Early 1990s Research Articles

Exosomal microRNAs as Early Transition Biomarkers from Recurrent-Remissive to Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, immune-mediated disease that affects young adults, leading to neurological disability. Regardless of the studies and the research involved in developing an efficient disease-modifying therapy (DMT), relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) will transition to a progressive multiple sclerosis phenotype. The moment of transition from RRMS to secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS) is difficult to predict, and the diagnosis is based on the accumulation of disabilities in the evolution of the disease. Research on microRNAs’ (miRNAs) role in MS began in the early 2000s, with miR-155 frequently cited for its link to blood–brain barrier dysfunction and neurodegeneration, making it an early transition biomarker from RRMS to SPMS. The purpose of this review is to reveal the importance of finding a biomarker from the molecular field that will be able to identify the transition phase so patients can receive high-efficacy treatments and to cease the clinical progression.

Proton pump inhibitors and the risk of gastric cancer: a systematic review, evidence synthesis and life course epidemiology perspective

ObjectivesSince proton pump inhibitors (PPI) have been introduced, many concerns were raised regarding potential gastric carcinogenicity. We aim to summarise and weigh the epidemiological evidence and address possible causality.DesignSystematic literature...

State-of-the-Art and Practice Review in Concrete Sandwich Wall Panels: Materials, Design, and Construction Methods

Concrete sandwich wall panels (CSWPs) have been constructed since the early 1900s using various wythe connectors, panel geometries, and construction methods to create a structurally and thermally efficient system. Initially, thermal bridging hindered thermal efficiency due to the concrete connections and steel bars used to transfer interface forces between the concrete wythes. This issue was mitigated with the advent of polymer connectors, now widely used in the precast and tilt-up industries. As a result, CSWPs now offer buildings an efficient envelope, aiding in energy savings and reducing the need for additional construction materials and therefore contributing to the construction industry’s sustainability goals. This paper examines the current state of the practice in CSWP construction, focusing on CSWP’s construction methods, sustainability, material selection, and design processes. This manuscript delves into the history of CSWPs and showcases projects ranging from housing to industrial applications. Moreover, the materials and hardware popularly used in their construction are reviewed from the practicing engineer and researcher’s point of view and other aspects, such as environmental, architectural, and structural design, are presented. The most popular construction methods and approaches when precasting these panels on- or off-site and their associated challenges are also presented. Lastly, current deficiencies in CSWP design and construction are outlined and future directions for research and practice are suggested to advance this field further.

A Literature Review for Injection Technique during Treatment and Risk for Needle Stick Injury

Literature review on injection history and safe practices Drugs made the syringe handy. French pharmacist Stanislau Limousin devised the glass "ampoule" for safe, convenient injections in 1886. Handcrafted late 1800s glass and metal syringes cost $50. The 20th century saw the rise of the syringe for injecting insulin, penicillin, and other antibiotics. 2. Poor nations treated kala azar and yaws with the injection in the 1920s. After WWII, penicillin was popular. Between 1920 and 1930, the production of 100,000 to 2 million syringes doubled. Increased demand. The 1950s and 1960s saw disposable syringes replace sterilizable glass ones due to advancements in manufacturing technology. Nepal has disposable syringes since 1980. 15. The latest safe injection innovations include retractable, decreased dead space, auto-disable (AD), and needleless jet injectors. 2. Safe Injection Practice Literature Syringes made parenteral medicine feasible, changing medical history. It's harmful because it spreads illnesses. In the late 1800s, syringe-transmitted viruses caused jaundice and syphilis epidemics; in the 1900s, HBV, HIV, and HCV were detected. 10.22 The first syringe-transferred pathogen may have happened in a Swedish workplace in 1883 after smallpox vaccines. 22 and 23. In the early 1900s, syphilis injection jaundice was attributed to arsenic. 9 In 1945, jaundice-causing microorganisms were introduced into non-sterile injections, triggering safe injection programs in developed nations. 25 Industrialized nations supplied sterilized injectable drugs, needles, and syringes. Developing and transitional nations had more vaccines and treatments. Disease may have spread in these nations due to improper injection equipment cleaning. 3. Injection Lore in Medical Practice Reusing injectable devices without sterilizing (unsafe injection) occurred internationally, although rates varied. Nepal and India, part of SEAR D, reused 75% of injectable devices without sterilizing, compared to 1.2% in American B and European B. Ten locations' annual non-sterilized injectable device reuse frequency

Ayahuasca Retreats: The Role of Awe and Mystical Experiences in Well-Being

ABSTRACT Research on the positive psychological effects of psychedelics has surged since the early 2000s, particularly regarding increased well-being. Studies have demonstrated how psychedelic-occasioned mystical experiences play a key role in their positive effects, which has prompted an interest in the emotion of awe in the psychedelic context due to its similar phenomenology and associated benefits. This study examined 60 individuals following their visitation to at least one ayahuasca retreat in a country where ayahuasca use was legal or retreats are approved to use ayahuasca, hypothesizing that not only high levels of awe but mystical experiences characterized by high levels of awe would be significantly associated with higher well-being. Neither hypothesis was supported: higher levels of mystical experience with lower perceived vastness, a facet of awe, was significantly associated with higher well-being, possibly highlighting the synergistic relationship between mystical experiences and perceived vastness on well-being. The study has implications for future research, particularly in terms of understanding how the perceived vastness of a person’s psychedelic experience may be modulated to mitigate distress and foster well-being.

Botsurisōronsō – The ‘Submerged Ideals-Debate’ in Meiji Japan by Tsubouchi Shōyō and Mori Ōgai

Abstract In the early 1890s, the Botsurisōronsō debate on ‘submerged ideals’ took place between the literary theorist, translator and academic Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859–1935) and the writer, translator and medical researcher Mori Ōgai (1862–1922). The discussion was carried out by Shōyō in the pages of the literary journal Waseda bungaku, which he had founded as professor of Waseda University, and Ōgai in the journal Shigarami Zōshi, which Ōgai had founded. Initially responding to Shōyō’s advocacy of Shakespeare, Ōgai addressed the question of whether modern Japanese literature should absorb and reflect metaphysical ideals or not. Recently returned from a trip to Prussia, Ōgai introduced the aesthetic philosophy of Eduard von Hartmann, claiming it as compatible with Shōyō’s subdivision of the novel into three schools. The opposition of the two eminent literary figures was also reflected in Shōyō’s English-style philosophy and Ōgai’s German metaphysical idealism in the Romantic tradition. This means that Shōyō emphasized a poetics of literature emulating photographic portrayal as well as the incorporation of the Buddhist aesthetics of mono no aware, while Ōgai advocated an idealistic understanding of ideas in the German Romantic tradition. This debate showed the Japanese public for the first time the role of modern literature, bungaku, as notions of literary fiction were arising in Meiji.

Remote sensing for precision weed management.

Herbicides are important for controlling and avoiding the impact of weeds in reducing crop productivity. Traditionally, herbicides are applied uniformly over crop fields. With the advancement of precision agriculture, it is now possible to apply herbicides site-specifically with precision operations over the crop fields. Precision application of herbicides is crucial to ensure efficient crop productivity. To control and even remove weed interference in crop fields, traditionally, the weeds in crop fields were visually identified and removed manually or killed by chemicals. However, in commercial crop production, accurate applications of herbicides to the target weeds in the crop fields has been a challenge either from the sprayers on aircraft (manned/unmanned) or ground-based systems. In order to implement precision application of herbicides over crop fields, remote sensing can be effective in identifying the weed targets and assessing the effect of the applied herbicide and its drift. Satellite remote sensing was developed for weed mapping in the 1990s. At the beginning of the 21st century, airborne remote sensing was identified as a promising technique to offer a solution for rapidly identifying and mapping weeds in crop fields for precision weed management. In the early 2010s, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were developed and used for weed management. Since then, there has been growing interest in using UAVs as a remote sensing platform for precision weed management in crop field. The applications include weed mapping over crop fields, generating prescriptions for precision herbicide application, assessment of crop injury from aerially applied off-target glyphosate, identification and differentiation of glyphosate-resistant weeds from glyphosate-susceptible weeds, and assessment of crop injury from field-applied dicamba. With the current advancements made in developing site-specific digital agricultural technology, it is possible to target weeds of interest for precision spot-spraying application. However, large-scale datasets play a vital role in developing computer vision-based system that can accurately target weeds in any environment. The current challenge that the agriculture industry faces is not a lack of expert engineers or scientists to develop site-specific technology, but rather, adaptability. For instance, a drone-based spot-spraying approach developed in the state of California should be able to generalize and adapt to the environment in Michigan or other states. Only then can experts from multiple fields scale up sustainable technology, rather than develop it just for one state or location. Therefore, this study will help readers gain in-depth understanding of the approaches needed to develop a robust precision application technology for site-specific weed management. © 2025 Society of Chemical Industry.

Placing Amos Rapoport in the First Nations Cultural Landscape

ABSTRACT From a Western perspective, the interwar and post-war periods of the 20th century were foundational in the establishment of formal built environment professions in Australia. The First Nations cultural landscape that these professions built on have existed for many millennia longer and are best known as Country. Architect, town planner and co-founder of Environment-Behaviour Studies (EBS) Amos Rapoport wrote numerous publications in the late 1960s and early 1970s that explored the relationship of Aboriginal and Western conceptions of the cultural landscape as part of his global comparative studies. However, unlike his fellow “anti-architect” Robin Boyd, and (Sir) John Buchan, little is known about Amos Rapoport. This paper explores Rapoport’s work, its influences and what it influenced, as well as its appropriateness today among the burgeoning First Nations publications relating to the Australian built environment. Finally, it places Rapoport among contemporary conceptual and theoretical investigations into the cultural landscape and proposes revisions to his EBS framework for future investigations into the Australian cultural landscape.

Процедурная справедливость и отношение к политической системе: роль воспринимаемых внутренних и внешних угроз

The article contemplates the process of developing a language by Irkutsk officials to describe migration in the early 1990s. Drawing on the archive they collected, which includes internal documents of the city administration, migration service and police, the authors trace how local self-government bodies and lower structures of federal departments perceived migrants and relations with them. They focus on the social characteristics of migrants that were ascribed to them, the spaces in which they were represented, as well as the actions, of which they became objects and subjects. The authors identify two discourses that described interaction with “strangers”. Both discourses characterized a newcomer as an “ethnically” labeled outsider with some inherent ability to influence the host community negatively. The difference between them was in the notion of how to discontinue this influence. The first discourse, more frequently used by the local governments (the authors call it “administrative”) presumed an exchange: the authorities allowed and supported the manifestation of cultural differences in exchange for the loyalty of “outsiders”. The second discourse (designated as the “forceful” one) involved strict control and constraints as the main way of interaction. In conclusion, the authors put forward the hypothesis, according to which both discourses, to one extent or another, go back to the Soviet narratives that shaped, on the one hand, national policy, and, on the other hand, the policy of control over internal and cross-border migration. According to their opinion, the archive documents reflect the process of merging these narratives into the discursive foundation of the modern Russian migration policy that is built on a sense of an obscure existential threat that can be stopped either by symbolic exchange or by forceful suppression.

Diplomatic training in the Republic of belarus: History, ‘Entry Points’ and Epistemic Community

The article is devoted to the issues of training International Relations (IR) students in the Republic of Belarus. It analyzes the process of training future diplomats, reflects the features of language training, gives an insight into the history of training, and describes the main areas of cooperation between Belarusian universities and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus. The training of diplomats is characterized by interdisciplinarity, the use of advanced technologies, and a high degree of motivation for continuous learning. Modern programmes for training international relations specialists include not only traditional disciplines, but also practical skills and tools (including soft skills) that allow them to effectively cope with the variety of challenges facing the international community. In the context of globalization and digitalization, fundamental knowledge remains an important aspect of diplomatic training. Since the early 1990s, Belarus has been actively developing its own system of training diplomatic personnel, based on universities and the special role of a centralized system of selection and language retraining of future diplomats.

Ærkebiskop Erik Valkendorf og kortlægningen af det yderste nord i begyndelsen af 1500-tallet

This article examines how the North was perceived and described during the Renaissance, particularly in the early 1500s. The northernmost border of the known Christian world began to be described on maps of the 15th and early 16th centuries as part of the Renaissance endeavour to describe the world cartographically. In particular, the article focuses on Norwegian Archbishop Erik Valkendorf’s (c. 1465–1522) descriptions of the North and their significance for the contemporary perception of the Arctic and Greenland, in a European context. The article argues that Valkendorf’s descriptions had a greater impact than previously thought on the perception of the North, and the people who lived there, outside Scandinavia. Particularly important in this respect was the connection between Valkendorf and the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller’s map, which is presented for the first time in the article. At the same time, the article points out that the existing knowledge was allegedly spread through international networks of scholars, diplomats and clergy, which have not been seriously explored in this context before.

Microbiome composition and metabolic pathways in shallow and deep periodontal pockets

In periodontal diseases, a dysbiotic subgingival microbiome interacts complexly with the host immune response and is strongly considered a risk factor for various systemic conditions. The high prevalence of both periodontal and systemic diseases in older adults highlights the importance of characterizing the subgingival microbiome in this age group. This study specifically characterizes the composition of the subgingival microbiome and investigates the interactions between microbial niches in shallow and deep periodontal pockets in individuals in their early 70s. We collected 1928 samples from 1287 participants, all born between 1950 and 1951. Participants had either shallow (≤ 4 mm) periodontal pockets or both shallow and deep (≥ 5 mm) periodontal pockets. Distinct microbial patterns were observed in shallow and deep periodontal pockets within the same oral cavity. Deep pockets exhibited a significantly higher abundance of species from genera such as Prevotella, Centipeda, Treponema, and Fusobacterium, while shallow pockets were enriched with species from Actinomyces, Pauljensenia, Streptococcus, and Gemella. The top significant species associated with deep pockets included Fretibacterium fastidiosum, Tannerella forsythia, and Treponema denticola, whereas shallow pockets were predominantly associated with Actinomyces species and Rothia dentocariosa. Additionally, shallow pockets in individuals with both pocket types showed a positive association with Tannerella forsythia, Porphyromonas gingivalis, and Fusobacterium nucleatum compared to shallow pockets in individuals with only shallow pockets. Metabolic pathways showed significant variation with pocket depth, with pathways such as lipopolysaccharide metabolism, lipid metabolism, and polyamine biosynthesis being positively associated with deep pockets. Overall, this study provides comprehensive microbiome analyses of periodontal pockets in aging adults, contributing to a better understanding of periodontal health and its potential impact on reducing systemic health risks in aging populations.

Signature of Andreev-Bashkin superfluid drag from cavity optomechanics

The Andreev-Bashkin (AB) effect, corresponding to the dissipationless dragging of one superfluid by another, was predicted in the early 1970s but has so far eluded experimental detection. In this work, we theoretically introduce a detection paradigm and show that it enables the observation of the hitherto undetected AB effect for realistic parameters. We accomplish this by using the powerful techniques of cavity optomechanics, which were crucial to the observation of gravitational waves, on a spinor ring Bose-Einstein condensate. In contrast to established AB detection methods, our scheme allows for real-time, , minimally destructive and three orders-of-magnitude-more-sensitive measurement of the AB effect. Our proposal, which considers persistent currents in weakly repulsive atomic condensates and amplifies the AB signal using a dynamic Bragg spectroscopy technique, is supported by numerical simulations of the stochastic Gross-Pitaevski equation, which agree very well with our analytic Bogoliubov–de Gennes calculations. Our work suggests a tool for sensitively and nondestructively probing the dynamics of rotationally interacting superfluids using cavities and has fundamental implications for ongoing studies of superfluid hydrodynamics, atomtronics, matter-wave interferometry, and cavity optomechanical sensing. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

Shouldering the Burden: The Communist Party’s Deepening Penetration into Village China

Abstract Under Xi Jinping, the Communist Party of China has systematically centralized decision-making power over a wide range of policy areas while strengthening the organizational capacity of Party institutions to implement the Party’s agenda. The Party has expanded its presence and influence across government agencies, private enterprise and non-profit organizations. The final frontier for Party control lies in the countryside, where villages have enjoyed relative autonomy and civic organizational status since decollectivization in the early 1980s. This article explains how the Party has systematically deepened its penetration into China’s villages by empowering village-level Party branches and Party agents to take control of village affairs. The policies have sought to turn village committees into party-state implementation agencies, but messy realities on the ground raise questions about the efficacy of the measures for policy implementation and formal Party control. Drawing on interviews with villagers, village leaders and township officials in several rural Chinese counties in western and eastern parts of China, alongside Party documents and Chinese-language academic journal articles, this article examines the Party’s strategy for taking greater control of China’s 600,000 plus villages and presents observations about the impacts and consequences of the recent centralization initiatives for rural governance in China.

The impact of violence and COVID-19 on Mexico's life-expectancy losses and recent bounce-back, 2015-22.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, life expectancy in Mexico stagnated from the early 2000s, mainly due to increased homicides. During the pandemic, Mexico experienced sizable excess mortality. We aimed to assess the contribution of violence, COVID-19, and causes of death that were amenable to healthcare to life-expectancy changes between 2015 and 2022 in Mexico. We used administrative mortality and adjusted population estimates to construct life tables. We applied demographic methods to untangle contributions of causes of death to life-expectancy changes by year and sex at the subnational level. Between 2015 and 2019, life expectancy declined from 71.8 to 71.1 years for males and stagnated at 77.6 years for females. Violence among young males explains most of the decline (54.3%). Between 2019 and 2020, life expectancy decreased by 7.1 and 4.4 years for males and females, respectively. COVID-19 accounted for 55.4% of that change for males and 57.7% for females. In 2021, male life expectancy stagnated but continued to decline for females by 0.44 years due to COVID-19 deaths. In 2022, we observed unequal recovery patterns in life expectancy across regions, as northern states experienced larger improvements than central and southern states. We documented large variations in life-expectancy losses across Mexican states before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, violence accounted for most of the male life-expectancy losses. During the pandemic, following COVID-19 deaths, mortality due to diabetes and causes that were amenable to healthcare contributed considerably to observed losses, with an uneven impact on the sexes.

The ‘dark’ dimensions of grey space in freestyle skateboarding

ABSTRACT Known as dark or thanotourism, the morbid curiosity to visit sites of death and suffering is a widespread and commodified form of travel (Lennon & Foley, 1996, 2000). Dark or thanotourism literature has nonetheless overlooked sport entirely, despite athletes’ extensive travelling to stadia wherein they face potential pain, harm and loss. This article specifically develops dark discourse vis-à-vis freestyle skateboarding – an understudied subdiscipline whereby practitioners perform choreographed routines to self-selected music on open, flat terrain – to (1) illustrate the supposed ‘death’ of freestyle and (2) argue that travelling to contest terrains constitutes a form of dark tourism necessary for the subculture’s continued survival. Drawing on a primarily autoethnographic methodology – namely, my nearly decade-long experience travelling and competing in freestyle’s global contest circuit – I shed light on freestyle’s darkness. In particular, dominant skateboard circles commonly and erroneously represent freestyle skateboarding as an effeminate and old-school form of skateboarding that died in the early 1990s and remains dead – vanished into eternal darkness. Since freestyle was resuscitated from its dark age in 2000, travelling to contests globally to compete on imperfect and hostile terrains, a form of dark tourism, has been central to keeping their small and geographically fragmented scene alive.

Prehistory in 100 Years of Educational Films: Representations of Gender Roles and Relations in Swedish Schools

ABSTRACT Teaching about Nordic prehistory has a long tradition in Sweden and films about this period in history have been available to schools since the early 1900s. Our knowledge of prehistory is based on archaeological science, but there is a lack of studies showing the relation between research and knowledge of prehistory in educational films. This study of films about Nordic prehistory analyses the transformation in the way women, men and children have been presented. The results of the study show how men have been visualised as having important roles while women have been responsible for tasks close to home, but in recent years a certain change can be seen in this role distribution. The study also shows how the focus has shifted from the Stone Age man to the Stone Age girl and how children have gone from being insignificant to being the main characters in the films.

Language alliances and language policy

Promoting multilingualism and plurilingualism is a cornerstone of the European identity and citizenship concept (Council Recommendation of 22 May 2019 on a comprehensive approach to the teaching and learning of languages (Council of Europe, 2019)) and a key action within the European Universities Initiative (EUI) projects. Among the current sixty-five alliances, most incorporate the multilingualism objective into a dedicated work package, adopting various approaches (Gazzola et al. 2024; Castellotti et al. 2024; Conceiçao and Zanola 2024). These include establishing a shared language policy within the alliance, offering a catalogue of language courses available through dedicated portals and organising and recognising both formal and informal language learning activities (Castellotti et al. 2024). However, in the EUI landscape, UNITA-Universitas Montium has managed to build a multi-level educational system for a diverse audience that engages with the various activities of the alliance and that promotes intercomprehension between romance languages for academic purposes (Garbarino and Lesparre 2024; Mantegna 2023; Fiorentino et al. 2024; De Poli et al. forthcoming). The latter approach, which has been the subject of numerous research projects and publications since the early 1990s (Bonvino and Garbarino 2022; Degache 2021), is feasible due to the linguistic homogeneity of the alliance, composed of universities based in Romance-language-speaking countries. This paper focuses on the UNITA approach to linguistic diversity as a strategy for fostering the community of students, teachers and administrative staff within the alliance, as well as enhancing international mobility to meet the ambitious 50% goal set by the EUI call. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .

Animal husbandry in the arid southern Levant during the later historical periods: new zooarchaeological data from the Roman Aqaba Project, Jordan

Zooarchaeological research in the arid southern Levant has recently begun to focus on the later historical periods: Hellenistic, Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic. In this article, a substantial new zooarchaeological data set from salvage excavations at the site of Aila (modern Aqaba), conducted by the late S. Thomas Parker in the 1990s and early 2000s, is presented. This assemblage mainly dates to the Nabataean through Islamic periods. The Aila faunal assemblage is compared with contemporary faunal data sets from other sites in the arid southern Levant in order to demonstrate that, despite the harsh environmental conditions, animal economies were highly variable in this region during these later historical periods.

Роль Агентства по международному развитию в публичной дипломатии США в Западной Африке

The aim of the research is to determine the role of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in implementing U.S. public diplomacy programs in West Africa. The article presents the evolution of USAID’s activities in West Africa using the examples of Ghana, Nigeria, and Mali. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that traditionally, American public diplomacy is studied through the prism of the activities of various institutions in East Africa; however, there are practically no studies in scientific circulation that analyze similar aspects of U.S. operations in West Africa. The study identified the specifics of applying U.S. public diplomacy mechanisms in West Africa, and also determined the role of decentralization programs in promoting democratic values and strengthening U.S. political influence in the countries of the region. The analysis showed how U.S. foreign policy adapts to the political realities of West Africa, striving to effectively engage with local authorities and civil society to achieve long-term strategic goals. The study found that USAID was most active from the early 2000s until its closure. The projects implemented by this structure were aimed at promoting American values in West African society. It was also found that the decentralization of government bodies in West African countries was used by the United States to strengthen influence in these territories. The concept of decentralization was promoted as a necessary element of “democratization”.