bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Genbun Itchi Movement
Authors: Hansen Kelly
Published: October 2024

Genbun itchi (the unification of writing and speech) was a late 19th- and early 20th-century language movement in Japan. Spurred by their exposure to western languages, proponents sought to abolish the archaic forms of writing in use at the time, and instead establish a form closer to the vernacular. The first overt calls for written reform in the 1860s came from the political realm. As part of the national policy of rapid modernization, many believed that a simpler writing script, one based on a phonetic alphabet rather than ideographical Chinese characters (kanji), was vital to promote the education of the general populace and the rise of Japan as a modern nation state. Script reform would dominate the bulk of early debates on genbun itchi, but by the 1880s, the movement had shifted its focus to the literary community. A flurry of experiments ensued, as aspiring young writers worked to create a new kind of Japanese literature based on Western models. The first genbun itchi writers had a number of language-specific issues to resolve, including the use of honorifics, as well as dialectical and gender differences. Futabatei Shimei’s novel The Drifting Cloud (Ukigumo, 1887–1889) is often said to be the first novel written in genbun itchi, but it is far from having a vernacular-based style. Futabatei drew upon professional oral storytellers and pre-Meiji fiction written primarily in dialogue for inspiration, but in the end, he could not fully avoid archaic writing conventions. Japanese translations of Western literature sometimes came closer to approximating a genbun itchi style. In fact, many critics consider Futabatei’s translations of Russian literature more successful attempts at genbun itchi than his own novels. Outside the literary world, the dissemination of a new genbun itchi style to the general populace was facilitated through the rise of a moveable-type newspaper industry. Publications known as “little newspapers” targeted the less educated with local stories presented in humorous and simple vernacular-based writing. This helped to shift the focus of genbun itchi away from self-conscious language reform policies to the use of vernacular-based writing for practicality. Within the first few decades of the 20th century, the use of archaic written forms rapidly disappeared from all print publications, although some would persist in government documents until the end of World War II. Genbun itchi also became the standard in primary school textbooks in the early 20th century. Debates on orthographic reform continued into the early postwar period, when the writing scripts, spellings, and characters in daily use were standardized.
The Earth in Contemporary Fiction and Science
Authors: Whitmarsh Patrick
Published: October 2024

Contemporary fiction and science tend to represent the earth as a manufactured planet—not a natural body but one deeply impressed upon and inscribed by human-built infrastructures. Since 1950, a number of revelations have shaped how we understand the earth. In the sciences, the growth of oceanography, geology, and atmospheric chemistry gave rise to the discipline of earth system science in the 1980s, while theories of plate tectonics and catastrophism illuminated a shifting, fluid, and mobile planet. Along with these scientific developments, themselves often funded and promoted by military and corporate interests, technologies of global surveillance, subterranean drilling, geoengineering, and nuclear energy added new dimensions of risk to the planetary picture—risk compounded by the surge in plastics, transportation and infrastructure, refrigeration, and accumulating global waste. Questions of earthliness and planetarity have long received attention from the genre of science fiction; in the 21st century, however, the unfolding climate crisis attracts literary attention beyond genre fiction, which has in turn sparked critical conversations about the boundaries of genre and the novel form. Scholars frequently point to climate change and other emergent environmental crises as socio-scientific discourses that bear on how we talk about things like form, genre, and narrative. Contemporary fiction and science position earth within the emergence of the geosocial concepts such as climate change, the Anthropocene, and the Great Acceleration, all of which invoke narrative frameworks about how humans have impacted earth systems throughout history and increasingly in recent decades. Four of these frameworks offer a helpful overview of ways the earth features in contemporary fiction and science: the persistent catastrophe, in which the earth is represented in the midst of calamitous transformations that have repercussions for how we describe the world realistically; the unquantifiable earth, in which scientific theories, computational models, satellite imaging, and other analytical methods struggle to capture the planet in all its complexity and volatility; the geological color line, which filters the earth’s history through the legacies of racism, colonialism, imperialism, and environmental injustice; and the inhabitable earth, which draws on different storytelling modes to imagine practices and ways of organizing in the future, and to clear pathways for human existence on a manufactured planet. Each of these frameworks highlights unique dimensions of the earth in relation to human experience and history and provide platforms for considering the production of narrative fiction in the late 20th and 21st centuries.
Behavioral Decision Making and Game Theory Methods
Authors: Christopoulos Georgios
Published: October 2024

Behavioral decision making and game theory (BDMGT) is the umbrella term for a set of methods aimed at recording the choices and eliciting the decision preferences of individuals (organizational agents like managers, employees, entrepreneurs, investors, or consumers). BDMGT comprises a set of well-defined decision problems that, in contrast to surveys or questionnaires that rely on self-assessment, evaluate actual behavioral choices with well-defined outcomes and choice parameters. Additionally, in contrast to idealized models, BDMGT focuses on actual decision-making processes. BDMGT allows for dynamic and complex decision scenarios that are nevertheless computationally tractable and have lower linguistic demands (thus making inter-group and cross-cultural comparisons easier).

BDMGT decision problems can be broadly categorized as either individual (i.e., where the agent acts against nature or luck, and all outcomes return to the agent) or social (i.e., where [at least one] another agent—“the partner”—is involved). Social decisions can be further defined as either non-strategic (i.e., where the partner makes no decisions, but some of the outcomes can be returned to them) or strategic (i.e., where the partner makes decisions that can affect the final outcomes returned to the agent). Examples of generic research questions for individual decision tasks include how risk influences decisions (i.e., measuring risk preferences) or (for social decision tasks) how agents interact with each other (i.e., how they allocate resources, what they consider fair, how they build trust, or how they coordinate to achieve common strategic goals).

The present entry focuses on the methodological aspects of BDMGT. There are major methodological considerations and common pitfalls associated with BDMGT that can bias results and their interpretation, including incentives and how participants should be paid, anonymity, double-blinding (and when this is not enough), social desirability, how the “partner” participant is explained, or what issues may arise with repeated decisions or trials. The field has also seen the introduction of newer but well-established developments in the field, such as computerized testing, decision neuroscience, and augmented and virtual reality.
The 1972 Asian Expulsion in Uganda and the Framing of Ethno-Racial Discourse in the Post-Colonial Press
Authors: Tayeebwa William , Ntulume Charlotte K. , Mbaine Adolf E.
Published: October 2024

The social-cultural and political history of Uganda since British colonial rule (1894–1962) to the present offers several manifestations of ethnic and racial confrontations. The first major racial skirmishes in the 1940s and 1950s played out against the Asian business owners and the British colonial masters. Native resentment of Ugandan-Asians reached a peak point leading to their expulsion by President Idi Amin in 1972. In recent times, there have also been increasing reported incidences of xenophobic confrontations between nationals and immigrants and refugees due to the high immigration pressure the country faces from troubled neighboring countries, such as Rwanda, South Sudan, Republic of the Sudan, and Democratic Republic of the Congo. There have also been recent incidences in which Asians have been attacked in the country. However, the most prominent case of xenophobia in the national psyche, which was also a major international media story, remains the expulsion of Asians by President Idi Amin in 1972. In this article, content analysis is used to present the media framing of the Asian expulsion as a manifestation of ethno-racial and xenophobic violence in Uganda. The findings show that the expulsion was framed predominantly as an “economic war” for the “economic independence” of Uganda. Asians were framed as “foreigners” who were “exploiters,” “tricksters,” and, during the expulsion, as “arsonists” and “saboteurs.” Idi Amin was framed as a “brave liberator” and a “patriotic nationalist.” Based on increasing tensions between nationals and a new Asian business class increasingly dominated by Chinese, the historical data provides insights as to what might lie ahead if local grievances are not properly addressed.
Perceptual Organization
Authors: Wagemans Johan
Published: October 2024

Perceptual organization concerns the organization of people’s perception into meaningful, structured entities—often wholes containing parts, with specific interrelationships among the parts as well as specific relationships between the parts and the wholes. It embraces a wide variety of distinct processes, which often occur together in everyday life and lead to interesting perceptual experiences by their interactions. The best-known perceptual organization processes are perceptual grouping and figure-ground organization, which appear to be determined by characteristic principles or laws, such as grouping by proximity, similarity, good continuation, area, convexity, symmetry, and so forth. Other important phenomena of perceptual organization include perceptual multi-stability (i.e., the fact that the same stimulus can give rise to multiple competing percepts that switch over time), visual illusions, the role of reference frames, and the role of context.

Gestalt psychology has contributed deep insights into the way people’s perception of the world is organized, although it has also been criticized for its emphasis on subjective experiences and its sometimes vague and non-quantitative descriptions of the Gestalt principles. Because perceptual organization essentially concerns visual awareness, however, phenomenology is needed to describe what is experienced. This ultimately remains the basis for research on perceptual organization even when it is aimed at quantifying the principles of perceptual organization and identifying the neural correlates or mechanisms underlying perceptual organization.
Interpreting Economies in Khurasan in the 11th–13th Century CE through Documentary Sources
Authors: Azad Arezou
Published: October 2024

A macro study of the economy of medieval Khurasan would oversimplify so vast and diverse a region as Khurasan, much like the “silk roads” paradigm oversimplifies. Micro-histories give a more comprehensive account of the totality of life on the ground. The chapter first reviews the secondary literature (sparse as it is) and the state of the field on local economies in medieval Khurasan. It then introduces the new documentary sources from Khurasan forming the empirical base for an innovative research program before going on to discuss what the documentary data reveal about the economy in parts of medieval Khurasan where the documents were issued, notably Bamiyan and Firuzkuh in Afghanistan during the 11th–13th centuries ce. Examples from four documents in the forms of petition letters and internal administrative orders are showcased. The sources give a rare view from below, from which a tentative assessment of agrarian and fiscal policies, land management, and peasant agency is drawn up. The documentary evidence challenges prevailing assumptions in the scholarship of peasant oppression and compliance. The revision to this interpretation offers a scenario in which peasants have managed their relationships with their landlords and the provincial administration strategically and carefully, with a view to protecting their interests, feeding their families, and making commercial gain to attain upward mobility.
Yorùbá Indigenous Religion
Authors: Ogundiran Akinwumi
Published: October 2024

Yorùbá indigenous religion, now commonly referred to as Ìṣẹ̀ṣe or Òrìṣà religion, has evolved over the past two thousand years in tandem with Yorùbá political, economic, cultural, and social history. Yet, until now, this deep history has not been taken into consideration in the study of Yorùbá religion. Here, a framework is provided achieving this by focusing on three themes. The first theme is about Yorùbá ideas of divinity and the beliefs about an individual’s and community’s relationship to the divine phenomenon, especially through ancestor veneration. The second theme focuses on the emergent qualities of Yorùbá pantheon, emphasizing the consolidation of the pantheon at the beginning of the 1st millennium ce and some of the sociopolitical and political economy events that shaped the changes in the pantheon through the early 19th century. The third theme examines the intellectual and dialogical dimensions of Yorùbá indigenous religion as a quintessential civic spiritual practice.
Family Planning Programs
Authors: Tsui Amy , Bertrand Jane
Published: October 2024

Since the 1950s, there has been unprecedented change in reproductive behavior around the world, in part due to expanded access to modern contraceptive methods. The widespread use of those methods by individuals to bear children at their desired timing and pace reflects the organized efforts of governments, non-profit, and commercial health providers to make contraception acceptable, available, accessible, high-quality, and affordable. The establishment and growth of family planning (FP) programs around the world, and particularly in low- and middle-income countries, have responded to the policies and population circumstances of different regions, countries, and communities over time. Identified as one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th century, FP continues to face challenges in meeting the reproductive health needs and choices of early 21st-century and future generations of people living in areas with inadequate resources, political commitment, health systems, and social equalities. This review traces the establishment of organized FP programs, their underlying rationales, components and objectives, regional implementation, and future issues and challenges.
Sharing Economy
Authors: Treitler Inga
Published: October 2024

The Sharing Economy is an economic and cultural system where individuals share resources, assets, and services directly with each other. The digital age has given rise to a proliferation of peer-to-peer platform apps and platforms that make sharing possible. But sharing has long been a principle in human society, and anthropologists are interested in the many ways that decentralization has led to changing social patterns.

There are two main branches to the Sharing Economy. The commercial or on-demand sector is dominated by familiar mobility and accommodations brands like Airbnb and Uber. Brands like Mechanical Turk and Task Rabbit have contributed to online labor marketplaces in the United States, providing short-term informal employment opportunities and impacting the definition of work. Community-based brands meet local needs such as tool sharing and tech support, reducing dependence on ownership and also contributing to community building and civil action. The second main branch of the Sharing Economy is called solidarity based and can be seen in civil society startups that leverage surpluses in some segments of society in response to societal needs in other segments. In both branches, sustainable development is a primary driver behind the success of the Sharing Economy, especially in the European Union. Many innovators in the field are also motivated by the financial gains to be had, accompanied by the possibilities for independent work schedules and a healthier work–life balance. Many academic disciplines are interested in the future directions of the Sharing Economy because of its disruptive effects in cultural and economic systems, for example, in real estate markets, in patterns of tourism, in changing ownership patterns, and the increased efficiency brought on by the reuse of idle capacity.
Home Economics, Domesticity, and Housework
Authors: Elias Megan J.
Published: October 2024

Home economics is an interdisciplinary combination of fields including laboratory and social sciences to study the phenomena of home life and thereby improve people’s everyday lives. It emerged in the late 19th century in the United States as an academic field of study, primarily at Land Grant universities. Demographics of the field, for both faculty and students, have remained predominantly female since its beginnings. Subfields of Home Economics, some of which have developed into independent fields of study, are nutrition, dietetics, food science, textile science, child psychology, and institutional management. The federal government in the United States supported home economics teaching and research through both the Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture. In colleges and universities, the field is now primarily known as family and consumer sciences, reflecting changes in the methodologies and philosophy of the field over the course of the 20th century. A central issue in the field has been how to empower individuals to navigate the consumer economy in their own best interest.
Indigenous Foodways among Native Americans
Authors: Gish Hill Christina
Published: October 2024

Native peoples of North America have developed foodways over centuries of living in relationships with particular landscapes. These foods have emerged from detailed knowledge of the landscape gained through careful observation over the generations. This knowledge includes maintaining a sustainable relationship with the environment to ensure consistent food sources in some unforgiving landscapes. The advent of contact with European settlers in North America and the eventual insertion of Native peoples into a global capitalist economy dramatically affected Indigenous people’s relationship with the environment, impacting access to food using precontact mechanisms. Colonization of Indigenous peoples throughout North America altered their access to healthy, culturally appropriate foods in many ways, leading to severely degraded health in Native communities. Beginning in the early 21st century, Indigenous people throughout North America began to reclaim and rejuvenate precontact foodways in a quest to repair physical and emotional well-being, connect more deeply with ceremony, reanimate local economies, heal damaged environments, and ultimately work toward food sovereignty.
Peasant Agroecology in Africa and Latin America
Authors: Monjane Boaventura , Rosset Peter M.
Published: October 2024

Agroecology is a word with multiple definitions. Some define it as a narrow set of technologies to make farming more sustainable, while in a broader sense it is multifaceted and seen as: (a) critical thought —offering critical analysis of agrifood systems, both dominant and alternative—; (b) an inter- and trans-disciplinary science, both a ‘Western science’ and a ‘peasant science’, concerning how agoecosystems and food systems function, which provides the understanding needed to development transformative alternatives; (c) a variety of agricultural practices that allow sustainable farming without farm chemicals; and (d) a social movement that fights for social and environmental justice in the food system. Agroecology is currently being contested by different food system actors and is at risk of co-optation by various institutions and players, who attempt to redefine it within the confines of industrial food production, thereby diluting its transformative potential. Despite such attempts at appropriation, peasant agroecology, in particular, has a fundamental role as an alternative to the industrial food system, underlying the construction of local, sustainable food systems rooted in peasant agriculture and the principles of agroecology. In Africa and Latin America, for example, agroecology is an historical practice deeply embedded in indigenous and peasant knowledge systems, that today is critical to sustainable food production while offering challenges to dominant paradigms of agricultural development. There are intricate relationships among peasants, agroecology, and the broader struggle for food sovereignty, and social movements play a pivotal role of in advocating agroecological practices and resisting corporate control over food systems, agriculture, land, and territory.
Mosques in the United States and Canada
Authors: Bagby Ihsan
Published: October 2024

Mosques refer to the Muslim house of worship, signifying the gathering place for Muslims to fulfill their obligation of communal prayer. Mosques in the United States and Canada are distinct from mosques in Muslim-majority countries in two different ways. Mosques in the United States and Canada are congregations, which means that the mosque is run by a group of participants; in Muslim-majority countries, mosques are controlled by the state of wealthy patrons. Second, mosques in the United States and Canada are a place of worship and a center of various community activities; in Muslim-majority countries, the mosque is often simply a place of worship. The first era in the history of mosques in North America was from 1890 to 1964. Starting in the 1920s, mosques were established in the United States and Canada by Muslim immigrants. Owing to the relatively small number of Muslim immigrants, few mosques were founded before the 1960s. African Americans started becoming Muslim in the 1920s and started establishing mosques in the 1930s. The number of their mosques was also few. The second era is from 1965 to 2023. This period marks the tremendous increase in the number of Muslim immigrants and African American converts to Islam, and as a consequence, the number of mosques has risen significantly. In 2020, there were 2,769 mosques as compared with 498 in 1984. Mosques in 2020 were healthy: they were growing in number, participants, and activities. Mosques were also very much involved in American society and therefore did not evince a position of isolation and deep hostility to American society. In fact, studies show that mosques are a conduit for Muslims to become more civically engaged. However, the perceived disconnect between young adults and women constitutes a danger to the future of mosques in North America.
Arts and Ethics: Overview
Authors: Robertson Iain
Published: October 2024

The art market has changed significantly since its modern inception in the Renaissance. It has grown into a global industry. There are a number of crucial concepts that have become points of disagreement and discussion: authentication, restitution, repatriation, the distinction between the work of art and the creator, and the moral rights of artists. Notions surrounding authenticity have changed significantly over time. By the 18th century, authorship became inseparable from value, whereas it carried less importance in earlier periods. The degree a work has been altered or restored is also key to ascertaining its authentication. The restitution of a work of art is distinct from its repatriation; restitution refers to individual claims most commonly asserted today with reference to the period of the National Socialist government in Germany. Attitudes toward trophies of war changed in the early 20th century, and repatriation is today a much more acceptable notion than it once was. Whether the impression or value of a work of art is affected by the misconduct or immoral nature of the creator or collector is a contentious issue. There are numerous examples of immoral artists, collectors, and dealers; but it is a different matter to attach their immorality to a work of art created, collected, or dealt by these protagonists. The moral right of artists does just that. It argues for the work of art to be considered an inalienable part of the creator, which suggest that the character of the artist is extended to include the work of art.
Morphosyntactic Variation and Change in Italian
Authors: Cennamo Michela , Ciconte Francesco Maria
Published: October 2024

Italian is an Italo-Romance language based upon a form of Tuscan, old Florentine. For centuries, Italian was a literary language mastered only by well-educated elites. In contrast, almost the entire population spoke a local variety of Italo-Romance. The Italo-Romance varieties are not dialects—that is, variations—of Italian, but they are languages in their own right, which, like Tuscan, developed independently from Latin. The long-term and intensive coexistence of Italian and the Italo-Romance varieties has produced a great deal of variation, which still characterizes the linguistic repertoire of Italy. The diglossic relationship between Italian and the Italo-Romance varieties is thus the key to capturing such variation. The interrelation between a superstrate national language—that is, Standard Italian—and the deep-rooted local varieties has yielded interlanguage phenomena, which eventually led to substratum interference, that is, the occurrence of local features in Italian. This variation has not affected Standard Italian, but, rather, it has produced geo-varieties of Italian, altogether termed “Regional Italians.” The use of certain regional features has become the norm—a norm which is socially accepted and in fact constitutes the standard within the respective regional areas. Besides phonetic and prosodic variation and substantial lexical importation into Italian from the Italo-Romance varieties, a set of shared interference features has transcended isoglossic boundaries at the morphosyntactic level as well. At the same time, the traditional diamesic dichotomy between the spoken and written domain has loosened, allowing a variety of interrelated styles and registers. In this respect, contemporary Italian can be said to be undergoing a process of restandardization. The newly emerging standard variety, “Neo-Standard Italian,” encompasses originally regional morphosyntactic features which have become pan-Italian and are commonly used in almost all functional domains of communication.

After discussing some typical instances of morphosyntactic variation in the macro-areas of Regional Italians, this article analyzes some shared Romance phenomena with regard to the specific features of Italian and its regional variation, namely existential constructions, forms of address, futurity, mood, and negation, pointing to emerging new phenomena, coexisting with stable patterns of variation, some of which are already attested in earlier stages of the language and of the early vernaculars.
Northern Gallo-Romance: langue d’oïl (Including French)
Authors: Smith John Charles
Published: October 2024

The linguistic area of Gallo-Romance includes contemporary France, together with some contiguous areas. The (often moribund) local varieties spoken in the northern half of this area, together with standard French (which developed from a koinéized version of the speech of Paris at, or just after, the end of the Middle Ages) present interesting typological differences from many other Romance varieties. Their segmental phonology is characterized by a much larger number of vowels than is typical of Romance in general. Many of these vowels are the result of processes of nasalization and of diphthongization followed by remonophthongization that have not taken place, or not taken place to the same extent, elsewhere. Unlike many Romance varieties, Northern Gallo-Romance varieties are not pro-drop languages, so that sentences almost always require an overt subject, which may be a clitic pronoun. Finally, a striking syntactic feature of French is dislocation, where elements are moved to positions outside the nuclear or core sentence, giving rise to the view that French is, or is becoming, a discourse-configurational language.
English
Authors: Kortmann Bernd
Published: October 2024

English is by far the most widely spoken Germanic language, with approximately 400 million native speakers, another 500 million L2 speakers, and at least a billion of moderately competent speakers of English as a Foreign Language. In close to 60 countries, English enjoys official status or is one of the native languages. With several fully codified standard varieties used in different nation-states, English also qualifies as the most pluricentric of the Germanic languages. British and American English are still the most powerful norm-providing Standard Englishes worldwide and the leading target models in the international classroom of English as a second or foreign language. Many of the changes in their grammars in the course of the 20th century happened independently of each other. In American English, such changes typically started earlier, spread faster, and affected more words or structures compared with British English.

English is the most innovative of all Germanic languages when looking at its evolution since early medieval times, closely followed by the Mainland Scandinavian languages. Despite the fact that English and German both belong to the West Germanic branch, it is between these two languages that the greatest Germanic-internal typological distance holds, with German being placed at the pole of the structurally most conservative West Germanic language and (along with Icelandic) of all Germanic languages. English is highly analytic and exhibits many properties typically found in SVO languages, whereas German is still highly synthetic and shows many more typical properties of an SOV language.

Mobility, migration, and language and dialect contact have played crucial roles in the history and development of English right from inception in the early Middle Ages. The extent to which the multiple language contact situations in the history of English have shaped the language, especially its grammar, is still a matter of debate. What is a fact is that the major typological changes of the English language away from the highly synthetic language type of Old Germanic happened exactly in the late Old English and, above all, the Middle English periods. Early Modern English was primarily a period of standardization, the Great Vowel Shift, and a heavy extension of the vocabulary because of its massive borrowing from Latin and French. The main characteristics of Late Modern English are continuity, stability, and norm-oriented codification of the English language via dictionaries and grammars. Both modern periods, especially the 18th and the 19th centuries, saw the global spread of English in the wake of colonial expansion, laying the foundations to English becoming a true world language with many varieties in different parts of the world.
Cost-Effective Business Resilience Decision Making
Authors: Dormady Noah , Roa-Henriquez Alfredo , Snider Chris , Rose Adam
Published: October 2024

Practitioners, scholars, and students engaged in the analysis or evaluation of natural hazard impacts, particularly those involved in quantifying economic disruptions, should understand basic analytical principles and best practices. Economic analysis of disasters is particularly challenging, and there are best practices that can be employed to address many of these measurement and quantification challenges, including survey-based empirical data collection and analysis techniques.

Once these challenges are considered, and an evaluation has been performed, another more difficult challenge occurs—how that information can be used to effectively and cost-effectively improve hazard resilience. This involves how businesses, organizations, and communities can then use those analyses and data to improve operations, improve resilience, and restore functionality at the lowest cost.

The choices a business makes in the aftermath of a disaster can play a key role in its ability to continue operating, as well as in its pace of recovery. Those operational decisions are critically important and must be informed by a complex set of factors beyond property damage alone. It is important that decision makers develop a set of evaluation criteria for quantifying business resilience, with an explicit focus on cost-effectiveness. This is important because, due to the wide-ranging nature of disaster impacts, many disrupted businesses pursue resilience actions for which costs exceed avoided losses. In other words, they spend more money to avoid losses than the value of those losses. Recent natural disaster data collection and analysis efforts from Hurricane Harvey and other major disasters reveal that many businesses respond to disasters in cost-effective ways, while others spend inefficiently on resilience actions or tactics.

It is important that society learns from the experiences of businesses affected by prior disasters, so that businesses, organizations, and communities can more effectively and cost-effectively respond to future disasters, prepare for hazards, and accelerate recovery when disasters strike. It is also important that these objective, data-driven decisions, which aim to avoid economic losses and hasten recovery, consider the role of insurance. Insurance policies, practices, and incentives can vary, and they can fundamentally alter the behavior of firms in responding to natural disasters.

As such, cost-effective business resilience decision making is multifaceted. It involves operational decisions in the presence of post-disaster constraints that impact the firm’s ability to produce its goods and services. It involves cost and investment considerations, dynamic decision making, and external opportunities and limitations associated with contractual, legal and regulatory, and insurance-related considerations.
Foster Care for Unaccompanied Immigrant and Refugee Children and Youth
Authors: Hasson Robert G. , Evans Kerri , Crea Thomas M.
Published: October 2024

Unaccompanied children are immigrants under 18 years old without a parent or guardian at their time of arrival to their host countries. In the United States, the numbers of unaccompanied children arriving at the Southern border have steadily increased since 2012, with a record number arriving in 2023. Many unaccompanied children migrate to the United States to escape extreme poverty and community violence or to reunite with family members. Like other displaced populations, unaccompanied children are vulnerable to further violence and exploitation during their migration journeys and after their arrival to the United States. Yet this population is uniquely vulnerable, given their developmental needs and their often complicated health and mental-health challenges.

The vast majority of unaccompanied children (98.9%) are placed with community sponsors, and follow-up about them is essentially impossible. A small number enter foster care under the auspices of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), through either the long-term foster care program or the unaccompanied refugee minors program. The foster care process and related policies have been put in place to ensure the safety and well-being of unaccompanied children who require foster care in the United States. Research has analyzed key policies that affect unaccompanied children, ORR’s foster care system in the United States, and the placement process and well-being outcomes. Future policy should be developed in ways that protect the best interests of unaccompanied children in the context of rapidly changing circumstances related to global migration.
Cultural Humility
Authors: Wang Xiafei , Lee Mo Yee
Published: October 2024

Cultural humility can be defined and its historical development traced among different professions. Specifically, it is useful to contrast the underlying principles of cultural competence with those of cultural humility, highlighting the growing need for cultural humility to be integrated into social work practice, education, and research. Intersectionality, microaggression, and mentalization are key constructs that enrich the understanding of cultural humility’s framework. Cultural humility can be understood in relation to various facets of social work, including direct practice, supervision, institutional accountability, social work education, and social work research. Finally, cultural humility has a potential future role in shaping the social work profession.
Maternal Mental Health
Authors: Jungari Suresh
Published: October 2024

Maternal mental health (MMH) concerns encompass perinatal or postnatal fear of childbirth and any stress during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. Maternal mental health issues have not received sufficient attention in research discourse, especially in low- and middle-income countries. The prevalence of maternal mental health problems ranges from 10% to 35% in both developed and developing countries. Individual, reproductive-related, and community-level factors contribute to increasing MMH concerns. Maternal mental health conditions may lead to compromised quality of life, delayed child development, loss of employment, and financial burdens. Routine maternal healthcare has been found to lack of integration of mental health aspects. Health systems should be equipped to address maternal mental health problems during routine maternal healthcare. More efforts are also needed in conducting research on varied dimensions of MMH.
Comparison of Different Types of Poly-L-Lactic Acid Microspheres In Vitro and In Vivo Studies
Authors: Liu Ruilin , He Tong , Li Ruizhi , Wang Shiwei , Lai Chen , Zhang Kun
Published: October 2024

Background

Biodegradable polymers are commonly used as dermal fillers in plastic surgery. Among these, poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) distinguishes itself owing to its good biocompatibility, degradability, and ability to act as a collagen stimulator.

Objectives

In this study, the differential behavior of PLLA microspheres with varying microscopic morphology and surface hydrophilicity was investigated both in vitro and in vivo.

Methods

The introduction of short hydrophilic polyethylene glycol (PEG) chains into the PLLA molecule was employed to modify the morphology and enhance the surface hydrophilicity of the microspheres. The morphology and physicochemical properties of the PLLA and PLLA-b-PEG microspheres were characterized. Irregular PLLA particles, PLLA, and PLLA-b-PEG microspheres were implanted into the subcutaneous tissue of rabbit models, and at 4, 26, and 52 weeks after implantation, biopsy samples were collected for hematoxylin and eosin and Masson’s trichrome staining to evaluate differences in the tissue response between different implants.

Results

The results of in vitro research demonstrated that while the addition of short-chain hydrophilic PEG afforded a smoother surface for the microspheres, it had no significant effect on the molecular weight and degradation rate of PLLA. The histological examination revealed that the PLLA-b-PEG microspheres exhibited enhanced biocompatibility compared with the pure PLLA microspheres, while the irregular PLLA particles showed the highest inflammatory response among the 3 materials.

Conclusions

In this study, we found that the properties of PLLA were improved upon modification by short-chain PEG without reducing the collagen regeneration ability, thereby affording a better histocompatibility.

Level of Evidence: 5 (Therapeutic)
Microplastics are detected in bull epididymal sperm and polystyrene microparticles impair sperm fertilization
Authors: Grechi N , Ferronato G A , Devkota S , Ferraz M A M M
Published: October 2024

An increase in global infertility has coincided with the accumulation of microplastics (MPs) in the environment. This trend is particularly troubling because only 10% of male infertility cases can be attributed to identifiable causes, leaving a knowledge gap in our understanding of their underlying factors. To bridge this, it is important to explore the connection between the accumulation of MPs and the observed decline in male fertility. We assessed the presence of microplastics in epididymal sperm from bulls and used it as baseline concentrations for sperm exposure. MPs were detected in all epidydimal sperm (ES) samples, with a mean concentration of 0.37 μg mL−1. Next, to investigate the effects of MPs on fertility, bovine sperm was exposed to three different concentrations of a mixture of 1.1, 0.5, and 0.3 μm polystyrene (PS) beads: (1) 0.7 μg mL−1, blood concentration of PS in cows (bPS); (2) 0.37 μg mL−1, based on the concentration of total MPs found in ES (esMP); and (3) 0.026 μg mL−1, based on the concentration of PS found in ES (esPS). All sperm samples incubated with PS exhibited reduced motility compared with the control at 0.5 h. However, PS exposure did not affect acrosome integrity or induced oxidative stress. Embryos produced from sperm exposed to PS had reduced blastocyst rates, in addition to increased ROS formation and apoptosis. By employing physiological exposure, this research provided evidence of MPs in bovine epididymal sperm and demonstrated the detrimental effect of PS on sperm functionality.
Software codesign between end users and developers to enhance utility for biodiversity conservation
Authors: Blair Mary E , Noguera-Urbano Elkin A , Ochoa-Quintero Jose Manuel , Paz Andrea , Lopez-Gallego Cristina , Echeverry-Galvis María Ángela , Zuloaga Juan , Rodríguez Pilar , Lemus-Mejia Leonardo , Ersts Peter , López-Lozano Daniel F , Aiello-Lammens Matthew E , Arango Hector M , Buitrago Leonardo , Chang Triguero Samuel , Cruz-Rodríguez Cristian A , Díaz-Nieto Juan F , Escobar Dairo , Grisales-Betancur Valentina , Johnson Bethany A , Kass Jamie M , Londoño-Murcia María C , Merow Cory , Muñoz-Rodríguez Carlos J , Olaya-Rodríguez María Helena , Parra Juan L , Pinilla-Buitrago Gonzalo E , Roach Nicolette S , Rojas-Soto Octavio , Roncancio-Duque Néstor , Suárez-Valencia Erika , Urbina-Cardona J Nicolás , Velásquez-Tibatá Jorge , Zapata-Martinez Camilo A , Anderson Robert P
Published: October 2024

Creating software tools that address the needs of a wide range of decision-makers requires the inclusion of differing perspectives throughout the development process. Software tools for biodiversity conservation often fall short in this regard, partly because broad decision-maker needs may exceed the toolkits of single research groups or even institutions. We show that participatory, collaborative codesign enhances the utility of software tools for better decision-making in biodiversity conservation planning, as demonstrated by our experiences developing a set of integrated tools in Colombia. Specifically, we undertook an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional collaboration of ecological modelers, software engineers, and a diverse profile of potential end users, including decision-makers, conservation practitioners, and biodiversity experts. We leveraged and modified common paradigms of software production, including codesign and agile development, to facilitate collaboration through all stages (including conceptualization, development, testing, and feedback) to ensure the accessibility and applicability of the new tools to inform decision-making for biodiversity conservation planning.
Impact of a national guideline for the management of peripheral arterial disease on revascularization rates in England: interrupted time series analysis
Authors: Maheswaran Ravi , Tong Thaison , Michaels Jonathan , Brindley Paul , Walters Stephen , Nawaz Shah
Published: October 2024

Background

A national guideline on peripheral arterial disease management in England was issued in August 2012. The impact on revascularization rates was examined and variation with socioeconomic deprivation assessed.

Methods

Annual hospital admissions for England over 10 years (2008–2009 to 2017–2018) were examined using interrupted time series analysis. A pragmatic approach was used to classify admissions for revascularization into moderate and severe categories.

Results

There were 309 839 admissions (56% for moderate peripheral arterial disease), with an overall annual admission rate for revascularization of 86 per 100 000 population aged 25+ years. The rate for moderate peripheral arterial disease marginally increased by 0.29 per 100 000 per year (95% c.i. −0.22 to 0.80) from 2008–2009 to 2012–2013. Following guideline introduction, this rate decreased. The equivalent for severe peripheral arterial disease increased by 1.33 per 100 000 (0.78 to 1.88). Following guideline introduction, this rate plateaued. The change in rate (slope) for moderate peripheral arterial disease of −2.81 per 100 000 per year (−3.52 to −2.10) after guideline introduction was greater than the change in rate for severe peripheral arterial disease of −1.95 per 100 000 per year (−2.73 to −1.17). For moderate peripheral arterial disease, the annual rate in the most socioeconomically deprived category was 15.6 per 100 000 lower in 2017–2018 compared with 2012–2013 (24.3% decrease). The impact progressively diminished with decreasing deprivation. In the least deprived category, the reduction was 5.2 per 100 000 (12.9% decrease). For severe peripheral arterial disease, the decrease was 1.2 per 100 000 (3.1% reduction) with no consistent variation in relation to deprivation.

Conclusion

Introduction of the national peripheral arterial disease management guideline in England was associated with a reduction in admission rates for revascularization, especially for moderate peripheral arterial disease, with greater reduction in rates for moderate peripheral arterial disease in more socioeconomically deprived areas. Association, however, does not necessarily imply causation and alternative explanations cannot be ruled out.
Comparing bioimpedance spectrometry and traditional creatinine kinetics methods for the assessment of muscle mass in peritoneal dialysis patients
Authors: Xu Lixing , Ng Jack Kit-Chung , Chan Gordon Chun-Kau , Fung Winston Wing-Shing , Chow Kai-Ming , Szeto Cheuk-Chun
Published: October 2024

Background

Sarcopenia is a common and serious problem in patients receiving peritoneal dialysis (PD). Lean tissue mass (LTM) by bioimpedance spectrometry is a reasonably accurate method for measuring muscle mass. Fat-free edema-free body mass (FEBM) as determined by the creatinine kinetics method is a traditional method but evidence to support its use is limited.

Methods

We studied 198 new PD patients. Their serial LTM and FEBM were reviewed and compared by the Bland and Altman method. Multi-variable regression model was used to determine factors associated with the disparity between the two methods.

Results

There was a significant but moderate correlation between LTM and FEBM (r = 0.309, P < .0001). LTM was consistently higher than FEBM, with an average difference 13.98 kg (95% confidence interval −5.90 to 33.86 kg), and the difference strongly correlated with LTM (r = 0.781, P < .0001). By multivariable linear regression analysis, LTM and residual renal function were independent predictors of the LTM–FEBM difference. Where the measurements were repeated in 12 months, there was no significant correlation between ∆LTM and ∆FEBM (r = −0.031, P = .799).

Conclusion

There is a significant difference between LTM and FFBM. This discrepancy correlated with LTM and residual renal function, highlighting the limitations of FFBM in assessing skeletal muscle mass.