the primary inputs of capital and labour, serve as advanced payment agents who withhold or collect advanced tax from individual taxpayers. Income taxation, valued added taxation, excise taxation, and tariffs are supplemented by small business taxation and natural resource contracts, where relevant, and are coordinated to develop an initial framework that can evolve through time based on experience, the economy’s level of development, administrative capacity, and public understanding. The intent is to enable the system to evolve through time via a series of piecemeal changes until the primary revenue source is the income tax.
The Making of Lay Religion in Southern France, c. 1000-1350
Authors: Arnold John H.
Published: April 2024

What was Christianity like for ordinary people between the turn of the millennium and the coming of the Black Death? What changed and what continued in their experience of being Christian across this period? This book answers those questions, through a focus on one specific region—southern France—across a particularly fraught period of history, beset by the changes wrought by the Gregorian reforms (late eleventh‒twelfth century), the growing spectre of heresy (Cathars, Waldensians), the violence of the Albigensian crusade (1209‒29), and the coming of inquisition (1231 onwards). The book uses an array of different historical documents and some archaeological evidence to explore the material contexts of Christian worship from the eleventh through to the fourteenth centuries, the shifting episcopal expectations of the ordinary laity, the changes wrought through wider socioeconomic developments, and periods of sharp inflection brought by the Albigensian crusade and its aftermath. Throughout, the book explores the complex spectrum of lay piety, finding enthusiasms and doubts, faith and scepticism, agency and negotiation. The book tracks change over time, but also explores various key topics thematically: the spaces of Christian worship, the ways in which lay people were instructed in their faith, the particularly ‘disciplinary’ dynamics to sin, confession, and penance, modes of lay negotiation and agency, and in the lived experience of ‘being Christian’ in the late thirteenth/early fourteenth century. The book argues that across these key centuries Christianity became a more interiorized and affective faith; and, it is argued, can be said to have become truly a ‘religion’—a structured and demanding faith, as understood from an anthropological perspective—for the vast mass of Christian believers.
The Opioid Crisis
Authors: Ukockis Gail
Published: April 2024

As society confronts the opioid crisis, harm reduction is one approach to help persons with opioid use disorder. The political spectrum affects the respo*nses to interrelated policy issues such as poverty, child welfare, and the War on Drugs. Stigma is one barrier to advocacy for improving the well-being of both individuals and communities impacted by the opioid crisis.
Balgonie to Balgonie
Authors: Warsh Cheryl Krasnick
Published: April 2024

Frankie Oldham grew up on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, an outpost of ex-British imperial officers like her father Frank, who, with her Scottish mother, Kitty Stuart, ran a gentleperson’s farm. Oldham led a tomboy’s lifestyle with an early love of animals and was educated in local private schools run by other ex-pats, while learning genteel skills like golf, tennis, elocution, and dance. She boarded at St. George’s and St. Margaret’s boarding schools for girls in Victoria, British Columbia, the provincial capital twenty miles away, to complete high school. When Oldham displayed an aptitude for science and a desire to attend university after graduating from the three-year program at fifteen, Kitty arranged an additional senior matriculation year to prepare Oldham for university. In 1930, biology was not part of the curriculum for girls’ education.
Marriage, Motherhood, and Medical School
Authors: Warsh Cheryl Krasnick
Published: April 2024

In 1943, Frances Oldham married Ellis Kelsey, a pharmacologist and co-worker, and they became an excellent working team. Frances faced the fate of many working women who were displaced by returning veterans as the university refused to hire them both. She enrolled in medical school, joining the first post-war cohort. She gave birth to Susan and Christine while in medical school, taking only a quarter-year leave. Frances, Ellis, and Geiling co-wrote Essentials of Pharmacology. She was hired as a medical editor on the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), an ideal job for a physician with young children, and reviewed studies by writers who later would be part of FDA applications. She also developed a deep and broad knowledge of medical advancements. Ellis’s position as Associate Professor was un-tenured, and he could not get a mortgage. He worked in a commercial nuclear medicine operation until he found a permanent position in South Dakota.
Thalidomide Babies
Authors: Warsh Cheryl Krasnick
Published: April 2024

Kelsey sent questionnaires to state health boards to determine the extent of birth defects. Merrell had not followed up with physicians, nor had many physicians kept records on patients; “clinical trials” were simply free samples. Some soldiers’ wives in Germany were affected. FDA inspectors contacted some uncooperative physicians. Most thalidomide baby lawsuits were settled by Richardson-Merrell, although the company put up a strong defence. Lawyers strongly pressured the working-class single mother of Peggy McCarrick to give up her suit. Kelsey was deposed by Richardson-Merrell counsel. When Sherri Chessen, an Arizona children’s TV personality, tried to get an abortion for her thalidomide baby, it made national news, and she became the flashpoint for anti-choice and pro-choice debates. Forced to go to Sweden to have the procedure, Chessen was vilified by male reporters as flighty while she went public to warn other women. Her experience laid the groundwork for the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
The Canadian Connection
Authors: Warsh Cheryl Krasnick
Published: April 2024

Canada’s health department was slow to remove thalidomide, even after American reports. Canada was part of Merrell’s free drug distribution, with national penetration. Media reports forced the federal government to act. Politicians denied responsibility because health care was a provincial jurisdiction, although drug approval was a federal responsibility. Drug legislation was weak, and the department was understaffed. Merrell took months to inform Canadians that thalidomide was withdrawn in Germany, and gave tepid notice of birth defect risks. Thalidomide was found in pharmacies a year after banned. Defensive health officials claimed drug withdrawal was unnecessary without Canadian cases. The public contrasted Kelsey’s quick actions with inaction by government officials. Press reports demonstrated the medical power structure when parents were threatened with no rehabilitation if they were interviewed. Drug researchers characterized the opposition as frenzied and hysterical—female emotional descriptors. The press lauded Kelsey, who received many Canadian awards, although gendered portrayals abounded.
The Living Myth, 1963–1966
Authors: Warsh Cheryl Krasnick
Published: April 2024

The thalidomide tragedy galvanized the FDA into restructuring, including adopting the requirement that drug companies prove safety and efficacy. The Bureau of Medicine was reorganized with Kelsey becoming director of the Investigational Drug Branch, ensuring safety and the consent of trials participants. Kelsey was publicly acclaimed yet faced political pressures and department jealousies. Drug companies noisily opposed the new policies, which resulted in an explosion of new and revised large applications. Kelsey was attacked for moving too slowly through the applications with her small staff. Dornwal was a tranquilizer whose reports omitted deaths, and it was banned. Kelsey received many awards, including selection for the Women’s Hall of Fame, and she spoke on drug regulation and women in science in public venues. She attended European conferences where she learned more about Grünenthal’s licensing practices.
Peaches, Oyster Breath, and Diet Cola
Authors: Warsh Cheryl Krasnick
Published: April 2024

Public pressures began to complicate the approval process. Laetrile was promoted as miracle cancer cure, and Canadian Andrew McNaughton mobilized support for its rapid approval without proper studies. The industrial solvent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) was used as a home remedy for arthritis. Stanley Jacob promoted DMSO without proper studies and encouraged followers to lobby Congress. Kelsey’s superiors tried unsuccessfully to get her to shortcut the approval. The FDA’s Kaniambakam Pani was caught taking bribes from Jacob. Demand for artificial sweeteners led to interference in research on saccharin and Aspartame. The DSI investigated Aspartame’s parent company, G. D. Searle, whose studies were falsified. Kelsey’s comprehensive audit was obstructed by other FDA departments. Despite serious shortcomings, Aspartame was approved, and no charges were laid against Searle, as the Republican government of the time was friendlier to corporations.
The Neighbors
Authors: Paul T.V.
Published: April 2024

This chapter considers the status competition of India with its neighboring countries. It argues that one of the key sources of the persistence of the rivalry between India and Pakistan is their status competition. Over time, as regional hegemony became difficult, India attempted intermittent coercive strategies and positive non-reciprocal concessions toward the smaller neighbors. However, with China’s increasing presence in its immediate neighborhood, India has realized that its great power ambitions lie with the regions beyond South Asia and that it has to obtain higher status through peaceful strategies. Both China and India have increased their impressions abroad in regions of Southeast Asia, the Persian Gulf, and Africa without military conquests or excessive unilateral gains. The chapter notes the potential of the Indian economy to become a central part of trading and investor relations in the larger Indo-Pacific region.
The Global Politics of Sexual and Reproductive Health
Authors: Tanyag Maria
Published: April 2024

The Global Politics of Sexual and Reproductive Health examines everyday inequalities in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and the failure to address them in crisis settings from a feminist International Relations (IR) perspective. Drawing on a richer definition of bodily autonomy, it employs a nested and multi-scalar approach to trace the compounding of restrictions to SRHR with crisis-specific risks and violence from the household, community, state, and global levels. Its central argument is that restrictions to SRHR are not incidental but rather integral to the reproduction of a neoliberal logic of depletion. Bodily autonomy is recognized not as a collateral issue where patriarchal bargains need to be made in order to advance feminism in global agendas but rather as its cornerstone, which ties together all sites, forms, and temporalities of gender equality. This book includes new empirical evidence drawn from primary field research in the Philippines and analysis of wide-ranging secondary sources across conflict and disaster settings.
Hierarchy
Authors: Zhang Angela Huyue
Published: April 2024

This chapter delineates the hierarchy within the Chinese regulatory process by introducing its principal actors: the top leadership, the regulators, the firms, and the platform participants. Each of these actors possesses a complex utility function. The top leadership displays considerable adaptability, skillfully balancing conflicting interests and objectives to sustain its legitimacy. Chinese regulators, on the other hand, vie relentlessly for expanded influence while simultaneously striving to sidestep political risks linked with contradicting Beijing’s initiatives. This dichotomy often results in agencies either taking minimal action or overextending their reach. Chinese firms, meanwhile, demonstrate remarkable flexibility and acumen to thrive within China’s unique institutional landscape. As for the platform participants, their grievances often remain unexpressed, or when articulated, are often muted due to censorship and suppression.
Data Regulation
Authors: Zhang Angela Huyue
Published: April 2024

This chapter explores the regulatory landscape of Chinese data protection, identifying three key challenges: the thriving black market for personal data, government negligence resulting in significant data leaks, and tech firms operating in legal gray areas regarding data collection and sharing. In line with the regulatory dynamics in antitrust enforcement, China’s data protection was initially lax but experienced significant strengthening after the tech crackdown initiated in late 2020. The campaign led to the introduction of rigorous data laws and regulations, particularly regarding cross-border transfers, and increased enforcement actions by administrative agencies and the judiciary. Despite enforcement intensity subsiding in 2022, the newly implemented laws, precedents, and practices are expected to continue shaping China’s data-regulation landscape in the future.
Labor Regulation
Authors: Zhang Angela Huyue
Published: April 2024

This chapter discusses three significant challenges in the Chinese tech sector’s labor regulation: platforms’ algorithmic exploitation of workers, the government’s failure to provide adequate social insurance for migrant and informal sector workers, and the restriction on workers’ rights to form unions. Despite initial sluggishness in addressing labor violations, the tech crackdown beginning in late 2020 saw Chinese labor authorities introduce guidance and measures to enhance platform worker protections. However, the actual judicial practice has shown little change, with courts remaining divided over defining employment relationships for platform workers. Although the courts have offered more protection to self-employed delivery workers, it has affected only a small percentage of cases. Unlike their counterparts in antitrust and data enforcement, labor regulators—including judicial and administrative authorities—showed more restraint due to their broader policy mandates which require them to take into account the economic ramifications of their actions.
The Collective-Action Constitution
Authors: Siegel Neil S.
Published: April 2024

The primary structural purpose of the US Constitution is to empower the federal government to solve collective-action problems for the states and to prevent the states from undermining these solutions or causing such problems. Any faithful account of what the Constitution is for and how it should be interpreted must include this main structural function. The Constitution was established principally because of the widely recognized failures of its predecessor, the Articles of Confederation, to adequately address multistate collective-action problems, including funding the national government, regulating foreign and interstate commerce, and defending the nation from attack. These challenges are called collective-action problems because the states would need to act collectively, not individually, to solve them, and they would often struggle to do so. In a fundamental sense, the US Constitution is the Collective-Action Constitution, and the sobering problems facing America today—including inadequate access to health care, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and future ones, opioid addiction, gun violence, racism and other bigotry, political extremism, unlawful immigration, terrorism, and nuclear proliferation—cannot be adequately dealt with by government if Americans do not recognize this truth. The main goal of the Collective-Action Constitution is not to vindicate a conception of economic efficiency but to create and maintain political and economic union.
Property Law in the Society of Equals
Authors: Essert Christopher
Published: April 2024

Property Law in the Society of Equals is an account of the property law and its justificatory foundations. It begins with the common worry that property is an inegalitarian institution and shows that, contrary to the worry, property is actually an essential constituent of a society of equals. Property law is the solution to the Problem of Yours and Mine, a moral problem about the impossibility of our relating to one another on terms of equality absent an institution that allows us to have things as our own. This understanding of property not only shows why property is required for us to have equal relations, it also provides a distinctive perspective on the ways in which our current institutions of property are defective from their own internal point of view and require radical reform. The book uses this abstract account to explain contemporary property law. The book explains private law doctrines including trespass, licence, nuisance, acquisition, transfer, tenancy, and the law of servitudes; it also illuminates the boundaries between property rights and personal rights and between property rights and contract rights, and explores various liminal cases of property through that lens. In addition, the book critiques property internally, showing how property’s justification requires a state to provide homes to all of its subjects and showing how other parts of the public law of property, including various forms of land use regulation, should be understood as part of the law of property rather than external limitations on it.
Human-aided dispersal and population bottlenecks facilitate parasitism escape in the most invasive mosquito species
Authors: Girard Maxime , Martin Edwige , Vallon Laurent , Tran Van Van , Da Silva Carvalho Camille , Sack Justine , Bontemps Zélia , Balteneck Julie , Colin Florence , Duval Pénélope , Malassigné Simon , Hennessee Ian , Vizcaino Lucrecia , Romer Yamila , Dada Nsa , Ly Huynh Kim Khan , Huynh Thi Thuy Trang , Bellet Christophe , Lambert Gregory , Nantenaina Raharimalala Fara , Jupatanakul Natapong , Goubert Clement , Boulesteix Matthieu , Mavingui Patrick , Desouhant Emmanuel , Luis Patricia , Cazabet Rémy , Hay Anne-Emmanuelle , Valiente Moro Claire , Minard Guillaume
Published: April 2024

During biological invasion process, species encounter new environments and partially escape some ecological constraints they faced in their native range, while they face new ones. The Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus is one of the most iconic invasive species introduced in every inhabited continent due to international trade. It has also been shown to be infected by a prevalent yet disregarded microbial entomoparasite Ascogregarina taiwanensis. In this study, we aimed at deciphering the factors that shape the global dynamics of A. taiwanensis infection in natural A. albopictus populations. We showed that A. albopictus populations are highly colonized by several parasite genotypes but recently introduced ones are escaping it. We further performed experiments based on the invasion process to explain such pattern. To that end, we hypothesized that (i) mosquito passive dispersal (i.e. human-aided egg transportation) may affect the parasite infectiveness, (ii) founder effects (i.e. population establishment by a small number of mosquitoes) may influence the parasite dynamics, and (iii) unparasitized mosquitoes are more prompt to found new populations through active flight dispersal. The two first hypotheses were supported as we showed that parasite infection decreases over time when dry eggs are stored and that experimental increase in mosquitoes’ density improves the parasite horizontal transmission to larvae. Surprisingly, parasitized mosquitoes tend to be more active than their unparasitized relatives. Finally, this study highlights the importance of global trade as a driver of biological invasion of the most invasive arthropod vector species.
The Effect of Total Knee Replacement on Dual–Task Gait Performance in Older Adults
Authors: Azzam Ibrahim , Rozen Nimrod , Eliyahu Amir , Dabby Dan , Elbaz Avi , Mor Amit , Krasovsky Tal
Published: April 2024

Objective

Total knee replacement (TKR) is a common solution for patients with advanced knee osteoarthritis (OA). Still, fall rates remain relatively high after surgery. TKR may alter pain and knee function, balance control, and proprioception. However, given the role of complex (dual-task) walking in fall prediction for older adults, it is unknown how TKR alters the attentional demand of walking in older adults. The goal of this study was to examine the effect of TKR on dual-task walking among older adults.

Methods

Participants were evaluated 1 month before surgery and 4.5 months after surgery. Participants walked along an instrumented 7-meter path for 1 minute with and without a cognitive task (serial-3 subtraction). Pain and knee function, knee proprioception, dynamic balance, and balance confidence, as well as dual-task costs (DTC) were compared before and after the surgery and factors associated with change in gait DTCs were assessed.

Results

Thirty-eight participants completed the study (age 72.6 years, SD = 4.9; 11 men). A significant decrease in pain was found following TKR, with no change in balance, balance confidence, or proprioception. There were no differences in gait DTCs before and after the surgery. However, change in dynamic balance, specifically reactive postural control and dynamic gait, predicted changes in gait speed and stride time DTCs.

Conclusion

The absence of an effect of TKR on gait DTCs can potentially underlie increased fall risk after TKR. Results from this study emphasize the significance of balance as a measure and focal point for rehabilitation after TKR.

Impact

This study contributes to our understanding of the attentional cost of walking in people before and after TKR, as well as to factors associated with it. Results from this work can assist formulation of rehabilitation programs for people with knee OA.
Whose firm? Resilience of the German corporate sector to financialization
Authors: Giovanazzi Carmen
Published: April 2024

We examine how financialization has progressed in the German nonfinancial corporate sector since the 2000s. Using a sample of firms historically listed in the largest German stock market indices, DAX and MDAX, we not only confirm the rise of international passive asset managers but also find a growing prevalence of controlling business families. Although executive pay increasingly consists of equity grants, indicating growing shareholder value orientation, we do not identify corporate financialization in terms of rising share buybacks and payout rates. Instead, ever larger shares of corporate funds are kept inside firms as retained earnings. While firms in the USA ‘downsize-and-distribute’ under the pressure of institutional investors, we hold that German firms ‘save-and-sit-on-it’. Although shaped by the liberalization of corporate governance regulations, this regime still relies on blockholdings and codetermination, while integrating asset managers as new providers of patient capital.
A giant bowfin from a Paleocene hothouse ecosystem in North America
Authors: Brownstein Chase Doran , Near Thomas J
Published: April 2024

Aquatic biodiversity changed dramatically at the start of the Paleogene. Although comparatively little is known about global freshwater ecosystems that appeared just after the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction, available data suggest that they were buffered from the worst effects of the extinction event. Here, we describe a nearly complete skeleton of a large-bodied ray-finned fish from a wetland ecosystem that existed fewer than 10 Myr after the end-Cretaceous extinction in western North America. With a maximum length likely exceeding 2 m, †Amia basiloides sp. nov. is one of the largest species in Holostei, a once species-rich clade of ray-finned fishes now survived by the nine living species of gars and bowfins. High-resolution computed tomography scans illuminate the anatomy of †A. basiloides and suggest it was an analogue of living large-bodied, piscivorous freshwater fishes found in the Southern Hemisphere and southern North America. When considered in a phylogenetic context, †A. basiloides shows that close relatives of living bowfins rapidly achieved gigantism in the Early Paleogene of North America after the largest members of an ancient clade closely related to bowfins went extinct. Although the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary likely induced turnover of freshwater vertebrate predatory guilds, holostean faunas remained ecologically comparable across the extinction due to exceptionally fast episodes of convergence.
Optimization of Amplicon-Based Sequencing for Large-Scale Diagnostics of Known Pome Viruses and Viroids
Authors: Costa Larissa C. , Hu Xiaojun , Lamour Kurt , Devorshak Christina , Foster Joseph A. , Hurtado-Gonzales Oscar P.
Published: April 2024

The implementation of reliable methods for the simultaneous detection of multiple viruses is challenging in plant viral diagnosis. In the present study, we report the development and effectiveness of an optimized version of a robust multiplexed PCR (HiPlex) followed by simultaneous targeted amplicon sequencing to detect 14 viruses and 5 viroids of pome fruit trees. We used amplicon sequencing data from 1,400 pome fruit tree samples previously diagnosed with the HiPlex v.1.0, which included 290 primer pairs for pome viruses. The analysis enabled the identification of highly efficient and specific primer pairs to be assembled in a new HiPlex (dubbed HiPlex v.2.0). Additionally, newly designed primers were implemented for 30% of targeted viruses and viroids. Overall, 116 primer pairs were assembled into the HiPlex v.2.0, resulting in a reduction of the number of primers and multiplex PCR reactions needed by 60 and 50%, respectively. The new HiPlex also includes two nepoviruses, tomato ringspot virus and tobacco ringspot virus, showing flexibility at augmenting and expanding the number of targeted diagnosed viruses using this approach. This optimized set of primers increased the cost-effectiveness and sensitivity while reducing background amplification. Comparable results for virus and viroid detection were obtained using the HiPlex v.2.0 and individual RT-qPCRs, even at a 10,000-fold dilution, demonstrating similar sensitivity to standard PCR-based diagnostics. This new HiPlex-based amplicon sequencing represents a powerful, sensitive, and low-cost tool for large-scale screening of pome fruit trees for all reported viruses and viroids infecting these crops.

[Formula: see text] Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .
Ablation of specific insulin‐like growth factor I forms reveals the importance of cleavage for regenerative capacity and glycosylation for skeletal muscle storage
Authors: Luo Yangyi E. , Villani Katelyn R. , Lei Hanqin , Kuo Li‐Ying , Imery Ian , Stoker Bradley E. , Fatima Naureen , Noles Steven M. , Moore Cara M. , Barton Elisabeth R.
Published: April 2024

Insulin‐like growth factor‐I (IGF‐I) facilitates mitotic and anabolic actions in all tissues. In skeletal muscle, IGF‐I can promote growth and resolution of damage by promoting satellite cell proliferation and differentiation, suppressing inflammation, and enhancing fiber formation. While the most well‐characterized form of IGF‐I is the mature protein, alternative splicing and post‐translational modification complexity lead to several additional forms of IGF‐I. Previous studies showed muscle efficiently stores glycosylated pro‐IGF‐I. However, non‐glycosylated forms display more efficient IGF‐I receptor activation in vitro, suggesting that the removal of the glycosylated C terminus is a necessary step to enable increased activity. We employed CRISPR‐Cas9 gene editing to ablate IGF‐I glycosylation sites (2ND) or its cleavage site (3RA) in mice to determine the necessity of glycosylation or cleavage for IGF‐I function in postnatal growth and during muscle regeneration. 3RA mice had the highest circulating and muscle IGF‐I content, whereas 2ND mice had the lowest levels compared to wild‐type mice. After weaning, 4‐week‐old 2ND mice exhibited higher body and skeletal muscle mass than other strains. However, by 16 weeks of age, muscle and body size differences disappeared. Even though 3RA mice had more IGF‐I stored in muscle in homeostatic conditions, regeneration was delayed after cardiotoxin‐induced injury, with prolonged necrosis most evident at 5 days post injury (dpi). In contrast, 2ND displayed improved regeneration with reduced necrosis, and greater fiber size and muscle mass at 11 and 21 dpi. Overall, these results demonstrate that while IGF‐I glycosylation may be important for storage, cleavage is needed to enable IGF‐I to be used for efficient activity in postnatal growth and following acute injury.
A Comparison of Virtual Reality and Traditional Audio-Recorded Hearing Voices Simulations: Their Impact on Empathy in Health Care Students
Authors: Pina-Thomas Deborah , Zohn Jennifer H. , Phillips Lynn
Published: April 2024

Empathy is essential to the development of communication skills. Simulating psychosis to develop empathy for mental health patients is complex; we hypothesized that virtual reality (VR) would be effective in increasing empathy in health care students. This experimental study compared the effectiveness of a VR simulation with a traditional hearing voices simulation as measured by the Kiersma-Chen Empathy Scale-Revised. Twenty-five health care students were randomized into two groups. The results indicated that both simulated experiences increased empathy levels, supporting the study’s hypothesis. A 10-minute VR simulation is an effective teaching strategy for developing empathy in health care students.
Large Language Models in Medical Education: Comparing ChatGPT- to Human-Generated Exam Questions
Authors: Laupichler Matthias Carl , Rother Johanna Flora , Grunwald Kadow Ilona C. , Ahmadi Seifollah , Raupach Tobias
Published: April 2024

Problem

Creating medical exam questions is time consuming, but well-written questions can be used for test-enhanced learning, which has been shown to have a positive effect on student learning. The automated generation of high-quality questions using large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, would therefore be desirable. However, there are no current studies that compare students’ performance on LLM-generated questions to questions developed by humans.

Approach

The authors compared student performance on questions generated by ChatGPT (LLM questions) with questions created by medical educators (human questions). Two sets of 25 multiple-choice questions (MCQs) were created, each with 5 answer options, 1 of which was correct. The first set of questions was written by an experienced medical educator, and the second set was created by ChatGPT 3.5 after the authors identified learning objectives and extracted some specifications from the human questions. Students answered all questions in random order in a formative paper-and-pencil test that was offered leading up to the final summative neurophysiology exam (summer 2023). For each question, students also indicated whether they thought it had been written by a human or ChatGPT.

Outcomes

The final data set consisted of 161 participants and 46 MCQs (25 human and 21 LLM questions). There was no statistically significant difference in item difficulty between the 2 question sets, but discriminatory power was statistically significantly higher in human than LLM questions (mean = .36, standard deviation [SD] = .09 vs mean = .24, SD = .14; P = .001). On average, students identified 57% of question sources (human or LLM) correctly.

Next Steps

Future research should replicate the study procedure in other contexts (e.g., other medical subjects, semesters, countries, and languages). In addition, the question of whether LLMs are suitable for generating different question types, such as key feature questions, should be investigated.
Exploring Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion–Related Pedagogy Across Different Professions
Authors: Sukhera Javeed , Kennedy Erin , Panza Michael , Rodger Susan , Watling Chris
Published: April 2024

Purpose

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have become an important priority for academic medicine. However, several barriers challenge the effective implementation of DEI-related pedagogy. An exploration of the barriers to and enablers of DEI-related pedagogy—as they relate to professional contexts—can inform how to advance DEI in medical education. Shulman’s notion of signature pedagogies offers a foundation for understanding and exploring the influence of such contexts on teaching and learning. Comparisons across professions may help make signature pedagogies more visible and may facilitate change. In this study, the authors aim to explore how the professional contexts of medicine, nursing, and teacher education approach DEI-related pedagogy.

Method

The authors conducted a qualitative exploratory study using constructivist grounded theory methodology. Using both purposive and theoretical sampling, 24 participants from across the United States and Canada were interviewed, including physicians, nurses, and K-12 teachers in practice as well as professional educators in each discipline (May–December 2022). Interviews included a case-based elicitation approach, and data were analyzed iteratively across the data collection period using constant comparative analysis.

Results

Medicine and nursing tend to prioritize objectivity and seek to avoid or neutralize emotions that are intrinsic to DEI-related learning, view DEI expertise as being outside the purview of their profession, and view time for DEI as limited in a clinical learning environment. In contrast, teaching is built on the assumption that DEI expertise is coconstructed and inclusive of community voices and lived experiences. DEI-related pedagogy in teaching allowed for exploration of deep assumptions and learning about structural inequities.

Conclusions

Findings suggest that assumptions and values held in professions, such as medicine and nursing, that valorize objectivity and neutrality, while stigmatizing vulnerability and suppressing emotions, may constrain DEI-related teaching and learning in such contexts.