bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Respiratory co-infections in COVID-19-positive patients
Authors: M Abd El-Halim Rania , Hafez Hala , Albahet Ibrahim , Sherif Basma
Published: September 2023

Background

Opportunistic respiratory infections may complicate critically ill patients with COVID-19. Early detection of co-infections helps to administrate the appropriate antimicrobial agent, to guard against patient deterioration. This study aimed at estimating co-infections in COVID-19-positive patients.

Methods

Eighty-nine COVID-19-positive patients confirmed by SARS-COV-2 PCR were tested for post-COVID-19 lower respiratory tract co-infections through bacterial culture, fungal culture and galactomannan (GM) testing.

Results

Fourteen patients showed positive coinfection with Klebsiella, nine with Acinetobacter, six with Pseudomonas and three with E. coli. As for fungal infections, nine showed coinfection with Aspergillus, two with Zygomycetes and four with Candida. Galactomannan was positive among one patient with Aspergillus coinfection, one with Zygomycetes coinfection and three with Candida, 13 samples with negative fungal culture were positive for GM. Ten samples showed positive fungal growth, however, GM test was negative.

Conclusion

In our study, SARS-COV-2 respiratory coinfections were mainly implicated by bacterial pathogens; most commonly Klebsiella species (spp.), Aspergillus spp. were the most common cause of fungal coinfections, GM test showed low positive predictive value for fungal infection. Respiratory coinfections may complicate SARS-COV-2 probably due to the prolonged intensive care units (ICU) hospitalization, extensive empiric antimicrobial therapy, steroid therapy, mechanical ventilation during the COVID-19 outbreak. Antimicrobial stewardship programs are required so that antibiotics are prescribed judiciously according to the culture results.
Heat stress affects dairy cow health status through blood oxygen availability
Authors: Zeng Jia , Cai Jie , Wang Diming , Liu Hongyun , Sun Huizeng , Liu Jianxin
Published: September 2023

Background

Rises in global warming and extreme weather occurrence make the risk of heat stress (HS) induced by high ambient temperatures more likely in high-yielding dairy cows, resulting in low milk quality and yield. In animals, oxygen is involved in many physiological and metabolic processes, but the effects of HS on oxygen metabolism remain unclear. Thus, the current study aimed to investigate how oxygen metabolism plays a role in health status of dairy cows by measuring the milk yield, milk composition, and blood biochemical variables of cows under different levels of HS: none (No-HS), mild (Mild-HS), and moderate HS (Mod-HS).

Results

The HS significantly increased rectal temperature (Ptreat < 0.01) and respiration rate (Ptreat < 0.01). Under Mod-HS, greater Na+ (P < 0.05) and lower total CO2, and pH (P < 0.05) were observed relative to those under No-HS and Mild-HS. Oxygen concentrations in both coccygeal artery and mammary vein (Ptreat < 0.01) were lower under Mod-HS than under No-HS. Coccygeal vein concentrations of heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) (P < 0.05) increased during Mod-HS compared with those in cows under No-HS. Malondialdehyde increased during Mod-HS, and glutathione peroxidase (P < 0.01) increased during Mild-HS. Coccygeal vein concentrations of vascular endothelial growth factor (P < 0.01), heme oxygenase-1 (P < 0.01), and hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (P < 0.01) were greater in cows under Mod-HS than those under No-HS. Red blood cell count (P < 0.01) and hemoglobin concentration (P < 0.01) were lower in the coccygeal vein of dairy cows under Mild- and Mod-HS than those of cows under No-HS.

Conclusions

Exposure to HS negatively impacts the health status and lactation performance of dairy cows by limiting oxygen metabolism and transportation. However, the specific mechanism by which HS affects mammary function in cows remains unclear and requires further exploration.
The upper respiratory tract microbiota of healthy adults is affected by Streptococcus pneumoniae carriage, smoking habits, and contact with children
Authors: Paulo A. Cristina , Lança João , Almeida Sónia T. , Hilty Markus , Sá-Leão Raquel
Published: September 2023

Background

The microbiota of the upper respiratory tract is increasingly recognized as a gatekeeper of respiratory health. Despite this, the microbiota of healthy adults remains understudied. To address this gap, we investigated the composition of the nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal microbiota of healthy adults, focusing on the effect of Streptococcus pneumoniae carriage, smoking habits, and contact with children.

Results

Differential abundance analysis indicated that the microbiota of the oropharynx was significantly different from that of the nasopharynx (P < 0.001) and highly discriminated by a balance between the classes Negativicutes and Bacilli (AUC of 0.979). Moreover, the oropharynx was associated with a more homogeneous microbiota across individuals, with just two vs. five clusters identified in the nasopharynx. We observed a shift in the nasopharyngeal microbiota of carriers vs. noncarriers with an increased relative abundance of Streptococcus, which summed up to 30% vs. 10% in noncarriers and was not mirrored in the oropharynx. The oropharyngeal microbiota of smokers had a lower diversity than the microbiota of nonsmokers, while no differences were observed in the nasopharyngeal microbiota. In particular, the microbiota of smokers, compared with nonsmokers, was enriched (on average 16-fold) in potential pathogenic taxa involved in periodontal diseases of the genera Bacillus and Burkholderia previously identified in metagenomic studies of cigarettes. The microbiota of adults with contact with children resembled the microbiota of children. Specifically, the nasopharyngeal microbiota of these adults had, on average, an eightfold increase in relative abundance in Streptococcus sp., Moraxella catarrhalis, and Haemophilus influenzae, pathobionts known to colonize the children’s upper respiratory tract, and a fourfold decrease in Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus lugdunensis.

Conclusions

Our study showed that, in adults, the presence of S. pneumoniae in the nasopharynx is associated with a shift in the microbiota and dominance of the Streptococcus genus. Furthermore, we observed that smoking habits are associated with an increase in bacterial genera commonly linked to periodontal diseases. Interestingly, our research also revealed that adults who have regular contact with children have a microbiota enriched in pathobionts frequently carried by children. These findings collectively contribute to a deeper understanding of how various factors influence the upper respiratory tract microbiota in adults.
Want-to, have-to, amotivation, grit, self-control, and tolerance ambiguity among university students: latent profile analysis
Authors: Alhadabi Amal , Al-Harthy Ibrahim , Aldhafri Said , Alkharusi Hussain
Published: September 2023

The current study adopted a person-centered approach to identify distinctive university students’ profiles based on three variables (i.e., three academic motivations, grit, and self-control), regress multiple covariates (i.e., gender, age, study level, and college) on profile membership, and estimate differences on ambiguity tolerance across the estimated profiles. Data on 525 university students were modeled using Latent Profile Analysis. The findings found three latent profiles, which were: [1] Unmotivated and undisciplined students with low grit, [2] Moderately motivated and disciplined students with average grit, and [3] Highly motivated, gritty and disciplined students. Gender, study level, and college significantly predicted profile affiliation, identifying the characteristics of students within each profile. Significant differences were revealed in the ambiguity tolerance among the obtained profiles. These valuable results offer customized recommendations and prospective initiatives, strengthening the constructive effect of proper academic motivation types, purposeful grit, and intentional self-control (143 words).
Process options for the recovery of a pentosan-enriched fraction from wheat-based bioethanol thin stillage
Authors: Zimmermann Andreas , Scherzinger Marvin , Kaltschmitt Martin
Published: September 2023

Aim

Stillage, the main residue from cereal-based bioethanol production, offers a great potential for the recovery of pentosan-type carbohydrates. Therefore, potential process options for the recovery of pentosans from bioethanol thin stillage are investigated and their basic feasibility is demonstrated on a laboratory scale.

Findings

The main result of this work is the development of a three-stage process for pentosan recovery, including solid–liquid separation, pentosan solubilisation and purification. The pentosan content of the thin stillage used here was determined to be about 14% related to dry matter (DM). By means of solid–liquid separation, these pentosans accumulate in the liquid phase (up to 80%), while the remainder (about 20%) is found in the solid phase. Solubilisation of these insoluble pentosans was achieved by using either a hydrothermal, an alkaline or an enzymatic treatment. Here, the results indicate a maximum solubilisation yield of 90% with a hydrothermal treatment using liquid hot water at 180 °C. Ultrafiltration and precipitation are investigated for purification. The most promising process option in this study is solid–liquid separation followed by ultrafiltration. In this case, the total pentosan yield is assessed to be about 48% (based on thin stillage) with a final pentosan concentration of about 30%DM.

Graphical Abstract
Effect of eccentric loads on the behavior of circular footing with/without skirts resting on sand soil
Authors: Basha Ali M. , Eldisouky Esraa A.
Published: September 2023

The stability of circular footings under eccentric vertical loads is a significant problem in geotechnical engineering. Therefore, this paper shows the results of experimental tests carried out on an eccentrically loaded circular foundation on sand soil. The focus of this research is on examining how eccentric loads affect the behavior of circular footings on sand soil, both with and without skirts. Various load eccentricities (e) equals zero, 2.50, 5.00, 7.50, 10.00, 12.50, 15.00, 17.50 and 20.00 mm are used. In addition to, a 60 mm-diameter circular foundation and sand with an 85% relative density (Dr) are used in this experimental study. To study the effect of changing the skirts depth on the load-settlement response skirts with different depths (h) = 60 mm, 150 mm, 240 mm are used for vertical reinforcement. In comparison to the unreinforced condition, test findings show an improvement in ultimate bearing capacity. When the skirts are positioned at the ideal embedment depth L/D = 4, it is found that the circular footing's load-settlement behavior is enhanced by 92% and 93% in case of using (e/D) ratio = 0.125 and 0.25 compared to the unreinforced case.
A convolutional neural network to detect possible hidden data in spatial domain images
Authors: Ntivuguruzwa Jean De La Croix , Ahmad Tohari
Published: September 2023

Hiding secret data in digital multimedia has been essential to protect the data. Nevertheless, attackers with a steganalysis technique may break them. Existing steganalysis methods have good results with conventional Machine Learning (ML) techniques; however, the introduction of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), a deep learning paradigm, achieved better performance over the previously proposed ML-based techniques. Though the existing CNN-based approaches yield good results, they present performance issues in classification accuracy and stability in the network training phase. This research proposes a new method with a CNN architecture to improve the hidden data detection accuracy and the training phase stability in spatial domain images. The proposed method comprises three phases: pre-processing, feature extraction, and classification. Firstly, in the pre-processing phase, we use spatial rich model filters to enhance the noise within images altered by data hiding; secondly, in the feature extraction phase, we use two-dimensional depthwise separable convolutions to improve the signal-to-noise and regular convolutions to model local features; and finally, in the classification, we use multi-scale average pooling for local features aggregation and representability enhancement regardless of the input size variation, followed by three fully connected layers to form the final feature maps that we transform into class probabilities using the softmax function. The results identify an improvement in the accuracy of the considered recent scheme ranging between 4.6 and 10.2% with reduced training time up to 30.81%.
Bioinformatic network analysis on the molecular interactions between Parkinson’s disease, alpha-synuclein, and infertility condition
Authors: Krishnan Velu , Patel Shivani S. , Shenoy Priyanka , Cottrell Jessica
Published: September 2023

Background

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative condition that is characterized by a progressive decline of neural pathways, and its pathology is associated with alpha-synuclein abnormalities. Currently, infertility affects about 10% of individuals of fertile age within the USA. Interestingly, an increased length of fertility is associated with a decreased incidence of PD. Our study utilized QIAGEN’s Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) to identify and analyze molecular pathways that affect the underlying connection between alpha-synuclein (SNCA)-associated Parkinson’s disease (PD) and infertility condition (IC). Furthermore, we explored nicotine’s potential as a therapeutic in preventing the exacerbation of IC in terms of SNCA.

Results

Although the connection between SNCA-related PD and IC is not well explored, the Qiagen Knowledge Base (QKB) showed an overlap of 12 distinct molecules between SNCA and IC. These molecular pathways were established by adding SNCA and IC to “Pathway Explorer” and establishing connections to distinct molecules including transcription regulators, cytokines, and other enzymes/proteins. The Molecule-Activity-Predictor (MAP) tool predicted that SNCA activation would lead to an exacerbation of PD and IC with the potential involvement of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and caspases. Specifically, it was found that SNCA decreased MAPK8 expression, which led to a downstream upregulation of IC. Activation of nicotine within this overarching molecular network resulted in a downregulation in both PD pathology and IC.

Conclusions

Together, these findings reveal a possible connection between infertility condition and genes regularly associated with alpha-synuclein-related Parkinson’s disease while identifying nicotine as a potential therapeutic application.

Graphical Abstract
Recent trends in Helicobacter pylori management: harnessing the power of AI and other advanced approaches
Authors: Addissouky Tamer A. , Wang Yuliang , El Sayed Ibrahim El Tantawy , Baz Ayman El , Ali Majeed M. A. , Khalil Ahmed A.
Published: September 2023

Background

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a bacterial infection that is prevalent and affects more than half of the world's population, causing stomach disorders such as gastritis, peptic ulcer disease, and gastric cancer.

Main body

The diagnosis of H. pylori infection relies on invasive and non-invasive techniques emerging artificial intelligence, and antibiotic therapy is available, but antibiotic resistance is a growing concern. The development of a vaccine is crucial in preventing H. pylori-associated diseases, but it faces challenges due to the bacterium's variability and immune escape mechanisms. Despite the challenges, ongoing research into H. pylori's virulence factors and immune escape mechanisms, as well as the development of potential vaccine targets, provides hope for more effective management and prevention of H. pylori-associated diseases. Recent research on H. pylori's immune escape mechanisms and novel immune checkpoint inhibitors could also lead to biomarkers for early cancer detection. Therefore, experts have suggested a combination of traditional and herbal medicine with artificial intelligence to potentially eradicate H. pylori.

Short conclusion

H. pylori infection remains a significant global health problem, but ongoing research into its properties and advanced technologies in addition to the combination of traditional and herbal medicine with artificial intelligence may also lead to the eradication of H. pylori-associated diseases.

Graphical abstract
Más banderas que palabras: la comunicación no verbal de Bolsonaro en su discurso polarizador
Authors: Bayarri Toscano Gabriel , Colussi Juliana , Gomes-Franco e Silva Flávia , Arrufat-Martín Sandro
Published: September 2023

En el presente artículo analizamos uno de los principales escenarios que Bolsonaro utilizó para comunicarse con sus bases durante toda su legislatura: los lives semanales en su cuenta oficial de Instagram. Así, estudiamos una muestra de diez lives, describiendo cómo su comunicación no verbal podía activar un proceso de humanización y aproximación del líder, normalizando formas de violencia y fortaleciendo la polarización política. La metodología empleada en el análisis se sustenta en la grounded theory, que sistematiza la investigación cualitativa a través de la construcción de hipótesis y teorías mediante la recolección y el análisis de datos. Este procedimiento de análisis propone una metodología inductiva que extrae las categorías de la comunicación no verbal a través de la descripción y clasificación del material y de las fuentes de datos por analizar. La contextualización e interpretación de los resultados se apoya en un trabajo etnográfico de campo durante la campaña electoral. Los resultados apuntan al uso de elementos amateurs en los videos que generan una aproximación de Bolsonaro con los ciudadanos, así como la inclusión de movimientos corporales que muestran su carisma como un líder imperfecto y del paralenguaje basado en el humor para la construcción de un personaje violento.
September 2023 Medical Image of the Month: Aspergillus Presenting as a Pulmonary Nodule in an Immunocompetent Patient
Authors:   Department of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine  AIIMS Patna, Bihar, India, Rai Deependra , Sharma Priya , Gupta Vatsal
Published: September 2023

No abstract available. Article truncated after 150 words. A 32-year-old nonsmoking woman presented with complaints of recurrent hemoptysis for 5 months and dyspnea on exertion for 1 month. She denied any history of fever, cough, or COVID infection. She has hypothyroidism controlled on thyroxine 25mcg. During the evaluation, she was found to have an enhancing solitary pulmonary nodule (11 x 10 x 9mm) in the anterior segment of the left upper lobe (Figure 1). The patient was given a course of oral antibiotics (amoxicillin /clavulanic acid) and supportive treatment for hemoptysis. Sputum for Ziehl–Neelsen stain and cartridge based nucleic acid amplification test (CBNAAT) was negative. CT- guided biopsy of the nodule was performed. Histopathology showed fungal organisms which were thin, septate with acute angle branching and focal necrotic areas, morphologically consistent with Aspergillus (Figure 2). Serum-specific IgG against aspergillus antigen was normal. The patient was started on oral itraconazole 200mg BID. Follow-up after 1 month showed both …
The Seeping Surveillance of Sex in Sports
Authors: Moyer Valerie
Published: September 2023

Abstract: The US faces a legislative wave of state-level restrictions on transgender athlete participation, while at the elite level of sport there are ongoing exclusions of trans women and women with sex variations, with confusing, inconsistent policies from national sports governing bodies on just what constitutes "female eligibility." In the midst of debates about "fairness" and advocacy for great inclusion, an attention to the surveillance systems at work in sports can shift the terms of debate away from the imperative of a level playing field and toward a discussion of bodily autonomy, privacy, and self-determination for athletes. In doing so, I take a critical surveillance studies lens to illuminate connections between surveillance in sports and other societal institutions. In offering a broad view of the surveillance of sex in sports, I utilize Zygmunt Bauman and David Lyon's concept of liquid surveillance to describe the ways that surveillance mechanisms, logics, and rhetoric seeps through, and out of, sports.
Antagonistic Sports Fandom
Authors: Oates Thomas P.
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This essay explains the role of sports media entertainment in habituating audiences to a logic of conservative populism, which connects justifications for racialized and gendered violence with a sense of anxiety and humiliation. The essay develops the concept of antagonistic sports fandom, a mode of engagement in which verbal duels become the dominant way that fans and media figures engage with sports. It argues that one of the crucial roles of antagonistic sports fandom is to provide a public forum where the pleasure of subjugating bodies can be justified via the invocation of victimization and humiliation, presented as apolitical fun. The essay develops these points by examining the sports media company Barstool Sports, the FX television series The League , and the 2009 film Big Fan .
Occupied Joy: The Politics of Skateboarding in Palestine
Authors: Akkad Ruba H.
Published: September 2023

Abstract: The tangible project of decolonization requires revolutionary hope to sustain it. Quite often, studies surrounding oppressed populations largely tend to theorize from a point of death, contributing to a culture of hopelessness and pessimism. This essay explores what happens when we theorize from a point of life and joy, specifically theorizing Palestinian resistance and place-claiming through the embodied sport of skateboarding—not in hopes of erasing death, but in hopes of providing a fuller view, and looking for ruptures wherein quotidian life seeps through coloniality as a form of resistance itself. Thinking through skateboarding as a subculture, I analyze a nonprofit organization, SkatePal and its media presence, using my theory and analytic: occupied joy. I argue that the skate scene in Palestine functions as a site of quotidian anticolonial and anti-imperialist resistance through reclaiming freedom of movement, resisting multiple effects of military occupation, and unsettling trauma spectacle through the play and joy associated with the immediate act of skating. In theorizing from life and bearing witness to the sense of agency that skateboarding restores in Palestinian youth, there is hope that the theory of occupied joy can do the same for other oppressed peoples, bringing us all tangibly closer to a more liberated world.
Grappling with the Digital: The New Industrial Geographies of Professional Wrestling
Authors: King Dewitt
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This essay examines industrial and labor practices in the pro wrestling industry. By analyzing the WWE Network as an "industrial disruptor," this essay suggests that this disruption shifted not only who was considered the prototypical wrestler; it also changed the relations of power within the industry. While the deployment of the streaming service increased the reach of the WWE beyond the national borders of the US, it inadvertently created a pathway for local, regional, and international wrestling companies to also utilize streaming service technology to collectively work together to mitigate some of the industrial hegemony of the WWE. Moreover, the WWE's attempt to create "digital wrestling territories" has changed the relationship between the local and the global, which has reformulated digital global intimate industrial relations. Although the WWE is a global company that has retained dominance for almost forty years, the deployment of streaming services has forever changed the business of pro wrestling.
De-exceptionalizing Sunisa Lee: Uneven Gymnastics and a Hmong American State-less Critique
Authors: Pha Kong Pheng , Smalkoski Kari
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Hmong American gymnast Sunisa "Suni" Lee won the gold medal in the individual all-around event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. This essay analyzes the media frenzy surrounding Lee's rise to Olympic stardom in US gymnastics. In particular, it focuses on how the media narrate Lee's family and Hmong ethnic history of being refugees to becoming an Olympic gold medalist. This essay deconstructs how the state exceptionalizes this history in the context of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in service of the imperial US nation-state in ways that recuperates US empire and bolsters US nationalism. The essay reveals the ways that ongoing anti-Asian racism in the US contradicts the state's claim to Lee's gold medal. Ultimately, the essay argues that Hmong American writing during Lee's Olympic journey presents a "state-less critique" that situates Lee's success in her ethnic Hmong American community and not within the nation-state.
Linguistic Attitudes and Ideologies of Spanish High School Teachers towards Puerto Rican Spanish in Massachusetts
Authors: López Claudia Matachana
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This study analyzes linguistic ideologies and attitudes of Spanish high school teachers in Western Massachusetts towards Puerto Rican Spanish (PRS). An open-answer survey was conducted to examine the reactions of teachers towards utterances produced with well-documented Puerto Rican Spanish features. In the state of Massachusetts, Puerto Ricans represent the predominant Latino group, and, in some cities, such as Holyoke, they account for almost half of the population. This demographic points to PRS being the most widely spoken variety in the area. However, this does not mean that this is the Spanish variety that carries linguistic prestige or is used in academic settings. The prestige that a language variety possesses is related to linguistic ideologies and linguistic attitudes. The results of the study show that, while teachers have some linguistic variety awareness, prescriptive ideologies about language correctness still circulate among them.
Speaking Race or Racialized Speaking: Evidence from Perceptions of Lateral Variants by Puerto Rican Listeners
Authors: Ramos Jorge E. , Shea Christine
Published: September 2023

Abstract: In this study we show that the perception of lateral variants by Puerto Rican listeners changes according to who the listener believes is speaking. Puerto Rican listeners heard sentences with target words featuring either rhotic [ɾ] or lateral [l] (amo[ɾ] – amo[l]) codas, a sociophonetic alternation that is common in Puerto Rican Spanish. Across four conditions characterized by the presence or absence of social cues, listeners judged speakers on five Likert items: honesty, intelligence, SES, work ethic, and pleasantness. Condition 1 included only the sociophonetic variant while conditions 2, 3 and 4 included information about speaker nationality (flag, either Puerto Rican or Dominican), or racial phenotype (pictures of people) or both nationality and racial phenotype. The results revealed that for the sociophonetic variant only condition (no additional speaker information), listeners rated the lateral variant more negatively. However, for the three conditions where speaker information was provided, ratings were significantly affected by listeners’ perception of racial phenotype and nationality, with almost no interaction with phonetic variant. These results suggest that what was a significant effect for sociophonetic variant (condition 1) was overshadowed by perceptions of speaker racial phenotype and nationality. In other words, racialized speaking matters.
"The New Economy and the Old Morality": Reimagining a Liberal Culture in Howards End
Authors: Zhang Nan
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Attentive to the transmutation of British liberalism as a political philosophy in the early twentieth century, this essay examines how E. M. Forster's Howards End brings together multiple intellectual sources that trouble standard divisions between liberal and conservative affiliations in reimagining a liberal culture. From the root and branch image of the wych-elm to the "sweetness and light" (79) of the grass, and to the "little platoon" (136) of Howards End, the essay offers fresh interpretations of Forster's novel and reconnects his work with a group of thinkers as diverse as Edmund Burke, William Gladstone, Herbert Spencer, Matthew Arnold, Hobhouse, and John Maynard Keynes.
The Music of the Prose Takes Place in Silence: Sound, Fury, and Faulkner's Negative Audition
Authors: Segalovitz Yael
Published: September 2023

Abstract: The last decade witnessed a blooming interest in Faulkner's soundscapes, but his conceptualization of readerly listening has yet to be thoroughly discussed. This essay argues that, in The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner cultivates a specific phenomenology—a negative audition—in his reader that holds an ethical valence: an attunement to sonic stimuli, which one is socially and bodily taught to register as inaudible. These internal readerly guidelines paradoxically advance a reading of Faulkner's novel against its own racial bias.
Ecologies from the Cargo: Zora Neale Hurston and the Long Anthropocene
Authors: Ivry Henry
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This essay argues that Zora Neale Hurston's work reorients several key ideas central to contemporary Black studies and the environmental humanities. In particular, I examine how Hurston's understanding of the co-constitutional relationship between human and nonhuman worlds and her search for a narrative across temporal and geographical scales connects the Black diaspora and restructures our understanding of the Anthropocene. This essay claims that Hurston's work anticipates an incipient strand of contemporary Black studies that turns to ecology both to understand and imagine a world outside of anti-Black violence.
The Reading Self in Dinaw Mengestu's The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
Authors: Mirmotahari Emad
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This essay argues that Dinaw Mengestu's novel The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears testifies to how reading and reading acts—broadly defined and of a variety of texts and text types—becomes an identity in and of itself for the novel's narrator, Sepha. The narrator is an Ethiopian immigrant-exile who settles in Washington DC and is unable to forge identifications with white or Black Americans, or with other Ethiopians and Africans. Reading constitutes the narrator's way to make sense of his conditions and reconcile himself with his unbelonging to any human collective.
“For All of Your Protection Needs”: Tracing the “Witch Bottle” from the Early Modern Period to TikTok
Authors: Houlbrook Ceri , Phillips Julia
Published: September 2023

Abstract: In the Early Modern Period, witch-bottles were a magical-medical remedy for bewitchment, prescribed by cunning-folk. Filled with pins, nails, and the victim’s urine, the bottles were then heated or buried, counteracting the suspected curse. Today, witch-bottles have taken on new meanings and new physical specifications. It is no longer seventeenth-century cunning-folk instructing on how to make them, but contemporary Wiccans on social media. This paper traces the shift in the purpose and perceptions of the witch-bottle over time, its adaptation key to our understanding of the custom itself and of how people today engage with the practices of the past.
Du Bois Between Two Worlds: The Magical Sources of The Souls of Black Folk
Authors: Grieve-Carlson Timothy R.
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This essay explores W. E. B. Du Bois’s use of magical sources in his 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk . I argue that Du Bois’s metaphor of the ‘Veil’ refers directly to Black magical traditions, or Conjure, alongside to the scriptural, literary, and philosophical allusions that Du Bois weaves throughout the metaphor of the Veil in Souls . Du Bois had the Conjurer in mind when he described the Black subject in America as a “seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world.” I argue that Du Bois turns to Conjure for the Conjurer’s unique position of ontological displacement, social precarity, and special insight. Like the Conjurer, Du Bois’s Veiled subject exists between two worlds.
Eve’s Opinion: Spirit-Possession and the Witches’ Sabbath in Early Modern Europe
Authors: Wilby Emma
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This article argues that the historiographic tendency to see the demoniac and the witch as distinct has led scholars to neglect the relationship between demonic possession and the early modern witches’ sabbath, particularly with regard to western Europe. It suggests that if the definition of demonic possession is expanded to incorporate external possession or “ obsessio ,” the phenomenon moves from a peripheral to central position in the European sabbath complex. This positionality is then further strengthened and nuanced by contextualizing demonic possession within the broader networks of belief concerning possession by folkloric and divine spirits that informed both popular magical practice and Christian devotion. The article argues that this augmented “spirit-possession lens” provides us with a new way of mapping the evolution and impact of the witches’ sabbath stereotype across medieval and early modern Europe. It invites us to re-examine received assumptions about the way that sabbath narratives were created and evaluated in the courtroom and brings a new emotional logic to the victimhood of the European witch.
Specters of Utopia in Mary Barton
Authors: del Valle Alcalá Roberto
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This article offers a substantial reinterpretation of Mary Barton in terms of Robert Owen's ideas, especially as outlined in his early tract A New View of Society . The article contends that Gaskell's novel stages a significant reassessment of the transformative possibilities of nineteenth-century paternalism. It also suggests, drawing on the work of Jacques Derrida, that the reformist aspirations of a utopian thinker such as Owen can only be articulated "spectrally" in the context of Victorian class conflict: that is, by positing the kind of presence that only an irremediable absence can enable and register.
Alien Domesticity: Settler-Capitalist Invasion and the Limits of Representation in Ling Ma's Severance
Authors: Robitaille Iana W.
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This article reads Ling Ma's Severance (2018) for its account of the racial entanglement of transnational mobility, settler capitalism, and homemaking, a dynamic referred to as alien domesticity . The novel narrativizes how the transnational circulation of capital, peoples, and labor over the past four decades has complicated the domestic character of US settler-racial form—and the settler-capitalist character of the domestic novel. I posit alien domesticity as a revision of Amy Kaplan's "manifest domesticity," engaging Asian American and settler colonial studies critiques of the racial logic of settler capitalism to read Severance as a contemporary assessment of American middle-class homemaking and its part in a racial civilizing project. Insofar as it frames Candace Chen's transnational labor with her unsettled movement among various domestic spaces, Severance thus discloses the function of alien domesticity: ultimately, I contend, Candace's competing duties of representation result in her transnational alienation from the novel's domestic narrative.
The Global and the Multilinear: Novelistic Forms for Planetary Processes
Authors: Caracciolo Marco
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Numerous scholars have argued that narrative multilinearity defines the contemporary novel's engagement with planetary processes ranging from globalization to ecological and migrant crises. This article seeks to develop and clarify the notion of multilinearity, adopting a narratological framework that distinguishes between three dimensions of multilinear novels—what I call their linkage, distribution, and focus. I discuss examples for each of these dimensions, examining their interaction and also investigating, from a broadly New Formalist perspective, how they speak to larger tensions, inherent in globalization, between cosmopolitan aspirations and a history of inequalities. In the final section, I turn to Hanya Yanagihara's novel To Paradise as a powerful illustration of how multilinear form is able to probe the complexity and moral murkiness of global processes, particularly when novelistic narrative resists the temptation of a closed form and instead embraces the instability of the multilinear.
The Making of "Evil Tyrant Landlords": A Microhistory of Moralized Class Division during Land Reform in Beijing's Suburbs, 1949
Authors: An Shaofan
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Class division represented arguably the most crucial stage of the land reform campaigns mounted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as it not only divided the land but also the political power of rural Chinese society. Based on newly available local archives, this case study of class division during land reform in the suburbs of Beijing argues that the making of "evil tyrant landlords"—and the struggle against them—played a decisive role in conceptualizing the "landlord" as both a figure of Marxist economic exploitation and the morally stigmatized rural elite during land reform and the building of the party-state. After the collapse of the existing rural ruling class, the "struggle against tyrants" movement immediately turned toward enacting formal class division. As a consequence, the discourse of class struggle based on a clear-cut landlord-peasantry dichotomy was, unsurprisingly, allowed by the CCP to infiltrate rural China's post-1949 political culture.
"This Absolutely Is Not a Hui Rebellion!": The Ethnopolitics of Great Nationality Chauvinism in Early Maoist China
Authors: Weiner Benno
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Through the 1950s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) considered nationality disunity to be a product of "great Han chauvinism." But what happens when history's bad guys are not Han? In parts of China's Northwest, the party identified Hui Muslim elites as the main agents of nationality exploitation and Tibetans as their principal targets. It therefore declared Tibetans of all classes to be victims of nationality exploitation and ordered that "good" Muslims be distinguished from "bad," a task made more urgent by a string of uprisings that engulfed several Muslim-majority areas of the Qinghai-Gansu Highlands from 1949 to 1953. While echoes can be found in the late Qing state's response to Muslim rebellion, this article argues that the CCP's approach to the "Hui question" must be viewed as part of a particular practice of minoritization and a framework for conceptualizing the new socialist nation-state that would leave Muslims and other non-Han communities susceptible to majoritarian-state violence.
The Ping-Liu-Li Uprising of 1906 Up Close: Its Local Context and Its National Significance
Authors: He Xi
Published: September 2023

Abstract: The Ping-Liu-Li (Pingxiang, Liuyang, and Liling) uprising of 1906 is often said to have been led by revolutionaries, to have been supported by secret societies, and to have drawn support from two provinces (Hunan and Jiangxi) and three counties. This article argues that the events of the uprising have to be read in the light of disunified local gangs who had turf to protect, their interest in obtaining arms from the revolutionaries, and a very tense political situation that might indeed have evolved out of contact between revolutionaries and the gangs. However, the significance of the incident was magnified because of the proximity of the location to the high-profile Pingxiang Coal Mine in Jiangxi. The importance of the mine drew strong reactions from the court and the most senior provincial officials. In the process, guns, the telegraph, the railroad, and the newspapers all came into play in pushing the event to national prominence.
"How I Am Brought into the Light": Representations of Childhood by Missionary Schoolgirls in East China, 1917–1930
Authors: Bond Jennifer
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This article explores how missionary-educated Chinese schoolgirls applied childhood pedagogy that they learned at school to what they perceived to be the pressing demands of Chinese nationalism in the early twentieth century. Although there have been many studies of Christian schools in China from the missionary perspective, we know much less about how Chinese women themselves made sense of the education they received at missionary schools. Based on a study of two elite mission schools for girls in Republican-era East China, this article explores how girls applied child-rearing practices, hygiene, and domestic education to the children whom they taught in the vicinities of their schools. Like their missionary educators before them, they carved out new roles for themselves by claiming authority to speak for a downtrodden "other": Chinese children. In doing so, missionary schoolgirls created new knowledge about Chinese childhood in the early twentieth century.
شیكردنەوەی تایبەتمەنديیە هایدرۆمۆرفۆمەتری ئاوەزێڵی ڕووباری بازیان
Authors: Qadir Mudhafar S. , Hamad Nali J.
Published: September 2023

جیۆمۆرفۆلۆجیا وەک لقێکی جوگرافیای سروشتی، زۆر گرنگی بە ئاوەزێڵی ڕوبارەکان دەدات وەک یەکەیەکی سروشتی تەواو لە کردارەکان و شێوەکان ھەموو ئەو گۆڕانکاریانەی بەسەریاندا ڕودەدات دەکۆڵێتەوە، جگە لەمانە لە تایبەتمەنديیە ھایدرۆلۆجییەکانی ئاوزێڵەکان دەکۆڵێتەوە, وەک دەستنیشانکردنی بڕو خێرايی لە بەرڕۆیشتنی ئاوی ڕوبارەکان کە کاریگەریی لەسەر دەرکەوتنی چەند شێوەیەکی جیۆمۆرفۆلۆجی ھەیە. ئاوه‌زێڵی ڕوباری بازیان ده‌كه‌وێته‌ نێوان هه‌ردوبازنه‌ی پانی (٠٠':٢٧":٣٥°ـــ٠٠' : ٤٣":٣٥°) ی باكوری هه‌ردو هێڵی درێژی (٤٠' : ٥٧" : ٤٤° ــــ ٤٠' : ١٨": ٤٥°) ى خۆرهه‌ڵات، كە دەکەوێتە ‌باشوری خۆرئاوای شاری سلێمانی، ڕوبەرەکەی دەگاتە (٣٥٧.٨٧کم٢) کە ڕێژەی (٢.٥%) کۆی گشتی ڕوبەری پارێزگای سلێمانی پێکدەھێنێت، درێژییەكەی ‌(٣٧.٥٨ کم)‌، لە (٦) ئاوەزێڵی لاوەکی پێکھاتووە، لەڕوی جیۆلۆجیەوە پێکھاتەکانی جیۆلۆجی ناوچەی لێکۆڵینەوە ھەموویان دەگەرێتەوە بۆسەردەمی (سێیەم و چوارەم)، لەڕوی ئاووھەوایشەوە ناوچەکە دەکەوێتە سنوری ئاووھەوای دەریای ناوەراست ھاوینی وشک وگەرمە و زستانی سارد و باراناوییە بڕی بارانی ساڵانە لە وێستگەی بازیان (٦٣٤.٨ ملم) و تێکرای پلەی گەرمی ساڵانەی ناوچەی لێکۆڵینەوە ( ١٧.٣) سەدی، ناوچەكە لەڕوی بەرزونزمییەوە ھەمەچەشنەیەو بەرزونزمیی جیاجیای تێدا بەدیدەکرێت، بەجۆرک بەرزترین لوتکە لە ئاوەزێڵەکە (١٤٢٩م) ە، دەکەوێتە زنجیرە چیای ھەنجیرە،و ھێڵی کەنتۆریی (٦٢٧م) بە ‌نزمترین خاڵی ئاوەزێڵەکە دادەنرێت. هەروەها بۆدۆزینەوەی قەبارەی داهاتی ئاوی ڕۆیشتوی ساڵانەی ناوچەكە توێژەر هاوكێشەی بێركلی بەكارهێناوە، بەوپێیەش بڕەكەی دەگاتە (٠.٦٢٨ملیار م٣) و ماوەی كۆبۆوە دەگاتە (١.٣خولەك/ كاتژمێر)، بەهای ماوەی وەڵامدانەوەی ئاویش دەگاتە (١.١٦خولەك/كاتژمێر) بەهای هاوكۆڵكەی لافاویش لە حەوزی بازیان (٠.٤٢).
Salivary Changes in Patients Hospitalized for Complications of HIV Infection/AIDS: A Study Using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry
Authors:   Department of Stomatology, Universidade Federal do Paraná, PR, Curitiba, Brazil, Cavassin Klamas Vanessa , Anhaia Ventura Mateus ,   Department of Stomatology, Universidade Federal do Paraná, PR, Curitiba, Brazil, Mara Baika Loana ,   Department of Chemistry, Universidade Federal do Paraná, PR, Curitiba, Brazil, Arana Kamei Adryano ,   Department of Stomatology, Universidade Federal do Paraná, PR, Curitiba, Brazil, Yukio Naka Jhonatan ,   Department of Stomatology, Universidade Federal do Paraná, PR, Curitiba, Brazil, Lima Chaiben Cassiano ,   School of Life’s Sciences, Pontifícia Universidade Católica Do Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil, Tadeu Grassi Marco ,   Department of Chemistry, Universidade Federal do Paraná, PR, Curitiba, Brazil, Adilson Soares de Lima Antonio ,   Department of Stomatology, Universidade Federal do Paraná, PR, Curitiba, Brazil
Published: September 2023

Objective: The aim of this study was to analyze the salivary flow and levels of major salivary ions of HIV-infected individuals. Methods: One hundred and two participants (18 - 74 years of age) were divided into two groups (51 HIV - infected patients and 51 controls) and had a saliva sample collected. Salivary flow rate was measured gravimetrically. Levels of salivary sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium and phosphorus were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). Results: The mean salivary flow of subjects with HIV infection was significantly higher when compared to controls (Case group = 1.0 mL/min + 0.63 / Control group = 0.7 mL/min + 0.46; p = 0.012). Sodium, potassium and calcium levels were significantly higher in the saliva of the patients HIV infection when compared to controls. There was no difference between the salivary levels of magnesium and phosphorus ions between groups. Conclusion: Based on these findings, it can be concluded that individuals with HIV / AIDS develop salivary changes. Thus, these patients need a greater attention to oral health by dentists, since salivary changes induced by the disease can lead to impairment in the oral condition.
The Successful Management of Non-healing Extraoral Draining Sinus of Odontogenic Origin: A Report of Two Cases
Authors:   Unit of Endodontology and Endodontics, Department of Restorative Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Soo Eason , Ain Ramlan Nurul ,   Centre of Comprehensive Care Studies, Faculty of Dentistry, University Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia, Husna Khairulzan Sarah ,   Ministry of Health Malaysia, Putrajaya, Malaysia, Nordin Rifqah ,   Department of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Syafiq Asyraf Rosli Muhammad ,   Department of Family Oral Health, Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Published: September 2023

Extraoral draining sinus of odontogenic origin usually lacks intraoral symptoms, thus it may be diagnosed as a cutaneous lesion. It is rare and may be confused with a wide variety of diseases for example furuncle, pericoronitis in relation to the mandibular third molars, parotid fistula, preauricular sinuses, periapical and periodontal pathology, and many more. Patients might seek treatment from their physician as they are not aware of its odontogenic origin and these cases usually are misdiagnosed and leading to inappropriate treatment. Objective: To discuss the detailed management of two cases of extraoral draining sinus that were successfully treated. Case Reports: The first case was referred by the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, for management of extraoral draining sinus originating from tooth 36. In the second case, the extraoral draining sinus is caused by pulpal necrosis of several mandibular anterior teeth. Intra-radicular microorganisms in infected root canals primarily obligate anaerobes have been the aetiologic cause of apical periodontitis if left untreated may cause these types of symptoms. Conclusion: As it is uncommon and the absence of any dental symptoms, thus, it’s paramount important to diagnose these types of cases to treat the disease and to avoid unnecessary treatments such as prolonged prescription of antibiotics. Therefore, the dental cause should be ruled out for any cutaneous sinus tract so that a correct diagnosis can be ascertained, and proper management can be delivered to the patient.