bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Development and validation of an open-source tool for opportunistic screening of osteoporosis from hip CT images
Authors: Uemura Keisuke , Otake Yoshito , Takashima Kazuma , Hamada Hidetoshi , Imagama Takashi , Takao Masaki , Sakai Takashi , Sato Yoshinobu , Okada Seiji , Sugano Nobuhiko
Published: September 2023

Aims

This study aimed to develop and validate a fully automated system that quantifies proximal femoral bone mineral density (BMD) from CT images.

Methods

The study analyzed 978 pairs of hip CT and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) measurements of the proximal femur (DXA-BMD) collected from three institutions. From the CT images, the femur and a calibration phantom were automatically segmented using previously trained deep-learning models. The Hounsfield units of each voxel were converted into density (mg/cm3). Then, a deep-learning model trained by manual landmark selection of 315 cases was developed to select the landmarks at the proximal femur to rotate the CT volume to the neutral position. Finally, the CT volume of the femur was projected onto the coronal plane, and the areal BMD of the proximal femur (CT-aBMD) was quantified. CT-aBMD correlated to DXA-BMD, and a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis quantified the accuracy in diagnosing osteoporosis.

Results

CT-aBMD was successfully measured in 976/978 hips (99.8%). A significant correlation was found between CT-aBMD and DXA-BMD (r = 0.941; p < 0.001). In the ROC analysis, the area under the curve to diagnose osteoporosis was 0.976. The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity were 88.9% and 96%, respectively, with the cutoff set at 0.625 g/cm2.

Conclusion

Accurate DXA-BMD measurements and diagnosis of osteoporosis were performed from CT images using the system developed herein. As the models are open-source, clinicians can use the proposed system to screen osteoporosis and determine the surgical strategy for hip surgery.

Cite this article: Bone Joint Res 2023;12(9):590–597.
Round scad quality on mini purse seine boats, Rembang Regency, Central of Java
Authors: Rejeki Sri Untari Puji , Darmanto Y.S. , Dewi Eko Nurcahya , AGS Dwi Apriliani
Published: September 2023

Mini purse seine boats in Rembang are divided into two sizes. The first one, namely mini purse seines measuring 10 - 20 Goss Tonnage (GT) (short trips) with a fishing operation duration of 3 - 7 days. The second one is mini purse seines measuring 21 - 30 GT (long trips) with a fishing operation duration of 7 - 10 days. The dominant catch on this boats is round scad, which used a cooling mechanism with ice blocks and bulking systems. This research evaluates the quality of round scad caught by mini purse seine boats (based on Indonesian National Standard/SNI 2729:  2013) and the quality of ice used in handling the fish (based on SNI 4872:  2015). The sampling technique was purposive sampling. Fish samples were carried out in the first and last hold on the short trips and long trips boats, where each handle of the fish was sampled in the upper, middle, and lower layers. Data analysis for sensory evaluation were analyzed by Kruskal Wallis statistics, while the TPC value of round scad was tested by ANOVA test. The laboratory test results obtained the sensory assessment of round scad. The value of the TPC round scad and the E. coli ice blocks are still within the limits of the Indonesian national standards, but the TPC scale of the ice block exceeds the standard limit of SNI. The Kruskal Wallis statistics results showed tha the difference in fish hold, the difference in the trip, and differences in fish hold layers had a significant effect on the sensory of scad. ANOVA test showed that differences in the fish hold and trip differences had a significant impact on the TPC of scad. In contrast, the difference in fish hold layers gave a non-significant effect on the TPC of round scad.Keywords:Quality organolepticTPcRound scadMini purse seineRembang
In adaption of river continuum concept as correlation to macroinvertebrates functional feeding group in Cisadane River’s headwater
Authors: Anzani Yunita Magrima , Krisanti Majariana , Wardiatno Yusli
Published: September 2023

River Continuum Concept (RCC) is an approach that describes the dynamic changes in the river system, the changes that occur are physical conditions (order of the river, canopy cover, and land use) and also the structure and function of communities. Functional feeding groups (FFG) of macroinvertebrates are related to environmental gradients in aquatic systems, including river ecosystem attributes. This study aimed to correlate the function of the macroinvertebrate communities with Cisadane’s River headwater conditions based on RCC and also to estimate the attributes of the river ecosystem. This research was conducted in the headwaters of the Cisadane River, West Java-Indonesia. One of Cisadane’s River headwaters was located in Mount Halimun-Salak National Park. Macroinvertebrates were collected from four sites inside the park (stations 1, 2, 3, and 4) and from two sites outside the park (stations 5 and 6). Collections were made twice a month, from April to June 2015 using a Surber sampler. The results showed that shredders and predators were relatively higher at stations inside the national park than at those outside the national park. While scrappers and collectors at stations located inside the national park were relatively lower than at stations outside the park. The value of the P/R ratio showed that all of the stations were heterotrophy. CPOM/FPOM ratio represents that shredder availability is high enough at stations inside the national park. While TFPOM/BFPOM ratio is slightly below the normal threshold value. HSI showed that the condition of the riverbed substrate stability is quite good. Composition changes of macroinvertebrates showed suitability with RCC. River ecosystem attributes and abiotic stream characteristics of Cisadane’s River headwater support macroinvertebrate life and are in accordance with RCC.Keywords:EcologyMacroinvertebrateNational ParkRiparianRiver
Cyprinus carpio hematological changes after dietary Coffea canephora leaf extract for Aeromonas hydrophila infection
Authors: Sulistyoningrum Shandy , Mahasri Gunanti , Ulkhaq Mohammad Faizal , Kenconojati Hapsari
Published: September 2023

Coffea canephora or robusta coffee was known as a medicinal plant that admitted various biological properties. However, its application as a medicinal plant in fish disease treatment has not been reported. This study aimed to investigate the effect of dietary robusta coffee leaf (RCL) extract on the survival rate and hematology of Cyprinus carpio infected by Aeromonas hydrophila. Two hundred fish were randomly divided into five treatment groups consisting of uninfected fish (UF), infected fish (IF), and a diet supplemented with different concentrations of RCL extract (30%, 40%, and 50%). The negative control group was injected by NaCl 0.9% and other treatment groups were injected by A. hydrophila. Feeding treatment was carried out for 7 days after clinical symptoms appeared. The results showed that RCL extract increases the survival rate and hematological parameters (number of erythrocytes, hemoglobin, and lymphocytes) significantly (P0.05). The highest survival rate (100%) was recorded in groups that accepted 50% of RCL extract. This current study indicates that RCL extract could be considered a potent medicinal plant for treating fish disease caused by A. hydrophila at the optimum dose of 50%.Keywords:AeromonasCoffea canephoraExtractHematologyCyprinus carpio
The assessment of status of Sibam River and Air Hitam River Pekanbaru city Riau Province using pollution index
Authors: Yuliati Yuliati , Sumiarsih Eni , Efawani Efawani , Mulyani Isma , Fajri Nur El
Published: September 2023

The quality of the Siak River is gradually deteriorating with the rapid socio-economic development in its tributary watersheds. S. Sibam and Air Hitam are part of the Siak tributaries in the Siak tributary sub-region in Pekanbaru City. The quality of the Sibam and Air Hitam tributaries in the Siak Watershed of Pekanbaru City has been studied to determine the relative pollution level of water quality standards. Water quality measurements were carried out from January to August 2022 at the upstream, middle, and confluence with the Siak River. The pollution level of the Sibam River and Air Hitam River was measured using the pollution index method. The quality of the Sibam River and Air Hitam waters is compared to the quality standards according to The Regulation of Government of the Republic of Indonesia (RGRI) Number 22/2021 Class III. The water quality parameter measured consisted of dissolved oxygen, TSS, pH, BOD, COD, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, and total phosphate. Pollution index calculations for the Sibam and Air Hitam rivers show light pollution, with index values ranging from 1.75 to 3.57. Nitrite and ammonia concentrations in the Sibam River do not meet quality standards. Whereas in the Air Hitam River, the BOD, nitrite, and ammonia level exceeds the quality standards (RGRI Number 22/2021 Class III). The highest pollution index is in the middle of the river, with settlements on both rivers.Keywords:Pollution IndexWater QualitySibam RiverAir Hitam River
Study of content and bioconcentration of heavy metal (Pb,Hg, and Cd) in green mussels (Perna viridis) based on different sizes and ages
Authors: Krismonita Bella , Yudha Indra Gumay , Sarida Munti , Hasani Qadar , Widiastuti Endang Linirin
Published: September 2023

Green mussel (Perna viridis) has filter-feeding habits and a sessile way of life, with the main food components of plankton and organic matter in the waters. These food components can contaminate green mussels when it accumulates heavy metals. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate heavy metals content and the bioconcentration of lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), and cadmium (Cd) in green mussels based on different sizes and ages. The study was conducted on Pasaran Island, Lampung, Indonesia, and used green mussels aged 3, 5, 7 to 9  months as samples, with 2 replications. The AAS (Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry) method was used in the analysis of Pb, Hg, and Cd, sampling technique used purposive sampling. The result showed that green mussels at different ages and sizes has impact on Pb content, while an increase of one unit of age and size of green mussels has no effect on the metal content of Hg and Cd. Furthermore, the highest bioconcentration of Pb and Hg was obtained at 9 months, while Cd was observed at 3 months. Based on the results of this study it can be concluded that the simple linear regression appropriate a functional relationship between Pb and the different ages and sizes green mussels cultivated on Pasaran Island , while heavy metals Hg and Cd appropriate with a polynomial quadratic approach and almost do not exist in the form of a functional relationship between Hg and Cd with the different ages and sizes green mussels. Even though it contains heavy metals in below the maximum limit, but care needs to be taken in addressing this phenomenon due to its nature heavy metals that can accumulate in living tissue, thus consuming green mussels containing heavy metals even in relatively small amounts is not recommended.Keywords:Filter feederSessileAccumulateOrganic matterContaminate
Study of the effect of processing techniques on the quality of galantine made from milkfish (Chanos chanos)
Authors: Panjaitan Pola Sabar Tumohom , Mukhaimin Iman , Ratnaningtyas Susi , Soeprijadi Liliek , Wulansari Devi
Published: September 2023

Milkfish (Chanos chanos) is one of the commonly consumed fishery commodities in Indonesia. However, diversification of processed products from milkfish, such as pindang (fish brine) and soft bone milkfish, is considered too simple. Whereas, milkfish has a high nutritional content. An innovation to attract more people to consume this highly nutritious commodity is to process it into fish galantine. Milkfish galantine is processed with the basic ingredients of milkfish, bread flour, and eggs that are seasoned then molded and processed at high temperatures. The process of making milkfish galantine includes preparing milkfish as raw materials, scaling and gutting the fish, mincing the milkfish meat, mixing it with other ingredients, molding, and processing. Fish galantine is generally made through high-temperature processing, such as roasting and steaming. Different high-temperature processing techniques can affect the quality of fish galantine. Therefore, this research aimed to assess the effect of milkfish composition and different high-temperature processing techniques: roasting and steaming. The different milkfish galantine formulations in this research were made by giving different proportions of minced milkfish meat as treatments: 5%, 10%, and 15%. After that, galantines were processed by steaming. Furthermore, the formulation with the highest hedonic scale score was duplicated by processing using the roasting technique. The results of the four treatments were then tested for proximate composition, vitamins, and minerals.  The results of the hedonic evaluation of milkfish galantines processed by steaming showed that milkfish galantine with 15% fish meat proportion had the highest score. The test results showed that the addition of milkfish meat caused significant differences in water, ash, total fat, carbohydrate, protein, and potassium contents. In addition, the processing technique also caused significant differences in all parameters tested.Keywords:MilkfishFish galantineSteamingRoasting
Gendered issue priorities and the radical-right vote: is there a (mis)match?
Authors: Calvo Álvaro , Ferrín Mónica
Published: September 2023

Recent studies emphasise gender attitudes as an explanation for the gender gap in the radical-right vote. However, little is known on whether the (mis)match between the issues that are given the most salience by radical-right parties and (wo)men’s issue priorities accounts for the gender gap in the radical-right vote. Merging a large series of barometers conducted in Spain, including more than 9,000 radical-right voters from January 2020 to March 2023, we find that issue priorities are gendered and that VOX’s support is mainly driven by male issues. Also, importantly, regional nationalism and gender – two of VOX’s flagship issues – affect women’s and men’s probability of voting for VOX differently. These findings indicate that the main determinants of voting for VOX are largely driven by men, not women.
Masculinity, Political Action, and Spiritual Warfare in the Fictional Ministry of Frank E. Peretti
Authors: Connolly Andrew
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Like many evangelical authors, Frank E. Peretti claims that his writing is a ministry. While critics and reviewers have noted the way he popularized supernatural thrillers in the evangelical market and enjoyed unprecedented financial success for an evangelical author, they fail to recognize that the specific kind of ministry that Peretti engages in through fiction is new in three key ways: it is masculine, it is political, and it is sectarian. As a result, this paper argues that Peretti is responsible for changing the relationship between fiction authors and their audience within the evangelical market.
Types and Tropes: History and Moral Agency in Evangelical Inspirational Fiction
Authors: Paradis Kenneth
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Using as exemplars novels of evangelical inspirational fiction writer Francine Rivers, this article explores how Christian faith is represented as manifest in the emotional lives of characters in inspirational fiction novels. These novels invoke a particularly evangelical way of anchoring Biblical scripture to a modified "typological" understanding of history, that, in turn, anchors characterological claims to moral agency which are grounded in "tropological" or "moral" forms of scriptural interpretation. This narrative organization or "chronotope" models a kind of faith-informed, emotionally centered practice of viewing one's own life and situation that that is widely mobilized in American evangelical culture.
Miracles and the Postsecular: Some "Unscientific" Thoughts on Peace Like a River and Mariette in Ecstasy
Authors: Bush Harold K.
Published: September 2023

Abstract: If our culture is now "postsecular," then perhaps it is time that we emerge from our own "embarrassment" as scholars over the scandal of the miraculous claims of our faith. As I will argue here, one area of resurgence that is being carefully documented by scholars is belief in the miraculous. In Leif Enger's Peace Like a River (2004) and Ron Hansen's Mariette in Ecstasy (1991), claims to the miraculous are taken seriously, and a recognition of the conditions of our secular age are notably at play.
Theopoetics and the Crazy Women of Gabriela Mistral
Authors: Karr-Cornejo Katherine
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This essay elaborates and engages a theopoetic reading mode to understand the function of lament in a selection of poems from the Crazy Women sections of Chilean Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral's (1889–1957) Winepress (1954) and Wine-press II (1991). This method of reading will reveal how engaging the spatial metaphor of the relationship between human and God contributes to their tone of lament. Mistral's poetry articulates the sensation of insurmountable distance from the divine and shifts between despair and hope.
An Incarnational Imagination? Christianity, Narrativity, and Alice Munro's "The Love of a Good Woman"
Authors: Rys John Van
Published: September 2023

Abstract: In her introduction to Alice Munro's Best: Selected Stories , Margaret Atwood identifies a parallel between the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation and Munro's narrative practices: that the "denial of either/or classifying logic and an acceptance of both-at-once mystery" essential to the Incarnation seem parallel to the way in which Munro's stories "resolve themselves—or fail to resolve themselves." Atwood's insight encourages an examination of the narrative engagement with Christianity found in a wide range of Munro's stories. This paper does so in "The Love of a Good Woman" (1998), a test case for understanding the possibilities of incarnational imagination in Munro's fiction.
Personhood and Place in Wendell Berry's Remembering
Authors: Wiebe Joseph R.
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Psychological studies indicate that people concerned for how they will be remembered are likely to manifest environmentally-friendly behavior. Researchers suggest, therefore, that the fear of unfavorable public perception can be used to overcome psychological barriers to pro-environmental action. Wendell Berry also ties memory and perception to environmental objectives but instead of using fear and trying to overcome obstacles, he focuses on love and accepting limitation. Love, for Berry, is not just a feeling or attitude towards another but an orientation to the world that develops character, social bonds, and good farming. Berry's novel Remembering uses Dante's Divine Comedy to dramatize this love as divine and present throughout nature. Remembering uses the structure of Dante's journey to show how the protagonist develops a healthy subjectivity in addition to good farming through this love as it is manifested in community.
A Faithful Account: Postsecular History and Agape in the Devout Catholic Fiction of Dena Hunt
Authors: Piper Kevin
Published: September 2023

Abstract: The article examines the contribution of contemporary devout Catholic fiction to postsecular conversations around the mediation of religious experience by secular history with specific attention to a novel not yet discussed within literary studies: Dena Hunt's Treason , a work of historical fiction about Catholic suppression in Elizabethan England. The article argues that (1) Treason analyzes early formations of secular institutions and narratives within Elizabethan England as co-opting Christian expressions of agapeic love, and (2) responds to that co-optation by engaging in a historical method of constructing narratives rooted in instances of self-denying affection and devotion found within religious communities.
"To Mean What Once We Said": Richard Wilbur Celebrates the Fourth of July
Authors: Tate William
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This paper develops an intertextual reading of Richard Wilbur's "The Fourth of July," addressing two key topics. Most of the poem develops an allusive and nuanced consideration of the ways in which practices of naming shape and are shaped by contingent human attitudes and behaviors. Wilbur's treatment of this first topic provides a context for his measured approach to the second, the persistence in "the land of the free" of injustices rationalized with regard to differences of skin color.
Sabbath Reading
Authors: Crawford Jason
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This essay considers the spiritual practices involved in literary reading. Literary texts ask readers to speak in voices not their own, to enact identities and temporalities beyond the ones we inhabit in the everyday. Those practices of enactment have much in common with Jewish and Christian Sabbath practices, in which celebrants likewise enact forms of life from beyond the economy of the present age. Imagining literary reading as a kind of Sabbath practice might help us to think in fresh ways, in our own present moment, about the forms of freedom, generosity, and renewal that our literary work makes possible.
Exegesis in the Age of Extremism: The Future of Christianity and Literary Studies in Higher Education
Authors: Stokes Claudia
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This essay examines the consequences of the Trump presidency on the study of literature and Christianity. Despite the recent defunding of the humanities and the widespread elimination of religious studies departments, the Trump presidency gave rise to the widespread use of exegetical modes of interpretation, with many of the tenets of post-structuralism entering the cultural mainstream. However, the interpretive failures of Trump supporters demonstrate the vital national importance of the humanities and the importance of formal literary and interpretive instruction.
Milton in the Age of the “Nones”: Decentering Christianity in Paradise Lost
Authors: Goodrich Jaime
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Taking Milton as a case study, this essay considers the historical relationship between Christianity and literature in order to speculate on potential futures for the discipline in the age of the “nones” (people without a religious affiliation). Two approaches that decenter Christianity—the lenses of religious pluralism and philosophy—reveal how Milton and other Christian authors can speak to readers at large and not just an audience of like-minded believers.
Wole Soyinka’s Christian Moment, 1958–1965
Authors: Vande Brake Timothy R.
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Wole Soyinka publicly broke from his parents’ faith in early adolescence, yet his anti-Christian stance was not fully realized until his early thirties. Thus, a rich religious dialogue animates the first eight years of his artistic career, 1958–1965. In works from these years (during which Nigeria gained its independence), Soyinka keenly observes and insightfully images Christianity yet holds it at a distance. Soyinka’s changing religious outlook is examined through three works from this period: Camwood on the Leaves, The Interpreters , and The Road . Actions suggesting that he was gradually letting go of his inherited Christian values are also explored.
Seeing in "the darkness, visible": White Supremacy and Original Sin in Marilynne Robinson's Jack
Authors: Horton Ray
Published: September 2023

Abstract: To call White supremacy "America's original sin" seems, at first glance, untenably imprecise, little more than an occasionally useful figure of speech. With the character of Jack Boughton, however, Marilynne Robinson turns this apparent cliché into a rich, often unsettling meditation on the relationship between race and religion in postwar American life. Subtly in Gilead and Home , then persistently in Jack , Robinson constructs compelling if at times unreliable narrative viewpoints, limited but nonetheless illuminating perspectives that draw the uneasy consciousness of being an ambivalent beneficiary to White supremacy, on one hand, and the burdened conscience characteristic of the Christian doctrine of original sin, on the other, into each other's orbit.
Making the Truth: Fiction as Theology in Marilynne Robinson's Jack
Authors: Smith James K.A.
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Comparing her fiction and nonfiction, I argue that Robinson's writing is most true when she's "making the truth." Her fiction is better theology than her theology. Robinson's nonfiction lacks the force of truth that we find in a novel like Jack. It is when she is making the truth in the novel that we see the outworking of a theology whose truth is alluring, affective, beguiling. Thus Robinson's fiction is a case study for the claims of aesthetic cognitivism which claims the unique cognitive advances afforded by art.
The Poetics of Conversion: Theological Themes in the Poetry of W. H. Auden
Authors: Barton Adam
Published: September 2023

Abstract: W. H. Auden's theological readings reveal an interest in the existential tradition of Christian thought. Aspects of his major poems For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio (1944), The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (1947), and Horae Canonicae (1949–1952) reflect theological parallels between the poems and the thought of German theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich. Auden's explicitly Christian poems evince themes of Tillichian ontological theology as he explores the issues of self, displacement, anxiety, Kairos, and conversion—specifically through his focus on the Incarnation. At odds with secular existentialism, Auden suggests the problems of the modern individual are uniquely spiritual problems that are the result of displacement from God.
Two Stigmatas in Ron Hansen's Mariette in Ecstasy
Authors: Witten Derek
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Criticism on Ron Hansen's Mariette in Ecstasy has, with little hesitation and only one exception, readily accepted the veracity of Mariette's stigmata. Hansen, however, claims to have written the novel to support both belief and unbelief. Employing psychoanalytic and Foucauldian principles, this article demonstrates the subtle ways with which Hansen consistently provides alternative naturalistic explanation when depicting the supernatural. It argues that Hansen sows seeds of ambiguity not to produce doubt, but to offer a unique theological hermeneutics: he positions his text, as well as Mariette, as a stigmatic—willingly accepting the wounds of suspicious reading to create a more grace-infused sacramental text.
Seeing the Form: Denise Levertov's "The Jacob's Ladder"
Authors: Lake Christina Bieber
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Denise Levertov valorized the imagination as the perceptive faculty whereby it is possible for us to see God. Recent studies in neuroscience back up the insight—shared with Hans Urs von Balthasar and Rowan Williams—that engaging with poetry provides a defamiliarizing experience with language that engages the whole person, not just the mind. Here I read Levertov's poem "The Jacob's Ladder" as an argument for and a demonstration of how poetry provides the reader with a unique avenue for spiritual transformation.
"wrapt In flesh": An Encounter with Christian Poetics
Authors: Johnson Kimberly
Published: September 2023

Abstract: George Herbert's poem "Coloss. 3.3" provides an opportunity to evaluate the relations between poetic form and thematic content. The poem's graphic duality recapitulates the dualism of the kind of spiritual experience Herbert's poem describes, in which neither the fleshly nor the spiritual is suppressed, but each is rather mutually dependent on the other for the full expression of its meaningfulness. This essay argues that a Christian Poetics must attend to the formal valences of a text as such, proposing that form is one apparatus by which a poem expresses theological principles.
Wonder and Care: A Christian Poetics for the Present Day
Authors: Van Engen Abram
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This article tries to draw this forum together in three ways. First, a Christian poetics has to do with hermeneutics, informed by a long tradition of biblical interpretation. Second, a Christian poetics takes up the discipline of wonder, which remains crucial to the scholarly work of research and teaching. Finally, a Christian poetics combines a sense of wonder with an emphasis on care. It asks how awe and action relate, seeking to understand the many ways texts not just transcend this world, but also transform it.
Sentimentalism, Realism, and Secularity in Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth
Authors: Park Haein
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Critics of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth have interpreted Lily Bart's death and Nettie Struther's story as scenes that undermine the novel's realism. I show how they reveal Wharton's negotiation of transcendence within the genre of realism. Nettie's redemption and Lily's death destabilize a secular mode of economic exchange, offering a way to transcend this mode by means of a gift exchange. I argue that the idea of the gift embedded in Netty's story and Lily's death operates both as a scandal and vehicle of transcendence
"Hiding In Plain Sight": Seeing and Forgetting Reality in David Foster Wallace's Oblivion
Authors: Sircy Jonathan
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Critics routinely note the bleak world portrayed in David Foster Wallace's Oblivion: Stories . This article argues that the collection's pessimism comes from its characters' inability to see what is "hidden in plain sight" about the world's most "real and essential" features. These phrases come from Wallace's famous Kenyon Commencement Address, This Is Water . I argue that Oblivion is a fictional companion to that speech, stories of what happens when the most important features of reality go unseen. In contrast with Wallace's other work, where elements of Christianity are openly accepted or rejected, Oblivion 's characters remain blind to God.
William Drennan and the Poetry of Presbytery
Authors: Rice Adrian
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Belfast Presbyterian radical Dr William Drennan (1754–1820) is widely regarded as the premier poet of the United Irishmen movement. However, while his significance as a key player in the political drama of the 1790s has been well documented, and his political poetry anthologized, few of Drennan's other poems have received critical attention. Permeating such neglected work from this poet of presbytery is an Irish dissenting, non-subscribing Unitarian Presbyterianism, which also crucially colors his famous political poems. It is proposed here that Drennan's muse is predominantly moral, specifically New Light, being the signature watermark of his chief poetical statements.
Through Joyce's Looking Glass: Dubliners and the Parable Form
Authors: Chittenden Kelly
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This essay explores James Joyce's engagement with Biblical parables in Dubliners . Like parables, Joyce's stories employ realistic situations, vivid imagery, and puzzling endings to prompt readers into moral reflection. Joyce's stories also draw upon specific Biblical parables. In "The Boarding House," Joyce inverts the Parable of the Ten Virgins to illuminate the disconnect between love and duty in Irish society. In "A Painful Case," he draws upon the Parable of the Great Banquet to highlight the implications of individual and societal inhospitality. Examining Joyce's parabolic method adds to the growing conversation about Joyce's sustained interest in Scripture and Christian thought.
Was C. S. Lewis a Christian Humanist?
Authors: Oser Lee
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Was Belfast native C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) a Christian humanist? I approach this question by revisiting Lewis's critique of Christian humanism in Erasmus, More, Swift, and others. This sets up a contrast between Lewis the critic and Lewis the satirist—I refer particularly to the vein of satire that surfaces in The Pilgrim's Regress and runs through The Screwtape Letters and That Hideous Strength . I show that Lewis the satirist is indebted to the very same Christian humanists whom he disparages elsewhere. While Lewis's relation to Christian humanism is rife with contradiction, it is nonetheless central to his achievement.
"Guests of the nation"? The Southern Irish Protestant Identity through the Lens of Literature
Authors: d'Alton Ian
Published: September 2023

Abstract: The term "Southern Irish Protestant" encompasses a three-dimensional notion of geography, national consciousness—and religion. Southern Protestants were often reviled as having "an alien creed, an alien culture and alien aspirations." While only 7 percent of the population of the Irish Free State at independence in 1922, they were economically prominent and educationally privileged. As such, this elite generated an extensive literature of memoir, novels, autobiography, plays, and poetry out of proportion to their numbers. This essay explores the Southern Irish Protestant experience and identity in this new, but still old, Ireland through literary representation, hearing hostile voices as well as empathetic ones.
Slaughterhouse Intimacies
Authors: Pergadia Samantha
Published: September 2023

Abstract: This essay traces slaughterhouse intimacies, sites of material entanglement between and among species, gender, race, sexuality, and reproduction. The phrase may seem paradoxical: the slaughterhouse is a line of death and dismemberment; intimacy connotes vital connection, private interiority. Yet the history of industrial animal farming, I argue, traffics between the intimateexchanges of gender, race, and species at the slaughterhouse, an institution that binds species to reproductive control, alters how animals are known, and changes the tempo and scale of violence itself—making the unthinkable possible. Two strands of scholarship recruit animals or species to comprehendviolations of human-based difference. Second-wave feminists often recruitedan analogic comparison between animals and women to outlinethe contours of a sexism that treats women like animals. The burgeoning field of Black animality studies has focused attention on the race-as-species metaphor in the history of scientific racism. Yet little attention has been paid to the material pathways through which industrial farming changed the entanglements of race, species, and gender. By close reading Ruth Ozeki's novel, My Year of Meats (1998), I unpack the material connectionslying beneath metaphorical comparisons and trace the circulation of U.S. meat through global circulation networks that produce and reproduce our notions of gender, race, time, species, sexuality, and reproduction.
Appreciation After Critique
Authors: Schmidgen Wolfram
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Long belittled as a sentiment that makes no measurable contribution to knowledge, appreciation is being reclaimed today. Postcritical writers, in particular, have turned appreciation into a model affect for how literary scholars relate to their objects of study. They have been empowered to do so by the flat ontologies associated with such thinkers as Graham Harman, Jane Bennett, and especially Bruno Latour. This essay argues that leaning on flat ontologies to rethink our relationship to aesthetic objects has led a significant number of postcritical scholars to flirt with the possibility of escape: escape from the fact that all seekers of knowledge are embodied and situated individuals and therefore different from the objects they investigate. In suggesting an escape from such difference, postcritical writers shirk ethical and political responsibilities that are central to the legitimacy of our disciplinary practices. Postcritical appreciation can have a more promising future, the essay concludes, when we heed the lessons of Donna Haraway and Hans-Georg Gadamer, who have proposed models for relating to objects that avoid the alternatives of detachment and attachment and can renew the commitment to objectivity in the humanities.
Coupling Men in Couplet Space: Pope to Gunn
Authors: Stewart Dustin D.
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Donald davie, a serious man, had serious doubts, but his friend Thom Gunn kept assuring him that contemporary poetry could be at once really gay and really traditional. Gunn thought so partly because several major poets who helped forge the tradition as he and Davie knew it, poets such as Christopher Marlowe and Walt Whitman, were themselves gay.1 He also thought so, as his recently published letters confirm, because of his counterintuitive conviction that historical poetic techniques can enhance "improvisatory and up-to-date subject matter."2 Free verse caught the sensation of modern freedom but sometimes fell short in reflecting on it or thinking through it. Gunn, who moved from Cambridge to California in 1954, maintained that poets seeking to represent a queer experience or unconventional setting might be better off relying on the time-tested shaping power of established meters and rhymes. Formal control could then serve as both a defining part of the exploration—an order within freedom—and a device for assessing it, as though from the outside. This inside-and-out defense of traditional form is one he adopted from his Stanford teacher Yvor Winters, for whom poetry's formal discipline (as Gunn puts it) "does not reject experience" but offers "a means of simultaneously conveying it, in all its variety, and evaluating it."3 Experience was the rub for Donald Davie, who in 1982 claimed that his friend's poetry had cut itself off from the literary past by embracing queer content.4 Gunn had good reason to disagree. The very sequence in which he came out in his verse, far from marking a clean break with Winters and traditional form, attests to his ongoing involvement with them. That coming-out sequence takes place in couplets that deserve to be called Popean. But they're Popean in a specific sense, defined not just by regular meter and rhyme but especially by line-ending punctuation that allows enjambment to make room for intimacy.
"Stop Asking for Life to Be a Poem": On Cybernetic Instrumentality
Authors: Miller Michael F.
Published: September 2023

Abstract: The "sentimental" narrator of Hari Kunzru's Red Pill is starting to feel like a self-described "waster."1 Away on fellowship in Berlin at the interdisciplinary Deuter Center for Social and Cultural Research, our writer-in-residence narrator ingests the eponymous capsule and "wakes up" to the obsolescence of literary humanism, a historical "period that was drawing to a close" ( RP 46).2 Instead of using the time afforded by the fellowship to work on his grant winning project––notunironically titled "The Lyric I," and which aims to achieve poetic transcendence through a better understanding of "the construction of the self in lyric poetry" ( RP 15)––the narrator whiles away his days on violent police procedurals and social media doom-scrolling.3 "I was like a miser, fretting about his emotional hoard," he confesses: "I frequently found myself hunched over my laptop, my eyes welling with tears … If the world changed, would I be able to protect my family?" ( RP 6-7). Alternating between sentimental musings and apocalyptic fantasies, he slides into a "mad" state of internet-fueled paranoia and begins to see signs and symbols of "red pill" and Alt-Right ideology everywhere he looks ( RP 280). The "sleepy-eyed cartoon frog" on a stranger's tee shirt slyly signals right-wing in-group belonging, while the OK sign made by the right hand of Carl Spitzweg's "Poor Poet" is reinterpreted as an allusion to contemporary fascist iconography, a cryptic communication from the not-so distant past ( RP 27; 9-10).
Ways of Cybernetic Thinking
Authors: Pao Lea
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Cataloging cybernetic thinking shows how the space between what one might think of as "pure" cybernetic application and the study of cybernetics offers a useful path toward understanding how literary studies can engage with cybernetics as a philosophical and intellectual model. This vertical approach folds metadiscourses into more direct engagements with cybernetic ideas and problems and resists the drive for a conceptually and technically unified theory of cybernetic thinking in favor of a multidimensional approach to literary cybernetics. This essay outlines four ways of thinking that have shaped work in literary studies and cybernetics: 1) the analysis of the historical field of cybernetics, 2) transhistorical approaches to cybernetics, 3) the study of cybernetic concepts, methods, and vocabulary, and 4) a focus on epistemologies of failure.
Cyclic transmission window-based bandwidth allocation scheme for asynchronous time-sensitive industrial applications in TDM-PON
Authors: Su Chen , Zhang Jiawei , Ji Yuefeng
Published: September 2023

The industrial Internet has become an important application scenario for time-division multiplexing passive optical networks (TDM-PONs). Time-sensitive (TS) industrial applications, such as control-to-control communications, require a TDM-PON to have deterministic transmission capability. Traditional bandwidth allocation schemes are unable to fulfill this capability; thus we proposed a time-aware deterministic bandwidth allocation (TA-DetBA) scheme to guarantee deterministic delay and jitter in our previous work. TA-DetBA allocates appropriate transmission windows (TWs) to each TS industrial flow in a supercycle based on the flow’s arrival time, cycle, delay, and jitter requirements. However, “awaring” the arrival time of flow relies on precise time synchronization between the TDM-PON and industrial devices, which makes TA-DetBA unsuitable for those TS industrial applications that are asynchronous to the TDM-PON. In addition, the diversity of flow cycles may make the size of the supercycle and the number of allocated TWs large, thus increasing the complexity of the TW scheduling algorithm. To this end, we propose a cyclic TW-based deterministic bandwidth allocation (CTW-DetBA) scheme for asynchronous industrial applications. First, we design cyclic TWs with appropriate cycle and size for TS industrial flows, which not only improves the schedulability of TWs (i.e., the ratio of the number of successfully scheduled TWs to the total number of TWs) but also reduces the complexity of the algorithm. Then, we construct a TW scheduling model based on the satisfiability model theory to schedule the TWs in the PON upstream frame. Simulation results show that the CTW-DetBA guarantees the deterministic transmission of TS industrial flows that are asynchronous to the TDM-PON system. Compared with the fixed bandwidth allocation scheme, the average schedulability of the CTW-DetBA can be increased by up to 62.03%, and the average resource utilization efficiency can be increased by up to 20.4%.
High Color Conversion Efficiency Realized in Graphene-Connected Nanorod Micro-Light-Emitting Diodes with Hybrid Ag Nanoparticles and Quantum Dots Using Non-Radiative Energy Transfer and Localized Surface Plasmons
Authors: Fang Aoqi , Penghao Tang , Xie Yiyang , Guo Weiling , Du Zaifa , Mei Yu , Xu Hao , Sun Jie
Published: September 2023

As a medium for color conversion, quantum dots (QDs) can be employed in the display of full-color GaN-based Micro-Light-Emitting Diodes (µLEDs) arrays. Typically, in a system where QDs are excited by UV/blue µLEDs, QDs are coated onto the LED surface. However, due to inherent defects in QDs and significant energy loss associated with this method, the color conversion efficiency (CCE) is suboptimal. In this paper, we introduce an innovative approach where we etch a uniform nanorod (NR) array onto the surface of µLEDs. We then mix Ag nanoparticles (NPs) with QDs to fill the gaps between the nanorods. Simultaneously, we utilize the excellent conductivity, transparency, and high strength of graphene to create a transparent conductive electrode on the nanopillar surface. This electrode serves to connect individual nanorods and enhance current spreading. The nanorod array's structure significantly reduces the distance between the QDs and the quantum well (QW), reducing energy loss from the excitation light source through a non-radiative energy transfer (NRET) mechanism. Additionally, the Ag NPs function as local surface plasmons (LSPs) in luminescent systems, further enhancing the CCE of QDs via the NRET mechanism. In this study, we compare the effects of two types of Ag NPs with different absorption resonance peaks on device performance. Our results demonstrate that Ag NPs with absorption resonance peaks matching the emission wavelength of QDs play a more crucial role in the composite system. This configuration achieves a CCE of 77.78% for µLEDs with nanorod arrays, operating at a current of 10 mA. Compared to the conventional planar µLED structure with QDs spin-coated on the surface, our proposed method improves the CCE of µLEDs by an impressive 285%. This outcome underscores the significant contribution of the NR structure and LSPs in enhancing the CCE of QD- µLEDs.
Burnout and depression: A cross sectional study among health care workers providing HIV care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malawi
Authors: Phiri Khumbo , Songo John , Whitehead Hannah , Chikuse Elijah , Moucheraud Corrina , Dovel Kathryn , Phiri Sam , Hoffman Risa M. , van Oosterhout Joep J.
Published: September 2023

Health care workers (HCWs) in eastern Africa experience high levels of burnout and depression, and this may be exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic due to anxiety and increased work pressure. We assessed the prevalence of burnout, depression and associated factors among Malawian HCWs who provided HIV care during the COVID-19 pandemic. From April-May 2021, between the second and third COVID-19 waves in Malawi, we randomly selected HCWs from 32 purposively selected PEPFAR/USAID-supported health facilities for a cross-sectional survey. We screened for depression using the World Health Organization Self Report Questionnaire (positive screen: score≥8) and for burnout using the Maslach Burnout Inventory tool, (positive screen: moderate-high Emotional Exhaustion and/or moderate-high Depersonalization, and/or low-moderate Personal Accomplishment scores). Logistic regression models were used to evaluate factors associated with depression and burnout. We enrolled 435 HCWs, median age 32 years (IQR 28–38), 54% male, 34% were clinical cadres and 66% lay cadres. Of those surveyed, 28% screened positive for depression, 29% for burnout and 13% for both. In analyses that controlled for age, district, and residence (rural/urban), we found that screening positive for depression was associated with expecting to be infected with COVID-19 in the next 12 months (aOR 2.7, 95%CI 1.3–5.5), and previously having a COVID-19 infection (aOR 2.58, 95CI 1.4–5.0). Screening positive for burnout was associated with being in the clinical cadre (aOR 1.86; 95% CI: 1.2–3.0) and having a positive depression screen (aOR 3.2; 95% CI: 1.9–5.4). Reports of symptoms consistent with burnout and depression were common among Malawian HCWs providing HIV care but prevalence was not higher than in surveys before the COVID-19 pandemic. Regular screening for burnout and depression should be encouraged, given the potential for adverse HCW health outcomes and reduced work performance. Feasible interventions for burnout and depression among HCWs in our setting need to be introduced urgently.