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During the Second World War and the austerity period that followed it, the British government operated clothes rationing as a welfare policy. Its official aim was to ensure that all citizens had equal access to essential clothing. Despite being associated with the principle of 'fair shares', rationing did not work well for large-bodied consumers. Government agents' assumptions about citizens' bodies generated a rationing scheme that overlooked large bodies. As a result, rationing regulations and economic controls amplified the normalizing impulses of mass production, creating a constant shortage of ready-made large garments and a market in which purchasing power and access to goods depended on body size. Struggling to navigate this market, consumers attempted to hold the government accountable for its declarations of equality. Tracing this issue in government records and in local, national, and trade press, this article discusses how the conflicting motivations of state, trade, and citizens shaped rationing in a way that prioritized the culturally and statistically 'normal' and reflects on what mass welfare meant for citizens with 'abnormal' needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, disruptive media events, such as major terrorist attacks, have gained increasing relevance in news coverage around the world. Despite the growing importance of such globally broadcast media events, little research to date has examined cross-national variation in event coverage or the predictors of this variation. This study examines news coverage about the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States across 51 countries to analyze whether the topical focus and emotional tone of news coverage about the attacks varied according to a country's proximity to the United States and the dominant role perceptions of its journalistic culture. We show that these macro-level predictors are associated in varying degrees with the country-level topical focus and emotional tone of reporting over the 30 days following this salient event. Moreover, our analysis also suggests that temporal developments may have uniformly structured much of this worldwide coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives Providing preferred leisure activities appears to be an important approach to support and empower people receiving adult day services (ADS) allowing them to age in place. To provide the conceptualization for a preference instrument, we actively involved people receiving ADS in exploring the content and structure of their preferences for leisure activities. Research Design and Methods We chose a concept mapping methodology and involved 16 people receiving ADS. We systematically reviewed the literature and conducted semistructured interviews to generate a set of 80 preferences. Analysis of structuring these preferences resulted in a 3-dimensional cube with 12 clusters. A graphical representation was then interpreted , and the clusters were labeled. Results Our conceptualization divides preferences for leisure activities into the following: 1. Take a trip , 2. Revel in memories and catch up on the news (most important), 3. Do something for yourself and come to rest , 4. Play intelligence and parlor games , 5. Make/produce and try something alone or in a group , 6. Keep fit and cheer others on in sports (least important), 7. Learn, educate, and share knowledge , 8. Have contact with other people , 9. Attend at entertainment, cultural, and amusement events , 10. Enjoy music, your homeland, or other countries , 11. Engage in outdoor activities , and 12. Get involved, offer support, and provide companionship. Discussion and Implications Our results may lead to the development of instruments and thus opens the field for further research and theory building on preferences for leisure activities of people receiving ADS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to reveal the mechanism and significance of wet canopy photosynthesis during and after rainfall in temperate coniferous ecosystems by evaluating the influence of abaxial leaf interception on wet canopy photosynthesis. We used the eddy covariance method in conjunction with an enclosed-path gas analyser to conduct continuous ecosystem CO2 flux observations in a Japanese cypress forest within the temperate Asian monsoon area over 3 years. The observation shows that wet-canopy CO2 uptake predominantly occurred during the post-rainfall canopy-wet period rather than the during-rainfall period. Then, the measured canopy-wet net ecosystem exchange was compared with the soil–vegetation–atmosphere transfer multilayer model simulations under different parameter settings of the abaxial (lower) leaf surface wet area ratio. The multilayer model predicted net ecosystem exchange most accurately when it assumed the wet area ratio of the abaxial surface was 50% both during and after rainfall. For the wet canopy both during and after rainfall, the model overestimated CO2 uptake when it assumed no abaxial interception in the simulation, but underestimated CO2 uptake when it assumed that the entire abaxial leaf surface was wet. These results suggest that the abaxial surface of the Japanese cypress leaf is only partly wet to maintain stomatal openness and a low level of photosynthesis. These results allow for an evaluation of the effect of rainfall on forest carbon circulation under a changing climate, facilitating an improvement of ecosystem carbon exchange models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the changes in safety labeling approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from October to December 2023. Topics mentioned include the life-threatening respiratory depression caused by opioid Actiq, the risks associated with the use of central nervous system depressant benzodiazepines, and the interaction of Actiq with cytochrome P450 3A4.

Managing coastal wetlands is one of the most promising activities to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases, and it also contributes to meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. One of the options is through blue carbon projects, in which mangroves, saltmarshes, and seagrass are managed to increase carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, other tidal wetlands align with the characteristics of blue carbon. These wetlands are called tidal freshwater wetlands in the United States, supratidal wetlands in Australia, transitional forests in Southeast Asia, and estuarine forests in South Africa. They have similar or larger potential for atmospheric carbon sequestration and emission reductions than the currently considered blue carbon ecosystems and have been highly exploited. In the present article, we suggest that all wetlands directly or indirectly influenced by tides should be considered blue carbon. Their protection and restoration through carbon offsets could reduce emissions while providing multiple cobenefits, including biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Taxodium hybrid 'Zhongshanshan' 406 (Taxodium mucronatum Tenore ×  Taxodium distichum ; Taxodium 406) is an extremely flooding-tolerant woody plant, the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying acclimation of its roots to long-term flooding remain largely unknown. Thus, we exposed saplings of Taxodium 406 to either non-flooding (control) or flooding for 2 months. Flooding resulted in reduced root biomass, which is in line with lower concentrations of citrate, α-ketoglutaric acid, fumaric acid, malic acid and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in Taxodium 406 roots. Flooding led to elevated activities of pyruvate decarboxylase, alcohol dehydrogenase and lactate dehydrogenase, which is consistent with higher lactate concentration in the roots of Taxodium 406. Flooding brought about stimulated activities of superoxide dismutase and catalase and elevated reduced glutathione (GSH) concentration and GSH/oxidized glutathione, which is in agreement with reduced concentrations of O2− and H2O2 in Taxodium 406 roots. The levels of starch, soluble protein, indole-3-acetic acid, gibberellin A4 and jasmonate were decreased, whereas the concentrations of glucose, total non-structural carbohydrates, most amino acids and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) were improved in the roots of flooding-treated Taxodium 406. Underlying these changes in growth and physiological characteristics, 12,420 mRNAs and 42 miRNAs were significantly differentially expressed, and 886 miRNA–mRNA pairs were identified in the roots of flooding-exposed Taxodium 406. For instance, 1- aminocyclopropane- 1 -carboxylate synthase 8 (ACS8) was a target of Th-miR162-3p and 1 -aminocyclopropane- 1 -carboxylate oxidase 4 (ACO4) was a target of Th-miR166i, and the downregulation of Th-miR162-3p and Th-miR166i results in the upregulation of ACS8 and ACO4 , probably bringing about higher ACC content in flooding-treated roots. Overall, these results indicate that differentially expressed mRNA and miRNAs are involved in regulating tricarboxylic acid cycle, ATP production, fermentation, and metabolism of carbohydrates, amino acids and phytohormones, as well as reactive oxygen species detoxification of Taxodium 406 roots. These processes play pivotal roles in acclimation to flooding stress. These results will improve our understanding of the molecular and physiological bases underlying woody plant flooding acclimation and provide valuable insights into breeding-flooding tolerant trees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incivility in parliaments is always prominently displayed in media reports, often with the implicit or explicit commentary that the situation is getting worse. This paper processes and analyses the records of verbal interactions in the Australian Parliament for over 100 years to provide a first approximation on the evolution of civility. It provides a framework for understanding the multidimensional nature of civility that examines both 'politeness' and 'argumentation', with the latter grounded in notions of public-mindedness. The analysis focuses on the interactions between parties of the orators and the party in power, the chamber of utterance, and the year. The results indicate that instances of impoliteness have increased since the 1970s but only modestly and remain highly infrequent. Minor parties, particularly those representing right-wing and Green politics are more likely to use dismissive or offensive language than the dominant centre-left and centre-right parties, although direct insults and swearwords are the particular remits of right-wing 'system-wrecker' parties. All these minor parties, nonetheless, also display higher levels of argumentation in their interventions. This combination of aggressive language and increased argumentation highlights the pressures on minor parties to convey their points in a forceful way, a challenge that is particularly pressing in two-party systems like the Australian one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the parliamentary press's role in promoting Oliver Cromwell's heroic image during the first civil war, a topic that has received relatively little scholarly attention. Based on a detailed study of contemporary pamphlets and newsbooks, it suggests three phases of press coverage that correspond to the conflict's campaigning seasons. It shows that Cromwell's image in print was greatly assisted by his close relationship with the Independent leadership at Westminster, and their expertise in the manipulation of the press. For them, Cromwell's successes in the field were essential for securing victory. His military reputation, initially nurtured by the civil war press, laid the foundations for his eventual role as lord protector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the discourses around climate change in the UK press from 2003 to 2019. Our main goal is to investigate how the media discourse developed during a period of significant world events, whilst also exploring the change in the UK public's perception of the problem. We combine the novel technique of Usage Fluctuation Analysis (UFA, McEnery et al. 2019) with corpus-assisted discourse analysis to track the fluctuation in the usage of the phrases climate change and global warming over this 17-year period. Thus, in addition to offering a methodological contribution by applying UFA to a relatively small specialized diachronic corpus, this article offers new insights on how the discourse evolved. Results indicate that the tabloids and broadsheets offer a surprisingly similar image of climate change discourse, both showing two major discoursal shifts. From an overall prevalence of articles advocating for the climate change cause, the discourse incorporated voices of climate sceptics from 2008 onwards, moving on to increased coverage and awareness of the problem in recent years when the public started to engage in it more heavily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to examine the extent and nature of Australian news media coverage of commercial industry activities that explicitly speak to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contexts. We undertook content and framing analysis of Australian newspaper and online media articles published between January 2018 and March 2022 that included terms related to 'Indigenous', 'commercial' and 'health'. Analysis focused on the nature of coverage, framing of responsibility, patterns over time and stakeholder representation. Forty-six media articles were included in the analysis. Half of these articles related to the actions of three companies (Woolworths, WAM Clothing and Rio Tinto). Most articles described negative health and well-being impacts of commercial activity, while four described positive impacts. The most common voice represented in media articles was from industry (n = 25). Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander voices were represented in 21 articles. This analysis highlights how commercial activities in Australia are reported to negatively influence Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and well-being, and that industry voices are more commonly represented in the media related to these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rachel Orzech's book, "Claiming Wagner for France: Music and Politics in the Parisian Press, 1933–1944," explores the relationship between Wagner's music and French politics during the Nazi occupation of France. Orzech argues that Parisian critics and commentators saw Wagner's operas and ideas as universal and transcendent of his Germanness, even as the German threat grew more tangible. She suggests that a special Franco-German collaboration existed in various forms since the nineteenth century, and that Wagner's music became emblematic of universality and possibly even Franco-German rapprochement. The book analyzes how Wagner's works and their reputation were related to performing practices and interpretative viewpoints during this period, and how they were used to confront Nazism, understand past Franco-German conflict, and manage life under occupation. Orzech contends that appreciation of Wagner's operas did not fundamentally change in the long run, even with the Nazi occupation, as a conviction about universalist cultural activity underpinned French appreciation of Wagner's operas. The press and the government presented Wagner as a means for the French and Germans to come together and move forward into a bold New Europe dominated by Germany and German culture. [Extracted from the article]

What drives the news coverage of social movements in the professional news media? We address this question by elaborating an institutional mediation model arguing that the news values, routines, and characteristics of the news media induce them to pay attention to movements depending on their characteristics and the political contexts in which they engage. The news-making characteristics of movements include their disruptive capacities and organizational strength, and the political contexts include a partisan regime in power, benefitting from national policies, and congressional investigations. To appraise these arguments, we analyze approximately 1 million news articles mentioning 29 social movements over the twentieth century, published in four national newspapers. We use negative binomial regression analyses and separate time-series analyses of the labor movement to assess the model's robustness across different movements, time periods, and news sources. In each analysis, the results support the hypotheses based on the institutional mediation model. More generally, we argue that the influence of social movements on institutions depends on the structure and operating procedures of those institutions. This insight has implications for future studies of the influence of movements on major social institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

STUDY QUESTION Does the core outcome set (COS) on polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) impact the selection of research outcomes? SUMMARY ANSWER Following the publication of the COS on PCOS, an increasing number of trials are reporting both the generic domain and body mass index; however, the uptake of this COS has not been as extensive as expected. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY The COS on PCOS included 33 core outcomes in the following seven domains: the generic (3), metabolic (8), reproductive (7), pregnancy (10), psychological (3), oncological (1), and long-term (1). This was done to improve consistency in outcome selection and definition. However, thus far, no studies have investigated the effectiveness of this COS in the above-mentioned tasks. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION A methodological study based on the trial registries, including 395 eligible clinical trials registered between 1 January 2018 and 21 September 2022. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS A total of 1258 registered clinical studies on PCOS were retrieved from the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. Of those, 395 were selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and divided into two groups based on the publication date of the COS on PCOS (4 February 2020): pre-publication and post-publication. The practical uptake of this COS was explored after data collation, assessment, comparison of the uptake of core outcomes or domains before and after the publication of this COS, and correlation analysis between the domains. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE There were 26 out of 33 core outcomes and five out of seven domains reported in the 395 trials. The highest uptake was observed for the reproductive domain and the reproductive hormonal profile (63.0% and 38.7%, respectively). After the publication of the COS on PCOS, the uptake of the generic domain and body mass index increased from 24.1% to 35.8% (P  = 0.011) and 17.8% to 26.5% (P  = 0.039), respectively. The total number of reported core outcomes in the generic domain met statistical significance (P  = 0.012). Moreover, multivariable analyses still supported the above finding in the generic domain. Correlation analysis showed that most of the domains were positively correlated with each other. However, the pregnancy domain was negatively correlated with the metabolic domain. Reasons responsible for the unsatisfactory uptake may be the absence of specific definitions of core outcomes, as well as the lack of awareness among researchers regarding this COS. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION Due to the lack of standardized definition of outcomes, it was difficult to avoid some subjectivity in the process of consistency assessment. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS Two years after its publication, there was no substantial improvement in the uptake of the COS on PCOS. This suggests that this COS may require further revision, refinement, and promotion to improve the comparability of PCOS studies. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S) This work was funded by Beijing Municipal Health Science and Technology Achievements and Appropriate Technology Promotion Project (BHTPP2022069), and the special fund of Beijing Key Clinical Specialty Construction Project. The authors do not have conflicts of interest to declare. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER N/A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early twentieth-century Russia, a disastrous war and social revolution shook the foundations of the imperial state, unleashing the press from censorship and demanding innovation in media coverage. At this very moment, new photographic technology was democratizing access and making high-quality reproductions affordable. This article explores how photography responded to and visualized the unprecedented political violence that engulfed Russia during the Revolution of 1905. Situating this "war at home" in a global context of early commercial and humanitarian photography of violence, it charts the emergence of distinctive visual regimes and spectatorial practices. As photographs made political violence visible within an unruly public sphere, they spotlighted some forms of violence and occluded others. Visual frames and narratives shaped new modes of representation and spectatorship, including regimes of commemoration, documentation, sensationalism, and forensics. This article opens with the most conventional photographic form, the studio portrait, and shows how it became imbricated with the political struggle and a forum for contesting the status of victim and martyr. The second section considers how the illustrated press crafted the terrorist bombing as a visual spectacle, using images with paratext to tell different kinds of stories. Shifting focus from the event to the body, the final section analyzes explicit photographs of the corpse. By exposing the violated body to the public gaze, these photographs posed a question fundamental to modernity, capitalism, and photography: who counts as fully human? This case study concludes with reflections on the categories of proximity and distance in the photography of violence. While the revolution was suppressed by 1907, it inaugurated a vibrant era of mass culture, capitalist consumption, and cultural pessimism, in which photography and film would play increasingly dominant roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War II, he was in charge of government propaganda at the foreign ministry until 1944, at which point he returned to Moscow, this time as ambassador.[23] He knew Russian and even published a book in the Soviet Union.[24] Precisely because he had first-hand experience of Moscow's relations with Ankara, he knew that the whole point of his meeting with Molotov in March was about testing waters. In Iran as well, reports of Soviet troop movements toward the Turkish frontier were promptly communicated to the Ankara government, which convinced the Turkish leadership that "the Soviet Union would soon be in a position to strike Turkey." He told his Soviet counterpart that the Turkish side was asking for "written guarantees from Moscow so that they could convince their citizens in eastern Anatolia and in Thrace that Soviet Russia would not invade their lands."[63] Eden also told Molotov that the Turkish government was convinced that Soviet Russia would not leave the Balkans for at least twenty to twenty-five years, if somehow they managed to enter Romania and Bulgaria. Molotov told Sarper that "the safety of 200 million Soviet citizens cannot rely on the good-will of Turkey", and that the Ankara government left Moscow in doubt throughout the war, mainly because Turkey, as the sole custodian of the Straits, lacked the means for a proper defense of the Black Sea. [Extracted from the article]

The accurate estimation of plant transpiration is critical to the fields of hydrology, plant physiology and ecology. Among the various methods of measuring transpiration in the field, the sap flow methods based on head pulses offers a cost-effective and energy-efficient option to directly measure the plant-level movement of water through the hydraulically active tissue. While authors have identified several possible sources of error in these measurements, one of the most common sources is misalignment of the sap flow probes due to user error. Though the effects of probe misalignment are well documented, no device or technique has been universally adopted to ensure the proper installation of sap flow probes. In this paper we compare the magnitude of misalignment errors among a 5 mm thick drilling template (DT), a 10 mm thick DT, and a custom designed, field-portable drill press. The different techniques were evaluated in the laboratory using a 7.5 cm wood block and in the field, comparing differences in measured sap flow. Based on analysis of holes drilled in the wood block, we found that the portable drill press was most effective in assuring that drill holes remained parallel, even at 7.5 cm depth. In field installations, nearly 50% of holes drilled with a 5 mm template needed to be redrilled while none needed to be when drilled with the drill press. Widespread use of a portable drill press when implementing the heat pulse method would minimize alignment uncertainty and allow a clearer understanding of other sources of uncertainty due to variability in tree species, age, or external drivers or transpiration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bourdieu's field theory has become a key heuristic for studying the impact of the market on American journalism, but this approach has not been employed to analyze the consequences of a technology-driven decline in advertising revenue. To understand this change and update the commercial critique of journalism, I extend the emerging Bourdieusian historical research program to chart transformations in the market's heteronomous effects on journalism. To do so, I highlight how the New York Times was exceptionally positioned to manage heteronomy as it emanated through the technology, political, and financial fields. This analysis throws the crisis of the wider field into relief, a field I characterize as an "inverted pyramid" to reflect how the Times' success deepened hierarchy, while also giving it the freedom to reinvent orthodoxy in a wide space of possibility atop the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the topic of complete revascularization for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients without cardiogenic shock. It mentions the COMPLETE trial and other reports that have supported the use of complete revascularization. The BIOVASC trial, recently published in The Lancet, addresses the timing of revascularization and compares immediate complete revascularization to staged complete revascularization. The trial found that immediate revascularization was non-inferior to staged revascularization for the primary endpoint at 1 year, but was superior at 30 days. The article also discusses the importance of coronary physiology and intravascular imaging in guiding treatment decisions and the potential benefits of pharmacological treatments for ACS patients. [Extracted from the article]

The author could have placed emphasis on comparing ICJ's contribution to the jurisprudence of other courts and tribunals, thus giving a precise context and a critical assessment. 1. The book under review is Victor Stoica, I Remedies before the International Court of Justice: A Systemic Analysis i , Cambridge University Press, 2021, 288 pp. Additionally, in deciding in accordance with international law, the preferred choice of the ICJ is "declaratory judgement" (p.169) because of its preventive nature and therefore is best suited to fulfilling the role of the ICJ. [Extracted from the article]

Zeta is a relatively recently developed tool for authorship attribution and computational stylistics (Craig and Kinney, 2009 , Shakespeare, Computers, and the Mystery of Authorship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). In 'The Interpretation of Zeta Test Results' (2019), Perves Rizvi raised several objections to the method. I responded to and rejected those objections in 'Zeta Revisited' (Hoover, 2021a , Zeta revisited. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities , 1–20). Rizvi has renewed two of his main objections in a critique of my response in his 'The Interpretation of Zeta Test Results: A Supplement' (2022). First, he reiterates and expands his argument that the separation of base and counter segments in a Zeta analysis is a mechanical consequence of Zeta, rather than a significant and meaningful finding. Second, he again rejects the use of the bisector line to attribute texts in a Zeta analysis as unsound and adds new arguments that it leads to invalid attributions. This rejoinder provides further evidence and argument that both of Rizvi's claims must be rejected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the politics of popular press astrology between 1939 and 1942. Charting the astrological content of the News of the World , The People , the Sunday Dispatch , the Sunday Express and the Sunday Pictorial , it unearths connections between predictions and wider themes of morale and press freedoms during the war. The article argues that these predictions, which were largely aimed at female readers, were, on balance, morale-boosting. Fears over the impact of press astrology speak to anxieties over the influence of popular newspapers in wartime among officials and contemporary researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section offers public health news briefs in Europe, as of October 2023. Topics covered include how much the European Public Health Association is able to do with its small secretariat, the regional roadmap on antimicrobial resistance for 2023-2030 which member states of the World Health Organization European Region are invited to adopt and the 16th European Public Health Conference to be held in Dublin, Ireland on November 8-11, 2023.

This article analyses how international advocacy campaigns approach and define media freedom, and what influences this process. It does this through a two-year case study of the Media Freedom Coalition—an intergovernmental partnership of over 50 countries—that included 55 interviews with key stakeholders, observations, and document analysis. This revelatory case sheds light on how norms of media freedom are constructed and contested on the international stage, and their implications for journalists, media freedom and geo-politics. We show that the Coalition adopted a state-centric, accountability-focused, and negative understanding of media freedom. This discourse legitimized a narrow, reactive, and "resource-light" approach to supporting media freedom, focused on "other" countries. We argue that critical norm research provides a helpful prism for understanding this Coalition's operations, and the global politics of media freedom more generally. These findings have important implications for understandings of "norm entrepreneurship," "media imperialism," and "media freedom" itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Phase III trials with prospective biomarker validation are essential to drug development in the era of personalized oncology. However, concerns have emerged regarding the design and reporting of phase III trials with prospective biomarker validation.Methods: We searched MEDLINE for phase III oncology trials with prospective biomarker validation published in high-impact medical journals from 2011 to 2020. Information regarding trial design and reporting were extracted. Descriptive methods were used to summarize the results.Results: We identified 45 phase III trials with prospective biomarker validation. There was a trend for increasing use of biomarker validation phase III trials (from 1 trial in 2011 to 12 trials in 2020). For 39 (86.7%) trials, results in biomarker-negative population were either listed as an exploratory subgroup analysis (62.2%) or not mentioned in the methods (24.4%). Twenty-one (46.7%) trials were originally designed without biomarker validation but were then apparently modified to incorporate prospective biomarker validation after trial commencement, albeit only 15 (33.3%) trials reported this change. Treatment effect and primary outcome values in biomarker-negative patients were not reported in 24.4% and 40.0% trials, respectively. For 18 trials with statistically significant results in the overall population, only 7 trials reported a hazard ratio less than 0.8 in the biomarker-negative population.Conclusion: Although biomarker validation in phase III trials have been increasingly used in the past decade, issues regarding changes in trial design after commencement without disclosure, under-reporting of results in biomarker-negative groups and recommending treatment in biomarker negative groups despite modest effects, require substantial improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite much theorizing on the quality of journalism, there is limited actual empirical evidence for the effects of improved news quality on societal outcomes. This study provides such evidence for suicide reporting. News quality especially matters in this domain, as low-quality reporting can elicit "copycat" suicides (Werther effect). We developed and disseminated a web-based campaign promoting high-quality suicide reporting, targeting newsrooms in Germany. Twenty-two newsrooms participated. A content analysis (N  =   4,015 articles) provided supporting evidence for an increase in high-quality reporting (Study 1). Interrupted time series analyses offered tentative evidence for a reduction in actual suicides (Study 2). Acknowledging limitations in terms of causal interpretations, the findings support the claim that high-quality news can save lives. Similar newsroom interventions run elsewhere may contribute to preventing suicides globally. We discuss the implications, including those of a theoretically meaningful discovery related to the suicide-protective effect's underlying mechanism, termed the dampening-the-spikes hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like other post-Soviet countries, Lithuania inherited large residential care institutions for people with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities. The reform aimed at relocating these people to community-based group homes has been met with opposition, and the communities see it as a threat to their habitus. The news media has become an important actor in this process, in its attempt to reproduce public discourse accompanying such social change. Research using case study methodology was implemented to explore the ethical aspects of community participation in deinstitutionalization. It involved observation of different public meetings between central government and communities, content analysis of gathered data and discourse analysis of the news media publications on a resonant case of opposition to the deinstitutionalization. Although other accounts of ethics privilege those of the individual worker or organization, this article looks at the ethics of multiple actors—including the community as an actor, and thus understands ethics as multiple, dynamic and intersecting. In this sense, the account is less about individual workers and more about communities and how they change and develop. Different ethical attitudes of the main actors—Ministry of Social Security and Labour, local authorities, social care institutions and communities, shaping public and news media discourses about deinstitutionalization—were identified in the data collected. Initial unethical community discourse was met with critique from the society at large, and it forced communities to switch to 'fake' ethics arguments for opposing deinstitutionalization. Fake ethics was manifested as intentional disguise of prejudices against people with disabilities through citing ethical phrases of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, even though these words contradicted the actions of all parties participating in the discourse. Moreover, people with disabilities themselves, directly affected by the community prejudices, were absent both in public and media discourses, and this entails a risk for their successful inclusion into the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents summaries of safety labeling changes approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from July to September 2022. These include the additions and revisions to the labeling of Arthrotec (diclofenac sodium/misoprostol), opzelura (ruxolinitib phosphate), and ultomiris (ravulizumab-cwvz).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, news and social media outlets have played a major role in dissemination of information. This analysis aimed to study the association between trust in social and traditional media and experiences of mental distress among a representative sample of US adults. Data for this study came from National Pandemic Pulse, a cross-sectional, nationally representative survey that sampled participants on the Dynata platform. Participants included 6435 adults surveyed between 15–23 December 2020. Ordinal logistic regression analyses examined the associations of trust in (i) social media, (ii) print media, (iii) broadcast TV and (iv) cable TV, for COVID-19-related information with self-reported mental distress (4-item Patient Health Questionnaire), controlling for sociodemographics and census region. Compared with those who distrusted social media, those who trusted social media had 2.09 times (95% CI = 1.84–2.37) greater adjusted odds of being in a more severe category of mental distress. In contrast, compared with those who distrusted print media, those who trusted print media had 0.80 times (95% CI = 0.69–0.93) lower adjusted odds of being in a more severe category of mental distress. No significant associations were found between mental distress and trust in broadcast or cable TV for accessing news about COVID-19. Trust in different news outlets may be associated with mental distress during public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic. Future studies should explore mechanisms behind these associations, including adherence to best practices for crisis reporting among different media sources and exposure of individuals to misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been claimed that traditional interpretations of Zeta based on graphs with bisector lines (Craig and Kinney, 2009, Shakespeare, Computers, and the Mystery of Authorship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) are unsound, that validation with a held-out segments is inadequate, that counting types rather than tokens is suspect, and that the relationship between stronger Zeta scores and shorter word n-grams is an artifact of the method rather than a research finding (Rizvi, 2019a, The interpretation of zeta test results. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities , 34 (2): 401–18). All of these claims are unsound. The separation of base and counter segments in a Zeta analysis is in fact an important research finding, the traditional interpretation of Zeta results based on a bisector line remain sound, and validation with a held-out segments is an appropriate method. Zeta's reliance on consistency rather than frequency is not a bug but valuable feature that provides an important complementary method to those based on frequency. The results of extensive testing on corpora of prose, poetry, and drama show that increasing word n-gram length (but not character n-gram length) is often negatively correlated with classification accuracy. Higher Zeta scores are often correlated with better results, though the results vary a great deal depending on the corpus, the classification method, and the type and length of n-gram. Most importantly, these results show that Zeta gives strong results that are competitive with methods like Cosine Delta and Support Vector Machine on these classification tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our modern concept of political free speech as an individual political right was first elaborated in detail three hundred years ago by two London journalists, Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard, in their best-selling, endlessly reprinted, anonymous newspaper column, known as 'Cato's Letters' (1720–23). As is well known, Cato's novel ideas about speech and press freedom proved hugely influential, especially in the American colonies. Because they underpin the peculiar formulation of the First Amendment of the United States' constitution, their impact is still with us today. But Trenchard and Gordon's own lives and motives are remarkably obscure, and how they managed to formulate a completely new way of thinking about politics and public debate has remained an unexplored puzzle. Nor has it previously been appreciated that their arguments, as well as refocusing existing discussions of press liberty, directly engaged long-standing concerns about false news and public deception. Drawing on newly discovered printed and manuscript evidence, this essay reveals the deliberately misleading character of their ideology, and the reasons for its hidden partiality. It shows both how political freedom of speech first came to be systematically conceived of as a mechanism for truth, an antidote to falsehood, and the foundation of all liberty — and that, ironically, this new and powerful theory was itself but a partial, biased fiction about the world. That is a paradox whose consequences we are still living with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights developments in public health in Europe as of October 2022. Topics mentioned include the acquisition of an operating grant by European Public Health Association from the European Commission, the lessons about health emergencies that can be learned from COVID-19 pandemic, and the advocacy of Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region for public health.

Under gametophytic self‐incompatibility (GSI), plants are heterozygous at the self‐incompatibility locus (S‐locus) and can only be fertilized by pollen with a different allele at that locus. The last century has seen a heated debate about the correct way of modelling the allele diversity in a GSI population that was never formally resolved. Starting from an individual‐based model, we derive the deterministic dynamics as proposed by Fisher (The genetical theory of natural selection ‐ A complete, Variorum edition, Oxford University Press, 1958) and compute the stationary S‐allele frequency distribution. We find that the stationary distribution proposed by Wright (Evolution, 18, 609, 1964) is close to our theoretical prediction, in line with earlier numerical confirmation. Additionally, we approximate the invasion probability of a new S‐allele, which scales inversely with the number of resident S‐alleles. Lastly, we use the stationary allele frequency distribution to estimate the population size of a plant population from an empirically obtained allele frequency spectrum, which complements the existing estimator of the number of S‐alleles. Our expression of the stationary distribution resolves the long‐standing debate about the correct approximation of the number of S‐alleles and paves the way for new statistical developments for the estimation of the plant population size based on S‐allele frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on misinformation and misperceptions often investigates claims that have already reached a critical mass, resulting in little understanding of why certain claims gain widespread belief while others fall into obscurity. Here we consider how various message features factor into why certain claims are more likely to be believed, perceived as credible, and shared with others. Using a conjoint experiment, we randomly assigned participants (N  = 1,489) to receive an experimentally manipulated message describing an allegation of political misconduct. Results suggest that partisan cues play a significant role in influencing both belief and perceived credibility. Furthermore, message specificity, language intensity, and whether other users' comments on the post refute or endorse the post also influenced belief judgment and credibility assessments. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical importance of these findings for understanding and combating the threat of misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is irrational risk-avoiding behavior related to news media's heightened attention for the negative and exceptional? Based on the theoretical approaches of mediatization and cultivation, it is hypothesized how news media can present an overly negative and biased reality that can have a severe impact on society. Focusing on the case of travel accidents, we argue that a disproportional increase in news attention for low-probability high-consequence aviation accidents can distort audiences' risk perceptions such that driving is inaccurately perceived as a safer transportation alternative to flying, with potentially harmful consequences. This study accordingly documents results from time-series analyses (1996–2017) on US media attention for aviation and road accidents related to real-world data on travel behavior and fatal accidents. The over-time patterns expose how news media follow their own mediatized logic and reality: Negative incidents—i.e. both aviation and road accidents—become more prominent in the news over time, rather than accurately reflecting real-world trends. Next, since air travel is statistically the safest transportation mode, disproportionate attention for aviation accidents is argued to especially create a problematic distorted worldview among audiences. Accordingly, findings show how more media attention for aviation accidents is related to relatively more road traffic and more fatal road accidents in the subsequent months. We conclude that the media's systematic overrepresentation of rare aviation accidents can overshadow the more substantial risk of (long-distance) driving. This paper illustrates how a distorted media reality can potentially result in severe consequences in light of audiences' ill-informed fear perceptions and irrational risk-avoiding behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses public health news briefs in Europe. The European Health Union launched the European Health Data Space (EHDS) health-specific data sharing framework that establishes common standards and practices. Also cited are the role of health care in fighting human trafficking, and the scheduled 16th European Public Health Conference in Dublin, Ireland in November 2023.

The SpaceOAR Vue hydrogel system was developed to reduce the toxicity to the rectum following radiation therapy for prostate cancer. Initial trial data reported the product as overall effective and safe. However, a few additional observed complications have likely been brought on by its increased utilization. The case presented herein describes rectal erosion, with abscess and rectal fistula formation, associated with the use of the SpaceOAR Vue hydrogel system. The SpaceOAR Vue hydrogel system was subsequently found to be absent between radiotherapy treatments and was thought to have been passed rectally through the fistula. The benefits and complications of the SpaceOAR Vue hydrogel system are discussed, as well as key factors to consider as the recommendation of routine use increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Obeah, Orisa, and Religious Identity in Trinidad" is a two-volume set published by Duke University Press that explores the construction of African religion and identity in Trinidad from the colonial period to the present. The books, authored by Tracey E. Hucks and Dianne M. Stewart, offer a comprehensive analysis of the repression and distortion of African religions in Trinidad, as well as the history and development of the Yoruba-Orisa community. The volumes shed light on the politics of African religious identity in colonial and post-colonial Trinidad and provide new insights into the study of Black religion in the wider African diaspora. The publication is a valuable resource for scholars and graduate students in various fields and disciplines. [Extracted from the article]

The article informs on the magazine Don Juan. It mentions Don Juan profited financially from the sale of sexual products and services, and its advertising columns contain a plethora of adverts that, in half-veiled language, sell condoms, aphrodisiacs, erotica, and sex toys. It also mentions fin-de-siecle boom in French periodical production, enabled by improving print technologies and increased press freedom, led to the proliferation of cheaper, more ephemeral, literary and artistic reviews.

Moreover, Willis was not the critic of Locke's views in the I Reasonableness of Christianity i as expressed in I The Occasional Paper: Number I i , and the "Post-Script" to I The Occasional Paper: Number V i . The stylometric evidence from the Delta analysis conflicts with the clear indications that the author of I The Occasional Paper: Number I i also wrote the "Post-Script" to I The Occasional Paper: Number V i . I The Occasional Paper i was a series of anonymous pamphlets covering a diverse range of topics, published in quarto by Matthew Wotton and running for ten numbers from 1697 to 1698.[1] The I Paper i was intended to provide a moderate Anglican perspective through a regular publication rather than one-off pamphlets.[2] It is remembered primarily for its criticisms of Locke, Toland, and its contribution to the Collier controversy.[3] It has always been attributed to Richard Willis ( I bap i . 1664, d. 1734), successively bishop of Gloucester (1715-21), Salisbury (1721-3) and Winchester (1723-34). We were unable to source any published texts for the ascribed author of I The Occasional Paper: Number X i , Mr Hodges, "fellow of Wadham College", and no ascription was provided for I The Occasional Paper: Number VII i ; hence, it was not possible to provide com- parison texts for these two I Occasional Papers i . [Extracted from the article]

Although the use of social media to spread misinformation and disinformation is not a new concept, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has further highlighted the dangers that misinformation can pose to public health. More than two-thirds of Americans receive their news from at least 1 social media outlet, most of which do not undergo the same review process as academic journals and some professional news organizations. Unfortunately, this can lead to inaccurate health information being conveyed as truth. The purpose of this article is to inform the infectious diseases community of the history and dangers of health misinformation and disinformation in social media, present tools for identifying and responding to misinformation, and propose other ethical considerations for social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic is dependent on individual understanding of the disease and compliance to prevention measures. Early media depiction of health information about COVID-19 may influence public perceptions and behaviour. Media should ensure coverage is relevant, timely and actionable to encourage individuals to respond appropriately. India has been particularly affected by a large COVID-19 caseload. We analysed online reporting in India to assess how well the media represented health information about COVID-19 as per the World Health Organization's Strategic Risk Communications guidelines. This included media coverage of symptoms, transmission and prevention. We found that limited articles (18.8%) provided actionable suggestions to readers, including urging people to stay at home and social distance. Most articles were relevant as per WHO COVID-19 updates, accurately covering symptoms, risk factors for severe symptoms, transmission and prevention. However, 40% of media coverage of treatments options provided misleading information, such as suggesting plasma therapy or chloroquine, were effective. In addition, only 1.9% of articles included discussion of equity issues, where many prevention activities such as distancing are less applicable in lower-income households. Sixty-seven per cent of articles quoting sources of information quoted credible sources such as public health agencies and researchers. Media coverage also did not appear to reflect WHO updates in a timely manner, with most of the coverage preceding these updates. The findings show that Indian media should focus on actionable and relevant reporting that provides guidance for individual response. Media should also endeavour to report on evidence-based prevention and treatment options to avert the spread of misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tree species that close stomata early in response to drought are likely to suffer from an imbalance between limited carbohydrate supply due to reduced photosynthesis and metabolic demand. Our objective was to clarify the dynamic responses of non-structural carbohydrates to drought in a water-saving species, the hinoki cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa Sieb. et Zucc.). To this end, we pulse-labeled young trees with 13CO2 10 days after the beginning of the drought treatment. Trees were harvested 7 days later, early during drought progression, and 86 days later when they had suffered from a long and severe drought. The labeled carbon (C) was traced in phloem extract, in the organic matter and starch of all the organs, and in the soluble sugars (sucrose, glucose and fructose) of the most metabolically active organs (foliage, green branches and fine roots). No drought-related changes in labeled C partitioning between belowground and aboveground organs were observed. The C allocation between non-structural carbohydrates was altered early during drought progression: starch concentration was lower by half in the photosynthetic organs, while the concentration of almost all soluble sugars tended to increase. The preferential allocation of labeled C to glucose and fructose reflected an increased demand for soluble sugars for osmotic adjustment. After 3 months of a lethal drought, the concentrations of soluble sugars and starch were admittedly lower in drought-stressed trees than in the controls, but the pool of non-structural carbohydrates was far from completely depleted. However, the allocation to storage had been impaired by drought; photosynthesis and the sugar translocation rate had also been reduced by drought. Failure to maintain cell turgor through osmoregulation and to refill embolized xylem due to the depletion in soluble sugars in the roots could have resulted in tree mortality in hinoki cypress, though the total pool of carbohydrate was not completely depleted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Large studies comparing totally minimally invasive oesophagectomy (TMIE) with laparoscopically assisted (hybrid) oesophagectomy are lacking. Although randomized trials have compared TMIE invasive with open oesophagectomy, daily clinical practice does not always resemble the results reported in such trials. The aim of the present study was to compare complications after totally minimally invasive, hybrid and open Ivor Lewis oesophagectomy in patients with oesophageal cancer. Methods: The study was performed using data from the International Esodata Study Group registered between February 2015 and December 2019. The primary outcome was pneumonia, and secondary outcomes included the incidence and severity of anastomotic leakage, (major) complications, duration of hospital stay, escalation of care, and 90-day mortality. Data were analysed using multivariable multilevel models. Results: Some 8640 patients were included between 2015 and 2019. Patients undergoing TMIE had a lower incidence of pneumonia than those having hybrid (10.9 versus 16.3 per cent; odds ratio (OR) 0.56, 95 per cent c.i. 0.40 to 0.80) or open (10.9 versus 17.4 per cent; OR 0.60, 0.42 to 0.84) oesophagectomy, and had a shorter hospital stay (median 10 (i.q.r. 8-16) days versus 14 (11-19) days (P=0.041) and 11 (9-16) days (P=0.027) respectively). The rate of anastomotic leakage was higher after TMIE than hybrid (15.1 versus 10.7 per cent; OR 1.47, 1.01 to 2.13) or open (15.1 versus 7.3 per cent; OR 1.73, 1.26 to 2.38) procedures. Conclusion: Compared with hybrid and open Ivor Lewis oesophagectomy, TMIE resulted in a lower pneumonia rate, a shorter duration of hospital stay, but higher anastomotic leakage rates. Therefore, no clear advantage was seen for either TMIE, hybrid or open Ivor Lewis oesophagectomy when performed in daily clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an update on the COVID-19 pandemic as of February 2022. Based on statistics, people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are more at risk during the pandemic due to their higher comorbidities and limited access to COVID-19 vaccines. The Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development is calling for all levels of society to address the divisions revealed by COVID-19. The European Public Health Conference will be held in Berlin, Germany in November.

Modern North American carnivorous mammal assemblages consist of species from a single clade: the Carnivora. Carnivorans once coexisted with members of other meat-eating clades, including the creodonts (Hyaenodontida and Oxyaenida). Creodonts, however, went extinct in North America during the late Eocene and early Oligocene, potentially due to niche overlap and resource competition with contemporary carnivorans. In this study, we employ a community ecology approach to understand whether the dietary niches of coexisting creodonts and carnivorans overlapped during the late Eocene (Chadronian North American Land Mammal Age), a time when creodonts were dwindling and carnivorans were diversifying. We quantify niche overlap based on inferences of diet from carnassial tooth shape estimated using Orientation Patch Count, Dirichlet's Normal Surface Energy, and linear dental measurements as well as from body mass for all species in the Calf Creek Local Fauna of Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan (Treaty 4 land). Although creodonts and carnivorans shared characteristics of their carnassial tooth shape, suggesting similar chewing mechanics and feeding habits, we find that marked differences in body size likely facilitated niche partitioning, at least between the largest creodonts and carnivorans. Calculations of prey focus masses and prey mass spectra indicate that only the smallest creodont may have experienced significant competition for prey with the coeval carnivorans. We suggest that the ultimate extinction of creodonts from North America during the late Eocene and Oligocene was unlikely to have been driven by factors related to niche overlap with carnivorans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]