bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Conclusion: Neighbourhood planning and beyond
Authors: Yuille Andy
Published: January 2024

This chapter draws together the key themes from the previous chapters. It starts by summarising the arguments made throughout the course of the book. It then goes on to discuss the implications of that argument for the practice of, and research into, neighbourhood planning and participatory democracy more widely and the knowledge practices that they are based on. It explores how these findings can contribute to the Science and Technology Studies-inspired project of ‘re-making participation’ (Chilvers and Kearnes, 2016): making participatory democratic processes more transparent, accountable and responsive, by reconceiving how we understand the people, places and issues at stake.
COVID-19 in Custody: Responding to Pandemics in Prisons in England and Wales
Authors: Kay Christopher
Published: January 2024

The first cases of COVID-19 in England and Wales saw a sudden and significant strain placed on a range of public services, with general practitioner surgeries, hospitals, schools, adult social care and others having to adapt quickly to life with the virus. While the impact of the pandemic on such services cannot be denied, the virus also posed a ‘very real threat … to our other, often unfairly overlooked, frontline service: our prisons’ (Neill, 2020). This chapter focuses on the impact of the first two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic on the prison system in England and Wales, along with the lessons learned from these waves in relation to pandemic management within the system itself and to the dichotomy that exists between populist penal politics and public health.
Racism, Policing and the Pandemic
Authors: Harris Scarlet , Joseph-Salisbury Remi , Williams Patrick , White Lisa
Published: January 2024

This chapter addresses the qualitative experiences of policing during the pandemic from the perspective of racially minoritized people and communities – in other words, the overpoliced (Elliott-Cooper, 2021) – and those who are most impacted by lockdown restrictions (Katikireddi et al, 2021). The discussion is based on 22 in-depth research conversations that took place over Zoom between December 2020 and April 2021. The accounts of participants are foregrounded to offer insight into the ways policing in the pandemic has been experienced by those most subject to it. This covers: first, how ‘lockdown’ conditions, in combination with new police powers, build on and further enable long-standing patterns of racialized policing; second, police contact amid the dangers of virus transmission and the associated trauma arising from such encounters; and, third, how those subject to policing navigate and manage police encounters in an attempt to mitigate the risk of police violence and criminalization.
Crisis within a Crisis: Sex Workers, Emergency Response and Creative Service Provision
Authors: Fowler Rachel , Haines Abbie , Sanders Teela
Published: January 2024

This chapter draws on research commentary, practitioner engagement and lived experience across the authorship to reflect on the pressing issues for sex workers during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020–21. The chapter charts the effects of lockdown for a population who are already marginalized through working in the informal economy, which is partly criminalized and therefore cut off from the safety net of government social protection programmes. Those who have been victims of crime and receive support through the criminal justice process have been placed under additional uncertainty in relation to court attendance and outcomes for their cases. Due to court closures and uncertainty from the Crown Prosecution Service, victims have experienced stress regarding the progress of their cases. These experiences of social isolation and marginalization have compounded stigma and associated discrimination against sex workers. At the same time, support services were faced with changing the nature of their business with immediate effect as they became frontline emergency services, violence intervention workers, housing workers and the first point of contact for many people living in complete isolation with no food or money. This chapter reviews the immediate experiences of the lockdown, how ‘doing sex work’ has been affected and how service provision has used creative ways to respond to those in crisis.
The Box Project at HMP Parc
Authors: Forder Phil
Published: January 2024

This chapter presents artwork created by residents of HMP Parc as part of the Box Project, an initiative which provided individual art packs for residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Brushes, watercolours, pencils, erasers, sketchbooks, sharpeners and ‘ideas books’ were distributed to residents undertaking art programmes pre pandemic so that they could carry on their work, albeit in isolation.
Conclusion: The Lessons – Recovery and Pandemic Preparedness
Authors: Kay Christopher , Case Stephen
Published: January 2024

This chapter summarizes the key learning from the preceding chapters of the book. It highlights what we have to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and how we should operationalize these lessons to improve pandemic preparedness in the future.
Introduction: The case for a welfare imagination
Authors: Murphy Mary P.
Published: January 2024

This short introductory chapter first outlines the problems, solutions and strategies that inform the underlying argument for ecosocial policy. It then justifies the case for social, political and policy imagination alongside action which offers hope. It explores the author’s motivation for writing the book and the choice of Ireland as an anchoring case study. Finally, the chapter outlines the structure of the book and the content of each chapter.
From an unequal society to ecosocial welfare
Authors: Murphy Mary P.
Published: January 2024

This chapter focuses on how the contemporary global model of financialised capital leads to greater inequality, an inequality unequally experienced across different groups in society within and between nations. It explores how inequality intersects with the ecological crisis, increasing wants and fuelling consumption in the Global North, while leaving countries and people in the Global South vulnerable to poverty and ill-equipped to meet the challenges that climate change is already presenting. This is particularly true for women and girls who bear the worst impacts of both inequality and climate change. The second part of the chapter discusses tensions at the heart of welfare policy in the Global North. A less conditional and more enabling and flourishing form of careful social policy is needed to resource the scale and type of active citizenship required in an ecosocial state. The challenge is to redistribute and support work, income, time and democratic participation in a post-growth society and economy through ecosocial welfare. The chapter concludes by reviewing the state of inequality and wellbeing in Irish society.
Conclusion: The case for systemic transformation
Authors: Murphy Mary P.
Published: January 2024

We all now have to find our place in engagement with climate change and be part of the demand for systemic change. The conclusion interrogates the propositions in the book to test whether they are coherent and convincing arguments. It echoes the challenge, identifying a clear problem and proposing an ecosocial welfare future as part of a broader transformative agenda to a post-growth world. It situates a political strategy for making it happen through a deepening and widening of democratic institutions and processes and inclusive participation and coalition-building. The conclusion underscores the urgency of now and how crisis only offers opportunity to those who are ready with ideas to enact. Ready now
Gendered perspectives on welfare
Authors: Parker Jonathan
Published: January 2024

This chapter considers the impact of welfare on women throughout history and into the present. In terms of sex differences, women have held a central place in welfare in terms of provider role, catalysts for change, but also experience welfare through patriarchal givens and normative expectations. Thus, there is a gendered ambivalence that permeates social welfare. The welfare state, building on previous practices, has continued to organise welfare around assumptions or discourses of family and breadwinners, usually presuming the latter is male. This ambiguous and somewhat contradictory positioning of women is explored in the context of gender-power relations and feminist approaches to formal and informal welfare practices and philosophies. Welfare institutions act as gender-structuring systems which are also structured by gender, reflecting Bourdieu’s concept of habitus.
Conclusion: between care paradigms
Authors: Needham Catherine , Hall Patrick
Published: January 2024

This chapter summarises the findings of the book and considers how policy makers can more productively engage with the tensions between the two care paradigms in order to move towards a more sustainable care system. By making these paradigms explicit, the book exposes key points of difference, and why care reformers often speak past each other because they are focused on different means and ends. The paradigms shape both specific mechanisms for reform as well as broader questions about what sustainability means in a context of care. Drawing out the paradigms enables us to ask questions about wellbeing, fairness, quality, rights and sustainability in care.
Policy analysis by national government advisory councils: knowledge production and its role in policy design and implementation
Authors: Cardozo Nelson , Ferrari Paola
Published: January 2024

This chapter seeks to analyze the knowledge production by the councils and other similar instances at the national level. Traditionally, the process of formulating public policy has been highly focused on executive bodies with strong decisionist patterns from the presidency and the governing party. For this reason, the production of public policies in the legislative bodies in our country rests with the committees of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. Thus, there was no stable body of congressional advisors to produce documents, reports, and publications on public policy. The agencies we will take are: the National Council for Quality in Education; the Federal Health Council; the National Council for the Coordination of Social Policies; the Federal Investment Council; and, finally, the Secretariat of Social Security – which has a great academic production on the subject. To this end, we will review the reports, books, working papers, journals, and conferences that these agencies have produced. We will focus on social policies, which are the main policy area of our national government. Finally, from this study we will make a brief state of the art of the production on the country’s four major sectoral policies: social welfare, health, education, and infrastructure.
Managing uncertainty: framing COVID-19
Authors: Alaszewski Andy
Published: January 2024

Framing a disease is a way of naming and categorising it, and of attributing it to a cause or set of causes that shape individual and collective responses. Framing allows the identification of the key features of a novel situation. A frame does not provide a comprehensive picture; rather, it highlights key features. The effectiveness of this device depends on how well it captures salient characteristics. In the case of COVID-19, two alternative frames emerged at the start of the pandemic: COVID-19 as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) versus COVID-19 as seasonal flu. Initially, countries that adopted the SARS frame adopted zero-COVID policies, and used public health measures to prevent the spread of the virus. In contrast, countries that framed COVID-19 as seasonal flu adopted a wait-and-see or herd immunity approach, which allowed the virus to spread. As infections and deaths rose, they were forced to adopt lockdown measures to protect their health services. However, with the development of vaccines and the emergence of less lethal variants, these countries were able to normalise everyday life while zero-COVID countries had to find exit strategies.
Communicating risk: public health messaging
Authors: Alaszewski Andy
Published: January 2024

During the pandemic, governments had to communicate complex scientific and epidemiological concepts in such a way that they could be understood and accepted by the population, and result in behavioural changes that limited or stopped the spread of the virus. The challenge of communicating the risks of COVID-19 was affected by the ways in which it was initially framed. In those countries in which it was framed as a SARS-like disease, there was no need to change and adjust the public health message. From the start, the new virus was presented as a major danger and one that required significant changes in behaviour. In Taiwan, Japan and New Zealand, there was a clear and consistent message engendering public trust. In countries that initially framed COVID-19 as flu-like, such as the UK and US, there were major shifts in messaging, especially in the early stages of the pandemic when it became evident that there was community transmission, that hospital admissions were taking place and deaths were rising rapidly. In some countries, the messaging was further undermined by tensions between populist politicians and public health experts. This tended to undermine trust in public health messaging.
Policy Labs: the next frontier of policy design and evaluation?
Authors: Olejniczak Karol , Borkowska-Waszak Sylwia , Domaradzka Anna , Park Yaerin
Published: January 2024

The chapter explores the potential benefits to public policy of combining traditional evaluative inquiry with insights developed dynamically in policy labs. Twenty leading labs from five continents are critically analysed through a literature review as well as policy and programme evaluation practices, assessing the extent to which the purpose, structures and processes used in policy labs address three challenges: (1) establishing the causality and value of public interventions, (2) explaining mechanisms of change, and (3) utilising research findings in public policy. The chapter concludes that creating synergies between evaluation inquiry and policy labs can improve the design and implementation of public policy and programmes.
Applying design science in public policy and administration research
Authors: Georges A. , Romme L. , Meijer Albert
Published: January 2024

There is increasing debate about the role that public policy research can play in identifying solutions to complex policy challenges. Most studies focus on describing and explaining how governance systems operate. However, some scholars argue that because current institutions are often not up to the task, researchers need to rethink this ‘bystander’ approach and engage in experimentation and interventions that can help to change and improve governance systems. This paper contributes to this discourse by developing a design science framework that integrates retrospective research (scientific validation) and prospective research (creative design). It illustrates the merits and challenges of doing this through two case studies in the Netherlands and concludes that a design science framework provides a way of integrating traditional validation-oriented research with intervention-oriented design approaches. We argue that working at the interface between them will create new opportunities for these complementary modes of public policy research to achieve impact.
Policy-making as designing: taking stock and looking forward
Authors: Buuren Arwin van , Lewis Jenny M. , Peters B. Guy
Published: January 2024

In this final chapter we reflect upon the application of more designerly, and thus creative or playful, ways of making policy, the ‘second face of public sector design’ (Clarke and Craft, 2018), how they relate to the more traditional forms of design, and what their pitfalls and promises are. Moreover, we reflect upon the consequences of this transition for the way in which public organizations should be designed and managed. In this chapter, we first sketch the potentials of designerly ways of making policies, as well as their pitfalls. We then reflect upon the relation between ‘old’ and ‘new’ approaches of policy design and the evolution we can witness. It seems that traditional and more recent approaches are combined or blended together in many ways.
Conclusion: Creating societies where children can know love
Authors: Lloyd Jenny , Firmin Carlene
Published: January 2024

The four domains of Contextual Safeguarding (CS) have provided the framework for what we are doing to respond to extra-familial harm (EFH). The evidence in this book indicates that they may not always provide enough of a framework to protect against problematic practice within child protection. In response, the five values of CS provide guidance on how we can do CS. Drawing on bell hooks’s (2001) love ethic, this chapter explores the five values of CS: collaboration, ecological, rights-based, strengths-based and evidence-informed, arguing that CS aims to create societies where children can know love. Drawing on findings from each chapter, it explores the need for love to be shown towards children impacted by EFH and practitioners working to protect them.
It’s just not cricket: (green) parks and recreation in COVID times
Authors: Kay Kavyta
Published: January 2024

One, among many, areas of inequality that COVID-19 has placed a spotlight on is access to green spaces. That the nation’s local parks and green spaces have been a lifeline during the pandemic is a widely agreed upon sentiment; yet while these have been invaluable, the Green Space Index released in 2020 revealed that 2.7 million people in Great Britain do not have access to such a space. Additionally, a survey by Friends of the Earth (2020) found that 42 per cent of people of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds live in England’s most green space-derived neighbourhoods. If green spaces enable wellbeing practices such as walking, exercising and playing in the park, then the question of who gets to inhabit these spaces invariably arises. Over the course of the pandemic, recreational cricket, a sport widely played by South Asian communities nationwide in these green spaces, was confronted with this question of access, which further took on an intersectional dimension as we see notions of privilege, race and identity collide in particular ways, and which is explored in this chapter.
Policy analysis in central government
Authors: Ungsuchaval Theerapat
Published: January 2024

This chapter examines that policy analysis in the central government in Thailand is based on governmental systems including the emergence of the governance mechanisms. Policy analysis at this national level determines the policy development of the whole country. Although the central government, after the 1970s, has not had a monopoly on the policy and governance systems and has started to share its power with non-state actors, it remains the focal point of policy analysis in the country. Governmental and bureaucratic influence over policy analysis has persisted. This chapter also introduces four major developments which characterise the nature of policy analysis in Thailand. The bureaucratic polity and consultative authoritarianism are the main characteristics of national policy analysis in different periods. Corporatism and new governance can be captured in the policy landscape, especially when the Thai government needs to incorporate key business associations and civil society movements into the policy processes.
Health in a Post-COVID World
Authors: Taylor Sebastian
Published: January 2024

We are living in a time of extraordinary global turbulence. Confidence in post-war liberal values – of growth and freedom, justice and security, democracy and truth – is collapsing. In a world of increasing uncertainty, health – the universal human good – offers a uniquely objective measure by which we can test the veracity of these values – the point of crisis to which they have brought us, and their potential reformation as we emerge into a post-COVID world.This book is about health, society and politics. Not so much how social and political forces generate health – about which much is already written – but how health can illuminate the political and policy choices we make, the values on which we make them, and the kinds of society we get as a result.Drawing on examples from developed and developing countries around the world, it uses the irrefutable evidence of mortality and morbidity, our systems of care and the social conditions that determine our physical lives to test the key coordinates of the liberal ideal: the benefits and costs of our addiction to economic growth, the hyper-individualist notion of freedom we espouse, the frailties of the social justice we claim to seek and the security we crave, the contradictions deep in the heart of our democratic model, and the profound vulnerability of the idea of truth on which our societies themselves depend.Health is the preeminent human good – prized by individuals and societies alike. Ideas of health, disease and medicine are woven into the history of what it is to be human. Health forms a theme running through civilisations from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to modern European cinema and TV. Over the long course of history, health has been a mirror of the quality of society, imbued with deep-rooted ideas of value but at the same time utterly objective and independently verifiable. Health is perhaps the only continuous feature of human existence which shapes the values we espouse, and manifests the effect of those values in our bodies, our lives and our lifespan.Over the last 40 years, wealthy Western countries have developed an idea of the ‘perfectable society’ – one which pursues economic growth, individual freedom, social justice, global security, democracy and truth. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, this idea went global. Yet, since then, we have seen inequality rise and crises proliferate as the protective effects of civil society and electoral democracy have crumbled. Increasing social polarisation has collapsed popular faith in this perfectable society. Increasingly uncertain about the direction of their societies and the veracity of their leaders, people seek some concrete point of reference by which to recover a shared sense of the common values by which we may shape society’s post-COVID recovery. The body of this book argues that health offers a uniquely objective yardstick by which to measure the way in which those values can shape our society, quite literally, for good or ill.
The nature of freedom
Authors: Taylor Sebastian
Published: January 2024

Freedom is perhaps the most fundamental liberal value – yet one which is bitterly contested. What does freedom mean, for whom, and how do we achieve it? The contemporary idea of freedom focuses intensely on the liberation of individuals from the oppressions of society and government. The following three chapters draw on examples from health – the role of vaccines and immunisation, the problem of noncommunicable disease, and the nature of the healthcare system – to demonstrate that an individualist notion of freedom undermines some of our most valuable social functions and that an alternative concept – of freedom as reciprocal – is urgently needed if we are to optimise the relationship between liberty and welfare.
The freedom to fail
Authors: Taylor Sebastian
Published: January 2024

Noncommunicable diseases are now the dominant cause of mortality in countries at all levels of economic wealth. The causes of noncommunicable diseases, commonly characterised as ‘diseases of lifestyle’, are widely attributed to our consumption preferences and the behaviours we adopt. The dominant policy response is to increase individual freedom to make responsible choices – governments deferring in favour of market-led solutions, disregarding the evidence that these do not work. This chapter argues that individual freedom is too often simply overpowered by increasingly concentrated, globalising market forces. Using the example of obesity and diet, the chapter concludes that liberating individuals to make choices while failing to supply the conditions in which such choice is meaningfully possible is an ineffective, inefficient and in the end rather cruel form of freedom.
Shaping Peacebuilding in Colombia
Authors: Montoya Londoño Catalina
Published: January 2024

This book explores how key countries (US, Canada, Sweden, UK) and international organizations (EU, UN, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, MAPP/OEA) promoted geographically targeted peacebuilding efforts in Colombia between November 2016 and February 2019 through online subsidies or daily information in news sections of official web pages. This period was marked by the start of the implementation of the peace agreement between the Santos administration and the left-wing guerrillas of FARC, as well as presidential election campaigns and the first six months of government formation after President Ivan Duque took office in August 2018. Drawing on the proposed notion of spatial framing, with the help of NVivo and documentary research, this book assesses which spaces were prioritized by international actors in their daily communications, how those spaces were explicitly labelled and defined with negative and positive references, and which agendas were foregrounded in relation to targeted places of peacebuilding intervention. These questions are used to assess how far differing frames regarding space transformation and peacebuilding reflected consensus, complementarity, dissent or dispersion in the background of two Colombian governments opposed on the peace process, and the implications for consolidating the peacebuilding initiatives of the former government of Juan Manuel Santos.
Dealing in Uncertainty
Authors: van der Heide Arjen
Published: January 2024

Dealing in Uncertainty examines how insurance has fared in the age of finance. It tells the story of cultural change in the British life insurance industry and explores the ways in which insurers deploy the technology of risk and uncertainty has changed since the 1960s. Traditional actuarial methods, techniques and norms to deal with uncertainty have been displaced by or supplemented with the technical repertoire of modern finance theory. Focusing on the British life insurance sector, it investigates how actors in the insurance industry responded to the broader financialization of the political economy; how, in other words, the rise of finance and the institutionalization of modern finance theory created new opportunities and challenges for insurers and insurance practitioners. Conceiving of financialization as a social process that can be studied with sociological tools, the book argues that the institutionalization of calculation conventions rooted in modern finance theory has reshaped life insurers’ value model and the social relations underpinning the financial risks of retirement and death, creating a direct link between financial risk and the value of an insurance contract and folding calculated financial risk into the insurance commodity.
From Capital to Commons
Authors: Gerhardt Hannes
Published: January 2024

Today, there is a widespread perception that capitalism has no viable alternatives. This book, however, explores an emerging body of work, centred on the conceptualization and enactment of the ‘commons’, that seeks to challenge this claim. It is a proposition rooted in the idea that our current state of economic and technological development, and especially the rise of digital capabilities, makes the adoption of openness, cooperation, and shared ownership and governance a more rational economic choice in meeting the needs and wants of humanity than one based on competition, artificial scarcity, and the pursuit of profit. This book critically assesses, organizes, and hones this emerging framework and potential movement, presented under the term ‘compeerism’, by holistically considering how various sectors of the economy could be decapitalized and arranged in more commons-oriented ways. This includes a consideration of the digital economy, infrastructure, manufacturing, raw materials, as well as the monetary-financial sector. Examples of current, commons-based efforts seeking to provide an alternative to present capitalist arrangements in each of these areas are considered in terms of their promise and the challenges they face. The book ends with a consideration of the political mobilization that would be needed to execute a ‘compeerist’ transition to a post-capitalist future and a presentation of what one iteration of such a future could look like.
Incarceration and Older Women
Authors: Benedict Regina
Published: January 2024

Of various concerning trends related to imprisonment in the United States, two trends propel this book: growth in the rate of incarceration of girls and women and the ageing of the prison population. This book centres on the experiences of women ageing in prison, based on in-depth qualitative interviews with 29 prisoners in Kentucky, 26 of whom were 40 and older. The study highlights their concern to give back to others, including future generations, fellow prisoners, family at a distance, and society at large, and how the women managed to give back despite formidable barriers and challenges. That is, this book explores women prisoners’ plans for and achievement of generativity in the carceral setting and plans for generativity beyond that setting. Specifically, the women made mothering, mentoring, advising, and listening part of their daily lives. From a neglected space of society, the book tells a story of resistance and meaning-making under severe constraint. As such, the book connects to the scholarly literature on coping with and adapting to prison, while going far beyond these conceptually.
Beyond the Neoliberal Creative City
Authors: Hollands Robert G.
Published: January 2024

A burgeoning creative economy has been heralded as the saviour of many cities. Beneath this ‘urban makeover’ of the contemporary capitalist city lie a series of intractable problems such as widening inequalities, job precarity, gentrification and environmental issues. The pandemic and the climate crisis have raised serious questions about how well city economies based largely on culture meet basic societal needs. After decades of competitive urban regeneration strategies based around creativity have some of the contradictions of this model finally unravelled? If so, how can we begin to move beyond it? This book aims to explain, analyse and critique the ‘neoliberal creative city’. It looks at its role in creating new urban social divisions and exclusions and explores resistance and opposition towards it. Filled with lively examples and city case studies, the book focuses on different aspects of the cultural economy including arts and culture, nightlife and tourism. In addition to questioning the dominant creative city paradigm, it explores alternatives and opportunities for a more just and sustainable urban future.
In the Eye of the Storm: Black Girl Adolescence in Hurricane Child
Authors: Rambo Stephanie
Published: January 2024

Abstract: Described as a period of Sturm und Drang , or a time of storm and stress, adolescence is often regarded as a turbulent time. As such, adolescents find little to no resolve during this stage, leaving them either longing for the days of childhood or anticipating adulthood. However, Black girlhood studies scholars like Ruth Nicole Brown and Nazera Sadiq Wright have demonstrated how Black girls have always developed their own epistemologies amid adolescence, illustrating Black girlhood as a space of potentiality. Drawing from Brown and Wright’s respective frameworks, I examine how Kacen Callender’s Hurricane Child (2018) depicts Black girl adolescence as a stage of possibility, subverting notions of Sturm und Drang and conventions of the young adult literature genre.
“Tell Pebble All About It”: Displacement and Distancing in Contemporary Picturebooks about Arab Refugees
Authors: Sivashankar Nithya
Published: January 2024

Abstract: Authors and illustrators of children’s literature often tend to view their readers as vulnerable and in need of protection. They take on the responsibility of shielding their implied readers from the impact of the conflict that they are writing about, either by including elements that enable the children to distance themselves from the narrative or by choosing presumably less-distressing elements. They draw the boundaries for what is acceptable and what isn’t in narratives about border-crossing for young children. In order to analyze the power hierarchy between the adult creators and the young readers in such conflict narratives, I employ the framework of Rhetorical Theory of Narrative to explore the choices made by the illustrators and authors of five contemporary picture-books about Arab refugees to consider how the scenes of the conflict are being shown through images and words. I also examine how these depictions are likely to impact the reader, who takes on the role of witness while reading the words and the pictures.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Prospects for Cooperation amid Threats of Conflict
Authors: Goldberg Melanie
Published: January 2024

Abstract: The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has the potential to transform energy access in East Africa, but Egypt and Sudan have threatened war if the dam infringes upon their historical water rights. Over a decade of negotiations, the riparians have repeatedly failed to reach an agreement for the GERD’s management, particularly mechanisms that would mitigate the downstream impacts of drought or dam failure. Yet despite the supposed zero-sum nature of resource competition, the GERD presents opportunities for positive-sum outcomes of water management if parties can overcome cooperation barriers, leverage incentives for coordination, and bargain effectively.
Harnessing quantum emitter rings for efficient energy transport and trapping
Authors: Holzinger Raphael , Peter Jonah S. , Ostermann Stefan , Ritsch Helmut , Yelin Susanne
Published: January 2024

Efficient transport and harvesting of excitation energy under low light conditions is an important process in nature and quantum technologies alike. Here we formulate a quantum optics perspective to excitation energy transport in configurations of two-level quantum emitters with a particular emphasis on efficiency and robustness against disorder. We study a periodic geometry of emitter rings with subwavelength spacing, where collective electronic states emerge due to near-field dipole–dipole interactions. The system gives rise to collective subradiant states that are particularly suited to excitation transport and are protected from energy disorder and radiative decoherence. Comparing ring geometries with other configurations shows that the former are more efficient in absorbing, transporting, and trapping incident light. Because our findings are agnostic as to the specific choice of quantum emitters, they indicate general design principles for quantum technologies with superior photon transport properties and may elucidate potential mechanisms resulting in the highly efficient energy transport efficiencies in natural light-harvesting systems.
Evaluating protein cross-linking as a therapeutic strategy to stabilize SOD1 variants in a mouse model of familial ALS
Authors: Hossain Md Amin , Sarin Richa , Donnelly Daniel P. , Miller Brandon C. , Weiss Alexandra , McAlary Luke , Antonyuk Svetlana V. , Salisbury Joseph P. , Amin Jakal , Conway Jeremy B. , Watson Samantha S. , Winters Jenifer N. , Xu Yu , Alam Novera , Brahme Rutali R. , Shahbazian Haneyeh , Sivasankar Durgalakshmi , Padmakumar Swathi , Sattarova Aziza , Ponmudiyan Aparna C. , Gawde Tanvi , Verrill David E. , Yang Wensheng , Kannapadi Sunanda , Plant Leigh D. , Auclair Jared R. , Makowski Lee , Petsko Gregory A. , Ringe Dagmar , Agar Nathalie Y. R. , Greenblatt David J. , Ondrechen Mary Jo , Chen Yunqiu , Yerbury Justin J. , Manetsch Roman , Hasnain S. Samar , Brown Robert H. , Agar Jeffrey N.
Published: January 2024

Mutations in the gene encoding Cu-Zn superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) cause a subset of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (fALS) cases. A shared effect of these mutations is that SOD1, which is normally a stable dimer, dissociates into toxic monomers that seed toxic aggregates. Considerable research effort has been devoted to developing compounds that stabilize the dimer of fALS SOD1 variants, but unfortunately, this has not yet resulted in a treatment. We hypothesized that cyclic thiosulfinate cross-linkers, which selectively target a rare, 2 cysteine-containing motif, can stabilize fALS-causing SOD1 variants in vivo. We created a library of chemically diverse cyclic thiosulfinates and determined structure-cross-linking-activity relationships. A pre-lead compound, “S-XL6,” was selected based upon its cross-linking rate and drug-like properties. Co-crystallographic structure clearly establishes the binding of S-XL6 at Cys 111 bridging the monomers and stabilizing the SOD1 dimer. Biophysical studies reveal that the degree of stabilization afforded by S-XL6 (up to 24°C) is unprecedented for fALS, and to our knowledge, for any protein target of any kinetic stabilizer. Gene silencing and protein degrading therapeutic approaches require careful dose titration to balance the benefit of diminished fALS SOD1 expression with the toxic loss-of-enzymatic function. We show that S-XL6 does not share this liability because it rescues the activity of fALS SOD1 variants. No pharmacological agent has been proven to bind to SOD1 in vivo. Here, using a fALS mouse model, we demonstrate oral bioavailability; rapid engagement of SOD1G93A by S-XL6 that increases SOD1G93A’s in vivo half-life; and that S-XL6 crosses the blood–brain barrier. S-XL6 demonstrated a degree of selectivity by avoiding off-target binding to plasma proteins. Taken together, our results indicate that cyclic thiosulfinate-mediated SOD1 stabilization should receive further attention as a potential therapeutic approach for fALS.
Combined analyses of within-host SARS-CoV-2 viral kinetics and information on past exposures to the virus in a human cohort identifies intrinsic differences of Omicron and Delta variants
Authors: Russell Timothy W. , Townsley Hermaleigh , Abbott Sam , Hellewell Joel , Carr Edward J. , Chapman Lloyd A. C. , Pung Rachael , Quilty Billy J. , Hodgson David , Fowler Ashley S. , Adams Lorin , Bailey Chris , Mears Harriet V. , Harvey Ruth , Clayton Bobbi , O’Reilly Nicola , Ngai Yenting , Nicod Jerome , Gamblin Steve , Williams Bryan , Gandhi Sonia , Swanton Charles , Beale Rupert , Bauer David L. V. , Wall Emma C. , Kucharski Adam J.
Published: January 2024

The emergence of successive Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants of concern (VOCs) during 2020 to 2022, each exhibiting increased epidemic growth relative to earlier circulating variants, has created a need to understand the drivers of such growth. However, both pathogen biology and changing host characteristics—such as varying levels of immunity—can combine to influence replication and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 within and between hosts. Disentangling the role of variant and host in individual-level viral shedding of VOCs is essential to inform Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) planning and response and interpret past epidemic trends. Using data from a prospective observational cohort study of healthy adult volunteers undergoing weekly occupational health PCR screening, we developed a Bayesian hierarchical model to reconstruct individual-level viral kinetics and estimate how different factors shaped viral dynamics, measured by PCR cycle threshold (Ct) values over time. Jointly accounting for both interindividual variation in Ct values and complex host characteristics—such as vaccination status, exposure history, and age—we found that age and number of prior exposures had a strong influence on peak viral replication. Older individuals and those who had at least 5 prior antigen exposures to vaccination and/or infection typically had much lower levels of shedding. Moreover, we found evidence of a correlation between the speed of early shedding and duration of incubation period when comparing different VOCs and age groups. Our findings illustrate the value of linking information on participant characteristics, symptom profile and infecting variant with prospective PCR sampling, and the importance of accounting for increasingly complex population exposure landscapes when analysing the viral kinetics of VOCs.

Trial Registration: The Legacy study is a prospective observational cohort study of healthy adult volunteers undergoing weekly occupational health PCR screening for SARS-CoV-2 at University College London Hospitals or at the Francis Crick Institute (NCT04750356) (22,23). The Legacy study was approved by London Camden and Kings Cross Health Research Authority Research and Ethics committee (IRAS number 286469). The Legacy study was approved by London Camden and Kings Cross Health Research Authority Research and Ethics committee (IRAS number 286469) and is sponsored by University College London Hospitals. Written consent was given by all participants.
Markers of prolonged hospitalisation in severe dengue
Authors: Recker Mario , Fleischmann Wim A. , Nghia Trinh Huu , Truong Nguyen Van , Nam Le Van , Duc Anh Do , Song Le Huu , The Nguyen Trong , Anh Chu Xuan , Hoang Nguyen Viet , My Truong Nhat , Toan Nguyen Linh , Kremsner Peter G. , Velavan Thirumalaisamy P.
Published: January 2024

Background

Dengue is one of the most common diseases in the tropics and subtropics. Whilst mortality is a rare event when adequate supportive care can be provided, a large number of patients get hospitalised with dengue every year that places a heavy burden on local health systems. A better understanding of the support required at the time of hospitalisation is therefore of critical importance for healthcare planning, especially when resources are limited during major outbreaks.

Methods

Here we performed a retrospective analysis of clinical data from over 1500 individuals hospitalised with dengue in Vietnam between 2017 and 2019. Using a broad panel of potential biomarkers, we sought to evaluate robust predictors of prolonged hospitalisation periods.

Results

Our analyses revealed a lead-time bias, whereby early admission to hospital correlates with longer hospital stays ‐ irrespective of disease severity. Importantly, taking into account the symptom duration prior to hospitalisation significantly affects observed associations between hospitalisation length and previously reported risk markers of prolonged stays, which themselves showed marked inter-annual variations. Once corrected for symptom duration, age, temperature at admission and elevated neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio were found predictive of longer hospitalisation periods.

Conclusion

This study demonstrates that the time since dengue symptom onset is one of the most significant predictors for the length of hospital stays, independent of the assigned severity score. Pre-hospital symptom durations need to be accounted for to evaluate clinically relevant biomarkers of dengue hospitalisation trajectories.
“Back to the future” projections for COVID-19 surges
Authors: Rao J. Sunil , Liu Tianhao , Díaz-Pachón Daniel Andrés
Published: January 2024

We argue that information from countries who had earlier COVID-19 surges can be used to inform another country’s current model, then generating what we callback-to-the-future(BTF) projections. We show that these projections can be used to accurately predict future COVID-19 surgesprior to an inflection point of the daily infection curve. We show, across 12 different countries from all populated continents around the world, that our method can often predict future surges in scenarios where the traditional approaches would always predict no future surges. However, as expected, BTF projections cannot accurately predict a surge due to the emergence of a new variant. To generate BTF projections, we make use of a matching scheme for asynchronous time series combined with a response coaching SIR model.
A lightweight attribute-based signcryption scheme based on cloud-fog assisted in smart healthcare
Authors: Sun Yanzhong , Du Xiaoni , Niu Shufen , Zhou Siwei
Published: January 2024

In the environment of big data of the Internet of Things, smart healthcare is developed in combination with cloud computing. However, with the generation of massive data in smart healthcare systems and the need for real-time data processing, traditional cloud computing is no longer suitable for resources-constrained devices in the Internet of Things. In order to address this issue, we combine the advantages of fog computing and propose a cloud-fog assisted attribute-based signcryption for smart healthcare. In the constructed “cloud-fog-terminal” three-layer model, before the patient (data owner)signcryption, it first offloads some heavy computation burden to fog nodes and the doctor (data user) also outsources some complicated operations to fog nodes before unsigncryption by providing a blinded private key, which greatly reduces the calculation overhead of resource-constrained devices of patient and doctor, improves the calculation efficiency. Thus it implements a lightweight signcryption algorithm. Security analysis confirms that the proposed scheme achieves indistinguishability under chosen ciphertext attack and existential unforgeability under chosen message attack if the computational bilinear Diffie-Hellman problem and the decisional bilinear Diffie-Hellman problem holds. Furthermore, performance analysis demonstrates that our new scheme has less computational overhead for both doctors and patients, so it offers higher computational efficiency and is well-suited for application scenarios of smart healthcare.
Comparative assessment of the feasibility and validity of daily activity space in urban and non-urban settings
Authors: Kwiatek Sarah M. , Cai Liang , Cagney Kathleen A. , Copeland William E. , Hotz V. Joseph , Hoyle Rick H.
Published: January 2024

Activity space research explores the behavioral impact of the spaces people move through in daily life. This research has focused on urban settings, devoting little attention to non-urban settings. We examined the validity of the activity space method, comparing feasibility and data quality in urban and non-urban contexts. Overall, we found that the method is easily implemented in both settings. We also found location data quality was comparable across residential and activity space settings. The major differences in GPS (Global Positioning System) density and accuracy came from the operating system (iOS versus Android) of the device used. The GPS-derived locations showed high agreement with participants’ self-reported locations. We further validated GPS data by comparing at-home time allocation with the American Time Use Survey. This study suggests that it is possible to collect daily activity space data in non-urban settings that are of comparable quality to data from urban settings.