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This article examines how the videogames, specifically (2013) and (2022), reproduce and aestheticize US state violence at the US–Mexico border. Through an analysis of gameplay mechanics, mission structure, and audiovisual design, the article argues that these videogames proceduralize US exceptionalism. Drawing on Achille Mbembe’s notion of necropolitics and Ian Bogost’s notion of procedural rhetoric, the article introduces procedural necrorhetorics to describe how games embed racialized death into their rule systems and rhythms of play. These mechanics make players intuitively identify and eliminate racialized enemies, rendering border violence both thinkable and pleasurable. In this context, whiteness functions as a kinesthetic and affective structure of dominance, guiding players to perceive threats and exercise force. By embedding necropolitical logics into the body’s sensorimotor responses, rehearses a digital fantasy of American sovereignty under siege – one that must be restored through preemptive, racialized violence.

\"الغابات الأفضل\" هو كتاب من تأليف مارتين بالتشايت، ويتناول موضوعات تتعلق بالحياة البرية وجمال الغابات من خلال منظور إبداعي وأدبي. يركز على العلاقات بين الحيوانات والطبيعة في الغابة وكيف تتفاعل فيما بينها، الجزء الثاني من الكتاب، \"الثعلب راينكه\"، من تأليف ميشائيل بوغدانوف، وهو نص يعرض مغامرات الثعلب راينكه في الغابة، وهو شخصية ذكية ومراوغة تواجه تحديات مختلفة، ترجمة الكتاب قام بها الدكتور نبيل الحفار، حيث يقدم العمل بأسلوب مبسط وسلس يعكس الجوهر الأدبي للقصة.

This article discusses sports video game story modes in Fight Night Champion (EA Canada, 2011), a boxing game, NBA 2K16 (Visual Concepts, 2015), a basketball game, and the story that stretches across Madden NFL 18 (EA Tiburon, 2017) and Madden NFL 19 (EA Tiburon, 2018), EA Sports’ annual football series. Focusing on African American athletes, the stories tap into the utopianism of sports and suggest that anyone, irrespective of skin color, can make it in America. This article explores the racial politics of these games, in particular as experienced by a white player such as the author. Primarily focusing on narrative and gameplay, the article discusses how a white player’s control over black bodies confronts them with their racial normativity.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011) is a highly self-reflexive movie that is aware of its generic roots. In particular, the film struggles with the meaning of “the woods” in the horror genre. Cabin’s central twist in this respect is that the titular “woods” are not untamed nature, but rather a place of artifice. Cabin’s woods are not uncanny because they are far removed from “civilization,” but rather exactly because they are part of it. The film’s emphasis on the artificiality of nature suggests that the concept of “nature” is exactly that—a concept, a cultural construct, loaded with meaning. The film’s ending envisions the end of that discursive construct—but for that to happen, humankind must vanish.

A bstract For SCFTs with an SU(2) R-symmetry, we determine the superconformal blocks that contribute to the four-point correlation function of a priori distinct half-BPS superconformal primaries as an expansion in terms of the relevant bosonic conformal blocks. This is achieved by using the superconformal Casimir equation and the superconformal Ward identity to fix the coefficients of the bosonic blocks uniquely in a dimension-independent way. In addition we find that many of the resulting coefficients are related through a web of linear transformations of the conformal data.

In multicellular organisms, not all cells are created equal. Instead, organismal complexity is achieved by specialisation and division of labour between distinct cell types. Therefore, the organism depends on the presence, correct proportion and function of all cell types. It follows that early development is geared towards setting up the basic body plan and to specify cell lineages. Since plants employ a post-embryonic mode of development, the continuous growth and addition of new organs require a source of new cells, as well as a strict regulation of cellular composition throughout the entire life-cycle. To meet these demands, evolution has brought about complex regulatory systems to maintain and control continuously active stem cell systems. Here, we review recent work on the mechanisms of non cell-autonomous control of shoot stem cells in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana with a strong focus on the cell-to-cell mobility and function of the WUSCHEL homeodomain transcription factor.

IntroductionIn hip preservation surgery, the term “borderline hip dysplasia” was used when the lateral center edge angle (LCEA), historically described by Wiberg, measured 18–25°. In recent years, several radiographic parameters have been described to assess the antero posterior coverage of the femoral head, for example, the anterior and posterior wall index (AWI and PWI). This allowed an increasingly comprehensive understanding of acetabular morphology and a questioning of the borderline definition.Material and methodsA retrospective review of 397 consecutive hips was performed, all treated with triple pelvic osteotomy (TPO) due to symptomatic hip dysplasia. On all preoperative pelvic radiographs with a LCEA of 18–25°, acetabular index (AI), AWI and PWI were measured. With these values, the hips were categorized into laterally, antero-laterally and postero-laterally dysplastic and stratified by gender. Intra- and interobserver correlation of the parameters was analyzed by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).ResultsAccording to LCEA, 192 hips were identified as “borderline dysplastic”. Based on AWI and PWI, the categorization resulted in 116 laterally dysplastic (60.4%), 33 antero-laterally (17.2%) and 43 postero-laterally dysplastic hips (22.4%). Gender stratification revealed that male acetabula seemed to be slightly more postero-laterally deficient than female (mean PWI 0.80 vs 0.89; p = 0.017). ICC confirmed highly accurate and reproducible readings of all parameters.ConclusionThe rather high proportion of symptomatic hips labelled borderline dysplastic suggested, that there might be substantial acetabular deficiency not recognizable by LCEA. Comprehensive deformity analysis using LCEA, AI, AWI and PWI showed, that 40% of these hips were deficient either antero-laterally or postero-laterally. Male acetabula were more deficient postero-laterally than female.

Combined-modality treatment consisting of chemotherapy and consolidation radiotherapy is standard of care for patients with early-stage unfavourable Hodgkin lymphoma. However, the use of radiotherapy can have long-term sequelae, which is of particular concern, as Hodgkin lymphoma is frequently diagnosed in young adults with a median age of approximately 30 years. In the German Hodgkin Study Group HD17 trial, we investigated whether radiotherapy can be omitted without loss of efficacy in patients who have a complete metabolic response after receiving two cycles of escalated doses of etoposide, cyclophosphamide, and doxorubicin, and regular doses of bleomycin, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisone (eBEACOPP) plus two cycles of doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine (ABVD) chemotherapy (2 + 2). In this multicentre, open-label, randomised, phase 3 trial, patients (aged 18–60 years) with newly diagnosed early-stage unfavourable Hodgkin lymphoma (all histologies) and an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 2 or less were enrolled at 224 hospitals and private practices in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and the Netherlands. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive either standard combined-modality treatment, consisting of the 2 + 2 regimen (eBEACOPP consisted of 1250 mg/m2 intravenous cyclophosphamide on day 1, 35 mg/m2 intravenous doxorubicin on day 1, 200 mg/m2 intravenous etoposide on days 1–3, 100 mg/m2 oral procarbazine on days 1–7, 40 mg/m2 oral prednisone on days 1–14, 1·4 mg/m2 intravenous vincristine on day 8 [maximum dose of 2 mg per cycle], and 10 mg/m2 intravenous bleomycin on day 8; ABVD consisted of 25 mg/m2 intravenous doxorubicin, 10 mg/m2 intravenous bleomycin, 6 mg/m2 intravenous vinblastine, and 375 mg/m2 intravenous dacarbazine, all given on days 1 and 15) followed by 30 Gy involved-field radiotherapy (standard combined-modality treatment group) or PET4-guided treatment, consisting of the 2 + 2 regimen followed by 30 Gy of involved-node radiotherapy only in patients with positive PET at the end of four cycles of chemotherapy (PET4; PET4-guided treatment group). Randomisation was done centrally and used the minimisation method and seven stratification factors (centre, age, sex, clinical symptoms, disease localisation, albumin concentration, and bulky disease), and patients and investigators were masked to treatment allocation until central review of the PET4 examination had been completed. With the final analysis presented here, the primary objective was to show non-inferiority of the PET4-guided strategy in a per-protocol analysis of the primary endpoint of progression-free survival. We defined non-inferiority as an absolute difference of 8% in the 5-year progression-free survival estimates between the two groups. Safety analyses were done in the intention-to-treat population. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01356680. Between Jan 13, 2012, and March 21, 2017, we enrolled and randomly assigned 1100 patients to the standard combined-modality treatment group (n=548) or to the PET4-guided treatment group (n=552); two patients in each group were found ineligible after randomisation. At a median follow-up of 46·2 months (IQR 32·7–61·2), 5-year progression-free survival was 97·3% (95% CI 94·5–98·7) in the standard combined-modality treatment group and 95·1% (92·0–97·0) in the PET4-guided treatment group (hazard ratio 0·523 [95% CI 0·226–1·211]). The between-group difference was 2·2% (95% CI −0·9 to 5·3) and excluded the non-inferiority margin of 8%. The most common grade 3 or 4 acute haematological adverse events were leucopenia (436 [83%] of 528 patients in the standard combined-modality treatment group vs 443 [84%] of 529 patients in the PET4-guided treatment group) and thrombocytopenia (139 [26%] vs 176 [33%]), and the most frequent acute non-haematological toxic effects were infection (32 [6%] vs 40 [8%]) and nausea or vomiting (38 [7%] vs 29 [6%]). The most common acute radiotherapy-associated adverse events were dysphagia (26 [6%] in the standard combined-modality treatment group vs three [2%] in the PET4-guided treatment group) and mucositis (nine [2%] vs none). 229 serious adverse events were reported by 161 (29%) of 546 patients in the combined-modality treatment group, and 235 serious adverse events were reported by 164 (30%) of 550 patients in the PET4-guided treatment group. One suspected unexpected serious adverse reaction (infection) leading to death was reported in the PET4-guided treatment group. PET4-negativity after treatment with 2 + 2 chemotherapy in patients with newly diagnosed early-stage unfavourable Hodgkin lymphoma allows omission of consolidation radiotherapy without a clinically relevant loss of efficacy. PET4-guided therapy could thereby reduce the proportion of patients at risk of the late effects of radiotherapy. Deutsche Krebshilfe.

Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) represents a dysfunctional gut-liver-brain axis in cirrhosis which can negatively impact outcomes. This altered gut-brain relationship has been treated using gut-selective antibiotics such as rifaximin, that improve cognitive function in HE, especially its subclinical form, minimal HE (MHE). However, the precise mechanism of the action of rifaximin in MHE is unclear. We hypothesized that modulation of gut microbiota and their end-products by rifaximin would affect the gut-brain axis and improve cognitive performance in cirrhosis. Aim To perform a systems biology analysis of the microbiome, metabolome and cognitive change after rifaximin in MHE. Twenty cirrhotics with MHE underwent cognitive testing, endotoxin analysis, urine/serum metabolomics (GC and LC-MS) and fecal microbiome assessment (multi-tagged pyrosequencing) at baseline and 8 weeks post-rifaximin 550 mg BID. Changes in cognition, endotoxin, serum/urine metabolites (and microbiome were analyzed using recommended systems biology techniques. Specifically, correlation networks between microbiota and metabolome were analyzed before and after rifaximin. There was a significant improvement in cognition(six of seven tests improved, p<0.01) and endotoxemia (0.55 to 0.48 Eu/ml, p = 0.02) after rifaximin. There was a significant increase in serum saturated (myristic, caprylic, palmitic, palmitoleic, oleic and eicosanoic) and unsaturated (linoleic, linolenic, gamma-linolenic and arachnidonic) fatty acids post-rifaximin. No significant microbial change apart from a modest decrease in Veillonellaceae and increase in Eubacteriaceae was observed. Rifaximin resulted in a significant reduction in network connectivity and clustering on the correlation networks. The networks centered on Enterobacteriaceae, Porphyromonadaceae and Bacteroidaceae indicated a shift from pathogenic to beneficial metabolite linkages and better cognition while those centered on autochthonous taxa remained similar. Rifaximin is associated with improved cognitive function and endotoxemia in MHE, which is accompanied by alteration of gut bacterial linkages with metabolites without significant change in microbial abundance. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01069133.