Mediamusic (E-Journal)
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Review of Maren R. Niehoff, <i>Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography</i> (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018)
No full textThe water footprint of food and cooking fuel:A case study of self-sufficient rural India
No full textWater is a basic resource for food and fuelwood production. In general, people in rural areas of India consume carbohydrate rich staples with small amounts of animal foods. They mostly depend upon fuelwood for cooking. This study assesses the WFs for food and fuel consumption in rural India. The research question is: What is the green, blue and grey water footprint (WF) of food and cooking fuel consumption per province in rural India (m3/cap/year). It used the WF method for the quantification. Data on food and fuelwood consumption were derived from the National Sample Survey (2011-12). Foods were categorized into 6 groups: 1. Rice; 2. Wheat; 3. Oils and fats; 4. Milk; 5. Other animal foods; and 6. Others. Cooking fuel includes: 1. Fuelwood; 2. Kerosene and 3. LPG. Data related to WFs of food were derived from literature reviews and in case of fuelwood, the WFs were calculated for all the provinces of India. Finally, the total WF of per cap consumption is calculated by adding the WF of food and fuelwood. The result shows that there is a large variation in the green, blue and grey WFs for food consumption across the provinces of India. The average WF for food consumption is about 800 m3/cap/year and for fuelwood is 1630 m3/cap/year. Rice and wheat dominate the green, blue and grey WFs for food, with variations among the provinces. The green WF of rice is larger than the green WF of wheat, while wheat has a larger blue WF. For cooking fuel, the average WF of fuelwood is much larger than the WF of fossil based cooking fuels. The total WF for fuelwood is twice the WF for food, showing that in rural areas of developing countries, fuelwood is water intensive with large impact on freshwater resources. Future prospects of increasing consumption of animal products will increase WFs. However, if also cooking fuel is considered, switching to fossil cooking fuel lowers WFs far more and compensates the increase due to larger animal food consumption. The trends for cooking fuel found in India might also be relevant for other developing countries
“There's more than meets the eye”:Developing an integrated archaeological approach to reconstruct human–environment dynamics in the Pontine marshes (Lazio, Central Italy)
No full textIn this article, we present the results of a pilot study that adopts an interdisciplinary off‐site approach combining detailed surface survey, remote sensing analyses, geophysical prospections, geoarchaeological investigations and palaeoenvironmental analyses to investigate long‐term human‐environment interactions in the Pontine plain (Lazio, Central Italy). Focusing on a small study area just north of the ancient Roman way station of Ad Medias, in the middle of this former wetland, the developed integrated approach turned out to be very much successful, providing additional information on (a) the interpretation of the surface record in light of landscape and environmental dynamics, (b) the exposure of “hidden landscapes” that date from before the Roman phase of exploitation that is well‐attested in the surface archaeological record, and (c) the texture of this Roman landscape, allowing for a more accurate interpretation of both mapped surface materials and the wider context in which these surface sites were set
Repurposing without Purpose? Early Innovation Responses to the COVID-19 Crisis:Evidence from Clinical Trials
No full textThe novel coronavirus has created one of the biggest social and economic challenges in recent decades. Since a critical issue in overcoming a large‐scale pandemic involves finding effective treatments for the disease, there is typically urgent pressure on the health‐care sector to develop innovations to combat the pandemic. Recently, scholars have argued that repurposing – that is, reusing an existing innovation in a different context – allows for such rapid innovation responses and can reduce costs, as the groundwork has already been laid. In this paper, we compare these benefits with the considerable disadvantages associated with innovation repurposing, including lowered barriers to entry, which can lead to declining average quality and duplicate work. Using data on 2,456 COVID‐19‐related clinical trials initiated between December 2019 and July 2020, we find that merely one‐third of the trials actually investigated drugs or vaccines, whereas the rest focused on diagnostics and crisis management issues. In the trials concerning drug testing, we find that drug repurposing is a predominant innovation strategy, but many trials tested the same (combination of) drugs. This indicates an inefficient use of resources and reductions in the average variety and novelty of clinical trials. Furthermore, the small percentage of biopharmaceutical firms involved in the search for COVID‐19 treatments raises the question of whether firms may have insufficient incentives to redirect innovation efforts to respond to the pandemic. Our paper contributes to crisis management research, the nascent debate on COVID‐19, and the emerging literature on innovation repurposing
Subcutaneous and sublingual allergen specific immunotherapy in experimental models for allergic asthma
No full textAllergic rhinoconjunctivitis and asthma are chronic inflammatory diseases with symptoms such as watery eyes, sneezing and breathlessness, caused by inhalation of aerosol allergens. Given the great inconvenience to patients and the increasing prevalence, an efficient therapy that permanently alters the unwanted immune response is essential. Current medication is merely symptom-suppressing, not curative. An exception to this is allergen specific immunotherapy (AIT), in which the allergen is administered in subcutaneous injections (subcutaneous immunotherapy, SCIT) or sublingual (SLIT) tablets or drops for three to five years. Clinical experiments are observational and the cellular and immunological mechanisms of AIT have often been investigated using experimental mouse models of allergic disease. Animal models of allergic asthma should be as close as possible to the human pathophysiology of allergic airway disease, so that mechanistic insights obtained in the experimental models can be easily translated to the human situation.This thesis describes findings based on a scientifically well-defined animal model with high translational value. Not only are we able to correctly interpret the readout parameters of inflammation, airway resistance and serological responses using crude allergen extracts, but also induce them in two mouse models of allergic asthma. We can also directly compare the two dosage forms, SCIT and SLIT, test the use of VitD3 as an adjuvant, make new formulations and optimize peptide-AIT, and use the model completely allergen-independent to also test naturally purified major allergens. Finally, the book chapter also gives other researchers the opportunity to use this model for research purposes
A meta-analysis of the relationship between companies’ greenhouse gas emissions and financial performance
No full textWe study how the business and economics literature investigates how companies’ greenhouse gas emissions relate to their financial performance. To this extent, we undertake a meta-analysis to help us gauge the role of using highly different constructs and measurement techniques employed in this literature. Our study includes 74effect sizes from 34 studies, covering 107,605 observations for the period 1997-2019. We establish a significant association between corporate greenhouse gas emissions and financial performance. It shows that companies with lower emissions have better financial performance. We find that the type of emission or financial performance indicator is not significant. The industry to which the firms in the sample studies belong seems to matter slightly. We further establish that the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and financial performance is especially pronounced for firms operating in countries with the most stringent carbon policies
Frontotemporal dementia, music perception and social cognition share neurobiological circuits:A meta-analysis
No full textFrontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a neurodegenerative disease that presents with profound changes in social cognition. Music might be a sensitive probe for social cognition abilities, but underlying neurobiological substrates are unclear. We performed a meta-analysis of voxel-based morphometry studies in FTD patients and functional MRI studies for music perception and social cognition tasks in cognitively normal controls to identify robust patterns of atrophy (FTD) or activation (music perception or social cognition). Conjunction analyses were performed to identify overlapping brain regions. In total 303 articles were included: 53 for FTD (n = 1153 patients, 42.5% female; 1337 controls, 53.8% female), 28 for music perception (n = 540, 51.8% female) and 222 for social cognition in controls (n = 5664, 50.2% female). We observed considerable overlap in atrophy patterns associated with FTD, and functional activation associated with music perception and social cognition, mostly encompassing the ventral language network. We further observed overlap across all three modalities in mesolimbic, basal forebrain and striatal regions. The results of our meta-analysis suggest that music perception and social cognition share neurobiological circuits that are affected in FTD. This supports the idea that music might be a sensitive probe for social cognition abilities with implications for diagnosis and monitoring
Frozen section diagnosis of borderline ovarian tumors with suspicious features of invasive cancer is a devil's dilemma for the surgeon:A systematic review and meta-analysis
No full textIntroduction Frozen section diagnoses of borderline ovarian tumors are not always straightforward and a borderline frozen section diagnosis with suspicious features of invasive carcinoma (reported as "at least borderline" or synonymous descriptions) presents us with the dilemma of whether or not to perform a full surgical staging procedure. By performing a systematic review and meta-analysis, the prevalence of straightforward borderline and "at least borderline" frozen section diagnoses, as well as proportion of patients with a final diagnosis of invasive carcinoma in these cases, were assessed and compared, as quantification of this dilemma may help us with the issue of this clinical decision.Material and methods PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane library databases were searched and studies discussing "at least borderline" frozen section diagnoses were included in the review. Numbers of specific frozen section diagnoses and subsequent final histological diagnoses were extracted and pooled analysis was performed to compare the proportion of patients diagnosed with invasive carcinoma following borderline and "at least borderline" frozen section diagnoses, presented as risk ratio and risk difference with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI).Results Of 4940 screened records, eight studies were considered eligible for quantitative analysis. A total of 921 women was identified and 230 (25.0%) of these women were diagnosed with "at least borderline" ovarian tumor at the time of frozen section. Final histological diagnoses were reported in five studies, including 61 women with an "at least borderline" diagnosis and 290 women with a straightforward borderline frozen section diagnosis. Twenty-five of 61 women (41.0%) of the "at least borderline" group had invasive cancer at final diagnosis, compared with 28 of 290 women (9.7%) of the straightforward borderline frozen section group (risk difference -0.34, 95% CI -0.53 to -0.15; relative risk 0.25, 95% CI 0.13-0.50).Conclusions Women diagnosed with "at least borderline" frozen section diagnoses were found to have a higher chance of carcinoma upon final diagnosis when compared with women with a straightforward borderline frozen section diagnosis (41.0% vs 9.7%). Especially in the serous subtype, and after preoperative consent, full staging during initial surgery might be considered in these cases to prevent a second surgical procedure.</p
"No one likes that judgmental look like you are a terrorist." Sensorial encounters with the Muslim Other in Amsterdam
No full textOften framed in the public discourse as Europe's ultimate Other, Muslims have been heftily debated and vastly problematised by politicians, pundits, and public intellectuals as unwanted immigrants, part of a bad diversity, problematic, violent, refusals of modernity, secularism, and freedom. Thinking through the body as a phenomenal lived body, we explore Othering as a set of visual, auditory, olfactory, and haptic encounters. Employing an urban ethnography on everyday lived experiences of young Muslims in Amsterdam, the paper investigates multiple modes through which Othering is sensed, lived, and felt through the body.</p