bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cognitive Reserve in the Aging Brain
Authors: Valenzuela Michael J.
Published: February 2019

Cognitive reserve refers to the many ways that neural, cognitive, and psychosocial processes can adapt and change in response to brain aging, damage, or disease, with the overarching effect of preserving cognitive function. Cognitive reserve therefore helps to explain why cognitive abilities in late life vary as dramatically as they do, and why some individuals are brittle to degenerative pathology and others exceptionally resilient. Historically, the term has evolved and at times suffered from vague, circular, and even competing notions. Fortunately, a recent broad consensus process has developed working definitions that resolve many of these issues, and here the evidence is presented in the form of a suggested Framework: Contributors to cognitive reserve, which include environmental exposures that demand new learning and intellectual challenge, genetic factors that remain largely unknown, and putative G × E interactions; mechanisms of cognitive reserve that can be studied at the biological, cognitive, or psychosocial level, with a common theme of plasticity, flexibility, and compensability; and the clinical outcome of (enriched) cognitive reserve that can be summarized as a compression of cognitive morbidity, a relative protection from incident dementia but increased rate of progression and mortality after diagnosis. Cognitive reserve therefore has great potential to address the global challenge of aging societies, yet for this potential to be realized a renewed scientific, clinical, and societal focus will be required.
Longitudinal, Cross-Sectional, and Sequential Designs in Lifespan Developmental Psychology
Authors: Whitbourne Susan Krauss
Published: February 2019

Research methods in lifespan development include single-factor designs that either follow a single cohort of individuals over time or compare age groups at a single time point. The two basic types of studies involving the manipulation of the single factors of age, cohort, and time of measurement are longitudinal and cross-sectional. Each of these has advantages and disadvantages, but both are characterized by limitations because they cannot definitively separate the joint influences of age, cohort, and type of measurement. The third group of designs involves manipulation of two or more levels of each factor to permit inferences to be drawn that separate personal from social aging.

The theoretical problems involved in both the single-factor and sequential designs combine with practical issues to present lifespan developmental researchers with a number of choices in approaching the variables of interest. The theoretical problems include the inevitable linking of personal with social aging, particularly evident in single-factor designs, and the fact that selective attrition leads to the differential availability of increasingly select older samples. Practical problems include the need to assign participants to appropriate age intervals and such clerical issues as the need to track participants in follow-up investigations. Researchers must also be aware of methodological issues related to task equivalence across individuals of different ages and the need to covary for potential confounds that could lead to differences across groups of participants due to such factors as education and health status.

The increasing recognition of the need to address these issues is leading to a body of literature that reflects the growing sophistication of the field along with the more widespread availability of sophisticated analytic methods. As these improvements continue to raise the level of scholarship in the field, there will be a greater understanding of both ontogenetic change as well as the influence of context on development from childhood through later life.
Intraindividual Reaction Time Variability, Attention, and Age-Related Outcomes
Authors: Bunce David , Bauermeister Sarah
Published: February 2019

Intraindividual variability in the present context refers to the moment-to-moment variation in attentional or executive engagement over a given time period. Typically, it is measured using the response latencies collected across the trials of a behavioral neurocognitive task. In aging research, the measure has received a lot of recent interest as it may provide important insights into age-related cognitive decline and neuropathology as well as having potential as a neurocognitive assessment tool in healthcare settings. In the present chapter, we begin by reviewing the key empirical findings relating to age and intraindividual variability. Here, research shows that intraindividual variability increases with age and predicts a range of age-related outcomes including gait impairment, falls and errors more broadly, mild cognitive impairment, dementia, and mortality. Brain imaging research suggests that greater variability is associated with age-related or neuropathological changes to a frontal–cingulate–parietal network and that white matter compromise and dopamine depletion may be key underlying mechanisms. We then consider the cognitive and neurobiological theoretical underpinnings of the construct before providing a description of the various methods and metrics that have been used to compute measures of variability – reaction time cut-offs, raw and residualized intraindividual standard deviations, coefficient of variation, ex-Gaussian curve and fast Fourier transformation. A further section considers the range of neurocognitive tasks that have been used to assess intraindividual variability. Broadly, these tasks can be classified on a continuum of cognitive demands as psychomotor, executive control or higher-order cognitive tasks (e.g., episodic memory). Finally, we provide some pointers concerning the pressing issues that future research needs to address in the area. We conclude that the existing body of theoretical and empirical work underlines the potential of intraindividual reaction time variability measures as additions to the neuropsychological test batteries that are used in the early detection of a range of age-related neurocognitive disorders in healthcare settings.
Home-Based Care and Primary Care Settings for Delivery of Geropsychology Services to Older Persons
Authors: Shrestha Srijana
Published: February 2019

Despite high rates of mental illnesses, older adults face multiple barriers in accessing mental health care. Primary care clinics, and home- and community-based senior-serving agencies are settings where older adults routinely receive medical care and social services. Therefore, integration of mental health care with existing service delivery systems can improve access to mental health services and reduce the unmet mental health needs of seniors. Evidence suggests that with innovative components mental health provided in collaboration with primary care providers with or without co-location within primary care clinics can improve depression and anxiety. Home-based models for depression care are also effective, but more research is needed in examining home-based approaches in late-life anxiety treatment. It is noteworthy that integrative models are particularly helpful in expanding the reach in underserved communities: elders from minority and low-income backgrounds and homebound seniors.
Mechanisms of Behavioral Changes After Spinal Cord Injury
Authors: Fouad Karim , Torres-Espín Abel , Fenrich Keith K.
Published: February 2019

Spinal cord injury results in a wide range of behavioral changes including impaired motor and sensory function, autonomic dysfunction, spasticity, and depression. Currently, restoring lost motor function is the most actively studied and sought-after goal of spinal cord injury research. This research is rooted in the fact that although self-repair following spinal cord injury in adult mammals is very limited, there can be some recovery of motor function. This recovery is strongly dependent on the lesion size and location as well as on neural activity of denervated networks activated mainly through physical activity (i.e., rehabilitative training). Recovery of motor function is largely due to neuroplasticity, which includes adaptive changes in spared and injured neural circuitry. Neuroplasticity after spinal cord injury is extensive and includes mechanisms such as moderate axonal sprouting, the formation of new synaptic connections, network remapping, and changes to neuron cell properties. Neuroplasticity after spinal cord injury has been described at various physiological and anatomical levels of the central nervous system including the brain, brainstem, and spinal cord, both above and below injury sites. The growing number of mechanisms underlying postinjury plasticity indicate the vast complexity of injury-induced plasticity. This poses important opportunities to further enhance and harness plasticity in order to promote recovery. However, the diversity of neuroplasticity also creates challenges for research, which is frequently based on mechanistically driven approaches. The appreciation of the complexity of neuronal plasticity and the findings that recovery is based on a multitude and interlinked adaptations will be essential in developing meaningful new treatment avenues.
Physiology of Color Vision in Primates
Authors: Shapley Robert
Published: February 2019

Color perception in macaque monkeys and humans depends on the visually evoked activity in three cone photoreceptors and on neuronal post-processing of cone signals. Neuronal post-processing of cone signals occurs in two stages in the pathway from retina to the primary visual cortex. The first stage, in in P (midget) ganglion cells in the retina, is a single-opponent subtractive comparison of the cone signals. The single-opponent computation is then sent to neurons in the Parvocellular layers of the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN), the main visual nucleus of the thalamus. The second stage of processing of color-related signals is in the primary visual cortex, V1, where multiple comparisons of the single-opponent signals are made. The diversity of neuronal interactions in V1cortex causes the cortical color cells to be subdivided into classes of single-opponent cells and double-opponent cells. Double-opponent cells have visual properties that can be used to explain most of the phenomenology of color perception of surface colors; they respond best to color edges and spatial patterns of color. Single opponent cells, in retina, LGN, and V1, respond to color modulation over their receptive fields and respond best to color modulation over a large area in the visual field.
Islamophobia and Education
Authors: Zaidi Rahat
Published: February 2019

Islamophobia is a term used to describe society’s phobic reaction to a certain religious or ideological group. Historically, the coined word Islamophobia has been manipulated into various constructs, which pose a microcosm-macrocosm challenge for educators over whether or not the education system can act as a platform for better understanding what is currently transpiring in the world. It is in the classroom that educators and students can grapple with the sociophobic situation and pull apart the two sides of Islam and phobia. In the classroom there are learning opportunities that can foster critical new understandings about why social phobias exist and challenge, through an antiphobic curriculum, the fear and indifference of otherness. New and higher levels of immigration in the Western world, rising tensions in non-Muslim populations, and the baggage of history have brought us to a critical turning point. Educators can respond positively and constructively to this challenge and opportunity and help to steer the course. Although Islamophobia is present in many countries worldwide, assimilationist policies vary from country to country. Nonetheless, individual countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Australia, and in those in Western Europe, have their own takes on Islamophobia. Since 9/11 there has been significant agreement among scholars that societal changes can be constructed through the systematic employment of specific curricular initiatives. These initiatives call into question the traditional trajectory of how the sentiments of Islamophobia can be successfully countered in the classroom to reduce sociophobic tensions and increase cultural and linguistic awareness. This can happen through culturally sustaining pedagogy, whose primary objective is to embrace literate, linguistic, and cultural pluralism in the school system. Education has tremendous power to challenge phobic perspectives and move beyond the traditional realm of what has historically been the norm in the classroom.
The Peopling of Madagascar
Authors: Anderson Atholl
Published: February 2019

Since the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century the observed ethnic complexity of the Malagasy, the Madagascan people, has been a subject of conjecture in several respects. When did people first reach Madagascar? Where did the different elements of the population originate? What was the sequence of their arrival? What was the nature of their maritime migrations? Early answers to these questions relied on the historical traditions of some Malagasy populations, especially of the Merina and highland groups, and on an extensive archive of historical and ethnographic observations.

Recent approaches, through historical linguistics, palaeoecology, genomic history, and archaeology, especially in the last thirty years have provided new perspectives on the enduring issues of Madagascan population history. The age of initial colonization is still debated vigorously, but the bulk of current archaeological data, together with linguistic and genomic histories, suggest that people first arrived around the middle of the first millennium ce or later.

Evidence of linguistic origins and human genetics supports the prevailing view that the first people came from Southeast Asia, the majority of them specifically from Borneo. Later Bantu migration from Africa was followed by admixture of those populations and other smaller groups from South Asia, in Madagascar. Admixture in East Africa before migration to Madagascar is no longer favored, although it cannot be ruled out entirely.

Voyaging capability is a key topic that is, however, difficult to pin down. There is no necessity in the current data to envisage transoceanic voyages, and no evidence of Southeast Asian vessels in East Africa or Madagascar in the first millennium ce, although it is impossible to rule that out. The safest assumption at present is that contact between Southeast Asia and Madagascar during the period of colonization occurred through the established network of coastal and monsoon passages and shipping around the northern perimeter of the Indian Ocean.
Nationalism and Decolonization in Cameroon
Authors: Takougang Joseph
Published: February 2019

The union between the former French Cameroun and the British Southern Cameroons on October 1, 1961, to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon was a unique experiment in nation building and the struggle for independence in Africa. For instance, the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC), the first truly nationalist party in the former French trusteeship that advocated immediate independence and reunification with the British Cameroons, was banned in May 1955 by French colonial authorities because of its radical views, since France was still reluctant to grant its African colonies complete independence. For France, the choice of who and which party could lead the territory to independence depended on who French authorities thought could guarantee continued relations with France following independence. In the end, Ahmadou Ahidjo and his Union Camerounaise (UC) emerged as the best candidate to meet France’s objectives in a postcolonial Cameroun. On the other hand, because of the colonial arrangement that allowed Britain to administer its section of the former German colony as part of its colony of Nigeria to the west, the nationalist struggle took a different trajectory and was more against Nigerian rather than British colonial domination. In other words, for many Southern Cameroonians, the focus by the two major parties (Kamerun National Democratic Party (KNDP) and Cameroons Peoples’ National Convention (CPNC)) during the campaign leading to the plebiscite on February 11, 1961, was whether the territory should be part of the Republic of Cameroun, which was engulfed in violence and bloodshed following its independence on January 1, 1960, or face the threat of Igbo domination if Southern Cameroonians decided to become part of an independent Nigeria.
Regional Studies of Indigenous Health: Europe and Russia
Authors: Bjerregaard Peter
Published: February 2019

The indigenous peoples of Europe and Russia comprise the Inuit in Greenland, the Sami in northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia and forty officially recognized ethnic minority groups in northern Russia plus a few larger-population indigenous peoples in Russia. While the health of the Inuit and Sami has been well studied, information about the health of the indigenous peoples of Russia is considerably scarcer. The overall health of the Sami is in many aspects not very different from that of their non-indigenous neighbors in northern Scandinavia; the health of the Inuit is similar across Greenland and North America and far less favorable than that of Denmark, southern Canada and the lower 48 American states, respectively; the health of the indigenous peoples of the Russian north is poor, partly due to poverty and alcohol.
Faunal Analysis in African Archaeology
Authors: Thompson Jessica C.
Published: February 2019

Faunal analysis (or zooarchaeology) in African archaeology is the identification, analysis, and interpretation of the remains of animal bones recovered from archaeological sites in Africa. Its methods and theoretical underpinnings derive from archaeology, paleontology, biology, and geochemistry, and they extend across all faunal categories. Much of the work in African faunal analysis concerns large-bodied mammalian taxa, but the approach encompasses analysis of fish, shellfish, birds, reptiles, and indeed all animal remains found in association with archaeological sites. The diversity of research encompassed within faunal analysis is also especially high in Africa, where the earliest reported archaeological site is far older than the earliest archaeological site outside of Africa. The extra time depth affords the African archaeological record a wide arena of research questions that are answerable using faunal data. Major themes in African faunal analysis include the origins of unique components of human diet and hunting ability, reconstruction of the transition from hunting and gathering to food production, and analysis of the historical use of animals in trade, exchange, and social status.
Early States and Complex Societies in Eastern and Southern Africa
Authors: Kusimba Chapurukha M.
Published: February 2019

How and in what ways did socially complex societies emerge on the East African coast and southern Africa? Scholarship has shown that elite investment in interregional trade and in extractive technologies, monopolization of wealth-creating resources, and warfare may have played a key role in the emergence of early states. To what extent was elite and non-elite engagement in local, regional, and transcontinental economic networks crucial to development of social complexity in eastern and southern Africa? Extensive research on the eastern coast of Africa (Kenya and Tanzania) and southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa) has yielded adequate data to enable a discussion on the trajectories of the evolution of social complexity and the state. So far, three crucial factors: (a) trade, (b) investment in extractive technologies, and (c) elite monopolization of wealth-creating resources coalesced to propel the region toward greater interaction and complexity. Major transformations in the form and increase of household size, clear differences in wealth and status, and settlement hierarchies occurred toward the end of the first millennium ad. Regional scholarship posits that elite control of internal and external trade infrastructure, restricted access to arable land and accumulation of surplus, manipulation of religious ideology, and exploitation of ecological crises were among the major factors that contributed to the rise of the state. Could these factors have also favored investment and use of organized violence as a means to gain access to and monopolize access to information and wealth-creating resources? Scholarship in the 21st century favors the notion that opportunistic use of ideological and ritual power enabled a small elite initially composed of elders, ritual specialists, and technical specialists to control the regional political economy and information flows. The timing of these transformations was continent-wide and date to the last three centuries of the first millennium ad. By all measures, the evidence points to wealth accumulation through trade, tribute, and investment in agrarianism, pastoralism, and mining.
Remittances
Authors: Meyer Silke , Ströhle Claudius
Published: February 2019

Remittances (i.e., the money, objects, ideas, and social capital migrants send to their families, kin, and communities in their places of origin) are a crucial part of the global economy and migration dynamics. On a micro level, they recognize, maintain, affirm, and disrupt social relationships across the world, mapping out a transnational space in which people work, live, and communicate with multiple belongings. In 2022, migrants sent 836 billion US dollars via official channels worldwide, causing social change in both the places of origin and destination. As such, remittances improve living conditions, facilitate access to education and health, enable the building of infrastructure, and boost the economy in the countries of origin. However, the power to improve individual and communal living conditions or even increase the gross domestic product mainly results from global inequality, and remittances mirror these asymmetrical relationships. Thus, they increase dependencies between sending and receiving countries, disrupt family relations, and create new inequalities along postcolonial routes.

As a key driver of the global economy, remittances have received a significant amount of attention from global institutions, policymakers, and researchers of various disciplines, maintaining a focus on the nexus of migration and development. However, studies in social science and humanities have also shown that transnational money transfers are often accompanied or reciprocated by social (ideas, know-how, norms), political (narratives, voting patterns), or material (gifts, objects) remittances.

From an anthropological perspective, remittances are social practices. By earning, sending, receiving, and spending remittances, actors establish, sustain, erode, or even control relations between families, kin, and communities in the places of destination and origin. The focus on individuals and their practices reveals connections as well as frictions in remittance relations, challenging the remittance mantra (i.e., the assumption that the multiple transfers from the Global North bring nothing but wealth and knowledge to the Global South). However, it should not be overlooked that through remittances, global inequalities are projected onto personal relationships, generating cross-border forms of participation and belonging as well as exclusion and discrimination.
Freedom of the Press
Authors: Lebovic Sam
Published: February 2019

According to the First Amendment of the US Constitution, Congress is barred from abridging the freedom of the press (“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”). In practice, the history of press freedom is far more complicated than this simple constitutional right suggests. Over time, the meaning of the First Amendment has changed greatly. The Supreme Court largely ignored the First Amendment until the 20th century, leaving the scope of press freedom to state courts and legislatures. Since World War I, jurisprudence has greatly expanded the types of publication protected from government interference. The press now has broad rights to publish criticism of public officials, salacious material, private information, national security secrets, and much else. To understand the shifting history of press freedom, however, it is important to understand not only the expansion of formal constitutional rights but also how those rights have been shaped by such factors as economic transformations in the newspaper industry, the evolution of professional standards in the press, and the broader political and cultural relations between politicians and the press.
Afghanistan-US Relations
Authors: Miller Paul D.
Published: February 2019

Afghanistan has twice been thrust front and center of US national security concerns in the past half-century: first, during the Soviet-Afghan War, when Afghanistan served as a proxy for American efforts to combat Soviet influence; and second, as the frontline state and host for America’s global response to al-Qaida’s terrorist attacks of 2001. In both instances, American involvement swung from intensive investment and engagement to withdrawal and neglect. In both cases, American involvement reflected US concerns more than Afghan realities. And both episodes resulted in short-term successes for American security with long-term consequences for Afghanistan and its people. The signing of a strategic partnership agreement between the two countries in 2012 and a bilateral security agreement in 2013 created the possibility of a steadier and more forward-looking relationship—albeit one that the American and Afghan people may be less inclined to pursue as America’s longest war continues to grind on.
Cacao Growing in the State of Bahia: A Socio-Political History
Authors: Mahony Mary Ann
Published: February 2019

For most of the 20th century, a narrow coastal strip of the Brazilian state of Bahia was the largest producer of Theobroma cacao in the Americas and the second largest in the world. Cacao arrived in the region from the Amazon in the first half of the 18th century, and its cultivation expanded rapidly in the 19th century due to several factors, including a favorable climate, available land, labor too limited for growing sugar, and a developing international market. Initially grown by members of the rural poor, including mission Indians, slaves and ex-slaves, by the 20th century cacao had turned southern Bahia into a plantation region dominated by large estates and exploited workers. This economic expansion came at the expense of the region’s flora and fauna, as well as of the small holders who had initiated the sector. The problems associated with this form of development became clear when the cacao disease known as Witch’s Broom arrived in the region in 1989 and cacao production collapsed. Southern Bahian planters attempting to avoid bankruptcy laid off hundreds of thousands of illiterate rural workers and sold off surviving tropical hardwoods. Historians know the region primarily through the writings of cacao-area native and Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado, but the region’s history goes much beyond the topics he covered and offers numerous opportunities for research.
Multilevel Environmental Governance in the European Union and United States
Authors: Provost Colin
Published: February 2019

Managing the risks of climate change partly involves setting and implementing regulatory standards that help to diminish the causes of climate change. This means setting regulatory standards that require businesses to emit fewer pollutants, most notably carbon dioxide. In large federalist systems like the United States and the European Union, this regulation is produced by a variety of institutional structures and policy instruments as well. In the United States, federal regulations often encompass stricter standards with less flexibility; these standards have direct impacts on the relevant regulated interests, but they also influence the content and structure of non-governmental regulations, such as those promulgated by NGOs or industry trade associations. This influential “shadow of hierarchy” can be witnessed in both the U.S. and E.U.

However, at a more local level, businesses and governments do not solely operate within the confines of strict, hierarchical regulation. Both sets of organizations join together horizontally to form compacts and regulatory networks that are often characterized more by guidance, soft law and collaborative efforts. While such institutions can be a welcome and effective complement to stricter, hierarchical regulation, such networks require high levels of trust and goal congruence to overcome the potential collective action problems that are inherently possible in such networks. Finally, the conditions under which networks and hierarchies both develop to construct environmental regulatory policies will depend on the dynamics of the policy process as well. Under ordinary circumstances, diverging preferences and collective action problems may create the foundation for more incremental and weaker regulatory standards, whereas an environmental disaster might create a groundswell of support for strict, judicially binding legislation. In this way, policy processes affect the structure of hierarchies and networks and ultimately the shape of regulations designed to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Planning Systems for Natural Hazard Risk Reduction
Authors: Schwab James C.
Published: February 2019

Planning systems are essentially a layer of guidance or legal requirements that sit atop plans of any type at any governmental level at or below the source of that guidance. In the case of natural hazard risk reduction, they involve rules or laws dealing with plans to reduce loss of life or property from such events. In much of the world, this is either unexplored territory or the frontier of public planning; very little of what exists in this realm predates the 1980s, although one can find earlier roots of the public discussion behind such systems.

That said, the evolution of such systems in 21st century has been fairly rapid, at least in those nations with the resources and technical capacity to pursue the subject. Driven largely by substantial increases in disaster losses and growing concern about worldwide impacts of climate change, research, technology, and lessons from practice have grown apace. However, that progress has been uneven and subject to inequities in resources and governmental capacity.
Assessment of Earthquake Performance of Structures by Hybrid Simulation
Authors: Elnashai Amr , Mahmoud Hussam
Published: February 2019

With current rapid growth of cities and the move toward the development of both sustainable and resilient infrastructure systems, it is vital for the structural engineering community to continue to improve their knowledge in earthquake engineering to limit infrastructure damage and the associated social and economic impacts. Historically, the development of such knowledge has been accomplished through the deployment of analytical simulations and experimental testing. Experimental testing is considered the most accurate tool by which local behavior of components or global response of systems can be assessed, assuming the test setup is realistically configured and the experiment is effectively executed. However, issues of scale, equipment capacity, and availability of research funding continue to hinder full-scale testing of complete structures. On the other hand, analytical simulation software is limited to solving specific type of problems and in many cases fail to capture complex behaviors, failure modes, and collapse of structural systems. Hybrid simulation has emerged as a potentially accurate and efficient tool for the evaluation of the response of large and complex structures under earthquake loading. In hybrid (experiment-analysis) simulation, part of a structural system is experimentally represented while the rest of the structure is numerically modeled. Typically, the most critical component is physically represented. By combining a physical specimen and a numerical model, the system-level behavior can be better quantified than modeling the entire system purely analytically or testing only a component. This article discusses the use of hybrid simulation as an effective tool for the seismic evaluation of structures. First, a chronicled development of hybrid simulation is presented with an overview of some of the previously conducted studies. Second, an overview of a hybrid simulation environment is provided. Finally, a hybrid simulation application example on the response of steel frames with semi-rigid connections under earthquake excitations is presented. The simulations included a full-scale physical specimen for the experimental module of a connection, and a 2D finite element model for the analytical module. It is demonstrated that hybrid simulation is a powerful tool for advanced assessment when used with appropriate analytical and experimental realizations of the components and that semi-rigid frames are a viable option in earthquake engineering applications.
Natural Hazards Governance in Nepal
Authors: Oven Katie
Published: February 2019

Natural hazards in Nepal have traditionally been managed on an ad hoc basis as and when they occur, with individuals and communities largely responsible for their own risk management. More recently, however, there has been a shift from response to disaster preparedness and risk reduction, in line with the United Nations Hyogo Framework for Action and the more recent Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). Like many developing countries, Nepal has received significant financial and technical support to implement DRR programs from the national to the community levels. While this has provided a much-needed incentive for action in this post-conflict, transitional state, it has also created a complex governance landscape involving a multitude of government and non-government stakeholders. Heavily influenced by the neoliberal development agenda, and in the absence of an up-to-date disaster management act, DRR programs focused largely on institution-building and technical interventions, for example, the establishment of disaster management committees, the retrofitting of schools and hospitals, and the development of flood early warning systems. Such interventions are highly technocratic and have been critiqued for failing to address the root causes of disasters, in particular, the systemic poverty, social inequality and marginalization that characterizes Nepal. Nepal is also undergoing a complex political transition, which has seen the ratification of a new constitution, federal restructuring, and local elections for the first time in 20 years, as well as the passing of the new Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act 2017. There is much scope for optimism but successful risk reduction moving forward will require commitment and action at all levels of the governance hierarchy, and a wider commitment to address the social injustice that continues to prevail.
Natural Flood Risk Management
Authors: Murgatroyd Anna , Dadson Simon
Published: February 2019

Flooding is a natural hazard with the potential to cause damage at the local, national, and global scale. Flooding is a natural product of heavy precipitation and increased runoff. It may also arise from elevated groundwater tables, coastal inundation, or failed drainage systems. Flooded areas can be identified as land beyond the channel network covered by water. Although flooding can cause significant damage to urban developments and infrastructure, it may be beneficial to the natural environment. Preemptive actions may be taken to protect communities at risk of inundation that are not able to relocate to an area not at risk of flooding. Adaptation measures include flood defenses, river channel modification, relocation, and active warning systems. Natural flood management (NFM) interventions are designed to restore, emulate, or enhance catchment processes. Such interventions are common in upper reaches of the river and in areas previously transformed by agriculture and urban development. Natural techniques can be categorized into three groups: water retention through management of infiltration and overland flow, managing channel connectivity and conveyance, and floodplain conveyance and storage. NFM may alter land use, improve land management, repair river channel morphology, enhance the riparian habitat, enrich floodplain vegetation, or alter land drainage. The range of natural flood management options allows a diverse range of flood hazards to be considered. As a consequence, there is an abundance of NFM case studies from contrasting environments around the globe, each addressing a particular set of flood risks. Much of the research supporting the use of NFM highlights both the benefits and costs of working with natural processes to reduce flood hazards in the landscape. However, there is a lack of quantitative evidence of the effectiveness of measures, both individually and in combination, especially at the largest scales and for extreme floods. Most evidence is based on modeling studies and observations often relate to a specific set of upstream measures that are challenging to apply elsewhere.
Ideology and power in TPLF’s Ethiopia: A historic reversal in the making?
Authors: Gebregziabher Tefera Negash
Published: February 2019

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has led Ethiopia for close to three decades as a core party within the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition. Various ideological claims permeated the consolidation of power by the TPLF, which now seems to be questioned by the new leadership in the EPRDF. This article locates the critical junctures in the history of the party and analyses how those junctures relate to power concentration rather than to ideological shifts as purported by the party. It argues that the circumstances surrounding the ‘shifts’ in ideologies by the TPLF show that ideologies were used to consolidate power within the party and later impose domination at the state level. A thorough investigation of the ideological history of the TPLF is crucial as Ethiopia seems to be standing at a critical ideological crossroad. Through a deep hermeneutic interpretation, the article concludes that leftist ideological threads such as a focus on vanguard rule, party-directed economy, and Stalinist understandings of ethnicity run throughout the ideological shifts of the TPLF. The article synthesizes the cosmetic ideological shifts in the context of a pragmatic party that has been applying market socialism.
Impact of errors of creatinine and cystatin C equations in the selection of living kidney donors
Authors: González-Rinne Ana , Luis-Lima Sergio , Escamilla Beatriz , Negrín-Mena Natalia , Ramírez Ana , Morales Adelaida , Vega Nicanor , García Patricia , Cabello Elisa , Marrero-Miranda Domingo , Aldea-Perona Ana , Alvarez Alejandra , Abad María del Carmen , Pérez-Tamajón Lourdes , González-Rinne Federico , González-Delgado Alejandra , Díaz Martín Laura , Jiménez-Sosa Alejandro , Torres Armando , Porrini Esteban
Published: February 2019

Background

Reliable determination of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is crucial in the evaluation of living kidney donors. Although some guidelines recommend the use of measured GFR (mGFR), many centres still rely on estimated GFR (eGFR) obtained through equations or 24-h creatinine clearance. However, eGFR is neither accurate nor precise in reflecting real renal function. We analysed the impact of eGFR errors on evaluation and decision making regarding potential donors.

Methods

We evaluated 103 consecutive living donors who underwent mGFR via iohexol plasma clearance and eGFR by 51 creatinine- and/or cystatin C–based equations. The cut-off for living donation in our centre is GFR > 80 mL/min for donors >35 years of age or 90 mL/min for those <35 years of age. We analysed the misclassification of donors based on the cut-off for donation-based eGFR.

Results

Ninety-three subjects (90.3%) had mGFR values above (donors) and 10 [9.7% (95% confidence interval 5.4–17)] below (non-donors) the cut-off. In non-donors, most of the equations gave eGFR values above the cut-off, so donation would have been allowed based on eGFR. All non-donors were female with reduced weight, height and body surface. In donors, up to 32 cases showed eGFR below the cut-off, while mGFR was actually higher. Therefore an important number of donors would not have donated based on eGFR alone.

Conclusion

The misclassification of donors around the cut-off for donation is very common with eGFR, making eGFR unreliable for the evaluation of living kidney donors. Whenever possible, mGFR should be implemented in this setting.
A European study on decellularized homografts for pulmonary valve replacement: initial results from the prospective ESPOIR Trial and ESPOIR Registry data†
Authors: Boethig Dietmar , Horke Alexander , Hazekamp Mark , Meyns Bart , Rega Filip , Van Puyvelde Joeri , Hübler Michael , Schmiady Martin , Ciubotaru Anatol , Stellin Giovanni , Padalino Massimo , Tsang Viktor , Jashari Ramadan , Bobylev Dmitry , Tudorache Igor , Cebotari Serghei , Haverich Axel , Sarikouch Samir
Published: February 2019

OBJECTIVES

Decellularized pulmonary homografts (DPH) have shown excellent results for pulmonary valve replacement. However, controlled multicentre studies are lacking to date.

METHODS

Prospective European multicentre trial evaluating DPH for pulmonary valve replacement. Matched comparison of DPH to bovine jugular vein (BJV) conduits and cryopreserved homografts (CH) considering patient age, type of heart defect and previous procedures.

RESULTS

In total, 121 patients (59 female) were prospectively enrolled (August 2014–December 2016), age 21.3 ± 14.4 years, DPH diameter 24.4 ± 2.8 mm. No adverse events occurred with respect to surgical handling; there were 2 early deaths (30 + 59 years) due to myocardial failure after multi-valve procedures and no late mortality (1.7% mortality). After a mean follow-up of 2.2 ± 0.6 years, the primary efficacy end points mean peak gradient (16.1 ± 12.1 mmHg) and regurgitation (mean 0.25 ± 0.48, grade 0–3) were excellent. One reoperation was required for recurrent subvalvular stenosis caused by a pericardial patch and 1 balloon dilatation was performed on a previously stented LPA. 100% follow-up for DPH patients operated before or outside the trial (n = 114) included in the ESPOIR Registry, age 16.6 ± 10.4 years, diameter 24.1 ± 4.2 mm, follow-up 5.1 ± 3.0 years. The combined DPH cohort, n = 235, comprising both Trial and Registry data showed significantly better freedom from explantation (DPH 96.7 ± 2.1%, CH 84.4 ± 3.2%, P = 0.029 and BJV 82.7 ± 3.2%, P = 0.012) and less structural valve degeneration at 10 years when matched to CH, n = 235 and BJV, n = 235 (DPH 61.4 ± 6.6%, CH 39.9 ± 4.4%, n.s., BJV 47.5 ± 4.5%, P = 0.029).

CONCLUSIONS: Initial results of the prospective multicentre ESPOIR Trial showed DPH to be safe and efficient. Current DPH results including Registry data were superior to BJV and CH.

Trial registration clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT 02035540.
Physiological and biochemical responses of Thalassiosira weissflogii (diatom) to seawater acidification and alkalization
Authors: Li Futian , Fan Jiale , Hu Lili , Beardall John , Xu Juntian
Published: February 2019

Increasing atmospheric pCO2 leads to seawater acidification, which has attracted considerable attention due to its potential impact on the marine biological carbon pump and function of marine ecosystems. Alternatively, phytoplankton cells living in coastal waters might experience increased pH/decreased pCO2 (seawater alkalization) caused by metabolic activities of other photoautotrophs, or after microalgal blooms. Here we grew Thalassiosira weissflogii (diatom) at seven pCO2 levels, including habitat-related lowered levels (25, 50, 100, and 200 µatm) as well as present-day (400 µatm) and elevated (800 and 1600 µatm) levels. Effects of seawater acidification and alkalization on growth, photosynthesis, dark respiration, cell geometry, and biogenic silica content of T. weissflogii were investigated. Elevated pCO2 and associated seawater acidification had no detectable effects. However, the lowered pCO2 levels (25 ∼ 100 µatm), which might be experienced by coastal diatoms in post-bloom scenarios, significantly limited growth and photosynthesis of this species. In addition, seawater alkalization resulted in more silicified cells with higher dark respiration rates. Thus, a negative correlation of biogenic silica content and growth rate was evident over the pCO2 range tested here. Taken together, seawater alkalization, rather than acidification, could have stronger effects on the ballasting efficiency and carbon export of T. weissflogii.
Pathology Principles and Practices for Analysis of Animal Models
Authors: Knoblaugh Sue E , Hohl Tobias M , La Perle Krista M D
Published: February 2019

Over 60% of NIH extramural funding involves animal models, and approximately 80% to 90% of these are mouse models of human disease. It is critical to translational research that animal models are accurately characterized and validated as models of human disease. Pathology analysis, including histopathology, is essential to animal model studies by providing morphologic context to in vivo, molecular, and biochemical data; however, there are many considerations when incorporating pathology endpoints into an animal study. Mice, and in particular genetically modified models, present unique considerations because these modifications are affected by background strain genetics, husbandry, and experimental conditions. Comparative pathologists recognize normal pathobiology and unique phenotypes that animals, including genetically modified models, may present. Beyond pathology, comparative pathologists with research experience offer expertise in animal model development, experimental design, optimal specimen collection and handling, data interpretation, and reporting. Critical pathology considerations in the design and use of translational studies involving animals are discussed, with an emphasis on mouse models.
Substituting strict equivalents
Authors: Martens David B
Published: February 2019

I discuss certain principles for substituting strictly equivalent propositions and provide alternative axiomatizations of some standard modal systems and proofs of containment relations among some systems that have the principles, including partial proof of Steffen Lewitzka’s ‘conjecture’ that ‘S1+$\Box $SP is strictly contained between S1+SP and S3’ (2016, J. Logic Comput., 26, 1780).