bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Magical Realism Science Fiction
Authors: Duchovnay Gerald
Published: March 2023

As its name implies, magical realism discovers an element of the magical or mystical in the familiar world, using that discovery to, in the best science fiction (sf) tradition, “estrange” our view of the everyday, while also enriching human experience. Born from Latin American fantasy literature, it finds in the sf film a way of creating striking visual and contextual juxtapositions that blur the boundaries between the real and the fantastic, as in the Gill Man of The Shape of Water, the video game figures of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, or the labyrinth of Pan’s Labyrinth. More than just fantasy, magical realism in an sf context reveals how the mind, the imagination, even everyday objects can serve as sf technologies to help people cope with or change the world.
Currents in Tamil Lexicography
Authors: James Gregory , Jayadevan V.
Published: March 2023

Modern Tamil lexicography has been motivated by the desire to record the lexical wealth of the past, and provide tools for the rejuvenation of the language through the creation of Tamil words for all facets of modern life. The Tamil Lexicon offered an exhaustive compilation of Tamil vocabulary through the ages. A dictionary is, however, not only a linguistic artefact, but also a codification of the language ideology of a community. In the case of Tamil, a contemporary ideology of prescriptive linguistic purism motivates suggesting native roots for new words, and replacements for borrowed terms. This is buttressed by a top-down, state-sponsored lexicographic endeavour, represented by the Tamil Nadu government’s Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Tamil Language. A competing ideology is the descriptive, bottom-up approach espoused in the Cre-A: Dictionary, a commercial enterprise informed by digitized corpus data from modern literary, technical, and journalistic writing.
The Brain and Body’s Threat System Functioning in Those with NSSI
Authors: Carosella Katherine A. , Wiglesworth Andrea , Başgöze Zeynep , Cullen Kathryn R. , Klimes-Dougan Bonnie
Published: March 2023

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) defies the core purpose of the brain and body’s threat processing and response system: self-preservation and protection from harm. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis coordinates the endocrine response to threats. Preliminary evidence suggests that individuals who engage in NSSI demonstrate blunted cortisol responses to stressors and possibly elevations in basal cortisol. The neural threat system involves the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), prefrontal cortex (PFC), and insula. Individuals with a history of NSSI have been shown to have structural alterations in and between the ACC, insula, and amygdala. Functional connectivity between the amygdala and PFC has been shown to be altered in adolescents with a history of NSSI as well. Further, individuals with a history of NSSI have been shown to have increased amygdala activation in response to emotional stimuli. Work that integrates multiple modes of measuring stress response has shown discordance between the HPA axis response, experience of stress, and expression of stress among those with more severe NSSI. More work is needed to disentangle discordance within the threat processing system. Additionally, there is a need for more nuanced understanding of (a) environmental mechanisms of risk and protection, (b) implications of sustained engagement in NSSI, and (c) a broader array of pathology as it relates to biological threat-system disturbances for those who engage in NSSI. Future work on NSSI should explore ways to mitigate the impact of risk factors and leverage the protective factors and neurobiological and psychological underpinnings of NSSI to identify novel treatment modalities.
Theoretical Models Linking NSSI to Suicide
Authors: Victor Sarah E. , Christensen Kirsten , Trieu Terry H.
Published: March 2023

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is associated with suicidal ideation (SI) and capability for suicidal behavior. This chapter describes theoretical models of suicide in relation to NSSI, with implications for research and clinical practice. First, theories emphasize cognitive influences on suicide associated with NSSI, such as rumination, impaired problem-solving, and negative attributional style. These factors may exacerbate hopelessness, increasing risk for both NSSI and SI. Second, interpersonal difficulties are core to several suicide theories. NSSI is associated with loneliness, poor social support, and victimization; moreover, NSSI may prompt negative reactions from others, exacerbating interpersonal risk factors for SI. Finally, suicide theories often highlight the role of negative views of self in desire for suicide. NSSI is strongly associated with self-criticism, occurs as a means of self-punishment, and is frequently followed by guilt and shame, which may exacerbate negative self-views contributing to SI. NSSI is also associated with suicide capability. This may be due to differences in pain sensitivity or tolerance, fearlessness about death, exposure to painful and provocative events, or impulsivity, each of which has exhibited associations with NSSI. Further, NSSI involves repeated exposure to injury and pain, which may explain why chronic and severe NSSI elevates risk of suicide attempts. Taken together, research highlights the importance of assessing NSSI and suicide risk and protective factors in clinical practice, while leaving open unanswered questions about potentially causal relationships between these related, but distinct, experiences. Longitudinal work is needed to understand how NSSI most appropriately fits within existing theoretical models of suicide.
Trade Policy in Historical Political Economy
Authors: Irwin Douglas A.
Published: March 2023

This chapter provides a brief overview of how different economic interests interact with a country’s political system in determining its foreign trade policy. The main instrument of trade policy is the import tariff. In the case of the United States, Congressional voting on trade legislation is affected by various regional economic interests. Trade policy can change as different regions gain or lose political power, and as shifts in trade flows affect different constituencies in new ways. The chapter also examines the role of political parties in the setting of US trade policy.
The Role of Heritage Communities in Cultural Heritage Management
Authors: Pinton Simona
Published: March 2023

This chapter investigates the role of communities and social groups in cultural heritage management, in the name of the participatory and cooperative processes promoted at the level of international law. The predominant focus will be on the Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (the Faro Convention) and the innovative notion of heritage communities it introduces. Aware of the meaningful contribution that effective participatory processes ensure in the safeguarding of cultural heritage, heritage communities have carved out, and now increasingly claim, a decisive role in cultural heritage management, alone, in cooperation with public authorities, or even in contrast to those authorities. In addition, many social and civil groups already act as heritage communities themselves without being aware yet of the Faro Convention. Over the last decade, the initiatives developed on the ground by communities at the domestic level, and also through sharing experiences and suggestions at the transnational level, show how heritage communities in many European states identify themselves in places, traditions, tangible/intangible goods, and history and actively engage to protect, regenerate, and transmit them. At the same time, a push for heritage communities to engage in the definition, safeguarding, and management of cultural heritage reveals the contribution of civil society’s actions toward improving the quality of democratic processes, fostering local economic and social development, and addressing pressing current issues such as migrants’ inclusion, depopulation, and gentrification.
Improving Accessibility and Inclusion in the Performing Arts for People with Disabilities
Authors: Amidei Allison , SV Flys Elena
Published: March 2023

At this pivotal moment in the movement for social justice and inclusion, there exists a contradiction in the performing arts field. Fifteen percent of the world’s population has a disability, making disabled people the “world’s largest minority” and one of the most marginalized groups in our society according to metrics such as poverty, education, health, and a lack of available services. It is also a group that any one of us can join at any time in our lives. Despite the significant size of this demographic, people with disabilities experience disproportionate barriers to participation in the performing arts. In order to address this contradiction, the performing arts needs to engage in a major change. The first step is to move beyond a “checking-the-boxes” approach for providing access and inclusion for the disabled community based solely on what is legally required. To illustrate some of the possible changes to enact, this chapter examines the challenges and benefits of incorporating accessibility in performing arts organizations by conducting qualitative surveys of performing artists, managers, and leaders with expertise about accessibility and inclusion in the United States and Spain. The chapter presents the results from thirty surveys. By considering the perspective of performing arts practitioners with disabilities when it comes to access barriers, funding concerns, employment and representation issues, and attitudinal challenges common to the accessibility implementation process, performing arts managers can improve access inclusion for people with disabilities in the performing arts.
Persius’s Paradoxes
Authors: Kachuck Aaron
Published: March 2023

Persius’s Satires teach poets how to do things with philosophy, and with philosophers, tasks for which Roman satirists were, perhaps, uniquely suited: as Isaac Casaubon put it in the Prolegomenato his 1605 commentary, “Both satire and ethical philosophy treat of mores,” but Persius’s Satires, Casaubon goes on to say, go above and beyond officium’s call: Persius is “more philosophical” (φιλοσοφικότερος) than Horace (and, by extension, Horace’s satiric predecessor, Lucilius) but he is also a more stable support for the Stoic porch than Chrysippus, or even Zeno, the school’s founder. Casaubon had his own reasons for painting Persius as Stoic hero, but this chapter shows that he was not off the mark, especially as regards the so-called Stoic paradoxes: although these made periodic appearances in the satires of Horace, and perhaps in Varro’s works before him, in the works of Persius they are what hold the poet’s scattered satiric persona, and poetic corpus, together, from puzzling start to quizzical conclusion, and are central to his poem’s “paradoxical capability,” designed, like A.A. Long’s Hellenistic philosophers, “to challenge and intrigue and undermine complacency.” This chapter, linking the too-often divided magesteria of Latin literature and philosophy, opens with a summary account of the positive philosophical content of Persius’s paradoxes by way of a coordinated reading of Cicero’s Paradoxa Stoicorum. It then demonstrates how paradoxes inflect the total structure of Persius’ Satires, and, in particular, their beginning and end.
Parrhēsia
Authors: Fields Dana
Published: March 2023

The first-century CE orator Dio Chrysostom exemplifies the importance of classical Greek philosophy to the rhetorical culture of the early Roman Empire. In response to Platonic critiques of rhetoric, which paint it as untruthful and incapable of (or at least uninterested in) improving its hearers, Dio claims to provide a pedagogical form of oratory that is akin to medicine. In doing so he recuperates a philosophical rhetoric from within the corpus of Plato and takes up the mantle of Socrates (along with his successors, notably Diogenes of Sinope). Dio’s type of philosophical public speech is sometimes called “diatribe” by later commentators, though the term did not refer to a clearly defined subtype of rhetoric in his own time and he himself characterizes his oratory as frankness (parrhēsia). In speeches directed to audiences in Greek cities across the eastern half of the empire Dio offers self-described frank criticism, which he promises will enable his audiences to face their shortcomings and improve themselves, provided they are receptive to that advice. Such self-improvement is, he says, a necessary precondition for maintaining these cities’ limited independence within the larger empire and avoiding Roman military intervention. Dio’s orations thereby demonstrate the inseparability of philosophy, rhetoric, and politics within the decidedly Greco-Roman world he inhabited.
The Shape of the Tradition to Come
Authors: Cappello Orazio
Published: March 2023

As foundational texts in the establishment of a Roman tradition in philosophy, Cicero’s writings regularly attend to the question of how philosophy is to be done. These technical works show a sustained interest in the model they adopt to stage philosophical debate, drive the exchange to some satisfactory resolution, and, in so doing, meaningfully engage both performers and their audience. Surveying the treatment of the two key models Cicero draws on, this contribution studies Cicero’s reflections on the heritage of philosophical methodology from Socrates down to his time. The aim of these close readings is to suggest that more than a sidebar on the history of philosophy or a self-serving apology for Academic epistemology, these passages lay bare the foundation of Cicero’s philosophical project. As he (re)introduces this genre to a novice audience of his contemporaries, Cicero institutes Philosophy as a field of conflicts and counterpositions around select issues, determining what counts as philosophy and creating normative guidelines for how to practice it.
Persius on Stoic Poetics
Authors: Wiener Claudia
Published: March 2023

In his first satire, Persius combines literary criticism with the basic requirement of Stoic moral philosophy that every human action, including the poet’s activity and his relationship with the audience, must be directed toward an ethical purpose. The poets use their high technical level for the wrong purpose, because they are only out to make an external impression and stir up emotional effects on the audience. What can be taken as a feature of a Stoic poetics in the Neronian period is the continual invitation to the audience to form their own judgment. In Seneca’s tragedies and Lucan’s civil war epic, readers are constantly forced anew to question traditional values, to examine their moral standpoint, and to apply it to the situations that reveal the moral dilemmas of the protagonists.
Translation
Authors: Hoenig Christina
Published: March 2023

This chapter discusses the impact of Ancient-Greek-Latin translation on the transmission and transformation of Greek philosophical thought. It examines how four very different Roman authors—Cicero, Lucretius, Calcidius, and Apuleius—integrate their Greek source texts into a new linguistic, cultural, and intellectual environment: what parts of the Greek text are translated? Does the source text appear in a new genre? Are speaking parts assigned to a specific character, fictional or otherwise? Does the translation explicate, disambiguate, create new associations, connotations, semantic relations? From our discussion, translation emerges as a powerful tool in the negotiation of Ancient Greek and Roman intellectual heritage.
Epicurean Orthodoxy and Innovation
Authors: Gordon Pamela
Published: March 2023

New texts from Herculaneum and Oenoanda have changed the shape of Epicureanism. But an increased awareness of the creativity of later Epicurean figures and a growing recognition that much modern scholarship on Epicureanism reflects the ancient anti-Epicurean tradition championed by Cicero, Plutarch, and Seneca have also invigorated the field. This chapter on Roman receptions of Greek Epicureanism offers a brief survey, with attention to the question of whether there were developments in Epicureanism after the lifetime of Epicurus. But it also considers the possibility that Epicureanism offered an alternative to the values of the dominant culture and what might be called—in shorthand—Roman modes of masculinity. New cultural and political contexts gave Epicureanism new meanings, and not all practitioners responded in unison. The diversity of historical Epicureans that emerges from the pages of Cicero, like the diversity of Epicurean texts from the Republic and Empire belies the stereotype of the dogmatic and unimaginative Epicurean.
Sex
Authors: Lampe Kurt
Published: March 2023

This chapter uses a discourse by the Roman Stoic Musonius Rufus in order to think about how we can approach the topic of “sex and Roman philosophy.” The introduction argues that in both philosophy and popular usage today, the intensional domains of “sex,” “sexual desire,” and “sexuality” are vague and controversial. Therefore it experiments with three different approaches. The first derives from virtue ethics; it focuses on which partners, situations, or reasons for genital intercourse are consonant with virtue, conducive to happiness, and therefore choiceworthy for a Stoic. The second is Foucauldian; it situates the problem of genital intercourse against a larger problematic of self-knowing and self-cultivation. The third is psychoanalytic; it focuses on the libidinal dimensions of Musonius’s diction and style as he talks about intercourse. Each of these approaches tells us something about how “sex” operates in Musonius’s Roman philosophy.
Roman Presocratics
Authors: Garani Myrto
Published: March 2023

Given the fact that our reconstruction of the Presocratic doctrines and the access to their original meaning are intrinsically tied to Latin philosophical or philosophizing authors, this chapter focuses on three contemporaneous writers (Philodemus of Gadara, Lucretius, Cicero), in whose works can be identified some sort of a list of Presocratic philosophers. As far as the channels through which the Presocratics were first transferred to Rome are concerned, apart from the Presocratic texts that were available firsthand at least to Philodemus and Lucretius, the formation of so-called “Roman Presocratics,” i.e., the distorted image that Romans of the first century BCE had of their Presocratic predecessors, is heavily dependent both on the Hellenistic doxographical manuals, which were imbued with either Epicurean or Academic criticism, and the Hellenistic biographies of the Presocratics, as these are reflected in Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of Eminent Philosophers. In the process of integrating Presocratic wisdom into Roman thought, the discussion of the Presocratic doctrines is conditioned by prejudice, misapprehension, and deliberate misrepresentation. Provided that their Roman contemporaneous readers had limited independent access to the original Greek texts, it was through such a distorting lens that they first became acquainted with Presocratic ideas.
Reading Aristotle at Rome
Authors: Hatzimichali Myrto
Published: March 2023

There is no reason to doubt that, after Sulla’s sack of Athens, a large collection of Aristotelian manuscripts was brought to Rome. They attracted commercial as well as scholarly attention from Tyrannio, a grammarian who was also active in Cicero’s library. It is far less likely that there was a “Roman edition” by Andronicus of Rhodes. Cicero himself must have been acquainted with a wide range of Aristotelian works; he deploys some of Aristotle’s teleological explanations in De natura deorum, and discusses the semidivine life of contemplation in De finibus. There is evidence for Cicero’s closer engagement with Aristotle’s views on rhetoric, in terms of dialectical training, the construction of arguments, and prose rhythm. In the Neronian period, Cornutus engaged critically and in detail with Aristotle’s Categories, a work that, on Quintilian’s evidence, appears to have been influential in rhetorical circles. Seneca also made use of Aristotle’s ideas about emotions, causes, and meteorology, often accessed through the lens of a long-standing and ongoing interpretative tradition. In the Antonine period, alongside Apuleius’s engagement with logic and science, Gellius offers evidence for the process by which the “esoteric” works were privileged as Aristotle’s “true” teaching, while the “exoteric” ones gradually fell to neglect.
Roman Quasity
Authors: Kaldellis Anthony
Published: March 2023

Abstract: Scholars of ancient Rome have discussed, but not yet named, a legal move that operated in many domains of ancient Roman thought and practice, enabling the Romans to treat one thing as if (quasi) it were another. That maneuver is here baptized quasity and studied as a matrix of important aspects of Byzantine (east Roman) history and social practice. Specifically, it enabled the east Romans to treat Constantinople as if it were Rome; to venerate icons of Christ and the saints as if they were the holy figures that they depicted (but knowing that ontologically they were not); to create fictive kinship in legal, monastic, and religious relations; and to assimilate foreigners into Roman society.
Debate or Guidance? Cicero on Philosophy
Authors: Schofield Malcolm
Published: March 2023

Cicero recognizes a tension between the needs of philosophy as guidance and the vigorous disagreement that is the lifeblood of philosophical debate. This chapter explores his handling of the problem in four of his political and ethical writings. First tackled is a remarkable passage from Book 1 of De legibus, where on fundamentals of public policy silencing of debate is advocated. Next comes a quick look at Book 3 of De republica, where by contrast Cicero stages a confrontation between two views on political justice. Then comes an examination of the complex differing attempts he makes in the Tusculan Disputations to harmonize conflicting philosophical positions in the service of ethical guidance for the individual. Finally, Cicero’s approach to individual guidance in a different literary genre is briefly considered, as exemplified by De officiis, where debate is alluded to but not conducted. Some concluding remarks round off the chapter.
Philosophers and Roman Friendship
Authors: Konstan David
Published: March 2023

This chapter focuses on Cicero’s essay De amicitia (On Friendship), as the major Roman contribution to the topic. Cicero, through his mouthpiece, Laelius (the friend of Scipio), distinguishes between the view that friendship is desired on account of weakness and poverty, and an older and finer theory that holds that love (amor), etymologically related to friendship (amicitia), is the primary cause of goodwill. Laelius’s lecture is an attempt to adapt Stoic conceptions of virtue and the friendship of the wise to the political realities of Rome’s ruling class. But the problem with love is that it outpaces judgment and may result in loyalty to the wrong people and causes. This risk requires that limits be placed on the duties of a friend; yet constancy is a value in itself and may sanction some deviation from the true path, although how far is hard to determine. Exhortations to choose one’s friends carefully, like advice to break off friendships in such a way as not to generate rancor, are all well and good, but virtuous people, Laelius insists, are an extremely rare breed, and so no amount of circumspection is likely to safeguard one against unworthy friendships. Yet friends are indispensable for happiness, and nature itself has planted in human beings, as in other animals, the impulse to love others.
On the Balog–Ruzsa theorem in short intervals
Authors: Sun Yu-Chen
Published: March 2023

In this paper we give a short interval version of the Balog–Ruzsa theorem concerning bounds for the L1 norm of the exponential sum over r-free numbers. In particular, when r = 2, for $H \geq N^{\frac{9}{17}+\epsilon}$, we have the lower bound result $$ \int_{\mathbb T}\left|\sum_{|n-N| \lt H} \mu^2(n)e(n \alpha)\right| d \alpha \gg H^{\frac{1}{3}}, $$ and for $H \geq N^{\frac{18}{29}+\epsilon}$, we have the upper bound result $$ \int_{\mathbb T}\left|\sum_{|n-N| \lt H} \mu^2(n)e(n \alpha)\right| d \alpha \ll H^{\frac{1}{3}}.$$ As an application, we show that the L1 norm of the exponential sum $\sum_{|n-N| \lt H} \mu(n)e(n \alpha)$ has the lower bound $\gg H^{\frac{1}{6}}$ when $H \geq N^{\frac{9}{17} + \varepsilon}$.
Shifting the sociometer: opioid receptor blockade lowers self-esteem
Authors: Tchalova Kristina , Beland Sophie , Chanda Mona Lisa , Levitin Daniel J , Bartz Jennifer A
Published: March 2023

Given the evolutionary importance of social ties for survival, humans are thought to have evolved psychobiological mechanisms to monitor and safeguard the status of their social bonds. At the psychological level, self-esteem is proposed to function as a gauge—‘sociometer’—reflecting one’s social belongingness status. At the biological level, endogenous opioids appear to be an important substrate for the hedonic signalling needed to regulate social behaviour. We investigated whether endogenous opioids may serve as the biological correlate of the sociometer. We administered 50 mg naltrexone (an opioid receptor antagonist) and placebo in a counterbalanced order to 26 male and female participants on two occasions ∼1 week apart. Participants reported lower levels of self-esteem—particularly self-liking—on the naltrexone (vs placebo) day. We also explored a potential behavioural consequence of naltrexone administration: attentional bias to accepting (smiling) faces—an early-stage perceptual process thought to maximize opportunities to restore social connection. Participants exhibited heightened attentional bias towards accepting faces on the naltrexone (vs placebo) day, which we interpret as an indicator of heightened social need under opioid receptor blockade. We discuss implications of these findings for understanding the neurobiological underpinnings of sociality as well as the relationship between adverse social conditions, low self-esteem and psychopathology.
Coreference Delays in Psychotic Discourse: Widening the Temporal Window
Authors: Palominos Claudio , Figueroa-Barra Alicia , Hinzen Wolfram
Published: March 2023

Background and Hypothesis

Any form of coherent discourse depends on saying different things about the same entities at different times. Such recurrent references to the same entity need to predictably happen within certain temporal windows. We hypothesized that a failure of control over reference in speakers with schizophrenia (Sz) would become manifest through dynamic temporal measures.

Study Design

Conversational speech with a mean of 909.2 words (SD: 178.4) from 20 Chilean Spanish speakers with chronic Sz, 20 speakers at clinical high risk (CHR), and 20 controls were collected. Using directed speech graphs with referential noun phrases (NPs) as nodes, we studied deviances in the topology and temporal distribution of such NPs and of the entities they denote over narrative time.

Study Results

The Sz group had a larger density of NPs (number of NPs divided by total words) relative to both controls and CHR. This related to topological measures of distance between recurrent entities, which revealed that the Sz group produced more recurrences, as well as greater topological distances between them, relative to controls. A logistic regression using five topological measures showed that Sz and controls can be distinguished with 84.2% accuracy.

Conclusions

This pattern indicates a widening of the temporal window in which entities are maintained in discourse and co-referenced in it. It substantiates and extends earlier evidence for deficits in the cognitive control over linguistic reference in psychotic discourse and informs both neurocognitive models of language in Sz and machine learning-based linguistic classifiers of psychotic speech.
Latent Factors of Language Disturbance and Relationships to Quantitative Speech Features
Authors: Tang Sunny X , Hänsel Katrin , Cong Yan , Nikzad Amir H , Mehta Aarush , Cho Sunghye , Berretta Sarah , Behbehani Leily , Pradhan Sameer , John Majnu , Liberman Mark Y
Published: March 2023

Background and Hypothesis

Quantitative acoustic and textual measures derived from speech (“speech features”) may provide valuable biomarkers for psychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). We sought to identify cross-diagnostic latent factors for speech disturbance with relevance for SSD and computational modeling.

Study Design

Clinical ratings for speech disturbance were generated across 14 items for a cross-diagnostic sample (N = 343), including SSD (n = 90). Speech features were quantified using an automated pipeline for brief recorded samples of free speech. Factor models for the clinical ratings were generated using exploratory factor analysis, then tested with confirmatory factor analysis in the cross-diagnostic and SSD groups. The relationships between factor scores and computational speech features were examined for 202 of the participants.

Study Results

We found a 3-factor model with a good fit in the cross-diagnostic group and an acceptable fit for the SSD subsample. The model identifies an impaired expressivity factor and 2 interrelated disorganized factors for inefficient and incoherent speech. Incoherent speech was specific to psychosis groups, while inefficient speech and impaired expressivity showed intermediate effects in people with nonpsychotic disorders. Each of the 3 factors had significant and distinct relationships with speech features, which differed for the cross-diagnostic v.s. SSD groups.

Conclusions

We report a cross-diagnostic 3-factor model for speech disturbance which is supported by good statistical measures, intuitive, applicable to SSD, and relatable to linguistic theories. It provides a valuable framework for understanding speech disturbance and appropriate targets for modeling with quantitative speech features.
Broad-Spectrum Antimicrobial Activity of Synthetic Peptides GV185 and GV187
Authors: Sweany Rebecca R. , Cary Jeffrey W. , Jaynes Jesse M. , Rajasekaran Kanniah
Published: March 2023

Optimizing synthetic antimicrobial peptides for safe and enhanced activity against fungal and bacterial pathogens is useful for genetic engineering of plants for resistance to plant pathogens and their associated mycotoxins. Nine synthetic peptides modeled after lytic peptides tachyplesin 1, D4E1 from cecropin A, and protegrin 1 were added to germinated spores of fungal species Aspergillus flavus, Rhizopus stolonifer, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum, F. verticillioides, F. graminearum, Claviceps purpurea, Verticillium dahliae, and Thielaviopsis basicola and bacterial cultures of Pseudomonas syringae pv. tabaci and Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris at different doses and inhibitory dose response curves, and were modeled to assess antimicrobial activity. Peptides GV185 and GV187, modified from tachyplesin 1, had superior abilities to inhibit fungal and bacterial growth (50% inhibitory concentrations [IC50] ranging from 0.1 to 8.7 µM). R. stolonifer (IC50 = 8.1 µM), A. flavus (IC50 = 3.1 µM), and F. graminearum (IC50 = 2.2 µM) were less inhibited by GV185 and GV187 than all the remaining fungi (IC50 = 1.4 µM) and bacteria (IC50 = 0.1 µM). Of the remaining peptides, GV193, GV195, and GV196 (IC50 range of 0.9 to 6.6 µM) inhibited fungal growth of A. flavus, F. verticillioides, and F. graminearum less than GV185 and GV187 (IC50 range of 0.8 to 3.9 µM), followed by GV197 (IC50 range of 0.8 to 9.1 µM), whereas GV190 and GV192 inhibited poorly (IC50 range of 28.2 to 36.6 µM and 15.5 to 19.4 µM, respectively) and GV198 stimulated growth. GV185 and GV187 had slightly weaker hydrophobic and cationic residues than other tachyplesin 1 modified peptides but still had unexpectedly high lytic activity. Germinated fungal spores of R. stolonifer and F. graminearum exposed to these two peptides and D4E1 and AGM182 appeared wrinkled, with perforations near potential cytoplasmic leakage, which provided evidence of plasma membrane and cell wall lysis. We conclude that peptides GV185 and GV187 are promising candidates for genetic engineering of crops for resistance to plant-pathogenic bacteria and fungi, including A. flavus and aflatoxin contamination.
Finerenone: Efficacy of a New Nonsteroidal Mineralocorticoid Receptor Antagonist in Treatment of Patients With Chronic Kidney Disease and Type 2 Diabetes
Authors: Dey Subo , Garg Jasmine , Wang Andy , Holzner Eva , Frishman William H. , Aronow Wilbert S.
Published: March 2023

Mineralocorticoid receptor stimulation by aldosterone can cause various cardiovascular and renal disease complications. Finerenone is a new oral nonsteroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has been approved for clinical use by the Federal Drug Aministration, and has been shown in clinical trials to reduce the risk of sustained estimated glomerular filtration rate decline, end-stage renal disease, nonfatal myocardial infarction, hospitalization for heart failure and cardiovascular death in adult patients with chronic kidney disease associated with type 2 diabetes. The drug has also been shown to have fewer side effects than the steroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists like spironolactone and eplerenone. In this review article, the authors will discuss the clinical pharmacology of finerenone, its clinical application and the additional studies that are now underway to further assess the efficacy of the drug in diabetic patients having cardiac and renal disease.
Bilateral Acute Iris Transillumination and Elevated Intraocular Pressure After COVID-19 Infection
Authors: Gulmez Sevim Duygu , Sener Hidayet , Evereklioglu Cem
Published: March 2023

Bilateral acute iris transillumination (BAIT) is characterized by abundant pigment discharge into the anterior chamber. Atonic pupil and severe intraocular pressure (IOP) elevations may be observed. Generally, there is a viral upper respiratory tract infection or systemic fluoroquinolone usage before BAIT. Two cases with a recent history of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) presented with a complaint of decreased vision. Elevated IOP and iris transillumination defects were observed in both patients. Both patients were diagnosed with BAIT. Although elevated IOP was controlled with medical treatment in 1 patient, glaucoma surgery was performed in the other patient because it could not be controlled with medical treatment. As both patients received no systemic treatment for COVID-19, the pressure rise seems to be directly related to the viral infection alone through the inflammatory process. Atypical ocular presentations of COVID-19 should be kept in mind as it can have serious consequences.
Intraoperative Electrically Evoked Compound Action Potential Growth and Maximum Amplitudes in Hearing Preservation Cochlear Implant Recipients
Authors: Mussoi Bruna S. , Woodson Erika , Sydlowski Sarah
Published: March 2023

Background

Electrically evoked compound action potentials (eCAPs) obtained from cochlear implant (CI) recipients reflect responsiveness of the auditory nerve to electrical stimulation. The recent use of atraumatic electrode arrays and expansion of CI candidacy to listeners with greater residual hearing may lead to increased clinical utility of intraoperative eCAP recordings.

Objectives

To examine the effect of electrode array (slim modiolar versus slim straight) on suprathreshold intraoperative eCAP recordings in hearing preservation CI recipients. A secondary goal was to examine potential clinical applications of intraoperative eCAPs for predicting immediate hearing preservation and speech perception outcomes.

Methods

Retrospective study of 113 adult hearing preservation CI candidates implanted from 2015 to 2019 with either a slim modiolar or slim straight electrode array. Intraoperative eCAP growth functions and maximum amplitudes were obtained at several intracochlear electrodes and examined as a function of implanted array and hearing preservation status, while controlling for electrode impedance.

Results

From basal to apical electrodes, progressively larger eCAP amplitudes and steeper slopes were recorded. Steeper eCAP slopes at apical electrodes were also seen for recipients of the slim modiolar array (versus slim straight). Suprathreshold eCAP responses did not differ as a function of hearing preservation and were not associated with speech recognition.

Conclusions

More robust eCAP responses were obtained from apical electrodes, which is consistent with better low-frequency thresholds in hearing preservation recipients. This effect was compounded by type of electrode array. Results also suggest that intraoperative, suprathreshold eCAPs cannot be used to predict the success of hearing preservation surgery or performance with the CI.
Staffing Local Health Departments in Minnesota—Needs, Priorities, and Concerns
Authors: Karnik Harshada , Oldfield-Tabbert Kari , Kirkland Chelsey , Orr Jason M. , Leider Jonathon P.
Published: March 2023

Context:

The roles and responsibilities of local health departments (LHDs), as well as the hiring challenges they face, have changed since the pandemic started.

Objectives:

To explore (1) staffing needs and priorities of LHDs in Minnesota, and (2) financial and community-level factors impeding health departments from maintaining optimal staffing.

Design, Setting, and Participants:

A cross-sectional online survey was administered via Qualtrics in July 2022 to city and county health departments in Minnesota (97% participation rate). It included both open- and close-ended questions concerning staffing needs and priorities of LHDs and challenges to hiring after the pandemic started.

Results:

Staffing priorities of LHDs included public health nurses, community health workers, and health planners/researchers/analysts. Hiring concerns included creating new permanent positions, offering competitive salaries, and filling open positions. Inadequate funds made it difficult to create new permanent positions and offer competitive salaries. External factors such as lack of affordable or reliable childcare, housing, and transportation also contributed to hiring challenges.

Conclusions:

There is a need to increase staffing levels of the Minnesota public health enterprise by filling vacant positions and creating new positions. Increasing the public health workforce requires adequate sustainable funding along with creative solutions.
Assessment of the Effectiveness of Knee Joints Treatment With the Use of 90Y
Authors: Chrabański Olgierd , Kluczewska Ewa , Gołąb Tomasz , Gorczewska Izabela
Published: March 2023

Purpose

The purpose of this prospective study was to assess the effectiveness of knee joints treatment by radiosynoviorthesis with the use of 90Y based on ultrasound and clinical analysis.

Materials and Methods

Ninety-seven patients were qualified for treatment from October 2016 to June 2017, and observation period lasted until December 2017. Bioethics Committee of the Medical University of Silesia approved this study. The effectiveness of knee joints treatment with the use of 90Y was based on 927 ultrasound measurements of fluid and 927 synovial thickness in 3 sites of the suprapatellar recess, 309 assessments of patient’s disability documented in Lequesne questionnaire, 309 assessments of pain on visual analog scale, as well as 103 overall self-assessment. Statistical methods were used to process the results.

Results

A reduction in fluid was found in 62.14% of the knees; synovial thickness reduction was observed in 97.09% of all knees. The greatest benefit from the therapy was experienced by patients complaining of morning stiffness lasting more than 15 minutes (in 85.71% of joints). There was reduction in pain at rest in 94.52% of knee joints and in 80.39% of joints with pain while walking. At the second follow-up visit after treatment, the percentage of improvement in self-assessment was 74.76%.

Conclusions

Statistically significant decreases in the amount of fluid and thickness of the synovial membrane as well as the level of disability and the intensity of pain after radiosynoviorthesis 90Y treatment were demonstrated.
Interobserver Agreement Rates on C-X-C Motif Chemokine Receptor 4–Directed Molecular Imaging and Therapy
Authors: Hartrampf Philipp E. , Kosmala Aleksander , Serfling Sebastian E. , Bundschuh Lena , Higuchi Takahiro , Lapa Constantin , Rowe Steven P. , Matsusaka Yohji , Weich Alexander , Buck Andreas K. , Bundschuh Ralph A. , Werner Rudolf A.
Published: March 2023

Background

We aimed to evaluate the interobserver agreement rates in patients scanned with C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4)–directed PET/CT, including the rate of patients eligible for CXCR4-targeted radioligand therapy (RLT) based on scan results.

Methods

Four independent observers reviewed 50 CXCR4-targeted [68Ga]pentixafor PET/CT of patients with various solid cancers. On a visual level, the following items were assessed by each reader: overall scan impression, number of organ and lymph node (LN) metastases and number of affected organs and LN regions. For a quantitative investigation, readers had to choose a maximum of 3 target lesions, defined as largest in size and/or most intense uptake per organ compartment. Reference tissues were also quantified, including unaffected hepatic parenchyma and blood pool. Last, all observers had to decide whether patients were eligible for CXCR4-targeted RLT. Concordance rates were tested using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). For interpretation, we applied the definition of Cicchetti (with 0.4–0.59 indicating fair; 0.6–0.74, good; 0.75–1, excellent agreement).

Results

On a visual level, fair agreement was achieved for an overall scan impression (ICC, 0.58; 95% confidence interval, 0.45–0.71). Organ and LN involvement (ICC, ≥0.4) demonstrated fair, whereas CXCR4 density and number of LN and organ metastases showed good agreement rates (ICC, ≥0.65). Number of affected organs and affected LN areas, however, showed excellent concordance (ICC, ≥0.76). Quantification in LN and organ lesions also provided excellent agreement rates (ICC, ≥0.92), whereas quantified uptake in reference organs provided fair concordance (ICC, ≥0.54). Again, excellent agreement rates were observed when deciding on patients eligible for CXCR4-RLT (ICC, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.85–0.95).

Conclusions

In patients scanned with CXCR4-targeted PET/CT, we observed fair to excellent agreement rates for both molecular imaging and therapy parameters, thereby favoring a more widespread adoption of [68Ga]pentixafor in the clinic.
Nasal Construction in Congenital Arhinia Due to Novel SMCHD1 Gene Variant
Authors: Bargiela Marie , Kueper Janina , Serebrakian Arman T. , Browne MaKenna R. , Brogna Susan , Peacock Zachary S. , Bojovic Branko , Shaw Natalie D. , Liao Eric C.
Published: March 2023

Arhinia, or congenital absence of the nose, is an exceedingly rare anomaly caused by pathogenic variants in the gene SMCHD1. Arhinia exhibits unique reconstructive challenges, as the midface is deficient in skeletal and soft tissue structures. The authors present 2 related patients with arhinia who harbor a novel SMCHD1 gene variant and illustrate their surgical midface and nasal construction. Targeted sequencing was carried out on DNA samples from the 2 affected patients, 1 anosmic and 1 healthy parent, to identify variants in exons 3 to 13 of SMCHD1. The affected patients and anosmic parent were found to have a novel SMCHD1 gene variant p.E473V. A staged surgical approach was applied. First, both patients underwent a LeFort II osteotomy and distraction osteogenesis to improve the projection of the midfacial segment, followed by tissue expansion of the forehead, and nasal construction with a forehead flap that was placed over a costochondral framework derived from rib cartilage. The novel gene variant could guide future investigations on genetic pathways and molecular processes that underly the physiological and pathologic development of the nose. Further investigations on the variable expressivity ranging from anosmia to arhinia could improve clinical genetic screens for risk stratification of individuals with anosmia on passing on arhinia to their children. Due to the exceptional rarity and complexity of congenital arhinia, most surgical approaches are developed on a single-case basis. This case series, albeit limited to 2 cases, is the largest pedigree of such cases in the literature. It highlights key principles of a staged approach to nasal construction in arhinia and discusses nuances and improvements learned between both patients. It subsequently offers an optimized guide to this surgical strategy.
On a Long and Winding Road: Alloantibodies in Organ Transplantation
Authors: Böhmig Georg A. , Halloran Philip F. , Feucht Helmut E.
Published: March 2023

Today we know that both the humoral and the cellular arm of the immune system are engaged in severe immunological challenges. A close interaction between B and T cells can be observed in most “natural” challenges, including infections, malignancies, and autoimmune diseases. The importance and power of humoral immunity are impressively demonstrated by the current coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Organ transplant rejection is a normal immune response to a completely “artificial” challenge. It took a long time before the multifaceted action of different immunological forces was recognized and a unified, generally accepted opinion could be formed. Here, we address prominent paradigms and paradigm shifts in the field of transplantation immunology. We identify several instances in which the transplant community missed a timely paradigm shift because essential, available knowledge was ignored. Moreover, we discuss key findings that critically contributed to our understanding of transplant immunology but sometimes developed with delay and in a roundabout way, as was the case with antibody-mediated rejection—a main focus of this article. These include the discovery of the molecular principles of histocompatibility, the recognition of the microcirculation as a key interface of immune damage, the refinement of alloantibody detection, the description of C4d as a footmark of endothelium-bound antibody, and last but not least, the developments in biopsy-based diagnostics beyond conventional morphology, which only now give us a glimpse of the enormous complexity and pathogenetic diversity of rejection.
Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy as a non-destructive method for analysing herbarium specimens
Authors: Barnes M. , Sulé-Suso J. , Millett J. , Roach P.
Published: March 2023

Dried plant specimens stored in herbaria are an untapped treasure chest of information on environmental conditions, plant evolution and change over many hundreds of years. Owing to their delicate nature and irreplaceability, there is limited access for analysis to these sensitive samples, particularly where chemical data are obtained using destructive techniques. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is a chemical analysis technique which can be applied non-destructively to understand chemical bonding information and, therefore, functional groups within the sample. This provides the potential for understanding geographical, spatial and species-specific variation in plant biochemistry. Here, we demonstrate the use of mid-FTIR microspectroscopy for the chemical analysis of
Drosera rotundifolia
herbarium specimens, which were collected 100 years apart from different locations. Principal component and hierarchical clustering analysis enabled differentiation between three main regions on the plant (lamina, tentacle stalk and tentacle head), and between the different specimens. Lipids and protein spectral regions were particularly sensitive differentiators of plant tissues. Differences between the different sets of specimens were smaller. This study demonstrates that relevant information can be extracted from herbarium specimens using FTIR, with little impact on the specimens. FTIR, therefore, has the potential to be a powerful tool to unlock historic information within herbaria.