bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Before–after control–impact (BACI) assessment of the effects of a deep-water no-take fishery reserve to recover Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus) overfished populations and coexisting megafauna
Authors: Vigo M , Navarro J , Rotllant G , Bahamon N , Carretón M , Quevedo J , Rojas A , Company J B
Published: August 2023

One of the main drivers of marine ecosystem change is fishing activity, bottom trawling being the most intensive fishing practice affecting benthic ecosystems worldwide. In the western Mediterranean Sea, Norway lobster stocks present signs of overexploitation due to trawling pressure, as their biomass and abundance have decreased abruptly during the last few years. No-take fishery reserves, a type of marine protected area where fishing is prohibited, could be efficient management measures to recover Norway lobster overexploited populations and coexisting demersal megafauna. Adopting a BACI (before–after control–impact) approach, we performed experimental fishing surveys before and after 4 years of the implementation of a deep-sea no-take reserve in the northwestern Mediterranean. After 4 years of closure, the Norway lobster population increased in abundance, biomass, body size, and trophic level in the no-take reserve. Our approach also revealed an increase in Norway lobster biomass beyond its boundaries, suggesting a spillover effect. Other demersal fish species also increased in biomass and abundance in the no-take reserve. Based on the results of this study, we suggest that no-take reserves might be an effective measure for recovering the Norway lobster stock and some species present in the same habitat.
Modelling time-varying growth in state-space stock assessments
Authors: Correa Giancarlo M , Monnahan Cole C , Sullivan Jane Y , Thorson James T , Punt André E
Published: August 2023

State-space assessment models (SSMs) have garnered attention recently because of their ability to estimate time variation in biological and fisheries processes such as recruitment, natural mortality, catchability, and selectivity. However, current SSMs cannot model time-varying growth internally nor accept length data, limiting their use. Here, we expand the Woods Hole Assessment Model to incorporate new approaches to modelling changes in growth using a combination of parametric and nonparametric approaches while fitting to length and weight data. We present these new features and apply them to data for three important Alaskan stocks with distinct data and model needs. We conduct a “self-test” simulation experiment to ensure the unbiasedness and statistical efficiency of model estimates and predictions. This research presents the first SSM that can be applied when length data are a key source of information, variation in growth is an essential part of the dynamics of the assessed stock, or when linking climate variables to growth in hindcasts or forecasts is relevant. Consequently, the state-space approach and growth estimation can be applied to more fish stocks worldwide, facilitating real-world applications and implementation of simulation experiments for performance evaluation of SSMs for the many stocks whose assessments rely on length data.
Risk and the Reasonable Refugee: Exploring a Key Credibility Inference in Canadian Refugee Status Rejections
Authors: Evans Cameron Hilary
Published: August 2023

This mixed-methods study analyses a sample of 303 rejections of refugee claims by Canadian refugee status adjudicators. It explores the role that inferences about the claimant’s risk response play in supporting the adjudicators’ conclusions that the claimant is lying. In justifying their negative credibility conclusions, the adjudicators in almost two out of three decisions (63%) cited the claimant’s risk response. They often measured the claimant against a general idealized standard: in the face of an alleged danger, the claimant did not act like a ‘person at risk’. This approach brings to refugee law the confusion that characterizes the common law’s most famous fiction. Like the ‘reasonable man’, the ‘person at risk’ blurs the lines between descriptive analyses aimed at understanding how a person would have acted and normative analyses aimed at establishing how a person should have acted. Moreover, in deciding how a ‘person at risk’ would act, the adjudicators did not consider social scientific sources. For many decades, researchers have investigated how human beings respond to potentially deadly threats such as natural hazards, lethal illnesses, attacks, and assaults. The adjudicators’ reasoning, resting on common sense alone, often ran counter to key insights that emerge from this body of research. This study’s findings suggest that refugee systems must guard against the use of normative standards in drawing credibility inferences from a claimant’s risk response, and that they must do more to ensure that social scientific evidence informs these judgments. Evidence about human risk response should be on the record in every refugee hearing.
“Our Way of Life is not up for Negotiation!”: Climate Interventions in the Shadow of ‘Societal Security’
Authors: McLaren Duncan , Corry Olaf
Published: August 2023

‘Climate security’ conventionally refers to climate change being a multiplier of threats to national security, international peace and stability, or human security. Here we identify a hitherto overlooked inverted climate security discourse in which climate responses (rather than climate impacts) are held to pose an existential threat to dominant fossil fuel-dependent ‘ways of life’, justifying extraordinary measures—societal climate security. In doing so, we seek to make three novel contributions. First, we set out how societal securitization applies beyond a national frame and in relation to transnational threats like climate change, arguing it promotes not just exceptional measures but also palliative ones that avoid challenging incumbent identities. Second, we draw on recent evidence and extant literatures to show that 'societal climate security' already has substantial material emanations in the form of exceptional measures, deployed domestically against climate protestors and externally against climate migrants, in the name of societal order and cohesion. Third, we turn to wider climate policy implications, arguing that societal securitization tilts policy agendas further away from rapid mitigation pathways and toward promissory measures such as ‘geoengineering’—schemes for future, large-scale technological interventions in the climate system—that may appear less threatening to established societal identities. While there are sound ecological and humanitarian rationales to research such technologies, in the context of societal securitization these can be appropriated to defend dominant ‘ways of life’ instead. To conclude, we reflect on how, were it attempted, deployment of solar geoengineering for societal security would affect security politics more widely.
Analytical Performance Evaluation of Three Point-of-Care CBC Analyzers for Management of Clozapine Therapy in Ambulatory Psychiatry Clinics
Authors: Maynard Robert D , Funk Tony , Harrill William , Jin Jenny , Smith Dawn , Smith Gina , Korpi-Steiner Nichole
Published: August 2023

Background

Clozapine is a first-line therapy and the only FDA-approved drug for patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS). However, frequent measurement of absolute neutrophil count (ANC) is required to monitor for potential adverse severe neutropenia from clozapine therapy. We evaluated 3 point-of-care (POC) instruments that perform the complete blood count (CBC) with differential to assess their analytical performance and potential to meet the clinical need for clozapine therapy management.

Methods

A CBC with differential was performed on 104 residual whole blood specimens using 3 CBC analyzers (Sight OLO, PixCell HemoScreen, and Sysmex pocH-100i) to assess analytical precision, linearity, and accuracy vs the ADVIA 2120i and manual differential reference methods. Clinical concordance of ANC between POC devices and manual differential at medical decision points for mild, moderate, or severe neutropenia, and the threshold for clozapine therapy discontinuation (1.0 × 109/L) were determined.

Results

For CBC parameters, a CV ≤ 6.4% was observed on the OLO, CV ≤ 6.2% for the HemoScreen, and CV ≤ 5.1% with the pocH-100i. Each device accurately identified ANC with the greatest mean bias ±0.42 × 109/L using the pocH-100i vs manual differential. For results near the medical decision points (ANC <1.5 × 109/L), clinical concordance of ANC results was 55.6% for the OLO, 89.5% for the HemoScreen, and 82.4% for the pocH-100i.

Conclusions

The HemoScreen device demonstrated the best clinical concordance in ANC values at medical decision thresholds for clozapine therapy management.
A pilot test of an infographic-based health communication intervention to enhance patient education among Latino persons with HIV
Authors: Stonbraker Samantha , Sanabria Gabriella , Tagliaferri Rael Christine , George Maureen , Amesty Silvia , Abraído-Lanza Ana F , Rowell-Cunsolo Tawandra , Centi Sophia , McNair Bryan , Bakken Suzanne , Schnall Rebecca
Published: August 2023

Objective

To pilot test an infographic-based health communication intervention that our team rigorously designed and explore whether its implementation leads to better health outcomes among Latino persons with HIV (PWH).

Materials and Methods

Latino PWH (N = 30) living in New York City received the intervention during health education sessions at 3 study visits that occurred approximately 3 months apart. At each visit, participants completed baseline or follow-up assessments and laboratory data were extracted from patient charts. We assessed 6 outcomes (HIV-related knowledge, self-efficacy to manage HIV, adherence to antiretroviral therapy, CD4 count, viral load, and current and overall health status) selected according to a conceptual model that describes pathways through which communication influences health outcomes. We assessed changes in outcomes over time using quantile and generalized linear regression models controlling for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) research pause and new patient status (new/established) at the time of enrollment.

Results

Most participants were male (60%) and Spanish-speaking (60%); 40% of participants identified as Mixed Race/Mestizo, 13.3% as Black, 13.3% as White, and 33.3% as “other” race. Outcome measures generally improved after the second intervention exposure. Following the third intervention exposure (after the COVID-19 research pause), only the improvements in HIV-related knowledge and current health status were statistically significant.

Discussion and Conclusion

Our infographic-based health communication intervention may lead to better health outcomes among Latino PWH, but larger trials are needed to establish efficacy. From this work, we contribute suggestions for effective infographic use for patient-provider communication to enhance patient education in clinical settings.
Free Tissue Reconstruction of a Liquid Nitrogen Burn: A Case Report and Literature Review
Authors: Daly Patrick , McCrossan Susan , McInerney Niall M
Published: August 2023

Due to its boiling point of −196 °C, liquid nitrogen is a cryogenic substance which is commonly used in many industries for its cooling properties. However, this extreme cooling capability means that it also has the potential to inflict severe full-thickness burns. Despite its widespread use in the workplace, very little has been described in the literature regarding complex reconstruction of liquid nitrogen burns. We present a case that is unique, not only in its unusual mechanism of injury but also in that it is the first described case of free tissue reconstruction of cryogenic burns.
Finding Facts in Medieval English Law
Authors: Kamali Elizabeth Papp
Published: August 2023

Accounts of the post-Lateran IV period tend to emphasize the different procedural paths taken by English courts, which adopted jury trial for felony cases, and continental European courts, which turned toward inquisitorial methods and a greater reliance on confession. This article argues that the fact-finding strategies of the two systems had more in common than may appear at first glance due, in part, to a shared cultural reservoir exemplified by the strategy of circumstantial inquiry employed by confessors. Rather than focusing on the point of greatest difference, the trial jury, this article examines pre-trial investigative processes to emphasize shared jurisprudential priorities.
Board composition and performance of state-owned enterprises: quasi-experimental evidence
Authors: Baltrunaite Audinga , Cannella Mario , Mocetti Sauro , Roma Giacomo
Published: August 2023

We analyze the impact of board composition on the performance of companies controlled by public entities in Italy, using a reform-induced change. The law’s provisions, aimed at increasing female representation and at reducing the revolving-door phenomenon, were binding for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), but not for companies with a minority share of public ownership, allowing to adopt a difference-in-differences estimation. Results show that female presence on the boards of directors of SOEs increased, while that of former politicians decreased. New directors replaced older and less talented men, thereby rejuvenating the boards and improving their quality. To assess the effects on firm performance, we analyze companies’ balance sheets and survey information on citizens’ satisfaction with the provision of local public services and on objective measures of their quality. While firm productivity remains unaffected, we find that profitability increases and leverage decreases, thereby lowering corporate credit risk, and that SOEs’ output quality improves (JEL G34, L32, H42).
Organoids in COVID-19: can we break the glass ceiling?
Authors: Chau Chiu Wang , Sugimura Ryohichi
Published: August 2023

COVID-19 emerged in September 2020 as a disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. The disease presented as pneumonia at first but later was shown to cause multisystem infections and long-term complications. Many efforts have been put into discovering the exact pathogenesis of the disease. In this review, we aim to discuss an emerging tool in disease modeling, organoids, in the investigation of COVID-19. This review will introduce some methods and breakthroughs achieved by organoids and the limitations of this system.
The influence of landscape features on the population connectivity and genetic structure of the Edible Dormouse Glis glis in Poland
Authors: Moska Magdalena , Mucha Anna , Wierzbicki Heliodor , Nowak Błażej
Published: August 2023

In this study, we analyze and compare the genetic structure of edible dormice representing five populations, inhabiting forest complexes in southwestern Poland that differ in their degree of fragmentation and isolation. Total genomic DNA was isolated from hairs with bulbs of 145 individuals captured between 2018 and 2020. All dormice sampled were genotyped at 14 microsatellite loci. Population genetic analyses showed that genetic variability in the studied dormice, assessed based on observed and expected heterozygosity as well as allelic richness, was on average very low (0.39, 0.43, and 2.83, respectively). In the populations studied, genetic structure was detected indicating two or five distinct genetic clusters, the existence of which can be attributed to either historical factors or modern human activity. Genetic differentiation between dormice living in the studied localities, determined by FST, ranged from 0.07 to 0.40 (all FST coefficients were significant at P < 0.05). A significant positive correlation was detected between genetic differentiation and geographic distance (r = 0.645, P < 0.017), indicating that genetic differentiation increases with distance, but no correlation between genetic differentiation and habitat barriers (r = 0.359, P < 0.132). The results of this research are compared to those of other European populations of edible dormice, and implications for the future of this endangered species are discussed.
Performing financial communication as professional practice: The interplay of consensus and tension in earnings calls
Authors: Hirsto Heidi , Koskela Merja , Jokipii Annukka
Published: August 2023

Financial communication is a form of organizational communication that links strategic and managerial views on the firm with the surveilling gaze of investors and the financial market, thereby functioning as a practice of transparency. In this article, we focus on the interaction between corporate managers and market analysts in an institutionalized, professional genre of financial communication: the earnings call. Our goal is to increase understanding of how the earnings call as a public and interactional genre contributes to the enactment and constitution of financial communication as a professional practice. We conduct a close analysis of four earnings calls, combining a term-based analysis of the conceptual structuring of the calls with a discourse–rhetorical analysis of manager–analyst interaction. The analysis shows how communication of consensus, based on evoking a common body of expertise, alternates with expressions of potential tension in ways that have complex and contradictory effects on transparency. While the evocation of expertise signals common ground and boundaries around the professional practice, the rhetoric of tension constructs boundaries between the professional roles, producing a relation of surveillance. We consider both the ideational consensus and the role-related tension as performative achievements and constitutive elements of the earnings call. Their combination functions to perform earnings call as a site of both specialized expertise and transparency, thus lending legitimacy to financial communication as a professional practice. Through applying a communication-centered theoretical lens, the study adds to the understanding of professions as constructed in and through professional relations, and through the communicative practices that structure and stabilize these relations.
Estimating the causal effects of multiple intermittent treatments with application to COVID-19
Authors: Hu Liangyuan , Ji Jiayi , Joshi Himanshu , Scott Erick R , Li Fan
Published: August 2023

To draw real-world evidence about the comparative effectiveness of multiple time-varying treatments on patient survival, we develop a joint marginal structural survival model and a novel weighting strategy to account for time-varying confounding and censoring. Our methods formulate complex longitudinal treatments with multiple start/stop switches as the recurrent events with discontinuous intervals of treatment eligibility. We derive the weights in continuous time to handle a complex longitudinal data set without the need to discretise or artificially align the measurement times. We further use machine learning models designed for censored survival data with time-varying covariates and the kernel function estimator of the baseline intensity to efficiently estimate the continuous-time weights. Our simulations demonstrate that the proposed methods provide better bias reduction and nominal coverage probability when analysing observational longitudinal survival data with irregularly spaced time intervals, compared to conventional methods that require aligned measurement time points. We apply the proposed methods to a large-scale COVID-19 data set to estimate the causal effects of several COVID-19 treatments on the composite of in-hospital mortality and intensive care unit (ICU) admission relative to findings from randomised trials.
Feasibility of laparoscopic microwave ablation of caudate tumors: a case series
Authors: White McKenzie J , Nelson Alexander T , Wothe Jillian , Ankeny Jacob S , Brauer David , Larocca Christopher J , Jensen Eric H
Published: August 2023

Microwave ablation of liver tumors allows preservation of liver parenchyma with good oncologic outcomes. However, ablation of tumors in the caudate lobe is particularly challenging. Adjacent critical anatomy, particularly the biliary hilum, has led to caudate location being considered a relative contraindication to ablation. To date, no series have described laparoscopic microwave ablation of caudate tumors of the liver. We describe our early experience with laparoscopic microwave ablation of caudate tumors. In this retrospective review of a prospectively maintained single-institution database, six patients with six primary or secondary caudate tumors underwent laparoscopic microwave ablation with no complications. At a median follow-up of 10.5 months, five out of six patients are free of caudate recurrence. Laparoscopic microwave ablation of caudate tumors is feasible. Long-term follow-up is needed to determine if local recurrence risk is higher than in other anatomical segments.
Spontaneous rectus sheath and retroperitoneal haemorrhage secondary to enoxaparin injections
Authors: Sohail Aroon , Naqvi Jawad , Wilson Paul
Published: August 2023

Bleeding from enoxaparin is a recognized side effect; however, the formation of rectus sheath and retroperitoneal haematomas is a rare and potentially life-threatening complication. Patients may present insidiously and without symptoms; therefore, high clinical suspicion of a bleeding intra-abdominal haematoma should be suspected in patients with a combination of clinical and biochemical evidence of bleeding. Treatment is patient dependent and is either interventional or conservative in approach. Clinicians should be mindful when prescribing high-dose enoxaparin with further caution advised for at-risk patients.
Blackstone’s Senior Investigating Officers’ Handbook
Authors: Cook Tony
Published: August 2023

This book provides step-by-step, easy to understand guidance on all the necessary considerations, procedures, and processes for a Senior Investigating Officer (SIO), whether performing the role at the very outset of an investigation or at the more advanced stages. Chapters include guidance regarding decision-making and the initial response, setting up and managing an investigation, investigative strategies, policy logs, victim, family, and community management, and liaison with the media. There is also instruction on suspect and witness management, conducting ‘TIE’ (Trace, Investigate, and Evaluate) enquiries, child sexual exploitation and investigating sudden and unexplained infant deaths. Each chapter covers the important areas of a complex investigation with checklists, keypoints, and real-life case studies to help explain the processes and why they are important. All the main investigative foundations, knowledge, and skills for mounting a complex investigation are covered. The sixth edition also includes a new chapter on investigating suspicious missing persons. Each chapter has been completely updated and refreshed to reflect new changes and processes applicable to each individual section.
Covert Investigation
Authors: Harfield Clive , Harfield Karen
Published: August 2023

Examining all the issues needed to consider when deploying investigative tools under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, this book provides a detailed guide to this important, complex, and sometimes controversial area of the law. It sets the context for the moral management of covert investigations, and the statutory principles underpinning such interventions. Authorization and governance frameworks are discussed, with emphasis on issues facing authorizing officers, as well as a focus on practical management issues from strategic and operational perspectives. Part 2 concentrates on the statutory elements of covert investigations, addressing directed surveillance, intrusive surveillance, property interference, and surveillance through communications and the data it generates. There is also discussion of the use of covert human intelligence sources, especially the significant moral issues arising from relationship manipulation and privacy intrusion within the sphere of covert investigations.
The Detention and Treatment of Vulnerable Suspects
Authors: Ozin Paul , Norton Heather
Published: August 2023

This chapter describes particular classes of detainee who may have difficulty in understanding the significance of procedures, questioning, and the potential implication of any decisions they may make or responses they may give. It discusses detainees that are recognized as special groups in Code C 3(B), which are deemed in need of special protection. It also explores Code C, this provides safeguards covering the detention, treatment, and questioning of the members of special groups. The chapter emphasizes how the Codes of Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 recognize that special groups may be liable to give misleading, unreliable, or self-incriminating evidence. It states that any breach of the safeguards designed to protect the interests of special groups may give rise to a subsequent successful application to exclude any obtained evidence.
‘Budapest’s Gift to the Movies’: Franziska Gaal’s Film Career in 1930s Europe and Hollywood
Authors: Dämon Hanja
Published: August 2023

Hungarian-born actress Franziska (or Franciska) Gaal was an interwar star whose film career spanned different countries and continents. Contemporary trade press and newspaper articles reveal her international fame during the 1930s, and trace her attempts to conquer Hollywood, where the studio system dictated that she lose weight and dye her hair. As she was unable to continue her career in Europe due to her Jewish heritage, this article examines her trajectory in Europe and the United States in the context of exile. It also interrogates how one of Europe’s top stars for an entire decade could fade from public memory and drift into oblivion, especially in the German-speaking countries where she was once so successful.
Photoswitchable molecular glue for RNA: reversible photocontrol of structure and function of the ribozyme
Authors: Dohno Chikara , Kimura Maki , Fujiwara Yusuke , Nakatani Kazuhiko
Published: August 2023

Single-stranded RNA folds into a variety of secondary and higher-order structures. Distributions and dynamics of multiple RNA conformations are responsible for the biological function of RNA. We here developed a photoswitchable molecular glue for RNA, which could reversibly control the association of two unpaired RNA regions in response to light stimuli. The photoswitchable molecular glue, NCTA, is an RNA-binding ligand possessing a photoisomerizable azobenzene moiety. Z-NCTA is an active ligand for the target RNA containing 5′-WGG-3′/5′-WGG-3′ (W = U or A) site and stabilizes its hybridized state, while its isomer E-NCTA is not. Photoreversible isomerization of NCTA enabled control of the secondary and tertiary structure of the target RNA. The RNA-cleaving activity of hammerhead ribozyme, where appropriate RNA folding is necessary, could be reversibly regulated by photoirradiation in cells treated with NCTA, demonstrating precise photocontrol of RNA structure and function by the photoswitchable molecular glue.
Strategies to identify and edit improvements in synthetic genome segments episomally
Authors: Rudolph Alexandra , Nyerges Akos , Chiappino-Pepe Anush , Landon Matthieu , Baas-Thomas Maximilien , Church George
Published: August 2023

Genome engineering projects often utilize bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) to carry multi-kilobase DNA segments at low copy number. However, all stages of whole-genome engineering have the potential to impose mutations on the synthetic genome that can reduce or eliminate the fitness of the final strain. Here, we describe improvements to a multiplex automated genome engineering (MAGE) protocol to improve recombineering frequency and multiplexability. This protocol was applied to recoding an Escherichia coli strain to replace seven codons with synonymous alternatives genome wide. Ten 44 402–47 179 bp de novo synthesized DNA segments contained in a BAC from the recoded strain were unable to complement deletion of the corresponding 33–61 wild-type genes using a single antibiotic resistance marker. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) was used to identify 1–7 non-recoding mutations in essential genes per segment, and MAGE in turn proved a useful strategy to repair these mutations on the recoded segment contained in the BAC when both the recoded and wild-type copies of the mutated genes had to exist by necessity during the repair process. Finally, two web-based tools were used to predict the impact of a subset of non-recoding missense mutations on strain fitness using protein structure and function calls.
Let's make it clear: systematic exploration of mitochondrial DNA– and RNA–protein complexes by complexome profiling
Authors: Potter Alisa , Cabrera-Orefice Alfredo , Spelbrink Johannes N
Published: August 2023

Complexome profiling (CP) is a powerful tool for systematic investigation of protein interactors that has been primarily applied to study the composition and dynamics of mitochondrial protein complexes. Here, we further optimized this method to extend its application to survey mitochondrial DNA- and RNA-interacting protein complexes. We established that high-resolution clear native gel electrophoresis (hrCNE) is a better alternative to preserve DNA– and RNA–protein interactions that are otherwise disrupted when samples are separated by the widely used blue native gel electrophoresis (BNE). In combination with enzymatic digestion of DNA, our CP approach improved the identification of a wide range of protein interactors of the mitochondrial gene expression system without compromising the detection of other multiprotein complexes. The utility of this approach was particularly demonstrated by analysing the complexome changes in human mitochondria with impaired gene expression after transient, chemically induced mitochondrial DNA depletion. Effects of RNase on mitochondrial protein complexes were also evaluated and discussed. Overall, our adaptations significantly improved the identification of mitochondrial DNA– and RNA–protein interactions by CP, thereby unlocking the comprehensive analysis of a near-complete mitochondrial complexome in a single experiment.
Modelling perception as a hierarchical competition differentiates imagined, veridical, and hallucinated percepts
Authors: Sulfaro Alexander A , Robinson Amanda K , Carlson Thomas A
Published: August 2023

Mental imagery is a process by which thoughts become experienced with sensory characteristics. Yet, it is not clear why mental images appear diminished compared to veridical images, nor how mental images are phenomenologically distinct from hallucinations, another type of non-veridical sensory experience. Current evidence suggests that imagination and veridical perception share neural resources. If so, we argue that considering how neural representations of externally generated stimuli (i.e. sensory input) and internally generated stimuli (i.e. thoughts) might interfere with one another can sufficiently differentiate between veridical, imaginary, and hallucinatory perception. We here use a simple computational model of a serially connected, hierarchical network with bidirectional information flow to emulate the primate visual system. We show that modelling even first approximations of neural competition can more coherently explain imagery phenomenology than non-competitive models. Our simulations predict that, without competing sensory input, imagined stimuli should ubiquitously dominate hierarchical representations. However, with competition, imagination should dominate high-level representations but largely fail to outcompete sensory inputs at lower processing levels. To interpret our findings, we assume that low-level stimulus information (e.g. in early visual cortices) contributes most to the sensory aspects of perceptual experience, while high-level stimulus information (e.g. towards temporal regions) contributes most to its abstract aspects. Our findings therefore suggest that ongoing bottom-up inputs during waking life may prevent imagination from overriding veridical sensory experience. In contrast, internally generated stimuli may be hallucinated when sensory input is dampened or eradicated. Our approach can explain individual differences in imagery, along with aspects of daydreaming, hallucinations, and non-visual mental imagery.
Dietary, macronutrient, micronutrient, and nutrigenetic factors impacting cardiovascular risk markers apolipoprotein B and apolipoprotein A1: a narrative review
Authors: Nacarelli Gregory S , Fasolino Tracy , Davis Stephanie
Published: August 2023

Genetic predisposition and dietary factors can impact cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Two important markers in assessing CVD risk are apolipoprotein (apo) B and apolipoprotein A1 plasma levels. These markers are measured as a ratio, with a high apoB:apoA1 ratio associated with increased CVD risk. Dietary and lifestyle recommendations are the cornerstone of managing primary and secondary CVD risk-mitigation strategies. One way to assess the impact of various dietary and lifestyle interventions on CVD risk is to evaluate the changes in CVD risk markers, such as apoB, apoA1, and apoB:apoA1 ratio. Various human studies have demonstrated the impact of dietary, macronutrient, and micronutrient interventions on apoB and apoA1 status. This review aims to elucidate dietary, macronutrient, micronutrient, and nutrigenetic considerations for impacting apoB and apoA1 levels. A low-carbohydrate, high-saturated-fat diet, low fiber intake, low vitamin and mineral intake, and zinc and iron deficiency are associated with an elevated apoB:apoA1 ratio. The Mediterranean diet, vegan diet, fermented dairy products, lower sugar intake, higher protein intake, higher polyunsaturated fat intake, and an omega-3–rich diet are associated with a decreased apoB:apoA1 ratio. Micronutrients associated with a decreased apoB:apoA1 ratio include vitamin D sufficiency, increased serum vitamin C, and magnesium. Variants in the APOE, APOA1, and FADS2 genes may alter the apoB:apoA1 ratio in response to various dietary interventions. When accounting for factors that may favorably alter the apoB:apoA1 ratio, researchers should consider a healthy diet sufficient in polyunsaturated fats, vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, and lower excess sugars.
Promoting health and wellbeing at health precincts: a rapid review of four built environment audit tools for assessing health precincts
Authors: Liu Edgar , Lagisz Malgorzata , Reid Andrew , de Leeuw Evelyne
Published: August 2023

In Australia, ‘health precincts’ are increasingly touted as the new innovation hub. They perform important health care functions, and often incorporate vital research and innovation roles. As such, they do not only assist patients in recovery but also promote health and wellbeing to safeguard their patients, visitors and workers. Although their functions in disease care are unquestionable, less is known about whether and how health precincts promote health and wellbeing. Over the past decade, several audit tools have been developed to assess the degrees of, first, sustainability and, more recently, health promotion of individual buildings. No comparable audit tools, however, exist that can account for the role of health promotion of multi-building and multi-functional spaces like health precincts. This paper reports on a rapid review on the suitability of four existing built environment audit tools—the Health Facility Audit Tool, health impact assessments, the WELL Building Standard checklist, and the Built Environment Assessment Tool—for assessing the promotion of health in health precincts. Twenty-six papers published in English between 2010 and 2022 were included in this rapid review, many (n = 15) of which were critical assessment of one of the four tools. Our findings show a lack of application of such tools at the precinct scale, with many instead focusing on the city or metropolitan scale (n = 7) or individual office buildings (n = 5). For each audit tool, we report on the benefits and drawbacks highlighted. We conclude with suggestions on how these audit tools may be adapted for application at health precincts.
The Millennial Woman in Bollywood
Authors: Rao Maithili
Published: August 2023

The subtitle says it all: how and why Bollywood found it worthwhile to explore the reality of the millennial women who are thriving in India—small part of the demographics but very influential. Advertising discovered women as choosy consumers and influencers. The Hindi film Heroine is a brand and brand ambassador. The market met the needs of contemporary women who are independent, with freer attitudes to relationships, including pre-marital sex and life choices. Romcoms reflect this new found freedom, defying patriarchy that still defines our society. Globalization is culturally irreversible. From the 1990s onwards, Bollywood has responded to globalization in a paradoxical way: fear of losing our cultural identity and strong desire to integrate with global trends. It results in popular cinema becoming glocal. Bollywood has found it creatively and commercially satisfying to explore all facets of this new fascinating creature, the millennial woman who is more than a buzzword. With the injection of energy by ambitious Indie filmmakers, Bollywood now celebrates nonconformists, subversives. woman the hero, women the professional … in engaging and enlightening ways. It applauds young women who unequivocally said No means No. Most daringly, iconic characters like Choti Bahu, Paro, and Chandramukhi transformed into today’s women with the power to change their lives. This is due to the creative vigour infused into the mainstream by indie filmmakers with vision and the will to tell stories in their own way.
Introduction
Authors: Rao Maithili
Published: August 2023

The chapter introduces the idea of the millennial woman as a 21st-century Indian woman attempting to express her identity on her own terms. Data on the ground shows that the increased participation of women in the workforce, in numbers and professions, has enabled her emergence. Bollywood and popular culture have been influential in making the millennial woman acceptable. The idea has been mainstreamed by recent films and female stars and has percolated into small towns. Stars like Deepika Padukone and Anushka Sharma exude youth, attitude, and achievement carried with panache, function as ‘brand ambassadors’—as themselves and through commodities they endorse. Consumption may be key to making of the self, but the millennial woman is not merely a narcissistic pleasure seeker. The recent anti-CAA protests have shown she is political and a defender of social values.
Woman the Hero
Authors: Rao Maithili
Published: August 2023

The female hero in Bollywood has emerged as a response to the clamour for meaningful representation of women in cinema. Either a nurturing or destructive force, she draws on the mythological Durga and Kali—the two faces Shakti. Women heroes drive the action and narrative. Kahani (2012) and NH10 (2015) pivot on the journeys of women in search of revenge and justice, who much like the archetypical hero, enter unknown and dangerous terrains. Vidya (Kahani, 2012) acts alone to resolve the mystery of her husband’s disappearance. Meera (Anushka Sharma, NH10, 2015) is an urban professional who confronts entrenched patriarchal forces at Delhi’s borders. Heroes can be seemingly ordinary women who overcome hurdles—societal and personal. Deepika Padukone’s Chhapaak (2020) based on acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal celebrates her transformation from victim to compassionate activist. Domestic worker Chanda’s dream is to end the cycle of poverty by enabling her daughter to become a district collector (Swara Bhaskar, Nil Battey Sannata, 2015). Secret Superstar (2017) celebrates the mutually empowering bond between the 15-year-old Insia (Zaira Wasim) and her mother who battle the everyday ugliness of patriarchy within the home to liberate themselves. Biopics celebrate the lives of women in male dominated sports (Dangal, 2016; Mary Kom, 2014). Neerja (2016) and Raazi (2018) are about real-life heroes in previously male territory—situations that are dangerous to people and the state itself. Bollywood sheroes exemplify the idea of the hero as a gender-neutral being—someone who fights for the greater good and succeeds.
The Boundary of Laughter
Authors: De Aniket
Published: August 2023

The Boundary of Laughter explores the historical transformation of popular imagination and performance in relation to the emergence of national borders in modern South Asia. Combining archival research with ethnographic fieldwork, it analyses how peasants and laborers presently dwelling on either side of the Indo-Bangladesh border have used the performance tradition known as Gambhira to taunt oppressors, mobilize political sentiment, frame socio-economic demands and respond to seismic political shifts since 1900. Rejecting the idea of ‘communalism’, or the theory of perpetual conflict between the Hindus and Muslims, the book explores Gambhira as a shared social space, constituted through relations across national and religious boundaries. The history of Gambhira shows how the performance existed seamlessly, harnessing both Muslim and Hindu life-worlds and uniting them in the face of colonial oppression. Then came Partition: when, after a troubling process of alignment, a border was forcefully imposed on the region, aiming to place Muslims on one side and Hindus on the other; this ultimately produced two versions of Gambhira, each with their particular postcolonial histories and postcolonial performative forms (one still featuring Shiva, the other taking up the trope of the grandfather/grandson). The shared cultural space of Gambhira, in other words, have not been confined to the territorial boundaries of nation-states. The book uses Gambhira as a lens to examine how performances at South Asia’s borders serve to mediate between larger political-economic changes and smaller, lived worlds of popular expression.
A Preliminary Description of Biblical Verse
Authors: Grosser Emmylou J.
Published: August 2023

Chapter 2 provides a basic introduction to biblical verse-poetry, exploring the following aspects: (1) Biblical poetry is an aural, and not a visual, phenomenon. (2) Biblical poetic lines are not cued by text-internal end-marking; rather, they emerge in patterned or organized relation to each other. (3) Biblical poetic lines emerge in small groupings, often of two or three lines but sometimes larger. (4) Biblical poetry is free-rhythm poetry. (5) Lines of biblical poetry are of variable lengths, but they tend to fall within certain ranges. (6) Biblical poetic lines are structural units of poems built from all aspects of language. These discussions lay the groundwork for a non-parallelistic description of biblical verse-poetry and raise important issues that the book’s cognitive approach accounts for in subsequent chapters.
Symmetry, Balance and Imbalance
Authors: Grosser Emmylou J.
Published: August 2023

Chapter 5 explains the Gestalt principle of symmetry and demonstrates how it functions to create structure and produce effects in various contexts, from line-pairs to larger groupings and stanzas to entire poems. Symmetry is a specific kind of similarity: a similarity both of components and their position within a whole. As a property of wholes, symmetry has the potential to produce perceptual forces that are exploited in the artistry of biblical poems. Another aspect of this artistry is whether symmetry is complete or partial, strong or weak. Because symmetry requires balance but is distinct from it, symmetry provides contexts in which to study balance and imbalance in biblical poetry. Balance and imbalance are felt phenomena that are related to the perceptual tendencies of leveling and sharpening.
“The Stock of a Connoisseur?”
Authors: Harding Graham
Published: August 2023

This chapter examines the uncertain origins and shallow diffusion of connoisseurship among wine drinkers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. From the mid-century in Great Britain, a steady flow of wine books began to create a vinous framework that reflected the wide range of wines available in the country’s metropolitan centers. The term connoisseur and the concept of connoisseurship became staple elements in the marketing of wine. However, various factors combined to enable brand owners to exploit a connoisseurship that was based more on a knowledge of brands and acquired or pretended taste for dry champagne than on a depth of expertise or real tasting skill. In ways that prefigured modern marketing practices, the owners of wine brands began to develop and exploit the heritage of the different houses, to link their products to discerning taste and establish their key personnel as taste makers in their own right.
Acoustics, Echoes, and Whispering Galleries in Romantic Literature
Authors: Mcdowell Stacey
Published: August 2023

This chapter focuses on nineteenth-century writers who seek to capture something about the movement of sound in vast, airy buildings (the way music seems to linger in the roof of a chapel, for example, or the echoes that resound in a whispering gallery). Writing about the acoustics of architectural space prompts a related concern with how literary form contains and preserves sound. Since sound is often thought of as a fleeting phenomenon, the way it can linger, reverberate, or echo offers a suggestive metaphor for thinking about how literature can preserve and reproduce sound, holding things in the memory as it amplifies or distorts them. The possible flip side of this effect may involve the persistence of nagging fears or the ceaseless reverberations of self-reproach, as the chapter examines in Thomas De Quincey’s work.
The Roar on the Other Side of Silence
Authors: Zwierlein Anne-Julia
Published: August 2023

Tracing nineteenth-century scientific interest in the epistemology and phenomenology of the auditory sense, its variable scales and potential enhancement via sense engineering technologies, this chapter intervenes in the study of literature and the senses on several connected levels. Probing literary resonances of the new techniques for capturing and transporting sounds, the chapter focuses on nineteenth-century literary texts’ pronounced awareness of their own mediality and performativity. Such textual self-reflexivity becomes manifest in some central phenomena recurring throughout nineteenth-century literary explorations of the auditory sense: unlocatable sound; hypersensitivity to sound; and the inescapability of sound. Moreover, the chapter argues that besides these scientific and aesthetic dimensions of textually mediated sensory perception, we have to assess its political dimension: nineteenth-century literary evocations of the sense of hearing always also negotiate shifts in gender, class, and ethnic relations, producing new vocalities as well as imperial echo chambers.
Bartholomew Fair’s Olfactory Cross-Mappings
Authors: Karremann Isabel
Published: August 2023

This chapter explores the various olfactory cross-mappings at work in Ben Jonson’s city comedy Bartholomew Fair as a case study for understanding the material and perceptual interaction between space, performance, and audience in the early modern theatre. It uncovers how the audience was implicated in creating the olfactory environment of the theatre: the theatre’s smellscape was a result of their bodily presence and the olfactory affordances of the material environment as well as of the audiences’ perceptual experience of them and the associations and memories such smells evoked for them. The chapter argues that cross-mappings, supported by olfactory signatures of particular places, are a dramaturgic principle of Bartholomew Fair, which deftly employs the affordances of the theatre as an olfactory environment which is jointly created by actors, props, and audience, in a performance that infuses inanimate matter with the spirit of theatricality.