bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Nordvestkvarterets omdømme og det territorielle stigmas historicitet
Authors: Hansen Christian Sandbjerg
Published: February 2024

De seneste års massive opmærksomhed på ghettoer i Danmark har affødt en lang række begreber for sådanne steder – udsatte områder, belastede kvarterer, parallelsamfund, sorte pletter osv. – og en lang række debatter om den korrekte betegnelse såvel som om de forskellige betegnelsers betydning. Med afsæt i Loïc Wacquants teori om territoriel stigmatisering fokuserer jeg i denne artikel på Københavns Nordvestskvarters omdømme, som det historisk har været produceret, og argumenterer for, at stedlig vanære, hverken er iboende egenska- ber, statiske eller neutrale, men tværtimod historiske, sociale og performative. Snarere end at fokusere på ordenes formelle korrekthed og eventuelle korrespondance med virkeligheden fokuserer jeg på, hvordan betegnelserne har betydning via den sociale produktion og politiske konstruktion af sted. Jeg fremhæver tre forskellige former for symbolsk miskredit, som Nordvestkvarteret har været påført i forskellige tidsperioder (fattigt, belastet, mangfoldigt) og viser, hvordan symbolernes sociale indlejring og historiske kontekst virker som en fornedrelsens dynamo for bymæssig forandring.
Profesor Stanisław Gajda o tekście, gatunku i dyskursie
Authors: Wojtak Maria
Published: February 2024

Praca jest szkicowym przedstawieniem dorobku Stanisława Gajdy z zakresu tekstologii, genologii oraz dyskursologii. Autorka zwraca uwagę na postawę badawczą uczonego, który podstawowe pojęcia, tj. tekst, gatunek i dyskurs rozpatrywał na szerokim tle, z różnych punktów widzenia i w kilku perspektywach. Dostrzegał bowiem ich polimorficzność i starał się je w kolejnych etapach swej drogi badawczej na nowo operacjonalizować. Jego prace miały niejednokrotnie charakter pionierski, a podjęte zagadnienia rozpatrywał, współtworząc zręby teorii ogólnej, by je finalnie odnieść do domeny swoich zainteresowań, czyli komunikacji naukowej.
Co badacz może zrobić z tekstem medialnym? Spojrzenie mediolingwistyczne
Authors: Ślawska Magdalena
Published: February 2024

Celem artykułu jest zaprezentowanie wybranych badawczych perspektyw jakościowej analizy tekstu medialnego. Autorka zaproponowała dwie ścieżki: genologiczną oraz dyskursologiczną, a wokół nich kilka możliwości wglądu w tekst dziennikarski oraz jego konteksty (od analiz multimodalnych, kompozycyjnych, stylistycznych po analizę gatunkowej świadomości i tekstów stowarzyszonych, które stanowią odpowiedź na tekst główny). Do analizy autorka wybrała reportaż Mariusza Szczygła Śliczny i posłuszny, traktując go jako tekst dialogujący na wielu poziomach. Nazwała go także tekstem-ładunkiem, wytworzył on bowiem sieć nowych tekstów, własny dyskurs oraz doprowadził do zmian w rzeczywistości społecznej. Artykuł stanowi metodologiczną instrukcję jak poprzez jakościowe badawcze działania na tekście można badać media, ich sposób funkcjonowania oraz sytuację nadawczo-odbiorczą.
Kritische Durchsicht der Literatur zum Thema Recycling
Authors: Grochowski Grzegorz
Published: February 2024

Der Artikel behandelt verschiedene Arten von künstlerischen Aktivitäten, bei denen diverse kulturelle Produkte (sprachliche Botschaften, literarische Texte, visuelle Werke, Fotografien, Filme, Musikstücke usw.) verarbeitet werden, die, als gebrauchtes Material – als eine Art Abfall – behandelt, in neuer Form und Funktion in den Umlauf der Kultur zurückgeführt werden. Solche Praktiken können mit Hilfe des konzeptionellen Rahmens, den die Metapher des Recyclings bietet, interpretiert werden. Der Autor gibt einen Überblick über theoretische Arbeiten, die dieses Phänomen in seinen verschiedenen Erscheinungsformen analysieren. Er befasst sich mit dem Status der recycelten Werke (Fragen der Urheberschaft und Funktionen) und weist auf die Stellung der Recycling-Praktiken im Prozess der Kulturentwicklung hin.
Estratégias para o enfrentamento da COVID-19 em unidades prisionais: uma scoping review
Authors: Santos Rafael da Costa , Barbosa Lindemberg Arruda , Lins Maria Laura Rodrigues , Souto Rafaella Queiroga , Costa Gabriela Maria Cavalcanti
Published: February 2024

Introdução: A precariedade da saúde dos presos nas penitenciárias demonstra uma condição muito propícia para a propagação de vírus. Objetivo: Mapear na literatura científica, as ações realizadas por profissionais de saúde em unidades prisionais, para enfrentamento da covid-19. Método: Scoping review, guiada pelas recomendações do Joanna Briggs Institute e estruturada a partir do acrônimo População, Conceito e Contexto. As buscas foram realizadas em 11 bases de dados, tendo como critério de inclusão estudos nos idiomas inglês, português e espanhol; publicações 2019/2020 e disponíveis na íntegra. Para seleção dos estudos foi utilizado o diagrama de fluxo Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. Foram encontrados 1624 estudos, destes, 13 foram elegíves para a revisão. Resultados: A partir da análise dos estudos emergiram duas categorias: a primeira, diagnóstico/controle que apresentou como estratégias propostas o isolamento, triagem, melhoria do saneamento básico, educação, distanciamento social, utilização de equipamentos de proteção individual, reforço das medidas de ventilação e o uso da conexão remota; e, a segunda, tratamento que englobou o rastreio, suporte e medicalização dos sintomas pertinentes da patologia atrelados a uma assistência emocional. Conclusão: as análises realizadas  sinalizam a necessidade de elaboração de procedimento operacional padrão que sistematize a  assistência, incluindo ações de prevenção, diagnóstico/controle e tratamento do SARS-CoV-2 dentro do sistema penitenciário, apresentando sumariamente ações prioritárias a serem realizadas, as urgências necessárias e o fluxo nos serviços da rede de atenção dos sistemas de saúde.
Niche Construction
Authors: Odling-Smee John
Published: February 2024

How niche construction theory extends evolutionary theory beyond natural selection to a more general theory about the coevolution of organisms with their environments.

In Niche Construction, John Odling-Smee, the leading authority on niche construction theory, extends evolutionary theory from an explanation of how populations of organisms respond to natural selection pressures in their environments to a more general theory about the coevolution of organisms with their environments. Organisms, he shows, cause changes in their local external environments by interacting with them, thereby contributing in fundamental ways to their own and one another's evolution. This book applies niche construction theory to current problems such as human-induced global warming and suggests how humans might contribute positively to the future evolution of life on Earth.

Odling-Smee explains how orthodox evolutionary theory falls short in two ways. First, it does not describe how organisms contribute to their own and one another's evolution through their environment-changing niche constructing activities. Second, it fails to explain how genetic evolution can give rise to supplementary knowledge-gaining processes in many species. These include certain developmental processes in individual organisms and socio-cultural processes in animals, including humans. Neo-Darwinism, the author writes, assesses the fitness of individual organisms in populations in terms of their capacity to survive and reproduce, but without attributing these capacities to the active, purposeful agency of organisms. He argues that the purposeful agency of individual organisms plays a central role in evolution. He also discusses the relationship of an organism's energy-consuming activities and the second law of thermodynamics.
The Computable City
Authors: Batty Michael
Published: February 2024

How computers simulate cities and how they are also being embedded in cities, changing our behavior and the way in which cities evolve.

At every stage in the history of computers and communications, it is safe to say we have been unable to predict what happens next. When computers first appeared nearly seventy-five years ago, primitive computer models were used to help understand and plan cities, but as computers became faster, smaller, more powerful, and ever more ubiquitous, cities themselves began to embrace them. As a result, the smart city emerged. In The Computable City, Michael Batty investigates the circularity of this peculiar evolution: how computers and communications changed the very nature of our city models, which, in turn, are used to simulate systems composed of those same computers.

Batty first charts the origins of computers and examines how our computational urban models have developed and how they have been enriched by computer graphics. He then explores the sequence of digital revolutions and how they are converging, focusing on continual changes in new technologies, as well as the twenty-first-century surge in social media, platform economies, and the planning of the smart city. He concludes by revisiting the digital transformation as it continues to confound us, with the understanding that the city, now a high-frequency twenty-four-hour version of itself, changes our understanding of what is possible.
A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds
Authors: Aboitiz Francisco
Published: February 2024

A panoramic view of the evolution of life on our planet, from its origins to humanity's future.

In A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds, Francisco Aboitiz provides a brief history of life, the brain, and cognition, from the earliest living beings to our own species. The author proceeds from the basic premise that, since evolution by natural selection is the process underlying the origin of life and its evolution on earth, the brain—and thus our minds—must also be the result of biological evolution. The aim of this book is to narrate how animal bodies came to be built with their nervous systems and how our species evolved with culture, technology, language, and consciousness.

The book is organized in four parts, each delving into a different aspect of evolutionary development:

• Definitions lays the groundwork by discussing the principles of biological evolution and explores the definition and mechanisms of life itself.

• Beginnings describes the origins of life, starting from the emergence of the first cells to the development of neurons as the building blocks for brain networks.

• The Rise of Bodies and Brains examines the evolution of animals with bilateral symmetry, the emergence of chordates and vertebrates, and the expansion and diversification of the vertebrate brain.

• A Singular Ape explores Homo sapiens and our species' unique traits, such as bipedality, tool use, culture, language, communication, and consciousness.

Comprehensive and deeply insightful, this book helps us understand our place in the natural world and the cosmos—as well as what the future might hold for life on earth.
The Cognitive Life of Maps
Authors: Casati Roberto
Published: February 2024

The “mapness of maps”—how maps live in interaction with their users, and what this tells us about what they are and how they work.

In a sense, maps are temporarily alive for those who design, draw, and use them. They have, for the moment, a cognitive life. To grapple with what this means—to ask how maps can be alive, and what kind of life they have—is to explore the core question of what maps are. And this is what Roberto Casati does in The Cognitive Life of Maps, in the process assembling the conceptual tools for understanding why maps have the power they have, why they are so widely used, and how we use (and misuse) them.

Drawing on insights from cognitive science and philosophy of mind, Casati considers the main claims around what maps are and how they work—their specific syntax, peculiar semantics, and pragmatics. He proposes a series of steps that can lead to a precise theory of maps, one that reveals what maps have in common with diagrams, pictures, and texts, and what makes them different. This minimal theory of maps helps us to see maps nested in many cognitive artifacts—clock faces, musical notation, writing, calendars, and numerical series, for instance. It also allows us to tackle the issue of the territorialization of maps—to show how maps can be used to draw specific spatial inferences about territories. From the mechanics of maps used for navigation to the differences and similarities between maps and pictures and models, Casati's ambitious work is a cognitive map in its own right, charting the way to a new understanding of what maps mean.
Cloud Policy
Authors: Holt Jennifer
Published: February 2024

How the United States' regulation of broadband pipelines, digital platforms, and data—together understood as “the cloud”—has eroded civil liberties, democratic principles, and the foundation of the public interest over the past century.

Cloud Policy is a policy history that chronicles how the past century of regulating media infrastructure in the United States has eroded global civil liberties as well as democratic principles and the foundation of the public interest. Jennifer Holt explores the long arc of regulating broadband pipelines, digital platforms, and the data centers that serve as the cloud's storage facilities—an evolution that is connected to the development of nineteenth- and twentieth-century media and networks, including railroads, highways, telephony, radio, and television. In the process, Cloud Policy unearths the lasting inscriptions of policy written for an analog era and markets that no longer exist on the contemporary governance of digital cloud infrastructure.

Cloud Policy brings together numerous perspectives that have thus far remained largely siloed in their respective fields of law, policy, economics, and media studies. The resulting interdisciplinary argument reveals a properly scaled view of the massive challenge facing policymakers today. Holt also addresses the evolving role of the state in the regulation of global cloud infrastructure and the growing influence of corporate gatekeepers and private sector self-governance. Cloud policy's trajectory, as Holt explains, has enacted a transformation in the cultural valuation of infrastructure as civic good, turning it into a tool of commercial profit generation. Despite these current predicaments, the book's historical lens ultimately helps the reader to envision restorative interventions and new forms of activism to create a more equitable future for infrastructure policy.
Job Crafting
Authors: Laker Benjamin , Soga Lebene , Bolade-Ogunfodun Yemisi , Adewale Adeyinka
Published: February 2024

A practical and timely guide that shows employees how to craft the jobs they want and managers how to shape their organizations in ways that are conducive to such job crafting.

Job Crafting is a rigorous, modern take on job redesign that empowers workers to transform the jobs they have into the ones they want. Through the process of job crafting, a worker proactively alters their job to emphasize tasks that better align with their skills or that allow opportunities to learn new skills, with the help of executives who are willing to transform their organizations into supportive work environments. Offering practical guidance grounded in empirical evidence, British researcher Benjamin Laker and coauthors Lebene Soga, Yemisi Bolade-Ogunfodun, and Adeyinka Adewale describe the steps necessary for businesses and organizations to facilitate that support.

Rather than passively receive job titles and role descriptions, job crafters harness meaning at work through three primary avenues:

• exercising greater control over tasks,

• determining the way tasks are perceived, and

• shaping social context.

Based on data from a previous study in which structured interviews were conducted with one thousand business leaders and two thousand of their workers around the world, the authors' clear, four-step framework shows managers how to maximize staff engagement and productivity by building the systems, structures, and processes that empower workers to job craft. As new principles of stewardship, authenticity, and empowerment redefine the old command-and-control leadership approach, and generations Y and Z seek autonomy and purpose at work, job crafting offers a potential silver bullet to many workforce problems. Aimed at managers, executives, scholars, and executive education students, Job Crafting rejuvenates discussions of job design, leaving readers informed and ready to discuss how to improve their performance and satisfaction in all sectors.
Navigating the Polycrisis
Authors: Albert Michael J.
Published: February 2024

An innovative work of realism and utopianism that analyzes the possible futures of the world-system and helps us imagine how we might transition beyond capitalism.

The world-system of which we are all a part faces multiple calamities: climate change and mass extinction, energy supply shocks, the economic and existential threat of AI, the chilling rise of far-right populism, and ratcheting geopolitical tensions, to name only a few. In Navigating the Polycrisis, Michael Albert seeks to illuminate how the “planetary polycrisis” will disrupt the global community in the coming decades and how we can best meet these challenges. Albert argues that we must devote more attention to the study of possible futures and adopt transdisciplinary approaches to do so. To provide a new form of critical futures analysis, he offers a theoretical framework—planetary systems thinking—that is informed by complexity theory, world-systems theory, and ecological Marxism.

Navigating the Polycrisis builds on existing work on global futures and makes three main contributions. First, the book shows that in order to map out possible futures of the capitalist world-system, we must analyze the intersections and feedbacks between its numerous cascading crises—including the climate emergency, energy crises, stagflation, food system disruption, pandemics, geopolitical conflicts, and emerging technological risks. Second, the book develops an innovative transdisciplinary approach to global futures by combining critical social theory with the insights of climate and energy modelling. And third, rather than relying on idealist blueprints or ungrounded speculation, the book contributes to scholarship on postcapitalist futures by analyzing the processes, mechanisms, and struggles through which egalitarian transitions beyond capitalism might occur.

A much-needed work of global futures studies, Navigating the Polycrisis brings the rigor of the natural and social sciences together with speculative imagination in order to illuminate and shape our global future.
Underbelly
Authors: Hall-Clifford Rachel
Published: February 2024

An unsettling exploration of the hidden power dynamics of global health, seen through the lens of childhood diarrhea and its treatment within the Guatemalan context.

Deaths from childhood diarrhea seem preposterous in high-income countries. Yet, for children under five years old in the rest of the world, diarrhea is the third highest cause of mortality. Despite a glut of prevention and treatment programming spanning more than forty years, this least glamorous of global health ills remains a critical problem. In Underbelly, Rachel Hall-Clifford takes a hard look at the pathways of global health funding and development policies and the outcomes they deliver for recipient individuals and communities. Drawing on fifteen years of ethnographic research in highland Guatemala, Hall-Clifford focuses on the provision of primary health care services as a critical exemplar of how global health and development programs fall short.

Guatemala has a fragmented health system, the author explains, that guarantees health as a human right but also suffers from systemic racism, inadequate health services and access to those services, community distrust from a legacy of harm and violence, and a demeaning paternalism. Bringing together the discourses of global health and medical anthropology, Underbelly explores the ways in which global health—its actors, structures, and systems—perpetuates the challenges it purports to fix: this is the underbelly. Hall-Clifford argues that global health programs, conceived in offices distant from the places in which they are delivered, often have unintended consequences and contribute to pluralistic and exclusionary health systems that mirror neoliberal economies. She argues that if we are to fix this entrenched crisis of health inequity, we must use the immense resources of global health to center local communities as drivers of change.

With a foreword written by Waleska López Canu, an Indigenous Maya medical director, and an afterword by Arthur Kleinman, renowned expert in global health, this book underscores the importance of looking deeper into what seems on its surface incontrovertibly “good” to understand the more complex realities on the ground and in people's lives.
Get Off My Neck
Authors: Hines Debbie
Published: February 2024

A deeply revealing exposé of the American prosecutorial system and its historic and present racial inequities—and how we can transform the system to one of fairness and justice.

In Get Off My Neck, Debbie Hinesdraws on her unique perspective as a trial lawyer, former Baltimore prosecutor, and assistant attorney general for the State of Maryland to argue that US prosecutors, as the most powerful players in the criminal justice system, systematically target and criminalize Black people. Hines describes her disillusionment as a young Black woman who initially entered the profession with the goal of helping victims of crimes, only to discover herself aiding and abetting a system that prizes plea bargaining, speedy conviction, and excessive punishment above all else. In this book, she offers concrete, specific, and hopeful solutions for just how we can come together in a common purpose for criminal justice and racial justice reform.

Get Off My Neck explains that the racial inequities in the prosecutorial system are built into our country's DNA. What's more, they are the direct result of a history that has conditioned Americans to perceive the Black body as insignificant at best and dangerous at worst. Unlike other books that discuss the prosecutor's office and change from inside the office, Hinesoffers a proactive approach to fixing our broken prosecutorial system through a broad-based alliance of reform-minded prosecutors, activists, allies, communities, and racial justice organizations—all working together to end the racist treatment of Black people.

Told intimately through personal, family, and client narratives, Get Off My Neck is not only a deeply sobering account of our criminal justice system and its devastating impact on Black children, youth, and adults but also a practical and inspiring roadmap for how we can start doing better right now.
The Pointillistic City
Authors: O'Brien Daniel T.
Published: February 2024

A new paradigm of research, policy, and practice that acknowledges the multiple scales at which we live every day.

The Pointillistic City explores the multilayer geography of our daily lives—specifically, how we simultaneously live at the scales of addresses, streets, and neighborhoods and how each can be relevant for our well-being. Not unlike the way in which we look at a pointillistic painting, which depicts a full scene through the detailed organization of multiple objects, Daniel T. O'Brien considers the three scales together and the comprehensive understanding of the city they offer. The pointillistic approach to the city contrasts with decades of focus on neighborhoods. As such, it surfaces microspatial inequities, or disparities in experiences between people living in the same neighborhood, even right around the corner from each other. Microspatial inequities have gone largely unnoticed to date, and their recognition offers a new approach to understanding and supporting the diverse population of the city.

This book illustrates the pointillistic perspective on cities with two in-depth case studies—one on crime, the other on environmental justice—in Boston. These studies highlight microspatial inequities and their interplay with broader neighborhood conditions, and they go even further by demonstrating how these insights can be incorporated into a new generation of policies and practices that are science driven and community led, truly addressing disparities both between and within our communities.
Climate Propagandas
Authors: Staal Jonas
Published: February 2024

How climate propaganda narratives shape our (mis)understanding of the world, and how to propagate a future of repair and regeneration instead.

In Climate Propagandas, Jonas Staal reveals the propaganda narratives—and the divergent realities they evoke—that shape the climate crisis in the public imaginary. It is often said that the climate crisis is a planetary one, but the devastating impact of climate crisis is distributed unequally and its related ideological positions are as vast as they are irreconcilable. A liberal might argue the crisis is the result of individual consumer behavior, whereas a libertarian sees an opportunity for geoengineering markets. A conspiracist might not believe the climate is at risk, whereas an ecofascist sees a chance to double down on the argument about who has the superior racial right to survive extinction.

With an artist's eye and an activist's sense of urgency, Staal explores how these stories are told and visualized through popular film and television, internet culture, climate fiction, art, architecture, and industrial design. If life-threatening propaganda narratives have conjured our present climate catastrophe, Staal suggests, then surely stories of regeneration can propagate new planetary futures for all. His book identifies narratives that don't follow the path of mass extinction, but rather seek repair and regeneration of a world in crisis.
Politics Recoded
Authors: Schrock Aure
Published: February 2024

The first detailed history of Code for America that examines how democratically designed government systems can collectively improve technology's impact on society.

For decades, tens of thousands of volunteers and employees of Code for America have taken a different path to institutional change: through designing and implementing infrastructure. In Politics Recoded, Aure Schrock employs a robust, organizational ethnography to analyze how Code for America's infrastructural organizing changed how politics get exercised, showing how we citizens can work directly with the government on projects to improve our collective livelihoods. Drawing from theories of organizing, social infrastructure, racialized organizations, technical cultures, and intersectionality, Schrock argues that our “post-techlash society” must no longer presume that corporate platforms or social networks can level social inequities.

An underrecognized yet influential organization, Code for America emerged from a tech culture background that prioritized networks and publicity over the long, slow work of institutional change. But its evolution demonstrates how to push beyond the fundamental flaws of tech-forward organizing. This, the first history of Code for America, shows how promoting agentic citizenship and brokering in empathy let the organization influence policy at all levels of government—and demonstrates why we need to bolster institutions to ensure that everyone is justly represented and receiving the benefits. Appealing to those in political science, communication, and information studies, Politics Recoded will empower practitioners and activists to revolutionize technological design and participate in alternative forms of civic engagement.
Taming Silicon Valley
Authors: Marcus Gary F.
Published: February 2024

How Big Tech is taking advantage of us, how AI is making it worse, and how we can create a thriving, AI-positive world.

On balance, will AI help humanity or harm it? AI could revolutionize science, medicine, and technology, and deliver us a world of abundance and better health. Or it could be a disaster, leading to the downfall of democracy, or even our extinction. In Taming Silicon Valley, Gary Marcus, one of the most trusted voices in AI, explains that we still have a choice. And that the decisions we make now about AI will shape our next century. In this short but powerful manifesto, Marcus explains how Big Tech is taking advantage of us, how AI could make things much worse, and, most importantly, what we can do to safeguard our democracy, our society, and our future.

Marcus explains the potential—and potential risks—of AI in the clearest possible terms and how Big Tech has effectively captured policymakers. He begins by laying out what is lacking in current AI, what the greatest risks of AI are, and how Big Tech has been playing both the public and the government, before digging into why the US government has thus far been ineffective at reining in Big Tech. He then offers real tools for readers, including eight suggestions for what a coherent AI policy should look like—from data rights to layered AI oversight to meaningful tax reform—and closes with how ordinary citizens can push for what is so desperately needed.

Taming Silicon Valley is both a primer on how AI has gotten to its problematic present state and a book of activism in the tradition of Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book and Thomas Paine's Common Sense. It is a deeply important book for our perilous historical moment that every concerned citizen must read.
Improved inference of population histories by integrating genomic and epigenomic data
Authors: Sellinger Thibaut , Johannes Frank , Tellier Aurélien
Published: February 2024

With the availability of high quality full genome polymorphism (SNPs) data, it becomes feasible to study the past demographic and selective history of populations in exquisite detail. However, such inferences still suffer from a lack of statistical resolution for recent, e.g. bottlenecks, events, and/or for populations with small nucleotide diversity. Additional heritable (epi)genetic markers, such as indels, transposable elements, microsatellites or cytosine methylation, may provide further, yet untapped, information on the recent past population history. We extend the Sequential Markovian Coalescent (SMC) framework to jointly use SNPs and other hyper-mutable markers. We are able to 1) improve the accuracy of demographic inference in recent times, 2) uncover past demographic events hidden to SNP-based inference methods, and 3) infer the hyper-mutable marker mutation rates under a finite site model. As a proof of principle, we focus on demographic inference in
A. thaliana
using DNA methylation diversity data from 10 European natural accessions. We demonstrate that segregating Single Methylated Polymorphisms (SMPs) satisfy the modelling assumptions of the SMC framework, while Differentially Methylated Regions (DMRs) are not suitable as their length exceeds that of the genomic distance between two recombination events. Combining SNPs and SMPs while accounting for site-and region-level epimutation processes, we provide new estimates of the glacial age bottleneck and post glacial population expansion of the European
A. thaliana
population. Our SMC framework readily accounts for a wide range of heritable genomic markers, thus paving the way for next generation inference of evolutionary history by combining information from several genetic and epigenetic markers.
Uncertainty-modulated prediction errors in cortical microcircuits
Authors: Wilmes Katharina A. , Petrovici Mihai A. , Sachidhanandam Shankar , Senn Walter
Published: February 2024

Understanding the variability of the environment is essential to function in everyday life. The brain must hence take uncertainty into account when updating its internal model of the world. The basis for updating the model are prediction errors that arise from a difference between the current model and new sensory experiences. Although prediction error neurons have been identified in diverse brain areas, how uncertainty modulates these errors and hence learning is, however, unclear. Here, we use a normative approach to derive how uncertainty should modulate prediction errors and postulate that layer 2/3 neurons represent uncertainty-modulated prediction errors (UPE). We further hypothesise that the layer 2/3 circuit calculates the UPE through the subtractive and divisive inhibition by different inhibitory cell types. By implementing the calculation of UPEs in a microcircuit model, we show that different cell types can compute the means and variances of the stimulus distribution. With local activity-dependent plasticity rules, these computations can be learned context-dependently, and allow the prediction of upcoming stimuli and their distribution. Finally, the mechanism enables an organism to optimise its learning strategy via adaptive learning rates.
THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND THE EFFECTS ON THE COLLECTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FETHAB IN THE MUNICIPALITIES OF MATO GROSSO
Authors: Oliveira Pedroso Gil Alessandra , Franco Cleiton , Beato Ximenes de Melo Sonia Aparecida , Guzatti Nataliê Christy , Rodrigues Figueiredo Adriano Marcos
Published: February 2024

The economic repercussions caused by Covid-19 generated an abrupt drop in supply and demand in most economic activities and signs of recession worldwide. World Bank projections in 2020 show the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, causing a 5.2% reduction in world growth in 2020. Agribusiness through commodity exports positively affected the Brazilian trade balance. The objective of this work as to measure the effects of the covid-19 pandemic on the collection and distribution of FETHAB in the municipalities of Mato Grosso. The methodology used was the differences-in-differences model, with a cut from the beginning of the records of covid-19 cases in Mato Grosso. The monthly data panel for the municipalities of Mato Grosso was built using information from the FETHAB resources extracted from the electronic address of the Secretariat of Finance of the State of Mato Grosso (SEFAZ/Mt) for the period from 2019 to 2021, together with data monthly exports (Siscomex) and prices (Conab). The results show that there was a 37% increase in exports. This also raised commodity prices by 73% for soybeans and 83% for a bag of corn. As a result of the increase in exports, there was also an improvement in the FETHAB collection and distribution of around 11%. The devaluation of the real against the dollar and the increase in demand for food caused an increase in prices and exports and, consequently, an improvement in the collection and distribution of Fetab to the municipalities of Mato Grosso.
Constraints Faced by Farmers in Supply Chain Management of Onion in Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh, India
Authors: Bhavitha G. , Reddy P. Bala Hussain
Published: February 2024

Onion is one of India's most highly watched agricultural commodities. Onion prices have a direct impact on the average person's consumption basket. After China, India is second in terms of area and production, and third in terms of export. The market is critical to the success of any business, but it is especially vital for agricultural products like onions, which are more difficult to sell due to their seasonality, and bulkiness. The bulk of the state's onion growers are resource poor and lack storage facilities, forcing them to sell their crop to wholesalers shortly after harvest when the price is lowest. This study seeks to identify numerous challenges and restrictions involved in managing the onion supply chain, as well as identify and analyse alternative solutions that may be used to optimise onion supply chain management. It was discovered that the onion supply chain is constrained by a lack of grading facilities, a lack of grading storage facilities, and a lack of infrastructure. It must be determined that the public and commercial sectors must work together in a public-private partnership to develop physical infrastructure, information distribution, and the services necessary for quality and constant improvement of the supply chain. A sample of 120 farmers were randomly selected from Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh. Descriptive statistics including frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, mean scale value were used to analyse the data.
Nutrient Uptake and Quality Parameters of Groundnut as Influenced by Gypsum and CaMS Super Application
Authors: Kumar O. Vinay , Latha A. Madhavi , Neelima T.L. , Reddy K. Pavan Chandra
Published: February 2024

A field experiment was laid on sandy loam soils during the rabi season 2020-21 by farmers field’s of Raikode village, Narwa mandal of Narayanapet district to study the nutrient uptake and quality parameters of groundnut as influenced by the effect of gypsum and CaMS super application.The effect of different levels of gypsum and CaMS super on nutrient uptake at harvest was found to be significant. An increase in the gypsum and CaMS levels increase the uptake at harvest. The maximum uptake of nitrogen (98.08 and 114.92 kg ha-1), phosphorus (13.69 and 15.41 kg ha-1), potassium (24.87 and 63.37 kg ha-1), calcium (29.20 and 125.45 kg ha-1), magnesium (17.17 and 39.23 kg ha-1) and sulphur (14.36 and 18.59 kg ha-1) in both pods and haulms at harvest stage was recorded in T6 treatment which was at par with T8 treatment N, P, K, Ca, Mg and S (90.57 & 109.47 kg ha-1; 12.28 & 14.96 kg ha-1; 22.18 & 59.92 kg ha-1; 29.05 & 120.97 kg ha-1; 16.61 & 37.94 kg ha-1; 14.11 & 17.98 kg ha-1, respectively) while the lower uptake was recorded in control treatment. Whereas quality parameters like aflatoxin content, acid value and iodine value were significantly influenced by the application of different levels of gypsum and CaMS super fertilizer. The aflatoxin content varied from 17.95 to 30.50 µg kg-1. An increase in the levels of gypsum significantly decreases the aflatoxin content in groundnut oil. The lowest aflatoxin content was noticed in the T6 treatmentwhich was at par with treatments T7, T6 and T5 with the aflatoxin content of 18.43, 20.38 and 20.54 µg kg-1, respectively. The acid value ranged from 0.80 to 1.72 mg KOH g-1. T2 treatment showed a significant increase in acid value over other treatments. Similarly, the application of phosphorus in the form of a single superphosphate significantly influenced the iodine value compared to the control. However, the highest iodine value (90.1 g 100 g-1) was recorded in the control treatment, while the lowest iodine value (72.1 g 100 g-1) was registered in the treatment receiving T2 treatment.
The Role of Technology in Improving Public Sector Performance in Nigeria
Authors: Ajayi Kayode Johnson , Umeokwobi Richard Onyekachi , Onah Onah Anthony
Published: February 2024

Over the years, the public sector in Nigeria has faced various challenges, including bureaucracy, corruption, and inefficiencies in service delivery, which have dampened the efficiency of the public sector, especially in revenue generation. However, the rapid advancement of technology globally, the increasing rise of globalization, and the contagion effect across the globe have led to the adaptation of technology to a great extent in developing economies. Nigeria, as a developing economy, relies on the Western world for most of its technology, which is accompanied by a huge cost of the transfers, and the country is left with the dilemma of whether technology truly promotes public sector efficiency and growth. Against this backdrop, this study seeks to investigate the impact of technology on public sector efficiency in Nigeria. The study employed monthly data ranging from 2010 to 2022 and was extracted from the database of the Central Bank of Nigeria. The independent variables are Information, Communication, and Technology which served as a proxy for Technology, while Foreign Direct Investment, Exchange Rate, and Inflation were also included as the control variables in the model.  While public sector efficiency which is proxied by public revenue represent the dependent variable. The result of the unit root showed that the variables are stationary at levels and first difference, hence the use of the ARDL model which established a short-run relationship among the variables. The result, in the long run ARDL showed that technology had a positive and significant impact on public sector efficiency. The study, therefore, recommends that the Government needs to intensify efforts in the process of acquisition and implementation of technology in the public sector to improve revenue generation for the Government and, invariably, output. A large portion of government budgetary allocations should be channeled more toward adequate development of IT infrastructures to increase efficiency. Ultimately, the Monetary and Fiscal Authorities should collaborate in churning out policies that will improve economic parameters such as exchange rate, interest rate, Inflation, output, etc.
Tree Canopy Architecture and Engineering: Physiological and Molecular Aspects
Authors: Patel Sujeet Kumar , Kumar Vipin , Mishra Divyansh , Kumar Avdhesh , Kumar Prabhat , Dansena Durge , Ali Imran , Patel Brijesh , Sonkar Abhishek
Published: February 2024

The fruit industry is a vital part of the agricultural economy, and the quality and quantity of crops depend heavily on the science of tree canopy architecture and engineering. The canopy is the most important part of a fruit tree as it affects photosynthesis, fruit quality, and yield. The study of canopy architecture and engineering increased in importance due to the need for efficient agricultural practices that optimize fruit production while reducing the environmental impact. Factors that influence canopy architecture, such as light, water, and nutrient availability, genetic makeup of the plants, hormones, management practices and innovative engineering techniques can optimize orchard management. Canopy can managed by the using different types of pruning (Proper pruning can enhance light penetration, airflow, and disease management, ultimately leading to higher yields and healthier fruits), thinning, by using dwarfing rootstocks and training (such as central leader system, modified central leader system and open Centre system etc.) and also by using the growth retardant & regulators and through gene regulation for higher yield as well as quality improvement.
Electrical Switching and Bistability in Organic/Polymeric Thin Films and Memory Devices
Authors: Yang Y. , Ouyang J. , Ma L. , Tseng R. J.‐H. , Chu C.‐W.
Published: March 2006

Recently, films created by incorporating metallic nanoparticles into organic or polymeric materials have demonstrated electrical bistability, as well as the memory effect, when subjected to an electrical bias. Organic and polymeric digital memory devices based on this bistable electronic behavior have emerged as a viable technology in the field of organic electronics. These devices exhibit fast response speeds and can form multiple‐layer stacking structures, demonstrating that organic memory devices possess a high potential to become flexible, ultrafast, and ultrahigh‐density memory devices. This behavior is believed to be related to charge storage in the organic or polymer film, where devices are able to exhibit two different states of conductivity often separated by several orders of magnitude. By defining the two states as “1” and “0”, it is now possible to create digital memory devices with this technology. This article reviews electrically bistable devices developed in our laboratory. Our research has stimulated strong interest in this area worldwide. The research by other laboratories is reviewed as well.
Influence of ceramic supports on microwave heating for composite dielectric food slabs
Authors: Basak Tanmay , Meenakshi A.
Published: March 2006

A detailed theoretical analysis has been carried out to study efficient heating of one‐dimensional (1‐D) composite dielectric food slabs due to microwaves. Current study involves processing of beef with oil layers with/without ceramic support for various cases, such as the support and/or oil layer is directly exposed to microwaves (case 1), the beef layer is directly exposed to microwaves (case 2) and oil‐beef layers and the ceramic supports are exposed to microwaves at both the sides (case 3). A preliminary analysis on microwave heating has been carried out for beef‐oil composite without any support and the maxima in average power corresponding to resonances occur at various sample thicknesses for all cases. The detailed spatial distribution for various cases illustrates that for small oil thicknesses, heating rate is less and greater heating rate would correspond to larger oil thicknesses specially for case 1. The similar analysis has been extended for all cases with oil layer directly attached with ceramic supports (Al2O3 and SiC). The detailed analysis on spatial distribution of temperature and power during one side incidence illustrate that the greater thermal runaway occurs for case 2 with Al2O3 support corresponding to smaller oil thickness whereas SiC support may cause thermal runaway for larger oil thicknesses. For distributed microwave incidences (case 3), it is observed that Al2O3 support may cause thermal runaway whereas SiC support may reduce the thermal runaway, based on suitable distribution of microwaves at both sides. © 2006 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2006
Dysfunction of endocytic and autophagic pathways in a lysosomal storage disease
Authors: Fukuda Tokiko , Ewan Lindsay , Bauer Martina , Mattaliano Robert J. , Zaal Kristien , Ralston Evelyn , Plotz Paul H. , Raben Nina
Published: March 2006

Objective

To understand the mechanisms of skeletal muscle destruction and resistance to enzyme replacement therapy in Pompe disease, a deficiency of lysosomal acid α‐glucosidase (GAA), in which glycogen accumulates in lysosomes primarily in cardiac and skeletal muscles.

Methods

We have analyzed compartments of the lysosomal degradative pathway in GAA‐deficient myoblasts and single type I and type II muscle fibers isolated from wild‐type, untreated, and enzyme replacement therapy–treated GAA knock‐out mice.

Results

Studies in myoblasts from GAA knock‐out mice showed a dramatic expansion of vesicles of the endocytic/autophagic pathways, decreased vesicular movement in overcrowded cells, and an acidification defect in a subset of late endosomes/lysosomes. Analysis by confocal microscopy of isolated muscle fibers demonstrated that the consequences of the lysosomal glycogen accumulation are strikingly different in type I and II muscle fibers. Only type II fibers, which are the most resistant to therapy, contain large regions of autophagic buildup that span the entire length of the fibers.

Interpretation

The vastly increased autophagic buildup may be responsible for skeletal muscle damage and prevent efficient trafficking of replacement enzyme to lysosomes. Ann Neurol 2006
LRRK2 expression linked to dopamine‐innervated areas
Authors: Galter Dagmar , Westerlund Marie , Carmine Andrea , Lindqvist Eva , Sydow Olof , Olson Lars
Published: March 2006

Objective

Leucine‐rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) has been linked to Parkinson's disease. Our study explores the expression of LRRK2 in human and rodent brain tissue.

Methods

We analyzed LRRK2 gene activity at the cellular level using in situ hybridization.

Results

We found a high and strikingly specific expression of LRRK2 mRNA in rodent striatum and parts of cortex and no signals in dopamine neurons. In human tissue, LRRK2 mRNA was found in the corresponding brain areas caudatus and putamen at lower levels and dopamine neurons were also devoid of LRRK2 mRNA. Expression levels in striatal tissue did not differ between Parkinson's disease patients and control subjects.

Interpretation

Unlike all other genes so far linked to Parkinson's disease, our results demonstrate that LRRK2 expression is particularly high in brain dopaminoceptive areas. Ann Neurol 2006