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During the Greek Archaic Period, the Greek world saw rapid development in culture, economy and political organization.  These advancements led to increased prosperity and facilitated the formation of distinct political units.  However, these developments introduced new pressures on these nascent governments, which led to waves of Greek colonization across the Mediterranean world.  This introduced the new political relationship of ‘mother city’ and ‘colony’ into existing trans-Mediterranean networks, a complex structure that would play a large role in the politics of the Greek Classical Period.  This paper explores the colonial foundation narrative of Cyrene, one of the most well documented foundation myths surviving, by looking at the competing and contrasting claims put forward by Cyrene and Thera.  This paper examines the both the historical context and the geopolitical considerations at play behind the various components of the divergent traditions.  In the context of today’s increasingly fractious information space, this paper serves to show that manipulation and distortion of political narratives is not a new phenomenon, and that in the end, the victim is usually the historical truth.

PurposeWe determine whether haptic feedback improves surgical performance and outcome during simulated a preretinal membrane peeling procedure.MethodsA haptic-enabled virtual reality preretinal membrane peeling simulator was developed using a surgical cockpit with two multifinger haptic devices. Six subjects (three trained retina surgeons and three nonsurgeons) performed the preretinal membrane peeling surgical procedure using two modes of operation: visual and haptic feedback, and visual feedback only.ResultsTask completion time, tool tip path trajectory, tool-retina collision force, and retinal damage were all reduced with haptic feedback used and compared to modes where haptic feedback was disabled.ConclusionsHaptic feedback improves efficiency and safety during preretinal membrane peeling simulation.Translational relevanceThese findings highlight the potential benefit of haptic feedback for improving performance and safety of vitreoretinal surgery.

In this work, we show that the well-known lithium-ion anode material, Li4Ti5O12, exhibits exceptionally high initial capacity of 310 mAh g-1 when it is discharged to 0.01 V. It maintains a reversible capacity of 230 mAh g-1, far exceeding the "theoretical" capacity of 175 mAh g-1 when this anode is lithiated to the composition Li7Ti5O12. Neutron diffraction analyses identify that additional Li reversibly enters into the Li7Ti5O12 to form Li8Ti5O12. density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal the average potentials of the Li4Ti5O12 to Li7Ti5O12 step and the Li7Ti5O12 to Li8Ti5O12 step are 1.57 and 0.19 V, respectively, which are in excellent agreement with experimental results. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies confirm that the irreversible capacity of Li4Ti5O12 during its first cycle originates from the formation of a solid electrolyte interface (SEI) layer. This work clarifies the fundamental lithiation mechanism of the Li4Ti5O12, when lithiated to 0.01 V vs Li.

Emotion plays a crucial role, both in general human experience and in psychiatric illnesses. Despite the importance of emotion, the relative lack of objective methodologies to scientifically studying emotional phenomena limits our current understanding and thereby calls for the development of novel methodologies, such us the study of illustrative animal models. Analysis of Drosophila and other insects has unlocked new opportunities to elucidate the behavioral phenotypes of fundamentally emotional phenomena. Here we propose an integrative model of basic emotions based on observations of this animal model. The basic emotions are internal states that are modulated by neuromodulators, and these internal states are externally expressed as certain stereotypical behaviors, such as instinct, which is proposed as ancient mechanisms of survival. There are four kinds of basic emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, and anger, which are differentially associated with three core affects: reward (happiness), punishment (sadness), and stress (fear and anger). These core affects are analogous to the three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) in that they are combined in various proportions to result in more complex "higher order" emotions, such as love and aesthetic emotion. We refer to our proposed model of emotions as called the "Three Primary Color Model of Basic Emotions."

Background and aimsPortal hypertension is a serious adverse event of liver cirrhosis. Recently, we developed a simple novel technique for EUS-guided portal pressure gradient (PPG) measurement (PPGM). Our animal studies showed excellent correlation between EUS-PPGM and interventional radiology-acquired PPGM. In this video we demonstrate the results of the first human pilot study of EUS-PPGM in patients with liver disease.MethodsEUS-PPGM was performed by experienced endosonographers using a linear echoendoscope, a 25-gauge FNA needle, and a novel compact manometer. The portal vein and hepatic vein (or inferior vena cava) were targeted by use of a transgastric or transduodenal approach. Feasibility was defined as successful PPGM in each patient. Safety was based on adverse events captured in a postprocedural interview.ResultsTwenty-eight patients underwent EUS-PPGM with 100% technical success and no adverse events. PPG ranged from 1.5 to 19 mm Hg and had excellent correlation with clinical parameters of portal hypertension, including the presence of varices (P = .0002), PH gastropathy (P = .007), and thrombocytopenia (P = .036).ConclusionThis novel technique of EUS-PPGM using a 25-gauge needle and compact manometer is feasible and appears safe. Given the availability of EUS and the simplicity of the manometry setup, EUS-guided PPG may represent a promising breakthrough for procuring indispensable information in the management of patients with liver disease.

We have reported previously that during hypoxia exposure, the expression of mature miR-17~92 was first upregulated and then downregulated in pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PASMC) and in mouse lungs in vitro and in vivo. Here, we investigated the mechanisms regulating this biphasic expression of miR-17~92 in PASMC in hypoxia. We measured the level of primary miR17~92 in PASMC during hypoxia exposure and found that short-term hypoxia exposure (3% O2, 6 h) induced the level of primary miR-17~92, whereas long-term hypoxia exposure (3% O2, 24 h) decreased its level, suggesting a biphasic regulation of miR17~92 expression at the transcriptional level. We found that short-term hypoxia-induced upregulation of miR-17~92 was hypoxiainducible factor 1α (HIF1α) and E2F1 dependent. Two HIF1α binding sites on miR-17~92 promoter were identified. We also found that long-term hypoxia-induced suppression of miR-17~92 expression could be restored by silencing of p53. Mutation of the p53-binding sites in the miR-17~92 promoter increased miR-17~92 promoter activity in both normoxia and hypoxia. Our findings suggest that the biphasic transcriptional regulation of miR-17~92 during hypoxia is controlled by HIF1/E2F1 and p53 in PASMC: during short-term hypoxia exposure, stabilization of HIF1 and induction of E2F1 induce the transcription of miR-17~92, whereas during long-term hypoxia exposure, hyperphosphorylation of p53 suppresses the expression of miR-17~92. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We showed that the biphasic transcriptional regulation of miR-17~92 during hypoxia is controlled by two distinct mechanisms: during short-term hypoxia exposure, induction of HIF1 and E2F1 upregulates miR-17~92. Longer hypoxia exposure induces hyperphosphorylation of p53 at ser15, which leads to its binding to miR-17~92 promoter and inhibition of its expression. Our findings provide novel insights into the spatiotemporal regulation of miR-17~92 that may play a role in the development of human lung diseases including pulmonary hypertension (PH). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]