bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Penis-Piercing Tradition in Borneo and the Philippines
Authors: Guerreiro Antonio J.
Published: January 2025

In Borneo, the tradition of piercing the penis or the penis glans using a special instrument and then inserting a bone, wood, or metal pin (palang or small rod) into the opening is an ancient one. According to early nineteenth-century sources, it originated with the Kayan and a related peoples, the Modang-Manga’ay and the Bahau. Later, other ethnic groups, such as the Kenyah and Iban, took up the practice. The piercing was equated to an initiation or rite de passage for younger men, performed after they had participated for the first time in a headhunting raid or war and before they were allowed to marry. The piercing was very painful, and because it allowed bloodletting, was an apotropaic act. Similar devices and some others were used in the Visayas, central Philippines, and had been described by Westerners as early as the sixteenth century. However, in this region, the meanings attached to the practice differed. This chapter reviews the evidence to provide fresh interpretations of the practice.
Body Modifications in Northeastern Africa
Authors: Manzo Andrea , Sernicola Luisa
Published: January 2025

Body modification is a widespread and long-standing practice among the populations of northeastern Africa, where it is currently utilized for aesthetic, social, and ideological purposes. This chapter examines ancient practices of body modification in a region that encompasses present-day Sudan, Northern Ethiopia, and Eritrea. In Sudan, the earliest evidence for body modification dates between the eighth and the seventh millennia bce; in Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, the first evidence is more recent, dated to the late second millennium and early first millennium bce, though gaps in the archaeological records might explain this discrepancy. Altogether, excavated sites have yielded information about practices such as body piercing, scarification, tattooing, and dental avulsion, as well as body painting. This is coherent with ancient Egyptian art in which peoples from the southern regions of the Nile Valley are depicted with piercings and body markings, alongside a rich variety of other ornaments and embellishments. The aim of the chapter is to establish the continuity of the practices over time and to infer the network of cultural contacts that have existed between the Nile Valley and the northern Horn of Africa.
The Role of Astronomy in Australian Indigenous Knowledge
Authors: Norris Ray , Fuller Robert , Hamacher Duane , Leaman Trevor , Anderson Ghillar Michael
Published: January 2025

Astronomy plays a significant role in the culture of many Australian Indigenous peoples. Traditional Indigenous Australians had an extensive knowledge of the sky and the motion of the bodies within it. That astronomical knowledge was not only important culturally, but also revealed an intellectual complexity that has gone largely unrecognized, including a quest to understand phenomena such as tides and eclipses (Hamacher and Norris, 2011). More practically, Indigenous Australians used that knowledge for navigation, as well as to regulate their calendars to maximize food resources. The tradition of songlines offers another example of how the natural world and oral tradition have interacted for Indigenous Australians over time. Songlines are oral representations of landscapes or routes that were created by the Culture Heroes, or creation ancestors, and are sometimes called “ancestral tracks,” or Dreaming tracks. Songlines crisscross the continent and connect sacred cultural sites to the journeys of important creation ancestors of the Dreaming. They can extend into the night sky, with waypoints on the ground being represented by particular stars.
The Algerian Revolution, South-South Perspectives, and the “Grammar of Nationalism”
Authors: Davis Muriam Haleh
Published: January 2025

The Algerian revolution (1954–1962) was one of the major wars of decolonization of the twentieth century and a touchstone for intellectuals and politicians in the Global South who sought to define their own nationalist projects. This chapter looks at how Algeria influenced revolutionary movements in parts of Africa, Pakistan, and the Middle East. It shows how the Algerian FLN (National Liberation Front) was a vanguard of various Pan-African movements, which grappled with the use of violence and the definition of African identity. In Pakistan, intellectuals and politicians expressed solidarity with Algeria despite their country’s avowedly anti-communist stance, and also viewed Kashmir in light of the Algerian struggle for sovereignty. In addition, the role of Islam served a similar function in cementing nationalist sentiments in Algeria and South Asia. Finally, the chapter looks at the Arab East, where the affective ties to the Algerian revolution were particularly strong and offered a sense of hope after the collapse of the United Arab Republic in 1961 and the war with Israel in 1967. The chapter argues that Algeria was a model that helped politicians and intellectuals in these disparate regions establish a “grammar of nationalism” as they sought to address the thorny questions of language, ethnicity, territory, and economic policy in the wake of independence.
Dissenting Writing
Authors: Seager Nicholas
Published: January 2025

Dissenters contributed to religio-political controversy, publicly debating doctrinal, ecclesiological, and constitutional topics. They wrote in private genres intended for limited circulation, including diaries and letters. Their instructional writing encompasses practical divinity, biblical exposition, children’s books, history, and sermons. Predictably for an embattled subculture, dissenting writing is often commemorative, which manifests in eulogies, wills, and epitaphs that speak to collective as well as personal memory. The same applies to life-writing, especially the celebrated but formally and theologically diverse examples of Grace Abeounding, Reliquiae Baxterianae, and Fox’s Journal. Fictions like The Pilgrim’s Progress relate to longer literary traditions even as they capture historical attitudes distinctive to Restoration dissent. This chapter contextualizes features of dissenting prose style, demonstrates prose’s role in forging collective and personal identities, and points to the larger consequences of the literary culture of Restoration nonconformity.
Radical and Deist Writing
Authors: McDowell Nicholas , Tarantino Giovanni
Published: January 2025

The fundamental epistemological distinction between enthusiastic and rational radicalism, which issues in important distinctions of expression and style, as well as thought, in radical prose, tends to become blurred in attempts to map a continuous tradition of free-thinking and libertinism in Britain and Ireland, stretching from the English Revolution to the eighteenth century. Whereas the self-proclaimed prophets proclaimed the irrelevance of humanist intellectual tradition to the experience of the internal Spirit or ‘inner light’, the deists and free-thinkers made their bookishness and access to the classical tradition a key element of their appeal to a superior rationality. Where there is some ideological overlap between the traditions is in a shared and vigorous anticlericalism; but there is also, as this chapter shows, a stylistic continuity in the use of irony, satire, and parody by university-educated radicals of the mid-century.
Scientific Transactions
Authors: Henderson Felicity
Published: January 2025

This chapter gives an overview of some of the most prolific and influential scientific writers of the period, including Thomas Browne, Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, John Evelyn, John Wilkins, and Isaac Newton. The new philosophy, though, required the collection of a vast quantity of data. It was the contributions of an army of observers to a new form of publication, the scientific journal, that had the most influence on the development of scientific prose in the period. Alongside the reports printed in the Royal Society’s journal Philosophical Transactions, the chapter considers other prose forms favoured by scientists including the letter, the collection of aphorisms, the museum catalogue, and the natural history taxonomy. In many scientific publications prose and image worked together to convey meaning, and the chapter briefly considers this interaction, as well as the connections between manuscript, print, and oral culture and the relationship between Latin and vernacular prose.
Secret Histories
Authors: Bullard Rebecca
Published: January 2025

Secret history is a polemical form of history writing that flourished during the political ferment of the period 1640–1714. Like many other ‘new’ forms of writing of this period, it is a hybrid of a number of different literary traditions, adapted to new political and cultural circumstances. This chapter traces the evolving contours of secret history through texts that are familiar to students of literature and history (for instance, Andrew Marvell’s Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government (1677); Aphra Behn’s Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1683–5); and Delarivier Manley’s New Atalantis (1709)) as well as relatively obscure, but nonetheless sophisticated and self-conscious, examples of the form. It reveals secret history to be a form in which political responsiveness and literary innovation are intimately connected, and in which the complexities of the literary and political relationship between England and France are especially apparent.
Sermons
Authors: Johnston Warren
Published: January 2025

It has been estimated that over 10,000 sermons appeared on booksellers’ shelves from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century. This chapter uses fast-day sermons from 1640 to 1714 as a representative case study of sermon literature during this period. Though this is only one subgenre of sermons, it is a useful and effective approach for several reasons: it provides a greater depth of analysis across a unified type of work; it considers a wide range of authors; finally, the period begins with a set of fast sermons that many scholars are already familiar with—those preached during the Long Parliament—and allows comparisons to be made between and among these Civil War examples of the form and those from the Interregnum, Restoration, Williamite, and early Augustan periods. The impact of political, social, intellectual, and cultural influences on sermons, as well as their religious purposes, are particularly evident in fast-day sermons.
Histories
Authors: Allsopp Niall
Published: January 2025

History writing of the later Stuart period was, scholars agree, dominated by partisan warfare. In a bitterly partisan climate, the past supplied a powerful resource for defining, consolidating, and even ritualizing a sense of collective political identity, and for delegitimizing others. This process drew on a diverse range of historical sources, but the central, defining touchstone was the collective memory of the Civil Wars. Coalitions were fashioned through sermons, pamphlets, petitions, declarations, journalism—all forms in which writers worked to resolve complex events into comprehensible and galvanizing narratives. In light of the complex and nuanced picture of political mobilization offered by recent historiography, we need to reassess what it means to describe history writing as ‘partisan’. The aim of this chapter is to explore how seventeenth-century historians describe partisanship during the Civil Wars, and how their understanding of history-reading might itself mobilize readers.
Introduction
Authors: McDowell Nicholas , Power Henry
Published: January 2025

This chapter introduces the rationale for, and format of, The Oxford Handbook of English Prose, 1640–1714. It provides an overview of theories of the rise of prose in English in the late seventeenth century, and it is suggested that one of the barriers to a greater appreciation of the efflorescence of English prose from the mid-seventeenth to the early eighteenth centuries has been the traditional division of the period into ‘Renaissance’, ‘Civil War’, ‘Restoration’, and ‘Eighteenth Century’. It is explained that the periodization that has conventionally segmented English literary history must be surmounted to obtain a more panoramic view of what was a golden age of English prose. The chapter goes on to argue for the virtues of the organization of the volume around categories of prose rather than authorship or style to capture the fascinating and surprising variety of prose in this period of unprecedented political and social turmoil.
Bites and Shams
Authors: McTague John
Published: January 2025

Prose seems to lend itself to shamming, hoaxing, practical joking, and other forms of social deceit much more readily than verse or drama, even if many of the escapades this chapter deals with are distinctively performative, dependant on a public audience, and reliant on kinds of suspension of disbelief. That may be because the translucent deadpan upon which shamming is founded is more readily achievable in a medium associated with apparently ‘straight-forward’ forms of writing like historiography, scientific report, travel writing, political theory or debate, and literary criticism. This chapter explores how the bipartisan conflicts of the civil wars and party politics exposed for many the artificiality of the political settlement, and encouraged scepticism about truth claims in political culture. More than simply poking fun, bites and shams provide prose writers with parallel spaces for literary, political, and historiographical argument.
Brief Lives and Characters
Authors: Bennett Kate
Published: January 2025

This period saw an increase in the writing of the brief life and the character, both within collections such as John Aubrey’s Brief Lives and Anthony Wood’s Athenæ Oxonienses and as separate productions. This chapter will begin by considering one brief life, Shaftesbury’s account of his foxhunting squire relative Henry Hastings, whose composition, publication history, terminology, and delicately ironic tone is typical of the brief life’s special relationship with locality (both urban and distinctly rustic) and associated traditions, with family relationships, with anecdotal oddity and singularity, and with antiquarian rarity. In direct contrast to biography, with which it has an eccentric relationship, the brief life is often the fruit of antiquarian research, the preservation of a marginal, fragile, and often provincial account which later finds an urban home in the rhapsodic publication or the magazine. This period shows two modes, often in dialogue: exemplarity (both hagiographical and satirical) and particularity.
Psalms
Authors: Johnson Kimberly
Published: January 2025

This chapter considers the Sidney Psalter—with particular attention to the famous variety of its poetic structures—in order to identify the aesthetic method that governs the whole of the translation. Rather than making use of the familiar and adaptable measures commonly used in sixteenth-century church worship, Sidney utilises a constantly changing set of verse forms that defy general liturgical use. In both their shifting poetic forms and their thematic content, Sidney’s psalm translations imagine spiritual devotion as a reshaping of the self into a new paradigm, a bending to ‘God’s waies’, and they propose a continually revised sense of the proper shape of worship. Providing a structural analogue for the psalter’s vacillating emotional positionings, the formal innovations of the Sidney psalm paraphrases communicate the difficulty of achieving spiritual accord with the divine.
Sidney and Rhetoric
Authors: Mann Jenny C.
Published: January 2025

This chapter analyses how Sidney’s Arcadia shaped English conceptions of rhetorical eloquence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This was a volatile moment in English literary history: an increasing number of writers were asserting the artful capacity of their vernacular language, while at the same remaining subject to an educational system and cultural paradigm that regarded that language as barbarous and impure. The tension between the timeless model of classical art and the degraded historicity of vernacular practice comprises the animating contradiction of ‘vulgar eloquence’. This chapter outlines Sidney’s central role in the formation of this self-contradictory idea of English eloquence, while also arguing that the Arcadia ‘unfixes’ the normative assumptions of this cultural and rhetorical paradigm. Sidney’s romance does not ‘fit’ the ideology of eloquence that it is supposed to exemplify, an indecorum that is integral to its enduring power.
Sidney and Class
Authors: McKeown Adam
Published: January 2025

Philip Sidney is remembered as the exemplar courtier poet of the Elizabethan age, but he was not a spokesperson for the elite company he kept and was in many ways its harshest critic. A member of that class of minor gentlemen who were the backbone of Elizabethan civil and military administration, Sidney wrote from the margins of elite society. He was a keen observer of social class interactions, of aristocratic attitudes toward the labouring and artisanal classes, and of the constraints aristocratic society placed on courtiers, like himself, who had to negotiate it without title or substantial fortune. This chapter shows how Sidney’s concerns with social class interaction, and especially those between a self-interested aristocracy and an unruly labouring class, shape The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia and how his exasperation with aristocratic attitudes toward work and compensation inform his Defence of Poesy.
Sidney and the Passions
Authors: Sierhuis Freya
Published: January 2025

The passions, and in particular the passion of love, are not merely the motive force behind the plot of Sidney’s Arcadia, they are in many ways central to Sidney’s poetics, and constitutive of his thinking about the relationship between imitation and writing. This chapter traces the relationship between love, admiration, and imitation in both the Old Arcadia and the New as a way of understanding Sidney’s fundamentally divided attitude to the emotions, and to his own fictions of passionate mimesis. It shows how Sidney deliberately complicates the work’s representation of passionate experience by examining it through contrasting philosophical frameworks, Aristotelian and Platonic, and how the Neoplatonising idealism that links admiration and love to imitation is undermined from within through counter-fictions which link the same passions to political manipulation, transgression, and to the waywardness of desire.
Municipal Politics in the Netherlands
Authors: de Blok Lisanne , Jansen Giedo , Vollaard Hans
Published: January 2025

Research on municipal politics and governance in the Netherlands and elsewhere is fairly limited and fragmented. However, some case studies of participatory and deliberative innovations in Dutch municipalities exist. In addition, the various modes of service delivery and the impact of amalgamation have been studied. Much less attention has been devoted to the relationships within municipal governments (consisting of the municipal council, the mayor, and the executive board of mayor and aldermen) and to the influence of municipal governments within complex networks of private and public actors at various levels (from sub-municipal to international). Various studies—for instance, on the evolution of the municipal council, the Dutch Local Elections Studies (since 2016), and Dutch Local Political Elites Studies (since 2019)—are therefore necessary steps to describe and explain how municipalities deal with challenges such as post-New Public Management reforms, declining turnout, fragmentation of councils, increasing turnover of councillors, aldermen, and mayors, and how they can strengthen leadership and democratic accountability in complex multilevel network governance.
Abortion, Euthanasia, and Transgender Issues in Dutch Politics
Authors: Trappenburg Margo
Published: January 2025

In 2001 the Dutch adopted the first ever euthanasia law in the world. In 2000 they were the first to legalize same-sex marriages. Presently they are famed for the ‘Dutch protocol’ that allows transgender children to start hormone treatments before they hit puberty. This chapter looks at the past, present, and future of morality issues, arguing that these were often treated in accordance with the rules of consociationalist decision making. Euthanasia was shelved by the political system, but the practice had been semi-legalized by doctors and judges long before 2001. But consociationalism is not the only game in town. From the 1990s onwards, political parties also actively politicized morality issues, leading to official laws codifying existing practices. Future developments regarding morality issues will take place in a completely different party system in which new populist parties alternate between taking pride in Dutch progressive values and opposing them in the name of tradition.
Managing Increased Complexity in Dutch Coalition Politics
Authors: Louwerse Tom , Timmermans Arco
Published: January 2025

Governance in the Dutch parliamentary system is characterized by majority coalition governments. Highlighting the pivotal role of these coalitions, this chapter unveils their formation, governance patterns, and termination. The electoral system’s indirect link to government formation complicates the translation of election outcomes into coalitions. As a result, lengthy post-election negotiations are the norm, and the management of coalition governance has become increasingly important as the number of coalition parties has increased compared to the 1980s. Many coalition governments resign before the end of their term due to policy conflicts in the coalition. This chapter offers a comprehensive exploration of Dutch coalition governance dynamics by first describing the process of government formation, mechanisms of governance, and the way in which governments are terminated, then discussing the major research advanced in this field, and finally outlining a research agenda for this topic.
The Politics of Dutch Health Care Governance
Authors: Maarse Hans , Jeurissen Patrick
Published: January 2025

This chapter provides a concise overview of the politics of Dutch health care. The first section discusses three basic system characteristics of Dutch health care: its hybrid structure, the evolving health care politics arena, and the consensual style in health care politics. These form an institutional context in which the politics of health care takes place. The second part analyses political decision making in central areas of health policymaking. The chapter ends with a brief analysis of the impact of health care politics on voting behaviour and a sketch of some research themes for future political research.
Dutch Foreign Policy between Domestic and International Pressures
Authors: Verbeek Bertjan
Published: January 2025

The foreign policy process in the Netherlands has become increasingly domesticized. Globalization and European integration have intensified the transnational character of ever more policy domains. This has increased the visibility of foreign policy as well as the number of stakeholders involved in it. The end of the Cold War ended the until then dominant narrative guiding foreign policy. Combined, these developments made post-Cold War policymakers face a further politicization of foreign policy, as testified by the role that foreign policy plays in causing governmental crises and individual resignations of office holders in the twenty-first century. This constrains the freedom of manoeuvre of the Netherlands at the global level, where the country has persistently sought to exercise more influence than can be expected from a small state. Indeed, it aspires to be recognized as a middle power in specific niches by other states in the international system. This accounts for its investment in both hard and soft power capabilities. Threats to its global reputation (being branded as a tax haven, or reluctant to confront its colonial and racist past) have been an incentive to adjust specific domestic policies. At present, theory-driven explanations do not offer a comprehensive account of contemporary Dutch foreign policy.
BRASSINAZOLE RESISTANT 1 delays photoperiodic flowering by repressing CONSTANS transcription
Authors: Xu Xingwen , Jiang Wenbo , Chen Yangbo , Tian Hao , Yang Zijian , Liu Shuo , Li Xiaopeng , Song Chunhui , Ye Zhangli , Guo Wei , Kong Dongdong , Hou Congcong , Li Legong , Liu Liangyu
Published: January 2025

Photoperiodic regulation of flowering time plays a critical role in plant reproductive success and crop yield. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the expression of the CONSTANS (CO) gene is closely regulated by day length and is modulated by both environmental and endogenous cues for precise control over flowering. Our findings reveal that the phytohormone brassinosteroid (BR) pathway represses flowering by inhibiting the expression of both CO and Flowering Locus T (FT). Additionally, we discovered that BRASSINAZOLE RESISTANT 1 (BZR1), a key transcription factor in the BR signaling pathway, directly binds to the proximal promoter region of CO to suppress its transcription during long days, thus regulating photoperiodic flowering. Genetically, BZR1 acts upstream of CO and FT to delay floral initiation depending on day length. Overall, our study reveals how a molecular module comprising BZR1-CO integrates signals from BR as well as photoperiodicity for appropriate adjustment of flowering time.
Decay of CP-Even Higgs H → hγγ in the Two-Higgs Doublet Model: One-Loop Analytic Results and Ward Identity Checks
Authors: Phan Khiem Hong , Tran Dzung Tri , Nguyen Thanh Huy
Published: January 2025

The first analytic expressions for one-loop-induced contributions for the decay of CP-even Higgs H → hγγ, with $h$ being the Standard-Model-like Higgs boson within the framework of the two-Higgs doublet model, are presented in this paper. The one-loop form factors for the decay processes are written in terms of scalar one-loop Passarino–Veltman functions following the input notations of both the LoopTools and Collier packages. Subsequently, physical results for the decay processes can be generated numerically by using one of the above-mentioned packages. The analytic expressions shown in this paper are verified by several numerical checks, e.g. the ultraviolet and infrared finiteness of the one-loop amplitude. Furthermore, the amplitude satisfies the Ward identity due to on-shell photons in final states. The identity is also checked numerically in this work. In phenomenological studies, the differential decay rates for H → hγγ as a function of the invariant mass of two photons in final states are first examined in the parameter space of the two-Higgs doublet models.
The non-commuting, non-generating graph of a finite simple group
Authors: Freedman Saul D
Published: January 2025

Let G be a group such that $G/Z(G)$ is finite and simple. The non-commuting, non-generating graph$\Xi(G)$ of G has vertex set $G \backslash Z(G)$, with edges corresponding to pairs of elements that do not commute and do not generate G. Complementing our previous investigation of this graph for non-simple groups, we show that $\Xi(G)$ is connected with diameter at most 5, with smaller upper bounds for certain families of groups. Using these bounds, we then prove that when G is simple, the diameter of the complement of the generating graph of G has a tight upper bound of 4, with the exception of at most one group with a graph of diameter 5.
Gastrointestinal parasitic worm burdens and efficacy of deworming practices in growing beef cattle grazing California pastures
Authors: Maier Gabriele U , Torcal Phillip , Stackhouse Jeffery , Davy Josh S , Forero Larry C , Snell Laura , Woodmansee Grace
Published: January 2025

Treatment for enteric parasites is a common practice in beef cattle, yet little data is known about the prevalence of nematode and trematode parasite infections in beef cattle in the western United States. Likewise, the data on the efficacy of deworming practices and the presence of anthelmintic resistance (AR) of these parasites in this region is sparse. The current study collected evidence for the presence of nematode and trematode parasites in 18 herds of young beef cattle grazing either dryland or irrigated pasture in northern California as well as on efficacy and evidence of AR in a subgroup of herds. We found variable levels of fecal egg counts (FEC) ranging from 6 to 322 for the arithmetic mean eggs per gram (EPG) in the tested cattle groups. There was no difference in the number of EPG between herds grazing dryland or irrigated pasture (P = 0.54). We did not find any evidence for liver flukes or lungworms in the tested cattle. There was evidence of AR to macrocyclic lactones in all eight herds where fecal egg count reduction tests (FECRT) were performed, however due to types and execution of treatment applications and sample sizes, these results need to be interpreted with caution. The most common genus of third stage larvae in coproculture testing before treatment was Cooperia (between 55% and 98% of larvae) as well as post treatment for those herds undergoing FECRT (between 50% and 96%). Ostertagia was the second most frequent genus of larvae found in coproculture testing making up between 0% and 27% of larvae before treatment and between 5% and 50% of larvae after treatment. Anthelmintic practices in beef herds in northern California and likely in a larger geographic area in the western United States need to be updated in order to continue effective use of the currently available drugs.
The prebiopsy photo
Authors: Kerr Christy
Published: January 2025

This article reviews the reasons to take a prebiopsy photograph and the consequences that can ensue when one is not taken. Electronic medical record systems compatible with mobile devices can record clinical photographs that comply with patient privacy regulations, making them the method of choice for dermatologic photo documentation. Correct photographic documentation technique also is critical and is reviewed with examples.
Modified screening tool offers improved assessment of teen suicide risk
Authors: Rosenberg Karen
Published: January 2025

ACCORDING TO THIS STUDY:
Pragmatic Clinical Trials: A Study Design for Real-World Evidence
Authors: Capili Bernadette , Anastasi Joyce K.
Published: January 2025

Editor's note: This is the 25th article in a series on clinical research by nurses coordinated by the Heilbrunn Family Center for Research Nursing at Rockefeller University. The series is designed to be used as a resource for nurses to understand the concepts and principles essential to research. Each column will present the concepts that underpin evidence-based practice—from research design to data interpretation. To see all the articles in the series, go to https://links.lww.com/AJN/A204.
Role of Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists in People With Infertility and Pregnancy
Authors: Finkle Johanna , Brost Brian C.
Published: January 2025

Obesity is a chronic condition that causes significant morbidity and mortality in people in the United States and around the world. Traditional means of weight loss include diet, exercise, behavioral modifications, and surgery. New weight loss medications, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, are revolutionizing the management of weight loss but have implications for fertility and pregnancy. Obesity is associated with infertility and may affect response to ovulation induction medications. In pregnancy, obesity increases the risks of spontaneous abortion, birth defects, gestational diabetes, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, cesarean delivery, and stillbirth. Lifestyle changes alone for weight loss have not improved outcomes. Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists and new medications targeting gut hormones can help people achieve their weight loss goals but are contraindicated in pregnancy. Obstetrician–gynecologists should work with patients to manage these medications before they become pregnant, between pregnancies, and after delivery.
The History and Advancement of Light, Lasers, and Energy-Based Devices in Dermatologic Surgery
Authors: Dover Jeffrey S. , Liu Chaocheng , Watchmaker Jacqueline , Wang Jordan V. , Geronemus Roy G. , Arndt Kenneth A. , Anderson R. Rox
Published: January 2025

BACKGROUND

From the theoretical foundations of laser and energy-based applications for the skin to the development of advanced medical devices, the field of dermatologic surgery has undergone transformative changes.

OBJECTIVE

To review the scientific and clinical advancement of laser and energy-based therapies within dermatologic surgery.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A literature search was conducted to identify important scientific advancements and landmark studies on light, laser, and energy-based devices within the field of dermatologic surgery.

RESULTS

Since the introduction of selective photothermolysis principles in the 1980s, numerous laser and energy-based devices have been developed to effectively treat vascular lesions, target pigmentation, remove tattoos, rejuvenate the skin, and remove hair. Beyond aesthetic applications, photodynamic therapy was introduced to treat various neoplastic and inflammatory conditions. Lasers have also been employed to enhance transcutaneous drug delivery, and new lasers continue to emerge for treating common inflammatory conditions, such as acne. These innovations have contributed to a paradigm shift toward safe and effective, but less invasive, procedure-based treatment in addressing medical and aesthetic concerns in dermatology.

CONCLUSION

Dermatologists have consistently led the way in the continuous development and innovative application of laser and energy-based devices to effectively address a variety of skin conditions.
Female Sexual Health and Cancer
Authors: Bober Sharon L. , Falk Sandy J.
Published: January 2025

As the majority of female cancer survivors can now expect to live long lives beyond cancer diagnosis and treatment, there is a growing need to address the significant late effects of treatment. Unfortunately, sexual health remains a primary concern that often goes unaddressed among female cancer survivors. Sexual dysfunction is one of the most common and distressing effects of treatment. Management of issues related to sexual health and sexual function depends upon the type of malignancy, stage and other tumor characteristics, treatment, and the history, concerns, and goals of the individual patient.
Code Lavender: Roots and Wings
Authors: Hamm Angela , Stone Rabbi Susan
Published: January 2025

In this article, two long-time practitioners of Code Lavender (a holistic nurse and board-certified chaplain) describe its history and current state. They analyze what makes it such a successful tool in addressing staff stress and sketch possible future directions. Case studies as well as techniques are discussed.
A Perspective on Women’s Health With Cupping Therapy
Authors: Yilmaz Semra
Published: January 2025

Cupping therapy is an ancient traditional and complementary treatment practice. Cupping therapy has recently attracted global attention in the promotion, protection, and treatment of health. Research is also being conducted on the potential benefits of cupping therapy in the treatment of conditions related to women’s health. This study provides an overview of the application of cupping therapy in the field of women’s health and an understanding its importance.
Sedation and Ventilator Weaning Bundle and Time to Extubation in Infants With Bronchiolitis: Secondary Analysis of the Sedation AND Weaning in Children (SANDWICH) Trial
Authors: Mitting Rebecca B. , McDowell Cliona , Blackwood Bronagh , Ray Samiran
Published: January 2025

Objective:

The Sedation and Weaning in Children (SANDWICH) trial of a sedation weaning and ventilator liberation bundle had a primary outcome of time to successful extubation, and showed significant but small difference. We explored the impact of the intervention on infants with bronchiolitis.

Design:

Post hoc subgroup analysis of a cluster-randomized trial, 2018 to 2019 (ISRCTN16998143).

Patients:

Surviving patients with bronchiolitis under 1 year of age in the SANDWICH trial (n = 784).

Interventions:

Nil.

Measurements and Main Results:

Time to successful extubation, and rates of unplanned and failed extubation were compared in patients exposed and not exposed to the intervention. To explore a site-level effect, we tested the correlation between the rate of unplanned and failed extubation at each trial site with the median time to successful extubation at that site. Of 784 patients (48%), 376 were exposed to the intervention. Median (interquartile range [IQR]) time to successful extubation was 69.6 (IQR 50.4–110.4) hours in patients exposed to the intervention and 86.4 (IQR 60–124.8) hours in non-exposed. Exposure to the SANDWICH intervention was associated with a 13% (95% CI, 1%–26%) reduction in time to extubation following adjustment for confounders. Thirty (3.8%) patients experienced unplanned extubation and 112 (14%) failed extubation. Patients who experienced failed extubation had an increased time to successful extubation, which remained significant after adjustment for confounders. At the site level, there was a negative correlation between failed extubation rate and median time to successful extubation (Spearman rho –0.53 [95% CI, –0.8 to –0.08], p = 0.02).

Conclusions:

In a secondary analysis of the SANDWICH trial, the subgroup of bronchiolitis patients showed that exposure to the intervention was associated with a clinically significant reduction in time to successful extubation. Although failed extubation was associated with increased duration of ventilation in an individual, sites with higher rates of failed extubation had a lower median duration of ventilation.
Gadopiclenol Enables Reduced Gadolinium Dose While Maintaining Quality of Pulmonary Arterial Enhancement for Pulmonary MRA
Authors: Heidenreich Julius F. , Chu Sheena Y. , Grunz Jan-Peter , Starekova Jitka , Nagpal Prashant , Reeder Scott B. , Grist Thomas M.
Published: January 2025

Rationale and Objectives

Pulmonary magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is an imaging method with proven utility for the exclusion of pulmonary embolism and avoids the need for ionizing radiation and iodinated contrast agents. High-relaxivity gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs), such as gadopiclenol, can be used to reduce the required gadolinium dose for pulmonary MRA. The aim of this study was to compare the contrast enhancement performance of gadopiclenol with an established gadobenate dimeglumine–enhanced pulmonary MRA protocol.

Materials and Methods

In this retrospective single-center study, data from 152 patients who underwent pulmonary MRA at 1.5 T were analyzed. Imaging was performed with either 0.05 mmol/kg gadopiclenol (n = 75) or 0.1 mmol/kg gadobenate dimeglumine (n = 77), using dedicated multiphasic imaging protocols with precontrast, pulmonary arterial phase, immediate delayed phase, and a low flip-angle T1-weighted spoiled gradient echo acquisition. Subjective image quality evaluation was performed blinded by 2 radiologists on a 5-point Likert scale. For the estimation of interrater reliability, Cohen weighted κ was calculated. For semiquantitative assessment, signal intensities were measured in the pulmonary arteries, and relative signal enhancement was calculated. Data from groups were compared with Mann-Whitney U tests using Bonferroni corrections.

Results

Signal enhancement relative to precontrast in the first-pass pulmonary arterial phase was higher with 0.05 mmol/kg gadopiclenol compared with 0.1 mmol/kg gadobenate dimeglumine (20.0-fold ± 5.6-fold vs 17.8-fold ± 5.8-fold; P = 0.015). Readers observed no difference in subjective rating in terms of intravascular contrast, peripheral vessel depiction, and diagnostic confidence with substantial interrater reliability (Cohen κ = 0.73 [95% confidence interval: 0.57–0.89], 0.65 [0.55–0.75], and 0.74 [0.65–0.84], all P's < 0.001). No severe adverse events were recorded for any clinical MRA examination.

Conclusions

The high-relaxivity contrast agent gadopiclenol can facilitate a reduction in gadolinium dose by 50% without compromising contrast enhancement for pulmonary MRA. This approach may enhance the safety and sustainability of pulmonary MRA in the long term.
Fenretinide targets GATA1 to induce cytotoxicity in GATA1 positive Acute Erythroid and Acute Megakaryoblastic Leukemic cells
Authors: Raza Yasharah , Yu GuiQin , Chiappone Sam Blake , Liu Suhu , Luberto Chiara
Published: January 2025

Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) subtypes, acute erythroleukemia and acute megakaryocytic leukemia (M6 and M7 AMLs, respectively) have a median survival of only a few months with no targeted effective treatment. Our gene expression analysis using the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia and CRISPR screen from DepMap showed that M6/M7 AMLs have high levels of the transcription factorGATA1and depend on GATA1 for survival. While GATA1 was shown to support AML cell proliferation and resistance to chemotherapy, GATA1 has long been considered “undruggable”. Here, we identify the small molecule N-(4-hydroxyphenyl)retinamide (4-HPR, Fenretinide) as a novel GATA1 targeting agent in M6 and M7 AML cells, with nM to low μM concentrations of 4-HPR causing loss of GATA1. In M6 AML OCIM1 cells, knock-down ofGATA1induced cytotoxicity similarly to low doses 4-HPR while overexpression of GATA1 significantly protected cells from 4-HPR-induced cytotoxicity. In M6 AML cells, 4-HPR synergized with the current standard-of-care (SOC), Azacytidine plus Venetoclax, overcoming cell resistance to the drugs. As single-agent, 4-HPR outperformed SOC. 4-HPR is a synthetic derivative of vitamin A, and numerous clinical trials have supported its safe profile in cancer patients; therefore, targeted use of 4-HPR against M6 and M7 AMLs may represent a novel therapeutic breakthrough.

Key Points

- Fenretinide (4-HPR) targets the transcription factor GATA1, which was previously thought to be “undruggable” and induces GATA1 loss.

- M6 and M7 Acute Myeloid Leukemias (AML) have enriched expression of GATA1 and they can be considered GATA1 positive.

- Loss of GATA1 contributes significantly to 4-HPR cytotoxicity in M6 OCIM1 cells.

- 4-HPR treatment overcomes chemotherapeutic resistance in M6 Acute Myeloid Leukemia cells, synergizes with standard-of-care and outperforms standard-of-care as a single agent.
Genome-wide mapping of the Galleria mellonella larvae transcription start sites during fungal infection and treatment
Authors: Abugessaisa Imad , Konings Mickey , Manabe Ri-ichiroh , Tagami Michihira , Severin Jessica , Hasegawa Akira , Kawashima Tsugumi , Kinoshita Hiroko , Noma Shohei , Takahashi Chitose , Verbon Annelies , Okazaki Yasushi , van de Sande Wendy W.J. , Kasukawa Takeya
Published: January 2025

Using Low Quantity single strand CAGE (LQ-ssCAGE), we mapped the transcription start sites (TSS). We annotated the 5' end of the invertebrate Galleria mellonella, an upcoming and booming experimental model in infectious disease and immunology research. However, the current genome annotation of this model organism lacks annotation of the 5' end and TSS information. G. mellonella larva was infected with the fungal pathogen Madurella mycetomatis to map TSS under healthy and infection conditions. Larvae were first treated with itraconazole or ravuconazole, and then RNA-seq and LQ-ssCAGE libraries were prepared and sequenced 4, 30, and 52 hours following infection. The LQ-ssCAGE data was processed to identify CAGE transcription start site (CTSS), uni-, and bi-directional clusters. LQ-ssCAGE enabled us to precisely identify 39,410 TSS and 249 active enhancers; we assigned genomic features to the resulting TSSs and enhancers. The majority of the TSS peaks are annotated as promoter regions, while the enhancers were annotated as intergenic and genic. Furthermore, we confirmed the quality of TSS calling by promoter shapes and GC bias. Furthermore, we identified a set of super-enhancers and predicted de-novo motifs. The raw and processed data was deposited to NCBI GEO GSE282923. CTSS, TSS peaks, and enhancers coordinated are available through the ZENBU Genome browser. In this study, we reported the first atlas of TSS and active enhancers of G. mellonella.
Inhibition of cathepsin B blocks amyloidogenesis in the mouse models of neurological lysosomal diseases mucopolysaccharidosis type IIIC and sialidosis
Authors: Viana Gustavo M. , Pan Xuefang , Fan Shuxian , Xu TianMeng , Wyatt Alexandra , Pshezhetsky Alexey V.
Published: January 2025

Neuronal accumulation of amyloid aggregates is a hallmark of brain pathology in neurological lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs) including mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS), however, the molecular mechanism underlaying this pathology has not been understood. We demonstrate that elevated lysosomal cathepsin B (CTSB) levels and CTSB leakage to the cytoplasm triggers amyloidogenesis in two neurological LSDs. CTSB levels were elevated 3-5-fold in the cortices of mouse models of MPS IIIC (Hgsnat-GeoandHgsnatP304L) and sialidosis (Neu1ΔEx3), as well as in cortical samples of MPS I, IIIA, IIIC and IIID patients. CTSB was found in the cytoplasm of pyramidal layer IV-V cortical neurons containing Thioflavin-S-positive, β-amyloid-positive aggregates consistent with pro-senile phenotype. In contrast, CTSB-deficient MPS IIIC (HgsnatP304L/Ctsb-/-) mice as well asHgsnatP304LandNeu1ΔEx3mice chronically treated with irreversible brain-penetrable CTSB inhibitor, E64, showed a drastic reduction of neuronal Thioflavin-S-positive/APP-positive deposits. Neurons ofHgsnatP304L/Ctsb-/-mice and E64-treatedHgsnatP304Lmice also showed reduced levels of P62/LC3-positive puncta, GM2ganglioside and misfolded subunit C of mitochondrial ATP synthase (SCMAS) consistent with restored autophagy. E64 treatment also rescued hyperactivity and reduced anxiety inHgsnatP304Lmice implying that CTSB may become a novel pharmacological target for MPS III and similar LSDs.
An area-resolved phylogeography of bulbous barley (Hordeum bulbosum; Poaceae)
Authors: Blattner Frank R. , Pfanzelt Simon , Koch Christina , Himmelbach Axel , Sassone Agostina B. , Abdulkarim Abdulnaser Kh. , Shuka Lulëzim , Harpke Dörte
Published: January 2025

Hordeum bulbosum, the closest relative of barley (H. vulgare), is an important source of resistance genes for cereals in the Triticeae. This perennial and mainly outcrossing species occurs with two cytotypes: diploids thrive in the western and central parts of the Mediterranean, while autotetraploids extend from Greece mainly eastwards to western Asia. To elucidateH. bulbosum’s origin, colonization patterns, population relationships, and distinctions between the two cytotypes, we determined ploidy and performed genotyping-by-sequencing analyses on 314 individuals from across the species’ distribution range. Our results revealed two distinct lineages within diploidH. bulbosum: individuals from Libyavs. all other diploids. Southeastern Italian populations were the origin for the species expansion eastward into Albania/Greece and westward into mainland Italy, Sicily/Sardinia, Tunisia, and Spain. The tetraploid cytotype originated early in the evolution of the species, thus retaining alleles found in extant Libyan diploids. Tetraploids underwent local introgression from diploids in Greece, where also a secondary origin of tetraploids was detected. We found that ecoclimatic conditions alone cannot account for the clear geographic separation of the cytotypes, as habitats across much of the central Mediterranean would be suitable for both. We conclude that minority cytotype exclusion is the most plausible explanation for the distinct distribution patterns observed. While both cytotypes are morphologically indistinguishable, diploid populations typically occur in scattered stands within their range, while tetraploids tend to form larger, often contiguous populations.