bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Introduction: Praxis as a Perspective on International Politics
Authors: Hellmann Gunther , Steffek Jens
Published: January 2023

This introductory chapter gives an overview of the book, clarifies the guiding concept of praxis and explains how the sections and chapters relate to each other. It maps current debates in IR theory and locates the praxis perspective within them. It distinguishes the praxis approach from ‘theorizing’ as conventionally understood in the social sciences, pointing out that praxis needs to be understood as ‘social action here and now’, historically situated and highly context-dependent. It also places Kratochwil’s praxis approach in the context of various strands of practice theory that have made inroads into IR in recent years. The second part of the introduction gives a preview of the contributions that follow. It explains why the book is divided in five parts and shows how the chapters relate to each other.
Friedrich Kratochwil: Prophet of Doubt?
Authors: Lynch Cecelia
Published: January 2023

In this chapter, Cecelia Lynch assesses Kratochwil’s conceptions of ‘prophecy’ and religion to highlight insights and tensions vis-à-vis time, history, community of meaning, and certainty for praxis. What fascinates her in particular is the question of how one might think about ‘immanence’ in the theological/philosophical matrix within which Kratochwil theorizes. In putting Kratochwil in conversation on issues of praxis and prophecy with interlocutors like Ian Shapiro and Michael Walzer, but also with selected theologians and social theorists such as Walter Brueggemann and Cornel West, or scholars in the tradition of pragmatism such as Jason Springs and Molly Cochran, Lynch hopes to probe forms of accompaniment with, rather than a complete U-turn from, Kratochwil’s Humean analysis. These contrasts also put into sharper relief demands for action that might differ from Kratochwil’s, especially with regard to multiple precarities that Lynch sees in the contemporary time.
Thinking on Time: How Scholarly Praxis Can Sustain, Subvert and Transform Social Reality
Authors: Friedrichs Jörg
Published: January 2023

In this chapter Jörg Friedrichs explores how discursive practices in social science can stabilize, subvert, and transform social realities. Taking Anthony Giddens’s original framework of ‘double hermeneutics’ as a starting point, he develops an extended framework of ‘triple hermeneutics’ to show how reflexive approaches can serve stabilizing, subversive, and transformative purposes. He argues that Max Weber’s interpretive social science is inherently conservative and geared towards stabilization. Friedrichs contrasts it with critical genealogy, developed in different versions by Nietzsche and Foucault, as inherently radical and geared towards subversion. Finally, he shows how the young Nietzsche’s ‘history for life’ and Hume’s dialectics of history were inherently reformist and geared towards transformation. Overall, Friedrichs concludes, reflexive approaches turn out to be far more relevant to social order and change than conventional wisdom suggests.
From ‘Critical Engagement’ to ‘Public Sociology’ and Back : A Critique from the South
Authors: von Holdt Karl
Published: January 2023

This chapter charts the historical process of concept formation over a 40-year period in the interactions between US sociologist Michael Burawoy and South African sociologist Edward Webster and his colleagues at the Society, Work and Politics Institute (SWOP) in Johannesburg over the meaning of ‘critically engaged sociology’ and ‘public sociology’. Drawing from Burawoy’s account of public sociology, originating in his experience of the politically committed sociology of South Africa, it argues that ‘critical engagement’, as conceptualized in SWOP, constitutes a ‘whole sociology’ in the interface between the academic field and political fields, in contrast to the concept of public sociology as a practice of addressing publics beyond the university. The second part of the chapter teases out the distinctive processes of knowledge production in two recent projects that exemplify the practice of critically engaged sociology, arguing that this is characterized by the simultaneous production of academic and political knowledge in a complex interaction between autonomy and accountability, partisanship and critical distance.
European Disintegration: A Response to Ben Rosamond and William Outhwaite
Authors: Vimont Pierre
Published: January 2023

The chapters by Ben Rosamond and William Outhwaite stimulate new thinking about the causes, manifestations and trajectories of de-Europeanisation, differentiation and disintegration in Europe in different ways. While Rosamond focuses on what we can and cannot learn from (neofunctionalist) integration theories about the manifestations and causes of disintegration, Outhwaite draws our attention to the significant differences in how (member) states have related to Europe while also discussing key pathologies and problems of the Union’s constitutional order. Outhwaite’s piece returns frequently to the British case and the country’s elite’s relations to Europe, whereas Rosamond is more interested in exploring larger forces at play in the systemic weakening of the ‘democratic capitalism compact’ and ‘permanent austerity’. While neither of the pieces claims explicitly to advance recommendations on how to best respond to the increasing contestation of the European order, Rosamond appears to agree that more of the same kind of Europe should NOT be the answer.
Migration, Solidarity and the Limits of Europe
Authors: Tazzioli William
Published: January 2023

I am broadly sympathetic to Adrian Favell’s chapter, both because I concur with his assessment of the evidence, and because I share his normative concerns about the dangers (and inaccuracy) of privileging of the ‘nation’ among human social or political groupings. In this brief response, I will instead focus on some areas of disagreement, or perhaps tensions in the argument, and the evidence on how far the EU has been able to fulfil Favell’s normative ideals in practice. My perspective here is as the director of a race equality think tank, the Runnymede Trust, based in London, but having done a significant amount of work across Europe, including in Brussels. Favell’s chapter does an excellent job of highlighting and weaving together how what he calls the ‘post-national and cosmopolitan vision of multi-ethnic Britain’ relates to the ‘post-national and cosmopolitan consequences of EU freedom of movement’. At the same time he honestly confronts the extent to which internal EU freedom of movement has gone hand in hand with vigorous and racially discriminatory border enforcement.
Spectres of Post-Marxism? Reassessing Key Post-Marxist Texts: A Reply to Stuart Sim
Authors: Howson Richard
Published: January 2023

This reply to the chapter ‘Spectres of post-Marxism? Reassessing key post-Marxist texts’ focuses on two key moments that emerge from Stuart Sim’s argument: the identification of the complexity of the signifier ‘post-Marxism’; and post-Marxism’s engagement with relativism via postmodernity and poststructuralism. In developing this argument Sim offers a close reading of what are considered to be four key post-Marxist texts by Baudrillard, Lyotard, Laclau and Mouffe, and Derrida and concludes that the conceptual thread that runs through all of them is relativism. However, in this response it will be argued that while relativism might indeed tie these texts together, it is problematic to then move to an argument that suggests post- Marxism demands a leaving behind of Marxism or anti-Marxism. The key to understanding this problematic is evident in the relationship between modernity and postmodernity through the application of concepts such as, limit and antagonism.
Why Do We Punish the Mentally Ill?
Authors: Skotnicki Andrew
Published: January 2023

The third chapter will analyze why those considered to be mentally ill are so often punished. Socioeconomic, psychological, and theological factors will be considered. As to the first, the neoliberal fusion of an unfettered free market paired with an invasive scrutiny of individual conduct on the part of the law enforcement and security industries has played a substantial role in the massive rise in penal commitments in countries such as the United States and England over the last half century. The psychological section will work mainly with the ideas of Kierkegaard on the pervasive depression that all experience due to the human dichotomy between an unlimited imagination and a progressively limited physicality. Kierkegaard argues that it is those who honestly face this psychological morass who often devolve into fantasy and, at least seeming, fabrication while the “sane” majority tend to lose themselves in denial and identification with the prevailing cultural and moral status quo. Finally, it will discuss the ineffability of religious experience and the limited moral language that over determines a persistent diagnosis of psychosis and a-sociability for persons who have “out of body” experiences, hear voices, or have corporeal visions.
Mafia, Memories And Journeys
Authors: Sergi Anna
Published: January 2023

It did hit me one day – but I instantly forgot about it – that I did know what mafia meant. What it was. Do you know that feeling you get when you have been around ugliness for so long that it appears almost beautiful at some point? Or the feeling you get when you realize you have been underwater long enough that drowning feels like breathing hard and you could barely tell the difference? That awareness. I wish I could remember the first time that I heard the word ‘mafia’. I would probably be able to shake off the feeling I had been born around it, in it, in close proximity to it. In some way breathing ugliness, I guess, and turning it into some twisted form of normalized beauty. Because a child needs to believe in beauty. I certainly did. I do remember, and I do see today, the beauty of where I grew up. Calabria is stunning, I always say to anyone who asks or who has never been. But is that true? Is that always true? Has it always been true? I had to open my eyes eventually and see what was what. And – spoiler alert – no, it wasn’t, it isn’t always true. Not always beautiful. And yet, one can create some sort of relationship with what is ugly. I wish I could remember the first time I realized that ‘ndrangheta meant mafia and that the two words were interchangeable. I don’t remember anyone explaining any of this to me, but surely my father played a role in my child-self learning about those difficult things.
Aspromonte, The Roots
Authors: Sergi Anna
Published: January 2023

There is a time in every child’s life that remains suspended. In what seems like an eternal present tense, memories and dreams and nightmares all mix up, for a future self to store and reorganize. I have a strange memory that comes back to me when thinking of that suspended childhood time. It’s strange in the sense that I was unable to place it in time and space for a very long time, yet it’s extremely vivid, like a feeling crawling under the skin. It’s late afternoon. We are in Dad’s car. I am sitting on the back seat, wearing light clothes, must be warm outside. I am five or six or seven years old, I cannot be sure, around that age. I have my hair in a sort of bob cut, which I used to have at that age. I remember a light blue t-shirt but that I think it’s not really part of that memory, I’m not sure why. I cannot recall whether my sister and my mum are also with us; odd, isn’t it? I am very tired, I do remember that, almost snoozing. Drive, Dad, drive. Where to? By the time we arrive, it’s dark, it must be very late. Lots of lights from cars around us, while we stop in a little square; there is a fountain, so typical of the villages of Calabria. Fresh water always streaming down to God knows where. People outside, I see from the car windows, are agitated; I still feel quite confused, maybe I had fallen asleep just before. I hear my father’s voice.
Conclusion: Thinking about ‘the Human’ during COVID-19 Times
Authors: Martin Paul , Saille Stevienna de , Liddiard Kirsty , Pearce Warren
Published: January 2023

Abstract and Keywords to be supplied.
Bureaucracy and Power
Authors: Michelsen Nicholas , Bolt Neville
Published: January 2023

This chapter examines how networks and hierarchies are false opposites. The chapter explores the transmission of power through networks, from the history of Christianity to the rise of modern bureaucracies. Turning to communist revolutionary strategy, the insurgency of Mao, and the construction of the US railway network, the chapter shows that networks and hierarchies invariably subvert, intersect, and mutually inform both the modern state and its various challengers.
The Battle Swarm
Authors: Michelsen Nicholas , Bolt Neville
Published: January 2023

This chapter examines the strategic logic of swarming. Swarms are often seen to embody a purely networked form of organization. No leaders, no hierarchies, no commanding elements to be removed. As this chapter explores, swarms have been of long-standing interest to military planners interested in the value of infesting the enemy and the battlefield. In this context, the politics of swarming may be understood as the purest form of the distributed network map. The chapter engages debates around societal resilience and infrastructure in this context, and how this plays out in focoism as a revolutionary approach to the overthrow of the state.
Conclusion
Authors: Michelsen Nicholas , Bolt Neville
Published: January 2023

In this concluding chapter, Michelsen and Bolt argue that the history of the present is not the globalization of the state form from a single European location. Nor is it a story about the rise of the network that displaces and replaces the state as a principle of global order. It is a history of termite-like negotiations between networks and hierarchies, proxy wars and local struggles, settling and resettling the accounts between these two opposed maps. As religious networks gave rise to the modern state in Europe, so too did states nurture networks and give rise to global empires. Which in turn fold back into the state map.
Afterword
Authors: Michelsen Nicholas , Bolt Neville
Published: January 2023

Abstract and Keywords to be supplied.
The Swedish Experiment
Authors: Aucante Yohann
Published: January 2023

With Sweden traditionally hailed as a social and economic model it is no wonder that its response to the novel coronavirus in 2020 raised a lot of questions – and eyebrows – around the world. The book shows that this response is, in fact, quite coherent with how the Swedish political and administrative system is built up and with the kind of dominant values that are shared in this country. But it is also paradoxical in many ways, for instance in light of the history of epidemic response or because politicians stood in the background compared to other countries. The Swedish model still has such symbolic traction as a synonym of welfare and economic progress that the particular Covid-19 response triggered intense controversies abroad but also at home. To some extent they turned the traditional patterns of support for the model upside down, with conservatives and libertarians hailing the respect for freedom and responsibility. Sweden played the role of the outlier to which other strategies could be compared. The book investigates how the justifications of this approach also made use of the flexible notion of Swedish exceptionalism in ambiguous ways, fuelling tensions and rivalries with the rest of the Nordic countries. The patterns of mortality, especially in nursing homes, have raised questions as to the vulnerabilities of an ageing society, the impact of decades of welfare state reforms and as to the capacity to reinvent the formula for social democratic progress.
Comparing Nations in a World Crisis
Authors: Aucante Yohann
Published: January 2023

This worldwide crisis initiated frantic comparison (and competition) between nations to search for a response to the coronavirus. Sweden has been more than ever in the spotlight, under media and popular scrutiny. The daily briefings of Anders Tegnell and his sidekicks were followed by journalists and experts around the world. Initially there were more favourable opinions about a strategy that avoided lockdown and mitigated the effects on the economy, but it became increasingly controversial as the mortality rate rose. This chapter reflects on the comparison of policies, statistics, infection rates, death counts and the moral and normative dimensions that surrounded the justification of each nation’s ‘strategy’, along with forms of ‘health care nationalism’ that emerged in many countries, and markedly in Sweden. Indeed, the high and stable legitimacy of the Public Health Agency, []FHM, and its main experts has been striking and in sharp contrast with the situation in other European countries w[h]ere experts and politicians alike have faced sharp criticism. I show that this is coherent with traditional forms of trust in science, expertise and public institutions in this society but that it also hides a tendency to avoid divisions and conflicts
A Call to Action: Streets as the Heart of the City
Authors: Riggs William
Published: January 2023

Chapter 11 provides summary of the book including a review of the key lessons learned. It offers that a spiritual connection can be made with how we frame our streets, and that they can be connected to efforts to make us antifragile. The chapter concludes with a call to action and connection to larger environmental issues such as global climate change, spatial segregation and social injustice.
Labour Markets: Continuous Training and Flexibility
Authors: Aubrey Thomas
Published: January 2023

Although Eucken argued in favour of freedom of contract, he also thought it had limits given it can lead to concentrations of power, thereby curtailing freedom. Adenauer’s 1947 programme emphasised the principle of distributive power in the labour market and the need to redesign the relationship between employer and employee so there was no power concentration within firms. Co-determination has maintained a balance of power ensuring labour and capital are signed up to a firm’s strategic objectives, but this has not prevented the recent fall in labour share.
To counter the displacement of workers as a result of globalisation requires continuous training enabling workers to engage with new knowledge networks. Failure to do so results in workers gaining jobs with a smaller labour share and a lower requirement for specialist knowledge and know-how. This necessitates a much greater focus on technical and vocational training in conjunction with active labour market programmes. Flexible labour markets also need to be in place to maintain a high level of job creation. These policies are similar to those set out by the European Commission’s ideas on flexicurity.
Visiting Immigration Detention
Authors: Peterie Michelle
Published: January 2023

Visiting Immigration Detention documents the experiences of friends, loved ones and supporters who visit detainees in Australian immigration detention facilities. In doing so, it makes three main contributions to knowledge.
First, the book provides a rare qualitative account of how harm is enacted through carceral practices in Australia’s onshore immigration detention facilities. It exposes the shifting systems of deprivation and frustration that dictate life in these facilities, corroding health, hope and relationships, and maintaining a debilitating asymmetry of power.Second, the book adds to international understandings of who is harmed by detention regimes. Building on extensive research concerning the adverse impacts of detention on people who are detained, it documents harm beyond the detainee. It also examines the emotional politics of solidarity within detention spaces, illuminating the potentials and pitfalls of (mutual versus paternalistic) care as a form of political resistance.
Finally, the book makes a theoretical claim concerning why harmful practices endure and replicate in detention environments. It demonstrates that the direct and ‘collateral’ harms detention imposes are not failures of the detention system but evidence of its essentially malign function. Cruelty is the point.
Ultimately, this book offers a fresh angle on the human and societal costs of immigration detention regimes.
Introduction: Studying Immigration Detention
Authors: Peterie Michelle
Published: January 2023

This chapter begins with the assertion that refugee and asylum seeker deterrence policies, including immigration detention, are built on cruelty. In operation, deterrence involves the infliction of profound (if often concealed) harm so that people in need of protection will seek safety elsewhere. This book is about the overt and clandestine cruelty of Australia’s detention system, and about the direct and collateral impacts this system imposes. This chapter offers an overview of the research project that informs this book, including its more than 70 in-depth interviews with regular visitors to Australian immigration detention facilities. It also presents a detailed outline of each of the book’s chapters.
Theorizing Detention Centres as Prisons
Authors: Peterie Michelle
Published: January 2023

This chapter provides a theoretical scaffolding and vocabulary for understanding the harm enacted in immigration detention facilities. Drawing on research concerning the production of psychological pain in prisons, it highlights the clandestine mechanisms through which carceral institutions inflict pain in socio-legal contexts where overt violence is not socially or legally tenable. These insights concerning carceral power inform this book’s analysis of visitor experiences in Australian immigration detention facilities.
Care and Resistance
Authors: Peterie Michelle
Published: January 2023

This chapter examines the relationships that develop between immigration detainees and visitors in Australia, and considers the political significance of these friendships. It shows that in an institutional context where deterrence is enacted through the micro-level production of isolation and despair, visitors’ efforts to help detainees disrupt the socio-emotional conditions of their detention can constitute a meaningful (if imperfect) form of political resistance. It also demonstrates that visitor–detainee relationships can be a basis for more recognisable forms of political action as visitors partner with detainees to advocate for their rights and bear public witness to institutional violence. The necessity of solidaric (as distinct from paternalistic) care for the health of immigration detention relationships and activities is explored.
Structural color modulation by laser post-processing on metal-coated colloidal crystals
Authors: Li Xiu , Hu Xiaoxue , Ren Yuchen , Li Yu , Huang Min
Published: January 2023

A method to use a pulsed solid-state laser to create structural color modulation on metal-coated colloidal crystal surfaces by changing the scanning speed has been proposed. Vivid colors as cyan, orange, yellow, and magenta are obtained with different predefined stringent geometrical and structural parameters. The effect of laser scanning speeds and polystyrene (PS) particle sizes on the optical properties is studied, and the angle-dependent property of the samples is also discussed. As a result, the reflectance peak is progressively red shifted along with increasing the scanning speed from 4 mm/s to 200 mm/s with 300 nm PS microspheres. Moreover, the influence of the microsphere particle sizes and incident angle are also experimentally investigated. For 420 and 600 nm PS colloidal crystals, along with a gradual decrease in the scanning speed of the laser pulse from 100 mm/s to 10 mm/s and an increase in the incident angle from 15° to 45°, there was a blue shift for two reflection peak positions. This research is a key, low-cost step toward applications in green printing, anti-counterfeiting, and other related fields.
Toward multimode-fiber shape sensing
Authors: Hadad Barak , Marima Daniel , Magal Nadav , Eyal Avishay , Bahabad Alon
Published: January 2023

We demonstrate machine-learning assisted dynamic tracking of the shape of a multimode fiber whose spatial configuration is manipulated by the movement of three linear stages. The data source used for the analysis is the coherent speckle pattern of light that has made a round trip in the fiber.
Spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction of synchrotron radiation
Authors: Fuji Takao , Kaneyasu Tatsuo , Fujimoto Masaki , Okano Yasuaki , Salehi Elham , Hosaka Masahito , Takashima Yoshifumi , Mano Atsushi , Hikosaka Yasumasa , Wada Shin-ichi , Katoh Masahiro
Published: January 2023

An undulator is a device widely used in synchrotron light sources to produce a certain quasi-monochromatic light; however, its waveform has never been recorded due to the lack of measurement techniques. Here we propose an approach to characterize the waveforms of electric fields produced by relativistic electrons using an algorithm of spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction, which is one of the most common methods to characterize ultrashort laser pulses. As a result, we have succeeded in retrieving a 10-cycle square enveloped electric field, which corresponds to 10 periods of permanent magnets of the undulator. This method can dramatically improve the development of synchrotron sources including x-ray free electron lasers.
Digitally tunable dispersion controller using chirped multimode waveguide gratings
Authors: Liu Shujun , Liu Dajian , Yu Zejie , Liu Liu , Shi Yaocheng , Dai Daoxin
Published: January 2023

We propose a digitally tunable dispersion controller (DTDC) for dispersion management that shows potential for realizing phase correction, waveform generation, beamforming, and pulse sculpting in many photonic systems. The controller consists of N stages of cascaded chirped multimode waveguide gratings (MWGs) as well as (N+1) Mach–Zehnder switches (MZSs) on silicon. We introduce MWG technology so that the reflected light can be separated from the input signal even without a circulator, which makes it convenient for various system applications. All the chirped MWGs are identical so that the photonic circuit design is convenient, while the number, m, of the chirped MWGs in cascade for the nth stage is given by m=2(n−1). The total dispersion from the DTDC is accumulated by all the stages, depending on the states of all the 2×2 optical switches. Since there are 2
N
−1 chirped MWGs in total, the total dispersion can be freely tuned from 0 to (2
N
−1)D0 by a step of D0, where D0 is the dispersion provided by a single chirped MWG. As an example, we designed a DTDC consisting of four stages of chirped MWGs (N=4) and five MZSs and demonstrated its low loss as well as its high-quality group delay response. A chirped MWG with a 2-mm-long grating section has a dispersion of D0=2.82ps/nm in a 20-nm-wide bandwidth, and accordingly the maximum dispersion is given as 42.8 ps/nm by switching the MZSs appropriately. Our on-chip DTDC provides a brand-promising option for broadband flexible dispersion management in optical systems of microwave photonics and optical communications.
Suppressing the Mechanochromism of Flexible Photonic Crystals
Authors: Kraft Fabio , Harwardt Katharina , Schardt Jan , Nowotka Dirk , Gerken Martina
Published: January 2023

We present flexible photonic crystal slabs (PCS) obtained by sputtering of a dielectric 100 nm Nb2O5 high refractive index layer onto a flexible nanostructured polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate with 370 nm grating period. The PCS exhibit a guided mode resonance at around 650 nm. We demonstrate that these flexible photonic crystal slabs show less than 0.5 nm resonance shift for 4% strain and call them stabilized PCS (sPCS). We compare this to a resonance shift of ~21 nm for ~4% strain of a flexible photonic crystal with a flexible nanoparticle high index layer (mechanochromatic PCS, mPCS). This high resonance shift is expected from the Bragg equations, where 4 % grating period change correspond to approximately 4 % change of the resonance wavelength (i.e., ~26 nm at a resonance wavelength of 650 nm), if changes in the mode effective refractive index are neglected. In a stretch series we obtain color-to-strain dependencies of 4.79 nm/% strain for mPCS and 0.11 nm/% strain for our stabilized sPCS. We analyze the suppression of the mechanochromism with detailed microscopy results. We observe that fissures and fractures form in the rigid waveguiding layer of the sPCS upon mechanical stress. An algorithm based on Holistically-Nested Edge Detection (HED) is used for automated counting of cracks. Rigid photonic crystal cells with sizes on the order of 10 µm to 100 µm are formed that explain the stable optical properties. Even more stable optical properties with less than 0.03 nm wavelength shift per 1% strain are demonstrated for sPCS with an additional dielectric 100 nm SiO2 low index layer beneath the Nb2O5 waveguide layer decoupling the waveguide further from the flexible PDMS substrate.
Anforderungsanalyse zur Umsetzung eines digitalen Zwillings im Containerterminal
Authors: Neugebauer Julian , Heilig Leonard , Voß Stefan
Published: January 2023

Dieser Beitrag beschreibt das Vorgehen zur Ermittlung von Use Cases und zur Anforderungsanalyse im Rahmen der Entwicklung eines digitalen Zwillings für den EUROGATE Containerterminal im Hamburger Hafen. Entscheidend für die Umsetzung des Projekts TwinSim ist, dass der digitale Zwilling die operativen und dispositiven Aufgaben und Prozesse der Containerterminals unterstützt und darüber hinaus, u. a., durch Anwendung einer simulationsbasierten Optimierung, resiliente und umweltfreundlichere Abläufe gewährleistet. Dazu wurden Use Cases aus dem operativen Betrieb des Containerterminals im Rahmen von Workshops mithilfe von Design Thinking Methoden erfasst, anhand einer Nutzwertanalyse bewertet und für eine Umsetzung ausgewählt. Die vorgestellte Vorgehensweise beschreibt zudem Ansätze, die zur Festlegung der Umsetzungsreihenfolge verwendet werden können und Synergieeffekte zwischen den Use Cases auf Basis der verfügbaren IoT-Geräte berücksichtigen. Insbesondere aufgrund der technisch komplexen Umsetzungsziele und der Forderung nach agilem Arbeiten kann die Vorgehensweise zur Anforderungsanalyse als Referenz für ähnliche Logistik 4.0-Projekte angesehen werden.
Relating local connectivity and global dynamics in recurrent excitatory-inhibitory networks
Authors: Shao Yuxiu , Ostojic Srdjan
Published: January 2023

How the connectivity of cortical networks determines the neural dynamics and the resulting computations is one of the key questions in neuroscience. Previous works have pursued two complementary approaches to quantify the structure in connectivity. One approach starts from the perspective of biological experiments where only the local statistics of connectivity motifs between small groups of neurons are accessible. Another approach is based instead on the perspective of artificial neural networks where the global connectivity matrix is known, and in particular its low-rank structure can be used to determine the resulting low-dimensional dynamics. A direct relationship between these two approaches is however currently missing. Specifically, it remains to be clarified how local connectivity statistics and the global low-rank connectivity structure are inter-related and shape the low-dimensional activity. To bridge this gap, here we develop a method for mapping local connectivity statistics onto an approximate global low-rank structure. Our method rests on approximating the global connectivity matrix using dominant eigenvectors, which we compute using perturbation theory for random matrices. We demonstrate that multi-population networks defined from local connectivity statistics for which the central limit theorem holds can be approximated by low-rank connectivity with Gaussian-mixture statistics. We specifically apply this method to excitatory-inhibitory networks with reciprocal motifs, and show that it yields reliable predictions for both the low-dimensional dynamics, and statistics of population activity. Importantly, it analytically accounts for the activity heterogeneity of individual neurons in specific realizations of local connectivity. Altogether, our approach allows us to disentangle the effects of mean connectivity and reciprocal motifs on the global recurrent feedback, and provides an intuitive picture of how local connectivity shapes global network dynamics.
Impact of the V410L kdr mutation and co-occurring genotypes at kdr sites 1016 and 1534 in the VGSC on the probability of survival of the mosquito Aedes aegypti (L.) to Permanone in Harris County, TX, USA
Authors: Hernandez Jonathan R. , Liu Shuling , Fredregill Chris L. , Pietrantonio Patricia V.
Published: January 2023

Harris County, TX, is the third most populous county in the USA and upon detection of arboviruses Harris County Public Health applies insecticides (e.g., pyrethroid-based Permanone 31–66) against adults ofCulex quinquefasciatusto prevent disease transmission. Populations ofAedes aegypti, while not yet a target of public health control, are likely affected by pyrethroid exposure. As this species is a vector of emerging arboviruses, its resistance status to Permanone and thekdrmutations in the voltage-gated sodium channel (VGSC) associated with pyrethroid resistance were investigated. We examined females of known genotype at the V1016I and F1534C sites (N = 716) for their genotype at the 410 amino acid position in the VGSC, and for the influence of theirkdrgenotype on survival to Permanone at three different distances from the insecticide source in field tests. Most females (81.8%) had at least one resistant L allele at the 410 position, being the first report of the V410L mutation inAe.aegyptifor Texas. When only genotypes at the 410 position were analyzed, the LL genotype exhibited higher survivorship than VL or VV. Out of 27 possible tri-locuskdrgenotypes only 23 were found. Analyses of the probability of survival of tri-locus genotypes and for the V410L genotype using a multivariate logistic regression model including area, distance, and genotype found significant interactions between distance and genotype. When only the most common tri-locus genotypes were analyzed (LL/II/CC, 48.2%; VL/II/CC, 19.1%; and VV/II/CC, 10.1%) genotype had no effect on survival, but significant interactions of distance and genotype were found. This indicated that the V410Lkdrallele increased survival probability at certain distances. Genotypes did not differ in survivorship at 7.62-m, but LL/II/CC had higher survivorship than VL/II/CC at 15.24- and 22.86-m. The model also identified differences in survivorship among the operational areas investigated.
An intersectionality approach to Indigenous oral health inequities; the super-additive impacts of racism and negative life events
Authors: Jamieson Lisa , Ju Xiangqun , Haag Dandara , Ribeiro Pedro , Soares Gustavo , Hedges Joanne
Published: January 2023

Objectives

Indigenous Australians experience cumulative forms of oppression. Using intersectionality as the underlying analytical framework, and with oral health as an outcome, we demonstrate how oppressions are interlinked and cannot be treated in isolation. The study aimed to quantify the cumulative effect of two forms of oppression on Indigenous Australian oral health inequities.

Methods

This observational study was conducted Feb 2018—Jan 2020. Recruitment occurred through Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations in South Australia, Australia. Eligibility included identifying as Indigenous, residing in South Australia and aged 18+ years. Socio-demographic factors, health-related characteristics, experience of racism, negative life events and self-reported oral health outcomes were collected. The main outcomes were fair/poor self-rated oral health and oral health related quality of life, measured by OHIP-14. Effect-measure modification was used to verify differences on effect sizes per strata of negative life events and racism. The presence of modification was indicated by Relative Excess Risk due to Interactions (RERIs).

Results

Data were obtained for 1,011 participants, median age 37 years, 66% female and 63% residing in non-metropolitan locations. Over half (52%) had experienced racism in the past 12 months and 85% had experienced one or more negative life events. Around one-third (34%) rated their oral health as fair/poor and the mean OHIP-14 score was 17. A higher proportion of participants who had experienced both racism and negative life events (46%) were male (52%), aged 37+ years (47%), resided in metropolitan locations (57%), reported difficulty paying a $100 dental bill (47%), had fair/poor self-rated oral health (54%) and higher mean OHIP-14 scores (20). The RERIs observed were 0.31 for fair/poor self-rated oral health and 0.23 for mean OHIP-14. The positive RERIs indicated a super-additive effect between racism, negative life events (effect modifier) and self-reported oral health outcomes.

Conclusion

The more oppressions participants experienced, in the form of racism and negative life events, the greater the burden of poor self-reported oral health. The study is one of the first to use intersectionality as a theory to explain oral health inequities as experienced by Indigenous Australians.
Multi-lingual multi-platform investigations of online trade in jaguar parts
Authors: Polisar John , Davies Charlotte , Morcatty Thais , Da Silva Mariana , Zhang Song , Duchez Kurt , Madrid Julio , Lambert Ana Elisa , Gallegos Ana , Delgado Marcela , Nguyen Ha , Wallace Robert , Arias Melissa , Nijman Vincent , Ramnarace Jon , Pennell Roberta , Novelo Yamira , Rumiz Damian , Rivero Kathia , Murillo Yovana , Salas Monica Nuñez , Kretser Heidi E. , Reuter Adrian
Published: January 2023

We conducted research to understand online trade in jaguar parts and develop tools of utility for jaguars and other species. Our research took place to identify potential trade across 31 online platforms in Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, French, Chinese, and Vietnamese. We identified 230 posts from between 2009 and 2019. We screened the images of animal parts shown in search results to verify if from jaguar; 71 posts on 12 different platforms in four languages were accompanied by images identified as definitely jaguar, including a total of 125 jaguar parts (50.7% posts in Spanish, 25.4% Portuguese, 22.5% Chinese and 1.4% French). Search effort varied among languages due to staff availability. Standardizing for effort across languages by dividing number of posts advertising jaguars by search time and number of individual searches completed via term/platform combinations changed the proportions the rankings of posts adjusted for effort were led by Portuguese, Chinese, and Spanish. Teeth were the most common part; 156 posts offered at least 367 teeth and from these, 95 were assessed as definitely jaguar; 71 of which could be linked to a location, with the majority offered for sale from Mexico, China, Bolivia, and Brazil (26.8, 25.4, 16.9, and 12.7% respectively). The second most traded item, skins and derivative items were only identified from Latin America: Brazil (7), followed by Peru (6), Bolivia (3), Mexico (2 and 1 skin piece), and Nicaragua and Venezuela (1 each). Whether by number of posts or pieces, the most commonly parts were: teeth, skins/pieces of skins, heads, and bodies. Our research took place within a longer-term project to assist law enforcement in host countries to better identify potential illegal trade and presents a snapshot of online jaguar trade and methods that also may have utility for many species traded online.
Social support and professional networks of nurses and nursing technicians in coping with Covid-19: A sectional study in two Brazilian cities
Authors: David Helena Maria Scherloski Leal , da Silva Maria Rocineide Ferreira , Faria Magda Guimarães de Araújo , da Silva Tarciso Feijó , Ramos Tatiana Cabral da Silva , Pereira-Silva Marcus Vinicius
Published: January 2023

Among healthcare workers, nurses are at exceptionally considerable risk for contracting COVID-19. Regardless of professionals’ level of education, Brazilian nursing is one of the healthcare occupations shouldering the highest levels of responsibility and workload. Social support networks to health and nursing can be a strategy to reduce workload and stress and may contribute to implementing the activities and protecting workers’ health. This study aimed to map and analyze social support networks at workplaces as informed by frontline nursing professionals working in healthcare units in the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza, capitals of the States of Rio de Janeiro and Ceará, respectively. This observational and cross-sectional study used an online data collection instrument based on social network analysis methodology. We recruited 163 participants in two reference services for health professionals suspected or with COVID-19 symptoms. The research question was: “Which category or categories of health professionals have supported you or other colleagues the most in the event of diagnosis or suspicion of COVID-19 among nursing categories? Data were organized by nursing category and city and analyzed through social network analysis using Ucinet©, generating graphs and centrality metrics. Results point to the central relevance of nursing categories in the workplace social support in the pandemic, followed by other health professional categories.
Attitudes towards receiving COVID-19 vaccine and its associated factors among Southwest Ethiopian adults, 2021
Authors: Emire Mamo Solomon , Shiferaw Bisrat Zeleke
Published: January 2023

Introduction

Many countries around the world are still affected by the global pandemic of coronavirus disease. The vaccine is the most effective method of controlling Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, attitudes toward vaccination are heavily affected by different factors besides vaccine availability.

Objectives

This study aimed to determine community attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccine in Gurage Zone, Ethiopia.

Methods

A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted from November 15th to December 15th, 2021. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 364 participants in the study area. An interview-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect the data; the data was entered into Epidata 3.1 version, and then exported to SPSS version 23 for further analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to determine the characteristics of study participants. Binary and multivariable logistic regression analyses with a p-value of less than 0.05 were used as a measure of significance.

Results

In this study, 44.7% of study participants had a favorable attitude toward the COVID-19 vaccine. Perceived potential vaccine harm [AOR: 1.85; 95% CI (1.15–2.96)], Having ever had a chronic disease [AOR: 3.22; 95% CI (2.02–5.14)], community belief on the effectiveness of the vaccine [AOR: 2.02; 95% CI (1.27–3.22)], and average monthly income 3001–5000 ETB [AOR: 0.54; 95% CI (0.30–0.97)], average monthly income 5001–10000 ETB [AOR: 0.48; 95% CI(0.27–0.86)] were statistically significantly towards COVID-19 vaccination.

Conclusions

Overall, less than half of the participants had a favorable attitude toward the COVID-19 vaccine. Perceived potential vaccine harm, having ever had a chronic disease, community belief in the effectiveness of the vaccine, and average monthly income were determinant factors of the community’s attitude toward COVID-19 vaccination. As a result, information conversation with the community’s awareness of the COVID-19 vaccination in reducing vaccine-related suspicion.
Trend and factors associated with anemia among women reproductive age in Ethiopia: A multivariate decomposition analysis of Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey
Authors: Tsegaye Negash Berhan , Ayalew Mohammed
Published: January 2023

Background

In developing countries like Ethiopia, anemia is a public health problem. Unfortunately, the progress of anemia reduction has been slow. Although the issue of anemia has received considerable critical attention nowadays, trends and factors associated with anemia among women of reproductive age have not been explored in Ethiopia.

Objective

This study aimed to determine trends and factors associated with anemia among women of reproductive age in Ethiopia from 2005 to 2016.

Method

Data from three consecutive Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) from 2005–2016 were analyzed in this study. EDHS is a two-stage cluster sampling survey. Data were weighted to correct sampling bias in all surveys. A total of 46,268 samples were analyzed using a fixed effect model. For a measure of proportion, differences and slopes were computed. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses were done to identify predictors of the trend of anemia among women. Adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with a 95% Confidence Interval(CI) was computed, and the p-value < 0.05 is considered significant.

Result

Prevalence of anemia among women was 68%, 20.3%, and 27.3% in 2005, 2011 and 2016, respectively. The trend of anemia was reduced by 47.7 percentage points from 2005 to 2011; however, it increased by 7% points again from 2011 in 2016. Lack of mobile phones (AOR = 1.4, 95%CI, 1.2,1.6), Afar women (AOR = 1.5, 95%CI, 1.1,2.3) and Somali women (AOR = 1.5, 95%CI, 1.1,1.9) were associated with anaemia among women. On the contrary, the history of heavy menstruation in the last six months (AOR = 0.9; 95%CI, 0.85,0.98) was a factor negatively associated with anemia in 2005. In 2011, single women (AOR = 0.8,95%CI,0.7,0.9), watching TV less than once per wk (AOR = 0.9,95%CI,0.7,0.95), watching TV at least once per week (AOR = 0.8,95%CI,0.7,0.98) were variables associated with anemia. On the contrary, widowed women (AOR = 1.7,95%CI,1.4,2.0) were affected by anemia. In 2016, the richest women (AOR = 0.7, 95%CI, 0.6,0.8) and single (AOR = 0.8, 95%CI, 0.7,0.9) were affected little by anemia. Women of traditional belief followers (AOR = 2.2,95%CI,1.6,2.9) were more highly influenced by anemia than their counterparts.

Conclusion

The prevalence of anemia declined rapidly from 2005 to 2011, and increased from 2011 to 2016. Stakeholders should develop policies and programs to enhance the socio-demographic status of women and basic infrastructure for the community. Furthermore, they should design strategies for extensive media coverage of the prevention of anemia. The federal government should balance the proportion of anemia among regions by ensuring health equality.