Since early 2022, routine testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) based on symptoms and exposure history has largely ceased in Canada. Consequently, seroprevalence studies, particularly longitudinal studies, have become critical for monitoring the rate of incident SARS-CoV-2 infections and the proportion of the population with evidence of immunity. EnCORE is a longitudinal SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence study comprising five rounds of serology testing from October 2020 to June 2023, in a sample of 2- to 17-year-olds (at baseline), recruited from daycares and schools in four neighbourhoods of Montreal, Canada. We report on SARS-CoV-2 incidence and seroprevalence among the 509 participants in the fifth and final round of the study. Seroprevalence of antibodies from either infection or vaccination was 98% (95 per cent confidence interval [CI]: 97, 99). The infection-acquired seroprevalence was 78% (95% CI: 73–82), and the incidence rate was 113 per 100 person-years (95% CI: 94–132), compared to the seroprevalence of 58% and the incidence rate of 133 per 100 person-years, respectively, in the fourth round of testing (mid–late 2022). Of the 131 participants newly seropositive for infection in Round 4, only 18 were seronegative for infection in Round 5 (median follow-up: 326 days).

The present commentary raises some concerns about the risk of iatrogenic harm arising out of the diagnosis of functional neurologic and somatic disorders. These concerns are supported by evidence from the history of hysteria and findings from contemporary brain imaging. We discuss their implications for practice.

On 19 January 2020, the first case of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection was identified in the United States, with the first cases in South Carolina confirmed on 06 March 2020. Due to initial limited testing capabilities and potential for asymptomatic transmission, it is possible that SARS-CoV-2 may have been present earlier than previously thought, while the immune status of at-risk populations was unknown. Saliva from 55 South Carolina emergency healthcare workers (EHCWs) was collected from September 2019 to March 2020, pre- and post-healthcare shifts, and stored frozen. To determine the presence of SARS-CoV-2-reactive antibodies, saliva-acquired post-shift was analysed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with a repeat of positive or inconclusive results and follow-up testing of pre-shift samples. Two participants were positive for SARS-CoV-2 N/S1-reactive IgG, confirmed by follow-up testing, with S1 receptor binding domain (RBD)-specific IgG present in one individual. Positive samples were collected from medical students working in emergency medical services (EMSs) in October or November 2019. The presence of detectable anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in 2019 suggests that immune responses to the virus existed in South Carolina, and the United States, in a small percentage of EHCWs prior to the earliest documented coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases. These findings suggest the feasibility of saliva as a noninvasive tool for surveillance of emerging outbreaks, and EHCWs represent a high-risk population that should be the focus of infectious disease surveillance.

Vitamin D and cholesterol share the same intestinal transporters. Thus, it was hypothesized that dietary cholesterol adversely affects vitamin D uptake. The current studies investigated the influence of cholesterol on the availability of oral vitamin D. First, 42 wild-type mice received a diet with 25 µg/kg labelled vitamin D3 (vitamin D3-d3), supplemented with either 0% (control), 0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6%, 0.8%, 1.0% or 2.0% cholesterol for four weeks to investigate vitamin D uptake. In a second study, 10 wild-type mice received diets containing 0% (control) or 1% cholesterol over four weeks to determine cholesterol-induced changes in bile acids. Finally, we investigated the impact of cholesterol versus bile acids on vitamin D uptake in Caco-2 cells. Surprisingly, dietary cholesterol intake was associated with 40% higher serum levels of vitamin D3-d3 and 2.3-fold higher vitamin D3-d3 concentrations in the liver compared to controls. The second study showed that cholesterol intake resulted in higher concentrations of faecal bile acids (control: 3.55 ± 1.71 mg/g dry matter; 1% dietary cholesterol: 8.95 ± 3.69 mg/g dry matter; P < 0.05) and changes in the bile acid profile with lower contents of muricholic acids (P < 0.1) and higher contents of taurodeoxycholic acid (P < 0.01) compared to controls. In-vitro analyses revealed that taurocholic acid (P < 0.001) but not cholesterol increased the cellular uptake of vitamin D by Caco-2 cells. To conclude, dietary cholesterol seems to improve the bioavailability of oral vitamin D by stimulating the release of bile acids and increasing the hydrophobicity of bile.

The article describes the practices through which patients’ self-presentations are challenged in psychotherapy. Based on the analysis of thirty-eight instances from psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, analyzed with methods of conversation analysis, narrative analysis, and coding, this article reports on how therapists challenge patients’ self-conceptualizations in response to patients’ self-presentations. Challenges mostly follow patients’ descriptive, narrative, or evaluative accounts that include a strong claim about their self. Challenges to the self pertain to core issues of the therapeutic projects. They are mostly built in ways that show its sensitivity to probable rejection by the patient. Overwhelmingly, the challenge is accounted for by reference to shared knowledge built in the participants’ shared interactional history. Arguably, psychotherapy is a particular setting where the organization of face-work is modified, as occasional challenging of the co-interactant's self-presentation is part of the institutional task of the professional participant. Data are in Finnish and German. (Self, psychotherapy, Goffman, conversation analysis)*

This article explores the global spread of domestic codifications of academic freedom norms by mapping constitutional provisions over time and space. Drawing on the new Academic Freedom in Constitutions dataset, the study evaluates several hypotheses that may explain the norm’s geographically diverse, yet comparatively limited, adoption in 52 per cent of constitutions today. The descriptive analysis of constitutional adoption patterns suggests that the as yet large pockets of absence are a result of the fact that academic freedom was not included as a fundamental right from the early days of constitution-making, combined with its close link to higher education development, thus locking many countries into a path dependency of early constitutions exclusive of academic freedom norms. The availability of relevant models in nearby countries, together with higher education expansion, are key facilitators of academic freedom adoption at the critical time of a constitutional reform process. Diverse countries in different regions acted as norm entrepreneurs, often motivated to domestically protect academic freedom, thus leading to the emergence of regional and other clusters of academic freedom reference types. A sizeable proportion of insincere adopters further suggests that, in some regions, academic freedom serves as a legitimizing international norm.

This article examines the evolution of the Russian Orthodox Church’s identities and political alignments from the post-Soviet era to the present in three chronological phases. First, the author explores the church’s varied post-Soviet identities shaped by experiences of repression, collaboration, dissidence, and emigration from 1991 to approximately 2010. The author identifies key legislative and political developments between 2010 and 2021 that have aligned the Russian Orthodox Church with the autocratic state. Finally, the author analyzes the shifting stance of the Moscow Patriarchate on Ukraine from 2014 to 2022, including Patriarch Kirill’s support for Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine since 2022, which is interpreted as a continuation of the church’s historical role as a collaborator during Soviet times. The author argues that the church’s contemporary role is confined to providing ritualistic and spiritual legitimization for state ideology, perpetuating a logic of authority, control, obedience, and dichotomous friend/enemy thinking reminiscent of Soviet-era security services. Through this analysis, the author reveals how the state and church leadership of the past decades has strategically positioned the church in preparation for conflict.

Slovak national communism as a specific approach to the problem of Czech-Slovak relations gained a significant position within the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia soon after its establishment in 1921. This article analyzes the foundations of this phenomenon and the evolving attitudes of the first generation of Slovak communist intellectuals and Party functionaries. The article’s primary focus is on the Slovak communists’ views regarding the official state doctrine of a unified Czechoslovak nation, Czech-Slovak relations, and the issue of Slovak autonomy. The study highlights the significant external influences, particularly the directives of the Communist International and the pre-existing national stereotypes, that shaped the worldview and nationalist tendencies of Slovak communists.

Showcasing how understandings of social mobility encoded raciolinguistic ideologies of the ideal upwardly mobile speaker, I investigate blue- and white-collar orientation to language, race, and social mobility in the Canadian labor market. I analyze these two subject positionalities and the way bundles of skills are ‘bundled otherwise’ when ideologies of race and language are invoked as relevant to a class experience. While the acquisition of standard languages remains understood as a gateway to upward mobility, the increased commodification of language made the acquisition of standard registers of French and English a skill amongst others, on par with any other. If this shift challenges an implicit ‘linguistic’ bias embedded in emic and scientific understandings of class, raciolinguistic ideologies continue to organize worker's orientations to language and work, be it to imagine themselves as cosmopolitan workers or to defend the positions of ethnic, national, and racialized groups in the economy. (Social class, raciolinguistics, work, language ideologies, francophone Canada, bilingualism)*

The authors seek to design a lower limb exoskeleton to augment human finned swimming; however, data associated with human finned swimming previously did not exist, particularly data that characterizes the active joint torque requirements for human-scale finned swimming motion and the corresponding thrust generation. Since these data are not directly measurable nor easily computed in human subject experiments, the authors instead employed a human-scale robotic platform to characterize the relationship between joint torque, speed, power, and thrust production during flutter kick swimming, specifically at the hip joints. Among the useful insights from this study: (1) the underwater environment can be accurately modeled as a simple viscous load as seen by the hip joints, where viscous coefficient depends on the type of fin; (2) accordingly, for a given fin, movement at any amplitude and frequency is invariant when motion is normalized by amplitude; velocity and torque by the product of amplitude and frequency; and power and thrust by the square of the product of amplitude and frequency; (3) the power-specific thrust is invariant, regardless of fin type, amplitude of motion, and frequency of motion; and 4) the phasing between right and left legs does not have a significant effect on thrust generation (i.e., kicking in-phase and kicking in opposition behave similarly). The authors hope this data will be useful to other researchers interested in developing lower limb exoskeletons to augment underwater human finned swimming.

This article analyses the scholarly results concerning the social phenomenon of intermarriage. It specifically focuses on the similarities and differences in the latter in Europe, between migrants and host society members, and between national minorities and majorities. The study shows that while intermarriage between migrants and host society members is often seen as a vehicle for bridging social gaps and promoting social cohesion, intermarriages between national minorities and majorities is more likely to lead to erosion of minority identities and cultural traits. Common challenges faced by intermarried couples include resistance from family members and bureaucratic obstacles, with gender dynamics playing a crucial role, particularly in traditional societies where women often bear the brunt of cultural assimilation. Intermarriage also promotes the perspective of the integrative nature of nation-states without requiring intervention by the states themselves. The article underscores the importance of deepening the discourse on intermarriage and focusing on the impact of the latter on both migrant and national minority communities through both quantitative analyses and qualitative approaches. This may improve the understanding of the transformative potential and challenges of these unions.

This article advocates for a ‘sociolinguistics of deglobalization’ that focuses on the sociolinguistic impacts of major shifts in the world system that have taken place since 2008 and have become particularly salient amidst the covid pandemic. Drawing on case studies of China, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, we describe the period after 2008 as an emerging post-neoliberal epoch characterized by the intensifying of state power, constrained resistance, differential inclusion, and organized abandonment. Our article explores the theoretical, methodological, and ethical challenges of researching the sociolinguistic impacts of these developments. We also argue that our discipline's dominant approach to global-scale analysis—the sociolinguistics of globalization—has impeded our ability to perceive the emerging dynamics of deglobalization. Our call for a sociolinguistics of deglobalization is offered as both a provocation and invitation to our discipline to engage with the rapidly changing nature of world politics. (Deglobalization, sovereignty, neoliberalism, coloniality, securitization)*

How are infrastructures socially appropriated? This article uses my fortuitous presence in a rural locality in eastern India as its residents discussed proposals for its complete electrification, allowing me to reflect on social negotiations around infrastructure prior to its installation. Drawing on a detailed ethnography of electrification in a West Bengal village, I illustrate the nuanced ways in which people inflect infrastructural projects with their collective ideas of what is right and good. As far as they can see, such projects are neither the unalloyed benefit that proponents celebrate nor the unmitigated evil that opponents lament. Rather, they are evaluated in relation to people’s imagination of the collective good, to which such infrastructures may or may not be central. Drawing on the insights offered by my interlocutors as well as recent advances in the literature on the politics of infrastructures, this article interrogates the perspective that infrastructures advance governmental rationalities. Building on well-established insights that technological infrastructures are not socially neutral and that infrastructures are socially appropriated, disputed, and negotiated, this article demonstrates that people’s engagement with infrastructures politicizes, rather than governmentalizes, them.