Journal articles on the topic 'Database of e-dating'

This paper set out to respond to the challenge posed by scholars in postcolonial digital humanities, for peripheral sexualities to converge with archival practices of digital dating, which is a mainly objectified and technologized praxis. Drawing insights from Robert Sternberg"s triadic psychological theory based on the consummation of passion, intimacy and commitment, as well as from African and oral romance stories, it came up with the conclusions that, on the one hand, Sternberg"s structuralist paradigm cannot be optimized in romance narratives for reasons of the complex and changing environmental conditions. African and oral romance stories are very instructive about the deconstructive character of society when it comes to the optimalization of the consummation of these components of love. Therefore with the techno-rationalist determinism of e-dating that prioritizes efficiency over effectivity, the paper suggests that these diverging insights of African and traditional philosophy about the consummation of love can be integrated into the technological praxis in order to maximize its online educational potential, effectivity and reality. On the other hand, from these findings, the paper suggests that an archival system that converges with insights from Sternberg"s triadic psychological theory and African/oral romance stories, should not prioritize only objectoriented database systems which were developed from the mid-1980s out of a need to incorporate applications beyond data processing applications served by relational database systems. Therefore, it argues for an objectoriented database that incorporates subject-oriented considerations for a greater convergence of the database management system.

AbstrakPerkembangan teknologi internet dan aplikasi mobile telah membawa kita selangkah lebih maju dalam penerapan teknologi di kehidupan modern. Salah satunya adalah aplikasi untuk mendapatkan barang dan jasa berupa aplikasi pemesanan makanan secara online. Selain lebih cepat dan praktis, pemesanan online juga dianggap lebih nyaman, karena menawarkan pilihan bagi konsumen untuk menulusuri menu, ulasan makanan, dan lain-lain. Metode penelitian yang dipakai adalah metode pengembangan software menggunakan metode waterfall. Dengan adanya rancangan aplikasi pemesanan makanan online berbasis web (e-del) konsumen tidak perlu dating langsung ketika ingin memesan makanan. Aplikasi ini juga membantu efektifitas waktu pekerja menjadi lebih cepat dan efisien. Serta dapat menghasilkan informasi yang cepat, tepat dan akurat karena menggunakan sistem database Mysql, sehingga data dapat terhubung satu dengan yang lain.Kata Kunci: Aplikasi, web, MySql, PHP

AbstractDecision-making in our everyday lives is surrounded by visually important information. Fashion, housing, dating, food or travel are just a few examples. At the same time, most commonly used tools for information retrieval operate on relational and text-based search models which are well understood by end users, but unable to directly cover visual information contained in images or videos. Researcher communities have been trying to reveal the semantics of multimedia in the last decades with ever-improving results, dominated by the success of deep learning. However, this does not close the gap to relational retrieval model on its own and often rather solves a very specialized task like assigning one of pre-defined classes to each object within a closed application ecosystem. Retrieval models based on these novel techniques are difficult to integrate in existing application-agnostic environments built around relational databases, and therefore, they are not so widely used in the industry. In this paper, we address the problem of closing the gap between visual information retrieval and relational database model. We propose and formalize a model for discovering candidates for new relational attributes by analysis of available visual content. We design and implement a system architecture supporting the attribute extraction, suggestion and acceptance processes. We apply the solution in the context of e-commerce and show how it can be seamlessly integrated with SQL environments widely used in the industry. At last, we evaluate the system in a user study and discuss the obtained results.

Due to the substantial development of information and communications technology, the use of E-learning in higher education has become essential to boost teaching methods and enhance students' learning skills and competencies. E-learning in Software Engineering turns out to be increasingly interesting for scholars. In fact, researchers have worked to enhance modern Software Engineering education techniques to meet the required educational objectives. The aim of this article is to analyse the scientific production on E-learning Software Engineering education by conducting a bibliometric analysis of 10,603 publications, dating from 1954 to 2020 and available in the Scopus database. The results reveal some scientific production information, such as the temporal evolution of the publications, the most prolific authors, institutions and countries, as well as the languages used. Besides, the paper evaluates additional bibliometric parameters, including the authors' production, journal productivity, and scientific cooperation, among other bibliometric parameters. The subject of the current study has not been treated by any previous bibliometric studies. Our research is deeper and more specific; it covers a long period of 66 years and a large number of publications, thanks to the chosen search string containing the different spellings of the used terms. In addition, the literature is analysed using several tools such as Microsoft Excel, VOSviewer, and Python. The research findings can be used to identify the current state of E-learning Software Engineering Education, as well as to identify various research trends and the general direction of E-learning research. 

Due to the substantial development of information and communications technology, the use of E-learning in higher education has become essential to boost teaching methods and enhance students' learning skills and competencies. E-learning in Software Engineering turns out to be increasingly interesting for scholars. In fact, researchers have worked to enhance modern Software Engineering education techniques to meet the required educational objectives. The aim of this article is to analyse the scientific production on E-learning Software Engineering education by conducting a bibliometric analysis of 10,603 publications, dating from 1954 to 2020 and available in the Scopus database. The results reveal some scientific production information, such as the temporal evolution of the publications, the most prolific authors, institutions and countries, as well as the languages used. Besides, the paper evaluates additional bibliometric parameters, including the authors' production, journal productivity, and scientific cooperation, among other bibliometric parameters. The subject of the current study has not been treated by any previous bibliometric studies. Our research is deeper and more specific; it covers a long period of 66 years and a large number of publications, thanks to the chosen search string containing the different spellings of the used terms. In addition, the literature is analysed using several tools such as Microsoft Excel, VOSviewer, and Python. The research findings can be used to identify the current state of E-learning Software Engineering Education, as well as to identify various research trends and the general direction of E-learning research.

One of the current trends in archaeological geoinformatics in Russia is the creation of web mapping portals that integrate spatial and thematic data on the given areas of concentration of archaeological sites. As part of the study of the life support system of the ancient population of the Tura and Pyshma interfl uves (Tyumen region) developed a geoportal on the basis of free and open source soft ware. The server part developed on the basis of GeoServer, provides storage of the information and authorized access to it. Vector data is stored in PostgreSQL database management system using PostGIS add-in. Raster data is stored on the server as GeoTIFF and MrSID fi les. Th e technologies used in the development of the client web-application allow using it in modern web-browsers without installing additional soft ware on the user’s devices. Th e geoportal user interface is an interactive map of spatial data layers as well as map control elements. Th e general control elements include the zoom buttons, the scale setting on the available layer extents, the zoom slider, the scale bar, the geographic coordinates fi eld of the cursor installation, the button enabling the attribute information display mode. Th ematic content of the geoportal includes space images with medium (10 m) and extra high (up to 0.3 m) spatial resolution, AW3D relief model (25 m), topographic maps, UAV images of certain areas (orthophotomaps and DEM), vectorlayers of archaeological sites, hydrography, landscapes restoration, results of archaeological sites borders mapping using GPS-receivers, as well as the results of bathymetry survey. Th e layer of archaeological site (366 objects) contains attributive information including type, period, description, dating. Geoportal is a convenient tool for management and visualization of the accumulated information arrays for specialists without extensive knowledge in cartography and GIS.

O Estado de Mato Grosso do Sul está colocado em sétimo lugar no ranking brasileiro de consumo de agrotóxicos, de acordo com os dados do Ministério da Saúde. Tal fato pode acarretar uma série de consequências negativas à saúde humana, tais como problemas relacionados aos efeitos cancerígenos de determinadas substâncias. Este trabalho propõe avaliar a correlação entre a exposição humana aos agrotóxicos mais utilizados no Estado e a prevalência de morbidades não transmissíveis atendidas pelo SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde) em ambiente hospitalar no período de 2013 a 2019. A metodologia utilizada foi a revisão bibliográfica com data superior a 1998 na base de dados do SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library), PubMed, Ibama (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis) e Anvisa (Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária), com as informações a respeito das morbidades mais prevalentes obtidas por meio de pesquisa na base de dados do DATASUS referentes ao período de 2013 a 2019. Os resultados obtidos indicaram um número significativo de morbidades hospitalares não transmissíveis que podem estar relacionadas com a exposição crônica aos agrotóxicos em Mato Grosso do Sul, um Estado com economia baseada no agronegócio. Os resultados, quando comparados às informações obtidas no Estado do Amazonas, que apresenta um perfil econômico não direcionado ao agronegócio (26º lugar no ranking no consumo de agrotóxicos), indicaram que Mato Grosso do Sul possui índices superiores relacionados com a ocorrência desses agravos e que a utilização contínua destes produtos pode estar afetando a saúde da população. Palavras-chave: Contaminação Ambiental. Saúde Humana. Exposição aos Agrotóxicos. AbstractThe state of Mato Grosso do Sul ranks 6th in Brazil’s pesticides use due to the increase of agribusiness, according to the Ministry of Health. Such a fact may offer a series of negative consequences to health, such as problems related to the carcinogenic effects of some substances ,This paper proposes to evaluate the correlation between human exposure to the most commonly used pesticides in the region and the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases seen by SUS (Brazil’s Unified Health System) in hospital settings in the period from 2013 to 2019. The research methodology was a literature review dating back to 1998 in the SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library), PubMed, Ibama (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources), and Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) databases. The information regarding the most incident or prevalent diseases was obtained by searching the DATASUS database from the period from 2015 to 2019.The results indicated a significant number of noncommunicable diseases that may be related to chronic exposure to pesticides in Mato Grosso do Sul when compared to data from Amazonas that presents an economic profile not directed to agribusiness, taking the 26th place in the ranking in the consumption of pesticides in the country, which presented lower rates related to the occurrence of these diseases. Keywords: Environmental Contamination. Human Health. Exposure to Pesticides.

An isotopic database for the Pacific/Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans) and foods that it scavenges is used to examine diet-induced 14C age variation in omnivores. We discuss a suite of 26 δ14C determinations and 13C and 15N analysis for modern Pacific/Polynesian rat bone gelatin and available food items from Kapiti Island, New Zealand (40°51'S, 174°75'E). These analyses provide the first isotopic data for modern specimens of the species, collected as part of a larger project to determine potential sources of bias in unexpectedly old 14C age measurements on subfossil specimens of R. exulans from New Zealand. Stable C, N and 14C isotopic and trapping data are used to trace carbon intake via the diet of the rats in each habitat. Data from specimens linked to five specific habitats on the island indicate that modern populations of R. exulans are not in equilibrium with atmospheric values of δ14C, being either enriched or depleted relative to the atmospheric curve in 1996/97, the period of collection. The δ14C values recorded for R. exulans are associated with diet, and result from variation in δ14C values found in animal-protein food items available to a scavenging omnivore. The titer of carbon deviating from atmospheric values is believed to be derived from the essential amino acids in the protein-rich foods of the rat diet.Present evidence suggests that the depletion required to affect 14C ages limits the possibility that diet introduces dramatic offsets from true ages. Marine diets, for example, would have a variable effect on ages for terrestrial omnivores, contraindicating the application of a standard marine correction for such specimens. We suggest that to identify the extent to which diet may influence the 14C age in a given specimen of terrestrial omnivore, the separation and dating of essential amino acids vs. a nonessential amino, such as glycine, be applied.

<p>As plantas medicinais são definidas como aquelas capazes de produzir princípios ativos que possam alterar o funcionamento de órgãos e sistemas, restaurando o equilíbrio orgânico ou a homeostasia nos casos de enfermidades, assim como outras terapias, fazem parte da chamada Medicina Tradicional, a equipe de Saúde da Família deve atuar de maneira eficaz na orientação da adequada utilização dessa terapêutica complementar, tendo em vista a ampla utilização de plantas medicinais pela população que é atendida nas unidades de Saúde da Família. O objetivo desse estudo é avaliar a importância da orientação dos profissionais de saúde das equipes de saúde da família a cerca do uso da fitoterapia. A pesquisa se trata de um estudo bibliográfico realizado a partir da seleção de artigos, oriundos do banco de dados de Revistas e outras publicações literárias, datadas dos períodos de 2006 a 2014. Os resultados mostram que a utilização de plantas no tratamento de doenças e infecções é uma prática milenar, que continua sendo difundida na atualidade, e que no Brasil essa prática é reconhecida pela organização mundial de saúde, e pelo ministério da saúde, sendo regulamentada por lei, no entanto é importante o apoio e a orientação dos profissionais das equipes de saúde da familia, em especial do enfermeiro, sendo ele considerado uma peça chave nesse processo, pois estes mantém um maior vínculo com a população sendo conhecedor dos costumes e culturas em que a população está inserida.</p><p align="center"><strong><em>The importance of professional orientation of family health teams a fence phytotherapy use</em></strong></p><p><strong>Abstract: </strong>Medicinal plants are defined as those capable of producing active ingredients that can alter the functioning of organs and systems, restoring organic balance or homeostasis in cases of illness, as well as other therapies are part of the so-called traditional medicine, the health team Family must act effectively in guiding the appropriate use of this complementary therapy, with a view to wider use of medicinal plants by the population that is served in the Family Health Units. The aim of this study is to evaluate the importance of guidance for health professionals of family health teams about the use of herbal medicine. The research is a bibliographical study from the selection of items, arising from the Journals Database and other literary publications, dating from the period 2006 to 2013. The results show that the use of plants to treat diseases and infections It is an ancient practice that is still widespread today, and that in Brazil this practice is recognized by the world health organization, and the ministry of health, being regulated by law, however it is important the support and guidance of professional teams health of the family, especially the nurse, it is considered a key player in this process, as they maintain a stronger link with the population being knowledgeable of customs and cultures where the population is located.</p>

Abstract Background: Traditional drug development typically takes more than 15 years and costs 1 billions to bring a new drug to market. Drug repositioning, the application of established drug compounds to new therapeutic indications can hasten effective therapies at a lower cost. Although a number of treatment options are available, there is currently no proven cure for Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) besides bone marrow transplantation. We employed a novel two stages, transdisciplinary method to identify potential drug reposition candidates for MDS with commonly prescribed drugs. We found Digoxin, a drug prescribed for heart failure, as the leading candidate. Methods: After we downloaded all human mRNA microarray platforms and their associated annotation files from NCBI GEO database (as Jul 2014), we retained 145 microarray platforms from more than 4k unique Gene IDs. We then used a text mining tool, MetaMap (http://metamap.nlm.nih.gov/), to map text to Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Concept Unique Identifier (CUI). Only concepts belong to Anatomical Abnormality, Disease or Syndrome and Neoplastic Process were kept. Then we manually grouped microarray samples into healthy and pathological conditions and susing R package, Limma, we generated diseases signatures by systematically comparing with 1.3M drug response gene expression signatures of 20K drugs/compounds and using pattern matching algorithm. In the second stage, drug repositioning candidates for MDS were further analyzed by integrating historical clinical data warehouse, METEOR (M ethodist E nvironment for T ranslational E nhancement and O utcomes R esearch). METEOR data warehouse contains clinical records of Houston Methodist Hospital System and external data dating from Jan 1st 2006 to present (2015). There are over 1 million unique patients and over 4 million unique patient encounters in METEOR. Selected drug repositioning candidates predicted by transcriptome data in the first stage were tested for their effects on MDS patients using METEOR data. Age, gender, race matched myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) patients that have taken or not taken a specific drug were compared for their overall survival. Results: 1174 diseases signatures for 301 human diseases were generated; for each the signatures, we computed it's repositioning score in CMap and LINCS database by non-parametric rank-ordered kolmogorov-Smirnov statistics. The overall disease-drug reposition map is presented in Figure 1. Many FDA approved indications were recovered by our disease-drug reposition map including 5'-azacitidine which was at top 1% of leading hints in the disease-drug reposition map (Figure 1B). We also find some potential new indication for old drugs such as cardiac glycosides (Digoxin, Digitoxin, Lanatoside C and others) for MDS (Figure 1D). In the second stage we found Digoxin, had a significant positive effect on high risk patients (Figure 2) unlike those for low risk MDS. Conclusions: We have generated 1174 gene expression signatures for 301 human diseases including MDS and systematically compared them with gene expression signatures of 20K drug/compounds. By integrating clinical data warehouse, METEOR, we further verified one potential drug repositioning candidate, Digoxin for high-risk MDS. We are currently testing Digoxin like compounds for its effects in short-term bone marrow culture from high-risk MDS patients. Preliminary results show encouraging results which will be reported at the Annual ASH meeting 2015. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

<p>The journal of Advances in Modern Oncology Research (AMOR) is proud to announce its partnership with Portico, a leading digital preservation service provider, to ensure the long term accessibility of its published contents. In addition, it is now indexed by the gold standard of chemical information database Chemical Abstracts Services (CAS) after publishing only six bimonthly issues, dating back to October 2015. AMOR’s Editor-in-Chief Dr. Omar Abdel-Rahman proudly shares: “Our vision is to be far more than just a journal, we want to be a platform that publishes high quality cancer research contents from all over the world. I think we are progressing, at an acceptable pace, in that direction."</p><p> </p><p>The Portico archive is a “centralized repository of tens of thousands of e-journals, e-books, and other electronic content, replicated to ensure security,” according to the registry organization. “Content comes into the archive under formal preservation agreements with publishers. Content providers submit source files to Portico, and we repackage these source files into an archival format and provide long-term archival management and format migration as needed. Our approach is driven by our commitment to meeting clear preservation goals,” it states. </p><p> </p><p>AMOR’s Managing Editor Dr. TS Jong, when asked to comment about the impact of this development, adds: “AMOR is committed towards meeting the highest international publication standards and as such, has a clear archiving and indexing roadmap to sustain our growth. The journal acknowledges the importance of ensuring the continuous accessibility of our published articles in multiple repositories. Therefore, we are delighted with the recent partnership between AMOR and Portico, a well-known third-party repository service provider, to safeguard the long-term availability of our contents.”</p><p> </p><p>Archiving AMOR’s articles within Portico ensures that the materials published are always available for access. In addition, AMOR’s inclusion in Portico – one of the leading digital preservation services in the world – ensures that AMOR is a step-closer towards its goal of being indexed by PubMed or Medline eventually, as Portico is one of the certified repositories according to Medline’s requirement, Dr. Jong explains.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile, Chemical Abstracts Service is an internationally-renowned authority for chemical information that delivers the most complete, cross-linked, and effective digital information for scientific discoveries. CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, is a source of chemical information and its databases are recognized as the ultimate ‘gold standard’ by the industry. Physically located in Columbus, Ohio, United States, CAS provides updated chemistry content which is maintained by hundreds of PhD scientists from all around the world. The content in CAS covers almost all information and accurate details acquired from thousands of journals, books, patent authorities, web sources, dissertations, conference proceedings, to name a few.</p><p> </p><p>According to Dr. Jong, AMOR is aware that being indexed in relevant databases would broaden its readership and consequently improve the journal’s standing among other oncology journals. “In this regard, we are excited about our inclusion in the CAS databases. This reflects the quality of our published contents and will certainly pave the way for subsequent recognitions by other academic databases,” he says. Dr. Abdel-Rahman goes on to explain, “Our vision for the development and progress of AMOR is to turn it into a benchmark of good quality cancer research and to disseminate this high-quality research to all those who are interested, without any barriers. That is why the indexing and archiving of AMOR into highly accessed biomedical indices is vital to achieve this goal.”</p><p> </p><p>AMOR’s future is bright and hopeful, the EIC says. “We promise our respectable readers and collaborators that AMOR will continue to develop itself and strive to include its contents in other highly accessed biomedical indices,” Dr. Abdel-Rahman concludes. ■</p>

Several records of violence during student body elections in higher institutions of learning can be found dating back to the 1988 Abu crisis. The causal factors are multifaceted, involving both internal factors within the institution and external factors, and interest parties like main stream politicians. Suspicion of the possibility of rigging during a planned election can trigger pre-election violence, while alleged rigging during the election or the vote counting process is the major cause of election unrest during student government elections. The voting process is typically manual, and it is done through the use of ballot boxes and papers. This is error prone, inefficient and susceptible to rigging. Preventing mistrust-induced election violence requires the deployment of a trustworthy alternative to the paper ballot system. In this study, an electronic voting system is developed using Visual Basic and Microsoft Access Database. The application performs voter authentication by verifying a pre-issued pin which is unique for each voter. The system is accurate and engages the participation and login of agents who are representatives of the candidates’ contesting for various offices thereby building trust in the process.

Introduction: Dating violence is a complex and multifaceted problem that affects people around the world. The objective was to evaluate the scientific production on dating violence in the Scopus and Web Of Science databases. Method: Scoping review was used as a method to analyze manuscripts in indexed journals. The search equations were designed with Boolean terms and operators. For the analysis of co-occurrences between authors and keywords, the Biblioshyni package was used. Results: The study covered the last 10 years, included 3077 publications from 735 journals, with a citation rate of 20.65 per document. 10499 authors participated, 92.95% of these were original articles and the most prominent authors are Miller E., Gibbs A., Decker M.R., and Silverman J.G., with the United States leading in production (49.89%). The Journal of Interpersonal Violence was the most prolific journal with 403 papers. Important thematic clusters were identified, such as violence in young couples, risk factors and interpersonal relationships, and aggression, in addition, an evolution from the approach of human and sexual relationships and violence in women was evidenced. The collaborative network showed strong connections between key authors such as Silverman, Miller, McCauley, Campbell, Stockman, Jewkes, and Gibbs. Conclusions: International collaboration and the concentration of studies in high-impact journals, mainly in the United States, underscore the need for multidisciplinary and culturally adapted approaches to effectively address and prevent dating violence. Received: 11 July 2024 / Accepted: 1 November 2024 / Published: 05 November 2024

This review aimed to investigate the interplay between dietary components and epigenetic modulation in the pathogenesis of hypertension. A comprehensive literature search encompassing all published primary and secondary research dating up to March 2024 was carried out on several electronic databases, including MEDLINE, EBSCO-Host, Science Direct, ProQuest, and Google Scholar. Individual genomes and dietary intake exhibit a bidirectional relationship, influencing the hypertension risk. Unhealthy dietary patterns can compromise DNA integrity through DNA methylation and histone acetylation, ultimately affecting both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Dietary macronutrient composition (carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins) significantly alters the expression of specific microRNAs (miRNAs) known to regulate endothelial function and blood pressure homeostasis. Moreover, micronutrients (vitamin A, D, E, Zinc, Iodine, and Sodium) can exert epigenetic effects on blood pressure via receptor interactions, potentially modifying cardiovascular disease risk. Dietary imbalances in macro and micronutrients can epigenetically influence hypertension development. Addressing these deficiencies through targeted interventions may offer a complementary approach to hypertension treatment.

Resumo: Endocrown é uma técnica moderna que prima por trazer maior qualidade nos tratamentos protéticos da área Odontológica, almejando restaurações indiretas adesivas em dentes tratados endodônticamente, proporcionando uma longevidade funcional maior e melhor resultado estético ao paciente. O objetivo da presente revisão de literatura foi analisar estudos que trazem os conceitos e aplicações clínicas da “endocrown”. A busca bibliográfica foi realizada nas bases de dados Scielo, Pubmed e Lilacs, e englobou estudos datados de 2010 a 2020. Através deste trabalho, nota-se que esta técnica é bastante eficiente por sua viabilidade e sucesso clínico, e se faz importante fomentar novos trabalhos para estudo e discussão deste tema, para que esta técnica torne-se de maior conhecimento dos cirurgiões-dentistas. Abstract: Endocrown is a modern technique that seeks higher quality in prosthetic treatments, with indirect adhesive restorations in endodontically treated teeth, providing greater functional longevity and better aesthetic results. The purpose of this literature review was to analyze studies that shows concepts and clinical applications of “endocrown”. The bibliographic research was made in Scielo, Pubmed and Lilacs databases, that included studies dating from 2010 to 2020. Through this work, it is noted that this technique is quite efficient due to its viability and clinical success, being important to promote new studies and discussion of this topic to this technique becomes more known by dentists. Keywords: Dental Prosthesis, Intracoronary Restorations, Retention in Dental Prosthesis, Dental Porcelain. Introdução Restaurar dentes tratados endodonticamente engloba muitas premissas, e por isso encontra-se entre os maiores desafios para os Cirurgiões-Dentistas, necessitando de conhecimento interdisciplinar para realizar o melhor tratamento (PORTO et al., 2016).

Relevance. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are frequently prescribed in dental practice to relieve pain and swelling. This study reviews information on NSAIDs, with a particular focus on those aspects that are relevant to the practice of dentistry.Materials and methods. A systematic literature search was conducted, which included studies dating from 1970 to June 2021. The search in the electronic databases e-LIBRARY.ru, Embase, Pubmed and Medline identified the studies. Articles were reviewed by meeting the inclusion and non-inclusion criteria.Results. Initially, the electronic search identified 589 studies. After reviewing the titles and abstracts, 69 potentially relevant studies were subject to full-text evaluation. Of these, 34 studies were excluded based on study design, research question, or lack of numerical data on all variables to be assessed in this study, so 35 studies with a detailed list of such data could be included in the quantitative comparison.Conclusion. The use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs may alter the inflammatory response in the treatment of oral diseases. The conducted studies have brought up questions about the effectiveness and alternative ways of NSAID delivery in dentistry, namely, dispersible formulation.

Background: The systematic literature review with additional descriptive analysis at hand focuses on analysing returns management in e-commerce, which is an increasingly critical issue as the volume of online shopping is rising. Methods: Drawing from a comprehensive search of academic databases and a manual review of Google Scholar, 54 articles dating from 2007 onwards were collected and fully read. Results: The review reveals a main research effort emerging mainly from Germany and other countries, with a notable focus on fashion retail. The bulk of these studies aim to understand and reduce the frequency of customer returns, addressing a substantial operational challenge for online retailers. The findings provide multiple research streams extracted from the collected literature and combined to an overview. Conclusions: Through this, there are tendencies which can be interpreted to derive the evolution of the research field. The illustrated results in this review paint a detailed picture of the existing research landscape. This highlights the importance of ongoing research, which, e.g., holds potential benefits for customer satisfaction and environmental sustainability. The review also lists future research directions, recommending the continued investigation of areas such as predictive analytics and customer behaviour to further refine returns management practices.

Abstract The problem of a far span of control and having to be reached using sea transportation in access services is one of the problems in the process of providing public services at the Karimun Regency Ministry of Religion Office located in Tanjung Balai Karimun. The development of Digital Information Technology-based Public Service Innovations at the Office of the Ministry of Religion of Karimun Regency was carried out as a form of implementation of the Integrity Zone (ZI) to improve the quality of public service delivery, especially considering the location of the Karimun Regency area which consists of districts separated by the sea. The purpose of this study was to determine the forms of development of Digital Information Technology-based Public Service Innovations at the Karimun Regency Ministry of Religious Affairs Office. This research uses the literature study method on literature related to research problems. The results showed that the forms of Digital Information Technology-based Public Service Innovation at the Office of the Ministry of Religion of Karimun Regency are PTSP Zuriah Smart Online, Hajj Database System, Mail Management Information System, Employee E-Kinerja, Cooperation Information System of the Ministry of Religion of Karimun Regency and Disdukcapil of Karimun Regency (SIKECAP), Integrated Data Information System (SI DATIN), TTE (Electronic Signature), and Public Complaint Application (Whistleblowing System Application). Abstrak Permasalahan rentang kendali yang jauh dan harus ditempuh menggunakan transportasi laut dalam mengakses pelayanan menjadi salah satu penyebab rendahnya kualitas pelayanan publik pada Kantor Kementerian Agama Kabupaten Karimun yang terletak di Tanjung Balai Karimun. Pengembangan Inovasi Pelayanan Publik berbasis Teknologi Informasi Digital pada Kantor Kementerian Agama Kabupaten Karimun dilakukan sebagai bentuk implementasi Zona Integritas (ZI) dengan tujuan untuk meningkatkan kualitas penyelenggaraan pelayanan publik, terutama mengingat letak wilayah Kabupaten Karimun yang terdiri dari kecamatan-kecamatan yang terpisahkan oleh lautan. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui bentuk-bentuk pengembangan Inovasi Pelayanan Publik berbasis Teknologi Informasi Digital pada Kantor Kementerian Agama Kabupaten Karimun. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode Studi Kepustakaan terhadap literatur yang berkaitan dengan masalah penelitian. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa bentuk-bentuk Inovasi Pelayanan Publik berbasis Teknologi Informasi Digital pada Kantor Kementerian Agama Kabupaten Karimun adalah PTSP Zuriah Smart Online, Sistem Database Haji, Sistem Informasi Manajemen Surat, E-Kinerja Pegawai, Sistem Informasi Kerja Sama Kementerian Agama Kabupaten Karimun dan Disdukcapil Kabupaten Karimun (SIKECAP), Sistem Informasi Data Terintegrasi (SI DATIN), TTE (Tanda Tangan Elektronik), dan Aplikasi Pengaduan Publik (Aplikasi Whistleblowing System).

Abstract. Pollen records from Siberia are mostly absent in global or Northern Hemisphere synthesis works. Here we present a taxonomically harmonized and temporally standardized pollen dataset that was synthesized using 173 palynological records from Siberia and adjacent areas (northeastern Asia, 42–75∘ N, 50–180∘ E). Pollen data were taxonomically harmonized, i.e. the original 437 taxa were assigned to 106 combined pollen taxa. Age–depth models for all records were revised by applying a constant Bayesian age–depth modelling routine. The pollen dataset is available as count data and percentage data in a table format (taxa vs. samples), with age information for each sample. The dataset has relatively few sites covering the last glacial period between 40 and 11.5 ka (calibrated thousands of years before 1950 CE) particularly from the central and western part of the study area. In the Holocene period, the dataset has many sites from most of the area, with the exception of the central part of Siberia. Of the 173 pollen records, 81 % of pollen counts were downloaded from open databases (GPD, EPD, PANGAEA) and 10 % were contributions by the original data gatherers, while a few were digitized from publications. Most of the pollen records originate from peatlands (48 %) and lake sediments (33 %). Most of the records (83 %) have ≥3 dates, allowing the establishment of reliable chronologies. The dataset can be used for various purposes, including pollen data mapping (example maps for Larix at selected time slices are shown) as well as quantitative climate and vegetation reconstructions. The datasets for pollen counts and pollen percentages are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.898616 (Cao et al., 2019a), also including the site information, data source, original publication, dating data, and the plant functional type for each pollen taxa.

La zona arqueol&oacute;gica de La Quemada es uno de los asentamientos m&aacute;s grandes e importantes de la frontera norte de Mesoam&eacute;rica. Se localiza en el municipio de Villanueva, en el Estado de Zacatecas. Las investigaciones arqueol&oacute;gicas han permitido definir la secuencia ocupacional del sitio en tres fases: Malpaso (400-600/650 AD), compartiendo decoraci&oacute;n incisa-esgrafiada con la cer&aacute;mica Canutillo correspondiente a la cultura Chalchihuites; La Quemada (600/650-850 AD), durante la cual el asentamiento present&oacute; su mayor crecimiento arquitect&oacute;nico y se consolid&oacute; como centro de poder; y Ciudadela (850-1000 AD), periodo en que se produjo el proceso de abandono y tuvo lugar un fuerte incendio. Los primeros datos cronol&oacute;gicos absolutos obtenidos para La Quemada corresponden a m&eacute;todos radiom&eacute;tricos y fueron producto de los trabajos de campo realizados por Pedro Armillas en los a&ntilde;os 1951 y 1952, obteniendo 3 fechas; m&aacute;s tarde, en los a&ntilde;os 1963 y 1964, conseguir&iacute;a 7 fechas m&aacute;s para La Quemada y 2 para el sitio Presa de Ambosco, ubicado a 6 km de La Quemada. En 1986, Peter Jim&eacute;nez y Charles Trombold obtuvieron 4 fechas para el sitio Las Adjuntas, localizado a 4 km de La Quemada. Posteriormente, se lograron 39 dataciones de las excavaciones realizadas entre 1988 y 1993 por SUNY Buffalo en La Quemada y, en 1997, Ben A. Nelson public&oacute; los contextos estratigr&aacute;ficos de las mismas. En 2018, Paula Turkon <em>et alii</em> publicaron 6 fechas correspondientes a La Quemada, obtenidas mediante m&eacute;todos dendrocronol&oacute;gicos. Finalmente, en 2019 y 2020 se comunicaron las &uacute;ltimas dataciones absolutas obtenidas para La Quemada, conseguidas empleando m&eacute;todos arqueomagn&eacute;ticos. El primero de estos estudios (L&oacute;pez <em>et al.</em> 2019) arroj&oacute; dos fechas y del segundo (Torreblanca <em>et al.</em> 2020) se obtuvieron 4 m&aacute;s. A partir de lo anterior se construy&oacute; una base de datos con 66 dataciones absolutas, observando que m&aacute;s de la mitad de las dataciones se encuentra dentro del intervalo que va del a&ntilde;o 600 al 800 AD, el cual corresponde a la fase ocupacional La Quemada. Adem&aacute;s, seg&uacute;n el m&eacute;todo de dataci&oacute;n, se agruparon los intervalos de edad disponibles para cada estructura y se encontr&oacute; que un fog&oacute;n de la cancha del Juego de Pelota cuenta con una edad m&aacute;s reciente (hacia 1623 AD), lo cual indica su uso durante el periodo colonial de M&eacute;xico, y que las estructuras Terraza 18 y Midden 11 son las m&aacute;s antiguas, al presentar fechas entre 130 y 170 AD. Finalmente, se realiz&oacute; un an&aacute;lisis de varianza (ANOVA) y una prueba de multirrangos y Kruskal-Wallis. El an&aacute;lisis de varianza y multirrangos posibilit&oacute; clasificar 3 grupos homog&eacute;neos (I, II, III) y se observ&oacute; que algunas estructuras mostraron una superposici&oacute;n respecto a los grupos. La clasificaci&oacute;n y el an&aacute;lisis estad&iacute;stico realizado para las dataciones absolutas existentes permitieron identificar la cantidad de estructuras fechadas por m&eacute;todos absolutos, las estructuras m&aacute;s j&oacute;venes y las m&aacute;s antiguas, as&iacute; como los periodos de uso de cada una de ellas; siendo lo m&aacute;s importante de este an&aacute;lisis que posibilita observar, en orden cronol&oacute;gico, el desarrollo constructivo de La Quemada, Zacatecas. ENGLISH: <em>Catalog of Absolute Dates Available for the Archaeological Area of La Quemada, Zacatecas, Northern Mesoamerica</em>. The archaeological area of La Quemada is one of the largest and most important settlements in the northern border of Mesoamerica. It is located in the municipality of Villanueva, in the State of Zacatecas. Archaeological research has allowed to define the occupational sequence of the site in three phases: Malpaso (400&ndash;600/650 AD), sharing incised decoration with the Canutillo ceramics corresponding to the Chalchihuites culture; La Quemada (600/650&ndash;850 AD), during which the settlement presented its greatest architectural growth and consolidated as a center of power; and Ciudadela (850&ndash;1000 AD), a period in which the process of abandonment and a strong fire took place. The first absolute chronological data obtained for La Quemada correspond to radiometric methods and were the result of field work carried out by Pedro Armillas in 1951 and 1952, obtaining 3 dates; later, in 1963 and 1964, he obtained 7 more dates for La Quemada and 2 for the Ambosco Dam site, located 6 km from La Quemada. In 1986, Peter Jim&eacute;nez and Charles Trombold obtained 4 dates for the Las Adjuntas site, located 4 km from La Quemada. Subsequently, from excavations conducted between 1988 and 1993 by SUNY Buffalo at La Quemada, 39 dates were achieved and, in 1997, Ben A. Nelson published the stratigraphic contexts of those dates. In 2018, Paula Turkon <em>et alii</em> published 6 dates corresponding to La Quemada, obtained by dendrochronological methods. Finally, in 2019 and 2020, the last absolute dates for La Quemada were announced, obtained using archaeomagnetic methods. The first of these studies (L&oacute;pez <em>et al</em>. 2019) provided two dates and from the second study (Torreblanca <em>et al</em>. 2020) 4 more were obtained. From the above, a database containing 66 absolute dates was constructed, observing that more than half of them fall within the interval from 600 to 800 AD, which corresponds to the La Quemada occupational phase. In addition, according to the dating method, the age intervals available for each structure were grouped, and it was found that a hearth from the Ballgame Court has a more recent age (around 1623 AD), which indicates its use during the colonial period in Mexico, and that the structures Terrace 18 and Midden 11 are the oldest, presenting dates between 130 and 170 AD. Finally, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a multi-range and Kruskal-Wallis test were performed. The analysis of variance and the multi-range test allowed to classify 3 homogeneous groups (I, II, III) and it was observed that some structures showed an overlap with respect to the groups. The classification and statistical analysis carried out for the existing absolute dates allowed to identify the number of structures dated by absolute methods, the youngest and oldest structures, as well as the periods of use of each one of them; the most important aspect of this analysis is that it made it possible to observe in chronological order the constructive development of La Quemada, Zacatecas.

A Review of: &#x0D; Julien, Heidi and Cameron Hoffman. “Information Literacy Training in Canada’s Public Libraries.” Library Quarterly 78.1 (2008): 19-41.&#x0D; &#x0D; Objective – To examine the role of Canada’s public libraries in information literacy skills training, and to ascertain the perspectives of public library Internet users with regard to their experiences of information literacy. &#x0D; &#x0D; Design – Qualitative research using semi-structured interviews and observations. &#x0D; &#x0D; Setting – Five public libraries in Canada. &#x0D; &#x0D; Subjects – Twenty-eight public library staff members and twenty-five customers. &#x0D; &#x0D; Methods – This study constituted the second phase of a detailed examination of information literacy (IL) training in Canadian public libraries. Five public libraries located throughout Canada were selected for participation. These comprised a large central branch of a public library located in a town with a population of approximately two million, a main branch of a public library in an urban city of about one million people, a public library in a town with a population of about 75,000, a library in a town of 900 people and a public library located in the community center of a Canadian First Nations reserve that housed a population of less than 100 persons. After notifying customers via signage posted in the vicinity of computers and Internet access areas, the researchers observed each patron as they accessed the Internet via library computers. Observations focused on the general physical environment of the Internet access stations, customer activities and use of the Internet, as well as the nature and degree of customer interactions with each other and with staff. Photographs were also taken and observations were recorded via field notes. The former were analyzed via qualitative content analysis while quantitative analysis was applied to the observations. &#x0D; &#x0D; Additionally, each observed participant was interviewed immediately following Internet use. Interview questions focused on a range of issues including the reasons why customers used the Internet in public libraries, customers’ perceptions about their level of information literacy and their feelings with regard to being information literate, the nature of their exposure to IL training, the benefits they derived from such training, and their desire for further training. Public service librarians and other staff were also interviewed in a similar manner. These questions sought to ascertain staff views on the role of the public library with regard to IL training; perceptions of the need for and expected outcomes of such training; as well as the current situation pertinent to the provision of IL skills training in their respective libraries in terms of staff competencies, resource allocation, and the forms of training and evaluation. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. Data were interpreted via qualitative content analysis through the use of NVivo software. &#x0D; &#x0D; Main Results – Men were more frequent users of public library computers than women, outnumbering them by a ratio ranging from 2:1 to 3.4:1. Customers appeared to be mostly under the age of 30 and of diverse ethnicities. The average income of interviewed customers was less than the Canadian average. &#x0D; &#x0D; The site observations revealed that customers were seen using the Internet mainly for the purposes of communication (e.g., e-mail, instant messaging, online dating services). Such use was observed 78 times in four of the libraries. Entertainment accounted for 43 observations in all five sites and comprised activities such as online games, music videos, and movie listings. Twenty-eight observations involved business/financial uses (e.g., online shopping, exploration of investment sites, online banking). The use of search engines (25 observations), news information (23), foreign language and forum websites (21), and word processing were less frequently observed. Notably, there were only 20 observed library-specific uses (e.g., searching online catalogues, online database and library websites). Customers reported that they used the Internet mainly for general web searching and for e-mail. &#x0D; &#x0D; It was also observed that in general the physical environment was not conducive to computer use due to uncomfortable or absent seating and a lack of privacy. Additionally, only two sites had areas specifically designated for IL instruction. &#x0D; &#x0D; Of the 25 respondents, 19 reported at least five years experience with the Internet, 9 of whom cited experience of 10 years or more. Self-reported confidence with the Internet was high: 16 individuals claimed to be very confident, 7 somewhat confident, and only 2 lacking in confidence. There was a weak positive correlation between years of use and individuals’ reported levels of confidence. &#x0D; Customers reported interest in improving computer literacy (e.g., keyboarding ability) and IL skills (ability to use more sources of information). Some expressed a desire “to improve certain personal attitudes” (30), such as patience when conducting Internet searches. When presented with the Association of College and Research Libraries’ definition of IL, 13 (52%) of those interviewed claimed to be information literate, 8 were ambivalent, and 4 admitted to being information illiterate. Those who professed to be information literate had no particular feeling about this state of being, however 10 interviewees admitted feeling positive about being able to use the Internet to retrieve information. Most of those interviewed (15) disagreed that a paucity of IL skills is a deterrent to “accessing online information efficiently and effectively” (30). Eleven reported development of information skills through self teaching, while 8 cited secondary schools or tertiary educational institutions. However, such training was more in terms of computer technology education than IL. Eleven of the participants expressed a desire for additional IL training, 5 of whom indicated a preference for the public library to supply such training. Customers identified face-to-face, rather than online, as the ideal training format. Four interviewees identified time as the main barrier to Internet use and online access. &#x0D; As regards library staff, 22 (78.6%) of those interviewed posited IL training as an important role for public libraries. Many stated that customers had been asking for formal IL sessions with interest in training related to use of the catalogue, databases, and productivity software, as well as searching the web. Two roles were identified in the context of the public librarian as a provider of IL: “library staff as teachers/agents of empowerment and library staff as ‘public parents’” (32). The former was defined as supporting independent, lifelong learning through the provision of IL skills, and the latter encompassing assistance, guidance, problem solving, and filtering of unsuitable content. &#x0D; Staff identified challenges to IL training as societal challenges (e.g., need for customers to be able to evaluate information provided by the media, the public library’s role in reducing the digital divide), institutional (e.g., marketing of IL programs, staff constraints, lack of budget for IL training), infrastructural (e.g., limited space, poor Internet access in library buildings) and pedagogical challenges, such as differing views pertinent to the philosophy of IL, as well as the low levels of IL training to which Canadian students at all levels had been previously exposed. &#x0D; Despite these challenges library staff acknowledged positive outcomes resulting from IL training in terms of customers achieving a higher level of computer literacy, becoming more skillful at searching, and being able to use a variety of information sources. Affective benefits were also apparent such as increased independence and willingness to learn. Library staff also identified life expanding outcomes, such as the use of IL skills to procure employment.&#x0D; In contrast to customer self-perception, library staff expressed that customers’ IL skills were low, and that this resulted in their avoidance of “higher-level online research” and the inability to “determine appropriate information sources” (36). Several librarians highlighted customers’ incapacity to perform simple activities such as opening an email account. Library staff also alluded to customer’s reluctance to ask them for help.&#x0D; Libraries in the study offered a wide range of training. All provided informal, personalized training as needed. Formal IL sessions on searching the catalogue, online searching, and basic computer skills were conducted by the three bigger libraries. A mix of librarians and paraprofessional staff provided the training in these libraries. However, due to a lack of professional staff, the two smaller libraries offered periodic workshops facilitated by regional librarians. &#x0D; All the libraries lacked a defined training budget. Nonetheless, the largest urban library was well-positioned to offer IL training as it had a training coordinator, a training of trainers program, as well as technologically-equipped training spaces. The other libraries in this study provided no training of trainers programs and varied in terms of the adequacy of spaces allocated for the purpose of training. The libraries also varied in terms of the importance placed on the evaluation of IL training. At the largest library evaluation forms were used to improve training initiatives, while at the small town library “evaluations were done anecdotally” (38). &#x0D; &#x0D; Conclusion – While Internet access is available and utilized by a wide cross section of the population, IL skills are being developed informally and not through formal training offered by public libraries. Canadian public libraries need to work to improve information literacy skills by offering and promoting formal IL training programs.

In order to understand the dynamics of cultural phenomena, scientific dating in archaeology is an increasingly indispensable tool. Only by dating independently of typology is it possible to understand typological development itself (M&uuml;ller 2004). Here radiometric dating methods, especially those based on carbon isotopy, still play the most important role. For evaluations exceeding the intra-site level, it is particularly important that such data is collected in large numbers and that the dates are easily accessible. Also, new statistical analyses, such as sequential calibration based on Bayesian methods, do not require single dates, but rather demand a greater number. By their combination significantly more elaborate results can be achieved compared to the results from conventional evaluation (e. g. Whittle et al. 2011). A second premise of RADON is that of &bdquo;Open Access&ldquo;. This approach continues to be applied in the international research community, which we welcome as a highly positive development. The radiocarbon database RADON has been committed to this principle for more than 12 years. In this database 14C data &ndash; primarily of the Neolithic of Central Europe and Southern Scandinavia &ndash; is collected and successively augmented.

In this article we aim to give researchers and other users of drug utilization data a current overview of the twonationwide Norwegian drug databases located at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), withreference to some historical background. The first database, “The Norwegian Drug Wholesales Statistics”,dating back to 1974, provides total sale figures of all medicines on the market. The second database, “TheNorwegian Prescription Database” (NorPD), dates back to 2004 and covers prescription drugs dispensed bypharmacies. This database will be modernized during 2021 and renamed (“The Norwegian Prescribed DrugRegistry”, name not finally decided), and all historical data will be migrated to the modernized registry. In thefuture, the most valuable add-on to the modernized prescription database will be individual level data fromin-patients in hospitals and health care institutions, and the possibility to obtain aggregated data from eachinstitution. Together, the two nationwide databases will continue to be the cornerstones of drug utilization data in Norway and should be used more extensively to improve health to the best for individuals and society. Development in national e-health programs will play a key role in providing easier and less time-consuming access to data and improve conditions for linkage of drug data to other health registries in the near future.

AbstractU–Pb dating of detrital zircon is widely used in geology to identify the source of sediments and constrain palaeogeography and tectonic history. We collected the detrital zircon from the Paleoproterozoic to early Palaeozoic strata to understand the North China Craton's geological chronological characteristics. After screening and sorting out data information, we managed and analysed 84 papers from 2006 to 2022. Three hundred seventy‐nine samples comprising 29,431 pieces of U–Pb ages of detrital zircons gathered from the Proterozoic to Ordovician sedimentary rocks in North China Craton (NCC). Detrital zircons within five areas in the NCC, i. e., Xuhuai Basin, Zhaertai‐Bayan Obo‐Huade Basin, Yanliao Basin, Xiong'er Basin and Alxa Block, are discussed in detail. Meanwhile, we collected 2,588 pieces of Lu‐Hf detrital zircon data in the study. This Database can be helpful in understanding and explaining the tectonic evolution of the NCC from the Paleoproterozoic to the Early Palaeozoic.

Abstract Background The Arctic tundra is subject to the greatest climate change-induced temperature rises of any biome. Both terrestrial and freshwater biota are responding to recent climate warming through variability in their distribution, abundance, and richness. However, uncertainty arises within models of future change when considering processes that operate over centennial timescales. A systematic evidence synthesis of centennial-scale variability in biodiversity does not currently exist for the Arctic biome. Here, we sought to address the primary research question: what evidence exists for temporal variability in Arctic terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity throughout the Holocene (11,650 years before present (yBP)—0yBP)? Methods Consultation with stakeholders informed key definitions, scoping and the appropriateness of the research question. The research question was structured using a PECO framework—Arctic biota (P), a timestamped year in the Holocene (E), another year in the Holocene (C), and the dimensions of biodiversity that have been measured (O)—to inform the search strategy. Search strings were benchmarked against a test list of 100 known sources to ensure a specific and comprehensive return of literature. Searches will occur across 13 bibliographic databases. The eligibility criteria specify that sources must: (a) use ‘proxy’ methods to measure biodiversity; (b) fall within the spatial extent of the contemporary Arctic tundra biome; and (c) consist of a time-series that overlaps with 11,650yBP to 0yBP (1950AD). Information coded from studies will include proxy-specific information to account for both temporal uncertainty (i.e., the characteristics of age-depth models and dating methods) and taxonomic uncertainty (i.e., the samples and processes used for taxonomic identification). We will assess temporal uncertainty within each source by determining the quality of dating methods and measures; this information will be used to harmonise dates onto the IntCal20 calibration curve and determine the available temporal resolution and extent of evidence through space. Key outputs of this systematic map will be: (1) a graph database containing the spatial–temporal properties of each study dataset with taxonomic harmonisation; and (2) a geographical map of the evidence base.

Abstract Coxsackievirus A16 (CVA16) is a major pathogen that causes hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). The recombination form (RF) shifts and global transmission dynamics of CVA16 remain unknown. In this retrospective study, global sequences of CVA16 were retrieved from the GenBank database and analyzed using comprehensive phylogenetic inference, RF surveys, and population structure. A total of 1663 sequences were collected, forming a 442-sequences dataset for VP1 coding region analysis and a 345-sequences dataset for RF identification. Based on the VP1 coding region used for serotyping, three genotypes (A, B, and D), two subgenotypes of genotype B (B1 and B2), and three clusters of subgenotype B1 (B1a, B1b, and B1c) were identified. Cluster B1b has dominated the global epidemics, B2 disappeared in 2000, and D is an emerging genotype dating back to August 2002. Globally, four oscillation phases of CVA16 evolution, with a peak in 2013, and three migration pathways were identified. Europe, China, and Japan have served as the seeds for the global transmission of CVA16. Based on the 3D coding region of the RFs, five clusters of RFs (RF-A to -E) were identified. The shift in RFs from RF-B and RF-C to RF-D was accompanied by a change in genotype from B2 to B1a and B1c and then to B1b. In conclusion, the evolution and population dynamics of CVA16, especially the coevolution of 3D and VP1 genes, revealed that genotype evolution and RF replacement were synergistic rather than stochastic.

Abstract Background The use of tendon allografts for orthopedic repair has gained wide acceptance in recent years, most notably in anterior cruciate tendon reconstruction. Multiple studies support the use of tendon allografts and the benefits of its use are well accepted and understood. One of the important criteria of the use of tendon allografts is statistically similar histological and biomechanical properties to autographs. The aim of this systematic literature review is to investigate and categorize existing clamps used in the determination of the biomechanical properties of tendons such as maximum load, maximum strength, modulus of elasticity, ultimate strain, and stiffness. A variety of clamps for use during the endurance test of tendons were categorized according to the temperature used during the measurement. The clamps are divided into three groups: room temperature, cooled and heated clamps. The second goal of our review is to overview of clamps on the following aspects: name of clamp, author and date, type of clamps, type of endurance test (static or dynamic), type preloading (dynamic or static), type of tendon and measured and calculated parameters, and summarize in Table 3, as a comprehensive catalogue. Methods This systematic review was carried out in keeping with the PRISMA 2020 E&amp;E and the PRISMA-S guidelines and checklists. A search was conducted for publications dating between 1991 and February 28th 2022 through three electronic databases (Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed). We used Critical Appraisal Skills Program checklist to check the quality of included articles. Results The database search and additional sources resulted in 1725 records. 1635 records eliminated during the screening for various reasons (case report, other languages, book chapter, unavailable text/conference abstract, unrelated topic). The number of articles used in the final synthesis was 90. A variety of clamps for use during the endurance test of tendons were identified and categorized according to the temperature used during the measurement. Based on this, the clamps are divided into three groups: room temperature, cooled or heated clamps. Conclusions On the basis of the systematic literature review, mechanical parameters determined by usage with cooled clamps proved to be more reliable than with those at room temperature and with heated clamps. The collected information from the articles included name of clamp, author and date, type of clamps, type of endurance test (static or dynamic), type preloading (dynamic or static), type of tendon and measured and calculated parameters given in Table 3. summarized. The main advantage of the cooled clamps is that there is no limit to the type and length of the tendon. This study provides an overview of clamps and does not represent the modernity of any method.

Resumo Neste artigo, apresentamos a construção e os resultados de pesquisa realizada sobre as datações radiocarbônicas atualmente disponíveis para o contexto arqueológico brasileiro. Para organizar estas informações, construímos um banco de dados que se encontra hoje disponível para acesso aberto em Brazilian Radiocarbon Database (2021). Ao longo do artigo, explicitamos o procedimento adotado para construção do banco de dados, exploramos as dificuldades e soluções adotadas e apresentamos uma síntese dos dados obtidos até o momento. Com base nesta exposição, ressaltamos questões de ordem metodológica que influenciam a configuração atual dos dados e apresentamos propostas no sentido de aprimorar o conjunto de informações necessárias para ampliar o quadro cronológico disponível para a arqueologia brasileira.

Abstract Historical tornado events from 1982-2020 were documented within Canada’s forested regions using high-resolution satellite imagery. Tornado forest disturbances were identified using a three-step process: 1) detecting; 2) assessing; and 3) dating e ach event. A grid of 120 km x 120 km boxes was created covering Canada (excluding the extreme north). Of the 484 boxes, 367 were manually searched. Once a long, narrow region of tree damage was detected, it was first cross-referenced with known tornado databases to ensure it was a unique event. Once events were classified as either tornadic or downburst, the coordinates of the start, worst damage and end locations were documented, as well as the direction of motion, damage indicators, degree of damage, estimated maximum wind speed, and F/EF rating. In total, 231 previously unknown tornadoes were identified. In Ontario, 103 events were discovered, followed by 98 in Quebec, 9 in Manitoba, 6 in Saskatchewan, 9 in Alberta, 5 in British Columbia and 1 in New Brunswick. The largest number of discovered tornadoes occurred in 2015, while the largest number of strong F2 tornadoes occurred in 2005. Most of the discovered tornadoes occurred in July for both F/EF1 and F/EF2 ratings. Most tornado tracks had widths between 200-400 m, and more than 50% of the tornadoes had a path length less than 10 km. Of all the events discovered, 125 events could be fully dated, while 19 were dated only by month, 41 only by year, and 46 remained undated.

SummaryEupatorium japonicum Thunb. (Compositae: Eupatorieae: Eupatoriinae) is described and illustrated. The current synonymy is provided, together with type citations for each of the names and statements of the located type material, together with appropriate notes and comments on this material, including lectotypifications if present in the literature. A selection of verified illustrations of the species in the literature is provided. Statements of the species' distribution, habitat and ecological preferences, phenology, conservation status, and the etymology of both generic and specific epithets are given, along with an impressive array of vernacular names, reflecting its relatively wide distribution and long cultivation. Cultivation, propagation, and availability notes are provided. The probability of this plant having been ‘exported’ to China many centuries ago both for its scent and festival significance almost mirrors that of the Chrysanthemum, that came in the opposite direction a few centuries earlier. The author citation for this well‐known Japanese endemic is discussed, as is the long‐standing confusion between E. chinense L., E. japonicum and the separation of E. fortunei Turcz. in many references. Comments on Robert Fortune's Chinese collections relevant to the type material of Eupatorium fortunei are also provided. Included within the synonymy of E. fortunei is E. stoechadosmum Hance, published in a short paper, Manipulus …, in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, the Monitum, is dated ‘7 kal. Februar. 1863’, suggesting publication of Cahier 4 post that date when it was published. Hance's novelties (some collected as late as November 1862), and those of Triana &amp; Planchon in their Prodromus florae Novo‐Granatensis … (from Cahier 5) are listed in major databases as having been published in 1862; there is no other internal evidence in the relevant papers to suggest, or confirm, this is true. Any suggestion that Hance's Manipulis was published in early 1862 is similarly incorrect. Hance's plant supports other records, including the publication of E. fortunei Turcz., that E. japonicum had been long in cultivation in China, but never known to grow in the wild. Eupatorium japonicum, now with E. fortunei (fujibakama) in synonymy, is one of the seven plants, from the Festival of Seven Flowers or Herbs (nanakusa no sekku) that takes place in the autumn – the Autumn's Seven Flowers or Herbs (aki no nanakusa). The autumn tradition, dating back over a millennium, mirrors the spring festival (haru no nanakusa) – when a seven‐herb rice porridge is eaten – but in autumn the simplicity of the flowers is just for visual enjoyment, not eating. The herbal and medicinal uses of this species also have a long history, are wide‐ranging, and clearly have great potential in a number of fields, not least in preventing insect predation, as an insecticide, or as an ovicide, together with antifungal and antimicrobial activity, as well as showing good anti‐inflammatory and cytotoxic activity. The plants Lavender‐like smell is akin to that produced in sakuramochi (Prunus speciosa (Koidz.) Ingram, of cherry blossom fame), but is based on coumarin and its derivatives, not linalool and related volatiles in Lavandula.

IntroductionConcussion is a growing concern in worldwide sporting culture. Heart rate variability (HRV) is closely tied with autonomic nervous system (ANS) deficits that arise from a concussion. The objective of this review was to determine if a history of concussion (HOC) can impact HRV values in the time-domain in individuals at rest. This review works to add to the literature surrounding HRV testing and if it can be used to check for brain vulnerabilities beyond the recovery of concussion symptoms.Materials and methodsThe systematic review was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) method. A computer based systematic review scanned articles dating from 1996 to June 2023 through PubMed, Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, and EMBASE databases. A risk of bias assessment was conducted using the ROBINS-E tool. The average difference in time between heartbeats (MeanNN), the standard deviation of the differences (SDNN), and the root mean squared of the successive intervals (RMSSD) were measured.ResultsSix total studies were found that fit the inclusion criteria including a total of 242 participants (133 without HOC, 109 with HOC). The average age of the control group was 23.3 ± 8.2, while the average age of the history of TBI group was 25.4 ± 9.7, with no significant difference between the groups (p = 0.202). Four of the studies reported no significant difference in any of the three measures, while two of the studies reported significant difference for all three measures. The meta-analysis was conducted and found that MeanNN (p = 0.03) and RMSSD (p = 0.04) reached statistical significance, while SDNN did not (p = 0.11).ConclusionThe results of this meta-analysis showed significant difference in two of the three HRV time-domain parameters evaluated. It demonstrates that there can be lowered HRV values that expand beyond the recovery of symptoms, reflecting an extensive period of ANS susceptibility after a concussion. This may be an important variable in determining an athlete’s return to play (RTP). Lack of homogenous study populations and testing methods introduces potential for bias and confounding factors, such as gender or age. Future studies should focus on baseline tests to compare individuals to themselves rather than matched controls.

(1) Huainanzi 淮南子 (lit. Masters of Huainan) is an encyclopaedic cosmological treatise dating from the early Western Han 漢 (205 BC–9 AD). The text was produced at the court of the kingdom of Huainan 淮南. The finer details of the text's composition process, as well as the identity and role of a possible author, remain the subject of debate among scholars. The text was presented to Emperor Wu of Han 漢武帝 (r. 140–87 BC) in 139 BC by his own uncle and second king of Huainan, Liu An 劉安 (c. 179–122 BC), under the simple title of Neishu 内書 (Inner Writings). The occasion is described in Liu An's official biographies in Sima Qian's 司馬遷 (d. c. 86 BC) Shiji 史記 (Records of the Grand Historian) and Ban Gu's 班固 (32–92) Hanshu 漢書 (Book of the Han), as well as in Gao You's 高誘 (c. 168–212) preface to his commentary to Huainanzi. (2) The Huainanzi comprises of twenty-one treatises (xun 訓), normally called "chapters", each of which encapsulates a thematic body of knowledge. Their content ranges from proto-science, metaphysics, and cosmogony to the more practical milieus of military strategy, ritual practice, and statecraft. By Huainanzi's own explicit claim in its postface "Yaolüe" 要略, its cycle of treatises synthesises, subsumes, and renders obsolete all other conceptual projects, past, present, and future, in order to formulate a perfect, complete articulation of the world. The ruler who digests this cosmological schema will master the fundamental workings of the realm and beyond, making Huainanzi the ultimate ruler's manual. (3) Many scholars have attempted to give full expression to the unitary nature of the cosmology put forth in Huainanzi. Michael Puett argues that it is a "phenomenology" that pushes the notion of "a monistic cosmos" to "the point when absolutely everything is seen as fully and inherently linked – not just seen as undifferentiated, but as even so linked that the very distinction of differentiated and undifferentiated is obliterated." ("Violent Misreadings: The Hermeneutics of Cosmology in the Huainanzi," Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 72 [2000]: 40.) Benjamin Wallacker states that, in it, "[e]ach unique phenomenon is both part of and equal to the great unity of the cosmos." (The Huai-nan-tzu, Book Eleven: Behavior, Culture, and the Cosmos [New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1962], 10.) It is my personal interpretation that Huainanzi's diverse chapters are given to the formulation of a fractal cosmology, thereby achieving within limited text space a schema that is theoretically infinite in scope, application, and inter-connectedness. (4) Four of the most crucial features of Huainanzi's cosmology are "resonance" (ganying 感應, lit. "affecting and responding"), qi 氣 (vital breath, energy-matter), shen 神 (spirit, the numinous), and dao 道 (the Way). Resonance refers to the ability of separate entities to affect each other remotely, without any apparent transaction of physical force. The cosmic medium through which resonance is carried is qi; all forms, from the mythical to the mundane, are coalescences of qi. More rarefied coalescences of qi are associated with shen, a term that is variously used in reference to specific spirits and gods; to spirits and the supernatural in general; and to "the numinous" as a general, nebulous aspect pervading the world. Dao corresponds to reality at its most rarefied, referring to something like "ultimate reality" or "reality as it really is," before and beyond the bewildering frenzy of qi coalescences. "Dao" also suggests the force that gives motion and direction to reality, with its frenzy of qi coalescences. (5) Huainanzi's cosmological model extends to the delimitation of moral and other norms. However, I would argue that these norms must always be understood as artefacts of the text's overarching cosmological project. In other words, what norms are posited are done so as a reflection of their contextual application within this wider schema and their utility in its articulation, and must not be isolated from this precise context. (6) Huainanzi's ambitious claim to cosmological comprehensiveness has proved controversial on a number of interconnected fronts. First and foremost, scholars have not always been convinced that there is unity and consistency of thought across the text's chapters. The present consensus is that the twenty-one chapters build upon one another, establishing the text as a conceptual whole through sequence, at least. The claim that Huainanzi might demonstrate a unity thought has sat uneasily alongside the text's traditional affiliation of "miscellaneous" or "eclectic" (zajia 雜家), per the ideological categorisation rubric of the Han imperial librarians. This claim is also, in the view of some scholars, implicated in uncertainties regarding the identity/ies and number of the text's author(s). Some scholars, moreover, have convincingly argued that any reconstruction of Huainanzi's cosmology ought to be tempered by the wider political contexts of the text's production, about which much remains tantalisingly uncertain. Contemporary Huainanzi scholarship unfortunately remains in a less advanced state than that of many other equivalent texts, and so many of these concerns are yet to be explored in-depth through the dialogues of multiple studies. (7) Huainanzi had a notable impact on premodern thought in China. Throughout the premodern period, the text impacted proto-scientific thought from the natural philosophy of Wang Chong's 王充 (27–100) Lunheng 論衡 (Discourses Balanced) to the Song 宋 (960–1279) encyclopaedia Taiping yulan 太平御覽 (Imperial overview of the Taiping period). The text was an important source within religious and philosophical Daoist discourse, with Liu An entering an evolving pantheon of Daoist "immortals" (xian 仙; see Ge Hong's 葛洪 [283–343] hagiography "Huainan wang" 淮南王 in Shenxian zhuan 神仙傳 [Biographies of Deities and Immortals], Wenyuange siku quanshu 文淵 閣四庫全書 vol. 1059, 253–311 [Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1986], 284–5.) However, as far as is known, there is, either during the Han or shortly after, no organised religious group whose form or practices are directly associated with the text or take the text as scripture. Any database questions referring to religious groups should be understood in this context. (8) During the modern period, Huainanzi has remained consistently understudied relative to other early texts. After a series of Japanese critical translations appeared in the 1910s and 1920s, there were no major developments for several decades, until translations and studies of individual chapters began to appear in Western languages from the late 1950s onwards. The first complete critical translation in a Western language was a French edition released in 2003 as part of the Collection Bibliothèque de la Pléiade.

Introduction and Objective: Previous epidemiologic data on type 1 diabetes (T1D) in Italy have drawn from various sources and regions. The most recent findings, dating back to 2016, indicated an annual incidence of 16.1/100,000 and a prevalence of 167/100.000 person/year for the age group 0-29. This research aims to update the epidemiology of T1D in Italy, characterize patients’ demographics and disease history, and assess the direct costs reimbursed by the national healthcare system (NHS). Methods: A retrospective, non-interventional analysis was conducted using administrative healthcare data from 12 million individuals, ~20% of the Italian population. Four databases - demographics, pharmaceutical claims, hospitalizations and outpatient services -were analyzed to assess, through patient code linkage, the patient profile from NHS perspective. The analysis focused exclusively on T1D paediatric patients (0.5-17 years), identified by continuous insulin treatment during the study period and discharge diagnosis codes related to T1D. Results: From 2016 to 2022, 3,220 incident cases of T1D were identified in the paediatric age group. An annual incidence rate that increased from 14 cases per 100,000 in 2016 to 22 cases in 2022, and a prevalence of 252 per 100,000 in 2022 was observed. The mean age of onset was 9.4 years (SD: 4.5), 55.8% were male. The Charlson Comorbidity Index3 was 0 in 81.3% of patients, 1 in 18.0%, and ≥2 in 0.7%. Common comorbidities included thyroid disorders, celiac disease, epilepsy and cognitive deficits. The average annual healthcare cost per patient was approximately €2,560 (excluding device costs), with 42% for hospitalization. Conclusion: T1D continues to impose a significant burden on the Italian paediatric population due to its increasing incidence and prevalence, along with comorbidities and direct healthcare costs. These findings underscore the need for early diagnosis and dedicated healthcare resource allocation. Disclosure R. Buzzetti: Other Relationship; Abbott, Eli Lilly and Company, Sanofi, Novo Nordisk A/S, Boehringer-Ingelheim, AstraZeneca, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation. R. Candido: None. V. Cherubini: Research Support; Lilly Diabetes, AstraZeneca. Advisory Panel; Novo Nordisk, Sanofi. L. Degli Esposti: None. G. Fadini: Speaker's Bureau; AstraZeneca. Advisory Panel; Boehringer-Ingelheim. Speaker's Bureau; Menarini. Advisory Panel; Lilly Diabetes. Consultant; Lilly Diabetes. Speaker's Bureau; Lilly Diabetes. Advisory Panel; Novo Nordisk. Speaker's Bureau; Novo Nordisk. Advisory Panel; Sanofi. Speaker's Bureau; Sanofi. M. Leogrande: None. M. Miroddi: None. E. Mozzillo: None. M. Nugnes: None. B. Pintaudi: Advisory Panel; Merck Sharp &amp; Dohme Corp, Sanofi. Speaker's Bureau; Eli Lilly and Company, Dexcom, Inc. Advisory Panel; Pikdare. C.S. Trimarchi: Employee; Sanofi. G. Stivali: Employee; Sanofi. G.S. Fousteri: Employee; Sanofi, Dompé.

Introduction Ireland did not have a tradition of printed cookbooks prior to the 20th century. As a consequence, Irish culinary manuscripts from before this period are an important primary source for historians. This paper makes the case that the manuscripts are a unique way of accessing voices that have quotidian concerns seldom heard above the dominant narratives of conquest, colonisation and famine (Higgins; Dawson). Three manuscripts are examined to see how they contribute to an understanding of Irish social and culinary history. The Irish banking crisis of 2008 is a reminder that comments such as the one in the title of this paper may be more then a casual remark, indicating rather an underlying anxiety. Equally important is the evidence in the manuscripts that Ireland had a domestic culinary tradition sited within the culinary traditions of the British Isles. The terms “vernacular”, representing localised needs and traditions, and “polite”, representing stylistic features incorporated for aesthetic reasons, are more usually applied in the architectural world. As terms, they reflect in a politically neutral way the culinary divide witnessed in the manuscripts under discussion here. Two of the three manuscripts are anonymous, but all are written from the perspective of a well-provisioned house. The class background is elite and as such these manuscripts are not representative of the vernacular, which in culinary terms is likely to be a tradition recorded orally (Gold). The first manuscript (NLI, Tervoe) and second manuscript (NLI, Limerick) show the levels of impact of French culinary influence through their recipes for “cullis”. The Limerick manuscript also opens the discussion to wider social concerns. The third manuscript (NLI, Baker) is unusual in that the author, Mrs. Baker, goes to great lengths to record the provenance of the recipes and as such the collection affords a glimpse into the private “polite” world of the landed gentry in Ireland with its multiplicity of familial and societal connections. Cookbooks and Cuisine in Ireland in the 19th Century During the course of the 18th century, there were 136 new cookery book titles and 287 reprints published in Britain (Lehmann, Housewife 383). From the start of the 18th to the end of the 19th century only three cookbooks of Irish, or Anglo-Irish, authorship have been identified. The Lady’s Companion: or Accomplish’d Director In the whole Art of Cookery was published in 1767 by John Mitchell in Skinner-Row, under the pseudonym “Ceres,” while the Countess of Caledon’s Cheap Receipts and Hints on Cookery: Collected for Distribution Amongst the Irish Peasantry was printed in Armagh by J. M. Watters for private circulation in 1847. The modern sounding Dinners at Home, published in London in 1878 under the pseudonym “Short”, appears to be of Irish authorship, a review in The Irish Times describing it as being written by a “Dublin lady”, the inference being that she was known to the reviewer (Farmer). English Copyright Law was extended to Ireland in July 1801 after the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland in 1800 (Ferguson). Prior to this, many titles were pirated in Ireland, a cause of confusion alluded to by Lehmann when she comments regarding the Ceres book that it “does not appear to be simply a Dublin-printed edition of an English book” (Housewife 403). This attribution is based on the dedication in the preface: “To The Ladies of Dublin.” From her statement that she had a “great deal of experience in business of this kind”, one may conclude that Ceres had worked as a housekeeper or cook. Cheap Receipts and Hints on Cookery was the second of two books by Catherine Alexander, Countess of Caledon. While many commentators were offering advice to Irish people on how to alleviate their poverty, in Friendly Advice to Irish Mothers on Training their Children, Alexander was unusual in addressing her book specifically to its intended audience (Bourke). In this cookbook, the tone is of a practical didactic nature, the philosophy that of enablement. Given the paucity of printed material, manuscripts provide the main primary source regarding the existence of an indigenous culinary tradition. Attitudes regarding this tradition lie along the spectrum exemplified by the comments of an Irish journalist, Kevin Myers, and an eminent Irish historian, Louis Cullen. Myers describes Irish cuisine as a “travesty” and claims that the cuisine of “Old Ireland, in texture and in flavour, generally resembles the cinders after the suttee of a very large, but not very tasty widow”, Cullen makes the case that Irish cuisine is “one of the most interesting culinary traditions in Europe” (141). It is not proposed to investigate the ideological standpoints behind the various comments on Irish food. Indeed, the use of the term “Irish” in this context is fraught with difficulty and it should be noted that in the three manuscripts proposed here, the cuisine is that of the gentry class and representative of a particular stratum of society more accurately described as belonging to the Anglo-Irish tradition. It is also questionable how the authors of the three manuscripts discussed would have described themselves in terms of nationality. The anxiety surrounding this issue of identity is abating as scholarship has moved from viewing the cultural artifacts and buildings inherited from this class, not as symbols of an alien heritage, but rather as part of the narrative of a complex country (Rees). The antagonistic attitude towards this heritage could be seen as reaching its apogee in the late 1950s when the then Government minister, Kevin Boland, greeted the decision to demolish a row of Georgian houses in Dublin with jubilation, saying that they stood for everything that he despised, and describing the Georgian Society, who had campaigned for their preservation, as “the preserve of the idle rich and belted earls” (Foster 160). Mac Con Iomaire notes that there has been no comprehensive study of the history of Irish food, and the implications this has for opinions held, drawing attention to the lack of recognition that a “parallel Anglo-Irish cuisine existed among the Protestant elite” (43). To this must be added the observation that Myrtle Allen, the doyenne of the Irish culinary world, made when she observed that while we have an Irish identity in food, “we belong to a geographical and culinary group with Wales, England, and Scotland as all counties share their traditions with their next door neighbour” (1983). Three Irish Culinary Manuscripts The three manuscripts discussed here are held in the National Library of Ireland (NLI). The manuscript known as Tervoe has 402 folio pages with a 22-page index. The National Library purchased the manuscript at auction in December 2011. Although unattributed, it is believed to come from Tervoe House in County Limerick (O’Daly). Built in 1776 by Colonel W.T. Monsell (b.1754), the Monsell family lived there until 1951 (see, Fig. 1). The house was demolished in 1953 (Bence-Jones). William Monsell, 1st Lord Emly (1812–94) could be described as the most distinguished of the family. Raised in an atmosphere of devotion to the Union (with Great Britain), loyalty to the Church of Ireland, and adherence to the Tory Party, he converted in 1850 to the Roman Catholic religion, under the influence of Cardinal Newman and the Oxford Movement, changing his political allegiance from Tory to Whig. It is believed that this change took place as a result of the events surrounding the Great Irish Famine of 1845–50 (Potter). The Tervoe manuscript is catalogued as 18th century, and as the house was built in the last quarter of the century, it would be reasonable to surmise that its conception coincided with that period. It is a handsome volume with original green vellum binding, which has been conserved. Fig. 1. Tervoe House, home of the Monsell family. In terms of culinary prowess, the scope of the Tervoe manuscript is extensive. For the purpose of this discussion, one recipe is of particular interest. The recipe, To make a Cullis for Flesh Soups, instructs the reader to take the fat off four pounds of the best beef, roast the beef, pound it to a paste with crusts of bread and the carcasses of partridges or other fowl “that you have by you” (NLI, Tervoe). This mixture should then be moistened with best gravy, and strong broth, and seasoned with pepper, thyme, cloves, and lemon, then sieved for use with the soup. In 1747 Hannah Glasse published The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy. The 1983 facsimile edition explains the term “cullis” as an Anglicisation of the French word coulis, “a preparation for thickening soups and stews” (182). The coulis was one of the essential components of the nouvelle cuisine of the 18th century. This movement sought to separate itself from “the conspicuous consumption of profusion” to one where the impression created was one of refinement and elegance (Lehmann, Housewife 210). Reactions in England to this French culinary innovation were strong, if not strident. Glasse derides French “tricks”, along with French cooks, and the coulis was singled out for particular opprobrium. In reality, Glasse bestrides both sides of the divide by giving the much-hated recipe and commenting on it. She provides another example of this in her recipe for The French Way of Dressing Partridges to which she adds the comment: “this dish I do not recommend; for I think it an odd jumble of thrash, by that time the Cullis, the Essence of Ham, and all other Ingredients are reckoned, the Partridges will come to a fine penny; but such Receipts as this, is what you have in most Books of Cookery yet printed” (53). When Daniel Defoe in The Complete English Tradesman of 1726 criticised French tradesmen for spending so much on the facades of their shops that they were unable to offer their customers a varied stock within, we can see the antipathy spilling over into other creative fields (Craske). As a critical strategy, it is not dissimilar to Glasse when she comments “now compute the expense, and see if this dish cannot be dressed full as well without this expense” at the end of a recipe for the supposedly despised Cullis for all Sorts of Ragoo (53). Food had become part of the defining image of Britain as an aggressively Protestant culture in opposition to Catholic France (Lehmann Politics 75). The author of the Tervoe manuscript makes no comment about the dish other than “A Cullis is a mixture of things, strained off.” This is in marked contrast to the second manuscript (NLI, Limerick). The author of this anonymous manuscript, from which the title of this paper is taken, is considerably perplexed by the term cullis, despite the manuscript dating 1811 (Fig. 2). Of Limerick provenance also, but considerably more modest in binding and scope, the manuscript was added to for twenty years, entries terminating around 1831. The recipe for Beef Stake (sic) Pie is an exact transcription of a recipe in John Simpson’s A Complete System of Cookery, published in 1806, and reads Cut some beef steaks thin, butter a pan (or as Lord Buckingham’s cook, from whom these rects are taken, calls it a soutis pan, ? [sic] (what does he mean, is it a saucepan) [sic] sprinkle the pan with pepper and salt, shallots thyme and parsley, put the beef steaks in and the pan on the fire for a few minutes then put them to cool, when quite cold put them in the fire, scrape all the herbs in over the fire and ornament as you please, it will take an hour and half, when done take the top off and put in some coulis (what is that?) [sic]. Fig. 2. Beef Stake Pie (NLI, Limerick). Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland. Simpson was cook to Lord Buckingham for at least a year in 1796, and may indeed have travelled to Ireland with the Duke who had several connections there. A feature of this manuscript are the number of Cholera remedies that it contains, including the “Rect for the cholera sent by Dr Shanfer from Warsaw to the Brussels Government”. Cholera had reached Germany by 1830, and England by 1831. By March 1832, it had struck Belfast and Dublin, the following month being noted in Cork, in the south of the country. Lasting a year, the epidemic claimed 50,000 lives in Ireland (Fenning). On 29 April 1832, the diarist Amhlaoibh Ó Súilleabháin notes, “we had a meeting today to keep the cholera from Callan. May God help us” (De Bhaldraithe 132). By 18 June, the cholera is “wrecking destruction in Ennis, Limerick and Tullamore” (135) and on 26 November, “Seed being sown. The end of the month wet and windy. The cholera came to Callan at the beginning of the month. Twenty people went down with it and it left the town then” (139). This situation was obviously of great concern and this is registered in the manuscript. Another concern is that highlighted by the recommendation that “this receipt is as good as the bank. It has been obligingly given to Mrs Hawkesworth by the chief book keeper at the Bank of Ireland” (NLI, Limerick). The Bank of Ireland commenced business at St. Mary’s Abbey in Dublin in June 1783, having been established under the protection of the Irish Parliament as a chartered rather then a central bank. As such, it supplied a currency of solidity. The charter establishing the bank, however, contained a prohibitory clause preventing (until 1824 when it was repealed) more then six persons forming themselves into a company to carry on the business of banking. This led to the formation, especially outside Dublin, of many “small private banks whose failure was the cause of immense wretchedness to all classes of the population” (Gilbert 19). The collapse that caused the most distress was that of the Ffrench bank in 1814, founded eleven years previously by the family of Lord Ffrench, one of the leading Catholic peers, based in Connacht in the west of Ireland. The bank issued notes in exchange for Bank of Ireland notes. Loans from Irish banks were in the form of paper money which were essentially printed promises to pay the amount stated and these notes were used in ordinary transactions. So great was the confidence in the Ffrench bank that their notes were held by the public in preference to Bank of Ireland notes, most particularly in Connacht. On 27 June 1814, there was a run on the bank leading to collapse. The devastation spread through society, from business through tenant farmers to the great estates, and notably so in Galway. Lord Ffrench shot himself in despair (Tennison). Williams and Finn, founded in Kilkenny in 1805, entered bankruptcy proceedings in 1816, and the last private bank outside Dublin, Delacours in Mallow, failed in 1835 (Barrow). The issue of bank failure is commented on by writers of the period, notably so in Dickens, Thackery, and Gaskill, and Edgeworth in Ireland. Following on the Ffrench collapse, notes from the Bank of Ireland were accorded increased respect, reflected in the comment in this recipe. The receipt in question is one for making White Currant Wine, with the unusual addition of a slice of bacon suspended from the bunghole when the wine is turned, for the purpose of enriching it. The recipe was provided to “Mrs Hawkesworth by the chief book keeper of the bank” (NLI, Limerick). In 1812, a John Hawkesworth, agent to Lord CastleCoote, was living at Forest Lodge, Mountrath, County Laois (Ennis Chronicle). The Coote family, although settling in County Laois in the seventeenth century, had strong connections with Limerick through a descendent of the younger brother of the first Earl of Mountrath (Landed Estates). The last manuscript for discussion is the manuscript book of Mrs Abraham Whyte Baker of Ballytobin House, County Kilkenny, 1810 (NLI, Baker). Ballytobin, or more correctly Ballaghtobin, is a townland in the barony of Kells, four miles from the previously mentioned Callan. The land was confiscated from the Tobin family during the Cromwellian campaign in Ireland of 1649–52, and was reputedly purchased by a Captain Baker, to establish what became the estate of Ballaghtobin (Fig. 3) To this day, it is a functioning estate, remaining in the family, twice passing down through the female line. In its heyday, there were two acres of walled gardens from which the house would have drawn for its own provisions (Ballaghtobin). Fig. 3. Ballaghtobin 2013. At the time of writing the manuscript, Mrs. Sophia Baker was widowed and living at Ballaghtobin with her son and daughter-in-law, Charity who was “no beauty, but tall, slight” (Herbert 414). On the succession of her husband to the estate, Charity became mistress of Ballaghtobin, leaving Sophia with time on what were her obviously very capable hands (Nevin). Sophia Baker was the daughter of Sir John Blunden of Castle Blunden and Lucinda Cuffe, daughter of the first Baron Desart. Sophia was also first cousin of the diarist Dorothea Herbert, whose mother was Lucinda’s sister, Martha. Sophia Baker and Dorothea Herbert have left for posterity a record of life in the landed gentry class in rural Georgian Ireland, Dorothea describing Mrs. Baker as “full of life and spirits” (Herbert 70). Their close relationship allows the two manuscripts to converse with each other in a unique way. Mrs. Baker’s detailing of the provenance of her recipes goes beyond the norm, so that what she has left us is not just a remarkable work of culinary history but also a palimpsest of her family and social circle. Among the people she references are: “my grandmother”; Dorothea Beresford, half sister to the Earl of Tyrone, who lived in the nearby Curraghmore House; Lady Tyrone; and Aunt Howth, the sister of Dorothea Beresford, married to William St Lawrence, Lord Howth, and described by Johnathan Swift as “his blue eyed nymph” (195). Other attributions include Lady Anne Fitzgerald, wife of Maurice Fitzgerald, 16th knight of Kerry, Sir William Parsons, Major Labilen, and a Mrs. Beaufort (Fig. 4). Fig. 4. Mrs. Beauforts Rect. (NLI, Baker). Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland. That this Mrs. Beaufort was the wife of Daniel Augustus Beaufort, mother of the hydrographer Sir Francis Beaufort, may be deduced from the succeeding recipe supplied by a Mrs. Waller. Mrs. Beaufort’s maiden name was Waller. Fanny Beaufort, the elder sister of Sir Francis, was Richard Edgeworth’s fourth wife and close friend and confidante of his daughter Maria, the novelist. There are also entries for “Miss Herbert” and “Aunt Herbert.” While the Baker manuscript is of interest for the fact that it intersects the worlds of the novelist Maria Edgeworth and the diarist Dorothea Herbert, and for the societal references that it documents, it is also a fine collection of recipes that date back to the mid-18th century. An example of this is a recipe for Sligo pickled salmon that Mrs. Baker, nee Blunden, refers to in an index that she gives to a second volume. Unfortunately this second volume is not known to be extant. This recipe features in a Blunden family manuscript of 1760 as referred to in Anelecta Hibernica (McLysaght). The recipe has also appeared in Cookery and Cures of Old Kilkenny (St. Canices’s 24). Unlike the Tervoe and Limerick manuscripts, Mrs. Baker is unconcerned with recipes for “cullis”. Conclusion The three manuscripts that have been examined here are from the period before the famine of 1845–50, known as An Gorta Mór, translated as “the big hunger”. The famine preceding this, Bliain an Áir (the year of carnage) in 1740–1 was caused by extremely cold and rainy weather that wiped out the harvest (Ó Gráda 15). This earlier famine, almost forgotten today, was more severe than the subsequent one, causing the death of an eight of the population of the island over one and a half years (McBride). These manuscripts are written in living memory of both events. Within the world that they inhabit, it may appear there is little said about hunger or social conditions beyond the walls of their estates. Subjected to closer analysis, however, it is evident that they are loquacious in their own unique way, and make an important contribution to the narrative of cookbooks. Through the three manuscripts discussed here, we find evidence of the culinary hegemony of France and how practitioners in Ireland commented on this in comparatively neutral fashion. An awareness of cholera and bank collapses have been communicated in a singular fashion, while a conversation between diarist and culinary networker has allowed a glimpse into the world of the landed gentry in Ireland during the Georgian period. References Allen, M. “Statement by Myrtle Allen at the opening of Ballymaloe Cookery School.” 14 Nov. 1983. Ballaghtobin. “The Grounds”. nd. 13 Mar. 2013. ‹http://www.ballaghtobin.com/gardens.html›. Barrow, G.L. “Some Dublin Private Banks.” Dublin Historical Record 25.2 (1972): 38–53. Bence-Jones, M. A Guide to Irish Country Houses. London: Constable, 1988. Bourke, A. Ed. Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing Vol V. Cork: Cork UP, 2002. Craske, M. “Design and the Competitive Spirit in Early and Mid 18th Century England”, Journal of Design History 12.3 (1999): 187–216. Cullen, L. The Emergence of Modern Ireland. London: Batsford, 1981. Dawson, Graham. “Trauma, Memory, Politics. The Irish Troubles.” Trauma: Life Stories of Survivors. Ed. Kim Lacy Rogers, Selma Leydesdorff and Graham Dawson. New Jersey: Transaction P, 2004. De Bhaldraithe,T. Ed. Cín Lae Amhlaoibh. Cork: Mercier P, 1979. Ennis Chronicle. 12–23 Feb 1812. 10 Feb. 2013 ‹http://astheywere.blogspot.ie/2012/12/ennis-chronicle-1812-feb-23-feb-12.html› Farmar, A. E-mail correspondence between Farmar and Dr M. Mac Con Iomaire, 26 Jan. 2011. Fenning, H. “The Cholera Epidemic in Ireland 1832–3: Priests, Ministers, Doctors”. Archivium Hibernicum 57 (2003): 77–125. Ferguson, F. “The Industrialisation of Irish Book Production 1790-1900.” The Oxford History of the Irish Book, Vol. IV The Irish Book in English 1800-1891. Ed. J. Murphy. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. Foster, R.F. Luck and the Irish: A Brief History of Change from 1970. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Gilbert, James William. The History of Banking in Ireland. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1836. Glasse, Hannah. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by a Lady: Facsimile Edition. Devon: Prospect, 1983. Gold, C. Danish Cookbooks. Seattle: U of Washington P, 2007. Herbert, D. Retrospections of an Outcast or the Life of Dorothea Herbert. London: Gerald Howe, 1929. Higgins, Michael D. “Remarks by President Michael D. Higgins reflecting on the Gorta Mór: the Great famine of Ireland.” Famine Commemoration, Boston, 12 May 2012. 18 Feb. 2013 ‹http://www.president.ie/speeches/ › Landed Estates Database, National University of Galway, Moore Institute for Research, 10 Feb. 2013 ‹http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/family-show.jsp?id=633.› Lehmann, G. The British Housewife: Cookery books, cooking and society in eighteenth-century Britain. Totnes: Prospect, 1993. ---. “Politics in the Kitchen.” 18th Century Life 23.2 (1999): 71–83. Mac Con Iomaire, M. “The Emergence, Development and Influence of French Haute Cuisine on Public Dining in Dublin Restaurants 1900-2000: An Oral History”. Vol. 2. PhD thesis. Dublin Institute of Technology. 2009. 8 Mar. 2013 ‹http://arrow.dit.ie/tourdoc/12›. McBride, Ian. Eighteenth Century Ireland: The Isle of Slaves. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2009. McLysaght, E.A. Anelecta Hibernica 15. Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1944. Myers, K. “Dinner is served ... But in Our Culinary Dessert it may be Korean.” The Irish Independent 30 Jun. 2006. Nevin, M. “A County Kilkenny Georgian Household Notebook.” Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 109 (1979): 5–18. (NLI) National Library of Ireland. Baker. 19th century manuscript. MS 34,952. ---. Limerick. 19th century manuscript. MS 42,105. ---. Tervoe. 18th century manuscript. MS 42,134. Ó Gráda, C. Famine: A Short History. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 2009. O’Daly, C. E-mail correspondence between Colette O’Daly, Assistant Keeper, Dept. of Manuscripts, National Library of Ireland and Dorothy Cashman. 8 Dec. 2011. Potter, M. William Monsell of Tervoe 1812-1894. Dublin: Irish Academic P, 2009. Rees, Catherine. “Irish Anxiety, Identity and Narrative in the Plays of McDonagh and Jones.” Redefinitions of Irish Identity: A Postnationalist Approach. Eds. Irene Gilsenan Nordin and Carmen Zamorano Llena. Bern: Peter Lang, 2010. St. Canice’s. Cookery and Cures of Old Kilkenny. Kilkenny: Boethius P, 1983. Swift, J. The Works of the Rev Dr J Swift Vol. XIX Dublin: Faulkner, 1772. 8 Feb. 2013. ‹http://www.google.ie/search?tbm=bks&amp;hl=en&amp;q=works+of+jonathan+swift+Vol+XIX+&amp;btnG=› Tennison, C.M. “The Old Dublin Bankers.” Journal of the Cork Historical and Archeological Society 1.2 (1895): 36–9.

One of the greatest joys in watching Foxtel is to see all the crazy people who run talk shows. Judgement, ridicule and generalisations slip from their tongues like overcooked lamb off a bone. From Oprah to Rikki, from Jerry to Mother Love, the posterior of pop culture claims a world-wide audience. Recently, a new talk diva was added to the pay television stable. Dr Laura Schlessinger, the Mother of Morals, prowls the soundstage. attacking 'selfish acts' such as divorce, de facto relationships and voting Democrat. On April 11, 2001, a show aired in Australia that added a new demon to the decadence of the age. Dr Laura had been told that a disgusting video clip, called 'Rock DJ', had been televised at 2:30pm on MTV. Children could have been watching. The footage that so troubled our doyenne of daytime featured the British performer Robbie Williams not only stripping in front of disinterested women, but then removing skin, muscle and tissue in a desperate attempt to claim their gaze. This was too much for Dr Laura. She was horrified: her strident tone became piercing. She screeched, "this is si-ee-ck." . My paper is drawn to this sick masculinity, not to judge - but to laugh and theorise. Robbie Williams, the deity of levity, holds a pivotal role in theorising the contemporary 'crisis' of manhood. To paraphrase Austin Powers, Williams returned the ger to singer. But Williams also triumphed in a captivatingly original way. He is one of the few members of a boy band who created a successful solo career without regurgitating the middle of the road mantras of boys, girls, love, loss and whining about it. Williams' journey through post-war popular music, encompassing influences from both Sinatra and Sonique, forms a functional collage, rather than patchwork, of masculinity. He has been prepared to not only age in public, but to discuss the crevices and cracks in the facade. He strips, smokes, plays football, wears interesting underwear and drinks too much. My short paper trails behind this combustible masculinity, focussing on his sorties with both masculine modalities and the rock discourse. My words attack the gap between text and readership, beat and ear, music and men. The aim is to reveal how this 'sick masculinity' problematises the conservative rendering of men's crisis. Come follow me I'm an honorary Sean Connery, born '74 There's only one of me … Press be asking do I care for sodomy I don't know, yeah, probably I've been looking for serial monogamy Not some bird that looks like Billy Connolly But for now I'm down for ornithology Grab your binoculars, come follow me. 'Kids,' Robbie Williams Robbie Williams is a man for our age. Between dating supermodels and Geri 'Lost Spice' Halliwell [1], he has time to "love … his mum and a pint," (Ansen 85) but also subvert the Oasis cock(rock)tail by frocking up for a television appearance. Williams is important to theories of masculine representation. As a masculinity to think with, he creates popular culture with a history. In an era where Madonna practices yoga and wears cowboy boots, it is no surprise that by June 2000, Robbie Williams was voted the world's sexist man [2]. A few months later, in the October edition of Vogue, he posed in a British flag bikini. It is reassuring in an era where a 12 year old boy states that "You aren't a man until you shoot at something," (Issac in Mendel 19) that positive male role models exist who are prepared to both wear a frock and strip on national television. Reading Robbie Williams is like dipping into the most convincing but draining of intellectual texts. He is masculinity in motion, conveying foreignness, transgression and corruption, bartering in the polymorphous economies of sex, colonialism, race, gender and nation. His career has spanned the boy bands, try-hard rock, video star and hybrid pop performer. There are obvious resonances between the changes to Williams and alterations in masculinity. In 1988, Suzanne Moore described (the artist still known as) Prince as "the pimp of postmodernism." (165-166) Over a decade later, the simulacra has a new tour guide. Williams revels in the potency of representation. He rarely sings about love or romance, as was his sonic fodder in Take That. Instead, his performance is fixated on becoming a better man, glancing an analytical eye over other modes of masculinity. Notions of masculine crisis and sickness have punctuated this era. Men's studies is a boom area of cultural studies, dislodging the assumed structures of popular culture [3]. William Pollack's Real Boys has created a culture of changing expectations for men. The greater question arising from his concerns is why these problems, traumas and difficulties are emerging in our present. Pollack's argument is that boys and young men invest energy and time "disguising their deepest and most vulnerable feelings." (15) This masking is difficult to discern within dance and popular music. Through lyrics and dancing, videos and choreography, masculinity is revealed as convoluted, complex and fragmented. While rock music is legitimised by dominant ideologies, marginalised groups frequently use disempowered genres - like country, dance and rap genres - to present oppositional messages. These competing representations expose seamless interpretations of competent masculinity. Particular skills are necessary to rip the metaphoric pacifier out of the masculine mouth of popular culture. Patriarchal pop revels in the paradoxes of everyday life. Frequently these are nostalgic visions, which Kimmel described as a "retreat to a bygone era." (87) It is the recognition of a shared, simpler past that provides reinforcement to heteronormativity. Williams, as a gaffer tape masculinity, pulls apart the gaps and crevices in representation. Theorists must open the interpretative space encircling popular culture, disrupting normalising criteria. Multiple nodes of assessment allow a ranking of competent masculinity. From sport to business, drinking to sex, masculinity is transformed into a wired site of ranking, judgement and determination. Popular music swims in the spectacle of maleness. From David Lee Roth's skied splits to Eminem's beanie, young men are interpellated as subjects in patriarchy. Robbie Williams is a history lesson in post war masculinity. This nostalgia is conservative in nature. The ironic pastiche within his music videos features motor racing, heavy metal and Bond films. 'Rock DJ', the 'sick text' that vexed Doctor Laura, is Williams' most elaborate video. Set in a rollerdrome with female skaters encircling a central podium, the object of fascination and fetish is a male stripper. This strip is different though, as it disrupts the power held by men in phallocentralism. After being confronted by Williams' naked body, the observing women are both bored and disappointed at the lack-lustre deployment of masculine genitalia. After this display, Williams appears embarrassed, confused and humiliated. As Buchbinder realised, "No actual penis could every really measure up to the imagined sexual potency and social or magical power of the phallus." (49) To render this banal experience of male nudity ridiculous, Williams then proceeds to remove skin and muscle. He finally becomes an object of attraction for the female DJ only in skeletal form. By 'going all the way,' the strip confirms the predictability of masculinity and the ordinariness of the male body. For literate listeners though, a higher level of connotation is revealed. The song itself is based on Barry White's melody for 'It's ecstasy (when you lay down next to me).' Such intertextuality accesses the meta-racist excesses of a licentious black male sexuality. A white boy dancer must deliver an impotent, but ironic, rendering of White's (love unlimited) orchestration of potent sexuality. Williams' iconography and soundtrack is refreshing, emerging from an era of "men who cling … tightly to their illusions." (Faludi 14) When the ideological drapery is cut away, the male body is a major disappointment. Masculinity is an anxious performance. Fascinatingly, this deconstructive video has been demeaned through its labelling as pornography [4]. Oddly, a man who is prepared to - literally - shave the skin of masculinity is rendered offensive. Men's studies, like feminism, has been defrocking masculinity for some time. Robinson for example, expressed little sympathy for "whiny men jumping on the victimisation bandwagon or playing cowboys and Indians at warrior weekends and beating drums in sweat lodges." (6) By grating men's identity back to the body, the link between surface and depth - or identity and self - is forged. 'Rock DJ' attacks the new subjectivities of the male body by not only generating self-surveillance, but humour through the removal of clothes, skin and muscle. He continues this play with the symbols of masculine performance throughout the album Sing when you're winning. Featuring soccer photographs of players, coaches and fans, closer inspection of the images reveal that Robbie Williams is actually every character, in every role. His live show also enfolds diverse performances. Singing a version of 'My Way,' with cigarette in tow, he remixes Frank Sinatra into a replaying and recutting of masculine fabric. He follows one dominating masculinity with another: the Bond-inspired 'Millennium.' Some say that we are players Some say that we are pawns But we've been making money Since the day we were born Robbie Williams is comfortably located in a long history of post-Sinatra popular music. He mocks the rock ethos by combining guitars and drums with a gleaming brass section, hailing the lounge act of Dean Martin, while also using rap and dance samples. Although carrying fifty year's of crooner baggage, the spicy scent of homosexuality has also danced around Robbie Williams' career. Much of this ideology can be traced back to the Take That years. As Gary Barlow and Jason Orange commented at the time, Jason: So the rumour is we're all gay now are we? Gary: Am I gay? I am? Why? Oh good. Just as long as we know. Howard: Does anyone think I'm gay? Jason: No, you're the only one people think is straight. Howard: Why aren't I gay? What's wrong with me? Jason: It's because you're such a fine figure of macho manhood.(Kadis 17) For those not literate in the Take That discourse, it should come as no surprise that Howard was the TT equivalent of The Beatle's Ringo Starr or Duran Duran's Andy Taylor. Every boy band requires the ugly, shy member to make the others appear taller and more attractive. The inference of this dialogue is that the other members of the group are simply too handsome to be heterosexual. This ambiguous sexuality has followed Williams into his solo career, becoming fodder for those lads too unappealing to be homosexual: Oasis. Born to be mild I seem to spend my life Just waiting for the chorus 'Cause the verse is never nearly Good enough Robbie Williams "Singing for the lonely." Robbie Williams accesses a bigger, brighter and bolder future than Britpop. While the Gallagher brothers emulate and worship the icons of 1960s British music - from the Beatles' haircuts to the Stones' psychedelia - Williams' songs, videos and persona are chattering in a broader cultural field. From Noel Cowardesque allusions to the ordinariness of pub culture, Williams is much more than a pretty-boy singer. He has become an icon of English masculinity, enclosing all the complexity that these two terms convey. Williams' solo success from 1999-2001 occurred at the time of much parochial concern that British acts were not performing well in the American charts. It is bemusing to read Billboard over this period. The obvious quality of Britney Spears is seen to dwarf the mediocrity of British performers. The calibre of Fatboy Slim, carrying a smiley backpack stuffed with reflexive dance culture, is neither admitted nor discussed. It is becoming increasing strange to monitor the excessive fame of Williams in Britain, Europe, Asia and the Pacific when compared to his patchy career in the United States. Even some American magazines are trying to grasp the disparity. The swaggering king of Britpop sold a relatively measly 600,000 copies of his U.S. debut album, The ego has landed … Maybe Americans didn't appreciate his songs about being famous. (Ask Dr. Hip 72) In the first few years of the 2000s, it has been difficult to discuss a unified Anglo-American musical formation. Divergent discursive frameworks have emerged through this British evasion. There is no longer an agreed centre to the musical model. Throughout 1990s Britain, blackness jutted out of dance floor mixes, from reggae to dub, jazz and jungle. Plied with the coldness of techno was an almost too hot hip hop. Yet both were alternate trajectories to Cool Britannia. London once more became swinging, or as Vanity Fair declared, "the nerve centre of pop's most cohesive scene since the Pacific Northwest grunge explosion of 1991." (Kamp 102) Through Britpop, the clock turned back to the 1960s, a simpler time before race became 'a problem' for the nation. An affiliation was made between a New Labour, formed by the 1997 British election, and the rebirth of a Swinging London [5]. This style-driven empire supposedly - again - made London the centre of the world. Britpop was itself a misnaming. It was a strong sense of Englishness that permeated the lyrics, iconography and accent. Englishness requires a Britishness to invoke a sense of bigness and greatness. The contradictions and excesses of Blur, Oasis and Pulp resonate in the gap between centre and periphery, imperial core and colonised other. Slicing through the arrogance and anger of the Gallaghers is a yearning for colonial simplicity, when the pink portions of the map were the stable subjects of geography lessons, rather than the volatile embodiment of postcolonial theory. Simon Gikandi argues that "the central moments of English cultural identity were driven by doubts and disputes about the perimeters of the values that defined Englishness." (x) The reason that Britpop could not 'make it big' in the United States is because it was recycling an exhausted colonial dreaming. Two old Englands were duelling for ascendancy: the Oasis-inflected Manchester working class fought Blur-inspired London art school chic. This insular understanding of difference had serious social and cultural consequences. The only possible representation of white, British youth was a tabloidisation of Oasis's behaviour through swearing, drug excess and violence. Simon Reynolds realised that by returning to the three minute pop tune that the milkman can whistle, reinvoking parochial England with no black people, Britpop has turned its back defiantly on the future. (members.aol.com/blissout/Britpop.html) Fortunately, another future had already happened. The beats per minute were pulsating with an urgent affirmation of change, hybridity and difference. Hip hop and techno mapped a careful cartography of race. While rock was colonialisation by other means, hip hop enacted a decolonial imperative. Electronic dance music provided a unique rendering of identity throughout the 1990s. It was a mode of musical communication that moved across national and linguistic boundaries, far beyond Britpop or Stateside rock music. While the Anglo American military alliance was matched and shadowed by postwar popular culture, Brit-pop signalled the end of this hegemonic formation. From this point, English pop and American rock would not sail as smoothly over the Atlantic. While 1995 was the year of Wonderwall, by 1996 the Britpop bubble corroded the faces of the Gallagher brothers. Oasis was unable to complete the American tour. Yet other cultural forces were already active. 1996 was also the year of Trainspotting, with "Born Slippy" being the soundtrack for a blissful journey under the radar. This was a cultural force that no longer required America as a reference point [6]. Robbie Williams was able to integrate the histories of Britpop and dance culture, instigating a complex dialogue between the two. Still, concern peppered music and entertainment journals that British performers were not accessing 'America.' As Sharon Swart stated Britpop acts, on the other hand, are finding it less easy to crack the U.S. market. The Spice Girls may have made some early headway, but fellow purveyors of pop, such as Robbie Williams, can't seem to get satisfaction from American fans. (35 British performers had numerous cultural forces working against them. Flat global sales, the strength of the sterling and the slow response to the new technological opportunities of DVD, all caused problems. While Britpop "cleaned house," (Boehm 89) it was uncertain which cultural formation would replace this colonising force. Because of the complex dialogues between the rock discourse and dance culture, time and space were unable to align into a unified market. American critics simply could not grasp Robbie Williams' history, motives or iconography. It's Robbie's world, we just buy tickets for it. Unless, of course you're American and you don't know jack about soccer. That's the first mistake Williams makes - if indeed one of his goals is to break big in the U.S. (and I can't believe someone so ambitious would settle for less.) … Americans, it seems, are most fascinated by British pop when it presents a mirror image of American pop. (Woods 98 There is little sense that an entirely different musical economy now circulates, where making it big in the United States is not the singular marker of credibility. Williams' demonstrates commitment to the international market, focussing on MTV Asia, MTV online, New Zealand and Australian audiences [7]. The Gallagher brothers spent much of the 1990s trying to be John Lennon. While Noel, at times, knocked at the door of rock legends through "Wonderwall," he snubbed Williams' penchant for pop glory, describing him as a "fat dancer." (Gallagher in Orecklin 101) Dancing should not be decried so summarily. It conveys subtle nodes of bodily knowledge about men, women, sex and desire. While men are validated for bodily movement through sport, women's dancing remains a performance of voyeuristic attention. Such a divide is highly repressive of men who dance, with gayness infiltrating the metaphoric masculine dancefloor [8]. Too often the binary of male and female is enmeshed into the divide of rock and dance. Actually, these categories slide elegantly over each other. The male pop singers are located in a significant semiotic space. Robbie Williams carries these contradictions and controversy. NO! Robbie didn't go on NME's cover in a 'desperate' attempt to seduce nine-year old knickerwetters … YES! He used to be teenybopper fodder. SO WHAT?! So did the Beatles the Stones, the Who, the Kinks, etc blah blah pseudohistoricalrockbollocks. NO! Making music that gurlz like is NOT a crime! (Wells 62) There remains an uncertainty in his performance of masculinity and at times, a deliberate ambivalence. He grafts subversiveness into a specific lineage of English pop music. The aim for critics of popular music is to find a way to create a rhythm of resistance, rather than melody of credible meanings. In summoning an archaeology of the archive, we begin to write a popular music history. Suzanne Moore asked why men should "be interested in a sexual politics based on the frightfully old-fashioned ideas of truth, identity and history?" (175) The reason is now obvious. Femininity is no longer alone on the simulacra. It is impossible to separate real men from the representations of masculinity that dress the corporeal form. Popular music is pivotal, not for collapsing the representation into the real, but for making the space between these states livable, and pleasurable. Like all semiotic sicknesses, the damaged, beaten and bandaged masculinity of contemporary music swaddles a healing pedagogic formation. Robbie Williams enables the writing of a critical history of post Anglo-American music [9]. Popular music captures such stories of place and identity. Significantly though, it also opens out spaces of knowing. There is an investment in rhythm that transgresses national histories of music. While Williams has produced albums, singles, video and endless newspaper copy, his most important revelations are volatile and ephemeral in their impact. He increases the popular cultural vocabulary of masculinity. [1] The fame of both Williams and Halliwell was at such a level that it was reported in the generally conservative, pages of Marketing. The piece was titled "Will Geri's fling lose its fizz?" Marketing, August 2000: 17. [2] For poll results, please refer to "Winners and Losers," Time International, Vol. 155, Issue 23, June 12, 2000, 9 [3] For a discussion of this growth in academic discourse on masculinity, please refer to Paul Smith's "Introduction," in P. Smith (ed.), Boys: Masculinity in contemporary culture. Colorado: Westview Press, 1996. [4] Steve Futterman described Rock DJ as the "least alluring porn video on MTV," in "The best and worst: honour roll," Entertainment Weekly 574-575 (December 22-December 29 2000): 146. [5] Michael Bracewell stated that "pop provides an unofficial cartography of its host culture, charting the national mood, marking the crossroads between the major social trends and the tunnels of the zeitgeist," in "Britpop's coming home, it's coming home." New Statesman .(February 21 1997): 36. [6] It is important to make my point clear. The 'America' that I am summoning here is a popular cultural formation, which possesses little connection with the territory, institution or defence initiatives of the United States. Simon Frith made this distinction clear, when he stated that "the question becomes whether 'America' can continue to be the mythical locale of popular culture as it has been through most of this century. As I've suggested, there are reasons now to suppose that 'America' itself, as a pop cultural myth, no longer bears much resemblance to the USA as a real place even in the myth." This statement was made in "Anglo-America and its discontents," Cultural Studies 5 1991: 268. [7] To observe the scale of attention paid to the Asian and Pacific markets, please refer to http://robbiewilliams.com/july13scroll.html, http://robbiewilliams.com/july19scroll.html and http://robbiewilliams.com/july24scroll.html, accessed on March 3, 2001 [8] At its most naïve, J. Michael Bailey and Michael Oberschneider asked, "Why are gay men so motivated to dance? One hypothesis is that gay men dance in order to be feminine. In other words, gay men dance because women do. An alternative hypothesis is that gay men and women share a common factor in their emotional make-up that makes dancing especially enjoyable," from "Sexual orientation in professional dance," Archives of Sexual Behaviour. 26.4 (August 1997). Such an interpretation is particularly ludicrous when considering the pre-rock and roll masculine dancing rituals in the jive, Charleston and jitterbug. Once more, the history of rock music is obscuring the history of dance both before the mid 1950s and after acid house. [9] Women, gay men and black communities through much of the twentieth century have used these popular spaces. For example, Lynne Segal, in Slow Motion. London: Virago, 1990, stated that "through dancing, athletic and erotic performance, but most powerfully through music, Black men could express something about the body and its physicality, about emotions and their cosmic reach, rarely found in white culture - least of all in white male culture,": 191 References Ansen, D., Giles, J., Kroll, J., Gates, D. and Schoemer, K. "What's a handsome lad to do?" Newsweek 133.19 (May 10, 1999): 85. "Ask Dr. Hip." U.S. News and World Report 129.16 (October 23, 2000): 72. Bailey, J. Michael., and Oberschneider, Michael. 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