Risk Factors for Pancreatic Cancer: Emerging Role of Viral Hepatitis

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive malignant neoplastic diseases. The incidence and mortality rates of this disease vary depending on geographical area, which might be explained by the different exposure to risk factors. To improve the prognosis of patients with pancreatic cancer, different approaches are needed for an earlier diagnosis. Identification of risk factors and implementation of screening strategies are essential for a better prognosis. Currently, the risk factors for pancreatic cancer fall into two broad categories, namely extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Extrinsic factors include alcohol consumption, smoking, a diet rich in saturated fats, and viral infections such as chronic infection with hepatitis B and C viruses. The pathophysiological mechanisms explaining how these hepatotropic viruses contribute to the development of pancreatic cancer are not fully elucidated. The common origin of hepatocytes and pancreatic cells in the multipotent endodermal cells, the common origin of the blood vessels and biliary ducts of the pancreas and the liver, or chronic inflammatory changes may be involved in this interaction. A careful monitoring of patients with viral liver infections may contribute to the early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and improve the prognosis of these patients.

Symplectic modular symmetry in heterotic string vacua: flavor, CP, and R-symmetries

We examine a common origin of four-dimensional flavor, CP, and U(1)R symmetries in the context of heterotic string theory with standard embedding. We find that flavor and U(1)R symmetries are unified into the Sp(2h + 2, ℂ) modular symmetries of Calabi-Yau threefolds with h being the number of moduli fields. Together with the $$ {\mathbb{Z}}_2^{\mathrm{CP}} $$ ℤ 2 CP CP symmetry, they are enhanced to GSp(2h + 2, ℂ) ≃ Sp(2h + 2, ℂ) ⋊ $$ {\mathbb{Z}}_2^{\mathrm{CP}} $$ ℤ 2 CP generalized symplectic modular symmetry. We exemplify the S3, S4, T′, S9 non-Abelian flavor symmetries on explicit toroidal orbifolds with and without resolutions and ℤ2, S4 flavor symmetries on three-parameter examples of Calabi-Yau threefolds. Thus, non-trivial flavor symmetries appear in not only the exact orbifold limit but also a certain class of Calabi-Yau three-folds. These flavor symmetries are further enlarged to non-Abelian discrete groups by the CP symmetry.

Analysis of the Concept of Femicide

Femicide is intrinsically part of gender-based violence, and the two are inevitably linked at all levels. Yet, despite having a common origin, there is a need to analyze femicide as a problem that must be recognized, in social and legal terms, as having its own, particular features. To achieve this, an analysis of 102 concepts was carried out through a frequency count in Google Scholar, followed by their categorization, saturating in six dimensions: economic, social, legal, political, ethical, and cultural. The methodology used a higher-order association of hierarchies by establishing a dyad-triad-tetrad model that shows only the most representative combinations extracted from the definitions of greater weight and scope. From this, it emerges that the current concept of femicide is defined on the basis of a dual social-ethical category in view of its frequency of use in Google. This highlights the distance between what, a priori, seems to implicitly allow for any definition of femicide and the existing reality that favors private or institutional interests.

Thoughts on the Symbolism and Origin of Apollo’s Fight Against the Pythian Snake

The following paper deals with the mythological story about Apollo’s fight against a she-snake at Pytho, where he eventually builds a sanctuary – the Delphic Oracle. First, it is attempted to decipher the terms Pytho, Delphi and Omphalos. A symbolism revolving around an underlying theme of birth is considered. Then, the stories about Apollo and about Kadmos, as well as a motif in Pherecydes’ theogony, and the Anatolian Illuyanka Myth are being presented as subjects of a comparative analysis. This leads to the proposal that all four narratives have a common origin in Western Anatolia or Pre-Greek Hellas.

Identifying Medieval Fragments in Three Musical Instruments Made by Antonio Stradivari

This article identifies ten fragments, used as reinforcements in the sounding boxes of three instruments made by Antonio Stradivari (Cremona, c.1648-1737), which are now kept at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (the ‘Cipriani Potter’ violin, 1683, and the ‘Hill’ guitar, 1688), and at the musée de la Musique in Paris (the ‘Vuillaume’ guitar). The fragments appear to come from a single book of hours, made in Italy no later than the mid-fifteenth century. This identification allows the documentation of the use of parchment fragments in the making process of Stradivari. The authors discuss what the common origin of parchment fragments found in three distinct instruments implies for the authenticity and relative dating of their making. Finally, this study sheds light on the potential of documenting reused parchment fragments, which are widely present in many string musical instruments produced in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

Controls on Barite Mineralization in a Major Intracontinental Shear Zone: Carboniferous of the Cobequid Highlands, Nova Scotia

Prominent veins of late Carboniferous barite, associated with fluorite and calcite, outcrop close to older granite plutons along an intracontinental shear zone that was active throughout the Carboniferous in southeastern Canada. Some barite is stratigraphically constrained to younger than 315 Ma and final mineralization is constrained by a published Rb–Sr isochron of 300 ± 6 Ma. Barite occurrences in the Carboniferous basins of central Nova Scotia, 50 km to the south, are synchronous with or post-date ankerite-siderite-magnetite-pyrolusite and Pb-Zn mineralization, which was facilitated by fluid interaction with thick evaporites. This study aims to determine controls on the distribution of barite in the shear zone, from field relationships, vein petrography and isotope geochemistry of minerals. The isotope chemistry of shear zone barite is similar to that occurring in Pb-Zn-Mn-Ba mineralization to the south, suggesting a common origin. Veins of barite, associated with fluorite, represent the youngest and regionally coolest phase of a 70 Ma history of Carboniferous mineralized veins along the Minas Fault Zone. Their prominence close to granite plutons reflects brittle deformation of the deeply-rooted granites in a complexly deforming fault zone, but the origin of abundant F remains uncertain.

ATTRIBUTIVE PHRASES IN THE OSSETIAN AND PERSIAN LANGUAGES

Цель данного исследования – определить сходство и различия в образовании атрибутивных словосочетаний в осетинском и персидском языках. Новизна исследования заключается в том, что словосочетания в осетинском языке не исследовались в сравнении с аналогичными синтаксическими единицами в персидском языке.Актуальность исследования обусловлена тем, что сопоставительное изучение особенностей атрибутивных словосочетаний в осетинском и персидском языках даст возможность охарактеризовать общее и различное в этих языках в области синтаксиса словосочетания, что будет способствовать при необходимости лучшему изучению и исследованию этих языков в области синтаксиса, послужит также развитию межкультурной коммуникации осетин и иранцев, с которыми сейчас у осетин намечаются тесные культурные связи. Атрибутивные словосочетания в персидском языке чаще всего образуются на основе изафета, в ряде случаев используются послелог -ра и примыкание. В осетинском языке определение традиционно стоит перед определяемым словом и бывает выражено всеми знаменательными частями речи и связывается с ним падежными формами, существительными с несколькими послелогами, порядком слов. Для осетинского языка не характерна инверсия определения, но она возможна при его обособлении и изменении семантико-структурных и стилистических отношений между определением и определяемым словом. Инверсия определения не была чужда древнеперсидскому языку, а также языку скифов и алан, с которыми у осетин общее происхождение, на что указывает, помимо многих других свидетельств, лингвистическое единство этих языков на разных уровнях языковых структур. The purpose of this study is to determine the similarities and differences in the formation of attributive phrases in the Ossetian and Persian languages. The novelty of the study lies in the fact, that phrases in the Ossetian language have not been studied in comparison with similar syntactic units in the Persian language. The relevance of the research is due to the fact that a comparative study of the features of attributive phrases in the Ossetian and Persian languages will make it possible to characterize the common and different phrases in these languages in the field of syntax, which will contribute, if necessary, to a better study and research of these languages in the field of syntax, will also serve the development of intercultural communication of the Ossetians and the Iranians, with whom the Ossetians are now developing close cultural ties. Attributive phrases in the Persian language are most often formed on the basis of an isafet, in some cases postposition ‘ra’ and adjunctions are used. In the Ossetian language, the definition traditionally stands before the word being defined and is expressed by all significant parts of speech and is associated with it by case forms, nouns with several postpositions, word order. The inversion of the attribute is not typical for the Ossetian language, but it is possible with its isolation and change of semantic-structural and stylistic relations between the attribute and the word it attributes. The inversion of the attribute was not alien to the ancient Persian language, as well as to the language of the Scythians and Alans, with whom the Ossetians have common origin, which is indicated, among many other evidence, by the linguistic unity of these languages at different levels of linguistic structures.

On the Mohist Critique of Other Pre-Qin Schools of Philosophy

Mohism was the first ideology in the pre-Qin period to engage in open critique. Although it shared a common origin with Confucianism, Mohists criticized Confucianism by claiming that “in the teaching of the Confucians there are four elements sufficient to ruin the empire.” Later students of Mohism went so far as to launch personal attacks against Confucius, the founder of Confucianism. Mohist discourse on the concepts of “universal love,” “exalting worthiness,” “reverence for ghosts,” and “opposition to fatalism” mostly aimed at criticizing the philosopher Yang Zhu, especially his concepts of “action in one’s self-interest,” “not exalting worthiness,” “disbelief in ghosts,” and “resting content in the dispositions of one’s inborn nature.” Although, at the time of the Mohists, the schools of thought on yin-yang, diplomacy, legalism, names or logic, agriculture, and syncretism had not officially formed, some of their concepts and ideologies had already begun to emerge. As a result, the Mozi contains many criticisms of them.