Series Of Manuscripts Research Articles

James Baldwin’s Hypothetical Novel: “Ignorant Armies” and the Making of Another Country

This article presents a genealogy of James Baldwin’s novel Another Country through a series of archival manuscripts dating from 1944. It argues that the nearly two-decades writing process informs a central theme of Another Country: the painful self-knowledge that comes from self-confrontation. The article offers this explanation to complement other contemporary interpretations of this theme of self-knowledge, particularly those of Mikko Tuhkanen and E. J. Martínez.

The dispersal of monastic libraries in the early nineteenth century: Buxheim and Karakallou

This article discusses the dramatic dispersal of monastic libraries in Europe and the Christian East during the early nineteenth century through two contrasting examples. These are: (1) the 1423 St Christopher woodblock print and other early examples of fifteenth-century printing, formerly the property of the Charterhouse at Buxheim in Swabia but purchased in 1803 by Alexander Horn for George John, 2nd Earl Spencer; and (2) a series of Byzantine manuscripts, formerly the property of the monastery of Karakallou on Mount Athos but purchased in 1837 by Robert Curzon, later 14th Baron Zouche. It identifies changing perceptions surrounding the value and use of books on the parts of both monks and collectors as central to this moment and explores the different – but often surprisingly similar – ways in which books left monastic ownership in western vs. eastern contexts.

Methods employed in a 2021 population-based serosurvey in Somalia

This paper describes the design and methods of a serosurvey conducted in Somalia in 2021. The study had several concurrent aims: a) to estimate seroprevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, b) to obtain age-specific data on susceptibility to poliovirus, measles, rubella, diphtheria, and tetanus; and c) to estimate seroprevalence of pathogens causing malaria and neglected tropical diseases. Participants were recruited from persons seeking care at government health facilities as well as friends and family members who accompanied those seeking care. Respondents answered interview questions to establish their demographic profile, their COVID-19 exposure and experience, and, for children, their routine immunization status. Each participant contributed a sample of blood for serum or dried blood spots. Serum samples were analyzed in Somalia for SARS-CoV-2 and dried blood spots were analyzed at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) for the other diseases and antigens of interest. This manuscript describes the study design, logistics, laboratory methods, and data management steps used to compile the study dataset. Study results will be reported in a series of manuscripts to follow.

Segmenting large historical notarial manuscripts into multi-page deeds

Archives around the world hold vast digitized series of historical manuscript books or “bundles” containing, among others, notarial records also known as “deeds” or “acts”. One of the first steps to provide metadata which describe the contents of those bundles is to segment them into their individual deeds. Even if deeds are often page-aligned, as in the bundles considered in the present work, this is a time-consuming task, often prohibitive given the huge scale of the manuscript series involved. Unlike traditional Layout Analysis methods for page-level segmentation, our approach goes beyond the realm of a single-page image, providing consistent deed detection results on full bundles. This is achieved in two tightly integrated steps: first, we estimate the class-posterior at the page level for the “initial”, “middle”, and “final” classes; then we “decode” these posteriors applying a series of sequentiality consistency constraints to obtain a consistent book segmentation. Experiments are presented for four large historical manuscripts, varying the number of “deeds” used for training. Two metrics are introduced to assess the quality of book segmentation, one of them taking into account the loss of information entailed by segmentation errors. The problem formalization, the metrics and the empirical work significantly extend our previous works on this topic.

Creating life in the laboratory: Francis Bacon's journey from living spirits to animate bodies

This article aims to reconstruct a complex inquiry into the nature of life delineated in Francis Bacon's ‘last writings’, a series of manuscripts discovered at the end of the twentieth century. I show that these fragmentary texts can be understood if we place them in the larger context of Bacon's posthumous works: the Sylva Sylvarum and the Historia densi et rari . Taken together, these texts unveil Bacon's last bold project of a History and inquisition into the nature of animate and inanimate [ Historia et inquisitio de animato et inanimato ], an investigation focusing on the possibility of creating life in the laboratory. I show that Bacon's last project marks a revaluation of earlier definitions and explanations regarding the nature of life, as well as a change in the vocabulary. I suggest that some of these changes might have originated in practice; and I show how various recipes, observations and experiments recorded in Bacon's late writings can illuminate and justify some of his new terminology.

Consciousness of Emotion and Emotive Consciousness in Geiger and Husserl

Moritz Geiger’s 1911 article on the consciousness of feeling, entitled “Das Bewusstsein von Gefühlen,” was an object of study for Husserl in a series of manuscripts recently published in Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins II. Gefühl und Wert (1896-1925)(2020). Geiger’s article and Husserl’s remarks on it received attention from Métraux (1975), but, more recently, an increasing number of publications have been devoted to the topic (Averchi, 2015a, 2015b; Crespo, 2015; Quepons, 2017; Marcos del Cano, 2023). These new publications identify a central area of disagreement between the two authors concerning the nature of emotive consciousness, i.e., the mode in which affective states relate to their objects. For Geiger, emotions are directed toward their objects but are not regarded as intentional and, in certain forms of consciousness, can even lose their relation to their objects. By contrast, for Husserl, intentionality is an intrinsic feature of emotive consciousness. The paper shows that Geiger’s and Husserl’s disagreement on the nature of emotions is rooted in their different pictures of the structure of consciousness and, in particular, the place of feeling in their respective ontologies of the mind.

Evaluation of the Strengthening a Palliative Approach in Long Term Care (SPA-LTC) programme: a protocol of a cluster randomised control trial

IntroductionDespite the high mortality rates in long-term care (LTC) homes, most do not have a formalised palliative programme. Hence, our research team has developed the Strengthening a Palliative Approach in...

State of the Art Bowel Management for Pediatric Colorectal Problems: Hirschsprung Disease.

After an initial pull-though, patients with Hirschsprung disease (HD) can present with obstructive symptoms, Hirschsprung-associated enterocolitis (HAEC), failure to thrive, or fecal soiling. This current review focuses on algorithms for evaluation and treatment in children with HD as a part of a manuscript series on updates in bowel management. In constipated patients, anatomic causes of obstruction should be excluded. Once anatomy is confirmed to be normal, laxatives, fiber, osmotic laxatives, or mechanical management can be utilized. Botulinum toxin injections are performed in all patients with HD before age five because of the nonrelaxing sphincters that they learn to overcome with increased age. Children with a patulous anus due to iatrogenic damage of the anal sphincters are offered sphincter reconstruction. Hypermotility is managed with antidiarrheals and small-volume enemas. Family education is crucial for the early detection of HAEC and for performing at-home rectal irrigations.

Numerical Semigroups, Polyhedra, and Posets III: Minimal Presentations and Face Dimension

This paper is the third in a series of manuscripts that examine the combinatorics of the Kunz polyhedron $P_m$, whose positive integer points are in bijection with numerical semigroups (cofinite subsemigroups of $\mathbb Z_{\ge 0}$) whose smallest positive element is $m$. The faces of $P_m$ are indexed by a family of finite posets (called Kunz posets) obtained from the divisibility posets of the numerical semigroups lying on a given face. In this paper, we characterize to what extent the minimal presentation of a numerical semigroup can be recovered from its Kunz poset. In doing so, we prove that all numerical semigroups lying on the interior of a given face of $P_m$ have identical minimal presentation cardinality, and we provide a combinatorial method of obtaining the dimension of a face from its corresponding Kunz poset.

State of the Art Bowel Management for Pediatric Colorectal Problems: Functional Constipation.

Functional constipation (FC) affects up to 32% of the pediatric population, and some of these patients are referred to pediatric surgery units to manage their constipation and/or fecal incontinence. The aim of the current paper is to report the recent updates on the evaluation and management of children with FC as a part of a manuscript series on bowel management in patients with anorectal malformations, Hirschsprung disease, spinal anomalies, and FC. A literature search was performed using Medline/PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane, and EMBASE databases and focusing on the manuscripts published within the last 5-10 years. The first step of management of children with FC is to exclude Hirschsprung disease with a contrast study, examination under anesthesia, anorectal manometry (AMAN). If AMAN shows absent rectoanal inhibitory reflex, a rectal biopsy is performed. Internal sphincter achalasia or high resting pressures indicate botulinum toxin injection. Medical management options include laxatives, rectal enemas, transanal irrigations, and antegrade flushes. Those who fail conservative treatment require further assessment of colonic motility and can be candidates for colonic resection. The type of resection (subtotal colonic resection vs. Deloyer's procedure) can be guided with a balloon expulsion test. Most of the patients with FC referred for surgical evaluation can be managed conservatively. Further studies are required to determine an optimal strategy of surgical resection in children unresponsive to medical treatment.

State of the Art Bowel Management for Pediatric Colorectal Problems: Anorectal Malformations.

Up to 79% of patients with anorectal malformations (ARMs) experience constipation and/or soiling after a primary posterior sagittal anoplasty (PSARP) and are referred to a bowel management program. We aim to report the recent updates in evaluating and managing these patients as part of the manuscript series on the current bowel management protocols for patients with colorectal diseases (ARMs, Hirschsprung disease, functional constipation, and spinal anomalies). The unique anatomic features of ARM patients, such as maldeveloped sphincter complex, impaired anal sensation, and associated spine and sacrum anomalies, indicate their bowel management plan. The evaluation includes an examination under anesthesia and a contrast study to exclude anatomic causes of poor bowel function. The potential for bowel control is discussed with the families based on the ARM index calculated from the quality of the spine and sacrum. The bowel management options include laxatives, rectal enemas, transanal irrigations, and antegrade continence enemas. In ARM patients, stool softeners should be avoided as they can worsen soiling.

Pediatric Bowel Management Options and Organizational Aspects

A bowel management program (BMP) to treat fecal incontinence and severe constipation is utilized for patients with anorectal malformations, Hirschsprung disease, spinal anomalies, and functional constipation, decreasing the rate of emergency department visits, and hospital admissions. This review is part of a manuscript series and focuses on updates in the use of antegrade flushes for bowel management, as well as organizational aspects, collaborative approach, telemedicine, the importance of family education, and one-year outcomes of the bowel management program. Implementation of a multidisciplinary program involving physicians, nurses, advanced practice providers, coordinators, psychologists, and social workers leads to rapid center growth and enhances surgical referrals. Education of the families is crucial for postoperative outcomes, prevention, and early detection of complications, especially Hirschsprung-associated enterocolitis. Telemedicine can be proposed to patients with a defined anatomy and is associated with high parent satisfaction and decreased patient stress in comparison to in-person visits. The BMP has proved to be effective in all groups of colorectal patients at a 1- and 2-year follow-up with social continence achieved in 70-72% and 78% of patients, respectively, and an improvement in the patients' quality of life. A transitional care to adult program is essential to maintain the same quality of care, and continuity of care and to achieve desired long-term outcomes as the patient reaches adult age.

Factor VII Activating Protease (FSAP) and Its Importance in Hemostasis—Part I: FSAP Structure, Synthesis and Activity Regulation: A Narrative Review

Factor VII activating protease (FSAP) was first isolated from human plasma less than 30 years ago. Since then, many research groups have described the biological properties of this protease and its role in hemostasis and other processes in humans and other animals. With the progress of knowledge about the structure of FSAP, several of its relationships with other proteins or chemical compounds that may modulate its activity have been explained. These mutual axes are described in the present narrative review. The first part of our series of manuscripts on FSAP describes the structure of this protein and the processes leading to the enhancement and inhibition of its activities. The following parts, II and III, concern the role of FSAP in hemostasis and in the pathophysiology of human diseases, with particular emphasis on cardiovascular diseases.

Microscopic Optical Potentials: recent achievements and future perspectives

Few years ago we started the investigation of microscopic Optical Potentials (OP) in the framework of chiral effective field theories [1, 2] and published our results in a series of manuscripts. Starting from the very first work [3], where a microscopic OP was introduced following the multiple scattering procedure of Watson [4], and then followed by Refs. [5, 6], where the agreement with experimental data and phenomenological approaches was successfully tested, we finally arrived at a description of elastic scattering processes off non-zero spin nuclei [7]. Among our achievements, it is worth mentioning the partial inclusion of three-nucleon forces [8], and the extension of our OP to antiproton-nucleus elastic scattering [9]. Despite the overall good agreement with empirical data obtained so far, we do believe that several improvements and upgrades of the present approach are still to be achieved.In this short essay we would like to address some of the most relevant achievements and discuss an interesting development that, in our opinion, is needed to further improve microscopic OPs in order to reach in a near future the same level of accuracy of the phenomenological ones.

Drinking and laboratory biomarkers, and nutritional status characterize the clinical presentation of early-stage alcohol-associated liver disease.

Chronic and heavy alcohol consumption is commonly observed in alcohol use disorder (AUD). AUD often leads to alcohol-associated organ injury, including alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD). Approximately 10-20% of patients with AUD progress to ALD. Progression of ALD from the development phase to more advanced states involve the interplay of several pathways, including nutritional alterations. Multiple pathologic processes have been identified in the progression and severity of ALD. However, there are major gaps in the characterization and understanding of the clinical presentation of early-stage ALD as assessed by clinical markers and laboratory measures. Several Institutions and Universities, including the University of Louisville, in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health, have published a series of manuscripts describing early-stage ALD over the past decade. Here, we comprehensively describe early-stage ALD using the liver injury and drinking history markers, and the laboratory biomarkers (with a focus on nutrition status) that are uniquely involved in the development and progression of early-stage ALD.

What’s the Use of a Manuscript? Uncovering Relevant Information from András Lugosi Fodor’s Unpublished Book

"András Lugosi Fodor was the medical superintendent of Hunyad (Ro: Hunedoara) County in the first half of the nineteenth century, with a keen interest in Dacian and Roman sites in the region. Some of his most significant contributions to archaeology are a series of unpublished manuscripts. These contain information about his visits to sites, but most importantly, they also present the collections of antiquities belonging to the Transylvanian nobility. Fodor not only provided detailed descriptions about these items, but also drawings. The locations of most of these items are unknown today, making Fodor’s manuscript more important. This paper will try to reconstruct the collection of Roman finds owned by noble families from Hunyad County, based on Fodor’s manuscript. Keywords: research history, antiquarianism, nineteenth century archaeology, manuscripts, Transylvania, Roman Dacia"

Consensus Head Acceleration Measurement Practices (CHAMP): Origins, Methods, Transparency and Disclosure

The use of head kinematic measurement devices has recently proliferated owing to technology advances that make such measurement more feasible. In parallel, demand to understand the biomechanics of head impacts and injury in sports and the military has increased as the burden of such loading on the brain has received focused attention. As a result, the field has matured to the point of needing methodological guidelines to improve the rigor and consistency of research and reduce the risk of scientific bias. To this end, a diverse group of scientists undertook a comprehensive effort to define current best practices in head kinematic measurement, culminating in a series of manuscripts outlining consensus methodologies and companion summary statements. Summary statements were discussed, revised, and voted upon at the Consensus Head Acceleration Measurement Practices (CHAMP) Conference in March 2022. This manuscript summarizes the motivation and methods of the consensus process and introduces recommended reporting checklists to be used to increase transparency and rigor of future experimental design and publication of work in this field. The checklists provide an accessible means for researchers to apply the best practices summarized in the companion manuscripts when reporting studies utilizing head kinematic measurement in sport and military settings.

Virtual reality and speech analysis for the assessment of impulsivity and decision-making: protocol for a comparison with neuropsychological tasks and self-administered questionnaires

IntroductionImpulsivity is present in a range of mental disorders and has been associated with suicide. Traditional measures of impulsivity have certain limitations, such as the lack of ecological validity. Virtual...

Abstract 2131: Curating cartography: Enabling the harmonisation, visualisation, and reuse of diverse multiplexed imaging data through the Human Tumor Atlas Network Data Coordinating Center

Abstract The Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) is a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Moonshot Initiative to generate three-dimensional molecular and spatial atlases of diverse human tumors and characterize crucial transitions in cancer progression and treatment. A series of manuscripts describing an extensive array of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and imaging datasets are emerging but careful curation is required to maximize the data’s utility. HTAN centers have generated data from over 30 assay types including more than a dozen imaging methods (e.g., fluorescence microscopy, metal-tagged imaging, digital pathology, spatial transcriptomics, and electron microscopy). The HTAN Data Coordinating Center (DCC) develops infrastructure and tools to ingest, curate, explore, and share these data in a findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) manner. As of November 2021 the DCC had ingested over 150 TB of data, including nearly 150,000 imaging data files. HTAN metadata schemas were developed through a community-driven Request for Comments process, including schemas for raw, processed and QC-checked imaging data, segmentation masks and feature arrays. This work led to a set of Minimum Information for Highly Multiplexed Tissue Imaging (MITI) guidelines, which are complemented by detailed metadata on participants and biospecimens. The Schematic python package is used to provide a user-friendly interface for defining data-model schemas, generate (meta)data submission spreadsheets, and asset-store interfaces on various cloud platforms. Across assay types, the HTAN schema currently encompasses over 700 attributes from 35 components. The DCC manages the HTAN Data Portal, which provides community access to the atlases and enables filtering of released atlas data based on metadata fields, and pointers to data availability. To enable visualization and exploration of imaging data directly from the portal, centers can submit Minerva stories, which provide guided storytelling of multiplexed tissue images. We provide methods to automatically generate default stories with visually appropriate overlays of sequential four-channel groups. We developed Miniature to generate unsupervised and interpretable multiplexed image thumbnails to provide rapid contextual information when browsing image collections. Dimensionality reduction is used to reduce a multiplexed image pyramid to three dimensions. Pixels are recolored according to their coordinates in low-dimensional space, where Pixels with similar marker expression are assigned similar colours. Public data sharing requires careful consideration of data egress costs and de-identification of images and their metadata. The DCC is working closely with NCI Cancer Research Data Commons to ensure long term-legacy and reuse of HTAN data. Citation Format: Adam J. Taylor, Milen Nikolov, Ino de Brujin, Jeremy Muhlich, Mialy De Felice, Artem Sokolov, Denis Schapiro, Peter Sorger, Julie Bletz, Nikolaus Schultz, Vésteinn Thorsson, James Eddy, Ethan Cerami. Curating cartography: Enabling the harmonisation, visualisation, and reuse of diverse multiplexed imaging data through the Human Tumor Atlas Network Data Coordinating Center [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 2131.

Cow's milk allergy.

To highlight the most recent insights on cow's milk allergy (CMA), its treatment, and management. CMA is one of the most common food allergies among children. Burdened by the risk for fatal reaction, CMA may imply also a severe impairment of health-related quality of life at individual and family level as well as well as individual and societal costs. The updated Diagnosis and Rationale for Action against Cow's Milk Allergy series is going to provide a series of manuscripts that will offer a comprehensive state-of-the-art specifically on CMA, including international evidence-based recommendations. The current results from randomized clinical trials highlight that oral immunotherapy may be effective by itself in providing desensitization. Preliminary data suggest that biologicals such as omalizumab may be able to increase the threshold of reactivity to milk or several foods (if multiple food allergies) without requiring allergen exposure. Breastfeeding is the first choice for infants with CMA. Extensively hydrolyzed formula and amino-acid formula are valid alternatives and may be particularly helpful when eliminating multiple foods, with severe complex gastrointestinal food allergies, eosinophilic esophagitis, severe eczema, or symptoms while exclusively breastfeeding. Heed is needed to ensure the formula is nutritionally sufficient. Due to a high degree of cross-reactivity with cow's milk proteins and risk for allergic reactions, goats' milk or other mammals' milk should not be used. The adoption and implementation of evidence-based recommendations may guide a proper diagnostics and management and awaited advances in knowledge will allow the development of a personalized treatment tailored on the specific CMA patient's profile.