The Consolatio ad Liuiam and literary history

The Consolatio ad Liuiam appears in the 1460s and is attributed to Ovid. It describes the circumstances surrounding Drusus’ death in 9 BC, addressing his family before turning to consolation, particularly of Livia. The versification indicates that it is not by Ovid, but it may still be contemporary. The poem sets itself soon after the funeral, but is it conceived as genuine consolation, a rhetorical exercise, or a commentary on the Julio-Claudian era? The historical information in the poem is strikingly accurate; by comparison of it with Dio, it becomes clear that the Consolatio could easily have been written in the immediate aftermath of Drusus’ death. The poem may thus take a central place in Augustan literary history, alluding to several poets and the early works of Ovid, but itself alluded to by Ovid in exile. The chapter considers some cases in detail, showing that the chains of allusion may plausibly be read so

An elegist's career: from Cynthia to Cornelia

Virgil created the ideal poetic career, an upwards progression within the range of hexameter poetry, pastoral to didactic to epic. He marked this movement in ways obvious and less obvious: he gets up from the shepherd's sitting position at the close of the Eclogues; at the end of the second Georgic he regrets both the loss of pastoral innocence and his inability to write Lucretian natural philosophy; at the start of the third Georgic he looks ahead to an Augustan epic of sacred importance; in each work he presents an emblematic vision of the nymph Arethusa. Subsequently Ovid produces his own more ambitious versions of the ideal career, going from love elegy to tragedy to the universal epic of the Metamorphoses, and within elegy itself advancing from personal love elegy through the didactic of the Ars to the sacred and aetiological narratives of the Fasti. Each cycle then returns to the personal elegy of lamentation in the Tristia; but even in exile Ovid expands his range with the curse poem Ibis, and more letters. What of Propertius, Ovid's predecessor as love elegist? Does he show a similar reaction to the Virgilian pattern? Ovid's poetry repeatedly builds on Propertian models, and there is a temptation to see the elegiac books as describing a similar arc to that from the Amores to the Ars and the Fasti, with the personal material of Books 1 and 2 opening out to more general material, discursive and moral in 3, aetiological in 4

Emergency Medicine: great papers from the Summer of Love to 2017

Reviewing the landscape of Emergency Medicine (EM) publication and research over the past 50 years is an immensely rewarding exercise and emphasises with absolute clarity how far we have come as a specialty in such a relatively short time. The key words which apply to the review are prescient and resonant. The pioneering research undertaken in the earlier years of the specialty represents the very bedrock on which stands Emergency Medicine as we know it today. This paper will highlight some of the key publications during the 50 years of Emergency Medicine in the UK

Qat Consumption Among Women Living in Yemen

[No abstract available

Multispectral Recovery of a Fragment of Richard FitzRalph’s Summa de Questionibus Armenorum from University of Rochester, D.460 1000-03

Multispectral imaging—the process of obtaining image data from a range of both visible and invisible wavelengths—is a new frontier in medieval studies, raising the possibility of recovering damaged or palimpsested texts that have been illegible for centuries. In this paper we show the remarkable results of applying this technology to University of X, MS D.460 1000-003, a previously unidentified single-folio fragment that was gifted to the university in 1968. Formerly used as a limp vellum binding for a seventeenth-century volume, the text has become so worn that it is all but completely unreadable to the naked eye. The fragment has consequently received little scholarly attention prior to our investigation. Our team recovered nearly all of the lost text and identified the fragment as an excerpt from Richard FitzRalph’s Summa de Questionibus Armenorum. Although this text survives in 45 other manuscripts and fragments, our discovery is highly significant because the Rochester fragment is the only copy of any of FitzRalph’s works in a non-European collection. Moreover, the fragment, whose handwriting dates to no later than 1370, may be the oldest extant copy of the Summa by at least half a decade. We present the process of this discovery, our conclusions about the text, and the potential for multispectral imaging to unlock new information hidden in known but understudied fragments held in archival collections around the world

DDT exposure in early childhood and female breast cancer: Evidence from an ecological study in Taiwan

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd Researchers still lack consensus on the association between exposure to DDT and the risk of breast cancer. One reason could be that the measurements of DDT obtained during or near the time of diagnosis may not reflect exposure during the etiologically relevant time period in a woman's life. This study undertook an ecological analysis to investigate whether exposure to DDT among cohort born between 1951 and 1959 (i.e. age 0–5 years) and who reached the age 50–54 years during 2001–2013 had an increased risk of breast cancer in adulthood. To do this, we used the number of DDT sprays in each township during the anti-malaria campaign in Taiwan in the 1950s as a proxy for direct DDT exposure. The DDT sprays were then linked to the township female breast cancer incidence rate in the 2000s when the birth cohorts had reached age 50–54 years. Insurance claims data were used to identify breast cancer cases during 1996–2013. Zero-Inflated Poisson regression was performed to estimate the effect of DDT sprays on the breast cancer incidence rate. The analysis was based on a total of 9 birth cohorts (1951–1959) in 349 townships who had lived at least up to age 50. On average, one DDT spray experienced during age 0–5 years was associated with an increase of 8 more female breast cancer cases per 100,000 during age 50–54. The effect appears to increase with the number of sprays. Our finding suggests that DDT exposure in early childhood could raise the risk of breast cancer in adulthood

The problem of political science and practical politics

Copyright @ 2006 The AuthorsWe reflect on the reasons why there is not a greater and more fruitful relationship between those who seek to understand policy and the political process from academia and those with a similar task in ‘practical politics’. We attribute this lack of engagement to three core factors: (1) from without, instrumental government visions of political science perpetuate the view that the discipline exists to serve those with power; (2) from within, scientism and abstraction diminish the discipline's stock of ‘usable’ product for ‘practical politics’; and (3) where relevant research exists, its uptake is hampered by limited communication between these spheres

Tea, Coffee, and Milk Consumption and Colorectal Cancer Risk

Background: Data regarding the effects of tea, coffee, and milk on the risk of colorectal cancer are inconsistent. We investigated associations of tea, coffee, and milk consumption with colorectal cancer risk and attempted to determine if these exposures were differentially associated with the risks of proximal colon, distal colon, and rectal cancers. Methods: Data from 854 incident cases and 948 controls were analyzed in a case-control study of colorectal cancer in Western Australia during 2005–07. Multivariable logistic regression was used to analyze the associations of black tea (with and without milk), green tea, herbal tea, hot coffee, iced coffee, and milk with colorectal cancer. Results: Consumption of 1 or more cups of herbal tea per week was associated with a significantly decreased risk of distal colon cancer (adjusted odds ratio, 0.37; 95% CI, 0.16–0.82; P[subscript]Trend = 0.044), and consumption of 1 or more cups of iced coffee per week was associated with increased risk of rectal cancer (adjusted odds ratio, 1.52; 95% CI, 0.91–2.54; P[subscript]Trend = 0.004). Neither herbal tea nor iced coffee was associated with the risk of proximal colon cancer. Hot coffee was associated with a possible increased risk of distal colon cancer. Black tea (with or without milk), green tea, decaffeinated coffee, and milk were not significantly associated with colorectal cancer risk. Conclusions: Consumption of herbal tea was associated with reduced risk of distal colon cancer, and consumption of iced coffee was associated with increased rectal cancer risk

Myeloid DAP12-associating lectin (MDL)-1 regulates synovial inflammation and bone erosion associated with autoimmune arthritis.

DNAX adaptor protein 12 (DAP12) is a trans-membrane adaptor molecule that transduces activating signals in NK and myeloid cells. Absence of functional Dap12 results in osteoclast defects and bone abnormalities. Because DAP12 has no extracelluar binding domains, it must pair with cell surface receptors for signal transduction. There are at least 15 known DAP12-associating cell surface receptors with distinct temporal and cell type-specific expression patterns. Our aim was to determine which receptors may be important in DAP12-associated bone pathologies. Here, we identify myeloid DAP12-associating lectin (MDL)-1 receptor (also known as CLEC5A) as a key regulator of synovial injury and bone erosion during autoimmune joint inflammation. Activation of MDL-1 leads to enhanced recruitment of inflammatory macrophages and neutrophils to the joint and promotes bone erosion. Functional blockade of MDL-1 receptor via Mdl1 deletion or treatment with MDL-1-Ig fusion protein reduces the clinical signs of autoimmune joint inflammation. These findings suggest that MDL-1 receptor may be a therapeutic target for treatment of immune-mediated skeletal disorders