bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Blue and red light effects on stomatal oscillations
Authors: Ballard Trevor , Peak David , Mott Keith
Published: October 2018

The response of stomata to red and blue light was investigated using small fibre optics (66µm diameter) to control light levels on a single pair of guard cells without affecting the surrounding tissue. Low intensity red light (50µmolm–2s–1) applied to the entire leaf caused stomata to oscillate continuously for several hours with no apparent decrease in amplitude with time. Adding low intensity blue light (50µmolm–2s–1) caused stomata to stop oscillating, but oscillations resumed when the blue light was removed. Adding the same intensity of red light to an oscillating leaf changed the amplitude of the oscillations but did not stop them. When blue light was added to a single guard cell pair (using a fibre optic) in a red-light-illuminated leaf, the stoma formed by that pair stopped oscillating, but adjacent stomata did not. Red light added to a single guard cell pair did not stop oscillations. Finally, blue light applied through a fibre optic to areas of leaf without stomata caused proximal stomata to stop oscillating, but distal stomata continued to oscillate. The data suggest that blue light affects stomata via direct effects on guard cells as well as by indirect effects on other cells in the leaf.
Tick-borne encephalitis and its global importance
Authors: Dobler Gerhard
Published: October 2018

Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is the most important tick-transmitted human viral disease in Europe and Asia with up to 10000 human cases annually. The etiologic agents of TBE are the three subtypes of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV), a member of the genus Flavivirus in the family Flaviviridae. The Far-Eastern subtype and the Siberian subtype are both mainly transmitted by Ixodes persulcatus; the European subtype is mainly transmitted by Ixodes ricinus. Besides tick bite, TBEV can be transmitted by unpasteurised milk from goat, sheep and cattle during the viremic phase of infection by the oral route of infection (alimentary form of TBE). There is no treatment for TBE available, but there are effective and well tolerated vaccines against TBE, which are recommended for people living or travelling to endemic countries with a risk of infection.
Bovine theileriosis in Australia: a decade of disease
Authors: Jenkins Cheryl
Published: October 2018

Theileriosis refers to the clinical disease caused by organisms from the genus Theileria, tick-borne haemoprotozoans infecting a diverse range of mammalian hosts. In Australia, Theileria spp. have been identified in both domestic and wildlife species but the bovine parasite, Theileria orientalis, has received the most attention due to the emergence and spread of clinical disease over the past 12 years, particularly in cattle herds on the east coast. At an estimated $20million per annum, the burden to cattle production is significant but despite over a decade of disease, there are still no effective chemotherapeutic treatments or vaccines available in Australia. Recent insights from genome sequencing studies reveal species level diversity within T. orientalis, which may help direct efforts at disease control.
Critical computational analysis illuminates the reductive-elimination mechanism that activates nitrogenase for N
2
reduction
Authors: Raugei Simone , Seefeldt Lance C. , Hoffman Brian M.
Published: October 2018

Significance

This report critically evaluates the mechanism by which nitrogenase cleaves the N≡N triple bond. It assesses the thermodynamic driving force provided by the accompanying, apparently “wasteful,” reductive elimination of an H
2
, and explains how the enzyme mechanistically couples exothermic H
2
formation to endothermic triple-bond cleavage in a nearly thermoneutral equilibrium process, thereby preventing the “futile” generation of two H
2
without N
2
reduction. This evaluation rests on a critical assessment of the density functional theory flavors needed to properly treat nitrogenase, and a demonstration that to prevent spurious disruption of FeMo-co upon 4[
e
−
/H
+
] accumulation, one must employ a nitrogenase structural model that includes all residues interacting directly with FeMo-co, either via specific H-bond interactions, nonspecific electrostatic interactions, or steric confinement.
Specific recognition of two MAX effectors by integrated HMA domains in plant immune receptors involves distinct binding surfaces
Authors: Guo Liwei , Cesari Stella , de Guillen Karine , Chalvon Véronique , Mammri Léa , Ma Mengqi , Meusnier Isabelle , Bonnot François , Padilla André , Peng You-Liang , Liu Junfeng , Kroj Thomas
Published: October 2018

The structurally conserved but sequence-unrelated MAX (
Magnaporthe oryzae
avirulence and ToxB-like) effectors AVR1-CO39 and AVR-PikD from the blast fungus
M. oryzae
are recognized by the rice nucleotide-binding domain and leucine-rich repeat proteins (NLRs) RGA5 and Pikp-1, respectively. This involves, in both cases, direct interaction of the effector with a heavy metal-associated (HMA) integrated domain (ID) in the NLR. Here, we solved the crystal structures of a C-terminal fragment of RGA5 carrying the HMA ID (RGA5_S), alone, and in complex with AVR1-CO39 and compared it to the structure of the Pikp1
HMA
/AVR-PikD complex. In both complexes, HMA ID/MAX effector interactions involve antiparallel alignment of β-sheets from each partner. However, effector-binding occurs at different surfaces in Pikp1
HMA
and RGA5
HMA
, indicating that these interactions evolved independently by convergence of these two MAX effectors to the same type of plant target proteins. Interestingly, the effector-binding surface in RGA5
HMA
overlaps with the surface that mediates RGA5
HMA
self-interaction. Mutations in the HMA-binding interface of AVR1-CO39 perturb RGA5
HMA
-binding, in vitro and in vivo, and affect the recognition of
M. oryzae
in a rice cultivar containing
Pi-CO39
. Our study provides detailed insight into the mechanisms of effector recognition by NLRs, which has substantial implications for future engineering of NLRs to expand their recognition specificities. In addition, we propose, as a hypothesis for the understanding of effector diversity, that in the structurally conserved MAX effectors the molecular mechanism of host target protein-binding is conserved rather than the host target proteins themselves.
Small-molecule Ca
V
α
1
⋅Ca
V
β antagonist suppresses neuronal voltage-gated calcium-channel trafficking
Authors: Chen Xingjuan , Liu Degang , Zhou Donghui , Si Yubing , Xu David , Stamatkin Christopher W. , Ghozayel Mona K. , Ripsch Matthew S. , Obukhov Alexander G. , White Fletcher A. , Meroueh Samy O.
Published: October 2018

Significance

Voltage-gated ion channels, such as Ca
V
2.2, consist of pore-forming and auxiliary subunits that interact through protein–protein interactions. We develop a small-molecule antagonist of the protein–protein interaction between the calcium channel alpha pore-forming domain (Ca
V
α) and beta subunits (Ca
V
β). The compound suppresses trafficking of Ca
V
2.2 channels to the cell membrane and inhibits Ca
V
2.2 activity by acting intracellularly. This allows peripheral access and eliminates the need of intrathecal administration. Indeed, in vivo systemic administration of the small molecule reduces neuropathic pain behavior in animal models. Our compounds serve as chemical tools to explore the Ca
V
α⋅Ca
V
β interaction in vivo and as a starting point for the development of therapeutics for the treatment of a range of disorders associated with calcium channels.
Enhanced elevations of hypo-osmotic shock-induced cytosolic and nucleic calcium concentrations in tobacco cells by pretreatment with dimethyl sulfoxide
Authors: Nguyen Hieu T H , Bouteau François , Mazars Christian , Kuse Masaki , Kawano Tomonori
Published: October 2018

Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is a dipolar aprotic solvent widely used in biological assays. Here, we observed that DMSO enhanced the hypo-osmotically induced increases in the concentration of Ca2+ in cytosolic and nucleic compartments in the transgenic cell-lines of tobacco (BY-2) expressing aequorin.
Reduction of the hot cracking susceptibility of laser beam welds in AlMgSi alloys by increasing the number of grain boundaries
Authors: Hagenlocher Christian , Weller Daniel , Weber Rudolf , Graf Thomas
Published: October 2018

The grain structure of laser welded AlMgSi-alloys was varied by adapting the welding parameters and alloying additives. The hot cracking susceptibility was determined by the critical strain rate, measured by the application of digital image correlation in a self-restrained hot cracking test. A direct relation was found: The hot cracking susceptibility decreases with increasing number of grain boundaries across the width of the weld seam, i.e. along the effective load direction of transverse strain rates. It was shown, that the hot cracking susceptibility can be reduced by an optimisation of both the welding parameters and the alloying additives, which promote nucleation.
New electron beam gun for welding in space
Authors: Paton B. E. , Lobanov L. M. , Naidich Yu. V. , Asnis Yu. A. , Zubchenko Yu. V. , Ternovyi E. G. , Volkov V. S. , Kostyuk B. D. , Umanskii V. P.
Published: October 2018

A new design of electron beam gun for welding in open space has been developed. The gun design is based on the application of triode emission system with improved quality of electron beam formation. This provides increased specific power of the beam and, as a result, the high capability to increase the penetration depth of welded joints. To reduce the dimensions of the gun and increase its service reliability, the high-voltage insulation has been provided applying metal-ceramic heat-resistant welded-brazed vacuum-tight components. The original technologies for their manufacture have been developed. The performed tests of the new gun design have proved the possibility of its application under open space conditions.
Human monocytes and macrophages regulate immune tolerance via integrin αvβ8–mediated TGFβ activation
Authors: Kelly Aoife , Gunaltay Sezin , McEntee Craig P. , Shuttleworth Elinor E. , Smedley Catherine , Houston Stephanie A. , Fenton Thomas M. , Levison Scott , Mann Elizabeth R. , Travis Mark A.
Published: October 2018

Monocytes are crucial immune cells involved in regulation of inflammation either directly or via differentiation into macrophages in tissues. However, many aspects of how their function is controlled in health and disease are not understood. Here we show that human blood monocytes activate high levels of the cytokine TGFβ, a pathway that is not evident in mouse monocytes. Human CD14+, but not CD16+, monocytes activate TGFβ via expression of the integrin αvβ8 and matrix metalloproteinase 14, which dampens their production of TNFα in response to LPS. Additionally, when monocytes differentiate into macrophages, integrin expression and TGFβ-activating ability are maintained in anti-inflammatory macrophages but down-regulated in pro-inflammatory macrophages. In the healthy human intestine, integrin αvβ8 is highly expressed on mature tissue macrophages, with these cells and their integrin expression being significantly reduced in active inflammatory bowel disease. Thus, our data suggest that integrin αvβ8–mediated TGFβ activation plays a key role in regulation of monocyte inflammatory responses and intestinal macrophage homeostasis.
Atg1-mediated autophagy suppresses tissue degeneration inpink1/parkinmutants by promoting mitochondrial fission inDrosophila
Authors: Ma Peng , Yun Jina , Deng Hansong , Guo Ming
Published: October 2018

Mitochondrial dysfunction is considered a hallmark of multiple neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease (PD). The PD familial genes pink1 and parkin function in a conserved pathway that regulates mitochondrial function, including dynamics (fusion and fission). Mammalian cell culture studies suggested that the pink1/parkin pathway promotes mitophagy (mitochondrial autophagy). Mitophagy through mitochondrial fission and autolysosomal recycling was considered a quality control system at the organelle level. Whether defects in this quality control machinery lead to pathogenesis in vivo in PD remains elusive. Here, we found that elevating autophagy by atg1 overexpression can significantly rescue mitochondrial defects and apoptotic cell death in pink1 and parkin mutants in Drosophila. Surprisingly, the rescue effect relied both on the autophagy–lysosome machinery and on drp1, a mitochondrial fission molecule. We further showed that Atg1 promotes mitochondrial fission by posttranscriptional increase in the Drp1 protein level. In contrast, increasing fission (by drp1 overexpression) or inhibiting fusion (by knocking down mitofusin [mfn]) rescues pink1 mutants when lysosomal or proteasomal machinery is impaired. Taken together, our results identified Atg1 as a dual-function node that controls mitochondrial quality by promoting mitochondria fission and autophagy, which makes it a potential therapeutic target for treatment of mitochondrial dysfunction–related diseases, including PD.
Methionine coordinates a hierarchically organized anabolic program enabling proliferation
Authors: Walvekar Adhish S. , Srinivasan Rajalakshmi , Gupta Ritu , Laxman Sunil
Published: October 2018

Methionine availability during overall amino acid limitation metabolically reprograms cells to support proliferation, the underlying basis for which remains unclear. Here we construct the organization of this methionine-mediated anabolic program using yeast. Combining comparative transcriptome analysis and biochemical and metabolic flux-based approaches, we discover that methionine rewires overall metabolic outputs by increasing the activity of a key regulatory node. This comprises the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) coupled with reductive biosynthesis, the glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH)-dependent synthesis of glutamate/glutamine, and pyridoxal-5-phosphate (PLP)-dependent transamination capacity. This PPP-GDH-PLP node provides the required cofactors and/or substrates for subsequent rate-limiting reactions in the synthesis of amino acids and therefore nucleotides. These rate-limiting steps in amino acid biosynthesis are also induced in a methionine-dependent manner. This thereby results in a biochemical cascade establishing a hierarchically organized anabolic program. For this methionine-mediated anabolic program to be sustained, cells co-opt a “starvation stress response” regulator, Gcn4p. Collectively, our data suggest a hierarchical metabolic framework explaining how methionine mediates an anabolic switch.
Mating in wild yeast: delayed interest in sex after spore germination
Authors: McClure Allison W. , Jacobs Katherine C. , Zyla Trevin R. , Lew Daniel J.
Published: October 2018

Studies of laboratory strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae have uncovered signaling pathways involved in mating, including information-processing strategies to optimize decisions to mate or to bud. However, lab strains are heterothallic (unable to self-mate), while wild yeast are homothallic. And while mating of lab strains is studied using cycling haploid cells, mating of wild yeast is thought to involve germinating spores. Thus, it was unclear whether lab strategies would be appropriate in the wild. Here, we have investigated the behavior of several yeast strains derived from wild isolates. Following germination, these strains displayed large differences in their propensity to mate or to enter the cell cycle. The variable interest in sex following germination was correlated with differences in pheromone production, which were due to both cis- and trans-acting factors. Our findings suggest that yeast spores germinating in the wild may often enter the cell cycle and form microcolonies before engaging in mating.
Asians and Asian Americans and the Performing Arts Prior to World War II
Authors: Moon Krystyn R.
Published: October 2018

Performers of Asian ancestry worked in a variety of venues and media as part of the American entertainment industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some sang Tin Pan Alley numbers, while others performed light operatic works. Dancers appeared on the vaudeville stage, periodically in elaborate ensembles, while acrobats from China, India, and Japan wowed similar audiences. Asian immigrants also played musical instruments at community events. Finally, a small group lectured professionally on the Chautauqua Circuit.

While on the stage, these performers had to navigate American racial attitudes that tried to marginalize them. To find steady work, performers of Asian ancestry often had to play to stereotypes popular with white audiences. Furthermore, they faced oversight by immigration authorities, who monitored their movements in and around the country and made it difficult for foreign entertainers to work in the country for long periods of time.

Despite these hurdles, Asians and Asian Americans have appeared in the performing arts in the United States for over one hundred years.
Hail and Hailstorms
Authors: Brimelow Julian
Published: October 2018

Hail has been identified as the largest contributor to insured losses from thunderstorms globally, with losses costing the insurance industry billions of dollars each year. Yet, of all precipitation types, hail is probably subject to the largest uncertainties. Some might go so far as to argue that observing and forecasting hail is as difficult, if not more difficult, than is forecasting tornadoes. The reasons why hail is challenging are many and varied and reflected by the fact that hailstones display a wide variety of shapes, sizes and internal structures. There is also an important clue in this diversity—nature is telling us that hail can grow by following a wide variety of trajectories within thunderstorms, each having a unique set of conditions. It is because of this complexity that modeling hail growth and forecasting size is so challenging. Consequently, it is understandable that predicting the occurrence and size of hail seems an impossible task.

Through persistence, ingenuity and technology, scientists have made progress in understanding the key ingredients and processes at play. Technological advances mean that we can now, with some confidence, identify those storms that very likely contain hail and even estimate the maximum expected hail size on the ground hours in advance. Even so, there is still much we need to learn about the many intriguing aspects of hail growth.
Democracy in the Crucible of Conflict
Authors: Ralston Robert , Krebs Ronald R.
Published: October 2018

The field of international relations has long focused on understanding and explaining the causes of war. In contrast, scholars have devoted relatively little attention to war’s consequences. However, scholarly literature on the consequences of violent conflict, including its effects on liberal democracy, has burgeoned and improved in recent decades, since the 1990s.

Existing research shows that security threats, mobilization, and warfare are neither entirely negative nor entirely positive with respect to liberal democracy. On the one hand, in the short run, these pressures erode liberal institutions and values. On the other hand, large-scale mobilization and warfare—both interstate and civil—encourage broader and more intense participation at the individual level and strengthen participation’s structural foundations.

However, despite recent advances, there remains much that we still do not know, which suggests promising avenues for future research. The existing literature has not sufficiently or systematically distinguished among the effects of threat/insecurity, mobilization, and warfare. It has been stronger on empirical findings than on developing the mid-range theories and causal mechanisms that would make sense of those findings. It has been firmer on conflict’s impact on individual attitudes and predilections than on how and when violence reshapes larger political processes and structures. It has had more to say about conflict’s short-run effects than its long-term effects, especially with respect to contestation. The impact of violent conflict on liberal democracy remains a rich soil for future research.
Party Families and Political Ideologies
Authors: Kitschelt Herbert
Published: October 2018

Conceptions of party family serve as signals to political actors, but also as analytical categories for scholars to classify parties with the purpose of developing theoretical arguments about their origins, electoral and executive government trajectory, and policy impact. Historically, political “brands” and scholars’ efforts to distinguish party “families” originate in the mobilization of mass parties following the introduction of universal suffrage and pinnacle in the literature on political cleavage formation. For contemporary research, party families may be classified by at least three analytical dimensions indicating principles according to which they generate policy positions on questions of economic distribution (greed), political and social governance (grid), and delineation of polity membership status (group). The configuration of positions on the three dimensions constitutes a party’s ideology, which may be grouped into a party family. In any particular polity, only a subset of the conceivable ideological positions is empirically present. Moreover, there are parties that change their party family affiliation over time, if not their brand names. Finally, many party classifications do not meet the criteria of party family as introduced here. This applies to the characterization of parties according to whether they are based on personalism, clientelism, cartel formation, catch-all politics, or niche strategy.
Nongovernmental Organizations: Bread for the World, Inc.
Authors: Ashbaugh Erica , Goreham Gary A.
Published: October 2018

Bread for the World, Inc. is a 501(c)4 faith-based organization whose purpose is to advocate policymakers to end hunger and poverty. The organization began in the early 1970s, founded by Arthur Simon, who became its first president. Simon’s 1975 book, Bread for the World, outlined the vision and scope of the organization, not as a service-delivery entity but as an education, coalition-building, and advocacy organization. David Beckmann, author of Exodus from Hunger: We Are Called to Change the Politics of Hunger, is the organization’s president as of 1991. The organization is supported by individuals, local congregations, denominations, and other organizations. Two related affiliates were created to assist in the hunger-ending goal. First, Bread for the World Institute, a 501(c)3 organization, conducts research on domestic and global hunger issues and disseminates reports to those advocating for hunger-ending policy with its Annual Hunger Report. Second, the Alliance to End Hunger, a 501(c)3 organization, brings together a wide range of both faith-based and secular organizations in the fight against hunger.

Bread for the World has a noteworthy history of advocacy and collaboration. They actively advocated in 2000 for Jubilee 2000, a debt relief and forgiveness program for over 40 countries. They promoted the African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000 to promote quality of life, human rights, and equitable trade relationships between the United States and African countries. Bread for the World advocated for the Food for Peace Acts and the 2016 Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act to extend foreign aid more quickly and efficiently. They worked with legislators regarding the Head Start programs and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program. Bread for the World used a Feed Our Children letter-writing campaign for individuals to put pressure on legislators to place priority on children’s food programs. As winner of the World Food Prize in 2010, David Beckmann stated, “We must talk to real people in power, about concrete issues, and not about big dreams.” Bread for the World’s goal is the UN’s Sustainability Development Goal to eliminate hunger by 2030.
African Agency in International Politics
Authors: Fisher Jonathan
Published: October 2018

International Relations theory has tended to overlook the role of Africa and Africans in the international system. Traditionally, the discipline’s most influential theorists have focused instead on relationships between and perspectives of “major powers.” A growing body of work, however, has challenged these more limited efforts to conceptualize African agency in international politics. This scholarship has emphasized the significant space available to, and carved-out by, African states in molding the agendas of international institutions, and the role of African governments and advocacy networks in influencing the trajectory of major international debates around issues such as aid, development, trade, climate change, and migration. The study of African agency in international politics continues to wrestle with two key debates: the meanings of “agency” and “African.” Much of the literature focuses primarily on the role and influence of African states rather than that of African citizens and communities. This focus provides, at best, only a partial and qualified view of the ways in which African agency is secured and exercised at the global level, particularly given the significant structural constraints imposed on Africa by global economic and political inequalities. The extent to which contemporary analysis captures the breadth of African engagement with the international system is also compromised by current state-centric approaches. It is thus necessary to examine a range of approaches adopted by scholars to deepen and nuance the study of African agency in international politics, including work on agenda-setting, mesolevel dynamics and microlevel dynamics.
Dyslexia
Authors: Siegel Linda
Published: October 2018

Dyslexia, or a reading disability, occurs when an individual has great difficulty at the level of word reading and decoding. Comprehension of text, writing, and spelling are also affected. The diagnosis of dyslexia involves the use of reading tests, but the continuum of reading performance means that any cutoff point is arbitrary. The IQ score does not play a role in the diagnosis of dyslexia. Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability. The cognitive difficulties of dyslexics include problems with recognizing and manipulating the basic sounds in a language, language memory, and learning the sounds of letters. Dyslexia is a neurological condition with a genetic basis. There are abnormalities in the brains of dyslexic individuals. There are also differences in the electrophysiological and structural characteristics of the brains of dyslexics. Hope for dyslexia involves early detection and intervention and evidence-based instruction.
Sociocultural Aspects of Sport Injury and Recovery
Authors: Wiese-Bjornstal Diane M.
Published: October 2018

The sociocultural aspects of sport injury and recovery include the broad landscape of social beliefs, climates, processes, cultures, institutions, and societies that surround the full chronological spectrum of sport injury outcomes, ranging from risk through to rehabilitation and retirement. A social ecological view of research on this topic demonstrates that sociocultural influences affect sport injury outcomes via interrelated sport systems extending from the intrasystem (i.e., within sports persons) through the microsystem (i.e., sport relationships), mesosystem (i.e., sport organizations), exosystem (i.e., sport governing bodies), and macrosystem (i.e., sport cultures). Affected sport injury outcomes include sport injury risks and responses during rehabilitation, return to play, and retirement from sport.

Some specific examples of sociocultural themes evident in research literature include personal conformity to the cultural expectation to play hurt, social conventions of behavior when sport injuries occur, institutional character or ethics when making return to play decisions, guidelines for the care of athletes prescribed by sport governing bodies, and the economic costs to society for sport injuries. Many elements of sport injury are affected by these sociocultural influences, such as the risk of injuries, rehabilitation processes, and career terminations. Continuing debates and discussions include advocacy for sport rule changes, bans on dangerous sports, institutional responsibility, and global sport safety efforts. These form the basis for recommendations about sociocultural interventions designed to reduce sport injury risks and optimize effective injury recoveries through social and cultural best practices.
Psychological Assessment of Older Persons
Authors: Gallegos Jarred , Lutz Julie , Katz Emma , Edelstein Barry
Published: October 2018

The assessment of older adults is quite challenging in light of the many age-related physiological and metabolic changes, increased number of chronic diseases with potential psychiatric manifestations, the associated medications and their side effects, and the age-related changes in the presentation of common mental health problems and disorders. A biopsychosocial approach to assessment is particularly important for older adults due to the substantial interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors that collectively produce the clinical presentation faced by clinicians. An appreciation of age-related and non-normative changes in cognitive skills and sensory processes is particularly important both for planning the assessment process and the interpretation of findings. The assessment of older adults is unfortunately plagued by a paucity of age-appropriate assessment instruments, as most instruments have been developed with young adults. This paucity of age-appropriate assessment instruments is an impediment to reliable and valid assessment. Notwithstanding that caveat, comprehensive and valid assessment of older adults can be accomplished through an understanding of the interaction of age-related factors that influence the experience and presentation of psychiatric disorders, and an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of the assessment instruments that are used to achieve valid and reliable assessments.
Acquired Brain Injury (Stroke and TBI) in Later Life
Authors: Barker Megan S. , Gibson Emily C. , Robinson Gail A.
Published: October 2018

The term “acquired brain injury” refers to any type of brain damage that occurs after birth. Two main types of acquired brain injury are stroke and traumatic brain injury (TBI). A stroke occurs when there is a blockage or bleed in the vascular system of the brain, while a TBI results from an external force to the head. Older adults are at a higher risk of both stroke and TBI; thus, overall incidence is increasing as the proportion of older adults in the population is growing. Stroke and TBI result in immediate and long-term cognitive changes. Impairments in the domains of language, attention, memory, executive functions, perception, and social cognition have been documented following stroke and TBI. However, strokes tend to cause focal or selective cognitive disorders, while cognitive deficits following TBI are widespread and can be generalized. Individuals who have suffered a stroke or TBI may also experience psychosocial changes; for example, symptoms of depression and anxiety are common. Functional outcomes, including independence in activities, are varied and are associated with a range of factors including age, injury severity, cognitive disorders, and psychosocial factors. To achieve optimal outcomes for individuals following stroke and TBI, and to reduce the impact of the injury on everyday functioning, a multidisciplinary rehabilitation process is recommended.
Autism Spectrum Disorders in Later Life
Authors: Hwang Ye In (Jane) , Foley Kitty-Rose , Arnold Samuel , Trollor Julian
Published: October 2018

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), or autism, is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is typically recognized and diagnosed in childhood. There is no established biological marker for autism; rather, the diagnosis is made based on observation of behavioral traits, including (a) persistent deficits in social interaction and communication, and (b) restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. Because autism is a spectrum disorder, autistic individuals are a highly heterogeneous group and differ widely in the presentation and severity of their symptoms. The established prevalence of ASD is approximately 1% of the population.

Information about autism in adulthood is limited; most of the literature examines childhood and adolescence. While the term “later life” has traditionally been associated with those over the age of 65, a dire lack of understanding exists for those on the autism spectrum beyond early adulthood.

Individuals remain on the spectrum into later life, though some mild improvements in symptoms are observed over time. Autistic adults experience high levels of physical and mental health comorbidities. Rates of participation in employment and education are also lower than that of the general population. Quality of life is reportedly poorer for autistic adults than for nonautistic peers, though this is not affected by age. More robust studies of the health, well-being, and needs of autistic adults are needed, especially qualitative investigations of adulthood and aging and longitudinal studies of development over the lifespan.
Critical English for Academic Purposes
Authors: Chun Christian W.
Published: October 2018

With the emergence of critical English language teaching (CELT) in the past 25 years, primarily in the English for academic purposes domain, there have been significant implications for English language learning. ELT approaches have drawn on major premises and assumptions in second language acquisition research from the past several decades, particularly in the institutional context of intensive English language programs in North America in which the dominant conventions and traditional approaches in English language teaching have been enacted. The first incarnation of CELT occurred in the early 1990s, which eventually prompted a key debate over critical pedagogy in English language teaching during the 2000s. The second wave of CELT began in the mid-2000s and addressed the continuing challenges facing students in the context of neoliberal spaces of universities worldwide. New approaches have emerged that address the importance of CELT in the current nationalist and racist backlash against increased global mobility of job- and refuge-seeking immigrants to Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
Urban Charter Schools
Authors: Whitaker Manya
Published: October 2018

Urban charter schools are public schools located in major metropolitan areas with high population densities. The majority of urban charter school students identify as Black or Latinx and often live in under-resourced communities. Urban charter schools are touted as high-quality educational options in the school choice market, yet debates about the merits of charter schools versus traditional public schools yield mixed results that substantiate arguments on both sides of the political aisle.

However, even high-performing urban charter schools have a bad reputation as mechanisms of school segregation and cogs in the school-to-prison pipeline. Higher than average test scores and graduation and college enrollment rates do little to mollify those who complain about severe discipline, racial segregation, unqualified teachers, teacher attrition, rigid scheduling, and a narrow curriculum. Urban charter schools’ emphasis on standardized testing and college preparation may overlook the culturally relevant educational experiences that low-income, racially diverse students need to compete with their wealthier, White peers.

As such, education reformers have offered a myriad of suggestions to improve urban charter schools. Most prominently is the need to racially and economically desegregate urban charter schools to enhance the social and material resources that supplement students’ learning. This includes increasing teacher diversity, which research demonstrates minimizes the frequency of suspensions and expulsions of racial minority students. Urban charter school teachers should also be knowledgeable about the sociocultural landscape of the community in which their school exists so that they understand how students’ out of school lives affect their learning processes. Finally, curricular revisions are necessary to support students’ post-high school goals beyond college enrollment. Enacting such reforms would facilitate equitable, rather than equal, learning opportunities that may help narrow racial and economic achievement gaps in the United States.
Genetics and Southern African History
Authors: Montinaro Francesco , Capelli Cristian
Published: October 2018

Southern Africa’s past is constellated by a series of demographic events tracing back to the dawn of our species, approximately 300,000 years ago. The intricate pattern of population movements over the millennia contributed to creating an exceptional level of diversity, which is reflected by the high degree of genomic variability of southern African groups. Although a complete characterization of the demographic history of the subcontinent is still lacking, several decades of extensive research have contributed to shed light on the main events.

Genetic and archaeological researches suggest that modern humans may have emerged as the result of admixture between different African groups, possibly including other Homo populations, challenging the common view of a unique origin of our species. Although details are still unknown, surveys suggest that long term resident populations (related to Khoe-San speakers) of the subcontinent may have emerged hundreds of thousand years ago, and have inhabited the area for at least five millennia.

Population movements, and the introduction of new cultural features, characterize the history of southern Africa over the last five millennia and have had a dramatic impact on subcontinental genetic variability. Traces of these migrations can be identified using different genetic systems, revealing a complex history of adaptation to new selective pressures and sex-biased admixture.

The historical events of the European colonization and the slave trade of the last millennium, and the emergence of new cultural groups, further increased the genomic variability of human populations in this region, one of the most genetically diverse in the world.
Effectiveness and Availability of Treatment for Substance Use Disorders
Authors: Hodgkin Dominic , Connery Hilary S.
Published: October 2018

Drug and alcohol use disorders, also called substance use disorders (SUD), are among the major health problems facing many countries, contributing a substantial burden in terms of mortality, morbidity, and economic impact. A considerable body of research is dedicated to reducing the social and individual burden of SUD.

One major focus of research has been the effectiveness of treatment for SUD, with studies examining both medication and behavioral treatments using randomized, controlled clinical trials. For opioid use disorder, there is a strong evidence base for medication treatment, particularly using agonist therapies (i.e., methadone and buprenorphine), but mixed evidence regarding the use of psychosocial interventions. For alcohol use disorder, there is evidence of modest effectiveness for two medications (acamprosate and naltrexone) and for various psychosocial treatments, especially for less severe alcohol use disorder syndromes. An important area for future research is how to make treatment more appealing to clients, given that client reluctance is an important contributor to the low utilization of effective treatments.

A second major focus of research has been the availability of medication treatments, building on existing theories of how innovations diffuse, and on the field of dissemination and implementation research. In the United States, this research identifies serious gaps in both the availability of SUD treatment programs and the availability of effective treatment within those programs. Key barriers include lack of on-site medical staff at many SUD treatment programs; restrictive policies of private insurers, states, and federal authorities; and widespread skepticism toward medication treatment among counseling staff and some administrators. Emerging research is promising for providing medication treatment in settings other than SUD treatment programs, such as community mental health centers, prisons, emergency departments, and homeless shelters.

There is still considerable room to make SUD treatment approaches more effective, more available, and—most importantly—more acceptable to clients.
Price Regulation and Pay-for-Performance in Public Health Systems
Authors: Siciliani Luigi
Published: October 2018

Payment systems based on fixed prices have become the dominant model to finance hospitals across OECD countries. In the early 1980s, Medicare in the United States introduced the diagnosis-related group (DRG) system. The idea was that hospitals should be paid a fixed price for treating a patient within a given diagnosis or treatment. The system then spread to other European countries (e.g., France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom) and high-income countries (e.g., Canada, Australia). The change in payment system was motivated by concerns over rapid health expenditure growth and replaced financing arrangements based on reimbursing costs (e.g., in the United States) or fixed annual budgets (e.g., in the United Kingdom).

A more recent policy development is the introduction of pay-for-performance (P4P) schemes, which, in most cases, pay directly for higher quality. This is also a form of regulated price payment but the unit of payment is a (process or outcome) measure of quality, as opposed to activity, that is admitting a patient with a given diagnosis or a treatment.

Fixed price payment systems, either of the DRG type or the P4P type, affect hospital incentives to provide quality, contain costs, and treat the right patients (allocative efficiency). Quality and efficiency are ubiquitous policy goals across a range of countries.

Fixed price regulation induces providers to contain costs and, under certain conditions (e.g., excess demand), offer some incentives to sustain quality. But payment systems in the health sector are complex. Since its inception, DRG systems have been continuously refined. From their initial (around) 500 tariffs, many DRG codes have been split in two or more finer ones to reflect heterogeneity in costs within each subgroup. In turn, this may give incentives to provide excessive intensive treatments or to code patients in more remunerative tariffs, a practice known as upcoding. Fixed prices also make it financially unprofitable to treat high cost patients. This is particularly problematic when patients with the highest costs have the largest benefits from treatment. Hospitals also differ systematically in costs and other dimensions, and some of these external differences are beyond their control (e.g., higher cost of living, land, or capital). Price regulation can be put in place to address such differences.

The development of information technology has allowed constructing a plethora of quality indicators, mostly process measures of quality and in some cases health outcomes. These have been used both for public reporting, to help patients choose providers, but also for incentive schemes that directly pay for quality. P4P schemes are attractive but raise new issues, such as they might divert provider attention and unincentivized dimensions of quality might suffer as a result.
Health and Safety Issues for Workers in Nonstandard Employment
Authors: Ahonen Emily Q. , Baron Sherry L. , Brosseau Lisa M. , Vives Alejandra
Published: October 2018

Standard employment arrangements—where the relationship between employers and employees is clear and employment is full-time, understood to be lasting, and with full protections—coexist with nonstandard employment (NSE) relationships. A variety of terms have been used to describe specific types of NSE including temporary, contingent, contract, freelance, on-call, gig, and app-based employment. These forms of employment, in combination with larger social and economic forces, structural power dynamics, and advances in technology, can work together to limit the ways in which employment supports health, and undermine workplace health protections. Nonstandard employment brings with it particular concerns for health and safety related to work, and in a broader public health sense. Health can be protected in NSE through intervention at national, state and province, and local levels to proactively shape the quality of employment arrangements.
Schools in US Cities
Authors: Erickson Ansley T.
Published: October 2018

“Urban infrastructure” calls to mind railways, highways, and sewer systems. Yet the school buildings—red brick, limestone, or concrete, low-slung, turreted, or glass-fronted—that hold and seek to shape the city’s children are ubiquitous forms of infrastructure as well. Schools occupy one of the largest line items in a municipal budget, and as many as a fifth of a city’s residents spend the majority of their waking hours in school classrooms, hallways, and gymnasiums. In the 19th and 20th centuries urban educational infrastructure grew, supported by developing consensus for publicly funded and publicly governed schools (if rarely fully accessible to all members of the public). Even before state commitment to other forms of social welfare, from pensions to public health, and infrastructure, from transit to fire, schooling was a government function.

This commitment to public education ultimately was national, but schools in cities had their own story. Schooling in the United States is chiefly a local affair: Constitutional responsibility for education lies with the states; power is then further decentralized as states entrust decisions about school function and funding to school districts. School districts can be as small as a single town or a part of a city. Such localism is one reason that it is possible to speak about schools in U.S. cities as having a particular history, determined as much by the specificities of urban life as by national questions of citizenship, economy, religion, and culture.

While city schools have been distinct, they have also been nationally influential. Urban scale both allowed for and demanded the most extensive educational system-building. Urban growth and diversity galvanized innovation, via exploration in teaching methods, curriculum, and understanding of children and communities. And it generated intense conflict. Throughout U.S. history, urban residents from myriad social, political, religious, and economic positions have struggled to define how schools would operate, for whom, and who would decide.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, U.S. residents struggled over the purposes, funding, and governance of schools in cities shaped by capitalism, nativism, and white supremacy. They built a commitment to schooling as a public function of their cities, with many compromises and exclusions. In the 21st century, old struggles re-emerged in new form, perhaps raising the question of whether schools will continue as public, urban infrastructure.