This book offers a thorough analysis of demons in the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint in the wider context of the ancient Near East and the Greek world. Taking a fresh and innovative angle of enquiry, ...Anna Angelini investigates continuities and changes in the representation of divine powers in Hellenistic Judaism, thereby revealing the role of the Greek translation of the Bible in shaping ancient demonology, angelology, and pneumatology. Combining philological and semantic analyses with a historical approach and anthropological insights, the author both develops a new method for analyzing religious categories within biblical traditions and sheds new light on the importance of the Septuagint for the history of ancient Judaism.; Readership:
This volume presents contributions from »The Larger Context of the Biblical Food Prohibitions: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approaches« conference held in Lausanne in June, 2017. The biblical ...food prohibitions constitute an excellent object for comparative and interdisciplinary approaches given their materiality, their nature as comparative objects between cultures, and their nature as an anthropological object. This volume articulates these three aspects within an integrated and dynamic perspective, bringing together contributions from Levantine archaeology, ancient Near Eastern studies, and anthropological and textual perspectives to form a new, multi-disciplinary foundation for interpretation.
Objective In light of recent findings indicating that endocannabinoid system has antitumor actions, our study aimed to localize it in the human epithelial ovarian tumors, highlighting the differences ...among benign, borderline, and invasive forms and correlating cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1R) expression with disease severity. Study Design We determined CB1R immunohistochemical expression in 66 epithelial ovarian tumors treated in the Department of Woman, Child, and General and Specialized Surgery, Second University of Naples, at S. Maria del Popolo degli Incurabili Hospital (Naples): 36 borderline ovarian tumors, the main target of interest being intermediate forms, 15 benign and 15 invasive ovarian tumors. Results The benign ovarian tumors showed a weak expression of CB1R in the 33% of the cases and moderate expression in the 67% of the cases. Borderline ovarian tumors had a similar trend. They showed weak CB1R expression in 28% of the cases, moderate expression in 53% of the cases, and strong expression in 19% of the cases. In contrast, invasive tumors showed a weak expression of CB1R in 7% of the cases, moderate expression in 20% of the cases, and strong expression in 73% of the cases. Conclusion The recorded data show that the expression of CB1R increased from benign and borderline to malignant tumors. In the near future, endocannabinoid receptors might be used in clinical practice, alone or in combination with other markers, to identify or better characterize ovarian tumors, without considering the great opportunity that they might represent as therapeutic targets.
This article proposes a reflection on a classic topic in cultural anthropology: the cultural taxonomy of animals and the anomalies existent in every such taxonomic system. In the first part, I ...compare the theories of Mary Douglas and Dan Sperber while in the second part, I show, using an example, how those two approaches can work together.
To investigate the maximum tolerated dose of intensity modulated radiation therapy simultaneous integrated boost whole-brain radiation therapy for palliative treatment of patients with <5 brain ...metastases using a standard linear accelerator.
The whole brain plus 3-mm margin was defined as the planning target volume (PTV
), whereas each brain metastasis, defined as the contrast-enhancing tumor on MRI T1 scans, plus a 3-mm isotropic margin, was defined as metastases PTV (PTV
). Radiation therapy was delivered in 10 daily fractions (2 weeks). Only the dose to PTV
was progressively increased in the patient cohorts (35 Gy, 40 Gy, 45 Gy, 50 Gy), whereas the PTV
was always treated with 30 Gy (3 Gy per fraction) in all patients. The dose-limiting toxicity was evaluated providing that 3 months of follow-up had occurred after the treatment of a 6-patient cohort.
Thirty patients were enrolled in the study (dose PTV
: 35 Gy, 8 patients; 40 Gy, 6 patients; 45 Gy, 6 patients; 50 Gy, 10 patients). The number of treated brain metastases was 1 in 18 patients, 2 in 5 patients, 3 in 6 patients, and 4 in 1 patient. Three patients experienced dose-limiting toxicity: 1 patient at dose level 2 presented grade 3 (G3) skin toxicity; 1 patient at dose level 4 presented G3 neurologic toxicity; and 1 patient at the same level showed brain hemorrhage. Most patients showed G1 to 2 acute toxicity, in most cases skin (n=19) or neurologic (n=10). Twenty-seven were evaluable for response: 6 (22%) stable disease, 18 (67%) partial response, and 3 (11%) complete response. Median survival and 1-year overall survival were 12 months and 53%, respectively. No patient showed late toxicity.
In this first prospective trial on the use of intensity modulated radiation therapy simultaneous integrated boost delivered with a standard linear accelerator in patients with brain oligometastases, a boost dose up to 50 Gy in 10 fractions was tolerable according to the study design.
Radical radiotherapy of prostate cancer requires a relatively high dose to achieve an optimal tumor control probability and a reduced dose to the critical structures related to the sexual function ...(S_OARs) in order to avoid erectile dysfunction. The aim of this study was to perform a planning feasibility analysis of a 3-level dose prescription with Simultaneous Integrated Boost (SIB) on the dominant intraprostatic lesion (DIL) and with S_OARs sparing.
Twelve patients with clinically localized intermediate risk prostate cancer were included. The prostate, seminal vescicles, and DIL Clinical Target Volumes were delineated on rigid fused MRI-CT simulation images using mp-MRI as a separate guide. A 5 mm margin was added to define the PTVs. Penile bulb (PB), corpora cavernosa (CC), internal pudendal arteries (IPAs) and neurovascular bundles were contoured as S_OARs. The following doses were prescribed in 25 fractions: 56.25 Gy to PTVsv, 67.50 Gy to PTVp, and 75 Gy to PTVdil. Standard plans (SD-VMAT) were created to fulfil targets coverage and Quantec constraints for conventional OARs (SD_OARs: rectum, bladder, and femoral heads). For each patient, a new "sexual-sparing" plan (SS-VMAT) was created adding new objectives for S_OARs with priority to minimize mean doses to IPAs, CC, and PB. Dose-volume histogram end points were compared between the 2 plans using Wilcoxon test.
D
were >95% of prescribed doses for all targets and techniques. No significant differences were found in sparing SD_OARs for considered metrics. Regarding S_OARs, SS_VMAT plans provided a significant reduction of the dose. Mean dose reduction for IPAs, CC, PB, and neurovascular bundles was 32.4% (11.2 Gy, p = 0.002), 22.5% (4.1 Gy, p = 0.006), 10.0% (4.6 Gy, p = 0.010), and 2.6% (1.8 Gy, p = 0.020), respectively.
We showed that a significant dose sparing for S_OARs using VMAT-SIB strategy is feasible allowing "sexual-sparing" and highly conformal plans with dose escalation to the DIL.
This paper (1) analyzes the motif of the fish swallowing Jonah in light of similar episodes attested in Hellenistic Greek epics and other Hellenistic literary traditions and myths. In light of this ...evidence, it proposes a possible context in which the biblical story emerged. In addition, the paper (2) also analyzes how this motif developed in early Jewish and early Christian traditions, showing how both traditions shape this motif to fit familiar patterns of sea epics. From a larger perspective, this study both allows us (3) to rethink the attitudes towards seafaring that were traditionally attributed to Judeans in Hellenistic times, while also (4) offering new suggestions as to how we might reposition the epic genre in the Hebrew Bible.
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