bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Affection and Solidarity among 19th-Century Black Intellectuals in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo
Authors: Pinto Ana Flávia Magalhães
Published: December 2021

Brazil had the largest population of free and freed Black people on the continent, starting in the early 19th century, despite being the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery. The 1872 General Census of the Empire reported that six out of every ten Black or brown people could claim a series of rights associated with citizenship by virtue of not being enslaved. These included some individuals who were literate and active in the cultural and political spaces in which plans for the country’s present and future were drawn up. Especially in the second half of the 19th century, a time of deepening crisis for the slaveholding system, individuals such as José Ferreira de Menezes, Luiz Gama, Machado de Assis, José do Patrocínio, Ignácio de Araújo Lima, Arthur Carlos, and Theophilo Dias de Castro, all of whom were born free and resided in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, invested in their individual aspirations but also joined groups that defended the citizenship rights of free, freed, and enslaved Black people. Facing daily experiences of “color prejudice,” they not only participated in debates waged in the abolitionist, Black, literary, and general press, but they also played leading roles in the creation of mechanisms and instruments of resistance, confrontation, and dialogue. Although this aspect has not received much attention in recent historical accounts that recognize their existences, these and other Black intellectuals developed bonds of affection and solidarity over the course of their careers. To reflect on the scope of this shared racial identity in the latter 19th century and the possible impact of these ties on public positions taken by Black intellectuals, the demonstrations of friendship and companionship experienced by these individuals are traced, as well as by some others. An exercise in approaching the traces of different practices surrounding the politicization of race is given, and paths for future research on the social history of ideas and antiracism in Brazil are suggested.
Homelessness and Macro Interventions
Authors: Moya Eva M. , Joyce-Ponder Amy , Cordero Jacquelin I. , Chávez-Baray Silvia M. , Rodriguez LeSage Margie
Published: December 2021

The emergence of social work and macro practice is often associated with the eradication of poverty and prevention of homelessness through the efforts of 19th century settlement houses. Structural violence and social determinants of homelessness are often grounded in unequal social, political, and economic conditions. Health and mental health were affected by the lack of stable housing, causing and increasing the complexity of health and human service needs and services. Furthermore, due to inequities, some populations are inadvertently more likely to face chronic homelessness, which can be mitigated through the role community-engagement and macro practice interventions.
Health Policy Overview
Authors: Walter-McCabe Heather A.
Published: December 2021

This article describes the complex healthcare policy and financing systems in the US within a historic and political context for how the US arrived at these systems. It also provides an overview of frameworks useful for articulating how social work may have an increased influence on policies impacting the healthcare system along with specific arenas ripe for social work interventions towards healthcare system improvements. Social workers have the obligation, through the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics, and the requisite skills, to participate in the healthcare policy process ensuring that they not only have a place at policy making tables, but that members of communities impacted by these policies have an opportunity to assist in setting the healthcare policy agenda and programs to best serve them.
Interorganizational Alliances
Authors: Koney Kelly McNally , Bailey Darlyne
Published: December 2021

Polarizing conversations and “othering” are becoming norms in individual and organizational discourse, while social, political, economic, and cultural issues—and solutions to manage them—are recognized as increasingly interconnected. Interorganizational alliances (IAs) are one means through which social workers can leverage collective resources toward just and common ground. As systems, policies, and contexts continue to drive the coalescing of organizations into IAs, social workers have an important role to play.

All IAs fundamentally operate to address emergent issues. Understanding the ways organizations come together, the circumstances that drive them, and factors that contribute to their success is essential for maximizing results. IAs vary along a continuum, ranging from loosely connected to structurally unified, and can be broadly understood by the processes that underlie them. No position on the continuum is better (or worse) than another. Their evolution is dynamic, greatly shaped by relational factors such as leadership styles, organizational cultures, and the goals of those who will be affected.

Regardless of whether organizational participants align for internal, operational gain or to better address issues raised within their environment, IAs must clearly identify all who are intended to benefit. In so doing, they must consciously analyze historic interactions, recognizing patterns of discrimination and oppression and establishing systems and narratives that center previously marginalized voices. Only in this way can IAs advance a just and equitable future. Given appropriate preparation through macro education, social workers are well situated for this work.
Can field botany be effectively taught as a distance course? Experiences and reflections from the COVID-19 pandemic
Authors: Auffret Alistair G , Ekholm Adam , Hämäläinen Aino , Jonsell Mats , Lehto Carl , Nordkvist Michelle , Öckinger Erik , Torstensson Peter , Viketoft Maria , Thor Göran
Published: December 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020 forced a rapid change in university teaching, with large numbers of courses switching to distance learning with very little time for preparation. Courses involving many practical elements and field excursions required particular care if students were to fulfil planned learning outcomes. Here, we present our experiences in teaching field botany in 2020 and 2021. Using a range of methods and tools to introduce students to the subject, promote self-learning and reflection and give rapid and regular feedback, we were able to produce a course that allowed students to achieve the intended learning outcomes and that obtained similarly positive student evaluations to previous years. The course and its outcomes were further improved in 2021. We describe how we structured field botany as a distance course in order that we could give the best possible learning experience for the students. Finally, we reflect on how digital tools can aid teaching such subjects in the future, in a world where public knowledge of natural history is declining.
DeepSVP: integration of genotype and phenotype for structural variant prioritization using deep learning
Authors: Althagafi Azza , Alsubaie Lamia , Kathiresan Nagarajan , Mineta Katsuhiko , Aloraini Taghrid , Al Mutairi Fuad , Alfadhel Majid , Gojobori Takashi , Alfares Ahmad , Hoehndorf Robert
Published: December 2021

Motivation

Structural genomic variants account for much of human variability and are involved in several diseases. Structural variants are complex and may affect coding regions of multiple genes, or affect the functions of genomic regions in different ways from single nucleotide variants. Interpreting the phenotypic consequences of structural variants relies on information about gene functions, haploinsufficiency or triplosensitivity and other genomic features. Phenotype-based methods to identifying variants that are involved in genetic diseases combine molecular features with prior knowledge about the phenotypic consequences of altering gene functions. While phenotype-based methods have been applied successfully to single nucleotide variants as well as short insertions and deletions, the complexity of structural variants makes it more challenging to link them to phenotypes. Furthermore, structural variants can affect a large number of coding regions, and phenotype information may not be available for all of them.

Results

We developed DeepSVP, a computational method to prioritize structural variants involved in genetic diseases by combining genomic and gene functions information. We incorporate phenotypes linked to genes, functions of gene products, gene expression in individual cell types and anatomical sites of expression, and systematically relate them to their phenotypic consequences through ontologies and machine learning. DeepSVP significantly improves the success rate of finding causative variants in several benchmarks and can identify novel pathogenic structural variants in consanguineous families.

Availability and implementation

https://github.com/bio-ontology-research-group/DeepSVP.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
A candidate neuroimaging biomarker for detection of neurotransmission-related functional alterations and prediction of pharmacological analgesic response in chronic pain
Authors: Martins Daniel , Veronese Mattia , Turkheimer Federico E. , Howard Matthew A. , Williams Steve C. R. , Dipasquale Ottavia
Published: December 2021

Chronic pain is a world-wide clinical challenge. Response to analgesic treatment is limited and difficult to predict. Functional MRI has been suggested as a potential solution. However, while most analgesics target specific neurotransmission pathways, functional MRI-based biomarkers are not specific for any neurotransmitter system, limiting our understanding of how they might contribute to predict treatment response. Here, we sought to bridge this gap by applying Receptor-Enriched Analysis of Functional Connectivity by Targets to investigate whether neurotransmission-enriched functional connectivity mapping can provide insights into the brain mechanisms underlying chronic pain and inter-individual differences in analgesic response after a placebo or duloxetine. We performed secondary analyses of two openly available resting-state functional MRI data sets of 56 patients with chronic knee osteoarthritis pain who underwent pre-treatment brain scans in two clinical trials. Study 1 (n = 17) was a 2-week single-blinded placebo pill trial. Study 2 (n = 39) was a 3-month double-blinded randomized trial comparing placebo to duloxetine, a dual serotonin–noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor. Across two independent studies, we found that patients with chronic pain present alterations in the functional circuit related to the serotonin transporter, when compared with age-matched healthy controls. Placebo responders in Study 1 presented with higher pre-treatment functional connectivity enriched by the dopamine transporter compared to non-responders. Duloxetine responders presented with higher pre-treatment functional connectivity enriched by the serotonin and noradrenaline transporters when compared with non-responders. Neurotransmission-enriched functional connectivity mapping might hold promise as a new mechanistic-informed biomarker for functional brain alterations and prediction of response to pharmacological analgesia in chronic pain.
Monitoring of lithium-ion cells using a microcontroller
Authors: Pratap Singh Gaurav , Lehri Yash , Bhatia Lakshay , Sehgal Yogesh
Published: December 2021

Safe and efficient operation of batteries is always desired but batteries with a high energy density pose a threat to the system causing thermal breakdown, reduced performance and rapid ageing. To reduce such vulnerabilities, an optimum environment with controlled parameters is required. Four parameters have been considered for analysis, i.e. state of charge, current, voltage and temperature. The module makes a detailed analysis of the above-mentioned parameters and suggests a microcontroller-based prototype that is capable of monitoring the external factors in real time and generating relevant warnings.
Research on a soft-measurement model of gasification temperature based on recurrent neural network
Authors: An Haiquan , Fang Xinhui , Liu Zhen , Li Ye
Published: December 2021

Gasification temperature measurement is one of the most challenging tasks in an entrained-flow gasifier and often requires indirect calculation using the soft-sensor method, a parameter prediction method using other parameters that are more easily measurable and using correlation equations that are widely accepted in the gasification field for the temperature data. Machine learning is a non-linear prediction method that can adequately act as a soft sensor. Furthermore, the recurrent neural network (RNN) has the function of memorization, which makes it capable of learning how to deal with temporal order. In this paper, the oxygen–coal ratio, CH4 content and CO2 content determined through the process analysis of a 3000-t/d coal-water slurry gasifier are used as input parameters for the soft sensor of the gasification temperature. The RNN model and back propagation (BP) neural network model are then established with training-set data from gasification results. Compared with prediction set data from the gasification results, the RNN model is found to be much better than the BP neural network based on important indexes such as the mean square error (MSE), mean absolute error (MAE) and standard deviation (SD). The results show that the MSE of the prediction set of the RNN model is 6.25°C, the MAE is 10.33°C and the SD is 3.88°C, respectively. The overall accuracy, the average accuracy and the stability effects are well within the accepted ranges for the results as such.
Successful ablation of bifocal premature ventricular complexes from both left bundle branches triggering polymorphic ventricular tachycardia in long QT syndrome 2: a case report
Authors: Martinek Martin , Kollias Georgios , Derndorfer Michael , Pürerfellner Helmut
Published: December 2021

Background

A 19-year-old woman with an established diagnosis of long QT syndrome (LQTS) 2 and underlying KCNH2-mutation was referred to our centre for recurrent polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (VT) and ventricular fibrillation (VF) refractory to medical therapy and bilateral thoracic sympathectomy.

Case summary

Holter monitoring revealed a relevant premature ventricular complex (PVC) burden of two different morphologies. One PVC was originating from the left anterior fascicle, the other from the left posterior fascicle. Radiofrequency ablation resulted in complete suppression of both spontaneous PVC morphologies with a favourable clinical course over the next 2 years.

Discussion

This case presents two interesting insights: firstly, the consistent bigeminal pattern of the torsade de pointes triggering PVC. These were retrieved from the device interrogation and correlated with the pattern that was seen at the time of the procedure. Secondly, PVC morphologies suggested an origin from both the left ventricular (posterior and anterior) fascicles, which have not been described so far. This was confirmed by the preceding Purkinje potentials seen at the successful ablation sites in sinus rhythm and during PVC. Ablation of triggering PVCs causing recurrent VT/VF in LQTS 2 is feasible and effective over a mid-term follow-up.
Effects of Internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy adapted for patients with cardiovascular disease and depression: a long-term follow-up of a randomized controlled trial at 6 and 12 months posttreatment
Authors: Westas Mats , Lundgren Johan , Andersson Gerhard , Mourad Ghassan , Johansson Peter
Published: December 2021

Background

Internet-based cognitive behavioural treatment (iCBT) has shown positive short-term effects on depression in patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, knowledge regarding long-term effects and factors that may impact the effect of iCBT is lacking.

Aims

This study therefore sought (i) to evaluate the effect of iCBT on depression in CVD patients at 6- and 12-month follow-ups and (ii) to explore factors that might impact on the effect of iCBT on change in depression at 12-month follow-up.

Methods and results

A longitudinal follow-up study of a randomized controlled trial evaluating the effects of a 9-week iCBT programme compared to an online discussion forum (ODF) on depression in CVD patients (n = 144). After 9 weeks, those in the ODF group were offered the chance to take part in the iCBT programme. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale—self-rated version (MADRS-S) measured depression at baseline, 9 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months. Linear mixed model and multiple regression analysis were used for statistical computing. The iCBT programme significantly improved depression at 9-week follow-up and this was stable at 6- and 12-month follow-ups (PHQ-9 P = 0.001, MADRS-S P = 0.001). Higher levels of depression at baseline and a diagnosis of heart failure were factors found to impact the effect of iCBT on the change in depression.

Conclusion

A 9-week iCBT programme in CVD patients led to long-term improvement in depression. Higher levels of depression scores at baseline were associated with improvement in depression, whereas heart failure had opposite effect.

Clinical trial

The trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02778074.
Nonadditive gene expression is correlated with nonadditive phenotypic expression in interspecific triploid hybrids of willow (Salix spp.)
Authors: Carlson Craig H , Choi Yongwook , Chan Agnes P , Town Christopher D , Smart Lawrence B
Published: December 2021

Many studies have highlighted the complex and diverse basis for heterosis in inbred crops. Despite the lack of a consensus model, it is vital that we turn our attention to understanding heterosis in undomesticated, heterozygous, and polyploid species, such as willow (Salix spp.). Shrub willow is a dedicated energy crop bred to be fast-growing and high yielding on marginal land without competing with food crops. A trend in willow breeding is the consistent pattern of heterosis in triploids produced from crosses between diploid and tetraploid species. Here, we test whether differentially expressed genes are associated with heterosis in triploid families derived from diploid Salix purpurea, diploid Salix viminalis, and tetraploid Salix miyabeana parents. Three biological replicates of shoot tips from all family progeny and parents were collected after 12 weeks in the greenhouse and RNA extracted for RNA-Seq analysis. This study provides evidence that nonadditive patterns of gene expression are correlated with nonadditive phenotypic expression in interspecific triploid hybrids of willow. Expression-level dominance was most correlated with heterosis for biomass yield traits and was highly enriched for processes involved in starch and sucrose metabolism. In addition, there was a global dosage effect of parent alleles in triploid hybrids, with expression proportional to copy number variation. Importantly, differentially expressed genes between family parents were most predictive of heterosis for both field and greenhouse collected traits. Altogether, these data will be used to progress models of heterosis to complement the growing genomic resources available for the improvement of heterozygous perennial bioenergy crops.
microRNA-252 and FoxO repress inflammaging by a dual inhibitory mechanism on Dawdle-mediated TGF-β pathway inDrosophila
Authors: Wu Xiaofen , Niu Kongyan , Wang Xiaofan , Zhao Jing , Wang Han , Li Dean , Wang Hui , Miao Ting , Yang Yun , Ma Huanhuan , Zhang Yaoyang , Pan Lei , Liu Rui , Bai Hua , Liu Nan
Published: December 2021

Inflammaging refers to low-grade, chronically activated innate immunity that has deleterious effects on healthy lifespan. However, little is known about the intrinsic signaling pathway that elicits innate immune genes during aging. Here, using Drosophila melanogaster, we profile the microRNA targetomes in young and aged animals, and reveal Dawdle, an activin-like ligand of the TGF-β pathway, as a physiological target of microRNA-252. We show that microRNA-252 cooperates with Forkhead box O, a conserved transcriptional factor implicated in aging, to repress Dawdle. Unopposed Dawdle triggers hyperactivation of innate immune genes coupled with a decline in organismal survival. Using adult muscle tissues, single-cell sequencing analysis describes that Dawdle and its downstream innate immune genes are expressed in distinct cell types, suggesting a cell nonautonomous mode of regulation. We further determine the genetic cascade by which Dawdle signaling leads to increased Kenny/IKKγ protein, which in turn activates Relish/NF-κB protein and consequentially innate immune genes. Finally, transgenic increase of microRNA-252 and Forkhead box O pathway factors in wild-type Drosophila extends lifespan and mitigates the induction of innate immune genes in aging. Together, we propose that microRNA-252 and Forkhead box O promote healthy longevity by cooperative inhibition on Dawdle-mediated inflammaging.
Strengthening local governance in health financing in China: a text-mining analysis of policy changes between 2009 and 2020
Authors: Liu Kai , Wang Tianyu , Bai Chen , Liu Lingrui
Published: December 2021

In the last two decades, developing countries have increasingly engaged in improving the governance of their health systems and promoting policy design to strengthen their health governance capacity. Although many well-designed national policy strategies have been promulgated, obstacles to policy implementation and compliance among localities may undermine these efforts, particularly in decentralized health systems. Studies on health governance have rarely adopted a central–local analysis to investigate in detail local governments’ distinct experiences, orientations and dynamics in implementing the same national policy initiative. This study examines the policy orientations of prefectural governments in strengthening governance in health financing in China, which has transitioned from emphasizing the approach of fiscal resource input to that of marketization promotion and cost-containment regulation enforcement at the national level since 2009. Employing text-mining methodologies, we analysed health policy documents issued by multi-level governments after 2009. The analysis revealed three salient findings. Firstly, compared to higher-level authorities, prefectural governments generally opted to use fiscal resource input over marketization promotion and cost-containment regulation enforcement between 2009 and 2020. Secondly, policy choices of prefectural governments varied considerably in terms of enforcing cost-containment regulations during the same period. Thirdly, the extent of the prefectural government’s orientation toward marketization promotion or cost-containment regulation enforcement was not only determined by the top-down orders of higher-level authorities but was also incentivized by the government’s fiscal dependency and the policy orientations of peer governments. These findings contribute to the health governance literature by providing an overview of local discretion in policy choices and the political and fiscal dynamics of local policy orientations in promoting health governance in a decentralized health system.
The Social Construction of Global Health Priorities: An Empirical Analysis of Contagion in Bilateral Health Aid
Authors: Baccini Leonardo , Heinzel Mirko , Koenig-Archibugi Mathias
Published: December 2021

Donors of development assistance for health typically provide funding for a range of disease focus areas, such as maternal health and child health, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and other infectious diseases. But funding for each disease category does not match closely its contribution to the disability and loss of life it causes and the cost-effectiveness of interventions. We argue that peer influences in the social construction of global health priorities contribute to explaining this misalignment. Aid policy-makers are embedded in a social environment encompassing other donors, health experts, advocacy groups, and international officials. This social environment influences the conceptual and normative frameworks of decision-makers, which in turn affect their funding priorities. Aid policy-makers are especially likely to emulate decisions on funding priorities taken by peers with whom they are most closely involved in the context of expert and advocacy networks. We draw on novel data on donor connectivity through health IGOs and health INGOs and assess the argument by applying spatial regression models to health aid disbursed globally between 1990 and 2017. The analysis provides strong empirical support for our argument that the involvement in overlapping expert and advocacy networks shapes funding priorities regarding disease categories and recipient countries in health aid.
Vaccine suspension, risk, and precaution in a pandemic
Authors: Pugh Jonathan , Wilkinson Dominic , Kerridge Ian , Savulescu Julian
Published: December 2021

In early 2021, cases of rare adverse events were observed in individuals who had received the Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine. Countries around the world differed radically in their policy responses to these observations. In this paper, we outline the ethical justification for different policy approaches for managing the emerging risks of novel vaccines in a pandemic. We begin by detailing the precautionary approach that some countries adopted, and distinguishing ethical questions regarding the management of known and unknown risks. We go on to outline the harms of adopting a highly precautionary approach in a pandemic context, and explain why an appropriate policy approach should accommodate the benefits as well as the risks of vaccination. In the final section, we outline three policy approaches that can accommodate the different benefits of vaccination, whilst taking into account the harms of precaution. Whilst we do not set out to defend one particular policy approach, we explain how different moral theories lend different degrees of support to each of these different approaches. Our analysis elucidates how fundamental value conflicts in public health ethics played out on the global stage of vaccine policy.
Foreign body reaction to spilled gastric contents mimicking peritoneal metastasis of colorectal cancer
Authors: Redden Mark , Riddell Andrew
Published: December 2021

Colorectal cancer represents the third most common cancer worldwide. The presence of peritoneal metastasis of colorectal cancer indicates Stage 4 disease with poor prognosis. We report a case of a foreign body reaction to plant material spilled during previous surgery, which mimicked peritoneal metastases. A 62-year-old male was found to have recto-sigmoid adenocarcinoma on colonoscopy. At the time of resection, peritoneal nodules were identified throughout the peritoneal cavity with the appearance of metastases. The resection was aborted, a diverting colostomy was fashioned and biopsies of the nodules were taken. The histology showed a foreign body reaction to plant material that was spilled during a sleeve gastrectomy that was performed 4 years prior. The patient subsequently underwent anterior resection with anastomosis and has recovered from surgery.
Management and prognosis of liposarcomas of the spermatic cord: an experience with six cases
Authors: Sahnoun Wajih , Chakroun Marouene , Zaghbib Selim , Saadi Ahmed , Blel Ahlem , Rammeh Soumaya , Ayed Haroun , Chebil Mohamed
Published: December 2021

Liposarcoma of the spermatic cord (LSC) is a rare tumor with no consensus on therapeutic management. This study reports six new cases of LSC. The patients’ age ranged from 56 to 80 years. All patients presented with a scrotal mass, and it was ultrasound that oriented the diagnosis. The initial treatment consisted of an inguinal orchiectomy. Anatomopathological study coupled with immunohistochemistry using the anti-MDM2 antibody confirmed that the tumors were well-differentiated LSC in four cases and dedifferentiated LSC in the other two cases. Adjuvant radiotherapy was performed in two patients. No recurrence was noted in these two patients at 14 and 34 months of follow-up. The only recurrence we had was local and occurred at 44 months of follow-up in a patient who had a dedifferentiated form ofLSC.
Evaluation of RNA Isolation Methods in Human Adipose Tissue
Authors: Nandi Jui Bipasha , Sarsenbayeva Assel , Jernow Henning , Hetty Susanne , Pereira Maria J
Published: December 2021

Objective

Research has shown that RNA extraction from adipose tissue (AT) is challenging because of high lipid content and low RNA quantity. We compared a traditional RNA extraction with a column-based method in human AT to evaluate RNA quantity and quality.

Materials and Methods

Human subcutaneous AT (n = 9) was collected through needle biopsy, and RNA was extracted using the phenol-chloroform traditional method and the RNeasy Lipid Tissue Mini Kit column-based method. The RNA quantity, quality, integrity, and expression of key AT genes were assessed.

Results

We found that the RNA quantity and integrity were reduced by 40% and 15-20%, respectively, using the column-based method compared to the traditional method, but the findings were not statistically significant. The column-based method showed a higher 260/280 ratio (~2.0) compared to the traditional method (~1.8) (P <.05), suggesting lower amounts of contaminants. The expression of AT genes was comparable between methods.

Conclusion

The traditional extraction method provides adequate RNA yield and integrity compared to the column-based method, which is an advantage when AT specimens are small.
Vaccine Liability in the Light of Covid-19: A Defence of Risk–Benefit
Authors: Goldberg Richard
Published: December 2021

Vaccines have played an essential role in advancing medical treatment in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. However, no medical intervention is risk free, and vaccines are no exception to that rule. This article considers how lawyers have confronted or eschewed risk–benefit in the context of determining defectiveness in vaccine liability, with emphasis on the UK, European Union, and US experiences. It explores the potential role that risk–benefit may play in assessing liability for vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic. It argues that a holistic, flexible approach to determining defectiveness embracing risk–benefit allows consideration of the overwhelming public interest derived from the continued availability and supply of vaccines, as well as immunity conferring benefits on both the individual and the community. If cases do emerge concerning the liability of a COVID-19 vaccine, immunity conferring benefits on both the individual and the community of the COVID-19 vaccines should be relevant in any determination of defectiveness. Such a holistic, flexible approach to defectiveness embracing risk–benefit can be used effectively to determine the entitled safety of a vaccine and may help to mitigate against the dangers of weakening confidence in the public’s vaccine uptake.
Predictors of infliximab refractory intestinal Behçet’s syndrome: A retrospective cohort study from the Shanghai Behçet’s syndrome database
Authors: Bao Hua-fang , Hou Cheng-cheng , Ye Bo , Zou Jun , Luo Dan , Cai Jian-fei , Shen Yan , Guan Jian-long
Published: December 2021

Objectives

This retrospective cohort study aimed to find out predictors and early biomarkers of Infliximab (IFX) refractory intestinal Behçet’s syndrome (intestinal BS).

Methods

We collected the baseline clinical characteristics, laboratory parameters, and concomitant therapies of intestinal BS patients treated by IFX from the Shanghai Behçet’s syndrome database. After 1 year IFX therapy, intestinal BS patients with non-mucosal healing (NMH, intestinal ulcers detected by colonoscopy) and/or no clinical remission [NCR, scores of the disease activity index for intestinal Behçet’s disease (DAIBD) ≥20] were defined as IFX refractory intestinal BS. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the predictors for NMH and NCR in IFX refractory intestinal BS.

Results

In 85 intestinal BS patients, NMH was identified in 29 (34.12%) patients, and NCR was confirmed in 20 (23.53%) patients. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR; ≥24 mm/h) and free triiodothyronine (fT3; ≤3.3pmol/L) were the independent risk factors of NMH in IFX refractory intestinal BS. Drinking alcohol and the fT3/free thyroxine ratio (fT3/fT4; ≤0.24) were independent risk factors, and thalidomide was an independent protective factor, for NCR in intestinal BS patients treated by IFX.

Conclusion

This study may be applicable for adjusting the therapeutic strategy and sidestepping unnecessary exposure to IFX in intestinal BS patients. Routine assessments of ESR, fT3, and fT3/fT4 ratio are helpful to identify high-risk individuals of IFX refractory intestinal BS. Thalidomide is suggested to be a concomitant therapy with IFX for intestinal BS patients.
Environment, Energy, Economy
Authors: Aronczyk Melissa , Espinoza Maria I.
Published: December 2021

Chapter 3, Environment, Energy, Economy, opens as industrial PR practitioners in the 1950s and 1960s confront a new rival: environmental pollution and its discontents. Prior to the Second World War, industry was the leading source of information on air pollution among other problems of “industrial hygiene.” In the postwar era, with new federal science funding, changing norms of media representation, and rising legal battles for companies, alternative voices emerged around environmental issues. Amid the transformation of the nature of evidence in scientific research and a growing public anxiety over depletion of the commons, public relations counsel sought to balance the scales in their corporate clients’ favor. They would find this balance in the notion of energy as its own scarce resource in need of protection. The chapter reviews the expansion of public relations networks and the adoption of environmentalism as a force to be strategically managed.
Sustainable Communication
Authors: Aronczyk Melissa , Espinoza Maria I.
Published: December 2021

In chapter 5, Sustainable Communication, the role of PR firms as international knowledge brokers is given its due. The chapter demonstrates the impact of a network of American public relations firms in spreading “green” PR across European and Mexican borders during a critical historical period. With the consolidation of the European Union and NAFTA on the horizon, corporate clients in a range of industries (from tobacco to chemicals to oil, coal, and gas) adopted promotional methods that advertised their commitment to environmentalism in an effort to sidestep sweeping regulations. By diffusing its core principles of sustainable communication over sustainable environmental behavior, PR networks helped to define environmental communication as a field in its own right, acting as a key cultural producer in the realm of international environmental governance.
Citizenship and Paternalism*
Authors: Ferracioli Luara
Published: December 2021

Do states have a right to exclude prospective immigrants as they see fit? According to statists, the answer is a qualified yes. For these authors, self-determining political communities have a prima facie right to exclude, which can be overridden by the claims of vulnerable individuals. However, there is a concern in the philosophical literature that statists have not yet developed a theory that can protect children born in the territory from being excluded from the political community. For if the self-determining political community has the right to decide who should form the self in the first place, then that right should count against both newcomers by immigration and newcomers by birth. Or so the concern goes. This chapter defends statism against this line of criticism and defends a new account of the value of citizenship for children.
A Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer Read Pseudo-Weigel
Authors: Zuber Mike A.
Published: December 2021

This chapter introduces two early readers of pseudo-Weigelian texts on the alchemical rebirth as representative of two different avenues by which this conception could have reached Jacob Boehme. Johann Siebmacher, a chymist in Nuremberg, penned a treatise that discussed the subject in 1607. It was printed a decade later under the title Wasserstein der Weysen (Water-stone of the wise). Boehme praised this work in a letter mistakenly dated 1622. Once the date is corrected to 1624, it becomes clear that Boehme only read the Wasserstein shortly before his death. This renders Paul Nagel, a millenarian and astrologer who corresponded with Boehme, the more likely source for Boehme’s spiritual alchemy of rebirth. Nagel not only copied relevant pseudo-Weigelian texts but also integrated their ideas on alchemical rebirth into his own manuscript treatises.
Introduction
Authors: Taillant Jorge Daniel
Published: December 2021

This chapter sets the stage for a discussion on glacier vulnerability, explaining why it is important and how the author decided to become a cryoactivist (and work to protect the Earth’s frozen environment). It explains the basic relevance of glacier cover on the planet, glaciers’ general location by region of the Earth, and some of the most notorious characteristics of glaciers, their vulnerabilities, and the impacts caused by their accelerating melt, including sea level rise, glacier tsunamis, and ocean and atmospheric warming. The chapter also describes certain invisible subsurface glaciers in the little known and little understood periglacial environment. Finally, it outlines the rest of the book into its respective chapters and subject matter with a brief summary of each topic, covering sea level rise, water supply, albedo (reflectivity), gaseous emissions, glacier tsunamis, and ocean and air current warming, among others.
Invisible Glaciers
Authors: Taillant Jorge Daniel
Published: December 2021

This chapter introduces the concept of the periglacial environment, an area of frozen ground that is rich in hydrological resources. Periglacial environments provide drinking water to significant portions of the Earth’s population and are home to the enigmatic and almost unknown rock glaciers, which are subterranean rivers of ice, invisible to the naked eye unless you know where to look for them. The chapter offers the reader many pictures of rock glaciers around the world and describes the hydrological function and the natural dynamics of the periglacial environment and how it captures water from the atmosphere, freezes it, and then re-injects it into the ecosystem.
Introduction
Authors: Schonig Jordan
Published: December 2021

The Introduction examines why “movement” is often invoked as a term in film criticism and film theory but is rarely analyzed as an aspect of film form. The reason for this is twofold. First, because film theory has largely examined movement only as a defining property of the cinematic medium, movement is rarely singled out in film criticism. Second, because film theory has inherited the philosophical intuition that form is primarily spatial rather than temporal, formal analysis in film studies tends to break up the temporal flow of film into static units, such as in shot breakdowns and frame analyses. In film studies, then, “form” and “movement” are conceptually incompatible. As a means of thinking motion and form together, the Introduction proposes the concept of “motion forms,” generic structures, patterns, or shapes of motion. The Introduction then explores the philosophical roots of the motion form in phenomenology and Gestalt psychology, and explains how such a way of thinking about cinematic motion differs from other phenomenological approaches in film studies. Finally, the introduction outlines the six chapters of the book, each of which investigates a particular motion form that emerges throughout the history of cinema.
Contingent Motion
Authors: Schonig Jordan
Published: December 2021

This chapter examines fluttering leaves, swirling dust, and rippling waves as one of cinema’s earliest and most significant forms of motion. While most theorists maintain that such phenomena attracted early spectators because their unplanned appearance flaunted the indexical realism of cinema’s indiscriminate recording, this chapter shows how this attraction is part of a broader visual appeal of “contingent motion” that precedes the cinematic image and persists in the age of digital animation. Specifically, the chapter juxtaposes phenomenological insights about such phenomena in Kant’s Critique of Judgment, early spectators’ reactions to such phenomena in “wave films,” and contemporary spectators’ reactions to synthetic versions of such phenomena in computer-generated cartoons like Frozen (2013). In revealing a phenomenological consistency across these three different ways of encountering such phenomena, the chapter shows how early spectators’ astonishment at fluttering leaves and rippling waves cannot be explained with theories of the photographic index. Instead, this chapter argues, the visual reproduction of contingent motion involves its own logics of visual pleasure distinct from the marvels of the photographic process.
Habitual Gestures
Authors: Schonig Jordan
Published: December 2021

This chapter examines “habitual gestures”—everyday bodily movements, such as walking or sitting, that are ingrained as muscle memory—as a form of motion associated with postwar realist cinema. Closely reading scenes of ordinary household activities in Umberto D (De Sica, 1952), Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler, 1946), and Mouchette (Bresson, 1967), this chapter shows how an aesthetics of habitual gestures compels one to attend to the invisible bodily movements between and within willed actions. In doing so, this motion form foregrounds the body’s nonconscious and automatic ways of moving. Reading such gestures alongside the notion of “bodily habit” in the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, this chapter ultimately troubles Gilles Deleuze’s notion of the time-image as the dominant lens through which the postwar aesthetics of laboring bodies is understood.
Durational Metamorphosis
Authors: Schonig Jordan
Published: December 2021

This chapter examines the phenomenological and aesthetic effects of “durational metamorphoses,” slow movements of incremental change that result in a sense of visual transformation, such as a sunrise or the shape-shifting of clouds. These movements have become hallmarks of “slow cinema” in the last twenty years, but also can be traced back to the non-narrative experiments of structural film such as Fogline (Gottheim, 1970) or the landscape films of James Benning (e.g., Ten Skies, 2004). By analyzing sequences featuring durational metamorphoses across narrative films and video installations such as Silent Light (Reygadas, 2007), The Locked Garden (Viola, 2000), and Cemetery of Splendor (Apichatpong, 2015), this chapter demonstrates how a phenomenology of durational metamorphoses can help rethink the discourse of cinematic slowness, which often treats slowness and stasis as occasions to retreat away from the perception of the screen and toward contemplation. Against this common understanding of slowness, this chapter argues that durational metamorphoses compel perceptual encounters with slowness as a form of movement, one that presents Bergsonian duration in visual form.
Spatial Unfurling
Authors: Schonig Jordan
Published: December 2021

This chapter examines the perceptual and aesthetic properties of “spatial unfurling,” an effect achieved by moving the camera across space rather than into it, such as in lateral tracking shots. By emphasizing the flatness of the screen and the boundaries of the frame, spatial unfurling lacks the feeling of kinesthesia characteristic of forward camera movement. As a result, spatial unfurling illustrates the limitations of the long-held truism in film theory that camera movement produces an illusion of our own embodied movement through space. By critiquing the logic of this truism as it appears in phenomenological film theory, and by examining the perceptual effects of spatial unfurling in narrative and experimental films such as Mauvais Sang (Carax, 1986), La région centrale (Snow, 1971), and Georgetown Loop (Jacobs, 1996), this chapter argues for a phenomenological account of camera movement that forgoes analogies with bodily movement and instead emphasizes one’s perceptual encounter with the screen.
A Troubled Sleep
Authors: Waller James
Published: December 2021

A Troubled Sleep: Risk and Resilience in Contemporary Northern Ireland revisits one of the world’s most deeply divided societies more than 20 years after a peace agreement brought an end to the Troubles. The book asks if the conflict, while perhaps managed and contained, has been transformed—structurally and relationally—into a win-win situation for both sides. It addresses this question by drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, comparative research, and more than 110 hours of face-to-face interviews with politicians, activists, community workers, former political prisoners, former (and sometimes current) paramilitary members, academics, journalists, mental health practitioners, tour guides, school teachers, museum curators, students, police and military personnel, legal experts, and religious leaders across Northern Ireland. The heart of the book analyzes Northern Ireland’s current vulnerabilities and points of resilience as an allegedly “post-conflict” society. The vulnerabilities are analyzed through a model of risk assessment that examines the longer term and slower moving structures, measures, society-wide conditions, and processes that leave societies vulnerable to violent conflict. Such risk factors include the interpretation of conflict history, how authority in a country is exercised, and the susceptibility to social disharmony, isolation, and fragmentation. Resilience is examined from a survey of the countering influences, both within and outside Northern Ireland, that are working diligently to confirm humanity by reducing or reversing these vulnerabilities. The book concludes by examining the accelerating factors in contemporary Northern Ireland that may lead to an escalation of crisis as well as the triggering factors that could spark the onset of violent conflict itself.
“You’re One or the Other”
Authors: Waller James
Published: December 2021

A central defining feature of deeply divided societies is binary division: two contrasting segments of a population that represent a cleavage significant enough to impact a wide range of issues. Deeply divided societies, delineated by difference from the “other,” can be seen as intractable identity conflicts. To reduce our understanding of social identities in Northern Ireland to religion—Protestant or Catholic—is dangerously misleading. In reality, the issue is one of national identity, where Protestant becomes shorthand for unionist (those supporting Northern Ireland’s constitutional status within the United Kingdom and opposing the involvement of the Irish Republic in Northern Ireland) and Catholic for nationalist (those believing that Northern Ireland is part of the Irish nation and opposing the imposition of British rule that prevents a united Ireland). To the Protestant-unionist and Catholic-nationalist identities are often added a third identity category—loyalist or republican.
“Two Eyes on the Past”
Authors: Waller James
Published: December 2021

The past in Northern Ireland is always present and always contested. This chapter is not a rehashing of the complex history of the north of Ireland nor is it an attempt to place blame for the origin or continuation of the sectarian divide that defines it. A legion of scholars have addressed the former, and the latter—“the conflict about the conflict”—is a daily exercise for most everyone in Northern Ireland. Rather, this chapter offers a broad survey of that scarified history in recognition that understanding the origins of those competing social identities and the ways in which they became cemented over generations, is essential context and a necessary reference point for our coming analysis of risk and resilience in contemporary Northern Ireland.