bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Music and Language Comparisons with nPVI
Authors: VanHandel Leigh
Published: February 2022

This chapter focuses on the analysis of rhythmic variability through computational methods, specifically the normalized pairwise variability index (nPVI). This metric was first proposed by Grabe and Low in 2002 as a metric for analyzing variability in speech, and Patel and Daniele, in 2003, applied it to the variability of melodies in their comparison of the rhythmic elements of melody and speech. This chapter covers the applications of the nPVI metric, some expansions and criticisms of it, and suggests possible ways forward as scholars continue to analyze rhythmic complexity through computational and corpus-based methods.
Immigration and Race
Authors: Chacón Jennifer M.
Published: February 2022

This chapter assesses how the regulation of immigration and citizenship in the United States is inextricably intertwined with the history of race and racism in the United States. It surveys US history in four periods: the founding era through the Civil War, the post-Civil War era through the death of Reconstruction, the Progressive era through the passage of the federal civil rights laws of the 1960s, and the 1960s through the present. Though the legal line separating desirable from undesirable—and therefore admissible from inadmissible—immigrants has shifted over time, anti-Black racism has structured the drawing of that line across different historical periods. As a result, immigration law has not just reflected racial bias. Rather, these laws, in conjunction with citizenship laws, have also defined racial categories in the United States and delimited the racial boundaries of the nation. Understood in that way, immigration has not simply reflected prevailing forms of racial bias; rather, it has effectively legalized US racism in ways that both produced and sustained racial hierarchies. This legalized racism has not disappeared. It persists today—in color-blind form—impervious to the civil rights revolution of the mid-1960s.
Rethinking Implicit Bias
Authors: Kahn Jonathan
Published: February 2022

This chapter describes implicit bias and the limits to science as a tool of racial justice. Over the past 20 years, the frame of implicit bias has emerged within legal scholarship and practice to challenge the Supreme Court’s “intentional blindness” largely on its own terms. This approach takes on the concept of intent and tries to reconfigure it in a manner more conducive to serving the interests of racial justice. Specifically, it invokes recent findings in the psychology and neuroscience of implicit social cognition (ISC) to argue that while explicit intent or bias may be increasingly difficult to identify, implicit intent or bias remains pervasive and deeply salient in society, to an extent that both supports findings of discrimination and justifies taking affirmative action to redress resulting racial inequities. Many of those adopting this approach refer to themselves as “behavioral realists.” However, a primary focus on implicit bias tends to obscure the distinctive historical place of racism in the United States that makes it different from other biases.
Race and the Criminal Law Curriculum
Authors: Lee Cynthia
Published: February 2022

This chapter briefly sketches a few places in the substantive criminal law curriculum where law professors can include discussion of race to enrich students’ understanding of the law. These include racially based jury nullification, the void-for-vagueness doctrine, hate crimes and the actus reus requirement, voluntary manslaughter and the defense of provocation, involuntary manslaughter, rape, the doctrine of self-defense, the “Black rage” defense, and the “cultural defense.” The chapter also discusses the Guerilla Guides to Law Teaching project, which suggests that criminal law professors introduce the concept of abolition of the carceral state as a framework through which students can “question the core assumptions about the relationship between incarceration, retribution, and utilitarianism, and take seriously the scale of human devastation wrought by incarceration.” While it is critically important to acknowledge the role of race in the criminal justice system and highlight the various ways racial bias can influence the outcomes in criminal cases, it is not necessary to include discussions of race in all of the different ways listed in this chapter. It is important to start by teaching in a traditional fashion and establishing one’s authority in the classroom before incorporating discussions about race into the classroom.
Intentionally Incorporating Race into the First-Year Legal Research and Writing Curriculum
Authors: Crichton Sha-Shana
Published: February 2022

This chapter addresses the question of whether law schools should intentionally incorporate race in the first-year legal writing and research (LWR) course. First, intentionally incorporating race into the first-year LWR course is essential to preparing all law students to become competent lawyers who can effectively participate in the national and global marketplace and address the legal needs of an increasingly diverse population. Second, addressing race in the first-year LWR course contributes to a more democratic society by building student awareness early in their legal careers to the importance of providing access to justice for all persons. Additionally, exposing students to the impact of race and racial biases on legal outcomes sensitizes them to the dire consequences of inadequate or no legal representation and is likely to propel them to advocate for relevant legal and social reforms. Third, intentionally incorporating race into the first-year LWR course creates a learning environment that facilitates successful learning for all law students. This is particularly critical for law students of color whose ability to learn successfully may be compromised because of an increased risk for chronic stress caused by race-based discrimination inside and outside law school.
Race and Tort Law
Authors: Chamallas Martha
Published: February 2022

This chapter discusses how the shape of contemporary tort law—from the types of claims recognized, to application of basic torts concepts, to judgments about causation, to valuation of injuries—has been affected by the social and personal identities of the parties and cultural views on race and ethnicity. The significance of race is not confined to a particular doctrinal area but crops up in intentional tort, negligence, and strict liability cases, and it spills over into debates about the proper measure of damages. The chapter begins by looking at the legacy of slavery and segregation as it relates to tort law and considers some of the major themes of critical race theory that have been used to critique this area of private law. It then provides an overview of the contemporary “race and torts” legal landscape. Borrowing frames from critical race and interdisciplinary scholarship, the chapter organizes key cases, issues, and debates into four somewhat overlapping categories: racial discrimination, harassment, and insult; stereotyping and racialized contexts; racial devaluation; and racially disparate effects.
Moscow Conceptualism
Authors: Leiderman Daniil , Lipovetsky Mark
Published: February 2022

The circle of artists, poets, and theorists that became known as Moscow Conceptualists united several aesthetic trends originating in the underground of the 1960s. Its main practitioners and theorists—such as Eric Bulatov, Boris Groys, Ilya Kabakov, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Andrei Monastyrsky, Viktor Pivovarov, Dmitry Prigov, and Lev Rubinshtein—had different artistic backgrounds and met when their individual manners had been already shaped. However, the distinction of this group from other nonconformist circles concerns not only their art, but also their lifestyle (“conformist” rather than “bohemian”) and, most importantly, their shared quasi-theoretical language of self-description. Thanks to this language, informal, friendly relations produced a whole set of cultural institutions—from domestic seminars, readings and shows, and trips out of town, which become performance art for the “Collective Actions” group, to an international journal representing the groups’ work to a broader audience. Using one of central categories in Conceptualists’ vocabulary—mertsanie, or shimmering—the chapter shows how this principle of critique and deconstruction of ideological or authoritative discourses defined their approaches to the legacy of the avant-garde, shaped their work with Soviet discourses and led to the creation of Sots Art, produced new conceptualizations of the author as a character, and, eventually, defined the uniquely recognizable aesthetics of Moscow Conceptualism. The chapter analyzes Conceptualists’ visual art along with their literary texts and performances.
Neo-primitivist Art and Lifestyle
Authors: Mihailovic Alexandar
Published: February 2022

During the late Soviet period, members of the Leningrad artistic underground often engaged in playfully confrontational modes of interaction with one another. What has been left out of accounts of the unruly lived theatre of Soviet non-conformist art from 1984 to 1987 is the evolving lifeworld of the mitki in their relation to other groups such as Timur Novikov’s “New Artists,” who were renamed as the “New Academy” after the January 1987 TEII exhibition. In this chapter, we will examine the interaction between the mitki and the New Artists at that exhibition, over the “disappearance” of Timur Novikov’s and Ivan Sotnikov’s “Zero Object.” We will consider the ways in which the mitki’s theatricalized “partnership” with Novikov’s group complemented their own attempts to reinvigorate themselves as practitioners of neo-primitivist art, which had become somewhat overshadowed by the comical representation of their sociality in Vladimir Shinkarev’s popular samizdat book, Mitki.
Imperialism and Its Critics
Authors: Cope Zak
Published: February 2022

This chapter provides a broad overview of the literature on economic imperialism. The first part of the chapter defines the concept of economic imperialism and the distinctive heuristics according to which related phenomena may be analysed. The second part of the chapter describes five modes of economic imperialism, namely, colonialism, internal colonialism, settler colonialism, investment imperialism, and unequal exchange. Each of these is both predicated upon and reinforces national oppression, that is, the de facto or de jure denial of self-determination to national groups and their capacity to democratically determine their own economic development. The chapter concludes by highlighting the limits of much contemporary ‘anti-imperialism’, and the tendency for ‘anti-imperialist’ discourse to provide cover for authoritarian and imperialist states outside ‘the West’.
Colonialism and the Racialization of Indigenous Identity
Authors: Gonzales Angela A. , Kertész Judy
Published: February 2022

This chapter traces the emergence of “race” as a handmaiden to colonialism and the consequential racialization of Indigenous Peoples. We argue that colonialism and the ideas that inform colonial structures, such as race, not only serve to hide their existence but also to legitimate the power relations that they establish. As a consequence, the larger context of colonialism created and required “race” to justify the dispossession and displacement of Indigenous Peoples. Here, dispossession and displacement carry a number of meanings, from territorial expropriation to the usurpation and replacement of Indigenous self-identifications. The chapter also calls attention to the process of racialization and the historical legacies of racialized science to make appreciable how colonialism reinscribes both Native nations and their members as racialized subjects.
Was Jane Addams a Sociologist?
Authors: Villadsen Kaspar
Published: February 2022

There is widespread agreement that despite the general scarcity of women among classical sociologists, Jane Addams was the first and probably most influential of early American sociologists. Apart from being a leading figure in the settlement movement, she carried out early sociological research in the Chicago slums and had close ties to contemporary pragmatist thinkers like William James, John Dewey, and George Hebert Mead. This chapter reconsiders the general designation of Addams as an “early sociologist.” It discusses which criteria are adequate to define someone as a sociologist and considers Addams’s activities and writings in light of such criteria. Significant in this assessment is Addams’s inspiration from the Christian tradition, evident in her invocation of Christian ethics as a regenerative force and her echoing of principles from social gospel theology. The chapter concludes that Addams’s work, both as a turn-of-the-century social critic and intellectual, was shaped as much by Christian values as by activities that would merit the term “sociologist.” Paying attention to how Addams articulated notions like “Christian renaissance,” “social salvation,” and “brotherly love” complicates assessments of her as a pioneer in pragmatist, empirical sociology. Addams’s blend of Christian ideas and early social science discourse is not unique but resonates with streams of reformist, sociological writing around the turn-of-the-20th-century North America and Europe. This chapter concludes that rather than constituting a stumbling block for the development of modern sociology, Christian inspirations can be an impetus for critical sociological practice in times of fragmentation and instrumentalization of sociological research.
Governance via Explainability
Authors: Danks David
Published: February 2022

AI governance often requires knowing why the system behaved as it did, and explanations are a common way to convey this kind of why-information. Explainable AI (XAI) thus seems to be particularly well-suited to governance; one might even think that explainability is a prerequisite for AI governance. This chapter explores this intuitively plausible route of AI governance via explainability. The core challenge is that governance, explanations, and XAI are all significantly more complex than this intuitive connection suggests, creating the risk that the explanations provided by XAI are not the kind required for governance. This chapter thus first provides a high-level overview of three types of XAI that differ based on who generates the explanation (AI vs. human) and the grounding of the explanation (facts about system vs. plausibility of the story). These different types of XAI each presuppose a substantive theory of explanations, so the chapter then provides an overview of both philosophical and psychological theories of explanation. Finally, these pieces are brought together to provide a concrete framework for using XAI to create, support, or enable many of the key functions of AI governance. XAI systems are not necessarily more governable than non-XAI systems, nor is explainability a solution for all challenges of AI governance. However, explainability does provide a valuable tool in the design and implementation of AI governance mechanisms.
The Structure of The Lexical Item and Sentence Meaning Composition
Authors: Piñango Maria Mercedes
Published: February 2022

This chapter examines the full-entry model according to which lexical meaning is a generalization that results from, and is maintained by, continued exposure to a conceptual structure through linguistics means. It focuses on the iteration reading in “durative” for, as in “Sam jumped for an hour,” and the observation that such iteration has no overt morphophonological support, raising the question of its source. Composition of the for-adverbial exerts greater computational load than the non-iterative counterpart. The root of this cost is explained as the real-time search for a partition measure demanded by for’s meaning. Hence, for’s meaning determines the context that is relevant for the utterance construal. In this way, the lexical item built in a full-entry fashion captures the semantic combinatorial and generative burden by capitalizing on a simplified lexically-driven constraint-satisfaction dynamic for the processor and a lexicon-based grammar.
Neural encoding of speech and word forms
Authors: Poeppel David , Sun Yue
Published: February 2022

Speech perception is a collection of procedures that make possible the mapping from continuously varying acoustic input to discrete mental representations that form the basis for stored words in the mental lexicon. The chapter focuses on experiments supporting abstractionist versus episodic approaches to the representation of speech and words. Studies using electrophysiological approaches are reviewed that are consistent with both the generation of abstract categories and the maintenance of episodic information, suggesting that both types of representations are carried forward during the recognition process. The functional neuroanatomy that underpins speech recognition is reviewed, and both neurophysiological and neuroimaging data are discussed that, jointly, are consistent with a perspective that privileges abstract representations but allows for the concurrent incorporation of episodic or indexical information in speech perception. The integrative, neurally inspired model that emerges accommodates both abstractionist and episodicist approaches.
Morphology and The Mental Lexicon
Authors: Embick David , Creemers Ava , Goodwin Davies Amy J.
Published: February 2022

This chapter looks at the most basic question for the study of morphology and the mental lexicon: whether or not words are decomposed into constituent parts. Theories of the mental lexicon range from those that generalize decomposition as much as possible to those that posit no internal structure for words; various intermediate positions are also found. The key question at the center of this overview is what it means for a word to be decomposed in the first place; as it turns out, this is a complex notion, and there are at least three independent but related questions that have been connected with it in the literature. The goal of this chapter is to distinguish these different notions of decomposition from each other, in order to both provide points of reference for understanding prior work, and to pose specific questions to be addressed in future research.
Syntax and The Lexicon
Authors: Alexiadou Artemis
Published: February 2022

Taking as point of departure Chomsky’s Remarks, this chapter discusses the relationship between syntax and the lexicon and how this has changed in the last 50 years. It then examines the syntax-lexicon relationship from the perspective of Distributed Morphology, focusing on transitivity alternations, nominalization, and adjectival passives. The main question addressed is the locus of introduction of arguments, focusing on external and internal arguments as well as on different types of external arguments. The Distributed Morphology perspective is compared to Ramchand’s (2008, 2018) First Phase Syntax framework, and Borer’s (2005a, b, 2013) Exoskeletal model. The chapter is structured from the perspective of a theory of grammar that dispenses with the lexicon component and discusses the consequences of this choice for argument introduction.
Contributions of pragmatics to word learning and interpretation
Authors: Grigoroglou Myrto , Papafragou Anna
Published: February 2022

This chapter focuses on the role of pragmatic reasoning in language learning and interpretation. The first half of the chapter assesses the extent to which young children use pragmatic mechanisms of intention recognition to build a mental lexicon (i.e., to learn new words). The second half discusses the extent to which children use pragmatic inference to employ their mental lexicon in conversation (i.e., to interpret known words). The evidence reviewed points to rich and massive effects of pragmatic reasoning in both domains. The sophistication of children’s pragmatic system and its relation to the mature adult system are discussed throughout the chapter.
Spoken word recognition
Authors: Magnuson James S. , Crinnion Anne Marie
Published: February 2022

This chapter considers the challenges of recognizing spoken words from the speech signal. We focus initially on theoretical and computational challenges that remain even under a set of common simplifying assumptions (most notably that much work on spoken word recognition sidesteps signal-level challenges by assuming abstract inputs of some sort, e.g., phonemes, phonetic features, or human confusion probabilities). We review key theories and debates, as well as findings and challenges that will require theories to abandon common simplifying assumptions. We conclude that progress will require models that process the actual speech signal and leverage constraints from lower (speech perception) and higher levels (semantics, sentence processing, and beyond) of language processing, as well as constraints from neurobiology, rather than avoiding the challenges those levels present.
Introduction
Authors: Papafragou Anna , Trueswell John C. , Gleitman Lila R.
Published: February 2022

This chapter provides an introduction to the topic of the “mental lexicon,” the representation of language in the mind/brain, at the level of individual morphemes and words. The chapter summarizes the structure of the contributions within the volume, focusing on how the mind/brain represents lexical knowledge, how lexical knowledge is acquired, and how the mental lexicon contributes to language use, in listening, speaking, and conversation. Part I (‘Representing the Mental Lexicon’) introduces modern linguistic and cognitive theories of how the mind/brain represents words and sub-word units at the phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic levels. Part II (‘Acquiring the Mental Lexicon’) turns to the process through which children learn the phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties of words in their native language. Finally, Part III ‘(Accessing the Mental Lexicon’) examines how the mental lexicon contributes to language use during listening, speaking, and conversation, and includes perspectives from bilingualism, sign languages, and disorders of lexical access and production.
Logic and The Lexicon
Authors: Hacquard Valentine
Published: February 2022

This chapter focuses on a special instance of logical vocabulary, namely modal words, like “might” or “must,” which express possibility and necessity. Modal statements involve a complex interplay of morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, which make it particularly challenging to identify what lexical meanings the modal words encode. This chapter surveys how possibilities and necessities are expressed in natural language, with an eye toward cross-linguistic similarity and variation, and introduces the framework that formal semantics inherits from modal logic to analyze modal statements. It then turns to the challenges—for both the semanticist and for the child learner—of figuring out the right division of labor between semantics and pragmatics for modal statements, and the exact lexical contributions of the modal words themselves.
Southeast Asian Evidence for Early Maritime Silk Road Exchange and Trade-Related Polities
Authors: Bellina Bérénice
Published: February 2022

This chapter focuses on the recent shift in historical perspectives concerning the mid-first millennium exchanges between the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal and the subsequent new perspectives on the cultural evolution of this broad region. In particular, it reviews the results of recent research conducted on what appeared as the earliest complex trading-polities that developed in the Kra Isthmus from the late fifth to early fourth century BC. The discovery of their cosmopolitan and early urban nature, pushed back in time developments traditionally attributed to the early historical period. These trading polities produced or concentrated many of the shared cultural items distributed over a wide region. Technological analysis demonstrated that most of these items were culturally hybrid, combining technologies and styles from various Asian horizons thus allowing to discuss further the concept of a panregional culture and cultural transfers. Studies suggest that instead of envisioning cultural exchanges in terms of internal or external “influences,” they might be better understood as the product of joint-productions co-elaborated in a wider regionally connected area that constituted the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea interaction spheres.
Angkor
Authors: Fletcher Roland , Pottier Christophe
Published: February 2022

The development of Angkor from the sixth to the sixteenth century derived from two separate, low-density towns with dispersed residence, Bhavapura (around Ak Yum) (sixth to eighth century) and Hariharalaya (eighth to ninth century) which were integrated into a multicentric urban complex in the late ninth century by the formation of a huge, new residential area around the triad of the Royal Palace, the temple on Phnom Bakheng and the East Baray. From then on successive developments can be schematically described as occurring to the west, south, and north, until by the early thirteenth century the urban complex had stabilized and alterations were occurring primarily in the central area. In the fourteenth century severe, unstable climate change produced mega-monsoons, whose water flow eroded the central canal and deposited massive quantities of cross-bedded sand in the southern canals, ending the capacity of the water management network to shield the population of Greater Angkor from the following droughts. After this damage had occurred, Ayutthaya made a brief incursion into Angkor in the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century, Angkor began to transmute into its Middle Period—early modern—settlement form around a row of Buddhist wat along the Siem Reap River.
Introduction
Authors: Higham Charles F. W. , Kim Nam C.
Published: February 2022

The descent of peace over Southeast Asia has galvanized prehistoric research in a region of global interest. Any expansion of humans from their African homeland that followed lines of least resistance would have reached Southeast Asia, and over a two-million-year period, it is possible to document the early arrival of Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis. About 60,000 years ago, Anatomically Modern Humans began to infiltrate, and established a hunter-gatherer tradition that endures. I think the previous sentence should remain Domestication of rice and millet to the north set in train the expansion of farmer communities that interacted with the indigenous hunter-gatherers from about 4,000 years ago. A second innovation later saw the spread of metallurgy, based on copper and tin. The stimulus again came from the north, by trade and the establishment of mining and smelting specialists, heralding by 1100 BC, the start of the Bronze Age. This saw a rapid but impermanent rise of social elites in strategic locations. From about 300 BC, a maritime exchange network brought Southeast Asia into direct contact with state societies in India and China. New ideas, technologies, trade goods, and religions wrought major cultural changes, seen in the rise of port cities. A second wave of foreign influence was felt in the Red River region with the expansion of the Qin and Han empires. These, linked with a serious decline in rainfall experienced in inland regions, all stimulated the genesis of early state societies that were to develop into the modern nations of Southeast Asia.
The Gender Cleavage: Updating Rokkanian Theory for the Twenty-First Century
Authors: Sass Katharina , Kuhnle Stein
Published: February 2022

This article develops Stein Rokkan’s cleavage theory to include the gender cleavage. It discusses the gender cleavage’s structural, cultural, and organizational dimensions. The extent to which the gender cleavage becomes manifest is related to the overall cleavage structure. The gender cleavage has been comparatively more salient in Europe’s Protestant North than in other Western countries. Incorporating gender conflicts into the Rokkanian framework may lead to a richer understanding of welfare regime development.
Association between urinary sodium-to-potassium ratio and home blood pressure and ambulatory blood pressure: the Ohasama study
Authors: Muroya Tomoko , Satoh Michihiro , Murakami Takahisa , Nakayama Shingo , Asayama Kei , Hirose Takuo , Tatsumi Yukako , Inoue Ryusuke , Tsubota-Utsugi Megumi , Hara Azusa , Kogure Mana , Nakaya Naoki , Nomura Kyoko , Kikuya Masahiro , Metoki Hirohito , Imai Yutaka , Hozawa Atsushi , Ohkubo Takayoshi
Published: February 2022

Objective:

No studies have demonstrated the association between urinary sodium-to-potassium (Na/K) ratio and all out-of-office blood pressure (BP) [home morning and evening BP (self-measured at home), and 24-h, daytime, and night-time ambulatory BP] in the same cohort. We aimed to assess, which type of out-of-office BP is more strongly associated with urinary Na/K ratio in the general population.

Methods:

This cross-sectional study was conducted in the general population of Ohasama, Japan. Home and ambulatory BP levels were measured, and 24-h urine samples were obtained from 875 participants (men, 25.5%; mean age, 60.1 years). The urinary Na/K ratio in the 24-h urine samples was calculated.

Results:

The median (interquartile range) urinary Na/K ratio was 4.19 (3.36–5.26). Significant positive trends of home morning, home evening, 24-h, and daytime SBP were observed across quartiles of urinary Na/K ratio (trend P 
< 0.041; adjusted mean values between Q1 and Q4 of urinary Na/K ratio: 121.0–125.5 mmHg for home morning, 120.1–123.8mmhg for home evening, 121.6–123.4mmHg for 24-h, 127.5–129.5 mmHg for daytime). Urinary Na/K ratio was not significantly associated with office or night-time SBP and nocturnal BP fall (trend P > 0.13). In the model with both home morning or evening SBP and daytime SBP, only home SBP was significantly associated with urinary Na/K ratio (P < 0.048 for home SBP).

Conclusion:

These findings suggest that urinary Na/K ratio might be more strongly associated with home BP than with 24-h and daytime BP but was not associated with night-time BP.
Development of Holistic Health Care Interventions for Women With Infertility
Authors: Armah Deborah , van der Wath Anna Elizabeth , Yazbek Mariatha , Naab Florence
Published: February 2022

Infertility care is often directed by a biomedical approach rather than a holistic approach, especially in African countries. This article explores the opinions of health care providers regarding holistic health care interventions in managing women with infertility in Ghana. Data were retrieved using a qualitative design and nominal group technique with a purposive sample of 12 health care providers in Ghana. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis. Health care providers explored various psychological, educational, spiritual, social, and medical interventions to ensure women diagnosed with infertility receive holistic treatment and attain optimal health.
Investigation of the Effects of Complementary and Alternative Therapy Usage on Physical Activity and Self-Care in Individuals Diagnosed With Type 2 Diabetes
Authors: Ünal Aslan Kevser Sevgi
Published: February 2022

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of complementary and alternative therapy on physical activity and self-care power in individuals diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The study was conducted on 63 individuals who had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes for at least 6 months, and met the inclusion criteria. The Personal Information Form, International Physical Activity Questionnaire Short Form, and Diabetes Self-Care Scale were used to collect the data. Percentage, median, Mann-WhitneyUtests, and Wilcoxon tests were used for data analysis. While 71.9% of the individuals were only on diabetic diet, 58% of the individuals were on diabetic diet together with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) methods, and all those patients regularly measured their blood glucose levels; 19.4% of the individuals on both diabetic diet and CAM methods, and 21.9% of the individuals only on diabetic diet used more than one oral medication per day. The findings of this study revealed that 35.5% of the individuals both on diabetic diet and CAM methods and 40.6% of the individuals only on diabetic diet used insulin. The individuals who were both on diabetic diet and CAM methods stated that their health statuses improved in the previous month; however, the individuals who were only on diabetic diet did not report any improvement in that period. Physical activity levels and self-care behaviors of the individuals on diabetic diet and CAM methods together were found to be significantly better than those who were only on a diabetic diet. A positive relationship was found between physical activity level and self-care behaviors.
Causal Variants of the GJB6 Gene are Associated with Hearing Loss and Skin Manifestations: A Case Report from Turkey
Authors: Duzkale Neslihan , Aygar Gamze Tas , Keseroglu Kemal , Mutlu Murad , Ugur Mehmet Birol
Published: February 2022

Introduction:

The gap junction beta 6 (GJB6) gene encodes connexin 30. This protein plays critical role in tissues and is responsible for the formation of gap junctions, which have a wide variety of physiological functions. Disease-associated variants of GJB6 cause non-syndromic hearing loss (HL) and skin lesions.

We herein describe a Turkish girl who was diagnosed with HL and in whom genetic analysis revealed a causal variant of GJB6.

Case presentation:

The 1-year-old girl patient was diagnosed with bilateral HL when she was 1 month old. Apart from this, the patient’s motor/mental development and physical examination were normal. As a result of the analysis with the multi-gene panel, the causative genomic change, c.175G>A(p.Gly59Arg) in the GJB6 gene was determined as heterozygous. Segregation analysis proved the same genotype in the patient’s mother and grandfather. The patient’s mother and grandfather had bilateral HL and palmoplantar hyperkeratosis phenotype. The patient was diagnosed with Clouston syndrome, and genetic counseling was provided to her family.

Discussion:

Causal variants of GJB6 cause skin manifestations and signs of HL. Molecular diagnosis of these patients is a valuable tool for clinicians in reaching their optimal treatment and clinical management.

Conclusion:

In syndromic cases in which many organs are affected, the determination of the causative gene is important in directing the patients to appropriate observation, screening, and treatment strategies.
Excessive Workload Beyond Measured Exercise Tolerance Affects Post-Discharge Mental Health in Workers With Heart Disease
Authors: Kuhara Satoshi , Itoh Hideaki , Araki Masaru , Yamato Hiroshi , Saeki Satoru
Published: February 2022

Objective:

We evaluated work intensity, exercise tolerance, and mental health among workers with heart disease and assessed the relationship between return to work (RTW) status and changes in mental health 3 months post-discharge.

Methods:

Patients were enrolled from 2014 to 2019. Data were collected on admission and 3 months post-discharge. Mental health was assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Jobs were defined as “reasonable workload (RW)” or “over workload (OW)” based on metabolic equivalents.

Results:

Twenty-six patients responded (81.3%). RTW after 3 months was higher in the RW group (100%) than in the OW group (63.6%). Mental health in the OW group significantly deteriorated compared with baseline and was higher than that in the RW group.

Conclusions:

Patients whose work intensity was higher than their exercise tolerance had worsened mental health 3 months post-discharge.
Attributes of Long Duration COVID-19 Workers’ Compensation Claims
Authors: Bernacki Edward J. , Hunt Dan L. , Tsourmas Nicholas F. , Yuspeh Larry , Lavin Robert A. , Kalia Nimisha , Leung Nina , Willams Leila , Green-McKenzie Judith , Tao Xuguang (Grant)
Published: February 2022

Objective:

To examine the attributes associated with long duration COVID- 19 workers’ compensation (WC) claims.

Methods:

A study was conducted on 13,153 COVID-19 WC claims accepted by a workers’ compensation insurance carrier between January 1, 2020 and November 30, 2021.

Results:

1) Ninety-five percent of accepted WC claims were closed within the study period; 2) five percent of claims had 30 days or longer of lost time accounting for 65% of total paid WC costs; 3) medical costs increased 8-fold once paid days lost crossed the threshold of 60 days or greater; 4) age was the strongest risk factor associated with increased WC costs and prolonged impairment.

Conclusion:

Age at the time of infection was the major factor associated with prolonged impairment and high costs of COVID-19 related WC claims.
Vertical Integration Versus Physician Owners
Authors: Mitchell Jean M. , DeLeire Thomas
Published: February 2022

Objective:

The objective of this study was to document changes in physician practice structure among surgeons who treat women with breast cancer.

Design:

We merged cancer registry records from 5 large states with Medicare Part B claims to identify each surgeon who treated women with breast cancer. We added information from SK&A surveys and extensive internet searches. We analyzed changes in breast surgeons’ practice structure over time.

Measures:

We assigned each surgeon-year a practice structure type: (1) small single-specialty practice; (2) single-specialty surgery or multispecialty practice with ownership in an ambulatory surgery center (ASC); (3) physician-owned hospital; (4) multispecialty; (5) employed.

Results:

In 2003, nearly 74% of breast cancer surgeons belonged to small single-specialty practices. By 2014, this percentage fell to 51%. A shift to being employed (vertical integration) accounted for only a portion of this decline; between 2003 and 2014, the percentage of surgeons who were employed increased from 10% to 20%. The remainder of this decline is due to surgeons opting to acquire ownership in an ASC or a specialty hospital. Between 2003 and 2014, the percentage of surgeons with ownership in an ASC or specialty hospital increased from 4% to 17%.

Conclusions:

Dramatic changes in surgeon practice structure occurred between 2003 and 2014 across the 5 states we examined. The most notable was the sharp decline in the prevalence of the small single-specialty practice and large increases in the proportion of surgeons either employed or with ownership in ACSs or hospitals.
Nail diameter significantly impacts stability in combined plate-nail constructs used for fixation of supracondylar distal femur fractures
Authors: Wright David J. , DeSanto Donald J. , McGarry Michelle H. , Lee Thay Q. , Scolaro John A.
Published: February 2022

Objectives:

Plate-nail (PN) combinations have been described for fixation of supracondylar distal femur fractures. Small diameter retrograde intramedullary nails (rIMN) are commonly used. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of nail diameter on construct stability. We hypothesized that a larger diameter rIMN would not significantly change the stiffness of the PN construct when tested in torsional or axial loading.

Methods:

Twelve synthetic osteoporotic femurs were used to compare nail diameters in an extraarticular supracondylar distal femur fracture model (Orthopaedic Trauma Association/Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Osteosynthesefragen type 33-A3). Constructs were fixed with a 12-hole 4.5 mm pre-contoured lateral distal femoral locking plate combined with either a 9 mm (n = 6) or an 11 mm (n = 6) retrograde intramedullary nail (rIMN). Specimens were cyclically loaded in torsion and axial compression. The primary outcome was construct stiffness, calculated using the average slope of the force-displacement curves.

Results:

The 11 mm PN construct was approximately 1.6 times stiffer than the 9 mm PN construct averaged across all torsional loads (2.39 +/− 0.41 Nm/deg vs 1.44 +/− 0.17 Nm/deg) and approximately 1.3 times stiffer than the 9 mm PN construct averaged across all axial loads (506.84 +/− 44.50 N/mm vs 376.77 +/− 37.65 N/mm). There were no construct failures.

Conclusions:

In this biomechanical model, nail diameter had a significant effect on both torsional and axial stiffness in PN constructs. While the use of smaller diameter rIMNs has been proposed to allow for easier placement of implants, the effect on overall construct stiffness should be considered in the context of the patient, their fracture and desired postoperative weight bearing recommendations.

Level of Evidence: N/A
Jejunal Mesenteric Vascularized Lymph Node Transplantation for Lymphedema: Outcomes and Technical Modifications
Authors: Schaverien Mark V. , Hofstetter Wayne L. , Hall Melissa S. , Chen Dawn N. , Selber Jesse C.
Published: February 2022

Background:

The jejunal mesentery supplied by the superior mesenteric vascular tree has emerged as a viable site for vascularized lymph node transplantation. Among other benefits, it has the advantage of avoidance of the risk of donor-site lymphedema. This article reports the technique and outcomes of a novel approach to jejunal mesenteric vascularized lymph node transplantation with flap harvest from the mesenteric root to reduce the risk of small bowel ischemic complications.

Methods:

A consecutive series of patients that underwent jejunal mesenteric vascularized lymph node transplantation to treat upper extremity lymphedema were included. Preoperative and postoperative measurements were taken at fixed intervals using standardized techniques including Perometer volumetry, LDex bioimpedance spectroscopy, the Lymphedema Life Impact Scale, and the Quick Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand tool. Demographic, treatment, and outcomes data were collected, and descriptive statistics were used.

Results:

There were 25 patients included, all of whom had maximized their conservative therapy before undergoing surgery. At 12 months postoperatively reduction in limb volume difference was 36.7 percent (p < 0.001), reduction in LDex score was 41.4 percent (p = 0.0015), and reductions in the Lymphedema Life Impact Scale and Quick Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand scores were 55.7 percent (p = 0.0019) and 47.5 percent (p = 0.027), respectively. In 11 patients, there was a history of cellulitis (multiple episodes in eight), and at up to 24 months’ follow-up postoperatively there were no episodes reported (p < 0.001).

Conclusion:

Upper extremity lymphedema can be effectively treated surgically using the jejunal mesenteric vascularized lymph node transplantation, resulting in reduced limb volume and extracellular fluid, and improved patient-reported limb function and outcomes measures compared with optimized conservative therapy alone.

CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE:

Therapeutic, IV.
Muscle-Sparing Six-Point Upper Blepharoplasty for Asian Male Patients
Authors: Lee Moon Ki , Lee Seungjun , Jun Daiwon
Published: February 2022

Dermatochalasis is a consequence of aging and results in various problems, such as tired look, dry eye syndrome, or reduced vision. Although the demand for upper blepharoplasty is growing in the senescing world, the demand from male patients has been generally overlooked. Male patients prefer natural creases and fast recoveries, with minimal swelling. The authors introduce a novel method that will satisfy the demands of most male patients. This technique includes muscle-sparing skin incisions and fixation of folds through 6 slit incisions. This study retrospectively reviewed 40 Asian male patients who had been subject to this procedure. The patients were evaluated for fold attenuation, scar perception, and patient satisfaction; favorable outcomes with minimal complications were observed.
MUC16 mutation is associated with tumor grade, clinical features, and prognosis in glioma patients
Authors: Ferrer Valéria Pereira
Published: February 2022

MUC16 is a member of the attached mucin family that encodes cancer antigen 125 (CA-125), but the association of MUC16 status with grade and subtypes of glioma patients has not yet been established. Data for MUC16 mRNA expression in 37 different cancer types were considered, and genomic data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) from 1051 low-grade glioma (LGG) patients and 833 glioblastoma (GBM) patients were analyzed. LGG and GBM has low expression of MUC16, but it is frequently mutated in GBM. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, glioma subtypes, methylation, and isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH1) status were all performed. We found that mutated-MUC16 in LGG patients is associated with better prognosis considering overall survival (OS), IDH1, methylation, 1p/19q, and 10q status. Conversely, MUC16 mutation were related with worse prognosis in GBM patients upon analyzing those same parameters. Therefore, MUC16 mutations may assist in glioma diagnosis and prognosis and should be further studied in this tumor type.
Evaluation of “test to return” after COVID-19 diagnosis in a Massachusetts public school district
Authors: Nelson Sandra B. , Brenner Isaac Ravi , Homan Elizabeth , Lee Sarah Bott , Bongiorno Christine , Pollock Nira R. , Ciaranello Andrea
Published: February 2022

The Centers for Disease Control allows rapid antigen testing (RAT) towards the end of a 5-day isolation for COVID-19 infection to determine eligibility to leave isolation. The impact of a test-to-return (TTR) program in schools is unknown. In January 2022 a Massachusetts school district initiated a TTR program utilizing a single school-administered RAT on days 5-9 after symptom onset or positive test, whichever was first. Of 636 students with COVID-19 infection, 408 (64.2%) participated in TTR; of these, 128 (31.4%) had a positive TTR rapid antigen test. Students who were symptomatic at any time during their infection were more likely to have a positive TTR than those who were never symptomatic (43.1% vs. 17.3%); positivity rates were lower when TTR was performed later during days 6-9. TTR may identify students who carry higher viral loads after recovery from COVID-19 infection thereby extending their isolation, while facilitating earlier return of those with negative results.
Source terms for benchmarking models of SARS-CoV-2 transmission via aerosols and droplets
Authors: Stettler Marc E.J. , Nishida Robert T. , de Oliveira Pedro M. , Mesquita Léo C.C. , Johnson Tyler J. , Galea Edwin R. , Grandison Angus , Ewer John , Carruthers David , Sykes David , Kumar Prashant , Avital Eldad , Obeysekara Asiri I.B. , Doorly Denis , Hardalupas Yannis , Green David C. , Coldrick Simon , Parker Simon , Boies Adam M.
Published: February 2022

There is ongoing and rapid advancement in approaches to modelling the fate of exhaled particles in different environments relevant to disease transmission. It is important that models are verified by comparison with each other using a common set of input parameters to ensure that model differences can be interpreted in terms of model physics rather than unspecified differences in model input parameters. In this paper, we define parameters necessary for such benchmarking of models of airborne particles exhaled by humans and transported in the environment during breathing and speaking.
Strength and durability of antibody responses to BNT162b2 and CoronaVac
Authors: Cowling Benjamin J. , Wong Irene O. L. , Shiu Eunice Y. C. , Lai Amber Y. T. , Cheng Samuel M. S. , Chaothai Sara , Kwan Kelvin K. H. , Martín-Sánchez Mario , Poon Leo L. M. , Ip Dennis K. M. , Leung Gabriel M. , Leung Nancy H. L. , Peiris J. S. Malik
Published: February 2022

We studied 2780 adults in Hong Kong who received CoronaVac inactivated virus vaccine (Sinovac) and BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine (“Comirnaty”, BioNTech/Fosun Pharma). We found stronger and more durable antibody responses to two doses of the mRNA vaccine, and slightly stronger initial antibody responses to each vaccine in younger adults and women.