bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Scholarship
Authors: Pedreira Mark A.
Published: October 2022

This chapter revisits Samuel Johnson’s scholarship, exploring the interconnectedness of his bibliographical, lexicographical, and editorial studies in his scholarly works: the Harleian Catalogue (1743–45), A Dictionary of the English Language (1755; rev. 1773), and The Plays of William Shakespeare (1765; rev. 1773 and 1778). It begins by examining in the Harleian Catalogue, Catalogus Bibliothecæ Harleianæ (co-authored with William Oldys), Johnson’s statements on the value of catalogs and by conjecturing on his contributions to the annotations, especially on classics and Bibles, in the sale catalog of the Earl of Oxford’s library. The chapter then looks at Johnson’s Dictionary, examining, in this reference work, his “interpretative lexicography,” comprising his definitions (which have the function of “explanation”) and scholarly citations from Sidney to Pope, especially Shakespeare. The chapter concludes with Johnson’s scholarly notes on King Lear in his variorum edition of Shakespeare, arguing that Johnsonian textual criticism is noteworthy for its lexicographical learning.
Criticism
Authors: Lynch Jack
Published: October 2022

Johnson is often named among the great literary critics, but what does “Johnsonian” criticism mean? Commonplaces about “neoclassicism” tell us little, and an often-quoted passage from Rasselas about the role of the poet is cloaked in irony. It is impossible to create a manifesto of Johnsonian critical principles, but we can pay attention to how he approached his job as a critic. For him criticism was above all evaluative, and he believed one of the greatest writerly faults was sloppy diction. He read works of different ages according to age-appropriate standards, and was a pioneer of character criticism. For him criticism was always a dialogue, not a harangue, and he may be the most diffident of all the great critics.
Authorship
Authors: Pauley Benjamin F.
Published: October 2022

Samuel Johnson’s works and correspondence contain of wealth of remarks on the “adventures” of books in the eighteenth-century marketplace of print. Johnson has long been seen as a central figure in the history of professional authorship. As the author of the Lives of the Poets, Johnson was clearly interested in the life of writing. But Johnson’s ideas about authorship and letters were thoroughly conditioned by his keen awareness of practical questions of book production and publishing. Indeed, taken together, Johnson’s observations on a broad range of books—his own and others’—provide a compact but surprisingly comprehensive introduction to the landscape of the eighteenth-century book trades and the world of eighteenth-century publishing. Reading Johnson’s works and correspondence in the lights of bibliography (the study of books as material objects) and of book history (the study of books as social and cultural phenomena) suggests the extent to which he saw authorship not as a solitary intellectual or artistic endeavor, but as one inextricably—and properly—bound up with the commercial world of publishing.
Politics
Authors: Kaminski Thomas
Published: October 2022

Samuel Johnson was a Tory, but few nowadays know what that entailed. As a Tory, Johnson believed that the king’s hereditary right to his Crown superseded Parliament’s authority to alter the line of succession. As a result, for much of his adult life Johnson was a Jacobite, one who supported the claim of the exiled Stuart Pretender to the British throne. Johnson also admired the theological polemics of the Nonjuring clergy who defended the sacred character of the established Church. But with the death of the Old Pretender in 1766 and the long continuance of Hanoverian rule, Johnson accepted, with certain reservations, George III’s right to the Crown. And during the 1770s, appalled by increasing political and social unrest, Johnson wrote a series of pamphlets defending Whig governments against the attacks of unruly mobs, unscrupulous politicians, and American revolutionaries.
Science
Authors: Drury Joseph
Published: October 2022

Although Johnson paid close attention to the natural sciences, conducted chemical experiments at home, and included a large number of scientific terms in his Dictionary, he is typically thought to have made no significant contribution to Enlightenment science. This chapter challenges this view by reading Johnson’s periodical essays as important examples of “experimental moral philosophy,” an eighteenth-century field of inquiry that sought to extend the Newtonian method from the sensible world to the study of human subjectivity. Drawing on the methods and conceptual repertoire of vitalist natural philosophy, especially chemistry, Johnson’s essays offer a qualitative, experimental account of the primary forces of the mind, which emphasizes the tragic burden imposed by its restless activity.
Age
Authors: Sabor Peter
Published: October 2022

This chapter is concerned with Samuel Johnson’s later years. During the last twenty-two years of his life, from July 1762 to December 1764, he received a Civil List pension of £300 per annum. No longer compelled to write for money, he undertook a series of travels: to Devon with Joshua Reynolds in 1762; to the Hebrides with his future biographer James Boswell in 1773; to North Wales with Henry and Hester Thrale in 1774; and to Paris, again with the Thrales, in 1775. He met Boswell for the first time in May 1763, and the Thrales with whom he soon developed a close friendship, in January 1765; Streatham Park, the country estate of this wealthy brewer and his brilliant wife, became Johnson’s second home. In winter 1764, Johnson and Reynolds founded the Club, initially with nine distinguished members. Johnson’s edition of Shakespeare was published in 1765; his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland in 1775; and his final major publication, Lives of the Poets, in 1779–81.
Hope
Authors: Potkay Adam
Published: October 2022

Johnson’s bifurcated sense of hope has deep roots in the Western tradition. As one of the theological virtues, hope, along with faith and love, is always good in Christianity. Worldly hopes or wishes, however, are treated as vices by the classical moralists Johnson sometimes follows: irrational and self-destructive hopes distract from enjoyment or exertion in the present moment. For the mature Johnson, worldly hope is in the main an illusion, a cheat, but also most if not all of life itself. Johnson concedes, as no ancient would, that hope is both motivating and palliative. Nonetheless, he encourages us, as the ancients did, to distance ourselves as best we can from unreasonable hopes.
Introduction
Authors: Lynch Jack
Published: October 2022

This introduction examines the gap between Johnson as popular figure—waspish, dogmatic, easily caricatured—and the man himself, always wrestling with complexity and ambiguity. No collection of critical essays on a mind as various as Johnson’s could ever be comprehensive, but the thirty-six contributors to this collection, from institutions around the world, offer the broadest and most detailed portrait to date of a uniquely complicated mind.
Lives
Authors: Berglund Lisa
Published: October 2022

This chapter traces the history of the “Lives of Johnson,” beginning with the rivals James Boswell, Hester Lynch Piozzi, and Sir John Hawkins, who wrote definitive biographies based on their personal friendships with the lexicographer. Boswell’s Life of Johnson then effectively supplanted all other interpretations until the late nineteenth century, when alternative voices began once more to be heard. The chapter concludes with a survey of a dozen twentieth-century biographies, showing how writers de-emphasized Boswell’s interpretation, embraced and then rejected psychoanalytic theory, reinterpreted Johnson as a scholar, examined his friendships, and reviewed his life and character on the three hundredth anniversary of his birth. Each biography is briefly summarized, and its strengths, flaws, and characteristic elements assessed with regard to the needs of the non-specialist as well as the academic reader.
Editions
Authors: DeMaria Robert
Published: October 2022

The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson, 23 vols. (1958–2018), is the most comprehensive and accurate edition of Johnson’s works ever published and ever likely to be published. There is, nevertheless, much of Johnson’s work lacking in the Yale Edition, including the full texts of the Dictionary and his edition of Shakespeare’s plays. Also lacking are many of Johnson’s contributions to the works of others. In addition to the printed Yale Edition, there is a Yale Digital Edition of the Works, which corrects some of the original’s errors, and can be expanded over time, but it is unlikely that there will be a new comprehensive edition. There have been, however, and may continue to appear, important editions of discrete parts of Johnson’s works that improve on some of the Yale volumes.
Essays
Authors: Squibbs Richard
Published: October 2022

This chapter examines Johnson’s achievements as an essayist in relation to the established conventions of the periodical essay. With the Rambler, Johnson restored the periodical essay to its once-prominent place in English literary culture by elevating its moral seriousness and emphasizing its aptness as a vehicle for literary criticism. The success of the series spurred a revival of the genre at mid-century, albeit largely in reaction to the Rambler’s relative gravity and ponderous diction. After doubling down on the Rambler’s style with his contributions to the Adventurer, Johnson experimented with a more playful approach to the periodical essay in the Idler. The mixed critical reception of his efforts near the end of the century often associated his essays more with the moralist and critic Johnson had become than with the genre in which he first enjoyed popular success, an enduring perspective that this chapter aims to qualify.
Black Literary History and the Problem of Identification in Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo
Authors: Levy-Hussen Aida
Published: October 2022

Published in 1972 at the dawn of the institutionalization of African American Studies, Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo—a novel about cultural awakening, appropriation, and shifting power relations—may be read as an anticipatory fantasy of how a then emergent field would come to recount and mythologize its origins. The novel celebrates the Harlem Renaissance as the beginning of the African American literary tradition even as it invokes an ancient African inheritance and looks ahead to the political–artistic foment of Reed’s contemporary moment. This chapter reassesses Reed’s vision for a nascent field and interprets his turn to Harlem as a provocative alternative to the now ubiquitous African Americanist discourse on slavery and trauma. It considers how Mumbo Jumbo constructs its suggestively contradictory conceptualization of Blackness through vying logics of (authentic, racial) identity and (unwieldy, psychoanalytic) identification. The novel’s profound ambivalence about the project of institutionalization complicates its enthusiastic call for the historical recovery of an African American artistic tradition.
Andrea Lee’s Europe
Authors: Daniels-Rauterkus Melissa
Published: October 2022

This chapter places Andrea Lee’s 1981 travel memoir, Russian Journal, and her 1984 semi-autobiographical novel, Sarah Phillips, within a transnational framework that challenges the traditional structures of African American literature. Steeped in the details of Lee’s life (she is a Harvard-educated, African American woman from a self-described racially “complicated background,” with a proclivity for white/European men), both works taken together offer contemporary readers a newer, more cosmopolitan model for theorizing race and interracial desire. Eschewing tired tropes like “victimization” and “sexual exploitation,” Lee looks to a real and imagined Europe to disrupt and trouble the oppressive binaries that underlie the American racial order. Rejecting an either/or approach in favor of negotiation, Lee foregrounds the generative nature of the in-between while also exploding traditional ideas about African American literature and the purview of Black women’s writing. Underappreciated and underassessed, Russian Journal and Sarah Phillips deserve greater critical attention as books that were not only ahead of their time but also that anticipated the more fluid and nuanced representations of race and interracial relationships that we see in twenty-first-century media.
Nuclear Poetry
Authors: van Schalkwyk Simon
Published: October 2022

Short Abstract: This chapter revisits mid-twentieth-century America’s obsession with cultural and political forms of ‘containment’ in order to reframe Robert Lowell’s For the Union Dead. This volume initially appears to represent a conformist and conservative expression of anxieties associated with the nuclear age via the domesticating logic of containment. By contrast, and by focusing on containment’s tacit opposite, ‘leakage’, I argue that For the Union Dead is also informed by methods of revisionary rewriting, imitation, and cultural translation that allow the transnational cultural impact of mid-twentieth-century America’s obsession with containment culture and nuclear anxiety to be mapped. Reading containment as a symptomatic manifestation of the nuclear, I hope to suggest that the nuclear question pertains to more than the immediacy of Cold War America’s various crises of nuclear brinkmanship and that it produces a poetics that reveals the parameters of the nuclear to be implicated in globalized nuclear geographies.
The Liberal Imagination Revisited
Authors: Voelz Johannes
Published: October 2022

Pairing Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March (1953) with Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), this chapter offers a new interpretation of the “liberal imagination” (Lionel Trilling) that speaks to the crisis of liberal democracy in the age of Trumpism. While the political vision of Cold War liberalism is often taken to emerge from anti-totalitarian individualism, this chapter instead finds in Bellow’s and Ellison’s novels models of sociality built on dialogical responsiveness and equality. Bellow constructs a picaro society in which individual liberty is reconceived as the movement from one communicative interaction to the next. Similarly, Ellison’s trope of invisibility points to an incipient form of democratic sociality. While invisibility indexes racist exclusion and non-recognition, it simultaneously envisions an egalitarian and non-identitarian collective to come. The chapter thus asks whether the liberal imagination offers resources for rekindling a democratic culture suffocated by the twenty-first-century politics of division.
Twentieth-Century Western Man of Color
Authors: Goyal Yogita
Published: October 2022

Why was the decolonization of Africa and Asia such a galvanizing moment for African Americans in the middle of the twentieth century? This chapter focuses on Richard Wright’s The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference (1956) to show how Wright’s ambivalent assessment of the promise of Bandung yields necessary lessons for global anti-racist struggles today. It draws out a method of reading for transnationalism by reckoning with Wright’s searching explorations of the meaning of race and place, rights and belonging, as he formulates a new humanism based on a foundation of rootlessness for all. It shows how his unflinching commitment to Western modernity limits his ability to forge true Third World alliances, even as he needs the detour through Asia and Africa to understand his own location in the West.
Precarious Forms
Authors: Entin Joseph B.
Published: October 2022

This chapter examines novels by Dave Eggers, Tomás Rivera, Jamaica Kincaid, and Jesmyn Ward that narrate varied forms of labor precarity and social vulnerability in an increasingly globalized world dominated by the expansive reach of neoliberal capitalism. These narratives depict the diversity of precarious labor, from high tech consulting to agricultural and care work to prison labor, and the intricate imbrication of labor with race and citizenship status. While the precarity of labor has intensified since the emergence of post-Fordist forms of production, these narratives also suggest that labor’s vulnerability is a foundational fact under racial capitalism. The chapter focuses not only on the heterogenous figures of labor contingency across these texts but also on the precarious forms these writers adopt to lend aesthetic shape to conditions of radical uncertainty as well as the nascent possibilities of solidarity that typically hover just beyond full articulation as opaque, but still palpable, contradictions to the market-based freedom and privatized individualism that otherwise pervade neoliberal literary culture.
The Book of Love is Long and Boring
Authors: Freeman Elizabeth
Published: October 2022

This chapter describes the practice of reading aloud to children as disciplinary care work. It centers on phonic readers for children, taking up Friedrich Kittler’s assertion that the mother’s voice and bodily plenitude compensate for the disciplinary work of phonics and the fundamentally arbitrary relation between grapheme and phoneme. Using Patricia Crain’s work on the history of alphabet books and moving between memoir and analysis, the chapter examines how particular texts, adult readers, and children resist both phonics and the lure of maternal embodiment to work beyond what Kittler calls “alphabetization.” Moving from Go the Fuck to Sleep to ABC books and through the Cat in the Hat books, the chapter concludes by celebrating a particularly creative child’s reappropriation of Dr Seuss’s On Beyond Zebra.
Faulkner at the Speed of History
Authors: Goble Mark
Published: October 2022

This chapter looks at how Faulkner’s fiction figures and conceptualizes historical change over time. The briefest of moments are subjected to exhausting descriptions of scene and movement even as whole periods and epochs are compressed into a single clause or sentence. These manipulations of narrative time let Faulkner’s fiction pose a set of questions about how fast or slow history takes place. The chapter links Faulkner’s first months working as a screenwriter in Hollywood to the final production and publication of Light in August, a novel that features some of his most explicit references to cinematic technique. Repeated allusions to slow motion—as both a special effect and material fact of rural underdevelopment—allow him to explore the dialectical velocities of modernization.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulators
Authors: Peterchev Angel V. , Riehl Mark E.
Published: October 2022

Transcranial magnetic stimulators are used for clinical diagnostic and therapeutic applications as well as in support of research. Consequently, a number of stimulator types and design variations have been developed to serve these purposes each having unique design requirements. Key design elements and performance trade-offs are discussed for conventional monophasic and biphasic pulse generators as well as new circuit topologies that allow controllability of the pulse shape. A brief review of rTMS pulse sequences and terminology provides a basis for the pulse timing requirements used in the various designs. Alternative approaches to delivery of subthreshold electromagnetic fields are also summarized. Methods for quantification of the induced electric field and the resultant neural responses are presented and can be utilized in device development, calibration, and output comparisons. Finally, an overview is given of unique requirements for TMS systems used in clinical and research environments, including safety and regulatory considerations.
New Developments in the Treatment of Depression with tDCS
Authors: Moffa Adriano H. , Martin Donel , Loo Colleen
Published: October 2022

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common, debilitating and refractory mental disorder. The limited efficacy of pharmacotherapy has caused a growing interest in new forms of interventions like transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Although tDCS is one of the most studied forms of noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) in the treatment of depression, results from trials are mixed and modest. This heterogeneity in efficacy outcomes is possibly due to the use of different treatment protocols and clinical characteristics of the sample. This chapter gathers the current state of the evidence on tDCS in depression treatment as a monotherapy and in combination with pharmacotherapy or cognitive interventions. It also covers the effects on cognition outcomes in depressed patients and the safety aspects of the technique. Future directions are considered, particularly home-based tDCS, the use of biomarkers to guide treatment and computational modelling to individualise stimulation parameters.
Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation in Schizophrenia
Authors: Fröhlich Flavio , Jarskog L. Fredrik
Published: October 2022

Schizophrenia is a complex network disorder in urgent need of novel treatments that are effective and well tolerated. Non-invasive brain stimulation has potential to address this need by restoring impaired network activity patterns associated with the symptoms of schizophrenia. Despite a surge in interest and in the number of (mostly small) trials, no specific paradigm has yet emerged as a game-changing treatment paradigm. Here, we review studies of transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct and alternating current stimulation, and electroconvulsive therapy. We discuss the current challenges and propose several key directions for research aimed at developing the next generation of non-invasive brain stimulation paradigms for the treatment of schizophrenia. In particular, we highlight the importance of measuring target engagement by the stimulation, developing novel stimulation waveforms by rational design, and performing larger, more definite multi-center clinical trials.
The Economic State and the Ordoliberal Critique of Keynesianism
Authors: Plehwe Dieter
Published: October 2022

Keynesianism and Ordoliberalism differ with regard to labour markets and collective bargaining in particular. Contrary to Foucault’s claims, however, Walter Eucken conditionally supported Wilhelm Lautenbach’s proto-Keynesian proposal to use public investment to overcome economic stagnation in the early 1930s. And the late 1960s witnessed a pragmatic realignment of modern (Keynesian) macroeconomics and Ordoliberal objectives advanced by economists Karl Schiller and Herbert Giersch. The episode was short-lived due to intransigent trade unions and Social Democratic politicians. Resulting worries about monetary stability transformed and radicalised German neoliberalism in the course of the 1970s. Although Ordoliberals attacked the weak ‘economic’ state on principle, due to the excessive influence of business and labour and resulting state interventions, they relied on a ‘strong state’ to maintain distinct, yet interdependent, economic, political and social orders. Semantic opposition to the economic state thus is best understood as the Ordoliberal way to oppose decommodification of labour and social assistance.
The Social Market Economy and Ordoliberalism—A Difficult Relationship
Authors: Hien Josef
Published: October 2022

While there is a sprawling literature that debates the influence of Ordoliberalism on crisis and Euro politics, there is a striking lack of studies outside of the German-speaking social sciences that trace the Ordoliberal influence within Germany. Someone who associates German political action to Ordoliberal ideas has to put up with a striking paradox: how is it that most of the institutions that constitute the German political economy are of the type that Ordoliberals have feared since the 1930s? This contribution will clarify the relationship between the Ordoliberal thinkers of the Freiburg School and the Social Market Economy in theory and practice.
Politics and the Order of Society
Authors: Møller Stahl Rune
Published: October 2022

For the Ordoliberals, a central task for the liberal state was ensuring social order and stability, against the instability created by mass democracy and the adverse social effects of the market economy. This was a task they thought insufficiently developed in the laissez-faire doctrine of classical liberalism, with its supposedly blind faith in the automatism of economic progress. For the Ordoliberals, the act of securing the social order was necessarily a political practice of government. It entailed a strong state that was to create and maintain a competitive market order through the construction of a market liberal economic constitution (Wirtschaftsverfassung), and maintain social order through a social policy that incorporated competitiveness into the mentality of society (Vitalpolitik). In order to fulfil these functions, the state needed to achieve and retain independence from the societal and economic forces that would otherwise undermine the competitive economic order.
Ordoliberal Economic Policy
Authors: Köhler Ekkehard A.
Published: October 2022

Today, Ordoliberalism is perceived as an inspiring intellectual source for ‘globalist’ elites in their attempt to foster crony capitalism, despite the fact that, above all else, the core message of its founder, Walter Eucken, sets out to prevent any form of economic power. I argue that Eucken’s ideas on economic policy can be viewed as a strong resolve against any form of private or public crony capitalism. He countered rising nationalism and étatism with a positive programme of economic policy that suggests markets and the price mechanism as a hypothetical imperative to solve the coordination problem of modern societies. This article sheds light on Eucken’s general ideas for economic policy and highlights their shortcomings.
Eurozone Policy and Crisis
Authors: Bruno Federico
Published: October 2022

This chapter investigates the relation between Ordoliberalism and the reforms of European economic governance undertaken during the Euro crisis. First, it reviews the main reforms of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) adopted in the years of the crisis (the Six-pack, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the Fiscal Compact, the Two-pack and the Banking Union). Then, it reconstructs the Ordoliberal debate about the Euro crisis and its influence in German politics. After that, it analyses the extent to which the European reforms reflect Ordoliberal principles. The chapter concludes by arguing that the specific character of the ‘Ordoliberalisation’ ensuing the reforms consists in the generalisation of the concept of national responsibility as the cornerstone of European economic governance: in order to promote growth and sustainable public finances, the Member States cannot rely on European coordination, but must commit themselves to austerity and structural reforms.
Walter Eucken
Authors: Wörsdörfer Manuel
Published: October 2022

Walter Eucken was one of the main representatives of the Freiburg School of Law and Economics and German ‘neoliberalism’, also known as ordoliberalism. This chapter portrays and analyses Eucken’s life and work as well as his ordoliberal legacy. It begins by taking a closer look at Eucken’s personal background and his work as an economist-philosopher. It then examines at great length his main publications—the Grundlagen der Nationalökonomie (Foundations of Economics) and the Grundsätze der Wirtschaftspolitik (Principles of Economic Policy)—from a history of economic thought and business ethics perspective. The chapter concludes with some remarks on Eucken’s legacy and the implications of his work for today’s global political economy.
Superhydrophobicity Can Enhance Convective Heat Transfer in Pressure-Driven Pipe Flow
Authors: Rodriguez-Broadbent Henry , Crowdy Darren G
Published: October 2022

Theoretical evidence is given that it is possible for superhydrophobicity to enhance steady laminar convective heat transfer in pressure-driven flow along a circular pipe or tube with constant heat flux. Superhydrophobicity here refers to the presence of adiabatic no-shear zones in an otherwise solid no-slip boundary. Adding such adiabatic no-shear zones reduces not only hydrodynamic friction, leading to greater fluid volume fluxes for a given pressure gradient, but also reduces the solid surface area through which heat enters the fluid. This leads to a delicate trade-off between competing mechanisms so that the net effect on convective heat transfer along the pipe, as typically measured by a Nusselt number, is not obvious. Existing evidence in the literature suggests that superhydrophobicity always decreases the Nusselt number, and therefore compromises the net heat transfer. In this theoretical study, we confirm this to be generally true but, significantly, we identify a situation where the opposite occurs and the Nusselt number increases thereby enhancing convective heat transfer along the pipe.
Construction of a mineralized collagen nerve conduit for peripheral nerve injury repair
Authors: Duan Guman , Li Chengli , Yan Xiaoqing , Yang Shuhui , Wang Shuo , Sun Xiaodan , Zhao Lingyun , Song Tianxi , Pan Yongwei , Wang Xiumei
Published: October 2022

A new nerve guidance conduits (NGCs) named MC@Col containing Type I collagen (Col) and mineralized collagen (MC) was developed, enhancing mechanical and degradation behavior. The physicochemical properties, the mechanical properties and in vitro degradation behavior were all evaluated. The adhesion and proliferation of Schwann cells (SCs) were observed. In the in vivo experiment, MC@Col NGC and other conduits including Col, chitosan (CST) and polycaprolactone (PCL) conduit were implanted to repair a 10-mm-long Sprague-Dawley rat’s sciatic nerve defect. Histological analyses, morphological analyses, electrophysiological analyses and further gait analyses were all evaluated after implantation in 12 weeks. The strength and degradation performance of the MC@Col NGC were improved by the addition of MC in comparison with pure Col NGC. In vitro cytocompatibility evaluation revealed that the SCs had good viability, attachment and proliferation in the MC@Col. In in vivo results, the regenerative outcomes of MC@Col NGC were close to those by an autologous nerve graft in some respects, but superior to those by Col, CST and PCL conduits. The MC@Col NGC exhibited good mechanical performance as well as biocompatibility to bridge nerve gap and guide nerve regeneration, thus showing great promising potential as a new type of conduit in clinical applications.
Reliability of the Masada Classification for Forearm Involvement in Patients With Hereditary Multiple Osteochondromas (HMO)
Authors: Canizares Maria F. , Wall Lindley B. , Van Heest Ann , Steinman Suzanne , James Michelle A. , Miller Patricia E. , Vuillermin Carley ,   the CoULD Study Group
Published: October 2022

Background:

Classifications describing forearm lesions in patients with Hereditary Multiple Osteochondromatosis (HMO) have been used to recommend surgical intervention and stratify outcomes; however, there is no consensus on which classification offers greater reliability. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of the Masada classification and newer classifications among pediatric hand surgeons.

Methods:

One hundred one patients with HMO between June 2014 and October 2019 were enrolled in the Congenital Upper Limb Differences (CoULD) Registry. Of those, 67 patients with 101 forearms were included. Four pediatric hand surgeons from the CoULD study group undertook an online evaluation. Each rater classified radiographs according to the Masada classification. Six weeks later, raters were asked to reclassify images according to the Masada, Gottschalk, and Jo classifications. Rater agreement for these classifications was assessed by estimating Fleiss kappa along with a 95% CI.

Results:

Interrater agreement for Masada classification after the first reading was poor (κ=0.35; 95% CI=0.30-0.41) across all raters. Interrater agreement across the 4 raters decreased for the Masada classification from the first to the second reading (κ=0.35 vs 0.21; P<0.001). Intrarater agreement for the Masada classification ranged from 0.32 to 0.63 from the first to the second study reading. Gottschalk and Jo classifications yielded significantly better interrater agreement compared with Masada (κ=0.43 vs 0.21; P<0.001). Unclassifiable cases were highest in the Masada classification (34% to 44%) and lower in the Jo (17%) and Gottschalk (14%) classifications.

Conclusion:

Despite wide use, the Masada classification was found to have low reliability when classifying forearm deformities in HMO. Gottschalk offered more options for location, yet lacked deformity description including radial head dislocation. Jo classification offered more locations than Masada and incorporated radial head dislocation in some patterns. Based on the shortcomings in all 3 classification systems, the development of a more inclusive and reliable classification is warranted.

Level of Evidence:

Level II; Diagnostic.
Demographics and Medical Comorbidities as Risk Factors for Increased Episode of Care Costs Following Lumbar Fusion in Medicare Patients
Authors: Lambrechts Mark J. , Siegel Nicholas , Karamian Brian A. , Kanhere Arun , Tran Khoa , Samuel Andre M. , Viola III Anthony , Tokarski Andrew , Santisi Anthony , Canseco Jose A. , David Kaye I. , Woods Barrett , Kurd Mark , Hilibrand Alan S. , Kepler Christopher K. , Vaccaro Alexander R. , Schroeder Gregory D. , Rihn Jeffrey
Published: October 2022

The objective was to evaluate medical comorbidities and surgical variables as independent risk factors for increased health care costs in Medicare patients undergoing lumbar fusion. Care episodes limited to lumbar fusions were retrospectively reviewed on the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) Bundled Payment for Care Improvement (BPCI) reimbursement database at a single academic institution. Total episode of care cost was also collected. A multivariable linear regression model was developed to identify independent risk factors for increased total episode of care cost, and logistic models for surgical complications and readmission. A total of 500 Medicare patients were included. Risk factors associated with increased total episode of care cost included transforaminal interbody fusion (TLIF) and anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF) (β = $5,399, P < 0.001) and ALIF+PLF (AP) fusions (β = $24,488, P < 0.001), levels fused (β = $3,989, P < 0.001), congestive heart failure (β = $6,161, P = 0.022), hypertension with end-organ damage (β = $10,138, P < 0.001), liver disease (β = $16,682, P < 0.001), inpatient complications (β = $4,548, P = 0.001), 90-day complications (β = $10,012, P = 0.001), and 90-day readmissions (β = $15,677, P < 0.001). The most common surgical complication was postoperative anemia, which was associated with significantly increased costs (β = $18,478, P < 0.001). Female sex (OR = 2.27, P = 0.001), AP fusion (OR = 2.59, P = 0.002), levels fused (OR = 1.45, P = 0.005), cerebrovascular disease (OR = 4.19, P = 0.003), cardiac arrhythmias (OR = 2.32, P = 0.002), and fluid electrolyte disorders (OR = 4.24, P = 0.002) were independent predictors of surgical complications. Body mass index (OR = 1.07, P = 0.029) and AP fusions (OR = 2.87, P = 0.049) were independent predictors of surgical readmission. Among medical comorbidities, congestive heart failure, hypertension with end-organ damage, and liver disease were independently associated with a significant increase in total episode of care cost. Interbody devices were associated with increased admission cost.
Steroid refractory granulomatous mastitis treated by top surgery: A case report
Authors: Lu Ya-Di , Yu Yen-Chen , Chang Dun-Hao
Published: October 2022

Rationale:

Granulomatous mastitis (GM) is a rare inflammatory disease and the presentation mimics infectious mastitis or breast cancer. The disease usually develops at the unilateral breast in women with breast-feeding history at their child-bearing age. Systemic steroids had been proposed as the first-line treatment, the combination of surgery was also recommended for complicated disease. However, recurrence might still happen in some rare cases. Few studies have addressed the management of such difficult situations.

Patient concerns:

We report the case of a 33-year-old androgynous and nulliparous woman who initially presented left breast erythematous swelling and was treated as infectious mastitis with debridement and antibiotics.

Diagnosis:

After wider excision for pathology, the diagnosis of GM was confirmed.

Interventions:

Steroids combined with methotrexate were prescribed. However, the symptoms only subsided temporarily and progressed to the contralateral side within 3 months. She finally underwent double-incision mastectomy and free nipple grafting.

Outcomes:

The surgery was completed uneventfully, and she had a satisfactory result with no more recurrence at the 6-month follow-up.

Lesson:

This GM case with the refractory treatment courses brought out the importance of surgical resection and was the first case report of treating GM with top surgery in the literature. Total mastectomy facilitated a highest complete remission rate of GM and may be advantageous for selected patients, especially in cases where steroids are intolerable.
Clinical study of comprehensive TCM therapy in the treatment of damp and hot stasis erectile dysfunction
Authors: Yao Junchao , Ju Baojun , Li Xiao , Ma Miaomiao , Li Luyu , Zhang Yongtao
Published: October 2022

Background:

The dilemma of male sexual dysfunction has been the focus of the whole society. Erectile dysfunction (ED) is one of the common sexual dysfunctions, and traditional Chinese medicine therapy has shown potential benefits in the treatment of ED. Comprehensive therapy of traditional Chinese medicine (CTTCM) is a comprehensive application of Chinese medicine therapy for auxiliary intervention. Through preliminary clinical observations, we found that CTTCM is simple, safe, and has good efficacy; however, there is a lack of rigorous clinical trials to support its application. Therefore, we designed a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of CTTCM for patients with ED of damp-heat stasis type, and to provide evidence for the clinical application of CTTCM and the construction of a traditional Chinese medicine andrology rehabilitation system.

Methods:

In this randomized controlled study, 108 eligible patients were assigned 1:1 to the CTTCM group or the tadalafil group. The treatment period was 8 weeks and the follow-up period was 8 weeks. The primary outcome will be the International Erectile Function Score and traditional Chinese medicine Syndrome Score. Secondary outcomes will include the Erection Quality Score, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Scale. Safety results will include electrocardiogram, blood tests (including blood, liver and kidney function), urine and stool. International Erectile Function Score-5, traditional Chinese medicine Syndrome Score, Erectile Quality Score, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, 7-item Generalized Anxiety Scale and all Safety outcomes will be conducted at baseline, 2th, 4th, 6th, and 8th week. Follow-up results will be assessed at 8th week after 8 weeks’ treatment.

Discussion:

This study will provide preliminary evidence for the efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicine integrated therapy in the treatment of damp-heat stasis ED. In addition, it also provides a basis for the clinical application of Chinese medicine comprehensive therapy and the construction of Chinese medicine andrology rehabilitation system.

Trial registration:

Chinese clinical trial registration identifier, ChiCTR2200062016, registered on July 19, 2022.
A retrospective assessment of the clinical efficacy of different internal fixation methods in the treatment of distal fibula fractures in the elderly
Authors: Zhao Wenhai , Wang Qian , Cui Zhenhai , Yue Zhenshuang , Hu Zhongqing , Zeng Linru , Xin Dawei , Tang Yanghua , Tang Dezhi
Published: October 2022

An ankle fracture is a fracture of the distal tibia or fibula that forms the ankle joint, usually associated with ligament and soft tissue injury, and is a common type of lower limb fracture and one of the most common types of fracture in the elderly. Although ankle fractures are one of the most common injuries seen by orthopedic trauma surgeons, there is no uniform protocol for the diagnosis and treatment of ankle fractures in the elderly, and there are many controversial indications for surgery. The aim of this study is to assess the clinical efficacy of different internal fixation methods in the treatment of distal fibular fractures in the elderly, in an effort to improve the rational selection and application of clinical acts. A retrospective analysis was performed on 68 cases of patients who suffered an ankle fracture and were treated with different internal fixation methods according to the fracture types and individual differences in distal fibula fractures. The postoperative therapeutic effect assessment was performed in terms of clinical examination, imaging evaluation, and AOFAS ankle-hind foot function scoring. There was no unhealed bone, ankle instability and loose/fractured internal fixation. Fracture healing time was 2.7 to 4.0 months (average 3.2 months). AOFAS score was 88.3 ± 6.2, of which, 34 excellent cases, 30 good cases, and 4 fair cases. Ankle activity dorsiflexion 6º~18º, average 15º; plantar flexion 26º~47º, average 37º. A good clinical efficacy could be achieved from the most appropriate individualized internal fixation for distal fibula fractures of elderly patients.
Timing of tofacitinib therapy is critical to improving outcomes in severe-critical COVID-19 infection: A retrospective study from a tertiary care hospital
Authors: Kodali Ramya , Umesh Soumya , Selvam Sumithra , Kamath Deepak , Shobha Vineeta
Published: October 2022

Describe the use of tofacitinib in severe and critical coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), and explore the association of drug initiation time with survival. A retrospective study of inpatients with severe or critical COVID-19 at a tertiary care hospital, who were prescribed generic tofacitinib for at least 48 hours, was conducted. Baseline demographics, comorbidities, illness severity, treatment, adverse effects and outcomes were analyzed. Patients were grouped based on median duration of symptomatic illness prior to tofacitinib administration, as early or late initiation groups. Forty-one patients ([85.4% males], mean age 52.9 ± 12.5 years), were studied. 65.9% (n = 27) had severe COVID-19, while 34.1% (n = 14) were critically ill. Death occurred in 36.6% patients (n = 15). The median time to prescription of tofacitinib was 13 (9.50, 16.0) days of symptom onset. Tofacitinib was initiated early (8–13 days) in 56.1% of patients (n = 23), while the remaining received it beyond day 14 of symptom onset (late initiation group). Multivariate logistic regression adjusted for age, presence of diabetes mellitus and illness duration prior to hospitalization demonstrated higher odds of survival (adjusted odds ratio 19.3, 95% confidence interval 2.57, 145.2) in the early initiation group, compared to the late initiation group. Early initiation of tofacitinib in severe and critical COVID-19 has potential to improve survival odds.
Prewarming non-inflatable cuff laryngeal mask for mechanical ventilation: A systematic review and meta-analysis with trial sequential analysis
Authors: Wang Bo , Du Li , Zhang Lu , Zheng Jianqiao
Published: October 2022

Background:

Non-inflatable cuff laryngeal masks are generally composed of thermoplastic material. The thermoplastic nature of the non-inflatable cuff will become soft and match the laryngeal anatomy better as it reaches body temperature after intubation. This meta-analysis aims to evaluate the clinical validity of prewarming non-inflatable cuff laryngeal mask before insertion.

Methods:

We searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science, Ovid Medline, CNKI, Wan Fang Database and VIP Database to find randomized controlled trials (RCTs) researching the clinical validity of prewarming non-inflatable cuff laryngeal mask. The retrieval time is up to June 2022. Articles published in the English and Chinese languages were considered. Quality assessment was conducted with the Cochrane Collaboration’s tool and GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) method. Subgroup analyses and trial sequential analysis (TSA) were performed to control the risk of random errors. Publication bias was assessed by funnel plots and Egger’s regression test. The outcomes included sealing pressure immediately after successful ventilation, the first-attempt intubation success rate and the incidence of postoperative pharyngeal pain.

Results:

Eight RCTs evaluating 683 patients were identified. Pooled results showed that compared to the control group, prewarming non-inflatable cuff laryngeal mask provided a higher sealing pressure immediately after successful ventilation (mean difference: 1.73 cm H2O; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.95-2.52; P < .0001; I
2 = 16; high quality), higher first-attempt intubation success rate (risk ratio [RR]: 1.05; 95% CI: 1.01-1.09; P = .01; I
2 = 26%; high quality, number needed to treat [NNT] = 22 [95% CI 12.5-100]) and lower incidence of postoperative pharyngeal pain (RR: 0.59, 95% CI: 0.46-0.75; P < .0001; I
2 = 0; high quality, NNT = 6 [95% CI 4.17-9.09]). The results were confirmed by TSA.

Conclusion:

Prewarming non-inflatable cuff laryngeal mask could provide better mechanical ventilation efficiency with higher sealing pressure, a higher first-attempt intubation success rate and a lower incidence of postoperative pharyngeal pain.

Trial registration number:

PROSPERO CRD42021245350
Pretreatment “prognostic nutritional index” as an indicator of outcome in lung cancer patients receiving ICI-based treatment: Systematic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Shao Yifeng , Cao Wei , Gao Xinliang , Tang Mingbo , Zhu Dongshan , Liu Wei
Published: October 2022

Background:

The pretreatment prognostic nutritional index (PNI) is an indicator of nutritional and immune status, and has potential use as a predictor of survival in cancer patients. Several retrospective studies have used the PNI to predict the outcome of lung cancer patients receiving different immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), but the results have been inconsistent. The objective of our study is to assess the relationship of pretreatment PNI with survival outcomes in lung cancer patients who received ICI-based treatments by meta-analysis.

Methods:

We searched the EMBASE, PubMed, Cochrane Library, American Society of Clinical Oncology, and European Society of Medical Oncology databases to identify studies that reported overall survival (OS) or progression-free survival (PFS) in eligible patients. Eight studies were eligible based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data and pooled indicators were extracted from these studies. Meta-analysis was used to analyze hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for OS and/or PFS and the prognostic value of pretreatment PNI. We completed the registration of the research protocol (Registration number: INPLASY202240087, DOI number: 10.37766/inplasy2022.4.0087).

Results:

We analyzed data from 8 eligible studies (831 patients). Meta-analysis showed that relative to patients with low pretreatment PNI, those with a high pretreatment PNI had better OS (HR = 2.50, 95% CI = 1.44–4.33, P = .001) and better PFS (HR = 1.94, 95% CI = 1.56–2.42, P < .001). Sensitivity analysis indicated these results were robust. There was also no evidence of publication bias.

Conclusion:

Lung cancer patients receiving ICI-based treatments who had higher pretreatment PNI had better OS and PFS.