In 2018, the AOC Archaeology Group unearthed a unique Roman figurine in Sandy, Bedfordshire, likely an offering in a domestic shrine or lararium. The figurine features a distinctive Gallic cloak, similar to those found on copper-alloy figurines in Trier and Cambridgeshire and on numerous relief sculptures. It may be related to the hooded garment known as the birrus mentioned in Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices of a.d. 301, including the expensive Birrus Britannicus.

During excavations of a Roman villa at Fordham, Essex, a remarkable series of decorated bone and antler veneer plaques were recovered from villa destruction deposits. They are datable to the later fourth or fifth centuries a.d. and probably once adorned a casket holding bathing equipment and jewellery. Spread through the three main rooms of the villa, fragments were recovered from at least 10 metres apart, so the object is likely already to have been broken when deposited. The plaques are decorated with ‘late antique’ style figural, zoomorphic, vegetal and architectural motifs on a cross-hatched background, with the best-preserved design probably relating to female bathing.

This article presents a conceptual and methodological framework that focuses on the interactivity, creativity, and variability of Holocaust images in digital media. Our argument unfolds in three stages. First, we introduce the concept of playful images: historical images that undergo recontextualisation, serving memetic, personal, and interactive engagements in and by digital media. Secondly, drawing on pivotal scholarship in digital methods, anthropology, sociology, and visual analysis, we identify a lacuna in contemporary methodologies and provide a rationale for an innovative approach to visual memory analysis in digital media that considers both digital media affordances and the appropriation of visual and historical materials in digital media. For that purpose, we thirdly outline a visual walkthrough method (VWM), a pragmatic performance of our approach tailored for analysing interactive digital experiences featuring playful images. By examining the playful appropriation of historical images in the video game Call of Duty: WWII (2017), we demonstrate how the interactive experience of playful images can be analysed with the help of the VWM. We conclude by discussing the position of our proposed conceptual and methodological framework within media and memory studies in the digital age.

Background:Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is a major source of morbidity and mortality. Even after recovery, recurrent CDI (rCDI) occurs frequently, and concomitant antibiotic use for treatment of a concurrent non–C. difficile infection is a major risk factor. Treatment with fidaxomicin versus vancomycin is associated with similar rate of cure and lower recurrence risk. However, the comparative efficacy of these 2 agents remains unclear in those receiving concomitant antibiotics. Methods: We conducted a randomized, controlled, open-label trial at the University of Michigan and St. Joseph Mercy hospitals in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Patients provided written informed consent at enrollment. We included all hospitalized patients aged ≥18 years with a positive test for toxigenic C. difficile, >3 unformed stools per 24 hours, and ≥1 qualifying concomitant antibiotic with a planned treatment of an infection for ≥5 days after enrollment. We excluded patients with complicated CDI, allergy to vancomycin–fidaxomicin, planned adjunctive CDI treatments, CDI treatment for >24 hours prior to enrollment, concomitant laxative use, current or planned colostomy or ileostomy, and/or planned long-term (>12 weeks) concomitant antibiotic use. Clinical cure was defined as resolution of diarrhea for 2 consecutive days maintained until the end of therapy and for 2 days afterward. rCDI was defined as recurrent diarrhea with positive testing within 30 days of initial treatment. Patients were randomized (stratified by ICU status) to fidaxomicin 200 mg twice daily or vancomycin 125 mg orally 4 times daily for 10 days. If concomitant antibiotic treatment continued >10 days, the study drug continued until the concomitant antibiotic ended. Bivariable statistics included t tests and χ2 tests. Results: After screening 5,101 patients for eligibility (May 2017–May 2021), 144 were included and randomized (Fig. 1). Study characteristics and outcomes are noted in Table 1. Baseline characteristics were similar between groups. Most patients were aged <65 years, were on a proton-pump inhibitor (PPI), and were not in the ICU. The mean duration of concomitant antibiotic was 18.4 days. In the intention-to-treat population, clinical cure (73% vs 62.9%; P =.195), and rCDI (3.3% vs 4.0%; P >.99) were similar for fidaxomicin and vancomycin, respectively. Conclusions: In this study of patients with CDI receiving a concomitant antibiotic, a numerically higher proportion were cured with fidaxomicin versus vancomycin, but this result did not reach statistical significance. Overall recurrence was lower than anticipated in both arms compared to previous studies in which duration of CDI treatment was not extended during concomitant antibiotic treatment. Future studies are needed to ascertain whether clinical cure is higher with fidaxomicin than vancomycin during concomitant antibiotic exposure, and whether extending the duration of CDI treatment reduces recurrence.

Funding: Merck & Co.

Disclosures: None

Real-world studies have demonstrated impressive effectiveness of the BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine in preventing symptomatic and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. We describe an outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 infections in a hospital with high vaccine uptake. We found a low secondary attack rate (7%), suggesting low infectivity of vaccinated persons with vaccine breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Excavated between 1984 and 1992, the site of a large Roman villa complex at Stanwick, Northamptonshire, produced a significant quantity of sculpted and architectural worked stone. This paper assesses the various aspects of that material, including the petrological sources, and offers a new interpretation. Many items were discovered as post-packing or were otherwise reused within the fabric of the enlarged fourth-century villa, but originally derived from what were probably two earlier monumental structures dated on stylistic grounds to the early third century. The sculpture was initially examined in 1994–95 by Martin Henig and the late Thomas Blagg, whose work, especially on the large number of architectural pieces, has been subsumed into this paper and to whom we owe a debt of gratitude. Supplementary material is available online (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X21000052) and comprises additional figures and tables.

A cache of Roman copper-alloy fragments was discovered, apparently carefully layered in a pit, in a field in Gloucestershire by metal-detectorists in 2017. The assemblage comprises over 5 kg of metal pieces, predominantly box fittings, but also smaller items of personal use such as a fourth-century belt buckle, a three-strand bracelet, a spoon and a coin (a nummus of Crispus). Most remarkable are the sculptural fragments, including several pieces of life-size statuary and the complete statuette of a dog with fine incised decoration, and part of an incised bronze inscription panel. This article considers the original form of the statuary and the use and deposition of the cache. It is proposed that these fragments represent the remains of the accoutrements of a temple or shrine in the local area, perhaps dedicated to Diana Venatrix, and that they were removed and deposited together in the late fourth century. Supplementary material is available online (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X20000501) and comprises additional figures.

Clinical Enterobacteriacae isolates with a colistin minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) ≥4 mg/L from a United States hospital were screened for the mcr-1 gene using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and confirmed by whole-genome sequencing. Four colistin-resistant Escherichia coli isolates contained mcr-1. Two isolates belonged to the same sequence type (ST-632). All subjects had prior international travel and antimicrobial exposure.

The limestone sculpture of an eagle firmly clasping a serpent in its beak was recovered from within the eastern Roman cemetery of London on the last day of excavations at 24–26 Minories, EC3 in September 2013. The sculpture, which is dated stylistically to the late first or early second century a.d., had been carefully buried within the backfill of a roadside ditch no later than the mid-second century. The Minories eagle is one of the finest and earliest examples of freestone sculpture from the London cemeteries and presumably adorned the tomb of a rich and important individual or family located nearby. Petrological analysis of the sculpture has revealed it is carved from oolitic limestone quarried from the south Cotswolds. The article presents the context of the findspot and a detailed description of the eagle sculpture with an in-depth discussion of the iconography of the image and the results of the petrological examination. The Supplementary Material available online (http://journals.cambridge.org/bri) presents an account of the site stratigraphy, integrated with the specialist finds and the environmental reports.

Situated in the borderlands of Southeast Europe, this essay explores how enduring patterns of transregional circulation and cosmopolitan sensibility unfold in the lives of dervish brotherhoods in the post-Cold War present. Following recent debates on connected histories in post-colonial studies and historical anthropology, long-standing mobile and circulating societies, and reinvigorated interest in empire, this essay focuses ethnographically on how members of a dervish brotherhood in Bosnia-Herzegovina cultivate relations with places, collectivities, and practices that exist on different temporal, spatial and geopolitical scales. These connections are centered around three modes of articulation—sonic, graphic, and genealogical—through which the dervish disciples imagine and realize transregional relations. This essay begins and concludes with a meditation on the need for a dialogue between ethnography and transregional history in order to appreciate modes of identification and imagination that go beyond the essentializing forms of collective identity that, in the post-imperial epoch, have been dominated by political and methodological nationalism.