bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Climatic and fire determinants of early life-history stages in the Mediterranean shrub Cistus albidus
Authors: Saura-Mas Sandra , Saperas Anna , Lloret Franciso
Published: August 2019

Aims

Cistus albidus reproductive traits have been studied on typical Mediterranean shrublands along a water availability gradient in Northeastern Iberian Peninsula. Germination of this species is known to be highly favoured by fire. Moreover, Mediterranean species are particularly dependent on water availability. Therefore, we establish the hypothesis that in addition to fire disturbance, seedling recruitment in this Mediterranean seeder will be improved in drought-induced episodes resulting in generalized canopy die-off.

Methods

Individuals of several populations of C. albidus were collected and the size, weight and number of fruits and seeds were measured. Germination tests were also carried out on five pre-germination treatments: seeds’ exposure to heat shock, imbibition, two cycles of imbibition/desiccation and the combination of heat shock and imbibition and imbibition/desiccation cycles. Moreover, the number of seedlings after a drought event was surveyed in the field and correlated with canopy die-off.

Important findings

Our study shows the variability of the C. albidus reproductive traits, such as germination rate or fruit production, along the water availability gradient. This variability resulted in a decrease in fruit production but an increase in successful germination under drier conditions. Cistus albidus seeds increased germination with heat, demonstrating their ability to successfully establish after fire. However, recruitment was not exclusively fire dependent since seedling establishment was higher under C. albidus canopies that had collapsed after the extreme drought. Finally, adult density increased C. albidus die-off and mortality, as well as seedling establishment. These results suggest that this species exhibits a trade-off between different reproductive outcomes (i.e. seed production vs. viability), which in turn is determined by climate. This study also provides evidence of how intra-specific competition, climate, particularly drought events and fire disturbance, can determine the success of key early stages of the life history of a common, representative Mediterranean fire-prone seeder shrub.
Memory, Heredity and Machines: From Darwinism to Lamarckism in Samuel Butler’s Erewhon
Authors: Turbil Cristiano
Published: August 2019

In 1872 Butler published Erewhon, a novel set in a utopian land inspired by the New Zealand countryside. Erewhon parodied some of the main social issues of the Victorian era including political, economic, scientific and social ideas, offering its readers a critical overview not only of Britain and its inhabitants, but also of the cultural revolution triggered by Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Leaving aside the utopian and satirical dimensions of the novel, this article focuses on the meaning of evolutionary science in Erewhon through a discussion of the three chapters called ‘The Book of the Machines’. I suggest that the hypothesis of evolution advanced in ‘The Book of the Machines’ can only be fully understood in relation to Butler’s scientific writings more generally. In ‘The Book of the Machines’, I will argue, Butler pioneered the idea of memory as heredity.
What the Victorian Empire Learned: A Perspective on History, Reading and Print in Nineteenth-Century Textbooks
Authors: Howsam Leslie
Published: August 2019

This essay draws upon trends in cultural historiography as well as the methodologies of book history to argue that Victorian school histories articulated and reinforced three persistent myths of modernity (all of which have been thoroughly discredited by scholarship but persist in popular historical understanding). These are the notion that literacy is necessary to progress, the idea that the advent of printing with moveable type was a harbinger of enlightenment, and the tenet of historians’ practice that written records are a necessary precondition for the discipline to function. Each of these ideologies is concerned with the practices of reading and writing, print culture, and documentation, which are intrinsic to the scholarship of book history. To identify the connections, we should read the texts of school books alongside the bibliographical and archival evidence of their materiality and mobility. The texts conveyed a lesson of European superiority indirectly by retelling the Whig narrative of English liberty. Colonial editions and other iterations were widely circulated. The article offers five examples of schoolbooks to demonstrate how they worked and how they travelled, then proposes a digital humanities solution to the historiographical and bibliographical challenges that arise. A complex relational database connecting three sets of data: about the attributes of books in their multiple versions, about the people associated with their authorship and publishing, and about the institutions that supported them.
Visual Thinking in Mathematics
Authors: Carter Jessica
Published: August 2019

In contemporary philosophy, “visual thinking in mathematics” refers to studies of the kinds and roles of visual representations in mathematics. Visual representations include both external representations (i.e., diagrams) and mental visualization. Currently, three main areas and questions are being investigated. The first concerns the roles of diagrams, or the diagram-based reasoning, found in Euclid’s Elements. Second is the epistemic role of diagrams: the question of whether reasoning based on diagrams can be rigorous. This debate includes the question of whether beliefs based on visual input can be justified, and whether visual perception may lead to mathematical knowledge. The third observes that diagrams abound in (contemporary) mathematical practice, and so tries to understand the role they play, going beyond the traditional debates on the legitimacy of using diagrams in mathematical proofs. Looking at the history of mathematics, one will find that it is only recently that diagrammatic proofs have become discredited. For about 2,000 years, Euclid’s Elements was conceived as the paradigm of (mathematical) rigorous reasoning, and so until the 18th century, Euclidean geometry served as the foundation of many areas of mathematics. One includes the early history of analysis, where the study of curves draws on results from (Euclidean) geometry. During the 18th and 19th centuries, however, diagrams gradually disappear from mathematical texts, and around 1900 one finds the famous statements of Pasch and Hilbert claiming that proofs must not rely on figures. The development of formal logic during the 20th century further contributed to a general acceptance of a view that the only value of figures, or diagrams, is heuristic, and that they have no place in mathematical rigorous proofs. A proof, according to this view, consists of a discrete sequence of sentences and is a symbolic object. In the latter half of the 20th century, philosophers, sensitive to the practice of mathematics, started to object to this view, leading to the emergence of the study of visual thinking in mathematics.
Simone Weil
Authors: Levy David
Published: August 2019

Simone Weil (b. 1909) was a French writer, thinker, and activist who left a corpus of disparate writings that collectively present a sophisticated challenge to contemporary politics and philosophy. She died, aged thirty-four, in 1943. She was born into an affluent life in Paris. As a schoolgirl, she declared her solidarity with the Communist Left. Weil was high-achieving while receiving the best education France could offer in languages, classics, and philosophy. She taught philosophy in French secondary schools for a few years while also active in labor movements and political events, such as the Spanish Civil War. She left France in 1942 after the German occupation. Weil was known in some intellectual circles through essays she published in magazines. When notes on Christian spirituality written toward the end of her life were posthumously published, her profile rose. Her writings influenced those within the church, e.g., Pope Paul VI, and those outside the church, such as T. S. Eliot and Albert Camus. Interest in her spiritual writings has remained constant. Weil trained as a philosopher and her thinking never fails to betray a philosopher’s pursuit of clarity. Her philosophical writing elicited a modest but steady interest among intellectuals and philosophers, notably Iris Murdoch. Weil’s thinking, once distinguished from her biography, is powerful because it is at odds with prevailing culture—academic, political, and mainstream—and offers original concepts to organize human nature. Weil is a Platonist about the intellect, the good, and metaphysics. Weil was not a Marxist, but she valued the unique insights into social materialism she attributed to Marx in relation to social materialism. She was against the elevation of rights as ultimate recognitions of human dignity or an ethical emphasis on the unique individuality of each person. Weil is notable for offering philosophies of work, suffering, and love. Her philosophical elaboration of the ideas of attention, affliction, gravity (as opposed to grace), force, and “decreation” are novel and disruptive of existing accounts of human nature and action. Weil’s philosophical work is deceptively systematic because Weil integrates three levels: the individual human thinker; the social and political context; and a higher level beyond the natural. Her later work is distinctive for combining abstract philosophical analysis with practical consideration of the political and social orders required to support the best expressions of human nature. The unity in Weil’s thinking is obscured by the disorder in the large, written output from her short life.
Epistemic Defeat
Authors: Bondy Patrick , Olson Dustin
Published: August 2019

Epistemic defeat has to do with the lowering, eliminating, or general downgrading of positive epistemic statuses, especially the statuses of being justified or having knowledge. On most accounts of justification, beliefs can be justified even when the property in virtue of which they are justified does not guarantee their truth. That is, justification is fallible. And for any fallibly justified belief, there is always the possibility that further information could come to light, which would render the belief unjustified once the subject becomes aware of it. When a subject becomes aware of such further information, her justification is defeated, and the defeating information (or her awareness of it) is a defeater. Furthermore, according to standard defeasibility analyses of knowledge, roughly, the existence of defeating information for a subject S’s justification for her belief that p is sufficient to prevent S from having knowledge that p, even while S is unaware of the defeating information and she retains justification for her belief. Note that knowledge is sometimes said to be defeasible, and sometimes it is said to be indefeasible. These characterizations of knowledge are compatible. When knowledge is said to be defeasible, the claim is that the justification required for knowledge is fallible, and possibly subject to defeat: roughly, the point is that it is in general possible that S knows that p on the basis of evidence E even if there are possible worlds in which S possesses E (or, there are possible worlds in which S’s belief that p is justified in the same way as in the actual world), and p is false. And it is therefore possible that the addition of some new evidence E′ to E could reduce or eliminate S’s justification for believing p on the basis of E. The addition of E′ to E would also defeat S’s knowledge that p. By contrast, when knowledge is said to be indefeasible, the claim is that if S knows that p, then there is not any actual further true proposition that would defeat S’s justification for her belief if it were conjoined to her evidence. In other words, to say that S’s knowledge that p is defeasible is to say that S can know that p in the actual world even though there are possible worlds in which there exist further facts that could come to light, which would defeat S’s justification for (and knowledge that) p. To say that S’s knowledge that p is indefeasible is to say that there are no such facts in the actual world. In general, if S knows that p in world W then S’s justification cannot be defeated by any facts that obtain in W. Although most contemporary epistemologists are fallibilists about knowledge, the claim that knowledge is indefeasibly justified true belief is compatible with both fallibilism and infallibilism about knowledge.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
Authors: Boeke Sergei
Published: August 2019

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is a branch of the al-Qaeda terrorist movement that is active in the Sahel countries. It has been responsible for many attacks and hostage-takings in North as well as sub-Saharan Africa, and has targeted French and Western interests, as well as local governments (which are seen as stooges of the West). Although AQIM is continually in flux, this bibliography aims to provide initial pointers for historical research covering the group’s background and developments. Since much research and reporting on Sahel developments emanates from the Francophone world, this bibliography does not distinguish between French or English sources, and includes French articles and books that are worthy of study (but refers to the English translation if one is present). A recurrent challenge in terrorism research is the reliance on secondary sources, in part as a result of the limited availability of primary sources. This also applies to AQIM, and the bibliography starts by mentioning some of the primary sources available. Most secondary sources mentioned here are academic articles and think-tank reports. Few books have been written focusing solely on AQIM; those that have are often more journalistic than academic in nature, and some lack references. After listing several primary source works and avenues, this bibliography mentions articles covering the GIA and GSPC; AQIM’s ancestral roots. The next section focuses on academic works that analyze AQIM between its official inception in 2006 and the start of the Malian crisis of 2012. This cutoff date is important, as the group temporarily became the governing authority in northern Mali, effectively running its own “Islamic State.” Then the article focuses on the nexus between terrorism and crime, mentioning works that explore this theme for AQIM. One section subsequently focuses on the period 2012–2018, while another examines counterterrorism operations deployed in the Sahel. Finally, several ancillary works that cover AQIM—but not as the primary subject—are mentioned. Here the emphasis might lie elsewhere (e.g., local politics, Tuareg history, political Islam), but these works still offer valuable insights for the study of AQIM.
Regional Integration
Authors: Ribeiro Hoffmann Andrea , Santos Thauan
Published: August 2019

Regional integration studies has been fertile ground for theoretical development, this article includes (European) region integration theories, international political economy approaches, and regionalism in comparative perspective. The concept of regional governance is also central in the literature, providing ground for the discussion of institutions, norms, and policies in specific issue areas such as peace and security, political economy, energy, social policy, and migration. Research on regional integration has also focused in specific world areas, such as Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, often using a historical or sociological approach. Finally, studies about relations between world regions and between regional organizations have proliferated in the last decade, these studies have constitute a literature referred as ‘interrregionalism’.
Categorial Grammar
Authors: Morrill Glyn
Published: August 2019

The term “categorial grammar” refers to a variety of approaches to syntax and semantics in which expressions are categorized by recursively defined types and in which grammatical structure is the projection of the properties of the lexical types of words. In the earliest forms of categorical grammar types are functional/implicational and interact by the logical rule of Modus Ponens. In categorial grammar there are two traditions: the logical tradition that grew out of the work of Joachim Lambek, and the combinatory tradition associated with the work of Mark Steedman. The logical approach employs methods from mathematical logic and situates categorial grammars in the context of substructural logic. The combinatory approach emphasizes practical applicability to natural language processing and situates categorial grammars within extended rewriting systems. The logical tradition interprets the history of categorial grammar as comprising evolution and generalization of basic functional/implicational types into a rich categorial logic suited to the characterization of the syntax and semantics of natural language which is at once logical, formal, computational, and mathematical, reaching a level of formal explicitness not achieved in other grammar formalisms. This is the interpretation of the field that is being made in this article. This research has been partially supported by MINICO project TIN2017–89244-R. Thanks to Stepan Kuznetsov, Oriol Valentín and Sylvain Salvati for comments and suggestions. All errors and shortcomings are the author’s own.
Visual Word Recognition
Authors: Yap Melvin J.
Published: August 2019

Words are the building blocks of language, and visual word recognition is a crucial prerequisite for skilled reading. Before we can pronounce a word or understand what it means, we have to first recognize it (i.e., the visually presented word makes contact with its underlying mental representation). Although several tasks have been developed to tap word recognition performance, researchers have primarily relied on lexical decision (classifying letter strings as words or nonwords), speeded pronunciation (reading a word or nonword aloud), and semantic classification (e.g., classifying a word as animate or inanimate). Despite the apparent ease of visual word recognition, the processes that support the mapping of spelling-to-sound and spelling-to-meaning are far from perfectly understood and remain the object of active investigations. Beyond shedding light on reading, literacy, and language development, the visual word recognition literature has helped inform our understanding of other cognitive domains (e.g., pattern recognition, attention, memory), while propelling advances in computational modeling and cognitive neuroscience. Because words can be coded and analyzed at multiple levels (e.g., orthography, phonology, semantics), much of empirical research has explored the functional relationships between orthographic, phonological, and semantic variables and word recognition performance across lexical processing tasks. In addition to studying the recognition of isolated words, there is a rich literature examining how different prime contexts influence the processing of subsequently presented words. Such primes can be orthographically, phonologically, semantically, or morphologically related to targets and are either visible or masked (i.e., presented so briefly that conscious perception is minimized). Turning to methodology, although the classical factorial design continues to dominate word recognition research, an increasing amount of work has been leveraging on the megastudy approach, whereby researchers examine word recognition performance for large sets of words, which are defined by the language rather than by the experimenter. Collectively, the basic findings from the isolated and primed visual word recognition performance have been used to develop and constrain increasingly powerful computational models of word recognition and task performance. Moving forward, the visual word recognition literature is likely to be increasingly characterized by studies that rely on powerful analytical tools (e.g., linear mixed effects analyses, analysis of response time distributions) and which give more consideration to the role of individual differences. Finally, in light of space constraints, this article focuses on references that deal with how visually presented English words are recognized. There is an important and growing literature that explores the lexical processing of other alphabetic (e.g., Spanish, French, German) and nonalphabetic (e.g., Chinese, Korean) languages and the interplay between languages in the multilingual lexicon.
Martin Scorsese
Authors: Raymond Marc
Published: August 2019

Martin Scorsese’s name has come to symbolize many broad ideas over the past few decades, to the point where he is no longer merely a filmmaker, but rather a cultural touchstone. He is associated with a particular religion (Catholicism), ethnicity (Italian), genre (gangsters), and time period (New Hollywood), while also being the foremost cinephile in American cinema, influencing whole generations in his wake. Consequently, the amount of writing on Scorsese is quite vast, and this bibliography will try to represent that variety while pointing readers to the best of this work. It is thus organized with a focus on Scorsese’s own scholarly contributions, interviews, career overviews, anthologies, major films, documentaries, and influence. There is a temptation to try to divide the work thematically, since so much of the writing centers around either religion, ethnicity, or masculinity, but doing so would risk perpetuating this overemphasis in the scholarship while also not representing the best writing on this important auteur. Thus, while certainly the work on Italian-Catholicism and masculinity will be frequent within the citations to come, they will not predominate among the selections taken as a whole. This bibliography also attempts to give some of the history of Scorsese scholarship itself, focusing on scholarly touchstones that tended to define particular historical moments and how Scorsese has been useful to particular critical approaches and/or arguments.
Downton Abbey
Authors: Byrne Katherine
Published: August 2019

Certainly the most successful period drama, indeed perhaps the most popular television show, of the 21st century, British series Downton Abbey (2010–2015) has become a force to be reckoned with in popular culture. It borrows the format of popular 1970s series Upstairs Downstairs (ITV), following the lives of a fictional Edwardian family and the servants who look after them in the eponymous house. Season 1 opens in 1912 with the sinking of the Titanic, in which the heir to Downton is lost: the plot then follows the family coming to terms with the arrival of the next in line, a middle-class lawyer with a very different view of life from their own. The next five seasons—there are six in total—follow the inhabitants as they cope with the change the 20th century brings, including the First World War; the woman’s movement, which liberates some of the female characters; and the changes in taxation and society, which make the estate increasingly difficult to maintain and run. The last episode is set in 1925, and a film based on the show is due out in 2019. The series was loved by fans both in the United Kingdom and the United States, but received very mixed critical reception. Critics on the left criticized the show for its glossy and nostalgic view of the past, and of interclass relations, linking its ideology to the politics of its writer, Conservative peer Julian Fellowes. Others praised its positive view of human nature and escapist charm, at a time when austerity was making itself felt in the United Kingdom. Either way, it undoubtedly rekindled viewers’ appetite for period drama on a scale not seen since the 1970s, and has also stirred up debate about the part played by television in representing, accessing, and understanding the past.
Psychological Perspectives on Taste
Authors: Perszyk Emily E. , Stewart Bob , Roland Haley R.
Published: August 2019

The word taste commonly evokes the experience of a robust California red wine, a perfectly seasoned and roasted duck breast, or a decadent Belgian chocolate. In fact, the perceptual experience that accompanies ingestion of food is most correctly termed flavor. Flavor comprises combined elements of olfactory (i.e., retronasal odor), somatosensory (e.g., texture and temperature), and gustatory sensations that attend ingestion. In contrast, taste refers exclusively to the perceptions and behaviors that arise when chemical components of food stimulate the gustatory apparatus of the oral cavity, namely taste receptor cells found within taste buds. Consequent neural activity in taste nerves and taste-related areas of the brain lead to gustatory sensation and perception. There is general agreement that activation of the taste system results in the perception of five unique taste qualities, or basic tastes, in humans: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. It has long been appreciated that perception of these tastes plays a pivotal role in feeding by providing the organism with an appraisal of food nutrient value and/or potential toxicity. Though much remains unknown, our understanding of the gustatory system has burgeoned since 2000. Advances in molecular genetic techniques, for example, provided the launchpad for explosive growth in our understanding of the basic molecular and cellular physiology of taste receptor cells. This information, in turn, has stimulated theoretical, conceptual, and experimental reappraisal of long-standing ideas about the neuroanatomical and neurophysiological bases of taste stimulus coding and perception. Simultaneously, progress in functional brain-imaging technologies permitted non-invasive investigation of the neural pathways and processes involved in taste perception in humans. Results from functional imaging studies have confirmed, extended, and clarified findings from previous psychophysical studies in healthy participants and in patients with peripheral and central nervous system lesions. These studies have also revealed neural correlates of flavor, taste and flavor hedonics, and food-related reward. Combined molecular, behavioral, psychophysical, and imaging data suggest that taste can influence and be influenced by disease. Taste modulates metabolism and contributes to diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. Various diseases and the drugs used to treat them can have strong negative impacts on taste, which can lead to impaired nutrition and diminished quality of life. The reciprocal influences of disease and taste signal the importance of considering this sensory modality in health, nutrition, and food industry policies and practice.
Metastatic involvement of skeletal muscle from gastric adenocarcinoma
Authors: Aguirre L E , Salcedo J , Zuquello R , Garcia-Buitrago M , Ardalan B
Published: August 2019

Gastric cancer represents the fifth most common cancer diagnosis worldwide and the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality. In the USA, the overall 5-year survival rate is 31%, with distant disease nearing 5%. The most common sites of metastasis are the liver and peritoneum. Skeletal muscle involvement has been rarely reported. Since clinical and imaging findings overlap with primary sarcomas, a confirmatory biopsy is required for diagnosis. Prognosis remains poor with treatment options including palliative chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgical resection. We report the case of a 57-year-old female presenting with extensive involvement of skeletal muscle 10 years after achieving remission. In addition to illustrating the refractoriness and poor outcomes associated with muscle involvement, this case and comprehensive review of the literature highlights important characteristics of disease biology and tumor genomics that warrant detailed discussion and exposition to a wider audience.
MGUS bone
Authors: Imataki Osamu , Uemura Makiko
Published: August 2019

A 65-year-old man was referred to our hospital to undergo orthopedic surgery due to severe cervical ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament. Computed tomography scanning showed a massive osteolytic lesion in his pelvis. Other screening examinations including detection of bone mineral density and osteoporosis biomarkers, bone scintigram and 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography were all normal. Bone marrow aspiration revealed slightly increased plasmacytes at 3.8%. These findings led to a diagnosis of monoclonal gammopathy with undetermined significance (MGUS). Architectural osteolytic bone associated with MGUS without apparent abnormality in bone mineral metabolism could be a common occurrence prior to onset or occurrence of multiple myeloma.
Outer rotation curve of the Galaxy with VERA. IV. Astrometry of IRAS 01123+6430 and the possibility of cloud–cloud collision
Authors: Koide Nagito , Nakanishi Hiroyuki , Sakai Nobuyuki , Habe Asao , Shima Kazuhiro , Kurayama Tomoharu , Matsuo Mitsuhiro , Tezuka Daisuke , Kurahara Kohei , Ueno Saeko , Burns Ross A , Nakagawa Akiharu , Honma Mareki , Shibata Katsunori M , Nagayama Takumi , Kawaguchi Noriyuki
Published: August 2019

As part our investigation into the Galactic rotation curve, we carried out Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations towards the star-forming region IRAS 01123+6430 using VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA) to measure its annual parallax and proper motion. The annual parallax was measured to be 0.151 ± 0.042 mas, which corresponds to a distance of $D = 6.61^{+2.55}_{-1.44}\:{\rm kpc}$, and the obtained proper motion components were $(\mu _\alpha {\rm cos}\delta ,\, \mu _\delta ) = (-1.44 \pm 0.15,\, -0.27 \pm 0.16)\:{\rm mas\:yr^{-1}}$ in equatorial coordinates. Assuming Galactic constants of $(R_0,\, \Theta _0) = (8.05 \pm 0.45\:{\rm kpc},\, 238 \pm 14\:{\rm km\:s^{-1}})$, the Galactocentric distance and rotation velocity were measured to be $(R,\, \Theta ) = (13.04 \pm 2.24\:{\rm kpc},\, 239 \pm 22\:{\rm km\:s^{-1}})$, which are consistent with a flat Galactic rotation curve. The newly estimated distance provides a more accurate bolometric luminosity of the central young stellar object, $L_{\rm Bol} = (3.11 \pm 2.86) \times 10^{3}\, L_{\odot }$, which corresponds to a spectral type of B1–B2. Analysis of ${}^{12}{\rm{CO}}$ (J = 1–0) survey data obtained with the Five College Radio Astronomical Observatory (FCRAO) 14 m telescope shows that the molecular cloud associated with IRAS 01123+6430 consists of arc-like and linear components, which matches well a structure predicted by numerical simulation of the cloud–cloud collision phenomenon. The coexistence of arc-like and linear components implies that the relative velocity of the two initial clouds was as slow as 3–$5\:{\rm km\, s^{-1}}$, which meets the expected criteria of massive star formation where the core mass is effectively increased in the presence of low relative velocity (∼3–5 km s−1), as suggested by Takahira, Tasker, and Habe (2014, ApJ, 792, 63).
An elderly female patient with ROS1 rearrangement primary lung adenocarcinoma and breast carcinoma: a rare case report and review of the literature
Authors: Yang Xiaojuan , Qin Diyuan , Zhang Yu , Li Xue , Liu Ning , Zhou Ying , Feng Ming , Wang Yongsheng
Published: August 2019

We report the case of a 90-year-old female patient who was suffering from c-ros oncogene 1 (ros-1) rearrangement adenocarcinoma and breast cancer. After about 14 months of a reduced dose of crizotinib treatment, she had a stable disease according to the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors version 1.1 (RECIST 1.1). This patient’s case demonstrates that ros-1 rearrangements are not limited to patients of young age. In addition, this case indicates that crizotinib, as second-line, or even first-line, treatment may be effective and manageable in elderly patients. Furthermore, for elderly patients carrying a ros1 fusion, a reduced dose of crizotinib may be efficacious rather than a resistance factor. Based on our findings, we recommend that elderly patients with advanced lung adenocarcinoma should be considered for inclusion in molecular screening for ros-1 translocation, especially for never-smokers negative for epidermal growth factor receptor (egfr) mutation and the fusion between echinoderm microtubule associated protein-like 4 (EML4) and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK). This deserves attention because the population is aging, with increasing incidence and morbidity of multiple primary malignant tumors. Neglect of breast nodules at the onset is one of the limitations of our case, as combination of primary lung cancer with breast cancer is common. Above all, use of antiestrogens before and after the diagnosis of non-small-cell lung cancer is related to a reduced risk of lung cancer mortality. Therefore, careful attention should always be paid to these cases.
Validity of polymyalgia rheumatica diagnoses and classification criteria in primary health care
Authors: Fors Charlotta , Bergström Ulf , Willim Minna , Pilman Eva , Turesson Carl
Published: August 2019

Objectives

PMR is an inflammatory disease with prominent morning stiffness and muscular tenderness, usually diagnosed in primary health care (PHC). The objectives were to examine the validity of PMR diagnoses in PHC and to validate the use of classification criteria for PMR.

Methods

Medical records for patients with a registered PMR diagnosis at two PHC facilities were reviewed. Patients were classified according to several sets of criteria. An independent review, with assessment of the PMR diagnosis, was performed by an experienced rheumatologist.

Results

Of 188 patients, the PMR diagnosis was in agreement with the independent review in 60% overall, in 84% of those fulfilling a modified version of the ACR/EULAR classification criteria and in 52% of those who did not. The corresponding proportions for the Bird criteria were 66 and 31%, and for the Healey criteria 74 and 42%. In 74% of the medical records, documentation on morning stiffness was missing. Rheumatoid factor was tested in 22% and anti-CCP antibodies in 15%.

Conclusion

In this study of patients with PMR diagnosed in PHC, the diagnosis was supported by the independent review in 60% of the patients. Documentation on morning stiffness and testing for autoantibodies were limited. A modified version of the ACR/EULAR criteria can be used to identify patients with a valid PMR diagnosis in retrospective surveys but does not capture all PMR patients. The modified ACR/EULAR criteria may be more stringent than some of the older criteria sets.
Comparing two neurocognitive models of self-control during dietary decisions
Authors: Cosme Danielle , Ludwig Rita M , Berkman Elliot T
Published: August 2019

Self-control is the process of favoring abstract, distal goals over concrete, proximal goals during decision-making and is an important factor in health and well-being. We directly compare two prominent neurocognitive models of human self-control with the goal of identifying which, if either, best describes behavioral and neural data of dietary decisions in a large sample of overweight and obese adults motivated to eat more healthfully. We extracted trial-by-trial estimates of neural activity during incentive-compatible choice from three brain regions implicated in self-control, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex and assessed evidence for the dual-process and value-based choice models of self-control using multilevel modeling. Model comparison tests revealed that the value-based choice model outperformed the dual-process model and best fit the observed data. These results advance scientific knowledge of the neurobiological mechanisms underlying self-control-relevant decision-making and are consistent with a value-based choice model of self-control.
Which patients should receive the herpes zoster vaccine?
Authors: Short Mandy D. , Fergus Christina
Published: August 2019

The recombinant adjuvanted zoster vaccine (RZV, trade name Shingrix) is preferentially recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to prevent herpes zoster and related complications in immunocompetent adults age 50 years and older. This article reviews efficacy and safety of the vaccine, its use in special populations, and how to prevent administration errors to answer the question “Which patients should receive the herpes zoster vaccine?”
Association between obesity type and obstructive coronary artery disease in stable symptomatic postmenopausal women: data from the KoRean wOmen'S chest pain rEgistry (KoROSE)
Authors: Cho Jun Hwan , Kim Hack-Lyoung , Kim Myung-A , Oh Sohee , Kim Mina , Park Seong Mi , Yoon Hyun Ju , Shin Mi Seung , Hong Kyung-Soon , Shin Gil Ja , Shim Wan-Joo
Published: August 2019

Objectives:

This study investigated the association between obesity type and obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) in postmenopausal women.

Methods:

Study data were obtained from a nation-wide registry, composed of 659 women older than 55 years with chest pain undergoing elective invasive coronary angiography in the suspicion of CAD. Obstructive CAD was defined as angiographic findings of ≥50% diameter stenosis with any major epicardial coronary artery. Overall obesity was defined as a body mass index of ≥25 kg/m2, and central obesity was defined as a waist circumference of ≥85 cm.

Results:

A total of 311 women (47.2%) had obstructive CAD. The incidence of overall obesity was not different between participants with and without obstructive CAD (P = 0.340), but the prevalence of obstructive CAD was significantly higher in participants with central obesity than those without (55.5% vs 41.0%, P < 0.001). There was no significant difference in body mass index between participants with and without obstructive CAD (P = 0.373). Multivariable analysis showed that central obesity was associated with obstructive CAD even after controlling for potential confounders (odds ratio, 1.61; 95% confidence interval, 1.10-2.34; P = 0.013). However, overall obesity was not associated with obstructive CAD in the same multivariable analysis (P = 0.228).

Conclusions:

Central obesity but not overall obesity is associated with obstructive CAD in postmenopausal women with stable chest pain undergoing invasive coronary angiography.

Video Summary:
Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/MENO/A440.
Intestinal Parasitic Infections in Internationally Adopted Children: A 10-Year Retrospective Study
Authors: Buonsenso Danilo , Graffeo Rosalia , Scarlato Lucia , Acampora Anna , Grotti Giacomo , Scarlato Lucia , Pata Davide , Colonna Arianna Turriziani , Salerno Gilda , Colussi Lara , Masucci Luca , Valentini Piero
Published: August 2019

Background:

Intestinal parasitic infections (IPIs) represent one of the leading causes of morbidity in the world. Children involved in international adoptions constitute a special group of subjects with specific problems and specific healthcare needs. Nevertheless, in current literature there are insufficient data on IPI in this subset of children. This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of IPI in a cohort of internationally adopted children and to investigate epidemiologic factors and clinical features related to IPIs.

Methods:

A retrospective study involving internationally adopted children <18 years old for which results from 3 fecal parasitologic tests were available, evaluated between September 1, 2008 and April 31, 2018 at a tertiary level university hospital in Rome. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were carried out to identify demographic factors and clinical features associated with IPIs. Two comparisons were performed, the first one according to the positivity of the parasitologic examination of the feces and the second one according to the pathogenicity of the identified strains.

Results:

Of 584 children evaluated, 346 (59.3%) had a positive parasitologic examination (143 pathogenic parasites and 203 nonpathogenic parasites) and 238 (40.8%) had a negative parasitologic examination. About 28.9% of children were positive for 2 or more parasites. A statistically significant positive association was found between IPIs and age, macroarea of origin (Africa and Latin America), living in institutions before adoption and vitamin D deficiency (P < 0.05).

Conclusions:

Intestinal parasites represent a widespread infection among internationally adopted children, especially in school-age children and those from Latin America and Africa. Importantly, the parasites found in adopted children were not pathogenic in most cases and did not cause significant alterations in growth, major micronutrient deficits or malnutrition.
Relationships Between Sport Specialization, Sleep, and Subjective Well-Being in Female Adolescent Athletes
Authors: Watson Andrew , Brickson Stacey
Published: August 2019

Objective:

To evaluate the relationship between sport specialization, sleep, and subjective well-being in female youth soccer players.

Design:

Prospective cohort study.

Setting:

Community soccer organization.

Methods:

During a 4-month season, 52 female youth soccer players (aged 13-18 years) reported daily training load (TL) and every morning recorded sleep duration and stress, mood, fatigue, soreness, and sleep quality from −3 (worst) to +3 (best). As all the athletes participate in soccer as their primary sport for over 8 months of the year, players were considered specialized if they participated in soccer exclusively and had previously quit another sport to focus on soccer. Least-square mean values from linear mixed effects models were used to compare TL, subjective well-being, and sleep while adjusting for individual repeated measures.

Results:

Daily TL during the season did not differ between specialized and nonspecialized athletes (412 ± 24 vs 415 ± 19 arbitrary units, P = 0.96, respectively). Despite similar nightly sleep duration (8.10 ± 0.14 vs 8.25 ± 0.11 hours, P = 0.42), specialized athletes were found to have lower (worse) fatigue (1.02 ± 0.14 vs 1.50 ± 0.11, P = 0.010), soreness (0.66 ± 0.18 vs 1.23 ± 0.14, P = 0.013), mood (1.32 ± 0.12 vs 1.72 ± 0.10, P = 0.013), and sleep quality (1.07 ± 0.13 vs 1.42 ± 0.10, P = 0.035) than the nonspecialized group. Although stress was lower (worse) among the specialized athletes, the difference was not statistically significant (0.97 ± 0.16 vs 1.32 ± 0.13, P = 0.092).

Conclusions:

Among female youth soccer players, sport specialization was associated with impairments in subjective well-being and sleep quality. Additional research is necessary to determine whether this relationship is causal or if factors that influence sport specialization also influence sleep and subjective well-being.
Total nasal reconstruction: a review of the past and present, with a peak into the future
Authors: Phillips Tim J.
Published: August 2019

Purpose of review

The goal of this article is to review the complex topic of total nasal reconstruction and present a wide range of options for completing this difficult surgical procedure.

Recent findings

Nasal reconstruction has a long history dating back thousands of years. Some historical techniques still exist today, including the paramedian forehead flap. The introduction of free tissue transfer and other pedicled flaps has provided multiple options for the reconstructive surgeon. The future of nasal reconstruction will include facial transplantation and likely bioengineered tissues.

The principles of nasal reconstruction have gone unchanged for decades; however, the techniques to meet the principles have. The current reconstructive methods of grafts, free flaps, and pedicled flaps used to replace lining, structure, and skin will likely be used for several years to come. However, the use of facial transplantation has proved effective and bioengineered tissues present an exciting future for organ replacement.
Polyp Characteristics of Nonsyndromic and Potentially Syndromic Juvenile Polyps
Authors: Ibrahimi Nadia , Septer Seth S. , Lee Brian R. , Garola Robert , Shah Raj , Attard Thomas M.
Published: August 2019

Background:

Juvenile polyps (JPs) are the most common gastrointestinal polyps diagnosed in children. There is paucity of evidence differentiating polyp burden groups and the presence and significance of neoplastic changes.

Methods:

A retrospective chart review of patients, ages birth through 18 years with nonsyndromic JPs was performed from 2003 to 2017. Abstracted data included basic demographics, age, clinical presentation, colonoscopy findings, and pathology report. Slides of polyps with neoplasia were reviewed by a pathologist.

Results:

A total of 213 subjects underwent 326 procedures and 435 polypectomies. Subjects with positive family history, positive gene mutations, or numerous (>10) polyps were excluded. Groups were defined by polyp number (1, 2–4, 5–10). Polyp recurrence on repeat colonoscopy was significantly related to polyp burden (1 polyp: 1.5%/2–4 polyps 19.2%/5–10 polyps 82.6%: P < 0.001). Polyp distribution was significantly different amongst different groups with isolated polyps favoring a distal distribution. JPs harboring adenomatous foci were reported in 26 (12%) patients. JPs harboring adenomatous foci were significantly more likely to be proximally distributed but the presence of adenomatous transformation within the polyps did not correlate with polyp number or the likelihood of polyp recurrence on repeat colonoscopy.

Conclusions:

JP recurrence is positively and significantly related to polyp burden. JP harbored adenomatous changes independent of polyp number, underscoring a possible malignant potential in JPs. In the absence of a consistent genotype or pedigree, the presence of adenomatous transformation within JPs cannot be construed as a biomarker for syndromic juvenile polyposis.
Conservative Management of Hyperferritinemia in Hemolytic Disease of the Fetus and Newborn: A Case Report and Review of the Literature
Authors: Adam Danielle L. , Bowes Lynette , Goodyear Lisa , Moorehead Paul C.
Published: August 2019

We report a newborn with hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn (HDFN) with rapid resolution of extreme hyperferritinemia without chelation. An infant born at 35+3 weeks with HDFN and a history of 3 intrauterine transfusions developed severe hyperferritinemia (maximum, 8258 mcg/L) without evidence of toxic iron deposition on liver biopsy. Her hyperferritinemia was managed with observation alone, and ferritin levels normalized rapidly. This case supports observation as being the preferred alternative to chelation therapy for significant hyperferritinemia in newborns with HDFN in the absence of demonstrated toxic end-organ iron deposition. We also include a review of the related available literature.