bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Genetics and the African Past
Authors: Prendergast Mary E. , Sawchuk Elizabeth A. , Sirak Kendra A.
Published: October 2022

Africa harbors the greatest human genetic diversity on the planet, a fact that has inspired extensive investigation of the population structure found across the continent and the demographic processes that shaped observed patterns of genetic variation. Since the 1980s, studies of the DNA of living people have repeatedly demonstrated that Africa is the cradle of human origins, in agreement with fossil and archaeological evidence. Since the first ancient human genome was published in 2010, ancient DNA (aDNA) has contributed additional possibilities for exploring population history, providing a direct window into genetic lineages that no longer exist or are barely discernible. Genetic data from both living and ancient people—when integrated with available archaeological, bioarchaeological, historical linguistic, and written or oral historical data—are important tools for contextualizing African genetic diversity and understanding the biological and cultural processes that have shaped it over time. While most studies to date have focused on humans, aDNA can also be obtained from plant and animal remains, sediments, and some artifacts, all of which can enable a more comprehensive understanding of human lives.

Genetic research on the African past often focuses on human origins and Pleistocene population structure, as well as on the origins, directionality, and tempo of demographic changes that accompanied Holocene transitions to herding and farming. The rise of cosmopolitan cities and states in the past two millennia has been examined with genetic evidence to a very limited extent, but this is a potentially rich vein of research. Increasingly, forced migrations of enslaved Africans and the development of the diaspora are the subjects of genetic study as well. Yet to date, Africa remains vastly understudied relative to parts of the world such as Eurasia, in terms of both ancient and present-day DNA. This shapes not only the study of the past but also medical innovations and public health.

While the bulk of published African genomes come from present-day people, there are problems with relying solely on this data to reconstruct the past, given the continent’s long and complex demographic history. Increasingly, aDNA is providing novel perspectives on a past largely invisible in the genomes of people living in the 20th and 21st centuries due to recent demographic shifts. A surge in African aDNA studies since 2015 has also renewed longstanding debates about the ethics of genetic research on people, both living and deceased. Researchers working in Africa today must consider ethical issues including stakeholder engagement, informed consent, and control of biological samples and data; in aDNA studies, descendant communities, museum curators, bioarchaeologists, and geneticists, among others, play critical roles in these discussions.
Governance by Persuasion: Hedge Fund Activism and Market-Based Shareholder Influence
Authors: Brav Alon , Jiang Wei , Li Rongchen
Published: October 2022

Hedge fund activism refers to the phenomenon where hedge fund investors acquire a strict minority block of shares in a target firm and then attempt to pressure management for changes in corporate policies and governance with the aim to improve firm performance. This study provides an updated empirical analysis as well as a comprehensive survey of the academic finance research on hedge fund activism. Beginning in the early 1990s, shareholder engagement by activist hedge funds has evolved to become both an investment strategy and a remedy for poor corporate governance. Hedge funds represent a group of highly incentivized, value-driven investors who are relatively free from regulatory and structural barriers that have constrained the monitoring by other external investors. While traditional institutional investors have taken actions ex-post to preserve value or contain observed damage (such as taking the “Wall Street Walk”), hedge fund activists target underperforming firms in order to unlock value and profit from the improvement. Activist hedge funds also differ from corporate raiders that operated in the 1980s, as they tend to accumulate minority equity stakes and do not seek direct control. As a result, activists must win support from fellow shareholders via persuasion and influence, representing a hybrid internal-external role in a middle-ground form of corporate governance.

Research on hedge fund activism centers on how it impacts the target company, its shareholders, other stakeholders, and the capital market as a whole. Opponents of hedge fund activism argue that activists focus narrowly on short-term financial performance, and such “short-termism” may be detrimental to the long-run value of target companies. The empirical evidence, however, supports the conclusion that interventions by activist hedge funds lead to improvements in target firms, on average, in terms of both short-term metrics, such as stock value appreciation, and long-term performance, including productivity, innovation, and governance. Overall, the evidence from the full body of the literature generally supports the view that hedge fund activism constitutes an important venue of corporate governance that is both influence-based and market-driven, placing activist hedge funds in a unique position to reduce the agency costs associated with the separation of ownership and control.
Martian Dust
Authors: Ruff Steven W.
Published: October 2022

Dust makes the red planet red. Without dust, Mars would appear mostly as shades of gray. The reddish hue arises from a small amount of oxidized iron among its basaltic mineral constituents. In this sense, Mars is a rusty world. Martian dust is a ubiquitous material of remarkably uniform composition that spans the globe, filling the skies and covering the land in a temporally and spatially varying manner. It is routinely lifted into the atmosphere via convective vortices known as dust devils. Dust in the atmosphere waxes and wanes according to season. Every few Martian years, the planet is fully encircled in atmospheric dust of sufficient opacity that its surface markings and landforms are completely obscured from view of Earth-bound telescopes and Mars-orbiting satellites. Such global dust events last for weeks or months, long enough to jeopardize solar-powered spacecraft on the surface. Dust particles suspended in the thin Martian atmosphere ultimately fall to the surface, completing the cycle and contributing to a range of features that are still being discovered and investigated.
The Maghreb in International Relations
Authors: Zoubir Yahia
Published: October 2022

Since their independence from colonial rule, the three Maghreb states (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) have interacted with foreign powers bilaterally rather than as an integrated region. Despite the foundation of the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) in 1989, the Maghreb countries have pursued discrete foreign policies that reflected the nature of their anticolonial struggle and the ideological choices that they made following, or even prior to, their independence. While Algeria chose nonalignment as the foundation of its foreign policy, Morocco and Tunisia remained attached to the West despite proclaiming attachment to nonalignment. In the decade from 2010 to 2020, the Maghreb states have faced numerous political and socioeconomic challenges which created complicated geopolitical constraints. Thus, even if they wished to drastically reduce their dependency, primarily on the European Union (EU), their “pressing financial constraints and security imperatives in their borderlands ultimately prevented any change of direction or transgression of the existing patterns of their foreign policies,” for “structure prevailed over agency.” Nonetheless, the region is gradually moving away from Europe and the United States in some areas. At the same time, the 2019 pandemic and other constraints have created new geopolitical dynamics that were already in the making, for outside powers had already shown increased interest in the region. While the United States (under President Trump) neglected the Maghreb until September 2020, Russia, China, the Gulf countries, and Turkey have increased their presence. With the extension of the Belt and Road Initiative to the Mediterranean, China has increased its economic presence and extended its Maritime Silk Road, which requires access to ports. Russia has made its return in search for opportunities, including access to ports, which will position it close to NATO’s southern flank. The competition among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states (e.g., Qatar versus the UAE), on the one hand, and the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and UAE, Turkey, and Israel (since normalization with Morocco), on the other, have spilled over onto the Maghreb. Thus, domestic challenges and evolving geopolitical dynamics have compelled the Maghreb regimes to seek the support of outside powers to offset their internal instability and to compete with one another (Algeria versus Morocco).
Gender and Transitional Justice
Authors: de Almagro Maria Martin , Schulz Philipp
Published: October 2022

Transitional justice (TJ) refers to a set of measures and processes that deal with the legacies of human rights abuses and violent pasts, and that seek to aid societies transitioning from violence and conflict toward a more just and peaceful future. Much like the study of armed conflict and peacebuilding more broadly, the study and practice of transitional justice was traditionally silent on gender. Historically, gendered conflict-related experiences and harms have not been adequately addressed by most transitional justice mechanisms, and women in particular have been excluded from the design, conceptualization, and implementation of many TJ processes globally. While political violence perpetrated against men remained at the center of TJ concerns, a whole catalogue of gendered human rights abuses perpetrated primarily against women has largely remained at the peripheries of dominant TJ debates and interventions.

Catalyzed by political developments at the United Nations within the realm of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda and by increasing attention to crimes of sexual violence by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), however, the focus in the 2000s has been radically altered to include the treatment of gender in transitional contexts. As such, considerations around gender and sex have increasingly gained traction in TJ scholarship and praxis, to the extent that different justice instruments now seek to engage with gendered harms in diverse ways. Against this background, to the authors review this growing engagement with gender and transitional justice, offering a broad and holistic overview of legal and political developments, emerging trends, and persistent gaps in incorporating gender into the study and practice of TJ. The authors show how gender has been operationalized in relation to different TJ instruments, but the authors also unearth resounding feminist critiques about the ways in which justice is approached, as well as how gender is often conceptualized in limited and exclusionary terms. To this end, the authors emphasize the need for a more sustained and inclusive engagement with gender in TJ settings, drawing on intersectional, queer, and decolonial perspectives to ultimately address the variety of gendered conflict-related experiences in (post)conflict and transitional settings.
International Relations and Outer Space
Authors: Stroikos Dimitrios
Published: October 2022

Although the study of the international politics of space remains rather descriptive and undertheorized, important progress has been made to the extent that there is already a growing literature examining certain aspects of space activities from an International Relations (IR) theory perspective, reflecting the broader surge of interest in the utilization of space for civilian, military, and commercial purposes. In this regard, this is the first systematic attempt to outline this emerging and vibrant multidisciplinary subfield of IR. In doing so, it covers a substantial body of research on the politics of space that builds on realism, liberalism, constructivism, Marxism, critical theory, poststructuralism, feminism and gender studies, postcolonialism, and eclecticism. The study also discusses a distinctive approach concerned with examining the process of space policy decision-making at different levels of analysis, what can be called “Space Policy Analysis (SPA).” The study concludes by briefly considering possible avenues for future research.
Simulations and Games to Teach Conflict and Political Violence
Authors: Rosen Amanda M.
Published: October 2022

There are seven key considerations for instructors and scholars using simulations and games (SAGs) to teach conflict and political violence: learning outcomes, conflict stage, scenario choice, role assignment, time required, gameplay mechanics, and postgame reflection. In each of these areas, there is a new typology or categorization in an effort to provide a standard language for work in this field moving forward—an essential effort as SAGs grow in acceptance in the college classroom. Learning outcomes are divided into content and skills, while there are five stages of conflict: preconflict, crisis response, active conflict, war termination, and postconflict. Scenario choice ranges from historical and contemporary simulations grounded in the “real world” to fictional, representative, and abstract exercises. Considerations for role assignment include whether roles are necessary, the level of analysis of different roles, and how to conduct simulations in large classes, while “time required” divides exercises by their level of intensity. Gameplay mechanics divide SAGs by those with board game–style mechanics, those that involve negotiation plus round-based actions, and those that focus on negotiations to craft agreements. Finally, postgame reflection considers the value and drawbacks of conducting formal assessment of SAGs. More work is needed to create simulations focused on individual authors, increased attention to adapting physical classroom games for the online and hybrid environment, more authenticity in simulation design, diversifying the student experience in simulations, and creating common criteria for effective simulations to teach conflict and political violence.
Anthropocene
Authors: Johnson Amy , Hebdon Chris , Burow Paul , Chatti Deepti , Dove Michael
Published: October 2022

The Anthropocene is a newly proposed geological epoch that situates humans as geological agents responsible for altering Earth systems as evidenced in the geological record and directly experienced through the earth’s changing climate. There remains significant debate regarding when humans manifested change in Earth systems, as well as how human influence in planetary processes is evidenced geologically. As of 2022, “Anthropocene” has yet to be adopted as an official category of geological time by the International Commission on Stratigraphy and the International Union of Geologic Sciences. Its influence has nonetheless outpaced academic debate, informing politics, policies, and opinions worldwide. In this context, anthropologists engage the Anthropocene simultaneously as a coupled biophysical and geological fact and an imaginary shaping human relations to Earth and environment. While upholding the validity of the Anthropocene as a reflection of accelerating planetary-scale environmental changes, anthropology is notable for asking critical questions about how the concept is developed and mobilized and what mainstream interpretations of the Anthropocene hide from view about life on our changing planet. Anthropology has been especially sensitive to the ontologies of time latent in the Anthropocene debates, recognizing the plural ways time is lived globally and how the concept of the Anthropocene interacts with ideas of past, present, and future. Moreover, in concordance with the standpoints of Indigenous theory and feminist and queer studies, and in conversation with critical scholarship of power and justice, anthropology has contributed to ongoing discussion about the criteria used to evaluate the Anthropocene’s beginnings, advancing discussions about the complicity of political economies of capitalism, colonialism, and plantations in the production of the Anthropocene. The engaged ethnographic approaches central to contemporary anthropology have thus deepened understanding of how the proposed Anthropocene epoch is lived and how its framing is changing human relations to environment and responsibilities for Earth’s future.
New Media and Labor
Authors: Kroo Judit , Gershon Ilana
Published: October 2022

In the early decades of the internet, many saw new channels of communication as potentially beneficial disruptions, analyzing largely through a utopic lens, albeit often with a technolibertarian bent. This did not last, and by the 2020s, scholars were increasingly pessimistic about how neoliberal logics structured the ways these technologies produced and extracted economic value. The heady promise of newness associated with recently invented communicative technologies had disappeared, to be replaced by despair of surveillance capitalism. Anthropologists of communication are especially well-equipped to study the construction of newness underlying this trajectory from revolutionary promise to all-too-familiar capitalist containment and control. Anthropologists analyze how media are socially constructed as new by attending to the participant structures that tend to accompany new media use—that is, studying the communicative roles and role fractions that participants can adopt or eschew while interacting with, storing, or circulating utterances. To understand how capitalist forms of exploitation so easily undercut the liberatory potential of new media, anthropologists have turned to how neoliberal logics increasingly shape how people value labor and interpret job roles. And in general, anthropological analysis provides a productive attentiveness to the gaps between what people understand about how media affect the message and what people’s actual media practices are, a gap that can reveal nuanced insights into the clashes between people’s hopes and work’s realities.
The Archaeology of Food Production in the West African Forest Zone
Authors: Orijemie Emuobosa Akpo
Published: October 2022

Food production constitutes a way of life that involves the management of plant and animal resources and related products to ensure food security for the sustenance of a society. Primary data in support of this culture was drawn primarily from archaeobotanical (micro and macro) and linguistics data from the region. Food production began with the hunting of game and the gathering and management of diverse wild fruit trees and vegetables. The strategy adopted during the early period was, or was synonymous with, garden-based agroforestry. Garden-based agroforestry, a process that involves the management of wild fruit trees and vegetables as well animals, is a deliberate and conscious anthropogenic modification of the immediate environment of a people to achieve food security. This strategy was indigenous to the region, began before the practice of a cereal-based subsistence, and did not require environmental changes or forest crises to stimulate its existence. The diversity of the archaeological data and the regularity of occurrence indicate that the peoples experienced significant levels of food security in the past.
Race Films
Authors: Lopez Alyssa
Published: October 2022

In the early 1910s, Black Americans turned to motion pictures in order to resist the incessant racism they experienced through popular culture and in their everyday lives. Entrepreneurs, educators, and uplift-minded individuals believed that this modern medium could be used as a significant means to demonstrate Black humanity and dignity while, perhaps, making money in the burgeoning industry. The resultant race films ranged in content from fictionalized comedies and dramas to local exhibitions of business meetings and Black institutions. Racial uplift was a central tenet of the race film industry and was reflected most clearly in the intra-racial debate over positive versus negative images of Black life. Inside theaters, Black spectators also developed ways to mitigate racism on screen when race films were not the evening’s entertainment. The race film industry encouraged Black institution-building in the form of a critical Black film criticism tradition, Black-owned theaters, and the hiring of Black employees. Race films and the industry that made their success possible constituted a community affair that involved filmmakers, businessmen, leaders, journalists, and the moviegoing public.
Arab American Literature
Authors: Homsi Vinson Pauline
Published: October 2022

Arab American literature as a category has only become recognized since the 1980s; its origins, however, extend back a century earlier to the 1880s, when writers from Arabic-speaking countries formed literary associations, established printing presses, and participated in a thriving intellectual atmosphere that included literary centers in the United States, Brazil, and Argentina, among other places in the Americas, as well as in Beirut, Damascus, and Cairo. While US-based Arab American literature is heavily enmeshed in the context of its location in the United States, it also intersects with literatures produced in the Americas more broadly and with transnational Arabic literature globally. Prevalent narratives of US–Arab American literature typically divide it into three distinct phases that mirror a wave model of immigration from Arabic-speaking countries to the United States from the 1880s to the early 21st century. A non-linear, and transnational approach to Arab American literature in the United States can yield a layered picture of continuities, breaks, and redirections in Arab American writing, thereby deepening appreciation for the rich history, complex politics, and manifold aesthetics of Arab American literary expression.
Contextualizing the Proud Boys: Violence, Misogyny, and Religious Nationalism
Authors: Kitts Margo
Published: October 2022

One of the most strident voices in the US alt-right scene in the early 21st century belongs to the Proud Boys. Although born only in 2016, the group shares sentiments with older accelerationist groups who seek to return the United States to what they see as its pristine origins. “Alt-right,” “alt-lite,” and “white” are disputed terms among the group’s various chapters, but xenophobia and misogyny are two pervasive themes. Similarly to other voices on the alt-right, the Proud Boys vary in the degree to which they will accommodate racialist Christianity and/or a romanticized Nordic spiritualism. However, to the extent that religion can be made to serve the establishment of a white ethnostate, even the most atheistic among them have come to see religious tolerance as a pragmatic necessity. What is most religious about them, however, can be understood as resembling European metapolitics, which exploits atavistic dreams, mythic symbols, and eschatological values to foster a cultural awakening to nativist dreams. The Proud Boys version of this nativist dream is their aspiration to return to a purported Judeo-Christian ethical foundation for Western civilization, together with a Greco-Roman model of the Republic.
Decorated, Illuminated, and Illustrated Bibles
Authors: Homrighausen Jonathan
Published: October 2022

The earliest extant illustrated biblical manuscripts date to the 5th century, and their descendants continued through the medieval era and into the era of print, including children’s bibles, artists’ books, and comics. The study of this large corpus suggests a wide range of ways in which decorations, images, and other kinds of nontextual visualizations in Bibles generate meaning. Most obviously, biblical illustrations always involve interpretive decisions about biblical narratives. Traditions of visualizing biblical texts also respond to previous artistic representations of that scene or character, as well as textual exegesis; indeed, visual exegesis parallels its textual counterpart in complex ways. Further, decorated and illustrated Bibles often reflect the events of their time, including images of kingship, ecclesiastical concerns, ideologies of gender and ethnicity, and polemics within and between religious communities. Images also serve a wide range of functions: to teach, to accompany preaching, to facilitate memorization of text, and to instill moral and spiritual virtues. Finally, a wide range of nonillustrative features of Bibles create meaning: ornament, word-image interplays, and symbols.
Digital Resources: Personal Archives and Historical Writing about Brazil
Authors: Silveira Pedro Telles da , Nicodemo Thiago Lima
Published: October 2022

Digital resources are an encompassing category that frames distinct digital projects, from the digitization of collections to the presentation and increased accessibility of already-digitized documents. In Brazil, digitization projects have gained momentum from 2006, spurred by the debates related to digital sovereignty, and have peaked around the interval between 2014 and 2016. Since then, the intensity of these debates and the rate of digitization of collections have dwindled. Nonetheless, large projects, such as Biblioteca Brasiliana Digital and the numerous projects led by the Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, have become increasingly relevant in the current landscape of Brazilian historical research. Besides these developments, the scenario of digitization in Brazil has opened up space for different initiatives, among them personal archives. Although personal archives evoke numerous theoretical dilemmas, such as the distinction between private and public spheres and the deliberative agency of their forms of organization, they have been among the many roads to digitization of collections in Brazil. To understand the place that personal archives occupy among the digitization projects in Brazil, it is therefore necessary to understand how the more general category of digital resources has developed in Brazil.
Romance in Contact with Albanian
Authors: Breu Walter
Published: October 2022

Albanian has been documented in historical texts only since the 16th century. In contrast, it had been in continuous contact with languages of the Latin phylum since the first encounters of Romans and Proto-Albanians in the 2nd century bce. Given the late documentation of Albanian, the different layers of matter borrowings from Latin and its daughter languages are relevant for the reconstruction of Proto-Albanian phonology and its development through the centuries. Latinisms also play a role in the discussion about the original home of the Albanians.

From the very beginning, Latin influence seems to have been all-embracing with respect to the lexical domain, including word formation and lexical calquing. This is true not only for Latin itself but also for later Romance, especially for Italian historical varieties, less so for now extinct Balkan-Romance vernaculars like Dalmatian, and doubtful for Romanian, whose similarities with Albanian had been strongly overestimated in the past. Many Latin-based words in Albanian have the character of indirect Latinisms, as they go back to originally Latin borrowings via Ancient (and Medieval) Greek, and there is also the problem of learned borrowings from Medieval Latin. As for other Romance languages, only French has to be considered as the source of fairly recent borrowings, often hardly distinguishable from Italian ones, due to analogical integration processes. In spite of 19th-century claims in this respect, Latin (and Romance) grammatical influence on Albanian is (next to) zero.

In Italo-Albanian varieties that have developed all over southern Italy since the late Middle Ages, based on a succession of immigration waves, Italian influence has been especially strong, not only with respect to the lexical domain but by interfering in some parts of grammar, too.
Resumption in Mandarin Chinese
Authors: Pan Victor Junnan
Published: October 2022

Resumptive pronouns (RPs) exist in different types of A'-dependencies in Mandarin Chinese, such as relativization, left-dislocation (LD) structures, cleft sentences, across-the-board (ATB) constructions, and so on. Diachronically, resumptive dislocation structures were documented in the literature as early as 502 bce. In modern Chinese, the obligatory use, the systematical use, and the intrusive use of RPs are all observed. When a prepositional object is A'-extracted, the extraction site must be occupied by an RP given that Chinese does not permit preposition stranding. In certain island-free contexts, an RP and a gap are free alternatives in relatives and in LD structures. However, RPs can redeem the potential violation of island constraints in an LD structure but not in a relative clause. Gap strategy is always subject to locality constraints. Resumptive strategy gives rise to island effects in relatives but not in LD structures. In addition, two empty categories should be distinguished one from the other: gap and pro. The extraction of the direct object of action verbs causing direct physical effects on the object-patient, such as ōudǎ ‘beat’, will leave a gap, which potentially gives rise to island effects. By contrast, the extraction of the object of stative and psycho verbs that do not cause any physical effects on the object, such as xīnshǎng ‘appreciate’, never gives rise to island effects. It is assumed that these verbs take pro as their complement and that pro functions as an RP in these structures, which saves the sentence from the potential violation of island constraints..
Manner and Result Verbs in Mandarin Chinese
Authors: Liu Feng-hsi
Published: October 2022

The distinction between manner and result verbs arises from the event structure approach to verb meaning. In this approach verb meaning consists of two parts, a structural component that includes a small number of primitive predicates indicating event types, and a root component that describes idiosyncratic actions and states. Manner verbs describe actions but not the end results; they have a simple event structure. By contrast, result verbs describe the end results but not the way actions are carried out; they have a complex event structure. The distinction plays an important role in argument realization and constraints on possible verb meanings. It is also related to an issue that has been controversial in the study of Chinese verbs—whether there are simple accomplishments in Chinese.

On the basis of Beavers and Koontz-Garboden’s diagnostics for manner and result verbs in English, five tests are suggested for Mandarin Chinese (henceforth Chinese) verbs. Two tests concern result: (a) result cannot be denied; (b) in forming resultative verb compounds the second verb and the object are restricted. Three tests identify manner verbs: (a) subject cannot be nonhuman, (b) action cannot be denied, (c) action has duration. Relying on the five tests, dynamic simple verbs in Chinese are classified into three groups—manner, result, and manner + result. Result verbs include verbs of damage, for example, duan ‘cut off’ and hui ‘destroy’; manner verbs include the verb of killing sha ‘kill’, de-adjectival degree achievement verbs, for example, re ‘heat up’, verbs of cooking, for example, kao ‘bake’; and one verb is found to lexicalize both manner and result—mie ‘put out, extinguish’. The verb of killing sha ‘kill, do killing’ is examined in detail, as its status has remained unresolved in the literature. It is found that sha entails change but not culminating change; morphosyntactically it patterns like manner verbs, hence its manner status. In terms of the affectedness hierarchy, the cutoff between result and manner is between verbs of quantized change and non-quantized change. The grammatical relevance of the verb classification can be seen in argument realization. Manner verbs takes more than one type of object, whereas result verbs only take one type of object, where the patient undergoes scalar change. In argument alternation, result verbs, but not manner or manner + result verbs, participate in causative alternation, and only manner verbs allow object alternations. This data suggests that Chinese does have simple accomplishments.
Natural Hazards Governance in Zimbabwe
Authors: Ndlovu Thabo
Published: October 2022

The frequency and complexity of hazard occurrences in rural and urban Zimbabwe has made the governance discourse fashionable in efforts to mitigate the devastating effects in contemporary settings. So common is the reactive attitude at national and subnational levels that hazard governance has been made inescapable in aligning with the notion that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” through design and implementation of context specific interventions. The 1992 drought is one unforgettable occurrence which triggered a plethora of actions such as dam construction, irrigation development, and the establishment of agricultural banks to support recovery initiatives in Zimbabwe. Strides to embrace the role of science and technology are evident through the establishment of research and academic institutions to anchor disaster risk management. Despite these efforts, vulnerable groups, government institutions, NGOs, and donors have invested less than in the predisaster phase.
Air Pollution, Science, Policy, and International Negotiations
Authors: Tuinstra Willemijn
Published: October 2022

In the course of time, the framing of the air pollution issue has undergone a transformation. It is no longer viewed as either a local health issue or a transboundary problem affecting ecosystems but as a global issue that manifests at various levels and has links to various problems. This poses a challenge for processes fostering data collection, international cooperation, and science and policy networking to deal with the issue in its various manifestations. The experience at the Air Convention, officially the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN-ECE), shows that interaction between science and policymaking at various levels of scale can enhance each other if certain conditions are met. Alignment of, for example, air policy, climate policy, nitrogen policy, health policy, and biodiversity policy not only asks for cooperation at different scales (i.e., at the local, national, regional, and global levels) but also between different arenas of decision-making and negotiation. This means that joint processes of science and policy development are needed to identify where problem formulations meet, how procedures for data collection match or which indicators are comparable, and what is possible with regard to aligning sequence and focus of policymaking. These do not necessarily need to be, or even should be, processes leading to full integration of policymaking or scientific assessment. However, successful joint processes make clear to decision-makers what the (co-)benefits of certain emission reduction measures are for various policy problems while providing a more complete picture of the cost-effectiveness of these measures. History has shown that decision-makers start acting when they can see the benefits of certain policy options or when the costs of inaction exceed those of action. Policy options might range from emission reduction measures to investments in scientific infrastructure and international cooperation. It also helps when problems are viewed as relevant by those who have the power and resources to act. Observations, measurements, and scientific assessment have the potential to point to this relevance but so does informed, critical public opinion. Current international cooperation is aimed at maintaining a network of experts and continuing efforts in capacity building in countries. Also in cities, capacity building is crucial, which is more and more supported by citizen-led air quality monitoring initiatives.
Rogers, Father Ted
Authors: Hall Nigel
Published: October 2022

Father Ted Rogers was a remarkable and committed Jesuit priest who was instrumental in founding the first school of social work in the southern African country of Zimbabwe, then named Rhodesia. He remained as the Principal of the School of Social Work for 21 years and contributed to social development and poverty relief activities. Throughout his life, Fr. Rogers saw it as a priority to work in areas of urgent social need and in tackling social injustice. In later years he was known and respected in southern Africa for his contribution to the effort to fight HIV/AIDS and his work toward peace and reconciliation.
A 10-Year Review of Surgical Outcomes at the Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland Resident Aesthetic Clinic
Authors: Taylor Ainsley L , Aravind Pathik , Bhoopalam Myan , Chen Jonlin , Girard Alisa O , Colakoglu Salih , Krucoff Kate B , Broderick Kristen P , Goldberg Nelson H , Manson Paul N , Rad Ariel N , Reddy Sashank K
Published: October 2022

Background

In 2014, the Plastic Surgery Residency Review Committee of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) increased minimum aesthetic surgery requirements. Consequently, the resident aesthetic clinic (RAC) has become an ever more important modality for training plastic surgery residents.

Objectives

To analyze demographics and long-term surgical outcomes of aesthetic procedures performed at the Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland (JH/UM) RAC. A secondary objective was to evaluate the JH/UM RAC outcomes against those of peer RACs as well as board-certified plastic surgeons.

Methods

We performed a retrospective chart review of all patients who underwent aesthetic procedures at the JH/UM RAC between 2011 and 2020. Clinical characteristics, minor complication rates, major complication rates, and revision rates from the JH/UM RAC were compared against 2 peer RACs. We compared the incidence of major complications between the JH/UM RAC and a cohort of patients from the CosmetAssure (Birmingham, AL) database. Pearson's chi-square test was used to compare complication rates between patient populations, with a significance set at 0.05.

Results

Four hundred ninety-five procedures were performed on 285 patients. The major complications rate was 1.0% (n = 5). Peer RACs had total major complication rates of 0.2% and 1.7% (P = .07 and P = .47, respectively). CosmetAssure patients matched to JH/UM RAC patients were found to have comparable total major complications rates of 1.8% vs 0.6% (P = .06), respectively. At JH/UM, the minor complication rate was 13.9%, while the revision rate was 5.9%.

Conclusions

The JH/UM RAC provides residents the education and training necessary to produce surgical outcomes comparable to peer RACs as well as board-certified plastic surgeons.

Level of Evidence: 3
PharmaKoVariome database for supporting genetic testing
Authors: Kim Jungeun , Choi Jae-Pil , Kim Min Sun , Bhak Jong
Published: October 2022

Pharmacogenomics (PGx) provides information about routine precision medicine, based on the patient’s genotype. However, many of the available information about human allele frequencies, and about clinical drug–gene interactions, is based on American and European populations. PharmaKoVariome database was constructed to support genetic testing for safe prescription and drug development. It consolidated and stored 2507 diseases, 11 459 drugs and 61 627 drug–target or druggable genes from public databases. PharmaKoVariome precomputed ethnic-specific abundant variants for approximately 120 M single-nucleotide variants of drug–target or druggable genes. A user can search by gene symbol, drug name, disease and reference SNP ID number (rsID) to statistically analyse the frequency of ethnical variations, such as odds ratio and P-values for related genes. In an example study, we observed five Korean-enriched variants in the CYP2B6 and CYP2D6 genes, one of which (rs1065852) is known to be incapable of metabolizing drug. It is also shown that 4–6% of North and East Asians have risk factors for drugs metabolized by the CYP2D6 gene. Therefore, PharmaKoVariome is a useful database for pharmaceutical or diagnostic companies for developing diagnostic technologies that can be applied in the Asian PGx industry.

Database URL: http://www.pharmakovariome.com/
Global patterns and environmental drivers of suitable habitat for Dentex dentex and Sciaena umbra along the Corsican coast
Authors: Garcia J , Pasqualini V , Vanalderweireldt L , Bisgambiglia P A , Marengo M , Lejeune P , Aiello A , Durieux E D H
Published: October 2022

Improving the effectiveness of marine spatial management is crucial to preserve marine ecosystems and also to support the fisheries economy. In this study, we aimed to determine the spatial distribution and suitable habitats (spawning and nursery sites) of Sciaena umbra and Dentex dentex using catches data in Corsica Island. Random forest models have been used as they are highly accurate and are suited to predict rare species distribution. Predictive maps of spatial distribution based on presence/absence data showed a high degree of spatial variability between species. Suitable habitats were close to shore in shallow waters for S. umbra and deeper and further offshore for D. dentex. We also observed that spawning sites were mainly located on the west coast, while nursery areas were distributed all around the island for D. dentex. In addition, we demonstrated the important contribution of environmental factors and local habitats (depth and Posidonia oceanica meadows) in the selection of their suitable habitats. Our results provide new knowledge for understanding ecological processes such as the selection of suitable habitats by fish species. Based on this information, spatial mapping can be implemented to improve the effectiveness of resource management over the long term.
Approximate controllability of fractional order non-instantaneous impulsive functional evolution equations with state-dependent delay in Banach spaces
Authors: Arora S , Mohan Manil T , dabas J
Published: October 2022

This paper deals with the control problems governed by fractional impulsive functional evolution equations with state-dependent delay involving Caputo fractional derivatives in Banach spaces. The main objective of this work is to formulate sufficient conditions for the approximate controllability of the considered system in separable reflexive Banach spaces. We have exploited the resolvent operator technique and Schauder’s fixed point theorem in the proofs to achieve this goal. The approximate controllability of linear system is discussed in detail, which lacks in the existing literature. Moreover, we point out some shortcomings of the existing works in the context of characterization of mild solution, phase space, and approximate controllability of fractional order impulsive systems in Banach spaces. Finally, we investigate the approximate controllability of the fractional order heat equation with non-instantaneous impulses and delay by using the developed results.
A second-order Magnus-type integrator for evolution equations with delay
Authors: Csomós Petra , Kunszenti-Kovács Dávid
Published: October 2022

We rewrite abstract delay equations as nonautonomous abstract Cauchy problems allowing us to introduce a Magnus-type integrator for the former. We prove the second-order convergence of the obtained Magnus-type integrator. We also show that if the differential operators involved admit a common invariant set for their generated semigroups, then the Magnus-type integrator will respect this invariant set as well, allowing for much weaker assumptions to obtain the desired convergence. As an illustrative example we consider a space-dependent epidemic model with latent period and diffusion.
Adherence With Early Allied Health Assessments in Specialist Burn Services
Authors: Tracy Lincoln M , Kurmis Rochelle , Heath Kathryn , Edgar Dale W
Published: October 2022

Appropriate multidisciplinary allied health assessment during the early stages of admission following burn injury positively influences recovery and quality of life. Variation in allied health care may affect patient outcomes. We aimed to explore adherence in providing early allied health assessments in accordance with local parameters. Associations between the number of assessments and hospital length of stay (LOS) were also explored. The Burns Registry of Australia and New Zealand was queried for adult (≥ 16 years) burn injured patients admitted to a specialist burn service for > 48 hours between July 2016 and June 2020. Quality indicator data relating to allied health assessment processes were examined; patients were grouped according to the number of assessments they received within 48 hours of admission. Of the 5789 patients included in the study, 5598 (97%) received at least one allied health assessment within 48 hours of admission and 3976 (69%) received all three assessments. A greater proportion of patients who received no assessments were admitted on a Saturday. Patients receiving three assessments had more severe injuries compared to their counterparts who received fewer assessments. Hospital LOS was not associated with the number of allied health assessments during an acute admission following burn injury after accounting for confounding factors, particularly TBSA. Multidisciplinary allied health teams provide routine burn care to Australian and New Zealand burns patients at a consistent level. Further, this study provides evidence that allied health input is prioritized towards patients with increasing severity of burn injury, playing an integral role in early rehabilitation.
Cost-effectiveness of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine compared to the 10-valent vaccine in children: predictive analysis in the Ecuadorian context
Authors: Bolaños-Díaz Rafael , Miño-León Greta , Zea Eduardo
Published: October 2022

Objective

To evaluate the cost-effectiveness and economic impact of changing childhood vaccination from the 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV10) to the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) in the context of the Ecuadorian health system.

Methods

A Markov model was developed based on a hypothetical cohort of children <1 year old with a 2 + 1 vaccination schedule. The model incorporates the most impactful chronic sequelae of invasive pneumococcal disease: bilateral hearing loss, spasticity, neurological deficit, hydrocephalus and epilepsy. At the end of each annual Markov cycle, the children heal with/without sequelae or die. A time horizon of 5 years was considered. The analysis was done from the perspective of the Ministry of Health.

Key findings

Vaccination with PCV13 is cost-saving (US$ −2940/QALY) in relation to PCV10 considering indirect effects (‘herd effect’) of childhood vaccination over adult population (>65 years). So, PCV13 reduces incident cases of IPD in this adult population by 27.8% compared to PCV10. Simulation of the model in a cohort of 100 000 children <1 year old showed an incidence of 25 cases of IPD with PCV13 versus 40 cases with PCV10, that is, a reduction of 37.5%. A reduction compared to PCV10 in the incidence of pneumonia and meningitis of 30.2 and 57.1%, respectively, was demonstrated. PCV13 decreased mortality by 32% compared to PCV10.

Conclusions

Vaccination with PCV13 is cost-saving in the Ecuadorian health context and significantly reduces morbidity and mortality in children <5 years and in adults >65 years due to the herd effect. The probabilistic analysis showed consistency in the results.