Journal articles on the topic 'Sept. 11 attacks'

This study of newspaper articles about Arab Americans before and after Sept. 11 revealed that a dominant theme of the pre-Sept. 11 stories was of Arab Americans resisting stereotypes and discrimination. After the attacks, newspapers tended to present Arab Americans as doubly victimized, as loyal patriotic members of the community and as targets of government detention.

This news diffusion study showed that 44 percent of the college students surveyed learned of the Sept. 11 attacks from television and radio and 48 percent from another person. Only two percent of respondents found out about the attacks from the Internet.

This content analysis of the coverage of five television networks and eight newspapers found that both broadcast and print media focused coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks on facts, but differences do appear in coverage frames and source use.

This study found that the use of local TV news and network TV news increased significantly in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, but readership of newspapers and news on the Internet did not. Five months after the attacks 41 percent of respondents said their news media use had increased.

This analysis of 89 U.S. daily newspaper Web sites on Sept. 11, 2001, shows that 65 percent of the home pages in the late morning and 38 percent in the late afternoon said nothing about the World Trade Center bombings. By late afternoon only 43 percent of the home pages had at least one photo or video of the 9/11 attacks.

This study of university undergraduates examined the role of television coverage of terrorism in perpetuating fright and fear following the Sept. 11 attacks. Viewer characteristics, rather than television exposure, were the most consistent predictors of fear, safety and faith in others.

AbstractWe compare reactions in the prices and trading patterns of common stocks and closed-end funds (CEFs), securities with substantially different investor clienteles, to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. When the market reopened 6 days later, retail investors sold and there were sharp price declines, even in assets with net institutional buying. In the subsequent 2 weeks, price reversals were substantially security specific and thus not simply due to improved systematic sentiment. Consistent with microstructure theory, comparisons between CEFs and common stocks show the speed of these reversals depended significantly on the relative quality and availability of information about fundamental values.

AbstractWe demonstrate that personal political preferences of corporate managers influence corporate policies. Specifically, Republican managers who are likely to have conservative personal ideologies adopt and maintain more conservative corporate policies. Those firms have lower levels of corporate debt, lower capital and research and development (R&D) expenditures, less risky investments, but higher profitability. Using the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Sept. 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy as natural experiments, we demonstrate that investment policies of Republican managers became more conservative following these exogenous uncertainty-increasing events. Furthermore, around chief executive officer (CEO) turnovers, including CEO deaths, firm leverage policy becomes more conservative when managerial conservatism increases.

AbstrakMasalah terorisme adalah masalah yang signifikan setelah serangan World Trade Center pada 11 September 2012. Kasus ini mengancam negara-negara muslim di dunia. Meskipun begitu, ini tidak bisa menjadi dasar bahwa orang-orang Muslim di dunia adalah seorang teroris. Terorisme telah menjadi salah satu ancaman non-tradisional yang bisa membahayakan orang dalam skala besar. Oleh karena itu, persepsi pendekatan dan konsep keamanan non-tradisional menjadi salah satu cara yang akan digunakan dalam makalah ini. Untuk memandu jalannya penelitian ini, beberapa tujuan yang harus dicapai dalam penelitian ini telah dirumuskan. Tujuan tersebut adalah mengembangkan kajian akademik untuk menghadapi tantangan yang dihadapi oleh negara-negara di Asia Tenggara, untuk menganalisis paradoks keamanan kolektif ASEAN dalam memerangi terorisme.Kata-kata Kunci: terrorisme, keamanan kolektif, teori persepsi, kebijakan, Asia Tenggara. AbstractTerrorism issues is significant problem after the World Trade Center attacks on Sept 11, 2012. This case become threaten to muslim countries in the world. But this can�t be the basis that the people of the world's Muslim is a terrorist. Terrorism has become one of the non-traditional threats that could endanger other people on a large scale. Therefore, perceptions approaches and non-traditional security concept to be one way to be used in this paper. To guide the course of this research, several objectives that needs to be achieved in this study has been formulated. Those objectives are: develop an academic review of the challenges faced by countries in Southeast Asia, to analyze the paradox of ASEAN collective security in combating terrorism.Keywords: terrorism, collective security, perception theory, policy, Southeast Asia

In a 1998-99 survey of the landscape service industry in northern New Jersey, professionals predicted an average growth rate of 41% for the years 1998–2003. How close did their prediction come to the growth rate experienced by the industry? In 1999, top issues facing the industry were labor, political recognition, access to capital and regulations. How did events during the early years of the new millennium effect the industry? Landscape professionals (159) participating in a 2005 study of the industry reported an average business growth rate of 38% from 1998–2003. The terrorist attacks of 11 Sept. 2001 had consequences for 45% of the businesses; 49 experienced an average decrease in sales of 17%. Drought conditions in 2002 with state mandated water use restrictions effected 100 of the participants' businesses; 51% of whom lost an average of 21% in sales. The drought was followed by a rainy spring season in 2003. The rains hindered 57 of the businesses, 22 reporting a 3% average decrease in sales. There were events that had positive impacts on 48% of the businesses. Low interest rates, building construction and renovation and expansion of services were cited as opportunities for growth. The participants ranked environmental regulations, pesticide regulations, the availability of labor, labor regulations and vehicles/equipment as the top issues/challenges facing the industry in 2005. The landscape professionals predict an average business growth rate of 26% for 2005–2010.

AbstrakDengan semakin luasnya pengetahuan dan meningkatnya kejahatan internet maka dibutuhkan Intrusion Detection System (IDS) salah satunya adalah Snort yang dapat mendeteksi serangan. Dibutuhkan notifikasi serangan agar administrator tahu jika adanya serangan. Pengelompokan alert menggunakan metode K-Means untuk membagi 2 kelompok alert yaitu low dan high. Bot Telegram akan mengirimkan alert yang memiliki label high saja. Notifikasi akan muncul pada aplikasi Telegram. Dataset 4SICS digunakan untuk proses penegelompokan agar menghasilkan 2 centroid yang akan digunakan pada serangan real. Proses pengujian serangan real dilakukan selama 2 hari. Terdapat total 10352 serangan diantaranya 1096 memiliki label high dan 9256 memiliki label low serta terdapat 771 notifikasi yang dikirimkan.Persentase hasil serangan selama satu jam berdasarkan label serangan. 60,38% serangan memiliki label “high” dan 39,62% memiliki label “low”. Persentase hasil serangan selama dua hari berdasarkan label serangan. 89% serangan memiliki label “low” dan 11% memiliki label “high”.Abstract With the increasing knowledge and cybercrime, Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is needed. One of which is Snort that can detect the attack. Notification when there is attack is needed so the administrator knows. Alert clustering uses K-Means to divide 2 cluster of alerts namely “low” and “high”. Telegram Bots will send alerts that having a “high” label only. Dataset from 4SICS is used for the grouping process to produce 2 centroid that will be used in real attacks. The real attack testing process is carried out for 2 days. There were a total of 10352 attacks including 1096 having a “high” label and 9256 having a “low” label and there were 771 notifications sent. Percentage of results of one hour attack results based on attack labels was 60.38% of attacks had the label “high” and 39.62% had the label ”low”. Percentage of results of two days attack results based on attack labels was 89% of attacks had the label “low” and 11% had the label ”high”.

Objective The aim of the present study was to characterize perceived consistent triggers of migraine with aura (MA). Method Questionnaires specifically designed to characterize various trigger factors were sent to 181 participants identified in an earlier study. All participants had formerly identified at least one factor that often or always triggered an MA attack. They only answered questions regarding this or these factor(s). Results The response rate to the questionnaire was 70% (126/179). A number of subtype triggers were mentioned by a high proportion of patients: too much work (under the stress category 54/64), reflected sunlight (under the light category 35/44), too little sleep (under the sleep category 19/24), red wine (under the alcohol category 20/22), passive smoking (under the smoke category 11/11), menstruation (under the menstruation or break from the pill category 12/14) and perfume (under the fumes/heavy scents category 12/15). Hormones, light and stress were reported to cause at least 50 % of MA attacks in 62%, 47% and 42% of participants, respectively. No participants reported alcohol to be the trigger of 50% or more of their attacks. In the groups of participants with “light”, “fumes/heavy scents”, “smoke” or “physical effort” as triggers, nearly all patients reported that an exposure time to the trigger of less than 3 hours (90-100% of patients) was necessary to trigger an attack and a latency to onset of attack of less than 3 hours (90-100% of patients). Conclusion Our study has provided new knowledge about factors that in particular patients consistently trigger MA. In daily routine practice this information should be helpful in identifying factors to avoid. Patients with trigger factors that always or usually trigger attacks of MA will be highly useful for imaging and other experimental studies.

A Florida-based obstetrics and gynecology facility reported in February 2019 that they lost data because of a ransomware attack. In November 2017, 107,000 healthcare records were exposed from data breaches, and 340,000 records were exposed in December 2017. In 2019, 23,000 patient records at Critical Care, Pulmonary & Sleep Associates were compromised when a hacker gained access to an employee's email account and sent out phishing emails to the other employees, eventually exposing the patient data. On January 11, 2018, Adams Memorial Hospital and Hancock Regional Hospital, both in Indiana, experienced independent ransomware attacks, with Hancock Regional Hospital paying $50,000 in ransom. These incidents point to significant and complex cybersecurity risks for all healthcare organizations. Effectively managing these risks requires healthcare managers to develop system thinking and adaptive leadership skills. This paper explores the nuances and complexities around systems thinking in the healthcare cybersecurity environment.

The early English-language promoters of Nostradamus (Orson Welles and Erika Cheetham) had strong Leftist-Marxist connections including ties to the Cambridge 5 spy ring. Nostradamus was the top search anomaly of Sept 11, 2001. Interest was driven by a surge in emails and text messages via the internet. This behavior is discussed in relation to known cyber threats from 2001. Similar spikes in Nostradamus searches (Google Trends) emanated from Poland (April 2010), Ukraine (March 2014), and in Hungary (August 2015). Nostradamus mirrors proven Russian disinformation operations, such as those that today implicate 9/11 as being an “inside job” by the US government, or that the CIA killed JFK, or that the CIA engineered the AIDS virus. Noting Nostradamus' use by both the Allies and the Axis powers as a psychological warfare tool in World War 2, the case is made that it was the Russians carrying out an “information attack” on 9/11 that is consistent with Russian cyber warfare and active measures strategy; and that they may have used similar techniques elsewhere since 2001.

Objective The purpose of our study was to evaluate the effect of atrial septal defect (ASD) closure on migraine headache attacks (MHA). Methods A total of 247 patients who underwent percutaneous ASD closure at our facilities were sent a structured questionnaire. We diagnosed MHA according to the criteria of the International Headache Society. Results A total of 207 patients were included in the study. New-onset MHA occurred in 23 patients and persisted in 15 at a mean follow-up of 45 months. Of the 29 patients who had MHA prior to ASD closure, 11 reported exacerbation of MHA, 11 reported no change and seven reported improvement within three months after ASD closure. Compared with the patients who had no MHA, patients with de novo MHA were younger and patients with MHA improvement tended to be older. Switching from aspirin to ticlopidine or clopidogrel rapidly aborted frequent MHA in nine patients who had severe symptoms after ASD closure. Conclusions These results indicate that Amplatzer device implantation can act as a permanent trigger of MHA in not a few patients, and that age may be an important predictive factor of the influence of ASD closure on MHA.

Just a few weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, and soon after US troops started to attack Afghanistan, George Bush expressed his disappointment toward the way the Muslim world perceives the American way of life and culture. Assuming that the 9/11 terrorist attack was a symbol of struggle against America’s hegemony Bush blamed the failure of US public diplomacy to promote to the Muslim world the image of a friendly and democratic nation state. It sent a message that both promoting positive image and controlling the message are a highly complex task. The complexity of public diplomacy consequently raises such a theoretical dispute. From a traditional perspective, scholars have questioned the suitability of public diplomacy to promote a states’ soft power, and have cited US public diplomacy as an example of failure. The revisionists, on the other hand, seek to maintain and even improve the practice of public diplomacy by arguing that it is more that it is more pertinent to comprehend the strategy rather than to perpetuate the blame. The dispute on public diplomacy is threefold: first, whether public diplomacy is defined as any diplomatic activities of or by the public; second, whether diplomacy should really be addressed to the public; and third, if the public is always diplomatic. This essay will argue that while the traditionalist criticisms could be valid, particularly in the context of the US experience, these arguments do not reduce the value of public diplomacy. Such diplomacy requires a two-way relationship and integrated approach.

Zusammenfassung: Der Begriff Radikalisierung hat seit den islamistischen Terroranschlägen des 11. September eine beispiellose Konjunktur in Forschung, Prävention und Politik erfahren, Er umfasst ein heterogenes Ensemble von sozialwissenschaftlichen Theorien, Bildungs- und Präventionsansätzen, staatlichen Programmen, sozialpädagogischen und sicherheitspolitischen Handlungslogiken. Der Artikel stellt seine Entwicklung und seine Bedeutung für die Pädagogik dar und erörtert diese an ausgewählten Herausforderungen sozialpädagogischer Praxis. Plädiert wird schließlich dafür, den Begriff und die unter ihm befassten Phänomene als wissens-, reflexions-, und handlungsbezogene Herausforderung pädagogischer Professionalität ernstzunehmen.Abstract: The use of the concept of radicalization has unprecedently increased in research, prevention and politics since the September 11 attacks. It comprises a heterogenous ensemble of social theories, federal programs, social pedagogical and security logics of action. The article describes its development and impact for pedagogy and debates it concerning selected challenges of social pedagogical practice. Finally, it opts for taking the concept serious as a challenge for professional development in education.

The US continues to be a target for terrorist activities that threaten the lives of the populace. Training on preparedness and response for emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics is critical to the success of an early response to any such attack. Previous surveys have suggested that terrorism-specif-ic training has been modest at best since September 11. In order to gain further insight into emergency personnel’s level of training and competence, we sent surveys to 4,000 EMTs and paramedics in the state of Florida in late 2005 and early 2006. Results show a much higher level of training than previously reported from other states and suggest a direct correlation between the amount and type of training and self-reported competence. Our results suggest that most emergency personnel are receiving terrorism-specific training, but gaps in competencies exist and require the attention of educators and policymakers.

Though hyponatremia is the common sequel of cirrhotic patient and had impact on the clinical management of cirrhotic patient, no such study had been done yet in Bangladesh, so the present study planned to elucidate the prevalence and to find out any association of hyponatremia and the severity of cirrhosis. The severity was scaled by Child-Pugh score. This study included 85 patient of both sex having mean age of 46.5±11. Hepatitis B virus infection was the main cause of cirrhosis (68%) and 18% cirrhotic patients had attack with hepatitis C virus. The study sought that about 30% of cirrhotic patient had hyponatremia (serum sodium >130 meq/L). We found neither association nor correlation of hyponatremia with Child Pugh score. The study found that serum chloride varied directly with sodium but indirectly with potassium. So we conclude that the hyponatremia was a common manifestation of cirrhosis but the severity of liver disease had no effect on serum electrolytes profile.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bmj.v42i3.18999 Bangladesh Med J. 2013 Sept; 42 (3): 73-77

The 9/11 was a paradigm shifting event in the international and global politics. On September 11, 2001, two jet planes hit the twin's tower in United States of America (USA). US official authorities said that it is done by alQaeda. This event also changes Pakistan's internal and foreign policies. The government of United States compel Afghan Taliban government to handover the master mind of 9/11 attack and their leader Osama bin Laden but the talks failed between the both governments. Therefore US government compel the government of Pakistan to give us Military bases and assistance against Afghan Taliban. Pakistan agreed with US as frontline ally of US in war on terror. The majority of Pakistani people were not happy with the decision, therefore, some non-state actors appeared in different part of the country especially in Malakand Division and FATA to support Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In Malakand Division Mulana Sufi Muhammad head of Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi started a proper armed campaign for Afghan Taliban Support and sent thousands of people to Afghanistan support Taliban against US and their allied forces. It was a basic reason behind the emergence of terrorism in Malakand division KP but it did not played it role alone to cause terrorism in the region. Many other important factors i.e. weak political administration, unemployment, economic deprivation, socio-political instability constituted the main reason that opened room for non-state actors to consolidate their grip on the region.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center (WTC), the health status of survivors, rescue and cleanup workers, and residents of Lower Manhattan has been monitored. Exposure to dust and particulate matter resulted in numerous complaints of both upper and lower aerodigestive tract irritation. The symptoms, diagnoses, and management of affected persons have previously been described in the literature. However, evidence establishing causation is scarce, especially with regard to the purported long-term effects of such exposure. Many persons who were exposed to the Ground Zero site have otolaryngologic conditions that are common in persons who were not so exposed. Therefore, otolaryngologists involved in the care of such patients should be cautious about assigning a diagnosis of “WTC syndrome” without a comprehensive examination to look for other possible etiologies. A diagnosis of a treatable, potentially serious health problem should not be missed simply because a patient who was exposed to WTC irritants was presumed to have WTC syndrome. In this review, we discuss the reported otolaryngologic manifestations of exposure to the WTC site, and we describe the specific cases of 2 workers there who continue to have otolaryngologic complaints. Considerable research is needed to establish the existence and nature of any long-term sequelae of exposure to WTC fallout.

Web-based botnets are popular nowadays. A Web-based botnet is a botnet whose C&C server and bots use HTTP protocol, the most universal and supported network protocol, to communicate with each other. Because the botnet communication can be hidden easily by attackers behind the relatively massive HTTP traffic, administrators of network equipment, such as routers and switches, cannot block such suspicious traffic directly regardless of costs. Based on the clients constituent of a Web server and characteristics of HTTP responses sent to clients from the server, this paper proposes a traffic inspection solution, called Web-based Botnet Detector (WBD). WBD is able to detect suspicious C&C (Command-and-Control) servers of HTTP botnets regardless of whether the botnet commands are encrypted or hidden in normal Web pages. More than 500 GB real network traces collected from 11 backbone routers are used to evaluate our method. Experimental results show that the false positive rate of WBD is 0.42%.

Background: Countries that have good rubella surveillance, report ∼10,000–20,000 rubella cases annually. In India, not many cases of rubella are reported. The Hebballi Agasi ward of Dharwad district in Karnataka state, India, reported rubella cases on the last week of January 2015. Objective: We investigated the outbreak by time, place, person, and clinical symptoms. Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study. We defined a case as any resident of Heballi Agasi who had fever and rash, with or without lymphadenopathy, arthralgia, conjunctivitis, coryza, and cough, after December 15, 2014. We collected sociodemographic details and clinical symptoms of patients. We collected 5 serum samples and sent them to the National Measles Laboratory, Bangalore. We tested for measles and rubella antibodies. We drew an epidemic curve and a spot map. We computed mean age of cases, and we calculated attack rates by mean age and gender. We calculated proportions to describe clinical symptoms, and we interviewed stakeholders regarding rubella vaccination. We continued surveillance until March 2015. Results: The population of Heballi Agasi was 1,458. We identified 15 rubella cases (9 girls and 6 boys). The outbreak lasted between December 10, 2014, and February 21, 2015, with a peak on January 16, 2015. The overall attack rate was 1% (15 of 1,458). The mean age of the cases was 6 years (range, 1–23). The attack rate was high (7.7%) among those aged 1–6 years (11 of 143). The attack rate among those aged >6 years was 0.3% (4 of 1,315). In addition to fever and rash, 93% of cases (14 of 15) had coryza, 47% had cough (7 of 15), and 40% had conjunctivitis (6 of 15). Lymphadenopathy was present in only 1 case (1 of 15), and arthralgia was absent among all 15 cases. There was no death among the cases. All 5 sera were positive for rubella and negative for measles. Rubella vaccination was not given for any of the cases because no rubella vaccination is provided in the routine immunization program. Conclusions: There was a rubella outbreak in Heballi Agasi ward. Children aged 1–6 years were most affected. We recommend rubella vaccination in the routine immunization.Funding: NoneDisclosures: None

After being called ‘Hollywood of the East’, Egypt’s soft power has witnessed a decline from the start of the years 2000s; due to 9/11/2001 and its aftermath, until it reached its lowest point since the Arab Spring in 2011. The deterioration hit its media sector, arts industry, sports and diplomacy. However, since 2014 a revival for one of its soft power capabilities happened. Its diplomacy. Diplomacy is on the rise and has some potential to restore Egypt’s status as ‘an active’ regional player. To illustrate that Egypt is now a temporary Security Council member in the United Nations for two years. This status earned after a lot of recommendation from Arab, African and Islamic blocks in the Security Council. To win this seat it required a lot of diplomatic efforts and lobbying which were successful at the end after being absent from non-permanent membership in UNSC since 1997. The first signs of decline in its diplomatic power started in 2006. This was due to USA’s neglect for Egypt and putting a lot of pressure on it from Bush junior’s Administration to comply with US values and interests in the region. This has been accentuated in the Bush Doctrine and was a natural outcome of September 11 attacks in 2001. The argument in here is that despite the decline in Egyptian status on all levels, and its soft power among them, due to turmoil resulting from the Arab Spring yet Egypt still has potential for revival and gaining a leading role due to its soft power. This study will be based on qualitative analysis to prove the argument. A diplomat and an academic have been interviewed to further illustrate the ideas expressed in this article. There are a number of issues that show success in Egypt’s diplomacy to prove this argument since 2014.

Provisional reports from the Intercollegiate British Society of Gastroenterology National Colonoscopy audit show completion rates of 57–77%for the procedure and poor levels of training and supervision. We prospectively audited all aspects of colonoscopy performed at a combined district general hospital and specialist endoscopy unit. Details of referral, examination, endoscopist, complications and follow-up were recorded and patients were sent questionnaires for long-term follow-up. 505 patients (246 male) underwent colonoscopy by 27 different endoscopists. Their median age was 57 years (range 13–92) and 93%were outpatients. 64% patients were symptomatic and 36%were having surveillance or follow-up colonoscopy. The overall caecal intubation rate was 93%, with little difference between surgeons, physicians and experienced trainees (89%, 92%, 94%) and specialist endoscopists (98%). In only one case was an inexperienced trainee (<100 procedures) unsupervised. Pain scores estimated by the endoscopist were well matched with those given by the patient—medians 29 and 26 (maximum 100) respectively. Median satisfaction score was 96 (maximum 100). Polyp pick-up rate was 26.9%and there were 11 new cancers. 16 (3%) minor immediate complications were recorded—5 oversedation, 6 vasovagal attacks, 3 polypectomy haemorrhages and 2 mucosal injuries (neither requiring treatment). 3 patients died within 6 months of follow-up but no death was colonoscopy related. Completion rates in this setting were adequate for all endoscopists studied. Patient satisfaction with the procedure was high and very few immediate or long-term complications were encountered.

BackgroundThe AliveCor (Kardia) monitor attaches to a smartphone and allows a single-lead ECG to be recorded during symptoms. In 2016, we introduced the use of this smartphone device for investigating palpitations, without syncope, in children. The aim of our study was to review our experience with the smartphone device, comparing it with our previous standard conventional approach to cardiac event monitoring using the Cardiocall monitor, which uses skin electrodes and is given for a finite period.MethodsOver a period of 24 months, 80 smartphone monitors were issued and compared with the most recent 100 conventional event monitors. The number of ECG recordings received, arrhythmias documented, quality of ECG recordings and patient satisfaction were evaluated.ResultsMedian patient age was 11 years in the smartphone monitor group compared with 10 years in the conventional group. Seventy-nine of 80 (98%) patients with a smartphone monitor sent an ECG recorded during symptoms, compared with 62/100 (62%) from the conventional group. A total of 836 ECG recordings were sent from the smartphone monitors compared with 752 from the conventional group. Eight per cent of ECG recordings in each group were of inadequate quality for analysis. Twenty of 80 (25%) patients with a smartphone monitor had documented tachyarrhythmia compared with 6/100 (6%) patients with the conventional monitor (p<0.001). On comparison with the conventional approach, the smartphone monitor outperformed with respect to diagnostic yield and patient satisfaction.ConclusionsA smartphone-based event monitor allows simple, effective, long-term ECG event monitoring in children that is highly acceptable to the patient and parent.

The implementation of biometrics entails either the establishment of an identity or tracing a person's identity. Biometric passport data (e.g., irises, fingers, faces) can be used in order to verify a passenger's identity. The proposed Passenger Name Record (PNR) system contains all the information necessary to enable reservations to be processed and controlled by the booking and participating air carriers for each journey booked by or on behalf of any person. PNR data are related to travel movements, usually flights, and include passport data, name, address, telephone numbers, travel agent, credit card number, history of changes in the flight schedule, seat preferences, and other information. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, a new emergency political-law status of society was established: the continuous state of “war” against the so-called unlawful combatants of the “enemy”. Officially, the enemy is the terrorists, but the victims of the privacy invasions caused by the above new form of data processing are the civilians. The data processing based on biometrics is covered both by Directive 95/46 EC and Article 8 of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (now the European Convention on Human Rights, “ECHR”). According to Article 2, Paragraph a of the above Directive, personal data shall mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person; an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his/her physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural, or social identity.

INTRODUCTION: In 1956, Africanized honeybees (AHB) migrated from Brazil to other regions of the Western Hemisphere, including South, Central, and North America, except for Canada. Despite being productive, they are highly aggressive and cause fatal accidents. This study aimed to evaluate patients at the Clinical Hospital of Botucatu Medical School (HC-FMB) and to propose treatment guidelines. METHODS: From 2005 to 2006, the clinical and laboratorial aspects of 11 patients (7 male and 4 female) and the anatomopathological aspects of one patient who had died in 2003 were analyzed. RESULTS: The age of the surviving patients varied from 5 to 87 years, with a mean of 42.5 years. The majority of accidents occurred in the afternoon, and the number of stings ranged from 20 to 500. The principal signs and symptoms were pain and local inflammatory signs, nausea, tachycardia, and vomiting. Biochemical findings presented increased levels of creatine phosphokinase, lactate dehydrogenase, and aspartate/alanine aminotransferase. An 11-year-old male patient died upon entering the attic of a two-storey building where he was attacked by a swarm, receiving more than 1,000 stings. He was sent to HC-FMB where he was treated, but he died 24h later. Observed at the autopsy were erythematous-purpuric skin lesions besides necrosis at the sting locations, rhabdomyolysis, focal myocardial necrosis, tubular hydropic degeneration and focal tubular acute necrosis of the kidneys, myoglobinuria, and centrolobular necrosis in the liver. CONCLUSIONS: Accidents caused by multiple AHB stings always constitute a medical emergency. As there is no specific antivenom, we have developed guidelines, including first aid, drugs, and the proper removal of stingers.

Abstract: Introduction: The term “spam” is applied to unwanted commercial e-mails sent to all whose e-mail addresses have been acquired by the spammers. The number of undesirable e-mails is growing in the health-care related areas as well. The targets of health-care related spams are laymen, physicians and academic researchers alike. Method: On the basis of 12,986 unwanted letters received in one year, the authors concluded that percentage of health-related spam is the second most common spam (27%) in relation to all spam. Most of the spam (63%) aggressively promoted purchasing of various consumer goods, but health-related spam are far ahead of the rest. The collected data were grouped by year and topic and they are analyzed by simple descriptive statistics. Spam form of cyber attacks on health care issues were divided into two: spam what is jeopardized individuals’ health (e.g. medical compounds without any curing effect, misleading statement on medical device, fraudulent panacea offers, and cheating cure methods, etc.) and onslaught on medical scientific activity (pseudo-scientific congress invitation, predator journal invitation etc.). Results: The topics of spams addressed to laymen are offered for perfect healing by strange treatments, cures (31%), panaceas (19%), lifestyle advice (19%), massage (16%), brand new health-care devices (4%) and drugs for sexual dysfunction (11%). The topics of spams addressed to physicians and researchers are deluged by pseudoscientific materials: invitation for articles to be sent to no-name/fake open-access journals (68%), invitation to participate at an obscure congress (27%) or newsletters on miscellanous medical topics (5%). Conclusion: The spams offer very often relief or solution to medical problems that the present-day medical practice cannot solve perfectly (oncological, musculo-sceletal, endocrin or metabolic problems). Understandably, the patients would hold on to fake hopes – and the authentic patient education and health promotion will be neglected. These unwanted messages practically cannot be unsubscribed, and – while the spam filters are far from perfection – the victim must go through the filtered spam-dustbin in order not to miss some real messages. Unfortunately no legal regulation (neither local, nor GDPR) can block or stop the spams. The spams are misleading the laymen and jeopardise the effects of professional and responsible health promotion and health education. Orv Hetil. 2019; 160(43): 1706–1710.

579 Background: Prior studies combining programmed death-1 (PD-1) checkpoint inhibitors with tyrosine kinase inhibitors of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) pathway have been characterized by excess toxicity precluding further development. We hypothesized that a combination of axi, a more selective VEGF-pathway inhibitor, with pembro (anti-PD-1) would be well tolerated and yield antitumour activity in treatment-naïve pts with aRCC. Methods: This ongoing open-label phase Ib study of axi/pembro comprised a dose-finding phase to determine the maximum tolerated dose and dose expansion phase. Axi 5 mg was administered orally twice daily with pembro 2 mg/kg administered intravenously every 3 weeks. Tumors were assessed, using RECIST v1.1, at baseline, week 12, and every 6 weeks thereafter. The primary endpoint was dose-limiting toxicity (DLT) during the first 2 cycles (6 weeks), with secondary endpoints evaluating safety, objective response rate (ORR), progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS). Results: Between 23 Sept 2014 and 13 Oct 2015, 52 treatment-naïve pts with aRCC were enrolled. No unexpected toxicities were observed. Three DLTs were reported among the 11 pts treated in the dose-finding phase: transient ischemic attack (n = 1) and < 75% of planned axi dosage administered due to treatment-related toxicity (n = 2). At cutoff date (March 30, 2017), 25 pts were receiving study treatment. Most common (≥10%) grade ≥3 all-causality AEs included hypertension (23%), diarrhoea (10%) and fatigue (10%). Most common ( > 10%) potentially immune-related AEs included diarrhoea (29%), increased alanine aminotransferase (17%), or aspartate aminotransferase (13%), hypothyroidism (13%), and fatigue (12%). ORR was 73.1% (95% confidence intervals [CIs], 59.0–84.4). Median (95% CI) PFS was 20.9 (15.4–not evaluable) months. OS data were not mature at minimum follow-up period of 17.6 months, with 6 treatment-unrelated deaths reported. Conclusions: The combination axi/pembro is tolerable and exhibits promising antitumour activity in treatment-naïve pts with aRCC. A randomized phase 3 trial comparing the combination to sunitinib monotherapy is underway. Clinical trial information: NCT02133742.

For over two generations, scholars have studied Sir Edward Grey's response to the Sarajevo crisis, apparently considering every aspect of his dual effort to find a diplomatic solution while convincing the cabinet that England must intervene in a general war. Historians have generally agreed that Grey's last hope to prevent war evaporated by the end of July, although the cabinet did not decide to intervene until August 2. In this light, the events of August 1, 1914, are only considered to be either a prelude or a postscript to more significant events. The purpose of this essay is to suggest that Grey pursued two distinct, yet interrelated, courses of action on August 1, 1914: (1) for as long as he was unsure of cabinet support for intervention, he sought to make a diplomatic deal with the German ambassador so that a neutral England could salvage something from the crisis, but (2) once confident England would enter the conflict, he sought to prevent the war altogether by applying diplomatic pressure on France.Historians have overlooked Grey's diplomacy on August 1 primarily because of the cloud cast over the events of the day by the so-called misunderstanding between Grey and the German ambassador, Prince Karl Max Lichnowsky. The first Grey-Lichnowsky exchange took place that morning when Sir William Tyrrell, Grey's private secretary, brought a message to the German embassy. After subsequently receiving a personal call from Grey, Lichnowsky, at 11:14 a.m., sent a wire to Berlin in which he indicated Grey had proposed that, if Germany “were not to attack France, England would remain neutral and would guarantee France's passivity.”

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the Dutch nationwide incidence of myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG)-IgG-associated acquired demyelinating syndromes (ADS) and to describe the clinical and serological characteristics of these patients. Methods: All serum samples for routine diagnostics from February 2014 to December 2017 were sent to the single central reference laboratory for the full-length MOG-IgG cell-based assay (CBA) in the Netherlands. Clinical data from patients known in our National ADS centre were available. Results: A total of 1414 samples of 1277 patients were received; of these, 92 patients (7%) were MOG-IgG-seropositive. The mean incidence was 0.16/100,000 people, with higher seropositivity in children (0.31/100,000) than in adults (0.13/100,000). In MOG-IgG-positive patients at the National ADS centre (61/92, 66%), the most common presenting phenotype is acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM, 56%) in children and optic neuritis (ON, 44%) in adults. Relapsing disease occurred in 9/34 (26%) children and 11/27 (41%) adults during median follow-up of 27.5 months. Patients were tested MOG-IgG-positive >200 months after the initial attack, suggesting an extended time to first relapse (TTFR). Longitudinal analysis of MOG-IgG (25/61, 41%) showed that 67% of the monophasic patients remain seropositive and 60% in relapsing patients. Majority of seronegative patients had no relapses (89%). Conclusion: This nationwide study shows that the overall incidence of MOG-IgG-seropositive disorders is 0.16 per 100,000 people. The distribution over the clinical phenotypes differs between adults and children. Seropositivity can be maintained over years even without clinical activity, while seronegative patients generally had no relapses.

The F-16 Falcon jet fighter is a marvel of engineering. Having been in operational United States Air Force service since approximately 1980, this fly-by-wire aircraft can climb vertically, sustain a 9-G turn without the loss of airspeed, and fly greater than the speed of sound. With such capabilities, this aircraft was originally designed and conceived of as a daylight air-to-air “dog-fighting” pilot's dream. As time has passed, the F-16 aircraft has been tasked with carrying out much more diverse missions than only day air-to-air combat. The aircraft and highly-trained pilots that fly it now accomplish additional missions such as day and night ground attack. An examination of ten years of USAF Safety Center accident data revealed that the F-16 aircraft had 59 Class A operational mishaps during this period. This was the highest number for any single-seat fighter-attack aircraft, and second only to the Aggressor's “Red Flag” F-5 per 100,000 hours of flight time (Class A Accident Rates: F-16 2.86 v. F-5 4.76). Incidentally, about 73% of the Royal Netherlands Air Force pilots reported that they were more susceptible to spatial disorientation and loss of situation awareness in the F-16 compared to other fighter aircraft that they had flown. After 11 years of operational experience, 21 of 210 of the Netherlands' F-16 aircraft were destroyed. A detailed examination of the USAF database revealed that a host of human factors issues are pertinent to the F-16 such as the loss of situation awareness, spatial disorientation, G-induced loss of consciousness, etc.; all of which contributed heavily to the accident rates cited for this aircraft. Additionally, cockpit design issues relatable to man-machine interfacing present human factors challenges to the pilot as well depending upon the mission scenario. The majority (53%) of F-16 accidents occurred during low-level or maneuvering flight. About 20% of the F-16 mishaps happened during the takeoff or landing phase of operations. Over 60% of the accidents were deemed by investigating officers to have “channelized attention” as a definite contributor to the mishap rate. Other human factors issues such as task oversaturation, distraction, and a variety of spatial disorientation problems contributed to many of the accidents also. Cockpit improvements, research, better training/awareness programs and Ground Collision Avoidance Devices (GCAS/PARS) are all suggested as methods to reduce future F-16 Falcon accident rates.

Introduction: At 11:20 on 26 May 2018, a physician from Lianyungang No. 1 People’s Hospital, China, reported that six family members were being treated in the hospital with symptoms from an unknown cause. Methods: A case series for a food poisoning investigation and an environmental survey were conducted. The patients and their relatives were interviewed in person with a questionnaire contained on a digital tablet, and an investigation of the patients’ home was conducted in the presence of police officers. Probable case and confirmed case were defined to serve as a basis for identifying additional cases. Confirmed cases were defined as those probable cases in which blood, stool or vomitus specimens tested positive for paliperidone palmitate and/or its metabolites. A descriptive analysis was performed. Follow-up by telephone was conducted four months later. Results: There were six probable cases. The median age was 35 years (range: 5–76 years). The attack rate was 100% (n = 6/6) of persons who consumed a family dinner, and the hospitalization rate was also 100% (n = 6/6). The median period between exposure and symptom onset was two hours. The main symptoms included vomiting, nausea, drowsiness, dizziness and severe abdominal pain for adults, and vomiting and severe lethargy for children. An 8-year-old girl further showed changes in the ST segment of her electrocardiogram, and a 5-year-old boy showed QT prolongation. The poisoning substance was suspected to be paliperidone palmitate based on the patients’ symptoms and epidemiological findings. Discussion: We investigated the household food poisoning outbreak through epidemiological analysis and an environmental investigation and determined that it was caused by paliperidone palmitate. The source of the paliperidone palmitate was found to be aluminium containers, taken home by the eldest son who worked at a pharmaceutical company. The containers were sent to a drug disposal centre, and the pharmaceutical company was required to enhance the regulation on the pharmaceutical waste materials to prevent drug poisoning events. By the end of September 2018, the six patients recovered and were released from the hospital, and they did not show any clinical sequelae in four follow-up visits.

Background:Gout has a prevalence >2.5% in the Spanish adult population. It is a chronic disease that without proper treatment causes pain, joint deformity and increased cardiovascular risk and mortality. Recent advances have demonstrated that if correctly treated the disease can be controlled and even ‘cured’. Most gouty patients are diagnosed and treated by general practitioners (GPs). There is evidence that the management if these patients is not good neither at Rheumatology Units nor at Primary Healthcare (PHC) centers.Several causes of this mismanagement can be found in the literature.Objectives:Design and evaluation of the results of a questionnaire created from a bibliographic search focused on areas of improvement of gout management in PHC.Methods:A search was made in Pubmed to identify the main barriers described in the management of patients with gout in primary care. The terms used were: “Gout”, “primary healthcare” and “education”. A Google Form of gout knowledge and management questionnaire was designed, taking into account what is described in the literature. The Google Form was sent to all GP from an urban area via mail and to other contacts via WhatsApp and twitter.Results:Responses were obtained from 224 GPs; 69.5% were women; 73.1% had between 11 and 30 years of professional experience; 96.4% answered that gouty are mostly controlled in primary care; 99.6% performs the diagnosis of gout without analysis of synovial fluid and 17% diagnosed only by clinics without urate levels; 55.9% of GPs do not use any reference guide. Of those who use, the 73% use GUIPCLINGOT and 40% use SEMGs one; 80.5% have not done any gout course in the last 5 years; 26% did not have access to a rheumatologist to confirm the gout diagnosis; only 30.8% knew the therapeutic objective of the urate lowering therapy (ULT); 28.6% considered the beginning of ULT after the first attack; 62% believed that the most important part of the treatment was changing diet and lifestyles; 88.8% did not perform any specific education for these patients by the nurse; just 37.2% carried out a treat-to-target strategy to lower urate levels.Conclusion:The questionnaire identifies multiple points of improvement for the management of this pathology in accordance with the described in the literature. Most GPs are unaware of the therapeutic objective of the ULT.Disclosure of Interests:None declared

Category: Sports Introduction/Purpose: The incidence of ankle sprain is higher in children than in adolescents and adults. Avulsion fractures of the distal fibula, where the anterior tibiofibular ligament attaches, commonly occur with lateral ankle sprain in children. If the avulsion fracture remains ununited, it will become a subfibular ossicle (Figure), and can cause pain, instability, and recurrent sprain. However, the incidence and radiographic result of avulsion fracture, as well as the impact of the fracture on clinical outcomes, are not well-studied. The purposes of this study were 1) to clarify the incidence and union rate of distal fibular avulsion fracture with lateral ankle sprain in children, and 2) to assess the association between avulsion fracture and recurrent sprain. Methods: Patients who presented to four orthopaedic clinics were prospectively examined. Patients with a first-time inversion ankle sprain, aged from 6 to 12 years, and visiting the clinics within 48 hours after injury, were included. Patients underwent anteroposterior and lateral radiographs, and the ATFL view (Figure) at the first visit, and the incidence of avulsion fracture was assessed. The patients with avulsion fractures underwent follow-up radiographs after 8 weeks, and fracture union was assessed. Treatment was not standardized, and ranged from an elastic bandage to a non-weightbearing cast for 6 weeks. Recurrent sprain of the ipsilateral ankle was surveyed by a review of the medical record and the questionnaire that was sent to the patients regularly. Furthermore, patients were divided into 3 groups: patients with no avulsion fracture, fracture union, and fracture nonunion. The rates of recurrent sprain were compared among the groups using the chi-square test and multiple comparisons. Results: From April 2014 to August 2015, 144 ankles of 144 patients (53 female and 91 male) with a mean age of 8.8 years underwent the radiographs at the first visit. Recurrent sprain was assessed in 105 (73%) patients with a mean follow-up of 23months. The incidence of distal fibular avulsion fracture was 62% (89/144 patients). The union rate of avulsion fracture was only 17%. The overall rate of recurrent sprain was 32% (34/105 patients). The rates were 45% (5/11) in patients with fracture union and 39% (20/51) in patients with nonunion. These rates were significantly higher than that in patients with no avulsion fracture (21%, 9/43) (P=0.02). However, the rates were similar between patients with fracture union and nonunion. Conclusion: Avulsion fractures of the distal fibula were surprisingly common with ankle sprain in children, and the most of the fractures remained ununited. The rate of recurrent sprain was relatively high at a 23 month follow-up. The presence of avulsion fracture was associated with a higher risk of recurrent sprain, however achieving fracture union did not reduce the risk.

Background:Behçet’s disease (BD) or “Silk Road” disease is a rare multisystemic inflammatory disease of unknown etiology.Vascular involvement manifested as thrombosis, arterial aneurysm, and occlusion can carry a high mortality risk. BD can be a diagnostic conundrum with its broad array of clinical presentations.Objectives:Identifying vasculo-Behçet’s disease and its management.Methods:A 25-year-old man born in Malaysia and known for cirrhosis due to idiopathic Budd Chiari syndrome presented to the emergency room with a transient ischemic attack. An inferior vena cava (IVC) occlusive thrombus and a patent foramen ovale (PFO) were discovered. Thrombolysis, angioplasty, PFO closure, and a transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) procedure were performed. The following year, the patient experienced numerous IVC and TIPS-associated thromboses as well as a right atrial thrombus attached to his PFO closure device, all of which were refractory to anticoagulation. A few months later, the patient suffered from an acute right anterior cerebral artery stroke, with no etiology uncovered at the time. It was later determined that the patient had experienced years of recurrent oral and genital aphthae, thereby prompting a strong clinical suspicion of BD. Six months later, after only one appointment at the rheumatology clinic during which he was prescribed colchicine, the patient presented to the hospital with hemoptysis. A computed tomography (CT) pulmonary angiogram revealed a right lower lobar pulmonary arterial aneurysm with a peripheral thrombus, a right bronchial artery dilatation, and pulmonary emboli. The patient declined anticoagulation and was sent home. Two months later, he returned to the hospital, this time with hematemesis. A repeat CT pulmonary angiogram was performed and showed an increasing pulmonary emboli burden and an enlarging aneurysm. A thrombophilia workup was negative.Results:A diagnosis of BD with pulmonary aneurysms was made and treatment was initiated with methylprednisolone pulses and monthly intravenous cyclophosphamide as recommended by the European League Against Rheumatism. A month later, there was radiological evidence of significant improvement in the burden of pulmonary emboli, an interval decrease in the aneurysm’s diameter, and resolution of the right atrial thrombus.Conclusion:BD with vascular involvement or vasculo-Behçet’s disease can affect small, medium, and large vessels of both the venous and arterial vasculatures and is thought to originate from vessel wall inflammation.Thrombi in vasculo-Behçet’s disease are typically quite adherent to the vessel walls and tend not to embolize. In this case, pulmonary arterial thrombosis burden was significantly decreased after immunosuppression alone, favoring a diagnosis of in situ thrombosis rather then thromboembolism. Moreover, pulmonary artery aneurysm, Budd-Chiari syndrome, and vena cava thrombosis, which are quite uncommon and carry the highest mortality risk in vasculo-Behçet’s, were all present in this case. Early recognition can be life-saving as immunosuppression is the first-line therapy rather than anticoagulation, which carries a significant risk of pulmonary hemorrhage in the presence of a pulmonary artery aneurysm.References:[1]Seyahi, E., Behcet’s disease: How to diagnose and treat vascular involvement. Best Pract Res Clin Rheumatol, 2016. 30(2): p. 279-295.[2]Hamuryudan, V., et al., Pulmonary artery aneurysms in Behcet syndrome. Am J Med, 2004. 117(11): p. 867-70.[3]Kobayashi, M., et al., Neutrophil and endothelial cell activation in the vasa vasorum in vasculo-Behcet disease. Histopathology, 2000. 36(4): p. 362-71.[4]Seyahi, E. and S. Yurdakul, Behcet’s Syndrome and Thrombosis. Mediterr J Hematol Infect Dis, 2011. 3(1): p. e2011026.[5]Hatemi, G., et al., 2018 update of the EULAR recommendations for the management of Behcet’s syndrome. Ann Rheum Dis, 2018. 77(6): p. 808-818Disclosure of Interests:None declared

De brief heeft van 1917 tot 2017 een merkwaardige geschiedenis gekend met betrekking tot de teksteditie. In deze bijdrage wordt de laatste, wetenschappelijke editie in de Open Brieven (Antwerpen, 2017) gevolgd.Een van de belangrijkste documenten uit de voorgeschiedenis van de brief is het essay 1830-1908, een ongepubliceerde tekst die door Lodewijk Dosfel in februari 1918 te Gent werd uitgegeven. Dit essay openbaart de opvattingen van Verschaeve over natie en staat, geheel verschillend van die van Mercier. De kapelaan volgde hier de Zuid-Afrikaanse generaal uit de Boerenoorlog, Christiaan De Wet, en de Luikse hoogleraar Emile de Laveleye. De voorbereidende stappen tot de brief zijn merkbaar in de dagboekaantekening van 25 januari 1915, gewijd aan de beroemde Patriotisme et Endurance (verzet tegen de Duitsers) en in die van 18 september 1916, over de twee politieke objectieven van Verschaeve: de vernederlandsing van de Gentse universiteit en de inrichting van de bestuurlijke scheiding.De eerste week van augustus 1917 voelde kapelaan Verschaeve zich bedreigd. Hij maakte zich zorgen over het uitblijven van het antwoord van koning Albert I op de Open Brief van 11 juli door de leiding van de Frontbeweging aan de vorst gestuurd en bij de soldaten verspreid. Bovendien was aan de top van de regering De Broqueville een wissel doorgevoerd: het Ministerie van Oorlog kwam in handen van Armand De Ceuninck, een hardvochtig generaal. Verschaeve vreesde het ergste voor hem en voor de soldaten.In die omstandigheden nam hij het initiatief om op eigen houtje een (tweede) open brief aan de koning te schrijven en een oud plan uit te voeren: een brief gericht aan paus Benedictus XV en een aan kardinaal-aartsbisschop Désiré Mercier.In het eerste deel van zijn brief sprak de kapelaan zijn grote bewondering uit voor de kardinaal en zijn verzet tegen de Duitse overweldiger. Vervolgens herinnerde hij aan de homilie van 21 juli 1916 in Sint-Goedele te Brussel over de betekenis van de soldaten aan de IJzer: ils sont nos sauveurs. En dat bracht hem vanzelf tot de beklagenswaardige situatie van de Vlaamse piotten, de spanningen in het leger en het repressieve optreden van de overheid. In het tweede deel trok Verschaeve scherp van leer tegen de aartsbisschoppelijke maatregel, met betrekking tot het activisme, de Duitse maatregel voor de vernederlandsing van de Gentse universiteit en het doorvoeren van de bestuurlijke scheiding in België en de autonomie van Vlaanderen. Het zijn uitgesproken politieke statements van de kapelaan over de Vlaamse beweging.Met deze brief heeft Verschaeve Mercier willen counteren maar is daar niet in geslaagd. De brief is in oktober 1917 in Londen afgegeven aan de vertegenwoordiger van de kardinaal, Mgr. Antoon De Wachter. Of hij Mechelen heeft bereikt weten we niet. Wel werd de tekst aan het front verspreid. Verschaeve dacht daarbij een keerpunt te bewerkstellingen in de Frontbeweging en in de Vlaamse beweging in het algemeen.__________ “Our situation compels us to speak.” Cyriel Verschaeve’s Letter to Cardinal Mercier, 6 August 1917 From 1917 to 2017, this letter has had a noteworthy publishing history. This article follows the latest, scholarly edition in Open Brieven (“Open Letters”, Antwerp, 2017).One of the most important documents from the prehistory of this letter is the essay 1830-1908, an unpublished text that was issued by Lodewijk Dosfel in February 1918 in Ghent. This essays reveals Verschaeve’s views on nation and state, quite different from those of Mercier. Here, the chaplain follows the Afrikaner Boer War general, Christiaan De Wet, and the Liège university professor Émile de Laveleye. The preparatory steps toward the letter can be gleaned in his journal entry of 25 January 1915, dedicated to the well-known Patriotisme et Endurance (“Patriotism and Endurance”, an address of Mercier’s relating to resistance to the Germans) as well as in the entry pf 18 September 1916, about Verschaeve’s two political objectives: transforming the University of Ghent into a Dutch-speaking institution and establishing administrative separation.In the first week of August 1917, chaplain Verschaeve felt himself to be under threat. He worried about the lack of a response from King Albert I to the Open Letter of 11 July, which had been sent to the sovereign by the leadership of the Front Movement and spread among the soldiers. In addition, a change had recently taken place in the ranks of the De Broqueville government: the War Ministry came into the hands of Armand De Ceuninck, a stern general. Verschaeve now feared the worst for himself and for his soldiers.In these circumstances, he took the initiative on his own accord to write a (second) Open Letter to the king and to put an old plan into action: a letter to be sent to Pope Benedict XV and Cardinal-Archbishop Désiré Mercier.In the first half of his letter, the chaplain spoke of his great admiration for the cardinal and his resistance to the German usurper. Subsequently, he remembered the homily of 21 July 1916 at the Cathedral of Saint Gudula about the soldiers on the Yser: “they are our saviours”. This brought him right to the pitiable situation of the Flemish infantrymen, the tensions in the army and the repressive conduct of the government. In the second half, Verschaeve very angrily attacked the archbishop’s attitudes on topics such as Activism, the German measures for the transformation of the University of Ghent and the implementation of administrative separation in Belgium and autonomy for Flanders. These were outspoken political statements from the chaplain about the Flemish Movement.Verschaeve had wanted to counter Mercier but did not succeed in doing so. In October 1917, the letter was handed to the representative of the cardinal, Mgr. Antoon De Wachter. It is unknown whether it made it to Mechelen. The text was, however, spread at the front. In doing so, Verschaeve intended to bring about a turning point in the Front Movement and in the Flemish Movement in general.

Abstract (Introduction) Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria (PNH) is a rare but life-threatening stem cell disease caused by expansion of PIGA mutated clone(s). PIGA mutation abolishes the expression of GPI-anchored proteins on the cell surface including CD55 and CD59 which protect red blood cells from complement attack, resulting in complement-mediated destruction of PNH erythrocytes. Eculizumab (Ecu) effectively ameliorates the intravascular hemolysis in PNH patients by blocking complement C5 in the terminal pathway. We previously reported that 3-4 % of the Japanese patients did not respond to Ecu due to C5 polymorphism c.2654G>A (predicting p.Arg885His) and one Argentina patient with similar but different polymorphism c.2653C>T (predicting p.Arg885Cys) (N Engl J Med 370:632, 2014). Since then, we have received various consults regarding poor response cases and requests for analysis from around the world. Here, we summarize the latest series of analyses in C5 polymorphisms and propose optimal management based on these findings. (Method) Once poor response to Ecu, defined as sustained high serum LDH, was suspected with sustained high serum LDH level, peripheral blood samples with clinical data were sent to our institute after obtaining patients' informed consent. DNA was extracted from the samples, and the hot spot of C5 polymorphisms at exon 21 was sequenced by Sanger method. If no polymorphism was identified, all 41 exons of C5 were sequenced. (Results) At the initial publication (2014), 11 cases of c.2654G>A were identified out of 345 PNH patients (3.2%). As of July, 2018, a total of 22 patients were identified among roughly 600 patients treated with Ecu in Japan (3.7%). To determine the distribution of the polymorphism, a DNA panel containing 120 Han Chinese persons were previously screened, and one had the polymorphism. The same C5 polymorphism was newly identified in one among 89 patients treated with Ecu in Korea. A similar polymorphism c.2653C>T (predicting p.Arg885Cys) was also previously identified in an Argentina patient. Another polymorphism c.2653C>A (predicting p.Arg885Ser) was identified in a Dutch patient. Furthermore, a novel mutation c.2422 G>A (predicting p.Val 808 Ile) was found in a poor responder in Israel, and currently under functional analyses. (Discussion) In PNH patients treated with Ecu, serum LDH level usually drops importantly after the first loading dose, and mostly comes to upper limit of normal range after second or third loading dose. If the serum LDH level remains high, poor response should be considered. CH50 is usually not detected in Ecu responsive patients, so monitoring of CH50 level is critical to evaluate the responsiveness to Ecu. Once poor response is suspected, hot spot of exon 21 should initially be sequenced, and then the whole 41 exons of C5 may need to be sequenced. c.2654G>A was found among Han Chinese in our previous study, so it is reasonable that a Korean case had the same polymorphism considering the geography. Surprisingly, a Caucasian case with the same polymorphism has been reported (Blood Advances 1:1254, 2017) in addition to the Dutch case, underlining the importance of poor responsiveness due to polymorphisms (p.Arg885) even outside of Asia. We previously reported that Coversin, a C5 inhibitor derived from tick saliva protein, blocked hemolysis in vitro using the serum from the patients with c.2654G>A, and it was reported that post-transplant thrombotic microangiopathy was successfully treated with Coversin for the patient with the polymorphism (Blood Advances 1:1254, 2017). C5 inhibitors targeting a different epitope or having different mechanisms from Ecu as well as other upcoming complement inhibitors targeting Factor D or C3 are expected to benefit patients with C5 polymorphism and resistance to Ecu. Further analyses and clinical trials may pave the way to a second generation anti-complement drug to treat PNH patients. Figure. Figure. Disclosures Ueda: Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Honoraria, Research Funding. Muus:Akari Therapeutics: Consultancy. Lee:Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding. Nishimura:Chugai Pharmaceuticals: Consultancy, Research Funding; Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding. Kanakura:Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding.

It was on the night of the 11th August 1914, when news of a great war in Europe reached us at Mbua2 (a town in the South Cameroons, about nine weeks or more from Duala,3 (or Kribbi) and that preparations were being made between the allied forces of the British and French for a war with the Germans in the Cameroons. Being a native of Cape Coast and a British subject employed in an English factory,4 it occurred to me that I would fare badly at the hands of either the German soldiers or the natives should this news be authentic. The inevitable trend of events was evident if war really broke out, the natives being mostly cannibals, would attack all aliens, irrespective of race or colour and eat their flesh before any assistance from the German Government could be obtained. My agent was stationed at Njassi,5 four days from Mbua, and until I heard from him, my sole duty was to remain at my place. There was hardly any signs of agitation noticeable in Mbua between the 12th and 14th August, but on the 15th August, but on the 15th the natives could be seen running hither and thither, with spears in their hands, removing their belongings to the bush, mysteriously disappearing and returning in a similar manner, with a seeming stern resolve to finally eradicate all foreigners. These wild ignorant people had long waited for this with wariness, and nothing could afford them a better chance than such an event. In a short time the whole country was thrown into a state of commotion so that by the 18th instant no woman or child could be seen in the town of Mbua except the men who appear and disappear concocting dangerous schemes, with surprising secrecy. Besides myself in Mbua there were the following clerks: two Kwitta6 clerks with 26 yard boys, five Cameroon native clerks with 30 yard boys and two Gabon clerks with 6 yard boys. I had ten yard boys. All these people were concerned with the safety of their stores and preparing some means of defence, should the natives attack us. On the 20th August I received a note from my boss intimating that he had been arrested by the German authorities, and his stores commandeered and, that sooner or later, a similar treatment would be meted out to me, so I closed up my accounts, and gave up myself to contemplation of the future. The natives in the meantime, were blackmailing and marauding traders in the outlying villages, but hesitated to take any other important steps. The reason assigned to this, apparently was they were waiting till the German forces had passed to meet the French troops, who were proceeding from Molando Nola7 etc. News reached us of the doings of the natives at Ndelele,8 Bisom, Deligoni9 etc, and it made the heart quail to see thousands of loads of goods, stores, etc and several traders passing down to Dume10 station to seek refuge. One by one my boys deserted me, until by the 23rd August only three remained with me, ultimately even these three boys would not remain in the yard, and I was left alone with the arduous task of looking after the factory which contained goods to the amount of over £2000. Grim despair stared me in the face, and I lost my equilibrium for want of sleep. During the day, I took snatches of sleep, and at nights I kept watch and took precaution to safe guard myself against an attack from the natives. Several petty stores in Mbua were plundered by the natives; on the 26th August the German troops passed. An appeal for protection was made by all the traders to the German officers, but they were told to take care of themselves. The natives fled to the bush on the arrival of the German troops, and the German officers incensed at this action, ordered their houses to be burnt down, and their cattle seized. Next day the troops proceeded on their way. Nothing of importance happened to break the tension that ensued between the 26th and 28th but on the 30th but on the 30th on a dark and chilly night, I was awakened from a reverie by a slight noise at the back of the store. Being prepared for any emergency of the kind I took a large cudgel and cautiously walked to the back of the house whence the sound proceeded. As I anticipated, a man was strenuously working to force an entrance into the store. Near him lay a battle axe and other dangerous implements, and at the sight of me, he rose and taking a heavy stone flung it at me. It hit me forcibly on the knee, and inflicted a most excruciating pain, suppressing a groan I sprang at him, and dealt him a heavy blow with my cudgel. He staggered back but closed up with me again. I threw away the cudgel and in a moment we were engaged in a deadly contest. Nothing could be more horrible than the deadly means with which he sought to overcome me. He was a heavy man but by no means a good fighter. He hit out viciously, desperately but aimlessly, while I concentrated every effort to bring him to the ground. We swayed together, to and fro, locked in a tight embrace, but with an ability, which I afterwards failed to conceive, I wrenched myself from him and dealt him a blow right above the abdomen. With a loud yell he turned and fled. Pursuit was useless, so gathering up his tools, I took them to the house and repaired the damage which he had done to my store. Since then I was wont to be more vigilant than ever. Friends far and near, urged upon me to escape, giving as their reasons, that I was a British subject and working for an English firm. At first, I seriously considered their advice, but on maturer consideration, I deemed it imprudent to go away and leave the store unguarded. So I determined to stay through thick and thin. I may here cite one remarkable letter which I received in connection with this matter. It ran thus:- ‘Don’t be a silly ass and say your sense of duty forces you to stay and protect your store. You know how unreasonable the Germans are, and what would be your fate, should you fall into their hands. Your only chance lies in escaping, and I believe the greatest crime one can commit against nature is to be obstinate and refuse a chance in the face of a disaster. You are committing that offence now, and your guardian angel may be looking down upon you with pity and contempt for your act of folly. For goodness sake go, and may luck attend you.' To this and other subsequent letters I briefly replied thanking the writers for their advice and stating that I considered it injudicious to act upon them. One by one all the traders removed from Mbua, so that by the end of August only three important stores remained, including mine. About the 11th September, I received another note from my boss intimating that he was being sent down to Ajoa,11th September, I received another note from my boss intimating that he was being sent down to Ajoa,11 as a prisoner of war, by the Germans, and that I should follow at once. I dare not go, without the sanction of the German Government and I wrote to say so. On the 22nd September, however, a German official with three soldiers arrived to commandeer my store. This official first asked for the key of the safe which I handed to him. When I called his attention to the goods in the store, he said the best thing he could think of was to set fire to the goods, and put me inside to burn with them. ‘Dem be shit cargo, and I no get no time for count dem!’ he said, and then with a vehemence which alarmed me, this great German cursed me, the English, and everything connected with the English, and emphasised his words by kicking the breakable articles in the store. This caused me to giggle, but unfortunately he looked up and saw me in this act, and after that he administered heavy blows and kicks to me, he ordered the soldiers to bind me up, and keep me in custody. I soon found myself in the hands of these unscrupulous soldiers, whose cruelty was proverbial throughout South Cameroons. All day they goaded me to pain and anger. They were indeed painfully jocular; they tickled me, pelted at me with stones, ordered me to lick the dirty soles of their boots, and to do all sorts of un-nameable things. The officer stood by in calm indifference to my sufferings; my mute anger grew till I felt I must choke; an innocent person kept in captivity for the populace to stare at, might feel as I felt. These torments continued all day and the least reluctance on my part to comply with their requests was rewarded with whips and kicks. In addition to this, the cord with which I was bound gnawed into my flesh and inflicted a pain beyond description. I cried aloud in my agony for forbearance and the louder I cried out the more the soldiers jeered at me. Gradually I lost consciousness, and then all became still blackness. When I recovered consciousness, the German officer was bending over me, and I was unbound. My hands were very much swollen; this officer, after a short reproof full of venomous invectives handed me a passport to Ajoa, and ordered me to provision myself for the journey, I made up two loads and that very night I left Mbua with my boys.12 Great was my thankfulness to God for my wonderful deliverance from a torturing death, and from the hands of these wicked people, and as I repeated the ‘magnificat’ the only song of thankfulness that I could think of at the moment I said my last farewell to Mbua.

Shainool Jiwa’s The Rise of a Muslim Empire is a two-volume historical work on the legacy of the Fatimid Empire. The first volume surveys the religious and sociopolitical underpinnings of Fatimid rule from its North African establishment in 909 to its transition to Egypt in 969. Jiwa’s second vol- ume focuses on the pinnacle of Fatimid society up until its decline from 969-1171. This review pertains to the first of the two volumes. Working within this phase, Jiwa details the reigns of the first four Imams: ‘Abd Allāh al-Mahdī, Abū’l-Qāsim Muḥammad, Ismāʿīl al-Manṣūr, and al-Muʿizz li- Dīn Allāh. The second book, which is titled The Fatimid Rule from Egypt, discusses the latter ten Imams (4). The first chapter covers the origins of the Fatimids in respect to both religious and geographical contexts. Jiwa starts by providing the historical background of Ismaili Shiism. Here, everything from the succession crisis of 632 CE to the emergence of the different strands of Shiism are discussed. Jiwa describes the Ismaili sect as having held Ismāʿīl, the eldest son of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, to have been the chosen successor of his father, therefore mak- ing him Imam. Ismāʿīl’s ephemeral mortality caused for the Imamate to then pass over to his young son, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, eponym of the sect (10). The Twelvers are described as having believed in the Imamate of Jaʿfar’s youngest son, Mūsā, whose lineage gives root to the Imams of Twelver Shiism. Jiwa characterizes Ismaili beliefs as having rested on dawr al-satr (period of concealment) and daʿwa (religio-political mission) (11). The dawr al-satr refers to the Imams going into hiding with only their most trusted followers knowing their true identities. Subsequently, these follow- ers promoted the recognition of these hidden Imams, which in large part refers to daʿwa (the act of inviting). Jiwa explains that during dawr al-satr (765–909 CE) Ismaili doctrine had spread as far as from Yemen to Ifriqiya (modern-day Tunisia and eastern Algeria) (12), with its most prominent adherents being the Kutama Berbers of North Africa. Under the teachings of Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Shīʿī, a pronounced Ismaili dāʿī (inviter), the Kutama had aspired to establish the dawlat al-ḥaqq (the righteous state) (16). This aspiration materialized under the allegiance of ‘Abd Allāh al-Mahdī who had been pronounced as Imam by his predecessor and later recognized as the mahdī (messianic figure) (20). This belief, nonetheless, was not accepted by all Ismailis, particularly those following Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ, who later came to be known as the Qaramiṭa (21). Sa- lamiyya (a town located in Syria), the town where ‘Abd Allāh al-Mahdī had resided, became unsafe due to Abbasid persecution, causing the Imam to migrate to various locations and eventually Sijilmasa (22). Meanwhile, the Kutama had grown to such a force that they had been able to seize control over Qayrawān of North Africa under the leadership of al-Shīʿī (22). When al-Mahdī was later arrested in Sijilmasa and the news spread to the Kuta- ma, a campaign of soldiers marched to secure his release and bring him to Qayrawān. Having accomplished this, the Fatimid State came into fruition (22). Jiwa provides sources detailing the events which led up to the Fatim- id establishment, including eyewitness accounts from Jaʿfar al-Ḥājib’s Sīrat Jaʿfar al-Ḥājib, secondary sources such as Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Naysābūrī’s Istitār al-Imām (‘The Concealment of the Imam’), and other historical works such as the influential Iftitāh al-daʿwa wa-ibtidāʿ al-dawla (‘Com- mencement of the Mission and the Beginnings of the State’) authored by Abū Ḥanīfa al-Nuʿmān (29-30). These references help readers pinpoint who was instrumental in recording Fatimid history. In chapter two, Jiwa discusses the establishment of the Fatimid state, giving details of its institutions, processes, and hallmark locations. Al-Mah- dī is seen to have incorporated officials who had previously served the Aghlabids (the previous rulers of Qayrawān). In addition, institutions such as maẓālim (oppressive acts) courts are discussed as having been estab- lished to provide redress for ordinary civilians against abuses of power (35). During this time of development, dissension amongst the Kutama is seen to have imploded on the basis of marginalized sentiments. Once having been one of the most loyal dāʿīs to al-Mahdī, al-Shīʿī had led a rebellion against his former Imam on charges of being a false mahdī. Ultimately this campaign was pacified, resulting in the execution of al Shīʿī. This chapter also reveals new characters who later became prominent figures in Fatimid history. The heir apparent or Prince Abū’l-Qāsim Muḥammad, the eldest son of al-Mahdī, already took up much of his father’s duties while his own son, Ismāʿīl or al-Manṣūr bi’llāh (‘the One Who is Victorious by God’) was entrusted by the sitting Imam, al-Mahdī (his grandfather), as his most faithful confidant (39). The port city of al-Mahdiyya which had been con- structed by the Fatimids in 916 is described as having been unique in its architectural design and strategic in its location. Al-Mahdiyya served as the new Mediterranean capital and had secured the Fatimids a booming com mercial fabric. Similarly, the city of Palermo in Sicily had been occupied by the Fatimids and had also brought a great deal of cultural exchange and goods. Jiwa brings out images of palaces and charts out maps of the port city to provide visual comprehension of the architecture. Chapter three surveys the reign of al-Manṣūr, discussing his ascension to power under fraught circumstances and his construction of a new city. This chapter focuses attention on the reconstruction of Palermo in vivid archaeological detail. Readers are informed of the Khariji rebellion from Ifrīqiya spearheaded by Abū Yazīd al-Nukkarī. The Kharijis are described to have been insurmountable by the Fatimids, pushing their Empire as far back as to the Mediterranean coast of al-Mahdiyya (60). It was not until al-Ḥasan b. ‘Alī al-Kalbī, the governor of Tunis, and his army pushed back against the Kharijis that the North African coastland would be recaptured (61). Despite this, the Kharijis were too difficult to overcome and remained at conflict with the Fatimids up until the death of Abū’l-Qāsim. Fearful that news of Abū’l-Qāsim’s death would puncture the morale of the Fatimid war effort, al-Manṣūr had managed to keep the news of his father’s passing silent. After an eventful encounter, al-Manṣūr would eventually go on to defeat Abū Yazīd’s army and restore Fatimid rule. Following this victory, al-Manṣūr began taking restorative measures to recover the now war-torn society. Socially considerate policies such as charity stipends, the appoint- ment of a Sunni-based Maliki judge, and omission of taxes were all strides in this effort. But the most significant of his developments was the con- struction of a new capital called Manṣūriyya. Much of this city’s structural inspiration came from the North African ancient ruins al-Manṣūr had been enchanted by (68). Jiwa’s training as a historian is evident in how she cites primary sources every chance she gets, from sermons to testimonies. Clos- ing this chapter, Jiwa provides an anecdote recorded by al-Nuʿmān which romantically relays the moment al-Manṣūr knew that his son, al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, was ready to ascend to power (77). Jiwa’s anecdotes connect the reader to the ethos of Fatimid personalities. Chapter four delves into the reign of al-Manṣūr’s heir, al-Muʿizz (953- 75), who came into conflict with both the Umayyads and the Byzantines during his reign and would later live out his final days in his new capital, al-Qāhira al-Muʿizziya (‘the Victorious City of al-Muʿizz’)—modern-day Cairo (78). Beyond the royal family, Jiwa presents key stalwarts that the Em- pire was indebted to. Once servant to al-Mahdī, Jawhar, who was of Slavic origin, had risen through the ranks (serving both as scribe and commander in battle), eventually being entrusted with many honorable state positions. This chapter is the longest one of the book and attempts to accomplish many things. Along with discussing the battles which ensued during this juncture, Jiwa also fleshes out the theology of Ismaili beliefs. Al-Nuʿmān is said to have written extensively on the topic—including his text written between 958 and 960, Daʿā’im al-Islām (‘Pillars of Islam’), which delineates such fundamental concepts to Ismaili theology as walāya (allegiance and obedience), īmān (faith), ẓāhir (exoteric), and bāṭin (esoteric) (88-89). The early Fatimid age is described as having been a milieu of knowledge seek- ing, with debates and lectures taking place on a frequent basis. Through the majālis (teaching sessions) program, the Ismaili doctrine would proliferate to the broader society. Jiwa’s text is filled with firsthand accounts which describe Fatimid institutions, ceremonies, and events, providing vivid pic- tures of what is being described (e.g., al-Nuʿmān’s description of the grand circumcision ceremony hosted in 962 and Ibn Haytham’s description of the diversity of attendees and tailoring of lessons in the majālis by teach- ers such as Aflaḥ b. Hārūn al-Mālūsī, 95). The tension between the Uma- yyads in Spain and the Fatimids is also presented in this chapter, depicted as stemming from their varying loyalties in the rivalry between ‘Alī b. Abī Ṭālib and Muʿāwiya. The coastal regions of the Mediterranean and North Africa would see many conflicts between the Fatimids and Umayyads; the Umayyads and the Byzantines worked together to suppress their Fatimid adversary, with the Byzantines launching campaigns on the parts of the Empire closest to Sicily while the Umayyads attacked the most western part. After briefly losing parts of their North African territories, the Fatimids eventually reasserted their control over the Maghrib, leaving the Umayyads no choice but to resort to a peace treaty (103). The Ismaili daʿwā reached far and wide, with its message gaining adherents from the Gulf of Yemen to as far as Sind. Jiwa also describes the Kalbid dynasty of Fatimid Sicily, which had come under the governorship of al-Ḥasan al-Kalbī. During this period (960-65), Sicily had been the site of intense warfare between the Fatimids and the Byzantines, with two distinct battles resulting in the most pivotal outcomes for the region, namely the Pit and the Straits (119). Like the Umayyads, the Byzantines would also later come to negotiate terms of peace with the Fatimids in 958 (116). Chapter five speaks to the venture the Fatimids made into Egypt in 966. Here, readers are presented with the terms acknowledged by local nobles such as Sharīf Abū Jaʿfar Muslim al-Ḥusaynī and the Fatimids, the founding of the new capital (al-Qāhira), and the relocation of al-Muʿizz along with a significant portion of the Manṣūriyyan population in 972. The chapter serves as both a close to the book and a cliffhanger for the second volume of the series (which turns to Fatimid rule in Egypt under the son of al-Muʿizz, Niẓār b. al-Muʿizz). Capturing the cohesive religious fabric of Fatimid rule, Jiwa notes that al-Muʿizz pledged to maintain Sunni religious life while ruling over Egypt (126); she describes pillars of Sunni Islam that can serve as points of contrast to the Ismaili tradition (127). Individuals who can justly be seen as archetypes of the Fatimid intel- ligentsia are referenced both biographically and through their works. Jiwa introduces her readers to eminent characters including missionaries like Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī of Khurāsān (d. after 971); writers and thinkers who composed the Fatimid ideology such as Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān; poets who gave inspiration such as Muḥammad b. Hānī; and generals who rendered their lives for the Fatimid Empire such as al-Ḥasan b. ‘Ali al-Kalbī. Although some readers may be frustrated by the detail of jumping back and forth across names, dates, and events, those who are able to follow the work the- matically will certainly find this work to be nothing short of informative. Jiwa impressively condenses a rich and fluid history into few pages while including the most essential elements, people, and institutions making up this period. Readers are provided with visual aids (maps, family tree charts, and city maps) to help identify and locations and structures which would otherwise come off as abstract and jargon-heavy. In addition, she includes colorful images of important monuments such as mosques, coins, and ar- tifacts. Ameen OmarMA, Islamic Studies & HistoryThe George Washington University

Shainool Jiwa’s The Rise of a Muslim Empire is a two-volume historical work on the legacy of the Fatimid Empire. The first volume surveys the religious and sociopolitical underpinnings of Fatimid rule from its North African establishment in 909 to its transition to Egypt in 969. Jiwa’s second vol- ume focuses on the pinnacle of Fatimid society up until its decline from 969-1171. This review pertains to the first of the two volumes. Working within this phase, Jiwa details the reigns of the first four Imams: ‘Abd Allāh al-Mahdī, Abū’l-Qāsim Muḥammad, Ismāʿīl al-Manṣūr, and al-Muʿizz li- Dīn Allāh. The second book, which is titled The Fatimid Rule from Egypt, discusses the latter ten Imams (4). The first chapter covers the origins of the Fatimids in respect to both religious and geographical contexts. Jiwa starts by providing the historical background of Ismaili Shiism. Here, everything from the succession crisis of 632 CE to the emergence of the different strands of Shiism are discussed. Jiwa describes the Ismaili sect as having held Ismāʿīl, the eldest son of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, to have been the chosen successor of his father, therefore mak- ing him Imam. Ismāʿīl’s ephemeral mortality caused for the Imamate to then pass over to his young son, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, eponym of the sect (10). The Twelvers are described as having believed in the Imamate of Jaʿfar’s youngest son, Mūsā, whose lineage gives root to the Imams of Twelver Shiism. Jiwa characterizes Ismaili beliefs as having rested on dawr al-satr (period of concealment) and daʿwa (religio-political mission) (11). The dawr al-satr refers to the Imams going into hiding with only their most trusted followers knowing their true identities. Subsequently, these follow- ers promoted the recognition of these hidden Imams, which in large part refers to daʿwa (the act of inviting). Jiwa explains that during dawr al-satr (765–909 CE) Ismaili doctrine had spread as far as from Yemen to Ifriqiya (modern-day Tunisia and eastern Algeria) (12), with its most prominent adherents being the Kutama Berbers of North Africa. Under the teachings of Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Shīʿī, a pronounced Ismaili dāʿī (inviter), the Kutama had aspired to establish the dawlat al-ḥaqq (the righteous state) (16). This aspiration materialized under the allegiance of ‘Abd Allāh al-Mahdī who had been pronounced as Imam by his predecessor and later recognized as the mahdī (messianic figure) (20). This belief, nonetheless, was not accepted by all Ismailis, particularly those following Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ, who later came to be known as the Qaramiṭa (21). Sa- lamiyya (a town located in Syria), the town where ‘Abd Allāh al-Mahdī had resided, became unsafe due to Abbasid persecution, causing the Imam to migrate to various locations and eventually Sijilmasa (22). Meanwhile, the Kutama had grown to such a force that they had been able to seize control over Qayrawān of North Africa under the leadership of al-Shīʿī (22). When al-Mahdī was later arrested in Sijilmasa and the news spread to the Kuta- ma, a campaign of soldiers marched to secure his release and bring him to Qayrawān. Having accomplished this, the Fatimid State came into fruition (22). Jiwa provides sources detailing the events which led up to the Fatim- id establishment, including eyewitness accounts from Jaʿfar al-Ḥājib’s Sīrat Jaʿfar al-Ḥājib, secondary sources such as Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Naysābūrī’s Istitār al-Imām (‘The Concealment of the Imam’), and other historical works such as the influential Iftitāh al-daʿwa wa-ibtidāʿ al-dawla (‘Com- mencement of the Mission and the Beginnings of the State’) authored by Abū Ḥanīfa al-Nuʿmān (29-30). These references help readers pinpoint who was instrumental in recording Fatimid history. In chapter two, Jiwa discusses the establishment of the Fatimid state, giving details of its institutions, processes, and hallmark locations. Al-Mah- dī is seen to have incorporated officials who had previously served the Aghlabids (the previous rulers of Qayrawān). In addition, institutions such as maẓālim (oppressive acts) courts are discussed as having been estab- lished to provide redress for ordinary civilians against abuses of power (35). During this time of development, dissension amongst the Kutama is seen to have imploded on the basis of marginalized sentiments. Once having been one of the most loyal dāʿīs to al-Mahdī, al-Shīʿī had led a rebellion against his former Imam on charges of being a false mahdī. Ultimately this campaign was pacified, resulting in the execution of al Shīʿī. This chapter also reveals new characters who later became prominent figures in Fatimid history. The heir apparent or Prince Abū’l-Qāsim Muḥammad, the eldest son of al-Mahdī, already took up much of his father’s duties while his own son, Ismāʿīl or al-Manṣūr bi’llāh (‘the One Who is Victorious by God’) was entrusted by the sitting Imam, al-Mahdī (his grandfather), as his most faithful confidant (39). The port city of al-Mahdiyya which had been con- structed by the Fatimids in 916 is described as having been unique in its architectural design and strategic in its location. Al-Mahdiyya served as the new Mediterranean capital and had secured the Fatimids a booming com mercial fabric. Similarly, the city of Palermo in Sicily had been occupied by the Fatimids and had also brought a great deal of cultural exchange and goods. Jiwa brings out images of palaces and charts out maps of the port city to provide visual comprehension of the architecture. Chapter three surveys the reign of al-Manṣūr, discussing his ascension to power under fraught circumstances and his construction of a new city. This chapter focuses attention on the reconstruction of Palermo in vivid archaeological detail. Readers are informed of the Khariji rebellion from Ifrīqiya spearheaded by Abū Yazīd al-Nukkarī. The Kharijis are described to have been insurmountable by the Fatimids, pushing their Empire as far back as to the Mediterranean coast of al-Mahdiyya (60). It was not until al-Ḥasan b. ‘Alī al-Kalbī, the governor of Tunis, and his army pushed back against the Kharijis that the North African coastland would be recaptured (61). Despite this, the Kharijis were too difficult to overcome and remained at conflict with the Fatimids up until the death of Abū’l-Qāsim. Fearful that news of Abū’l-Qāsim’s death would puncture the morale of the Fatimid war effort, al-Manṣūr had managed to keep the news of his father’s passing silent. After an eventful encounter, al-Manṣūr would eventually go on to defeat Abū Yazīd’s army and restore Fatimid rule. Following this victory, al-Manṣūr began taking restorative measures to recover the now war-torn society. Socially considerate policies such as charity stipends, the appoint- ment of a Sunni-based Maliki judge, and omission of taxes were all strides in this effort. But the most significant of his developments was the con- struction of a new capital called Manṣūriyya. Much of this city’s structural inspiration came from the North African ancient ruins al-Manṣūr had been enchanted by (68). Jiwa’s training as a historian is evident in how she cites primary sources every chance she gets, from sermons to testimonies. Clos- ing this chapter, Jiwa provides an anecdote recorded by al-Nuʿmān which romantically relays the moment al-Manṣūr knew that his son, al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, was ready to ascend to power (77). Jiwa’s anecdotes connect the reader to the ethos of Fatimid personalities. Chapter four delves into the reign of al-Manṣūr’s heir, al-Muʿizz (953- 75), who came into conflict with both the Umayyads and the Byzantines during his reign and would later live out his final days in his new capital, al-Qāhira al-Muʿizziya (‘the Victorious City of al-Muʿizz’)—modern-day Cairo (78). Beyond the royal family, Jiwa presents key stalwarts that the Em- pire was indebted to. Once servant to al-Mahdī, Jawhar, who was of Slavic origin, had risen through the ranks (serving both as scribe and commander in battle), eventually being entrusted with many honorable state positions. This chapter is the longest one of the book and attempts to accomplish many things. Along with discussing the battles which ensued during this juncture, Jiwa also fleshes out the theology of Ismaili beliefs. Al-Nuʿmān is said to have written extensively on the topic—including his text written between 958 and 960, Daʿā’im al-Islām (‘Pillars of Islam’), which delineates such fundamental concepts to Ismaili theology as walāya (allegiance and obedience), īmān (faith), ẓāhir (exoteric), and bāṭin (esoteric) (88-89). The early Fatimid age is described as having been a milieu of knowledge seek- ing, with debates and lectures taking place on a frequent basis. Through the majālis (teaching sessions) program, the Ismaili doctrine would proliferate to the broader society. Jiwa’s text is filled with firsthand accounts which describe Fatimid institutions, ceremonies, and events, providing vivid pic- tures of what is being described (e.g., al-Nuʿmān’s description of the grand circumcision ceremony hosted in 962 and Ibn Haytham’s description of the diversity of attendees and tailoring of lessons in the majālis by teach- ers such as Aflaḥ b. Hārūn al-Mālūsī, 95). The tension between the Uma- yyads in Spain and the Fatimids is also presented in this chapter, depicted as stemming from their varying loyalties in the rivalry between ‘Alī b. Abī Ṭālib and Muʿāwiya. The coastal regions of the Mediterranean and North Africa would see many conflicts between the Fatimids and Umayyads; the Umayyads and the Byzantines worked together to suppress their Fatimid adversary, with the Byzantines launching campaigns on the parts of the Empire closest to Sicily while the Umayyads attacked the most western part. After briefly losing parts of their North African territories, the Fatimids eventually reasserted their control over the Maghrib, leaving the Umayyads no choice but to resort to a peace treaty (103). The Ismaili daʿwā reached far and wide, with its message gaining adherents from the Gulf of Yemen to as far as Sind. Jiwa also describes the Kalbid dynasty of Fatimid Sicily, which had come under the governorship of al-Ḥasan al-Kalbī. During this period (960-65), Sicily had been the site of intense warfare between the Fatimids and the Byzantines, with two distinct battles resulting in the most pivotal outcomes for the region, namely the Pit and the Straits (119). Like the Umayyads, the Byzantines would also later come to negotiate terms of peace with the Fatimids in 958 (116). Chapter five speaks to the venture the Fatimids made into Egypt in 966. Here, readers are presented with the terms acknowledged by local nobles such as Sharīf Abū Jaʿfar Muslim al-Ḥusaynī and the Fatimids, the founding of the new capital (al-Qāhira), and the relocation of al-Muʿizz along with a significant portion of the Manṣūriyyan population in 972. The chapter serves as both a close to the book and a cliffhanger for the second volume of the series (which turns to Fatimid rule in Egypt under the son of al-Muʿizz, Niẓār b. al-Muʿizz). Capturing the cohesive religious fabric of Fatimid rule, Jiwa notes that al-Muʿizz pledged to maintain Sunni religious life while ruling over Egypt (126); she describes pillars of Sunni Islam that can serve as points of contrast to the Ismaili tradition (127). Individuals who can justly be seen as archetypes of the Fatimid intel- ligentsia are referenced both biographically and through their works. Jiwa introduces her readers to eminent characters including missionaries like Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī of Khurāsān (d. after 971); writers and thinkers who composed the Fatimid ideology such as Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān; poets who gave inspiration such as Muḥammad b. Hānī; and generals who rendered their lives for the Fatimid Empire such as al-Ḥasan b. ‘Ali al-Kalbī. Although some readers may be frustrated by the detail of jumping back and forth across names, dates, and events, those who are able to follow the work the- matically will certainly find this work to be nothing short of informative. Jiwa impressively condenses a rich and fluid history into few pages while including the most essential elements, people, and institutions making up this period. Readers are provided with visual aids (maps, family tree charts, and city maps) to help identify and locations and structures which would otherwise come off as abstract and jargon-heavy. In addition, she includes colorful images of important monuments such as mosques, coins, and ar- tifacts. Ameen OmarMA, Islamic Studies & HistoryThe George Washington University

On and around the first anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center, the world's press made full use of ‘9/11’ (also the national emergency telephone number in the US). The symbolism of number/divider/number has not replaced either ‘September 11’ or ‘Sept. 11’, but added to them by giving the date a special resonance. It may yet become the key name for the whole horrific series of events.

The whole problem of speaking about the end…is that you have to speak of what lies beyond the end and also, at the same time, of the impossibility of ending. Jean Baudrillard, The Illusion of the End(110) Jean Baudrillard’s insights into finality demonstrate that “ends” always prompt cultures to speculate on what can or will happen after these terminations and to fear those traumatic ends, in which the impossible actually occurs, may only be the beginning of chaos. In the absence of “rational” explanations for catastrophic ends and in the whirlwind of emotional responses that are their after-effects, the search for beginnings and origins – the antitheses of Baudrillard’s finality – characterises human response to tragedy. Strangely, Baudrillard’s engagement with the end is linked to an articulation predicated on our ability “to speak” events into existence, to conjure and to bridle those events in terms of recognisable, linear, and logical arrangements of words. Calling this verbal ordering “the poetry of initial conditions” (Baudrillard 113) in which memory imposes a structure so that the chaotic/catastrophic may be studied and its elements may be compared, Baudrillard suggests that this poetry “fascinates” because “we no longer possess a vision of final conditions” (113). The images of contemporary catastrophes and their subsequent visualisation serve as the ultimate reminders that we, as viewers and survivors, were not there – that visualisation itself involves a necessary distance between the horrified viewer and the viewed horror. In the case of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre, the need to “be there,” to experience vicariously a trauma as similarly as possible to those who later became its victims, perhaps explains why images of the planes first slamming into each of the towers were played and repeated ad nauseam. As Baudrillard suggests, “it would be interesting to know whether…effects persist in the absence of causes … whether something can exist apart from any origin and reference” (111). The ongoing search for these causes – particularly in the case of the World Trade Centre’s obliteration – has manifested itself in a persistent cycle of image production and consumption, prompting those images to serve as the visible/visual join between our own survival and the lost lives of the attacks or as surrogates for those whose death we could not witness. These images frequently allowed the West to legitimise its mourning, served as the road map by which we could (re-)explore the halcyon days prior to September 11, and provided the evidence needed for collective retribution. Ultimately, images served as the fictive embodiments of unseen victims and provided the vehicle by which mourning could be transformed from an isolated act to a shared experience. Visitors on the Rooftop: Visualising Origins and the Moments before Destruction It goes without saying that most have seen the famous photograph of the bundled-up tourist standing on the observation deck of the World Trade Centre with one of the jets ready to strike the tower shortly thereafter (see Figure 1). Though the photograph was deemed a macabre photo-manipulation, it reached thousands of e-mail inboxes almost two weeks following the horrific attacks and led many to ponder excitedly whether this image truly was the “last” image of a pre-September 11 world. Many openly debated why someone would fabricate such an image, yet analysts believe that its creation was a means to heal and to return to the unruffled days prior to September 11, when terrorism was thought to be a phenomenon relegated to the “elsewhere” of the Middle East. A Website devoted to the analysis of cultural rumours, Urban Legends, somewhat melodramatically suggested that the photograph resurrects what recovery efforts could not re-construct – a better understanding of the moments before thousands of individuals perished: The online world is fraught with clever photo manipulations that often provoke gales of laughter in those who view them, so we speculate that whoever put together this particular bit of imaging did so purely as a lark. However, presumed lighthearted motives or not, the photo provokes sensations of horror in those who view it. It apparently captures the last fraction of a second of this man’s life ... and also of the final moment of normalcy before the universe changed for all of us. In the blink of an eye, a beautiful yet ordinary fall day was transformed into flames and falling bodies, buildings collapsing inwards on themselves, and wave upon wave of terror washing over a populace wholly unprepared for a war beginning in its midst…The photo ripped away the healing distance brought by the nearly two weeks between the attacks and the appearance of this digital manipulation, leaving the sheer horror of the moment once again raw and bared to the wind. Though the picture wasn’t real, the emotions it stirred up were. It is because of these emotions the photo has sped from inbox to inbox with the speed that it has. (“The Accidental Tourist”) While the photograph does help the viewer recall the times before our fears of terrorism, war, and death were realised, this image does not episodically capture “the last fraction of a second” in a man’s life, nor does it give credibility to the “blink-of-an-eye” shifts between beautiful and battered worlds. The photographic analysis provided by Urban Legends serves as a retrospective means of condensing the space of time in which we must imagine the inevitable suffering of unseen individuals. Yet, the video of the towers, from the initial impacts to their collapse, measured approximately 102 minutes – a massive space of time in which victims surely contemplated escape, the inevitability of escape, the possibility of their death, and, ultimately, the impossibility of their survival (“Remains of a Day” 58). Post-traumatic visualising serves as the basis for constructing the extended horror as instantaneous, a projection that reflects how we hoped the situation might be for those who experienced it, rather than an accurate representation of the lengthy period of time between the beginning and end of the attacks. The photograph of the “accidental tourist” does not subscribe to the usual tenets of photography that suggest the image we see is, to quote W.J.T. Mitchell, “a purely objective transcript of reality” (Mitchell 281). Rather, this image invites a Burginian “inva[sion] by language in the very moment it is looked at: in memory, in association, [where] snatches of words and images continually intermingle and exchange one for the other” (Burgin 51). One sees the tourist in the photograph as a smiling innocent, posing at the wrong place and at the wrong time. Through that ascription, viewers may justify their anger and melancholy as this singular, visible body (about to be harmed) stands in for countless, unseen others awaiting the same fate. Its discrepancies with the actual opening hours of the WTC observation deck and the positioning of the aircraft largely ignored, the “accidental tourist” photo-manipulation was visualised by countless individuals and forwarded to a plethora of in-boxes because September 11 realities could not be shared intimately on that day, because the death of aircraft passengers, WTC workers, and rescue personnel was an inevitable outcome that could not be visualised as even remotely “actual” or explainable. Computer-based art and design have shown us that approximations to reality often result in its overall conflation. Accordingly, our desperate hope that we have seen glimpses of the moments before tragedy is ultimately dismantled by an acknowledgement of the illogical or impossible elements that go against the basic rules of visualisation. The “accidental tourist” is a phenomenon that not only epitomises Baudrillard’s search for origins in the wake of catastrophic effects, but underscores a collective need to visualise bodies as once-living rather than presently and inevitably dead. Faces in the Smoke: Visualising the Unseen Although such photo-manipulations were rampant in the days and weeks following the attack, many people constructed their own realities in the untouched images that the media streamed to them. The World Trade Centre disaster seemed to implore photography, in particular, to resurrect both the unseen, unremembered moments prior to the airliners’ slamming into the building and to perform two distinct roles as the towers burned: to reaffirm the public’s perception of the attack as an act of evil and to catalyse a sense of hope that those who perished were touched by God or ushered peacefully to their deaths. Within hours of the attacks, photographic stills captured what many thought to be the image of Satan – complete with horns, face, eyes, nose, and mouth – within the plumes of smoke billowing from one of the towers (see Figure 2 and its detail in Figure 3). The Associated Press, whose footage was most frequently used to reference this visual phenomenon, quickly dismissed the speculation; as Vin Alabiso, an executive photo editor for AP, observed: AP has a very strict policy which prohibits the alteration of the content of a photo in any way…The smoke in this photo combined with light and shadow has created an image which readers have seen in different ways. (“Angel or Devil?”) Although Alabiso’s comments defended the authenticity of the photographs, they also suggested the ways in which visual representation and perception could be affected by catastrophic circumstances. While many observers openly questioned whether the photographs had been “doctored,” others all too willingly invested these images with ethereal qualities by asking if the “face” they saw was that of Satan – a question mirroring their belief that such an act of terrorism was clear evidence of evil masterminding. If, as Mitchell has theorised, photographs function through a dialogical exchange of connotative and denotative messages, the photographs of the burning towers instead bombarded viewers with largely connotative messages – in other words, nothing that could precisely link specific bodies to the catastrophe. The visualising of Satan’s face happens not because Satan actually dwells within the plumes of smoke, but because the photograph resists Mitchell’s dialogue with the melancholic eye. The photograph refuses to “speak” for the individuals we know are suffering behind the layers of smoke, so our own eye constructs what the photograph will not reveal: the “face” of a reality we wish to be represented as deplorably and unquestionably evil. Barthes has observed that such “variation in readings is not … anarchic, [but] depends on the different types of knowledge … invested in the image…” (Barthes 46). In traumatic situations, one might amend this analysis to state that these various readings occur because of gaps in this knowledge and because visualisation transforms into an act based on knowledge that we wish we had, that we wish we could share with victims and fellow mourners. These visualisations highlight a desperate need to bridge the viewer’s experience of survival and their concomitant knowledge of others’ deaths and to link the “safe” visualisation of the catastrophic with the utter submission to catastrophe likely felt by those who died. Explaining the faces in the smoke as “natural indentations” as Alabiso did may be the technical and emotionally neutral means of cataloguing these images; however, the spotting of faces in photographic stills is a mechanism of visualisation that humanises a tragedy in which physical bodies (their death, their mutilation) cannot be seen. Other people who saw photographic stills from other angles and degrees of proximity were quick to highlight the presence of angels in the smoke, as captured by WABC from a perspective entirely different from that in Figure 2 (instead, see Figure 3). In either scenario, photography allows the visual personification of redemptive or evil influences, as well as the ability to visualise the tragedy not just as the isolated destruction of an architectural marvel, but as a crime against humanity with cosmic importance. Sharing the Fall: Desperation and the Photographing of Falling Bodies Perhaps what became even more troubling than the imagistic conjuring of human forms within the smoke was the photographing of bodies falling from the upper floors of the North Tower (see Figure 5). Though newspapers (re-)published photographs of the debris and hysteria of the attacks and television networks (re-)broadcast video sequences of the planes’ crashing into the towers and their collapse, the pictures of people jumping from the building were rarely circulated by the media. Dennis Cauchon and Martha T. Moore characterised these consequences of the terrorist attacks as “the most sensitive aspect of the Sept. 11 tragedy … [that] shocked the nation” (Cauchon and Moore). A delicate balance certainly existed between the media’s desire to associate faces with the feelings of desperation we know those who died must have experienced and a now-numb general public who ascribed to the photographs an unequivocal “too-muchness.” To read about those who jumped to escape smoke and flames reveals a horrific and frightfully swift narrative of panic: For those who jumped, the fall lasted 10 seconds. They struck the ground at just less than 150 miles per hour – not fast enough to cause unconsciousness while falling, but fast enough to ensure instant death on impact. People jumped from all four sides of the north tower. They jumped alone, in pairs and in groups. (Cauchon and Moore) The text contextualises these leaps to death in terms that are understandable to survivors who read the story and later discover these descriptions can never approximate the trauma of “being there”: Why did they jump? How fast were they travelling? Did they feel anything when their bodies hit the ground? Were they conscious during their jump? Did they die alone? These questions and their answers put into motion the very moment that the photograph of the jumping man has frozen. Words act as extensions of the physical boundaries of the photograph and underscore the horror of that image, from the description of the conditions that prompted the jump to the pondering of the death that was its consequence. If, as Jonathan Crary’s analysis of photographic viewing might intimate, visualisation prompts both an “autonomy of vision” and a “standardisation and regulation of the observer” (Crary 150), the photograph of a man plummeting to his death fashions the viewer’s eye as autonomous and alive because the image he/she views is the undeniable representation of a now-deceased Other. Yet, as seen in the often-hysterical responses to the threats of terrorism in the days following September 11, this “Other” embodies the very possibility of our own demise. Suddenly, the man we see in mid-air becomes the visualised “Every(wo)man” whose photographic representation also represents our unacknowledged vulnerabilities. Thus, trauma is shared through a poignant visual negotiation of dying: the certainty of the photographed man’s death juxtaposed with the newly realised or conjured threat of the viewer’s own death. In terms of humanness, those who witnessed these falls firsthand recall the ways in which the falling people became objectified – their fall seemingly robbing them of any visible sense of humanity. Eric Thompson, an employee on the seventy-seventh floor of the South Tower, shared an instantaneous moment with one of the victims: Thompson looked the man in the face. He saw his tie flapping in the wind. He watched the man’s body strike the pavement below. “There was no human resemblance whatsoever,” Thompson says. (Cauchon and Moore) Obviously, the in-situ experience of viewing these individuals hopelessly jumping to their deaths served as the prompt to run away, to escape, but the photograph acts as the frozen-in-time re-visitation and sharing of – a turning back toward – this scenario. The act of viewing the photographs reinstates the humanness that the panic of the moment seemingly removed; yet, the disparity between the photograph’s foreground (the jumping man) and its background (the building’s façade) remains its greatest disconcerting element. Unlike those photographic portraits that script behaviours and capture us in our most presentable states of being, this photograph reveals the unwilling subject – he who has not consented to share his state of being with the camera. Though W.J.T. Mitchell suggests that “[p]hotographs…seem necessarily incomplete in their imposition of a frame that can never include everything that was there to be…‘taken’” (Mitchell 289), the eye in times of catastrophe shifts between its desire to maintain the frame (that does not visually engage the inferno from which the man jumped or the concrete upon which he died) and its inability to do so. This photograph, as Mitchell might assert, “speaks” because visualisation allows its total frame of reference to extend beyond its physical boundaries and, as evidenced by post-September 11 phobias and our responses to horrific images, to affect the very means by which catastrophe is imagined and visualised. Technically speaking, the negotiated balance between foreground and background in the photograph is lost: the desperation of the falling man juxtaposed with a seemingly impossible background that should not have been there. Lost, too, is the viewer’s ability to “connect” visually with – literally, to share – that experience, to see oneself within the contexts of that particular visual representation. This inability to see the viewing self in the photograph is an ironic moment of experiential possibility that lingers still in the Western world’s fears surrounding terrorism: when the supposedly impossible act is finally visualised, territorialised, and rendered as possible. Dead Art: The Destructions and Resurrections of Works by Rodin In many ways, the photographing of those experiences so divorced from our own contributed to intense discussions of perspective in visualisation: the viewer’s witnessing of trauma by means of a camera and photographer that captured the image from a “safe” distance. However, the recovery of artwork that actually suffered damage as a result of the World Trade Centre collapse prompted many art historians and theorists to ponder the possibilities of art’s death and to contemplate the fate of art that is physically victimised. In an anticipatory vein, J.M. Bernstein suggests that “art ends as it becomes progressively further distanced from truth and moral goodness, as it loses its capacity to speak the truth about our most fundamental categorical engagements…” (Bernstein 5). If Bernstein’s theory is applied to those works damaged at the World Trade Centre site, the sculptures of Rodin, so famously photographed in the weeks of excavation that followed September 11, could be categorised as “dead” – distanced from the “truth” of human form that Rodin cast, even further from the moral goodness and the striving toward global peace that the Cantor Fitzgerald collection aimed to embrace. While many art critics believed that the destroyed works should not be displayed again, many (including Fritz Koenig, who designed The Sphere, which was damaged in the terrorist attacks) believe that such “dead art” deserves, even requires, resuscitation (see Figure 6). Much like the American flags that survived the infernos at the World Trade Centre and Pentagon site, these lost and re-discovered artworks have served as rallying points to accomplish both the sharing of trauma and an artistically inspired foundation for the re-development of the lower Manhattan site. In the case of Rodin’s The Thinker, which was recovered at the site and later presumed stolen, the statue’s discovery alongside aircraft parts and twisted steel girders served as a unique and rare survival story, almost as the surrogate representative body for those human bodies that were never found, never seen. Dan Barry and William K. Rashbaum recall that in the days following the sculpture’s disappearance, “investigators have been at Fresh Kills [landfill] and at ground zero in recent weeks, flashing a photograph of ‘The Thinker’ and asking, in effect: Have you seen this symbol of humanity” (Barry and Rashbaum)? Given such symbolic weight, sculpture most certainly took on superhuman proportions. Yet, in the days that followed the discovery of artwork that survived the attacks, only passing references were made to those figurative paintings and drawings by Picasso, Hockney, Lichtenstein, and Miró that were lost – perhaps because their subject matter or manner of artistic representation did not (or could not) reflect a “true” infliction of damage and pain the way a three-dimensional, human-like sculpture could. Viewers visualised not only the possibility of their own cultural undoing by seeing damaged Rodins, but also the embodiment of unseen victims’ bodies that could not be recovered. In a rousing speech about September 11 as an attack upon the humanities and the production of culture, Bruce Cole stated that “the loss of artifacts and art, no matter how priceless and precious, is dwarfed by the loss of life” (Cole). Nevertheless, the visualisation of maimed, disfigured art was the lens through which many individuals understood the immensity of that loss of life and the finality of their loved ones’ disappearances. What the destruction and damaging of artwork on September 11 created was an atmosphere in which art, traditionally conjured as the studied and inanimate subject, transformed from a determined to a determining influence, a re-working of Paul Smith’s theory in which “the ‘subject’ … is determined – the object of determinant forces; whereas ‘the individual’ is assumed to be determining” (Smith xxxiv). Damaged sculptures gave representative form to the thousands of victims we, as a visualising public, knew were inside the towers, but their survival spoke to larger artistic issues: the impossibility of art’s end and the foiling of its death. Baudrillard’s notion of the “impossibility of ending” demonstrates that the destruction of art (in the capitalistic sense that is contingent on its undamaged condition and its prescribed worth and “value”) does not equate to the destruction of meaning as such, but that the new and re-negotiated meanings deployed by injured art frighteningly implicate us – viewers who once assigned meaning becoming the subjects who long to be assigned something, anything, be it solace, closure, or retribution. Importantly, the latest plans for the re-vitalised World Trade Centre site indicate that the damaged Rodin and Koenig sculptures will semiotically mediate the significations established when the original World Trade Centre was a vital nexus of activity in lower Manhattan, the shock and pain experienced when the towers collapsed and individuals were searching for meaning in art’s destruction and survival, and the hope many have invested in the new buildings and their role in the maintenance and recovery of memory. A Concluding Thought Digital manipulation, photography, and the re-contextualisation of artistic “masterpieces” from their hermetic placement in the gallery to their brutal dumping in a landfill have served as the humanistic prompts that actively determined the ways in which culture grappled with and shared unimaginable horror. Images have transformed in purpose from static re(-)presentations of reality to active, changing conduits by which pasts can be remembered, by which the intangibility of death can be given substance, by which unshared moments can be more intimately considered. Oddly, visualisation has performed simultaneously two disparate functions: separating the living from the dead through a panoply of re-affirming visual experiences and permitting the re-visitation of those times, events, and people that the human eye could not see itself. Ultimately, what the manipulations, misinterpretations, and destructions of art show us is that the conveyance of meaning between individuals, whether dead or alive, whether seen or unseen, is the image’s most pressing and difficult charge. Works Cited “Angel or Devil? Viewers See Images in Smoke.” Click on Detroit. 17 Sep. 2001. 10 February 2003 <http://www.clickondetroit.com/sh/news/stories/nat-news-96283920010917-120936.php>. Barry, Dan, and William K. Rashbaum. “Rodin Work from Trade Center Survived, and Vanished.” New York Times. 20 May 2002: B1. Barthes, Roland. Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. Baudrillard, Jean. The Illusion of the End. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994. Bernstein, J.M. The Fate of Art: Aesthetic Alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992. Burgin, Victor. The End of Art Theory: Criticism and Post-Modernity. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1986. Cauchon, Dennis and Martha T. Moore. “Desperation Drove Sept. 11 Victims Out World Trade Center Windows.” Salt Lake Tribune Online. 4 September 2002. 19 Jan. 2003 <http://www.sltrib.com/2002/sep/09042002/nation_w/768120.htm>. Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990. Mitchell, W.J.T. Picture Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago P, 1994. “Remains of a Day.” Time 160.11 (9 Sep. 2002): 58. Smith, Paul. Discerning the Subject. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1988. “The Accidental Tourist.” Urban Legends. 20 Nov. 2001. 21 Feb. 2003 <http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/crash.htm>. Links http://www.clickondetroit.com/sh/news/stories/nat-news-96283920010917-120936.html http://www.sltrib.com/2002/sep/09042002/nation_w/768120.htm http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/crash.htm Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Smith, Royce W.. "The Image Is Dying" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0304/09-imageisdying.php>. APA Style Smith, R. W. (2003, Apr 23). The Image Is Dying. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0304/09-imageisdying.php>