bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Virtual Worlds Affordances for Organizations
Authors: Aten Kathryn
Published: May 2020

Virtual work has become critical to competing in the global information economy for many organizations. Successfully working through technology across time and space, especially on collaborative tasks, however, remains challenging. Virtual work can lead to feelings of isolation, communication and coordination difficulties, and decreased innovation. Researchers attribute many of these challenges to a lack of common ground. Virtual worlds, one type of virtualization technology, offer a potentially promising solution.

Despite initial interest, organizational adoption of virtual worlds has been slower than researchers and proponents expected. The challenges of virtual work, however, remain, and research has identified virtual world technology affordances that can support virtual collaboration. Virtual world features such as multi-user voice and chat, persistence, avatars, and three-dimensional environment afford, in particular, social actions associated with successful collaboration. This suggests that the greatest value virtual worlds may offer to organizations is their potential to support virtual collaboration.

Organizational scholars increasingly use a technology affordance lens to examine how features of malleable communication technologies influence organizational behavior and outcomes. Technology affordances represent possibilities of action enabled by technology features or combinations of features. Particularly relevant to virtual world technology are social affordances—affordances of social mediating technologies that support users’ social and psychological needs. To be useful to organizations, there must be a match between virtual world technology affordances, organizational practices, and a technology frame or organizing vision. Recent studies suggest a growing appreciation of the influence of physical organizational spaces on individual and organizational outcomes and increasing awareness of the need for virtual intelligence in individuals. This appreciation provides a possible basis for an emerging organizing vision that, along with recent technology developments and societal comfort with virtual environments, may support wider organizational adoption of virtual worlds and other virtualization technologies.
Culture and Intelligence
Authors: Sternberg Robert J.
Published: May 2020

Intelligence needs to be understood in the cultural contexts in which it is displayed. For one thing, people in different cultures have different conceptions (implicit theories) of what intelligence is. Asian and African cultures tend to have broader and more encompassing views of intelligence than do Western cultures. Asians and Africans place less emphasis on mental speed and more emphasis on social and emotional aspects of behavior, as well as on wisdom. These implicit theories are important because in everyday life, people’s behavior is guided not so much by scores on standardized or other tests but rather by people’s implicit theories. For example, hiring and promotion decisions are usually based on such implicit theories, not on test scores.

Studies of performances by people, especially children, in different cultures suggest that the strengths of individuals across cultures are not necessarily well represented by conventional intelligence tests. For example, in some cultures, knowledge of herbal medications used to combat parasitic illnesses, or knowledge of hunting and gathering, or knowledge of how to effectively ice fish, can be more important to assessing intelligence than scores on a standardized test. Eskimo children may know how to navigate across the frozen tundra in the winter without obvious landmarks, yet they may not be able to attain high scores on conventional intelligence tests. Some of those who would score highly on such tests would be unable to do such navigation, to their peril.

There is no such thing as a culture-free test of intelligence, and there probably is no test that is genuinely culture-fair either. At best, tests should be culture-relevant, measuring the cognitive and other skills relevant to effectively adapt to particular cultures. These skills are likely to be partially but not fully overlapping across cultures. Thus, intelligence needs to be understood in its cultural contexts, not divorced from such contexts.
Labeling and Inclusive Education
Authors: Lauchlan Fraser , Boyle Christopher
Published: May 2020

The use of labels in inclusive education is a complex issue. Some have argued that labels are a necessary evil in the allocation of limited resources in order to support children with specific additional support needs, and others argue that they bring comfort and relief for children and their families and lead to an intervention program that will improve children’s educational opportunities. Further arguments about the use of labels have included that they lead to a wider and better understanding of certain needs that children may have, and thus there is more tolerance and less stigmatization among the general public. However, counterarguments can be made for each of these issues as to whether the use of labels can truly be considered a valuable practice in the sphere of inclusive education.
Attitudes and Inclusion of Students with Special Educational Needs in Regular Schools
Authors: Avramidis Elias , Toulia Anastasia
Published: May 2020

There has been a proliferation of studies examining attitudes toward the inclusion of students with special educational needs (SEN) in regular education settings. Most studies to date have focused on examining the attitudes regular teachers hold toward inclusion on the assumption that their acceptance of the policy of inclusion is likely to affect their commitment to implementing it. Other researchers have directed their attention to the attitudes held by typically developing children toward their peers with SEN and, to a lesser extent, to the attitudes of parents toward the inclusion of students with SEN in their children’s classroom.

Teachers have been found to generally hold positive attitudes toward the notion of inclusion, which are largely affected by the severity of the child’s disability, the level of in-service training received, the degree of prior teaching experience with students with SEN, and other environment-related factors. Typically developing students have been found to hold neutral attitudes toward their peers with SEN. Age, prior experience of studying in inclusive settings, and parental influence seem to influence their attitudes. Studies on parents’ attitudes have revealed neutral-to-positive attitudes toward the general notion of inclusion. Several factors were found to influence parental attitudes, such as their socio-economic status and education level along with their child’s type of disability. Most attitudinal research to date has described static situations through the employment of single methodological research designs. Consequently, there is a need for mixed-method studies that employ coherent and, wherever possible, longitudinal research designs.
Postdevelopmental Conceptions of Child and Childhood in Education
Authors: Murris Karin , Smalley Kaitlin , Allan Bridget
Published: May 2020

Conceptions of child and childhood have been variously (re)constructed by adults throughout history, and yet systematic questioning of the epistemological, ontological, political, and ethical assumptions informing these conceptions remains a relatively new field of academic inquiry. The concepts of child and childhood are philosophically problematic because, although children can be biologically and physiologically categorized, the normative values attached to these categories matter politically and ethically in educational practices and theory.

The philosophy of childhood is therefore concerned with the following: questions about adults’ claims to knowledge of childhood and child subjectivity; the limitations and implications of the notion of “development” structuring theoretical claims about child and childhood; the construction of various alternative and intersecting figurations of child; the examination of the socio-historical, philosophical, and biological bases of these figurations, and their ethico-political implications—particularly for education.

Furthermore, more radically, contemporary postcolonial, postdevelopmental, and posthuman theorists deconstruct traditional adult–child binaries by claiming that understanding the logic of childhood is reflected in, and socio-historically situated in relation to, colonialism. This same logic used to justify the silencing and structural oppression of children is applied to Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial states. Postdevelopmental conceptions of childhood problematize the very notion of development on which psycho-social scientific theories of childhood depend.

By drawing on disciplines other than academic philosophy, in particular childhood studies and early childhood education, a wide range of conceptions of child and childhood can be mapped that shape educational theories and practices in all phases of education: “developing child,” “scientific child,” “psycho-social child,” “subhuman child,” “superhuman child,” “philosophical child,” “postdevelopmental child,” “savage child,” and “posthuman child.”
Mindfulness Matters in Leadership
Authors: Guajardo Maria
Published: May 2020

Mindfulness and leadership come together as a model for arriving at solutions in the field of education. Two approaches, Eastern and Western, present perspectives on mindfulness that are distinct, however both aim towards the same goal of enhancing awareness. Originating in the East, mindfulness is at the core of Buddhist philosophy and includes enhanced attention and an attentiveness to the present. Conversely, the Western approach to mindfulness gained traction in the 1970s in the field of cognitive and social psychology. Within the field of education in the United States, mindfulness has contributed, primarily in the classroom, as an activity to foster better classroom management and improved focus on learning. Mindfulness has also been applied to mindful learning, aimed at revealing enhanced approaches to learning.

Along a similar vein, applications of mindfulness in the leadership field, encourage the approach of focused attention to individual leadership development, problem-solving, and self-reflection. Resonant leadership and authentic leadership are two of the primary leadership models that include the strategy of mindfulness. Moving beyond the individual perceptions of mindfulness in leadership development, a more collaborative approach of mindfulness has emerged, where social change emerges from interdependence and mutuality amongst a number of individuals. Whether at the individual or collective level, mindfulness is impacted by cultural influences. Educational leaders are tasked with leading ethnically diverse learning communities by necessity, as demographics change and ethnic minority populations become minority majority populations. Thus, awareness of one’s cultural mindset, both limitations and strengths, can contribute to one’s leadership abilities. Mindfulness, when directed inward, can paradoxically enhance one’s ability to better understand others and to breakthrough stereotypes. This perspective could foreseeably foster cultural competence and greater levels of cultural integration, but as a function of greater self-awareness. Thus, mindfulness and leadership, as a creative combination of self and other, come together as a promising model of leadership for educators. Whether integrated as a necessary element of existing leadership theories, or identified as an important process of reflection in leadership development, mindfulness opens a pathway to greater insight and awareness. Aspects of mindfulness can therefore contribute to leadership, in particular, at the intersection of these elements relative to culture.
Environmental Education in Brazil and the Influence of Paulo Freire
Authors: Reigota Marcos
Published: May 2020

In Brazil and around the world, the ideas of Paulo Freire have impacted the field of environmental education, at least since the 1970s. It is possible to observe and associate the influence of Paulo Freire, when environmental education emphasizes the political dimension of any and all pedagogic activity, as he so emphatically stated. Another central aspect of Freirean influence relates in particular to the objective that environmental education should make “participation” possible, as advocated by the first documents produced and disseminated by UNESCO. Although the topic of environmentalism, in its best-known sense and definition of the protection of nature and natural resources, was not initially at the core of his pedagogical thinking, a strong concern with the theme can be seen traversing his work in the 1990s. In this sense, the international academic institutionalization of environmental education and the support that this pedagogic and political movement received after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, was crucial for consolidation by means of public policies and projects elaborated by NGOs as well as by the theoretical production and curricular changes that took place in universities around the world, with different thematic priorities, theoretical and methodological focuses, and impact on the population and on the natural and social environment. Since 2009, especially in Brazil and other Latin American countries, dissertations and theses have leaned toward this production, identifying and analyzing the increase of Freirean pedagogy in connection with environmental education, defined as “the political education of citizens.” Political actions in everyday pedagogical practices for social and environmental justice, alongside various other rights (e.g., cultural), are urgent issues to address. The connections between environmental education and Freirean pedagogy have contemporized both, as they clarify the central arguments of Paulo Freire’s political and pedagogic thought, which reaffirmed throughout his extensive production that access to education is a universal right, and that it is by means of education (including the environmental dimension) that political processes for the construction of just, democratic, and sustainable societies are solidified.
Sustainable Development Integration in Higher Education
Authors: Sardianou Eleni
Published: May 2020

The sustainability concept was introduced as a result of growing public concern about the degradation of the natural environment. Environmental movements resulted in the Brundtland report, as the general quest for combining economic development and environmental protection in favor of next generations. Within the sustainability concept, four interrelated pillars are considered important, namely, economic, environmental, social, and cultural. The upper goal of the sustainability approach is the management of natural resources in a way that contributes to human well-being. Within this framework, individuals meet their needs with respect to the quality of the environment. In order to achieve this goal, the role of education is crucial. Several declarations were developed on stressing the importance of education to increase awareness for sustainable development. The sustainable development movement advocated a shift toward more holistic educational processes where, in addition to basic sciences, individuals would be educated to adopt attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors compatible with the principles of sustainability. Within this context, educational organizations, such as universities, are to enhance students’ perceptions toward sustainable development by adopting learning programs and courses that will help individuals to recognize that their consumption habits, as reflected in their own actions, affect their current and future economic and environmental impacts.
Understanding Adult Pedagogy and Technology Use
Authors: Dereshiwsky Mary
Published: May 2020

Theories exist in number that concern how adults learn. Despite surface differences, these theories also contain common themes relevant to adult learning. They include self-direction, problem- or need-based motivation to learn, the ability to anchor past experiences to make meaning from current learning, and the skills to self-assess one’s learning experience.

Given the prevalence of technology in virtually all areas of personal and professional life, a solid understanding of how to use technology effectively is essential for 21st-century adults. At the same time, these adults are often hampered by anxiety and past negative experiences related to technology use, especially in the learning process itself. How can instructors leverage the best practices of adult learning theory to create meaningful learning experiences for adult learners? In order to address this question, it is important to understand the unique characteristics of adult learners as a first step. Instructors should also self-reflect and consider how their own attitudes and experiences can shape how they use technology with adult learners. With learning theories in mind, designing meaningful learning experiences with technology for adult learners can optimize learning experiences.
Ethical Literacy Education
Authors: Pandya Jessica Zacher , Aukerman Maren
Published: May 2020

Ethics, broadly conceived, concerns the moral principles that guide what humans do, and the branch of knowledge related to moral principles. Ethics goes beyond simply what is, and endeavors to lay the groundwork for what should be; every pedagogical decision, including whether, what, and how to teach literacy, rests implicitly or explicitly on moral principles. The moral principles of educators and those charged with developing and supporting literacy education matter profoundly for educational decision-making. Relatedly, the issue of justice (social, redistributive, recognitive, representative) is an inescapable one in education, where children’s lives, futures, and flourishing are routinely determined by choices made by those with power. Some of the central ethical principles that may be taken from discussions of ethics and social justice into the specific realm of education include: ahimsa and satyagraha; human relatedness; a moral relationship to place and to non-humans; varied conceptualizations of love; respect for individual freedoms, including the freedom of human flourishing; equality of opportunity; and mutual respect for the multiplicity of differences that exist among people.

There are three areas of inquiry that may help educators and researchers examine the moral principles at stake in instructional decision-making about literacy. First is the issue of how, or to what extent, literacy development should be conceptualized as an ethical goal. If it is conceived as an ethical goal, we should ask whose notions of development count, who has access to literacy, and who is included and excluded are all critical questions. Literacy goals should then also be seen as socio-culturally, contextually, and individually contingent. Second is the issue of how literacy teaching may be a pathway to support students in be(com)ing ethical individuals, and/or in transforming society itself to become more ethical. If literacy is understood in this way, ethical individuals should be willing and able to think deeply and carefully about ethics, use print and other media critically and with discernment, and take action in the service of making the world more just. Finally, the act of relating ethically to others (as teachers and students, as readers and writers) in the literacy classroom must be theorized. We must consider treating texts and authors in ethical ways, and consider ethical dialogue as a literacy pedagogy, and honor divergence in interpretation and composing. The intent is not to provide definitive answers, but to indicate some of the ways in which such questions and possible answers may complicate and expand views of literacy education.
Distributed Practice or Spacing Effect
Authors: Carpenter Shana K.
Published: May 2020

The spacing effect (also known as distributed practice) refers to the finding that two or more learning opportunities that are spaced apart, or distributed, in time produce better learning than the same opportunities that occur in close succession. A number of theories have been proposed to account for the spacing effect. These include deficient processing, encoding variability, study-phase retrieval, and consolidation. According to the deficient processing account, learning opportunities that are spaced apart in time, compared to non-spaced or “massed” learning opportunities, are more likely to receive a learner’s full attention, ultimately leading to better quality learning. The encoding variability account proposes that spaced learning opportunities, because they are separated in time, are more likely to be associated with a number of different contextual cues that can benefit later memory for the information learned. Study-phase retrieval is based on the premise that retrieval benefits learning, and spaced learning opportunities are more likely than massed learning opportunities to involve retrieval of the previous learning experience. More recent evidence suggests that spacing learning opportunities across different days may benefit memory due to sleep-dependent neural consolidation processes. Research in authentic educational contexts shows that spacing benefits learning of a wide variety of materials, from basic facts to complex scientific concepts and skills. Regarding the practical question of when spaced learning opportunities should occur, the ideal scheduling of these opportunities depends upon how long the information needs to be remembered in the future, such that retention over longer intervals of time benefits most by longer spacing between repeated learning opportunities. Despite its promise for enhancing student learning, spacing can be challenging to implement in authentic educational contexts due to the intuitive notion that immediate repetition is better for learning, and the difficulties involved in setting a spaced study schedule in advance and adhering to it. To realize the full potential of spacing to enhance educational practices, future studies are needed that can measure implementation of spacing by students and teachers in real educational environments.
World Language Education and the Pedagogical Imperative
Authors: Lantolf James P.
Published: May 2020

L. S. Vygotsky proposed that human consciousness entails the dialectical interaction between memory, attention, perception, emotion and motivation, imagination, and rational thought, organized in large part through language, or more appropriately, communicative meaning-making activity. The development of consciousness occurs more or less spontaneously (i.e., unplanned) in everyday life activity and in more systematically organized and intentionally planned educational activity. An important component of the developmental process is the conceptual knowledge that cultures make available to their through various types of social relations. In everyday life, this knowledge is largely empirically based, while in formally organized educational development conceptual knowledge is highly systematic and much more readily recontextualizable than is everyday knowledge. Academic concepts are derived from rigorous research and as such reveal processes and components of material reality that are otherwise hidden from direct empirical observation by our senses. The responsibility of presenting and explaining academic concepts to students in educational activity is carried out by specially prepared individuals—teachers—who engage students in intentionally planned and (hopefully) rigorous interactions, mediated largely, though not exclusively, through language. According to the pedagogical imperative, as it relates to instruction in world languages, relevant high quality theoretical and conceptual knowledge must be made pedagogically viable; that is, understandable to both teachers and learners and it must be useable by learners to mediate their generation of meaning in practical communicative activities. The knowledge must be presented in a memorable way, usually in a holistic visual representation rather than traditional verbally based rules of thumb and learners must be guided through appropriate prompts, clues, and hints provided primarily by teachers, but at times also by peers, to internalize this knowledge so that it becomes functional in communicative practices. Finally, recognition must be given to the fact that development of any kind, including that provoked by educational practice, must not only take account of the participants (students and teachers) intellect, it must also profoundly consider the emotional aspects of the educational process as teachers and learners engage in the dialectic process captured by Vygotsky in the Russian term, obuchenie, or teaching–learning, whereby teachers and learners engage in a process of mutual mediation.
International Prices and Exchange Rate Pass-Through
Authors: Choudhri Ehsan U.
Published: May 2020

Exchange rates often display sudden and large changes. There is considerable interest in examining how these changes affect prices, especially import and consumer prices. Exchange rate pass-through measures the responsiveness of the price of a basket of goods to changes in the exchange rate and is defined as the elasticity of the price of the basket (expressed in home currency) with respect to the exchange rate (defined as the price of foreign currency). The pass-through estimates vary across product groups, countries, and time periods, but a general finding is that pass-through tends to be significantly less than one, which implies that prices do not fully respond to a foreign currency appreciation. Pass-through to export prices tends to be smaller than pass-through to import prices. Pass-through to consumer prices is lower than both import and export price pass-through and is generally very small. One explanation of pass-through evidence focuses on the role of nominal rigidities (infrequent changes in prices set in home or foreign currency). Another explanation emphasizes the importance of markup variation in response to exchange rate changes.

In models with nominal rigidities, one important issue is whether exporting firms set prices in their country’s currency (producer’s currency) or importing country’s currency (consumer’s currency). If prices are sticky in producer’s currency, flexible exchange rates are preferable as they allow for desirable relative price adjustment. On the other hand, if prices are sticky in consumer’s currency, exchange rate flexibility is not as helpful in adjusting prices and fixed exchange rates are superior. The standard model where markup is constant and all firms (at home and abroad) use either producer or consumer currency pricing is not consistent with typical estimates of pass-through to import and export prices. To explain this evidence, the standard model needs to be modified to allow for variable markup and/or a hybrid model of currency choice where some firms set prices in producer’s and others in consumer’s currency. In the case of the hybrid model, the welfare difference between fixed and flexible exchange rates is not as stark as in the pure cases of currency choice and is likely to be small. Another issue of much interest is whether inflationary environment can affect pass-through, especially to consumer prices. Inflationary environment can influence pass-through to import and consumer prices through several channels, such as persistence of costs and frequency of price change. Empirical evidence shows that pass-through to consumer prices is related to the level and variability of inflation across countries and time periods and is lower in an environment with low and stable inflation. This evidence suggests that a monetary policy regime that targets low inflation will produce a low pass-through environment, which would dampen the price effects of exchange rate changes.
The Italian Economy Before Unification, 1300–1861
Authors: Malanima Paolo
Published: May 2020

Italy played a central role in the Euro-Mediterranean economy during Antiquity, the late Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Until the end of the 16th century, the Italian economy was relatively advanced compared with those of the Western European and Mediterranean countries. From the 17th century until the end of the 19th, GDP rose as the population increased. Yet per capita income slowly diminished together with real wages, urbanization, and living standards. Italy lost its central position in the Euro-Mediterranean world and, until the end of the 19th century, was a relatively backward area on the periphery of the most dynamic countries in the north and center of Europe. The Italian premodern economy represents a classic example of extensive growth or GDP growth without improvement in per capita income and living standards.
Frontiers
Authors: Saraf Aditi
Published: May 2020

The term “frontier” is generally taken to mean an area separating two countries, or a territorial limit beyond which lies wilderness. But frontier is also used symbolically to refer to the limit of knowledge and understanding of a particular area, as in “frontiers of science” or in the idea of outer space as the “final frontier.” A certain elasticity therefore inheres in the term. Scholarship on frontiers generally examines geographical and cultural “peripheries”—zones that are viewed both as political barriers and sites of contact and exchange. However, the frontier as an empirical object as well as a scholarly heuristic is intertwined with long and often violent histories of colonialism, imperialism, and resistance. Anthropological concepts of the frontier are developed in relation to neighboring terms such as border, boundary, and line and methodologies for its empirical investigation in relation to other social science disciplines like history, international relations, geography, and gender studies. Drawing on a multidisciplinary perspective, ethnographic research aims to destabilize conventional notions of the frontier as the limit of settlement or as a space of statelessness, anarchy, or disorder in order to attend to the diverse cultural and political institutions that produce distinctive ideas of sovereignty, mobility, commerce, and community in such spaces.
Ochre Use in the Middle Stone Age
Authors: Hodgskiss Tammy
Published: May 2020

The term “ochre” has many meanings: a colored stone, a pigment, sunscreen, a curiosity item, a mustard hue, or even an object used for ritual. Ochre found at archaeological sites is described as a range of earthy, ferruginous rocks with red–yellow–purple streaks. The use of ochre in the past has proven valuable for interpreting not only cognitive capabilities of its users but also for its potential to shed light on behavioral and social factors. The late Pleistocene, and specifically the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa, is a time of significant behavioral and cognitive advances for Homo sapiens—this coincides with the habitual use of ochre. By looking at the collection and use of ochre in the African Middle Stone Age, placed within a global and temporal context, important behavioral conclusions can be made. Ochre has many potential uses, making interpretations of ochre use in the past complicated. Ethnographic and modern analogies are considered as well as the experimental work that has been produced by numerous researchers. All accounts have deepened our understanding of the many ways that ochre may have been used in the distant past. It is likely that both its color and mineralogical content dictated its use in the past.
The Anthropology of Labor
Authors: Kasmir Sharryn
Published: May 2020

In the final decades of the 20th century, market reforms in China and India, post-socialist transitions in Eastern Europe, deindustrialization of historic centers of factory production, and the international project of neoliberalization ushered billions of people worldwide into a range of labor relations—waged and unwaged, relatively stable and wholly insecure, formal and informal, bonded and free. The heterogeneity and fragmentation of these labors require new insights about capitalism, class, politics, and culture.

One position holds that inequality on a global scale creates people and communities who are permanently outside of capitalism. Many terms catalog capitalism’s failure to incorporate vast numbers of people, and they denote the irrelevance of surplus populations for capitalist value production. “The precariat,” “bare life,” and “disposable people” are among those classifications. More optimistic thinkers see capitalism’s outside comprised of “non-capitalist” spaces, where “alternative modernities” and “ontological difference” flourish.

Marxist anthropologists counter that capitalism incorporates, marginalizes, and expels people on shifting terms over time and on a global scale. Capital and labor accumulation are always uneven, creating differences within and between working populations, especially along axes of race, ethnicity, gender, immigration status, skill, and work regime. The proletariat or any similar uniform designation does not adequately capture this broader, heterogeneous social formation. Class analysis is nonetheless critical for understanding these actually existing social relations.

In turn, this approach is criticized for too closely following surplus-value-producing labor, whereas cross-culturally, and especially in the global south, non-capitalist regimes of value persist. Disagreements between two overarching perspectives—one emphasizing political economic factors and the other culture—influence many debates within the anthropology of labor.

Scholars extend the study of labor to engage theories of social reproduction, value, and uneven and combined development. New organizations address the problem of precarious work in academia, and a network connects labor anthropology researchers.
Digital Resources: HGIS de las Indias
Authors: Stangl Werner
Published: May 2020

HGIS de las Indias is an open-access Spanish-language database and web platform on the temporal and spatial developments in the territorial organization and settlements of all Spanish America (from Nutka to the Malvinas) during the reign of the Bourbon dynasty until the eve of the independence movements (1701–1808). It consists of several components: a platform for visualization of the database in an interactive web application, an engine for the creation of base maps, and a repository for the raw data files that can be used in specialized software. Also, HGIS de las Indias has a feature that allows registered users to create spatial data sets from tabular data. Beyond its practical use as finding aid, data provider, and mapping resource, it aims at fulfilling an even more fundamental function of infrastructure. The unique resource identifiers (URIs) for places and territorial concepts in HGIS de las Indias can be used as identifiers across projects and text annotations. Also, there exist easy workflows to prepare research data with a spatial component in tabular form and connect it with the database. HGIS de las Indias may thus serve as a link between otherwise unconnected data sets and is itself integrated in more fundamental infrastructures like Pelagios or the World Historical Gazetteer that constitute a bridge to the wider world of the semantic web.
Huichol Culture in Mexico, 1910–2019
Authors: Stephens Michele McArdle
Published: May 2020

The Huichols are an indigenous group inhabiting the west Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit, Durango, and Zacatecas, who maintain a culture distinct from Mexican society at large. Since their conquest by the Spanish in 1723, the Huichols have selectively adapted elements of Spanish and Mexican political and social norms in order to serve their best interests, whether that be the protection of their lands from usurpation, the disappearance of their culture through assimilation, or the destruction of their religion by conversion. For the Huichols, land and territory have spiritual significance, which governs their actions and reactions. A loss of land would result in a destruction of their culture and identity. Culturally unified through their religion and language, the Huichols demonstrate a political disunity by which leaders of the different Huichol towns acted in ways that were most beneficial for their communities, often without regard for how their actions may impact other Huichol towns. Ironically, it is this disunity that has helped them weather centuries of warfare, modernization, land alienation, and intrusion by national, federal, and multinational entities.
Combinatorial and statistical prediction of gene expression from haplotype sequence
Authors: Alpay Berk A , Demetci Pinar , Istrail Sorin , Aguiar Derek
Published: May 2020

Motivation

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have discovered thousands of significant genetic effects on disease phenotypes. By considering gene expression as the intermediary between genotype and disease phenotype, expression quantitative trait loci studies have interpreted many of these variants by their regulatory effects on gene expression. However, there remains a considerable gap between genotype-to-gene expression association and genotype-to-gene expression prediction. Accurate prediction of gene expression enables gene-based association studies to be performed post hoc for existing GWAS, reduces multiple testing burden, and can prioritize genes for subsequent experimental investigation.

Results

In this work, we develop gene expression prediction methods that relax the independence and additivity assumptions between genetic markers. First, we consider gene expression prediction from a regression perspective and develop the HAPLEXR algorithm which combines haplotype clusterings with allelic dosages. Second, we introduce the new gene expression classification problem, which focuses on identifying expression groups rather than continuous measurements; we formalize the selection of an appropriate number of expression groups using the principle of maximum entropy. Third, we develop the HAPLEXD algorithm that models haplotype sharing with a modified suffix tree data structure and computes expression groups by spectral clustering. In both models, we penalize model complexity by prioritizing genetic clusters that indicate significant effects on expression. We compare HAPLEXR and HAPLEXD with three state-of-the-art expression prediction methods and two novel logistic regression approaches across five GTEx v8 tissues. HAPLEXD exhibits significantly higher classification accuracy overall; HAPLEXR shows higher prediction accuracy on approximately half of the genes tested and the largest number of best predicted genes (r2>0.1) among all methods. We show that variant and haplotype features selected by HAPLEXR are smaller in size than competing methods (and thus more interpretable) and are significantly enriched in functional annotations related to gene regulation. These results demonstrate the importance of explicitly modeling non-dosage dependent and intragenic epistatic effects when predicting expression.

Availability and implementation

Source code and binaries are freely available at https://github.com/rapturous/HAPLEX.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
GDASC: a GPU parallel-based web server for detecting hidden batch factors
Authors: Wang Xiao , Yi Haidong , Wang Jia , Liu Zhandong , Yin Yanbin , Zhang Han
Published: May 2020

We developed GDASC, a web version of our former DASC algorithm implemented with GPU. It provides a user-friendly web interface for detecting batch factors. Based on the good performance of DASC algorithm, it is able to give the most accurate results. For two steps of DASC, data-adaptive shrinkage and semi-non-negative matrix factorization, we designed parallelization strategies facing convex clustering solution and decomposition process. It runs more than 50 times faster than the original version on the representative RNA sequencing quality control dataset. With its accuracy and high speed, this server will be a useful tool for batch effects analysis.

Availability and implementation

http://bioinfo.nankai.edu.cn/gdasc.php.

Contact

zhanghan@nankai.edu.cn

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Characteristics, management and outcomes of atypical haemolytic uraemic syndrome in kidney transplant patients: a retrospective national study
Authors: Portoles José , Huerta Ana , Arjona Emilia , Gavela Eva , Agüera Marisa , Jiménez Carlos , Cavero Teresa , Marrero Domingo , Rodríguez de Córdoba Santiago , Diekmann Fritz ,   Matrix Investigators, Portolés José , Huerta Ana , Arjona Emilia , Gavela Eva , Luisa Maria , Jiménez Carlos , Cavero Teresa , Marrero Domingo , Redondo Dolores , Ruiz Juan Carlos , Ferrero Maria Luisa Rodríguez , Carreño Agustín , de Córdoba Santiago Rodríguez , Diekmann Fritz
Published: May 2020

Background

Kidney transplantation (KTx) is a strong trigger for the development of either recurrent or de novo atypical haemolytic uraemic syndrome (aHUS). According to previous studies, eculizumab (ECU) is effective for prophylaxis and for treatment of recurrence.

Methods

We evaluated the experiences of Spanish patients with recurrent and de novo aHUS associated with KTx, treated or not treated with ECU. In the de novo group, we classified patients as having early de novo (during the first month) or late de novo aHUS (subsequent onset).

Results

We analysed 36 cases of aHUS associated with KTx. All of the 14 patients with pre-KTx diagnosis of aHUS were considered to have high or moderate risk of recurrence. Despite receiving grafts from suboptimal donors, prophylactic ECU was effective for avoiding recurrence. The drug was stopped only in two cases with low–moderate risk of recurrence and was maintained in high-risk patients with no single relapse. There were 22 de novo aHUS cases and 16 belonged to the early de novo group. The median time of onset in the late group was 3.4 years. The early group had a better response to ECU than the late group, probably due to earlier diagnosis and use of the drug. No genetic pathogenic variant was detected in de novo aHUS cases, suggesting a secondary profile of the disease. ECU was stopped in all de novo patients with no relapses. ECU was well tolerated in all cases.

Conclusions

Both groups (pre-aHUS and de novo) presented different clinical profiles, management approaches and outcomes. One should consider aHUS regardless of time after KTx. Genetic studies are crucial to stratify risks of relapse and to determine necessary lengths of treatment. We suggest short ECU treatment for de novo cases without pathogenic mutation and that ECU treatment be considered pre-emptively for patients with moderate or high risk of recurrence.
Annual adult survival drives trends in Arctic-breeding shorebirds but knowledge gaps in other vital rates remain
Authors: Weiser Emily L , Lanctot Richard B , Brown Stephen C , Gates H River , Bêty Joël , Boldenow Megan L , Brook Rodney W , Brown Glen S , English Willow B , Flemming Scott A , Franks Samantha E , Gilchrist H Grant , Giroux Marie-Andrée , Johnson Andrew , Kendall Steve , Kennedy Lisa V , Koloski Laura , Kwon Eunbi , Lamarre Jean-François , Lank David B , Latty Christopher J , Lecomte Nicolas , Liebezeit Joseph R , McGuire Rebecca L , McKinnon Laura , Nol Erica , Payer David , Perz Johanna , Rausch Jennie , Robards Martin , Saalfeld Sarah T , Senner Nathan R , Smith Paul A , Soloviev Mikhail , Solovyeva Diana , Ward David H , Woodard Paul F , Sandercock Brett K
Published: May 2020

Conservation status and management priorities are often informed by population trends. Trend estimates can be derived from population surveys or models, but both methods are associated with sources of uncertainty. Many Arctic-breeding shorebirds are thought to be declining based on migration and/or overwintering population surveys, but data are lacking to estimate the trends of some shorebird species. In addition, for most species, little is known about the stage(s) at which population bottlenecks occur, such as breeding vs. nonbreeding periods. We used previously published and unpublished estimates of vital rates to develop the first large-scale population models for 6 species of Arctic-breeding shorebirds in North America, including separate estimates for 3 subspecies of Dunlin. We used the models to estimate population trends and identify life stages at which population growth may be limited. Our model for the arcticola subspecies of Dunlin agreed with previously published information that the subspecies is severely declining. Our results also linked the decline to the subspecies’ low annual adult survival rate, thus potentially implicating factors during the nonbreeding period in the East Asian–Australasian Flyway. However, our trend estimates for all species showed high uncertainty, highlighting the need for more accurate and precise estimates of vital rates. Of the vital rates, annual adult survival had the strongest influence on population trend in all taxa. Improving the accuracy, precision, and spatial and temporal coverage of estimates of vital rates, especially annual adult survival, would improve demographic model-based estimates of population trends and help direct management to regions or seasons where birds are subject to higher mortality.
Electrophysiological effects of non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants on atrial repolarizing potassium channels
Authors: Wiedmann Felix , Schlund Daniel , Kraft Manuel , Nietfeld Jendrik , Katus Hugo A , Schmidt Constanze , Thomas Dierk
Published: May 2020

Aims 

Non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs) are widely used in the prevention of stroke and systemic embolism in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF). The efficacy of NOACs has been attributed in part to pleiotropic effects that are mediated through effects on thrombin, factor Xa, and their respective receptors. Direct pharmacological effects of NOACs and cardiac ion channels have not been addressed to date. We hypothesized that the favourable clinical outcome of NOAC use may be associated with previously unrecognized effects on atrial repolarizing potassium channels.

Methods and results 

This study was designed to elucidate acute pharmacological effects of NOACs on cloned ion channels Kv11.1, Kv1.5, Kv4.3, Kir2.1, Kir2.2, and K2P2.1 contributing to IKr, IKur, Ito, IK1, and IK2P K+ currents. Human genes, KCNH2, KCNA5, KCND3, KCNJ2, KCNJ12, and KCNK2, were heterologously expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes, and currents were recorded using voltage-clamp electrophysiology. Apixaban, dabigatran, edoxaban, and rivaroxaban applied at 1 µM did not significantly affect peak current amplitudes of Kv11.1, Kv1.5, Kv4.3, Kir2.1, Kir2.2, or K2P2.1 K+ channels. Furthermore, biophysical characterization did not reveal significant effects of NOACs on current–voltage relationships of study channels.

Conclusion 

Apixaban, dabigatran, edoxaban, and rivaroxaban did not exhibit direct functional interactions with human atrial K+ channels underlying IKr, IKur, Ito, IK1, and IK2P currents that could account for beneficial clinical outcome associated with the drugs. Indirect or chronic effects and potential underlying signalling mechanisms remain to be investigated.