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Ancient Andean Compartmentalised Boards in Perspective: Games and Social Organisation in the Pre-Columbian Andes
Get PDFThis thesis investigates a little-understood class of Andean artefacts known as maquetas, yupanas, and/or taptanas/tableros. These enigmatic objects are compartmentalised boards whose function is still uncertain. Often studied in isolation or appropriated to support external arguments, they are here studied as part of a wide assemblage, analysing the largest database of known examples to date. This research recontextualises these boards as a coherent corpus, situating them within their cultural, chronological, and geographical frameworks.
Through typological, iconographic, and contextual analyses, the study proposes that some board Types – particularly those defined here as Types 1, 2 and 3, and possibly Type-6 – functioned as gameboards. Their formal and symbolic characteristics align closely with the social and ritual roles of games in ancient Andean societies. The boards’ layouts and imagery evoke an idealised microcosm of the Andean world, articulated through principles of duality, complementarity, and mediation – key structural logics of Andean cosmology and social organisation.
These findings link the boards to broader transformations in the Peruvian highlands during the Early Intermediate Period and Middle Horizon, involving exchanges between Recuay and Wari, and the large-scale interaction networks of the Middle Horizon, encompassing the north coast of Peru and the southern Ecuadorian highlands. Games, in this context, may have served as ritualised arenas, mediating relations among emergent corporate groups in a segmentary social landscape. By reframing these artefacts as active instruments of social and cosmological mediation, embedded within broader social processes, this research highlights the significance of play as an analytical category in Andean archaeology. It argues that gaming as ritual performance was not a peripheral amusement but a central integrative mechanism in the ritualised economies of ancient Andean societies, fostering cooperation within diverse, ecologically and politically complex societies
Can Reminders Promote Regular Pro-Environmental Behavior? Experimental Evidence from Peru
No full textTackling environmental pollution requires a permanent change in regular, repeated behavior of households. Bringing about change in such behavior may require interventions that are not limited to a single point in time, yet little evidence exists on how frequently we need to target households to initiate behavioral change and to form new habits in regular pro-environmental behavior. To fill this gap, we investigate the impact of mobile text reminders on households’ recycling behavior in urban Peru, by randomly varying the frequency of reminders over a nine-week treatment period. We find that reminders increase both the likelihood that households start to recycle, and the frequency of recycling among households that already recycled before the intervention. The effects are stronger if reminders are repeated over a longer period. Our findings suggest that low-cost mobile text reminders can support repeated pro environmental behavior, and that some repetition may be needed to maximize their effectiveness
From bums to kings: A new history of England takes 25 poems as its source material. What can it hope to tell us about those verses, the country and ourselves?:Review of Clare Clarke, A History of England in 25 Poems
No full textSacred Histories of Public Health: Leper Asylums, Patient Protest and the medical-Evangelical State in British India
No full textHow did the histories of biomedicine and Christianity coalesce even during the heydays of bacteriology and tropical medicine in the early twentieth century? How can focus on relatively underexplored sites that remain unsung in the historiography of scientific knowledge add to our insights about the links between the histories of imperialism, disciplinary institutions and scientific experiments? How does one conceptualise the presence and agency of the captive patients in the colonised context? This article argues that a renewed focus on the colonial leper asylums in British India allows us simultaneously to raise these fundamental questions, which resonate with the newly emergent histories of global and colonial science and medicine. In addressing these questions, this article establishes these leper asylums as a unique site where colonised diseased subalterns encountered, suffered, engaged with and defied different strands of British power that were concurrently imperial, biomedical and Christian
The APOLLO Trial: A Proof-of-Concept Study for Vitamin A Nasal Drops in COVID-19 Related Post-Infectious Olfactory Dysfunction
No full textPostinfectious olfactory dysfunction (PIOD) is common in COVID-19 patients. This 2-arm double-blinded randomized controlled trial (RCT) aimed to establish proof-of-concept for vitamin A versus placebo as a treatment modality for patients with PIOD. This study compared 9,000 IU daily self-administered vitamin A intranasal drops versus peanut oil drops over 12 wk in COVID-19 patients with PIOD. Outcome measures included: olfactory bulb volume (OBV), olfactory sulcus depth, cerebral functional MRI blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal, Sniffin’ Sticks TDI score, SSParoT, olfactory disorder questionnaire (ODQ) score, and brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) levels were collected from participants at baseline and after trial intervention at 12 wk. Fifty-seven PIOD were recruited in the trial and allocated to vitamin A or placebo arm at a 2:1 ratio. After withdrawals and exclusions, 30 participants in the vitamin A arm and 15 in the placebo arm were analyzed. There was no significant difference in the change in OBV between both groups. Aside from an improvement in the quality-of-life component of ODQ questionnaire scores (P = 0.01), there were no significant differences in any of the other secondary outcome measures. This proof-of-concept trial has demonstrated no significant effect of intranasal vitamin A on olfactory function in COVID-19 PIOD patients. Further work is required to identify other therapeutic agents in the management of PIOD or evaluate a different PIOD cohort with non-COVID etiology
Impact of sodium–glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors on heart failure outcomes in cancer patients and survivors: a systematic review and meta-analysis
No full textAims Sodium–glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) are recognized for their cardiovascular benefits. This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluated the impact of SGLT2i on heart failure (HF) outcomes in cancer patients and survivors, focusing on HF hospitalization and new HF diagnoses. Methods and results A comprehensive search of PubMed, MEDLINE, and Embase via Ovid, and the Cochrane Library was conducted up to 5 June 2024, focusing on studies involving cancer patients and survivors treated with SGLT2i. The search criterion used was [(SGLT2) OR (Sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors) OR (canagliflozin) OR (dapagliflozin) OR (empagliflozin) OR (ertugliflozin) AND (cancer)]. The primary outcomes assessed were HF hospitalization and new HF diagnoses. The search yielded 1880 studies, from which 13 studies encompassing 88 273 patients were included. SGLT2i use reduced HF hospitalizations by 51% (RR 0.49, 95% CI 0.36-0.66, I² = 28%, P < 0.01) and new HF diagnoses by 71% (RR 0.29, 95% CI 0.10–0.87, I² = 71%). Multi-variate meta-regression analysis suggested that among breast cancer populations, studies with ≥50% of patients on anthracyclines exhibited a 99% reduction in HF hospitalization risk compared with similar studies that included <50% of patients on anthracyclines (RR 0.0085, 95% CI: 0.0001–0.2645, P = 0.0081). Conclusion SGLT2i significantly lower the risk of HF hospitalization and new HF diagnoses among cancer patients and survivors, with particularly pronounced benefits in breast cancer patients receiving anthracycline-based chemotherapy. These findings support the need for prospective trials to further investigate the integration of SGLT2i into cancer patient management to enhance cardiovascular outcomes
Comparison of drug coated balloon with drug eluting stent for isolated ostial side-branch coronary artery bifurcation lesions
Get PDFChromosome-level genome assembly of the photobiont microalga Trebouxia sp. ‘A48’ from the lichen Xanthoria parietina
No full textLichens are symbiotic assemblies consisting of multiple organisms, chiefly a fungus and a photosynthetic microorganism, or photobiont. Among diverse photobionts, the most prevalent is the chlorophyte alga Trebouxia. We produced a chromosome-level assembly of Trebouxia sp. ‘A48’, a photobiont of Xanthoria parietina. The genome was assembled into 20 contigs, of which 16 had telomeric repeats at both ends and likely represent complete chromosomes. We compared this genome with those of other Trebouxia species and analyzed it to investigate adaptations to the lichen lifestyle. We then used the genome to profile gene expression in axenic culture and in lichen thalli. The predicted secretome is enriched in hydrolases and redox enzymes and contains carbohydrate-binding proteins potentially involved in cell-to-cell recognition and adhesion. We identified genes potentially involved in carbon concentrating and confirmed two instances of ancient horizontal gene transfer from fungi. The genome and the strain of Trebouxia sp. ‘A48’ provide a resource for the community to research algal evolution and lichen symbiosis
Change in cognition following ischaemic stroke
No full textObjective: Cognitive decline can occur following ischaemic stroke. How cognition changes over time and associations with cognitive change are poorly understood. This study aimed to explore these issues over 2 years following ischaemic stroke. Methods: This analysis used data from the XILO-FIST study, a clinical trial of allopurinol versus placebo in people with ischaemic stroke according to Tissue-Based Definition. Participants underwent clinical assessment, brain MRI at baseline, and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) at baseline, year 1 and year 2. We defined cognitive impairment as a MoCA score < 26 and cognitive change as a difference in MoCA score of 2 points or more at year 1 or year 2 after randomisation. Associations with cognitive impairment and cognitive change were assessed by univariable analysis and multiple logistic regression. Results: Three hundred and sixty participants with complete MoCA data were included. Mean age was 65.4 (SD 8.36) years, and mean baseline MoCA score was 26.4 (SD 2.7). Seventy-seven participants had second-year cognitive improvement. Eighty-four had second-year cognitive decline. After adjustment for age and education year, second-year cognitive improvement was associated with smaller brain volume, lower albumin level, smoking and greater white-matter hyperintensity, and second-year cognitive decline was associated with peripheral arterial disease, higher cholesterol level, small-vessel stroke and greater white-matter hyperintensity. Interpretation: Cognition is dynamic following stroke, with different patterns of change. Brain reserve and vascular risk factors relate to later post-stroke cognitive change. This complex nature of cognitive trajectory has implications for cognitive rehabilitation provision and cognitive impairment detection after stroke