Victimization of the Dead: Exploring Burglars Use of Publicly Available Obituary Information to Perpetrate Their Crimes.

The present study uses primary data collected by the researchers on residential burglaries committed in the time-period of 1991-2021 to analyze the individual year frequency of obituary burglaries and patterns across time in relation to obituary burglaries. The goal is to assess the frequency of this form of burglary and the potential impact of increased web based publishing of obituaries on incidents of residential burglaries during funerary rites. Findings indicate that while this form of burglary is rare, it is a niche form of residential burglary committed by specialized burglars who utilize information available about funerals to specifically target the family of the deceased's home or the vacant home of the deceased. Recommendations for protecting against this form of victimization are provided.

Rumor Has it: "Dementia" A Discourse-Analytical Analysis of Obituaries of People With Dementia.

Despite the increasing incidence of the condition, people with dementia face a double stigma: ageism and the stigma of mental illness. The stigmatization of the condition has negative consequences, and can even lead to self-stigmatization. To develop adequate education programs to overcome the harmful stigma, the degree and the characteristics of that stigmatization have to be identified. In this study, the content and the language of obituaries of well-known people with dementia are analyzed using a qualitative bottom-up approach. If mentioned, the dementia receives little attention and the information given does not exceed common knowledge. Euphemistic language such as metaphors is introduced not to circumvent the condition, but to palliate its degressive nature.

The Final Fight: An Analysis of Metaphors in Online Obituaries of Professional Athletes.

In literature, obituaries from different cultures and languages have been studied on different levels and from different perspectives. One of the popular research topics is the use of metaphors, since metaphors help to cope with death, which in modern society is still a taboo. This article presents a bottom-up, primarily qualitative analysis of the metaphors in 150 obituaries of sportspeople, published in online versions of newspapers/magazines and on the Internet. As expected, the obituaries contain the traditional metaphors of death. Also more original, creative metaphors are introduced to describe death in a euphemistic way. Some of those have a link to sports but not systematically to the sport practiced by the deceased.

[Self-reported obituary columns in a local daily newspaper].

Objectives　To reveal the features of death and subsequent funeral services, we analyzed self-reported obituaries in The Shimotsuke, a local daily newspaper in Tochigi, Japan. In addition, the usefulness and disadvantages of such a database of deaths based on the obituaries were discussed.Method　For a 5-year period, from January 2011 through December 2015, all the obituary columns in The Shimotsuke were computerized as a database and analyzed. Some results were compared with the vital statistics data in the corresponding period of time. Data analyzed were: dead persons' address (municipalities), name, sex, cause of death, age at death, date of death and funeral services, the chief mourner (Moshu), and so on.Results　During the observed 5-year period, 69,793 deaths appeared in the columns, which were 67.6% of the all deaths in the vital statistics. No difference was observed in the proportions between the sexes in the published deaths in comparison with the vital statistics. In both sexes, the proportion was low in 0-9 years old, then high among 10-19 years, decreasing in 20s, and after then the proportion increased according to the age. The proportion was low in city areas, such as Utsunomiya and Oyama, and high in some cities and towns in the northern or eastern parts of Tochigi prefecture. The highest was in Motegi Town (88.0%), and the lowest was Nogi Town (38.0%), which is located in the southern-most part of the prefecture and is closest to the Tokyo metropolitan area. Almost all the funeral services were conducted within a week of the death, and no delays were observed to have been caused by the short supply of cremation services, which exists in large cities in Japan. In case where the chief mourner was a child, a parent, or a spouse of a child, the male sex was dominant. Analyses of death from senile decay, suicide, and homicide indicated that the accuracy of the published cause of death was low. The date of the funeral services was strongly influenced by superstitions in this country.Conclusions　Observations of the self-reported obituaries in a local daily newspaper over five years revealed the situations of the deaths in the area that could not be observed using vital statistics. Despite limitations, the information was partially useful as a database.

Sailing between Scylla and Charybdis: invited response to 'Blame or discovery?'

This brief commentary reflects on navigating two dangers of historical research into psychiatry: hagiographic representations of psychiatrists; and accusations of their self-interest and oppression of vulnerable people.

Michael James (1940-2023).

Michael James is remembered.

Alexei Vagin (1944-2023).

Alexei Vagin is remembered.

Raimond B. G. Ravelli (25 March 1968-30 June 2023).

Raimond B. G. Ravelli is remembered.

MycoNews 2022: editorial, news, reports, awards, personalia, and book news.

This fourth annual edition of MycoNews starts with an editorial asking if mycology is approaching a tipping point, and note of the journal's 2021 Impact Factor almost doubling from 2020. Updated information and new speakers for IMC12 in 2024 is presented. Reports are provided for the Rise of the Fungi symposium in Amsterdam and of MycoRiseUP! in Warsaw in 2022. Information on activities of the International Commission on the Taxonomy of Fungi (ICTF) in the last two years are presented, including the formation of new Working Groups. Procedures for the nomination of IMA awards and for nomenclature proposals to be presented at IMC12 are provided. The Westerdijk Institute awards to Feng-Yan Bai and Marc Stadler are recorded, and Michael Wingfield and Geoffrey Kibby are congratulated on special awards they have received. Tributes are paid to the passing of two distinguished mycologists during the year, John Parmelee and John Pitt. Reviews of six mycological books published in 2021-22 are also provided.

MycoNews 2021: President's message, IMA statutes, news, reports, awards, personalia, and book news.

This third annual edition of MycoNews starts with a message from IMA President Wieland Meyer regarding the adoption of new statutes for the IMA, the postponement of IMC12 to 2024, and announcing Marc Stadler as President-elect. The new statutes are included in full. News is provided on the launch of a World Fungus Day, acceptance of the term Funga as an equivalent to Fauna and Flora by the IUCN Species Survival Commission, new arrangements and dates for IMC12 now to be held in Maastricht in July 2024, and revised arrangements for the publication of proposals to change any rules governing the nomenclature of fungi. Reports are provided for IAL9, the symposium of the International Association for Lichenology in Brazil mainly conducted virtually, MycoRise Up! in Poland, and the centenary of the German Mycological Society (DGFM). Birthday greetings from IMA go to David Farr, Marie-Agnés Letrouit-Galinou, Maria Olech, Angela Restrepo, Carol Shearer, James Trappe, and Shun-ichi Udagawa. Tributes are also paid to the passing of the distinguished mycologists Heinz Butin, Karl Esser, Grégoire Hennebert, Jack Rogers, Kálman Vánky, and Bodo Wanke. The contribution concludes with news of seven new mycological books published in 2020-2021, and another forthcoming in 2022.

Killed by its own obituaries: Explaining the demise of the ether.

In this paper I follow the demise of the ether in the first half of the twentieth century to show how the first obituaries of the ether were instrumental in creating an object with specific and largely simplified properties related to, but different from, nineteenth-century ethers. I suggest that writing the history of dead objects (or objects an author wants to be dead) is not epistemologically neutral but, on the contrary, it involves a reformulation of the object itself. I show that this was indeed the case with the ether: those arguing for its demise in the early twentieth century tended to overlook as irrelevant one of the ether's most important properties, namely being the seat for the transmission of electromagnetic waves. Instead, they emphasized the contradictions between other properties of previous ether(s), so as to advocate for its disappearance.

MycoNews 2020: President's message, news, reports, awards, personalia, book news, and correspondence.

This second annual edition of MycoNews starts with a message from IMA President Wieland Meyer regarding the steps being taken to legally incorporate the Association in Switzerland. News is provided on progress in the arrangements for IMC12 (Amsterdam 2022), release of the State of World's Plants and Fungi report, mycology under the Coronavirus pandemic, and two new biodiversity initiatives in The Netherlands. Reports are presented from the: 1st International Symposium on Tropical African Mycology (Benin 2019); Recent Advances in the Biodiversity, Biology, and Biotechnology of Fungi (Pondicherry 2019); the 4th International Malassezia Workshop (virtual 2020); Dutch Design Week (2020), and UK Fungus Day (2020). An honour awarded to Francis Martin is recorded. Birthday greetings from IMA go to John Walker, José Dianese, Richard Harris, Tomasz Majewski, David Malloch, and John Sheard. Tributes are paid to the passing of John Peberdy, Anthony Trinci, and Balamuri Vittal. This contribution continues with news of 10 new mycological books published in 2019 or 2020 and concludes with a letter on the appropriateness of adopting the term 'Funga'.

Female breast cancer mortality in relation to puberty on Staten Island, New York.

Pursuant to a Congressional act in 2008, the Department of Health and Human Services established the Interagency Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Coordinating Committee to address the burden of breast cancer in the United States. Subsequently, the Committee recommended researchers study the timing of exposure to breast cancer risk factors. Given the high breast cancer mortality rate on Staten Island, this paper presents a case-control study investigating breast cancer risk associated with puberty while living on Staten Island. The dataset combined New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene female death certificate information between 1985 and 2006, with life history information from newspaper obituaries. Data analyzed included: age, length of residence on Staten Island, birth on Staten Island, and residence on Staten Island during puberty. Cases were individuals who died of breast cancer and controls were individuals who died of non-malignant causes. Analysis included multivariate logistic regression on the full dataset and multiple replicates of randomized one case to two controls simulations. Results indicated that living on Staten Island during puberty (ages 9-19) was associated with an elevated risk of dying from breast cancer (odds ratio 1.35, p < 0.001, 95% CI = 1.18, 1.55). This paper suggests the importance of studying puberty as a window of susceptibility for breast cancer risk.

Michael G. Rossmann (1930-2019), pioneer in macromolecular and virus crystallography: scientist, mentor and friend.

Michael George Rossmann, who made monumental contributions to science, passed away peacefully in West Lafayette, Indiana on 14 May 2019 at the age of 88, following a courageous five-year battle with cancer. Michael was born in Frankfurt, Germany on 30 July 1930. As a young boy, he emigrated to England with his mother just as World War II ignited. Michael was a highly innovative and energetic person, well known for his intensity, persistence and focus in pursuing his research goals. Michael was a towering figure in crystallography as a highly distinguished faculty member at Purdue University for 55 years. Michael made many seminal contributions to crystallography in a career that spanned the entirety of structural biology, beginning in the 1950s at Cambridge where the first protein structures were determined in the laboratories of Max Perutz (hemoglobin, 1960) and John Kendrew (myoglobin, 1958). Michael's work was central in establishing and defining the field of structural biology, which amazingly has described the structures of a vast array of complex biological molecules and assemblies in atomic detail. Knowledge of three-dimensional biological structure has important biomedical significance including understanding the basis of health and disease at the molecular level, and facilitating the discovery of many drugs.

MycoNews 2019: editorials, news, reports, awards, personalia, book news, and correspondence.

This first instalment of MycoNews includes: an Editorial "Do we need more governance in taxonomy?"; reports of mycological meetings in Poland (18th Congress of European Mycologists), Iran (4th Iranian Mycological Congress) and Chile (1st Chilean Meeting of Mycology (I Encuentro Chileno de Micología); an award to Lynne Boddy; birthday greetings to Gro Gulden, Marja Härkönen, Gregoire Hennebert, Hannes Hertel, and Junta Sugiyama; tributes to the passing of Francisco Calogne, Stanley J. Hughes, and Jos Wessels; news of four mycological books and one on-line work published in 2019; and a special tribute to Stanley Hughes by Kris Pirozynski.

A longevidade nas notas de falecimento / Longevity in obituaries

O processo do aumento da longevidade no Brasil pode ser evidenciado pelas notas de falecimento de idosos. A longevidade é um fenômeno atual no país e é determinada pelo tempo de vida maior alcançado pelos idosos. Esse processo tem maior predominância no sexo feminino, sendo chamado de feminização da velhice. Verificar a longevidade dos idosos moradores da metrópole de São Paulo e aspectos contidos nas notas de falecimento é o que trata este artigo.

The process of increasing longevity in Brazil can be evinced by the obituaries for the elderly. Longevity is a current phenomenon in the country and is determined by the lifetime achieved by most people. This process has a higher prevalence among women, and it is called the feminization of old age. To check on the longevity of the elderly dwelling in the metropolis of Sao Paulo and the aspects contained in obituaries is the subject of this article.