bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Spaghetti and camembert
Authors: Scheie Timothy
Published: October 2024

Robert Hossein’s Cemetery Without Crosses (Une corde, un colt, 1969) is a French-language venture into the “spaghetti” Western style, and was produced with the support and participation of the Italian cycle’s leading figure, Sergio Leone. However, the film’s brooding earnestness and the star-crossed love that anchors the narrative set the film apart from the ironic and often cynical Italian production. This chapter argues that Hossein’s bid to integrate enunciations of both Westerness and Frenchness in a timeless and tragic mode contributes to the film’s diminished relevance in the aftermath of May ’68.
Boy Toys: A Ciceronian Invective Trope
Authors: Kenty Joanna
Published: October 2024

Joanna Kenty explores a heteronormative trope of Roman political rhetoric which reflects a toxic understanding of power as not only masculine, but also as sexually dominant. In his orations, such as the Verrines, Philippics, and Pro Caelio, Cicero often attacks political opponents for being sexually in thrall to another man or a woman. Cicero’s sense of political virtue is strongly associated with a narrow sense of virility as domination over others. Furthermore, by the logic of this trope, women’s power is only ever represented as a tyrannical usurpation of men’s authority, achieved through the subjugation of weak men. It exists behind closed doors, and if it reaches the forum, that is a sign of major dysfunction. This link between sex and politics is thus predicated on the exclusion of women from the political sphere.
Insult to Injury: Senecan Stoicism, Misogyny and the Semantics of ‘Special Snowflake’
Authors: Goyette Michael
Published: October 2024

Michael Goyette examines Seneca’s philosophical writing and argues that his rhetoric exposes an attitude toward both the emotions and the body that was and is toxic in its sexist tropes, its misogyny, and its repression and shaming of the emotions. Goyette then identifies parallels to Seneca’s gendered philosophical rhetoric in discourse concerning vulnerability and sensitivity from present-day media, politics, and popular culture, such as the derisive use of the phrase ‘special snowflake’, and shows how the gendered, regressive rhetoric of Senecan Stoicism still resonates with disturbing familiarity.
Hypercoding
Authors: Jones Steve
Published: October 2024

Chapter 6 focuses on forms of augmentation. Its case studies – Detention (2011) and Dude Bro Party Massacre III (2015) – illustrate how metamodern slasher films evoke and adjust conventional situations and character types to cultivate new perspectives and surprises within the subgenre. Both films embrace abundant heterogeneity via their hypercoding: absurdist exaggeration of formal elements and overt stylisation. This foregrounding of aesthetics and convention remains congruous with the in-film fictional world and the characters' motivations, being illustrative of the metamodern slasher film’s sincerity. Hypercoding playfully underlines the absurdity that viewers can become immersed in or emotionally respond to fiction, despite knowing that the fiction is only a construction.
The New Icons
Authors: Jones Steve
Published: October 2024

Chapter 9 focuses on contemporary slasher villains that either have the capacity to become or seem to be designed as new slasher icons. The chapter’s central case study is the Hatchet series, and the analysis is augmented by also considering See No Evil (2006), Laid to Rest (2009), The Orphan Killer (2011) and Terrifier (2016). Metamodern new icon slasher films upcycle the properties and strategies that made established slasher icons 'classic'. The chapter argues that new icon films are informed by tensions that define the subgenre, combining past and present in a manner that is simultaneously future-facing (creating a new set of horror icons) and retrospective (nostalgically replicating what made past 'classics' so memorable and enjoyable). The chapter concludes with a final case study – Axe Murdering with Hackley (2016) – about an 'old school' slasher struggling to fit into the contemporary landscape. The film explicitly posits that innovation is required to maintain the subgenre’s cultural relevance.
Disease Movies in Transition: Globalization and Imagined Containment
Authors: Alpert Robert , Eisenberg Merle , Mordechai Lee
Published: October 2024

This chapter discusses how infectious diseases returned to movie screens in the 1990s with changes to their fictional depictions. Containment became more difficult as movies began to focus on globalized diseases and began exploring the possibility of humanity’s extinction and a post-apocalyptic world. Despite these changes in narrative focus and a weakening of traditional norms, movies often stopped short of depicting the complete breakdown of society, but featured instead heroic attempts to prevent the disease outbreak. Disease movies offered a nostalgic view of a cohesive society in which Americans worked together even as they recognized that society might not be worth protecting. Among the films this chapter examines are Outbreak (1995) and Dawn of the Dead (2004).
Prologue
Authors: Moffat Michelle
Published: October 2024

This introductory chapter provides background on Scottish life and society in the pre-Second World War period. Organised around the themes of economy, politics, society, and culture, the chapter explores Scotland’s history and foregrounds pre-existing points of social and cultural tension. The prologue also sets the scene by introducing themes that underpin Scottish wartime society, such as industrial discontent and the battle between resistance and conformity. This chapter suggests that Scotland’s changing place in Britain, the Empire, and the world had significant consequences for Scottish culture and society. It also proposes that this time of turbulence served to widen pre-existing internal divisions, particularly those relating to religion, class, and national identity.
Regional and Diachronic Variation
Authors: Salminen Elina M.
Published: October 2024

Chapter 7 summarises the diachronic and regional variation across the entire dataset. Rather than attempting to identify ‘Greek’ vs ‘Macedonian’ features, the chapter looks at local wares, imports, and object types common across the Balkans. In addition to this, variation between regions of Macedonia is analysed, showing both broad differences in wealth as well as idiosyncratic trends in the prevalence of some object types. Finally, the chapter summarises diachronic trends across several object categories.
Olaf Stapledon and the Scope of Interpersonal Connection
Authors: Taylor Mark
Published: October 2024

Olaf Stapledon’s science fiction – in particular, his cosmic fiction – operates on unprecedented scale. Last and First Men covers a two-billion-year span, projecting the entire future of humanity and succeeding human species; Star Maker covers the whole of time, as ‘human’ species across the universe enact a will to connect. This chapter finds telepathy core to this will, being, for Stapledon, a faculty required by an incalculably vast universe. The chapter links Stapledon’s faith that telepathy must emerge in humanity to early twentieth century thought about the direction of human development, in particular that of Gerald Heard and J. W. Dunne. It explores the literary implications of expanding telepathic connection to inhuman scale, exploring implications for novelistic notions and character development and for narrative voice, testing claims made by narratologists about collective we-narration against Stapledon’s deployment of the form.
Introduction Trailing a Photograph
Authors: Eldem Edhem
Published: October 2024

The introduction offers a thorough discussion of the elements that triggered the project, starting with the photograph of an Arab standing in what appeared to be a courtyard of the Alhambra but was in fact the set of a local photographer’s studio. While this detail revealed one of the major tourist practices of the time, the mention on the back of the photograph of a poem left in the visitors’ book of the Alhambra led to the discovery of a series of such registers, meticulously kept since 1829. As a very considerable number of signatures and comments by ‘Oriental’ visitors emerged from the pages of these books, it became obvious that one should attempt an alternative narrative of the Alhambra, by inverting the gaze from West to East, from North to South, and thus revisit the site through the eyes and minds of those whose heritage it was supposed to represent. Following the presentation of the objectives of the study, the introduction proposes a detailed and critical discussion of the issues raised by the methodology applied, followed by a contextualization of the work within the broader framework of Orientalism and of East-West and North-South relations in the nineteenth century.
The Poetics of Biological Invasion and Crop Monoculture in Early Caribbean Literature
Authors: McAuley Louis Kirk
Published: October 2024

Chapter 2 takes the world-ecological significance of the sugar revolution into account, in part through close analysis of both the real and imaginative confusion of Old and New World species in various forms of West Indian empire writing. This chapter considers the ways in which early Caribbean authors broadly conceive of the sugar revolution and, by extension, human history, as co-produced by manifold species. That is, this chapter explores the world-ecological orientation of Caribbean-based authors, including James Grainger, whose efforts to perfect the cultivation and processing of sugar cane led him to make some very bold suggestions concerning the vulnerability of island ecosystems to invasive species, and John Singleton, whose poem, A General Description of the West-Indian Islands (1767), portrays (in sublime detail) Caribbean nature as exhausted by intensive crop monoculture. On one hand, The Sugar-Cane (1764) merits consideration as a form of biopiracy, in keeping with Vandana Shiva’s work tracing the effects of the Papal “Bull of Donation” upon Europeans’ transoceanic plunder of nature and knowledge. On the other hand, Singleton’s poem contains contrasting passages of considerable alarm, an “aesthetic of degradation,” as it were, linking the plantation economy to ecological collapse.
Jacob’s Wrestling with the Angel from Bible Myth to Walter Pater’s and Katherine Mansfield’s Stories
Authors: Ascari Maurizio
Published: October 2024

This article aims to trace a set of intertextual relations that originate from the Jacob and Esau episode of the Bible, notably from the climactic wrestling of Jacob with the angel. Despite the cultural distance, some defining features of this wrestling resurface – in a transmogrified form and in relation to childhood – in Walter Pater’s The Child in the House and in Katherine Mansfield’s The Aloe and ‘Prelude’. This network of mythical and symbolic elements reveals its full relevance once we approach the Jacob and Esau story through the lens of C. G. Jung’s theories, notably through the book Erich Neumann (a student of Jung) devoted to it in the 1930s. The tenets of analytical psychology will thus be used to unveil the archetypal meaning of this myth, shedding light on its refunctionalisation within the framework of Modernism as an investigation into the process of psychic self-fashioning that marks childhood. The response of Mansfield’s young protagonist to a dawning awareness of death, against the backdrop of a deserted home, will then be contextualised in order to shed light on Mansfield’s imagination of death, loneliness and darkness, which is pervasive in her literary output.
Introduction: Writing the Modern Biography of an Ancient Monument
Authors: Neumeier Emily , Anderson Benjamin
Published: October 2024

This introductory essay explains how the authors of this edited volume investigate the emergence of Hagia Sophia as a modern monument for a variety of actors during the long nineteenth century (ca. 1743-1934), a crucial yet understudied period. By adapting the theoretical concept of object biography for the examination of monumental architecture, the volume underscores Hagia Sophia’s multifaceted functions and cultural meanings over time. This introduction offers a brief survey of the building’s history and a discussion of how the monument challenges scholarly epistimologies of time, an issue that is raised by the term “long nineteenth century”. The editors conclude with a reflection on how the recent conversion of Hagia Sophia back into a mosque in 2020 highlights the importance of studying this building’s transformation into a cultural monument and symbol of world heritage, a process that began in the late eighteenth century when Istanbul was under Ottoman rule.
The Paradoxes of Hagia Sophia’s Ablution Fountain: The Qasida al-Burda in Cosmopolitan Istanbul, 1740
Authors: Artan Tülay
Published: October 2024

The ablution fountain (şardırvan) placed in the Atrium of Hagia Sophia in 1740 has suffered from scholarly neglect. The fountain was actually the first component of an extensive building project Mahmud I undertook at Hagia Sophia, and the inscriptions decorating its exterior and interior surfaces acquire greater significance in that light. One of them, indeed, is a famous qasida (ode) of praise for the Prophet Muhammad —the Poem of the Mantle, better known as the Burda. Written in Arabic in Mamluk Egypt by the poet, scholar, and Sufi mystic Imam Sharafaddin al-Būsīrī (d. 1294), it found great favor in Sufi circles, but was suspect in the eyes of the orthodox ulema on the grounds that it eroded Allah's uniqueness by shrouding Muhammad in a quasi-divine cloud. Such controversies escalated and engulfed the Ottoman court, too, from the late seventeenth into the early eighteenth century. Nevertheless, Mahmud I as the reigning sultan ordered the reproduction of the poem's first 16 couplets on the entablature of the ablution fountain. This choice opens a new window for us in re-evaluating the growing centrality of the Prophetic tradition at this time.
The Monument of the Present: The Fossati Restoration of Hagia Sophia (1847–9)
Authors: Menevse Asli
Published: October 2024

In 1847, architect Gaspare Fossati embarked on an ambitious restoration project for Hagia Sophia on the orders of Sultan Abdülmecid I. The Sultan, his bureaucrats, and the myriad agents of the restoration chose the restored monument to act as the face of a modern Ottoman state and society when Tanzimat was searching for forms that communicated social and political cohesion. This article builds its arguments on the exchange between the French-language Ottoman press and European newspapers regarding the restoration of Hagia Sophia, which culminate in the analysis of a crucial—but neglected—visual document: the commemorative lithographic album (1852) published by Gaspare Fossati with the support of Sultan Abdülmecid I. The Album and the Francophone press embraced the diverse identities of the building – Byzantine cathedral, imperial mosque, and world heritage monument— to present the political and social vision behind this co-existence of differences as distinctively Ottoman. Through their efforts, the restored Hagia Sophia was presented as a privileged historical-aesthetic site and a living monument, where the conciliation between tradition and reform seemed possible.
Exotic Cinema
Authors: Berghahn Daniela
Published: October 2024

Exotic Cinema: Encounters with Cultural Difference in Contemporary Transnational Film is the first systematic analysis of exoticism in contemporary transnational and world cinema. Daniela Berghahn conceptualises exoticism in three ways: as a discursive construction of cultural difference; as an aesthetic mode of visual alterity; and as a critical framework that is pertinent to the analysis of cinema in a globalised world. In a world of transnational connections and flows, exoticism can no longer be merely conceived of as a projection of exotic fantasies of the Other from one centre, the West, instead, it emanates from multiple localities and is multi-directional in perspective. By critically examining regimes of visuality, such as the imperial, the ethnographic and the exotic gaze, which have colonised our minds and our ways of looking, this book makes an important contribution to the urgent agenda of decolonising film studies.Taking a transnationally comparative approach that draws on case studies from contemporary world cinema, European and postcolonial diasporic cinema, the book challenges exoticism’s predominantly pejorative connotations. It addresses prevalent controversies surrounding exoticism and illustrates that, the decentred exoticism of contemporary world cinema is utilised to draw attention to new ethical and socio-political agendas which have nothing in common with the concept’s tainted colonial legacy. The book demonstrates that decentred exoticism’s aesthetic versatility and alluring alterity are uniquely relevant for understanding the transnational circulation and appeal of world cinema. Global in scope and transnational in perspective, Exotic Cinema invites students and researchers to reassess this prominent mode of cultural representation.
‘The Past Is a Foreign Country’: Nostalgia and Exoticism
Authors: Berghahn Daniela
Published: October 2024

This chapter considers the close affinities between the two concepts. Both spring from a disenchantment with the present and mobilise distance, be it spatial or temporal, to enable an imaginative investment that replaces historical accuracy and cultural authenticity with the construction of a sanitised and embellished past and an idealised alterity. Although exoticism is generally associated with far-away lands, it is also about a longing for the bygone days, which explains why most of exotic films are set in an idealised or glamourised past. Using Indochine, Viceroy’s House, In the Mood for Love and The Road Home as case studies, the chapter distinguishes between imperialist nostalgia and exotic nostalgia films. Whereas the former fetishise the imperial power and control of European empires, the latter engender a universal longing in the spectator for a time and place when intensity of feeling was still possible. Through an aesthetics of sensuous indulgence, a concept that Berghahn develops in the chapter, exotic nostalgia films valorise systems of knowledge and a way of life that call the hegemony of the West and global capitalism into question.
Exotic Appetites
Authors: Berghahn Daniela
Published: October 2024

This chapter examines how exotic food films use cooking, eating and gustation as a trope for diverse human appetites and desires, ranging from carnal desires, a nostalgic longing for deep emotional bonds, a slower pace of life and a reawakening of the senses. Drawing on theories of multisensorial cinema, synaesthetic perception and embodied memories, the chapter examines the means through which films including Eat Drink Man Woman, The Scent of Green Papaya, Sweet Bean and The Lunchbox invite spectators to experience films somatically and, thereby, rediscover the visceral intensity and sense knowledge deemed to still exist in Other cultures. In this way, exotic food films hold out the promise of a panacea for white Western culture’s alleged anhedonia, while at the same time depicting a non-threatening form of Otherness. A notable exception is Dumplings, a generic hybrid between food film and horror movie, about cannibalism in urban Hong Kong. Oscillating between the alluring and the abject, it brings to the fore exoticism’s inherent ambivalence.
Demons of the Mind
Authors: Snelson Tim , Macauley William , Kirby David Allen
Published: October 2024

In the 1960s, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals intervened in and influenced cinema culture in unprecedented ways, changing how films were conceived, produced, censored, exhibited and received by audiences.Drawing upon extensive archival research, Demons of the Mind provides the first interdisciplinary account of the complex contestations and cross-pollinations of the ‘psy’ sciences (psychiatry, psychoanalysis, psychology) and cinema in Britain and America during the defining ‘long 1960s’ period of the late-1950s to early-1970s. This interdisciplinary book incorporates expertise from film studies, history of science and medicine, and science communication. The originality of this book is not solely its interdisciplinarity, but its interest not predominantly in representation, which is the focus of other books on cinema and the psy professions, but in its emphasis on the concrete interactions between ideas, expertise and professionals within the fields of mental health and media.
The BBFC’s ‘psychiatrist friends’: psychiatric consultation and the British censors
Authors: Snelson Tim , Macauley William R. , Kirby David A.
Published: October 2024

This chapter demonstrates the significant influence that psychiatric consultants exerted on British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) policy and, as a result,cinematic representations of mental illness and psychiatric practices during the long 1960s. It shows how the BBFC moved, through its confidential use of trusted ‘psychiatrist friends, from a default position of prohibition to one of enabling ‘serious’ films dealing with mental health issues to be made. The chapter offers detailed analysis of the BBFC’s revieing processes on The Caretakers (1963) (released as Borderlines in Britain in 1965), The Collector (1965), Repulsion (1965) The Trip (1967) and The Boston Strangler (1968).
Aetiology of a murder: forensic psychiatry and the evolution of true crime
Authors: Snelson Tim , Macauley William R. , Kirby David A.
Published: October 2024

This chapter focuses on two genres that evolved within the long 1960s to explore the relationships between criminality, psychiatry and the law: the courtroom drama and true crime, sometimes produced in hybrid form. The chapter looks at two Hollywood films based on narrativised accounts of true crimes and trials involving insanity pleas, Otto Preminger’s An Anatomy of Murder (1959) and Richard Brooks’ In Cold Blood (1967), based on Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel. The latter will be the main focus of the chapter with extensive analysis of director Brooks’ consultation with a range of psychiatric advisors within the Menninger Clinic’s Division of Law and Psychiatry who shared a reformist ‘anti-punishment’ agenda.
An approach to the analysis of naming
Authors: Hacken Pius Ten , Panocová Renáta
Published: October 2024

This chapter presents a set of data that is used in the discussion of the theories and frameworks in chapters 5-12. On one hand, some phenomena were selected that illustrate the boundaries of word formation with syntax and with morphology. For the boundary with syntax, German A+N compounds and A+N phrases, Slovak relational and qualitative adjectives, English Saxon genitive constructions, and English classifying and deictic compounds are used. For the boundary with inflection, the Dutch contrast between plural and diminutive for nouns and Slovak inflectional and derivational paradigms are taken. On the other hand, some phenomena were selected to illustrate the conditions under which meaning is assigned to a word formation result. First, in German and Slovak, competing nominalizations with a process reading are possible, but they do not lead to nouns with exactly the same meaning. Second, compounds often have a much more specific meaning than can be predicted from their form.
Natural Morphology
Authors: Hacken Pius Ten , Panocová Renáta
Published: October 2024

Natural Morphology (NM) is a theory of morphology developed by Wolfgang Dressler, Willy Mayerthaler and Wolfgang Wurzel since the 1980s. It is a functionalist theory which focuses on the communicative and the cognitive function of linguistic expressions. Naturalness is considered a matter of degree on a scale from natural to marked. It is determined at different levels ranging from universal to language-specific. In this chapter, it is discussed what such a theory has to say about the data presented in chapter 4. At various points, it is noted that naturalness and markedness depend on the form. Thus, no distinction between process and result nominalizations is made. As a consequence of this approach, NM has not much to say about the core issues of naming.
An assessment of similarities and differences between theoretical frameworks
Authors: Hacken Pius Ten , Panocová Renáta
Published: October 2024

This chapter compares the analyses of the data presented in chapter 4 in the frameworks and theories presented in chapters 5-12. First, it assesses which properties give a theory the adequate tools to determine the set of rule-based naming expressions adequately. This task includes distinguishing naming expressions from descriptive expressions, new naming expressions from inflection and transposition, and rule-based naming expressions from non-rule-based ones. Good solutions are assigning the formation of complex naming expressions to a separate component or using a mechanism or feature that only applies to naming expressions. The second issue in this chapter is how the meaning of new names is determined. Here it is proposed that onomasiological coercion and onomasiological motivation should take a central position. They are more adequate than semantic specialization and blocking, which are based on an interpretation perspective rather than on naming. Crucially, the meaning of a word is determined by the speaker, who sets the standard for the evaluation of the hearer’s interpretation.
Making Modernity Islamic: The Quest for Religious, Political, and Social Reform
Authors: Jung Dietrich
Published: October 2024

In which ways should Muslims address the challenges of modernity in the historical context of imperialism? In the second part of the nineteenth century, the Islamic reform movement answered this question in advocating projects of comprehensive reforms by going back to the pristine traditions of early Islam. Interpreting Islamic traditions through modern concepts such as religion, law, culture, nation, and civilization, these modernist Muslim intellectuals lay the fundaments for a specifically Islamic discourse of modernity. They attached completely new meanings to classical Islamic concepts, linking the authenticity of modern Muslim culture to Islamic traditions and a religiously defined past. In this way, they bestowed coming generations of Muslim intellectuals with a fertile semantic ground for the mobilization of religion in constructing various projects of “authentic” Islamic modernities.
Multiple Jihads: Modern Social Actorhood in the Name of Islam
Authors: Jung Dietrich
Published: October 2024

In 1915, the Dutch scholar Snouck Hurgronje considered jihad to be an atavist medieval religious doctrine. How could this expert on Islam be so terribly wrong? To date, the traditional institution of jihadhas experienced not only an unpredicted revival, but also a continuing extension of its applied meanings. This chapter traces this process back to the reinterpretation of jihad by the Islamic reform movement transforming it into a synonym for social action. The Islamic modernists opened interpretative avenues leading to the contemporary fragmentation of meaning in the popular usage of jihad. The chapter shows the ways in which references to jihad assign religious legitimacy to a broad range of social activism. In the almost random application of the concept, we can observe the fragmentation of religious authority that has accompanied the rise of the Islamic discourse of modernity to its current hegemony.
Encounters with Sweating: Public Outreach and Political Influence in the UK, 1900–1910
Authors: Janssen Flore
Published: October 2024

This chapter explores Clementina Black’s move away from her consumers’ league project in the United Kingdom as she embraced other campaigns that she had come to see as more economically effective. This chapter’s case study is the Sweated Industries Exhibition organised by Black and other activists in London in 1906. This high-profile public event, in which sweated workers and their employment were put on display to socially and economically influential audiences, heralded a new approach to campaigning to eradicate sweating practices in the UK. For Black, this included campaigning for a minimum wage.
Evaluating the Impact of Socioeconomic Factors on Health Outcomes in Bangladesh: A Focus on Kidney Patients
Authors: Hassan MD Nur , Reyad Zahid Hasan
Published: October 2024

The purpose of this work is to establish the connection between SES and KC disease prevalence in Bangladeshi adults between 45 to 64 years old. Carrying out exploratory analysis with the help of qualitative data and performing quantitative analysis of the data derived from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey, the authors identified certain elevated rates of hypertension, diabetes and obesity associated with low SEP. Therefore, the thereof provide evidence for the importance of a wear response to minimize the health disparities that marginalized groups often experience. The study also adding to the pool of literature and the evidence base of decision-making regarding kidney diseases in Bangladesh.
The effect of antibiotics on the intestinal microbiota in children - a systematic review
Authors: Wurm Juliane , Curtis Nigel , Zimmermann Petra
Published: October 2024

Background

Children are the age group with the highest exposure to antibiotics (ABX). ABX treatment changes the composition of the intestinal microbiota. The first few years of life are crucial for the establishment of a healthy microbiota and consequently, disturbance of the microbiota during this critical period may have far-reaching consequences. In this review, we summarise studies that have investigated the effect of ABX on the composition of the intestinal microbiota in children.

Methods

According to the PRISMA guidelines, a systematic search was done using MEDLINE and Embase to identify original studies that have investigated the effect of systemic ABX on the composition of the intestinal microbiota in children.

Results

We identified 89 studies investigating a total of 9,712 children (including 4,574 controls) and 14,845 samples. All ABX investigated resulted in a reduction in alpha diversity, either when comparing samples before and after ABX or children with ABX and controls. Following treatment with penicillins, the decrease in alpha diversity persisted for up to 6–12 months and with macrolides, up to the latest follow-up at 12–24 months. After ABX in the neonatal period, a decrease in alpha diversity was still found at 36 months. Treatment with penicillins, penicillins plus gentamicin, cephalosporins, carbapenems, macrolides, and aminoglycosides, but not trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, was associated with decreased abundances of beneficial bacteria including Actinobacteria, Bifidobacteriales, Bifidobacteriaceae, and/or Bifidobacterium, and Lactobacillus. The direction of change in the abundance of Enterobacteriaceae varied with ABX classes, but an increase in Enterobacteriaceae other than Escherichia coli was frequently observed.

Conclusion

ABX have profound effects on the intestinal microbiota of children, with notable differences between ABX classes. Macrolides have the most substantial impact while trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole has the least pronounced effect.
Vitamin A source variability: a mini review on stability and bioavailability in poultry
Authors: Shastak Yauheni , Pelletier Wolf
Published: October 2024

Vitamin A is essential for poultry health, influencing vision, growth, antioxidant defense, reproduction, and immune function. However, it is highly sensitive to degradation when exposed to light, moisture, heat, and oxygen. To address this, vitamin A is typically formulated as retinyl acetate in small beadlets. These beadlets are commonly included in premixes for industrial poultry diets. However, variations in beadlet formulations among different producers can lead to differences in stability and bioavailability, potentially impacting their effectiveness and biological value for poultry. Understanding the stability and bioavailability of various vitamin A sources is crucial for optimizing poultry feeding strategies and ensuring adequate vitamin A supply. The stability of vitamin A can be evaluated through several methods, including premix stability, stability during pelleting, storage stability in feed, and the stability of pure vitamin A products. Bioavailability, which reflects how effectively vitamin A is absorbed and utilized by the animal, is typically assessed through in vivo studies, with liver retinol levels serving as a key indicator. To enhance poultry production, it is important to select vitamin A sources that offer both high stability and bioavailability. Effective feed management, including the use of stable and readily absorbed forms of vitamin A, can improve poultry health, growth rates, and overall production efficiency.
Repair overlays of modified polymer mortar containing glass powder and composite fibers-reinforced slag: mechanical properties, energy absorption, and adhesion to substrate concrete
Authors: Momeni Komeil , Vatin Nikolai Ivanovich , Hematibahar Mohammad , Gebre Tesfaldet Hadgembes
Published: October 2024

This article aims to investigate the mechanical properties and substrate adhesion of the pull-off method in polymer mortars modified with styrene-butadiene resin polymer (SBR) containing glass powder and composite fiber-reinforced slag. Different mix designs were investigated with and without SBR, taking into account different amounts of glass powder and slag separately and in combination, along with the effect of glass, polypropylene, and steel fibers alone and in combination. The flexural performance and energy absorption of beams retrieved with these layers were also assessed. The results revealed significant differences and increases in the substrate adhesion of the restored modified polymer layers containing SBR compared to the polymer-free repair overlays. Furthermore, an improvement was observed in the adhesion performance of the repair overlay using a combination of slag and glass powder and the glass and polypropylene fiber composite. The highest adhesion was related to the modified polymer mortar design containing composite fibers of glass, polypropylene, and steel with 25% replacement of SBR polymer for 10% glass powder, 10% slag, and 5% slag with 5% glass powder. The adhesion was increased by about 3.74, 3.72, and 3.78 times compared to the repair overlay of the control design. Modified polymer mortars had a higher T150D toughness. Moreover, the energy absorption was significantly improved by the presence of SBR polymer. The highest toughness values were found in the beams restored with modified polymer mortars containing polypropylene, glass, and steel composite fibers with an increase of 48.51%–66.42% compared to the samples without polymer as a result of the pozzolans used in this mix.
EMF treatment delays mesenchymal stem cells senescence during long-term in vitro expansion by modulating autophagy
Authors: Cai Wenxiang , Xiao Yifan , Yan Jiyuan , Peng Hao , Tu Chang
Published: October 2024

Introduction

Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) are widely used in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine as seed cells. Due to low amount in bone marrow, BMSCs must be expanded and cultured in vitro before application. However, the senescence of stem cell caused by long-term in vitro culture greatly limits its efficacy of transplantation.

Methods

In this study, we propose an approach based on electromagnetic fields (EMF) treatment to rejuvenate aged BMSCs due to long-term in vitro culture. Aged BMSCs were treated with sinusoidal EMF (50 Hz, 0.4 mT), and stem cell senescence, cell proliferation, cell differentiation, cell stemness and autophagy level were detected. Additionally, aged BMSCs-laden hydrogels were transplanted into the rat critical-sized calvarial defect with or without EMF treatment. The bone formation was evaluated 8 weeks after surgery.

Results

Our results indicated that the BMSCs age significantly after long-term in vitro passaging. The self-renew, multiple differentiation capacity, senescence phenotypes and stemness of aged BMSCs are partly reversed by EMF treatment with a frequency of 50 Hz and strength of 0.4 mT. Moreover, declined autophagy level is observed in BMSCs during long-term in vitro passaging and BMSCs senescence is closely associated with autophagy regulation. Additionally, the mechanistic investigation reveals that EMF treatment rejuvenate senescent BMSCs by enhancing autophagy. Furthermore, EMF treatment significantly promote the therapeutic effect of long-term passaged BMSCs on bone formation in vivo.

Conclusion

Overall, our study identifies a practical approach for the rejuvenation of old BMSCs and may provide a promising candidate in tissue engineering and stem cell therapy.
Oxidative stress: fundamentals and advances in quantification techniques
Authors: Krishnamurthy Hari Krishnan , Pereira Michelle , Rajavelu Imbaasree , Jayaraman Vasanth , Krishna Karthik , Wang Tianhao , Bei Kang , Rajasekaran John J.
Published: October 2024

Oxidative species, generated endogenously via metabolism or from exogenous sources, play crucial roles in the body. At low levels, these species support immune functions by participating in phagocytosis. They also aid in cellular signaling and contribute to vasomodulation. However, when the levels of oxidative species exceed the body’s antioxidant capacity to neutralize them, oxidative stress occurs. This stress can damage cellular macromolecules such as lipids, DNA, RNA, and proteins, driving the pathogenesis of diseases and aging through the progressive deterioration of physiological functions and cellular structures. Therefore, the body’s ability to manage oxidative stress and maintain it at optimal levels is essential for overall health. Understanding the fundamentals of oxidative stress, along with its reliable quantification, can enable consistency and comparability in clinical practice across various diseases. While direct quantification of oxidant species in the body would be ideal for assessing oxidative stress, it is not feasible due to their high reactivity, short half-life, and the challenges of quantification using conventional techniques. Alternatively, quantifying lipid peroxidation, damage products of nucleic acids and proteins, as well as endogenous and exogenous antioxidants, serves as appropriate markers for indicating the degree of oxidative stress in the body. Along with the conventional oxidative stress markers, this review also discusses the role of novel markers, focusing on their biological samples and detection techniques. Effective quantification of oxidative stress may enhance the understanding of this phenomenon, aiding in the maintenance of cellular integrity, prevention of age-associated diseases, and promotion of longevity.
Applying portfolio theory to benefit endangered amphibians in coastal wetlands threatened by climate change, high uncertainty, and significant investment risk
Authors: Eaton Mitchell J. , Terando Adam J. , Collazo Jaime A.
Published: October 2024

The challenge of selecting strategies to adapt to climate change is complicated by the presence of irreducible uncertainties regarding future conditions. Decisions regarding long-term investments in conservation actions contain significant risk of failure due to these inherent uncertainties. To address this challenge, decision makers need an arsenal of sophisticated but practical tools to help guide spatial conservation strategies. Theory asserts that managing risks can be achieved by diversifying an investment portfolio to include assets – such as stocks and bonds – that respond inversely to one another under a given set of conditions. We demonstrate an approach for formalizing the diversification of conservation assets (land parcels) and actions (restoration, species reintroductions) by using correlation structure to quantify the degree of risk for any proposed management investment. We illustrate a framework for identifying future habitat refugia by integrating species distribution modeling, scenarios of climate change and sea level rise, and impacts to critical habitat. Using the plains coqui (Eleutherodactylus juanariveroi), an endangered amphibian known from only three small wetland populations on Puerto Rico’s coastal plains, we evaluate the distribution of potential refugia under two model parameterizations and four future sea-level rise scenarios. We then apply portfolio theory using two distinct objective functions and eight budget levels to inform investment strategies for mitigating risk and increasing species persistence probability. Models project scenario-specific declines in coastal freshwater wetlands from 2% to nearly 30% and concurrent expansions of transitional marsh and estuarine open water. Conditional on the scenario, island-wide species distribution is predicted to contract by 25% to 90%. Optimal portfolios under the first objective function – benefit maximization – emphasizes translocating frogs to existing protected areas rather than investing in the protection of new habitat. Alternatively, optimal strategies using the second objective function – a risk-benefit tradeoff framework – include significant investment to protect parcels for the purpose of reintroduction or establishing new populations. These findings suggest that leveraging existing protected areas for species persistence, while less costly, may contain excessive risk and could result in diminished conservation benefits. Although our modeling includes numerous assumptions and simplifications, we believe this framework provides useful inference for exploring resource dynamics and developing robust adaptation strategies using an approach that is generalizable to other conservation problems which are spatial or portfolio in nature and subject to unresolvable uncertainty.
Do extra-pulmonary triggers or autonomic neural activity affect rhythm control by anti-arrhythmic drugs in patients with post-ablation atrial fibrillation recurrence?
Authors: Park Hanjin , Yu Hee Tae , Kim Daehoon , Park Je-Wook , Kim Tae-Hoon , Uhm Jae-Sun , Joung Boyoung , Lee Moon-Hyoung , Hwang Chun , Pak Hui-Nam
Published: October 2024

Background

The role of anti-arrhythmic drugs (AADs) in recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF) after catheter ablation (CA) is not fully understood. The aim of this study was to explore the effects of AADs in patients who recurred after AFCA depending on extra-pulmonary vein triggers (ExPVTs) and post-ablation heart rate variability (HRV) parameters.

Methods

We analyzed 2,036 patients who underwent de-novo AFCA and 486 patients with post-AFCA recurrence who underwent rhythm control with AADs. We investigated the effects of ExPVTs and 3rd month HRV parameters on the post-AFCA recurrence and subsequent AAD responsiveness.

Results

A total of 486 out of 2,036 patients developed clinical recurrence of AF and subsequently underwent rhythm control with AADs. 486 out of 310 patients (63.8%) remained free of second recurrence at 1-year. Post-AFCA recurrence was significantly higher in patients with ExPVT [Log-rank p < 0.001, HR 1.45 (1.16–1.83), p = 0.001] or higher 3rd month root mean square of the differences between successive RR intervals (rMSSD) [Log-rank p < 0.001, HR 1.36 (1.11–1.65), p = 0.003] than their counterparts. Patients with ExPVTs during the de-novo procedure had significantly higher 3rd month rMSSD (15.0 [11.0–23.0] vs. 17.0 [11.0–28.0], p = 0.022). Patients with high 3rd month rMSSD had higher rate of ExPVTs during the repeat procedure (n = 160, 41.0% vs. 22.2%, p = 0.019). Among patients with recurrent AF after AFCA, post-AAD recurrence did not differ depending on the presence of ExPVT [Log-rank p = 0.455, HR 1.12 (0.78–1.69), p = 0.436] or 3rd month rMSSD [Log-rank p = 0.457, HR 1.16 (0.87–1.55), p = 0.300]. Post-AAD recurrence did not differ between class IC and III AADs (p for interaction = 0.311).

Conclusions

ExPVT and post-procedural high rMSSD are independent risk factors for post-AFCA recurrence but not for AAD response in patients with recurrent AF. AADs may suppress ExPVTs and modulate cardiac autonomic activity after post-AFCA recurrence.
An accessory renal aneurysm in a patient with absent renal artery: a case report
Authors: Wan Jianghong , Chen Chu Wen , Chen Guoxin , Huang Bin
Published: October 2024

Introduction

This study reports a patient who developed a secondary renal artery aneurysm (RAA) after occlusion of the main renal artery.

Methods

A 25-year-old woman was hospitalized due to an enlarged renal artery aneurysm (RAA). Computed tomography angiography revealed a 2.2 mm left renal aneurysm and the absence of the left renal artery trunk, with collateral blood supply from the branch arteries of the aorta. The left kidney function remained normal, allowing successful aneurysm embolization. Three years after embolization, the patient's hypertension improved and became more manageable.

Conclusion

Compensation through other abdominal aorta branches after renal artery trunk occlusion is rare, and these branches may also lead to the development of aneurysms. Regular monitoring of these patients is essential.
Generative AI-based knowledge graphs for the illustration and development of mHealth self-management content
Authors: Blanchard Marc , Venerito Vincenzo , Ming Azevedo Pedro , Hügle Thomas
Published: October 2024

Background

Digital therapeutics (DTx) in the form of mobile health (mHealth) self-management programs have demonstrated effectiveness in reducing disease activity across various diseases, including fibromyalgia and arthritis. However, the content of online self-management programs varies widely, making them difficult to compare.

Aim

This study aims to employ generative artificial intelligence (AI)-based knowledge graphs and network analysis to categorize and structure mHealth content at the example of a fibromyalgia self-management program.

Methods

A multimodal mHealth online self-management program targeting fibromyalgia and post-viral fibromyalgia-like syndromes was developed. In addition to general content, the program was customized to address specific features and digital personas identified through hierarchical agglomerative clustering applied to a cohort of 202 patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain syndromes undergoing multimodal assessment. Text files consisting of 22,150 words divided into 24 modules were used as the input data. Two generative AI web applications, ChatGPT-4 (OpenAI) and Infranodus (Nodus Labs), were used to create knowledge graphs and perform text network analysis, including 3D visualization. A sentiment analysis of 129 patient feedback entries was performed.

Results

The ChatGPT-generated knowledge graph model provided a simple visual overview with five primary edges: “Mental health challenges”, “Stress and its impact”, “Immune system function”, “Long COVID and fibromyalgia” and “Pain management and therapeutic approaches”. The 3D visualization provided a more complex knowledge graph, with the term “pain” appearing as the central edge, closely connecting with “sleep”, “body”, and “stress”. Topical cluster analysis identified categories such as “chronic pain management”, “sleep hygiene”, “immune system function”, “cognitive therapy”, “healthy eating”, “emotional development”, “fibromyalgia causes”, and “deep relaxation”. Gap analysis highlighted missing links, such as between “negative behavior” and “systemic inflammation”. Retro-engineering of the self-management program showed significant conceptual similarities between the knowledge graph and the original text analysis. Sentiment analysis of free text patient comments revealed that most relevant topics were addressed by the online program, with the exception of social contacts.

Conclusion

Generative AI tools for text network analysis can effectively structure and illustrate DTx content. Knowledge graphs are valuable for increasing the transparency of self-management programs, developing new conceptual frameworks, and incorporating feedback loops.