bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Patient-led Remote IntraCapillary pharmacoKinetic Sampling (fingerPRICKS) for Therapeutic Drug Monitoring in patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Authors: Chee Desmond , Nice Rachel , Hamilton Ben , Jones Edward , Hawkins Sarah , Redstone Clare , Cairnes Vida , Pohl Keith , Chanchlani Neil , Lin Simeng , Kennedy Nicholas A , Ahmad Tariq , Goodhand James R , McDonald Timothy J
Published: July 2021

Background and Aims

Because of COVID-19 public health restrictions, telemedicine has replaced conventional outpatient follow up for most patients with chronic immune-mediated inflammatory disorders treated with biologic drugs. Innovative solutions to facilitate remote therapeutic drug monitoring are therefore required. Low-volume intracapillary blood sampling can be undertaken by patients at home and samples returned by post to central laboratories. We sought to report the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on requests for therapeutic drug monitoring and the equivalence, acceptability and effectiveness of low volume Patient-led Remote IntraCapillary pharmacoKinetic Sampling [fingerPRICKS] compared to conventional venepuncture.

Methods

We undertook a cross-sectional blood sampling methods comparison study and compared sample types using linear regression models. Drug and antidrug antibody levels were measured using standard ELISAs. Acceptability was assessed using a purpose-designed questionnaire.

Results

Therapeutic drug monitoring requests for adalimumab (96.5 [70.5–106] per week to 52 [33.5–57.0], p < 0.001) but not infliximab (184.5 [161.2–214.2] to 161 [135–197.5], p = 0.34) reduced during the first UK stay-at-home lockdown compared with the preceding 6 months. Fingerprick sampling was equivalent to conventional venepuncture for adalimumab, infliximab, vedolizumab and ustekinumab drug, and anti-adalimumab and anti-infliximab antibody levels. The median [interquartile range] volume of serum obtained using intracapillary sampling was 195 µL [130–210]. More than 87% [90/103] of patients agreed that intracapillary testing was easy and 69% [71/103] preferred it to conventional venepuncture. In routine care, 75.3% [58/77] of patients returned two blood samples within 14 days to permit remote assessment of biologic therapeutic drug monitoring.

Conclusions

Therapeutic drug monitoring can be undertaken using patient-led remote intracapillary blood sampling and has the potential to be a key adjunct to telemedicine in patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases.
Bounding infection prevalence by bounding selectivity and accuracy of tests: with application to early COVID-19
Authors: Stoye Jörg
Published: July 2021

I propose novel partial identification bounds on infection prevalence from information on test rate and test yield. The approach utilizes user-specified bounds on (i) test accuracy and (ii) the extent to which tests are targeted, formalized as restriction on the effect of true infection status on the odds ratio of getting tested and thereby embeddable in logit specifications. The motivating application is to the COVID-19 pandemic but the strategy may also be useful elsewhere. Evaluated on data from the pandemic’s early stage, even the weakest of the novel bounds are reasonably informative. Notably, and in contrast to speculations that were widely reported at the time, they place the infection fatality rate for Italy well above the one of influenza by mid-April.
The Thermoperiod AltersBoperGene Expression and Thereby Regulates the Eclosion Rhythm ofBradysia odoriphaga(Diptera: Sciaridae)
Authors: Han Haolin , Sun Dan , Cheng Jiaxu , Yang Yuting , Xia Jixing , Xie Wen , Xu Baoyun , Wu Qingjun , Wang Shaoli , Guo Zhaojiang , Zhang Youjun
Published: July 2021

In most organisms, various physiological and behavioral functions are expressed rhythmically. Previous studies have shown that thermoperiod is an important factor affecting circadian clock-related genes that regulate insect locomotor activity. Bradysia odoriphaga Yang & Zhang is an underground pest that attacks more than 30 crops but is especially damaging to Chinese chives. In this study, we analyzed the adult eclosion time and period (Boper) gene expression in B. odoriphaga as affected by temperature (cycling vs constant temperature), insect stage, and tissue specific. We found that the eclosion time and expression of the Boper gene changed during the temperature cycle but not under a constant temperature. Silencing of Boper expression significantly decreased the adult eclosion rate and significantly increased adult mortality and malformation. The findings indicate that thermoperiod alters Boper expression and regulates the eclosion rhythm.
Assessment of Nymphal Ecology and AdultXylella fastidiosaTransmission Biology ofAphrophoranr.permutata(Hemiptera: Aphrophoridae) in California Vineyards
Authors: Beal Dylan J , Adams Amielia G , Cooper Monica L , Varela Lucia G , Smith Rhonda J , Kron Cindy R , Almeida Rodrigo P P , Daugherty Matthew P
Published: July 2021

Although Aphrophora nr. permutata (Hemiptera: Aphrophoridae) is a reported vector of the plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa (Wells) (Xanthomonadales: Xanthomonadaceae), its ecology and role in Pierce’s disease dynamics in coastal California vineyards are poorly understood. From 2016 to 2020, we surveyed the abundance of A. nr. permutata nymphs among potential host plants along the vineyard floor, the vineyard edges, and adjacent vegetation in vineyards in Napa and Sonoma county. In 2019 and 2020, vineyards adjacent to woodland habitat hosted larger A. nr. permutata populations than those next to riparian habitat, while in 2017 and 2018, the nymphal populations were similar among riparian and woodland sites. Among 2020 plant cover taxa, nymph abundance was positively associated with Helminthotheca echioides, Vicia sativa, and Daucus carota cover and negatively associated with Taraxacum officinale cover. In 2018 and 2019, we also tracked early-season occurrence and development of A. nr. permutata nymphs among potential host plants. Analyses showed a significant effect of site, year, and plant taxa on the first detection of nymphs and a significant effect of site and year on the estimated development time between first and fifth instars. In 2019, we conducted grapevine to grapevine X. fastidiosa transmission experiments with individuals and groups of five A. nr. permutata adults. In the transmission experiment, 5% (3 of 60) individual A. nr. permutata and 7.7% (1 of 13) of groups successfully transmitted X. fastidiosa. This study provides preliminary evidence of potential host plant associations with A. nr. permutata abundance and phenology that should be explored further with field and greenhouse-based approaches.
The association of anaemia and high-sensitivity cardiac troponin and its effect on diagnosing myocardial infarction
Authors: Haller Paul Michael , Neumann Johannes T , Sörensen Nils A , Hartikainen Tau S , Goßling Alina , Lehmacher Jonas , Keller Till , Zeller Tanja , Blankenberg Stefan , Westermann Dirk
Published: July 2021

Aims

Anaemia is common in patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI). We investigated the association of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin (hs-cTn) and haemoglobin (Hb) and the influence of anaemia on the performance of diagnostic protocols for suspected MI.

Methods and results

Patients with suspected MI were consecutively enrolled at a tertiary centre. Final diagnoses were independently adjudicated by two cardiologists. Performance measures of hs-cTn-based algorithms were compared for anaemic and non-anaemic patients (Hb <12 g/dL in women and <13 g/dL in men). The influence of anaemia on survival (median follow-up 1.7 years) was investigated using multivariable cox-regression analysis and the association of Hb and hs-cTn by multivariable linear regression analysis. Overall, 2223 patients were included, of whom 415 (18.7%) had anaemia. In anaemic patients, the incidence of MI was similar; however, chronic myocardial injury was significantly more prevalent (20.1% vs. 48.2%). The negative predictive value to rule-out MI was similar for both algorithms and all assays in patients with anaemia, although the positive predictive value to rule-in MI was partly reduced for the 0/3-h algorithm. Fewer anaemic patients were triaged after 1 h. Anaemia was an independent predictor of death. Adjusted for patient characteristics, Hb was significantly associated with hs-cTn. By providing a point-based tool, the Hb-associated hs-cTn concentration and thus chronic myocardial injury may be predicted.

Conclusion 

Anaemia partly affects the rule-in, but not the rule-out of MI in hs-cTn-based diagnostic protocols. Hs-cTn concentrations and thus chronic myocardial injury may be predicted by clinical variables and Hb.

Trial registration

clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02355457 and NCT03227159).
Transnational Activism and Domestic Politics: Arms Exports and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle in the UK–South Africa Relations (1959–1994)
Authors: Moraes Rodrigo Fracalossi de
Published: July 2021

In 1964, the UK government imposed an arms embargo on South Africa, which it maintained until the end of the white minority rule. What explains this embargo? Using mainly archival evidence, this paper demonstrates that domestic political dynamics in the United Kingdom mediated the influence of the transnational anti-apartheid and anti-colonial struggles on the British government. The United Kingdom imposed and maintained this embargo due in part to a domestic advocacy network, whose hub was the Anti-Apartheid Movement. The paper provides a comprehensive explanation of an important issue in British foreign policy, the anti-colonial struggle, and Southern Africa's history. There are theoretical implications for foreign policy analysis concerning the role of advocacy networks, interactions between local and global activism, the role of political parties’ ideology and contestation, the effects on foreign policy of changes in a normative environment, the effects of norm contestation, and normative determinants of sanctions.
Mercenary gentlemen? The transnational service of foreign quarterdeck officers in the Royal Navy of the American and French wars, 1775–1815
Authors: Caputo Sara
Published: July 2021

In the late eighteenth century, like most European fleets, the British Royal Navy still employed some foreign officers. This phenomenon, almost completely unexplored, seemingly embodies a contradiction between the national and the transnational meanings of honour. Using archival and printed sources, this article examines the foreign presence, or lack thereof, in four distinct categories of ‘quarterdeck’ officer: commissioned officers, ‘young gentlemen’ (aspirant officers), surgeons and assistant surgeons, and a final miscellaneous group fulfilling special tasks, sometimes ashore. The peculiar values attached to the officer class, and the relative social and occupational positioning of these four categories, serve to test the real motives behind ‘national’ acceptance and exclusion: beyond the opposing discourses of gentlemanly and professional cosmopolitanism on the one hand, and patriotic duty, loyalty and emerging anti-mercenarism on the other, the levels of foreign presence among navy officers should be explained mainly with reference to supply and demand on the international labour migration market. The distinction between natives and foreigners was culturally and politically meaningful in a wartime context, and strategically deployed by various actors to regulate access and exclusion, but it can also operate as a red herring for the social historian. This has broader implications for the way in which we conceptualize honour, patriotism and the nation at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Stability of Whole Blood Electrolyte Specimens at Room Temperature vs. Slushed Ice Conditions
Authors: Zavorsky Gerald S , van Wijk Xander M R , Gasparyan Samuel , Stollenwerk Nicholas S , Brooks Rebecca A
Published: July 2021

Background

Data on the stability of whole blood electrolytes is limited to small sample sizes. We sought to determine the stability of whole blood electrolytes under room temperature and slushed iced conditions in human patients at a major hospital center.

Methods

Whole blood samples were obtained from 203 patients hospitalized for various pathophysiological conditions. Electrolyte concentrations of sodium, potassium [K+], ionized calcium, and chloride were measured at 5 different timepoints spanning 3 h. Samples were stored at room temperature (22–24 °C) or under slushed ice conditions (0.1–0.2 °C) before analysis.

Results

Under both conditions, sodium, ionized calcium, and chloride did not show a measurable change up to 109 min compared to baseline; however, the mean increase in [K+] over 138 min of storage in slushed ice was 0.0032 (0.0021 [5th percentile] to 0.0047 [95th percentile]) mmol/L/min (adjusted R2 = 0.62, P < 0.001). Five percent of the specimens demonstrated a ≥0.3 mmol/L change in [K+] from baseline after 67 min of storage in slushed ice. In contrast, 1% of the specimens stored at room temperature showed the same change at the same timepoint.

Conclusions

Whole blood sodium, [K+], ionized calcium, and chloride concentrations remain stable for at least 109 min at room temperature. However, whole blood specimens stored in slushed ice for not more than 67 min exhibit a 5% probability that the [K+] concentration will increase by at least 0.3 mmol/L compared to baseline. The other analytes do not destabilize for up to 178 min of slushed ice storage.
Baseline Susceptibility of Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) to Commonly Used Insecticides in the Columbia Basin
Authors: Yang Pahoua , Crossley Michael , Charlton Brian , Rondon Silvia I
Published: July 2021

Colorado potato beetle (CPB), Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), is one of the most challenging pests of potato, Solanum tuberosum L., largely due to its propensity to develop insecticide resistance. Historically, L. decemlineata has rapidly evolved resistance to all major classes of synthetic insecticides, particularly in the eastern United States. However, in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, there have thus far been no confirmed reports of insecticide resistance despite anecdotal accounts of control failure. Hence, the objective of this study was to develop baseline data on the susceptibility of L. decemlineata in the Columbia Basin to abamectin, imidacloprid, and spinetoram, three insecticides commonly used to manage this insect. In 2018 and 2019, baseline susceptibility of four L. decemlineata populations, three from the Columbia Basin and one from Wisconsin (used as a resistant reference), was examined using topical LD50 bioassays. In general, L. decemlineata populations in the Columbia Basin exhibited relatively high sensitivity to imidacloprid, but variable sensitivity to abamectin and spinetoram among sites and years. Although small sample sizes hindered estimation of statistically significant LD50 values, results suggest that L. decemlineata in the Columbia Basin are beginning to develop levels of insensitivity to spinetoram, and possibly abamectin that are comparable to insecticide-resistant populations in Wisconsin. This preliminary examination of geographic variation in sensitivity to commonly used insecticides reinforces the value of rotating insecticide modes of action and suggests the need for continued monitoring for the development of insecticide resistance throughout the U.S. Pacific Northwest.
Digitization and Development: Property Rights Security, and Land and Labor Markets
Authors: Beg Sabrin
Published: July 2021

I test the land and labor market effects of a property rights reform that computerized rural land records in Pakistan, making digitized records and automated transactions accessible to agricultural landowners and cultivators. Using the staggered roll-out of the program, I find that while the reform does not shift land ownership, landowning households are more likely to rent out land and shift into non-agricultural occupations. At the same time, cultivating households have access to more land, as rented in land and overall farm size increase. I construct measures of farmer-level total factor productivity (TFP) and marginal product of land, and demonstrate evidence of improved allocative efficiency as land is redistributed toward more productive farmers. Aggregate district-level production data suggest a reduction in the dispersion of marginal products of land and an improvement in productivity. The results have implications for both the allocation of land across farmers and the selection of labor into farming, demonstrating that agricultural land market frictions present a constraint to scale farming and structural change in developing countries.
Perspectives on follow-up care and research for childhood cancer survivors: results from an international SIOP meet-the-expert questionnaire in Kyoto, 2018
Authors: Bakker M E , Pluimakers V G , van Atteveld J E , Neggers S J C M M , van den Heuvel-Eibrink M M , Sato S , Yamashita K , Kiyotani C , Ishida Y , Maeda M
Published: July 2021

Introduction

Survival of childhood cancer has increased over the past decades. This has led to the development of strategies aiming to enhance follow-up care and research, for which priorities may vary globally. We explored perspectives of an international healthcare workers panel.

Methods

Attendants of a meet-the-expert session on childhood cancer survivorship at the 2018 SIOP conference completed a survey about their view on important follow-up care and research aspects for survivors below and over 18 years. We analysed overarching categories and subtopics, and compared Asian versus European and North American healthcare workers.

Results

A total of 58 participants from different medical specialties (67.2% paediatric oncologists) and continents (48.3% Asia, 39.7% Europe/North America) responded. Follow-up care priorities for survivors below and over 18 years included physical care (39.3% ≤18 years, 35.9% >18 years) and healthcare structure (29.4%, 26.0%). Physical care was also the most important research aspect for both age groups (52.5%, 50.7%). Psychological support was the most frequently reported subtopic. Asian clinicians (n = 22) primarily prioritized physical care aspects of follow-up care, whereas European/North American (n = 19) clinicians underscored the importance of healthcare structure.

Conclusion

Physical care is the most important aspect of survivorship care and research according to clinicians from several continents. Asian and European/North American respondents shared most priorities, however, healthcare structure was a more important category for European/North American clinicians. The most common subtopic was psychological support, underlining also the need to involve psychologists in follow-up.
The influence of streaming velocities and Lyman–Werner radiation on the formation of the first stars
Authors: Schauer Anna T P , Glover Simon C O , Klessen Ralf S , Clark Paul
Published: July 2021

The first stars in the Universe, the so-called Population III stars, form in small dark matter minihaloes with virial temperatures Tvir < 104 K. Cooling in these minihaloes is dominated by molecular hydrogen (H2), and so Population III star formation is only possible in those minihaloes that form enough H2 to cool on a short timescale. As H2 cooling is more effective in more massive minihaloes, there is therefore a critical halo mass scale Mmin above which Population III star formation first becomes possible. Two important processes can alter this minimum mass scale: streaming of baryons relative to the dark matter and the photodissociation of H2 by a high redshift Lyman–Werner (LW) background. In this paper, we present results from a set of high resolution cosmological simulations that examine the impact of these processes on Mmin and on Mave (the average minihalo mass for star formation), both individually and in combination. We show that streaming has a bigger impact on Mmin than the LW background, but also that both effects are additive. We also provide a fitting functions quantifying the dependence of Mave and Mmin on the streaming velocity and the strength of the LW background.
New observations of the eclipsing binary system NY Vir and its candidate circumbinary planets
Authors: Er Huseyin , Özdönmez Aykut , Nasiroglu Ilham
Published: July 2021

As a result of various studies, it has been determined that several post-common envelope eclipsing binaries have variations in their orbital periods. These variations are thought to be caused by the existence of additional bodies in the system (hypothetical stars or planets) and/or other physical effects (such as angular momentum loss, magnetic activity) of the binary system. It is also known that the sdB+M eclipsing system NY Vir has shown such variations in the last decade, indicating additional objects and/or other physical effects. In this work, we present 51 new eclipse times for this system, which extend the time-span of it is O − C diagram by about 3 yr, obtained between 2015 and 2021 using two different telescopes in Turkey. The data obtained in the last 3 yr show a new trend in the O − C diagram differently from the predictions of the previous studies. Our model is consistent with the new O − C diagram, which is statistically well fitted with the quadratic term and the additional two planets with masses of M3 = 2.74 MJup and M4 = 5.59 MJup. However, the orbital period variation can also be related to magnetic activity. In order to better understand the mechanism causing the changes in the orbital period, new observation data are needed that will show at least one full cycle of the change in the O − C diagram.
High-mass X-ray binaries with Be donors as ultraluminous X-ray sources
Authors: Karino Shigeyuki
Published: July 2021

Since the detection of X-ray pulses from ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in 2014, neutron stars have been considered as their central objects. However, it remains unclear how neutron stars can be brighter than the Eddington luminosity, and no unified view exists on the magnetic field of neutron stars and the degree of beaming. Recent observations suggest that some X-ray pulsating ULXs have Be-type donors, and some of them occupy the same region as Be-type high-mass X-ray binaries (Be-HMXBs) on the Corbet diagram, which reveals the relation between spin and orbital periods. This suggests that at least some ULXs are special cases of Be-HMXBs. In this study, we use the framework of mass accretion models for Be-HMXBs to investigate the conditions under which neutron stars achieve mass accretion rates beyond the Eddington limit and become observable as ULXs. We show that a Be-HMXB may become a ULX if the magnetic field of the neutron star and the density of the Be disc meet certain conditions. We also show that, although a stronger magnetic field increases the brightness of a neutron star ULX with a Be donor, its brightness cannot exceed the Eddington limit by a more than a factor of ≈50. Finally, we propose a scenario whereby some normal Be-HMXBs may evolve into ULXs as the donor evolves into a giant.
Cross-Comparison of 4-Dimensional Flow Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Intraoperative Middle Cerebral Artery Pressure Measurements Before and After Superficial Temporal Artery-Middle Cerebral Artery Bypass Surgery
Authors: Sekine Tetsuro , Murai Yasuo , Orita Erika , Ando Takahiro , Takagi Ryo , Amano Yasuo , Matano Fumihiro , Iwata Kotomi , Ogawa Masashi , Obara Makoto , Kumita Shinichiro
Published: July 2021

BACKGROUND

The hemodynamic changes after superficial temporal artery (STA) to middle cerebral artery (MCA) bypass surgery are unclear.

OBJECTIVE

To clarify the hemodynamics by comparing flow parameters obtained by 4-dimensional (4D) flow magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and intraoperative MCA pressure measurement.

METHODS

We recruited 23 patients who underwent STA-MCA bypass surgery for internal carotid artery (ICA) or MCA stenosis. We monitored intraoperative MCA, STA, and radial artery (RA) pressure. All patients underwent 4D flow MRI preoperatively and 3 wk after surgery to quantify the blood flow volume (BFV) of the ipsilateral ICA (BFViICA), contralateral ICA (BFVcICA), basilar artery (BFVBA), ipsilateral STA (BFViSTA), and contralateral STA (BFVcSTA). The sum of intracranial BFV was defined as BFVtotal. We compared BFV parameters and intraoperative pressure.

RESULTS

BFViSTA significantly increased after surgery (P < .001). BFViICA and BFVBA significantly decreased after surgery (BFViICA
P = .005; BFVBA
P = .02). No significant difference was observed between BFVcICA before and after surgery. As a result, BFVtotal postoperatively increased by 6.8%; however, no significant difference was observed. Flow direction at M1 changed from antegrade to unclear after surgery in 5 patients. Intraoperative MCA pressure and MCA/RA pressure ratio significantly increased after surgery (P < .001). We found a stronger positive correlation between MCA pressure increase ratio and BFVtotal increase ratio in patients with lower pre-MCA pressure (r = 0.907, P < .001).

CONCLUSION

The visual and quantitative assessment of 4D flow MRI revealed that intracranial blood flow changes complementarily after STA-MCA bypass surgery. 4D flow MRI may detect the improvement of cerebral perfusion pressure.
Far More Imprisonments
Authors: Schellenberg Ryan S.
Published: July 2021

This chapter takes as its point of departure 2 Corinthians 11:23 and the multiple imprisonments of Paul to which it attests. Surveying the uses of prison in the administration of Rome’s eastern provinces, it argues that the detentions of Paul and other early Christ purveyors were mostly undertaken not by Roman provincial authorities but by local magistrates. This conclusion has significant implications for reconstructing the accusations against Paul and describing his social location. Paul was not charged with treason (maiestas), as some recent scholars have suggested. Rather, local officials took punitive or coercive action against him for much the same reason they periodically sought to contain other freelance religious experts, whose activity was often deemed disruptive. For historians of the Roman prison, the detention of Paul and other early Christ purveyors provides valuable and largely neglected evidence for such use of punitive confinement.
Conclusion
Authors: Schellenberg Ryan S.
Published: July 2021

The book concludes by summarizing key arguments and contributions; articulating how the abject joy it describes relates to accounts of early Christian abjection inspired by Julia Kristeva; briefly justifying the biographical interpretive mode it exemplifies; and returning to the question raised in the Introduction regarding the moral entailments of contentment in prison. The joy of which Paul writes in Philippians pertains to a distinct social location and a distinct emotional community; it is not the joy of the sated or the sage, but of the subjugated. Unburdened of his role as universal paradigm, Paul gives poignant witness to something at once more modest and more exacting: the strange, unruly art of making do.
How a Brain Makes a Mind
Authors: Grossberg Stephen
Published: July 2021

A historical overview is given of interdisciplinary work in physics and psychology by some of the greatest nineteenth-century scientists, and why the fields split, leading to a century of ferment before the current scientific revolution in mind-brain sciences began to understand how we autonomously adapt to a changing world. New nonlinear, nonlocal, and nonstationary intuitions and laws are needed to understand how brains make minds. Work of Helmholtz on vision illustrates why he left psychology. His concept of unconscious inference presaged modern ideas about learning, expectation, and matching that this book scientifically explains. The fact that brains are designed to control behavioral success has profound implications for the methods and models that can unify mind and brain. Backward learning in time, and serial learning, illustrate why neural networks are a natural language for explaining brain dynamics, including the correct functional stimuli and laws for short-term memory (STM), medium-term memory (MTM), and long-term memory (LTM) traces. In particular, brains process spatial patterns of STM and LTM, not just individual traces. A thought experiment leads to universal laws for how neurons, and more generally all cellular tissues, process distributed STM patterns in cooperative-competitive networks without experiencing contamination by noise or pattern saturation. The chapter illustrates how thinking this way leads to unified and principled explanations of huge databases. A brief history of the advantages and disadvantages of the binary, linear, and continuous-nonlinear sources of neural models is described, and how models like Deep Learning and the author’s contributions fit into it.
How We See and Recognize Object Motion
Authors: Grossberg Stephen
Published: July 2021

This chapter explains why visual motion perception is not just perception of the changing positions of moving objects. Computationally complementary processes process static objects with different orientations, and moving objects with different motion directions, via parallel cortical form and motion streams through V2 and MT. The motion stream pools multiple oriented object contours to estimate object motion direction. Such pooling coarsens estimates of object depth, which require precise matches of oriented stimuli from both eyes. Negative aftereffects of form and motion stimuli illustrate these complementary properties. Feature tracking signals begin to overcome directional ambiguities due to the aperture problem. Motion capture by short-range and long-range directional filters, together with competitive interactions, process feature tracking and ambiguous motion directional signals to generate a coherent representation of object motion direction and speed. Many properties of motion perception are explained, notably barberpole illusion and properties of long-range apparent motion, including how apparent motion speed varies with flash interstimulus interval, distance, and luminance; apparent motion of illusory contours; phi and beta motion; split motion; gamma motion; Ternus motion; Korte’s Laws; line motion illusion; induced motion; motion transparency; chopsticks illusion; Johannson motion; and Duncker motion. Gaussian waves of apparent motion clarify how tracking occurs, and explain spatial attention shifts through time. This motion processor helps to quantitatively simulate neurophysiological data about motion-based decision-making in monkeys when it inputs to a model of how the lateral intraparietal, or LIP, area chooses a movement direction from the motion direction estimate. Bayesian decision-making models cannot explain these data.
Target Tracking, Navigation, and Decision-Making
Authors: Grossberg Stephen
Published: July 2021

This chapter explains why and how tracking of objects moving relative to an observer, and visual optic flow navigation of an observer relative to the world, are controlled by complementary cortical streams through MT--MSTv and MT+-MSTd, respectively. Target tracking uses subtractive processing of visual signals to extract an object’s bounding contours as they move relative to a background. Navigation by optic flow uses additive processing of an entire scene to derive properties such as an observer’s heading, or self-motion direction, as it moves through the scene. The chapter explains how the aperture problem for computing heading in natural scenes is solved in MT+-MSTd using a hierarchy of processing stages that is homologous to the one that solves the aperture problem for computing motion direction in MT--MSTv. Both use feedback which obeys the ART Matching Rule to select final perceptual representations and choices. Compensation for eye movements using corollary discharge, or efference copy, signals enables an accurate heading direction to be computed. Neurophysiological data about heading direction are quantitatively simulated. Log polar processing by the cortical magnification factor simplifies computation of motion direction. This space-variant processing is maximally position invariant due to the cortical choice of network parameters. How smooth pursuit occurs, and is maintained during accurate tracking, is explained. Goal approach and obstacle avoidance are explained by attractor-repeller networks. Gaussian peak shifts control steering to a goal, as well as peak shift and behavioral contrast during operant conditioning, and vector decomposition during the relative motion of object parts.
How Prefrontal Cortex Works
Authors: Grossberg Stephen
Published: July 2021

This chapter describes a unified theory of how the prefrontal cortex interacts with multiple brain regions to carry out the higher cognitive, emotional, and decision-making processes that define human intelligence, while also controlling actions to achieve valued goals. This predictive Adaptive Resonance Theory, or pART, model builds upon the foundation in earlier chapters. Prefrontal functions are often called executive functions. Executive functions regulate flexible and adaptive behaviors, notably in novel situations, while suppressing actions that are no longer appropriate, notably reflexive responses to current sensory inputs. Working memory is particularly involved in contextually appropriate behaviors. Prefrontal properties of desirability, availability, credit assignment, category learning, and feature-based attention are explained. These properties arise through interactions of orbitofrontal, ventrolateral prefrontal, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices with inferotemporal cortex, perirhinal cortex, parahippocampal cortices; ventral bank of the principal sulcus, ventral prearcuate gyrus, frontal eye fields, hippocampus, amygdala, basal ganglia, hypothalamus, and visual cortical areas V1, V2, V3A, V4, MT, MST, LIP, and PPC. Model explanations include how the value of visual objects and events is computed, which objects and events cause desired consequences and which may be ignored as predictively irrelevant, and how to plan and act to realize these consequences, including how to selectively filter expected vs. unexpected events, leading to movements towards, and conscious perception of, expected events. Modeled processes include reinforcement learning and incentive motivational learning; object and spatial working memory dynamics; and category learning, including the learning of object categories, value categories, object-value categories, and sequence categories, or list chunks.
The Word
Authors: Rustomji Nerina
Published: July 2021

This chapter traces the French and English relationship with the Ottoman Empire and accounts for the introduction of the term “houri” in French in the seventeenth century and English in the eighteenth century. Through surveying sixteenth-century polemics about Islam, seventeenth-century travel writings, and eighteenth-century literature, the chapter argues that French and English writers used the idea of the houri as a source of critique in anti-Islamic polemics and travel writing even while their views of Islam and Islamic empires could be ambivalent. By the eighteenth century, writers also began to employ the term “houri” as a way to describe a model of feminine beauty.
The Romance
Authors: Rustomji Nerina
Published: July 2021

This chapter demonstrates how nineteenth-century literature transcended religious frameworks and questioned the nature of male authority and feminine purity. Although the houri may have been based on assumptions about Islam, the term “houri” eventually was applied to Jewish and Christian women. The chapter surveys mentions of the houri in the form of the “Oriental tale” and argues that writers made use of the figure of the houri to present their own ideas of idealized Christian and Jewish women. Texts in the chapter include poems by Byron, Ivanhoe, Jane Eyre, Algerine Captive, Book of Khalid, engravings, and American monthly magazines for ladies.
The Promise
Authors: Rustomji Nerina
Published: July 2021

This chapter examines online lectures and tours of paradise in English, French, and Arabic. It argues that the online tours of paradise offer a twenty-first-century form of exhortation by reformists, while online jihadi videos about the houri demonstrate the aim to develop affective bonds through vocalization. In particular, the chapter focuses on the videos of Anwar al-Awlaqi, the leader of al-Qaʿida in the Arabian Peninsula, who used the houri to represent the wonders of paradise and to recognize the injustices of this world and the superlative nature of the cosmic world. The chapter concludes by surveying other images of the houri in Arab television drama.
Conclusion
Authors: Rustomji Nerina
Published: July 2021

The houri is a cosmic being who stands outside the structures of time and has a considerable past and potential future interpretation. It is this feminine being that has been used to develop arguments about the nature of a religion, the judgment of a society, and the future of a people. The figure of the houri continues to raise questions. Within their own contexts, writers have articulated the houris they desire as they reflect on their social understandings between men and women. Ultimately, the houri provides a way to reflect upon asymmetries of power in this world and the next.
The Anatomy of Uncertainty
Authors: Han Paul K.J.
Published: July 2021

Chapter 3 describes the anatomy of medical uncertainty, identifying key attributes that give it a three-dimensional conceptual shape, form, and structure. It characterizes uncertainty in terms of its (1) fundamental sources (root causes), (2) issues (substantive problems), and (3) loci (persons in whose minds uncertainty resides) and presents a conceptual framework that allows the variety of uncertainties in medicine to be classified and better understood. The chapter makes the case that in all of these ways, a three-dimensional conceptual framework can facilitate a more intentional, targeted, and rational approach to evaluating medical uncertainty. By providing a way of visualizing, ordering, and objectifying an otherwise invisible, disordered, subjective reality, the framework can ultimately enable clinicians and patients to better manage medical uncertainty.
The Natural History of Uncertainty
Authors: Han Paul K.J.
Published: July 2021

Chapter 4 describes the natural history of medical uncertainty—that is, the way that the phenomenon is manifest in people’s lives. It classifies people’s psychological responses to uncertainty within two main categories: primary (initial cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses) and secondary (compensatory responses aimed at regulating primary responses). It presents a conceptual framework that classifies the variety of primary and secondary responses to uncertainty and discusses how the framework can help clinicians and patients evaluate and manage these responses. The ultimate goal of this framework is practical: to improve the management of uncertainty in medicine. The framework can promote this goal by enabling clinicians and patients to rise above their own regulatory responses to uncertainty and achieve greater tertiary control over them.
Coined by Chance
Authors: Keyes Ralph
Published: July 2021

Among the many of ways in which words are born, one seldom receives its due: happenstance. Sources of new words can be fluky. Many new words have resulted from misprints (derring do), befuddlement (decider), and mispronunciation (quark). Proust noted how many terms that French speakers took pride in pronouncing correctly resulted from “blunders made by Gaulish mouths, mispronouncing Latin and Saxon words.” Literary scholar Walter Redfern called such coinage-by-mishap blunderful. Linguists are keenly aware of the role mishaps can play in word creation. In Aspects of Language, Dwight Bolinger and Donald Sears discussed how often simple mistakes fertilize our lexicon. As in the natural world, such mistakes – typos, misspelling, mistranslation – have been a key source of evolutionary change.
Taunt Terms: U.S.
Authors: Keyes Ralph
Published: July 2021

More than a few of the many new words coined by exuberant Americans were created as insults. Like their counterparts abroad these terms lost their sting over time and became mainstream terminology. Gerrymander is one. By combining the last syllable of “salamander” with the surname of Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry gerrymander was meant to make fun of the convoluted Congressional districts drawn in 1812 while Gerry was the governor of Massachusetts. Hoosier was used to ridicule backwoods immigrants new to the new state of Indiana, but in time became the official, non-pejorative way to refer to Indianans. Before it became a name for underwear bloomer was introduced to deride American feminists such as Amelia Bloomer who, during the mid-nineteenth century, wore a type of garb that featured loose trousers worn beneath a billowy skirt. Hurling such insults inadvertently added words to the English language.
Ink-Stained Word Coiners
Authors: Keyes Ralph
Published: July 2021

Neologizing journalists such as Damon Runyon, Walter Winchell, and the Alsop brothers auditioned one coinage after another, some of which became part of the national conversation (although most didn’t). Columnists such as David Brooks and Thomas Friedman insistently coin words and phrases, few of which have caught on. Inventing words seems to be an occupational hazard of writing a newspaper column. Damon Runyon and Walter Winchell invented words so prolifically that their patois became known as “Runyonese,” and “Winchellese.” Runyon and Winchell were just one of a long line of newspaper columnists whose colorful coinages and overheard slang became part of the American vernacular. Beatnik originated with San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, southern strategy with Joseph Alsop, and bleeding heart (liberal do-gooders) with Westbrook Pegler.
An Armageddon of Righteousness
Authors: Burkholder Zoë
Published: July 2021

Chapter 5 documents a new and transformative vision of school integration that blended Black nationalist ideals of self-determination with the goal of racially diverse and inclusive schools. Black educational activists maintained that for all of its challenges, integration was the single most effective way to guarantee equal school financing, qualified teachers, advanced courses, and adequate facilities for Black students. This chapter considers two districts where Black educational activists successfully fought for and won integrated schools: the suburban town of Montclair, New Jersey, and the city of Hartford, Connecticut. It also locates strong support for separatism in the form of Afrocentric public schools, which became popular again in the early 1990s. The struggle for northern school integration remains in flux and unresolved—but many Black educational activists continue to advocate for schools that are racially diverse and committed to nurturing and affirming Black identities in institutions with explicit restorative justice frameworks.
Forms of Emotional Knowing and Unknowing: Skepticism and Belief in Dickinson’s Poetry, Rick Anthony Furtak
Authors: Furtak Rick Anthony
Published: July 2021

Continually at issue in Dickinson’s verse are the possibilities and limits of knowing the surrounding world, including the minds of others. Many of her poems give voice to wonder, frustration, and the feeling of illumination or insight, along with other emotional states involved in exploring the promise of knowledge and confronting skeptical questions. My chapter is focused especially on moments in Dickinson’s poetry when an encounter with the natural or human world is portrayed as moving the speaker toward either an intensification or a partial resolution of doubt—a dialectic through which she articulates the affective struggle to make sense of the world and to find herself at home in it. As I show, the philosophical thinking that unfolds in her lyrics is preoccupied with a characteristic human lament about our finite limitations and with a contrary, but intimately related, longing to be reconciled with our finitude.
Parent, Teacher, Mentor, or Psychologist?
Authors: Savvidou Paola
Published: July 2021

This chapter explores the multifaceted role of the applied instructor in the music lesson setting, particularly as it applies to the mentorship relationship. Three established mentorship frameworks are discussed within the context of the music teacher–student relationship. The readers are encouraged to examine their own current practices in terms of the level of support and inclusivity they promote in their studios and to recognize their own qualities as mentors. A large portion of this chapter is dedicated to introducing motivational interviewing—a conversation tool that can be used to handle student concerns in a supportive and productive manner through the elicitation of behavioral change based on the student’s internal motivation, values, and beliefs.
“Is It Tendinitis?”
Authors: Savvidou Paola
Published: July 2021

This chapter presents the causes, strategies for prevention, and the process of rehabilitation for the most common injuries suffered by musicians. Basic anatomical structures such as joints, muscles, and the nervous system, are introduced as the foundation of healthy technique and the prevention of injury. The three categories of injuries discussed are musculoskeletal, vocal, and hearing. Causes, types, treatment, and warning signs for each category that might be observed by the instructor are discussed. Guidelines for how to support the student, depending on the severity of the concern, are offered with an emphasis on seeking professional help as early as is possible.
Expressive Performance
Authors: Savvidou Paola
Published: July 2021

This chapter addresses the expressive component of performance as it relates to healthy physical alignment and effective communication using Laban Movement Analysis (LMA). The point of departure for the presentation of the LMA system is the visual element of musical performance and its importance in communicating to the audience. LMA is presented incrementally with movement activities geared toward re-patterning neuromuscular connections. This approach also aims to cultivate a wider movement vocabulary. Exercises and applications of the movements in musical performance are provided for each of the new concepts. At the end of the chapter, a toolkit is provided with two self-observation exercises.
Turning Inward
Authors: Savvidou Paola
Published: July 2021

This chapter focuses on the applications of meditation and mindfulness within the higher education music-learning context. It presents the benefits of such practices (based on relevant research studies), particularly for musicians. The foundation for the discussion of mindfulness is based on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s nine attitudes toward mindfulness (non-judgment, patience, beginner’s mind, trust, non-striving, acceptance, letting go, gratitude, and generosity). Practicing mindfulness can occur in small ways (e.g., noticing the inhalation and the exhalation for a few breath cycles) as well as more committed ways of practicing meditation. As such, this chapter provides an extensive practical toolkit with breathing techniques, body awareness, and movement-based practices, as well as meditations that can be applied to music-learning, such as contemplative listening and journaling. Instructors are provided with guidelines for incorporating contemplative practices into their day-to-day teaching.