bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Geology, Mineralogy, and Exploration
Authors: Wu Shellen
Published: December 2022

Why is coal the most important energy source in China? Why has the National Geological Survey of China focused on and devoted significant resources to the exploration of borderlands and frontier areas? The answers to these questions have a great deal to do with how the scientific disciplines of geology and minerology developed from the waning decades of the Qing dynasty in the late 19th century through a period of political turmoil and war in the first half of the 20th century. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of the leading explorers in China were foreigners. Exploration and science became imbued with the greater significance of imperialism’s impact on the country and the growing nationalism in response. China’s leading scientists argued for the importance of a national geological survey to lay claims to the natural resources and territorial extent of the country, lest these be lost to foreign prospectors. These political undercurrents became an inseparable part of the history of geology in China.
Women in Muslim Northern Nigeria
Authors: Mack Beverly B.
Published: December 2022

Women’s roles in Muslim northern Nigeria have been shaped by both pre-Islamic traditions and Islamic customs dating to the earliest introduction of Islam into the region around the 11th century. Contemporary women in the region draw their identities from a legacy of illustrious 19th-century Muslim women teachers, scholars, and authorities who in turn acknowledged a historic legacy of titled, renowned pre-Islamic women in the region.

The more consolidated Islamic period, which resulted from the 19th century Sokoto Jihad (1804–1808) of Islamic reformation, pushed back against syncretism to establish orthodox Sunni Qadiriyya Islam in its place. The Sokoto Caliphate (1804–1903), which developed in the Jihad’s wake, spread orthodox Islamic practices and principles widely in the region. Instrumental in this spread of Islam was the ‘Yan Taru (“the Associates”) extension program of women’s Islamic education. This grassroots program was begun by Nana Asma’u bint Usman ‘dan Fodiyo (1793–1864), a daughter of Jihad leader Shehu Usman ‘dan Fodiyo (1754–1817). (This surname has variants, including Fodio and Fudi.) Asma’u, a multilingual scholar, poet, and teacher, was just one of a multiplicity of women who were well educated and led activist lives. The ‘Yan Taru’s efficacy was enhanced by its incorporation of Nigerian pre-Islamic women’s authoritative roles and titles. Since its founding in the mid-19th century, the ‘Yan Taru has served the needs of urban and rural women, literate and illiterate, providing Islamic cultural literacy in an oral society. The late 20th century saw a rise in Muslim women’s organizations modeled on the ‘Yan Taru template. An understanding of women in Muslim northern Nigeria depends upon attention to early Islamic, pre-19th-century women’s titles and authority; the 19th-century reformation period; and a post-independence period, in which 20th- and 21st-century women define their identities in the framework of Nigerian women’s historical legacies.
The Demography of Fertility
Authors: Adjiwanou Visseho , Malinga John Ben
Published: December 2022

From the first billion people in the world in 1800 to the projected 9.7 billion people in 2050, the world’s population has passed through various stages. However, the different stages have not been the same for each global region or for every country within the same region. On one side of the spectrum is the fertility transition in Europe and North America, where the decline has been steady, with the median total fertility rate (TFR) declining from 2.80 children per woman in 1950–1955 to 1.66 in 2015–2020. In this region, childbearing is no longer the final goal of marriage, and this change has been accompanied by the emergence of new forms of union. The fertility rate is below the level of replacement in almost all the countries. On the other side of the spectrum is sub-Saharan Africa, where fertility has declined slowly and has stalled in various countries since the 2000s. The median TFR in the region declined from 6.51 children per woman in 1950–1955 to 4.72 in 2015–2020. In this region, this trend is associated with slower increase of the age at first marriage and in of the modern contraception. The fertility transition and its associated factors in the other regions of the world fluctuate between these two scenarios.
Settlers and Territorial Control
Authors: Haklai Oded
Published: December 2022

Population settlements/settlers as a means for obtaining territorial control have been an omnipresent phenomenon throughout recorded history of human society. Whereas scholarly debates about settlers have typically been associated with European imperial settler colonialism, an emerging research agenda has started to develop in the 21st century around the politics of settlers, or population settlements, in contested territories in the post-WWII era, primarily in the postcolonial world. The research around this ubiquitous phenomenon is still in its infancy, however, and is characterized more by studies of specific cases and less by comparative analysis that aims to identify patterns of theoretical relevance.

Cases of settlers in contested lands are abundant all over the world: from Xinjiang and Tibet in China, to Israel and the West Bank in the Middle East, the Casamance in Senegal, Abkhazia in the Caucasus, Aceh and Papua in Indonesia, and the islands of San Andrés and Providencia in Colombia. Multiple questions can be drawn from studies of these cases as well as the emerging body of literature around them: How have population settlements been conceptualized? What drives them? How have they been pursued? What array of variables has been identified by scholars to explain their proliferation in different cases? What broad patterns and categories can be identified and used for comparative and theoretically driven research? Finally, how can these general categories be useful for generating more robust theory-building scholarship?
Foreign Policy of Colombia
Authors: Monroy María Catalina
Published: December 2022

The study of foreign policy of Colombia has traditionally followed a path of thick description of specific events and generalizations that have transcended from one generation to another. There is a tendency to claim that Colombia’s foreign policy is presidentialist or personalist, of low profile, and excessively pro-American. These are just a few examples of the conventional wisdom that has defined the study of Colombian foreign policy. Although the field of foreign policy analysis is only in its preliminary phase in Colombia, there is a growing interest among students and scholars to analytically examine foreign policy decision-making through multiple levels of analysis. The foreign policy of Colombia is best understood by tracing the direction and alignment of specific foreign policy decisions into respices, meaning “look at” or “upon.” The fact that Colombia has traditionally “looked upon” a foreign entity to formulate foreign policy poses different questions regarding how autonomous foreign policymaking in Colombia really is. On the one hand, the essence of Colombia’s foreign policy has traditionally been found in a juxtaposition of the country’s interests alongside those of the United States. On the other hand, as a consequence of the articulation of this foreign policy partnership between Colombia and the United States, security has been the most recurrent topic in Colombia’s foreign policy agenda-setting, given the problems of illicit drugs, armed conflict, terrorism, and, more recently, peace.
The Role of Women in US Foreign Relations
Authors: Wood Molly
Published: December 2022

The history of American foreign relations encompasses the study of formal diplomatic relationships between the United States and other sovereign nation states, including analysis of US foreign policy debates, strategies and decisions, and the officials who make and implement those decisions. American foreign policy, in the service and protection of American interests around the world, evolves over time to address ever-changing global environments and events. Like policymakers, who respond in different ways to unique events over time, scholars have steadily expanded both the breadth and depth of foreign relations history as a field of scholarship. By the 1980s, historians began to ask new questions and apply methods from the practice of women’s history, a genre of history that developed in response to the changing social, political, and cultural context in the United States by the 1960s. While women have increasingly held professional positions in formal diplomacy through the 20th century and into the 21st as policymakers, military officials, and other institutional roles, broader approaches to, and questions about, the many more informal or unconventional ways the United States interacts with the rest of the world reveals a much more prominent role for women.

The distinction between women and gender is a significant one. The examples provided focus on women as active agents in US foreign relations, either individually or in groups, whether gaining influence in formal professional pathways, through less apparent sites of international activism and interaction, or even less visible and informal networks and partnerships. Some historians refer to “soft power” to describe and explain the kind of behind-the-scenes activity in which many American women have participated through the history of American foreign relations.
American Orientalism
Authors: Khalil Osamah F.
Published: December 2022

Orientalism is an established academic discipline as well as a discourse. In Europe and the United States, Orientalist discourse was reproduced in academic studies, literature, popular culture, and policy circles. American Orientalism shares a number of characteristics with its European progenitors. The persistent representation of the broader East as an inferior, irrational, and emotional “other” reflected and reified disparities in power that then informed the production of knowledge about these vast regions and their inhabitants. American missionaries, social scientists, and counterinsurgency experts used Orientalism to justify their attempts to reshape the broader East in the image of the United States. In his seminal work, Orientalism, Edward Said examined the vast “Orient” as a geographic imaginary of the “Occident.” While he largely focused on Britain and France, Said also discussed American Orientalism and its manifestations in the academy, political discourse, and popular culture. In the decades since Said published Orientalism, scholars have embraced, critiqued, and expanded on its assertions. Yet American Orientalism as a discourse and practice persists and has proven resilient to challenges.
Cultural Heritage in the United States
Authors: McGill Alicia Ebbitt
Published: December 2022

A complex concept with a range of meanings and definitions, cultural heritage, often referred to simply as heritage, is characterized by the myriad ways individuals, groups, institutions, and political entities value and engage with manifestations of culture and history. Such manifestations encompass both tangible and intangible forms of the past, including cultural objects, landscapes, historic sites, memories, daily practices, and historical narratives. Heritage is tied to personal and group identity and can bring people together or be used to marginalize groups. People engage with heritage through behaviors that range from visits to culturally significant places, traditions, education programs, scholarly research, government policies, preservation, and tourism.

Heritage is culturally constructed and dynamic. Critical heritage scholarship since the late 20th century highlights ways societal values, political structures, and power dynamics shape how people define, engage with, utilize, and manage cultural heritage across the globe. Though much critical heritage scholarship emphasizes that dominant Western value systems have long influenced heritage management, it also draws attention to the diverse ways humans connect with the past and the cultural practices communities and individuals employ to resist hegemonic heritage ideology and processes. Heritage scholarship is interdisciplinary, drawing on methods and theories from fields such as archeology, anthropology, history, public history, architecture, historic preservation, museum studies, and geography to examine how people interact with “the past” in the present.
Pop Cultural Linguistics
Authors: Werner Valentin
Published: December 2022

Pop cultural linguistics represents an emerging research subfield. It can be conceptualized as a specific type of media linguistics concerned with the study of performed language as represented in various pop culture manifestations, such as music, TV series, movies, comics, cartoons, and video games, among others. Pop culture is thus viewed as a broad category that includes artifacts with a commercial, entertainment-related purpose that are (mass-)mediated, fall within the mainstream, and represent largely fictional and scripted content. Linguists working in pop cultural linguistics explicitly take account of the current social and practical relevance of pop culture and the fact that it is largely a multimodal phenomenon with a strong linguistic component and the potential for affective engagement. Pop cultural linguistics possesses inherent relevance for the broader area of cultural studies, which may benefit from quantitative and qualitative approaches used in linguistics to increase the overall validity of findings and to develop a comprehensive picture of pop culture artifacts.

The main object of study in pop cultural linguistics is performed language. While performed language was traditionally sidelined in linguistics due to its alleged “inauthentic” nature, it has gradually been acknowledged as a regular part of everyday language use and thus has been normalized in linguistic study. The increasing availability of resources relevant for pop cultural linguistics, such as language corpora and thematic bibliographies, illustrates the vitality of the field, as does the growing body of research. Research in pop cultural linguistics is methodologically eclectic and commonly adapts approaches and frameworks used in established linguistic subfields, such as sociolinguistics, stylistics, or corpus linguistics. It serves to explore salient topics, such as the linguistic construction of authenticity and identity from a sociolinguistic angle or the representation of politeness from a pragma-stylistic point of view, occasionally also applying a contrastive perspective in terms of performed language vs. natural conversation. Pop cultural linguistics is further characterized by increasing methodological reflection and a growing recognition of the affordances of multimodal analysis, even though these aspects will have to be addressed more explicitly in the future.
A Century of Evolution of Modeling for River Basin Planning to the Next Generation of Models, Methods, and Concepts
Authors: Rosello Caroline , Elsawah Sondoss , Guillaume Joseph , Jakeman Anthony
Published: December 2022

River Basin models to inform planning decisions have continued to evolve, largely based on predominant planning paradigms and progress in the sciences and technology. From the Industrial Revolution to the first quarter of the 21st century, such modeling tools have shifted from supporting water resources development to integrated and adaptive water resources management. To account for the increasing complexity and uncertainty associated with the relevant socioecological systems in which planning should be embedded, river basin models have shifted from a supply development focus during the 19th century to include, by thes 2000s–2020s, demand management approaches and all aspects of consumptive and non-consumptive uses, addressing sociocultural and environmental issues. With technological and scientific developments, the modeling has become increasingly quantitative, integrated and interdisciplinary, attempting to capture, more holistically, multiple river basin issues, relevant cross-sectoral policy influences, and disciplinary perspectives. Additionally, in acknowledging the conflicts around ecological degradation and human impacts associated with intensive water resource developments, the modeling has matured to embrace the need for adequate stakeholder engagement processes that support knowledge-sharing and trust-building and facilitate the appreciation of trade-offs across multiple types of impacts and associated uncertainties. River basin models are now evolving to anticipate uncertainty around plausible alternative futures such as climate change and rapid sociotechnical transformations. The associated modeling now embraces the challenge of shifting from predictive to exploratory tools to support learning and reflection and better inform adaptive management and planning. Managing so-called deep uncertainty presents new challenges for river basin modeling associated with imperfect knowledge, integrating sociotechnical scales, regime shifts and human factors, and enabling collaborative modeling, infrastructure support, and management systems.
COPPER: an ensemble deep-learning approach for identifying exclusive virus-derived small interfering RNAs in plants
Authors: Bu Yuanyuan , Jia Cangzhi , Guo Xudong , Li Fuyi , Song Jiangning
Published: December 2022

Antiviral defenses are one of the significant roles of RNA interference (RNAi) in plants. It has been reported that the host RNAi mechanism machinery can target viral RNAs for destruction because virus-derived small interfering RNAs (vsiRNAs) are found in infected host cells. Therefore, the recognition of plant vsiRNAs is the key to understanding the functional mechanisms of vsiRNAs and developing antiviral plants. In this work, we introduce a deep learning-based stacking ensemble approach, named computational prediction of plant exclusive virus-derived small interfering RNAs (COPPER), for plant vsiRNA prediction. COPPER used word2vec and fastText to generate sequence features and a hybrid deep learning framework, including a convolutional neural network, multiscale residual network and bidirectional long short-term memory network with a self-attention mechanism to enable precise predictions of plant vsiRNAs. Extensive benchmarking experiments with different sequence homology thresholds and ablation studies illustrated the comparative predictive performance of COPPER. In addition, the performance comparison with PVsiRNAPred conducted on an independent test dataset showed that COPPER significantly improved the predictive performance for plant vsiRNAs compared with other state-of-the-art methods. The datasets and source codes are publicly available at https://github.com/yuanyuanbu/COPPER.
Genomic islands and their role in fitness traits of two key sepsis-causing bacterial pathogens
Authors: Ilyas Mohd , Purkait Dyuti , Atmakuri Krishnamohan
Published: December 2022

To survive and establish a niche for themselves, bacteria constantly evolve. Toward that, they not only insert point mutations and promote illegitimate recombinations within their genomes but also insert pieces of ‘foreign’ deoxyribonucleic acid, which are commonly referred to as ‘genomic islands’ (GEIs). The GEIs come in several forms, structures and types, often providing a fitness advantage to the harboring bacterium. In pathogenic bacteria, some GEIs may enhance virulence, thus altering disease burden, morbidity and mortality. Hence, delineating (i) the GEIs framework, (ii) their encoded functions, (iii) the triggers that help them move, (iv) the mechanisms they exploit to move among bacteria and (v) identification of their natural reservoirs will aid in superior tackling of several bacterial diseases, including sepsis. Given the vast array of comparative genomics data, in this short review, we provide an overview of the GEIs, their types and the compositions therein, especially highlighting GEIs harbored by two important pathogens, viz. Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella pneumoniae, which prominently trigger sepsis in low- and middle-income countries. Our efforts help shed some light on the challenges these pathogens pose when equipped with GEIs. We hope that this review will provoke intense research into understanding GEIs, the cues that drive their mobility across bacteria and the ways and means to prevent their transfer, especially across pathogenic bacteria.
A comprehensive review on knowledge graphs for complex diseases
Authors: Yang Yang , Lu Yuwei , Yan Wenying
Published: December 2022

In recent years, knowledge graphs (KGs) have gained a great deal of popularity as a tool for storing relationships between entities and for performing higher level reasoning. KGs in biomedicine and clinical practice aim to provide an elegant solution for diagnosing and treating complex diseases more efficiently and flexibly. Here, we provide a systematic review to characterize the state-of-the-art of KGs in the area of complex disease research. We cover the following topics: (1) knowledge sources, (2) entity extraction methods, (3) relation extraction methods and (4) the application of KGs in complex diseases. As a result, we offer a complete picture of the domain. Finally, we discuss the challenges in the field by identifying gaps and opportunities for further research and propose potential research directions of KGs for complex disease diagnosis and treatment.
DNA-MP: a generalized DNA modifications predictor for multiple species based on powerful sequence encoding method
Authors: Nabeel Asim Muhammad , Ali Ibrahim Muhammad , Fazeel Ahtisham , Dengel Andreas , Ahmed Sheraz
Published: December 2022

Accurate prediction of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) modifications is essential to explore and discern the process of cell differentiation, gene expression and epigenetic regulation. Several computational approaches have been proposed for particular type-specific DNA modification prediction. Two recent generalized computational predictors are capable of detecting three different types of DNA modifications; however, type-specific and generalized modifications predictors produce limited performance across multiple species mainly due to the use of ineffective sequence encoding methods. The paper in hand presents a generalized computational approach “DNA-MP” that is competent to more precisely predict three different DNA modifications across multiple species. Proposed DNA-MP approach makes use of a powerful encoding method “position specific nucleotides occurrence based 117 on modification and non-modification class densities normalized difference” (POCD-ND) to generate the statistical representations of DNA sequences and a deep forest classifier for modifications prediction. POCD-ND encoder generates statistical representations by extracting position specific distributional information of nucleotides in the DNA sequences. We perform a comprehensive intrinsic and extrinsic evaluation of the proposed encoder and compare its performance with 32 most widely used encoding methods on $17$ benchmark DNA modifications prediction datasets of $12$ different species using $10$ different machine learning classifiers. Overall, with all classifiers, the proposed POCD-ND encoder outperforms existing $32$ different encoders. Furthermore, combinedly over 5-fold cross validation benchmark datasets and independent test sets, proposed DNA-MP predictor outperforms state-of-the-art type-specific and generalized modifications predictors by an average accuracy of 7% across 4mc datasets, 1.35% across 5hmc datasets and 10% for 6ma datasets. To facilitate the scientific community, the DNA-MP web application is available at https://sds_genetic_analysis.opendfki.de/DNA_Modifications/.
Multi-view contrastive heterogeneous graph attention network for lncRNA–disease association prediction
Authors: Zhao Xiaosa , Wu Jun , Zhao Xiaowei , Yin Minghao
Published: December 2022

Motivation: Exploring the potential long noncoding RNA (lncRNA)-disease associations (LDAs) plays a critical role for understanding disease etiology and pathogenesis. Given the high cost of biological experiments, developing a computational method is a practical necessity to effectively accelerate experimental screening process of candidate LDAs. However, under the high sparsity of LDA dataset, many computational models hardly exploit enough knowledge to learn comprehensive patterns of node representations. Moreover, although the metapath-based GNN has been recently introduced into LDA prediction, it discards intermediate nodes along the meta-path and results in information loss. Results: This paper presents a new multi-view contrastive heterogeneous graph attention network (GAT) for lncRNA-disease association prediction, MCHNLDA for brevity. Specifically, MCHNLDA firstly leverages rich biological data sources of lncRNA, gene and disease to construct two-view graphs, feature structural graph of feature schema view and lncRNA-gene-disease heterogeneous graph of network topology view. Then, we design a cross-contrastive learning task to collaboratively guide graph embeddings of the two views without relying on any labels. In this way, we can pull closer the nodes of similar features and network topology, and push other nodes away. Furthermore, we propose a heterogeneous contextual GAT, where long short-term memory network is incorporated into attention mechanism to effectively capture sequential structure information along the meta-path. Extensive experimental comparisons against several state-of-the-art methods show the effectiveness of proposed framework.The code and data of proposed framework is freely available at https://github.com/zhaoxs686/MCHNLDA.
Impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Variants on Inpatient Clinical Outcome
Authors: Robinson Matthew L , Morris C Paul , Betz Joshua F , Zhang Yifan , Bollinger Robert , Wang Natalie , Thiemann David R , Fall Amary , Eldesouki Raghda E , Norton Julie M , Gaston David C , Forman Michael , Luo Chun Huai , Zeger Scott L , Gupta Amita , Garibaldi Brian T , Mostafa Heba H
Published: December 2022

Background

Prior observation has shown differences in COVID-19 hospitalization risk between SARS-CoV-2 variants, but limited information describes hospitalization outcomes.

Methods

Inpatients with COVID-19 at 5 hospitals in the eastern United States were included if they had hypoxia, tachypnea, tachycardia, or fever, and SARS-CoV-2 variant data, determined from whole-genome sequencing or local surveillance inference. Analyses were stratified by history of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination or infection. The average effect of SARS-CoV-2 variant on 28-day risk of severe disease, defined by advanced respiratory support needs, or death was evaluated using models weighted on propensity scores derived from baseline clinical features.

Results

Severe disease or death within 28 days occurred for 977 (29%) of 3369 unvaccinated patients and 269 (22%) of 1230 patients with history of vaccination or prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. Among unvaccinated patients, the relative risk of severe disease or death for Delta variant compared with ancestral lineages was 1.30 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.11–1.49). Compared with Delta, the risk for Omicron patients was .72 (95% CI: .59–.88) and compared with ancestral lineages was .94 (.78–1.1). Among Omicron and Delta infections, patients with history of vaccination or prior SARS-CoV-2 infection had half the risk of severe disease or death (adjusted hazard ratio: .40; 95% CI: .30–.54), but no significant outcome difference by variant.

Conclusions

Although risk of severe disease or death for unvaccinated inpatients with Omicron was lower than with Delta, it was similar to ancestral lineages. Severe outcomes were less common in vaccinated inpatients, with no difference between Delta and Omicron infections.
RNA Editing is a Valuable Biomarker for Predicting Carcinogenesis in Ulcerative Colitis
Authors: Takahashi Kazutaka , Shigeyasu Kunitoshi , Kondo Yoshitaka , Gotoh Kazuyoshi , Yano Shuya , Umeda Yuzo , Inokuchi Toshihiro , Xu Caiming , Yoshida Kazuhiro , Umeda Hibiki , Takahashi Toshiaki , Takeda Sho , Yoshida Ryuichi , Teraishi Fuminori , Kishimoto Hiroyuki , Mori Yoshiko , Noma Kazuhiro , Okugawa Yoshinaga , Hiraoka Sakiko , Michiue Hiroyuki , Tazawa Hiroshi , Matsushita Osamu , Goel Ajay , Fujiwara Toshiyoshi
Published: December 2022

Background and Aims

Ulcerative colitis [UC] can lead to colitis-associated colorectal neoplasm [CAN]. Adenosine-to-inosine RNA editing, which is regulated by adenosine deaminase acting on RNA [ADAR], induces the post-transcriptional modification of critical oncogenes, including antizyme inhibitor 1 [AZIN1], leading to colorectal carcinogenesis. Therefore, we hypothesized that ADAR1 might be involved in the development of CAN in UC.

Methods

We systematically analysed a cohort of 139 UC cases [40 acute phase, 73 remission phase, 26 CAN]. The degree of inflammation was evaluated using the Mayo endoscopic score [MES].

Results

The type 1 interferon [IFN]-related inflammation pathway was upregulated in the rectum of active UC, rectum of UC-CAN and tumour site of UC-CAN patients. ADAR1 expression was upregulated in the entire colon of CAN cases, while it was downregulated in non-CAN MES0 cases. ADAR1 expression in the rectum predicted the development of CAN better than p53 or β-catenin, with an area under the curve of 0.93. The high expression of ADAR1 and high AZIN1 RNA editing in UC was triggered by type 1 IFN stimulation from UC-specific microbiomes, such as seen in Fusobacterium in vitro analyses. The induction of AZIN1 RNA editing by ADAR1, whose expression is promoted by Fusobacterium, may induce carcinogenesis in UC.

Conclusions

The risk of CAN can be evaluated by assessing ADAR1 expression in the rectum of MES0 UC patients, freeing UC patients from unnecessary colonoscopy and reducing their physical burden. RNA editing may be involved in UC carcinogenesis, and may be used to facilitate the prevention and treatment of CAN in UC.
East Texas forests show strong resilience to exceptional drought
Authors: Chaudhary Tilak , Xi Weimin , Subedi Mukti , Rideout-Hanzak Sandra , Su Haibin , Dewez Nicholas P , Clarke Stephen
Published: December 2022

Drought-induced tree mortality has increased in many parts of the world because of climate change, and in some regions, has altered forest structure, species composition and ecosystem functions. These developments have the potential to reduce forest resilience and push forests over a tipping point to an alternate state (i.e. a different forest type or a non-forest ecosystem). Texas experienced an exceptional drought in 2011, which killed an estimated 65.5 million trees in the heavily forested areas of the East Texas region. The objective of this study was to understand the effects of the 2011 drought on mortality, biomass and growth in this region and explore forest stability at species, forest and ecoregion levels. We categorized 19 years’ time-series data of 1455 Forest Inventory and Analysis plots into four periods, base (2001–2003), pre-drought (2004–2010), drought (2011–2016) and post-drought (2017–2019), and used repeated-measures analysis of variance to analyse annual mortality, biomass loss, growth rates and the Forest Stability Index to understand forest stability. Our results show that tree mortality and biomass loss increased significantly during the drought period and annual growth rates declined. During the post-drought period, mortality and biomass loss rates returned to the pre-drought level and growth partially recovered. During the drought period, FSI dropped at species, forest type and ecoregion levels but recovered during the post-drought period, except for the Oak Woods and Prairies ecoregion and for forests dominated by southern red oak. Our results indicate that East Texas forests are undergoing a reorganization and recovery stage (in terms of species composition and stand structure) but have yet to reach a tipping point. Given the increased frequency and severity of climate change-induced weather events, East Texas forests could approach a tipping point in the future if there is insufficient time between events for reorganization and recovery. Further analyses are needed to understand the fate of tree species and forests in East Texas under global climate change.
Challenges in automatic forest change reporting through land cover mapping
Authors: Alonso Laura , Rodríguez Andrés , Picos Juan , Armesto Julia
Published: December 2022

Up-to-date knowledge about changes in forest resources and their spatial distribution is essential for sustainable forest management. Therefore, monitoring of forest evolution is increasingly demanded by national and international agencies to design forestry policies and to track their progress. Annually updated land cover maps based on open access satellite imagery may serve as a primary tool for monitoring forest surface evolution over time. Spatially detailed information about forest change might be obtained by comparing land cover maps over time. This study aims to better understand the processes underlying pixels whose land cover changes from 1 year’s map to the next and to understand why errors occur. In this study, two annual land cover maps were produced using Sentinel-2 images and afterwards they were compared. The comparison was performed in terms of total surface occupied in each map by each of the classes (net comparison) and in terms of spatial agreement, comparing the results pixel to pixel. The study was performed for the entire region of Galicia (in the Northwest of Spain) for the years 2019 and 2020. Land cover maps obtained had overall accuracies of 82 and 85 per cent. Differences in the total surface of change were encountered when performing the net comparison and spatial agreement comparison. The detailed analysis performed in this study helps to better understand the processes underlying the maps’ discrepancies revealing the processes leading to wrongly identified forest changes. Future studies could aim to integrate this knowledge into the monitoring system to improve the ultimate usability of land cover maps to retrieve information about forest changes.
TEACHING GERONTOLOGY TO SOCIAL WORK STUDENTS: APPLYING THE EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING USING ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW
Authors: Li Lun , Lee Yeonjung
Published: December 2022

There is an increasing need for well-trained social workers to support the growing aging population in Canada. Still, concerns arise regarding social work students’ insufficient knowledge and understanding of aging and aging-related issues. This study aims to examine social work students’ experience when experiential learning through ethnographic interview with older adults is applied as a pedagogical approach. This study was conducted based on two cohorts of social work undergraduate students who enrolled in a gerontology course in a Canadian university between 2020 and 2021. Students conducted an ethnographic interview with older adults aged 70 years and older and wrote a reflection paper as an assignment. We did a thematic analysis of eight reflection papers in which consent was obtained from students. We find that students connect aging-related theories/models to various topics discussed during their ethnographic interview, reflect on their personal experiences with aging family members, and show a positive perception of aging and attitude towards working with aging. The findings also suggest the benefit of adopting an approach of experiential learning through the ethnographic interview with older adults to teach gerontology to social work students. We offer recommendations for educators to create opportunities for students, especially from social work or other helping professions who traditionally have shown a lack of interest in working with older adults, to meet and interact with older adults, and to further enhance students’ competencies and interests in the fields of senior care.
"BECAUSE HE'S MY BABY": HOW MOTHERS EXPLAIN FAVORING THEIR FIRST- AND LAST-BORN CHILDREN IN LATER LIFE
Authors: Kincaid Reilly , Suitor J Jill , Gilligan Megan , Ogle Destiny
Published: December 2022

Past research suggests that adult children’s birth order is an important predictor of mothers’ favoritism in later life. Older mothers are especially likely to favor their last-born children for socioemotional relationship dimensions such as emotional closeness. However, researchers have not examined how children’s birth order affects the reasons underlying these patterns. To address this question, we examine: (1) how older mothers' reasons for favoritism differ by favored children’s birth order, and (2) how these differences help explain mothers' disproportionate likelihood of favoring their last-borns. Qualitative data were collected during in-home interviews with 156 older mothers as part of the Within-Family Differences Study-II. Ninety-two of the mothers chose their last-borns and 64 chose their first-borns as the children to whom they felt most emotionally close. Findings suggest that last-borns were most often favored because they were seen as understanding and empathetic or in greater need of mothers’ attention and support. First-borns were often favored based on birth order and geographical proximity or contact frequency. Birth order itself was mentioned in 17.39% and 23.44% of cases of favoritism toward last-borns and first-borns, respectively. These findings enrich and extend past research on the role of birth order in shaping intergenerational relationships by shedding light on the reasons why last-borns are often mothers’ emotionally closest children. Given that poor parent–child relationship quality is linked to worse physical and psychological health for both adult children and their older parents, findings have important implications for research on family well-being in later life.
LONELINESS AND ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING PERFORMANCE IN OLDER ADULTS: EXPLORING THE MODERATING ROLE OF COGNITION
Authors: Velez Bianca , Dulaney Cynthia
Published: December 2022

Resulting from changes in the sociodemographic landscape and the global pandemic, rates of loneliness have exponentially risen (Myers & Palmarini, 2017; Piette et al., 2020). Prior research demonstrates that loneliness is associated with an increased risk of cognitive and functional impairment (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009; de Jong Gierveld & van Tilburg, 1995; Holmén, et al., 1992; Wilson et al., 2007) as well as depression (Cacioppo et al., 2006; Kwon et al., 2017; Purtill, 2018). Although cognition has been studied as either a predictor or outcome of loneliness, it has yet to be examined as a moderator between loneliness and functional impairment (i.e., performance of basic and instrumental activities of daily living; ADLs, IADLs). Participants (N = 106) were community and non-community dwelling adults aged 65 years and older who completed four self-report measures assessing loneliness, ADLs/IADLs, cognitive functioning and depression. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted to test the moderation model. Data revealed that cognition moderated the relationship between loneliness and IADLs. Follow-up simple slope analyses revealed that high cognition and low cognition were associated with decreased IADL performance amongst individuals with loneliness, and this association was stronger when cognition was low. The current study sheds light on the social, emotional, and physical disruptions the pandemic has caused in the lives of older adults. It highlights the need for interventions to enhance the quantity and quality of social relationships, and older adults’ involvement in physical and cognitive activities to uphold functional independence in later life.
CHANGES IN GENERAL SELF-EFFICACY FOLLOWING THE WITS WELLNESS PROGRAM: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS FROM THE 12-WEEK RCT
Authors: Gothe Neha , Hofer Molly , Byers Chelsey , Payne Laura , Bobitt Julie
Published: December 2022

Self-efficacy among older adults has been associated with better sleep, increased vitality, decreased pain and discomfort as well as overall satisfaction with life. Interventions designed to increase general self-efficacy can therefore have wide-ranging effects on individual’s health as well as reduce the burden on healthcare systems. In this abstract we present preliminary data examining the impact of Wits Wellness on general self-efficacy among participants. Middle aged and older adults, Nf285 (Mean age 65.58 yrs, males=28) were randomized to either a Wits Wellness group or a Waitlist Control for 12-weeks. The 12-week wellness program addresses multiple factors including physical activity, stress, sleep, social isolation and diet with the goal of empowering older adults to make healthier lifestyle choices. At baseline and end of the 12-week trial, the 10-item PROMIS general self-efficacy scale was used to assess global self-efficacy which reflects a problem-solving approach despite perceived obstacles and challenges. Older participants aged 65 and above, who attended 8 or more weeks (Nf123, n=63 in Wits Wellness group) of the program demonstrated significant increases in their general self-efficacy. Results showed a significant group*time effect favoring the Wits Wellness intervention (F(1,120)=4.10, p=.045, partial eta2=.03). The intervention was most effective in boosting confidence among the older adults within the trial (>65 yrs.). These findings demonstrate preliminary efficacy of the Wits Wellness program and are significant as general self-efficacy is considered an important moderator of healthy adaptation to illness which is critical in old age. Funded by the Midwest Roybal Center grant P30AG022849.
CHANGES IN OLDER ADULTS’ LONELINESS OVER TWO YEARS OF COVID-19: A MIXED-METHODS ANALYSIS
Authors: Kinkade Emily , Fuller Heather , Van Vleet Bryce , Huseth-Zosel Andrea
Published: December 2022

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing and stay-at-home behaviors have been recommended to protect older adults from severe illness. However, despite disease reduction benefits, self-isolation may place older adults at an increased risk for loneliness, another serious public health concern. This longitudinal, mixed-methods study investigates whether older adults’ perceptions of loneliness changed across two years of the pandemic and how older adults described their experiences with loneliness at different points of the pandemic. Between April 2020 and June 2022, five waves of interviews were conducted with 76 Midwestern older adults between the ages of 70 and 97. At each interview, participants completed the UCLA Three-Item Loneliness Scale and answered several open-ended questions about their current daily life, social connections, and experiences and perceptions during the pandemic. A repeated-measures ANOVA indicated that participants’ loneliness scores significantly decreased between the first and final interview, although there was a nonsignificant increase in loneliness at the third interview. Thematic coding of the interview transcripts identified four emergent themes related to loneliness across two years of the pandemic: 1) differentiation of isolation from loneliness, 2) acceptance of circumstances, 3) adaptation to prevent loneliness, and 4) barriers to adaptation. Findings suggest older adults had nuanced and shifting experiences of loneliness throughout the pandemic, in which they generally showed increasing acceptance and strong adaptation to feelings of loneliness. However, adaptation was also challenged as the pandemic endured. Our discussion will highlight protective and risk factors for older adults’ loneliness and directions for future study and practice.
SERUM PROGRANULIN AS A POTENTIAL BIOMARKER FOR FRAILTY IN CHINESE OLDER ADULTS
Authors: Liu Pan , Li Yun , Li Shijie , Zhang Yaxin , Song Yu , Ji Tong , Li Ying , Ma Lina
Published: December 2022

Background

Frailty increases the risk of adverse health outcomes in older adults. Progranulin is a secreted glycoprotein involved in regulating various biological processes. A few studies have investigated the relationship between progranulin and frailty in middle-aged and older populations; however, different perspectives exist. We aimed to evaluate the association of progranulin with frailty in older Chinese adults.

Methods

We included 265 older in-patients who were divided into the frail (n=107) and non-frail (n=158) groups according to the FRAIL scale. Serum IL-6, CXCL-10, and progranulin levels were assayed. Spearman’s correlation analysis and logistic regression models were used to analyze the association of serum biomarkers with frailty, and the ROC was used to evaluate the diagnostic progranulin value for frailty.

Results

The frail group was older, had lower BMI, higher prevalence of coronary heart disease, worse grip strength and walking speed, and higher serum levels of IL-6, CXCL-10, and progranulin, than the non-frail group. Progranulin levels were negatively correlated with grip strength and positively correlated with IL-6 and CXCL-10. The logistic regression analysis showed that IL-6, CXCL-10, and progranulin were associated with frailty, respectively. Furthermore, progranulin remained associated with frailty after adjusting for age, sex, BMI, smoking, and chronic diseases (OR=1.003, 95%CI=1.001–1.005, p=0.013). The AUC of serum progranulin levels for diagnostic frailty was 0.872 (95%CI=0.829–0.914, p < 0.001).

Conclusion

High serum progranulin levels were observed in frail older in-patients and associated with worse physical function and chronic inflammation. This association indicates that progranulin may be a potential biomarker for frailty.
AN EVIDENCE-BASED APPROACH TO TELEPHONE REASSURANCE CALLS: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL PROTOCOL
Authors: Minyo Morgan , Bass David , McCarthy Catherine , Judge Katherine , Perkins Fatima , Beach Douglas
Published: December 2022

The COVID-19 Pandemic forced many health and community organizations to suspend some previously offered services and supports for older adults. This created heightened concerns about negative impacts of isolation and loneliness on already vulnerable older adults. In response, the Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging (WRAAA) began the TeleCare Program, providing weekly telephone reassurance calls to home and congregate meal clients to maintain contact and identify unmet service needs. Because of its success, the TeleCare Program has continued as a regularly offered service, but the WRAAA sought to improve the Program by integrating it with BRI Care ConsultationTM, an evidence-based program of the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging (BRIA). This poster reports on initial results of a randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy and feasibility of a new protocol for delivering telephone reassurance calls. The new protocol is modeled after the Initial Assessment in BRI Care Consultation, which is a semi-structured, telephone conversation covering a comprehensive range of potentials problems. The protocol also connects high-risk clients to existing available home- and community-based services. Results demonstrate that components of proven evidence-based interventions are feasible to integrate into existing programs and services. This includes adapting a model for problem-identification and assessment based on a consumer-driven conceptual framework, a record keeping system to enhance consistency and fidelity of program delivery, and establishing a formal referral protocol to more seamlessly link clients to other available services.