bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Bakhtinian Laughter and Recent Political Editorial Cartoons
Authors: Chaney Michael A. , Chaney Sara B.
Published: March 2019

This chapter explores the editorial, single-image cartoons of three prominent illustrators: Doaa El-Adl, Xavier Bonilla (“Bonil”), and Godfrey Mwampembwa (“Gado”). These artists use visual satire and social media to participate in a form of comedy Mikhail Bakhtin theorizes to be the counterforce to the epic and its generic presumption of an absolute distance from the past, along with the epic’s valorization of great men and its solemnity toward nationalist traditions. By contrast, European folk culture, according to Bakhtin, developed a contrary mode in comedy of “laughing at living reality,” which, like editorial political cartoons, involves the excoriation of authoritarianism, corruption, and injustice. Representing a time-scape always present, though plural, and unfolding, the editorial cartoons deliver contemporaneity to emergent global audiences on Bakhtin’s “plane of laughter.” On this plane, epic distance is abolished in favor of “crude contact” with political power rendered objectified, plastic, and embodied.
Marvell and Nonconformity
Authors: Keeble N. H. , Harris Johanna
Published: March 2019

This chapter examines Marvell’s relationship to, and representations of, the nonconformist convictions and practices that refused to comply with the 1662 Act of Uniformity and the ensuing penal religious legislation by which the restored regime sought to re-establish the episcopal Church of England and to outlaw dissent from it. It establishes the Puritan and nonconformist character of his native Hull, his sympathy for nonconformists and corresponding dismay at their persecution, and that he was a key figure in a series of interrelated nonconformist and oppositional networks that worked politically for a greater degree of toleration. In his published works, however, he avoided overt nonconformist partisanship to argue for a moderate, reasonable, and liberal middle way that could accommodate the widest possible range of opinion.
Marvell and Manuscript Culture
Authors: Davis Paul
Published: March 2019

This chapter explores the significances of the medium of manuscript for Marvell. It uncovers links between his self-formation and conduct as a scribal poet, and a set of questions and dilemmas long recognized as definitive in his work, those surrounding integrity and retreat. In Marvell’s imaginary, the wish to ‘circumscribe’ oneself in a private or transcendent world was always, in some measure, a scribal ideal or fantasy. To assess Marvell’s relations with ‘manuscript culture’, then, is not merely to document his involvements with particular scribal communities, or the varying extent of the scribal publication of his verse at different points in his career, but to plot those aspects of his practice against his lifelong preoccupation with privacy as an object of desire.
Andrew Marvell and Education
Authors: Wilson Emma Annette
Published: March 2019

This chapter examines Marvell’s education, from his boyhood in Hull through to his student days at Trinity College, Cambridge, to consider how these learning experiences informed the discursive tactics that he used as a poet, politician, and polemicist. Marvell’s father’s manuscript sermonbook (c.1603) bears witness to the poet’s early exposure to Ramist reasoning and discourse, both in his family home and in Hull’s Holy Trinity Church. Logic formed the backbone of early modern discursive training, and in c.1633, Marvell’s education in this field continued at Trinity College, Cambridge. The chapter draws on a range of discursive logic textbooks used by Marvell and his Cantabrigian contemporaries, applying their methods as a new way of understanding Marvell’s style and tactics in his writings, from his polemics in Mr. Smirke to his pastoral poetry.
Greenland
Authors: Teskey Gordon
Published: March 2019

Marvell’s ‘The Garden’ was written twice, first in simple-seeing English and then in marmoreal Latin, the latter paving over the first, but beautifully, as with a Roman mosaic. The English poem, with its uncanny, solitary, misogynistic speaker, explores the strange phenomenon of consciousness, but more fundamentally of prosopopoeia, of a face spookily appearing before us in a text, and speaking. We cannot read ‘The Garden’ theologically and we cannot read it morally, either, although these discourses are awakened in it. Nor can we read ‘The Garden’ even from the point of view of common sense, because to do so would destroy the adventure of the spirit that it offers: an encounter with the aesthetic as a new category of experience. In ‘The Garden,’ art becomes compensation for the loss of eternally existing things above the sphere of the moon. The poem is a metaphysical event.
Harsh Remedies
Authors: Chernaik Warren
Published: March 2019

In The Rehearsal Transpros’d, Marvell characterized his approach to satire as being ‘merry and angry’ at once. Though politically opposed, Marvell shared John Dryden’s conviction that ‘the true end of Satyre, is the amendment of Vices by correction’—the satirist resembled a physician who prescribes ‘harsh Remedies to an inveterate Disease’. But where Dryden claims in the Preface to Absalom and Achitophel to be addressing ‘the more Moderate sort’, Marvell in ‘Last Instruction to a Painter’ (at nearly 1,000 lines, his longest poem) is openly partisan and controversially subverts the conventions of the royalist panegyric and portrait paintings, products of a court society excoriated by his friend John Milton as full of ‘flatteries and prostrations’. Marvell insistently links sexual and political corruption, vividly depicting a world in which appetite alone rules. Though deeply critical of Charles II as the fount of corruption in the sick state, its stance, rather than being openly republican, is to offer counsel to the King, in the hope that he is not yet beyond reform.
Marvell and Jonson
Authors: Lockwood Tom
Published: March 2019

This chapter explores the meaning and varieties of praise and dispraise in Marvell’s relationship with Ben Jonson. The chapter offers readings of Marvell’s engagements with Jonson in his lyric verse, in ‘Tom May’s Death’, and in some of his later prose and poetry, including ‘On Mr Milton’s Paradise Lost’. Exploring the different ways in which Marvell may have encountered Jonson’s poems and plays in manuscript, in print, and in the theatre, this chapter investigates, and considers at its close, what T. S. Eliot in 1921 called ‘the vast and penetrating influence of Ben Jonson’ on Marvell.
Marvell and the Restoration Wits
Authors: Hume Robert D. , Marshall Ashley
Published: March 2019

Situating Marvell usefully among the other wits of his age turns out to be difficult. This chapter attempts to answer a broad question: does the context of ‘the wits of the age’ offer any insight into the kind of satirist and polemicist Marvell was? He was a pre-Whig political ally of Buckingham and Rochester, but in terms of satiric aims and modes, he is much more akin to Butler (and Dryden), to whom he was ideologically opposed. In many ways Marvell fits awkwardly in the literary milieu of the Restoration. His serious, polemical satire is civic-minded and ideological (not purely partisan); his work is remote from the defamation, literary squabbles, and venomously personal political satire prominent in Charles II’s England. If we are looking for a helpful context for Marvell’s polemical satire, we should turn not to the great authors of the age, but to the likes of Butler and to the world of anonymous state poems.
Marvell the Patriot
Authors: Patterson Annabel
Published: March 2019

When Emile Legouis memorably entitled his biography André Marvell, Poète, Puritan, Patriote, 1621‒78 (1928), he began a tradition since honoured more by silence than discussion. It is the first of the three terms that has generated Marvell’s reputation. Everybody wants to write about Marvell as a poet; ‘Puritan’ proved an oversimplification for the man who defended nonconformists by non-doctrinal arguments; and ‘Patriot’, the term that now revived, was largely dismissed. This chapter attends to the afterlife of the Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government, on which Marvell’s reputation as a ‘Patriot’ was based. This involves not only its immediate reception, but those who brought it back to public attention: Thomas Cooke; Captain Edward Thompson, who built on Cooke’s 1726 edition; and the almost unknown tributes of James Ralph’s 1745 History of England and his notes to the parliamentary history we know as Grey’s Debates.
Corporations In The Clouds?
Authors: Logue Danielle
Published: March 2019

This chapter considers the historical changes that have occurred in the way corporations engage in innovation, conceptualizations of disruptive innovation, and the consequences of recent developments in technology, models and movements for the corporate form (particularly boundaries), practices, and leadership. It discusses how the notion of disruption innovation has developed, and summarizes the main innovation dichotomies that have emerged from years of academic research on how corporations innovate. It then focuses on the implications of open innovation and business model innovation for the corporation, and details current responses of corporations to disruptive innovation. The chapter concludes with a consideration of how disruptive innovations are impacting the role and significance of the corporation in modern society.
The Greening of the Corporation
Authors: Clarke Thomas
Published: March 2019

The dawning realization of the global consequences of imminent climate change provides a series of inescapable challenges for business enterprises. Responding to these climate challenges involves the exploration and development of new paradigms of corporate purpose and activity. A series of international institutional initiatives are inspiring, facilitating, and guiding the progress of companies toward new conceptualizations of their responsibilities. These policy initiatives are increasingly reinforced by market indices which recognize and measure the performance of companies according to social and environmental criteria. This effort is endorsed by a wide array of business and civil society bodies that are researching and disseminating knowledge and practical analytical skills regarding sustainability. This amounts to a changing corporate landscape where risk, strategy, and investment are closely calibrated with social and environmental responsibility.
From Berle to the Present
Authors: O’Kelley Charles R. T.
Published: March 2019

This chapter traces the evolution of the corporation through different eras of the past century, with a focus on the development of competing primacies of corporate law. Successive eras of managerialism, technocracy, and shareholder primacy are examined in the Darwinian struggle for corporate power and business success. Our understanding of the modern corporation over the last 100 years cannot be separated from the nature of American hegemony over the world system during that time frame. Likewise, it cannot be separated from America’s unique twin ideologies—individualism and American exceptionalism. Nor can it be separated from the struggle for power between the modern corporation, viewed as a system, and the American nation state. This chapter deconstructs our changing understandings as to whose interests hold primacy in governance of the modern corporation, with a constant eye on the underlying political struggle for power and meaning, and the role which theories of the corporation play in these struggles.
Close-to-Practice Qualitative Research Methods
Authors: Yardley Sarah , Mattick Karen , Dornan Tim
Published: March 2019

Expertise is inherently linked to the context in which experts work. Qualitative methods are used to provide answers to “how” and “why” questions and to disentangle the impact of different interactions occurring in complex and uncertain situations. Such approaches are critical in order to understand context and be open to unexpected findings, and to truly understand how expert judgment works in the real world. This chapter considers how and why qualitative methods make important and distinct contributions to understanding expertise development in professional work. The application of qualitative methodologies to the study of expertise provides researchers with tools to explore and explain contextualized and social practices. Close-to-practice qualitative methodologies are described, highlighting the different research questions these approaches can answer and explaining why the methodologies are well suited to exploring the messiness and complexity of expertise.
Expertise and Resilience
Authors: Havinga Jop , Bergström Johan , Dekker Sidney , Rae Andrew
Published: March 2019

Resilience engineering has changed the value of expertise from meeting required standards, to how it helps organizations to adapt. This chapter discusses the origin of the concept of resilience and how it has been applied to sociotechnical systems within the safety domain. From there we review the current literature to explore how to manage expertise, considering both its possible good and bad effects, to engineer resilience into organizations. For this, the chapter looks at how this applies separately to frontline workers, teams and management, and on a systems level. While expertise generally has a positive relation to resilience on all levels, how to two relate to each other does change. This affects how expertise is best managed at different levels of an organization.
On the Subject Matter of Phenomenological Psychopathology
Authors: Fernandez Anthony Vincent , Køster Allan
Published: March 2019

This chapter provides a framework for the phenomenological study of mental disorders. The framework relies on a distinction between (ontological) existentials and (ontic) modes. Existentials are the categorial structures of human existence, such as intentionality, temporality, selfhood, and affective situatedness. Modes are the particular, concrete phenomena that belong to these categorial structures, with each existential having its own set of modes. In the first section, the chapter articulates this distinction by drawing primarily on the work of Martin Heidegger—especially his study of the ontological structure of affective situatedness (Befindlichkeit) and its particular, ontic modes, which he calls moods (Stimmungen). In the second section, the chapter draws on a study of grief to demonstrate how this framework can be used when conducting phenomenological interviews and analyses. In the concluding section, the chapter explains how this framework can guide phenomenological studies across a broad range of existential structures.
The Experience of Time and its Disorders
Authors: Fuchs Thomas
Published: March 2019

The chapter first introduces a phenomenological concept of temporality, referring to time as pre-reflectively lived vs. consciously experienced. Lived time is based on the constitutive synthesis of inner time consciousness on the one hand, and on the conative-affective dynamics of life on the other hand. Experienced time, for its part, results from an interruption and desynchronisation of lived time. It unfolds into the dimensions of present, past and future, leading to autobiographical time and finally to narrative identity. On this basis, major psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, melancholic depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder will be presented as paradigm cases for a psychopathology of temporality.
Playing with the Beat
Authors: Robbins Allison , Wells Christopher J.
Published: March 2019

This article explores rhythm tap dancing as a hybrid art form and details its shared history and aesthetics with jazz music, especially in regards to improvisation. The chapter draws from the ethnomusicological literature on improvisatory practices in jazz music and applies the concepts of the musician’s storehouse, as described by Paul Berliner, and ‘intermusicality’, a term coined by Ingrid Monson, to performances by modern tap virtuosi Michelle Dorrance and Jason Samuels Smith. The chapter explicates the choreomusical aesthetics and structural logic of contemporary rhythm tap improvisation and provides an example of how music studies might contribute more substantively to discourses on Afrocentric improvisation in dance studies.
Improvisational Practices in Jazz Dance Battles
Authors: Carr Jane , Lewis Irven
Published: March 2019

With specific reference to bebop, one of the new styles of improvised jazz dancing that developed in Britain in the late 1970s and early 1980s, this essay explores the improvisatory practices associated with the dance challenges, or battles, which were an integral feature of the club scenes within which this dancing emerged. Drawing on the authors’ different perspectives—Irven Lewis’s firsthand experiences of dancing and teaching this style together with Jane Carr’s analysis of the embodied experiences of dance—allows for reflection on the improvisatory practices and their significance. The pan-African cultural influence on the development of jazz dancing is recognized alongside consideration of how this particular style of dancing embodied resistance to a binary division of Western/Africanist culture. Further, the improvised dancing is shown to be reciprocally related to the specific contexts within which it is practised, by virtue of the complex interrelationships between those participating.
Somatic Sensing and Creaturely Knowing in the University Improvisation Class
Authors: East Alison
Published: March 2019

This chapter introduces an approach to teaching dance improvisation in a university setting which invites students to search beneath their learnt dance techniques and familiar movement patterns in order to uncover their most fundamental levels of ‘creaturely knowing’, a term used by Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, and ‘somaesthetic sensing’, a term used by Richard Shusterman. Sourcing movement through this improvisational approach has the potential to heighten and broaden students’ sense of self-identity and stimulate their creativity and artistry. In the process, students come to understand their integral relationship with, and their connection to, the ecology of the classroom and, by inference, a world ecology. Specific links with the biological and neurological sciences and the artistic and educational practice of improvisation are espoused, along with the educational value of such a practice within academia.
The Dancer, The Philosopher, and The Tramp
Authors: Elliott Hilary
Published: March 2019

This chapter discusses the pragmatics and philosophy of a model of practice and discourse for the field of solo movement/dance improvisation that the author calls withness. This approach to unaccompanied, studio (or otherwise indoor)-based improvisation is introduced through a set of intertwined organizational anchors: reading space, reading the words of space, and inhabiting an imaginative landscape. Grounding improvisation in a relational, dialogic interplay between the improviser and the material aspects and affective reverberations of the built environment that the dancer is occupying, withness enables spontaneous material to emerge as a result of a dynamic participatory attitude and a particular attention to vision within the interplay of multiple perceptual systems. This model of spontaneous composition is articulated and situated in relation to, and through, ongoing studio practice and performance experience, the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and a charming parable on improvisation, featuring Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp and a lemon meringue pie.
Instinctive Connections
Authors: Dowler Lisa
Published: March 2019

This essay explores my practice as a dance artist in health and care settings and locates my experience in improvisation at the nucleus of this practice. Like the nucleus of the cell, improvisation is the place of regulation of my activity, at the core, guiding, nurturing, and holding me as I navigate the unknown; in terms of both the physical context in which I work and the creative and imaginative happenstances. This is exemplified through illustrations of practice in a dementia care setting and a children’s hospital. This essay also contends that improvisation, as a phenomenological process that does not suppose a truth but embraces a myriad of possibilities, enables dance artists to document the effects of their work and contribute to a growing body of evidence citing the manifold benefits of somatic dance and improvisation practices in healthcare.
Dancing the Land
Authors: Buckwalter Melinda
Published: March 2019

What makes a mountain sacred? How do spirits come to dwell in rock or forest? Which rituals are performed to bring rain? Traditional cultures formalized their relationship to the land. This essay considers the work of contemporary dance-makers Jennifer Monson, Eiko Otake, and Suprapto Suryodarmo, who use experiential approaches, including improvised movement, to investigate the environment, whether urban or rural, from courtyards to local parks. The chapter argues that in so doing, these dance-makers create a contemporary geopoetics, propositions of relationship between the human body and a changing twenty-first-century landscape. In the industrialized world, a dichotomy of natural versus humanmade often arises. Through their work on site, these dance-makers disrupt this binary and suggest, instead, a continuum. By including human doings in their geopoetics, they help us to refind relationship within, offering a sense of integration with or embeddedness in the environment.
Scoring and Siting
Authors: Hunter Victoria
Published: March 2019

This chapter explores approaches to designing and utilizing improvised movement scores in site-specific dance-making. It considers the nature of improvisatory scores and their creative potential when applied in the site-dance context and explores how they are designed, applied, and managed by practitioners. Informed by examples from practice and from phenomenological and spatial theory, the chapter examines how scores lead practitioners towards and divert them away from specific site components and questions how they facilitate the management of architectural, spatial, and sensory ‘data’ in site-dance processes.
Artful Humanizing Conversations
Authors: Chappell Kerry , Swinford Lizzie
Published: March 2019

This chapter focuses on improvisation in early years dance. It arises from the practice and research interests of the chapter’s two authors. It articulates the dynamics of this practice, drawing on practitioner, researcher, and parent reflections to develop three themes: knowing yourself in your body, dialogues with children, and making and being made. The authors express and illustrate the creative, social, and personal value of dance experiences at an early age. They debate the questions and challenges which ensue from an improvisational approach to this practice and give readers a taste of the newness and joy of improvisation in this context.
Ten Days in Tarbena
Authors: Vesty Robert
Published: March 2019

This chapter draws on the author’s participation in a ten-day training in Action Theater™ led by its creator, Ruth Zaporah, in Tarbena, Spain, in June 2014. This interdisciplinary improvisation form utilizes silent movement, sound and movement, and speech to create improvisatory performance. It is argued that Zaporah’s established pedagogical form takes improvisers through a process of dealing with language which can be viewed in evolutionary terms. Moving through silent movement and the vocalization of sounds allows for a focus on sensation which gives rise to a greater awareness of what Zaporah refers to as ‘feeling states’. The content of improvisatory performance depends on staying in touch with feeling states, such that it complicates issues to do with feeling and emotion in ways that become particularly challenging when an improviser is compelled to use speech, or what Zaporah refers to as ‘physical narrative’. The author draws on Maxine Sheets-Johnstone’s phenomenology to propose that we view Action Theater™’s use of speech as ‘postkinetic’ and thereby prioritize its somatic rather than semantic ground.
Embodied Consciousness
Authors: Wait Nalina
Published: March 2019

In the twenty-first century, improvisation as a mode of performance has gained momentum in Western theatre dance. Yet its theorization remains challenged, not only by the ephemerality of the subject but also by the ways that its corporeal knowledges resist language and elude codification. This is because the practice does not comply with a dualistic hierarchy of ‘mind-over-matter’ but instead proposes body-mind unification as a core principle of the practice. Drawing from examination of the author’s own practice-based research, this chapter qualitatively examines a key methodology of improvised practice described as embodied consciousness. This chapter articulates how the bifurcation of embodied consciousness, as thinking-through-the-body and the body’s mind, can operate in an improvised performance and how it can be cultivated and refined through practice. Furthermore, it interrogates how the model for articulating composition needs reframing in an improvisational context, from a language based on formal logic to one based on attending to fluctuating, formless ‘intensities’.
Legal Evidence
Authors: Gardner Jane F.
Published: March 2019

Roman law is documented in greater detail than that of any ancient Greek state, principally through an enormous corpus of legal writings. The four most important are the so-called Twelve Tables, the Institutes of Gaius, the Codex of Justinian, and Justinian’s Digest. Legal writings can shed important light on slavery in Roman life, especially when combined with the evidence of inscriptions; but much of their content is anecdotal, sometimes hypothetical. Frequency of mention of a given situation in juristic writings does not necessarily correspond to its frequency in litigation, let alone in everyday life. Moreover, little in Roman law is directly or exclusively concerned with slaves—there is, arguably, no Roman law of slavery.
Constitutional Revolutions and State Formations in Comparison
Authors: Sohrabi Nader
Published: March 2019

The history of both modern Turkey and modern Iran have often been told through their founding figures, Atatürk and Reza Shah, whose state-building projects are often assumed to have been similar. This chapter compares the Young Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire of 1908 with the Constitutional Revolution in Iran in 1906 to point to both similarities and differences in the trajectories of these two countries in the early twentieth century. Both revolutions, it is argued, were foundational moments for the political development and processes of each country and are key to understanding the context in which Atatürk and Reza Shah emerged.
A Taxonomy of Uses of Demonstratives
Authors: Doran Ryan B. , Ward Gregory
Published: March 2019

This chapter presents a preliminary taxonomy of the various ways in which demonstrative noun phrases are used, with particular focus on examples from English. The classification of demonstrative uses begins with a consideration of the semantic value of the demonstrative NP—whether the speaker is using the demonstrative to denote or refer to an entity, a kind, a predicate, or a variable in a quantificational domain—and then further categorizes the uses of demonstratives on the basis of various pragmatic considerations that influence their interpretation. The taxonomy includes many uses previously identified in the literature as well as other uses that have not heretofore been discussed.
Accessibility and Reference Production
Authors: Vogels Jorrig , Krahmer Emiel , Maes Alfons
Published: March 2019

This chapter reviews recent research on speakers’ referential choices in discourse. It focuses on the choice to mention a certain referent first on the one hand, and to produce a pronoun or more elaborate noun phrase on the other. Whereas traditional theories have relied mainly on influence of linguistic context to explain these choices, recent psycholinguistic studies have started investigating the effect of non-linguistic factors as well. Results of these studies suggest that the two referential choices (choice of referent and choice of referring expression) are largely driven by different sets of factors, contrary to the claim that both are related to accessibility of mental representations in memory. The chapter concludes that these findings are best explained by assuming referents can be accessible on different levels: a local and a more global discourse level. Referential choices may be influenced by both levels of accessibility, but with different probabilities for different choices.
Queering Middle Class Gender in Nineteenth-Century US Theater
Authors: Rodger Gillian M.
Published: March 2019

This chapter considers cross-dressed roles in nineteenth-century music-theatrical forms in the United States, and particularly in non-narrative and semi-narrative forms such as minstrelsy, circus, variety, and burlesque. It discusses the origins of cross-dressed roles in English theatrical traditions, as well as connections to similar roles in European opera and operetta. It also considers other kinds of performances present in variety that challenged middle class gender construction of the period, and suggests that variety represented working class gender roles, and humor was found at the expense of hegemonic middle class ideals. This becomes particularly clear in the performances by male impersonators in variety of the 1860s–1880s. By the end of the century the middle class had expanded to include portions of the variety audience, and audiences no longer found the satirical treatment of middle class men funny. This, and growing mainstream recognition of homosexual populations, particularly in urban areas, caused the decline of cross-dressed performance.
Bushidō and Philosophy
Authors: Goto-Jones Chris
Published: March 2019

This chapter explores the philosophical and ideological landscape of the so-called bushidō (way of the warrior) tradition in Japan. It contends that bushidō has often been misunderstood or misrepresented as only a simple code of conduct tied to the historical samurai. Instead, this chapter seeks to reveal the richness of bushidō as a sophisticated and complex field of philosophical inquiry into questions of ethics, justice, being, violence, conflict, and death. Drawing on intellectual and cultural traditions as diverse as Buddhism, Shintō, Confucianism, the Kyoto School, and currents of Western philosophy, bushidō’s full philosophical importance emerges only in the twentieth century. While the political and ideological dangers of aspects of bushidō were clearly manifest in this period, its philosophical potential was only just beginning to be understood.
Long-term Benefit of Unilateral Cochlear Implantation on Quality of Life and Speech Perception in Bilaterally Deafened Patients
Authors: Häußler Sophia M. , Knopke Steffen , Wiltner Philipp , Ketterer Manuel , Gräbel Stefan , Olze Heidi
Published: March 2019

Objective:

Cochlear implantation (CI) is a common treatment modality for unilaterally and bilaterally deafened patients as well as patients with severe to profound hearing loss. The aim of our study is the complex evaluation of the improvement and influence of health related quality of life (HRQoL) and auditory performance in cochlear implant patients during a long-term follow-up.

Methods:

Sixty-one bilaterally, postlingually deafened patients with unilateral CI were included in this prospective study. Assessment tools for auditory performance and HRQoL included the Freiburg Monosyllabic Speech test, Oldenburg Inventory (OI) questionnaire, Nijmegen Cochlear Implant Questionnaire (NCIQ) and 36-item Short Form Survey (SF-36). Data were collected before CI, at 6, 12, and 24 months postoperatively.

Results:

The assessment tools for speech perception yielded a statistically significant improvement in the Freiburg Monosyllabic Speech test scores and of all subdomain scores of the OI during the 6-month follow-up period. The subdomain scores of the NCIQ and the psychological score of the SF-36 also improved significantly during this follow-up period. All results remained stable thereafter during the 12- and 24-month follow-up. There was a statistically significant correlation between subjective speech perception and HRQoL after CI.

Conclusion:

This is the first prospective study to show results in regard to speech perception and HRQoL and their correlation during a 2-year follow-up after unilateral CI in bilaterally deafened patients. Our results for speech perception and HRQoL showed a significant improvement during the 6-month follow-up that remained stable thereafter during a 24-month follow-up, even after finishing the hearing rehabilitation program.
Preservation of Residual Hearing After Cochlear Implant Surgery With Deep Insertion Electrode Arrays
Authors: Sierra Cristina , Calderón Manuela , Bárcena Eduardo , Tisaire Alexandra , Raboso Eduardo
Published: March 2019

Objective:

To evaluate the hearing preservation (HP) in cochlear implant (CI) recipients who did not fulfill the criteria for electric acoustic stimulation (EAS).

Study Design:

Prospective study

Setting:

Tertiary academic hospital.

Patients:

Adults undergoing CI with deep insertion electrode arrays who had measurable residual hearing (RH) before surgery.

Intervention:

Demographic data, surgical technique, pure-tone average, and radiological findings were evaluated.

Main Outcome Measure:

Pre- and postoperative pure-tone audiometry. A preservation study was therefore performed for the whole range of frequencies (THP), and for low frequencies (LFHP).

Results:

From the total 25 patients who underwent the surgical procedure, 6 of them (26.08%) did not retain any RH and 17 of them (73.91%) had some degree of HP. A clear association was observed between the use of the atraumatic technique (AT) and the percentage of some degree of HP. In patients who underwent the AT, LFHP was 72.79% and THP was 70.40%. In patients who did not undergo the technique, LFHP was 31.48% (p: 0.003) and THP was 23.50% (p: 0.002). LFHP was complete or partial (more than 25% of initial RH) in 92.3% of patients who underwent AT and in 50% of those who did not. Radiological findings showed that complete insertion is not associated with poorer HP.

Conclusion:

If the appropriate technique is used, preservation of RH is feasible after cochlear implant surgery with deep insertion electrode arrays.
Pediatric Bilateral Cochlear Implantation: Simultaneous Versus Sequential Surgery
Authors: Uecker Florian Cornelius , Szczepek Agnieszka , Olze Heidi
Published: March 2019

Objective:

To compare outcomes of bilateral cochlear implantation between simultaneous and sequential surgeries.

Study Design:

Retrospective study of surgical outcome for 54 children who received bilateral cochlear implants (CIs) over a five-year period.

Setting:

Tertiary health care

Patients:

We analyze surgical outcomes for 54 children who received two CIs over a five-year period. Thirty-two of these children received these implants simultaneously and 22 of these children received their implants sequentially (76 CI operations and 108 CI).

Intervention:

One hundred and eight CIs; Group A—bilateral simultaneous CI; Group B— bilateral sequential CI.

Main Outcome Measures:

Measurement of body temperature; recording drug administration measurement of the total length of hospital stay, surgery time, and total operating room utilization; recording complications.

Results:

Simultaneous bilateral CI-implantation is associated with a significantly reduced cumulative surgical time and cumulative operating room time. It shortens the total in-patient stay for children in comparison to sequential implantations. There were no clinically significant, adverse consequences of simultaneous implant surgery. Further information include medical history including cochlear malformations as well as complications after the surgery, use of analgesic and antiemetic medication and length of hospital stay.

Conclusions:

Simultaneous bilateral surgery is a safe option of pediatric cochlear implantation.
The Obliteration of Noncritical Size Bone Defects With Bone Dust or Bone Replacement Material (Bioactive Glass S53P4)
Authors: Kluge Anne , Neudert Marcus , Kunert-Keil Christiane , Lailach Susen , Zahnert Thomas , Kemper Max
Published: March 2019

Hypothesis:

Bone dust (BD) harvested during operation may be suitable as an autologous obliteration material for noncritical size defects. Bioactive glass (BA) can be an alternative.

Background:

To treat noncritical size defects, BD and BA are commonly used for obliteration techniques. However, the optimal harvesting method and parameters for BD have not been examined. In this study, we analyzed the osseoregenerative potential of both materials.

Methods:

Thirteen female merino sheep (7-yr old) underwent surgery on the frontal calvaria. Three defects were inserted. The first defect was considered a reference and remained unfilled, the second defect was filled with BD from the calvaria bone, and the third defect was filled with BA S53P4. The animals were sacrificed after 3 weeks. To evaluate bone regeneration, we used digital volume tomography, bone density measurement, fluorochrome sequence labeling, and histological analysis.

Results:

All analyses showed quantitative and qualitative bone regeneration 3 weeks after operation. The control blank defect showed significantly less new bone growth than the BD-filled defect. Moreover, bone regeneration occurred from the surrounding bone and showed only a defect bridge in the BD-filled defect. The BA completely filled the defect and had the highest density although the same amount of new mineralized bone generated as in the reference.

Conclusion:

BD and BA seemed to be suitable bone replacement materials for obliteration techniques because they completely filled the defects. Thus, BD harvested under standardized conditions provided a higher level of osteoreparation potential for the generation of woven bone and establishment of defect bridges.
Dedicated Breast Computed Tomography With a Photon-Counting Detector
Authors: Berger Nicole , Marcon Magda , Saltybaeva Natalia , Kalender Willi A. , Alkadhi Hatem , Frauenfelder Thomas , Boss Andreas
Published: March 2019

Objectives

The purpose of this work is to present the data obtained from the first clinical in vivo application of a new dedicated spiral breast computed tomography (B-CT) equipped with a photon-counting detector.

Materials and Methods

The institutional review board approved this retrospective study. Twelve women referred for breast cancer screening were included and underwent bilateral spiral B-CT acquired in prone position. Additional sonography was performed in case of dense breast tissue or any B-CT findings. In 3 women, previous mammography was available for comparison. Soft tissue (ST) and high-resolution (HR) images were reconstructed. Two independent radiologists performed separately the readout for subjective image quality and for imaging findings detection. Objective image quality evaluation was performed in consensus and included spatial resolution, contrast resolution, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and contrast-to-noise ratio. All women were asked to report about positioning comfort and overall comfort during data acquisition.

Results

The major pectoral muscle was included in 15 breast CT scans (62.5%); glandular component was partially missing in 2 (8.3%) of the 24 scanned breasts. A thin “ring artifact” was present in all scans but had no influence on image interpretations; no other artifacts were present. Subjective image quality assessment showed excellent agreement between the 2 readers (κ = 1). Three masses were depicted in B-CT and were confirmed as simple cysts in sonography. Additional 5 simple cysts and 2 solid benign lesions were identified only in sonography. A total of 12 calcifications were depicted with a median size of 1.1 mm (interquartile range, 0.7–1.7 mm) on HR and 1.4 mm (interquartile range, 1.1–1.8 mm) on ST images. Median SNRgl, SNRfat, and contrast-to-noise ratio were significantly higher in ST than in HR reconstructions (each, P < 0.001). A mild discomfort due to positioning of the rib cage on the table was reported by 2 women (16.7%); otherwise, no discomfort was reported.

Conclusions

The new dedicated B-CT equipped with a photon-counting detector provides high-quality images with potential for screening of breast cancer along with minor patient discomfort.
Pulmonary Vascular Morphology Associated With Gas Exchange in Systemic Sclerosis Without Lung Fibrosis
Authors: Zhai Zhiwei , Staring Marius , Ninaber Maarten K. , Vries-Bouwstra Jeska K. de , Schouffoer Anne A. , Kroft Lucia J. , Stolk Jan , Stoel Berend C.
Published: March 2019

Purpose:

Gas exchange in systemic sclerosis (SSc) is known to be affected by fibrotic changes in the pulmonary parenchyma. However, SSc patients without detectable fibrosis can still have impaired gas transfer. We aim to investigate whether pulmonary vascular changes could partly explain a reduction in gas transfer of SSc patients without fibrosis.

Materials and Methods:

We selected 77 patients whose visual computed tomography (CT) scoring showed no fibrosis. Pulmonary vessels were detected automatically in CT images, and their local radii were calculated. The frequency of occurrence for each radius was calculated, and, from this radius histogram, 2 imaging biomarkers (α and β) were extracted, wherein α reflects the relative contribution of small vessels compared with large vessels, and β represents the vessel tree capacity. Correlations between imaging biomarkers and gas transfer [single-breath diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide corrected for hemoglobin concentration (DLCOc) %predicted] were evaluated with Spearman correlation. Multivariable stepwise linear regression was performed with DLCOc %predicted as the dependent variable and age, BMI, sPAP, FEV1 %predicted, TLC %predicted, FVC %predicted, α, β, voxel size, and CT-derived lung volume as independent variables.

Results:

Both α and β were significantly correlated with gas transfer (R=−0.29, P-value=0.011 and R=0.32, P-value=0.004, respectively). The multivariable stepwise linear regression analysis selected sPAP [coefficient=−0.78; 95% confidence interval (CI)=−1.07, −0.49; P-value<0.001], β (coefficient=8.6; 95% CI=4.07, 13.1; P-value<0.001), and FEV1% predicted (coefficient=0.3; 95% CI=0.12, 0.48; P-value=0.001) as significant independent predictors of DLCOc %predicted (R=0.71, P-value<0.001).

Conclusions:

In SSc patients without detectable pulmonary fibrosis, impaired gas exchange is associated with alterations in pulmonary vascular morphology.
Ibuprofen-mediated potential inhibition of biofilm development and quorum sensing inPseudomonas aeruginosa
Authors: Dai Lu , Wu Tian-qi , Wang Zhong-hui , Yuan Ruoyu , Ding Ye , Zhang Wen-chen , Chu Shao-peng , Ju Shao-qing , Yu Juan
Published: March 2019

Pseudomonas aeruginosais one of the leading causes of opportunistic and hospital-acquired infections worldwide. The infection withP. aeruginosais frequently linked with clinical treatment difficulties given drug resistance and abuse of antibiotics. Ibuprofen, a widely used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, has been previously reported to exert antimicrobial activity, although the specific mechanism of its action requires additional investigation. Given the regulation effects on quorum sensing (QS), we hypothesized that inhibition ofP. aeruginosawith ibuprofen is linked with the QS systems. First, we assessed the action of ibuprofen inP. aeruginosaby measuring CFU. The antimicrobial activity of ibuprofen was evaluated by crystal violent staining and acridine orange staining at various drug concentrations (0, 50, 75, and 100 μg/mL). Moreover, the effect of ibuprofen on different QS virulence factors, such as pyocyanin, elastase, protease, and rhamnolipids, was assessed revealing a concentration-dependent decrease (P<0.05). The effect of ibuprofen was confirmed by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis of 3-oxo-C12-HSL and C4-HSL production. In addition, qRT-PCR results identified significant suppression of Las and Rhl gene expression after 18 hours of treatment with ibuprofen (P<0.05), with the most significant suppression observed at the concentration of 75 μg/mL. Functional complementation with exogenous 3-oxo-C12-HSL and C4-HSL suggested that C4-HSL can recover the production of virulence factors and biofilm formation inP. aeruginosa.Molecular docking of ibuprofen with QS-associated proteins revealed high binding affinity. In summary, the results suggest that ibuprofen is a candidate drug for the treatment of clinical infections withP. aeruginosa.
Iron-sulfur cluster repair contributes to Y. pseudotuberculosis survival within deep tissues
Authors: Davis Kimberly M. , Krupp Joanna , Clark Stacie , Isberg Ralph R.
Published: March 2019

To successfully colonize host tissues, bacteria must respond to and detoxify many different host-derived antimicrobial compounds, such as nitric oxide (NO). NO has direct antimicrobial activity through attack on iron-sulfur (Fe-S) cluster-containing proteins. NO detoxification plays an important role in promoting bacterial survival, but it remains unclear if repair of Fe-S clusters is also important for bacterial survival within host tissues. Here we show that the Fe-S cluster repair protein, YtfE, contributes to the survival of Y. pseudotuberculosis within the spleen following nitrosative stress. Y. pseudotuberculosis forms clustered centers of replicating bacteria within deep tissues, where peripheral bacteria express the NO-detoxifying gene, hmp. ytfE expression also occurred specifically within peripheral cells at the edges of microcolonies. In the absence of ytfE, the area of microcolonies was significantly smaller than WT, consistent with ytfE contributing to the survival of peripheral cells. The loss of ytfE did not alter the ability of cells to detoxify NO, which occurred within peripheral cells in both WT and ΔytfE microcolonies. In the absence of NO-detoxifying activity by hmp, NO diffused across ΔytfE microcolonies, and there was a significant decrease in the area of microcolonies lacking ytfE, indicating that ytfE also contributes to bacterial survival in the absence of NO detoxification. These results indicate a role for Fe-S cluster repair in the survival of Y. pseudotuberculosis within the spleen, and suggest that extracellular bacteria may rely on this pathway for survival within host tissues.
Proton uptake mechanism in bacteriorhodopsin captured by serial synchrotron crystallography
Authors: Weinert Tobias , Skopintsev Petr , James Daniel , Dworkowski Florian , Panepucci Ezequiel , Kekilli Demet , Furrer Antonia , Brünle Steffen , Mous Sandra , Ozerov Dmitry , Nogly Przemyslaw , Wang Meitian , Standfuss Jörg
Published: March 2019

Conformational dynamics are essential for proteins to function. Here we describe how we adapted time-resolved serial crystallography developed at X-ray lasers to visualize protein motions using synchrotrons. We recorded the structural changes upon proton pumping in bacteriorhodopsin over 200 ms in time. The snapshot from the first 5 ms after photoactivation shows structural changes associated with proton release at comparable quality to previous X-ray laser experiments. From 10-15 ms onwards we observe large additional structural rearrangements up to 9 Å on the cytoplasmic side. Rotation of Leu93 and Phe219 opens a hydrophobic barrier leading to the formation of a water chain connecting the intracellular Asp96 with the retinal Schiff base. The formation of this proton wire recharges the membrane pump with a proton for the next cycle.