Contemporary North Research Articles

Climate Change and the Emergence of No‐Analog Forest Assemblages in North America

ABSTRACTFuture climate change is expected to result in tree species shifting their geographic distributions in ways that could reorganize species into assemblages with no contemporary analog. These projected no‐analog forests raise concern as their ecological function could similarly shift, which may challenge established conservation and management efforts. Here, we implement a community‐level modelling approach to identify the key climatic and topographic drivers of forest composition in North America, and then use these models to predict the distribution of “disappearing” and “novel” forest assemblages in future climate. We applied this modelling technique to both the taxonomic and phylogenetic composition of forest trees, to identify where species turnover may be greatest, and whether species are likely to be replaced with close relatives. Our work shows that approximately 11.9% of contemporary North American forests have low predicted similarity to future forests, and 26.2% of future forests could be compositionally novel compared with contemporary forests, but there was substantial geographic variability in the magnitude of these metrics across the continent. High‐elevation regions in the west tend to be nearest to their closest compositional analog, suggesting these regions may be most likely to realize the future predicted composition. This work provides a new approach to understanding how forest composition may shift in future climates in a way that avoids the need for individual species predictions and extends climate‐matching approaches with meaningful biological data.

Midlife baseline prostate-specific antigen, velocity, and doubling time association with lethal prostate cancer and mortality.

Midlife baseline prostate-specific antigen (MB PSA), defined as a single PSA value measured between 40-59 years of age, has been proposed as a tool that can limit potential harms of PSA screening. This study aimed to examine the ability of MB PSA versus PSA doubling time (PSADT) and PSA velocity (PSAV) in assessing the likelihood of developing of lethal prostate cancer (PCa) in a diverse and contemporary North American population. Men 40-59 years old, who received their first PSA between the years 1995 and 2019, were included. For MB PSA values, the first PSA test result was included. For PSADT, the first two PSA test results were included. For PSAV, the first three PSA test results within 30 months were included. Selection criteria resulted in a total of 77,594 patients with at least two PSA test results and 11,634 patients with at least three PSA test results. Multivariable Fine-Gray regression was used to examine the impact of the value of the PSA testing methods on the development of lethal PCa (defined as death from PCa or development of metastatic disease either at diagnosis or during follow-up). Time-dependent receiver operating characteristic/area under the curve (AUC) at 5, 10, and 15 years were plotted. In the main cohort, patients were most frequently in the 50-54 age category (32.8%), had a Charlson comorbidity index of 0 (70.5%), and were White (63.2%). Of these, 9.3% had the midlife baseline PSA in the top 10th percentile, and 0.4% had a PSADT 0-6 months. Lethal PCa was diagnosed in 593 (0.8%) patients. The median (interquartile range) time to lethal PCa was 8.6 (3.2-14.9) years. In the main cohort, MB PSA and PSADT showed significant associations with the occurrence of lethal PCa, with a hazard ratio (HR) of 6.10 (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.85-7.68) and HR of 2.20 (95% CI, 1.07-4.54) for patients in the top 10th percentile MB PSA group and in the PSADT between 0 to <6 months group, respectively. In patients with three PSA results available, MB PSA and PSAV showed significant associations with the occurrence of lethal PCa, with a HR of 3.95 (95% CI, 2.29-6.79) and 3.57 (95% CI, 2.17-5.86) for patients in the top 10th percentile MB PSA group and in the in the PSAV >0.4 ng/mL/year group, respectively. PSADT and PSAV did not exhibit higher AUCs than MB PSA in assessing the likelihood of lethal PCa. Specifically, they were 0.818 and 0.708 at 10 and 15 years, respectively, for the PSADT; 0.862 and 0.756 at 10 and 15 years, respectively, for the PSAV; and 0.868 and 0.762 at 10 and 15 years, respectively, for the MB PSA (all p>.05). The study findings are that PSAV or PSADT were not superior to midlife baseline in assessing the likelihood of developing lethal PCa. This suggests that these variables may not have practical use in enhancing PSA screening strategies in a clinical setting.

Muslim Women in Contemporary North America: Controversies, Clichés, and Conversations, by Meena Sharify-Funk

Muslim Women in Contemporary North America: Controversies, Clichés, and Conversations, by Meena Sharify-Funk

Poetry and the Inapprehensible: A Genealogy

Abstract: Through close readings of William Langland, John Keats, Anne Carson, and Ben Lerner, this essay describes an enigmatic effect in and of English literature. Proposing Christian apophaticism as both source and analogue of literary styles, the essay introduces the concept of "apophatic effects," references to a literary realm not merely virtual but definitively inaccessible to perception. The imaginative leap that modern scholars value in English literature, epitomized by Keats's speaker's reflections on the urn, is a form of theological thinking that has forgotten where it came from. The essay touches on the relationship between literature and theology, the formation of the discipline of English, the definition of lyric, and Keats's influence on contemporary North American avant-garde poetry.

Le hockey pour tous, mais pas pour toutes? Regard croisé sur la médiatisation du racisme et du sexisme au hockey

This article analyzes two cases specific to ice hockey in the Quebec media/sport cultural complex that highlight recent shifts in discourses on racism and sexism. The authors argue that sexism is the least contested form of discrimination in hockey, while overt and explicit racist acts are widely condemned. This is not to say that racism has disappeared from hockey. If acts of blatant racism are denounced by the media and sports structures, the same would not apply to forms of blatant sexism, where entire arguments and vocabulary are put into action to diminish the scope of sexism involved in these situations. This analysis also demonstrates the workings of the symbolic development of contemporary North American ice hockey. The reasons for the discrepancies between the public expressions of racism and sexism are that hockey remains a sport where many forms of hegemonic masculinities are still expressed.

Evaluating and Updating the IMPACT Model to Predict Outcomes in Two Contemporary North American Traumatic Brain Injury Cohorts.

The International Mission on Prognosis and Analysis of Clinical Trials in Traumatic Brain Injury (IMPACT) model is a widely recognized prognostic model applied after traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, it was developed with patient cohorts that may not reflect modern practice patterns in North America. We analyzed data from two sources: the placebo arm of the phase II double-blinded, multicenter, randomized controlled trial Prehospital Tranexamic Acid for TBI (TXA) cohort and an observational cohort with similar inclusion/exclusion criteria (Predictors of Low-risk Phenotypes after Traumatic Brain Injury Incorporating Proteomic Biomarker Signatures [PROTIPS] cohort). All three versions of the IMPACT model-core, extended, and laboratory-were evaluated for 6-month mortality (Glasgow Outcome Scale Extended [GOSE] = 1) and unfavorable outcomes (GOSE = 1-4). Calibration (intercept and slope) and discrimination (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [ROC-AUC]) were used to assess model performance. We then compared three model updating methods-recalibration in the large, logistic recalibration, and coefficient update-with the best update method determined by likelihood ratio tests. In our calibration analysis, recalibration improved both intercepts and slopes, indicating more accurate predicted probabilities when recalibration was done. Discriminative performance of the IMPACT models, measured by AUC, showed mortality prediction ROCs between 0.61 and 0.82 for the TXA cohort, with the coefficient updated Lab model achieving the highest at 0.84. Unfavorable outcomes had lower AUCs, ranging from 0.60 to 0.79. Similarly, in the PROTIPS cohort, AUCs for mortality ranged from 0.75 to 0.82, with the coefficient updated Lab model also showing superior performance (AUC 0.84). Unfavorable outcomes in this cohort presented AUCs from 0.67 to 0.73, consistently lower than mortality predictions. The closed testing procedure using likelihood ratio tests consistently identified the coefficient update model as superior, outperforming the original and recalibrated models across all cohorts. In our comprehensive evaluation of the IMPACT model, the coefficient updated models were the best performing across all cohorts through a structured closed testing procedure. Thus, standardization of model updating procedures is needed to reproducibly determine the best performing versions of IMPACT that reflect the specific characteristics of a dataset.

Association of Area Deprivation Index with Prostate Cancer Incidence Outcomes in a Contemporary North American Cohort

Introduction: Socio-economic status and geographical location contribute to disparities in prostate cancer (PCa) outcomes, which are particularly evident for Non-Hispanic Black (NHB) men. The Area of Deprivation Index (ADI) could offer a distinctive and valuable metric for measuring the impact of these factors in underprivileged areas on disparities in cancer outcomes. Our study examined the impact of ADI on Prostate Cancer (PCa) incidence and lethality over a contemporary North American population. Methods: Our institutional database included electronic medical records for all men who received at least one PSA test within Henry Ford Health (HFH), between 1995-2019. An ADI score was assigned to each patient based on their residential census block group, ranked as a percentile of deprivation relative to the national level. All patients were further categorized into ADI quartile, where the highest quartile (Q4: 75-100) represented individuals with the most disadvantageous socio-economic status. The main outcomes were PCa incidence and lethal PCa, defined as any metastatic PCa or death due to PCa occurred within our cohort. Competing-risk cumulative incidence and multivariable regression tested the impact of ADI on PCa outcomes. A formal ADI x race interaction term was introduced to examine whether the relationship between ADI and PCa outcomes varies between NHB and NHW men. Results: We included 134,366 patients, 25% of whom were NHB. Median follow-up was 8.8 years. When NHB patients were categorized based on their ADI quartile, the 20-years PCa incidence rates were 11.5%, 13.5%, 12.6% and 12.1% (p=0.009) for the first, second, third and fourth quartile respectively. For the same quartiles, 20-years incidence rates in NHW were 8.8%, 7.8%, 6.8% and 5.4% (p &lt;0.001). Lethal PCa rates for these quartiles were 2.0%, 1.4%, 1.2% and 2.3% (p&lt;0.001) in NHB, versus 0.92%, 0.79%, 0.93% and 1.2% (p=0.140) in NHW. At multivariate analysis, individuals from the third (ADI 50-74, HR: 0.89, 95% CI: 0.83-0.95) and the fourth quartile (ADI ≥ 75, HR: 0.80, 95% CI: 0.75-0.86) showed significant reduced HRs for PCa incidence, when compared with the first quartile (ADI&lt;25, all p&lt;0.001). NHB (vs NHW) men were persistently at higher hazard for both PCa incidence and lethality accross all ADI strata (all p&lt;0.001), although the interaction term was significant only for PCa incidence Conclusions: Our study is the first comprehensive evaluation of the association between neighborhood deprivation and race in PCa outcomes in a contemporary North American cohort. Living in more deprived areas was associated with a lower hazard for PCa incidence but not for lethality, although individuals in the highest ADI quartiles showed the worst lethal disease rates. NHB men persistently exhibited worse oncological outcomes, when compared with NHW individuals. This racial disparity became more prominent with an increase in ADI, but this trend was observed only for incidence.

Experience of Sibling Relationship: A Qualitative Study

Siblings share an intricate; beautiful yet complex relationship by design. Their bond transforms from fighting for attention from parents, rivalries in childhood to deeper understanding of each other's individuality; often coming to rely on each other and becoming each other's support system in adulthood. The study was conducted with an objective to find out the experience of sibling relationship. Qualitative research method was used with full informed consent from participants. In first phase of the study the researcher developed semi-structured interviewed schedule. In second phase the researcher conducted qualitative study was conducted among four young women, of age ranging from 20-25 years. The sample from various North Indian States: Haryana, New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh were purposively selected for the study. The interviews were recorded, all the recordings were listened again and again carefully in order to get a clear sense of participant’s explanation and views. They were transcribed into text and analyzed. The data analysis was performed simultaneously with data collection. The meaningful units were extracted from the participants in the form of open codes. After that, the codes were reviewed for several times and those which had similarity were classified into themes and sub-themes. Peer debriefing and member checking were used as strategies of rigor in the study. The findings of the study reported the relationship between siblings. The themes developed such as, Infights during childhood and/or adulthood, parental influences, evolution of sibling relationship in adults, common interests and appreciation and/or grievance. This study also provided insights into contrasting relationships shared by same sex siblings and opposite sex siblings in contemporary North Indian states.

No relationship found between dental fluctuating asymmetry, birthweight, and birth term in two modern North American samples.

Deciduous dental crowns primarily develop during gestation and early infancy and embody early life stress exposures. Composite measures of dental fluctuating asymmetry (DFA) generated from the deciduous teeth may therefore indicate cumulative gestational stress in developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) studies. This study examines whether higher composite measures of deciduous DFA are associated with low birthweight and prematurity, two aspects of birth phenotype consistently associated with increased morbidity and mortality risks in adulthood. We evaluated associations between composite deciduous DFA, birthweight, and birth term in two contemporary North American samples: an autopsy sample from New Mexico (n = 94), and sample from a growth cohort study in Burlington, Ontario (n = 304). Dental metric data for each sample was collected from postmortem CT scans and dental casts, respectively. Composite DFA was estimated using buccolingual (BL) and mesiodistal (MD) crown diameters from paired deciduous teeth. Contrary to expectations, the results of linear regression indicated no significant relationship between birthweight and DFA, or birth term and DFA, in either sample. Deciduous DFA does not predict aspects of birth phenotype associated with gestational stress. Birthweight and birth term are plastic relative to the more developmentally stable deciduous dentition, which may only subtly embody early life stress. We suggest that deciduous DFA should be utilized with caution in DOHaD studies until its relationship with gestational stress is clarified.

Reading Moroccan fiction in the digital age: Abdelouahed Stittou’s novel Zohra Liza as a case study

ABSTRACT This article explores twenty-first Century Moroccan fiction with a focus on the novels published on social media. By analysing Abdelouahed Stittou’s first Arabic Facebook novel, Zohra Liza, as a case study, I highlight the impact of digital technologies, namely social media platforms, on the contemporary North African novel. On the one hand, I suggest that using Facebook as a medium for publishing Zohra Liza profoundly redefined the roles of the author, Abdelouahed Stittou, who had to adjust to the new reading habits of social media users.In this respect, I contend that this shift in the author/ reader dynamics began with reader response theory, but it came to greater prominence with the advent of digital literature. On the other hand, following Brian T. Edwards (2016), I suggest that the massive circulation of global cultural products, such as Hollywood movies, in the digital age provided a vast representational repertoire for Stittou from which he creatively drew while writing Zohra Liza. To be precise, Hollywood cinema, which is one of the fastest circulating cultural forms globally, found its way into the representational repertoire of Stittou and he creatively incorporates a number of Hollywood films into the fabric of his novel.

Late Cardiac Toxic Effects Associated With Treatment Protocols for Hodgkin Lymphoma in Children

Contemporary North American trials for children with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) have decreased radiation therapy (RT) use and increased pharmacologic cardioprotection but also increased the cumulative doxorubicin dose, making overall treatment consequences for late cardiac toxic effects uncertain. To estimate the risk of cardiac toxic effects associated with treatments used in modern pediatric HL clinical trials. For this cohort study, Fine and Gray models were fitted using survivors in the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study who were diagnosed with HL between January 1, 1970, and December 31, 1999, and were followed for a median of 23.5 (range, 5.0-46.3) years. These models were applied to the exposures in the study population to estimate the 30-year cumulative incidence of cardiac disease. The study population comprised patients with intermediate-risk or high-risk HL treated in 4 consecutive Children's Oncology Group clinical trials from September 2002 to October 2022: AHOD0031, AHOD0831, AHOD1331, and S1826. Data analysis was performed from April 2020 to February 2023. All patients received chemotherapy including doxorubicin, and some patients received mediastinal RT, dexrazoxane, or mediastinal RT and dexrazoxane. Estimated 30-year cumulative incidence of grade 3 to 5 cardiac disease. The study cohort comprised 2563 patients, with a median age at diagnosis of 15 (range, 1-22) years. More than half of the patients were male (1357 [52.9%]). All 2563 patients received doxorubicin, 1362 patients (53.1%) received mediastinal RT, and 307 patients (12.0%) received dexrazoxane. Radiation therapy use and the median mean heart dose among patients receiving RT decreased, whereas the planned cumulative dose of doxorubicin and use of dexrazoxane cardioprotection increased. For patients treated at age 15 years, the estimated 30-year cumulative incidence of severe or fatal cardiac disease was 9.6% (95% CI, 4.2%-16.4%) in the AHOD0031 standard treatment group (enrolled 2002-2009), 8.6% (95% CI, 3.8%-14.9%) in the AHOD0831 trial (enrolled 2009-2012), 8.2% (95% CI, 3.6%-14.3%) in the AHOD1331 trial (enrolled 2015-2019), and 6.2% (95% CI, 2.7%-10.9%) in the S1826 trial (enrolled 2019-2022), whereas the expected rate in an untreated population was 5.0% (95% CI, 2.1%-9.3%). Despite the estimated reduction in late cardiac morbidity, the frequency of recommended echocardiographic screening among survivors will increase based on current guidelines. In this cohort study of sequential HL trials, reductions in the proportion of children receiving mediastinal RT and increases in dexrazoxane use were estimated to offset the increased doxorubicin dose and produce a net reduction in late cardiac disease. Further studies on dexrazoxane are warranted to confirm whether its role in reducing cardiac toxic effects is maintained long term. These findings suggest that survivorship follow-up guidelines should be refined to align with the risks associated with treatment.

Prognostic performance of the IABP-SHOCK II Risk Score among cardiogenic shock subtypes in the critical care cardiology trials network registry

BackgroundRisk stratification has potential to guide triage and decision-making in cardiogenic shock (CS). We assessed the prognostic performance of the IABP-SHOCK II score, derived in Europe for acute myocardial infarct-related CS (AMI-CS), in a contemporary North American cohort, including different CS phenotypes. MethodsThe Critical Care Cardiology Trials Network (CCCTN) coordinated by the TIMI Study Group is a multicenter network of cardiac intensive care units (CICU). Participating centers annually contribute ≥2 months of consecutive medical CICU admissions. The IABP-SHOCK II risk score includes age >73 years, prior stroke, admission glucose >191 mg/dl, creatinine >1.5 mg/dl, lactate >5 mmol/l, and post-PCI TIMI flow grade <3. We assessed the risk score across various CS etiologies. ResultsOf 17,852 medical CICU admissions 5,340 patients across 35 sites were admitted with CS. In patients with AMI-CS (n=912), the IABP-SHOCK II score predicted a >3-fold gradient in in-hospital mortality (low risk = 26.5%, intermediate risk =52.2%, high risk = 77.5%, p<0.0001; c-statistic=0.67; Hosmer-Lemeshow p=0.79). The score showed a similar gradient of in-hospital mortality in patients with non-AMI-related CS (n=2,517, p<0.0001) and mixed shock (n=923, p<0.001), as well as in left ventricular (<0.0001), right ventricular (p = 0.0163) or biventricular (<0.0001) CS. The correlation between the IABP-SHOCK II score and SOFA was moderate (r2=0.17) and the IABP-SHOCK II score revealed a significant risk gradient within each SCAI Stage. ConclusionsIn an unselected international multicenter registry of patients admitted with CS, the IABP- SHOCK II score only moderately predicted in-hospital mortality in a broad population of CS regardless of etiology or irrespective of right, left, or bi-ventricular involvement.

The Teen Witch and the Complexity of Care Under Capitalism Through a Case Study of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

The contemporary teen witch figure is conceived of and represented in a way that is interrelated with young adult media culture. Through an examination of the show Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, as well as teen witches in popular culture, contemporary alternative spirituality, and witch hunts in mediaeval Europe, I explore how the extra-ordinary girl figure like Sabrina the witch is culturally and historically symbolic of how care practices become defiant amidst capitalism. I draw connections between the teen witch, the teen girl in contemporary North American society, and ideology within the context of care as resistance to capitalism. Through textual analysis of Sabrina, qualitative research, and a brief discussion of the relevant socio-historical background, I emphasize that the teen witch figure today must be read within the context of capitalism and neoliberalism. Moreover, the multiple methods I use illuminate the various ways the defiant girl’s care can be both valorized and weaponized. I draw upon real and fictional girls to demonstrate that there is a link between the fictitious co-opted witch in contemporary popular media and real women who were labelled witches around the emergence of capitalism. I explore the significance of the show Sabrina, alongside socio-cultural phenomenon of present-day alternative spirituality and the ‘witch’ of feudalism in Europe.

The Posthuman Body as an EcoGothic Wasteland in Allison Cobb’s After We All Died and Adam Dickinson’s Anatomic

The focus of my inquiry are environmentally inflected metaphors and discourses of toxicity which inform the contemporary North American posthuman lyric. This provisional generic category of the posthuman lyric has been inspired by the recent shift from an anthropocentric understanding of lyric subjectivities to a biocentric perspective which repositions human epistemologies in relation to more-than-human matter. The posthuman angle questions the concept of the sovereign human self, stressing transversal ontologies, open to inter-agential exchanges, diverse biosemiotic processes and communication loops. My primary interest is in poetic representations of the human body as a transversal, toxic, catastrophe- and death-haunted wasteland. The volumes chosen to problematize those processes are Allison Cobb’s After We All Died (2016), an elegiac meditation on the dying human species and anthropogenic change, and Adam Dickinson’s Anatomic (2018), which probes the leaky perimeters of the chemical self using an electronic microscope and burden tests of the poet’s own bodily tissues. The posthumanist angle which informs the analyses is supplemented with an ecoGothic one, as both critical paradigms can be seen as interrogatory discourses which probe human fears and hopes concerning the “edge of the human” and the recognition of non-human agency. Within the ecoGothic framework, nature is seen as “a contested site”—a “space of crisis,” where human and non-human ecologies interact and co-produce meaning. This double lens will be used for the study of posthuman imaginaries and Anthropocene affects employed by Dickinson and Cobb.

Past and present biomass consumption by herbivores and fire across productivity gradients in North America

Herbivores and fire are important consumers of plant biomass that influence vegetation structure, nutrient cycling, and biodiversity globally. Departures from historic biomass consumption patterns due to wild herbivore losses, livestock proliferation, and altered fire regimes can have critical ecological consequences. We set out to (i) understand how consumer dominance and prevalence responded to spatial and temporal moisture gradients in Holocene North America and (ii) examine how past and present consumer dominance patterns in North America compare to less altered consumer regimes of modern Sub-Saharan Africa. We developed long-term records of bison abundance and biomass burning in Holocene midcontinent North America and compared these records to reconstructions of moisture availability and vegetation structure. We used these reconstructions to characterize bison and fire prevalence across associated moisture and vegetation gradients. We found that bison herbivory dominated biomass consumption in dry settings whereas fire dominated in wetter environments. Historical distributions of herbivory and burning in midcontinent North America resemble those of contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting disturbance feedbacks and interactions regulate long-term consumer dynamics. Comparisons of consumer dynamics in contemporary North America with Holocene North America and Sub-Saharan Africa also reveal that fire is functionally absent from regions where it was once common, with profound ecological implications.

Essen as a Corpus of Early Musical Experience

Statistics derived from the Essen Folksong Collection have widely been used as a proxy for general stylistic norms familiar to Western listeners. Since the specific facets of contemporary musical experience best modeled by a corpus of nineteenth-century European folksongs remain ambiguous, this study tests whether Essen-like music might be familiar to North American listeners through common children’s songs. Comparison with a corpus of 38 English-language children’s songs highly popular in North America finds that scale degrees from Essen and the children’s song corpus have near-perfect correlations in frequency profiles as well as high to very high correlations in tonal expectations and 4-grams. Profiles of scale degrees’ downbeat probabilities and average durations have moderate to high correlations for the diatonic but not the total chromatic. Overall, profiles of scale-degree behavior from the children’s song corpus match profiles from Essen more closely than do profiles from another corpus of music widely familiar to contemporary listeners (Billboard Hot 100 songs) and similarly closely as a corpus of nineteenth-century common-practice German vocal music (Schubert songs). For contemporary North American listeners, studies relying on Essen might plausibly be reinterpreted in terms of Essen acting as a corpus of early musical experience although the generalizability of Essen-derived statistics likely depends on the precise statistics being measured.

Living to Work (from Home): Overwork, Remote Work, and Gendered Dual Devotion to Work and Family

Contemporary North American work culture is characterized by experts as one of overwork. Throughout much of the previous century, many parents devoted themselves either to their careers, or to their families. These “competing devotions” served as a cultural model for making sense of the world and alleviated the tension between overwork and family life. Data from interviews with 84 IT workers are used to examine whether devotion to work and family is still experienced as oppositional for working parents. I find that interviewees report feeling devoted both to their families and their careers, which I refer to as dual devotion. Such espousals of dual devotion are facilitated by the use of flexible work policies—remote work and flextime—which enable those with dual devotions to accomplish work–life integration. However, whereas men perceive remote work as allowing them to dedicate more time to childcare, women perceive it as allowing them to dedicate more time to work. These findings advance our understanding of the relationship between gender inequality and the experiential dimensions of work and family time: the practices that enable dual devotions, in particular remote work, help parents maintain an orientation to time that makes overwork more palatable. In either case, workplaces win since women are working long hours and men are not sacrificing paid work hours to take on more childcare or housework.

Ordering discontinuous varvec{varphi }-feature agree: verbal -s in North Eastern English

North Eastern English differs from Standard English with respect to agreement: According to the Northern Subject Rule, 3sg agreement marking (verbal -s) occurs on verbs in clauses with non-3sg subjects provided that they are not personal pronouns adjacent to the verb. However, data from the Diachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English shows that verbal -s also does not occur with non-adjacent personal pronouns subjects in contemporary North Eastern English. I argue that verbal -s with non-pronominal non-3sg subjects follows from two conceptual assumptions: firstly, the requirement to order feature-driven elementary operations and secondly, splitting up upvarphi -Agree into two separate operations (i.e., person and number Agree). The difference in agreement between North Eastern English and Standard English stems from the different ordering of features on T. In Standard English, person and number probes are ordered before the structure building feature, which triggers movement. In the North Eastern English order, however, the structure-building feature intervenes between the two probe features. The full DP/pronoun split is explained by different kinds of movement: In the case of a full DP, subject movement to Spec/TP bleeds number agreement and verbal -s emerges, while pronominal subjects remain in the c-command domain of T because they head-move to T.

WEB (Woven EndoBridge) device for intracranial aneurysm treatment: technical, radiological, and clinical findings in a consecutive North American cohort.

Utilization of Woven EndoBridge (WEB) for treatment of intracranial aneurysms has increased due to increasing operator experience. We aimed to report our contemporary series of a North American center with the WEB, examining factors associated with occlusion rates. Consecutive patients (2019-2022) with intracranial aneurysms treated with WEB device were included. Through a univariate and multivariate analysis, independent predictors of adequate occlusion (RR1/RR2) were examined. Procedural and clinical results were reported. A total of 104 consecutive aneurysms/patients (25 men/79 women; median age, 63years, IQR: 55-71) were treated with single-layer WEB-SL in our institution. Seventeen patients (16%) had a ruptured aneurysm. The median aneurysm dome size was 5.5mm (IQR = 4.5-6.5), and the most common locations were AcomA (36/104 = 34.6%), MCA bifurcation (29/104 = 27.9%), and BT (22/104 = 21.2%). The rate of technical failure was 0.9%. The median intervention time was 32min (IQR = 25-43). Overall, 8 (7.6%) cases needed additional interventions: 4 (3.8%) additional stenting, 3 cases (3.8%) of intravenous tirofiban infusion (because of the excessive WEB protrusion), and one case (0.9%) of additional coiling (need to complete the neck occlusion). At 12-month follow-up, 67 patients were available showing 59/67 (88%) and 6/67 (9%) of complete occlusion and neck remnant, respectively on dual-energy CTA. There were no cases necessitating retreatment. Ruptured presentation (OR = 0.09, 95% CI = 0.008-0.9, p = .024), undersized WEB (OR = 15, 95% CI = 1.2-50, p = .006), WEB shape change (OR = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.001-0.6, p = .05), aneurysm neck diameter (OR = 0.4, 95% CI = 0.2-0.9, p = .05), and angle between the parent artery and the aneurysm dome (OR = 0.2, 95% CI = 0.01-0.8, p = .008) were significantly associated with occlusion status (RR1-2) at follow-up. However, in the multivariate logistic regression, these factors did not reach the statistical significance. The overall rate of morbidity was 0.9%. Our contemporary North American experience on consecutive intracranial aneurysms treated with WEB confirms the medium-term efficacy of this strategy, with low procedural time and morbidity. Further research is needed to demonstrate long-term occlusion rates.

What Drives Nuclear-Aspiring States? The Cases of Iran and North Korea

What Drives Nuclear-Aspiring States? The Cases of Iran and North Korea