bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Money Laundering: History, Regulations, and Techniques
Authors: Villányi Benjámin
Published: April 2021

The goal of money laundering is to hide the tainted origin of criminal revenue. In this sense, it is a secondary crime that is always connected to another breach of law. These offenses can be different types of theft, trade in illicit goods, as well as other non-violent acts such as tax fraud, bribery, and, nowadays more relevantly, cybercrime. Depending on the size of the unlawful income, criminals may launder on their own or collaborate with other specialists. Especially in cases of large-scale tax evasion, grand corruption, transnational drug trafficking and similar highly organized forms of crime, laundering can entail very complex schemes performed in multiple countries. To describe and analyze this activity, a three-stage model is a widely accepted framework. The placement is the first step, when the illicit money is introduced into the financial system. The layering involves multiple transactions to remove the traces of these funds, while in the last stage criminals attempt to integrate the laundered money into the legal economy through various kinds of investments.

Beginning with the 1970s, increasing international cooperation aimed to counter this activity and set standards that were later adapted to national judicial systems. Different types of crime were the focus of such approaches, which also shaped the methods used. During the Prohibition era rum-running and illegal gambling raised the most concern, later the war on drugs, and from the early 2000s the war on terror, and more recently the cryptocurrencies are in focus of anti-money laundering. The financial extent of worldwide money laundering is difficult to estimate with reasonable precision, but it is comparable to national economies in magnitude. Money laundering can have a social as well as financial impact, especially when it helps corrupt politicians to stay in power, decreases tax morale to unfeasible depths or enables organized criminals to take over whole economic sectors and geographic areas.
Diaspora Curriculum
Authors: He Ming Fang
Published: April 2021

Diaspora curriculum draws upon a wide array of theoretical traditions of diasporas such as conceptions of diasporas; the breadth, diversity, and complexity of diasporas; diaspora consciousness; diasporic space and the in-betweenness of diasporas; exile and diaspora epistemology; exile pedagogy; exile curriculum; decolonizing diasporas; diasporic imaginaries and diasporic futurism; Afrofuturism; and Indigenous futurism.

The diaspora curriculum, with its epistemological similarity to exile pedagogy and exile curriculum, is interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and counterdisciplinary. Diaspora curriculum is international, transnational, and counternational. Diaspora curriculum, with its interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and counterdisciplinarity, thrives with diverse paradigms, perspectives, and possibilities, and demands multiple understandings toward commonplaces (teachers, learners, subject matters, and milieu) in diverse contexts. The breadth, diversity, and complexity of diaspora curriculum and its practical relevance are central to a wide array of educational thoughts reflected in contested theories, practices, and contexts.

In addition to its breadth, diversity, and complexity, another illuminating aspect of diaspora curriculum is evolving diasporic imaginaries, where we can keep our hopes and dreams alive in hard times when white supremacy, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and settler colonialism are bolstered by hatred of differences. Such diasporic imaginaries invent diasporic futurities and cultivate radical possibilities and revolutionary imagination. Such diasporic futurities exhilarate diasporic consciousness that educates hope, evokes different histories and different futures, and invigorates radical love. Such diasporic consciousness enables people to find the strength, faith, and humility to join in common struggles and build solidarity across differences to fight against all forms of oppression. Such diasporic futurities inspire optimism over despair, love over hatred, and possibilities over impossibilities. Such diasporic futurities invigorate diasporic space for imagined communities where curriculum workers work with other educational workers such as researchers, educators, teachers, administrators, parents, students, community workers, and policy makers to heal the soul of humanity and planet with shared interests, principles, and visions for desirable collective futures in an increasingly complicated, diversified, uncertain, and fragile world.
Gender and Latinx Pedagogy
Authors: Velazquez Mirelsie
Published: April 2021

The education of Latina/o/x populations in the United States has been the focus of debates, struggles, and community engagement for over 100 years. From linguistic inequalities, deficit perspectives, and community battles, to contemporary rhetoric on access, this entry explores the relationship between schools/schooling and Latina/o/x communities, both historically and in the contemporary context. Important to these narratives is the role of Latinas. To understand their centrality, it is important that the works of Latina and Chicana theorists and scholars are in conversation with one another to contextualize the role of Latinas, whether as community organizers, educators, or mothers, in the education of Latina/o/x populations, and by extension in the overall well-being of their communities. Similarly, the scholarship on and by Latinas complicates the role of stories and their positionality in education research.
Lateral Thinking and Learning in Arts Education in the Post-Internet Art
Authors: Avendaño Santana Lynda
Published: April 2021

Lateral learning in the last two decades can be seen in peer-to-peer learning that is being promoted by new technologies where there are apps that allow students to work together in real time through virtual space, a method which thereby shifts the focus from the solitary self to the interdependent group which lives an educational experience of a collaborative and distributed nature, whose focus lies in instilling the principle of the social nature of knowledge.

The ideological bases of lateral thinking are sustained by issues such as emancipation of the student from the authority of the teacher, the relationship of collaboration, permitting the development of individual appreciations and ideas, based simultaneously on those of their peers, on the democratization of knowledge, and so on, which ultimately refers to a collaborative creative education, to a democratic education, and to an education for democracy that assumes the new technologized context in which we live.

Because of this, lateral thinking is increasingly influencing everyday life and areas such as education and the arts, as it happens in the post-Internet art, and more specifically net.art (i.e., an online art), which is a collaborative creative experience that has become an instrument which allows us to see a “new type of art in the 21st century.”

Net.art, Internet art and the most experimental design, therefore constitutes a community experience that hypertextualizes computerized languages and generates poetic perspectives as artistic practices of lateral thinking. It has bestowed upon us a series of mechanisms to devise collaborative development strategies for lateral learning based on those creative ludic educational experiences of using and interacting with new technologies.

This is essential to bear in mind because, as Jeremy Rifkin says, collaborative learning helps students to expand their own self-awareness, including their “self” in reference to diverse “others,” and promotes in-depth participation in more interdependent communities. It extends the territory comprised within the boundaries of empathy.
Moving Toward Inclusive Education in Ethiopia Through Itinerant Teachers at Resource Centers
Authors: Pather Sulochini , Tadesse Aemiro , Gizachew Solomon
Published: April 2021

In light of policy reforms in Ethiopia, which emphasize a more inclusive education system catering for children with disabilities and special needs, schools struggle to embrace this new concept in practice. The role of the itinerant teacher within a resource center model, to promote and support inclusive education in the Ethiopian context, is key. Their roles are new to the system and require a coordinating position at resource centers, supporting the assessment and support for children with special educational needs. Perceptions of itinerant teachers on a project in Ethiopia reveal that they are adequately qualified and envisage that mainstream schools become child-friendly and welcoming of children with disabilities. Barriers identified by itinerant teachers to achieving this vision relate to the lack of a career structure with a formal job description for itinerant teachers, negative attitudes of communities and teachers, and lack of capacity at the Ministry of Education to provide support and funding.
The History of Gilgit-Baltistan
Authors: Hussain Shafqat
Published: April 2021

The Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) region in northern Pakistan, formerly known as the Northern Areas of Pakistan, has a long history. The people of the region, described as Dards, are mentioned by classical Greek and Roman historians and in sacred Hindu texts. This early history (3rd century ce–10th century ce) of the region shows it as ruled by the Kushan, Chinese, and Tibetan empires. In the 7th-century accounts of Chinese travelers and 8th- and 9th-century Arabic and Persian chronicles, the region is named as Palolo or Bolor in Arabic. It is also mentioned in the 10th-century Persian chronicle Hodud al-ʿĀlam, the 11th-century Kashmiri classic Rajatarangini, and the 16th-century Tarikh-e-Rushdi of Mirza Haider Dughlat, a chronicler of the Mughal emperor Akbar’s court.

The colonial history of the region began with the forays of the Dogra generals of Gulab Singh, the Raja of Jammu in the first half of the 19th century. It is this history of foreign invasions and local rebellions that lies at the heart of the confusion that surrounds the legal, political, and constitutional status of the region to this day. The successive invasions of local Rajas from Jammu and later on from Kashmir, then of the British, as well as the region’s attachment to Pakistan have resulted in multiple claims and counterclaims of sovereignty. Today, the region is mired in the intractable dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. At one point in the late 19th century, the Kashmir state, the British, and the Chinese all simultaneously laid claim on the small kingdom of Hunza.

Between 1947 and 1974, the Pakistani government administered GB in much the same way as the British had done, that is, without political representation of the region in the national Parliament. The history of GB since Partition has been essentially a history of its struggle to become a full member of the Pakistani state. This history is fascinating as a case of graded sovereignty. Some piecemeal reforms and agonizingly slow implementation of those reforms since the 1950s has occurred. The hope of the local people in 1947 that they would join the Pakistani federation as a province, as other regions of the country, has essentially remained unrealized.
African Maritime Archaeology
Authors: Pollard Edward
Published: April 2021

The continent of Africa has had a lengthy involvement in global maritime affairs and archaeological research with Middle Stone Age people using marine resources on the coasts of southern Africa, the Classical Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria, and Medieval Indian Ocean trade on the Swahili coast to the Atlantic triangular slave trade. Maritime archaeology is the identification and interpretation of physical traces left by people who use the seas and oceans. Middle Stone Age sites in South Africa such as Klasies River Mouth and Pinnacle Point have the earliest evidence for human use of marine resources including birds, marine mammals, and shellfish. This exploitation of marine resources was also coincident with the use of pigment, probably for symbolic behavior, as well as the production of bladelet stone tool technology. The extensive timespan of human activity on the coast around Africa occurred during changing relative sea levels due to Ice Ages and tectonic movement affecting the location of the coastline relative to maritime archaeological sites. Geomorphological changes may also take place over shorter periods such as the 1909 ce shipwreck of the Eduard Bohlen in Namibia lying c. one and half thousand feet landward of the shoreline.

Ancestors of sea-going vessels have been recorded on rivers from dugout canoes excavated at Dufuna in northern Nigeria and the first plank-built boats, such as the Old Kingdom Royal Ship of Cheops of Khufu, found at the Giza pyramids, which imitated the shape of earlier papyrus rafts. Classical documents such as the Periplus Maris Erythraei and Ptolemy’s Geographia record Arabian and Indian trade with eastern Africa including ivory and rhinoceros horn and describe fishing practices using baskets and sewn-hull boats of the inhabitants. The increase in oceanic trade links here during the medieval period encouraged the formation of Swahili port cities such as Kilwa and Mombasa. The former was in a strategic position to manage much of the gold trade between Sofala in Mozambique and the northern Swahili Coast. Portuguese forts, constructed in the 15th and 16th centuries on their trade routes around Africa, such as Elmina Castle in Ghana, Fort Jesus in Mombasa, Kenya, and Fort São Sebastião on Mozambique Island, dominate the ports and harbors. The first sub-Saharan underwater scientific investigations took place in 1976 of the Portuguese frigate Santo Antonio de Tanna that sunk during an Omani siege from 1696 to 1698. At Elmina in West Africa, studies were made of wreck-site formation processes around the 17th-century Dutch West India Company vessel Groeningen, which had caught fire when firing its guns in salute to Elmina Castle after arrival. More broad-based studies that interpret the functioning of the African maritime society in its wider environmental setting, both physically in the context of its religious buildings, harbors, fishing grounds, sailing routes, and shipwrecks, and by taking account of non-material aspects of the beliefs that influence behavior of coastal societies, have led to interpretations of their maritime outlook.
History of Photography in Apartheid South Africa
Authors: Thomas Kylie
Published: April 2021

The beginning of apartheid in 1948 saw the emergence of a generation of photographers whose work would come to define South African photography for the next four decades. Many of the most well-known South African photographers, such as Ernest Cole, Bob Gosani Peter Magubane, and Jürgen Schadeberg, worked for Drum magazine in the 1950s, where their images conveyed the experiences of Black people living in cities in the first years of apartheid. Photographers chronicled the Defiance Campaign, the violence of the police, and the growing resistance movements. At the same time, they took portraits and images of everyday life that provide insight into what it was like to live under apartheid. These kinds of images have increasingly been of interest to researchers and curators who have come to recognize the importance of vernacular photography, street photography, and the work of studio portrait photographers. The Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 marked a turning point in the country’s history and was followed by intensified repression and violence, the banning of opposition political parties, the jailing of political leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe, and mass forced removals as neighborhoods were declared “whites only” areas. The Soweto uprisings in June 1976 and the protests that followed across South Africa signaled the beginning of a time of increased violence as the apartheid state sought to crush the resistance movements and thousands of protestors were detained without trial, interrogated, and tortured and several political activists were murdered by the security police. By the 1980s, photography had a clear place in the struggle for freedom in the country and many photographers perceived the camera as a weapon to be used against the state. In 1982, the Afrapix collective was formed by a group of photographers committed to opposing apartheid who went on to produce the most significant visual record of this time. The years immediately before the end of apartheid saw an increase in political violence and between 1990 and 1994 more than 10,000 people were killed. Photographers who documented this time drew the world’s attention to the bitter struggle in the country. They went on to photograph the jubilation when Mandela was finally released from prison and the first free and fair elections when South Africans of all races were able to vote. Some of the most brilliant photographers of the last century documented the apartheid years, and their work plays a key role in how this time period is remembered and understood.
Cereals, Rituals, and Social Structure
Authors: Vermander Benoît
Published: April 2021

From the end of the Paleolithic Period onwards, cultivated cereals have interacted with ritual practices and social patterning through a variety of channels: the agrarian cycle provides a society with an array of stories and practices that are enshrined into its system of local knowledge; representations associated with grains develop into everyday practices; and cereal cultivation favorizes (or is triggered by) specific political forms, thus becoming embedded into the rituals through which political entities assert their legitimacy.

Interactions between cereals, rituals, and social forms are informed by the characteristics proper to each staple cereal (maize, wheat, rice, sorghum, and millet, among others): the length of the maturation cycle, the degree of solidarity required from the rural community, the environmental requirements linked to its cultivation, its process of transformation into alcohol—all these factors inform the way a cereal inserts itself into a ritual and social complex.

Starting with the changes in farming methods that coincided with the First Industrial Revolution, technological, social, and cultural transformations have been seemingly working toward the elimination or transmutation of cereal-based rituals. However, the timing, intensity, and effects of such transformations have differed widely from region to region. Besides, critical observation highlights the fact that these rituals are often hybridized, a phenomenon that repeatedly happened in history. Furthermore, current social processes affecting both producers and consumers may lead to a progressive ritualization of new beliefs and ways of proceeding.
The Multinational Corporation
Authors: De la Cruz-Fernandez Paula
Published: April 2021

A multinational corporation is a multiple unit business enterprise, vertically managed, that operates in various countries, called host economies. Operations beyond national borders are controlled and managed from one location or headquarters, called the home economy. The units or business activities such as manufacturing, distribution, and marketing are, in the modern multinational as opposed to other forms of international business, all structured under a single organization. The location of the headquarters of the multinational corporation, where the business is registered, defines the “nationality” of the company. While United Kingdom held ownership of over half of the world’s foreign direct investment (FDI), defined not as acquisition but as a managed, controlled investment that an organization does beyond its national border, at the beginning of the 20th century, the United States grew to first place throughout the 20th century—in 2002, 22 percent of the world’s FDI came from the United States, which was also home to ten of the fifty largest corporations in the world.

The US-based, large, modern corporation, operated by salaried managers with branches and operations in many nations, emerged in the mid-19th century and has since been a key player and driver in both economic and cultural globalization. The development of corporate capitalism in the United States is closely related with the growth of US-driven business abroad and has unique features that place the US multinational model apart from other business organizations operating internationally such as family multinational businesses which are more common in Europe and Latin America. The range and diversity of US-headquartered multinationals changed over time as well, and different countries and cultures made the nature of managing business overseas more complex. Asia came strong into the picture in the last third of the 20th century as regulations and deindustrialization grew in Europe. Global expansion also meant that societies around the world were connecting transnationally through new channels. Consumers and producers globally are also part of the history of multinational corporations—cultural values, socially constructed perceptions of gender and race, different understandings of work, and the everyday lives and experiences of peoples worldwide are integral to the operations and forms of multinationals.
Sri Lanka’s Sinhala Buddhist Guardian Deities: Satara Varan Devi
Authors: Padma Sree , Holt John
Published: April 2021

Satara varan devi, in the Sinhala language of Sri Lanka, refers to the four guardian deities of the Buddhist kingdoms of Sri Lanka. It is a phrase that first appears in inscriptions at Buddhist temples in the 15th-century Sri Lankan upcountry region of Gampola to denote the protective gods of the divine hierarchy who have been warranted with powers by the Buddha to not only protect the kingdom as a whole, but to provide for this-worldly well-being of individual Buddhist devotees as well. In ensuing centuries, the identities of deities constituting the satara varan devi varied from era to era and from place to place. Moreover, the identities of these deities were often composite conflations of a number of collateral deity traditions. The singular popularity of each of these deities for many devotees continues to form a significant presence in contemporary iterations of Sri Lanka’s Sinhala Buddhist religious culture. Each are regarded as Buddhist deities, even though the origins of most can be traced to Brahmanical beginnings in India. Even so, most Sinhala Buddhists would be surprised to learn that worship of Vishnu, for instance, originated in India, since he is so well known in Sri Lanka as the guardian of the Buddhasasana (Buddhist tradition).

Antecedent constructions of four guardian deities appear in earlier Vedic, Buddhist, and Puranic schemes that were articulated in the earlier history of Indian religions. These various constructions not only served the function of protecting temples, cities, regions, and, in the case of early Buddhism, the Buddha himself in cosmically configured contexts, but they also reflect the way in which deities from non-Vedic, non-Puranic, and non-Buddhist origins were also assimilated and subordinated, perhaps mirroring social and political processes that were historically in play.

Comparatively, analogous but not identical processes of incorporation or assimilation can also be seen within the contexts of other Theravada Buddhist-dominated religious cultures: how the Burmese have enfolded nats (mostly euhemeristic, but some Hindu deities), how the Thai and Lao have enveloped phi (various spirits or powers of place and space), and how the Khmer have embraced the worship of neak ta (again, spirits or powers of place and space). In each of these other Theravada Buddhist cultural contexts, important Brahmanic deities have also been absorbed and their significance reframed. In Mahayana contexts, other Buddhists have similarly accommodated the worship of non-Buddhist indigenous deities in Japan (kami), in Tibet (bon), and in China (Taoist and Confucian supernaturals, in addition to deities of the Chinese folk traditions).
The Mexico-US Border and the Mexican Revolution
Authors: Hernandez Sonia
Published: April 2021

The 1910 Mexican Revolution erupted as one of several major revolutions of the 20th century throughout the world. Although the revolution touched every corner of the Mexican Republic, it took on special meaning along Mexico’s northern border with the United States. Some of the first expressions of discontent aimed at the Porfirian regime were manifested in the Mexican north. Some of the battles that marked major turning points among the various revolutionary factions took place in the region. Further, the US–Mexican borderlands played a central role in the revolution because of easy access to arms arsenals and functioned as both safe haven and as a base from which to launch attacks. It also became an entry point for radical ideology. Capturing and controlling key cities along the border provided revolutionary factions the upper hand in the long ten-year war. Revolutionaries including Ricardo Flores Magón and Encarnación Díaz, among others, were apprehended and charged with violation of US neutrality laws by American officials who, in collaboration with the Porfirian regime, worked to intercept and arrest individuals deemed a danger to both US and Mexican peace and security. The revolution left a long legacy in border communities as it served as a watershed moment regarding immigration policy as well as in the way Mexican-origin people in the United States were perceived.
Rio de Janeiro: A Sociocultural History
Authors: Terra Paulo Cruz , Magalhães Marcelo de Souza
Published: April 2021

The city of Rio de Janeiro underwent profound changes between 1870 and the early 20th century. Its population grew dramatically, attracting migrants not only from abroad but also from other regions of Brazil. It also expanded significantly in size, as the construction of trolley and railway lines and the introduction of real estate capital powered the occupation of new areas. Meanwhile, urban reforms aimed at modernization transformed the social ways in which urban space was used.

During this period, Rio de Janeiro went from being the capital of the Brazilian Empire to being the capital of the Brazilian Republic. It nevertheless maintained its position as the cultural, political-administrative, commercial, and financial center of the country. Against this backdrop of change, the city was an important arena for the political struggles that marked the period, including demonstrations in favor of abolition and the republic.

Rio de Janeiro’s citizens were not inert during this period of transformation, and they found various ways to take action and fight for what they understood to be their rights. Protests, demands, petitions, and a vibrant life organized around social and political associations are examples of the broad repertoire used by the city’s inhabitants to gain a voice in municipal affairs. Citizens’ use of public demands and petitions as a channel to communicate with the authorities, and especially with city officials, shows that while they did not necessarily shun formal politics, they understood politics to be a sphere for dialogue and dispute. The sociocultural history of Rio de Janeiro during this period was therefore built precisely through confrontations and negotiations in which the common people played an active role.
Amazon Development
Authors: Acker Antoine
Published: April 2021

While historically “Amazon” could refer to a river, a basin, and later a forest, it has been shaped into a coherent regional space by the development politics of governments, companies, and nongovernmental organizations throughout the 20th century, concealing a more complex cultural and ecological reality. Development discourses ignored the human technologies existing prior to the 16th century and drew on the imaginary of a “pristine” jungle, which actually resulted from the human depopulation that occurred in the Amazon during colonization. Colonialism (17th–19th centuries), nonetheless, connected the region to the global economy, indirectly leading to the “rubber boom” (1880–1920), when the Amazon became indispensable to the second industrial revolution. After state and business actors led different operations meant to “modernize” the region in the first half of the 20th century, “developing” the Amazon became a major target of the Brazilian government in the decades following World War II. The politics of the military regime that ruled from 1964 to 1984 in particular drove the expansion of roadways, cattle-ranching, mining, and dams. While statistically creating economic growth, this trend had disastrous consequences for nature, Indigenous livelihoods, and labor relations, which mobilized scientists, activists, and local communities against it. Yet, although by the 1990s the developmentalist model was highly contested, social and environmental movements did not manage to gather society behind a new consensus for the Amazon. Attempts to put development at the service of reducing inequalities and to reinforce environmental legislation achieved certain (mitigated) success in the early 21st century, but they did not prevent deforestation and land conflicts from trending upwards after 2015, threatening the Amazon’s very existence.
Digital Resources: Piedra Rodante (Mexico’s Rolling Stone Magazine)
Authors: González-Reimann Luis , Zolov Eric
Published: April 2021

The short-lived Mexican countercultural magazine, Piedra Rodante (Rolling Stone), is a unique and invaluable primary source for researchers interested in the global sixties from a Latin American perspective. From December 1970 to January 1972, Piedra Rodante reproduced translated articles and interviews from Rolling Stone magazine, together with original reporting by Mexican music critics and writers on a vast array of topics relevant to youth in the context of late 1960s and early 1970s Mexico. Piedra Rodante was launched by a young advertising executive, Manuel Aceves, a follower of the US and British countercultural and rock scene. In 1971, Mexico’s own countercultural movement, known as La Onda, was bursting with artistic creativity as well as marketing potential, especially in the music industry. In the wake of the 1968 student movement, however, Mexico’s government was wary of the untethered political potential mobilized by La Onda (epitomized by the outdoor rock festival, Avándaro, held in September 1971). With little warning, the government shuttered Piedra Rodante as part of a broader suppression of La Onda throughout the culture industry. Absent a missing issue 0, this fully digitized collection of issues 1–8 is the only complete set available to the public.
Exiles in Mexico
Authors: Yankelevich Pablo
Published: April 2021

In the Latin American milieu, Mexico stands out as a host nation for exiles. It is somewhat paradoxical that a country with very restrictive migration policies was always willing to receive victims of political persecution, and later expanded this behavior to include victims of ethnic, religious, and gender persecution, generalized violence, and natural disasters. Explaining this paradox involves considering the transformations that the 1910 Revolution introduced into Mexico’s domestic and international politics and how these transformations impacted abroad, above all in the Latin American space, projecting the idea of a nation committed to the construction of political order and just and democratic societies. Political asylum and the Refugee Status Determination are the legal instruments by which Mexico has welcomed foreigners in conditions of extreme vulnerability. The widespread use of these instruments forged the image of Mexico as a nation of exiles. Many victims of persecution entered the country under the protection provided by the instruments of political asylum and refugee status; undoubtedly, many more did so by circumventing migratory obstacles thanks to generous governmental conduct in situations of political persecution. A journey through the most important experiences of exiles in Mexico must start with the first Latin American exiles persecuted by dictatorial regimes in the 1920s, before turning to the case of the Spanish Republicans after the Civil War in the late 1930s, and then immediately incorporating European victims of Nazism during World War II. During the Cold War a second stage of exile began with the arrival of Americans persecuted by McCarthyism in the United States, and later by the influx of thousands of Latin Americans victims of new military dictatorships. This cycle ended at the beginning of the 1980s when large contingents of Guatemalans crossed the border with Mexico to protect themselves from a war of extermination launched by the army of that country. The size and the social composition of this exile obliged Mexico to draft policies for the reception of victims of persecution that led to adjustments in national legislation and strategies for collaboration with the United Nations. In the final decades of the 20th century, the redemocratization processes in Latin America led to a marked decrease in the number of victims of political persecution. Nevertheless, since the beginning of the 21st century Mexico has faced new challenges, no longer in terms of political asylum but in terms of refuge. The increasing flows of foreign migrants who, irregularly, transit through Mexican territory to reach the border with the United States and the migration enforcement policies implemented by the US government have generated a considerable increase in requests for refugee status in Mexico. This phenomenon, unprecedented in the history of the reception of victims of persecution, leaves Mexico facing an enormous challenge in terms of humanitarian protection for foreigners who flee their countries to preserve their freedom and protect their lives.
Stormwater Management at the Lot Level: Engaging Homeowners and Business Owners to Adopt Green Stormwater Infrastructure
Authors: Jayakaran Anand D. , Rhodes Emily , Vogel Jason
Published: April 2021

The Clean Water Act of 1972 was the impetus for stormwater management in the United States, followed by the need for many cities to comply with consent decrees associated with combined sewer overflows. With rapidly growing urban centers and the attendant increasing costs of managing stormwater with larger stormwater facilities, green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) was deemed a useful measure to distribute the management of stormwater across the landscape. The management of stormwater has evolved from simply removing it as quickly as it is generated in order to prevent flooding, to intentionally detaining stormwater on the landscape. Typically, low-frequency large events are detained in central stormwater holding facilities, while GSI is employed to manage smaller high-frequency events, slowing and treating stormwater on the landscape itself. Installing GSI close to the source of runoff production ensures that stormwater directed towards these facilities are small enough in volume, so as not to overwhelm these systems. Within these GSI systems, the natural assimilative capacity of soils and plants slows and breaks down many of the pollutants that are found in stormwater runoff.

The requirement for a broad spatial distribution of GSI across the landscape necessitates an acceptance of these technologies, and the willingness of the managers of these urban landscapes to maintain these systems on a continual basis. The policies put in place to transfer the responsibility of stormwater management onto individual lot owners range from regulations imposed on those that develop the landscape for commercial and industrial purposes, to incentives offered to individual lot owners to install GSI practices for the first time on their properties. GSI is, however, not a silver bullet for all stormwater ills, and care has to be taken in how it is deployed in order not to exacerbate systemic environmental and racial inequities. A careful and considered adoption of GSI that includes the desires, values, and the needs of the community in conjunction with the environmental goals they are designed to address is critical.
Emerging Issues in Groundwater Sustainability: New Challenges
Authors: Esteban Encarna
Published: April 2021

The increased pressure on groundwater has resulted in a major deterioration of the overall status of this resource. Despite efforts to control the degradation of underground water bodies, most aquifers worldwide experience serious quality and quantity problems. New emerging issues around groundwater resources have become relevant and pose additional protection and management challenges. Climate change, with predictable impacts on temperature and precipitation, will cause considerable fluctuations in aquifer recharge levels and subsequent problems in the status of these water bodies. Expected reductions in water availability will increase groundwater withdrawals not just for irrigation but also for urban and industrial water use. Declines in stored water will have an impact on many freshwater ecosystems whose survival depends on the status of groundwater bodies. Furthermore, land subsidence, as a side effect of aquifer overexploitation, involves land collapse and deformation that are especially harmful for urban areas and deteriorate physical and hydrological water systems. All these new challenges require integrated planning strategies and multisectorial solutions to curtail the deterioration of these resources. Although these issues have been studied, in-depth analyses of the economic, social, and policy implications of groundwater management strategies are still necessary.
Mental Health Disparities
Authors: Wells-Wilbon Rhonda , Porter Rhea , Geyton Taylor , Estreet Anthony
Published: April 2021

Millions of Americans are affected by a mental illness or disorder each year. Given the prevalence, it is unfortunate that significant disparities exist within mental health care. Some of the most common reasons mental health disparities exist include stigma, previous negative experiences, limited mental health literacy, lack of culturally aware providers and services, language access, and lack of financial resources. Additionally, members of racial and ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation minority groups, who already encounter higher levels of bias, experience poorer mental health outcomes due to disparities than their counterparts. Grounded in the values and ethics of the profession, it is no surprise that social workers play a vital role in reducing mental health disparities.
Hawkins, Eulene Vivian
Authors: Logan Sadye L. M.
Published: April 2021

Eulene Vivian Hawkins (1906–2000) provided 60 years of leadership to social service programs. She worked in local, state, federal, private, and public welfare settings, and her life was representative of a lifetime of professional achievement.
Krise, Edward Fisher
Authors: Logan Sadye L. M.
Published: April 2021

Edward Fisher Krise (1924–2003), an army colonel and social service administrator, was a trailblazer, problem-solver, and a leader in his military career and in civilian life.
Wallace, John A.
Authors: Logan Sadye L. M.
Published: April 2021

John A. Wallace (1913–2000) was a pioneer in the field of corrections. He provided expert services both nationally and internationally. He also served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. military in World War II and in the Reserve Officer Corps following active military duty.
International Association of Social Work with Groups
Authors: Simon Shirley
Published: April 2021

The International Association of Social Work with Groups (IASWG) is a nonprofit, volunteer membership association that advocates for effective group work education and practice. It was founded in 1979. Previously known as the Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups, the organization name was changed in 2012 to accurately recognize its global identity. IASWG has 21 chapters and numerous organizational and individual members. Through a series of programs and advocacy, it seeks to promote and support group work practitioners, scholars, academics, and students engaged in group work practice, education, field instruction, research, and publication. Key offerings include an annual 4-day international educational symposium, the creation and dissemination of the IASWG Standards for Social Work Practice with Groups, stimulation and support for innovative group work initiatives, sponsorship of Group Work Camps, and ongoing opportunities for scholarship and publication about group work.
Association Between Hurricane Sandy and Emergency Department Visits in New York City by Age and Cause
Authors: Weinberger Kate R , Kulick Erin R , Boehme Amelia K , Sun Shengzhi , Dominici Francesca , Wellenius Gregory A
Published: April 2021

The magnitude, timing, and etiology of morbidity associated with tropical cyclones remains incompletely quantified. We examined the relative change in cause-specific emergency department (ED) visits among residents of New York City during and after Hurricane Sandy, a tropical cyclone that affected the northeastern United States in October 2012. We used quasi-Poisson constrained distributed lag models to compare the number of ED visits on and after Hurricane Sandy with all other days, 2005–2014, adjusting for temporal trends. Among residents aged ≥65 years, Hurricane Sandy was associated with a higher rate of ED visits due to injuries and poisoning (relative risk (RR) = 1.19, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.10, 1.28), respiratory disease (RR = 1.35, 95% CI: 1.21, 1.49), cardiovascular disease (RR = 1.10, 95% CI: 1.02, 1.19), renal disease (RR = 1.44, 95% CI: 1.22, 1.72), and skin and soft tissue infections (RR = 1.20, 95% CI: 1.03, 1.39) in the first week following the storm. Among adults aged 18–64 years, Hurricane Sandy was associated with a higher rate of ED visits for renal disease (RR = 2.15, 95% CI: 1.79, 2.59). Among those aged 0–17 years, the storm was associated with lower rates of ED visits for up to 3 weeks. These results suggest that tropical cyclones might result in increased health-care utilization due to a wide range of causes, particularly among older adults.
Examining the Relationship Between Occupational Physical Activity and Hypertension Status: Evidence from the Ghana WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health
Authors: Konkor Irenius , Dogoli Maurice Anfaara , Kuuire Vincent , Wilson Kathi
Published: April 2021

The employment landscape has changed significantly over the past few years in emerging economies including Ghana where many people are rapidly transitioning from livelihood activities that originally involved physical exertion to work environments where performance of duties are mostly non-physical. Working under non-active conditions could, however, exacerbate the risk of developing chronic diseases that are increasingly becoming problematic in many developing countries. Drawing on a cross-sectional nationally representative sample data of 4425 adult Ghanaian workers collected by the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health in developing countries, we examined the relationship between occupational physical activity and hypertensive status. We employed the complementary log–log analysis technique to build nested models with results presented in odds ratios. After controlling for several relevant variables, the results show that performing sedentary related work (AOR = 1.23, CI = 1.06–1.42) is significantly associated with a higher likelihood of being hypertensive compared with those whose work involved moderate physical activity. Other factors that were significantly associated with being hypertensive included tobacco use (AOR = 1.33, CI = 1.05–1.70), living in an urban environment (AOR = 1.15, CI = 1.01–1.32), and being a female (AOR = 1.18, CI = 1.01–1.37) and being an older person. Policies on reducing the risk of developing chronic conditions especially hypertension need to recognize the contributions of the work environment in emerging developing economies.
Identification of cell-type-specific marker genes from co-expression patterns in tissue samples
Authors: Qiu Yixuan , Wang Jiebiao , Lei Jing , Roeder Kathryn
Published: April 2021

Motivation

Marker genes, defined as genes that are expressed primarily in a single-cell type, can be identified from the single-cell transcriptome; however, such data are not always available for the many uses of marker genes, such as deconvolution of bulk tissue. Marker genes for a cell type, however, are highly correlated in bulk data, because their expression levels depend primarily on the proportion of that cell type in the samples. Therefore, when many tissue samples are analyzed, it is possible to identify these marker genes from the correlation pattern.

Results

To capitalize on this pattern, we develop a new algorithm to detect marker genes by combining published information about likely marker genes with bulk transcriptome data in the form of a semi-supervised algorithm. The algorithm then exploits the correlation structure of the bulk data to refine the published marker genes by adding or removing genes from the list.

Availability and implementation

We implement this method as an R package markerpen, hosted on CRAN (https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=markerpen).

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
KG4SL: knowledge graph neural network for synthetic lethality prediction in human cancers
Authors: Wang Shike , Xu Fan , Li Yunyang , Wang Jie , Zhang Ke , Liu Yong , Wu Min , Zheng Jie
Published: April 2021

Motivation

Synthetic lethality (SL) is a promising gold mine for the discovery of anti-cancer drug targets. Wet-lab screening of SL pairs is afflicted with high cost, batch-effect, and off-target problems. Current computational methods for SL prediction include gene knock-out simulation, knowledge-based data mining and machine learning methods. Most of the existing methods tend to assume that SL pairs are independent of each other, without taking into account the shared biological mechanisms underlying the SL pairs. Although several methods have incorporated genomic and proteomic data to aid SL prediction, these methods involve manual feature engineering that heavily relies on domain knowledge.

Results

Here, we propose a novel graph neural network (GNN)-based model, named KG4SL, by incorporating knowledge graph (KG) message-passing into SL prediction. The KG was constructed using 11 kinds of entities including genes, compounds, diseases, biological processes and 24 kinds of relationships that could be pertinent to SL. The integration of KG can help harness the independence issue and circumvent manual feature engineering by conducting message-passing on the KG. Our model outperformed all the state-of-the-art baselines in area under the curve, area under precision-recall curve and F1. Extensive experiments, including the comparison of our model with an unsupervised TransE model, a vanilla graph convolutional network model, and their combination, demonstrated the significant impact of incorporating KG into GNN for SL prediction.

Availability and implementation

: KG4SL is freely available at https://github.com/JieZheng-ShanghaiTech/KG4SL.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.