Spinning Bodies into Gold: Thread, Labor, and Choice in Karen Russell’s “Reeling for the Empire” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread

This article uses the tale of “Rumpelstiltskin” as a framing device to explore Paul Thomas Anderson’s feature film Phantom Thread (2017) and Karen Russell’s short story “Reeling for the Empire” (2013) as contemporary fairy tales that illuminate the relationship thread, production, and bodies have to exploitation, specifically in relation to gender. It argues that Anderson and Russell both draw on fairy tale to examine the murky exchanges embedded in advanced capitalist modes of production

Prevalence of Glucose 6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Deficiency among Indian Populations: A Systematic Review

Glucose 6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is the most prevalent enzyme deficiency of human erythrocytes affecting more than 500 million people globally. G6PD deficiency is the most common hemolytic X-linked genetic disease, which shows a higher prevalence rate in the malarial endemic population. This review paper aims to examine the overall frequency of G6PD deficiency in the Indian population using systemic review, with a special emphasis on the differential prevalence rate across the populations. PubMed, Google Scholar, and Science Direct databases were searched to examine the scientific studies focusing on the prevalence of G6PD deficiency amongst the Indian populations. A total of 52 studies were selected after following several inclusion-exclusion criteria, which comprised a total of 66,470 participants. It is observed that the G6PD deficiency is higher among males than females, which is expected as this enzymopathy is caused by inherited mutations of the X-linked gene G6PD. Moreover, the disorder is considerably greater among the populations that prefer consanguineal and endogamous marriages, like Parsi, Muslim, and tribal populations as compared to the non-tribal and caste populations. Hence, culturally based marriage practices may help to explain differences in the frequency of this hemolytic genetic disorder among Indian populations

Long-Term Quality of Life following Treatment in Head and Neck Cancer Survivors with Feeding Tubes

Background: There is limited research on patients requiring long-term feeding tubes after head and neck cancer (HNC) treatment, despite the significant impact on post-treatment quality of life (QoL). Our study addresses this gap by assessing long-term feeding tube and long-term QoL (6 months and 1-year post-treatment). Methods: This is a retrospective study of patients diagnosed with HNC. All patients were offered FACT-HN at baseline, and 6 months to 1 year after completion of treatment. The FACT-HN (outcome variable) is a patient reported outcome measure for well-being. Higher scores indicate better quality of life. The exposure variable is the presence of a feeding tube at 6 months to 1 year after completion. Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to compare QoL at 6 months to 1 year according to the presence or absence of feeding tube. Results: There were significant differences between patients with or without feeding tube in terms of functional wellbeing (16.5 vs. 22.0; P=0.037), head and neck specific concerns (19.0 vs. 28.0; P=0.021), and total FACT-HN score (98 vs 122; P=0.035) with patients having feeding tubes demonstrating worse quality of life for all domains. Conclusion: In patients with HNC, continued presence of a feeding tube 6 months to 1 year following treatment was associated with worse functional wellbeing, head and neck related quality of life, and overall QoL. These findings demonstrate the areas of continued need for patients with longer standing feeding tubes and can help guide future support strategies for patients with swallowing dysfunction following treatment of HNC

Reshaping Japanese Animal Tales and Transgressing Gender Paradigms in Alexander Chee’s Novel Edinburgh

This article analyzes how Alexander Chee’s Edinburgh (2001) explores the motif of transgression by transposing traditional Asian tales into a contemporary American setting. In this novel, the east Asian narratives on the fox trickster, endowed with supernatural powers and the ability to shapeshift into a human being, intersect with the coming-of-age story of a young Korean American boy who struggles to deal with his homosexual identity and with the trauma of sexual abuse. Edinburgh thus employs the motif of the shapeshifting fox, which transgresses the boundaries between humans and animals, to deal with the transgression of the heteronormative paradigm. The retelling of the border-breaking fox trickster becomes a means by which the narrator reframes his family’s past traumas during the period of the Japanese occupation of Korea and relates them to his own experience in the narrative present, through his difficult journey to assert his own identity and find his voice

Opioid vs. money choice preference patterns in regular heroin users

About two-thirds of people treated for opioid use disorder (OUD) return to opioid use within the first-year post-treatment, and about 10% report use while on agonist therapy. Understanding determinants of opioid-seeking is vital to reducing recurrence and its risks. We assessed individual differences in effortful choices between opioid and money amounts, modeling real-world choices. Our lab conducted studies in which regular heroin-users were stabilized on buprenorphine to suppress withdrawal. Within experimental sessions, the participant could choose repeatedly across 12 trials between units of hydromorphone (HYD, 1 or 2 mg IM) vs. money ($2 or$4); HYD and money amounts differed parametrically across studies. After initiating a choice for HYD or money (one mouse-click) on each trial, the work required to earn the same commodity increased exponentially across later trials. We analyzed trial-by-trial choices (drug vs. money) and latencies (speed to choose) and correlated these patterns with individual differences. Participants with recent pre-experiment cocaine use and those who chose HYD on the first trial during sessions took significantly longer to choose money than HYD (i.e. difference in median latencies). Faster latency to choose drug (vs. money) correlated with significantly greater effortful responding for drug (vs. money). The strongest predictor of high effortful responding for drug was whether the initial choice a participant made in a session was for HYD or money. These results highlight that recent cocaine use and participants with faster relative decisional speed for drug (than money) may be more likely to engage in effortful opioid-seeking behavior

Efficacy of First Aid Training in the Curriculum of First Year Medical Students

Background First Aid First (FAF) provides free and accessible first aid training to members of the Detroit community, including first-year medical students, to empower individuals to respond quickly properly, and confidently during real life emergencies. Methods First aid training sessions last 1.5 hours, and are taught by Wayne State University School of Medicine (WSUSOM) medical students and physicians. FAF trains incoming WSUSOM medical students on CPR, Stop the Bleed, and many more skills. Didactic instruction and hands-on demonstration allows participants to practice skills under the guidance of trained instructors. A pre-/post 20-question quiz on emergency responses and any prior first aid training and certification were recorded. 321 pre-test responses and 310 post-test responses were collected. Results Of the participants, 181 had no prior emergency response certification, 126 held a CPR certification, 91 had received training in Basic Life Support (BLS), and 39 had completed EMT training. We conducted a two-tailed, independent T-test to determine whether there was a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores. The resulting p-value of Conclusion The FAF training program improves the knowledge of incoming medical students to respond and act appropriately in emergencies. As physicians in training, medical students should be prepared to respond to out-of-hospital health emergencies. Thus, the FAF training program should be incorporated into the medical education curriculum

Fantaghirò as an “Artivist” Adaptation: Gender Subversionsfrom Italo Calvino’s Fairy Tale to Lamberto Bava’s Cult TVSeries and Contemporary Fan Art

Rewritten by Italo Calvino in Fiabe italiane (1956), the fairy tale “Fanta-Ghirò, persona bella” was transcribed in the nineteenth century by folklorist Gherardo Nerucci as it was told to him by Luisa Ginanni, a Tuscan female peasant. In the 1990s, it turned into a popular transmedial phenomenon thanks to Lamberto Bava’s cult TV series Fantaghirò (1991–96). In recent years, this media franchise has also been at the core of the fan art project Fanzaghirò (2018). From its oral roots to contemporary fan art, this fairy tale lingers on the themes of feminine disobedience and illicit desire, offering a blending of entertainment and transgression. By critically engaging with several forms of participatory culture inspired by the TV series, this article brings to the fore the subversive features that render Fantaghirò an “artivist” fairy-tale adaptation

Envisioning a Multicentric Future: Worlding Temporality in He Yunchang’s One Meter of Democracy and One Rib

Shaped by the power of global capitalism, “the world” has been understood as a spatialized map of economic networks and transportation lines—almost a synonym for “the globe.” Postcolonial theorist Pheng Cheah calls for a reconceptualization of “the world,” where literary works and similar projects influence our vision of the concept across time, arguing that efforts to temporalize “the world” contribute to the project of deimperialization by challenging existing hegemonies of world-making discourses. This article analyzes Chinese contemporary performance art as one context in which Cheah’s temporal turn is already being practiced and leveraged as a force for deimperialization. This article investigates two artistic works that highlight the discursive power of world-making myths and challenge their premises: One Meter of Democracy (一米民主 2010) and One Rib (一根肋骨 2008), both by award-winning Chinese artist He Yunchang (1967–). These two pieces reenact origin myths propagated by Western colonial powers, which normalize Western ideals of democracy and patriarchy. Through time-based performances of lasting changes in corporeality, such as lifelong injury and healing, He brings these tales out of mythological time and into a current, embodied, creative temporality that exhibits the myths’ constructed/artificial nature and highlights the reality that “the world” includes not only the West but also China, and not only states but also individual agents as coexisting and provisional centers of power. In this way, He challenges the Eurocentric narrative of globalized hierarchies and contributes to the formation of a decolonial “world” of dynamic multicentricity as proposed by performance scholar Meiling Cheng. These temporal interventions via world-making origin myths allow alternative perspectives to gain more nuanced recognition within the discourses that construct “the world” and world histories