Federico Garza Carvajal, Butterflies will burn. Prosecuting Sodomites in Early Modern Spain and Mexico, Austin

Along with the wave of surveys on early modern European criminality and legislation, related subjects, such as sodomites and gender roles in criminal courts, have been studied thoroughly as well. The ways in which those studies were presented were always very much related to the early modern sources that revealed the information: court records and other literary sources on «criminal» behaviour. Hence, historians dealing with homosexuality generally focus on the prosecution of sodomites, the a..

Federico Garza Carvajal, Butterflies will burn. Prosecuting Sodomites in Early Modern Spain and Mexico, Austin

Along with the wave of surveys on early modern European criminality and legislation, related subjects, such as sodomites and gender roles in criminal courts, have been studied thoroughly as well. The ways in which those studies were presented were always very much related to the early modern sources that revealed the information: court records and other literary sources on «criminal» behaviour. Hence, historians dealing with homosexuality generally focus on the prosecution of sodomites, the a..

Future Research on Women and Crime

In the last few decades criminologists and crime historians have made important steps in the understanding of women and crime in the past. First, scholars have gathered data on women’s contribution to crime in various parts in Europe and during different time periods. Such examinations revealed that women’s involvement in crime was in various parts in Europe much higher in the period before ca. 1900 than in the modern period. There were also significant differences between towns and the count..

Karine Lambert, Itinéraires féminins de la déviance. Provence 1750-1850

The book Itinéraires féminins de la déviance. Provence 1750-1850 by French historian Karine Lambert is a very welcome addition to the history of criminal women. After the excellent (in some cases translated) works of Arlette Farge, Nicole Castan and Nathalie Zemon Davies about women’s crimes in various parts of early modern France, there seems to have been a decline in the French research on female crime during the Ancien Régime. At least, despite the lively French tradition in the history of..

Pieter Spierenburg as a Mentor and Inspirer

Pieter Spierenburg was my teacher, promotor and mentor in the academic world. I got to know him in 1987 as a first year student History at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. He was an assistant professor or associate professor at that time, and he gave the first-year lectures on his book De verbroken betovering. Mentaliteitsgeschiedenis van preïndustrieel Europa (The broken enchantment. The history of mentality in pre-industrial Europe). Like many other students I chose his classes in the f..

Continuity or Change ? Female Crime in the 19th-Century Netherlands

This article shows that there was long-term stability in the female share of prosecutions and convictions in Holland between 1750 and 1838. Between 1750 and 1811 women generally represented 30 to 40 percent of the prosecutions. The most obvious explanation for high female crime rates in Holland is the high level of urbanization. The relatively independent position of women caused greater risks of them becoming involved with the law. The regional data between 1811 and 1838 suggest that there were also extensive continuities in the proportion of female offenders between 1750 and 1838. The national prisons between 1839 and 1886 produce lower figures ; on average 11 percent of those sentenced to prison were female. These low figures may in part be explained by the fact that the data represented felony cases of women from rural as well as urban regions. Whereas the numbers of both male and female adult prisoners declined between 1840 and 1880, the numbers of young children rose considerably. The growing concern for criminal children resulted in higher prosecution rates for children, and this trend involved both boys and girls ; girls’ proportion in crime did not decline, nor were girls treated with more leniency by the courts.Cet article démontre que dans la longue durée, la part des femmes dans les poursuites et les condamnations en Hollande, entre 1750 et 1838 est restée stable. Entre 1750 et 1811, les femmes représentaient en général 30 à 40% des poursuites. C’est le fort taux d’urbanisation qui fournit l’explication la plus évidente des taux de criminalité féminine élevés en Hollande. La relative indépendance des femmes leur faisait courir un risque plus élevé d’avoir affaire à la justice. Les données régionales pour la période 1811-1838 suggèrent qu’il existait aussi une forte continuité dans la proportion des femmes délinquantes pour l’ensemble de la période 1750-1838. Selon les statistiques pénitentiaires nationales, le taux d’emprisonnement entre 1839 et 1886 était plus faible : en moyenne, seulement 11% des condamnés à l’emprisonnement étaient des femmes. Ce faible taux peut être expliqué en partie par le fait que ces données visaient des infractions graves commises aussi bien par des femmes de la campagne que de la ville. Alors que le nombre d’hommes et de femmes adultes emprisonnés déclina entre 1840 et 1880, le nombre d’enfants augmenta considérablement. La préoccupation croissante pour l’enfance délinquante se traduisit par un taux de poursuite plus élevé aussi bien pour les garçons que pour les filles. Ni la proportion de ces dernières dans la criminalité, ni la sévérité des tribunaux à leur égard ne déclinèrent

Is Higher Docetaxel Clearance in Prostate Cancer Patients Explained by Higher CYP3A? An In Vivo Phenotyping Study with Midazolam

Patients with prostate cancer (PCa) have a lower docetaxel exposure for both intravenous (1.8-fold) and oral administration (2.4-fold) than patients with other solid cancers, which could influence efficacy and toxicity. An altered metabolism by cytochrome P450 3A (CYP3A) due to castration status might explain the observed difference in docetaxel pharmacokinetics. In this in vivo phenotyping, pharmacokinetic study, CYP3A activity defined by midazolam clearance (CL) was compared between patients with PCa and male patients with other solid tumors. All patients with solid tumors who did not use CYP3A-modulating drugs were eligible for participation. Patients received 2 mg midazolam orally and 1 mg midazolam intravenously on 2 consecutive days. Plasma concentrations were measured with a validated liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry method. Genotyping was performed for CYP3A4 and CYP3A5. Nine patients were included in each group. Oral midazolam CL was 1.26-fold higher in patients with PCa compared to patients with other solid tumors (geometric mean [coefficient of variation], 94.1 [33.5%] L/h vs 74.4 [39.1%] L/h, respectively; P =.08). Intravenous midazolam CL did not significantly differ between the 2 groups (P =.93). Moreover, the metabolic ratio of midazolam to 1′-hydroxy midazolam did not differ between the 2 groups for both oral administration (P =.67) and intravenous administration (P =.26). CYP3A4 and CYP3A5 genotypes did not influence midazolam pharmacokinetics. The observed difference in docetaxel pharmacokinetics between both patient groups therefore appears to be explained neither by a difference in midazolam CL nor by a difference in metabolic conversion rate of midazolam

Fanconi anemia and homologous recombination gene variants are associated with functional DNA repair defects in vitro and poor outcome in patients with advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Mutations in Fanconi Anemia or Homologous Recombination (FA/HR) genes can cause DNA repair defects and could therefore impact cancer treatment response and patient outcome. Their functional impact and clinical relevance in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is unknown. We therefore questioned whether functional FA/HR defects occurred in HNSCC and whether they are associated with FA/HR variants. We assayed a panel of 29 patient-derived HNSCC cell lines and found that a considerable fraction is hypersensitive to the crosslinker Mitomycin C and PARP inhibitors, a functional measure of FA/HR defects. DNA sequencing showed that these hypersensitivities are associated with the presence of bi-allelic rare germline and somatic FA/HR gene variants. We next questioned whether such variants are associated with prognosis and treatment response in HNSCC patients. DNA sequencing of 77 advanced stage HNSCC tumors revealed a 19% incidence of such variants. Importantly, these variants were associated with a poor prognosis (p = 0.027; HR = 2.6, 1.1–6.0) but favorable response to high cumulative cisplatin dose. We show how an integrated in vitro functional repair and genomic analysis can improve the prognostic value of genetic biomarkers. We conclude that repair defects are marked and frequent in HNSCC and are associated with clinical outcome.</p