bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Worldview Defense, Prejudice, and Derogating Others
Authors: Bal Michelle , Van den Bos Kees
Published: July 2019

In the literature on prejudice and derogatory reactions, two prominent lines of research can be distinguished, one focusing on the expression and endorsement of (mostly) negative stereotypes and prejudice, and one zooming in on how defense of cultural worldviews can lead to derogatory reactions toward those who are different from ourselves. Research on both stereotypes/prejudice and cultural worldviews reveals how personal uncertainty can lead to the occurrence of derogatory reactions. In research on prejudice, the automaticity of stereotyping and prejudice has been the subject of debate. Some scholars argue for the inevitability of stereotyping, as these processes are assumed to be automatic and inevitable. By contrast, other scholars distinguish automatic stereotype activation from more controlled stereotype endorsement. Importantly, stereotype activation may be altered by stereotype-negation training reducing the expression of prejudice. In worldview defense research, it is shown how uncertainty-related motives and other worldview threats are related to the expression of derogatory reactions toward those who fall outside our scope of justice.

In contemporary society, people frequently have to deal with feelings of personal uncertainty, especially regarding future-oriented delayed outcomes. To cope with these feelings, people adhere to their cultural worldviews. These belief systems enable people to strive for long-term goals, but also make them more vulnerable to expressing prejudice and other derogatory reactions. A wealth of research shows that when people’s worldviews are threatened, they tend to react more rigidly and negatively toward others, especially toward those who belong to an outgroup. For example, if one believes that the world is inherently just (i.e. in studies looking at “just world beliefs”), interacting with innocent victims of crimes can threaten this worldview. In the face of this conflict, people sometimes respond in derogatory and prejudiced ways toward those victims in order to uphold their belief that the world is a just place where bad things can only happen to bad people. Importantly, alleviating feelings of personal uncertainty (either by affirming personal certainty or by refocusing attention toward other aspects of an unjust situation) can reduce derogatory reactions and instigate benevolent reactions focused on helping those who are less well off.
Safety at Work
Authors: Grote Gudela
Published: July 2019

Psychological research on safety at work aims at understanding people’s attitudes and behaviors in relation to hazards for their own and others’ health and well-being. Important safety-related behaviors are safety compliance and safety participation, which address rule-following and proactive safety improvements. These behaviors are influenced by individual cognitive and motivational processes as well as team processes, such as coordination and communication. Relevant antecedents of these processes are characteristics of the job (e.g., job demands), the individual (e.g., risk propensity), the team (e.g., leadership), and the organization (e.g., organizational culture). How individuals and teams are supported in adequately handling hazards also depends on the safety management systems set up in their organizations. Important components of such management systems are, for instance, safety training and incident reporting and investigation. Interventions aimed at improving safety always have to consider cultural factors in the organization, which impact attitudes toward risk and uncertainty.
Spiritual and Religious Sources of Indian Psychology
Authors: Keshavamurthy Salagame Kiran Kumar
Published: July 2019

Indian psychology is a nascent discipline, although it has a history that dates back many millennia. It differs from Western psychology both in its subject matter and its methodology. Whereas Western psychology at present is still anchored in a material worldview and governed by a reductionist paradigm, Indian psychology is founded on the primacy of consciousness as revealed by spiritual experiences and supported by logic and reasoning. Mainstream Western psychology has yet to recognize and accept the spiritual dimension of human nature, though transpersonal psychology emerged in the West fifty years ago. Indian psychology has the potential to enlarge the scope of modern psychology, and Indian psychological thought has universal significance.
Diversity in the Workplace
Authors: Bendl Regine , Hainzl Astrid , Mensi-Klarbach Heike
Published: July 2019

Diversity in the workplace, with a central focus on gender, sexual orientation, age, ethnicity, (dis)ability, and religious belief, has become a major issue in organizations worldwide since the 1990s. How these different diversity dimensions are defined and constructed, as well as by whom and in what context, determines organizational practices. In turn, this determines the transformation of organizations from exclusive to inclusive ones.

The workplace is one context of social interaction, in which dimensions of diversity become highly relevant and visible. Depending on the organization’s perspective toward diversity in a managerial context, individual differences between employees can create value and foster innovation and creativity, or can lead to conflict. How diversity is constructed and reproduced within diversity management and inclusion determines how employees feel accepted and included and, thus, how they are able to realize their potential and to contribute to the organization’s vision and aims. However, legitimizing initiatives that foster diversity in the workplace only with potential profits it might generate – called the business case for diversity – and forgetting its roots in the moral case, has shortcomings and potential drawbacks on the aims of diversity management and inclusion.

Research on diversity in the workplace can be found in different forms. Generally, there are two main groups. Mainstream diversity literature works within the positivist research tradition and focuses mostly on the performance aspects of diverse workforces by conducting quantitative empirical studies. Critical diversity literature aims at promoting social justice by deeply understanding, criticizing and developing possible solutions. Both research streams have contributed to comprehend diversity in the workplace, realize its potentials and support marginalized groups.
Theoretical Perspectives on White-Collar Crime
Authors: Levi Michael
Published: July 2019

White-collar crime has not developed in a linear way as an academic subject. Its definition remains contested, between those who consider that, when deciding on the boundaries of what we can explain, we cannot depart far from the decisions of criminal courts and, at the other extreme, those who substitute “social harm” for “crime” and see the theoretical task as explaining why criminal justice reacts far more severely to the less socially harmful acts. Most scholars are somewhere closer to the legalistic view, except that they substitute convictability for conviction, though convictability may be disputable except where there is a Deferred Prosecution Agreement or an agreed statement by the corporation. Individual, organizational, and cultural explanations of white-collar offenses are considered and are complementary, depending on the research question to be explored. Incomplete or distorted datasets are commonplace, but the increasing number of life course studies of white-collar criminality show that serious white-collar (and organized crime) offending typically has a later onset than other crimes. This may be due to established professionals being recruited as ‘enablers,’ and/or that a certain maturity is necessary to act as a credible borrower or investment intermediary, depending on the crime.

An important dimension of white-collar crime explains the decisions about formal and informal social control as ways of dealing with misconduct. These decisions range from detailed analysis of individual cases and patterns in a financial and/or industrial/service sector to macro explanations such as intentional or neglectful police/prosecutor resource starvation and protection of elites in neo-liberal societies. Some of the strategies are affected by whether regulator/regulatee relationships are repeat players progressing up the regulatory pyramid, or whether they are outsiders or intentional harm-doers, who may be less likely to be deterred or reformed by engagement with the regulators.
Homeostatic Plasticity in the CNS
Authors: Wenner Peter , Bülow Pernille
Published: July 2019

Homeostatic plasticity refers to a collection of mechanisms that function to homeostatically maintain some feature of neural function. The field began with the view that homeostatic plasticity exists predominantly for the maintenance of spike rate. However, it has become clear that multiple features undergo some form of homeostatic control, including network activity, burst rate, or synaptic strength. There are several different forms of homeostatic plasticity, which are typically triggered following perturbations in activity levels. Homeostatic intrinsic plasticity (HIP) appears to compensate for the perturbation with changes in membrane excitability (voltage-gated conductances); synaptic scaling is thought to be a multiplicative increase or decrease of synaptic strengths throughout the cell following an activity perturbation; presynaptic homeostatic plasticity is a change in probability of release following a perturbation to postsynaptic receptor activity. Each form of homeostatic plasticity can be different in terms of the mechanisms that are engaged, the feature that is homeostatically regulated, the trigger that initiates the compensation, and the signaling cascades that mediate these processes. Homeostatic plasticity is often described in development, but can extend into maturity and has been described in vitro and in vivo.
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Teacher Education
Authors: Gist Conra , Jackson Iesha , Nightengale-Lee Bianca , Allen Keisha
Published: July 2019

To effectively teach an increasingly diverse student population throughout the United States, scholars and teacher educators have become proponents of using culturally responsive pedagogy. Culturally responsive pedagogy is defined as a combination of knowledge, practices, and dispositions that center racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students’ cultural traditions, experiences, and perspectives to facilitate meaningful and transformative learning opportunities. Culturally responsive pedagogy is particularly important for students of color who have persistently been marginalized in U.S. schools and will become increasingly relevant in teacher education as the racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of school populations continues to grow in the United States. As such, educator preparation programs are key teacher learning sites for preparing future teachers to be able to engage in culturally responsive pedagogical practices with their students.

In the context of the United States, traditional educator preparation has often centered its program designs for a White female teacher population, preparing them to address the learning needs of racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse student populations via sense making and application activities in individual courses, community service projects, and fieldwork experiences. These efforts are often additive approaches for addressing culturally responsive pedagogy in the curriculum and not always central to the mission of programs.

Scholars have challenged piecemeal preparation approaches for addressing culturally responsive pedagogy and argued for an integration of culturally responsive approaches throughout preservice teacher preparation experiences. Despite calling attention to such approaches, several issues complicate this effort. For one, the pervasive Whiteness that encompasses most educator preparation programs must be acknowledged, critiqued, and addressed in ways that many programs are ill-equipped to do given the demographic makeup of the teaching faculty. Even if some programs recognize this pressing need and work to emphasize the importance of culturally responsive pedagogy in the core mission statements of their programs, close examination of the program design suggests gaps of the application as it relates to the learning experiences of teacher candidates.

Further, there is growing concern regarding the overemphasis of culturally responsive approaches for preparing White teachers in ways that overlook the learning and preparation needs of teachers of color. Given these challenges, discourse on culturally responsive pedagogy in teacher education must be addressed through the perspective of multiple stakeholders and program facets, with a common goal of emphasizing rigorous, engaging, and challenging educational opportunity for racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse youth in schools.
Collaboration in Educational Ethnography in Latin America
Authors: Milstein Diana , Clemente Angeles , Guerrero Alba Lucy
Published: July 2019

There are epistemological, methodological, and textual dimensions of collaborative educational ethnography (CEE) in Latin America that have spread and consolidated over the last twenty-five years. The beginnings of CEE were marked by sociopolitical struggles (social resistance movements and repressive dictatorships) but also were enlightened by thinkers like Fals Borda and Freire, who foresaw social transformation through a theory/action/participation tie. The result was several educational ethnographic studies carried out by groups of researchers working in networks. To a large extent, they aimed to problematize contradictions between official school education and the sociocultural realities of teachers and students. This type of research also aimed to understand and intervene in social change processes, which encouraged the incorporation of teachers as researchers in ethnographic studies. Teachers’ participation in research processes opened debates about fieldwork, but more particularly about relationships between researchers and interlocutors. In short, the history of CEE in Latin America reveals a marked development of collaboration, from being enacted but not made explicit in the written ethnographic report to open, explicit, and declared participation of nonacademic collaborators of all sorts: teachers, children, youngsters, indigenous communities, and so on.

The work of these collaborative teams not only differs in ways and degrees of research involvement (co-interpreting, co-investigating, co-authoring, and co-theorizing) but also in what a dialogic and sometimes contested research process entails in terms of knowledge production for counteracting Eurocentric, androcentric, adult-centric prejudices.

Teachers’ participation, children/youngsters as active collaborators, and language as a topic of research and as a research tool are three main themes. The stance of the researcher in CEE inevitably connects with his or her interlocutors as situated others—subjects with agency and rights and capable of involving the researcher in a joint process of reflexivity. Moreover, collaborative experiences in educational ethnography create new and feasible possibilities for the development of knowledge not only in education but also in research approaches to ethnography.
Performance-Based Assessment in Preparing Teachers
Authors: Polly Drew
Published: July 2019

Performance-based assessments are assessments in which learners complete a complex task or series of tasks in order to demonstrate their learning. Originally designed and used with school-aged learners (ages 5 through 18), the use of performance-based assessments gained popularity in the early 2000s as a way to deeply assess learners’ knowledge and skills. The National Board of Professional Teaching Standards has been using performance-based assessments, which include video evidence of teachers, artifacts of student work, and teachers’ written reflections as part of their credentialing process. For individuals seeking their initial teaching license or teaching credential, in the past decade in the United States, teacher education programs have started to use performance-based assessments. The most widely used performance-based assessment in teacher education in the United States is edTPA, an assessment that was either required or used as an option in 37 states at the time this chapter was written. The edTPA assessment, similar to the National Board portfolio, includes video evidence from the teacher candidate’s instruction, lesson plans, artifacts of student learning, and the teacher candidate’s written reflections about their planning, teaching, and assessment of their students. This chapter describes performance-based assessments in teacher education programs, and focuses on how faculty members in one elementary education (students age 5–11) teacher education program revised its curriculum to support teacher candidates’ completion of the edTPA performance-based assessment.
Ba, Mariama
Authors: Ali Souad T.
Published: July 2019

Mariama Ba was a renowned feminist, author, and advocate for women’s rights in her home country of Senegal, Africa, and globally. After attending and thriving at the French École Normale postsecondary school for girls, Ba became a teacher and education inspector for many years. Ba went on to write two novels: So Long a Letter, originally published in 1979, and Scarlet Song, published in 1981. Both novels are critical of polygamy in African life and examine the various ways in which women deal with similar situations, celebrate sisterhood, and demonstrate that there is no right or wrong way to be a feminist. Mariama Ba’s texts demonstrate clear criticism of the polygamous society she grew up in and the abuse of religion by some men to further their agenda. Ba’s essay, “The Political Functions of Written African Literatures,” describes her belief that a writer should be political and serve as a critic of surrounding society and misogynist practices.

Mariama Ba’s personal life clearly influenced her written works, a topic that has been thoroughly examined in much of the scholarly literature that has been written about her. Ba did not try to define feminism. Rather, she understood that it is different for every woman and is a reflection of background, culture, history, and religion. Ba believed it was her mission as a writer to be a voice for the most vulnerable members of society. Ba was a leader in emerging global feminism and created written works that discussed topics that cross cultural barriers and demonstrate the unity of humanity.
Muslim Food Culture
Authors: Tayob Shaheed
Published: July 2019

The anthropology of Muslim food practices is a burgeoning field that promises to shift the focus away from the dominant concern with rules, conformity, and piety. Food offers an embodied and material location through which to explore the way in which religion, economy, technology, ethics, and everyday life intersect. Studying food brings into view an aspect of Muslim religious and social life that is often commented on in popular media but rarely in scholarly debate. Halal consumption, a practice rooted in intra-Muslim trade and trust, is now a global consumer market. The halal certification industry has emerged to both produce and respond to the new discursive and material context of global trade, consumption, and increasingly scientific eating habits. The new terrain of molecular halal presents opportunities and challenges for Muslim consumption. Beyond halal, food is a substance thought to produce and transmit divine grace (barakat). All-night Ramadan markets and the annual festival of sacrifice are events that draw worldwide attention. Novel phenomena include ever increasing spectacles of feasting and consumption during Ramadan and the emergence of welfare intermediaries that cater to the distribution of sacrificial animals and meat across the globe. In each instance, one obtains an insight into how a discursive and material set of practices that link religion and food are inhabited and transformed in different economic, social, and political contexts. Further research calls for further investigation of these crucial global arenas of Muslim everyday life.
Caribbean-US Relations
Authors: Reeder Tyson
Published: July 2019

The United States has shared an intricate and turbulent history with Caribbean islands and nations since its inception. In its relations with the Caribbean, the United States has displayed the dueling tendencies of imperialism and anticolonialism that characterized its foreign policy with South America and the rest of the world. For nearly two and a half centuries, the Caribbean has stood at the epicenter of some of the US government’s most controversial and divisive foreign policies. After the American Revolution severed political ties between the United States and the British West Indies, US officials and traders hoped to expand their political and economic influence in the Caribbean. US trade in the Caribbean played an influential role in the events that led to the War of 1812. The Monroe Doctrine provided a blueprint for reconciling imperial ambitions in the Caribbean with anti-imperial sentiment. During the mid-19th century, Americans debated the propriety of annexing Caribbean islands, especially Cuba. After the Spanish-American War of 1898, the US government took an increasingly imperialist approach to its relations with the Caribbean, acquiring some islands as federal territories and augmenting its political, military, and economic influence in others. Contingents of the US population and government disapproved of such imperialistic measures, and beginning in the 1930s the US government softened, but did not relinquish, its influence in the Caribbean. Between the 1950s and the end of the Cold War, US officials wrestled with how to exert influence in the Caribbean in a postcolonial world. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has intervened in Caribbean domestic politics to enhance democracy, continuing its oscillation between democratic and imperial impulses.
Homeric Religion: The Gods and the Poet
Authors: Minchin Elizabeth
Published: July 2019

The epics that are associated with Homer’s name, the Iliad and the Odyssey, emerge from a long tradition of oral song that extends back into the Late Bronze Age. The poems themselves, however, date from the late 8th or early 7th centuries bc. From the perspective of religious belief and religious practice, the society that is described in these epics, like the society of the 8th- and 7th-century Aegean world, is a polytheistic society: the heroes within the epics, like the audiences themselves of that epic tradition, worship not one but a number of gods. The gods of the epics, such as Zeus, Hera, Athena, Apollo, and Aphrodite, are, however, remarkably vivid, in that they have not only been intensely personalized, being endowed with humanlike form and appearance, but also socialized. These gods are portrayed as a family that lives together on Mount Olympus, where they are embedded in a complex web of interpersonal relationships. And yet, despite their divine status, the gods of epic mingle with the race of heroes on earth; indeed, when they choose, they are key players in human affairs. On occasions the gods behave in ways that, to another culture, might appear undignified, ridiculous, or ungodly; but, for the most part, they presented as powerful figures and at times terrible.

To turn from theology of belief, as represented in the Homeric epics, to the theology of religious practice, it will become clear from the discussion in this article that the Homeric account of religious practice is different in some respects from the religious practice of the archaic Greek world; what is observable is that the epic tradition has omitted from its account of religious practice a number of elements important to worshippers in the real world, such as divination through the consultation of entrails or rituals of fertility. And a certain poetic stylization of presentation has made some real-world practices less recognizable. More recently there have been fruitful attempts to identify elements of religious belief and practice that can be traced back in time to the wider Bronze Age world. At the same time, too, scholars have reflected on the gods’ role in the epic as participants in and observers of the action.
Islam, Art, and Depictions of Prophets
Authors: Milstein Rachel
Published: July 2019

The history of figurative painting in Islamic lands, although limited to certain regions and periods, includes a meaningful variety of saintly iconographies, mostly as book illustrations. Produced from the turn of the 14th to the early 17th century in Iranian capital cities or in the Ottoman Empire, paintings of prophets illuminate manuscripts of universal histories, encyclopedias, didactic poetry, and anthologies of prophetic biographies (Stories of the Prophets). They depict personages, not necessarily prophets, from the Old and the New Testaments, two Arab prophets mentioned in the Qurʼan, and finally Muhammad (and ʿAli, although he was not a prophet). The acts of these figures served as moral and spiritual models for the individual believers and, no less so, for the desired behavior of Muslim rulers. In Iran, the message of the illustrated texts and their paintings shifts from historical to moral, and often to mystical. In the Ottoman Empire, in addition, the prophets were conceived as forefathers of the Ottoman dynasty. In Moghul India, only Solomon and Jesus were depicted, not very often, while Joseph’s story was quite popular in late Kashmir. The impact of Western iconography and style, which characterize the recurrence of Jesus’ image, is seen also in later Iran, where portrayals of Solomon, Joseph, and Jesus were painted mainly on decorative objects, such as pen boxes and book bindings.
Favelas and Politics in Brazil, 1890–1960
Authors: Fischer Brodwyn
Published: July 2019

All cities are forged by politics. But Brazil’s “informal” neighborhoods—and especially the favelas that now shape every Brazilian urban landscape—have an especially raw link to the political world. Favelas and other informal settlements are vital to Brazil’s cityscapes; they are also spaces historically defined by weak formal regulation and tenuous urban citizenship. In the informal city, property tenancy, city services, and basic civil protections were historically defined as privileges rather than rights. This was not for lack of claims-making; favela residents demanded urban belonging and engaged in intense legal battles over issues of property and regulation long before Brazil’s “rights to the city” movements gained international recognition. But Brazilian institutions proved mostly unwilling to recognize those claims, forcing informal residents to rely on a wide range of political strategies to achieve some modicum of permanence, citizenship, and rights to the city.

Urban informality and urban politics thus developed in tandem in Brazil before 1960, as favelas successfully rooted themselves in Brazil’s most significantly “informal” cities: Rio de Janeiro (Brazil’s national capital until 1960 and the birthplace of the term “favela”) and Recife (the Northeast’s regional capital, long Brazil’s third largest city, and a hothouse for the politics of informality). In both places, informal politics involved grassroots mobilization, symbolic contestations in the public sphere, and engagement with a remarkably diverse tangle of activists, patrons, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, politicians, intellectuals, artists, policymakers, and politicians. Informal residents were agile and effective political actors, who managed collectively and incrementally to establish favela residents’ de facto right to occupy Brazilian cityscapes. At the same time, the contradictions of favela politics made it difficult to convert de facto permanence into juridically enforceable rights to the city. The outcome was a politics of permanence rather than a politics of equality, the results of which are still all too apparent in Brazil’s contemporary urban form.
Psychiatry and Insanity in Mexico, 1876–1968
Authors: Molina Andrés Ríos
Published: July 2019

In Mexico, there were hospitals for the “demented” from the early years of the Spanish colony. It was not until the second half of the 19th century, however, that the first physicians interested in alterations of the brain published articles on the etiology, symptomatology, and treatment of mental illnesses. Within a larger context of health reforms launched during the presidency of Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911), known as the Porfiriato, healthcare officials decided to close the hospitals for the insane and construct a modern institution where psychiatry could grow as a discipline and where patients could be treated using scientific methods. Furthermore, along with the economic and cultural development that took place during the Porfiriato, there was an increase in the number of patients admitted to hospitals for the insane, while at the same time the number of doctors interested in the clinical treatment of mental illnesses increased, as well. The officials’ decision became a reality on September 1, 1910—just two months before the Revolution broke out—when La Castañeda General Asylum was opened. It was a complex of twenty-four buildings in the town of Mixcoac. In addition to being an institution for patient care, it was also where the first generations of Mexican psychiatrists and neurologists were trained. As early as the 1930s, the asylum began to have problems with overcrowding, unhealthy conditions, and deterioration of the facilities. The doctors there repeatedly called for the patient care system to be restructured. In 1944, a psychiatric reform called the “Castañeda Operation” began, seeking to decentralize psychiatric care and to use agricultural work as a therapeutic tool. The result was the creation of seven new hospitals and the permanent closure of the asylum in 1968. Recent historiography on psychiatry from its beginnings in the Porfiriato to the time of that reform have shown that it was a period marked by the rise and fall of a utopian dream, that of the therapeutic effectiveness of psychiatric internment. It was a transition from the single, large asylum in the capital city to a network of hospitals that relied on outpatient care, early detection, and medication as a way to dismantle the asylum model. As a result, La Castañeda General Asylum has held a privileged place in historical study as the stage for the beginning, the development, and the consolidation of Mexican psychiatry.
Environmental Conflict and Exploitation in the Coastal Areas of Chile
Authors: Camus Pablo
Published: July 2019

Small fishermen have lost their ability to make use of the maritime and coastal environments at the same time that the Chilean state has facilitated the introduction of capital and the privatization of the sea, impacting ecosystems and ancestral productive activities alike. However, faced with the industrialization of maritime spaces, artisanal fishermen developed mechanisms and strategies that allowed them to dispute the privatization of the sea and exercise their rights to occupy coastal areas.
An Ironic Overlay: The Use of Voice-Over Narration in The Age of Innocence, by Martin Scorsese
Authors: Costa Cynthia Beatrice
Published: July 2019

Often praised for its cinematic artistry and faithfulness to the homonymous novel (Edith Wharton, 1920), The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993) is sometimes seen, however, as a reminder of the perils of voice-over narration in fiction films (Herman). By examining its use in relation to notions of novel adaptation (Whelehan; Leitch) and approaching irony in the film as a rhetorical device (Booth; Hutcheon; MacDowell), this article counterpoints the opinion (Travers; Cahir) that the voice-over narration might have decreased the dramatic potency of Scorsese’s work. In doing so, two main hypotheses emerged: (1) displaying a voice that purposefully invokes the novel’s author might have enhanced the degree of association between adaptation and source material, and (2) in deepening the viewers’ understanding of certain scenes by revealing inside information, the voice-over adds an ironic overlay to the film.
Restrictive Transfusion Strategy and Clinical Decision Support Practices for Reducing RBC Transfusion Overuse
Authors: Derzon James H , Clarke Nicole , Alford Aaron , Gross Irwin , Shander Aryeh , Thurer Robert
Published: July 2019

Objectives

Assess support for the effectiveness of two separate practices, restrictive transfusion strategy and computerized physician order entry/clinical decision support (CPOE/CDS) tools, in decreasing RBC transfusions in adult surgical and nonsurgical patients.

Methods

Following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Laboratory Medicine Best Practice (LMBP) Systematic Review (A-6) method, studies were assessed for quality and evidence of effectiveness in reducing the percentage of patients transfused and/or units of blood transfused.

Results

Twenty-five studies on restrictive transfusion practice and seven studies on CPOE/CDS practice met LMBP inclusion criteria. The overall strength of the body of evidence of effectiveness for restrictive transfusion strategy and CPOE/CDS was rated as high.

Conclusions

Based on these procedures, adherence to an institutional restrictive transfusion strategy and use of CPOE/CDS tools for hemoglobin alerts or reminders of the institution’s restrictive transfusion policies are effective in reducing RBC transfusion overuse.
Genomic and metabolomic analysis of step-wise malignant transformation in human skin fibroblasts
Authors: Kariagina Anastasia , Lunt Sophia Y , McCormick J Justin
Published: July 2019

Metabolic changes accompanying a step-wise malignant transformation was investigated using a syngeneic lineage of human fibroblasts. Cell immortalization was associated with minor alterations in metabolism. Consecutive loss of cell cycle inhibition in immortalized cells resulted in increased levels of oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS). Overexpression of the H-Ras oncoprotein produced cells forming sarcomas in athymic mice. These transformed cells exhibited increased glucose consumption, glycolysis and a further increase in OXPHOS. Because of the markedly increased OXPHOS in transformed cells, the impact of a transaminase inhibitor, aminooxyacetic acid (AOA), which decreases glutamine influx to the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, was tested. Indeed, AOA significantly decreased proliferation of malignantly transformed fibroblasts and fibrosarcoma-derived cells in vitro and in vivo. AOA also decreased proliferation of cells susceptible to malignant transformation. Metabolomic studies in normal and transformed cells indicated that, in addition to the anticipated effect on the TCA cycle, AOA decreased production of nucleotides adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and uridine monophosphate. Exogenous nucleotides partially rescued decreased proliferation of the malignant cells treated with AOA. Our data indicate that AOA blocks several metabolic pathways essential for growth of malignant cells. Therefore, OXPHOS may provide important therapeutic targets for treatment of sarcoma.
Leukocytoclastic Vasculitis Related to Ustekinumab in a Crohn’s Disease Patient: First Case Report and Literature Review
Authors: Costa-Moreira Pedro , Lopes Susana , Santos Ana Luísa , Pedrosa Ana Filipa , Andrade Patrícia , Portugal Raquel , Macedo Guilherme
Published: July 2019

Leukocytoclastic vasculitis is a single-organ, skin-isolated small vessel vasculitis. It can be a side effect of many common drugs, including biological agents. Unlike with other drugs, leukocytoclastic vasculitis induced by biological agents may have a prolonged latency period. We report the first case of ustekinumab-induced leukocytoclastic vasculitis in a patient with inflammatory bowel disease.
Carotid versus femoral access for transcatheter aortic valve implantation: a propensity score inverse probability weighting study
Authors: Folliguet Thierry A , Teiger Emmanuel , Beurtheret Sylvain , Modine Thomas , Lefevre Thierry , Van Belle Eric , Gilard Martine , Eltchaninoff Helene , Koning René , Iung Bernard , Verhoye Jean Philippe , Leprince Pascal , Le Breton Hervé , Lafont Antoine , Parolari Alessandro , Barili Fabio
Published: July 2019

OBJECTIVES

The transcarotid (TC) approach for transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is potentially an optimal alternative to the transfemoral (TF) approach. Our goal was to compare the safety and efficacy of TC- and TF-TAVI.

METHODS

Patients who underwent TF-TAVI or TC-TAVI in the prospectively collected FRANCE TAVI registry between January 2013 and December 2015 were compared. Propensity score inverse probability weighting methods were employed to minimize the impact of bias related to non-random treatment assignment.

RESULTS

Of the 11 033 patients included in the current study, 10 598 (96%) underwent a TF-TAVI and 435 (4.1%) had a TC-TAVI. Patients in the TC-TAVI access group presented with a higher risk profile but were significantly younger. There were no differences in the perioperative and 2-year mortality rates after adjustment [odds ratio (OR) 1.02, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.62–1.68; P = 0.99 and hazard ratio 1.03, 95% CI 0.7–1.35; P = 0.83). TC-TAVI was associated with a significant risk of stroke (OR 2.42, 95% CI 2.01–2.92; P < 0.001), ST-elevation myocardial infarction (OR 7.32, 95% CI 3.87–13.87; P < 0.001), infections (OR 2.36, 95% CI 2.04–2.71; P < 0.001), bleeding (OR 2.01, 95% CI 1.76–2.29; P < 0.001), renal failure (OR 2.23, 95% CI 1.90–2.60; P < 0.001) and need for dialysis (OR 2.36, 95% CI 2.01–2.76, P < 0.001). Conversely, TC-TAVI was not confirmed as a risk factor for pacemaker implantation after adjustment (OR 1.05, 95% CI 0.96–1.15; P < 0.28) and was a protective factor for vascular complications (OR 0.37, 95% CI 0.32–0.43; P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

TC-TAVI is a safe procedure compared to TF-TAVI, although it holds an increased risk of perioperative complications. It should be considered in case of non-femoral peripheral access as the second access choice, to increase the overall safety of TAVI procedures.
Whole-Genome Sequencing of the Giant Devil Catfish, Bagarius yarrelli
Authors: Jiang Wansheng , Lv Yunyun , Cheng Le , Yang Kunfeng , Bian Chao , Wang Xiaoai , Li Yanping , Pan Xiaofu , You Xinxin , Zhang Yuanwei , Yang Jinlong , Li Jia , Zhang Xinhui , Liu Shuwei , Sun Chao , Yang Junxing , Shi Qiong
Published: July 2019

As one economically important fish in the southeastern Himalayas, the giant devil catfish (Bagarius yarrelli) has been known for its extraordinarily large body size. It can grow up to 2 m, whereas the non-Bagarius sisorids only reach 10–30 cm. Another outstanding characteristic of Bagarius species is the salmonids-like reddish flesh color. Both body size and flesh color are interesting questions in science and also valuable features in aquaculture that worth of deep investigations. Bagarius species therefore are ideal materials for studying body size evolution and color depositions in fish muscles, and also potential organisms for extensive utilization in Asian freshwater aquaculture. In a combination of Illumina and PacBio sequencing technologies, we de novo assembled a 571-Mb genome for the giant devil catfish from a total of 153.4-Gb clean reads. The scaffold and contig N50 values are 3.1 and 1.6 Mb, respectively. This genome assembly was evaluated with 93.4% of Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs completeness, 98% of transcripts coverage, and highly homologous with a chromosome-level-based genome of channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus). We detected that 35.26% of the genome assembly is composed of repetitive elements. Employing homology, de novo, and transcriptome-based annotations, we annotated a total of 19,027 protein-coding genes for further use. In summary, we generated the first high-quality genome assembly of the giant devil catfish, which provides an important genomic resource for its future studies such as the body size and flesh color issues, and also for facilitating the conservation and utilization of this valuable catfish.
Electromagnetic responses to an earthquake source due to the motional induction effect in a 2-D layered model
Authors: Gao Yongxin , Wang Dongdong , Wen Jian , Hu Hengshan , Chen Xiaofei , Yao Cheng
Published: July 2019

Movement of the conductive earth medium in the ambient geomagnetic field can generate an electromotive force and a motional induction current, which further cause the disturbances of the electromagnetic (EM) fields. Such a mechanoelectric coupling is known as the motional induction (MI) effect and has been proposed to be a possible mechanism for the generation of the observed EM signals during earthquakes. In this paper, we study the EM responses to an earthquake source due to such a MI effect in a 2-D horizontally layered model. First we transform the governing equations that couple the elastodynamic equations and Maxwell equations into a set of first-order ordinary depth-dependent differential equations. Then we solve the seismic and EM responses to a moment tensor source. Finally, we transform the 2-D seismic and EM responses to 3-D responses using a simple amplitude correction method. We conduct several numerical examples to investigate the properties of the EM signals generated by the earthquake source. The results show that two types of EM signals can be observed. The first one is the coseismic electric/magnetic field that accompanies the seismic P and S waves as well as the Rayleigh wave. The second one is the early EM signal which arrives before the P wave. The numerical results show that the EM signals change with the inclination angle of the geomagnetic field, the azimuth angle between the wave propagation plane and the geomagnetic vertical plane, and the medium conductivity. Increase in the conductivity can enhance the coseismic electric and magnetic signals. Our simulation also shows that an EM wave can be generated by a seismic wave at the interface separating two different media. The radiation pattern of the interface EM wave generated by a P wave is similar to that of a horizontal electric dipole located on the interface.
Velocity–porosity–mineralogy trends in chalk and consolidated carbonate rocks
Authors: Dvorkin Jack , Alabbad Abrar
Published: July 2019

Published laboratory elastic-wave velocity versus porosity data in carbonate rocks exhibit significant scatter even at a fixed mineralogy. This scatter is usually attributed to the strong variability in the rock-frame or pore-space geometry, which, in turn, is driven by the richness and complexity of diagenetic alteration in these very reactive sediments. Yet, by examining wireline data from oil-bearing high-to-medium porosity chalk deposits, we find surprisingly tight velocity–porosity trends. Moreover, these trends are continued into the low-porosity domain by data from a location thousands of miles away from the chalk field. This congruence implies a universality of diagenetic trends, at least in the massive deposits under examination. We also find that the elastic bulk and shear moduli of the pure-calcite end member are somewhat smaller than such values reported in the literature. Using the end-member elastic constants relevant to the data under examination, we establish a theoretical rock physics model to match and generalize these data.
3-D marine controlled-source electromagnetic modelling in an anisotropic medium using a Wavelet–Galerkin method with a secondary potential formulation
Authors: Chen Hanbo , Li Tonglin
Published: July 2019

This paper presents a new algorithm for solving 3-D MCSEM modelling problems in an anisotropic medium using a Wavelet–Galerkin method (WGM) based on compactly supported Daubechies wavelets which are differentiable according to the requirement. In order to avoid the source singularity, we adopted a secondary potential formulation for the quasi-static Maxwell's equation. The primary field on the modelling domain is calculated using fast Hankel transform. The domain can be discretized by locally intensive nodes to deal with the model's complexity, which is observed to improve the accuracy of the solution. The sparse system of the WGM equations is solved using the direct solver MUMPS. This study's algorithm is then applied to calculate the response of the MCSEM in isotropic and anisotropic mediums. The results generated are verified against with solution obtained by FE method and confirmed the performance of the algorithm presented in this study.
Access to healthcare for children with Congenital Zika Syndrome in Brazil: perspectives of mothers and health professionals
Authors: Albuquerque Maria S V , Lyra Tereza M , Melo Ana P L , Valongueiro Sandra A , Araújo Thalia V B , Pimentel Camila , Moreira Martha C N , Mendes Corina H F , Nascimento Marcos , Kuper Hannah , Penn-Kekana Loveday
Published: July 2019

The Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS) epidemic took place in Brazil between 2015 and 2017 and led to the emergence of at least 3194 children born with CZS. We explored access to healthcare services and activities in the Unified Health Service (Sistema Único de Saúde: SUS) from the perspective of mothers of children with CZS and professionals in the Public Healthcare Network. We carried out a qualitative, exploratory study, using semi-structured interviews, in two Brazilian states—Pernambuco, which was the epicentre of the epidemic in Brazil, and Rio de Janeiro, where the epidemic was less intense. The mothers and health professionals reported that healthcare provision was insufficient and fragmented and there were problems with follow-up care. There was a lack of co-ordination and an absence of communication between the various specialized services and between different levels of the health system. We also noted a public–private mixture in access to healthcare services, resulting from a segmented system and related to inequality of access. High reported household expenditure is an expression of the phenomenon of underfunding of the public system. The challenges that mothers and health professionals reported exposes contradictions in the health system which, although universal, does not guarantee equitable and comprehensive care. Other gaps were revealed through the outbreak. The epidemic provided visibility regarding difficulties of access for other children with disabilities determined by other causes. It also made explicit the gender inequalities that had an impact on the lives of mothers and other female caregivers, as well as an absence of the provision of care for these groups. In the face of an epidemic, the Brazilian State reproduced old fashioned forms of action—activities related to the transmitting mosquito and to prevention with an emphasis on the individual and no action related to social determinants.
Monocyte Dysfunction, Activation, and Inflammation After Long-Term Antiretroviral Therapy in an African Cohort
Authors: Nabatanzi Rose , Bayigga Lois , Cose Stephen , Rowland Jones Sarah , Joloba Moses , Canderan Glenda , Nakanjako Damalie
Published: July 2019

Background

Monocyte dysfunction may persist during antiretroviral therapy (ART).

Methods

Frozen peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 30 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected ART-treated adults with sustained viral suppression and CD4 counts ≥500 cells/µL were consecutively analyzed for monocyte phenotypes and function.

Results

Nonclassical monocytes (CD14+, CD16++), interleukin (IL)-1β production, and expression of CD40 and CD86 were lower among ART-treated HIV-infected adults relative to age-matched HIV-negative adults (P = .01, P = .01, and P = .02, respectively). Intestinal fatty acid-binding protein, IL6, and soluble CD14 were higher among HIV-infected adults relative to HIV-negative adults (P = .0002, P = .04, and P = .0017, respectively).

Conclusions

Further investigation is required to understand drivers of persistent monocyte activation and dysfunction.