The scientific manuscript review process can often seem daunting and mysterious to authors. Frequently, medical journals do not describe the peer-review process in detail, which can further lead to frustration for authors, peer reviewers, and readers. This editorial describes the updated manuscript review process for Prehospital and Disaster Medicine. It is hoped that this editorial will lead to increased clarity and transparency in the review process.

We prove that the Drinfeld center of a fusion 2-category is invariant under Morita equivalence. We go on to show that the concept of Morita equivalence between connected fusion 2-categories corresponds to a notion of Witt equivalence between braided fusion 1-categories. A strongly fusion 2-category is a fusion 2-category whose braided fusion 1-category of endomorphisms of the monoidal unit is $\mathbf{Vect}$ or $\mathbf{SVect}$. We prove that every fusion 2-category is Morita equivalent to the 2-Deligne tensor product of a strongly fusion 2-category and an invertible fusion 2-category. We proceed to show that every fusion 2-category is Morita equivalent to a connected fusion 2-category. As a consequence, we find that every rigid algebra in a fusion 2-category is separable. This implies in particular that every fusion 2-category is separable. Conjecturally, separability ensures that a fusion 2-category is 4-dualizable. We define the dimension of a fusion 2-category, and prove that it is always non-zero. Finally, we show that the Drinfeld center of any fusion 2-category is a finite semisimple 2-category.

This article examines the 1 July 1992 massacre of 18 Indigenous males and the concurrent cutting off of the hair of their wives and/or female kin carried out by the Shining Path in the Andean village of Huamanquiquia (Fajardo province, Ayacucho region). Based on first-hand accounts of the Maoist insurgents and the Indigenous women, I frame these events as a local case study of gendered atrocity that was experienced differently by men and women, focusing on the symbolic violence of haircutting. While this atrocity reflects some well-known patterns seen in other armed conflicts, it is shaped by two key factors specific to the time and place: first, particular understandings of the significance of hair within broader Andean cosmologies; second, tensions within the Shining Path movement at a key juncture in the war. I show that the Andean insurgents knew about the symbolic dimensions of haircutting, a crime against the integrity of the human body–soul – one understood to cause endless suffering in the journey to the afterlife in the Andean worldview – but they underplayed them. From this viewpoint, haircutting meant the mutilation of women’s physical integrity, with psychological, social and gender implications.

Among body measurements, body weight (BW) is one of the most important within the buffalo production system, due to its association with economic characteristics. In previous research, we have shown that body volume (BV) is an effective predictor of BW in lactating adult water buffalo. As there are no equations to predict BW through BV for growing dairy buffaloes (young animals), we hypothesized that equations should be developed to meet this need. BW, body length (BL) and heart girth (HG) data were collected in 160 growing dairy buffaloes raised in commercial farms in southern Mexico, with body volume (BV) then estimated from BL and HG. The ratio between BV and BW was determined by linear, quadratic and allometric equations. The goodness-of-fit of the regression models was evaluated using the Akaike information criterion (AIC), the Bayesian information criterion (BIC), the coefficient of determination (R2), the mean square error (MSE) and the root MSE (RMSE). After this, the k-folds cross-validation was performed to indicate a better fit. Our results showed that the growing dairy buffaloes presented a BW of 256.6 ± 96.82 kg and a BV of 155.3 ± 74.87 dm3. High and positive correlation were observed among all variables studied. All parameters (R2, MSE, RMSE, AIC and BIC) used to evaluate the regression equations showed that the quadratic regression model was more effective than the linear and allometric models for estimating BW using BV. The criteria for evaluating and validating models showed that the quadratic model presented a better predictive performance. Based on these findings, we conclude that body volume data to estimate body weight of growing dairy buffaloes were best fitted using the quadratic regression model.

Since ancient times, thistles have been used as clotting agents in the production of traditional cheeses, particularly in the Mediterranean area. In recent years, their use in cheesemaking has increased to satisfy the growing requests from vegetarian consumers. In this research paper, four different cheeses, typical of the Mediterranean area, were evaluated from a nutritional point of view: Caciofiore (from Italy) and Torta del Casar (from Spain), both typically produced using vegetable rennet, and Queso de Murcia al vino (from Spain) and Feta (from Greece), traditionally produced using animal rennet. All the cheeses were manufactured according to their traditional cheesemaking procedures and used as controls. Experimental cheeses were produced using aqueous extracts obtained from flowers of either spontaneous or cultivated thistles indigenous to the Mediterranean area (respectively Onopordum tauricum for Caciofiore, and Cynara humilis for Torta del Casar, Queso de Murcia al vino, and Feta). All cheeses were characterized for fat-soluble and mineral compounds to assess their nutritional adequacy according to the recommended daily intake of each evaluated nutrient. All the cheeses were found to be a good source of vitamin A, calcium and phosphorus, with an optimal Ca/P molar ratio, except for Feta. By consuming the recommended serving (50 g) of the studied cheeses, the salt and cholesterol intake is, on average, 16.4% and 15.9%, respectively of recommended intake. The use of aqueous thistle extracts in cheesemaking appears to have no effect on the nutritional quality of the studied cheeses.