bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
‘Attentive Mindes and Serious Wits’
Authors: McBain James
Published: August 2017

This chapter considers early indigenous drama at the Inns of Court alongside evidence of legal education. Whilst the availability of rhetorical training has divided scholars, contemporaneous reports express a desire for humanist reform. At a time when the majority of members of Inns had not previously attended one of the universities, an overwhelming number of those involved in writing plays had university experience and thereby imported their knowledge. The Inns should therefore not be seen as intellectually isolated, by either literary or legal historians, precisely because direct links between training at the Inns and dramatic composition are difficult to trace.
The Emblem Book and Common Law
Authors: Goodrich Peter
Published: August 2017

The most obvious and yet often unrecognized quality of law is that it is spectacular. Common law is not distinct in its classical architectural heritage, its costumes and wigs, its portraiture and libraries, its theatrical and visual forms. There is, as Selden puts it, a face and frame of government which is a borrowed continental form, a mode of reception of Roman law that is ironically hidden in plain sight. This chapter picks up that theme and uses the reception and influence of the legal emblem book to argue that the most expansive importation and jurisdiction of Roman law within the Anglican tradition takes the form of the emblematic representations of law, norm, and justice.
W(h)ither Arabian Peninsula Studies?
Authors: Bsheer Rosie
Published: August 2017

The Arabian Peninsula has played a central role in modern history. It is the birthplace of Islam and where Mecca, the destination of the annual Muslim pilgrimage, is located. It holds the world’s largest petroleum reserves and has been central to the global flow of economic, political, intellectual, and cultural networks since the early twentieth century. Yet these realities are not reflected in the scholarship on the Middle East. If anything, the latter largely approaches the peninsula as a backwater of politics, culture, and civilization. This chapter interrogates the politics of knowledge production on the peninsula, especially as they intersect with questions of power, culture, and imperialism. Addressing some of the critical scholarship in Arabian Peninsula studies, it moves on to a discussion of the politics of history-making in Saudi Arabia before concluding with a brief note on the role of Yemen therein.
Autobiographical Writings
Authors: Hodgkin Kate
Published: August 2017

Emerging out of the traditions of exemplary lives and self-analysis at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the genre of spiritual autobiography writing is fluid and unstable both textually and generically. The individualism that has often been taken to define the autobiographical project is problematized in these accounts, which tend to foreground self-transcendence over self-assertion, collective over individual identities, and exemplarity over uniqueness. The spiritual framework provides a language of self-narrative and self-analysis, structured around affliction and redemption, and privileging inward over outward experiences. As a mode which insists on the truth of experience, it allows marginal selves (including women and lower-class men) a public voice, above all in the gathered churches of the revolutionary decades and after, while also containing those voices within tight conventions. The simultaneous restrictions and liberations of these various frames offer important perspectives on debates about the early modern self.
‘What England Has to Offer’
Authors: Hiscock Andrew
Published: August 2017

This chapter focuses upon the generation of British and visiting European humanists in Henry VIII’s England who committed themselves to the culture of worship within the Catholic Church while often remaining alert to its ethical and social shortcomings. Figures such as More, Erasmus, Vives, and Colet form the centre of this discussion and emphasis is given to the ways in which these humanist scholars sought to take their programme of spiritual and intellectual renewal (recovering works of Scripture and Greco-Latin literature) to a new generation of European readers. Discussion in this chapter also pays attention to the ways in which these scholars sought to forge or distance themselves from affairs of state in the early decades of the sixteenth century. Most particularly, Catholic humanist responses to the warring of faith communities during the Reformation are analysed, taking into account the volatile political environment of the Tudor realm and its inhabitants.
The Pre-Reformation Landscape
Authors: Kelly Stephen
Published: August 2017

This chapter surveys the rich and vibrant devotional culture of late medieval England, expressed in liturgy and collective religious practices, and in the development of a wide-ranging lay literature of spiritual and theological ambition, from writers such as Walter Hilton, Nicholas Love to energetic promoters of orthodox theology such as Margaret Beaufort. While acknowledging the emergence of Wycliffism, the heresy associated with Oxford theologian John Wyclif, the chapter argues that Wycliffism and its perceived off-shoot, ‘Lollardy’, should be read as part of a spectrum of reformist thinking that characterized the late medieval Church’s conception of its evangelical mission. The chapter problematizes notions of medieval religious culture as either atrophied or homogeneous, arguing instead that the variety and vitality of medieval English religious culture should complicate any quest for origins in accounts of the English Reformation.
Exiles at Home
Authors: Searle Alison
Published: August 2017

The radical and repeated changes in state religion, accompanied by persecution of any who openly dissented from the status quo, meant that there were numerous groups who found themselves in exile at home in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This chapter focuses on the experience of Protestant Nonconformists in the later seventeenth century. It examines the ways in which Nonconformist communities interpreted their experiences, interrogating and recording these in a variety of literary genres. The concept of exile at home is analysed through five discrete and interconnected categories: imprisonment; legal disputation in the courts; corporate worship; itinerant preaching; and letter writing. Each section draws upon a number of case studies that illustrate the wide range of spiritual experiences and theological convictions in Nonconformist communities and how these were encapsulated, transformed, and disputed in journals, letters, sermons, and biographies, amongst other literary genres.
Quakers
Authors: Gill Catie
Published: August 2017

Quakers were pamphleteers: their texts were contemporary, purposive works that engaged the readership in prescient matters of religio-political polemic. This chapter traces how the movement kept pace with change through its pamphleteering, and how it sought to develop the public’s understanding of the new faith. In the process, Quakers fashioned themselves as one of the most prolific and effective religious organizations of the seventeenth century, not only for the quantity, but for the range of subjects being addressed in their works. The period covered by this chapter, 1650–1700, saw Quakerism emerge and Quakers defend, and establish their faith despite local and national crises. Quakers wrote of their religion in modes that mirrored these developments, especially when deploying genres that encapsulated their experiences as preachers, prophets, prisoners, and when speaking of the day-to-day existence of the faithful. Hence, this chapter explores how their output grew with the movement.
The Henrician Reform
Authors: Bagchi David
Published: August 2017

The reign of Henry VIII represented a transitional phase in the religious history of England. Despite a brief flirtation with Protestantism in the 1530s, the regime never adopted a full-throated Reformation, and by the end of the reign English Christians were still required to accept nearly all the doctrines and customs that had prevailed in 1509. On the other hand, the break with Rome, the effective rejection of the doctrine of Purgatory, and the severe pruning of the cult of the saints represented a clear discontinuity with the past. Above all, the regime’s decision to legalize the English Bible for the first time in 130 years, and to require every parish church to obtain a copy, influenced the direction of English Christianity, and of English literature, for decades to come.
Body and Soul
Authors: Ezell Margaret
Published: August 2017

During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the soul, its nature, and its relationship with the body became focal points for religious, medical, political, and ethical debates, and the choice of vocabulary itself had profound implications in how human and divine nature were represented in early modern English writings. The perceived complexities of the relationship between the body and the soul as delineated in competing schools of classical philosophy provided English writers a fertile ground for analysing the human experience in general and the nature of individual identity. Debates over what happens to the body and the soul at death and at resurrection permeate the writings of the period. During the English Civil War years they were markers of both political and religious affiliations, and this chapter demonstrates how the medical turn in the late seventeenth century focused increasing attention on the separation of soul and mind.
Authority, Religion, and the State
Authors: Rosendale Timothy
Published: August 2017

This chapter discusses the deeply fraught issue of authority, and particularly the difficult relations between its secular and religious forms. From the New Testament to Augustine, through the Middle Ages, and well into the Reformation and early modern era, political and transcendent structures of authority are both problematic in themselves and contentiously at odds with each other. The Reformation was a watershed event in these struggles, as it helped to cement the worldly ascendancy of sociopolitical authority over that of the Church—but it also initiated an even deeper and more consequential tension of authority by relocating spiritual (and to a lesser degree political) authority from the institutional Church to the individual believer, thus setting up the basic terms for the subsequent development of modern liberal democracy.
The Art and Craft of Dying
Authors: Carlson Peter
Published: August 2017

Scholars have attempted to explain how (or whether) the theological changes of the sixteenth century affected English women and men of all classes and types. Scholars who have written on death during the Protestant reforms have identified shifts in and anxieties regarding rituals and beliefs about death and the dead in early modern England. This chapter suggests that those shifts were actually related to something deeper than a single doctrinal or political stand. Anxiety arose not merely from the uncertainty of salvation in Calvin’s doctrine of predestination, nor the waverings of Henrician laws, nor even the significant trauma of swinging back and forth from Rome to Canterbury to Rome to Canterbury throughout the Tudor dynasty. The uncertainty surrounding death in the early modern period was something much more basic than a particular soteriological doctrine or set of religious laws: it was the uncertainty of authority itself.
Sin, Judgement, and Eternity
Authors: Stanwood P.G.
Published: August 2017

This chapter presents an overview of early modern literary texts that address sin, when sin is understood as contempt levelled against the established order of the Church and public life. That salvation from sin might be achieved through individual effort, not exclusively through Divine grace, was a belief promoted by many sectarians but condemned by ecclesiastical and political authority, which saw only heresy and disorder in such belief. Judgement is seen in terms of penitence and confession, and of last things and end times. Scriptural warnings of the last days urge all people to be ready for imminent judgement; for the time is near when the unfaithful and wicked fall calamitously, but the faithful and obedient celebrate joyously in the Divine redemption. Eternity is described through epic, lyric, and prose texts that connect this earthly life to heavenly immortality, or light informing darkness, or the image of an unbroken circle.
Prayer and Prophecy
Authors: Longfellow Erica
Published: August 2017

Christian prayer has always been fundamentally ineffable, but in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was also thoroughly re-imagined in ways that fostered creative anxiety as well as creative opportunity. The early English reformers had to invent new systems of prayer to replace the Mass and the liturgy of the hours, and had to supplement and adapt the many forms of late medieval personal piety. Basic questions about the words, gestures, place and time of prayer, and the status of prophecy were the subject of intense and fruitful debate, the inspiration for inventive responses in literature, and the source of national and international conflict. This chapter first discusses Protestant definitions of prayer, and then outlines, in brief, the changing modes of public worship, personal prayer and prophecy, focusing on how these dramatic changes spurred poets, prophets, and ordinary people at prayer to invent new forms of religious writing.
Religion and the Government of the Later Stuarts
Authors: Tapsell Grant
Published: August 2017

This chapter emphasizes the centrality of religious debates and disagreements to the conduct of government under the later Stuarts. The consequences of a narrowly intolerant Church ‘settlement’ in 1662 interacted with the longer-term complexities of the post-Reformation English church-state to ensure considerable instability in public life. After a summary discussion of modern historiography, the chapter turns to examine conflicting ideas of toleration and uniformity in the Restoration period. Attention then shifts to the structures of political life: Royal Supremacy, Parliamentary affairs, the institutional Church, and successive governing ministries. Finally, the chapter examines the central role religion played within the information culture of later seventeenth-century England, especially printed literature. Attention is drawn to the ways in which different religious perspectives powerfully inflected discussions of good government.
Branding Ailey
Authors: Broomfield Mark
Published: August 2017

Through an ethnographic account of Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation (AADF), this article examines the tensions between the production and the liberation of the queer black male dancing body. Drawing from fieldwork conducted at the AADF during the summers of 2005, 2006, and 2008, it exposes the politics between on- and offstage performances of masculinity in two sites; the studio and the 2009 Ailey Gala. Within this context, space becomes an important framework for observing the internationally recognized branding of black male dancers for the AADF. Organizational culture, gender norms, and the policing of masculinity reveal strategies of the AADF in which traditional signifiers of (heterosexual) masculinity are emphasized, praised, and rewarded. Straying from this script not only risks suspicion and rejection within the presumed queer space of dance, but also reveals the narrow definitions of gender performance and expression allowed for black male dancers in the twenty-first century.
Long noncoding RNA MRAK009713 is a novel regulator of neuropathic pain in rats
Authors: Li Guilin , Jiang Huaide , Zheng Chaoran , Zhu Gaochun , Xu Yurong , Sheng Xuan , Wu Bing , Guo Jingjing , Zhu Shuanghua , Zhan Yuting , Lin Weijian , Ding Rui , Zhang Chunping , Liu Shuangmei , Zou Lifang , Yi Zhihua , Liang Shangdong
Published: August 2017

Long noncoding RNAs have been implicated in neuropathy. Here, we identify and validate a long noncoding RNA, MRAK009713, as the primary regulator of neuropathic pain in chronic constriction injury (CCI) rats. MRAK009713 expression was markedly increased in CCI rats associated with enhanced pain behaviors, and small interfering RNA against MRAK009713 significantly reduced both mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia in the CCI rats. MRAK009713 is predicted to interact with the nociceptive P2X3 receptor by CatRAPID, a bioinformatics technology. Overexpression of MRAK009713 markedly increased expression of P2X3 in the dorsal root ganglia of the control rats, and MRAK009713 small interfering RNA significantly inhibited the P2X3 expression in the dorsal root ganglia of the CCI rats. MRAK009713 directly interacted with the P2X3 protein heterologously expressed in the human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells and potentiated P2X3 receptor function. Thus, MRAK009713 is a novel positive regulator of neuropathic pain in rats through regulating the expression and function of the P2X3 receptor.
The complete structure of the small subunit processome
Authors: Barandun Jonas , Chaker-Margot Malik , Hunziker Mirjam , Molloy Kelly R. , Chait Brian T. , Klinge Sebastian
Published: August 2017

The small subunit processome represents the earliest stable precursor of the eukaryotic small ribosomal subunit. Here we present the cryo-EM structure of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae small subunit processome at an overall resolution of 3.8 Å, which provides an essentially complete atomic model of this assembly. In this nucleolar superstructure, 51 ribosome assembly factors and two RNAs encapsulate the 18S rRNA precursor and 15 ribosomal proteins in a state that precedes pre-rRNA cleavage at site A1. Extended flexible proteins are employed to connect distant sites in this particle. Molecular mimicry, steric hindrance as well as protein-and RNA-mediated RNA remodeling are used in a concerted fashion to prevent the premature formation of the central pseudoknot and its surrounding elements within the small ribosomal subunit.
Mobility can promote the evolution of cooperation via emergent self-assortment dynamics
Authors: Joshi Jaideep , Couzin Iain D , Levin Simon A , Guttal Vishwesha
Published: August 2017

The evolution of costly cooperation, where cooperators pay a personal cost to benefit others, requires that cooperators interact more frequently with other cooperators. This condition, called positive assortment, is known to occur in spatially-structured viscous populations, where individuals typically have low mobility and limited dispersal. However many social organisms across taxa, from cells and bacteria, to birds, fish and ungulates, are mobile, and live in populations with considerable inter-group mixing. In the absence of information regarding others’ traits or conditional strategies, such mixing may inhibit assortment and limit the potential for cooperation to evolve. Here we employ spatially-explicit individual-based evolutionary simulations to incorporate costs and benefits of two coevolving costly traits: cooperative and local cohesive tendencies. We demonstrate that, despite possessing no information about others’ traits or payoffs, mobility (via self-propulsion or environmental forcing) facilitates assortment of cooperators via a dynamically evolving difference in the cohesive tendencies of cooperators and defectors. We show analytically that this assortment can also be viewed in a multilevel selection framework, where selection for cooperation among emergent groups can overcome selection against cooperators within the groups. As a result of these dynamics, we find an oscillatory pattern of cooperation and defection that maintains cooperation even in the absence of well known mechanisms such as kin interactions, reciprocity, local dispersal or conditional strategies that require information on others’ strategies or payoffs. Our results offer insights into differential adhesion based mechanisms for positive assortment and reveal the possibility of cooperative aggregations in dynamic fission-fusion populations.

Author Summary

Cooperation among animals is ubiquitous. In a cooperative interaction, the cooperator confers a benefit to its partner at a personal cost. How does natural selection favour such a costly behaviour? Classical theories argue that cooperative interactions among genetic relatives, reciprocal cooperators, or among individuals within groups in viscous population structures are necessary to maintain cooperation. However, many organisms are mobile, and live in dynamic (fission-fusion) groups that constantly merge and split. In such populations, the above mechanisms may be inadequate to explain cooperation. Here, we develop a minimal model that explicitly accounts for mobility and cohesion among organisms. We find that mobility can support cooperation via emergent dynamic groups, even in the absence of previously known mechanisms. Our results may offer insights into the evolution of cooperation in animals that live in fission fusion groups, such as birds, fish or mammals, or microbes living in turbulent media, such as in oceans or in the bloodstreams of animal hosts.
Hybrid approach for parameter estimation in agent-based models
Authors: Gallaher Jill A. , Hawkins-Daarud Andrea , Massey Susan C. , Swanson Kristin R. , Anderson Alexander R.A.
Published: August 2017

Agent-based models are valuable in cancer research to show how different behaviors emerge from individual interactions between cells and their environment. However, calibrating such models can be difficult, especially if the parameters that govern the underlying interactions are hard to measure experimentally. Herein, we detail a new method to converge on parameter sets that fit an agent-based model to multiscale data using a model of glioblastoma as an example.
Post-transcriptionally impairedde novomutations contribute to the genetic etiology of four neuropsychiatric disorders
Authors: Mao Fengbiao , Wang Lu , Zhao Xiaolu , Li Zhongshan , Xiao Luoyuan , Rao Rajesh C. , Li Jinchen , Teng Huajing , He Xin , Sun Zhong Sheng
Published: August 2017

While deleteriousde novomutations (DNMs) in coding region conferring risk in neuropsychiatric disorders have been revealed by next-generation sequencing, the role of DNMs involved in post-transcriptional regulation in pathogenesis of these disorders remains to be elucidated. Here, we identified 1,736 post-transcriptionally impaired DNMs (piDNMs), and prioritized 1,482 candidate genes in four neuropsychiatric disorders from 7,748 families. Our results revealed higher prevalence of piDNMs in the probands than in controls (P= 8.19×10−17), and piDNM-harboring genes were enriched for epigenetic modifications and neuronal or synaptic functions. Moreover, we identified 86 piDNM-containing genes forming convergent co-expression modules and intensive protein-protein interactions in at least two neuropsychiatric disorders. These cross-disorder genes carrying piDNMs could form interaction network centered on RNA binding proteins, suggesting a shared post-transcriptional etiology underlying these disorders. Our findings illustrate the significant contribution of piDNMs to four neuropsychiatric disorders, and lay emphasis on combining functional and network-based evidences to identify regulatory causes of genetic disorders.
Light modulates oscillatory alpha activity in the occipital cortex of totally visually blind individuals with intact non-visual photoreception
Authors: Vandewalle Gilles , van Ackeren Markus J. , Daneault Véronique , Hull Joseph T. , Albouy Geneviève , Lepore Franco , Doyon Julien , Czeisler Charles A. , Dumont Marie , Carrier Julie , Lockley Steven W. , Collignon Olivier
Published: August 2017

The discovery of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) marked a major shift in our understanding of how light is processed by the mammalian brain. These ipRGCs influence multiple functions not directly related to vision such as the synchronization of circadian rhythmicity, pupil constriction, the regulation of alertness and sleep, as well as the modulation of cognition. More recently, it was demonstrated that ipRGCs may also contribute to basic visual functions. The impact of ipRGCs on visual functions, independently of image forming photoreceptors, remains however difficult to isolate, particularly in humans. We previously showed that exposure to intense monochromatic blue light (465nm) induced awareness of light in a forced choice task in three rare totally visually blind individuals without detectable rod and cone function, but who retained non-visual responses to light, very likely via ipRGCs. The neural foundation of such light awareness in the absence of conscious vision is unknown, however. In this study, we characterized the brain activity of these three rare participants using electroencephalography (EEG), and demonstrate that unconsciously perceived light triggers an early and reliable transient desynchronization (i.e. decreased power) of the alpha EEG rhythm (8-14 Hz) over the occipital cortex. These results provide compelling insight into how ipRGC may contribute to transient changes in ongoing brain activity. They suggest that occipital alpha rhythm synchrony, which is typically linked to the visual system, is modulated by ipRGCs photoreception; a process that may contribute to the awareness of light in those blind individuals.
HicAB toxin–antitoxin complex fromEscherichia coli: expression and crystallization
Authors: Yang Jingsi , Xu Bingshuang , Gao Zengqiang , Zhou Ke , Liu Peng , Dong Yuhui , Zhang Jianjun , Liu Quansheng
Published: August 2017

Toxin–antitoxin (TA) systems are widespread in both bacteria and archaea, where they enable cells to adapt to environmental cues. TA systems play crucial roles in various cellular processes, such as programmed cell death, cell growth, persistence and virulence. Here, two distinct forms of the type II toxin–antitoxin complex HicAB were identified and characterized inEscherichia coliK-12, and both were successfully overexpressed and purified. The two proposed forms, HicABLand HicABS, differed in the presence or absence of a seven-amino-acid segment at the N-terminus in the antitoxin HicB. The short form HicABSreadily crystallized under the conditions 0.1 MTris–HCl pH 8.0, 20%(w/v) PEG 6000, 0.2 Mammonium sulfate. The HicABScrystal diffracted and data were collected to 2.5 Å resolution. The crystal belonged to space groupI222 orI212121, with unit-cell parametersa= 67.04,b= 66.31,c= 120.78 Å. Matthews coefficient calculation suggested the presence of two molecules each of HicA and HicBSin the asymmetric unit, with a solvent content of 55.28% and a Matthews coefficient (VM) of 2.75 Å3 Da−1.
Performance comparison of fiber sheet strengthened RC beams bonded with geopolymer and epoxy resin under ambient and fire conditions
Authors: Zhang Hai Yan , Lv Hao Ran , Kodur Venkatesh , Qi Shu Liang
Published: August 2017

Purpose

This paper aims to present performance comparison of fiber sheet-strengthened reinforced concrete (RC) beams bonded with geopolymer and epoxy resin under ambient and fire conditions.

Design/methodology/approach

This study presents experimental results of bending tests at ambient temperature and fire resistance tests on two control beams and eight fiber sheet-strengthened RC beams. The test variables include fiber sheet type (carbon fiber [CF] and basalt fiber [BF] sheet), number of layers of fiber sheet (one and two layers) and adhesive agent type (geopolymers and epoxy resin). Data generated from these tests were used to evaluate and compare the strengthening effectiveness of CF-reinforced polymer (CFRP) and CF-reinforced geopolymer (CFRG) at ambient temperature and under fire exposure conditions.

Findings

Test results clearly show that the CFRG system can provide good strengthening effectiveness on RC beams at ambient temperature, as the CFRP system, owing to excellent bond properties of geopolymers. Although geopolymers possess better bonding properties at high temperature than organic matrix, the strengthened beams bonded with geopolymer do not exhibit better fire resistance than that those bonded with epoxy resin, owing to early falling-off of fire insulation. Thus, in CFRG-strengthened beams, relevant measures are to be taken to minimize falling-off of fire insulation to achieve good fire resistance.

Originality/value

The presented results are from unique fire tests and provide valuable insight (and information) on the performance of fiber sheet-strengthened RC beams bonded with geopolymer and epoxy resin under ambient and fire conditions.
Early Impact on Outpatients of Mandatory Adoption of the Diagnosis‐Related Group‐Based Reimbursement System in Korea on Use of Outpatient Care: Differences in Medical Utilization and Presurgery Examination
Authors: Kim Seung Ju , Han Kyu‐Tae , Kim Woorim , Kim Sun Jung , Park Eun‐Cheol
Published: August 2017

Objective

To explore the impact of mandatory adoption of diagnosis‐related groups (DRGs) on the use of outpatient care in Korea.

Data Sources

National Health Claim data from 2,022 hospitals and 1,029,101 admission cases during 2011–2014: tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy, inguinal/femoral hernia operation, and hemorrhoidectomy.

Study Design

Outcome variables included probability of outpatient visit, number of outpatient visits, and outpatient medical expenditures within 30 days. Presurgery examination before hospitalization for surgery, including basic and other examination, was conducted to evaluate a possible shift in health care service. A difference‐in‐difference research design was used to evaluate the impact of the DRG system on the use of outpatient care.

Principal Findings

Before the introduction of the DRG system, 384,609 (91.1 percent) participants used an outpatient clinic either before or after hospitalization. In our study, the number of outpatient visits and outpatient medical expenditures within 30 days increased after mandatory adoption of the DRG system. After adoption of the DRG system, volume and costs for presurgery examinations increased before hospitalization.

Conclusion

We observed a spillover effect after mandatory adoption of the DRG system. A future payment system should be designed for spillover effects, and the introduction of a new payment system that expands the DRG‐based reimbursement system should be considered.
Bioprocess scale‐up/down as integrative enabling technology: from fluid mechanics to systems biology and beyond
Authors: Delvigne Frank , Takors Ralf , Mudde Rob , van Gulik Walter , Noorman Henk
Published: August 2017

Efficient optimization of microbial processes is a critical issue for achieving a number of sustainable development goals, considering the impact of microbial biotechnology in agrofood, environment, biopharmaceutical and chemical industries. Many of these applications require scale‐up after proof of concept. However, the behaviour of microbial systems remains unpredictable (at least partially) when shifting from laboratory‐scale to industrial conditions. The need for robust microbial systems is thus highly needed in this context, as well as a better understanding of the interactions between fluid mechanics and cell physiology. For that purpose, a full scale‐up/down computational framework is already available. This framework links computational fluid dynamics (CFD), metabolic flux analysis and agent‐based modelling (ABM) for a better understanding of the cell lifelines in a heterogeneous environment. Ultimately, this framework can be used for the design of scale‐down simulators and/or metabolically engineered cells able to cope with environmental fluctuations typically found in large‐scale bioreactors. However, this framework still needs some refinements, such as a better integration of gas–liquid flows in CFD, and taking into account intrinsic biological noise in ABM.
Evolved α‐factor prepro‐leaders for directed laccase evolution in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Authors: Mateljak Ivan , Tron Thierry , Alcalde Miguel
Published: August 2017

Although the functional expression of fungal laccases in Saccharomyces cerevisiae has proven to be complicated, the replacement of signal peptides appears to be a suitable approach to enhance secretion in directed evolution experiments. In this study, twelve constructs were prepared by fusing native and evolved α‐factor prepro‐leaders from S. cerevisiae to four different laccases with low‐, medium‐ and high‐redox potential (PM1L from basidiomycete PM1; PcL from Pycnoporus cinnabarinus; TspC30L from Trametes sp. strain C30; and MtL from Myceliophthora thermophila). Microcultures of the prepro‐leader:laccase fusions were grown in selective expression medium that used galactose as both the sole carbon source and as the inducer of expression so that the secretion and activity were assessed with low‐ and high‐redox potential mediators in a high‐throughput screening context. With total activity improvements as high as sevenfold over those obtained with the native α‐factor prepro‐leader, the evolved prepro‐leader from PcL (αPcL) most strongly enhanced secretion of the high‐ and medium‐redox potential laccases PcL, PM1L and TspC30L in the microtiter format with an expression pattern driven by prepro‐leaders in the order αPcL > αPM1L ~ αnative. By contrast, the pattern of the low‐redox potential MtL was αnative > αPcL > αPM1L. When produced in flask with rich medium, the evolved prepro‐leaders outperformed the αnative signal peptide irrespective of the laccase attached, enhancing secretion over 50‐fold. Together, these results highlight the importance of using evolved α‐factor prepro‐leaders for functional expression of fungal laccases in directed evolution campaigns.
NMπ—improved re‐implementation of NM+, a software for estimating gene dispersal and mating patterns
Authors: Chybicki Igor J.
Published: August 2017

This study introduces the NMπ computer program designed for estimation of plant mating system and seed and pollen dispersal kernels. NMπ is a re‐implementation of the NM+ program and provides new features such as support for multicore processors, explicit treatment of dioecy, the possibility of incorporating uniparentally cytoplasmic markers, the possibility of assessing assortative mating due to phenotypic similarity and inference about offspring genealogies. The probability model of parentage (the neighbourhood model) accounts for missing data and genotyping errors, which can be estimated along with regular parameters of the mating system. The program has virtually no restrictions with respect to a number of individuals, markers or phenotypic characters. A console version of NMπ can be run under a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows, Linux or Mac OS. For Windows users, a graphical user interface is provided to facilitate operating the software. The program, user manual and example data are available on http://www.ukw.edu.pl/pracownicy/plik/igor_chybicki/3694/.
Microbe‐mediated control of Aspergillus flavus in stored rice grains with a focus on aflatoxin inhibition and biodegradation
Authors: Mannaa M. , Oh J.Y. , Kim K.D.
Published: August 2017

Biological control of mycotoxigenic fungi using antagonistic microbes is a promising alternative to agricultural chemicals for postharvest storage. In this study, we evaluated rice‐derived bacterial strains to identify biocontrol agents to inhibit Aspergillus flavus in stored rice grains. Consequently, we obtained three potential biocontrol strains (Microbacterium testaceum KU313, Bacillus megaterium KU143 and Pseudomonas protegens AS15) from 26 tested strains that were prescreened from the 460 strains isolated from rice grains. The three selected strains proved to be effective biocontrol agents showing antifungal activity against A. flavus and good colonisation ability on rice grains, along with inhibition of the fungal growth and aflatoxin production. In particular, P. protegens AS15 greatly inhibited the aflatoxins produced by A. flavus on rice grains to 8.68 (percent aflatoxin reduction relative to control = 82.9%) and 18.05 (68.3 %) ng g−1 dry weight of rice grains, compared with the 50.89 and 56.97 ng g−1 dry weight of rice grains of the MgSO4 control at 1 and 2 weeks after inoculation, respectively. In addition, strain AS15 had a significant ability to not only degrade aflatoxin B1 (the most harmful aflatoxin), but also utilise the toxin for bacterial growth in a nutrient‐deficient medium. Therefore, the selected bacterial strains could be environmentally sound alternatives for the management of A. flavus and aflatoxin production by reducing the fungal damage to stored rice grains. This would also reduce the human and animal health hazards associated with the consumption of fungus‐contaminated rice grains. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the potential of the bacterial species M. testaceum and P. protegens as biocontrol agents for controlling aflatoxigenic A. flavus on stored rice grains.
Load‐dependence of myocardial deformation variables – a clinical strain‐echocardiographic study
Authors: Fredholm M. , Jörgensen K. , Houltz E. , Ricksten S.‐E.
Published: August 2017

Background

The effects of left ventricular (LV) loading on myocardial deformation variables are not well‐studied in the clinical setting. In the present study, we evaluated the effects of isolated changes in preload, afterload and heart rate on LV longitudinal strain, systolic (SR‐S) and early diastolic strain rate (SR‐E) in post‐cardiac surgery patients.

Methods

Twenty‐one patients were studied early after cardiac surgery. Longitudinal myocardial strain and SR were analysed off‐line using 2‐D speckle echocardiography. The experimental protocol consisted of three consecutive interventions: (1) preload was increased by passive leg elevation, (2) afterload was increased by an infusion of phenylephrine to increase arterial blood pressure by 10–15% and (3) heart rate was increased 10% and 20% by atrial pacing. During both the preload and afterload challenges heart rate was kept constant by atrial pacing. Central venous pressure was kept constant during pacing by infusion of hetastarch/albumin.

Results

The increase in preload increased LV strain, SR‐S and SR‐E by 20%, 11% and 17%, respectively. The phenylephrine‐induced increase in afterload, did not affect LV strain, SR‐S or SR‐E. LV strain was not affected while SR‐S and SR‐E increased by pacing‐induced heart rate increase.

Conclusion

After cardiac surgery, systolic and early diastolic strain rate are dependent on both preload and heart rate, while neither of these variables was afterload‐dependent. LV strain was preload‐dependent but not affected by atrial pacing. When evaluating the direct effects of various pharmacological or other interventions on myocardial contractility and relaxation, preload and heart rate must be controlled.
Using Bayes factors to evaluate evidence for no effect: examples from the SIPS project
Authors: Dienes Zoltan , Coulton Simon , Heather Nick
Published: August 2017

Aims

To illustrate how Bayes factors are important for determining the effectiveness of interventions.

Method

We consider a case where inappropriate conclusions were drawn publicly based on significance testing, namely the SIPS project (Screening and Intervention Programme for Sensible drinking), a pragmatic, cluster‐randomized controlled trial in each of two health‐care settings and in the criminal justice system. We show how Bayes factors can disambiguate the non‐significant findings from the SIPS project and thus determine whether the findings represent evidence of absence or absence of evidence. We show how to model the sort of effects that could be expected, and how to check the robustness of the Bayes factors.

Results

The findings from the three SIPS trials taken individually are largely uninformative but, when data from these trials are combined, there is moderate evidence for a null hypothesis (H0) and thus for a lack of effect of brief intervention compared with simple clinical feedback and an alcohol information leaflet (B = 0.24, P = 0.43).

Conclusion

Scientists who find non‐significant results should suspend judgement—unless they calculate a Bayes factor to indicate either that there is evidence for a null hypothesis (H0) over a (well‐justified) alternative hypothesis (H1), or that more data are needed.
Associations of parental alcohol use disorders and parental separation with offspring initiation of alcohol, cigarette and cannabis use and sexual debut in high‐risk families
Authors: McCutcheon Vivia V. , Agrawal Arpana , Kuo Sally I‐Chun , Su Jinni , Dick Danielle M. , Meyers Jacquelyn L. , Edenberg Howard J. , Nurnberger John I. , Kramer John R. , Kuperman Samuel , Schuckit Marc A. , Hesselbrock Victor M. , Brooks Andrew , Porjesz Bernice , Bucholz Kathleen K.
Published: August 2017

Background and Aims

Parental alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and parental separation are associated with increased risk for early use of alcohol in offspring, but whether they increase risks for early use of other substances and for early sexual debut is under‐studied. We focused on associations of parental AUDs and parental separation with substance initiation and sexual debut to (1) test the strength of the associations of parental AUDs and parental separation with time to initiation (age in years) of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis use and sexual debut and (2) compare the strength of association of parental AUD and parental separation with initiation.

Design

Prospective adolescent and young adult cohort of a high‐risk family study, the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA).

Setting

Six sites in the United States.

Participants

A total of 3257 offspring (aged 14–33 years) first assessed in 2004 and sought for interview approximately every 2 years thereafter; 1945 (59.7%) offspring had a parent with an AUD.

Measurements

Diagnostic interview data on offspring substance use and sexual debut were based on first report of these experiences. Parental life‐time AUD was based on their own self‐report when parents were interviewed (1991–2005) for most parents, or on offspring and other family member reports for parents who were not interviewed. Parental separation was based on offspring reports of not living with both biological parents most of the time between ages 12 and 17 years.

Findings

Parental AUDs were associated with increased hazards for all outcomes, with cumulative hazards ranging from 1.19 to 2.71. Parental separation was also an independent and consistent predictor of early substance use and sexual debut, with hazards ranging from 1.19 to 2.34. The strength of association of parental separation with substance initiation was equal to that of having two AUD‐affected parents, and its association with sexual debut was stronger than the association of parental AUD in one or both parents.

Conclusions

Parental alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and parental separation are independent and consistent predictors of increased risk for early alcohol, tobacco and cannabis use and sexual debut in offspring from families with a high risk of parental AUDs.
Keeping in time: Issues affecting the sustainability of obstetric emergency simulation training in outer metropolitan, rural and remote centres in Western Australia
Authors: Whitelaw Claire , Calvert Katrina , Epee Mathias
Published: August 2017

Background

Obstetric emergency simulation training is an evidence‐based intervention for the reduction of perinatal and maternal morbidity. In Western Australia, obstetric emergency training has been run using the In Time course since 2006.

Aims

The study aimed to determine if the provision of In Time train the trainer courses to outer metro, rural and remote units in Western Australia had led to sustained ongoing training in those units. Ten years following the introduction of the course, we performed a survey to examine which units are continuing to run In Time, what are the perceived benefits in units still utilising In Time, and what were the barriers to training in units that had discontinued.

Materials and methods

A link to an online survey was sent to the units where In Time training had occurred. Telephone enquiries were additionally used to ensure a good response rate.

Results

The survey response rate was 100%. Six of the 11 units where training had been provided continue to run In Time. Units where training had discontinued had done so in order to take up alternatives, or as a result of trainers leaving. Of the units who had discontinued training, one wished to recommence In Time.

Conclusions

Local in situ training in obstetric emergencies as exemplified by the In Time course remains a popular and valued training intervention across Western Australia. This training may be of particular benefit to small and remote units, but these are the areas in which training is hardest to sustain.
Homework: Toward a critical ethnography of the university
Authors: GUSTERSON HUGH
Published: August 2017

Anthropologists have not systematically studied universities, and ethnographies of the university focus too much on student life. The literature on the Cold War university, broadly concerned with the relationship between power and knowledge, could serve as a model for a critical anthropology of the neoliberal university. Such an anthropology would investigate various important issues—including the changing character of public and private universities, the rise of casual labor and corporate employment practices on campus, the student‐debt crisis, the university's role in increasing socioeconomic inequality and class immobility, and the relationship that such disciplines as economics and political science maintain with the state and capital. [university, neoliberalism, Cold War, class, debt, adjunct, United States]

Los antropólogos no han estudiado la universidad sistemáticamente, y las etnografías de la universidad se enfocan demasiado en la vida estudiantil. La literatura sobre la universidad durante la Guerra Fría, generalmente centrada en la relación entre el poder y el conocimiento, puede servir de modelo para una antropología crítica de la universidad neoliberal. Tal antropología investigaría diferentes temas importantes —incluyendo la transformación de las universidades públicas y privadas, el aumento del trabajo temporal y de las prácticas corporativas de empleo en el campus universitario, la crisis de endeudamiento estudiantil, el rol de la universidad en el agravamiento de la desigualdad social y económica y la relación que mantienen disciplinas como la economía y la ciencia política con el estado y el capital—. [universidad, neoliberalismo, Guerra Fría, clase, deuda, profesores adjuntos, Estados Unidos]
An offer of pleasure: Islam, poetry, and the ethics of religious difference in a Kurdish home
Authors: BUSH J. ANDREW
Published: August 2017

Recent conflicts between Islamist and secularist parties in Iraqi Kurdistan have politicized pious and nonpious orientations to Islamic traditions. In public debate and domestic relations, tensions pervade relations between Muslims who pursue piety and those who do not. Yet affects of pleasure and joy also play a key role in the ethics of domestic relations. Evidence from the life of a Kurdish man and his family demonstrates that their orientation to Islam is inseparable from their orientation to one another. It also shows that affective pleasures linking the poetic imagination to household life are central to the ethical task of sustaining intimate relations. Within the household, Muslims with different orientations to Islam accept and accommodate one another through an “ethos of reception.” [poetry,pluralism,ethics,kinship,Sufism,Islam,Iraqi Kurdistan]